It isn’t just in the US, newspapers around the world are being bled to death by their management. The ABC comments on the decline of the Fairfax newspapers, which have fallen on hard times.

As pointed out, when you view the content as an expense, rather than the product you are selling, the death spiral begins. The process is really simple and straight-forward: people subscribe to newspapers for their content; advertisers pay for ads to reach the subscribers. You get more subscribers by improving your ‘product’, the reporting. People subscribe when they can’t get that product anywhere else. If you slash your newsroom staff, you degrade your product, lose subscribers, and lose advertisers.

This particular corporation was an early adopter of the Internet, but failed to take advantage of that facet of the business.

The Internet isn’t responsible for the decision to destroy the company, that decision was made by the management.

Information from the current High Park Fire InciWeb Page

• Date Started: 6/9/12 about 5:54AM
• Location: about 15 miles west of Fort Collins
• Cause: Lightning
• Size: 56,480 acres [88.3 miles² 228.6 km²] based on infrared data
• Number of Personnel: Approximately 1,748 including 16 Type 1 hand crews and 20 Type 2 hand crews
• Equipment: 4 dozers, 113 engines, 17 watertenders, 3 feller bunchers
• Aircraft: 5 heavy air tankers, 5 Type 1 helicopters, 3 Type 2 helicopters, 7 Type 3 helicopters, and 3 Blackhawk helicopers
• Incident Commander: Bill Hahnenberg
• Percent Contained: 45%
• Fuels Involved: dry fuel, beetle-killed trees.
• Confirmed Dead: 1
• Residences: 181 destroyed

While rain has helped firefighters in New Mexico control those fires, the Colorado fire has been plagued with low humidity and gusty winds. In addition to the main fire, there have been incidents of the wind carrying embers over containment lines and starting spot fires. Lately the gusty winds have grounded air resources, making things even more difficult.

The weather is not forecast to get much better in the near future, and firefighters are concentrating on protecting structures.