"Most of the wounds are self-inflicted"

When you look closely at Howard Kurz's analysis of why newspapers are dying, it's pretty much a searing indictment of mismanagement by virtually an entire industry. Why are they dying? It "is a tale that involves arrogance, mistakes, eroding trust and the rise of a digital world in which newspapers feel compelled to give away their content," he writes. I'd add another reason: greed. As newspaper management looked at Wall Street (especially Wall Street pay levels), they decided that going public was the way for them to cash in on all that gravy. Where only a couple of decades ago, many newspapers were privately owned or, like Milwaukee's newspapers, employe-owned. Now almost all of them are public and carrying heavy debt loads. It's servicing that debt that is killing newspapers, not drops in circulation (minimal) or even heavier declines in advertising. Without the debt, much of which was added to make purchases to look better on Wall Street, newspapers would be hurting but still