“Far more subscribers are quitting the Oregonian because of its liberal slant. Talk to anybody who works in their circulation department.”

Every few weeks they call me and try to get me to subscribe, and every time I tell them I’ll subscribe if they get rid of Reinhard, and the person on the other end doesn’t even know who I’m talking about… I don’t know who is really calling me, (they are probably contractors or something,) but I don’t imagine that they and the paper actually talk.

It’s a conundrum, isn’t it? The “other news sources” are electronic, right? So why shouldn’t newspapers, with their highly developed news gathering organizations, be able to shift their news delivery to the Web and kick the nascent competition to the curb?

Eric Alterman wrote a piece in the New Yorker in March, Out of Print, suggesting the demise also has to do with the pretense of objectivity that traditional print news media cling to. This pretense is nowhere in sight with much of the new digital media.

This would explain why even papers with good Web sites will continue to struggle, and indicate a fundamental shift in this business we call “journalism” is in order.

Still, even without that, I maintain that papers like Newhouse’s, which refuse to do more than dip their toes in the digital deluge, will be the first to die.

The two chains in the most trouble right now are Journal Register papers (which have Web sites that make the Oregonian’s look cutting-edge) and those of the Morris Publishing Group, which is easily the most conservative major newspaper chain in the nation. (Those who find the O to be jackbootedly arch-conservative would choke on their muesli if they ever saw a Morris paper, particularly the Bible quote of the day at the top of the op-ed page.)

Right behind the J-R papers and Morris on the trouble train is the Tribune Co., which is left-of-center and has spent a good deal of money on attractive Web sites, to no avail. (They’re about to undergo a seismic contraction that will make the Oregonian shuttering a few bureaus seem like nothing.)

The one-two punch of declining advertisements and the availability of other news sources has more to do with newspapers’ declining fortunes than any editorial bias pro or con on any particular issue.

The problem isn’t the editorial viewpoint of any particular paper; the industry as a whole is in freefall. If newspapers’ troubles were due to ideology rather than a shifting media world, all someone would have to do is start a competing paper with an opposing viewpoint — it would be like printing money.

As someone who is a native Oregonian, on a regular basis I find the Oregonian writers hold their personal political agendas above the truth.

In particular, I hear often that readership is down, in particular from a sour feeling in Portlanders minds after the terrible coverage on the recent Portland Mayoral race. Whether one wanted Sho Dozono to win or not, the coverage was completely biased, often unfactual, and was completely charged with Sam Adams pro-bias because the political writers and the editorial board of the O think they have Sam Adams in their pocket. Not to mention that those of us in-the-know, know full well that Sam Adams has been dating a well-known Oregonian reporter throughout his run for Mayor.

Portland and Oregon will be better off without the Oregonian - I personally am ready for its demise.