Mark Cuban wrote an interesting piece about pro sports teams forming a company that would essentially provide beat writers that would cover local sports teams in exchange for a certain number of pages being dedicated to pro sports in each paper.  Newspapers would maintain editorial control, but they wouldn't have to pay the writers.  He provides much more detail in his post and it's a worthwhile read, but almost as interesting was a Time article he linked to at the end.  Here's an excerpt:

Consolidation. As a result, the era when newspapers produced some of
America's great fortunes (e.g., Hearst, E. W. Scripps, Pulitzer, et
al.) is past. Publishers who like to consider themselves primarily
"editorial men" find themselves spending more and more time on business
affairs. Even such dailies as the wealthy, institutionalized New York
Times, which has about 4,700 employees on its payroll, have been hard
hit. Last year's ten-day newspaper strike (TIME, Dec. 7 et seq.) says
Times Publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger, wiped out "virtually all, and I
mean that literally, of the anticipated profit from 1953 operations."
The Times has also been forced to pare down its voluminous news space,
e.g., it recently cut its foreign news 10%.

One of the few U.S. newspaper companies that publicly report their
profits, the Boston Herald-Traveler Corp. has seen its profits fall off
from $1,270,813 in 1946 to $526,283 last year. In cities where there
are monopolies, the papers are doing better. Greensboro, N.C.'s
Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Co., which helps finance 23 papers
all over the U.S., reports that the profit margin of its papers in
competitive cities has slipped to less than 5%, while in monopoly
cities it is nearly 18%.

High costs have already taken their toll. Last year 22 dailies were
suspended or merged, leaving 82% of all U.S. towns and cities that have
newspapers with only one daily (v. about 40% in 1900). The Washington
Times-Herald recently found rising costs too much to bear, sold out to
Eugene Meyer and Philip Graham of the Washington Post. High costs have
also made starting a big, new daily virtually impossible without
millions in reserve capital.

If you paid close attention to the details you probably noticed some strange names associated with the newspapers and you're probably wondering why you never heard about the newspaper strike.  It's because the article ran in 1954, but it sounds eerily similar to something you'd read today.  Later in the article the author talks about newspaper companies finding some cushion in their radio and television stations, much like current newspaper companies are looking for a cushion in their online operations.

If you have a couple of minutes it really is an interesting read.