Hey guys, as an outdoor writer myself, I think you may be missing what the big problem is. They are not selling enough advertising to pay for the space in the paper. At an outdoor writers conference I attended a few years back, we listened to a seminar from a sports editor of a local paper in the Bristol, TN area, who explained that if they couldn't sell ads for the target audience, then there was not a fiscally responsible reason to continue to use the space.

When I sent a proposal for my current newspaper column to the editor there, I offered them ideas of who could buy ads for that particular page and it worked. They sold ads to a couple of bait and tackle stores and the column not only pays for itself, but makes a profit. It *****, but the bottom line is still the bottom line, even in journalism.