With U.S. newspaper circulation heading downward (H/T to Deb Jones for her Canadian Journalist post), the Columbia Journalism Review has editorialized on the problem.

Here are some excerpts:

A reporter we know who has worked for years at a major American newspaper took a leave of absence recently, more or less to take stock of her life. She found herself also taking stock of her newspaper. On the job, she read it cover to cover; off the job, far away from the newsroom, she found herself starting to read much less of it, even though it is a very good newspaper. Life intruded, and like many Americans these days she found that she was drawn only to stories that were compelling or interesting or that mattered. Large swaths of stories didn’t qualify. They felt “confined”; they had, in her words, “nothing to discover.” ...

Take a look at the front page of your newspaper today. How many stories are on events that the average reader has already heard something about? The Metro section, is it riveting and creative? Or incremental and cramped? Does the paper have strong voices? Does it provide the kind of context that cuts through the fog of information? Does it have any fun? Does the photography speak volumes? Does the Web site offer more than digital newsprint? Can a reader get into the conversation? Do you want to read this newspaper?

It’s easy to sit and type such questions, harder for editors and owners to address them in today’s environment. We include owners because the journey toward the kind of newspapers that will gain and keep readers requires the kind of stories that our colleague was drawn to when she stepped into civilian life, and these stories take time and creative effort, and thus money. They can’t be done consistently on the cheap. Reporters need time to gain authority. Editors have the daunting job of nourishing a market for quality and owners have the job of risking some chips on that effort, in the hope that enough of this market can be sustained. It’s a chicken and egg conundrum, a gamble all around.

But worth it. The nation has serious problems. It needs a great civic conversation, and to fuel that conversation it needs the kind of reporting and analysis that newspapers, with their firepower and traditions and reach, are still the most capable of providing, despite a cornucopia of new media.

If the civic argument doesn’t persuade, however, let’s consider economics, because the glide path that so many owners are on simply won’t yield today’s profit numbers once there is nothing left to cut. Then everybody — journalists, readers, and, yes, even stockholders will be the poorer.