This is Probably it.

I have been saying for quite some time that pulp media and online media are in a tetonic battle. The legacy pulp publishers in a battle for survival. The online media not quite fully formed yet so unable to take over the general reporting functions the legacy firms used to do. Right now things are in a stalemate with legacy in a slow bleed. We need a trigger.

Well folks that catalyst may have arrived. Not from any major business or technical changes but from poor performance from the reporting staff and a general feeling from the populace that they have had enough. –

CEDARBURG, Wisc. — Hundreds of angry people in this small town outside Milwaukee taunted reporters and TV crews traveling with Sen. John McCain on Friday, chanting “Be fair!” and pointing fingers at a pack of journalists as they booed loudly.

On the first leg of the “McCain Street USA” tour — which will take the Republican presidential nominee and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, to small towns across the heartland — the 30 or so reporters and crew were walking back to their buses to join the McCain motorcade when hundreds of townspeople started yelling.

“Stop lying! You are all liars! Tell the truth!” one woman yelled from the front of the pack.

The crowd was not menacing or threatening, but was clearly angry.

“You’re telling lies! Stop the lies!” one man yelled. Asked why the crowd was so angry, Linda J. Green of Mequon, Wisc., said: “I’m thinking the press is very biased.”

This is small town America that in my over 50 years on this planet has not challenged the intellectuals. The cause, the excoriation of Palin leading up to the Republican convention. But this could very well be the trigger event that accelerates the pulp collapse. Americans have identified a common enemy. Its not the Republicans or the Democrats but the Press.

So how does it play out? The assumption here is that Middle America stays angry at the Press. The subscription rates fall off accelerates. [datapoint: US mag has rumored to have lost 10k subscriptions over a hatchet cover of Palin in 2 days.] By 2Q09 a major metro paper goes belly up. The cat now out of the bag, lenders look at debt service of the other metros. Possibly 2 other papers have margin calls with possibly 1 other paper failing or closed voluntarily. From there on out its a mad dash by advertisers to manage placement in other venues. A death spiral ensues that by 2011-12 there is no national metro dailly remaining.

Sounds very drastic. But consider there is only one carriage maker left in the US, Fisher, and its just a Logo.