One of the reasons I generally like Vin Crosbie's writings on the media industry is he usually has nicely contextualized statistics to back up his thoughts. Witness the fact that if you look at the raw numbers of newspaper circulation declines, you start to see whole towns disappearing. Extrapolate to major metro areas and there are significant communities (Anaheim, Syracuse, Fort Lauderdale) conceptually going by the wayside. Definitely a different perspective than 1% circulation drop which is my quick estimate of the lossage from Vin's numbers.
If daily news trends at these circulation scales continue on their current harrowing trend, citizens journalism might not just be an alternative, but the only option.