Now before we get absorbed in the usual schadenfreude, let’s remember that most of us are news junkies. Having the newspaper industry see its worst ad revenue falloff in 50 years means that resources for responsible, in-depth reporting will likely disappear:

The newspaper industry has experienced the worst drop in advertising revenue in more than 50 years.

According to new data released by the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunged 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006 — the most severe percent decline since the association started measuring advertising expenditures in 1950.

The drop-off points to an economic slowdown on top of the secular challenges faced by the industry. The second worst decline in advertising revenue occurred in 2001 when it fell 9.0%.

Total advertising revenue in 2007 — including online revenue — decreased 7.9% to $45.3 billion compared to the prior year.

What will we get in its place? We’ll see more celebrity gossip and heavier reliance on wire services for reporting. Traditional city beats will go untended. Sports will get boosted. In other words, more fluff and less journalism.

It’s not good news, but it’s mostly self-inflicted. If the news industry had focused on serious, objective reporting, people would still rely on them for information. Instead, most newspapers turned into preachy, biased megaphones for the pet issues of their publishers. Most will recall the New York Times’ ridiculous obsession with the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, which resulted in a burst bubble when it turned out that the only person in the nation who cared about it was Howell Raines. Locally, the Star Tribune has gone out of its way to antagonize anyone to the right of Al Franken. Patterico has thoroughly documented the decline of the Los Angeles Times, and the story is the same all around the country.

With their credibility shot and most people turned off by their approach to the news, it’s small wonder that advertisers don’t want to be associated with the product. Hugh Hewitt offers a few suggestions to the papers on how to accelerate the decline — basically, not to learn the lesson and continue operating as they do now.