Ugh:

Newspaper and newspaper groups are likely to default on their debt and go out of business next year—leaving "several cities" with no daily newspaper at all, Fitch Ratings says in a report on media released Wednesday.

"Fitch believes more newspapers and newspaper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010," the Chicago-based credit ratings firm said in a report on the outlook for U.S. media and entertainment.

One day cities will regard daily papers the same way they regard large rep theaters, symphonies, opera houses, and (ugh) sports franchises—something a city that wants to be considered "world class" just has to have. And daily papers will, like theaters and opera houses before them, convert to non-profits, raise money from the civic-minded, squeeze subsidies from local governments, and limp along as charities, not businesses.