The Advertiser's days are few

Digital advertising is expected to account for just one third of advertising revenue for Australian newspaper publishers by 2018.No stand alone news website in the world can support even a fraction of the journalistic resources of a major metropolitan newspaper. There is no crossing over from the old newspaper platform and replicating it in the online world.

The 'Tiser' was a primary node of influence connecting Adelaide's businessmen and women. It appeared - superficially at least - as liberal, humanist and even handed, but its normative values supported a deeply orthodox political mindset.

It patrolled the status quo like a Rottweiler, making it completely unfit to discuss how radical changes such as globalization, deregulation, the rise of Asian manufacturing and online trading, would effect South Australians and especially local business.

It slumped from a newspaper of record under the great editorships of Des Colquhoun and Don Riddell, to become mired in parochialism after the News Ltd take over in 1987. To be fair, no alternative political ideologies or business philosophies were savaged. They simply weren't reported.

The journalists on the whole were very good – some were excellent. It was management who treated the public like morons, and in the hunt for the lowest common denominator, drove the newspaper so low in the market, one needed to decompress after reading it.

No matter what I think, the fact is that The Advertiser's days of setting the news agenda in SA are almost over. But before the champagne corks fly, for all of the 'Tiser's' faults, ask, who will guard the public against the incompetent politicians we elected? Who will expose those who do deals in the dead of night?

South Australia is entering the most serious economic downturn since Federation. The threat is that without accurate and timely local news, we will have to rely on what our mediocre MP's say and do. The opportunities though are boundless. From the ashes will rise new, nimble and niche online publishers, who will write without fear or favour. There are signs of this already with the rise of InDaily and In-Business.

For more than two centuries, newspapers have been an indispensable source of public information. People still want the news. Let me amend that. People need the news. It's as vital to democracy as sunlight is to crops.