Is the decline in pet birds due to the decline in newspapers, or vice versa? Big vote here for the former, not the latter.
Print newspapers are not printing "news" any more. The intrawebz has pretty much seen to that. And some of those still hanging on are purposely pounding the fingertips they are holding on by with immense sledgehammers via their editorial stances - liberal BS only entices even the committed Obamanaut for so long.
INHO many of the other "traditional" news outlets are not that far behind. TV can only cram so much PC-passed video into a 30-miute time slot that must also include advertising, sports, and at least 3 attempts at prognosticating the weather along with making the "news team" look like a bunch of friends having a wonderful time standing around together taking turns speaking at the viewers while performing poorly-scripted comedy routines.
Call them blogs, boards, aggregators or somethging else but there are folks out there (both commercial and truely independent) posting real, happening-now news. Some are found by search engine searching, some are found by surfing and rabbit-holing, and quite a lot are found by referral (whsat web sites do you get your news from?).
At least that's what I read in today's fishwrapper.
stay safe.
PS _ when the dead-tree form of newspaper finally dies, our beloved c&sd will need to find another way to annoy his kids.