Great chart from the Awl on the downward (to say the least) trend of major newspapers since 1990. Except for the Wall Street Journal.

The value of the chart? Daily papers have been plummeting ever more rapidly for two decades, not just in recent times and before bloggers took over.

No wonder the Chicago Sun-Times was just purchased for a measly $5 million in cash from bankruptcy court.

Even last year, when cable networks feasted on the bad news of the Wall Street meltdown, most people didn't give a shit about newspapers and didn't rely on them to keep up with the bad news. Except for the Wall Street Journal.

Which makes the New York Times's purchase of the Boston Globe for a ludicrous billion dollars back in 1993 even more of a major blunder. No wonder Pinch Sulzberger had to later desperately turn to Slim shady — the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim for dough to pay down the NY paper's massive debt.

Oh, and no one gives a shit about that sale, which just proves the point that daily papers are sliding deeper and deeper into trouble. Except for the Wall Street Journal, which is now the No. 1 paper in the country in circulation, supplanting USA Today.