But a lot of other people read the papers just for the local sports news. Coverage of local high school sports is a staple item of many other small suburban papers. And the coverage attracts readers who might otherwise not bother with the paper. The Daily Planet does not cover sports.

The Planet doesn’t offer much coverage of the more popular arts and entertainment, even though Berkeley is a venue for many such events.

More surprisingly in a town that is well known for its obsession with food and wine, and in a town where restaurants, food retailing and food production are major parts of our local economy, the Planet has no food editor and scant coverage.

To its credit, the Planet at least has some comics. We all know that the New York Times doesn’t. I know that we’ll be subscribing to the SF Chronicle even though most of the content is online, just so that we can read the funnies every morning.

I doubt that many advertisers are avoiding the Planet because of its editorial slants. For good or bad, I think that most advertisers are too pragmatic for that. I suspect that the readership of the Planet is both too narrow and thin to attract advertisers in a shrinking market.