Lest one thinks my prediction about a major metro market in the U.S. losing its daily newspaper sometime in 2008 is overly pessimistic or an unfair slam against the daily newspaper industry, I would suggest reading the scenario painted by Newsosaur Alan Mutter in his most recent post ‘Back to the Chopping Block.’ After reading Mutter’s solid analysis of what it will take for most dailies to keep themselves afloat in the next year or two, I have come to the conclusion that my dire prediction was not grim enough. While the picture is bleak enough on the deteriorating fundamentals themselves, including an ever-weakening value proposition combined with continuous price increases, adding into the mix a recession and a drop in the help-wanted index, the sub-prime meltdown, and an explosion in online traffic growth fueled by the writer’s strike, virtually assures that the complete obliteration of most dailies is going to occur sooner than most are anticipating. Even characters on the Simpsons are taunting the daily newspaper industry (here). There’s a nice plug in the Simpsons clip, by the way, for the Washington Post’s Slate.com, not only one of the best sites on the web, but the model for what the dailies should be doing to compete in today’s news, media, and advertising environment.