A report in E&P suggests that there may be a sharp decline in local newspapers in the next few years...maybe even months. The report goes as far as to say that several cities will have no dailies at all.

Chicago Newspaper and newspaper groups are likely to default on their debt and go out of business next year -- leaving "several cities" with no daily newspaper at all, Fitch Ratings says in a report on media released Wednesday.

"Fitch believes more newspapers and newspaper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010," the Chicago-based credit ratings firm said in a report on the outlook for U.S. media and entertainment.

FBLA talked to our favorite Newsroom Angel of Death Erica Smith what she thought of the story. She told us, "If this report is true -- if several cities will not have a daily paper in 2 years -- then the "local, local, local" mantra and philosophy is failing. That seems to be what newspapers are banking on at this point.