American newspapers may be in more trouble than ever, according to a report by the Audit Bureau of Circulation. The industry declined at a faster rate than ever in the six months leading up to September 2009, as newspapers reported an average circulation drop of 10 percent.

There is one bright spot in the struggling industry. The Wall Street Journal overtook USA Today as the nation’s leading newspaper with a circulation of more than 2 million. Of the top-25 most highly circulated dailies, the Journal was the only to post growth during those six months, increasing readership by 0.6 percent.

The same could not be said for the Journal’s predecessor. The USA Today had maintained the widest circulation in the country since 2003 before falling 17 percent in the past six months–its biggest decline in history.

USA Today’s woes pale in comparison to three other newspapers on the list, which saw circulation fall by more than 20 percent:

the San Francisco Chronicle saw the worst circulation decline, falling 25.8 percent to 251,782. The Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey, and The Dallas Morning News both fell 22.2 percent.

Circulation has been trending downward for almost two decades, but has never reached such staggering levels:

Newspaper sales have been declining since the early 1990s, but the drop has accelerated in recent years. Part of this is because newspapers stopped serving harder-to-reach areas and limited circulation to their core regions.

In many cases, people simply aren’t buying print copies as much as they used to, given the abundance of free news on the Internet, often from the newspapers themselves. This has prompted newspapers to consider charging fees for Web access, but it could prove difficult to persuade people to pay for something they are used to getting for free.

All of these points may be valid, but the Associated Press may be missing one very important detail. Trust in the press is also at an all-time low. Perhaps that may have something to do with this apparent free fall.