Ever since the Audit Bureau of Circulation reported a 10 percent decrease in daily newspaper circulation, many pundits have been quick to declare the medium a thing of the past. Daily newspapers, however, still have some stalwart defenders in the media; Slate’s Daniel Gross is chief among them.

Gross argues that lower circulation numbers do not carry the doomsday implications that some media critics have asserted. He instead takes a look at the story behind the circulation drops and the revenue numbers behind them, specifically higher subscription rates that newspapers have begun to charge:

The New York Times and many other papers have increased the price of the paper at the newsstand and for home delivery. When you raise the price of a product, you’re likely to lose a portion of your customer base. And while no newspaper likes to shed readers, some of the shrinkage in circulation is by design. If raising subscription costs by 11 percent causes 10 percent of customers to flee, a newspaper will find that its circulation revenues are stable

This is a hopeful sign for the New York Times, according to Gross, which accumulated more subscription revenue than ad sales in the last quarter.

He goes on to fault the recession for the further decline in circulation, saying, “we’ve had a deep, long recession, a huge spike in unemployment, and a credit crunch. Consumers have cut back sharply on all sorts of expenditures.”

Economic hardship, however, is hardly satisfactory in addressing the question of print media’s future. Today’s circulation rate of 30 million is 10 million less than newspaper readership during the Great Depression, according to historians William and Nancy Young.  Ten million less–an especially disturbing figure given America’s population has grown from 123 million in 1930 to more than 300 million today.

Americans are consuming less of everything, not just the news, but Gross seems to believe that consumption patterns are temporary as they apply to news services. Decline in newspaper circulation, however, began long before the recession. Beginning in the 1990′s, the advent of cable news, circulation rates began to drop, albeit at a fraction of the 10 percent rate we saw over the last six months. The steep circulation drops that we are seeing today date back to 2004, when circulation fell below 55 million for the first time since 1956 when America’s population was 43 percent smaller than it is today.

At the start of the century, news readers began changing their consumption patterns as blogs began to gain acceptance as reliable news sources. Those consumers are not coming back anytime soon. But, will the cash-strapped ex-subscribers of today return to paying for a service that they are now receiving free of charge? Many, including Kevin Drum of MotherJones.com, say no:

A $500 newspaper subscription is a prime candidate to get sliced out of the family budget when times are tough and news can be found everywhere.  So maybe all that’s happening is that a cohort of the least dedicated readers are leaving all at once

It is a question that Mr. Gross may gloss over, but it may be the most important one of all.