No, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are not to blame for the decline of the media industry

http://gigaom.com/2014/01/02/no-larry-page-and-sergey-brin-are-not-to-blame-for-the-decline-of-the-media-industry/

1) Why has Google led to the decline of the newspaper industry?

The article states that many newspaper companies blame Google and Craigslist for stealing the advertising revenue from them. Google is able to reach a larger amount of potential customers and could be cheaper (pay per click/visit) and therefore attract a large amount of newspapers potential advertisers.

2) Personal opinion: Do you blame Google for the loss of journalist jobs and closing of newspapers?

No, I believe that Google had actually created an opportunity for newspapers to follow the emedia trend and if the newspapers were fast enough to set up a site they may have had their advertisers to have followed them on their sites. Plus most advertisers in newspapers especially local ones aren't always set up gloabally (aren't a franchise) and therefore are likely sole traders or partnerships with one or two stores and are most likely not going to benefit from advertising on google, they'll be more likely to benefit from advertising on the newspapers site