Matt Maiocco of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat had this exchange with a reader:

Question: In an earlier response you referred to the “dwindling media corps” covering the Niners. Is it dwindling because the print media business has fallen on hard times, or because the Niners have been so bad of late, or some combination of the two? Jerry, Location unknown

MAIOCCO: Thank you for the question. When I first started writing articles about the 49ers, the following daily papers had reporters who regularly covered the team: Press Democrat, Marin Independent Journal, Oakland Tribune, Hayward Daily Review, San Mateo Times, Peninsula Times Tribune, Contra Costa Times, San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee and the Sacramento Union.

Now, the only daily newspaper organizations that cover the team are Press Democrat, Sac Bee, SF Chronicle and MediaNews. Some of those other papers have folded or downsized. The big blow to Bay Area newspapers occurred when MediaNews took ownership of the Mercury News and CC Times. It already owned the Oakland Tribune, Marin I-J, Hayward Daily Review and many other smaller papers. All the 49ers stories in those papers are generated by one reporter. In the past year-and-a-half, three good friends who covered the 49ers (Roger Phillips, Kevin Lynch and Dennis Georgatos) have been laid off. It has been a difficult time in this area for our line of work.