I think they're, in all likelihood, responding to a growing readership. International papers do very well here: even Russia Today had started accumulating market share before it went over the edge and lost too much credibility. I think it is due to the credibility collapse that US-based media has suffered in the recent (years ago) past. Political partisanship had simply become too obvious, and now even the New York Times - our best paper - has all but declared an affiliation.
