Ashdown warns newspapers could disappear in 15 years The former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown has warned of a bleak future for newspapers in an era where people are turning to other sources for information and are not prepared to pay for their news. He said "the piece of paper" could be a thing of the past within 10 or 15 years and the broadsheet papers were under more pressure than the tabloids who were now going increasingly down market to sell. Lord Ashdown said he was concerned the end result could be a media not strong enough to hold politicians to account.