On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:33:47 -0700 (PDT), JakTheHammer <...@aol.com

Yup..........The Newspapers have Committed SUICIDE by being Leftist
Propaganda Mouthpieces.......Donchaknow........Serves "em
RIGHT.........Lying Bastards.........

"Newspapers, reeling from slumping ads, slash jobs

Deep job cuts, outsourcing and more asset sales coming as the
newspaper industry retrenches

NEW YORK (AP) -- Even for an industry awash in bad news, the newspaper
business went through one of its most severe retrenchments in recent
memory last week.
Half a dozen newspapers said they would slash payrolls, one said it
would outsource all its printing, and Tribune Co., one of the biggest
publishers in the country, said it might sell its iconic headquarters
tower in Chicago and the building that houses the Los Angeles Times.

The increasingly rapid and broad decline in the newspaper business in
recent months has surprised even the most pessimistic financial
analysts, many of whom say it's too hard to tell how far the slump
will go.

"They're in survival mode now," said Mike Simonton, a media analyst at
Fitch Ratings, a credit analysis agency.

"We had very grim expectations for the sector," Simonton said, and
publishers have either met or surpassed his estimates for how bad the
results would be.

Last week alone, deep staff cuts were announced at The Hartford
Courant and The (Baltimore) Sun -- two Tribune papers -- as well as at
The Palm Beach Post and the Daytona Beach-Journal, while The Detroit
News and Detroit Free Press said they hoped to reduce the head count
in their joint operations by 7 percent through buyouts. The Boston
Herald said up to 160 employees would be laid off as it outsourced its
printing operations, and in a memo explaining the terms of its job
security pledge, the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., said it is operating
in the red. The week before, McClatchy Co. said companywide staff cuts
of 10 percent were coming.

Tribune, meanwhile, told its employees Wednesday that it hoped to
wring more value out of its "underutilized" real estate in Chicago and
Los Angeles, extending an asset-selling program Tribune is pursuing to
service a $13 billion debt load, much of which it took on from going
private.

Tribune has already reached a deal to sell one of its largest
newspapers, Long Island-based Newsday, but ran into delays early this
month in liquidating Wrigley Field, where the Chicago Cubs play, when
negotiations for the field's purchase by a state agency broke down
over financing. Tribune is also moving to sell the Cubs.

Tribune has enough money to meet its debt requirements this year, bond
analysts have said, but it must make headway on asset sales in order
to meet its obligations in 2009.

Tribune's troubles reflect broader problems in the industry, where a
deepening economic downturn is worsening losses from a long-term shift
away from print advertising toward online, especially in classified
categories like help wanted, autos and real estate, where rivals such
as Craigslist, Move.com and AutoTrader.com are thriving.

Advertising is by far the most important source of revenue for
newspapers. And in the first quarter, their overall ad revenue slumped
12.9 percent, led by a 24.9 percent drop-off in classifieds, compared
with the same period a year earlier.

In fact, the industry group that compiles and releases ad revenue
figures, the Newspaper Association of America, this month stopped
putting out quarterly press releases with the numbers, though it
quietly updated them on its Web site.

NAA spokeswoman Sheila Owens said in an e-mailed statement that the
organization will now put out press releases only with full-year data
"to keep the market focused on the longer-term industry transition
from print to a multiplatform medium."

Some say complacency in the industry about the threat the Internet
posed is to blame for the current quagmire.

Speaking on the CNBC business news cable channel Friday, Sam Zell, the
real estate magnate who is now Tribune's CEO, said newspapers have
historically been "monopolies" in their local markets and "insulated
from reality," according to a transcript of his remarks provided by
CNBC.

Going forward, if ad revenues continue to slide rapidly, companies
including Journal Register Co., MediaNews Group Inc. and -- in the
absence of further asset sales -- Tribune could then risk violating
their loan terms, said Emile Courtney, a media industry credit analyst
for Standard & Poor's.

Already, just two major publishers have investment-grade debt under
S&P's ratings -- Gannett Co. and The New York Times Co. The industry
is divided between them and "everybody else," Courtney said.

Given the current poor climate for the business, he said: "I have
doubts banks will be as willing as they were in the past to waive or
amend covenants." "