Who Reads PAPER Newspapers? :: Twin Peaks Gazette Message Board

I do. It's a habit and as much a part of every morning as a cup o' coffee. But every newspaper is slipping in subscribership.

I just read this about the NY Times, the Mother of All Newspapers. If the Paper of Record is suffering such massive losses, what are the chances for others to survive? How can a newspaper afford its journalists with free websites offering the same information? How can they pay the expenses of foreign journalists? Something's gotta give. And I think it will be the free websites that will little by little cease to exist.

Meanwhile, my LA Times did not come this morning. Sigh. My neighbors got theirs so chances are one of the workers just nicked mine on his way to work on the adjacent neverending house construction. (3 years and counting...)

Later today, I'll have a Wall Street Journal on my driveway. On Sunday, I'll have a big fat NY Times and a big fat LA Times. I'm pretty sure this home delivery vestige from the past will soon be a memory like the horse-driven milk delivery. What am I saying?! Youse guys probably don't even remember motorized milk delivery. Sigh.

January 31, 2007
New York Times reports massive loss
Thomas Lifson

Via AP and Breitbart:
The New York Times Co. posted a $648 million loss for the fourth quarter on Wednesday as it absorbed an $814.4 million charge to write down the value of its struggling New England properties, The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

The company said the non-cash charge reflected declines in current and projected results at the newspapers, which have been hit hard by the consolidations of key advertisers in the New England area as well as greater competition from online media.

The company originally paid $1.1 billion for the Globe in 1993 and $296 million for the Worcester paper in 2000.
We saw this coming. When the New York Times Company announced the sale of its profitable television stations, we wondered if it might not sell its terrible investment in the Boston Globe and other New England newspapers at a loss, to avoid paying capital gains taxes. Instead, it took a write-down to balance the capital gain, opening up the possibility of actually booking a profit, once 58% of the purchase price was written off.

The person responsible for this massive loss of shareholder value is Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., aka "Pinch." When Gerald Levin led Time-Warner into a disastrous merger with AOL, he paid with his job for the blunder. But then, his family didn't control election to the board of directors.

It would appear, based on size of the write-off and the size of the loss, that underlying earnings from operations may actually be up. But without more complete information, it is impossible to say with certainty. However, the stock is up in early trading.