The newspaper business: 'Sluggish' or 'slugged'?

The New York Times business section has the following headline:

"A Sluggish 2nd Quarter for Newspaper Industry"

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Please note that headline writer's use of the word "sluggish."

And then ask if this is at all accurate, or is it absolutely wallowing in understatement – given what is reported in paragraph three:

"The Tribune Company announced yesterday that its second-quarter net earnings slid 62 percent, to $85.7 million, or 28 cents a share, from $231.3 million, or 73 cents a share, the year before."

When, in only one quarter, your earnings drop by 62 percent – that's nearly two thirds – how on earth can the Times' headline describe this as merely "sluggish," rather than monumentally "slugged"?

And what will this mean to the Tribune Company-owned Baltimore Sun?

This business report also discloses Media General, based in Richmond, Va., said this week that earnings declined 47 percent from a year ago.

Forty-seven percent drop – and this without any economic recession or depression!

The Times also reports (dare I say admits):

Newspapers have suffered from the loss of classified advertising, as free online classified boards like Craigslist have grown in popularity. They have also seen a shortfall of display advertising in the automotive and entertainment sectors.

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Tribune owns 11 daily newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and Newsday, and 24 television stations. The company has had double-digit advertising losses at Newsday, after a circulation scandal at the paper, and it sold two television stations in Atlanta and Albany during the quarter.

Advertisers have been increasingly moving their ad dollars to the Web, and that migration has been hurting newspapers, said Colby Atwood, a newspaper analyst at Borrell Associates, a media research and analysis firm.

"We've estimated that it takes 50 to 100 online readers to attract the same amount of revenue that one print reader does," Mr. Atwood said. "That also reflects a lag in advertisers' behavior relative to the audience's behavior. The audience has moved to the Web, but advertisers are following more slowly."

And, of course (but not mentioned in this Times story), there is the continuing attraction for talk radio – as a welcome and profitable alternative to the continually dropping circulation and sales of most daily newspapers, as well as the 60 percent drop in viewers of those old, left-wing networks ABC, CBS and NBC.

In 2002, the value of one share of the New York Times Company was $53.80, reports Jed Babbin of the American Spectator and former undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration.

That worth has now plummeted to $24.37 – a fall of 55 percent.

Babbin also writes:

"Calls for prosecution of the Times and vague hints about Justice Department investigations have done nothing to change the Times' agenda. Like Col. McCormick and the Chicago Tribune in FDR's day, the Times will publish any secret, no matter how damaging, if the publication will advance its campaign for Pennsylvania Avenue regime change. The Times' net worth as a newspaper and a brand name – its credibility, its financial value – is plummeting."

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