Glub...glub...glub.In perhaps the starkest sign yet of trouble in the news business, media giant Tribune Co. -- owner of the Los Angeles Times, KTLA-TV Channel 5 and other newspapers and TV stations -- filed Monday for bankruptcy protection from creditors.
Tribune's woes stem from a combination of plunging advertising revenue and a heavy debt load of $12.9 billion, much of it incurred a year ago when it was taken private by Chicago real estate entrepreneur Sam Zell.
Tribune is far from being the only troubled media company. In the last week alone, the New York Times said it would mortgage its Manhattan headquarters for as much as $225 million to help cover operating costs, industry leader Gannett Co. pushed ahead with the layoff of 2,000 employees, and Denver's Rocky Mountain News and the Miami Herald were put up for sale.
"Everywhere you go, it's the same story," said Alan Mutter, a veteran newspaper editor and investor who writes the Newsosaur blog. "It's all kind of appalling."...
What's happening here? Well, there's several factors contributing to the death of newspapers: an increase in the public's functional illiteracy; a preference for new audio and visual technology; the dramatic influence of the internet; the loss of credibility as major newspapers have dedicated themselves to a blind liberalism; and, of course, the same kind of lousy business decisions that have put so many other companies in peril.
Will these once-mighty newspapers be next in line for my tax money?
