How did Newspapers Land in this Mess?
The Sunday NYTimes looks at the newspaper industry and weighs the options of staying public or going private:
The underlying theme in Tribune’s unraveling is that in a time of technological transition, the two publics that are served by many of the nation’s newspapers are no longer getting along so well. One is the public market — that is, Wall Street — which cares only about an attractive return on its investment. The other is the so-called public good that newspapers serve by professionally gathering and reporting news for their communities.
If there is a germ of a trend here, it is that, for now at least, being a widely held media company dependent on newspapers is probably no longer tenable. That said, a list of other newspaper companies that are publicly traded and have no controlling shareholders is awfully short. Indeed, the biggest one that leaps to mind is also the nation’s biggest newspaper company, Gannett.
From today’s Business section on nytimes.com
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