Oh See the Poor Newspaper Stocks Lying There in the Gutter

Brother Pat Daugherty pulled this out of the San Diego Reader and shared.

Here's how much the market has knocked down newspaper stocks in the last 52 weeks. I picked 10 representative newspaper stocks; half of them are significantly diversified into other media. The list includes the cream from a quality standpoint: Washington Post, NY Times, etc. During the last 52 weeks, the Standard & Poor's 500 has gone down 46.55%. Seven of the ten newspaper stocks have gone down more than 90%. Here they are, with stock performance over the last year: Gannett (the largest chain, whose bonds were downgraded to junk this week) down 92.04%; E.W. Scripps down 99.28%; McClatchy down 95.59%; Lee down 96.9%; Media General down 90.05%; GateHouse Media down 98.61%; AH Belo down 92.92%; News Corp. (Murdoch's company, including Dow Jones) down 63.8%; New York Times down 76.72%, and Washington Post down 52.82%. It could be overkill -- but what will be the societal effects if it isn't?