It's Not Newspapers in Peril; It's Their Owners

For all the apocalyptic news about newspapers, there's a distinction worth making: Newspaper owners are far more endangered than the medium itself. Even as they take blow after blow from recession and digital media, newspapers themselves still earn decent profits. They do even better outside big cities, which tend to get all the attention. Not a lot of papers are operating at a loss," said John Morton, the veteran industry analyst. "There are roughly 1,400 daily newspapers. We only hear about the top markets. That leaves at least 1,300 papers out there." Publicly owned newspapers averaged an operating profit of 10.8% in the first three quarters of last year, Mr. Morton said. That's not the margin enjoyed by newspapers when they were monopolies, but it's not nothing either. The owners, on the other hand, are variously posting huge losses, at least on paper. Some owners even borrowed that money to double down on newspapers, which aren't engines of growth even when their balance sheets are healthy.