The Halifax Daily News died completely last week.

It is now a free weekly about a third the content of the old paper

and the NY Slimes appears to be in a world of hurt over an uber-cheap drive by smear on John McCain . . of course it is all based on "anonymous sources"

I'm sure both their readers will be very pleased.

Heck.All they had to do was insert two words. The San Fran "Gay Socialist" Chronical. Should work wonders out there.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080221.wndpliberals0221/BNStory/National/home

Part martin is up to his usual.

Justthinkin -

Those two words are understood. Just visit their website some time. You'll see.

The San Francisco Chronicle is the quintessential lefty spittle spewing rag. Here's hoping that they bite the dust completely. dvertising revenues are definately going to take a hit in what is shaping up to be a recession. If you are trying to salvage what you can with your house price sinking then you are listing your home on Craigslist free - realtors are another industry that need to bite the dust. Newspapers revenues will only continue to decline, well, unless you have a product that is very qualitative. I'd pay a price increase for the WSJ because its reporting is that thorough and good.

Martin Wolf wrote a column in the Financial Times under the title "America's economy risks the mother of all meltdowns'.

With more people realizing a real bear market is now a distinct possibilty, he talked to Prof Roubini of New York University business school for information.

Prof Roubini lays out a 12-step scenario that will make you shiver, even if all of the things he predicts are possible do not come true.

And you don't have to be in the States to suffer some of the consequences of it.

I found it at Yahoo business.

A few more journalists forced into unemployment!
WOOOOOOOO HHHOOOOOOO

What exactly do hookers do when they get too old and ugly to attract customers?

Actually, from a business standpoint what the Chron is doing makes sense; same number of pages, just rearranged so that there are fewer passes through the printing press. I'm sure that the rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic assisted in speeding up the flow of passengers to the lifeboats, too.

Of course this rearrangment is not going to save them. They will continue to bleed readership like almost every other newspaper. If they concentrate on a newspaper's core strength - local news - and cut out their opinion pieces altogether then they might be on to a strategy that could save themselves; that's what the newpapers that are actually growing are doing.

Ed: You're correct on both counts. Press reconfiguration can save a newspaper a lot of money. Reducing web width for a daily by one or two inches can mean a ton of cash back to the bottom line. But if a paper is bleeding readership and can't figure out why, and CHANGE... it's dead.

To Penny and RockyT. I wrote this for the benefit of my client. I thought I would share it with you.

Has anyone noticed that there seems to be a lot of screaming in the news these days that the US economy and by extension Canada’s is either heading for or in a recession? Our friends in the media love this kind of negative messaging. It causes more people to tune in, read or listen to them. This drives ratings and ad revenue. There is an old saying in the news business, “If it bleeds, it leads.” So without the hysteria, let me put a dispassionate perspective before you and appeal to your intellect rather than your emotion.

The agreed upon definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. The fourth quarter of 2007 (Q4) was barely positive at .6%. Q3 was unusually positive at 4.92%. Q2 also out performed, growing at almost 4%. The latest survey of economists shows the overwhelming majority (WSJ Feb7, 2008) are projecting another weak quarter for Q1 2008 (0.06%). While not a technical recession this is acknowledged as a period of economic slowdown. What matters most about this economic event is the shape and expected duration of the slowdown. Recessions since WWII have lasted on average 10 months. The stock market bottom has been on average about dead center. According to Fritz Meyer's latest missive and the 54 economists surveyed on the WSJ, we are nearly half way through this period of near zero growth so the bottom must be in the near past or near future. He goes out on a limb and says it was on Jan 23. I think he might be right. The market (US S&P) was down 19% from its high of 1556 on Sep 10. On Jan 23, 2008, it closed at 1310. Since then it has recovered a bit so it might be time to buy but carefully.

The Canadian market mirrors the experience in the US. On August 19, 2007, the S&P/TSX Composite closed at 14,625. On January 21, 2008, it closed at 12,132, a decline of nearly 2,500 points or 17%. It closed at 13,509 today, having recovered 11.3% since January 21, 2008.

BTW, this market downturn is no where near as bad as some that have occurred since 1973. From August 2000 to October 2002, The S&P went from 1517 to 914, a whopping decline of 36%.

There are a lot of very good characteristics in US economy. US stocks have underperformed for the last five years perhaps it's time they turned around.

John said:
“A few more journalists forced into unemployment!
WOOOOOOOO HHHOOOOOOO”
Unfortunately John they end up on unemployment - then stalk women and hang out in public toilets looking for factitious nazi’s and whatever else their perversions publicly link themselves to!

I e-mailed the article to the editor at the Toronto Sun (because they'll be out of business before you know it) - it came back as undeliverable marked as spam...

the Sun newspaper chain has seen its profits rapidly decline since they went over to the dark side and started promoting all things liberal...

Damn im so sick and tired of these darn liberals calling me a glorified reptile DAMN IM NO REPTILE IM A BIRD AND IM GOING TO GET VIOLENT WITH THESE BLASTED EVOLUTIONISTS IDIOTS I,LL RIP OUT THEIR EYES

Brian, care to take a look at the US housing mortgage market?
It isn't remotely close to being resolved.

I saw an estimate now that up to over a million people will lose their homes. And not just poor people.
The high income people who refinanced their houses are getting hit also.

The mortgage mess is getting and spreading a lot more than the experts ever thought it would.

BTW, you can ask 10 economists a question and get 15 answers.

The official stats are always months BEHIND what is happening in the real economy.

Off the top of my head, the US economy is about $15 trillion, which is 25% of the world economy.
And a $150 billion dividend from Washington will do dick all to help people.
Wall Street can piss that down the drain in a day.

China supplies 50% of all of its exports to North Amnerica alone. If the US slows down, then China slows down. As do most other countries.

The US has a trade deficit of almost $1 trillion per year now. Importing $100/bbl oil is a lot different than $40/bbl oil a few years ago.
The US is printing and exporting dollars so fast as to make them worthless.
The feds stopped reporting M3 supply.

Some of those dollars are now coming back into the US to prop/buy up their BANKS and buy many other assets.
If you want a measure of how serious it is getting, watch the coming argument over whether the US should allow foreign countries to own major segments of their banking system.

And the banks in fact are tightening up their credit and even refusing to lend to each other because they do not know where all that worthless Asset Backed Commerical Paper is stored.
Japan has a bunch (est up $200 to $300 billion) which will be reported apparently in March.

The choice is coming down to inflation, or deflation, which is already in the housing market.

Pick your poison.

I prefer a gold standard and small governments.