Opinions on the Future of Newspapers

Everyone has an opinion on the future of newspapers and I list some I found on the web below (some of the articles are a few years old.) Anyone crazy enough to cotemplate an invest in a newspaper company should probably read some of the following.

Hard News Daily Papers Face Unprecedented Competition... (Washingon Post, 2005)

Do Newspapers Have a Future? (Time, 2006)

Newspapers: The Future (Washington Post, 2005)

What is the Future of Newspapers? (CBC, 2007)

Can't get more contrarian than newspaper stocks but it's very scary. Newsosaur, an excellent blog covering newspapers, had a post a few weeks ago showing the performance of various newspapers since 2004. Nine of the publicly traded newspaper stocks are down 71.6% from 2004 to July 15th 2008. And that's without an economic slowdown. Wait until the economy slows (although the market is likely pricing in a lot of the negative effects from a potential recession already.) Truly, truly, ugly numbers...

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