What Will We Wrap Our Fish In?

The giant crumping sound you hear this morning would be the nation's newspapers filing for bankruptcy--over the weekend, Philadelphia Media Holdings (The Inquirer and the Daily News) and the Journal Register Co. (New Haven and others). They followed four others, and still more are in the queue. The Wall Street Journal puts it in context:

Newspaper companies have been pounded by spiraling advertising declines, but many of their wounds are self-inflicted. New York Times Co., McClatchy Co., Journal Register and others plunged into newspaper deals that now look ill-conceived as falling profits undermine their ability to repay debt. Leadership from outside the newspaper industry didn't fare much better, with huge debts racked up to buy Tribune Co., the Philadelphia dailies, GateHouse Media Inc. and the Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

And they might have added: the Wall Street Journal itself. As a business, the Journal seems to be functioning today better than almost any comparable newspaper property. But there doesn't seem to be much doubt that Murdoch vastly overpaid for the property, so as to indulge his unbusinesslike passion to secure his place as a press lord. See link; but cf. link.