Newspapers

Media companies announced lackluster earnings during the first quarter as declining revenue, profit and circulation figures dealt the newspaper industry its latest financial blow. Gannett Co., Tribune Co., New York Times Co. and Media General Inc. all reported lower earnings Thursday, as classified advertising dwindled and overall online revenue growth began to slow, analysts said. At Chicago-based Tribune, which owns the L.A. Times, interactive revenue grew 17% to $60 million.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Monday making it an infraction to take more than 25 copies of a free newspaper to recycle them or prevent people from reading it. The measure, by Assembly Minority Leader George Plescia (R-San Diego), is a response to several incidents in which large numbers of free papers were taken from news boxes to be sold for recycling or to keep others from reading them.

Cash registers should be whirring happily this holiday season with sales of Apple's iPad, Amazon's Kindle Fire and other computer tablets. If the wave of buyers behave anything like those who went before, they'll be spending a lot of time on their new gadgets following the news. But how best to capture, and profit from, the latest digital phenomenon? Most news companies have placed their bets on building customized tablet applications. Remold your content, produce catchy tablet-specific features and a new generation of readers and advertisers will follow.

Bruce Sherman got his first taste of investing in the 1960s after his father gave him 10 shares of Polaroid Corp. as a bar mitzvah present. The stock was at $20 a share, and the gift carried a proviso that prevented Sherman from selling the shares until he turned 21. By then, Polaroid had climbed to about $180 and Sherman, figuring the stock was overvalued, promptly sold it.

The Los Angeles Times has the fifth-highest circulation among U.S. newspapers, based on new numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. In the six months ended Sept. 30, the Times' average daily print and digital circulation was 572,998, down about 5% from 605,243 in the previous six-month period. The paper slipped from fourth place in the previous report by the nonprofit audit bureau. In the just-released report, the Times' Sunday circulation of 905,920 copies was the third-highest, though down more than 4% from 948,889.

As you may have heard, these are hard times for the journalism business. Newspapers are biting the dust left and right. My own paper's ownership has filed for bankruptcy. Ditto for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and other media groups. Even the New York Times is battening down the hatches. When I visited the Dodger Stadium press box the other day, a lofty perch once full to the brim with sportswriters, the joint looked like a bar on the day after St. Patrick's Day.

Saudi Arabia has indefinitely banned the distribution of a leading Arab newspaper, days after the paper disclosed that a Saudi extremist had played a key role in a violent Iraqi Al Qaeda front group. It was unclear whether the Iraqi article was the main impetus for the ban, or merely the culmination of several weeks of disputes, mostly on other issues, between Al Hayat newspaper and the kingdom's information minister.

Three major newspaper companies are investing in Topix.net, a start-up technology company that collects and sorts news stories from various sources on the Internet. Tribune Co., Gannett Co. and Knight Ridder Inc. are each taking a 25% stake, the Palo Alto-based company disclosed Tuesday. Topix's founders will retain the remaining share. Financial terms were not disclosed under the deal, which will be formally announced today. Topix launched its site a little more than a year ago and had 1.

The liberal newspaper Salam, a staunch backer of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, has been banned for five years, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. It said the Special Court for Clergy also suspended the publisher, Mohammed Moussavi Khoeini, from working as a managing director of a newspaper for three years. He was convicted last week of defamation and spreading false information.

Dennis Anderson has been named editor of the Antelope Valley Press, publisher William C. Markham has announced. Anderson, 45, has been acting editor at the Valley Press, which has a daily circulation of more than 148,000, since early January, when Larry Grooms resigned to become president of the Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance. Anderson previously worked as a reporter and editor at the Enterprise in Simi Valley, United Press International in Washington, D. C.