Word of the profits

As we have long noted, stories about layoffs or buyouts at newspapers -- the latest coming today at The Washington Post -- often refer to the crisis in the industry, as if the owners were actually losing money or barely scraping by. This is simply not true in the vast majority of cases. They are simply making less, but still taking it in hand over fist. One graf from today's New York Times opus on the industry: "Newspaper profits remain healthy, but they are dropping fast. For example, the newspapers of Media General, a large Southern chain, had a 17 percent operating profit margin last year, but the dollar amount fell 23 percent from the year before. The Gannett Company’s newspaper division, the nation’s largest chain, had a 21 percent margin, but a 10 percent decline." Most companies would kill for a 21% margin.