Newspaper Stocks Quickly Need a New Story

Recessions do the most damage to those companies that are weakest going in, and that is why the newspaper industry will need a miracle in 2008.

Even if the U.S. housing mess doesn't bring on the "r-word", almost no one really expects economic conditions for newspapers to improve next year. Media execs and Wall Street analysts may say the industry's "cyclical factors" will stabilize and even improve in "late 2008."

But they said the same thing last year, and everyone knows how "late 2007" turned out. ...