There were several stocks that cut or suspended their dividend payments over the past week. Their performance after the dividend cuts reinforces my belief that companies that cut their dividends for whatever reasons admit that they do not have a firm grip on their business.

Jeff Matthews considers last Saturday the day that newspapers died. If you have been considering newspaper stocks, be sure to think about this post first.

Can Gannett turn around it's decreasing revenue, compressing margins, falling return on capital, and dropping stock price? An analysis of Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the U.S.

After a brief mention in Portfolio.com, I took a moment to look at one of the most popular newspaper companies. With a cursory glance, anyone might think there is some value in the NYT, but from what I've found, the company does not seem to offer much value besides a great brand name.

I was looking at the front page of Value Investing News last night (October 17, 2007), and the New 52-Week Lows list jumped out at me. This list is packed with top quality companies, many of which have sustainable competitive advantages.

While the market debates which way it wants to go, one thing is for certain, M&A activity has slowed down these past couple of weeks. It became routine to turn on the television and see company “X” has taken over company “Y”. But the offer I am keeping a close eye on is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp’s (NWS) 5 billion dollar bid for Dow Jones (DJ).

Knight Ridder sacked, the New York Times Co. under pressure, layoffs pummeling newsrooms: How enigmatic asset manager Bruce Sherman became the scariest guy in journalism.

Excerpt: "2006 is noted as the first year in history where there was not a recession and newspaper revenues declined. The reports says 2007 is starting out even weaker than 2006."

Clearly I get a lot of my news online, but I still can't imagine not reading a "real" newspaper every morning. I wonder how cheap these will have to get before I feel comfortable invesing in this declining business.

I associate Newspaper companies with past consumer monopolies ala Warren Buffett and the Washington Post. This article is commentary on the author's opinion on the future of the industry.