Blog notes problems facing Springfield News-Leader owner

Reports noting an improved bottom line at Gannett Co., owner of the Springfield News-Leader, are somewhat misleading, Alan Mutter writes in his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog.

Mutter, a former editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and San Francisco Chronicle, points out that the profits came as a result of company cutbacks, including layoffs and the furloughs that all company employees were required to take:

Gannett’s inability to reduce costs fast enough in recent years to sustain its traditionally high operating margins illustrates the grave challenge facing the newspaper industry:

Unless ad sales rapidly and vigorously rebound, the unavoidably high fixed costs associated with printing and delivering newspapers eventually could eat publishing companies alive.