Editor & Publisher: Friday was worst day ever for newspaper

This blog has concentrated for the last several days on the plummeting stock of GateHouse Media, owners of The Carthage Press and Neosho Daily News, but as most of you are well aware, the entire newspaper industry has been seeing a downturn. Editor & Publisher, the top magazine covering the newspaper industry, described Friday as "the worst day ever" for newspapers.

In addition to GateHouse Media, other newspaper companies that saw all-time lows included McClatchy, owner of the Kansas City Star, and Lee Enterprises, owner of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. McClatchy's stock closed at $4.85, Lee's stock at $3.11, and GateHouse Media's stock at $1.55.

Gannett, owner of the Springfield News-Leader, closed at $17.42, its lowest since 1990:

After scraping the bottom early in the day, the newspaper issues recovered by the end of trading to close at something higher than their record morning lows.

However, the group has lost $3 billion of value since the first of this month (not counting the $6.3 billion reduction in the value of Scripps [SSP] occasioned by its spinoff on July 1 as a standalone newspaper company).

The biggest losers on a percentage basis since the first of this month were GateHouse, whose shares fell 55.7%, and McClatchy, whose stock slid 33.2%. Double-digit drops were suffered in the period by Gannett, Journal Register (JRCO), Lee, Media General, New York Times and Sun-Times Media (SUT

M).