The bad news

Moody's has downgraded its outlook for the newspaper industry to "negative." What does that mean? From Dow Jones:

The ratings agency expects newspaper revenue to decline 5% to 6% in 2010 and drop roughly the same amount next year. It slumped 22% last year amid a plunge in advertising activity. 

In the short term, aggressive increases in home-delivery prices have boosted newspaper publishers' revenue, Moody's said, while advertising-revenue declines have slowed. 

However, "the industry's longer-term secular deterioration is returning to the forefront" as readership continues to erode "as readers embrace free and low-cost content on the web and mobile devices," despite a "slowly growing economy," said Moody's vice president John Puchalla.

News Corp's English coverup

The UK-based tabloid "News of the World" is mixed up in a juicy scandal of its own making, one that involves hacking celebrity and government phones, payoffs, jailed journalists, a curiously stalled investigation, and conveniently forgetful executives. Ryan Chittum at Columbia Journalism Review offers a fascinating recount of the affair, which raises serious question about the ethics of Rubert Murdoch's UK media empire.