Posted on 05/02/2009 11:53:33 AM PDT by abb
U.S. newspaper businesses face the possibility of "unending losses" and Berkshire Hathaway wouldn't invest in the industry "at any price," Chairman Warren Buffett told shareholders on Saturday.
"They were the ultimate business 30 or 40 years ago," Buffett explained at the company's annual meeting. "They lost their essential nature."
Berkshire owns a large stake in the Washington Post Co. (WPO) and owns the Buffalo News.
The Buffalo News is trying to develop a business model that allows it to make a little money, with the help of its unions, Buffett said.
The Washington Post has other attractive businesses, but it "does not have answers to the problems of the newspaper business," Buffett added.
Still, Berkshire won't sell its newspaper businesses and investments, Buffett noted, citing the company's promise to hold investments over the long term.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
http://www.buzzmachine.com/
I’m not the only doomsayer
Newspapers screwed up big time when they switched to Teamster wannabees. This morning for about the 5th time in the last few months, my paper was at the very end of my driveway in WATER. I've complained about it before - nothing - they don't seem to care. When I threw papers as a kid, this type of thing would never happen twice - if it ever happened at all.
“Berkshire won’t sell its newspaper businesses and investments, Buffett noted, citing the company’s promise to hold investments over the long term.”
The whoreacle from Omaha is doing what other mutual fund companies are doing in this losing situation.
They are investing in or holding the rapidly decreasing $/share value of the Fishwraps because they are liberal. They have no problem using the share holders’s investments to prop up these money burning/shredding/wasting fish wraps.
At least Buffet has some of his own riches invested in his Berkshire shares. However Buffet is very liberal and has a left wing indebtedness in keeping the Compost and his other fishwrap loser afloat.
These left wing mutual fund companies and fund managers, who invest their share owners shrinking investment $’s in these losing corporations to keep them afloat should be sued by investors. These bastards have been an issue with me for a large part of this decade.
Check my homepage re mutual funds raping their investors to keep the Ny Slimes afloat with their investor $’s.
You and me both GD. My feeling is they're spitting in the faces of their investors, while at the same time, praying for some sort of Congressional bailout and/or tax exempt status.
They are all beneath contempt.
I would never have dead trees cluttering up the place,or a media without a forum.
I can honestly and proudly report that as a mutual fund owner, the owned funds are Times free.
Thanks bert. I wonder how many freepers besides us can ditto your statement. (substitute or add Compost for NY
Slimes)?
“I can honestly and proudly report that as a mutual fund owner, the owned funds are Times free.”
This contempt often is done in a way that is just beyound fraud.
Some of the mutual fund companies sell their fishwrap stock and then buy shares in Berkshire which owns Compost and ? in newspapers.
The FBR corporation does this.
....WPO stock has slid from $650 share to $350 share....it won’t become a penny stock like McClatchey because it owns TV stations and Kaplan Prep testing services...
Yes. They do the Kaplan thing for a living. The TV stations and the WaPo is now a hobby.
“Yes. They do the Kaplan thing for a living.”
....Good point.....my understanding is that since they bought Kaplan it has become a huge profit generator....competition to get in college and grad school will only help Kaplan....case in point: my daughter took the LSAT and got an 87 percentile....with her good grades we figured she would get in law school....WRONG!...she got wait-listed....I sent her to Kaplan and next time she got a 95 percentile on the LSAT and into law school she went....with so much competition you’re not in the running unless you prep before hand.
The first quarter numbers here.
http://www.washpostco.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=62487&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1283230&highlight=
Thanks for the info. Nice to know for all sorts of reasons; numero uno being to never give a stinkin’ cent in that direction...................
Yep. Your right, I think NYC might have been the wrong market for that experiment
Media Group: Weymouth is just beginning her own transition from focusing on advertising to running the much larger operation so it was far too soon for her to focus on specifics like how the print newsroom’s journalism is accounted for when it’s on washingtonpost.com. But she said that’s one of the reasons to “think of ourselves internally” as a media group. “They’re separate legal entities but also one, in the sense that the bulk of the content is generated in one newsroom.” She didn’t volunteer it but it sounds like she came up with the name for the new unit. In advertising, where they sell everything from the the Washington Post print and online to The Onion and Slate, their business cards already read Washington Post Media. The name recognizes what already exists.Weymouth's obviously trying to run away from the now widely acknowledged fishwrap death spiral. But she seems quite oblivious to the near certainty that the remainder of mass media will soon join fishwrap in the tar pit. Full disclosure: I too would remain oblivious if my own membership in the upper class depended sole upon dinomedia viability.
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