Mark Fitzgerald

Britain's communications industry regulatory body recommended Tuesday that the government loosen restrictions on same-market ownership of newspapers and broadcast outlets.

Nearly 8 out of 10 Americans would oppose any plan to spend tax dollars to aid failing newspapers, according to a poll on news media trustworthiness released Wednesday.

Since the financial meltdown began a year ago, journalism jobs have gone away at almost three times the rate jobs have disappeared in the general economy.

Unless newspapers can figure out how to reduce their high fixed costs of printing and circulation, their already low credit ratings could fall even farther, Moody's Investors Service warns. Moody's calls it a "structural disconnect" with just 14% of cash operating costs, on average, devoted to content creation, while about 70% of costs are devoted to printing, distribution and corporate functions.

US District Court Judge Raner Collins has ruled that the Tucson Citizen can remain dead as a print newspaper, saying the Arizona attorney general's office had not shown folding the Gannett Co.

Tribune Co-owned, Chicago Spanish-language daily Hoy told the small number of people who get the free paper delivered that it is ending home delivery with its May 28 edition. After June 1, a flyer inserted in home-delivered copies said, the paper will be available in more stores and news boxes in "high-traffic" areas.

Minority journalists warned for years that diversifying newsrooms was critical to newspapers' survival. The industry's failure to make more than the barest progress towards diversity partly explains its current crisis, Unity: Journalists of Color said Tuesday.

Sen Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) introduced the Newspaper Revitalization Act, a bill that would explicitly include newspapers among organizations eligible for 501(c)(3) status. The non-profit status is the same that public radio and television have now.

The San Francisco Chronicle will be sold or closed unless major cost-cutting measures -- including an unspecified "significant reduction in the number of unionized and non-union employees" -- can be realized within weeks, parent company Hearst Corp.

US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who ordered the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Tuesday morning, said at his office's request the Chicago Tribune agreed to delay publication of a story that the FBI was taping the governor.