It's Official: 2005 will be the newspaper industry's worst year since the last ad industry recession. And things aren't looking much better for next year either, according to a top Wall Street firm's report on newspaper publishing. "Sadly, 2005 is shaping up as the industry's worst year from a revenue growth perspective since the recession impacted 2001-2002 period," says the report from Goldman Sachs, adding a warning that meaningful growth in 2006 is "very unlikely."

The newspaper parodies President Bush's weekly radio address on its Web site, accompanied by a picture of President Bush and the official insignia.

The Onion's lawyer, Rochelle H. Klaskin, countered the government's letter by saying, "It is inconceivable that anyone would think that, by using the seal, The Onion intends to 'convey... sponsorship or approval' by the president."

Mr. Dixton is going to be a busy guy; he's going to have to sue hundreds of publications and television shows (including Saturday Night Live) if he wants to stop everyone from using the presidential seal to make fun of whoever is currently in the White House.

Goodbye, Birmingham, and thank you: The Birmingham Post-Herald staff poses for a group picture in their newsroom on Thursday. After 55 years, the Post-Herald has closed its doors.

On an average weekday, about 55 million newspapers are sold nationally, down from 63 million in 1985, according to Editor and Publisher magazine.

The decline could be called gradual. But it looks worse if you take into account the failure of newspaper circulation to keep up with population growth. Total daily newspaper circulation as a percentage of all U.S. households ("penetration") has been falling sharply since its all-time high of 123 percent in 1950 to its current 51 percent.

(Penetration was more than 100 percent of households in the 1950s because most major cities had several competing dailies, and many households subscribed to two or more.)

Such rethinking is sweeping newsrooms across the country as the industry faces a wave of job cuts, among them 700 announced since May at The New York Times Company, including its business operations and the various media properties it owns, and 14 at The Hartford Courant. Most recently cuts have been announced at The Boston Globe (a division of the Times Company), The San Jose Mercury News, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Baltimore Sun and Newsday, and over the last few years The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have also moved to eliminate jobs.

Industrywide, ad revenue is flat, costs are up and circulation is eroding. At The Inquirer, circulation has dropped 30 percent over the last two decades.

Beyond the industry's economic woes, the future is clouded by the rapid expansion of the Internet, leaving newspapers in an identity crisis as they try to come to grips with fundamental changes in the industry

Last week U.S. News laid off some ten staffers, including star political writer Roger Simon. Meanwhile, publisher Mortimer Zuckerman has invested more than $2 million in the magazine?s Internet ventures and hired producers to run the Web sites.

For veteran reporters and editors, the magazine's change of focus has been painful and unsettling. They have endured cuts in salary and benefits, rumors about job security, and demands for more production. The magazine's formula on the journalistic front is more words for more platforms from fewer writers.

After 16 years of publication, Library Mosaics, the national magazine for library support staff, will cease effective with its November/December issue. Publisher Raymond Roney wrote in a notice to readers that the decision was "based mainly on financial grounds" and reached only "after much thought and careful deliberation." He added, "We have struggled against the bottom line as long as we could because we believed in the magazine's value to support staff around the world."

Our goal was to provide quality, fun, thoughtful and accessible writing on books, music, film and culture to a broad audience. We thank our crop of fine writers and artists for putting us on track to do just that, but it became clear that we would not be able to secure adequate advertising, quickly enough, to keep the magazine going. And thus, we've decided to cease print publication. Please continue to visit our website at www.ruminator.com.