The New York Times reports recent financial numbers, and they're so horrifying I'm not even sure they're fit to print:

The June performance followed an 11.9 per cent decline in May advertising revenues, and suggested that an already deep erosion in newspaper advertising could be accelerating. Ms Robinson said the company would respond by raising newsstand prices for the New York Times from $1.25 to $1.50 per copy beginning in August, marking the paper’s second increase in a year.

That announcement came as the company reported that second-quarter profits fell 82 per cent to $21m, or 15 cents per share, compared with the same period a year ago, when it benefited from a $94m gain from the sale of television stations.

Excluding that and other one-time events, income from continuing operations was down 5.5 per cent for the quarter. Revenue fell 6 per cent to $742m.

We've got plenty of bad news of our own, and no shortage of people willing to beat up on us about it, but I spend most days paging through my stack of eight or 10 local and national papers, and they're all emaciated. Whether we're looking at “some of the worst advertising numbers in the history of the world” I can't say, but I sure wouldn't want to be working in an industry that's looking so...oh wait, never mind.