Number 1:      The world financial system is on the road to recovery, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). There is an adage that “when the United States sneezes, the rest of the world comes down with a cold.” Meaning that because of the United States’ position as the world’s banker, economic disruptions with the most powerful capitalist country disproportionately affects other countries. Plus, as the world’s economies have become more globalized and intertwined, a domino effect exists. The IMF is an organization of 186 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.

Risks to the global financial system have subsided as a result of unprecedented policy actions and, more recently, a nascent global economic recovery, according to the IMF’s latest Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR). Still, the semiannual report, released on September 30, 2009, advises that there is a rough road ahead to financial recovery, fraught with blind curves and dead ends.

Number 2:      Gannett Co. Inc., publisher of USA TODAY, one of the nation’s most widely circulated dailies, anticipates the broadsheet’s 2009 3Q net income will exceed analyst’s profit expectations. USA TODAY was founded in 1982 with a mission to serve as a forum for better understanding and unity to help make America one nation. The improvement in the newspaper’s operating results reflect increases in advertising inches and total advertising revenue (retail, national and classified), lending some hope that the worst of the Great Recession may have subsided for traditional media players (publishers, broadcasters, etc.) Additionally, Gannett announced plans to sell $400 million in five- and eight-year notes in an effort to raise capital for debt reduction.

A key factor leading to bankruptcy of some well known newspapers recently was their penchant for borrowing. Analysts have identified other structural problems including falling advertising revenue; declining circulation and audience share; rising production overhead (volatile newsprint costs due to the ongoing consolidation of North American newsprint mills which is reducing the number of suppliers, higher transportation expenses primarily because of fuel costs, plus stricter government regulations for pollution-abating presses, equipment, processes, etc.); changing government policies; recessionary pressures; fragmentation of the media landscape including competition with other daily newspapers as well as with broadcasters, cable systems and networks, satellite television and radio, magazines, etc.; and competition from faster news/entertainment delivery channels such as the Internet/World Wide Web and mobile and wireless technologies such as cell phones, etc. which can deliver content on an on-demand basis.

By Darrell Woody

Gazette Staff Writer