More Dispatches From The Abyss

When you stare into the Abyss, the ghost of Katharine Graham stares back at you!

At the Corner, John J. Miller spots more icebergs ahead at the Washington Post:

The company’s newspaper division, which includes The Post and several smaller papers, lost $23.6 million in the quarter, bringing 2009 losses to $166.7 million, compared with losses of $178.3 million through the first nine months of 2008. Like most newspapers, The Post was hit hard by the recession, which further eroded advertising revenue, already in decline for years. … Daily circulation at The Post is down 3.6 percent for the first nine months of the year, and now stands at 600,800. Sunday circulation was down 3.7 percent and is now 840,100.

Seems like appropriate karmic blowblowback from the Macacca paper’s Alinsky-style dirty tricks.

On the other hand, as Miller notes in a follow-up item, the Post has all sorts of numbers for analysts to choose from:

Seems the Post can’t get its numbers straight. Here’s what it reported earlier this week:

According to the data, The Post now sells 582,844 papers from Monday through Saturday and 822,208 papers on Sunday, a 5 percent drop from the corresponding period last year.

And today, in the story I mentioned a few minutes ago:

Daily circulation at The Post is down 3.6 percent for the first nine months of the year, and now stands at 600,800. Sunday circulation was down 3.7 percent and is now 840,100.

Related thoughts on the state of the MSM in toto from Megan McAardle: “The Media Death Spiral.”