Even with technology seemingly moving at the speed of light these days, the newspaper industry has surprisingly shown an increase in profits of late.  The Gannett Company, the largest newspaper publisher in the country, announced its third quarter earnings would be surprisingly above analyst expectations.  Over the first half of this year, Gannett suffered a 33% loss in advertising revenue.

The newspaper industry is not out of danger though.  Even before the recession began, papers were having difficulties due to many people now using the internet as their source of news instead of print media.

Due to severe cost cutting such as closing offices, laying off workers and making smaller newspapers have helped papers get by with less ad revenue.  The two largest costs by far for newspapers are labor and newsprint.

Stock prices for newspaper companies are up from earlier this year, though still now what they once were.  In February and March, “newspaper stocks were being priced as if they were all going to go out of business,” Ken Doctor, a media analyst with Outsell Inc. said to MSNBC.  They have rebounded from that low point but are still 60-90% lower on average than stock prices three years ago, right before advertising revenue began its decline.