The market value of U.S. newspaper companies fell by a total of $23.7 billion in the first half of 2008 on the back of a three year total loss of $49.7 billion in market capitalisation, Mutter added in his blog.

Sun-Times Media Group (SUTM), the Journal Register Co. (JRCO), Lee Enterprises (LEE) and McClatchy (MNI) all lost over 90 percent of their value. SUTM and JRCO have even fallen below the minimum price necessary to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile, Scripps (SSP), News Corp. (NWS) and Washington Post Co. (WPO) fell by 12.4 percent, 32.5 percent and 23.5 percent respectively.

“We have not been able to cut operating costs as rapidly as revenues have declined," commented Chris Harte, chief executive of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which, declined to pay interest due to an investor this week as the paper goes through a debt restructuring plan.

From 2000 to 2007, The Tribune’s annual revenue fell $100 million from $400 million. In the same period, the paper has had to dismiss 800 of its 2,300 staff.

Harte said that even though the company has enough money to pay the debt holders, it prefers to focus on fixing the company’s debt with senior creditors and is working “internally on a package of expense reductions and revenue enhancements”, the Tribune reported.

Because of their declining market values, newspaper companies are searching for many ways in which to save money. The Chicago Tribune has found a means of doing so that is standard to some industries, but one that seems contrary to the job of newspapers: cutting the bills on office supplies and travel. The Chicago Sun Times reports that an internal Tribune memo asked staff to economize on supplies and travel in an attempt to save $500,000 annually. The memo raised eyebrows among Tribune staff who pointed out that the executive that wrote the memo owns several automobiles approximately worth the amount he asked his employees to start saving.