• Financial Times, Friday, January 23, 2009 9:30 AM

Unlike Detroit, the newspaper industry seems to be looking to wealthy individuals rather than the government to bail it out. Newspapers have long been the playthings of wealthy men, but a decline in advertising revenues is raising the question of whether private ownership or the shelter of sitting within diversified empires is now the industry's only valid business model.

For instance, other Dow Jones titles are now supported by more stable cable channels and film studio revenues. The Washington Post is protected by the far larger income its parent company makes from its Kaplan education arm. For those without such diversified parents, however, prospects are getting bleaker. By 2012, eMarketer estimates, industry ad revenues will be half the size they were in 2005.

With numbers like that even wealthy patrons have reason to be wary. Sam Zell, the highest profile new entrant into the newspaper business, saw his $8.2 billion purchase of the Tribune Company end last month in the bankruptcy courts. Having long been seen as useful assets for burnishing their rich owners' reputations, newspapers now pose a real risk of tarnishing their patrons' names.

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