Jeff Jarvis links to some interesting stats posted by Alan Mutter on capitalization losses by the newspapers. The numbers are breathtaking (in the way that standing on the edge of a cliff feels breathtaking):

In a dramatic repudiation of newspapers by investors, the shares of publicly held publishing stocks in the last two years lost nearly $13.5 billion in value, or 20.5% of their market capitalization.

To put this in perspective, the vaporized value is greater than the enterprise value of the Tribune Co. or the combined value of the McClatchy, New York Times and Media General publishing companies.

The vertiginous drop came at the same time the Dow Jones industrial average soared to an all-time high and other market indicators gained by healthy double-digit percentages.

In a related post (surely), Wired predicts that in 2007 at least one major newspaper will go digital only.