OMAHA, Neb. — Warren Buffett has long held himself out as a newspaper man. As a child, one of his first jobs was delivering newspapers. An Omaha newspaper Berkshire owned, Sun Newspapers, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1973 based in part on a tip Mr. Buffett provided. One of Berkshire’s biggest investments in the 1970s was the Buffalo News, which it still owns.
But his view on the future of the newspaper industry is dismal. “For most newspapers in the United states, we would not buy them at any price,” he said in response to a question about whether he would consider investing in newspapers. “They have the possibility of going to just unending losses.”
The problem, he said, is that newspapers were once essential to the American public. As long as newspapers were essential to readers, they were essential to advertisers, But news is available in many other venues, such as the Internet, which means a dramatic drop in advertising revenue.
Berkshire also has a substantial investment in the Washington Post Co. He said the company has a solid cable business, a good reason to hold onto it, but its newspaper business is in trouble.
Mr. Munger gave a philosophical take on the issue: “It’s really a national tragedy,” he said. “These monopoly daily newspapers have been an important sinew to our civilization, they kept government more honest than they would otherwise be.”
The recent drop in consumer spending and the resulting pressure on retailing, manufacturing and services industries could last “quite a long time,” Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett said Saturday.
“I think our retail businesses will not do well for some time” as U.S. consumers save more, Buffett told investors at the company’s annual shareholders meeting. “I would not look for any quick rebound in retail, manufacturing and services businesses.”
Buffett is well placed to gauge the health of the economy because Berkshire owns 67 non-insurance operating companies and many of these businesses are in economically sensitive industries such as retailing, manufacturing and real estate.
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