Newspaper readership, long resilient, is now clearly dropping. Paid circulation from September 2007 to March 2008 dropped 3.6 percent from the similar period a year ago; Sunday circulation dropped 4.6 percent. [Reuters]

Martin Gee is a designer at the San Jose Mercury News, which, like every other paper, has been gutted by budget cuts, layoffs, and buyouts recently. One night on a whim he took a camera and shot a series of photos inside the almost abandoned newsroom. They do an amazing job of capturing the junkyard aura of the place [PDN via Animal]. It's newsroom-as-battlefield, the day after. You can see his full set of photos here. Below, our five favorite shots.

And so it continues: The New York Times Company's ad revenues for January through March were 9.2% lower than last year. That, and a write-off, threw the newspaper company into the red for the quarter.

Not that we're merchants of gloom, the latest figures for magazine advertising are dismal. Tallies of the number of pages carrying advertising in the first quarter, an early indicator of publishing woes, are down by double-digit percentages at news weeklies such as Time and business magazines such as Business Week. The only surprise is that Keith Kelly, who published the figures in today's Post, didn't tweak Mort Zuckerman, proprietor of a rival tabloid. Zuckerman's pet news magazine, US News & World Report, fell 37.5%. One perky spot: Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, now the last best hope of the magazine industry, as well as frustrated cookie-bakers.

Bill Gates's money hasn't been enough to staunch the bleeding at PlanetOut. The San Francisco-based gay-media company is finalizing a deal to sell its magazine and book publishing business to the Here Network, a gay and lesbian video-on-demand service. The company publishes leading gay-interest mags The Advocate and Out. Subscribers were up but ad pages down in 2007. A decline in advertising from pharmaceutical companies hurt The Advocate. PlanetOut will keep its online properties such as Gay.com, and promises to promote Here movies as part of the deal.

As commenter WhatBubble pointed out, when it comes to mullets, it's supposed to be business in the front, party in the back. The San Francisco Chronicle got a trim in February, and some days now runs the sports section and business section together — but got it backwards, with the sports party in the front, and the exploits of captains of industry relegated to the rear. The New York Times has also combined the two sections in the weekday edition, but properly puts business up front. But hey, for those who like their business in the back, the Chronicle has you pegged.

Remember how print-on-demand technologies were going to liberate anyone to publish books? Still true, as long as you don't want to sell your wares on Amazon.com. For access to the online bookseller which controls 15 percent of the U.S. market, you'll have to use BookSurge, an Amazon subsidiary. That's according to a number of print-on-demand authors and publishers who've been contacted by Amazon and told to either switch to BookSurge or see the "buy" button disappear from their books' listings. The books will still be listed, but customers will have to order through resellers, and the titles won't qualify for Amazon's free shipping offers.

Such is the plight of the dying magazine business: Newsweek paid what's rumored to be a high-six-figures ransom not to keep Steven Levy, its star tech writer, but to unburden itself of him just so he could join Wired. The Washington Post-owned weekly is offering editorial staff generous buyouts, up to two years' salaries, to reduce its headcount. Levy smartly leapt at the offer, knowing he could easily get a job elsewhere. Something seems backwards in this labor market: Don't acquirers normally pay a premium for control?

San Jose Mercury News business and technology reporter Vindu Goel is returning to the New York Times, where he once interned as a young cub reporter, to be the new deputy technology editor. The Michigan and Harvard alum likes fine wine and long walks in the woods. The Times is hoping to boost its technology coverage, while the Merc loses yet another veteran from a once-esteemed tech-reporting staff.

Journalists at the Honolulu Advertiser have adopted ruthless tactics in their dispute with the newspaper's management over pay: they will continue to report stories, but the Advertiser's blogs will not be updated for the next few days.

"The slow death of the book may be with us," The Times of London moans, in what must be the eight millionth story about the death of reading/books in the last year. "That was an incredibly painful sentence to write." It was painful to read, too! Has anyone else noticed that it's hard to read an article over 800 words these days? That may be the real danger, not much-vaunted electronic readers like Kindle. What are the signs of this pending apocalpyse?

Advertising revenues at the New York Times have fallen off a cliff. Even allowing for the short accounting month, revenues at the Sulzbergers' core news properties were down 13.8% in December compared with twelve months earlier. (For the year as a whole, the decline was "only" 6.1%.) So, what does this mean? First, the erosion of the Times' print business is accelerating. Second, the growth of the news properties' online advertising, which was up 20% in December, isn't nearly rapid enough to compensate. And, third, if other newspapers show these dismal results, take that as a sign that the recession has hit advertising spending.

Rough week for LA Times, as duly noted. Not only did publisher/meanie David D. Hiller fire newly-appointed editor James O'Shea but then the paper got scooped on its own story by the Wall Street Journal. Finally there is a story up online on the LAT site today. And what do we learn? Well, first of all, gnome snakecharmer and LAT owner Sam Zell is described as a "baron" which doesn't bode well for employee/management relations. Also it turns out James O'Shea, like John Carroll and Dean Baquet before him, was fired for resisting management's constant pressure for budget cuts. Speaking of which, tonight, the Wire, budget cuts are coming and no one is safe. (Of course, one of the hated suits in the Wire is based on Carroll, who went on from the Baltimore Sun to become a newspaper martyr at the Los Angeles Times.)

NICK DOUGLAS — The silent death of Red Herring continues as the Silicon Valley magazine, now defaulting on a loan, slips into the night. Says a reader: "Another sign of RH's imminent folding? Every number at RH seems disconnected - maybe they didn't pay the bills?"