Wall Street last week was “no fun for anybody,” as the U.S. mortgage crisis, airline industry woes and financial sector continued to fall, all while fuel costs reached an all-time high. It's no wonder most media outlets were too busy to report on spiralling newspaper share prices, Editor & Publisher reported Sunday.

But in the next couple of weeks, as second quarter results roll in, “it's not going to be a pretty picture,” E&P stated.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 20 percent last week, but publicly traded newspaper company stocks were down much more than the average, and “there were times during the carnage you had to laugh lest you burst into tears,” wrote E&P's Mark Fitzgerald.

An overview of the nose-diving statistics for U.S newspaper companies, as collected by E&P:

• Washington Post Co.: down 34.3 percent
• New York Times Co.: down 43.9 percent
• Journal Communications Inc.: down 65.4 percent
• Gannett Co. Inc.: down 68 percent
• Media General Inc.: down 68.7 percent
• The McClatchy Co.: down 82.3 percent
• Lee Enterprises Inc.: down 84.1 percent
• GateHouse Media Inc.: down 91.7 percent

Not on the list were Journal Register Co. and Sun-Times Media Group, because they fell below US$1 per share, and on Friday shares for the Sun-Times ended at 43 cents, while Journal Register shares cost 15 cents each.

“It's tempting to think things can't get worse for newspaper stocks,” Fitzgerald stated.