Photo-illustration: Everett Bogue; Photo: Wikipedia

The Times announced today that its fourth-quarter profits fell nearly 50 percent over last year. Even online, where a team of web geeks are using their geeky wizard powers to demonstrate exactly why people are abandoning print for the internet, ad sales fell for the first time ever. But in a sign of just what terrible shape the newspaper industry is in, this was all somehow considered a positive development — because it could have been worse — and the Times' stock rose nearly 6 percent in trading. Hooray? In more apparently good news, the Times is looking into selling its stake in the Red Sox. We have absolutely no opinion on this from a business standpoint, but we never approved of one of our city's most storied institutions being in cahoots with one of our greatest enemies. Cahoots, we say!

New York Times Profit Tumbles, Ad Revenue Down, Explores Red Sox Sale [HuffPo]