Take a look at this bankruptcy scorecard for newspaper companies and you’ll get a snapshot of some of the disastrous business decisions made in the publishing and newspaper businesses. Too much debt and a complete misunderstanding of the new media landscape led to doom for many lenders in this space.

The good news is that many of these companies have dramatically reduced their debt, so perhaps now they can make rational, long-term business decisions. Hopefully they won’t be stupid enough to erect pay walls on their content, and focus instead on finding new sources of revenue from things like the iPad and other tablets where they can charge for the convenience of delivery, rather than charging for online access to their content.

Here’s another story of a newspaper making the grave mistake for charging for news content online. We’ve addressed this issue time and again on this blog – most people will not pay for news online when there are thousands of resources giving away content for free!

Of course, some won’t listen and instead follow Rupert Murdoch’s silly advice, but with more horror stories like this most will finally get the message. If one wants to sell a traditional newspaper subscription, of course you make that a viable business. Just cut some of the ridiculous costs you’ve built up over the years. You might even be able to entice them with special features or services available online only to subscribers. But, don’t be foolish and expect to turn your entire news operation into an online subscription model. Free content is here to stay.