The red ink continues to flow for the Sacramento Bee newspaper, the flagship of the McClatchy Co of Sacramento. In a continued effort to cut costs The Bee offered buyouts to 55% of its full-time employees. In June The Bee eliminated 86 jobs in across the board cuts by McClatchy. In total 44% of all employees, or about 400 staff, were offered buyouts. In July, The Bee shrank its print edition in yet another cost cutting measure.

The Bee is one of seven McClatchy papers to offer buyouts this month, including the Modesto Bee, Fresno Bee, Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, Kansas City Star, Wichita (Kan.) Eagle and Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

McClatchy stock has taken a beating lately as have many other old media companies. The stock price is down 85% this year, closing Monday at $3.54 on the NYSE. McClatchy profits have fallen by half this year and they continue to carry close to $2 billion in debt as a result of its take over of Knight Ridder Inc.

Analysts and traders have hammered old media stocks this year as advertising revenues continue to be drained away by new media companies offering online advertising options, precise targeting, and viewer metrics. The era of big print media is quickly being outpaced by online editions, hourly breaking news, and up to the minute e-mail and text message updates.

Not surprisingly online advertising revenue for SacBee.com continues to grow which is also augmented by new niche online properties like SacPaws.com, SacWineRegion.com, and SacMomsClub.com. These audience specific websites are smal compared to the readership for SacBee.com, but they keep readers engaged beyond news, sports and weather and allow additional opportunities for online ad revenue.

The McClatchy Co., parent company of SacBee.com is a major player in new media as well. They own a 25.6 percent stake of Classified Ventures. Classified Ventures is a joint partnership between McClatchy and Gannett Co., Inc., Tribune Co., The Washington Post Co., and A.H. Belo Corp. Jointly they own such new media properties as Cars.com, Apartments.com, Homescape, HomeGain and Rentalhomesplus.

In addition, McClatchy owns a partial stake in Career Builder and Topix.com the online career site and a news aggregation and social media website. Ironically, these online media properties are responsible for draining revenue away from the print editions across the country. In addition, the housing crisis has caused real estate advertising, the bread and butter for newspapers, in big states such as California and Florida to slump.

The past year has signaled that the end is near for newsprint just as gas guzzling SUV’s will become extinct due to rising fuel prices and calls for energy efficiency, newsprint and the newspaper boy will soon become a thing of the past. Someday our children will be wondering why we would ever have a newspaper delivered to our door and their children will never see a newspaper, unless it’s in a museum.