The Ladies in Red

Seems as though "the people" do not dig what they have to say:

Guardian Media Group is set to report an operating loss for the financial year to the end of March, the company said today.

This will be the first time GMG has posted an operating loss for several years. The company's national newspaper division, Guardian News & Media, which publishes the Guardian, the Observer and the guardian.co.uk website network – including MediaGuardian.co.uk – will report a loss of about £35m in the year to the end of March 2009.

GMG Radio and GMG Property will both report operating losses. The regional newspaper division, GMG Regional Media, will make an operating profit of less than £1m, down from the previous financial year's operating profit of £14.3m.

Other than that, all is well. The above rather informs the true motivations behind this closely linked story:

UK newspaper publishers, in their latest plea for regulatory reform, want to be allowed to collectively lobby Google for story payments. It was among a litany of woes Guardian Media Group CEO Carolyn McCall, Johnson Press CEO John Fry and Trinity Mirror CEO Sly Bailey—sitting at the same table together—reported to the House of Commons’ culture, media and sport select committee’s inquiry on the future of local and regional media on Tuesday. Newspapers have made the Google-should-pay case before but this is the first time publishers have publicly discussed collaborating to tackle the Google problem, and it says everything about how pressing their problems are.

As for the Guardian's American cousin and editorial soulmate, well that is a well-known story by now:

Update: Likewise