The next step remains uncertain for what will go down in history as among the worst newspaper acquisitions.

On Friday, the deadline for submitting bids for the Boston Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), passed. Two major contenders were expected to write figures on slips of paper and slide them across the proverbial desk: Platinum Equity, a Beverly Hills-based private equity firm and owner of the San Diego Union-Tribune, and Stephen E. Taylor, whose family sold the Globe in 1993.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE: AGO - option chain) shares rose Monday after the stock received positive coverage in Barron's over the weekend. An analyst wrote in the magazine that shares of the stock could appreciate quickly since it is the only bond insurer among its competitors that still has the credit rating and financial strength to write insurance on new issues of municipal bonds and bond securitizations. Barron's also said that Assured Guaranty could have smaller-than-expected losses from claims. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on AGO.

AGO opened at $18.70. In morning trading, the stock hit a low of $18.70 and a high of $19.63. As of 11:05, AGO was trading at $19.53 up 1.38 (7.6%). The chart for AGO looks neutral and S&P gives AGO a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

We've heard a lot about the auto industry and how bad things are. Yet right under our noses, U.S. media advertising lost $10 billion in the first half of this year.

We all know that newspapers are hurting badly. But it's not only newspapers, the losses fall across the advertising spectrum. Let's look at some numbers:

• Nielsen reports a 15.4% decline in U.S. advertising revenues. This is the largest drop since this tally began.

Vibe Media Group, publisher of hip-hop magazine Vibe, shut down in June, as the poor economy led to declining advertising revenue. Vibe has since been acquired for an undisclosed price by InterMedia Partners, a private equity firm.

InterMedia said it plans to resume publication of Vibe in November as a quarterly magazine. The operations of Vibe are to be integrated with those of Uptown, another urban lifestyle magazine InterMedia owns. Publishing veteran Jermaine Hall has been named as the new editor-in-chief of Vibe, and the new business will be known as the Vibe Lifestyle Network.

As the newspaper business goes south, many of us are wondering what will happen to investigative journalists, the standard-bearers of the third fourth estate and a crucial check to unfettered power. The Associated Press has moved to address this problem in announcing it will begin distributing stories from four prominent not-for-profit reporting organizations.

The sad fact is that many newspapers can no long pay for their own reporting from the revenues of advertising and circulation sales. The four organizations, however, operate on a different donor model. The Center for Public Integrity, ProPublica, The Center for Investigative Journalism, and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University are already AP members, which no doubt made the decision to add their work to the wire offerings easier.

The NY Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) has decided to double down on a failing strategy: Charge more for print. As circulation declines, the ailing newspaper company has decided to extract as much revenue as possible from its tangible product, despite the fact that the market is shrinking.

Starting Monday, the company's flagship newspaper will cost $2 an increase of a third from the previous newsstand price of $1.50.

Most newspapers were just hanging on in 2008, but things got a lot worse in the first quarter of 2009.

The New York Times reports that some newspapers saw their ad revenue plunge 30% in the first three months of the year compared to the same quarter in the prior year. The decline in spending brought about by the recession is combining with the flight from print to devastate publishers.

According to the Times, industry analysts and executives "are expecting declines sharp enough to wipe out profit margins at many papers that, despite two years of battering, had stayed comfortably in the black, and to push already-weak publishers closer to bankruptcy, perhaps even closure."

The daily biscuits. With the June deadline for Steve Job's reappearance as Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO coming on fast, speculation in the media has begun to build that Jobs will choose to retire. That would be a horrifically bad thing for Apple shareholders, who have done very well of late. Sentiment on Apple is holding strong, so at least some people don't think Steve is bowing out.