Some of his sub-editors might have winced at the cliché, but when Sam Zell blamed “a perfect storm” of factors behind the Tribune Company’s bankruptcy filing, the Chicago investor’s words resonated around newsrooms in the US.

Debates about whether the industry’s decline has been due to a cyclical slowdown or a secular shift of readers and advertisers to the internet have been rendered moot by an economic and financial crisis threatening revenues and publishers’ ability to refinance.