The Tampa Tribune reports the Poynter Institute is “asking for handouts” and trying to sell land to raise money. The institute once received dividends — millions annually — from its newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times, but those checks are no longer being cut. The Tribune reports:

Poynter owns several vacant lots to the west and south of its campus, and rents out a nearby building. The Pinellas County Property Appraiser lists a dozen properties under Poynter’s ownership. Not counting Poynter’s own campus and parking, they’re together appraised at $2.5 million.

[Poynter president Karen] Dunlap met with real estate agents last week to finalize plans to market the properties.

The Tribune points out that Poynter’s Tampa Bay Times “often advocates for transparency in major institutions, yet the paper declines to provide details on operations, including revenue, profits, layoffs and annual contributions to Poynter.” (Disclosure: I worked for Poynter from 1999 to November, 2011.)

* Tampa Bay Times parent, Poynter, faces financial squeeze (Tampa Tribune)

Gee @troywolv, instead of lecturing Walt and I and other reporters, why didn’t you get up and ask an uncomfy question? mercurynews.com/business/ci_20…

— Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) June 2, 2012

All Things D’s Kara Swisher is referring to this passage in Troy Wolverton’s San Jose Mercury News column:

One of the joys of past D’s has been watching the powerful guests squirm under questioning from co-host Kara Swisher. Unfortunately, this year’s D was noticeably short on such uncomfortable moments. Instead, Swisher, co-host Walt Mossberg and the reporters in the audience left many uncomfortable questions unasked.

Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook, for example, faced no questions about his grant last year of 1 million shares of stock, which is now worth more than half a billion dollars and helped give Cook the biggest paycheck of any CEO last year.

Cook also faced no questions about Apple’s elaborate efforts to dramatically lower its taxes. Last year, according to The New York Times, its effective tax rate was less than 10 percent.

* Tim Cook on Apple and Facebook (All Things D)

In a 14-paragraph letter to readers, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette publisher Walter E. Hussman Jr. explains why the paper’s newsstand price is going from 50 cents to $1 on weekdays and $1.25 to $2 on Sundays.

“Our plan is to remain a statewide, seven-day-a-week daily newspaper,” he writes in his paywall-hidden piece. “We also plan to maintain our news staff and provide the type of complete, in-depth reporting that Arkansans have expected from us for decades. But with continued advertising declines, we can see no other way to do this other than fundamentally changing our revenue base. In the future, we will have to rely more heavily on revenue from readers and subscribers.”

(By the way, Ken Doctor addressed this revenue shift in his Thursday Nieman Journalism Lab piece, “The Newsonomics of Majority Reader Revenue.”)

A letter to our readers

June 1, 2012

Dear Readers:

This week the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is increasing its price for newspapers sold in vending machines and stores to $1.00 daily and $2.00 on Sunday. We want to share with you why we think this new price is necessary.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has, for more than 20 years, kept its prices as low as possible. The last time the daily single copy price was increased was in 1996, 16 years ago. Up until now, the cover price of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has been lower than virtually all other newspapers of its size in the United States. Our home delivery prices are also among the lowest of any newspaper our size.

We have kept our circulation pricing low intentionally. The reason was to maximize our circulation. By doing so, we delivered the maximum audience for our advertisers.

Newspapers have historically offered a unique value proposition. Until recently, a typical newspaper would derive about 80% of its revenues from advertising and 20% from circulation. As a result, much of the cost of producing the newspaper was covered by advertising revenues, allowing circulation prices to remain low. Yet advertisers also benefited by having low circulation pricing, as that maximized the circulation and reach of their advertising.

Since 2006, or in six short years, the advertising business, and likewise the newspaper business, has fundamentally changed. With the exception of some signature and unique events like the Super Bowl and NFL football games, the price of advertising in the United States has declined in recent years. This is due to the laws of supply and demand. At any given time there is a fixed demand for advertising. But in the past decade, there has been an enormous increase in a number of companies selling advertising. From local cable television and niche magazines to satellite radio advertising, from the Internet, including general sites like Yahoo! and Google, and specific sites like AutoTrader.com and CareerBuilder.com, and now Facebook and Groupon, the choices have multiplied./CONTINUES Read More

No-hitter stories in Newsday, New York Daily News, New York Post, and New York Times

(Front pages from the Newseum)