Lower local and classified advertising sales contributed to the decline, Scripps said.

Backpage.com also posts lists for hundreds of other classified advertising throughout the country.

Separately, classified advertising firm Scout24 is expected to announce its listing next week.

The paper provides a classified advertising service to the public and to trade advertisers.

The company said classified advertising continued to be weak, particularly the real estate category.

She held out a page of classified advertising, in which he read with amazement:

Online classified advertising revenue at the washingtonpost.com slipped 13 percent.

There are already strong indicators that the Internet will siphon classified advertising revenues away from newspapers.

Still, online classified advertising fell nearly 25 percent.

The theme common to both companies, as with all newspaper publishers in the quarter, was classified advertising.

Newspapers, on the other hand, have suffered a rapid shift in classified advertising to the Internet from print.

He said even classified advertising -devastated by the recession and competition from the Internet -is looking better.

The industry is in long-term cyclical decline as the mainstay of revenues, classified advertising, continues its rapid transition to online.

Three Use Cases Craigslist: Basic product design Craig Newmark identified a huge opportunity: use the Internet to provide free classified advertising.

The Times has run classified advertising on the front before, usually a few lines of text discreetly placed on the page.

The founder of Craigslist, the free listing service that helped ruin newspapers' classified advertising, helped finance a book on ethics for journalists.