Moody's Investors Service, Inc

-- MediaNews' debt rating lowered on ad declines: Moody's Investors Service has downgraded MediaNews Group's credit rating to junk status. The credit rating agency fears the worsening economic climate will squeeze the publisher of The Denver Post and about 50 other newspapers even tighter. The ratings action affects $962 million worth of debt.

With everything going on in the credit markets lately, this is hardly an ideal time to have the quality of your debt challenged, but that's exactly what happened to the Washington Post Co. yesterday when both Moody's and Standard and Poor's revised the ratings outlook for the publisher from stable to negative.