Staggering losses at the Guardian Media Group. £89.8m to be more exact. Guardian News & Media, which owns the Guardian, Observer and guardian.co.uk, went for an operating loss of £36.8m. “The effects of the recession and longer-term structural change” was the (understated) reason given.

Less bad results from US publishers Gannett, McClatchy and the New York Times company was pointed to by the likes of Roy Greenslade as possible evidence that the future for print might not be completely grim.

Spotting green shoots has become a tedious obsession for all kinds of watchers, not just the media. It’s mostly based on guesswork. But sometimes a bit more than guesswork. Spotting green shoots in the print industry, so heavily dependent on ad revenues and experiencing seismic “structural change”, is probably not even guesswork. With the future shape of the industry so unclear, predicting a return to profitability seems very premature.