Is the New York Times next?

Washington Post: Sold.

The New York Times, too?

Naturally, the Post is the one to raise that question:

The Times has been battered by the same economic forces that drove the Graham family and The Washington Post Co. board to accept [Amazon.com founder Jeff] Bezos’s $250 million offer. Indeed, it may be even more financially vulnerable than The Post.

Whereas The Post has been owned by a diversified media and education company that could absorb some of the newspaper’s continuing operating losses, the New York Times Co. has been shedding assets that might have cushioned its flagship newspaper. It sold its nine TV stations in 2007, its regional newspaper chain in 2011 and its once-high-flying Web operation, About.com, last summer. Last week, it sold the Boston Globe — the newspaper it had bought for $1.1 billion in 1993 — to John W. Henry, a hedge-fund billionaire who owns the Boston Red Sox, for $70 million.

As a result, the Times Co. owns just two major assets — its famous newspaper and the International Herald Tribune, a global paper that will be rebranded in October as the International New York Times.

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of Times Co., has maintained that the publication “is Not. For. Sale.”

As an aside, MSN has a writeup on why New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), whose name is often floated a potential Times buyer, wouldn't actually pursue a deal there.

@eScarry