Would you like fries with that shake?

[Note: After writing this, I decided to redact names, in an effort not to get dooced. Though, in the end, as will become obvious, it probably doesn't matter.]

A co-worker just handed me a copy of an editorial from Folio, a trade publication for the magazine biz. It's in the June print edition.

The germane paragraphs:

First the bad news: Print advertising in tech magazines is declining by five percent. That's according to [the CEO of the publishing company where I work], and it feels about right, and no one is disputing him.

Hey, that's the company where I work! Five percent decreases? That doesn't sound good.

In fact, at a speech at the Jordan, Edmiston CEO Dinner at ABMs Spring Meeting last month, [the CEO] also flatly said that the weekly news tabloids--an absolute staple of tech publishing and many other sectors for decades--are finished.

Hey, I work at a weekly news tech magazine! Finished? That doesn't sound good.

This is interesting for two reasons: First, [the publisher] has some of the biggest: [two of the company's magazines] are two, and both were juggernauts--among the top ad-revenue producers in [business-to-business] media. But the whole notion of a newsweekly in the age of blogs and 24-hour, seven-day online news is ... what's the word: Quaint? Absurd?

Hey, I'm the copy chief for that first one! Quaint? Absurd? That doesn't sound good.

Second, [the CEO] is the first CEO to my knowledge to so publicly denounce the core mission of print weeklies: News. They've been a dying breed for years, and though they may survive as vehicles for analysis and business intelligence, it's getting harder to justify the economics of a print weekly.

Dying breed? That doesn't sound good, either.

Perhaps I should focus on my other calling.

Given that the person in question must realize this editorial has circulated from hand to hand all over the company (and in fact is also available on Folio's Web site), one might assume that he would send out a memo explaining his comments.

But one would assume incorrectly.