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One reason the Star-Bulletin got scooped so badly on Friday is that staff were preoccupied with the company’s latest demand to accept a wage freeze or face another dozen layoffs. An emergency union meeting on Thursday ended up with an agreement to give up step increases scheduled to kick in soon. Significant slippage under the circumstances is understandable.

Elsewhere in Star-Bulletin owner David Black’s newspaper empire, more signs of financial distress.

Standard & Poors, a service which rates the financial strength of companies and their ability to support debt obligations, lowered its ratings on Black Press, according to an S&P blog.

The downgrade to B- from B pushes Victoria, British Columbia-based Black farther into junk bond territory. By S&P’s definition, the lower rating suggests a company currently has the capacity to meet its financial commitments on an obligation, but “adverse business, financial, or economic conditions will likely impair” its capacity or willingness to meet the obligation.

S&P said its outlook on Black is negative, meaning another ratings downgrade could be in the works.

In San Diego, where Black teamed with an investment group to purchase the Union Tribune, the former editor of Black’s Akron Beacon Journal has been named editor. Ed Moss, who Black brought in after buying the Akron paper, has a reputation for cutting payrolls in Akron and, later, Los Angeles.

More on the financial situation at the Union Tribune and future personnel cuts can be found in this report from the San Diego Weekly Reader.

On the other hand, here’s a report on views of a panel at the Akron Press Club, where editors saw reasons for optimism.

Meanwhile, if you want a really sad story, read about the Baltimore Sun.

And from Tucson, Arizona, it’s -30- for the Tucson Citizen.

If you missed it, and perhaps even if you didn’t, I recommend the transcript of Bill Moyers Journal broadcast on Friday featuring an interview with Juan Cole and Shahan Mufti on the situation in Pakistan.

The forecasters were predicting rain for today, but this morning looked a lot like this photo taken Saturday. Clear, hot, muggy, still.

Now it looks like rain will likely be delayed until Monday. Or, now increasingly likely, we’ll miss it altogether.