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Things look like they may be turning around for Black Press, the Victoria-based company controlled by David Black that owns the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Mid-Week, the Akron Beacon-Journal, and over 100 small community newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.

The main source of public information about the company’s financial situation are the regular reports issued by Torstar Corporation, publisher of the Toronto Star. Torstar owns a minority stake (about 20%) in Black Press, and includes Black’s results in its own reports.

Here’s what was reported in Torstar’s financials for the 3rd quarter of 2009, which were released back in November:

Torstar is not currently recording its share of Black Press’s results. Torstar’s carrying value in Black Press was reduced to nil in the fourth quarter of 2008 as a result of impairment losses related to Black Press’s U.S. newspaper operations. While under Canadian accounting rules a negative carrying value is not recorded, the deficit must be recovered prior to the reporting of any further results. Torstar’s share of Black Press’s income would have been $1.0 million in the third quarter of 2009, compared with a loss of $0.2 million last year. The improvement included lower interest expense and a gain on the sale of a real estate property.

Year to date, Torstar’s share of Black Press’s net income would have been $1.6 million, compared with a loss of $3.1 million (which included a $2.1 million write down related to future tax assets) in the same period last year.

Remember that these figures reflect Torstar’s 20% share, so overall net income would have been $8 million year to date, including the $2.1 million write down. That’s a lot better than 2008′s losses, but still slim pickings for a company of this size.

Standard & Poors remains cautious. Here’s a free teaser from a November S&P update:

The ratings on Victoria, B.C.-based newspaper publisher Black Press Ltd. reflect what Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services considers the company’s weak financial risk profile, including a decline in profitability in the six months ended Aug. 31, 2009, limited liquidity, financial covenant concerns, and high debt leverage. Furthermore, we believe the company’s performance in fiscal 2010 (ending Feb. 28) is likely to remain weak because of the expectation of lower advertising revenue. Partially offsetting these factors, in our opinion, is the company’s solid market position within several of its regions. Black Press has followed a clustering strategy with its portfolio of newspapers. Western Canada is the company’s core geographic market, generating well over half of its revenue, with Ohio and Washington making up the balance.

Other news–Have you checked out the revamped State Judiciary web site? It’s gotten a full makeover, and now appears to be based on a clean and open WordPress theme. It’s worth browsing around a bit. Access to the Ho`ohiki records system from a link in the left sidebar seems quicker than the old system, and has fewer security layers to get through before reaching the data.

Case information is still the same, although that also appears poised for significant changes. Among proposed rule changes are provisions for both security and public access in a planned shift to electronic filing of records.

The Judiciary is planning to implement electronic filing for all cases in the appellate courts and for criminal cases in the trial courts in the year 2010. Civil electronic filing should launch before or during 2012.

This appears to mean that we can look forward to remote electronic access to full-text documents rather than the limited docket information currently available through Ho`ohiki within a couple of years. One prior experiment with electronic document access failed, although the federal district court moved to electronic filing several years ago, so this move will be a welcome development that should be a major improvement for public access.