In disappointing-but-not-unexpected news, Deutsche Bank has discontinued its coverage of local media (i.e., newspapers and television stations). Most of the companies in the space have lost 70 percent to 90 percent of their equity value over the past three months. Concurrent with the news was the layoff of a wave of analysts.

The first rate reports from DB analysts like Paul Ginocchio, David Clark and Matt Chesler (the latter still working on Yellow Pages) have been an important part of the industry knowledge base for several years.

Basically, being a financial analyst means looking for growth opportunities (or bargain basement value). As Lauren Rich Fine demonstrated when she quit Merrill Lynch last year, if you don’t believe in a segment’s growth, you can’t really be working with a bank in assessing the segment or the companies in it.

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