Three makes a trend. The Washington Post Co. Friday announced that it would look to sell its iconic headquarters building in dow

admin2015-02-09  19

问题     Three makes a trend. The Washington Post Co. Friday announced that it would look to sell its iconic headquarters building in downtown Washington, D.C. In January, the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News announced they would put up for sale their headquarters. The same month, Frank Gannett said it will sell the building that houses the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat & Chronicle. The building was the place where Gannett started and built his vast newspaper empire.
    It’s no secret that newspapers are in crisis. Advertising revenues have fallen by half in the past decade and are back to where they were in 1983; circulation revenues are back to where they were in 1996. The digital numbers are rising, but not nearly fast enough. Print media is hampered by high fixed costs incurred in the pre-digital era—pensions and union contracts, equipment like printing presses, large numbers of employees, and big office buildings.
    Virtually every newspaper company has engaged in drastic measures—laying off experienced employees, eliminating sections, cutting back printing from daily to a few days per week. Those efforts are all meant to lower day-to-day operating costs. But we’ve also seen newspaper companies seek onetime injections of cash by selling off non-core assets. Increasingly, the headquarters building—typically located right in the middle of town—is falling into the non-core asset category.
    Traditionalists may find these sales and the continued shrinking of newspapers’ real-estate footprints to be depressing. But it’s actually a positive development. Call it creative destruction, or adaptive reuse. In cities around the country, investors are finding better uses for properties. In lower Manhattan, Class B office buildings that used to house financial firms have been converted into expensive condos. "It’s a great thing, because it drives more tax revenue to the cities. And it gives the suburbs a run for the money," said Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal company MillerSamuel.
    In D.C, the Washington Post will likely fetch an excellent price for its headquarters because Washington is a boomtown. Throughout D.C, investors are plowing cash into housing, office, and retail developments. The building that housed the organization that exposed the Watergate scandal may become the next Watergate complex.
    Of course, progress inevitably displaces the prior tenants. It’s likely the new homes that will be occupied by newspapermen and newspaperwomen in Washington, Rochester, and Detroit will be less grand, less central, and less historic than their current homes. And the sale of these properties alone won’t solve the newspapers’ financial problems. But it will buy them a very valuable commodity: time.
At the very beginning of paragraph 1, the saying "Three makes a trend" implies that

选项 A、the three companies have sold their buildings together.
B、newspaper-publishers have widely fallen into crisis.
C、newspaper giants start to enter housing market.
D、it’s popular for printing companies to change headquarters.

答案B

解析 这一题考查的是第一段第1句。作为文章的第1句,本句一方面点出全文讨论的话题,另一方面也是总领第一段接下来的内容。因此在解题时,可以从第一段剩余内容着手,同时结合其余段落作为参考。在这句话之后列举了三个报业大集团卖楼的事例;紧接着第二段第1句点出卖楼原因乃是报业不景气,因而选B项。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/2dK4777K
0

最新回复(0)