Less than two years after the Minneapolis Star Tribune was bought by a private-equity firm Avista Capital Partners, the newspaper has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, thanks to its mounting debt and waning ad revenue!

Filing its Thursday petition in US bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Minnesota's leading newspaper and the St. Paul Pioneer Press' competitor, Star Tribune, listed between $100 million and $500 million of assets, and between $500 million and $1 billion of debt.

Publisher Chris Harte released a statement regarding the new development, saying that there would be no change the operations of the newspaper, which include home delivery, news reporting, and advertising.

Harte said: "We intend to use the Chapter 11 process to make this great institution stronger, leaner and more efficient, so that it is well positioned to benefit when economic conditions begin to improve."

With its bankruptcy petition, the 141-year newspaper joins another newspaper publisher in the same situation - Tribune Co., which owns the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. After the economic predicament aggravated an advertising slump in the industry, Tribune sought protection on December 8, a year after being taken private by billionaire Sam Zell in a debt-ridden deal.

In the opinion of analyst Alan Mutter, an ex-newspaper executive based in Silicon Valley, the newspaper business is in a "period of sustained pain." He cited the reasons as the melting employment ad business, with the disintegrating automotive, and the dwindling real estate!