convince shareholders that buying the Wall Street Journal at a 67 per cent premium was a good idea after all) have backed off.

The one hope is Carlos Slim Helu, the reclusive Mexican businessman with the reputation as the wealthiest man in the world. Earlier this year Slim bought a 6.4 per cent stake in the Times for a knockdown price of $130m. Slim said his investment was "financial" and he would not be taking an activist role. But for a man whose fortune is valued at $53bn, buying the entire company and its debt would hardly be a hardship and would instantly catapult him to considerable political influence. Owning the Times is said to be worth at least two dinners a year at the White House.

Still, amid talk of the newspaper industry's collapse, its enduring importance is also sometimes apparent. Yesterday, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested by the FBI on corruption charges. Among his duties is the appointment of a senator to replace Barack Obama. US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, famous for prosecuting Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis Libby, accused 52-year-old Blagojevich of putting a "for sale sign" on the selection process.

Blagojevich, who denies the charges and says he has "nothing but sunshine hanging over me", was taken into custody just hours after the Chicago Tribune, which has been among the governor's most dogged critics, reported that the FBI investigation into the governor's alleged "pay-to-play" appointment system had been expanded to include Obama's replacement.

The indictment also alleges that Blagojevich threatened to block state financial assistance to Chicago's famous ballpark Wrigley Field - one of the assets of Sam Zell's beleaguered Tribune Co - unless certain editorial writers on the Chicago Tribune critical of Blagojevich were "purged".

"The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering," Fitzgerald said in a statement. "Blagojevich put a 'for sale' sign on the naming of a United States Senator; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism."

Early accounts of the investigation suggest the Chicago Tribune itself played an important part in snaring the governor - proof, if any were needed, that while newspapers may be broke, and their content is read increasingly online, they are far from irrelevant.