It has been a difficult week for the newspaper industry, with the latest blow coming when the investment management arm of Morgan Stanley sold its 7.2% stake in the New York Times Co. yesterday, sending shares of the newspaper company tumbling to a 52-week low.

In addition, two large newspaper publishers, the McClatchy Co. and Gannett Co., reported disappointing third-quarter earnings, and the E.W. Scripps Co. has announced it is spinning off its newspaper businesses from its more profitable cable television and Web ventures. Morgan Stanley Investment Management, the second-largest shareholder of the New York Times, sold 10.4 million shares of the company yesterday morning. News of the sale, which was first reported by CNBC, drove the stock down 2.3%, to $18.48.

“Morgan Stanley has lost patience with the investment. They are frustrated by the lack of action,

and they believe their resources and time could be better spent elsewhere,” a source familiar with the strategy, who declined to be named because the sale is not yet public, said.

Meanwhile, the McClatchy Co., which publishes more than 30 newspapers, including the Miami Herald and the Sacramento Bee, reported that profits plummeted 55% amid declines in real estate advertising. Gannett Co., publisher of USA Today, said advertising revenue had dropped 6%, and overall earnings were down 10.5%. The New York Times Co. does not report its third-quarter earnings until later this month.

The announcement by Morgan Stanley, led by portfolio manager Hassan Elmasry, was not a complete surprise. Mr. Elmasry has been locked in a two-year battle with the New York Times over its management, criticizing the newspaper for overspending on its new Eighth Avenue headquarters, and overpaying for its acquisition of About.com last year. Mr. Elmasry has also been actively attempting to change the company’s stock structure: Members of the Ochs-Sulzberger family have majority control despite owning only a small number of shares. At the Times’s most recent shareholders meeting this spring, Morgan Stanley managed to drum up support from more than 40% of the shareholders, although it was unable to force a management change.

Mr. Elmasry “made a strategic mistake and he’s bailing out,” an analyst at Benchmark Capital, Edward Atorino, said.

Despite all of the bleak news, some experts tout the New York Times as a strong buy in a challenging industry.

“It is one of the few newspapers where circulation is stable, and is not declining,” the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, Stephen Shepard, said. As for Mr. Elmasry, “He was pushing for a short-term value, and that is not what the New York Times is about. He was barking up the wrong tree.”

While the Ochs-Sulzberger family was able to fend off attempts by Morgan Stanley to take control, the family that runs the Wall Street Journal, the Bancrofts, was unable to use the same strategy to put off a takeover bid from Rupert Murdoch earlier this year. Mr. Murdoch acquired Dow Jones, the company that owns the Wall Street Journal, for more than $5 billion. The reason the Ochs-Sulzberger family was more successful than the Bancrofts, experts say, is that it has taken a more active role in running the company.

“The Sulzbergers are much more unified than the Bancrofts, and are very involved in the day-to-day running of the company,” Mr. Shepard said.