The stock market shaved as much as 70 percent off the value of U.S. newspaper publishers’ shares during 2007, and to give them a good kick while they were down, a research note from Goldman Sachs earlier this month pushed stocks down a little more.

The note, authored by veteran publishing analyst Peter Appert, forecast an unhappy year for newspapers as the usual apocalyptic horsemen — falling circulation, Internet competition, declining ad revenue and wider hardship in the U.S. economy — ride roughshod over the business.

The stench of morbidity may resemble that of newsprint, but Appert told us in an interview that a bad year is not the same thing as assuming that publishers are going out of business anytime soon. 

“I certainly am not anticipating any bankruptcy risk among public companies… There’s no one that’s going to have trouble making their debt payments,” Appert said. “I am not of the view that newspaper companies are going out of business.”