Of the negative impacts of the emergency that was declared a month ago has been newspaper sales. Newspaper have not been able to carry out factual reporting like they used to, and as a result they are losing credibility and the trust of their readers. Newspaper distributors say that sales of daily and weekly papers have dropped by half. Says Shyam Pandey, a newspaper distributor at Bhugol Park, "Before the emergency I used to sell 400 copies of Kantipur every day and 400 copies of Saptahik Bimarsa every week. Now I sell 350 copies of Kantipur and 330 copies of Bimarsa." It isn't only the wholesalers who are affected-some news outlets or retailers find they cannot pay their rent because the drop in sales means a corresponding drop in their income. Sales have dropped outside the Kathmandu Valley, too. Since the emergency has affected the distribution of papers, people don't know what is really happening. The general economic slowdown has also caused advertising revenues to dip. The big publication houses should stop acting as if they are unaffected by the slump in sales, and the sector as a whole should try to solve the problems affecting the industry. Many readers have lost faith in political stories, with the result that journalists are concentrating on economic and social stories.