The people at the magazine business Time Inc. were not so lucky, burdened with $1.3 billion in debt when Time Warner threw them from the boat. Swim for your life, executives at the company seemed to be saying, and by the by, here’s an anchor to help you on your way.

E. W. Scripps and Journal Communications put a twist on the situation just over a week ago by marrying, then promptly orphaning the print assets that each company owned. On Tuesday, when the embattled, post-bankruptcy Tribune Company officially introduced a separate publishing division so that it could concentrate on television, it handed the new company $350 million in debt as a parting gift.

Many industry observers sucked in their breath and wondered what Gannett, the last big operation featuring both newspapers and television, would do. We didn’t have to wait long. On Tuesday, Gannett said its print division would go it alone.

No debt was built into the arrangement, but the broadcast division hung onto two lucrative digital sites, CareerBuilder.com and Cars.com.

In the main, it’s been like one big, long episode of “Divorce Court,” with various petitioners showing up and citing irreconcilable differences with their print partners. It’s not that television is such a spectacular business — there are plenty of challenges on that front — but newspapers and magazines are clearly going to be smaller, less ambitious businesses and journalistic enterprises regardless of how carefully they are operated.

Even if the writing has been on the wall for some time, let’s play a bit of sad trombone for the loss of reporting horsepower that will accompany the spinoffs.

Newspapers will be working without a net as undiversified pure-play print companies. Most are being cut loose after all the low-hanging fruit, like valuable digital properties, have been plucked. Many newspapers have sold their real estate, where much of their remaining value was stored.