This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.
Probably because, MNI is doing with N&O, what they have been doing to the Star-Telegram for some time now. The S-T has for years been a very profitable paper, but when MNI took over, MNI started cutting deep from the S-T to skim off every last cent they can. One manager even told my department last June that it's time the S-T start pulling its weight and "helping out" the struggling newspapers. Translation--it's time MNI starts ransacking everything you have worked for and accomplished to pay off MNI's own ill-advised debt.
Here is a story for the N & O- Why are Barry-O's teleprompter speeches being called the “Obama filibusters” already? The N & O were so in-the-tank for B Hussein O, it was disgusting. They covered for Barry, just like they covered for John ‘the liar’ Edwards. Now, we are supposed to believe we just can’t be safe without their watchdog reporting? Get real, it was never watchdog reporting, it was made-up stores for their agency, and that was mostly to destroy President Bush for the Democrats. You know the ‘old fool me once’ saying. Get lost crappy newspaper, get lost!
It is such a shame that public education doesn't make economics, finance and accounting mandatory components of a child's education.
If it were, frauds like Mr Quarles wouldn't be able to get away with falsifying his company's condition by portraying his lone building as a separate entity, divorced and independent of the whole.
People such as this man should be arrested for fraud in the same manner that Madoff was as his scam is exactly the same. "Oh we're profitable...everyone on this floor is legitimate. Pay no attention to the rest of the company because we don't have anything to do with that"
Arrest his ass and put him in jail for fraud and misrepresenting the financial condition of the company.
Any paper within MNI that is profitable is doomed to have employees cut until they're losing money like every other MNI paper.
When MNI bought Knight Ridder and put several of the KR people in key spots, I knew then that MNI would do the same slash it all until the profitable papers make up for the ones losing money that became common under KR.
Not to worry though, you'll never know exactly when your paper crosses that line, since top management does everything possible to bury that information. They prefer their employees to stay nice and calm at work until they're ready to come down and lay them off with a little smirk and a guard to show them the door.
The McClatchy newspapers are not worried about rehiring staff if they can make it through these tough times. They figure there will literally be thousands of journos looking for work, and they can pick and choose the best. I actually think they are correct in that thinking.
anom821....tripe...who cares dude? the internet is TRIPE. you post, I post, she post, IT post....does it matter? Ahhhh, that would be a big NO. As much as many of us want to think what we post is important, lets be clear AND logical. Most of the stuff posted in blogs on the internet are seen by only those of us interested in THAT subject. So there you have it....no one cares....so I wasted two minutes of MY life...it made YOU waste time in YOUR life...hahahahaahahahhahahahahahaaa
Sorry MW. I apologize for using the f-word. But I truly don't see any harm in using an f-bomb when you allow all the racist moronic comments to slide through. But, alas, it IS your blog. Have a great day.
MNI's last four quarters have been profitable, but by only the slimmest of margins. MNI had an operating loss for Tax Year 2007. 2008 was not a terrible year, except for the fact that revenues were down 16%. The Raleigh market came late to the recession, but has been hit hard. Given that MNI as a whole barely earned an operating profit, I suspect the N&O is in the same shape. It probably earned the very slimmest of operating profits. All of those profits were wiped out by MNI's huge interest obligation. I think the deep cuts at the N&O were mandated by accounting due to the poor revenue performance and slim margins of the paper.
That said, I think the strategy is all wrong. The N&O along with all the other MNI papers has cut both content producers (writers and photographers) and sales producers to such an extent that they are cutting their top line now. They lack the capacity to recapture the circulation and sales that drives revenue. A recession is the time to build your market share, not shrink it. What has MNI done? Cut the sales staff. Rest assured that radio and TV are still out there. In every market MNI has a newspaper, there are radio stations and TV stations that are madly scrambling to sign advertisers. What is the N&O doing? Well one thing it is not doing is aggressively chasing those advertisers. Instead it has cut the sales force. What that tells me is when this recession ends, the N&O and the rest of MNI will be hobbled. TV and radio in their markets will have built market share among advertisers leaving the crumbs to MNI. That is not a plan.
It's an interesting dilemma about cutting the sales force, Walt. At my paper, a few salespeople were let go, but it was mostly people in sales support admin roles. So it begs the question, when business picks up and more ads start coming in, are the salespeople going to have to spend time performing the routine administrative tasks associated with getting them published? That's a poor use of sales talent. All cuts hurt at this point, especially in a business like ours where there is so much interdependency in producing the product.
But I'd bet my bottom dollar that when the business turns around, sales positions will be the first ones filled with (gasp!) new hires.
The N and O is making a profit. We're owned by a corporation. If the corporation requests you reduce expenses, you do just that reduce expenses...Payroll is the biggest single expense for any business...
"The N and O is making a profit."How much. You sound like an insider, tell us. From the numbers available, it looks like if the N&O is profitable, it's not by much.
"We're owned by a corporation. If the corporation requests you reduce expenses, you do just that reduce expenses" Yes you do. The question is how do you do it. Do you do it in such a way as to provide and expand your range of high quality public service journalism or in a way as to destroy it?
"...Payroll is the biggest single expense for any business..." That really depends on the business. In retail, product is roughly half the expenses of the business. In grocery products are an even greater portion of the expense of the business. In manufacturing, cost of labor varies inversely with the amount of capital invested in the manufacturing process.
"None of this is rocket science." No, but if you are the insider you claim to be, I hope you are not in management. If you are, then I think we have a pretty good idea of why there is a problem at MNI.
19 comments:
If the N&O is making a profit, why cut so deep?
-----------------------------------
Isn't the better question, would libs like, pruit, tillar-boy, linda williams, melanie sills, or lokeman lie and the profitabilty of MNI?
They would sell their own jackal mother's out in a hot flash rather than tell the actual truth.
Always remember, it's THEIR "truth to power" not ours. They have no clue outside of their sand box what or who the world is about.
"It's an elitist thing, you wouldn’t understand"
Probably because, MNI is doing with N&O, what they have been doing to the Star-Telegram for some time now. The S-T has for years been a very profitable paper, but when MNI took over, MNI started cutting deep from the S-T to skim off every last cent they can. One manager even told my department last June that it's time the S-T start pulling its weight and "helping out" the struggling newspapers. Translation--it's time MNI starts ransacking everything you have worked for and accomplished to pay off MNI's own ill-advised debt.
Here is a story for the N & O-
Why are Barry-O's teleprompter speeches being called the “Obama filibusters” already? The N & O were so in-the-tank for B Hussein O, it was disgusting. They covered for Barry, just like they covered for John ‘the liar’ Edwards. Now, we are supposed to believe we just can’t be safe without their watchdog reporting? Get real, it was never watchdog reporting, it was made-up stores for their agency, and that was mostly to destroy President Bush for the Democrats. You know the ‘old fool me once’ saying. Get lost crappy newspaper, get lost!
It is such a shame that public education doesn't make economics, finance and accounting mandatory components of a child's education.
If it were, frauds like Mr Quarles wouldn't be able to get away with falsifying his company's condition by portraying his lone building as a separate entity, divorced and independent of the whole.
People such as this man should be arrested for fraud in the same manner that Madoff was as his scam is exactly the same. "Oh we're profitable...everyone on this floor is legitimate. Pay no attention to the rest of the company because we don't have anything to do with that"
Arrest his ass and put him in jail for fraud and misrepresenting the financial condition of the company.
Any paper within MNI that is profitable is doomed to have employees cut until they're losing money like every other MNI paper.
When MNI bought Knight Ridder and put several of the KR people in key spots, I knew then that MNI would do the same slash it all until the profitable papers make up for the ones losing money that became common under KR.
Not to worry though, you'll never know exactly when your paper crosses that line, since top management does everything possible to bury that information. They prefer their employees to stay nice and calm at work until they're ready to come down and lay them off with a little smirk and a guard to show them the door.
My paper missed our numbers for April and nobody is helping us out. Actually that would be a real streat.
The McClatchy newspapers are not worried about rehiring staff if they can make it through these tough times. They figure there will literally be thousands of journos looking for work, and they can pick and choose the best. I actually think they are correct in that thinking.
8:21 PM Speaking of idiots, your post is going to be deleted and you wasted all that time typing tripe for the privilege.
anom821....tripe...who cares dude? the internet is TRIPE. you post, I post, she post, IT post....does it matter? Ahhhh, that would be a big NO. As much as many of us want to think what we post is important, lets be clear AND logical. Most of the stuff posted in blogs on the internet are seen by only those of us interested in THAT subject. So there you have it....no one cares....so I wasted two minutes of MY life...it made YOU waste time in YOUR life...hahahahaahahahhahahahahahaaa
8:21 comment deleted for profanity.
Sorry MW. I apologize for using the f-word. But I truly don't see any harm in using an f-bomb when you allow all the racist moronic comments to slide through. But, alas, it IS your blog. Have a great day.
MNI's last four quarters have been profitable, but by only the slimmest of margins. MNI had an operating loss for Tax Year 2007. 2008 was not a terrible year, except for the fact that revenues were down 16%. The Raleigh market came late to the recession, but has been hit hard. Given that MNI as a whole barely earned an operating profit, I suspect the N&O is in the same shape. It probably earned the very slimmest of operating profits. All of those profits were wiped out by MNI's huge interest obligation. I think the deep cuts at the N&O were mandated by accounting due to the poor revenue performance and slim margins of the paper.
That said, I think the strategy is all wrong. The N&O along with all the other MNI papers has cut both content producers (writers and photographers) and sales producers to such an extent that they are cutting their top line now. They lack the capacity to recapture the circulation and sales that drives revenue. A recession is the time to build your market share, not shrink it. What has MNI done? Cut the sales staff. Rest assured that radio and TV are still out there. In every market MNI has a newspaper, there are radio stations and TV stations that are madly scrambling to sign advertisers. What is the N&O doing? Well one thing it is not doing is aggressively chasing those advertisers. Instead it has cut the sales force. What that tells me is when this recession ends, the N&O and the rest of MNI will be hobbled. TV and radio in their markets will have built market share among advertisers leaving the crumbs to MNI. That is not a plan.
Walt-in-Durham
It's an interesting dilemma about cutting the sales force, Walt. At my paper, a few salespeople were let go, but it was mostly people in sales support admin roles. So it begs the question, when business picks up and more ads start coming in, are the salespeople going to have to spend time performing the routine administrative tasks associated with getting them published? That's a poor use of sales talent. All cuts hurt at this point, especially in a business like ours where there is so much interdependency in producing the product.
But I'd bet my bottom dollar that when the business turns around, sales positions will be the first ones filled with (gasp!) new hires.
Damned liberals!
The N and O is making a profit.
We're owned by a corporation. If the corporation requests you reduce expenses, you do just that reduce expenses...Payroll is the biggest single expense for any business...
None of this is rocket science.
Payroll is the biggest single expense for any business...
---------
That is often the claim and often the excuse. But, it is very seldom ever the truth.
"The N and O is making a profit."How much. You sound like an insider, tell us. From the numbers available, it looks like if the N&O is profitable, it's not by much.
"We're owned by a corporation. If the corporation requests you reduce expenses, you do just that reduce expenses"
Yes you do. The question is how do you do it. Do you do it in such a way as to provide and expand your range of high quality public service journalism or in a way as to destroy it?
"...Payroll is the biggest single expense for any business..."
That really depends on the business. In retail, product is roughly half the expenses of the business. In grocery products are an even greater portion of the expense of the business. In manufacturing, cost of labor varies inversely with the amount of capital invested in the manufacturing process.
"None of this is rocket science." No, but if you are the insider you claim to be, I hope you are not in management. If you are, then I think we have a pretty good idea of why there is a problem at MNI.
Walt-in-Durham
2:53--
"None of this is rocket science."
Neither is going into monsterous debt for a newspaper chain that you can't afford in the first place.
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