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.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Friday July 17 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
29 comments:
Anonymous
said...
The only way to avoid bankruptcy is to spend more money! Is this the same Joe Biden that the media didn’t ask even a few simple questions? Perhaps their reasoning is becoming more clear? He is a buffoon, plain and simple, there is no hiding that if he opens his mouth, IMO. ---- Joe Biden: ‘We Have to Go Spend Money to Keep From Going Bankrupt’ By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) – Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.
More Chicago violence. Where are the Democrats including Obobo that said this would not be tolerated? Oh, it isn’t an election year! The Chicago war is lost, we better cut and run. No wonder Rev. Wright moved into a ‘whitey’ suburb for his golfing pleasures. ------- 4 Killed, At Least 8 Wounded In 6-Hour Bloodbath CHICAGO (CBS) ―
Three men were fatally shot. One man was fatally stabbed. Police shot one man and at least seven other people were wounded by gunfire -- including an 8-year-old boy sitting in his bedroom -- during an especially violent six hours late Wednesday and early Thursday mainly on the South and West Sides.
"Why is the media so biased against the military?" Good question, and only the corrupt press knows the answer. *** Is the Press Our Deadliest Foe In Afghanistan? Fox News, by Matt Sanchez
The media may just be the deadliest foe in Afghanistan, I know they were almost fatal in Iraq. (Snip) Army pilots, Air Force medics or Marine infantrymen, the variety of teams working in a war zone runs the gamut, but no matter how many different American troops I speak to, I'm asked the same question from the men and women serving overseas. "Why is the media so biased against the military?"
More @: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/07/16/matt-sanchez-media-afghanistan/
Will ___ save journalism? Lately it seems easier to find ruminations on that subject than to find journalism itself. With advertising down and the Internet making information seem free and easy, anxious journos (for whom "save journalism" equals "save my job") have suggested numerous white knights for their profession, including Amazon's Kindle, philanthropists, micropayments, the government and the new iPhone. (Is there an app for that?)
-Buy BusinessWeek For Less Than a Copy of BusinessWeek-
Have you always wanted to own a newsweekly? Well, you can buy BusinessWeek for $1. If that sounds like a bargain, keep in mind that the magazine is reportedly set to lose $75 million this year. That’s down from profits of up to $100 million during the dot-com boom. Times certainly have changed. http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/
Re: MNI Stock: “However, cutting costs in the face of declining revenue is a survival tactic, not a buy signal.” - “as far down as stocks had gone -- there was room for more downside.” Morningstar analyst Tom Corbett ----- After The Bell: The Street Reassesses, A Sector Skeptic Speaks Fitz: Having pumped up newspaper stocks Wednesday in euphoria over Gannett’s awful-any-other-time-but-these-days Q2 earnings report, on Thursday The Street moved with the suddenly alert caution of someone awakening from a bender and hoping there was no permanent damage to persons or property. The newspaper sector was broadly down, but very modestly for most stocks. Trading volume in the sector was way down from Wednesday. [snip]
Thursday’s big loser was The McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI), which lost all of its gains. Wednesday, it closed up 14 cents, Thursday, down 14 cents to 42 cents a share. Fitz & Jen
Indy Guild Wants Members to Wear Red at Publisher Meeting By Joe Strupp
NEW YORK The Indianapolis Newspaper Guild, which overwhelmingly rejected a contract offer from The Indianapolis Star two weeks ago, is asking members to show up in force and wear red during a meeting Thursday with Publisher Michael Kane.
….after seven months of contract negotiations in which the company has refused to negotiate and has presented progressively worse proposals at the bargaining table, after two weeks of unpaid furloughs, after three rounds of layoffs in less than a year in which the company disregarded the seniority provisions of our contract, there comes a time when you have to show the company which side you are on. This is one of those times." http://tinyurl.com/lvl39k
"newspaper websites are just newspapers pasted on a screen." Harsh words these: === Potts: Newspaper websites don't provide enough value to justify charging for access-- Recovering Journalist
Mark Potts says most newspaper websites are just newspapers pasted on a screen. "They're clunky, text-heavy, unimaginative and hard to navigate. They're not designed for audience service. ...Painful as it is to say, there's just not a whole lot of quality out there in newspapers and their websites." Via: Romenesko
Howard Weaver still thinks he knows all, but his idea of “verified, trustworthy news” might not match our expectations for same. _______ “….that's what news sites must do: don't sell commodity news, sell what readers want: understandable, [verified, trustworthy news] that has been sorted and displayed in ways that can be digested by busy people.” Etaoin Shrdlu - http://editor.blogspot.com/
(Boston Mayor) Menino offers loan to keep Banner (newspaper) afloat Boston Globe
The City of Boston will offer to loan the Bay State Banner up to $200,000 to keep the cash-strapped weekly newspaper from shutting down permanently, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said last night.
The mayor told the Globe that the loan will come from the Boston Local Development Corp. fund, a private nonprofit administered by the Boston Redevelopment Authority that provides financial infusions to struggling small businesses.
The mayor said the loan is not an attempt to garner favor from the Banner, which focuses on the black community and has often covered Menino critically.
"Smackdown: Printed Editions vs. Digital Editions Finally, a paper company is fighting back against the ridiculous notion that electronic books are greener than printed books.
International Paper recently released “Are Pixels Greener Than Paper”, which compares the environmental profile of ink-on-paper publications (dead tree editions) to digital publications (what I call “dead dinosaur editions” because of the fossil fuels and petrochemicals they consume). It has good points backed by in-depth research, but we need to translate and reformat the PR-speak into something more understandable to the general public." http://deadtreeedition.blogspot.com/
Howard Weaver says people want "trustworthy" news. Well, it ain't happening that way at McClatchy and readers know it. That's the problem Howard, the bias doesn't fool anybody these days.
A POLITICO analysis of hundreds of pages of state travel records requested to explore the circumstances of Mark Sanford's affair found that in his 6 1/2 years as governor, Sanford traveled frequently and in a style markedly at odds with his political persona.
The records detail more than $468,000 worth of state-funded travel for Sanford and show that he routinely billed taxpayers for high-end airline seats, racking up more than $44,000 on business- and first-class tickets. He often stayed in pricey hotels that far exceeded the rates he imposed on other state employees.
On one overseas trip, the state appears to have spent more than $12,000 for the GOP governor’s business-class tickets for a September 2007 trade mission to China, while his aides flew in economy class for airfares as low as $1,900.
Like a political hypocrite is news...big deal. You notice that the only political hypocrites that get attention have an R. behind their name. MSM can't be bothered to report on democrat hypocrisy. Of course they find an exquisitely reasoned reason to only focus on one side. The mono culture of the newsroom is a hothouse for hypocrisy.
POLITICO is just another mouthpiece for the liberal Democrats. They are beating a dead horse to distract us from the real news as usual. If they wanted to tell us about travel expenses, they should have referenced what is normal for Senators of both parties. Comparing a Senator’s travel expenses to those of their staff is ludicrous. Like we don’t know our Lordly politicians have anointed themselves as the ruling class. Travel with commoners? Get Real! What is the approval rating of our nincompoop congress, under 20%? It will go lower, and lower, as will the approval rating of BO and Joe.
2009 continues to be an economic challenge for companies within our industry and in our local market. One of the potential cost saving initiatives for the second half of 2009 is a one-week unpaid furlough. We postponed triggering the furlough, hoping our revenue trends would improve.
We are now far along enough in the year to see that we do need to trigger a cost savings initiative of this magnitude, but have come up with an alternative program that may provide similar savings, without anyone taking unpaid time off. This alternative program involves taking additional vacation and is being introduced in an attempt to avoid unpaid furloughs.
As we contemplated the possible need for a furlough earlier this year, we had agreed that we would treat all employees the same, regardless of whether you are a union or a non-union employee. This means that we must get Guild agreement to implement the alternative mandatory vacation program in lieu of a furlough program. Company representatives met with Guild representatives today, to introduce the vacation program and stressed the importance of getting this approved.
We also made it clear that if the alternate vacation program was not approved, that the company would have to move forward with the original cost savings initiative and trigger an unpaid one-week furlough for all full time employees - union and non-union.
This is how the vacation program would work:
· If you earn 4 weeks of vacation per year, you would have to take two weeks of vacation between July 5, 2009 and December 27, 2009, plus one additional week.*
· If you earn 3 weeks of vacation per year, you would have to take 1.5 weeks of vacation between July 5, 2009 and December 27, 2009, plus one additional week.*
*Employees with less than 5 days of vacation accrual as of July 5, 2009 will not be required to take the additional week.
Guild representatives will be taking this proposal to their membership for a vote during the week of July 27. If the vote is yes, in favor of the vacation program, we will implement it immediately. In the event that the Guild vote is no, we will be implementing the furlough program.
Please note: Due to the uncertainty of the economy, we still have to hold on to the remote possibility of a one-week work furlough (just in case economic conditions get dramatically worse). However, we think that introducing this program at this time, in an attempt to avoid unpaid furloughs, is a much better alternative.
The guild site, www.beeguildnow.org has a list of Sac Bee reporters and how much vacation they'll have to take. Most will be forced to burn 3 weeks before Dec. 27. They won't turn this down and embrace furloughs. All the "senior writers" will have to take a full week of no pay with furloughs.
The company loves this vacation burn because it won't have to payout untaken vacation accruals when it lays these fools off at the end of the year. Saves McClatchy a lot of cash. Pity the staff that has to put out a product with half the staff on vacation the next five months. What a living Hell!
Man, the Bee guild is worthless. Why even vote? Company gets its way either way - furloughs or vacation burn. Just another screwing of the employee. How can these people still work under these conditions? If you're still drawing a McClatchy paycheck you're a complete loser at this stage of the game.
29 comments:
The only way to avoid bankruptcy is to spend more money! Is this the same Joe Biden that the media didn’t ask even a few simple questions? Perhaps their reasoning is becoming more clear? He is a buffoon, plain and simple, there is no hiding that if he opens his mouth, IMO.
----
Joe Biden: ‘We Have to Go Spend Money to Keep From Going Bankrupt’
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) – Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.
More Chicago violence. Where are the Democrats including Obobo that said this would not be tolerated? Oh, it isn’t an election year! The Chicago war is lost, we better cut and run. No wonder Rev. Wright moved into a ‘whitey’ suburb for his golfing pleasures.
-------
4 Killed, At Least 8 Wounded In 6-Hour Bloodbath
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
Three men were fatally shot. One man was fatally stabbed. Police shot one man and at least seven other people were wounded by gunfire -- including an 8-year-old boy sitting in his bedroom -- during an especially violent six hours late Wednesday and early Thursday mainly on the South and West Sides.
"Why is the media so biased against the military?" Good question, and only the corrupt press knows the answer.
***
Is the Press Our Deadliest
Foe In Afghanistan?
Fox News, by Matt Sanchez
The media may just be the deadliest foe in Afghanistan, I know they were almost fatal in Iraq. (Snip) Army pilots, Air Force medics or Marine infantrymen, the variety of teams working in a war zone runs the gamut, but no matter how many different American troops I speak to, I'm asked the same question from the men and women serving overseas. "Why is the media so biased against the military?"
More @: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/07/16/matt-sanchez-media-afghanistan/
"More Chicago violence" -- clearly, Chicago needs more organizing.
What Price Journalism?
By James Poniewozik
Will ___ save journalism? Lately it seems easier to find ruminations on that subject than to find journalism itself. With advertising down and the Internet making information seem free and easy, anxious journos (for whom "save journalism" equals "save my job") have suggested numerous white knights for their profession, including Amazon's Kindle, philanthropists, micropayments, the government and the new iPhone. (Is there an app for that?)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1910972,00.html
-Buy BusinessWeek For Less Than a Copy of BusinessWeek-
Have you always wanted to own a newsweekly? Well, you can buy BusinessWeek for $1. If that sounds like a bargain, keep in mind that the magazine is reportedly set to lose $75 million this year. That’s down from profits of up to $100 million during the dot-com boom.
Times certainly have changed.
http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/
Re: MNI Stock: “However, cutting costs in the face of declining revenue is a survival tactic, not a buy signal.” - “as far down as stocks had gone -- there was room for more downside.”
Morningstar analyst Tom Corbett
-----
After The Bell: The Street Reassesses, A Sector Skeptic Speaks
Fitz: Having pumped up newspaper stocks Wednesday in euphoria over Gannett’s awful-any-other-time-but-these-days Q2 earnings report, on Thursday The Street moved with the suddenly alert caution of someone awakening from a bender and hoping there was no permanent damage to persons or property.
The newspaper sector was broadly down, but very modestly for most stocks. Trading volume in the sector was way down from Wednesday. [snip]
Thursday’s big loser was The McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI), which lost all of its gains. Wednesday, it closed up 14 cents, Thursday, down 14 cents to 42 cents a share.
Fitz & Jen
Indy Guild Wants Members to Wear Red at Publisher Meeting
By Joe Strupp
NEW YORK The Indianapolis Newspaper Guild, which overwhelmingly rejected a contract offer from The Indianapolis Star two weeks ago, is asking members to show up in force and wear red during a meeting Thursday with Publisher Michael Kane.
….after seven months of contract negotiations in which the company has refused to negotiate and has presented progressively worse proposals at the bargaining table, after two weeks of unpaid furloughs, after three rounds of layoffs in less than a year in which the company disregarded the seniority provisions of our contract, there comes a time when you have to show the company which side you are on. This is one of those times."
http://tinyurl.com/lvl39k
"newspaper websites are just newspapers pasted on a screen." Harsh words these:
===
Potts: Newspaper websites don't provide enough value to justify charging for access--
Recovering Journalist
Mark Potts says most newspaper websites are just newspapers pasted on a screen. "They're clunky, text-heavy, unimaginative and hard to navigate. They're not designed for audience service. ...Painful as it is to say, there's just not a whole lot of quality out there in newspapers and their websites."
Via: Romenesko
Howard Weaver still thinks he knows all, but his idea of “verified, trustworthy news” might not match our expectations for same.
_______
“….that's what news sites must do: don't sell commodity news, sell what readers want: understandable, [verified, trustworthy news] that has been sorted and displayed in ways that can be digested by busy people.”
Etaoin Shrdlu - http://editor.blogspot.com/
(Boston Mayor) Menino offers loan to keep Banner (newspaper) afloat Boston Globe
The City of Boston will offer to loan the Bay State Banner up to $200,000 to keep the cash-strapped weekly newspaper from shutting down permanently, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said last night.
The mayor told the Globe that the loan will come from the Boston Local Development Corp. fund, a private nonprofit administered by the Boston Redevelopment Authority that provides financial infusions to struggling small businesses.
The mayor said the loan is not an attempt to garner favor from the Banner, which focuses on the black community and has often covered Menino critically.
"Smackdown: Printed Editions vs. Digital Editions
Finally, a paper company is fighting back against the ridiculous notion that electronic books are greener than printed books.
International Paper recently released “Are Pixels Greener Than Paper”, which compares the environmental profile of ink-on-paper publications (dead tree editions) to digital publications (what I call “dead dinosaur editions” because of the fossil fuels and petrochemicals they consume). It has good points backed by in-depth research, but we need to translate and reformat the PR-speak into something more understandable to the general public."
http://deadtreeedition.blogspot.com/
Keep trying to frame the issue in terms of green, you idiots. It’s all about price. Can you say, Napster?
Keeping raising the price of books, and like Napster, people will down load books to read on Kindle’s
Howard Weaver says people want "trustworthy" news. Well, it ain't happening that way at McClatchy and readers know it. That's the problem Howard, the bias doesn't fool anybody these days.
A POLITICO analysis of hundreds of pages of state travel records requested to explore the circumstances of Mark Sanford's affair found that in his 6 1/2 years as governor, Sanford traveled frequently and in a style markedly at odds with his political persona.
The records detail more than $468,000 worth of state-funded travel for Sanford and show that he routinely billed taxpayers for high-end airline seats, racking up more than $44,000 on business- and first-class tickets. He often stayed in pricey hotels that far exceeded the rates he imposed on other state employees.
On one overseas trip, the state appears to have spent more than $12,000 for the GOP governor’s business-class tickets for a September 2007 trade mission to China, while his aides flew in economy class for airfares as low as $1,900.
Like a political hypocrite is news...big deal. You notice that the only political hypocrites that get attention have an R. behind their name. MSM can't be bothered to report on democrat hypocrisy. Of course they find an exquisitely reasoned reason to only focus on one side. The mono culture of the newsroom is a hothouse for hypocrisy.
will not be televised just posted something about a company called angel gordon buying out mcclatchy?
wtf?
11:01 AM Angelo,Gordon & Co.
They're one of the Rothchild Family "private equity" tentacles headed by John Angelo, a long time devotee. Estimated income, 90 million per year.
POLITICO is just another mouthpiece for the liberal Democrats. They are beating a dead horse to distract us from the real news as usual. If they wanted to tell us about travel expenses, they should have referenced what is normal for Senators of both parties. Comparing a Senator’s travel expenses to those of their staff is ludicrous. Like we don’t know our Lordly politicians have anointed themselves as the ruling class. Travel with commoners? Get Real! What is the approval rating of our nincompoop congress, under 20%? It will go lower, and lower, as will the approval rating of BO and Joe.
Hey 1:03
I hate to say it, but Sanford is a Governor, not a Senator. WTF rock did you climb out from under?
the sacramento bee
memorandum
DATE: July 17, 2009
TO: All Employees
FROM: Cheryl Dell
RE: Extra Vacation Proposal vs. Work Furlough
2009 continues to be an economic challenge for companies within our industry and in our local market. One of the potential cost saving initiatives for the second half of 2009 is a one-week unpaid furlough. We postponed triggering the furlough, hoping our revenue trends would improve.
We are now far along enough in the year to see that we do need to trigger a cost savings initiative of this magnitude, but have come up with an alternative program that may provide similar savings, without anyone taking unpaid time off. This alternative program involves taking additional vacation and is being introduced in an attempt to avoid unpaid furloughs.
As we contemplated the possible need for a furlough earlier this year, we had agreed that we would treat all employees the same, regardless of whether you are a union or a non-union employee. This means that we must get Guild agreement to implement the alternative mandatory vacation program in lieu of a furlough program. Company representatives met with Guild representatives today, to introduce the vacation program and stressed the importance of getting this approved.
We also made it clear that if the alternate vacation program was not approved, that the company would have to move forward with the original cost savings initiative and trigger an unpaid one-week furlough for all full time employees - union and non-union.
This is how the vacation program would work:
· If you earn 4 weeks of vacation per year, you would have to take two weeks of vacation between July 5, 2009 and December 27, 2009, plus one additional week.*
· If you earn 3 weeks of vacation per year, you would have to take 1.5 weeks of vacation between July 5, 2009 and December 27, 2009, plus one additional week.*
*Employees with less than 5 days of vacation accrual as of July 5, 2009 will not be required to take the additional week.
Guild representatives will be taking this proposal to their membership for a vote during the week of July 27. If the vote is yes, in favor of the vacation program, we will implement it immediately. In the event that the Guild vote is no, we will be implementing the furlough program.
Please note: Due to the uncertainty of the economy, we still have to hold on to the remote possibility of a one-week work furlough (just in case economic conditions get dramatically worse). However, we think that introducing this program at this time, in an attempt to avoid unpaid furloughs, is a much better alternative.
The guild site, www.beeguildnow.org has a list of Sac Bee reporters and how much vacation they'll have to take. Most will be forced to burn 3 weeks before Dec. 27. They won't turn this down and embrace furloughs. All the "senior writers" will have to take a full week of no pay with furloughs.
The company loves this vacation burn because it won't have to payout untaken vacation accruals when it lays these fools off at the end of the year. Saves McClatchy a lot of cash. Pity the staff that has to put out a product with half the staff on vacation the next five months. What a living Hell!
Man, the Bee guild is worthless. Why even vote? Company gets its way either way - furloughs or vacation burn. Just another screwing of the employee. How can these people still work under these conditions? If you're still drawing a McClatchy paycheck you're a complete loser at this stage of the game.
These last couple of posts on the Sac Bee vacation burn should be moved to a separate topic heading on this new development. Good stuff.
3:55 PM I agree.
BLOGMASTER! WAKE UP! YOU GOTS WORK!
Sincerely,
McClatchy/Ink Journalist
Actually our blogmaster should consider bumping the "Got News or an Update?" thread on a regular basis. Maybe even, keep on top.
Excellent ideas!
Damn! NVA/CBS Veteran Reporter Comrade Walter Tet Cronkite dead at 92.
...it's about time.
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