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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday September 29 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
41 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Out-Foxing The Times (IBD)
The New York Times, still smarting after losing scoops to Fox News, has thrown in the towel, vowing to avoid future embarrassment by monitoring the cable channel. We have a better idea — it's called reporting.
An Illinois senator rises to the highest office in the land on pillars of a spectacularly slimy political organization, a group with a long record of voter fraud, theft, thuggery and partisanship.
As sexy as such a story might seem, the New York Times didn't consider it news.
That's why the Times got scooped by outlets such as Fox News, for which it has nothing but contempt, on revelations that led to the fall of community organizing behemoth Acorn.
The wound was self-inflicted, rooted in little more than the partisanship of protecting a favored president. It left the field clear for a couple of journalism students to show that Acorn staffers openly encouraged pimping, child prostitution, human trafficking, mortgage fraud and tax evasion.
It's right there on tapes posted to Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com. Unlike the disdainful Times, Fox ran with it, toppling a behemoth of political power.
Fox's judgment now seems to play the role the Times' once did, and the Times is no doubt left wondering how it could have lost out on yet another one.
ACORN Story Shows How Internet Reporting Is Beating the New York Times (US News & World Report)
In a meeting of New York conservative activists earlier this month, Andrew Breitbart received a raucous standing ovation for doing something many conservatives never dreamed possible. He beat The New York Times.
As video upon video were released showing ACORN employees eagerly helping two conservatives (Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe) set up prostitution as a legitimate business, file false tax statements and engage in the trafficking of underage illegal immigrants, much of the major media remained silent.
For conservatives, the rationale was simple: the major media were uninterested in exposing an organization linked with President Barack Obama.
There may have been something else at play—snobbery. Large media organizations look down upon opinion news sites and blogs that are not their own, painting most conservative sites and talk shows with a broad brush as amateurish and full of crazy people with crazier ideas (read: dangerous).
To an august newspaper as The New York Times, some You Tube videos on BigGovernment.com were not newsworthy and certainly not credible.
Thus the Times remained silent as the evidence of ACORN corruption continued to grow. Fifteen years ago, that would have been the end of the ACORN story. Smoking gun video, or not, if major media outlets ignored a story, it never happened.
Things have changed.
The creation of the Fox News Channel gave conservatives somewhere else to go other than the stone wall they faced at the three major networks, CNN, the Washington Post and New York Times.
The "launch mentality" Roger Ailes has maintained at Fox, combined with sky-high ratings, means stories ignored in the past see the light of day.
The explosion of Internet reporting means that no story will necessarily be ignored even when a major news organization, at its own peril, does so.
Don't Bail Out Newspapers--Let Them Die and Get Out of the Way (Newsweek)
Nobody in their right mind believes the future of the news business involves paper and ink rather than pixels on a screen.
We all know where the news business is headed, and what's more, we've known it for at least a decade. So why on earth are people talking about a bailout for newspapers?
Why is President Obama saying he'd consider it? Why is Congress holding hearings and considering "The Newspaper Revitalization Act" in a bid to save these ailing old rags with tax breaks and other handouts?
It's like introducing legislation to save horse-drawn carriages, or steam engines, or black-and-white TV. It's stupid. It's pointless. It won't work.
The fact is, all this hysteria has nothing to do with saving the news, or saving jobs. Nor is it about saving democracy, which is what the red-in-the-face newspaper lovers always get themselves huffed about, as if newspapers and democracy were inextricably linked.
Democracy existed long before newspapers did, and it will survive without them. And plenty of countries that don't have democracy do have newspapers.
Nor would a bailout help readers. In fact, it would only slow down our shift to the Internet, which is a far better medium for delivering information.
The only beneficiaries of a bailout would be a handful of big newspaper companies that used to be profitable and powerful and now, well, aren't.
Those companies saw the Internet charging toward them like a freight train, and they just stood there on the tracks. They didn't adapt.
Why? Because for decades these companies enjoyed virtual monopolies, and as often happens to monopolists, they got lazy.
They invested their resources in protecting their monopolies, using bully tactics to keep new competitors from entering their markets.
Cuts Meet a Culture of Spending at Condé Nast (More unemployed America-hating leftists) The New York Times
A three-month McKinsey & Company project advising the publisher how to reduce costs is drawing to a close, and several magazines have been told to cut about 25 percent from their budgets.
The company’s editors and publishers have already been under pressure to reduce costs this year, as advertising has plunged, and Condé Nast has closed two magazines in 2009, Domino and Condé Nast Portfolio.
But cost-cutting at Condé Nast is not quite like cost-cutting at other publishers. For example, on Oct. 13, the men’s magazine GQ will host a party in Washington to promote its list of powerful capital players, to appear in its November issue. The party is upscale: it will be held at the 701Restaurant, known for its caviar and live piano music.
That is not the only expense involved. Several editorial employees will travel from New York for the evening. And they received an e-mail message recently reminding them to limit their expenses for the night — to $1,000 a person.
snip
But magazine companies other than Condé Nast have become grim places to work in recent years.
Time Inc. outlined layoffs of 600 employees last October, almost all of which were completed by the end of last year, Dawn Bridges, a spokeswoman for Time Inc., said in an e-mail message.
Still, advertising, where Condé Nast makes most of its money, has been hammered. Condé Nast magazines have lost about 8,000 ad pages through the October issues compared with last year, according to Media Industry Newsletter.
Those figures exclude the company’s bridal magazines. That is a decline of about one-third. Ms. Siegel said some cost controls were appropriate but she hoped they would not affect the quality of the magazines.
“I love their magazines — I think they’re pretty, I like the way they feel, and I think the reproduction is lovely,” she said. “That’s why I would hope that one of the things their consultants will not tell them is to, in any way, diminish the quality of what they’re offering, because that is something that makes those titles valuable.”
In other words, If they don't cut costs, they are eaten alive by expenses and die. If they do cut costs, they lose their special identity in the market place, and with it their incremental revenues, and die.
Big Time Warner Investor: Sell Magazines, Buy Entertainment (Businessweek)
It’s only a matter of time before the media industry consolidation begins. But when it does, Time Warner likely will be out there buying, according to its largest shareholder. Heavyweight media investor Gordon Crawford, managing director of the Capital Group, figures that Time Warner will continue to trim down and will eventually sell its huge magazine unit.
Journalists Leave Full-time Jobs to Work for Texas Tribune, Embrace Uncertainty (Poynter Online)
Elise Hu, Matt Stiles and Emily Ramshaw are all award-winning journalists who had full-time jobs at some of Texas' largest media outlets -- KVUE-TV in Austin, the Houston Chronicle and The Dallas Morning News, respectively.
But in August, they quit their jobs for new opportunities at the Texas Tribune, a nonprofit news site that is set to launch Nov. 3 and has raised enough money to sustain itself for about three years.
Why would journalists leave a full-time job at an established news organization to work for a start-up? For Hu, Stiles and Ramshaw, a better question is, "Why not?"
L.A. Times Front Page Headline: Polanski Merely “Accused” of Sexual Assault PATTERICO
I woke up this morning to this headline on the front page of the L.A. Times:
Excuse me?
He is more than merely “accused” of unlawful sex with a minor. He pled guilty to it. And, moving on the teaser on the right for Patrick Goldstein’s piece, it will not cost the L.A. District Attorney (for whom I work but do not speak) much to “prosecute” Polanski — because we don’t have to “prosecute” him.
We need only represent the People at the sentencing for the charge to which Polanski pled guilty.
Nowhere on the front page does the paper explain to readers that Polanski pled guilty — much less mention that a 13-year-old girl testified to a grand jury that Polanski had provided her with part of a Quaalude and champagne before anally raping her and ejaculating inside her anus.
The article includes some of this information on the back pages that hardly anybody reads — the paper there reveals the drugging, the plea, and a sanitized version of the anal rape (he “forced himself on her”). But those who merely read the front page (and that’s many people, if not most) could be forgiven if they concluded that Polanski has yet to be put on trial.
This has been installment #56,447 in my ongoing series: “Why Nobody Trusts The L.A. Times.”
Whoopi Defends Polanski: ‘It wasn’t rape-rape.’ Big Hollywood
“I know it wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape.
He went to jail and and when they let him out he was like ‘You know what, this guy’s going to give me a hundred years in jail I’m not staying,’ so that’s why he left.”
WaPo Columnist (Anne Applebaum)Has Undisclosed Conflict of Interest on Roman Polanski Matter PATTERICO
snip
Applebaum failed to mention that her husband (Radoslaw Sikorski)is a Polish foreign minister who is lobbying for Polanski’s case to be dismissed:
In Polanski’s native Poland, President Lech Kaczynski and Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said they would appeal to US authorities to drop proceedings against Polanski.
The PAP news agency said Sikorski was consideri[ng] a direct appeal to US President Barack Obama to end ‘once and for all’ the proceedings against the filmmaker.
Radoslaw Sikorski is married to Anne Applebaum:
Anne Applebaum is a columnist for the Washington Post and Slate. . . . Her husband, Radoslaw Sikorski, is a Polish politician and writer.
Applebaum failed to mention this little fact.
So at the same time that she was giving readers a fact-challenged screed in support of Polanski, she was failing to disclose that her husband was a Polish official who was lobbying for Polanski’s freedom.
Email Controversy Update: NBC Continues to Deny, ALG Sticks With Story (Jewboygate)Newsbusters
The controversy over an anti-semitic email to the conservative group Americans for Limited Government allegedly sent by an NBC News producer is continuing to develop as the network is still persistently denying it was sent.
Both sides have now spoken on the telephone with each continuing to stick to their respective stories.
As reported earlier by NB's Noel Sheppard, the dispute involves an email message allegedly sent by NBC producer Jane Stone in response to a press release she was sent by ALG's director of media relations, Alex Rosenwald. According to ALG, the "Dateline" producer replied by "Bite me, Jew Boy."
There's A Reason Fox Is The Highest Rated Network (The Politicizer) McClatchy is all "Wee-Weed" up!
Liberals scoff at any person who points out the obvious fact that the mainstream media is overwhelmingly biased to the left.
And Fox News Channel, through the eyes of a liberal, is nothing but conservative propaganda. Cable news personalities on CNN and MSNBC discredit Fox, pretending that they haven’t been overshadowed by FNC’s success for years on end.
The simple reality is that, especially recently, Fox News has been the only source of quality journalism and reporting in the cable news realm.
The numbers speak for themselves; Fox is consistently on top. On the evening of Tuesday, September 15, Bill O’Reilly’s viewership was 4,039,000, followed by Hannity, Beck, Greta, Baier, and Shep Smith—all above 2 and 3 million.
The closest a rival station came to Fox was MSNBC’s Keith Olberman, at a modest 1.3 million.
So if Fox News is merely a “tool of the right” to feed the fire of the angry conservative conspiracy, then why exactly is it the most watched, most trusted and most successful cable news station?
Because it is genuine alternative media. Other cable news stations like MSNBC and CNN have apparently rejected the notion of the watch-dog media (lap-dog is more their forte these days)...
Andy Williams accuses Barack Obama of following Marxist theory (The Telegraph U.K.)
Accused Barack Obama of "following Marxist theory" and "wanting the country to fail".
Williams, a lifelong Republican whose hits include Moon River and Music To Watch Girls By, told the Radio Times he thought Mr Obama wanted to turn the US into a "socialist country".
General Stanley McChrystal, Obama’s commander in Afghanistan, has talked to President Obama once in the past 70 days:
“McChrystal talked about his interaction with the president in an interview with CBS News.
“I’ve talked to the president since I’ve been here once on a,” he said.
“You talked to him once in 70 days?” CBS’ David Martin asked.
“That’s correct,” McChrystal said.”
Meanwhile, Obama played golf almost every weekend this summer while General McChrystal and his troops toiled in Afghanistan.
Obama also found two spare days this week to travel to Copenhagen to appear before the International Olympic Committee in support of Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics.
Obama is not serious about the war in Afghanistan.
Obama is taking the gloves off … Michelle Obama, that is, and the fight is in Copenhagen and not Afghanistan:
“The First Lady leaves for Copenhagen tomorrow evening, and from the moment she arrives, she will begin lobbying for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.
She, White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, and TV mega mogul Oprah Winfrey will try to meet with every one of the 100+ International Olympic Committee members.
“The gloves are off!” the First Lady declared with a smile. She spoke with a handful of reporters in the State Dining room at White House, and relayed a story from last weekend’s G20 Summit in Pittsburgh.”
The Obamas feel right at home with this kind of competition:
“Mrs. Obama likened the next few days, to final days of a campaign.
Too bad General McChrystal isn’t on Obama’s speed dial because America would be far better served if the Obamas did “everything we can” to get a victory in Afghanistan instead of the Olympics for Chicago.
Even in Capitalists’ Bad Times, Europe’s Socialists Suffer [NY Times Mourns Loss of Fellow Marxists, and having to Report Facts]
PARIS — A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Socialism’s slow collapse.
Even in the midst of one of the greatest challenges to capitalism in 75 years, involving a breakdown of the financial system due to “irrational exuberance,” greed and the weakness of regulatory systems, European Socialist parties and their left-wing cousins have not found a compelling response, let alone taken advantage of the right’s failures.
German voters clobbered the Social Democratic Party on Sunday, giving it only 23 percent of the vote, its worst performance since World War II.
Voters also punished left-leaning candidates in the summer’s European Parliament elections and trounced French Socialists in 2007. Where the left holds power, as in Spain and Britain, it is under attack.
Where it is out, as in France, Italy and now Germany, it is divided and listless.
Some American conservatives demonize President Obama’s fiscal stimulus and health care overhaul as a dangerous turn toward European-style Socialism — but it is Europe’s right, not left, that is setting its political agenda.
Ironically, The left prays for socialist stagnation, but then goes out of business when it becomes reality, and then cries about getting what they asked for.
Iran smolders, Afghanistan burns, and Obama heads to...Denmark (Washington Examiner)
With growing pressure for decisions on life-or-death issues in Afghanistan and Iran, this morning the White House announced that President Obama will soon travel to...Copenhagen.
Obama will be in Denmark for just a few hours -- he leaves this Thursday and returns Friday -- which is just enough time to make a pitch for Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games.
He'll be following First Lady Michelle Obama, who is also going to Copenhagen as part of the promote-Chicago team.
More: Obama and his gang of ACORN thugs joined at the hip. --- ACORN's Man in the White House
American Spectator | Mathew Vadum
Newly discovered evidence shows the radical advocacy group ACORN has a man in the Obama White House. This power behind the throne is longtime ACORN operative Patrick Gaspard. He holds the title of White House political affairs director, the same title Karl Rove held in President Bush's White House.
Convicted felons working in nursing homes (ACORN health care for seniors?) Sun Sentinel Newspaper
Florida seniors and disabled adults too frail to live on their own have been beaten, neglected and robbed by caregivers with criminal records.
A cancer patient at a Pompano Beach assisted living facility watched helplessly from bed as a nurse's aide with a record for theft rifled through her handbag and stole $165.
"What are you doing with my bag?" a police report quoted her as saying. "You have no right. Put it down."
A video camera caught an aide at a North Miami Beach group home for the disabled shoving a cerebral palsy patient face-first to the floor, busting her lip.
The aide had previously pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and never should have been working there.
If you think it is bad now - wait tile ACORN & Obama run your healthcare. Seniors and baby boomers you have been warned. Just wait til you are old and on the floor getting kicked like the person in this story.
CBC member: Health insurance penalties 'indefensible' (Thehill.com)
Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), an often contrarian member of the Congressional Black Caucus, on Sunday called proposed penalties against small business that do not provide their workers health insurance, "indefensible."
The congressman addressed insurance mandates that would levy fines against small businesses of 25 or more employees that do not provide health insurance or would require a business to offer health coverage based on the size of its payroll.
"Frankly, the House leadership seems wedded to keeping that in," Davis told the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser. "And the more you look at it, the more indefensible that is."
Another school Obama cult video!! BHO eew, eew, eew... === North Carolina Children Recite for Obama: "Change has come" - Video
Freedom's Lighthouse
Here is another video of school children reciting praises to President Obama - this time from a school group in North Carolina. They say several times "Change has come, Change has come." About President Obama, they say: "Uniting blacks and whites...being both Obama cannot take sides." They even manage to work in Obama's Campaign themes of "Hope, Change, and Yes We Can." . . . (VIDEO) http://www.freedomslighthouse.com/2009/09/north-carolina-children-recite-for.html
Review Ordered of Video Showing Students Singing Praises of Obama (Jesus name replaced with Obama's) FOXNews.com
The commissioner of New Jersey's Department of Education ordered a review on Friday following the posting of a YouTube video depicting school children singing the praises of President Obama.
One song that the children were taught quotes directly from the spiritual "Jesus Loves the Little Children," though Jesus' name is replaced with Obama's.
Teacher Caught on Tape Reassigned (I can have your parents arrested) Fox/Houston
HOUSTON - Michael Garza's parents say they weren't sure who to believe, their 8-year-old son or his reading teacher Savonya Depland Haston.
-snip-
After Michael calls the reading teacher "ma'am," Haston is heard on the tape replying "I'm not your ma'am. If I owned you, and you were my slave, I would beat you down."
-snip
On the tape, you hear her tell the class of 7 and 8-year-olds she could have charges filed against them and their parents for lying and violating her civil rights.
"When you lie on me, I have the right to an attorney, I have the right to file charges against you and your parents. I have the right to take you straight up to the top of the Grand Jury and the federal government and file charges against your parents and garnish whatever wages are in your houses; that's the law," the reading teacher is heard on the tape telling the classroom of second graders.
So what did the Houston Independent School District decide to do about Mrs.Haston?
N.J. Principal Unapologetic for Videotape of Kids Praising Obama, Parents Say FOX
"The principal of a New Jersey elementary school where young students were videotaped singing the praises of President Obama is making no apologies for the videotape and says she would allow the performance again if she could, according to parents who spoke with her Thursday night."
Uncovered Audio: Obama’s ‘Safe Schools Czar’ Encouraged Child Sex With Older Man ---- Fox News is reporting Obama has 40 czars! No one can get a handle on their expenses. Transparency my ass!
After watching the Obama indoctrination video, one can only guess what else was forced upon the children on a daily bases. The time spent practicing for this performance was child abuse in my opinion. The principal that says she would do it again, needs to be fired. Her radical agenda cannot be part of education for youngsters, she is part of the Obama cult and needs an intervention. The one good thing to come out of this exposure, is that parents are alerting their children that their teachers are politically partisan, and to tell them anytime the teacher steps over the line.
7:18 AM There is a McClatchy thread: It has one comment, and it is a good one. -McClatchy newspaper in South Carolina looking for sales account executive-
McClatchy employees could easily gather there to communicate news with each other. Calling posters “Beckers” is so typical of liberals. No wonder so few feel sorry to see the end of the piss and moan brigade.
Breitbart News Alert! Just when you think the Obama cultism can’t get worse, it does. "Hear our cry Obama!" This video comes with a warning, “Difficult to watch” Breitbart has become the newsman to follow. Hot Air Pundit also has a good article about the video. --- Elect Obama (Video) Shocking Video: Community Organizers Praying To President-
Scary story about underfunded newspaper pension plans posted on Editor & Publisher today. McClatchy took a huge nose-dive and is betting our pension plans that the economy will rally next year. If not... Here's a bit of the story:
"At some chains, the degree to which these plans are under-funded is impressive, if not staggering.
The New York Times Co., for instance, said its plans were under-funded by $643 million. The much smaller A.H. Belo Corp. was under-funded by $575 million. McClatchy, the nation's third-largest publisher, was under-funded by $611 million at the end of 2008, but it claims that was reduced to $575 million as of the end of this year's first quarter. Gannett Co., the nation's largest newspaper chain, was under-funded by $587 million."
**Obama's Chicago Olympics** Hey bros, Obama is only lobbying for one of his 51-57 states, the State of Chicago. Who didn’t know that? Right now, there is nothing more important than that! He owes a lot to all those dead voters in Chi town. Shh, don’t tell the Olympic Committee about the gang wars.
Our liberal troll doesn’t like to see the downfall of Obama as it unfolds in the news. Healthcare debate dishonesty, and Obama’s links to ACORN are huge stories, more than the demise of a crummy newspaper. After the corrupt media gave their all to elect Obama, losing their reputations and their jobs, looks like a real losing proposition. We are supposed to feel compassion for a bunch of liberal jerks, yeah right.
Obama has time to push a Chicago Olympics bid? What a joke! He just wants to stimulate artificial jobs for those who will have to build all the stadiums and venues for the Olympics. Olympics are huge money LOSERS.
Not everyone in Chicago wants the Olympics. The Obama campaign fund has not paid Chicago back for the Grant Park party. Who can blame the taxpayers for being leery of the Olympic games? They are notorious for leaving debt, and tons of garbage behind.
The ACORN house of card is tumbling down, down, down. *** Acorn Housing Board Member Steps Down By JAMES R. HAGERTY
Guillermo Loaiza, a loan officer for J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in Phoenix, has resigned from the board of Acorn Housing, a spokesman for J.P. Morgan said.
How are President Obama’s national service grants being used?
To train the next generation of union organizers, of course. From the “Learn and Serve Clearinghouse” of lesson plans and curricular materials funded with taxpayer-subsidized service grants, here’s a course study in collective bargaining taught at the L.A. Unified School District
More at- http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/29/indoctrination-watch-how-your-tax-dollars-are-training-students-to-be-union-organizers/
Guillermo Loaiza, a loan officer for J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in Phoenix, has resigned from the board of Acorn Housing, a spokesman for J.P. Morgan said.
----------
LOL That would be the same J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. that swore they had absolutely no relationship with ACORN only 2 days ago?
41 comments:
Out-Foxing The Times (IBD)
The New York Times, still smarting after losing scoops to Fox News, has thrown in the towel, vowing to avoid future embarrassment by monitoring the cable channel. We have a better idea — it's called reporting.
An Illinois senator rises to the highest office in the land on pillars of a spectacularly slimy political organization, a group with a long record of voter fraud, theft, thuggery and partisanship.
As sexy as such a story might seem, the New York Times didn't consider it news.
That's why the Times got scooped by outlets such as Fox News, for which it has nothing but contempt, on revelations that led to the fall of community organizing behemoth Acorn.
The wound was self-inflicted, rooted in little more than the partisanship of protecting a favored president. It left the field clear for a couple of journalism students to show that Acorn staffers openly encouraged pimping, child prostitution, human trafficking, mortgage fraud and tax evasion.
It's right there on tapes posted to Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com. Unlike the disdainful Times, Fox ran with it, toppling a behemoth of political power.
Fox's judgment now seems to play the role the Times' once did, and the Times is no doubt left wondering how it could have lost out on yet another one.
ACORN Story Shows How Internet Reporting Is Beating the New York Times (US News & World Report)
In a meeting of New York conservative activists earlier this month, Andrew Breitbart received a raucous standing ovation for doing something many conservatives never dreamed possible. He beat The New York Times.
As video upon video were released showing ACORN employees eagerly helping two conservatives (Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe) set up prostitution as a legitimate business, file false tax statements and engage in the trafficking of underage illegal immigrants, much of the major media remained silent.
For conservatives, the rationale was simple: the major media were uninterested in exposing an organization linked with President Barack Obama.
There may have been something else at play—snobbery. Large media organizations look down upon opinion news sites and blogs that are not their own, painting most conservative sites and talk shows with a broad brush as amateurish and full of crazy people with crazier ideas (read: dangerous).
To an august newspaper as The New York Times, some You Tube videos on BigGovernment.com were not newsworthy and certainly not credible.
Thus the Times remained silent as the evidence of ACORN corruption continued to grow. Fifteen years ago, that would have been the end of the ACORN story. Smoking gun video, or not, if major media outlets ignored a story, it never happened.
Things have changed.
The creation of the Fox News Channel gave conservatives somewhere else to go other than the stone wall they faced at the three major networks, CNN, the Washington Post and New York Times.
The "launch mentality" Roger Ailes has maintained at Fox, combined with sky-high ratings, means stories ignored in the past see the light of day.
The explosion of Internet reporting means that no story will necessarily be ignored even when a major news organization, at its own peril, does so.
Don't Bail Out Newspapers--Let Them Die and Get Out of the Way (Newsweek)
Nobody in their right mind believes the future of the news business involves paper and ink rather than pixels on a screen.
We all know where the news business is headed, and what's more, we've known it for at least a decade. So why on earth are people talking about a bailout for newspapers?
Why is President Obama saying he'd consider it? Why is Congress holding hearings and considering "The Newspaper Revitalization Act" in a bid to save these ailing old rags with tax breaks and other handouts?
It's like introducing legislation to save horse-drawn carriages, or steam engines, or black-and-white TV. It's stupid. It's pointless. It won't work.
The fact is, all this hysteria has nothing to do with saving the news, or saving jobs. Nor is it about saving democracy, which is what the red-in-the-face newspaper lovers always get themselves huffed about, as if newspapers and democracy were inextricably linked.
Democracy existed long before newspapers did, and it will survive without them. And plenty of countries that don't have democracy do have newspapers.
Nor would a bailout help readers. In fact, it would only slow down our shift to the Internet, which is a far better medium for delivering information.
The only beneficiaries of a bailout would be a handful of big newspaper companies that used to be profitable and powerful and now, well, aren't.
Those companies saw the Internet charging toward them like a freight train, and they just stood there on the tracks. They didn't adapt.
Why? Because for decades these companies enjoyed virtual monopolies, and as often happens to monopolists, they got lazy.
They invested their resources in protecting their monopolies, using bully tactics to keep new competitors from entering their markets.
Cuts Meet a Culture of Spending at Condé Nast (More unemployed America-hating leftists) The New York Times
A three-month McKinsey & Company project advising the publisher how to reduce costs is drawing to a close, and several magazines have been told to cut about 25 percent from their budgets.
The company’s editors and publishers have already been under pressure to reduce costs this year, as advertising has plunged, and Condé Nast has closed two magazines in 2009, Domino and Condé Nast Portfolio.
But cost-cutting at Condé Nast is not quite like cost-cutting at other publishers. For example, on Oct. 13, the men’s magazine GQ will host a party in Washington to promote its list of powerful capital players, to appear in its November issue. The party is upscale: it will be held at the 701Restaurant, known for its caviar and live piano music.
That is not the only expense involved. Several editorial employees will travel from New York for the evening. And they received an e-mail message recently reminding them to limit their expenses for the night — to $1,000 a person.
snip
But magazine companies other than Condé Nast have become grim places to work in recent years.
Time Inc. outlined layoffs of 600 employees last October, almost all of which were completed by the end of last year, Dawn Bridges, a spokeswoman for Time Inc., said in an e-mail message.
(Condé Nast):From the article:
Still, advertising, where Condé Nast makes most of its money, has been hammered. Condé Nast magazines have lost about 8,000 ad pages through the October issues compared with last year, according to Media Industry Newsletter.
Those figures exclude the company’s bridal magazines. That is a decline of about one-third.
Ms. Siegel said some cost controls were appropriate but she hoped they would not affect the quality of the magazines.
“I love their magazines — I think they’re pretty, I like the way they feel, and I think the reproduction is lovely,” she said. “That’s why I would hope that one of the things their consultants will not tell them is to, in any way, diminish the quality of what they’re offering, because that is something that makes those titles valuable.”
In other words, If they don't cut costs, they are eaten alive by expenses and die. If they do cut costs, they lose their special identity in the market place, and with it their incremental revenues, and die.
Decisions ... decisions!!
Big Time Warner Investor: Sell Magazines, Buy Entertainment (Businessweek)
It’s only a matter of time before the media industry consolidation begins. But when it does, Time Warner likely will be out there buying, according to its largest shareholder. Heavyweight media investor Gordon Crawford, managing director of the Capital Group, figures that Time Warner will continue to trim down and will eventually sell its huge magazine unit.
Journalists Leave Full-time Jobs to Work for Texas Tribune, Embrace Uncertainty (Poynter Online)
Elise Hu, Matt Stiles and Emily Ramshaw are all award-winning journalists who had full-time jobs at some of Texas' largest media outlets -- KVUE-TV in Austin, the Houston Chronicle and The Dallas Morning News, respectively.
But in August, they quit their jobs for new opportunities at the Texas Tribune, a nonprofit news site that is set to launch Nov. 3 and has raised enough money to sustain itself for about three years.
Why would journalists leave a full-time job at an established news organization to work for a start-up? For Hu, Stiles and Ramshaw, a better question is, "Why not?"
L.A. Times Front Page Headline: Polanski Merely “Accused” of Sexual Assault PATTERICO
I woke up this morning to this headline on the front page of the L.A. Times:
Excuse me?
He is more than merely “accused” of unlawful sex with a minor. He pled guilty to it. And, moving on the teaser on the right for Patrick Goldstein’s piece, it will not cost the L.A. District Attorney (for whom I work but do not speak) much to “prosecute” Polanski — because we don’t have to “prosecute” him.
We need only represent the People at the sentencing for the charge to which Polanski pled guilty.
Nowhere on the front page does the paper explain to readers that Polanski pled guilty — much less mention that a 13-year-old girl testified to a grand jury that Polanski had provided her with part of a Quaalude and champagne before anally raping her and ejaculating inside her anus.
The article includes some of this information on the back pages that hardly anybody reads — the paper there reveals the drugging, the plea, and a sanitized version of the anal rape (he “forced himself on her”). But those who merely read the front page (and that’s many people, if not most) could be forgiven if they concluded that Polanski has yet to be put on trial.
This has been installment #56,447 in my ongoing series: “Why Nobody Trusts The L.A. Times.”
Whoopi Defends Polanski: ‘It wasn’t rape-rape.’ Big Hollywood
“I know it wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape.
He went to jail and and when they let him out he was like ‘You know what, this guy’s going to give me a hundred years in jail I’m not staying,’ so that’s why he left.”
WaPo Columnist (Anne Applebaum)Has Undisclosed Conflict of Interest on Roman Polanski Matter PATTERICO
snip
Applebaum failed to mention that her husband (Radoslaw Sikorski)is a Polish foreign minister who is lobbying for Polanski’s case to be dismissed:
In Polanski’s native Poland, President Lech Kaczynski and Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said they would appeal to US authorities to drop proceedings against Polanski.
The PAP news agency said Sikorski was consideri[ng] a direct appeal to US President Barack Obama to end ‘once and for all’ the proceedings against the filmmaker.
Radoslaw Sikorski is married to Anne Applebaum:
Anne Applebaum is a columnist for the Washington Post and Slate. . . . Her husband, Radoslaw Sikorski, is a Polish politician and writer.
Applebaum failed to mention this little fact.
So at the same time that she was giving readers a fact-challenged screed in support of Polanski, she was failing to disclose that her husband was a Polish official who was lobbying for Polanski’s freedom.
Email Controversy Update: NBC Continues to Deny, ALG Sticks With Story (Jewboygate)Newsbusters
The controversy over an anti-semitic email to the conservative group Americans for Limited Government allegedly sent by an NBC News producer is continuing to develop as the network is still persistently denying it was sent.
Both sides have now spoken on the telephone with each continuing to stick to their respective stories.
As reported earlier by NB's Noel Sheppard, the dispute involves an email message allegedly sent by NBC producer Jane Stone in response to a press release she was sent by ALG's director of media relations, Alex Rosenwald. According to ALG, the "Dateline" producer replied by "Bite me, Jew Boy."
There's A Reason Fox Is The Highest Rated Network (The Politicizer) McClatchy is all "Wee-Weed" up!
Liberals scoff at any person who points out the obvious fact that the mainstream media is overwhelmingly biased to the left.
And Fox News Channel, through the eyes of a liberal, is nothing but conservative propaganda. Cable news personalities on CNN and MSNBC discredit Fox, pretending that they haven’t been overshadowed by FNC’s success for years on end.
The simple reality is that, especially recently, Fox News has been the only source of quality journalism and reporting in the cable news realm.
The numbers speak for themselves; Fox is consistently on top. On the evening of Tuesday, September 15, Bill O’Reilly’s viewership was 4,039,000, followed by Hannity, Beck, Greta, Baier, and Shep Smith—all above 2 and 3 million.
The closest a rival station came to Fox was MSNBC’s Keith Olberman, at a modest 1.3 million.
So if Fox News is merely a “tool of the right” to feed the fire of the angry conservative conspiracy, then why exactly is it the most watched, most trusted and most successful cable news station?
Because it is genuine alternative media. Other cable news stations like MSNBC and CNN have apparently rejected the notion of the watch-dog media (lap-dog is more their forte these days)...
Andy Williams accuses Barack Obama of following Marxist theory (The Telegraph U.K.)
Accused Barack Obama of "following Marxist theory" and "wanting the country to fail".
Williams, a lifelong Republican whose hits include Moon River and Music To Watch Girls By, told the Radio Times he thought Mr Obama wanted to turn the US into a "socialist country".
One is the Loneliest Number PATTERICO
General Stanley McChrystal, Obama’s commander in Afghanistan, has talked to President Obama once in the past 70 days:
“McChrystal talked about his interaction with the president in an interview with CBS News.
“I’ve talked to the president since I’ve been here once on a,” he said.
“You talked to him once in 70 days?” CBS’ David Martin asked.
“That’s correct,” McChrystal said.”
Meanwhile, Obama played golf almost every weekend this summer while General McChrystal and his troops toiled in Afghanistan.
Obama also found two spare days this week to travel to Copenhagen to appear before the International Olympic Committee in support of Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics.
Obama is not serious about the war in Afghanistan.
Taking the Gloves Off PATTERICO
Obama is taking the gloves off … Michelle Obama, that is, and the fight is in Copenhagen and not Afghanistan:
“The First Lady leaves for Copenhagen tomorrow evening, and from the moment she arrives, she will begin lobbying for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.
She, White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, and TV mega mogul Oprah Winfrey will try to meet with every one of the 100+ International Olympic Committee members.
“The gloves are off!” the First Lady declared with a smile. She spoke with a handful of reporters in the State Dining room at White House, and relayed a story from last weekend’s G20 Summit in Pittsburgh.”
The Obamas feel right at home with this kind of competition:
“Mrs. Obama likened the next few days, to final days of a campaign.
Too bad General McChrystal isn’t on Obama’s speed dial because America would be far better served if the Obamas did “everything we can” to get a victory in Afghanistan instead of the Olympics for Chicago.
Even in Capitalists’ Bad Times, Europe’s Socialists Suffer [NY Times Mourns Loss of Fellow Marxists, and having to Report Facts]
PARIS — A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Socialism’s slow collapse.
Even in the midst of one of the greatest challenges to capitalism in 75 years, involving a breakdown of the financial system due to “irrational exuberance,” greed and the weakness of regulatory systems, European Socialist parties and their left-wing cousins have not found a compelling response, let alone taken advantage of the right’s failures.
German voters clobbered the Social Democratic Party on Sunday, giving it only 23 percent of the vote, its worst performance since World War II.
Voters also punished left-leaning candidates in the summer’s European Parliament elections and trounced French Socialists in 2007. Where the left holds power, as in Spain and Britain, it is under attack.
Where it is out, as in France, Italy and now Germany, it is divided and listless.
Some American conservatives demonize President Obama’s fiscal stimulus and health care overhaul as a dangerous turn toward European-style Socialism — but it is Europe’s right, not left, that is setting its political agenda.
Ironically, The left prays for socialist stagnation, but then goes out of business when it becomes reality, and then cries about getting what they asked for.
Maybe McClatchy can explain this phenomenon
Iran smolders, Afghanistan burns, and Obama heads to...Denmark (Washington Examiner)
With growing pressure for decisions on life-or-death issues in Afghanistan and Iran, this morning the White House announced that President Obama will soon travel to...Copenhagen.
Obama will be in Denmark for just a few hours -- he leaves this Thursday and returns Friday -- which is just enough time to make a pitch for Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games.
He'll be following First Lady Michelle Obama, who is also going to Copenhagen as part of the promote-Chicago team.
More: Obama and his gang of ACORN thugs joined at the hip.
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ACORN's Man in the White House
American Spectator | Mathew Vadum
Newly discovered evidence shows the radical advocacy group ACORN has a man in the Obama White House. This power behind the throne is longtime ACORN operative Patrick Gaspard. He holds the title of White House political affairs director, the same title Karl Rove held in President Bush's White House.
Convicted felons working in nursing homes (ACORN health care for seniors?) Sun Sentinel Newspaper
Florida seniors and disabled adults too frail to live on their own have been beaten, neglected and robbed by caregivers with criminal records.
A cancer patient at a Pompano Beach assisted living facility watched helplessly from bed as a nurse's aide with a record for theft rifled through her handbag and stole $165.
"What are you doing with my bag?" a police report quoted her as saying. "You have no right. Put it down."
A video camera caught an aide at a North Miami Beach group home for the disabled shoving a cerebral palsy patient face-first to the floor, busting her lip.
The aide had previously pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and never should have been working there.
If you think it is bad now - wait tile ACORN & Obama run your healthcare. Seniors and baby boomers you have been warned. Just wait til you are old and on the floor getting kicked like the person in this story.
CBC member: Health insurance penalties 'indefensible' (Thehill.com)
Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), an often contrarian member of the Congressional Black Caucus, on Sunday called proposed penalties against small business that do not provide their workers health insurance, "indefensible."
The congressman addressed insurance mandates that would levy fines against small businesses of 25 or more employees that do not provide health insurance or would require a business to offer health coverage based on the size of its payroll.
"Frankly, the House leadership seems wedded to keeping that in," Davis told the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser. "And the more you look at it, the more indefensible that is."
Another school Obama cult video!!
BHO eew, eew, eew...
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North Carolina Children Recite for Obama: "Change has come" - Video
Freedom's Lighthouse
Here is another video of school children reciting praises to President Obama - this time from a school group in North Carolina. They say several times "Change has come, Change has come." About President Obama, they say: "Uniting blacks and whites...being both Obama cannot take sides." They even manage to work in Obama's Campaign themes of "Hope, Change, and Yes We Can." . . . (VIDEO)
http://www.freedomslighthouse.com/2009/09/north-carolina-children-recite-for.html
Re: Patrick Gaspard/ACORN operative in the White House. Obama’s gift to Glenn Beck for his chalkboard connecting the dots exposé. Go Glenn!
Review Ordered of Video Showing Students Singing Praises of Obama (Jesus name replaced with Obama's)
FOXNews.com
The commissioner of New Jersey's Department of Education ordered a review on Friday following the posting of a
YouTube video depicting school children singing the praises of President Obama.
One song that the children were taught quotes directly from the spiritual "Jesus Loves the Little Children," though Jesus' name is replaced with Obama's.
Teacher Caught on Tape Reassigned (I can have your parents arrested)
Fox/Houston
HOUSTON - Michael Garza's parents say they weren't sure who to believe, their 8-year-old son or his reading teacher Savonya Depland Haston.
-snip-
After Michael calls the reading teacher "ma'am," Haston is heard on the tape replying "I'm not your ma'am. If I owned you, and you were my slave, I would beat you down."
-snip
On the tape, you hear her tell the class of 7 and 8-year-olds she could have charges filed against them and their parents for lying and violating her civil rights.
"When you lie on me, I have the right to an attorney, I have the right to file charges against you and your parents. I have the right to take you straight up to the top of the Grand Jury and the federal government and file charges against your parents and garnish whatever wages are in your houses; that's the law," the reading teacher is heard on the tape telling the classroom of second graders.
So what did the Houston Independent School District decide to do about Mrs.Haston?
N.J. Principal Unapologetic for Videotape of Kids Praising Obama, Parents Say FOX
"The principal of a New Jersey elementary school where young students were videotaped singing the praises of President Obama is making no apologies for the videotape and says she would allow the performance again if she could, according to parents who spoke with her Thursday night."
Uncovered Audio: Obama’s ‘Safe Schools Czar’ Encouraged Child Sex With Older Man
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Fox News is reporting Obama has 40 czars! No one can get a handle on their expenses.
Transparency my ass!
What is this crap. I come to this site to find out what is happening at McClatchy. Instead I get a bunch of Beckers peddling non-news.
After watching the Obama indoctrination video, one can only guess what else was forced upon the children on a daily bases. The time spent practicing for this performance was child abuse in my opinion. The principal that says she would do it again, needs to be fired. Her radical agenda cannot be part of education for youngsters, she is part of the Obama cult and needs an intervention. The one good thing to come out of this exposure, is that parents are alerting their children that their teachers are politically partisan, and to tell them anytime the teacher steps over the line.
7:18 AM There is a McClatchy thread: It has one comment, and it is a good one.
-McClatchy newspaper in South Carolina looking for sales account executive-
McClatchy employees could easily gather there to communicate news with each other. Calling posters “Beckers” is so typical of liberals. No wonder so few feel sorry to see the end of the piss and moan brigade.
Breitbart News Alert! Just when you think the Obama cultism can’t get worse, it does.
"Hear our cry Obama!"
This video comes with a warning, “Difficult to watch” Breitbart has become the newsman to follow. Hot Air Pundit also has a good article about the video.
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Elect Obama (Video)
Shocking Video: Community Organizers Praying To President-
http://www.breitbart.tv/shock-discovery-community-organizers-pray-to-president-elect-obama/
CBS Outsources World News
The New York Times
Don Irvine
In an effort to expand world news coverage while reigning in costs CBS News is partnering with news site GlobalPost.
Scary story about underfunded newspaper pension plans posted on Editor & Publisher today. McClatchy took a huge nose-dive and is betting our pension plans that the economy will rally next year. If not...
Here's a bit of the story:
"At some chains, the degree to which these plans are under-funded is impressive, if not staggering.
The New York Times Co., for instance, said its plans were under-funded by $643 million. The much smaller A.H. Belo Corp. was under-funded by $575 million. McClatchy, the nation's third-largest publisher, was under-funded by $611 million at the end of 2008, but it claims that was reduced to $575 million as of the end of this year's first quarter. Gannett Co., the nation's largest newspaper chain, was under-funded by $587 million."
**Obama's Chicago Olympics**
Hey bros, Obama is only lobbying for one of his 51-57 states, the State of Chicago. Who didn’t know that? Right now, there is nothing more important than that! He owes a lot to all those dead voters in Chi town. Shh, don’t tell the Olympic Committee about the gang wars.
Our liberal troll doesn’t like to see the downfall of Obama as it unfolds in the news. Healthcare debate dishonesty, and Obama’s links to ACORN are huge stories, more than the demise of a crummy newspaper. After the corrupt media gave their all to elect Obama, losing their reputations and their jobs, looks like a real losing proposition. We are supposed to feel compassion for a bunch of liberal jerks, yeah right.
Obama has time to push a Chicago Olympics bid? What a joke! He just wants to stimulate artificial jobs for those who will have to build all the stadiums and venues for the Olympics. Olympics are huge money LOSERS.
Anon 8:41: Frightening the Kool Aid drinkers are.
Anon 8:49: Nice find!
Not everyone in Chicago wants the Olympics.
The Obama campaign fund has not paid Chicago back for the Grant Park party. Who can blame the taxpayers for being leery of the Olympic games? They are notorious for leaving debt, and tons of garbage behind.
The ACORN house of card is tumbling down, down, down.
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Acorn Housing Board Member Steps Down
By JAMES R. HAGERTY
Guillermo Loaiza, a loan officer for J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in Phoenix, has resigned from the board of Acorn Housing, a spokesman for J.P. Morgan said.
How are President Obama’s national service grants being used?
To train the next generation of union organizers, of course.
From the “Learn and Serve Clearinghouse” of lesson plans and curricular materials funded with taxpayer-subsidized service grants, here’s a course study in collective bargaining taught at the L.A. Unified School District
More at-
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/29/indoctrination-watch-how-your-tax-dollars-are-training-students-to-be-union-organizers/
Guillermo Loaiza, a loan officer for J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in Phoenix, has resigned from the board of Acorn Housing, a spokesman for J.P. Morgan said.
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LOL That would be the same J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. that swore they had absolutely no relationship with ACORN only 2 days ago?
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