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.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Thursday October 15 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments.
Day of the week in headline corrected, thanks to the readers who pointed out the goof. . . .
22 comments:
Anonymous
said...
In New Jersey, Papers Bleed but Survive (New York Observer)
One year ago, the Newhouses were threatening to close down their treasured jewel, The Star-Ledger, unless the paper’s union made a series of concessions, which included cutting the newsroom by 40percent.
They got what they wanted, and it seemed like things could go back to normal, albeit with fewer deckhands on the ship.
Yet on Monday, George Arwady, the publisher of the The Star-Ledger, wrote in a memo to staff that “the revenue situation at our newspaper has worsened this year, and we expect a further significant revenue decline next year.”
Now, the paper needs to cut 50 more jobs, with roughly 25 from the newsroom.
“The state of newspapers today—I’m speaking about all newspapers, not specifically our own—is that revenue is still a very serious problem,” said Donald Newhouse, the owner of Advance Publications (which owns The Star-Ledger) and the brother of Si Newhouse.
When asked if he would again consider closing the paper, Mr. Newhouse said, “No.”
“Last year we faced a specific situation in which we told our employees that if certain things did not happen, we would close the The Star-Ledger,” he said.
“The things we said needed to be accomplished were accomplished.” That’s wonderful news, but it doesn’t stop the bleeding. Can New Jersey’s largest paper sustain itself in this grim climate with such a diminished newsroom?
Fox News points out that “a study by the Pew Research Center showed that 40 percent of Fox News stories on Obama in the last six weeks of the campaign were negative.
Similarly, 40 percent of Fox News’ stories on Obama’s Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, were negative.
On CNN, by contrast, there was a 22-point disparity in the percentage of negative stories on Obama (39 percent) and McCain (61 percent).
The disparity was even greater at MSNBC, according to Pew, where just 14 percent of Obama stories were negative, compared to a whopping 73 percent of McCain stories — a spread of 59 points.”
Perhaps if FNC started fact-checking SNL skits critical of Obama, the White House would start considering it a real “news network the way CNN is.”
The White House targets independent media (Washington Times)
Let's face it. Fox News runs stories that the Obama administration would rather ignore - from the sleaziness and corruption in the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) to the bizarre views and actions of senior presidential appointees such as Van Jones and Kevin Jennings.
Last weekend, the Obama administration declared war.
"We're going to treat [Fox News] the way we would treat an opponent," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director.
She claimed, "We don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave." The administration has begun using a government blog to regularly attack what it calls "Fox lies."
The administration already was boycotting the network. In late September, President Obama had time to answer questions from CBS' "Face the Nation," NBC's "Meet the Press," ABC's "This Week," CNN's "State of the Union" and Univision's "Al Punto," but not "Fox News Sunday."
There is irony in Miss Dunn complaining to the New York Times about Fox News being "an opponent" and that "people who watch Fox News believe it's the home team." . . . .
WSJ takes top spot among daily papers; staff toast at 5 pm UPDATE(Politico)
Rupert Murdoch may have always wanted—still wants?—to own the New York Times, but the press baron can now boast of owning the top-circulating U.S. paper: The Wall Street Journal.
Staffers in New York were sent a memo today with the subject, “A Toast to our Success – Today at the Hub @ 5:00 pm.”
No word on whether Murdoch will be in attendance, as staffers in the paper’s headquarters celebrate not only taking the number one spot, but continuing to see circulation growth—a rarity in the newspaper industry.
Six months ago, the Journal was the only Top 25 daily to gain in circulation, edging closer to USA Today. When the latest round of numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations are released next week, the Journal will come out on top, according to Editor & Publisher.
While the Journal’s circulation rose to 2.02 million copies over the past six months, USA Today dropped 17 percen, down to 1.88 million.
USA Today has been hurt by Marriott discontinuing its practice of automatically delivering copies of the paper outside guests’ room.
Freedom Communications faces first major bankruptcy hearing (O.C. Register)
Freedom Communications Inc., the parent of the Orange County Register, heads into bankruptcy court Wednesday for its first major duel with its unsecured creditors.
At issue is a series of motions that could determine the course of the case and how much, if anything, the creditors ultimately get paid.
The unsecured creditors are angry because the proposed plan lays out a five-month, fast-track process that would give Freedom to the lenders in return for access to the lenders’ cash during the course of the bankruptcy.
The plan gives the unsecured creditors, who together are owed more than $300 million, just $5 million — less than two pennies on the dollar.
At the same time, the plan allows the current owners, including members of the founding Hoiles family, to retain a 2 percent stake in the reorganized company and warrants to purchase up to 10% more.
In a typical bankruptcy, existing shareholders are wiped out if unsecured creditors get less than they are owed.
In addition, the creditors committee objects to the fact that some creditors, “hand-picked” by Freedom, would get paid in full while the majority of general unsecured get “single digit cents on the dollar.” And if the creditors don’t agree to the plan, they will get nothing.
The creditors called the plan “economically draconian.” Freedom, in a terse five-page response, basically said its motion and proposed plan is not anything out of the ordinary and should be approved by the court.
After months of hunting for a buyer, The New York Times Company said on Wednesday that it had decided not to sell The Boston Globe, the newspaper it threatened last spring to close because of mounting losses.
The Globe did not draw high bids, and the company chairman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said last month that the paper’s finances had improved enough that the company no longer believed it had to sell if the offers were not attractive enough.
Executives said this year that the paper was on track to lose $85 million in 2009, before making painful cost cuts that included wage, benefit and job security concessions from union employees. But even after those expense reductions, analysts say, The Globe probably does not operate in the black.
Soviet style news writing, "After months of hunting for a buyer, The New York Times Company said on Wednesday that it had decided not to sell The Boston Globe."
No serious bids were made, thats my interpretation. Gotta read the Soviet papers between the lines.
Mich. jobless rate up to 15.3 percent in Sept. (Democrat run for 50 years) AP
LANSING, Mich. — Michigan's unemployment rate, which was the nation's highest at 15.2 percent in August, crept up to 15.3 percent in September, state officials said Wednesday.
A year ago, Michigan's jobless rate was 8.9 percent.
Florida’s ultra Lib Wexler chased from Congress by courageous conservative challenger Ed Lynch (The Collins Report)
An honest headline would read, “Lynch in a walkover: TKO’s Wexler.”
In boxing terms conservative Republican Ed Lynch has scored a TKO walkover victory against soon to be former Congressman Robert Wexler (D) Fla 19th CD.
Lynch’s courage and tenacity convinced the FBI to investigate Wexler for multiple violations of federal laws and finally forced Wexler to slither away rather than have investigators prove he doesn’t live in Florida let alone his district.
Lynch’s campaign commented that, “For all practical purposes, Wexler quit representing his constituents and stopped carrying out the real responsibilities of a Congressman long before his resignation...
He was not a resident of the state of Florida, and his cameo appearances in the District were few and far between.
Some of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides, none of whom faced Senate confirmation, earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other Wall Street firms, according to financial disclosure forms.
The advisers include Gene Sperling, who last year took in $887,727 from Goldman Sachs and $158,000 for speeches mostly to financial companies, including the firm run by accused Ponzi scheme mastermind R. Allen Stanford.
Another top aide, Lee Sachs, reported more than $3 million in salary and partnership income from Mariner Investment Group, a New York hedge fund.
As part of Geithner’s kitchen cabinet, Sperling and Sachs wield influence behind the scenes at the Treasury Department, where they help oversee the $700 billion banking rescue and craft executive pay rules and the revamp of financial regulations.
Yet they haven’t faced the public scrutiny given to Senate-confirmed appointees, nor are they compelled to testify in Congress to defend or explain the Treasury’s policies
Census Won’t Ask About ‘Legal Status’ (Sweetness-light)
Census Bureau knocks Sen. David Vitter’s proposal to ask about immigration status
The Commerce Department and Census Bureau declared Tuesday that an amendment by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., to require the 2010 census to ask all persons their citizenship and immigration status would scuttle any chance that the census could be done on time and would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
snip
The decennial census, required by the Constitution to count all "persons," is used for the purposes of congressional apportionment and legislative redistricting.
The result is that places with more people — regardless of their status — get more representation.
Why did the framers want us to conduct a census every ten years?
Was it not so that we could accurately proportion representation in the House of Representatives?
So what could be more important than determining who should or who should not be represented?
As Sen. Vitter notes, as things stand now states with large populations of illegal aliens are getting more representatives in Congress than they are entitled to.
The Congress is suppose to represent citizens, not just anybody who happens to be in the country.
Senate committee confirms Baucus plan will lower wages (Hot Air)
The Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation has analyzed the excise tax in the Baucus plan and come to the logical conclusion that it will raise prices for insurance policies.
In two letters issued yesterday, the JCT acknowledged that the increased premium costs for health-insurance plans that qualify for the excise tax will increase costs to employers offering them, depressing wages directly or indirectly as a result, depending on whether they impose the total cost increase on employees.
The second letter demonstrates that the effect of the Baucus plan and its disappearing subsidies on lower-income workers is to force them into a higher tax bracket, disincentivizing gains in employment.
Wait until the voters figure out how Congress is proposing to pay for reform.
Now that the Senate Finance Committee has voted for the health-care bill drafted by Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, negotiations over the real bill can begin in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's cozy Capitol hideaway. It won't be easy.
Democrats now face a central problem for any governing party: How to pass a major piece of legislation when there are a lot of sharply different ideas about what should be in it.
Trying to reconcile what Democrats in the House prefer with what Democrats in the Senate want is already opening up divisions among the party's supporters.
Pathway for the elderly that leads to legal execution (The Telegraph UK)
At around 4am on Monday, a friend of mine was woken by a call from the private care home in south-west London where her 98-year-old grandmother is resident.
"Mrs ------- has breathing difficulties," the night manager told her. "She needs oxygen. Shall we call an ambulance?"
"What do you mean?" my friend responded. "What's the matter with her?"
"She needs to go to hospital. Do you want that? Or would you prefer that we make her comfortable?"
Befuddled by sleep, she didn't immediately grasp what was being asked of her. Her grandmother is immobilised by a calcified knee joint, which is why she is in the home.
Why wouldn't she get medical treatment if she needed it?
Then, the chilling implication of the phone call filtered through – she was being asked whether her grandmother should be allowed to die.
"Call an ambulance now," my friend demanded. The person at the other end persisted.
"Are you sure that's what you want? For her to go to hospital."
Joe Scarborough is under intense pressure to perform as he goes head-to-head with old foe Don Imus.
MSNBC chiefs have been nervously watching the ratings since Imus' show on the Fox Business Network started airing at the same time as Scarborough's "Morning Joe" earlier this month.
Scarborough was hit with a further blow this week when his radio show was dropped by DC radio station WMAL.
A source told Page Six: "Those higher up at MSNBC are unnerved by Imus' move to Fox Business Network and fear his show could push Scarborough down. They're putting a lot of pressure on Joe to keep the ratings up. To make things worse, there are multiple scores to be settled."
Tom Bowman, Imus' old producer at MSNBC, jumped to Fox Business with him, and is said to have harsh feelings toward Scarborough and his executive producer, Chris Licht. "So they [Imus and Bowman] are out to win," said our source.
22 comments:
In New Jersey, Papers Bleed but Survive (New York Observer)
One year ago, the Newhouses were threatening to close down their treasured jewel, The Star-Ledger, unless the paper’s union made a series of concessions, which included cutting the newsroom by 40percent.
They got what they wanted, and it seemed like things could go back to normal, albeit with fewer deckhands on the ship.
Yet on Monday, George Arwady, the publisher of the The Star-Ledger, wrote in a memo to staff that “the revenue situation at our newspaper has worsened this year, and we expect a further significant revenue decline next year.”
Now, the paper needs to cut 50 more jobs, with roughly 25 from the newsroom.
“The state of newspapers today—I’m speaking about all newspapers, not specifically our own—is that revenue is still a very serious problem,” said Donald Newhouse, the owner of Advance Publications (which owns The Star-Ledger) and the brother of Si Newhouse.
When asked if he would again consider closing the paper, Mr. Newhouse said, “No.”
“Last year we faced a specific situation in which we told our employees that if certain things did not happen, we would close the The Star-Ledger,” he said.
“The things we said needed to be accomplished were accomplished.”
That’s wonderful news, but it doesn’t stop the bleeding. Can New Jersey’s largest paper sustain itself in this grim climate with such a diminished newsroom?
NYT terminates attempt to sell Globe, (Boston.com)
(Translation: No buyers)
Fox News points out that “a study by the Pew Research Center showed that 40 percent of Fox News stories on Obama in the last six weeks of the campaign were negative.
Similarly, 40 percent of Fox News’ stories on Obama’s Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, were negative.
On CNN, by contrast, there was a 22-point disparity in the percentage of negative stories on Obama (39 percent) and McCain (61 percent).
The disparity was even greater at MSNBC, according to Pew, where just 14 percent of Obama stories were negative, compared to a whopping 73 percent of McCain stories — a spread of 59 points.”
Perhaps if FNC started fact-checking SNL skits critical of Obama, the White House would start considering it a real “news network the way CNN is.”
The White House targets independent media (Washington Times)
Let's face it. Fox News runs stories that the Obama administration would rather ignore - from the sleaziness and corruption in the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) to the bizarre views and actions of senior presidential appointees such as Van Jones and Kevin Jennings.
Last weekend, the Obama administration declared war.
"We're going to treat [Fox News] the way we would treat an opponent," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director.
She claimed, "We don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave." The administration has begun using a government blog to regularly attack what it calls "Fox lies."
The administration already was boycotting the network. In late September, President Obama had time to answer questions from CBS' "Face the Nation," NBC's "Meet the Press," ABC's "This Week," CNN's "State of the Union" and Univision's "Al Punto," but not "Fox News Sunday."
There is irony in Miss Dunn complaining to the New York Times about Fox News being "an opponent" and that "people who watch Fox News believe it's the home team." . . . .
WSJ takes top spot among daily papers; staff toast at 5 pm UPDATE(Politico)
Rupert Murdoch may have always wanted—still wants?—to own the New York Times, but the press baron can now boast of owning the top-circulating U.S. paper: The Wall Street Journal.
Staffers in New York were sent a memo today with the subject, “A Toast to our Success – Today at the Hub @ 5:00 pm.”
No word on whether Murdoch will be in attendance, as staffers in the paper’s headquarters celebrate not only taking the number one spot, but continuing to see circulation growth—a rarity in the newspaper industry.
Six months ago, the Journal was the only Top 25 daily to gain in circulation, edging closer to USA Today. When the latest round of numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations are released next week, the Journal will come out on top, according to Editor & Publisher.
While the Journal’s circulation rose to 2.02 million copies over the past six months, USA Today dropped 17 percen, down to 1.88 million.
USA Today has been hurt by Marriott discontinuing its practice of automatically delivering copies of the paper outside guests’ room.
Tribune Co. says it's trimming papers' width, depth unaffected (wink-wink)
Tribune Co. is trimming the margins of its daily newspapers in an effort to improve its financial margins.
All its daily newspapers -- including the Chicago Tribune -- will adopt a web width of 44 inches in the coming months, the company confirmed Tuesday.
Web width is a measurement of the size of a roll of paper for the presses, and for consumers it translates to the width of four broadsheet pages.
By reducing the web width, the papers should realize a cost savings because less newsprint is required.
Freedom Communications faces first major bankruptcy hearing (O.C. Register)
Freedom Communications Inc., the parent of the Orange County Register, heads into bankruptcy court Wednesday for its first major duel with its unsecured creditors.
At issue is a series of motions that could determine the course of the case and how much, if anything, the creditors ultimately get paid.
The unsecured creditors are angry because the proposed plan lays out a five-month, fast-track process that would give Freedom to the lenders in return for access to the lenders’ cash during the course of the bankruptcy.
The plan gives the unsecured creditors, who together are owed more than $300 million, just $5 million — less than two pennies on the dollar.
At the same time, the plan allows the current owners, including members of the founding Hoiles family, to retain a 2 percent stake in the reorganized company and warrants to purchase up to 10% more.
In a typical bankruptcy, existing shareholders are wiped out if unsecured creditors get less than they are owed.
In addition, the creditors committee objects to the fact that some creditors, “hand-picked” by Freedom, would get paid in full while the majority of general unsecured get “single digit cents on the dollar.” And if the creditors don’t agree to the plan, they will get nothing.
The creditors called the plan “economically draconian.”
Freedom, in a terse five-page response, basically said its motion and proposed plan is not anything out of the ordinary and should be approved by the court.
Times Co. Will Hold On to Boston Globe (NY Times)
After months of hunting for a buyer, The New York Times Company said on Wednesday that it had decided not to sell The Boston Globe, the newspaper it threatened last spring to close because of mounting losses.
The Globe did not draw high bids, and the company chairman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said last month that the paper’s finances had improved enough that the company no longer believed it had to sell if the offers were not attractive enough.
Executives said this year that the paper was on track to lose $85 million in 2009, before making painful cost cuts that included wage, benefit and job security concessions from union employees. But even after those expense reductions, analysts say, The Globe probably does not operate in the black.
Soviet style news writing, "After months of hunting for a buyer, The New York Times Company said on Wednesday that it had decided not to sell The Boston Globe."
No serious bids were made, thats my interpretation. Gotta read the Soviet papers between the lines.
MW- Check the day 'Monday', change to Thursday.
This citizen editor thanks you for your blog.
Which dies first the Globe or the Herald? The Globe. Two reasons:
1. The Herald learned long ago how to scrimp and save, getting by on porridge. The Globe doesn't have that kind of background.
2. The Times is in big trouble, too. They'll scuttle The Globe before it pulls the mother ship under.
Mich. jobless rate up to 15.3 percent in Sept. (Democrat run for 50 years) AP
LANSING, Mich. — Michigan's unemployment rate, which was the nation's highest at 15.2 percent in August, crept up to 15.3 percent in September, state officials said Wednesday.
A year ago, Michigan's jobless rate was 8.9 percent.
Florida’s ultra Lib Wexler chased from Congress by courageous conservative challenger Ed Lynch
(The Collins Report)
An honest headline would read, “Lynch in a walkover: TKO’s Wexler.”
In boxing terms conservative Republican Ed Lynch has scored a TKO walkover victory against soon to be former Congressman Robert Wexler (D) Fla 19th CD.
Lynch’s courage and tenacity convinced the FBI to investigate Wexler for multiple violations of federal laws and finally forced Wexler to slither away rather than have investigators prove he doesn’t live in Florida let alone his district.
Lynch’s campaign commented that, “For all practical purposes, Wexler quit representing his constituents and stopped carrying out the real responsibilities of a Congressman long before his resignation...
He was not a resident of the state of Florida, and his cameo appearances in the District were few and far between.
Where’s The Pay Czar? Geithner Aides (Bloomberg:)
Some of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides, none of whom faced Senate confirmation, earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other Wall Street firms, according to financial disclosure forms.
The advisers include Gene Sperling, who last year took in $887,727 from Goldman Sachs and $158,000 for speeches mostly to financial companies, including the firm run by accused Ponzi scheme mastermind R. Allen Stanford.
Another top aide, Lee Sachs, reported more than $3 million in salary and partnership income from Mariner Investment Group, a New York hedge fund.
As part of Geithner’s kitchen cabinet, Sperling and Sachs wield influence behind the scenes at the Treasury Department, where they help oversee the $700 billion banking rescue and craft executive pay rules and the revamp of financial regulations.
Yet they haven’t faced the public scrutiny given to Senate-confirmed appointees, nor are they compelled to testify in Congress to defend or explain the Treasury’s policies
Census Won’t Ask About ‘Legal Status’ (Sweetness-light)
Census Bureau knocks Sen. David Vitter’s proposal to ask about immigration status
The Commerce Department and Census Bureau declared Tuesday that an amendment by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., to require the 2010 census to ask all persons their citizenship and immigration status would scuttle any chance that the census could be done on time and would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
snip
The decennial census, required by the Constitution to count all "persons," is used for the purposes of congressional apportionment and legislative redistricting.
The result is that places with more people — regardless of their status — get more representation.
Why did the framers want us to conduct a census every ten years?
Was it not so that we could accurately proportion representation in the House of Representatives?
So what could be more important than determining who should or who should not be represented?
As Sen. Vitter notes, as things stand now states with large populations of illegal aliens are getting more representatives in Congress than they are entitled to.
The Congress is suppose to represent citizens, not just anybody who happens to be in the country.
Senate committee confirms Baucus plan will lower wages (Hot Air)
The Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation has analyzed the excise tax in the Baucus plan and come to the logical conclusion that it will raise prices for insurance policies.
In two letters issued yesterday, the JCT acknowledged that the increased premium costs for health-insurance plans that qualify for the excise tax will increase costs to employers offering them, depressing wages directly or indirectly as a result, depending on whether they impose the total cost increase on employees.
The second letter demonstrates that the effect of the Baucus plan and its disappearing subsidies on lower-income workers is to force them into a higher tax bracket, disincentivizing gains in employment.
Obama Hasn't Closed the Health-Care Sale (WSJ)
Wait until the voters figure out how Congress is proposing to pay for reform.
Now that the Senate Finance Committee has voted for the health-care bill drafted by Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, negotiations over the real bill can begin in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's cozy Capitol hideaway. It won't be easy.
Democrats now face a central problem for any governing party: How to pass a major piece of legislation when there are a lot of sharply different ideas about what should be in it.
Trying to reconcile what Democrats in the House prefer with what Democrats in the Senate want is already opening up divisions among the party's supporters.
Pathway for the elderly that leads to legal execution (The Telegraph UK)
At around 4am on Monday, a friend of mine was woken by a call from the private care home in south-west London where her 98-year-old grandmother is resident.
"Mrs ------- has breathing difficulties," the night manager told her. "She needs oxygen. Shall we call an ambulance?"
"What do you mean?" my friend responded. "What's the matter with her?"
"She needs to go to hospital. Do you want that? Or would you prefer that we make her comfortable?"
Befuddled by sleep, she didn't immediately grasp what was being asked of her. Her grandmother is immobilised by a calcified knee joint, which is why she is in the home.
Why wouldn't she get medical treatment if she needed it?
Then, the chilling implication of the phone call filtered through – she was being asked whether her grandmother should be allowed to die.
"Call an ambulance now," my friend demanded. The person at the other end persisted.
"Are you sure that's what you want? For her to go to hospital."
6:19 fixed, thanks.
Imus rattling MSNBC nerves (NEW YORK POST)
Joe Scarborough is under intense pressure to perform as he goes head-to-head with old foe Don Imus.
MSNBC chiefs have been nervously watching the ratings since Imus' show on the Fox Business Network started airing at the same time as Scarborough's "Morning Joe" earlier this month.
Scarborough was hit with a further blow this week when his radio show was dropped by DC radio station WMAL.
A source told Page Six: "Those higher up at MSNBC are unnerved by Imus' move to Fox Business Network and fear his show could push Scarborough down. They're putting a lot of pressure on Joe to keep the ratings up. To make things worse, there are multiple scores to be settled."
Tom Bowman, Imus' old producer at MSNBC, jumped to Fox Business with him, and is said to have harsh feelings toward Scarborough and his executive producer, Chris Licht. "So they [Imus and Bowman] are out to win," said our source.
Wait. Two Sacramento Bee editorial jobs open?
http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=1110872
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