Nancy Pelosi Extreme Makeover Working — (Not Her Facelifts) Her Transformation from San Francisco Liberal Progressive to Kindly Grandma, Italian Catholic

By Mick Gregory

Newt Gingrich has exposed the lies of Nancy Pelosi and is calling her actions the worst example of political power and damaging lies he has ever experienced in his lifetime. Watch the new Democrat one-party system ignor Pelosi’s poison and turn it on the few remaining Republicans.

 

 

Recent Pelosi items in the news

Chris Mathews of “Softball” calls Ms. Pelosi “a knockout.” She is amazing looking for a 68-year-old.

Update: Feb. 25, 2009 (Morning after Obama’s first State of the Union address). 

Pelosi’s face- and eye-lifts are amazing, but her biggest makeover is her political image, from a progressive Democrat/socialist, atheist, wealthy resort owner, to a middle of the road, “working class” Catholic.

 

 

Quite a makeover for newly sworn House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as her national image morphed from leader of the San Francisco liberal elite to Italian Catholic mom from Baltimore.

There was her photo-op return to the Little Italy neighborhood where she grew up as Nancy D’Alesandro, the mayor’s daughter. There was the visit to St. Leo the Great Catholic Church, where they still recite Mass in Italian several times a year.

“It’s clear Republicans are reeling today based on her outreach to Italian Catholics who, as we know, have deserted the Democratic Party in the Midwest in droves,” said San Francisco power attorney Joe Cotchett, who was among those attending the Pelosi swearing in.

While the marathon events in the nation’s capital might have resembled a coronation, those most familiar with how Washington works said Pelosi’s time in the spotlight amounted to well-calculated politics that could help her move her agenda in her first 100 days.

“A lot of people don’t know much about her, so this is a chance to fill in her profile and biography so she doesn’t just become the San Francisco liberal,” said San Francisco consultant Chris Lehane, a veteran of the Clinton-Gore White House. “This is the one time when the press will be focusing on it.”

And it may be working.

According to the results of a Rasmussen Reports national phone survey of 800 likely voters, released Friday, Pelosi’s approval rating has jumped to 43 percent — up 19 points from November.

On the other hand, the same poll also found 39 percent of those surveyed still give Pelosi the thumbs-down.

Showing off: In politics as in movies, staging is all-important to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — and his inaugural was no exception.

Produced by Schwarzenegger family friend Carl Bendix, who has done the Academy Awards Governors Ball and other Hollywood events, and emceed by former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, the Friday affair was Hollywood through and through — including a last-minute prop to help the gimpy governor.

–Matier & Ross, SF Chronicle

Keep a score card on the liberal mainstream media. Make note that there is never a word about:

Nancy Pelosi’s age.
The age of her children — in photo-ops it is Pelosi and her youngest, prettiest grand children
Her resort, Napa Valley vineyards, and high-end restaurants and use of non-union and illegal immigrant labor.
Her total support of partial birth abortion.
How she gained the votes from Democrats for first, minority leader and now majority leader.

Notice how the San Francisco reporters go with the spin, calling her a “mom” and not mentioning any of these items.

That’s why citizen journalists are filling the void.

Obama Creating the United Socialist States of Amerika — trillions spent on Big Government programs

Back in the USSA. We don’t know how lucky we are, eh! Back in the USSA! 

WE GOT YOUR  MONEY     GONNA SPEND YOUR  MONEY   GONNA PRINT SOME MORE  MONEY

 

Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), said Gibbs was trying to create a distraction by responding to Limbaugh.

“What we are seeing is a desperate attempt by Democrats to distract attention away from a multi-trillion dollar spending spree taking place in Washington,” Ferrier said. “Creating a boogeyman to change the subject does nothing to alter the fact that there are 9,000 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill, that the economic stimulus bill contained no Republican input or that their budget would increase taxes on all Americans.”

Mick Gregory

The EU is on the verge of crumbling as Obama and Gordy Brown use the banking crisis to nationalize and build more power for central government.

Historians will look back and say this was no ordinary time but a defining moment: an unprecedented period of global change, and a time when one chapter ended and another began.

The scale and the speed of the global banking crisis has at times been almost overwhelming, and I know that in countries everywhere people who rely on their banks for savings have been feeling powerless and afraid. But it is when times become harder and challenges greater that across the world countries must show vision, leadership and courage – and, while we can do a great deal nationally, we can do even more working together internationally. — Gordy Brown, UK Prime Minister

Anyone who took Economics 101 remembers the root cause of inflation — the central government prints massive amounts of currency. Change is coming. Inflation is coming my friends. From near zero under Bush (the evil one) to what may rival Zimbabwa in about a year or two. 

What will happen to the Democrat/Socialist Party’s plan to tax “only the rich?” We will all be the rich. Any two income household making over $210,000 will be taxed at the super high rates of Jimmy Carter, LBJ and FDR. 

That is coming. Bet on it. We will be wards of the state with more than 50 percent of our wealth taxed by the Democrats. The home mortgage deduction has been taken away from those like Joe the Plumber. Welcome to the USSA. We don’t know how lucky we are, eh! 

 

 

 

Back on Uncle Sam’s plantation 
Star Parker – Syndicated Columnist – 2/9/2009 8:00:00 AM

 

Six years ago I wrote a book called Uncle Sam’s Plantation. I wrote the book to tell my own story of what I saw living inside thewelfare state and my own transformation out of it.

I said in that book that indeed there are two Americas — a poor America on socialism and a wealthy America on 
capitalism. 
 
I talked about government programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS), Emergency Assistance to Needy Families with Children (EANF), Section 8 Housing, and Food Stamps.

A vast sea of perhaps well-intentioned government programs, all initially set into motion in the 1960s, that were going to lift the nation’s poor out of poverty.

A benevolent Uncle Sam welcomed mostly poor black Americans onto the government plantation. Those who accepted the invitation switched mindsets from “How do I take care of myself?” to “What do I have to do to stay on the plantation?”

Instead of solving economic problems, government welfare socialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems — the kind of problems that are inevitable when individuals turn responsibility for their lives over to others.

The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools, and broke n black families.

Through God’s grace, I found my way out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this country is.

I had the privilege of working on welfare reform in 1996, passed by a Republican Congress and signed 50 percent.

I thought we were on the road to moving socialism out of our poor black communities and replacing it with wealth-producingAmerican capitalism.

But, incredibly, we are going in the opposite direction.

Instead of poor America on socialism becoming more like rich American on capitalism, rich America on capitalism is becoming like poor America on socialism.

Uncle Sam has welcomed our banks onto the plantation and they have said, “Thank you, Suh.”

Now, instead of thinking about what creative things need to be done to serve customers, they are thinking about what they have to tell Massah in order to get their cash.

There is some kind of irony that this is all happening under our first black president on the 200th anniversary of the birthday ofAbraham Lincoln.

Worse, socialism seems to be the element of our new young president. And maybe even more troubling, our corporate executives seem happy to move onto the plantation.

In an op-ed on the opinion page of the Washington Post, Mr. Obama is clear that the goal of his trillion dollar spending plan is much more than short term economic stimulus.

“This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending — it’s a strategy for America ‘s long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, healthcare, and education.”

Perhaps more incredibly, Obama seems to think that government taking over an economy is a new idea. Or that massive growth in government can take place “with unprecedented transparency and accountability.”

Yes, sir, we heard it from Jimmy Carter when he created the Department of Energy, the Synfuels Corporation, and the Department of Education.

Or how about the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 — The War on Poverty — which President Johnson said “…does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done. It charts a new course. It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty.”

Trillions of dollars later, black poverty is the same. But black families are not, with triple the incidence of single-parent homes and out-of-wedlock births.

It’s not complicated. Americans can accept Barack Obama‘s invitation to move onto the plantation. Or they can choose personal responsibility and freedom.

Does anyone really need to think about what the choice should be?

 

The Star Tribune bankrupt

By Mick Gregory

We are observing the death throws of a star on its way to becoming a white dwarf. Gasses spewing, used matter is shredded and  thrown out. The size of the once bright, powerful force rapidly shrinks as it collapses on itself. These are the telltale signs of a dying star.

The Star Tribune, once among the Midwest’s largest newspapers, was purchased by the Sacramento-based McClatchy media company in 1998. The “executive editors”  paid $1.2 billion for it from a family who wanted out of the business.

In less than 10 years, the rapid growth of Google, Drudgereport, Craigslist, E-Bay, FaceBook and WordPress lured away much of the newspaper audience and built new readers/users that were not newspaper-friendly. So the advertising found new rising stars.

Last year, Avista, a New York-based private equity group, purchased the dying Star Tribune for less than half of what McClatchy paid only eight years earlier.

Since Avista’s purchase, the star has been shedding  reporters, editors, photographers, advertising sales staff and designers through two rounds of buyouts and the elimination of open positions. That was just a show for creditors.

Now, in January of 2008, the Star-Tribune filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 

The Star Tribune’s long-term business slump has continued, with revenue declining by about 25 percent, from $400 million in 2000 to $300 million last year, according to a Star Tribune story in July. While major expenses such as newsprint and transportation  increased.  Even those adult newspaper carriers throwning papers out of the window of their pickups, need to be paid.

Several weeks ago, Avista announced that it was writing down the value of its $100 million equity investment in the Star Tribune to $25 million. That’s $75 million wiped out in one year. The Star shed more than $1.15 billion in value over nine years. The new owners are getting pennies on the dollar trying to restructure their debt.

The only candidates for buying into debt-ridden newspapers now are hedge funds, especially those that make a specialty of distressed debt investments, according to several industry observers. It’s called a loan-to-own strategy, they calculate that the owners like Avista will default on their new loans and the fund becomes the new owner for pennies on the dollar. What’s left may be some downtown real estate and a false store-front Web site. This is the white dwarf stage. And there are hundreds more flickering, spewing gas and spitting out  used up matter.

The Media Mob Snobs.

The battle for dominance between the mainstream media and citizen journalists is boiling. Some have their panties in a bunch.

By Mick Gregory

James Lewis at American Thinker, penned this gem about “The Media Mob”:

Like other unaccountable elites, they are monumentally fickle, self-indulgent, snobbish, vain, vulgar, entitled, incestuous, arrogant, ignorant, unprincipled, hysterical, and demagogic. They sound like a unified chorus for the same reasons that street mobs run as a group — because by and large, they don’t dare to stand alone.

Pinchy — Time to fly back to the Aspen Institute to discuss how much more objective the press is than blogs. Could you pass me that organic Grey Pupon?

James Lewis nailed it. Congratulations!

Do you know the way to the San Jose unemployment office? Mercury News to cut newsroom by 40 more.

Mick Gregory

The Mercury News announced Tuesday with a press release that it will reduce its newsroom staff by 40 positions through layoffs that will take place in the coming weeks. The layoffs will leave the paper with 200 newsroom positions, down from a peak of 400, seven years ago.

The cuts are in response to declining advertising revenues, said Executive Editor Carole Leigh Hutton.
“Revenue is not growing in the Mercury News,” Hutton told the staff at a meeting Tuesday to announce the layoffs. “We have to offset some of that revenue loss with cost cuts.”

I say it’s more complicated. It seems the paper is not much different with 200 fewer reporters on the payroll. Most of the column inches are the same wire stories that every daily runs.

Readers are turning to blogs to get the news that newspapers feel is not fit to print. Instead, more on “global warming galas” attended by Democrat politicians. No coverage of Nancy Pelosi’s wealth and non-union labor.

Nothing on DiFi’s military funding conflicts of interest.
There are many good reasons to stop reading the Merky News.

Since 2000, the newspaper’s revenues have declined 36 percent. This will be the third news-staff reduction in 18 months at the Mercury News, which gave buyouts to 52 staff members in November 2005 and laid off 15 in December 2006.
“We have to look to the future and figure out how we are going to transform ourselves to a new platform,” said Newspaper Guild local President Sylvia Ulloa. “If we’re smart, we’re going to invest in our people, we’re not going to cut them. That’s where the future lies.”

The announcement comes as the San Francisco Chronicle eliminates 100 newsroom jobs, a reduction forced by losses estimated to be running approximately $1 million a week.

The Mercury News is part of a Bay Area-wide group that has more than 800 newsroom employees at 16 newspapers. Watch that number to be cut to 400 in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Gannett, which runs the tightest ship, though it too is taking in water, has dropped it PC plan of hiring three summer interns from Black colleges.

You never read about the dozens of long-time employees let go from their vast newspaper empire, it’s averaging about 10 a month lately; but when when three interns of color are dropped, now that makes news.

Gannett was forced to make “quick and drastic” budget cuts that left three interns without summer jobs at a Montgomery, Ala. newspaper.

“I would not have done this if I had any other choice,” [Wanda] Lloyd, editor of the Montgomery Advertiser, told Richard Prince’s Journal-isms.
According to Prince, the decision came after the Black College Wire interns had already made preparations to go to Alabama, including taking urine tests. Lloyd said that after a recent meeting of Gannett publishers, she was told by her publisher, Scott Brown, that the newspaper would be asked to take a look at possible cuts for the rest of 2007.

Hilly and Billy Clinton had to disclose the contents of their investments by the office of governement ethics. The story finally gets out. Their investments were in Wal-Mart, oil companies and military contract companies. Who knew?

Mick Gregory

Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton — the cute progressive couple, liquidated the contents of their investments of $5 million to $25 million that might very well pose conflicts of interest or prove to be embarrassing to her presidential campaign that will be in full swing a year from now. They hope (and pretty well know) that their liberal followers will forgive them or forget over the next year. Major newspapers will consider it “old news.”

It’s up to blogs to report the news that you can use to make informed decisions.

This just in: the Clintons, when away from their New York residence, which is nearly always these days, charge the US Secret Service the exact price of their mortage for the right “to stay” at their home.
By the way, how “green” is their house?

Back to the big story that will not get much play in the New York Times or Washington Post.

The investment trust and a bank account valued in the range place the Clinton’s total wealth at between $10 million and $50 million.

The Clintons had to disclose their investiments in April under instructions from the Office of Government Ethics and sold their assets in May, according to a disclosure form filed Friday.

Over time, the Clintons’ investments grew significantly and included stock holdings in oil and drug companies, military contractors and Wal-Mart.

The report, also filed with the Federal Election Commission, provides the most detailed look at the Clintons’ holdings as their wealth has expanded since the former presidential couple left the White House in 2001.

The new report also shows that the former president made $16 million in speaking fees between January 2006 and Wednesday. That was 100 times more than any other former president in history.

So far this year, Bill Clinton has given 34 paid speeches for a total of $5.9 million. He will be giving some of that to Hilly and legally under the McCaine Finegold election reform law they pushed through the major media, then congress.

Their investments held stock in pharmaceutical companies, including $250,000-$500,000 in Biogen Idec and Johnson & Johnson and $100,000- $250,000 in Amgen, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline. It also invested in General Electric and Raytheon, two leading bomb makers contractors. The trust had a varied portfolio, with investments in numerous other companies, including Exxon Mobil, BP Amoco, Walt Disney and eBay.

The report said all the proceeds of the sales are being placed in a cash account. The massive unloading of stock means the Clintons face “substantial” capital gains taxes. So their last tax statement will show that they payed their “fair share” in taxes for next year’s final stretch of the election.

(Scratcing, “I don’t remember reading that anywhere in my daily newspaper?”

What do progressives think of that? Do you think they care?

Two Parties on Mondays in San Francisco–One for the success of new media at WordPress, the other about 100 layoffs of old media at The Chronicle

By Mick Gregory

It is the best of times for citizen journalists; and it is the worst of times for the old media.
Monday, Bloody Monday, As Axe Swings At SF Chronicle

The first of 100 job cuts took place at the SF Chronicle on Monday. The axe fell swiftly. Several managers were the first to receive news they no longer have a job.

Some had worked there for decades, making quite a bit over scale. Some in the six figures.

“You know times are bad when executive editor Phil Bronstein gives the boot to men and women who have been his colleagues for years — some all the way back to his early tenure at the Examiner,” writes Frances Dinkelspiel. Managing editor Robert Rosenthal left on Friday. By Monday, nine other top newsroom managers — including deputy and assistant managing editors — had been let go. They are: John Curley, Leslie Guevarra, Steve Cook, Jim Finefrock, Paul Wilner, George Judson, Laura Impellizzeri, David Tong, and Hulda Nelson.

Next in line are 85 reporters. Many have been there for decades. Many have had “tenure,” and thought they had a job for life. Many will be slugging down shots with Guiness chasers the next four weeks. The SF Chronicle will have made one of the largest newsroom cuts of any major newspaper in the modern era.

It was a somber scene Monday evening at The Tempest, the bar on a seedy side street, that serves as a favorite watering hole for the SF Chron workers. The higher paid editors visit the posh “M” on the more fashionable corner of Fifth and Mission. Phil and Rosey have even been seen in the “W.”

The Tempest is an ironic name for a bar catering to the local print media.

Meanwhile, at a cool spot in Potrero Hill, WordPress citizen journalists had a different celebration; one million blogs have been created by the highly successful new national media. And Craigslist.org has cleaned the Chron’s clock when it comes to employment advertising.

New York Times Empire Crumbling — Road Trip! Publisher Meets and Greets at Davos, Switzerland!

By Mick Gregory

“I don’t know if we will be printing in five years, and you know what, I don’t care,” said Pinchy Suzberger, New York Times publisher.

You know what Pinchy? Most of us don’t care either!

Profits at the Times have been declining for going on five years, and the Times company’s market capitalization has been crumbling faster.

The Times wrote down the value of its New England Media Group—which includes The Boston Globe—by $814 million, resulting in the shocking quarterly drop announced last week. Oopsie!

Yet, as they hold “town hall” meetings with their working stiffs at the Boston Globe, the editors made room to hire Dean Baquet and hand him the Washington DC throne. Baquet, you may recall, is the executive editor who refused to make any more cuts at the LA Times which has a 950 person newsroom.

But Mr. Baquet, you just joined a paper that has cut some 150 journalists in the past year? No problems with that, eh?

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Janet Robinson’s pep talk: first impression

Word is, the Times Co. president/CEO faced a very tough crowd at Morrissey Boulevard today. Here’s what Media Log has heard so far:
It was a very hostile meeting. I would say most of the hostility came from the classified ad people who’re being outsourced to India. This woman–her name doesn’t matter–got up and said, she’s been there 37 years, she loves the company, and basically, how can you do this? The paper’s been cut back; we’re kicked out; is this corporate greed or what?

So Janet Robinson right off the bat had to handle this highly indignant, well-spoken classified ad person.

(Note: classified sales people are subhuman in the eyes of the far superior editorial department, so the surprisingly well spoken woman doesn’t get a name).

And she just kept on talking about how they’d had to make very difficult decisions, they wouldn’t be doing them if it wasn’t necessary. That was basically the theme: in order to save the village, we have to destroy it.

The people really kept at her about the outsourcing–that was really the main theme. Dan Totten [the Globe union head] said it was appalling and disgusting, and when did they make the decision–because let’s face it, we just agreed to this contract, and right after that they announced this outsourcing. Was that bad-faith bargaining? And [Robinson] never really gave an answer. She said [the outsourcing] had been under consideration for at least a year, but they didn’t make the final decision until the terrible results of the final quarter were known. They didn’t have a choice.

Somebody said, why do you still want us as part of [the Times Co.] portfolio? And she went on about, you’re a beacon of great journalism, people want to buy you and I admire their taste, but you’re a very important part of the company.
—thephoenix.com

Morgan Stanley, has set out on a campaign that could cost Sulzberger control over the paper. The New York Times is one of a unique few that have a two-tiered stock plan. The family holds a fraction of the stock, but they are voting stocks, the majority of the stockholders do not have a vote on decisions of the company. They ivory tower “executive editors” at the Times have been making horrible business decisions. And Morgan Stanley has been communicating the reasons why.

The details are by AFX International Focus — The New York Times has refused to list on its proxy a proposal from a Morgan Stanley investment fund that called for putting the company’s two-class share structure to a vote.

That system, which has existed since before the company went public in 1969, cements control of the company with the Ochs-Sulzberger family. The company says the control is necessary to protect the editorial integrity of the newspaper.

The Morgan Stanley fund had proposed the measure in November after expressing dissatisfaction with the company’s share price and what it called a lack of accountability to public shareholders.

Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the Times, said the Times rejected the proposal last month, with the blessing of the Securities and Exchange Commission, after determining that the issues being raised in the proposal couldn’t be voted on by holders of the company’s publicly traded stock.

Those shares, which are called Class A stock, have limited voting rights, such as electing 30 percent of the company’s directors, the approval of certain acquisitions and other matters, she said. The more powerful voting rights belong to the Class B shares, which are almost entirely controlled by the Sulzbergers.

The company rejected the proposal last December, Mathis said, but the news became public late Tuesday in a regulatory filing made by Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

And Mr. Sulzberger had to get away. He jumped on a jet to the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. Remember, that’s where Senator John Kerry called the USA a pariah to the civilized world?

Then they fit in some skiing at one of the ritziest resorts in the world.

What began as a casual chat ended in a fascinating glimpse into Sulzberger’s world, and how he sees the future of the news business.

By Eytan Avriel of Haaretz.com

Given the constant erosion of the printed press, do you see the New York Times still being printed in five years?

“I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either,” he says.

Sulzberger is focusing on how to best manage the transition from print to Internet.

“The Internet is a wonderful place to be, and we’re leading there,” he points out.

The Times, in fact, has doubled its online readership to 1.5 million a day to go along with its 1.1 million subscribers for the print edition.

Sulzberger says the New York Times is on a journey that will conclude the day the company decides to stop printing the paper. That will mark the end of the transition. It’s a long journey, and there will be bumps on the road, says the man at the driving wheel, but he doesn’t see a black void ahead.

Asked if local papers have a future, Sulzberger points out that the New York Times is not a local paper, but rather a national one based in New York that enjoys more readers from outside, than within, the city.

Classifieds have long been a major source of income to the press, but the business is moving to the Internet.

Sulzberger agrees, but what papers lose, Web sites gain. Media groups can develop their online advertising business, he explains. Also, because Internet advertising doesn’t involve paper, ink and distribution, companies can earn the same amount of money even if it receives less advertising revenue.

Really? What about the costs of development and computerization?

“These costs aren’t anywhere near what print costs,” Sulzberger says. “The last time we made a major investment in print, it cost no less than $1 billion. Site development costs don’t grow to that magnitude.”

The New York Times recently merged its print and online news desks. Did it go smoothly, or were there ruffled feathers? Which team is leading the way today?

“You know what a newspaper’s news desk is like? It’s like the emergency room at a hospital, or an office in the military. Both organizations are very goal-oriented, and both are very hard to change,” Sulzberger says.

Once change begins, it happens quickly, so the transition was difficult, he says. “But once the journalists grasped the concept, they flipped and embraced it, and supported the move.” That included veteran managers, too.

How are you preparing for changes to the paper that are dictated by the Internet?

“We live in the Internet world. We have, for example, five people working in a special development unit whose only job is to initiate and develop things related to the electronic world – Internet, cellular, whatever comes.

The average age of readers of the New York Times print edition is 42, Sulzberger says, and that hasn’t changed in 10 years. The average age of readers of its Internet edition is 37, which shows that the group is also managing to recruit young readers for both the printed version and Web site.

Also, the Times signed a deal with Microsoft to distribute the paper through a software program called Times Reader, Sulzberger says. The software enables users to conveniently read the paper on screens, mainly laptops. “I very much believe that the experience of reading a paper can be transfered to these new devices.”

Will it be free?

No, Sulzberger says. If you want to read the New York Times online, you will have to pay.

In the age of bloggers, what is the future of online newspapers and the profession in general? There are millions of bloggers out there, and if the Times forgets who and what they are, it will lose the war, and rightly so, according to Sulzberger. “We are curators, curators of news. People don’t click onto the New York Times to read blogs. They want reliable news that they can trust,” he says.

“We aren’t ignoring what’s happening. We understand that the newspaper is not the focal point of city life as it was 10 years ago.

“Once upon a time, people had to read the paper to find out what was going on in theater. Today there are hundreds of forums and sites with that information,” he says. “But the paper can integrate material from bloggers and external writers. We need to be part of that community and to have dialogue with the online world.”

And while on community, the scandal about Jayson Blair, the reporter caught plagiarizing and fabricating, hurt the brand, not the business, he says. Blair was forced to quit in May 2003.

You’re one of the few papers that continues to print on broadsheet, which people consider to be too big and clumsy. Until when?

“Until when? The New York Times has no intention of changing that,” Sulzberger promises. At any rate, transitioning from broadsheet to tabloid would be prohibitively expensive, he says.

If you own any of those secondary NY Times stocks, I think it’s time to sell.

Why Do Newspaper and TV Reporters Usually Decide Not to Describe Gunmen and Victims?

I know that the PC, AP style line is ‘don’t report race in crime unless it is absolutely necessary.’

Here is a recent random example, the first story I looked at, a shooting at Bay Area BART station late Monday afternoon left four people with bullet wounds — including the driver of a passing AC Transit bus that was pierced by bullets and a suspected gunman who may have accidentally shot himself, authorities said.

The shooting just before 6 p.m. led to chaos as authorities shut down the busy station during the evening commute, passengers tended to the wounded, and police searched for the gunmen.

Police took a juvenile suspect into custody and said it was unclear whether he was the only shooter involved.

Ralph Crane, a station agent on duty at the time, said he heard gunshots and peered out of the break room to see a teenage boy running from the bus zone. As the young man ran toward the station, a bullet struck the youth in the lower left leg, Crane said.

The young man yelled out, “I’m hit,” after he was shot just a few feet from an opening to the station that was fenced at the time, Crane said. Another person with a gunshot wound to the left thigh had made his way to the upstairs BART platform, Crane said.

Also shot was the driver of a 92 AC Transit bus, which runs between the BART station and Cal State Hayward, said AC Transit spokesman Clarence Johnson.

“We don’t belive it’s life-threatening,” Johnson said. “We certainly hope not.”

BART shut down the station after the shooting for several hours, allowing trains to pass through but not stop, and Hayward police assisted in setting up a perimeter to search for the gunmen.

This PC style reporting is what leads to fear and distrust. What about a description of the one gunman they caught? Why was he wounded? There must be another shooter on the loose. What race was the wounded shooter? How about the victims? Was this a hate crime, gang related or terrorism?

Will the lack of details keep BART commuters satisfied? Why don’t I believe that?

Here is a story of a horrible hate crime in the LA Times’ backyard, yet they decided not to cover it.

The story broke on November 3, when a local Web site editor William Pearl scooped the LA Times on LBReport.com, quoting Long Beach police spokeswoman Jacqueline Bezart as saying a crowd of black attackers hurled racial taunts (“White bitches!” “We hate whites!”) at the young women, and the police were pursuing it as a hate crime.

So, it takes a citizen journalist to get a quote.

At the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, reporter Tracy Manzer quickly landed an exclusive interview with the victims, introducing awkward issues of race and culture rarely seen in California media. Said one victim, identified as Laura: “They asked us, ‘Are you down with it?’ We had no idea what that meant so we didn’t say anything and just walked by them up to the haunted house. They were grabbing their crotches — we didn’t know if it was a gang thing or what.”

As the Press-Telegram reported on November 3, three white women aged 19 to 21 emerged from a “maze” walk in a house on Halloween and were confronted by up to 40 black teenagers who pelted them with pumpkins and lemons. The paper said, “The taunts and jeers grew more aggressive, the victims recalled, as did the size of the crowd. Now females joined in, and everyone began saying, ‘We hate white people, f— whites!’ ”

The Press-Telegram had the honesty to followup the blogger with the details.
But the “prestigious LA Times” wouldn’t dare.

Imagine if 40 white young women beat three black girls, yelling we hate n***ers!

That would be front page news for days on the LA Times and hourly on CNN. That’s my guess.

New York Times selling off TV stations en mass to keep afloat

The New York Times Co. stated after the stock market closed Thursday that it plans to sell its broadcast-media group, including nine television stations, to Robert M. Bass’s Oak Hill Capital Partners for $575 million.

Facing the prospect of further circulation and advertising declines and the growing threat of online competition, the newspaper giant said it needs to dispose of the properties to focus on core operations (the old gray lady).

“Over the years (the stations) have provided their communities with high-quality programming and have contributed significantly to our financial performance,” Janet L. Robinson, the company’s chief executive, said in a press release. “We believe, however, that our focus now should be on the development of our newspapers and our rapidly growing digital businesses and the increasing synergies between them.”
The lead investor for Oak Hill, Bass is part of the Bass family of Texas oil billionaires. His brother, Sid, recently held a large stake in Walt Disney Co. Robert Bass’s net worth is placed at more than $5 billion. Oak Hill’s committed capital stands at $4.6 billion, the company said.

The nine stations were expected to account for $150 million in 2006 sales, or 4 percent of New York Times’ overall revenue when the plan to sell was announced in September, spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said. At that time, 2006 operating earnings from the group was estimated at $33 million.

The stations are affiliates of ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as one member of the MyNetworkTV group, and are in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. Market sizes range from Memphis to Moline, Ill. They employ roughly 900 people, Mathis said.

While a number of media companies are disposing of assets in order to cut costs, don’t expect large newspaper companies to sell off their broadcast assets en masse like the Times has, said Steven Barlow, analyst for Prudential Securities in New York.

“I wouldn’t imagine you’ll see anything from (other media companies) on that front,” Barlow said.

Guess who is coming to dinner? The Nancy Pelosi $1000 a plate dinner?

Will your 67 year old grandmother be able to have the facelifts and eye lifts that Nancy Pelosi did on Mediacare?

“‘This old woman is quite prejudiced toward China. Therefore, (she) may bring some dissonance to Sino-U.S. relations,’ Professor Jin said.”

Actually, I hope my grandmother can afford a better plastic surgeon. Pelosi’s face now looks like the Joker played by Jack Nicholson. She must sleep with her eyes open.

Are any union bosses and other lobbyists coming to the dinner tonight? Will Nancy Pelosi‘s high-end Piati restaurants be the official caterers? Which Napa Valley wines will be served? Will the Rev Jesse Jackson be at the table? How about Cindy Sheehan? Will the servers be union? Will the women wear burkes? Imagine how much Nancy Pelosi could have saved on face lifts if she wore a burke.

Speaking of Democrat Progressives, this would be a good time to show you the progressive income tax mirroring socialist systems in France and Germany.

The Top 1% Pay 35%

Maybe our liberal friends are onto something. They keep saying the rich should pay more taxes, and it turns out the rich already are! That’s one of the valuable lessons from the IRS’s annual study of income tax data, just released for 2004.

Americans who earned more than $1 million in adjusted gross income paid $178 billion, or an average of $740,000 per filer, in income taxes in 2004. That’s up about one-third from 2002, the year before the Bush tax cuts in marginal income-tax and dividend and capital gains rates. The wealthiest 1% of tax filers paid a remarkable 35% of all individual income-tax payments that year.

Here’s a way to think of the distribution of current income-tax payments: Imagine Nancy Pelosi’s banquet attended by 100 random Americans. If the bill for the meal is distributed like the income tax, the richest person in the room is required to pay one-third of the tab (that would be George Soros) — or more than all 50 attendees with a below-average income. The three richest people are charged as much as the other 97. And the 30 or so lowest-income people in the room — those with a family income of $30,000 or less — pay nothing and eat for free.

The Earned Income Credit, actually allows 30 lowest-income people get paid to eat, thanks to the rest of the people in the room.

Social Security, contrary to Mainstream Media reports, is a “progressive” setup too. In its case, the more you make, the less you get in retirement benefits compared to what you earned while you were working.

And the new Democrats in Congress want to make income taxes and social security even more progressive.

“According to China Daily, Jin Rong-can, a professor at the International Relations Institute of the People’s University of China, pointed out that although the House’s influence on diplomatic policies is actually limited, Sino-U.S. relations will be affected if the democratic party controls the house following the midterm election.”

“‘This old woman is quite prejudiced toward China. Therefore, (she) may bring some dissonance to Sino-U.S. relations,’ (professor) Jin said.”

“Zhang Guoqing, associate investigator at the American Institute of National Academy of Social Science, concurs: ‘The Democratic Party cares more about domestic issues. It will protect the mid- and small U.S. enterprises and American labor’s interests, and thus will have some impact on trade relations between China and the United States.”

Nearly 70 cut in Philly — Let the bumping begin!

More McClatchy fallout

There are 68 members of the Inquirer newsroom being laid off this week. Some editors called in “their people” for closed-door sessions Tuesday afternoon. Other learned by phone after work. They’re to have appointments today in HR, both those laid off and those who had to lay them off.

It’s all a little vague because the contract delivers “bumping rights” — the process may play out for weeks — potentially longer if there are legal challenges. Bumping rights are set up by the Guild so that seniority rules and someone with six more months experience than another may bump them out of their job. Sounds like something right out of the former Soviet Union.

More clear is who got the news. The NBA writer, David Aldridge, was in Denver covering the Sixers when he found out. (That was a hell of a gig). The national political reporter, Tom Fitzgerald, heard from a friend. The “gaming” columnist, Rob Watson found out his trips to Atlantic City would be on his dime now.

And now this letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer Publisher:

It seems it’s not the character of one’s writing content, but the color of one’s skin…

New Year — New Job Cuts at Philly Newspapers

The Newspaper industry can’t stop the bleeding. McClatchy lost more than 38 percent of its market value even after they absorbed Knight Ridder. McClatchy sold the Star Tribune at a 58 percent loss from it’s purchase price eight years ago.

By Mick Gregory

The McClatchy newspaper chain may be remembered in the same light as Mrs. O’ Leary’s cow. You may know the “story,” her cow was blamed for kicking over a lamp that started the Great Chicago Fire. McClatchy’s leveraged buyout of Knight Ridder and the spin-off of large, award-winning (union-heavy) newspapers started the Great Newspaper Fire Sale of 2006. And it has raged out of control.

Maybe journalists will start to gain some humility along with a dose of reality and economics 101. Especially at the papers McClatchy dumped i.e., the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and now the Star Tribune. Where have all their union dues gone? I’m guessing that most went to multi-millionaire Democrat politicians.

The Associated Press reports this afternoon that the Inquirer began a round of layoffs today. Several reporters at the Inquirer said they were told Tuesday morning that their jobs were being eliminated, according to AP. The employees said that they were told to meet with personnel officials on Wednesday to discuss details of their severance pay and health benefits.

“The specific number of layoffs is still unclear because some Inquirer employees have already taken other jobs since word of the impending layoffs was announced in November,” the AP reports.

“As we all know, layoff notices are expected next week and could come as early as Tuesday (Jan. 2, today), so I am sending this memo in advance to inform you of some basics,” the e-mail from Ferrick said. “This FAQ is intended for those who may receive layoff notices.”

They tried to avoid more layoffs following last year’s 80-person job cut at the Inquirer. My thinking is the union wants enough dues paying members so the Guild/CWA bosses can still rub elbows with John Edwards, Obmama and Hillary.

Philly shouldn’t take in personally, the entire newspaper industry is in death spiral.

Alan Mutter of the non-profit Poynter Institute said the shares of publicly held publishing stocks in the last two years lost nearly $13.5 billion in value. “Growing investor pressure has terrorized and dangerously defocused the executives of publicly held [newspaper] companies,” he says. “Instead of navigating their businesses through the most difficult environment they will ever know, the executives have been forced to spend disproportionate amounts of their time on investor relations, financial engineering and ill-considered expense cuts that could imperil the long-term health of their franchises.”

Alan Mutter of the non-profit Pointer Institute says the shares of publicly held publishing stocks in the last two years lost nearly $13.5 billion in value. “Growing investor pressure has terrorized and dangerously defocused the executives of publicly held [newspaper] companies,” he says. “Instead of navigating their businesses through the most difficult environment they will ever know, the executives have been forced to spend disproportionate amounts of their time on investor relations…”

What? Newspaper CEOs have actually started to care what investors thought?

Are Journalists Above the Law?

Did you read about this in your daily newspaper? It happened just a year ago. Imagine if Bill O’Reilly had illegally taped an African-American politician and they later killed themselves in the FOX News lobby?

A year ago, according to a witnesses, Mr. Art Teele, an African-American Miami Councilman walked into the Miami Herald lobby, spoke calmly with a security guard and shook his hand. Then Teele took a pistol out of a book bag and held it to his head.

The Herald’s Web site says that Teele told the security guard to give a message to Herald columnist Jim DeFede. Teele said that he wanted DeFede to tell his wife that he loved her. The statement was unclear as to exactly whose wife Teele was referring to, but it seems likely he was referring to his own wife, Stefanie Teele.

Then when police arrived, he pulled the trigger.

There was a lot of blood.

About two hours later, at 7:50 p.m., Teele was declared dead. His wife was at his side when he died.

Many of Teele’s colleagues and friends expressed sadness over his death. Others were angry.

“We can’t ever have anybody to go into office and retire with dignity. They got to drag them down like they’re pit bulls, like some kind of road kill,” said Teele’s friend, Paulette Simms Wimberly.

Columnist Fired

DeFede was fired just hours after Teele’s death because he “allegedly” recorded a phone conversation with Teele without the politician’s permission.

In the longest call, about 90 minutes before the shooting, Teele spoke very emotionally about his legal problems and various allegations that had been made against him, according to the newspaper.

Many of the journalist’s co-workers were upset that DeFee was fired over the incident.

Who is the media elite?

Former Newsday Publisher Robert Johnson (who headed the Times Mirror newspaper was sentenced last Friday to 15 months in federal prison and fined $50,000, following his plea to possession of child pornography and obstruction of justice.

Johnson, a top executive at Newsday from 1982 to 1994, also was ordered after imprisonment to serve 3 years of supervised release, undergo counseling for sex offenders, and have software installed on his future computers to monitor attempts to access child pornography.

Newsday is one of the liberal’s favorite East Coast papers, just after the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe.

See the bias? What if Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage or any other conservative in the media were convicted of child pornograhphy? Whouldn’t that rate a page one story today?

Did your newspaper even mention this? How about CBS news? NPR? Dan Rather?

On another happier note for newspaper executives, McClatchy’s CEO is getting a big pay raise. After McClatchy bought Knight Ridder and chucked the problem newspapers to MediaNews group, and other’s shopping the fire sale, they have not seen a vote of confidence from investors. Does that stop the cozy board from rewarding their boss? No.

The McClatchy Co. chief executive officer Gary Pruitt will earn $1.1 million next year, a 4.8 percent increase from his salary this year, according to documents filed this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Pruitt, the highest-paid chief executive of a publicly traded company in the Sacramento region, could earn another $1.38 million from an annual bonus if he reaches specific performance goals that have not been determined.

The Sacramento-based company bought Knight-Ridder this past summer, adding 20 newspapers — and selling off a dozen others, including the San Jose Mercury-News and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The deal made McClatchy (NYSE: MNI) the nation’s second-largest newspaper chain. Its publications include The Sacramento Bee, Star Tribune of Minneapolis and the Miami Herald.

McClatchy’s compensation board also detailed the base salary and maximum bonuses for other senior executives this week. Vice presidents of operations Bob Weil and Frank Whittaker will each earn $600,000 next year, with a 60 percent of base salary as a maximum bonus — or $360,000 each. Vice president and chief financial officer Pat Talamantes’ salary is $500,000 with a 55 percent maximum bonus, while vice president of news Howard Weaver will earn $400,000 with a 50 percent of salary bonus target.

It’s not the medium, it’s the bias, stupid!

I just saw this piece from the New York Sun by Alicia Colon on Drudge. Ms. Colon highlights a blog that has been hidden by the mainstream media, Lucianne.com.

Lucianne exposes what I believe is the root cause of the shift of the educated middle class from the mainstream media to that of the fresh air of Web-based citizen journalists.

The Mendacity Of the Liberal Press

BY ALICIA COLON
December 15, 2006
http://www.nysun.com/article/45266

The first time I heard the word “mendacity” was in the film “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” I loved the way Burl Ives’s character spits out the word as something vile and unacceptable.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where untruthfulness is routinely accepted and even mandated by politicians, union leaders, and members of the press. New York is the headquarters of the biggest producer of mendacity, the New York Times. Fortunately, it’s also the home of the antidote, Lucianne.com.

I pity the Americans who do not have the computer expertise to access the exposés of lies of corrupt politicians and gullible television anchors, biased newspaper headlines, and anything from the Associated Press. If it were not for the Internet and Lucianne Goldberg’s Web news forum, I would never learn the truth behind the Times headlines as pitched by the Drudge Report.

Matt Drudge, who may or may not be a willing accomplice to the distortion of news reporting, must be held responsible for the dissemination of the bias in the liberal press. Studies have shown that the readership of the Times is down — as it is in other liberal publications — and so are the television ratings of the alphabet networks and CNN and MSNBC, while Fox News is up.

What? Don’t they get it? All newspapers are to be left leaning, even in Salt Lake City

The Tribune makes a big splash mocking the new editor of the Salt Lake City Deseret News because he is a Republican.

Deseret News’ new editor is shown reading these headlines: “Only Godless Lefties Doubt Cannon Impartiality,” “Dem Season Opens Soon,” and others.

Here’s a little tip: Salt Lake City has the highest percentage of Republicans of any major city in the USA.

Convenient Liberal Fabrications — Overwheliming bias in the media regarding global warming

What about Greenland actually being green during the Medieval warming? Didn’t we have a couple of Ice Ages? Doesn’t the Kyoto Treaty just punish developed countries, giving a free pass to pollute to China and India?

Get your copy of “The Skeptics’ Guide to Global Warming,” linked below.
See how Al Gore is pressuring public school science teachers to legitimize “An Inconvenient Truth”

Mick Gregory

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warm climate recorded in Europe, lasting from about the 10th century to about the 14th century. This inconvenient truth is being written out of the liberal’s Big Brother/Big Sis political propaganda to inact more control and taxing authority over free enterprise, espically in the U.S. The Al Gore political machine tried to have 50,000 copies of his movie distributed through the public schools through his executive producer, Ms. Laurie David. When the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) refused the unusual request, The Washington Post let her write an Op-Ed piece complaigning about it.

NSTA Statement on the Distribution of “An Inconvenient Truth”
Nov 30 2006
Last updated 12/7/06

Over the past few days, NSTA and film producer Laurie David have been discussing her offer to provide NSTA with copies of the DVD “An Inconvenient Truth” to mass distribute to our members. On November 29, 2006, NSTA’s Board of Directors held a telephone conference to review Ms. David’s request. In an effort to accommodate her request without violating the Board’s 2001 policy prohibiting product endorsement, and to provide science educators with the opportunity to take advantage of the educational opportunities presented by films such as this, NSTA has offered to greatly expand the scope of the potential target audience identified in her initial request.

NSTA established its non-endorsement policy to formalize our position that the association would not send third-party materials to our members without their consent or request. NSTA looks forward to working with Ms. David to ensure that there are many options for publicizing the availability of the DVD to the national science education community, and to broaden the conversation on the important topic of global warming.

Professor David Deming, an author, scientist and lecturer at the University of Oklahoma and an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), testified Wednesday morning at a special hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The hearing examined climate change and the media. Bellow are excerpts from his prepared remarks.

Web use overtakes newspapers and magazines

Mark 2006 as the time that newspapers and magazines came in second to the Web. The Financial Times of London confirmed this in a report.

European consumers spend more time online, and has overtaken the hours they devote to newspapers and magazines, a study revealed. This takes in a market that is very well-read. So the habits of the US print media vs. online are most likely even more dramatic. There has been no major time-use study on American media consumption.

But there is a glimmer of hope, the growth of new media is expanding total media consumption rather than simply cannibalizing print and television.

Print consumption has remained static at three hours a week in the past two years, as time spent online has doubled from two to four hours. Viewers are also spending more time watching television, up from 10 hours to 12 a week.

The Jupiter Research survey of more than 5,000 people in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain shows that Europeans’ use of the internet is still behind the rates seen in the US. A similar study by Jupiter of US habits found that Americans now spend 14 hours a week online – as much time as they spend watching television – and just three hours reading print.
However, the rapid spread of fast broadband internet connections in Europe is likely to accelerate the trend. The average time spent online by broadband customers in Europe was seven hours a week, compared with two hours for those with dial-up connections.
In France, where 79 per cent of online households have broadband connections, the typical user is online for five hours a week, compared with only three hours a week in Germany, which has a broadband penetration rate of 42 per cent.
“The fact that internet consumption has passed print consumption is an important landmark for the establishment of the internet in Europe,” said Mark Mulligan, research director at Jupiter. “This shift in the balance of power will increasingly shape content distribution strategies, advertising spend allocation and communication strategies.”
By far most of the time Europeans spent online was devoted to e-mail and search activities. Entertainment content such as music and video still accounted for only 22 per cent of online activity.
The research found “a very clear new media/old media generational divide”, Mr Mulligan said. Under-25s now spend six hours a week online, half the time they spend watching television but three times the hours they devote to print. Those aged 15-24 are almost twice as likely as the average consumer “to consume music and video content online. Their habits are going to change the face of the web as they become more mainstream,” Mulligan said.

The Newspaper Dead Pool — LA Times Publisher Jeffrey Johnson out

Life is hard for pimps as well as publishers and editors in 2006.
Here at SadBastards, we reported the arrogant stand the editor-centric LA Times was making to it’s owners, about no more cuts.

The Tribune Co. forced out Los Angeles Times Publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson this morning, a little more than a month after he defied the media conglomerate’s demands for staff cuts that he suggested could damage the newspaper. This was reported today in the LA Times.

Tribune Publishing President Scott C. Smith met with top managers at the newspaper this morning and announced that David Hiller, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, would immediately replace Johnson as chief executive at the 125-year-old newspaper. Hiller is the 12th publisher of The Times.

“After a thorough review, Jeff and I agreed that he should resign at this time,” Smith said in a statement. “We do agree on many priorities to best serve our customers, communities and shareholders. The Times’ has also made great progress on many fronts in the face of intense marketplace challenges. However, this leadership change is necessary because of important differences on how best to shape our future.”

Hiller was expected to ask Times Editor Dean Baquet to stay on the job, despite the editor’s sharp protests against further job cuts by the Chicago-based parent corporation. Friends of Baquet said the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist had not yet decided to remain with the paper.

In an e-mail to The Times staff this morning Hiller said: “I read and love newspapers and have the highest regard for the Los Angeles Times, its great journalism and the special role it plays in Southern California.

“I believe in the future of newspapers as the most trusted source of news and information in the communities we serve. To achieve that future we have to continue to change because our readers, online users and advertising customers continue to change.”

Hiller, a nearly 20-year-long company veteran, has served as publisher of the Chicago Tribune since November 2004. He was previously senior vice president of Tribune Publishing and also served as president of Tribune Interactive.

Los Angeles Times newsrooms staffers, including many who had signed a petition just weeks ago supporting Publisher Jeff Johnson and Editor Dean Baquet’s stand against more budget cuts, greeted yesterday’s announcement of Johnson’s firing with sadness and concern.

Although some were waiting to see what incoming publisher David Hiller of the Chicago Tribune would do, most took Johnson’s forced resignation so shortly after his public stand as a sign that owner Tribune Co. would likely make the cuts that have been in the pipeline.

“The mood is pretty grim, as far as I can see,” said Bill Nottingham, a city and county bureau editor. “None of us know all of the back-and-forth between Jeff and Chicago. If he was removed for taking a stand, that does not bode well for our paper or our industry.”

Henry Weinstein, a 28-year Times reporter, agreed. “Obviously we are very distressed that our publisher has been forced to resign, we think that is a regrettable decision,” he said. “There is nobody here who is happy about this.”

Robert Salladay, who works out of the paper’s Sacramento bureau, said the firing was a clear move by Tribune to flex its muscles. “Most people today see this as a very significant shot across the bow from Tribune Co.,” he said. “It is never good when there is instability at the top. People are hoping this doesn’t lead to 120 people being laid off. I think the quality of the paper would suffer.”

William Rempel, who has spent more than 30 years at the Times, said “resentment runs deep and wide.” He added that the move has increased anger against Tribune Co.: “There is no one in the building who has any confidence in Tribune management to do what is right for our newspaper or for journalism. It is punishment for Jeff for speaking truth to management and doing it publicly.”

Weinstein and other were partially relieved with word that Baquet would stay on, at least for now. “That is good news,” he said. “The big issue is, what are the conditions? Hopefully they did not present him with any intolerable list of cuts that have to be made.”

And some of the LA Times staff have already given a Hiller a nick name, guess what it is…

Shares of newspaper companies headed downward this week after a Deutsche Bank analyst lowered his fourth-quarter and full-year 2007 earnings estimates on many of the companies. Of course, analyst Paul Ginocchio did his homework.

The analyst cut 2007 forecasts on Tribune, New York Times Co., McClatchy, Belo, Lee Enterprises, E.W. Scripps, Washington Post, Gannett and Media General due to weaker-than-expected third-quarter advertising trends. Tribune’s full-year earnings per share estimate fell to $1.99 from $2.01, while the New York Times dropped to $1.36 from $1.46. McClatchy’s estimate slipped to $2.52 from $2.62 and Media General sagged to $2.37 from $2.44. Belo declined to $1.10 from $1.13, Lee fell to $1.91 from $1.95, Scripps shed a penny to $2.40 and the Washington Post slumped to $42.27 from $43.91. Gannett dropped to $4.85 from $4.95 per share.

“The biggest change in ad growth over the next two to three quarters will be real estate and help wanted classified, both of which are showing weakening trends,” Ginocchio said in a Sunday client note. “We maintain our cautious view on newspaper publishers.”
He also reduced fourth-quarter earnings per share estimates on Belo, Gannett Co. and Medial General. Belo declined to 47 cents from 49 cents, Gannett, the best managed, sagged to $1.50 from $1.53 and Medial General declined to $1.33 from $1.35.
Ginocchio said next year could be difficult for the newspaper sector.
“Online will still be greater than 10 percent of ad revenue for most companies, and even if some publishers are successful in implementing a more innovative culture, the impact probably won’t be apparent financially until late 2007 or early 2008,” he said. In real world terms, 10 percent is chump change. There doesn’t appear to be any examples of newspapers able to make the switch.
Shares of Gannet fell 18 cents to $56.65, Lee slipped 36 cents to $24.88 and Media General lost 84 cents to $36.88 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. McClatchy dropped 64 cents to $41.55, New York Times slumped 43 cents to $22.55 and Scripps declined 36 cents to $47.57 on the Big Board. Tribune dipped 6 cents to $32.66 and the Washington Post fell $4 to $733.

Kristie Landa said goodbye and good riddance in her letter to readers of Gannett’s Reno Gazette-Journal last week. The Reno paper is one of the most profitable in the “scrap yard dog” chain with revenues pouring in from high population growth, new housing, employment and gaming advertising.

Chris Anderson, CEO and president of Freedom Orange County Information, today announced that FOCI will reduce its workforce through a voluntary severance plan.

“Along with almost every other metropolitan newspaper, The Orange County Register has suffered declines in advertising revenues in recent months. Unfortunately, we don’t see a quick turnaround in the loss of this advertising in key categories,” said Anderson. “We are diversifying our product portfolio and showing some growth, but is not enough to overcome the revenue shortfalls. That means we must carefully reduce expenses, and one of the actions we are taking is the voluntary severance plan.”

The Orange County Register’s voluntary severance package is being offered to about a third of the newspaper’s full-time staff of 1,600.

There is no innovation going on, just cuts. What do analysts expect from an medium that delivers biproducts of dead trees to peoples driveways every day?

Which will be the next newspaper to fold? It will most likely be one of the small community papers, so it won’t make big news. But the time has come to set up a dead pool. There is one already for magazines, Google it at magazine death pool.