Will terrorists strike again? Why is the U.S. pouring 20,000 troops into cities? There must be some ‘chatter’

UPDATE:

The Washington Post reports that the Pentagon has issued the marching orders to mobilize 20,000 millitary troops to secure unspecified cities within the U.S.

Homeland Securtiy issued warnings of a terror attack on New York City’s mass transit system from Nov. 28 through the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah) the mainstream media doesn’t even have the intellectual honesty to report which holidays. Commuters and vacationing shoppers are supposed to be uneasy and many may even put off their trips to buy gifts. This, as we watch to bloodbath from Nov. 26-28, in Mumbi, India where the death toll has reached 200 from a group of 10 terrorists.

Who did it? We know the terrorists hate Jews. That narrows it down. 

What do the learders of Iran, Palistine and Syria have to say about the bombings? 

A Brooklyn rabbi and his wife were found among the dead in a series of terrorist attacks in India that have claimed more than 150 lives. In response to the attacks, the NYPD beefed up patrols around large hotels and Jewish centers, including the Lubavitcher headquarters, said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

The department already was on alert because of a warning earlier this week of a possible al-Qaida plot to strike the city’s rail systems over the holidays.

“The threat is serious, the threat is significant, and it is plausible,” said Congressman Peter King, R-Long Island, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, who ran the Chabad-Lubavitch local headquarters in Mumbai were killed during a hostage standoff at the center, said Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, a spokesman for the movement. 

On Wednesday, federal authorities warned New York police of an unsubstantiated (but reliable) report that al-Qaida operatives discussed an attack on New York’s subway system or rail lines like Amtrak and the Long Island Rail Road.

A spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he had no plans to comment. (Keep shopping sheelple). 

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said additional resources were being deployed in the mass transit system in an “abundance of caution,” a common response when police receive new information about a threat.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s 468 stations and 6,480 subway cars, released a statement saying there was “no reason to be alarmed.”

The terrorists have been weakend from eight years of George W. Bush as Commander and Chief. 

We can be thankful for that time.

Stop the Press Club–Please!

Mick Gregory

Dallas Press Club slashes expenses, gives up rental space. This, in a one newspaper town.

This is the state of the press in 2007.

I was once a member of the Dallas Press Club, in my twenties. That’s when Dallas had a newspaper war going on between Times Mirror’s Dallas Times Herald and the Belo Dallas Morning News. Molly Ivans would make an appearance at meetings as well as U.S. Senators and celebrities.

Today, it’s on par with a Salvation Army drop off store front.

The active members of the Press Club of Dallas are trying to save their disgraced group after the former president apparently falsified the results of the club’s signature awards program and mismanaged her club-issued credit card on luxury items.

Four vacant board seats were filled — some by spirit-of-the-moment volunteers — with hopeful members stepping up to keep the club running.

Tom Stewart, now the club president, said the future of the annual Katie Awards and the club itself remains uncertain. The group was given three choices: Let the club slowly die, disband it immediately or drastically reduce expenses to buy time until the annual meeting in August.

Of the $5,500 a month it takes to operate the club, they voted to eliminate at least $4,000 in monthly operating expenses, including its rental space at the Women’s Museum in Fair Park. The Press Club Foundation, which supports the club and benefits from the Katies program, terminated its $4,000-a-month stipend to the club in February.

In an April 14 interview with the Dallas Business Journal, former club president Lisa “Elizabeth” Albanese, 41, said she didn’t have records detailing the judges from past-years’ Katies because she failed to keep the records and switched computers. She then said she would be able to reconstruct a judges’ list.

She couldn’t be reached for comment by a Dallas Business Journal reporter.

Albanese won all four Katies for which she was nominated in 2006, including for best business news story, best business feature story, best specialty reporting and best investigative reporting for a major-market newspaper. She won 10 Katies over the last four years, and began coordinating the judging in 2003.

No former boss of Albanese’s has alleged that she plagiarized or fabricated sources for her stories.

The Katie Awards rank among the most coveted in Texas, drawing contestants from six states who hope to be honored as the best in journalism and mass communications.

Albanese spent seven years at The Bond Buyer, a New York-based municipal bond newspaper, and recently became a vice president at First Southwest Co., a financial advisory firm, which she often wrote about as a journalist. She was fired by Dallas-based First Southwest after criminal allegations from her past surfaced.

News bytes by Lauren D’Avolio

Now is time for all good stockholders to cut off the gravy train to the pockets of the New York Times playboys.

Shareholder Advisory Firm ISS Recommends Withholding Vote on New York Times Co. Board of Directors

Mick Gregory

A big time shareholder advisory firm, Institutional Shareholder Services, (ISS) is campaigning to investors to withhold their votes for four directors at The New York Times Co. as a way to push for corporate governance changes. The New York Times Co. is one of a very few using an outdated “robber baron” stock scheme.

The ISS report published this week, joins forces with a longtime shareholder, a Morgan Stanley investment fund, to roll back the dual-class share structure which allows the Sulzberger family to maintain dictatorial control of the company with only a minor share of the stock.

ISS analysts recommend separating the chairman and publisher roles, which are both currently held by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., “Pinchy,” as well as establishing key committees on the board that would be made up solely of directors elected by holders of the company’s publicly traded Class A shares.

The Class B shares, which are controlled by the Sulzberger family, have the right to elect nine of the company’s 13 directors. This is an blatantly undemocratic set up.

“Shareholders are left with few avenues through which to voice their opinion other than by withholding from Class A directors,” ISS said in its report. “While we do not advocate removal of the Class A directors, we believe that a strong message to effect change is necessary.”

The Times said in a public relations statement it was “disappointed” that the ISS had recommended a withhold vote for the four directors elected by Class A shareholders.

The Times’ annual meeting is scheduled for April 24. So watch for more positioning in the next two weeks.

Last year the Morgan Stanley fund and two other large shareholders withheld their vote for Class A directors, resulting in a 30 percent withhold rate. The votes are largely symbolic and are intended to signal shareholder dissatisfaction.

ISS also said that neither Sulzberger nor other managers are accountable to the company’s public shareholders “in any meaningful way.”

This is a democratic crisis. How long can the wealthy Sulzberger famiy (pronounced Sal-bur-jay among the inner-circle) soak the majority of their stockholders?

Editors and wealthy favorite sons with little to no management skills are responsible for the end of their industry

By Mick Gregory

It finally happened, for the past several months the Tribune Co. has had to put their once mighty chain up for bid. Rather than try and develop their Web/print empire and manage the media company, they gave in to the Chandler family’s need to sell out. The Chandlers have been behind the wave of shuttered big city newspapers across the nation for the past 20 years, including: The Dallas Times Herald, Houston Post, and the terminal Denver Post and Baltimore Sun. Now, with real estate flipper, Sam Zell taking the Tribune Co. private, the future of the LA Times is ashen.

Instead of innovative media management, the editor-centric and rich, spoiled relatives of the former publishers sell the assets like the decedents of 19th century railroad barons.

Tribune was particularly egregious. This company never did anything Web-wise, with management endlessly thinking that its stock was undervalued. It was clearly overvalued, and now the upside is totally capped. The little amount that Sam Zell is putting up to take this company private shows how little these companies are really worth.

All of these companies seem to be run, frankly, by jokers or dreamers who had no idea how to deploy capital. The only explanation I can think of is that they were run by people who are up from the newspaper side or are heirs to the founders and had no idea what they were doing financially. Dow Jones (DJ – commentary – Cramer’s Take – Rating) was like that for years, and it is finally being run in an intelligent financial way. Probably too late, though.

These are diminishing assets. They don’t need to exist. Younger people rarely read them. And the companies acted like they would always be in demand and were simply misunderstood by Wall Street. Nope, Wall Street got it the whole time, except a couple of hedge and mutual funds that are trapped and trying to get managements to do something to bring out value.

The result? The Philadelphia Inquirer gets wrecked. The Times boosts the dividend well beyond its means. And now the Tribune sets the stage for a massive downsizing, massive firings and the inclusion of tons of Associated Press copy.
—Larry Cramer of TheStreet.

—————–
The Denver Post and JOA partner with the Rocky Mountain News, filed the joint agency’s financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

They show total revenue at the agency dropped 5.3 percent in 2006 to $409 million, compared with $431.7 million in 2005. Revenue was essentially flat from 2004 to 2005.

Advertising revenue dropped 7.1 percent from 2005 to 2006’s $339.5 million.

Net income fell from $71.1 million in 2004 to $47.2 million in 2005 and $18.5 million in 2006.
More layoffs are just around the corner.

Business writers should follow the Chandlers’ investments after they receive the windfall from the Zell buyout. That would be “impact journalism.”

Gannett Knows How to Cut Expenses

by Mick Gregory

Two Gannett papers — the Honolulu Advertiser and the Indianapolis Star — are combining their business staff with their metro staff and putting both under one editor.

“This is exactly the kind of action toward business desks that I feared when many papers like the Star announced at the beginning of last year that they were cutting stock listings from their business section,” writes Chris Roush. “If it’s easy to cut the business section once, then it’s easy to cut there again.”

That’s called managing a business. A publisher I worked with once said, “There are two ways to skin a cat.” Either profits rise, or expenses have to be cut. It’s Managerial Economics 101.

What other business has managers for every four or five people?

Well, maybe banks. But where else?

Meanwhile, blogs thrive with very few in head-count and surging readership.
Guess where investors are putting their money?

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.

Inside the mind of an LA Times columnist

You have to wonder why newspaper journalists seem to be so out of touch with the public. Maybe it comes down to elite, arrogant snobbishness.

Joel Stein of the LA Times writes:

I don’t want to talk to you; I want to talk at you. A column is not my attempt to engage in a conversation with you….Not everything should be interactive. A piece of work that stands on its own, without explanation or defense, takes on its own power.

I get that you have opinions you want to share. That’s great. You’re the Person of the Year. I just don’t have any interest in them.

A lot of e-mail screeds argue that, in return for the privilege of broadcasting my opinion, I have the responsibility to listen to you. I don’t. No more than you have a responsibility to read me. I’m not an elected servant. I’m an arrogant, solipsistic, attention-needy freak who pretends to have an opinion about everything. I don’t have time to listen to you.

Hello? We don’t care to digest your opinion anymore. This is the world of Web 2.0. Read up on it. You may need a new job in the next couple of years.

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.

Thursday afternoon meetings are nothing to look forward to at newspapers these days

Washington Post Newsroom Nervous
Mick Gregory

As Washington Post reporters prepared themselves for their all-hands meeting earlier this week with executive editor Leonard Downie, they used five or six words to describe the mood of the newsroom — Harry Jaffe reports:

Anxious.
Depressed.
Restless.
Worried.
Angry.
#&!#!.
Arrogant.

A month ago Downie issued a memo saying the Post would have to “shrink the newsroom staff” and “renovate sections” and tighten the news hole. Translation: fewer reporters writing shorter stories at different assignments.
Then earlier this week New York Times media writer David Carr, in a column about Washington Post Company head Don Graham, said, “Newsroom layoffs of an unspecified number are in the offing.”

Also this week, mulit-billionaire David Geffen has offered $2 billion to the Tribune company for the LA Times. (Hint to Tribune, this is a very rich guy who can affford to pay $4 billion for the LA Times. Hold out a little, then sell). Come on, YouTube went for $1.6 billion, and that is about 1,000 lawsuits waiting to happen.

Updated 12/15/06, Drudgereport: Trib management tell Geffen you need at least $1 billion more. OK, that would be great. Maybe the Chandlers would be happy with that, but then they’d have to watch the Hollywood elite make a mockery of their once glorious “Fourth Estate.”

In Philly: Inquiering minds want to know

“The Inquirer newsroom is bracing for the possible layoff of up to 20 percent of its approximately 410 reporters, editors and support staff.” That was a “ballpark” number.

Managing editor Anne Gordon had earlier reported that the editorial department had been asked to plan for “up to 150 layoffs,” which is considerably more than 20 percent.

Publisher and co-owner of the newspapers Brian P. Tierney said the number of layoffs would be something less than 150, depending on what kind of concessions they could get out of contract negotiations with the Guild.

Meanwhile, the arrogant former LA Times executive editor Mr. Baquet, (who refused to respond to shareholder and senior management requests to make budget cuts) says “I won’t speculate on the future.”

Mr. Baquet,

Why not? You are unemployed? Do you really think Geffen will give you back your cushy executive editor position in LA? (Even the the Chandler family wants more money, they don’t want their former empire thrown to Hollywood whores).

Why not prop your Cole Haan shoes on top of a desk in Santa Barbara? Imagine the gravitus you would bring! The publisher, McCaw will not return your phone calls? Why not go back to the New York Times?

Oh, Keller said they don’t have any openings right now for top executive editors.

Call Gannett, but first, brush up on the Web/newspaper transition. How are you on HTML? You really don’t understand business, free markets and economics 101. How about a few courses at the University of Phoenix? Oh, they won’t give you any credit for gravitus? And the pay is a bit below the standards you have grown to enjoy. Too bad.

How about your friends in high places in the Democrat party? Remember all the insider conversations. How about the time you published U.S. classified details about the legal and effective Swift counterterror program? That earned you some points with Pelosi, Boxer and Feinstein, didn’t it? Oppsie, they aren’t returning your calls either?

Arrogant: overbearing self-worth or self-importance, example: newspaper executive editors.

Start the cuts at the LA Times at the top

 ——By Mick Gregory

The Tribune Company is under pressure to sell its largest paper, the Los Angeles Times, as you’ve read here and in the business press. The major trouble was coming from the Chandler family, the former owner of the L.A. Times and one of the company’s largest share holders in the stock and cash deal.

The Wall Street Journal reports that several prominent Los Angeles billionaires are interested in buying the L.A. Times, the nation’s No. 4 paper in terms of circulation. Business leaders in Los Angeles are also joining together to urge the Tribune not to make further staff and cost cuts at the paper, saying that it should sell the paper if it is not satisfied with results.

The Tribune bought the LA Times as part of its purchase of the Times Mirror Co. in 2000. The purchase made the Chandler family the company’s No. 2 shareholder in Tribune Co., and made the newspaper publisher party to two complicated partnerships with the
Chandlers, which could not be unwound until this month without negative tax consequences.

Scott Smith, president of Tribune Publishing, dismissed the idea of a sale of the L.A. Times in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. He told the paper he sees the Times and its staff as a central source of content for other Tribune Co. newspapers.

But the Journal reports that Eli Broad, philanthropist and founder of insurer SunAmerica, and supermarket magnate Ronald Burkle, recently sat down with representatives of the Chandler family and their investment bankers to discuss how they might structure a deal to purchase the Times from the Tribune. However the paper reports people close to the Chandlers said these talks didn’t go far.

In addition, entertainment industry mogul David Geffen made his own separate, informal, all-cash offer to buy the Times, according to people familiar with the situation and reported as a major story on today’s DrudgeReport.com.

In response to all three overtures, Mr. FitzSimons wrote a letter saying the board had decided unanimously to not discuss the transaction “at this time,” according to a person who saw one copy. Tribune stock is down nearly 40 percent since the end of 2003. The company took on debt to finance a $2 billion share buyback earlier this year to try to help share price, a move that was opposed by the
Chandler family trust.

The Tribune is just one of  many newspaper companies with its share price sharply declining over the last 12 months; Gannett, the largest newspaper-centric company has seen its stock fall even even further, dropping more than 20 percent in the last year, while the New York Times has lost nearly 30 percent in that period.

The “death spiral” started when Knight-Ridder, one of the nation’s largest newspaper companies, and considered to be the most Web savvy, was acquired by the much smaller, McClatchy chain earlier this year under pressure from shareholders to sell its assets to make up for share price declines there. Since that purchase, McClatchy has sold off several former Knight-Ridder papers, some to local ownership groups. McClatchy stock has fallen at double digit rates. It’s the equivalent of a carriage company buying up all the buggy whip factories when Chevrolet and Ford got into the auto business.

LA Times Editor Baquet sets the table for his last supper

 —-By Mick Gregory

In what some regard as a highly arrogant move, Dean Baquet, who was named editor of the LA Times last year, was quoted yesterday in his own newspaper — saying he was defying the paper’s corporate owner, the Tribune Company in Chicago and would not make the cuts they requested. 

The paper’s publisher, Jeffrey Johnson, said he agreed with Baquet. “Newspapers can’t cut theirway into the future,” he told his reporter. 

The number of jobs at stake is unclear but the paper,the fourth largest in the country, has eliminated morethan 200 positions over the last five years from aneditorial staff that now numbers about 940. Some experts in the field believe that number is way too bloated.  

“Newsrooms have benefited from all the automation of computers and  software products, yet, they are the most labor-heavy of all media,” said Greg Michael, media analyst.

“I am not averse to making cuts,” Baquet told the paper he manages. “But you can go too far, and I don’t plan to dothat.” 

The LA Times reported that Scott Smith, president ofthe Tribune Publishing division, had asked the paper’sexecutives to come up with a plan for trimming theirbudgets, but when Mr. Smith visited
Los Angeles latelast month, they had produced no such plan. Baquet “made his opposition to further cuts clearand said there was no need for further discussion,” the LA Times reported.  Smith said in a statement: “In this rapidlychanging media environment, we are all workingtogether to best serve our communities, customers andshareholders.” The decision by Los Angeles Times The to take its battle against Tribunepublic may signal that Baquet is trying to rally support on the paper’s behalf, to affect a sale to local investors. Local businessmen have expressed interest in buying the paper.

Sure, Hollywood, movie stars… Life is good as an editor or publisher of the LA Times. But life is not as glamorous for stockholders in Park Ridge, Barrington and Hoffman Estates who are paying their big salaries in tinsel town.  

But at what price? Investors know not to try and grab a falling knife — Greg Michael  

The stock prices of most newspaper companies has been falling for about two years, yet many of their publications remain profitable. The Los Angeles Times reported that its operating profit margin was 20 percent, higher than that of most oil companies.   Many papers, including The New York Times New York Times, The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, and The Cleveland Plain Dealer — have announced buyouts and job cuts over the last year. Newspaper costs, predominantly for newsprint and personnel, areoutstripping revenues and the Internet is siphoningoff readers and advertisers. The Belo Corporation announced yesterday that 111 newsroom employees at their flagship, The Dallas Morning News hadtaken buyout offers, leaving 450 editorial employees to retrench and focus mainly on local news. The dust has not yet settled on Dealey Plaza. “I expect further cuts in staff due to attrition and the heavy hand of management,” said Greg Michael of sadbastards.wordpress.com.  

Last month, David Black, whose Black Press is the new owner of The Akron Beacon Journal, laid off 40 editorialemployees, about 25 percent of the newsroom staff.

The cuts in other departments are rarely reported. Circulation help-desks are being off-shored to India. In a few years, why not some of the newsrooms?  

At The Los Angeles Times, circulation has been falling from its peak of 1.2 million in 1990. For the six months that ended in March, it was 851,500, down 5.4 percent from the period a year ago. It was the biggest drop among the top 10 dailies and more than twice theindustry average. 

The Tribune has been in particular turmoil because of aconflict in recent months with the Chandler family,its largest shareholder.  The
Chandlers have said the company, in which The Los Angeles Times is the biggest business, is mismanaged and have called for the company to sell its assets.

“This is ironic, because it was the Chandlers who profited from the  inflated sale of Times-Mirror to the Tribune stockholders, and a major slice of their pie is Tribune stock which has fallen as the market found that stockholders paid too much, several billion dollars too much for the antiquated media giant,” Michael said.  

The Tribune board has defended management and has beenin talks with the Chandlers to try to iron out their differences. The company earlier this year bought back $2 billion worth of company stock in an attempt to prop up the stock price. They also have to make $200 million in cost cuts company-wide overthe next two years. The statements in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times seemed to be a declaration that Tribune would not find much of those savings in Los Angeles — or it could lose its top executives. 

Note to executives, get your resumes up to date.

“Tribune isn’t shy or sentimental,” said Martin Kaplan, associate dean of the Annenberg School forCommunication at the University of Southern California. “My guess is that they don’t want to be backed into a corner.” 

My guess is that the LA Times newsroom can function well at 500. And that Baquet will be getting his walking papers in the next couple of weeks.  

As expected, Dean Baquet was forced to resign as editor of the Los Angeles Times at the request of the publisher after he refused to agree to further cuts of his editorial staff.

Baquet’s departure was to be announced Thursday but word leaked out this afternoon and the 50-year-old editor confirmed to his staff that he would be leaving the paper Friday.

Baquet will be replaced by James O’Shea, who is now managing editor of the Chicago Tribune and a long-time employee of the Tribune company.

O’Shea starts the job Monday.