Who is Nancy Pelosi? What does Progressive Democrat mean? Watch Obama, Hillary and Pelosi smile and talk with Ortega and Chavez, fellow socialists

OBEY OBAMA

You won’t see the mainstream media reporting who Nancy Pelosi is.

Citizens: Print,  clip and save this free Obey Obama poster (Void where prohibited by law).

By Mick Gregory

I know quite a bit about her, having lived and worked in her San Francisco district. You won’t see the San Francisco Chronicle or New York Times mentioning that she is a multi-millionaire from earnings on her non-union Napa Valley winerey and resort hotel. Yet, the soon-to-be-crowned Speaker, gets one of the largest shares of union campaign money.

Your 68-year-old grandmother hasn’t spent as much on her home as 68-year-old Nancy Pelosi has on facelifts.
Democrats are America’s neo-progressives, better known as socialists. I lived in Nancy Peloci’s San Francisco, where transsexuals are given special status along with all the other classes of minorities and the city is a “sactuary city” for illegals.

 

Do you think I am exagerating? Progressive Democrats are America’s Democrat/Socialists — Google it for yourself. Why doesn’t the LA Times with it’s 950-person newsroom devote an afternoon of a reporter’s time to check into this?

Socialism in America is growing. Aided by such influential Congressmen as John Conyers, Ranking Member of the House Judicial Committee, and the one who will start impeachment proceedings against George Bush in the coming months. Nancy Pelosi is one of the stars of the nearly 60 other Democrats advancing socialism in America behind the “Progressive” label.

Here are a few excerpts taken directly from the web page of the Democratic Socialists of America.

“The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. DSA’s members are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly socialist presence in American communities and politics.

“At the root of our socialism is a profound commitment to democracy, as means and end. We are activists committed not only to extending political democracy but to demanding democratic empowerment in the economy, in gender relations, and in culture. Democracy is not simply one of our political values but our means of restructuring society. Our vision is of a society in which people have a real voice in the choices and relationships that affect the entirety of our lives. We call this vision democratic socialism – a vision of a more free, democratic and humane society.

0. We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.
0. We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships.”
Here is what “Liberty” looks like to a socialist:
“A democratic commitment to a vibrant pluralist life assumes the need for a democratic, responsive, and representative government to regulate the market, protect the environment, and ensure a basic level of equality and equity for each citizen. In the 21st century, such regulation will increasingly occur through international, multilateral action. But while a democratic state can protect individuals from domination by inordinately powerful, undemocratic transnational corporations, people develop the social bonds that render life meaningful only through cooperative, voluntary relationships. Promoting such bonds is the responsibility of socialists and the government alike.
“The social welfare programs of government have been for the most part positive, if partial, responses to the genuine social needs of the great majority of Americans. The dismantling of such programs by conservative and corporate elites in the absence of any alternatives will be disastrous. Abandoning schools, health care, and housing, for example, to the control of an unregulated free market magnifies the existing harsh realities of inequality and injustice.”
The action agenda posted on the socialists’ web site very closely parallels Agenda 21, and the recommendations of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. The web site boasts the creation of the “Progressive Caucus” in Congress, as well as the coalition that is working to promote the socialist agenda in Congress.

Now you know that the third person in line for the Presidency is a socialist.

Secret Service, please make sure that President Bush and Dick Chaney are not ever again with in a mile of each other for the next two years.

Imagine this, the Democrats impeach George Bush for invading Iraq, Dick Cheney becomes president, he dies of a heart attack within weeks because of his spike in blood pressure. Nancy Pelosi becomes the first women President of the United States, and another first of much more import, America’s first Progressive Democrat president.

Sources: http://www.dsausa.org/dsa.html,
http://www.sovereignty.net/center/socialists.htm

Newspaper editors purged MBAs from management years ago

Newspapers have not been blessed with the best and the brightest managers. Why? The executive editors sabotage real management and have purged MBAs from their ranks. Kill off the competition.

This is from the WSJ Deal Journal column, a Q&A with Mr. Knee, a highly respected  investment consultant

DJ: What would be your advice to newspaper owners?
Knee: You have seen people outsource everything from printing to editorial and indeed, any kind of journalism where your scale in the local community does not provide you with an advantage should be gotten elsewhere. If you find out how many people the large papers sent to the national conventions, you would wonder whether that’s economically justified. You have to focus on your competitive advantage, which is local. When the smoke clears, the local newspaper, which may not be the sexiest part of the newspaper industry but is overwhelmingly the largest and most profitable part of the industry, will be a smaller and more-focused enterprise whose activities will be directed to those areas where their local presence gives them competitive advantage and they will continue to generate as a result better profits than the supersexy businesses in the media industry asking for government or nonprofit help like movies and music.

The newspaper industry has not been blessed with the best managers, and generations of monopoly profits do dull the senses. On the journalism side, I think many managers would rather have avoided a fight with journalists than actually force them to think harder about what their readers want, rather than what they want their readers to want. In the economic environment we’re in, newspapers can’t afford to do every six-part investigative series they could have done before.

Meanwhile, the rank and file newspaper reporters who were busy covering their beats, don’t make much compared to the executive editors. 

Moma don’t let you’re kids grow up to be newspaper reporters. Have them study business, engineering, law or sales, even bar tending would earn them a better living. The executive editors who scratched their way to the top make big bucks for a while, until the host dies from bad management anyway. 

Ever wonder what kind of money the nation’s top newspapers pay their best journalsits? The top rung of the latter is set by the Newspaper Guild. Once you’ve lasted five or six years after about four years at a small daily and tuition of at least $20,000 a year at a respected J-school, this is it.

New York Times pays the most, $1,675.28 a week after two years. But that’s where it stays fixed until the next Guild negotiations. Of course, New York City has the highest cost of living expenses in the U.S.

Reuters pays $1,587.93 a week after six years.

The San Francisco Chronicle pays $1202.24 a week for six years of journalist experience. I know that is top for the Guild scale, but many of the hard workers, who put in more than 38 hours a week get additional pay above scale.

Consumer Reports takes the No. 1 position with $1,80410 a week scale after four years of experience. The union-biased “non-profit” magazine pays more that the New York Times or San Francisco Chronicle for their pro-union advertorial reports on products.

Can new online newspapers chage for its content? Jeff Jarvis of the LA Times says “No!” And he explains himself very well:

How’s that for a direct answer? Every rule has its exceptions — this one only a few: The Wall Street Journal (paid by expense accounts), Consumer Reports (which serves reviews, not news), iTunes (we may play a unique performance over and over, but I don’t read even my articles more than once) and porn (which is suffering the same problem newspapers are thanks to free competition from, uh, amateurs). But the rule of the new, post-scarcity economy is clear: Charging for news online is dangerous folly. Why? Let me count the reasons if not the dollars:

Once news is known, that knowledge is a commodity and it doesn’t matter who first reported it. There’s no fencing off information, especially today, when the conversation that spreads it moves at the speed of links.

There will be no limit to competitors. Readers, like water, will follow the path of least inconvenience. It’s impossible to compete against free. Have papers learned nothing from Craigslist?

In the old-content economy, one could make much money selling many copies of a product. In today’s link economy online, we need only one copy, and it is the links to it that give it value. So rather than complaining that Google should pay them for aggregating their headlines, news organizations should be grateful that Google does not charge for the links it gives and the readers it sends. Indeed, we should be spending our effort figuring out how to get more links to original reporting to support it.

Putting your content behind a wall cuts it off from the conversation and robs it of influence. Just ask New York Times columnists how much they disliked the pay wall the paper finally demolished.

Not all newspapers are going bankrupt. Many, in small monopoly markets are among the most profitable businesses in America with profit margins much higher than oil companies, Apple, EBay, Cisco, Sprint, AT&T, Google or Microsoft.  Gannett has the lion’s share of these markets. And also the highest ratio of MBAs in the media business. 

This will be the first of many terrible years for newspapers

There are no longer any suckers left with deep pockets and the desire to buy newspapers even at fire sale prices.

Last week, Hearst CEO Victor Ganzi abruptly resigned, citing “irreconcilable policy differences” over the future direction of the company.

 

What does he mean by that? Usually executives say “I’m taking time off to spend with my family…”

The New York Times and Business Week reported that the reason for Ganzi to leave a multi-million dollar-a -year, ivory tower position was recent investments and dismal returns in newspapers. He made some bad decisions.

Fortune and Portfolio said no, that was just an obvious-suspect guess and that the conflict was really over something else. Yeah, right.  Becuase Hillary was out of the race, perhaps?

 

Hearst made its last big newspaper acquisition in November 2007, buying the Tribune’s (former Times-Mirror) dailies in the well-heeled Connecticut suburbs of Greenwich and Stamford. Hearst has also signed on to numerous joint ventures with Dean Singleton’s MediaNews (bottom feeders), bought an interest in the company and thus has been poised to take over, should Singleton falter under its heavy debt load. That would be like owning the rights to own Enron in 2006.

This has been the longest, most grueling month for newspapers. Advertising reveue continues to fall like a brick thrown out of the new Hearst building. The editors need to fire the “business side” and get things turned around. That’s the ticket.

How about editors delivering the paper before they come to work in the morning?

The editors may be finding out that their ivory tower positions of filtering only the news that fits their liberal agenda is not viable any more. Each exectutive editor may want to pull their head out of their ass and look around at the massive layoffs.

Journalists are the ‘professionals’ at analyzing corporate, political, religious, social and political issues, with ‘expert’ opinion, yet they don’t understand their own industry

Mick Gregory

2008 is turning out to be the worst of times for newspaper business. Even with the drawn-out Democrat primary election, those ads are not enough to pay for the executive editors at each of the top tier papers.

The News is out. At the San Jose Mercury News, a good 2nd tier paper, reporters were instructed to wait at home on the morning of March 7. If they don’t get a phone call by 10 a.m. telling them that they’ve lost their jobs, they should head to work. This is good risk management. You don’t want any of these far left losers going postal at the office. Their security badges or smart cards will be deactivated. Take note, risk managers at small papers, these are the steps you have to take when trimming the waste at your operation.
Update: That all went down a couple of weeks ago, but like Hillary’s super delegates, the jury is still out.

This is wave two for the Merc, the other was in 1999, window dressing KR did before they dumped it on McClatchy and the “fire sale” specialists, Singleton’s group.

What’s happening in San Jose is happening
all over the nation at a slower rate. RIFs, meaning reduction in force are initiatives at newspapers to trim their biggest expense. in California it is especially harsh because of the deep crash of the real estate bubble. Regular readers of my blog saw that coming. But that’s not all. What other industry does California have besides real estate, film, vegetables and tourism? Along with real estate, advertising in related categories such as home furnishings, hardware and even big-box electronics has been slowing to a trickle.

Last month, the Los Angeles Daily News said bye-bye to 25 more editors and reporters, paring its newsroom to 100 people from nearly twice that many a few years ago. Editor Ron Kaye kept his job, but he gave the news department a tearful address to his staff.

Employees at The LA Times had a few weeks to respond to a voluntary buyout offer aimed at eliminating 100 to 150 jobs. If not enough people volunteer, layoffs will make up the balance. The answer is in. Enough buyouts this time

If Zell’s point is that the real money is in local news, the recent experience of the Daily News, the Orange County Register and the regional dailies ringing the Bay Area — all more locally oriented than The Times — has been a discouraging counter example. Their inability to keep ad revenue from falling at double-digit percentages year over year has led to staff reductions that further hobble local news coverage.

The LA Times reductions will bring the newsroom head count to below 850. At its peak about a decade ago, the newsroom had more than 1,200 employees.

The Chicago Sun-Times stock price falls to $1. It’s now a penny stock.

Shares of Sun-Times Media Group Inc. stopped trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday after hitting a red flag, a rule that halts transactions when a stock falls below $1.05. The stock will soon be kicked out of the exchange. The smell of death is in the air of their rented offices.

Trading halted on the floor of the NYSE when the stock opened at $1, down 11 cents from Thursday’s close.

I predicted six months ago that the Chicago Sun-Times would be the next large metro daily to shutter its doors. They sold the roof over their heads just to pay the bills and pay for the penthouse for Mr. Black (who will be living in much more spartan quarters in a federal pen).

But what will happen to all the professional journos? Maybe there will be a few openings at the Hoffman Hearld? Chicken dinner news, obits, high school sports…

Over managed editor-centric suburban papers can’t compete with the scrappy blogs all over the Internet

By Mick Gregory

The alternative blogs are much better reading than the pompus little newspapers as they continue to shed readers like a 330 pound man on a July afternoon in Las Vegas.

The St. Charles Journal wrote about a teenage girl who killed herself over two adults’ postings on MySpace. After the paper didn’t name the pair, bloggers went to work and asked for help in identifiying them. The culprits were outed and the Lee paper was criticized for declining to name them. One person writes on Jezebel.com: “I am a newspaper journalist. Every day newspaper journalism as we know it gets one step closer to death, as readers turn to blogs and TV and other media for information. This wimp of an editor, who doesn’t have the guts to name the wrongdoers involved, has just hastened our eventual demise by at least another week or two.”

Watch the in-fighting as the old rotten hulks take in water.
A good site for this is Poynteronline.org

Business Week Joins the Death Vigil of Newspapers

Mick Gregory

The coverage of the demise of the great newspaper empires is accelerating. Read this by Jon Fine of Business Week. As with Enron, mainstream magazines wait until the “body” is in decomposition before analyzing the health of the patient. How could they be objective? What makes magazines immune to the same disease of expensive, labor intensive print? Magazines have far more expensive coated paper and an expensive subscription and churn rate.

Fine’s on the right track, he’s just picked the wrong old horse. Place your bets on the Mercury News in the high tech South Bay, or the Chicago Sun Times, which is on life support now.

When Do You Stop The Presses?
Why the San Francisco Chronicle is a candidate to exit print

Play with me on this one: Which major American newspaper should be the first to throw up its hands and stop publishing a print product?

It’s a question worth asking. This could be the worst year for newspapers since the Great Depression. The double-digit revenue declines long forecast by doomsters have arrived. While nearly all the major papers still post profits, albeit smaller than before, a few prominent ones are losing boatloads. At Hearst Newspapers’ San Francisco Chronicle, according to a deposition given by James M. Asher, the company’s chief legal and business development officer, losses of $330 million piled up between mid-2000 and September, 2006, better—or should I say worse?—than $1 million a week. During negotiations with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s unions, the owning Block family disclosed that the paper lost $20 million in 2006. Late last year, The Boston Globe was headed for unprofitability as well, according to The Wall Street Journal.

And 2007 does not look materially kinder than 2006 for any of these papers. One senior executive describes the climate like this: “If you told me 24 months ago that revenues would be declining as much as they are today, I’d say you were smoking dope.” Print newspapers require maintaining a costly status quo—paper, presses, trucks, and mail rooms—that, if only through rising gas prices, will only get more expensive.

WHEN, EXACTLY, do you junk something that no longer works? And which major paper should go first—not today, but within the next 18 or 24 months?

San Francisco Chronicle, I’m looking at you.

Killing printrequires acknowledging not just that the old mode is dead but also that the future means less revenue and shrunken staffs. This is why it makes sense soonest at a money-losing newspaper already grappling with those realities, and one in a major city that generates enough local ad dollars to support a sizable online business.

On paper, San Francisco is perfect: a Web-centric town, a cash-drain daily, and private ownership. Which does not mean this will happen. San Francisco is the ancestral home of the Hearst empire, the birthplace of William Randolph Hearst and the town where he ran his first paper. It could be hard for Hearst to consider the move on those grounds alone. (In Asher’s deposition, though, he said Hearst briefly considered selling the Chronicle in 2005.)

There are attractions to the way things are today. The Chronicle claims 265,000 weekday subscribers and sells a year’s worth of home delivery for $138. Even if you assume that discount offers bring the average subscription price to $90, that’s still $23.9 million a year—not an ungodly sum, but one that nervous executives are probably loath to kiss off forever. (Distribution costs, of course, mean those dollars don’t appear for free.) But what’s more relevant, at least today, is that advertisers still pay more for ads in the newspaper than on the Web site. “Even if you double or triple it, the revenue [online] just isn’t there yet,” argues one top executive.

This is why the papers dream about getting consumers to pay for digital or online content. But water has had a hard time finding a way up that hill.

Executives might be better off wondering at what point the Globe’s Boston.com or the Chronicle’s sfgate.com—with unassailable market positions, excellent editorial, and massive traffic—will be worth more as a solo digital play than attached to a print newspaper. Or whether going all-in on digital might make their market’s ad dollars flow there more quickly, especially if they’re the only major paper in town. Or that a paper could buy tons of unsold local ad inventory from the likes of MySpace and Yahoo! (YHOO ), and then resell it profitably through its veteran sales force.

All of this requires big thinking—and spending enough to create networks of local sites and a giant local portal. And it will take a brave man or woman to pull the plug on the presses.

It almost takes a William Randolph Hearst.

For Jon Fine’s blog on media and advertising, go to http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/FineOnMedia

What’s the difference between a journalist and a reporter?

Mick Gregory

Only snobs or egomaniacs call themselves journalists. I have to admit, I like the term citizen journalist, because it has a ring of truth to it and it annoys mainstream journos.

A cub reporter in the 1950s asked his boss what the difference was between a reporter and a journalist.
He said, “a journalist had two suits, a reporter only one.”

Today, reporters don’t even bother to wear ties, let alone cheap suits. But the “executive editors” still need that differentiation or class definition of wearing a dark suit to the office. They are lords of the newsroom over scores of slobs.

Now you know why I call my blog sadbastards. I’m giving you a peek behind the curtains, before the final act of the once great print empire and the sad, egomaniacal editors scrambling to keep their status relevant.

IT trade mag ‘journalists’ bite the hand that feeds them. HP

By Mick Gregory

Legal complaints were filed on behalf of CNET News.com reporters Dawn Kawamoto, Stephen Shankland and Tom Krazit in California Superior Court for the County of San Francisco. First of all, you may not read CNET, it is an advertorial trade magazine that gets all of its ad revenue and content from IBM, HP, Dell and small enterprise software companies like BMC Software.

They all seek unspecified damages.

This is a lawsuit designed for a small settlement and a little publicity for the modest magazine.

It’s amazing to some in the media, because HP was right on target with their investigations on top managers leaking info to low level “journalists” who are easily bought with a Grand Slam breakfast at Denny’s. These are the kind of “journalists” who end up writing for CNET in their jammies from their studio apartments in San Jose.

“As we have said since last fall, HP regrets these events, and we have apologized individually to those who were affected,” said Ryan Donovan, an HP spokesman. “In an attempt to resolve this matter short of litigation, HP made a substantial settlement offer to the reporters, their family members and a charity of their choice. Unfortunately, rather than respond to the offer, they have decided to sue. HP is disappointed by their decision and will defend itself.”

I don’t think HP will be bothering to budget any money into CNET in the decade. As for the settlement, how about some free meals at IHOP?

And a note to the reporters: I hope the settlement works out for you. Which other IT trade mag will hire you?

Big Cash Bonuses for Executives — Not oil companies — Newspapers

By Mick Gregory

How much do the top management of today’s media empires make? We only seem to see reports of the CEOs of a few global oil companies. What about the newspaper business? A product that is not a necessity in today’s multi-media age. Let’s look at the McClatchy gang.

These bonuses for McClatchy Newspaper executives are in addition to their annual salaries. Not a bad take for walking around in suits discussing global warming and the chances of Hillary/Obama winning in ’08. This is in sleepy Sacramento, with a nick name of “Sack-o-tomatoes” because it is smack in the middle of central California’s farm belt and you see semi-trucks by the score stacked high with small red potatoes that look a lot like tomatoes.

You can see the demographics in their Sunday best, as they make the trip to town. You know, starched white shirt, cowboy hat and boots on Pa, Ma has highlights and a long cowgirl skirt. The kids look like gang bangers. Old Town Sac has maintained wood sidewalks for that “Old West” look.

This is where the McClatchy Bee newspaper empire holds court. Bee is a very old-timey name for a newspaper, isn’t it? Kind of cute. “Busy bees.” Who knew this clan would end up gobbling up Knight Ridder, then pay for half the purchase by selling off the prestigious Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News and the San Jose Mercury News right off the bat?

In an industry that is losing revenue every year and piling on expenses, while it cuts its staff and puts more and more operations offshore, to Pune, India, isn’t it funny that they reward this type of executive management?
How about offshoring management? With today’s Skype, Web conferencing, and Business Service Software, the real number crunchers in India could streamline operations in months.

Here is the president of McClatchy, Gary Pruitt from two years ago.

Base Pay $950,000

Bonus $1,100,000

Restricted Stock $0

LTIP Payouts $108,600

Present Value of Option Grants $342,194

Other Annual Compensation $0

All Other Compensation $19,171

Total Compensation $2,519,965

Stock Option Exercises and Cumulative Balances

Shares Aquired on Exercise (#) 0

Value Realized for Options Exercised $0

Remaining Exercisable (vested) Options (#) 301,250

Remaining Unexercisable (non-vested) Options (#) 268,750

Value of Remaining Exercisable Options $9,616,656

Value of Remaining Unexercisable Options $3,204,843

Data for fiscal year ended in 2004

The following executive officers received the cash bonuses shown below:

Name and Title Amount of Annual Cash Bonus
Patrick J. Talamantes, Chief Financial Officer $170,000
Bob Weil, Vice President, Operations $200,000
Frank Whittaker, Vice President, Operations $220,000
Howard Weaver, Vice President, News $129,000

—SEC report 2006.

These figures are just “‘at-a-boy” bonuses. Just triple the figures and see how much the suits made out.
Here is what they received two years ago:

Frank R.J. Whittaker
Vice President Operations $1,277,252

Robert Weil
Vice President Operations $1,257,148

Patrick Talamantes
Vice President Finance and Chief Financial Officer $1,003,908

Howard Weaver
Vice President News $726,720

Let’s look at McClatchy stock (MNI) on the NYS exchange. The past 12 months high – $56.12, The past 12 months low – $36.95

Today’s price — $36.91. Whoopsie! If that price holds or drops this afternoon, it’s new low. After all that wheelin’ and dealin’. Well, time for another board meeting, and editorial executive summit, Palm Springs?

Newspapers killing Scripps profit picture

Mick Gregory

When did newspapers make 20 percent profits?

The Scripps Co. owner of several newspapers and the popular HGTV channel, sent out a press release to stock analysts stating it is “talking about options” for its newspaper division, which is dragging down the company’s stock price.

“We’ve reached no conclusions, it’s fair to say,” Chief Financial Officer Joseph NeCastro said at an investor conference late Tuesday. “But we do believe that there probably is some value to be created in looking at a structural alternative there . . . maybe some form of separating the newspapers out.”

Scripps has built its cable-networks business, which includes HGTV and the Food Network, into the company’s leading profit generator. It’s now entering e-commerce with acquisitions of Web sites Shopzilla and uSwitch.

Scripps’ newspapers are slow-growth or no-growth. In the first nine months of 2006, the Scripps Networks division, which includes its cable business, posted a 17.8 percent gain in revenue. Meanwhile, its Interactive Media division, aided by the uSwitch acquisition, grew 408 percent.

Newspapers, which account for less than 30 percent of the company’s revenue, saw sales drop by 0.1 percent in the same time period.

Compared to broadcast television, “Newspapers seem to be much more troubled, and it’s hard to call a bottom there,” NeCastro said. “I think up until this last year probably it wasn’t that clear. I think we collectively feel like there is some damage.”

The newspaper industry is in a death ride. The Knight Ridder chain sold itself last year after investor pressure, and the Tribune Co., which paid more than 8 billion dollars for Times Mirror, is now being pressured to break up its newspapers, especially by the Chandler family, (former owners of Times Mirror), to boost its stock.

Scripps’ comments cheered Wall Street, with analysts from Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs publishing positive analyses Wednesday. Scripps stock hit a 52-week high, closing up 3.8 percent to $51.92.

“We were positively surprised by the company’s comments, which indicate that management has given more serious consideration to this possibility than we had previously thought,” Goldman Sachs analyst Peter Appert said. “Elimination of the newspaper unit would meaningfully enhance the company’s growth prospects and likely translate into a higher valuation for the shares.”

Scripps has daily and community newspapers in 18 markets, including Denver; Memphis and Knoxville, Tenn.; and south Florida. Scripps is a 50-50 partner with MediaNews Group, the owner of the Denver Post, in the Denver Newspaper Agency.

Scripps executives did not say an investment banker has been hired to assist in the deliberations. But NeCastro said the company’s board has spent “a fair amount of time” discussing options.
One possibility is a spinoff, in which Scripps shareholders would receive shares in a new, “pure play” newspaper company. Investors could then choose to sell the newspaper company shares and stick with the higher-growth, new-economy Scripps — or vice-versa.
“We believe (Scripps) could spin out its non-newspaper businesses, could sell most of its papers, or likely pursue many other scenarios,” Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Fine said.

— David Milstead, Rocky Mountain News

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.

Senator Tim Johnson ‘responds’ to wife

Mick Gregory

Democrat Senator Tim Johnson remains in a coma. He “is recovering as expected,” said Dr. Anthony Caputy of George Washington University Hospital. “We anticipate no further tests or procedures. . . through the holidays,” said Dr. Vivek Deshmukh, a neurosurgeon. Mrs. Johnson reports that he responds to her. No details were given on what kind of reaction she meant.

His colleagues, especially Harry Reid are optimistic he’ll be able to return to work, when Democrats take control of the Senate (on paper) the 110th Congress convenes Jan. 4th, but how will Senator Johnson vote for Harry Reid for Senate leader?

Oh yes. Maybe by video, he can blink twice for a “Yes” vote on more taxes and blink once for a “No” vote on funding for American troops in Iran.

I wonder if Mr. Johnson wants to die in dignity like Mr. Shrivo thought Terri Shrivo wanted? Has a reporter asked if he has said or written anything about that? How about his view of the Terri Shrivo case?

I remember seeing video of Terri responding and smiling with family members. Will we see any video of Mr. Johnson before the Senate meets on Jan. 4th?

Why isn’t your mainstream media writing about this?

Goldman Sachs’ Year in Review: Newspapers Did Poorly — In Good Economic Times

By Mick Gregory

Read between the lines, top financial adviser, Goldman Sachs, (who’s CEO received a $50 million bonus this year) says dump your newspaper stocks.

Note to David Geffen, buy the Santa Barbra paper from Ms. McCaw. You can have your political voice published there, just an hour up Highway One, at a fraction of the cost of the LA Times.

At the same time, media mogul David Geffen’s $2 billion bid for the Los Angeles Times is about $1 billion short of what big shareholders of parent Tribune Co. want for the mega newspaper, sources close to the company said.

Tribune shareholders, but more importantly, the Chandler family, believe the value of the L.A. Times is closer to $3 billion and have said any sale of the paper would have to be done as a tax-free transaction, sources said.

A private equity group made up of Madison Dearborn Partners, Apollo Management and Providence Equity Partners has met with Tribune’s management and Chandler relatives and are conducting serious negotiations. Merrill Lynch and Citigroup are running the auction process, which has been pushed into next year after the company got lower-than-expected initial bids.

Another option for Tribune’s board, which is being advised by Morgan Stanley, is to spin off the broadcast unit and the newspaper unit into two separate public companies.

“We do not believe spinning-off Tribune’s TV assets would create value for shareholders, however, as it is just separating to secularly declining businesses,” said Lehman Brothers analyst Craig Huber in a recent report.

Some shareholders, including the Chandler family, fear that the board will eventually call off the auction and the stock will go into free-fall.

The Chandler Family, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup had better find some suckers soon.

As the year comes to a close, it will prove to be the first time industry results have not been up to snuff during a healthy economy. In a report issued by Goldman Sachs on Wednesday, analyst Peter Appert and his team wrote, “2006 will likely end as the first non-recession year in newspaper industry history in which revenues declined.”

Goldman predicts that total revenue will sink 0.3% due to weak classified, national, and circulation revenue. If so, it will turn out to be the industry’s worst performance “since the recession-impacted results of 2001,” wrote analysts.

Tribune’s September announcement that it’s seeking strategic alternatives has whipped the market into frenzy. The newspaper sector is up 8.4% compared to an 8.3% gain in the S&P500. Year-to-date the group is down 0.7%. In 2005 it was down 20.5% and in 2004 it dropped 6.1%. The large-cap papers are the ones really benefiting: that group is up 3.7% year-to-date while small-cap papers are down 21.7%.

Should stockholders be encouraged by the rally? Don’t buy into the hype, Goldman warns.

“We continue to advise investors to sell into this recent strength based on our view that deteriorating fundamentals will trump restructuring speculation,” analysts wrote. “While we believe money can be made in ‘special situations,'” — E.W. Scripps and GateHouse Media are rated as “buys” –“we would remain underweight on the group.”

Canada’s largest daily shedding 85

The Toronto Star, is eliminating 85 jobs this Christmas season, as it restructures its newspaper division and more cuts may be on the way, according to one analyst.

The “voluntary and involuntary restructurings” in the division will result in an $11-million charge in the fourth quarter against earnings, the publisher said Wednesday.

“It’s pretty big,” said one analyst who did not want to be named, adding that the cuts may help offset significant advertising declines at the Star.

WHY wait until the 12th day of Christmas to start your bloodbath? is the subject of a column in the New York Post yesterday.

For weeks now, the editorial staff at Time Inc. has been worried and demoralized because the bean counters from the McKinsey & Co. consulting firm have been poking around. And you know what the conclusion always is: Fire more of those log-rolling editorial types – toss ’em into the fire.
But why wait to spread the cheer?
This week, Time Inc. Chairman and CEO Ann Moore once again tossed aside one of the few sacred rules left in corporate America: Do not fire people the week before Christmas.

She fired 27 more people in the company’s consumer-marketing department yesterday. The hit list includes three directors: Josh Orenstein at Money, John Reese at Time and Hank Fifield at This Old House.
This brings the count of people who have been axed, downsized, booted and canned at Time Inc. since this time last year to 577.
This is the second year in a row that Moore has played the Grinch and fired people right before the big holiday. Last year, she fired 105 on Dec. 16.
“It’s bizarre to wait this close to Christmas,” said one source.
The 577 number doesn’t count the 550 people who are being shown the door as part of the sale of 18 magazines, including Parenting and Field and Stream, that is heading into the final round. The deadline for the next round of bids is now Jan. 8, several sources told Ink.

2006 was the Year of You, on Time’s cover and the death spiral, fueled by old media liberal bias and the truth written in today’s blogs.

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.

Day of the Dead — More newspaper journalists take low-level buyouts

Mick Gregory

A Day of Action by Newspaper Guild — More of a farce than show of force.

Like Ford workers, journalists have become a bottom-line problem, which is quite a comedown from being members of “The Fourth Estate,” lamented a former newspaper journalist.

Yesterday, journalists and others in the newspaper industry held a so-called “Day of Action.” In frigid Minneapolis/St. Paul, the event was coordinated by the merged union I’ve wrote about earlier, the Newspaper Guild/Communications Workers of America.

St. Paul Pioneer Press had 21 journalists quit the paper last week after accepting “chump change” buyouts from the paper’s new owner, MediaNews Group of Denver.

A rally Monday outside the Pioneer Press called attention to the danger that newspaper cuts are creating for democracy.
Both locally and nationally, journalism jobs are disappearing and newsroom staffs shrinking. That much has been widely reported.

Left unanswered is how downsizing of the news media, the so-called Fourth Estate of politics, will affect public life. Twin Cities media workers of all kinds raised precisely that point Dec. 11, when they gathered outside the Pioneer Press building downtown St. Paul. And we have a photo of a group of some 20 concerned newspaper employees hoding black balloons.

“Who is going to ask the questions if the newsroom is gutted, if we aren’t here?” asked Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Chris Serres, one of a handful of speakers to address the crowd lined up along the sidewalk in front of the newspaper’s headquarters.

MediaNews ended up with the paper after San Jose-based Knight Ridder was purchased by Sacramento-based McClatchy, which purchased the Star Tribune from the Minneapolis-based Cowles family in 1998.

Gibson’s ‘Apocalypto’ gets to the heart of corrupt, cruel, pagan and glorified Mayan culture

The diversity czars and czarinas of the Democrat party, and leftist public school teachers almost got away with eliminating the blood thirsty horrors of the Mayan civilization. I remember my teachers telling me that Mayans practiced advanced surgery — proven by skulls with chucks of bone cut out, and “heart operations” by the saw marks on ribs.

How much of history was rewritten by the socialist movement of the last 40 years? The leftists’ celebration of diversity and aggressive rejection of Western analysis of cultures and religions justified their rewrite of historical facts.

All Maya ritual acts were dictated by the 260-day Sacred Round calendar, and all performances had symbolic meaning. Sexual abstinence was rigidly observed before and during such events, and self-mutilation was encouraged in order to furnish blood with which to anoint religious articles. The elite were obsessed with blood – both their own and that of their captives – and ritual bloodletting was a major part of any important calendar event. Bloodletting was also carried out to nourish and propitiate the gods, and when Maya civilization began to fall, rulers with large territories are recorded as having rushed from one city to the other, performing bloodletting rites in order to maintain their disintegrating kingdoms.

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.

By Mistake We Didn’t Run Kerry’s Insult to Troops

Letter from an editor to his readers who are cancelling subscriptions today as they vote the straight Republican ticket.

We – and we alone – dropped the ball on the Kerry story

In Wednesday’s edition of North Carolina’s Star-News, we inadvertently omitted an important story (wrote the editor).

But don’t blame The New York Times.

Response to Sen. John Kerry‘s comments about our troops in Iraq set off a firestorm of controversy Tuesday. The story picked up steam throughout the evening as news talk show hosts and political pundits took him to task for saying this:

“You know, education – if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Many of you noticed coverage of the story wasn’t in this newspaper. And you let us have it – via phone calls and e-mails – with appropriate and justified agitation.

I apologize for that. We shouldn’t have missed it.

Yeah, right. That’s the kind of lie today’s sophisticated readers won’t accept anymore. Not with 24/7 coverage by bloggers who don’t get their paychecks from the New York Times and the elite, liberal crowd.