News Cycle

Gould (Ark.) City Council Tries to Ban All Organizations From Meeting in Private Homes Unless Approved by City Government

2011-07-21T22:42:00.000-04:00

Government Gone Wild (Big Time): A small city's council in Arkansas votes to ban citizens from meeting together in private homes or forming organizations unless they get City Council approval. The mayor is vowing to fight the council over the most ridiculous ordinance I have ever seen.

Mother of Slain 9-Year-Old: Stop the Hatred

2011-01-09T14:06:00.002-05:00

Roxanna Green, mother of the 9-year-old child who was shot and killed by a gunman in Arizona who was targeting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, said on MSNBC that she wanted the memory of her daughter Christina to live on.

"I just want her memory to live on, she's a face of hope, a face of change," Roxanna Green told MSNBC. "Stop the violence, stop the hatred."

Green spoke about how her daughter had been born on Sept. 11, 2001 and had been featured in a book called "Faces of Hope."

Chelstowski Named Publisher of Newsweek/Daily Beast

2011-01-06T06:01:00.000-05:00

In another sign that the two organizations are ready to merger, Ray Chelstowski, a former publisher of Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, has been named publisher of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, reports Jeremy W. Peters of The New York Times.

Chelstowski is the former publisher of Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly.

Peters offers this background in his report:

Under Mr. Chelstowski’s plan, the advertising sales staffs of Newsweek and The Daily Beast will eventually become one, and sales people will sell print and digital ads for both brands.

That could lead to further staff downsizing, but Mr. Chelstowski said it was premature to say whether there would be job cuts.

“Right now there are two separate sales staffs, two separate operations,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “I think the best way to go to market is in an integrated capacity.”

Since Barry Diller, whose IAC/InterActiveCorp started The Daily Beast, and Sidney Harman, who bought Newsweek late last year, agreed to merge operations in November, both organizations have been figuring out how to coexist. Newsweek will remain as a distinct magazine brand, while the Daily Beast Web site will become the vehicle for news online. Newsweek.com will no longer exist in its current form, and readers who type that address into their Web browsers will be redirected to DailyBeast.com.

Tina Brown, a former editor at The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, who was leading editorial operations at The Daily Beast, is now the editor of Newsweek as well.

Philly Inquirer’s Loeb Bounces Back to Washington Post as Local Editor

2011-01-05T13:10:00.002-05:00

Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli announced today that Vernon Loeb, Philadelphia Inquier's deputy managing editor/news, is returning to the Post as local editor.

Loeb's resume is a document of back-and-forth adventures betwen the two papers. Previously, he was a reporter for the Post. He started that stint in 1994 after leaving the Inquirer for the first time.

Romenesko posted the memo earlier today:

From: Marcus Brauchli
Sent: 01/05/2011 12:17 PM EST
To: NEWS
Subject: A New Local Editor

To the Staff:

We are pleased to announce that Vernon Loeb will be returning to The Post as Local Editor.

Vernon joins us from The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he has been deputy managing editor for news, overseeing the metro, business, health & science and national/foreign desks, as well as the newsroom’s interactions with Philly.com. It’s his second stint at the Inquirer, having previously covered the statehouse and City Hall and done a tour as a correspondent in Southeast Asia.

Loeb

The last time he decamped from Philadelphia, in 1994, it was also to The Post, where he covered the second round of Marion Barry as mayor, before moving to the National Staff to cover the CIA and the Pentagon. He left The Post after a decade to run California investigations for the Los Angeles Times.

Vernon is a tremendously talented, high-energy journalist, whose enthusiasm for what we do is infectious. In his new job, he will drive our coverage of the region, ensuring we are serving our readers, both print and digital, the smartest, freshest and most authoritative news and features on the issues that matter most to them. It’s a good match: this is a highly competitive market, and Vernon is an intensely competitive editor.

He will start on Feb. 1 and report to Liz Spayd.

As part of this transition, Senior Web Editor Jane Elizabeth and the PostLocal.com team will soon join the Local staff, with Jane spearheading Local digital initiatives and reporting to Vernon. Prior to joining the Post as Local Web News Editor a year ago, Jane was a senior editor at The Virginian-Pilot, supervising teams covering the military, politics and government, as well as medicine, health, environment, transportation, religion and consumer issues. At the Post, she has been instrumental in PostLocal.com’s growing success. This move, which will combine our Local content creation and web teams into one seamless operation, is aimed at ramping up our Local efforts across all platforms. David Marino-Nachison will continue to be Local Innovations Editor.

Vernon is married to Patricia Ford Loeb, a distinguished public and commercial radio reporter and editor. They have four children – one out of college, one in, and twins who are seniors in high school. Loeb has been known to run a marathon or two (54 actually, ed.) and is an ardent Phillies fan.

Please join us in welcoming Vernon back to the newsroom.

Marcus
Liz
Raju

Non-Union Workers in Gannett Unit Must Take One-Week Furlough in First Quarter

2011-01-04T22:56:00.001-05:00

Gannett Co. told non-union workers of its U.S. Community Publishing Unit today that they will have to take a week off without pay in the first quarter of this year to avoid more layoffs as revenue continues to fall.

The furloughs will affect workers at the 81 community newspapers. They will not apply to Gannett's flagship newspaper, USA Today, or to the Detroit Free Press. There are a total of 17,000 employees working at the community newspapers.

In a memo issued earlier today and posted on Jim Hopkins' Gannett Blog, unit President Robert Dickey said that top line revenues "remain short of where they were a year ago." Dickey continued to say that the current economy made it necessary to implement the furloughs.

"This was, quite frankly, an option I had hoped we could avoid," he said in his memo.

The furloughs must be taken by March 27, and will include Dickey himself, the memo said. Gannett chief executive officer Craig Dubow and chief operating officer Gracia Martore will have their salaries reduced by a percentage equivalent to a week's furlough.

Russell Adams of The Wall Street Journal writes:

Like many other newspaper publishers, Gannett has slashed jobs and made many other cuts, including furloughs, in response to steep declines in advertising revenue over the past couple years. The company had about 35,000 employees at the end of 2009, down from nearly 50,000 three years earlier.

In the third quarter of last year, Gannett posted a 38% increase in profit helped by lower operating expenses. However, its newspaper business continued to drag down results. Publishing ad revenue fell 5.1% from a year earlier, a slight improvement over the 5.7% decline in the second quarter. Publishing ad revenue declined 28% in 2009.

"As we start the new year, we continue to see some improvement in revenue trends and reduced year-over-year revenue declines in U.S. Community Publishing," Mr. Dickey wrote. "This is no small accomplishment and I think you should take great pride in what you have achieved. Our top line revenues, however, while improving, remain short of where they were a year ago. This is compounded by a still challenging and uncertain economy, as well as increasing expenses."

A Dozen Incoming GOP Freshmen Switch From Tea Party to a Swank Beltway Party

2011-01-04T06:56:00.004-05:00

Here's more evidence that once you are elected to Congress and you find yourself inside the Beltway that your brain just shuts off and you just don't get it.

Denham

At least 12 Republican congressmen-elect, six of whom are Tea Party members, are banding together to throw a swank party to celebrate their inauguration and raise funds at the plush W Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. Performing at the event is country singer LeAnn Rimes, who is not a favorite among social conservatives because of her Twitter photos and other activities.

The event is sponsored by America’s New Majority, a political action committee formed by Rep.-elect Jeff Denham, R-Calif., whose goal is to raise funds.

Conservative blogger Matt Lewis reports that the cost to attend the event is "$2,500 a pop (for $50,000 you can become a "Platinum Sponsor" -- but that includes eight tickets, a "VIP lunch" and a "VIP suite" at the W hotel)."

Lewis also describes why Rimes might not be the best choice in the eyes of the socially conservative base:

But the price isn't the only thing raising eyebrows. Once thought of as "family friendly," Rimes has since added some new material to her resume. As Perez Hilton recently noted:

"LeAnn Rimes took to her Twitter to reveal some pics of herself ... as a Sexy Santa performing with the El Lay Gay Men's Christmas this past Sunday. And, of course, some with her man Eddie Cibrian!" Even before Rimes' tweet, she might have been an interesting pick for conservatives. As the New York Daily News reported in September:

"Once considered America's Sweetheart, LeAnn Rimes shocked fans when she admitted to cheating on her husband, Dean Sheremet.

. . . Rimes, now 28, admitted that she had an affair with actor Eddie Cibrian while they were shooting a Lifetime film back in 2008."

Here’s a list of all the participating members-elect, according to the Sunlight Foundation's "Party Time" site:

Jeff Denham, R-Calif.
Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn. (Tea Party)
Robert Dold, R-Ill. (Tea Party)
Renee Ellmers, R-N.C. (Tea Party)
Jeff Landry, R-La. (Tea Party)
Tom Marino, R-Pa.
Tom Reed, R-N.Y.
David Rivera, R-Fla.
Jon Runyan, R-N.J.
Steve Southerland, R-Fla. (Tea Party)
Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind. (Tea Party)
Kevin Yoder. R-Kan.

POLITICO's Kenneth P. Vogel and Marin Cogan report that "House Speaker-elect John Boehner, whose name was featured on the invitation, is nonetheless skipping the event."

Their report goes on to say that at least one GOP consultant is advising his clients to stay clear of these activities:

While at least 11 incoming Republican House members had signed up for the committee by Dec. 10, other freshman were discouraged from joining, said a pair of GOP fundraising consultants.

“We strongly recommended to our clients that they not take part in this,” said one consultant, who did not want to be identified discussing advice offered to members of Congress.

“It’s causing a buzz because it’s in direct contradiction to the image that leadership is trying to portray as a conference that wants to get down to business,” said the consultant, comparing the Rimes fundraiser to one thrown by incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi when Democrats assumed the House majority in 2007.

That fundraiser – organized by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and featuring $1,000 ticket prices and performances by Tony Bennett and the remnants of The Grateful Dead – got some bad press and also sparked ill will among some of the lobbyists and political action committee managers who typically comprise the target demographic for high-dollar Washington fundraisers.

ESPN's Ron Franklin Pulled From Air After Calling Jeannine Edwards 'Sweetcakes,’ and ‘A–Hole’

2011-01-03T16:42:00.003-05:00

One of my all-time favorite sports broadcasters is in a heap of trouble for his insensitive off-the-air remarks toward a female sideline reporter.

Ron Franklin was pulled from the air before Saturday's Fiesta Bowl after he called ESPN sideline reporter Jeannine Edwards "sweetcakes" during an off-air spat, according to the website SportsbyBrooks.com.

The website also reported today that "in an email to USA TODAY reporter Michael McCarthy, ESPN sideline reporter Jeannine Edwards confirmed today that ESPN colleague Ron Franklin called her an “a–hole” during a production meeting before the ESPN Chick-fil-A Bowl telecast last Friday."

Scheduled to work on the ESPN-TV broadcast of the Chick-fil-A Bowl Friday, Franklin and Edwards were part of a production meeting before the game that was also attended by ESPN announcers Ed Cunningham and Rod Gilmore. During the meeting, the subject of Gilmore’s wife Marie being elected Alameda (CA) mayor came up.

As Gilmore, Cunningham and Franklin discussed the subject, Edwards tried to join the conversation.

When she did, Franklin said to her, “Why don’t you leave this to the boys, sweetcakes.”

Edwards responded to Franklin by saying, “don’t call me sweetcakes, I don’t like being talked to like that.”

Franklin then said, “okay then, a–hole.”

After the meeting Edwards reported Franklin’s comments to ESPN management. Once ESPN college football coordinating producer Ed Placey confirmed Franklin’s comments to Edwards with Cunningham, ESPN executives made an attempt to pull Franklin off the Chick-fil-A Bowl broadcast the same day. Because of late notice, no replacement for Franklin was found and the longtime play-by-play announcer called the game - without incident - with Cunningham and Edwards.

With Edwards and Franklin scheduled to work together the next night in Arizona, top ESPN programming executives - including Norby Williamson and Mark Gross - were involved in the decision to pull Franklin off the Fiesta Bowl radio broadcast.

Dave Lamont filled in for Franklin.

When contacted, an ESPN representative could not comment on Franklin’s current status with the company.

Franklin signed a two-year contract with ESPN last July, with the deal calling for him to work 35 events for the network per year.

ESPM subsequently pulled Franklin from the game.

Mediaite: CNN's John Roberts to Join Fox News

2011-01-03T14:03:00.001-05:00

CNN's John Roberts will join Fox News as senior national correspondent based in Atlanta and will be reporting on major domestic and international stories for the network, reports Colby Hall of Mediaite.

Some industry insiders are sure to see this as somewhat of a coup for Fox News, as Roberts will shore up the news side of FNC’s news programming. Anytime a news network can add an award winning journalist who has covered nearly every major news story of the last two decades for both CBS News and CNN. Some suggested that Roberts was poorly utilized at CNN hosting a morning news program, but Roberts did have some terrific reporting moments when he was brought out of the studio, namely while interviewing BP COO Doug Suttles, asking him “how he slept”?

It appears that Fox News will use Roberts in a similar vein, getting him out of the studio and reporting in the field on major news stories. Not only is this a win for FNC, but for fans of old school journalists as well.

NY Post: Newsweek/Daily Beast Merger Is Weeks Away

2011-01-03T10:03:00.000-05:00

Newsweek owner Sidney Harman told New York Post's Keith J. Kelly that the long-awaited merger of the struggling news magazine and the Daily Beast will finally happen in mid-January.

Kelly writes this morning:

There was no word from Barry Diller, chairman of the InterActiveCorp/IAC side of the new joint venture, which owns the Daily Beast.

Most observers blame legal and paperwork delays, combined with the usual holiday slowdown rather than any serious snags that could derail the deal reached in early November.

That means Tina Brown, the Daily Beast editor-in-chief and former editor of The New Yorker and the much-hyped failure Talk Magazine, will have longer to wait before she can put her stamp on the newsweekly when she takes over the combined operations.

In the meantime, interim co-editors Dan Klaidman and Nisid Hajari have agreed to stick around until at least the end of January -- and possibly longer.

They have been running the magazine since Jon Meacham left in late August.

WaPo's Ezra Klein: The Constitution Is Confusing and Hard to Understand

2010-12-30T16:10:00.002-05:00

I'm confused by Washington Post's Ezra Klein's contention that the Constitution, "written over 100 years ago," is confusing and hard to understand.

For starters, I thought it was written long before the Civil War. But even more perplexing is the notion that it is confusing. I'll give you the meaning behind the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights is open to some debate. But what's confusing about this?

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Could it be Sections 8, 9 and 10 that is confusing some? It does seem to be a problem for many inside the Beltway. Those three sections define the powers of Congress, the limits on Congress and the powers of the states.

Maybe it's just that Klein can't understand old documents. It's that four score and seven type of prose that is so tough to digest in the 21st Century.

The only people who have trouble understanding this wonderful document are those working to undermind it. There are some inside the Beltway who need to listen to it when it is read.

Kurtz: The War Between Olbermann and MSNBC Brass Opened Vicious Infighting

2010-11-15T11:55:00.000-05:00

Howard Kurtz at The Daily Beast has the inside details of the battle between Keith Olbermann and his superiors at MSNBC over his recent suspension for making unapproved political campaign contributions. Those contributions, sources tell Kurtz, are upsetting other NBC top journalists who are worried that they damage the reputation of the network, and thus their credibility.

Keith Olbermann was having dinner with his manager at an Upper East Side restaurant, chewing over their battle to lift his suspension at MSNBC, when Phil Griffin called.

Michael Price stepped out of the Atlantic Grill to talk to MSNBC’s president, leaving his client with a platter of 18 oysters. It was Sunday, Nov. 7, and Price informed Griffin that if they couldn’t resolve their differences quickly, Olbermann would take his complaints public by accepting invitations from Good Morning America, David Letterman, and Larry King.

Keith Olbermann (Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images) “Why are you putting us in the position where you’re daring us to do this?” Price demanded, his voice rising.

“If you go on GMA, I will fire Keith,” Griffin shot back. Such a move was clearly grounds for dismissal.

The manager returned to the restaurant. He and Olbermann, who had been pushing hard to end the suspension the next day, discussed whether they would be burning bridges by carrying out the threat. Minutes later, their phones buzzed with emails from reporters, asking about a statement that NBC had just released. Olbermann, it said, would be allowed to return to his prime-time show on Tuesday—a day later than he had wanted.

Price called Griffin again. “What compelled you to do that in that way?” he asked.

“We are at war,” Griffin responded.

If so, it was a war that had spread beyond the principal combatants to many of the journalists who work at NBC and MSNBC. From the moment Olbermann was found to have donated money to three Democratic candidates, there has been a deepening sense of anger and frustration among his colleagues, according to interviews with eight knowledgeable sources. These sources, who declined to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the situation, say that several of NBC’s front-line stars, including Tom Brokaw, have expressed concern to management that Olbermann has badly damaged MSNBC’s reputation for independence. (NBC and MSNBC executives declined to comment, and Olbermann declined to be interviewed.)

Mike Allen: Olbermann Refused On-Camera Mea Culpa

2010-11-07T20:34:00.000-05:00

Mike Allen of POLITICO reports today that MSNBC sources said that Keith Olbermann was suspended because he refused to deliver an on-camera mea culpa, which would have allowed him to continue anchoring “Countdown.”

Olbermann told his bosses he didn't know he was barred from making campaign contributions, although he is resisting saying that publicly. Olbermann may not hold as many cards as he thinks. He makes $7 million a year and MSNBC's prime time is not as dependent on him as it was before the addition of Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, who make considerably less.

U.S. News & World Report to Shut Monthly Print Issue After December

2010-11-05T17:09:00.000-04:00

U.S. News & World Report will cease printing its monthly print magazine in 2011, according to an internal memo from editor Brian Kelly posted on Romanesko.

It's a magazine that has been struggling for years. The once weekly had morphed into a monthly over the course of two years. Its circulation plunged last year to 1,269,260 from 1,721,377 the year before, Magazine Publishers of America estimated.

Here is the memo:

From: Kelly, Brian
To: INSIDE
Sent: Fri Nov 05 15:31:30 2010
Subject: Digital Strategy

To: U.S. News
From: Bill and Brian
RE: Completing Our Shift to the Digital World

Colleagues, We're finally ready to complete our transition to a predominantly digital publishing model with selected, single-topic print issues. This will allow us to make the most of the proven products, useful journalism, and great audience growth we've been sustaining. Thanks to all your great work, we've been able to maintain our core values of creating high-quality content while establishing a new, healthy business model. This puts us in a strong position to continue building the U.S. News brand in the new media world. As you know, we've been a leading innovator in adapting to the changing environment -- and we don't intend to give up that lead.

The December issue will be our last print monthly sent to subscribers, whose remaining print and digital replica subscriptions will be filled by other publishers. Going forward, our non-subscription print offerings will be for newsstand sale and targeted distribution. They'll include the college and grad guides, as well as hospital and personal finance guides. In addition, we’ll publish four other newsstand special editions, focusing on history, religion and some of the other subjects that have been a success for us in the past. And of course we’ll continue to expand our audience and products on the various usnews.com channels and grow the digital U.S. News Weekly.

All of us at U.S. News Media Group have been aggressively responding to the changing habits in the media marketplace, and these latest moves will accelerate our ability to grow our online businesses and position ourselves to take advantage of the emerging platforms for distributing information such as the iPad and Android tablets. We'll discuss this in more detail in meetings starting next week.

With an average unique audience of 9 million and counting, we've become a significant publisher in the digital space, creating content that people want and an audience that advertisers will pay for. Each of our channels -- Politics & Policy, Education, Money, Health, Autos, and Travel -- are now fully-formed business units that are developing on their own best course. By working both in the vertical channels and horizontally across them, the company has diversified its revenue beyond display advertising to include e-commerce products, lead generation, licensing and other sources.

Our emphasis on rankings and research content is the right path, making us an essential information source in a commoditized marketplace. We provide information that helps people make important decisions. Whether they're picking a college or voting for a senator, it's clear from the response of our users that accurate, searchable information is something they value highly. The proof is in the audience. People come to us every day, all day, for information they can’t get anywhere else.

We can't sit still. We have to keep improving the existing products while selectively creating new ones. In addition to upgrades in college and hospital rankings, we’ll refine and expand the data and tools that allow consumers to evaluate mutual funds, high schools, cars, online education, health plans and more. Travel is getting ready to come out of beta. Politics & Policy is developing its extensive database allowing citizens to examine the records of every member of Congress and is part of an expanding group of public policy tools. The iPad and the next generations of tablets and mobile platforms will create a brand new set of opportunities for us. We know that the creative energy and team spirit of everyone at U.S. News will continue to keep us ahead of the pack.

Bill and Brian

MSNBC Suspends Keith Olbermann Without Pay Over Political Contributions

2010-11-05T15:13:00.005-04:00

UPDATE, Nov. 5 at 4:49 p.m. Eastern: Brian Stelter of The New York Times just tweeted "MSNBC now says Chris Hayes will *not* be the sub tonight. No word yet on who will be."

------

Keith Olbermann has been suspended without pay from MSNBC because of his contributions to three political candidates.

The unusual move happened this afternoon after POLITICO reported that he had contributed to the campaigns of three Democratic candidates.

MSNBC President Phil Griffin released the following statement: “I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay."

Usually journalists are bound by ethical standards not to contribute to political campaigns or to be aligned with any political party or movement. Ethic rules concerning partisan commentators on cable TV networks and political advocacy have been debated for some time now. Many believe they are held to the same standards of new reporters. Others have felt that they are advocates, and do not fall under the same guidelines.

Indeed, journalists have contributed thousands to political campaigns and efforts and not faced suspension. MSNBC published a list of 143 journalists who gave to political campaigns. On that list, published on July 15, 2007, was Joe Scarborough, NBC's "Dateline" correspondent Victoria Corderi, MSNBC.com's Rachel Schwanewede, senior editor of TodayShow.com, and MSNBC.com's Joel Widzer, travel columnist. I cannot find any report that they suffered the same penalty that Olbermann did today.

One other distinction could be that NBC News policy does not prohibit making political contributions, just that you need prior approval from NBC executives to do so. It is possible that Scarborough and the others did receive such prior approvals and Olbermann did not.

Olbermann made campaign contributions to two Arizona members of Congress, Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords, and Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway. Conway lost his bid to Republican and Tea Party candidate Rand Paul. Olbermann made the legal maximum donation of $2,400 to each.

What might be the troubling point to MSNBC brass is the fact the Olbermann made the donation to the Arizona candidates pair on Oct. 28 — the same day that Grijalva appeared as a guest on Olbermann’s “Countdown” show.

POLITICO is also reporting that Chris Hayes, the Washington editor for The Nation and a previous fill-in for Rachel Maddow, who will fill in for Olbermann tonight has also made contributions to political candidates. POLITICO reports that he gave $250 to the congressional campaign of a good friend, Alabama Democrat Josh Segall.

Gannett Blog: Cincinnati Enquirer Publisher Announces Seven Employees Laid Off

2010-11-05T14:47:00.000-04:00

A reader of Jim Hopkins' Gannett Blog sent him an email yesterday that Cincinnati Enquirer Publisher Margaret Buchanan appeared in the newsroom about 5 p.m. Wednesday and announced there had been seven people laid off, two of those in the Local Information Center. She blamed a drop-off in retail advertising that she said began in June and has continued unabated. She said she has not heard anything about a first-quarter furlough.

Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss., Terminates 15 People

2010-11-05T14:30:00.000-04:00

The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss., laid off 15 people yesterday.

WLBT reports that the 15 people include managers, photographers and a sports reporter. The Gannett newspaper laid off 20 people in July.

Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer Plans to Lay Off 56 in Production Department

2010-11-05T14:15:00.001-04:00

Fifty-six people will lose their jobs as the Ledger-Enquirer newspaper in Columbus, Ga., cuts its production department.

The paper said today that 56 will be laid off within three months, which is the equivalent of one-third of its workforce.

President and publisher Valerie Canepa was quoted in an article written by the paper's Tony Adams, syaing that the printing of the newspaper will be outsourced to the Montgomery Advertiser, while the commercial work will be done at Gannett Offset in Atlanta.

“It creates operating cost savings and it gives us more flexibility,” Canepa said after informing affected employees Thursday afternoon of the decision to shift the production work elsewhere by Jan. 24.

The printing flexibility includes the ability to have more color pages, additional sections, improved presentation and a variety of page widths, she said.

There also will be what the publisher calls “cost avoidance,” with the large printing press being idled and portions of the Ledger-Enquirer building at the corner of Twelfth Street and Front Avenue being closed off to reduce power bills.

“We save on utility costs because the press uses a lot of power,” she said, noting through September the newspaper’s electricity bill was 13 percent higher than the year before. “We save on property tax. We have all of these benefits.”

Of the 30 daily newspapers owned by Sacramento, Calif.-based The McClatchy Company, eight now outsource their production work. They include papers in Bellingham, Wash.; Boise, Idaho; Bradenton, Fla.; Macon, Ga.; Modesto, Calif.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; and Olympia, Wash.

The shift in production will come at a steep price, however, with 56 of the 63 employees in the production department losing their jobs. Seven staffers will be retained, Canepa said, with the newspaper needing transportation and circulation personnel to truck the printed products from Montgomery and Atlanta to Columbus.

The company plans to contact the Georgia Department of Labor and other local businesses to help impacted workers with their search for new jobs, said Regina Torbett, the Ledger-Enquirer’s human resources manager.

Those being laid off will be eligible for severance packages, Canepa said in a memo to Ledger-Enquirer staff, while a job bank and outplacement center will be set up at the newspaper. The Montgomery Advertiser also is expected to add workers for the new business, the memo said, with former Ledger-Enquirer employees being given “first consideration” during hiring.

“I’ve been in HR for 23 years and have a lot of contacts,” said Torbett. “We are very dedicated to assisting our employees with their job search.”

Once the production jobs are eliminated, the Ledger-Enquirer will have 109 people on its payroll. That’s down from a work force of 245 in April 2006, before the proliferation of mostly free news on the Internet and a national recession began to cut deeply into the U.S. newspaper industry’s advertising and circulation revenue.

The Ledger-Enquirer, which dates to 1828, has gone through a handful of buyouts, layoffs and operating cost cuts over the last 28 months to manage through the tidal shift in business — remaining profitable the entire time. McClatchy has cut more than 4,000 jobs companywide in that period.

“The Ledger-Enquirer has a long and proud tradition of serving this community, and this move will not affect our mission,” Canepa said in her note to employees Thursday.

“I know that weathering this recession has been exceptionally hard for all of us, but we continue to be successful because of our ability to adapt to a constantly changing economic environment,” she said.

TALENT AVAILABLE

The Ledger-Enquirer is eliminating its production department by Jan. 24. Here are skilled positions being cut and soon to be available to other employers:

-- Manager/supervisors

-- Press operators

-- Machine operators

-- Forklift operators

-- Maintenance

-- Machinist/maintenance

-- Pre-press operators

-- Plate makers

-- Mailers/inserters

Fox is Even a Bigger Winner Tuesday Than the GOP By Trouncing CNN, MSNBC

2010-11-03T17:40:00.001-04:00

Fox had its biggest midterm election night ever, reports Brian Stelter of The New York Times, by clubbing its competitors by about 300 percent.

Fox pulled in 6.96 million viewers in prime time, while CNN averaged 2.42 million viewers, and MSNBC averaged 1.94 million viewers. That's 287 percent more than CNN and 358 percent more than MSNBC.

Stelter reported that the Nielsen Co. would not have comparison numbers against the broadcast networks until tomorrow, but early indications are that Fox would beat them, too.

Among viewers 25 to 54 years old, Fox News averaged 2.43 million in prime time, Stelter writes. CNN averaged 1.03 million among that demographic and MSNBC, 669,000.

Fox averaged 3.06 million viewers during the midterms in 2006, when there was a Democratic wave, Stelter reports. Fox has grown significantly in popularity since then.

CNN, by contrast, has shrunk — it had averaged 2.97 million viewers in the midterms in 2006. MSNBC’s prime-time averages were almost the same in 2006 and 2010.

(On the night of the presidential election in 2008, CNN averaged 12.3 million viewers in prime time, Fox averaged 9 million, and MSNBC averaged 5.9 million.)

The cable news channels’ ratings were inflated all day because of the election, but Fox ratings were inflated more than the others. Fox averaged 3.02 million viewers from 6 a.m. Tuesday to 3 a.m. Wednesday.

Belo, Owner of the Dallas Morning News, Reports $4.6 Million Net Income in 3Q of 2010

2010-11-03T17:19:00.001-04:00

A.H. Belo Corp. today reported net income of $4.6 million, or $0.20 per diluted share, for the third quarter of 2010 compared to a net loss of $5.8 million, or $0.28 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2009, a company release said.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (“EBITDA”) was $14.2 million, an increase of $20 million compared to the third quarter of 2009. Third quarter 2010 EBITDA includes pension expense of $1.6 million; a $1.1 million bonus accrual; a $1.4 million gain on two real estate transactions in Dallas; a $1.2 million reversal of an accrual for workers’ compensation insurance; and $1.1 million of insurance proceeds.

When pension expense is added to EBITDA (“Adjusted EBITDA”) in both periods, the resulting Adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter of 2010 was $15.8 million, an increase of $21.6 million compared to the third quarter of 2009.

“The Board and Management Committee are very pleased with the progress reflected in A. H. Belo’s third quarter performance," chairman, president and chief executive officer Robert W. Decherd said in the release. "Our corporate and operating unit teams have worked intensely for the past two years to reach this relative stability in an industry environment that continues to change at a rapid pace.

"Third quarter total revenue decreased 6.1 percent compared to 2009 and was only 100 basis points below the company’s 2010 Financial Plan for the third quarter.

"Expense containment and cost reductions remain top priorities across the entire organization.

"As of Sept. 30, the company had approximately $81.3 million of cash and cash equivalents, no borrowings outstanding under its bank credit facility, and remained in compliance with bank covenants.

"The addition of $21.3 million of cash and cash equivalents during the third quarter further strengthens the company’s ability to maintain and enhance the quality of its local content and make decisions in the long-term interests of the company, its shareholders and its employees.”

Fed to Buy $600 Billion in U.S.Bonds to Try to Jump Start the Economy

2010-11-03T16:27:00.001-04:00

The Federal Reserve sailed into uncharted waters today by committing to buy $600 billion more in government bonds (at a rate of $75 billion per month) by the middle of next year to give the U.S. economy a jump start.

This is the full text of the statement from the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee issued on Wednesday following a two-day meeting on monetary policy:

"Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in September confirms that the pace of recovery in output and employment continues to be slow. Household spending is increasing gradually, but remains constrained by high unemployment, modest income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Business spending on equipment and software is rising, though less rapidly than earlier in the year, while investment in nonresidential structures continues to be weak.

Employers remain reluctant to add to payrolls. Housing starts continue to be depressed. Longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable, but measures of underlying inflation have trended lower in recent quarters.

Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. Currently, the unemployment rate is elevated, and measures of underlying inflation are somewhat low, relative to levels that the Committee judges to be consistent, over the longer run, with its dual mandate. Although the Committee anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability, progress toward its objectives has been disappointingly slow.

To promote a stronger pace of economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate, the Committee decided today to expand its holdings of securities. The Committee will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings.

In addition, the Committee intends to purchase a further $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011, a pace of about $75 billion per month.

The Committee will regularly review the pace of its securities purchases and the overall size of the asset-purchase program in light of incoming information and will adjust the program as needed to best foster maximum employment and price stability.

The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period.

The Committee will continue to monitor the economic outlook and financial developments and will employ its policy tools as necessary to support the economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; James Bullard; Elizabeth A. Duke; Sandra Pianalto; Sarah Bloom Raskin; Eric S. Rosengren; Daniel K. Tarullo; Kevin M. Warsh and Janet L. Yellen.

Voting against the policy was Thomas M. Hoenig. Mr. Hoenig believed the risks of additional securities purchases outweighed the benefits. Mr. Hoenig also was concerned that this continued high level of monetary accommodation increased the risks of future financial imbalances and, over time, would cause an increase in long-term inflation expectations that could destabilize the economy."

Republicans Appear Poised to Win Big on Tuesday

2010-10-31T21:50:00.000-04:00

The final USA Today/Gallup measure of Americans' voting intentions for Congress shows Republicans continuing to hold a substantial lead over Democrats among likely voters, a lead large enough to suggest that regardless of turnout, the Republicans will win more than the 40 seats needed to give them the majority in the U.S. House.

The results are from Gallup's Oct. 28-31 survey of 1,539 likely voters. It finds 52% to 55% of likely voters preferring the Republican candidate and 40% to 42% for the Democratic candidate on the national generic ballot -- depending on turnout assumptions. Gallup's analysis of several indicators of voter turnout from the weekend poll suggests turnout will be slightly higher than in recent years, at 45%. This would give the Republicans a 55% to 40% lead on the generic ballot, with 5% undecided.

Republicans' 15-point lead among likely voters contrasts with their 4-point lead, 48% to 44%, among registered voters, highlighting the importance of higher GOP turnout to the election outcome. This wide difference between the GOP's margin among registered voters and its margin among likely voters is similar to the 2002 midterms, in which Democrats led by 5 points among all registered voters in Gallup's final pre-election poll, while Republicans led by 6 points among likely voters -- an 11-point gain.

These final estimates of the vote among registered and likely voters are consistent with Gallup polling since Sept. 23. Republicans have led by an average of 4 points among registered voters and by 16 points among a low-turnout estimate of likely voters since that time. Thus, while voter preferences could change in the final two days, perhaps resulting from Democrats' final push to motivate their base to turn out, voter preferences appear to be quite settled in this final post-Labor Day phase of the campaign.

Pennsylvania Senate - Sestak vs. Toomey

2010-10-30T21:38:00.000-04:00

Here's Real Clear Politics' take on the Pennsylvania Senate race between Republican Pat Toomey and Democrat Joe Sestak.

When Arlen Specter was born in 1930, Pennsylvania had 36 Congressional districts. All of them save for one – the 12th – elected Republicans. When Specter first entered public life it was a very different Pennsylvania: The western part of the state was heavily unionized and Democratic, the Philadelphia Republican machine had disappeared, and Republican strength was found in the Philly suburbs (including northeast Philly) and the mountainous interior of the state.

Today, the state is different once again. The Philly suburbs have moved toward the Democrats, while Pittsburgh has moved toward the Republicans. The Republican Party has changed as well; it is a more conservative entity, one that is much less welcoming toward liberal Republicans such as Specter. Specter left the Party in mid-2009 to avoid a primary challenge from Pat Toomey, only to lose the Democratic Primary to Congressman Joe Sestak.

The race between Toomey and Sestak is a study in contrasts. Both men represented areas in Congress that at least nominally favored the other party. Both are from the eastern portion of the state, leaving the west up for grabs. In a normal year, Sestak would probably win – Toomey’s economic conservatism isn’t a great match for this economically populist state. But in this year of tea parties, the more salient factor in the general election may be Sestak’s support of the Obama administration’s spending

Festive, Funny and Goofy at Jon Stewart Rally

2010-10-30T14:58:00.004-04:00

The Associated Press reports that Jon Stewart's Sanity Rally drew easily tens of thousands of people, and at least at the start was focused on poking fun at just about everything. (Click here for images.)

In the shadow of the Capitol and close to the election, comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert entertained a huge throng rallying on Saturday for "sanity," poking fun at the nation's diversity and its ill-tempered politics.

In one shtick, Stewart and his associates queried some crowd-goers to identify themselves by category, eliciting answers from attendees such as "half-Mexican, half-white," "American woman single" and "Asian-American from Taiwan."

"It's a perfect demographic sampling of the American people," Stewart cracked. "As you know, if you have too many white people at a rally, your cause is racist. If you have too many people of color, then you must be asking for something — special rights, like eating at restaurants or piggy back rides."

The event sought in part to be a counterpoint to the "Restoring Honor" rally in August by Glenn Beck, the Fox News commentator popular among conservatives and tea party supporters. Beck's rally, which had strong religious overtones, drew some protests from civil rights supporters.

Don Novello, who years ago played Father Guido Sarducci on "Saturday Night Live," provided the benediction. He polled the crowd on their religious leanings, then gave thanks to God for allowing everyone to assign their various causes to him.

Egged on by the hosts, Ozzy Osbourne and Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, engaged in something of a battle of the bands, the heavy-metal rocker and the folkie interrupting each other.

The crowds — easily tens of thousands strong — were festive, goofy, disillusioned with the state of politics if not the nation, and ready to play nice at a gathering called as a counterweight to all the shouting and flying insults of these polarized times. But there were political undertones, too, pushing back against conservatives ahead of Tuesday's election.

Slogans urged people to "relax." But also: "Righties, don't stomp on my head," a reference to a Republican rally in Kentucky at which a liberal activist was pulled to the ground and stepped on. And, "I wouldn't care if the president was Muslim."

Sun-Times Media Lays Off Exec Who Put Its Spin on Layoffs

2010-10-30T12:53:00.001-04:00

Ironic, isn't it?

Sun-Times Media spokesperson Tammy Chase's job was to put the best light on Sun-Times Media's layoffs, big and small. This week, she got her own notice that the company could no longer afford her services.

Michael Miner of the Chicago Reader talked to her about her experiences:

At Sun-Times Media, "efficiencies" have recently been made right and left. About 50 drivers were laid off when the job of delivering the flagship Sun-Times was turned over completely to the Tribune in September. This month the Sun-Times laid off sports columnist-turned-features writer Carol Slezak and three editorial assistants. Across the 59 daily and weekly papers held by the company, jobs have vanished in editorial, advertising, marketing, and circulation. Last week the bell tolled again at the SouthtownStar, for two receptionists and two salesmen.
Tammy Chase (photo by Andre J. Jackson)

Efficiencies? "That was the general message the company wanted me to put out there," says Tammy Chase. "When you're a journalist you want to tell the whole story. Even if you're not dumping your notebook, you don't want to not cover something if it's really important. In PR you need to be truthful, but you can't say whatever. You need to project the message your company executives want to project. It's a different way of thinking."

After ten years with Sun-Times Media, four of them thinking like a spokesperson, Chase is packing up her desk this week. She's been laid off. It's something she was pretty sure was about to happen when she talked to the Orland Park Patch, and she got the official word a few days later. Sun-Times Media can no longer afford a corporate spokesman—CEO Jeremy Halbreich will now do that job himself.

When things got crazy at work, Chase says, she used to joke that she ought to write a book. If she ever does, I'll read it. She started out as a reporter at a tiny paper in Iowa, went on to Bloomberg, and joined the Sun-Times as a financial writer in 2000. The paper belonged to Hollinger International back then, and Conrad Black and David Radler ran it. Chase never met Black, but now and then she'd ride the elevator with Radler. "He was very tanned and surly looking," she says. If Radler even knew she worked for him he probably also knew she belonged to the Newspaper Guild; Radler, who despised unions, would have considered her a lower life form.

But in late 2006 Chase left the newsroom and the guild. By then Hollinger shareholders had turned on Black and Radler. Black was awaiting trial for fraud over noncompete payments he and Radler had pocketed as they sold off most of Hollinger. Radler had copped a plea and agreed to testify against Black. Nothing was left of mighty Hollinger but the Sun-Times Media Group, and the new CEO was Cyrus Freidheim, the guy who'd turned around the Chiquita banana company.

Chase was Lifestyles editor when Friedheim offered her the corporate job. "You know I edit stories about shoes," she told him. But Friedheim wanted a journalist who'd been around the Sun-Times awhile speaking for the company. Black's trial was a few months away and the calls were about to pour in.

"Shareholders at large were calling," Chase says, "asking, 'How much money do Conrad and his colleagues have out there, and how do we recover it?' We settled with David Radler—we got some money from that. So shareholders wanted to know—what about the other guys?" (Besides Black, two other Hollinger officers were accused of benefiting from the noncompete payments, though on a far smaller scale.)

And if Black got off, shareholders wanted to know, what would that mean for their shares? "A lot of investors were ticked off," says Chase. "They thought he owed the company and the shareholders a lot of money." That's a lot of money as in hundreds of millions of dollars. "You can't blame them for being grouchy," says Chase. "We had the trial. We owed the IRS money. Our potential liability had gotten up to—I think at one point it was $600 million. The investors were understandably worried."

And then there were all the calls from reporters covering Black and the trial. "From Britain. Canada, of course. I was getting hundreds of calls a week—about 50-50 investors to media. It was a shitstorm."

Black was convicted. Revenues plunged. The STMG staggered on, a company desperate to be bought that nobody wanted. "Nobody wanted to take on that IRS thing," says Chase. Early last year investors took over the board and Freidheim resigned, telling the Sun-Times on his way out the door, "If we did go into bankruptcy, that would not mean the end of the company."

What Chase was about to discover is that long before bankruptcy is declared, a company must begin to prepare for it. "We worked on this at least a month in advance," she says. "I'd covered United's bankruptcy as a reporter, and I'd say the restructuring adviser is so and so and the lawyer is so and so, and this happened in court today. But now I saw what the restructuring adviser actually does. It sets up shop and goes through the books. Three people were devoted full-time to this—'OK, here's the people whose bills we'll pay right away and these bills we'll address later.' You have to have people help you on this and these guys are experts."

Ms. Chase, I've been there, I know the feeling of being let go. It's happened to me twice. Good luck in the future.

Monmouth University Poll: O’Donnell Cuts Coons' Edge to 10 Points

2010-10-29T18:54:00.004-04:00

In the past two weeks, Republican Christine O’Donnell has narrowed Democrat Chris Coons’ lead in Delaware’s U.S. Senate race from 19 points to 10 points. The latest Monmouth University Poll finds Coons has the support of 51 percent of likely voters to 41 percent for O’Donnell. Two weeks ago, this race stood at 57 percent to 38 percent.

O’Donnell has actually pulled into a 49 percent to 43 percent lead in the southern part of the state (i.e. Kent and Sussex counties). Two weeks ago, this region of the state was divided at 47 percent for O’Donnell and 46 percent for Coons. The Democrat continues to hold a sizable advantage in New Castle County, but the current 56 percent to 36 percent margin is down from the 63 percent to 33 percent edge he held earlier this month.

O’Donnell has also made gains among independent voters, now leading Coons 47 percent to 42 percent among this voting bloc. Two weeks ago, she trailed in the independent vote by 51 percent to 41 percent.

“While Coons still has the advantage, it has to be uncomfortable knowing that O’Donnell was able to shave nine points off his lead in just two weeks. The interesting thing is that while her vote total has risen, the majority of Delaware voters still say she is unqualified for the post,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

The poll found that just 35 percent of likely voters in Delaware feel that Christine O’Donnell is qualified to be a U.S. senator, while 56 percent say she is unqualified. That contrasts with their opinion of Chris Coons, who 65 percent say is qualified for the U.S. Senate to 25 percent unqualified. These qualification results for O’Donnell and Coons are basically identical to the Monmouth University Poll results from two weeks ago.

However, O’Donnell has seen some improvement in voters’ opinion of her personally, while Coons’ rating has dropped. O’Donnell is now viewed favorably by 34 percent of the electorate and unfavorably by 51 percent. Two weeks ago, this stood at 31 percent favorable to 58 percent unfavorable. Coons has a 45 percent favorable to 39 percent unfavorable rating, compared to a 50 percent favorable to 33 percent unfavorable rating two weeks ago.

While the Senate election has experienced some movement, there has been little change in the race for Delaware’s at-large House seat. The poll finds Democrat John Carney holding a 51 percent to 44 percent lead over Republican Glen Urquhart in the race to fill the vacant House seat. That marks a slight narrowing of the gap from Carney’s 53 percent to 44 percent margin two weeks ago.

Delaware voters’ personal ratings for the two major party House candidates have remained fairly stable. Carney has a 46 percent favorable to 28 percent unfavorable rating, with 26 percent offering no opinion. Urquhart has a 38 percent favorable to 27 percent unfavorable rating, with 35 percent offering no opinion.

The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone with 1171 likely voters from Oct. 25 to 27, 2010. This sample has a margin of error of + 2.9 percent.

Professors Weighing One-Way Colonization of Mars

2010-10-29T12:18:00.002-04:00

So, want to go to Mars and stay there? Robert Strenge of Washington State University News Service writes that Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a WSU associate professor who, with colleague Paul Davies, a physicist and cosmologist from Arizona State University, argues for precisely such a manned mission in an article published this month in the Journal of Cosmology.

In “To Boldly Go: A One-Way Human Mission to Mars,” the authors write that, while technically feasible, a manned mission to Mars and back is unlikely to lift off anytime soon - largely because it is a hugely expensive proposition, both in terms of financial resources and political will. And because the greatest portion of the expense is tied up in safely returning the crew and spacecraft to Earth, they reason that a manned one-way mission would not only cut the costs by several fold, but also mark the beginning of long-term human colonization of the planet.

Mars is by far the most promising planet for sustained colonization and development, the authors conclude, because it is similar in many respects to Earth and, crucially, possesses a moderate surface gravity, an atmosphere, abundant water and carbon dioxide, together with a range of essential minerals. It is the Earth’s second closest planetary neighbor (after Venus), and a trip to Mars would take about six months using the most favorable launch option and current chemical rocket technology.

“We envision that Mars exploration would begin and proceed for a long time on the basis of outbound journeys only,” said Schulze-Makuch. “One approach could be to send four astronauts initially, two on each of two spacecraft, each with a lander and sufficient supplies, to stake a single outpost on Mars. A one-way human mission to Mars would be the first step in establishing a permanent human presence on the planet.”

While acknowledging that the mission would necessarily be crewed by volunteers, Schulze-Makuch and Davies stress that they aren’t suggesting that astronauts simply be abandoned on the Red Planet for the sake of science. Unlike the Apollo moon missions, they propose a series of missions over time, sufficient to support long-term colonization.

“It would really be little different from the first white settlers of the North American continent, who left Europe with little expectation of return,” Davies said of the proposed one-way Martian mission. “Explorers such as Columbus, Frobisher, Scott and Amundsen, while not embarking on their voyages with the intention of staying at their destination, nevertheless took huge personal risks to explore new lands, in the knowledge that there was a significant likelihood that they would perish in the attempt.”

The authors propose the astronauts would be re-supplied on a periodic basis from Earth with basic necessities, but otherwise would be expected to become increasingly proficient at harvesting and utilizing resources available on Mars. Eventually they envision that outpost would reach self-sufficiency, and then it could serve as a hub for a greatly expanded colonization program.

The proposed project would begin with the selection of an appropriate site for the colony, preferably associated with a cave or some other natural shelter, as well as other nearby resources, such as water, minerals and nutrients.

“Mars has natural and quite large lava caves, and some of them are located at a low elevation in close proximity to the former northern ocean, which means that they could harbor ice deposits inside similar to many ice-containing caves on Earth,” said Schulze-Makuch. “Ice caves would go a long way to solving the needs of a settlement for water and oxygen. Mars has no ozone shield and no magnetospheric shielding, and ice caves would also provide shelter from ionizing and ultraviolet radiation.”

The article suggests that, in addition to offering humanity a "lifeboat" in the event of a mega-catastrophe on Earth, a Mars colony would provide a platform for further scientific research. Astrobiologists agree that there is a fair probability that Mars hosts, or once hosted, microbial life, perhaps deep beneath the surface. Davies and Schulze-Makuch suggest a scientific facility on Mars might therefore be a unique opportunity to study an alien life form and a second evolutionary record.

“Mars also conceals a wealth of geological and astronomical data that is almost impossible to access from Earth using robotic probes,” the authors write. “A permanent human presence on Mars would open the way to comparative planetology on a scale unimagined by any former generation… A Mars base would offer a springboard for human/robotic exploration of the outer solar system and the asteroid belt. And establishing a permanent multicultural and multinational human presence on another world would have major beneficial political and social implications for Earth, and serve as a strong unifying and uplifting theme for all humanity.”

Although they believe the strategy of colonizing Mars with one-way missions brings the goal of colonizing another planet technologically and financially within our reach, Schulze-Makuch and Davies acknowledge that such a project would require not only major international cooperation, but a return to the exploration spirit and risk-taking ethos of the great period of the Earth’s exploration.

They write that when they raise the idea of a one-way Mars colonization mission among their scientific colleagues, a number express an interest in making the trip.

“Informal surveys conducted after lectures and conference presentations on our proposal have repeatedly shown that many people are willing to volunteer for a one-way mission, both for reasons of scientific curiosity and in a spirit of adventure and human destiny,” they write.

And yes, Schulze-Makuch offered that he too would be prepared to “boldly go” on a one-way mission to the Red Planet. But he hedges just a bit, holding out the single caveat that he would want the launch to wait until his young children have all grown into adults.

Kerry: The GOP and Talk Radio Practice Cheap-Seat Politics

2010-10-29T10:24:00.000-04:00

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) unleashed a blistering attack on Republicans and talk-raido hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck yesterday, saying that they have dragged the political conversation down to the lowest common denominator.

Focusing on the energy proposal, which broke down in negotiations with teh GOP over an emissions-trading program, the senator told the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce that "it's absurd. We've lost our minds. We're in a period of know-nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don't weigh in. It's all short-order, lowest common denominator, cheap-seat politics.

"The obstructionism is stunning," Kerry said, describing how Republicans have blocked Senate business with filibuster tactics more during the past 18 months than the period between the end of World War I and the Apollo moon landing in 1969. "I think America really needs to know more of this kind of tactic and how it's shortchanging us."

He also pegged the $700 billion federal bailout program on George W. Bush.

"It was not Barack Obama, it was not the Democratic Party. It was not us who asked for a bailout, or created the situation that required a bailout. And it was in response to a Republican president that a lot of Democrats stepped up."

Matthews: Tea Party Activists Are Like Nazi SS, When Will They Start Wearing Uniforms?

2010-10-28T18:18:00.003-04:00

MSNBC host Chris Matthews yesterday compared Tea Party activists to the Nazi SS thugs of the 1930s and wondered when they will start wearing uniforms.

His comments were made during a "Hardball" segment concerning on the MoveOn.org activist who was stomped on by a Rand Paul supporter earlier this week.

This is the “kind of stuff we saw from hoodlums in the '30s in another country I will not mention,” he said. “What is this behavior by American political activists where they now arrest people, stomp them? These are supposed to be people who are just good old American tea partiers.”

Matthews also talked about what happened in Alaska when security for GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller briefly detained a blogger.

“I gotta wonder when people are gonna start wearing uniforms. I mean they've got an army out there in Alaska of militia people. You've got these guys going around acting like street thugs. I mean it isn't far from what we saw in the thirties, where all of a sudden, political parties started showing up in uniform.”

Here is the AP video:

@ Yahoo!7 Video

Conservatives have said that eyewitness reported Valle was lunging at Rand Paul, trying to shove a sign in his face and start trouble. They have pointed to this video for their evidence.

Los Angeles Times Dummy Hed Here

2010-10-28T17:29:00.002-04:00

Page A22 of The Times this morning

Some readers in The Los Angeles Times' East zone, which includes the San Gabriel Valley and Riverside, got a peek at a classic newspaper mistake today when they saw "dummy" headlines in the National Briefing column on Page A22, readers' representative Deirdre Edgar writes. About 55,000 editions rolled off the press before the mistake was discovered.

Readers feared that all the copy editors had been laid off, or even "massacred," as one put it.

But according to Operations Editor Dave Rickley, Page A22 for the East zone was not touched -- or seen -- by the newsroom.

The page was sent by editors to the pressroom with headlines written and in place.

The only thing that was supposed to change on the page was advertising. However, Rickley said, a technical problem apparently replaced the edited text with an earlier, incomplete version.

The pressroom caught the error early in the press run and notified editors. That quick work allowed the newsroom to send a new, correct version of the page, which limited the damage.

Drudge: Bush Ordered Planes to be Shot Down on 9/11; Thought Flt. 93 Was Targeted

2010-10-28T14:31:00.003-04:00

Drudge Report has released excerpts of former President George Bush's upcoming book, "Decision Points."

One of the revelations is that Bush gave the order to shoot down planes on Sept. 11 -- and at first thought the plane in United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down in Shankesville, Pa.

Drudge includes other tidbits, including:

The former president begins the opening chapter with a simple question: "It was a simple question, 'Can you remember the last day you didn't have a drink?'"

Bush explains how he returned to his faith, time and time again. And the faith of others.

The president details how he bonded with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia -- and a magical bird! Arriving angry at Bush's Texas ranch over the president's position on Israel and Ramallah, Abdullah quickly decided he wanted to leave. But the prince spots a turkey on the road -- and takes it as a good omen, a sign from Allah!

In the chapter "Stem Cells", Bush describes receiving a letter from Nancy Reagan detailing a "wrenching family journey". But ultimately, Bush writes: "I did feel a responsibility to voice my pro-life convictions and lead the country toward what Pope John Paul II called a culture of life."

Bush describes an emotional July 2001 meeting with the pope at the pontiff's summer residence. Savaged by Parkinson's, the pope saw the promise of science, but implored Bush to support life in all its forms. Later, at the pope's funeral -- and after a prodding from his wife that it's a time to "pray for miracles" -- Bush found himself saying a prayer for the cancer-stricken ABCNEWS anchor Peter Jennings.

The book, scheduled for release on Nov. 9, is ranked No. 29 on AMAZON's hitlist early Thursday.

Rasmussen: 65 Percent of Likely Voters Favor Dumping Congress and Starting Over

2010-10-28T10:49:00.000-04:00

Only 65 percent?

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% of Likely U.S. Voters say if they had the option next week, they would vote to get rid of the entire Congress and start all over again. Only 20% would opt to keep the entire Congress instead. Fifteen percent (15%) aren’t sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Of course, the Political Class strongly disagrees. While 84% of Mainstream voters would opt to get rid of the entire Congress, 64% of the Political Class would vote instead to keep them all.

Not surprisingly, 82% of Republicans and 78% of unaffiliateds say dump them all. Despite their party’s control of both the House and Senate, Democratic voters are fairly evenly divided: 44% say it’s better to keep the entire Congress, but 38% would prefer to give all the national legislators the heave-ho.

Thirty-eight percent (38%) of all voters have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party after its two years of controlling both the White House and Congress. But 53% view the Democrats unfavorably.

As for the party out of power but knocking on the door, just 29% view Republicans favorably, while 54% hold an unfavorable opinion of them.

Only 61% of Republicans offer a favorable opinion of the GOP, a figure perhaps reflective of the fact that most Republican voters believe their party leaders are out of touch with the base.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Democrats have a favorable opinion of their party.

Among all voters, just three percent (3%) have a favorable opinion of both parties, while 18% view both unfavorably. Seventy-nine percent (79%) offer mixed reviews.

Whatever You Do, Don't Misspell The Boss' Wife's Name

2010-10-28T10:40:00.000-04:00

Everyone who writes either for a living or for fun is guilty of making typos. Just read my blog, without a copy editor having my back I've made thousands. But some typos sting more than others.

For instance, here's one from the White House Press Secretary's Office, as reported by POLITICO:

In a White House press release sent Tuesday evening, there's a misspelling, and it's a big one: The first lady's first name.

"Michele and I are deeply saddened by the loss of life, injuries, and damage that have occurred as a result of the recent earthquake and tsunami in West Sumatra," reads the release.

Of course, the first lady's first name is spelled "Michelle," with two "l"'s.

A corrected version was sent out this morning.

Rove in WSJ: Tuesday Will Be a Democratic Apocalypse

2010-10-28T09:37:00.000-04:00

Karl Rove sounded the warning bell for the Democratic Party in Tuesdays elections: It will be a crushing rebuke of first two years of the Obama administration.

He writes this morning in the Wall Street Jounral:

Midterm elections are almost always unpleasant experiences for the White House, especially when the economy is weak. But key races that should have been safe for the party in power demonstrate the extent to which President Obama and his policies have nationalized the election.

In Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a huge war chest in a state Mr. Obama won in 2008 by 12 points. Mr. Reid trails Sharron Angle by four points in the latest Rasmussen poll.

In West Virginia, Joe Manchin, a popular Democratic governor, is running for the Senate, yet he lags behind John Raese by two points in the Oct. 23 Fox News Poll, largely because of Mr. Obama's 30% approval rating in the state. Mr. Manchin is running away from the president, telling Fox News that Mr. Obama is "dead wrong on cap and trade," and that he would not have supported ObamaCare had he known everything that was in the bill.

Or take the Illinois Senate seat held by Mr. Obama before he was elected president. It should be safely Democratic. Instead, Republican Congressman Mark Kirk has led Illinois Treasurer and Obama basketball buddy Alexi Giannoulias in eight of the 10 polls taken this month. It will be a terrible embarrassment if the president's former Senate seat flips.

Elsewhere, some powerful Senate Democrats were either forced out by popular Republican challengers (North Dakota and Indiana) or they trail badly because their races became nationalized over the Obama agenda (Arkansas, Missouri and Wisconsin).

One of the more interesting Senate races is in Ohio, where Rob Portman, a former trade negotiator and budget director for George W. Bush, leads Democratic Lt. Governor Lee Fisher by an average of 19 points in a state Mr. Obama carried by four points.

Ohio is no longer friendly Obama territory. An August survey by Public Policy Polling reported that Ohioans would prefer George W. Bush in the White House today rather than Mr. Obama by 50% to 42%. Mr. Portman campaigns relentlessly on jobs, presenting a principled, optimistic case that conservative policies mean economic growth. It's a winning strategy.

WaPo Partners With Intersect.com to Interview Participants at Stewart's Rally This Weekend

2010-10-28T08:59:00.003-04:00

The Washington Post announced that it will join with Intersect.com in an effort to get on-the-ground answers from participants in Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” on the National Mall this weekend.

Rally patrticipants will "help us cover the rally and answer reporters' questions about the event."

Comedy Central estimated in its permit application for the rally that as many as 25,000 people would attend the event, which is scheduled for Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. More than 220,000 people had RSVP’d for the event on Facebook as of late Monday, but it’s difficult to gauge how many will actually turn out.

The Story Lab team will be filing stories throughout Saturday's events on the Mall via Intersect, a new site designed to collect and present stories live and from the scene. Here on washingtonpost.com and on Intersect's site, we'll be documenting the scene and asking those in attendance and those watching at home to weigh in on the politics vs. entertainment question. Please join us.

SIGN UP: If you’d like to share your own rally stories on Intersect, visit Intersect.com and use the invite code “washingtonpost” to create an account.

Maybe the first question could be: Have you found a port-a-potty yet?

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Post's link to Intersect.com is broken on the Post's site. A ticket has been ordered to fix it. Here is a working link to the web site.

Poll: Republicans Want NPR Funding Cut; Democrats Say Keep It

2010-10-27T21:00:00.000-04:00

This is a poll that was a waste of money. Did they expect any other result?

Most Republicans and a plurality of independents want the U.S. government to halt its financial contributions to embattled National Public Radio, while most Democrats support continued U.S. funding for NPR.

NPR’s controversial firing last week of news analyst Juan Williams re-ignited a long-time debate over whether U.S. government funds should be channeled to the non-profit radio service. A single-digit percentage of NPR funding comes from the U.S. government.

A nationwide Poll Position survey found that 45 percent of Americans favored continued U.S. government NPR funding, while 39 percent called for a halt to funding, with the remainder saying they had no opinion.

In partisan terms, Republicans favored ending U.S. funding 54-28 percent, while Democrats wanted the funding to continue 58-25 percent. NPR funding was favored by independents 49-38 percent.

Broken down by ages, the 18-29 group supported continued taxpayer subsidies 62-30 percent. The 30-44 group narrowly sided with halting the funding 42-39 percent, and older groups were almost evenly split on the idea.

Men backed NPR’s federal funding 50-40 percent, but women were not so decisive. They supported continued funding 40-37 percent, with another 23 percent undecided. Support hovered around 50 percent among all ethnic groups in the survey – whites, blacks, Latinos and others.

Greenman: Obama's Dumb 'Daily Show' Gig Is Hurting His Brand

2010-10-27T19:52:00.003-04:00

President Barack Obama tapes an interview for the Daily Show with Jon Stewart at the Harman Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C., October 27, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Joshua Greenman of The Daily News in New York was not impressed with President Barack Obama's appearance on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show."

President Obama should make the most of his "Daily Show" appearance on Wednesday night - charming the pants off Jon Stewart and the crowd, as he did when he showed up there two years ago. It's a terrific show, Stewart is a great interviewer and Obama makes good television.

Then, the President should cancel all future trivial media appearances. While they may have kept him personally popular, in broad terms they've degraded the Obama brand.

Obama's handlers were supposed to be smarter than this. They were supposed to use his celebrity strategically to advance his agenda. Instead, they've been indiscriminate, carpet-bombing Americans with the man they elected rather than launching communications smart weapons.

The result is that for millions of Americans, the very likable, charming Obama has become a constant tone in the background rather than an occasional, convincing, presidential voice in the foreground - the kind that makes your ears perk up.

Consider all the quasi-entertainment media appearances he's made, most of them frivolous.

He went on ESPN twice to announce his Final Four picks. He went on "The View" (drawing 6.5 million viewers). He had a "Christmas at the White House" special with Oprah Winfrey. He went on Jay Leno - becoming the first sitting President to appear on a late-night show. He was on the cover of Rolling Stone, giving a revealing interview looking back on his first 18 months in office. In December, he'll be going on the Discovery Channel's "MythBusters."

All that's left, apparently, is to be a guest voice on "The Simpsons," though I'm sure that's in the offing. Banksy will animate.

This "Daily Show" appearance makes a second strategic mistake. By chumming it up with Stewart just days before the Rally to Restore Sanity, Obama and Stewart are coopting each other. The President is killing two mockingbirds with one stone.

The First Daguerreotype of Human Beings

2010-10-27T19:21:00.006-04:00

The Boulevard du Temple in Paris in 1838

Here's how mass media started, and it's a joy to see.

Above is the Daguerreotype that was taken by Louis Daguerre in Paris in 1838, and in the inset to the left you can see two people, totally unaware of their role in history.

The Daguerreotype shows a view of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris. But because the exposure time took more than 10 minutes, the moving traffic does not appear. The exceptions are the man and shoe-shine boy at the bottom left of the image (see insert), and two people sitting at a table nearby who stood still long enough to have their images captured.

While there were experiments in photography for more than a decade, these are recognized as the first human beings to have their images captures.

Below is a Google Maps grab frame of how the block looks today, as researched by a reader of the blog, The Hokumburg Goombah.

What were theses two people talking about at this moment when they were making history? What were their concerns? Probably the same issues that you and I discuss: politics, the weather, or life in general.

The Boulevard du Temple in Paris in 2010

Kagan Uses 1st Vote in Effort to Halt Execution Because of IV Drug's Safety Concerns

2010-10-27T18:29:00.001-04:00

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, in her first action on the court, joined ranks with the minority today in an attempt to halt an Arizona execution because of concerns that the drug used in the lethal injection is unsafe to use. A 5-4 majority prevailed in allowing the execution.

David G. Savage of the Tribune News Service reports:

Justice Elena Kagan cast her first recorded vote on the Supreme Court late Tuesday, joining the liberals in dissent when the high court cleared the way for the execution of an Arizona murderer.

The 5-4 ruling overturned orders by a federal judge in Phoenix and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that had stopped the execution by lethal injection of Jeffrey Landrigan.

His lawyers, in a last-ditch appeal, had raised questions about one of the drugs used in the execution. Since the only U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental had suspended production, Arizona officials said they had obtained a supply of the drug from a British company.

A judge had put the execution on hold because she said she was "left to speculate" whether this drug was safe for its intended use.

But state lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court Tuesday, which lifted the judge's order.

"There is no evidence in the record to suggest that the drug obtained from a foreign source is unsafe," the justices said, and "speculation cannot substitute for evidence that the use of the drug is 'sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering'."

The high court used those words two years ago in a decision that upheld the use of lethal injections.

Tuesday's night's one-paragraph order was unsigned, but it spoke for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Four others said they disagreed and said would have preserved the stay. They were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Kagan.

AP Management Proposes Freeze on Defined Benefit Pension Plan

2010-10-26T12:34:00.002-04:00

Citing industry and economic pressures, the Associated Press' chief executive officer Tom Curley in a memo today told employees that the company is proposing to freeze the defined benefit pension plan at current levels.

Here is the memo:

Oct. 26, 2010

AP Staffer:

I want to let you know about some changes in your pension plan that we are proposing as we negotiate a new contract with union employees. Under our proposal, the AP defined benefit pension plan that you are enrolled in would be frozen at the current level of benefit, and any future company investment in your pension would be directed toward a defined contribution plan.

Since I came to AP I have strived to do everything possible to keep your pension plan intact. Unfortunately, industry and economic pressures mean this is no longer possible. Nearly all media companies, as well as more than half of Fortune 100 companies, have already frozen their defined benefit plans.

This was not an easy decision. Your pension and your well-being are very important to me. As we work through these changes, we will strive to find ways to maximize your retirement benefits. Within the next two days, you will be receiving more information about our proposal and the impact it might have. Once the negotiation process is concluded, we will make sure you have more detailed information as quickly as we can.

Best regards,

Tom Curley

WikiLeaks' Iraq Documents: U.S. Was Finding Remnants of Saddam’s WMDs

2010-10-26T07:46:00.002-04:00

WikiLeaks’ Iraq war documents are showing something that most of the media is ignoring. For years, Americans were finding chemical weapons labs and insurgent specialists in toxins. Yes, apparently the United States was indeed finding some lingering evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Noah Shachtman of wired.com reports.

An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.

In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic “blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and “reported two positive results for blister.” The chemical was then “triple-sealed and transported to a secure site” outside their base.

Three months later, in northern Iraq, U.S. scouts went to
look in on a “chemical weapons” complex. “One of the bunkers has been tampered with,” they write. “The integrity of the seal [around the complex] appears intact, but it seems someone is interesting in trying to get into the bunkers.”

Meanwhile, the second battle of Fallujah was raging in Anbar province. In the southeastern corner of the city, American forces came across a “house with a chemical lab . . . substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab.” The following day, there’s a call in another part of the city for explosive experts to dispose of a “chemical cache.”

Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. “The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “the rounds tested positive for mustard."

[Snip]

But even late in the war, WMDs were still being unearthed. In the summer of 2008, according to one WikiLeaked report, American troops found at least 10 rounds that tested positive for chemical agents. “These rounds were most likely left over from the [Saddam]-era regime. Based on location, these rounds may be an AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] cache. However, the rounds were all total disrepair and did not appear to have been moved for a long time.”

None of this points to a huge arsenal of WMD ready to be used by Saddam Hussein at the start of the second Iraqi war, but it does show that the dictator didn't have clean hands either.

WikiLeaks: New Classified Data Records 109,032 Deaths in Iraqi War

2010-10-22T21:56:00.000-04:00

WikiLeaks released tonight what it calls the largest classified military leak in history, detailing 109,032 deaths during the Iragi war.

The 391,832 reports, which it called "The Iraq War Logs", document the war and occupation in Iraq from Jan. 1, 2004, until Dec. 31, 2009, with the exception of the months of May 2004 and March 2009.

Each report is a "SIGACT," which is a military term for "Significant Action" in the war. The reports detail events as seen and heard by the U.S. on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout, according to the website.

The website says the reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 civilians; 23,984 enemy insurgents; 15,196 Iraqi government forces and 3,771 coalition forces. This amount would total 31 civilians deaths every day during the six years.

Michaels Out as Tribune CEO

2010-10-22T20:58:00.000-04:00

Randy Michaels has resigned as chief exeutive officer of Tribune Co., reports Michael Oneal and Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune tonight, who reported the move cae after Michales had lost the support of many employees, his board and the creditors.
Michaels will be replaced by a four-member office called an Executive Council, which will be charged with stabilizing the company while it struggles to exit bankruptcy court after almost two years of fractious, stop-and-start negotiations with creditors, they reported.

Michaels' departure followed weeks of escalating allegations that he and his "friends and family" – a cadre of former colleagues and associates from the radio industry – had tarnished the company with boorish, sexist behavior and a general atmosphere of juvenile unprofessionalism in the corporate suite, the report said.

Here is the memo concerning the move:

From: Tribune Communications

Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 4:52 PM

Subject: Message from Don Liebentritt, Nils Larsen, Tony Hunter and Eddy Hartenstein

Tribune's Board of Directors today accepted Randy Michaels' resignation and voted to establish a four-member Executive Council to assume the responsibilities of the Office of Chief Executive and President, and to oversee the company's publishing and broadcasting operations. The board's actions will be announced in the attached press release, which will be issued shortly.

The members of the Executive Council are: Don Liebentritt, Chief Restructuring Officer, Nils Larsen, Chief Investment Officer, Tony Hunter, President, Publisher and CEO of Chicago Tribune Company, and Eddy Hartenstein, Publisher and CEO of Los Angeles Times Communications LLC. In addition, Nils Larsen has been named Chairman of Tribune Broadcasting.

Jerry Kersting will continue in his role as Tribune Broadcasting President and have day-to-day responsibility for overseeing our television stations, WGN America and WGN Radio; he'll work very closely with the Council.

Gerry Spector will continue as Chief Operating Officer, reporting directly to the Council. He will provide guidance on several systems and infrastructure projects currently underway across the company. His knowledge, insight and continued participation in these projects will be invaluable.

The board took this action as a way of ensuring stability and continuity for the company and its various media businesses.

Each of us recognizes the company's strengths and believes in its future. We also believe that Tribune's greatest asset is its employees and we know how much pride you take in your work and in this company. During the last few weeks the company has drawn a lot of media attention, much of it negative. That coverage has diverted attention from the things that matter most: The quality of our media products, the talent and dedication of our people, and the very real progress that we've made over the last two-and-a-half years.

Now, it is time to move forward and focus on the future. Our business units are in the process of developing their financial and operating plans for 2011 and we are headed into the most important time of the year for our advertising partners. We're also making progress on resolving our Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases.

There are many reasons to feel good about our future. There is a lot of work to do, and a lot of opportunity; we can capitalize by staying focused on serving our customers and communities.

Thank you for everything you do for this company every day. Keep up the great work.

Don, Nils, Tony and Eddy

Juan Williams: NPR Was Looking for a Reason to Fire Me

2010-10-22T10:27:00.000-04:00

Juan Williams, now a full-time Fox contributor, said on "Fox and Friends" this morning that he believes that executives at NPR were looking for a reason to fire him and found the ammunition with his comments about Muslims earlier this week.

"I think they were looking for a reason to get rid of me. They were uncomfortable with the idea that I was talking to the likes of Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity."

Host Gretchen Carlson asked Williams about Congress defunding NPR. Here was his reply:

You know what? I love NPR. I think that NPR is an important institution. I think oftentimes the quality of journalism is fantastic. I’m not about attacking NPR. But I do think this, Gretchen. If they want to compete in the marketplace, they should compete in the marketplace. They don’t need public funds. I think they should go out there, if they think the product is so great, go out and sell the product. And what happens is, too often, then, they want to make it out like, “You know what? We are a public jewel and we need the protection of the federal government. We need federal funds that come through the member stations and they pay for this product.” Nonsense. They are on a federal dole, is what it is And they better admit it and step up if they want to compete.

But Republicans on Capitol Hill are already looking into the possibility of pulling the financial plug. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is expected to discuss such a proposal sometime today.

Water on the Moon? There's Lots of It. So, How's Your Thirst for Exploration?

2010-10-22T07:30:00.000-04:00

A year ago we bombed the moon with the LCROSS lunar-impact probe to see if there is any chance of water near its south pole. Well, after a year of analysis, NASA announced that its scientists have found up to a billion gallons of water ice in the floor of a permanently shadowed crater.

This brings up the question once again, do we want to go there to establish a permanent base? Because if we do, we are sure to have moon neighbors from India and China also taking a drink from the well.

Cenk Uygur Officially Now a MSNBC Host

2010-10-21T20:32:00.002-04:00

Cenk Uygur

Cenk Uygur today becomes a contributor and substitute anchor at MSNBC.

Uygur has been a frequent guest on MSNBC and has previously served as a fill-in anchor on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” “The Ed Show” and "The Dylan Ratigan Show.”

“Cenk’s fresh perspective and his passion for politics make him a great addition to the MSNBC team,” said Phil Griffin, MSNBC president. “He's developed a big following on MSNBC and we welcome him to this new role.”

Uygur is host of "The Young Turks," the first ever live, daily web television talk show. "The Young Turks" streams live online weekdays from 6-9 p.m. Eastern Time, and can be heard on XM/Sirius Satellite Radio from 8-9 p.m. Eastern Time. Uygur is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania — Wharton School of Business and Columbia University Law School. His career began as a practicing lawyer before transitioning to write and host television, and later launch "The Young Turks." Uygur is also a contributing blogger on the Huffington Post, Daily Kos and POLITICO.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The orginial posting had an incorrect photo.

NPR CEO: Williams' Feelings About Muslims Should Be Between Him and 'His Psychiatrist'

2010-10-21T16:04:00.001-04:00

Proving that everyone care be careless when making public remarks, NPR chief executive officer Vivian Schiller said today that that whatever feelings Juan Williams has about Muslims should be between him and "his psychiatrist or his publicist."

NPR issued a statement saying Williams' remarks "were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR."

"Juan has been a valuable contributor to NPR and public radio for many years and we did not make this decision lightly or without regret," NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm said in an e-mailed statement.

Later this afternoon, NPR released this statement by Schiller: "I spoke hastily and I apologize to Juan and others for my thoughtless remark."

Here is NPR's first statement concerning the dismissal:

"A critical distinction has been lost in this debate. NPR News analysts have a distinctive role and set of responsibilities. This is a very different role than that of a commentator or columnist. News analysts may not take personal public positions on controversial issues; doing so undermines their credibility as analysts, and that's what’s happened in this situation. As you all well know, we offer views of all kinds on your air every day, but those views are expressed by those we interview — not our reporters and analysts.

"Second, this isn't the first time we have had serious concerns about some of Juan's public comments. Despite many conversations and warnings over the years, Juan has continued to violate this principal.

"Third, these specific comments (and others made in the past), are inconsistent with NPR’s ethics code, which applies to all journalists (including contracted analysts): 'In appearing on TV or other media. ... NPR journalists should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist. They should not participate in shows ... that encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis.”

"More fundamentally, 'In appearing on TV or other media including electronic Web-based forums, NPR journalists should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist.'

"Unfortunately, Juan’s comments on Fox violated our standards as well as our values and offended many in doing so."

POLITICO: Williams Defends His Statement About Muslims

2010-10-21T14:46:00.000-04:00

Juan Williams was back on Fox today defending his statements concerning Muslims, the very statements that earned him a pink slip from his employer, NPR.

As reported by POLITICO's On Media blog:

Juan Williams took to Fox to discuss the circumstances of his firing today, saying it happened over the phone and he was given no chance to come in and make a case for himself to the news organization that had employed him for a decade.

He said he got a voicemail Wednesday afternoon from Ellen Weiss, NPR’s senior vice president for news. When he called back, she asked him: “What did you say? What did you mean?”

He defended his statements.

“I said what I meant to say, which is that it’s an honest experience that, when I’m in an airport, and I see people who are in Muslim garb, who identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I do a double take. I have a moment of anxiety or fear given what happened on 9/11. That’s just a reality.”

Weiss said “that crosses the line,” and went on to say that he had made “a bigoted statement,” Williams said.

“It’s not a bigoted statement,” Williams said he argued back. “In fact, in the course of this conversation with Bill O’Reilly, I said that we have, as Americans, an obligation to be careful to protect the constitutional rights of everyone in the country. And to make sure we don’t have any outbreak of bigotry.

“But, that there’s a reality. You cannot ignore what happened on 9/11. And you cannot ignore the connection to Islamic radicalism. And you can’t ignore the fact of what has even been recently said in court with regard to ‘this is the first drop of blood in a Muslim war on America.’”

According to Williams, Weiss said the decision to fire him had been made “up the chain” and “there’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.”

NPR Fires Juan Williams Over His Comments About Muslims Made on O'Reilly Factor

2010-10-20T23:48:00.002-04:00

I've never been an advocate of firing people who are commentators for expressing an opinion. That's what they were paid to do. Juan Williams is the latest victim in a media world where you are allowed to have an opinion, unless a lot of people don't like it. especially from the left.

NPR fired Williams tonight after he made comments about Muslims on the Fox News Channel.

Brian Stelter of The New York Times writes:

The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday. On the show, the host, Bill O’Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a “Muslim dilemma.” Mr. O’Reilly said, “The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet.”

Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr. O’Reilly.

He continued: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

Mr. Williams also made reference to the Pakistani immigrant who pleaded guilty this month to trying to plant a car bomb in Times Square. “He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts,” Mr. Williams said.

NPR said in its statement that the remarks “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”

The public radio organization said it thanked him for many years of service. Mr. Williams did not immediately respond on Wednesday night to an e-mail seeking comment.

Mr. Williams’s contributions on Fox raised eyebrows at NPR in the past. In February 2009, NPR said it had asked that he stop being identified on “The O’Reilly Factor” as a “senior correspondent for NPR,” even though that title was accurate.

Alicia C. Shepard, the NPR ombudswoman, said at the time that Mr. Williams was a “lightning rod” for the public radio organization in part because he “tends to speak one way on NPR and another on Fox.”

Ms. Shepard said she had received 378 listener e-mails in 2008 listing complaints and frustrations about Mr. Williams.

George Soros Donates $1 Million to Media Matters to Combat Conservative News Outlets

2010-10-20T22:29:00.004-04:00

Long-rumored as a supporter, billionaire George Soros stepped up this week to donate $1 million to Media Matters to support its mission to keep watch over conservative-leaning media.

In a statement obtained by Michael D. Shear of The New York Times' The Caucus, the organization says it plans to use the money to intensify its efforts to hold the Fox host Glenn Beck and others on the cable news channel accountable for their reporting.

"Fox has transformed itself into a 24-7 G.O.P. attack machine, dividing Americans through fear-mongering and falsehoods and undermining the legitimacy of our government for partisan political ends," the group will say in the statement, to be released Wednesday afternoon.

In an accompanying statement, Mr. Soros, a billionaire who has a history of supporting liberal politicians and causes, accused Fox News hosts of "incendiary rhetoric" and said he hoped that his money would be used "in an effort to more widely publicize the challenge Fox News poses to civil and informed discourse in our democracy."

For years, conservatives have accused Media Matters of being a front organization for Mr. Soros. In May, Mr. Beck referred to Media Matters as "the left-wing George Soros-funded media machine that is now referring to me as a jihadist." In 2007, Fox's Sean Hannity called it "Hillary Clinton's George Soros-funded group Media Matters."

Officials at Media Matters regularly deny that they have ever taken money from Mr. Soros, who repeats that denial in Wednesday's statement, saying, "I have not to date been a funder" of the liberal organization. Now, he will officially be a donor, and likely a fresh target for criticism from the right.

Boston Globe May Have a Local Suitor

2010-10-20T18:21:00.000-04:00

Finally, there seems to be a potential hometown buyer for the Boston Globe.

Aaron Kushner, an entrepreneur who owns Marian Heath Greeting Cards Inc. in Wareham, Mass., told Robert Gavin of the Boston Globe that his group, called 2100 Trust, is planning to make an offer to the New York Times Co.

He would not discuss terms of the projected offer.

"We are putting together the business model of taking what is an important community organization and reverse the cycle and have it growing," Kushner, 37, of Wellesley, said an interview. "If the Globe was achieving even half its potential, it would be of much greater import and impact."

The newly-formed group wants to purchase the New England Media Group unit, which includes the Globe, Boston.com, and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

Last year the Times Co. had put the Globe up for sale but pulled it off the market, saying that the paper's financial conditions had improved.

McClatchy Reports Lower Third Quarter Profits in 2010

2010-10-20T00:10:00.000-04:00

The McClatchy Co. on Tuesday reported lower third quarter profits, although the newspaper company said its lengthy slump in advertising revenue continued to show signs of easing, writes Dale Kasler of the McClatchy News Service from Sacramento, Calif.

Sacramento-based McClatchy, owner of The Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald, said bottom line net income fell to $11.9 million or 14 cents a share, down from last year's $23.6 million or 28 cents. Excluding certain adjustments, earnings from operations fell to $10.6 million from $11 million.

Advertising revenue, which makes up the bulk of the company's business, fell 6.4 percent from a year earlier. That represented a slight improvement from the second quarter, when sales were off 8 percent -- and a major improvement from a year ago, when ad revenue was falling 30 percent.

But in a troubling sign, Chairman and Chief Executive Gary Pruitt said results from September were a setback. ``We have seen improving ad revenues since the second quarter of 2009 although September went against this trend,'' he said in a news release. ``We believe the September results reflect the uneven nature of the economic recovery. ... The declines were greatest at our California and Florida newspapers, where the rate of economic recovery continues to be slower than we are seeing elsewhere.''

The Sacramento Bee and a handful of other McClatchy papers imposed layoffs earlier this month after McClatchy executives said business had softened considerably in recent weeks. The layoffs were considerably smaller than cutbacks made last year.

Reporters Without Borders Updates Its Press Freedom Index

2010-10-20T00:02:00.001-04:00

Once again, journalists throughout the world are in danger of being jailed, tortured, and even murdered for just doing their jobs. Reporters Without Borders updated its Press Freedom Index today, placing the United States in 20th place worldwide.

The Paris-based organization, which defends journalists imprisoned or persecuted for doing their job and exposes the mistreatment and torture of them in at least 140 countries, also had some unkind words to say about government supression of journalists in the European Union.

“Our latest world press freedom index contains welcome surprises, highlights sombre realities and confirms certain trends,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said as his organisation issued its ninth annual index today. “More than ever before, we see that economic development, institutional reform and respect for fundamental rights do not necessarily go hand in hand. The defence of media freedom continues to be a battle, a battle of vigilance in the democracies of old Europe and a battle against oppression and injustice in the totalitarian regimes still scattered across the globe.

“We must salute the engines of press freedom, with Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland at their head. We must also pay homage to the human-rights activists, journalists and bloggers throughout the world who bravely defend the right to speak out. Their fate is our constant concern. We reiterate our call for the release of Liu Xiaobo, the symbol of the pressure for free speech building up in China, which censorship for the time being is still managing to contain. And we warn the Chinese authorities against taking a road from which there is no way out.

“It is disturbing to see several European Union member countries continuing to fall in the index. If it does not pull itself together, the European Union risks losing its position as world leader in respect for human rights. And if that were to happen, how could it be convincing when it asked authoritarian regimes to make improvements? There is an urgent need for the European countries to recover their exemplary status.

“We are also worried by the harsher line being taken by governments at the other end of the index. Rwanda, Yemen and Syria have joined Burma and North Korea in the group of the world’s most repressive countries towards journalists. This does not bode well for 2011. Unfortunately, the trend in the most authoritarian countries is not one of improvement.”

Confirmed downward trends

Morocco’s drop (-8 places) reflects the authorities’ tension over issues relating to press freedom, evident since early 2009. The sentencing of a journalist to one year in prison without possibility of parole (he will serve eight months), the arbitrary closing down of a newspaper, the financial ruin of another newspaper, orchestrated by the authorities, etc. – all practices which explain Morocco’s fall in the Index rankings.

Tunisia’s score was (-10), falling in position from 154th to 164rd (Tunisia had already lost 9 places between 2008 and 2009). The country is continuing to drop into the Index’s lower rankings because of its policy of systematic repression enforced by government leaders in Tunis against any person who expresses an idea contrary to that of the regime. The passage of the Amendment to Article 61B of the Penal Code is especially troubling in that it tends to criminalise any contact with foreign organisations which might ultimately harm Tunisia’s economic interests.

There is an identical situation in Syria (-8) and Yemen (-3), where press freedom is fast shrinking away. Arbitrary detentions are still routine, as is the use of torture.

For its part, Iran held its position at the bottom of the Index. The crackdown on journalists and netizens which occurred just after the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009 only strengthened in 2010.

Only a relative improvement in some countries

At first glance, the 2010 index’s higher score as compared to that of 2009 seems to translate into gains. However, it is important to emphasise how troubling the situation had been in 2009. In that regard, 2010 actually spells out a return to the pre-existing equilibrium, with no sign of significant progress in these countries.

Such is the case of Israel (extra-territorial) which “won” 18 places in the index, passing from the 150th to the 132nd place. The year 2010 was not exempt from press freedom violations on the part of the Israeli Army, as evidenced by the cases of foreign journalists arrested on the flotilla in May 2010, or the Palestinian journalists who are regularly targeted by Tsahal soldiers’ bullets. Or the skirmish in South Lebanon last August, during which a Lebanese journalist was killed. However, 2010 is incommensurate with 2009, in the early days of which "Operation Cast Lead" took place: six journalists died, two of them while doing their jobs, and at least three buildings sheltering media professionals were targeted by gunfire.

The Palestinian Territories had similar results, rising 11 places in the 2010 index (now 150th instead of 161st). The violations committed in the year just ended are simply “less serious” than in 2009, even if the journalists and media professionals are still paying the price for the open hostility between the Hamas and the Fatah.

In Algeria, the number of legal proceedings instituted against journalists has noticeably declined, which explains its gain of 8 places in the Index. Between 2008 and 2009, the country had dropped 20 places due to the increased number of legal proceedings.

Iraq climbed 15 places (now 130th), because safety conditions for journalists improved substantially in the country, despite the fact that three had died between 1 September 2009 and 31 August 2010 – two of whom were murdered. Since then, three deaths have occurred in less than one month. The withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq at the end of August necessarily marks the start of a new era. The security of citizens, and particularly of journalists, should not be made to suffer for it.

Drops in Persian Gulf

Bahraini’s ranking in the Index dropped from 119th to 144th place, which can be explained by the growing number of imprisonments and trials, notably against bloggers and netizens.

Another noteworthy drop was that of Kuwait, which fell 27 places, from the 60th to the 87th position, mainly because of the Kuwaiti authorities’ harsh treatment of lawyer and blogger Mohammed Abdel Qader Al-Jassem, who has been jailed twice following accusations lodged by prominent figures with close ties to the regime. This contradicts the authorities stated desire to project an image of being the leading democracy of the Persian Gulf.

Maynard Institute: Spurned Columnists Question Selection Process for Obama Meeting

2010-10-19T20:48:00.000-04:00

President Barack Obama's move to reach out to African-American columnists brought nothing but anger and resentment to members of tghe group who had their invitations to the meeting revoked, Richard Prince wrote today for the Maynard Institute.

The role of the White House in selecting the interviewers, and whether group representatives were complicit in granting the White House such a role, has been called into question.

President Obama met Friday in the Roosevelt Room with 10 members of the Trotter Group as part of his effort to shore up his African American base for the midterm elections next month.

The meeting was fraught with symbolism. The Trotter Group was named after activist Boston editor William Monroe Trotter, a militant figure of the early 20th century. Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson explains on the Trotter Group site:

[snip]

On Oct. 8, Trotter Group co-founder DeWayne Wickham, a columnist for USA Today and Gannett News Service, told Trotter members that Obama wanted to meet with the group on Oct. 15.

The group has 40 members, and Wickham, who negotiated the meeting with the White House, told members later in the day, "The White House has just asked me to limit the number of Trotter members taking part in the meeting with President Obama to 16. So I sent to the White House the names of the first 16 Trotter members who responded."

The Journal-isms author, who is in Washington, was among those on the list of 16 and had planned to invite readers to suggest questions. Other columnists on the list made preparations for a trip. On Monday afternoon, however, Wickham messaged, "Unfortunately, the White House has asked us to reduce the number of Trotter members who will attend Friday's meeting with President Obama from 18 to 10 — and to limit it to the founders and newspaper columnists." There was no explanation of how the number had risen to 18.

Wickham and another co-founder, retired Newsday columnist and editor Les Payne, pared the list, Wickham said.

It was unclear how much the White House participated in vetoing or approving certain members. Kevin S. Lewis, who started as White House director of African American media only a week ago, did not respond Monday to questions from Journal-isms.

What was clear, however, was that not all members were involved in the decision and that those who were suddenly cut were disappointed, embarrassed and inconvenienced.

An e-mail from George E. Curry, a veteran journalist who opines for the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service, which serves black newspapers, and for the Philadelphia Inquirer, indicated that the White House did play a role in shaping which members were invited. That would be contrary to the practice in pool-reporting situations, where the news organization, not the White House, determines who is in the pool.

In an electronic discussion among those who were not invited, Curry said:

"I am also deeply dismayed over how an announced selection process was abandoned in mid-stream, evidently because the names of certain people were not included on the list.

"When DeWayne initially announced that participation would be limited to 18 people and they were selected in the order in which they replied to the invite, I thought it would be unfortunate if all of us could not attend, but that was a fair way of deciding who should attend.

"However, fairness was quickly thrown out of the window when DeWayne said he and Les decided on a list of names that he sent to the White House before even letting us know of their decision. As one of the first to reply, I was pleased that I was on the first list. However, it was no fun learning that I had been deleted from the list because, according to DeWayne, he and Les wanted to make sure the founders were included in the group.

"Like Richard, I did not know there [were] two separate but unequal membership levels in the Trotter Group," Curry continued, referring to this columnist.

"DeWayne first told me I was being eliminated because the White House asked him to 'limit it to the founders and newspaper columnists.' I doubly qualify as a newspaper columnist: 1) As a regular columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and 2) As a columnist for the NNPA, a federation of more than 100 Black newspapers. When I questioned the decision, I received a different explanation: The White House 'expressed a lack of interest in having an NNPA person in our reconstituted group since the president is planning to meet soon with the NNPA and other units of the black press.' It stretches the imagination that a White House that is finally reaching out the Black community would specifically ask that the person whose column is syndicated to more Black newspapers than anyone else in the country should be specifically excluded from participation.

"Furthermore, I do not work for the NNPA and therefore will not be included in any meeting Obama has with the publishers. If in fact that were the case, I still would qualify by virtue of my writing a column for the Inquirer and being among the first to respond."

CPJ: In China, a Debate on Press Rights

2010-10-19T16:56:00.000-04:00

Madeline Earp, senior research associate for the Committee to Protect Journalists's Asia program, wrote today in a Special Report of Chinese journalists speaking out to protest attacks, harassment, and arrests. The discussion of press rights—and the central government’s stance—may foretell the future of broader reforms in China.

Journalists in China are increasingly willing to speak out on behalf of their colleagues, publicly condemning physical attacks, harassment, and arrests, a CPJ examination has found. Interviews with more than a dozen journalists, lawyers, and analysts, along with a review of five recent cases, point to a journalism community asserting the principle of press rights—if not press freedom—and finding at least limited success. Along with arrests in the Fangs’ case, a journalist in detention was freed, an arrest warrant against a reporter was withdrawn, and a top corporate executive issued an apology after a confrontation with a newspaper—each time after journalists publicized the cases.

“Organized acts of protest by journalists remain unusual, but reports on journalists’ rights are increasing,” said Zhan Jiang, a professor in the International Journalism and Communication Department at Beijing Foreign Studies University and well-known media analyst. Online outlets and digital methods have been crucial in the emergence of press protection as an articulated issue.

Still, there are significant limits. Even as discussion of press rights gains momentum, censorship remains strong; the government severely restricts direct challenges to central authority or the Communist Party, along with coverage of sensitive national topics. Wang Keqin, an acclaimed investigative reporter for China Economic Times, told CPJ “there was a big fall-off in reporting freedom in 2008 and 2009” because of the Olympics and the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule.

New York Times Co. Reports $4.3 Million 3Q Loss in 2010

2010-10-19T11:16:00.002-04:00

The New York Times lost money in the third quarter this year, but the bleeding was not as bad as it was a year ago.

The company reported a loss of about 3 cents a share for the third quarter compared to a 2009 third quarter loss of 25 cents a share.

Total revenues decreased 2.7 percent in the third quarter of 2010 compared with the third quarter of 2009 as advertising and circulation revenues declined 1.0 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively. Increased digital advertising revenues, which rose 14.6 percent, partially offset a 5.8 percent decrease in print advertising revenues.

Other highlights in the report include:

Operating costs excluding depreciation, amortization and severance increased 0.8 percent in the third quarter of 2010 versus the third quarter of 2009. On a GAAP basis, the Company’s operating costs increased 0.1 percent in the third quarter of 2010 versus the third quarter of 2009.

Operating profit excluding depreciation, amortization, severance and the special items discussed below declined 23.6 percent to $62.0 million in the third quarter of 2010 compared with $81.2 million in the third quarter of 2009. On a GAAP basis, the Company had an operating profit of $9.0 million in the third quarter of 2010 compared with an operating loss of $23.7 million in the third quarter of 2009.

Diluted earnings per share from continuing operations excluding severance and the special items discussed below were $.07 per share in the third quarter of 2010 compared with $.16 in the same period of 2009. On a GAAP basis, the Company had a diluted loss per share from continuing operations of $.03 per share in the third quarter of 2010 compared with $.24 in the third quarter of 2009.

The Company reduced its debt and capital lease obligations, net of cash and cash equivalents, by more than one third to approximately $646 million from its balance at the beginning of 2009. The majority of the Company’s debt matures in 2015 or later.

Here is the transcript of the conference call with Times senior management.

Newspaper Websites Attract 61 Percent of All Internet Users in September

2010-10-18T13:18:00.000-04:00

Newspaper companies attracted 102.8 million unique visitors to their websites in September -- about 61 percent of all adult Internet users. The analysis, performed by comScore for the Newspaper Association of America, also indicates that newspaper websites reached 55 percent of 25-to-34-year-olds and 73 percent of individuals in households earning more than $100,000 a year.

“This data from comScore reinforces how newspaper publishers are leveraging original, high-quality content to build a powerful and engaged audience in the digital space,” Newspaper Association of America President and chief executive officer John F. Sturm said in the NAA news release. “The analysis also paints a powerful picture of our medium’s Web audience, with newspaper websites attracting consumers that deliver maximum value to advertisers.”

The data says newspaper website users generated nearly 4.1 billion page views and spent more than 3.3 billion minutes browsing the sites.

NAA is adopting comScore’s Unified Digital Measurement methodology – which bridges panel-based and website server-based metrics – as its preferred measurement methodology because it more accurately reflects the true size of the newspaper Web home and at-work online audience, the association said. Web audience figures from comScore will be posted on www.naa.org each month.

The association said that the comScore findings indicate that newspaper websites, which attracted more than 250 million total gross unique visitors in September, draw affluent users and perform strongly in key demographics:

One-in-four (25 percent) of adult newspaper website visitors come from households earning at least $100,000 a year, compared to 21 percent of all adult Internet users. Nearly 73 percent of adult Internet users in this income bracket visited a newspaper website in September.

Nearly 61 percent of adults aged 18+ visited a newspaper website in September. During that same time period, 51 percent of this age group visited Yahoo! News Network, 22 percent visited CNN and 27 percent visited MSNBC.

More than 55 percent of adults in the 25-to-34-year-old demographic visited a newspaper website in September. During that same time period, 52 percent of this age group visited Yahoo! News Network, 22 percent visited CNN and 24 percent visited MSNBC.

Obama Sidesteps Sestak and Birnbaum Questions: Is This Change We Voted For?

2010-05-27T17:36:00.007-04:00

Putting aside the legal issues, which I know nothing about as I am not a lawyer, there is an issue surrounding today's answers by President Barack Obama at his first press conference in 10 months.

That is the president's campaign pledge to change in the way Washington operates.

First up is President Obama's response to Rep. Joe Sestak's claim that he was offered a job by the administration to drop out of his primary battle with Sen. Arlen Specter. If the White House never made such an offer, Obama would have told reporters today that "no offer was every made Rep. Sestak, and unless the congressman can verify his claim somehow, I am confident that no crime was committed."

Instead, we got what what was basically, "Let me get back to you on that one." That signifies that the administration and Sestak campaign lawyers are busy crafting some kind of unified response to this mess. In addition, it signifies that something was indeed communicated to the congressman early on about a job in the administration.

That's politics as usual in Washington. It's dirty, and it's winner-takes-all. It's exactly that type of behavior that has led most Americans to despise Congress and the Washington elite. This is the type of activity the majority of Americans voted to reject in 2008. Obama brought in voters who normally do not cast ballots for Democrats, or even vote at all, on the premise of changing Washington's business-as-usual atmosphere. This makes it look like the administration has failed miserably.

He also said he did not know if Elizabeth Birnbaum resigned or was fired as director of Minerals Management Services, the agency that has a major role in managing the federal government's response to the Gulf oil tragedy. Yet he repeatedly said he was on top of the situation and that he was in charge.

How the heck can that happen? How can the guy in charge look so blind-sided?

Birnbaum was on the short rope for a week. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as recently as last week indicated that he was going to shake up the agency. Stephen Power of The Wall Street Journal wrote today after the press conference:

... he was breaking up the agency and dividing its duties across three new offices within the Interior Department. Ms. Birnbaum didn't attend the announcement, and Mr. Salazar was noncommittal when asked what role she would have at the department going forward.

"Part of the reason I hired her is because she had no connection to industry," Mr. Salazar said at the time. He added that she had brought "a fresh perspective" to the agency, but when asked what role she would have the department, he said only that "we'll see."

Ms. Birnbaum's departure from the MMS comes as the agency is under intense scrutiny from lawmakers, some of whom have complained that her agency was too lax in setting and enforcing safety regulations on offshore oil and gas companies. A Wall Street Journal article earlier this month detailed how the agency had often deferred to the industry on decisions about what sorts of technologies or practices should be implemented to improve safety.

If the president is in charge and he's on top of the situation, why didn't anyone at Interior think about informing him of such a major move, and whether she was fired or resign? They had plenty of time, the press conference was after noon and the termination was in the morning.

The only two things on the president's public schedule this morning were photo ops with the Duke basketball team, and with Bill Clinton and the U.S. World Cup Soccer team. Is basketball and soccer so important that he could not be interrupted for such a major change in the leadership of the federal response to the oil leak? Could no aide pull him aside for 15 minutes and tell him, "Mr. President, before you meet the press on national TV today on the oil spill, you might want to know that ..."

Either the president is lying when he said the oil spill is the No. 1 focus of his administration, or his aides are really struggling with priorities. Either way, it certainly didn't look like he was the guy in charge today.

And finally, after chastising the press for involving his family in politics during the campaign, he sure didn't mind using his daughter today to try to convey how important this issue is to him. It seems OK to involve his daughters when he thinks it would benefit him politically.

Yes, today's press conference was CYA all the way ... Washington as usual.

Advertiser Sold to Star-Bulletin, Making Honolulu a One-Newspaper Town; 300 Laid Off

2010-05-03T12:28:00.003-04:00

The sale of The Honolulu Advertiser to Honolulu Star-Bulletin owner David Black was completed by Gannett this morning, leaving at least 300 people out of work and a community less served.

Rick Daysog of the Advertiser writes:

"It's hard to close this chapter and begin a new one," Robert Dickey, president of Gannett U.S. Community Publishing, wrote in an e-mail to Advertiser employees Friday. "But in doing so, I want to sincerely thank you for your dedication to The Honolulu Advertiser and wish you all the best."

Gannett's exodus and the eventual merger of The Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin will leave Honolulu as a one-newspaper town and result in the loss of at least 300 jobs.

For the next estimated 30 to 60 days, The Advertiser will publish as a stand-alone newspaper run by third-party HA Management Inc.

The two dailies will be merged into a single broadsheet newspaper known as The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, which will have a combined daily circulation of 135,000 to 140,000, Dennis Francis, the Star-Bulletin's publisher told Daysog. The Star-Advertiser will employ between 300 and 600 people. The two newspapers currently have 900 employees between them.

"I know there's a lot of angst in the community about losing a newspaper but the community decided long ago that it could not support two newspapers," Francis told Daysog. "That decision was made by readers and advertisers."

Daysog also writes:

Former media executives say the loss of an editorial voice will have a long-lasting impact on the local community.

The layoff of scores of journalists will mean that hundreds of stories will go unwritten each year, they said.

"It's a real tragedy," said Gerry Keir, who worked at The Advertiser for 27 years, rising to editor before leaving in 1995. "I don't think there's any question that the community is the loser."

WaPo: For Obama, a Changed Tone in Presidential Humor

2010-05-02T23:45:00.001-04:00

Paul Farhi of the Washington Post had a great insight on last night's annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in that President Obama, for the second year in a row, would not target himself as a butt of his own jokes. Other presidents have often used the event to diffuse ongoing political tensions.

Except for a mild joke pegged to his falling approval ratings, Obama mostly spared Obama during his 14-minute standup routine. (The jokes were unofficially credited Sunday to Axelrod, Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor.)

[Snip]

Obama's derisive tone surprises and dismays some of the people who've written jokes for presidents past.

"With these dinners you want the audience to like you more when you sit down than when you stood up," says Landon Parvin, an author and speechwriter for politicians in both parties, and a gag writer for three Republican presidents (Reagan and Bushes I and II). "Something in [Obama's] humor didn't do that," he said Sunday.

Parvin advises his political clients to practice a little partisan self-deprecation when they make lighthearted remarks: "If you're a Democrat, you make fun of Democrats and go easy on the Republicans; if you're a Republican, you do the opposite," he says.

Presidents past have generally hewed to that tradition, even when they were under intense criticism or were deeply unpopular.

Taking Time Off From the Blog for a While

2010-04-16T15:00:00.004-04:00

I'm going to suspend posting for a while as family health issues are taking priority with my time. Thanks for all the support and well-wishes! I will return when life becomes normal once again.

For the latest newspaper industry layoff news, please take a look at Erica Smith's Paper Cuts blog.

--- Jeff

Obama Sneaks Out of the White House Without the Press, Breaking Protocol

2010-04-10T22:16:00.003-04:00

President Barack Obama broke away from the White House press corps today by leaving the White House without the reporters with him, the Associated Press reports:

About two hours before reporters were supposed to be in position to leave with the president, Obama left the grounds of the White House. Members of the press were told he was attending one of his daughter's soccer games in northwest Washington, D.C.

The White House press corps traditionally travels with the president anywhere he goes, inside and outside the country, to report on the president's activities for the benefit of informing the public and for historical record.

After Obama left, a press aide hastily gathered members of the media who happened to be at the White House early or working on other matters. They rushed to a van and left the White House to catch up with the president.

Too late. By the time, the press van appeared to arrive at the president's location, the press was told he was already departing. Time to go back to the White House.

Reporters and photographers didn't have a chance to see him or his vehicle to verify his presence at any location.

Although nobody outside the White House or the press may have noticed, Obama broke years of tradition.

The small press "pool" that accompanies the president had been told to gather at the White House at 11:30 a.m. He left about 9:20 a.m.

Asked what happened, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said: "The president decided this morning to attend his daughter's soccer game. The pool was assembled as soon as possible to be there as well."

Obama eventually left the White House again on Saturday for a round of golf. This time, the press was with him.

Media General Consolidates Copy Editing, Page Design at 3 Metro Papers

2010-04-07T23:22:00.004-04:00

Media General Inc. said today in a press release published on Romenesko that it will consolidate copy editing and page design for its three metro newspapers, The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch and Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal.

The consolidated metro editing and design operation will have two groups, one in Tampa, Fla., and one in Richmond, Va. The operation will be led by a single managing editor located at the Richmond facility. Each of the two groups will have primary responsibility for particular sections and pages for all three metro newspapers. The next steps are to select the managing editor, install common production software and establish common design elements that will facilitate production efficiencies. The consolidated operation is expected to start up in the third quarter of this year.

The metro operation will be the third of its kind for Media General. The first became operational in Lynchburg , Va. , in April 2009. The second started up in Hickory , N.C. , in October, 2009. At this time, 12 of Media General’s 23 metro and community newspapers are either part of or transitioning to a consolidated editing and design operation. The company expects to have all of its newspapers in a consolidated editing and design operation by the end of the year. Once all newspapers have completed the transition, Media General expects to realize annualized cost savings of more than $1 million from efficiencies related to this initiative, starting in 2011. The company intends to use a portion of the savings to focus on intensified local news coverage.

"Our consolidated editing and design operations allow our newsrooms to focus on strong local news reporting. Stories will be edited once rather than multiple times, and we can take advantage of economies of scale and centralization of top talent," said Donna Reed, Media General's Vice President of Content. "Our customers will be unaffected by this internal process change and all news decisions will continue to be made by our local editors," said Ms. Reed.

Over the past 10 years, Media General has consolidated and centralized a number of broadcast functions, including traffic, master control and graphics, and newspaper functions, including printing and distribution and various call centers. This approach allows the company’s properties to focus on their local communities while creating resource groups that both increase quality and provide significant process efficiencies.

The Lynchburg editing and design center produces the pages for The ( Lynchburg ) News & Advance, Danville Register & Bee, and the company’s Rockingham, N.C. , community newspapers. The (Manassas , Va.) News & Messenger and The (Waynesboro , Va.) News Virginian are in the process of transitioning there.

The Hickory, N.C. , editing and design center produces the pages for the Hickory Daily Record, Statesville Record & Landmark, The (Morganton) News Herald, The McDowell News, and the weekly Mooresville Tribune. The Florence (S.C.) Morning News and (Concord & Kannapolis , N.C.) Independent Tribune are in the process of transitioning there.

More Than 3,500 Petition Iran to Free Journalists, Writers

2010-04-07T23:04:00.003-04:00

More than 3,500 international journalists, writers, and press freedom leaders — are petitioning Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, to immediately release dozens of journalists, writers, and bloggers imprisoned in the country, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists' website.

Among those who have signed the petition are Martin Amis, Jon Lee Anderson, Margaret Atwood, E.L. Doctorow, Jonathan Franzen, Thomas L. Friedman, Nadine Gordimer, Gwen Ifill, Ahmed Rashid, Jon Stewart and Mario Vargas Llosa.

A coalition of free-expression organizations delivered the petition today to the Islamic Republic of Iran's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. Petitioners’ names were collected through Facebook and the “Our Society Will Be a Free Society” campaign, a coalition project dedicated to winning the freedom of all journalists jailed in Iran. Additional names of prominent petitioners can be viewed on the campaign Web site.

“We hope those in jail will be heartened by this level of international attention,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, one of the sponsors of the petition drive. “By collecting these names from all corners of the world, we want to convey to our imprisoned colleagues the depth of our concern and to Iranian authorities the depth of our outrage.”

The petitioners urge Ayatollah Khamenei to release all journalists, writers, and bloggers now behind bars and to uphold the pledge of his predecessor, Sayyed Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini, who said in 1978 on the eve of the revolution: “Our future society will be a free society, and all the elements of oppression, cruelty, and force will be destroyed.”

At least 34 journalists were jailed in Iran on April 1, according to CPJ research. Another 18 were free on short-term furloughs coinciding with the Iranian New Year, but were expected to report back to prison this week. CPJ has been conducting a monthly census of journalists jailed in Iran, now the world’s worst jailer of the press.

The petition effort was organized by a coalition of 16 international free expression groups: CPJ; Index on Censorship; Reporters Without Borders; PEN American Center; International PEN; Canadian Journalists for Free Expression; International Publishers Association; Article 19; World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers; International Federation of Journalists; National Press Club; World Press Freedom Committee; Observatory for the Freedom of Press, Publishing and Creation; Institute of Mass Information; International Women's Media Foundation; and Freedom House.

Those interested in joining the petition may still do so.

Here are capsules of those detained.

POLITICO Arena: Alvin S. Felzenberg's response to 'Obama's nuclear strategy - smart politics or unilateral disarmament?

2010-04-06T18:30:00.000-04:00

I always thought it unwise for presidents to tell actual or would-be aggressors in advance what they would or would not do in a warlike situation. I take it that, unlike Harry Truman, President Barack Obama would have tried to have defeated Imperial Japan -- and the barbarism it wrought over so much of Asia and to U.S. troops and prisoners of war -- by accepting hundreds of thousands of additional American casualties. What would Tom Hanks say to that?

Interestingly, Truman remains one of the few great presidents to whom Obama has not been compared. I think we now know why.

Alvin S. Felzenberg
Author, "The Leaders We Deserved" :

POLITICO Arena: David Mark's response to 'Obama's nuclear strategy - smart politics or unilateral disarmament?Plus, do the RNC's troubles matter to voters?'

2010-04-06T18:26:00.000-04:00

POLITICO Arena: David Mark's response to 'Obama's nuclear strategy - smart politics or unilateral disarmament?Plus, do the RNC's troubles matter to voters?'

Buffalo News Guild Employees Consider Offer to Buy Out 23

2010-04-06T17:59:00.003-04:00

Guild-represented employees of the Buffalo News are mulling a buyout offer that would have them exit their jobs by the end of this month, as the newspaper best known for being owned by Warren Buffet seeks to reduce head-count by 23, the Newsper Guild Communications Workers of America said on its website yesterday.

The Buffalo Guild negotiated terms of the package over several weeks, improving pension benefits enough that the union hopes will make layoffs unnecessary. Company management said it wants to cut $5.7 million in expenses because of declining profitability.

Employees have until April 26 to seek a buyout, with management looking to cut nine district managers, eight newsroom employees, three in classifieds, two in accounting and one in inside circulation by April 30. Newsroom employees who take the buyout may be offered part-time non-permanent work, and if at least nine district managers take the buyout, the company may offer them an opportunity to return as permanent part-timers.

Guild representatives, noting that the News was not under a contractual obligation to bargain over the buyout terms, said they appreciated the opportunity to negotiate. “While we would prefer if the company was not seeking to cut jobs, I’ve got to give management credit for listening to the Guild’s suggestions on how to structure an attractive package,” said Jim Heaney, who headed up the union team. “This is the most-attractive buyout offer The News has offered in a long time and substantially better than what management originally had in mind. For employees who have been waiting for a better offer, it has arrived.”

Chief among those improvements: Employees with at least five years of experience are eligible to add 10 years of pension credits toward their age and/or years of service. The maximum years of credited service will increase from 30 to 45 years, and employees who already have more than 30 years of service credits will be able to apply those extra years toward their pension calculations. The $40,000 cap on annual benefits remains.

Meanwhile, if the pension buyout offer does not solicit enough interest, the company will offer a second buyout of cash equal to 18 months of base pay and, where applicable, merit pay. That offer would be extended from April 26 to May 10. Seniority will be the determining factor if applicants outnumber openings.

To help members sort out their options, the Guild has retained a financial consulting and retirement planning firm headed by Richard Schroeder, a former Guild president who manages the union’s investments.

Obama Takes Nuclear Option Off the Table Even in Self-Defense

2010-04-05T23:18:00.001-04:00

The use of nuclear weapons -- even in self-defense after an attack on the United States -- is now off the table as President Barack Obama readies to reverse a policy tomorrow that has stood since the Truman administration.

Nuclear weapons will not be used to retaliate against biological, nuclear or cyber attacks.

Through this unilateral move, foreign governments and terrorists now know they can attack the United States and only face "a series of graded options" of conventional weapons.

There are exceptions, the president said in an interview with The New York
Times, for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.

David E. Sanger and Peter Baker of The New York Times report tonight:

Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new strategy, Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to create incentives for countries to give up any nuclear ambitions. To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary.

Mr. Obama’s strategy is a sharp shift from those of his predecessors and seeks to revamp the nation’s nuclear posture for a new age in which rogue states and terrorist organizations are greater threats than traditional powers like Russia and China.

It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with “a series of graded options,” a combination of old and new conventional weapons. “I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” he said in the interview in the Oval Office.

White House officials said the new strategy would include the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack, if the development of such weapons reached a level that made the United States vulnerable to a devastating strike.

Mr. Obama’s new strategy is bound to be controversial, both among conservatives who have warned against diluting the United States’ most potent deterrent and among liberals who were hoping for a blanket statement that the country would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.

Mr. Obama argued for a slower course, saying, “We are going to want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons,” and, he added, to “make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.”

The release of the new strategy, known as the Nuclear Posture Review, opens an intensive nine days of nuclear diplomacy geared toward reducing weapons. Mr. Obama plans to fly to Prague to sign a new arms-control agreement with Russia on Thursday and then next week will host 47 world leaders in Washington for a summit meeting on nuclear security.

He Is Risen

2010-04-03T21:55:00.004-04:00

The Good News

John 20 (NIV)

The Empty Tomb
1Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"

3So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
10Then the disciples went back to their homes, 11but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

13They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." 14At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

15"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

16Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

17Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "

18Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.

Jesus Appears to His Disciples
19On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

21Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

Jesus Appears to Thomas
24Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

28Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

29Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

30Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may[a] believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

iPad Gets Its Launch With Lines in New York

2010-04-03T12:09:00.004-04:00

And they're off! The iPad hits the streets, as Agam Shah of IDG News Service reports today:

Lines formed outside the Apple store in New York with customers eager to purchase the product, which is one of the most hotly anticipated devices since the iPhone was launched in 2007. The lines weren't as long as they were for the iPhone, but buyers seemed ecstatic after getting the iPad in their hands.

An instructor at New York University, Matthew Knell, waited in line for a few hours to purchase the device. He plans to use the it for entertainment and to read e-books to replace loads of print textbooks he otherwise carries.

"It offers the opportunity to mix music, movies and books in one good personal-sized package. It does a lot of things the laptops do well, and it has the opportunity to change the way we consume media," Knell said.

The iPads that went on sale Saturday include Wi-Fi, and are priced ranging from US$499 to $699, depending on storage capabilities, which range from 16GB to 64GB. Models becoming available later this month will include 3G mobile broadband, and will cost from $629 to $829.

The device should be available worldwide by April, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said during the device's launch event in late January.

AT&T will provide no-contract 3G service in the U.S., with a 250MB data plan costing $14.99 per month, and an unlimited plan costing $29.99. International deals for 3G services should be in place by June or July, the company has said.

The iPad has been called a supersized iPod Touch, with a 9.7-inch touchscreen and an on-screen keyboard for typing. The device runs on Apple's A4 chip and can play back 720p high-definition video. Apple's iWork productivity application is included for those who wish to create documents, spreadsheets or presentations.

Meanwhile, Serenity Caldwell of Macworld.com reports that NBC is rethinking a decision to stream full episodes to iPad users.

This weekend, developers, consumers, and companies will finally get entry to the iPad party. Unfortunately, there are still those uninterested in the affair--we've already seen companies like Random House hesitate. Now, NBC has announced its intention to keep full episodes of TV off the iPad--at least for the time being.

According to The New York Times, NBC last week showed a Times reporter an iPad-friendly version of its streaming-video site. At the end of this discussion, an NBC executive noted that full-episode streaming of popular shows was in the works and would be coming around late April.

But it was not to be. On Thursday, the Times reported that NBC had dropped all interest in full episode streaming "at this time," according to an anonymous NBC official.

Why the change of heart, especially considering the recent iPad app releases from fellow TV giant ABC and online rental company Netflix? It may be a purely financial decision, but this reporter suspects it may have more to do with NBC's involvement with Hulu, or its new parent company, Comcast. If Hulu is indeed planning on any sort of iPad paywall trial, it would be bad form to have the same content available elsewhere for free. Similarly, Comcast may want to avoid giving away content for free that it could otherwise bundle with its TV Everywhere service.

Alas, the end result: if you want to watch NBC on your iPad, you'll have to resort to alternative means such as iTunes for now.

200,000 to Lose Unemployment Benefits for at Least 2 Weeks Because Congress Failed to Act

2010-04-03T11:59:00.002-04:00

Judy Conti of the National Employment Law Project, tells The Hill that 200,000 unemployed people will lose their benefits for at least two weeks because Congress is on its Easter recess until April 12.

As the two-week recess began, Congress was at an impasse over how to extend the emergency unemployment insurance program and other expiring provisions, including increased COBRA health insurance subsidies for the unemployed, the Medicare doctor payment rate and federal flood insurance.

Senate Republicans said the $9.3 billion, 30-day extension preferred by Democrats should be paid for, while Democrats said the bill's cost didn't need to be offset because the program was "emergency spending."

Under the jobless benefits program that ends Monday, Americans out of work are eligible for up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. The program, aimed at helping jobless Americans stay afloat when new jobs aren't readily available, gives an unemployed worker more than the 26 weeks of unemployment insurance normally available. But with the program ending, those out of work for as few as six months will see an interruption in their benefit checks.

"Odds are they have burned through savings, already asked for loans and gifts from family and friends if needed, so going for two weeks without a paycheck, especially if those two weeks are a time when rent or mortgage is due, is going to be hard," Conti said.

Those who will miss unemployment checks may see them in the future.

Senate Democrats said they'll try to pass an extension of the program that can be applied retroactively once Congress is back in session. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a vote on cloture to end debate on the short-term extension for April 12.

Verizon Reports 1Q Earnings Reduction of $970 Million Because of Health Care Law

2010-04-01T22:37:00.007-04:00

Verizon Communications Inc. announced late tonight that it will incur a $970 million loss of earnings because of the new federal health-care law, according to a Bloomberg report by Amy Thomson and Olga Kharif.

The one-time, non-cash cost will be taken in the first quarter, New York-based Verizon said late today in a regulatory filing.

Verizon follows AT&T Inc., the biggest U.S. carrier, Deere & Co., Caterpillar Inc. and other companies in disclosing similar expenses after losing a tax benefit for retiree plans. The costs may reduce corporate profits by as much as $14 billion as companies account for the impact of the health-care reforms, according to benefits consulting firm Towers Watson.

“While it is a non-cash charge, it does reflect real value destruction, based on expected cash flows over the life of the company,” said Jonathan Schildkraut, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. in New York. Schildkraut, who expected the expense to be about $750 million, advises investors to buy Verizon shares and doesn’t own any himself.

A charge-off, made by a company against earnings, does not require an initial outlay of cash. Non-cash charges are typically against the depreciation, amortization and depletion accounts on a company's balance sheet. Companies take these charges against earnings because of extraordinary circumstances such as accounting policy changes or significant depreciation of asset's market value. Any sort of charge will usually result in lower earnings in the period when the charge was made. They are sometimes also referred to as a write down.

Many large companies made similar announcements today as corporate America's balances sheets took huge hits. Reuters complied this list of companies announcing the write downs:

* AT&T said it would record a $1 billion noncash charge for the first quarter and evaluate prospective changes to the healthcare benefits it offers to both active and retired workers.

* Deere & Co., a maker of farm equipment, said it expected to record a $150 million charge, mostly in its current fiscal second quarter.

* No. 2 plane maker Boeing said it would take an income tax charge of $150 million, or 20 cents per share, against first-quarter results.

* Caterpillar said accounting standards required the world's largest maker of earth-moving equipment to book a $100 million after-tax charge to reflect the change during the first quarter.

* No. 2 life insurer Prudential Financial Inc. said it expected a $100 million charge during the first quarter.

* Lockheed Martin Corp., the world's biggest defense contractor, said it expected to record a $96 million after-tax charge in the first quarter, which would translate to around 25 cents per share.

* 3M Co., which makes products ranging from Post-It notes to optical films for flat-panel televisions, will record a one-time, noncash charge of up to $90 million, or 12 cents per share.

* Ingersoll-Rand Plc, a maker of air compressors and cooling systems, expects to record a noncash charge of $41 million, or 12 cents a share.

* AK Steel Holding Corp. will record a noncash charge of about $31 million in the first quarter.

* Eaton looks for a $25 million noncash charge in the first quarter.

* Diversified manufacturer ITW said it would take a $22 million charge for the change, lowering its first-quarter earnings per share by 4 cents.

* Valero Energy Corp. said it expected to take a charge of $15 million to $20 million in the first quarter due to the new healthcare legislation, and it expects more tax costs to be calculated later.

* Honeywell International Inc. expects a one-time charge of $13 million related to the health care legislation.

* Aircraft parts supplier Goodrich Corp. sees a first-quarter charge of about $10 million, or 8 cents per share.

* Carpenter Technology looks for a $5.9 million, 13 cent- per-share, charge.

* Metals processor Allegheny Technologies Inc. looks for a first-quarter, one-time, noncash charge of about $5 million, or 5 cents per share, due to the new healthcare law.

In the meantime, Congress is pushing corporate chief executive officers to come to Capitol Hill to prove to Democrats that these companies will actually incurr those costs.

Energy and Commerce Subcommittee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and subcommittee chairman Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) announced that the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing on April 21 to hear from executives from Caterpillar, Verizon, Deere and AT&T.

Waxman and Stupak, according to Livia Sappington of World News Vine, say that the claims by the companies are without merit and “are a matter of concern” as the Congressional Budget Office reported that large companies employing more than 50 employees would save on premium cost up to 3 percent per person by 2016. ...

... an association of chief executive officers from leading U.S. companies, The Business Roundtable asserted last November that a savings of more than $3,000 per employee would be attained in the next ten years as a result of the new legislation. The committee requested that the four companies present any reports prepared relating to how health care reform might impact their businesses; any documents or e-mail messages between executives relating to such analysis, and the explanation of accounting methods resulting in their conclusions.

Journalists Tell Survey Online Pressures, Staff and Budget Cuts Leading to Longer Hours, Heavier Workloads

2010-04-01T13:42:00.011-04:00

A new study shows that newspaper journalists are facing increasing workloads, longer hours, and that almost a third of newspaper professionals indicated that "staff cuts/layoffs" most affected their jobs over the past three years.

according The PRWeek/PR Newswire Media Survey, released today, said the merging of traditional journalism with online communications is the primary driver behind how reporters and bloggers view their work and how public relations professionals pursue coverage for their clients.

The survey, sponsored by PR Newswire, polled 1,568 traditional and non-traditional media and, for the first time, 1,670 public-relations practitioners. Additionally, in cooperation with CNW Group, the survey also included Canadian media and professionals.

Building on 2008 and 2009 surveys, the objective was to gauge the attitudes and ideas of traditional journalists and bloggers, as well as public relations professionals, to gain an understanding of the present state of the media profession and the trends that are continuing to shape the industry.

A full review of the survey results will appear in the April issue of PRWeek.

"The past year was a time of tumult in the media world, and the challenges and opportunities that arose are reflected in this year's survey," said Sarah Skerik, vice president, Social Media, PR Newswire, in the press release. "Clearly, job security and fiscal solvency continue to cast a shadow over the industry. However, the rapid growth of online reporting and the continued adoption of social media make it possible to find and connect with audiences online, presenting journalists and communicators with many new opportunities. However, this still remains a time of flux, and that sentiment is apparent in some of the diverging views between traditional and online media and the media and PR community."

Hours and Responsibilities

Continuing a trend from the 2008 and 2009 surveys, more than 70 percent of the 2010 respondents indicate a heavier workload as compared to last year, with the majority (58 percent) stating that the number of stories for which they are responsible has increased over the past two years. As in 2009, the primary cause of the increased workload is the need to contribute to online reporting. Of those surveyed, 62 percent are required to write for online news sections, with 39 percent contributing to their publication's blog. 37 percent of U.S. journalists also now must maintain a Twitter feed.

Canadian media are also experiencing greater demands for their time, with 58 percent suggesting a greater workload in the past year. Similarly, Canadian journalists are expected to contribute to online news sites, blogs and Twitter feeds, but participation is less than their U.S. counterparts – 55 percent, 30 percent, and 30 percent, respectively.

Work Environment and Industry Outlook

The survey found that 31 percent of respondents indicated that "staff cuts/layoffs" most affected their jobs over the past three years. This finding is significantly higher than 2009 (22 percent) which affirms that the instability and uncertainty in 2009 weighed heavily on the minds of reporters. Second to staff cuts/layoff, 29 percent of those surveyed stated that "tightening budgets" had the greatest impact on their work. Similar issues were recognized by Canadian journalists, with 21 percent pointing to staff cuts/layoffs and 33 percent suggesting tightening budgets.

Looking ahead, the shift from print to online reporting is seen as the primary industry driver for the next three years, with 57 percent of magazine and newspaper journalists indicating that this trend will continue in earnest. "Reduction in staff" was chosen by 28 percent of respondents as the key concern for the next three years; however this number is significantly less than 2009 (42 percent) suggesting that reporters may feel more stable in their current positions. Comparable sentiment was expressed by Canadian magazine/newspaper journalists, with 49 percent stating that the shift from print to online will continue and 24 percent expecting further reductions in staff over the next three years.

Measuring Success

When asked to identify the primary goal of their work, 50 percent of respondents indicated "educate and inform the masses" as the top consideration of their job. This number is consistent with 2009's mark of 53 percent. However, a striking change occurred in the second-most selected measure of success: "Break news and chronicle events as they happen." Selected by 20 percent of respondents, the result was significantly greater than 2009 (five percent) which indicates a growing premium on being first with news, likely driven by the growth of online reporting and the 24/7 news cycle.

A new question to the survey, but an issue that appears important to success: When asked if building a personal brand was a consideration in their work, the majority of US (52 percent) and Canadian media (60 percent) responded either "extremely important" or "important."

Blogger/Social Media Perception & Influence

The majority of bloggers now view themselves as journalists – 52 percent. This is a marked increase from 2009 when just one in three had the same opinion. Yet, despite viewing themselves as professional, only 20 percent derive the majority of their income from their blog work; a four percentage-point increase from 2009.

Among the total respondents, the use of blogs and social networks for research increased significantly in 2010 as compared to 2009; however this spike appears to be skewed by online magazine/news reporters and bloggers. While 91 percent of bloggers and 68 percent of online reporters "always" or "sometimes" use blogs for research, only 35 percent of newspaper and 38 percent of print magazine journalists suggested the same.

This divergence was also seen when using social networks for research. Overall, 33 percent of respondents indicated using such assets, but blogger usage (48 percent) was greater than newspaper (31 percent) and print magazine (27 percent).

This contrast is even sharper when considering Twitter. 64 percent of bloggers and 36 percent of online reporters confirmed employing Twitter as a research tool. On the other hand, newspaper reporters (19 percent) and print magazine reporters (17 percent) appear to find less value in using Twitter for research. Newspaper and print magazine reporters also source Twitter less frequently than their media counterparts, with 19 percent and 22 percent saying they have used a Twitter post in a story. This is sharply different from bloggers (55 percent), online magazine/news (42 percent) and even TV news (48 percent).

Media & PR

The prevalence of social and consumer-generated media has led to several changes in the way that public relations practitioners view and engage the press. While, public relations professionals still consider email to be the most effective means for pitching journalists (74 percent), 43 percent of journalists report having being pitched through social networks compared to 31 percent in 2009.

Higher success rates may be a reason behind the increase. In both the United States and Canada, pitches through a social network resulted in coverage approximately 70 percent of the time. In contrast, the standard pitch to a United States or Canadian journalist rarely leads to coverage, with 66 percent pegging the success rate at 0-20 percent.

An interesting divergence in media and public relations perception was seen in questions about the influence of advertising on editorial. While the majority of media respondents believe there is a clear line, 54 percent of public relations practitioners believe that editorial has become "much more influenced by advertising," with 40 percent having received editorial coverage as a result of a pay-for-play relationship.

"Heavier workloads, shorter deadlines, and increased competition are causing journalists to seek out new sources of information to help them get their jobs done, including social networks," said Erica Iacono, executive editor of PRWeek, in the press release. "Although these new tools offer a different way for journalists to interact with PR professionals and media consumers, there must still be a focus on the basic tenets of good journalism."

Weekly Peoria Times-Observer to Cease Publication

2010-03-31T14:35:00.005-04:00

Newspaper closures are playing in Peoria as the Time-Observer, a free weekly, has announced its last publication will be April 28. The newspaper had been delivered free to homes in North Peoria and Dunlap.

Citing the changing media landscape, TimesNewspapers’ publisher Linda Smith Brown announced the publication’s cessation.

“Our goal is to discern how to best serve the Peoria greater market and we are shifting our focus to Woodford County at this time,” Brown said.

“TimesNewspapers will be utilizing our manpower and resources to launch a new publication.”

Longtime editors of the Peoria Times-Observer, DeWayne Bartels and Tom Batters, will produce the new Woodford Times, which will begin publishing May 5, with delivery to Metamora, Eureka and Germantown Hills households, Brown said.

There is no word on the fate of the other six people listed in the staff's contact box on its website. One of those people is Brown.

Effects of Health Care Law Worry Small Businesses But Pharmaceuticals See a Boom

2010-03-31T11:19:00.005-04:00

Small businesses are concerned about the effects of the health care law, but pharmaceutical companies are expecting a huge booom to thier bottom line. The U.S. drug industry fended off price curbs and other hefty restrictions in the health care law even as it prepares for plenty of new business when an estimated 32 million uninsured Americans gain health coverage.

Steve LeBlanc of The Associated Press today examines the concerns that small businesses have over the new health-care law in his article today:

The national law doesn't require businesses offer insurance but hits employers with 50 or more workers with an annual $2,000-per-employee fee if the company doesn't insure them and the government ends up subsidizing their workers' coverage.

The national law also grants tax credits for businesses with 25 or fewer workers with average annual wages below $50,000, which Democrats say that will benefit 3.6 million business nationwide. And beginning in 2014, businesses with up to 100 employees will be able to pool their employees in state-created insurance exchanges to increase their negotiating clout with insurance companies - a move supporters say could aid 29 million businesses.

... Such penalties make Doug Newman, owner of Newman Concrete Services in Richmond, Maine, nervous. In the past 18 months, as the economy battered the construction industry, Newman's work force shrunk from 125 employees to just 25.

He is worried that once the economy turns and he begins to hire back workers, he'll face a critical decision when he nears the 50-worker mark and is no longer exempt from penalties. Newman now pays 60 percent of his employees' individual premiums and 40 percent of their family premiums.

"The 51st employee could mean $100,000 in costs. I've been calling it the concrete ceiling," he said. "No employer is going to hire No. 51 if it brings all these mandates down on you, because they're pretty onerous."

Don Day is also worried. Day owns eight small businesses in McKinney, Texas, including two restaurants, a boutique hotel and several retail shops.

Although he employs 125 workers, he offers health care for just a few key employees. Just an extra $200 a month per employee for health care could set him back hundreds of thousands of dollars a year - a cost he can't afford.

"It's not just me, it's every small business across this land," he said. "A lot of small businesses are going to go out of business."

It would seem like an easy decision for any small business in 2014. Drop health care as a benefit and pay the fine. With health-care premiums well above $7,000 a year for businesses, you would be saving $5,000 a year.

This may be good for the individual business, but bad for the taxpayers, as each taxpayer would have to pick up the tab to subsidize those going into the exchanges.

The story also talks about employers welcoming the new law:

Rand's Do It Best Hardware store on Main Street in Plymouth, N.H., has been in owner Steve Rand's family for more than a century. About a decade ago the company switched from providing a full health care plan to having employees share in the cost of rising premiums.

Since then, those costs have spiraled out of control and Rand hopes the new law lets him pool his workers in state-run exchanges to increase his purchasing power.

"This legislation is really a positive step in the right direction, allowing us to get back in the business of making our company able to offer a health plan," Rand said.

Michael Widmer, president of the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation - which supported the state law - said the requirement for near-universal coverage has been a much bigger issue for local businesses than the fines for not offering insurance.

That provision, known as the individual mandate, is costing local businesses between $500 million and $750 million extra annually, he said.

"There is no doubt that with the individual mandate there will be more employers picking up the tab," he said.

Large pharmaceuticals are also big winners in the new law.

The U.S. drug industry fended off price curbs and other hefty restrictions in the health care law even as it prepares for plenty of new business when an estimated 32 million uninsured Americans gain health coverage.

Lobbyists beat back proposals to allow importation of low-cost medicines and to have Medicare negotiate drug prices with companies. They also defeated efforts to require more industry rebates for the 9 million beneficiaries of both Medicare and Medicaid, and to bar brand-name drug makers' payments to generic companies to delay the marketing of competitor products.

The impressive list of wins is testament to a carefully planned and well-financed lobbying strategy, led by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry's deep-pocketed trade group. The trade group has been led by former Louisiana U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, a Democrat, whose $4.5 million in earnings in 2008, the most recent figure available, underscore the high stakes for the industry.

Costly brand-name biotech drugs won 12 years of protection against cheaper generic competitors, a boon for products that comprise 15 percent of pharmaceutical sales. The industry will have to provide 50 percent discounts beginning next year to Medicare beneficiaries in the "doughnut hole" gap in pharmaceutical coverage, but those price cuts plus gradually rising federal subsidies will mean more elderly people will purchase more drugs.

Michael Calderone to Leave POLITICO for Yahoo!

2010-03-30T14:24:00.004-04:00

Michael Calderone is leaving POLITICO for Yahoo News in a matter of weeks. Here is the memo:

Michael Calderone, who has built a reputation as one of the top writers covering media and helped build POLITICO's reputation along the way, is moving on....

He has an interesting job at a new venture being sponsored by Yahoo. The post will allow him to continue to draw on his deep expertise about the personalities and debates within modern media that was his signature here.

I imagine that those of us here will continue to be in Michael's crosshairs...not a new experience for me, either before or during his time at POLITICO. I know first-hand that Michael is a dogged and fair-minded reporter, and I hear similar comments from journalistic colleagues all the time. We all wish him luck at Yahoo.

The media beat is critically important for us-a terrific opportunity for an energetic and creative reporter. We would welcome all ideasâ€”either if you are interested for yourself, or have good thoughts on people we should be recruiting.

Please do let me know, or check in with Beth Frerking.

John
Jim

Davenport Returns to Good Friday After Change to 'Spring Holiday'

2010-03-30T11:04:00.004-04:00

City officials in Davenport, Iowa, yesterday reversed their decision to removed Good Friday from their municipal calendars and replaced it with "Spring Holiday" after City Council members were caught off-guard by the change.

A recommendation from that city's civil rights commission started the controversy. The move ignited a wave of protests with people calling it "political correctness run amok," reports Russell Goldman of ABC News.

"My phone has been ringing off the hook since Saturday," said city council alderman Bill Edmond. "People are genuinely upset because this is nothing but political correctness run amok."

Edmond said the city administrator made the change unilaterally and did not bring it to the council for a vote, a requirement for a change in policy.

"The city council didn't know anything about the change. We were blind sided and now we've got to clean this mess up. How do you tell people the city renamed a 2,000 year old holiday?" said Edmond.

It didn't take long for the city the resurrect the name Good Friday. [City Administrator Craig] Malin was overruled today [March 29] and the words "Spring Holiday" disappeared.

The Civil Rights Commission said it recommended changing the name to better reflect the city's diversity and maintain a separation of church and state when it came to official municipal holidays.

"We merely made a recommendation that the name be changed to something other than Good Friday," said Tim Hart, the commission's chairman. "Our Constitution calls for separation of church and state. Davenport touts itself as a diverse city and given all the different types of religious and ethnic backgrounds we represent, we suggested the change."

... The commission, he said, discussed changing Christmas, but decided enough other religions celebrate Christmas too. Hart, however, could not name one.

Daytona Beach News-Journal to Lay Off 48 People

2010-03-29T14:26:00.002-04:00

The Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal's new owners have announced that they plan to cut 10 percent of the newspaper's staff, amounting to 48 people, the newspaper's website reported today.

The 48 employees were offered a severance package, chief executive manager James Hopson said, according to the report. The newspaper had a workforce of 470. Michael Redding will become publisher on Thursday when Halifax Media takes control of he newspaper.

I'll Teach You to Be a Good Reporter ...

2010-03-28T08:58:00.002-04:00

Newspaper Death Watch unearthed this gem of a TV anchor and field reporter debating each other's professionalism on air. Play nice boys.

St. Louis Newspaper Guild Accepts Contract That Includes a Pay Cut

2010-03-28T07:59:00.005-04:00

[CORRECTION, March 30 at 2:40 p.m. Eastern: Brian Flinchpaugh writes for the Globe-Democrat. The original version of this post had incorrectly stated that he wrote for the Post-Dispatch.]

The St. Louis Newspaper Guild accepted Saturday a 5 1/2-year contract with management at the Post-Dispatch.

The agreement with Lee Enterprises will cut employees' pay by six percent immediately, but there are provisions that would restore some of the cuts down the road if profits increase. The vote was 132-54.

Brian Flinchpaugh of the Globe-Democratwrites:

“People want the Post to succeed and they want Lee to succeed and they want to keep the Post strong,” said Jeff Gordon, president of the St. Louis Newspaper Guild and a sports columnist at the Post. “That’s the hope.”

Gordon said guild members realized if they fought Lee, they could have damaged the Post-Dispatch. One guild strategy if the contract was rejected was to mount a $500,000 public relations campaign against Lee.

The campaign would ask the public to suspend their subscriptions to the Post. More help may come from the national Communications Workers of America.

That could have lead to more layoffs and make an already bad situation worse, he said.

Gordon said guild leaders and some members worried whether they would get anything more if they rejected the contract. Other labor negotiations at newspapers in Minneapolis, Chicago and other major cities are following a similar pattern.

The guild represents reporters, photographers, editors, advertising personnel and other employees

An Inside Look at Censorship in China

2010-03-26T16:17:00.005-04:00

For anyone who is curious as what censorship looks like, here is a rundown on the Chinese government's efforts and instructions to stifle domestic news agencies from reporting on Google's decision to stop its operations in that totalitarian regime.

This translation of the instructions from the Central Propaganda Department comes from China Digital Times, which is a bilingual aggregator of news and analysis run by the Berkeley China Internet Project, according to The Washington Post.

All departments:
1, On the Neijiang-Suining (内江—遂宁) Highway construction site, a truck ran over and killed villagers. No reporting.
2, Some editors from Science Fiction World Magazine (《科幻世界》) published a public letter online. No reporting.
3. Google.cn switched its services from inland to Hong Kong, only use Xinhua general text, don’t play it up.

Propaganda direction: Please every platform block the following information. 《Examining China》（《透视中国》）; exposing five industry fields controlled by China’s princelings; Wen Jiabao’s solo “democracy” performance; at the crucial moment of the core power transition, political inner-circle releasing subtle messages; Beijing high officials’ “outrageous behaviors” during the “two sessions” causing many guesses.

Please execute.

All chief editors and managers:

Google has officially announced its withdrawal from the China market. This is a high-impact incident. It has triggered netizens’ discussions which are not limited to a commercial level. Therefore please pay strict attention to the following content requirements during this period:

A. News Section

1. Only use Central Government main media (website) content; do not use content from other sources
2. Reposting must not change title
3. News recommendations should refer to Central government main media websites
4. Do not produce relevant topic pages; do not set discussion sessions; do not conduct related investigative reporting;
5. Online programs with experts and scholars on this matter must apply for permission ahead of time. This type of self-initiated program production is strictly forbidden.
6. Carefully manage the commentary posts under news items.

B. Forums, blogs and other interactive media sections:

1. It is not permitted to hold discussions or investigations on the Google topic
2. Interactive sections do not recommend this topic, do not place this topic and related comments at the top
3. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which attack the Party, State, government agencies, Internet policies with the excuse of this event.
4. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which support Google, dedicate flowers to Google, ask Google to stay, cheer for Google and others have a different tune from government policy
5. On topics related to Google, carefully manage the information in exchanges, comments and other interactive sessions
6. Chief managers in different regions please assign specific manpower to monitor Google-related information; if there is information about mass incidents, please report it in a timely manner.

We ask the Monitoring and Control Group to immediately follow up monitoring and control actions along the above directions; once any problems are discovered, please communicate with respected sessions in a timely manner.

Additional Guidelines:

- Do not participate in and report Google’s information/press releases
- Do not report about Google exerting pressure on our country via people or events
- Related reports need to put [our story/perspective/information] in the center, do not provide materials for Google to attack relavent policies of our country
- Use talking points about Google withdrawing from China published by relevant departments

Abusive, isn't it. I don't think there's a journalist in the free world who wouldn't either laugh at such nonsense of become enraged.

There's more, though. This is a post on China Geeks that relates a phone conversation between a reporter in Hong Kong with a government official. The reporter is trying to ask a basic question, and he's getting the run-around that would make trying to deal with a health-insurance customer service rep look like child's play.

As if being a reporter in China weren’t hard enough already, the government is planning to enforce more stringent requirements to ensure that journalists “learn socialist and Marxist theories of journalism and media ethics.” But even when you do become a reporter, the path is not an easy one. Getting comments or even information at all for stories can be difficult, as evidenced by this recording of a Hong Kong reporter trying to confirm Google’s retreat from China with Chinese government officials.

The recording comes with a hat tip to the Twitter of Jeremy Goldkorn (of Danwei). The recording can also be streamed here. What follows is a rough translation of the phone conversation.

Translation
[Note: for obvious reasons, translating spoken speech is harder than translating something written. This is my first time attempting this sort of translation, and while I believe it reflects quite accurately the conversation as it was recorded, I have left a few small parts out and can't be sure I haven't made some mistakes.]
Reporter: May I ask, is this the State Council news bureau?
S.C. Worker 1: Yes.
Reporter: Oh, it’s like this, I’d like to ask whether Google is leaving the Chinese market or not.
S.C. Worker 1: Oh, this… [...] we still don’t have that…we’re still not very clear on it.
Reporter: Why?
S.C. Worker 1: So you’ll have to ask another department, this office hasn’t received any news.
Reporter: You haven’t recieved any news. But isn’t this the State Council news bureau?
S.C. Worker 1: Yes. But we have many offices.
Reporter: Oh. Then what office should I ask? What office is this?
S.C. Worker 1: This is the news office.
Reporter: The news office, yes?
S.C. Worker 1: Yes.
Reporter: And at the news office you haven’t heard anything relating to [this piece of news]?
S.C. Worker 1: Uh, this, perhaps it is not our office that is responsible for this [piece of news].
Reporter: In that case, what office is responsible for it?
S.C. Worker 1: Uh [long pause] it’s…the propaganda office.
Reporter: Oh, the propaganda office?
S.C. Worker 1: Yes, maybe it’s the propaganda office.
Reporter: But have you heard the news that Google is going to leave China?
S.C. Worker 1: I saw it on the internet, but this office isn’t responsible for it.
[...]
Reporter: OK, so can you tell me the phone number for the propaganda office?
S.C. Worker 1: You could send a memo over and I could pass it along to them, how’s that?
Reporter: Oh, that might not be convenient, could you just directly tell me the propaganda office’s number?
S.C. Worker 1: Uh…I don’t have it now, wait a minute, I will ask [pause] OK, call 65226165 and ask.
Reporter: 65226165, and what office is that?
S.C. Worker 1: It’s an office responsible for dealing with reporters
Reporter: Oh, OK. Thank you.
S.C. Worker 1: Bye bye.

[Reporter calls that number]

Reporter: Is this the State Council news bureau office responsible for dealing with questions from reporters?
S.C. Worker 2: Yes, who is this?
Reporter: It’s like this, we saw that Google is going to leave the Mainland and wanted to ask about this news.
S.C. Worker 2: That…is it convenient if…which media outlet are you from?
Reporter: I’m a reporter with Radio Free Asia.
S.C. Worker 2: Oh, why don’t you send a fax, OK, send it to 65226115.
Reporter: 65226115?
S.C. Worker 2: Yes. Write your question on the fax, OK?
Reporter: Is this news real or not?
S.C. Worker 2: Uh, because I’m just the person who answers the phones, personally, I don’t have any way of responding to your question. We prefer to receive faxes.
Reporter: So do you have any information at all [about the news Google is leaving China]?
S.C. Worker 2: If you want to ask me this in detail, because I only answer the phones, I personally…you probably can understand, there are different jobs within an office. How about this, going by the normal system, you should send a fax to the number I just told you
Reporter: And then?
S.C. Worker 2: And write your question and your name and how to get in touch with you on the fax. Then on this end we will deal with it according to the system. We will get in touch with you.

Photo credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shekharsahu/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The Courier in Waterloo, Iowa, Cuts Four Jobs

2010-03-26T14:12:00.003-04:00

Courier Communications Publisher David Burton has announced four people will lose their jobs at the circulation call center of The Courier in Waterloo, Iowa. Two open positions will not be filled. Here is his memo:

Today we are announcing the regionalization of our Circulation Call Center. Effective March 31, 2010 subscribers calling The Courier will be handled by a call center at another Lee newspaper in Munster, Indiana. Local calls from subscribers related to stops, starts, vacations and delivery issues will be routed to Munster. Munster has access to our circulation system and will text message shortage drivers in Waterloo with instructions for deliveries.

We are familiar with regionalization since we are one of six finance centers in Lee. With this change comes the pain that 2 full time, 2 open positions, and 2 part time positions in Circulation have been affected by our regionalization.

David Braton
Publisher
Courier Communications

Ed Schultz Calls for Socialism in Talk Radio

2010-03-26T09:50:00.003-04:00

MSNBC commentator Ed Schultz told his radio audience this week that Congress should start to look at the Fairness Doctrine and introduce socialism across the board in talk radio. He also appeared to be stunned that Rush Limbaugh is campaigning against the president.

Judge Approves $20 Million Sale of Daytona Beach News-Journal

2010-03-24T16:57:00.003-04:00

A federal judge today approved the $20 million sale of the Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal.

Ludmilla Lelis of the Orlando Sentinel reports:

U.S. District Court Judge John Antoon II said he had little choice but to approve the pending offer from Halifax Media Acquisition LLC, not knowing whether the newspaper could fetch a better price if the sale were delayed.

"I'd like to wait and hope that things will change but I'm in no position to speculate," said Antoon in court today.

The pending sale must be closed by March 31, according to the bank's lending requirements. The new owner of the newspaper is a company which includes Michael Redding, CEO of HarborPoint Media, owner of four publications, including The Daily Commercial in Leesburg; and members of a ... Little Rock, Ark., private-equity firm under financier Warren Stephens.

The newspaper sale would close out a lengthy legal battle between the paper and its minority shareholder, Cox Enterprises of Atlanta. In the end, the Davidson family lost control of the newspaper which it had owned and operated for decades.

There was no word concerning possible layoffs with the new ownership.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Orders One-Week Unpaid Furlough

2010-03-24T16:45:00.003-04:00

Management at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas has ordered its employees to take a one-week unpaid furlough between April 5 and July 4. Here's the memo:

To: All Employees
From: Gary Wortel
Subject: Furlough Announcement
Date: March 22, 2010

Although we're seeing improvement in several advertising categories, the economic climate remains unstable and revenues continue to be negative year-over-year. Unfortunately, revenues have not grown enough to offset our expenses. Regrettably this necessitates further cost-saving strategies.

Effective April 05, 2010 we’ll implement a one week unpaid furlough program. The furlough period will be from April 05, through July 4th, 2010. Shortly you will be receiving:

· A scheduling form to complete and return to your manager no later than April 5, 2010.

· Q & A to assist you in understanding how the program works It's imperative that we remain diligent in reducing expenses and continue to focus our efforts on growing ad revenue. I appreciate that everyone is working hard toward both of these efforts.

After receiving the furlough Q & A and the scheduling form, please feel free to contact anyone on the Human Resources team with questions.

MaineToday Media Lays Off At Least 17 People

2010-03-22T19:12:00.003-04:00

MaineToday Media Inc. began laying off employees last Thursday, reports WMTV on its website.

The Portland Newspaper Guild has had 17 union members laid off, though not affecting the newsroom or advertising.

The layoffs did affect the distribution, or press room, in South Portland, and other departments in Portland.

The company has had 23 buyouts company-wide. The buyouts did affect news and advertising.

The company consists of the Press Herald, the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel. Maine Today Media Inc. will have more than 50 fewer positions by April.

Olbermann Returns to 'Countdown' Tonight

2010-03-22T18:39:00.005-04:00

Keith Olbermann will be back on MSNBC tonight after a three months' absence while tending to family needs after the death of his father. I wish him well in his time of grief.

2010-03-22T18:39:00.001-04:00

15 Newspapers Ignored Health Care Vote on Page 1

2010-03-22T15:40:00.002-04:00

Fifteen newspapers did not see the news value of putting the health-care vote in the House on their front pages today, according to a survey completed by Dylan Stableford at The Wrap.

These are small papers, and many probably faced tight deadlines with the late-night vote. But as they say on ESPN: "C'mon man!"

Here they are, along with the subjects of their top front-page stories:

Benton County Daily Herald, Bentonville, Arkansas
Spring snowstorm.

Northwest Arkansas Times, Fayetteville, Arkansas
"Overnight accumulation leaves Northwest Arkansas roads slippery."

The Morning News, Rogers, Arkansas
Spring snowstorm.

Stars and Stripes, Washington, D.C.
NCAA “bracket busters.”

Palm Beach Daily News, Palm Beach, Florida
"Census Forms Arriving in the Mail."

Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, Florida
A story on Hollywood's suddenly feeble leading men pegged to Ben Stiller's "Greenberg" character.

Commercial-News, Danville, Illinois
Photos of a maple syrup open house.

Herald-Press, Huntington, Indiana
School staff reduction.

Peru Tribune, Peru, Indiana
A local cattle show.

Wabash Plain Dealer, Wabash, Indiana
Fatal car crash at intersection kills two.

Cecil Whig, Elkton, Maryland
Fire destroys home, and runaway emu found.

AMnewyork, New York City
Teen subway mugging.

The High Point Enterprise, High Point, North Carolina
"Bus seat belts not likely."

The Mount Airy News, Mount Airy, North Carolina
"Boy Scouts learn skills at Merit Badge College."

Bluffton Today, Bluffton, South Carolina
Construction of a new middle school gym.

Newspaper Layoffs Drop in February

2010-03-22T14:46:00.005-04:00

Newspapers laid off fewer employees in February, as only 112 new job reductions were reported nationwide.

The caveat to this is that more than 600 employees of the Honolulu Advertiser have received notices of their possible layoff. They will lose their if David Black, owner of the Star-Bulletin, cannot find a buyer by May. If that happens, the two papers will merge and an undetermined number of layoffs will occur.

Here are February's layoff reports.

Feb. 26: Skagit Valley Herald of Mount Vernon, Wash., nine people, according to Paper Cuts.
Feb. 24: The Register-Guard of Eugene, Ore., 14 people.
Feb. 24: Paddock Publications will begin printing the Northwest Herald, the Daily Chronicle, the Kane County Chronicle and the Lake County Journal, The MidWeek and other Shaw Suburban Media newspapers at its production facility in Schaumburg, Ill., near Chicago by mid-April, 31 people will be affected.
Feb. 24: Sun Tribune in the Kansas City area, 10 people.
Feb. 22: Whitehorse (Wash.) Community News, at least one person.
Feb. 18: Wilmington (N.C.) Star News, two people, a managing editor and a photo editor.
Feb. 18: Minneapolis Star Tribune, up to five people are being sought for buyouts.
Feb. 16: Naples (Fla.) Daily News, at least seven people.
Feb. 15: Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune, two people.
Feb. 11: E.W. Scripps Co. will consolidate copy-desk operations of the Ventura County (Calif.) Star, the Redding (Calif.) Record Searchlight and the Kitsap (Wash.) Sun into the Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times, 15 people.
Feb. 6: Cincinnati Enquirer, 15 people.
Feb. 5: The Edmond (Okla.) Sun, one person -- a business reporter.

Here are the totals for 2010:

January -- 451 people.
February -- 93 people.

For a map that locates these layoffs and others, see Paper Cuts, a website by Erica Smith, who has been tracking newspaper layoffs since 2007.

All of News Cycle's monthly reports are categorized under Monthly Layoff Report.

A number of readers have asked by the discrepancy between our numbers and that of Paper Cuts. I counted in 2009's figures a large Gannett layoff that was announced in December last year, but was not effective until January. In addition, I have not counted the Honolulu figure of 600 as of yet.

Email me to report any job cuts in the newspaper industry.

AP Writer Helen O'Neill Earns Pullman Writing Award

2010-03-22T13:50:00.002-04:00

Helen O'Neill, special correspondent with The Associated Press, has won the 2010 Eugene S. Pulliam National Journalism Writing Award for her article "One Man's Journey,” which was published on April 4, 2009, Ball State University's Department of Journalism announced today.

O'Neill’s article chronicles a former Ku Klux Klan supporter's hate-filled past and his search for forgiveness and redemption. As a young man in South Carolina, Elwin Wilson had boasted about his racism and his assault of Freedom Riders and civil rights activists, notably Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta. As an older man in his seventies, beset by diabetes and other ailments, Wilson confronted his own mortality and lingering guilt and remorse. O’Neill was fascinated by Wilson's public apologies to Lewis and others. She wondered whether his heart had truly changed and what motivated his actions.

According to the Pulliam Award judges, O'Neill's story is a compelling, expertly written retrospective of this "sad, sickly man haunted by time." They note her remarkable use of description and judicious use of details. They praise her nuanced storytelling that explores paradoxes and contradictions and avoids simple explanations.

Philly Newspaper Creditors Lose Appeal

2010-03-22T13:37:00.003-04:00

Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C., which owns The Inquirer, the Daily News and Philly.com, can bar its senior lenders from using their debt to try to purchase the company at auction.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, 2-1, with a lower-court ruling that the bankruptcy code requires only that the lenders receive the "indubitable equivalence" - or fair value - of their debt when the company is sold at auction, reported Christopher K. Hepp of the Inquirer.

The auction is central to the company's reorganization plan, which now calls for senior lenders to be paid about $67 million to settle about $318 million in debt. The auction would establish whether that, indeed, was a fair price for the company.

With the ruling, the company is now set to be put up for auction April 27.

Daily News' Miracle on the Hudson Wins Headliner Award

2010-03-22T13:25:00.005-04:00

The staff of the Daily News in New York won the National Headliner Award for Spot News for its coverage of Miracle on the Hudson. Bruno Bourachdene of the Daily News also won the photography prize.

My former employer, Newsday, won first place in the environmental category for Fallout: The Legacy of Brookhaven Lab in the Pacific, Thomas Maier and John Paraskevas.

Today's Stupid Headline Award Goes To ....

2010-03-22T12:49:00.004-04:00

In the Stupidest Headline Ever Department ....

Franklin & Marshall, a college in Lancaster, Penn., is losing its president to Drexel. F&M's atheltic nickname is the Diplomats. The local paper, the Intelligencer Journal, came up with "Top Dip Jumps Ship" as its headline.

No lie.

Here's a link to the article.

Honolulu Advertiser Sends Out 600 Layoff Notices

2010-03-15T15:08:00.003-04:00

Three days ago the Honolulu Advertiser notified 600 employees that they could lose their jobs when owner Gannett Co. sells the newspaper and related assets to Oahu Publications Inc., owner of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin next month.

The majority owner of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, David Black, has put his newspaper up for sale. However, he has said if a buyer isn't found, the two newspapers will merge and layoffs will occur. How many Advertiser employees would be rehired with a merger was uncertain.

The sale will be finalized late in April.

To get an ideal at how desperate Gannett is to unload the Advertiser, it is loaning Oahu Publications $40 million to make the deal happen.

Times Reminds Freelance Writers About Its Ethics Policies

2010-03-15T15:00:00.001-04:00

New York Times freelance writers got a reminder today from management on ethics in this memo:

Date: Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 11:09 AM
Subject: TO ALL NEW YORK TIMES FREELANCERS: PLEASE READ
To: FreelanceWriters1-NO_REPLY@nytimes.com

TO: ALL FREELANCE WRITERS

This is a reminder about The Times's ethics policies for journalists.

As you know, The Times takes very seriously the issue of conflicts of interest and other problems that might undermine the credibility of our journalism.

Your freelance contract obliges you to comply with the applicable provisions of The Times's policy on Ethical Journalism (http://www.nytco.com/pdf/NYT_Ethical_Journalism_0904.pdf ) and to take care to avoid conflicts or the appearance of a conflict. The provisions pertaining specifically to outside contributors are reproduced below, but you should review the entire document. Readers do not distinguish between freelancers and staff reporters in The Times, so as far as possible we expect outside contributors to adhere to the same standards as Times staff members.

The ethics rules outline specific requirements while you are on assignment for The Times. But because of The Times's high profile, our freelance contributors are often viewed as "Times writers" even when they are not specifically working for us. Companies, organizations and other potential subjects and sources may believe that favors or special treatment for you - whether you are on assignment or not - will help them gain favorable treatment in The Times.

Note that our rules on free travel and other free or discounted products and services are stricter than those of many publications. Even if such a benefit is not directly connected to a Times assignment, it can create an appearance that undermines the credibility of The Times or its contributors. Any questions involving such benefits should be discussed with your Times editor.

Other common areas of concern include these:

- Work for companies or organizations that The Times may cover.
- Undisclosed ties between the writer and people or institutions mentioned in an article.
- Lobbying, advocacy or political activities or contributions related to the area of coverage. The written guidelines are detailed, but they cannot anticipate every situation. The best rule of thumb is the simplest: If you have any questions or doubts about compliance with our policies, ask your Times editor before proceeding.

When you first signed a contract with The Times, you should have filled out a questionnaire covering many of these topics. You should update the questionnaire as often as needed to keep the information current, so your editors can identify areas that might warrant further discussion. To review or update your questionnaire, please log in to the freelancer invoicing (Extranet) site (https://freelancers.nytimes.com) and follow the "Stringer Questionnaire" link. If you have questions about this policy, feel free to call your assigning editor; for technical help with the invoicing site, please call 1-800-756-3464 (or, from outside the United States, +1-212-556-2020).

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Philip B. Corbett
Associate Managing Editor for Standards

What Is In the Senate Health Care Bill?

2010-03-13T17:18:00.003-05:00

So, what's exactly in the Senate health care bill? Reuters' Donna Smith had these answers when the bill was first passed:

Q: What does the Senate bill do?

A: The bill would significantly change the $2.5 trillion U.S. health care system that almost everyone agrees costs too much and leaves too many people without medical coverage. For the first time in U.S. history, citizens and legal residents will be required to purchase a health insurance policy.

Federal subsidies will be available to help them afford coverage. The subsidies will be available for people with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty level, about $88,200 for a family of four. The poverty levels for 2009 is $22,050 a year for a family of four and $10,830 for an individual.

Small businesses will be able to tap into federal tax benefits to help buy medical plans for employees.

Employers are not required to provide health coverage for workers, but they would have to pay a penalty if any employees use federal subsidies to purchase insurance.

Q: Where will people get their medical insurance?

A: Most people get their coverage through their employer and that will not change under this bill.

Small businesses and people without employer-sponsored insurance have struggled in recent years to obtain affordable health coverage. For those groups, the bill creates new state-based insurance exchanges where they can shop for policies. Federal subsidies will be available to people purchasing medical coverage through the exchanges, which are expected to be up and running by 2014.

Liberal Democrats wanted a new government-run insurance plan to be one of the options offered on the exchange to compete with private insurers and help keep a lid on insurance premiums. Republicans and a few moderate Democrats opposed the idea and it is being dropped from the Senate bill in order to win the votes necessary to pass it.

The government option remains in the bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in November.

The Senate bill now will ask the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which oversees health plans for 8 million federal workers and their families, to contract with private insurance companies to offer plans on the exchanges.

Millions of people, with income up to 133 percent of poverty, will be newly eligible for Medicaid, the health program for the poor. Currently many states set eligibility requirements well below that level of poverty.

Q: Are there protections for consumers?

A: Yes. Insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage to anyone because of a pre-existing condition. They also will not be able to charge higher premiums because of gender, health history or occupation. Insurers also will be prohibited from dropping people when they get sick.

There will be no more lifetime limits on coverage and annual limits will be restricted. Insurers also will be required to cover preventive healthcare services. Co-payments and other out of pocket expenses for beneficiaries also will be limited.

Q: What do insurance companies and hospitals get?

A: Insurance companies will get 31 million more customers, many of them subsidized by the federal government. However, in addition to new coverage regulations, insurers will be required to spend a minimum of 85 cents of every premium dollar on medical care for large group plans and 80 cents on every premium dollar for individual and small group plans.

By requiring everyone to obtain insurance, hospitals will have fewer cases of uncompensated care. Many people without insurance seek care at hospital emergency centers because they do not turn away patients. When patients are unable to pay, hospitals make up those losses by charging more to those with insurance. Democrats say that pushes premiums higher by about $1,100 a year.

Q: How does the bill reduce costs?

A: The bill seeks to save money by streamlining paperwork and providing more information to consumers to help them make decisions about their health care.

Other cost savings will be driven through Medicare, the government healthcare program for the elderly and Medicaid. Lawmakers hope that payment reforms that reward quality rather than quantity of services and treatments will help drive down costs. The bill aims to encourage coordinated care for patients particularly those with chronic conditions.

Studies have shown that better coordinated care can save significant amounts of money and improve the quality. The bill will provide for pilot programs to explore some of those cost saving methods for Medicare and Medicaid.

It also will encourage creation of Medical Homes and Accountable Care Organization where doctors, hospitals and other health providers can better coordinate care.

Honolulu Newspaper Employees Wait for News About Their Job Layoffs

2010-02-26T22:58:00.002-05:00

Employees at Honolulu's two newspapers are still trying to make sense of a buyout that could put them out of work, writes Duane Shimogawa of HawaiiNewsNow tonight.

Both dailies employ 900 people and all of their fates are still up in the air a day after news broke the owner of the Star-Bulletin is buying the Advertiser.

Union leaders say it's still too early to tell how many people will be laid off. They say they haven't met with the new owners just yet. But they did sit down with the Hawaii Newspaper and Printing Trades Council and later on Friday, they met with Gannett officials, the owners of the Advertiser, to talk about the future of employees of both papers.

There are a total of nine unions at both the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin that cover a total of about 600 employees, around 400 at the Advertiser and 200 at the Star-Bulletin.

The Hawaii Newspaper Guild represents employees from both papers.

"The company's obligated to bargaining with us, Gannett to bargain with us over the effects of the sale and how it affects employees," Hawaii Newspaper Guild's Wayne Cahill said.

We do know retirees will keep their pensions and all workers will continue under their current contracts for now.

"The company has the right to do layoffs under both union contracts," Cahill said. "They have to do any layoffs by seniority that is that most recently hired would be the first to be fired."

Cahill says Advertiser employees are guaranteed their jobs until the day of the sale.

Ed Schultz on Dick Cheney: We Ought to Rip Out His Heart, Kick It Around, and Stuff It Back in Him

2010-02-26T22:42:00.006-05:00

MSNBC personality and radio talk-show host Ed Schultz had some choice words aout former Vice President Dick Cheney's recent heart problems:

You're damn right, Dick Cheney's heart's a political football. We ought to rip it out and kick it around and stuff it back in him. I'm glad he didn't tip over. He is the new poster child for health care in this country.

... And we want Shooter to make it. Hell, we hope he goes and shoots somebody else in the face. That was a helluva story way back when.

... How come Dick Cheney's health care isn't being dropped? Do you realize that if you had five heart attacks, hell, you wouldn't get past two heart attacks and they'd dump you.

But because you're a war criminal and because you are on the take from Haliburton and you had these executive meetings in 2001 back in the, you know, the days of the rolling blackouts and executive privilege on how we're going to develop energy policy in this country, you do stuff like that, hell, you can get the best health care on the face of the earth.

Nice, very classy. Tony Kornheiser got suspended from ESPN for remarks that were no where near as offensive. I'm sure MSNBC (which by the way, stands for "Must See Nothing But Curling," according to Chuck Todd) will let it go.

Shaw Suburban Media to Outsource Printing, Affecting 31 People

2010-02-25T22:09:00.002-05:00

Shaw Suburban Media, a division of Shaw Newspapers, and Paddock Publications announced today that Paddock will begin printing Shaw newspapers at its production facility in Schaumburg, Ill., reports NewsandTech.com.

Thirty-one employees are affected. Some will be interviewed for new positions, others will be laid off.

Paddock, which publishes the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, will begin printing the Northwest Herald, currently published in Crystal Lake, the Daily Chronicle of DeKalb, the Kane County Chronicle, the Lake County Journal, the MidWeek and several other publications at its 160,000-square-foot Paddock Printing Center, beginning in late March. The transition is expected to be complete by mid-April, the publishers said.

"Outsourcing our production to Paddock will enable us to utilize state-of-the-art-printing technology to better serve our readers and advertisers," said John Rung, Suburban Media's chief operating officer. "We will have more color capacity and better reproduction. The move will also allow us to focus future capital investment on digital technology."

Paddock said it's agreed to interview the 25 full-time and six part-time Shaw production employees affected by the outsourcing for possible employment. Some may be reassigned to new roles within Shaw, while displaced employees will be offered a severance package and out-placement services.

Paddock's Schaumburg facility, anchored by two manroland presses, opened in late 2002. Shaw's Crystal Lake production center was built in 1985, and expanded in 1989 and 2003.

Register-Guard of Eugene, Ore., Lays Off 14

2010-02-25T18:10:00.002-05:00

The Register-Guard of Eugene, Ore., announced yesterday that it had laid off nine full-time and five part-time employees. Publisher Tony Baker also said that five other open positions will not be filled for now.

The job eliminations occurred in all operating departments. The majority of the affected positions were in circulation and human resources. Affected staff members were notified Wednesday and each received a severance package.

In a letter to employees, Baker said the downsizing was a “painful but necessary decision prompted by weaker than anticipated advertising revenue.”

The Register-Guard’s work force after the layoffs will stand at 286 employees, Chief Operating Officer David Pero said.

“We continue to be the leading provider of local information customers value; there is a profitable market for the business that can dominate that niche,” Baker said in his letter to employees.

“The recession has dealt most local businesses financial setbacks of varying degrees. The R-G, which depends heavily on the fortunes of those same local businesses for our success, has been hit particularly hard through downturns in the retail, automotive, real estate and employment arenas. Each of those sectors will rebound as the economy shows real improvement. And when they do, we must be positioned to take advantage of the opportunities they present.”