"And tell CBS I want the 30 million per year contract to be FIVE years, not three. And get me another shrimp!"
Posted on 08/27/2006 4:21:30 AM PDT by abb
WHEN P. Anthony Ridder met with Wall Street analysts in June last year for a routine financial review, he was the chief executive of the nation’s second-largest newspaper company. And he could not have sounded more upbeat about the prospects for his corporate namesake, Knight Ridder.
snip
Today, many people in the newspaper industry are still scratching their heads over how and why a company with relatively high profit margins and a trophy case of 85 Pulitzer Prizes allowed itself to be wiped off the media landscape.
snip
Whether the former Knight Ridder papers will be better off, financially and journalistically, under new management remains to be seen. Some may get infusions of energy that had dissipated under Knight Ridder. But they will also continue to grapple with the Internet as they reorient themselves to a media world in which pressmen, truck drivers, reporters and editors are all rethinking how they do their jobs.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
more...
But in the interim, powerful changes in the industry — particularly the accelerating shift of advertisers from print to online and the effect on big-city dailies — changed the equation.
“The business is not as sickly as all the rhetoric would suggest, but a year later the industry is in declining health, with cost pressures galore,” Ms. Fine added.
That leaves bleak options for newspaper companies that lack the financial resources to ride out the current upheaval or do not have the ingenuity to reinvent themselves to remain profitable purveyors of information, analysis and entertainment in the digital age.
If the editors did a better job of forcing the reporters to produce news instead of nonsense, the pressmen and truck drivers wouldn't have to worry so much about their jobs. But, true to form, the Times lists the jobs in the reverse order of relevance.
Ping
My neck hurts from the whiplash caused by that sentence --the business isn't sickly BUT it's in declining health with cost pressures galore. Yeah, sounds like it's in perfect health!
"Mommy! Make it stop!"
LOL That comment I quoted reminds me of Kevin Bacon in Animal House, shouting "All is well!" just before he's trampled flat.
It's an inside job--suicide.
When these jackasses decided to convert the American newsmedia into a propaganda machine, they sealed its doom.
When they opted for the "higher morality" of the 60's counter-culture hippie movement, they made themselves the laughing stock of history and all the world. Too bad they were too stupid to comprehend that the new "higher morality" was nothing more than the old immorality, that what they were opting for was mendacity over truth.
Their most dispicable failure was rejection of truth. Truth for its own sake is the objective that they abandoned, though the obvious fact that truth as a means of informing the electorate is essential for the effective functioning of a republic also seems to have escaped them, either their comprehension or their concern.
However, the funniest thing about their failure--and the single most important factor in sealing their doom--is their blindness to the obvious: propaganda is boring, truth fascinating! This is what has made them such a laughing stock and their silly decision to become a propaganda machine so ridiculous.
The whole piece is over 3,000 words. Good and informative read. They all know what's coming. They know, and there ain't a damn thing they can do about it...
"And tell CBS I want the 30 million per year contract to be FIVE years, not three. And get me another shrimp!"
It's an inside job--suicide.
The elite mediot maggot infected owners/controllers of ABCNNBCBS and publishers of the major dinosaur fishwraps are the modern day, Norman Bates. They are trying to keep the corpses alive by refusing to admit that they are dead and to bury them.
Buy my Dinosaur Fishwrap stock, NYT. The old gray lady is just fine!
Well, guess what: Toffler's prophecy has become 2006 reality. With 70+ channel analog cable TV systems, 120+ channel digital cable TV systems, 200+ channel small dish satellite systems, TV program time-shift devices such as VCR's and DVR's, DVD players, and the public Internet (now increasingly on high-speed broadband access), no wonder why the MSM can't figure out why their marketshare is rapidly falling.
One word, BIAS. Bias will recognized even by the side it favors. And in their case, why buy a paper to tell you something you already know?
On the other side, why buy a paper that insults your intelligence?
The liberal media are doomed.
Is this a thread on the preferred method of "mediacide."
Inked to death?
Throwing oneself under a printing press?
Buried under a pile of unsold newspapers?
good post!
wasn't the SJ Mercury News the paper that carried the series of articles that "exposed" the cia for pushing crack in black communities, and for creating the crack epidemic?
Liz, all or any of the actions posted by you, sound great to me:
"The entire "Mainstream Newsmedia" is about to be "wiped off the media landscape" ........ It's an inside job--suicide.
Is this a thread on the preferred method of "mediacide."
Inked to death?
Throwing oneself under a printing press?
Buried under a pile of unsold newspapers?
Golly, I hope the MSM types don't think we conservatives are reigning experts on mediacide. After all, it is a new science.
Gee whiz, even the medical literature has no references on therapies for distraught MSM types (chuckle).
America's little people always end up paying for the many mistakes of supposed bighearted leaders.
Very few in the industry, either on the news side or the business side, seem to believe that public ownership is worth the grief, at least in the current climate.
Supposed bighearts seem less than generous in wanting to change their side of the deal after convincing hard working Middle Americans to trade cash savings for pretty certificates.
In the spring of 1971 Fritz Beebe, a former partner in the New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and chairman of The Washington Post Company, approached the owner, Katharine Graham, with a dilemma. The company, Beebe said, was running out of money. Over the years the Post had been fairly generous in granting stock options to favored employees, and the cost of buying out those options had put the company in a bind.
'The elite owners/publishers of today's dinosaur fishwraps are the modern day, Norman Bates.
They are trying to keep the corpses alive by refusing to bury them.'
Mediacide is a new disease.
However, self destruction due to lunancy, drug/alcohol abuse, sexual deviancy, arrogance, stupidity and other self inflicted self destruction have been around forever.
"Politics aside, given MSM's apparent proclivity for living a sequestered life in denial we really ought to warn our family, friends, and associates to divest themselves of MSM stock before MSM's supposed bighearts start Enronning all the little people when America's fishwrap industry unwinds with brutal bankruptcies."
Absolutely. Also, the good people need to know how to check their mutual funds to see what they are invested in.
Then if they have a pension fund, they need to yell and scream if the fund is invested in any dinosaur fish wraps.
I think that we have hit on something when we compare the Dinosaur Fish Wraps with Norman Bates.
Excellent advice.
These fishwraps have not lost all of the stockholders money, yet.
Just most of their money.
They have only lost 40 to 50% of the stockholders's investment/money in the last two years. That is probably nothing when the next two years are compared.
8-)
Amen. MSM's apparent intransigent obsession with hurting Middle America at all cost seems to preclude any prudent stewardship of assets Middle America entrusted to MSM decades ago.
"Amen. MSM's apparent intransigent obsession with hurting Middle America at all cost seems to preclude any prudent stewardship of assets Middle America entrusted to MSM decades ago."
As per their 5 years of BS re the worse economy since Hoover.
Peering through a warped MSM death throes prism it's only too easy for MSM to project their own economic death onto everyone else.
It's time for someone to experiment. Buy one of these dead-on-the-vine newspapers and then report the news - stick to the who, what, when, where, and why of the report - save the editorials for the editorial page.
Anyone who buys any of the mediots warped view of life, may be beyond help.
LOL, I figured everyone was getting tired of it by now!
I suspect Bill Gates and the other Billionaire libs will buy up the dinosaur news agencies and then plug it directly into the internet via - yahoo, microsoft, google etc.
SAGE Advice: 'Stagflation' and the Ad Market
Our surveys show that more and Americans are worrying about 'stagflation' or think it's already here. Advertising to consumers unwilling to spend is a challenge that newspapers and other media must -- for the sake of their own self-interest -- help advertisers meet.
By Leo J. Shapiro, Steve Yahn, and Erik Shapiro
(August 26, 2006) -- More and more people worry about stagflation. Our Leo J. Shapiro and Associates national consumer survey in August finds that 45% of respondents say inflation is accelerating and 65% say the economy is getting worse. Almost four in ten respondents (37%) believe both that inflation is accelerating and the economy is getting worse.
The amount of stagflation worriers has increased eight points from 29% in July. Year-to-year, stagflation worriers jumped 14% points, from 23% last August.
Even if stagflation is not now reflected in economic statistics, a substantial segment of consumers feel as if they are experiencing stagflation and act accordingly. Producers of new housing feel the pinch and are changing their advertising tactics to move product to consumers reluctant to spend.
Advertising to consumers unwilling to spend is a challenge that newspapers and other media must – for the sake of their own self interest – help advertisers meet.
Advertisers and advertising media publishers, like investors in the stock market, cannot afford to debate the course of the economy. They must position themselves to survive and grow regardless of whether the landing for the economy is hard or soft.
Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist of Charles Schwab & Co., says in her August report that there is a “whiff of stagflation in the air.”
Our longest period of stagflation ended in September 1971, lasted ten quarters, and resulted in a negative return from stocks.
Sonders notes that additional periods of stagflation ended in ’75, ’81 and ’82, with the most recent period of stagflation ending fifteen years ago, in June 1991. Stagflation ending in 1991 only lasted seven quarters during which the return on stock was positive.
Given the length of time that has elapsed since the last really severe period of stagflation, it is logical that age, not income or high educational achievement, distinguishes between those consumers who worry, and those who do not worry, about stagflation.
The average age of consumers who fear stagflation is 51 years – these are consumers who are old enough to have experienced stagflation in the 1970s. By contrast, only seven percent of consumers who are under 30 years old today voice a fear of stagflation.
The 37% who fear stagflation behave differently from those who do not. Should the percent who fear stagflation continue to increase, the population as a whole will act as if the entire economy is in stagflation.
Our indexes of consumer propensity to spend, based on survey data, are markedly lower in August for consumers who fear stagflation than for those who do not fear stagflation. Our index measuring active shopping – i.e., reading ads, checking prices, visiting dealers – for cars, housing and other major goods is 87 for those fearing stagflation versus 155 for those who do not. For those who fear only a worsening economy the index is 124, and for those who fear only accelerating inflation the index is 78.
Politicians will really need to worry about stagflation. The season for heavy political advertising is upon us, so one sector that might actually thrive in this short term are media selling to political advertisers. If it is true that “all politics is local,” than it must be true that an important medium for political advertising is the local newspaper.
BOTTOM LINE
It is not enough for newspapers to headline bad or good economic news without taking the time and trouble to convey to advertisers what that news means in terms of the appropriateness of messages sent to target audiences.
Consumers who are suffering through the misery of economic hard times--which appear to be settling in with the onset of stagflation--are made more miserable when they are confronted with tempting, seductive advertisements for things they cannot afford. These reminders of their inability to spend are advertising turnoffs.
Instead, newspapers must help their advertisers determine ways to put on a happy face for consumers. One tried-and-true way Is to develop promotional events that provide consumers with little bits of happiness--bites of chocolate like those that used to be served free in the early days of motion-picture theaters.
Slice & Dice
He's still got a breath of air in him!!
update...
http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=11776
View Forum Post
Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 8/30/2006 1:43:05 PM
Title: "So bitter. So naive."
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
From ROY PETER CLARK, Poynter vice president and Senior Scholar: What I've always suspected is now confirmed. The former president of the Poynter Institute and my former boss, Jim Naughton, has been outed. Make that a double. Behind Naughton's choirboy demeanor beats the heart of a man who is both "bitter" and "naive."
Since Naughton beat me out of the job I thought I wanted, I wanted to be the one who was considered "bitter" and "naive." But noooo. Not only did Naughton get the job, but he gets the pleasure of bitterness – with naivete thrown in for good measure.
The reason I now know for sure that Naughton is "bitter" and "naive" is that Tony Ridder told the New York Times that this was the case. If Tony said it, it must be true. And, of course, we all know about truth in the New York Times.
Tony's attack on Jim, which followed Jim's attack on Tony, was not at all bitter or naive. Nosiree. If anything, it was "complacent" and "jaded." It came after Jim said this (in Sunday’s New York Times) about Tony's leadership at the former company known as Knight Ridder:
"The real story of the fall and decline of Knight Ridder is not Bruce Sherman," said James M. Naughton, once executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, formerly a Knight Ridder paper, and a retired president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. "It's the notion that you can continue whittling and paring and reducing and degrading the quality of your product and not pay any price. Tony's legacy is that he destroyed a great company."
Mr. Ridder, whose great-grandfather founded one of Knight Ridder's predecessor companies in 1892, dismisses such criticism. "I'm very proud of the journalism of Knight Ridder, and I think Jim Naughton is a bitter guy who was passed over for the top editor’s job," he said in an interview on Friday. "The issue was what’s happened to the newspaper industry over the last couple of years and the growth of revenue. To say that if we had more people in our newsrooms this could have been avoided is incredibly naïve.”
Now that Tony has added fuel to the fire of my argument (that Naughton is "bitter" and "naive"), I will stoke his flames by offering this evidence to Tony's case:
Naughton must be bitter and naive because:
He owns a Lexus convertible instead of a Mercedes SLR Maclaren.
He married a wonderful woman, but not Sophia Loren.
He owns a fantastic house overlooking the water, but not in the south of France.
He graduated from Notre Dame, but never got a date with the captain of the football team.
He's lucky enough to be Irish, but thinks that's lucky enough.
He became president of the Poynter Institute, but refused to go hunting with me, the future vice-president.
He created the Poynter website and hired Romenesko, but thought Deep Throat was Gerald Ford.
He built the new wing of the Poynter Institute, but took 174 years to finish the job.
He loved playing practical jokes involving animals, but could never get access to Tony Ridder's executive washroom.
He loved working for the Philadelphia Inquirer and helped make Knight Ridder a synonym for journalistic quality and integrity, only to watch its CEO lead it into oblivion.
So bitter. So naive. [Permalink]
Thank you for the update abb.
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