January 2009
20 posts
Newspaper share value fell $64B in ’08 →
In the worst year in history for publishers, newspaper shares dropped an average of 83.3% in 2008, wiping out $64.5 billion in market value in just 12 months. Although things were tough for all sorts…
December 2008
24 posts
Net beats papers as top news source →
The Internet for the first time has beaten newspapers as a preferred destination for news, according to the Pew Research Center for People & the Press. “The Internet, which emerged this year as a…
How debt did in America’s newspapers →
The stock of Lee Enterprises was worth about $1.5 billion when the company borrowed almost an identical amount of money to buy the Pulitzer newspaper group in the summer of 2005. Today, Lee’s shares…
‘Shutdown’ was the alternative in Detroit →
The decision to abandon seven-day home delivery in Detroit was not a bold strategic initiative but a last-ditch effort to save two failing newspapers, according to one former Gannett executive. “The…
Get ready for some really cheesy TV →
As the newly appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in 1961, Newton Minnow gave a landmark speech decrying television as a “vast wasteland.” It didn’t help. TV programming got…
A copycat in the Blagosphere →
The artwork dominating the front page today of the Chicago Tribune wasn’t just weird. It was a badly executed knockoff of a clever graphc published a few days earlier in the New York Times. As you…
Editorial cartoonists, endangered species →
Editorial cartoonists, the last of the truly ink-stained practitioners of journalism, rank among the most endangered, too. Nearly a fifth of these uniquely talented newsfolk fell victim this year to…
Motown madness: Home delivery cut →
The reported plan to cut home delivery to just a few days a week at the Detroit dailies does not merely tweak the classic newspaper model. It eviscerates it, perhaps mortally. While this bold…
Attorney suing Tribune cites pension risks →
It is not clear that all employee pension funds at the Tribune Co. emerged “unscathed” in the bankruptcy filing, said the attorney for a group of employees suing Sam Zell over the takeover and…
Questions about Decherd’s 140% raise →
Not everyone in the newspaper business is suffering equally though the most difficult time in the industry’s history. Robert W. Decherd, for one, is doing pretty well. The chief executive of A.H….
Questions about Decherd’s 140% raise →
Not everyone in the newspaper business is suffering equally though the most difficult time in the industry’s history. Robert W. Decherd, for one, is doing pretty well. The chief executive of A.H….
Motown madness: Home delivery cut →
The reported plan to cut home delivery to just a few days a week at the Detroit dailies does not merely tweak the classic newspaper model. It eviscerates it, perhaps mortally. While this bold…
Attorney suing Tribune cites pension risks →
It is not clear that all employee pension funds at the Tribune Co. emerged “unscathed” in the bankruptcy filing, said the attorney for a group of employees suing Sam Zell over the takeover and…
Breaking out the wood for Blago →
Newspapers went all out today to billboard the arrest of the goofball governor of Illinois, ginning up elaborate graphics and coining clever (but not always coherent) headlines. The most effective…
‘No pressure on me,’ says Trib editorialist →
John P. McCormick, today may have the most secure employment of anyone at the Tribune Co., or anywhere else in the newspaper business. He is the sole individual named in the affidavit charging that…
Can Tribune Co. survive bankruptcy? →
The good news is that today’s bankruptcy filing won’t make things much worse for the Tribune Co. The bad news is that the filing won’t improve things, either. While bankruptcy protection in an ideal…
Here's link to Tribune bankruptcy filing →
Although it’s pretty thin gruel, you can see the Tribune Co. bankruptcy filing here. The filing in the federal bankruptcy court in Delaware reports that the compnay has between 1,000 and 5,000…
Randy Shilts, the conscience of Castro Street →
If you see the new movie about Harvey Milk, the brave and talented man who became America’s first openly gay elected public official, take a moment to remember another San Francisco legend: Randy…
Tribune deal: Reckless from the very start →
Less than a year after being taken private by Sam Zell, the Tribune Co. may be on the verge of filing for bankruptcy because it cannot service its massive $12 billion in debt, according to the Wall…
The outlook is rocky for The Rocky →
Sad to say, the days of the Rocky Mountain News are numbered. And the number of days probably is about 90. In a toxic environment for newspapers exacerbated by the worst recession in two generations,…
Gannett Blog: Tour de force crowdsourcing →
The waves of agonizing layoffs at Gannett this week showed the power of crowdsourcing in the hands of a skilled journalist. Jim Hopkins, the former USA Today staffer who is the proprietor of the…
Tweets can’t be beat on breaking news →
When the siege of Mumbai broke out, Paris-based journalist Frederic Filloux found himself far from home and struggling to learn what was happening. His experience provides a perfect example how our…
Where extreme cuts may come at papers →
Operating in an atmosphere of unprecedented uncertainty and growing dread, publishers are systematically reviewing every aspect of their businesses with an eye to saving a buck any way they can. They…
Newspapers eye extreme cuts as crisis grows →
Fearing that newspaper sales may fall as deeply next year as the record plunge in prospect for 2008, publishers are preparing contingency plans for cutting costs in previously unimaginable ways. In…