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(HITPIECE ALERT) http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59F5GX20091017SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc is taking its ferocious price cutting into new markets as the economy shows hints of recovery.

Obviously, the "main stream" media are hard of hearing and seeing. About 2 million mad-as-hell taxpayers assembling in Washington, D.C. for the largest-ever (most well-behaved ever, most respectful ever) protest did not make it onto their radar screens (or our TV screens). They need our help. Maybe we cannot repeat an assembly of 2 million mad-as-hell taxpaying patriots in one place, but surely those who longed to go and couldn't would love to be a part of Operation "Can You Hear Us Now?" I'll bet for every one patriot who went to D.C. there are 10-20 more who wished they...

Glenn Beck, the hottest right-wing voice on the air, worried aloud to his listeners the other day that powerful, sinister forces trying to destroy America might soon "shoot me in the head." But there's fear among his critics, including calmer conservatives, that the victim more likely will be one of Beck's many broadcast targets. After a summer of mob anger at town hall meetings on health care - some of which featured gun-toting protesters - and a burst of Beck-fanned hysteria over President Obama's back-to-school speech last week, the former top 40 deejay has emerged as a goofy dark...

If people relied on the mainstream media, especially print media, to keep up to date on the government, then they must have quite a shock this morning with the resignation of Van Jones. For instance, the New York Times makes its first mention of the Jones controversy this morning — by reporting his resignation: "In a victory for Republicans and the Obama administration’s conservative critics, Van Jones resigned as the White House’s environmental jobs “czar” on Saturday. Controversy over Mr. Jones’s past comments and affiliations has slowly escalated over several weeks, erupting on Friday with calls for his resignation." Did...

An online backlash is building against Whole Foods Market Inc. chief executive John Mackey, thanks to his op-ed column in The Wall Street Journal knocking President Barack Obama's proposed health care bill.

Reminiscent of Orwell’s book 1984, soon all television broadcasts may carry Dictator in Chief Barack Hussein Obama and his message all of the time. Joining NBC (the New Barack Channel), ABC (the All Barack Channel) will now begin broadcasting from the White House. We assume CBS (perhaps the Central Barack Station?) will follow its betters soon and announce that it too will officially become an Obama mouthpiece. By the way, no opposing viewpoints will be carried or allowed. ABC also plans to run a free-to-Obama campaign promoting the dictator’s healthcare plan. Does anyone at all remember the name Hugo Chavez?...

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles -- Just when you thought it was safe to deep-six that needlessly salacious Ken Starr report and offer your Clinton-era black beret to the Salvation Army, word comes that Hollywood is resurrecting the so-last-century Monica Lewinsky scandal in a movie. "The Special Relationship," an HBO special, is actually about the frustrated efforts of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to form a working relationship with President Clinton, who seemed increasingly distracted by the fallout from the scandal. For those who have blissfully forgotten what all that fuss was about, Clinton was accused of having...

Two states have legalized same-sex marriage in the past two weeks, but when it comes to public opinion, supporters of gay marriage are still a minority. That minority is on an upward trajectory though and Scott Barclay, political scientist at the State University of New York at Albany, explains why: newspapers. In the last two weeks, two states have legalized same-sex marriage. First, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a law banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Then Vermont became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage through its legislature. When it comes to public opinion, supporters of gay marriage are...

At the top of the 3:00PM EST hour of live coverage on MSNBC, anchor Norah O’Donnell and Politico executive editor Jim VandeHei were practically tripping over themselves declaring Barack Obama the "rock star" of Europe in the wake of the G-20 summit. O’Donnell began by asking: "Can we gauge this meeting as a success?" VandeHei replied: "I think early indications are it probably was a big success...I think they'll hail that as a big success. I think the fact that he's just been greeted like such a hero overseas...and I think that that press conference will probably get a pretty...

Even for the most jaded industry professionals, it's stunning to believe shares of one of the nation's largest radio station owners might trade for a single penny. And yet that's exactly what has happened to ABC Radio owner Citadel Communications, a once-proud group operator destroyed by massive debt, epic mismanagement and a liberal political ideology often at odds with the company's still-successful and profitable conservative talk radio programming. Booted off of the New York Stock Exchange after it failed to make a convincing case for its future viability, Citadel will cease trading there tomorrow, moving to the illiquid and sometimes...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — As sharp revenue reductions put the future of many U.S. newspapers in doubt, one idea gaining attention is the conversion of newspapers into tax-exempt non-profits supported by large endowments. Although viewed by many as a long shot at best, such a radical change could be a saviour for the industry and its vital role in a democracy. That's why the endowment model is drawing renewed attention as newspapers impose massive layoffs, scale back home delivery and make other drastic cuts to counter plunging advertising revenue amid a recession that has compounded struggles from the migration of...

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper recalls getting "a feeling in the pit of my stomach" when he learned that the Rocky Mountain News was shutting down. "Even when they were uncovering corruption in the city, even when they were embarrassing us or causing us discomfort, they were making the city better," he says. "It's a huge loss." The grim echoes of the nearly 150-year-old paper's demise Friday could be heard in newsrooms and communities across the country. Although the Denver Post will still cover Hickenlooper's region, some cities -- most notably San Francisco -- are facing the prospect of life...

The collapse of the newspaper industry continues apace; now it's the San Francisco Chronicle that is likely to be sold or even closed down in a matter of months. This follows Sunday's bankruptcy filing by the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, just two and a half years after investors paid more than $500 million for the company. We've known for a while that the newspaper industry is in desperate trouble, but it didn't occur to us until recently that it may be a leading indicator.

Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C., the parent company of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com, has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection Sunday. The company says it is looking to restructure $390 million in debt and decided to pursue Bankruptcy Court following 11 months of negotiations with lenders. “This restructuring is focused solely on our debt, not our operations,” chief executive Brian Tierney told Philly.com. He said the filing would not affect the media company’s daily operations. Newspaper Guild president Dan Gross notified members about the filing in a letter. He asked members to stay calm and to still...

PHILADELPHIA — The owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Sunday in an effort to restructure its debt load. Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., owned by Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC, is the second newspaper company in two days, and fourth in recent months, to seek bankruptcy protection. "This restructuring is focused solely on our debt, not our operations," chief executive officer Brian P. Tierney said in a statement. "Our operations are sound and profitable." The filing Sunday indicated the company has between $100 million and $500 million in assets and liabilities in the same...

Check out this very ugly chart: Shares of NYT (NYT) dropped 29 cents today to close at $3.77. The Sunday paper goes for $4 at the newsstand. Maybe they could save costs by printing the paper on their stock certificates.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's first two years in office have been called a time of milk and honey, when the resource-rich state was flush with wealth from record oil prices. The second half of her term isn't looking so rosy as Palin faces her first major financial challenge as governor. The rapid decline of oil prices has left the state in a looming budget crisis and a late-entrant in the national recession. And that could have political repercussions for the former Republican vice presidential hopeful, who has signaled an interest in a 2012 presidential run but...

The news is no longer news. It’s propaganda. It’s cheerleading for the new administration. It’s bull-roar. It’s false, fraudulent and biased. I’m talking about the major purveyors of news, the so-called mainstream media. I’m talking about The New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Post, ABC, CBS, MSNC, NBC, CNN, NPR, PBS, Time, Newsweek and all the rest. The mainstream media has descended to the level of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister and Pravda, best known as the propaganda organ of the Communist Party. But this development in the mainstream media has critically important implications not only for...

A plan by Gov. Sarah Palin to save money by imposing a state employee hiring freeze is raising questions, but lawmakers are doing little to stop it. Palin made the surprise announcement in her State of the State speech Thursday, but offered few details at the time. Questions also abound about how many job openings will be affected, with two officials in Palin's administration providing conflicting numbers, and also if the state does in fact have a deficit as advertised.

The AP buried the information after the fifth paragraph, where it would not get picked up by tomorrow’s World News sections in your local newspaper, but they have independent confirmation that Hamas terrorists were firing from the UN school that got hit by Israeli tank fire yesterday. Israel’s military said its shelling at the school - the deadliest single episode since Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza on Saturday after a week of air bombardment - was a response to mortar fire from within the school and said Hamas militants were using civilians as cover. Two residents of the area who...

Newspapers are for sale across the country. National Public Radio and television news shows are laying off staff. The Tribune Co. (which owns this and other newspapers) is in bankruptcy. It's clear that journalism is in crisis, and in the current recession, things are likely to get much worse. That's alarming. A robust press is vital to our democracy. And while bloggers and other new-media news operations have enriched the public dialogue in important ways, their work still depends on the painstaking -- and expensive -- reporting supplied by traditional journalists. Some conclude from the recent dire reports about the...

Daniel White graduated from the University of Hartford majoring in Criminal Justice with minors in Sociology and English. He currently serves as Secretary/Treasurer of Ohioans For Concealed Carry and is a NRA Training Counselor. Why bother reporting something you disagree with? Earlier this week, I wrote an article for the OFCC website about a Morning Journal story covering the "Take Back Elyria" event held this past Sunday. In it, I wondered about the lack of mention of the right to use firearms for self defense when the whole point of the event was described as "dedicated to teaching residents how...

Rocky Mountain News owner E.W. Scripps Co. said Wednesday it will accept bids for the struggling newspaper through the close of business Friday. Scripps then will review any offers "as quickly as possible, but there's no specific timetable for completing that process," spokesman Tim King said. Wednesday's announcement, made among increasing speculation about the future of the News, marks the first time that Scripps has set a specific deadline for dealing with the 150-year-old newspaper. The Cincinnati-based media company had said last month that it would try to sell the News through mid-January, at which time it would explore other...

The progression of bad newspaper news is not surprising, but the lack of concern is mystifying and frightening. Hirschhorn wrote this: The collapse of daily print journalism will mean many things……. And it will seriously damage the press’s ability to serve as a bulwark of democracy.” Ya think? Hirschhorn tossed off in one dismissive sentence one of the most crucial potential developments for journalism and democracy since the First Amendment. I think brass bands are required to force a focus on the democratic implications of what’s happening. Despite the general lack of debate and concern about the subject, I was...

Connecticut is considering a bailout for local papers. But government assistance always comes with a catch. In the case of government aid of newspapers, it will destroy the ability of those papers to function as watchdogs. As journalism professor Paul Janensch told Reuters, “You can’t expect a watchdog to bite the hand that feeds it.” That’s why the news out of Connecticut is very disturbing. Two small-town papers have been in danger of being shut down because of decreasing revenue and poor management decisions. Journal Register Corp. recently had to sell the two papers, The Bristol Press and The (New...

Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print . . . But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May? It’s certainly plausible. -- End Times, by Michael Hirschorn, The Atlantic, January/February 2009 [emphasis added] The prospect of the disappearance of the New York Times within a matter of months will bring wildly varying reactions in different quarters. Those gleefully anticipating...

<p>The nation's top selling conservative author has been banned from appear on NBC, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT, banned for life! MORE...</p>

Edward McClelland: Burris hasn't been accused of violating any standard of ethical conduct. It's guilt by association with Blagojevich. If Blagojevich is smart, he'll disappear and let this become about Roland Burris, a 71-year-old with an honest record as a public servant, the son of a railroad worker who grew up in a small town in central Illinois, and got started in politics by integrating the public pool. It's tough to be against a senator like that.

Surpassed in convenience and economy by online content, printed magazines and newspapers will dry up in the next decade. Pro or con? snip Pro: Disappearing Ink by Jeff Jarvis, Buzzmachine.com Whether or not print dies, its business model will. Physical wares—newspapers, books, magazines, discs—will no longer be the primary or most profitable means of delivering and interacting with media: news, fact, entertainment, or education. snip Con: The Power of Print by Chris Tolles, Topix Given that I run an online-only news site here in Silicon Valley, you’d think I’d be arguing that print is already dead. But the technology business...

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 of businesses in the face of the worst economic slump since the 1930s, the decline among the newspaper shares last year was more than twice as deep as the 38.5% drop suffered by the Standard and Poor’s average of 500 stocks. The debacle was widespread and thoroughgoing, as detailed below. Here are some highlights from the data: :: The shares of eight of the 14...

File this one under the "I should've seen this coming" category; Connecticut State Representative Frank Nicastro (D-Bristol/Forestville) is petitioning the Connecticut state government to bailout his local newspapers, the Bristol Press and the New Britain Herald. This is the first such effort and it is strictly a local effort by Representative Nicastro and some of his fellow state legislators, but I predict that it won't be the last. With all of the large Liberal newspapers now struggling to survive due to dire reductions in revenue and readership, watch for a push from Democrats in Congress to follow suit.

Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press. Nicastro represents Connecticut's 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain. That is because publisher Journal Register, in danger of being crushed under hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, says it cannot afford to keep them open anymore. Nicastro and fellow legislators...

mere month ago this idea was a joke. The joke could be on us. Government aid could save U.S. newspapers, spark debate NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press. Nicastro represents Connecticut's 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain. That is because publisher Journal Register,...

The media created controversy surrounding a comedy CD distributed by Republican National Committee chair candidate Chip Saltsman has not torpedoed his bid and might have inadvertently helped it. Four days after news broke that the former Tennessee GOP chairman had sent a CD that included a song titled “Barack the Magic Negro” to the RNC members he is courting, some of those officials are rallying around the embattled Saltsman, with a few questioning whether the national media and his opponents are piling on. “When I heard about the story I had to figure out what was going on for myself,”...

The MSM newspapers are going into the crapper and it is all the fault of idiot bloggers (you know, those guys who sit around in their pajamas writing all day). The problem is that printing a hard copy of a publication packed with solid, interesting reporting isn't a guarantee of economic success in the age of instant news. Blogger Glenn Reynolds of "Instapundit" fame seems to be pleased at this. In his book, "An Army of Davids," Mr. Reynolds heralds an era in which "[m]illions of Americans who were in awe of the punditocracy now realize that anyone can do...

The internet has witnessed the conversion of analog advertising dollars into digital advertising pennies (credit due to Jeff Zucker at NBC (GE) for “coining” that metaphor). Despite the fact that a viewer is always just a “click away” on the internet, online advertisements command only a fraction of the cost of far less measurable media – like print, radio, and television. Consider this: an advertisement on MySpace (NWS) might cost $.25 to show to 1,000 people ($.25 CPM), versus $25 for 1,000 readers of Time (TWX) magazine ($25 CPM). In the good old days of performance-less advertising, engagement didn’t really...

The McClatchy publishing company is more and more beginning to resemble an isolated bunker in the final stages of Götterdämmerung as ugly reality, such as their 99% stock price plunge, closes in on both fronts. Inside the bunker a leader is screaming madly, conjuring up phantom armies to ward off the unpleasant facts facing his company. However, in this case their ranting leader in the bunker isn't McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt who is probably already quietly contemplating his permanent exile with his surfboard off the coast of Satellite Beach but Howard Weaver (photo), the outgoing VP of News at that...

Earlier this month, executives at the New York Times (NYT) warned investors that they had a miserable November. They weren’t kidding. The grim details are here, but I’ll save you some time: * Revenue was down 13.9%, an acceleration from October’s 9.4% drop. * Ad revenue was down 20.9%, an acceleration from October’s 16.2% drop. * The really awful news: Internet ad revenue and overall Internet revenue actually declined in November, down 3.8% and 2.6%, respectively. In the good old days of 2007, the Times could at least say that while print revenue growth was slowing to a halt, Internet...

Journalists, accountants and bankruptcy experts found accord Thursday on the No. 1 issue facing Tribune Co. as it begins its Chapter 11 bankruptcy adventure: It isn't owner Sam Zell. It isn't the company's huge indebtedness. The question, said Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton, is "whether this is a viable business." In one way, Stanton told a gathering at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, the answer is already clear. "I think big-city newspapers, the way we have known them, are not long for this world, as they're now configured." Stanton said his troops at the Times are scrambling to "reinvent...

Politico, the upstart news source from Washington, and Reuters, the venerable wire service, have joined forces to offer articles to newspapers and sell advertising on the papers’ Web sites, the latest step in the rising competition among electronic news media to fill the void left by the shrinking print business. ~snip~ Politico’s informed political coverage, sometimes spiced with attitude from its writers, complements Reuters’ sober style and Washington coverage that often reads as if written for an overseas audience. And as other news organizations shrink or abandon their Washington bureaus, Politico is expanding from a staff of about 85 people...

The American journalist was once a notoriously hard-boiled character with sharp elbows and a press pass tucked into the band of his fedora. In the era of the classic film The Front Page, set in the 1920s, reporters from rival city dailies used their most devious means to get the drop on the rest and claim a scoop. Now those local stories may be “outsourced” to be written by a low-paid journalist in India and posted on the internet instead. The US newspaper industry is in a full-blown crisis that has seen its business model dynamited by technology and its...

Promise, or threat? John Harwood declares "the New York Times isn't going anywhere." The Times correspondent, who also toils for CNBC, made his unconditional avowal on today's Morning Joe in response to Joe Scarborough's imagining of a future in which major news organizations, including the Times, might disappear. Scarborough was concerned that the public would be deprived of the media's investigative function. JOE SCARBOROUGH: The problem is, though, that these people are all being fired. So what are we going to do without a New York Times or a Washington Post or an NBC News? The investigators that hold government...

Mark Pinsky, writing for the New Republic, has an idea of what to do with all the journalists currently being laid off by the dying newspapers around the country: put them on the public payroll by hiring them for a resurrected Federal Writers Project. This was the New Deal project which provided funding for works which were primarily of a leftwing nature. And any current version of this government program is likely to have the same political ideology as its predecessor. Pinksy explains his dream of subsidizing unemployed journalists (emphasis mine): Barack Obama sounds like he wants to reach back...

This story is a two box of tissues classic about the woes presently facing the main stream media. Unfortunately, the Tallahassee Democrat is owned by Gannett, hence we can even excerpt the article. However, you can read this heart rendering tale of misery by clicking HERE.

Here's the dirty little truth about the democrats who want to bring back the fairness doctrine. Its just as much of a bailout as the billions being given to the banks or the auto unions. There is a reason why there is very little "liberal" talk radio. PEOPLE DON'T LIKE THE PRODUCT. If people want to hear what is on,---- they listen, if they don't.... well there are tons of radio stations, listeners can turn the dial to find what they like. If a radio program doesn't generate listeners, it doesn't get advertising, no advertising, no radio program. It's really...

The McClatchy Company, burdened by debt and a steep slide in newspaper advertising, wants to sell one of its most-prized properties, The Miami Herald, according to people briefed on the company’s plans. McClatchy, the nation’s third-largest newspaper chain, has approached potential buyers for The Herald, said these people, who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue. But they said they knew of no serious offers for the paper, reflecting the evaporation of major investors’ interest in buying newspapers. The company refused to discuss the matter. Elaine Lintecum, the treasurer, said, “We do not comment on...

This can't be good: I am told that CNN has eliminated its science unit, affecting seven staffers. It's not good for many reasons but the network's science unit is one of the best in television and probably has a few dozen Emmys to prove it. Here's a statement from CNN: " We want to integrate environmental, science and technology reporting into the general editorial structure rather than have a stand alone unit. Now that the bulk of our environmental coverage is being offered through the 'Planet in Peril' franchise which is produced by the 'AC360' program, there is no need...

Back in October, I joked that it wouldn’t be long before the junk-bond New York Times was lining up for a government bailout. Last month, I followed up with the launch of the Newspaper Bailout Countdown Clock in a post about Tribune Media’s financial woes. Well, it has come to pass: Democrats have proposed a newspaper bailout in Connecticut: Seven legislators from the area served by The Bristol Press and The Herald in New Britain today wrote to the state Department of Economic and Community Development to ask for its help in preventing the closure of the newspapers. We’ll have...

One of the most familiar voices in Denver is about to sign off for the last time. In October, three weeks after Ernie Bjorkman, an institution in Colorado television, signed a new annual contract worth close to a quarter of a million dollars, he was told he was being let go by KWGN, the CW affiliate in Denver, a victim of consolidation with another station. snip Across the country, longtime local TV anchors are a dying breed. Facing an economic slump and a severe advertising downturn, many stations have cut costs drastically in the last year, and veteran anchors, with...

Has there ever been a less fun time to be a media mogul? This was supposed to be a banner year for the U.S. media industry, with the happy confluence of a presidential election campaign and the Olympics. Instead, 2008 has been pretty much a writeoff. Some parts of the industry - particularly local U.S. media - have seen their sales fall off a cliff and their long-term viability as business models called into question as a consequence of the shakeout in the financial services companies and car makers, two of the largest advertising categories. "It looks like 2008 will...