Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's gay marriage ban could open the door to legal discrimination against unpopular groups if the state Supreme Court allows the voter-approved measure to stand, blacks, Latinos, Asians and other minorities said. The November 4 vote, supporting an end to legal same-sex marriage in the most populous U.S. state, has caused a nationwide furor as opponents of the measure decry what they consider a civil rights violation. California's highest court agreed on November 19 to hear a challenge, based on whether the state constitution requires support from the legislature -- as well as a majority vote...

A week after Washington Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell agreed with readers who saw “a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama” in the paper's campaign coverage, Howell this Sunday admitted she voted for Obama and “bet” that so did “most” in the Post's newsroom: I'll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. There are centrists at The Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don't even want to be quoted by name in a memo.

With newspapers cutting back and predictions of even worse times ahead, Rupert Murdoch said the profession may still have a bright future if it can shake free of reporters and editors who he said have forfeited the trust and loyalty of their readers. "My summary of the way some of the established media has responded to the internet is this: it's not newspapers that might become obsolete. It's some of the editors, reporters, and proprietors who are forgetting a newspaper's most precious asset: the bond with its readers," said Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp. He...

In June, magazines' ad pages were running 7.4% below their levels a year earlier, and hiring freezes were creeping across big publishing houses. As it turns out, those were the good days. Back then magazines still employed 147,000 people, matching the high mark since the last recession. It had taken the industry until 2007 to reach that level. It took just three months to undo those gains. By the end of September, when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection and the Bush administration had started seeking $700 billion for Wall Street, magazines had eliminated 3,200 jobs. Neither October nor November...

So right now it's... I get kind of amused when I look at the way the media is covering this guy. I'll tell you something else about Obama. You heard the concept. Remember when Donald Trump was in financial trouble, he couldn't pay back all the loans at this point in time that he owed various banks? So the banks had to rewrite and redo the loans, because Trump was too big to fail. If they let Trump fail... That whole philosophy... It's come back now -- and, by the way, Trump paid it all back. He's cool, fine, but...

I thought after the mainstream media had succeeded in electing its anointed candidate for president and after they had acted as an unofficial campaign manger for Sen. Barack Obama, that there might be some return to journalistic principles. The conventional wisdom is that once in office, the mainstream media subjects the president to relentless criticism. So I thought there might be a slight letup in the biased, dishonest and fraudulent journalism flooding forth from the mainstream media to advance Sen. Obama and the Democratic Party. But as I checked magazines and newspapers and listened to President-Elect Obama's first press conference,...

CHICAGO (AP) — The Tribune Company, owner of newspapers including The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, along with the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field, said Monday that it lost $121.6 million in the third quarter as newspaper advertising revenue fell. The company, which is privately held, had net income in the comparable quarter a year earlier of $152.8 million. Revenue fell 10.5 percent, to $1.04 billion, from $1.16 billion a year ago, the company said.

"Look," said Griffin. "I totally respect Fox News and what they did. But it's totally cynical. For them to say that is outrageous. They saw an opportunity years ago to create an ideological channel. And they did. I give them total credit. I tip my hat to them. They scored. But it was ideological and opportunistic. It was a business plan. "We didn't do that. We go out and hire the best people that we can and give them freedom. Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann were arguing in point-of-view programs against the war when the war was popular. This wasn't...

The Star-Telegram used to be a special business. For decades, the Fort Worth newspaper had some of the strongest numbers anywhere, stoked by a fast-growth market and big-city competition. With almost 400 journalists at its peak, it staffed one of the largest newsrooms for a paper its size and had a fat news hole for stories. Profit margins sometimes hit 30 percent, justifying the large head count and making the Star-Telegram a cash-generating machine. That’s all yesterday’s news. Newspapers across the nation are facing their own economic crisis, and they’ve cut more than 24,000 jobs in the past year. The...

Amendment 2 - Passed. The most controversial-- the Florida marriage protection amendment. Voters in Florida decided to identify marriage as the union between a man and a woman, nothing else-- banning gay marriage and extra benefits for domestic partnerships. Florida will now be one of approximately 30 states with a definition of marriage in its constitution.

NEW YORK While Sam Zell's biggest newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, made history endorsing a Democrat, Barack Obama, this year, he has been busy giving tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to Obama's opponent, Sen. John McCain. Among other CEOs: Rupert Murdoch has given $2,300 to McCain, Richard Scaife and Philip Anschutz have heavily backed Republicans, while William Dean Singleton has pretty much sat it out while his fellow MediaNews honcho Richard Scudder has funded Obama. A review of several online campaign donation sites shows Zell, listed as the chairman of his Equity Group Investments, donated...

I hereby submit the following proposal which I guarantee will cause the LA Times to release the Obama-Khalidi Party tape: Just copy and paste the following to russ.stanton@latimes.com : Dear Mr. Stanton, Editor of the mighty Los Angeles Times: I write to you regarding a matter of great national security. I am quite worried that the LA Times may be tempted by public pressure to release materials that would set back our nations war against terror. My business provides lunch catering to the CIA's training facilities for agents looking to infiltrate Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. (You should stop by and...

Who wants to start a nation-wide protest of all tv and newspapers next week or the week after? We would demand that the media tells the truth about Obama, the economy, the war and everything else they lie about. We could make signs and hand out flyers. Telling everyone how the media is literally destroying this country with there lies and deception. We could set up a website to promote our cause and sign up for protests at different media outlets. If this went national, the media couldn't ignore it. What do you say? Do you think it could be...

Most of the 27 members of the fifth generation of the Ochs-Sulzberger family -- who are slated to inherit control of the New York Times Co. -- work as artists, musicians, academics, even fashion stylists. "You don't see a line of people in succession to run the joint," says a former Times exec.

By contrast, the implosion of Wall Street, followed by Paulson's escalating series of multibillion-dollar rescues, has fired up populist sentiments that were already building in American politics, promising to reshape legislative battles over everything from tax and trade policies to federal regulation. Union leaders like the AFL-CIO's John Sweeney suddenly sound as if they're in the mainstream of public opinion with statements like this: "One thing is certain. No one - no politician, no investment banker, no television commentator, no economist - should be able to say again with a straight face that here in the United States we just...

The honeymoon is over for Sarah Palin. After a third major TV interview during which her performance was uneven at best, even fellow Republicans are having trouble enthusiastically backing their vice presidential nominee. The first-term Alaska governor had been a phenomenon, bringing delegates to their feet with her speech at the Republican National Convention early this month and helping John McCain draw the biggest crowds of his campaign afterward. But voters are now apparently having doubts. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released yesterday found that while 47 percent of likely voters believed that Palin had the personality and leadership qualities...

Media to Republicans: We're Sorry ST. PAUL, Minn. — On behalf of the media, I would like to say we are sorry. On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry. We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked. We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her?...

Palin has stood up to the major oil companies, and has made utterly transparent the State of Alaska's dealings with them, but she is neither in their pocket nor a rabble-rouser who unfairly demonizes them. She's dealt with them like a responsible public servant, not a class warrior. Stephen Spruiell was generous and self-critical enough to link today on The Corner a comment I wrote to one of my own Palin posts in which I took issue with a post by my excellent friend Ed Morrissey (formerly of Captain's Quarters) at Hot Air. Basically, I thought Ed (and, inferentially, Mr....

Get this line: The new tax brought in an estimated $6 billion in the last budget year, bulging Alaska's treasury with an expected surplus of as much as $9 billion. Thst enabled Palin to push a second initiative — giving each Alaskan $1,200 to help them cope with high energy costs. Sound familiar? Obama has proposed taxing the windfall profits of the five biggest oil companies and giving people $1,000 to pay for high energy costs. Palin called such financial help "a tool that must be on the table" although she differs with Obama on where the money's source. Like...

Republicans in Congress this June united to defeat a proposed windfall tax on oil companies, deriding it as a bad idea that would discourage investment in U.S. oil exploration. Things worked out far differently in the GOP stronghold of Alaska, a state whose economic fate is closely tied to the oil industry. Over the opposition of oil companies, Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Alaska's Legislature last year approved a major increase in taxes on the oil industry — a step that has generated stunning new wealth for the state as oil prices soared.

Russia apparently isn't in a quagmire. They apparently did go to the UN and ask for permission first. They are not in an unnecessary act of aggression. I haven't seen any drive by reporters lament any unilateral actions, have you?

On Sunday's This Week, ABC's George Stephanopoulos condemned John McCain for charging that “Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.” Stephanopoulos, who interviewed McCain on Saturday at his Arizona ranch, declared: “I can't believe you believe that.” McCain insisted “I'm not questioning his patriotism. I'm questioning his actions. I'm questioning his lack, total lack of understanding,” leading Stephanopoulos to counter: “But that is questioning his patriotism. When you say someone would rather lose a war, a candidate, that's questioning his honor, his decency, his character.” As McCain continued to defend his assessment, Stephanopoulos...

Today, the Los Angeles Times ordered its bloggers not to talk about the story. Here, via Kausfiles, is the memo from an editor there: Hey bloggers, There has been a little buzz surrounding John Edwards and his alleged affair. Because the only source has been the National Enquirer we have decided not to cover the rumors or salacious speculations. So I am asking you all not to blog about this topic until further notified. If you have any questions or are ever in need of story ideas that would best fit your blog, please don't hesitate to ask Keep rockin,...

SAN DIEGO – The parent company of The San Diego Union-Tribune announced Thursday that it has hired an investment banker to look into the possible sale of the company. Copley Press engaged the New York-based investment banking firm Evercore Partners, which also represented the publishing company in the sale of newspapers it owned in Los Angeles and in the Midwest in 2006 and 2007. In a statement, The Copley Press, Inc., cited the tough times in the newspaper industry as its motivation in deciding to explore the company's strategic options. “The last couple of years have been a difficult period...

The New York Times (NYT: 13.07, +0.21, +1.63%) fell as low as $12.38 this morning after its second quarter earnings missed estimates. Profits plunged 82% to $21 mn versus the $118 mn posted in the same period a year ago, a period that was helped along by the one-time sale of an asset. The share plunge is the lowest since July 1995. Print ads dollars at the Times continue to shrivel, sending operating income in a nosedive, as ad dollars continued their inexorable march toward the Internet. Hotels, automakers, airlines, all hurt by high energy prices, have pulled back sharply....

It has fewer pages than three years ago, the paper stock is thinner, and the stories are shorter. There is less foreign and national news, less space devoted to science, the arts, features and a range of specialized subjects. Business coverage is either packaged in an increasingly thin stand-alone section or collapsed into another part of the paper. The crossword puzzle has shrunk, the TV listings and stock tables may have disappeared, but coverage of some local issues has strengthened and investigative reporting remains highly valued. The newsroom staff producing the paper is also smaller, younger, more tech-savvy, and more...

Bridging the Abyss Why a lot of newspapers aren’t going to survive By Charles Layton Charles Layton (charlesmary@hotmail.com) is an AJR senior contributing writer. Mark Potts is a consultant, based in Washington, D.C., who hires out to newspaper Web sites, dotcoms and the like. He was a reporter and editor (Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, San Francisco Examiner) in the '70s and '80s, that golden age for newspapers before the Internet came along to spoil the party. Ad revenue — four-fifths of a daily paper's income — grew by double digits during many of those years. Last summer, Potts and some...

Pinch Sulzberger has taken perhaps the most recognizable media brand in the country and run it into the ground. Can the Gray Lady be saved?

The newspaper industry is in a bad spot. Actually, run a correction on that statement — newspapers are in a "time to panic" spot. The business model is collapsing, ad dollars are disappearing, newsprint prices are at a 12-year high and the Internet is just giving news away for free. On July 2, the Los Angeles Times announced it was cutting more than one-sixth of its newsroom staff; the Tampa Tribune said it would cut 20%. Some weeks ago, Randy Michaels, COO of the Tribune newspaper group — the second largest in the nation — mused in a conference call...

At long last, has the Associated Press lost all sense of decency? The AP's story (saved here for future reference in case the wire service is embarrassed into revising it; you might consider saving it too as Exhibit A on how far over the cliff the dinosaur media has driven itself) by Douglass K. Daniel, with Jennifer Loven contributing (I might have known), gets in at least three cheap, fundamentally untrue, and totally uncalled-for shots at Tony Snow, who died earlier this morning.

The unnecessary refrigeration of America has become a chronic disease. It seems to have gotten worse over the past few years, with thermostats routinely set at 68deg.F, and sometimes even 65 deg., in the (far too many) hotel rooms I've suffered on the campaign trail. "Americans seem to keep their houses cooler in summer than they do in the winter," muses Edward Parson, an environmental expert at the University of Michigan Law School. But it's hard to know for sure, since there are no comprehensive studies that measure air-conditioning trend lines...

CBS News sinks to new low; publishes crackpot global warming story, attributes it to Associated Press, kills it with no retraction Yesterday I posted a story from CBS News: Quake n’ Bake: Global Warming Causes More Energetic Earthquakes? The main headline was this: Seismic Activity 5 Times More Energetic Than 20 Years Ago Because Of Global Warming This drew a lot of attention because of the total lack of verifiable science associated with it. I posted some graphs of USGS data showing that the opposite was true, that recent earthquake energy was actually less that in the early 1900’s, and...

Commentary: New York Times Co., Gannett report discouraging results NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The New York Times Co., looking like a company poised to be regarded as takeover bait, reported discouraging news on Wednesday. Already reeling from a prolonged advertising slump, the Times (NYT) said it had an 11.9% decline in ad sales, overshadowing a slight increase in its circulation revenue. Meanwhile, Gannett (GCI) , the publisher of USA Today, said its May ad revenue had dropped 14% from a year ago. Its classified ad figure fell 19% for the month, underscoring the impact of online services. The Times has...

NEW YORK — The "CBS Evening News" audience has taken a noticeable dip ever since the latest round of speculation over Katie Couric's job. The broadcast averaged 5.34 million viewers last week, breaking a record low for CBS News' flagship show that had been set the week before, according to Nielsen Media Research. The "CBS Evening News" - No. 3 in a three-way competition - had nearly 2.5 million fewer viewers than No. 2. NBC's "Nightly News" led with 8.02 million viewers last week (5.5 rating, 12 share), with ABC's "World News" averaging 7.79 million (5.4, 12). CBS had a...

There's a mournful hush in Sacramento these days, the empty sound of an entire political viewpoint quieted. More than 32,000 weekly listeners who once tuned to KSAC (1240 AM) to hear partisan Democrats beat up on President George W. Bush, now hear only Christian hip-hop. There's nothing wrong with Christian hip-hop; it's a great outlet for artists breaking out of the gansta rap mold. But there are six other commercial radio stations licensed in the Sacramento area programming the Christian message. In the political realm, three local radio stations program 264 hours of partisan Republican radio talkers beating up on...

Youtube vid here

By see-dubya • May 9, 2008 01:55 AM For what it’s worth, the New York Times reports that the U.S.’s designated new commander in Pakistan, General James Hood, has not been allowed to take up his new job. He had served as commander of Gitmo, and although he actually did away with some of the roughest forms of interrogation there and won some (grudging) praise from human rights groups, his legacy in the Middle East is tainted by Newsweek’s lie: General Hood, who took command of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay in March 2004, shortly before the Abu Ghraib...

The Minneapolis Star Tribune, reeling under a heavy debt load and plummeting advertising sales, is on the brink of bankruptcy, The Post has learned. One of the nation's top dailies, "The Strib," as it is known to readers in the Twin Cities, recently hired the Wall Street powerhouse Blackstone Group to restructure its balance sheet after failing to meet its debt obligations, according to people familiar with the company. The broadsheet is unlikely to shutter its doors, but its creditors, including the banking giant Credit Suisse Group, figure to eventually end up controlling the paper. Down the road, the creditor...

The Washington Post Co. on Friday reported a 39 percent drop in first quarter profit, hurt by an early retirement program charge at Newsweek and a continued loss of revenue from its newspapers. The Washington-based corporation said earnings fell to $38.8 million, or $4.08 per share, compared with $63.9 million, or $6.70 per share, a year earlier. The company said revenue climbed 8 percent to $1.06 billion from $985.6 million. Quarterly results included a $15.3 million, or $1.60 per share, expense related to Newsweek's early retirement program. Even excluding the costs of the retirement program, earnings fell well below the...

First in a series. NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- By now you know the story: The business of newspapers is in decline. It's a terminal decline, if you believe experts such as Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California at Annenberg. His research suggests traditional media in general must learn to shrink but newspapers in particular are a special case. "When an offline reader of a paper dies, he or she is not being replaced by a new reader," he said. "How much time do they have? We think they have 20...

With print revenue down and online revenue growing, newspaper executives are anticipating the day when big city dailies and national papers will abandon their print versions. That day has arrived in Madison, Wis. On Saturday, The Capital Times, the city’s fabled 90-year-old daily newspaper founded in response to the jingoist fervor of World War I, stopped printing to devote itself to publishing its daily report on the Web. (The staff will also produce two print products: a free weekly entertainment guide inserted in the crosstown paper, The Wisconsin State Journal, and a news weekly that will be distributed with the...

PDN online, (Photo District News) does not allow their material to be posted on FR but this is worth a look. A guy who works for the San Jose Mercury News has been so discouraged by the continuous layoffs in the news industry, he has started taking pictures of empty hallways and bulletin boards. You can read the story by clicking the link below. Read more here.

One week after media reports cast doubts about Katie Couric’s future on the “CBS Evening News,” the third-place broadcast set a new record low for viewership. The “CBS Evening News” attracted an average of 5.39 million viewers last week, placing the newscast more than two million viewers behind the second-place “World News with Charles Gibson” on ABC (7.51 million). The “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” ranked No. 1 for the week with 8.17 million viewers. While the network nightly newscasts have posted audience declines for more than two decades, a new record low for the “Evening News” will likely...

WASHINGTON Among the gossip and trends swirling at the Capital Conference/combined media convention here is the reality that more and more editors are wishing they could get out of the newsroom earlier in their careers. During hallway chats and bar stool gatherings, in between the sessions at the Washington Convention Center, several editors said the state of the industry – with more cuts, more responsibility for Web, and an unknown future -- has more of their colleagues talking about wanting to hang it up well before retirement age. “That discussion is going on among a lot of people,” said Chris...

The New York Times announced that it's all but a done deal that the paper will have to layoff staffers in the newsroom. The drop-dead deadline is fast approaching for the staffers in The New York Times newsroom to raise their hand and volunteer for a buyout. An internal memo from the paper's assistant managing editor, Bill Schmidt, just went out and said that "we expect" that the buyout numbers aren't looking good and that for the first time the paper will be forced to cut the newsroom through layoffs. "While layoffs have become all too common across our industry,...

CBSNEWS IN TALKS TO CONTRACT OUT MOST REPORTING TO CNN Whynot just make it up? Oh, they already do.

CBS, the home of the most storied news division in broadcasting, has been in discussions with Time Warner about a deal to outsource some of its newsgathering operations to CNN, two executives briefed on the matter said Monday. Over the last decade, CNN has held on-again, off-again talks with both ABC News and CBS News about various joint ventures but during the last several months, talks with CBS have been revived and lately intensified, according to the executives who were granted anonymity because of the confidential nature of the negotiations. Broadly speaking, the executives described conversations about reducing CBS’s newsgathering...

Theodore Dalrymple: Delusions of Virtue - We should hope Hillary Clinton’s Bosnia tale was a lie—and not a fantasy. 3 April 2008 Nietzsche, in one of his disconcertingly piercing aperçus, wrote: “‘I have done that,’ says my memory. ‘I cannot have done that,’ says my pride, and remains adamant. At last—my memory yields.” Hillary Clinton seemed to reverse the Nietzschean order of things when she “misspoke”: “I cannot have done that,” said her memory. “I must have done that,” said her pride, and remained adamant. At last—her memory yielded. Was she lying? A journalist called and asked my opinion as...

Sometime, within the next twelve to eighteen months, the average circulation of the weekday edition of the New York Times will drop below one million. This event marks the continuing decline in the fortunes of what had been the U.S. newspaper of record as the New York Times' average circulation has been well above this level for decades. "Hey, Pinch happens."

In a magazine article seven years ago, the chief executive of the Journal Register Company, the publicly traded newspaper company, bragged about being such a skinflint that he checked the odometers in reporters’ vehicles to verify expense reports. Even such penny-pinching was not enough to keep the company from facing a sprawling debt situation now and the possibility of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. In response, Journal Register, whose flagship paper is The New Haven Register, has hired the investment bank Lazard as an adviser as it weighs a restructuring, according to executives briefed on the matter....