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Stop the Presses (NYT/Jim Cramer Dinosaur Media Extinction Alert)
New York Magazine ^ | April 3, 2006 | Jim Cramer

Posted on 04/03/2006 12:28:55 PM PDT by abb

The NY Times is ditching its hallowed stock quotes and putting them online. Now they should make the whole paper digital.

In a week’s time, the New York Times will report another dismal quarter, one that will show decreased cash flow and total chaos in the New England region (thank you, Boston Globe) and reflect the admission, however tacit, that the company, despite recent deep job cuts, still has too many mouths to feed. Oh, the Times Company’s management, chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and CEO Janet Robinson, will attempt to put a smiley-face on the numbers, in the same way that some editor wrote TIMES COMPANY REPORTS MIXED AD RESULTS when the company preannounced abysmal first-quarter results a couple of weeks ago. If it hadn’t been the Times but a rival operation (and if the writer hadn’t aspired to continue to work at the Times), the headline would have read NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS QUARTER SUBSTANTIALLY BELOW EXPECTATIONS, BLAMES EVERY DIVISION SAVE ONLINE AND REAL-ESTATE ADS. Alas, that would be a far more honest depiction of the Gray Lady’s dire situation than what the company is apparently willing to offer its Business-section readers.

Yet, there’s hope. Hope from an ironic source, but hope nonetheless. This week, the Times will drop its stock-market tables, the hallowed small-agate-type section that used to be the mainstay of every newspaper that aspired to have a legit business section. The move, which follows similar initiatives by some other majors, including the Los Angeles Times, is meant to save newsprint costs while simultaneously driving traffic to the Times’ excellent Website. You can’t miss the logic: In a world where stocks trade around the clock and the closing price is pretty meaningless, static stock tables don’t cut it anymore, especially when the Web allows for live pricing.

(Excerpt) Read more at nymetro.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: booyah; cramer; liberalmedia; msm; newspapers; nyt; stocks
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Cramer has a point here...
1 posted on 04/03/2006 12:28:56 PM PDT by abb
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To: abb

BooYAH!


2 posted on 04/03/2006 12:29:32 PM PDT by Incorrigible (If I lead, follow me; If I pause, push me; If I retreat, kill me.)
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To: abb

The NY Slimes should make the entire paper a pay for site like Times Select.

It really would make me happy.


3 posted on 04/03/2006 12:32:53 PM PDT by finnman69 (cum puella incedit minore medio corpore sub quo manifestu s globus, inflammare animos)
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To: abb

NYT...House of Pain!!! SELL SELL SELL !!!!


4 posted on 04/03/2006 12:34:14 PM PDT by CIDKauf (No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.)
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To: abb

Well, if they put a spin on it that's inaccurate or misrepresentative, will the SEC come down on them for SARBOX violations?


5 posted on 04/03/2006 12:53:08 PM PDT by Real Cynic No More (A member of the Appalachian-American minority -- and proud of it!)
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To: abb
While we’re at it, why not write the obituary of the whole company? After all, it’s been the worst-performing newspaper stock in America for the past five years. The stock’s down 30 percent in the last year and 50 percent from just three years ago. Portfolio managers despise the thing and know that, unlike the just-sold Knight Ridder, the family owners at the Times have created a dual class of stock that makes a takeover simply impossible (the other class has all the voting power).

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!

6 posted on 04/03/2006 1:04:49 PM PDT by D-Chivas
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To: abb; LS; martin_fierro; Liz; Ernest_at_the_Beach; BIGLOOK

Actually as usual, the lib Krazy Kramer is providing cover for the liberal NY Slimes. No newsapaper or any fish wrap print is new news. So if Krazy Kramer's advice was taken re late news, there would be no print media in America.

The following story is very interesting. B of A has advised people owning stock in the two biggest supplies of newsprint to sell their stock.

Why? Less and less newsprint is being needed each day, as the circulation drops across the nation, the fishwraps get smaller in page size and with fewer pages.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060403/paper_movers.html?.v=1&printer=1

AP
Bowater, Abitibi Fall on Ratings Cuts
Monday April 3, 1:15 pm ET
Newsprint Makers Bowater, Abitibi Down After Banc of America Advises Profit Taking

NEW YORK (AP) -- Shares in newsprint makers Bowater Inc. and Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. fell Monday after Bank of America cut the stocks to "Sell," advising investors to take profits after recent gains.

Analyst George Staphos also cautioned that he expects growth in newsprint demand to slow within the next 12 months, as the industry's boom cycle starts to weaken.

"We view 2006 as a peak pricing year, and 2006/2007 as the peak in profitability," he said, adding, "This would argue that now is the right time to sell positions."

Staphos said investors should be ready to increase their holdings if the price of newsprint were to rise again or there was a reduction in the sector's production capacity.

The analysis comes after years of declining circulation at major North American newspapers, which have responded by cutting the size of their publications to help trim printing costs. Starting Tuesday, The New York Times Co. will reduce its daily publication of stock tables to two pages from six.

Staphos expects Asian markets to drive a 1 percent increase in print demand in the longer-term, but he anticipates a concurrent rise in production capacity by 2 percent, also primarily in Asia, which "will lead to diminished export opportunities for North American producers," he said.

The analyst cut his price target for both Bowater, of Greenville, S.C., and Abitibi of Montreal, North America's largest newsprint maker.

Shares in Abitibi have gained about 15 percent since early March before shedding 2 cents Monday to $4.13 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock fell as much as 11 cents, or 2.7 percent, earlier in the session before making up much of the lost ground.

Bowater recently listed down 77 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $28.81 on the Big Board. The stock has rebounded from a 52-week low of $24.73 in October to push past $30 toward the end of the quarter. Its high for the year is $38.34, reached in April 2005.



7 posted on 04/03/2006 1:16:30 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (How long has the NY Slimes, Compost, and LA Slimes been Enroning (cooking) their books?)
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To: Grampa Dave

Dave, your story deserves a new posting, using the DMEA label, doncha think?


8 posted on 04/03/2006 1:18:38 PM PDT by abb (Because News Reporting is too important to be left to the Journalists.)
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To: abb

"Dave, your story deserves a new posting, using the DMEA label, doncha think?'

Be my guest and post it as a thread if you want to. I will be leaving my computer as soon as it quits raining for a few hours. So I will not be able to follow up re the replies.

I went back and read Krazy Kramer's full story, and he is predicting the same fate for the fish wraps that we are.

If his full story gets any legs, it will be a disaster for the NY Slimes.



9 posted on 04/03/2006 1:29:27 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (How long has the NY Slimes, Compost, and LA Slimes been Enroning (cooking) their books?)
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To: Grampa Dave; abb; NormsRevenge

Oh, goody....a Save The Trees......bump!


10 posted on 04/03/2006 1:29:39 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: abb

The first thing to note that Cramer is a complete idiot.

The second id that he is writing about a subject that was beat to death earlier. Not only is he an idiot, he is a very late idiot.


11 posted on 04/03/2006 1:34:44 PM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. Slay Pinch)
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To: abb

The first thing to note is that Cramer is a complete idiot.

The second is that he is writing about a subject that was beat to death earlier. Not only is he an idiot, he is a very late idiot.


12 posted on 04/03/2006 1:35:34 PM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. Slay Pinch)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

As you know for years, I have been advocating shutting down all the fish wraps in America for the good of the environment.

The fishwrap business is one of the biggest users of resources and has incredibly high hidden costs that get disguised as recycled good news.


13 posted on 04/03/2006 1:41:38 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (How long has the NY Slimes, Compost, and LA Slimes been Enroning (cooking) their books?)
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To: bert

You are correct on both points. Cramer's an idiot and the decline of the newspapers has been covered.

But there's more to consider. Cramer may be an idiot, but he's followed on Wall Street. And the story of the demise of newspapers needs to be covered more completely. Like to the degree we are beaten over the head daily with stories about Halliburton, Enron, etc., etc...

So I say BOOYAH to Cramer. Keep talking...


14 posted on 04/03/2006 1:43:48 PM PDT by abb (Because News Reporting is too important to be left to the Journalists.)
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To: abb

What they're finding out at the NYT is that if their readership only consisted of the Liberal snob crowd, their sales would tank. Wait a minute! Thats what is happening! If they suddenly morphed from a rag into a fair and balanced newspaper, their sales might go back up.


15 posted on 04/03/2006 1:52:15 PM PDT by OrioleFan (Republicans believe every day is July 4th, DemocRATs believe every day is April 15th. - Reagan)
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To: Grampa Dave; abb; Southack
NY Times steps in it again.....hat tip to Power Line News.....From the Mudville Gazette:

April 03, 2006
Headless in the Headlines

**************************AN EXCERPT *****************************

In short, some guy said he knew a guy that saw them. Which is how the story should have been reported - as a rumor. But it wasn't.

Yesterday's press briefing from Iraq:

Q About -- on the news that we heard this week of a number of headless bodies being found along a road in Baghdad. I was wondering what more you could tell us about that, what you know about the victims, and who the perpetrators were?

GEN. THURMAN: Okay. I did understand that question, and what I would tell you -- we have not confirmed that report. We went to multiple sites to look for the 32 headless bodies that was reported to our headquarters, and we did not find anything; nor did any of the local citizens that were in these areas could verify that anybody had ever been in there. So I look at that report as completely false right now.

But apparently within the standards of acceptable journalism for the New York Times.

Update: Times readers eager to find a correction will discover it featured prominently in paragraph 17 of this story

The police in western Baghdad discovered 14 bodies on Tuesday, all killed execution-style with gunshots to the head, apparently the latest victims of sectarian bloodletting. On Monday, Iraqi forces found 18 bodies near Baquba with similar wounds. Earlier reports of 30 beheaded bodies found in that area were wrong, the Interior Ministry official said.

16 posted on 04/03/2006 1:59:53 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

The NY Slimes's current corporate culture from top to bottom is based on lying and creating news to embarrass our president.

If the Ny Slimes lies about headless victims in Iraq, how honest are they about their paid subscriptions/circulation data.


17 posted on 04/03/2006 2:04:13 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (How long has the NY Slimes, Compost, and LA Slimes been Enroning (cooking) their books?)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

This deserves a separate post, imo! It's very newsworthy in and of itself. And after all - we're the editors now...

ROFLMAO!!!


18 posted on 04/03/2006 2:07:03 PM PDT by abb (Because News Reporting is too important to be left to the Journalists.)
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To: abb

Every now and then Cramer has a moment of sanity. This is one of them.


19 posted on 04/03/2006 6:37:02 PM PDT by Malesherbes
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To: Grampa Dave
Very informative, Dave

Am cashing in all 'Pulp fiction' assets.

Wait one.......haven't any.

However, this does present an interesting opportunity. Hostile takeover. Buy out.
20 posted on 04/03/2006 9:15:14 PM PDT by BIGLOOK (Order of Battle: Sink or capture as Prize, MS Media)
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