(Sacremento) Bee offers buyouts to majority of full-time workers (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Sacremento Bee ^ | August 25, 2008 | Dale Kasler

[abb]

The Bee offered voluntary buyouts to the majority of its full-time employees today and hinted that another round of layoffs is possible as well.

The buyouts represent the latest round of cost cutting at The Bee, which is facing a big slump in advertising revenue. Two months ago the newspaper eliminated 86 jobs as part of an across-the-board layoff ordered by its parent, The McClatchy Co. of Sacramento. McClatchy imposed a companywide wage freeze two weeks ago.

But Bee executives said today they needed to make more cuts. The economic downturn has deepened and The Bee, like the rest of the newspaper industry, continues to struggle with the migration of business to the Internet and other media.

"It's about continually looking at your work force and looking at your economic projections and trying to bring those in line," Bee Publisher and President Cheryl Dell said. "We thought that we had that two months ago, but with the worsening economy, we just need to do more."

She added that bankruptcies of several advertisers, including Room Source, Linens N Things and Mervyns, has contributed to the uncertainty.

Dell said another round of layoffs is possible if there aren't enough voluntary buyouts. But she said it was "premature to establish a target or quota" for the buyouts. The buyouts were offered to 55 percent of the paper's full-time employees and a smaller number of part-timers, she said. About 44 percent of all employees are being offered buyouts.

The buyout program was announced just a few weeks after The Bee unveiled a redesigned, smaller format for its printed paper, another move largely aimed at cutting costs.

snip

[Jim Robinson]

It’s all a commie plot.

[TruthWillWin]

Sacremento....LOL.

I used to call it Sacratomato because of the crops grown in the area (and other reasons).

[LomanBill]

>>It’s all a commie plot.

 

Collectivist plot would probably be more accurate.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

It's even worse. Two or three years ago an editorial on their web site confirmed their comments about 9/11 (I had already stopped buying the Bee). I think one associate editor disagreed but all others agreed with the original opinion. I have not been back to their web site since.

I will read Bee articles, in part or whole, that are posted elsewhere.

[Jim Robinson]

All the same to me.

[LomanBill]

>>All the same to me.

Communism and Corporatism are both forms of Collectivism.

The word corporate, after all, merely refers to a group of individuals, acting collectively as a single body.

Both forms of collectivism, Corporate and Communist alike, demand the worship and servitude of members of the collective - and neither tolerate the exercise of discourse, when that discourse is critical of the collective.

Without Free Discourse, can there be a Free Republic?

The 1st amendment was 1st for a reason.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

RE: "the “Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™”is also the FR DeathWatch."

I too have commented on how important the MSM are to us and for getting information "out there." I am sure few see nor want an end to the MSM -- instead we welcome the return of "the way is was."

I remember the days before TV. It was a time where every city had two or more newspapers representing views across the political spectrum.

[Jim Robinson]

Sheesh. Go away.

[LomanBill]

>>instead we welcome the return of “the way is was.”

A Free Press, free of political and corporate strings?

You’d have to eliminate the dependency on funding via advertising.

[abb]

http://www.tellzell.com/2008/08/lees-loves-his-ideas.html
Lee’s Loves His Ideas

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003842157
Case Study: ‘Times Union’ May Cut 28 Pages Each Week

[abb]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003842208
Indy Guild Claims Layoffs Wrongly Ignored Seniority

[WilliamofCarmichael]

No not a "free" press vis-a-vis free of influence. On the contrary have at all the influence that the market will bear.

It's the freedom to have alternate sources of news and opinion to the extent that the market will support.

I lived through the "Fairness Doctrine." The market for modern talk radio was there as has been proved since President Reagan did away with the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987. We couldn't have it because station owners feared losing their licenses.

All that's lacking -- and the thing that will help the MSM the most -- is for them to just admit that they are as biased for the left as the new media are biased for the right.

Returning to those days is what I am talking about.

[sergeantdave]

“Communism and Corporatism are both forms of Collectivism.

The word corporate, after all, merely refers to a group of individuals, acting collectively as a single body.”

So would a member of the 1st Marine Division be a corporatist or communist?

How about the Founding Fathers - a gang of collectivists?

[bert]

How about.....

To Bee, or not to Bee.....that is the question?

[LomanBill]

[The market for modern talk radio was there as has been proved since President Reagan did away with the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987.]

 

The talk radio market was there before 1987.  I used to listen to Allen Berg in Denver before The Order murdered him in his driveway.  Saw the evidence bag containing his blood-stained leather jacket with my own eyes.

 

Berg was always controversial - yet he was on the air, until silenced by bullets fired from an inarticulate coward's machine gun.

 

I never considered him to be either liberal or conservative - left or right.   To me he was just an individual, an American - and I admired his articulate tenacity, regardless of whether I agreed with him or not.

[LomanBill]

[So would a member of the 1st Marine Division be a corporatist or communist?

How about the Founding Fathers - a gang of collectivists?]

 

I believe the Founding Fathers were first and foremost, individualists. 

 

They were individuals who acted collectively towards the realization of the commonly held belief, articulated in the American Declaration of Independence, that the function of Government is to secure the inalienable rights of the governed individual.

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

--The American Declaration of Independence.

 

The collective, the Government, must remember its purpose - TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS.

 

I have no reason to believe a member of the 1st Marine Division would intend to do otherwise; and I hold nothing but the highest esteem for the Marines, and others, who "gave the last full measure of devotion" in the belief that they were securing a legacy of freedom for their fellow human beings.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Yes, talk radio was there but not as it is known today and I have been a fan of radio since the early 1940s.

Joe Pyne was close to today's modern conservative talk -- but he was driven from the air after the JFK assassination; and there were exceptions at a few local stations as you noted.

I lived in Cincinnati and in the 1950s and 1960s there were some really good local "talk" radio. Jerry Thomas and Richard King were two. They were entertaining. There was not the freewheeling politics of today however.

Surely you know of the "Fairness Doctrine" and it's impact upon the free expression of ideas. It was a weapon that liberals used against the modern conservative movement.

See Here "You might also think that they would recall the notorious Fairness Doctrine, which was used to 'harass and intimidate' right-wing radio broadcasts, in the words of one unabashed Kennedy-Johnson operative. When that censorious policy was ended in 1987 by former broadcaster Ronald Reagan, there was an explosion of talk formats that gave voice to popular concerns (for a while, Rush Limbaugh even billed himself as equal time)."

In the early days of modern talk radio (late '80s and early '90s) one of the most oft-heard caller comment was "I didn't know others believed as I do!"

We need the MSM even if they won't admit bias but we damn well need the new media also.

Free speech must be defended as it has always been defended against those who would end it, with blood. Their blood, our free speech.

They caught us unaware with the first "Fairness Doctrine" but never again!

Larry King was king of talk radio. I don't remember the span of years. I do remember this, a caller expressed opposition to increased federal taxes. King responded, "Don't you love your country?" I suspect that the man you mentioned generally agreed with King.

That kind of talk went unopposed in all media as liberals argued that one hour a week of William F. Buckley's Firing Line on PBS was all the fairness the conservatives needed.

[LomanBill]

>>I suspect that the man you mentioned generally agreed with King.

 

It was 1982 when I was listening to Mr. Berg, and I don't recall his specific views or positions; but my general recollection is that he was liberal.

 

This is what one of the folks convicted of killing him had to say:

"The only thing I have to say about Alan Berg is: regardless of who did it, he has not mouthed his hate-whitey propaganda from his 50,000-watt Zionist pulpit for quite a few years."

It's curious that Lane would refer to KOA, the radio station Berg worked at, as being a 50,000-watt Zionist pulpit.

 

IIRC, KOA was owned at the time by General Electric.  Today KOA is owned by Clear Channel.

 

Would the Fairness Doctrine have been a factor in Berg's employment at GE?  (That's an honest question, not a rhetorical one)

 

 

In any event, from what you describe, it seems the Fairness Doctrine was intended, not to ensure the truth was being broadcasted - but rather to facilitate the division of the sheeple by constructing a polar dialectic with the Right arranged in opposition against the Left.

 

Seems to me these days, that neither side is operating consistently with the intended function of government that was, as declared by the founders - TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS.

 

 

[WilliamofCarmichael]

RE: "Would the Fairness Doctrine have been a factor in Berg's employment at GE?"

The short answer is no.

Here's why. He was a liberal, you are right about that. Conservatives generally did not complain about fairness -- as best I can remember and research. So, no complaints no problem.

But what you are doing is inserting a tragic, horrible crime into the argument. The killers were known extremists. You quote them. Do they sound like Rush, Mark Levin, Hannity, any Republican that you know? Any conservative that you know? They're criminals.

Back to the normal day-to-day discourse -- or at least what passes for discourse.

The FCC maintains a log of complaints against a user of the public airwaves. That at least was how it worked. If you read the article I referenced you will have at least seen that some believe that they can document that liberals routinely sent shills to "complain" about fairness at a radio station. The Fairness Doctrine was made into a weapon.

Too many complaints and the radio station owner cannot get his license renewed.

What to do? The owner can permit each and every complainer time on the air and thus make things "fair" or he can drop talk radio and go to AM Top 40 or some safe boring radio.

RE: Fairness Doctrine was intended, not to ensure the truth was being broadcasted - but rather to facilitate the division of the sheeple by constructing a polar dialectic with the Right arranged in opposition against the Left.

Yes, the Right arranged in opposition against the Left. It's how our system works.

It is not the business of government to arrange for the broadcasting of truth. We argue about what is truth. That's our responsibility.

It comes naturally. It's how our system works. It is why we don't have revolutions. We argue it out. We shout at each other. We debate. We are divisive. It's how our system works.

It's not securing rights when the government dictates "truth" and 'fairness."

What is fair? I think the experience of Air America was fair. It flopped. Why? Because our rights ARE secure. We chose not to listen. The Fairness Doctrine would deny us our rights to listen to what we want.

BTW, by the 1980s the courts were ruling that with so many ways to get information passed around there was no longer the need for a "Fairness Doctrine."

[LomanBill]

[But what you are doing is inserting a tragic, horrible crime into the argument.]

 

The Berg case just sticks in my mind as an example of what tyrants will do to silence free expression when they are empowered to do so.

 

I brought it up because I think it's relevant to the discussion.

 

[Do they sound like Rush, Mark Levin, Hannity, any Republican that you know? Any conservative that you know?]

 

Of course not.  I'd say Berg's killers have more in common with the Rainbow Nazis - that's who I had in mind.

 

[They're criminals]

 

I see the actions of Berg's killers as being more consistent with those of the Nazis they admired; and given the sexual deviancy reported among Hitler's Nazi's, I extrapolate that to a not-so-distant future corporate landscape in which corporations exhibiting the moral standards of Ameriquest and Disney / gAyBC become the "norm" - and where speaking out against the transhumanist/homosexual/transgenderist agenda is suppressed, or ever outlawed, as it is in Canada.

 

Additionally,  the likes of the Saudis and Communists are gaining a shareholder presence in the American corporate world; and neither the Saudis or the Communist Chinese are particularly noted for their appreciation of free expression.

 

So I think free expression will soon need all the help it can get - and if that help comes from the Dinosaur Media, then, so long as we can slice and dice their product here on FR,  that's ok with me.

 

[We argue it out. We shout at each other. We debate. We are divisive.]

 

Unfortunately, I have witnessed instances on corporately sponsored on-line Tech support and consumer review forums (not FR) where this is not the case - where the corporate moderators clearly exhibit a bias towards the Rainbow Left's Agenda; and threads are edited to reflect that bias.  

 

Thus my observation that the traditional lines between Corporatism and Communism have become markedly less clear - with some new form of Rainbow Collectivism apparently being birthed in the process.