Free Republic

“We called 911 for almost everything except snitching” reads the first line of an Atlantic article, “How I Became a Police Abolitionist,” by social justice activist and lawyer Derecka Purnell. Her deeply personal essay, first published July 6 in the Ideas section, tells of her childhood in a polluted neighborhood surrounded by violence and beset by fear, using one particularly disturbing memory of a police officer shooting their cousin, just a “boy,” in the arm for skipping the basketball sign-in sheet in front of Purnell and her sister, who had been playing basketball but were forced to hide “in...

Lee Enterprises (LEE.N) got some extra time to work out an agreement to pay its debt, even as auditors questioned the U.S. newspaper publisher's ability to continue operating, a violation of its borrowing terms. In its annual report, filed on Wednesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Lee said it does not have enough cash flow to meet its requirements for 2009 operations. Lee is profitable, but owes millions in debt related to its $1.5 billion purchase of newspaper chain Pulitzer Inc in 2005. The company in its filing said it also does not have enough cash to meet...

Lee Enterprises Inc. took a goodwill impairment charge of $772 million in a revised financial report that pushed its loss to $716.4 million, or $15.90 per share, for its second fiscal quarter ended March 30. The new figures, disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late Wednesday, revised a report in April that had indicated a loss of $4.45 million, or 10 cents a share, for the quarter. In addition to the taking the non-cash goodwill impairment charge, Lee recorded a $115.97 million charge to reduce the carrying value of amortized intangibles, and a charge of $3 million to...

Memo from St. Louis Post-Dispatch publisher August 2, 2007 Dear Colleagues: As you know, 2007 is proving to be a difficult year for the newspaper industry. While St Louis is performing well in a tough operating environment with many successful revenue initiatives in place, we need to continue to look at costs as we face challenges in key revenue categories. Thanks to many of your efforts, we have been controlling costs for some time now, having made significant cuts throughout the year. But because such a large part of our costs are in labor, we thought we needed to look...