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There is a dominant belief that Christianity and Christians are againt abortion. In point of fact, many Christian communities recognize several circumstances in which abortion is accepted. The fact that abortion is acceptable in some cases means that the real social question is not whether women can have abortions, but which women and for what reasons? Prenatal health, Rape, Incest, and health of the Mother – PRIM. Evidence indicates widespread consensus and acceptance among many Christian denominations that abortion for PRIM reasons is justifiable. Of the 11 Christian statements included in a 2013 Pew Research Center study, only Roman Catholics...

I'll say one thing for the Tribune Company's new "Chief Innovation Officer," Lee Abrams. He might not be able to solve the declining newspaper circulation problems but he is absolutely irrepressible in a very funny way. On the heels of his recent suggestion that the Los Angeles Times could solve some of its problems by repainting its news vans, we have yet another of Abrams' famous memos which goes in all directions powered by a generous dose of psychobabble. You might need to channel the late Timothy Leary to interpret Abrams' latest memo, THINK PIECE: BUSTING DENIALS AND ASSUMPTIONS,  issued last Monday...

Imagine if a comedy script is submitted to a movie producer. It would be about a major newspaper conglomerate so desperate to turn around the plunging circulation numbers of its various newspapers that it hires a wacky radio consultant as a Chief Innovation Officer to help turn it around. The radio consultant is so strange that he believes the way to improve the circulation numbers is to ensure that the newspapers have soul. He plans to do this by treating newspapers as the new rock 'n' roll.  The wacky Chief Innovation Officer announces his plans in a seemingly endless  e-mail message that wanders aimlessly for 5...

A Los Angeles Times editor, hoping to give his journalists a break from reporting the often grim news in America's second-largest city, offered an unusual morale booster Monday: pony rides. Managing Editor Doug Frantz ..."I hope it boosted morale..." Like many major U.S. newspapers, the Times, forced to compete with news Web sites on the Internet, has seen circulation decline.

Advance sales for the season that begins in September are wrapping up below last year's tally... Television advertising executives are biting their nails this year as advance ad sales fall short of last year's tally... The frenzied "upfront" period, which typically accounts for about 75 percent of total prime-time ad sales... That's down about 3.4 percent from last year... "Buyers are in control," John Moore, group media director of MediaHub... "The competitive landscape is much, much different" from previous years. Networks even tried to sweeten deals this year by offering tie-ins with their online arms or product placements in the...

Tribune Co., Belo Corp. and Journal Register Co. said advertising sales continue to slump, signaling the newspaper industry's woes may extend this year. Advertising sales in June "are soft and we expect first-half advertising to be flat," Donald Grenesko, chief financial officer of Chicago-based Tribune, the second biggest U.S. newspaper publisher in revenue and owner of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, said Tuesday at the Newspaper Association of America's Mid-Year Media Review in New York... A protracted slowdown may mean increased investor pressure on publishers including Tribune, which is fending off calls from its second largest shareholder to break apart the...

Beer distributor Yusef Jackson has finally added a coveted title: publisher... Son of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition leader Rev. Jesse Jackson is attempting to resuscitate Radar, a saucy New York culture magazine that folded last year. He also said he’s hungry for other media properties, including the Chicago Sun-Times, for which he was an unsuccessful suitor in 2004, and possibly properties Tribune Co. sells off as it pares $500 million in assets amid a corporate restructuring. Mr. Jackson declined to say who his co-investors are in Radar. In 2004 he sought to buy the Sun-Times with California billionaire Ron Burkle, but he...

The Tribune Co., parent of the "Orlando Sentinel," has reported a 62 percent drop in net income to $87.8 million, or 28 cents a share, from $233.4 million, or 73 cents a share, a year earlier. Chicago-based Tribune (NYSE: TRB - News) also pointed to cutbacks from national advertisers and falling circulation ...

The numbers are starting to come out for newspaper earnings. Take a wild guess. The Tribune Company lost 62 percent of their earnings. McClatchy kept earnings about the same though they lost almost 5 percent of their circulation. Media General lost 47 percent from a year ago. Gannett lost 8.3 percent. Of course, none of the papers will admit that their bias and reportage are to blame for their problems. Instead it is all the fault of Internet activities, Craigslist, the uncooperative entertainment and auto industry, and a "weak operating environment." Leave it to journalists to blame even thier financial...

Dissident group says will continue efforts for sale or breakup of company... Tribune Co. shares gained ground Tuesday, rising as the media company that's been working to revamp operations amid shareholder unrest announced the results of a Dutch tender auction. Analysts said any gains could prove short lived, however. Chicago-based Tribune Co said that about 45 million, or 15%, of its common shares were tendered and that it expects to buy the shares at a price of $32.50 each. The number of shares tendered came in 8 million short of the maximum that the company had initially authorized in the...

Bad news tonight for Tribune Company shareholders: Shares in Tribune Co. tumbled Thursday after the media company reported a 6.1% drop in revenue last month on declines in both its newspaper and television businesses. Tribune, whose holdings include 26 television stations, 11 urban U.S. dailies and Spanish-language Hoy, said December revenue fell to $539 million from $574 million a year earlier. The company's stock fell $1.01, or 3.2%, to $30.80 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Tribune shares sank 28% in 2005. Advertising revenue in the publishing division fell 4.5%to $333 million, down from $349 million. The...

CHICAGO (AP) Shares in Tribune Co. tumbled Thursday after the media company reported a 6.1% drop in revenue last month on declines in both its newspaper and television businesses. Tribune, whose holdings include 26 television stations, 11 urban U.S. dailies and Spanish-language Hoy, said December revenue fell to $539 million from $574 million a year earlier. The company's stock fell $1.01, or 3.2%, to $30.80 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Tribune shares sank 28% in 2005. Revenue from the publishing unit, consisting of its newspapers, dipped 4.2% to $413 million from $431 million in December 2004....

May 3, 2005 — Shareholders have filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Tribune Co. and some of its officers, alleging circulation fraud that affected the Chicago-based media company's financial results, attorneys announced Tuesday. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, contends Tribune violated the Securities and Exchange Act by intentionally overstating circulation at "numerous" newspapers, including Newsday and Tribune's Spanish-language newspaper Hoy, which meant the papers could charge more for advertising. Also named as defendants were Tribune chairman Dennis J. FitzSimons, senior vice president for finance Donald C. Grenesko and retired president of Tribune Publishing Jack Fuller, according...

OPINION -- There was something almost quaint about the Chicago Tribune’s editorial assertion August 24 declaring that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth controversy surrounding John Kerry’s war record was over. Forgetting that we are in the midst of a “new media” revolution that allows everyday Americans to investigate truth claims on their own - without the clouded filter of biased journalists - the Tribune editors wrote, “That should be the end of the debate about John Kerry's experience in Vietnam.” Days before, the Tribune had injected itself prominently into the presidential campaign and the Swift Boat controversy by giving...

Butch Wing recalled the moment 20 years ago when Rev. Jesse Jackson showed up in Portsmouth Square in San Francisco's Chinatown. "I remember seeing 60-, 70- and 80-year-old Chinese men and women who speak very little English saying, `Run, Jesse, run. Win, Jesse, win,'" said Wing, a Chinese-American peace activist from Berkeley, Calif., who first met Jackson in 1983, when Jackson launched his first presidential bid. Jackson's "ability and desire to reach out to us" and other once-marginalized activist groups changed politics in America, Wing said Saturday at a reunion of members of Jackson's election team. That get-together came on...

The soup thickens... Tribune, the parent company of the LA Times and many other US newspapers, has found inflated circulation numbers at two of its papers, and is reviewing circulation accounting procedures at all of its papers including the LA Times

Chicago Tribune Fires Freelance Reporter for Making Up Source Name CHICAGO (AP) - The Chicago Tribune said Wednesday it fired a freelance writer and former longtime foreign correspondent after he admitted fabricating the name of a source he quoted making disparaging remarks about Aborigines in a recent story from Australia. The Tribune apologized to its readers for "this breach of trust" in a brief story under its "Corrections and Clarifications" fixture on the second page of Wednesday's editions. It said Uli Schmetzer, who worked for the paper as a foreign correspondent for 16 years before retiring two years ago...