A Royal Pain for IHT Readers - repeat stories, way behind the news curve.

I'm becoming increasingly frustrated by the IHT running NYT pieces, on stories that IHT editors (alert, on the ball, all good) had already picked up weeks earlier.

To give an example from today's paper, compare and contrast the following:

A royal pain for the Spanish monarchy
By Victoria Burnett
Monday, November 17, 2008
MADRID: When the English monarch in Alan Bennett's novella "The Uncommon Reader" decides to write her memoirs, she takes the prudent step of abdicating first. Queen Sofia of Spain may be wondering whether she, too, should have waited for her husband, King Juan Carlos, to leave office before granting a Spanish journalist a series of uncharacteristically candid interviews.
The resulting book, "The Queen Up Close," has provided Spaniards an uncomfortably close look at their queen's conservative views. Her comments on homosexuality, gay marriage, euthanasia and religious education have outraged liberal Spaniards and tarnished an image of discretion that she had carefully tended for decades.
In the most notorious gaffe in the book, the queen said that she respected people's different sexual tendencies but did not understand why "they should feel proud to be gay."
"That they get up on floats and parade in the streets? If all of us who are not gay were to parade in the streets, we'd halt the traffic in every city," she said. She then added that while gay people had a right to unions, they should not be permitted to call them marriages.
As well as homosexuality, the queen takes several forays into politically tricky territory, saying that she does not support euthanasia - an issue being hotly debated in Spain - and that she believes schoolchildren should be taught the origins of man from a creationist point of view.
The book is also peppered with personal tidbits about world leaders and royal travels. At one point, Sofia congratulates herself on persuading the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, to wear a suit and tie, instead of his "shapeless" military garb. The late King Hassan of Morocco drove her "crazy" with his mania about food, she says, bringing a retinue of cooks and his own supplies when he visited Spain because "he didn't trust us." Former President Jimmy Carter was a good enough sort, but "behaved really badly toward the Shah of Iran" when he refused him asylum, she said.
The controversy is one of a series of incidents that have revealed cracks in the cocoon of respect that envelops the Spanish royal family. Recent attempts to stifle embarrassing cartoons or claim privacy from the news media have challenged the balance between protecting free speech and protecting Spain's royals.
"I don't think many people would be surprised to learn these were the queen's views," said Juan Díez-Nicolás, a professor of sociology whose organization, ASEP, polls the Spanish public about the monarchy. They are routinely voted the most respected public figures in the country.
"What surprises them is that she would say such things for publication," he said. And moreover, "not offering a view that is widely shared by Spaniards."
Born Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark in November 1938, the queen converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Catholicism when she married Juan Carlos, then the future king, in 1962. Elegant, circumspect and fluent in several languages, she became popular in part because of her role in helping to steer Spain toward democracy after the death of Franco in 1975.
Long considered a paragon of royal reserve, the queen emerges from the book as the 70-year-old observant Catholic that she is, rather than the sweet, demure figure that the Spanish public apparently wants her to be, people who follow the monarchy said.
Her comments on gay pride and marriage provoked indignation from the gay community, which won the right to marry in 2005, and prompted a swift apology from the royal household. In a statement read to the press late last month, a spokesman for the royal family said the queen "deeply regrets that the inaccuracy of the comments attributed to her may have caused discomfort or offense."
The statement claimed that the queen had been quoted "inexactly" and suggested that the interviewer, the journalist Pilar Urbano, had published comments intended to be private. Urbano denied this and said galleys of the book had been reviewed by the queen's office, which approved them for publication.
In an interview by telephone, Urbano said she had interviewed Sofia several times, though she did not use a tape recorder. Journalists who closely follow the royal family said that the king was incensed by the book and that those responsible for giving the green light may yet be fired.
Antonio Poveda, president of the Spanish Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals, said his organization accepted the palace's apology but that "there's definitely still some bad feeling among the gay community."
"The monarch has always been at pains not to comment on social or political issues," he said. "It seems they have broken with this tradition."
The publication of the book, "The Queen Up Close," follows a rash of setbacks for members of the royal family and Spanish aristocracy looking for greater protection from the press that have contributed to a sense that they are no longer untouchable. A court this month ruled against the Duchess of Alba, who was seeking to have copies of a satirical magazine whose cover featured her lying naked in pile of money removed from news stands.
Telma Ortiz, sister of Queen Sofia's daughter-in-law Princess Letizia, this month lost a court battle to obtain restraining orders against dozens of media outlets, which she accuses of hounding her and her family. The court ruled that Ortiz, an aid worker, is in the limelight by dint of her relationship with her sister and ordered her to pay around €45,000, or about $57,000, in costs, according to press reports.
While Díez, the sociology professor, said the ruckus over the book would blow over and have no impact on Sofia's popularity, other analysts said the dents in the Spanish royal family's image were part of a wider trend away from monarchy in Europe.
"Monarchy is old-fashioned by nature, and Europe is modern in its self-esteem," said Geoffrey Hindley, a historian who has written on European monarchy. "The ethos of republicanism is the style of the majority in Europe."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/17/europe/sofia.php

Over two weeks ago, the IHT ran the piece below on www.iht.com and an edited version in the paper.

I imagine the NYT didn't but their global edition did and it's not evident to me that two weeks later Victoria Burnett (was she on holiday at the time?) has added all that much value.

And if you're an IHT reader in Spain, you must be yawning over breakfast.


Spanish book quotes queen's disapproval of gay marriage
The Associated Press
Friday, October 31, 2008
MADRID: A Spanish journalist on Friday defended the accuracy of her book that quotes Queen Sofia criticizing gay marriage.
The book has irked the Royal Palace.
The Spanish king and queen are largely respected as figurehead representatives of the state, and rarely speak out on political or social issues.
The veteran journalist, Pilar Urbano, released the book - "La Reina muy de cerca," or "The Queen, very close up," - this week to mark the queen's 70th birthday Sunday. The journalist said it was based on 15 interviews with Queen Sofia, and that the Royal Palace approved the book's galley proofs before it was published, according to news agency Efe.
"What the queen said is what my book says," Urbano said.
The Royal Palace has challenged the comments attributed to the monarch, however, saying in a statement they "do not correspond exactly" with what she said. The palace also said the book also fails to reflect the queen's traditional neutrality on public affairs or respect for people who suffer discrimination, like homosexuals.
"I do not answer to the queen or king, or the Royal Palace. I answer to the truth," Urbano told Efe.
In the book, the queen is quoted as addressing a wide range of issues and saying she opposes abortion and euthanasia. Spain allows the former under restricted circumstances, and outlaws the latter. But the queen's alleged remarks on same-sex marriage are the main source of friction and have angered gay rights groups.
Spain legalized gay marriage in 2005, becoming one of the few countries in the world to recognize same-sex couples as having the same rights as heterosexual ones, including the right to adopt children.
"If those persons want to live together, dress up as bride and groom and get married, they can do so, but that should not be called marriage because it is not," the queen is quoted as saying in Urbano's book.
The conservative newspaper El Mundo said the queen erred by breaking with her tradition of quiet neutrality.
"As human as this burst of royal sincerity might be, certainly there were better ways to make Queen Sofia's birthday a new tool for bringing society closer to the throne," the newspaper said in an editorial.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/31/europe/01spain-fw-360944.php


REVISED: WEDNESDAY 19TH NOVEMBER, 2008

Just so you know I'm not imagining this problem as being regular, as opposed to infrequent, compare and contrast today's story about fighting in the Congo threatening gorillas (by Gettleman) with the same story from Reuters run in the IHT and on www.iht.com on November 10th, 2008, on the same subject.

Once again, wire service well ahead of the curve, and not a hell of a lot of added value from the NYT correspondent.

It's this type of absurd allocation of precious foreign correspondent resource which is why newspapers seem so damn irrelevant and it seems their own memories of what they've already run are really pretty poor.

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

LOOKING FOR A CHRISTMAS BOOK GIFT TO BUY?
"Books about cosmopolitan urbanites discovering the joys of country life are two a penny, but this one is worth a second glance. Walthew's vivid description of the moral stress induced by his job as a high-flying executive with the International Herald Tribune newspaper is worth the cover price alone…. Highly recommended." The Oxford Times

Amazon.co.uk
A PLACE IN MY COUNTRY
by
Ian Walthew


'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'
Jeremy Irons (actor)

‘Ian Walthew was a newspaper executive with a career that took him round the world, who one day did a mad thing. He saw a for-sale sign on a cottage in the Cotswolds, bought it, resigned and moved in. For the first few weeks he just lay on the grass in a daze. Then he started talking to his neighbours and digging into the rich history of this beautiful part of England. Out of his inquiries grew this affecting and inspiring memoir.What sets it apart from others of its ilk is the author’s enviable immunity to cliché and his determination to love his homeland better than he used to. His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’ Financial Times


Amazon.com

A PLACE IN MY COUNTRY
By
Ian Walthew


For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

Business trip to the IHT in Paris or friends and family coming to visit you? Fed up with hotels? Bring the family (sleeps 6) to superb Montmartre apartment - weekend nights free of charge if minimum of 3 work nights booked;. Cable TV; wifi, free phone calls in France (landlines); large DVD and book library; kids toys, books, travel cot and beds; two double bedrooms; all mod cons; half an hour to Neuilly and 12 mins walk from Eurostar. T&E valid invoices.

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees



International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company

More companies may go private in new year - could the NYT Company be one of them? And might they have to write down the value of About.com?

I've been blogging with increased regularity now for some time on the very real possibility of the NYT Company going public-to-private.

If you think it's just the rantings of some nutter in the Auvergne, read this.


More companies may go private in new year
By Simon MeadsReuters
Monday, November 17, 2008
LONDON: A dearth of capital provided by banks may drive public companies into the arms of cash-rich private equity firms and could help rekindle the moribund market for public-to-private buyouts.
Private equity companies say there have been some signs of revival in the market, which has been virtually shut for more than a year, as institutional investors seek a way out of companies whose share prices have dropped.
There has been a pickup in business in just the past couple of weeks, with two public-to-private deals going into the due diligence phase, said Andrew Roberts, a private equity partner at the law firm Travers Smith.
A slow drip-feed of liquidity back into the system next year could give more impetus to the market for mergers and acquisitions, Roberts said.
"It's still going to be relatively small deals, in the hundreds of millions rather than the billions," he said.
In the first nine months of 2008, there were only 15 public-to-private buyouts in Britain, according to figures from the Center for Management Buyout Research.
The £2 billion, or $3 billion at current exchange rates, buyout of Emap, a media company, was the largest. It was one of only three buyouts worth more than £1 billion.
This contrasts with the 24 public-to-private deals made last year, including the European high-water mark deal - the £11.1 billion takeover of Alliance Boots by a consortium led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.
And there is a precedent for a rise in this type of deal after a sharp fall in asset values. Toward the end of the dot-com boom, there were 46 public-to-private deals in 1999 and 42 in 2000, accounting for 28 percent and 39 percent of total buyout deal value, respectively. That total includes other deals between private equity firms and buyouts by privately held companies.
Private equity firms have to put in more of their own money when buying a company with borrowed cash, and the size of such leveraged deals has dropped drastically after the credit crunch slammed the door shut on credit markets.
Private equity firms are hoping tight financing conditions may bring back the heady days. With markets for initial public offerings shut and a mountain of refinancing awaiting already tight corporate debt and loan markets, companies have few options.
"Large shareholders are hugely important in these types of deals," said Roberts, the private equity partner at Travers Smith.
In London, the FTSE 100-share index has slumped by more than a third already this year and large institutional investors are set to dominate shareholder registers as the hedge fund industry shrinks and retail investors continue to stay away.
"Now that prices have come down on the listed market, it will open up the possibility of doing public-to-privates," said Richard Chapman, a partner at the private equity firm ECI Partners. "You also have willing vendors."
"There is a desire by institutional investors to pull out of the smaller and midcap companies."
Sam Hart, an analyst with the brokerage firm Charles Stanley, said he believed that investors in any quoted company would be extremely pleased to see interest from private equity firms.
"I'm sure they would look extremely favorably on any approach, and as long as the offers they were making for companies represented a reasonable premium to the current share price, I would have thought they would be quite inclined to accept those offers," he said.
But, Chapman said, although there is room for a pickup in public-to-private buyouts, activity may not restart until 2009, after banks complete reporting 2008 balance sheets and there is an easing of bank debt.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/17/business/deal.php

And if you think some of my posts about About.com have been off-the-mark (I think the NYT Company overpaid for an out-of-date, distinctly uncool, ageing demographic, behind the Internet curve dot com company) then you might like to check in on this little gem about companies having to write down the value of assets on their books, bought when times were good and money was cheap: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/17/business/deal18.php

Of course, if they are looking at a public-to-private, that wouldn't be such a bad thing would it?

Meanwhile they plan to merge iht.com into www.nytimes.com, effectively wiping value off the balance sheet - given how much they (overpaid) for the IHT when times were good and money was cheap. WaPo must be delighted.

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

LOOKING FOR A CHRISTMAS BOOK GIFT TO BUY?
"Books about cosmopolitan urbanites discovering the joys of country life are two a penny, but this one is worth a second glance. Walthew's vivid description of the moral stress induced by his job as a high-flying executive with the International Herald Tribune newspaper is worth the cover price alone…. Highly recommended." The Oxford Times

Amazon.co.uk
A PLACE IN MY COUNTRY
by
Ian Walthew


'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'
Jeremy Irons (actor)

‘Ian Walthew was a newspaper executive with a career that took him round the world, who one day did a mad thing. He saw a for-sale sign on a cottage in the Cotswolds, bought it, resigned and moved in. For the first few weeks he just lay on the grass in a daze. Then he started talking to his neighbours and digging into the rich history of this beautiful part of England. Out of his inquiries grew this affecting and inspiring memoir.What sets it apart from others of its ilk is the author’s enviable immunity to cliché and his determination to love his homeland better than he used to. His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’ Financial Times


Amazon.com

A PLACE IN MY COUNTRY
By
Ian Walthew


For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

Business trip to the IHT in Paris or friends and family coming to visit you? Fed up with hotels? Bring the family (sleeps 6) to superb Montmartre apartment - weekend nights free of charge if minimum of 3 work nights booked;. Cable TV; wifi, free phone calls in France (landlines); large DVD and book library; kids toys, books, travel cot and beds; two double bedrooms; all mod cons; half an hour to Neuilly and 12 mins walk from Eurostar. T&E valid invoices.

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees




International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company

If the future of newspaper print is so grim, why would progressives imitate the NYT in print to make their point?

I'd say this story about a fake edition of the NYT, circulated in NY yesterday, is about the best news the NYT has had in a long time. Who says print is dead? It isn't, it just isn't giving (younger) people what they want.

It's interesting that this parody/satire was in PRINT and NOT just a web-based venture.

I rest my case.

Not that the ever-anti dead tree gang over at FishbowlNY see fit to make this rather critical point.

By the way, it wasn't the "Yes Men" who did it, it was me (and a few others).

Wednesday, Nov 12 (Fishbowl NY)
The Future of the New York Times is Fake!

Those of you who work in the city are probably already aware that some enterprising souls (Gawker is pointing to the "Yes Men," which seems to be the case) took the future of news into their own hands today and created their own fake(!) New York Times. The spoof paper, which was distributed by thousands of volunteers across the city, was dated July 4, 2009 and ran the headline "Iraq War Ends." By all accounts it was "an exact replica" of the real thing (notwithstanding the content, obviously):
[The fake Times included] International, National, New York, and Business sections, as well as editorials, corrections, and a number of advertisements, including a recall notice for all cars that run on gasoline.We have yet to see the real thing, but according to people we've talked to it's rather well done — complete with a Thomas Friedman op-ed ("The sudden outbreak of peace in Iraq has made me realize, among other things, one incontestable fact: I have no business holding a pen, at least with intent to write") as well as an apology from the Times for supporting the Iraq war. It even comes with fake ads!
There is even a website to accompany the paper, which was down for much of the morning, is eerily similar to that of the real NYT (except without the page-long Mac ad). As the Times City Room blog noted many of the links lead to "dozens of progressive organizations." Obviously this was a huge and expensive undertaking, but why now?
Bertha Suttner, one of the newspaper's writers, tells Romenesko:
"It's all about how at this point, we need to push harder than ever...We've got to make sure Obama and all the other Democrats do what we elected them to do. After eight, or maybe twenty-eight years of hell, we need to start imagining heaven."Ah yes, heaven. The Times responded to our email (and others' it would seem) thus: "This is obviously a fake issue of The Times. We are in the process of finding out more about it." It's hard to imagine the Times not getting some enjoyment out of such well-done imitation — it is the sincerest form of flattery afterall. Also, we're told that under the parody exception to copyright the Times is pretty much unable to sue.

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

LOOKING FOR A CHRISTMAS BOOK GIFT TO BUY?
"Books about cosmopolitan urbanites discovering the joys of country life are two a penny, but this one is worth a second glance. Walthew's vivid description of the moral stress induced by his job as a high-flying executive with the International Herald Tribune newspaper is worth the cover price alone…. Highly recommended." The Oxford Times

Amazon.co.uk

'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'

Jeremy Irons (actor)

‘Ian Walthew was a newspaper executive with a career that took him round the world, who one day did a mad thing. He saw a for-sale sign on a cottage in the Cotswolds, bought it, resigned and moved in. For the first few weeks he just lay on the grass in a daze. Then he started talking to his neighbours and digging into the rich history of this beautiful part of England. Out of his inquiries grew this affecting and inspiring memoir.What sets it apart from others of its ilk is the author’s enviable immunity to cliché and his determination to love his homeland better than he used to.

His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’

Financial Times

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

Business trip to the IHT in Paris or friends and family coming to visit you? Fed up with hotels? Bring the family (sleeps 6) to superb Montmartre apartment - weekend nights free of charge if minimum of 3 work nights booked;. Cable TV; wifi, free phone calls in France (landlines); large DVD and book library; kids toys, books, travel cot and beds; two double bedrooms; all mod cons; half an hour to Neuilly and 12 mins walk from Eurostar. T&E valid invoices.

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees



International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
The NYT Company

N.B One element of this posting is fake.

What the U.S Elections Told Us About MSM

First-off, print is alive and well. The NYT had increased print runs (35% more copies election Wednesday than usual, an increase of about 150,000. It then added another 75,000) and ran a full-page advert on Thursday offering readers an election result day copy of the paper for a staggering $14.95. Despite the fact that if you check EBay the going rate is $200!

What a bloody shambles, what a chronic sign of miscalculation on their print runs. Only a 35% extra print run? You're kidding me right? They had people queing round the block on Wednesday to buy their paper!!!

Kiosks ran dry, they didn't even believe themselves how many copies they could sell. Absolutely staggering and a sign that not even the NYT's own circulation department believes any longer in the power of print.

The anti-newspaper blogosphere was laughing its head off.

Wednesday, Nov 05
Obama Sells Out Dead Tree Editions of Local Newspapers

We've noticed a number of people twittering and facebooking today that they couldn't find a copy of various papers this morning. Turns out they weren't imagining it! The Daily News sold out of even the extra printed copies of their regular morning edition and planned on printing and distributing an updated second edition. The New York Times reported that the New York Post had also sold-out (in our non-scientifically based experience it is always the first to go) along with the Times.

The [Times] printed 35 percent more papers in the 'single copy' print run, which supplies newsstands. Still, by morning, company officials found that papers were "selling out all across the metropolitan area" and decided to print 50,000 more copies for sale in the New York area.This isn't a New York-based phenomenon, either.

Apparently the Washington Post also sold-out of newsstand copies and the Chicago Tribune was experiencing very long lines. Now if Barack Obama could just do something historic and momentous every single day for the next four years he could feasibly save the entire print journalism industry!

Secondly, Palin: She got a free ride. Not only that but I didn't see a MSM outlet explore this possibility, which happens to be my own personal opinion:

Did the Republican Party of George W. Bush want to win this election? I wonder.

With many of its moderate senators and congressmen unseated, that party still exists and it's not evident it belongs to Senator John McCain.

But either way, this was a hospital pass election if ever there was one. Perhaps either McCain, or the GOP grandees, came to the conclusion that this wasn't a ball they wanted to receive, that only a Democrat administration could wipe clean the slate for the GOP or at least begin to. Were I a Republican party grandee, I'd be quite happy to let the Democrats pick up the check for the last 8 years and try and pay it off, because the chances are they'll end up having to wash dishes in the kitchen to sort this mess out.

McCain began his primary campaign well before the financial meltdown, before the war in Afghanistan was lost, before Mexico began the final journey to becoming a narco state (a government plane crashed on the day of the election, an accident we are told, at least for now, but a fine time for a cartel to murder the U.S.A.'s southern neigbbour's Interior Minister); before Bhutto's assasination and a nuclear Pakistan possibly falling to the Taliban, before the escalation of Iran's nuclear capabalities; beforethe Congo, before India degenerating into ethnic chaos, before global recession/depresssion, before Obama won the democractic primary. Surely he must have realised that the presidency was a poisoned chalice.

Chosing Palin, someone so clearly incompetent and in the very midst of an ethics investigation, a person who who stood a 1 in 8 chance of becoming President, given all the variables, was the equivalent of scuttling his campaign.

McCain may have started out wanting to become President of the U.S.A but by the time it looked like he might actually have a chance, he bailed.Palin moved the undecided and previous moderate republicans firmly to Obama. Race relations in the U.S.A are so appalling that only such a fine W. mess could possibly have allowed a black man to be elected, even a half white one who has spent his entire adult life less than 12 miles from an elite American university campus.

Berlusconi's tasteless remarks about Obama being young, handsome and even tanned pretty much summed up what type of black man is 'in'. Gays on the other hand are still very much 'out' as judged by the large number of anti-gay marriage ballot successes.

Nevertheless there was a photo from the campaign trail of a confederate flag with the slogan "Even Rednecks Have Had Enough". Perhaps so had McCain.

I'll leave someone more eloquent than I to explain this Palin Oversight by papers such as the NYT but MSM failing to nail Palin, as they could and should have done, is cited below as a reason why MSM is imploding:

Andrew Sullivan: The Daily Dish 06 Nov 2008 11:51 am
The Civic Responsibility Of Carl Cameron
Look: I understand that information given strictly off the record cannot be used. I am a stickler for that myself and there's stuff I know that I cannot tell Dish readers because of those rules. But at the same time, my commitment to you is never to bullshit my opinion that reflects that information. And the reporting of Palin fell into that category at times. I became convinced very early - just from public information - that she was obviously a disastrous choice, made on a whim, and obviously not ready for prime time. On August 30, I posted the following quotes from serious leaders in Alaska who knew Palin:
"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"
And this:
Anchorage Democratic state Sen. Hollis French said it's a huge mistake by McCain and "reflects very, very badly on his judgment." French said Palin's experience running the state for less than two years hasn't prepared her for this.
But actual reporters were soon finding this out for themselves - and not even conveying the gist of that to their viewers and readers. Why not?
They kept taking Palin seriously as a veep candidate when she didn't come close to even minimal standards for passing a citizenship test. I'm sorry but I think this is a terrible failing, and it is a reason the mainstream media are imploding. They let the rules of the game over-rule their duty to tell the American people the truth as they began to discover it. The truth is that Sarah Palin had no business whatever being on a national ticket. It was an insanely reckless choice. She could never adequately perform the job of president at a moment's notice, and the McCain campaign and their media enablers were putting this country and the world at serious risk by perpetuating this farce.
It was a farce. And it was a potential threat to national security if anything happened to McCain in office. But they couldn't admit a mistake because it would have killed their campaign, destroying our impression of McCain's judgment and management skills. So they kept this farce alive for two months, putting the country at potentially great risk to massage their own careers. Now they are doing all they can to dump on her. But the dumpage goes both ways. The McCain camp picked Palin and stuck with her far longer than any people who put country first would have. Every reason why she should not have been picked is a reason why McCain should never have been president.


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A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

LOOKING FOR A CHRISTMAS BOOK GIFT TO BUY?
"Books about cosmopolitan urbanites discovering the joys of country life are two a penny, but this one is worth a second glance. Walthew's vivid description of the moral stress induced by his job as a high-flying executive with the International Herald Tribune newspaper is worth the cover price alone…. Highly recommended." The Oxford Times

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

For more reviews visit ianwalthew.com

Business trip to the IHT in Paris or friends and family coming to visit you? Fed up with hotels? Bring the family (sleeps 6) to superb Montmartre apartment - weekend nights free of charge if minimum of 3 work nights booked;. Cable TV; wifi, free phone calls in France (landlines); large DVD and book library; kids toys, books, travel cot and beds; two double bedrooms; all mod cons; half an hour to Neuilly and 12 mins walk from Eurostar. T&E valid invoices.

10% Discount for NYT employees; 15% Discount for IHT Employees

Circulation = Revenue and the Paid Content Dilemma (NYT)

Here are two quotes from a recent article in the NTT by David Carr.

"If more people are reading newspapers and magazines, why should we care whether they are printed on paper?

The answer is that paper is not just how news is delivered; it is how it is paid for."

The above being the case, isn't it about time old media started working out how to better monetize their content on digital platforms? Obvious question, obvious answer. So why haven't they managed to do it yet?

Here's another received MSM media wisdom:

"The blogosphere has had its share of news breaks, but absent a functioning mainstream media to annotate, it could be pretty darn quiet out there."

Thank you for your use of the conditional in that sentence, Mr. Carr, but you're just covering you basaes.

Question: Are you sure about that vision of the blogosphere Mr. Carr?

In the short term perhaps, more difficult to navigate perhaps, but in the long run it would function pretty damn well. Especially with so many collaborative blognetworks springing up, staffed by ex-MSM media journalists.

The Media Equation (NYT)
By DAVID CARR
Published: October 28, 2008
The news that Google settled two longstanding suits with book authors and publishers over its plans to digitize the world’s great libraries suggests that some level of détente could be reached between old media and newIf true, it can’t come soon enough for the news business.
It’s been an especially rotten few days for people who type on deadline. On Tuesday, The Christian Science Monitor announced that, after a century, it would cease publishing a weekday paper. Time Inc., the Olympian home of Time magazine, Fortune, People and Sports Illustrated, announced that it was cutting 600 jobs and reorganizing its staff. And Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the country, compounded the grimness by announcing it was laying off 10 percent of its work force — up to 3,000 people.
Clearly, the sky is falling. The question now is how many people will be left to cover it.
It goes on. The day before, the Tribune Company had declared that it would reduce the newsroom of The Los Angeles Times by 75 more people, leaving it approximately half the size it was just seven years ago.
The Star-Ledger of Newark, the 15th-largest paper in the country, which was threatened with closing, will apparently survive, but only after it was announced that the editorial staff would be reduced by 40 percent.
And two weeks ago, TV Guide, one of the famous brand names in magazines, was sold for one dollar, less than the price of a single copy.
The paradox of all these announcements is that newspapers and magazines do not have an audience problem — newspaper Web sites are a vital source of news, and growing — but they do have a consumer problem.
Stop and think about where you are reading this column. If you are one of the million or so people who are reading it in a newspaper that landed on your doorstop or that you picked up at the corner, you are in the minority. This same information is available to many more millions on this paper’s Web site, in RSS feeds, on hand-held devices, linked and summarized all over the Web.
Historically, people took an interest in the daily paper about the time they bought a home. Now they are checking their BlackBerrys for alerts about mortgage rates.
“The auto industry and the print industry have essentially the same problem,” said Clay Shirky, the author of “Here Comes Everybody.” “The older customers like the older products and the new customers like the new ones.”
For readers, the drastic diminishment of print raises an obvious question: if more people are reading newspapers and magazines, why should we care whether they are printed on paper?
The answer is that paper is not just how news is delivered; it is how it is paid for.
More than 90 percent of the newspaper industry’s revenue still derives from the print product, a legacy technology that attracts fewer consumers and advertisers every single day. A single newspaper ad might cost many thousands of dollars while an online ad might only bring in $20 for each 1,000 customers who see it.
The difference between print dollars and digital dimes — or sometimes pennies — is being taken out of the newsrooms that supply both. And while it is indeed tough all over in this economy, consider the consequences.
New Jersey, a petri dish of corruption, will have to make do with 40 percent fewer reporters at The Star-Ledger, one of the few remaining cops on the beat. The Los Angeles Times, which toils under Hollywood’s nose, has one movie reviewer left on staff. And dozens of communities served by Gannett will have fewer reporters and editors overseeing the deeds and misdeeds of local government and businesses.
The authors and book publishers looking for royalties from the Google deal may be the lucky ones in the old media sweepstakes. Print publishers are madly cutting, in part because the fourth quarter, postfinancial crisis, is going to be a miserable one. Advertising from the car industry, retail business and financial services — for years, the three sturdy legs of a stool that print once rested comfortably on — are in steep decline.
So who can still afford to pay for the phone calls that reporters have to make? USA Today was made exempt from the current rounds of cuts at Gannett but even national papers, including The New York Times, have resorted to modest staff cuts over the last year. The blogosphere has had its share of news breaks, but absent a functioning mainstream media to annotate, it could be pretty darn quiet out there.
At the recent American Magazine Conference, one of the speakers worried that if the great brands of journalism — the trusted news sources readers have relied on — were to vanish, then the Web itself would quickly become a “cesspool” of useless information. That kind of hand-wringing is a staple of industry gatherings.
But in this case, it wasn’t an old journalism hack lamenting his industry. It was Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google.

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The Oxford Times

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Another fishbowlNY Anti-Newspaper Poll

This time, FishbowlNY is asking which newspaper will stop printing on a daily basis.

(The previous poll which I posted on was about the future of the NYT, with an alarming number of Manhattan media community voting it not so rosy, a result that must now be weighed against the results of this latest poll.)

Results below are as of 10.58 CET (Paris) today.

Tuesday, Oct 28 2008 (FishbowlNY)
Which Newspaper Will Stop Publishing Daily Next?

The Christian Science Monitor announced it was switching to a weekly format in April to focus on its Web site. What will be the next paper to stop publishing every day?

None 7%
The New York Times 10%
The San Francisco Chronicle 29%
The Los Angeles Times 17%
Another one 38%

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Keller Says No Further Job Cuts at the Times (NYO)

I posted recently on the perils of cost cutting by a thousand cuts and how bad for staff morale it is. I also posted on Goldman Sach's analyst quite rightly connecting the dots between editorial cut backs and declining circulation.

So it's good to read the following about Mr. Keller on job cuts. However, I am perturbed by his use of the word 'horizon'.

Where exactly is the 'horizon' in the current newspaper industry/wider financial crisis?

Not very far away I would say and hearing about job cuts from him before Gawker is the same as saying you'll hear it from Mr. Keller 5 mins before Gawker or this blog.

None of which would make me put too much weight into his statement, honest and sincere as it no doubt it is, but things are moving fast.

P.S I don't know which is worse as a moniker: 'State of the Newsroom' (pompous) or 'Throw stuff at Bill' (dress down Friday corporate B.S for serious meetings)

Keller Says No Further Job Cuts at the Times (NYO)

by John Koblin October 27, 2008

"Throw Stuff at Bill" Keller
New York Times executive editor Bill Keller denied that there will be any further newsroom job cuts at the Times this morning at his State of the Newsroom meeting, "Throw Stuff at Bill." [Update, October 28th: The Times sessions are actually called "Throw Stuff at Bill."]
"The answer is no," said Mr. Keller, according to an attendee. "No, I do not see another round of newsroom staff reductions on the horizon."
He said that hiring will be "even more selective than before," but the goal is to avoid painful cuts that other newspapers have made.
Earlier this year, the Times cut 100 newsroom positions, leaving the total newsroom body count around 1200—bigger than any other single newspaper's newsroom in the country. At Mr. Keller's last newsroom address, back in February, he announced those job cuts, leaving many staffers wondering if more cuts would be announced again today.
Gawker had recently reported a tip that the newsroom was planning on a 20 percent editorial staff reduction.
Mr. Keller dismissed that rumor by saying, "consider the source." He said that if cuts become necessary, "You will hear it from me before you hear it on Gawker."
According to our source, the sole question that Mr. Keller was asked today was about job cuts and "he answered it, several times."
UPDATE 12:28 pm: Our source clarified that Mr. Keller wasn't asked one question; he was asked several.

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Does cutting costs cut circulation? Government Sachs thinks so.

Here's newspaper industry analyst Peter Appert of Goldman Sachs (who naturally follows the NYT Company very closely) speaking about declining circulation and where it might come from.

Appert, if you follow him, is, in MHO, one of the few decent newspaper analysts out there.

Below taken from a RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA piece in the NYT. (Not of course that a NYT journalist would any sort of axe to grind on this point. He could have quoted many newspaper analysts, from analyst conference calls for NYT Co. results, banging on about more cost cutting.)

Analysts have warned in recent years that by offering steadily less in print, newspapers were inviting readers to stop buying. Most papers have sharply reduced their physical size — fewer and smaller pages, with fewer articles — and the newsroom staffs that produce them.
“It just seems impossible to me that you’re cutting costs dramatically without having some impact on the editorial quality of your product,” said Peter Appert, a newspaper analyst at Goldman Sachs. “I can’t prove that this is driving circulation, but it’s certainly something that if I were a newspaper publisher would keep me up at night.”

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Slaughtering the Cash Cows a Bit Too Early (Content Bridges)

Content Bridges
Content Bridges connects the rough edges of old and newer media, linking new revenue lines and the democratizing value of digital content

October 27, 2008
Slaughtering the Cash Cows a Bit Too Early
New Post: Christian Science Monitor Flipping the Switch

For an industry already on a ventilator, today's FAS-FAX numbers just steal more breath.
The double-digit declines -- the Atlanta Journal Constitution at 13.6% daily, the Dallas Morning News at 9.2% daily and the critical-listed Newark Star-Ledger down 10.4% daily -- shouldn't be a surprise, but they are surprising in their magnitude.
Recall that newspaper CEOs have been saying for a couple of years now that circ declines should plateau soon, as they've pruned out-state and other costlier, and less-attractive-to-advertiser circulation. The story they've told themselves, and us, is that the print business was stabilizing.
In fact, the circulation decline is going the other way -- deepening. Down 4.6% daily and 4.8% Sunday, these are new lows and a trend further downward from the largely 2.5-3.5% declines we've seen over the last four years.
Let's connect the dots.
One big reason the numbers are declining is the product itself. In the last year, we've seen unprecedented cuts in the product -- and the customers are noticing. It looks like the amount of newsprint is down about 10-15%; some in stories, some in ads. Trusted bylines have disappeared overnight. Readers notice, and talk to their friends, and they're saying: it's not the newspaper it used to be. When the subscription notices come, they're a little less likely to be acted upon.
In a sense, newspapers have been slaughtering the cash cows -- print revenues still drive more than 85% of the business -- a bit too fast. No doubt, what we're talking about big picture is the transition of the business from print to digital. What today's numbers show is that the movement is accelerating, an acceleration caused both by larger forces (younger readers preferring online, the new green revolution) and by publishers' own cost-cutting. The continuing crunch issue in that: readers online are still worth no more than a dime compared to the dollar in print. So while slashing print costs is a necessity, it is robbing print revenue at the same time. It's an ungainly process, and once started is hard to manage. In fact, it could be like a runaway train, which once dispatched, takes on a velocity of its own. If you're the CEO of such a company, you may feel more like you're a passenger along for the ride, than the engineer in control.
Today's numbers, of course, predate the financial meltdown and now all-bit-official recession. Consumers are shell-shocked, reeling from paper losses on real estate and retirement accounts and fearful of job loss or reduction. We've seen ad spend forecasts decline almost weekly, and we can guess that the next FAS-FAX will be hurt further by these consumer fears.
Otherwise, the data shows a mostly familiar story:
National papers are doing better than metros. The Wall Street Journal and USAToday are both flat, the New York Times down 3.5%. We've seen this trend, more or less, for four years now.
Community dailies are doing better than metros. Check out the Jen and Fitz list. It's heavy on these dailies that have both better community connection and less commoditized content. Same trend as last four years as well.
Yes, overall audience, now measured by industry's Scarborough combined report, is growing. However, flagging online growth numbers -- largely because of the reliance on classified bundling -- show that taking advantage of this new combined audience is an early-stage, slow-moving, work-in-progress.
New blood does not equal turnaround. Despite Brian Tierney's spirited, take-it-to-the community campaign in Philly, the Inquirer's down another 11% daily. In Minneapolis, on-the-brink Avista suffered another 4% daily decline. Tribune, with its raft of changes (though most of the redesigns occurred at the end of the reporting period), took losses, including 7.75% at the Chicago Tribune.
Sunday's as hard hit as daily. The big ad day was down another 5%. That will translate into still less of a mass market, and less print revenue in 2009.
Well, maybe we can blame a little-bitty part of today's announced swoon on broadcasters. Newspaper people have long liked to joke how their morning papers served as both tip sheets and often actual reportage for broadcasters. Rip 'n read. Now ABC News is adding injury to insult, cancelling all print subs. So to whatever extent ABC staff (and local broadcasters) are using newspapers these days, they'll take the content -- for free -- off the web, like apparently almost everyone else. The memo:
As of December 1, we will cancel all subscriptions (newspaper and magazine) for executives and production employees and move them to on-line. This change will have the added benefit of helping the environment. If there are particular circumstances where you believe this will materially impair your ability to get your work done, you should make your case to your executive producer or supervisor by November 15th.

Ken Doctor of Content Bridges

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Daily circ at The New York Times fell 3.5% to 1,000,665 copies

According to ABC for the 507 newspapers reporting in this period, daily circulation slipped 4.6% to 38,165,848 copies.

Most Major (U.S.) Papers Continue Circ Decline

By Jennifer Saba

Published: October 28, 2008 7:55 AM ET updated Tuesday
NEW YORK For those holding out for some improvement in print circulation, this morning brings disappointment. The Audit Bureau of Circulations released the latest figures for the six- month period ending September 2008 and the report shows major drops in circulation at the big metros.

According to ABC for the 507 newspapers reporting in this period, daily circulation slipped 4.6% to 38,165,848 copies. For the 571 papers, Sunday dropped 4.8% to 43,631,646 copies.

For comparison purposes, in September 2007 reporting period, daily circ fell 2.6% and Sunday was down 4.6%.

Across the country, publishers have put in place plans to cater to core readers and subscribers. It's too expensive to bulk up circulation in unprofitable areas such as third-party, newspapers in education, and bonus day copies. Not in the core market defined by the newspaper? You are out of luck, at least for the print edition.

All daily averages below are for Monday through Friday. The percent change compares this September period to the same period last year.

Daily circ at The New York Times fell 3.5% to 1,000,665 copies.

The Wall Street Journal (as we reported last week) was virtually flat, up about 117 copies on a daily basis to 2,011,999. USA Today was also up a fraction of a percent to 2,293,310 copies.

But The Washington Post's daily circulation declined 1.9% to 622,714. Sunday was down 3.1% to 866,057. At the Los Angeles Times circ decreased a little more 5% daily and on Sunday to 739,147 and 1,055,076, respectively. Daily circulation at the Chicago Tribune was down 7.7% to 516,032. Sunday declined 5.7% to 864,845 copies.

The San Francisco Chronicle lost 7% of its daily circulation to 339,430 copies while Sunday was down a hair more, 7.4% to 398,116. The San Jose Mercury News was down slightly, 1.9% to 224,199 and Sunday was down much more, 4.3% to 241,518.On the East Coast, daily circulation at The Boston Globe plummeted 10.1% to 323,983 copies. Sunday circ was down 8.4% to 503,659. The Baltimore Sun’s daily circ declined 5.9% to 218,923 while Sunday fell 3.8% to 350,640.

Daily circulation at The Philadelphia Inquirer slipped 11.0% to 300,674 copies. Sunday plunged 13.7% to 556,426. At the Daily News in Philly, daily circ slipped 13.2% to 97,694.Daily circ at The Arizona Republic declined 5.5% to 361,333 while Sunday 3.6% to 463,036. Its sister paper the Indianapolis Star lost 3.3% of its daily circ (244,796 copies) and 4.6% of Sunday to 321,760.In Florida circulation fell steeply at the Miami Herald -- its daily circ was down 11.8% to 210,884. Sunday was down 9% to 279,484. The Orlando Sentinel lost 3.3% of its daily circ to 206,363 and about the same on Sunday (-3.2%) to 307,976 copies. The St. Petersburg Times reported that daily circ was down 6.8% to 268,935. However, Sunday rose almost 1% to 390,289.Daily circ at the Denver Post dropped 6.5% to 210,585 and at the Rocky Mountain News it was down 6.6% to 210,281. The combined Sunday circulation for the JOA papers declined 9.1% to 545,442.

In Detroit, the Free Press lost 6.8% of its daily circ to 298,243 copies. The Detroit News’ daily circ plunged 10.0% to 178,280 copies.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch was down 9.1% to 240,796. But Sunday grew, up 0.8% to 423,588.The Houston Chronicle's daily circulation skidded 11.6% to 448,271. Sunday was even worse, down 15.7% to 584,164 copies. Daily circulation at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was down 13.6% to 274,999 and Sunday fell 2.3% to 464,805.

Here are some numbers for McClatchy papers: The Kansas City Star’s daily circ declined 2.3% to 239,358 while Sunday dropped 5.3% to 324,837. Daily figures for the Ft. Worth Star Telegram were down 3.7% to 194,257. Sunday decreased 2.9% to 280,447. The Charlotte Observer lost 3.9% of its daily circ to 193,577 copies. Sunday fell 3.7% to 252,300.

In the twin cities, daily circ at The Star Tribune in Minneapolis dropped 4.2% to 322,360. Sunday lost 8.6% to 520,828. The St. Paul Pioneer Press increased its daily circ by a fraction -- up 0.2% to 184,973 while Sunday gained the same to 246,431 copies.

Some Advance Newspapers: The Star Ledger in Newark, N.J., down 10.4% to 316,280 daily copies. Sunday skidded 14.6% to 455,699. The Plain Dealer in Cleveland decreased its daily copies by 8.5% to 305,529. Sunday was down 7.7% to 411,061. The Oregonian in Portland dropped 8.4% to 283,321 daily copies while Sunday fell 7.1% to 344,950. Daily copies at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans dipped 2.4% to 175,530. Sunday fell 2.8% to 194,248.

The tabloids in New York both saw declines in daily copies. The New York Post’s daily circ decreased 6.2% to 625,421. At the New York Daily News, daily circ was down 7.1% to 632,595.

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NYT Company Stock Price and Market Tools on IHT.com

First off, Monday wasn't quite as bad as I had expected, for the (ex-Asia) markets in general. I still think however that we're a long way from the markets bottoming out.

That said, had you been a bottom buyer yesterday, you could have picked up some NYT stock for less than $9. (Remembering that all that yield and dividend will surely change next year, which isn't helping the price recover.)

From a February '08 high of $21 the NYT has lost over 53% of it's value and nearly 80% of its value from a January '04 high of $48.

I must say, I really do like the market tools on www.iht.com and find them much better than what is available on www.nytimes.com for example. I hope the NYT will realise this when www.iht.com is folded into www.nytimes.com

New York Times Co
(NYT:NYQ) NYT on other Exchanges
9.51 USD Last
-0.04 -0.42% Change
2.1M Above Average Volume

Data as of October 27, 2008 16:03 exchange time. Market data is delayed by at least 20 minutes.
Today's Open
9.45 USD
Previous Close
9.55 USD
Today's High
9.68 USD
Today's Low
8.92 USD
Today's Volume
2.1M
Avg Volume (10 day)
1.7M
Fundamentals
Market Capitalization
1.4B
P/E Ratio (TTM)
19.0x
EPS (TTM)
0.50 USD
Dividend
0.92 USD
Yield
9.67%
Ex Dividend Date
08/28/08
Shares Outstanding
143.0M

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New York Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal on Op-Ed page contributors

NYT's Unforgettable Hire: Bono
BONO PRO BONO Bono, Rosenthal (inset) (Photo: Getty Images) Like Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter before him, New York Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal sees something special in a certain teensy Gaelic man who refuses to remove his sunglasses. That's right, the Timesman announced last night his first acquisition for the paper's Op-Ed pages for 2009: Bono. Yep, Bono. The activist-creator of Zoo TV will pen between six and ten pieces for the Grey Lady next year, Rosenthal told students Wednesday night at Columbia's School of Journalism.
So might this new hire be taking the position of—or helping to off-set the damage done by—any especially right-leaning columnist currently under fire for his devotion to vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin? Say, Bill Kristol, for example?
Rosenthal dodged questions about Kristol, refusing to say if the Times would renew the right-wing columnist's contract when it expires in January, or who might replace him if he goes. Instead he cracked wise and affectionately of all his columnists. Kristol, for example can be "kooky," and in fact the whole staff, he noted wryly, is "incredibly easy to deal with and very humble." He took Maureen Dowd's infamous Latin column as a case in point: "I told her I thought it would be a little weird, and she did it anyway," but given that she's "the easiest and most pleasant edit of any writer I've worked with in my life," he let it slide.
Of course, in belt-tightening times, it's important to note that the ink of the high-holy U2 crooner comes free of charge: "Nothing," said Rosenthal of Bono's pay rate, noting that the Irish millionaire will muse on Africa, poverty, and, importantly, the music of Frank Sinatra. And while Bono may seem an odd choice for such a contract, Rosenthal did mention his current obsession with learning the guitar, and even shuffled freshly downloaded riff tablature together with his lecture notes. And though Rosenthal didn't announce any other celeb contributors, he did allude to re-recruiting the pen of Queen guitarist Brian May, who just earned his doctorate in astrophysics, and expressed admiration for previous opinion writers Bruce Springsteen and Larry David.
Of actual journalists, Rosenthal said he admired the work of the Atlantic's Megan McArdle and the National Review's Byron York.
Which is all fine and well, but are there former contributors Rosenthal doesn't like? "Condoleezza Rice is a particularly bad op-ed writer." And Tom Wolfe tends to write very long. So no Rice, less than Wolfe, and more in the spirit of Bono. Given that the Times' opinion pages could be the most competitive 800 words in journalism, any other pointers on how to make sure a fledgling contributor's submission will get printed? "Take a position in support of any Republican you care to name," the editor joshed. But it's a fine line, he noted with a smile: "The problem with conservative columnists," said Rosenthal, "is that many of them lie in print."
By Ben Chapman 10/23/08 9:25

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