Thursday, April 01, 2010
My battle with Alzheimer's
The Wall Street Journal had a story about Alzheimer’s Disease earlier this week. Here’s my account of the situation.
I've been living with Alzheimer's for nearly eight years, when my mother, at 60, was diagnosed with this God-awful disease. I've never experienced anything more emotionally extracting than watching my mother suffer from this terrible condition.
The best reason the doctors could give for her dementia was that she suffered from depression. And while 60 is an early age to be hobbled with Alzheimer's, there are plenty of younger people who are diagnosed.
I met a 43-year-old man with it while touring assisted living facilities. A lawyer told me about a 42-year-old woman who was stricken.
Sure, they're the rarity.
Stimulating your mind with a book or a game is a fine idea. But if you really want to prevent this, go for a run at least three times a week. Moving the blood around your heart and your head will do more to keep your brain in shape than anything else.
Not that reading is bad. But there's no getting around cardiovascular exercise. Your heart requires it and so does your brain.
Today, at 67, my mother lives in the Alzheimer's unit at an assisted living facility. The attendants bathe and dress her and make sure she eats. The annual cost? About $80,000.00. And it’s all private pay.
The annual tab is paid through her IRA and the money made when we sold her house.
If you want to know stress, check out what it’s like to watch the stock market take a nosedive, as it did in the final months of 2008, and then wonder how your mother will pay her bills.
It’s not like she’s employable.
Add to that the time I agreed to put her on an anti-psychotic drug, Zyprexa. In dementia patients, it’s considered an “FDA-approved black label drug,” meaning death is a possible side effect.
Every morning, my first thought is, “I killed my mother.”
Alzheimer's is described as the "long, slow, goodbye."
I wish it were faster. My mother's a shell of the lady she was. In her youth, she was vibrant, beautiful, and full of life. Now she's worn down, haggard-looking, 30 pounds overweight, and can't remember my name or anyone else’s.
The tragedy is that physically she's in pretty good shape. Mentally, she's a vacuum, not remembering words said to her seconds ago.
I pray she dies soon. That’s when her dignity will be restored.
Don't let this disease happen to you. Go for a run three times a week and change your diet. And while you're at it, find a good book to read.
Do something, goddammit!
I've been living with Alzheimer's for nearly eight years, when my mother, at 60, was diagnosed with this God-awful disease. I've never experienced anything more emotionally extracting than watching my mother suffer from this terrible condition.
The best reason the doctors could give for her dementia was that she suffered from depression. And while 60 is an early age to be hobbled with Alzheimer's, there are plenty of younger people who are diagnosed.
I met a 43-year-old man with it while touring assisted living facilities. A lawyer told me about a 42-year-old woman who was stricken.
Sure, they're the rarity.
Stimulating your mind with a book or a game is a fine idea. But if you really want to prevent this, go for a run at least three times a week. Moving the blood around your heart and your head will do more to keep your brain in shape than anything else.
Not that reading is bad. But there's no getting around cardiovascular exercise. Your heart requires it and so does your brain.
Today, at 67, my mother lives in the Alzheimer's unit at an assisted living facility. The attendants bathe and dress her and make sure she eats. The annual cost? About $80,000.00. And it’s all private pay.
The annual tab is paid through her IRA and the money made when we sold her house.
If you want to know stress, check out what it’s like to watch the stock market take a nosedive, as it did in the final months of 2008, and then wonder how your mother will pay her bills.
It’s not like she’s employable.
Add to that the time I agreed to put her on an anti-psychotic drug, Zyprexa. In dementia patients, it’s considered an “FDA-approved black label drug,” meaning death is a possible side effect.
Every morning, my first thought is, “I killed my mother.”
Alzheimer's is described as the "long, slow, goodbye."
I wish it were faster. My mother's a shell of the lady she was. In her youth, she was vibrant, beautiful, and full of life. Now she's worn down, haggard-looking, 30 pounds overweight, and can't remember my name or anyone else’s.
The tragedy is that physically she's in pretty good shape. Mentally, she's a vacuum, not remembering words said to her seconds ago.
I pray she dies soon. That’s when her dignity will be restored.
Don't let this disease happen to you. Go for a run three times a week and change your diet. And while you're at it, find a good book to read.
Do something, goddammit!
Monday, February 02, 2009
Tribune's uncertainity in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
There is no predetermined outcome for bankrupt Tribune Co. Other than a likely sale of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, the company's future — as well as that of its remaining assets, employees, management, and Sam Zell's continuing leadership — is unclear.
As with other Chapter 11 bankruptcies, among the groups that suffer most are the employees. Tribune's, after enduring previous management's scuffles with the Chandlers, and then witnessing Zell's purchase, have taken it on the chin again. Their ESOP shares are worthless. Their jobs uncertain.
They may wonder who could own the piece of Tribune they work for and, in addition, they could be asking how forgiving Tribune's creditors will be toward the company.
Yet seeking protection from creditors via Chapter 11 bankruptcy, especially in today's sour economic climate, is no longer necessarily a sign of defeat. It's a credible, strategic option for today's managers, who bet that not only will creditors refuse to seek their firm's liquidation but that they themselves will also be in place when the company emerges from Chapter 11.
Foregone conclusion?
That said, when Zell took over Tribune in 2007, the firm's bankruptcy might already have been a foregone conclusion. In fact, according to bankruptcy expert Douglas Baird, a University of Chicago law professor, Tribune's finances 14 months ago looked more similar to a corporation that had undergone a 1980s-style leveraged buyout.
"Unlike the ones done in recent years, it was very highly leveraged," he said. "This was an aggressive deal."
Other than Zell's $315 million, there was no other collateral in the buyout, meaning that for Tribune to meet its debt obligations under Zell's ownership, the publisher had to be financially successful, immediately. Instead, revenues and profits went the other direction.
Under Zell's ownership, it's doubtful that Tribune's employees, through the ESOP, had much of a say about the company's direction. Under the Chapter 11 filing, they definitely have no voice in the company's future. Their shares are worthless, even powerless. For that matter, the influence of Tribune's management is potentially diminished.
"The creditors are the shareholders now and in charge of Tribune's future," said Baird. "The judge will be asking them what they want to do.
"The existing managers have not been displaced yet, but whether they (and Zell) have a role going forward will turn in large measure on whether the creditors (and especially Barclay's Bank, Tribune's debtor-in-possession lender) think that they are managing the company well," Baird added.
Economic vitality
Barclay's, which is providing Tribune with a $50 million letter of credit, will be one of the first creditors to be paid back should the company come out of Chapter 11.
Other creditors, led by JP Morgan Chase, are owed $12.9 billion, according to Tribune's bankruptcy petition. Tribune claims assets of $7.6 billion.
One of the issues that the creditors committee will need to determine is the economic viability of the assets that compose Tribune.
"That conversation (on economic viability of Tribune as a whole and its parts) is taking place right now," said Baird. "Tribune will likely go on but it may not go on as it was a year ago.
"Assets like the LA Times or WGN (Tribune's Chicago-based radio and television stations) are likely viable and may be set up on their own," he added.
Baird, in fact, is optimistic about Tribune's future.
"Once you take away the debt, they (Tribune and its parts) should be cash flow positive," said Baird, which should guide the creditors toward seeing Tribune successfully through its Chapter 11 proceedings.
"Much of what the creditors decide will be based on how much money they can get paid back."
Real estate options
New York University law Prof. Barry Adler said creditors will also likely consider the future possibility of working with Zell's real estate business.
"There are a number of issues for any creditor to think about when determining the acceptance of a reorganization plan," Adler said.
Whatever steps Tribune and its creditors might take, initial answers clarifying the publisher's reorganization plan won't be forthcoming until April. That's the new deadline U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey set for Tribune to file supporting documentation regarding its bankruptcy plea.
As with other Chapter 11 bankruptcies, among the groups that suffer most are the employees. Tribune's, after enduring previous management's scuffles with the Chandlers, and then witnessing Zell's purchase, have taken it on the chin again. Their ESOP shares are worthless. Their jobs uncertain.
They may wonder who could own the piece of Tribune they work for and, in addition, they could be asking how forgiving Tribune's creditors will be toward the company.
Yet seeking protection from creditors via Chapter 11 bankruptcy, especially in today's sour economic climate, is no longer necessarily a sign of defeat. It's a credible, strategic option for today's managers, who bet that not only will creditors refuse to seek their firm's liquidation but that they themselves will also be in place when the company emerges from Chapter 11.
Foregone conclusion?
That said, when Zell took over Tribune in 2007, the firm's bankruptcy might already have been a foregone conclusion. In fact, according to bankruptcy expert Douglas Baird, a University of Chicago law professor, Tribune's finances 14 months ago looked more similar to a corporation that had undergone a 1980s-style leveraged buyout.
"Unlike the ones done in recent years, it was very highly leveraged," he said. "This was an aggressive deal."
Other than Zell's $315 million, there was no other collateral in the buyout, meaning that for Tribune to meet its debt obligations under Zell's ownership, the publisher had to be financially successful, immediately. Instead, revenues and profits went the other direction.
Under Zell's ownership, it's doubtful that Tribune's employees, through the ESOP, had much of a say about the company's direction. Under the Chapter 11 filing, they definitely have no voice in the company's future. Their shares are worthless, even powerless. For that matter, the influence of Tribune's management is potentially diminished.
"The creditors are the shareholders now and in charge of Tribune's future," said Baird. "The judge will be asking them what they want to do.
"The existing managers have not been displaced yet, but whether they (and Zell) have a role going forward will turn in large measure on whether the creditors (and especially Barclay's Bank, Tribune's debtor-in-possession lender) think that they are managing the company well," Baird added.
Economic vitality
Barclay's, which is providing Tribune with a $50 million letter of credit, will be one of the first creditors to be paid back should the company come out of Chapter 11.
Other creditors, led by JP Morgan Chase, are owed $12.9 billion, according to Tribune's bankruptcy petition. Tribune claims assets of $7.6 billion.
One of the issues that the creditors committee will need to determine is the economic viability of the assets that compose Tribune.
"That conversation (on economic viability of Tribune as a whole and its parts) is taking place right now," said Baird. "Tribune will likely go on but it may not go on as it was a year ago.
"Assets like the LA Times or WGN (Tribune's Chicago-based radio and television stations) are likely viable and may be set up on their own," he added.
Baird, in fact, is optimistic about Tribune's future.
"Once you take away the debt, they (Tribune and its parts) should be cash flow positive," said Baird, which should guide the creditors toward seeing Tribune successfully through its Chapter 11 proceedings.
"Much of what the creditors decide will be based on how much money they can get paid back."
Real estate options
New York University law Prof. Barry Adler said creditors will also likely consider the future possibility of working with Zell's real estate business.
"There are a number of issues for any creditor to think about when determining the acceptance of a reorganization plan," Adler said.
Whatever steps Tribune and its creditors might take, initial answers clarifying the publisher's reorganization plan won't be forthcoming until April. That's the new deadline U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey set for Tribune to file supporting documentation regarding its bankruptcy plea.
Friday, January 30, 2009
To avoid ending with whimper, publishers must tout printed product
Nobel Prize winner T. S. Eliot likely hadn’t a clue as to the versatility of the last verse of “The Hollow Men.” Not only is it a possible description for the world’s end but it also illustrates the potential closing stages of the daily newspaper industry:
“This is the way the world ends,
not with a bang but a whimper.”
Consider: On any given day there’s a publisher ordering his paper’s management team to cut back further on the printed edition because, as the annual and quarterly reports say, print revenues are down, online revenues are up. While that strategy, if you can call it that, might improve profits in the short run, this pathological behavior only diminishes the paper’s revenues, competitive stand¬ing and its future.
This self-destructive practice won’t kill the newspaper business next year or even in 10 years. If it continues, based on current run rates of circulation and advertising losses, it could take decades before the daily newspaper industry col¬lapses, echoing Eliot’s last stanza.
The Newspaper Association of America reports trends that everyone in the daily newspaper industry knows: Over the last 23 years, newspapers’ daily circ has fallen by more than 11 million; the last time the daily newspaper industry experienced a circulation increase was in 1987, when it sold 300,000 more cop¬ies than it did in 1986.
Daily newspapers peaked in 1973, when there were 1,773 titles; more than 300 newspapers have since stopped pub¬lishing. Newsprint consumption is half of what it was in 2003, meaning newspa¬pers are sizably smaller today.
Same story
Advertising revenues tell the same story: Print advertising revenues peaked in 2005 at $47 billion; since then, reve¬nues have dropped by more than $5 bil¬lion and even when online advertising revenues are added in, the newspaper industry’s ad revenue is down by more than $4 billion from 2005.
Tribune, the latest company to an¬nounce cutbacks, will soon sell news¬papers that offer more maps, graphics, lists, ranking and statistics.
Tribune owner Sam Zell and Randy Michaels, the chief operating officer, announced that they are planning to produce newspapers with a 50-50 ratio between ads and editorial content and reduce the news content, across all of the company’s newspapers, by as much as 500 pages a week.
Finding efficiencies and creating a newspaper that readers and advertisers will buy makes perfect business sense.
But while it is too early to tell if Tri¬bune’s latest initiative will lead to growth in revenues and profits, it appears as if this move is more of the same — simply cutbacks — and it can’t help but make one wonder what Tribune’s stable of dai¬lies will look like if this venture fails.
The answer
Is there any way up?
Yes. A newspaper is both a consumer product and an advertising vehicle. The latter’s success hinges on the former. So if publishers want better results, they had better find a solution to the one part of their business that no other media wishes to duplicate — the daily printed newspaper.
This requires a print strategy. This is, presumably, what Messrs. Zell and Michaels have crafted. Because if Tribune and its fellow companies fail to formulate a plan to own the one thing that no other media outlet, including the “demonic” Craigslist, is interested in producing or duplicating — a daily printed newspaper — publishers face a grim future indeed.
The results of the daily newspaper industry’s two practices — publishing a newspaper that it struggles to sell, more often than not, in a monopoly market, and updating its Web site, which is freely accessible and appears to be easier to sell to advertisers than the printed edition — has made many publishers mis¬takenly believe that the online edition doesn’t require the sales support of the printed edition.
Carries the day
But the printed product still carries the day in terms of revenue and profits and it remains a highly effective promotion vehicle for the newspaper’s Web site.
About two years ago, Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company, announced that there are 100 million Web sites, a number that’s no doubt higher today. If you‘re a newspaper publisher, take note: If you’re struggling to sell ads in a monopoly market, how are you going to effectively compete against 99.9 million other Web sites?
Here is how Harvard Business School Prof. Michael E. Porter views the competitive landscape. In his book, “Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sus¬taining Superior Performance”, Porter wrote: “A firm that engages in each generic strategy (cost leadership, differ¬entiation, cost focus or differentiation focus) but fails to achieve any of them is stuck in the middle.
“It possesses no competitive advantage. This strategic position is usually a recipe for below-average performance.”
The daily newspaper industry can differentiate and stand out from all other media by creating a printed product that people want to read and advertisers find attractive.
Consumers are overwhelmed with media choices and their time is short, so publishers need to overcome resistance to their product. One solution? Give away the paper free to consumers and adopt a print format that readers find easily ac¬cessible: the tabloid. This might better be called the Examiner model as produced in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and San Francisco.
Ultimately, the daily newspaper industry is responsible for its own health. Either it demonstrates to advertisers and readers its strength as a printed product or it lives out T. S. Eliot’s last verse.
“This is the way the world ends,
not with a bang but a whimper.”
Consider: On any given day there’s a publisher ordering his paper’s management team to cut back further on the printed edition because, as the annual and quarterly reports say, print revenues are down, online revenues are up. While that strategy, if you can call it that, might improve profits in the short run, this pathological behavior only diminishes the paper’s revenues, competitive stand¬ing and its future.
This self-destructive practice won’t kill the newspaper business next year or even in 10 years. If it continues, based on current run rates of circulation and advertising losses, it could take decades before the daily newspaper industry col¬lapses, echoing Eliot’s last stanza.
The Newspaper Association of America reports trends that everyone in the daily newspaper industry knows: Over the last 23 years, newspapers’ daily circ has fallen by more than 11 million; the last time the daily newspaper industry experienced a circulation increase was in 1987, when it sold 300,000 more cop¬ies than it did in 1986.
Daily newspapers peaked in 1973, when there were 1,773 titles; more than 300 newspapers have since stopped pub¬lishing. Newsprint consumption is half of what it was in 2003, meaning newspa¬pers are sizably smaller today.
Same story
Advertising revenues tell the same story: Print advertising revenues peaked in 2005 at $47 billion; since then, reve¬nues have dropped by more than $5 bil¬lion and even when online advertising revenues are added in, the newspaper industry’s ad revenue is down by more than $4 billion from 2005.
Tribune, the latest company to an¬nounce cutbacks, will soon sell news¬papers that offer more maps, graphics, lists, ranking and statistics.
Tribune owner Sam Zell and Randy Michaels, the chief operating officer, announced that they are planning to produce newspapers with a 50-50 ratio between ads and editorial content and reduce the news content, across all of the company’s newspapers, by as much as 500 pages a week.
Finding efficiencies and creating a newspaper that readers and advertisers will buy makes perfect business sense.
But while it is too early to tell if Tri¬bune’s latest initiative will lead to growth in revenues and profits, it appears as if this move is more of the same — simply cutbacks — and it can’t help but make one wonder what Tribune’s stable of dai¬lies will look like if this venture fails.
The answer
Is there any way up?
Yes. A newspaper is both a consumer product and an advertising vehicle. The latter’s success hinges on the former. So if publishers want better results, they had better find a solution to the one part of their business that no other media wishes to duplicate — the daily printed newspaper.
This requires a print strategy. This is, presumably, what Messrs. Zell and Michaels have crafted. Because if Tribune and its fellow companies fail to formulate a plan to own the one thing that no other media outlet, including the “demonic” Craigslist, is interested in producing or duplicating — a daily printed newspaper — publishers face a grim future indeed.
The results of the daily newspaper industry’s two practices — publishing a newspaper that it struggles to sell, more often than not, in a monopoly market, and updating its Web site, which is freely accessible and appears to be easier to sell to advertisers than the printed edition — has made many publishers mis¬takenly believe that the online edition doesn’t require the sales support of the printed edition.
Carries the day
But the printed product still carries the day in terms of revenue and profits and it remains a highly effective promotion vehicle for the newspaper’s Web site.
About two years ago, Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company, announced that there are 100 million Web sites, a number that’s no doubt higher today. If you‘re a newspaper publisher, take note: If you’re struggling to sell ads in a monopoly market, how are you going to effectively compete against 99.9 million other Web sites?
Here is how Harvard Business School Prof. Michael E. Porter views the competitive landscape. In his book, “Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sus¬taining Superior Performance”, Porter wrote: “A firm that engages in each generic strategy (cost leadership, differ¬entiation, cost focus or differentiation focus) but fails to achieve any of them is stuck in the middle.
“It possesses no competitive advantage. This strategic position is usually a recipe for below-average performance.”
The daily newspaper industry can differentiate and stand out from all other media by creating a printed product that people want to read and advertisers find attractive.
Consumers are overwhelmed with media choices and their time is short, so publishers need to overcome resistance to their product. One solution? Give away the paper free to consumers and adopt a print format that readers find easily ac¬cessible: the tabloid. This might better be called the Examiner model as produced in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and San Francisco.
Ultimately, the daily newspaper industry is responsible for its own health. Either it demonstrates to advertisers and readers its strength as a printed product or it lives out T. S. Eliot’s last verse.
Correspondent's note: This article orginally appeared, by the same author as this blog, in the July 2008 edition of Newspapers & Technology magazine.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The Next Bailout Scenario
By Combined Wire Services
WASHINGTON — The seats in the congressional hearing room, previously occupied by the chief executives of the country’s automakers, hadn’t even cooled Thursday when they were immediately filled by America’s leading newspaper executives who were there to do what their colleagues from the auto industry had done — beg for a taxpayer-financed bailout package.
With advertising and circulation revenues hitting new lows every quarter, and newspaper job losses on the rise, the industry is in a precipitous state. As of yet, no one in the newspaper industry appears to know how to correct the situation, which worsens daily.
The newspaper industry’s recent headlines include the faithful at the Church of Christ Science no longer praying to God for a miracle to save the print edition of their prestigious newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor; instead, they’re asking Him to make the newspaper’s Internet edition a far more trafficked Web site than it was before the print edition’s demise.
“We pray every day for our Web site,” said a spokesman for the Church.
Need help
Other headlines include the newspaper industry’s leading supplier of news content, The Associated Press, announcing it would eliminate jobs in 2009; along with the precarious financial position of New Jersey’s leading daily newspaper, The Star-Ledger, few newspaper executives and analysts have hope that the industry can be turned around without government assistance.
“They (the newspaper industry) need help,” said John Morton, a former newspaper analyst.
“I’m … I’m not sure what happened to our revenue,” said Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times and chairman of the paper’s holding company, during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. “It … it … just seems to have gone away. We’re trying to find it.”
McClatchy Newspaper’s Chief Executive Gary Pruitt; MediaNews Group Chief Executive William Dean Singleton; News Corp.’s Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch; and Gannett Chief Executive Craig Dubow, publisher of USA Today, seeking approval for a government-funded bailout package, joined Sulzberger.
All four executives, who lead some of the largest and most prestigious newspaper companies in the United States, said that unless they received a portion of the $700 billion set aside to save Wall Street banking firms, they would either declare bankruptcy or be forced to shut down in the next six to eight months.
No support
Still, members of the Senate Committee and the House Financial Services Committee harshly criticized the executives’ testimony, where they later appeared, as being short-sighted and failing to address the single greatest issue facing the domestic newspaper industry — providing a newspaper people want to read and advertisers want to buy.
“We’ve been firing as many people as we can,” said MediaNews Group’s Singleton. “We’re going to fire as many people as possible in order to get our profit margins back to where they were in 1982.”
“At Gannett, we’re seriously considering making our newspapers the size of Readers Digest magazine — only thinner — and then increasing the daily cover price to a buck,” said Dubow, the company’s chief executive officer.
“Isn’t that a recipe for disaster,” asked U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, (R-Fla.), of Dubow.
“It’s revenue maximization,” replied Dubow.
As soon as the four executives had finished their testimony before both committees, congressional members peppered them with questions about their management tactics, styles and abilities.
“Do you guys think you could run my 8-year-old nephew’s lemonade stand,” asked U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
“No, no, I’ll handle this question,” said McClatchy’s Pruitt as he shouted down and pushed Murdoch aside for the opportunity to answer Frank.
Making profit?
“If the economy was robust, and if we were within five feet of a four-way stop, I’m fairly certain we could make a profit,” Pruitt said. “Of course, my answer is predicated on weather conditions, the quality of lemonade served and the amount of traffic at the intersection, none of which we might be able to control.”
“Have you thought about, oh I don’t know, marketing your newspapers and telling people why they should read them or buy advertising in them,” asked U.S. Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the Senate Banking Committee’s ranking Republican.
“We’re The New York Times, for God’s sake,” Sulzberger said. “We don’t need to tell anyone who we are. America and New York, they know who we are!”
“We eliminated the marketing department five layoffs ago,” answered Pruitt.
“These guys make the auto industry look good,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, (D-Calif.), during a news conference after Thursday’s hearings. “At least Detroit faces real competition; these newspaper guys are a bunch of incompetent monopolists.
“Maybe they need to be replaced by executives from some major utility,” she added.
Some lawmakers, however, were in favor of evaluating a bailout.
“I’m prepared to vote in favor of this funding if I’m allowed to control your editorial pages,” announced U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, during the hearings.
“While this request doesn’t mean too much of a change to The New York Times, it does have some sharp ramifications for The Wall Street Journal,” Dodd added.
Upon hearing Dodd’s statement, the Journal’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, collapsed and had to be revived by paramedics. He was later taken to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where doctors report he’s in stable condition and is scheduled to be released today.
Both congressional chambers are expected to debate the request from the newspaper executives today.
Correspondent's note: This article, written by this correspondent, originally appeared in the January 2009 edition of Newspapers & Technology magazine.
WASHINGTON — The seats in the congressional hearing room, previously occupied by the chief executives of the country’s automakers, hadn’t even cooled Thursday when they were immediately filled by America’s leading newspaper executives who were there to do what their colleagues from the auto industry had done — beg for a taxpayer-financed bailout package.
With advertising and circulation revenues hitting new lows every quarter, and newspaper job losses on the rise, the industry is in a precipitous state. As of yet, no one in the newspaper industry appears to know how to correct the situation, which worsens daily.
The newspaper industry’s recent headlines include the faithful at the Church of Christ Science no longer praying to God for a miracle to save the print edition of their prestigious newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor; instead, they’re asking Him to make the newspaper’s Internet edition a far more trafficked Web site than it was before the print edition’s demise.
“We pray every day for our Web site,” said a spokesman for the Church.
Need help
Other headlines include the newspaper industry’s leading supplier of news content, The Associated Press, announcing it would eliminate jobs in 2009; along with the precarious financial position of New Jersey’s leading daily newspaper, The Star-Ledger, few newspaper executives and analysts have hope that the industry can be turned around without government assistance.
“They (the newspaper industry) need help,” said John Morton, a former newspaper analyst.
“I’m … I’m not sure what happened to our revenue,” said Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times and chairman of the paper’s holding company, during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. “It … it … just seems to have gone away. We’re trying to find it.”
McClatchy Newspaper’s Chief Executive Gary Pruitt; MediaNews Group Chief Executive William Dean Singleton; News Corp.’s Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch; and Gannett Chief Executive Craig Dubow, publisher of USA Today, seeking approval for a government-funded bailout package, joined Sulzberger.
All four executives, who lead some of the largest and most prestigious newspaper companies in the United States, said that unless they received a portion of the $700 billion set aside to save Wall Street banking firms, they would either declare bankruptcy or be forced to shut down in the next six to eight months.
No support
Still, members of the Senate Committee and the House Financial Services Committee harshly criticized the executives’ testimony, where they later appeared, as being short-sighted and failing to address the single greatest issue facing the domestic newspaper industry — providing a newspaper people want to read and advertisers want to buy.
“We’ve been firing as many people as we can,” said MediaNews Group’s Singleton. “We’re going to fire as many people as possible in order to get our profit margins back to where they were in 1982.”
“At Gannett, we’re seriously considering making our newspapers the size of Readers Digest magazine — only thinner — and then increasing the daily cover price to a buck,” said Dubow, the company’s chief executive officer.
“Isn’t that a recipe for disaster,” asked U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, (R-Fla.), of Dubow.
“It’s revenue maximization,” replied Dubow.
As soon as the four executives had finished their testimony before both committees, congressional members peppered them with questions about their management tactics, styles and abilities.
“Do you guys think you could run my 8-year-old nephew’s lemonade stand,” asked U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
“No, no, I’ll handle this question,” said McClatchy’s Pruitt as he shouted down and pushed Murdoch aside for the opportunity to answer Frank.
Making profit?
“If the economy was robust, and if we were within five feet of a four-way stop, I’m fairly certain we could make a profit,” Pruitt said. “Of course, my answer is predicated on weather conditions, the quality of lemonade served and the amount of traffic at the intersection, none of which we might be able to control.”
“Have you thought about, oh I don’t know, marketing your newspapers and telling people why they should read them or buy advertising in them,” asked U.S. Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the Senate Banking Committee’s ranking Republican.
“We’re The New York Times, for God’s sake,” Sulzberger said. “We don’t need to tell anyone who we are. America and New York, they know who we are!”
“We eliminated the marketing department five layoffs ago,” answered Pruitt.
“These guys make the auto industry look good,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, (D-Calif.), during a news conference after Thursday’s hearings. “At least Detroit faces real competition; these newspaper guys are a bunch of incompetent monopolists.
“Maybe they need to be replaced by executives from some major utility,” she added.
Some lawmakers, however, were in favor of evaluating a bailout.
“I’m prepared to vote in favor of this funding if I’m allowed to control your editorial pages,” announced U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, during the hearings.
“While this request doesn’t mean too much of a change to The New York Times, it does have some sharp ramifications for The Wall Street Journal,” Dodd added.
Upon hearing Dodd’s statement, the Journal’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, collapsed and had to be revived by paramedics. He was later taken to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where doctors report he’s in stable condition and is scheduled to be released today.
Both congressional chambers are expected to debate the request from the newspaper executives today.
Correspondent's note: This article, written by this correspondent, originally appeared in the January 2009 edition of Newspapers & Technology magazine.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Unshackle the chains: The U.S. Daily Newspaper Industry -- 2009
As 2009 dawns, executives and employees across U.S. daily newspapers might be worried that they’ll follow Tribune’s lead and file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy this year.
It wouldn’t be because they’re burdened with the same amount of crushing debt as Tribune. It’ll be because their revenue stream, which will likely come under more pressure this year, will not cover their costs. Like Tribune, they may be forced to sell assets, lay off employees, or implement a new ownership structure.
Whatever they’ll do this year, daily newspaper executives will likely not focus on the one issue that can save them – Finding a new way for an effective and venerable print product to compete in the Digital Age. Failure to do so and these executives will likely find themselves in an even more precarious situation at the end of this year than they were at the end of 2008.
The Internet is a convenient crutch. Listen to any daily newspaper executive and this relatively new medium is the cause of all ills, from declining circulation to shrinking print advertising revenues. Indeed, the story of the Internet’s affect on the daily newspaper industry is the next iteration of David and Goliath, and, right now, David is winning because Goliath either doesn’t understand how to use all of the tools available to him or is too lazy to do so.
The daily newspaper industry’s problems didn’t show up yesterday or even six months ago. It’s long been criticized for providing an irrelevant product and for being difficult for advertisers to purchase. In addition, it has long evaded the basic principles of economics, raising advertising rates while demand for its product, as measured by circulation numbers, drop.
In spite of its troubles, the daily newspaper industry possesses strengths that are unique. If it can harness them, change its thinking, focus on core capabilities and correct shortcomings, it likely has a bright future.
Strengths of the business
“You still have 120 million (print) readers in the aggregate across the newspaper industry in the United States on any given Sunday,” said David Walker, chief executive officer of NSA Media, of Downers Grove, Illinois, which buys about $1.5 billion of newspaper advertising annually, in both the United States and Canada.
“You can’t get to 120 million in virtually any audience, other than television, on a specific day and date like you can with newspapers,” said Walker. “You certainly can’t get their digitally; online; with radio; with magazines; with search engine marketing, mobile blasts, addressable TV, yet.
“There’s nothing else (like the U.S. newspaper industry) that kind of hits that really superbly large, critical mass of audience and does it very precisely, on a local basis,” Walker added.
Newspapers are “opt-in media, local, a known entity and, contrary to popular belief, they’re still relevant and there’s high engagement, said Mark Johnson, a vice president of Livonia, Michigan-based Valassis, which buys around $650 million annually in newspaper advertising.
A newspaper’s relationship with its subscribers “is the most relevant thing in the value proposition,” said Walker. “The value proposition of newspapers is day and date specific, local, huge audience. The value to the advertiser is that they’re a wanted medium with … subscribers and, more particularly … wanted advertising from … subscribers.”
Newspapers are “daily, actionable, easy to read, easy to find what you’re looking for, good for branding and information,” said Merrill Lynch managing director Lauren Rich Fine, who follows the newspaper industry. “Advertising in newspapers still works.”
Weaknesses of the business
In the Digital Age, media is infinite so the daily newspaper industry, which tells marketers large and small that they need to market their products, needs to market itself and expand its footprint, providing more options and information to advertisers.
“Newspapers need to tell people why they’re important, exciting and relevant,” said Johnson. “They need to talk about their readers and how they’re consumed.”
Part of the industry’s problem, say some advertising executives, is the information newspaper executives use to make the case for buying print.
“Media kits are still fighting the fight from 20 years ago – frequency and reach,” said Chicago-based advertising and marketing consultant Rick Shaughnessy. “What I do not see is a segmented consumer behavior based model that shows me that when my target audience intersects this ad in this medium that it will mean something.”
One of the industry’s greatest weaknesses, said Shaughnessy, is “that it defines itself by its distribution medium, not by killer content.”
Walker warns that while the newspaper industry would prefer to talk about its audience, “Everyone is going to validate it with circulation because they’re not going to be too open to the notion of being counterintuitive of audience. So if you’ve been trailing along at ‘X’ circulation and suddenly you have a precipitous decline … but an increase of 25 percent in audience, you’re going to have a really hard time selling that.”
The daily newspaper industry needs to focus on its print product and upgrade its marketing skills because, “Newspapers can’t generate the same revenues online that they did in print as in print they sold on the possibility that every page was viewed and therefore monetized,” said Fine. “Online, advertisers now really know which pages are being viewed.”
Even newspapers’ traditional stronghold, coupons, is under pressure.
Coupons.com, of Mountain View, California, around since 1998, working with more than 900 top consumer brands, now has 8.2 million unique visitors every month, said the Web site’s chief executive officer, Steven Boal. While that audience number might be small compared to aggregate U.S. daily newspaper circulation, consider this warning from Boal:
“Newspaper coupon redemption rates are most often less than one percent while Coupons.com redemption rates are often 15 – 20 percent,” he said.
Ways out of this mess
The best corrective action, say NSA Media and Valassis executives, for the newspaper industry is to know its audience as intimately as magazines know theirs.
“Magazines sell the vertical niche that they represent. They deal with how relevant they are to a specific marketer’s mission,” said Walker.
Will this payoff?
“One particular group that (this information) is important to is pharmaceutical companies and yet you don’t see any really well thought through initiative on the part of the newspaper industry to address the pharmaceutical category in a way that’s relevant to a pharmaceutical marketer,” said Walker.
As a result, Walker estimates, pharmaceutical companies spend more than $5 billion a year on magazines and “close to zero in newspapers – around $50 million across the country.”
Successful advertising selling today comes down to telling the advertiser how a consumer uses the print product, said Johnson. “Does it have a shelf life and is it used as a reference piece? Do they pass it on to others? Do they clip coupons, do the puzzles, make recipes, pin articles to the bulletin board?
“Does the audience go to Web sites referenced in ads or articles? Do they write letters to the editor? Do they purchase products mentioned or advertised? Do they read it?” These are some of the questions Johnson wants answered.
Of course, if you want to know how your readers use your print product, you need to provide one that people want to read.
Free or paid?
With declining circulation numbers, there’s a debate as to whether continuing with paid distribution makes sense, especially in a time when most newspapers offer free Web sites.
“The cover price is no matter to me,” said Johnson. “The cover price does not dictate engagement. It’s the newspaper’s reach, readership and engagement with consumers that matters.”
“I’m not convinced that papers should try to win readers back to print,” said Fine.
“Making it free may devalue it,” said Shaughnessy, “But there may be a mixed revenue model, where free papers have more ads than paid ones.”
Changing the mindset
“Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains,” wrote 18th century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Of course, he was writing about the world’s political institutions then but he could just as easily been describing today’s U.S. newspaper industry mentality.
The mental chains wrapped around it prohibit it from improving its print product, upgrading its marketing skills and finding a solution to its problems. Newspapers need to provide marketers with more information, a print product people want to read and a Web site that attracts users.
Said Fine: Newspapers are “focused on putting out fires right now and are distracted from investing. Further, there doesn’t seem to be an obvious plan to replace the lost classified ads or decline in readership. They are all online and doing a decent job but it is hard to compete against the online independents as they don’t have the legacy cost structure.”
It isn’t so much the business model that affects the daily newspaper industry as it is the industry’s mental model. Executives see advertisers taking their business elsewhere and feel they have no other choice than to throw in with their Internet edition.
The problem with that solution is that they risk being commoditized on the Web. No other Web site offers a print product like a daily newspaper. So rather than view the print edition as a liability, newspaper executives should consider it a strength, especially when they’re pitching any advertiser.
At the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Jerry Wind and Colin Crook wrote a book entitled, “The Power of Impossible Thinking.” If daily newspaper executives took their advice, changed their thinking about their business – and improved their company’s marketing skills and placed an emphasis on their print edition – there’s a good chance they’ll do the impossible -- Return the daily newspaper industry to healthier days in 2009.
Editor's note: A shorter version of this article by this correspondent appeared in the January edition of Newspapers & Technology magazine.
It wouldn’t be because they’re burdened with the same amount of crushing debt as Tribune. It’ll be because their revenue stream, which will likely come under more pressure this year, will not cover their costs. Like Tribune, they may be forced to sell assets, lay off employees, or implement a new ownership structure.
Whatever they’ll do this year, daily newspaper executives will likely not focus on the one issue that can save them – Finding a new way for an effective and venerable print product to compete in the Digital Age. Failure to do so and these executives will likely find themselves in an even more precarious situation at the end of this year than they were at the end of 2008.
The Internet is a convenient crutch. Listen to any daily newspaper executive and this relatively new medium is the cause of all ills, from declining circulation to shrinking print advertising revenues. Indeed, the story of the Internet’s affect on the daily newspaper industry is the next iteration of David and Goliath, and, right now, David is winning because Goliath either doesn’t understand how to use all of the tools available to him or is too lazy to do so.
The daily newspaper industry’s problems didn’t show up yesterday or even six months ago. It’s long been criticized for providing an irrelevant product and for being difficult for advertisers to purchase. In addition, it has long evaded the basic principles of economics, raising advertising rates while demand for its product, as measured by circulation numbers, drop.
In spite of its troubles, the daily newspaper industry possesses strengths that are unique. If it can harness them, change its thinking, focus on core capabilities and correct shortcomings, it likely has a bright future.
Strengths of the business
“You still have 120 million (print) readers in the aggregate across the newspaper industry in the United States on any given Sunday,” said David Walker, chief executive officer of NSA Media, of Downers Grove, Illinois, which buys about $1.5 billion of newspaper advertising annually, in both the United States and Canada.
“You can’t get to 120 million in virtually any audience, other than television, on a specific day and date like you can with newspapers,” said Walker. “You certainly can’t get their digitally; online; with radio; with magazines; with search engine marketing, mobile blasts, addressable TV, yet.
“There’s nothing else (like the U.S. newspaper industry) that kind of hits that really superbly large, critical mass of audience and does it very precisely, on a local basis,” Walker added.
Newspapers are “opt-in media, local, a known entity and, contrary to popular belief, they’re still relevant and there’s high engagement, said Mark Johnson, a vice president of Livonia, Michigan-based Valassis, which buys around $650 million annually in newspaper advertising.
A newspaper’s relationship with its subscribers “is the most relevant thing in the value proposition,” said Walker. “The value proposition of newspapers is day and date specific, local, huge audience. The value to the advertiser is that they’re a wanted medium with … subscribers and, more particularly … wanted advertising from … subscribers.”
Newspapers are “daily, actionable, easy to read, easy to find what you’re looking for, good for branding and information,” said Merrill Lynch managing director Lauren Rich Fine, who follows the newspaper industry. “Advertising in newspapers still works.”
Weaknesses of the business
In the Digital Age, media is infinite so the daily newspaper industry, which tells marketers large and small that they need to market their products, needs to market itself and expand its footprint, providing more options and information to advertisers.
“Newspapers need to tell people why they’re important, exciting and relevant,” said Johnson. “They need to talk about their readers and how they’re consumed.”
Part of the industry’s problem, say some advertising executives, is the information newspaper executives use to make the case for buying print.
“Media kits are still fighting the fight from 20 years ago – frequency and reach,” said Chicago-based advertising and marketing consultant Rick Shaughnessy. “What I do not see is a segmented consumer behavior based model that shows me that when my target audience intersects this ad in this medium that it will mean something.”
One of the industry’s greatest weaknesses, said Shaughnessy, is “that it defines itself by its distribution medium, not by killer content.”
Walker warns that while the newspaper industry would prefer to talk about its audience, “Everyone is going to validate it with circulation because they’re not going to be too open to the notion of being counterintuitive of audience. So if you’ve been trailing along at ‘X’ circulation and suddenly you have a precipitous decline … but an increase of 25 percent in audience, you’re going to have a really hard time selling that.”
The daily newspaper industry needs to focus on its print product and upgrade its marketing skills because, “Newspapers can’t generate the same revenues online that they did in print as in print they sold on the possibility that every page was viewed and therefore monetized,” said Fine. “Online, advertisers now really know which pages are being viewed.”
Even newspapers’ traditional stronghold, coupons, is under pressure.
Coupons.com, of Mountain View, California, around since 1998, working with more than 900 top consumer brands, now has 8.2 million unique visitors every month, said the Web site’s chief executive officer, Steven Boal. While that audience number might be small compared to aggregate U.S. daily newspaper circulation, consider this warning from Boal:
“Newspaper coupon redemption rates are most often less than one percent while Coupons.com redemption rates are often 15 – 20 percent,” he said.
Ways out of this mess
The best corrective action, say NSA Media and Valassis executives, for the newspaper industry is to know its audience as intimately as magazines know theirs.
“Magazines sell the vertical niche that they represent. They deal with how relevant they are to a specific marketer’s mission,” said Walker.
Will this payoff?
“One particular group that (this information) is important to is pharmaceutical companies and yet you don’t see any really well thought through initiative on the part of the newspaper industry to address the pharmaceutical category in a way that’s relevant to a pharmaceutical marketer,” said Walker.
As a result, Walker estimates, pharmaceutical companies spend more than $5 billion a year on magazines and “close to zero in newspapers – around $50 million across the country.”
Successful advertising selling today comes down to telling the advertiser how a consumer uses the print product, said Johnson. “Does it have a shelf life and is it used as a reference piece? Do they pass it on to others? Do they clip coupons, do the puzzles, make recipes, pin articles to the bulletin board?
“Does the audience go to Web sites referenced in ads or articles? Do they write letters to the editor? Do they purchase products mentioned or advertised? Do they read it?” These are some of the questions Johnson wants answered.
Of course, if you want to know how your readers use your print product, you need to provide one that people want to read.
Free or paid?
With declining circulation numbers, there’s a debate as to whether continuing with paid distribution makes sense, especially in a time when most newspapers offer free Web sites.
“The cover price is no matter to me,” said Johnson. “The cover price does not dictate engagement. It’s the newspaper’s reach, readership and engagement with consumers that matters.”
“I’m not convinced that papers should try to win readers back to print,” said Fine.
“Making it free may devalue it,” said Shaughnessy, “But there may be a mixed revenue model, where free papers have more ads than paid ones.”
Changing the mindset
“Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains,” wrote 18th century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Of course, he was writing about the world’s political institutions then but he could just as easily been describing today’s U.S. newspaper industry mentality.
The mental chains wrapped around it prohibit it from improving its print product, upgrading its marketing skills and finding a solution to its problems. Newspapers need to provide marketers with more information, a print product people want to read and a Web site that attracts users.
Said Fine: Newspapers are “focused on putting out fires right now and are distracted from investing. Further, there doesn’t seem to be an obvious plan to replace the lost classified ads or decline in readership. They are all online and doing a decent job but it is hard to compete against the online independents as they don’t have the legacy cost structure.”
It isn’t so much the business model that affects the daily newspaper industry as it is the industry’s mental model. Executives see advertisers taking their business elsewhere and feel they have no other choice than to throw in with their Internet edition.
The problem with that solution is that they risk being commoditized on the Web. No other Web site offers a print product like a daily newspaper. So rather than view the print edition as a liability, newspaper executives should consider it a strength, especially when they’re pitching any advertiser.
At the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Jerry Wind and Colin Crook wrote a book entitled, “The Power of Impossible Thinking.” If daily newspaper executives took their advice, changed their thinking about their business – and improved their company’s marketing skills and placed an emphasis on their print edition – there’s a good chance they’ll do the impossible -- Return the daily newspaper industry to healthier days in 2009.
Editor's note: A shorter version of this article by this correspondent appeared in the January edition of Newspapers & Technology magazine.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Happy Holidays
The correspondent at ItsFourthAndLong bids you peace this holiday season. He returns the week of January 5, 2009.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Moving the holidays
If you’re a Christian and reading this today – YOU’VE GOT TWO MORE SHOPPING DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!!! SERIOUSLY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING READING THIS BLOG? STIMULATE THE ECONOMY AND BUY SOMETHING – DAMNIT!!!!
If you’re Jewish, let’s face it, you’ve got it a tad easier. If you don’t take care of someone tonight, you’ve got five more nights in which to make it up to a loved one or whoever else is on your gift list.
Christmas and Hanukah suffer from Thanksgiving’s proximity. They fall too close to Turkey Day and, as a result, they’re the leading causes of stress, anxiety and depression in December.
Thanksgiving is the best holiday. You eat, drink and make merry – all without having to worry about buying someone a gift that requires an emotional touch point.
If your hosts hate the wine or the center piece you offered, that’s nothing. These gifts didn’t break your checking account and, emotionally speaking, they’re inconsequential.
But Christmas and Hanukah, they’re different stories. They demand your best gift giving efforts. Heaven forbid you should fail to buy that special someone anything other than that very gift that perfectly suits them.
At our house, every Christmas presents a gift giving conundrum. What to buy for whom? Our kids are easy; the kids of relatives and friends are somewhat easy; friends we buy for are easy. Our mothers are easy. Our fathers, men who have every toy they ever wanted, present difficulties. We’re never sure what to do for them.
In addition, this year’s short time frame between Christmas and Thanksgiving has presented numerous scheduling difficulties. A number of gifts will be late. I explained this to a dear friend who reminded me, because she’s always been wise beyond her years, that Christmas is a season, not a day. While a wonderful idea that works in some circles, it doesn’t cut it with our culture. Christmas remains a day!
So because these holidays demand our best efforts, we should reschedule them to a month that’s truly awful, January. Christmas and Hanukah in January would make the month so much more palatable. And once the celebrations are over, it’ll be nearly February, when spring’s just around the corner.
Is there a religious problem here? Not really.
The history of Christianity is a history of competition. One can’t just start up a new religion without figuring out ways to compete and, at times, collude with society’s domineering culture.
No one really knows when Jesus was born; stories suggest his birth was either in the summer or fall but it remains a mystery. The only thing that appears to be certain is His death, at around Passover, or sometime in either March or April.
The leading reason that Jesus’ birth is celebrated in December is because that’s when an event was celebrated during the days of the Roman Empire, Winter Solstice. In fact, green is a Christmas color because the Romans decorated with it to celebrate the pending arrival of spring.
Scholarly reports suggest that early Christians celebrated Jesus’ birth in December for two reasons: 1) so they would have something to celebrate while everyone else was marking the arrival of longer days; 2) to offer up a completely different celebration or, in other words, to compete against Winter Solstice.
So, religiously speaking, there’s nothing stopping us from moving Christmas to January 25th. If anything, it’ll give retailers, those gauges of economic health, double the time to score sales as opposed to the usual four to five weeks after Thanksgiving.
Since Hanukah is now competing with Christmas or vice-versa – take your pick – it should go along with this modest proposal and move to January as well. Religiously speaking, Hanukah can’t move as easily as Christmas can but, in the name of competition, I say, make the move. It’s stronger closer to Christmas than it is farther away.
Everybody wins here: People have more time to shop. Department stores, boutiques and others selling gifts have a longer lead time in which to make their sales figures and consumers breathe a sigh of relief.
If we implement this plan, we’ll still have New Year’s as usual. Even that song, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,” while suffering from chronology problems, still works. Let’s face it, you don’t want to sing, “We wish you a Happy New Year and a Merry Christmas.” Although depending on where you are on the sobriety chart on December 31st, maybe you do.
What about the clergy? Will they like this idea? I’m not sure but their objections can be met this way: The holidays’ meanings are more important to celebrate than the exact days on which the events actually happened.
Who’s with me?
Sources:
Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Thomson Gale, 2005
Encyclopedia of religious rites, rituals and festivals. Frank A. Salamone, editor. New York: Routledge, 2004
If you’re Jewish, let’s face it, you’ve got it a tad easier. If you don’t take care of someone tonight, you’ve got five more nights in which to make it up to a loved one or whoever else is on your gift list.
Christmas and Hanukah suffer from Thanksgiving’s proximity. They fall too close to Turkey Day and, as a result, they’re the leading causes of stress, anxiety and depression in December.
Thanksgiving is the best holiday. You eat, drink and make merry – all without having to worry about buying someone a gift that requires an emotional touch point.
If your hosts hate the wine or the center piece you offered, that’s nothing. These gifts didn’t break your checking account and, emotionally speaking, they’re inconsequential.
But Christmas and Hanukah, they’re different stories. They demand your best gift giving efforts. Heaven forbid you should fail to buy that special someone anything other than that very gift that perfectly suits them.
At our house, every Christmas presents a gift giving conundrum. What to buy for whom? Our kids are easy; the kids of relatives and friends are somewhat easy; friends we buy for are easy. Our mothers are easy. Our fathers, men who have every toy they ever wanted, present difficulties. We’re never sure what to do for them.
In addition, this year’s short time frame between Christmas and Thanksgiving has presented numerous scheduling difficulties. A number of gifts will be late. I explained this to a dear friend who reminded me, because she’s always been wise beyond her years, that Christmas is a season, not a day. While a wonderful idea that works in some circles, it doesn’t cut it with our culture. Christmas remains a day!
So because these holidays demand our best efforts, we should reschedule them to a month that’s truly awful, January. Christmas and Hanukah in January would make the month so much more palatable. And once the celebrations are over, it’ll be nearly February, when spring’s just around the corner.
Is there a religious problem here? Not really.
The history of Christianity is a history of competition. One can’t just start up a new religion without figuring out ways to compete and, at times, collude with society’s domineering culture.
No one really knows when Jesus was born; stories suggest his birth was either in the summer or fall but it remains a mystery. The only thing that appears to be certain is His death, at around Passover, or sometime in either March or April.
The leading reason that Jesus’ birth is celebrated in December is because that’s when an event was celebrated during the days of the Roman Empire, Winter Solstice. In fact, green is a Christmas color because the Romans decorated with it to celebrate the pending arrival of spring.
Scholarly reports suggest that early Christians celebrated Jesus’ birth in December for two reasons: 1) so they would have something to celebrate while everyone else was marking the arrival of longer days; 2) to offer up a completely different celebration or, in other words, to compete against Winter Solstice.
So, religiously speaking, there’s nothing stopping us from moving Christmas to January 25th. If anything, it’ll give retailers, those gauges of economic health, double the time to score sales as opposed to the usual four to five weeks after Thanksgiving.
Since Hanukah is now competing with Christmas or vice-versa – take your pick – it should go along with this modest proposal and move to January as well. Religiously speaking, Hanukah can’t move as easily as Christmas can but, in the name of competition, I say, make the move. It’s stronger closer to Christmas than it is farther away.
Everybody wins here: People have more time to shop. Department stores, boutiques and others selling gifts have a longer lead time in which to make their sales figures and consumers breathe a sigh of relief.
If we implement this plan, we’ll still have New Year’s as usual. Even that song, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,” while suffering from chronology problems, still works. Let’s face it, you don’t want to sing, “We wish you a Happy New Year and a Merry Christmas.” Although depending on where you are on the sobriety chart on December 31st, maybe you do.
What about the clergy? Will they like this idea? I’m not sure but their objections can be met this way: The holidays’ meanings are more important to celebrate than the exact days on which the events actually happened.
Who’s with me?
Sources:
Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Thomson Gale, 2005
Encyclopedia of religious rites, rituals and festivals. Frank A. Salamone, editor. New York: Routledge, 2004
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Morning Routine
After completing my exercises, it’s off to a nearby convenience store to purchase a copy of The New York Times before returning home to take my wife to the train station. (In case you’re curious, The Chicago Tribune, The Daily Herald and The Wall Street Journal are home delivered.) Our sons usually join us for this ride and receive mom’s usual admonitions, which include behaving like the well-mannered boys they’re expected to be. Once at the station, she hugs them, telling them how much they’re loved.
Back home – it’s not even 7 a.m. yet – the boys eat breakfast while I tend to shaving, showering and dressing. An hour later, the kids are dressed, their teeth are brushed, and we’re out the door again. The younger son, attending a junior kindergarten program, is the first to be dropped off.
I take him into his classroom, get him peed and his hands washed before giving him lots of hugs and kisses, telling him he’s great and loved. Once out of the building, I turn to his classroom window, wave good-bye and blow a few kisses his way. From what I understand, it eases his transition and provides the impetus he needs to start playing with his classmates
The older one, now a first grader, and I soon find ourselves sitting in a coffee shop, working on his reading skills. This lasts for about 45 minutes and gives him just enough time to read about 10 pages of a book he checked out from the school library. This exercise usually involves further memorization of words he already knows and expanding his vocabulary by sounding out words that are new to him.
This daily habit can be fraught with frustration. In the beginning, there were days he refused to read. So instead of becoming angry, I took a different approach. “We’re not doing this for my benefit,” I told him. “We’re doing this for yours. If you want to learn how to read, you better start reading this book.”
That message worked and, in the 10 weeks we’ve been at this exercise, I’ve seen dramatic improvements in his reading skills. Not only that, but his confidence and enthusiasm for reading show through so much so that he enjoys showing off new words he can read. It’s especially exciting if it’s a compound word.
Our time with one another also gives me a chance to pick up new details about his young life and answer his questions, which lately have included inquiries about people’s gaits, wishing wells (the restaurant has one, sort of), election results, football and whatever else happens to be on his mind.
Like all the parents who’ve preceded me and those who will succeed me, I begin to realize the limits of my influence. Our elder son, only six, is clearly growing up and doesn’t need us like he used to. He will experience many of life’s trials and tribulations without our interpretation. Not that we’re shy about expressing our opinions to him but we also know he needs to experience life sometimes without the benefit of our experience. Because if he doesn’t, it's doubtful he'll become the well-adjusted, self-sufficient adult he needs to be.
This is a difficult moment for any concerned parent: It’s that time when you realize that your once little, helpless, bundle of joy, who can now walk, talk and think on their own, is working as hard to be as independent from you as you once did from your own parents. It’s that alarming moment, a day of reckoning, when you realize you now understand all the concerns and worries your parents once had for you – and may still have in spite of the many years you’ve been alive.
Before long, we’ve left the coffee shop and find ourselves at school. Given the weather, I, along with all of the other parents, pull up as close as possible to the entrance so he has a short walk into the building. I get out of the van, help him with his backpack and give him two bags, one filled with snow-pants, the other with boots. He always seems overloaded.
Before he leaves my presence, I tell him I love him, how smart he is, and to learn a lot in school. He says good-bye, turns around and waddles toward the door. I usually remain standing next to the van, until I see he’s safely inside the building. Call me overprotective. I’ll plead guilty to the charge.
As he’s making his way toward the door, his pace quickens and this look of confidence comes across his face. He’s ready for whatever awaits him. All at once, I’m overwhelmed with a deep sense of pride and a longing for days since past. I’m suddenly jolted into realizing that our little Buckaroo is growing up faster than I prefer. And the same thing happens every morning – tears fill my eyes.
Monday, December 08, 2008
My experiences with Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
Debtor in Possession are three words you never want to see on your paycheck. But if you’re a Tribune Company employee, those are words you’ll soon see emblazoned across your paycheck. It’s warning to the banks: The company you work for is in Chapter 11Bankruptcy.
It also tells the banks that the check is good because, should it bounce, the check issuer, in this case Tribune Company, very likely risks going into Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, which involves closing up shop and liquidating whatever assets remain. And if there’s anything Sam Zell and his bankers probably don’t want right now, it’s a Chapter 7 filing.
I still remember those three words being on every check United Press International issued. It gave every bank cashier and/or clerk I dealt with some pause before cashing a check that had been issued to me by the company.
I experienced Chapter 11 more than 20 years ago when I worked for UPI. It was one of the most turbulent experiences in my professional career. In Chapter 11, you soon learn that there are no sacred cows and that everyone is dispensable.
In UPI’s case, the revenue stream, shrinking as it was, could no longer keep up with the company’s cost structure. If UPI’s management wanted the company to continue, it needed to borrow money. But to do so, the banks wanted to protect the money they were lending. As a result, UPI filed for Chapter 11, where it remained for about 18 months until it was purchased by a newspaper publisher from Mexico, Mario Vazquez-Rana.
Mr. Zell can say what he wants about being in firm control of Tribune, but the fact is the banks, especially J.P. Morgan Chase, are running the show. They may not have their own people sitting in the executives suite today, but they’ll be there soon. And they’ll start appointing their own people into Tribune’s management. People they can trust.
The same thing happened at UPI. Suddenly people with no experience in the media business, but plenty on Wall Street, wound up in charge. Each of them had to come up to speed on the company – its nuances, history and competition, employees and clients – so they understood the situation they faced. Some were successful at this; others were complete disasters.
The bankers have one mission – get paid. Mr. Zell can say he wants to keep the company intact, but that’s the bankers’ last and least concern. They want their money – and they’ll do what they need to do to get it, especially given today’s economic and financial climate.
I count my lucky stars (if I can use that phrase) that I experienced this when I was months shy of my 23rd birthday. The many UPI people who were older than me, laden with kids, college payments and mortgages, didn’t always hold up so well. Some left UPI for greener pastures. Some divorced; and some just hunkered down and did their job.
Chapter 11 is exhausting. It challenges you mentally – how do you look out for Number 1; pay your bills; handle your unpaid expense account; make the business you run work; keep people motivated; handle a spouse’s and/or family members (nagging) questions; plan for the future – and it’s also physically challenging. You feel beat up and, at times, powerless and helpless.
It can also bring about a gallows humor. At UPI, in Dallas, where I worked when the company entered into Chapter 11, a bank, right next to our office, where many of us had checking accounts, stopped honoring our paychecks. They told us we had to wait three to five days for the checks to clear before we could access the money. You can imagine the uproar that created.
So one of my colleagues, Dan Dalton, suggested we rent a school bus, pick up the homeless around Dallas, give each of them UPI credentials and then send them into the bank, telling them that the bank was holding a party in their honor. That would show the bastards, said Dan.
Tragically, we didn’t follow up on that idea. Reflecting back on that day now, we should have. It would have been fun.
My biggest challenge, at the time, was paying $1,500.00 in charges I’d racked up on my American Express card, which I’d used on the many sales trips I’d made. I still remember talking to some nice man at American Express, explaining that I couldn’t pay the bill. I later borrowed money from my dad so I could pay the tab.
And, as I recall, I bounced one or two rent checks as a result of UPI’s Chapter 11 filing because there were some problems with payroll.
Hopefully, the many things I went through at UPI will not happen to Tribune employees.
I feel awful for the many talented professionals working at Tribune who now have to deal with this. Sam Zell won’t suffer. But the many employees who’ve staked their lives and careers on Tribune will likely find that they’re bearing the brunt of this situation. That’s what makes it completely unfair.
It also tells the banks that the check is good because, should it bounce, the check issuer, in this case Tribune Company, very likely risks going into Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, which involves closing up shop and liquidating whatever assets remain. And if there’s anything Sam Zell and his bankers probably don’t want right now, it’s a Chapter 7 filing.
I still remember those three words being on every check United Press International issued. It gave every bank cashier and/or clerk I dealt with some pause before cashing a check that had been issued to me by the company.
I experienced Chapter 11 more than 20 years ago when I worked for UPI. It was one of the most turbulent experiences in my professional career. In Chapter 11, you soon learn that there are no sacred cows and that everyone is dispensable.
In UPI’s case, the revenue stream, shrinking as it was, could no longer keep up with the company’s cost structure. If UPI’s management wanted the company to continue, it needed to borrow money. But to do so, the banks wanted to protect the money they were lending. As a result, UPI filed for Chapter 11, where it remained for about 18 months until it was purchased by a newspaper publisher from Mexico, Mario Vazquez-Rana.
Mr. Zell can say what he wants about being in firm control of Tribune, but the fact is the banks, especially J.P. Morgan Chase, are running the show. They may not have their own people sitting in the executives suite today, but they’ll be there soon. And they’ll start appointing their own people into Tribune’s management. People they can trust.
The same thing happened at UPI. Suddenly people with no experience in the media business, but plenty on Wall Street, wound up in charge. Each of them had to come up to speed on the company – its nuances, history and competition, employees and clients – so they understood the situation they faced. Some were successful at this; others were complete disasters.
The bankers have one mission – get paid. Mr. Zell can say he wants to keep the company intact, but that’s the bankers’ last and least concern. They want their money – and they’ll do what they need to do to get it, especially given today’s economic and financial climate.
I count my lucky stars (if I can use that phrase) that I experienced this when I was months shy of my 23rd birthday. The many UPI people who were older than me, laden with kids, college payments and mortgages, didn’t always hold up so well. Some left UPI for greener pastures. Some divorced; and some just hunkered down and did their job.
Chapter 11 is exhausting. It challenges you mentally – how do you look out for Number 1; pay your bills; handle your unpaid expense account; make the business you run work; keep people motivated; handle a spouse’s and/or family members (nagging) questions; plan for the future – and it’s also physically challenging. You feel beat up and, at times, powerless and helpless.
It can also bring about a gallows humor. At UPI, in Dallas, where I worked when the company entered into Chapter 11, a bank, right next to our office, where many of us had checking accounts, stopped honoring our paychecks. They told us we had to wait three to five days for the checks to clear before we could access the money. You can imagine the uproar that created.
So one of my colleagues, Dan Dalton, suggested we rent a school bus, pick up the homeless around Dallas, give each of them UPI credentials and then send them into the bank, telling them that the bank was holding a party in their honor. That would show the bastards, said Dan.
Tragically, we didn’t follow up on that idea. Reflecting back on that day now, we should have. It would have been fun.
My biggest challenge, at the time, was paying $1,500.00 in charges I’d racked up on my American Express card, which I’d used on the many sales trips I’d made. I still remember talking to some nice man at American Express, explaining that I couldn’t pay the bill. I later borrowed money from my dad so I could pay the tab.
And, as I recall, I bounced one or two rent checks as a result of UPI’s Chapter 11 filing because there were some problems with payroll.
Hopefully, the many things I went through at UPI will not happen to Tribune employees.
I feel awful for the many talented professionals working at Tribune who now have to deal with this. Sam Zell won’t suffer. But the many employees who’ve staked their lives and careers on Tribune will likely find that they’re bearing the brunt of this situation. That’s what makes it completely unfair.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy for Tribune?
The Wall Street Journal reports today that Chicago-based Tribune Company, owner of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, six other daily newspapers, a number of television stations, plus the Chicago Cubs baseball team, may seek Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection.
What’s surprising is the Lazard, which is also handling the sale of the Chicago Sun-Times and Sun-Times Holdings, has apparently, according to the Journal, been retained to find a buyer for the assets of the Tribune Company, if not the entire company itself.
It begs the question whether Lazard has a conflict of interest because they’re working for two companies that compete with one another in Chicago.
Tribune Company went private about a year ago when real estate mogul Sam Zell purchased the company. The tragedy, however, is that instead of having the money to outright buy the company, he put it into debt, to about the tune of $13 billion.
Given the size of the company, most days a debt of that size might have been easy to handle. But before the deal was even closed, Zell’s bankers were concerned about the deal because Tribune’s revenue stream was declining.
There are no asset sales on the horizon for Tribune Company – which kept the bankers at bay – so, as the Journal reports:
“The company's cash flow may not be enough to cover nearly $1 billion in interest payments due this year, and Tribune owes a $512 million debt payment in June.
”One of Tribune's most pressing concerns: The company is likely to be in violation of debt terms that limit borrowings at the end of the year to nine times its adjusted profits. The ratio stood at 8.3 at the end of the second quarter, before Tribune reported an 83% decline in operating profit for the three months ended Sept 28.”
It was reported about two months ago that the Cubs, coming off of a good season, plus an appearance (albeit brief) in the playoffs, could command a price in the $800 million range. If Tribune Company goes Chapter 11, it’s difficult to say if such a reported price would hold up.
In addition, two years ago, David Geffen, significant player in Hollywood, was offering $2 billion for the Los Angeles Times. Here, again, if Tribune goes Chapter 11, it’s questionable if that price will hold. (Even if Tribune wasn’t seeking Chapter 11 protection, it’s hard to say if, given the state of the U.S. newspaper industry, that price would hold up today.)
McClatchy, based in Sacramento, owner of a number of daily newspapers, recently restructured its debt terms. Tribune may be able to do the same and avoid Chapter 11.
What’s surprising is the Lazard, which is also handling the sale of the Chicago Sun-Times and Sun-Times Holdings, has apparently, according to the Journal, been retained to find a buyer for the assets of the Tribune Company, if not the entire company itself.
It begs the question whether Lazard has a conflict of interest because they’re working for two companies that compete with one another in Chicago.
Tribune Company went private about a year ago when real estate mogul Sam Zell purchased the company. The tragedy, however, is that instead of having the money to outright buy the company, he put it into debt, to about the tune of $13 billion.
Given the size of the company, most days a debt of that size might have been easy to handle. But before the deal was even closed, Zell’s bankers were concerned about the deal because Tribune’s revenue stream was declining.
There are no asset sales on the horizon for Tribune Company – which kept the bankers at bay – so, as the Journal reports:
“The company's cash flow may not be enough to cover nearly $1 billion in interest payments due this year, and Tribune owes a $512 million debt payment in June.
”One of Tribune's most pressing concerns: The company is likely to be in violation of debt terms that limit borrowings at the end of the year to nine times its adjusted profits. The ratio stood at 8.3 at the end of the second quarter, before Tribune reported an 83% decline in operating profit for the three months ended Sept 28.”
It was reported about two months ago that the Cubs, coming off of a good season, plus an appearance (albeit brief) in the playoffs, could command a price in the $800 million range. If Tribune Company goes Chapter 11, it’s difficult to say if such a reported price would hold up.
In addition, two years ago, David Geffen, significant player in Hollywood, was offering $2 billion for the Los Angeles Times. Here, again, if Tribune goes Chapter 11, it’s questionable if that price will hold. (Even if Tribune wasn’t seeking Chapter 11 protection, it’s hard to say if, given the state of the U.S. newspaper industry, that price would hold up today.)
McClatchy, based in Sacramento, owner of a number of daily newspapers, recently restructured its debt terms. Tribune may be able to do the same and avoid Chapter 11.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Papers missing in action as technologies develop
MIAMI — For Gloria Formosa, one of this city’s leading stock brokers, it’s an
absolute necessity she remain informed about the day’s news headlines.
Entrusted with millions of dollars of her clients’ money, she and her customers
know that an uninformed broker can make investment mistakes that can result
in costly — even ruinous — mistakes.
That’s why, shortly after Formosa wakes up and starts her morning routine, she
suddenly becomes aware of the day’s top news stories. What’s more, she does this
without using a Web site, turning on her BlackBerry, listening to the radio, watching
television or even reading a printed copy of her local paper, El Herald.
Earlier this year, Formosa, 45, did something a lot of women her age might not be expected to do: She had herself injected with nanobots, microscopic-size robots programmed to receive and deliver Bloomberg News Service headlines and
stories, stock and commodity prices — 24/7 — directly to her brain.
By the time she’s dressed, Formosa has a good idea of how the markets will perform
that day.
“I’m always updated,” she said. “With nanobots, I’m never caught off guard by
some event that could affect my clients’ investments. I’m way ahead of the game!”
In addition to being used to treat heart ailments, correct blood pressure and monitor
diabetes, nanobots are now employed by some news services, like Bloomberg and
Thomson Reuters, as a means of keeping their audiences informed throughout the day. There’s a chance, their executives say, that nanobots could even replace their
Web sites.
— The Wall Street Journal, “Invasion of the Nanobots: One Broker’s Attempt to
Stay Informed,” Sept. 3, 2032
While this scenario might seem like something out of a science fiction novel, there’s a better than even chance it just might happen. Nanotechnology is already in use, and nanobots — microscopic-size robots — will soon be employed to help people fight diseases, expand their minds and, perhaps, update them about the news.
Indeed, a host of recent technological developments, which include flexible display, Amazon.com’s Kindle, The Plastic Logic reader and nanotechnology, should force the daily newspaper industry to start answering a tough question: What will society look like a generation from now?
Consider the U.S. Army’s Army After Next program. Created after the first Iraqi War, this program was designed to help the Army determine how to defeat threats it might encounter in 30 years. Now called Unified Quest, the program today encompasses all military branches, intelligence agencies, the State and Treasury departments, and academics in cultural anthropology. The goal remains the same: formulating possible
solutions to the threats, wars and battles the United States may encounter a generation from now.
“These guys make your head hurt when discussing future scenarios,” said Harvey Perritt, a spokesman for the Army’s Training & Doctrine Command Headquarters in Norfolk, Va. “Even NASA shows up at these meetings, laying out how space might play a
role in any future scenario.”
Similar approach
The daily newspaper industry should undertake a similar intellectual exercise,
exploring how it will operate 30 years from now. The technology that’s on the
immediate horizon will further modify how consumers view newspapers. As a result, newspaper publishers must determine how it will own the future and remain competitive in an even more technologically advanced setting.
A sampling of what’s on the horizon:
•The Flexible Display Center, at Arizona State University, is developing, in
conjunction with the Army, technology that will spawn a variety of new products
including laptops with foldable screens. The Army funds the Center because it
plans to equip soldiers with PDAs, laptops and maps using this technology.
“Flexible display glass is rugged, lightweight, bendable and roll-able,” said Greg Raupp, the Center’s director. “It brings a new ball game of whole new products.”
The Center’s annual budget is about $14 million, with about $10 million coming from the Army and the remaining $4 million coming from industry sources and the university. As of now, though, there isn’t a single newspaper or media company sponsoring the Center.
Raupp said a newspaper company could sponsor the Center for a minimum of $50,000 annually to reap some benefits from the research. The cash outlay can be reduced if a newspaper can provide other value to Center projects, Raupp said.
•Amazon.com, attempting to sell more books in this digital age, is selling the Kindle, a handheld, wireless reader that downloads books, magazines and 17 different newspapers, among them The New York Times.
While Amazon says newspapers are a key Kindle partner, the Webtailer’s primary goal is to sell more books. The Kindle offers consumers a new reading and buying experience of print media. While it’s difficult to say how well Kindle sales are doing — Amazon refuses to release those numbers — devices like it will become more popular.
•Plastic Logic, a Mountain View, Calif., firm, last month demonstrated its flexible e-newspaper reader. The Plastic Logic Reader offers users a larger screen than the handheld, wireless reader from Amazon.com. The Plastic Logic device — which goes on sale next June — is built with proprietary flexible display technology. The whole screen is active; there are no buttons.
Plastic Logic is talking to newspaper publishers about making their content available on their new, wireless reader, according to Vice President of Marketing Joe Eschbach.
“We’re ideally suited for newspaper content because the formats of newspapers are respected along with their branding and we can support their advertising.” He said the Reader “will be priced for massive adoption — quickly.”
Looking ahead
Author, futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil says that 21st century technology will focus on “making things smaller.” In an essay published in the book Invisible Future: The Seamless Integration of Technology into Everyday Life, Kurzweil said that nanobot technology “will be feasible within 30 years.”
“Nanobot technology will … expand our minds in any imaginable way,” wrote Kurzweil. “Brain implants based on … nanobots will ultimately expand our memories a trillionfold … and since the nanobots are communicating with each other over a wireless area network, they can create … new hybrid biological-nonbiological networks,” Kurzweil said.
Army spokesman Perritt says nanotechnology is already employed by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan so they can see around corners before risking a fatal turn.
Unfortunately, just as with the development of the Internet, not a single newspaper is helping direct the course of these new technologies. The way newspapers will be consumed and perceived, by readers and advertisers, a generation from now is being determined with no input from newspapers.
The question the daily newspaper industry needs to answer is this: Will it catch up, join, lead or be left behind as this technology becomes reality? Will the newspaper industry own its future or will it repeat its current behavior — massive layoffs and continued downsizing of its printed product — just as it has reacted to the competition it’s experiencing from the Internet?
Consider options
Kurzweil says the world will experience 20,000 years of progress in the 21st century. The newspaper industry must start determining its future — today.
Consider this warning from Marshall McLuhan in his book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man: “The classified ads (and stock market quotations) are the bedrock of the press. Should an alternative source of easy access to such diverse daily information be found, the press will fold.”
That book was published in 1964.
Imagine, the newspaper industry might be a thriving business today if it had taken the time 44 years ago to consider all of the possible future threats — no matter how far-fetched — to a key revenue stream.
What will the daily newspaper industry look like in 44 years? Maybe the nanobot knows.
Editor's Note: This article, written by the correspondent to this blog, first appeared in the October 2008 edition of Newspapers & Technology magazine.
absolute necessity she remain informed about the day’s news headlines.
Entrusted with millions of dollars of her clients’ money, she and her customers
know that an uninformed broker can make investment mistakes that can result
in costly — even ruinous — mistakes.
That’s why, shortly after Formosa wakes up and starts her morning routine, she
suddenly becomes aware of the day’s top news stories. What’s more, she does this
without using a Web site, turning on her BlackBerry, listening to the radio, watching
television or even reading a printed copy of her local paper, El Herald.
Earlier this year, Formosa, 45, did something a lot of women her age might not be expected to do: She had herself injected with nanobots, microscopic-size robots programmed to receive and deliver Bloomberg News Service headlines and
stories, stock and commodity prices — 24/7 — directly to her brain.
By the time she’s dressed, Formosa has a good idea of how the markets will perform
that day.
“I’m always updated,” she said. “With nanobots, I’m never caught off guard by
some event that could affect my clients’ investments. I’m way ahead of the game!”
In addition to being used to treat heart ailments, correct blood pressure and monitor
diabetes, nanobots are now employed by some news services, like Bloomberg and
Thomson Reuters, as a means of keeping their audiences informed throughout the day. There’s a chance, their executives say, that nanobots could even replace their
Web sites.
— The Wall Street Journal, “Invasion of the Nanobots: One Broker’s Attempt to
Stay Informed,” Sept. 3, 2032
While this scenario might seem like something out of a science fiction novel, there’s a better than even chance it just might happen. Nanotechnology is already in use, and nanobots — microscopic-size robots — will soon be employed to help people fight diseases, expand their minds and, perhaps, update them about the news.
Indeed, a host of recent technological developments, which include flexible display, Amazon.com’s Kindle, The Plastic Logic reader and nanotechnology, should force the daily newspaper industry to start answering a tough question: What will society look like a generation from now?
Consider the U.S. Army’s Army After Next program. Created after the first Iraqi War, this program was designed to help the Army determine how to defeat threats it might encounter in 30 years. Now called Unified Quest, the program today encompasses all military branches, intelligence agencies, the State and Treasury departments, and academics in cultural anthropology. The goal remains the same: formulating possible
solutions to the threats, wars and battles the United States may encounter a generation from now.
“These guys make your head hurt when discussing future scenarios,” said Harvey Perritt, a spokesman for the Army’s Training & Doctrine Command Headquarters in Norfolk, Va. “Even NASA shows up at these meetings, laying out how space might play a
role in any future scenario.”
Similar approach
The daily newspaper industry should undertake a similar intellectual exercise,
exploring how it will operate 30 years from now. The technology that’s on the
immediate horizon will further modify how consumers view newspapers. As a result, newspaper publishers must determine how it will own the future and remain competitive in an even more technologically advanced setting.
A sampling of what’s on the horizon:
•The Flexible Display Center, at Arizona State University, is developing, in
conjunction with the Army, technology that will spawn a variety of new products
including laptops with foldable screens. The Army funds the Center because it
plans to equip soldiers with PDAs, laptops and maps using this technology.
“Flexible display glass is rugged, lightweight, bendable and roll-able,” said Greg Raupp, the Center’s director. “It brings a new ball game of whole new products.”
The Center’s annual budget is about $14 million, with about $10 million coming from the Army and the remaining $4 million coming from industry sources and the university. As of now, though, there isn’t a single newspaper or media company sponsoring the Center.
Raupp said a newspaper company could sponsor the Center for a minimum of $50,000 annually to reap some benefits from the research. The cash outlay can be reduced if a newspaper can provide other value to Center projects, Raupp said.
•Amazon.com, attempting to sell more books in this digital age, is selling the Kindle, a handheld, wireless reader that downloads books, magazines and 17 different newspapers, among them The New York Times.
While Amazon says newspapers are a key Kindle partner, the Webtailer’s primary goal is to sell more books. The Kindle offers consumers a new reading and buying experience of print media. While it’s difficult to say how well Kindle sales are doing — Amazon refuses to release those numbers — devices like it will become more popular.
•Plastic Logic, a Mountain View, Calif., firm, last month demonstrated its flexible e-newspaper reader. The Plastic Logic Reader offers users a larger screen than the handheld, wireless reader from Amazon.com. The Plastic Logic device — which goes on sale next June — is built with proprietary flexible display technology. The whole screen is active; there are no buttons.
Plastic Logic is talking to newspaper publishers about making their content available on their new, wireless reader, according to Vice President of Marketing Joe Eschbach.
“We’re ideally suited for newspaper content because the formats of newspapers are respected along with their branding and we can support their advertising.” He said the Reader “will be priced for massive adoption — quickly.”
Looking ahead
Author, futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil says that 21st century technology will focus on “making things smaller.” In an essay published in the book Invisible Future: The Seamless Integration of Technology into Everyday Life, Kurzweil said that nanobot technology “will be feasible within 30 years.”
“Nanobot technology will … expand our minds in any imaginable way,” wrote Kurzweil. “Brain implants based on … nanobots will ultimately expand our memories a trillionfold … and since the nanobots are communicating with each other over a wireless area network, they can create … new hybrid biological-nonbiological networks,” Kurzweil said.
Army spokesman Perritt says nanotechnology is already employed by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan so they can see around corners before risking a fatal turn.
Unfortunately, just as with the development of the Internet, not a single newspaper is helping direct the course of these new technologies. The way newspapers will be consumed and perceived, by readers and advertisers, a generation from now is being determined with no input from newspapers.
The question the daily newspaper industry needs to answer is this: Will it catch up, join, lead or be left behind as this technology becomes reality? Will the newspaper industry own its future or will it repeat its current behavior — massive layoffs and continued downsizing of its printed product — just as it has reacted to the competition it’s experiencing from the Internet?
Consider options
Kurzweil says the world will experience 20,000 years of progress in the 21st century. The newspaper industry must start determining its future — today.
Consider this warning from Marshall McLuhan in his book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man: “The classified ads (and stock market quotations) are the bedrock of the press. Should an alternative source of easy access to such diverse daily information be found, the press will fold.”
That book was published in 1964.
Imagine, the newspaper industry might be a thriving business today if it had taken the time 44 years ago to consider all of the possible future threats — no matter how far-fetched — to a key revenue stream.
What will the daily newspaper industry look like in 44 years? Maybe the nanobot knows.
Editor's Note: This article, written by the correspondent to this blog, first appeared in the October 2008 edition of Newspapers & Technology magazine.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
CNN & The Associated Press -- Celebrity Death Match?
The announcement that CNN would start selling its own branded news wire service reminded me of the time, about 11 years ago, when I suggested that Tribune Media Services, my employer at the time, start selling the network’s Web content.
It was clear then, as it is now, that CNN had stopped being just a broadcaster. It was also in the print business. And, through its Web site, it demonstrated that it was a viable competitor to The Associated Press, Reuters and other traditional wire services, at least on national and international stories.
As a former Unipresser, (ex-United Press International employee for those of you not familiar with the lingo and the AP’s largest competitor until about twenty years ago), I’m the first to say that the AP is a tough rival. It’ll do whatever is necessary, including price cutting, to keep its clients, called “members” by the AP, in line.
So if CNN’s Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide, which will lead this undertaking, is having thoughts that his company will replace the AP, which possesses a near monopoly position with U.S. daily newspapers, his thoughts are delusional. The AP’s value doesn’t come from the stories it files from Washington, top cities around the country or even from various international datelines. It comes from the state reports.
If CNN wants to outright replace the AP, they’ll likely have to do what they thought they’d never do – provide a credible state report in all 50 states. That takes a lot of bodies, a lot of bureaus and, last but not least, a lot of money.
AP state reports are concocted through a combination of the wire service’s own reporters (if they can bother to get off their collective duffs to cover a story) and whatever their “members” contribute to the local, statewide AP report.
That’s right. The newspapers buying the AP service are required, by their contract with the news service, to also provide stories and pictures, produced by their own staff. That’s why the AP calls their clients “members” – not “clients.”
There’s a world of difference in the terms. A “member” is someone who shares an organization’s burden while a “client” is someone who pays for a service and, rightfully so, expects a decent product and decent, if not outstanding, customer service in return. At the AP, both of those things are, like, so yesterday, which is one of the reasons there’s no such thing as a satisfied AP customer or member, if you prefer.
This is one of the reasons that The Times story on Monday focused on The Columbus Dispatch, one of the largest daily newspapers in Ohio. The Dispatch, along with a few other newspapers in the Buckeye State, is working hard to drop the AP. The Dispatch and a few other newspapers regularly share their stories with one another. There’s a chance that The Dispatch and its group of rogue newspapers (as the AP sees them) will be able to provide one another with enough statewide coverage that they’ll able to drop the AP all together; at The Dispatch, this means a tidy annual savings, somewhere in the $800,000 range, according to The Times.
The national and international report that the AP provides can be easily replaced – for a lot less money – by purchasing other supplemental news services, including the Gannett News Service, the McClatchy-Tribune News Service, the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service, The New York Times News Service and, perhaps, even Reuters.
Newspaper editors are frustrated, if not intensely angry, at the AP. The problem is that the AP business model – extortionary pricing for no or damn little customer service in return and a state report that’s as good as what the “members” contribute because the AP can’t be bothered to do much original reporting – is finally obsolete. At least that’s the appearance of the situation right now.
What gives me pause here is that the Dispatch’s attempt to form its own news cooperative is eerily similar to how this problem came about. One hundred and sixty years ago, a group of 10 men representing New York City’s top six newspapers formed a news agency. They named it The Associated Press.
So what The Dispatch and some of its fellow Ohio newspapers are doing is nothing new. The question is can they do a better job of providing what the AP has done for more than a century.
The AP’s problems are larger than Monday’s New York Times story let on. In addition to the new competitive threat from CNN, their tribulations include Tribune Company, owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, The Hartford Courant, The Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, to name a few, which cancelled its AP contract. (It’ll take two years for Tribune to drop the AP service.) Other newspapers, sources tell me, have, in some cases, stopped paying their AP bill.
What’s playing out here involves two issues: 1. The economics of the newspaper industry, which are declining faster than anyone had ever anticipated, and 2) decisions made by both UPI and the newspaper industry about thirty years ago, which only exacerbated the AP’s already over-inflated sense of self worth.
The newspaper industry is primarily a print medium. And though revenues to its Web sites are increasing, they still don’t match what they bring in on the print side. In addition, the industry’s audience is fleeing the print product for the free one on the Web. This is because the industry has never figured out how to create value for the fantastic service, in some cases but not all, it provides through its printed editions.
The revenue decrease is forcing industry executives to make difficult calls. They include eliminating jobs, sections, areas where they previously sold copies, and outsourcing certain job functions; editors are dropping features and, as has been seen, seriously considering dropping their largest news content supplier, the AP.
UPI’s problems started back in the 1950s, when its forerunner, the United Press, merged with the Hearst-owned International News Service to form UPI. UP’s owner, the EW Scripps Company, named Scripps-Howard at the time, forced the new organization to give up the United Features Service, (later renamed United Media) which provides comics, columns and puzzles to newspapers. That meant that a large and very significant portion of the UP revenue stream was not transferred to the newly formed UPI. This meant that UPI’s future was based on a general news and picture service for newspapers and a broadcast wire and audio service for broadcasters.
UPI’s primary client base had been afternoon newspapers. As those papers stopped publishing in the 1960s and 1970s, the revenues at UPI declined. Some of the revenue loss was made up by selling the service to morning newspapers as well as to broadcasters, including CNN. Still the revenue slide couldn’t be stopped and the company lost money.
In addition, UPI’s owner couldn’t be bothered to invest in the service. A number of initiatives were brought to the attention of the UPI’s owner, but EW Scripps executives couldn’t be bothered to act on them, or, in some cases, even hear them out.
The last serious push to save UPI was done in the late 1970s, when the company attempted to sell a limited partnership to U.S. newspaper companies. Working against the plan was UPI’s owner, which insisted that it remain the largest shareholder and refused to give any of the limited partners much of say about UPI’s direction.
There was a Canadian newspaper publisher who was more than willing to sign up for the same deal that had been tabled to U.S. daily newspaper executives, but the forward-thinking EW Scripps executives rejected the overture because that would mean foreign ownership of a U.S. news service.
In addition, the level of UPI’s news gathering began to fall and, as a result, a number of editors felt they were better served signing up for the higher priced AP instead of paying for the cheaper service at UPI. A number of UPI sales executives, including yours truly, told newspaper editors they didn’t want to make the AP their only content provider.
Some editors continued with UPI, in spite of their reservations; some dropped UPI because they were tired of dealing with all of UPI’s problems (which were numerous), and others dropped UPI because they had delusions of grandeur, which included becoming part of the AP Board. The end result – AP was sitting in the driver’s seat.
CNN will face some of the same issues that UPI did. CNN is a profit center for a publicly held company, Time Warner, and its actions are dictated by one thing – the Almighty Profit Margin. CNN can afford to launch this service now because it’s flush with revenues; they always surge during national political campaigns – or any news event that gets people to tune in or head to their Web site. CNN, like UPI, will have to provide a strong value proposition for any editor to consider buying the service. CNN will run into all kinds of resistance from newspaper editors, including some who simply cannot imagine life without the AP at their paper.
In addition, the AP is a non-profit. Because it’s under no obligation to make money, the AP will slash and burn their rate card to prevent their membership base from eroding.
One of the questions that newspaper executives will need answered is what the CNN wire will look like during times of relative peace and quiet. While that day might seem hard to imagine right now, it will happen. Will CNN be able to provide the same level of service then that it can provide today, when revenues are healthy?
While a part of me very much likes the idea of CNN fighting the good fight against the AP, another part of me says this is much ado about nothing. The newspaper industry is filled with intransigence, which prevents it from taking the actions it needs to take to remain a healthy, viable industry. Newspaper executives will sing CNN’s praises publicly, but whether they’ll actually sign contracts for the network’s news wire is an entirely different matter.
So Mr. Walton, if I have any advice for you, it’s this: Keep your expectations modest.
Sources:
Deadline Every Minute: The Story of the United Press, Joe Alex Morris. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1957.
The Associated Press: The Story of News, Oliver Gamling. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1940.
United Press International: Covering the 20th Century, Richard M. Harnett and Billy G. Ferguson. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing, 2003.
"CNN Pitches Wire Service To Compete With The A.P.," The New York Times, Tim Arango and Richard Perez-Pena, December 1, 2008, pp. B3.
It was clear then, as it is now, that CNN had stopped being just a broadcaster. It was also in the print business. And, through its Web site, it demonstrated that it was a viable competitor to The Associated Press, Reuters and other traditional wire services, at least on national and international stories.
As a former Unipresser, (ex-United Press International employee for those of you not familiar with the lingo and the AP’s largest competitor until about twenty years ago), I’m the first to say that the AP is a tough rival. It’ll do whatever is necessary, including price cutting, to keep its clients, called “members” by the AP, in line.
So if CNN’s Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide, which will lead this undertaking, is having thoughts that his company will replace the AP, which possesses a near monopoly position with U.S. daily newspapers, his thoughts are delusional. The AP’s value doesn’t come from the stories it files from Washington, top cities around the country or even from various international datelines. It comes from the state reports.
If CNN wants to outright replace the AP, they’ll likely have to do what they thought they’d never do – provide a credible state report in all 50 states. That takes a lot of bodies, a lot of bureaus and, last but not least, a lot of money.
AP state reports are concocted through a combination of the wire service’s own reporters (if they can bother to get off their collective duffs to cover a story) and whatever their “members” contribute to the local, statewide AP report.
That’s right. The newspapers buying the AP service are required, by their contract with the news service, to also provide stories and pictures, produced by their own staff. That’s why the AP calls their clients “members” – not “clients.”
There’s a world of difference in the terms. A “member” is someone who shares an organization’s burden while a “client” is someone who pays for a service and, rightfully so, expects a decent product and decent, if not outstanding, customer service in return. At the AP, both of those things are, like, so yesterday, which is one of the reasons there’s no such thing as a satisfied AP customer or member, if you prefer.
This is one of the reasons that The Times story on Monday focused on The Columbus Dispatch, one of the largest daily newspapers in Ohio. The Dispatch, along with a few other newspapers in the Buckeye State, is working hard to drop the AP. The Dispatch and a few other newspapers regularly share their stories with one another. There’s a chance that The Dispatch and its group of rogue newspapers (as the AP sees them) will be able to provide one another with enough statewide coverage that they’ll able to drop the AP all together; at The Dispatch, this means a tidy annual savings, somewhere in the $800,000 range, according to The Times.
The national and international report that the AP provides can be easily replaced – for a lot less money – by purchasing other supplemental news services, including the Gannett News Service, the McClatchy-Tribune News Service, the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service, The New York Times News Service and, perhaps, even Reuters.
Newspaper editors are frustrated, if not intensely angry, at the AP. The problem is that the AP business model – extortionary pricing for no or damn little customer service in return and a state report that’s as good as what the “members” contribute because the AP can’t be bothered to do much original reporting – is finally obsolete. At least that’s the appearance of the situation right now.
What gives me pause here is that the Dispatch’s attempt to form its own news cooperative is eerily similar to how this problem came about. One hundred and sixty years ago, a group of 10 men representing New York City’s top six newspapers formed a news agency. They named it The Associated Press.
So what The Dispatch and some of its fellow Ohio newspapers are doing is nothing new. The question is can they do a better job of providing what the AP has done for more than a century.
The AP’s problems are larger than Monday’s New York Times story let on. In addition to the new competitive threat from CNN, their tribulations include Tribune Company, owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, The Hartford Courant, The Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, to name a few, which cancelled its AP contract. (It’ll take two years for Tribune to drop the AP service.) Other newspapers, sources tell me, have, in some cases, stopped paying their AP bill.
What’s playing out here involves two issues: 1. The economics of the newspaper industry, which are declining faster than anyone had ever anticipated, and 2) decisions made by both UPI and the newspaper industry about thirty years ago, which only exacerbated the AP’s already over-inflated sense of self worth.
The newspaper industry is primarily a print medium. And though revenues to its Web sites are increasing, they still don’t match what they bring in on the print side. In addition, the industry’s audience is fleeing the print product for the free one on the Web. This is because the industry has never figured out how to create value for the fantastic service, in some cases but not all, it provides through its printed editions.
The revenue decrease is forcing industry executives to make difficult calls. They include eliminating jobs, sections, areas where they previously sold copies, and outsourcing certain job functions; editors are dropping features and, as has been seen, seriously considering dropping their largest news content supplier, the AP.
UPI’s problems started back in the 1950s, when its forerunner, the United Press, merged with the Hearst-owned International News Service to form UPI. UP’s owner, the EW Scripps Company, named Scripps-Howard at the time, forced the new organization to give up the United Features Service, (later renamed United Media) which provides comics, columns and puzzles to newspapers. That meant that a large and very significant portion of the UP revenue stream was not transferred to the newly formed UPI. This meant that UPI’s future was based on a general news and picture service for newspapers and a broadcast wire and audio service for broadcasters.
UPI’s primary client base had been afternoon newspapers. As those papers stopped publishing in the 1960s and 1970s, the revenues at UPI declined. Some of the revenue loss was made up by selling the service to morning newspapers as well as to broadcasters, including CNN. Still the revenue slide couldn’t be stopped and the company lost money.
In addition, UPI’s owner couldn’t be bothered to invest in the service. A number of initiatives were brought to the attention of the UPI’s owner, but EW Scripps executives couldn’t be bothered to act on them, or, in some cases, even hear them out.
The last serious push to save UPI was done in the late 1970s, when the company attempted to sell a limited partnership to U.S. newspaper companies. Working against the plan was UPI’s owner, which insisted that it remain the largest shareholder and refused to give any of the limited partners much of say about UPI’s direction.
There was a Canadian newspaper publisher who was more than willing to sign up for the same deal that had been tabled to U.S. daily newspaper executives, but the forward-thinking EW Scripps executives rejected the overture because that would mean foreign ownership of a U.S. news service.
In addition, the level of UPI’s news gathering began to fall and, as a result, a number of editors felt they were better served signing up for the higher priced AP instead of paying for the cheaper service at UPI. A number of UPI sales executives, including yours truly, told newspaper editors they didn’t want to make the AP their only content provider.
Some editors continued with UPI, in spite of their reservations; some dropped UPI because they were tired of dealing with all of UPI’s problems (which were numerous), and others dropped UPI because they had delusions of grandeur, which included becoming part of the AP Board. The end result – AP was sitting in the driver’s seat.
CNN will face some of the same issues that UPI did. CNN is a profit center for a publicly held company, Time Warner, and its actions are dictated by one thing – the Almighty Profit Margin. CNN can afford to launch this service now because it’s flush with revenues; they always surge during national political campaigns – or any news event that gets people to tune in or head to their Web site. CNN, like UPI, will have to provide a strong value proposition for any editor to consider buying the service. CNN will run into all kinds of resistance from newspaper editors, including some who simply cannot imagine life without the AP at their paper.
In addition, the AP is a non-profit. Because it’s under no obligation to make money, the AP will slash and burn their rate card to prevent their membership base from eroding.
One of the questions that newspaper executives will need answered is what the CNN wire will look like during times of relative peace and quiet. While that day might seem hard to imagine right now, it will happen. Will CNN be able to provide the same level of service then that it can provide today, when revenues are healthy?
While a part of me very much likes the idea of CNN fighting the good fight against the AP, another part of me says this is much ado about nothing. The newspaper industry is filled with intransigence, which prevents it from taking the actions it needs to take to remain a healthy, viable industry. Newspaper executives will sing CNN’s praises publicly, but whether they’ll actually sign contracts for the network’s news wire is an entirely different matter.
So Mr. Walton, if I have any advice for you, it’s this: Keep your expectations modest.
Sources:
Deadline Every Minute: The Story of the United Press, Joe Alex Morris. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1957.
The Associated Press: The Story of News, Oliver Gamling. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1940.
United Press International: Covering the 20th Century, Richard M. Harnett and Billy G. Ferguson. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing, 2003.
"CNN Pitches Wire Service To Compete With The A.P.," The New York Times, Tim Arango and Richard Perez-Pena, December 1, 2008, pp. B3.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Does Dean Singleton read this blog?
I have no idea. But given his latest pronouncements about potential cost-cutting moves, it appears the chief executive officer of Denver-based Media News, owner of more than 50 daily American newspapers, is very much taking direction from a piece I posted on this blog more than 20 months ago.
In it, I suggested that newspaper companies would outsource editing functions to a company in Vietnam. This was part of a fictional account (maybe not so fictional after all) of what happened the day the last U.S. daily newspaper, The Shenandoah Valley News, located in southwestern Iowa, stopped producing a printed edition. (Yes, the newspaper really does exist – at least as of this writing.)
The tragedy of Mr. Singleton’s pronouncement, as reported in yesterday’s New York Times by Maureen Dowd, is that it will likely come true. There have already been reports about newspapers in California attempting to outsource not only editing functions – but also reporting functions – to companies located outside of the United States.
The Chicago Tribune, about two years ago, led some of this outsourcing initiative, when it farmed out its call center – the people who answer the phone if you call to complain about your newspaper delivery, cancel your subscription or put the paper on hold while on vacation – to a company based in the Philippines. Now when you call about your subscription, someone in Manila answers the phone.
It doesn’t take too much of an imagination to consider that, as Mr. Singleton sees it, his newspapers reporters, after writing their stories, would send them via e-mail to a copyeditor on the other side of the globe, who would simply look for grammatical errors.
With any luck, before the story is printed, there will be someone back at the local newspaper to question the reporter about their sources, put the story into context and add anything that might be missing to the article. Given Mr. Singleton’s plans, and his previous behavior, which includes the ability to squeeze out every last penny out of every newspaper he owns, don’t count on it.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the company providing this editing service was found in India. Given that India is home to call centers as well as jobs requiring a high-end skill set, it’s not too much of a stretch to believe that the former British colony might very well provide the employees editing English-language newspapers, including those in the United States.
Besides being cheaper, one of the reasons that India is home to jobs that require service skills as opposed to manual labor is because they once hosted a professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Norbert Wiener. This scientist, who assisted in the birth of the Information Age, and much of the technology we take for granted today, including cyberspace, told India’s top leaders to concentrate the country’s economic development on high-tech jobs – not manufacturing ones – about 50 years ago. Not only did India listen to Dr. Wiener, they acted on his advice.
(For more on Dr. Wiener, either buy or check out of your local library a recent biography of him, entitled Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener, The Father of Cybernetics, by Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman. It’s a great book and well worth your time, especially if you’re curious about the beginnings of the technology that surrounds us today.)
Mr. Singleton’s actions are par for the course in the American newspaper industry. Like the American automotive industry, this is an industry that’s been told numerous times to produce a product that people want to read and advertisers want to buy. And, too often, when it realizes that the audience has slipped away and that advertisers are reducing the amount of money they spend on newspapers to reach consumers, the American newspaper industry looks like a deer caught in the headlights.
Maybe Singleton and his fellow newspaper CEOs will borrow from the playbook of their cohorts in the American automotive industry and make a trip to Washington to beg for a federal bailout!
Singleton’s announcement is one in a long litany of cost-cutting moves. The newspaper industry has yet to provide a plan to restore its financial health. It slashes jobs, reduces the size of its papers, eliminates many of the sections that readers enjoyed, cuts back on the editorial content and then has the audacity to raise its cover price. As thinking goes in the newspaper industry, this passes for strategic planning. Is it any surprise that people who use to pay for a newspaper instead go to its Web site, which is free, read two or three stories and then consider themselves updated on the day’s events? Not at all!
Jim Oberweis owns a local dairy that sells some of the best milk and ice cream I’ve ever tasted. (He’s also a frustrated local politician who can’t seem to run a winning campaign, which is just fine with me. I’d never vote for him.) But if you order home delivery of his milk, it arrives at your doorstep in a case that keeps the milk cold until you place it in your refrigerator. Jim and his team truly show pride in the way their product is handled.
The newspaper industry would be well served to take a hard look at how Oberweis handles home delivery of its milk. If the newspaper industry stopped believing it produces and delivers a cheap, throw away product, it would take the time to deliver its product right to the doorstep – not the end of a driveway, where it’s subject to weather conditions – with the same care that Jim Oberweis delivers milk. This would demonstrate to its readers that the newspaper industry truly produces something to be treasured – not just a piece of trash.
In it, I suggested that newspaper companies would outsource editing functions to a company in Vietnam. This was part of a fictional account (maybe not so fictional after all) of what happened the day the last U.S. daily newspaper, The Shenandoah Valley News, located in southwestern Iowa, stopped producing a printed edition. (Yes, the newspaper really does exist – at least as of this writing.)
The tragedy of Mr. Singleton’s pronouncement, as reported in yesterday’s New York Times by Maureen Dowd, is that it will likely come true. There have already been reports about newspapers in California attempting to outsource not only editing functions – but also reporting functions – to companies located outside of the United States.
The Chicago Tribune, about two years ago, led some of this outsourcing initiative, when it farmed out its call center – the people who answer the phone if you call to complain about your newspaper delivery, cancel your subscription or put the paper on hold while on vacation – to a company based in the Philippines. Now when you call about your subscription, someone in Manila answers the phone.
It doesn’t take too much of an imagination to consider that, as Mr. Singleton sees it, his newspapers reporters, after writing their stories, would send them via e-mail to a copyeditor on the other side of the globe, who would simply look for grammatical errors.
With any luck, before the story is printed, there will be someone back at the local newspaper to question the reporter about their sources, put the story into context and add anything that might be missing to the article. Given Mr. Singleton’s plans, and his previous behavior, which includes the ability to squeeze out every last penny out of every newspaper he owns, don’t count on it.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the company providing this editing service was found in India. Given that India is home to call centers as well as jobs requiring a high-end skill set, it’s not too much of a stretch to believe that the former British colony might very well provide the employees editing English-language newspapers, including those in the United States.
Besides being cheaper, one of the reasons that India is home to jobs that require service skills as opposed to manual labor is because they once hosted a professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Norbert Wiener. This scientist, who assisted in the birth of the Information Age, and much of the technology we take for granted today, including cyberspace, told India’s top leaders to concentrate the country’s economic development on high-tech jobs – not manufacturing ones – about 50 years ago. Not only did India listen to Dr. Wiener, they acted on his advice.
(For more on Dr. Wiener, either buy or check out of your local library a recent biography of him, entitled Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener, The Father of Cybernetics, by Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman. It’s a great book and well worth your time, especially if you’re curious about the beginnings of the technology that surrounds us today.)
Mr. Singleton’s actions are par for the course in the American newspaper industry. Like the American automotive industry, this is an industry that’s been told numerous times to produce a product that people want to read and advertisers want to buy. And, too often, when it realizes that the audience has slipped away and that advertisers are reducing the amount of money they spend on newspapers to reach consumers, the American newspaper industry looks like a deer caught in the headlights.
Maybe Singleton and his fellow newspaper CEOs will borrow from the playbook of their cohorts in the American automotive industry and make a trip to Washington to beg for a federal bailout!
Singleton’s announcement is one in a long litany of cost-cutting moves. The newspaper industry has yet to provide a plan to restore its financial health. It slashes jobs, reduces the size of its papers, eliminates many of the sections that readers enjoyed, cuts back on the editorial content and then has the audacity to raise its cover price. As thinking goes in the newspaper industry, this passes for strategic planning. Is it any surprise that people who use to pay for a newspaper instead go to its Web site, which is free, read two or three stories and then consider themselves updated on the day’s events? Not at all!
Jim Oberweis owns a local dairy that sells some of the best milk and ice cream I’ve ever tasted. (He’s also a frustrated local politician who can’t seem to run a winning campaign, which is just fine with me. I’d never vote for him.) But if you order home delivery of his milk, it arrives at your doorstep in a case that keeps the milk cold until you place it in your refrigerator. Jim and his team truly show pride in the way their product is handled.
The newspaper industry would be well served to take a hard look at how Oberweis handles home delivery of its milk. If the newspaper industry stopped believing it produces and delivers a cheap, throw away product, it would take the time to deliver its product right to the doorstep – not the end of a driveway, where it’s subject to weather conditions – with the same care that Jim Oberweis delivers milk. This would demonstrate to its readers that the newspaper industry truly produces something to be treasured – not just a piece of trash.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
U.S. History in the Middle East
One hopes that Joe Biden knows his history, especially if he’s called to the Oval Office to advise President Obama on the next steps the United States should take against Middle Eastern terrorists.
Perhaps a Vice President Biden will recall the Betsy, the Maria and the Dauphin, American-owned merchant ships that were seized by Middle Eastern pirates, becoming the first victims in the war on terror – way back in the eighteenth century.
What, you say? The war on terror wasn’t created by President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the diabolical Donald Rumsfeld, the most evil man to ever occupy the defense secretary’s office?
No, the war against Arab terrorism is almost as old as the country itself, stemming back to the 1780s, when those three American merchant ships were hijacked and seized by Arabian pirates.
The “evildoers” back then were pirates from the Barbary sheikdoms of Morocco, Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli. American political leaders were so alarmed by these attacks that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, on diplomatic duty in Europe, were ordered to negotiate a peace treaty with the sheikdoms – or, as we would say today, find out how much of a bribe the United States needed to pay annually so U.S. ships would no longer be attacked.
George Washington, frustrated with seeing American merchant ships attacked, by both Arab pirates and European navy ships, proposed the construction of the U.S. Navy during the last year of his presidency. The first Navy ships that were built would, at President Jefferson’s direction, successfully attack the Barbary Pirates, providing the young country with its first military victories since the Revolution.
Part of the reason that the United States finds itself fighting Arab terrorists is because the U.S. embraced ideas that were sprung from John Locke and the European Enlightenment, concepts that advance, endorse and support the notion that markets should be free, government should be limited, religion should be kept at an arm’s length (at least from the government), and that people are endowed with natural human rights, allowing them to live as they see fit, accepting any religion they find suitable, and selecting those who seek to govern them. In addition, the United States accepts the notion of tolerance, property rights and rule-of-law.
The acceptance of the ideas from Locke and the European Enlightenment, and the advancement of them, led the United States and its western Allies to become economically successful, tolerant of variety of people, and politically viable; these ideas stand in stark contrast to the beliefs of Arab jihadists, who are quick to blame others for all that ills their countries and their fellow believers.
That’s the word from Melvin E. Lee, a U.S. Navy captain based in Naples, Italy, where he serves as the special operations officer for the Sixth Fleet. He wrote this nearly 3,700 word article, “The Fallacy of Grievance-based Terrorism,” for the Middle East Quarterly, earlier this year.
Capt. Lee, who recently completed his master’s degree at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Penn., has written an outstanding article that is heavily sourced. He provides solid research, showing that a number of high-minded thinkers are coming to the same conclusion – Islam must embrace the ideas of John Locke and the European Enlightenment so its followers and its citizens no longer live in a ghetto; failure to accept these ideas and the Islamists will continue to resort to terrorism to resolve their problems. A former submarine commander, Capt. Lee provides a detailed account of U.S. actions in the Middle East for more than 200 years.
“Only Islam’s fundamental reform will resolve the conflict” between the United States and the terrorists, writes Lee.
In the interests of full disclosure, your correspondent knows Mel Lee. We went to college together and shared a suite in one of the residence halls. Lee, a double major in physics and chemistry, was (and, as far as I’m concerned, remains) the sharpest knife in the drawer. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he pursued his Ph.D. at the University of Arizona but cut short his studies to pursue his naval career.
Capt. Lee is an excellent Navy officer and I hope that one day he’s advising a president on national security. I’ll rest easier at night knowing he has the president’s ear on complicated and delicate issues.
Capt. Lee’s idea – that Islam needs to reform itself – has been accepted by other leading thinkers. Max Rodenback, the Middle East correspondent for The Economist, in reviewing the Brookings Institution’s Kenneth M. Pollack’s latest book, A Path Out Of The Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East, compliments Pollack for concluding that terrorism coming from Middle Eastern (Arab) states will not end until “they manage to produce better schools, more opportunities for youth, wider social justice and more inclusive, accountable government.”
Rodenback went on to say, in his New York Times review, that Pollack was quite right to admit that “George Bush showed unwonted acuity when he called for draining the swamps of extremism by promoting reform.”
This is a recipe for democracy.
You can find Capt. Lee’s article here: http://www.meforum.org/article/1830
Perhaps a Vice President Biden will recall the Betsy, the Maria and the Dauphin, American-owned merchant ships that were seized by Middle Eastern pirates, becoming the first victims in the war on terror – way back in the eighteenth century.
What, you say? The war on terror wasn’t created by President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the diabolical Donald Rumsfeld, the most evil man to ever occupy the defense secretary’s office?
No, the war against Arab terrorism is almost as old as the country itself, stemming back to the 1780s, when those three American merchant ships were hijacked and seized by Arabian pirates.
The “evildoers” back then were pirates from the Barbary sheikdoms of Morocco, Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli. American political leaders were so alarmed by these attacks that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, on diplomatic duty in Europe, were ordered to negotiate a peace treaty with the sheikdoms – or, as we would say today, find out how much of a bribe the United States needed to pay annually so U.S. ships would no longer be attacked.
George Washington, frustrated with seeing American merchant ships attacked, by both Arab pirates and European navy ships, proposed the construction of the U.S. Navy during the last year of his presidency. The first Navy ships that were built would, at President Jefferson’s direction, successfully attack the Barbary Pirates, providing the young country with its first military victories since the Revolution.
Part of the reason that the United States finds itself fighting Arab terrorists is because the U.S. embraced ideas that were sprung from John Locke and the European Enlightenment, concepts that advance, endorse and support the notion that markets should be free, government should be limited, religion should be kept at an arm’s length (at least from the government), and that people are endowed with natural human rights, allowing them to live as they see fit, accepting any religion they find suitable, and selecting those who seek to govern them. In addition, the United States accepts the notion of tolerance, property rights and rule-of-law.
The acceptance of the ideas from Locke and the European Enlightenment, and the advancement of them, led the United States and its western Allies to become economically successful, tolerant of variety of people, and politically viable; these ideas stand in stark contrast to the beliefs of Arab jihadists, who are quick to blame others for all that ills their countries and their fellow believers.
That’s the word from Melvin E. Lee, a U.S. Navy captain based in Naples, Italy, where he serves as the special operations officer for the Sixth Fleet. He wrote this nearly 3,700 word article, “The Fallacy of Grievance-based Terrorism,” for the Middle East Quarterly, earlier this year.
Capt. Lee, who recently completed his master’s degree at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Penn., has written an outstanding article that is heavily sourced. He provides solid research, showing that a number of high-minded thinkers are coming to the same conclusion – Islam must embrace the ideas of John Locke and the European Enlightenment so its followers and its citizens no longer live in a ghetto; failure to accept these ideas and the Islamists will continue to resort to terrorism to resolve their problems. A former submarine commander, Capt. Lee provides a detailed account of U.S. actions in the Middle East for more than 200 years.
“Only Islam’s fundamental reform will resolve the conflict” between the United States and the terrorists, writes Lee.
In the interests of full disclosure, your correspondent knows Mel Lee. We went to college together and shared a suite in one of the residence halls. Lee, a double major in physics and chemistry, was (and, as far as I’m concerned, remains) the sharpest knife in the drawer. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he pursued his Ph.D. at the University of Arizona but cut short his studies to pursue his naval career.
Capt. Lee is an excellent Navy officer and I hope that one day he’s advising a president on national security. I’ll rest easier at night knowing he has the president’s ear on complicated and delicate issues.
Capt. Lee’s idea – that Islam needs to reform itself – has been accepted by other leading thinkers. Max Rodenback, the Middle East correspondent for The Economist, in reviewing the Brookings Institution’s Kenneth M. Pollack’s latest book, A Path Out Of The Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East, compliments Pollack for concluding that terrorism coming from Middle Eastern (Arab) states will not end until “they manage to produce better schools, more opportunities for youth, wider social justice and more inclusive, accountable government.”
Rodenback went on to say, in his New York Times review, that Pollack was quite right to admit that “George Bush showed unwonted acuity when he called for draining the swamps of extremism by promoting reform.”
This is a recipe for democracy.
You can find Capt. Lee’s article here: http://www.meforum.org/article/1830
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Coffee, Tea or Me: One Airline's Answer to Profitability
Combined Wire Services
CHICAGO – So they’ll have the money to serve Starbucks Coffee to their passengers once again, United Airlines announced Tuesday that newly minted prostitutes will replace its aging fleet of flight attendants.
“If this doesn’t work, I give up,” said Glenn Tilton, the airline’s chief executive officer, as he announced the changes at the Chicago-based carrier.
This latest policy comes on the heels of charging passengers for checked luggage, which was announced earlier this year.
“Our customers have been beating me up about the loss of Starbucks,” Tilton said. “This is the only way I know how to get the money we need to bring back this premium item: Start selling an additional service – which people will buy.”
United plans to replace two rows of seats in the coach class section of its planes with what’s described as “comfort rooms,” where the carrier’s prostitutes and passengers will be able to engage in private, intimate activity, Tilton said.
“Of course, we’ll need to swipe a passenger’s credit card for $500 before anything happens,” he said. “But it’ll be the best lay … I mean 15-minute, intimate experience … our customers will ever receive."
The prostitutes, fresh off the streets of Amsterdam and other cities across the globe, will start working for the airline during the end-of-year holiday season.
“You could call it our way of making the Friendly Skies friendlier at United,” Tilton said. “Not only will our passengers arrive at their destination safely and on-time but, if they so choose, with a big smile on their face – and maybe with a Starbucks latte in hand, too.”
The airline’s customers will be able to reserve a prostitute when they buy a ticket on the carrier’s Web site. Passengers waiting to pick up a prostitute after they’ve boarded will be charged a 20 percent premium, or $600, for their 15-minute, intimate encounter.
The carrier’s flight attendants are expected to be replaced by December. Tilton said the “comfort rooms” should be completed on all of United’s planes at the same time.
Tilton said the airline will be able to accommodate a variety of sexual tastes and preferences.
“Our prostitutes will come in all shapes, sizes and genders,” Tilton said. “We’ll have male prostitutes, female prostitutes, even transgendered ones, too, so we can successfully service all of our customers – regardless of their sexual orientation.
“These prostitutes will also do all jobs our customers have come to expect from our current fleet of excellent flight attendants.”
Asked if the airline’s prostitutes will engage in sexual activities that might be considered unconventional, Tilton said, “We’ve formed a task force to uncover this issue and make recommendations for accommodating a variety of sexual requests that might be considered, uh, unusual.
“Condoms must be used at all times,” he added.
In addition, Tilton announced that United will create a new customer loyalty program, called the Mile High Club, allowing passengers to accumulate miles on their Mile High Club card as they buy the prostitutes.
United expects revenue from the prostitutes to generate 20 – 30 percent of the carrier’s total annual revenue, or an additional $4 and $6 billion a year.
“With money like that, we’ll be able to serve Starbucks again,” said Tilton. “It’ll be free, too, just like the soft drinks, and we’ll be profitable.”
Wall Street applauded the new policy, taking up the company’s stock (symbol UAUA) five points to close at $17.30.
“I’m going long on United because this is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking we’ve been waiting for from them,” said Morningstar financial analyst Brian Nelson. “It’s fantastic! They’re a leader in their industry.”
Calls placed to American Airlines, Delta and Southwest Airlines were not returned but financial analysts following the airline industry expect United’s competitors to offer similar services.
The Association of Flight Attendants, the union representing United’s fight attendants, is expected to hold a news conference on Wednesday to discuss the airline’s pending changes.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Senator Edwards Explains America and Sex
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, once his party’s vice presidential nominee, used his presidential campaign theme on Saturday to explain his recent exploits, saying there are some Americans who are committed to sexually monogamous marriages while there are other married Americans like himself “who fuck around.”
“Unfortunately, I got caught,” said the former North Carolina Democrat, admitting to having engaged in a sexual liaison with a California movie maker.
The former Senator is the second prominent Democrat this year to admit to having sex outside of his marriage. Eliot Spitzer, never accused of having a libido, resigned from the New York’s governor’s office in March because of the sexual services he purchased from a prostitute.
“There are two Americas,” former Senator Edwards said. “There are married Americans who are committed to remaining sexually monogamous in their marriage and then there is another America, consisting of married men and women, who, like me, fuck around on their spouse.”
Asked if there was any comparison to the former New York Governor, Edwards said, “There are two Americas. There’s the one that pays for sex and then there’s other that gets it for free – kinda like me.”
The former Senator’s wife, Elizabeth, battling cancer, refused to issue any comment about the affair.
“There are two kinds of wives,” Edwards said. “There’s the kind of wife who puts out and who, by doing so, keeps her man safe at home, and then there’s the kind of wife who engages in risky behavior and refuses to have sex with her husband.
“She’s the one who loses her man,” Edwards said.
“We don’t really know what a ‘sexual liaison’ is,” said a man who’s no stranger to dalliances outside of his marriage, former President Bill Clinton. “He (Edwards) coulda just received a hummer and, according to the Constitution, that’s not really sex.”
“Less than one percent of all American women have had sex with me,” said Edwards. “I plan to get back out on the campaign trail to give more American women the opportunity to have sex with me.”
Asked if there was anything in particular he was looking for in a potential sexual partner, Senator Edwards, smiling, said, “As long as it’s a woman who’s over 21 – and she’s not a complete double bagger – I’m in.”
“Unfortunately, I got caught,” said the former North Carolina Democrat, admitting to having engaged in a sexual liaison with a California movie maker.
The former Senator is the second prominent Democrat this year to admit to having sex outside of his marriage. Eliot Spitzer, never accused of having a libido, resigned from the New York’s governor’s office in March because of the sexual services he purchased from a prostitute.
“There are two Americas,” former Senator Edwards said. “There are married Americans who are committed to remaining sexually monogamous in their marriage and then there is another America, consisting of married men and women, who, like me, fuck around on their spouse.”
Asked if there was any comparison to the former New York Governor, Edwards said, “There are two Americas. There’s the one that pays for sex and then there’s other that gets it for free – kinda like me.”
The former Senator’s wife, Elizabeth, battling cancer, refused to issue any comment about the affair.
“There are two kinds of wives,” Edwards said. “There’s the kind of wife who puts out and who, by doing so, keeps her man safe at home, and then there’s the kind of wife who engages in risky behavior and refuses to have sex with her husband.
“She’s the one who loses her man,” Edwards said.
“We don’t really know what a ‘sexual liaison’ is,” said a man who’s no stranger to dalliances outside of his marriage, former President Bill Clinton. “He (Edwards) coulda just received a hummer and, according to the Constitution, that’s not really sex.”
“Less than one percent of all American women have had sex with me,” said Edwards. “I plan to get back out on the campaign trail to give more American women the opportunity to have sex with me.”
Asked if there was anything in particular he was looking for in a potential sexual partner, Senator Edwards, smiling, said, “As long as it’s a woman who’s over 21 – and she’s not a complete double bagger – I’m in.”
Monday, May 05, 2008
New Social Networking Site -- Funded & Thriving
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – The newest social networking website comes with a whole new twist: Instead of encouraging its members to connect with friends and professional acquaintances, this one wants its members to list their enemies.
FuckYouIHateYou.com, funded by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Alliance Capital, claims more than 10,000 members and another 1,000,000 enemies.
“Unlike your average LinkedIn member, our members aren’t full of shit,” said James Lee, the 24-year-old website's chief executive.
“The average member of our site has around 100 enemies and they hate each and every one of them – with a passion,” Lee added.
“Let’s face it, no one who connects with someone on LinkedIn or any of those other social sites really wants to be someone’s friend. It’s just a place for frenemies to meet.
“Our members are honest," he continued. "If they say they hate you, they really hate you."
Lee, who started FuckYouIHateYou.com during his freshman year at Stanford University, says that members of his site just list their enemies.
“There’s none of this b.s. like asking for permission to be someone’s enemy. Our members just list them -- done deal!”
Members can view one another’s enemy list, he said, to make sure they’re hating “the right people.”
“If you and another member have someone you hate in common, that’s even better,” said Lee.
When told that his site sounded like another version of President Richard Nixon’s enemy list, Lee, looking confused, asked, “When was he president?”
Members of FuckYouIHateYou.com are encouraged to increase their enemies list as fast as possible.
“The member who lists the most enemies any given week can win prizes, trips, even a car,” said FuckYouIHateYou.com’s membership vice president Toby Benwick.
The perfect people to list as enemies, Lee said, include “anyone who ever dissed you or anyone you refer to as an ‘ex’. That could be an ex-girlfriend, ex-wife, ex-husband, ex-boyfriend, ex-lover, ex-employee. Ex-bosses are always good, too."
Members are encouraged to post pictures and video clips of the people they hate.
“Our staff always does a round of high fives if a member’s enemy dies,” said Benwick. “That’s just the coolest.”
Membership to the website is free. Advertisers on the website include divorce attorneys and various hate groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. Not to be outdone, the Nation of Islam is considering what Benwick describes as a “huge” sponsorship opportunity on the site as are the country's leading political parties.
Benwick said some of the site’s members and their selected enemies are scheduled to make special appearances on daytime television talk shows.
“We look forward to our first smack down with the FuckYouIHateYou.com people,” said Jerry Springer.
Friday, April 18, 2008
The Illinois Earthquake
Unless you’ve cut yourself from all media – not always a bad idea – you likely heard that there was an earthquake in Illinois, a truly shocking event because they’re considered California-only tragedies.
Chicago television and radio stations started reporting the news about the earthquake – it happened at 4:37 am – within 30 minutes of the tremor. It measured about 5.2 on the Richter scale and was centered around 250 miles south of the Windy City.
The experts have been predicting an earthquake for years in Illinois, but they always figured it would involve the New Madrid Fault, one of the more dangerous fault lines in the country that stretches from Indianapolis to St. Louis to Memphis.
Today’s earthquake, reported the Chicago Tribune, happened “occurred in the Ozark dome region.
Not that any of this matters. The only time this information will mean anything to anyone will be when or if there’s an earthquake that’s sizably larger, say around an 8 on the Richter Scale, that brings down skyscrapers in cities like Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis or Memphis. Until that time, today’s tremor – enough to wake up some people but not cause an incredible amount of damage – will soon be forgotten.
What was interesting about all the television reports this morning, at 5 am, was how many people felt compelled to call in and talk to the anchors. One lady mentioned that she originally thought her husband was turning over in bed when she felt the earthquake. How much does this guy weigh?
For a number of women, married, single, divorced, separated, etc., I’m guessing this is the first time they felt the earth move in a long, long time.
This could be a major sales opportunity for the marital aide companies.
Chicago television and radio stations started reporting the news about the earthquake – it happened at 4:37 am – within 30 minutes of the tremor. It measured about 5.2 on the Richter scale and was centered around 250 miles south of the Windy City.
The experts have been predicting an earthquake for years in Illinois, but they always figured it would involve the New Madrid Fault, one of the more dangerous fault lines in the country that stretches from Indianapolis to St. Louis to Memphis.
Today’s earthquake, reported the Chicago Tribune, happened “occurred in the Ozark dome region.
Not that any of this matters. The only time this information will mean anything to anyone will be when or if there’s an earthquake that’s sizably larger, say around an 8 on the Richter Scale, that brings down skyscrapers in cities like Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis or Memphis. Until that time, today’s tremor – enough to wake up some people but not cause an incredible amount of damage – will soon be forgotten.
What was interesting about all the television reports this morning, at 5 am, was how many people felt compelled to call in and talk to the anchors. One lady mentioned that she originally thought her husband was turning over in bed when she felt the earthquake. How much does this guy weigh?
For a number of women, married, single, divorced, separated, etc., I’m guessing this is the first time they felt the earth move in a long, long time.
This could be a major sales opportunity for the marital aide companies.
Friday, March 21, 2008
The Vicar of Baghdad
Editor's Note: I've met Canon Andrew White during his visits to Glen Ellyn's St. Mark's Episcopal Church. He's better known as the vicar of Baghdad, the only Anglican priest still working in the city. The words below are his and were printed in The Times of London on Monday, March 17.
"Five years ago today I had real hope that things would soon change in the nation of Iraq, after years of tyranny, dictatorship and suffering. Unlike any other non Iraqis I meet now in Iraq, I had been here before the war. I had experienced the fear and tyranny of the Saddam regime and I openly said we needed force to bring change. I knew that this could not be done by the Iraqi people. I feared what would happen to the people I loved during the days of the war. I was full of joy when the war finished so soon and I quickly returned to the nation I loved. On returning I found a sense of liberation, joy and freedom. There was a joy I had never seen before. Chaos was certainly there but we hoped it would soon cease. I will never forget the words of the top British General telling me to leave my return for a couple of weeks because 'security should then be sorted out'. Five years later it has still not been sorted.
"It is impossible to really describe what it is like here in Baghdad. I live in the fortified International Zone but even here I am surrounded by my bodyguards at all times and we can't move without carrying the right pieces of plastic ID around our necks. When we do move we can't move more than five miles an hour, have to stop every few yards a different security barriers and when we get to them the colour of your piece of plastic dictates how quickly you will be allowed through. All very intense, but it does not compare to my regular trips to St George's Church.
"This journey begins at the home of the Iraqi National Security Advisor. I am driven into the security compound by my bodyguards and transferred to the care of the Iraqi Army. With body armour on, I take my seat in an armoured car with blackened windows. Other military vehicles surround us and slowly we drive through the IZ stopping at it countless checkpoints. Eventually we leave the IZ and are met by an array of Iraqi police cars and further military vehicles. The sirens go on, guns are pointed out of the windows of all the vehicles and we speed down the road. If we meet a traffic jam, the other cars are yelled at through loud speakers and they try and make way. If that does not work our whole convoy just moves to the other side of the road, and moves the wrong way quickly down the road. At every crossroad, the police have stopped all other traffic. We come to the road where the church is- the road is closed off. We speed to the Church and drive into the grounds. The army run to surround the church, others check that it is safe and I am eventually allowed out of the car to be met by scores of our children.
"With the army remaining inside and outside we begin our worship. My mind goes back to the days before the war. There was none of this kind of security, and there was no congregation at our Church, why because it was Anglican. Commonly it is still known as the English Church. Our congregation is large, our worship wonderful but I only need to look at our people to realise what has really happened here following the war. We only have six men in our congregation of several hundred, the rest have been killed. Many of even the young women wear black as they are still mourning the loss of their husbands. Scores of people have been kidnapped, even this year. So from the pulpit every week I see the effect of war on these people. It is impossible for us to forget the tragedy outside. We hear the guns shooting and the bombs blasting and we simply continue worshipping. After the service food is provided for the whole congregation- we alternate; one week it is food the next week money. If we do not give, they do not have. The cost of this provision is colossal and it is primarily provided by Churches in England. Every week thanks go out to those who enable our people to live.
"So we can not forget the tragedy now, it is all around. I cannot forget the Iraq before the war, and the fear and oppression that were experienced everyday. I can not forget either the mistakes made after the war. The continual lack of engagement with the religious community and the continued belief that the secular position of Iraq would supersede was dangerous and naïve.
"Despite the many mistakes that have been made I still do not regret that the war happened. I regret deeply what happened after the war. I take hope from the work of the Multi National Forces in Iraq, not least the US and UK troops; they are doing an outstanding job. I also take hope from the way that the Iraqi Army is developing, and from the work of Dr. Mowaffak Al Rubbaie, Iraq's National Security Advisor, and General Dave Petraeus the Chief US Military Officer.
"Reconciliation is certainly needed here. It is at the very heart of our hopes in the rebuilding process. It is a process that must involve both the political and religious leaders. To this end we are met in Copenhagen from 18th February with the religious and political leaders of Iraq to try and find a way forward and to work together on this very point. It has taken months to get this meeting together but with the support of the Danish Government it did happen. We wait to see its results. Last week we met in Cairo with Sunni and Shia religious leaders, including the deputy of Muqtada Al Sadr and the representative of Ayotollah Ali Sistani. Top Sunni Clerics were also there. A total rejection of all violence was pronounced. It was a major achievement. This week a major reconciliation conference organized by the Iraqi Government is taking place. It is between political groups but key representatives have not shown up. The reality is that in our meeting last week in Cairo we had far more groups represented and it was paid for by the Pentagon. Reconciliation is the only answer. We still have a very long way to go but we can't give up.
"It can not be denied that the last five years here have been terrible. That all around we see such devastation. All I can say is that we cannot and must not give up our efforts to rebuild this once great nation. It is so hard, there are many days when we just wonder how more difficult it can get, but we have a big God on our side and we know that with His help we will succeed."
"Five years ago today I had real hope that things would soon change in the nation of Iraq, after years of tyranny, dictatorship and suffering. Unlike any other non Iraqis I meet now in Iraq, I had been here before the war. I had experienced the fear and tyranny of the Saddam regime and I openly said we needed force to bring change. I knew that this could not be done by the Iraqi people. I feared what would happen to the people I loved during the days of the war. I was full of joy when the war finished so soon and I quickly returned to the nation I loved. On returning I found a sense of liberation, joy and freedom. There was a joy I had never seen before. Chaos was certainly there but we hoped it would soon cease. I will never forget the words of the top British General telling me to leave my return for a couple of weeks because 'security should then be sorted out'. Five years later it has still not been sorted.
"It is impossible to really describe what it is like here in Baghdad. I live in the fortified International Zone but even here I am surrounded by my bodyguards at all times and we can't move without carrying the right pieces of plastic ID around our necks. When we do move we can't move more than five miles an hour, have to stop every few yards a different security barriers and when we get to them the colour of your piece of plastic dictates how quickly you will be allowed through. All very intense, but it does not compare to my regular trips to St George's Church.
"This journey begins at the home of the Iraqi National Security Advisor. I am driven into the security compound by my bodyguards and transferred to the care of the Iraqi Army. With body armour on, I take my seat in an armoured car with blackened windows. Other military vehicles surround us and slowly we drive through the IZ stopping at it countless checkpoints. Eventually we leave the IZ and are met by an array of Iraqi police cars and further military vehicles. The sirens go on, guns are pointed out of the windows of all the vehicles and we speed down the road. If we meet a traffic jam, the other cars are yelled at through loud speakers and they try and make way. If that does not work our whole convoy just moves to the other side of the road, and moves the wrong way quickly down the road. At every crossroad, the police have stopped all other traffic. We come to the road where the church is- the road is closed off. We speed to the Church and drive into the grounds. The army run to surround the church, others check that it is safe and I am eventually allowed out of the car to be met by scores of our children.
"With the army remaining inside and outside we begin our worship. My mind goes back to the days before the war. There was none of this kind of security, and there was no congregation at our Church, why because it was Anglican. Commonly it is still known as the English Church. Our congregation is large, our worship wonderful but I only need to look at our people to realise what has really happened here following the war. We only have six men in our congregation of several hundred, the rest have been killed. Many of even the young women wear black as they are still mourning the loss of their husbands. Scores of people have been kidnapped, even this year. So from the pulpit every week I see the effect of war on these people. It is impossible for us to forget the tragedy outside. We hear the guns shooting and the bombs blasting and we simply continue worshipping. After the service food is provided for the whole congregation- we alternate; one week it is food the next week money. If we do not give, they do not have. The cost of this provision is colossal and it is primarily provided by Churches in England. Every week thanks go out to those who enable our people to live.
"So we can not forget the tragedy now, it is all around. I cannot forget the Iraq before the war, and the fear and oppression that were experienced everyday. I can not forget either the mistakes made after the war. The continual lack of engagement with the religious community and the continued belief that the secular position of Iraq would supersede was dangerous and naïve.
"Despite the many mistakes that have been made I still do not regret that the war happened. I regret deeply what happened after the war. I take hope from the work of the Multi National Forces in Iraq, not least the US and UK troops; they are doing an outstanding job. I also take hope from the way that the Iraqi Army is developing, and from the work of Dr. Mowaffak Al Rubbaie, Iraq's National Security Advisor, and General Dave Petraeus the Chief US Military Officer.
"Reconciliation is certainly needed here. It is at the very heart of our hopes in the rebuilding process. It is a process that must involve both the political and religious leaders. To this end we are met in Copenhagen from 18th February with the religious and political leaders of Iraq to try and find a way forward and to work together on this very point. It has taken months to get this meeting together but with the support of the Danish Government it did happen. We wait to see its results. Last week we met in Cairo with Sunni and Shia religious leaders, including the deputy of Muqtada Al Sadr and the representative of Ayotollah Ali Sistani. Top Sunni Clerics were also there. A total rejection of all violence was pronounced. It was a major achievement. This week a major reconciliation conference organized by the Iraqi Government is taking place. It is between political groups but key representatives have not shown up. The reality is that in our meeting last week in Cairo we had far more groups represented and it was paid for by the Pentagon. Reconciliation is the only answer. We still have a very long way to go but we can't give up.
"It can not be denied that the last five years here have been terrible. That all around we see such devastation. All I can say is that we cannot and must not give up our efforts to rebuild this once great nation. It is so hard, there are many days when we just wonder how more difficult it can get, but we have a big God on our side and we know that with His help we will succeed."
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