Why Government can’t run a business ... The Postal Service vs (gulp) The NY Times

The United States Postal Service has spread the alarms.  It has run through a $12 billion federal loan that has kept itself afloat for the past two years and it is now looking for a bailout.  It cites declining revenues because of the internet, the inordinate cost of its pension program and the inability to control labor costs because of no-layoff provisions in its union contracts. It wants to cut service to 5 days a week, possibly more and it is planning to slow the delivery of first class mail.  It has talked about reductions in force of 120,000, but that is probably more of a scare tactic to pressure Congress into approving emergency funding and granting relief on pension obligations.

 

The plight of the Post Office and how it is handling its fate stands in stark contrast to that of another private sector group – the newspaper industry.  Both are suffering from the effects of internet competition.  Both deliver product daily.  Both are unionized.  Both prefund their pension plans.  And both are declining industries.  Yet, by and large, newspapers and newspaper groups have kept their heads above water, the Post Office has not.  And newspapers have succeeded with far greater rates of revenue declines.

Part of the reason for newspapers resiliency is they have their backs against the wall.   They have to solve their own problems.  Going to the government trough for a bailout is not an option.  It would forever compromise their integrity and believability.

I picked the New York Times as an example, not because it is my favorite paper, it is not.  But it is representative of the newspaper industry.  It has no broadcast subsidiaries and virtually all its revenue is from newspaper circulation, advertising and more recently internet ads and fees.  But the decline in revenue at the Postal Service is nowhere near that of the Times.  In the past 5 years, the loss of revenue at the Times has been triple that of the USPS (almost 27%, as opposed to 8% ).  Even looking at the 2008 – 2010 year comparison (peak revenue for USPS was 2008) the Times revenues losses were more than double the Postal Service (22.9% vs. 10.5%).

Despite this adversity, the Times is profitable (by a smidgen) and the USPS is facing an $8.3 billion loss.  Interestingly, the Times lost money in 2006 and has actually improved its performance.  In the same year USPS was well in the black (by its accounting procedures) and is now threatened with insolvency.

Now, why has the Times shown success and the Postal Service not?  The Times as most other newspapers has taken aggressive action to control costs.  It has reduced force and renegotiated labor contracts.  It has sold its broadcasting operations to bolster its cash position.  It has outsourced its newsstand sales and bought out its employees to do so.  But most of all it has been facing reality.  Contrast that to the USPS which recently negotiated its labor contracts with raises it can’t pay.  It has lobbied Congress for relief and in general has simply ignored the problem.  And it has dug itself into a hole.

The whole mess is an example of the inability of government run enterprises to adapt rapidly to threats.  The meddling of Congress is one reason.  They refused to approve a rate increase last year the Rate Commission requested.  They prefer wasteful Post Offices where they should be either be replaced with private contract operations or simply shut down.  They must get out of the way.  The example of what the NY Times has accomplished should be used as a model for mail delivery.  Nothing should be sacred, be it privatizing major delivery functions, hiring consultants to eliminate inefficiencies, and most of all getting out of the mode of government workplace comfort.  Newspapers are reacting to the threat of extinction and making progress.  The Postal Service looks for largesse, our largesse.

New management with backbone is the only answer.

“When you’ve lost the New York Times …”

Sunday’s NY Times opens a subject being whispered in the halls of Democratic power.  Will a second run by a severely weakened President Obama destroy the party as it did for the 12 years following Jimmy Carter’s loss to Ronald Reagan?  Is the war of 2008 now lost?  Blame is put on his lack of resolve for liberal ideas, namely killing the EPA’s new ozone dictates, his lack of aggressiveness and of course the economy. 

In English spoken west of the Hudson, it’s called panic. 

Democrats are expressing growing alarm about President Obama’s re-election prospects and, in interviews, are openly acknowledging anxiety about the White House’s ability to strengthen the president’s standing over the next 14 months.

Elected officials and party leaders at all levels said their worries have intensified as the economy has displayed new signs of weakness. They said the likelihood of a highly competitive 2012 race is increasing as the Republican field, once dismissed by many Democrats as too inexperienced and conservative to pose a serious threat, has started narrowing to two leading candidates, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, who have executive experience and messages built around job creation.

Democrats have been deluding themselves in the past nine months that the massive losses they took in 2010 were just a fluke.  The race for Weiner’s Brooklyn/Queens seat is proving them wrong.  There, the central issue is Obama himself because of his treatment of Israel. Polls are now trending to the Republican candidate, and even if the Democrat manages to hold it, it would be a humbling win. The district is a 2 to 1 Democratic and heavily Jewish, one that would normally go at least 60/40 in their favor.  Democrats are very vulnerable especially in the Senate next year, where 23 seats they own or control are up for grabs, versus 10 for Republicans. 

While the Times bemoans the threat Obama presents to the party next year, it doesn’t say how to get to there from here.  That is, who tells Obama he should step aside?  Bill Clinton?  No way, with the presumptive candidate his wife.  Jimmy Carter?  Give me a break!  For good or bad, Democrats will have to stick with their man.   

Republicans could create a little mischief if they wanted.  And that would be to convince either Rasmussen or Gallup to do public polling of Democrats to see who would be the best nominee, Hillary or Obama.   And keep doing it each month.

Now that would cause ruckus!

Is Maureen Dowd turning conservative?

In her op-ed piece today, entitled Captain Obvious Learns the Limits of Cool, Maureen Dowd simply eviscerates President Obama for his cluelessness in handling the panty bomber fiasco.

Here’s how it starts: Our president came down from the mountaintop.

He had applied the freshness of his independent thought to the critical matters at hand. He had convened his seminar, reviewed the reviews, analyzed the intelligence every which way, thought anew about everything, and lo and behold, he finally emerged to tell us some stuff we already knew. We are under attack. There is evil in the world. Yemen is a dangerous place that breeds people who want to kill us. Al Qaeda is determined to attack inside the United States. Al Qaeda is casting a wide recruiting net for vulnerable young men. Aspirational terrorists eventually become operational terrorists. Our airports are not safe. Metal detectors can’t detect nonmetal explosives sewn into underwear. Our incomplete no-fly lists are more like “Welcome aboard” lists. We still can’t connect the dots, even when the dots are flying at us like 3-D asteroids. The sun rises in the east. Two plus two equals four.

 Is this an epiphany on the order of St. Paul on the road to Damascus? Let’s take a look at the past two weeks. On December 27 she wrote of her Christmas Eve with her conservative brother. His thoughts were the dominant theme of her article. Were they perhaps hers also? Then three days later she let loose on Obama in a piece entitled: As the Nation’s Pulse Races, Obama Can’t Seem to Find His.

Or could it be the she started following the candidacy of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts’ special election? Perhaps she caught a glimpse of his photo in the centerfold of Cosmo magazine. Perhaps she is tired of whiney liberal beta males, and wants a shot at this alpha male.

Whatever the reason Maureen, we welcome your newfound perspective.

NY Times stoops to new low … lobbied unnamed journalistic prize committee against awards to WSJ

This incredible revelation came to light in a letter Monday from Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thompson to a number of news organizations. It was a response to a NY Times article by David Carr entitled “Under Murdoch, Tilting Rightward at the Journal.”

Carr's somewhat snarky article accused the Journal of tainting its reputation as “one of the crown jewels of journalism” into a more mundane conservative newspaper and that it was assuming a pro-business, anti government stance. The Times accusing the Journal of sullying its reputation with biased journalism??? What chutzpah! The Journal’s response was quoted in Editor and Publisher which was a recipient of the letter.

It contained the incendiary allegation that Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times lobbied against the Journal’s “journalists and journalism” with a prize committee. 

"The news column by a Mr David Carr today is yet more evidence that The New York Times is uncomfortable about the rise of an increasingly successful rival while its own circulation and credibility are in retreat. The usual practice of quoting ex-employees was supplemented by a succession of anonymous quotes and unsubstantiated assertions. The attack follows the extraordinary actions of Mr Bill Keller, the Executive Editor, who, among other things, last year wrote personally and at length to a prize committee casting aspersions on Journal journalists and journalism. Whether it be in the quest for prizes or in the disparagement of competitors, principle is but a bystander at The New York Times."

What’s behind this? Probably more than the increased competition between the two papers. The Times’ decision whether to run a story or not has very often been followed by the rest of the media, especially when it involves something detrimental to Democrats. Whether this comes from “like mindedness” or persuasion is subject to debate. My feelings are it comes from both and the latter is almost surely present much of the time.

The Times leadership is now being challenged by the Journal. They are publishing “no go” stories the Times and others are holding back on. The recent ClimateGate coverage is an example. The Journal did not follow the Times’ lead. It covered the story and covered it well.

Amazing! From the NY Times … a positive review of Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue

Stanley Fish in his NY Times blog Opinionator reviews Sarah Palin’s book Going Rogue. It is a very satisfying analysis for those who admire her, of which I am one. But it is totally out of character for the Times. Read it. It finishes with these words:

But run she does (and falls, but so what?), and when it is all over and she has lost the vice presidency and resigned the governorship, she goes on a long run and rehearses in her mind the eventful year she has chronicled. And as she runs, she achieves equilibrium and hope: “We’ve been through amazing days, and really, there wasn’t one thing to complain about. I feel such freedom, such hope, such thankfulness for our country, a place where nothing is hopeless.” The message is clear. America can’t be stopped. I can’t be stopped. I’ve stumbled and fallen, but I always get up and run again. Her political opponents, especially those who dismissed Ronald Reagan before he was elected, should take note. Wherever you are, you better watch out. Sarah Palin is coming to town.

The comments are in many ways more interesting read than the review itself. They paint a picture of total intolerance from the left for any reasonable discussion of Sarah Palin. They attack the messenger and spout talking points a year’s worth of biased drivel they have read in the Times. It’s a revealing look at the mindset of the Time’s readers. Here are some:

Mr. Fish, you do realize that as an educated and thoughtful person you would not be welcomed in Sarah Palin's Republican party? Scalia, Roberts, Atillo, [sic] Reagan etc would also be unwelcome. When you sleep with the dogs the GOP has the last few decades you are going to pick up the fleas. Mr. Fish is one of the most stupid smart people ever to take a pen to paper. For those that don't know this piece forms part of Fish's new monograph "Surprised by Simpleton," wherein an "authentic" voice leads her unwitting audience's to support blithe ignorance and cheery demagoguery. This column is disgusting for many reasons. Here’s one: We just endured eight disastrous years of an ignorant, unqualified lightweight as president. As a result of The Decider’s abysmal job performance, hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives and millions lost their life savings. Now Sarah Palin aspires to become the leader of the free world, and Stanley Fish has written a love note to her in the New York Times. Do you have any sense of responsibility, Dr. Fish? I have absolutely no respect left for you. i'm really surprised to read a deconstructionist former professor of literature opine confidently about what an author actually "believes". isn't it obvious that sarah palin believes most in her own entitlement?

On the other hand there are a few supporters.

What an amazing article to find published in the NYT. An article about Sarah Palin that actually avoids descending into the sexist vile and misogynist hate that one has come to expect as de rigueur in any piece about Sarah Palin in the NYT. As much as Palin has made some decisions and statements that irk and bewilder me, she also has gotten a patently unfair treatment from the media who pounced upon her as soon as they heard a utterly false allegation about her family going on a high-priced clothing shopping spree. As far as I know, no reporter has yet apologized for completely failing to fact check the allegation, and it was only a year or more after the event, as Palin's book was readying for release, that the stylist who had done all of the shopping on the RNC tab without much RNC oversight and with no knowledge of the Palin's fessed up to the real story. A good reporter could have dismissed the rumor with three or four phone calls, but none bothered to do so, and instead launched into maligning Palin every chance they got. And it worked. Palin quickly became laughingstock among all liberals. So it's nice to hear a fair treatment of Palin in the media, even if in a blog, or at least one that openly admits the biases against her and tries to judge her outside of those tired political tropes. This isn't to say that Palin's own political tropes are better, but the bulk of the media judging Palin's every move through the same colored lens is a gross miscarriage of journalistic integrity.

 One thing to note, this is a blog and did not appear on the sacrosanct print pages of the Times. But it still has the leftists screaming.

NY Times is finally forced to write a substantive but incomplete and biased story on ClimateGate

The “temporary” step down of Phil Jones finally forced the NY Times to do some print coverage of the scandal. Missing from the story are any quotes from the incendiary emails and very little about reaction of other scientists over this growing scandal.

Phil Jones, the director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England, said that he would leave his post while the university conducted a review of the release of the e-mail messages. The university has called the release and publication of the messages a “criminal breach” of the school’s computer systems. The e-mail exchanges among several prominent American and British climate-change scientists appear to reveal efforts to keep the work of skeptical scientists out of major journals and the possible hoarding and manipulation of data to overstate the case for human-caused climate change.

The Times’ emphasis on the criminal aspect of the email release is more than somewhat laughable in light of some of its rather questionable publication of highly classified comint information. But the important point here is the Times has simply played the same old game of attempting to suppress an unpalatable story that has been burning up the internet. It is a repetition of the Giles/O’Keefe/Breitbart story on ACORN. They tried to make that one look like they were caught napping, but the world knows it was more to keep the story from “getting legs.”

The Times and its Public Editor Clark Hoyt are easy targets because they keep doing the same thing and keep getting caught at it. I wrote Clark twice on ClimateGate, once Saturday evening and the other yesterday shortly after the Phil Jones step down was announced. This from 11/28/2009:

It has been 10 days since the “hacked” … emails made it into the public domain and in that time the NY Times has reported on it only once in print…. And its conclusion was that it was no great shakes…. Since then the internet has been burning up with analyses from highly respected statistical experts whose writings paint a widespread and extremely damaging picture of data manipulation. This is in addition to playing games with the peer review process and suppressing free access to source data as well as violating the FOI acts in both the US and the UK. 

So serious is the breach of integrity, green activist writer for the Guardian, George Monbiot, has called for the resignation of Dr Philip Jones (CRU’s director). Dr. Eduardo Zorita (a prominent climate scientist at Hamburg’s GKSS) has called for Drs Mann (of the now discredited hockey stick thesis) and Jones to be barred from any further participation with the UN’s IPCC.

Today the University of East Anglia (home of the CRU) has ordered the release of all climate source data into the public domain. After your paper was admittedly “slow off the mark” in reporting the ACORN scandals in September, your editors promised you would have an editor keep track of the hot stories on the internet. So far he or she is doing a terrible job. …You will not be the newspaper of record on this story, just as you weren’t when you ignored so many others. The UK’s Telegraph is where students of history will go for the CRU story, sadly not the NY Times.

And this from yesterday:

I wrote you earlier that the Times is certainly not the "Newspaper of Record" on the ClimateGate issue. Again you are "slow off the mark" and lacking "tunedinness." What happened to your internet monitoring editor? The above story passed over the AP wire a short time ago. It's the same as if Einstein were stepping down pending an investigation of his work. It is earth shaking, especially on the eve of the Copenhagen conference. Again the Times is well behind the curve on this story. While you tried to marginalize the AGW critics, your editors only succeeded in marginalizing themselves. Good luck explaining this away in next Sunday's column. (Emphasis added)

Clark Hoyt should stop being an apologist for the Times. He should man up and do what a readers’ representative should. Criticize the editors in no uncertain terms for failing to report the news. Don’t ask them for their rationale for not covering the story, go to Jay Rosen or some other impartial media critic for their opinion. But he won’t do that. Hoyt is only there as window dressing.

Nature abhors a vacuum … that’s what we are getting from the media on ClimateGate

After its miserable failure to cover the O’Keefe/Giles expose of ACORN, the MSM is striving for a repeat performance in ClimateGate with near silence. This is a story of “hacked” emails from the Hadley Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in the UK that were made public about 12 days ago. It is a story of the top climate research scientists cooking the data, queering the peer review process and encouraging each other to destroy data covered by two nations’ Freedom of Information Acts.

Coverage by the nation’s two “leading” newspapers has been underwhelming. A total of three print articles have been written in the NY Times and Washington Post. All three ignore or minimize the underlying corruption of the scientific method, find the most significant aspect is that CRU scientists are antagonistic to skeptics, and reach the same conclusion (in strikingly similar wording - note bold text) that it’s no big deal.

From the Times (11/21):

“This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents. Some of the correspondence portrays the scientists as feeling under siege by the skeptics’ camp and worried that any stray comment or data glitch could be turned against them. The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument.

 First article from the Post (11/22): While few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world's climate -- nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal -- public debate persists. And the newly disclosed private exchanges among climate scientists at Britain's Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies. The second Post article (11/25) reaches a similar conclusion as the Times. "This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud," proclaimed one skeptic. Not quite. Assuming the documents are genuine -- the authenticity of all has not been confirmed -- critics are taking them out of context and misinterpreting at least one controversial e-mail exchange. None of it seriously undercuts the scientific consensus on climate change. But a few of the documents are damaging for other reasons.

 Fortunately we have the internet, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and several UK newspapers that aren’t part of the journalistic omerta (code of silence) to cover this scandal. In particular the internet has been the conduit to the scientific community for the technical aspects of the emails. The MSM isn’t really needed here. They have dissected the data and the statistical code used in the temperature calculations and many are appalled. And some very prominent names are calling for blood.

Green activist and renowned columnist for the leftist Guardian, George Monbiot, has called for the resignation of Phil Jones, Director of CRU. Eduardo Zorita of Germany’s climate research center, GKSS, has said Michael Mann (of now discredited hockey stick fame) and Phil Jones should be barred from further participation with the UN’s IPCC “because the scientific assessments in which they may take part are not credible anymore.”

The University of East Anglia (home of the CRU) has announced it will now release all source data into the public domain. And Penn State University has said it will investigate the writings of Michael Mann in light of new information revealed in the recent emails. No doubt there will be new revelations and accusations. Remember all of this has happened without the assistance of the US media, save Murdoch’s group which is not part of omerta.

Fortunately we have Canadian Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit (damned in many of Phil Jones emails) and Anthony Watt of Watts Up With That keeping us informed. So heavy was traffic on Steve’s website after the release of the emails, it melted down. He now has an alternative site (use it) which can handle the load.

Watt’s site has been setting records, doubling its viewership from earlier in the month. Both are good reads. Steve’s are heavy on the statistical side and often Anthony will translate Steve’s Geek into English for less informed (such as me) on his website. Both are good friends of each other and work well together.

Anthony’s cause, outside of reporting on climate change, is attempting to document some of the absurdly biased siting of US weather stations. Some are on blacktopped building rooftops, some subject to jetwash at airports, and some are near hot exhausts of a/c compressors. He is leading a citizens’ effort to photograph and note discrepancies from proper siting standards.

The best wrap up of ClimateGate so far ran in the Telegraph (UK) today. Read it. It will open your eyes. Again the old media has stepped in it. By ignoring the story they hope it won’t “get legs” and damage the warmists’ agenda at the upcoming Copenhagen climate conference, December 7. They will fail in that as they have failed in so many others. They seek to marginalize conservative thought, but they only marginalize themselves. Their circulation numbers are tanking. Climate Audit and Watts Up With That are setting record highs.

Update: The Times of London is now reporting much of the underlying raw data to determine the actual measured temperatures for the past 150 years was destroyed in the 1980s. There is no way to verify this data other than Phil Jones' word. The whole global warming scenario simply can't be verified.

Clark Hoyt, NY Times Public Editor plays toady again … Times just “slow off the mark”

Clark Hoyt, the NY Times Public Editor, covers its lack of reporting of the O’Keefe/Giles Acorn exposé and blames it on being “slow off the mark.” Hoyt was kept on for a year after his two year term expired earlier this year, no doubt by endearing himself to editorial management with soft criticism. He didn't fail them today.

I wrote about Hoyt last year and called him a joke. In the column I pointed out the new bias of the Times is that of burying stories that don’t support the Democrat’s game plan. Read it, it covers some points others haven’t covered. I am sure Hoyt will have a very full inbox tomorrow, especially after saying part of the blame was “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.”

But still I sent him a short e-mail. Here it is:

Not convincing.

You failed to mention your paper being "slow off the mark" on the NEA/Sargent story. That's three in this month alone. Well that's not totally true, that broke in early August, but you didn't cover it until mid September. According to Andrew Breitbart, there will be more stories to be "slow off the mark" on. More apologies for you to make. Does the Times still consider itself the Newspaper of Record?

Sad!

Crosby Boyd

With the Times using the phrase “slow off the mark,” the Washington Post (Howard Kurtz) used “lamentably late” to describe the media’s response. Makes you wonder if both papers compared notes before writing their stories.

Smoking out the media --- Breitbart’s real aim is to expose coordinated media blackouts

When the Swiftboat story first surfaced in early August 2004, John Kerry ignored it on the advice of his staff. For that he blames his loss.

Why did his advisors take this tack? Most likely because they had confidence the story would be “ignored” by the old media. And it was. That is until talk radio and Fox news made it an issue. The rest is history.

The new bias of the established media is not the phony story or the coordinated regurgitation of DNC talking points. It is the blackout of major news stories that reflect badly on Democrats. But the curtain of obscurity is being peeled back by Andrew Breitbart. The NEA scandal was exposed by Breitbart’s Big Hollywood website and the more recent ACORN exposé was the blockbuster to launch his Big Government site. But he doesn’t stop there. Breitbart is challenging the old media. He challenged them on September 7, two days before the O’Keefe and Giles tapes were made public. He knew the media would jointly ignore the story. He was setting them up. And they took the bait.

Here is his challenge from the Sept 21 Washington Times (emphasis added), read it all:

Everything you needed to know about the unorthodox roll out of the now-notorious ACORN sting videos was hidden in plain sight in my Sept. 7 column, "Katie Couric, Look in the Mirror."

ACORN was not the only target of those videos; so were Katie, Brian, Charlie and every other mainstream media pooh-bah. They were not going to report this blockbuster unless they were forced to. And they were. What's more, it ain't over yet. Not every hint I dropped in that piece about what was to come has played itself out yet. Stay tuned.

He continues:

Thus was born a multimedia, multiplatform strategy designed to force the reluctant hands of ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post. Videos of five different ACORN offices in five separate cities would be released on five consecutive weekdays over a full week - Baltimore, Washington, New York, San Bernadino and San Diego. By dripping the videos out, we exposed to anyone paying attention that ACORN was lying through its teeth and that the media would look imbecilic continuing to trot out their hapless spokespeople. 

If the media, as expected, pretended that the story didn't exist, they'd have another debacle on their hands comparable to the failure to report the shocking views of the White House's "green jobs czar," Van Jones. If they invested in the story, I told Mr. O'Keefe, they would do ACORN's defense work. I told him the focus needed to be on the message, not the messenger. Otherwise, the mainstream media would attempt to direct attention away from the damaging video evidence.

 The best example of this came from ABC's anchor, Charlie Gibson. "I don't even know about it. So you've got me at a loss," he told WLS radio when asked about it. "But my goodness, if it's got everything, including sleaziness in it, we should talk about it in the morning." But he also said that what was seen on these videos was best left for the "cables."

Is this not malevolent arrogance?

In his September 25 column at wsj.com ever delightful James Taranto takes direct aim at the New York Times for burying news that doesn’t suit its taste. It’s a humorous but stinging rebuke of the Times for its failure to report, entitled ‘Where’s Waldo?’ Journalism. Again, emphasis added.

If you're young enough to have read those "Where's Waldo?" books as a kid, you are well-prepared to read the New York Times. On Wednesday the Times finally took note of the NEA scandal, in a story of slightly over 350 words that appeared on page 21: “The White House on Tuesday instructed government agencies to keep politics away from the awarding of federal grants, a step taken as the administration sought to minimize the fallout after an official at the National Endowment for the Arts urged artists to advance President Obama's agenda.” 

“The new guidelines were issued at a meeting between White House officials and chiefs of staff across the executive branch, following the disclosure of a conference call last month in which artists were asked to work with the Corporation for Public Service to promote Mr. Obama's health care, education and environmental proposals.”

This is the first time the paper has mentioned the scandal, first reported 29 days earlier on Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood and 22 days earlier by Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck. This follows the same pattern as the Times's coverage of the Van Jones and Acorn scandals, both of which the paper did not mention at all until the Obama administration had taken some remedial action, and then reported only in brief stories on inside pages (though in fairness, a full-length front-page story about Jones's hypovehiculation appeared on the second day). Trying to find information about the Obama scandals in the Times can be a fun challenge, just like the "Where's Waldo?" books. But if your taste in puzzles runs more to crosswords or sudoku and you want the news delivered straight, there are plenty of better sources.

Howard Kurtz, media critic at the Washington Post attempts to marginalize the O’Keefe/Giles ACORN story by questioning whether it is journalism. In a column called Guerrilla Journalism he demeans the piece, calling it unbalanced. What he misses is the fact it was news and the Post failed to report it for over a week. Sorry Howard, that won’t work. I responded with a comment which I will share here (minor corrections made):

Whether the O'Keefe/Giles ACORN story was journalism or not, it was valid news. And most of the media ignored it. The Post ignored it, the NY Times ignored it, the LA Times ignored it, the Chicago Tribune ignored it. And Breitbart knew all of you would ignore it. That was the setup. In a Washington Times column he said the media was also the target and that’s why the tapes ran on 5 consecutive weekdays. He knew the story would be red hot before the media (other than Fox) would touch it. The first tape ran Wednesday, 9/9, and the last Tuesday 9/15. By Saturday 9/12, the Senate had defunded ACORN in one appropriations bill. Now that was in your backyard and it WAS news. The Post didn’t touch the story until it was 9 days old. Now that’s not good journalism.

Why did he think you wouldn’t cover it? Well, you didn’t cover the NEA/Sargent story which was and still is valid news. You didn’t cover the Edwards/Rielle Hunter story last year. Not even a mention of it until the National Enquirer blew it wide open and he dropped out of the race. He was a legitimate contender for the VP slot according to the pundits and the Vegas odds at the time. Non-liberals question why stories embarrassing to Democrats seem to be blacked out in the old media. I wonder too. Breitbart wondered but structured a blockbuster story to smoke the media out. He succeeded. That’s the real story.

It’s time for the old media to mend their ways. They have alienated half their audience, yet they wonder why Fox News ratings are skyrocketing and network news is tanking. They wonder why they can’t sell papers.

Integrity sells papers.

Will the NY Times have another Public Editor?

As I pointed out last August, Clark Hoyt has been a lame excuse for a public editor. His two year term is due up May 13. The question is, will the Times keep the position going? I think not, simply because the focus of the Times is not on long term integrity but simply keeping its head above water. Hoyt was too much a sycophant to be effective. Nothing since I wrote the August article has changed my opinion of him. He did write a sternly worded piece on the overuse of anonymous sources in late March in an apparent attempt to burnish his reputation in his waning days. Anonymous sourcing is a common and ongoing complaint at any newspaper, not just the NY Times. It’s an easy target and he didn’t approach it very effectively. He never brought up why anonymous sourcing is so improper. It is that too many times reporters use them to embellish and, even worse, falsify a story. The Jayson Blair fiasco was not only one of the worst examples of this, it is the very reason the Times established the public editor’s position in the first place. The real test of a public editor at the Times is whether he or she could and would ferret out another Jayson Blair. I don’t think Hoyt was up to it. Alert: The NY Times annual shareholders’ meeting is today, beginning at 10am. There is a potential for some fireworks, especially after Tuesday’s disastrous first quarterly report. The value of NYT stock has plummeted from $20 last year at this time to less than $5 yesterday, a drop of 75%, and all dividends have been eliminated. If anything exciting happens, I’ll post it here.

Disastrous quarter for the NY Times

The New York Times has just released their Q1 figures and they are a disaster. They like other newspaper chains have given up reporting monthly revenue gains or losses in an attempt to minimize negative exposure. But this is the worst so far. Ad revenues are down 27%, far exceeding the 15 to 20% declines of prior periods. Operating losses are $74.5 million or 23 cents per share, far in excess of consensus estimates of a 4 cent loss. The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported a Q1 loss of 23 cents, ex-items, missing consensus estimates for a 4-cent loss. Revenues in the quarter fell 18.5% year-over-year to $609 million, and came in short of consensus estimates of $631 million. The company reported that Q1 ad revenue fell 27%. President and CEO Janet L. Robinson made this statement, "At this time, and it is early in the quarter, we believe the rate of decline in ad revenues in the second quarter will be similar to that of the first. It even has generated speculation the Times will run out of cash and borrowing authority within a year, and possibly have to file for bankruptcy. At the current rate of cash consumption, assuming no one-time expenses (highly unlikely), we estimate that the company will max out its current borrowing capacity in 4 quarters. At that point, it will owe about $1.2 billion in debt. This estimate does not include any payments on the company's $600+ million pension and benefit obligation, of which $181 million is due next year.

Non-profit status the savior for newspapers? Fat chance!

Maryland Senator Benjamin Cardin has proposed legislation to allow newspapers to be classified as non-profit entities (technically a “Low Profit Limited Liability Corporation” or L3C). Non-profit status for newspapers has been the hot buzz in the trade press for the past several months and is supported by the Newspaper Guild as an alternative ownership model. But it’s hard to see how it could make a significant difference. Taxes, especially property taxes, are significant expenses. But the real killers are newsprint and payroll. The factors that made newspapers so highly profitable in the past, namely high entry cost for presses and production equipment and the huge employee base that restricted competition, are what is dragging the industry down now. Desktop publishing eliminated the need for heavily manned, highly unionized composing rooms (often well over 350 printers in major markets) for new entrants, opening the door to small competitive suburban dailies and shoppers. As metro areas spread out, a declining circulation base became even more diffuse, raising the cost to deliver a paper to a reader. In the 1960s and 70s a carrier would typically deliver to half the households on a block, even in a competitive market. Now fewer than one in five subscribe to a paper. Newspapers are still stuck with big production facilities, too much press capacity and in the case of recently acquired papers, way too much debt. It’s hard to see how non-profit status will alter anything. The money advertisers spend is already a deductible business expense, no change there either. Several papers are already owned by non profit foundations or organizations. The profit making Times Publishing Company which publishes the St. Petersburg Times is owned by the Poynter Institute, a non-profit journalism school. Similar arrangements are in place at the Manchester (NH) Union-Leader, the Tupelo Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Anniston (AL) Star and the New London (CT) Day. But in no way does non-profit ownership, or non-profit status, insulate a newspaper from 15-20% year to year advertising revenue decllines. That’s the norm now. It doesn’t bring back readers who are getting their news from the internet. Would the Ford Foundation pick up a non-profit New York Times? Only if they are willing to fork over $100+ million a year for eternity. Update I am reminded that newspaper rank and file have been looking for ways to save their newspapers and their jobs through the same bailouts being handed out to financial institutions and auto companies. With a half a trillion here and a trillion there, what's a couple of billion for newspapers? The problem is how can they remain the government watchdog and feed at the government trough at the same time. By equating newspapers to NPR through the ruse of non-profit status, you open that door. The proponents of this bill would require newspapers to give up political endorsements, and that's about all. Certainly NPR and PBS have found it difficult if not impossible to carry anything positive about conservatives. To say they are non-partisan at election time is more than a stretch. They may not endorse candidates, but they certainly try to sway opinion. At some time in the not too distant future, the forces of fiscal restraint will be heard. A billion or two subsidy for a still biased press can be made a political liability for those who support it. Another thought. How about a Fairness Doctrine for non-profit newpapers?

Symbionese Liberation Parolee

I normally scan the NY Times website to see what the left thinks important. I normally avoid opening items from the opinion pages because they are so reliably far left. If I do, it is only after two cups of coffee to brace my system against the onslaughts. But the lede to an Op-Ed today on Sara Jane Olson, convicted bank robber and attempted murderer of cops, caught my attention. I am not familiar with the author Caitlin Flanagan, but after reading the piece, I am now an admirer. It starts: THE first time I encountered the word “kleptomaniac,” I asked my mother what it meant. She said, “That’s what they call it when a rich person steals something.” And now, thanks to Sara Jane Olson and her return to the spacious house and gracious life she’s made for herself in St. Paul, we know what it’s called when a rich, white woman gets convicted of trying to kill cops and robbing a bank: “idealism.” It goes on to recount Olson’s past with the Symbionese Liberation Army, her flight, discovery and conviction. It describes her unapologetic attitude, justifying her actions as an attempt to redress grievances of certain minorities for not receiving equal justice. It then eviscerates her arguments pointing out how now financially comfortable Olson is trying to game the system using her own privileged status. It is a great read and can be found here.

NY Times tries to rehabilitate John McCain

If anyone wondered which John McCain would return to the Senate — the coalition-building dealmaker or the gloves-off bruiser from the campaign trail — the answer is now clear: both. -- NY Times 2/7/2009 Whoa! Gloves off bruiser? Where did that come from? I remember him calling Obama a very decent person. Quite frankly it was McCain’s wimpiness that cost him the election. When Sara Palin put some fire into the campaign, and poll numbers shot up, McCain toned her down and carefully scripted her speeches. He never brought up the Ayers connection, he never challenged Obama’s corrupt fund raising that allowed foreign citizens to contribute, he never branded Obama the Socialist he is. Right now the DNC and the White House are attempting to deny the Republican Party the leadership to effectively challenge for the Presidency in 2012. Through their media minions they tried to destroy Bobby Jindal after his State of the Union response, they continue attacks on Sarah Palin and they are attempting to marginalize private citizen Rush Limbaugh. And now the New York Times is attempting to rehabilitate Senator McCain. The last thing Republicans need is for McCain to be the front runner. When was the last time the Times operated in the best interests of Republicans? Beware of Pinches bearing gifts.

The fix is in. The media’s iron wall of silence still prevails.

Four years ago when John Kerry was running for president, he got caught up in the Swift Boat controversy. He blamed his defeat on his failure to respond promptly and forcefully to the allegations. What was really at play here was he felt confident the story would be spiked by the MSM and never get legs. But that didn’t happen. Through conservative websites, Fox News and talk radio, the myth of war hero John Kerry was quickly demolished. The first to go was the Christmas in Cambodia fairy tale. Here Kerry blamed President Nixon for ordering him into Cambodia during Christmas 1968. His oft repeated story was “etched in his memory.” Only problem, Nixon wasn’t President yet and couldn’t have ordered it. The iron wall of media silence cracked and the story did get legs.

Not so in 2008. When John McCain recently accused the NY Times of being an arm of the DNC, he just scratched the surface. Hot button stories, harmful to Obama, are simply ignored all over. When KMOV TV in St. Louis picked up on the fact St. Louis law enforcement officials were forming “truth squads” to actively challenge and prosecute “lies” by Obama opponents in political ads, the story went unreported in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. When Missouri Republican Governor Blunt issued a strongly worded press release condemning the strong arm tactics, again the Post Dispatch ignored it. The most recent example is the handling of the Ayers/Obama connection. This has been a no-go area for the media up to recently. Now the NY Times has taken a new tack. It now publishes “whitewash” stories to preempt any valid criticism. Here’s an example from today’s Times.

Mr. McCain’s reference to Mr. Ayers’s desire to carry out more bombings was from an article in The New York Times, published by chance on Sept. 11, 2001, about Mr. Ayers and his memoir, “Fugitive Days.” The article opened with a quotation: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Three days later, Mr. Ayers wrote on his Web site that the meaning of his remarks had been distorted. Most of the bombings attributed to the Weathermen were meant to damage only property, but a 1970 pipe bombing in San Francisco attributed to the group killed a police officer and severely hurt another. Mr. Ayers is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and lives in Mr. Obama’s neighborhood. He was named citizen of the year in Chicago in 1997, has worked with Mr. Obama on a schools project and a charitable board, and gave a house party when Mr. Obama was running for the State Senate.

This is laughable. McCain quotes the NY Times, and the Times tries to refute its own story by saying Ayers wrote on his own website it was distorted. Wow! This is almost as bad as the Washington Post calling McCain a liar (two Pinocchios) when he quoted a Post story word for word that former and discredited Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines was giving financial advice to the Obama campaign. I guess the lesson here is that the two leading papers consider themselves unreliable. The world is coming around.

How does the MSM maintain such discipline? Part of it is the liberal monoculture at the top levels of the news gathering organizations. You simply won’t get ahead as an aspiring reporter if you stray too far from the plantation. Rush Limbaugh has another take. He see evidence of “Democrat talking points” being shared and repeated by the networks. The most dramatic evidence of this was in August 2000, when network news commentators started accusing presidential hopeful George Bush of lacking “gravitas.” For a term used infrequently, according to Lexis Nexis, it began being used on news broadcasts hundreds of times a week. Rush now plays, almost daily, a montage of liberal catch phrases, simultaneously regurgitated by the MSM. His take is this is, it can’t be sheer coincidence and must be orchestrated. The only chinks in the MSM armor are a handful of papers and Fox News.

About a year an a half ago the DNC tried to marginalize holdout Fox by urging presidential hopefuls to boycott Fox's debate, co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus. Bill Clinton’s blowup with Chris Wallace was another effort to accomplish it. Of course this failed when Hillary appeared on O’Reilly in May in an attempt to rescue her failing effort for the nomination.

How do we stop this biased coverage? There is no magic bullet. But remember the liberal media is populated with big egos. They go berserk when their integrity is challenged. So challenge their integrity. Write letters to the editor with valid points and document them. Patrick Frey at Patterico’s Pontifications has an ongoing open correspondence with the reader’s representative of the LA Times. He points out conflicts of interest by reporters, questions the airbrushing of stories, and challenges the accuracy of many. When the LA Times fails to respond, he writes about it on his blog. At the end of the year he publishes a compendium of misdeeds at the Times, which he refers to as the dog trainer. Subscribe to a conservative competitor. If you live in the Washington DC area, subscribe to the Examiner or the Washington Times.

Fox News became an instant success when CNN didn’t provide unbiased coverage and conservatives flocked to them. Don’t patronize those who provide consistently inaccurate or slanted news. Share your thoughts with others. By the end of October we will learn how much damage the newspapers have done to themselves. That’s when the Audit Bureau of Circulation releases the latest 6 month figures for newspapers. Based on the most recent reports, it’s not going to be pretty. Also by then the NY Times will have released its Q3 revenue and earnings (or lack thereof) figures.

The real meaning of "lipstick on a pig"

During my career in the newspaper business, there were times I was called on to use creative writing techniques to cover what were truly disasters. Never was anything I did as creative as this. Never. The company said advertising revenue at The New York Times, Boston Globe, International Herald Tribune and other newspapers slipped 16 percent combined last month compared with August 2007. That's better than the 18 percent year-over-year advertising drops the company reported for June and July….

Both are unmitigated disasters

This is truly lipstick on a pig.

Modern journalism

For those who think today’s j-schools are graduating the brightest and the best ever, read this from the NY Times: Correction: August 16, 2008 An article on Friday about the planned construction of two large solar power installations in California described incorrectly the operation of the solar panels in one, to be built by SunPower. Its panels pivot from east to west to follow the sun over the course of a day — not west to east.

NY Times public editor Clark Hoyt, a joke

Clark Hoyt is the New York Times’ third public editor and by far its worst.

The position of public editor was created after the Jayson Blair scandal, where a minority reporter was coddled and criticism of his questionable stories ignored. The scandal exploded in 2003 when a former coworker complained he had plagiarized her stories. She was proven correct and a subsequent investigation showed almost half of Blair’s most recent stories were fraudulent. The two top editors of the Times resigned and the committee investigating the breakdown recommended the position of public editor be established to prevent further journalistic lapses. The first was Daniel Okrent who did a decent job but never fully felt his oats until his final column which was his best, including tidbits such as these:

Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults. Maureen Dowd was still writing that Alberto R. Gonzales "called the Geneva Conventions 'quaint' " nearly two months after a correction in the news pages noted that Gonzales had specifically applied the term to Geneva provisions about commissary privileges, athletic uniforms and scientific instruments. And this: Last July, when I slapped the headline "Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?" atop my column and opened the piece with the catchy one-liner "Of course it is," I wasn't doing anyone - the paper, its serious critics, myself - any favors. I'd reduced a complex issue to a sound bite. And this: Reader Steven L. Carter of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., asks, If "Tucker Carlson is identified as a conservative" in The Times, then why is "Bill Moyers just, well, plain old Bill Moyers"? Good question.

Byron Calame, was the next and a true professional. As his two year stint went on, he became even better. He publicly called Publisher Sulzberger and XE Keller to task when they refused to discuss the timing of the Risen and Lichtblau story on warrantless eavesdropping. He eventually deemed the Times wrong for its story (buried it at the end of his article) exposing the sharing of European SWIFT banking data with the US. But his best was the evisceration of a NY Times Magazine pro-abortion piece accusing El Salvador’s courts of sentencing a woman to 30 years in prison for having had an abortion. She was in reality convicted and sentenced for infanticide of a fully born and breathing infant, which testimony and the court’s decision sustained. And a fact the Magazine editors missed.

While Calame was doing his digging on this story, rumors began to circulate inside and outside of the Times’ newsroom that he would be fired and/or the public editor’s position eliminated. You can sense the hostility he encountered by reading his description of the stonewalling and denial from senior editors. But he survived to complete his term. 

Then came Clark Hoyt. His almost weekly columns are filled with interviews with senior editors justifying all sorts of controversial stories. There are puff pieces on the Times’ fairness in the number of stories given to the different political candidates. On occasion he will plead guilty for the Times for an inconsequential faux pas, such as the Times having been duped, along with hundreds of other papers, by a photographer who claimed to have taken the famous picture of John John Kennedy saluting his father’s casket.

But when it comes to the more substantive items, such as publishing the name of Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s interrogator, despite pleas from the CIA Director for his safety, the Times is always right.

Two recent ones got my blood boiling. They were the Times’ justification for publishing photos the bodies of Marines killed in combat and rationalizing the lack of interest and coverage of the John Edward’s affair. On these two I wrote him to disagree, but my letters weren’t published. I really didn’t expect them to be. I’ll share them here.

I have to take exception to your analysis of this story and here’s why. As you know death is faced daily by combat troops in Iraq. These folks know the risks. But they do it with the hope that in death, they will be treated with respect. Marines have a saying, “Marines always come home.” By that, they mean they don’t leave their dead on the battlefield as other services do. Often under fire and at great risk, they will bring back a fallen buddy to do honor to him.

At the time of the Zoriah Miller story, we had a police officer killed in the line of duty here in Fort Myers, Florida. He was killed breaking up a fight between a young man and his girlfriend. The killer pointed a revolver in the policeman’s face and pulled the trigger. The paper described the scene as grisly and bloody. No pictures were taken, no pictures appeared in the paper. No pictures were posted on anyone’s website. Common decency prevented it. This begs the question. Does the New York Times routinely print pictures of dead New York City policemen? What would happen if you did? There is an analogy here.

 Part of the Times’ problem is the perception our forces have of your paper. That is, it is anti-war, anti-military and wants to undermine their efforts. They simply don’t trust you not to use their dead to dishonor their mission. That is why there was such a visceral reaction to Miller’s postings. At some date you may regain their trust. Until then you should use common decency.

 Crosby Boyd

In the second Hoyt claimed there was no bias in the decision not to pursue the John Edwards story.

“I do not think liberal bias had anything to do with it.” Surely you jest. If you could run the McCain “lobbyist” story and bring up the infidelity angle, you could certainly dig a bit on the Edwards story. Why not contact the National Enquirer to see what you could get. They did answer questions. When asked why no photos in the July story, they gave an ominous answer. They said it was part of a much larger story. The long and short of it is, the story proved out and you blew it. You can rationalize Edwards’ lack of standing, but others said he was on the short list for VP, or barring that, AG in an Obama administration. He was scheduled to speak at the convention and he still has a bargaining chip of 24.5 delegates.

The new bias at the Times is its failure to cover stories that don’t fit the Democrat game plan. Yes I know, these stories really are of no interest. But here’s one that’s hard to argue: On Tuesday November 29, 2005 Joe Lieberman ran an Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Our troops Must Stay.” It ran totally counter to the Democrats’ carefully crafted strategy of withdrawing from Iraq by a date certain, the Murtha Plan. The story was a blockbuster. But for one solid week, November 29 through December 5 there wasn’t a peep from the Times. Not until Democrats started talking about drumming him out of the party, did Lieberman’s name appear in the paper on December 6.

The story ran in the other NYC papers and the Washington Post. It was available to the Times from wire services, but it didn’t run. Perhaps the Times was “too squeamish” to tackle that one too. The Times should admit its bias.

Crosby Boyd

Clark Hoyt is strictly window dressing.