Butt-hurt newspaper editorial page staff are either ignorant of or refuse to face reality on endorsements

Gotta love big, or formerly big, newspaper editorial page/opinion editors all butt-hurt that Patrick Soon-Shiong of the LA Behind the Times or Jeff Bezos of the Bozos Post won’t do endorsement editorials. This Axios piece has more on other newspapers' trends on this.

The reality? Endorsement editorials by major newspapers, certainly not in presidential races, realistically not in statewide races like governor or U.S. senator, simply don't swing the needle.

Update: So let multiple staffers quit both newspapers, like genocidalist neocon Robert Kagan at the WaPost. Let former editor Marty Baron (with his own forever support for forever war) fulminate away, even as Baron claims the paper — where long-time editorial page editor Fred Hiatt saluted every bit of Forever War every American president ran up the flagpole — was once known for "courage." 

In a flip the other way, Soon-Shiong's daughter salutes the Times endorsing nobody, because of the Harris-Biden support for the genocide in Gaza, while specifically noting her statement was not an endorsement of Trump. In turn, The Wrap's Ross Lincoln called her claim "risible," which, maybe it is to some degree, but which also says a lot about where The Wrap is coming from, including on itself maybe running flak for Kamala is a Zionist Cop.

And, with that? I might have to do a second piece off this. Beyond performance theater, we're in the land of hypocrisy.

Update 2: Doctor Daddy later stated that Gaza was a factor in the non-endorsement.

And, this isn't anything new. It's been the case for at least 20 years.

Says who? Says me?

No; so said newspaper industry insider analysts 20 years ago at American Journalism Review. Specifically, author Tim Porter was former assistant managing editor at the San Francisco Examiner and crunched the information, along with noting politicos halfway admit this was the case back then. I remember reading this story in print 20 years ago and getting my eyes opened. Teh Google found it for me anew.

And, to start with, per Porter, if newspapers had limited endorsement reach then, based on older data before the Net started eroding their power further?

Research on the electoral influence of newspaper endorsements is scarcer than a liberal at a Wall Street Journal editorial board meeting. Most of the data was compiled before the burgeoning Internet and the cacophony of cable TV further dulled whatever edge a newspaper endorsement gave one candidate over another.

They've got even less now.

Porter then referenced a heavyweight in the industry who had written a book about that very subject.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote about newspaper endorsements in her 2000 book, "Everything You Think You Know About Politics and Why You're Wrong."

"The direct effect of editorials does not appear to be significant enough to find," Jamieson said in an interview. "The effect of newspaper endorsements is largely created through advertising about them that is sponsored by the candidate."

Even then, Jamieson and others interviewed for this article agree, the impact of endorsements on national or even regional elections – contests in which candidates are well-known among voters – is negligible

There you go. 

But wait, that's not all. Jamieson had boatloads of info:

"Many Americans in 1996 had no idea which presidential candidate their newspaper supported; many more had the wrong idea," Jamieson writes of an Annenberg study of that year's election. "To judge from the responses, many people were guessing." The findings included:

• Among readers of papers that had endorsed President Clinton, "three-quarters reported that fact; 11 percent reported their paper had endorsed Bob Dole; and 14 percent reported their paper had endorsed no one."

• Among readers of papers that had endorsed Dole, "less than one-half" knew that, while one-third thought their paper had endorsed Clinton.

• Of those who knew their newspaper's endorsement, 1 percent said it played a "great deal" and 10 percent said it played "somewhat" of a role in their voting decision. "Of that 11 percent, about a quarter had the endorsement wrong."

More recently, a Pew Center for the People & the Press study released in January, which measured media influences on voters during the 2004 presidential campaign, concluded that "newspaper endorsements are also less influential than four years ago, and dissuade as many Americans as they persuade."

THERE you go. And, that's going back 24-28 years ago.

Well, no, one more. Porter  has a quote from the editorial page head of the Old Gray Lady itself at that time:

"I don't think anybody who has a job like mine," says Gail Collins, editorial page editor of the New York Times, "is deluded that many people change their opinion about who they're going to vote for for president when they see the Times editorial."

NOW there you go.

So, why all the butt-hurt editorial editors and editorial columnists and writers today?

Among the younger set, say, below age 45, maybe below age 50, ignorance may be one factor. They may not even know who Jamieson is.

But, at the same time, they may be the ones who have least internalized how short newspapers' reach is today. 

Maybe they're in denialism? Self-delusion at a conscious level of something they subconsciously know is true.

As someone on the far side of 50, I also think this is the "social media generation," whether Z, Millennial, Post-Millennial, or Post Toasties that has other reasoning behind being butt-hurt.

Kabuki theater.

Now that, said, as Porter goes on to note, with quotes from Collins and others, back then, local and regional endorsements mattered. They may still do so today.

And, not just on people.

I helped kill a bond election in my Dallas suburb in 2006, and it needed to be killed, as it was driven by the infamous Larry D. Lewis. It lost by a 52-48 margin, and both Lancaster ISD Superintendent Lewis and Lancaster City Manager Jim Landon were furious, though they didn't show me that much anger in person. On Lewis' side, he didn't know yet, but soon found out, how much I knew about problems with a school bond from two years prior. He still doesn't know about all the off-the-record personal stuff I was told. On Landon, I already saw the housing bubble coming. He shortly thereafter decamped to Florida's Gold Coast, where it hit him in the face.

Anyway, I have little doubt that my words made for the margin of defeat.

Now, if the two papers above, or the NYT, or whomever, wanted to catch attention, at least in the chattering class? An endorsement of either Libertarian Chase Oliver or Green Jill Stein would do that. Ain't happening.

Another option? Do like Reason magazine did a week or two ago with all its staffers, except confining yourself to editorial staff. Give each one, by name, 2-3 paragraphs to say who they're voting for and why. (Actually, Soon-Shiong allegedly asked for something like that, in a pro-con roundup, and staff refused.)

That itself was interesting. Setting aside one person apparently ineligible to vote as a foreign national, and another who may have moved too recently, the results? Eleven for Oliver, one for Oliver if they vote, two for Harris, four not voting plus one who never votes on principle, one possibly not voting, one write-in for Nikki Haley, one split as of the time of the story between Oliver and Trump (over "the left's" alleged antisemitism — nice to see one open Zionist at Reason, JD Tuccille), one Trump, one protest write-in for a Reason staffer.

To summarize with a bit of math and how I split out a few comments? That's 12 for Oliver, 2 Harris, 5.5 not voting, 1 Haley, 1.5 Trump, 1 true write-in. 

So, first, Reason is lower-l libertarian, but not necessarily Libertarian Party libertarian. Second, several specifically hate the Mises Mice. Of 23 total, Oliver gets a bare majority.

That said, per the above about the AJR story, at its end and local and regional races? Each staffer was asked about one other race they were keeping their eye on. Several mentioned ballot propositions, not personal races by candidates. Of that,several noted ranked choice voting initiatives, several noted abortion issues, and a couple noted Florida's marijuana legalization initiative.

Finally, a bit more thought on the Axios piece. Papers like the Minneapolis Star-Tribune also aren't doing presidential endorsements, but announced this weeks if not months ago. That's the problem with the two big newspapers above — the timing. Even if their owners aren't stopping endorsements for craven reasons, they leave themselves open to that. (And, given both Soon-Shiong and Bezos have lots of federal ties and issues, I think they ARE doing it for craven business reasons.) And, as for the Old Gray Lady in New York no longer doing LOCAL endorsements, but still doing presidential ones, that confirms they see themselves — and their subscriber base — as national newspaper first.

Kobe Bryant and a dark day at the Bezos Post

This is an update to my previous post about Kobe Bryant after his death in the chopper crash.

The Bezos Post has suspended a reporter for tweeting about this, and apparently given her zero support for death threats. (And, this is not even the first time that's happened! See below.) The Bezos Post is NOW claiming that her Tweets of screenshots of death emails to her might violate Twitter policy or company social media policy. That may well be true, but, suspending Sonmez is gigantic overkill. That's especially as she's not the only person to face death threats, as well as it not being her first time to face them.

Besides, I'm calling bullshit.

(Update: I'm calling more bullshit on harassers, too. Perhaps not all of them were motivated by this, but per CJR, it looks like we can blame Donald Trump, followed by Breitbart and Daily Caller, for a fair amount of this.)

In the first link, Daily Mail quotes Post ME Tracy Grant:

"The tweets displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of colleagues."

It's clear to these eyes that he's referring to the original set, not the email inbox screenshots.

Post ME Tracy Grant isn’t on Twitter, which of course has a hugely low signal-to-noise ratio. But, I got her email address.

I sent a link to my blog post with these three observations:

1. Between the first story from the Daily Mail, and later stories, the Post's explanation seems to be, uh, "shifting."
2. The suspension not having a "date certain" (ie 24 hrs) is overkill.
3. If you didn't mention the rape allegations/case in your original story, shame on you, not her. Other reporters needed a bit of undermining. Hell, Red Satan ESPN mentioned it in its initial story.

OK, the biggie, No. 3. The Post did mention it, with basically the same amount of mention as Red Satan. Could they have mentioned it more, per their own columnist and ersatz ombudsman Margaret Sullivan — who, probably with a muzzle on, doesn't talk about her own paper? Yes.

So, Nos 1 and 2. On No. 1, if Grant responds at all, it will be corporate boilerplate. On. No. 2, the suspension is still too harsh. The Post's own Erik Wemple calls it "misguided" and talked about her tweeting "a very good story from the Daily Beast." He also noted the Post was apparently following the old maxim of "speak no ill of the dead," which is "a fine rule for everyone except for historians and journalists." On the last part of 3, I don't know if it "undermines" or not, but, it does surely undercut corporate policy.

And, speaking of death threats, both Bryant prosecutor Mark Hurlbut and the victim got plenty. ESPN has a new story about Hurlbut and the case. And, per some of my friends, more and more of that leads me to think that being less and less of a sports fan looks more and more attractive with things like this. Twitter wasn't around in 2004 and Facebook was in its infancy, but the death threats were still unloaded.

But WAIT. It gets MUCH worse for the Bezos Post.

The editorial union calls out Grant and editor Marty Baron, noting they have previously tried to silence Somnez from speaking on this issue, even though she's a sexual assault survivor herself. As the guild says, it's also not the first time Post management has failed to protect her on this. The Guild also calls out the Post for uneven application of social media policies, explicitly noting (shock me) how they favor management.

And now, Baron's officially entered the world of hypocrisy, Orwell or something, with a statement about this issue and social media policy now posted on Twitter.

The guild also notes, as I did above, that management at Bezos Post can't tell a straight story on this. The Post has since reinstated Sonmez, but per CJR, without apology, or much communication in general, from the brass hats. (Hold on to that thought.) Per CJR, her initial Tweet was apparently just a semi-bare retweet of the old Daily Beast story.

That CJR piece also notes that major media outlets want journos with lots of Twitter followers, but don't want them putting controversial comments on Twitter. It also reminds us that the sexual assault she previously alleged was by an L.A. Times staffer, and I recall the Reason story about that, against which she was pushing back. More on that here. The Bezos Post IS disgusting.

(Update: And the disgust gets worse. Now, re Sonmez, many staffers are saying sexism is rampant at the Bezos Post. And, several years ago, Marty Baron allegedly threatened to fire Wesley Lowery for tweeting about racism in the Tea Party.)

With that, let’s get to brass tacks, first on Kobe, then on the Bezos Post.

Do I think Kobe “did it”? Yes. Do I think he used high-dollar lawyering threats (including of dragging his accuser through the mud) plus the knowledge that a criminal case needs a unanimous verdict, to push her to fold? Yes. Might some African-Americans be glad that Kobe, without even going to a trial, pulled off his version of an OJ? Possible; I don't know. That said, back to sexual assault. I think Big Ben did it, too, to make clear that, restricted to modern athletes, this isn't a "black" issue. Nor is it a gotcha issue; Roethlisberger also didn't apologize. And if he dies in a plane wreck two years after retiring, I'll mention that.

Did Kobe, out of a genuine heart, guilty conscience or both, redeem himself to some degree with some of his later activities? Yes. But, let's also not forget his comments, from that very piece by the Daily Beast after the civil criminal case was done, that he should be like Shaq and just buy women off with cars or whatever.  (Per one Twitter respondent, not the one first mentioned, I had the timeline wrong, and it was between the criminal and civil sides.)

According to the police report, while he was being questioned by the officers about the alleged sexual assault, Bryant said, “I should have done what Shaq does,” adding, “Shaq gives them money or buys them cars, he has already spent one million dollars.” The report added, “Kobe stated that Shaq does this to keep the girls quiet.”

So, beyond thinking "he did it," the idea that Kobe 100 percent redeemed himself is also not so true in my book.

And no, contra the National Catholic Register, his statement after settling the civil suit after the criminal case was dropped was not an apology. I know that it reads a lot like the church's non-apology "apologies" for priestly sexual abuse, so that's why it claims he apologized. But he didn't. Nor did he, at least not immediately, apologize after using the word "faggot" on court in 2011, and was called out for hypocrisy. The NCR might think that doesn't even need an apology, though.

Now, for an analogy, because I love them.

I can "apologize" for robbing a bank while saying that I recognize "you don't view the incident the same way I did," that it was simply a "direct personal deposit withdrawal." And, Kobestanners, reading through the whole thing? Kobe trying to look noble and civic-minded about the lack of a criminal case saving the state of Colorado money? Like this was a sacrifice by him?

Look given the bullying the victim had already had, this is the closest she was going to get to an actual apology. And she knew it, I'm sure.

Nor did the alleged Solons at the Post think about the f-word either. (Red Satan also didn't have it in its piece.) And, the Twitterer whom I muted didn't even try to claim he'd apologized for that.

OK, now to the Bezos Post.

This is also an object lesson on how today's mainstream media hides behind corporate social media policies for largely capitalist reasons.

And, because of the way social media works, and to make sure I don't totally succumb, I let this "percolate" for 24 hours. Had I posted right away yesterday, I wouldn't have gotten the Post Guild's piece.

As for social media hagiography, I remember similar at the time of Kirby Puckett's sudden death. I told one person, to get outside of sports, this:

3rd, if y're as left-liberal as  ppl who follow you that I follow indicate?
W/in hrs of  deaths of Schmuck Talk Express McCain and Poppy Bush, I had Tweets, then full blog posts about "the whole truth" about their warmongering and more, precisely because of Twitter hagiography.

— reallyDonaldTrump 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) January 27, 2020

Said person had claimed that Sonmez, in her activism, needed to tell "the whole truth." In an earlier Tweet, I said, she did. Well, actually, she didn't mention Kobe's anti-gay comment, but she might not have been aware of it.

CJR, in its coverage of Kobe, referred to "The Resistance" elevating Poppy Bush against Trump as to why social media hagiography often didn't work. A direct tie-in to what I just said.

As for this being a "black" issue? Nope. That's why, although they're politicians not athletes, I made sure to mention Bush and McCain. As I did with white leftist media icon Alex Cockburn. That said, back to sexual assault. I think Big Ben did it, too, to make clear that, restricted to modern athletes, this isn't a "black" issue.

Nor is it purely a sex crimes, or even purely a crimes issue. Christopher Hitchens, whom I called out after his death, had a well-earned (by her) takedown of the fakery of Mother Theresa.

As for the respondent? Look beyond athletes for black heroes, too, IMO. For both you and your kids, if you haven't.

And, whatever color, or gender, you are, even if you virulently disagree with Somnez, if you can't or won't call out the death-threaters first, the Bezos Post second, then her third — in other words, to riff on Gale Sayers, if you can't put your ego-anger third behind those two issues, with the truth of the first being obvious and the truth of the second now revealed to you — you've got a problem. If you won't call a cesspool for what it is, you're an enabler. That's part of why I quit Quora.

The biggest lesson for Sonmez? Can't believe people 15 years younger than me need to be told this.

DON'T USE YOUR REAL NAME ON TWITTER.

Or, if you have to for the company, GET YOUR OWN BURNER ACCOUNT. OR THREE.

I understand that a Sonmez might have more support if she's seen as Tweeting her own story with her own real name, on her own sexual assault two years ago. On this, though, especially given what happened two years ago, both as far as online attacks and lack of support by the Bezos Post, might discretion have been the better part of valor.

The second biggest lesson for Sonmez and anybody working at ANY media corporation, whether MSM or "New Media"?

ALWAYS ASSUME THEY CARE ABOUT CAPITALISM MORE THAN THE FIRST AMENDMENT.

That includes you, Post Guild. The piece was good, but short of some real union action, like a strike, or better, a slowdown — give us a blank front page in the print version! — you're tilting at windmills.

Because management will care about the hierarchical power of capitalism as well as the money.

And tie to this, this new CJR piece about how even media companies as allegedly librul as Slate are using Trump's National Labor Relations Board interpretation and backstopping on labor law to be more and more anti-union.

And, speaking of capitalist parasites?

Nike is fine with being a capitalist parasite on Kobe's death, but not with anybody else being a capitalist parasite on its parasitism. (Red Satan got that one wrong, claiming it was Nike's reluctance to grift, rather than its reluctance to let others grift off of it. That shouldn't be surprising, though, given that Red Satan author Nick DePaula has the of writing about NBA shoe deals, and is a U of Oregon alum; in other words, is is someone who will smile while letting Nike have prison sex with him.) The Daily Beast piece has the truth about Nike grifting on Kobe as soon as his legal hands were clean and untied.

Although not involving death, maybe it's time to cue up Colin Kaepernick? Of those two, in my book, it's still an open question which is the bigger grifter. (Nike is by total dollars, of course, but by percentages, or by faux idealism?) And, as for my Twitter correspondent saying that Somnez had been harshing his mellow on Kobe hero worship, maybe he needs to remember Charles Barkley saying "I'm not paid to be a role model."

There. I've killed about a dozen sacred cows and gored several oxen.

==

Update, Feb. 19: Sadly, a submitted piece at Counterpunch goes Kobe-stanning about halfway through, and while it throws the Eagle victim partway under the bus and directly attacks Gayle King, it ignores his faggot comment entirely. The reality, contra a linked story, is that a putative rape victim failing a mock trial is probably not that rare, and secondly, doesn't prove that Kobe didn't do it, in this case, especially since the mock trial occurred after her name had been made public and other information had been revealed. And Counterpunch still hasn't given me the time of day on two submissions.

Dean Singleton, hypocrite par excellence of the dying newspaper industry

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a graphics-heavy piece about how larger and mid-sized regional daily papers continue to bleed both circ and ad money.

In it, Dean Singleton, founder of Media News, eventually acquired by Dead Fucking Media related to a Media News bankruptcy, followed by further bankruptcies of DFN, which is now owned by hedge fund Alden Capital, said:

“What Alden is doing is liquidating,” said Dean Singleton, who founded the company that now forms the crux of MNG Enterprises and pioneered several newspaper cost-cutting measures, but who is no longer associated with the company. “They are taking the cash out as quickly as they can and reinvesting in businesses they think have more promise. It may be a very good business strategy, but it is not a good newspaper strategy.”

Problem is, Dean, you did this and similar yourself.

Anecdote has it that, decades ago, after you bought your hometown Graham (Texas) Leader, and the chamber of commerce head or someone said, "Great, we don't have to worry about cuts to our paper now" or something like that, you allegedly said "Don't count on it."

Non-anecdote has you closing the Fort Worth Press and Houston Post after acquiring them. Ditto for the Dallas Times Herald.

As chair of AP's board of directors in the mid-1990s, you touted the "TV model" for online papers, ignoring the existence of pay cable channels more than 15 years old by then.

As a result of this, you underpriced AP feed to Yahoo and other early news aggregators, setting the stage for everybody getting their wire news online now, and finding it unpaywalled somewhere.

Between the two, the "TV model" and the related underpricing of AP news, many people "learned" that Stewart Brand was right about information wanting to be free. But they ignore the whole paragraph of Brand's full quote:

And, cuz Merika and race to the bottom capitalism, the fight was never equal, especially when Deano put one thumb on the scale of free. (Brand himself claims he's blamed for a lot of tech-neoliberalism stuff that is not his fault. The rest of that interview indicates he's lying to himself if he really believes that and lying to the rest of us anyway.)

That was after putting his thumb on the "free" of tax writeoffs and other reasons for closing the papers he did above. (The Fort Worth Press was in its second incarnation, for example, and losing money when Dean bought it, almost certainly for tax purposes first.)

Even in places you kept open, long before Alden, you were a Chainsaw Al Dunlap. Thanks in part to you, the Oakland Tribune will soon be a weekly. The papers of the whole BANG, the Bay Area News Group, were a laughing stock to Bay Area news junkies, then a crying shame.

As far as Dead Fucking Media allegedly killing a great newspaper in Denver? Well, Deano, you and Media News did that a decade ago. It was called the Rocky Mountain News. And it was better than the Post, Deano. Just like the Times Herald was better than the Snooze in Dallas.

Shut up and go away, Dean.

Actually, no ... first tell us how much in the way of tax writeoffs you've gotten from newspaper manipulation and shutting. THEN shut up and go away.

And, Wall Street Journal? Stop uncritically interviewing or quoting him. Ditto for Denver's outpost of the Business Journal chain, where Dean never admits one word that his long-ago stance with the AP has contributed to the plunge at daily newspapers in general.

A few thoughts on 'branding' and 'media gurus'

In my recent blog post about the good (well, maybe I didn't have much about that) the bad and the ugly at the newest version of Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight, part of the ESPN stable, I didn't at all tackle one issue.

It's exactly the issue in the header. And, while it's not specific to him, his somewhat acrimonious divorce from his previous employer, the New York Times, and his move to a new one, ESPN, makes him the perfect lead-in.

From a New Deal liberal-type perspective, would be great to salute the likes of Silver, David Pogue and Ezra Klein (both of whom will also get more discussion below) as showing how journalists can empower themselves against the ongoing decline in the industry. After all, J-school grads at major shops (I'm going to call for-profit, big-biz type colleges "colleges" less and less in the future) are being encouraged to do just this. One could even argue that support for this is some sort of labor solidarity in general. 

Well, the initial sidebar argument is that if I want to support journalism branding, I'll say, great, let's help AlterNet brand itself better. The second argument is that, if I want to support rich entertainment journalists get richer (and I consider all three to be entertainment journalists in part, to some degree), why not support rich entertainers, like athletes and actors, fight back against sports owners and movie studios?

And, that rhetorical question should tell you a bit of how I feel about "branding" in general. Also, "branding," whether on the labor or management side, seems part of the rise of the culture of narcissism that's part of the Net 2.0 world. Old St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Kevin Horrigan has a great column with additional takes on "branding" that agree with mine.

That said, if one is to look at branding, let's look at all three.

Silver was driving jealousy at the Times, tis true. Especially with hindsight, while some of it was undeserved, to me, some of it clearly was deserved. Again, Nate, your choice on how you want to deal with critics. I'd suggest a different approach than your current on, but, maybe successful enough branding will get you enough fans seeing you as a martyr of old media.

And, of course, that's not true. In terms of today's world, ESPN is as much old media as is the Times. Given the number of properties the Times has sold off, in terms of today's world, ESPN is about as much of a Big Media outpost as the NYT, too.

You had a reputation, pre-NYT, for sports stats crunching. You'd moved into politics at the NYT. And now, with the hint of going from there into broader culture and science, you were meeting an ideal "sweet spot" for ESPN, especially if it had some plan already in place to further expand outside of traditional sports coverage. And, on the younger half (I think) of GenX age, you hit the demographic sweet spot, too. Congrats.

Klein wanted to expand his domain at the Washington Post. Unfortunately, he wasn't reading the tea leaves well, and that may say something about his chances of future success. The Post, like the Times, was contracting even before the Post sold itself to Jeff Bezos. The fact that, even after a few years, the Post didn't see fit to build on its location and strengths to do a Politico-style spinoff speaks volumes. And, given the degree of cost-cutting Bezos has done with Amazon, the idea that he'd suddenly open his wallet for Klein was a laugher.

So, Ezra was negotiating from a position of weakness, in a product market that, per Politico, is pretty saturated and, as far as I know, without a specific sales pitch for new lines and areas of coverage, contra Silver. And, as far as I can tell, even before that, his "brand" may not be as shiny and spit-polished as is Silver's.

Pogue was already writing for enough spots besides the Times that, at some point, there was going to be a parting of the ways. Because he wasn't intruding into sacred turf like the op-ed space (and Silver wasn't always totally right there), the separation here was much more amicable.

Whether Yahoo was at or near the top of his target list, I don't know. But, with it trying to make itself more relevant again, and knowing that because Pogue has written for a number of different publications before, he had a decent brand level, he surely became high on Yahoo's list once he became available.

I think that, in Pogue's own terms, he'll be more successful than before with the move. Will he be successful enough for Yahoo? That's still an open question.

And, while I already had tags for Silver and Klein, because of my interest in politics, I don't for Pogue.

So, there's kind of the branding lesson of the day. Part of building the brand is expanding the brand, and knowing how to do that when the time is right. Ezra's still a bit behind the curve.

===

That said, the bottom financial line on "branding" will be to likely increase income inequality within the media world. And, there's only one-quarter of a step between this and the likes of Pierre Omidyar's new venture, since it's based on Glenn Greenwald as a brand.

Big media consolidation ahead?

Freedom Communications and MediaNews, both partially owned by the same capital management group, Alden Global Capital as part of their emergence from bankruptcy, could merge.

It seems pretty clear this is NOT MediaNews driving the process. Dean-O, Dean Singleton, CEO of pre-bankruptcy MediaNews, is being kicked upstairs:

MediaNews on Tuesday announced a series of management changes under which current chairman and chief executive William Dean Singleton will relinquish his CEO role and become executive chairman of the Denver-based company. In a news release, MediaNews said the moves, which also include the hiring of three new directors, will "position the company to identify, pursue and execute on strategic consolidation opportunities."

That said, they aren't the only merger possibilities on Alden's list.

The recession and its fallout have depressed media properties. With folks like Alden either in control, or threatening to become in control, of more and more media chains, they're surely going to throw their weight around more.

Both Freedom and MediaNews are strong in the south and west. So, too is Hearst, rumored in the past to be linked to other merger possibilities.

Old media + big banks = stupidity squared

Looks like old Dean-o Singleton won't have much ownership anymore in Media News, though Bank of America is going to still let him run the company. (Thereby showing that the stupidity of big banks and that of big Old Media folks is probably about equal in the past five years.)


From the AP:

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
AP Business Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Another newspaper publisher desperate to dump debt has filed for bankruptcy protection in hopes of recovering from an advertising meltdown that has obliterated much of the print media’s revenue.

Friday’s late filing by Affiliated Media Inc., the holding company of MediaNews Group, had been expected. The owner of 54 U.S. daily newspapers said Jan. 15 that it would seek to reorganize its finances in bankruptcy court.

MediaNews, based in Denver, says its newspapers, which include The Denver Post and the San Jose Mercury News, and 8,700 employees won’t be affected during the bankruptcy proceedings. The company also owns four radio stations in Texas and a television station in Alaska.

Privately held Affiliated Media worked with its major lenders and shareholders during the past year to hammer out a plan aimed at shortening the company’s stay in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware. Affiliated hopes to emerge from bankruptcy protection within two months.

The plan calls for Affiliated’s debt to fall to $179 million from $930 million, according documents filed late Friday and early Saturday.

In exchange for this $751 million concession, a group of lenders led by Bank of America will become the company’s majority owners with 89 percent of the common stock, according to a disclosure statement filed Saturday. The remaining 11 percent goes to MediaNews’ management team, which is led by William Dean Singleton, who is also chairman of The Associated Press. The MediaNews executives will receive warrants that eventually could boost their combined stakes to 20 percent.

Heading into the bankruptcy filing, Singleton held a roughly 30 percent stake in Affiliated.

Richard Scudder, who co-founded MediaNews with Singleton in 1985, will relinquish his interests in the company to the lenders. Another major newspaper publisher, Hearst Corp., also will surrender a 30 percent stake it acquired in Affiliated’s newspapers outside the San Francisco Bay area as part of a complex $317 million deal in 2006.

Singleton will continue to run MediaNews, signaling the lenders remain confident in him despite the company’s recent struggles.

The decision probably stems from Singleton’s reputation as a hard-nosed businessman who has never shied away from cutting costs, said Alan Mutter, a former newspaper editor who blogs on the media business.

"Who do we know who can go in and run the hell out of a newspaper and make a buck?" he said. "The only answer is William Dean Singleton."

MediaNews spokesman Seth Faison declined to comment late Friday.

"By aggressively facing the challenges of the newspaper business, we will continue to deliver high-quality journalism and will prepare our newspapers for a promising future," Singleton said in a statement Friday.

Affiliated’s annual revenue has fallen by $270 million, or 20 percent, during the past two fiscal years, according to court documents.

To cushion the financial blow, Singleton has reduced Affiliated’s expenses by $385 million, or 31 percent, since the end of 2006, according to court documents.

Affiliated still lost $582 million as revenue fell 10 percent to $1.06 billion in its last fiscal year ending June 30, the documents show. That came on top of a $406 million loss in the previous fiscal year. The losses stemmed from accounting charges taken to reflect the crumbling value of its newspapers.

Despite Affiliated’s troubles, Singleton says all but one of the company’s newspapers are profitable. He hasn’t identified which one is losing money.

But Singleton couldn’t figure out a way to cope with all the debt that MediaNews took on to expand into new markets. Like other publishers, Singleton borrowed heavily before the Internet and recent recession began to devour the newspaper’s main source of income — advertising.

Affiliated is bracing for more tight times ahead. In a disclosure statement, the company discusses possible savings from farming out some production, newsroom and administrative jobs and imposing permanent wage cuts at some newspapers beginning this year.

The reorganization plan calls for Singleton to receive a $634,000 salary and an annual bonus of up to $500,000 as Affiliated’s chief executive. He will also continue to be paid $360,000 annually under a separate agreement with The Denver Post Corp., according to court documents.

FCC: Big Media can now be Ginormous Media

The Federal Communications Commission, on a party-line 3-2 vote, will let broadcasters in the nation’s biggest cities also own newspapers.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin disingenuously claims that shrinkage in the newspaper biz makes this a safe move.

Of course, that’s exactly the opposite of true. Big Media, by newspapers, is a smaller pie than before; even in the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan areas, not all have multiple daily newspapers, and, of those that do, some of them have two newspapers in joint operating agreements.

The discussion and debate was rancorous:

The Democrats blasted the chairman for making changes to the proposal "in the dead of night" and just before the meeting that created new ownership loopholes instead of closing them, as he pledged during a recent hearing on Capitol Hill.

“Anybody who thinks our processes are open, thoughtful or deliberative should think twice in light of these nocturnal escapades,” said Democrat Jonathan Adelstein.

The Democrat said Martin's proposal “will allow for waivers for six new newspaper-broadcast combinations and 36 grandfathered stations.”

In places like here in Dallas, where The Dallas Morning News and WFAA-TV, one of the grandfathered stations, use this to lay off more employees, do “package” coverage, and shamelessly market each other while refusing to include each other in media criticism and critiquing pieces, shows just how wrong this is.