From Accuracy in Media’s Don Irvine and Michael Watson:

In an article published on July 24^th on New York Magazine’s website, writer Seth Mnookin says that The New York Times is no longer on the verge of extinction, thanks to recent efforts of longtime publisher and Chairman Arthur Ochs “Pinch” Sulzberger, Jr., claiming that the “digital subscription plan—the famous ‘paywall’—was working better than anyone had dared to hope.”

Mnookin focused on the latest quarterly earnings report from the paper to back up his assertion that the worst is over for the Times, despite what critics thought would sink the paper. Unfortunately for Sulzberger, the markets are not nearly as convinced as New York Magazine is of the success of the Times’ new business model. Although the Times’ parent company, The New York Times Company, has seen the value of its stock rise slightly in the past few days as its losses were lower than Wall Street projected, the company’s stock has still lost 13% of its value over the past six months. For comparison, the S&P 500 index has gained 4% over that interval.

According to the website, News&Tech, The New York Times Co. said it lost more than $119 million in the second quarter of 2011, largely because of a write-down of $161 million, reflecting the declining value of its Regional Media Group, which runs its regional papers. It said that excluding the write-down, the Times posted a profit of $82.9 million on revenues of $576 million.

Mnookin also mentioned the early repayment of a $250 million loan that the Times received from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu in 2009 as another sign of improving health. But as Times CFO Jim Folio noted on a recent earnings conference call, this was largely due to the fact that the company raised an additional $225 million last year through the sale of bonds, combined with the net proceeds of $117 million from the recent sale of a portion of their ownership in the Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox. The repayment of the loan will cost the company $279 million in total and will reduce the cash on hand to approximately $240 million, or about $160 million less than they had at the end of last year.

(more…)

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Garrison Keillor Presents

A Prairie Home Companion Special Election Night Poetic Commentary

Reverend Jesse Jackson and New York Times Publisher Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger

Invoke the Bard of New England

With the Frost There Comes a Thumpin’

First Reading

“Sobbing in the ‘hood on Election Evening”

(Apologies, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”)

Recited by the Reverend Jesse Jackson

These exit polls, portending woe,
Don’t mean that I’ll be eating crow.
I warned him, made it crystal clear
The race was always his to blow.

His counselors must think I’m seer
Because I said he’d lose last year
When all he prized was Kobe steak
And flailing at that little sphere.

My urban base is stunned awake;
What will the new Man give—or take?
As is my wont, I’ll school the creep
And show the world he don’t know Jake. (more…)

Once upon a time, the New York Times was a credible source of information, and many educators demanded that their students use it for this purpose. I recall my senior year in a parochial high school being instructed how to fold the newspaper along the seams so as to read it without having to spread it out wide. That was a very long time ago. Now that once-esteemed broadsheet is agenda-driven, rather than journalistically driven, and one of the many sources to take with a large grain of salt.

Under the stewardship of Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger, the Old Gray Lady is now known for printing all the news that fits his liberal Baby Boomer agenda, even in the most innocuous sections. The gardening column will somehow toss global warming into the article and let’s forget any objectivity in its science reporting. Needless to say, the Obama administration has this paper solidly in its pocket.

So I’ve learned to decipher Times articles for any legitimate documented facts instead of innuendo and this was particularly essential when the Times, for reasons know only to itself, decided to tarnish the Pope during this Easter season. The paper tried to imply that while the Pope was cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith in Germany, he did not take steps to defrock a serial predator priest in Wisconsin. (more…)