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…)

Well, the cat is finally out of the bag and guess who let him out?  None other than Morning Joe’s own resident heartthrob, Mika Brzezinski.  In an interview with TV Newser’s Julie Menin, promoting her new book, All Things At Once, the daughter of Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor had this to say about the mainstream media:

I’ve worked in the mainstream media for all the networks and I will say what people aren’t saying. It’s got a liberal world view. There are great people working at the networks, and they’re mostly Democrats, ok?

I think honestly what needs to happen, is we need to stop pretending about who we are and every journalist should tell us what their political affiliation is, who they voted for,  and we go from there.

I hate the polarizing extremes that we’re seeing on cable where there’s these sort of “Think my way or you’re evil” kind of subliminal message or cartoonish type characters on the right and the left. I think we try and break a lot of those barriers on Morning Joe.

(more…)

For years, the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich have played the same journalistic card trick:  Take the hot button issue of the week, cross it with the latest pop culture reference and – voila! – Times readers are treated to columns that give the appearance of having some kind of deep-seated cultural insight.

The problem, however, is that their “insights” won’t stand up to any kind of serious analysis, and quickly reveal themselves to be shallow, glib, sophomoric, and perhaps worst of all, predictable.

(Several weeks ago, for example, Rich struggled to make the claim that the George Clooney film Up in the Air is the Grapes of Wrath for our times – which sounds pretty good, until one thinks about it for a moment:  The film is about a guy who travels the country racking up frequent flier miles as he fires people; Steinbeck’s masterpiece is about the struggles of the Joads as they’ve lost their farm and their livelihoods, and set out for California, penniless.  But such is what passes for insight at the Times – where the upper westsider who’s been forced to fire a maid is seen as the tragic victim in need of sympathy, rather than the out-of-work maid.) (more…)

I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. It felt like a scene from a movie that conveniently ties plot points together when two critical characters in the storyline share a moment of implausible significance – where the intrepid reporter finally runs his target to ground.

So at first I had trouble getting my words out. “I’m Andrew Breitbart,” I exhaled. Instead of hanging up, Bertha Lewis laughed like someone I would probably like in a different setting – but certainly not in this lifetime now that we are permanently and publicly tied to one another as media-based adversaries.

I knew the awkwardness of the moment would turn into trouble when I started asking her pointed questions and, sure enough, we soon we found ourselves in trouble.

“Did you go to the White House last year?” I asked.

Bertha Laughed heartily.  ”No,” she said.

“Really?” I pushed.

“No. One hundred percent not. Not this year. Not last year. Not ever,” she stated firmly, all the while maintaining an awkward and ironic joviality that was likely born of the weirdness of our impromptu exchange. (more…)