Monday, October 06, 2008
Monday | Oct. 6 | Got news, or a question?
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19 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
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It's Monday, my last day on Ibiza before I return to San Francisco. This is a sad time.
ReplyDeleteHeadline News just mentioned Gannett on a list of troubled companies on air (with GM, a couple others). First time I've heard anything outside the print media on the company's troubles.
ReplyDeleteThe so called "golden" digital companies are not immune from the economic woes.
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The world's largest auction Web site, eBay Inc., announced Monday that it will cut 10% of its global workforce, or about 1,000 employees, citing efforts to streamline its business.
Sorry Jim, but we'll be glad to have you back. I think there's going to be rough sailing ahead.
ReplyDeleteWho is dumber George W. Bush or Craig Dubow? I need some help to figure that one out. Any thoughts?
ReplyDeleteMCLEAN, Va., Oct. 6 /PRNewsiwre/ -- USA TODAY, the Nation's top-selling newspaper, will publish a 22-page special bonus section focused on philanthropy on Tuesday, October 7. Eighteen advocacy, non-profit and corporate sponsor organizations have signed on as part of the section.
ReplyDeleteCharity begins at home.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know if the paper in Asheville is up for Sale?
ReplyDeleteAlas, Jimmy, it's hard to sympathize with you, moving as you are against your will from Ibiza to San Francisco. Why, you could be some poor Gannett bloke being transferred from Elmira to Sioux Falls, or you could be Hollis Towns being demoted from swinging Cincinnati to Asbury Park.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Gannett is interested in buying the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteTo: Saxotech Online and Broadcast Sites
ReplyDeleteFrom: GMTI Customer Support
Subject: PLUCK Difficulties
Description
PLUCK has reported they are currently having network problems that are impacting all customers. GMTI is in the process of disabling PLUCK functionality on all Saxotech Online and Broadcast sites. Functionality will be restored once the problems have been resolved by PLUCK.
**Glad my paper let me escape The Pluck Quagmire months ago.**
Excerpts from this story:
ReplyDeleteAnother CEO who just wants to take the money and not face the consequences...
Fuld blames 'crisis of confidence'
Richard Fuld, former CEO of bankrupt Lehman, testifies before House panel probing what caused the firm's collapse.
By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Former Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld on Monday blamed the collapse of his firm on a "crisis of confidence" that spread throughout the banking sector.
"This was not a lack of confidence in just Lehman Brothers, but part of what has been called 'a storm of fear' enveloping the entire investment banking field and our financial institutions generally," said Fuld, in prepared testimony released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Fuld was grilled by a House panel investigating the financial crisis.
"I take full responsibility for the decisions that I made and for the actions that I took, based on the information that we had at the time," he said.
The committee, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is examining the cause and effect of the Sept. 15 bankruptcy of Lehman - and who is to blame for it.
Lehman executives understood the seriousness of the firm's dire financial state but "didn't act fast enough" to prevent the collapse, Waxman said.
The firm, in the days before it filed for bankruptcy, sought board approval to pay three departing executives more than $20 million, according to Waxman.
"[E]ven as Mr. Fuld was pleading ...for a federal rescue, Lehman continued to squander millions on executive compensation," Waxman said.
"I don't know how [Fuld] sleeps at night," added Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., a senior member of the committee.
Fuld "will walk away a wealthy man, having earned over $500 million" but takes no responsibility for the crisis, Waxman said. He quoted Fuld as saying in prepared testimony, "In the end, despite all our efforts, we were overwhelmed."
Fuld points the finger at a host of other factors that have dogged the finance industry, including "naked short selling, which I believe contributed to both the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers."
Naked short selling differs from regular short selling in that the investor doesn't actually borrow the shares being shorted, making it easier to drive prices lower.
Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission moved to ban the practice, which has been blamed for some of the recent wild market swings.
Also, Fuld said that no one predicted the impending crisis.
"No one realized the extent and magnitude of these problems, nor how the deterioration of mortgage-backed assets would infect other types of assets and threaten our entire system," said Fuld, in his testimony. "With the benefit of hindsight, I can now say that I and many others were wrong."
A long-time Lehman veteran, who began working there full-time in 1969, Fuld served as CEO for 15 years. He raked in a whopping $22 million bonus in March, earning a total of about $500 million during his career at Lehman.
The FBI has begun a preliminary investigation of Lehman to determine whether its executives committed fraud by misleading investors about the firm's financial condition, according to a report Monday in the Wall Street Journal.
Can anyone say Credit Default Swaps. Those are the things that put us in this mess anyway. Everyone new they were risky, but they were not regulated.
ReplyDeleteSmall Government is not idiot proof.
Fuld one of the biggest scumbags on Wall Street...everyone hated the guy.
ReplyDelete$500 MM dollars in his pocket, a bankrupt company, and our kids are stuck with this bailout! where is the american justice system?
If you missed the MOGULUS post below give it a read, there is still some chatter going on about this topic.
ReplyDeleteHow the other half lives...
ReplyDeleteIncredibly, deep new cutbacks at L.A. Times
2:53 PM Monday
This is a breaking situation this afternoon. Editors met over the weekend to get the word and to refine their lists. Newsroom staffers are being told today individually and in department meetings that as many as 75 editorial positions are being cut through voluntary departures and layoffs. Some staffers were approached last week about volunteering, "enticed" with the threat that this will be the absolute final time that editorial employees will receive two weeks severance pay for each year of service when they leave. When new publisher Eddy Hartenstein took over in August, right after the last round of deep cuts, he was asked repeatedly about the prospect of new layoffs, and according to a first-hand report I passed along then:
The question of more layoffs was posed in half a dozen different ways and he said he hadn't been given a target number for the staff, that Sam Zell told him to run the place, etc., etc. He did say (as did Mark Willes and Sam Zell) that we can't cut our way to prosperity.
I've emailed Hartenstein and Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan some questions about what has changed since August and the extent of this round of cutbacks. My sources say the newsroom staffing level is headed to about 650, but I don't know if that includes the decimation of the Washington bureau expected by many there after the November election. Associate Editor for features Leo Wolinsky is holding a meeting with his staff shortly amid strong rumors that he is leaving. Stay tuned.
LA Observed
6:58 Any word on layoffs in LA outside the news room?
ReplyDeleteA Gannett paper's competitor cuts back:
ReplyDeleteFull story:
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/127527
The lede:
Tribune announces major cutbacks; 4-day paper
Ed Taylor, Tribune
The Tribune announced a major shift in strategy Monday in which the newspaper will withdraw coverage and distribution from Scottsdale and Tempe to concentrate on Mesa, Gilbert and other parts of the East Valley.
Buffeted by an unprecedented downturn in the newspaper industry, Tribune Publisher Julie Moreno said the Tribune will move to four-day-a-week free distribution in the cities it will continue to serve — Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert and Queen Creek. The number of papers distributed in those cities will be increased as it is eliminated in Tempe and Scottsdale, she said.
The newspaper also will provide coverage of news in those communities seven days a week in its online edition, she said.
In line with the service cutback, the paper will cut 142 jobs — about 40 percent of its overall staff.
Severance packages will be offered to employees whose jobs are eliminated, Moreno said.
Among those who will be leaving the Tribune in January is Jim Ripley, executive editor...."
Is it a successful Republic community newspaper strategy? Or a precursor?
The dedicated and smart editors will leave first -- after the fall. They will find places that still value what they do and the passion they share.
ReplyDelete