A special report by Editor & Publisher finds that the nation’s newspaper chains are in deep when it comes to their pension funds. A.H. Belo is short by $575 million.
Just remember, Evan: when you’re ready to come back, we’ll still be here.
UPDATE: That number is too high. E&P has issued a correction.
Awhile back, the Morning News made a big mistake. It entered into a content-sharing agreement with the Star-Telegram wherein it ceded baseball coverage to its crosstown rival. Then it took the best baseball writer in town and put him on the Cowboys beat. I’m talking about Evan Grant. So we hired him and launched InsideCorner, which was an immediate success. It drew a sizable audience, and the Observer just named it the best blog in town.
Then ESPN announced it was launching a Dallas site, and the Morning News soiled its drawers. After the newspaper took a shower and got itself cleaned up, it called Evan and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse (and that we, sadly, couldn’t match). So much for its arrangement with the Star-Telegram. Sharing is all well and fine when you can control the market. But when the Worldwide Leader comes to town, all bets are off.
In any case, Evan has written a few words of farewell over on InsideCorner. We’re going to miss the guy. Personally, I’ve never followed baseball that closely. I began reading Evan’s coverage out of a professional obligation. Checking in on the blog wound up being a pleasure rather than a chore, and I learned a lot about baseball this year. So cheers, friend. Thanks for the great season.
And don’t let the door hit you in the ass, traitor.
The Jewish holiday ends tonight. So how will Brad Sham handle his duties at Temple Emanu-El and then make it to the Death Star in time for the 7:30 kick? Jeff Caplan at the Star-T explains. (And how did Robert Wilonsky not have this scoop?)
During the recent discussion about the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, his last profanity-laced words were discussed in our comments. So when I saw this article about Texas making the last words of Death Row inmates publicly available, I was hoping I could see for myself what he said.
But Willingham’s statement has the last bit omitted, due to that very profanity. Reading quickly over a number of the statements on the list of executed offenders, the first thing to hit me is the truth of the old saying: There are no atheists in foxholes.
UPDATE: I neglected to mention that the Texas Forensic Science Commission will review Willingham’s case on Friday, for all the good it will do him.
Over the weekend, DMN publisher Jim Moroney was on NPR’s “On The Media,” talking about the “Newspaper Revitalization Act,” the bill that allows newspapers to become tax-exempt non-profits. If a paper opted for such status, it couldn’t make political endorsements. Co-host Brooke Gladstone asked Moroney about this. An alert FBvian relays Moroney’s response:
He said people come up to him all the time and say they use his paper’s endorsement list as their voter’s guide, so he couldn’t accept that proviso, but that if it were not in the bill he’d have no problem with it. When queried about the health of his own paper, he said this: “We are profitable, have remained profitable and basically have no debts, so we’re in great shape….we have continued to protect as much of our scale of journalists and journalistic resources in this market, adding pages to the paper….we have gone to our customers and said, ‘Look, we need to ask you to pay a greater proportion of the cost of publishing and distributing a newspaper to your home.’ In so doing, we’ve reduced our dependency on advertising. The typical model for newspapers has been 80% advertising and 20% revenue {from subscribers}. By this time next year, we’ll be something closer to 60-40, maybe even 55-45. To date, we’re about 80% through all of our renewals, and 92% of our subscribers have agreed to pay a higher price, and I’m very proud of that, and I don’t think we could have done it had we continued to cut our newsroom or continued to cut pages out of the paper.”
Another Monday, another big Dallas info-outsourcing company is snapped up in a multibillion-dollar deal. This time, Affiliated Computer Services is going to Xerox for $6.4 billion. The acquisition is part of a consolidation trend in the industry–and yet another sign of business confidence in an improving economy.
1. People looking to save a lot of money and time should probably think twice about jumping on the Green Line to Fair Park. The ride costs $4, and it takes longer than you might think. Of course, those folks who really don’t have a dime –or a minute–to spare probably have no business going to the Fair anyway.
2. Sloan Creek Middle School is closed today because more than 250 kids were absent on Friday. Officials believe most of those had the flu. That amounts to one in three kids enrolled in the school. I know we’re all going to be fine and all, but I have had a “cold” I haven’t been able to kick for about two weeks, and I can’t get ideas of The Stand out of my head. Darn you, Stephen King.
3. Attempted bombing suspect Hosam Smadi’s s old roommate from Italy, Texas, made his television debut last night. Joshua Childress wasn’t what I expected, and I’m not even sure what the purpose of his appearance was. Obviously, he wasn’t able to shed any light on a situation that all but defies explanation. But, heck, he wasn’t even able to remove his silly hat during the interview.