Friday, March 29, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor
Observations - August 2013

August 15, 2013 --

Profitability Required

News that The Washington Post will be sold for $250 million called to mind a comment made to me 40 years, by Post publisher Katharine Graham. I interviewed Mrs. Graham by phone, working on an article for MORE, a short lived journalism review, about a new Washington Post policy for its book review section. I no longer have the notes of that interview but one comment she made has stayed with me. "Newspapers must not only be profitably run, they must be very profitably run." The comment was made, of course, long before bailouts were discovered as a way to keep alive business that do not draw customers. But even today, in our era of billions, trillions and gazillions, $250 million isn't quite chump change; it sure will protect the recipients from food stamps.

The Post sale comes days after word that The New York Times will sell The Boston Globe to Rex Sox owner John Henry for $70 million. This sale price is somewhat less than the more than $1 billion that the Times paid for the Globe. Seems to LPR, the Times has indicated, from its transactions involving The Boston Globe, that it should be banned from offering economic advice to all governments -- with the possible exception of our enemies.

August 1, 2013 --

A message from "Giggles" -- killed by Wisconsin authorities for, apparently, being a baby deer -- to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

Giggles' Lament

If only I'd been born a snail-darter
I wouldn't have ended as fodder
for people whose hearts perhaps are even harder
than the Pharaoh of Exodus days

What next? Will they track down with glee
my poor mom who's been looking for me,
saying: "It's to put her out of her misery"?
Cruelty -- how "soft" are thy ways

Why couldn't they let me be
with good people caring for me?
Was I a threat: alive and carefree?
Now I am gone; brutality stays

 

August 1, 2013 --

LPR's Winner of the 2012 Mission Accomplished Award for Premature Gloating...

...is White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, quoted in The New York Times, July 19, 2012, on page A13 as declaring: "'[Syria's President Bashir] Assad is a spent force in terms of history'". Mr. Carney added that Assad "'will not be a part of Syria's future.'"

 

August 1, 2013 --

What a Difference a Year Makes

New York Times headline, July 19, 2012, across the top of page A13:

"Anticipating Fall of Assad. Washington Starts Planning for a Changed Syria"

New York Times headline, July 18, 2013, lead story, front page:

"Momentum Shifts in Syria, Bolstering Assad's Position"