Media Insider

I felt rather anonymous at the Chicago Media Future Conference held today at Columbia College. There's something nice to be walking through a room of people you know and who don't know you. It can be lonely too, of course. But that illusion was shattered when chicagocarless writer Mike Doyle blew my cover.

Of course it has never been much of a cover. It has been and remains more of a convenience that is losing any value. I was reminded about the beginning of this idea of anonymous blogging when I contacted John Kuzcaj, the former owner of Chicago Media Examiner. 

For some time, the content of the CME site had disappeared. John put it back up recently. I'm looking through it now for my old posts, which were also, I believe, anonymous. John is out of the Tribune Co., according to his site, and he explains why he closed CME down and his new gig as a rocker.

Miss ya' John. The water is still chilly, but there's always room for one more person.

The personal interaction at this conference was strange for...more

Coming out of the Community Media Workshop Making Media Connections Conference I'm struck by how much I have to learn. Each of the conference sessions provided opportunities to learn something new. Much of the conference centered on how to replace newspapers in the new media world. So, in consideration, is it fair to assign the label loser to the printed word? Are we at a point where we can say that the daily newspaper is no longer the top dog?

Although the long-term trend is that newspapers are in decline, they are not out, not yet. Coincidental with the conference, which concludes on Saturday with a round table Chicago Media Future Conference on Saturday, the CMW released a report on the New News. Phil Rosenthal has a well argued critique of the study in which he notes that although, for example, that the ChiTownDailyNews is listed as the number one source based on the criteria of the study, and that the study made a decision to exclude main stream media, there were MSM web sites in the study nevertheless.

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Michael Oneal's Monday article, “Lenders may get control of Tribune Co.” suggests that unnamed sources are putting forward a plan to take the Tribune Co. out of the control of Sam Zell. However much employees and readers are taken with the idea that Zell and his minions would be shown out the door onto Michigan Avenue, the story refuses to give names.

Sources, what soures are we discussing? “A source with knowledge of the situation... “ Okay, that would be someone in what camp? Zell's, the creditors?

Later in the story it is bankruptcy experts. Which bankruptcy experts? Who are these experts? Why won't they, at least be named? They said the outline of the plan to take Zell out of control of Tribune Co. raises questions about whether the senior lender group “would want to retain Zell and his management team...” Wow! Do 'ya think?

More sources, apparently multiple sources this time, as they are close to the creditors and the company, said it is too early... Could this be a single source or multiple sources? Zell is both a creditor and close to the company. Is it Zell?

Then...more

The Daily Record publishes strong words from former (Baltimore) Sun publisher Michael E Waller about current Tribune Co management: “if this ownership continues its ways, it will be forced to liquidate.

“Tribune management confuses innovation with idiocy,” he said. “I could wear my underwear over my trousers and Tribune would think that’s innovation. Everybody else would think I was wacko.”

That's really unfair to Tribune management. The informal Trib dress code calls for designer jeans, not trousers.

For the past few months I've been following the challenges of two friends. As the economy collapsed they moved from Michigan to Ottawa. The woman, an American citizen, felt isolated. Taking care of small children, she wasn't able to compete with Canadian subjects for jobs. This morning she wrote me:

Lou,

I thought you would be a good person to ask this question to. How does one get paid to blog? Do you have to be a writer to do it? I hear and see ads for people to be bloggers and get paid to do it. It is listed as a good job to have and work from home. Is that true? I would be interested in it but don't have a clue about it. Please do share some information with me!

Yes I am back in Canada and we are trying to figure out where we would be better off. We have a lot to consider. That's why I am trying to come up with things I can do to make money. I though perhaps this blogging thing.
Thanks!
Blogging in...more

In the shadow of the United Center, standing on a sidewalk just east of the doors and across from the sculpture of the Chicago Blackhawks a young man is hawking something. From the parking lot across the street you can hear him: “Committed Indian, $3.”

This is Sam Fels working the crowd on game day. Fels is the publisher, writer and circulator of the Committed Indian, it is in direct competition with the Chicago Blackhawks official game day program, “Chicago Blackhawks Magazine” and was inspired by the Blue Line.

The Blue Line is of near mythical status among hockey fans. Inspired by magazines such as Spy, it took a no-holds barred look at the ownership of the team by Bill Wirtz. Its publisher, Mark Weinberg, authored and self-published a well-known book about Wirtz, “Career Misconduct.” When Blue Line published it's last issue in October 2008, Fels and others quickly revived the idea with the Committed Indian.

“It hit me when the Blue Line went out of business,” Fels said, “I tracked down Mark Weinberg” and we discussed reviving it. However, Weinberg wanted to keep the name, while supporting the...more

As you can tell this week, I'm being wonky. For the past three days I've taken a look at the numbers provided by the Sun-Times Media Group annual report to shareholders. Today, employee counts:

Now, first, I found it interesting that the number of editorial employees in this company is roughly double that of the Chicago Tribune, if reports are true. Last week the Sun-Times group laid off 15 percent of its work force, 140 workers,...more

While looking at the Sun-Times Media Group's annual report to shareholders I remembered that the company plans to move all its printing operations into the Ashland Avenue plant. Here's the quote: “the Company currently produces most of its suburban newspapers at a 100,000 square foot owned plant, in Plainfield, Illinois (which is held for sale at December 31, 2008) and a 65,000 square foot leased building in Northfield, Illinois. The Company closed its older, less productive facility on South Harlem Avenue in 2006, in 2007 closed its Gary, Indiana facility and announced it will consolidate its three printing operations by closing and offering for sale its production facility in Plainfield, Illinois in 2009 and intends to consolidate several other facilities.” Now you have to sort of make a jump and an assumption here. This is another part of the same section: “the Company owns a 320,000 square foot, state of the art printing facility in Chicago, Illinois that houses the production for the Chicago Sun-Times.”

Personally, I don't think this planned move is any secret. In fact here is a Chicago Tribune report on the closure. It seems as though people have been discussing it for most...more

For months this column has used the rough cash burn rate of $15 million a quarter to describe the problem facing the Sun-Times Media Group. In the last week the company has released its 2008 annual report to shareholders and announced a significant layoff.

Combined with the price increase of the Sun-Times, the moves are finally moving the company into a position where survival is possible. Here are the details.

1 The Sun-Times increased the price of its daily newspaper to $1.00. There are a number of assumptions that can be made about how much additional revenue this will generate. First of all, without the current circulation numbers, we will need to estimate the newspaper's circulation.

Based on the annual report, which quotes the Audit Bureau of Circulation report for the year ended March 31, 2008, the average circulation a year ago was 319K for the Monday through Friday newspaper and 229K for the Saturday paper. In addition, examining the revenue from circulation, circ seems to have fallen about 3.6 percent in 2009.

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Someplace in the Internet I wrote about finding Huffington Post pieces that were attributed to the "Huffington Post News Editors" but were actually aggregated news articles from other on-line publications, expecially the Chicago Sun-Times.

NOT SO.

In reviewing the entries, Google News attributes the articles to the Huffington Post News Editors, but the Huffington Post itself attributes that news to the publication and sometimes even to the writer. So, this is a shame on Google situation, not a shame on ChuffPo situation.

For the record, here are the list of articles I found mishandled by Google. I apologize for the error. It is also a shame on me situation.

All Emanuel Replacement Candidates Make Case In 30 Seconds (LISTEN)

The final gasps of the 2008 election are coming. That would be the decision by Democratic Party officials on the replacement for 5^th Congressional District Representative Mike Quigley as he resigns his post as Cook County Commissioner. During the long aggregate two blogs showed up, both new, that hold the promise of watching Cook County closer than any newspaper.

I've come to believe that the hierarchy of news is failing to cover the middle area between the neighborhoods and the larger world. The 5^th Congressional District and Cook County Government are both examples of that foggy area that are lost. I imagine the issue exists everywhere. For example how are the deliberations of the Douglas County government covered? Does Lake County have good local coverage by a blog or a newspaper?

In fact, in Douglas, a small rural county in Central Illinois, there is no apparent on-line coverage of any government functions that are tracked by Google blogs or news. Zero.

Why should we care? It has always been a failure of newspapers that they do not cover everything. They simply can not...more

Finally, Mike Quigley. You probably thought this was going to be a rout? Wrong. NO ONE IS GETTING MEDIA ATTENTION HERE or the search engines (and I'm pointing at the search engines for WGN and CLTV in particular) are inadequate.

WBBM-TV: No Matches

WMAQ-TV: No Matches

WLS-TV: No Matches

WGN-TV: No Matches

WTTW-TV: No Matches

CLTV: No Matches

WBEZ- FM: No Matches

Chicago Sun-Times: No Matches

Chicago Tribune: No Matches

Google: No Matches

Next, Rosanna Pulido. The methodology is the same. We're only listing what appeared within the previous week based on the websites of the news organization.

WBBM- TV: No Matches

WMAQ-TV: No Matches

WLS-TV:

Cardinal calls for end to raids  

... Rosanna Pulido, the director of the ...

abc7chicago.com | 03-21-2009

WGN-TV: No Matches

WTTW- TV: No Matches

CLTV: No Matches

WBEZ- FM: No Matches

Chicago Tribune: No Matches

Chicago Sun-Times (Sun-Times News Group): No Matches

Google:

5th Dist. finalists each say they have a shot

River Forest Leaves - ‎Mar 19, 2009‎

Rahm Emanuel just weeks away, Democrat Michael Quigley, Republican Rosanna Pulido and Green Party candidate Matt Reichel are each planning on taking their ...

Blog blast: where is the MSM?

Chi-Town Daily News - ‎19 hours ago‎

Yesterday a blog, Rosanna Pulido is a Freeper, appeared in multiple Internet outlets.. The blog lists the anonymous postings of a commentator to the Free ...

There's only a handful of days remaining. Here is how the news is shaking out for each of the candidates. The Blog Aggregate feature only includes what Google can find. For this new look, I also went to the websites of the following: Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, WBBM-TV, WMAQ-TV, WLS-TV, WGN-TV, WTTW-TV, CLTV, WBEZ- Chicago Public Radio and Google (News) and created a search for the name of the candidate. I only listed matches from the past week.

I'll summarize what you'll see below: disappointing media coverage.

First, Matt Reichel (Green Party Candidate).

WBBM-TV: No matches

WMAQ-TV: No matches

WLS-TV: No Matches

WGN-TV: No Matches

WTTW-TV: No Matches

WBEZ-FM: No Matches

CLTV: No Matches

Chicago Tribune: No Matches

Chicago Sun-Times (Sun-Times News Group)

5th Dist. finalists each say they have a shot
Published: 12:00 AM Mar 19,2009  

By PATRICK BUTLER pbutler@pioneerlocal.com

With a special election to fill the seat vacated...more