How to make a tidy additional tax write-off for your newspaper group or yourself as owner

1. Own a newspaper company. For “fleshing” out the story, let’s just pretend the headquarters is in central Texas. Let’s also pretend you own 20 papers at this time, mainly weeklies, all except two generally in central Texas.

2. Own a ranch in west-central to southwest-central Texas. Again, to flesh things out, let’s pretend it’s near Junction. (We don’t have enough fleshing-out information to specify whether the anonymous Mr. You personally owns this ranch, or if it officially belongs to your rock-solid newspaper company.)

3. Have mandatory company-wide staff meetings.

4. Have these meetings not only for publishers (a reasonable idea), but also for managing editors, and even for ad sales managers. Again, just fleshing the story out.

5. Have them all at your nice ranch in Junction, since it’s the off-season from your deer lodge leases out here.

6. Since it does have that lodge as part of it, make sure the meetings cover parts of two days, so your guests can stay overnight.

7. Complete your various IRS forms, sit back and feel a bit better.

Small town publishers

To me, this is one of the best examples of “big fish, small pond,” as to why many people want to be small-town publishers.

Along with that, why does a corporate newspaper group have individual publishers over weeklies less than 50 miles apart?

Boy, the Dallas media landscape changes

From the new company, and its publisher for the Collin County newspapers that were formerly the Star Group, it looks like it’ll be raining shoppers in north suburban Dallas. Might not be raining quite so many paid newspapers in the future.

As for the Aussie group buying the Waxahachie Daily Light and its parent company… haven’t heard anything about them. Just remember that Rupert Murdock came from Australia, though.

Wonder what will happen with the People group; continued expansion, or some sort of sale there, too?

More Belo self-serve suck-up, in spades

The top story in the Guide Live section of the Jan. 6 Snooze (I REFUSE to link to it), complete with six-column photo, is all about WFAA’s new studio?

Give me a fucking break. Hell would have to freeze over and Bob Mong find some cojones before we see similar about any other network station.

Ed Bark, be glad you’re out of there.

Once again, the Snooze's website sucks

The Dallas Morning News had a story Jan. 4 about Toyota passing DaimlerChysler in 2006 U.S. sales and joining the “Big Three.”

Went to the Snooze website. To the Biz section. The story, an AP story, ain’t there. Did a search. Didn’t show the story.