Arizona Republic puts Snooze to shame

 I still continue to peek at the Dallas Morning News for adhole count. On vacation, out to my sis then SoCal, I looked at the Republic in Phoenix.

First, they appear to have cut a couple of days a week of print run???

Second, the "midweek" Dec. 23 issue at her family's place? More than 40 pages at an adhole of almost 40 percent counting obits as paid adhole. That's contra the typical Thursday Snooze running 32-34 pages, at least in exurban issues, at an adhole of under 20 percent and at times under 15 percent.

Texas Observer sells its soul to Google

 Even as Google, along with Facebook, face new rounds of antitrust scrutiny, including a joint restraint of trade one, the Texas Observer, is getting 11 months of funding from Google as part of its GNI Innovation Challenge.

So, the plutocratic, snoopocratic Google is paying the Observer to hire reporters to "embed" in communities of color? That's the same Google that muzzled, then fired, Black AI researcher Timnit Gebru.

Once again, Bernard and Audre Rapoport, or at least him, are surely turning in their graves.

Surely Google is looking for some sort of data-mining as part of this. Maybe an upgraded version of Google Analytics, with special add-ons reporting direct to Google, embedded in the website, for ad targeting purposes.

Good New Republic piece on CNHI

The mag notes that vulture capitalists like Alden may be worse than pension funds, but that pension funds themselves, notably the Retirement Systems of Alabama, are bad enough. Here's the details, but, it missed several points.

Basically, Rachel Cohen missed some of the problems specific to CNHI — AND, how long it's run amok like this.

First, like some other chains, it prolly should have declared bankruptcy and done a "rinse" several yrs ago, but as owned by a state pension system, it CAN'T.

Second, being owned by a state pension system leads CNHI to lock in overvaluation of its assets in its newspapers. Because, if it sells one for market value, what's that due to the valuation of all others, and hence, to pension funding? Tanks it, of course. So, while you'll see CNHI close or consolidate papers, that's why you'll almost never see them sell them. Nobody will pay their asking price.

Third, and ergo, so, instead of either a "rinse" bankruptcy, or sale of member papers (OR the company as a whole!!!) #CNHI continues to use the quarterly furloughs it started in the Great Recession. Really, it's an El Cheapo version of what Advance is doing.

CNHI is arguably WORSE than Craphouse or Dead Fucking Media. (See, I know their names.) That's because it's been doing this for more than 20 years. And I have direct experience. My first paper was a 5-day daily. CNHI bopught it 1 year after I left. 20-plus years ago. It made it a semiweekly, which, to be honest, was probably the right thing..

BUT! It refused to adjust subscriptions. Not even at the equivalent of 50 cents on a dollar (as in extending six months left on a subscription to 9 months, not a full year, even at the claims that they were printing more pages) let alone fully. So many people cancelled subscriptions they closed it within a year after buying. 

If you see a CNHI paper in a place like Texas running ads for Alabama golf courses and wonder why? If they're Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail courses, that's because its parent, RSA, owns them. Running stuff about Mobile tourism? Owns one semi-luxury hotel there, as well as, I believe, at least one of the golf courses being there. So, the golf course ads? House ads. The Visit Mobile ads? Semi-house ads, and don't forget that there is a state tourism board with a vested interest in promoting tourism, which has state employees hoping for pensions. (To be precise, per this PDF of the Golf Trail, they own two courses in the greater Mobile area, of 36 and 54 holes, and four hotels of various amenities levels.)

Meanwhile, RSA said three years ago it was going to sell CNHI. Still hasn't. Nobody will pay its inflated price. 

Question? At some point, does this involve pension system fraud or something?