As I understand it, the biggest piece of newspapers’ revenue by far was
the classified ad business. With the aid of the Internet, one man with a
plain, text-only web site just about single-handedly sucked hundreds of
millions of dollars away from them. Craigslist, and to a lesser extent
eBay, along with all other similar sites, are the biggest cause of the
newspapers’ financial troubles today.

Starting in the mid-90s, newspaper pundits wrote column after breathless
column about how the Internet was going to change everything. It would
appear that newspaper executives and owners don’t read their own product,
or pay no attention to it if they do.

“Ain’t this just great !

First Cleveland, now Columbus.

The TVNewsday and TVB/Television Broadcast trade websites report that Columbus is now the second Ohio TV market where two different newsrooms will “pool” news footage of events such as press conferences or other planned events.

The players in Central Ohio dipping into the News Sharing Pool? Media General NBC affiliate WCMH/4, and Sinclair ABC affiliate WSYX/6-Fox affiliate WTTE/28.

Quoting TVNewsday’s report:

The stations’ assignment desks have built a back channel to communicate with each other and a workflow to schedule shoots.

According to WCMH, “content sharing between stations has been done for years through pool type situations and now the NBC, ABC and Fox affiliates in Columbus will work together to share resources. Instead of sending two crews to shoot the same press conferences, for example, the stations will send one crew allowing more efficient use of other station crews.”…”
http://adap2k.blogspot.com/2009/04/cleveland-columbus-newsrooms-will-pool.html

read some stuff like this: http://w2.eff.org/effector/22/

see: The bill, authored by Sens. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, moves cybersecurity authority to an as-yet-unnamed cyber adviser who will report to the president. The wide-ranging measures also include sweeping new regulations to plug the vulnerabilities in both government and the private sector that could leave the nation open to cyber attacks or data theft.

In fact, the new provisions go beyond extending security rules to all government agencies, government contractors and software vendors selling to those groups. They would also be stretched to the private sector’s so-called “critical infrastructure” companies–those typically deemed crucial for national security.

But given that the words “critical infrastructure” aren’t defined in the bill, Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) President Leslie Harris argues the new regulations could cover not just water distribution, the power grid and banks, but also telecommunications, Internet service providers and even Internet application companies like Google ( GOOG – news – people ) and Microsoft ( MSFT – news – people ). …

LSS: consolidation is easier to control, it’s Kissinger’s “Realpolitik” applied, con mucho gusto, to our domestic Economy~”Stability” is preferable to Liberty..

whack out the # of ‘official’ Sources, clamp down on would-be competitors, tag n’ bag anyone moving around, and, presto, the World is your Plantation~

should be fun..

The reason they suck…this will sound counter intuitive… drum roll please…

is that they print their advertisers and publishers views FAR too often. Those views tend to be antagonistic to their readers, WSJ, being an exception. So while their advertisers are happy, the readers are not.

Even though the advertiser is the real customer, sometimes your customer does not have YOUR best interest in mind.

The forces pulling at nearly all enterprises require a set of skills, intelligence, imagination, and energy that few humans possess.

Aside from the Federal government which can do anything it wants (and that, for only so long) all other entities have entered a world that is riven by ever more complexity and game changing paragdigms.

To believe that some other person could have saved, say, GM, when it has devolved over many labor contracts to an unprofitable juggernaut incapable of effective change from within, is folly. The new guy won’t fare much better. He will subsist on government handouts, a ward of the people, because the most natural thing will not be permitted to happen (liquidation) on a government watch.

Running the United States is equally fraught with peril, chance, and dice rolls. It just can’t be done. It is too complex, takes on too much responsibility, and is populated with lunatics, crooks, and psychopaths, masquerading as politicians.

Our hospitals, medical programs, health insurance companies, are all in trouble and have been for years.
The administrators of these firms not up to the task of managing a casion environment. And now even the casinos cannot thrive.

Our models are failing and new ones are not evolving quickly enough with the veterans protecting their own turf until the roof falls in.

I don’t know if any one on earth possesses enough vision to turn around any failing entity without a “fix” being put in like it has with the remaining investment banks.

I don’t think we appreciate–we are stunned yet–by the complete and swift failure of our institutions, and our corporations like Merrill Lynch, AIG, Lehman, Bear Stearns, GM, Ford, Chrysler, and their suppliers and all the banks that have closed up shop.

It’s as of there was a war with no bloodshed, and all around us is devastation, walking wounded, and even more danger on the horizon.

nice points, though re: Homogenization. thank the SPX..it’s the ‘benchmark’, wouldn’t you know?

S&P 500-ization of yon’ countryside, from coast-to-coast-to-coast, full-speed Ahead, 168. .