Veteran publisher Tom Engelhardt's rundown on the decimation of book publishers' staff (TomDispatch, 12/17/08) compares "collapsing worlds" with newspapers--"a disaster area long before the greatest downturn 'since the Great Depression' hit":

The bad news about the news has been flooding in for years, even if it's worsened under the weight of more general economic tough times. If, for instance, you were even reading a newspaper in print on Tuesday, December 9 (and, if you're under 25, odds are you weren't), then you undoubtedly caught the story about the debt-ridden Tribune Company, a news monster which owns, among other properties, the Los Angeles Times (almost half its staff lost since 2001), the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune (almost a third of its staff lost since 2005) and even the Chicago Cubs, filing for "bankruptcy."...

Only the week before the Tribune filed, America's largest newspaper company Gannett announced a 10 percent cut in its workforce due to "declining revenue," on top of a 3 percent cut last August (neither evidently being part of the 5 percent "trim" at its flagship paper USA Today in late November). And don't get me started on the rest of America's newspapers. At least 30 of them are for sale right now, including the 149-year-old Rocky Mountain News, which lost $11 million in the first nine months of this year, with few buyers in sight.

Writing that the Tribune Co. "even had the nerve to claim that bankruptcy meant it could 'cease all severance payments and deferred compensation to employees who have been laid off.' (Pity the poor reporters who took those buyouts)," Engelhardt notes that, ironically, "it also hired the investment bank Lazard and the law firm Sidley Austin as consultants. In case you're worried, they surely will get paid."

Listen to FAIR's recent radio program CounterSpin: "Bob McChesney on Tribune Bankruptcy" (12/12/08)

Associated Press TV writer Lynn Elber reports (12/18/08) the bad news that, "nearly a decade after the NAACP condemned a 'virtual whiteout' in broadcast TV, the civil rights group said major networks have stalled in their efforts to further ethnic diversity on-screen and off." Even worse,

television shows of the future could be even less inclusive because of a failure to cultivate young minority stars and to bring minorities into decision-making positions.... A "critical lack of programming by, for or about people of color" can be traced in part to the lack of minorities who have the power to approve new series or make final creative decisions, said Vicangelo Bulluck, executive director of NAACP's Hollywood bureau.

As remedy, Elber tells us that the report "calls on networks to revisit a 2000 agreement to diversify the ranks of actors, writers, directors and executives" and "also seeks to establish a task force with network executives, the NAACP and other civil rights groups."

Listen to the FAIR radio show CounterSpin: "Eric Boehlert on TV Diversity Study" (8/8/08)

The new edition of FAIR's radio show CounterSpin (12/12/08) examines the financial collapse of a major U.S. media force:

The Tribune Company that owns the Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times, along with much else, declared bankruptcy this week, just a year after new owner Sam Zell took over, with his notable lack of background or interest in newspapers. It sounds like workers will wind up with the short end of the stick but what does it mean in the bigger picture? Are capitalists losing interest in media and if so, what do we think about that?

After listening to Robert McChesney's analysis of that story, hear about the latest labor news:

The fight over "card check" union organizing was somewhat low-key during the general election. But the issue soon became a favorite topic for pundits who were either warning that Obama would lurch to the left, or those who held out the hope that Obama would turn his back on the labor movement. What is card check, and why does it have corporate America--and much of the corporate media-up in arms? We'll find out from labor journalist Steve Early.

More on Corporate Ownership of news outlets and media coverage of Labor can be founds in FAIR's online Issues Archives.

The dismal state of corporate newspaper journalism has Philadelphia Inquirer columnist George Curry reconsidering (12/11/08) the value of his lifelong dedication to improving the trade:

I have spent most of my career urging young people to consider careers in journalism. I was founding director of workshops affiliated with the National Association of Black Journalists chapters in St. Louis, Washington and New York, which encouraged minority high school students to enter the profession. As a past chairman of Youth Communication, a news service for teen papers across the country, and as a board member of Young D.C., a regional teen paper, I have worked with hundreds of young people over the years, many of whom entered the field.

This has always been a source of great pride for me. But now, for the first time, I am wondering if I did the right thing. That's not because I have any less love for my profession, but because the news business is changing--for the worse. Many big-city newspapers are putting less emphasis on social issues and providing less coverage of the poor than when I first entered the business in 1970.

Having chosen his profession "not only because I could write, but also because I thought newspapers did a poor job of covering the poor, and I wanted to help change that," Curry now thinks that, "though there has been some improvement, it looks as if much of that progress is about to be eroded."

Read the FAIR magazine Extra!: "A Poverty of Coverage: Why Aren't the Poor on the Media Agenda?" (9-10/07) by Steve Rendall

WeCanStopTheHate.org brings its fight against hate speech to online media with a post (12/10/08) about reports that Facebook board of directors member Peter Thiel "recently donated $1 million to the anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA," which the Southern Poverty Law Center "identified... as one of six core organizations in the anti-immigration movement."

Founded by John Tanton and directed by Roy Beck, who has written extensively on environmental and financial issues, NumbersUSA is the most calculating of the anti-immigration groups, offering information on the relationship between immigration and the environment. Regardless of apparent environmental sympathies, NumbersUSA supported Federation for American Immigration Reform and the American Immigration Control Foundation--SPLC-designated hate groups--in their immigrant-bashing billboard campaign. Beck has also been the Washington, D.C., editor of the Social Contract, a quarterly journal that has published articles by "white nationalists" such as Samuel Francis, who was fired from the conservative Washington Times after writing a racially inflammatory column, and James Lubinskas, a contributing editor to the racist American Renaissance magazine.

No. 1 on WeCanStopTheHate's list of how to "hold Thiel and Facebook accountable": Use Thiel's own medium to force his hand--"Invite friends to the grassroots page on Facebook that was launched in response to these reports." Over 2,000 members already have joined!

See the FAIR Press Release: "Questions About Source in Immigration Debate: Group Has Links to Racist Fund" (1/1/93)

Harold Meyerson's latest dispatch (WashingtonPost.com, 12/8/08) on Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell retells how "Zell repeatedly and profanely expressed his disdain for quality journalism," gutting major dailies like the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune because he thought they "carried too much national and international news." After "hundreds of excellent reporters and editors were unceremoniously shown the door" comes news that the Tribune Co. is filing for bankruptcy protection, but Meyerson writes that

Sam Zell never really had much skin in the game. Last year, when he purchased the Tribune Company... he put up $315 million of his own money and paid the balance of the purchase price, $8.2 billion, with the employee stock ownership plan--a move in which Tribune employees had no say whatever. But that actually overstates the amount of Zell's investment. Of the $315 million he sunk into the company, it turns out that $225 million was simply a promissory note. Due to the vagaries of bankruptcy law, writes business analyst Mark Lacter on LAobserved.com, that means that Zell has better protection for his stake than all his employees.

And how are those employees faring? Well, even the New York Times headlined its December 8 report "Workers Pay for Debacle at Tribune."

Actual headline today (12/10/08) in the New York Times Dining section:

Great Meals for Two, Under $100 (It’s Possible)

Times food writer Frank Bruni stressed that it "was an experiment for lean times, but not an exercise in cheap eats." In case there was any doubt.

Looking back in the FAIR archives, one recalls that in 1997, the Times' wine columnist wrote: "The $100-a-bottle wine, once an example of vulgar excess, is now an everyday occurrence."

Earlier (12/18/92), the Times ran a story that dared readers to believe that it was possible to eat lunch and dinner in New York City for less than $50. "'Lunch and dinner in New York City for $50 a day?' sniggered a seasoned veteran of Manhattan restaurants. 'Is that sitting down?'" The story came with maps to show readers where this amazing feat might be possible.

As long ago as 1988 (3/11/88), the Times was announcing that "dinner for two in the average New York restaurant has broken the three-digit barrier." This is a special usage of the word "average" pioneered by the New York Times--meaning "catering to the extremely affluent."

As President-elect Barack "Obama has made a point of appointing a diverse group of thinkers to his cabinet," Courtney E. Martin's American Prospect article (12/8/08) asks, "What about the diversity of opinion outside the White House?":

Let's start at the top. Kristal Brent Zook, author of I See Black People: The Rise and Fall of African American-Owned Television and Radio, reports, "Women of all races own just 5 percent of the 1,400 commercial broadcast television stations in America. People of color, who make up 33 percent of the national population (and will be more than 50 percent by 2050), own just 3.6 percent." But what about radio, favored medium of so many sharp-tongued and strong-willed politicos? Brent Zook also reports those abysmal numbers: "Women and minorities own just 6 and 7.7 percent of all broadcast radio stations in the country respectively. This means that listeners in an average radio market have 16 white male-owned stations to choose from, but just one woman-owned and two minority owned alternatives." Check out Out of the Picture and Off the Dial, two reports put out by Free Press, a D.C.-based media reform organization, for even more inexcusable statistics.

In case you "think it doesn't matter," Martin cites a Free Press finding that "having a minority- or female-owned station in a market is significantly correlated with a market airing both conservative and progressive programming." In short: "More diversity means more vigorous debate means a more enlightened democracy."

And independent media aren't immune either; see the current issue of FAIR's magazine Extra!: "Huffington Post Mutes Women's Voices: New Media, Same Gender Imbalance" (11-12/08) by Jessica Wakeman

SaveTheInternet.com's Megan Tady announces (12/2/08) an alternative Help Wanted ad to assist Barack Obama in appointing a new chair for the Federal Communications Commission. The desired qualifications:

This job requires a strong commitment to protecting the open Internet, ensuring fast and affordable Internet access for all Americans and diversifying media ownership.

Applicant must be willing to hold long and unruly public hearings and enjoy arcane telecom banter. Wardrobe malfunctions, NASCAR wreckage and fleeting expletives are discouraged.

While a "public interest background" is "strongly preferred," there is one caveat: "Industry lobbyists need not apply."

This news comes from an AFL-CIO blog (via Adam Serwer at TAPPED): 

 
This report likely won’t be on CNN's Headline News, but after five years, former workers at CNN have finally gained justice. In a decision made public today, an administrative law judge ordered the network to rehire 110 workers who were fired because they were union members. CNN also was ordered to recognize the workers' unions, National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA (NABET-CWA) locals 31 and 11.

Judge Arthur Amchan found that CNN violated the rights of more than 250 employees at the network’s bureaus in Washington, D.C., and New York City when it ended its subcontract with Team Video Services (TVS), whose employees were represented by NABET-CWA. He also ruled that CNN discriminated against TVS employees who wanted to continue working at CNN's bureaus to avoid having to recognize and bargain with the union.