Reuters reports:
The resurgence of the old Bill Clinton, flushing with anger and wagging his finger as he fights for his wife’s presidential bid, has cast a shadow over her campaign and could mar his new image as a global statesman.
(Picture by Tami Chappell/Reuters)
Oh, boy, what a great Economist column lead:
The Democrats are in the midst of making an historic choice between nominating their first female presidential candidate or their first black presidential candidate. And who is everybody talking about? A certain 61-year-old white male with a habit of waffling.
With a better end:
The Clintons are in the process of doing the impossible: making the 2008 election a referendum on them, rather than on the Republicans. And the Republicans are inching towards nominating their one candidate, Mr McCain, who has broad popular appeal. If what ought to be a stroll in the park in November becomes a real fight, then the Democrats will know who to blame.
(Illustration by Kevin Kallaugher)
As you know, The New York Times stock has dropped 63% since early 2005.
Now Harbinger Capital Partners, a Cayman Islands-based hedge fund, is trying to force its way onto the boards of the newspaper.
Harbinger said it would nominate four Class A directors for election at New York Times Co.’s annual meeting on April 22.
In a statement, New York Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said the board’s nominating and governance committee would review the nominations “and make a recommendation to our shareholders in due course.”
So … more trouble ahead.
La Vanguardia, the leading quality paper of Barcelona (Spain) breakes another record with new circulation figures (213,623 copies), the best ones in the last 30 years!
In 2005, Javier de Godo, the president and publisher of La Vanguardia, with the full support of his children Carlos and Ana and the leadership of editor Javier Antich and managing editor Alfredo Abian, decided that the newspaper needed changes.And after the changes were made, this is the good news:In 2007, the newspaper published by the Godo family “changed without changing” and the most recent OJD (the Spanish ABC) results confirm the success of the new format, new design and new content.La Vanguardia sold more newspapers in 2007 than in 2006 (+5.7%) and, more importantly, 33,236 copies more than its main competitor, El Periodico, which after several failed redesigns is now on sale with the rest of the media properties of Grupo Zeta.In December 2007, La Vanguardia sold 16,304 more copies than a year ago, the biggest increase in circulation of the Spanish press.
In 2006, we produced a final report with dozens of recommendations for the “new” La Vanguardia.We were granted full freedom to present our own views, but this report was discussed in detail during many meetings and interviews with the owners, editors, directors and managers of La Vanguardia.So, there were no surprises.And almost all of the recommendations were accepted and implemented.Some weren’t, and we expected that, but we wanted not just to please our client but, above all, to give them our best, independent advice.Some lessons learned by INNOVATION from working with La Vanguardia on these changes:
1. Change when you are a leader (our mantra was “only leaders change, and change to be leaders”).2. Don’t rush (we started the “Project 2007″ in 2005).3. Lead the change from the top (The Godo family and its key executives were involved since the beginning).4. Involve all of your staff (INNOVATION suggested that all the journalists be asked about necessary changes, and we conducted internal surveys, seminars and personal interviews to gather as many suggestions as possible).5. Invest in quality journalism (the changes were triggered by a new state-of-the-art printing press, but La Vanguardia realized that this was a great opportunity to improve the quality of the content).6. Don’t change what does not need to be changed (your “soul”).7. Improve your relationship with subscribers (La Vanguardia is adding subscribers; in the last year its number has increased another 1.9%. That’s against the national trend: ABC lost -1.1%, El País -44.3% and El Periódico -71.4%).8. Devote more space to new issues (education, family, lifestyle, trends, science, new technologies, culture, consumer advice, personal relations …).9. Go full-color but don’t make the newspaper look like a comic.10. Integrate your online and offline newsrooms.11. Re-invent the weekend editions (La Vanguardia is now the third-largest Sunday newspaper in Spain after El Pais and El Mundo) and add creative new supplements (ES was launched with emphasis on sophisticated lifestyle issues and a great graphic formula).12. Improve and expand your infographics.13. Improve and expand your foreign news (La Vanguardia has more than 20 full-time correspondents around the world, and this is part of its “soul”).14. Improve and expand your columns, and add more news analysis.15. Get new and younger readers.16. Don’t downgrade your content (“cover soft news in the same way that you cover hard news”).17. Be different (while Spanish newspapers have become more and more partisan, La Vanguardia has become more and more balanced).18. Fight for your city (La Vanguardia has led several popular local campaigns with great results).19. Improve the reporting, reporting, reporting, and editing, editing, editing of your newspaper.20. And then “change without changing.”
La Vanguardia, like Expresso and Visao in Portugal, Eleftheros Typos in Greece, El Universal in Venezuela, A Tribuna in Brazil, Segodnya in Ukraine, Diario Madeira in Funchal, Emirates Business 24/7 and Emarat Al Youm in Dubai, AS, Cinco Dias and Canarias 7 in Spain or Kapital in Bulgaria are recent INNOVATION projects that ended with more readers and more advertising sales.This is the best “award” that any market can give to a media consulting group.
More breaking news from Detroit:
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick cut a secret deal to prevent the public disclosure of embarrassing and damaging text messages following the resolution of whistle-blower cases involving three ex-cops late last year.
The messages between Kilpatrick and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty, which became public this week despite the deal, chronicle an affair that the two denied when testifying under oath in a trial in August.
The text messages, obtained by the Detroit Free Press, would have been bombshells if they had come up at the trial.
The pair also denied sacking the cops who were probing alleged misbehavior in the mayor’s office.
And now, Detroit News TV partner WXYZ (Channel 7) reports that Kilpatrick was soaking in a luxury resort spa tub with a woman other than his wife last weekend while in Asheville, N.C., for a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event.
The City Council moved to determine if it can force Kilpatrick to reimburse the city for the $8.4 million in taxpayer money used to pay the officers in the whistle-blower cases.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has conducted several embezzlement and bribery investigations and has an open investigation into the death of Tamara Greene, the slain exotic dancer who was linked to a long rumored but never substantiated party at the Manoogian Mansion, official residence of the Mayor.
The new allegations that Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick lied in court when asked about his relationship with Chief of Staff Christine Beatty could be fuel for the family of slain exotic dancer Tamara Greene, who danced under the name “Strawberry.” The family has sued the mayor and city police officials in federal court.
Greene was slain in a drive-by shooting in Detroit on April 30, 2003.
(In the first picture, by Ricardo Thomas, Beatty and Kilpatrick meet with The Detroit News editorial board on May 15, 2007)
(Picture by Mandi Wright/Detroit Free Press)
As a former resident of downtown Detroit, for more than seven years, I am very proud of the Detroit Free Press.A city like Detroit needs real Watchdog Journalism.So, here it goes …It seems now that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff lied about their relationship last summer at a police whistle-blower trial that has cost the cash-strapped city more than $9 million, according to records obtained by the Detroit Free Press.
These are excerpts from SkyTel text message printouts that show communication between Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and chief of staff Christine Beatty.Thanks to the Free Press we know now that Kilpatrick and Beatty, both 37, exchanged personal messages almost daily, including romantic notes.The Free Press reviewed nearly 14,000 text messages received and sent from Beatty’s city-issued pager in 2002 and 2003.Basic reporting always pays! More than 1,300 messages have been posted on freep.com since Wednesday night when the Free Press broke the story about Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick lying.The irony of the scandal is that if the mayor and his top aide had used a regular cell phone and text messaging service from Verizon, AT&T or Sprint, there would be no record.Those messages are simply passed through to the connected devices by the wireless companies and not stored on any master server.But the mayor used SkyTel, which stores the messages.And by using the city-paid private messaging services from SkyTel for his very personal communications, the mayor left a trail that the Free Press uncovered.When you use a city-owned device on a taxpayer-paid communications system to plot your dalliances, there is no such thing as privacy.Free Press lawyer Herschel Fink, and the reporters Jim Schaefer and M. L. Elrick, deserve the credit for the investigation.I am sure that the Detroit Free Press is selling more copies than ever.Good for them.Watchdog journalism sells!
A road sign near the towns of Clinton and Prosperity in Newberry, South Carolina.
(Picture by Reuters)
Today, The New York Times endorsed Hillary Clinton as the best candidate for the Democrats, and John McCain for the Republicans.
The most interesting and brutal comments are about Rudy Giuliani.
Remember that The New York Times endorsed him for re-election in 1997 and praised for his work cleaning up crime in the city and during the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Now they say the opposite!
The New York Times likes Bloomberg!
All this was expected.
The establishment wants predictable candidates.
More of the same.
But Barack Obama is not going to be an easy candidate con defeat.
Wait and see.
What a amazing campaign!
A Vienna street “old boy.”
In a vintage c. 1920s gelatin silver print reminiscent of the native type studies by EMIL MAYER.
INNOVATION
