Here's proof The New York Times isn't worth what it was.

People may argue whether or how far journalism standards have fallen at The New York Times. But we can agree what's happened to The Times' parent company's stock price the last few years. It's dropped big time while the market hasn't.

The Times is the flagship property of The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), which Business Wire reports also owns The International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 16 other newspapers, eight network-affiliated television stations, two New York City radio stations and more than 40 Web sites, including NYTimes.com and Boston.com.

The following price information is from Yahoo finance.

NYT closing price as of 10/21/2005 - 27.09

It's 52 week price range - 26.85 - 41.62

A scan of NYT's 1 year price chart indicates its 52 week high occurred about this time last year.

A chart comparing the NYT's and Dow Jones Industrial Average price movements for the last year is here.

A chart comparing their price movements for the last 2 years in here.

And there's lot's more financial information you can gather about NYT by going here.

How do you explain the drop in NYT's stock price?

Comments welcome.

"How Eminent Domain Ran Amok"

You're upset by the recent Supreme Court Kelo decision, which makes it OK for local governments to take your home or business under eminent domain, and turn it over to private investors who want to use your property to make a profit for themselves?

So is former National Law Journal editor Carla T. Main. She has a lengthy, fact-filled and thoughtful article, How Eminent Domain Ran Amok, at Real Clear Politics.

She tells us how the Supreme Court got to Kelo and how tough it's going to be to undo the damage Kelo's already doing to the property rights of Americans. But we can undo Kelo.

Here’s part of what Main says:

For many years, the subject of eminent domain, or “takings,” was the purview chiefly of academics and a narrow subspecialty of lawyers. But after June 23, 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 5–4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, Conn., the term immediately found its way into heated debates in legislative chambers and the flying mud of electoral campaigns nationwide.

In Kelo, the Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutionally permissible for the city government to take a group of working-class homes from their owners and turn the parcel of land over to private parties for the purpose of economic development. Kelo thereby tapped into deep-rooted questions of money and class, its result threatening to violate that most sacred of American domains: the home.

The Kelo decision is testament to the expanding use of police power by the state for the advancement of private interests that are often in cozy relationships with local municipal governments.(Bold added - JinC)

The Florida Masochist has been sounding the alarm bell on Kelo since the day the decision came down. He’s provided his readers some shocking examples of local governments using Kelo for property confiscation.

I’m going to email FM and see if he’ll post with links to some of his earlier Kelo posts and update us with his latest.

If he does, I’ll post and link here.

Getting back to Main, her article is here.

Speaking up for Big Oil

Let people attack me. I'm going to say a good word for big oil.

In the supermarket yesterday I compared prices of the same brand of olive oil in 16 oz. and 68 oz. bottles. Neither was on special sale.

16 oz. bottle - 39 cents per oz.

68 oz. bottle - 20 cents per oz.

OK, you say, but who wants to have to pour every day from a 68 oz. bottle?

Well, you can decant from the 68 oz. bottle to the smaller one as needed.

Think about it, if you don't already do it.

Why pass on a chance to cut your oil bill in half?

Oops, your olive oil bill.

Editor mocks The New York Times

(A warm welcome to visitors from Mudville Gazette's open post.)

Former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown writes an opinion column in today's Washington Post. She mocks The New York Times for creating The Judy Millar Saga. Publisher Arthur Salzburger Jr and Executive Editor Bill Keller are among Times leaders Brown mocks.

Yes, mocks a strong word. But look at some of the things Brown says, and see if you don't agree it's an accurate descriptor.

Brown begins:

The age of the blogosphere has produced a new genre of mainstream journalism: fake transparency. The New York Times has become its foremost practitioner.

Brown then zooms in on The Times' explanations/not explanations of just what reporter Judy Miller has been doing the last few years.

After reading the 6,000-word takeout in Sunday's Times on the Judith Miller/I. Lewis Libby farrago in the Valerie Plame/CIA leak case, accompanied by Miller's own strangely cryptic narrative of her belated grand jury testimony, I know even less than I thought I knew before.

<...>

Readers would rather have waited and gotten a story they could at least understand. Newsrooms, however, can't handle that kind of old-fashioned restraint. The blogs are baying to be fed, the competition is kicking their butt on the story, the stock price is down. "Transparency" turns into a combination of partial truths and morose institutional venting that makes everyone, including the readers, feel worse about themselves and the newspaper than they did before.

<...>

For Brown, the Judy Miller saga is symptomatic of major institutional problems at The Times.

Don Van Natta's team-reported narrative included such baffling details as Times Executive Editor Bill Keller blandly noting that, after he took her off the Iraq story because of her lead role in co-authoring the erroneous stories of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Miller "kept kind of drifting on her own back into the national security realm." Drifting? On her own? Is the Times after Blair ( Jayson Blair, a Times reporter, whose fake and inaccurate stories The Times published. - JinC) some sort of trackless sea, with lone castaways afloat on rafts? To whom do reporters report? IS THERE ANYBODY HOME?

Brown feels The Times needs adult supervision. But she's not looking to Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. to provide it.

Such is the power of Dame Judith's mystique with Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. that his paper quotes him as saying it was Miller's "hand on the wheel" throughout the course of the legal decision-making even though his editors seem to regard her as a less malleable version of Madame Chiang Kai-shek.

Brown isn't finished with Sulzberger. Further down we read:

You have to feel sorry for Sulzberger. Like every spirited young man who inherits a newspaper, he hankers after something more exciting than sitting in the front office fretting over the price of newsprint. He wants to feel as real in his role as valiant publisher as his reporters -- those driven, passionate, sometimes reckless seekers after truth -- feel in theirs. When he threw his support behind Miller's fight to protect her sources, he didn't think he was in a bad reality show. He thought it was an Oscar-winning movie -- "The Pentagon Papers 2."

Mocks an accurate descriptor, isn't it?

While I've been critical of The Times, I take no joy in reading what Brown tells us. I'd like to think things are better at The Times than we've been reading.
But if things are better there, why is The Times reporting what its reporting?

One caution on Brown's column. She touches on BBC/Gilligan and CBS/Rather, and falls into the "fake but accurate" pit. But that's a small part of an otherwise interesting column.

You can read all of what Brown says here.

Good news! Palmetto Pundit 's back.

(Welcome visitors from Mudville Gazette. And "thank you" to the Greyhawks for their open link.)

Barry at Palmetto Pundit is back!

He was very good before. I think he’s better now.

Look at his latest post: Double Standard—Big Time.

Barry reports on legal action parents have taken against a California school system that’s been teaching 12-year olds religion.

No, not really religion says the Byron Union School District. It was all just cultural.

What sort of cultural teachings were the children given?

Well, teachers put 12-year old students into "Islamic city groups," gave them Islamic names and identification tags that displayed their new Islamic name and the Star and Crescent Moon, the universal symbol of Muslims.

What's more, the children were given materials that instructed them to “Remember Allah always so that you may prosper.”

Barry has more about it. Please make a visit to Palmetto Pundit and keep scrolling.

A blogger and a journalist team to set things right

Go over to Confederate Yankee to learn about an important mistake an MSM journalist made. It got corrected with a big assist from one of our own Tar Hell bloggers, Bob Owens.

Bob spoted a major statistical error in MSM reporting from Iraq. He emailed the reporter who first reported the error. There was a bump or two, and the reporter initially disagreed with Bob but things worked out.

The MSM reporter corrected his mistake in a way that left you thinking, "Why can't we have more journalists like this guy?"

Bob's devotes a lot of his community service time to helping make Raleigh's News & Observer a better paper.

Good luck, Bob. We're glad you're in North Carolina and the blogosphere.

An MSM story: I think you'll smile.

(Welcome visitors from Betsy's Page and other blogs I may have missed.)

A friend called over the weekend and we got to talking about journalists.

He recalled that some years back The New York Times had run a series of exposes of business companies. For sources, The Times relied heavily on current and former employees of the companies. The Times called it sources "whistle blowers."

Some time afterward, when there was all the trouble involving Times reporter Jayson Blair and executive editor Howell Raines a good number of Times employees complained about standards and practices at the paper.

My friend was talking to a Times editor about that time and decided to do a little needling.

"Looks like you've got a lot of whistle blowing going on in your newsroom," he said.

"Those people," the editor replied. "They're just disgruntled."

And so it goes.

Thank you to Mudville Gazette for an open link

( Reader,

Here's a link to a post that may interest you. It contains the full-texts of two documents.

One is an email a press officer for North Carolina's Gov. Mike Easley sent to a news editor at a major NC paper.

The other is a column the editor subsequently wrote in which she reported at length on matters mentioned in the email but told readers nothing about the email until she characterizes it in the last two paragraphs of her column.

The email was not public at the time the column appeared and normally would not have become public. But in response to a blogger's request, the Governor's office released a copy to him two weeks after the editor's column appeared.

I know of no journalist in NC who has been critical on the record of the editor's reporting.

Again, here's a link to the documents. I hope you read them. Comments are welcome.

John)

Reader note added 10/20/2005 at 12:15 PM Eastern

Press office email. Editor Sill column

This post contains full-text copies of two documents. One is an email sent by the press office of North Carolina Governor Michael Easley to The Raleigh News & Observer’s executive editor for news Melanie Sill. The other is a column Sill wrote for News & Observer readers following her receipt of the email.

The email became public three weeks after Sill wrote her column.

The documents are provided as a service for anyone interested in contemporary American journalism.

Governor Easley’s press office can be reached at: governor.office@ncmail.net

Editor Sill can be reached at: msill@newsobserver.com
________________________________

Email sent Aug. 9, 2005 from Cari Boyce, Governor’s press office to Melanie Sill, executive editor for news at Raleigh’s News & Observer.

Thank you for your recent call to our office about the Governor’s availability to reporters at the News & Observer. Specifically, it is my understanding that you are writing a column on “public officials who will not take or answer questions about public policy matters.” You cited, as an example, Barbara Barrett’s recent story on pardons and clemency.

In the past month, the Governor has had at least six public events in the Raleigh area where he has been available and has made public comments about a variety of issues. The News & Observer staff has been made aware of these events and they have all been open to your reporters. As you and your reporters know, the Press Office staff routinely works with reporters who would like to ask “off-topic” questions at public events and attempt to accommodate them whenever possible. For example, Matthew Eisley spoke with the Governor regarding the bonds for the N.C. Art Museum at last Thursday’s Bill of Rights ceremony. Furthermore, Ms. Barrett was also at the event and had the same opportunity to ask the Governor questions as did Mr. Eisley.

Ms. Barrett contacted the Press Office requesting an interview for her story on pardons mid-afternoon on Monday and claimed that she had a Wednesday deadline. She was given all the information that she requested about the process and the status of the cases in question. Subsequent questions also were answered after her stated deadline. Because of the ongoing negotiations with the legislature over the budget, the Governor’s schedule simply did not permit a one-on-one interview with her.

Other than Ms. Barrett, I am not aware of any recent requests by reporters at your paper for interviews with the Governor on any topic. Your assertion that the Governor does not comment on “public policy matters” is simply not accurate.

The Governor’s Press Office will continue to accommodate media requests when appropriate but it will continue to be done in balance with the other responsibilities and scheduling demands of the Governor. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact me.
_________________________________________________


Editor Melanie Sill’s column, Aug. 9, 2005

Governor's position? No comment

Accurate news reporting depends on information from first-hand, knowledgeable sources. That’s why The N&O’s reporting is hampered when people who are the principal players in news stories say “no comment’ or refuse to be interviewed. When those people are public officials, the interest of an informed public is seriously harmed.

Many public officials show endless patience in providing information and answering questions, but a growing list seems comfortable adopting no comment as standard practice.

The latest example is Gov. Mike Easley’s absence from a story by Barbara Barrett on Sunday. Barrett was writing about several former convicts whose sentences had been overturned, now waiting for Easley to decide on their requests for “pardons of innocence.” Barrett’s requests for an interview with Easley were denied, and official spokespeople provided little real information. In the end, we were not able to answer the obvious question about why the governor (who has sole authority under the constitution to issue pardons) had not acted on the requests.

Other examples abound. Public information officers who don’t return phone calls. Police chiefs and sheriffs who won’t answer questions about their agencies and whose officers won’t provide information that’s supposed to be public. Large state agencies that funnel all requests to a single person, a person who usually doesn’t have the knowledge required to answer questions.

In June, Raleigh Police Chief Jane Perlov refused to be interviewed by The N&O after the departure of several officers from the force amid reports that they had failed to respond to routine police calls in North Raleigh. She authorized a prepared statement.

In July, news broke that during his time as Kansas head coach, UNC basketball coach Roy Williams had approved gifts from team supporters to players who had graduated or used up their eligibility, a violation of NCAA regulations. Williams wouldn’t talk to N&O reporters; instead, he released a statement. After repeated requests for comment, he relayed brief responses to a couple of questions through a spokesman back to The N&O. Williams is one of North Carolina’s highest-paid state employees based just on his $260,000-plus university salary (a fraction of his total pay).

Early this year, N.C. State football Coach Chuck Amato wouldn’t grant us an interview — on the phone or in person — after three assistant coaches resigned. N.C. State released a statement in early January from Amato, who continued to be unavailable, at least for interviews with The N&O. A week later, we sent a reporter to track Amato down at a meeting in Kentucky for a few minutes, just to get some basic questions answered. This wasn’t a “gotcha’ kind of story, just normal reporting about the ups and downs of a high-dollar public athletic program. The coach was a principal source, or should have been.

If you’re a media basher, you might cheer this behavior. But public officials who won’t discuss issues central to their public responsibilities are dissing you, the public, not The N&O. (They brush off other news outlets as well).

We’re asking the kinds of questions readers often ask in online forums, letters to the editor and notes or calls to The N&O. "Why was this done? Why WASN’T this done? " We can do a better job of reporting – more accurate, complete and fair – when people who know the answers decide to comment rather than give the cold shoulder to reporters.

Which brings us back to Easley. Governors have many official duties, and we don’t expect Easley to be available for interviews on every story. (He should have people who can represent his administration’s positions). But a quick survey of this newsroom brought his name back repeatedly for being unavailable to answer questions about a number of policy matters: Overweight trucks on North Carolina highways, for instance. The transfer of state land to Currituck County, a big political fight earlier this year involving Easley and Sen. Marc Basnight.

In April, Andy Curliss, who covers the governor’s office, asked to interview Easley about one of his pet issues, the state lottery. The request was declined. Sure, the governor is busy. But doesn’t his job involve explaining his thinking on major public policy like a state lottery?

While working on this column, I sought to hear Easley’s side of things. I put in a request to interview the governor or his representative on Monday afternoon, noting I was on deadline. The response? No interview with the governor or anyone else. Instead, I received a lengthy email statement from Cari Boyce in the governor’s press office saying that our reporters are free to chase down the governor at public events (as they do as often as they can) and ask him questions.

Thanks, Ms. Boyce, but that’s not what I asked.
_________________________________________________

Right in Raleigh puts the info out there

Some bloggers don't hold back; they just put the information out there.

Scott Pierce at Right in Raleigh is one such blogger. Go take a look at what happened when Scott sent an email to The Raleigh News & Observer's Ted Vaden regarding The N&O's - how shall I put this - tilting to the left. Yeah, that does it.

Anyway, you can easily follow the whole thing because Scott gives you his email, Vaden's response, and then Scott's second email back to Vaden.

Nice blogging, Scott. You're helping folks learn about The N&O.

Spotlight on Sill’s “no comment” column

(Readers Please Note: This post is intended to provide additional information for people reading the post: Journalist offers “unsolicited advice.” If you came here before reading that post, I ask that you go to Journalist offers "unsolicited advice" and read until you get to a link which will bring you back here. You'll know it when you see it. Thank you. John)

In a recent column titled, Governor's position? No comment , Raleigh News & Observer executive editor for news Melanie Sill complained about North Carolina public officials and others people she feels don’t make themselves available to N&O reporters and herself for interviews and don’t provide information The N&O wants.

Here’s part of what Melanie said:

The latest example is Gov. Mike Easley’s absence from a story by Barbara Barrett on Sunday. Barrett was writing about several former convicts whose sentences had been overturned, now waiting for Easley to decide on their requests for “pardons of innocence.” Barrett’s requests for an interview with Easley were denied, and official spokespeople provided little real information. In the end, we were not able to answer the obvious question about why the governor (who has sole authority under the constitution to issue pardons) had not acted on the requests.

At the time Melanie wrote that, she had in hand an email sent to her by the Governor’s press office.

Here’s part of the email(A full-text copy is in the middle of this post: The editor, the Governor, and we, the readers):

In the past month, the Governor has had at least six public events in the Raleigh area where he has been available and has made public comments about a variety of issues. The News & Observer staff has been made aware of these events and they have all been open to your reporters. As you and your reporters know, the Press Office staff routinely works with reporters who would like to ask “off-topic” questions at public events and attempt to accommodate them whenever possible. For example, Matthew Eisley spoke with the Governor regarding the bonds for the N.C. Art Museum at last Thursday’s Bill of Rights ceremony. Furthermore, Ms. Barrett was also at the event and had the same opportunity to ask the Governor questions as did Mr. Eisley.

Ms. Barrett contacted the Press Office requesting an interview for her story on pardons mid-afternoon on Monday and claimed that she had a Wednesday deadline. She was given all the information that she requested about the process and the status of the cases in question. Subsequent questions also were answered after her stated deadline. Because of the ongoing negotiations with the legislature over the budget, the Governor’s schedule simply did not permit a one-on-one interview with her.

Other than Ms. Barrett, I am not aware of any recent requests by reporters at your paper for interviews with the Governor on any topic. Your assertion that the Governor does not comment on “public policy matters” is simply not accurate.

When Melanie wrote her column, the email from the governor’s press office had not been made public. It only became public three weeks after Melanie’s column appeared when I posted on the column and email in the post I linked to above. So at the time they read it, the only things N&O readers knew about the email was what Melanie reported to them in the last two paragraph’s of her column.

Here are the two paragraphs:

While working on this column, I sought to hear Easley’s side of things. I put in a request to interview the governor or his representative on Monday afternoon, noting I was on deadline. The response? No interview with the governor or anyone else. Instead, I received a lengthy email statement from Cari Boyce in the governor’s press office saying that our reporters are free to chase down the governor at public events (as they do as often as they can) and ask him questions.

Thanks, Ms. Boyce, but that’s not what I asked.

If you’ve read The editor, the Governor, and we, the readers you know I asked Melanie four questions beginning with why she hadn’t made the email available to her readers and ending with:

Is your reporting on the email and Governor Easley and his staff a fair example of how N&O staffers report on public officials and their staffs?

Although I sent Melanie multiple emails inviting her to respond to my questions, I've heard nothing back.

I know of no written comment Melanie has made about her reporting on the email.

In addition to her duties as executive editor for news at Raleigh’s News & Observer, one of North Carolina’s two largest daily circulation newspapers, Melanie Sill is a leader in state and national journalism organizations. She is a strong supporter of Sunshine Week, a nationwide effort by journalist to get government to be more open and accountable.

EASY RETURN TO: JOURNALIST OFFERS “UNSOLICITED ADVICE

Journalist offers "unsolicited advice"

Media critic Jay Rosen and Raleigh News & Observer executive editor for news Melanie Sill have had some back- and-forth regarding journalism. I posted on some of what they got into here: Please editor Sill: Stop the fuss and answer the questions.

Now, at his eponymous blog Greensboro journalist Ed Cone has offered Melanie what Cone calls “unsolicited advice.” Some of Cone’s “unsolicited advice” has to do only with Rosen. I don’t want or need to get involved in any that.

But I came to find out from friends that two pieces of Cone’s “unsolicited advice” involved me. (I found one link to Cone's post. It takes you to the date he posted, after which scroll down to where he begins: Transparency and conversation are fairly new...

Cone twice used John in Carolina posts to support his advice to Melanie as you’ll see if you click on the “sometimes” hyperlinks in the two pieces of his advice that follow:

Sometimes, it's best to continue the conversation with more info, even if the challenge comes from a determined antagonist with an agenda you will never satisfy.

And sometimes, it's best to counterpunch -- in this case, I'd say, give me a break, get a sense of proportion, we'll cover Air America's travails in roughly the same manner as we cover Rush Limbaugh's trials, not the way we cover an investigation into the White House.

I wish Cone hadn’t used - really misused - my posts. But since he did,I'm responding.

I left a few very brief comments at Cone's blog mainly to let people who went past his post and into the comments know there was more than Cone was saying.

Now, I’m sending Cone the following email.

(Reader, Before reading the email, please read this post: Spotlight on Sill’s “no comment” column. A current knowledge of what’s in the Spotlight post is essential to understanding the email I’m sending Cone.

There’s an EASY RETURN hyperlink at the bottom of the spotlight post which, with a click, brings you back to this post. Please go and return. Thanks.

<...>

Glad your back. Now to the email
_____________________________________________

Dear Mr. Cone:

Regarding your “Sometimes, it’s best to continue the conversation with more info” advice to Melanie Sill, what info are you referring to?

Do you mean Melanie should answer the questions I asked of her in the post, The editor, the Governor, and we, the readers, which is part of the first of my two posts to which you linked?

Do you recall one of the questions I asked Melanie:

Is your reporting on the email and Governor Easley and his staff a fair example of how N&O staffers report on public officials and their staffs?

Many people who have read both Melanie’s column and the email from the governor’s press office say, yes, her column is a fair example of how The N&O reports. Some people have even said it’s typical of journalists in North Carolina.

What do you think? Is Melanie’s column a fair example of how The N&O reports? Is it typical of journalists in North Carolina? Would you have reported on the email as Melanie did?

I’m trying to find at least one journalist here in North Carolina who, after reading the column and the email, has written anything critical of the way Melanie reported the email to her readers. Do you know of one?

Regarding the part of your advice to Melanie that begins, “And sometimes, it's best to counterpunch” and ends “into the White House” I’ll say just this for now: What you advise Melanie to do seems discordant with the facts of the Air America matter as I recall them.

But I’m going to double check those facts in order to be sure any criticism I make of you is soundly fact-based. That’s only fair to you; and it will help keep me from looking foolish.

I’ll read carefully all my Air America posts. I’ll also read carefully Melanie’s Air America posts and her readers'comments, paying particular attention to those which bear directly on your “sometimes …counterpunch …into the White House” advice. They are Re Air America complaints and comments (25); and Air America, part II: Good shots, all and comments (78).

I noticed that following your link to one of my posts, you advised Melanie concerning “ a determined antagonist with an agenda you will never satisfy.”

I hope you agree that when we speak of others we may or may not be revealing anything about them, but we’re always revealing something about ourselves.

I’m putting a link to a post in the comments following your advisory post to Melanie.

Look for at least two more posts responding to those pieces of your “unsolicited advice” which linked to John in Carolina.

John
________________________________________________________

I plan to have the next post up by Tuesday evening. Please come back.