The Press Takes a Powder When Teachers Are Involved

I think that is a weird ethical parameter of not dealing with individual teachers. What are teachers: chicken liver? Maybe that bizarre press thinking is the reason poor Erwin’s case was buried. If the press doesn’t write about individuals, what does it write about, bricks and mortar Plato’s ideal forms? Elliot’s pathetic fallacy? This response by Brown is disingenuous. She writes about individual members of the board when they get in fights.

Bart, what about writing Ms. Brown and telling her about your case and pointing out that intimidation and firing of teachers who criticize the administration or board is an entrenched management technique and concerns the relationship between the board, administration, and teachers.

Ms. Stein makes a practice of not responding. She's the reportorial Greta Garbo: she wants to be alone. That’s why she will never win a Pulitzer—not even a Cracker Jacks gadget.

Who is Ms. Lyons?

When you meet with Ms. Griffin, inquire why she and Susan Valdes, both of whom I supported for the board, did not answer my request for them to establish a teacher/student position on the board agenda so that teachers and students would feel welcome to give the board their input.

All you bloggers, hang on to your blogs. You will be the print press's replacement sooner than you think.

lee

From: Thomas Vaughan [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 7:30 PM
To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Let's Cast a Wider Net.

Thomas Vaughan has left a new comment on your post "Let's Cast a Wider Net":

Ms Brown of the Tribune told me that she didn't get involved with individual teacher issues with the district or the CTA. I did write her back explaining that intimidation was a management technique employed by some district employees and it certainly went beyond my own personal issue.

Ms Stein didn't even respond.

In fact the only person who even said anything was Mr Lyons, who represented the district view. Ms Griffin was the only person who agreed to meet with me.

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Posted by Thomas Vaughan to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 4:30 PM

Coming Soon? The No-Newspaper City

Cleveland_press_front_page Fitz: The 1970s ushered in the era of the one-newspaper city as afternoon papers withered and died in a numbing succession through every downturn well into the 1980s.

Now, as we enter the end of the 21st century’s first decade, we could see the era of the no-newspaper city, according to Fitch Ratings.

As E&P reports on its Web site, the Chicago-based ratings service is out with a gloomy prediction about the near future of media and entertainment – and it sees newspapers as the medium least like to weather a global recession that’s going to turn “severe” in 2009 with an advertising climate even more harsh than the industry’s painful experience during 2001-02.

"Fitch believes more newspapers and newspaper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010," the Chicago-based credit ratings firm said in a report on the outlook for U.S. media and entertainment.

On a conference call with bond and credit analysts Monday morning, Fitch’s Mike Simonton elaborated on the liquidation prediction.

It’s true, he said, that banks and other lenders want to see newspapers and newspaper chains continue as going concerns. And by now you don’t need to be an industry analyst to understand that now, and probably not in 2009 either, is not going to try to sell a newspaper. (Even as he was speaking, AP was reporting that Landmark Communications was giving up trying to sell its flagship Virginian-Pilot.)

But he concluded, neither are creditors going to tolerate forever newspapers that don’t break even on a EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) basis. “It’s a matter of what that breaking point is,” Simonton said.

And when the breaking point arrives. Fitch thinks it could be pretty soon.

Hard to blame the agency for its pessimism. Among the newspaper companies it covers are several most reeling from debt, including Journal Register, which is in a period of forbearance by its lenders, and the junk-rated Lee Enterprises, Tribune Co., and The McClatchy Co.

Ms. Cobbe: Look at the last sentence of a reader’s comment to me below. Is Ms. Kipley’s husband on the auditing team for the schools? Thank you. ldd

Minions of the Light: Linda Kipley’s husband has no accounting degree or even bachelor’s degree. He got the job with the schools that involved accounting while several qualified people got turned down. This ugly routine is known as nepotism a go-go.

I reviewed the application files and made copies. If the Kipley-address Kipley is the Linda Kipley spouse, then this sounds like a good case to send to the federal government for violating the equal-opportunity riders for federal funds. I know for sure Kipley’s husband has neither bachelor’s degree or even a cooking school sheep skin. He has only a high school education. This requires a query to Ms. Cobbe for public information. lee