-By Warner Todd Huston
In yet another example of the retrenching in the national media landscape, the Chicago Sun-Times has laid off its entire photography staff and plans to replace them with freelancers.
Chicago radio reports say that the Sun-Times intends to “focus on video” instead of still photography.
The Chicago Tribune reports that its rival laid off 20 full-time staffers and posted a statement from the Times
The Sun-Times business is changing rapidly and our audiences are consistently seeking more video content with their news. We have made great progress in meeting this demand and are focused on bolstering our reporting capabilities with video and other multimedia elements. The Chicago Sun-Times continues to evolve with our digitally savvy customers, and as a result, we have had to restructure the way we manage multimedia, including photography, across the network.
Erika Enigk Grotto, the spouse of one laid-off Times photographer said that her husband was told that reporters will now be tasked with using their own cell phones to take photos to accompany articles.
The @suntimes laid off the company’s entire photo staff this morning. Reporters will be shooting with their phones. Solid business decision.
— Erika Enigk Grotto (@Bewarika) May 30, 2013
The Chicago Sun-Times has been cutting deep into its budget for some time.
In a strike of bitter irony, on the same day the paper announced it was firing all its photographers, the Sun-Times printed the obituary of its long-time chief photographer Bob Kotalik.
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Chicago Sun-Times Lays Off Entire Photo Staff”
The New York Times is exasperated with the lack of progress in Congress of “fixes” to the massive and far reaching Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. This exasperation has evinced itself in an odd way as the Times seems to be expressing sympathy for lobbyists and businesses trying to make changes to the law.
Yahoo, Inc. has announced that it has cleared the way to purchase the social website Tumblr for a cool $1.1 billion.
Square payment services is one of those new payment applications that merchants can put on a smart phone and, along with the plug-in hardware, is used like a credit card swipe machine to accept payments made by their customers. This month, however, Square has changed its user policy and is now prohibiting merchants from using the service to sell anything firearm related.
The story of the coming demise of Chinatown bus lines in New York City is a tale of multiple failures in both government and the media and shows that both have a bias against entrepreneurs that kills new, start up ideas with unfair regulations, faux public advocacy, and dismal reporting.
Upon coming to office, President Obama began using the obscure National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to give big payoffs to unions at the expense of business and to the detriment of our economic recovery but at last his incredible abuse of this agency is under scrutiny.
On May 10, a spokeswoman for the Internal Revenue Service admitted that over the last year–during the presidential election, at that–the agency had conducted “overzealous audits” of the tax-exempt status of dozens of conservative activists and Tea Party groups. Last year The New York Times dismissed claims that the IRS was abusing its powers but even with these new admissions by the IRS the Times is underplaying the facts.
Apparently, the haters at the AFL-CIO decided that military veterans shouldn’t be allowed to take jobs offered by Walmart.
Supermarket owner Rafael Cuellar from Passaic, NJ, reports that he had to spend $350,000 to install 69 surveillance cameras, recording devices, and video storage banks in order to stop fake “slip and fall” insurance claims against his store. It’s a cost that just adds to the cost of living for everyone and is a perfect example of the abuse of the legal system that we see every day with this avalanche of frivolous lawsuits.
MSNBC talker Toure thinks he has discovered a key security flaw in our nation’s policies and has suggested a solution. Poverty in the Muslim world, he says, is a key threat to U.S. security and to nullify that threat we should open the borders wide and let all Muslims come here to get jobs so that their poverty can be alleviated.
PepsiCo, Inc, owners of Mountain Dew soda, has pulled an online video ad after viewers complained of its use of racial stereotypes. The ad also seemed to be making light of violence toward women.
On the heels of reports that “half” the staffers at the L.A. Times would resign if the paper was sold to conservative billionaires the Koch brothers, the Newspaper Guild–Communications Workers of America, a journalist labor union, have issued a statement declaring the pair unfit to own a newspaper.
Lee Fang has cobbled together a new book ostensibly meant as a guide to things that conservative activists are doing for their cause and in his chapter on the Koch brothers he regurgitates dozens of un-sourced lies that have little basis in fact even as he presents them as fact.
The State of California has one of the worst proposals of any legislature in the country this year with a new bill that would force every restaurant and food service business in the state to commission an expensive “risk assessment” test for every menu item, a test that could cost thousands of dollars for every food item sold. This outrageous and cost prohibitive testing would certainly cause all but the biggest chain restaurants to go out of business almost instantly.
In a stinging indictment of President Obama’s tenure in the White House, at The Daily Beast Stuart Stevens slams President Obama for the devastating “new normal” that his failed economic polices have brought to the country. Stevens also blames the Old Media complex for ignoring the pain inflicted on America by those same failed policies.
Despite millions if federal loans, last week luxury hybrid car maker Fisker Automotive fired 80% of its employees at its California-based company. But now those employees hired the same law firm that sued “green energy” company Solyndra to charge that Fisker violated state and federal laws with the layoffs.
Cass Sunsetein, one of President Obama’s leading left-wing, university eggheads, has penned an interesting piece in New Republic explaining how the nanny state is really a very important and useful aspect of today’s modern Democrat scheme. It’s for your own good, don’t you know?
Well, when I said that CNBC’s business coverage was “playing catch up” with Fox Business Network, I didn’t know how close to the truth I had it as this month, CNBC copied FBN’s coverage from last fall of the amazing growth that Houston, Texas has seen over the last few years.
The “Green Energy” sector has been hit with a series of setbacks over the last few years. From a wind farm being cited for killing an endangered eagle, to solar energy’s tumble from investor favor over dismal performance, to a growing list of companies gone bankrupt even after President Obama pumped millions of our tax dollars into them, the so-called Green Energy sector has certainly seen better, more hopeful days.
A formal complaint has been filed with a New York lobbying board to investigate whether Yoko Ono, Robert De Niro and nearly 200 other celebrities have violated state laws with their Artists Against Fracking activist group.
Famed American gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson has reported that earnings tripled in its most recent quarter. The company also said it looks forward to continued high sales into the next several quarters.