Bay Area bloodbath

The guy's evil incarnate, I get it. Still, the union agreed to a crappy deal. How can you be surprised that a crappy deal is what they get?

 

No surprise that the leaner and meaner Merc didn't work, perhaps because people would like a little news with their paper (not to mention pages).

When I was out in SF in mid 2004, this market was a fantastic one for newspapers. God, has it declined in the last four years.

 

what does the oc register have to do with lean dean?

 

i'm assuming that's the lean dean thread?

 

My fiancee and I have tried to find out whether it's just the big papers in BANG or if it goes out to every single paper, including the small ones in the I-80 Group. We've been out of luck though — anyone able to help out?

 

Just to clarify: I'm wondering if it includes Vallejo, Vacaville and Woodland. Some folks consider those three to count in the Bay Area group for the sake of convenience, so it's hard to say. I'll be asking my boss tomorrow, regardless, but it'd be nice to approach him knowing already.

 

Love how you have enough energy to write this but not click the link ...

 

wb, i can't click links on my phone.

 

Oh. You shouldn't have told me that. I thought it added to your character

 

I've actually gotten pretty good at predicting when the next round of layoffs is coming. Basically, Dean has bought a tremendous amount of papers on credit. He has like no equity in these places. But get the financing from banks or sometimes even their previous owner who is just happy to get rid of them.

He buys something worth, let's say 500x for 400x, but only puts like 25x down.

Then he immediately slashes operating costs by 20-30 percent (through consolidation, layoffs, moving up deadlines, etc.), so he can claim a profit. If that doesn't work, then he comes with deep, deep layoffs throughout the chain.

The chain reaction is becoming predictable. Any time I read he's bought another paper, with money he doesn't have, I know another round of layoffs is comign to my shop.

The sad part is, I've been told that my shop turns a profit. It's just not enough to offset his debt from the other papers he's bought.