Why Are Newspapers Dying? - O'Reilly Broadcast

Why Are Newspapers Dying? - O'Reilly Broadcast: “The emergence of the Internet proved newspapers' most challenging competitor, and the one that ultimately may have managed to do the newspaper industry in altogether. Most newspapers, from the veritable New York times on down, launched their own websites, reasoning that this was simply another medium in which to publish their own writers, but this viewpoint may have been somewhat shortsighted.

In 2003, the term blog first entered into the modern lexicon, an online editorial or journal written not by professional journalists but by eager amateurs who could publish by overcoming a far smaller barrier to entry - setting up a blogging site. With contemporary tools, the blogger could effectively start producing his or her own "news" within a few hours, and if they happened to be reasonably competent, were willing to invest some time into promotion and consistent in publishing content, they had a good chance to gain more "eyeballs" than professional journalists with thirty years of experience.

As of April, 2008, only three newspapers had a subscriber base in excess of 1,000,000 readers - USA Today (2.3 million), The Wall Street Journal (2.1 million) and the New York Times (1.1 million). Most newspapers average approximately 300,000 subscribers. This of course doesn't reflect total readership numbers - many papers sell a significant proportion of their subscriber levels in newsstand and library sales - but it does provide at least a basic metric for understanding the dynamics of newspaper publishing vs. the web.”

Oakland Oracle Arena - East Bay Express; Robert Gammon Looks At Problem I Told City Auditor To Look At Long Ago

East Bay Express | News | Darkness on the Edge of Town: Express: “Aaccording to a hard-hitting recent audit obtained by the Express, Oracle Arena remains an "underutilized" and "underperforming" public facility that falls short of expectations for a major event center in the middle of the nation's fourth-largest market. "The arena should be a 'must-play' by promoters of touring shows, including concerts, family shows, and special entertainment events," the audit stated. The arena also has fallen short of expectations in terms of offsetting the $20 million public subsidy that Oakland and Alameda County give to the arena and coliseum complex each year to keep it afloat.

According to the audit, which was requested by the Golden State Warriors and completed last month, Oracle Arena has averaged just 99 events a year over the past three years, including 43 basketball games annually. By contrast, HP Pavilion drew 169 events last year alone, including San Jose Sharks hockey games.”

-- This has been a long standing problem. The Oakland Coliseum Authority has allowed SMG to run amok; the current contract was given without competitive bid. Why? I ask this again.

Oakland City Hall forum tonight to address police-involved shootings - Inside Bay Area

Oakland forum tonight to address police-involved shootings - Inside Bay Area: “Forum on officer-involved shootings: Oakland's Citizens' Police Review Board will hold a public forum tonight on officer-involved shootings after the city saw a string of them earlier this year.
The event begins at 6:15 p.m. in City Council chambers at 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza.
Patrick Caceres, Citizens' Police Review Board analyst, said the forum will include presentations from the Oakland Police Department on use of force and what procedures the department goes through when officers do fire their weapons. Also scheduled to attend is Jim Chanin, an attorney who has represented clients in a number of police misconduct cases.
"The main reason this was organized is because there were a number of high-profile officer-involved shootings at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008," Caceres said.”

Don Perata shifted $1.5 million from PAC to his legal defense - Inside Bay Area

Don Perata shifted $1.5 million from PAC to his legal defense - Inside Bay Area: “By Josh Richman
Oakland Tribune Contributors to Don Perata's political action committee this year might have thought their money would bankroll the attempted recall of state Sen. Jeff Denham or opposition to a legislative redistricting reform measure.

But a day after the Nov. 4 election, and with only a few weeks left as state Senate President Pro Tem, the Oakland Democrat moved $1.5 million from Leadership California into his own legal defense fund, formed to counter a years-long FBI corruption probe.
This sum dwarfs the California Democratic Party's $450,000 contribution to Perata's legal fund over the past year, which had caused an outcry from some party activists. It also towers above the $555,000 Perata had moved from his Taxpayers for Perata committee — ostensibly created for a 2010 Board of Equalization run — into his legal defense fund in several chunks since 2005.

The transferred amount is more than the entire $1.4 million the committee had raised in this year's first nine months, and more than half of the $2.7 million it had on hand as of Sept. 30.

"This was a general-purpose ballot measure account — not tied to any specific measure," Perata spokesman Jason Kinney said Wednesday. "The use of any remaining funds for legal defense activities is perfectly legal, appropriate and commonplace. In fact, the Political Reform Act explicitly allows for it."”

Rod Blagojevich, Jesse Jackson Jr, and Tohy Soprano

llinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been indicted for ethics violations connected with a string of actions, including attempting to sell the now vacant Senate seat held by President-Elect Barack Obama. Of the persons considered for the seat, it's reported that Senator #5 offered to raise over a million dollars for the Governor -- it's rumored that the person is Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.

Jackson moved swiftly to address this issue, holding a press conference where he said that he did meet with the Governor, and for 90 minutes. But he did not offer anything in the way of money. That press conference is here.