Well, at least they like the best of us ...
posted 3-3-2008 - 3:05 am

Not everybody hates print journalism or considers it obsolete yet. Or at least, not everyone in business hates newspapers and magazines.

Fortune's annual series of articles on the World's Most Admired Companies is just out. The Top 50 list frankly gives me pause. After all, it has Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America on it — and I can't see why any company that's received or is asking for a bailout should be on that list. Then again, this survey must have been taken before the bailouts really began; it's the only thing I can think of that would make sense of those rankings.

Guillotining the press
posted 12-4-2008 - 10:50 pm

 
[Editor's note: this item was written just days before the Tribune Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (reorganization, not liquidation; but given Mr. Zell's ineptitude, it could yet convert to the latter; one hopes for the sake of the employees and readers that it doesn't). Moreover, Conde Nast's Portfolio magazine, cited below, is now itself in a financial bind and may only survive as an online-only publication.]

So today we read about yet another round of firings — what else can you call them? Not layoffs, because those laid off are presumably rehired in time — at the Chicago Tribune. I ran across this bit of news while simultaneously looking at something else on Huffington Post and perusing my e-mail. The mail included the daily post from Gorkana.com, which lets journalists know where their colleagues have taken new positions. We use it to keep tabs on each other; but lately, it's become less a source of information than an exercise in envy and permanently diminished expectations for what David Brooks recently called "The Formerly Middle Class."