News at GateHouse Media/PJ Star

[Murph]

Wow, the Peoria Urinal Star plants spyware on your computer, now that's just plane mean.

 

[Murph]

San Diego newspaper offers buyouts


The Union-Tribune has weekday circulation of about 280,000 and Sunday circulation of about 360,000. It is the flagship of San Diego-based Copley Press Inc., which earlier this year sold its newspapers in Illinois and Ohio to GateHouse Media Inc. for $380 million.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8TADC080.htm


tick tick tick......

 

[tornado]

I found this pretty interesting....

Just 3 days ago, this article showing that the PJS's sister publication that's also owned by Gatehouse,
the Rockford Register Star, was named
GateHouse's Newspaper of the Year
http://www.rrstar.com/communities/x1056535997

Then two days later, the paper is cutting loose a whole bunch of their work force..."to be more efficient".
http://www.rrstar.com/homepage/x1059919706

 

[BUBraves2006]

The newspaper industry is a total mess. They have no idea what to do about the internet revolution.

 

[Murph]

Journal Star offers employees voluntary severance package

Uh oh...No more full time moderators.....:mrgreen:


http://www.pjstar.com/php/index.php...offers_employees_voluntary_severance_package/

 

[tornado]

this is exactly what hit the Rockford paper a few weeks ago in the post a couple above this.
"voluntary severance packages"

At PJS, they say they have 281 full time employees and 220 are eligible for the severance packages!
http://www.rrstar.com/homepage/x1059919706

We'll see how this affects the message boards, maybe those guys aren't being paid anyway.
They are beginning to allow Tradin' Post-type advertising
http://pjstarforums.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=65634

 

[Murph]

Web site is down, they must have forgot to pay the bill for their domain name.

 

[tornado]

Here are a couple interesting stories in the media world...

--this story shows how HOT the internet news business has become, when one internet news/sports site buys another for 2/3 of a BILLION dollars!!
The (Chicago) Tribune Company is the corp that is selling and getting the $650 million!
Note this line........
"...Tribune........is cutting jobs and selling assets to repay debt as print advertising and circulation decline. Tribune is the second-largest U.S. newspaper publisher after Gannett Co.
The owner of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune has $1.85 billion in debt maturing by the end of 2009. The company also plans to sell its Chicago Cubs baseball team and the Cubs' home stadium, Wrigley Field"
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2NZlVg4RXJQ&refer=home


So, while internet sites and cyber-news is hot, here's the poop on print news...

--Warnings being placed on print-media mogul Gatehouse's stock
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2008/05/12/afx4995187.html

--major stock holders in Gatehouse are dumping shares as fast as they can!
http://www.mffais.com/newsarticles/2008-05-07/2426800-126065.html

--Gatehouse announces HUGE 1st quarter losses
http://www.pjstar.com/php/index.php?/news/gatehouse_media_reports_1st_quarter_loss/
http://www.rttnews.com/Content/BreakingNews.aspx?Node=B1&Id=601870%20&Category=Breaking%20News

--another one of the large and influential print newspapers in America (the Minneapolis Star Tribune) is in serious trouble and
"the newspaper's outlook "remains uncertain.""
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5761153.html

--and .............despite HUGE 1st quarter tax breaks totalling $1.86 BILLION, the Tribune still
"reported a loss from continuing operations before income taxes of $30 million in the first quarter of 2008"
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/tribune-reports-2008-first-quarter-results,386420.shtml

 

[Guinness]

Here is another thing that is really annoying to me, and I hope the visitors to the BradleyFans site appreciate this---

I cleared out all the cookies from my files and went to the PJ Star Sports page and to the PJ Star Forums. That's all, just one visit to the PJ Star sports and forums sites. Then I checked my cookies files and here is what I found--

[email protected]ificclick
default@advertising
default@atdmt
default@att
default@bluestreak
[email protected]ox
default@hitbox
default@mediaplex
default@pjstar
default@quantserve
default@specificclick
default@zedo

12 different cookies planted on my hard disk from just 1 visit to the PJ Star site! And they must have all come from their site, as I verified that all cookies had been cleared prior to visiting their site, and then checked immediately after the visit.

Then I cleared the cookies again and went just to the BradleyFans site. No matter how many pages you view at BradleyFans.com, the only cookie you will ever get is this one--
[email protected]leyfans

That's because we do not have advertising, popups, or banners, and we do not place adware or spyware cookies on your computer. Never have and never will.

Can anyone with more computer and web knowledge explain why the PJ Star site needs to download so many tracking and advertising cookies to every user's computer? If you are wary about getting these adware, and spyware cookies, then be warned that you are getting them at their site.

It is because Bradleyfans only loads content from bradleyfans.com, whereas pjstar.com has all sorts of inclusions from various other sites, ad networks, etc and is nothing to be worried about.

 

[tornado]

I kinda disagree.......some of those programs are for advertising purposes, so they can slip you pop-up ads, and some may be for tracking patrons and targeting your computer for further ads if you return and haven't cleared your cookies.
In addition, they could well be selling your e mail address to other advertisers, since that's how sites who do this make extra money.

But...no such Trojan programming or ad sales go on at Bradleyfans, and you will never have your identity or e mail address ever given to or sold to anyone else.