Archive for May 2009
Roxana Saberi Leaves Vienna for the United States
American journalist Roxana Saberi, who spent four months in an Iranian prison, is on her way to the United States.
Robert Hugins, public affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Austria, told The Associated Press that Saberi left Vienna this morning on a flight bound for Washington, D.C.
The 32-year-old journalist, who moved to Iran six years ago, was arrested in late January and convicted of spying in a closed-door trial that her Iranian-born father said lasted only 15 minutes.
She was freed on May 11 and spent a week in Austria recuperating. Hugins said Roxana is traveling with her parents and a family friend.
No. 1 News Site? MSNBC.COM Once Again With 40 Million Unique Visitors in April
Editor & Publisher released its monthly list of top news websites today and once again MSNBC.com is on top with more than 40 million unique visitors in April.
MSNBC.com’s numbers represented a 24 percent increase over its numbers in the same period last year, according to Nielsen Online.
Meanwhile, NYTimes.com, slipped from the top 5 to sixth by registering 16.5 million unique. a decline from last April of 8 percent. The New York Times is disputing the Nielsen numbers, noting its own internal data show an upward trend in viewership.
Here are the top 30 news websites with their April unique visitors and percent change, according to the survey.
MSNBC Digital Network — 40,098,000 — 24%
Yahoo! News — 39,198,000 — 14%
CNN Digital Network — 37,225,000 — 11%
AOL News — 23,388,000 — 1%
Fox News Digital Network — 18,110,000 — 67%NYTimes.com — 16,546,000 — (-8%)
Tribune Newspapers — 15,663,000 — 16%
Google News — 12,933,000 — 20%
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division — 12,520,000 — (-5%)
USATODAY.com — 11,987,000 — 12%ABCNEWS Digital Network — 11,577,000 — (-8%)
CBS News Digital Network — 10,790,000 — 9%
washingtonpost.com — 10,232,000 — 8%
McClatchy Newspaper Network — 9,675,000 — 15%
BBC — 9,060,000 — 63%TheHuffingtonPost.com — 8,885,000 — 157%
WorldNow — 8,820,000 — 14%
NBC Local Media — 8,720,000 — N/A
Advance Internet — 7,845,000 — 30%
Hearst Newspapers Digital — 7,245,000 — (-6%)Topix — 6,597,000 — 8%
MediaNews Group Newspapers — 6,448,000 — 0%
Boston.com — 5,888,000 — 33%
Cox Newspapers — 5,705,000 — (-1%)
MailOnline — 5,160,000 — 70%Daily News Online Edition — 5,033,000 — 73%
The Slate Group Websites — 4,418,000 — N/A
New York Post Holdings — 4,403,000 — 27%
NPR — 4,325,000 — 1%
Belo Television — 4,200,000 — (-7%)
News Cycle had a good April as well, seeing an increase in unique visitors of 35.8 percent over its March figures, according to Google Analytics. Comparisons to the previous year are not possible as the site was launched in August.
AP Offers Several Hunderd Buyouts, But Keeps It a Secret
The Associated Press is offering buyouts and increased pension benefits to hundreds of its veteran employees, but refuses to make a public statement or file a report on the action.
The buyouts, which according to a report today by Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher, offers $500 for each year of service, were not publicized and were only made public through a posting on the guild’s website.
According to the site:
In an effort to reduce its worldwide labor costs by 10 percent, The Associated Press is offering employees based in the United States and ex-pats 55 and older an enhanced retirement benefit that will increase employee pensions by 14 to 16 percent.
Ex-pats are overseas employees who were hired in the United States and transferred overseas.
The company said it will offer the benefit elsewhere, if legally permissible. Some countries have labor regulations that may prohibit the company from making the offer.
Employees have to be actively employed or have retired between Jan. 1 and May 1, 2009 to be eligible. In addition to being 55, at least 10 years of service is required. Age and years of service must total at least 75.
AP said there are 263 employees in the Guild unit who are eligible to apply, according to the Guild. There are about 100 in the administrative group. The number of eligible employees in the ex-pats group is unknown. In the Guild Unit, 49 employees are 65 or older, 94 are 60 to 64 years of age and 120 are 55 to 59.
Tucson Citizen to Cease Publication Saturday
Arizona’s oldest newspaper, The Tucson Citizen, will roll the presses for the last time tomorrow while continuing with a modified website that will deal with opinions only.
Renee Schafer Horton of the Citizen has the details:
“There will be no news or sports reporting at http://www.tucsoncitizen.com,” said Kate Marymont, vice president of news for Gannett Co., Inc., which owns the Citizen. The Citizen’s recently revamped entertainment section, Metromix, will continue on a “provisional basis,” Marymont said.
Gannett’s joint operating agreement with Lee Enterprises, Inc. also will terminate Saturday, although the two companies will continue as equal partners in Tucson Newspapers, a subsidiary that handles all noneditorial operations for both papers. The JOA has been in effect since 1940.
The two companies will continue to share equally in the operating costs and profits of Tucson Newspapers, also known as TNI Partners, according to CEO Mike Jameson.
It will be announced later how many of the 60 employees will be retained. The Citizen was first published in 1859. It ran its editions Monday through Saturday afternoon, and had an average daily circulation of just under 20,000.
But Mark Fitzgerald of Editor & Publisher is reporting this afternoon that one bidder is going to court to try to acquire the newspaper:
California publisher Stephen L. Hadland, whose bid to buy the Tucson Citizen was rejected, asked the Arizona Attorney General’s Office Friday to block Gannett Co. from shutting down the paper as a print publication on Saturday.
“I am requesting the Arizona Attorney General’s office file a Temporary Restraining Order preventing The Gannett Corporation from closing the Citizen and require Gannett to continue printing the newspaper pending a sale to a qualified buyer,” wrote Hadland, president and CEO of Santa Monica Media Company LLC and publisher of the Culver City (Calif.) Observer.
… “It was just a game,” he said. “They never wanted to sell it, they just wanted to close it. They systematically destroyed this newspaper.”
Hadland compared the Tucson JOA to the former partnership of Gannett and Liberty Newspapers in Honolulu in 1999. Hawaii’s attorney general stepped in to block Liberty from closing the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and to force it instead to look for a buyer. Hadland, an unsuccessful bidder for the Honolulu paper as well, said the sale and independent operation of the Star-Bulletin demonstrates that the Citizen need not shut down.
“This is a perversion of the Newspaper Preservation Act, no different from what they tried to do in Honolulu,” he said.
Hadland also lashed out at Gannett for ceasing print publication when, he said, it demanded that bidders for the Citizen pledge to print the paper daily. “Now they’re trying to get around it by saying they’ll have some bloggers on a Web site,” he said. “Last time I looked that was not a daily newspaper.”
Fuzzy Math Over Employment Numbers and Saved Jobs
Matt Apuzzo of The Associated Press made a point yesterday I’ve been stating for months about job creation and how the Obama administration is counting employment in the United States.
THE WHITE HOUSE SAID: The stimulus has created or saved 150,000 jobs.
THE FACTS: Since February, the nation has lost more than 1.3 million jobs, according to the Department of Labor. To make the case that the country created jobs over that same stretch, the White House has put forward a benchmark of jobs created “or saved.” The argument is that the job numbers would have been even worse had it not been for the stimulus, and the difference between those numbers is a net positive.
To visualize that disconnect, consider this: The administration has promised to create or save 600,000 more jobs in the next 100 days. Even if the nation loses another 5 million jobs during that span (a highly unlikely prospect) the White House could still claim success.
There are few hard numbers when it comes to tracking stimulus jobs. The Obama administration numbers are based on estimates by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, based largely on a formula Obama’s transition team put forward. It estimates the effect of tax breaks, government spending and social programs on job growth.
Spending money will put people to work. But spending has a cost. At some point, Washington will have to pay for this program, either by raising taxes or interest rates, and those policies typically hurt job growth. The Obama administration’s job data do not take into consideration this back-end cost, an omission some economists, particularly conservative economists, say is a flaw in the analysis.
The argument of “saved jobs” is arbitrary at best, and is only being used to claim a political victory by the White House. It’s impossible to quantify, and suddenly appeared in the president’s language only after the campaign. What we ought to be counting is the net jobs. Is the economy continuing to shrink? Or is it expanding?
Barack Obama promised 5 million green jobs alone during the campaign. How are we doing on that? PolitFact has an answer.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the economic stimulus, includes nearly $17 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy, including $5 billion to weatherize low-income homes; $3.1 billion for state energy programs; $2 billion for advanced battery manufacturing grants to encourage production of plug-in hybrid and electric cars; and $3.2 billion for energy efficiency and conservation block grants.
There’s also $6 billion in the stimulus to modernize the nation’s electricity grid; as well as hundreds of millions for research into renewable energy technologies like biomass and geothermal.
And it includes more than $6 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy investors. Together with renewable tax credits, the White House estimates that will result in $100 billion in private investment in renewable energy projects.
… It’s too early to say how many green jobs all of this will translate into. Suffice to say a lot. Five million? Time will tell.
This is what his administration needs to quantify, not an obscure figure of saved jobs. It’s early in his term, and I’m sure the number of green jobs created is still low. But if he focused on reporting tangible results, it would be hard for the right to refute him.
Gibbs in Phone-Gate! Ringing Cell Phones at WH Briefing
A few light moments as cell phones went off during Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ breifing yesterday.
More Tasteless Comments; Golf Analyst Wants "Pelosi Shot, Reid Strangled’
There have some real nasty comments in the public forum lately, and CBS Sports golf analyst David Feherty comes close to the top.
Feherty apologized to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for a tasteless and morbid joke published in a Dallas magazine under his name.
Feherty was among five Dallas residents who wrote for “D Magazine” on former President George W. Bush moving to Dallas.
From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.
“This passage was a metaphor meant to describe how American troops felt about our 43rd president,” Feherty said in a statement. “In retrospect, it was inappropriate and unacceptable, and has clearly insulted Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid, and for that, I apologize. As for our troops, they know I will continue to do as much as I can for them both at home and abroad.”
Once again, and this bears repeating. This type of “humor” has no place in politics. It’s pretty gutless to write something like this or to make similar comments. This country, if nothing else, that resoundingly voiced a need for change in the way we operate and how we conduct our public debates. Have a political point to make? Make it. But try for once to stay on point and not wish death or disease on your opponent.
Roxana Saberi Freed From Prison and Can Leave Iran Immediately
UPDATE, 9:30 a.m. Eastern: An American journalist jailed in Iran has been freed and can leave the country immediately, her lawyer said Monday after an appeals court suspended her eight-year prison sentence, according to the Associated Press.
Abdolsamad Khorramshahi says Roxana Saberi is “now out of jail.” The 32-year-old dual American-Iranian national had been in detention for nearly three months. On April 18, Iran’s Revolutionary Court charged her with spying for the United States, and sentenced her to eight years in prison.
Iran’s judiciary said the appeals court, which heard her case on Sunday, had reduced her jail term to a suspended two-year sentence, said one of her lawyers, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi.
“She is entitled to leave Iran immediately,” said human-rights lawyer Saleh Nikbakht.
Khorramshahi earlier said: “The appeals court … has reduced her jail sentence from eight years to two years of suspended sentence … and she will soon be free.” In a closed hearing yesterday, the court’s judges noted that Iran and the United States “are not at war.”
She was initially given the lengthy prison term during a secret hearing that sparked a diplomatic incident between Washington and Tehran.
“The verdict of the previous court has been quashed,” lawyer Saleh Nikbakht said. “Her punishment has been changed to a suspended two-year sentence and she will be out of prison.”
The daughter of an Iranian father who lives in Fargo, N.D., and who acquired U.S. citizenship, Saberi moved to Iran six years ago and worked for various international news media including the BBC, FOX News and NPR. Arrested at the end of January, she was initially accused of working illegally as a journalist but was finally tried on a spying charge, one the Iranian authorities often use to silence journalists.
Several Iranian-American citizens, including journalists, have been arrested in Iran in recent years but Saberi is the first one to be tried and given a jail sentence. Her closed-door trial was held on April 13 and the sentence was issued five days later.
Iran was ranked 166th out of 173 countries in the latest Reporters sans frontières press freedom index. A wave of arrests on May 1brought the total number of journalists and bloggers currently held in Iran to 14. Three of them are women.
Roxana Saberi Released, Can Leave Iran Immediately
UPDATE, 9:30 a.m. Eastern: An American journalist jailed in Iran has been freed and can leave the country immediately, her lawyer said Monday after an appeals court suspended her eight-year prison sentence, according to the Associated Press.
Abdolsamad Khorramshahi says Roxana Saberi is “now out of jail.” The 32-year-old dual American-Iranian national had been in detention for nearly three months. On April 18, Iran’s Revolutionary Court charged her with spying for the United States, and sentenced her to eight years in prison.
Iran’s judiciary said the appeals court, which heard her case on Sunday, had reduced her jail term to a suspended two-year sentence, said one of her lawyers, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi.
“She is entitled to leave Iran immediately,” said human-rights lawyer Saleh Nikbakht.
An Iranian appeals court earlier today reduced Saberi’s eight-year jail sentence to a suspended two-year term.
After the court’s ruling, Khorramshahi said: “The appeals court … has reduced her jail sentence from eight years to two years of suspended sentence … and she will soon be free.” In a closed hearing yesterday, the court’s judges noted that Iran and the United States “are not at war.”
She was initially given the lengthy prison term during a secret hearing that sparked a diplomatic incident between Washington and Tehran.
“The verdict of the previous court has been quashed,” lawyer Saleh Nikbakht said. “Her punishment has been changed to a suspended two-year sentence and she will be out of prison.”
The daughter of an Iranian father who lives in Fargo, N.D., and who acquired U.S. citizenship, Saberi moved to Iran six years ago and worked for various international news media including the BBC, FOX News and NPR. Arrested at the end of January, she was initially accused of working illegally as a journalist but was finally tried on a spying charge, one the Iranian authorities often use to silence journalists.
Several Iranian-American citizens, including journalists, have been arrested in Iran in recent years but Saberi is the first one to be tried and given a jail sentence. Her closed-door trial was held on April 13 and the sentence was issued five days later.
Iran was ranked 166th out of 173 countries in the latest Reporters sans frontières press freedom index. A wave of arrests on May 1brought the total number of journalists and bloggers currently held in Iran to 14. Three of them are women.
WH Correspondents, Obama Chuckle at Wanda Sykes’ Joke About Limbaugh’s Kidney Failing
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1155201977
Wanda Sykes had some supposedly funny remarks at last night’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington. Having been diagnosed with End Stage Renal Failure, I wouldn’t wish kidney failure on anyone. This is tasteless. But, apparently it’s funny if your a liberal president or a Washington journalist.
Rush Limbaugh, one of your big critics, boy, Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails. So, you’re saying “I hope America fails,” it’s like, I don’t care about people losing their homes, or their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq. He just wants the country to fail. To me, that’s treason. He’s not saying anything differently than what Osama bin Laden is saying. You know, you might want to look into this, Sir, because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was just so strung out on oxycontin he missed his flight.
Rush Limbaugh, I hope the country fails, I hope his kidneys fail, how ’bout that? Needs a little waterboarding, that’s what he needs.
Some other examples of Sykes’ humor last night:
“I know Governor Palin, she’s not here tonight. She pulled out at the last minute. You know, somebody should tell her that’s not really how you practice abstinence.
“Sean Hannity, Sean Hannity said he’s going to get waterboarded for charity, for our armed forces. He hasn’t done it yet, I see. You know, talking about how he can take a waterboarding. Please. Okay, he can take a waterboarding by someone you know and trust, but let somebody from Pakistan waterboard, or Keith Olbermann. Let Keith Olbermann waterboard him. He can’t take a waterboarding. I can break Sean Hannity just by giving him a middle seat in coach.
“Dick Cheney, oh my God, he’s a scary man, scares me to death. I tell my kids, I says, “Look, if two cars pull up, and one has a stranger, and the other car has Dick Cheney, you get in the car with the stranger.”
For the record, Obama took some jabs at himself and the administration, as told by Richard Leiby of the Washington Post, describing who was safe:
Not Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton: “The minute she got back from Mexico, she pulled me into a hug and said I should go down there myself.”
Not Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: “This is a tough holiday for Rahm. He’s not used to saying the word ‘day’ after ‘mother.’ ”
Not even, it turned out, himself: “During the second 100 days, we will design, build and open a library dedicated to my first 100 days.”
And: “My next 100 days will be so successful, I will complete them in 72 days. And on the 73rd day, I will rest.”
News Cycle 