Peoria Pundit

I was not the only blogger who criticized last week’s Aaron Schock fundraiser because it cost $500 to get in the door and another $5,000 to get a picture taken with President Bush.

But local blogger Red Dot in a Blue State points out that many of those who scorned the GOP are silent about the presumptive GOP Democratic nominee charging more:

Imagine my surprise though when I learned that Senator Obama had a fundraiser on July 29, 2008, a mere four days after Aaron Schock’s event, in which Obama charged not $5,000 for a photograph with him, but “$10,000 or more.” Apparently a photo with the sitting Messiah goes for twice that of one with the sitting President. Bet that would have funded a few mortgages, dinners, and maybe even a child or two at camp. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t care how much it cost or how much it raked in for Senator Obama. Apparently, neither do liberal bloggers. I wonder why they were so outraged by a Republican fundraiser though?

I agree. These big money fund raisers certainly help create an atmosphere in which those with the most to begin with have the most access to the candidates. I’m pretty sure, though, that Obama mingles with the poor unwashed masses to a far greater degree than does Bush.

Still, $10,000 photo opportunities doesn’t seem very grass-roots or even net-roots, does it?

This post isn’t about the media, or politics or anything else this blog is supposed to be about. So feel free to skip it. Read more »

The lovely and talented Marie Carnes set me an email with an observation: Most bankruptcies are filed in court during the first week of the month. So, if GateHouse Media is to inclined, we might hear about it within the next seven days.

Marie predicts that the company would probably declare Chapter 11, which would allow it to reorganize. Chapter 7 basically puts the company out of business. The difference is explained here.

I’ve gotten used to the sound of silence from the local media when it comes to bad financial news regarding local media.

So I was a bit surprised with I saw this link to bad news about GateHouse Media coming from, of all places, a GateHouse Media newspaper.

Alas, all I’m getting is page-cannot-be-found message.

However, I did find this AP story via the Patriot-Ledger.

From Editor & Publisher:

GateHouse Media is likely to default under its credit agreement unless it can negotiate an amendment to its covenants or get a cash injection from its largest stakeholder, Moody’s Investor Service says in a report downgrading the community newspaper publisher’s credit and probability of default ratings.

and

GateHouse could bump up against loan covenants, Moody’s added.

“Moody’s considers it highly questionable whether GateHouse will be able to comply with this covenant test over the near term without the benefit of proceeds from asset sales [emphasis mine] or another equity cure from its largest shareholder,” [Moody's Senior Analyst John] Page wrote.

In other words, GateHouse is going to have to sell of a big chunk of its assets (perhaps the Peoria Journal Star) or get more cash from Fortress Investment Group, a hedge fund that owns close to half of GateHouse.

GateHouse stock closed trading today at 75 cents a share, which is higher than its previous closing price of 72 cents a share. But the price did reach a brand-new all time low of 51 cents a share. Its previous low was 56, which happened yesterday.

UPDATE: I’m not the only blogger on a death watch.

I’m not even going to try to name all the bloggers and others who attended. Lot of conversation. Lots of hugging. Lots of liquid refreshment. And the Cubs won 7-1 over the Brewers.

We even talked some shop.

Look for photos on some of the blogs. I’ll link to ‘em when the photos get posted.

NOTE: GateHouse Media, the parent company for the Peoria Journal Star, TimesNewspapers and other dailies and weeklies in Illinois and other parts of the country, today saw the price of its stock drop to 56 cents a share before closing at 72 cents. The same stock once sold for more than $20 a share. The company is at serious risk of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and there’s speculation the company might have to declare bancruptcy and sell off it’s assets.

Lauren Rich Fine was a newspaper analyst and the managing director-corporate strategy and research for Merrill Lynch, New York, before retiring to become Practitioner in Residence at Kent State University’s College of Communication and Information. She also is a member of the Advisory Board of the Poynter Institute. I contacted her to get her perspective on the GateHouse Media mess and how it might affect the Peoria Journal Star.

Peoria Pundit: It wasn’t all that long ago that GateHouse seemed like the next big thing in the newspaper industry. It was gobbling up newspapers left and right. Was what happened just part of the general downturn in the newspaper business or was it due to GateHouse’s business model in some way?

Lauren Rich Fine: During a period of economic growth coupled with low interest rates, GateHouse’s strategy made sense. They could use the ample free cash flow they were generating to pay dividends, pay interest, and reduce debt. When cash flow gets squeezed by an economic downturn, the leverage can be catastrophic. Personally, I was surprised by the success of the IPO. The short answer is, all newspapers are suffering so it isn’t surprising that Gatehouse’s are as well, but having an increased debt load compounds the pain, much as it is doing with McClatchy and others.

PP: What are GateHouse’s prospect’s for surviving? And what do you think the company’s next steps are?

LRF: I don’t know the company well enough to comment. It depends on whether they go into bankruptcy and/or can financially restructure fast enough.

PP: The Peoria Journal Star is actually one of GateHouse’s largest newspapers in terms of circulation. Can the Journal Star be sold off, and how much would GateHouse get, do you think? What about smaller dailies and nearby weeklies? Who would buy then in today’s market? The JS bought a brand new printing press a year or two before the GateHouse purchase and presumably owns money on it still. Also, the JS is union. Do these issues complicate matters?

LRF: There are no named buyers for papers right now. Landmark properties have been on the block since the beginning of the year. Big papers like Newsday attract big money buyers who can afford to lose a few bucks. If there are wealthy philanthropic people in Peoria or some corporation with a heart or passion for democracy, they are the likely buyers. No way to value the paper due both to lack of data and no sense of how close we are to the buyer. Being unionized isn’t necessarily an issue as a buyer can buy the assets, close the doors, de-unionize and tell folks to reapply for their job.

PP: Wouldn’t any new buyer also want to cut costs, too?

Of course.

PP: On a more philosophical note, what does the decline in value of newspaper companies say about how much Americans value the newspapers? Is all this just part of the eventual migration from print to online?

It is probably both indicative of the migration but also the change in how consumers get their news; more opinionated sites are doing well, like Drudge, huffpo [Huffington Post], etc. Also, economics at play: Excess supply, unchanging to declining demand.

July 29 is the fifth Tuesday of the month, so that means it’s time for Blogger Bash. It will start roughly at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Recovery Room, 802 W. Pioneer Parkway in Peoria. It’s the scene of the first, unofficial mini Blogger Bash, held many years ago.

Everyone is invited.

I have been notified by my new host, mediatemple, that my databases are working fine and are no longer causing an undue strain on their servers.

That’s the good news.

Here’s the bad news:

Mediatemple was the victim of a denial of service attack today. It knocked down Blog Peoria and other sites hosted with (mt) today. There might be some lingering issues with DNS servers needing to propagate some changes. Depending on your ISP, that might take a while.

I do not have any details on what form the DDoS attack took, but I think my site was used in the effort. On Friday, I noticed I was getting a massive number of hits off a Yahoo Image search for a particular phrase, which I won’t repeat so as to NOT generate more of these hits. Things settled down a bit, but on Monday, the page views reached close to 65,000. Normally, I’m lucky if I get 5,000 (these figures are via Site Meter).

I stopped the hits by deleting the post in question and my renaming the image filename.

I submitted a ticket to mediatemple, and maybe a week from now I’ll get a reply.

(press release)

Scholarships are available to registered neighborhood associations and neighborhood watch groups in Peoria for the 2008 Regional Neighborhood Networking Conference, October 2-4, in Lima, Ohio. The conference theme is “We Know Neighborhoods.”

Neighborhood associations and neighborhood watch groups are eligible to apply for one full and two partial scholarships to attend the conference. Full scholarships are worth $300 and are available to first-time conference participants. Partial scholarships of $150 are available to persons who have attended the conference one or more times. The total cost includes conference registration, hotel, and transportation to and from the conference.

The conference offers a variety of workshops focusing on neighborhood development and showcases national presenters who offer innovative ideas and approaches to neighborhood development. City staff will present workshops at the conference. Peoria’s Neighborhood Enhancement Action Team, with Police Officers Vera Fernandes and Elizabeth Hermacinski, Code Inspector Carolyn Hafele, and Joy Wolfman from PAWS, will present a workshop titled: How to Enforce Quality of Life Ordinances in Your City. Steve Fairbanks, Neighborhood Development Specialist, and Dave Schaab, of Waste Management, will present a workshop titled: How to Reduce Cigarette Butt Litter – The Butts Stop Here! In addition, Carol Holford, president of the Gale Avenue Neighborhood Association, will be awarded the Stella Stewart Good Neighbor Award.

Applications can be downloaded from the City’s website: www.ci.peoria.il.us. Go to Government, H-Z Departments, Planning Department, Neighborhoods, Applications & Forms, or at Planning and Growth Management Department, Twin Towers Building, 456 Fulton St., Suite 402. For information call Steve Fairbanks at 494-8603.