Don Surber
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Saturday, December 03, 2022
Bidenomics leads to NYT strike
Barring some miracle, the staff of the New York Times will go on strike for 24 hours on Thursday. Its elitist readers may be denied their sanitized version of the world.Writing in New York magazine, Shawn McCreesh moaned, “Picture it: a full day without the New York Times. No one covering the tumult in Guangzhou or inside Buckingham Palace or what our president is saying. From midnight to midnight, no reporting, no filing stories, no podcasting, no comment moderating, and definitely no responding to editors’ queries. There would be no live briefings. (You’d be shocked at how many people it takes to produce one of those things.)”
Notice, the city of New York is not mentioned in that paragraph.
For me, a day without the New York Times will be normal. I peek at a story here and there, and occasionally write about something NYT has written, but it is largely a lying sack that promoted Russiagate and other lies about Donald Trump.
But now NYT and the rest of the media reap what they sowed.
Biden.
He’s boring and he’s bringing the economy down.
Readers could not get enough of Donald Trump. Biden? He’s a pathetic Liar in Winter who should be repenting as he nears his death bed but continues his wicked ways instead. He is difficult to write about because he is so uninteresting.
I am not alone in my boredom. Let me give you an example. Trump had Thanksgiving dinner with Kanye West. People cannot stop talking about it. Biden had his first state dinner with the president of France and no one much cares. Even in Paris they still are talking about Kanye.
Losing Trump as president cost the media dearly.
McCreesh wrote, “This winter is shaping up to be a frosty one for everyone in the media as the economy teeters on the edge of a recession. On Monday, Bob Iger said he isn’t lifting Disney’s hiring freeze. On Tuesday, James Dolan sent a memo to his employees at AMC Networks about a coming ‘large-scale layoff.’ On Wednesday, Chris Licht cut the cord on more CNN employees, and there were layoffs at CBS Studios, too. That same day, Sally Buzbee killed the Washington Post’s Sunday magazine, citing ‘economic headwinds.’ On Thursday, there were cuts at Gannett. Penguin Random House is expected to have layoffs in January, and the HarperCollins strike is getting ugly.”
Since he wrote that 24 hours ago, the Washington Post laid off Sarah Kaufman, its full-time dance critic; Gannett laid off 200 employees; and SiriusXM is about to lay off an undisclosed number of its 5,950 employees as sales fall.
Axios reported, “In a letter sent to management Friday, the NewsGuild of New York reiterated its demands to management, and conveyed a level of frustration over the drawn-out talks.
“‘We have spent more than 120 hours across 40 bargaining sessions exchanging and amending dozens of proposals,’ the letter states.
“‘We have listened carefully to management’s positions and concerns and have made countless revisions to address them. In return, we have been lectured about the dire economic future the company faces – even as the company tells Wall Street about a successful corporation that can afford to pay millions in salaries and benefits to its top executives.’
“The letter, sent to the Times’ publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, and its president and CEO, Meredith Kopit Levien, listed key demands, including a new raise structure, keeping pension plan policies intact and changes to performance evaluations.”
NYT staffers have gone without a raise for two years. In that time, inflation has eaten 12.2% of the value of that paycheck. What looks like $8 today is worth $7 in 2020 dollars — you know, when Trump was president.
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My weekly column on Substack just posted, “Republicans can’t win without Trump supporters.”
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But it would be nice if you did.
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Posted by Don Surber at Saturday, December 03, 2022
