To read the New York times, you would think that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim He’lu just thinks the sinking NY Times is terribly successful and he wants a piece. The Times headlined the story with
No kidding. They actually used that title. Yup, that’s the same NY Times that keeps telling everybody that a guy who ignored IRS notices to pay taxes for four years just made an honest “mistake” and should be Secretary of the Treasury. The same NY Times that printed a piece telling us all that if you strip the money and the name away from Caroline, why she’s just like all of us.
In reality, this is what is happening:
NEW YORK: Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim on Monday agreed to provide the cash-strapped New York Times Co a US$250mil loan to stave off mounting debts, the newspaper company said.
Slim will invest US$250mil in the form of six-year notes carrying a 14% interest rate, the New York Times reported on its website.
It seems that the Times is paying 14% interest on this loan when the Prime Rate is what, 3%? Overall, you would have to have a pretty crappy credit rating or be very financially desperate to pay a rate like that. But since the Times Co was downgraded by Moody’s to Junk status earlier this month, I would say that the Times is lucky it only got a 14% interest rate.
I thought the best coverage of NY Times’ useless stock value occurred at Fitz and Jen’s place, where they provided a nifty and highly appropriate photo of the NY Times front page when the Titanic went down. Click here to enlarge the Titanic Story.
The New York Times Co.’s debt is junk, Moody’s Investors Services said Friday.
Moody’s had been the last major credit rating firm that still had an investment-grade rating on the Times Co. Last October, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services assigned speculative-grade ratings to Times Co. debt.
Moody’s action Friday took Times Co.’s “corporate family rating” and the rating on its senior unsecured debt down three notches to Ba3 from Baa3, Moody’s lowest investment-grade rating. Moody’s downgraded Times Co. commercial paper to Not Prime from P-3, and said it would no longer rate its commercial paper.
Wow, NY Times, congratulations! You have the lowest possible Moody’s rating! Next step: Trash can. No jobs for you at the Inquirer though. You couldn’t even have the integrity to reveal the truth figure out that John Edwards was a pig before they did.
Since Carlos already owns 6.4 percent of the company, stay tuned.
Filed under: Uncategorized |
--Graphic by Freedom Fairy
"This is not culture. This is not custom. This is criminal."
Uppity Woman 
Hi, Uppity,
You strike me as very saavy about media. Do you think the Titanic tanking of the NYT is at all related to the fact that they lack journalistic integrity and that some people at least were tired of their Pravda like fawning and not buying it, or does it simply have to do with the fact that so many newpapers are in trouble because people don’t read them anymore?
The patisanship of the NYT just annoyed the heck out of me, but I shoud be sorry if all papers went down the tubes. Then again, I’m one of those people who still loves REAL books, and don’t want to read them on a computer screen.
Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!!! Who ate all of me?? Do you people have any decency to withhold your cravings?? The Pie Ghost hopes you all have pie hangovers!!
Heh. went off your die-ets with a zillion calories of me.
(DE is still passed out from the sugar OD.)
The PIEghost blames ImusthavePIE and UpPIEty for starting the carnage….and that stupid Hal.
Hal had as much PIE as an ugly priest in a convent has sex= nun!!!! Serves him right for the PIE songs!
Ugh!! His wife, sticking to her resolution, was on another DIE-et….whatever.
Ha! The NYTimes better not miss a payment on the loan of $250 mil. According to my PIE chart, the first-year interest is a cool $35 million. Hey Slim, you want some more junk paper?
I think overall, it’s a combination of things. We dumbed down our schools so much that so many people find reading a chore. Then there’s the Text Generation. If it isn’t written with “U” and “UR” and THX and “K” in it, they barely can understand it. That’s an impatient generation. They want everything now, preferable YOU get it for them, so no time to read newspapers. Then there’s the fact that there is so much information online. Add to that, newspapers like NY Times who are so slanted that most who still DO read newsprint, regard them as tripe and cancel.
They haven’t figured out how to meet the times. And arrogant NY Times tried what they thought were some clever ideas. For example, they locked out their regular editorial staff daily works of art from their website. They wanted people to pay for the pleasure of reading shit from their big shot writers. Instead of paying for the work, people just forgot about them. Seriously. Who cares what they have to say? So that didn’t work either. Basically, the NYT preaches to its choir and its choir is increasingly comprised of non-newspaper-readers. Brilliant of them. Everybody else got sick of them long ago. They are the closest thing to Regressive Pravda out there. Truly, I am sure they are disappointed daily that Karl Marx can’t write for them from his grave. They don’t have an ounce of integrity or objectivity left in their bones and everybody knows it. Their editorial opinion has completely leeched into their news coverage.
Basically, all of these things are why we hear NY TImes taking its last breath instead of the Wall Street Journal.
I apprecaite that, UW; That was very helpful.
I have a nephew that doesn’t read anything-I mean zilcho, except for what he had to read to make it through high school. That would be one of nightmares-to have a kid that didn’t read, because I always had my nose in a book. So far, even though my son enjoys video games-as do most nine year old boys- he still loves to read.
Let me thank you once again for your great blog. Once I have some money again, I will make a donation.
P.S. I just wanted to add that even though you might not know it from my typing-which is abysmal-I really am a well read and pretty smart person. I was just always fortunate enough to either have a spouse who typed my papers in graduate school or have administrative assts. in my various jobs. When I went to college you could still hand in papers which were handwritten.
Fenel, I can tell that. Hey my typing sucks half the time too. I can erase 130wpm. lol.
You are welcome and I am glad you enjoy the blog. No need to worry about contributing, really. Just take care of the important things!
The patisanship of the NYT just annoyed the heck out of me, but I shoud be sorry if all papers went down the tubes. Then again, I’m one of those people who still loves REAL books, and don’t want to read them on a computer screen.
This is where I stand, exactly. Yes, these papers went in the tank for Junior and standards of journalism as I was taught and still practice it, are shot. But we will be infinitely poorer if there is no starting pointing–someone paid to research things to whatever degree, so bloggers can key off it…you know, a paper of record. My three driveway papers are down to two and even though I have to read with a magnifying glass, I don’t want one or none!
“JUNK BOND” status!
My how hard they worked to earn it.
Good going MoDo!
I feel for you, Star, and for the journalists who learmed and praticed their craft with integrity. You and others must be heatsick and what’s become pure entertainment driven.
Sorry; Should be “at what’s become”
Yeah imagine having to pay for Maureen’s bullcrap!
It’s my fault. After buying the Times every day for forty years, I stopped in November 2004. It was too aggravating to pay to be lied to (their never-corrected Whitewater coverage was a long-running sore spot). So far as I’m concerned, they’re a branch of intelligence operations. They should pay me to read it.
I do miss the acrostic in the Magazine.
When a private individual from Mexico has that kind of money, I immediately connect him to that country’s illegal drug trade. It will be interesting to see if the NYT begins running articles praising Mexico’s drug cartels, organizations that have brought the country to the edge of anarchy
Who knows? Maybe the NYT will even start running full-page ads for Mexican gold.
(DE is still passed out from the sugar OD.) LOL!
Just catching up we did a local art show today, turnout was lame. We covered the booth cost plus $50. Woop de woo.
Stopped by Publix on the way home for some more fresh black berries and sugar. Muwhohahahahaha! Hello Pie!
The NYT already has a very pro-illegal and anti Drug War stance, so there’s not too far to go. Plus, there’s still the Bush bashing over commuting the sentence of two border patrol agents who were trying to stop a drug dealer.
I think the boycott movements have taken their toll. When newspapers and the big 3 were the only sources of news, they spoke with one voice. Now that there are other media, that newspaper view is looking more and more liberal. Actively pissing off half your available audience is a bad business move.
I think the MSM is going to come to a harsh reality that their horse in the election doesn’t need them. He’s letting reporters know that there are times to interview him and times for meet and greet and if they try to grill him during a photo-op, they’re out in the cold. Why look for free media when you can buy a billion dollars worth?
Bird cage liner is soooo expensive nowadays!
” Do you think the Titanic tanking of the NYT is at all related to the fact that they lack journalistic integrity and that some people at least were tired of their Pravda like fawning and not buying it,”
I think that may have contributed alot. I won’t even read it on-line let alone buy one! People (except us) forget that not everyone loves Obama. It was not a landslide!
By the way, interesting statistic
I saw on the Lou Dobbs show that 16-18 year olds are at historic levels of non-employment. It seems that parents want them to “study” so much that they buy all their disracting toys for them. That also means more adults than ever are working for near minimum wage.
There’s an interesting correlation between the public’s trust in the media and their profit margin. When the public’s trust goes down, so do your sales. When you’re scooped by the National Enquirer like what happened with the John Edward’s story, it doesn’t help. Credibility is everything if you’re trying to sell information to the public.
P4,
I had no idea that the NYT was already in the pocket of the Mexican drug cartels. That would go a good piece toward explaining the Times rabid support for barfaux, who makes sure that his pals in Chicago have a steady supply of the stuff to sell.
Likewise, it is his promise to the Boyz that he will protect the poppy crop, and not his propaganda about catching bin Laden, that underlies his intention to expand the war in Afghanistan.
Meet the Mafias new man in DC.
I just heard on FOX that the networks are figuring out why they are in the tank. It seems that gearing yourself and your advertising towards young people isn’t very profitable. Now suddenly the older than 45 crowd is looking good to them. They figured out who has all the money.
Carlos Slim made his $$$ in telecommunications.
i think it really started to implode with the jayson blair fake stories. then MoDO got busted for misquoting somebody critical ( i forget what) then there was that faux abu graib story on the front page with a story about the torture of one of the victims in the picture and then the guy turned out not to be in the picture… stuff like that. being condescending to readers…having no integrity. so many reasons in addition to a new generation of non readers.
i do enjoy online papers. i really like asia times.
thanks to art in america selling my address – i received 3 offers for the NYT. and in true abbie hoffman/monkey warfare style i wrote on each sheet “you deserve to fail” and sent them in on their postage paid return envelope. 😉
they need to get the nytimes out of the grasp of the family that is slowly smothering it with that “kid” who calls himself the editor. all he does is enable and screw up.
ROLF @ GhostofPIE!!! Okay, so imusttakesomeblame for the pie feeding frenzy, however, major PIEvocateurs imustpointout were none other than DE and Grail Guardian!!!! If I’m going down the big pie whole, I’m singing like a canary and taking all accomPIElices down with me!
I remember CBS’s handling of the Bush National Guard Memo in 2004. Instead of letting an outside expert examine the document, they scanned it to a PDF and put it on their website. Some enterprising bloggers used that scan to show how it looked exactly like the same contents typed into Microsoft Word with the default font and settings.
By the way, Obama “scanned” his birth certificate and published it as a standard quality PDF on his website. I scan documents, edit them and republish them as part of my job and I don’t even use anything other than Windows Paint program.
Which goes to show, people expect politicians to lie to them. Some pundits praised Barfy for starting (not finishing) things he promised to do, as if they even expected him to turn 180 when he got into office. What we don’t expect is for the news to lie to us. If the media lies, we might as well just listen to the politicians.
What? It was National PIE Day. All I did was point that out to all our PIE lovin’ fans here… It was a public service!
BTW – Moody’s was late on issuing the Junk rating. The Times themselves aced them on that one years ago, and most of us called it quite a while back…
Uppity,
It’s kind of hard for the networks to consider 18-35 as a “key” demographic anymore. They read newspapers online. They watch their TV shows off the internet. They buy their iPods and video games online. Plus, kids don’t want to work while their parents are still supporting them.
It’s kind of hard for TV ads to penetrate an audience that’s either not watching on TV or DVRing and fast forwarding the commercials.
[…] went off. I wrote about Slim and the NY Times right here on my own humble blog in January, 2009: NY Times Downgraded to Junk, Borrows $250 Million at Borderline Loan Shark Rate. To read the New York times, you would think that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim He’lu just […]