Camera deal gone awry?
There has been a strange silence emanating from those involved in the Daily Camera/Colorado Daily/Denver Post parent company’s planned takeover of the Longmont Times-Call and its sister papers.
Rumors are circulating that the deal, announced on Jan. 21, didn’t close as planned at the end of January, but Boulder Weekly’s calls to the principal players have gone unreturned this week. We’ve even tried calling the big man, MediaNews Group Executive Chairman Dean Singleton, about a dozen times over the past few weeks, to no avail.
Dean Lehman, who is still listed as Times-Call president and editor on the newspaper’s website, did not return calls, and other Times-Call employees contacted by BW referred all questions to him. Even Daily Camera Publisher Al Manzi is lying low, despite talking to us about the deal the week it was announced.
Back then, Manzi balked at the idea that further concentrating the corporate ownership of the county’s daily papers would result in fewer news-gatherers and less diversity in the news that, say, Longmont residents, are currently receiving. The MediaNews Group behemoth is known for gobbling up papers in a single geographic area and not just consolidating things like printing/advertising operations, but shrinking editorial staffs so that you can read the same stories in the Denver Post and Daily Camera and the Colorado Daily. Will those same stories now be reprinted in the Times-Call, we asked? Manzi acknowledged that there would be some content-sharing, but he didn’t like the suggestion that the deal would reduce news diversity.
“Oh my god,” he said. “That statement couldn’t be further from the truth. Prairie Mountain Publishing is committed to high-quality journalism, high-quality independent journalism, and that will continue, absolutely, 100 percent in Longmont.”
Yeah, well if the deal does end up going through, compare today’s editorial staff levels at the Times-Call to what remains three years from now.
Then ask yourself whether it’s better to have fewer reporters’ perspectives on the county news of the day.
Soon, it might just be the two of us: your true local, independent source, Boulder Weekly, and the corporate media monolith.
4give me fathr 4 i hv sind
Who says the Roman Catholic Church is an antiquated institution?
From the Pope on down, the Catholic hierarchy is embracing digital technology. The Vatican has had its own YouTube channel since 2007 and has been a presence on Facebook since 2009. And now it has given its blessing to an iPhone app designed for penitents.
The app doesn’t replace the traditional trip to the confessional — priests aren’t going to be sending out absolution via text message any time soon — but it does explain the steps of the sacrament, in which the faithful disclose their sins. It also enables sinners to track their transgressions, which comes in handy when you want to make sure you’re not forgetting anything that might land you in hell.
Let’s say you want to make sure that you really are masturbating less this month and that you aren’t just imagining all this pent-up sexual energy. The app can help you out, provided you’re religious about noting each and every session of sinful solo sex.
Not sure if you’re sinning? The app has got you covered there, too, talking you through the commandments. Does the Sixth Commandment — which in Roman Catholic doctrine is “Thou shall not commit adultery” — include fornication? Is oral sex fornication? And what does it mean to covet your neighbor’s wife or her ass or her ox?
With Ash Wednesday only a month away, you’d better get online and download this now. What’s the point of Lent if you can’t feel guilty?
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
