Ponovno predvajanje sobota, 23. september 1995

Couplings

Date: 24 September 1995

By Max Frankel

Max Frankel

THE SUMMER WAGS marked the moment by drawing mouse ears on Peter Jennings's head. Disney's purchase of Cap Cities/ABC, they reckoned, will trivialize television news. The more appropriate response would have drawn Donaldson, Downs, Brinkley, Sawyer, Walters, Koppel and Jennings as Seven Shrinking Dwarfs. The animation and cartooning of television news has been under way for decades. It wasn't Disney that impelled the vaunted Edward R. Murrow to visit "Person to Person" with Marilyn Monroe or that sent Diane Sawyer shuttling from Robert McNamara to Michael Jackson. The moment is noteworthy only because the latest corporate couplings may mark the final step in the evolution of television news into entertainment. The folks at Disney have been pining to own a network not to enlighten but to entertain on a truly global scale. They paid handsomely for the yearning and may gain added promotional power to move audiences from home to theater to theme park and home again. Their acquisition makes ABC's news department an even smaller appendage of a burgeoning enterprise. Sooner or later it will be the target of still more of the "efficiencies" that have steadily diminished all the networks' devotion to serious news.

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Checking the Pulse of the Tabloid Tradition

Date: 24 September 1995

By Sam Roberts

Sam Roberts

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN The New York Times and the tabloid world of The Daily News for me comes down to three words: "Stop the presses!" In the late 1960's, I was a copy boy for The Times during a college vacation. One evening, just moments after the first edition had gone to press, a wire-service bulletin announced the settlement of a nationwide airline strike. The presiding news editor, Lewis Jordan, unflinchingly grabbed a telephone that was a direct line to the pressroom and with calm authority ordered, "Stop the presses for a replate of page 1."

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Gingrich Seems To Withdraw Default Threat

Date: 24 September 1995

By David E. Sanger

David Sanger

Speaker Newt Gingrich appeared to back off slightly late Friday from his threat to have the United States default on its obligations unless President Clinton accepted the Republican plan for budget cutting. In an interview with Bloomberg Business News, Mr. Gingrich, Republican of Georgia, suggested that he might be willing to raise the debt limit temporarily -- a period he defined as "a couple of days or a week" -- so that the Government could continue to make payments on Social Security, veterans benefits and interest due on bonds.

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The New Political Chic

Date: 24 September 1995

By Victor Navasky

Victor Navasky

It never would have occurred to me that this country needed yet another conservative periodical. That, presumably, is why Rupert Murdoch, who hired William Kristol to edit the newly arrived Weekly Standard, owns one-third of all the newspapers in Britain, TV Guide, HarperCollins, Fox Television and various other media properties that earned more than $9 billion last year, while I preside over The Nation, which has lost money for virtually every one of its 130 years. It also never would have occurred to me to put out a magazine about politics that boasts in its inaugural issue that it has no politics and is nonpartisan. But that is how George, John F. Kennedy Jr.'s new bimonthly, named after our founding dad, describes itself, and George boasts 175 pages of ads in its 280-page first issue. Modesty, not to mention our advertising director, prevents me from issuing The Nation's comparative statistics. Suffice it to say our typical issue runs to 36 overwhelmingly editorial pages. George, by the way, is published by another transnational media conglomerate, the Paris-based Hachette Filipacchi Magazines.

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For Part-Time Business Students, Golf Will Have to Wait

Date: 24 September 1995

By Daniel McGinn

Daniel McGinn

ON a sunny morning late last month, 40 alumni of New York University's Westchester business program met at Sterling Farms Golf Course in Stamford for a day of golf, sun and fun. Of the school's 240 current students, however -- all of whom were invited -- just one attended. "Time becomes a very precious commodity once you enter the program," said Mary K. Oberhelman, Westchester director of New York University's Stern School of Business. "It's a lot easier to do things like that when you don't have to go to school."

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KIMBERLY-CLARK EXPECTS TO REPORT $35 MILLION GAIN

Date: 23 September 1995

By Bloomberg News

Bloomberg News

The Kimberly-Clark Corporation said yesterday that it expected to report a gain of about $35 million, or 22 cents a share, in the third quarter from the sale of its Midwest Express airline unit. The Dallas-based consumer products company is selling 70 percent of the carrier, or about 4.5 million shares, in an initial public offering priced at $18 a share. Midwest Express's shares closed at $24 at the end of the first day of trading as 1.9 million shares changed hands. The transaction is part of Kimberly-Clark's strategy to sell assets in pursuit of a $6.8 billion bid for the Scott Paper Company.

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International Briefs; Smith & Nephew Deal

Date: 23 September 1995

By Bloomberg News

Bloomberg News

Smith & Nephew, a British health care products maker, said yesterday that it had acquired the California-based orthopedic accessories maker Professional Care Products Inc. for $:25 million ($39 million). Procare had 1994 operating profit of $:1.8 million on sales of $:10 million.

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International Briefs; Ailing Credit Lyonnais Returns to Profitability

Date: 23 September 1995

By Bloomberg News

Bloomberg News

The troubled French state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais S.A. posted a first-half profit of 36 million francs ($7.3 million). It was the company's first half-year profit since 1992. From 1992 to 1994, the bank accumulated losses of 20.8 billion francs, which required a 45 billion franc rescue plan by the state.

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International Briefs; Regulator to Review Powergen-Midlands Deal

Date: 23 September 1995

By Bloomberg News

Bloomberg News

Powergen P.L.C.'s planned merger with Midlands Electricity P.L.C. could hurt competition in the British power market and may require restrictions or asset sales, the nation's industry regulator said yesterday. The regulator, Stephen Littlechild, the director general of electricity supply, said he would conduct a review of the proposed merger.

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NEWS SUMMARY

Date: 23 September 1995

International 2-5 BALKAN FOES PREPARE FOR TALKS As fighting continued in some areas, the warring parties in Bosnia shifted their attention from the battlefield to making peace, maneuvering for position before talks scheduled for Tuesday in New York. 4 Muslims returned to a town to find destruction and a mystery. 4

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