Praise and Complaints

[alexsaitta]

Diamond Dave, I have to say I don't know much about what you are saying when it comes to the textitle plants and Larry Martin, so we may be focusing on different things.

The times I've spoked to Larry he has always listened, always returns calls and emails and tries to be fair. He did that long before he or any one knew who I was. Unlike many others, I think our delegation is doing a good job, and I really don't fault the legislature for much either.

Sure the legislature over spent by pushing their budget up to $7 billion, but when they had to, they cut it just as fast making a lot of tough decisions. The SC legislature gets some of the highest grades relative to other states when it comes to money management.

Did you read that 60 Minutes story? Illinois is nearly insolvent.*

If you look at the pre-filed bills (we'll high light some of them in a few days) most all of them are conservative or lean right. Sure our legislature can be more conservative and I wish they were that and more reform minded. However, our legislature is not a liberal body. Actually, it is to the right of most local governments.

* The inability to pay one's debts as they come due. Even though the total assets of an organization may exceed its total liabilities, the entity is insolvent if the assets cannot be converted into cash to meet the current obligations.

They are not bankrupt. The legal process in which a person or firm declares inability to pay debts. Any available assets are liquidated and the proceeds are distributed to creditors

[diamonddave]

Hey Mr upset, if LM really won by 80%, it's only because just a mere 20% is capable of figuring things out! There's that money trail, remember? LM DOES NOT fool 80% of anybody that I talk to regularly, & that includes alot of present & former Alice employees. If anybody knows that Buddy & Smythe would not let anybody on their payroll do anything that would cause them problems with their manufacturing operations, it's anybody that is now or ever has worked for Alice. Some are reluctant to openly say it for fear of retaliation. And what do I mean by really? There's a post that I made about a youtube video that shows how electronic voting machines can programed to rig an election in "voting machines vs paper ballots", check it out. LM has MILLION$ OF DOLLAR$ of China money behind him, yes they would do it, & he's probaby the only 1 that they would rig an election for in Pickens Co politics.
And Alex, LM must have real charisma. After all, it would appear that he is capable of making you believe what comes out of his mouth & hits the nearest ear over what you see going on around you with your own 2 eyes. What I've seen ever since he's been in Columbia, House or Senate, DINO or RINO, is a miserable lack of industries coming near Alice's mills, common thread all along, fat paychecks from Alice going into LM's bank account. What am I supposed to conclude from that? After all, I am 1 of those 95% of folks from Pickens Co that believes that 2+2=4.

[Deleted]

DD I read your posts. Let me see if I understand you fully. Martin has voted for laws that keep other manufacturers out of Pickens County, so his employer will benefit from the lack of others manufacturers to compete with. Is that what you are saying? If you believe that, then list the laws he pushed for that did that. Why would the Chinese government care Alice Mills?
You have to push the ranting and raving aside, and write it in plan English.

[diamonddave]

Hey mr upset, I'm glad to see that somebody finally sees the money trail & is capable of figuring something out. With you it would appear that I don't need to go back the 30 years that LM has been in Columbia, but you can do some research, & find quite a few deals & tax break laws for new jobs that LM's been in the middle of that have put Pickens Co at a disadvantage to it's neighboring counties :-*Hopefully, others will finally get it, have the opportunity to do something about it, & make good on it. What are the chances of that happening in 2012
By China money, I didn't necessarily mean the Chinese government, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. What I meant is the fact that Alice Mfg Co is running an import operation out of at least 1 of it's closed mills, & the lion's share, better than 90%, is CHINE$E IMPORT$, MILLION$ OF DOLLAR$ worth. There are sea containers that come across the country via Union Pacific & Norfolk Southern double-stacks, unloaded at the NS intermodal facility, carried to an Alice mill that once employed over 300 people, stored in warehouse that once stored rolls of cloth bearing lables that read "Crafted With Pride In The U.S.A" & leave out in Kohl's & JC Penney trucks, among other retailers. Each time that Alice has closed a mill since 2000, they've laid the blame on imports, yeah, THEIR OWN IMPORT$!!!! Hipocritical, ain't it
The next time you're driving Hwy 8 between Easley & Pickens, take a look if you have to stop for the red light

[diamonddave]

I ran out of room, upset, but by the way, for all that you can find, including the a tax break law that started with D-i-c-k Riley's administration, that was expanded with a middle tier after Carroll Campbell took office in 1987 that included Anderson & Oconee Co's, but not Pickens Co, which can be found in the GNews, there are definitely other things that don't find press. This was a time when you didn't have the internet. But if anything was up with an industry being recruited in Columbia, like BMW, LM finds out about it. Then the bigwhigs at Alice get word "somehow", then everybody that runs a manufacturing operation in the Pickens Area finds out "somehow". Ever heard of PAPA & the Thursday club

[diamonddave]

In case you wonder why I made it D-i-c-k, otherwise, it becomes thingy. Like I would try to post something that contains a sentence with the the non-proper noun that's spelled like the name with a lower case d, Larry Martin, Carroll Campbell's(possessive form), & a verb that starts with an S that would't get censored & rhymes with truck, that describes what might have been going on when BMW was about to come to Anderson to keep that from happening so that suppliers wouldn't come into southern Pickens Co or northern Anderson Co near Alice's mills
Really, you think I'd do something like that

[alexsaitta]

I read Gannett let 700 people go this week. The Greenville News cut 15, which 5 were reporters.

None of these papers want to do it, but the revenue is just not there to support all the newspapers we have today.

More need to be closing, in order to strengthen the ones who survive.

[Deleted]

This isn't local media but local radio. Does any fool out there still listen to Rush Limbaugh. He spent 2 hours of his show talking of why the speaker of the house would not allow Obama to pick the date he'll speak to congress. We are going toplace down underin a hand basket and that is what we focus on?

Too much of what is irrelevent is what occupies our time. We are doomed. Rush get the country focused on what matters not this worthless dribble.

[Deleted]

easley.patch.com/articles/dead-bat-found-at-east-end-elementary-school

Is this they call news?

I had a dead bat outside my house and it did not kill me.

[alexsaitta]

You may have noticed Easley's Patch.com website has seen much less local reporting the last month or so. It is my understanding the website is losing its local reporting. We'll see, but they haven't written a story on county council, Easley city council or the school board in a while.

There is no money in news at this level. The advertising dollar is being cut up among too many newspapers, the news is now free on many websites and people want to pay less for it because the economy is still weak. Patch.com a great idea, but it seems to be struggling too like the rest of them.

[geraldgarrett]

There's really no category on PPC for the following article, but I just thought you'd like to see how we're being judged in other corners of the world, as in the low country where they remain eaten up with their own smugness that they're still mostly Democrats who haven't moved on from the Civil War after 150 years:

www.postandcourier.com/article/20140328/PC1610/140329401/1177/welcome-to-scs-most-republican-county-pickens-voters-are-republican-all-the-way

Don't misunderstand me here. The writer did a good job at framing his point (Pickens, strongly Republican - Charleston, strongly Democrat) while giving a decent historical background of both, but it overlooks so, so many factors that have led to this great divide.

Nevertheless, it's a certainly a better read than anything I expect us to see in any of our local daily and weekly media lapdogs this campaign season

[alexsaitta]

A few points came to mind when I read your comments and that article.

Our local reporting isn’t close to what it used to be. Gerald, when we worked for the Sentinel, Progress and Post in 2008 we had 8 reporters. I believe those papers are down to 1 full-time reporter. The Courier has 1 full time reporter I think. The Anderson Independent has stringers covering Pickens County and now so does the Greenville News. The Seneca Journal has 1 Pickens reporter. Realizing print media was in decline, I opposed the split of the Progress/ Sentinel/ Courier. What you are talking about is a by-product of further splitting a declining print-media revenue pie in our county. The papers just don't have the resources to cover the beat like they did 10 or 15 years ago. More and more people get their news from the internet which has no standard of quality. Anyone can write anything, fact, opinion or a lie and it is in print. 15 years ago, most of that never would have made it to print. Today people know more because there are so many more print outlets, but I also think the people are more mis-informed than they were 15 years ago, because a lot of what they read is baseless or untrue. The internet has been a plus and minus. I’d love to see the local newspaper consolidate into one company again. They’d have an opportunity with the dailies pulling back.

Pickens vs. Charleston is the same conservative vs liberal divide we have in Washington DC, the state legislature and even on the school board. Fiscal conservatism (efficient use of money, limited spending, saving money for a rainy day) is beginning to prevail because liberalism has dropped the economy so far, there isn’t a lot of extra money to spend. As liberal as the Federal government is, even Federal spending growth has been reduced to conservative growth rates. It is not because the liberals in Congress became conservative. It is because the deficits got so large they all were forced to reign in spending. The trend toward fiscal conservatism will continue in the public and private sectors, just out of necessity, in my opinion.

Liberals are well-intentioned but they don’t realize at the time how their overspending, over-borrowing and over-taxation will hurt economic growth/ government revenue in the long run. We are now starting to live the long-run that the fiscal liberalism of the past decades created for us. I think as things continue to decline the next decade or two, more will recognize that cause-and-effect over time.

[geraldgarrett]

Alex, it's going to take me two posts to straighten out what you just said. But it's Saturday. It's raining. Why not?

First, the Sentinel and the Progress only merged after the Sentinel was purchased by a local chain based in (I think) Union, and media mogul wannabe Bern (Willilam deBern, for the purists) sold The Progress to them after gutting its assets. The Pickens County Courier didn't exist at the time. A couple of years later, a larger chain then known as Heartland (or Heartless, as I call them) Publications swooped down and bought both papers and others in that small chain. At the time, The Courier didn't exist. Rocky Nimmons, publisher of The Sentinel and The Progress, saw immediately what the new owners had in mind (plunder, rape, pillage, among other nasty business practices) and built The Courier from scratch. Since merging more than a decade ago, The Sentinel and The Progress are still under the same umbrella. They have not "split." The Courier did not "split" from either. They pulled off a mutiny and found a new, sturdier ship.

Heartland (Heartless) Publications is now Civitas Media, still under the control of the not-to-be-trusted and never-to-be-believed Michael Bush, and their most recent accidental foray into national prominence came when it was revealed they were considering compiling a list of concealed weapons permit holders throughout their 12-state, 88-newspaper empire. Bush claimed it was a misunderstanding of an internal memo. I think Bush lies.

Second, your analysis of what happened brings up the classic "which came first - the chicken or the egg" question. Did the quality of the local media decline because people stopped reading, or did people stop reading because the quality declined? I would contend it's the latter. The corporate pillagers of Heartland (now Civitas) sucked the "community" out of "community news" and what remains of The Progress and The Sentinel is little more useful than the freebie The Greenville News throws out once a week.

Third, you and I "worked for" The Sentinel together for a very short time. I was already there when you were brought on board for your financial acumen. A few months later, after being a thorn in the side of the publisher one too many times, I was gone. You stayed on, presiding over the local process of helping the vultures strip the carcasses clean.

You and I discussed several thing, including how one publisher blatantly lied to Mrs. Oberstar about plans for church news and how in-depth coverage was being killed by a 12-inch story limit. I objected strongly. You said, "It is what it is."

Well, yeah, it was what it was. And now, we have what we have.

All of those reporters are still out here, but improving the product isn't a priority for Civitas. Never has been. Never will be as long as there are corners to cut to benefit stockholders. And you, my friend, were a willing - even eager - part of that.

[alexsaitta]

That is not what happened. Paul was made the publisher after the split. He hired me and one of my jobs was to help re-staff the paper. We needed a sports reporter and I recommended you. I remember knocking on your apartment door and asking you to apply. I stayed a few months working for Paul, but we had different approaches so I voluntarily left.

I came back when Scott (the new publisher) and I had lunch and he liked my ideas. We clicked. I worked for him more than a year managing the Sentinel office. That was the second time you and I worked together.

Coming back, I could see Scott (the publisher) and you didn't get along well. You are very independent and outspoken. Unfortunately, no company is governed by a democracy.

When Scott left and Todd Rainwater came in, I was challenged for the school board, so I had to leave and run my campaign. Sandy Foster had just come back, and took over the management of the Sentinel. I was happy for her. That was her baby.

After a year and a half, they called me back (like Billy Martin for the third time) and asked me to oversee the 3 papers. They lost $100,000 the year before. The final 12 months I was there we made $212,000. I enjoyed the challenge, but it was too much corporate reporting (I remember I said to them, I spend more time reporting on being a GM than being a GM). I did a few all nighters on the couch and worked a 12 hour/ 6 day week. I gave that up when I retired from Wall Street.

I listened and was part of the management call every week. I drew up budgets, wrote the reports, etc. No one pillaged anything. No one stripped carcasses clean. These local newspapers have no assets to strip or pillage. They have a few computers and that is it. They don't have printing presses anymore. That is all farmed out. The Progress didn't even own its phone system when I got there.

When revenue is falling every year, you can't run these big operations with the full staffs like you demand. Less revenue means less staff, unless people want to work for free, and most don’t. All the newspapers are shrinking because print ad revenue is falling every year, and they have to cut costs to stay afloat. The Greenville News has been cutting for years. I hear they are selling their building now, downsizing more.

You go to most counties and they have one local newspaper, Pickens County still has Courier, Sentinel, Progress, Independent and Greenville News. The pie is shrinking and it is still being cut 5 ways. That's the reason; not what you are saying.

[geraldgarrett]

Your recollection of the chain of events as it pertained to me and my recollection differ. But I'm getting old and forgetful, so I'll let it pass. I will, however, discuss personalities.

Paul, the first publisher Heartless Publications brought in, was a great guy. I really liked him, mostly respected him. But he was extremely paranoid, eager to please corporate, and in way over his head. He did the best he could under the circumstances, but they threw him overboard simply because they could.

Scott, the second publisher, was Heartland's wonderboy, brought in after he supposedly turned around some paper in Virginia that's probably still trying to recover from his heavy hand (speculation on my part - I don't know.) He was a personable type - young, ambitious, young family, shoeshine, smile, etc., etc. But the second week he was there, Scott blatantly lied to me. It wouldn't be the last, and I wasn't the only one.

It wasn't that Scott and I didn't get along. I liked the guy personally, but I never really trusted him. And I don't know that he trusted me. That's what you saw going on. Perhaps he was an honest fellow, and I just misread him. Or perhaps you could tell us what happened to him after he left The Sentinel. It's public record. We can let everybody judge his honesty and go from there.

Your Rainwater tale is interesting. Lost $100,000 in a year, made $212,000 in your final 12 months - all the time, losing circulation and cutting staff to the bone? Where did that $212,000 go, Alex? Not into the product, that's for sure. Despite (or, maybe, because of) that "profit" you noted, The Progress/Sentinel continued to decline. You'll have to verify it, but if I'm not mistaken, the paid circulation for The Courier - which never lost sight of what "community news" means - is now more than double that of the combined circulations of the Sentinel/Progress. The pie may be smaller, but Rocky understands how to carve out a large slice. Civitas/Heartland - purely a "bottom-line" corporation - never did. And they never will.

Thank you, Alex, for reinforcing my point about pillaging. As your bottom line IMPROVED, product quality kept sliding. Newfound cash goes somewhere else ... for what? If that isn't the classic definition of "pillage" I don't know what is. It's not always about tangible assets. You can destroy a man's soul without burning down his house, just as you can destroy a newspaper's soul and still keep the masthead active as a souvenir.

As for The Greenville News, they're not really screaming poverty. That building at 305 S. Main was there when I started working part-time for them in 1968, and had already been there for several years. It's 50 years old, and their operational needs have changed. Perhaps, after a half-century, it's just time for a change? As long as they don't let their glorified CPAs make editorial decisions, like Civitas does, they'll be fine.

[alexsaitta]

Tale? How do you know? When I was the GM, you were no longer at the paper. I still have the monthly income statements. Thinking back we benefited from a full team of excellent ad salemen which the paper couldn't field before that (Kala, Chris and Chris, and Bonnie -- absolute best doing inside sales). Foreclosure notices were up too. We gave raises to a couple of reporters, in fact. We had solid reporters in Sandy Foster (best all around newspaper person), Ben Robinson, Jason Evans (two most productive reporters), Rita Seaborn (best column writer), Candice Harper (good young reporter) and Nathan DiBagno (now running his own paper for Heartland somewhere). The quality was very good. I disagree with you.

We cut costs too. For instance, the Progress had a $2,000 a month electric bill. We did two things. everyone was spread all over the building and I moved them into the front house and lobby, cutting off half the building where the old print shop was, saving tons of HVAC/ light money. Six outside spotlights were cut off. We eliminated the lawn maintenance bill by making a deal with Jerry to do the lawn for no cost. I weedwacked and cut the bushes on weekends. The Progress had 9 phone lines. Why? We cut it to 5 saving even more. We had a carrier delivering the Sentinel and a hour behind him another carrier would deliver the Progress. We consolidated the routes. Many things like that which brought down costs but did not hurt the quality of the newspaper. The aim.

I'm grateful to all the companies I worked for to pay me, provide benefits. That is always the overriding theme with me. In return, the company directs you on what to do and how to do it. It is called "work", not "fun", not "do what you want". It is a hard reality, that I accept when I sign on to a company. If a person doesn't see that, working for a company, no matter the size, they'll have a difficult time there.

Another issue was, it cost about $250 to produce each page. So if the paper could sell $3,000 in ads, it could run 12 pages. If reporters want to write all stories very long, and the paper runs 16 pages, 4 pages are not paid for. If a newspaper makes that a habit, the paper goes out of business. One of Scott's issues was, the reporters can only write copy equal to what is sold in ads. Some had a hard time getting used to that. I remember the meeting, him saying some stories can be 20 inches, but not all of them. Unless the reporters want to work for less pay, that is the economic reality.

It is not that the managers at any of these papers are mean or evil, but revenue is falling in print media and behind the downsizing trend.

[iceman]

So in other words, between the Courier being started and taking a chunk of the revenue/ talent and Heartland finishing the job with what some consider too many cuts at the expense of quality, the bad economy and the Internet, the Sentinel office didn't stand much of a chance huh? At least that's what I gleened from the previous few posts.

[alexsaitta]

I think we said different things. My view is the big issue is the revenue pie from print media is shrinking. All newspapers are shrinking in size because of that. That is, none of them are what they were 10 years ago, from the NY Times to LA Times down to the county newspapers. Compounding the problem in our county is there are 5 newspapers competing for that shrinking pie, as opposed to 4 or 3 or 2. So there will be less revenue for each newspaper and staffs will have to be leaner. I'd like to see the local papers Sentinel/Progress/ Courier combine in one. They'd stand a better chance given how revenue is declining all over.

[strider]

Where can a person find news for Pickens County? I can't even find out what happened at the last county council meeting anymores.  

[georgewashington]

this is not local but they way the media is going overboard with this I expect to soon read this in the pickens sentinel. ebola coverage has gone too far.  i want one of those tshirts!!!!!!!!  www.cnn.com/video/?/video/health/2014/10/04/rs-intv-miles-obrien-media-treatment-of-ebola.cnn&hpt=hp_t2&from_homepage=yes&video_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F