jbNet: Quotes and Commentaries

Nearly half (of the 1,204 people surveyed) say that Bush "not knowing enough about the issues" would make no difference in their vote.

— From a Washington Post story about a study by the Pew Research Center and the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Wednesday, July 26, 2000

I thought second-quarter expectations were pretty conservative, but ad growth is strong nationally and classified (advertising) has held up better than Wall Street expected. Fear of the Internet is turning out to be totally far-fetched. There are more pluses than minuses for newspapers.

— Ed Atorino, a newspaper industry analyst at Wasserstein Perella Securities, in a Wired News story about papers thriving in the Age of the Internet.

Sunday, July 23, 2000

In the scheme of things, you'd rather walk into a meeting and have people say to you, "How are you today? Did you have a nice weekend?" But that isn't how our business works, which is why our business is so successful.

— Joseph L. Boren, president of AIG Environmental, in a New York Times profile of his boss, Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg, and Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway.

Thursday, July 20, 2000

P2P is great for illegal things when you don't want to have any costs or accountability... Fundamentally the act of finding information is a very hard problem, and that's not going to go away.

— Larry Page, the founder and chief executive of Google, in a Washington Post article about person-to-person technologies.

Thursday, July 13, 2000

— Amy Isaacs, national director of Americans for Democratic Action, commenting on policies encouraging international trade.

Wednesday, July 12, 2000

I think we had lost our way... We stopped telling you things that were particularly important and started just telling you anything that we thought maybe offered you a little bit of eye candy.

— Carol Marin, news anchor at WBBM-TV in Chicago, where the station is hoping higher quality news will pull the ratings out of the basement.

Saturday, July 08, 2000

I found this oddly comforting -- all the high-tech efficiency was getting on my nerves. ... Despite Web sites, fancy gear and halogen flashlights, camping was still camping.

— Melanie Rehak, on renewing her youth in the New York Times travel section.

Friday, July 07, 2000

Gannett buys Star, Republic

• $2.6 million adds Pulliam's dynasty to nation's largest publisher

While we ran the company well, we couldn't get out of that box. As a two-newspaper company, no matter what you did, you can't get rewarded for it in the market.

— Central Newspapers Chairman Louis A. "Chip" Weil III, a former Gannett executive, whose family owned papers in Michigan and Indiana and sold them to Gannett.

Owners recognize that prices for newspapers are as high as they've ever been. They can't be sure what it will be five or 10 years from now with the Internet and everything else. ... Certainly a safe thing -- and a very profitable thing -- to do is to sell now.

— John Morton, a newspaper industry analyst based in Silver Spring, Md.

You've got newspapers, you've got radio. You've got Internet streaming into radio. There are independent news sites on the Web. It's not any one of those things that are going to kill us. It's a combination of them. This sale to Gannett should strengthen our opportunities for the future and position us for the keen competition ahead.

— Russell B. Pulliam, associate editor of The Star and grandson of Eugene C. Pulliam

If there's a general feeling, it's probably that Gannett has often improved smaller, mediocre newspapers it has acquired. There has not been that same sense about large newspapers they've acquired.

— James Naughton, president of The Poynter Institute

Gannett today being such a large and diversified company, you can't paint it with a broad brush.

— John Soloski, who heads the University of Iowa's School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
(Iowa's largest paper is the Gannett-owned Des Moines Register. U of I's hometown is served by Gannett's Iowa City Press-Citizen.)

When a headquarter company becomes a regional office, the commitment to the community declines. The Arizona Republic has been such a tremendous partner for so many companies around the state -- I can't think about anything good about it becoming part of a national company.

— Valerie Manning, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce

The newspaper has done more to brainwash the people of Arizona than anything else. I can't see how new owners could be worse.

— Former Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham, who was the subject of numerous unfavorable articles before being impeached

— John P. Miller, assistant portfolio manager for Ariel Capital Management of Chicago, the largest outside investor

Thursday, July 06, 2000

It seems unlikely that the various state legislatures will be able to design sales taxes that effectively and fairly cover e-commerce. The standard response - merely adding complexity to the existing tax structure - is neither efficient nor sustainable in the case of rapidly changing technology.

— Economist Murray Weidenbaum arguing for a savings-exempt income tax in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Public money that we wish would stay in public schools, that we think is needed in the public schools, as a constitutional matter is going to be able to go to the sectarian schools.

— Robert Chanin, a lawyer for the National Education Association, commenting in The New York Times on the Supreme Court's sixth straight ruling to uphold using public money in parochial schools.

The only distinction between Bush and Gore is the velocity with which their knees hit the floor when big corporations knock on the door.

— Ralph Nader, in a New York Times piece on his campaign.