Don’t forget about Cartoon Christmas!

Jim Romenesko called out Omaha World-Herald publisher Terry Kroeger for striking similarities between Kroeger’s Sunday column and one from the Kansas City Star publisher late last month.

Are publishers so overwhelmed they’re unable to write original columns?

From World-Herald publisher Terry Kroeger’s Dec. 7 column:
“To be sure, this year has been difficult for newspapers, including your World-Herald. The economic downturn has reduced our advertising revenue, which has forced us to adjust our expenses, including reducing our work force by 51 employees last month.”

From Kansas City Star publisher’s Mark Zieman’s November 29 column:
“To be sure, this year has been particularly difficult for newspapers, including your hometown Star. The deep and widening recession has significantly reduced our advertising revenue, which has forced us to slash expenses and lay off valued employees.”

Two bits of information make this especially ironic:
• Kroeger’s parroting came in a column trumpeting his paper’s value as a source for unique content.
• And as a friend pointed out, Kroeger’s column, which spoke of the World-Herald’s desire to be Omaha’s news source of the future (“a newsy newspaper for busy people”), appears opposite a staff editorial entitled “Our old, ever-changing friend” — a nostalgic look at rotary-dial telephones.

UPDATE!! Kroeger responded to Romenesko. In a nutshell: “I had permission,” though I wonder if Mark Zieman knew Kroeger was going to use his exact words and sentence structure when he asked to use his “ideas.”

As one of the visitors commented, “If you’ve got such a proud history, and if you’re so bullish on your future, I’d hope you could write 1,000 — original — words telling us so.”

Check out the Sunday World-Herald’s story on 211.

You may remember a post from July discussing cuts at the Journal Star and the condition of parent company, Lee Enterprises. At that point, the stock was around $3, putting the company’s value around $145 million. Today the stock is struggling to stay at $.60. If the $3:$145m ratio holds, that would put the entire company’s value around $30 million (the market cap is at $27.49m as of writing, with shares at $.61). In December 2004, this same company was valued around $2 billion. The parent company of 52 newspapers is worth less than The Huffington Post.

The company is now in danger of being de-listed from the NYSE. The company’s net value change since 1978 is .30%. That’s not a typo — I didn’t confuse .30 and 30%. The value has increased less than one third of one percent in the past 30 years. But timing is everything:

Had one purchased Lee Enterprises stock in 1978 and sold it at the beginning of 2007, one would have enjoyed a 3,131.44% return on one’s investment.

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I figured I’d have plenty of opportunity to resubmit this cartoon after Gov. Heineman signed Nebraska’s smoking ban into law in late February, but Iowa quickly neutralized the threat.