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A Catskills bumblebee forages on clover. Photo posted on Instagram this morning by Sean Mahoney.
Happy Thursday, Catskills. The hour has come at last: There's a chance of patchy frost in tonight's forecast, with temperatures expected to dip down into the 30s across the region. Cover your tomatoes, folks.
There's a distinct chill in the air at the Times Herald-Record, whose corporate parent, the Dow Jones Local Media Group, was recently sold to Fortress Investment Group, a private hedge fund. Those wondering how the handover could be worse for the paper than being owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation are advised to check out Boston Business Journal reporter Jon Chesto's sobering take on the sale:
Cuts will likely be coming to the largely insulated Local Media Group papers. In an investor presentation, Newcastle says $10 million in cost reductions have already been identified at the group. The papers are described as “under-managed by News Corp.” with “expense reductions of only 6% since 2010.” Translation: We can take more out of the expenses than News Corp. did.
News outlets across the region -- and the nation -- have felt the squeeze of layoffs and shrinking revenues in recent years. We can only hope those "expenses" soon to be managed out of existence don't include too many Times Herald-Record newsroom jobs.
