Big Bucks Behind Village Soup Disaster
Expensive bowlful: In the April 19 Bangor Daily News, former Village Soup reporter Stephen Betts has a revealing story about the upcoming auction of the remaining assets of what was once Richard Anderson’s mini-media empire.
Anderson’s Village Soup company bought the Courier Publications newspapers in 2008, apparently for over $8 million, according to documents Betts dug up in the Knox County Registry of Deeds. They show that the First N.A. Bank of Damariscotta made two loans to Anderson’s corporations at that time, one for $7.5 million and the other for $823,000. It also extended a line of credit totaling $12 million.
It’s not clear how much of that cash the bank will ever recover. Reade Brower, publisher of the Free Press in Rockland, purchased the non-real estate assets of Village Soup in March, a couple of weeks after Anderson shut all five of his papers down. The sale price wasn’t revealed, but was almost certainly a fraction of what it was in 2008. Now the First is planning auctions of two properties in May, the old Courier printing plant in Rockland and a commercial building in Camden. Combined, they have assessed values of about $1.2 million.
Disclosure: My weekly political column runs in the revived Soup papers, as it did in those publications when Anderson owned them. And as with the bank, he went out of business owning me money.
The dope on dope: Maine Public Radio’s Jay Field did an outstanding job this week in reporting on the problem of prescription drug diversion in the state. The multi-part series that ran on “Maine Things Considered” not only provided a perceptive look at the origins of the problem, but also the failures and successes of attempts to deal with the issue. There was a lot of fresh information, making this the rare sort of in-depth journalism that can result in real change.
My only criticism is that public radio doesn’t make it easy to access the entire series on its Web site. It took me several search attempts to find most of the parts.
From the MaineToday Media self-promotion department: According to a story in the April 19 Portland Press Herald, MaineToday Media has hired two new reporters to help rebuild its decimated newsroom. They are Jessica Hall, a former business journalist for Reuters wire service, and Gillian Graham, who worked for the Forecaster and Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier weeklies. Hall will do business reporting for the Press Herald, while Graham will hit the Greater Portland suburban beat.
No mention of it in the Portland paper, but MaineToday has also hired Michael Shepherd, a capable young reporter for the Maine Campus, the student newspaper at the University of Maine in Orono.
Monkeying around: The April 19 Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal carried a story by staff writer Ben McCanna on Matt Apuzzo, a former intern at the papers who this week was part of an Associated Press team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of illegal surveillance of Muslims by New York City police. The online version of the article was fine, but in print, it contained this gem:
“In 2006, he moved Washington, D.C., to be a legal affairs writer for the ape …”
I can sympathize. I’ve had editors who were real baboons, too.
Al Diamon can be emailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
The views expressed on this Web site are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Down East Enterprise or its employees.
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You're All Wrong
Al included. The best reporting in Maine is being done at places like the Advertiser-Democrat, Forecaster and Mt. Desert Islander. Al's fixation on the ever dwindling Portland (and central Maine) company is a testament to his longing to relive his hazy Gritty's years. Nothing more or less. There's a lot of media news happening in Maine, week in and week out. But it's easier to navel-gaze at a former great Portland daily newspaper (with easy Web access) than it is to regularly, competently go where the action is: Free and low-cost weekly newspapers that serve their communities very well.
Re-read your post and follow the logic...
If AL reports it, then it's news. But if the PPH reports it, it's self-promotion? Try again. Take the gender issue out but explain why it's news because AL reported it first, but self-promotion when the PPH reports it first.
Reporting vs. press release
Please clue me in on the "reporting" involved with Kelley Bouchard's glorified press release regarding the hires of Hall and Graham at the PPH. How, do you suppose, did Ms. Bouchard learn of the hirings before anyone else?
Fire the new hire
If Jessica Hall's attempt Saturday at reporting the Maine jobless rate reflects her talent, put me down as uninspired.
Hall quotes the usual bureaucratic suspects, throwing in an obligatory call to a former state economist whose economic-forecasting creds have proved worthless over the years.
Not a word - not one word - in her alleged story from someone out of a job, looking for a job, or working and not pitying anyone who would rather couch it than look for work.
For what the state's largest newspaper pays, it could hire the best reporters in the world who want a taste of Maine.
But some things never change.
So, when you report that the Portland Press Herald..
hired 2 men, Colin Woodard and Steve Mistler, you call it news.
But when the Press Herald reports that it hired 2 women, Jessica Hall and Gillian Graham, you call it self-promotion.
And you are the critic for Maine journalism? Huh? Really?
newsobserver
The news that Woodard and Mistler were joining MaineToday Media was reported by Al before it was revealed in the pages of the Press Herald. Ergo, the circumstances under which their hiring became public knowledge were fundamentally different. That the respective employees have different genders doesn't enter into the equation. Thanks for playing.
Exactly
So, if AL reports it it's news. But if the PPH reports it it's self-promotion? Try again.
Arrrrrr!
He's owning me money matey! You need a better baboon, Al.
Any truth to the rumor Ms Graham is related to the Great Bill Nemitz?