Less than three years after its launch as the city's second daily newspaper, The Baltimore Examiner is shutting down, a victim of slower-than-expected ad sales.
Employees of the free tabloid were informed of the closure Thursday morning. The Examiner will publish its last issue on Sunday, Feb. 15. About 90 people will lose their jobs, said Jim Monaghan, a spokesman for Clarity Media Group, the paper's Denver-based parent company.
"We had good people there. We thought we had a good paper," Monaghan said. "It's a disappointment that it didn't work out."
Clarity, owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, also publishes Examiner papers in Washington and San Francisco. Ryan McKibben, Clarity's CEO, told Baltimore staffers that the company expected "strong revenue synergies" between the Baltimore and Washington papers, but those did not materialize.
Clarity had been searching for a buyer for the Baltimore paper for months, McKibben said.
"We didn't get the depth of national advertising that we would have liked. We thought, with the combination of two markets, we would have been able to do that," Monaghan said. "After 30 months of trying, it became clear during the current recession that advertising is not increasing."
The announcement "came as a complete surprise" in the newsroom.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Skiing The Butte
My son took these awesome photos! Part of me worries about my son doing intermediate runs on his third or fourth time skiing. After all, I am his mom and it's my job to worry about everything. But another part of me admires his bravery in tryng new things. Before he moved out to Colorado, my son never went downhill skiing or rock climbing. Now, he's trying all of these things, and last I heard, he was contemplating ice climbing.
The photo above was taken at the top of the Silver Queen express lift--the highest place on the mountain where you can take photos.
This photo looks over the town of Mt. Creseted Butte at the base of the mountain in the foreground, and then the town of Crested Butte. There are a few scattered homes that are not a part of the town...they're actually mansions.
He keeps telling me that the sky is very blue in Colorado because there's less pollution, and you can see a lot of stars at night. Before he moved out there, he never talked about the color of the sky.
There are a lot of warning signs for black diamond trails. My son assures me that he hasn't tried those yet!! He also plans to get a helmet.
He went down the Silver Queen Road to Forest Queen, both intermediate trails.
I know these pictures are his invitation to me.Friday, January 9, 2009
Musings for the New Year
For anyone who wants to know what I do at master's swimming, just take a look! The group is temporarily crowded into a very small pool, so we're focusing on stroke and the coach is videotaping team members and critiquing our stokes. It was really neat. I have a hard time finding myself on the video--despite watching it several times!! I'm the one with the great stroke, right? Nope, I need to work on keeping my head level with the water at my hairline, which should help me breathe more efficiently. (There may have been complaints about posting the video to YouTube, and if that happens, it will disappear from this blog.)
It's a new year and it's time for some goal setting. After my half marathon, I fell off the bandwagon with all three sports. I worked out periodically during the week, always trying to get back into a routine, but never achieving my goal. At night, I just wanted to go to bed and pull the covers over my head, and there were days I did that. I came to realize the value of going to swim practice and engaging in an endorphin-producing activity with people that seemed happy. Sometimes the good mood even rubbed off on me, even if just for a little while.
My son came back from college for winter break and with both kids home, I took the last two weeks of the year off for a blissful time of relaxing with family, sleeping, eating, watching R-rated movies (I could have lived without) and playing Monopoly (my oldest son became very strategic with the game). My husband and I ran together down our favorite trail, taking our first steps to getting our base back...
Hubby decided that a marathon is on his Bucket List (although I think he's too young to have one). Maybe it was watching me to a half marathon....maybe it was watching the marathoners, run, walk, and crawl to the finish line...or maybe it was the movie and the New Year...but he says that he needs to do the marathon this year.
He's been running for two years; however, he isn't consistent in the days/miles he runs per week and the most he's ever run is 15 miles per week. The longest race he's ever done is a 10K. When I posted his background info to an e-mail discussion group, wondering if perhaps a marathon was a crazy proposition, all I received were words of encouragement. The marathoners who responded said that if he trains consistently and builds a decent base, he can do it. Of course, if he gets serious, I'll be thinking about it too.
I have a lot of big goals this year with sports and studying. And as I try to regroup and rebuild, I hope my son does too. This should be an interesting year, and we'll see how it goes!
It's a new year and it's time for some goal setting. After my half marathon, I fell off the bandwagon with all three sports. I worked out periodically during the week, always trying to get back into a routine, but never achieving my goal. At night, I just wanted to go to bed and pull the covers over my head, and there were days I did that. I came to realize the value of going to swim practice and engaging in an endorphin-producing activity with people that seemed happy. Sometimes the good mood even rubbed off on me, even if just for a little while.
My son came back from college for winter break and with both kids home, I took the last two weeks of the year off for a blissful time of relaxing with family, sleeping, eating, watching R-rated movies (I could have lived without) and playing Monopoly (my oldest son became very strategic with the game). My husband and I ran together down our favorite trail, taking our first steps to getting our base back...
Hubby decided that a marathon is on his Bucket List (although I think he's too young to have one). Maybe it was watching me to a half marathon....maybe it was watching the marathoners, run, walk, and crawl to the finish line...or maybe it was the movie and the New Year...but he says that he needs to do the marathon this year.
He's been running for two years; however, he isn't consistent in the days/miles he runs per week and the most he's ever run is 15 miles per week. The longest race he's ever done is a 10K. When I posted his background info to an e-mail discussion group, wondering if perhaps a marathon was a crazy proposition, all I received were words of encouragement. The marathoners who responded said that if he trains consistently and builds a decent base, he can do it. Of course, if he gets serious, I'll be thinking about it too.
I have a lot of big goals this year with sports and studying. And as I try to regroup and rebuild, I hope my son does too. This should be an interesting year, and we'll see how it goes!
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