Leonard Downie is finally retiring after seventeen years of running the Post he is calling it quites. Leonard Downie, who replaced the famous Ben Bradlee, has worked in a newsroom for over forty-four years. The Washington Post had been run by some pretty ‘Larger than Life’ characters in Bradlee and Katharine Graham but unlike those publishers Leonard Downie kept out of the limelight. He is best known for his incredible work ethic, telling it like it is and not backing down from anybody, even President Bush. Bush had personally asked Leonard Downie to cancel a story that was not too flattering to the administration but of course Leonard Downie went with the story. Read the rest of this entry »
Car sales surpass truck sales
Pickups drop in sales, lag behind cars for the first time since 1992.
GMC trucks and suv sales have declined by 38% over the same period last year. That is a lot of trucks. It’s not that people have stopped buying, the decline in truck sales has been replaced by sales in more fuel efficient cars. I don’t think it’s a case of folks getting wiser. I think it’s simply a case where they can no longer afford it. Read the rest of this entry »
The JM Smucker company has announced that it wiil be merging the Proctor and Gamble owned Folgers brand into its company, a deal valued at over 3 billion dollars. As part of the deal Smucker will assume Folgers’ 350 million dollar debt but the will be acquiring the leader in retail coffee. Folgers has always been know as THE name in cheap coffee but they have been able to maintain market share in a day of growing appreciation of gourmet coffee. Folgers is actually a billion dollar brand name and will do much to strengthen the overall name of Smuckers. Smucker wants to dominate their niche and by growing the value of their brands from 1 billion in 2002 to approximately 15 billion today I’d say they are doing a pretty good job. Smuckers with the addition of Folgers now has ten number one brands with names like Jif, Crisco and Pillsbury in their stable.
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