The Bertelsmann board is made up of incompitent idiots

-YOSH Is German media giant Bertelsmann AG (Bertie) full of shit when it comes to their public image of being on the ball? Do they know what their next move will be in order to reap the benefits of the current media environment? According to an anonymous commenter, Bertie is clueless. This is a company that is now over their head. Many of their more profitable operations are old and at the brink. They desperatley need to find new winners.(Un)fortunately they are a bunch of morons who do not know where to turn next. They are looking for losers to buy their crap. They speak highly of themselves, but at the same time are looking to sell. They think there is a greater fool out there.Music is a loser for them as you note. They don't know where to go. Market forces are pushing them in a direction that they can't control. This is new to them.If they want to expand in TV via RTL, good luck. I think they are smarter than that. Or are they? The current board lineup don't know what to do.Look for them to buy other properties. However, unlike Bertelsmann of old, they are mired in debt. And they stopped Thomas Midelhoff from taking Bertie to the next level. Awww the days of the old Bertie.

Talking Back: Addressing comments made by possible subjects of a previous item

-LENN HINDSMANN From time to time we have to respond to comments submitted by readers who are sometimes misled by our point of view or the delivery of it. Sometimes some of our readers may see something we posted as cruel and unwanted. Sure we can get nasty, but we in no way would go against the little people, at least not if we don’t have to. In this case we are addressing two comments submitted by what we think were from Bookspan employees regarding two items on our site. Below are the comments posted and our response to each of them. COMMENTER: Lumping Bookspan Employees in with the "Losers" is unusually cruel. You do realize that Bookspan Employees are people who have children...people who have to put food on the table...people with mortgages or rent and bills to pay...people who have health-care concerns, who cannot afford to lose their coverage...people who are caring for elderly or ill family members...? To callously (and, indeed, almost jovially) list Bookspan Employees among this week's "Losers" is disgustingly low, in my opinion. CONTINUED... While we do understand that the current situation at your company is nothing to joke about, we still have to pull together our weekly list of the week’s Winners Losers and Idiots. Unfortunately because of said situation you being part of the media industry landed you on our losers section of this list. Being part of the losers list doesn’t mean you are “losers”, but you are losers in the sense that you’ve lost or you are about to lose. However we don’t take the things you mentioned above lightly. They are serious concerns that anyone who isn’t sure if they will have a job tomorrow would have. So to you we say no heart feelings just business, and don’t be shocked if and when you do land on our losers list again this week. COMMENTER: I truly do not understand your insistence on referring to this as a "blood bath," based on one former employee's entirely inappropriate use of the phrase. And thank you so much for your kind "advice." It warms the very cockles of my heart to know that you, "Len Hindsmann" (whoever you are), are looking out for the lil' folks. Honestly, I am just so thankful for the fact that you have not seized upon this opportunity to poke fun at the Bookspan employees. You are the definition of a true humanitarian, Len Hindsmann. I salute you. Well thank you for the salute friend. But you’re mistaken if you think we are basing our following of this unfolding story on that one individual we spoke of before. We keep our sources in the upper echelons of the food chain and by that we mean, the mother ship. See the funny thing is when you work for the company that is part of a bigger organization, you tend to get the cosmetic version (if you will) of the whole situation from your manager and/or director which is always the case. But when you don’t work for the company and you have sources within the mother ship, you get info, not even your manager and/or director are privy to. OK so it was premature to label the situation a blood bath because it hasn’t taken place as yet, and who knows if it even will. In no way do we make fun of people’s jobs possibly being on the line, unless we really hate em, we just write about it our way that’s all. On that note, our sources just told us that Markus Wilhelm’s parking spot is officially up for grabs. We welcome and value feed back from our readers, but just know that when you submit a comment we may “Talk Back” because well, some comments just call for it.

An Anonymous commenter may bring even more controversy to the New York Times

-Shomari Hines Touching back on our post yesterday about New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald paying off teen porn star Justin Berry back in 2005 to spill the beans on the workings on his perv filled world, an anonymous commenter makes it clear the media has been asking the wrong question about this issue. However asking the right question and getting the answer could lead to more drama at the New York Times. Because based on what this commenter is claiming, the New York Times may have indirectly funded a gay teen porn site. Here is what our commenter had to say after the click CONTINUE... I am amazed that no one in the media is asking the right question. What did Justin Berry do with the $2000.00 that Eichenwald sent him?The answer appears to be: "He used the money to re-establish his porn site."A firm timeline has been established by the evidence produced in the US v. Richards and US v. Mitchel cases, and this timeline is very interesting.In May, 2005, when Eichenwald first contacted Berry, Berry had been out of the webcam porn business for about 6 months. He had lost his "mexicofriends.com" website when the registration expired in March, 2005. His "justinsfriends.com" website was dormant. Justin hadn't put on a "show" since November, 2004, when he had discovered religion and quit the business for the first time. On June 8, 2005 Eichenwald sent Berry a $2,000 cashier's check from Dallas, Texas. Berry received the check the following day in Bakersfield, California. According to Berry's home computer files, that very same day he began reworking the justinsfriends.com website in order to put it online again as an active website.The following week Berry traveled from Bakersfield to Dublin, Virginia, where his former business partner and lover, Greg Mitchel lived. Mitchel owned the name "justinsfriends.com" and Berry needed to make a deal with him in order to start the site up again. They made their deal. While he was in Virginia Berry participated in a masturbation session with an underage boy named Taylor which Mitchel filmed. Berry needed help setting up the site and on June 17, 2005, he hired Tim Richards to oversee the site. Richards was to receive a 25% cut of the income.Justinsfriends.com went back online over the weekend of June 18-19, 2005, Berry advertised justinsfriends.com as a legal adult webcam site on eb15.com (which is now defunct). Starting on June 19, 2005, Berry began putting on "shows" by masturbating in front of his webcam. This was legal since Berry was almost 19 years of age at that point. He also uploaded videos of other "performers". Almost all of the videos were legal. The FBI reports only identified 3 videos as having illegal content. They were 2 videos of Berry having sex with Mexican prostitutes when he was 17, and the video of Berry with Taylor. All of these videos were uploaded to the reactivated website after June 18th.Berry met with Eichenwald on June 30 - July 1, 2005, in Los Angeles. He then returned to Bakersfield put on a "show" on July 3, 2005, and hired two other young men to put on a show on July 4, 2005. A couple of days afterward, Berry abandoned the website and flew to Dallas where Eichenwald lives.In summary, New York Times reporter sends retired "camwhore" $2000.00. Retired camwhore then goes back into business, obtains subscribers, uploads illegal videos onto the internet, then after 2 weeks abandons the business and runs off to the reported with the subscriber list. The reporter then writes an awarding winning article that conveniently omits these facts. The shame is that this information (including the existence of the check) has been available on the internet for months, but no one in the media has picked it up.