AOL CEO Tim Armstrong (pictured) said in a memo to staff (below) that the company is looking to lose 2,500 workers, or a third of its total staff. He'll be forgoing his own 2009 bonus, and is offering executives up to nine months pay if they volunteer for buyouts, according to Business Insider. Interestingly, rank and filers are being offered a weaker deal than their recent colleagues over at Time Inc.; AOL will pay them three months severance, whereas Time Inc.-ers get that plus two weeks for every year of service. Apparently unions are nice things to have in situations like this.

As it prepares to offer shares to the public next month, AOL has been on a diet plan in other ways, too:

• After steady increases, ad revenue from a deal with Google started falling this year, according to Peter Kafka at All Things D. The deal provided $700 million in ad revenue last year, about one third of the total, but was off $42 million in the most recent quarter.
• AOL surrendered bustling celebrity-news site and cable network TMZ to Time Warner; Tim Armstrong said as recently as July that he hoped to "actively" discuss whether to retain TMZ with Time Warner and that "‘If the value of TMZ increases, it's a really good thing for us."
• AOL may sell MapQuest, according to Kara Swisher at All Things D.

Pic above by Yaniv Golan.

Armstrong's memo to staff:————-

AOLers –

"Employees First" is the way that we have run the company since April and that mantra is something I take very seriously because our company is a collection of people and our brands are the work of our teams. We started by working together to determine AOL's strategy, then the correct structure for the strategy, and, as we have discussed, we are now faced with making sure we have the correct cost structure for the strategy. You have seen daily and weekly updates on Project Everest and many of you have been involved in trying to align our resources to maximize AOL's opportunity.

AOL's cost structure is something we have worked on for the past four months, and we have spent hundreds of hours reviewing ways to fix the cost structure as well as the revenue growth engine. As we are coming to the conclusion of this work over the next few weeks, it is clear that we will need to have a significant reduction of costs at the company and across almost all functional areas and geographies. Headcount costs are going to be a majority of the cost reduction recommendations coming out of Project Everest.

As I mentioned in our last Project Everest update, the idea for a voluntary layoff was suggested and we agree that it is an option that gives people more choice and decision-making ability instead of waiting for the final cost recommendations and involuntary layoffs. Starting December 4th in the United States and ending a few days after we spin out from Time Warner, we will allow employees to choose a voluntary exit from AOL. Additionally, tomorrow we anticipate beginning the communication process for voluntary layoff programs in certain international locations. We will be looking for up to 2,500 volunteers. For context on the target volunteer number, over the next several months we will be looking to reduce approximately one-third of our overall workforce at the company. We will need to do an involuntary layoff if we do not reach the target numbers through the voluntary option.

The reduction in costs is aimed at making AOL competitive for the future of the Web and it will allow us to focus the company on growth in the non-access areas of the business. After the cost reductions, we will have a company that is aligned and structured to drive our strategy in a competitive way. The number of potential reductions isn't aimed at getting us through 2010; it is aimed at resetting AOL at the correct baseline for the future.

As a member of our team and the person who takes accountability for the results of the company, I am making the decision to forego my 2009 bonus. That decision is a personal one and is not a sign for the future payout of the overall bonus plan for employees. That plan is based on performance and overall company outcomes and it will be management's recommendation to the compensation committee of the Board to approve our performance-based bonus payouts for 2009. These are challenging times and today's news is difficult. But every day we are making changes and progress and we are on our way to re-engineering AOL for success. – TA

As the New York Observer notes, Artley follows in the footsteps of our own Richard Rushfield, who was LATimes.com entertainment editor up through July, and in the wake of the head of the Times' online advertising, Juliana Jaoudi, and the head of online entertainment advertising, Jennifer Van Hook, both let go in the past week.

Formerly editor of IHT.com, Artley was part of a team of outsiders general manager Rob Barrett brought in after he was hired in 2005 to remake the site. Her departure, then, could lead to greater control by the newspaper's print side of the heretofore relatively independent website.

TVNewser notes that Klein sent the email just as Dobbs' show was starting last night, and that Dobbs did indeed say: "Meanwhile, the state of Hawaii says it can't release a paper copy of the president's original birth certificate because they say the state government discarded the original document when the health department records went electronic some eight years ago." [Related: The president of the Southern Poverty Law Center today sent a letter to Klein asking CNN "to remove Mr. Dobbs from the airwaves" because of his support for birthers.]

—-— Original Message —-—
From: Klein, Jon (CNN)
Sent: Thu Jul 23 19:00:44 2009
Subject: Important re birth certificate

I asked the political researchers to dig into the question "why couldn't Obama produce the ORIGINAL birth certificate?"

This is what they forwarded. It seems to definitively answer the question. Since the show's mission is for Lou to be the explainer and enlightener, he should be sure to cite this during your segment tonite. And then it seems this story is dead - because anyone who still is not convinced doesn't really have a legitimate beef.

Thx

*****************

*In 2001 - the state of Hawaii Health Department went paperless.*Paper documents were discarded*The official record of Obama's birth is now an official ELECTRONIC record Janice Okubo, spokeswoman for the Health Department told the Honolulu Star Bulletin, "At that time, all information for births from 1908 (on) was put into electronic files for consistent reporting," she said.

[TVNewser]

Eric Brown, Yahoo's new head of PR, just started work on Monday. He's ostensibly in charge of enforcing Bartz's edict to "dropkick to fucking Mars" any employees caught leaking things to the press. But before he does that, he'd like to tell you about his love for champagne, reading the Kindle in bed and his "couple of very close friends" that he frequently crashes with in Paris three or four times per year (sounds cozy!).

Kara Swisher at All Things D got Brown's companywide introduction email. This guy is going to be awesome.

—-From: Eric Brown (SVP Global Communications) Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 6:00 PM Subject: It' s great to be here!

Global comms team,

Thank you so much for the wonderful intro materials you gave me. I' m going to spend quite a bit of time on the org charts, budgets, plans, and results package you compiled for me. But I' ve been especially thrilled with the personal profiles you sent my way. I' ve seen other people whose phobias are the same as mine: spiders and heights; enjoyed how many of you put Paris as your favorite place on Earth; and am impressed with how many amazing books this group has collectively read.

I must also admit to being slightly intimidated by all of you who put " bad grammar" as a pet peeve and will triple check this email to avoid any grammar infractions…

I know I have a Thursday group meeting with you, but thought the least I could do on day one is return the favor and complete my own handbook profile. So here goes…

Date I joined Yahoo!: today (6 July 2009), though I did spend two days at the senior leaders meeting in mid-June and thank all of you who were there for the warm welcome in Half Moon Bay.

What I do here: lead a team of amazing, intelligent, motivated people who put Yahoo! in the best light possible and tell our story in compelling ways that make users and advertisers around the world want to embrace Yahoo! heartily.

Where I grew up: Warsaw, Virginia– a tiny town about 90 minutes from Richmond, Virginia and 150 minutes from Washington, D.C. For those of you who are American history buffs, Warsaw is about 10 minutes from the birthplace of Robert E. Lee and 15 minutes from the birthplace of George Washington.

Where I live now: Sunnyvale, California. Can' t beat the commute.

College: William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. BA in English. Loved lit crit. Senior honors thesis was on post-WWII masculinity in American society as represented by the works of Norman Mailer.

My first job: an internship for the U.S. Navy (my parents' employer-they were civilians) analyzing different process flow diagram software packages for a team creating warship defense systems. For the rest of high school and college, I had LOTS more fun as a waiter at dive restaurant called The Stagecoach. The food was ghastly; the people were amazing.

What I did before Yahoo!: I ran comms (PR, social media, internal comms, and exec comms) for NetApp, managing a global team of about 60+ people doing amazing enterprise and B2B work in 30+ companies worldwide. I' m very excited to learn " consumer" from all of you– and equally excited to share experiences from my almost 20 years in the business in return.

What I do when I' m not here: I love travel (had a super 3 days in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney two weekends ago), cooking (yes, seriously-cooking is very therapeutic and relaxing for me), and reading (though I haven' t picked up a Norman Mailer since my undergrad days).

If the Internet didn' t exist, what I' d be doing right now: teaching literature to high school students. I believe that at some point in my life, I have to return to society what it has given me. And I' d be a better teacher than firefighter or doctor!

Favorite place on Earth: Paris. I try to go there 3 or 4 times a year and have a couple of very close friends who are kind enough to let me crash with them. Second favorite is Hong Kong.

Proudest accomplishment: professionally– being part of the " inner counsel circle" for NetApp execs on a variety of comms and marketing issues (which I hope to be here at Yahoo! as well); personally– being a good friend, partner, and family member.

Favorite Yahoo! moment: there have only been 3 days of them so far-and all have been great. I felt very honored and lucky to be part of the Half Moon Bay leadership summit– and meeting people from all over Yahoo! there was inspiring.

Favorite book: someone who majored in literature can' t just name one, so I'll split them into categories… Favorite works of literature: The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Favorite work that kindled my imagination: The Hobbit by Tolkien. Favorite works that make me laugh: anything by David Sedaris (the man is wicked funny).

Favorite movie: two– Moulin Rouge and Orlando– both visually stunning.

My first car: a Buick Skyhawk in a horrible shade of brown– the thing was so ratty that I had to add oil to it every other day so it wouldn' t break down– it made its last hurrah on a cross-country trip from Virginia to California and made it over the Rocky Mountains without any issues but then was quite unhappy crossing the Sierra Nevada range.

My next vacation destination: somehow I think I' m going to be very busy for the next few months so I' m not planning any big trips, though I have told a friend I' ll attend his 50th birthday party in Munich and from there I' ll try to drive to Vienna for a few days.

My hidden talent: navigating subway systems when everyone else insists on taking a taxi (the exception: Tokyo– because it is just too darned crowded).

My favorite online video: I like online videos to catch up on things that MTV no longer carries– like videos from Gus Gus (though I only see one of their videos on Yahoo! Music… )

My guiltiest pleasure: ice cream in bed with the Kindle (yes, just as Elisa put in her email)– the ice cream HAS to be Ben & Jerry's (LOVE being on this floor with the conference room names!) and my favorite is Peach Cobbler.

I have an intense fear of: spiders and heights– I even had a spider vacuum for a while so I didn't have to come near ‘ em or smash ‘ em– but then I was scared they'd survive the suction and electric shock and crawl back somewhere– so now they' re routinely smashed.

My biggest pet peeve: beating around the bush– tell me what you want me to know because I' m not telepathic and say it without a lot of metaphor or subtlety– if you really want me to know something, please make it crystal clear.

My best celebrity encounter: dinner with friends in the outdoor section of the Restaurant du Palais Royal in Paris on a gorgeous May evening– next to us was Tom Ford (at the height of his Gucci power)– I have never wanted to NOT eat so much in my life.

Something few people know about me: I abhor cava (sorry to those of you in Spain)– champagne is my favorite drink on Earth, prosecco will do in a pinch, and New World sparklings are hit and miss– but I universally detest cava.

Best for advice for working with me (yes, a little changed from what you all submitted): honesty really IS the best policy– unless I' m having a bad hair day in which case please just don' t say anything about that at all.

Thanks again for having me here– and we'll speak more on Thursday.

Best regards, Eric

The AP's Facebook and Twitter policies are less draconian than, say, Bloomberg's, but that's not saying much. They do sound, on the whole, reasonable, until you stop and ponder a few of the specifics.

For example, the organization says every comment on a staffer's Facebook profile should meet AP guidelines, because who can tell the difference between commenters and the original author??

It's a good idea to monitor your profile page to make sure material posted by others doesn't violate AP standards; any such material should be deleted.

And you, office supply assistant in the back! This applies to you too!

We cannot expect people outside the AP to know whether a posting on Facebook was made by someone who takes pictures, processes payroll checks or fixes satellite dishes.

Also, remember to distribute links fairly to the hundreds of members, and always be selling:

Link to member and customer sites instead and try to vary the links to spread the traffic around... It's a good idea to reference the AP in the promo language, i.e. Just how much geek can be chic? Test your fashion IQ with this interactive game (AP): http://bit.ly/BvAqv

Finally, no craven political posturing on social networks. That's what emails are for!

Memo below:

(Photo by Stephen Pruitt)

A Bloomberg source passed us an internal Q1 memo. (Click here to read the whole thing.) It says the news division beat all first-quarter targets and increased "its headline speed against the main real-time competition." We have no idea what that means; maybe ask a Scientologist.

We do get this part, though, where Bloomberg clearly brags about nearly tripling the number of stories broken in Q1 and getting double the number of "follows" in competing media:

"Competitors followed Bloomberg News stories more than 2,700 times —

more than twice as often as in all of 2008({NI FOLLOW }. The Wall

Street Journal alone cited us 235 times. The New York Times mentioned

us 135 times. Reuters followed 520 times."



The 1,492 journalists at Bloomberg News broke more than 13,000

stories, almost three times the total for all of 2008. Our speed

increased, too: Bloomberg News beat its main real-time competitor on

more than 70 percent of all major stories, compared with 54 percent at

the beginning of the year."

The trouble with these stats: They're generated by the very Bloomberg staff who stand to earn kudos and bonuses off them, a major conflict of interests. The financial information company is growing more metrics conscious every quarter as it strives toward a long-term goal of $10 billion in annual revenue, our tipster tells us, increasing the incentive to flag stories with internal "FIRST" and "FOLLOW" tags.

Our tipster believes the tags are applied more generously than last year, and Bloomberg's stats bear this out: To triple "FIRSTs," reporters either worked three times harder this year — doubtful, given how intensely competitive Bloomberg's culture has always been — or the tag is being applied more liberally.

But editors who fudged the numbers may have burned themselves: Bloomberg, our tipster claims, will use Q1 2009 as a benchmark for future performance, rather than a period from 2008, as employees previously believed. If that's true, the suspicious Q1 metrics will set a very difficult performance bar going forward.

We've asked Bloomberg for comment and will update the post when we hear back. UPDATE: Bloomberg's response, in full: "The report is accurate." Thank you, comrades.

[Full Memo]

(Pic via)

An internal memo about the new VP of Corporate Communications, Eric Brown, was obtained by Kara Swisher of All Things Digital. In it, Yahoo is careful to describe Brown's "bad habit of eating ice cream in bed while reading my Kindle and surfing the web."

Also, his "partner's name is Scot, he has a Pomeranian named Clio, a passion for cooking and travel." So adorable!

Less cuddly: Brown is tasked with enforcing his boss Carol Bartz's edict that anyone caught leaking information will get "dropkicked to fucking Mars."

Like former Autodesk honcho Bartz, veteran Wilson comes from a business software background, specifically storage company NetApp. Hopefully for his sake he developed a passion for "dropkicking" there.

Full Bartz Memo:

Marketing & Executive Teams,

I'm very pleased to announce that Eric Brown will be joining Yahoo! as Senior Vice President, Global Communications, reporting directly to me. In this critical role, Eric will oversee our Global Communications function, including public relations, product promotion, executive communications, public affairs, internal communications, corporate reputation management and social media outreach.

Eric is joining Yahoo! at a particularly pivotal time, as we update our corporate position and message, develop and execute a renewed global brand strategy and launch major new products and solutions. Eric will be tasked with more closely integrating the global communications team with broader marketing initiatives and the company's overall business strategy. A critical objective will be to set the communications agenda and drive Yahoo!'s message to our various constituencies–the media, analysts, consumers, employees, and key industry influencers who create buzz and can have a significant impact on how our brand is perceived.

Eric is a Silicon Valley communications veteran with 18 years of tech experience. Most recently, Eric and I collaborated at NetApp, where he spent the last nine years helping to transform the company into a multibillion dollar global enterprise. As Vice President of Corporate Relations, Eric managed a large global team and strategic communications program. He was the core communications executive responsible for the company's recent revamp of brand strategy and execution. He also played a significant communications role in helping the company gain recognition by Fortune magazine as the "Best Company to Work for in America" in 2009. Prior to NetApp, Eric was the head of PR for Adaptec responsible for B2B, brand and consumer communications, and held additional leadership positions in both corporate and agency environments.

On a personal note, Eric's partner's name is Scot, he has a Pomeranian named Clio, a passion for cooking and travel, and a self-described "bad habit of eating ice cream in bed while reading my Kindle and surfing the web."

Eric will join us in early July, so please join me in giving him a warm welcome. I look forward to his leadership contributions in this vitally important role at Yahoo!.

[All Things Digital]

For LGBT Co-Workers:

I don't consider you gay.
This is insensitive.

Never call a coworker a "fag" or "homo."
This is derogatory, rude, and totally
insensitive.

For African-American Coworkers:

Should we order fried chicken or
watermelon for you?
This is stereotyping and shows ignorance.

For Asian Coworkers:

You must be the new IT person.
All Asians are not IT professionals.

Can you recommend a good Chinese
restaurant?
All Asians are not Chinese. Take some time
to study a world map. The world is made up
of continents with many countries, regions,
cultures, and sub-cultures.

For Older Coworkers:

You know Wal Mart is hiring.
This is not funny. An older employee has
experience you could benefit from.

For White Coworkers:

That's how a typical white person acts.
You are suggesting that all white people are
the same by putting them in the same
category. The behavior may have nothing to
do with the person's race. [Ed.: Many white people are assholes for other reasons than race!]

For Coworkers With Disabilities:

You don't need to date; your life will be
better without a woman/man causing you
trouble.
Being disabled does not mean the person is
socially challenged.

For Hispanic/Latino Coworkers:

Can you help me out with my landscaping?
Why would you assume that all
Hispanics/Latinos are landscaping experts?

And there's so much more! Although no guidelines on Slut or Hick Coworkers.

One of the current pet arguments for torture made by both the dumber and the more psychotic elements of the commentariat is that it was bad (ineffective) when Pol Pot and the Commies and the Nazis used it to elicit false confessions, but it was good (effective) when we did it, because we were just looking for actionable intelligence.

Also, of course, we were looking for "evidence" of a non-existent link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, which is sort of the midpoint between "false confessions" and "actionable intelligence."

A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq.

"While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."

So there you go! Good thing we waterboarded a dude 183 times in order to find proof of something we just hoped was true to justify a pointless war we were planning on starting regardless.

Now the word is Koten may be out, too — not just of his office, but his job, too. When asked, Koten said he "planned on appearing for jury duty tomorrow." To avoid a leak, we hear managers are calling employees with the news that Mansueto Ventures CFO Mark Rosenberg is taking over temporarily. But we suspect Koten, a fan of both the B-52s and Aristotle's Rhetoric, is happiest while at sea.

After a late-night email sent by Koten urging his employees to interview him to "show some respect" got leaked earlier this month, Koten "had his assistants move all of his stuff into a cubicle outside his office," the tipster told us. Joe Mansueto, the founder of mutual-fund research firm Morningstar and owner of Fast Company and Inc., works from a cubicle. "After several years of working out of an office now seems a really weird time to become "a man of the people,'" our tipster notes.

Koten has an erratic reputation. One media veteran familiar with his career calls him "one of the unheralded geniuses of the magazine business" but also the "laziest man in the world." Legend has it that the devoted sailor once turned down a promotion at the Wall Street Journal that would have had him move from Chicago to New York because of the cost of berthing his boat. (He later made the move, and recently invited Mansueto Ventures employees to bring their children on board his boat for Take Your Children to Work Day.)

Media Business hailed him as one of the top innovators in the magazine business for FastCompany.com and FastCompany.tv. But the architect of those websites, Ed Sussman, was fired in October. FastCompany.tv star Robert Scoble inexplicably lasted through March, despite spending more of his time Twittering than videoblogging. Perhaps Fast Company can bring him back to do a remake of "I'm On a Boat"?

(Photo by rexhammock)

Former Attorney Michael Mukasey and former CIA director Michael Hayden have come forward to attack Obama for giving up the ghost on our interrogation tactics. One reason he shouldn't have released the memos, they say, is that now the terrorists know precisely how far we are willing to take things to get information.

However, public disclosure of the OLC opinions, and thus of the techniques themselves, assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them.

This is bad, presumably, because if somebody knows that there is a limit to what their interrogators are willing to do, they could resist more easily without fear that things will get worse, and more painful.

The only reason it could be a good thing for terrorist suspects not to know the absolute limit of what the U.S. government can do to extract information from them is that they will be more likely to divulge intelligence if they fear worse treatment. Things start out nice, then get worse and more violent—"attention grasp," "facial hold," "walling," "insult slap," "abdominal slap," and "the 'waterboard,'" to quote the memos. Someone undergoing such treatment, if it is applied in an escalating fashion, would reasonably expect the progression to continue. This is known as a threat.

And, as the torture memos make clear, "the threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering" is a predicate act for torture as defined by federal law. The OLC lawyers were very cognizant of this, and went out of their way to warn the CIA inquisitors that the obvious point of the interrogation program—to shake loose the detainees' confidence that the CIA didn't have the balls to get really ugly—could be illegal if they didn't carefully and disingenuously dot the i's and cross the t's.




But the OLC scribes at least kept up the legal pretense that the program wasn't designed to scare the living shit out of these people and make them think that they were going to die slow, painful deaths. Mukasey and Hayden, on the other hand, admit it outright: Without the threat of more, and worse, torture, then yes—the whole program is useless. Which makes it torture.

Hayden and Mukasey also shed a little light on an enduring torture mystery—whether or not Khalid Sheikh Mohammed actually personally murdered Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Pearl, as he confessed to doing under torture. The Bush Administration professed to believe that Mohammed was telling the truth when he claimed responsibility for the beheading, which you'd kind of have to do unless you want to call the entire torture regime into doubt. But Pearl's family and others—including at least one federal official involved in Mohammed's case who spoke to the New Yorker's Jane Mayer—suspect that Mohammed was simply telling interrogators what they wanted to hear in the hopes that they would stop torturing him.

So when Hayden and Mukasey identify Mohammed as a guy who "has boasted of having beheaded Daniel Pearl," it's notable for two reasons:

1) You can boast of beheading someone even if you didn't actually behead them, a distinction Hayden and Mukasey are no doubt aware of. It's odd that, if they know the facts and are certain that Mohammed was the beheader, they didn't simply say so, and

2) People who describe confessions under torture as "boasts" are sick, rotten motherfuckers.

Newspapers will still have to be out of their current space at headquarters by July 31, but will be able to use the press room—usually reserved for press conferences and meetings—as a filing center. The NYPD will try to have permanent office space for reporters within two years, as opposed to the 2013 date floated in Kelly's earlier memo.

The email, which questioned why anyone who wasn't "orthodox" might take Good Friday off, is now circulating online, with this preface:

This is an email from one of the MD's in the Healthcare Group at Thomas Weisel Partners where I used to work. He is one of the most unpleasant people I've ever worked with.

Soden's email:
Always amusing to have someone with a "III" after their name lecture employees about the importance of hard work. According to Soden's profile on Thomas Weisel's website, he's not exactly keeping busy doing deals himself. Soden is providing endless entertainment for his workers, though, in the form of a fake Twitter account one prankster set up:

Subject: Announcement to the Community:Update on yesterday's events
Update from The New School

New York City, April 11, 2009 - Early yesterday morning, a New School building at the corner of 14th Street and 5th Avenue was illegally broken into by approximately 30 people, some of whom were New School students. The police were involved and 22 protesters were arrested. Any participant that is enrolled at The New School will be suspended pending completion of disciplinary proceedings. Below is a timeline of activity of yesterday's events.

At 5:25am, a maintenance employee for The New School was in the cafeteria in 65th 5th Avenue. He heard a loud bang when over two dozen protesters with crowbars broke the locks on the side door on 13th Street. As he exited the cafeteria, he was overwhelmed by another group of protestors, some wearing face masks. He reported being physically grabbed by four men and forced out the door. During this time, they stole his security two-way radio.

A security supervisor responded to a call from the maintenance employee and went to the buildings entrance on 13th Street, where he interrupted the protestors in their effort to block the doorway. Although students have publicly denied that anyone was hurt, participants slammed the supervisors leg in the door as he tried to enter through the door. He sustained injuries to his leg and went to the emergency room at St. Vincents Hospital.

The protesters carried crowbars, bolt-cutters, mace, paint, hundreds of feet of security cable, masking and duct tape, kryptonite locks, and hundreds of feet of nylon rope into the building. They were also carrying sleeping bags and food, indicating they planned to be in the building for some time.

Security called 911 to report a burglary at The New School and gave the location at 65 5th Avenue. The initial NYPD responding units arrived at the scene in three minutes and began assembling a comprehensive team to deal with the break-in. NYPD have been on alert since December 2008 as there have been numerous attempts to break into this building before. NYPD protocols dictated the nature of the response by the police.

The protesters, some but not all of whom were New School students, blocked all building entrances. They used conduit pipe, or hollow metal bars, heavy, plastic-coated security cable, and gravity locks to block the doors, which were then reinforced with desks and chairs. They used Crazy Glue on all the locks. They put duct tape over all security cameras and transmission devices, effectively cutting off the buildings network service. They also cut through the cage inside the building to the cafeteria and smashed the cash register.

Between 8:30 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., up to nine hooded individuals appeared on the roof of the building, where they made a statement and hung signs at the 13th Street and 5th Avenue corner of the building.

At approximately 11:30 a.m. a group of students tried to escape through an exit on 14th Street. It is estimated that eight participants escaped down 14th Street. Three were caught by the NYPD and resisted arrest. The individuals included three students, one from The New School, one from Brooklyn College and one from NYU, who was confirmed by NYU security as a member of their previous occupation. These protesters hurt two police officers and face charges of assault in the 2nd degree. One protester, a New School student, was hurt in the altercation.

At 11:45, the NYPD prepared to enter the building. Using a megaphone, Tim Sikorski, head of New School security, warned the protesters they would be arrested and the NYPDs hostage negotiation leader also made a similar announcement. Protesters responded to the NYPDs request and unlocked the doors and let the NYPD in.

There were 16 males and 3 females present in the building. All were arrested, in addition to the 3 arrested earlier on 14th Street. It is unknown at this time how many participants were New School students. There were participants from other universities as well as other unaffiliated individuals. Protesters inside the building did not resist arrest. The NYPD used plastic handcuffs and led each participant out of the building. They were taken to NYPDs central booking. All participants face charges for burglary in the 3rd degree, a charge stemming from breaking into an unoccupied building.

Here's a memo he sent to all staff at Mansueto, which also publishes Inc., the magazine Koten used to edit, last night:

From: John Koten
Sent: Thu 4/9/2009 11:49 PM
To: ALL MANSUETO
Subject: Thought for the day

I realize few of you want a life identical to mine. However, it does kind of amaze me that in the entire time we've been at 7 world trade center, not a single employee has ever directly asked me....how did you succeed in our business. How did you do it.

This surprises me for several reasons: one, because I think I could give an interesting answer. Two, because it's the subject matter we are supposed to be presenting our readers. Three, because it would impress me and show some respect.

It's a question I constantly asked people when I was young, including all of my bosses and every ceo I interviewed. I asked richard petty, I asked michael jackson, I aslked joe mansueto, I asked john delorean. I asked peter kann, I asked norman pearlstine. I asked john huey. It's a pretty easy question to remember.

And that's at least one tip you can have without ever even bothering to ask me.

Earlier in the day, Koten announced that employees' children visiting for Take Our Daughters/Sons to Work Day "are all going over to see the ceos [sic] boat." And then he sent this email:

From: John Koten
Sent: Thu 4/9/2009 6:56 PM
To: ALL MANSUETO
Subject: Sailing

One of my crew on panet claire is the best sailing instructor in New York. He will be happy to teach anyone sailing ir just take you out on my boat this summer. He also gives private lessons, can help you join the manhattan sailing club (free lessons). 800 bucks plus unlimited access to boats a few blocks from our office. Check it out at msc.org.

A tipster tells us Koten bought a boat last year and spent most of summer working on it.

The tipster adds that Koten suggested employees spend $800 on sailing lessons after two rounds of layoffs in September and January, and a move two weeks ago to force everyone to take two unpaid weeks of vacation, effectively cutting salaries by 5 percent. As for how Koten is "succeeding in our business"? Joe Mansueto, the owner of the company, the tipster says, writes a $2 million check every month to keep his magazines afloat.

Update: We heard from Koten!

That was a hilarious article today. I have no personal objection to any of it. However, joe mansueto wrote me from vacation to ask me to tell you that your loss numbers are way off and uninformed.

You are welcome to come over and chat with me, see our place, see my boat, etc.—any time.

I'll have some news you could break whenever you choose to come.

The style of this email confirms the authenticity of our tipster's leaked memo. It's interesting how Koten manages to reach the shift key to capitalize "I," but doesn't manage it on proper names, even his boss's. (Or he's just an iPhone or BlackBerry user who's grown overreliant on his phone's autocapitalization feature.) We also note that Mansueto didn't specify if our source's estimate of losses was high or low, just "way off."

A tipster shares this theory about the timing of Koten's email: booze. Koten is reportedly a Rangers fan, and gets drunk at games. The Rangers played last night. Ergo, drunken email. Koten says: "Yes, the Rangers made the playoffs last night, so I was pretty happy."

A Mansueto tipster confirms that Koten often shows up at the office at noon. One staffer notes that one of the rare occasions when Koten appeared at the office in the morning was when he announced the unpaid time off — after which he promptly left for a vacation in Jamaica.

(Photo by rexhammock)

Dennis,

The NYC Googlers in the Ad Sales department are grateful for your arrival. Wow, you could not have come sooner. The office was falling apart. Armstrong was running his many businesses and promoting the most incompetent early Googlers to high ranking positions. Please take note of a few problems.

* The vast majority of your team managers have NO direct advertising sales experience. Many come from agencies but those of us who have actually worked on the outside know that very few people successfully transition from agency to sales.
* What is the scoop with this HOI position? Are you kidding me? These people are quintessential middle management. Call in McKinsey amnd see what they think. Most HOIS with the exception of Dan Schock have never sold. Pavelko dresses terribly and has the single worst breath.
* What do the Vertical heads do? Have you ever heard some of them speak at conferences? So now you have the Vertical Head and the HOI and the team Manager....
* Let's discuss the team managers again. Are you kidding? Do you see the problem?
* Now you have gone and taken your BEST salespeople and put them on a display team. Have you heard how they have been treated? They actually no how to build relationshipss, sell and entertain but they are now overwhelmed by middle managers. What happened to the good old days of risk taking. Now it is death by meeting with spread sheets and bs.
* Please fix this mess sire. Please.
* BTW, what is with the stuttering Castelli. He was the Publisher at 3rd tier magazines but now he is heading the east coast? Have you heard him speak?He cannot get a word out. He has no visibility and barely understands the products. Have him take you through a deep dive.
* Agency? Are you kidding me? Do you see the problems? How many Ivy educated people does it take to call a customer? Trust me, customers are annoyed. They are not getting service they deserve. OSO is pathetic and GMS has not a clue. Every other major company has salespeople who know how to call the agency and customer. At Google, we discuss it first.

HELP us little man.

NYC

From: Prager, Josh
Sent: Friday, April 03, 2009 2:59 PM
To: WSJ All News Staff
Subject:

After almost 13 years at this paper, it's time for me to say goodbye.

I started here as a news assistant. I handed out the sked, answered
phone calls and screamed "Goodnight Pittsburgh!" in the middle of the
newsroom when a bureau sought permission to head home for the evening.
Late nights, I headed to 43rd Street and relayed by phone the headlines
of a warm New York Times.

I was in awe of all around me. I parroted their beautifully-worded
observations and read their beautifully-written stories. (Jim White
steered me toward Horwitz, Kotlowitz, Suskind, et al.) And I dreamed of
writing one of those wonderful 300-word quirks that ran in the
lower-left corner of the second-front.

It took me about 30 days to write my first orphan, a word/day ratio I
would never much improve. I found mentors whose instructions (activate
verbs, simplify language, etc.) I taped to my desk. I began to write
features, many of which concerned the three worlds I knew
best—disability, Judaism and baseball.

The paper made me a reporter and sent me to Atlanta to cover small
business financing. I struggled, writing columns mined from The Wall
Street Journal Guide to Understanding Money & Investing. But when I
wrote a leder about the children's book Goodnight Moon, I at last found
my niche-revealing secrets tied somehow to the historical. And over the
coming years, the paper extended to me an ever-lengthening leash that
let me write what had not been known about a famous home run, photograph
and missing Swede.

I knew how lucky I was. At times, I was embarrassed by my good fortune
and worked hard to feel I merited it.

Perhaps unavoidably, things changed. Soon after News Corp. began to
court the Bancrofts, Rupert Murdoch stated that our front-page stories
were too long while Robert Thomson said some had the "gestation of a
llama." Mine certainly did. The paper and I were no longer a good fit.

I knew that newspapers were dying daily, that the future of long-form
journalism was at risk. And I knew how lucky I was to still have my job.
But as my recent story on Raoul Wallenberg was cut from the three parts
we'd agreed upon to two to one, I also knew that it was time for me to
leave the paper, particularly once I learned that some in management had
expressed the same opinion.

Onward. I've applied for a journalism fellowship and plan on writing a
book about disability, about the 1990 bus accident that broke my neck
and initially left me a quadriplegic. I'm excited.

I will miss The Wall Street Journal and the incredible adventures it let
me take. I have loved working here and am forever grateful to the
endless folks at the paper who helped me at every turn and taught me
everything I know about journalism. They include Robin Haynes, Melinda
Beck, Mike Miller, Kevin Salwen, Hilary Stout, Dan Hertzberg, Cathy
Panagoulias, Paul Steiger, John Blanton and Mike Siconolfi. Thank you.

Among the many things I learned here was that reporters need to fight
for themselves. (I was honored, for example, to help see to it last year
that reporters do not owe a percentage of any book advance or sales to
the paper unless they enter into a voluntary marketing agreement with
the Journal.) And I hope that my incredible colleagues, despite their
understandable fears given the state of our industry, will find ways to
speak up when necessary. It is certainly in the interest of any business
to know what is on the minds of its employees and perhaps an anonymous
but public sounding board can be established by the union or the paper
itself. (It might also help do away with leaks.)

Further, the worship of byline and word counts and all that is "urgent"
has doubtless stifled the boundless creativity of the Journal staff. I
hope the paper will address this problem. Implementing some version of
the rule at 3M that lets employees spend 15 percent of their time on
"projects of their own choosing" would benefit morale and yield
wonderful stories.

Please keep in touch. You can reach me at [Redacted].

Sincerely,

Josh

From: NEWSPAPER GUILD MAILING
Date: Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 3:01 PM
Subject: Guild UNION TIMES: Council Meets to Discuss Request for $4.5 in Savings
To: NEWSPAPER GUILD

Union Times

Published By The Newspaper Guild of New York

For The New York Times Unit

Times Guild Unit Office – Ext. 1030, 1751

Visit the New York Guild's Website at WWW.NYGUILD.ORG

April 2, 2009

Unit Council Meets to Discuss Times Request for $4.5 in Savings from Guild
Workers

Votes unanimously to endorse Guild's search for

solutions that would help Times survive and prevent layoffs

Over thirty members of the Guild Unit Council of The New York Times, along
with unit officers from the Times Company Digital and several guests, met
on Wednesday to discuss the Times' proposal that seeks to reduce salaries
of Guild-covered workers by five percent through the end of 2009. The
Times threatens to lay off 60-80 workers, mainly from the Newsroom, if the
request is not met. A similar reduction in salary was recently forced
upon the non-Guild workers at The Times. The company's proposal also
includes making members take an additional 10 paid days off before the end
of the year.

The Times has indicated that it will consider counter proposals from the
Guild that would equal the savings of the wage reduction, which management
valued at $4.5 million dollars. The Council members shared their thoughts
on how the company's request could be satisfied without giving up our
shrinking wages that have already been depleted by additional contributions
to the Benefits Fund and the increasing cost of living in New York
Metropolitan Area.

It was largely agreed that the company should give us some guarantees
that layoffs would not be enacted just months after we agree to givebacks,
and that management should give us assurances that they will not award
bonuses to exempt workers and executives of the company while making us
take a wage reduction. Most on the Council believed that the company has
not gone far enough in eliminating superfluous managers and exempts who
hold few responsibilities and that most of the burdens for corporate
missteps have fallen on Guild members.

The Council unanimously voted to endorse efforts by the Guild to explore
all options that would satisfy the companies need to save $4.5 million in
a manner that would inflict the least pain on Guild members.

The Guild is preparing a survey in which rank and file members will be
able to express their preferences for how to respond to The Times request,
avoid layoffs and conserve valuable wages. The survey is expected to be
distributed electronically on or about Monday, April 13. Responses of the
Times paper-side workers will be recorded separately from those of the
Times Digital workers.

The Guild also wishes to thank the many members who have sent in their
thoughts on how to address the proposed wage reduction and/or layoffs.
There were many excellent and well-constructed ideas that will be helpful
in our quest for a solution to this problem.

In the end, after any negotiating with the company is finished, it is you,
the rank and file members, who will have the final vote on any agreement
with The Times that would change the terms of the existing Collective
Bargaining Agreement.

The Guild will continue to keep you informed on any developments of this
crisis.

# # # # #

4/2/09