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New Breed of Hawkers Peddling News in Strike

Date: 12 November 1990

By David Gonzalez

David Gonzalez

Like a flashback from a bygone era, newspaper hawkers with their rapid-fire sales pitches have returned to the streets, weaving through traffic trying to nab the attention of motorists and pedestrians scurrying through New York City. But instead of the young, ink-stained ragamuffins, the new hawkers run the gamut from turbaned Sikhs in Queens to street-wise men in Harlem to homeless people in midtown Manhattan.

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Workers vs. The Daily News: The Issues and the Prospects

Date: 13 November 1990

By David E. Pitt

David Pitt

Nineteen days after a bitter strike began at The Daily News, the struggle between management and the newspaper's nine striking unions remains centered in the streets, not at the bargaining table. The 71-year-old News -- ordinarily the nation's third largest-selling metropolitan daily -- has already become the first New York City daily newspaper in history to continue publishing during a strike by its unions. It has done so using what it calls "permanent replacement workers," in-house supervisors, out-of-state temporaries and some union workers -- or what the unions refer to simply as scabs and strike-breakers.

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Newspaper to Cut Staff

Date: 12 November 1990

AP

The Daily News in Los Angeles will lay off 4 percent of its workers in a cost-cutting move, its publisher, David J. Auger, said last week. The newspaper, based in the San Fernando Valley, employs about 1,200, indicating that about 48 employees will be let go. The Daily News has offered a voluntary early retirement plan to some employees, Mr. Auger said. He attributed the layoffs to the economic downturn that has hurt newspapers across the country.

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3 Papers' Unions Set Deadline

Date: 12 November 1990

AP

In an effort to shift contract talks to economic concerns, unions representing workers have set a deadline of 5 P.M. Friday for strikes against The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Examiner and The San Jose Mercury News. The Conference of Newspaper Unions, representing 10 unions and 4,500 employees, took the action last week. Employees have been working without a contract since Feb. 2.

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CNN IS TO APPEAL RULING ON TAPES

Date: 12 November 1990

Special to The New York Times

Cable News Network said today that it was preparing an emergency appeal of Saturday's Federal appellate court order barring it from broadcasting taped conversations between Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega and his lawyers. After the decision, by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, the network said it would appeal to the Supreme Court. Steve Haworth, CNN's spokesman, said tonight that it was unclear when the legal papers would be filed.

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Rash Censors in the Noriega Case

Date: 13 November 1990

Manuel Noriega, the deposed Panama dictator who awaits a Federal trial on drug and money-laundering charges, has been overheard and tape-recorded talking with his legal advisers. That's cause for alarm, since the United States is pledged to try him fairly. But that's not what's bothering the courts. Oddly, Federal judges aren't so concerned with probing the potential invasion of the defendant's rights. Hastily, they assail Cable News Network for its reports that brought the problem to light in the first place. It's a textbook case of shooting the messenger. Federal judges in Miami and Atlanta might have issued injunctions against the prisoner's jailers, whose rules require confidential consultation with defense counsel even from prison telephones. Instead, the judges have enjoined the newscasters who disclosed the existence of the Noriega tapes. Even more misdirected are court orders telling CNN to turn over the tapes it has so that judges can decide which, if any, are suitable for broadcast.

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Hong Kong Press Is Clouded By Dread of the '97 Takeover

Date: 13 November 1990

By Sheryl Wudunn, Special To the New York Times

Sheryl Wudunn

These days journalists here have a special kind of deadline in mind that affects their work: July 1, 1997, when this British territory is returned to China. Some Hong Kong reporters say the press here is already losing its dynamism, as journalists worry that Hong Kong's future rulers might punish them for critical reporting about China. And there are already signs that China is trying to gain greater influence over the press with the opening in October of a magazine called Bauhinia, after the territory's official flower.

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CNN Won't Play Noriega Tapes Until Ruling

Date: 13 November 1990

Cable News Network agreed today to play no more taped conversations between Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega and members of his defense team until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear the network's appeal of an order barring the televising. In exchange, Federal District Judge William M. Hoeveler agreed to postpone any decision on a contempt penalty against the network for defying his order and delayed an order for CNN to turn over the seven tapes for review by a Federal magistrate.

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East Europe's Cultural Life, Once a Refuge, Now Eclipsed

Date: 13 November 1990

By Celestine Bohlen, Special To the New York Times

Celestine Bohlen

In Prague, theaters reported a sharp drop in attendance. In Budapest, no new feature films went into production for the first half of this year. Here in the Romanian capital, fewer books were published this year than in any year of the Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu. As Eastern Europe assesses its first year in freedom, the verdict is that culture, once a refuge from Communist reality, became an unintended victim of its demise, as it laged behind the real-life drama that was unfolding daily before people's eyes.

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New York City Is Hurt But Still Has Reserves; The Media: Growing Trouble For the Networks

Date: 12 November 1990

By Bill Carter

Bill Carter

Network television is in a steep downturn that has led to forecasts of reduced profits and possible layoffs. Cable television, on the other hand, is doing fine. And these trends are not good for New York City. The three big television networks have always had their headquarters in Manhattan. Last year ABC, CBS and NBC employed about 12,000 people in New York and generated a total of $10.8 billion in corporate revenues. The cable industry, by contrast, has important power bases in Denver, the home of the largest cable operator, Tele-Communications Inc., and in Atlanta, the home of Ted Turner's cable empire, though several important cable channels, including HBO and MTV, are based in New York City. Network revenues grew by only 2.5 percent last year from 1988. That was less than half the annual growth rate of 5.7 percent from 1985 to 1989, according to the investment firm of Veronis, Suhler & Associates. Some additional growth is expected this year, but several analysts predict a flat year at best in 1991. The following year, with the Olympics and a Presidential election, could bring a revival of advertising, they say. "We are surely in a trough for the network business," said John Reidy, an analyst for Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Company. Problems for Publications The same advertising weakness is also affecting magazines and newspapers, which employ about 41,000 people in New York. Several leading magazine publishers are based in New York, including the Time Inc. Magazine Company, Conde Nast and Hearst. In addition, The New York Times Company and Dow Jones & Company are based in Manhattan. All have been hurt by the advertising slump. As a result, layoffs in the media industry seem to be likely. Mr. Reidy said layoffs were the only effective way to cut costs. But because the industry is so visible, he said, layoffs can create unfavorable publicity and contribute to the advertising slowdown. Mitchell Moss, the director of the Urban Research Center at New York University, said he thought the television networks could recover by becoming "idea exporters." "What we do best here in New York is create ideas that are made into media products," he said. "The networks ought to be able to make television a global export."

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