three months pass...
five years pass...
Cue the Nelson laughs:
Washington Times executives are negotiating to sell the newspaper, after the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's family cut off most of the annual subsidy of about $35 million that has kept the Unification Church-backed paper afloat, company officials said....
The negotiations follow months of turmoil at both the 28-year-old conservative daily and the business empire founded by Moon, 90, whose children are jostling for control over the church's myriad enterprises, which range from fisheries to arms manufacturing.
One of Moon's children, Justin Moon, who was chosen by his father to run many of the church's Asian businesses, has slashed the newspaper's annual subsidy, forcing the paper's executives, led by Moon's eldest son, Preston Moon, to search for deep pockets elsewhere. Meanwhile, the newspaper has hacked its newsroom staff by more than half, from 225 in 2002 down to about 70 people, raised the paper's price and deliberately shrunk its circulation to cut costs, shed its metro and sports sections, and fired or pushed out several top executives, including its publisher earlier this week. Several reporters said most of the staffers are seeking to leave.
The finances are so tight that the newspaper hasn't paid some of its bills or tended to basic maintenance issues -- such as hiring an exterminator to deal with mice and snakes sneaking into the building on New York Avenue in Northeast.
"The feeling everyone feels is that it's a totally rudderless ship," said Julia Duin, the paper's longtime religion reporter. "Nobody knows who's running it. Is it the board of directors? We don't know. There was a three-foot-long black snake in the main conference room the other day. We have snakes in the newsroom -- the real live variety, at least. One of the security people gallantly removed it."
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 2 May 2010 01:20 (fifteen years ago)
two years pass...
The church was accused of using devious recruitment tactics
Early february 1981, my first full day as a new yorker. Well, an aspiring new yorker. Trooping around with my resume, in between employment agency visits i stopped at a midtown coffee shop. While wolfing down a hamburger I realized the woman on stool next-door was speaking.
"Don't I Know You From Somewhere?"
So people actually say that, I remember thinking.
“I doubt we’ve met before because I just moved here from the Midwest.”
“Oh! Where?”
“Uh, Ohio is where I grew up but I just got out of college in Michigan.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“The University of…Michigan, that is.”
“Oh! That’s where I went too.”
“That’s weird, I mean funny, when you think about it.”
"Why did you come to New York City?”
“Well, I always liked swimming in the ocean.”
Careless in my over-confidence, I let the conversation continue, warming up to my new role as wide-eyed rube in the big city. I was gullible enough to give her the phone number of my cheap hotel. She was about ten years older, thirty-ish, but that seemed very adult. She gave me her business card. An official-sounding entity was listed underneath her name, something like the New Earth Arts & Science Council.
"Since you mentioned that you like music so much, let me invite you to a gathering with some friends of mine: we have chamber recitals and classical concerts every Sunday, and then there are discussions about politics and world events. I think you’d be really interested."
When I got back to the little hotel on 41st Street the front desk clerk made a beckoning gesture, lifting a piece of paper like it was dripping fat. My first phone message! Back in the room, I retrieved an inky business card from my new briefcase and warily took note of the address of the woman in the coffee shop. A quick consultation with the Manhattan phone directory confirmed my better-late-than-never suspicion. It was the same address as the headquarters of the Unification Church. I never called her back.
― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Monday, 3 September 2012 11:21 (thirteen years ago)