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June 09, 2005
Fathers Day
Fathers Day is coming up June 19 while I am on vacation in Spain. So, there are two pieces of good news: 1) I'm going on vacation and will enjoy myself and 2) there will be no more Media Curmudgeon blogs until July.
There are several media moguls who should give their dads huge thank-you gifts for Fathers Day because the odds against them getting big media jobs are about a trillion to one without pop.
Longest odds go to idiot son James Dolan of Cablevision. He's not only dumb, but he's mean and nasty to boot. I don't need to go into the details about how awful he is, because they are in the news every day.
Rupert Murdoch's son, Lachlan, is chief operating officer and executive vice president of News Corporation and expected to succeed his father. What are the odds of him getting that job if his name were, say Jackson? I do hear that Lachlan is smart and a pretty good guy to work for, so he might have become a VP by now if his name were Jackson.
Or how about Shari Redstone, Viacom's Sumner Redstone's daughter? She is expected to be named vice-chairman of Viacom this week. She has no experience in the media, except for running the Redstone-owned National Amusements, Inc, a big chain of theaters. How do you think she'll be accepted in the male-dominated media mogul club? Her gift to dad should be really huge.
How about Par Ridder, the topic of an article in Citypages by Mike Mousedale, who wrote:
"When Par Ridder was named publisher of the St. Paul Pioneer Press in March 2004, some might have wondered how a 35-year-old managed to rise to a position of such eminence. Not that long before, after all, Ridder had been a mere advertising manager (and then publisher) at a small California daily, the San Luis Obispo Tribune.
The answer, of course, lies in the last name: Par Ridder is the son of Tony Ridder, who is CEO and chairman of the board at Knight Ridder, the giant, penny-pinching newspaper chain that owns the Pi Press.
But nepotism, young Par learned recently, isn't without its downsides. Under rules designed to protect shareholders, Knight Ridder is required to disclose compensation figures for family members of company office holders. In other words, folks like Par. Consequently, after Knight Ridder released its proxy statement last month, rank-and-file Pi Press employees learned for the first time what their leader actually earns.
Par, it turns out, is making pretty nice coin: In 2004, he hauled in $394,045 in annual salary, plus a quarter-million-dollar "relocation bonus" to cover his moving expenses. If he has a few bucks left over, this might be a good year to send Dad an extra nice Father's Day card."
The sadness of these sons and daughters getting ahead is that they probably think they desere their jobs (unrealistically reinforced by their doting parents). Even worse, this nepotisim raises the expectations of spoiled children of media executives who think it's all matter of "who you know" and not about talent.
Well, anyway, happy Fathers Day to James, Lachlan, Shari, and Par. If readers can think of some others who should be sending their dads big Fathers Day gifts, please post them as comments and I'll approve them after June 27.
Posted by Charles Warner at June 9, 2005 04:30 PM