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[News Thetan]

Times Publishing Co. agrees to sells Governing magazine to e.Republic (St. Petersburg Times)
20 November 2009, 11:02 am

 By James Thorner, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Saturday, November 21, 2009

The Times Publishing Co., parent company of the St. Petersburg Times, has agreed to sell Governing magazine to a California media company.

Governing has operated out of Washington, D.C., since its beginnings in 1987. It covers local and state government. The buyer is e.Republic, based in Sacramento.

The purchase will close the week after Thanksgiving for a price neither side would disclose.

E.Republic was chosen from among six bidders for the magazine, said Andrew Corty, corporate vice president of Times Publishing.

This will be the third Washington affiliate Times Publishing has sold in the last two years. In July, it sold Congressional Quarterly, a profitable D.C.-based publication, to British-owned Roll Call. Last year, Times Publishing sold CQ's books division, CQ Press, to Sage Publications of Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Times Publishing will pour money from the sales into strengthening its other brands. They include the St. Petersburg Times, tbt*/Tampa Bay Times, Florida Trend and PolitiFact.com.

"We're divesting our Washington, D.C., properties and putting the investment into the newspapers in the Tampa Bay market," Corty said.

E.Republic publishes Government Technology magazine and considers Governing a natural media partner.

"Our flagship Government Technology magazine has published alongside Governing for over 20 years," chief operating officer Paul Harney said. "Combined, the two organizations create the largest media firm providing news, research and analysis of the $2.9 trillion state and local government market."

Several of the principals of e.Republic are members of the Church of Scientology. The St. Petersburg Times has run a recent series of stories critical of the organization. In the sale of Governing, Times officials drew a distinction between the church itself and those who practice Scientology.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/times-publishing-co-agrees-to-sells-governing-magazine-to-erepublic/1053155

[News Thetan]

St. Pete Times sells its last D.C. publication (The Tampa Tribune)
21 November 2009, 12:00 am

By RICHARD MULLINS

rmullins@tampatrib.com

Published: November 21, 2009

The parent company of the St. Petersburg Times is selling the last of the company's Washington-based publications.

The Times Publishing Co. announced a deal to sell Governing magazine to e.Republic, a Sacramento, Calif.-based media company that publishes Government Technology magazine and has ties to the Church of Scientology.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

This rounds out a series of deals by the Times to sell assets for cash, including Congressional Quarterly and CQ Press, which both focus on government operations. Proceeds from the sale will be put into the Times' operations in Florida, officials said.

The sale was notable, in part because The St. Petersburg Times has been publishing a series of articles about the Church of Scientology, chronicling claims by former church members of abuses by church leadership.

Times spokesman Andy Corty acknowledged that e.Republic is closely tied to the Church of Scientology but said the sale was purely a business transaction.

"We went through a full auction - with two dozen bidders on the initial list, then half a dozen final companies participating," Corty said. "We really never let religion enter the issue at all. We operated this separately from the newsroom."

The Times also has been running a series of online advertisements by the church. Corty said those were part of a broader advertising purchase in the Tampa Bay area by the church and are handled separately from newsroom operations.

Corty declined to disclose the financial scope of Governing, though he said it employs 25 to 30 people.

In a written statement, Paul Harney, chief operating officer of e.Republic, says, "We are very pleased to welcome Governing to e.Republic. Our flagship Government Technology magazine has published alongside Governing for over 20 years, and we have a high regard for Governing's long history of editorial excellence."

Governing will remain in its offices on Connecticut Avenue in downtown Washington, the companies said, with Fred Kuhn serving as publisher. Some operations will be combined with similar functions at e.Republic.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/nov/21/bz-st-pete-times-sells-its-last-dc-publication/

[ethercat]

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=8220

Scientology Inc.
Publishing executives in Folsom are spreading the word on technology in government. Some employees say it’s actually the words of L. Ron Hubbard that are being spread.

By Jim Evans

This article was published on 08.23.01.

Government Technology: The must read of technology-curious government officials everywhere also has pushed L. Ron Hubbard-based training methods from time to time. Converge magazine, another e.Republic publication, sometimes publishes editorials extremely critical of the use of psychiatric drugs to combat mental illness. It’s been a pet issue among Scientologists for years.

On your very first day as a new hire at e.Republic, you’re given a copy of Speaking From Experience, a management training book written by the late L. Ron Hubbard, who, during his busy lifetime, was a science fiction writer, philosopher, management guru, expert on education, and drug rehabilitation pioneer. Perhaps his most well-known accomplishment was being the founder of the controversial religion, Scientology.

The book—which is impressively endorsed on the back cover by former Notre Dame basketball coach Digger Phelps—proclaims itself “the boldest and most direct principles on management ever written.”

All new hires at e.Republic, a publishing company based in Folsom, California, are required to not only read the book, but also take a course based on its contents, which—notwithstanding the grandiose description above—reads much like the same kind of hokey training materials that millions of workers try to avoid daily, except Hubbard’s methods have the higher goal of “improving conditions in your business, your life and on Earth in general.”

That, of course, is a big goal. More practically, the book, which mentions in the foreward that Hubbard founded Scientology, serves as a hearty welcome to those who join e.Republic. Once employed, whether they also join “The Club” is a different matter entirely.

“The Club,” as some current and former employees call it, has at least one requirement—that you practice the religion of Scientology. To those who don’t want anything to do with the Hubbard training, to say nothing of the Scientology religion, the prevalence of all things Hubbard can be disconcerting. The vast majority of management at e.Republic are Scientologists.

“It fosters a level of paranoia because you feel like if you speak out against how much Hubbard stuff is in the training you think they’ll come after you,” says one worker who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They pressure every employee to take Hubbard-based training.”

And the use of Hubbard-based training materials is a controversial matter. Critics argue that the training and education techniques used by the consultants are simply Scientology’s attempt to get its ethics and beliefs established in business and governmental settings, where they may gain influence over policy matters that concern the Church of Scientology, like religious freedom in Europe and the use of psychiatric drugs.

The company executives deny they’re trying to spread Scientology. Dennis McKenna, who founded e.Republic in 1983, says the Hubbard-based training is completely optional and adds, “In 18 years we’ve never had a complaint.”

But perhaps that’s because some employees don’t feel like they can complain. Some of those within the company who are not Scientologists say that the executives at e.Republic are so close to Scientology that they don’t understand where the “training” ends and the religion begins. Which could become a problem when you consider the company’s business.

Over the past 18 years, e.Republic has essentially become the principal information source on governments’ adoption of technology. The company’s conferences draw everybody who’s anybody among the government “digerati.” Its magazines, notably its flagship, Government Technology, have become the industry bibles of the government techno-nerd set. For instance, if you want the latest news on whether governments will supply online access to court files, you’ll find it in Government Technology. Another e.Republic offshoot, the Center for Digital Government, provides research and consulting to state and local governments.

There's a lot more about eRepublic at http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=8220

[News Thetan]

Concern at Governing Magazine Over Its Sale to Scientologists (New York Times)
22 November 2009, 9:48 pm

By TIM ARANGO
Published: November 22, 2009

Over the last several months, The St. Petersburg Times published a series of scathing articles on the Church of Scientology under the rubric “The Truth Rundown.” In 1980, the newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize for an investigation of the church’s inner workings.

Coverage of Scientology has long been an important story for The St. Petersburg Times, given that the church’s spiritual headquarters is located in nearby Clearwater, Fla.

So it came as a bit of a shock when, on Friday, the newspaper’s management announced that it would sell one of its sibling publications to a California media company whose top management are Scientologists. Governing magazine, which is based in Washington and for 23 years has covered the workings of local and state governments across the country, will be sold to e.Republic, whose founder and other top executives are Scientologists. The sale is expected to close after Thanksgiving.

The evening before the announcement, Governing’s staff gathered at the Willard InterContinental Washington hotel for its annual awards dinner, honoring its picks for the best government officials. On Friday, the staff learned of the magazine’s sale, which had long been in the works. And at a staff gathering, the question of Scientology was raised, given the paper’s aggressive coverage of the church.

“I’m aware that some of the top officials personally practice Scientology, but it never came up in the negotiations,” said Andrew Corty, a vice president of the Times Publishing Company, the holding company that runs the St. Petersburg paper and Governing. “It certainly was a question asked at our staff meeting.”

more at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/business/media/23govern.html?_r=1