Monday, July 18, 2005

Democrat runs O'Sullivan press release on page 1

The news about O'Sullivan Industries not being able to make its interest payment, which the company announced Friday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and in a press release, quite naturally was a page-one story in the Saturday Lamar Democrat.
Unfortunately, instead of trying to contact people and ask a few questions about what was going on, or looking through public documents which are available through the SEC to add a little perspective, the Democrat simply ran the press release in its entirety (including the forward-looking statements nonsense that companies always use as disclaimers at the end of news releases.
No mention was even made about what makes this event truly newsworthy...the effect it has already had...and quite likely will in the future on company workers and the Lamar community. There is not a single mention of the 138 workers who were laid off only a few days before, something that obviously has to do with the events mentioned in the company press release.
The Democrat also gives no disclaimer about all of the information coming from a news release, though it is pretty obvious that is what happened when you read "Certain statements in this press release that are not historical facts may be "forward looking statements."
Doesn't anyone over there ever get embarrassed by this kind of thing?

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