Tiger text: LSU is rolling out a text-messaging service to assist fans with questions that may arise during football games in Tiger Stadium. The service will answer fans’ questions or complaints about guest services, security, the stadium, facilities within the stadium and unruly fans. To use the service, text “LSU” followed by a space, and then type the question/issue you have and your seat location to 69050. A member of LSU’s game management team will respond. Regular text-messaging rates apply.
The latest edition: Gannett Company, owner of 81 newspapers across the country, including those in Lafayette, Alexandria, Monroe, Opelousas and Shreveport, announced today its circulation and print production resources of the U.S. Community Publishing, USA Today and Gannett Offset divisions will be combined under one organizational structure: Gannett Publishing Services. The change took effect immediately. It will enable local media organizations to improve information distribution and build advertising sales, according to Gannett executives. The intention is to consolidate circulation, production, sales marketing and other departments under one roof, executives say. The new department will have no effect on customers, the company says, and employees won’t see fundamental changes in their day-to-day work. Read more about the consolidation in the Shreveport Times, whose president and publisher was named the new company’s south regional vice president, here.
Little confidence: Global investors say Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s bond-swap program, known as “Operation Twist,” will fail to reduce unemployment as the world’s largest economy slows. According to the quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll of 1,031 investors, analysts and traders, 78% of respondents say the Fed’s plan to replace $400 billion of short-term debt with longer-term Treasuries won’t create jobs to help put back to work the 14 million unemployed Americans. Though investors are evenly divided on whether Operation Twist is a good idea or a bad one, Bernanke remains very popular among them, more so than other national figures, such as President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Of those surveyed, 60% see the U.S. economy as deteriorating, and 50% say it will relapse into recession in the next year; 19% expect another financial meltdown in that period. Over the next two to five years, an additional 26% expect a crisis.
