Maria Bartiromo Debasement Roundup

 One-Time "Money Honey" Trades Credibility for Trump Fealty; What Happens after January 20?

It's really sad to see how far Maria Bartiromo has fallen, at least as a journalist. Those, like

me, who remember her best as the go-to reporter during the glory days of CNBC in the late 90s and 2000s, when the markets were on a roller coaster.

Since 2013, she has been on Fox Business Network and Sundays on Fox News Channel for "Sunday Morning Futures." FBN, like its sibling, has been a predictably friendly forum for Donald Trump. Anchors like Stuart Varney and Lou Dobbs--like Bartiromo, CNN alumni--foment and generally foam at the mouth over anything 45-related. Bartiromo may be less venal, but she is something worse--an enabler for Trump in exchange for access.

That was on exhibit today, when she was on the receiving end of Trump's first interview since Election Day. It's not the first time she's gone one-on-one with Trump. And one reason for that is she throws softballs Big Orange is only too willing to hit out of the park. Even worse, she is all too willing to buy into the whack-a-doodle conspiracy theories Trump and his diminishing minion of minions are trying to palm off. Lies piled on lies, but Bartiromo either stayed silent or leveled broadsides like these.

“Elections are the reason that our young men and women go on battlefields across the world and in some cases lose their lives. Because they believe that their vote, my vote, matters just as much as your vote. And if that is not true, this is a very serious turning point for America. So, this is no longer about you, President Trump. This is about America.”

Eeew. Really does make your stomach churn. But it might be what she needs to do in order to get Fox back in the good graces of Trump, who's been excoriating the network for taking a break from butt-kissing and urging far-righties to abandon Murdoch World for Newsmax and OANN.

And it may have done the trick. As The Washington Post reported, Trump tweeted four clips today. 

More critical coverage of Bartiromo's "interview" can be found at USA Today and CNN ("It was filled with lies"), 

Bartiromo may no longer be the "Money Honey" (a term she reportedly trademarked), but she's mindful of her own bottom line and where she works. We'll see how much her stock falls once her biggest fan decamps for Mar-A-Lago on Jan. 20.

Outrage with Your Coffee: NPR Story on Filipino "Comfort Women" During WWII A Must-Listen

 Report by Julie McCarthy Brings Home Vitality of NPR Despite Network's Pandemic Challenges

Despite the fact that most of us who listen to "Weekend Edition" on NPR don't need more than the jolt coming from the caffeine in our mug of medium roast, the program doesn't shy away from taking on tough topics. That was in evidence today in a dispatch from Manila bureau chief Julie McCarthy, left, about the continued fight for justice by Filipino women who were sexual slaves to Japanese soldiers during World War II.

The report demands your attention, as it weaves a harrowing tale of one woman and how she and her family were terrorized in 1943 by Japanese soldiers who stormed their village looking for Filipino guerrillas. They lashed her father--the village leader--to a tree and started skinning him alive. Two of her siblings who tried to stop the soldiers were bayoneted, while her mother was sexually assaulted and later died. The woman told McCarthy she was removed to a garrison where two of her sisters were also taken, and  repeatedly raped by soldier after soldier. She was 12.

There's much more to this gripping story and it's one you should catch up to. It's also remarkable in that it runs for more than 13 minutes, which the weekend format allows for more so than NPR's signature weekday news programs, "All Things Considered" and "Morning Edition." Still, 13 minutes is a relative eternity, even on NPR. But McCarthy offers no padding, no unnecessary flourishes. Just damn good storytelling.

Reports like these highlight why NPR remains essential, as it has the forum to tell stories like these without fear or favor. That's not to say it's easy to pull off. NPR has been clobbered by a drop-off in underwriting revenue and donations because of the pandemic. NPR staffers avoided layoffs by agreeing to unpaid furloughs, which are still ongoing this year. Cutting overseas bureaus would be an easy way to cut costs, but NPR has not succumbed to the beancounters, and has held the line in places like Manila. That means we get to hear from award-winning correspondents like McCarthy, who has criss-crossed the globe in service to NPR. We are better for it, as this story affirms.

P.S. After I tweeted about the story, McCarthy wrote back that more would be posted on the NPR Goats and Soda blog, devoted to global health and development news. The blog is new to me, but with stories like these I'll be happy to get acquainted.

Anchorage Hath No Fury Like a News Anchor Scorned

 Mayor Resigns After Sexting Scandal Surfaces. His Digital Paramour Has Not.

So, the fact that Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz resigned yesterday, after admitting to an "inappropriate, consensual messaging relationship" with a local TV anchor is salacious enough and worthy of national attention, including The New York Times. 

But there's a lot more to unpack here, and much of it comes from baggage belonging to the anchor, Maria Athens (left), who's seen nightly on the ABC and Fox Alaska affiliates, known as Your Alaska Link.

Here are a few, for lack of a better term,  highlights:

--Athens told the Anchorage Daily News the texting from Berkowitz, a married father of two, began in 2016. "When he slided into my texts, with his little witty slogans and pictures," she said. 

--Their relationship badly went off the rails. Why isn't clear. But Athens clearly had a few bones to pick, which she left in a venemous voice mail first obtained by the Alaska Landmine website and later released by the mayor's office, in which she threatened to kill him and his wife, called him a "Jewish piece of living fucking shit" and made unsubstantiated claims he had sent nude photos to an underaged girl's website. That's something the purportedly not-underage girl denied to the Anchorage Press, by the way.

--For extra emphasis, Athens added in the voice mail, "I can believe I'm such a fucking good person who thought I loved you." Yeah, about that...

--Athens also went wild on social media, posting nude photos she said were of Berkowitz and filming a video inside her TV station, which she posted on her Facebook page claiming she'd have a story that would essentially accuse Berkowitz of being a pedophile. Station management demanded she remove "any mention or affiliation with our stations." But that's as far as they went, incredibly enough And then....

--Athens was arrested last Friday for getting into a fight with station general manager Scott Centers, who also doubled as a boyfriend, or, as Athens claimed in court, her fiance. As the Anchorage Daily News reported:

A charging document in the case says Athens and ... Centers fought in the car "about work," with Athens punching Centers and hitting him with her cell phone. Athens said she grabbed Centers' arm because he was driving erratically during the argument but denies attacking Centers.

Later, Athens allegedly hit Centers again inside the TV station. When police ... arrested her, she hit a cop on his vest and tried to kick the doors of the police cruiser, causing police to put her in full restraints, the charging document said.

Athens denied hitting the officer or being in full restraints. Because that would change the whole narrative, right?

A reasonable assumption would be that Athens would have been canned from the station faster than a Kodiak bear would have swallowed a salmon for lunch. But the ADN reports her status isn't clear and nobody at the station is talking. Which is something that is very welcome right about now.

When Newspapers Read Like Novellas

 Fun With Purple Prose or How Not to Catch a Train

Caught this masterful missive on one of my local Facebook groups. It's a 90-year-old dispatch from the Mount Pleasant Courier, a now-defunct title for a northern New York City suburb. The dispatch, about a car that made a wrong turn onto railroad tracks, is a compelling yarn by itself. But what makes it fun is how it's written--breathless, totally unironic but likely in keeping with the norms of small-town newspapering in the 1930s.

To wit:

"He had proceeded about an eighth of a mile when the dawn came up like thunder behind him and he sailed out of his car and spun like a maple leaf into the bushes many yards away, shocked but otherwise unhurt. As men in railroad overalls gathered about the bushes to determine if he were killed, it dawned on young Mr. Koerner that had been driving down the right-of-way of the New York Central and had been rammed by the morning's first passenger train on the Putnam division, bound for New York."

Love it! Of course, try writing like that today and your editor will let out a hearty laugh while ensuring the door hit you on the way out. But different times. And, fortunately, you can't get into the same mess as young Mr. Koerner anymore. The Putnam division went kaput in 1958, and the right-of-way (you can still spot a few remnants of tracks) is now a popular bike trail in Westchester County.

When A One-Person Newsroom Goes Down to Zero

 Lee Newspapers Fires Editor for Stating the Obvious

When even Warren Buffett doesn't have the patience to see whether an investment will pan out, you know there's trouble. And trouble is what has predictably emerged since Buffett sold his newspaper holdings to Lee Enterprises in March for $140 million. 

Like every newspaper chain, Lee has engaged in an unhealthy amount of layoffs, furloughs and other rapacious cost-cutting. Some of that can be attributed to the pandemic, but mostly to blame is the slide in circulation and advertising due to reader attrition, advertisers drifting online and not investing in a digital product worth paying for.

This crisis was ably encapsulated by Ashley Spinks (photo from WTVF), the managing editor of the weekly Floyd Press in Virginia, in an excellent piece from Mallory Noe-Payne at NPR affiliate WVTF. The title of managing editor is misleading, given that Spinks was the sole editorial employee at the paper. "You don't always have the capacity to do follow-up interviews, to add context and color to stories," Spinks told the station. "But even more important than that, what are you not reporting on?"

A good question, and one Spinks will not have an opportunity to answer, at least as managing editor of the Floyd Press. After this story aired, she was fired by Lee for doing the interview.

An update: I got fired today for doing this interview. Less than 24 hours before the Press goes to print. The paper is not finished, don’t know how it will be. On a personal level: it’s 3 days before my wedding, which my superiors knew. They couldn’t even wait for next week. 1/x https://t.co/CdPeDfbKpN

— Ashley Spinks (@AshleyinFloyd) October 13, 2020

Of course, the thin-skinned suits at Lee are cretins for doing this. But the fact that newsrooms have been reduced to almost nothing is, sadly, not news. Check out this dispatch from Mountain Home magazine about Jeff Murray, the last man sitting in the Elmira Star-Gazette newsroom, and a wondrous story in The New York Times about Evan Brandt, the only reporter covering Pottstown, PA, for the once-mighty Pottstown Mercury.

Ashley Spinks's next chapter is still evolving. But it's already a little greener.

Hello, everyone! Probably my last update for the night. I’m floored and humbled by all the support—for me, but also, I know, for the venture of small town journalism in general. I’ve gained 900 followers and now have more in my Venmo than I make in *three months* from Lee. 1/x

— Ashley Spinks (@AshleyinFloyd) October 14, 2020

You would hope another newspaper in Virginia would admire the spunk and tenacity of a journalist like Spinks and try to grab her. Sadly, though, most other newspapers in the commonwealth are also trying to stay one step ahead of oblivion. It also doesn't help that the largest papers in Virginia also happen to be owned by Lee Enterprises. 

Over and Out. The Jewish Week Says Goodbye, Sort Of

 More Than a Hiatus

Got a little behind in putting together the recycling pile, so I've been staring for a while at the last print issue of The Jewish Week, dated July 31. Not the latest. The last.

The Jewish Week had been rattling the tin cup for a while. It's published by a non-profit, which had already solicited contributions from readers, and when the pandemic hit, like all over print media, it was starved for advertising. That's especially troubling when circulation is already down to around 40,000 from 65,000 at its peak, and a lot of  readers got it free with contributions to UJA-Fed. 

Still, it was the largest Jewish newspaper in the U.S. and often punched above its weight with investigative reports on sexual abuse by Hasidic rabbis and serial sexual harassment by one of the Jewish world's most prominent philanthropists. Commentary was often provocative and it provided reliable coverage of Israel, especially its sometimes-fraught relationship with the American Jewish community.

But that wasn't enough to save the print edition. Many daily newspapers have cut back on their print frequency because of declining readership and ads. Many others--especially weeklies--suspended print editions when Covid-19 didn't disappear like a miracle.

However, no one should expect to have The Jewish Week ever show up in their mailbox again. Various articles in the last print edition used iterations of "hiatus" or "suspend" to describe what was happening. But it's suspended just like presidential candidates suspend a campaign. It's over, even if The New York Times said The Jewish Week was "pausing." 

The best evidence of that comes from the paper's own editor-in-chief Andrew Silow-Carroll (who I knew when he was editor of the Albany Student Press and I was a reporter and editor there, and he was just Andy Carroll). He told the Times: “The print model has been broken for a number of years now, compounded, quite honestly, by a lack of Jewish engagement. Maybe that’s an easy way of saying we have an older readership that isn’t being replaced. And the way to find those readers, I think, is online, which is a reason I thought a move like this was inevitable.”

He's right about the broken print model. Ditto for the Jewish engagement part. And, yes, it's true those still reading print are older (guilty as charged). But to simply assume those under 60 are lying in wait for a digital version to consume simply isn't so, especially when it's a much diminished version of the print offering. About half of an already-slender staff--some of whom had been there for parts of five decades--are gone. And it shows, given the current version of the website, which like other Jewish papers, sits on a platform run by Times of Israel.

Some more observant--as in religiously observant--readers, said they read the Jewish Week during the Sabbath, when they are forbidden to use electronic media. Now, it's out of sight, out of mind. That's a shame. Because the Jewish community needs more information. More transparency. More accountability. The Jewish Week provided that for 45 years. How much longer is an open question that may not have a really good answer.

S.V. Date, Media Rock Star

 Now, Even Trump Knows Who He Is

For some reason, Donald Trump keeps coming into the White House press room to do briefings. You could ask "When will he ever learn," but you know the answer to that.

Still, he must have been having fever dreams about wanting to be Turkish strongman Recep Erdogan or Belarus despot Alexander Lukashenko after Huff Post White House Correspondent S.V. Date asked a question many wished they had the cojones to ask and which the Twittersphere rightly wondered why it had not been asked sooner. "Mr. President, after three-and-a-half years, do you regret at all, all the lying you have done to the American people?" 

Trump pretended to have a hearing problem. "That who has done?" To which Date replied, "That you have done."

Trump apparently heard that and moved on to another questioner. No other reporters decided to follow along Date's line of questioning.

Still, pretty cool, right?

Heavy.com immediately disgorged five fast facts about the Indian-born Date, including that the guy is quite the sailor. Thinking right about now, Trump would like to send Date on a one-way trip home, and we don't mean Washington.

Not Cottoning to Tom Cotton

Times Staffers in a Lather Over Fascist Op-Ed

The outrage was fast and furious to The New York Times  running an op-ed from reliably vile Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas calling on President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and crack down on protesters. This is among the least incendiary passages:

"In normal times, local law enforcement can uphold public order. But in rare moments, like ours today, more is needed, even if many politicians prefer to wring their hands while the country burns."

  Reaction to the Times even considering the op-ed for publication, let alone running it, poured out from all corners of the Twittersphere, including Black staffers at the Times. The language, like in this tweet from editorial board member Mara Gay, was similar:

Running this puts black people in danger. And other Americans standing up for our humanity and democracy, too. @nytimes pic.twitter.com/MQAA2WJ6YG

— Mara Gay (@MaraGay) June 4, 2020

Also weighing in was Sewell Chan, the editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times and former boy wonder at the NYT, who finished out there as, wait for it, op-ed editor. He wasn't happy with Cotton mussing up his once-beloved page.

THREAD: As a former @nytimes Op-Ed editor I am reluctant to weigh in on my alma mater. But the decision to publish @SenTomCotton calling for troop deployments to quell unrest falls short of sound journalistic practice. pic.twitter.com/SgXSndkq8l

— Sewell Chan (@sewellchan) June 3, 2020

No doubt, the pain from George Floyd's murder 10 days on has yet to subside. That's both understandable and expected. However, the brouhaha over the op-ed has many shades of the cancel culture that has stained many a college campus--some variation of "Not only do I not like what you say or think, I'm not going to let you say it here under any circumstances." That colleges have too often kowtowed to this sickening groupthink has sent higher education to a new low.

As Marc Tracy's article in today's Times about the controversy dutifully reminds us, 

It is not unusual for right-leaning opinion articles in The Times to attract criticism. This time, the outcry from readers, Times staff members and alumni of the paper was strong enough to draw an online defense of the essay’s publication from James Bennet, the editorial page editor.

“Times Opinion owes it to our readers to show them counter-arguments, particularly those made by people in a position to set policy,” Mr. Bennet wrote in a thread on Twitter. “We understand that many readers find Senator Cotton’s argument painful, even dangerous. We believe that is one reason it requires public scrutiny and debate.”

Exactly. While one could reasonably argue that some things are better left unsaid, or unpublished, I would counter that the op-ed is an excellent forum to not only showcase the extremism of Cotton and his fellow miscreants, but to also serve as a call to action. In other words, if you didn't think now was a good time to donate to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (Cotton is up for reelection, though he probably doesn't have much to worry about), check the calendar. And reread Cotton's op-ed.

On a side note, this paragraph from Tracy's article was both curious and troubling:

The opinion section is run separately from the news side. Mr. Bennet reports to the publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, as does the paper’s executive editor, Dean Baquet, who is in charge of news coverage. The distinction between opinion pieces and news articles is sometimes lost on readers, who may see an Op-Ed — promoted on the same home page — as just another Times article.

That can only happen if you read the Times online, as most do. It's easy enough to make the distinction in print, of course. And while I won't proselytize yet again for why you should be holding the physical Times in your hand, this should nonetheless highlight the need for the Times digital staff to more explicitly distinguish between news and opinion, if this is indeed an issue. If that distinction is lost on readers, it needs to be found pronto.

 

Here's One Media Layoff Story You Won't Read in the New York Post

Keith Kelly Will Have To Go Silent, Assuming He Still Has a Job

The Daily Beast has word of corona virus-related layoffs at the New York Post. Finally.

Finally, in that the Murdochs have let the Post bleed rivers of red ink for decades, partially because they can and mostly so they can piss off Andrew Cuomo and Bill De Blasio.

The newsroom has usually run thin, but the sports section is still laden with top-shelf columnists and beat writers. There's also solid coverage of the media industry, real estate and entertainment. And, of course, Page Six is well, Page Six. Estimates have put the Post's annual losses at as far north of $100 million a year. Old Man Murdoch may have viewed that as a rounding error as the price for influence. But that was apparently then.

COVID-19 has laid waste to ad budgets. Newspapers here, there and everywhere have gone on a furlough and layoff frenzy. Others stopped printing and went online. Some have pulled up stakes for good. The Post, mostly under the auspices of media columnist/uber maven Keith Kelly, has been dutifully reporting on the misfortunes of other companies, like Gannett and McClatchy.

And now this. At least a dozen staffers got the axe, while some part-timers are now on a long-time furlough, according to the Daily Beast. So far, only one reporter has revealed his fate, 16-year veteran Rich Calder.

I was laid off from @nypost yesterday due to the economic crisis. It was a wild 16-year ride, including the last 5 covering City Hall, that I'm glad I took! And I am humbled by the outpouring of support I’ve since received from the Room 9 crew, ex-colleagues & so many others! 1/2

— Rich Calder (@Rich_Calder) April 30, 2020

 But he has company. And they have names besides misery.

UPDATE: 5/1/20 at 11:20 a.m.

Longtime sports writer of distinction Kevin Kernan gave his -30- on Twitter.

After 23 years the Parting Glass was raised to me at NYPost. Blessed run, 44 years total. From Thurman, Goose, Reggie, LT, Bernard, Bird, Magic, Michael, Patrick, Doc, Gwynn, Seau, Eli, Derek, A-Rod, Piazza, Wright, deGrom, Judge, Alonso, AMBS delivered. Thanks for being there.

— Kevin Kernan (@AMBS_Kernan) May 1, 2020

Articles Without the C-Word

If You Look Hard Enough, Reporters Occasionally Write About Something Else

Want to read about something else? Thought so. Here are a few items worth catching up to.

Los Angeles Times—Let My People Go—to the movies. To get you into the proper frame of mind for Passover and Easter, a dozen flicks with a connection however tenuous. Can you really watch Uncut Gems a second time without reaching for the Xanax?

Washington Post—Tzi Ma Is Changing What It Means to Be Hollywood’s Go-To Asian Dad. You know the face. Now remember the name.

Chicago Tribune—How you can be rescued from the parental hell of trying to placate picky eaters.

Philadelphia Inquirer—The City of Brotherly Love is a union town, even on Tinder.

Pitchfork—Watch These Nature Webcams While You Listen to This Music---When your pot dispensary won’t deliver.

Star-Tribune—WCCO Film Critic Dishes on his “Modern Family” cameo. Or what happens when 

you’re a frat buddy with the executive producer.

San Francisco Chronicle—Tomorrow’s SNL Could be Best or Worst Episode Ever---Not Live From New York, It’s…

Atlanta Journal-Constitution—Iconic Apollo 13 ‘Successful Failure’ Marks 50^th Anniversary---Guess it’s kind of worthy of celebration. Beats the alternative.

The New York Times Doesn't Shrink From Adversity

Despite Few Ads, Today's Print Edition Still Pretty Hefty

Those of us who still crave the print edition of The New York Times pay a premium for what is now a privilege. Home delivery clocks in for the metropolitan area at a turn-and-cough $72 a month (though, you can get it down if you call customer service and see if they have any specials, as I do periodically).

Dean Baquet and Co. have not let us down. It would be tempting, as many media outlets have, to scale down the news hole as advertisers have fled. But this is the Times. And in times like these, we need the Times more than ever.

Today's 52-page edition has two full-page ads on the backs of sections, a couple of jewelry ads on A3, a half-page real estate ad on A5 from a broker anxious to offload a couple of estates in New Jersey, a small movie ad, a few classifieds and that's it. There are a few house ads, as there always are, but otherwise it's all the news that's fit to print and then some.

True, the Times has made a few coronavirus concessions. The two weekend arts sections have been consolidated into one for the last month. No loss if there's nothing new opening. And the sports section is now down to a couple of pages. But you'd have expected that. Instead, there's more room for obits, COVID-19 related or otherwise. Unfortunately, there's been quite the parade of farewells, including today Mort Drucker, the great Mad magazine artist and arts patron Anne Bass, who gets a delightfully detailed writeup by Deborah Solomon.

Granted, it won't take you as long to read the Sunday Times as it normally would. The Travel section is content challenged, as is Real Estate and Arts & Leisure. But there's still enough to justify unfurling from your fetal position to read as you take comfort from knowing COVID-19 won't endure, but the Times will.

We Interrupt The Coronavirus Crisis For This Musical Interlude

Music Stars Come to Us Because We Can't Come to Them

I dialed up one of my favorite stations, KEXP-FM, out of Seattle, to keep me company while cleaning up St. Patrick's Day dinner yesterday. Instead of the usual eclectic fare that makes the station one of our greatest was an extremely stripped-down version of "Crooked Teeth" by Death Cab for Cutie. Turns out, it was the group's lead singer, Ben Gibbard, singing his forlorn heart out. And he wasn't alone.
Turns out Gibbard will be doing this every day, at least for the next two weeks, at 4 p.m. PDT. Not sure if KEXP is committed to that, notwithstanding Gibbard is a Seattle-area native. Fear not, the stream, where he takes requests, is also on YouTube and Facebook.
Gibbard isn't alone in bringing the music home. NPR is keeping a running list, which includes everything from Rhett Miller to the Vienna State Opera.
Other artists, like Chris Martin, John Legend and Keith Urban, have already popped up on Instagram Live and other virtual venues to help us and them pass the time.

Voting No On Peter Baker's No-Voting Stance

Being Sanctimonious Not a Job Requirement to be White House Bureau Chief

New York Times White House bureau chief Peter Baker raised his share of hackles recently with his holier-than-thou pronouncement that he can only stay pure to his mission by not voting.

As reporters, our job is to observe, not participate, and so to that end, I don’t belong to any political party, I don’t belong to any non-journalism organization, I don’t support any candidate, I don’t give money to interest groups and I don’t vote.

Oy. And, in a lesser-reported passage, Baker related how his righteousness tends to suck the life out of a room.

I try hard not to take strong positions on public issues even in private, much to the frustration of friends and family. For me, it’s easier to stay out of the fray if I never make up my mind, even in the privacy of the kitchen or the voting booth, that one candidate is better than another, that one side is right and the other wrong.

In other words, Baker is unlike us mere mortals. Bully for him? Nah. It's just plain bull.

I once toiled for the ACLU in its media relations shop. It was there I was constantly reminded how voting is our most fundamental right, the one mentioned most often in the Constitution. How Baker believes reporters should forfeit that right for the sake of their job strains credulity. Given his pedigree, he should know better.

Reporters have to put up with a lot nowadays. The money's rarely great--though the bank the peripatetic Baker makes at the Times and contributing at all hours to MSNBC is far from chump change. For most journalists, job security is next to nil. And you have a president who apparently has little else to do than foment hatred for the First Amendment. 

At the very least, reporters should be allowed to be human and take ownership of a point of view. However, that's different from expressing that point of view in their work. That's a no-no covered in Journalism 101. It's what you signed up for. But that doesn't preclude casting a ballot and risking a tsk-tsk from Baker.

Baker has been appropriately flayed in some circles for his position, including Washington Post media scold Erik Wemple, who noted one drawback is that "non-voting journalists lend credence to the idea ... that merely having political viewpoints is, at some level, a disqualifying or problematic thing. It isn't. What matters is what's in the article (or the segment, or the video, or the podcast)."

After I wrote the above lede, I looked up the definition of hackles to make sure I was on the right track. The first one that came up was "erectile hairs along the back of a dog or other animal that rise when it's angry."

Alas, I don't have too much hair left to make erect. But after reading what Baker said, I know how the dog feels.

New York Times Gets Cozy With Maria Sharapova

What Happens When Ads Get Too Close For Comfort

Dominating the five-ish pages The New York  Times devoted to sports today (notice I didn't say sports section), the first page is dominated by news of Maria Sharapova calling it quits from tennis at the not-so-ripe age of 32 because injuries and constant pain did her in.

Most of the page, as the Times is prone to do nowadays to cover up its paucity of sports copy, is a striking photo of Sharapova, at once frustrated and content. The next page jumps to a chronology of her remarkable career and the rest of the article by Christopher Clarey. All well and good.

However, immediately adjacent to the jump page is a Nike ad, which, even if you have only a passing knowledge of Sharapova, or just read the preceding spread, you know it's her.

The Clarey article has an interview with Sharapova and the photo was taken by a Times freelancer. But the ad right next to the article? While it may not have been the intent, the end result looks like an advertorial for Sharapova's swan song, in effect paid for by a five-figure Nike ad buy. It would have been much more appropriate--and effective--for the ad to go on the back page of the section, which is mostly taken up by sports news.

The news and business sides of the paper aren't supposed to get involved with each other. But when their worlds collide, somebody has to step in and referee, lest there appears to be some collusion between editorial and advertising.

More curious is that the Times ad is markedly different than another version circulating on the web:

Certainly looks more deliberate than a printing oopsie. This one was just for the Gray Lady--very gray, given the resolution.

It should be noted that the Times didn't have the exclusive on Sharapova. That went to Vanity Fair and Vogue, which had a first-person account from the five-time Grand Slam winner about why she was hanging it up. Still, it doesn't appear she gave an interview to anyone else except the Times, which makes no mention of the magazine missive. That's no knock on Clarey, who has done a more-than-workmanlike job covering tennis and other sports for the Times for decades. It's just a shame that his exclusive is sullied by the impression that Nike and the Times ad reps got a little too cozy.

And because you don't want to zoom in, here's the ad copy.

They wanted you to smile more.
They wanted you to be more polite.
They wanted you to scream a little softer.
They wanted you to be less aggressive when you won.
They wanted you to walk away when you made mistakes.
But instead of just becoming the player the game wanted?
You became the player it needed.

Vintage Nike. A good ad, just one that was not in a good place.

The Death Star of Newspapers Not So Deadly?

Alden May Finally Be Realizing When Enough is Enough
An interesting take by Rick Edmonds of Poynter on how Alden Global Capital, the rapacious venture capitalists who gobble up newspaper assets whole and then spit out their desiccated remains, has essentially hit a pause button on its plundering. At least for now.

The thinking, according to Edmonds, is that Alden has stripped away the muscle from its properties and is momentarily content to look at the bones.

Since the company does not entertain questions, it’s a guess why. More reductions could be on the way later this year. Or Alden may have calculated that it has reached the minimum number of staffers necessary to put out a news report people will pay for, now that it is revving up a drive for paid digital subscriptions.


If so, there's a dangerous flaw in that model, one others like Gannett haven't realized or didn't care too much to rectify. Namely, it's hard to convince people to pony up for digital subs when there's nothing worth paying for. If all a paper does is re-purpose what little print content it has for the web without any value add, the ennui readers will have for the print version will infect the digital edition.Most papers out of the Times-Post-Journal orbit still pay too little attention to the web product to make it worth paying for, certainly not to the point where it can convince people to shed the more-expensive-to-produced-and-distribute print version. 

There's a reason why print circulation has cratered. There's a reason there hasn't been a corresponding digital migration.So, instead you have a company like Gannett slapping a $2.50 price tag on a 16-page edition of The Journal News and wondering why its daily circulation is down to 24,000, when it was 160,000 back when I was a reporter there in the late eighties.The end of print, or at least curtailing the number of print days at most publishers, seems a foregone conclusion at this point. It's already happened in Pittsburgh, at many Advance Media titles, like the Post-Standard in Syracuse and soon the Saturday editions at McClatchy titles. Monday papers would likely be next to go.

Which brings us back to Alden. What reason is there to expect it's capable of investing in digital if it can shake the print habit? I don't think the remaining reporters in places like Denver, San Jose or St. Paul have any expectations of that happening. Then again....Alden is all about extracting value. Maybe the best way for that to happen is by actually injecting some cash into their digital side, so the papers become more profitable and, more importantly, valuable. That's valuable, as in attracting a buyer.

Could Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon Shiong, e.g., find a reinvigorated San Jose Mercury-News and its beleaguered sister papers in the Bay Area irresistible? Yes, Alden appears to bask in its reputation of predatory buyer. But making money is often more about knowing when to get out rather than staying in. You just need to have something worth selling first.