Reality Bites Back

Best Buy, Worst Packaging

2011-12-28T15:28:00.004-05:00

It May Not Be Easy Being Green, But You At Least Have to Try

I was only too happy to take advantage last week of an offer to buy $50 worth of iTunes gift cards from Best Buy for around 42 bucks, with free shipping to boot.

Despite the recent tsunami of bad PR that BB suffered because it didn't fulfill some holiday gift orders, I hit the send button and my cards showed up today, just five days after I placed my order.

So thanks, all you blue-shirted minions toiling away in a Findlay, Ohio, warehouse to dispatch my booty. But no thanks for sending two gift cards in a 5 x 9 inch box, complete with bubble wrapping and seven copies of an ad urging me to buy a new smartphone and in return receive, wait for it, a Best Buy gift card!

And all of this packaging meant paying more to UPS to get the gift cards to me. Of course, that's not my concern. I just want cut-rate music. But now I have to dutifully break down a box and ensure it and the excessive collateral that came inside make it to the recycling bin.

I'm down with that. Still, I wonder how many people really are. I can imagine that a fair bit of this crap gets thrown away with the regular trash and finds a permanent home in an overcrowded landfill.

It doesn't have to be that way. It can't be too hard for Best Buy to also use best practices to be a steward of the environment. It might even prompt more people to shop in the stores, even those you royally pisssed off when their flatscreen didn't make it to the door last week.

Homeland Didn't Make a "Killing" With Its Finale, But....

2011-12-19T17:00:00.005-05:00

A Little OMG at the End Wouldn't Have Been So Bad

After staying up late-ish to watch the finale of "Homeland," I got another good reason to justify the $13 a month I fork over for Showtime and its companion channels.
This was taut, seat-of-your-pants storytelling from start to almost finish, with a pitch-perfect cast (career highlight for Mandy Patinkin, left) who deftly took on scripts that found just the right mix of tension without verging into comic-book melodrama.
Let's face it (spoiler alert). Even if you knew the show was renewed for another season, you couldn't be completely convinced that Brody wasn't going to blow himself, the evil vice president and lots of other D.C. V.I.Ps to smithereens. Sure, it would have been a very different show, but that's, er, show(time) biz.
After all, "Boardwalk Empire" offed a major character in the second-season finale (sorry, Michael Pitt) and it will need to change direction.
That we now get a different brand of psychological thriller on "Homeland" is fine by me, though exactly what kind is hard to say, if this interview with executive producers Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, is to be believed.
As for the ending: it wasn't the letdown that was the finale of the rookie season of "The Killing," which essentially gave loyal viewers the finger with a cop-out ending that had lots of folks saying "WTF," but not in a good way. Rest assured, I'll be glued to AMC when it returns, but we all deserved better.
For "Homeland," it wasn't that it wrapped with any false twists. It's that it didn't twist at all at the end, as if it ran out of steam, signaled it was getting ready to regroup (just like Carrie, after she receives her electroshock therapy) and faded to the credits. This is a show that's more bang than whimper. It didn't act that way at the end, though Gansa defended that approach to TV Line:

"It was actually something that I learned working for Howard on 24, that there’s a lot of merit in the denouement of the story. In 24, the big event often happened in the penultimate episode or early on in the last episode, and there’s a lot of wonderful ground to cover after it’s over — and in certain ways, that’s where the character really comes to the fore."

Meh. But I'll be back, looking to say "WTF" in a good way.

And the Award for Best Crocodile Tears Goes to.....

2011-12-19T16:57:00.003-05:00

NORTH KOREA!!!!!!

Vecsey (Don't Call it A Retirement) Departure Shouldn't Be Excuse for Times to Can Sports Column

2011-12-19T16:18:00.004-05:00

What Made Sports Section Distinctive Shouldn't Be Abandoned

The New York Times brass has shown themselves indifferent, if not downright hostile, to the sports column. Maybe it's because the stars who pen the column cost too much. Maybe it's easy to discard when the news hole shrinks. Maybe it's just plain dumb.

George Vecsey penned his final regular column on Saturday (that the Times would not showcase such a lamentable occasion in the Sunday paper tells you a lot). That means only Bill Rhoden is the only regular "Sports of the Times" columnist left.
Yes, there is pointed analysis about a particular sport without it verging into a full-fledged column, e.g. Tyler Kepner "On Baseball," etc. And this is not to say the section, for whatever its flaws on coverage of local teams, is not well-written.

With the likes of Ben Shpigel, Mike Tanier, Jere Longman and Bill Pennington, among others, cranking out copy, writing is the least of the Times' problems.

But a column is destination reading in a sports section. If you operate on the premise, as the Times does more aggressively than any other major paper, that many readers need less game-day coverage, then a column provides those points of differentiation that may be the only thing saving the section from irrelevance (that massive takeout by John Branch on the death of hockey goon is another way).

It was bad enough that the Times booted Harvey Araton from his column in 2009 after 15 years, briefly reassigned him to do features elsewhere in the paper, then brought him back to write for the sports pages. He's done a lot of extended enterprise pieces, and a lot of those On (fill in the sport), er, columns. But the lack of hubris is apparently too much to overcome for the Times to put him back as a columnist. Sports editor Joe Sexton would do well by taking this step, and finding a brash third voice as well (Wallace Matthews, anybody?).

As for Vecsey, it was a great ride. That he will still be writing for the Times on occasion is cause for comfort. But I'm sure that he is the last person who views himself as irreplaceable. The Times needs to prove him right.

CNN More Lucky than Good for Broadcast of Herman Cain Campaign Implosion

2011-11-29T15:38:00.002-05:00

When Bookers Get Lucky

Michael Calderone on HuffPo has the scooplet on Herman Cain's appearance yesterday on CNN. Cain was initially portrayed as rushing to the network's Washington studios to pre-empt Ginger (my 15 minutes are almost up) White's accusation that she and Cain did more than exchange pleasantries over pizza for 13 years.
Taylor was interviewed by WAGA-TV in Atlanta and Cain parried with Wolf "Blitz" Blitzer on "The Situation Room" that he's known White for a long time, just not in, you know, that way.
Well, CNN had actually booked Cain on Sunday to appear the following day. Calderone reports:

[D]uring a commercial break Monday after the first of three segments, CNN producers began to see tweets referencing an upcoming story by Atlanta TV station WAGA that included an interview with the woman making these new allegations. Producers then contacted a Cain staffer in the network’s greenroom, according to Washington DC bureau chief Sam Feist. While seated during the commercial break, anchor Wolf Blitzer asked Cain about the forthcoming Atlanta report. The candidate acknowledged that his campaign had been contacted about it and would be willing to discuss it on air.

Getting the go-ahead, Cain and The SitRoom became one.

The Blissful Ignorance of Fox News Viewers

2011-11-29T14:52:00.002-05:00

Turns Out, They May Know Fewer Facts than the Hosts

Not that watching Fox News Channel causes brain cells to leak out, or at least I don't think so, but here's a fun fact emanating from a poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.
Seems that the average Fox viewer is likely to know less about crucial current events than someone who doesn't watch any news.
Can I get a "Duh"? Or, because it's Fox, how about a "D'oh!"
Granted, the poll confined itself to asking about the Middle East. But those who watch Fox, according to the pollsters, were 18 points less likely to know that the Arab Spring that sprung in Egypt overthrew Hosni Mubarak, and 6 points less likely to know that Assad was still in charge in Syria.
In contrast, according to FDU: people who report reading a national newspaper like The New York Times or USA Today are 12 points more likely to know that Egyptians have overthrown their government than those who have not looked at any news source. And those who listen
to NPR are 11 points more likely to know the outcome of the revolt against Assad.
Duh, indeed.

Harassment Not on the Menu at National Restaurant Association

2011-10-31T12:31:00.003-04:00

Bad Day to be Flack as Dining Lobby Takes Flak from Cain Harassment Allegations

So, Herman Cain fessed up to being accused of sexual harassment, just not having harasssed anyone.
In fact, he says he's been "falsely accused," following the weekend bombshell report from Politico, citing two women who accused Cain of inappropriate behavior when he was CEO of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.
Politico said the women received "five-figure payouts" in return for their silence. What say, you Herman?
“If the restaurant association did a settlement, I wasn’t even aware of it and I hope it wasn’t for much. If there was a settlement, it was handled by some of the other officers at the restaurant association."
You might wonder what the restaurant association (sorry, can't say NRA) has to say about all this. Keep wondering. If you go to its online press room, the lead story is Restaurant Performance Index Rose Above 100 in September, as Sales and Traffic Levels Improved. In other words, the type of story they'd rather be commenting about, not the one people want to know about.
Fun fact: Three of the top four leadership positions at the association, chair, vice chair and president/CEO are filled by women. Who must really be loving this story now.

Another Morning Reboot at CNN

2011-10-31T10:24:00.008-04:00

Maybe They Should Call the Show "America Yawning"

Had a bit of a chuckle reading today's report in The New York Times about how CNN is going back to the drawing board yet again to figure out how to get someone, anyone, to watch its morning programming.

Again? Yes, again.

Not that the current offering "American Morning," is bad. It's not, but it's never been a category killer. And with the 800-pound Lauer and Co. keeping NBC solvent, the Fox & Friends comedy show and other comers, well, it's just too damn hard for Nielsen to give you a hug that time of day.

But CNN soldiers on. "American Morning" will apparently be sacrificed on the "we tried" altar. And now for something new or, at least, newish. From 5-7 a.m., Ashleigh (I'm Still Here) Banfield and Chicago import Zoraida Sambolin will anchor a block for the bleary-eyed, followed by a 7-9 a.m. program headed by American Morning alumna Soledad O'Brien (above) and "an ensemble," as Broadcasting & Cable puts it. O'Brien will also continue doing her well-received documentaries, her primary role since being kicked offf the dawn patrol in 2006.

So, I'll ask the $64 question: how will these shows be markedly different from American Morning? I know, damn good question. CNN isn't answering, at least not yet. But I wouldn't get tied up in a knot contemplating the possibilities. Granted, I don't have the answers either to what may be an unsolvable riddle.

When there are only so many eyeballs to go around that time of day, many of whom are tuned to top-rated local shows, CNN, without a defining personality to create destination viewing, is destined to be an also-ran when there is no breaking news.

It's a question I'll no doubt have to think about more, while I have a cup of Morning Joe.

Don't Fear the Reaper at CVS

2011-10-31T10:07:00.007-04:00

Hopefully, Just the Spirit of Halloween and Not Reinforcement of Warning Labels

Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow in Westchester County, N.Y., like to think of themselves as Halloween Central. With good reason.

After all, T-town is where Washington Irving resided and drew his inspiration for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," where the saga is retold in The Old Dutch Church--which figures in the story--by master storyteller Jonathan Kruk.

Phillipsburg Manor--a local historic restoration--has a scare fest called Haunted Hollow, which got greedy and supplanted a more sedate affair that included a headless horseman riding around on a big-boy black horse. Kruk used to tell his story as part of the festivities there. But now he's a separate admission, and Phillipsburg Manor is no longer a place for kids, you know, the ones for whom Halloween matters the most, to go this time of year. But that's for another rant.

It doesn't take much for other locals to get into the holiday spirit, including the local CVS. I did find it a bit disconcerting, though, that when you walk in the door, greeting you is a full-sized grim reaper. Enter if you dare. Actually, it was a bit of foreshadowing, as I had a nightmare of a time trying to get a prescription filled there because of computer glitches and clerical incompetence.

Fortunately, the guy with the scythe should be gone by tomorrow, replaced by more optimistic signs of the times, namely the ones offering 50 percent off bags of Halloween candy. Three Musketeers to the rescue in the nick of time.

Financial Times Not on the Job with Jobs Death

2011-10-06T09:03:00.002-04:00

What Happens When a Paper Goes to Bed in London and Nobody in New York Can Wake it Up

I don't know when the edition of the Financial Times that shows up at my door six mornings a week goes to bed.
Actually, now I have a pretty good idea. It's way before the first bulletin about the death of Steve Jobs first started clearing the wires around 7:30 p.m. ET.
Not to worry, dear chaps, I understand the FT is a British enterprise even if it is printed in 23 cities across the globe. It appears the basic guts of the paper remain the same, at least in print whenever they wrap up for the day in London.
Ordinarily, that would not be a problem, except when it is, like when breaking news hits relatively late in the U.S.
To be sure, the FT has a sizable editorial operation on this side of the pond and an outsize influence and presence in relation to its circulation. But there apparently is no way for anyone here to remake a front page before the U.S. press run.
Yes, the FT is playing catch-up online as we write. However, major events like the Jobs death point toward the need for a more-nimble print product as well. When you charge $2.50 at the newsstand, readers are entitled to more than what you were able to get into the paper before the editors in London called it a night.

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Cookie Monster

2011-10-03T13:54:00.003-04:00

Good Pickup by Network to Nab the Big Bird, er, Cheese at Sesame Workshop

The NPR board of directors showed it was adept at swimming against the tide when it scooped up Sesame Workshop CEO Gary Knell to lead the network.

Knell is cut from the mold of former ABC News prexy David Westin, a lawyer without news experience, but who, as one NPR board member said could "gain the respect of journalists."

We'll see about that, but Knell could be a propitious choice at a perilous time for NPR, what with the Republican sharks on Capitol Hill smelling blood where NPR's funding still resides safely in the federal budget.

As someone well-schooled in non-profit broadcasting, Knell necessarily blends the pragmatism and often tight-fisted fiscal management that such a job requires, while having a deft hand schmoozing deep-pocketed foundations and left-leaning trust-fund babies for checks with many zeros tacked on for good measure.

Having been at Sesame Workshop for two decades, Knell knows that the product must be the last thing sacrificed when times are tough. Sure, there aren't nearly as many original "Sesame Street" episodes produced as in years past (just 26 a year, compared to north of 100 in the show's early days). And its unholy alliance with the PBS Kids Sprout channel, laden with inapproprite commercials (Gerbers insurance for children, anyone?) is regrettable if potentially lucrative.

But overall, Sesame Workshop remains a solid, laudable enterprise whose good intentions are usually matched by its output. That NPR can say the same should make at least one aspect of Knell's job easier.

I Know It's a TV Show, But...

2011-10-01T23:26:00.003-04:00

"Person of Interest" Has a Disinterest in New York Geography

I finally caught up tonight to the pilot for "Person of Interest."

I'll be back, and not just to see what other alumni from "Lost" besides Michael Emerson might show up (CBS has become quite the resting place for "Lost" alumni, with Daniel Dae-Kim and now Terry O'Quinn hanging ten on "Hawaii Five-O").

The show hummed along, even taking into account my lightning touch with the FF button on the DVR. Having the likes of J.J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan at the reins will do that for you. And having Jim Caviezel and Taraji P. Henson in the cast doesn't hurt either.

My beef: the show has the budget to flaunt the fact that it's filming in New York. And with so much of the plot depending on tiny details, you'd think the producers would at least attempt some verisimilitude, even if the premise of the show--a billionaire hires a former special forces op to stop murders he knows will happen--is incapable of same.

That's why we don't want to see a Manhattan D.A. getting out of the subway at Rockefeller Center to go to her office, when the real office is downtown. That's why we don't want to hear about a prison inmate in "county lockup."

County lockup in Manhattan? Fuhgeddabout it.

And when we see Caviezel's character riding the 6 train and is menaced by a bunch of hoodlums, anyone in the Big Apple knows that it's virtually impossible to be alone in a car at virtually any hour. But at least there was a Death Wish-esque payoff to the scene.

I know. It's a TV show, get over it. Well, at least it's not like "Law and Order" habitually giving addresses that would actually be in the Hudson River. At least not yet.

At least try to keep it real, though I'll give them a pass if the Dharma Project shows up in a future episode.

South Park Creators Split on Which Episodes Were the Crappiest

2011-10-01T19:54:00.006-04:00

They Hate The First Three Seasons, But With an Exception

The current issue of Entertainment Weekly has a take-out on the 15-year anniversary of South Park, which cleverly includes creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone rating their favorite episodes and those they say had the biggest sucking sound.
In the latter category are 53, count 'em, 53 episodes, at least in the eyes of Parker. That's the sum total of the first three seasons.
"Okay, we were like 26, 27. But it's like Really? We thought that was funny? We thought that was well-written? Oh my God, this is terrible."
On the other hand, in rating the 15 best episodes, Stone cites the first episode of season two, the classic "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus."
"I love that episode. It's so f...ing weird, and it's so different, and the fact that nobody else really liked it makes me like it more."
For those who need their Stone-Parker fix, the pair have said there will definitely be a "Book of Mormon" movie. In the meantime, I'll settle for the show, though my tickets won't get me in until April.

When Your Business Model is Held Hostage by ESPN

2011-09-09T14:56:00.002-04:00

Dish Network Crying Foul Instead of Uncle

Cable and satellite TV companies take a perverse pleasure in bitching and moaning about how much they have to pay to carry the ESPN suite of channels, which is already nearing five bucks a subscriber. And that's without the $15.2 billion in additional coin the gang in Bristol will fork over to the NFL for the rights to Monday Night Football through 2021.
Since Disney doled out the cash for less-than-altruistic reasons, there's every expectation that subscriber fees will be jacked up once again to pay the pigskin tab.
Now, the New York Post reports Dish Network doesn't want to play ball and may pull the plug on the Worldwide Leader in Sports. But can it?
I mean, it could, but is that the satellite equivalent of hari-kari. This is ESPN, not the Cooking Channel or Current TV. It's ESP-friggin-N, as in no way can you not have it as part of your channel offerings.
Actually, Dish's threat has a proviso. It would reluctantly pay the presumably higher fee if it could put the ESPNs on a higher-priced sports tier and not as part of its basic cable package. It's obvious why ESPN wouldn't want that. But would it risk losing access to Dish's 13.5 million subscribers? On the other hand, would Dish suffer mass defections if ESPN wasn't on its roster?
The company may take that chance. It already took a hard line against regional sports networks, which is why you don't see YES, MSG or SNY--and why Dish probably doesn't have much penetration in the New York area.
But ESPN? C'mon. Dish may have to suck this one up. If it doesn't, you know DirecTV will be ready with open arms---and satellite dishes of its own beaming down ESPN. Sure, it won't be cheap, but not having the network will be a lot more pricey.

Why Ben Bernanke Should Not Cancel His New York Times Subscription

2011-09-09T09:19:00.003-04:00

Story Placement Shows How Fed Chief's Claims That Consumers Doth Protest Too Much Ring Hollow

On the front page of today's Business Day section of The New York Times, there's an article headlined Fed Chief Describes Consumers As Too Bleak. Ben Bernanke gave a speech yesterday in Minneapolis, where he said, sure, there are reasons to be depressed about the economy, for all of the obvious reasons. But as sort of a bizarre coda, he tacked on: "Even taking into account the many financial pressures they face, households seem exceptionally cautious."
You think.
The way Bernanke sees it, consumers are in panic mode and hoarding cash. They believe the sky is falling, when clouds are merely darkening.
He's entitled to his opinion, but being as trenchant a student of economic history that he is, Bernanke should also know that perception definitely bleeds into reality.
As evidence, the article at the bottom of the same page headlined Customers Hurting, Wal-Mart is Bringing Back Layaway. Seems enough customers have given up on credit cards and used up their gift cards.
As Duncan Mac Naughton, Wal-Mart's chief merchandising officer told the Times: It just tells us the customer's still struggling, as they tell us about their concerns with energy prices, housing prices, the job security .... it tell us that this is a fragile economy and the customer needs our help."
I don't know how many Fed chiefs have ever stepped foot in a Wal-Mart. Bernanke could sure use a visit.

Yahoo Sports Unleashes a Tsunami on the Hurricanes

2011-08-17T16:24:00.002-04:00

The Once-Mighty Miami Herald Scrapes an Omelette Off Its Masthead Playing Catch-Up

Check out this big-time, kick-ass story from Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports about a college football booster gone rogue.
In this case, it was a convicted Ponzi schemer named Nevin Shapiro, who over eight years lavished dozens of University of Miami football and basketball players with gifts, entertainment, rides on his yacht, and a healthy supply of hookers. Not surprisingly, all of this is a no-no under NCAA rules.
Seems that Shapiro got all cheesed up over the fact that a lot of his "friends" suddenly lost the ability to return a call after he got in trouble with the law, and decided to spill the beans to Robinson, after abandoning the idea of a tell-all book.
Robinson spent 11 months reporting the story, including 100 hours of jailhouse interviews with Shapiro. In addition:

"In an effort to substantiate the booster’s claims, Yahoo! Sports audited approximately 20,000 pages of financial and business records from his bankruptcy case, more than 5,000 pages of cell phone records, multiple interview summaries tied to his federal Ponzi case, and more than 1,000 photos. Nearly 100 interviews were also conducted with individuals living in six different states. In the process, documents, photos and 21 human sources – including nine former Miami players or recruits, and one former coach – corroborated multiple parts of Shapiro’s rule-breaking."

Kudos. The sweat equity paid off in dividends. It's a great read.

As for the Miami Herald, well, you can only imagine the cursing emanating from the sports department. So, the main story today gives credit where credit is due and basically gets reaction to a story that cleaned the Herald's clock. Columnist Greg Cote also weighed in pondering the tenuous future of the high-profile football program in Coral Gables.
The Herald can play catch-up. But the damage has been done. Robinson has left town.

Revisionist Journalism--20 Years Too Late

2011-08-12T17:10:00.003-04:00

Ari Goldman's Mea Culpa for Times'--and His--Crown Heights Riot Coverage

During the time he spent as a religion reporter at The New York Times, I rarely found fault with the work of Ari Goldman. He knew his beat, especially on Jewish matters, and made the most of the space he was given, usually in the Saturday editions.
In the latest Jewish Week, Goldman recounts what it was like covering the Crown Heights riots 20 years ago, precipitated by a black youth fatally struck by a car, which led to an Australian yeshiva student being stabbed to death.
It was an ugly episode in New York City, which spilled over into how it was covered by the local papers. Goldman writes about how he was among those who covered the riots, but was dismayed to find his dispatches ignored or rewritten. Goldman said much of the violence was driven by anti-Semitism. Yet, he says, the Times' initial coverage portrayed it as a full-on race riot.

I was outraged but I held my tongue. I was a loyal Times employee and deferred to my editors. I figured that other reporters on the streets were witnessing parts of the story I was not seeing.
But then I reached my breaking point. On Aug. 21, as I stood in a group of chasidic men in front of the Lubavitch headquarters, a group of demonstrators were coming down Eastern Parkway. “Heil Hitler,” they chanted. “Death to the Jews.”

Yet, he held his tongue. Apparently, he was a good company soldier who liked his job a little too much. But he had a change of heart:

“You don’t know what’s happening here!” I yelled. “I am on the streets getting attacked. Someone next to me just got hit. I am writing memos and what comes out in the paper? ‘Hasidim and blacks clashed’? That’s not what is happening here. Jews are being attacked! You’ve got this story all wrong. All wrong.”
I didn’t blame the “rewrite” reporter. I blamed the editors. It was clear that they had settled on a “frame” for the story. The way they saw it, there were two narratives here: the white narrative and the black narrative. And both had equal weight.

So, the Times eventually straightened out the narrative, at least to Goldman's satisfaction. But many Jewish Week readers were left wondering why Goldman waited 20 years to tell his story? He's been a former Times employee for well over a decade, and yet only now we're first hearing about this--a potentially important teaching moment for journalists now and in the future.
As one commenter noted:

Mr. Goldman should have the necessary courage to name the pusillanimous editors he is castigating with his recollection. There is no corrective measure better than public shaming. Blaming an institution in this generalized way is a weak tea for a story that is 20 years old.

Goldman harshly questioned the motives of his editors. Now, it behooves him to provide answers for his silence two decades later.

A Hail Mary Pass for Football On The Radio

2011-08-12T16:15:00.002-04:00

Jets Broadcasts Jet Westward

SportsNewser has an item about how regular-season New York Jets games will also be heard on 710 ESPN--in Los Angeles.
In some respects, the decision is a no-brainer, rather than a display of a lack of brains. The Jets' QB is Mark Sanchez, the former USC golden boy who decamped for the NFL draft and is now among the richest denizens of the Meadowlands.
Still, this is L.A. Are there really enough fans out there?
”There is tremendous passion for the NFL here in LA, and this partnership with an elite franchise will further energize the Southland’s sizable population of football fans, who continue to express excitement about the potential return of an NFL team to the region,” chirps station GM Scott McCarthy.
Yeah, maybe.
After all, this was a town that couldn't hold on to either the Rams or the Raiders. What's changed? And if listeners were truly interested in what the Jets were up to, aren't they the ones more inclined to pony up for the DirecTV NFL package? Even if they didn't, at least six games will be on national TV, and several more, including those against the Raiders and Chargers, will likely wind up on L.A. stations.
So, where does that leave 710 ESPN. Essentially in a no-lose situation. Listenership would likely be light anyway on a football Sunday. Bulking up on game coverage means not having to pay a host or run irrelevant syndicated shows. And the Jets are already on ESPN in New York.
Sure, this is an out-of-market stretch you rarely see. But the revenue from a few extra local spots will cover up those stretch marks in a hurry.
And if you have guys in Tarzana and Redondo Beach screaming J-E-T-S, so much the better.

Crybabies at the Journal Editorial Page

2011-07-18T16:52:00.002-04:00

News of the Weird, Let Alone the World

Much has been written about the bizarro, those-who-live-in-glass-houses-shouldn't-throw-stones editorial in today's Wall Street Journal that gets all righteous on the anti-Murdoch minions over the News Corp. hacking scandal.
Suffice to say, all the WTF comments from the likes of Jay Rosen, Staci Kramer and Keith Olbermann are predictable if justified.
The editorial is weird, even by WSJ standards. Sure, it's nice to stand up for the old man and his company who issue your paychecks. But the grapes peeled on page A12 aren't sour; they're putrid rounds of multi-colored mold.
To wit:

In braying for politicians to take down Mr. Murdoch and News Corp., our media colleagues might also stop to ask about possible precedents. The political mob has been quick to call for a criminal probe into whether News Corp. executives violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act with payments to British security or government officials in return for information used in news stories. Attorney General Eric Holder quickly obliged last week, without so much as a fare-thee-well to the First Amendment.

Of course, it's the Journal, so the "political mob" is code for Democrats, though Journal fave Peter King has also whispered about the need to check out whether News Corp. was hacking phones of 9/11 victims.
Fare-thee-will to the First Amendment? Please. The problem isn't just what was written. It's with how that information was obtained. And even, as the editorial suggests, the "foreign-bribery law has historically been enforced against companies attempting to obtain or retain government business," so what?
There's nothing wrong with prosecutors getting creative to prosecute a felony so long as they have the law on their side. This has nothing to do with the First Amendment. This priggish self-righteousness is beyond the pale, even for the Journal editorialists, who make one last gasp in saying:

Applying this standard to British tabloids could turn payments made as part of traditional news-gathering into criminal acts. The Wall Street Journal doesn't pay sources for information, but the practice is common elsewhere in the press, including in the U.S.

No sale. And that's what this is about anyway. If journalists want to engage in checkbook journalism, that's their business, however sordid it might be. That's not forbidden. But if that information is illegally obtained, then it's go time in the criminal docket. It's all too easy to wonder whether the Journal would get as uppity if the name in the spotlight was Sulzberger instead of Murdoch. All too easy indeed.

News Of The World Demise Proof the Old Man Has Mellowed

2011-07-07T14:10:00.002-04:00

Murdoch Puts His Prized Tab in Dry Dock

Wow. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Destroying the village in order to save it. Find your analogy, and somehow it'll fit with word that News International will shutter the News of the World tab after a sordid run of 168 years.
Never mind that the Sunday paper is the largest-selling English-language newspaper in the world. Rupert Murdoch--through his surrogate, son James--simply had enough after the phone-hacking scandal that threatened to blow back on his media empire big-time. James Murdoch wrote in a letter to staff that was published on NoW's website:

So, just as I acknowledge we have made mistakes, I hope you and everyone inside and outside the Company will acknowledge that we are doing our utmost to fix them, atone for them, and make sure they never happen again.

Having consulted senior colleagues, I have decided that we must take further decisive action with respect to the paper.

This Sunday will be the last issue of the News of the World.

And to show the Murdochs are horribly, truly contrite, all profits from this weekend's final edition will go to "good causes.'

Any advertising space in this last edition will be donated to causes and charities that wish to expose their good works to our millions of readers.

These are strong measures. They are made humbly and out of respect. I am convinced they are the right thing to do.

You have to think that a younger Rupert Murdoch would've flipped the British establishment the bird if he he had found himself in a similar situation. But this is the 80-year-old version, worried about legacies, ignominy and, oh yes, stock prices.
Still, wow.
This was an immensely profitable paper, with a 2.6 million circulation, to boot. But fear not, Britons: your weekend dose of filth will not disappear entirely. The Guardian reports The Sun, the nation's leading daily tabloid distinguished by its buxom--and always topless--Page 3 girls, is readying for a Sunday launch.
It'll soon be safe to gag on your Weetabix again while having your morning coffee.

Pirate's Booty

2011-07-07T13:40:00.003-04:00

You Knew Johnny Depp Was Good, But This Good?

Caught up a bit belatedly to this item from the wrap that Johnny Depp may have reaped as much as $360 million from playing Jack Sparrow in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise. Of course, Disney's pooh-poohing that sum, and it may actually be a tad smaller.

Still, that's a lot of galleons. The funny part: it may actually be chump change, given that the movies have plundered $3.7 billion from the box office alone. That's right, that munificent sum doesn't include DVDs or merchandising.

So, if you see Bob Iger walking around the office with an eyepatch, a bottle of rum and bellowing "Avast, ye maties," for no particular reason, you can forego the call to the funny farm.

And if you think Depp is flush with doubloons now, just wait: The Wrap also reports he's in negotiations for a fifth Sparrow go-around.

When More "Killing" Is Good

2011-06-14T15:17:00.003-04:00

Exactly What Took AMC So Long?

AMC has finally made it official, says The New York Times, and re-upped "The Killing." I'm thankful, but at the same time, duh.

First off, the show is doing very decent Nielsens, certainly on par with "Mad Men" if a tad short of "Walking Dead."

More importantly: it's a great show. Too many shows are all story, no character. With "The Killing," there are abundant helpings of both. Virtually every scene is flowing with ruptured souls, skeletons threatening to burst out of the closet at any given moment, and leaps for redemption that somehow fall short.

Yet, it's hardly morose, even if the producers overdo it with that blasted rain. Yes, we get it, it's supposed to be Seattle. But it's a city more prone to mist and drizzle than the monsoons "The Killing" ensemble often finds themselves in. Enough already. You'll catch cold.

After last week's episode, which went off the rails as Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos)--and priceless sidekick Holder (a great Joel Kinrahan)-- went looking for her wayward son instead of Rosie Larsen's killer, this past Sunday finished up with a delicious twist of which I'll say no more in case your DVR is cued up.

However, I will predict all is most decidedly not what it seems. Or not. In any event, looking forward to another 13 episodes of angst next year, though between this show, "Mad Men," "Breaking Bad" and "Walking Dead," it'd be nice if someone would crack a smile on AMC every once in a while.

When Reading The New York Times Online Isn't Enough

2011-06-08T14:37:00.006-04:00

It's Harder to Sell the Drama of the Wildfire Online

Most of the top half of the front page of today's New York Times national section is covered by a stirring photo of the Arizona wildfire shot by Joshua Lott of Reuters. It's a winner, pure and simple.
You can see a smaller version of it here.
And that's the point. It looks good on the monitor. But it looks a helluva lot better at the top of a broadsheet.
Before you start dancing on a newspaper's grave, open up today's Times to page A-12. While the paper's been making this abundantly clear for a while, it's always good to be reminded that The Gray Lady knows a thing or two about color.

Don't Frack with Mark Ruffalo

2011-06-08T14:21:00.003-04:00

Actor and a Bunch of his Celeb Friends Say "Shale, No" to Keep Hydrofracking Drilling from Wreaking Havoc Upstate

Sometimes, celebrities getting involved in social causes can be a little too hollow, overly precious. Good intentions will only take you so far beyond a six-second blurb on Access Hollywood.
Thankfully, Mark Ruffalo doesn't fall into that category. Ruffalo has been a steady but strident voice against moves by oil companies to ban hydraulic fracturing in the quest for oil embedded in ample shale reserves in upstate New York.
Ruffalo, who has a home in the Catskills, and his compadres are concerned that all that drilling will spell the end of the clean water the region is famous for (not coincidentally, it's the source of much of the Big Apple's water supply).
So, Ruffalo enlisted some of his celebrity buddies (Zoe Saldana, Ethan Hawke, Nadia Dajani, Josh Charles, Amy Ryan) to soft-pedal the anti-fracking message, and it comes at a time when Albany is considering a moratorium on hydaulic fracturing. Suffice to say, lobbyists for the energy companies are enjoying this big-time. And having to contend with a little movie-star firepower will only keep the needle moving on those billable hours.
Here's the ad:

Somebody Flunked Travel Marketing

2011-05-20T16:20:00.003-04:00

Forgive Me If I Don't Drop What I'm Doing to Make a Reservation

The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York is spearheading an important fellowship for law students that will enable them to study professional identity and ethics by looking at the role lawyers and judges played in the Holocaust.

It's nothing if not a laudable project. But as Eric Muller on The Faculty Lounge blog noted, one of the hotels he (as a professor) and other participants will stay in for a couple of days is in Oswiecem, Poland, near the site of Auschwitz. Maybe a little too near, as the conference's hotel (above) is a little too pleased about its location.

How do you say irony in Polish?

All Crumpled Up: The Katie Couric Metaphor

2011-05-20T11:41:00.006-04:00

Then CBS Will Make Sure the Door Hits Her on the Way Out

Katie Couric anchored her final "CBS Evening News" last night. And judging by the looks of this banner of her perky mug, which used to adorn the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th St., she won't be missed (thanks to my bud Kathleen Biggins for the snap).

Hell hath no fury than a network scorned.

This Story Stinks, But That's A Good Thing

2011-05-18T11:01:00.002-04:00

Wall Street Journal A-Hed On Sewer Tourism Reeks of Cleverness

Rupert Murdoch was professed not to be a big fan of the A-hed, those indelible features on page one that are part of what makes the Wall Street Journal a must-read.
While the long feature that used to run down the left column disappeared, the main A-hed, whose prominence has been somewhat diminished below the fold, has soldiered on. We're all the better for it, as it allows editors and writers to showcase their finest wares.
A prime example comes today from this item about the growing interest in sewer tourism in Europe. Seems that if it smells, it still sells.
The headlines are brilliant:

It's Flush Times for the Darkest Stop on the Grand Tour—Europe's Sewers

If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Vienna or Paris; Love Among the Effluent in Brighton

Great stuff. But it'd be a shame not to read the story by Daniel Michaels, which is, um, flush with clever writing about a stinky subject. Think it's easy to be effusive about effluent? Try it sometime. Or, at least thank Michaels so you don't have to.

Charlie Rose--Globetrotter

2011-05-18T10:45:00.002-04:00

A Man with a Plan, er, Plane

So there was Charlie Rose last night, interviewing Dan Abrams and Adam Gopnik about Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

After they gave their analysis about the the legal particulars surrounding the IMF big, Rose said he was going to play an interview about the case that he did with several journalists in Paris---"earlier today."

That's right, he conducted the interview at noon Paris time, then hot-footed it over to Charles de Gaulle Airport (who knows, maybe on the same flight Strauss-Kahn had taken on his ill-fated truo to New York) then trundled over to his studio at Bloomberg HQ to chat with Abrams and Gopnik, showing no signs of wear.

The interviews haven't been posted as of this writing. Maybe the webmaster has Rose's jet lag.

Spinning Katie

2011-05-03T14:05:00.002-04:00

Why, or at least the CBS Explanation of Why, Couric Wasn't in the Chair for Osama Sunday Night

When news breaks in a big way, it's always a parlor game for media dweebs to see who's on the air where and when.
And so it was on Sunday night, when Osama lost out to Obama in a big way. Brian Williams was the only Big Three anchor in the chair when the networks started interrupting our regularly scheduled programming around 10:45.
Given that it used to be my former home away from home, I wondered where Katie Couric might have been, as I watched the eminently capable Russ Mitchell (the regular Sunday night anchor), QB the coverage before and after the president with his usual aplomb.
Nonetheless, that still begged the question of where was Couric. Never mind that she's on her way out. She was still in. But not on Sunday night. Broadcast & Cable put the Katie question to CBS News prexy David Rhodes. His response.

Russ [Mitchell] is the weekend anchor and was on the shortest string, so he had been in, he was suited up, so to speak. Events unfolded very fast. What the real strength last night for us was the Washington and national security coverage. We had Lara Logan, Bob Orr, Juan Zerate all part of the coverage because they were the ones pursuing this. It was basically a very tight timetable and we were able to get on the field with a very, very good team.

Yes, but....

Was she still traveling back from London at that point, or she just wasn't able to get in in time?

It doesn't really matter if she was able to get in or not able to get in. The thing that we were most concerned with as an organization was having the reporting that we had in there last night. If you look back from 10:45 up until the president did speak later in the 11 p.m. hour, we had more people on the story and more information about what was happening out there than anybody else.

Actually, it does matter. And Rhodes knows that. There's no way he would've spoken like that if Couric wasn't a lame duck. Answering the way he did gives the impression that she was indeed in New York, but they couldn't track her down or she didn't pick up the phone. That's not to say either of those scenarios is incorrect, but his response can turn perception into reality. Always better to say something than nothing.

Bin Laden Went Out a Coward, U.S. Says

2011-05-03T09:46:00.002-04:00

Can't Wait to Read a Story That Says That, Right? Well, You'll Have To

Amid all the reporting, much of it excellent, on Osama The Day After, there really should be no hyperbole needed for a story of epic proportions. The Sacramento Bee feels otherwise.
On its home page, there was the above headline. But when you click through to the story from McClatchy's Jonathan Landay, it's the inside story on the raid.
Nothing about cowardice. In fact, since the story--in a somewhat different account than others--says "one of the raiders thought he recognized the leader of al-Qaida, and dropped him with a shot to his left eye," there was likely little time for Osama to do his Bert Lahr routine.
Something for the copy desk to consider going forward.

The Least Surprising Media Story You'll Read All Day

2011-04-12T15:50:00.005-04:00

Mediaweak, er, Mediaweek Loses its Nameplate after Absorption into Adweek

I actually enjoyed reading Mediaweek to get some quick updates on the business behind the media business. They had some veteran writers who knew their turf, like Anthony Crupi, Lucia Moses and Mark (Mr. Television) Berman.

But those updates were the problem. They were too quick. The publication had become Biafra-thin, usually topping out at 24 pages or less. It also cut back on its publication schedule. In the summer and winter, it was Mediaweek every other week or so.

Then ex-parent Nielsen got rid of most of the staff a couple of years back and a lot of the copy was shared with sisters Adweek and Brandweek and wholly irrelevant to those interested in print and digital media. There would be perhaps 4-5 pages of unique content. Tops.

Newest owner Prometheus Global Media has finally decided to put Mediaweek and Brandweek out of their misery, consolidate them into slightly less sickly Adweek and really go mano a mano with Ad Age.

"It's time for one conversation, not separate ones," is the spin from editorial director Michael Wolff. It might make sense, ostensibly. That is if you're not one of the journalists who are now out of a job. Synergies won't make your unemployment check any bigger.

And will it make Adweek any better?

A Flip Flop

2011-04-12T12:03:00.004-04:00

Cisco Flips the Bird to Flip Users as Smartphones Continue World Takeover

First, the Flip camcorder essentially rendered our older camcorders as space hogs in our closets. They were handy, dandy and, yes, even fun. And they took damn good videos, to boot without all those pesky tapes to keep track of, and all for a relativ pittance, digitally speaking.

Soon, the Flip will be gonzo too, after Cisco announced today it'll pull the plug on the product. Start searching eBay now for closeouts.

By flipping the bird to Flip users, Cisco is doing some big-time, white-flag-waving. It shelled out $590 million to buy the Flip business just two years ago. But that was before Android phones joined iPhones in their quest to be anything and everything to their owners. Including video cameras. Not even $129 for a 4GB HD Flip was enough to sway the fickle masses. Sigh.

No dispute, my Droid Incredible captures eminently decent video. But I still find it a tad difficult to maneuver the zoom. With my Flip HD, I'm able to follow motion a whole lot easier, and I think the sound is superior as well. Plus, shooting video is a massive battery suck for phones that are already challenged to stay charged most of the day.

Obviously, I'm in the minority as Cisco has concluded it's pointless to even try and sell the business, though it'll continue to support online video sharing. Not exactly what I call a consolation prize. Still I expect to keep the Flip in active rotation. It'll be a while before it's residing in a draw next to my Discman and iPod Mini.

The Too-Early Show?

2011-04-02T10:22:00.005-04:00

Even on the Dawn Patrol, It's All About the Details

Lots of little hiccups can add up to a big headache, especially on national TV. To wit, the Saturday version of "The Early Show" on CBS (a former employer of mine).

Suffice to say, not their best edition this morning. At the beginning of the 8 a.m. hour, co-anchor Russ Mitchell (who appears underwhelmed being back on the program he helped originate in 1997), threw to a live report from Tripoli and correspondent Elizabeth Palmer, an excellent reporter who may be getting worked a little too hard. Twice she called Mitchell "Jeff," Jeff being Jeff Glor the newsreader on the weekday "Early Show."

At the end, Mitchell simply had to say "I'll take it, thanks, Elizabeth." While reading the headlines a few minutes later, Betty Nguyen had an item about an earthquake in Chile. However, a graphic popped up with the country spelled "Chili." Must have been a spicy temblor.

About 20 minutes later, Mitchell, whose work I normally admire, was interviewing Bob and Suzanne Wright about Autism Speaks, a day after 1,000 buildings around the world were bathed in blue to mark World Autism Awareness Day. The Wrights have been prominent spokespersons for the cause since their 6-year-old grandson was diagnosed as autistic.

What Mitchell left out of the intro--presumably under strict orders--was any mention of the fact that Wright was the longtime chairman of NBC/Universal, a grievous oversight that Suzanne--a real force of nature--corrected in about three seconds to an abashed Mitchell. That wasn't what the segment was about, but it's still a part of the story.

Wright was able to use his stature in the media business as a way to elevate autism awareness and end what The New York Times called "internecine warfare" in autism research. He would not have been on the couch this morning were it not for that. It couldn't be ignored. Suzanne Wright knew better. So should CBS.

Cloudy With a Chance of Kosek

2011-04-01T09:59:00.002-04:00

Accuweather Madman Slither Onto the Screen for a "Forecast" You know we love The Kosek. He just can't help himself. Sure, the weather is important. But let's face it, you don't need someone telling you the temperatures when they're already on the screen. Accuweather's Jim Kosek knows that. So, he delivers shtick as much as he does a forecast. Sometimes, much more than the former than the latter. It's a shame Accuweather doesn't showcase him more, or at least make it easier to find him. But he popped up a couple of days ago doing the New York forecast and delivered one of his classics, in homage to the now-captured cobra on sabbatical from his enclsoure in the Bronx Zoo. You'll never see Jim Cantore or even Al Roker do a forecast like this. And that's probably a good thing. One Kosek is more than enough. Trust me, that's high praise.

David Broder Crosses the Divide a Final Time

2011-03-09T15:37:00.002-05:00

R.I.P. to One of the Biggest of the Big in Political Reporting

I never quite knew how I felt about David Broder's dual role as both a reporter and columnist. You could see the results of his indefatigable, wear-out-the-shoes approach to political reporting for decades on the front page of the Washington Post.
At the same time, Broder, who died today at age 81 from diabetes complications, wrote a column twice a week that was a lot more than his emptying what was left from his notebook. Potentially, the column could compromise the integrity of his reporting. This wasn't supposed to be the way you did things in the news business.
However, Broder proved time and again he was worthy of an exception. Post colleague Dan Balz showed why in a glowing tribute. Balz unhesitatingly called him "the best political reporter of his or any other generation. He defined the beat as it had not been defined before. He spent a lifetime instructing succeeding generations of reporters - never by dictate but always by example."
That's not just the stuff of eulogies. It's fair to say that anyone who froze their butt off covering the New Hampshire primary or lost track of which state fair they were at during the height of a presidential campaign would likely agree.

Some Fresh Air at NPR (Not the Terry Gross Variety)

2011-03-09T10:23:00.002-05:00

After Vivian Schiller Walks the Plank, Now What?

NPR Prexy Vivian Schiller barely survived Juan Williams.

But Ron Schiller (no relation)? Nah.

After it was revealed yesterday that outgoing NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller was O'Keefed (as in conservative stingmeister James O'Keefe) and taped saying the Tea Party was racist and that NPR should cut the umbliical cord of federal funding (a humongous no-no), Vivian Schiller was ousted from her job, according to NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. The official word is she "resigned" and that the board accepted that decision with "deep regret." Yada, yada, yada.
Even if Vivian had nothing to do with Ron except a common last name, enough was most decidedly enough. The buck had to stop here, a view that Schiller concurred with in a New York Times interview, especially when the federal bucks are in danger of stopping as well.

NPR needed someone to clean up this mess pronto, and the board rightly decided that Vivian Schiller was lacking in the janitorial sciences. Now there's a big hole to fill at a watershed moment for NPR (the network, not the news operation, which still does top-flight work).

Finding a suitable candidate won't be the hard part. The hard part is identifying a suitable candidate who will want to take on what will be in the short- and mid-term a thankless job.

Madison Police Goon Squads Not What They Appear to Be

2011-03-04T16:31:00.002-05:00

Lawmaker Says Cops Really Didn't Go Wilding When They Saw Him Walk Through the Door

At first blush, the item on Yahoo News looks rather ominous: a Democratic lawmaker in Wisconsin is tackled by police as he tries to enter the Capital in Madison
Cops have been trying to limit access, but you'd think they'd let in someone who actually works there. Apparently not, as the raw footage captured by WISN-TV shows.
So, it's easy to leap to the conclusion that Republican Gov. Scott Walker has unleashed the goon squads on the opposition after getting really, really cheesed off about the budget standoff. Not so fast.
The Yahoo item actually spends most of its column inches giving a broader brush of the Wisconsin impasse and actually spends precious little time focusing on tackled House member Nick Milroy.
So, if you want to find out more (and you should), there's a bit of a surprise when you go to the WISN site, where a follow-up story quotes Milroy as saying he was "aggressive in trying to enter the Capitol, and they were aggressive in trying to stop me."
Oh.
"It may have looked violent on the video, but I had a puffy jacket on."
Double oh.
Now, questions do need to be answered as to why police turned him away after he showed I.D. So far, radio silence. So, Milroy, who took off the puffy jacket for a news conference, will have to do.
"I wasn't putting anybody to a test. It's been a long couple of weeks for law enforcement officers; it's been a long couple of weeks for me."
As Milroy told TPM, he doesn't blame the officer who took him down. Instead, he blames Walker and whomever made the decision to disable the Capital's keycards.
He has plenty of company.

News Trend Alert: When States Go Wild

2011-02-17T17:57:00.003-05:00

All of a Sudden, the States Don't Like Being States

Hey, newsies: I'll throw a trend out there before the Tea Party or Bill O'Reilly can lay claim.
Seems the wild and increasingly wacky West is also where governors are choosing to ignore federal laws that they don't feel like enforcing. No matter that that's not the way our system of government works. But don't let the Constitution stand in the way of a populist revolt.
Exhibit A: Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said he'll defy federal protections for gray wolf packs that he says have been hurting elk herds. He's cheesed off that the wolves haven't been knocked off the endangered species list even though their numbers have grown. So, he's encouraging livestock owners in the northern part of the state to shoot away, federal laws be damned.
That might be that kind of rabble-rousing you'd hear from a rancher, which Schweitzer also happens to be when he's not allegedly running his state. But his day job, for now, is governor. You'd think he'd lead by example. Suffice to say, this won't be a case study in local civics classes.
Ironically, Schweitzer received kudos from groups like the Greater Yellowstone Coalition for an order he signed Tuesday that blocked the importation of bison from Yellowstone National Park to Montana slaughterhouses. As the Associated Press reported:

The Democratic governor told The Associated Press that he was worried the shipments could spread brucellosis to Montana livestock. And he said he was sending a message to federal officials in Washington, D.C., to rein in a diseased bison population that regularly spills out of the park and into Montana.

Caught off guard by the governor’s action, park administrators scrambled Tuesday to craft a response. Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash noted that the slaughter plan was agreed to last month by the Montana Department of Livestock and Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks. He said past bison shipments did not lead to brucellosis infections in cattle.

You have the sense Schweitzer's falling off the holiday card list at the Department of Interiorl

Then there's Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, who said today he won't enforce the federal health care reform law. A judge in Florida last week struck down the law as unconstitutional and Parnell says he considers that the law of the land.
It appears, though, that Parnell's thought processes are suffering seasonal affective disorder. What Parnell doesn't know or is conveniently ignoring is that the judge in Florida Roger Vinson, said the law remained in effect while the ruling goes through the appeals process. And heaven forfend that Parnell would even look at two other federal court decisions that said the law passes constitutional muster.
Of course, Alaska was one of 26 states that was party to the Florida lawsuit. It's nice to be vindicated. Except when you're not. Parnell is not.
Next up: what will the Obama administration do about all these gubernatorial ne'er do wells? And will others join their club? Bear in mind that the only beverage served in these clubs is tea.

A Lump in the Throat Comes with the Scores in NYT Sports Section

2011-02-13T23:48:00.002-05:00

George Vecsey Profile of Bill Russell Offers a Stunning Vignette

With his usual lyrical prose, George Vecsey stepped away from his New York Times column in Sunday's paper for an excellent profile on Bill Russell, on the eve of Russell receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
As Vecsey notes, Russell is about a lot more than being the best center in basketball history, though that would be enough.
Russell was a shotblocker against all others must be measured now and forever. But as ferocious as he was on the parquet floor of the old Boston Garden for so long, there was a tender side Vecsey was able to reveal when talking about Ruseell and his third wife Marilyn:

He and Marilyn were invited to the Obama inauguration in January 2009, but she was dying of cancer in Seattle. She urged him to go, but when he landed in Washington, he heard she had taken a downward turn, and he got back on a plane.

“We held hands and watched the inauguration,” he said. “We sat there all night, and then I said, ‘Listen, I’m going to take a shower, now wait for me, I’ll be right back,’ and she said she’d wait. Well, as soon as I left she died. So I said to the nurse, ‘She promised she would wait,’ and the nurse said this happens quite commonly. A lot of people don’t want their loved ones to see them die. And so it was like we shared this moment together and she did not want me to see her die.”

If Russell choked up telling this story, Vecsey does not tell us. Suffice to say, more than a few people reading this article must have.

Justice at the Grammys

2011-02-13T23:30:00.003-05:00

Arcade Fire Wins Album of the Year for All the Right Reasons

Maybe Grammy voters were feeling generous tonight and wanted to spread the wealth. Or, maybe they just decided to give an award to the group that was most deserving. I know, shocking. Especially at the Grammys.
Whatever. Arcade Fire won best album, for "The Suburbs," much to the bewildered shock of Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson who presented the awarded and clearly had never heard of the group before.

Based on how the evening was going, you had the feeling Grammy was going for tried and true, and have one group run the table, as Lady Antebellum did by snagging Record of the Year and Song of the Year for "Need You Now."

Then there was also Lady Gaga, Eminem (both of whom won statuettes earlier) with Katy Perry thrown in for good measure. So, it was a shocker, maybe even to the band. Get over it.

It didn't matter. "The Suburbs" was my go-to album last year, and it's compulsively listenable. I've yet to see the group perform live, but their infectious peformances on "The Daily Show," "SNL" and the Grammys show they can bring it. Moreover, when you hear them interviewed, they seem remarkably unaffected by all the praise that's been heaped upon them. They just want to rock and let you join in on their fun.

And tonight we did.

What's More Amazing, This Column Or The Fact It Got Printed?

2011-02-04T16:13:00.002-05:00

Gannett Management Is So Blind, It Doesn't Even See When an Editor is Flipping It the Bird

Gannett Blog printed today a scathing farewell column from Frank DiLeo, who for the second time in two years has been laid off as the sports columnist for The Daily Record, in Parsippany, NJ.
You have to read it on the blog, because the paper didn't post it on the website. No big surprise there, with such passages as:

Those of you who know me well know that I don't put much stock in emotion. But I can't help but to feel like a rube on the midway for thinking that someone as young, talented and loyal as I was would be able to stick with a company after proving time and time again that there was nothing I couldn't or wouldn't do for the good of the corporation.

I've worked through pneumonia many times, bronchitis, pleurisy, broken ribs, migraines, a gallbladder that stopped functioning for six months and many other ailments that I ignored doctors orders to stay home. All for the good of the company. This is where it got me.

Somehow, that made it into the paper. Quite a feat. Either that, or someone screwed up royally. Either way, thanks for fighting the good fight, Frank.

All Gannett papers have had staff reductions, but the company's New Jersey properties have really taken it on the chin. Last month, it was announced that newsroom staff at the DR, the Courier-News in Bridgewater, and the Home-News Tribune in East Brunswick would have their newsroom staffs cut in half. This, after being whacked a couple of times already in the last year, with most copy and design functions being shipped down to the Asbury Park Press.

So, even with the desiccated news holes and lonely newsrooms, there were still dedicated working stiffs like Frank DiLeo who soldiered on. They're pretty much gone now. I suspect the few readers left will notice the difference. Not that Gannett really cares. Why should it start now?

Nina Totenberg's Musical Interlude

2011-01-25T12:10:00.003-05:00

Dowager of the Supreme Court Press Corps Flees First Street for Fascinating Piece on Pablo Casals at the White House 50 Years Ago

"Morning Edition" thrives on NPR because not everybody needs to have traffic and weather together running in the background on a continuous loop.
It has the second-highest radio audience nationwide (behind only Rush Limbaugh) because it gives the listener some credit for actually having a brain and the attention span to listen to something different while communing with a bowl of Cheerios or stuck on the interstate.
Today's report by Nina Totenberg, mainly about the remarkable story behind cellist Pablo Casals playing at the White House is a perfect example. Running 7:18, it's a compelling narrative about a special moment likely unknown to many listeners, including me.
The larger theme of Totenberg's report is the celebration of the 50th anniversary of JFK's inauguration by the D.C. performing arts center that bears his name. As Totenberg notes, before the Kennedys, there was little in the way of regional arts companies and no such thing as the National Endowment for the Arts.
That all changed under Kennedy, a part of his legacy not as well-known or appreciated. The Kennedy Center's gala on Feb. 6 will change that. Meantime, Totenberg's piece is a fine primer. Well worth the listen. You'll have plenty of time to check on the traffic later.

Well, We Do Control the Media

2011-01-25T10:04:00.004-05:00

Who's the News Director at WLKY, John Birch?

Just When You Thought Gannett Couldn't Suck More...

2011-01-07T15:43:00.003-05:00

Readers in the Queen City Should Mount a Palace Revolt

In case you needed to get depressed, check out this doozie from City Beat in Cincinnati (hat tip: Gannett Blog) about how The Enquirer, the unfortunate daily paper of record in those parts, has a new editor with a checkered history of sending articles out for prepublication review--to the companies that are the subject of those articles.
As if it wasn't already bad enough in Cincy (and we're not talking about the just-concluded Bengals season), the Enquirer has as its business editor the son of Kroger's ex-CEO, who's a major domo in the city's business establishment.
This, from a paper that has historically been limp-wristed taking on the business powers that be. New editor Carolyn Washburn is likely to make a bad situation worse.
Yes, The Enquirer is a Gannett paper. Yes, that is why you're not surprised this is happening.

Recipe for Disaster, or at Least Morbid Obesity

2011-01-05T13:55:00.002-05:00

But Maybe Julia Child Wouldn't Have Minded

Got a chuckle but, fortunately, not a heart attack from a recent recipe in The Wall Street Journal that the paper was forced to correct:

Preparation of a blood orange tart described in a Dec. 18 Off Duty article about citrus desserts requires a half pound of butter. The recipe incorrectly called for a pound of butter.

Oopsie.
But what's four sticks of butter between friends---and their cardiologist?

You Mean Wayne Barrett Was Still at the Village Voice?

2011-01-05T13:29:00.002-05:00

You Mean the Village Voice Was Still Being Published?

Yes, it really is a big deal when star investigative reporter/bulldog/politicians' pain-in-the-ass Wayne Barrett gets the heave-ho from the Village Voice. And then fellow Voicer Tom Robbins added an exclamation point when he quit in protest.
Barrett was at the Voice since 1973. You could probably find his mug next to muckraker in the dictionary. But being a part of the furniture going on 38 years also means you're making a certain salary, and Barrett's six-figure check was a little too rich for the fast-fading Voice alternative-weekly empire.
So, while his exit is a blow, let's put it into perspective. The Voice stopped being relevant sometime in the mid-90s, when it had a greater preoccupation with the porn ads in the back than with the content in the front.
The tone became more frothy. Iconoclasts were quiety shown the door. Its once-formidable roster of critics was gradually winnowed down to a B-list of less-compelling scribes.
Through it all remained the likes of Barrett, but when you're mired at a place like the Voice, even his best work could amount to one-hand clapping. So, his departure is the end of an era, but little else.
However, it could also be viewed as an opportunity, even for one of the bottom-lined-challenged dailies to pick up a thorn in the side who can still bring it at age 66. True, it's anything but a sure thing Barrett would be a good fit. After all, the Jack Newfield era at the Post was hardly one for the ages. But it's worth a gamble to show readers what they missed by not reading the Voice. Which was wasn't much, except for Barrett.

Soon, Gannett Will Charge Its Employees to Work There

2011-01-05T13:07:00.003-05:00

Enough Really is Enough

So, word came down that Gannett wants to again prey on its beleaguered employees and prop up its profits (yes, the company is still very profitable), by making just about everyone take an unpaid one-week furlough.
Again.
There were furloughs last year. And the year before, to accompany several rounds of layoffs.

"Our top line revenues, however, while improving, remain short of where they were a year ago," said Bob Dickey, head of the community publishing division and head purveyor of crocodile tears.
"This is compounded by a still challenging and uncertain economy, as well as increasing expenses. To help us manage through these challenges, we have made the difficult decision to implement a furlough across USCP during the first quarter. This was, quite frankly, an option I had hoped we could avoid. Furloughs, while difficult, do allow us to protect jobs."

Oh, please.
As Gannett Blog's Jim Hopkins points out, Gannett's board awarded $4 million in executive bonuses last year for savings achieved in 2009 because of furloughs.
It's not that the company is losing money. It's just not making enough money as it perceives institutional investors want it to make. Maybe it's a reason why the stock was up as I write this on Wednesday afternoon.
Judging by my local Gannett paper, The Journal-News, (a long-ago former employer of mine), it's obvious every day that the company long ago stopped caring about putting out even a pale imitation of a newspaper.
With the latest furloughs, Gannett shows it cares even less about its employees.

A Groupon Too Far?

2010-12-17T12:04:00.004-05:00

Nothing Wrong with Trying, But....

Semi-full disclosure: I'm a fan of Groupon, have even seized on a few deals. It and a half-jillion other social shopping sites now clog my in-box daily. No big whoop. Thrill of the hunt and all. But you have to wonder if some of Groupon's 3,000-plus sales force is trying, too hard. Or, maybe, not hard enough.

Exhibit A: Today's Manhattan offer is for a weekend stay at a Days Inn. In the South Bronx. It's touted as being near Yankee Stadium. Too bad we're over four months from Opening Day. Now there has been a trendlet in the lodging industry in the New York area toward more motels being built in the boroughs, some in places you might not think to stay in or really want to rest your head. But the thinking is, people still come to those neighborhoods to visit friends and family. Or, are just suckers for a good deal and don't mind a little adventure.

But a Days Inn? In the South Bronx? Good luck with that, hopefully better than what the Yankees had with Cliff Lee.

As of this writing, four people had seized on the offer, 11 shy of the 15 needed to make it active. But before you take the plunge, bear in mind that New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day are blacked out. Because nothing says love like an evening stroll on Brook Avenue.

Why is Henry Freeman Smiling?

2010-12-06T23:07:00.004-05:00

Sure, It Didn't Help That He Worked For Gannett, But He Did Preside Over a Paper That Imploded on His Watch

When the news came down that Henry Freeman would be retiring/pushed out as executive editor of The Journal-News, the newspaper by default in New York's northern suburbs and a long-ago employer of mine, it was hardly a shock.

After all, the paper is a daily exercise in extreme mediocrity. Not that it was ever a great paper--few in the Gannett stable can ever hope to be when corporate is squeezing every pore for profits at the expense of the product--but at least it made an attempt to cover its territory. Every town had a reporter assigned to it, while high school sports received blanket coverage. Even most of the pro teams had beat writers.

Suffice to say that train left the station a long time ago. The train analogy is actually more than apt. Freeman, according to the article/quasi-eulogy about his departure, is a big rail buff, and will soon embark on a 7,500-mile trip. It'll be one where he'll never have to read The Journal-News. That'll mean he'll have a lot in common with people in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties.

I did a little poking around for some old circulation figures and stumbled upon the ABC Fas-Fax numbers from March 2006, when daily sales were over 141,000. Fast forward to the latest tally from the end of October, and the J-N has dipped below 80,000. That's nearly a 47 percent decline--in three-and-a-half years.

Of course, the newspaper industry has been reeling for much of that time, so Freeman can't get all the blame for that drop. But he also didn't do anything to ameliorate the situation. On his watch the news hole shrunk. So did the physical size of the paper.

There was less room than ever for copy, yet Gannett had the cojones to raise the newsstand price. Meanwhile, the slow-to-update lohud.com website remains, at best, an afterthought. It's just like most other Gannett papers, which have the same desultory, cookie-cutter design online.

Meanwhile, the staff has suffered one round of cutbacks after another. Except when there is breaking news, reporters are now only covering parts of the counties where the J-N still sells papers. Otherwise, you're out of luck, though it seems every stabbing in Yonkers and Mount Vernon is dutifully recorded. The J-N is doing the local weeklies and Patch a deep favor while digging its own grave one shovel full of dirt at a time.

So, again I ask, why is Henry Freeman smiling?

Winners and Losers in The Early Show Shuffle

2010-11-30T20:59:00.006-05:00

But After All is Said and Done, Will It Amount to Anything?

Now that CBS plans to give the umpteenth makeover to "The Early Show," it's a good time to look at who over on West 57th St. is having a good day after today's announcement, and who needs a hug.

First, the soon-to-depart:

Harry Smith: He's been a good soldier and then some, toiling away on the show since 2002, with a steady parade of co-hosts. Of course, he's been down this road before, when he was on "CBS This Morning" from 1987-96. So, now he gets to sleep in, while serving as a national correspondent and the primary fill-in on the "CBS Evening News," "Sunday Morning" and "Face the Nation." Pretty sweet deal, and he may just be biding his time until June, when Katie Couric's contract expires. There's little doubt her tenure as "Evening News" anchor will end then, and she'll be in a drastically different and less-remunerative role at the network should she stay.

Maggie Rodriguez: She's also been a fill-in anchor at "Evening News," but too low-profile to get the chair full-time. As of now, she will be reassigned, though to points unknown. Since she's been an anchor, hard to believe she'd go back in the field. In this business, you save face above all else.

Dave Price: He broadened his portfolio to go beyond weather, and became sort of a wacky features guy as well. To wit, a repeat of his stunt from last year where he gets plunked in Alaska, and then has $50 and his resourcefulness to find a way home. The CBS press release said he'd slide into a new, undefined role. But it's doubtful there's one there for the taking to match his skill set.

Chris Wragge (above right): He's been doing "The Saturday Early Show" for a while, displaying a remarkable amount of spunk for someone who'd been doing the 11 p.m. news on WCBS-TV just hours before. But he's shown his versatility at channel 2, having first arrived as a sportscaster and did well enough to be the star anchor.

Erica Hill (above left): She had teamed with Wragge on Saturdays, and the chemistry was there. Hill's a gamer, and can be as credible interviewing a senator as she is deft handling cooking segments. Now sliding over from the newsreader position to co-anchor, it's a transition that should prove seamless.

Marysol Castro: Upgrade. She's been toiling for years as the weekend weather gal on "Good Morning America Weekend." Now she finally gets a weekday gig, more bucks and not have to leave her husband to deal with their kids on weekend mornings.

Jeff Glor: He takes over as weekday news reader. Indications are he'll get out of anchoring the Saturday "Evening News," though they may call on him to take one for the team and anchor holidays, like he did on Thanksgiving.

A few questions: Will all this shuffling make a difference? In a word, no.
CBS is averaging 2.7 million viewers in the morning, compared to 4.3 million at ABC and a whopping 5.3 million for the gang at the money machine known as "Today" on NBC.
There's nothing wrong with freshening a show's look and feel, but nothing is being put on the table that will a meaningful dent in the Nielsens.
The new, um, cast can do a workmanlike show and not embarrass the network or themselves. But, for now, they offer no reason for someone currently watching one of the other shows (or a local breakfast show, or "Morning Joe" or "Fox and Friends") a compelling reason to defect.
The strategy may be to concede third place, but make it a more respectable third than it is now.
CBS will also now have to find another anchor for the Saturday "Early Show" as well as a high-profile anchor for WCBS-TV. Those have also been positions that have been anything but stable over the years.

Somewhere, Captain Kangaroo is having a good chuckle.

Winning Headline of the Day

2010-11-18T13:58:00.002-05:00

For a front-page refer in The New York Times about police cracking down on locals playing chess in an upper Manhattan playground:

Police! Drop the Pawn!

Curiously changed online to:

'Police! Step Away From the Chess Table'

First attempt was check and mate.

Ex Times-Picayune Photographer Offers a Troubling Word Picture

2010-11-18T13:07:00.004-05:00

What Happens When You Get Too Close to Your Sources

Alex Brandon, who worked for the New Orleans Times-Picayune post-Katrina, testified yesterday in a federal trial for five current or former NOLA cops accused in the death of a man in Algiers in the days after the hurricane's mayhem.
Brandon was embedded with the police department's SWAT team when he came upon an incident with two men on the ground in handcuffs jawing at police. One of the cops on trial told him not to take a picture, and Brandon obeyed. "It was, for lack of a better term, an order."
Putting aside the wisdom of following the order, what troubles me is this graf from the Times-Picayune story on the trial:

As a Times-Picayune photographer for 10 years, Brandon was well known (sic) for his extensive network of police contacts. He was also close to many police officers, a fact he testified to on Wednesday, saying he considered many of the SWAT officers to be "good friends."

Brandon now works for the AP in Washington, so the big stink he would have set off in the T-P newsroom from that statement was averted. Or could Brandon have returned to his office odor-free? Maybe Brandon's editors knew he was cozy with the cops, and exploited that so he could get up close and personal during Katrina's desperate hours. Perhaps the thought is in situations like this that expediency trumps integrity every time. Nonetheless, it does take some of the sheen of the T-P's yeoman coverage five years ago.

There's nothing wrong with being cordial, civil, even avuncular with the subjects you cover. Go ahead and like them. Hell, even admire their accomplishments. But whatever you do, don't become their friends. Then you're done as a journalist, as in stick-a-fork-in-you-because-you're-done done. You just don't do it. Or it really is end of story. The A.P. might want to remind Brandon of that going forward.

Untruth in Labeling

2010-10-31T23:28:00.001-04:00

Original Butter? That's Just Un-Wise, Wise

Amid the kids' Halloween booty yesterday was a snack-sized bag of Wise popcorn with "Original Butter." Because you wouldn't want your butter to be accused of being a copycat.

Turns out "Original Butter" is something else entirely, as right under that label on the package is the disclaimer "artificially flavored."

That means "Original Butter" is something else, as the nutrition label indicateds. But there's no butter. Not even close.

So, it appears the FTC allows a company to call a product whatever it wants, as long as it's upfront about what it's not. "Original Butter" is just a name for a flavor. Despite common sense, it doesn't connote that there's actual butter, just the appearance of such. It's not dishonest, just disingenuous.

New York Post Should be Sacked for Cheap Tease on Eli Manning

2010-10-31T23:13:00.002-04:00

It's One Thing to Get Readers to Turn the Page. It's Another to Have Something There When You Do

I'm not a regular reader of The New York Post print edition, but if someone decides to leave a copy on the train, I'm only too happy to pick it up, me being a foe of litter and all.
That happened to me on my home Friday night. Uncharacteristically, I work my way back to the sports section instead of my usual vice versa. Most of page 3 is taken up with a photo of Giants QB Eli Manning and his wife Abby, who the cutline tell us are "young rich and famous." Duh.
It goes on: "They are sports royalty in demand for social and charity events. He led the Giants to the 2008 Super Bowl championship, and she's the beautiful cheerleader who's been by his side since they were kids. It would seem that they've got it all, but do they?"
Uh, oh. This is a Page Six exclusive!!!!! It was almost Halloween, after all, so time to cue the skeletons to come out of the closet. A breathless dash to page 14, that day's home for Page Six, which reveals that Eli may be throwing Hail Mary's into a Diaper Genie before long. If all goes well, baby will make three in the spring. Mazel tov.
So, the answer to the above question is a resounding yes. The Post wanted us to believe otherwise, but we had little choice to fall for it hook, line, and screen pass. Still in all, they should be whistled for a journalistic cheap shot, even by the Post's shaky standards.

Barron's Bearish on Its Integrity

2010-10-31T22:50:00.002-04:00

Just Because You Call It An Ad Doesn't Make It Right

While thumbing through this week's issue of Barron's, a curious and disturbing site awaits on page 21 below a short item about a possible successor to Warren Buffett: an ad.
Not just any ad, but one for a company called FirstHourTrading.com, a firm that plies its wares to the alpha dogs known as day traders.
It's not the product that's being sold that's problematic. Rather, the ad--notwithstanding the fact that at its top has the disclaimer "paid advertisement," looks like an article with the exact font and typeface Barron's uses for its own articles.
Of course, advertorial designed to look like regular copy is a time-honored ploy. But graphically, it's almost always dissimilar enough for even the most-casual readers to figure out that The New York Times didn't just do a gushing profile on Amish heaters.
Barron's, however, is calling signals from a different playbook. Even if it doesn't hide the fact the space has been paid for, the ad still leaves a big stink. It's the kind of questionable tactic you might read about in a publication, say, like Barron's.
Well, maybe not anymore.

Coverage of the New York Giants Shrinks in the New York Times

2010-10-18T23:03:00.002-04:00

The Beat Doesn't Go on for Big Blue

We've written often about the incredible shrinking New York Times sports section. It long ago gave up on regular coverage of the Islanders, Devils, and Nets. Most Rangers games are relegated to AP stories. The number of columnists was slashed from five to two (although Harvey Araton is mounting a semi-comeback).
The section became more about enterprise reporting, narrowcast beats (e.g. Alan Schwarz focusing almost exclusively on head injuries), cycling (ugh) and the business of sports (Rich Sandomir and Ken Belson rock). All well and good. But there are still games to be played.
And now, the paper has stepped on a third rail and no longer assigned a beat writer to cover the Giants. Baseball, football and the Knicks had been sacrosanct. So, not having a regular scribe trailing Big Blue is bewildering, to say the least, especially given the team's rabid fan following and thick story lines.
During training camp, dispatches were semi-regular at best. It looked like Mark Viera was the writer following the team. But he's often dispatched on other stories. Joe Lapointe, who used to cover the Giants before taking a buyout, still pops up frequently in the Times as a freelancer. National football writer Judy Battista covered a game. And, lately, so has Bill Pennington, who has a lot of football experience, though lately he has focused more on golf and skiing.
All of these writers are capable and know their way around a pigskin. That's not the point. If you pop in to do a game and little else, or if you're there one week and gone the next, it's next to impossible to build a rapport, establish a knowledge base or do anything to give you a leg up on the competition. It's newspapering 101.
Even the Times thinks it's above that, many of its readers aren't. Judging by what I see on the train every day, people read the Times because they choose to, because they need to. Giving them a decent local sports report still needs to be part of the formula that justifies two bucks dail and a five on Sundays. The Times wants to be a complete newspaper. The sports section can't be an exception.

In Cablevision-Fox Spat, Newspapers Come Out the Winner

2010-10-18T22:52:00.003-04:00

Rupert Murdoch Helps Contribute to the New York Times' Bottom Line

Now that Cablevision and Fox are about to enter their fourth day of a standoff that's resulted in 3 million cable customers in the New York area without local channels 5 and 9--it's beginning to get a little tense (though not in my house, where all is harmonious with DirecTV).
This has become a big-time hissy fit over retransmission fees with nobody winning the PR war. But both sides sure as hell are trying. And spending a fortune on full-page ads in the process. Collectively, they've dropped a healthy six-figure sum at The New York Times alone. The local tabs and Cablevision-owned Newsday have also gotten their share.
That means Fox grand poobah Rupert Murdoch is dumping valuable cash into the arms of his competition--remember, he also owns the New York Post, while the cable blackout rages on.
That's may be why you don't see any editorials calling on both sides to go to binding arbitration to ensure Cablevision homes can watch the World Series, especially if the Yankees can make it past the Rangers.
Because, hey, there's always the radio. And tomorrow's newspaper to read all about it.

Break Out the Tourniquets: Ax Starts Swinging at Newsweek

2010-09-24T15:57:00.004-04:00

A Reduced Staff to Go With a Reduced Magazine

The media landscape was on fire today.
Or maybe, that's just fired up, after double bombshells of CNN's big cheese Jon Klein's employment being canceled by the network. Ditto, more or less, for one-time NBC wunderkind Jeff Zucker's imminent departure from NBC (way to work the shoe leather, Bill Carter).
Of course, a reported $30 million kiss goodbye from Comcast will salve his wounded pride.
As it happened, this was also the day Newsweek owner Sidney Harman was scheduled to hand out pink slips, as Dylan Stableford at The Wrap reported.
True to his word, out the door they are going, with about 25 percent of the staff expected to be lopped off the masthead by sundown. They are involuntarily joining a lot of high-profile colleagues who bailed out over the summer.
We'll soon see if there's much a magazine left to put out by those who are left.

UPDATE: Via Business Insider, a Newsweek spokesman says the final number of pink-slips won't be all that bad. Unless, of course, you're among them.

Ding Dong, the Witch is...Fired

2010-09-23T16:46:00.002-04:00

The House (Of Scorn) Finally Falls on Daily News Features Dominatrix Orla Healy

I worked for my share of jackasses, bullies and lunkheads during 20 years in the news business, which isn't unique in having dullards in charge, only that they can be more colorful and outrageious in the pain they inflict on others.
All the more reason, then, I am grateful I never had to cross paths with Orla Healy, who was in charge of features at the New York Daily News.
I say was, as the Village Voice is reporting Healy got the heave-ho today, which no doubt has set the corks a poppin' over on West 33rd.
Talk about hate. Here's how one source variously described her to the Voice: "a window into fascism in the world," a "sadist" and part of a "gangster regime that took root."
Holy, Anna Wintour, Batman!
At the same time, the Voice was told Healy wasn't fired for being a bitch, just merely a lackluster editor who wasn't doing much to pump up the lifestyle and entertainment coverage, despite those nifty presses that can print color on every page. In other words, little sizzle, even less steak.
In the end, that's the great equalizer in the news business. If you can produce results, you can be the biggest shitbag who ever turned up on a masthead. If not, then you're just another schnook who will have to pay 50 cents to read the paper, just like the rest of us.

Tumbleweeds Aren't Rolling Through Newsweek's Office. Yet.

2010-09-22T23:19:00.003-04:00

Exactly Why is Sidney Harman Bothering?

In an interview in Media Matters, Newsweek's Howard Fineman, while explaining why he's decamping for The Huffington Post, predicted, his journalistic home for 30 years would no longer be in print by 2015.
I think he was being rather charitable.
It's not just that Fineman, Evan Thomas, Michael Isikoffk, Fareed Zakaria, Jon Meacham and just about all of the other big hosses at Newsweek have unhitched from that once-invincible wagon train.
True, these guys were big deals, and they could still bring it with eminently decent journalism. The cover story two weeks ago by Thomas and John Barry on Robert Gates was a grabber, as have other top-line enterprise pieces in recent weeks. I'm sure I'll get to the piece on the threat to traditional masculinity in the current issue real soon.
But about that current issue, and the bigger problem. It's all of 64 pages. You don't make it to 2015 when you're 64 pages.
Nor do you when a lot of the magazine looks downright ugly. The fonts and text look like an experiment gone bad circa 1975, sort of a cross between The New Republic and U.S. News and World Report at its wheeziest.
Sure, it's no longer a digest of the previous week. Like Time, it focuses now on trends, analysis, point of view. But too much of it is simply stuff you can get elsewhere in one variation or another. There's nothing wrong with it. However, there is not enough that is truly distinctive to make it a value proposition. I'm only seeing it because a 6-month subscription started showing up in our mailbox. If I had to pay...let's just say, I wouldn't. I have a hard enough time digesting two papers a day minimum, along with the other 15 magazines that pile up at home.
There's not enough there there to give up something else whose time spent reading I would devote to Newsweek.
So, as the magazine's new owner Sidney Harman prepares to affix his stamp, not to mention his checkbook, it will be intriguing to find out how Newsweek will be reinvented yet again. However, it should be telling to Harman and just about anyone else when Fineman, et al., know better not to find out.
But if this Newsweek thing doesn't work out for Harman, I'm sure there are a few newspaper publishers who would be eager to take him out to lunch. Pronto. They don't want to wait for 2015 either.

When The Subways Don't Suck

2010-09-22T22:56:00.002-04:00

TBS Takes Over the Shuttle to Push Baseball Playoffs and Maybe Usher in a Paradigm Shift for Ads

Part of my regular commute involves taking the subway shuttle between Grand Central Station and Times Square and back. It's a quick ride, unremarkable on a good day. Except when it's not.

The shuttle trains have become a breeding ground for innovative ad campaigns that effectively do a full body wrap around the cars, inside and out, with a single theme that basically takes over just about every inch of real estate save for the windows.

The Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the local zoos, HBO, for a "Deadwood" campaign, and HGTV have taken the plunge. These has been increasingly common on buses, but it's more striking when three or four subway cars are tricked out all over.

Now, TBS has one-upped with a full-wrap that includes TV screens to promote its baseball playoff coverage. Even depressed Mets fans, like your faithful correspondent, know when to say wow. Four screens in each car (on the shuttle that runs on track 3, for you subway geeks) are showing random baseball clips. But the cool part comes when the playoffs get cranking, and they'll show highlights from the previous night's games. It won't be anything you couldn't catch on SportsCenter, but it'll give you someplace else to look when the panhandlers come through.

Given the usual desultory state of subway ads (excepting you, Monroe College) that often mirror the quality of the service, one can only hope for more of the same on other lines.

Dr. Zizmor and Zoni Language Center? Yer, out!

R.I.P., Paste

2010-09-02T10:41:00.003-04:00

From Our Too-Bad-But-Hardly-A-Surprise Department

Especially in the publishing business, a loyal subscriber base, street cred and a distinct market niche can mean jack squat in the fight for survival.

Such is life, or the end of it, for the print version of indie music mag Paste, which made it official yesterday that it's gonzo.

I was one of those who coughed up some bucks to help save the magazine back when it was on life support a couple of years ago. It was one of those feel-good, grassroots stories, you kind of expected Jimmy Stewart to come out and deliver a homily about angels getting their wings.

But the patient remained sick. The subsequent issues were painfully thin. The record labels were hurting and all those small labels just didn't have the dough-re-mi to let Paste whistle a happy tune to its bankers.

This leaves people interested in keeping up with what's hot and fresh for the artists who depend heavily on Americana and Triple-A radio airplay (e.g. Sufjan Stevens, The Hold Steady, Okkervill River) that much more difficult, especially with the apparent demise of the samplers that were available with each issue. I know that I purchased CDs after hearing sampler tracks, and I trust that I wasn't unique in that regard. With that pipeline shut off, bands are going to have to hustle that much more for attention, not to mention concert bookings and album sales.

To show how troubled the music business is, Paste was unable to survive even though it was the last mag standing in this genre, after Harp folded in 2008, following the lamentable path of Tracks and No Depression.

For now, there is at least pastemagazine.com, which will remain active. It's something, true. But for indie artists and their fans, it likely won't be enough.

Why You Need to Appreciate Winning Headlines Now More Than Ever

2010-09-02T09:53:00.003-04:00

Search Engine Optimization Threatens to Suck the Lifeblood Out of Copy Editors

It's no secret that a headline that grabs you while scanning a newspaper and one that aims to accomplish the same thing online are often mutually exclusive.
After all, many folks find their way to a story through a Google search. Hence, if a paper wants their story to be on the first page of the search results instead of page 38, it is "optimized."
At best, the practice is a necessary evil. We live and die on page views, after all. When done right, online headlines are inevitably more basic, matter-of-fact. Nobody tries to be clever entering search terms. Concurrently, headlines are often written to match. And a cottage industry, of sorts, has even sprung up to show editors and bloggers how to optimize optimization.
Too bad. That means a lot of creative thinking gets left on the printed page, or isn't fully appreciated in its fuller context.
That came to mind this morning, while looking at the front page of the Home section of The New York Times. The cover story, about the makeover of the Oval Office, was headlined "The Audacity of Taupe." Simple. Clever. A real winner.
Now, it should be noted that you will see that headline if you go to the online version. Credit the Times for sticking to its guns on most of its web pages. But my unscientific survey has found many other papers who drain the juice from the print heds (I'm talking to you, Washington Post).
Again, necessary evil. But it doesn't portend well for other parts of stories, including photos and the copy itself. And even with the intact Times version, you don't fully appreciate the sweep of the story, lending even greater credence to why the headline matters.
On the front page, the Oval Office photo takes up most of the space above-the-fold. That makes you appreciate the headline all the more. Online, the image is a respectable 600 x 353 pixels, but it's just not the same. You might glance at the story but will you read it? Maybe. But its presentation is essentially indistinguishable from any other main story in that section.
But will I read the printed version? You bet. Even if Home is not a normal go-to section for me, it became one today.

Ethan Bronner Rants Instead of Writes in New York Times Coverage of Gaza Mall

2010-08-25T10:53:00.005-04:00

Provocative Article Reads as an Analysis Piece but Wasn't Labeled as Such

You'd think The New York Times would have the drill on Mideast coverage down cold by now. After all, the dispatches from its reporters in Israel, Cairo, and Beirut, are arguably parsed more carefully than any other news organization.
Jewish groups--and I've seen this first-hand--like to pounce on anything remotely critical of Israel as anti-Zionist bias, while many Arabs typically believe the Times is in the tank for whomever is holding their tenuous sway over the Knesset that week.
So, a dispatch from Ethan Bronner (left) in Monday's paper undoubtedly further raised already-arched eyebrows.
It concerned a mall of sorts, which sprang up in Gaza City. Bronner's writing was anything but objective, more critical than observational. True, he put the mall in its proper context and sorted through the rhetoric on both sides about its significance. The problem: the tone in his writing was more strident than what should appear in the front of the A section and read like something that belonged more in the back, where the op-eds and columnists are. To wit:

To the commentators who have never been here, certain points need to be cleared up. To those who contend the mall is proof that Gaza has construction materials: the building is 20 years old. To those who have described the mall as “gigantic” and “futuristic”: it is small and a bit old-fashioned. To Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, who wrote that the mall “would not look out of place in any capital in Europe”: it would.

This is commentary, not reportage, plain and simple. Again, Bronner may be on target with his observations. The problem is in how they are presented. And this:

But the broader point many of these advocates are making — that the poverty of Gaza is often misconstrued, willfully or inadvertently — is correct. The despair here is not that of Haiti or Somalia. It is a misery of dependence, immobility and hopelessness, not of grinding want. The flotilla movement is not about material aid; it is about Palestinian freedom and defiance of Israeli power.

Says who? Says you?

In the above passage, Bronner has not only tipped the balance, he's teetered over the edge to pure opinion. A reporter shouldn't be telling us when something is correct. That's for us to decide. And however you feel about the flotilla mess--and many American Jews are deeply conflicted over this--there remain two sides to this issue. By not acknowledging that, Bronner has compromised himself as a reporter. Then again, this dispatch indicates he's grown tired of that job. However, the front of the A section is no place to audition for a spot in the back.

Stop The Insanity. Then Go Back to Sleep

2010-08-25T10:35:00.002-04:00

Does New York Need Four Local 4:30 a.m. Newscasts? Does It Need Any?

New York TV stations will soon get to really find out just how many insomniacs, early risers, and stoners are out there, with word that WABC-TV, the Nielsen news king, will join the scrum jockeying for droopy eyelids with a newscast at 4:30 a.m.
Bear in mind that channels, 4, 5, and 11 are already squaring off at that unholy hour. The question is why.
The easy answer is that the infrastructure is already in place. The talent is already in the building. Just bring them in a half-hour earlier, recycle packages from the 11 p.m. cast, and, poof, instant show.
If you thought the anchors were too perky at 5 a.m., just wait.
Stations get to keep all the moola from spots sold. In contrast, channels 4 and 7--home of WABC--have to forego some of that with the network shows now on.
But how many people really are out there? I first encountered the 4:30 phenomenon in Los Angeles a couple of years ago, when I had to get up way early for a flight. KABC was chugging along. But out there, it's a tad more understandable. People commute from insane distances because it's otherwise too expensive. And those commutes start early and last a while.
I doubt, however, the number of denizens on the pre-dawn patrol is as large in New York. Granted, train lines have added more service before 6 a.m. to accommodate demand. But still. It's a small slice of TV pie, at that hour. Not to mention that WPIX, channel 11, will now bump up its start time to, wait for it, 4 a.m., which will give it a five-hour block of morning news and a lot of pissed-off staffers.
As for me, I'm fine with "Morning Edition" on NPR, thank you, eternally grateful that the stellar crew there wakes up in the middle of the night and I don't have to.

The Steven Slater Blowback Has Begun

2010-08-12T14:13:00.002-04:00

Just When You Thought You Found Your Latest Folk Hero, His 15 Minutes May Be Going Down the Chute Faster Than He Did

OK, I'll admit it, I was ready to anoint Jet Blue flight attendant-gone-bonkers Steven Slater my fave guy of the week in that Howard Beale-esque way of his. We all need a little flair of the dramatic now and then, especially when he got to fulfill the fantasies so many of us have had. And grabbing two beers while he alit from the back of the plane. Classic. Just classic.
But not so fast, thanks (or thanks for nothing, killjoys) to the Wall Street Journal, which found passengers who said Slater instigated the confrontation that led to his big-time hissy fit and was a douche to another woman who asked for help cleaning up coffee someone had spilled on her seat.
Yes, yes, two sides to every story, and we've more or less heard Slater's version. It got him liked in a big way on Facebook. But it may not be the only version. Or the correct one. And anyone who's ever been treated rudely by a flight attendant (fortunately, few and far between for me, but those few have been doozies) can understand why.
Given the cattle-car nature that typifies flying nowadays, you can also understand how someone like Slater could boil over. But that doesn't mean we have to applaud him in the process.

Thank You, Daniel Schorr

2010-07-23T16:53:00.003-04:00

A Real Legend Dies at 93

I realize NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr was 93, but I just really never thought of him as old. Or someone who would no longer have such interesting talks ever Saturday with Scott Simon on "Weekend Edition."

He was always there. He always seemed to know just about anything about the events that mattered the most in national politics and world affairs that week. He was still a force. Who happened to be 93.

With his passing, we lose a vital link to some of the grander, noble traditions of journalism. And we lost a helluva reporter. Thanks, Dan. Go in peace.

Digital Revenue at New York Times May Finally Signal a Real Paradigm Shift

2010-07-23T16:37:00.002-04:00

Now We're Talking the Kind of Numbers That Really Matter

From yesterday's New York Times story about its parent company's 2Q earnings report, this paragraph screamed out for attention, as well it should.

"Digital advertising revenue grew 21 percent, while the decline of print revenue slowed to 6 percent, leaving the company’s overall advertising revenue essentially flat. As a result, online advertising became a larger share of the company’s overall advertising revenue, climbing to 26 percent of the company’s total advertising take."

That number is quite the revelation, given the conventional wisdom that online ads typically accounted for only 10 percent of revenue. That may still be the case elsewhere, but the Times has shown it's possible to move off that number in a meaningful way.

Of course, that's significant when circulation for the print editions continue their swoon, even if the actual total number of readers when you figure in digital is actually quite robust. Hopefully, that can translate into publishers not getting the itchy finger to slash away at budgets for the core product, thereby leaving little to read for the online edition. Too many newspapers have tragically forgot that part of the equation, which is all the more annoying when they want to impose some kind of pay wall. First, they cut staff and content, while raising newsstand prices. Then they want to charge for access to a website with a desiccated product.

That the glue to fix the broken newspaper business model may finally be found in cyberspace is a big deal. The Times has shown that a good website--in other words, a distinct product that's more than just a slick repackaging of the newspaper--is not only a good idea, but it makes good business sense. Finally.

A (Glenn) Close Call: Damages Gets a Two-Season Pickup

2010-07-19T21:55:00.005-04:00

But There's a Catch: New Episodes Will Only Air on DirecTV

It looked like we'd be leaving Patty Hewes for good on the pier outside her house in the Hamptons at the end of the third season of "Damages."
The show was critically lauded, gushed over by the brass at FX, but it just wasn't getting enough love with the Nielsen families. Too bad, they didn't know what they were missing.
As delectably played by Glenn Close, the ruthless--to put it charitably--lawyer Patty Hewes had enough issues to have kept Freud and Jung working overtime. She knew how to bring adversaries to their knees, but her personal life was a royal mess, one that she often made. It made for great TV. And Emmy nominations.
The season just concluded was arguably the best of the three. A big reason for that was the startling but fully satisfying casting of Martin Short as a scumbag lawyer for a family whose scion made Bernie Madoff look like a striver. Short got an Emmy nomination for his troubles, along with Close and Rose Byrne, right, whose Ellen Parsons was alternately Patty's, mentee, confidant, nemesis and would-be murder victim.
"Damages" has always been good like that. Darrell Hammond, of all people, played a hitman in season 2, while Lily Tomlin had a prominent role this year. Throw in the likes of Ted Danson, Zjelko Ivanek, Keith Carradine, and Michael Nouri, among others wending their way through keep-you-guessing-till-the-end plotlines, and you have a most-satisfying hour of TV.

And despite the ratings, "Damages" lives on. DirecTV says it will bring back "Damages" for two 10-episode seasons starting next year, and relieve FX of the burden of canceling the show. The catch: unlike "Friday Night Lights," another ratings-challenged reclamation project, "Damages" will only air on DirecTV's 101 channel.

That alone might not be the best reason to dump cable for DirecTV, like I happily did six years ago. But it's pretty damn (Glenn) close.

When Is Long-Form Journalism Too Long?

2010-07-19T21:01:00.007-04:00

Washington Post's "Top Secret America" Might Be Too Much of a Good Thing

My first thought after seeing the opening salvo in the Washington Post's on the unwieldy national security and intelligence apparatus was wow. Simply wow.

First off, look at the front-page layout above from today's paper. The story is basically the front page. But that's just the intro. The real saga--the first of three parts--starts inside and goes on for four open pages. Four.
Granted, there are graphics, sidebars, links, refers and other stuff of 21st-century newspaperdom. And I've committed to reading it. Honest. If the Post can spend two years putting together this mastodon-sized piece of Pulitzer bait, then it behooves me to see what they can do.

But therein lies the rub. I'm a newspaper dweeb. Always have been, always will be. But the question is, how many like me are out there. If you're crammed onto the Metro on a Monday morning, are you going to start chewing on a massive enterprise piece, no matter how worthy?

To be sure, if you are not one of those people, the story's website does a more-than-adequate job of bringing the story to life. You can then digest it at your own pace. And you should.

My first question is, why try to cram this behemoth into three days? It seems you could just as effectively tell the story in five or six days as you would three. The yeoman work put in by reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin would have resonated just as loudly. But faced with four open papers to sift through, I fear a lot of readers will simply skim or give up, rather than dive in.

That might have been different if the Post had started the series on Sunday, when people have more time. Which leads me to my second question: why didn't it start then, especially when the Post has a much-larger circulation, 798,000 compared to 578,000 during the week?

One answer came from managing editor Raju Narisetti, who told The New York Times that news sites see dramatically more users during the week than on the weekends. "In my view, it's the first project done at The Post where the power of the project lies online," he said.

Ah, so. It makes eminently perfect sense. Yet, print is still wagging online's dog when it comes to revenue. The Post didn't take up the better part of five pages just to provide fodder for an online venture. Or, maybe it did. If all those extra page views turn into bigger ad bucks, then we'll know the real back story.

And it won't be a secret.

Dave Kindred's "Morning Miracle" About the Washington Post Without the Sugar Coating...

2010-07-07T13:16:00.005-04:00

But Maybe A Dollop of Empty Nostalgia Instead

I'm looking forward to getting my mitts on Dave Kindred's book "Morning Miracle," his paean to the Washington Post subtitled "A Great Newspaper Fights for Its Life."

Indeed, it's not the paper it once was. Then again, no paper is.

The book, which hits stores July 20, was favorably reviewed in the Post yesterday by American Journalism Review editor Rem Rieder.

Rieder affirmed this was a book worth reading for lapsed news scribes like myself, or anyone who gives a damn about what happened to journalism and what can still be done to right the ship.

The only troubling note was a sentence Rieder quoted, where Kindred waxes: "I love the smell of newsprint in the morning, and my favorite time of day is thirty minutes to deadline."

First off, when's the last time Kindred smelled newsprint? The Post and most other papers are printed on offset presses that produce smudge-free papers. Long gone are the days when you had to wash your hands or wear gloves after reading the Post or Times.

As a cub at the UPI Albany bureau, I would go down to the mailroom as the Times-Union was coming off the presses and got a few copies to take up to the bureau. I don't remember much of a smell. What I savored was the crisp, folded paper in my, yes, smudged hands. A morning miracle indeed, or at least an 11:15 p.m. miracle when the T-U's bulldog edition came out. But a smell? Meh.

Still, Kindred remains a print guy through and through. In that sense we are, um, kindred spirits, and I'm sure to soak up his dispatches from the front of what is hopefully a winnable war, at least in D.C.

Getting the Facts Straight About the Mets

2010-07-07T12:44:00.003-04:00

Fox Gaffes Show When Producers Need to Step Up to the Plate More Aggressively

While watching the Mets on Saturday against the Washington Strasburgs, the usually reliable Joe Buck got tripped up a couple of times. At least, I know he got tripped up. If he knew, or if anyone in the Fox truck knew, they kept it a secret.

No one expects announcers to get everything right all the time, but it's not too much to ask that when they do screw up, that they at least make some version of a correction.

First, Buck mentioned Mets reserve catcher Josh Thole, who started Saturday's game. After Thole got a hit, Buck said Thole was now "3 for 7 in his Major League career." All well and good, except that wasn't true.

Those were Thole's stats for 2010. But he had 53 at-bats in 2009.

Buck actually made reference to Thole's "career" stats twice. So, why did nobody in the Fox production truck, which surely has access to anything and everything put out by the Elias Sports Bureau, not know that what Buck said wasn't true, or if they did, whisper something in his earpiece so he could correct himself?

You might think I'm getting overly lathered about a remark over a third-string catcher. But when you're broadcasting a game that's being seen in New York, you're talking to a lot of knowledgable fans who know Thole is relatively new, just not brand-new. There's nothing wrong with getting it right, hubris be damned.

Buck dug his hole a little deeper later in the game when he talked about the once-precarious state of Mets Manager Jerry Manuel's job, and how he had gone to see the "Broadway musical Fences" and was told by Denzel Washington to hang in there.

August Wilson's "Fences" is indeed a Broadway classic, But it is decidedly lacking in hummable tunes, which is why it won the Tony last month for Best Play Revival.

Might be time for Joe Buck and his producers to take in a show next time they're in town.

Washington Newspaper Woes a Metaphor on an Anomaly?

2010-06-21T15:36:00.002-04:00

Maybe the News Cycle Pedals Too Fast Around the Beltway. Or, Maybe the Buisness Model for Newspapers is Sicker Than We Thought

The recent struggles of The Washington Times have transcended being taken seriously as more than just the scrappy conservative alternative to The Washington Post. Its very survival has been called into question when 60 percent of the editorial staff got the heave-ho last year when the Unification Church grew weary of subsidizing what has never been a going concern.
Not that the Post has had the luxury of gloating. It had its own round of layoffs last year, closed its remaining domestic bureaus, and trimmed staffing from its admirable website. Oh, yeah. It also loses a lot of money.
In this year's first quarter, the newspaper division booked an operating loss of $13.8 million. Yes, that's better than the $53.8 million lost a year earlier. But it's still a big-enough chunk of change that institutional investors won't countenance for long.
And the hits just keep on coming, as the company reported in its earnings release. Daily circulation was off 12.5 percent, with the Sunday numbers dipping 10.4 percent compared to 2009.
In an online chat today, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli admitted that the boffo revenues from the Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan educational division may be keeping the newspaper afloat.
"That's an interesting and hypothetical question," he said, in response to a query about whether the Post would still be in business if not for Kaplan. Brauchli said one look at the financials showed how much the entire company depended on Kaplan, not just his product.
So, what gives D.C.?
Is everyone so crazed down there that they don't have time or inclination to read a paper? Does everybody wake up with a Blackberry pinned to their forehead, so they can start emailing right away and read Mike Allen's Playbook while in their pajamas? Maybe it's the Post's crappy app, not worth the price of admission at $1.99. Or, maybe too many of the right people already know what they need to know before it hits the paper and move on to Roll Call or The Hill.
Sure, the Post is still a potent journalistic force, even if it's been defanged somewhat by newsroom cutbacks. And, no, I don't think as so goes Kaplan, so goes the paper. There are still 562,000 daily copies printed, with another 780,000 every Sunday. That still adds up to a loyal readership.
But if the Kaplan spigot started to trickle rather than gush, you'd see a newspaper that would have no choice but to further compromise its already-less-ambitious vision. And that would be a shame.
Given that Washington is, well, Washington, it's hard to tell whether the Post is caught up in its own circumstances or part of the industry-wide malaise. I suspect it's a combo of both. Either way, it doesn't bode well for those of us who have come to count on the Post as both a watchdog and dutiful chronicler of all that matters in and around the Beltway. Let's hope that interesting and hypothetical question doesn't get a real answer anytime soon.

Simon Rich--Boy Wonder

2010-06-15T13:41:00.003-04:00

Looks Like He'll Be Getting Carded in Bars Until He's 40

About all I know about Simon Rich is that he's a preternaturally talented writer -- the youngest ever hired by Saturday Night Live, nailed a two-book contract from Random House before he graduated Harvard and, oh yeah, his parents are Frank Rich and Alex Witchel.

And judging by all the huzzahs that have come his way, he earned his own cred and didn't gorge on the fruit from the nepotism tree. Bully for him.

What I haven't been able to figure out yet, though, from my semi-cursory research, is that even though he was born in 1984, every photo of him that's on the web makes him look like he's about 12. The one (left) that accompanied the review of his first novel, Elliot Allagash in today's New York Times looks like an outtake from his confirmation/bar-mitzvah or whatever. Ones I spotted elsewhere also revealed no signs of facial hair. Pretty freaky. But talented. Enough so, to get him reviews in the daily Times and the Book Review on May 20.

Both mostly positive assessments, of course, were done by Times outsiders.

Just wondering, but if his old man wasn't a big cheese at the paper would he have gotten that treatment? As I said, just wondering. Simon does have his own set of chops, but the double review treatment for a first novel -- his previous book, "Ant Farm and Other Desperate Situations" was a collection of quickie satires and comic observations -- is accorded to few and far between. For now, every review, like this one in the Chicago Tribune, will tag him Son of Frank -- even when that's not the sum of his many parts.

As Helen Thomas Continues to Extract Foot From Mouth, a Little Context

2010-06-08T03:09:00.003-04:00

Outrage Over Her Anti-Semitic Remarks Trumped By Her Irrelevance

Patrick Gavin has an excellent takeout on Politico that puts as harsh a spotlight on the Helen Thomas F.U.B.A.R. as you would want for a washed-up 89-year-old hack whose relevance as a force in the White House press room really faded about 20 years ago, around the time the majority of major media had finished abandoning UPI.

Sure, there's lots that can rightly be said about Thomas being a trailblazer, a pointed questioner, a dogged chronicler of presidents going back to JFK, blah, blah, blah.

You can also say she was more than a tad overrated. Back when I was a cub reporter in the 1980s at UPI, I'd be able to see how Thomas' copy came into the desk. Suffice to say, those in the slot had their work cut out for them. She filed in multiple tasks. It was up to the editors to craft a narrative.

Granted, if you were on deadline and were banging out copy at a place where the slogan was "a deadline every minute," you often didn't have the time to make it pretty. But putting together stories like this was Helen's M.O. To her credit, she was the first to admit that her copy would be rewritten. She was a reporter first, a wordsmith a very distant second.

No doubt, she worked hard during her prime. Thomas and her UPI colleagues had no choice, because getting beat by the A.P. was not an option. She may have been a role model. But she was hardly the complete package as a journalist.

And now we find the same could be said about her as a human being. How sad, yet at the same time a valuable cautionary tale for anyone who thinks they're indispensable and doesn't know when to sign off. Instead, Thomas got the hook. She deserved nothing less.

Somewhere, a cabal of press secretaries for Republican presidents are having a damn good laugh, no doubt hoping the door hit Thomas good and hard on the way out.

Honolulu Advertiser Put to Sleep As It Goes To Bed

2010-06-07T02:29:00.003-04:00

A Final Aloha for Hawaii's Main News Source

The Honolulu Advertiser box that I came across today in Maui was empty by the time I got there. Maybe there was a rush for the final edition of the 154-year-old paper. Or, maybe the circulation department had already thrown in the towel.
Either way, the Advertiser will now be referred to in the past tense, as its name becomes part of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, an amalgam with the surviving Star-Bulletin, which debuts tomorrow.
But Sunday remained a day of elegies, eulogies, salutes, and ruminations for the fallen paper, which was sold by Gannett to Star-Bulletin owner David Black for a reported $125 million. That's the discounted price for a monopoly in today's semi-moribund newspaper business.
To put the end in the perspective, it's only proper to hear from an Advertiser veteran -- and there were many -- like Pat Glaser, an editorial assistant for many years.
Said Glaser: "I'm going to miss our big, dysfunctional news family. I wish us all the very best."
As do I.

Honolulu Advertiser Continues Its Fade to (David) Black

2010-06-04T03:19:00.002-04:00

As Hawaii's Oldest Paper Reaches its Pau Moment, Longtime Writers Put on a Brave Face

As the Honolulu Advertiser has its -30- on Sunday, the first reaction is that David, in this case David Black, owner of the rival Star-Bulletin who's buying the Advertiser, firmly kicked the butt of Goliath, played out in this version by Gannett.
But there's no happy ending here. Honolulu will be a one newspaper town next week. And 430 people who had a job will mostly now have a hard time figuring out where their next paycheck will come from. Severance agreements from mostly union contracts will help, but for many who spent their career in newspapers in Honolulu will have to find another line of work.
It would have been a lot easier to bid good riddance to Gannett if the Advertiser had been sold to someone else. After all, it was Gannett that had tried to buy the Star-Bulletin in 1999 to shut it down and end its joint operating agreement with Liberty Newspapers.
But a local outcry and the federal government kiboshed that. In came Black from Canada, who instead bought the S-B from Liberty to keep it alive. How times have changed.
As the newspaper industry has tanked, Black has claimed he's lost $100 million running the S-B. Gannett has said it's also in the red. It chose to bail, rather than fight. Even though it had suffered the cuts every other paper has been forced to endure, the Advertiser was still a better-than-average Gannett paper, which still managed a 115,000 daily circulation, compared to just 37,000 for the S-B.
It's a tight-knit news community on the islands, filled with scribes who are natives or have become one through decades of service at either paper. As an example, the writer of today's Advertiser story about the closure was written by Rick Daysog, who wrote the story linked above from the Oct. 20, 2000 edition---of the Star-Bulletin.
I've been reading the Advertiser the last couple of days as I take a break from some R&R in Hawaii, and the farewells in the paper are getting louder and more insistent. They include food editor Wanda Adams, who had a front seat as the island's cuisine evolved into a world-class fusion of flavors and reverence for locally grown and caught food. She's working on starting a website. Best to her with that.
Today, we heard from golf columnist Bill Kwon, who worked more than half a century at both papers covering sports all over the world. And while I'm sure he'd still rather be working, his column is headlined "For five decades I had the best job in the world," and you know he means it. He really did have a great ride.
Too bad a lot of other talented journalists won't get to say the same when the new Honolulu Star-Advertiser debuts Monday.

Down in the Gulf, the Clueless Just Keep Getting Cluelessier

2010-06-02T03:01:00.003-04:00

BP Media Relations Advisers Masquerading as Douchebags by Bigfooting Independent Contractors into Silence

And the hits just keep on coming with BP.

A nice get from News21.com shows the lengths the company will go through to cow into silence the fishermen who's lives it has destroyed now that they are doing anything they can to contain the spill.
That included "news releases, marketing information, or any other public statements" if they wanted to keep working on the cleanup. Which they pretty much had to, since there is no other source of income.
BP has since backtracked on some of that language, but the damage is done. All of a sudden, yet another PR strategy is stuck in the muck washing ashore with another wave of bad ideas that has laid waste to a way of life.

Putting Al-Tipper in Perspective

2010-06-02T02:51:00.002-04:00

Bubba-Hillary Still the Alpha Dogs, but When It Comes to Wedlock?

This comment from a Democratic operative to Politico pretty much sums up the news on Al and Tipper calling it quits:

Can you believe that Bill and Hillary are still married and Al and Tipper are getting divorced?

Not really. It was about as likely as a climate-change bill making it through Congress this year. But now.....

WSJ's Greater New York Section: Not Great. Yet.

2010-05-07T10:41:00.004-04:00

Sure, the More the Merrier, but Make the Section Relevant First

Rupert Murdoch made no secret of why he wanted to create a section devoted to New York news within the Wall Street Journal. He wanted to squash The New York Times like a diseased bug, eat all the Sulzberger young and dance on their graves in some kind of bizarre pagan ritual holding aloft a copy of News Corp.'s latest earnings report.

OK, maybe not the pagan ritual, but you get the idea.

Simply put, Murdoch doesn't want the Journal to be a second read, like it is for me after I polish off as much as the Times as I can during my commute. He wants the Journal to be all the wealthy, powerful, and influential digest with their venti soy latte and brioche. Of course, if they want to use it to hide the fact they're actually reading The New York Post, no harm, no foul.
But the Greater New York section is not a category killer. It's more like an eager puppy, jumping up and down, not always peeing on the paper (the Times, of course), but eager to please.

First, the good:

---The mostly featurish approach to local sports coverage works most of the time. The Journal assumes you found out elsewhere what the score was, and if you really care what the Mets did, there are innumerable sources for recaps and analysis. But the real saving grace of the sports coverage is columnist Jason Gay, whose "The Couch" column in the regular Journal on Monday is destination reading. It's at once funny, knowledgable and reverential. But can we do away with the courtesy titles in sports stories? "Messrs. Burnett, Sabathia, and Teixeira, whom they signed in a....." Yeesh.
---The Journal made a good pickup in having Jason Gershman cover state government. He knows his way around the miasma that is Albany. At the same time, he has seamlessly shed the ideological bent that marked his reporting in the late, lamented neocon-fave The New York Sun.
---The aggressive real estate coverage definitely adds to the conversation about a topic that nobody can stop talking about.

Not as good:
--The lack of a voice. The section badly needs a feisty columnist to hoist a few petards and let us know when the glass really is half empty, like the Times has with Jim Dwyer and Clyde Haberman. Right now, the only columnist is Ralph Gardner Jr., who takes a more gentleapproach to view life in the city. A recent column focused on a guy who used to work in finance and now wears a lobster suit handing out fliers in midtown for a seafood joint. Nothing wrong with that sort of thing, but maybe not every day, and not at the expense of something hard-hitting.
--The Heard & Scene society coverage. Maybe it's just me, but I don't give two craps about who's attending what charity ball and the designer togs they're wearing. I have a feeling, among readers under 65, that I'm not alone. If you only have a 12-page section, squandering precious real estate on floss and dross just makes me finish the paper faster.
---If you're going to call the section Greater New York, then cover Greater New York. That means the world outside of the five boros, where so many of the Journal's readers live. I'm not saying you have to set up bureaus in Greenwich or Scarsdale, but there are enough interesting stories in the 'burbs going uncovered by the desultory and/or desiccated papers there that could have broad appeal for Journal readers.
---The lack of coverage about New York's blood sport: dining out. Inexplicably, the main Journal scaled back on food and wine, when it effectively dumped freelancer Raymond Sokolov's restaurant column in March and got rid of nonpareil wine columnists John Brecher and Dorothy Gaiter in December.

To be sure, it really is a compliment to say that the section is a good complement to the rest of the Journal. But it is not a replacement for the Times, which for diehard readers -- from arts coverage to Maureen Dowd, from the crossword puzzle to Floyd Norris -- is simply too hard a habit to break.
There may come a point where, if you don't already do so, you might start reading the Journal because of the Greater New York section. However, it's nowhere close to getting you to stop reading the Times for the same reason.

Thirsty? How About Some Soy Jizzum?

2010-04-30T12:55:00.010-04:00

The Gang at Fox 5 Near and Dear in the Heart of YouTube Land

Fox 5 New York morning anchor Rosanna Scotto's been in the TV news game a long time now. But that doesn't mean light-hearted banter comes easy to her. Sometimes, it's better just to read the teleprompter. Or shut up. Then again, if she had done the latter, we wouldn't have this to show you:

And it's already prompted a remix:

Thanks people with no hobbies!

Idaho's Governor Not Having A Ball With This Story

2010-04-23T13:02:00.007-04:00

C.L. Otter Not Gettin' Along with the Little Doggies

From the Eastern Media Elite Desk comes this snicker after reading an item from the A.P. in The New York Times about how Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter was back on the job after two nights in a hospital with fever and dehydration.

Seems the 67-year-old Otter felt ill last weekend while, wait for this, helping Lt. Gov. Brad Little brand and castrate calves.

Turns out, it was the second time this year Otter has assisted Little with ball-shearing duties at his ranch. "He likes to help, it's a nice change of pace," Little told the AP.

After all, he can only threaten to cut the balls off of legislators. The calves: not as fortunate.

It's not necessarily the kind of story you'd say "Only in Idaho" about. Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, for one, is a rancher and likely knows his way around an emasculator (that's what one implement is really and aptly called).

It's safe to say most of Otter's counterparts on the other side of the country are exposed to calves only if they order the veal marsala at their favorite Italian joint.

Meantime, glad ol' Butch is back in the saddle again.

Wall Street Journal Editors Should Make Their Own Paper a Must-Read

2010-04-23T12:48:00.003-04:00

Photo Cutlines Really Are Part of the Paper Too

Taking up about a third of the real estate above the fold on the front page of Wednesday's Wall Street Journal is a photo of a street battle in Managua firing at a hotel where Nicaraguan lawmakers were meeting to try to repeal a decree President Ortega issued extending the terms of some officials.
All well and good. Nice picture and all. But what I just wrote above is all you'd have found in the Journal about this story. Normally, big display art would normally lead to a story inside the paper if it didn't accompany the photo. Not here. If the photo is deemed worthy enough to occupy A-1, there needs to be more to the story. There needs to be a story, first and foremost.
And if you do a story with matching art, make sure the photo's cutline refers to it. On page A10 in the same edition, the story headlined "Airports Reopen, Safety Debate Lingers" had a photo captioned: An Icelandair plane takes off Tuesday from Glasgow International Airport bound for Reykjavik in Iceland."
Only problem: The photo clearly shows the plane is one from Lufthansa and, as an online correction noted, it was taking off from Dusseldorf.
Glasgow. Dusseldorf. Hard to tell them apart after all that volcanic ash mucking up the works. But at $2 a copy, you expect Journal editors to be paying more attention to not-insignificant details like that.

When Less Really Is Saying Less

2010-04-14T12:59:00.003-04:00

An "Undisclosed Illness" for Yankees Trainer Gene Monahan in The New York Times is Cancer Just About Everywhere Else

Among those receiving World Series rings yesterday was Yankees trainer Gene Monahan who has been with the team since 1973. Monahan was moved to tears by the ovation he received. Why? You really wouldn't know by reading The New York Times.
Stalwart columnist George Vecsey said Monahan is "not working this spring while battling an undisclosed illness."
Yankees beat writer Ben Shpigel is no less ambiguous:

"Gene Monahan, the beloved longtime trainer who missed spring training because of an undisclosed illness, surpassed that. During the ceremony, Monahan was called forward first, and the Yankees honored him by having him stand alone with his ring by first base."
“Knowing what he’s going through, it was really emotional,” said Girardi, who fought back tears after the game as he spoke about Monahan. “We’re all thrilled to see him here.”

But Monahan's illness is anything but "undisclosed."
In the Daily News, baseball writer Bill Madden devoted his entire column to Monahan, and told us he's battling cancer and receiving daily radiation treatments on his neck and throat, including one that morning in the clubhouse.
George King and Brian Lewis also devoted an article to Monahan in the New York Post, while Erik Boland in Newsday and Chad Jennings in the Journal-News also mentioned the cancer. And so on.
It's inconceivable that both Shpigel and Vecsey both don't know the true nature of Monahan's illness. They're too good reporters to slip up like that. Rather, they appear to have been muzzled by a P.C. copy desk that wants nothing short of a press release or full confessional confirming the disease before they will let the C-word make it to print.
But Monahan's diagnosis was hardly a secret. And upon seeing its rivals write about his battle in an unvarnished way -- complete with quotes from Monahan about his ordeal -- sports editor Tom Jolly or someone in his minion could have fixed the omission online or in late editions of the print version.
Saying his illness is undisclosed is not just incomplete. It's wrong. Monahan's not hiding from the truth. Neither should the Times.

The Truth Shall Not Set the Vatican Free in Abuse Scandal...

2010-04-01T15:15:00.002-04:00

So It Attacks The New York Times for Telling the Truth; Denial is Also a River That Runs Through Rome

Ah, nothing like a tsunami of stories about pedophile priests to put a damper on Holy Week. And it seems like the Vatican has had enough -- with the media coverage, that is.
Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told the Associated Press: "I am not proud of America's newspaper of record, the New York Times, as a paragon of fairness."
This harrumphing is over the startling and sad story by Laurie Goodstein about how the church mishandled the case of a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting deaf boys, even though officials knew going back to the 1950s he may have been up to no good.
What has the Vatican incensed, though, is that Goodstein reported that Milwaukee's archbishop sought to have the priest defrocked and appealed to the office run by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, and was apparently discouraged from pursuing further action. At no point did the Times report that edict came from Ratzinger. But Levada still views that as guilt by association, and he's not a happy camper.
But, of course, as a Times spokeswoman pointed out to the A.P., the Church never disputes the accuracy of the article. It merely doesn't like what it says.
Just for chuckles, I looked to see what Bill Donahue, the president/mouthpiece of the Catholic League had to say about this, if only because Donahue always reflexively attack anything and everything that even remotely smacks of being anti-Catholic. He didn't disappoint.
Donahue also went into kill-the-messenger mode. "Why did the victims' families wait as long as 15 years to report the abuse? Why were the civil authorities unconvinced by what they uncovered? Why did Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland wait almost two decades before he contacted the Vatican?"
Again, Donahue never says that they're lying. But that doesn't stop him from questioning motives anyway.
That's typical Donahue and it appears the Vatican is reading from the same playbook. That's a mistake, yet another one it has made as this scandal begins to spiral out of control.

Remembering Ron Lundy

2010-03-16T16:26:00.004-04:00

WABC Radio Great Dies of Heart Attack at 75

If you grew up listening to radio in New York in the 1960s and 1970s, then you knew Ron Lundy, because you listened to WABC, where Lundy ruled the midday shift.

"Hello, Luv!" he boomed to millions of us on WABC and later on WCBS-FM until his retirement to his native Mississippi in 1997.

Lundy had been in failing health lately, and a heart attack finally took him yesterday.
A classy tribute from Bob Shannon on WCBS-FM can be heard here.

The New York Radio Message Board is awash with heartfelt tributes and great stories, including this one from Vince Santarelli involving Lundy's close friend Dan Ingram, another radio legend who followed Lundy on WABC:

When Ron came to New York to sign his contract, he finished up and popped his head in the studio door and told Dan Ingram, "I'll see you in two weeks."
Dan responded, "the hell you will. You're going to stick around and when I get off the air tonight, we're going out for drinks and steaks and talk."
Ron himmed and hawed and finally called the airport to arrange a later flight. The two went out after Dan got off at 6 and had a good night.
Later on , they found out that the plane that Ron was originally supposed to be on, crashed into Lake Michigan with no survivors.

He was lucky that night. Just damn good the rest of the way. Go in peace, Ron.

Trade Schools Flunk Crucial PR Test with New York Times

2010-03-16T15:20:00.004-04:00

Many Only Make Matters Worse in Scathing Front-Page Article

The article in Sunday's New York Times about the precarious mix of high debt and low pay for many students of for-profit colleges and trade schools was a real education.

Peter S. Goodman expertly pried the lid off of the often-unseemly recruiting practices of many schools, which left students awash in broken promises and mounting bills.

Let's hope that some of the schools mentioned use the piece as a cautionary tale, not for how to do right by their students -- although that would be a welcome byproduct -- but how not to turn into a quivering mass of gelatin when a reporter calls.

To wit, ITT Educational Services, one of the industry's top names, where a former financial aid officer told of risking the wrath of management if she told prospective students for computer and electronics trades about likely job prospects, which weren't good.

“If you said anything that went against what the recruiter said, they would threaten to fire you. The representatives would have already conned them into doing it, and you had to just keep your mouth shut.”

Offered an opportunity to reply, ITT's flackette demurred. And you know what that means for the average person reading the article: Guilty as charged.

A major opportunity to score brownie points was wasted, and proof of why a company of any size should have a crisis communications plan in place rather than diving for the bunker and acting clueless.

The same goes even when you do choose to cooperate with the media. Career Education Corp. spoke with Goodman, who focused on the experience of a former student at the company's Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Portland, Ore.

While the company wouldn't comment on that student, citing privacy concerns, it did send Goodman the names of other students to talk about their experiences. That's when the journalistic equivalent of a wet dream began.

One came with a wrong number. A second had graduated 15 years ago.
A third, Cherie Thompson, called the program “a really positive experience” but declined to discuss her debts or earnings. The fourth, Ericsel Tan, graduated in 2003 and later earned $42,000 a year overseeing catering at a convention center near Seattle. He said his success reflected his seven years of kitchen experience prior to culinary school.

Not exactly fodder for your testimonial page, huh? It's basically a reverse gotcha. Career Ed walked into an ambush of its own making, one that a few phone calls could have easily avoided.

Instead, kudos to Goodman, whose article may help steer students away from a life of big debts and small payoffs, while hopefully shaming these schools into doing more than just lining their pockets.

Wall Street Journal's Lifestyle Coverage Goes on a Diet

2010-03-10T15:37:00.004-05:00

First, It Scales Back on Wine Coverage, Now It's Dumping Restaurant Reviews Too

The Wall Street Journal's going all schizoid on us, and it has nothing to do with its wacked-out editorial page.
At the same time, the Murdochian paper of record for the financial set is ramping up with a mysteriously intriguing New York edition, it's nipping and tucking other resources, and not for the better.
Pete Wells reports in The New York Times food blog that restaurant critic Raymond Sokolov called it quits after he was asked to cover food trends instead because the paper was abandoning restaurant reviews.
Sokolov, who had ridden a most-filling gravy train filing entertaining and informed reviews from all over the country, demurred.
Maybe the bean counters got all cheesed off when Sokolov filed a column from Vegas, where among his stops was a new Japanese restaurant called Shaboo, where the tab runs $500 a head. Tax, tip, and wine extra. And he wasn't dining alone.
But those kind of expense reports didn't seem to bother the Journal much, though that seems to have changed more ever since ol' Rupe got his mitts on the paper.
In December, the Journal dumped the husband-and-wife team of John Brecher and Dorothy Gaiter, who wrote an estimable wine column.
The Journal, just like it promises with restaurants, didn't abandon wine coverage entirely. But it's more intermittent and largely devoid of insight let alone personality.
Sokolov's departure means yet another reason the Journal's Saturday lifestyle coverage is less appetizing.
What was once a must-read over the weekend is now a I'll-maybe-get-to-it-if-I-have-time-after-reading-the-Times-and-FT read.
At a time when he's adding a New York edition, Murdoch should be running headlong at his competition, not running from it.

More Fallout from "Last Train to Hiroshima"

2010-03-09T22:28:00.002-05:00

Charles Pellegrino's Editors More Out of Touch with Reality Than He Is

Much has been written in the last week or so about the book "The Last Train from Hiroshima," and how Henry Holt & Company after author Charles Pellegrino confirmed he was duped by his primary source who claimed to have been a last-minute replacement on one of the planes that escorted the Enola Gay, which dropped the a-bomb on Hiroshima.
So, the book, which was originally going to be corrected in future editions, is now kaput. Holt said it acted not only because of the lies told by that source, but also because Pellegrino may have fabricated other sources in his book, which he vehemently denies.
Beyond this pathetic case of he said, they said lies a larger issue, namely getting facts straight before the book goes to press.
It is what editors do, after all, besides checking that you used the serial comma and didn't split infinitves. But maybe not.
As Robert Gottlieb, the famed editor who worked at Knopf and helmed The New Yorker -- known for its annoyingly fastidious fact-checking department -- told The New York Times:
"It would not be humanly possible to fact-check books the way magazine articles can be fact-checked, just because of length."
So, by Gottlieb's standard, if a 500-page manuscript at least smells right, that's good enough. Facts? We'll just cross our fingers and hope for the best. What twaddle.
Even worse is Pellegrino's editor at Holt, a 15-watt bulb named John Macrae, who told the Times "the difference between fact and fiction is a very fine line."
Come again?
To be sure, the Times article by Motoko Rich does state that Macrae questioned more than 250 parts of the book, but he was more interested in survivor stories and less focused on how the bomb was dropped, the fabricated story of which led to the book's demise.
But let's go back to Macrae's whopper just above. "The difference between fact and fiction is a very fine line."
Here's a guy who has trouble distinguishing between the two and yet he's a high-ranking editor at a major publishing house. How sad. Maybe that's why the book industry has to undergo a ritual humiliation every couple of years.
Macrae sounds like he's channeling Nan Talese, who got burned in 2006 by James Frey in the "Million Little Pieces" debacle. Back then, she said: "At the New Yorker and Time and Newsweek you have experienced people who know where to go and what's right and what's wrong. We don't. There's been a traditional dependency on the author."
Talese was also the one who insisted that memoirs should be held to a different standard than an autobiography, but that's another sorry issue.
So what we're left with are publishers unwilling to spend a little extra money and time vetting a book like "The Last Train to Hiroshima" that sheds a different light on a pivotal moment in history. Instead supposed publishing pros offer lame mea culpas for a massive FUBAR like this one.
Holt paid a steeper price than what fact-checkers would have cost because of the hit its reputation took over this embarrassment. It's a stain that won't wash away anytime soon.
But what's even sorrier are excuses like the ones coming from Gottlieb, Macrae and Talese, and why it's only a matter of time before I'll be blogging about the next dubious manuscript to get pulled from circulation.
We're supposed to learn from our mistakes. Too bad the book industry is a little slow on the uptake.

What's Up, Doc: Emrick Has Another Gold Medal Run Calling Olympic Hockey

2010-02-23T16:41:00.005-05:00

And You Don't Have To Believe In Miracles to Get Excited

As the USA's 5-3 stunner Sunday over Canada in Olympic men's hockey continues to sink in, thoughts inevitably wander over to the Miracle on Ice in Lake Placid 30 years ago, and all. Even if it was edited and on tape delay and some of us found out the score too early (thanks, Rene Poussaint), it was still a great moment and one that will define the career of Al Michaels doing the play-by-play.

So, it was pretty classy of him to tell Richard Sandomir in The New York Times how he was hardly wistful about not being behind the mic calling the games in Vancouver.

“Here’s the reality: Mike Emrick might be the best guy to ever call hockey,” he said, referring to NBC’s play-by-play announcer. “I can’t do it one-tenth as well.”

Which tells you all you pretty much need to know about Emrick, who the diminishing number of New York-area hockey fans have been able to enjoy for 20 years in his regular job as the TV voice of the New Jersey Devils.

There have been other stops along the way, but the Devils gave Doc (he has a PhD in broadcasting from Bowling Green) an entree to a much broader canvas on which he paints eloquent word pictures that are at once intelligent, insightful, and in perfect tempo with the pace of the game. He's an exquisite student of hockey, but he's never a show-off. The knowledge is parceled out only when needed. It's always about what's on the ice, not him.

As an example, Sandomir noted that Emrick said following a particuarly frantic period of play: “It’s kind of nice to have it peaceful right now. I hope I’m not yelling too much.”

Not to worry.

More recently, he's been calling Stanley Cup games and the Winter Classic on New Year's Day for NBC, so he's hardly a poorly kept secret. It's not like he only brings his A material for the network. He has no B material.

But viewers who only watch hockey once every four years will notice just how good hockey can be. And Emrick will be a big reason for that, no matter what the final score is.

New Music Channels on DirecTV: Sonic Crap

2010-02-23T13:42:00.004-05:00

DirecTV Dumps Sirius XM To Save Dough and Latches on to Pale Imitator

While it's far from perfect, I have always found much to like on satellite radio, particularly what was put out by XM. Even after it merged with Sirius, there was still plenty to keep me listening for the adult album alternative and singer-songwriter tracks I gravitate to most often.
Given that only one of our cars -- the one I'm usually not driving -- has XM, I usually listened via DirecTV. Spectrum, The Loft, and The Coffeehouse were often on in the house. No more. A couple of weeks ago, DirecTV dumped SiriusXM for something called SonicTap, programmed by an outfit called DMX Music that, among other things, puts together music channels for cable systems.
DirecTV never said why it made the switch, so you can assume money was the overriding issue. It can't be because DMX is delivering a better product when just the opposite is the case. It's what happens when you have a computer program a channel instead of a person. Algorithms may work on Pandora, but DMX shows no signs it's invested in R&D to offer an intelligent music mix.
To wit: Spectrum is now called, stultifyingly enough, Adult Alternative. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
The Loft, which was laden with a very deep playlist and quirky, compelling specialty shows from the likes of David Johansen and Lou Reed, along with New York radio legends Vin Scelsa and Meg Griffin, is now called Singer-Songwriter. Unfortunately, these singer-songwriters are usually heard on adult contemporary stations. Again, no clue.
As for The Coffeehouse, the channel is now called Coffeehouse Rock. But the lunkheads at DirecTV and DMX apparently never heard the channel, which is devoted mostly to acoustic performances and alternative versions of well-known tracks. It was the perfect accompaniment to reading a book chapter before bed. Now it is the aural equivalent of a double espresso rather than the soothing decaf it once was.
So, now I have a good excuse to turn off the TV a little sooner. Time to get reacquainted with the stereo and the CD collection. I'd rather DIY my music choices than DMX them any day.

Killing the Tigers in Order to Save Them

2010-02-13T13:58:00.002-05:00

Fascinating Wall Street Journal Piece Opens Rare Window to Chinese Tiger Farms

Today's Wall Street Journal has an item about a proposal by two economists to legalize sale of tiger parts in China to combat poaching and reduce the rate that the habitat for wild tigers is shrinking.
And these parts would come from farm-bred tigers. That's right, farm-bred, which is legal in China, where 6,000 tigers are bred in captivity. I was initially in a bit of denial when first wondering why there are tiger farms in the first place.
Were that that many zoos out there that needed to restock? Nah. The article by Beijing correspondent Shai Oster notes that some farms exist for research. After all, wild tigers in China have been virtually hunted to extinction. Then there are those that tourists can visit and feed the tigers live cows and chickens.
But it appears they really exist to harvest parts for use in traditional medicines, parts that can sell for up to $70,000 on the black market when taken from one animal. Yes, these sales have been banned since 1993, but Oster reports some farms have freezers filled with hundreds of carcasses in case the ban is lifted.
It's a fascinating story, one that makes a good case for why newspapers need their own foreign reporters and not rely on wire service reporters who are too caught up in the day-to-day work to do too much enterprise reporting.

Casting a Pall

2010-02-13T13:33:00.003-05:00

Death of Luger Nodar Kumaritashvilli Leaves Media at a Loss for Other Words

The papers that came to my door this morning read as follows:

Luger's Death Casts Pall Over Start of the Winter Games--Wall Street Journal

Luge Athlete's Death Casts Pall Over Olympics--New York Times

The death of a Georgian competitor in the luge during training cast a pall over the opening of the Vancouver Winter Olympics.....(opening of refer on A1 of Financial Times)

Pall.

It actually has several definitions. But the apt one here for the horrific death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvilli is "anything that covers, shrouds, or overspreads, esp. with darkness or gloom," according to Dictionary.com.

A pall can also be a cover for a coffin, bier, or tomb. That will come later.

Obviously, the athletes, officials, dignitaries and journalists at the Vancouver Games were shocked and saddened by the crash, which is now being attributed to human error. In other words, Kumaritashvilli didn't have enough experience to handle a challenging curve on a highly technical track while going nearly 90 mph.
But while the tragedy is unmistaken, after watching the opening ceremonies last night -- and no, you didn't need to stay up late to know Gretzky was going to light the flame -- you have to wonder if there was really a pall. It was a deservedly festive affair, understated, dignified and entirely appropriate. Very Canadian indeed.

I didn't sense a pall. It would have been easier as well as more accurate to describe the incident as one that "momentarily tempered" or "muted" the celebration, especially when the Georgian team entered the stadium and, later, when a moment of silence was held for the fallen luger.

And Kumaritashvilli's death doesn't appear to have cast a pall at the luge track either, where today -- aside from a "change in the ice profile -- it's business as usual.

For another interesting take on how papers handled the crash, Charles Apple looks at it from the perspective of a graphics editor, asking whether this really needed to go on A1. The answer he reluctantly comes to, I much less reluctantly come to, is yes.

How Willie Mays Hustled Leo Durocher

2010-02-01T23:25:00.005-05:00

Sure, Durocher Was a Father Figure, but Say, What the Hey, It's Just Money

Before he's going, going, gone, Willie Mays finally decided to cooperate with a biographer. It only took him to age 78 to realize this was a good idea, before more baseball fans than not had heard of him. Borderline blasphemy, I know, but these kids nowadays, no sense of history.
Anywhoo, Bruce Weber's story in yesterday's New York Times had an interesting nugget that will make "Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend" (out next Tuesday) a keeper if there are a lot more stories like the one about his first Giants' manager, Leo Durocher, who Mays regarded as a father figure.
To help keep Mays out of trouble, Durocher would have him room with his 7-year-old son Chris and look after him on the road. Chris told Dad he was eating a lot of soul food and Durocher gave wanted his son to eat steak.

"And I said, 'well give me steak money then.' And Leo would whip out four or five hundred and stick it in my pocket. And we'd go somewhere, and I'd ask Chris, 'you want a steak?' and he'd say 'No, I'll eat what you eat.' I never told Leo."

As anecdotes go, that's a home run. Let's hope there are another 659 like them in the book.

Game Change Cover: Prescient or Pretentious

2010-02-01T23:11:00.002-05:00

We Know The Heilemann-Halperin Blockbuster is Good, But This Good?

My copy of "Game Change" made a surprise arrival tonight after Borders.com told me it was on backorder and I'd have to cool my heels for at least a couple of weeks.
So, before I started to devour the many political morsels contained within, I noticed at the top of the cover it said "#1 New York Times Bestseller."
That's fairly recent news. And even more remarkable given that I opened the book and discovered that it was a first edition.
So, maybe HarperCollins knew something we didn't. Or maybe they were just cocky.
Either way, they were right.

Haiti Quake: Being There for the Big Story Has Its Price

2010-01-15T16:02:00.005-05:00

Post-Katrina Pattern of Personal Reporting the Order of the Day. NPR's Jason Beaubien Offers a Textbook Example

No doubt, when a big story breaks most journalists want to be where the action is, even if they never leave the newsroom. Resources, experience, maybe even a little chutzpah, often determine who hits the road.
So, you have your cadre of reporters who show up in war zones and natural disasters. They want to be there, not because they're paid to, but because that's where the story is, where what their work can be a game-changer, misery and reward worked into one.
Yet, it is the Haiti quake that has been a game-changer for some, who have seen some of the worst that fellow man and Mother Nature can dish out. This one is different.
That was evident yesterday in a report on All Things Considered, when NPR's Jason Beaubien was doing a Q&A with anchor Melissa Block outside a hotel, talking about a badly wounded girl bandaged but otherwise lying untended. As he looked at her and described her condition, Beaubien began to cry.

"She keeps lifiting her head and her lips are shaking .... Sorry, Melissa," he said amid tears.
"That's OK," she quietly replied."
"It's heartbreaking, what is happening here," Beaubien continued, quickly regaining composure. "There are people just in the streets everywhere."

This is no journo-tourist. Before becoming Mexico City bureau chief, Beaubien spent four years in Africa for NPR, reporting from 27 countries, where war, famine, and AIDS were a prominent part of his landscape. He's also been to Haiti before, covering the aftermath of hurricanes.
It was interesting that Beaubien was interviewed by Block, who filed report after gripping report from China, following the earthquake that devastated Sichuan province in 2008. She was a human being first, a reporter second. And that's how you get the story right, not to mention a shower of awards that came her away, along with co-anchor Robert Siegel and their team.

Beaubien's the father of two boys. When he gets home, there are bound to be lots of hugs.

It's hard to say who will need them more.

Evening Newscasts Not Dead Yet

2010-01-12T16:45:00.002-05:00

Still, Don't Expect Metamucil and Depends to Stop Advertising Anytime Soon

From TV Newser comes good news for those who toil in and around the likes of Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, and Brian Williams.
Some 27 million people watched the network newscasts in the first week in January, with ABC/Sawyer putting up a good fight against NBC, though Brian Williams is still top dog by a good margin.
That's not to say those numbers will be as robust throughout the year, especially as the weather gets warmer. But still extremely decent by any measure.
A caveat: only 8 million or so of that number is linked to the 25-54 demo. So, the bulk of the audience is still older boomers and/or their elderly parents. And contrary to advertising myths, they still spend money, and not just on the prescription drugs that account for so many of the ads between 6:30-7.
The tough part will be finding new viewers as the old folks start aging out, something newspapers have failed miserably at. The nets have an advantage in that they don't charge for their product. The larger question remains how many will continue to need it. Short-term, that's not a worry for the news divisions. Twenty-seven million viewers have seen to that.

Now It's Being Called the Muff, Instead

2010-01-12T15:02:00.003-05:00

Dam it, Canadian magazine The Beaver Changing Its Name

Canadian history magazine The Beaver was founded in 1920, back when a beaver was just, well, a beaver.

Ah, how times and dirty minds have changed.

Seems double entendres take their time making their way across the border, hence a belated name change of the magazine to, yawn, Canada's History.

Love this quote from editor Mark Reid:

"Market research showed us that younger Canadians and women were very very unlikely to ever buy a magazine called The Beaver no matter what it's about. For whatever reasons, they are turned off by the name."

It must have been a serious problem as Reid used "very" twice, which I take as the Canadian equivalent of Defcon 4 in the publishing business. The women part I can understand. Younger Canadians? Not so much. If anything they'd just be pissed off when they find out the magazine is about history and not, um, you know, wildlife.

A Delicate Marketing Dance: DNA Testing Goes Mainstream

2009-12-30T14:10:00.002-05:00

So Where Do These Kits Go In the Drug Store, the Condom Aisle?

I stumbled upon an ad the other day for a swab-at-home DNA Paternity Test from a deftly named company called Identigene.

Apparently, it's the only over-the-counter test of its kind. As such, it's a little weird to see a product like this being touted in a magazine let alone on a store shelf. Then again, we don't think twice anymore about ads for condoms, douches or vaginal-itch cream.

Ads like these, for better or worse, have become a fact of life -- literally so, for Identigene.

In case you were wondering, the collection kit goes for $29.95. The test itself is another $119.

Sort of.

As the kit's website points out, there's a difference between this test and a legal test, in other words, one that would be admissible in court. The testing methodology is the same; the only is it involves an independent party who would verify identification and witness the collection. That'll run you another $250.

Interestingly, Identigene is playing to people who want both outcomes. On the home page is a link to the ABC show "Find My Family," a Kleenex-fest where long-lost family members are reunited, kids looking for birth parents, etc. Identigene provides the DNA testing for the show.

Next to that link is one for a New York Times magazine from November about men who find out through DNA testing that they weren't the father of their children after all, and how a negative paternity test isn't necessarily the end of the story.

Either way, Identigene is there to help -- for $149-$399, of course.

New York Post Gives Us The Sizzle and Steak on Plane Bomber

2009-12-29T11:21:00.004-05:00

And the winner of front page of the day is.....

Of course, it's easy to have a laugh now, but.....