For A Change, Hockey Is Again Recognized As A Sport in The New York Times

Three Bylined NHL Articles in One Day Despite No Reports of Pigs Sprouting Wings

As we've documented in the past, The New York Times has, without shame or regret, abandoned most of its hockey coverage. The Rangers are the only team that has a regular beat reporter, although Lynn Zinser rarely goes on the road with the team.

As for the Islanders and Devils, who between them have won seven Stanley Cups over the last 30 years, they mostly exist in two paragraph NHL roundups courtesy of the A.P.

So, it was quite a shock this morning to see last night's Islanders game covered by John Branch instead of the wire. True, it was to herald the Islanders debut of semi-superstar Ryan Smyth (above), acquired Tuesday from the Edmonton Oilers, but still, you'd never take for granted that the Times would show up. Because they might not again.

Today's edition also had a piece from freelancer Ray Glier on the trials and tribulations of the Atlanta Thrashers. Nice to see. However, lest you wonder what such a piece would be doing in a New York paper, then two minutes in the penalty box for you!

Remember, as Times execs always will, Lady Gray is a national paper. Yes, more people read the Times outside the metropolitan area than in. The problem is the sports department seems a little too proud of that fact, which is why coverage of local teams continues to suffer.

Tribune Deal Lets Gannett Extend Its Mediocrity To All Of New York's Northern Suburbs

Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time Victims of Chicagoans Trying To Shed Properties and Free Up Cash
The Washington Post has news of the latest media fire sale, with Tribune selling the Stamford Advocate and its diminutive sister, the Greenwich Time for a relatively paltry $65 million. That's a healthy reflection of the sickly state of newspaperdom when two properties that cover some of the wealthiest towns in the U.S. are unloaded like that.
However, it's nothing new when you look at deals like McClatchy selling the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis last year for $530 million, even though it had paid $1.2 billion just eight years earlier. Yeah, yeah, the company got $160 million in tax benefits. But still.
What will readers in Connecticut get when Gannett takes over. Not a hell of a lot, as subscribers of The Journal-News [a one-time employer of mine in the 1980s] in the neighboring New York counties of Westchester, Rockland and Putnam can attest.
Not that the Advocate or Time are much better thanks to persistent penny-pinching by Tribune. But still.
Gannett has been a persistent underachiever with The Journal-News, consistently fumbling attempts to cover its diverse region in anything but a piecemeal way. Its business coverage -- mirroring the cutbacks at many other papers -- is anemic, as are its feature sections. To its credit, it does do a fine job covering high school and local college sports.
Pro baseball and football teams have beat writers who do go on the road. That's not the case with the Knicks and Rangers, though, who mostly get staff bylines only when they're at Madison Square Garden. Currently, the Connecticut papers get local team coverage from the still-strong sports department at Newsday. Which now means expect greater use of AP copy.
Gannett's all about efficiencies, bottom lines and squeezing enough to hear their reporters and editors squeal like pigs. The journalism comes second. So, good luck Advocate/Time. You've been warned.

Brian Williams Wants Off The Anna-Nicole Spears Train, But One Journo Says Keep Rolling

The St. Petersburg Times' Eric Deggans Begs to Differ on Celebrity Blackout
You can't fault Brian Williams for trying to inject some gravitas into "NBC Nightly News" recently by proclaiming his 22-minute slice of the airwaves would be devoid of the latest odious nuggets about Anna Nicole-Smith's repose and our favorite bald pop tart imploding and re-imploding before TMZ.com staffers could hit the send button.
Yet, Eric Deggans at the St. Petersburg Times cries foul over Williams wanting to cover the actual news of the day. Why?
Because there is real news embedded in these ongoing soap operas. And a media-weary public needs quality journalists like Williams to pull substance out of these tawdry messes.
Again, I ask, why? Or, why Williams?
Maybe the better question is why not the cable newsers, who have done anything and everything to ensure their studios will need a good fumigating after these stories have finally ebbed? Surely in the zeal to report and re-report the same pablum, they could have stepped back, exhaled and mustered up a package putting these messes in context.
No reason for Williams, Couric or Gibson to muddy up their precious moments with these pathetic sagas unless actual news emerges. Imagine that.

New York Times Brings The War Home As It Follows Dustin Kirby On Road to Recovery

Medic Whose Bravado Was Captured in Brilliant Profile By C.J. Chivers Now Tends To His Own Wounds; a Happy Ending Of Sorts
His official title is Petty Officer Third Class, but everyone simply called Dustin Kirby "Doc." He was a medic assigned to the Second Mobile Assault Platoon of Weapons Company, Second Battalion, Eighth Marines, which meant too often he was attending to wounds inflicted by snipers.
Kirby's balance of triage, fragile emotions, outrage and fear were expertly captured in a Nov. 2 article by C.J. Chivers in The New York Times. Sadly, but not tragically, Chivers had to report on Dec. 29 about Kirby being wounded badly by another sniper's bullet.
As is not often the case, though, Chivers had some good news to report yesterday about Kirby's recovery which is gradual, but is expected to be complete after another series of operations this year.
A more uncertain path is being traveled by Marine Lance Cpl. Colin Smith, a friend of Kirby. The first article described how Kirby had attended to Smith on the battlefield after a bullet tore through his skull and destroyed the top frontal lobes of his brain.
Smith is said by his family to be in good spirits, though his progress is uncertain.
Sometimes as a reporter you start out telling a story and you have no idea how it will end. Fortunately, this is one still being written. And with Chivers' brilliant and sensitive reportage, it will be well worth reading.

UPDATE 11:00 A.M./2/26: Glad to see others felt the same way about Chivers, who the American Society of Newspaper Editors awarded its top prize for deadline reporting. The winning entries in all categories show that, despite increasingly daunting odds, there are still plenty of newspaper reporters fighting the good fight in a medium that's diminished but just as indispensable as it ever was.

When Restaurants Attack: More Eateries Want To Fry Critics Who Burned Them With Tepid Reviews

Frank Bruni Gets Some Company As Restaurant Enemy Number One

Much was written this week about restaurant mogul Jeffrey Chodorow taking out a full-page ad to rebut the negative review from New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni of Kobe Club, Chodorow's newest Big Apple eatery.
Reactions ranged from "atta-boy Jeff" to "he's even more insane than we thought."

To be sure, Bruni was not alone in savaging the steakhouse, pricey even by the mind-boggling expense account tabs typical of a New York meat emporium. Adam Platt of New York magazine and the New York Post's Steve Cuozzo also took Kobe Club to the woodshed.

But Chodorow spent at least 80 grand on the ad to go after Bruni, not the other doomsayers. Now, a bad review from Bruni (who savaged Kobe Club with a piddling no-star, Satisfactory rating) isn't necessarily fatal to a restaurant, unlike a thumbs-down from theater critic Ben Brantley. Still, it doesn't help, even if Chodorow threw out the PR playbook and made his displeasure so public.
In the rebuttal, Chodorow didn't help his case by saying Bruni was entitled to his opinion except when he said bad things about his restaurants.

I open restaurants for people, not critics. Kobe Club, with its 2000 samurai swords dangling blade-down, and its over-the-top luxe menu is not for everyone, but do we really need another traditional steakhouse in New York City?

And if he opens restaurants for people, then why does he care so much about the critics?

Still, Chodorow really is a people person. Honest.

I have been too successful and battle-hardened to be affected by this, but my restaurant staff,
who are some of the nicest, most hard-working people I have ever worked with are affected, and they deserve an apology.

So there.

At least Chodorow is confining his vitriol to expensive rebuttals and starting a blog so he can say nice things about restaurants and food. A Philadelphia-area restaurant wants to exact revenge in the courts for a review that took up all of three sentences.
Indeed, a little can say a lot. In this case, it's the steakhouse (another one? Geez!) Chops in Bala Cynwyd hot and bothered by Philadelphia Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan's labeling of a strip steak "miserably tough and fatty." Only thing: the restaurant alleges LaBan had a steak sandwich, not an actual steak.
The restaurant says LaBan apologized on the phone, but refused to make a correction in print. So, it's off to court we go, or at least to the lawyers' offices, which is bound to leave a bad taste in everybody's mouths.

Flying in The Wrong Direction on NPR's Morning Edition

When Your Show's Produced in Washington and L.A, Sometimes The Facts Get Lost
Nancy Solomon had a report on today's "Morning Edition" on how Newark Liberty Airport takes the booby prize for having the most late arriving flights.
Part of the problem is too many planes, too little airspace.
Solomon capped the report by saying that a major new airport is being built on Long Island to help relieve congestion.
Which would be news to the people on Long Island, which has one airport, Islip MacArthur, with jet flights that local officials keep on a very tight leash.
Where Solomon should actually be looking is 50 miles north of Newark and Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, which the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey just bought to relieve the rampant airport madness closer to the city.
And which, it should be noted, is nowhere near Long Island.

Getting To Make Fun Of Your Own Newspaper Without Getting Fired

The Florida Times-Union's Wayne Ezell Shows The Foolishness of the Ad Department's Ways and Performs A Public Service at the Same Time
It's fun being a reader advocate or ombudsman sometimes. You can pretty much say what you want, skewer a few sacred cows and piss off people in the newsroom without fear of a pink slip.
Wayne Ezell at the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville knows that well. Which is how he got to have fun at the expense of the newspaper's ad department, which accepted a full-page ad that had a big stink to it.
The cool part: people inside the newspaper aren't supposed to say "no comment," hang up or curse at the reader advocate. They have to provide answers, even if they wind up being lame like the one offered up by ad director Mark Cohen.
"We cannot check out the creditability [sic] of every advertiser or offer. However, if we have a legitimate complaint from a reader that they were in fact 'scammed, then we will investigate, and if found to be true we will no longer accept further advertising."
But does the T-U check out the veracity of any ad? Might a full-page ad that's advertising the ready availability of "surplus cash" ring a few warning bells? Apparently not, so long as the check clears. Times are tough in the news business, after all. Caveat emptor yada, yada, yada.
Which is why we need more Wayne Ezells helping us sort out the wheat from the chaff, even when his bosses profit handsomely from that chaff.

Update: Portland Press-Herald Asks Groups To Help It Pick Out Good Jews

Publisher Asks: You Mean Other People Have Big Noses and Eat Bagels Too?
While we don't expect the advertising department at the Portland Press-Herald to spontaneously break out singing "Hava Negila," at least the paper's trying to make sure it doesn't offend Jews again, after managing to pull off that feat twice in two weeks.
The newspaper is embarking on diversity training in order to empower its staff with some semblance of common sense (see below story).
All well and good, but the fact that we're having this conversation in 2007 is rather bewildering and incontrovertibly sad.
In other words, a shonda.

The Portland Press-Herald's Problem With Jews

For The Second Time In Two Weeks, An Item Makes It Into The Paper That Definitely Isn't Kosher

First there was an ad for a sermon at a local Baptist church titled "The Only Way To Destroy The Jewish Race." OK, it was actually somehwat complimentary of Jews, but maybe the title was best kept out of the paper.

Then the Portland Press-Herald runs an ad for a local bank with a large headline "The Fee Bandit." Wouldn't you know? The guy in the picture above just happens to look a little too much like a Hasid you'd see walking down the street in Borough Park.

Oops. So, the putz factor apparently runs high at Maine's largest newspaper. Of course, Jews are not exactly, um, abundant Down East. Many people in the state probably haven't seen a Jew since "Seinfeld" went off the air. Nonetheless, a big-time boner, and the Press-Herald concedes as much.

"Publishing these advertisements was an unfortunate mistake and an error in judgment on our part, for which I accept full responsibility," blubbered publisher Charles Cochrane.

Thanks for that, Chuck, though, he was not in a contrite mood when contacted by the Sun-Journal in Lewiston and told them to kush meer in toches (kiss my ass).

"We don't discuss that - you'd need to call the advertiser about that," Cochrane said. "Have a nice day."

Apparently, Cochrane got a little religion in his keppe and changed his mind. But he's got some convincing to to do. Sorry's just not gonna cut it. As a local rabbi told the Sun-Journal: "One time is a mistake. Two times is a policy."

Cochrane may also have a little trouble convincing some of the inbred backwoods types who chimed in on the paper's Web site. Like this one from rocket scientist Clinch up in Poland Springs:

What's next? Will the NAACP complain about ads that have bronzed sun-tanned bodies in them? Will Juan Valdez and his Colombian coffee now be a poster child for sub-standard working conditions in South America? (What? He still has a donkey? Are his "kind" too poor to buy a "John Deere?" Some people need to get a life.

Or a clue.

N.Y. Daily News Quits While It's Behind on Cesar Borja Story

Editorial Asserts Reporting Flawed, But Still Reflective of Big Picture of Woes Confronting Ground Zero First Responders
It's the journalistic equivalent of a hard-on. You own the story. It's your clips that TV reporters drag around when they write their own scripts for their live shots; the ones your competition is forced to match, or simply crib from.
Such was the tragic story of Cesar Borja, the New York cop who died of lung disease as a result of all the dust, asbestos and other crap that lingered in the air after the World Trade Center collapsed.
Borja's death caught the attention of many a politician, including Hillary Clinton and President Bush, who was lobbied by Borja's son Cesar Jr. to provide more federal dollars to help sickened first responders.
Borja's plight was first brought to light in January by the Daily News, who portrayed him as a tireless first responder who worked extended shifts on the pile after the towers collapsed.
It was a great story. Only problem, as The New York Times told us Monday in a 2,800-plus-word dispatch, it didn't quite hold up under closer scrutiny.
Borja was at Ground Zero, but not until December. Which means he didn't rush from a tow pound, where he spent most of his police career, straight to the pile, as the Daily News reported.
End result: A steady diet of crow on offer in the Daily News city room. And the paper, to its credit, owned up to as much in an editorial unusually placed on page 6 today:

We first stated that when the Trade Center collapsed, Borja "rushed to Ground Zero and started working long days there - even volunteering to work extra shifts." The article also asserted that Borja "volunteered to work months of 16-hour shifts in the rubble." Neither statement has been supported by documentary evidence.

The paper had first tried to spin its way out of being caught up in its own mess yesterday with a piece headlined "My dad will always be a hero to me!"
In the article, Borja's son, Cesar Jr. accused the Times of attacking his father's honor, even though the Times had quoted him as saying “I don’t believe my father to be any less heroic than I previously thought, any less valiant than the other papers previously misreported on.”
Today, it put aside its mea culpas, and for good reason.

The only consolation for the News is that the paper that scooped it was not the New York Post. Fear not, the Posties are reveling in what happened. The Murdoch gang used an editorial yesterday titled "Death of a Myth" to slam the News for hyping the Borja story without firm evidence his death was caused by Ground Zero exposure.

[Borja] had smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for years before quitting in the late '90s. And his regular NYPD assignment was at an auto tow pound, where surely he inhaled engine exhaust on each shift.
But the fable fabricated by the Daily News has energized a cash-driven crusade to authenticate a "Ground Zero Syndrome" - requiring billions in taxpayer outlays to palliate.

And to dig the knife in a little sharper, it called the Times story, by Sewell Chan and Al Baker, "genuine public-service reporting."
Which is one thing everybody should be able to agree on.

Saga at the Santa Barbara News-Press Just Keeps Getting Sadder

Not To Mention More Desperate and Pathetic as Editorial Page Editor Impales Himself On His Own Words

So, first we have a self-important millionairess publisher who sticks her nose in the news product to protect her friends and punish her own pet peeves. Top editors are given the boot along with some veteran reporters. Others follow them out the door. Massive community protests ensue along with a federal labor investigation.
End result: The Santa Barbara News-Press is a husk of its former self.
And in a continuing drive to show its ends justifies its means, editorial-page editor and acting publisher Travis Armstrong flailed away at former colleagues in a column Tuesday for taking a principled stand. The nerve.

In betraying the principles of their past craft, they appear to want to shut down the paper's free speech, as well as hurt the livelihoods of 200 News-Press workers and their families.

OK, let's put aside the fact that the ex-staffers have been exercising their free speech in protesting McCaw -- and Armstrong's wanton ways. Funny, don't recall Armstrong cozying up to the First Amendment when the News-Press, under the old regime, posted a short item about his DUI arrest. When he was sentenced, McCaw ordered the story on the court proceeding killed. So much for the First Amendment.
But Armstrong has in the past made no apologies for injecting himself into the newsgathering process, despite that generally being a no-no for those in the executive suite.
Now back to the screed:

Growing up in a Teamsters family, I remember as a young boy listening to men talk over the kitchen table or on the phone about spreading nails or damaging trucks. It was scary stuff.
Those who have brought such an outfit to our peaceful community deserve scorn.
... Where are groups such as the ACLU in battling this governmental interference in free expression?

Oy, vey. Cue the Stradivarius.

Many of the dozens of staffers who've quit or been fired gave the best years of their journalistic lives to the News-Press. None should be actively seeking to kill the paper. After all, Armstrong and McCaw are already doing a bang-up job of that on their own, as Susan Paterno exhaustively chronicled in the American Journalism Review. That article spurred a libel suit by McCaw that Paterno is aggressively defending.
The truth hurts, and as his column shows, Armstrong is in a lot of pain.

Pinch Sulzberger Pulls No Punches About The Future Of The New York Times

Publisher's Rhetoric May Be Just A Lot Of Air -- At Least For Now

Catch someone in an unguarded moment and you might be surprised about what you hear. Such a moment transpired in the rarefied air of Davos, home of the World Economic Forum.

That's where Eytan Avriel of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz cadged a short Q&A with New York Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger (above left), who normally hides behind NYT flacks.

Here's an eyebrow-raiser from that chat:

"I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care, either."

Ouch. Yet Pinch surely doth protest too much. He knows, of course, that the once-Gray Lady will still be responsible for killing millions of trees now and for decades to come.

That doesn't mean, though, that the Times won't increase its already-formidable Web presence. It will, and it has to.

But he's aware that the broadsheet is still the straw that stirs the online version's drink, especially when the act of holding a newspaper in one's hands remains a more-interactive experience than nytimes.com can provide on a daily basis.

Still, you have to think the gang over on West 43rd St. is hardly reassured hearing those words, hyperbolic as they now are. The Internet may be the Times' future, but that would be a future that inevitably begets a smaller staff and fewer resources to actual newsgathering -- both of which have already shrunk to dangerous levels.

Good for the techies, bad for the newsies.

Chances are, though, that's not going to be a story you'll be able to read about in the Times.

Utah Jazz Flacks Try To Put Jerry Sloan's Homphobia Back In The Closet

He's Here, He's Queer, But His Ex-Coach Isn't Getting Used To It

Now that former NBA center John Amaechi has declared he's gay, now comes the parade of homphobia-in-pro sports stories.

But first, embedded in the news articles about Amaechi's homosexuality and new book, were comments from Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan (above right), who had a contentious relationship with Amaechi. In the AP story yesterday Sloan was asked if knowing Amaechi was gay would have mattered. "Oh yeah, it would have probably mattered. I don't know exactly, but I always have peoples' feelings at heart. People do what they want to do. I don't have a problem with that."

Although from that statement it sounds like he does.

Not so coincidentally, Sloan was whistling a different tune as news about Amaechi went from a dull roar to a full-blown production number.

John is 1 of 117 players I have coached in the past 19 seasons, and it has always been my philosophy that my job is to make sure Jazz players perform to the maximum of their abilities on the floor. As far as his personal life is concerned, I wish John the best and have no further comment.

Which might be the best course of action right about now.

NBA players, some of whom did play with Amaechi, are doing their darndest to say the right things. For a sampling, visit Outsports.com, which was first with the Amaechi story.

Finding An End To "Lost"

As We Fasten Our Seatbelts for the Next 16 Weeks, Some Assurances That A Finale Is Really In The Works Before We Start Longing For Laura Palmer To Rise From the Dead

The shark's not jumping yet on "Lost." But if showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof aren't careful, it could be getting antsy real soon.
Now that the show cranks up again Wednesday, it's time to once again wonder about how it's eventually going to end, namely long before we stop caring about polar bears in the South Pacific, mysterious Black Smoke and that darn Hanso Project.
To his credit, Cuse insists there is something over the horizon. But exactly how long they'll take to get there no one knows, he recently told TV writers:

"It's time for us now to find an end point for this show. It's always been discussed that the show would have a beginning, middle and end...[and] once we a lot of the anxiety and a lot of these questions like - 'we're not getting answers' - will go away."

The 16 consecutive episodes to finish out season three may well foretell what will ultimately be Lost's defining moments.
But as Verne Gay notes in Newsday, not even Cuse and Co. are fully clued into their own instincts. That could be a good thing as the show bridges the gap between those who want love triangles and the legions who crave enough obfuscated mythology to keep the blogosphere at full boil.
Either way, as long as we don't see the Fonz on waterskis, "Lost" should be all right.

Jeff Zucker Has The Wright Stuff -- Finally

Leaks From Wags At NBC Universal Make It A Not-So-Super Sunday for Outgoing Peacock Chieftain

Not that it is a surprise that Jeff Zucker (left) will succeed Bob Wright (right, naturally) as the head of NBC Universal, but it's a bit of a pimp slap to Wright that he's being removed as CEO rather than bowing out gracefully, as he had planned to at the end of this year.

The Los Angeles Times confirmed Wright's ouster first on Sunday, outhustling Bill Carter at The New York Times, whose print version merely said a scheduled NBC board meeting tomorrow was "fueling speculation" about a regime change at 30 Rock. Carter matched the story online this morning.

Now Zucker gets to run the whole candy store rather than just the TV department. Wright gets to stay on, for now, as chairman of NBC Universal, while Zucker becomes CEO. But that sound you'll soon hear of one hand clapping will be emanating from Wright's office.

Look for him to be on a veranda swapping GE war stories with Jack Welch before long.

U.S. Media Turning Thumbs Down on Anti-Ahmadinejad Ads

Straddling The Line Between Political Content and Muzzling Jewish Advocates
The party line could go something like this: Sure, we despise Mahmoud Ahmadinejad just like the next guy, but we can't be seen taking sides.
And so it goes at some 40 U.S. media organizations, which the Jerusalem Post reports have rejected banner ads from the World Zionist Organization and Israel-based Jewish Agency, which promotes Jewish emigration to Israel, of warning about the all-too-apparent paralells between Iran's leader and Hitler circa 1938.
The problem: these news sites don't want to be infected with political and advocacy statements for fear of compromising their mission of covering both sides of a story. Fair enough.
Of course, you could argue, as the WZO does, that a campaign against hatred and anti-Semitism hardly qualifies as a political statement. But there you have it.
What remains to be seen, however, is whether this was a blanket rejection or the lack of due diligence by Network Solutions, which attempted to place the ads.
As the article notes, Village Voice publisher Michael Cohen, whose publication -- even in its watered-down form --was unlikely to reject the ad for the simple reason that "sales representatives work based on commission and it is in their interest to sell as much ad space as possible."
Which is why, in this age of shrunken media profits, you'd be surprised anyone would reject the ad at all, unless someone is so hellbent on not alienating that all important fundamentalist, Jew-hating Iranian demographic. You know how they can get.

Replacing Ed Bradley May Be Easier Than CBS Thinks

Of course, there's full agreement that Ed Bradley was a TV icon, and that he will not be so much replaced on "60 Minutes" as much as there will be somebody merely occupying the chair he formerly sat in.
CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts, above, was asked the replacement question on the CBS Public Eye blog and offered this response:

I hope the decision will be made to hire someone who can follow in his footsteps. Someone who is a journalist who has shown range, who has shown compassion, and someone who's real. One of the things that I think that people loved about Ed Bradley – as they do about all the people at "60 Minutes" – is you get a sense that they are real people, they are not people who just showed up on the scene, but they are people who have a body of work, and when they tell you something, because they have covered all the major stories in the course of their careers, that you can believe it.

Pitts is too humble to nominate himself, but CBS could do a lot worse than to hire on this everyman workhorse of a reporter who has quietly distinguished himself be it in Iraq, amid Katrina and a hundred other points in between.
There have been complaints that the CBS News bench is not very deep, and the network would have to look beyond West 57th to fill the ranks at "60 Minutes."
To be sure, CBS may not have as many stars in waiting as the other nets, but they have solid journalists who don't make a spectacle of themselves but can effortlessly pull off a compelling dispatch no matter where they're sent. Pitts falls into that category.
He deserves a shot on Sunday nights.

Making The Best Of Weather Stories

The Bane of Many a Reporter's Existence Also Offers A Chance to Show Your Chops With a New Spin on the Tried and True
When it's an unseasonably warm day or an unexpected cold snap arrives, the smart reporter knows to hide. For that's when the city editor comes a courtin', looking for you to get out to the nearest ice cream shop to see which flavors are moving or calling the local Home Depot to see if people are rushing in to stock up on road salt.
We've all done these stories as reporters because we have to, or we just didn't look busy enough.
But you can derive small satisfactions from these journalistic facts-of-life when you can actually find something different to say. To wit, this dispatch from Sabra Ayres at the Anchorage Daily News, about how fog is keeping lawmakers from their appointed rounds in Juneau:

In Sitka, [Senate Majority Leader Gary] Stevens and the other passengers were unloaded and instructed to wait out a weather break. Several took the opportunity to indulge in the Sitka airport's famously good pies.
"I highly recommend the banana cream pie," Stevens said.
More waiting. More pie slices were brought out. Finally, the passengers were given a choice to take a flight to Ketchikan or wait out their luck in Sitka.
Stevens and his wife headed to Ketchikan, where they were held for three more hours, this time without the pies.

From The Headlines You Don't See Every Day Dept:

From the Honolulu Advertiser Web site:

Man, 49, Reports Gang Rape

Kickin' Ass Doyle McManus May Need To Convince Himself Of His Own Words

Bravado by L.A. Times Washington Bureau Chief May Be Difficult To Pull Off

Among yesterday's comments about Dean Baquet becoming The New York Times' Washington bureau chief and an assistant managing editor, came these saucy words from Doyle McManus (above), D.C. bureau head honcho for Baquet's former employer, The Los Angeles Times.

[T]o quote one of our most incisive newsroom philosophers -- we'll just go out and kick their ass. We've done it before; we can do it again.

Not to take anything away from the L.A. Times and the often-estimable work of its bureau, but judging by the way Tribune keeps cutting -- especially with the increasing unlikelihood of a sale anytime soon -- and it will become increasingly difficult to plant a foot on the gluteus maximus of Baquet & Co.

Right now, the bureau is chock-full of correspondents who have largely been insulated from the worst of the pain inflicted on the editorial staff as the Times' circulation continues to shrink. That could very well change. Hopefully, McManus knows something we don't. In any event. we wish him and his charges luck.

As he knows first-hand, Dean Baquet plays for keeps.

Will Storm Field Clear Up the Weather Picture at WCBS-TV

Now That He's Out In The Cold in the Dead of Winter, There's An Opening At Two of His Old Haunts
Ah, the tangled web that New York TV meteorologists weave. These guys and gals sure know how to move all over the dial, sometimes whether they like it or not.
The latest exhibit is Storm Field, he of the legendary weather pedigree, courtesy of Dr. Frank, but who has made his own mark in New York on channels 2 and 7, before a 10-year stint at WWOR-TV, channel 9. His tenure there came to an abrupt end on Wednesday. As is often the case, it didn't end well. But then again, TV general managers often have to check their souls at the door before they get their corner office.
The Daily News reports Storm's replacement is Audrey Puente, who was herself dumped by WCBS/Ch. 2, and replaced by John Elliott, late of MSNBC, who must have got a boatload of cash to sign onto the ratings trainwreck that is the station's morning news.
Still, Ch. 2 does have one weather slot open on the weekends, which is being filled by Jeff Berardelli and Liz (Ibby) Carothers for now. Might Storm brighten the skies on West 57th? Never know. Then again, Ch. 7 has an opening on weekend mornings.
A lot may depend on station economics, and whether they want to still pony up for a fourth meteorologist. Ch. 2 has shown it's not in the habit of rushing to fill openings. Also, Storm won't exactly be working for AFTRA minimum, though he might shave a few dollars off his asking price if nobody in the market comes calling before long.
Either way, Storm's ouster shows there is no sentiment in the TV news business when there is so much money to be made and lost. That the talking heads we watch often get the ax in the quest for another tenth of a ratings point, is an accepted if lamented fact, one that's a lot more predictable than the weather.

TV Guide Shortens The Year For Its Subscribers

Jeers For Its Lame Explanation For Telling Readers Their 52 Issues Actually Run Out in November
I long ago stopped needing TV Guide for its listings, which have become all but irrelevant in the 500-channel universe. Used to be you could actually get some useful synopses of upcoming shows every week. But digital cable took care of that.
Still, the magazine does have its merits, even if it gets overly gushy about Grey's Anatomy and American Idol (but keep those 24 and Lost tidbits coming!)
Matt Roush's criticism is usually spot-on, and Michael Ausiello's column is alternately tart and reverential, but in a good way. My go-to every week, though, is the Cheers and Jeers column, lauding or lamenting the best and worst on the tube.
So, here's a Jeer, and this one goes straight to TV Guide itself.
It was without hesitation that I renewed my subscription, which expired in January. Yet, when I checked the address label for my new issue, it said I was good only until mid-November in 2008 instead of January.
What gives? The magazine is offering this, to put it charitably, rather incredible explanation: whenever the magazine has more than 24 pages of listings, it considers that a double issue, which may happen up to six times annually. Thus, while your subscription might be for 52 issues, that won't get you to the end of the year.
Dunno which Einstein in the publishing suite thought up that whopper, but apparently if you call TV Guide customer service and start yelling, they'll give you the issues you're really entitled to rather than just the ones the magazine thinks you should get.
Of course, most people don't read their subscription labels so they won't know until it's too late that TV Guide and its ilk are trying to pull a fast one. Get into the habit. As I have found out more than once, you might be surprised as to what you find.

New York Times Shows It's Not Easy Describing Big Easy Population

Adam Nossiter, who generally has been doing bang-up work as The New York Times' main man in New Orleans, has an item in Sunday's paper about the population in the Crescent City that may never be recovered post-Katrina.
But he may have stretched a little too hard to make a point, and in the process, underestimated the potential gravity of the problem.

The low population figure, 191,000, which was reported by the Louisiana Recovery Authority in November last year in the most credible survey to date, was about half the 444,000 count in a Census estimate before Hurricane Katrina.

Actually, it's about 43 percent, not quite about half. Granted, some people will continue to return and edge that number higher. But Nossiter goes to great lengths to point out that many of those caught up in the hurricane disapora are those least able or inclined to start over again in New Orleans. And this was a city that was already losing 1.5 percent of its population a year before Katrina, the article notes.
As the Nagin administration continues to show signs it's without a clue, that exodus is likely to continue unabated, especially as the problems so long endemic to New Orleans, high crime, crappy schools, a crumbling infrastructure and racism that is persistent if not less pernicious than it might have been, continue to fester.
About half? Maybe, but anyone like myself who's been through areas like the Lower Ninth Ward, Lakeview and Gentilly recently, are dubious that will happen anytime soon.

Buzz Bissinger (Maybe) Tells Stephen Smith and John Grogan To Buzz Off

"Friday Night Lights" Scribe -- Or Reasonable Facsimile -- Tells Columnists To Take One For The Team and Take Off
We're doubting it's really him, but someone writing as Buzz Bissinger was one of the many people chiming in with comments on Daniel Rubin's blog at Philly.com, where he threw a sanctimonious pity party for his 71 colleagues at the Philadelphia Inquirer who got pink-slipped (see below posting).
Bissinger, or someone like him, called on star columnists Stephen Smith and John (Marley and Me) Grogan to throw themselves into the funeral pyre to spare two of their less handsomely remunerated colleagues now out on the street.
The real Bissinger, before becoming the celebrated author of "Friday Night Lights," was a Pulitzer Prize winner for the Inky in 1987.
The would-be Bissinger in the blog said Smith doesn't need the Philly dough because he's Mr. Ubiqitous on various ESPN platforms. But he saved most of his venom for the best-selling Grogan:

Grogan has become rich beyond all imagination as a result of Marley. According to Bookscan figures, the hardcover edition of Marley and Me has sold 1.758 million copies. Bookscan only accounts for about two-thirds of all sales since such outlets as Wal-Mart and Costco are excluded. Given that Marley has sold enormously well in these places, it is reasonable to assume that his sales are in the range 2.5 million. Assuming the standard royalty rate of 15 percent, Grogan has profited somewhere around $8.125 million from his hardcover sales, excluding royalties from the new $29.95 gift edition (69,469 sold to date according to Bookscan), excluding paperback profits since the paperback has not come out yet. When all is said and done, Grogan will make well over $10 million on his book, More power to him, but if he has one tenth of the morality he shows off in his insipid columns, he will quietly retire from the Inquirer so someone's job can be saved.

A humongous question mark that one media fatcat would really tell two others of his ilk in public to take a hike. But it's such uncertainty that makes the blogosphere such fun.

Crossing The Divide Between Sanctimony and Survivor's Guilt at the Philadelphia Inquirer

When nearly 70 journalists get booted from the Philadelphia Inquirer, that's cause enough for mourning.
And it's no occasion to pile on with empty sentiment.
And as an Inquirer scribe, Daniel Rubin should know better. In his blog on Philly.com, he properly laments the loss of his colleagues and the diminution of a newspaper that was once great, but now destined to be now and forever an also-ran.
That is, until Rubin gets to the penultimate paragraph of his missive.

I've said to a couple of glum-looking people today that there's part of me that's envious. I know it sounds hollow, coming from someone who has seniority. But this will be saving some people from heartache later, when it's harder to pull up stakes. This is a good time to be looking for other ways to use those peculiar skills they put to work here.

You must be kidding. Here's a guy who has a job, distributing his crocodile tears to dozens of hard-working, talented, decent colleagues who did nothing except get blindsided by three different owners in the course of a year. First, it was Knight-Ridder dismantling its newspaper headline. Then came KR purchaser McClatchy, which promptly put the Inquirer and its sister, the Daily News up for sale. Finally comes millionaire homeboy/flack extraordinaire Brian Tierney, who from the get-go showed he was in way over his head and now wants to balance the books on the heads of those who put out his papers.

So, these reporters and editors who are now exiting for an uncertain future don't need Rubin or anyone else telling them about their peculiar skills. Peculiar skills? What claptrap.
Funny, last time I checked Rubin was not falling on his sword, so who is he to give a pat on the back and tell his colleagues to chin up and start singing "Tomorrow."
I find such sanctimony particularly offensive, having worked at three media outlets where layoffs became a reality. Fortunately, all three times I was spared the ax. But for those shown the door, the last thing they wanted was a pity party. They needed a job, and for the 68 to 71 Inquirer professionals who used to have one and want to stay in the news business, getting one that even comes close to approximating what they did at the Inquirer will be difficult at best.
Empty words like the ones issued by Rubin don't help their cause.

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Columnist Scorned

Dan Le Batard Wastes No Time Pimp-Slapping Nick Saban
Any Miami Dolphins fan who took coach Nick Saban seriously when he said he was not looking for a megabucks deal to be the coach at Alabama pretty much got what he deserved.
Saban gave Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga a thumbs-down. Huizenga wisely thought it better to let Saban out of his contract than have a pouty coach running a team who doesn't want to be there.
The sentiment seeping out of South Florida is one of good riddance. Among those most vehemently hoping the door hits Saban on the way out is Dan Le Batard, who gets today's hustle award for posting his column online today rather than making us wait until tomorrow when this is geezer news.

Oh, a man, even one under contract, is allowed to change his mind and listen to other offers, especially those that double his salary. But what makes Saban's behavior so unctuous recently is that he had the audacity to question the questioners with super-sized arrogance even while lying all along to his players and his boss. Huizenga has given this man everything he has wanted -- given him more than any NFL owner anywhere has given any other coach. He deserves better than this. He deserves better than Saban leaving him to answer the hard questions today.

You could make a case that Le Batard is taking this a little too hard until you see the litany of denials Saban has made about the Alabama job, going back to as recently as Monday, as detailed by the Sun-Sentinel.
Among them, this whopper from Dec. 21:

"I guess I have to say it: I'm not going to be the Alabama coach. I shouldn't even have to comment on this. I think I've said this over and over again. What they do with their position is their business."

Funny how the promise of $36 million changes a guy.

And what do the good folks in Alabama feel about all this? Maybe a little nonplussed for the time being.
The Tuscaloosa News, the Crimson Tide's hometown paper, didn't get up the gumption to update its Web site.
Ditto, the Birmingham News, though they had three articles leading up to this morning's decision.
They could take a lesson from the Crimson White, the University of Alabama's student newspaper, where Saban is the lead item on the home page. The school's sports information department was already distributing canned quotes from the players. Apparently, they're excited. They sure as hell better be.

A President Dies, But Not In The (Early Editions Of) New York Times

True, word of Gerald Ford's death arrived at an inconvenient time -- going on midnight -- for newspapers on the East Coast that had gone to bed with their first editions or were on the verge of getting them ready for the presses.
But breaking news sometimes has a way of pushing back those deadlines. Ford's passing didn't rise to that level for papers like The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, whose editions that arrived on my doorstep this morning failed to note.
At that hour, the front page is locked up for copies that are going beyond the city limits. The exception for late news at that hour is sports, as evidenced by the Times recounting the Jets' win late Christmas night that appeared in Tuesday's papers.
You would think, though, that because the sports section has a late close, the Ford obit could have been stuck there, with a quick refer inserted in a box on A-1 to at least cover you for the early edition, saving the banner head for the late city edition.
But even the Times wasn't quick enough to act, which means you have to read its exhaustive obit online. Which may be what editors intended.
Long gone are the days when you had to rely on the print version to get your news, and the Times and the other 400-pound print gorillas have continuous news desks for that reason. Still, if you automatically assume that people will rely more on their computer instead of the front page for their information, then before long fewer people will feel compelled to read that front page and the rest of the paper, the very engine that's driving the Web sites in the first place. Which, of course, means the print versions need, more than ever, to stay relevant. And the first step is to get the most important news of the day into the paper, even if it means pushing back those crucial deadlines a few minutes.
The death of a president would certainly qualify on that account.

Gerald Ford Dies, Networks Yawn

CBS, NBC, Choose Jay Leno and Stupid Pet Tricks Over Breaking News Of Death Of A President
CBS told viewers about the death of the 38th president, with a crawling headline while "The Late Show" played on. And that was it. No special report. Can't interrupt the network's $30 million man. Don't deprive us of Stupid Pet Tricks, though that dachsund that could put himself in his cage was pretty damn good.
The network supposedly learned its lesson 10 years ago when there was no anchor in the broadcast center on the Saturday night over Labor Day weekend when Princess Diana died in Paris. NBC and ABC, along with CNN, had blanket coverage. CBS affiliates were left to wallow in their local programming.
Belatedly, CBS scrambled to put on a perfunctory special report anchored by Vince DeMentri, a local anchor in New York who had just finished his newscast.
The TV news division had taken the weekend off, and it showed. Ironically, it was CBS Radio -- with correspondents Adam Raphael in London and Elaine Cobbe in Paris -- that was first with the confirmation that Diana was dead.
But that episode led to wholesale changes at CBS, including having a correspondent in the building at all hours in case the network had to go live. So how does the death of a president not give rise to that? The network had an obit ready to go. It could get its consultants and correspondents on the phone and cobble together some information. Bill Plante, Bob Schieffer and Mark Knoller come quickly to mind.
But it didn't. Once again, the decisionmakers at CBS News decided to go on holiday and turn their Blackeberrys off. When you work at a network, you don't wait until morning to report the news. The radio news division certainly didn't, cranking out three updates an hour all night. Their colleagues at TV couldn't muster anything close to that effort.
NBC could at least claim it had an excuse, namely MSNBC. But rapid channel surfing as news of Ford's death broke betrayed no hint that the network interrupted "The Tonight Show" when it could have simply simulcasted MSNBC to alert viewers in all time zones about what happened. But there was no apparent game plan -- no black book to consult when such an emergency occurs. You can't assume people will automatically gravitate to cable when news breaks. Own the story unless told otherwise. "Today" more than made up for the network's lapses last night, but it was way too late in the game.
The cable networks acquitted themselves well as the news broke. MSNBC had Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw and Andrea Mitchell on the phone weighing in. But why couldn't they have done the same on the Peacock?
ABC got lucky, sort of. "Nightline" was on in the East Coast when Ford's death was announced. At least it covered the news in real time, but only to a point. "Jimmy Kimmel Live" went on as scheduled.

No More Schmaltz in South Florida As Greedy Owners Look To Exterminate The Rascal House

Progress, shmagress. Word today from The Miami Herald that the Rascal House, the venerable Jewish deli/comfort food emporium on Collins Avenue, in what is now called Sunny Isles Beach, will soon be no more.

Oy.

Seems the town fathers of Sunny Isles Beach, which hasn't even existed for a decade, have something of an edifice complex, as many of the no-frills motels that used to line its part of the oceanfront have been replaced by fancy condos and high-rises.

A similar fate awaits the Rascal House, (above, photo from Roadfood.com) whose lack of charm is part of its charm. You go for the the copious portions of food, everything from pastrami sandwiches that make the tables sag from their weight to desserts that are a cardiologist's worst nightmare. And those rolls -- small, soft specimens of perfection whose leftovers from the basket the waitress would dutifully bag so you could eat "falayda" -- for later, for the uninitiated.

True, the Jews who would ensure there were lines out the door at the Rascal House almost any time of year are fewer in number, having died off or moved to places like Boca Raton, where the Rascal House made an unsuccessful go of it a few years back. And they weren't replaced by those who now make this part of South Florida home or the perennial vacation spot it used to be for those on a budget.

The last couple of times I went I walked right in without a fuss. Where were the long lines, where you waited according to the size of your party? Something didn't feel right. Still, the restaurant had hung on when its less storied rivals had cooked their last blintz. Now the house that Wolfie Cohen built will soon follow.

Another example of how progress isn't necessarily progressive. Nor will what comes next provide anything that tastes nearly as good as what's been coming out of the Rascal House kitchens since 1954. But tradition will always be trumped by the promise of a well-heeled crowd shelling out millions for their place in the sand.

And speaking about trump, yes, the Donald already has his pawprints in Sunny Isles Beach. That should tell you more than you need to know.

A Lot of Blarney in Kearny: When Bad Things Happen to Good Students

Why Do So Many People Hate Matthew LaClair For Being Right?
Matthew LaClair would prefer to be just another junior at Kearny High School in New Jersey. Unfortunately, his history teacher David Paszkiewicz won't let him.
In a story that's gaining in national traction, especially after yesterday's New York Times piece, LaClair recorded the teacher telling his students that if they didn't accept Jesus they would go to hell. For good measure, he proclaimed there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark, and that there was no scientific basis for evolution. And let's not forget, Paszikewicz intoned, only Christians would be allowed in heaven.
"Basically, what he said is this is the truth," LaClair told Brian Lehrer on WNYC. (Click here for the interview).
The sad part about the Times story was to find out that LaClair has become a pariah for having the temerity to protest when the church-state boundary was repeatedly trampled on by Paszkiewicz, who's a youth church minister outside of school. LaClair has lost friends and even received a death threat.
Paszkiewicz was described by the school's principal as an "excellent" teacher, even though he appears to have a rather fuzzy knowledge of the Constitution. Judge for yourself from these clips.
And judging is what many people in Kearny, a blue-collar, perhaps too-close-knit town about 10 miles from Manhattan, are doing.
The level of hate directed at LaClair and his father Paul, a lawyer now considering suing the school district is startling and scary. Reading the message boards at Kearnyontheweb.com make the town seem more like a 21st-century version of Salem.
Give Paul LaClair a lot of credit for giving as good as he got on the boards, and for shredding Paszkiewicz and the district that tolerates his proselytizing, in a letter to the local paper, The Observer.
For now, school officials are hiding under the "it's a personnel matter" excuse to decline to say what actions they belatedly took against Paszkiewicz, who likely would have continued on his "fire and brimstone" approach to history were it not for LaClair.
But the fact that they dawdled in the face of incontrovertible proof of Paszkiewicz's pedagogical malfeasance, and that so many people have blindly rushed to support him, tells you a lot more than you need to know about Kearny.
The odd part, this whole episode may be the best education Matthew LaClair's ever received in Kearny. Suffice to say, he deserves a lot better.

Knicks-Nuggets Slugfest Inspires Rare Moment of Candor on MSG Network

Mike Breen Tells It Like It Is, Rather Than How James Dolan Wants It To Be
Those who admit nowadays to being fans of the New York Knicks were incensed enough by James Dolan, owner of the Knicks and chairman of Madison Square Garden, when he dumped the peerless Marv Albert as the team's play-by-play announcer in 2004.
Besides providing game calls against which all others are compared to, Albert was unfailingly honest with his audience, sometimes too much so, as far as the Knicks were concerned. Dolan, with his typical cluelessness and ignorance of Knicks traditions, preferred a cheerleader instead.
That's something Albert never was nor will be, which is why he now calls Nets games on YES and other NBA games for TNT.
Those who work Knicks games on the MSG Network nowadays are more given toward spin, sycophancy and utter lack of peripheral vision, as Bob Raissman reminded us in his Daily News column on Sunday. It's a shame given that bootlicking broadcasters are not standard issue in New York, unlike in many other cities.
So, it was refreshing that Albert's play-by-play replacement Mike Breen -- an exception to the above -- not hold back on Saturday night when the Knicks and Nuggets squared off to fight instead of shoot hoops.
“Another dismal evening at Madison Square Garden, and this one turned ugly not only from a basketball standpoint," is one of the Breen quotes chronicled by Richard Sandomir in The New York Times.
Or, how about:
"This is turning into some kind of disaster" or "Just makes you sick to your stomach."
Not exactly a cheerleader, huh? But since Breen grew up idolizing Albert, as many announcers did, you wouldn't expect anything less.

Did Isiah Thomas Want To Break a Neck or Foot? Dueling Quotes In The New York Times

Either Way, Bruce Bowen Won't Be Getting Any Christmas Cards From the Knicks

The underachieving New York Times sports section has kicked into gear with its coverage of the latest incarnation of Saturday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Of course, the Mecca of boxing was not expecting Denver Nuggets superstar Carmelo Anthony and New York Knicks Coach Isiah Thomas to be on the main card.

Lots being written about what Thomas supposedly telling Anthony late in the game "Hey, don't go to the basket" as the Nuggets were finishing up a blowout of the woeful Knicks.

That led to a flagrant foul, 10 players ejected, a sucker punch by Anthony and Thomas at a loss of words trying to explain himself. We should find out later today who will be punished and how badly, but it's instructive to step back in time for another incident in November when Thomas didn't like the aggressive defense being played by Bruce Bowen (left) of the San Antonio Spurs.

"Break his neck," that's what Bowen said he heard, writes Selena Roberts in her column in today's Times.

But Knicks beat writer Howard Beck, in a front-page story on the incident, says "Thomas was also heard shouting to his players to "Break his feet."

Feet, neck, what's a broken body part between friends?

Of course, getting a quote right is far from an exact science, as the media consistently demonstrates.

To wit, Alan Hahn in Newsday says the quote was 'Next time he does that, break his -- foot!', though in a Nov. 14 article, he said Thomas called for Bowen's neck to be snapped in pieces, though I doubt Thomas used an ellipsis.

The Daily News' Frank Isola also said it was the foot, a version echoed by Mike Finger from the San Antonio Express-News.

Confused? You should be. But we are happy to report that Bowen has all limbs and body parts intact, at least for now.

NPR Goes Into the Way-Back Machine for "All Things Considered"

Was a little weird but nonetheless comforting yesterday to hear Noah Adams filling in for Robert Siegel on "All Things Considered" yesterday, given that he had been with the weekday edition of the program from 1982-1987 and 1989-2003, and co-hosted with Siegel and Linda Wertheimer for much of that latter stretch.
Adams has been heard occasionally as of late as a "senior correspondent," which is the same title NPR wanted to give Bob Edwards when the put him out to pasture.
Adams, though, actually files reports -- Edwards quit to go to XM before that could happen -- and is also busy writing books.
Actually, Adams' stint is in keeping with the NPR spirit. Many of its stars keep popping up either co-hosting or filing special reports, including Linda Wertheimer, and the nonpareil Susan Stamberg.

Double Dipping With Anderson Cooper

So, Anderson Cooper had a nice story on "60 Minutes" Sunday when he interviewed a former MP whose life has descended into a surreal kind of hell since being the whistleblower on Abu Ghraib.
The Coop is doing five stories for 60M this year, though it's unclear if his arrangement with CBS gives him free rein to recycle those segments for his own "Anderson Cooper 360" on CNN.
But that's just what he did last night. Yes, CBS did get first dibs on the interview. Nonetheless, have to wonder if they were expecting a rival to get a second crack at the story.
Not exactly giving comfort to the enemy, especially when the correspondent works both sides of the fence.
Still, this might not be the kind of precedent CBS envisioned setting, and one they didn't have to visit when Christiane Amanpour was doing similar duty.

George Riggs Drinks From A Half-Full Cup At The Mercury-News

Forgive the Newspaper Guild, Though, If They Decline A Sip
Hardly a shock that George Riggs, publisher of the San Jose Mercury-News would call the tentative contract he reached with The Newspaper Guild a "good deal for both sides."
While, yes, the number of threatened Guild layoffs was reduced from 69 to 27.51, the upshot is those who are lift will be kicking in serious dollars for health care, losing their pension plan and getting annual 2 percent pay increases.
It's not so much a win-win, as it is a win-save face, which was reflected in the glum assessment by Guild officer Luther Jackson: ``I think we did the best we could in a very tough strategic environment.''
And he's right.
Which is sad.
Assuming ratification, what remains to be seen is the effect on the layoffs on top of the cutbacks already suffered at The Merc, the one-time pig in doo-doo of the newspaper world during the dot-com boom now slashing and burning its way to survival.
There's still a passionate if dispirited bunch of journos there, as evidenced by the Save the Merc Web site. Now we'll see if they'll be allowed to practice great newspapering again, or, as MediaNews, might prefer, fill in the blanks in the spaces where there are no ads.
Those left in the newsroom have to find a way to still care. Same goes for the Merc's readers.

Swallowing Hard At The San Jose Mercury-News

A New Contract Yes, Happiness In The Newsroom, No
The Newspaper Guild at The San Jose Mercury-News reached a deal with owner William "Lean Dean" Singleton.
The best you can say about it is, it could have been worse. Just ask reporters at The San Francisco Chronicle, who agreed to a deal that was just that.
Let's take a look at the more salient details, posted on Romenesko, to see how that once-proud Knight Ridder flagship fared.
--A two-year deal in which the number of Guild layoffs is reduced from 69 to 27.51 (don't ask how they came up with .51) and that the paper has guaranteed there will be no layoffs until at least June 30.
Which means come July 1, all bets are off, except for the one that staff will likely be further trimmed, if circulation and advertising patterns continue as expected. The Guild knows that, so does the Merc. If anything, it gives vulnerable reporters and editors time to look elsewhere before they're tapped on the shoulder.
--A $1,000 signing bonus to ease the pain of now ponying up about 20 percent of the cost of health insurance. That will more than offset the average 2 percent annual pay increases during the contract. Sure, it sucks, but the Merc newsroom is now among the many feeling this pinch.
--Ditto for the frozen pension plan, which will now be replaced by a 401K, with a 50 percent match up to a six-percent employee contribution.
--Victories, if you want to call them that, was the dropping of management's insistence of eliminating the "evergreen clause," which keeps the terms of an expired contract in place while negotiations continue; no 40-hour workweek and no "management rights clause." But those are things that employers throw into the soup during negotiations, with little or no expectation that they become bargaining chips. That's labor relations biz.
Could the Guild have done better? Armchair quarterbacks might say yes, but then again this is a sickly industry that shows no signs of getting better.
The real losers might be the Guild members over at the Philadelphia newspapers, which are still trying to iron out a deal on wages, benefits and pensions after settling on non-economic issues. The union had been threatening a strike but backed off amid signs of progress. But management may be emboldened by what happened at the Merc, the Inquirer's and Daily News' former corporate sibling.
The Guild in Philly may talk a good game, but ultimately they may have no choice but to swallow hard and accept a deal that's not to their liking, just like the reporters at the Merc will likely do.

Brian Tierney Continues To Make The Inky Look Dinky

More Evidence That Philadelphia's Would-Be Media Savior Is Desperately Searching For A Clue
The end of this Wall Street Journal interview with Philadelphia Newspapers major domo Brian Tierney is revealing:

WSJ: You are in the midst of negotiating with some of your unions , and there is concern at the Inquirer about editorial layoffs. Do you think advertisers care about staffing levels and depth of coverage? If you cut back on resources, do you think advertisers will complain or grow more wary?
Mr. Tierney: I haven't met an advertiser out there who thinks ... that the secret to being better is to necessarily have a lot more people doing it.

Further evidence, as if we needed more, that advertisers have any clue about the media they participate in. And, so it seems, newspaper publishers.
True, you could conceivably do more with less, but the Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News have done with a lot less, and it shows. The newsroom continues to shrink along with circulation. Does anybody think about cause and effect? Not Tierney, who tells the Journal he's content to let his papers focus on neighborhood news and high-school lacrosse scores than the big-picture enterprise pieces that won the Inky a rafter full of Pulitzers.
The man who was supposed to be Philadelphia's newspaper savior is instead solely focused on saving money. But there are enough tombstones in the newspaper graveyard to show that being pennywise is always pound-foolish.
The question remains as to whether Tierney will realize that before it's too late.

Why It Sucks To Be Kevin Convey

Sure, It's Great To Be The Editor of A Big-City Paper, But Not When It's The Boston Herald
At least give Boston Herald owner Pat Purcell credit for not calling it quits, at least not yet, in trying to right the listing ship that is his also-ran Beantown tabloid.
Staff cuts, pay freezes, selling off suburban newspapers, Purcell is pulling out all the stops to keep pace with the Globe, even though the gang at Morrissey Street is also reeling from a circulation freefall.
Still, they persevere over at Herald HQ, where Kevin Convey's been elevated from Managing Editor to Editor after Ken Chandler fled back to New York to become a consultant to corporations on how to polish their image in the media.
As more people find newspapers dated, irrelevant, dense or unnecessary in an age of Internet instant gratification, the only red ink will be stanched on the balance sheet will be to stop putting black ink on newsprint.
It may not happen now, maybe not even in five years. But there will be a time when papers like the Boston Herald, i.e. dinosaurs otherwise known as the second paper in a two-paper town, will cease to exist.
The staff of the Philadelphia Daily News should be all but resigned to that reality. Ditto the Chicago Sun-Times. You don't want it to happen, you'll give it your best, but you know it won't be enough in the end. Sad, but inexorably true.
Meantime, enjoy the ride. The Herald, to its credit, is still pumping out news items you won't see in the more staid Globe, like this bitch-slap of Jill Carroll, who apparently segued effortlessly from journalistic hero to uppity primadonna.

Fox Squeezes O.J. Off TV and the Bookshelves

Even Rupert Murdoch Got The Creeps From Hearing Simpson's "Confession"
Judith Regan no longer has to utter her lame mea culpas about interviewing him for a two-part Fox special and paying him $3.5 million to essentially own up to what most people assume he did 12 years ago.
Fox pulled the plug on the special, in the face of a revolt from affiliates, not to mention Bill O'Reilly, and deep-sixed the book, though Regan Books will likely still have to pony up the cash for the advance.
Reportedly, O.J. hasn't seen that money yet, which no doubt cheers the Brown and Goldman estates, who've been dunning Simpson for cash from the civil trial that he's never made an effort to pay.
So the right move has been made.
Now comes the harder questions. Like what was Regan thinking when she green-lit this travesty?
Fox may have been the home of the likes of "When Animals Attack" but didn't Peter Ligouri and the other programming honchos even give pause before they put this show on the schedule? Sure, the network's fall ratings have been in the toilet, but you can't go trolling for Nielsens in the gutter.
It appears the Foxies belatedly got some religion in the last week, as they put on a united front of "no comments" as just about every TV reporter in the land wanted to get their side as story after story was written effectively slapping the network upside the head.
Of course, they'll be chastened. At least until the next sweeps in February. Somehow, Kevin Federline -- "As You've Never Seen Him Before!!!!" could be coming to a Fox station before long. "Kevin -- How I Didn't Do It Or Much Of Anything" should be riveting television.

The Peacock Continues To Shed: New York Edition

NBC News continues to shrink as promised. First, Dateline correspondents Edie Magnus and Rob Stafford got the boot, the highest profile pink-slippees among the layoffs at the network news shows.
Now the axe is visiting local newsrooms at the network's O&O's. Gawker.com and Broadcasting & Cable are reporting that longtime stalwarts at WNBC-TV news, Jane Hanson, Joe Avellar and Dr. Max Gomez have uttered their last on Channel 4.
No sentimentality here. There was nearly a half-century experience at the station between the three of them, with Hanson dating back to 1979.
Imagine a lot anxiety is ruling the roost at WMAQ in Chicago and KNBC in Los Angeles, among other outposts. If you know of any staff excisions, please do tell.
Alas, 'tis the season for these sort of things. If misery loves company, then it's going to be positively smitten over at 30 Rock.

John Tierney's "Polack" Problem

All Of A Sudden It's OK To Hurl Ethnic Slurs On The New York Times Op-Ed Page

The timid church mice that populate The New York Times copy desk are up to their usual no good.
Numerous transgressions have revealed they tread carefully, or not at all, when it comes to the sacred cows at the paper, namely star critics and columnists who are often unchecked regardless if what they write might be inane, obtuse, incoherent, or just plain wrong.
Or borderline bigotry, in the case of John Tierney.
The sort-of conservative columnist used his column Saturday to provide his three cents about Borat.
Not to worry, he laughed in all the right places and he gives appropriate props to Sacha Baron Cohen.
But he couldn’t walk out of the multiplex feeling sorry for the fine people of Kazakhstan, and what all us xenophobes might think of their land.

They’re depicted as rapists and prostitutes, bigots and idiots. I instinctively side with comedians when the antidefamation police come after them, but in this case I sympathize with the Kazakhs angry at becoming the new global Polack joke. The country has enough problems as is.

Gee, thanks, John for being a First Amendment paragon. But since when did it become OK to put ethnic slurs in an Op-Ed column? Why was it so important for Tierney to straddle his bully pulpit and use “Polack” when he just as easily could have used “Polish?”
Readers could have still given Tierney the knowing glance and validation he was so desperately seeking without having to hurt and alienate an entire ethnic group.

This is not a case of the politically correct police paying a visit to West 43rd St. By any measure, Tierney wouldn’t have gotten away – or so we hope – with using other slurs. Swap out “Polack” with “Wop,” “Kraut” or “Mick.” Even the see-no-evil copy editors probably would have flagged those. Maybe Tierney and the Times view “Polack” as sounding more benign, even playful than the others. But it’s not.
Tierney surely knows that, yet he put the insult in there anyway, almost as if he was daring his editors to take it out. Being of the spineless variety, they declined to take the bait.
Shame on them. And Tierney.

"All Things Considered" Lets Listeners Ask The Questions, But Doesn't Provide The Answers

Thursdays is when NPR's "All Things Considered" opens its email inbox to see what comes spilling out from listeners, many of which are not shy in expressing their views.
A good number apparently wrote in criticizing the network's calling of the Ohio governor's race when polls in some area remained open.
One writer wondered why. But hosts Michelle Norris and Melissa Block were only there to read, not to respond.
One good place to turn would have been NPR's ombudsman. Alas, William Marimow lasted in that job all of two weeks -- after previously being NPR's vice president of news -- before decamping Wednesday to take on the role of executive editor/executioner at his beleaguered hometown paper, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
It's a much different newspaper than the one where he one two Pulitzers in 1977 and 1985. The glory days have been replaced by a desperate owner looking to slash and burn through the newsroom to achieve cost savings.
Before long , that ombudsman job is gonna look like one cushy gig. Good luck.

MAXjet Crashes And Burns While Trying To Back Out Of A Bad Story

What Happens When Your PR Person Is The One To Blame For Your Bad PR

This has actually been out in circulation for a while, but I first caught up to it over the weekend in reading the October issue of Business Traveler magazine and haven't seen anything else on this dustup. It's a doozy and definitely worth your attention.

One reason a magazine like Business Traveler exists is to give its presumably well-heeled readership a glance at what life is like at the front of the plane before they plunk down some serious coin for a seat, or convince their employers to do so.
In each issue the magazine reviews the service on several long-haul itineraries. Its reviewers get to deal with the jet lag so you don't have to.
The reviews offer an opportunity for airlines to get some seriously good press in a publication that reaches a critical mass of potential customers. Or not.
Pity MAXjet, one of the airlines offering an all-business-class service between JFK and London for less than what the major airlines charge.
Nice concept, bad execution, according to Adam Rodriguez's account. Among his grievances was being plagued by flight attendants who first ignored him or were downright surly, especially the head purser on the London-JFK run.

When I displayed the temerity to request a double Bloody Mary, she turned me down flat. I pointed out -- respectfully enough, I thought -- that I typically ordered the same cocktail in other airlines' business-class cabines ... "I don't give a shit," she explained. "I'm quitting next week."

Later, Rodriguez asked this genius for a new digital entertainment player, which all passengers get but which Rodriguez and other passengers found continually malfunctioned.

"Honey, if you don't like it, take a nap," Janet shouted at me as she ordered a colleague to confiscate my unfinished tray of food, while she whisked away my water bottle and my entertainment system. She added that if I objected, she would have security meet me at arrival and detain me for hours."

Rodriguez managed to avoid the shackles after getting an apology from the captain on that flight from hell for Janet's behavior and gave him a business card with the CEO's email address.
Soon after, he was contacted by Lori Tucker, MAXjet's spokeswoman and later received an email apology from the airline's CEO Gary Rogliano.

Judging by the portion printed in the magazine, Rogliano was sufficiently obsequious and contrite. But here's where it really gets good.

Rodriguez wanted to follow up with Rogliano after getting the email. But Rogliano made the fatal mistake of shunting Rodriguez over to Tucker, an experienced PR pro out of Dallas who apparently took leave of her senses and proved herself in need of a remedial course or three in media relations.

First, Tucker tried to dissuade Rodriguez from running his review by offering free MAXjet tickets to the magazine's staff. Rodriguez demurred. That put Tucker into desperation mode, as Rodriguez recounted.

She said that she had been directed to do "whatever it took" to keep this story out of the magazine, and noted that MAXjet had received other bad reviews that she felt were unfair.
I subsequently offered to give MAXjet an advance draft of our article so that it could respond in print. Ms. Tucker replied she was only interested in keeping my unfavorable review out of the magazine ... Ms. Tucker actually threatend to accuse our group of being drunk or on drugs during our flights, and warned ominously that someone would be "looking into our background" to "see who we were."

Oooooooo!!

Kudos to Rodriguez for not caving in, especially because most of the magazine's advertising is from airlines.
A dunce cap to Tucker for attempted bribery. That she even attempted such a maneuver is likely evidence she's been able in the past to wine, dine and comp travel journalists, who collectively have never put ethics high on their to-do lists. That Rodriguez refused to take that bait must have sent her running for the Advil.
As for Rogliano, he doesn't seem too hot and bothered by this episode. A look at the latest MAXjet press releases show they've emanated from Tucker & Associates, although the media contact is not Tucker.
Which might be the best move MAXjet has made in a while.

Dean Baquet Walks The Plank

The Other Shoe Drops At The Los Angeles Times; Will He Put Down Martyr As The Latest Entry On His Resume?
The Tribune Company, to no one's surprise, refused to blink.
The beancounters in Chicago decided to turn L.A. Times Executive EditorDean Baquet into a hero-martyr by showing him the door.
As usual, great timing on Election Day.
Apparently populism has no place in the newsroom, especially when the man at the barricades is senior management.
Clearly, given Baquet's open and rather vocal defiance of cuts demanded by Tribune, it was not a question of if but when he'd be deposed.
Too bad.
Of course, there could be Baquet II if a local billionaire like David Geffen steps up to buy the Times even though Tribune has said it's not for sale.
As for who's left? Well, publisher David Hiller is promising no layoffs -- at least not this year. Hardly reassuring, and a fate that what is still one of the nation's best newspapers doesn't come close to deserving.

I Can't Sleep, I'm A N.Y. Times Sportswriter!

Clifton Brown Gets Some Serious Frequent-Flier Mileage To Make Up For A Lack of ZZZs
The front page of today's New York Times sports section has a dispatch from Clifton Brown on last night's Colts-Patriots game played in Foxboro, Mass.
All well and good. Then you go to the bottom of D-5 for a second-day story about Saturday night's Floyd Mayweather-Carlos Baldomir bout in Las Vegas. It was also written yesterday by Brown.
Which means he finished the piece early Sunday morning after pounding out the main story earlier for the late editions, hopefully got a few hours of sleep, then bopped over to McCarran Airport for the first flight out to Boston in time to get to Gillette Stadium for the football game, which the Colts won 27-20.
And you thought being a sportswriter was glamorous. Buy that man a double espresso pronto.

Going Beyond John Kerry To See The Real War

N.Y. Times Correspondent C.J. Chivers Not Only Provides Gripping Slice Of Life On The Front, But Shows Why Overseas Reporting Still Matters
C.J. Chivers has proven to be one of the more gifted foreign correspondents for The New York Times, one who often gets out in the field and comes back with intriguing portraits that desk jockeys more comfy with press releases and official sources never get to see.
The latest example today for the Moscow-based Chivers was his travels with a Navy medic operating just outside of Falluja. In Petty Officer Third Class Dustin Kirby, Chivers hit pay dirt.

In one course, an advanced trauma treatment program he had taken before deploying, he said, the instructors gave each corpsman an anesthetized pig.
“The idea is to work with live tissue,” he said. “You get a pig and you keep it alive. And every time I did something to help him, they would wound him again. So you see what shock does, and what happens when more wounds are received by a wounded creature.”
“My pig?” he said. “They shot him twice in the face with a 9-millimeter pistol, and then six times with an AK-47 and then twice with a 12-gauge shotgun. And then he was set on fire.”
“I kept him alive for 15 hours,” he said. “That was my pig.”
“That was my pig,” he said.

You don't get that from a briefing inside the Green Zone.
And you feel safe concluding there are a lot of others like Kirby out there. The Republicans know it. John Kerry knows it. Which is why the firestorm he ignited by flubbing a word in a bad joke needs to go away and fast. In its own way, the Times, by putting this story above the fold on the front page, reminded everyone that sniping in Washington is always trumped by snipers in Anbar Province.

To be sure, the Times knows what it has in Chivers, a one-time Marine recruiter who came to the Times from the Providnece Journal-Bulletin. His reporting from Afghanistan helped the paper secure its 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its 9/11 follow-ups.
If you want to see what Chivers can do outside a war zone, check out his trip deep into Kazakhstan in early winter to report on the importance of the horse and how the locals use every part of it for food and sustenance, just like they have done for thousands of years.
That story moved nearly a year ago and left a deep impression for both its detail and effortless prose. Today's dispatch will do the same.