New York Times Eating Crow (Sort Of) With Correction of Bird-Brained Story

What Happens When Even The Fact-Checkers Don't Get It Right

Editor & Publisher magazine's head honcho Greg Mitchell has the scoop on a whopper of a correction appearing in this Sunday's Times magazine.

What's discomfiting -- besides that the story, about a supposed vending machine that would allow crows to exchange coins for peanuts, had almost no factual basis -- was that it took the Times nearly four months to fess up to the faux pas.

The excuse: additional reporting, which led to this conclusion: "These details [read: in other words, what would have debunked the story] should have been discovered during the reporting and editing process. Had that happened, the article would not have been published."

Is Eddy Hartenstein the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse?

Or Just a Pragmatist Trying to Keep The Los Angeles Times Breathing?

Don't get me wrong, I find the front-page ad that snaked up the left side of yesterday's Los Angeles Times just as odious as the next guy.

Even the Times seems to be holding its nose in its own story today of the controversy, when it noted: "The Times appears to be the first major U.S. newspaper in modern times to have run a front-page ad in a format that could be mistaken for a news story, said Geneva Overholser, director of the School of Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication."

So, with all the outcry over the ad for the new NBC show "Southland," Times Publisher Eddy Hartenstein regrets the move. Not. "Because of the times that we're in, we have to look at all sorts of different -- and some would say innovative -- new solutions for our advertising clients," Hartenstein chirped, noting the ad garnered a "significant premium" from regular rates.

It's small comfort to know that Times Editor Russ Stanton objected to the ad, but wisely didn't throw himself under the train and quit in protest. As he's seen his staff sliced and diced by buyouts and layoffs, he knows there aren't any jobs out there. Better to fight from the inside than go on the dole as a martyr.

Granted, Hartenstein has the herculean task of trying to right the Times' finances when circulation and ads are like lemmings that have an appointment with the nearest cliff. That means if has to live dangerously, so be it.

I wouldn't put it past Hartenstein to pull a similar stunt again. What may hold him back, though, are the advertisers themselves, who might wind up with more bad press than the extra visibility of a front-page ad is worth. So long to that "significant premium." But then at least you wouldn't have to say so long to integrity.

Cleaning Up Athletes' Quotes: An Obligation or Disservice?

Black Sportswriters Split on How to Handle Grammatical Trainwrecks

I only recently stumbled upon a March 20 column by the Maynard Institute's Richard Prince a fascinating discussion on whether sportswriters should quote verbatim athletes who mangle the English language, or fix their quotes without changing their intent so the players sound coherent.
Prince digests an extensive email dialogue by members of the sports task force of the National Association of Black Journalists.
Mike Freeman of CBSSports.com started the discussion when citing a transcript of a quote from a player from Tennessee-Chattanooga at the start of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, who said: "When we seen that we got UConn, I mean, we was happy to be up there on the board."
Freeman asked whether the transcription service should've cleaned up the quote (no, the service replied) and what can sportswriters do about the profusion of black college athletes who speak like this.
Some posters said quotes should be fixed because black players are subject to a double standard. Said one: "How many times have you seen a White person quoted as saying 'gonna,' but everyone says that. When the guy's Black, you usually see 'gonna.'"
But J.A. Adande of ESPN.com says he sticks to verbatim, because the actual quotes are easily accessible. "If readers can see the discrepancy it's fair of them to ask what other words we've changed in quote."
There are some who not only favor changing quotes but taking it a
step further. Omar Kelly of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel said he actually
counsels athletes on the importance of speaking properly.

"Just so you know," Kelly wrote, "I just helped out an agent friend of mine by instructing three draft prospects on what to say during their team and media interviews. Part of it was encouraging them to use the Kings English. We joked about it a lot, but they got the point."

Just so you know, Omar, however well-intentioned you might be, that's not your job. Nor should you make it yours. At least not while you're writing for the Sun-Sentinel. That's what teams have media-relations staffs for.

Sure, The Boston Globe Can Stop Spinning. Here's How

No Broadsheet Out of Morrissey Street Hard to Fathom, But Not Out of the Question

Let's first work from the assumption that the initial threat by The New York Times Co. to -30- The Boston Globe was a combination of saber- rattling and a cry for help.

There was a time, not too long ago, when I would've dismissed it as a bluff that could be easily ignored in spite of the prodigious amount of red ink spilling from the Globe's balance sheets. But that was before I saw Newhouse playing hardball with the Star-Ledger in New Jersey.

I wrote last year how I was skeptical when Newhouse threatened to close the paper, unless a huge chunk of the newsroom -- 40 percent, as it turned out -- took buyouts and agreed to other concessions. After all, how could Newhouse shutter its flagship paper and leave a gaping hole in coverage of the Garden State? However, I'm now a reluctant believer. At blinding speed, the newspaper biz has gone from bad to worse to extremely crappy, with a forecast of more apocalyptic adjectives to come.

That means the Globe, which lost $50 million last year and could lose $85 million in 2009, while not in a death spiral yet, is in the newspaper I.C.U. with little hope of getting out. Sure, the unions can agree to concessions. Heck, maybe those lifetime job guarantees for veteran employees can be disposed of. Higher newsstand prices just enacted can help. But is all that merely putting off a date with the inevitable?

The New York Observer has a piece on how the Globe could become, in effect, a New England edition of the Times. Conceptually, it sounds ridiculous. But so does the notion that a buyer can be found for the Globe, or that the Times can sustain it indefinitely.

The Times would not have to look far for a precedent, namely its own national edition, which features a couple of pages of New York news. That could be swapped out for Boston-area items with a skeletal staff of 6-10 reporters, maybe a columnist and a couple of editors. Same goes for the sports pages, a couple of whiich could be repurposed for a Boston audience. Much of the rest of the paper could go out as is, with a tweak here or there for New England, e.g. a column of local business briefs.

I'm not saying this is an optimal solution -- of course, it isn't -- but it may be the only way to preserve what little capital the Times Co. has left in the Globe without incurring huge costs for a shutdown (one analyst values the Globe at no more than $20 million, a far cry from the$1.1 billion the Times paid in 1993).

Regardless of the outcome, the Globe that readers will see in 6-12 months will be vastly different from the one they have now. Which is a lot different than the one they used to have. All that change has done nothing to make the Globe a better paper.

But at least it's still a paper.

Coupon Nazis Strike Again at Checkout Counter

A&P, Bed Bath & Beyond Busted for Going Out of Their Way to Piss Off Customers.

Coupon clipping is in my DNA. I'm not cheap, but I love a good deal.

Supermarkets ostensibly want the business of folks like me. The ones that operate where I live double my coupons up to 99 cents. So, a policy I found out about the hard way today at A&P is weird, to say the least, not to mention infuriating.

I printed out from the computer a 55-cent coupon for a half-gallon of Horizon organic milk. The coupon came straight from the company Web site. It's the only way you can get the coupon -- Horizon doesn't advertise in the coupon supplements that come in the Sunday papers.

Yet, when I gave my coupon to the A&P cashier, she wouldn't accept it. Why? Because it was an Internet coupon.

Thinking I got stuck with a lunkhead, I asked for a manager. Sure enough, no e-coupons. "I'm sorry, but it's company policy."

What's behind the policy. "I don't know," she said again apologetically. "It's policy. We've asked them to change it and they won't."

It's not like I'd photocopied an original coupon and brought it in for redemption. This was the coupon. But no matter. Suffice to say, I gave back the milk. A&P lost a sale and ticked off a loyal customer.

I went down the road to Shop-Rite, where they took the coupon without comment. A bonus: it was 50 cents cheaper too.

This was my second coupon caper recently. I had been to Bed Bath & Beyond, which I never enter without a wad of the 20-percent-off coupons that show up in the mail every couple of weeks.

The checkout was uneventful until the cashier told me I could only use five coupons in one transaction. Why? "I don't know."

That didn't sit well, as I had 10 items and coupons for each one. She said, "Well, you could do two separate transactions." And so I did.

But that took more time and made no sense. And it cost Triple-B more money too, as they pay a fee for each credit-card transaction.

For whatever lame rationale the company has for this policy, the only thing it does is anger shoppers, which is exactly the wrong thing to do during a recession. The store wasn't exactly overwhelmed with patrons when I was there. Coupons should be the least of their worries.

If anyone from either company would like to chime in, the space is theirs for the taking.

PCMag.com Barks Up Wrong Tree Singing Praises of Hound.com

Guilt and Scorn from Spam King If You Have Temerity Not To Sign Up

This morning I checked out a list of the supposed Top 20 best job-search sites, courtesy of PCmag.com.

Remember when PC was a fat and happy magazine that came out twice a month? That was then. Now computer and tech print advertising has shriveled like a prune and the magazine is online-only.

Apparently, fact-checking was also a casualty of the cost-cutting.

My attention was caught by mention of a site I had never heard of called Hound.com, which only searches company job boards. "In theory, this cuts out duplicate listings and shows opportunities that are not posted on other job boards."

In theory, because it wasn't in the budget for me to pay the $29.99 a month to actually use the site, which I departed soon after I saw it wasn't free and someone on live chat tried to engage me.

But, it seems, that was not the end of it.

A few minutes later, an elaborate email arrives that says "We have a marketing problem at Hound."

You betcha.

Then the email proceeds to scold me for running away.

You made a mistake. It’s ok. Lots of people leave without ever completing the sign up process. This is par for the course.

Oookay.

About that marketing problem? Seems it's getting people to pay:

You can go to a soup kitchen tonight for a free dinner if you want but the food and the company will probably not be very good.

In other words, you dumb ass who won't pay us, the best things in life aren't free.

But the bad guys in all this are really the other job boards who charge employers for listings, Hound barks, rather than prospective employees. Hound presumably is a way to help companies that wouldn't pony up for a help-wanted ad and only post vacancies on their Web sites.

Can there really be that many stupid enough to do that? I'm not going to be stupid enough to take the "leap of faith" to find out, even with a seven-day free trial. More on that in a bit.

Who's behind Hound? One A. Harrison Barnes, the wizard running many other career sites, especially the ones ending in "Crossing" that are especially prevalent on HotJobs and aggregators that spider thousands of other sites.

It should be no surprise that the Crossings all charge to see their full listings and to apply for the posted jobs. And if the jobs sound familiar, well, that's because they are. Other job sites have complained Barnes is scraping from their free listings, putting them together with other posts and then charging $29.95 to view them all.

“We visit over 100,000 sites a day and take as many jobs as we can find, classify them, and then publish them on our site,” Barnes told the blog Cheezhead. “In this way, what we’re doing is a lot more advanced than Indeed and Simply Hired.”

So, in essence, Hound is another "Crossing," but one devoted to company sites. It searches so you don't have to. Still, it's hard to verify just how many worthwhile listings would otherwise go unearthed if not sniffed out by Hound.

Put me in the "highly dubious" column. I won't pay to let this dog hunt.

Barnes' name sounded familiar, so I checked another email account. Sure enough, there he was, extolling the virtues of LegalAuthority.com, which bills itself as the "largest portal of legal opportunities in the world."

Never mind that I've been continually spammed by LawCrossing and LegalAuthority despite continually emailing them to be unsubscribed and putting the address on my blocked senders list (sometimes it works).

What's galling is that Barnum, er, Barnes, is selling a dangerous bill of goods.

"...I can get you a job. How confident am I that I can get you a legal job? Just about 100% confident. If you can put on a suit and tie and walk into an interview and not act crazy, I am about 100% confident."

Among those he claims to have gotten jobs for:

A drooler,
People with ridiculous lisps,
Two transvestites (that I am aware of),
A guy who looks like Charles Manson on a bad hair day.

Woo-hoo! There's hope for me yet.

Just how does he do it? Magic. I mean, marketing. Pay him a lot of money to market you, and Barnes'll get you a job. Posh, to the thousands of lawyers who've lost their jobs in the recession. They're on the dole because "99% of attorneys do not know how to look for jobs and just keep doing the same stupid things over and over," Barnes bleats.

At least that what he wants you to believe. Some did, and now they're sorry. Among them: an anonymous California lawyer with an unequivocally titled blog called Legal Authority Scam.

There's someone who's crossed Barnes off his Christmas-card list.

I won't put myself in the position to contribute fodder for that blog, which does make for some interesting reading. But even if I didn't open my wallet, based on this missive from a former employee it appears it'll be hard to make Andrew Harrison Barnes truly go away.

Please work, spam filter. Please.

As for PCmag.com, do your homework before you press the send button. Or maybe you can pay Barnes $29.95 a month to do it for you.

Buy A Newspaper and Chill Out

British Study Finds Reading Can Reduce Stress

Now you can help save print journalism and your nerves at the same time.
A study at the University of Sussex found that reading, even for only six minutes at a time, is more effective at reducing stress than listening to music, taking a walk, or having tea.
As local paper The Argus reports: "Psychologists say this is because the human mind has to concentrate on reading and the distraction eases the tensions in muscles and the heart."
OK, so presumably you can read a magazine or book and achieve the same salutary effect. And reading about how the economy, the latest natural disaster or terror attack doesn't exactly do wonders for the nerves.
But that's why there are comics, the sports section and food pages. Even in the most-middling of newspapers, there is usually something to distract you from the rest of the world if only for a little while.
Surely that's worth 50 cents a day.
What's that? Many of those Gannett and McClatchy papers that have decimated their news holes are boosting their newsstand price to 75 cents? Hmmm, maybe a book's not such a bad idea, after all.

Sun-Times Minces No Words About Its Own Bankruptcy

Up Yours, Conrad Black!

The only surprise about the Sun-Times Co. filing for bankruptcy is the fact that it took so long to reach this point.
The company behind Chicago's perennial underdog paper has long been in Chateau Bow-Wow from a fiscal standpoint.
The bromides were left to Chairman and Interim CEO Jeremy Halbreich in a letter to readers. As for the news story about the Chapter 11 filing, the gloves came off in the story by David Roeder:

The company has one significant creditor -- the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has said Sun-Times Media Group owes up to $608 million in back taxes and penalties from past business practices by its former controlling owner, Conrad Black, now imprisoned for theft from corporate coffers.

Kudos for not beating around the bush and making note that your former owner was a crook and big-time fraud.

Sun-Times Media Group shares are traded on the Pink Sheets and closed Monday worth just a nickel each. That means that based on the stock, the entire company is worth about $4 million. As of Nov. 7, the company had assets of $479 million and liabilities of $801 million, according to the bankruptcy filing.

And now those shareholders foolish enough to hold on, even at that price, will be wiped out, as the article notes. More ominously, for employees, Halbreich said he will use bankruptcy to seek "unspecified concessions."
My guess is you don't need a road map to know where Halbreich is heading with that. Time to fasten your seatbelts over at North Orleans St.

A Busy Day, But Many Detroit Newspaper Customers Can't Read All About It

Debut of Three-Day-A-Week Home Delivery for Free Press, News, Not a Good One

Let's say you wanted to scan the Detroit Free Press today over your morning coffee. Or, maybe you were looking forward to sitting down with the Detroit News after getting the kids off to school.

You could, but you would have had to track down a coinbox or run out to a convenience store to find one. Or, you would've had to sit in front of your computer. And maybe that's the point.

Starting today, the Detroit papers will only be delivered to homes on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, when 82 percent of the papers' revenue is generated. The other days: you'll have to leave the house to grab a slimmed-down version of the papers or read it online.

Suffice to say, today was a bad day to end 7-day delivery. First, the Obama administration helps give GM CEO Rick Wagoner the boot. Then, Michigan State University makes it to the Final Four. In other words, the two topics -- autos and sports -- that matter the most in the Detroit area had diminished coverage on days when there were blockbuster developments.

To be sure, both papers acquitted themselves with the coverage of both stories online and have continued to update them as events unfolded. But the Freep and News are still newspapers more than they are Web sites, and you can hardly count on readers to switch from digital to print and back depending on the day.

Indeed, both papers could wind up drawing more readers online, as they get used to that routine. And that's a problem, given that online revenues, despite growing readership, still account for no more than 10 percent of a typical paper's ad revenue.

Printing three days a week could turn into no days a week. That's a story no one in Detroit should ever have to read about online.

Who Wants To Come Out and Play(Boy)?

No Charge For A Peek at Digital Archives; Thanks Hef

Free Playboy!

OK, so we're talking about selections from its digital archive, going back to 1954, when women were women and silicone hadn't yet been invented.

And it's not just the T&A that you get the gawk at from the privacy of your P.C. It's the whole magazine, including the ads, the cartoons, party jokes and, of course, the interviews, which is why you really read the magazine. Right? RIGHT?

As Folio notes, no age verification is required. But maybe most of what's on display is nothing we haven't seen in an R-rated movie or Cinemax on Friday nights. Except Hef always left us something for the imagination.

That was part of the fun as much as it was finding where your father hid his copies.

Michigan Newspapers Going Way of Model T

Reduced-Frequency Contagion Spreads from Detroit

March 30 is D-Day in Detroit for when the Freep and News cut back to delivering to three days a week and printing a slimmed-down edition the other four days for the coinboxes and newsstands.
Better than nothing, I guess.
At least readers will at least have the opportunity to read a paper -- and not just online -- seven days a week.
That's a luxury that won't be afforded to three Michigan papers put out by Newhouse's Advance Publications in Flint, Saginaw and Bay City. They'll cut down to three days a week -- Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. Period.
Of course, there will be "enhanced web offerings" and what not. "Information is consumed differently in the 21st century, and our new direction is focused on that pattern," Flint Journal publisher David Sharp wrote in a letter to readers. "We will no longer be just a print medium. We are evolving into a company that will offer information and advertising through video, digital, direct marketing and print channels."
Translation: The economy's so lousy in eastern Michigan, not enough of you are left to buy the paper, so it costs more to run the presses than we take in most days."
Not that the other five Advance papers in Michigan are immune.
Editor & Publisher reported the Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Jackson and Muskegon papers will consolidate their editorial and production work in Grand Rapids this summer, while the Ann Arbor News will shut down in July after 174 years in business and go online-only.
Meanwhile, employees at other Advance papers are facing the prospects of unpaid furloughs of up to 10 days and no more pension contributions.
The economic stimulus and buying-up of toxic assets may eventually help the Michigan economy. But you may not be able to read about it in the local paper.

Newspaper Job Loss Site Can't Keep Up

The Lousy Numbers Reported by Paper Cuts Are Even Worse

St. Louis Post-Dispatch graphic designer Erica Smith has been providing a valuable if somber public service for the better part of the year chronicling the inexorable contraction of the newspaper industry on her blog Paper Cuts.
Smith has been keeping close track of the job lost at American papers, and this year has identified at least 6,169, with the first quarter not even done.
And by the time you read this, that number will go higher. Today, Smith mentions the 82 layoffs at the Charlotte Observer, but so far has not tallied the 53 who will be leaving McClatchy sister paper the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Not that I'm faulting Smith, far from it. The job cuts -- along with the salary reductions for those who remain -- are simply coming too fast and furious.
Besides, she needs to concentrate more on her job. Fortunately, she still has one to go to. At least for now.

ABC Turns to NPR To Help It Explain Toxic Assets

Keeping It Simple Not That Simple

Yesterday's "Good Morning America" tried to do us a favor by explaining toxic assets in a way most friendly to an audience still shaking off its morning stupor.

Correspondent John Hendren likened them to a couple of bad apples at a fruit stand standing in for a bank. The apples look great on the outside but are all gnarly once you bite into them. Buyers can't tell which apples are bad so they stop buying them altogether. And so on.

A good analogy. And if it's one that sounds like something you'd hear from the "Planet Money" folks at NPR, well, that's probably no accident.

In fact, the sole person interviewed in the GMA piece was NPR's international business and economics correspondent Adam Davidson (above), who's adept at explaining abstruse economic ideas in a gee-whiz, common-sense way.

I don't know whether Davidson has used some variation of the "bad apples" to explain toxic assets, but it wouldn't surprise me.

GMA may have felt it was better to go to someone who could help them do Toxic Assets For Dummies better than they could rather than re-invent the wheel. That makes sense. As for how all those assets got so toxic in the first place, that's a different matter.

The Future for Journalism Schools Is.... (Fill in the Blank)

The Real Answer May Be: It Depends

I was visiting a former boss yesterday who's now a higher-up at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism school in New York, which takes pride in playing the brash upstart to the brahmin of journalism education further uptown -- Columbia.
Inside at the school, just three years old, were students who appeared earnestly devoted to pursuing a career in the news business. Not PR. Not advertising, but news, damn it, in whatever form it may take in the years to come.
They're helped toward that end with some high-profile faculty, including interactive journalism guru Jeff Jarvis, media critic Eric Alterman and Pulitzer winners from Newsday and The New York Times.
Still, most of what happens will be up to them. Hopefully, they'll graduate with a bit more enlightenment than their counterparts in Australia, where a survey found that 90 percent of journalism students don't like reading a newspaper. However, they do like to watch TV and go online. That's fair dinkum, mate.
"They said that newspapers are impractical, they fall apart, you have to buy them," said Alan Knight, the professor who conducted the study. "There are too many long-winded articles, there's no search engines and worst of all they get ink on your fingers."
This from the land of Rupert Murdoch -- for better or worse, one of the most ardent champions of newspapers, even if that makes him a member of an ever-shrinking club. Sigh.
And it looks like they have plenty of company, according to a Pew Research Center study. It found only one-third of people would miss reading their local newspaper if it was no longer published, though 43 percent agreed no paper would hurt "civic life in their community a lot."
Unfortunately, those sentiments may be put to the test in many communities a lot sooner than later.

NPR Audio Meltdown Makes for Difficult Listening

No, We Don't Know. You Know?

NPR is having a slog of it today.

What were only described by "All Things Considered"co-host Robert Siegel as "technical difficulties," have prevented any soundbites or taped reports to be heard.

So, the 5 p.m. ET hourly newscast was a straight read by Jack Speer. Any reports from correspondents were turned into Q&A sessions. That's all well and good, and such segments are normally part of the mix on "ATC" and "Morning Edition.

The problem occurs when it sounds like the correspondent had a taped piece completed, but now that it can't air, has to finesse a live shot -- and isn't quite prepared for that.

The normally solid Chris Arnold (above), who's done yeoman work on the financial crisis, was reporting on another good day on Wall Street. But his Q&A with Siegel, which lasted about 3 1/2 minutes, contained at least 15 instances when Arnold said "you know."

I've long had a problem with "you know." Because you know what? I don't know. That's why I'm listening -- so I will know.

It's one of those crutches that people fall back on when they can't think of anything else to say. Arnold knows how to speak, and we're all entitled to a bad day.

But "you know" is the rhetorical equivalent of nails on a blackboard. It has no place on a network newscast, especially 15 times in one segment.

You know?

San Francisco Chronicle Union Breaks Itself

In Order to Save Paper, Did It Really Have to Give Away the Store?

There's a consensus the San Francisco Chronicle's finances are in the crapper and have been for some time.
Hearst claimed it was losing at least $1 million a week putting out the Bay Area's leading broadsheet and threatened to close or sell the Chronicle if the unions didn't help by coughing up significant concessions.
So, that's what the California Media Workers Guild has done, in a tentative pact announced last night. But in so doing, it basically consigned the careers of some of its longest-tenured members to the dustbin.
The union represents 483 workers, about 150 of them will be pink-slipped. Some of the concessions are to be expected -- reductions in vacation, sick time, maternity leave and increasing the work week from 37.5 hours to 40 hours.
But what I -- as a former shop steward in two unions -- find most troubling is that in spite of all of those givebacks, the Guild agreed to even more draconian cuts that render it all but irrelevant. Despite the company's dire straits, I don't know how you could possibly allow employees to be fired without regard to seniority, as the Guild has done.
Nor can I countenance letting the Chronicle subcontract any and all work, as the Guild has done. That means the Chronicle could effectively set up an agency outside the paper that uses freelance journalists in lieu of those already in the newsroom. That means even more cuts -- again, without regards to seniority.
More likely, the subcontracting will be felt more acutely in advertising and ad production, where employees are also covered by the Guild. Or were. The union won't have any jurisdiction when that work is shipped over to Bangalore or points unknown.
Yes, it's bad by the Bay and not likely to get better anytime soon.
But in union negotiations you give to get. If all the union is getting is some assurances -- but no guarantees -- that the paper will live on and some jobs will be preserved, that could prove to be a hollow victory. The Guild contract expires in June 2010.
Then what do you give back?

CNBC Gets Kid Gloves Treatment From New York Times

Not Asking the Questions About Rick Santelli That Needed Answers

So, Jon Stewart pimp-slaps CNBC last Wednesday after the network canceled an appearance on "The Daily Show" by viral ranter Rick Santelli. Stewart's eight-minute tirade didn't get quite as much attention as Santelli's fulminations about the Obama administration's mortgage plan. But it was a lot funnier and definitely hit its mark.
Can you say ouch?
Along comes The New York Times, which has a longish piece in today's business section about CNBC, which asked "Was last week the worst one in CNBC’s 20-year history — or the best?"
We don't get the answer to that question. Nor is there any real examination of an increasingly troubling trend at CNBC -- where anchors and reporters start spouting their opinions along with the guests. That often results in nothing more than a lot of people yelling at each other rather than any real discourse.
But what was really lacking from the article, as Variety's Brian Lowry has also mentioned -- is a response from CNBC to its skewering by Stewart or White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs getting all nasty on Santelli and Jim Cramer.
Which is important, given that CNBC has not said anything publicly about Santelli dissing Stewart. But the Times was certainly in a position to find out, given they spoke with CNBC prexy Mark Hoffman.
Even if Hoffman said "no comment," which would have been pretty dumb, we should have been told that. It just might be that CNBC can dish it out, but can't take it. If that's indeed the case, the Times wasn't letting on.

Hearst Not Really Sincere About Online Post-Intelligencer

Sure, It May Actually Happen, but Seattle Times Has Nothing to Worry About

Now that Hearst has made it clear that no white knight will step in to take the Seattle Post-Intelligencer off its hands, it's making tentative steps to turn the paper into an online-only operation.
But given the scant details that have leaked out, it's hard to see why Hearst would even bother. According to the P-I, it would employ only about 20 people. That, in and of itself would not be suprising, if you go by the generally accepted model that online only gets about 10 percent of the revenue that the print version generates.
Still, given the skeletal staff, it's hard to see what the value proposition is for readers -- and advertisers -- in an online P-I without the support of a larger newsroom to draw from. It's debatable how much, if anything, it could offer that readers couldn't get from rival the Seattle Times, even if that paper has its own financial woes. But at least it would still have some semblance of a newsroom.
No such luck at the P-I.
In addition, Hearst seems to be making it easy for journalists to walk away from the offer to work at the site, no small feat in this economy.

One metro reporter, Hector Castro ... said the offer increased his health insurance cost, cut his salary by an unspecified amount, offered to match his 401(k) contributions, required him to forgo his P-I severance pay, reduced his vacation accrual to zero and required him to give up overtime.

Of course, there will be enough staffers desperate enough to sign on even with those draconian terms. Less clear is why they would bother without a stronger product to put out. They may find out the hard way that Hearst will reach that same conclusion before long.

N.Y. Times and W.S. Journal Go Shopping For Retail News

But They Come Home With Different Results

So which is it?

A headline in today's New York Times reads "Retail Sales Slide Further, Except at Wal-Mart."

But in The Wall Street Journal it's "Retail Sales Show Signs of Life."

Who's right? Maybe both.

The Times article by Stephanie Rosenbloom leads off:

The nation’s retailers reported sales results for February that were as bleak as those of recent months — yet they were also slightly better than Wall Street was expecting, and a tentative indicator that economic deceleration may be slowing.

So, that's what passes for good news nowadays -- it was bad, just not as bad as we forecast. But still bad. And in case you had any hopes it was going to get good, easy there, cowboy.

Retailing analysts cautioned against reading too much into the February figures, predicting that coming months would continue to be difficult for stores as consumers settled into more austere lifestyles.

Which us pretty much back where we started. As for the Journal:

Americans finally started spending again in February -- largely at discounters such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. -- leading to the first monthly gain in retail-industry sales since September.

The story from Ann Zimmerman dug a little deeper to find:

Shoppers are spending more on groceries, countertop appliances and cookware as they cut back on trips to restaurants, say retailers.

But again, the glass isn't half full for long.

One month doesn't make a trend, and the economic news remains gloomy. Growing joblessness and difficulties in getting consumer credit continue to weigh on the economy. Consumer confidence also continues at record lows.

And yet....

Even so, "it seems that we are starting to see less negative trends," said Bob Drbul, a retail analyst and managing director at Barclays Capital.

"Less negative." I love it. But try spinning that to a store manager in a mall, many of whom are picking up more lint than new business nowadays.

A -30- For The Rocky

Good Night And Good Luck

Even if you never read The Rocky Mountain News, its demise after nearly 150 years should sadden you.

So should the passing of other newspapers -- in cities large and small -- that will inevitably follow down this path in the near future.

You often don't know you'll miss something until it's gone. Rest assured, The Rocky and its beleaguered brethren will be missed.

R.I.P., RMN

Denver To Become a One-Newspaper Town This Weekend, Assuming the Post Can Hang On

Even when you know someone has a terminal illness, you still feel the jolt, the pervasive sadness and the lingering melancholy when the final moment arrives.
Such is likely the case in Denver as the Rocky Mountain News closes up shop with tomorrow's edition after 150 years.
Scripps told us in December this would happen if no viable buyer came forward. It's hard to believe many folks at the Rocky actually expected that to happen as the newspaper business withers. You knew it was not a negotiating tactic. The Rocky was bleeding cash big-time, $16 million alone last year.
So, another city becomes a one-newspaper town. But The Denver Post, which had a joint-operating agreement with the Rocky, is hardly in a position to gloat, hard as Dean Singleton might try. Its finances are flaccid at best, and employees have tentatively agreed to double-digit givebacks in wages and benefits to keep the paper afloat.
Rocky employees will still be on the Scripps payroll through April 28. But that hardly reduces the urgency to find a new job. The only problem is here are few to go around for those who want to remain the news business, except for a lucky few scooped up by the Post.
To all those who battled to the finish, it was a great fight. May the next chapter be as compelling as the one that just ended.

Philadelphia Newspaper Bankruptcy: What Next

Staff Told Not to Worry. That Means It's Time to Worry

I'm not sure if newspaper owners realize that filing for bankruptcy over the weekend means you'll escape attention.
News of Journal Register going Chapter 11 surfaced on Saturday, while Philadelphia Newspapers pulled the bankruptcy trigger late last night.
We're going to find out about it sooner or later (most likely sooner), so running to court over the weekend looks a little churlish if nothing else. It's as if there's something to hide. And the sorry state of the newspaper business is hardly a secret.
PNI CEO Brian Tierney was quick to mention this was done solely so the company could restructure its $390 million debt. The bankers were playing hard ball -- and wisely so -- so Tierney was left with little choice but to file.
Tierney says operations are profitable. Presumably, that means staff wouldn't be asked to help bail out the company any more than they already have with layoffs, buyouts and givebacks. That's comforting to hear, but Tierney and his partners have clearly shown they're in way over their heads, having bought the Philly papers for $562 million in 2006 just when the business model for newspapers was being blown to smithereens.
Whether they stay or a new owner assumes the reins, simply getting the banks to ease up likely won't be enough to keep the beancounters in wolves' clothing from clawing at the newsroom doors.
Restructuring debt ultimately comes at a price. Let's hope it's not too steep for those who remain at the Inquirer and Daily News to pay.

This Isn't The First Time Rick Santelli Has Had To Do Battle

Sometimes It's Been With His Own Colleagues

Last week's rant by CNBC's Rick Santelli on the mortgage bailout by the Obama administration is already the stuff of viral video legend.

And no matter how hard White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs wants to insist that Santelli "doesn't know what he's talking about," Gibbs and anyone who has watched him on CNBC knows he does.

It's not just sounding like a wounded populist that makes him right.

But he's asking questions that many people have conveniently declined to ask because that wouldn't provide a salve for what ails the economy. The Obama administration wants the quick fix that printing trillions of dollars may offer. But Santelli knows better, and that makes him vulnerable to being bullied from the bully pulpit of the White House press room. But having popular opinion on his side doesn't hurt.

Actually, Santelli has been through these battles before, oddly enough, with some of his CNBC buddies. Back when Wall Street was in the process of crashing at the end of September, anchors Maria Bartiromo and Dylan Ratigan were among those essentially labeling anyone who opposed the $700 billion bailout being pushed by the Bush administration as dimmer than the average 15-watt bulb.

Santelli loudly and proudly took them on Sept. 29 when the bailout was defeated in the House, noting that Americans were concerned they were being "led down a primrose path" by Hank Paulson & Co. and didn't want to pay for others' mistakes.

That he didn't change his tune when a new president took office shouldn't be surprising.

Gibbs might be surprised to learn Santelli actually wants President Obama to succeed, but without bankrupting the country first. As Santelli told the Chicago Tribune:

"I want the new administration to win this one. It's a question whether spending our children's money is going to make us win or not, or is it going to take its own time to heal, like a cold going away?"

Sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Whether the right people are listening remains to be seen.

Journal Register Goes Chapter 11, Hoping Nobody Was Looking

UPDATE 2/23: Journal Register Tries to Redefine Chutzpah in Bankruptcy Filing. Check this out.

No Such Luck; Could Be Too Little, Too Late

The real question over Journal Register filing for bankruptcy today is what took so long?
Now comes the waiting for the company's 20 daily papers and 159 non-dailies. It's regrettably too easy to bet against them.
The company also intends to go private, which will spare them the further embarrassment of seeing their stock price listed. Lately, shares have traded for under a penny.
And if you're looking for more information on the company's Web site, good luck. Seems you're not alone.

We Won't Lay You Off, We Just Won't Pay You

Media General Giving Employees Two More Weeks of "Vacation"

Maybe it has already cut its staff to the bone so layoffs are out of the question at its newspapers. Still, Media General says in lieu of more reductions, it'll require employees at its newspapers -- including the Tampa Tribune and Richmond Times-Dispatch -- and TV stations to go on unpaid furlough for 10 days.
In other words, two weeks of pay employees might have otherwise expected to get have gone bye-bye.
Gannett employees, by contrast, suddenly and uncharacteristically have it good. They only had to take a one-week furlough. At least for now.
And in case Media General employees weren't feeling enough pain, their 401k match will leave the building starting April 1. With that perk, though, they have plenty of company. The Bergen Record and New York Daily News announced similar moves in recent days.
As Marshall N. Morton, president and chief executive officer, obfuscated: "Despite aggressive sales initiatives and significant cost reductions already implemented, we need to build in additional expense savings to offset the revenue shortfalls we anticipate."
Fear not. Shareholders will also feel the pain, as MEG is suspending its dividend.
The company says all this will help shave $28 million from what it owes. Chances are few employees expect that'll be nearly enough.

Gannett's Slow Death By a Thousand Cuts

Gannett, like all other newspaper companies, is being withered by the tsunami of falling circulation, fewer advertisers and inexorable reader migrations to the web.
However, unlike some other publishers in trouble, Gannett has taken a perverse pride in putting out papers that were mostly a lot less than what they could have been. However, because the company was reaping healthy, double-digit profit margins from many of its properties, investing in the news product was barely an afterthought.
Now that the profits are rapidly draining, suffer the product even more. Nearly 10 percent of Gannett's newspaper workforce was pink-slipped earlier this year. Those left were forced to take a one-week unpaid furlough, a sorry episode that could very well be repeated.
Rather than outright close a paper, Gannett is instead turning some of theirs into zombies. Posters on Gannett Blog told of big cuts at the Elmira Star-Gazette and Ithaca Journal that essentially eliminated their graphics departments and copy desks. Those functions will now be handled by the Gannett paper in Binghamton.
Elmira and Ithaca will now function essentially as bureaus, with a few reporters and maybe a stray editor or two to watch over them. Last one out, please dim the lights.
Of course, this is has become S.O.P. at Gannett. It already prints the Daily Record in Parsippany, N.J. and the Poughkeepsie Journal at The Journal-News, which is 60 miles away from the other papers. It's not exactly the best commute when the weather's bad and customers are left wondering where their papers is. Now they know.
Given that Gannett's stock price has now gone south of $4 and the company's total market cap has slipped under $1 billion, there will be more panicking by publishers. If you thought your local Gannett paper was thin and provided almost nothing of value, just wait.

Post Editor a Chump For Defending Chimp Cartoon

Col Allan Needs To Work On Being Disingenuous

Nobody expects subtlety when they look at the work of New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas. He enjoys being a bad boy and so, apparently, do his employers. He's offensive as often as he tries to make a point. Sometimes he even does both.
But then there are the moments when Delonas goes beyond the inane and becomes insensitive or worst, as the cartoon seen here, just plain racist.
Even worse than the cartoon itself, however, is Post editor Col Allan attempting to explain it to us dullards.
No, it wasn't simply Delonas conveniently using the shooting of the chimp who attacked a woman in Connecticut to lampoon Barack Obama. Instead:
"The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy."
OOOkay. So, a woman violently mauled by a chimp is ripe for parody, eh? There was no other way to comment on the stimulus, it seems.
It reminds me of a radio station ad campaign where they "apologize for anything (fill in name of shock jock here) said today."
In other words, hey, we just sign the paychecks then get the hell out of the way.
Otherwise, why would you write about us?

Are The Dominoes Starting To Fall at Journal Register?

Eight New York Weeklies Fold Up Shop This Week

In the overall scheme of things, the closing of eight weekly newspapers in upstate New York with a combined circulation of just over 15,000 hardly represents a seismic event in the sorry world of newspaperdom.
But the papers, in the New York exurbs of Putnam and Dutchess counties, are owned by Journal Register, which can hardly be confused with a going concern nowadays, with its stock trading for less than a penny a share.
This comes after Journal Register threatened to shutter last month two dailies and three weeklies in Connecticut, when a white knight named Michael Schroeder rode in to save them.
No such luck across the border, which means residents will have to rely more on Gannett's Poughkeepsie Journal and Journal-News for coverage of their communities. Given all the recent cutbacks at those papers, good luck with that.

New York May Soon Be Starving for Restaurant Critics

N.Y. Observer Really (And Euphemistically) Axes Moira Hodgson, its Longtime Warrior of the Two-Top

The literally peachy New York Observer has decided to mirror the lousy restaurant business in the Big Apple and do away with its dining critic, Moira Hodgson, who'd been contributing reviews to the weekly since 1987.
Seems Hodgson was having difficulty getting the Observer to pick up the tab for her meals, a pricey proposition in the city. And given that her fee included the restaurant bills, that could have meant Hodgson was going deep in the hole.
But what grabbed me was how Observer editor Peter Kaplan described Hodgson's departure to Julia Moskin in The New York Times' Dining Journal blog.
Kaplan said the Observer decided back in December to take a "breather" from Hodgson, although it now appears her words have breathed their last, at least in the Observer.

ESPN Must Be Juiced By Latest A-Roid Get

Trading Scoops With SI.com



When I caught wind that A-Roid (wisely, I might add) fessed up to taking steroids following the Saturday mega-scoop by SI.com, I naturally headed to that Web site, assuming that's where the latest news was.
How naive.
Seems Alex Rodriguez wasn't going to flay himself to the reporters who had outed his propensity for juicy juice back when he was with the Texas Rangers from 2001-03.
Nope, that honor was reserved for ESPN, which got Peter Gammons to Miami pronto, so A-Roid, er, Rod could say he was really, truly, genuinely sorry for being naughty -- even though Major League Baseball had no way to sanction him.
SI.com, at least, cited ESPN in the lead for its latest story, though its original dispatch may be what most fans will remember most, as they remember where they were when they heard about the implosion of the player they thought could be the real home-run king, not that no-goodnik Barry Bonds.
Alas, no.
Now comes the time for everyone to take a dump on A-Rod, justified or not. ESPN's Jayson Stark and Buster Olney have already wasted no time. Tim Kurkjian's surprised A-Rod fessed up so fast.
Sure, it sucks. But before we lump Rodriguez with Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Roger Clemens into the Cooperstown discard file, let's at least remember the kind of numbers he put up before and after he admitted juicing (assuming, of course, those were the only three years he took performance-enhancing drugs). The guy still has prodigious gifts. But will any of that matter even a farthing of the hundreds of millions the Yankees will pay him is very much an open question.
The asterisk is just above the 8 on the keyboard.

NPR Opens Up Elusive Window Into Dark Side of Hasidic World

Stunning Report from Barbara Bradley Hagerty Reveals How Insular Religion Protect Pedophiles In Their Midst

If you're not an Hasidic Jew, chances are you're persona non grata to them, especially if you're a less-observant Jew, as I found out when I was a reporter in a suburban New York county where thousands of them lived.
They live in a world that, in many ways, resembles the shtetls of Eastern Europe from where the sect sprung. They are content to wall themselves off from much of the world to remain ostensibly righteous, and steadfastly devoted to G-d and Torah.
But they remain human beings. And like the general population, some share dark secrets, which are rarely revealed because the communities they live in are so close-knit.
So, a report by NPR's religion reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty on sexual abuse in the Hasidic enclave in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is, to say the least, a revelation.
As disturbing are the allegations by two men who say they suffered abuse, are the attempts by the chief rabbis to handle this matter themselves -- in other words, do whatever they can to sweep this scandal under the rug.
Most Hasidim don't indulge in media such as TV, radio, English-langugage newspapers. So, any hubbub over this report may go unnoticed. Suffice to say, though, it's a safe bet many of them have heard stories or rumors about abuse, or knew someone has been molested. This story will hardly be news.
But for the rest of us, let's hope the secular and Jewish media keep on this story, and perhaps allow for healing to begin.

Great Ad. Now If Monster Can Only Help Us Actually Get a Job....

It wasn't a bang-up, slam-dunk, one-for-the-ages Super Sunday for the ad industry. But there are always a few gems. The gemmiest of them all was the moose -- and its caboose -- for Monster.


Number two on the short hit parade was CareerBuilder. I guess it helps if you're looking for a job to laugh to keep from crying. You may not get any closer to working, but at least it'll dull the pain for 30-60 seconds.

Hey, Russ Stanton! Edit, Don't Spin

Los Angeles Times Editor Wants to Smell Like A Rose While Standing Knee Deep In Crap

On the one hand, you can't fault newspaper editors for wanting to find the half-full glass lined with silver. Presiding over newsrooms where your budget is slashed to bits and all those empty desks feel like they have eyes fixed on you can get can justify hitting the snooze button three or four times.
But can we stop already with the spin? Among the bromides we've had to suffer from editors goes something like "Despite the recent reductions, we still have the largest, most robust news organization in the state."
Yeah, but that doesn't mean the cuts you make won't be any less apparent. Such is the plight facing the beleaguered Los Angeles Times, which last week announced it would cut 300 more positions, including 70 in the newsroom -- a reduction of 11 percent.
That means the Times is left with about half the number of journalists it had in 2000, before it was acquired by Tribune.
So, it's time for some candor from Times editor Russ Stanton, instead of dancing around the truth.
"We are all too familiar with this process, but over the past year in particular," he wrote in a memo to the staff. "We have come through each of these downsizings and continued to produce some of the highest-quality journalism in our industry."
If true -- and the last time I checked the Times is still an eminently decent if much-diminished newspaper -- then that speaks volumes of the desultory state of the media industry.
But it doesn't speak to what the Times was and will never be again, a media titan and cash cow like few other properties in this country. Nowadays, the emperor doesn't necessarily have no clothes, but the seams have started to fray in some embarrassing places.
Stanton should own up to this reality and tell everyone "Look, this is what we can't do anymore. Don't even expect us to try. But given what's left, here's what we're going to focus on and do better than anyone else."
Of course, that's a lot easier said than done when you have a publisher who's effectively knee-capping you. Eddy Hartenstein, not Stanton, was apparently the one who made the decision last week to kill the California section and fold it into the A section, even though as blogger Kevin Roderick points out, a better candidate would have been the desiccated business section.
A safer guess is that Stanton is not saying what he should because he likes having a job. Too bad 300 more Times employees won't be able to say that soon.

Wall Street Journal A-Heds Still Rule Even if Murdoch Hates Them

Best Lead of The Weekend

The Wall Street Journal has long been known as more of an editor's paper than one for writers. But kudos to whomever was responsible for this lead in Saturday's paper on a story from Andrew Higgins and David Gauthier-Villars on a controversial tram line in Jerusalem.

It took perhaps nearly a millennium, but Arabs and Jews who each claim this sacred city as their own have found a cause that unites them: hostility to a streetcar none desire.

It's prose that's economical, with every word well-chosen. And it does what any good article is supposed to do: get us to read more.

American Express Caught Lying To New York Times

So Why Even Try Making Up Excuses? Violating Media Relations 101

Ron Lieber's column in Saturday's New York Times business section dealt with how American Express would cut customers' credit lines if it didn't like their spending habits or where they were using their cards.
That effectively meant Amex had cooked up a blacklist of merchants. Not so, spokeswoman Susan Korchak, one of the company's top flackettes, claimed to Lieber. "The letters were wrong to imply we were looking at certain merchants," she said.
Lieber focused on the plight of one man who had his credit limit chopped. One reason given was that customers who had shopped at stores he had made charges at had stopped paying their bills. What stores? We're not telling, said Amex.
But here's where the story gets really interesting. As Lieber writes:

Now, the company says that there never was such a list. So what about the language in its letters to cardholders, which calls out particular “establishments” where cardholders had shopped, I asked. Well, apparently that was all just a big misunderstanding, despite the number of people who must have been in on drafting the notes in the first place.

Granted, Lieber is paraphrasing when he writes "big misunderstanding." That's probably the term he had to use after Korchak was left out of breath backpedaling from a corporate FUBAR. And being married to a former Amex employee, I can tell you that, if anything, too many people review things before they go out. What was in the letter was what was intended. There are no misunderstandings at American Express.
And there is also no more list.
The company last week decided "spending patterns" would no longer factor into decisions on credit-line reductions.
Fine and dandy. But in the process, Amex gave itself a black eye by denying the existence of something that they and many of their customers knew was there all along.
The first lesson you should learn in P.R. school is never lie to the media -- and, by extension, the public.
Rule number two: see rule number one.

Why A New Volkswagen Ad Bugs Me

What You Really See In Spot for the CC





I haven't been in a Volkswagen CC yet, but the early buzz is good and, at the very least, it looks like a winner. It looks like it wants to be an Audi or mid-level BMW but without the price tag. At least to a point.
That was driven home in a TV spot I caught yesterday, which featured plenty of angles that gave the CC a come-hither look and was tagged with a screen that offered a $299 monthly lease with $2,699 down.
But wait, there's more.
On the bottom of the screen, there was -- in slightly smaller type -- "As shown...." Turns out, the car that had gotten our attention could be had, but only for a lease payment of $519 a month with $2,699 down.
Bit of a spread there, huh?
So, there's nothing deceptive about the ad, in a sense. They tell you everything that needs to be told. But there was that nagging come-on of $299. In theory, you could get a car for that price, but good luck.
That number would be based on the MSRP for the CC Sport, which is $26,790. But the model shown on the CC home page, the VR6 Sport, goes for $38,700. It's rare to see two models of the same car priced so disparately.
I'd be curious as to how many of the cheaper Sports you'd find at your local VW dealer. I'll place a safe wager on not many.
They may have a few in stock only to show how it pales in comparison to the next model up, which stickers at $32,350. After all, you couldn't possibly do without leather seats, rain-sensing wipers and a kick-ass sunroof, for starters.
It seems like a waste that VW would have an entry-level model -- especially when it's not priced like one -- if only for the sake of a teaser rate for a TV spot.
Chances are if you head to the showroom you'd opt for a sportier version of the CC than the Sport. That might be exactly what's intended, but it's a cynical approach to marketing from a company whose success has been built on advertising that's been anything but cynical over the years.

Newspaper Layoff News With Refreshing Bit of Candor

Capital-Gazette in Annapolis Doesn't Sugarcoat Its Problems

When newspapers slash away at their payroll nowadays, it's hardly news. And when it's revealed, the copy is like day-old toast, as if it was dictated by a fraidy-cat lawyer than written by a reporter.
So, it was surprising -- not to mention refreshing -- to see how the Capital-Gazette in Annapolis, Md., reported how 29 percent of its parent company's workforce will soon be no more.
This passage is most atypical of the trove of layoff dispatches:

Bob Gilbert, a 28-year employee who has been The Capital's photo editor for 15 years, said he saw it coming. He said he was told to start looking for another job months ago.
Although he said he didn't appreciate how "clumsy" the way the layoffs were announced, Mr. Gilbert feels more fortunate than some of the other employees who lost their jobs. Mr. Gilbert has some vacation saved, as well as a pension and Social Security benefits.

It's a safe bet you'll never see a passage like that in a Gannett or MediaNews paper. In fact, I haven't.
But all the candor doesn't mask the larger problems underlying the C-G and its brethren, especially a quote from publisher Tom Marquardt who said that revenues for what should be fat December newspapers were "so far off our worst expectations."
There's no way to sugar coat that, and kudos to the Capital-Gazette for not even trying.

Give This Gannett Employee A Hug

The Poster Child For A Company Gone Horribly Wrong

On the must-read Gannett Blog today there is a post that blog moderator Jim Hopkins chose to highlight rather than leave it as a comment.
It comes from an employee at one of Gannett's Michigan papers. That means the anonymous writer not only works for a company that's essentially trying to strangle itself, the writer is also in a state with the nation's highest unemployment rate at 10.6 percent.
So, if the writer wants to ply his trade elsewhere in the state, it's pretty much impossible to do so, especially with just about every newspaper in a hiring freeze or, like Gannett, shedding bodies at a precipitous rate.

"My friends don't get it. They make the argument that I should "just quit if it's so bad." They are, however, as clueless as the leadership.
My family gets it. I see the worry in their faces when I vent about the day. It tears out my insides to see that so I've stopped telling them. They are the constant of joy and happiness in my life and I won't let Gannett touch that."

The post generated quite a response, including another Gannettoid in Michigan, who summed it up, all too correctly.

"Yeah. It's cold in Michigan.
I'm afraid it's going to get a lot colder."

Pin These Words To The Bulletin Board In The Press Room

"A Relationship That's Respectful." What A Concept in the White House
When President Obama made an impromptu visit to the White House press room yesterday, he said he wanted to "try to have a relationship that's respectful and where you guys feel like you're actually getting answers."
Let's put that one in the cautious-optimism file. Given his statements about letting the sun shine in on government operations and err on the side of openness instead of the reflexive secrecy practiced by the Bush administration, you have to like the chances of this happening.
Then again, the way reporters got into a huff over how the White House handled access to Oath: The Sequel, they won't be cutting Robert Gibbs & Co. too much slack, if there's any slack left at all.
Getting to know you, getting to know all about you......

Byron Pitts Hears The Stopwatch Ticking

And That's A Good Thing; "60 Minutes" Continues Assembling Next Generation of Correspondents

I first campaigned back in 2007 for Byron Pitts to get the nod to replace Ed Bradley on "60 Minutes," having been an admirer of his hard work and versatility both as a viewer and a former colleague.

So, I'm pumped up to hear he'll be a contributing correspondent to the show, with a minimum of six pieces a year. Let's hope for more.

"He's the right guy for the right job at the right time," CBS News President Sean McManus told The Daily News.

Damn right.

Bulletproof. Fireproof. Proofread.

Quick, Somebody Call the Hyperbole Police! There's an Emergency at Money Magazine

In the painfully thin February issue of Money magazine (cheap paper stock and just 108 pages), one of the cover refers takes us to a story on "6 Ways to Bulletproof Your Job."
However, when you get to the story, it has been disarmed. Now it's called "Fireproof Your Job."
Whatever they called it, it's regrettably filled with truisms and bromides than real advice. Among them:
"Share client leads or ideas to generate revenue even if that's not part of your responsibilities."
"[M]ake an effort to to associate with the people the boss respect most and who routinely nab the best assignments."
"[Y]ou may be able to save your job by offering to forgo a bonus or take a cut in base salary in exchange for, say, stock options or a temporary cut in hours."

It amounts to advice coming from people who sound like they've never been laid off before. In other words, they have no idea what they're talking about. But that doesn't stop them from being quoted by Money.
It doesn't matter what they say, they're experts, right?
The reality is who stays and who goes when there's a layoff-involuntary separation--reduction in force is invariably a lot more complicated than whether you're a team player or are foolish enough to volunteer to work more and get paid less.
I know this from someone who's been on both sides of the fence when the pink slips have rained down. Being good, hell, even being a superstar means squat if some chairman sitting 3,000 miles away decides he wants profits to increase another 3 percent, and it's decided your team can be cut in half.
There's no such thing as being indispensable anymore, plain and simple.
That's the real story that should have been written.

Unpaid Furloughs at Gannett: Here We Go Again

Fresh Out of Tourniquets, Keeper of the Mediocre-Newspaper Flame Uses Band-Aid To Stop A Gusher

When Gannett finally confirmed today it would impose unpaid one-week furloughs on virtually all employees (yes, including the C-suite), the company made it sound like it was doing them a favor.
After all, Gannett, like all other newspaper companies have been buffeted by stiff economic headwinds that have since gained hurricane strength. Thus sayeth CEO Craig Dubow:

After much consideration, we decided a furlough program would be the fairest and least intrusive way to meet these fiscal challenges in the first quarter, which is traditionally the lightest time of the year. We sincerely hope this minimizes the need for any layoffs going forward.

My question: Exactly when was the last time any one in Gannett senior management was sincere?
And nowadays, hope, like talk, is cheap. Trust me, from someone who's been there, Gannett knows cheap.
The furlough -- Gannett did this as well during the recession in the early 90s -- is but a salve, one that will temporarily ease the sting of a plunging bottom line at Gannett HQ. But no one, not for a nanosecond, should believe this will shelve future RIFs contemplated this year and beyond.
Look no further than Gannett's next big hope, ContentOne, whose primary aim is to attract advertisers to all Gannett platforms, and less about improving content. Much less.
The speculation on Gannett Blog and elsewhere is that what's billed as a new marketing initiative and advertising "solution" will, among other things, result in the demise of local feature sections. All lifestyle content in Gannettland will be essentially the same, by and large.
All of which has everything and nothing to do with the furlough except add insult to injury. You lose a week's pay, and before you know it, you lose your job too.
But at least Gannett is still paying a 20 percent dividend on its sickly stock. If only its employees had enough money to buy some.

Saying The Right Things In Saving Five Connecticut Newspapers

Now Comes The Hard Part

With word that an angel, in the form of Michael Schroeder (left), has come forward to rescue five Connecticut newspapers slated for extinction by Journal Register is the kind of good news few thought they would ever hear.

After all, you're talking about two small dailies, the Bristol Press and Herald of New Britain, both with circulations under 10,000 and falling, along with three small weeklies.

The Bristol Press story trumpets that Schroeder is president of Central Connecticut Communications. What it doesn't tell you, and what the Journal Register press release on the sale does, is that the company was actually formed for the express purpose of buying the papers.

Schroeder is no media mogul. In fact, he was most recently publisher of BostonNOW, a short-lived free daily.

But he does have other newspaper bona fides as a 15-year veteran of Newsday.

No terms were announced. But it's a pretty good bet JR let them go without extracting from Schroeder and his backers too much in the way of cash, in exchange for relieving JR of debt service, severance obligations and the like.

So far, he's saying the right things, like promising more depth and emphasis on local news and sports.

“I’m not saving the papers — the community is going to save the papers. Readers are going to support it by buying the paper and advertisers are going to support it by realizing it is the voice of their community.”

We'll see about that. None of them were apparently doing a very good job of that, and it's far from a slam dunk they'd be willing to change their ways now that there's a new publisher in town.

And last time I checked, "depth and analysis" costs money. Readers will soon be able to see just how deep Schroeder's pockets really are.

At least give him credit for trying. Considering the alternative that awaited these papers on Jan. 16, it's more than you could have hoped for.

When A Radio Station Blows Its Chance to Be Interactive

WNYC Wastes Resources, Doesn't Exploit Potential of Investigation on Paid Drug Trials

There are times when I listen to "Morning Edition" on WNYC when the station will break away from NPR and insert stories done by one of its own reporters.

Sometimes, it's an intrusion and you wonder what you're missing on the network feed. More often, the pieces are solid and offer the kind of depth and enterprise otherwise missing from radio news.

So, when WNYC invests the resources to have one of its reporters do an investigative piece, you'd think they'd treat it a little differently and showcase online more than what could be aired. Think again.

Such was the unfortunate case of a 7-minute piece aired Jan.5 where Fred Mogul (above) reported on the burgeoning industry of paid drug trials. As more people are looking to earn cash in a lousy economy, serving as a guinea pig has increased appeal.

It's a complicated issue, but it's one that Mogul deftly outlined and gave all sides a fair hearing. Listeners were given the impression that more information about the story -- and possibly additional installments -- would be available on WNYC.org. They weren't.

And therein lies a blown opportunity.

Two days after the piece aired, it's only available if you search with the right keywords (good luck finding it if you just type in "Fred Mogul"). When you do find it, it's just the text of the story. No photos or graphics. No links. No sidebars.

That, of course, doesn't make it any different from how other stories are presented on WNYC.org. But that doesn't make it right.

When you have a major story you enterprised, it should be given a broader and more-lasting spotlight on the news home page, rather than lumping it in with everything else. And because it's online, it needs to have some visual appeal and not look like the print equivalent of radio.

The station isn't shy about its online presence. The Web site is constantly mentioned on air. It conducted popular real-time chats during the presidential debates and on election nights. And WNYCers love to Twitter.

So, then, why is the Web site so lame? The station isn't shy about asking us for money. Allocating a few more dollars to making the dot-org version of the station more robust could result in even more donations. And allow WNYC to finance more high-quality investigative reports like this one.

N.Y.Times Front-Page Ad: Turns Out The Sky Didn't Fall, After All

But That Doesn't Mean You Have To Be Happy About It

Perhaps the biggest question about The New York Times putting a display ad on its front page Monday is what took so long?
That doesn't mean anybody -- especially me -- was hungering for an ad at the bottom of the page, for which the Times pocketed an estimated $75,000. But the Times was merely playing catch-up -- albeit grudgingly -- with its newspaper brethren, distinguished and otherwise. Only The Washington Post has been a staunch hold-out, and I suspect that'll change before long given the Post's sorry numbers as of late.
It's all a matter of getting used to something. You don't have to like it, but if it's there long enough, it'll be part of the furniture.
Just like the Times has in the last two years:
---cut its page width
---blown out A2-3 for an unfortunate digest
---reduced the number of sections most days.
---curtailed most daily coverage of the suburbs
---limited coverage of local basketball and hockey teams.

And so on.
But we keep reading. Because even with those regrettable changes, the Times still does what it does better than any other media outlet.
The Times remains the straw that stirs the drink at any network. You know it's the first thing that Robert Thomson or Marcus Brachuli check, even before their own papers.
So, despite the setbacks and the precarious state of the Times' finances, it's a little weird to see someone who should know better, like Michael Hirschorn, commence grave-dancing.
In a piece in The Atlantic, Hirschorn writes it's "certainly plausible" the Times could shut down its print operation this spring.
No, it's not.
Look, no one disputes that the Times, like most other publishers is facing a cash crisis. As Hirschorn writes:
"With more than $1billion in debt already on the books, only $46million in cash reserves as of October, and no clear way to tap into the capital markets (the company’s debt was recently reduced to junk status), the paper’s future doesn’t look good."
But that doesn't mean the Gray Lady will fade to black. Far from it. Even Hirschorn admits the odds of the Times presses not rolling in May are "relatively slim."
You have to know the Sulzbergers will do anything and everything to protect the flagship. There are plenty of ways to do that, including asset sales like the stake in the Boston Red Sox, or trimming fluffy sections and supplements, as Hirschorn advocates.
In the end, the Times as a printed product is too big to fail. That doesn't mean its future doesn't lie online. It probably does, but not now, and probably not in the near future.
It can't, if online generates only 10 percent of the revenues that print does, you can't find a way to get people to pay for content, and short-attention spans of online readers all but precludes in-depth investigations and enterprise reporting.
For now, we just have to hope the Times stays the course in 2009, swallowing hard as the pain from the quarterly earnings releases flow through its veins. Maybe, just maybe, advertisers will start to feel good again next year.
If not, then we can really panic, and start to wonder if the days of finding the Times on our doorstep every morning really are numbered.