Reading Between The Lines of Confessions of Alleged McGreevey Boy Toy

You'd Think Dina Matos McGreevey Would Lay Low While Teddy Pedersen Gets His 15 Minutes. But No.

Now that Eliot Spitzer's been safely tucked away to ignominious oblivion, those of us in the metro NY area can re-fix our gaze on the battling McGreeveys. That would be Jim, the former New Jersey governor and would-be gay icon, and his supposedly oblivious soon-to-be-ex Dina Matos McGreevey.

The two are duking it out in divorce court and civil court, over everything from custody of their daughter, to punitive damages for being cheated out of perks she anticipated getting her mitts on before McGreevey prematurely bade the governor's mansion farewell.

Matos McGreevey has portrayed herself as a victim, who said she had no inkling her hubby was playing for the other team. Which has apparently cheesed off a former McGreevey aide, who says that's a crock because he had a lot of three-way sex with both of them.

Teddy Pedersen gave interviews to The New York Post (who dubbed him a "three-way sex stud") and the Star-Ledger, both of which are worth reading because each one fills in blanks from the other's stories.

Pedersen told the Post he spent many an evening with the McGreeveys before they were married that started with dinner and culminated in a "hard-core consensual sex orgy" that Pedersen says shows she was a "willing participant" rather than a "victim."

In fact, Pedersen implied his presence was welcomed by Dina "to get Jim's motor running," so she could fulfill her ambitions to become a governor's wife, although it was Matos McGreevey who says she was duped by McGreevey so he could ride a beard all the way to Trenton.

The Post said Pedersen "lives with his girlfriend of several years," but uncharacteristically never directly addresses whether Pedersen and the gov got it on, though he said McGreevey liked watching him do the mattress mambo with Dina.

The Star-Ledger was more direct, making no mention of a girlfriend. "Pedersen did not say if he was gay or bisexual and only described having contact with Matos McGreevey during the trysts. He also said he never knew for sure if McGreevey was gay. "I had heard the rumors in circles outside of work," he said. "In hindsight, there might have been light interest (in me), but it didn't seem like he was gay."

So is Pedersen just looking for a quick payday and an appearance on TMZ? Actually, he was subpoenaed by Dina for the divorce trial, although she probably didn't calculate he'd blab about that.

Probably the best response in this situation is to clam up, especially before a court session. However, Dina also has a book to sell, a book that could quickly become fodder for the fireplace if it's proved she willingly lived a lie. Which forces her to go on offense and tell the A.P. that Pedersen's claims are "completely false."

No One Immune From MediaNews Carnage in California

Star Sports Columnist Urged (In a Somewhat Nice Way) Not To Let The Door Hit Him On The Way Out

It's been nearly a week since I printed something negative about Dean Singleton or MediaNews, though I'm sorry this post from former San Bernadino Sun sports editor and columnist Paul Oberjuerge has to fill the void.

Oberjuerge gives an impassioned and heartbreaking rendition of his separation from the paper, where he had become an icon among journalists in the Inland Empire. Of course, that doesn't matter in Singletonland. Never has.

What's as striking about Oberjuerge's dispatch are the dozens of comments, many from former colleagues, including more than a few who regard Oberjuerge as a major influence who mentored them when no one else would.

Wrote Nate Ryan:

No one has had a bigger influence on my career — and in several ways, my life — than you. You’ve been a professional role model for almost 15 years, and I’m having a difficult time reconciling how something so stomach-turning can happen in a profession that I’ve loved so dearly for so long (and mostly because of all those nights at 399 North D Street).

Surely, someone who had that kind of impact was worth more than six weeks of severance and a check for his unused vacation time after 32 years of service.

Of course the answer is no. This is MediaNews we're talking about, after all.

Let's hope, despite the desultory newspaper climate, we can soon talk about the new job Paul Oberjuerge is starting.

Sirius Gets In Bed With Eliot Spitzer

Client 9 Channel To Spend The Weekend With A Penetrating, Probing Look at Soon-To-Be-Ex Gov With Rogue's Gallery Including Judith Regan, Bill Bennett

It helps to be a satellite radio company and have a few channels lying around.
Sirius will open up a channel this weekend and call it Client 9 Radio to thoroughly dissect, roast and drink the blood of the carcass that was Eliot Spitzer.
Because let's face it, you just can't enough of The Spitz.
That's why right-wing talker Andrew Wilkow will break bread with James Tedisco, the powerless Republican leader in the New York state Assembly, who grabbed more face time on TV than he's ever had by being the first to call for Spitzer to resign or be impeached.
That's why lefty-turned-righty Ron Silver will explore the cuckolded prominent Jew angle with Alan Dershowitz. We made up the cuckolded Jew part, but, hey, you never know.
And that's why, most importantly, the morning show on Playboy Radio will hear the deep thoughts of high-priced hookers about the scandal. Yes, penetrating thoughts indeed.
With programming like this, betcha can't wait for that merger with XM to go through, huh?

Spitzer's Downward Spiral Helps Him Go Viral

Like a Virgin? Not.

How long before Spitzer makes his way onto Shoebox Greeting cards? Cayman Island bank ads? The Pink Pussycat Boutique?

The Future May Be Online for Maine Newspapers, But Only To A Point

Latest Cutbacks at Portland Press-Herald Even Affect Web Site

An item in the Portland Press-Herald about 27 positions being eliminated at Maine's largest paper is, at first blush, no different than the dozens of articles other newspapers have printed about their own staff reductions.
But what is revealing here is that the cutbacks affect "almost every department" in the newspaper including its web site, Maine Today.
Given that's where many of its readers are heading, you'd think Maine Today would be the one sacred cow Down East.
If not, then it only highlights how lousy the advertising climate is, if as publisher Charles Cochrane says, the numbers this year are off from "the weak results posted last year."
And you thought Maine was already cold enough this time of year.

Where Was Spitzer 20 Years Ago When The Albany Press Corps Really Needed Him?

Maybe Reporters Need Mario Cuomo To Bring Sexy Back to the Statehouse

Back when I covered the Albany statehouse for UPI in the mid-80s, coverage of state news was not only desired by editors but actively coveted.

The Legislative Correspondents Association press room was brimming with reporters from papers from Watertown to Staten Island, and many points in between.

Interest in what they did from editors was piqued then by the intriguing possibility that Mario Cuomo --then the Democrats' chief rock star -- would shed his gubernatorial garments and preen for president.

For the Albany press corps, the spectre of being anointed one of the boys on the bus traveling with "our guy" had delusions of journalistic grandeur in overdrive.

Alas, Cuomo burst that balloon in 1987, and we went back -- collective sad puppy look and all --to covering the more-routine stuff emanating from the capital and the courts.

Still, Cuomo was never boring. He was a brilliant orator, and a skillful combatant with the Legislature and press alike.

Cuomo was also scandal-free, not hard given that he could often be found working well into the night -- on policy matters, and little else.

True, us reporters always suspected he brought in a few ringers from the State Police so his team could beat the LCA every year in softball, but we never had firm proof.

Redemption came when Cuomo agreed to play us in basketball, where the reporters finally triumphed, in a game highlighted by my former colleague Bob Bellafiore. Cuomo was guarding him as he tried to inbound a pass. As he was on the verge of being called for a 5-second violation, Bellafiore bounced the ball off Cuomo's knee so it would go out of bounds and he could regoup (Bellafiore -- now a PR executive -- went on to become the chief spokesman for George Pataki, the man who ousted Cuomo. That pass no doubt looked good on the resume).

The lesson of Cuomo -- and 12 years later -- Eliot Spitzer was you need a firebrand in the governor's office to get editors to care much about anything going on in Albany.

That doesn't happen when the leadership defaults to its familiar gridlock and vicious partisanship, which made it easier for newspapers faced with ever-shrinking budgets to slash away at state coverage.

To the extent possible, Spitzer made Albany sexy. In his own way, Cuomo did too, he just didn't need to spend $1,000 an hour and up to make it happen. That made him the real Emperor of the Empire State.

It Could Have Been Worse At the Mercury-News, But Isn't It Already Bad Enough?

Layoffs, Buyouts Reduce Already-Emaciated Ranks By Another Five Percent


Today was when employees at The San Jose Mercury-News were told to wait by the phone at home to find out if they still had a job.
In the end, 34 employees were pink-slipped that way, while another 16 took buyouts. That brings the newsroom headcount down to about 180, less than half of what it was in 2000.
There had been previous staff reductions in 2006 and 2007. We'll have to wait and see whether these are the only roster buzzcuts this year.
Given the state of the economy, that's far from a sure thing, as opposed to the guarantee that just about anybody still at the Mercury-News, especially those who remember what once was, isn't happy they're still there.

Samantha Power Flunks Punditry 101

A "Monster" Of A Verbal Boner: Sammy, It's "Off The Record" First, Potshots at Hillary Second

You kinda feel good when really smart people do really dumb things, to remind everyone they can be just like us.

Samantha Power is a distinguished professor at Harvard, a Pulitzer Prize winner and now a former unpaid foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama.

Power's hasty exit from Obama's campaign came after The Scotsman quoted Power calling Hillary Clinton a "monster." Here's the full quote for context.

"She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything." The Scotsman said Power "hastily" tried to take back the quote. Too late.

Now, if she said "Off the record, she is a monster..," then reporter Gerri Peev would have had something to think about.

For some reporters, it's not off the record, unless they agree it is. Others, may tacitly agree that what follows such a pronouncement is indeed not for repeating. To do otherwise, risks burning some serious bridges. At least in this country.

In fact, Peev addressed this dilemma in the article that outed Power.

Journalists are always looking for knowledge and want the information they receive to be available for publication. But occasionally an interviewer will accept an exchange is "off the record" and that the conversation is not attributable....

....If a conversation is to be off the record, that agreement is usually thrashed out before the interview begins. Sometimes, public figures say something and then attempt to retract it by insisting it was "off the record" after the event. But by then it is too late, particularly if it is in the public interest that the story be published.

In this instance, Samantha Power was promoting her book and it was established in advance that the interview was on the record.

In the end, Power knows she should have known better.

"I should not have made these comments, and I deeply regret them. It is wrong for anyone to pursue this campaign in such negative and personal terms."

Either way, don't look for the ice to melt aboard the Obama campaign plane when reporters are around anytime soon.

As The Film Critics Turn: A Surprise Twist at the Daily News

Beleaguered Tabloid Bucks Trend of Pruning Critic Roster; Replaces Jack Mathews With Joe Neumaier

Newspapers big and small, such as the Sun-Sentinel in south Florida, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, anxious to trim budgets, have decreed that arts critics of various stripes are expendable, in favor of running reviews from syndicates and wires.
So, when longtime Daily News chief film critic Jack Mathews announced recently he'd spent enough time in screening rooms, and would be headed to a long-awaited retirement on the Oregon coast, the betting money was on the News using that as an excuse to eliminate his position.
Happily, that is not the case and FishbowlNY reports Joe Neumaier, the paper's Sunday feature editor, now has the job.
Neumaier's a seasoned film writer for a variety of pubs, and at least in the press release, he's saying all the right things about the right way to approach a film critic's job, someone passionate about the movies without being an obsessive, nit-picky fan or egghead academic.
His reviews of "10,000 B.C." and "Married Life" show he's off to a good start.

National Car Collides With Common Sense Trying To Improve Customer Service

Marketing Folly: First Rule of Conducting A Survey is Know What You're Doing Before You Ask Questions. Are You Listening, Synovate?

For both business and pleasure, I've rented cars from National many times without incident thanks to membership in their Emerald Club, which allows me to bypass the counter and pick my own car in most locations.
A seamless car-rental process is far from a sure thing, and as corporate travel tightens and leisure trips may slacken due to a recession, it behooves a company to know its customers' likes and dislikes.
So, a survey of the vox populi could certainly prove helpful. So can hiring the likes of Synovate, a leading market-research firm, to conduct the survey and parse the numbers. But even supposed experts like Synovate can show they're seriously lacking a clue, and wasting National's money in the process.
Last week I received an invitation to complete a survey "evaluating the car rental process." I was favorably predisposed to take part until I got to the part about it taking "approximately 40 minutes to complete."
I never clicked on the link to see whether they were joking, but surely they do indeed jest. What chucklehead at Synovate reasonably expects business travelers, National's bread-and-butter, to take that much time from already-crammed schedules to answer a survey without any incentive?
Other online surveys I've been asked to fill out -- and which take 5-10 minutes tops -- often provide entry into a contest for iPods, gift certificates, plane tickets and the like. It's a small but significant carrot to get you to carve out a few minutes.
But 40 minutes? Now you're getting into focus-group territory, where market researchers dole out more than a few pennies for your thoughts.
Anyone who has the time and inclination to fill out the National survey could hardly be construed as a representative customer, given the company's emphasis on the corporate traveler (leaving the leisure driver to its sibling Alamo).
If you want my time, you need to do more than simply say "thank you." Offer up a little something extra and maybe you'll get my attention, not to mention those whose opinions really matter to National.

Who Will Be The Lucky Ones At The San Jose Mercury-News

Close Race Between Those Who Get Pink-Slip Phone Call on March 7, and Those Who Don't (But May Wish They Had)

Romeneseko's been lousy with posts the last few days that make you want to reach out to anyone working at a Media News-owned paper in California and give them a hug.
Item: If you work for the San Jose Mercury-News, you've been told to wait by the phone Friday morning. If no one calls to say you've been canned, then it's safe to head to work in the morning. Gotta love having that hang over your head all week.
No word yet on how much the newsroom will shrink, but bear in mind, at roughly 200, it already is down to half the bodies it had in 1999.
Yet, there is one happy camper amidst the Merc mess: that would be Susan Goldberg, now the editor at the Plain-Dealer in Cleveland, who left the top editiong job at the Merc last year. In a revealing interview with Cleveland magazine, she said: “I just wanted to get out of the whole situation. It was just very unhappy. I didn’t see where it was going to end.”
Unforutnately, those left at the Merc might get the opportunity to find out.
They could get a preview by looking to their corporate brethren in SoCal.
First stop, the San Fernando Valley, where Daily News editor Ron Kaye got all teary-eyed last week, as he told staffers that another 22 editorial positions were going bye-bye. That leaves just 100 of them to put out the paper.
Then came word that Lean Dean Singleton was essentially folding the Daily Breeze in Torrance and the Long Beach Press-Telegram into one operation. Both papers will exist, at least to readers, as separate entities (for now), but the P-T loses its copydesk to the Breeze, which itself cut nine newsroom positions.
So there are fewer people doing less. A lot less.
And as newspaper chieftains try to figure out a way to recapture at least some of the revenue that has been leaching out of their ledgers, still Singleton -- and others of his ilk -- believe that cutting the muscle and the heart out of the product you want people to buy is somehow a way to stanch the bleeding.
No easy answers, I realize, but the one Singleton keeps coming up with rings hollow.

Too Old To Rock N' Roll In Kansas City

Dumped Jocks at Former Classic-Rock Station KYYS-FM Sue for Age Discrimination

Some radio stations nowadays change formats about as often as we change socks.
That's their business, even if such moves are often misguided and made in a panic. But usually left out of the equation is the impact on those who work at the station, especially the jocks.
Format changes usually lead to the unemployment line.
So when classic-rock station KYYS in Kansas City changed its moniker from KY-99.7 to a so-called "quality rock" format as 99.7 The Boulevard, out went the staff. Only thing: some of them didn't go quietly.
In fact, four of them, including Max Floyd, the morning show co-host who was still plugging along at 67, are suing Entercom, the station's owners, for age discrimination.
Now anyone who's worked in radio knows you could be tops in the ratings one month and be out on your ass the next. Civil-service jobs they ain't.
When formats change, stations often want a fresh start. It's also a way to cut payroll. Floyd's been in the market forever and no doubt pulls in a fair share of shekels.
But here's the rub. It appears the format change, in this case, was little more than broadening the playlist and including a few more artists. It's not like KYYS went from classic rock to classical.
When he was first dumped last month, Floyd told a local TV station: "I was here in '74. I've won an Emmy -- it's been a great ride. I hope I didn't stay too long at the dance."
Sounds like Floyd now thinks he still has a few moves left in him.

It Didn't Take Long, But William Buckley Is Already Spinning In His Grave

As the lonely conservative voice in the Big Apple, you'd expect the New York Sun would be all over the death of William F. Buckley Jr.
They didn't disappoint, with a humongous AP photo on the front page, which accompanied a long obit, editorial by neocon Sun founder Seth Lipsky, an excerpt from an early Buckley book and an op-ed from American Spectator founder, Sun contributing editor and Buckley groupie R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
Tyrrell was friends with Buckley for 40 years, so a reverent and eloquent paean to the man was to be expected. More jolting, however, was the next to last line of his piece.
"And so the baton is passed. On the conservative side it passes from Buckley to Ann Coulter."
It does?
If so, it probably tells you as much about the conservative movement as you need to know.

IFBA vs. IFMD

When Ben Met Jimmy

You just knew Jimmy Kimmel wasn't going to give his squeeze Sarah Silverman the last word in the Matt Damon sweepstakes.
And we're all the better off for it, as the nine jillion people who will watch it online -- and those still awake when it was on last night -- shall attest.

Don't Make a TV Critic Cranky on Oscar Night

New York Post's Adam Buckman Pissed He Had To Stay Up Late to Review Oscars, and He Makes Sure Jon Stewart Knows

The life of a TV critic? Pretty cushy. The networks send you advance screening copies. You watch them at your leisure, more or less, then you bang out a review.
Sure, a lot of what you watch sucks, but it still beats working night rewrite or being holed up in police headquarters waiting for something to happen.
But occasionally you might be called upon to review something that's live and crank out something pithy on deadline. Adam Buckman of The New York Post had to do that for the Oscars last night. Thumbnail assessment: thumbs down (note: online and print editions are somewhat different).
Buckman had it in for Jon Stewart and his mild political shtick -- no big surprise given the Post's right-wing stances and Stewart's usual skewering of same. Buckman got all hot and bothered about such quips as: "Oscar is 80 this year, which makes him now automatically the front-runner for the Republican nomination."
Was last night one of Stewart's best moments? Hardly, but more than enough to make you forget David Letterman and Whoopi Goldberg if not Billy Crystal.
And while Buckman was correct about the ceremony having the perennial stink of self-congratulation, he did demonstrate he probably needs to turn off the TV once in a while and get out more.
"[Stewart] never directly acknowledged what many of us at home were thinking, which was that, as a group, this year's nominated films stunk so badly that few of us were actually interested in going out and seeing them."
Actually, many film critics were lamenting how tough it was to pick top-10 lists last year because of the bumper crop of movies made here and abroad. And since when does box-office success equate with Oscar worthiness?
For example, raise your hand if you went to see that movie about Edith Piaf, "La Vie en Rose," the film for which Marion Cotillard won a Best Actress Oscar last night," Buckman screeches. "
Edith who? Marion who? I figured as much."
So, he never heard of Edith Piaf and all movies with subtitles bite the big one. Nothing like an informed critic to rile up the masses.
By Buckman's standard, "Saw III," "Norbit" and "Transformers" should instead by vying for Best Picture. Obviously, he's more than a little peeved about the ending for "No Country for Old Men." But that's no reason to take a dump on all of moviedom,
And about that Stewart joke? Betcha McCain got a few guffaws out of that, provided he hadn't already turned in for the night. Buckman reads like he wishes he could've done the same.

A Trainwreck of a PR Disaster for American Airlines

First Woman Is Denied Oxygen, Then Plane Supposedly Doesn't Have Any --- Result: Dead Passenger, Cannon Fodder For Hungry Media

You can be sure the PR staff at American Airlines is walking a perilous tightrope this morning.

On the one hand, you don't want to appear callous when a passenger dies on one of your flights, as Carine Desir of New York did Friday on a Haiti-JFK run after complaining she couldn't breathe.
At the same time, the airline is facing accusations that two oxygen tanks were empty and a defibrillator that could have saved her life wasn't working. Which means the potential for a nasty lawsuit is high.
Conclusions were no doubt drawn by lots of people who watch the story lead off Eyewitness News on WABC-TV right after the Oscars, which features an interview with the woman's tearful cousin, who was on the plane with her when she died.
All American would initially say Sunday was that doctors and nurses on the plane tried to save Desir. But first came another PR bombshell -- Desir had asked a flight attendant for oxygen and was initially refused. That was followed by allegations that all the medical equipment on the 757 was faulty, which American is denying, as the Airline Biz Blog in the Dallas Morning News notes:

We are investigating this incident, as we do with all serious medical situations on board our aircraft, but American Airlines can say oxygen was administered and the Automatic External Defibrillator was applied.
Among the preflight duties of our highly trained Flight Attendants is a check of all emergency equipment on the aircraft. This includes checking the oxygen bottles -- there were 12 in this particular aircraft.
We stand behind the actions and training of our crew and the functionality of the onboard medical equipment.

But nothing about the flight attendant who turned down Desir and relented only after other passengers spoke up.
While it's probably not a good idea for American to get into a he-said-airline-said battle, it's also vitally important to provide an on-camera spokesperson to at least explain what kind of equipment is onboard, emergency SOPs and that crew members are trained for these situations.
That can be done without having to refute address the actual incident except to say that all protocols were followed, assuming that's actually the case.
A prepared statement is no longer enough. By giving Desir's family unfettered access to
local media, especially in the New York market, you risk losing any control of the story, which can get very expensive when it comes time to settle the lawsuit that's sure to be filed in the days ahead.

Real Information or Advertorial? The Daily News Makes It Hard To Decide

Mount Sinai Medical Center May Be Happy. So What If It's Shoddy Reporting?

Admittedly, I'm more of a reader of the New York Daily News online nowadays than in print. But I picked up a copy of the paper yesterday to help pass the time during a flight and stumbled upon what looked like an advertorial, similar to two others that were in the paper.
But on closer examinaton, there was no disclaimer like "advertising supplement to The Daily News" attached.
Instead, it was full-fledged article about sleep apnea by Katie Charles for what purports to be a regular column called "The Daily Checkup," which is actually weekly.
The problem: while there's lots of information about sleep apnea, its symptoms and risks, it quotes throughout but one doctor, Allison Schecter of Mount Sinai Hospital, who also gets a rather out-sized photo in the middle of the one-page spread.
No disputing Schecter's bona fides, but since when does an alleged health reporter content herself with a single source? And why would one or more editors think that was also OK?
This wasn't an aberration. On Feb. 13, Charles wrote an article about heart disease with a single source from, you guessed it, Mount Sinai, complete with big picture. It even had a fluffy headline -- A Mount Sinai cardiologist makes sure your heart's in the right place.
The hospital didn't have to buy an ad, it had the News write one up for them in the guise of an article. Just doctor ordered, maybe, but an editor?
What gives, if not just the fact the Charles and her editors are extremely lazy? There's no sign or disclaimer that the News and Mount Sinai are working together on a health series, a dubious proposition in and of itself. But if so, it's an arrangement that should be disclosed.
If it's just a coinky-dink that two Mount Sinai docs are profiled, fine. But there's nothing wrong with a little shoe leather on the health beat, just like what's demanded at the News by those working in the police shack, covering the Yankees or Bloomberg.
Having a single source means you're not getting the whole story, no matter how authoritative the source. It's a hospital flack's wet dream, which usually equates to lousy journalism.
In its current form, The Daily Checkup should check out.

Knicks Sink To A New Low In The New York Times

New York-area basketball fans have pretty much thrown in the towel on this season. The Knicks have been one bad joke without a punchline.
The Nets: well, they're the Nets and they're in New Jersey. Despite being for years the best local and more-interesting team to watch, The New York Times decided they were no longer worthy of a beat writer and only cover home games with whatever reporter doesn't have anything else to do at night. On the road, it's the A.P. or bust.
The Knicks beat reporter at the time is Howard Beck, who reliably covers a team that keeps finding new ways to define pathetic. Beck has been with them home and away, serving more as the chronicler of the soap opera called As Isiah Turns, than reporting on meaningless games.
Yet, there he wasn't in today's Times.
Beck was instead dispatched to the Meadowlands to cover the overtime thriller won by the Nets, for the first time without Jason Kidd, who was traded to the Dallas Mavericks.
Instead, it was the Knicks who got the wire-service treatment. The Times couldn't even muster a stringer for the game. Maybe just as well. The Knicks lost by 40 points to the Philadelphia 76ers.
But that the Times wasn't there to record the carnage was telling, not just of the trainwreck of a team, but the ever-tightening budget at the sports department, which has already decimated its hockey coverage, despite having three local teams in playoff contention.
If the assumption is that now that spring training is started, New Yorkers no longer care about any other sport, well, that's a lousy assumption, and one of many poor judgments by the Times, whose chieftains may like to think they consistently put out an eclectic, thorough sports report.
Again, a lousy assumption.

Good Morning America Goes For The Lump In The Throat Without Pandering

Your Three Words Segment A Challenge For Viewers, But In a Good Way

Time to catch up with the "Your Three Words" segment on the Saturday edition of "Good Morning America" if you haven't already.

The concept is deceptively simple. Viewers send in videos of them holding up a sign with three words that sum up how they're feeling or what is most important in their lives. The montage is then set to some tender music like Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky" or "Drive Slow," from Tiki Lewis.

In so doing we have a woman whose head's wrapped in a kerchief proclaiming "I'm cancer free," or a picture of a child that says "Daddy's comin' home" from a military tour, followed by another one that says "Mama's goin' next."

Or, three one-word signs from a girl that say "Locks of Love," as her hair is cut. And then there was the simple "We miss you" that preceded an ultrasound of a fetus.

The segments make you smile. They provide lumps in the throat. And don't be surprised to find tears welling up.

It's the ultimate human-interest story. It's not conventional journalism, but it's not supposed to be. In this case, that's not a problem. It's what makes the segment great.

In the spirit of "Your Three Words," all I can tell you is Watch. This. Saturday.

Valentine's Day Special: Jimmy Kimmel Gets Surprise from Sarah Silverman

Turns Out She's Found A New Oscar-Winning Beau, and They're a YouTube Sensation

Yeah, yeah, I'm late to the party with this clip, but if you haven't seen Sarah Silverman's raunchy ode to doing the nasty with Matt Damon, now's your time to join the millions on You Tube who've partaken over the last two weeks.
And if you have seen it already, then you'll know you'll laugh again.
Watch it with someone you love. Not.

Russ Stanton: Next Lamb Being Led To The Slaughter?

Why Is This Man Smiling?



I'm not sure whether to congratulate Russ Stanton for being named the next editor of The Los Angeles Times, or to feel sorry for him.
Stanton gets to become the third editor in less than three years at what is still one of the nation's top newspapers, despite Tribune's best efforts.
And he takes the helm just a day after publisher David Hiller announced up to 150 job cuts at the Los Angeles Times Media Group.
Stanton, a 10-year Times veteran who most-recently served as Innovation Editor, has no choice but to play the role of good soldier.
Hiller, as shown by the ouster of
Stanton's predecessor, James O'Shea, will likely keep Stanton on a short leash. That smile you see above could be quickly wiped out if the Times is asked to make a disproportionate sacrifice to help pay down Sam Zell's debt service.
Still, Stanton may be the one who is in the best position to meld the print and online versions, which could very well determine the future viability of the paper, as it continues to hemorrhage readers and advertisers as the California economy grinds to a standstill.
For now, I'm skeptical about how much he can accomplish given the Sisyphean task that awaits. But if you care at all about quality newspapers, you have no choice but to root for him. Every other editor and reporter at the Times would do well to follow suit.

Good News For the Daily News, But Really Bad Copy

Item About All-Color Presses A Little Too Colorful

The Daily News in New York has never been shy about wearing its heart on its sleeve. You'll never see the journalistic equivalent of a shrinking violet on the copy desk.
That's not always for the better, especially when they feel Rupert Murdoch's flame lapping at their butts and they try to out-Post the Post.
So, a bit of hype about the News' eventual move to printing the entire paper in color by next year should be expected.
Not to be expected was the florid prose that I sure as hell nobody on the city desk actually wrote and was instead left to one of the newspaper's over-eager flacks.
The first two paragraphs set the sorry tone:

The Daily News is writing a new colorful chapter in its storied history with the announcement today that it will build America's most modern newspaper print center!
By the end of 2009, the Daily News will be produced in 100% color on new industry-leading presses, guaranteeing and reinforcing its future as the country's leading tabloid and enabling its millions of readers to enjoy the city's first major daily newspaper in full color.

Cue barf bag.

How hard would it have been for a News reporter to write even-handedly about this admittedly significant event without serving as a shill.?
I did it as a reporter for the Bergen Record some 19 years ago, when I was assigned to cover the opening of the paper's newest plant in Rockaway, N.J.
Did I feel a little weird interviewing publisher Mac Borg about his new baby? Did he seem a bit bemused that someone from his paper was doing something besides offering hearty congratulations? Yes, on both accounts.
But I covered the event like I would any other story, nor would it have been expected or accepted that I would do otherwise.
Then again, Mort Zuckerman's ego, from all I can gather, is considerably more out-sized than Borg, not exactly the meekest of men. Amid all the hoopla, Zuckerman was too busy patting himself on the back to sanction putting real news in The News.

Accuweather, Schmackuweather

Doesn't Really Matter What The Forecast Is When Jim Kosek Gets On A Roll

As I sit here tonight in an Albuquerque hotel hearing how lousy the weather is back home in New York, I shuttle between weather.com and accuweather.com for any glimmer of hope that a winter monsoon won't wash any hope of landing tomorrow at LaGuardia, never a sure thing even when it's sunny out.

For its 90-second online video forecast, forecaster Jim Kosek can often be found doing the New York edition. Which means you can get shtick along with a cold front, as we did tonight.

"What ticks me off?" Kosek says. "What crawls up my backside?

Then he bellows, "WHAT GETS ME FIRED UP? Can't be just snow. Can't be just ice or flooding rain. It has to be a combination of everything." And he doesn't even have to deal with that mess. Kosek's tucked away at Accuweather HQ in State College, PA.

This is also the same guy on New Year's Day who pretended to be too hung over to do a real forecast, or at least assumed most of those watching were too blitzed to care about the weather. Which could very well have been the case.

Give Kosek credit for taking his job seriously if not himself. Now if he could just do something about the weather over LaGuardia....

New York Finally Gets A Triple-A Radio Station, Sort Of

Smooth Jazz CD101.9 Bites The Dust, Makes Way for 101.9 RXP

In New York, the nation's most-conservative radio market -- because of the money at stake -- any change in a station's format is a big deal. That's even more so when a station that's played the same kind of music dumps its format without warning.

But so it went at 4 p.m. for CD101.9 , which had been the smooth jazz station in the Big Apple for 20 years.

The perception had been that while the station -- never my cup of tea -- was never gangbusters in the ratings, it attracted the right demographics to bill a healthy-enough amount to satisfy its overseers at Emmis Broadcasting.

But apparently not.

Now it's called 101.9 RXP, and flipped to a Triple-A-esque format that, at first blush, is more active than what can normally be heard at non-commercial WFUV.

A sample of the first hour, as posted on the Web site:

1. The Velvet Underground - Rock 'n' Roll

2. R.E.M. Supernatural Superserious
3. Elvis Costello - Pump It Up
4.Tom Petty - Mary Jane's Last Dance
5.Blondie - Call Me
6.The Bravery - Believe
7.Bruce Springsteen - Blinded By The Light
8.The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize
9.U2 - Angel Of Harlem
10.Nickelback - Rockstar
11.Red Hot Chili Peppers - Zephyr Song
12.The Black Crowes - Hard To Handle
13.The Killers - Somebody Told Me

Of course, it's early and the format will be subject to tweaking. First tweak: Anything by Nickelback, which doesn't fit into any incarnation of a Triple-A format.

Nonetheless, having a station like this in the market is most welcome, as rock music on commercial radio in New York has never been more stultifying, save for WFUV and WXPK, in the northern suburbs, which definitely has cause for concern.

The station's promising that it won't be deadened by corporate playlists -- we'll see -- and that it'll actually let its jocks have a big say in what music gets on, sort of hearkening back to the glory days of WNEW-FM.

So far, the only deejay announced is Brian Schock, who most notably was the PD at San Diego's alternative rocker 91X. He'll do PM drive and serve as music director. RXP's program director is CD101.9 holdover Blake Lawrence, a 30-year radio vet albeit one light on rock experience.

"It's unheard of in radio these days, but 101.9 RXP is about the music and not so much the music business - we're merging rock styles and generations into a singular community that we call The New York Rock Experience," Lawrence told FMQB.

The station will also frequently spotlight New York bands, such as The Hold Steady and Nada Surf.

So far, they're saying the right things.

Now they just have to play them.

The Oregonian's Invisible Human-Interest Story

Baffling Policy of Separating Articles and Photos; Sacrificing Clarity for Ad Revenue
Everyone loves a good human-interest story, especially ones about plucky seniors who refuse to be relegated to the rocking chair. It's a great way for editors to deflect the incessant gripes that they only focus on bad news.
One such item appears in The Oregonian about one Vera Wilson, who has worked at the same book and stationery store for 73 years, and has no plans to retire now that she's 90 years young.
Only problem reading the story online: there's no picture of Wilson.
Two ads, yes. Photo of subject of article: no.
Actually, that's not totally correct, in the sense that The Oregonian actually puts on the web its staff photos from that day's paper. If you go to that link, you can find a snap of Wilson, who indeed looks very much the part of a spry nonagenarian.
That pattern repeats itself with other stories. Why separate those elements? The photos are part of the way you tell the story. They're not just there for window dressing. Keep them with the articles, just like you do in print.
Online readers have enough of a collective attention deficit and are challenged for time without The Oregonian making them do more work to read the full package.

Daily News Cancellation of AP Core Services: A Whole Lot of Posturing, But Nothing More

Which is Not To Say Member Gripes Aren't Legit, But Pulling Plug Will Never Be The Answer

Editor & Publisher reported yesterday how The Daily News in New York is a year into its two-year notification to the Associated Press that it would cancel its core services next year.
The official explanation: the DN is peeved over the two-year termination policy and it's pulling up stakes in protest.
AP regional vice president Linda Stowell told E&P the co-op isn't exactly quaking in its boots. Cancellation notices do crop up, but they get resolved and members almost never leave. For the simple reason that they can't.
I mean, they could, but then how do you fill your paper? Sure, you could head over to Reuters and AFP, which is fine if you need to keep up with the latest out of Burkina Faso or Turkmenistan.
Yes, if something big happens in a large population center, correspondents from The Washington Post, McClatchy or Tribune could possibly fill the gap.
But there's no one else to enter the breach consistently when news happens anywhere else, and no one to get it out faster -- all the more important as readers migrate to the Web and stay there.
As media cut back or eliminate bureaus, stop sending reporters on the road to cover teams and get rid of arts critics, they blithely assume the AP will be there to bail them out. And it almost always is.
The AP knows it, so does The Daily News. Which is why the termination notice doesn't herald a paradigm shift for newspapers, nor does it portend a new business model. The wire is actually the one indispensable component in a newsroom. With it, you know you can always fill the paper with something.
Sure, some editors are peeved about AP's new rate structure, which will bolster breaking news to core members, while putting some other services on an a la carte menu.
But all the bitching and moaning will be just that. Editors know they can't leave when there's an 800-ton gorilla sitting on top of their news hole.

Silencing Their Own College Paper: Montclair State Student Leaders Flunk Lesson In Governance

1/31 UPDATE: The SGA came to its senses, at least for the time being.

Ron Playing Chicken With the First Amendment; Newspaper Feud Over Open Meetings Leads to Cutoff of Funds

Maybe the unfortunately named Ron Chicken, president of the Student Government Association at Montclair State University in New Jersey, had read too many obits for Suharto, the former Indonesian dictator.
Maybe he didn't get a good grade in one of his political science classes and decided to enact his own brand of government.
Or maybe he's just an idiot.
Either way, for now he's silenced the college's newspaper, The Montclarion, by yanking funding for the first edition of the semester. The paper's been sparring over access to SGA meetings, while the SGA accused the paper of improperly hiring a lawyer who advised the editors on their rights under the state's Open Meetings Law.
Chicken and The Montclairion are unfortunate bedfellows, in that the paper is actually part of the SGA, and depends on it for $16,500 in funding, according to the Bergen Record. It's a longstanding arrangement, and a dangerous one, as The Montclarion has now found out the hard way.
At the four schools where I had some form of higher education, the newspapers were all independent corporations one way or the other, something editor-in-chief Karl de Vries realizes should now be the case.
"If The Montclarion is to act as a watchdog, then it has to be completely independent of the SGA," he told The Record. "If Richard Nixon were running The Washington Post in 1972, then I'm sure we never would have heard about Watergate." (full disclosure: I don't know Karl, but I did work with his Dad for many years at CBS).
Not surprisingly, Chicken is too chicken to talk to the media, continuing his streak of unaccountability.
Beyond muzzling the media, the larger issue is exactly what does the SGA think it has to gain by not granting access to its meetings. After all, it's spending money paid by students who are going to a state university.
Yet somehow, Il Duce, or should I say, Il Pollo and the rest of the poultry running the government at Montclair State believe they're not a public body and subject to scrutiny.
Which is why, of course, you need a newspaper keeping close tabs on their activities. I suspect the SGA's FUBAR move has been enough of a PR disaster for the school that the administration will lean on Chicken & Co. enough to get them to capitulate. And perhaps, then, also order them to take a remedial civics lesson in the process.

Suharto's Death Gives Wall Street Journal Chance To Sing Hosannas for Genocidal Dictator

Next Up For Hugo Restall: Stalin Wasn't Such A Bad Guy, After All

The Wall Street Journal's editorial page often gives me a good case of the chuckles. Its pundits will do something, anything, to affirm their ultra-conservative cred, no matter how indefensible the position.
Sometimes that means having to ignore the truth in order to make a point.
Exhibit A crawled out from yesterday's page, in a column by Hugo Restall on the legacy of Suharto, the former Indonesian dictator who finally died over the weekend after being hospitalized earlier this month.
Restall, who is editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review and a member of the Journal editorial board, lauds Suharto for rescuing the country from the pro-Communist grip of his predecessor Sukarno that made him a close U.S. ally; revived a moribund economy, and improved health and education.
Sure, there was the rampant corruption, cronyism and profiteering that may have made Suharto a billionaire that brought Indonesia's economy to its knees and forced him from office. But:

Like Deng Xiaoping, he rescued his country from totalitarianism and poverty, and put it on the path to prosperity and a large measure of personal freedoms. For all his flaws, Suharto deserves to be remembered as one of Asia's greatest leaders.

As proof that Cold Warriors never have to say their sorry, Restall conveniently leaves out any mention of the reign of terror that gripped Indonesia, when the Suharto-led Army was encouraged to whip up a country-wide anti-Communist witch hunt that may have left up to a million people dead.
Restall apparently views whole families being wiped out as collateral damage to justify Suharto's goal to avoid another Vietnam or Cambodia.
Thankfully, a separate Journal editorial, which appears only online, provides some context, never a given at the Journal.

Suharto oversaw the massacre of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen in the anti-Communist purge of the 1965-66 Years of Living Dangerously. Ethnic Chinese were also targeted, and those who survived were forced to renounce their heritage and take Indonesian-sounding names. The East Timorese suffered brutal repression in the 1970s at the hands of Suharto's military.

But even this editorial praises Suharto for steadying Indonesia and instituting the wrenching reforms needed to make it an Asian economic power, as if to equate genocide with tough love.
The true measure of Suharto's legacy will be the blood he spilled that flowed a lot thicker than the oil he exported that left him a rich, greedy and ultimately disgraced autocrat.

"Lost In Beijing" Review Loses Movie's Backstory

Tony Scott Tells Us About The Film, But Nothing About Chinese Censors, Blacklisted Director

The movie "Lost In Beijing" has been making the festival circuits and has now made its way to an art house in New York.

A.O. Scott in The New York Times speaks well of the movie that "in spite of its raw, explicit moments" is "at heart a sturdy morality tale about innocence and corruption, wealth and want, sex and power."

What Scott, surprisingly, makes no mention of, is that three weeks ago, China's film board canceled the film's screening license and blacklisted director Fang Li for two years. The reasons, which Fang disputes is improper promotion, deleted sex scenes making their way online, and showing an unauthorized version at the Berlin Film Festival.

All of this was mentioned in what was ostensibly a review in The New York Sun, where Grady Hendrix took the opposite approach of Scott and focused almost exclusively on the controversy surrounding "Lost In Beijing," rather than the movie itself.

To be fair, Jack Mathews' brief, mixed review in The Daily News, also omitted any mention of the dust-up, as did John Anderson's three-star assessment in Newsday, though Vinny Musetto in the Post alludes to it in his short, thumbs-down review.

Still, these are the kinds of movies that the Times owns the last word on, at least in newspapers. As such, the back story cries out to be mentioned, especially if it appears to be at least as interesting as the movie itself.

Skin and Bones Where A Newspaper Should Be In Vermont

The Burlington Free Press Looks Severely Malnourished on a Day When It Should Be Fat With Copy -- And Ads

Had some R&R in Vermont last weekend, and while thawing out and waiting for the Patriots-Chargers game to start, I spent a little time reading the Sunday edition of the Burlington Free Press. Put an emphasis on little.
This is ostensibly the flagship newspaper in the Green Mountain State. At the very least, it's the largest, with a daily circulation of about 45,000 and 52,000 on Sunday.
Yet, I couldn't help but feel that anyone who plunked down $1.75 for the Jan. 20 edition was played for a sucker.
Not counting the classifieds, comics, USA Weekend and the circulars, there was a grand total of 36 pages devoted to the other sections. Thirty-six pages. That meant you could wend your way through the paper in no more than 15 minutes or so, assuming you read slowly.
Admittedly, I don't see the Free Press on a regular basis, so I don't know whether this is typical, and if this output is duplicated on a more-desultory scale the other six days of the week. But it wouldn't surprise me.
After all the Freeps is owned by Gannett, where mediocrity and underachievement run rampant chain-wide, despite the best efforts of many editors and reporters.
What I saw was prime cannon fodder to justify why people go online rather than subscribe to a paper. Beyond a few local stories, the Freeps is offering little of value.
The paper has been hit, like all others, with downturns in circulation and ads. Staffing and morale has also reportedly plummeted.
But that's still no excuse for what I saw over the weekend, which basically ensures that any ardent news consumer in northern and central Vermont will feel compelled to plunk down more-serious coin for The New York Times or, perhaps, The Boston Globe.
That'll set 'em back a lot more than $1.75, but chances are good or better it'll be money well-spent.

Philadelphia Newspapers See Real Side of Brian Tierney -- Again

Is Situation At Inquirer More Chicken Little Than Cloverfield? What A Difference Two Months Make

The latest blather emanating from Philadelphia Newspapers grand poobah Brian Tierney is that the Inquirer and Daily News need to cut expenses by 10 percent or else he and his investors will be in deep doo-doo with the banks that made his $562 million purchase possible.

So, of course, Tierney -- never a friend of organized labor -- is pointing his fingers at the union and telling them that they need to be a part of whatever draconian solution is agreed to. Forgive the unions if they're weary of this routine.

After all, it was Tierney who cut 17 percent of the newsroom staff in 2006 after threatening worse reductions if the unions didn't cave and give him a myriad of concesssions.

This is the same Tierney who was pumping his chest last April when circulation at the Inquirer inched up 0.6 percent, remarkable at a time when other big-city dailies were hemorrhaging readers.

“It’s about setting out an optimistic vision, it’s about focusing on quality in everything that we do—first and foremost journalistically,” Tierney told the Columbia Journalism Review.

As recently as November, weekday Inky circulation rose 2.3 percent, the largest increase of the 50-biggest newspapers, though Sunday circulation fell. Still, Tierney called the figures "better than I would have hoped."

So which Tierney are we to believe now? He has a long history of talking a good game, but he's given the unions no reason to trust him, and it doesn't appear they will start now.

Indeed, observers like Alan Mutter, who says it's up to newspaper employees to get creative and figure out ways to save money -- and while they're at it, don't kill the messenger -- miss the point.

Tierney and his ilk -- at papers in Minneapolis and San Jose, among others -- have engendered such a high level of animosity in the newsroom, not to mention advertising and circulation departments, where any hope of a collaborative solution is all but lost. So would you if you've been victimized by slash-and-burn methods of expense cutting.

True, it's not Tierney's fault that advertising is down and readership has followed suit. It's an epidemic that's gripped every newspaper. But when he looks to prop up his bottom line he needs to walk past the newsroom and search elsewhere. He's already shed a lot of the reasons people needed to buy his papers. Anything more, and Tierney might as well hand over the keys to the banks.

Instead of simply looking to the unions he despises, it's Tierney who's the one who should be creative. It's time to put all those years he spent as a flack to good use and spin his way out of this predicament.

Is Sam Zell Already Speaking With A Forked Tongue?

Giving Tribune Managers Autonomy Could Be Way To Give Him Cover When Tough Decisions Are Made, As James O'Shea Finds Out

The Sam Zell honeymoon may be coming to a crashing thud, now that James O'Shea has been shown the door at The Los Angeles Times.
Zell, the new chieftain of Tribune, said he was firmly behind the decision by Times Publisher David Hiller to replace O'Shea after just 14 months at the helm.
In a rare public bout of he said-he said O'Shea said he was fired. Hiller called it a mutual decision, though he told The Wall Street Journal "at some point it is more semantic. The fact is we didn't see eye-to-eye."
Whatever.
O'Shea lasted 14 months, after coming to Los Angeles from the Chicago Tribune, where he had been a good corporate soldier without eviscerating the newsroom.
But the X factor is ultimately Zell, who said all the right things when he formally took control of Tribune last month.
To wit:

"I'm sick and tired of listening to everybody talk about and commiserate over the end of newspapers. "They ain't ended and they're not going to end. I think they have a great future."

"If you look at my track record, I haven't spent much time disassembling anything, and I've spent my entire career building things."

But Zell also made no secret that he would return local control to Tribune properties, rather than trying to have beancounters in Chicago micro-manage the media empire. Which leads us back to Hiller, who is no dummy and knows that he'll be in charge only so long as he can right the Times' listing ship.
Inevitably, that means even more expense cuts, staff reductions and a shrinking newspaper. That meant exit O'Shea, who knows you don't reverse a paper's fortunes (and don't forget the Times still has a double-digit profit margin) by cutting out its heart.
What remains to be seen is whether Zell -- amid all his bombast -- and Hiller can be persuaded to feel the same way.

You Mean Ms. Magazine is Still Publishing?

Amid Fracas over Magazine Rejecting American Jewish Congress Ad is Reason Why Group Would Rush to be in Title That's All But Irrelevant

The American Jewish Congress has raised a ruckus because an ad it wanted to place in Ms. magazine featuring three prominent Israeli women was rejected.

The AJC said that smacked of anti-Israel bias, a charge the magazine hotly denies, though its reasons are wholly suspect. This is part of a statement from executive editor Katherine Spillar:

Ms. policy is to accept only mission-driven advertisements from primarily non-profit, non-partisan organizations that promote women’s equality... In Ms. magazine’s judgment, the ad submitted by AJCongress for consideration was inconsistent with this policy... [W]ith its slogan “This is Israel,” the ad implied that women in Israel hold equal positions of power with men.

Huh?

All the ad appears to be trying to highlight is that women, in this case Israel's foreign minister, a judge on its Supreme Court and the speaker of the Knesset, do hold positions of power.

It did not imply, as Spillar asserts, that all is peachy and keen for women in Israel. Nor does it imply an endorsement for any political party, another reason given for the ad's rejection.

Two of the three women are from the same party. If political affiliation was a rationale for rejecting ads, there would be a lot of empty magazines nowadays.

And if Spillar's ever been to Israel, she'd know there are many Israels --- and these three represent just one of many in a country that's a lot more polyglot than it gets credit for.

Spillar tried to show Ms. had Israeli bona fides by stating how the magazine -- now reduced to a

quarterly -- had covered Israeli feminist issues 11 times.

What's more, the current issue has an article profiling Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, one of the women in the ad. So Ms. doesn't really hate Israel, right?

Not so fast, says AJCongress President Richard Gordon:

"....Ms. has run a cover article in the Fall 2003 issue on Queen Noor of Jordan, has featured a number of articles on Muslim women, and even ran an article in the Winter 2004 issue entitled, ‘Images of Palestine,’ which discussed the Ramallah Film Festival and gave sympathetic reviews to films concerning ‘the liberation of South Lebanon’ from Israel as well as numerous films which portrayed terrorism as legitimate ‘revolutionary’ activity against Israel and miscast Israel’s activities to counter terrorism as ‘oppressive.’”

Bottom line: The AJCongress has given Ms. a lot more publicity than it deserves. The magazine has managed to wheeze along for 35 years now.

Gloria Steinem is long gone from the masthead if not forgotten. But apparently relegated to the dustbin of history are Jewish feminist icons like Betty Friedan and Bella Abzug, both of whom would have no doubt been displeased if the magazine that helped define their movement betrayed another cause for which they also held great passion.

John King Has An Email Hissy Fit

Proving Once and for All the Average High-Wattage Reporter Has An Even Thinner Skin Than Those He Covers

CNN's John King should know better. But Salon's Glen Greenwald was happy to show otherwise.

Greenwald wrote a few days ago about what he says was an overly fawning interview King did with John McCain.

King, to his discredit, registered his displeasure with Greenwald via email, which Greenwald didn't hesitate to publish.

I don't read biased uninformed drivel so I'm a little late to the game.
But a friend who understands how my business works and knows a little something about my 20 plus years in it sent me the link to your ramblings.

And it went downhill from there.

I'm not going to dive into the he said-he said contretemps here. Suffice to say, journalists, especially one as visible as King, shouldn't get so uppity all the time when they're criticized.

So many reporters are horrified if they're even remotely subjected to the same scrutiny as their subjects, as if what they do and how they do it is beyond reproach. Just look at all the no comments reporters on the media beat have to suffer through.

It also makes King look bad when he sends an email criticizing what he views as shoddy work that itself has typos and grammatical errors.

By doing that, King could find his glass house is in ruins right about now.

The Wonder Pets Save --- the A-Hed?

Murdoch's Making More Noises About Moving It To The Weekend; This is Serious!

We have a 2 1/2-year-old in the house with definite ideas about what to watch on TV. Which means we often spend time in the morning watching what he wants to keep the peace and our sanity.

One happy accident that's resulted from those circumstances is our collective viewing of "The Wonder Pets," on Noggin, the preschool and commercial-free version of Nick Jr.

In it, Linny the guinea pig, Ming Ming the duckling and Tuck the turtle are classroom pets by day, who after the final bell rings, turn into a trio who travel the world saving young animals -- and the occasional tree -- that are in trouble.

The animation -- the creators call it photo-puppetry -- is nothing short of brilliant, with each episode performed like an operetta complete with full orchestra. We'll save our gripes about Noggin taking its time not showing the newest episodes (I'm sick of saving the calf stuck in a tree, already) for another day.

For now, my hope is the Wonder Pets could temporarily veer away from the animal kingdom and turn their attention to a more dangerous place -- the newsroom.

Specifically, the one at The Wall Street Journal, which is being menaced by a creature named Rupert Murdoch. Which, of course, is especially unfortunate, given that he owns the place now.

Ol' Rupe was making noises about the Journal before he spirited Dow Jones away from the Bancroft family. And now he's apparently clamoring even more loudly about one of the Journal's star attractions, the A-hed, the feature that currently resides in the fourth column on page 1, which can be about just about anything, and often is.

It's not that Murdoch is against enterprise journalism. His beef is that the A-heds are just too darn long for his short attention span. True, they can run well north of 2,000 words, but they're usually worth the time investment, though the Jan. 2 piece on Dennis Kucinich's alleged close encounter with UFOs didn't qualify on that account.

So what does the A-hed have to do with the Journal's mission of being the prime source of business news? Absolutely nothing, which is why getting to write one is the fulfillment of a wet dream for many reporters on the Journal staff. It's the chance to flex the journalistic muscles and bore into a subject without being boring.

Yet, now comes word from the New York Observer that Murdoch and his minions seriously think people only have the time to read these stories on the weekend and want to shunt them off to the Saturday paper.

Big mistake.

The A-Hed is what helps make the Journal the Journal. And who is Murdoch to assume I have more time on my hand come the weekend? I get a lot of my WSJ reading done on the train. As for the weekend, well, I'm usually too busy doing things like watching The Wonder Pets.

Memo to Linny, Ming Ming and Tuck: Forget the pigeons, pandas and skunks. Save the A-Hed!

WGA and CBS News Strike A Deal --- Finally

Maybe it was the ugly spectre of the WGA having two strikes going at the same time. Perhaps it was the prospect of CBS being without 500 journalists during the peak of primary season.
Either way, the Writers Guild of America and CBS finally agreed to a tentative deal on a contract that runs through April 1, 2010.
Members would get a 3.5 percent raise upon ratification and another 3.5 percent next year. Full-time employees will also get a one-time payment of $3,700. Sounds nice, until you consider that the last contract expired in 2005, and that $3,700 represents -- on average -- only about 60 percent of the lost pay.
But the union held firm on jurisdictional issues the company was pressing, and fought off a two-tier wage scale where local radio employees would get smaller raises.
And it appears they rejected any attempts to encroach on the so-called "no-lunch" hour. Many shifts, particularly in radio, are for eight straight hours without a lunch. The eighth hour is paid at 2.5 times the hourly rate in compensation.
With each negotiation, the company tries to get the Guild to give up that money, which the CBS Guild negotiators have always firmly rejected (full disclosure: I helped negotiate the previous two contracts for the Guild).
Shockingly, ABC News writers represented by the Guild gave up the no lunch in exchange for a $25 payment and agreed to a two-tier wage scale where new employees will be paid less.
The ABC writers have always been a more-timid lot, and in agreeing to the contract they did, began engineering their own eventual demise.
I'm glad to see my CBS brethren didn't trod that path. At the same time, I hope they don't forget the bitter lesson from this contract: don't let a contract expire without first taking a strike authorization vote, which was not held this time until 2.5 years AFTER the contract expired. That meant management had absolutely no incentive to negotiate in good faith.
And they didn't, because no one forced their hand. The Guild leadership should have known better based on past experience. Because they did nothing of substance to move negotiations forward until now, they cost members thousands of dollars in lost wages.
It's a victory in the sense that CBS news writers don't have to endure what would likely have been a protracted strike. But they could have had a better deal and more money, had their union confronted the company a lot sooner than it did.

Reasons Why You Get Into The News Business

Weekend At Bernie's Redux -- Story About Corpse Going Into A Store To Cash a Check Livens Up New York Newsrooms

Let's face it, being a reporter nowadays just isn't as glamorous as it used to be.
Not that, as I can attest from first-hand experience, it ever really was that glamorous. But at least it perked up a few ears at parties when you said what you did. And it sure beat being a C.P.A. or the guy who stamps papers at the DMV.
Reporting also gives you a front-row seat to the world at large, no matter how tragic or comical it may get. Which can make the job as fun as it is frustrating.
Fun, though, is definitely the operative term for this item from the New York Daily News, about two dolts who wheeled a dead guy to a check-cashing store, and then tried to cash his Social Security check before being arrested.
At least the Weekend At Bernie's wannabe had died of natural causes.
This saga wasn't in my edition of the Times -- whose delivery to my door is ever more haphazard -- but it looks like their reporters also got to have some fun -- at least online.

McCain As Lazarus? New York Times Gets Caught Up in Maelstrom of Hype Following N.H. Primary "Upsets"

National Desk: Time To Brush Up On Your Bible

The New York Times lead on the New Hampshire results was bewildering, not to mention inaccurate.

"In the Republican primary, Senator John McCain of Arizona revived his presidential bid with a Lazarus-like win."

Lazarus, in case you never went to catechism, was the brother of Mary and Martha who Jesus raised from the dead. Which is hardly a description of McCain's prospects going into Tuesday's vote.

First off, McCain didn't campaign vigorously in Iowa and basically bet the house on taking New Hampshire, where he bested Dubya in 2000. True, it was supposed to be a close race with Mitt Romney, who desperately wanted to wrap a win around his New England coattails.

McCain's campaign had been on the ropes because of flaccid fundraising and a chilly reaction to his unwavering support for the war. But the fact that he didn't win in Iowa wasn't ripe for a Lazarus allusion in New Hampshire, where polls showed him at or near the lead. And when you're at the top, there's no way you can rise from anything, let alone the dead.

The Times should have saved its Biblical references, of course, for Hillary Clinton. But her victory was merely labeled a "surprise."

Which is true. Not even Lazarus was predicting she'd win last night.

ADDENDUM: To be fair, after writing this I saw how McCain told The Wall Street Journal that he was marveling at his "Lazarus life," which is certainly true of his campaign if you look back at the last six months. But I still believe the Times left the impression they were referring to New Hampshire, rather than the overall campaign. Not a biggie, I realize. But still.

What Does The Future Hold For Alycia Lane, Now That It Doesn't Include KYW

Not to Worry. People -- Particularly Desperate News Directors -- Are Willing To Give Second Chances, Especially When You Look Like This

Now that KYW-TV, the CBS station in Philadelphia has given the boot to popular anchor Alycia Lane -- who's facing felony assault charges involving a police officer in New York -- come the questions about whether she has a future in the news business.

All indications are the answer should eventually be a resounding yes, and not because she's threatening the station with a wrongful termination suit for ending her contract, which had four years left at more than $700K per.

We'll work from the assumption that despite allegedly hitting a female officer in the face and calling her a "fucking dyke," she'll avoid jail time if not the enmity of GLAAD.

Conceivably, that could be smoothed over by lots of apologies, maybe even a visit to the homophobe rehab facility Isiah Washington felt compelled to visit.

If a dinosaur like Imus could be resurrected by the damage wrought by his big mouth, then so can Lane, who at 35, has the looks and the journalistic chops to go with them. In other words, an unbeatable combination for a news director looking to goose the ratings.

Forget the snarky comment The Philadelphia Inquirer got from nonpareil quote whore Robert Thompson, who chirped "I don't think Fox is still doing celebrity boxing."

Lane, after a self-imposed exile following the end of her trips to court, will live to see another day behind an anchor desk. But she'll probably have to relocate and maybe take a paycut in the process.

The spotlight may have gotten too bright in Philly, where her love life and failed marriages are topics of conversation. And since she mixed it up in the Big Apple, that's also a no-go. Maybe Miami? That's where Lane made a splash was working before KYW. Or perhaps TMZ.com, which has labeled her a "news vixen." She could be made to feel right at home there.

A Lawsuit That's Not About Nothing

Vegetable Plagiarists Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld Sued By "Nut Job" Cookbook Author Who's Not Crazy About Her Ideas Being Lifted

Missy Chase Lapine's got hand.
Lapine is a cookbook author who's suing Jessica and Jerry Seinfeld, the former for allegedly stealing her idea for a book on how to disguise nutritious foods; the latter for being the good hubby and publicly attacking Lapine.
Lapine might have avoided the litigation route and merely embarrassed Jessica Seinfeld publicly for coming out with a book that was a little too similar to one she'd put out. But what may have prompted a trip to court was comments from the Bee Movie Bad Boy.
Seinfeld was heard on Letterman (click to see clip) in October calling Lapine a "woodwork wacko," while denying his wife ever heard of Lapine.
"She accuses my wife and says 'you stole my mushed-up carrots' ... it's vegetable plagiarism." He kidded, sort of, that Lapine could be an assassin. Har, har.
Sounds like a recipe for lining the pockets of a few lawyers.

Clear Channel Clears Out Last of the Legacy DJs at New York's Lite-FM

UPDATE 1/24/08: After running out of air staff to get rid of, looks like Jim Ryan fired himself. He's leaving Lite-FM to start a consultancy, whose first client will be --- wait for it --- Lite FM.


With "Mixed Emotions," Valerie Smaldone Gets An Offer Too Easy To Refuse

WLTW-FM, 106.7 Lite FM, has long been the perennial ratings leader in the notoriously fractured world of New York radio, with its adult contemporary format.
Program Director Jim Ryan has managed to stay on top by constantly tweaking the music mix and stretching the bounds of a format to capture an ever-fickle audience. It was enough to capture an estimated $68.5 million in revenue in 2005, more than any other station in the country.
But it's apparently not enough.
While few people have turned to Lite-FM for their deejays, the station at one point helped burnish its dominance with an air staff that provided listeners with a familiar, reliable sound. WLTW, at one point, had the same announcers in place for 13 years before overnight host Robin Taylor passed away in 2003.
It was comfortable and predictable, but in a good way.
The deejays were not superstar jocks with seven-figure salaries, but pro's pros who earned an extremely decent wage by radio standards. But it was apparently more than the hard-of-hearing bean counters at Clear Channel could stomach.
In 2005, Stephen E. Roy, who had been at the station since 1983, got the boot. He was followed a year later by morning man Bill Buchner and evening personality J.J. Kennedy, who had worked a combined 34 years at WLTW.
This fall heralded the end of the tenure for mid-morning jock Al Bernstein, who had been with the station since its inception, which meant the silky-voice Valerie Smaldone, who also joined the station in its infancy 24 years ago, would likely be close behind.
That prediction sadly came true. Radio & Records reported on Dec. 31 that she had left her afternoon shift at the station. Ryan said in a statement that it was with "mixed emotions" that Smaldone had decided not to renew her contract.
Translation: We're going to let her stay if she takes a big pay cut. Smaldone likely said a few words she couldn't say on the air.
And mixed emotions? Please. Why were they mixed, Jim? Because you decided to effectively force her to quit rather than outright can her, like you did with the other jocks?
Why would there be any ambiguity over your emotions when you're casting out the deejay who had been number-one in her daypart for a gazillion Arbitron books?
True, Lite-FM will soldier on and will likely remain one of New York's top stations now and in the future.
Ryan and the Lite have succeeded for never taking the audience for granted. In getting rid of all the voices listeners have heard for 24 years, that's messing with a formula that didn't need to be changed, all for the sake of a few more dollars for the bloodsuckers in San Antonio.
You get to be number one for a reason, and when you stay at the top for so long with the same jocks at the mic, it's lame to suddenly deny they played any role in your success.

Hey, Mac! Wanna Buy A Paper Cheap?

Remember When Owning A Newspaper Was A License To Print Money? So Do Many Publishers. Unfortunately, You Can't Pay The Bills With Nostalgia

You knew things were bad in the newspaper industry. But Alan Mutter shows us just how bad, at least in the view of Wall Street.
Bad, as in publicly traded newspaper companies losing 42 percent of their market value since 2004. That's not a typo.
And the carnage would have been even worse, if you discount the premium Foxy Murdoch paid for Dow Jones' stock, which jumped 65 percent.
One persistent thorn in the side in newsrooms has been that until very recently, investors didn't give a crap about increased competition and lower circulation. They were accustomed to 15-25 percent returns, and even if that meant bringing in some trained seals and outsourcing your sports coverage to Bangalore, by gum, that's what they were going to get.
Now such returns are all but unattainable at most companies. The question remains, do investors care anymore? Judging by the market values, it looks like so many have headed to the exits that now publishers can focus more on treading water than appeasing shareholders.
Of course, treading water has never been a solid business model. So, now may come a few spare moments to figure out what to do next.
There are no easy answers. For now, let's just hope there are some answers, period.