Well, We Do Control the Media

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

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

Readers in the Queen City Should Mount a Palace Revolt

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

Recipe for Disaster, or at Least Morbid Obesity

But Maybe Julia Child Wouldn't Have Minded

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

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

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

You Mean Wayne Barrett Was Still at the Village Voice?

You Mean the Village Voice Was Still Being Published?

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

Soon, Gannett Will Charge Its Employees to Work There

Enough Really is Enough

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

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

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

A Groupon Too Far?

Nothing Wrong with Trying, But....

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

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

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

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

Why is Henry Freeman Smiling?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Winners and Losers in The Early Show Shuffle

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







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

First, the soon-to-depart:

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


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


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


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


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

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


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



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

Somewhere, Captain Kangaroo is having a good chuckle.

Winning Headline of the Day

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

Police! Drop the Pawn!

Curiously changed online to:

'Police! Step Away From the Chess Table'

First attempt was check and mate.

Ex Times-Picayune Photographer Offers a Troubling Word Picture

What Happens When You Get Too Close to Your Sources

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

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

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

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

Untruth in Labeling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barron's Bearish on Its Integrity

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

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

In Cablevision-Fox Spat, Newspapers Come Out the Winner

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

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

Break Out the Tourniquets: Ax Starts Swinging at Newsweek

A Reduced Staff to Go With a Reduced Magazine


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

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

Ding Dong, the Witch is...Fired

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

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

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

Exactly Why is Sidney Harman Bothering?

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

When The Subways Don't Suck

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

R.I.P., Paste

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why You Need to Appreciate Winning Headlines Now More Than Ever

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

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