Mets Once Again Rewrite the PR Playbook

GM Omar Minaya Gets Pimp-Slapped By Boss for Lying about Daily News reporter Adam Rubin

First, the New York Mets opened eyes (see below post) by sending an email to fans from General Manager Omar Minaya about why he fired VP of Player Development Tony Bernazard (basically he was an insufferable blowhard who became a walking migraine).
But what the email didn't have was what Minaya really wanted to say, namely that the articles in the Daily News that highlighted Bernazard's bloopers was part of an elaborate play by beat writer Adam Rubin to get a job in player development with the team.
Only problem: it wasn't true, and Minaya knew that. Rubin's worst offense was asking Minaya generally how one got a job in player development (a fair question, given the perilous state of the newspaper industry). But lobbying? C'mon.
After Minaya issued a non-apology, it was finally time for semi-reclusive team COO Jeff Wilpon to finally pipe up. And he isn't happy.
Wilpon said: "After some reflection, I thought it was important to come out and talk to everybody. We're very sorry about what happened (Monday). It was the wrong forum. The wrong time. The wrong situation for Omar to express himself in that way."
Wow.
But he really didn't have a choice. The press corps has been pissed off big-time over this episode. And given that the Mets are a team that have excelled at underachieving, it's easy to pile on, and even easier to ignore that the Mets have gone on a rare four-game winning streak.
Despite his emergence from the woodshed, Wilpon said Minaya still has a job. But what he didn't say is for how much longer.

How's This for Damage Control: Mets Fire Misbehaving VP and Then Tell Everyone Why

Why It Really Sucks to be Tony Bernazard Right Now

The New York Mets did what they had to do, and got rid of vice president for player development Tony Bernazard, after he became unhinged, not to mention shirtless.
Among his most-recent distractions: removing his shirt in front of some of the Double-A Binghamton Mets, questioning their manhood and challenging them to a fight. He also nearly came to blows with star reliever Francisco Rodriguez, and ripped a colleague a new one after it was suggested he wait to take a seat occupied by an opposing team's scout.
So, the fact that Bernazard was dumped is no big surprise. What did open my eyes, however, is opening an email the Mets send to fans, and seeing a message from General Manager Omar Minaya that succinctly yet completely explained why he fired Bernazard. Such moves are usually kept under wraps, or companies simply say "we don't comment on personnel matters."
Nothing about this incident particularly compelled Minaya to make an exception to that rule, but good of him to do so. Here's what he wrote:

I wanted for you to hear directly from me today regarding an update on the investigation of Tony Bernazard, our Vice President of Player Development. Prior to a series of articles published in the media, our Baseball Operations and Human Resources departments had begun looking into several matters involving Tony.

Once those reports became public, we accelerated our investigation. We wanted it to be thorough and complete it as quickly as possible while still being fair to Tony. That process concluded over the weekend. Yesterday, I met with Tony in person to have a frank conversation about what we had learned following interviews with numerous people. I also wanted for Tony to have the opportunity to give his side of the story. After meeting with Tony, and giving a lot of thought to the facts, I came to a decision on Tony's status which I shared with Ownership last night.

My recommendation was that we needed to part ways with Tony, as his behavior in his interaction with others was inconsistent with our organization's values. Ownership agreed with my assessment and accepted my recommendation. I spoke with Tony this morning and informed him of my decision to terminate his employment with the Mets. Personnel decisions are never easy. And one can't make them without giving it a lot of thought. It's even harder when you know someone as I do Tony.

Tony and I go back a long time. He is a dedicated baseball man who loves the game, someone I like and respect, and someone who has contributed to the Mets. In the end, however, I just told him I couldn't leave him in his position after all that had transpired. As General Manager of the Mets, I am fully accountable for our Baseball Operations department -- on and off the field -- and stand by this decision. Thank you for your ongoing support of the Mets.


Now what I'd like to really read about is Minaya making a few more trades before Friday's deadline, so I don't lose interest in the Mets before Labor Day.

Harvey Araton Yanked As N.Y. Times Sports Columnist

Be It Cost-Cutting or New Direction, Diminishing a Distinct Voice Still a Bad Idea

I finally caught up to an item from The Big Lead that said New York Times sports columnist Harvey Araton was being booted from his perch to take on a new role writing features.'

Araton's been blessed to have that vaunted post for 15 years, and has long been a destination read. His writing, especially about tennis and basketball, is engaging, skeptical and well-reported -- a vestige from his days as a beat writer.

Araton is clever without resorting to cheap shots. And unlike other columnists who seem to relish being the first to call for a coach or manager to be fired, Araton's not one to jump on bandwagons.

So, then, why would the Times do away with such an asset? It can't be for cost-cutting reasons, if Araton is still on the payroll in another capacity.

The Big Lead said "[o]ne source claims the Times is veering off beat coverage and columns - wise move - and focusing more on offbeat features..."

You could perhaps -- just perhaps -- that veering off beat coverage is a wise move. And the Times has done just that with all college teams, the Devils, Islanders and only partially covering the Rangers. Such are the casualties of both cost-cutting and the Times' self-definition as a national newspaper.

But cutting columnists should in no way be defined as a wise move. If beat coverage is less essential in the digital age, then sports sections must justify their existence with distinctive voices and content that can't be had anywhere else. In other words, a columnist.
The Times has already thinned its columnist ranks. After Dave Anderson retired, and Selena Roberts fled to much-greener pastures in Sports Illustrated, neither were replaced.

So maybe you don't need five. But two? And one of those two, George Vecsey -- good as he still remains -- has been an ink-stained wretch for half a century. How much more does he have left in the tank? And when he decides to power down his laptop will the Times replace him?

For now, let's hope the Times doesn't have to answer those questions anytime soon. But what sports editor Tom Jolly should address is how taking away a columnist makes sense. At a time when his section is often less than six pages -- and way too much of it is taken up lately by cycling (blanket coverage of the Giro D'Italia? Really?) -- the sports department needs to make the most of its precious allotted space, not less.

What Happens When You Outsource Your Writing to Bangalore

Providing Basic Facts a Casualty of Cost-Cutting at Reuters

The short Reuters item about the sale by Cox of three newspapers had a few cracks showing in its inverted pyramid.
It said the company would sell the Waco Tribune-Herald, along with the Daily Sentinel and the Nickel.
Do you want to know where the latter two newspapers are located? So do I, but the story never tells us, which is what happens when Reuters outsources some of its business writing to India, but then doesn't spend some of the money it's saved on fact-checking.
A click on Romenesko revealed the Daily Sentinel is the daily newspaper in Grand Junction, Colo.; the Nickel is a shopper in that city.
But why was that so difficult to add to the Reuters story? The A.P. had no such problem.
I thought maybe Cox had left it off the press release, and they were too busy or lazy in Bangalore to look it up. However, Grand Junction is mentioned in the lead, so no excuse.
You get what you pay for, and that's not much.

Couldn't Someone Have Saved the Eagle Times?

Demise of Small New Hampshire Daily Could Be an Anomaly. Or it Could be the Harbinger of Things to Come

Many of the newspapers that have either closed, or are in danger of closing, have been battered by competition or the declining need or desire for a second read who often don't have the time or inclination nowadays to read even one paper, e.g. Denver, Seattle, Tucson.
But the conventional wisdom has been that one-newspaper towns, while not immune to the meltdown in the industry, were better insulated, especially in small towns where there were few other sources for news or better vehicles for advertising.
So much for conventional wisdom, with word last week that the Eagle Times in Claremont, N.H. abruptly shut down after Friday's edition.
Maybe it's not a big deal to you, but it is to folks who live in the communities served by the Eagle Times.
What's troubling is not so much that the paper was losing money, although you'd think that'd be harder to do when you don't have much competition for ads -- even in a down market -- from traditional media.
Rather, it's disconcerting that no other company stepped up to buy the paper at any price in the year it was on the market. Not a single entity viewed a daily paper as a viable medium worth saving. The die was cast. Now the Eagle Times withers, similar to the factories and commercial activity that long ago vanished from this hardscrabble corner of New Hampshire.
The Eagle Times was family-owned, but that means squat in this current environment. All the big newspaper chains are on the ropes or in bankruptcy, so it's not a question of resources. The real question is how many more papers like the Eagle Times are out there?

Gannett Blog Jumps In the Lifeboat While the Dance Band on the Titanic Warms Up

Jim Hopkins Bids Farewell Just as Gannett Finishes Getting Rid of Another 1,300 Newspaper Employees

First things first. A thanks to Jim Hopkins, who started the popular, incendiary Gannett Blog, which dutifully -- and sometimes stridently -- covered the disintegration of a once-mighty media company by executives who somehow manage to be both greedy and clueless at the same time.
For various reasons -- money most among them -- Hopkins decided to put a -30- on new blog posts as of last night. But he went out with a bang, no thanks to Gannett, which laid off another 1,300 employees from its newspaper division.
Just when you thought there was anything left for Gannett to cut, the beancounters worked their magic. Now there are even fewer reasons to buy the company's mostly mediocre papers. Of course, that won't stop them from raising the cover prices again in the near future.
One property that escaped, for now, unscathed is one of my former employers, The Journal-News, the paper of record for New York's northern suburbs. Or at least the paper.
As the J-N is now absorbing the copy editing and graphics departments of the wheezing Poughkeepsie Journal, management decided to hold off on the pink slips until August so those operations could be properly integrated.
The J-N had a daily circulation of around 160,000 when I worked there 20 years ago. It's now down near 92,000 and sinking while it shrinks: pages are smaller in keepig with the desiccated reporting staff. As one anonymous scribe posted on Gannett Blog:

I am a Westchester reporter. Twice last week -- TWICE -- I was interviewing someone and they said to me:

What is The Journal News? Can you imagine this for any other semi-major daily paper?(For all you readers outside the area: The Journal News is the name the paper was given when a group of smaller local dailies was merged in late 1998. More than 10 years later, the new name hasn't really caught on.)When I joined the company, circulation was 155,000 daily and 170,000 Sunday ...

These were sources in Northern Westchester, but I find the single place with the fewest people who know about us is Scarsdale. I cannot tell you how many times over the years I've had to explain what The Journal News is to someone from Scarsdale...

The area IS weird when it comes to local versus local, local. People live in about 75 towns and don't seem to have a regional feeling at all. If you live in Yonkers, you just don't want to read about Armonk or Peekskill or Brewster or Nyack, especially if all you're reading is the local municipal stuff or a feature about a tiny community festival.

However, the people here are sophisticated and appreciate a good story that's newsy about anywhere in the area, whether it's a scam or corruption revealed or a compelling personality featured or a new innovation explained....

We have lost A LOT of reporting staff. There is no question that readers today are getting FEWER stories than they did six months ago -- and A TON less than they did three years ago. There is news that goes uncovered and features that go unwritten.Is there any mystery why there are fewer readers? Why pay the same -- or more -- for a thinner paper?

Sad, but oh so typical, for Gannett.

Wall Street Journal Needs to Spend More Time On The Couch

Let's Keep Jason Gay's Butt Planted in Front of the TV More Than One Day a Week

It's all too rare in newspapers nowadays to have destination reading, especially in the sports section. Columnists quit or get fired. Beat writing is, well, beat writing, assuming the paper is even covering the team anymore.
That state of affairs is why going to the back of the Marketplace section to read Jason Gay's "The Couch" column in Monday's Wall Street Journal is a must.
Sure, you get insights without the bombast. But what you mostly get are laughs, and plenty of them. From yesterday's column:

Well, at least it wasn't a boring Wimbledon final, like last year's.

What can you say about Sunday's All England Club epic match between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick? Here's what we can say: We started, as usual, with breakfast at Wimbledon. Then we had brunch at Wimbledon. Then we had lunch -- a cold chicken sandwich at Wimbledon. Our house guests had cocktails at Wimbledon. Then more cocktails at Wimbledon. We debated marinating a steak at Wimbledon. Then we grew terrified: was this all-time classic sporting event going to preempt NBC's "Merlin"?

Or this gem about the U.S. collapse to Brazil in the Confederations Cup final:

It was cruel and mesmerizing to watch. The yellow-and-green soccer juggernaut scored early in the second half and relentlessly pounded U.S. goalie Tim Howard until they finally prevailed 3-2. When it was over the American players were crestfallen. They'd come within one half of a Wheaties box. Now they had to watch Brazil celebrate a title, which is like watching Derek Jeter celebrate getting a phone number.
"It's one thing to see the Promised Land," intoned ESPN analyst Alexi Lalas, whose hair we vastly preferred in its mangy, Big Lebowski form, as opposed to its current Dead Poets Society clean look. "It's another thing to get there."

Since Gay's column often features an item on TV the day before, it's clear he doesn't need much turnaround to turn in A-level work. The Journal should give him the chance to let a few more missives loose during the week, so we don't have to wait a whole week to once again sit on The Couch.

Federer's Epic Win Also a Victory for The New York Times

Nothing Like Some Color Full-Page Ads to Soothe A Publisher's Soul

The five-set thriller at Wimbledon was entertainment on a grand scale, enough to make you not get too hot and bothered about missing out on some high-quality outside time on one of the primo weather days of the year.
Almost as happy as Federer was the ad department at The New York Times, which played host in yesterday's sports section to a full-page color ad featuring Federer from Gillette. And on the back page was a full-pager from Lacoste, which congratulated runner-up Andy Roddick, dour but stoic after his five-set defeat. You can bet your alligator there was another version of the ad ready to run had a few shots gone the other way.
Not to be outdone, Federer was on the back page of today's Business Day section, which contained the sports pages. This time it was Rolex shelling out the bucks so we could get a close look at Federer planting a big wet one on the Wimbledon trophy.
And, yes, there's a big shiny Rolex on his left wrist.

The Art of Artful Phrasing in The New York Times

Jennifer Steinhauer Goes Balls to the Wall Trying to Describe California Budget Crisis

In case you didn't get to the end of yesterday's story in The New York Times about the latest budget woes in the Golden State, you should catch up to how Jennifer Steinhauer bobbed and weaved out of saying what she really wanted to say.

Political posturing infused the Capitol last week, with the governor and the Legislature decrying one another. Darrell Steinberg, the Senate president pro tem, sent Mr. Schwarzenegger a package of mushrooms in response to the governor’s saying the Legislature was “hallucinating” with its budget plan; the governor sent Mr. Steinberg a sculpture of a bull testicle, suggesting something like backbone, only not quite, would be needed to make tough cuts.

Clever and cute.

Should Johnny Gilbert Be Worried?

TV Ad Still Running with Him, Ed McMahon and Don LaFontaine Even Though Latter Two Now Appearing Posthumously

The New York Lottery has had no problem running this ad featuring three storied announcers, even though one of them, Don LaFontaine, has been dead since last year.
Now that Ed McMahon has joined him in voiceover heaven, maybe it's time for this spot to finally be retired.




After all, only Johnny Gilbert, the third announcer in the spot, is around to collect residuals.
R.I.P., Ed. Say hi to Karnac.

Ann Curry Is Pissed Off

And If You Care About Foreign News, Maybe You Should Be Too

Heard yesterday at the 140 Character Conference on social media in New York, this broadside from NBC's Ann Curry, who's often popping up in some remote locale when she's not reading the news on "Today."

Here's what's pissing me off. The reason I have to fight every time to do these stories is because the truth is that it's hard to get the majority of Americans or even a significant number of Americans in NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS's world, to care. I think journalism is a battle and I feel the scars and I see the blood on my sword on a daily basis for fights for foreign coverage to be more present in our broadcasting.

Curry had been in Iran to cover the elections there, and has been sent out on just about every major overseas assignment in recent years. So, it's a bit of a surprise to hear she has to convince the brass to put her on a plane when big news breaks on another continent.
Her remarks came amid some testy exchanges on the panel with CNN's Rick Sanchez. For more of that, read here.

Are These SNY-TV Ads Racist?

Mandeep and Sharvarish Seem Like South Indian Versions of Stepin Fetchit

Maybe it's just me, but the more I watch a series of spots for SNY-TV, the more I wonder if I'm watching stereotypes gone amok.
They feature two South Asians named Mandeep and Sharvarish, presumably Indians, who own a New York sports memorabilia shop. Some of the ads are nominally funny. Others are merely bewildering.
But what's troubling are the centerpieces of the ads are little more than caricactures that fulfill the worst prejudices of anyone whose only contact with Indians is from the back of a cab or watching "Slumdog Millionaire on DVD.
Judge for yourself:


Of course, you could argue, maybe I should lighten up. But if SNY tried pulling off these ads with a couple of blacks who sounded like they just came off the plantation, or Hasidic Jews one step removed from the shtetl, you might feel differently. And so would SNY.

Wall Street Journal Hearts Cholesterol-Drug Ads

More Health Coverage is Nice, But Ads Shouldn't Be So Intertwined With Editorial

It's great The Wall Street Journal is bulking up its health and fitness coverage in the Tuesday edition of the Personal Journal section.
After all, why not provide more of the news its aging readers can use before they age out. Case in point is a column called Heart Beat by Ron Winslow about all things related to the ticker, that is, the one that doesn't spew out stock prices (remember them?).
The column focused on why it's not enough to simply lower the LDL, or bad, cholesterol; that the HDL/good cholesterol and triglycerides also play a big role and why exercise and diet need to act in concert with statins.
It's a subject near and dear to my, um, heart, given that I pop a Zocor every day.
All well and good content-wise. However, I was a little troubled that the article was flanked by an ad for a new drug called Trilipix, which is designed to be taken with a statin to, you guessed it, raise good cholesterol and lower triglycerides.
Nowhere does the column mention Trilipix. However, the ad should have been placed elsewhere in the section. It's one thing to live in the neighborhood. It's another to be the nosy next-door neighbor.
Even if there's no quid pro quo, it does the Journal no good to leave the impression that there could have been.

Can the iPhone Save Journalism? Nope

Apple's Darling Thrives on Short Attention Spans; Journalists Don't

Atlantic blogger Derek Thompson wondered aloud about whether the new, whizbang iPhone could prove to be an inhaler for the wheezing news industry.
Seems there's an app called Scrollmotion that promises to 220 magazines and newspapers, along with 1 million books.
Of course, you'd be paying for this; a presumably premium selection of articles and news sources aggregated so you don't have to do the heavy lifting.
Trying to apply the iTunes model to news has its own set of problems, as Thompson notes, including the fact that, information is disposable and hardly unique, unlike music you would buy.
But the biggest problem is one of size: are you really going to spend enough time on an iPhone to read enough content you'd pay for? It's fine to check Gmail or Facebook, but to read a column, movie reviews or an analysis of the TARP program, the iPhone is just too small and distracting (all those other apps, oh, la, la) to make reading a meaningful experience.
If you're going to pay for your content -- and sooner or later, all of the good stuff online will cost you one way or the other -- the Kindle, or your laptop or PC is infinitely more commodious to read anything for more than 90 seconds at a time.
For media outlets who don't care how much you read, as long as you ante up for it, such a strategy will only nip them in the arse before long. People will soon realize there's a lot less than meets the eye -- and for good reason.
All of this isn't to say back to the drawing board. But desperate media outlets should be looking elsewhere for a savior. Scrollmotion ain't it.

Will Bunch Avoids Being Thrown Under the Inky's Bus

Give Brian Tierney Credit, For a Change: Philadelphia Daily News Writer Gets to Slam Newsroom Brethren Without Getting Slammed


Philadelphia Weekly has a good piece out on local media badboy Will Bunch, a senior writer for the Philly Daily News.
I think Bunch is kinda cool, and not because he went to the fancy-schmancy private school down the road from where I live and worked on the school paper with Keith Olbermann.
Rather, I like it that he gets to criticize bigger sibling the Philadelphia Inquirer and doesn't wind up on the unemployment line in the process.
Bunch got the Inky brass all hussied up because he ripped the choice of Bush torture-meister John Yoo to be a regular columnist in his Attytood blog. He also had a few things to say when the Inquirer inked former rightie senator Rick Santorum to pen a column.
Of course, that's over at the Inky, not the perpetual-underdog-and-loving-it Daily News. “It might have been a little more complicated if the hire had been at the Daily News," Bunch told Philadelphia Weekly.
All of this doesn't mean Bunch has a death wish. Brian Tierney, the major domo of Philadelphia Newspapers, has remained skewer-free in Attytood. Bunch instead leaves that to blogs like this one. As he said diplomatically: “He’s entitled to have influence on the editorial boards–owners and publishers always have. He pledged not to interfere in news operations and to my knowledge, and I’m pretty plugged in at the Daily News, he has honored that pledge.”

Sending Good Thoughts to Pyongyang Central Court

Trial of Current TV's Laura Ling and Euna Lee Set for Tomorrow

Unlike the high-profile campaign to get Roxanne Saberi out of Iran, any efforts to get Current TV's Euna Lee and Laura Ling out of North Korea have been well-concealed.

We're assuming there's a good reason for that, given the loose cannons in control in Pyongyang, some of whom would dearly love a propaganda slam-dunk against the U-S.

The pair were detained March 17 and charged with illegally crossing into North Korea from China and other so-called "hostile acts" that could land them up to 10 years in a labor camp.

North Korea has denied diplomats -- in this case, Swedes representing U.S. interests -- since March 30 in contravention of international law. Surprise, surprise.

And we can all guess how a purported trial will turn out. Will Kim Jong-Il and his gang put on a show, convict the two and then give them an unceremonial boot from the country? Or, will North Korea try to scapegoat Lee and Ling while the contretemps over the missile tests rages on? It probably also doesn't help that nobody knows who's really in charge over there and what their agendas might be.

Current is, of course, Al Gore's baby. It's hard to tell whether that's hurting or helping the reporters' cause. The channel has put up a wall of silence about Lee and Ling in the apparent belief that saying nothing increases the chances of not pissing off the notoriously pissy North Koreans.

Let's hope Kim and Co. know that silence doesn't mean Lee and Ling have been forgotten. On that front, North Korea cannot win.

Let's also hope they consider the trial their own little show -- a perverse amusement to brighten their otherwise-dour lives -- and then remember that when the show is over, it's time for the performers to go home.

No Film at 11: L.A. Mayor Gets the Scoop on Another Local Anchorette

Somehow, KTLA Says Lu Parker Not Ethically Challenged by Bonking Area's Top Politician and Reporting on Him

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa likes the media. Actually, he loves the media, specifically two local anchors.
First, it was an affair with Telemundo's Mirthala Salinas. When news of that liaison broke, so did the mayor's marriage, along with Salinas' career at channel 52.
Now, Mayor V has moved on to Lu Parker at KTLA. Their coupling was apparently news to her bosses, until recently. But according to The Los Angeles Times they don't seem too hot and bothered by one of their anchors doing the mattress mambo with Hizzoner.
"Now that we're aware of the relationship, she will no longer be covering local politics," said KTLA-TV news director Jason Ball. "I have the utmost faith in Lu Parker's abilities."

And lest you think Ball wasn't toeing the station's party line, his boss adds for emphasis:
"There is no concern as to the ethics whatsoever," said General Manager Don Corsini. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a personal matter."
Corsini's answer is very convenient, not to mention unsatisfying.
It's not that Parker isn't allowed a personal life. But to then say her love life can be managed on-air by simply having her read the stories about pileups on the 405 and a triple murder in Watts puts the station in a bind, to say the least.
And what does it say about Parker's judgment, that she and Villaraigosa have been an item since March, yet she, in effect, had to be outed for her station to know about her relationship? In doing so, she compromised whatever credibility KTLA has in the process. Yet her bosses don't seem to have a problem with her choices.
That, in and of itself, is a problem.

Westchester Magazine Feature on Top Dentists Has Credibility Cavity

A Shameless Mix of Ads and Editorial

You can't fault Westchester Magazine for running advertising supplements; just about every magazine does.
But you can easily find fault when they try to pawn off those supplements as legitimate editorial copy, as it did in its latest issue with what was ostensibly a feature on the county's top dentists. The "piece" was bannered across the front cover.
Inside, is one paragraph that explains how the magazine "asked" topDentists, an Augusta, Georgia, database of dental professionals to do the tallying "as determined by peer reviews collected and analyzed by topDentists from thousands of dental professionals in the Westchester area."
Yeah, right.
From the get-go, this list had a big stink to it, and not because my own in-demand dentist wasn't on the list.
It's because there is absolutely no editorial copy about said dentists. There's copy all right, 18 pages worth. But it's a giant supplement paid for by, you guessed it, topDentists.
This wouldn't be a problem if it was a standalone ad supplement. But it's promoted on the cover, is in the magazine's table of contents and has its imprimatur ("Westchester Magazine asked topDentists....")
At best, it's shameful for a magazine that recently has tried to raise its profiles with several news features that are a departure from their more-typical service articles (10 Most Romantic Places to Kiss, 25 Great Getaways).
Westchester Magazine has long arrived in my mailbox on the thick side, remarkable in these recessionary times. But it turns out, as a source told me, many of their ads are actually bartered. So, while it's covering one of the most-affluent counties in the country, it's not rolling in as much dough as they'd like you to believe. I found that out a couple of years ago when I interviewed for a senior editor's job there. All was going swell until we started discussing money.
The magazine wanted someone who lived in Westchester. But they only wanted to pay a salary more befitting for West Chester, Pa.
Yet, still I read, and I generally like what they do. Until now.
The dentist supplement is a fiasco, to put it very kindly.
The money might have been nice, but what price credibility?

Oy, Vey! The Jewish Week Needs A Geography Lesson

White Plains is Where?

The May 15 issue of New York Jewish Week had an article on how a syngagogue in the city of White Plains, north of New York, was going to transform its space into a replica of Tel Aviv, in honor of that city's centennial.
The headline: Tel Aviv on the Hudson.
Cute? Feh.
The problem: White Plains is about 10 miles from the Hudson River. Tel Aviv on I-287 would have been more accurate.
However, that's what happens when you have editors who may never have ventured north of the Bronx and think anything outside of the city is "the country."
Which would be news to folks in White Plains, what with its skyscrapers, including a luxury 42-story condo that's also home to a Ritz-Carlton.
You know, the country.

It's a Spelling Bee, Not a Steel Cage Match

Washington Post Live Blog Too S-N-A-R-K-Y For Its Own Good

It's all well and good that The Washington Post is covering the National Spelling Bee, and live blogging it no less.
But a little perspective, please, is needed from writer Dan Steinberg, even if tongue is planted firmly in cheek.
In other words, lose phrases like: "As expected, the massive success in Round 4 led directly into a Round 5 bloodbath."
Bloodbath? C'mon.
These are kids. Let them be kids. This isn't Ultimate Fighting. A big deal, yes. But blood won't be spilled, even in a euphemistic way.
I know first-hand what it's like to lose in a spelling bee on a word you should have known (abhor, I added an e). I almost cried. But no blood was shed.
Sure, it sucked. But even in my 12-year-old way, I put the loss in perspective. Steinberg should do the same.