Now there's a switch

At the same time newspapers are lamenting a decline in circulation and popularity, they are contributing to it by eliminating some of their most faithful customers.

In the years I covered Lapeer County I was constantly frustrated by the reality that the Flint Journal would not, for reasons of economy, deliver newspapers - even when people really wanted it - to rural areas in the county. Mind you, these were areas that we spent time covering news events.

The answer was it cost too much to give the paper to too few people. My suggestion was that the paper try and salt the route. In other words, if you had someone who wanted the paper at the end of Boon Dock Road, give away a few free papers along the way there and see if you could pick up a few more subscribers and make the route worthwhile.

Those suggestions were dismissed out of hand. In part, because a long time ago newspapers divested itself of ownership of its own routes and turned them over to private contractors. Those contractors sometimes, and understandably, balked at taking on expensive customers. It might have been different if newspapers had maintained control over their own routes. So we voluntarily collapsed our circulation with the resulting collapse in news coverage. It's a business model that I will never understand.

The same was true of the daily paper coin boxes which are likewise controlled by independent contractors. I don't know if this is still true, by the paper box at the front door of the Flint Journal belonged to an independent contractor and at times would be emptied early in the day. That led to the ridiculous situation where people couldn't buy a newspaper at the front door of the Flint Journal (they could, of course, come inside and purchase one at the counter, but why?) and the newspaper couldn't refill it, because it didn't belong to them.

If someone really wants your product, doesn't it make sense to find a way to get it to them?

Anyway, the Flint Journal is not alone, consider the following link:

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/042208/TRI_BGDNBLUG.006.php

Table manners training brings big bucks

Just watched an ABC World News report about a woman who runs classes to teach children table manners. Presumably parents are outsourcing this former duty to an expert who charges $50 a lesson.

At the risk of stirring another debate on a non-newspaper topic, I deplore this trend of parents turning over basic household training to strangers.

Teaching table manners was a nightly event at our house. Today, there are apparently so few family dining opportunities that now some parents are seeking outside help.

It didn't take many nights for my mother and her vise like grip to teach me and my brother, Mike, the basics of holding a fork, wielding a knife and scooping up peas with a spoon.

My mother also taught my brother and I the correct way to set a table (fork on the left, knife and spoon on the right, etc.).

We had real family dinners, complete with conversation and, gasp, no television while we were eating. Can you imagine?

But, on the other hand, with the export of so many high paying jobs, maybe the Miss Manners service training will offer great opportunities to the legions of newspaper people currently looking for work.

Many of the fine journalists I know could teach your children the best way to pour a beer without overflowing the foam and the proper way to unwrap, hold and eat a hamburger at your desk. Give them a try, many could use the $50.

Free From Editors fun facts

Free From Editors has been on line since late November 2007. On March 31 I signed up for a Google Analytic program that keeps a general track of my blog traffic. It doesn't identify specific visitors, but it does break them down by country and server.

In just three weeks keeping track, I've had visitors from 13 countries, including the U.S. Obviously, most of the traffic coming here is around the U.S.

Here are the countries, in addition to the U.S., that have visited the site: Canada, UK, France, Germany, Morocco, South Africa, Egypt, Turkey, India, Australia, China and Thailand. Now if only I could find a way to transport myself to each place that has viewed this blog.

Nearly 500 visitors here in less than a month of keeping track, thanks for stopping by.

Just for fun....

Angryjournalist.com is now so popular (well over 4,000 posts now) that they are offering a line of t-shirts (see one here). Just for comparison, Happyjournalist.com is now at 116 posts in almost the same amount of time.

Many of the happy comments are not so happy either. For example on Happyjournalist.com: "I’m happy because the news editor who has been pissing and moaning all week is leaving. Good riddance."

Doesn't sound so happy to me. And they are not offering t-shirts, at least not yet.

In addition to the "Angry Journalist" shirt they also have t-shirts that say the following: Print is dead - Journalists get laid (off) and -30-

A line of coffee cups and beer mugs is coming, the site said.

By the way, if you don't know what -30- means, you are showing your age and experience. Not a slam, just a fact.

So if you're looking for a gift for that special someone, go to angryjournalist.com (link is to the right).

I'd get one, but I'm neither angry nor a journalist anymore.

More bad news for Oakland Press, Journal Register Co.

Saw a link on another website posted by former colleague Sue C. who points out that many of us have friends at the Michigan publications owned by this company. The company has already decimated its ranks so it boggles the mind where they can go from here:

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080416/REG/696167184/1069

Here's a teaser from the story:

Shares of Journal Register, which traded as high as $23.875 a decade ago, on Tuesday closed at 32 cents — cheaper than the newsstand price of a weekday paper.

Cream has risen to the top

Good to hear from some fellow retirees and a few of those who still retain full and part-time employment at the Flint Journal.

I guess the editorial boss is now breathing a sigh of relief with the last of the old curmudgeons finally gone from his newsroom. In fact, he said as much in a recent meeting with the reporters left behind.

Although he didn't actually refer to us as pond scum, I heard he referred to some of us as "characters," but said now that we were gone what was left was the "cream of the crop."

One of my retired colleagues was offended by the comment, I simply thought it was funny and very typical of someone out-of-touch with the news gathering process. I mean what editor wouldn't relish the departure of many of the most experienced employees with decades of institutional experience in collecting news and writing stories.

And while many of the folks still at the FJ are fine reporters and great writers, even they know that some of the cream has left.

Heck, some of the people the top editor tried to convince to stay as part of the "cream," walked out the door not convinced that he and his lieutenants had the competence or horsepower to make things work. I guess they weren't "cream" after all.

Truth be known, some of those left behind only wish they had been in a position to take the buyout and escape.

That said, many of us have friends, good friends at the FJ and we do wish them well and hope that they can find the winning combination to return the paper to profitability and greatness. We simply remain skeptical that the generals leading them into the battle are up for the job. (There's a little cliche of my own).

On the happy side, the editor wants to raise morale and increase fun in the newsroom with big raises and overtime. That's was a joke, what is proposed to raise morale are regular potlucks.

Yeah, a good meatball, celery tray or cheese and cracker spread beats a pay raise and overtime any day.

One of my former colleagues called me to relate some of the above and mentioned that "Mattel" must be branded on the editor somewhere because there is simply too much "plastic" coming out of his office.

Don't know if I would go that far, but there is a certain element of being "out-of-touch." My model for an editor with integrity was the recent Los Angeles Times editor who told his bosses to stuff it when they ordered him to dismantle his newsroom and retired himself. Of course, the bosses found another person willing to sell his/her soul to do the dirty work of cleaning house, but at least the old editor kept his integrity intact.

Saying good bye to an old, faithful appliance

We all complain about poorly made products. But I've got to be honest today, we are putting out to pasture my still working Mr. Coffee four-cup coffee maker.

This is a coffee pot that I purchased in March 1995 after my second wife and I parted company. I went to Sears in Flint and in about 10 minutes purchased a new television, a vacuum cleaner, an alarm radio, a computer and the now soon-to-be-retired coffee pot.

The salesperson was agog as I pointed to one appliance after another with, "I'll take that, I'll take that, I'll take that...."

Part of my hurry was that my editor at the time was sending me out of town to cover the capture of a young boy who had killed his twin brother the day before in Flint. I was in the process of moving out of the 2,000-square foot marital home into my 568-square foot apartment in Davison.

Time was short, but I needed to get up and running.

So, back to the $11 coffee pot, which by the way, survived by far all the other appliances I gobbled up that day.

So I did a little conservative math about my well used coffee pot, which was used virtually everyday and sometimes more than once:

Pots made: 4,745
Gallons of coffee made: 741 (95,000+ ounces)
Cost of pot per pots of coffee: 1/5 of a cent per pot
Total number of days the pot was on (based on a 24 hour day): 198 days
Number of carafes broken and replaced: 5

And remember, we're not retiring it because it's broken, but because the cost of a new carafe (we just broke another one) is nearly the same as a new coffee pot.

So when you look at the picture above, say a little "wow" to some great American engineering and notice that the new pot in the background is also a Mr. Coffee. This time it cost $13.

Pesky raccoon help requested

A persistent raccoon has my oldest son, William, a little on edge.

He asked me if any readers of my blog could help him with a non-lethal way to rid his small yard of a raccoon that continues to visit his back yard in Aptos, California.

I suggested picking it up, cuddling it and showing it some love, but he rejected that idea.

So if you have a favorite remedy for discouraging visits by raccoons please leave them on here.

Because William lives in a mobile home park, please do not suggest any solutions that involve weapons or love.

Thanks.

Say a little prayer

A longtime acquaintance, Ray Hawks, current police chief of Capac in Michigan, was shot Wednesday while trying to arrest a man. A sheriff's deputy also suffered minor wounds.
Hawks is a longtime police officer who I knew during my five years as a reporter with the Oakland Press in Pontiac.
Hawks, who is reportedly in critical but stable condition, is now expected to survive and I just want to offer a little prayer for his complete recovery.
When I knew Ray in Pontiac he was a sergeant, and later a lieutenant, but one of those rare supervisors who never gave up being a street cop just because he was a supervisor.
Obviously, that love of street patrol never changed and he's still answering "routine" calls even as a chief. A few years ago we talked again after one of his former officers got entangled with a Lapeer County police officer who was dealing in steroid distribution.
After talking about the case at hand, Ray and I relived some of those wonderful years in Pontiac.
In my early days at the Oakland Press (1984) Ray often would let me ride with him during my off duty hours so I could learn the streets and see his job close up.
When I talk to journalism students I often recount those days and always suggest that any good cop reporter will learn about police work from inside the patrol car windshield to give them a little perspective on that job.
Often the media criticizes police, as it should, but frequently without the background or perspective of what the job is really like.
Because of my police service in the 1970s, I know how things look and sound inside a police car and believe any good reporter would want to learn that perspective before become an "expert" police reporter.
An incident that I frequently recount when I discuss the perils of "off-the-record" conversations was one that involved Hawks. This was 23 years ago and at his former job in Pontiac, so I'm sure Ray wouldn't mind me recounting it now. Besides the statute of limitations is long expired.
One of the first nights I rode with Ray, he told me if I was going to ride with him everything was off-the-record. This was for my experience only. I agreed to the conditions, eager to learn more about Pontiac and its police force.
At the time there had been a recent controversy over police firing warning shots over the heads of escaping suspects. The police chief at the time had forbidden the shots, and rightly so as they pose a significant risk to innocent bystanders.
About 2 a.m. Pontiac officers responded to a burglar alarm at an off-road vehicle warehouse on near Wide Track Drive. Ray responded to the scene as a back-up officers.
When we arrived one of the officers ran up to the driver's door of Hawks' patrol car and announced, "Sarge, I popped a round over one of the guys heads but he kept running."
Knowing I had heard the comment about the "warning shot" Ray turned away from the officer, looked me right in the eye and reminded me of my "off-the-record" pledge.
No one was hurt and Hawks dealt with the officer in his own way, but I never forgot the impact of his words, and the promise I made and kept.
But that was then, this is now and I know you will all join me in hoping that Chief Hawks gets completely well.
And from me to Ray, maybe it's finally time to retire.

Love those cliches

I was watching television news from Detroit tonight and the cliches were flying on a story about a man who apparently set himself on fire in an Ann Arbor park.

The quotes aren't exact but basically here's what had me shaking my head.

"People were concerned when they came across a burning naked body," the reporter said in all seriousness.

Really, who gets concerned about a "burning, naked body."

Next was a statement that this was not the normal activity at this Ann Arbor park. Oh, really, they don't have naked burning bodies in this park everyday. Doesn't every park have a naked burning body every day.

The police chief offered the opinion that this was not foul play. The reporter then asked if it was a possible suicide.

I so badly wanted the chief to say it was a case of spontaneous combustion, but alas, she was much more polite than me.

Then the chief told the reporter that the "naked burning body" expired at the hospital.

Gosh, if only someone had paid to update his license, he wouldn't have expired.

At least the guy wasn't "fleeing on foot."

It was a football game, not cookie day

In the nearly three decades since I was editor-in-chief of The State News, I have sometimes heard rumors that it was my staff that started the tradition of "Cookie Day."

Cookie Day, for those who never had the fun or privilege of working at the college daily Goliath, was, at least in my day, Thursday and it required different staff members each week to bring in cookies for the rest of the staff.

While I would love to take credit for the creation of such a wonderful idea, alas, it was well underway when I started there as a reporter in 1977. Today I understand that Cookie Day is practically a seven-course meal, but the tradition survives. Tradition is a good thing.

But what I will take credit for was the first-ever State News vs. Michigan Daily football game on the night before the "Big Game" between the two great universities.

It started with a phone call from the editor of the Michigan Daily the week of the big game.

What the editor proposed was a friendly game of touch football in Ann Arbor. After checking with enough members of the staff to make a team I called back and accepted the challenge.

Part of the deal was that the score of the game would be announced at halftime of the real game.

With 15-20 staffers in a series of cars we made our way to Ann Arbor on Friday afternoon.

Now I'm not proud of the next fact, but in the interest of a full accounting I must tell you that each car had a decent supply of beer, which was being consumed as we traveled.

Consumed in such great quantities that I remember a mass exodus at a rest stop along U.S. 23 just north of Ann Arbor and a sprint to the restrooms for some personal relief.

We arrived at the field in the evening and found that not only had the Daily rented a lighted football field they had hired real referees to monitor the game. It was then I realized this was not just a friendly contest.

As the leader of the State News I called a pre-game huddle and told the staff that we needed to actually try and win this game. So I polled the members and found out that Paul Cox had once played high school quarterback so he was immediately drafted as our field general.

At least one of the female staffers had been a cheerleader so she became a wide receiver. I guess because she could catch. A football is easy compared to a falling cheerleader, don't you agree?

So onto the field we went and not to prolong the story, but we held our own and won it on our last possession. My memory is not good on this but I think the final score was 14-7.

Having sobered up considerably during the football game, we headed to downtown Ann Arbor to celebrate and rub in our victory, but found all of the student bars filled to overflowing.

On a side street we found a half empty gay bar, which welcomed us in and provided us with a case of beer which we finished off before heading home. Again, I would not recommend this kind of drinking and driving, but it was a fact at the time. In the years after I completely gave up drinking alcohol having consumed enough during my police and college years to float a battleship.

I happened to have tickets to the big game the next day at the Big House. So I was sitting in the south end zone with the other 25 MSU fans with tickets watching Kirk Gibson catch a touchdown pass that sealed the Michigan State victory.

What didn't happen that day was the promised halftime announcement of our great victory the night before. The Daily editor pleaded that it was a simple oversight, but I think we all know that it wasn't.

Heeeee's back

Joan and I arrived back from Buffalo late Thursday afternoon. The trip was successful in that I was able to complete a wheelchair ramp for my father-in-law although my construction project reminded me of the old saying: "Why is there never time to do it right, but always time to do it over."

A couple of construction shortcuts had to be redone which meant an extra day's stay in Buffalo.

We were blessed with wonderful weather and if you have the notion please send up a prayer or two for my dear father-in-law Red.

On the way home we encountered one of my major pet peeves. When you cross the Peace Bridge in Buffalo coming back into Canada you have to pay a toll on the Canadian side, after the border inspection.

When we approached the toll taker, she was surly. As always when I handed her the money I said something pleasant. She simply glowered. So I'm thinking she's probably making $15 to sit there all day and take money and she can't even manage a "thank you" or a smile.

But as I thought again, maybe sitting in a booth all day taking money is not the most pleasant or interesting job. So I'll cut her a little slack and pray for whatever may be going on in her life that makes her so miserable.

Also we arrived home too late for me to attend the going away party for my friend Brooke R. who is leaving the Journal as part of the buyout. Brooke is one of those "good" editors I mentioned early in the blog.

Oh, we had our moments, and there were times she told me to go somewhere really hot, but in all the years we worked together I did respect her judgement and I believe she mostly respected what I did as part of my beat.

A healthy tension and a few arguments are a healthy thing in any good newsroom. It shows care and passion, which is sometimes lacking these days.

Anyway, Brooke reads the blog and I want to wish her well in her retirement.

Winging it in Buffalo

How about that? My in-laws' neighbor apparently has a strong enough wireless that it works across the driveway. Yippeee!

Great to see so many familiar faces at Paul J. and Ken P.'s retirement party Friday night.

There were so many lawyer and judges present for a minute I thought I was at a hearing for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. But good to see David Leyton on hand as well.

Unlike a previous Genesee County Prosecutor, Leyton understands the job the press has to do and is cooperative whether or not he is getting a hard ride, which at present he is, from the media.

Also great to see ABC-12's Angie Hendershott, formerly Sharamski (I have no idea how to properly spell it and I'm too lazy to check it right now. That's the magic of blogging I can come back and fix it tomorrow, Monday or next week. Joel Fieck (again I'll check the spelling later) was on hand, which is a testament to the great rapport Paul J. had with everyone around the courthouse.

Of all the missing shoes, Paul's may be the toughest to fill.

Leyton even told me he obtained a murder conviction Friday and no Journal reporter was present. I noticed that Bryn did pick up the conviction, but it is clear that will all the crush of duties falling on the surviving reporters there simply won't be the kind of court coverage the Journal has had in the past.

"I'm already missing you guys," Leyton told a bunch of us Friday night.

Now I'm getting requests. The first was for some State News stories.

As some of you know I cut my journalism baby teeth as a student reporter and later editor-in-chief of the State News, the daily student publication of Michigan State University back in the 1970s. I was editor from 1978-79.

But one of my first difficult assignments was trying to get a comment from then-President Clifton Wharton, who had just announced his resignation for a new job in the State University of New York.

Wharton hated The State News, hated it with a passion. But I was told to head to his office and stay until I got a comment. So for the next three days (about 9 hours per day) me with help from another reporter sat in his outer office and waited for him to come out for a comment. A comment that never came.

But he knew we were waiting, even if he refused to come out. It was an important lesson about perseverance and dedication.

Later I met a Mr. Ballard, who was the liaison between the University President and the Board of Trustees, who gave me a line I never forgot.

"Smith, if it weren't for the students and faculty, Michigan State would be a great place to work," he said.

I loved that quote and have altered it for use many times during my career.

In the coming days and weeks I'll post some stories about State News copy runs, cookie day, the annual MSU State News vs. U-M Daily football game during "Big Game" week and any other stories that come to mind.

Buffalo is beautiful this time of year.

A little break

The press of business and a short trip to Buffalo will cause a brief interuption in blogging. I may blog from Buffalo if I can pirate a wireless connection.
Until then, feel free to use the links, catch up on past posts or get out in the great outdoors and enjoy spring.
See ya' soon.

More adventures with Ed

All this Oakland Press reminiscing stirred up another long lost memory.

The date is lost to memory, but Ed Noble and I responded to a "suspicious" object found at Pontiac Central High School during a morning shift at the Oakland Press.

At the school we walked around the back (as I recall we beat the police as the OP was just two blocks away) and spotted what looked like a clock radio or other electronic device that likely had been dropped out of a window a couple stories up.

When police arrived, they moved us back about 50 yards and taped off the area.

That began about a four-hour vigil as the state police bomb squad was called from Lansing or some other far flung post.

Ed, using his telephoto lens, kept telling anyone who would listen (mostly me) that the object was nothing more than a broken clock radio. At one point he and I offered to walk up and pick up the object so we could go back to the office. (In those days, our editor was adamant that you never left a scene until the outcome was no longer in doubt).

So stay we did. When state police arrived, they stopped traffic on M-59 in front of the school, moved us back another 100 yards and began the process of identifying the "suspicious" item.

Now, we've missed lunch. A robot was deployed and actually began firing bullets or other projectiles at the object to see if it would explode. When it didn't (Ed and I had sore necks by now from shaking our heads in disbelief) two men in moon suits walked carefully up to the object and bent over it.

Suddenly one of them, at seemingly great risk to himself, reached down picked up the tangled electronic parts and gave the all clear signal.

At the press briefing shortly after we were told the item was a clock radio dropped from a classroom a couple stories above.

Ed and I have had a good laugh over that one for years.

They're having fun in Chicago

I know it's April Fool's Day and I hate April Fools jokes, but this one was real. The Chicago Tribune, in a ruse that has drawn some minor ethical criticism, won a $1,000 prize from the Chicago Sun Times contest about the renaming of Wrigley Field.

The Sun Times was trying to do something to embarrass Tribune owner Sam Zell, but instead had the tables turned by a journalism intern.

The link below is to the Chicago Tribune website and the video that won the award. It probably was a little over the line, but it's funny nonetheless. Enjoy! And if you're really bored or sitting home spending your buyout play the "Name the Wrigley Field" game under the video.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-suntimes-song-contest,0,1932877.htmlstory

Speaking of wage and hour issues

This was posted on AngryJournalist.com

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/fs17q_journalists.pdf

Another depressing newspaper analysis

Sorry to have to post this on April Fool's Day, but the New Yorker has chimed in on newspapers look below at the link. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/31/080331fa_fact_alterman?currentPage=all

Here's a sample from The New Yorker article:

"Most managers in the industry have reacted to the collapse of their business model with a spiral of budget cuts, bureau closings, buyouts, layoffs, and reductions in page size and column inches. Since 1990, a quarter of all American newspaper jobs have disappeared. The columnist Molly Ivins complained, shortly before her death, that the newspaper companies’ solution to their problem was to make “our product smaller and less helpful and less interesting.”

Give yourself some time, it's a longee.

An apology and a half

Regrettheerror.com has printed a doosie (or should it be doozie) of an error from the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Many of the newspapers corrections published on that site go into extensive detail not on just the error, but how it was made and whether editors or bad information contributed to the error.

Here's the link:

http://www.regrettheerror.com/newspapers/post-dispatch-publishes-front-page-apology

Lamont Cranston chimes in....

(Note: A loyal reader and sometime commenter sent me the following via E-mail. I think it is worthy of posting as its own item. The words are not mine, but I give it a big "ditto." The writer is posting under the name Lamont Cranston. If you are under 50, you'll need to look it up. If you're over 50 and are scratching your heads: "The Shadow Knows." Or maybe the writer is referring to a great Blues band.)

Jim -- Longtime opinion page editor Mike Riha will certainly be missed at the Flint Journal; at least the editor had the decency to acknowledge his long service to the paper.

While Mike's retirement will be obvious to anyone reading the editorial page in the weeks and months ahead, readers paying attention to the news columns will likely notice the disappearance of the bylines of veteran reporters Ken Palmer and Paul Janczewski.

These of course are two more of the senior reporters who follow the long trail of veteran writers and editors taking buyouts offered by Journal management, leaving large holes in the paper's coverage of Flint news.

Ken has routinely covered big stories of all sorts and filled in wherever the ever-shrinking news department needed him -- on police beat, in the suburbs, at Flint schools and practically everywhere else. Paul, also the co-author of a bestselling true crime book, has been a top-notch courts reporter for years. Both were respected and trusted by people throughout Genesee County. Good luck, you guys.

Like so much about the newspaper these days, you can take it to the bank that the paper's coverage of the courts will be a shadow of what it was. This is nothing short of amazing since the paper's management knows that readers like and pay attention to news about court cases. But the brain trust that runs the Journal's newsroom doesn't care about the courts, so you can pretty much say goodbye to thorough coverage of the most important cases.

The staffers that remain at the Journal know well that the loss of these two longtime, hard-working reporters means even more work and longer hours for them. Don't worry, kids, the Journal editors are putting up a fun bulletin board for you to put pictures up of your spouses and children! Wow, that should really make the Journal newsroom a fun place to work.

Of course, the Journal editors are telling this ever-smaller and less experienced news staff that they are doing a great job at covering all the stories, filling in the gaps and doing everything that the veteran reporters of days gone by used to do, but that's patently false and the reporters know it.

The losses at the Journal this week go beyond Mike and Ken and Paul; though the public doesn't see their names, Jennifer, a veteran copy editor and Michael, top-notch graphics design editor, also left. So if you wonder why you're seeing pages that look like crap, layout-wise, and you notice even more mistakes in print, well, this is why.

A handful of new people have been hired to replace the many experienced vets that are leaving, but true to Flint Journal form, the bosses have managed to hire a couple of real doozies who are already establishing themselves as true pygmies in the talent-and-ability department. Way to go, Journal bosses!

Even longtime readers of the Journal are noticing and complaining about what's happened to the newspaper, but the editor continues to fail to tell the readers what's really going on. Stay tuned in to Jim's blog, it's the only way your going to know.

Lamont Cranston

(Thanks Lamont, I couldn't have said it better.)