A master of spin

Give the editor of the Flint Journal credit, he knows how to spin. No straight talk express for him. (I'll post a link to the column as soon as they put it on the website.)

In Sunday's editorial page, the editor says adios to longtime employee and editorial page editor Mike Riha (a great guy, by the way).

The farewell to Mike column included the editor's new initiative to bring the paper closer to its readers by turning over more of the editorial page to contributors. So now the paper won't write editorials daily (Sunday-Friday) as it has but will let its readers fill in on some days.

This, according to the editor, is to bring the newspaper closer to its readers.

Better wear your boots when you read this stuff or you'll be up to your knees in what the cows left behind.

Here's the no-spin translation: "We are running out of people to write, I don't want to write everyday because I'm busy overseeing our correction policy and so we're going to fill the editorial page with your free stuff."

The truth is that readers and contributors don't ask for an hourly wage or benefits.

Here's how I would have written it:

"Folks, the squeeze is on. My owners have eviscerated my newsroom. I've already kissed off most of the coverage of Lapeer and Shiawassee counties and my business desk is gone except for one reporter. My features desk is a fond memory.

Areas that used to be covered by five reporters are now assigned to one. Some of them are new and need to get up to speed and learn the ropes. I can only flog them so much.

So here's the deal, I have no one left to write editorials and you people keep calling me telling me how you can do my job better. Here's your chance, I'm turning over large portions of the editorial pages to you several days a week.

But unlike the people who used to work there, you can't ask for pay or benefits. Deal? Deal.

By the way, sorry about that hefty per newspaper issue price increase late last year and for charging you to put milestone pictures and articles in the paper that we used to do free. Just be glad we don't bill you for putting your name in the paper when you are arrested. Thanks for reading."

This all fits with the new newsroom attempts to raise morale among the surviving employees. Recently the management told reporters they were looking for ways to make working at the paper more fun.

One actual suggestion: A bulletin board where pictures of family members of staffers could be posted to help improve morale.

Here's my suggestion: Pay people what they are worth and for ALL the hours they work. Overtime is nice too. Do that, morale will really soar.

Me, Ed and a skimpy nightgown

Talk about your eye-poppin' assignment. Sometime about 1987 I was working on a story about a Rochester Hills woman who had been mercilessly stalking an attorney.

The woman was so taken with the attorney, who was happily married and wanted nothing to do with Judith W. (I'm going to hold back her last name in case she's listening) and eventually she was arrested.

The arrest occurred after Judith showed up to the attorney's Rochester Hills home wearing nothing but a fur coat and a smile. All this while the attorney's wife was at home.

At the time there was a popular movie "Fatal Attraction" with Michael Douglas and Glenn Close that had every man reconsidering any temptation to stray.

Naturally the story was dubbed "The Fatal Attraction" case for obvious reasons. On a whim, I called the woman's Rochester Hills home after she was arraigned and bonded out of jail and she answered. I pitched an interview and to my surprise she agreed. Pushing the issue, I asked if I could bring a photographer. Again she was more than cooperative.

Chief Photographer Ed Noble and I met at her condo in Rochester Hills and approached the front door. Judith met us at the door in a see-through teddy that barely covered, well barely covered anything. She said she wanted us to show her at her best and invited us inside.

Considering the woman's alleged history, we declined the invitation to enter her home, but Ed got her to pose in all her glory by a tree in front of her condo, which brought some strange inquiring looks from the neighbors.

At one point, it was cool outside, she slipped on a short fur coat and Ed snapped a few shots with the fur, which was a good thing because the prudes at the office almost immediately nixed any of the skimpy nightgown photos for the front page story that was to come.

The interview went well, we had our pictures and we headed back to the office.

Editors who had been thrilled that I had secured the interview quickly began to second guess the whole thing when they saw the pictures and read her quotes.

"Do you think we're exploiting her?," an editor asked me. Since when did we worry about that?, I asked

After some hand wringing and careful editing the story survived mostly intact, but alas, the sexy photos did not. The photo that ran in the Oakland Press was a well cropped photo of Judith in her fur. The Oakland Press could have sold an extra 5,000 copies if they had used Ed's best photos.

Ed and I, with permission from an editor, did make a few extra bucks selling the sexy photos and better quotes to "The Weekly World News" which did a big splash on the story with the better photos.

The story actually got stranger as it went through court. Judith was hauled before a circuit judge, who despite Judith's history took a shine to her and began dating her.

When the relationship with the judge soured, she appeared in his courtroom and in front of attorneys and spectators announced that she still loved him and believed she was carrying his baby, which was a lie.

The whole episode erupted into a very embarrassing episode for the judge who had to admit he carried on an inappropriate relationship with a person who had appeared before him.

This was one of a series of "wacky women" stories I did at the Oakland Press. Next up, the lottery lady and at some point I'll tell the strange story of the Farmington Hills woman scammed out of thousands of dollars by a man pretending to be "Randy Bachman" of Bachman, Turner Overdive fame.

And the winner is...

Nobody.

Everyone likes a pat on the back, but no one loves it more than newspaper managers who have helped create a system of contests that rewards imitation and ignores innovation or humor.

Aside from the Pulitzer Prize, most of the annual journalism contests end with predictable winners and prize winning stories that most readers never fully digested.

"Contest packages" as they are sometimes called in the business often consume excessive inches of newsprint on stories, graphics and pictures that are aimed not at interesting readers, but dazzling contest judges.

This will sound crass, and I don't mean it to, but one of the surest ways to win a press association or associated press annual award is to find a burn victim with shockingly serious wounds and follow them through rehabilitation.

Substitute any gross disfigurement and the result is the same.

Contest editors routinely reward news reporters and photographers who follow that rehab or "shock-the-reader" template. To me, it is exploitive and frankly, an easy way to an award.

Understand that newspaper contests are generally judged by other newspaper editors.

This is how it works, a state press association finds a group of editors in another state, sends contest entries from their state. At some point the editors, who suppposedly have read all the entries and sidebars, sit around a big table and wax brightly about which are the best.

They settle on the top three stories, rank them first, second, third and then fire off a notification and some brass plaques and the paper then features the contest winners in the next Sunday paper. Of course the awards are given in a variety of categories based on circulation numbers and just about everyone is going to have a plaque or two to brag about.

In Michigan, annually a "Newspaper of the Year" is named. In their honest moments, editors will admit that the title gets passed around on a more or less regular basis so every newspaper in every category gets a turn as "Newspaper of the Year."

Again it's a big "whoopee!" for the paper, but I'm not sure that it really impresses readers.

During my 30-year career I wrote a light, sometimes humorous column - "Off Beat" - on the antics of dumb criminals and some of the funny things that would come up on the police beat. It was well read and people seemed to like it.

But that column would never win an award. Even though it was popular with readers it would never get a moment's notice from a contest committee.

Columns that are rewarded by contest committees are the dark, emotional personal recollections of death and tragedy. Contest editors salivate over those.

The Pulitzer Prize - and I'm hoping the Detroit Free Press gets a shot with its Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick coverage - is really the only journalism award that means something. And even that has an element of fate involved.

Winners of the Pulitzer Prize have usually been newspapers who have covered an extreme events - 9/11 - the Oklahoma City bombing - Columbine shootings - Hurricane Katrina, etc. But at least the Pulitzer honors real news reporting on a real news event and not some feature or investigative piece borrowed from last year's contest winners.

It's not that I haven't won a few awards myself, I've got several brass plaques stored away in boxes in the attic. It's just that the stories attached to them were not my favorite assignments.

The truth is my best reporting and writing was done on the day-to-day breaking news coverage that rarely wins awards.

Gone with the wind

All this Oakland Press talk reminded me of a great story I covered in Pontiac back in March 1985.

A wet, heavy snowfall piled up on the roof of the Silverdome. As I recall the fans and pressure units in the Silverdome either were not up to full capacity or failed. Whatever the reason about 11:45 a.m. the large "muffin" cover over the Silverdome collapsed.

Ice and snow rained down onto the seats and field, nearly hitting Detroit Lions quarterback Eric Hipple who was playing a little spring pitch and catch on the Silverdome floor at the time.

Reporter Julie Jacobson and I heard the police dispatch and we headed out the door and into my car for the Silverdome. We were right on our final deadline.

Sidebar: Before afternoon newspapers were overtaken by computer technology our late deadlines ran almost to noon. Translation, we could get breaking news into the newspaper right up until noon. After all the great technology came to being, our deadlines slowly eroded until the afternoon paper had to be wrapped up by 8:30 a.m. Go figure!

Back to the Silverdome. Julie and I raced east on M-59 and I remember my reaction as we crested a hill and the familiar "muffin top" of the Silverdome was gone. "Holy, crap," I said.

Pulling into the expansive parking lot, we both rushed to find someone, anyone, who could give us a quick lede and quote so we could call in the breaking story.

By noon, Julie and I were at pay phones (this was well before we had cell phones) calling in to a rewrite person (Jean Saile, I believe) so we could remake Page 1 with the breaking story.

Photo editor Ed Noble, who was one of the finest newspaper photographers I ever worked with, wanted to get a photographer up above the Silverdome for an aerial shot. In those days, the Oakland Press was a Captial Cities/ABC property as was WJR radio.

WJR had a helicopter for traffic and the pilot requested we get permission for him from Silverdome officials to land on the Silverdome parking lot.

I found Clayton Jones, then the executive director of the Silverdome, sipping wine in the Elias restaurant in the Silverdome, but I was pretty sure if I asked him straight up for permission he would say no. Reporters learn that most people will naturally gravitate to "no" rather than yes. So the trick is to ask a question in such a way that "no" means "yes."

"Mr. Jones, if we land a helicopter on your parking lot you won't shoot it down, will you?," I asked.

Puzzled, Jones said he wouldn't shoot down a helicopter. That sounded like a "yes" to me and I told Ed we had permission to land, although if anyone knew how obtuse a question I had asked they probably would have fired me.

When the helicopter came down to the parking lot, Mr. Jones asked "who let that guy land here?" I reminded him that I had asked him about landing a helicopter and that he said it was OK. He looked puzzled, but didn't argue further and we got our picture.

During the next few days, high winds further shredded the roof leaving a $10 million roof in tatters.

In the weeks and months to come the story about the repair consumed a lot of our coverage, but I'll never forget that first few hours of that Silverdome collapse.

Next, I'll tell you about the "Fatal Attraction" lady in Rochester Hills who met Ed Noble and I in her "teddy" for a photo at her front door. Oh yeah, that was also a day to remember.

Collateral damage, who knew?

An interesting video sidebar to the death of newspapers stories......

http://www.jossip.com/massive-newspaper-layoffs-are-killing-the-journo-bar-scene-20080318/

Back in my Oakland Press days in Pontiac, Michigan we used to eat lunch at a restaurant across the street from the paper. "Sid's," which was owned and run by a guy named Jim, served fresh turkey sandwiches with a dose of down home insults.

Jim kept the "Sid's" name because he didn't want to waste money on a new sign.

The family run restaurant was convenient and usually quick for lunch and occassionally our old publisher would stop in for lunch as well.

On several occassions the publisher would ask to sit with us and because he was a well-heeled individual we at first believed we might get our $3.78 lunch tab picked up by the boss.

Wrong! At the end of the lunch, the publisher, a good ol' Scotsman, divvied up the bills and made sure he didn't pay a penny more than his due. He was the same guy who stood in line to get free house paint from the city during a giveaway in the 1970s.

At that time the newspaper motto, which was prominently displayed on its building sign was: "Delivered to a doorstep near you." Which if you really think about it was a stupid slogan because most people want the paper delivered to "their" very own doorstep.

But as bad as the old publisher was, times have fallen hard on the Oakland Press, as it has on so many papers.

In recent years, the ownership has bought out, laid off or otherwise decimated the ranks of its editors and reporters.

One longtime employee and editor, and a friend of mine, was fired long distance by phone while he and his wife were on vacation. Nice touch, eh?

Another favorite OP co-worker and friend, Jean Saile, gave me sage advice, which I should have, but didn't take.

"Jim," Jean said to me. "A reporter should write for five years and then quit and go onto something else. After five years you will have covered every imaginable story and after that you will simply be telling the same stories over and over."

Although I didn't realize it at the time, that was so true.

The Oakland County news beat was an active one, with plenty of competition from Detroit newspapers and televisions stations. It was a fun place to cover the news, even if it was not very profitable.

But like so many other news organizations, the Oakland Press was swallowed up by a media money machine that was only content when it gutted the operation to maximize its profits.

It's a familiar story, no?

Spring has sprung

The sky is blue, the air is clear - if still a little chilly - but the promise of Spring is here.

At least as far as the calendar is concerned. So bring on that global warming I'm ready for a little sun and warmth.

I'm not going to blog tomorrow - Good Friday - and through Easter. Please join me in recalling the sacrifice and gift given to us through Jesus. Anything good in my life comes from him, that other stuff I do I do to myself.

May God bless you all. See you Monday.

Local war retrospective a good job

Beata Mostafavi, an excellent reporter and writer at the Flint Journal did a nice five-year local war wrap-up in today's paper.
Don't know how much time she had to put it together, but the pictures and balance in the story were first rate. A quick, but accurate portrait of where we are on the Iraq War today.

Here's the link, which I'm not sure will last too long:

http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/index.ssf/2008/03/18_servicemen_with_local_ties.html

Mark Cuban chimes in on newspaper blogs

The "Maverick" owner Mark Cuban weighs in with an interesting issue involving the brave new world of newspaper bloggers:

http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/03/10/bloggers-in-the-mavs-locker-room/#comments

And then there's also these from newspaperdeathwatch.com:

Not everyone shares in the pain:

http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/breaking-dubow-snares-175-million-bonus.html

And here is WGN (Chicago) making a little fun of Sam Zell's new ownership of the Tribune Corp.:
http://www.edpadgett.com/blog/2008/03/wgn-weatherman-flips-out-i-own-this.html

Keep it up Gabe!

Even though the Flint Journal blew off the story I was working on last summer related to a huge mortgage scam, ABC 12 has continued to pursue it and it looks to be a huge story. Here's the link to their latest coverage:

http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/local&id=6024155

Here's what happened to the story I was working on last July and August when this was really coming apart:

http://freefromeditors.blogspot.com/2008/02/anatomy-of-story-not-told.html

Notice that not even now has anyone gotten a comment from the Heintz's the supposed reason my story could not be published as originally written in August.

Is there any wonder the public is disillusioned with its news media?

Is a newspaper collapse imminent?

Here's someone who thinks the death of newspapers is at hand:

http://mediafade.blogspot.com/2008/03/marketwatch-are-job-cuts-death-knell.html

It's hard for people like me to imagine a world without the traditional newspaper, but then my great-great grandparents could hardly imagine a world where a horse was simply a hobby and not a necessity.

Someday, maybe soon, newspapers will exist only in memory or as specialty publications aimed at very narrow topics or specific regions.

My question has been for the past few years is why the existing newspapers, which still attract a fairly large contingent of loyal, if older, readers seems hell bent to divest itself of even those folks.

A longtime reader, Gracie, of Davison, ran into me at a function in February and said she was disappointed she could no longer read my articles. Then she added at least she could still read Kim's articles. When I told her that Kim too was leaving the paper, she burst into tears.

Current newspaper management minimizes the connection that readers, especially the long time loyal ones, have with the writers. Now Gracie, who is in her 70s, didn't cry when I left, but she loved reading Kim's features and would look for his byline each day. She would often call him and talk to him about the stories he had written and the ones she hoped he would look into.

Gracie then noted that the cost of the paper had been jacked up by 25 cents a day at the same time the staff was being eviscerated. In addition, reader friendly features, like wedding and anniversary photos and announcements, which were once free, now come with a price tag.

Large coverage areas like Lapeer and Shiawassee counties are now basically uncovered except as time allows in an overwhelmed reporter's schedule. So it appears that the newspaper is prepared to write off large geographic areas from regular coverage.

This is in contrast to what the staff was told at the time of the buyouts when it was proudly announced that everything we have been doing, we would continue to do. That simply has not turned out to be true.

Don't blame the reporters, there are too few of them and they are stretched far too thin to do any meaningful beat reporting (see previous article).

On the flip side, the newspaper provides for free most of its articles online and sometimes two, three or more days ahead of when they appear in the home delivered newspaper.

The newspaper's financial support base is now secondary to the consumers of its free more immediate product. That's a business model that just doesn't make sense. At least to me.

On buggy whips and beats....

On Feb. 29, 2000, I monitored a police radio call of a shooting at a Beecher elementary school.

Racing as fast as I could the three miles to the scene, I knew that if the radio traffic was true, this was going to be a huge story.

On arrival, police were running everywhere, parents were already streaming into the neighborhood and the first media were arriving on the scene. It was right on final deadline for the Journal and we needed information and we needed it fast.

Fortunately, one of the officers on the scene was a Mt. Morris Township officer that I had developed as a source and within seconds I knew that a first grade girl and been shot by a first grade classmate who apparently brought a gun from home.

The officer gave me this information because he trusted me not to get it wrong and he knew I would never burn him as the initial source. Within minutes we had a new front page on deadline and pretty much all the facts we needed to launch what became a three week international news sensation.

I don’t tell this story to brag, but to make a point.

If one thing is a symbol of the looming death of newspaper journalism it would have to be the shrinking number of actual beat reporters. As newsroom staffs are reduced at the Flint Journal and elsewhere (see newspaperdeathwatch.com link) the major impact will be in the lack of true beat reporting.

Perhaps the one constant among all good newspapers from the early competing big city dailies to just recently was the proliferation of crusty, aggressive beat reporters.

Some of us got into the business in time to live out the dream of being true beat reporters. As newspaper staffs shrink and the work is spread, newspapers will be forced to glue reporters to desks and much of the work will be done by telephone. Who knows maybe from India?

Many of the people who read and comment on this blog are former beat reporters. They know the fun of developing sources, reading the winks and nods of sources, pulling and tugging on sources and the hours spent working sources to finally flesh out a juicy scandal or story.

The great work currently being done by the Detroit Free Press on the unfolding scandal with the mayor there is being done by long time beat reporters. Reporters with excellent sources, sources who are comfortable releasing information to a trusted scribe they know will protect them with a vengeance.

Trust me, the Kilpatrick revelations didn’t just come from a lucky stab in the dark for text messages. Someone on the inside whispered some juicy tidbit in a veteran reporter, or editor’s, ear.

So what is the real cost of the loss of beat reporting? Facts are easy, anyone can report facts, but it is the relationships built up between reporter and sources over years that provide insight, nuance, balance and real understanding. It also brings tips, stories that no one would know unless someone was willing to share them with a trusted reporter.

In my early days at the Journal, I spent hours cultivating sources, riding with cops, sitting in the police station listening to stories learning how things work and who really ran the shop.

Those hours, many unproductive in the story count sense, paid huge dividends when something big broke like the shooting at Buell Elementary School.

Many of the Journal’s great, and now, or soon to be, separated reporters, provided that same kind of coverage in a long list of breaking stories in a city and area rich with news.

In recent years, editors had already begun the process of weaning reporters off those single beat responsibilities and diluting the work product. I've already mentioned the useless features and Sunday "packages" that consumed what use to be valuable beat reporting time.

Covering courts is not easy. Knowing defense attorneys, prosecutors and judges is one thing, but balancing the coverage so that you don’t unfairly treat any of the competing parts is a juggling act that not everyone can pull off.

Paul J., the longtime Journal court reporter will retire later this month, and he is a consummate beat reporter. People at the courthouse trust him, not because he does what they want, but because he is fair and a excellent writer.

Left alone, Paul produced more readable copy than the rest of us combined. But when management isn’t interested in the day-to-day trial coverage (even if many readers love it) those stories end up being held and then buried on the airplane pages. (Airplane pages refer to the designation of inside pages like A-10, A-4, B-2, etc.).

Ken P. was another reporter who could always be counted on to pull a news rabbit out of the hat on deadline. I’m sure Ken would admit it was a result of years of source development and the trust built up between him and his sources. Ken also leaves this month.

Reaching a level of trust with sources is a long process. It is a trust that can be ruined with one careless mistake or one misunderstanding. I could give you plenty of examples where that happened.

There are many remaining reporters at the Journal, and elsewhere, with the ability to continue the great long tradition of solid beat reporting, but with the business headed in new directions it appears that beat reporters will go the way of buggy whips and maybe for the same reason. But it’s sad all the same.

With story quotas and daily demands, the opportunities to sit, visit and just listen to background noise on your beat will be gone. Some of the best stories I found came from those times.
As newspapers evolve into a more general assignment mode, something wonderful and important will be lost.

Sicker than a dog....

I've taken an unscheduled break from blogging due to some creeping crud that both my wife and I have picked up.

This thing is like the worst cold and flu and it has now hung on for 9 days. I see the doctor in the morning and hopefully, I will be on the mend.

In the meantime, go back, check up, leave a comment and keep checking back. As soon as I feel better blogging will continue.

Feeling the pain

A couple of notable articles:

http://cronkite.asu.edu/mcguireblog/?p=65

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8715.html

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003723373

This on the demise of newspaper business sections:

http://www.contentbridges.com/2008/03/regional-dailie.html

The mantra that newspapers will soldier on with smaller, more inexperienced staffs but somehow continue to produce product equal in quantity and quality as before is simple "Alice in Wonderland" stuff.

A primer on economics

Again, You Tube provides a great escape. Here are two British guys explaining the subprime problem. Hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ_qK4g6ntM

Office bullies

Suddenly there are a number of broadcast media stories about the effects of bullies in offices.

While I don't usually go for trend stories, this would be a great one for the Flint Journal.

The paper usually can't wait to report the latest story trends and this one, especially in these difficult financial times, seems to be a natural.

But just where would they find a bully to profile? Or victims of an oppressive office bully boss to interview? Hummm, let me think.

Spring ahead.....

Just a friendly reminder from your friendly blogger:

Turn those clocks forward (ignore the incorrect instructions on the graphic to the left but it's the only good illustration I could find) before you turn in tonight.

And don't forget those smoke detector batteries!

There may yet be hope

From Editor and Publisher:

A real journalism sweat shop busted:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003719291


I'm hoping my friends still in the business keep track of the real hours they work. Someday a class action suit will be filed with the State of Michigan and a lot of them should get some nice retro and overtime pay.

It is simply wrong that a newspaper should require workers to work beyond the hours allowed in state law. Someone should call the state and complain. Maybe I'll have time next week.

I should have organized a union there years ago.

A little musical interlude

This was very nice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5jtKuQeq0w

Something soothing to get you ready for the weekend:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL8kZ-iVk90&feature=related

Remember to watch in full screen. (Click on button on right hand corner of the You Tube screen)

Funny news clips

Watch this clip with an on air confrontation between a reporter and an anchor. It is very funny.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pOc4XgBespw

Here's another one:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EHTXh3R66hE&feature=related

This one is good, with some great clips of Sam Donaldson:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=doow7YPLSUU

I'll add a few more favorites:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mXjI0TaWATk


http://youtube.com/watch?v=N_-QnH-maAQ&feature=related

I know this isn't right, but I smiled anyway:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sw6vxe74KmI&feature=related

Corrections with a flair and a little humor

If you haven't gone over and checked out regrettheerror.com you are missing some great reading. Here are a few examples. What I really like is that many major newspapers go into great detail on how the error happened and who is responsible. Refreshing that some newspapers are willing to go the extra mile to clear up mistakes. Do yourself a favor and check out this website frequently.


(From the Express-News)
Police photo error implicates wrong man
Because of an incorrect photo provided by the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, a Tuesday Express-News story about a slaying suspect was accompanied by a photograph of a San Antonio man who was not connected in any way with the slaying. The story, ‘Transient’s tale ends in arrest,’ was published on Page 1A. The photo did not appear on MySanAntonio.com.The actual suspect, Robert Patrick White, 38, described by police as a homeless man, is pictured here. White and two others have been charged with the slaying earlier this month of Christopher Duncan, a 23-year-old South Side man.‘The wrong photo was in the wrong data file,’ Ralph G. Serrano, manager of the central records and identification section of the Sheriff’s Office, said in an e-mail to the Express-News. ‘I apologize for any embarrassment or inconvenience that this may have caused.’The Express-News also apologizes to the misidentified man, his family and friends and to our readers. Link
And the misidentified man is…?
Thanks, Craig!

(From the guardian)
Lessons in geography etc.
Mount Baldy, where Leonard Cohen spent time at a Buddhist retreat, is not in Greece, but in the San Gabriel mountains, about 40 miles from Los Angeles (Hail, hail, rock’n'roll, page 14, Film & Music, February 29).
By Craig Silverman on March 4th, 2008 in Newspapers Tagged geographical errors, guardian Comments (0)

(Sidebar: I have been on Mount Baldy during my years growing up in Los Angeles and can confirm it is nowhere near Greece!)

(From the Houston Chronicle):
Wrong since 1971
A story and headline on Page C1 Sunday were wrong in saying the NCAA men’s basketball tournament had not been in Houston since 1971. Houston hosted games in 1973, 1980, 1983, 1985 and 1986. Link

More bad newspaper news

At least some newspapers are honest enough to report there own bad news:

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/feb/19/the-star-cuts-seven-jobs-in-its-first-layoffs/

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_8306309?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com&nclick_check=1

There's more over at newspaper deathwatch.com.

Not everyone is unhappy

Just to be fair, here's a new site:

HappyJournalist.com

We'll see whether it eclipses the overwhelming number of comments on AngryJournalist.com

On selling newspapers...

The editor-in-charge-of-corrections weighed in Sunday on his recent decision to create a controversy where none previously existed.

A Genesee County school district sent out a mailer warning parents that a suspected sexual offender, who the school did not name, was living in the district near a school. Parents were apparently happy for the information.

That's when the editor-in-charge-of-corrections decided to ramp up a controversy by first, naming and picturing the accused sex offender in the newspaper, and then seeking someone, anyone, who would call the school's letter a violation of the alleged sex offender's privacy.

Locally, apparently, they could find no one to weigh in with that opinion, so they went to New York and Human Rights Watch who criticized the district for the letter.

This technique is popular among editors devoid of real news sense. It's the "I'll hold your coat" style of journalism. A reporter tells one source that another person/organization has done something offensive to it/them. That prompts a reaction from the uninvolved individual, who then weighs in with a salvo of theirs against the "other" side. Back and forth it goes as two people/organizations who previously had no issues with each other fight it out in public, while the newspaper "holds their coats." It's a cheap technique, one not worthy a good newspaper.

There are plenty of ongoing fights that don't need fabricating that can be covered, but when the news cupboard is bare, this one can be used in a pinch. Then after all the dust dies down some vacuum headed editor can then opine in public about how important it was that they started the fight to begin with.

I had my own such issue, just a year ago, over a proposed rabbit farm in Lapeer County. Not just any rabbit farm, but one which produces pathogen-free rabbits for use in university medical schools for high end research. These animals are used in critical cancer research and must be 100 percent free of any disease, virus or pathogens of any kind.

Potential neighbors of the facility raised an issue of truck noise and odors, but no one was concerned about any animal rights issues. That's when the editor-in-charge-of-corrections stepped in and decided that I should call People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and let them weigh in, even though no such issue existed.

I refused. That created a big issue for the editor-in-charge-of-corrections (let's shorten that to eicoc) who demanded that I be made to make the call. Still I refused. So it was going to fall to a less experienced intern to do the dirty work and so I contacted the editor-in-charge-of-the-editor-in-charge-of-corrections (eicoteicoc) who found his cajones for once and stopped the effort to ramp up a controversy where none existed.

Newspapers, particularly the Flint Journal, ramp up controversies all the time. They do so for a variety of reasons, many of them are good reasons and sales of newspapers is one of them. (We'll get back to that in a minute).

Trust me on this, if for some reason the school district knew about a suspected sex offender - and then didn't inform the public - the eicoc would have been the first to have a reporter jump on them with both feet for NOT doing so. The eicoc is a bully, he is a bully in the newsroom and a bully in the community, one he doesn't even live in. The eicoc lives far outside the Journal's subscription area and has for ten or more years.

That's really interesting because the eicoc has assigned and required stories about the residency of many local officials and employees. He's singularly obsessed with how much every public employee makes, but try and get that, or any other information, about how much he or anyone else makes at the newspaper.

With the loss of many veteran reporters, those who couldn't be bullied, look for more such stories in the future.

Now let's talk just a minute about the eicoc's bold statement that he has never heard anyone assign a story based on selling newspapers.

I'm sure the eicoc was present at a number of meetings where the eicoteicoc spoke last year about how the American Idol Lakisha Jones stories were designed to sell newspapers and bring a lot of younger readers to the Flint Journal. Heck there was a virtual orgy of articles (see http://freefromeditors.blogspot.com/2008/01/top-10-story-list-joke.html).

Heck just in the last week, the Flint Journal has spent countless inches promoting "Semi-Pro" an awful movie (people who have seen it have warned me away from wasting my money) and for what other reason than to sell newspapers to the fools who believed they were going to appear in it as extras.

I was in the business for 30 years, I never apologized for the fact the point of the business was to sell newspapers. Heck, GM certainly doesn't apologize for selling cars, do they? But to say boldly as the eicoc did Sunday that he has "never" heard that is very startling.

Maybe a correction is in order? But as the eicoc says, anything that "stirs" discussion is good.

Detroit link-o-rama

Friends:

Spent Friday and Saturday at a men's Anglican retreat at the St. John's Retreat Center in Livonia. (correction: Plymouth, thanks DP) In addition to the great information I learned about the Bible and the wonderful fellowship with a bunch of Christian men, I had a chance to visit with Father Richard Dalton who has a wonderful website full of links that cover much of what is important in the Detroit Metropolitan Area.

Music, theater, weather, sports, web guides, etc. are all there at: lookupdetroit.com

There are thousands of local links and an extensive media guide. Do give it a try and if you forget the link, it will be posted on my links at the upper right hand part of my blog.

And if you ever get a chance to spend time at a retreat at St. John's, do it! It is a very comfortable setting, beautiful grounds and unlike some of the old "bunkhouse" retreat centers, each member has their own clean motel style room. (No TV or phone, it is a retreat after all).

Great quote!

Found this on AngryJournalist.com:

Angry Journalist #1261:
Great site!
“I am not the editor of a newspaper and I shall always try to do right and be good so that God will not make me one.”Mark Twain

Yeah, that about sums it up.

Fixed on fixin'

See addition (in bold faced italic type) to article a few inches down.....
Last night I spent nearly three hours reading my new favorite website - regrettheerror.com. For a journalist this is a must read. The author has assembled and catalogued the major mistakes, plagarists and fabrications for the past four years.

It's a great site and I again commend it to your reading.
Reading three hours of sad stories of journalists who cheated and humorous tidbits of newspaper mistakes brought to mind the continuing effort at my former paper to eradicate the "correction."
For the record, I'm very much for improving the accuracy of newspapers, but the Journal's efforts are sometimes laughable.

Just this past Sunday (Feb. 24), again, the Journal editor wrung his hands publicly in his column and told his readers how hard the paper was working to eliminate mistakes. Heck, when I was there he offered a semi-annual drawing for a $20 gas card among reporters who had gone six months without having to post a correction.

At the meeting where this "carrot" was announced I told him I thought the offer was demeaning and that any good journalist should avoid mistakes out of professional pride and that vying for a $20 gas card was insulting. But the offer remained and the only winners (so far) have been a woman who compiles the wedding announcements and a graphic page designer. Now that's really fair! You take people who handled pre-written copy into the mix of reporters dealing with complicated interviews, facts, figures and working under deadling and consider them equals.

Whenever there is a carrot there is also a stick. To fend off mistakes, the paper required detailed memos of how the mistake was made, the requirement of an apology letter to the person the mistake was about (if applicable). So far they haven't made a reporter write a letter to Third Avenue apologizing for calling it a street). Anyway, the paper had a vigorous program to stop corrections and punish offenders.

With no consideration for the complexity of beats, the number of stories produced or hours worked, a quota of four mistakes per year were the drop dead limit with a threat of discipline and firing if additional corrections were tallied. Some reporters were told that they were on the brink of dismissal if they had any more corrections. What do you think that does to the incentive of admitting a mistake?

I know for a fact that some reporters deliberately deflected requests for corrections ("I'll make sure I get it right next time") in order to avoid having to come under the correction program.
One of the duties of the managing editor is to keep a daily list of corrections. He keeps a daily chart of who has sent letters, who has sent their memo to him and the editor-in-chief. It's nice to know that someone has plenty of time on his hands.

Heck if the reporters had that kind of time to do a story, that would go a longer way to eliminating the need for a $20 gas card incentive.

But let's talk about a correction that was not reported. Last year, an alert editor noted a disturbing trend among one reporter who in a matter of minutes could find a random citizen to comment on even the most obscure subject or event.

Suspicious, the editor attempted to locate any of his most recent sources for feature articles. None of them could be found through traditional means (phone books, etc.) Then she asked the reporter to produce the sources and he could not. The editor-in-chief confronted the reporter about a number of suspect fabricated sources in several stories and the reporter abruptly resigned rather than providing the sources.

And what did the Journal report to its readers about the fabricated sources?

Zero, zip, nada. No apology letters, no flogging, no nothing. Pass Go and collect your $20 gas card. So how serious are you really when you insist on correcting the little errors, but then cover up the biggest screw up of the year? Not very.

Update: A former Journal colleague, who is now gainfully employed elsewhere, points out that the strict Journal correction policy could certainly contribute to the temptation to make up a source. (The colleague is not excusing the behavior) "Afterall, fake sources rarely call to say they were misquoted," the colleague said. Point taken.

Here's a big suggestion to eliminate many mistakes: Quit treating the employees like factory line workers with set quotas for the number of stories they must produce each day and give them the time to work, massage and fact check a story.

When you push and hurry people, there is less time for follow-up and fact checking calls.

P.S. The Journal refuses to explain to readers how the mistakes were made. The editor-in-charge-of-corrections says that's because readers don't care. Well even if readers don't care, staff, particularly reporters care that sources know that they got it right and that the editor or copy desk inflicted the wound. Get over this idea that you can't explain to readers who was responsible for the error.

Here's a good example: I had a pretty good record of not making mistakes. But a source gave me an incorrect name for an auctioneer for a public auction. The source called and left a taped mea culpa on my voice mail. I mentioned this to the editor-in-charge-of-corrections and even sent him a copy of the taped message. But when the correction appeared it looked as if the paper had made the mistake, or more specifically that I had made the mistake. As any reporter will tell you that kind of thing is noticed by people on your beat and damages your credibility.

But the editor-in-charge-of-corrections explained that readers don't care. Well, reporters and sources do. To steal a page from the old Clinton playbook: "It's the morale, stupid."

By the way, reporters never got letters of apology from the editors who mangled copy and made it wrong. Although a few of my favorite copy editors were very polite and apologetic when they did make an error. Not so the editor-in-charge-of-corrections.

A word about comments

Friends:

As this blog is getting more and more traffic I just wanted to continue to welcome all your comments. I spent a career protecting my sources and will do so here as well.

Please feel free to leave anonymous comments (although making up a name is fun too!) as long as they are civil and without expletives. Let's leave out the real names of those who you are writing about. Even without the names the stories are still very compelling. The point of this blog is to inform, not to hurt.

One suggestion: It might be better for those still in a working newsroom to restrict your posting here to doing so from your home computer. Many newspapers stand on the first amendment and free expression, but aren't too sympathetic about employees exercising either one.

Some have asked me off line why I am so negative about the newspaper business.

The answer is easy, I am passionate about newspapers and news. When newspapers are run well they serve the community in a most important way. When they are run badly, they are at least an embarrassment and at worst irrelevant. My hope, my prayer is that the Flint Journal will find a way to return to what it was when I started there in 1989: A kick butt daily paper that people enjoyed and feared, in the best way possible. Sadly, it won't do it with the current editorial management.

So keep it clean, keep it real, but by all means, keep it coming.

The anatomy of a story not told

Congratulations to our local ABC affiliate - WJRT-12 - here in Flint for finally telling the story that could have been told by the Flint Journal last summer.


How do I know this? Because it was my story on a major mortgage scam that couldn't get by the top editors and lawyers at the Flint Journal. The reason: Fear of legal action.

Just to give you an idea of the investment we had in the story I had spent more than a week (40 hours) pulling and copying the property records for each property in the subdivision. In addition, I pulled all the tax records for each property and had called many of the banks and individuals named as owners.

My wife and I spent a romantic Friday night (on my own time and on our way home from dinner) driving slowly through the subdivision to make sure I had not missed any of the properties. With my wife's help we logged which homes were occupied, which were vacant, which were for sale and which were falling into disrepair.

I spent hours on the phone with Township Supervisor Kurt Soper, township building inspector Randy Stewart and many of the residents who were living or acquainted with the subdivision and its failings. Only two people would speak for the record out of fear of becoming a target themselves. The point being, the Journal had a significant investment in time, mileage and effort in this story.

The ABC story (see link below) has no more information than I had in August. Yes, the banks have finally filed a major lawsuit, but the reason my story was held was that Kurt Heintz refused to talk to me. His refusal to comment on a massive mortgage fraud was the reason cited to me why we couldn't go with the story. Forget that I confronted him at his front door after going to his former office and finding it closed.

Finding him was no small feat. After I found his office closed I went to his home address and found a bank security guard on duty keeping anyone from coming on the property. I did learn that the property had been seized by a bank (the one named in the Channel 12 story), but I didn't stop there.

I went next door and a nice neighbor pointed down the street to the rented home where Mr. Heintz was living and told me he was there at that time. That's when I drove down, talked to a young boy who brought Mr. Heintz to the door where he denied who he was. When I couldn't get him to admit who he was I left a business card so "Mr. Heintz" could call me later. Which, of course, he never did. This, by the way, is the same house where the stabbing occurred just a few months later.


Then the Journal's lawyers and top editor got involved and the story fell into a journalism black hole.


In the ensuing months, Heintz's wife was stabbed by an angry investor (trust me there are dozens of them as well as banks). But in August I had all the documents we needed to show a really massive fraud. Houses assessed at three times what they were worth. Dozens of homes in a high class subdivision in Davison Township standing empty and in foreclosure. But even with all the evidence, township and county documents, I could not get this story in the paper. I even had a better comment than Channel 12 from the FBI. At least I got them to confirm they were looking at the mortgage irregularities in the subdivision. I had plenty of background confirmation of what was going on as well.
So a month into my retirement I got a call from a Journal reporter - after the stabbing - asking me for all my information so they could NOW do a story on the whole mess. Unfortunately, I turned over all the documents to another reporter and frankly, was ticked off enough that I really didn't want to help. "Why would they want to run the story now with the same information I had in August?," I asked.

The next day they ran a weak follow, still not using all the documentation I had gathered.

By the way, when the Channel 12 reporter went to Heintz's door to get a comment, he got nothing as well. But at least the station went ahead with the story anyway.

The watered down story that finally appeared in the Journal was a pathetic recounting of neighbors complaints about high weeds and rotting homes and how the Township had failed to resolve their complaints. There was a passing reference to an investigation, but nothing about Heintz, his mortgage company or the massively inflated mortgages.

It was akin to an 1865 newspaper running a review of the Ford Theater play "Our American Cousin" and then mentioning in passing that President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated before the intermission.

Trust me, the neighbors and officials I had worked with over a month's time were stunned that the Journal did not see, or was not brave enough to tell the story last summer.

Want to know why some newspapers are failing? They are chicken.

I don't know how long it will be up, but here's the link to the Channel 12 story:

http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/local&id=5980917

To fix, or not to fix, that is the correction

Found this great site - regrettheerror.com - and received permission to link to it from here.

I particularly liked the following page and some of the incredible corrections:

http://www.regrettheerror.com/regret-articles/crunks-07-the-year-in-media-errors-and-corrections

Just to whet your appetite here's a short sample:

Runner UpThe Sentinel-Review (Woodstock, Ontario):

"In an article in Monday’s newspaper, there may have been a misperception about why a Woodstock man is going to Afghanistan on a voluntary mission. Kevin DeClark is going to Afghanistan to gain life experience to become a police officer when he returns, not to shoot guns and blow things up.The Sentinel-Review apologizes for any embarrassment this may have caused."

I have placed the website link with the others on the top, right side of the page.

This would be a good place to check frequently for a little comic relief.

A couple videos about newspaper videos

Couple of short, but clever video clips that will bring a smile (or a smirk) to the faces of reporters now dealing with the demands of producing videos for newspaper webpages....

http://www.andydickinson.net/2008/02/17/a-video-guide-to-video-strategy/

Let me know what you think

This site has touched a nerve

AngryJournalist.com is getting flooded with hits from angry journalists from around the world. There are a lot of people in the same boat (see Titanic photo below) and people seem to need a place to vent.
I'm not just reposting the site and moving it to the top of my links list because that site was kind enough to give me a shout out, but it certainly didn't hurt.

Very funny You Tube....

If you haven't seen this You Tube, it is very funny. Do yourself a favor and stick with it to the end....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuMMfgWhm3g

Enjoy!

Drip, drip, drip

From Editor and Publisher:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003712001

About jockeys, sergeants and editors

Before my 30-year career as a newspaper reporter I spent seven years as a police dispatcher and police officer for two California suburban police departments.

I learned a lot about good supervision and bad supervision during those seven years. In many ways, police work and newspaper work have a lot in common.

They are both professions where those who practice it must react quickly to rapidly changing circumstances. It requires supervisors and employees to work closely and effectively together, but not in the traditional boss-employee way.

Unlike a factory assembly line supervisor, police supervisors (and editors) should be working with and not above the police officers and reporters they share office or police car space with.

In my years as a police officer I witnessed a number of promotions of police officers to sergeant and can make some general observations.

Those who remained humble and didn't let a promotion go to their head were the more effective and efficient sergeants that I worked for. Officers I worked with would do everything they could to make a good sergeant look better.

But in those cases where a new sergeant let his/her promotion go to their head the result was almost always a disaster. I remember one officer (Patrick) who turned into an officious butthead after he was promoted. No matter that Patrick had been maybe the biggest slacker on our shift once he was promoted he turned into a monster. In other words, a mediocre officer was now in charge of his peers.

I remember one of his first supervision shifts when he told me and a couple other officers, "Even though we have been friends, from now on in public, you need to refer to me as 'sergeant.' Actually, that was the last time any of us called him 'sergeant.' Patrick was mostly "hey you' or completely ignored because of that.

Patrick, who had little road experience before he 'kissed' his way to the sergeant stripes, showed up at a traffic accident and we deliberately stood around with traffic backing up in all directions until he arrived. When he got there he asked us what we were doing and we told him we were just waiting for our supervisor to arrive so he could tell us what to do.

He was so frustrated, and with little previous knowledge of what to do, he nearly melted down as we made our point that he needed to lighten up and get off his pedestal and work with us and not 'above' us. Eventually, Patrick got the point and settled into being a decent supervisor.

Editors are in the same position. New editors should be mindful that many of their contemporaries remember how they were as reporters. So when they take on the officious manner of an editor they once fought and argued with, people aren't too sympathetic or cooperative.

Under the best editorial management of my career, reporters and editors were pretty much equal in status. It was not a boss-employee relationship, but one of mutual respect and an understanding of the different, but important role of each position. At times it meant sharp disagreements and even heated arguments. In the end, both realized they were working for the same thing, a good newspaper.

Sadly, at the Flint Journal in the past few years the editorial management style is more akin to a foreman in a plant than one of professional cooperation. I can tell you that most reporters react very negatively to being treated like a line worker, especially when they are pushed to the limit, stretched thin and getting little help or support from editors.

If you hover like a shepherd, you end up with sheep. Good reporters are not sheep, they are thoroughbreds and should not be handled like sheep. More on thoroughbreds later.

Remember the old Disney dark rides like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride? You rode in an open car that traveled on tracks as wild and scary things jumped out at you in the dark. There was the illusion of danger, but really no danger.

Well, journalism of the type being practiced by the management at the Flint Journal is the newspaper equivalent of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. There is the illusion of journalism and hard edged reporting, but really not so much. Company lawyers and timid editors see to that. How else can you explain that the Flint city mayor was unchallenged during his campaign just last year with assertions of an $8 million surplus and just months later announcing a $4 million deficit and layoffs. Someone was asleep at the switch. All while the Journal wasted countless inches and pages on an also ran American Idol candidate.

The difference between what the Flint Journal and hard hitting major newspapers are doing is the contrast between the dangers of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and the Indianapolis 500.

The Journal shuns overtime, but basically winks at the fact that many of its employees are working hours much longer than what they are being paid for. But still, its editors who have little understanding of what constitutes real news reporting, feel no shame in challenging the work ethic of some very hard working people.

I heard a story once about the jockey who rode the great horse Secretariat to glory. The jockey was asked by a sports reporter how "tough" it was to ride such a strong and powerful animal.

The jockey responded that Secretariat was actually one of the easist rides of his career.

"How so?," said the reporter.

The jockey explained that Secretariat loved to run, loved to run ahead of the pack and so the only thing that would discourage him would be if the jockey pulled back on the reins and bit.

The only horse races Secretariat ever lost, and there were not many, the jockey explained was when he had pulled back on the reins to try and control him in tight quarters. At the pull of the bit, Secretariat slowed and quit on the race.

What bad editors refuse to understand is that some people run better and work harder when they are not hard on the bit. When the bit is jerked on they pull, resist and slow. It's not science, just human nature.

Being a good editor is more than reading copy and assigning stories, it's understanding your people as individuals and giving them their head (another horse analogy) and letting them work unfettered by useless meetings and direction.

I think of the editor-reporter relationship more in the realm of a military squad. Editors, especially the lower line editors, should be akin to the lieutenant who takes a squad into battle, but lives and suffers along with the enlisted.

No one worries about who is wearing lieutenant bars when the bullets are flying. Everyone looks out for everyone else.

If editors want to treat others like a factory worker, then by all means give them the overtime and breaks they deserve.....

This and that....

Here are some new articles posted on newspaperdeathwatch.com and their links. All interesting reads.

Tidbit quote from the first link:

"I think it's unfair to single out journalists as thieves, or violent, or drunks, or child abusers," says Reynolds. "Sometimes they're all of the above."

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/01/notepads-of-sha.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2182072/pagenum/all

Here's a tidbit from the last item I will post here:

"But there's also the greed monster Wall Street has created, wherein a single digit profit margin is no longer enough reason to get out of bed in the morning." Frequent freefromeditors ommenter Oakland will surely agree with that. Here's the whole article.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/77102

Another afternoon daily bites it.....

More bad news....

http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/2008/02/20/this-is-all-happening-way-too-fast/

Another afternoon daily gone.

Beaten like rented mules.....

Newsroom staff may soon feel like they are being beaten like rented mules. I wish I could claim the metaphor, but a friend repeated the "beaten mules" thing to me yesterday.

Word has come that the goshawful "Making a Difference" feature will now anchor the new "People" section in the Saturday Flint Journal.

Staff members were told that the tired, worn-out feature will now be elevated to cover status for the weekly insert. Staff members were told that the feature must now be 20-inches long, up from the already difficult 12-inch required size and must include three pieces of art. Trust me getting one piece of art out of those things was often a major challenge.

I'm told that the feature also comes with an extended deadline.

Uggggh! What a joke, this is a feature that never should have been instituted and now is being promoted to rock star status in the paper. Is there any wonder this paper is financially bleeding.

The Journal also featured a story on a coming state police academy and it included a quote from "a man on the street." Just guessing, but they probably forced some reporter to head to the nearby mall or bus station to find some anonymous schmoe to make a useless comment on the story.

It's painfully obvious that the newspaper leadership is plowing ahead at high speed on a road that leads, at least to nowhere, and at most to disaster.

And for all the editorial management bluster about how the paper would do "everything" it had been doing even with less staff, it is painfully obvious to everyone what a joke that was.

People in Lapeer County, and no doubt Shiawassee County, have completely noticed the dearth of local news in the paper and some have told me they are likely to cancel soon. Other coverage, especially local "real" features and business news have diminished as well.

Don't blame the reporters either, they have impossibly large beats and expectations to cover. Even with their story quotas - one story a day plus a Sunday story every other week - it would not be possible to be everywhere they need to be.

Beaten like a rented mule may soon fit.

More bad news....

Joan and I just returned from a weekend trip to Buffalo, NY. We know, we know, Buffalo is not a winter vacation destination, but it is when you have family there.

Anyway, Newspaperdeathwatch.com (one of my favorite sites - also linked here) has a new round of bad newspaper news.

http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/2008/02/15/layoff-log-v-day-massacres/

Ph.d = Piled higher and deeper

Just a quick observation:

Oakland University is advertising for an assistant professor of journalism. One of the requirements is that the candidate have a Ph.d. Oh pleeeeeeeze.
What today's journalism students really need is a crusty old veteran reporter no matter what her/his education to tell them to run like heck in the other direction from journalism.
In all good conscience how can journalism schools continue to crank out folks who stand to make, what, $28,000 a year with little or no benefits.
Whenever I did a high school career day, the first question I asked was how many of the students were good at math. A few hands always went up.
Then I would stun them with a strong suggestion that they forget journalism, go into medicine or a related science field and do themselves and society a big favor by fixing people or discovering a cure for the myriad of diseases that ail us.
How does one get a Ph.d in journalism these days. Probably by writing sophisticated tomes on why newspapers and print journalism is in the tank.

Some different perspectives

From a new journalism job-seeker:

http://www.watchdogsblog.com/blog/_archives/2008/1/29/3494458.html

From some anonymous "angry journalists":

http://angryjournalist.com/

From a researcher about "journalist burnout"

http://srreinardy.iweb.bsu.edu/burnoutcrisis/introduction.html

And if you have high-speed this is a good watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfRXaORNSK8


Interesting reads and viewing all.....

Hooray for Uno

I was excited to see Uno, the 15-inch beagle win the WKC show last night.

For those who know me it was a reminder of my life with "Puppy" a stray female beagle I found while walking in 1989.

Puppy, who still has the longevity record of a female living with me, had to be euthanized more than two years ago and is still greatly missed.

Beagles are pure love and devotion and if, that's a big if, we were ever to consider getting another dog, I would lobby hard for a beagle. Joan would certainly lobby as hard for a Labrador retriever, which I must admit are pretty loving and devoted as well. (We had to put down "Colby" last fall after her failing health required an end to her 16 years.

So I really appreciate the WKC recognizing a "real" dog as Best in Show. Puppy will also be my Best (dog) in Life.

As for the longevity record it looks good, the God Lord willing, that Joan will surpass that in just another 6 years.

I've been thinking.....

Yep, I've had a lot of time to think and that's always a dangerous thing.
While I watch the demise of the business that I have (had) such a great passion for it came to me that the solution was never in getting rid of the most experienced talented members of the profession. I know, well, duuuuuh!
Hang with me a moment.
The real problem with top newspaper management is they lack, dare I say completely, any vision for what is really required in salvaging not just the business, but the mission of community journalism.
After all, when the newspapers are all gone, who will do the investigative reporting, such as is currently going on in Detroit. The short answer is, no one. With no watchdog, those who sneer at the daily news media will be begging for the return of real journalism.
Wouldn't the better model for saving newspapers - either in print or online - have been in keeping the most talented reporters and editors and finding a way of transferring what people love, enjoy and need from the print version and transfer it to online editions.
Part of that problem is that some of the current editors (as I've posted her previously) don't really care about the news that most people really want to read. They turn up their noses at breaking police and fire news in favor of long, boring features. I've gone over this ad nausem so I'll not do it again here.
Now the business is faced with transferring its model from print to online, but without many of the folks who had a complete understanding and sources to actually make the transfer without losing the core aspects of the business.
Short sighted people saw only high salaries and benefits as the obstacle to saving the business. Wrong! Businesses rarely cut the way to success. Newspapers often tell businesses it is more important to part with advertising dollars in the bad times than when times are good. Guess they were giving that advice with fingers crossed.
Lost are the relationships built up over decades of reporting with key players in government and business. Those are relationships that will not be easily or quickly bridged with young, inexperienced reporters fresh out of college. This is in no way a slam at them it is just the reality that learning the reporting business is a long, not short, curve experience.
So now editors, who were barely competent to produce a printed newspaper, are playing the equivalent of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey as they stumble in the dark trying to figure out how to make money on the Internet.
Heck, they were already playing the "donkey" game with the printed version of the paper and doing a miserable job of it. Now they are trying to transfer that to a medium they know little or nothing about.
Before it's too late, some newspaper needs to take a chance, keep its most talented people, and work to make the online newspapers a place that folks are eager to visit and that advertisers will recognize the benefits of spending money on while preserving the printed version for the legions of folks that still love that form of news.
During one brainstorming session at the Journal, some of us argued that the printed version could be supplemented on the Internet by giving readers a place to go to read the volumes of documents that often go into making investigative stories. Example: In stories about restaurant inspections, there is no room in the print version for complete copies and files that went into drafting the story.
Online, however, all the background documentation could be offered for readers who want to look further than a 30-inch story. We were patted on the head, told it was a good idea, but still no such move to provide that kind of service to readers. It would work for a variety of investigative stories.
Instead, the current management will continue to spin around, stumble and put the donkey's tail right square in its forehead.
Sad, very sad.

Another newspaper owwieee!

Another one bites the dust....

http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/2008/02/09/madison-to-become-a-one-paper-town/

Good column on newspapers

Great column on the demise of newspapers.

Tidbit follows:

-Leadership collapsed under the weight of these forces. A generation of managers that would go along with these dictates rose, while those with other ideas were pushed out or aside. These surviving managers – of course with honorable exceptions – were singularly incapable of dealing with the historic turning points facing newspapers. Every day they came in hoping to not make a mistake, to merely preserve the business they had, or to push through artificial, top-down, one-side-fits-all formulas, usually backed by questionable research. At some chains, the jobs of editors became little more than gathering stuff for graphic do-dads and implementing the content rules cooked up at headquarters. These were once the front-line leaders who made the biggest difference in the quality of a product based, inexorably, on the written word, well told. The simple creed of "get a great story and put it in the newspaper (or online)" went away. For example, experienced police reporters went away -- even though it's clear that well-done cop stories draw readers. In their place was a 21-year-old taking dictation from a police public-affairs announcement.

Man this guy has it soooo right. To read the rest go here:

http://roguecolumnist.typepad.com/rogue_columnist/2008/01/whats-really-wr.html

Where have all the parents gone?

Way off topic today, but Sunday (Super Bowl Sunday, no less) my wife and I were shopping at the Lapeer Meijer store.

I was struck by a sign in one of the checkout lanes: "Family friendly checkout, no candy, no toys."

Sure enough the store had removed all those tempting candy and toy displays in the one lane, presumably to prevent temper tantrums.

I immediately flashed back to my youth and remembered my one - and only - temper tantrum in a store. My mother apologized to the clerk, left behind her basket of groceries and took me home where I got a really good spanking.

Is it really the store's responsibility to remove items that might trigger an actual parental teaching moment? The problem really is that parents don't want to be parents anymore.

Here's a tip for parents: If your child is acting up in a store, restaurant or other public place, accompany, drag, carry or pull them outside and give them a decent spanking (not a beating) and warn them that future outbursts will result in the same.

It worked for generations of children and will likely work for you. Or, for you really modern folks, try the time out thing, although it never really worked for me.

How many editors are enough?

While the Flint Journal cleans house of its reporting staff, there has been little reduction in the ranks of the editors.

Through attrition, a number of copy editors have left, but mostly, the management type editors are still intact. In fact, one good reporter was promoted to an editor spot despite the mass exodus of many reporters.

I did hear that two copy editors from another Booth newspaper were involuntarily assigned to begin working at the Flint Journal Monday, Feb. 4 so as not to overburden the management staff.

In the meantime, reporters are told they must produce as a quota, one news story per day, and a Sunday show piece every two weeks. So now newspapers have gone from a creative enterprise to the newest widget factory.

A Sunday, Feb. 3 column by the editor claims that print readers are not being sacrificed to the new online efforts of the Journal. That is total bullcrap. News content in the print paper has already suffered from the major buyouts as evidenced by the lack of local business content due to the loss of its veteran business desk.

One reporter now is assigned to the work of what was a five-person desk.

A little honesty from the editor to his readers would be welcome. This putting a happy face on such dramatic changes is unbecoming a big city editor. (See the story below about how the Los Angeles Times editor handled his situation).

Don't blame the reporters, they are stretched thin and many are new, part-time people who are in the process of learning the ropes.

So now the Journal is giving away its entire product online for free and wondering why its print version is losing money. There is no question changes had to be made, but ownership should have started cleaning house at the top, where it really matters, rather than gutting its essential product.

It's probably not politically correct, but the old saying "too many chiefs and not enough Indians" applies here.

The old ratio of editors was already about 1 to 1, so I can't imagine what it is now.

Add to this that many of the editors rarely lift a finger to help the reporting staff by covering an event, ripping off a news brief or making a phone call or two to help the overworked reporting staff.

So to sum up, while reporters depart in droves and the remnant picks up the beats of those departed, many of the editors are not sharing in the division of work they are so quick to hand to others.

True, the paper is hiring new part-time reporters with little previous experience and at a lower pay and benefit scale so the heavy lifting, for now anyway, continues to fall to the veteran reporters left behind.