What will Booth consolidation look like?

I'm going out on a limb here. Pretty dangerous place for a guy as big as me, but let's do it anyway.

When the editor talks about consolidation and having too many editors, it is apparent that Booth (or Newhouse) is looking to save money by merging operations. One of those could obviously be running the copy desk for the eight Michigan newspapers out of one, maybe two, locations.

While that might work to produce a common Nation and World page, it is hard to imagine (and as I said before I could be wrong) how this would work for local news. One of the strengths of any copy desk is the knowledge (many copy editors are former local news reporters) that the editors have of local figures and places. Without that background it is hard to imagine how a copy desk, say based in Flint or Saginaw, could competently edit copy from Jackson or Kalamazoo. More mistakes, more loss in credibility, something the paper simply can't afford now.

The Journal always had a strong sports and features presence. Sports seems to be intact, I still see a commitment to local coverage there, but the features pages have all but disappeared. Since Cookie (and we're praying for your quick healing) left there is a marked reduction in a focus on a strong local feature section. I used to love reading the Journal feature section, I'm not even sure if there is one now. That could either be consolidated out of one location, or eliminated all together under the new plans.

Readers need to watch for a drastic reduction in what is called the "news hole." Most newspapers when I started 30 years ago used to have a pretty healthy balance between ads and news. 70/30 or even 75/25 percent news to advertising was the norm. Watch for a cutback to a 50/50 balance, which will make the paper much thinner that the skinny version you get today.

How does that save money? Couple of ways. Less space for news, less need for more reporters or reporters to work overtime to fill the "hole." Even larger than that is the cost of newsprint, which like everything else has skyrocketed in recent years. Smaller paper, less newsprint, more savings. Can't say as I blame them here.

In fact, my preference would be to go ahead and shrink the news hole, but with the same number of editorial people, that would reduce the daily pressure and allow for more long range projects.

If the Journal cut out a niche as the crusading watchdog, people might tolerate a day or two of meager coverage to look forward to a monster breaking expose on say, the Mayor being secretly involved in a non-profit group trying to bring street racing to Flint. That wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't some suspicion, or even evidence, that the city has been doing the infrastructure work at taxpayer cost to make the thing happen. That's just one example.

For newspapers it's fourth down in the fourth quarter and your team is down by 5 points. You either kneel down and surrender or throw the Hail Mary pass! Throw the Hail Mary, go for broke (literally).

Of course, I could be wrong.

A good back and forth on the subject of the Flint Journal

A recent comment thread on a previous post has provided an interesting commentary on the current issues at the Flint Journal. Except for the first comment from “Cat Paws” the exchange between me and the second anonymous commentator has been civil, the kind of discussion I would like to promote here.

Anonymous said...
The Flint Journal is a trickle of warm pee these days. What was once one of the best papers in the mid-west back in the 1940-50s is now a PC self serving product that like almost every paper today is not near worth the delivery price. What is there in each days paper that would make me care to support it? Nothing !Cat Paws.
12 September, 2008 22:50

Jim of L-Town said...
I think, like a lot of newspapers, the Flint Journal just lost its way. Management forgot that people wanted hard-hitting, incisive breaking news coverage. They wanted to be able to pick up the paper and find out what happened in an accident they drove by the day before.

When they saw police tape around a house they expected that the paper would have the full story the next day and be confident they had the real story of what happened.They wanted reporters to attend city council, school board meetings and from them be the watchdog for the community.

At those meetings reporters mingled with government officials and citizens and learned what was going on in that community.Some new age editors arrived and decided what people really wanted were more soft features, more feel good articles about, well you name it.

They discouraged meeting coverage, they dragged reporters off the street and back into the office where they could be watched and now they are reaping the results.They decided that dramatic and disturbing photos were offending and not attracting readers. They were wrong.

On top of that the Internet exploded and started providing a free outlet (if often very wrong and irresponsible) for the kind of news people wanted. So in a panic they fired up an online version of the weak coverage they were giving in the daily and it hasn't worked, so far, to bring back readers. They try video, interactive polls, anything they can but to use a very common phrase today, you can put lipstick on it, but it's still a pig. No offense intended to pigs or anyone else.

13 September, 2008 07:14

Anonymous said...
The Journal is still doing a good job of providing the crime news and what's going on at City Hall and in communities. Granted, with fewer reporters, there isn't as much of that as in the past, but if you've been reading the paper, it's been getting all the big stories.

The last few Sundays have been particularly good with stories about who owns land in Flint, the Land Bank and about how a school district wants to put advertising on buses.

More breaking coverage includes having a good story about the Secret Service going to some body's house to investigate bomb threats.

Tell me what other news organization around the area would do all of that? The real problem is advertisers are giving up on the print product and taking there money to the Internet, but the business-model there doesn't generate the heaps of cash it did because there's so much to choose from.

That plus the fact that Michigan economy is in the toilet basically means it doesn't matter whether the paper is any good. That's the tragic part because the people who stayed have been working their butts off for the past year doing a good job with what they have, but now face more monumental change.
13 September, 2008 13:59


Jim of L-Town said...
I would agree that for the small staff that is left they are doing as good a job as possible.

It's simply not possible to do all the things that were done in the past because ownership has stripped the newspaper of an adequate number of reporters to do the job. I'm an old dog. I still think the beat system, where one reporter covers a specific area of interest provides the best coverage for the paper.

It's simply not possible to do that with the numbers of reporters on hand now. The ownership made a decision to make money, by wrecking the thing that made the product. It just won't work.

People expect more, not less for less today. There is a limit what any human being can produce and produce well. From my perspective, the paper is concentrating on quick turnaround stories that, yes, are good news stories. But where is the in depth coverage of the inner workings of Flint City Hall. What reporter is covering the weekly circus that is City Council and the Mayor. Who is looking into and requesting documents on the Mayoral appointments, their backgrounds, etc.?

Those kinds of investigations take time. That is impossible when there are assigned quotas for stories for reporters. From where I live, I really don't care who owns land in Flint. So I have to admit I did not read that story.

Where is the detailed coverage of the townships, cities and villages? Reporters have become taxicab drivers, sent anywhere and anywhere an editor needs them at any moment to fill a hole. That is the antithesis of good beat reporting.

Are there good stories in the Journal? Sure, I've acknowledged a number of them. I understand a reporter will be traveling to Sweden for a business story. That is great, that's the kind of commitment and investment that should pay dividends for readers.

My only point is that when I started there, I made sure we didn't miss any accident in which there was a significant injury. I made sure we didn't miss any assault that put someone in a hospital. We covered every armed robbery, etc.

I'm not blaming the reporters that that is not happening today. I'm blaming management for trying to save money by ruining the product. Not going to work.
13 September, 2008 21:01

Anonymous said...
Note: due to some editing (at the poster's request) I had to post this under anonymous. I posted this, but the words below are completely that of the poster. I will respond to it in the following entry. Here follows the info:

Jim,

You make great points about the beat system its benefits. But you exaggerate the extent that people are general assignment. Nearly every veteran reporter there continues to cover beats and cover them well. Take higher ed, Flint schools/politics, business, cops/courts, Genesee county, southern Genesee County, northern Genesee County/Lapeer County - they all have done some great beat reporting lately.

And your point about the Flint City Hall coverage is a little off. The Journal's current reporter is breaking a lot of news. Take the coverage of the drag strip craziness. The Journal also hasn't missed the fact the feds have been busy with the super chief and his son and has followed all the dramas with the police officers who can't talk to the press.

While more resources to investigate City Hall always would be helpful, I think given the circumstances they've done well. The terrible reality, here, is the owners just can't afford the Cadillac paper Flint had 10, 20 years ago. The market doesn't support it. The paper hasn't made money in years and now with the nationwide economic crisis in newspapers, Newhouse's other properties can't prop it up like the past.

I'm not happy with the current situation and I wish the paper had more resources. The area community deserves it, but the financial situation that is forcing this upcoming round of buyouts, I believe, will transform the paper far more than what happened last year.

But I don't think this is being contemplated over greed. It's being contemplated over survival.

(Anonymous) 9/13/08

Just for information to all posters: If you send me a post that includes both on-the-record and off-the-record information it is very difficult and requires some crazy electronic gymnastics to perform. I really only have the choice to accept or to reject an offering, so when I get one that has personal information you don't want printed it is really, really difficult to post. Better to send two posts one with the good info and one with the background. FYI.
14 September, 2008 09:03

Jim of L-Town said...
Thanks for you post. Listen I don't have all the answers, but I have a lot of opinions. So I always hold out the possibility that I am wrong.

We don't really disagree. My only point is that someone who has a beat that covers all of one county and a third of another is not a beat reporter, that's a general assignment.

People who have a beat covering a specific area like courts and cops should not be doing stories (routinely) that don't involve that beat.

My only other point is that seeking survival is actually seeking defeat, in my opinion, of course.

When you fall off a ship, is it better to tread water and hope for rescue or see a light in the distance and swim for it? For me I would rather die trying to swim for help, rather than treading water and hoping that I would be found.

To me what the Journal is doing is treading water in hopes that a ship will come by and save them or that a mountain will grow out of the bottom of the ocean and lift them out of the water. From my view, which is admittedly now from the outside, I would rather see the company pour money into the product, make it something people HAD to have then continue to shrink it down, making it even more unappealing to readers and advertisers.

None of this, my friend, is a criticism of the reporters, or frankly many of the editors, who are there, but of the short-sighted management that continues to try to bleed its way to health. Didn't work for George Washington and I don't think it will work for newspapers.

But I certainly respect and welcome your point of view. I'll try and tone down the strident language for awhile. I had lunch with a few of my fellow buyoutees the other day and the one thing we all agreed on is that we want the Flint Journal to survive. For one thing, we all have a lot invested in it and for the other we have a lot of friends who are still there. Keep coming back!
14 September, 2008 09:12

Journal editorial exhibits double standard

Flint Journal editorial hypocrisy has been discussed here before (http://freefromeditors.blogspot.com/2007/12/sometimes-no-news-is-hypocrisy.html), but an editorial posted on Sept. 12, 2008 really takes the cake.

In the editorial:


http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/voices/index.ssf/2008/09/wrong_deal_advertisements_on_s.html

The Journal says a school district should not use advertising on buses for the sake of the children. Good enough. Makes sense. However, the Journal delivers its product to schools every week under the Newspaper In Education program.

Guess what, those newspapers are full of advertisements, many directed at young people, and they didn't bother to say that's a bad thing.

Might have something to do with the NIE program and its importance to the overall circulation numbers of the newspaper. The newspaper loves sending those papers to schools because it inflates its circulation numbers, which in turn allow them to charge advertisers more money. Or maybe they are just concerned about another competitor for ad dollars.

So my beef isn't with the content of the editorial, but in the fact that I doubt the newspaper will follow its own advice and decline to send the newspapers to the schools out of concern for hurting the children.

More bad news

For my friends at the Journal, if you've had enough bad news for awhile, forget going to this post because it will seem all too familiar.

http://maryland-politics.blogspot.com/2008/09/crisis-at-gazette-part-three.html

But if you are into newspaper masochism there are a number of equally depressing items at the "Fading to Black" link in the right hand column.

More on new Flint Journal buyouts

OK, first I have to correct my first report on the new round of buyouts. The information came not from Publisher Dave Sharp, but was given to staff members by Editor Tony Dearing following the weekly recognition meetings. (Gosh, I hated those).

After gushing over this week's stories (one of the editor's favorite, if incomprehensible sayings, was that this or that writer "had written with authority." Never knew what that meant, because the examples he gave were simply just good writing that any competent reporter could or should do. Or how about the other time he lavished praise on a reporter for using a reverse directory to find a witness for a story by, stop the presses, looking in a reverse directory. Any first year cub reporter would know how to do that, but to the editor this was a major accomplishment). Sorry for the aside, but I quit going to those meetings after he gushed over the work of an editor over the coverage of a tornado. What the editor apparently didn't know was the weekend coverage of the tornado was almost completely reporter driven. The best thing the editor did that particular weekend was that he got out of the way and let us do our job, which come to think of it probably deserved some praise because it so rarely happened.

Anyway, back to the buyouts. It sounds like after a little prodding, the editor acknowledged that the revenue stream had turned to a trickle and that some serious additional cutting had to be done. Sounds like editors may be on the block this time as the Booth company is now looking at consolidating all the properties into one massive budget.

Because I wasn't at the meeting I'm piecing together information that tells me that people and resources could be moved around to maximize profits instead of each paper serving on its own.
The inference was that what had been seen as a potential profit turnaround by 2010 is not happening and may in fact be deteriorating.

No specifics were announced on the next round of buyouts, but there was some statement that they won't be as lucrative as they were last year. Believe me, those of us who took the buyouts are very thankful (and grateful) for the extent of them.

We are sad that our colleagues continue to face the uncertainty of the newspaper's survival. It is hard to imagine the company selling the Journal or even closing up shop, but it sounds like those options are on the table, at least a year from now.

As I learn more, I'll keep you posted.

Flint Journal buy outs Part III

Looks like the free fall continues at the Flint Journal. Apparently there will soon be a third wave of "targeted" buyouts at the Flint Journal.

Publisher Dave Sharp has told the staff that the hoped for turnaround at the newspaper simply has not happened. It was one year ago this week that the second round of buyouts were announced at the paper.

As you will recall, the deal at that time was four weeks pay for every year worked if you were a full-time employee. The publisher also said that there would be no further buyouts and that this (last year's buyout) was the best opportunity to get out with a little cash and dignity.

Stay tuned for details.

Corrupt politician launches attack on corrupt politicians

Flint (Michigan) Mayor Don Williamson has launched a website to root out political corruption in Genesee County, Michigan.

That's a little like Charlie Manson launching a website to identify crazy, lunatic, homicidal maniacs in California prisons.

Mayor Williamson has a thick brain and thin skin, a dangerous combination.

So "The Don" as he is known in these parts (you know the angry part of the country where we cling to our religion and our guns) has identified his first five targets:

The first two targets, Alex Harris and Raymond Bridges, just happen to be the key movers in an attempt to recall the mayor. Two others are executives at the Flint Journal and the third is a Flint Journal columnist who has been ruthless (in a ruthlessly good way) towards the Mayor.

So the first five corruption targets are simply opponents of the Mayor. No secret there and here is the exact text on the website, which is "thecorruptionmustend.com."

"We look forward to meeting you and working with you to put a stop to the corrupt politics in Flint and Genesee County! The corrupt politicians and the agenda driven media need to be exposed, but we need your help, please make a donation today!

COMING SOON!!! "My life as a Prison Guard."
Alex Harris abuse of power...

COMING SOON!!! "My ties to Drug Dealers."
Raymond Bridges is comfortable on the corner...

COMING SOON!!! "The Three Stooges Exposed:"

David "LARRY" Sharp (FJ publisher, my note)

Andy "CURLY" Heller (FJ columnist, my note)

Tony "MOE" Dearing (FJ columnist, my note)"

I think the Mayor has it all wrong here, Andy Heller is clearly "Moe."

The website is a joke. You can leave a comment, but not without enough information for someone to start an FBI probe on you and then only comments approved (read only positive comments) will be used. Guess what, all the comments are positive so far.

This is a Mayor who has a police chief who will fire you if you talk to a newspaper (then they hire you back after a city lawyer explains that the chief and city are walking on legal quicksand).

Frankly, the newspaper has been too easy on the Mayor. Some suspect that the large advertising contract of the Mayor's Flint Township car dealership (OK, it's technically the Patsy Lou Williamson dealership, but everyone knows who really runs it) has influenced some of the paper's coverage of the Mayor. I simply don't know.

Brief aside: Before he was Mayor, Don Williamson, did land me an interview with his good buddy, Burt Reynolds, who was the namesake of a Dodge truck tricked out as "The Bandit." As I recall the truck also had Burt's signature on it.

Burt was in town to promote the truck and I was able to interview him for nearly 45 minutes at the dealership. It was a fun interview that actually broke a little news as Burt had just completed the movie "Boogie Nights." Reynolds did not want to talk much about the movie even offering that it might have been a mistake. He changed his tune a few months later when he was nominated for an Academy Award.

Aside over.

If the Flint Journal wanted to it could go back a few years and look up another highly touted website that hizzoner started after he was first in office. That one had to do with slumlords. He set up that website to track down the worst blight offenders in the city and again to attack the media.

After a few weeks flurry of stories and comments, it fizzled like a wet firecracker. The mayor is all flash and dash, but no substance. So if you're interested in seeing the website, better check in quick, it is likely to fade into history in short order.

And for those of you checking in from Estonia, Morocco, France or even California, just thank your lucky stars you don't live in Flint.

New season, same old Lions, ugggh

All the optimism of a 4-0 preseason just evaporated with the reality of a 34-21 loss (and it wasn't really that close) to the young Atlanta Falcons team (rookie quarterback Matt Ryan shredded the Lions) may be a preview of what is to come.

As always, my expectations for the Lions (last championship came when Eisenhower was President) were very low and not unrewarded. My plans were not to watch the game, but my wife talked me into it saying that I needed to relax after a busy week and a busy Saturday cleaning our yard.

Now I wish I had worked outside. What a wasted afternoon watching a wasted effort by a wasted team.

If any city or region needed a lift right now it's Detroit (depression, disgraced Mayor, slumping Detroit Tigers baseball team - and if you need more I can send them to you) but unlike the inspirational New Orleans Saints, we have, to be charitable, an unusually bad football team here in Detroit.

So I hate to give up on them this early, but for the sake of my attitude and to return productiveness to my afternoons, I must. Someone let me know if they turn the corner on this miserable performance, but not until they have tallied eight wins, anything less is just another wasted season.

And just in case you are an Atlanta Falcons fan, don't get too excited about your team, either. The Lions have made a lot of poor teams look better than they really are in recent years. So I wish you well, but you'll need to face a real team before you know how good your team is.

The Ford family might have had the formula for making a good car at one time, but they have been failures at football, but they cling to the franchise that so desperately needs a Jerry Jones or another owner who not only cares about football, but winning.

At least training camp starts soon for the Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup winning hockey team.

Let's go Red Wings!

MSU routs EMU Eagles 42-10

Life is good, the Spartans win. Joan and I are going to see MSU next Saturday in East Lansing. They are playing Florida (something, but not one of the biggees like Florida, Florida State or Miami). It may be Florida Mother-of-Mercy or something like that.

I hate that these really good football teams load up the schedule early with cupcake teams to inflate their records. Now that I've said that, let's home MSU (Michigan State) for those who might confuse it with Missouri State or something, takes care of business next Saturday as they face Florida (whatever). Who will ever forget what happened to Michigan last season against Appalachian State. Not that any of us from MSU will ever give them a chance to forget.

Javon Ringer ran for five touchdowns today. He's the best.

A little Addisen attitude, and Brittany style

My favorite picture (so far) of my granddaughter Addisen (the little one on the left). I also have attached a photo of my other "favorite" granddaughter Brittany who has started college this fall. They are both precious in their own ways.

I miss my little Brittany and am reminded of her every time Miss Addisen stops by, which is far too infrequently.

Another news sales graph going the wrong direction

From the Reflections of a Newsosaur blog (link to the right)

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2008/09/newspaper-sales-fall-record-3b-in-6-mos.html#comments

I keep hoping that things have hit bottom, but it appears the bottom may be pretty deep.

Journal salaries: A story of have and have nots

As far as I can tell about 40 (give or take) editorial department employees took the most recent buyout. The fact that the large exodus of experienced news gathering employees eviscerated the newsroom is evidenced by the large number of new hires.

As promised, I have collected information during the past month on salaries at both the weeklies and the daily Flint Journal. In addition to some specific salary amounts (no names will be listed here) I have information that put together with other facts result in a fair educated guess as to others.

When I left the Journal there were more than 80 editorial employees. According to the latest staff listing on Mlive, the Flint Journal now has about 75 editorial employees. Of those, less than half are involved in the direct collection of news.

I counted 21 daily newspaper reporters (several who are part-time reporters and two columnists), 8 weekly reporters, one editorial writer and five reporters that because I have been out of the newsroom am unable to figure out which side they work on. That’s a total of 35 reporters.

The rest of the editorial department, about 40 people, is made up of editors, copy editors, page designers, a TV coordinator, calendar coordinator, librarian, office staff and a community conversation producer. Top heavy, you bet.

Shockingly, and perhaps mistakenly, there are only three photographers listed on the staff roster. I know they have a small stable of free lancers they call on, but it is hard to imagine the Flint Journal operating with such a tiny number of photographers, especially with the stated reliance on good graphics, photos and videos.

So, in the way of a recap, let’s go back to 1989 when I started at the Journal. I was hired out of the Oakland Press at a step somewhat above the starting salary step. I was paid $610 a week in 1989. When I left in December, my base pay was $1,052 a week.

There are several reporters who are still at that top step and for those who cover night meetings and work night shifts there’s an additional 5 percent incentive pay. Presumably there are reporters still making as much as $1,100 a week in the newsroom.

That’s the same pay that some of the copy editors who took the buyouts were also making when they left. New reporters are being hired in at about $35,000 to $36,000 a year. That is slightly higher than the $33,000 a year that I started at in 1989.

In my early years at the Journal, merit and cost-of-living raises were annual and in at least one year I received a 10 percent raise. In recent years, the paper has given an annual bonus (on top of the 53rd week paycheck that it always did) which has ranged about 1 to 1.5 percent. It's a one time payment that does not increase an employee's salary, thereby holding down eventual retirement costs.

Weekly salaries are all over the map and to be frank the information was difficult to come by. People at the Journal are terrified of speaking up for fear of what might happen to them if they are caught expressing their right of free speech.

But here is what I have learned. New weekly reporters (most of the weekly reporters are full-time, but a couple, some who have been there a long, long time have been kept at part-time status) are starting at $11 an hour. Must be a hard pill to swallow to earn McDonald’s wages when you have to pay off college loans, pay rent and maintain a car. There may be veteran weekly reporters making close to the starting wages of new daily reporters, but again, information was difficult to come by.

Some of the weekly reporters absorbed by the Journal when it purchased the weeklies were making about $14 a hour. At least one of those has left, so I'm not sure how many folks remain at that level.

At least one veteran, full-time weekly reporter who reportedly has a master’s degree is hauling down a miserly $22,000 a year.

Now editors, this is a harder target to hit. As you can imagine, I’m not on the frequent contact list of any editor at the Journal. Can’t say as I blame them. But through some anecdotal information I can make a couple educated estimations.

Middle managers are making in the $70-$75,000 range. (Although a new editor brought in came in at about half that, I believe that person has now moved on). My guess is that the managing editor must be up in the mid to high $80,000 range and no doubt the editor is close or above the six figure mark.

There have been rumored management bonuses and perks apart from the annual 53rd week paycheck, but again I have no information on that.

Benefits are fairly consistent, with part-timers receiving part-time benefits. The only change will come next year when retirement health care will significantly change or become non-existent for some. (See earlier blog entry).

Some of us who left received lump sum payments of nearly two years' pay (some more than that) others are receiving weekly checks equal to what they were making when they were at the Journal. Clearly, this has to be a long range strategy to reduce expenses, but in the short run it would seem to be tremendous financial hit to the newspaper. At the same time you are paying off high paid editorial employees you are hiring and paying additional employees (albeit at a lower salary). Someone smarter than I must have come up with this plan, but I'm appreciative of the consideration that I, and others, received for going away.

Now, if I were still an employee at the Flint Journal, I would call an off-site meeting with all my fellow workers, sit down and graph out exactly what everyone is making. There is no question that some people make more than others, despite doing the same work and the fact they have longer seniority, and the reason for that is as arbitrary as an editor not liking a person’s personality.

Information is power and right is right and wrong is wrong. The only way the disparity will ever by known is for everyone to share the information with each other.

Now, if some of my facts and figures are way off, please feel to contact me through my gmail account: jlsmediaservices@gmail.com and I’ll gladly make the adjustments or additions in the blog entry.

I will be updating this story as new information comes in.

Michael, Michael, Michael

Trust Davison's native son Michael Moore to step into a potentially tragic storm with a very inappropriate comment.

If he keeps this up, he's going to make it very hard to be named to the Davison Hall of Fame. Frequent freefromeditors blog visitor Kevin McKague can tell you more about this.

Do we have to play politics with everything in this country? Hurricanes and other natural disasters along with terrorist attacks should not be used for political advantage. That goes for both sides, IMHO.

Here's the link to Michael's entire comment on the Keith Olbermann (who I know is very popular with other readers of my blog, and not so much with others) show last Friday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lrAf_TE-1I&feature=related

Welcome Estonia!

Someone from Estonia checked in Saturday. So now we are popular in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and not Northern Europe.

Salary story to publish Monday

Although the sample is small, I feel confident that the numbers I have are very close to the current reality at the Flint Journal. I'm writing the story this weekend and will publish it on Monday - Labor Day.

Helen Dent back from the dead

This from today's Flint Journal (Page 2 corrections):

"Helen Dent still living

An article Friday about a real estate sale at the former Goodrich home of Harold and Helen Dent should have said Helen Dent is still alive, while her husband died in 1990. The article contained incorrect information."

The "incorrect" information was wording that made it sound like Mrs. Dent was dead, which she obviously is not.

Here's the link to the story, but remember it won't be there long:

http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/index.ssf/2008/08/take_a_trip_through_flint_hist.html

Hard to know who made the error, but my wild guess is that an editor did it trying to shorten up the story. I've never had an editor kill one of my story subjects, but I have had them edit in misinformation, switched quotes and otherwise mangled a story because the editor was so much smarter and better than I.

An editor's motto should be the same as a doctor's: First, do no harm.

William T. Smith, RIP

William T. Smith, my uncle, was quite simply the funniest man in the world. That may be a bit of hyperbole, but to me he was the funniest man I ever knew.

Funnier than Bill Cosby, Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, or maybe even Laurel and Hardy, although Uncle Bill would take exception to that because he thought they were the funniest men in the world.

I've never been a laugh-out-loud person. Uncle Bill could make me laugh out loud. He could have made you laugh out loud, even though most of you will have to take my word on that.

He was a prankster, a kidder, but he was a master joke teller and he had a million of them.

Uncle Bill would do anything, with some wide limits, for a laugh. I shared with my cousin Cynthia today (Cynthia is the oldest of Uncle Bill and Aunt Mona's three daughters) the story of a trip up Angeles Crest Highway in Los Angeles for a picnic at Mt. Waterman.

The two families met up at a prearranged place and my Uncle Bill stepped out of his station wagon wearing a plaid, short-sleeved shirt, stripped Bermuda shorts, mismatched socks and mismatched tennis shoes. He topped off the outrageous ensemble with the most ridiculous Panama hat you have ever seen.

It was hilarious and Uncle Bill had no inhibitions about showing up in public like that.
Tell him you thought he had beautiful teeth and he would pop out his perfect dentures and try to hand them to you.

He had a laugh that came from the bottom of the well of his spirit and tumbled out his mouth and could infect a whole room.

As a kid, I often stayed with my Uncle Bill and Aunt Mona (she passed a number of years ago) in their Los Angeles home. My parents lived in a garage apartment behind their house on Camaro Avenue. Those were some of my earliest, and favorite, memories.

He told a joke about "a beautiful suit" that simply reduced everyone to pieces when he told it. I tried to tell the joke and it fell flat. My Uncle had facial expressions and mannerisms that lit up any joke he told.

But Uncle Bill was not just a funny man. He was a kind and loving person, who cared deeply for his family and friends and let them know it. He was also a veteran of World War II.

When I went out to California last January I wanted to see Uncle Bill, but he discouraged the visit. "Better to remember me how I was," was his answer. He was sick and not up to visitors. While I was disappointed at the time, I think I get it now. He wanted me to remember the good times, the great jokes and the warm memories of love that he showed to me in those early years.
The last time I saw Uncle Bill (who early in his career was a beat reporter with one of the many Los Angeles dailies in the 1940s) he was visiting me here in Michigan during the late 1980s. He and I visited the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. On the way back to the Detroit Airport I took him to Ann Arbor to see the hospital where he was born.

Unfortunately the hospital had been razed and he was disappointed to see it was not the same as he last saw it some years ago. So maybe it was with his feelings about me visiting him. It wouldn't have been the same.

Sometime Thursday night, my cousin Cynthia is going to slip his favorite sword into his casket so it will be with him always.

The world is just a little bit more serious today, but I'll bet they are yucking it up in heaven. After all, they just took in the best joke teller of all time. At least in my humble opinion.

Rest in Peace, Uncle Bill, I'm going to have myself a really good laugh.

Love, Jim

New country checks in

On Sunday, freefromeditors received a visit from someone in the Republic of Moldova (which sounds like one of those fake countries The Three Stooges used to talk about.

But Moldova, which is next to Romania in Eastern Europe, is now the 33rd country to visit.

Welcome Moldovian!

Former Ganneters start their blog

For all you former, or current Ganneters who read this blog (and I know there are a few because you have let me know) there is a new one especially for those recently laid off:

http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/laid-off-join-our-new-memorial-to.html

Also may I commend to your reading the Sunday entries on "Fading to Black" blog which is listed in the link list next to this entry. Lots of important and interesting newspaper news there.

Crim coverage once again superb

In addition to breaking news, the one thing the Flint Journal did very, very well from my earliest employment was the coverage of the Crim Festival of Races.

To be fair, this year was really good again. Undoubtedly part of that was due to the coverage, anchored by Bill Khan, who is a veteran reporter who knows this event inside out. It helps he is a runner as well. As always the Crim Special Section (except for the misspelled word "downton" in the caption) was a marvel in quick turnaround.

Two other contributing reporters, Dan Nilsen and Greg Tunnicliff are also veteran sports reporters who have a long history with the event. I do miss former columnist Dean Howe's (took the first buyout a couple years ago) reflections on the event. The front page color story was also well done by a veteran reporter, Sally York, and had the annual (I've done it to when I was there, so I'm not criticizing Sally) predictable story about someone who overcame great odds to compete and finish the race. It's one of those things you can't help but do each year.

So while this is a serious compliment for the coverage, it also points out the need and reason for keeping veteran staff.

Ouch! A magazine, reporter and editors completely duped

Thanks to an alert Freefromeditors reader we have this sad tale:


http://orlandomagazine.com/Editor?view=article&id=61%3Afrom-the-editor

Another one biting the dust

From a regular Freefromeditors reader this note about the Cleveland Plain Dealer:


http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2008/08/plain_dealer_offers_buyout_to.html

Blogging from Buffalo, today. Home tomorrow.

Buyouts at my new favorite daily

The Buffalo News, which I have touted in previous posts is a great daily newspaper, in my humble opinion. It knows its audience, it knows what news is and it delivers hometown crime and local news better than most.

As soon as we arrived here (in Buffalo), we heard about some looming buyouts at the paper.

In a lot of ways, it reminds me of the Flint Journal I came to in 1989. Good beat reporting, hard hitting editorials and decent daily feature stories. Despite falling victim to what everyone else in the business has, they have kept the main thing, the main thing.

They are offering buyouts, but are specifically exempting news room employees from them. I guess, just maybe, they realize that a newspaper product might be dependent on its main product – news.

Here’s the whole story:

http://www.wkbw.com/news/local/27105474.html

Back to Buffalo

We have a couple day's business with my in-laws in Buffalo, NY, so blogging could be a little slow the next day or two. I have not forgotten the salary story and hope to have it done over the weekend for posting early next week.

The sample was not as large as I would like, but hey, the Journal can make assumptions about an entire jail based on one week's bookings so I'll make a few of my own based on the sample of information I received on Journal salaries.

Anyway, check out the blogs I have linked to, many of them have new newspaper information that you might enjoy.

See you soon!

Whaaaa?

The following strange item appeared on the Flint Journal's website yesterday. Is this a new bill collection device for advertisers?

(This was in a box where an ad might have been)

"This Account Has Been SuspendedPlease contact the billing/support department as soon as possible"

Also what has happened to the comments counter on the Journal website? It is annoying not to have the counter because you have to click on every story to see if it is attracting attention. I have to believe that the lack of a counter is hurting, or at least slowing comments to the website.

If it's broken, it's been broken for awhile, and if it's not broken, why is it not there?

On anonymous sources

The Flint Journal editor used his Sunday column to wring his hands about the anonymous posters on the newspaper's website. Much of what he wrote, I agree with.

Anonymous sources should be used carefully and rarely, but there is a place for them. While the editor was speaking more specifically about unnamed blog posters I would like to take a minute to talk about the occassional need for an anonymous source in a story.

Exhibit 1 will always be Watergate. Without "Deep Throat" the scandal surrounding Richard Nixon would never have happened. There are many other examples. Early in my career I was able to do investigative pieces on local judges only with the help of police officers and attorneys speaking on the condition of anonymity. (Which reminds me I'll have to tell the story of "Let 'em go Louie!")

Heck even the Journal's first lieutenant, who is now the enforcer of the no anonymous comments rule, used anonymous sources and "political insiders" during the time he covered politics many years ago.

In recent years, the Journal has turned down or stopped before completion a number of important stories simply because the folks who provided the information had too much to lose if their identity was known. A careful vetting of anonymous sources is crucial, but not impossible.

Reporters are often too quick to accept information based on the vow of anonymity, but there are times that it makes sense to use them. Police officers and nurses commenting about what is going on inside their own institutions face harrassment and discipline if their names were to come to light. It is true of many professions, including journalism.

About a dozen years ago at the Flint Journal we learned that there was no protection for us under the Whistle Blowers Act after a good reporter was fired and asserted protection under the WBA. The Journal's lawyers, who avoided arguing the merits of the case, asserted that Journal reporters were "at will" employees under State law.

A court ruled that reporters at the Journal were "at will" employees and could be fired for any, or no reason, without recourse. It was a chilling ruling that many of the veteran reporters took to heart.

People are free to post here with or without their name. I simply ask that people try to be civil and non-personal in their comments. As always, I reserve the right to edit the more pointedly personal comments. (I've only had to do that once).

Ugly, ugly and ugly

Here's the latest on Journal Register Co., owner of the Oakland Press and other area newspapers.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003838271

Not much good news here.

Journal jail investigation nothing but a WAG

On Sunday, the Flint Journal ran a front page story "investigating" the now closed Flint Jail. The methodology of the investigation was to take a "typical" week, which they picked in May to look into whether the jail really was about arresting violent criminals.

First, there is no typical week for any jail, let alone a place as volatile as Flint. Let's pick one week at random of news coverage at the Flint Journal and use that to base an opinion of the overall competence and aggressiveness of the newspaper.

Pick the wrong week, one with say a bunch of corrections, maybe a down news period and you could come away with a completely wrong impression of the paper. So to start with, a week is not nearly enough time to make a judgement about any jail.

This was not an "investigation" it was a WAG - Wild Ass Guess.

Secondly, the Journal looked at about 250 arrests for that week. In the story they admit that 86 were for warrants that they could not determine whether they were for misdemeanors or felonies and whether for violent or non-violent offenses.

Heck, that's a third of the sample! With some records work, digging in court files, each and every one of those warrants could have been looked at and the status confirmed. Again, I'm sure there is little time for that kind of investigative work, even though it should be required for a story as potentially important as this one.

Thirdly, the assumptions are completely wrong. The article talks about how non-violent offenders rarely escalate into violent offenders.

True, but totally incomplete. What the paper didn't go on to look at is that many violent offenders are often involved in petty crime, so arresting someone on a petty crime, could, and often does, take a violent offender off the street. Albeit not for a violent crime, but for something else. The effect is the same, the bad guy is off the street. Off the street, means that he/she is not committing a crime, at least for a time.

I have no way of knowing if this was the reporter's idea or an editor's idea, but any decent editor would have demanded a much larger sample of time than one week.

While I am no expert on crime, I worked for two California police departments for 7 years in the 1970s and covered police and crime for 25 years for a couple daily newspapers, I think I have a little credibility on the issue.

And as much as I hate to agree with Mayor Don Williamson, he and others who urge the reopening of the jail are simply, right on. When people can get away with not paying for even minor crimes, avoid being arrested on warrants and know with assurance they won't go to jail for most anything short of a major felony you have a recipe for escalating crime. It's undeniable.

Heck, New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani got it and cleaned up his city by concentrating on the minor crimes that for years were ignored. For those of us who visited New York City before and after the major crackdown ordered by Guiliani we could see, feel and appreciate the difference.
What the article concluded about the City jail, is true of any county jail as well. Most of the people inside are serving time for misdemeanors or felonies reduced to misdemeanors.

Why was there no comparable investigation of the same week for the Genesee County Jail? Why not advocate letting all non-violent prisoners be released from any state jail if there is no effect on violent crime.

The conclusions are absurd and the readership, especially those in Flint, are not well served by such a cursory look at such an important issue.

The one clear anecdotal fact, which was mentioned in passing in the Journal "investigation" was that there have been many shootings and ten homicides, nearly half of the city's annual total since the jail closed July 11. Now there's a statistic to build an investigation around.

A serious journalism investigative piece such as this should take in months of data, something I'm sure the strapped staff does not have time to do.

Thankfully, the Detroit Free Press did not pick a week out of thin air to investigate Kwame Kilpatrick's phone records, they looked at them all. Now there's an investigation.

Could Bay City, Saginaw and Flint by far behind?

A loyal freefromeditors reader provided this interesting link about a consolidation of Booth activities:




http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003839522

Actually murder situation is worse

In my last post I referred to 20 Flint homicides, but in my dead tree version that arrived at home today, the Journal said the current homicide was the City's 22nd homicide of the year.

That means the map is two short and I can't help you out as to where the discrepancy is. It could be that someone wounded earlier in the year has died or that someone has merely miscounted.

We'll see. But pray for the City of Flint.

Journalistic amnesia infects newsrooms

In March, the Flint Journal ran an article with the following lede:

"FLINT, Michigan -- More than two months into 2008, the city of Flint can boast of an unlikely achievement: no homicides.
This is the first time in at least five years that the city hasn't had at least two killings in the first two months of the year. Last year, there were 11 homicides by the time February ended.
Interim Police Chief Gary S. Hagler says it's a sign that Flint is making a dent into violent crime.
"We are very thankful for where we are this time of year," Hagler said. "

To read the whole article go here:

http://blog.mlive.com/flintjournal/newsnow/2008/03/in_flint_an_unlikely_homicide.html

Here's the headline in today's Flint Journal (online):

Flint registers seventh homicide this month as man is shot after running out of gas

Here's the link to the entire story:

http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/index.ssf/2008/08/flint_registers_seventh_homici.html

So I guess the "dent" that the former police chief was talking about in March has been effectively pounded out in August.

For a complete list and map of the locations of the homicides see a previous entry for a blog (not the Journal's) that keeps track. The total is now 20 homicides. That's 0 to 20 in just five months. Last year there were 30 for the whole year, so if the trend (and boy, do the Journal editors love trends) continue, this could be a bad year for the City. Hopefully not, but just sayin'

And if I'm reading the Journal correctly, the City Jail closed on July 11 due to budget problems. Another interesting fact is that since the jail closed, 10 people have been killed, half the year's total. Now there's something worth looking at.

For one thing, in the March story, then police chief Hagler, credited the jail as part of the solution to the homicide problem. You can read it for yourself at the first link in this story.

Hopefully, the boasting has slackened a bit by now.

New definition of a week: 5 or 6 days

A number of daily newspapers around the country are considering the unthinkable. A daily newspaper that does not come out daily.

In the furious effort to stem losses the bosses of many newspapers, and you can probably include the Flint Journal in on this, are considering eliminating editions on unprofitable advertising days, specifically, Saturday and Tuesday.

Saturdays and Tuesdays have always been light on advertising, even in the glory days, but they were tolerated because, hey we're a daily newspaper.

Just a few years ago, a former Flint Journal publisher made the unconscionable decision not to publish because it snowed too much. No self-respecting daily news reporter would ever believe that could happen, but it did.

Many of us got up early, fought our way to work through a variety of means only to learn that a wimpy publisher decided not to publish and the editor apparently didn't argue or wasn't persuasive enough to convince the publisher to reconsider.

When the story hit CNN many of us hung our heads in shame. Not publishing for any reason is akin to wanting to hide your head under a grocery bag. Friends in the business called in disbelief when they heard the news.

"It's true," I told them. "Are you hiring?"

But now, it won't be snow that apparently shuts down the newspaper, but a lack of profit. As an old friend of mine used to say: "It can always get worse."

New visitors and a murder map

Flint Expats (see link to the right) has a grim, but interesting tool that they use based on the Flint Journal's crime coverage.

A number of years ago, the Flint Journal, which used to keep a running annual homicide tally, sacrificed that to political correctness. Mind you, the murders keep adding up, the Journal just decided not to do the math for its readers.

When the paper moved to end the running tally, many folks called or asked why we did that. I could never give them a good answer. Somehow, publicizing the obvious and real became political incorrect. And some wonder why they are losing business.

And wasn't it just about three months ago the paper ran a story about how few homicides there had been?

But Flint Expats is doing the work and here is the link:

http://www.communitywalk.com/flint/michigan/flint_homicides_2008/map/247119

The author of that blog is a frequent visitor and sometime commentor here. I recommend his blog as daily reading. There is plenty of news from Flint, ironically from a guy living out of state.

In an unrelated topic, overnight Monday someone from the Phillipines checked in to the site making us a stop for people in 31 countries now. I have had visitors from 47 of the 57 states (a little Barack Obama joke). With the hits I'm getting, I just wonder when I can start selling ads. That would put me back in the news business, wouldn't it? Never mind.

On websites and changes

Some of those left inside the Flint Journal are no doubt wistfully regretting their decisions not to take the buyout.

There are whispers of “big” changes in the works, which could be anything from major changes in the Booth chain to a brand new, redesigned (again) front page. Stay tuned.

Former photographer and of late videographer, Bruce, one of the last to leave with the buyout, is back filling in for photo editor Steve who was severely injured in a motorcycle accident. (We wish Steve a rapid and complete recovery).

However, the wonderful videos that Bruce produced seem gone from the Journal website. They were well done and at least one, a Kettering student-built tank, made national news. The editor was constantly hyping the new video technology as the savior of the paper and website and now it is seemingly gone. What gives?

In Bruce’s place is a $10 an hour intern. Quite a commitment to the online presence.

In a recent meeting the editor touted the Journal’s print and online presence making the point that more people than ever are reading the Journal if you combine those who visit the website and read the paper. That's some pretty good, if transparent, spin.

Circulation only counts if you are getting paid for it. Who is paying for the online Journal? And how do you know if the same people who are reading the paper aren’t the same ones checking into the website during the day.

And where are the ads? If anyone is going to make the online presence work, don’t they have to find a way to make it pay? This is a business after all. From what I hear, reliable sources and all, is that MLive responds to change requests in snail like speed and the Journal’s commitment to online advertising is one salesperson.

If that Journal salesperson sells an online ad guess who gets most of the cash? You guess it, MLive gets the lion’s share of the profit. How does this make business sense?

Journal editorial management, which was slow to react to market realities, remains mired in old newspaper thinking. Oh they say all the right things and then they replace a full-time talented videographer with an intern.

What’s the old saying: If you find yourself digging a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.

New retiree insurance plan spells no insurance for some

On July 31, Flint Journal employees received a 5-page memo from the publisher outlining a new retiree health care plan. I have read the document and part of it is brutally simple.

Anyone hired after Jan. 1, 2010 will not have company paid (or assisted) retiree health care plans. So if you don't get hired by the Flint Journal by Dec. 31, 2009 that great benefit goes bye-bye.

For those with 15 years of service who wait to retire after 2010, will become eligible for the new Retiree Healthcare Insurance Premium Accounts (RHIPA) which in the confusing literature that accompany the letter indicates that the retired employee will be responsible for purchasing their insurance, but with help from the RHIPA and the current HRA program.

Anyone with 15 years service, who wants the current program of company provided health care coverage will have to retire before Dec. 31, 2009, which may be precisely the point. Certainly, the paper has done a lot to encourage the higher paid employees, who are also covered by the better benefits to leave, but this may provide an incentive for some who did not take the buyout.
The company hosted a Q&A session on Aug. 6 (to which I of course was not privy at least not yet) so maybe some of the issues were clarified for employees. But suffice it to say, the health care provisions are less than what current retirees enjoy.

For one thing, the RHIPA will not cover the total cost of health care insurance premiums, but employees will be able to use their HRA (Health Reimbursement Accounts) to pay out-of-pocket expenses such as co-pays, etc. until, of course, those balances are exhausted as they are now.

Bottom line is there simply won't be company provided retiree health care, as there is now, for current and future employees. The Flint Journal is certainly not alone in cutting health benefits, but clearly the future is not bright for new employees and grim for those hired after 2010.

Employees get "credits" for the years they have worked at the Journal, but the literature does not further define "credits." I'm assuming credits translate into dollars, but how much I don't know.

Under the RHIPA the company will pay "up to a certain percentage (later it says 75 percent)" the cost of the health care coverage, until your credits run out. By the way, part-time employees are not eligible for any retiree health coverage. Additonal credits can be earned for taking part in company wellness programs (smoking cessation, for example). That's not a bad idea.

Like many current retirees, the retiree health plan ends at 65 and the onset of Medicare/Medicaid.

"What if the company changes its mind?" was question no. 27. The short answer is that it reserves the right to do just that. If that happens, the information says, you have no vested interest in the RHIPA. Ouch!

I would be curious to know if the reduced benefits are being applied across the board (publishers, editors, etc.) or if it is just reserved to non-management types.

Sorry, I'm working on the salary story

Two things, one I'm currently working on the salary story that I teased a couple weeks ago. I have some figures and will publish my findings very soon.

Also, I'm currently digesting a 5-page memo sent to employees July 31 outlining some major changes to the retirees health plan (for current and future employees). A quick read of the memo seems to indicate that those currently retired are not effected, but there are huge changes ahead for people who work at the Journal and even more for those who will be hired after Jan. 1, 2010.

It's a pretty easy digest for those hired after Jan. 1, 2010: There is no retiree health care plan for those folks and maybe a big incentive for those who have been there awhile and have not yet left, to leave before Dec. 31, 2009.

But, I'm still working over the document and I'll get back to you soon on that.

New blog to read

I'm adding a link to a blog from a former Los Angeles Times reporter and his new blog. William Lobdell is perhaps at the forefront of the new media.

In the previous entry I linked to a particular article, but it might be worth watching Lobdell's OC (Orange County) to see how it develops. For some of our younger newspaper journalists it might be a glimpse at the future.

http://lobdellsoc.blogspot.com/

What he said....

Another insightful examination of my former business.

http://lobdellsoc.blogspot.com/2008/08/42-things-i-know.html

So good, I wish I had written it

Reflectons of a Newsosaur has a great post today:

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2008/08/getting-local-coverage-in-gear.html#comments

Here's another from Fading to Black:

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/mortuary_like/7186/

A Journal website compliment, really

Over the past few months I've taken plenty of shots at the Journal's website. Most of that comment revolves around the lack of control that the paper has over its own online presence.
So today, with Tuesday's election looming I wanted to pay a compliment to two things I have recently noticed there.

First, I enjoy the new opinion poll features that are included with many of the stories. I love expressing my opinion and I see they are getting quite a number of participants in the polls.
The second thing that caught my eye is the Voter's Guide. The Journal, with the work of one editor named Lou in the 1990s used to put together a fair and comprehensive tab that including all the candidates and issues on the ballot.

The former newsprint voter's guide covered races in northern Oakland, northeast Livingston, much of Shiawassee and all of Lapeer and Genesee counties. People really appreciated the effort.
In recent years, and roughly coinciding with the retirement of Lou, the bosses went to a hap hazard format of election stories that ran in the regular paper staring about seven to eight weeks out from the election right up to election day.

Readers had little idea when the stories about their townships, villages or cities would run and there was not much rhyme or reason about the schedule. With the advent of the Internet it seemed obvious that we could use that resource as a new voter's guide, but it never happened, until this primary election season.

This is very comprehensive and unusually user friendly. My only beef would be that except for the major races (U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress and state representative and state senate races) the out county coverage of local races, Lapeer County, Shiawassee County, etc. is a little thin.

Here's the link: http://thevoterguide.mlive.com/index.do

But let's not spoil the compliment. This is precisely what the online presence is for, and frankly should have been done long before. But when the online presence was the investment of one overworked person, it was simply not possible.

More skunk news with a "Country Chic" touch

Believe it or not, I have yet another encounter with a skunk. We awoke last night about 2 a.m. to the pungent odor of skunk. Sometimes we are visited by skunks, but this was particularly close.

When I got up in the morning to retrieve my copy of the Flint Journal (we have an excellent carrier, by the way) I found the source.

Someone had hit a mature skunk and it was laying in the middle of the road by my mailbox. It was clearly the source of the odor.

After returning from church I found that none of my neighbors had stepped forward to dispose of the skunk so after lunch my wife and I headed out to the road, me with a shovel and she with a large garbage bag to collect the carcass.

My wife immediately called my attention to the obvious "Country chic" moment that we were experiencing. Although I had changed from my Sunday best, she was still dressed nicely and advised she was helping bag a skunk while wearing her Honora pearl necklace.

So we dodged traffic, but bagged up the skunk and after we finished a neighbor of mine, who works from the road commission offered to throw it in his truck and deposit it in the commission's dumpster.

Obviously, this is the week of the skunk. (Photo credit is from Flickr. This is not our skunk, but a photo similar to our skunk. Our skunk was in much worse shape than this. Trust me, you would not have wanted to see a picture of our skunk.

More bad news

If you are in to ruining your Sunday, the site "Fading to Black" has a list of bad news stories about newspapers posted Saturday. Here's the link or look for it in my link list to the right.

http://mediafade.blogspot.com/

It just gets worser and worser

This article is a pretty grim account of the status of one of the largest newspapers in the country.

(A hat tip to two frequent, if anonymous, blog readers for the link)

http://www.bostonherald.com/jobfind/news/media/view.bg?articleid=1110446

By the way the paper is one of the properties of the Newhouse family, the same company that owns the Flint Journal and the rest of the Booth chain.

Notice two things: This is round two of the buyouts and it got worse and the famous Newhouse lifetime job pledge will not survive the proposed sale of the newspaper. Also the medical coverage is far less than what Journal employees received in last year's buyouts.

Read this story: Three times!

I'm beginning to wonder if anyone at the Flint Journal reads their own website. Tonight I looked in and found the following story tease:

Fenton City Council appoints Doran Kasper to fill vacancy left by Michael Moffitt
by Vera Hogan Community News
Friday August 01, 2008, 4:51 PM
FENTON, Michigan -- At a special meeting Thursday, the City Council voted 5-2 to appoint Doran Kasper, a Fenton eye doctor, to replace Councilman Michael Moffitt, who resigned last month to move out of state for his employer.
Councilwomen Cheryl King and Diane North cast the dissenting votes.
Dr. Doran Kasper
Continue reading "Fenton City Council appoints Doran Kasper to fill vacancy left by Michael Moffitt" »
Post a comment View comments
See more in Community: Fenton, Fenton Township, Mlive, News, Politics



Then after finishing that, I scrolled to the next story and found this tease:



Fenton City Council appoints Doran Kasper to fill vacancy left by Michael Moffitt
by Vera Hogan Community News
Friday August 01, 2008, 4:51 PM
FENTON, Michigan -- At a special meeting Thursday, the City Council voted 5-2 to appoint Doran Kasper, a Fenton eye doctor, to replace Councilman Michael Moffitt, who resigned last month to move out of state for his employer.
Councilwomen Cheryl King and Diane North cast the dissenting votes.
Dr. Doran Kasper
Continue reading "Fenton City Council appoints Doran Kasper to fill vacancy left by Michael Moffitt" »
Post a comment View comments
See more in Community: Fenton, Fenton Township, Mlive, News, Politics

Realizing that I had already read that story, I moved to the next story and guess what?



Fenton City Council appoints Doran Kasper to fill vacancy left by Michael Moffitt
by Vera Hogan Community News
Friday August 01, 2008, 4:51 PM
FENTON, Michigan -- At a special meeting Thursday, the City Council voted 5-2 to appoint Doran Kasper, a Fenton eye doctor, to replace Councilman Michael Moffitt, who resigned last month to move out of state for his employer.
Councilwomen Cheryl King and Diane North cast the dissenting votes.
Dr. Doran Kasper
Continue reading "Fenton City Council appoints Doran Kasper to fill vacancy left by Michael Moffitt" »
Post a comment View comments
See more in Community: Fenton, Fenton Township, Mlive, News, Politics


Each of the stories included a photo of Doran Kasper and was identical in every respect including the posting time of 4:51 p.m.

Then I picked up my Friday home delivered edition and on page 2 there were 7 (count them seven) corrections. They ranged from the wrong comics (which they dutifully printed on the second page of the newspaper), a wrong location, the wrong information about a retired police chief, a missing election photo, an incorrect listing of a weight loss event, the tardy correction about a July 22 article that gave incorrect information about the enrollment date for Southwestern Academy and a wrong golf score.

Yeah that correction policy is really working. The top editor's main lieutenant keeps a listing of all the corrections in a monthly log in his computer queue. The list includes the date of the correction, whether an apology letter was written, the nature of the mistake and other pertinent information typed in by the editor.

Many reporters know how to easily access the listing and as far back as three years ago, many of us kept track of each other's errors by looking over the editor's shoulder. With seven errors on one day, that list for August 2008 is going to take a while to type and even longer to track all the apology letters and memos to the editors explaining how they happen.

Here's the link to tonight's page just in case you want to look in and see the triple posting yourself (warning these links don't often work past the day they are collected.)

http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/ (If you read this a couple days late, you can try to access the archives by clicking on the date - in this case August 1, 2008, but finding that link may take more time that its worth).

P.S. I'm still working on the salary story and will post that in the near future. I have a few responses, but could use a few more. There's also a great story, if I can round it out, about a well qualified writing stringer who is trying to get paid for a couple stories he wrote for the 100th anniversary of GM. Apparently the Flint Journal bosses thought they were getting all the work for free.

Skunk help sought

My son, William, who lives in Aptos, California has again requested help for a critter problem. Remember that a few months ago he was being visited by a persistent raccoon.

Now the problem is a skunk that his dog found wandering through the yard. The dog got the business end of the skunk and now smells like a garbage dump.

I had a similar experience with my beagle, Puppy, about 11 years ago and purchased something called "Skunk Off" which was an expensive liquid ($10 a ounce if I remembered) and that helped some, but the smell persisted for more than a month.

If you have a suggestion for William, I'm sure he and his dog, Taylor, will appreciate it.

Speaking of skunks, a couple weeks ago we were coming home from a friend's house when a baby skunk started across the road. It was obvious if I continued at my speed I was going to hit the skunk so I slowed down enough to keep from hitting the skunk, but just barely.

As we went by, the skunk, which is just off the starboard side of my car let loose with its weapon and I was left wondering why I was so kind.

No blogging today

Out of respect for a deceased colleague, there will be no further blogging today, the day of her funeral. We should reflect on the life of Shelley, 44, who died just five months after taking the buyout. We grieve for her loss, pray for her family and are grateful for her lively spirit and wonderful smile that we all enjoyed for years.

May she rest in Peace. (Photo from Facebook)

Safe home!

We're back from a busy 11-day trip. I'll have a lot more to say tomorrow, but for now, just know that we safely negotiated a gazillion construction zones, traffic back-ups and stupid drivers and we are home safe and sound.

I was sorry to learn about the death of a Journal colleague, but also encouraged that photo editor Steve and his wife are on the mend from their motorcycle accident. Life moves forward, but not without its bumps and bruises.

A photo for an old story

Previously, I've written about an incident that occurred on a Navy ship when I was 18. Instead of telling the whole story again, here is the link:

http://freefromeditors.blogspot.com/2008/05/in-memory-and-honor-of-patricia-my-mom.html

While in Buffalo this time I went down to the Naval Park, which only recently re-opened after major construction and renovation. One of my favorite exhibits (if you can call an entire ship an exhibit) is the USS Sullivans, DD-537. While a little older than either of my two destroyers, it is a carbon copy of my first one, the USS Cogswell, DD651.

I took a bunch of pictures (170 to be exact) of the Sullivans, the USS Little Rock and the submarine SSN Croaker which are also on display.

Just to give you a picture of where I was when my mother made her fateful pronouncement I am including a picture of the bridge (wheelhouse) of the Sullivans. Now the destroyer I was serving on when my mother embarrassed me had just a little more room behind the wheel than what you see in the photo.

I'm also including a photo of the little chart room where I did my regular work off watch and also a picture of the tight sleeping quarters.

Hope you enjoy these. Also if you are ever in Buffalo, and why would you be unless you knew someone here, do stop by the Naval Park as it has a number of interesting military exhibits, even apart from the three Navy vessels.

By the way, the USS Sullivans was named after five brothers who were sunk and drowned while serving together in World War II on the USS Juneau. Their story became a major wartime motion picture, which you can probably rent somewhere. I know I have, but it has been years.

A good paper derailed

Someone was asking me recently where things went off the rails for the Flint Journal. The answer is complex. To be completely frank, the Journal is no different than other newspapers in the country in that it is caught in an historic moment.

All newspapers are facing the stark reality of potential extinction. They are in much the same position as say the buggy whip manufacturers of 1896. But where many buggy whip and carriage makers went under, a few, including some notable ones in Flint, found a way to move into the new motorized technology of the early 1900s. They adapted.

So far, the Journal like hundreds of other newspapers, has not adapted. Far from it. While part is due to the new age of technology, another part of it was a failure of leadership.

Since the late 1990s, the Journal has been led by two publishers and three editors. The new editors, brought in just after the arrival of new publishers, came with great enthusiasm and a promise to revamp the newsroom and do things in a new way.

What they did was listen (too much in my way of thinking) to the staid opinions of the old operational management of the paper. As soon as the new editor arrived we reporters watched as the second tier editors beat a path to the new editor's door, presumably to cement their positions with the new boss. There was a whole lot of rear end kissing going on. I must also say that not all the editors were so smart or brash and many paid the price for not spending more time at the boss's feet. Most of them, interestingly, were women. I still believe there's a sex discrimination suit waiting to be filed, but that's a topic for another time.

Not that there weren't shake-ups, there were. But the shake-ups always involved moving reporters around like chess pieces. Unfortunately, they moved pawns like knights and castles like bishops. The beat changes they made were ill-thought out and clumsily executed. Instead of reforming the newsroom into a highly motivated cadre of eager reporters, they turned the room into smirking, cynical and angry employees (admittedly some of us were already well on the way to cynical).

The top editors obviously never suggested to the new boss that perhaps they had been the problem with the newspaper operation. So with the changes in top leadership, there was no change in the actual newsroom leadership of the paper.

I don't blame the apple-polishing editors who beat a path to the editor's door. Heck, they were only protecting their own hides. But for a new editor to arrive on the scene with the charge to improve the newspaper and keep the management core intact was ludicrous. If I had been the new publisher I think I would have questioned that at some point.

Let's just say I had been brought in to lead the newsroom (a possibility somewhere between fantasy and fat chance, I know). The new publisher tells me, the new editor, he wants things to improve. He wants the paper to flourish and the recent declines to be reversed.

My first order of business would be to look long and hard at those folks who had performed at the management level below mine and find out why they were not getting the job done. Then I would solicit from the reporters what they saw as the problems in the newsroom and suggestions for improvement.

Actually, the current editor did that, but well after his head was full of the crud filed there by a couple nervous managers. Some of us told him where the real problems with the Journal were. I know I was very frank with him about the lack of managerial talents of at least two of his top editors. One of my suggestions was that he put two of his male editors back on the street so they could actually learn what reporting was all about. He gave me that grim smile and annoying up-and-down head bob that seemed to say he was agreeing with me, or at least considering what I was saying. He even told me to wait that I would see a lot of changes, just give him time. Well, not so much.

Like his predecessor he went along with a destructive shake-up of newsroom beats, but never bothered to address the real dearth of leadership with his first lieutenants. Shame on him. One editor told me they decided not to post beat openings and solicit reporter preferences "because it would cause too much drama." Well what they got by not posting the openings and simply assigning them to beats that most of them had not interest in, was a full fledged performance of "King Lear."

All this to say, that nothing would have forestalled much of the Journal's downturn, but better leadership, aggressive news reporting and more inspired leadership might have provided a slower downturn and maybe, just maybe, the imagination that would have found a better online presence and rewarded a loyal readership and advertisers that might have stuck with the paper longer.

Instead, the folks that thought features like "Making a Difference," or "Golden Apples," or endless Lakisha Jones stories were left to neuter the paper of any aggressiveness or advocacy. Some politicians were treated with kid gloves because mama owned a car dealership and bad news was downplayed or ignored, because some editors were not really into it. Bad decisions all.

When the buyouts came, many good people, some who really wanted to stay, were pushed out by the same leadership that has done little or nothing to lead in a positive way the newspaper into the 21st century.

Guess what's left? The same tired, vacant leaders who have run the paper for a dozen or more years. You would think a bright publisher might have caught on, but they are too busy counting fewer and fewer beans.