Thepmonggon: Thai food to stop for

Sometimes it pays to be adventuresome, especially when it comes to food.

During my trip to California, my sister, Pam, and cousin, Cynthia, were on a day trip to Pt. Reyes, a beautiful jut of land north of San Francisco. We had ventured from Windsor, California through the back roads with a stop at the beautiful Armstrong Redwood Grove.

As we got closer to Pt. Reyes we started to think about eating lunch. Because we were close to the ocean we wanted to find a dining place on the water. So we traveled through Tomales Bay (a major oyster harvesting area) and then through Pt. Reyes Station. I remembered that there were a number of eating places along the road to Pt. Reyes.

We passed a couple, but still held out for a place on the water, not just near the water.

We came to a motel next to a Thai restaurant on the water, and at the urging of my companions I stopped to seek human directions to a place to eat. My GPS, which I never travel far without, had indicated that there was a place called "Barnaby's" near where we were.

A man doing repairs to the motel told me that I was actually standing next to "Barnaby's" except that it was now "Thepmonggon" and it served Thai food. He also told us it was the last eating establishment on the peninsula before we got to Pt. Reyes. So I went back to the car, not excited about a Thai food lunch, but my cousin argued that they must have a fish and chips or other American dish for travelers not into the exotic.

Reluctantly, we entered the completely empty restaurant and asked to see the menu. Not one non-Thai dish on the menu. The owner talked a good game and so, instead of back tracking for some American food we sat down and decided to try the Thai offerings.

The owner suggested a few dishes we could share and started bringing them. I can't tell you when I've had a better meal. We had Netted Prawns (deep fried prawns wrapped with egg noodles), Chicken Corn cake, Taro Egg Rolls and Chicken Sate (a marinated chicken breast with Thai herb, served with peanut sauce and cucumber salad. (Total $15.95).

Next he brought a large bowl of Thepmonggon Tom Kha Coconut Soup (enough for three people - $9.95) that was so good we only stopped eating it when we realized we had ordered two other dishes to share.

Our next dish was Asparagus Prawn sauteed in red curry sauce with Thai herbs and bell peppers. ($15.95)

Finally, we ended with Pad See Eww, a pan fried egg noodle sauteed with oyster sauce, broccoli, garlic, carrot, egg with beef. ($15.95)

We took home cartons of the leftovers of last two offerings because we were too full of soup and everything else. The man's wife, who was Thai was the main chef and her niece was her assistant and obviously had great skill in the kitchen.

In our conversations with the owner he admitted that many folks stop, look at his menu and move on without staying so soon he is going to add those American comfort items that might keep them in his place, but it will be too bad because they will miss a true taste adventure.

Much of our conversation that afternoon revolved around our decision to stay at that restaurant and try something new and how glad we were that we did.

So if you ever find yourself on the peninsula heading out to Pt. Reyes and hungry at the same time, do yourself a favor and stop at Thepmonggon, 12938 Sir Frances Drake Blvd. (Inverness, Ca.) you will not be sorry.

"Thepmonggon" Thai on the Bay: Where East meets West Marin. As in Marin County.

More on the pay as you read model

Faithful reader and contributor JT has forwarded another interesting item. This one is a podcast from Fitz and Jen at Editor and Publisher about the move to paid or micro payment models for newspaper websites.

When you go to the Arkansas paper's online webpage, you get a small tease of a story but must be a monthly subscriber ($4.95) to read the entire story.

Go to Arkansa Democrat-Gazette to see what I'm talking about.

It's Deja Vu all over again

The headline will only make sense to the readers who have a Deju Vu "men's" club in their area.

But one former reporter has made the leap from reporter to strip club communications director:

A Reporter Faces the Naked Truth

Justice comes to Kurt Heintz

Back in July 2008 I recounted my frustration in the Journal management's handling of an investigative story I was working on in July of 2007 that involved a massive local mortgage fraud by Kurt Heintz.

The fact that the two top editors and high-priced lawyers hired by the Journal to review my documents were unable to see clearly what law enforcement and I could see from the county and township records remains a mystery. Actually it's no mystery, they were just afraid.

While I was in California, Heintz and an accomplice pleaded guilty to the massive mortgage fraud and now faces 30 years in prison. The $20 million scam also ended up with Mr. Heintz's wife being stabbed by a defrauded investor, which finally dragged the Journal kicking and screaming into the investigation.

I will always believe if the Journal and its top-gun lawyers had not been scared out of their skins at the size of this fraud and too timid to run the story, the stabbing may not have happened and justice may have come sooner.

Not to mention the Journal would have had a kick butt story that would have alerted its readers to a major fraud in their midst that would have been an early snapshot of the financial real estate crash that we are now all facing.

It is what is wrong with journalism run by civil attorneys. So when I hear now in a quote in the Journal that the new editor is all about investigative reporting I chuckle. Let's just hope that none of the Journal's attorneys end up in the Justice department.

Good riddance Kurt W. Heintz (which the Journal spelled "Heinz" as in 57 varieties in its jump headline) may you be a lesson to somebody.

Putting things into perspective

Yesterday's flight home from California was filled with frustration. High winds in Las Vegas (the first leg of my trip) closed the San Jose airport for an hour which delayed my flight from San Jose to the point everyone at U.S. Airways knew I would not only miss one connecting flight in Las Vegas, but a later one in Chicago.

So they pulled me off my San Jose flight with a promise to find me another way home. Their solution was delaying my flight home by 24 hours. So then I was upset they pulled me off a flight to Las Vegas only to have me stay in San Jose for another day. Heck, if I'm going to be stuck somewhere for 24 hours, where better than Las Vegas.

When I balked at the 24-hour delay, they offered a flight on a United Airlines jumbo jet (B777) out of San Francisco International for a non-stop trip to Chicago on Thursday that would get me into Chicago in time to make my original connecting flight to Flint. OK, that works, but how do I get to the San Francisco airport 35 miles away for the flight? Oh, you have to pay for the cab ride, the sweet airline lady said.

My pointing out that they had pulled me off the flight and that perhaps they should pay the cab ride brought me a sympathetic look and a phone call to the cab company, but no offer to pay. Half way to San Francisco I realized that the $15 I paid for my suitcase NOT to fly on U.S. Airways had not been refunded.

At San Francisco International, the polite man from India who drove me to the airport, dropped me off at the United Airlines terminal, not knowing that I should have been dropped off at the International Terminal a considerable distance away.

So I walked the long distance to the International Terminal and the first question security asked me was if I had my passport. "To go to Chicago?" I said. I think he could tell I was having a bad day and let the matter drop.

My name is on the terrorist watch list (thanks to another guy with my name who is nine years younger) so each trip through security is a real gem. But I made it through my second security check of the day and headed to the gate with boarding pass in my hand and hope in my heart that I was finally going home.

When they called my group to board the gigantic airplane I walked to the gate and was stopped by a nice, but determined airline employee (OK, there's a pattern here) who said I had "not been screened" by security.

"Oh, yes I have, twice today, in fact," I said. "Do I look like Houdini? I'm not exactly a small person kind of hard for me to sneak by unnoticed."

"But your boarding pass was not marked by TSA," she said with a smile.

"And that's my problem, how?" I said with a determined look of my own. I was about to find out.

I had to step aside while two apologetic, but determined, members of the TSA responded to the gate to go through my carry on, run a wand over my whole body and screen me for the third time in front of my fellow passengers.

I was the last person on the packed plane and there was no place for my carry on, which I had to stuff under the seat in front of me which left me no leg room for the more than three hour flight to Chicago. It might just be me, but I got a lot of sideways glances from the passengers who had seen me searched like a bank robber in the terminal.

In Chicago, I had less than an hour to get from the United terminal to my original American Eagle flight three terminals away, but for the first time on Thursday, everything went right and I made my connecting flight home.

My mood was very poor until I turned on the television and learned that at the same time I was in the air between Chicago and Flint a Continental flight crashed outside Buffalo, NY killing more than 50 people.

So for all my frustration, anger and inconvenience, at least I am here to tell my sad tale. So I have two words left to say about my terrible flight experience: Never mind.

Michigan here I come! Right back where I started from.

I have scheduled this post to go up about 10 a.m. (obviously, I did that wrong, it went up at 1 a.m.) Thursday on Pacific coast time. That's the time my flight departs San Jose for the roundabout trip back to Michigan.

There will be a stop in Las Vegas, Chicago and then home to Flint, hopefully arriving about 11:30 p.m. today.

It has been a tremendous time in California and while the reason for it, my brother's memorial party, was a sad one, it was a great time of visiting, reconnecting and meeting new friends during this past 16 days.

For all my jokes about my home state of California and its "fruits and nuts" it never ceases to dazzle me the number of things there are to do here. As I leave here, the weather has turned dreary and wet, which is a good thing because there is a great concern about the lack of rainfall here.

So while the blogging hasn't really suffered (quantity wise, anyway) blogging should return to a more normal cycle starting this weekend.

Fortunately, my weekend includes a sleepover with three-year-old granddaughter Addisen Joy who is staying with my wife and I while our son and daughter-in-law enjoy a romantic Valentine weekend away.

While it has been fun to be away, it is true what they say: There is no place like home!

News about news

Lots of new postings over on Newspaper Death Watch that outline the current state of newspapers.

Hopefully that will keep the freefromeditors crowd happy until I get home.

No "slumdog" in our day

We had a beautiful day in the redwoods and on the coast yesterday. When I get home I'll post a few photos of the giant redwoods and the Pt. Reyes lighthouse.

After a day of hiking and touring we were too tired to go to a movie theater, but instead rented a DVD and watched "What Happens in Vegas" in our suite.

We also watched the news and it appears Congress is going to pass this massive bail out measure like the Capitol is on fire. The speed with which this is being done and the stupidity of many things in the bill is reminiscent of last September when the last bailout bill was done. And we all know how that turned out.

I'll say it again, we are simply burdening our children and grandchildren with a huge debt that will saddle them with obligations they cannot possibly pay. It is immoral, but everyone wants a quick fix and like most quick fixes this one will cost more in the end.

Stimulation is one thing, pork and projects that serve only small constituencies is quite another. Bailing out states is going to set a precedent that will haunt this country far into the future, but we all want everything now. We'll see how this turns out, but I am convinced it won't be good.

Not that you asked

Today my sister and cousin and I are heading out for a walk in Armstrong Grove - a nearby redwood forest - and then out to Pt. Reyes for another walk along the beach at one of the prettiest places in California.

Tonight we plan to watch "Slumdog Millionaire" and then cook in our deluxe suite here in Windsor, California. We have a beautiful three bedroom suite at one of the WorldMark resorts.

Yesterday we did wine tasting in Napa and had dinner at the Union Hotel (first time for me in 30 years). It has been a great, great visit.

Tomorrow we head back to Danville and Thursday I head home to Michigan. Actually, I am very ready to be home and with my wife. This has been a fun, but exhausting trip.

Shut down newspaper websites for a week: An idea

Well, not my idea, but you can see and hear it all here:



Hat tip to loyal reader JT for the item.

Mayor Don announces retirement

Even in California it's hard to get away from the big news back home.

Channel 12 report - Mayor Don to quit

Some "Advance" newspaper news

Here's an item I "borrowed" from the Inside Out blog, which is a pretty good read on its own, by the way. It has to do with the growing clouds over the Advance Newspapers:


Advance Newspaper closure warning

A great day for a party

It was a day my brother would have loved. Friends, family, neighbors and friends of my brother's from the Foothill Theatre Company gathered Saturday to remember and celebrate his life.

My first wife, youngest son and granddaughter were there. My wife flew in from Michigan to be there. My sister flew in from West Virginia to be there. A cousin from Southern California and the cousin we're staying with in Danville (home of "Sully" the hero pilot of the Hudson) was there also.

Many, many friends, some who I met before and some who I met for the first time Saturday braved the clear skies, bright sun and relatively warm temperatures to attend.

I'm going to have much more to say about this later, but let me just say that you learn a lot about someone you loved just from talking with the people they knew and loved.

People loved my brother, they respected my brother and they cared for my brother. What more could you want to hear.

My sister-in-law Barbara was a terrific host and the day could not have been more perfect.

Rest in Peace brother. More later.

How to save newspapers: Time Magazine

Here's one writer's ideas for saving newspapers. Hat tip to a loyal reader for bringing it to my attention. It also echoes a lot of what I have said previously about the original insanity to give the online product away for free.

How to save newspapers

(And yet, here we are taking another publication's article for free. Maybe Time Magazine should take its own advice.)

Stimulus, schmulus

Here we go again. The change people voted for is looking suspiciously like what we had before.

Unrestrained spending, pork barrel projects and an additional $1 trillion in debt. Who knew change could be so much like what we already had?

And now word that our Congressional leaders, of both parties, have spent $500,000 for a weekend away at four-star resorts so they can talk. What is wrong with these guys, and gals?

Are they so tone deaf to the current economic conditions and mood in the country that they can't see past their own hypocrisy in criticizing bank executives for lavish spending on the taxpayer dollars that they don't think someone will notice when they do?

I hope that President Obama goes behind close doors and spanks all of them and gets them back to what he was talking about in the first place, creating jobs. I see where one of the $500 million proposals in the new bill creates 338 new jobs. Do the math you idiots, that's more than $1.3 million per job. And by the way, do any of these guys pay their taxes like the rest of us?

And as I said before the first bail out, what we are doing to our children and grandchildren by borrowing all this money and putting it on the next generation to pay off seems criminal, but it is at least immoral. When did anyone ever give someone the advice that the best way out of a financial hole was to borrow your way out? Hopefully, never.

We need a good House, and Senate, cleaning. Now I'm going back to the real house cleaning for my late brother's party. The vacuum is sitting right here next to me calling my name.

The fog rolled in

It is probably appropriate that today the marine layer has moved in over the coast of northern California. After a week of above average temperatures for this area for this time of year, average has returned.

Today is also the day that my trip moves to a new phase. The fun and excitement of visiting with my two sons and, of course, my brilliant, beautiful granddaughter always comes to an end far quicker than when I am in the dentist's chair or in line for an oil change, for example.

Not that there isn't good times ahead. Today I'm headed to Auburn and my sister-in-law Barbara's house to help her get the house ready for my brother's party on Saturday. Lots of family and friends getting together to celebrate my brother Mike's too short life.

Next week, I'm spending some down time with my cousin Cynthia and sister Pam near Santa Rosa.

So far I've been able to keep blogging while here and will try to keep up, but there may be a gap in blogging and posting comments during the next week or so.

For a look at where my son Tim and I are right now go here:

WorldMark Marina Dunes

News about the News

A loyal reader sent along a link to a long story on the current conditions at the Ann Arbor News.

Forty-nine down and one to go

Sometime in the past week someone from Wyoming checked into Free From Editors, which only leaves North Dakota as the one state that has not visited here.

I'm not going to beat up on North Dakota again, but I will let you know if someone there finally checks in down the road.

Better than ever

Monterey was in all its glory yesterday. As anyone who has ever lived here can tell you as beautiful as the area is, it is subject to fog and cool weather. Not yesterday, it was gorgeous. Temperatures in the high 70s, no fog, etc.

Tim, my youngest, and I went on a three-hour tour (no deserted islands) watching for whales. We ended up seeing five grey (or is it gray?) whales, tons of sea lions and seals and a plethora of birds. One disturbing thing was the way the passengers kept pointing at me and yelling "Thar she blows." Guess I better stay on my diet.

Mostly we just had a great time being together. Last night we went and saw "Taken." Plenty of violence, but almost cartoonish in nature.

Today we're off to the aquarium.

The photos above are from a couple days ago in Aptos and Capitola. I don't have my download cord so the whale photos will have to wait.

Monterey beckons

As a native Californian it is hard for me to be close to certain places here and not feel the draw to at least stop by and take a nostalgic look.

Monterey is one of those places. My sons William and Timothy live just 40 minutes from Monterey and every time I come here I find a strong pull to just head there and hang out, even for just an hour or two.

It is a beautiful city anchored to its past as a fishing port. But nearby there is the 17-mile Drive into Carmel, the beautiful Pebble Beach Golf Club and some of the most natural beauty anywhere to be found.

So today and Tuesday, my youngest son, Timothy, and I will be heading there for two days of fun in the sun. A stop on Cannery Row and no doubt, a long visit to the world famous Monterey Aquarium.

Tim, 37, a lifelong surfer will take his board and brave the waves and Great White Sharks that prowl the area. I'll take some pictures and put them up when I return home.

I have written a couple posts to be put up while I am out of touch. Talk to y'all in a couple days. (See I do know how to hyperlink).

An afternoon Super Bowl!

The Super Bowl starts about 3 p.m. today here. Who knew there was an afternoon Super Bowl?

For the last 31 years I have watched the Super Bowl in the Eastern time zone. I had forgotten that football Sundays, even during the regular season, start early here. 60 Minutes always starts on time on the west coast.

But this year, because of my trip out here for my brother's memorial, I will be watching the game on Pacific time, in a warmer climate. What does that mean?

I'll be in bed at my regular 10 p.m. time. On the east coast that's about the time half time is over.
The sun will be out during the entire game here.

I can move to the patio if the house gets too crowded and not suffer from hypothermia.

It also means for the first time ever I will be watching the game with my granddaughter Brittany. (That's the best part).

If the game is bad, which it usually is, it won't make me mad that I lost sleep over it.

It'll be time for dinner, instead of bed, when the game ends. Not that we won't already be full of chips and chicken wings.

By the time my son William and I get home from his mother's house (thanks for inviting me to the party, Chris) we will still have time to do a load of laundry and watch a movie. (William made me watch "Meet the Spartans" on Saturday) No comment.

Most of all when I wake up on Monday morning there won't be any snow on the ground.

Life before technology

When I started in newspapers the typewriter was on life support. At Canada College in California and at MSU the student newspapers were still using the legendary typewriter, copy paper and glue pot systems.

That system involved typing your copy on paper with floating wood chips on it, gluing the pages together until a decent story looked like the Dead Sea Scrolls and then ending it with a the mark -30- to indicate it was done.

Once glued together, you went back over your copy and made changes and corrections with a series of "copy-editing" marks. There were marks to switch the order of words, add words, add punctuation and sometimes you just added lines of copies with a little "v" mark to indicate where it started. A period was an "x" with a circle around it, I think. There must be an example of this in the Newseum.

A copy editor would then read that mess, make their changes and send it to the composing room. Linotype was gone at most places when I started in 1977, but there were a few holdouts.

After copy was set in a strip of film, the "back shop" would then fit it into a hole in the layout marked by an editor. The copy was waxed and stuck down on a layout sheet. Plates were burned and sent to the press room and put on the presses.

Almost no one had a cellphone or a pager in 1977 in the news business. My off campus job (other than being a bouncer at the old Coral Gables) was for rewriting high school sports at the Lansing State Journal. I worked for Dave Matthews and Edward "Ed" Senyczko, the sports editor. It was trying work made more trying by the IBM Selectric type setting system at the paper.

Going from the glue pot to the IBM system was extremely frustrating. Under the IBM system there were a series of codes you had to type at the end of a sentence or paragraph so that the type would be set correctly.

One time ol' Ed came streaming out of the composing room with one of my typeset stories yelling at me because the coding I put on the paper told the film making machine to set the type one letter per line. He was holding a sheet of film about 20-feet long with one letter on each line.

"That's about $10 in film," he yelled at me. At the time I was making $5 an hour doing the sports rewrite and I was hoping he wasn't going to charge me for the film. He didn't.

By the time I arrived at The Oakland Press they had an ATEX system which was a primitive computer word processing program. It was the first time I had worked on a system that didn't include paper and it caused me some problems at first.

The annoying habit of the system to suddenly blink off and take all your copy with it into cyberspace was just one problem. "Remember to keep saving your copy," the editors would remind us.

It was a challenge getting information back to the office from a breaking news scene in the days before cellphones. Yes, there were sometimes pay phones nearby, but my preferred system involved begging residents to let me use their home phones.

"I'm from the Oakland Press, can I borrow your phone to call the paper?." Most of the time people would do that. At that time the OP was an afternoon paper and we could get breaking news into the paper well into the morning.

I was teamed with a woman reporter there who I later worked with at the Flint Journal. Because of the nature of the stuff she and I covered (cops and courts) we got the nickname "Gloom and Doom." I couldn't tell you today who was "Gloom" and who was "Doom." She and I still talk and she is a reader of this blog.

We alternated between being the reporter and the rewrite person and it really worked well. Calling in a story on deadline, writing it in your head before you ever touched a keyboard, was a real challenge. It could also be frustrating to the rewrite person as you were constantly revising or remembering details that you had forgotten to begin with.

It was a skill that helped me later in my career. As night police reporter I was only on deadline on Friday nights (Saturday was a morning paper, as was Sunday, but the rest of the week was afternoons at the Flint Journal). So working solo on Mondays to Thursdays, I would often start writing the story in my head on the way back from a breaking news event so that by the time I sat at my desk the story would flow out on the computer screen.

The biggest new technology I had at the Journal, compared to the Oakland Press, was a huge bag phone that I was given when I started in 1989. This was an early cell phone that came with its own suitcase and plug in power source. No more begging a homeowner for a phone.

I also had a pager, something I had not been given at the Oakland Press. At the OP when you were out on an assignment you were supposed to check in frequently in case there were new instructions or a new assignment.

Over the years, I came to view the pager and phone as not just a necessity, but as a curse. "My electronic leashes" I would tell people. Now there was no excuse to be out of touch. An editor could always find you and that's not always a good thing especially when you are off duty.

One thing I always carried was a police scanner. The Michigan State Police issued permits to carry them to reporters because under state law here they are illegal to carry in an automobile. In obtaining the permits, you had to sign an affidavit that even though you were carrying it in your car that you would not respond to the scene of an event or use anything you heard on it in a public account. Everyone kind of winked at that. No one ever asked me to show them my permit either.

It was sad to me when the composing room went away a number of years ago. It used to be fun on a late Friday night or early Saturday morning to wander back after deadline and watch George, Jerry and the others put together the newspaper one waxed column at a time.

There was a life to it. Even on the second floor of the FJ, when those big old presses started up you could feel a slight vibration in your feet and the building. To me it was a sad day when they shut down forever and moved to the big building across the parking lot.

When I would walk outside about 1:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning, my shift complete, the parking lot would be choked with rusty vans, the route drivers, waiting for the Saturday papers to come off the presses. Just a few hours later, one would be delivered to my home in Lapeer.

"The Daily Miracle," some of us used to call the newspaper. Miracle, because so many things had to come together each day to make it happen.

No doubt technology has improved the speed of production, although it completely decimated the ability to include late breaking news in the printed product. Each time we upgraded in technology the final morning deadlines were rolled back until at one point 8-8:30 a.m. (where once it had been 11 a.m. or later) was the point of no return.

Technology broke the traditional newspaper rhythm. Newspaper employees came and went as the rhythm of production dictated. Even the newsroom rhythm changed. In an old typewriter room the crescendo of typing leading up to the deadline was exciting. When the deadline arrived the typing would dramatically taper off and then stop. Silent keyboards are just not the same.

If I think hard I can even remember the sound of paper being pulled quickly from a typewriter roller.

Technology, in my opinion, is neither good or bad, it just is. But for those of us who started out on paper it did take a lot of the fun and excitement out of the business.

Newsrooms and Fridays, a volatile mix

Reporters, like most anyone else, look forward to the weekends. It's not that they don't like, or love, their work, but they also have lives outside the newsroom.

So many times, after a busy week and putting in more hours than they are going to get paid for, reporters begin edging their way to the door early on Friday afternoon. Sometimes it is to do "research" or "stop by a source" on the way home, but mostly it is a defense mechanism not to spend your Friday night in the newsroom.

Politicians and governments often wait until late Friday to release bad news. That story gets put up on the wires and the next thing you know there's an editor with that "we need a local angle on this glint-in-their-eye."

If you are in the newsroom, you never want to make eye contact with that glint. What follows next is:

"Could you make a quick phone call and see if "x" will comment on this?" OK, that's easy enough and you get the comment.

Then comes the dreaded: "Why don't you go out and get some random comments on this story?"
It won't work to protest that you have plans because everyone else has already left the newsroom and you are now the bag holder. It's a game of journalism tag and you're it.

Might as well call your wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, kids, buddies and whoever else you were planning to spend Friday night with and tell them you'll see them next week because you now have a full blown Saturday story to do and it's 4 p.m. on Friday.

You head to the mall to get reaction, but first you have to explain the story, which no one has even heard yet, to the people you are trying to get a reaction from. After doing that, they may or may not comment and if you are lucky enough to get a comment it may not be pithy enough to satisfy your editor. So the process is repeated over and over until you get enough random comments to qualify as a "local angle."

That is the origin of the motto: "Nothing good every comes from being in the newsroom on a Friday afternoon."

And for an even better description here is a comment from anonymous on yesterday's brief reference to the Friday dilemma:

"The variation I heard was "Nothing good ever comes from being in the newsroom after 2 p.m. on a Friday."

As the reporters slowly melted away, the number of editors didn't, and some fresh ones even came in.

Eventually, there would be one reporter, usually working on a highly complex Sunday story, with three, even four, editors circling.

Their jaws would click-clack open with words like "fast assignment," "quick calls," "updates," "follow ups," "fast page proofs" and "short obits."

Toss in a power-mad copy editor famous for his inane demands and bizarre questions that he insisted be answered (between his long smoke breaks and Web surfing.) Visually, think of a proud but limping zebra surrounded by wall-eyed, slavering hyenas, and you're there."

That is such a perfect description that, one, I know for a fact that this person has, or does, work at the Flint Journal and that I wish I had written it myself.

Chiropractic: How I became an instant expert

After I posted my item on editor Larry Laurain another humorous assignment came to mind.

During my first week at The Oakland Press in January 1984 I pretty much was sitting around twiddling my thumbs waiting to be turned loose on the police beat and feeling nervously unproductive.

In a newsroom there is nothing worse than to be a reporter who is not working on something. Because if you are not working on something, you are a target for anything. So it was with me that first week at the Press.

The only thing worse than being a reporter working on nothing, is to be a reporter in a newsroom on a late Friday afternoon. Reporters had several mottos at the Flint Journal (and if I forget some, I know the readers of this blog with fill in the blanks):

"You never know where in the Flint Journal you'll find a Page 1 story."

"It can always get worse." and,

"Nothing good every comes from being in the newsroom on a Friday afternoon." (I'll explain this one further tomorrow)

But I digress.

On the Thursday of my first week at the Press I was met in the morning with an assignment to attend a luncheon conference speech at the Michigan Chiropractor's meeting in Southfield. In retrospect I can see this was just a way to get me out of the office and out of sight for the day.

But armed with a map and a complete lack of knowledge about anything chiropractic I headed off early to the conference.

The speech was unremarkable, but I dutifully took notes and filed a story which I'm sure ran somewhere on the airplane pages, so called because they were deep into the newspaper sections, such as: B-12, A-10 or F-16. That's back in the day when papers had thick sections.

After three days of following someone around like a puppy dog learning the ropes, it was good to finally feel like I had earned a day's pay.

Fast forward a year or more: There was a breaking story about some proposed changes in Michigan law dealing with chiropractors. One of the editors began scanning the room for me, because somehow covering that one speech had made me the newsroom expert on the subject.

And so it was for my five-year career at the Press, any time the subject of chiropractic arose, it came to me.

That's why when I put together a package of newspaper clippings for my next potential newspaper employers, I left that clipping out.

To Auburn and back

Yesterday (January 29) my eldest son and I made the trek to my sister-in-law and brother's home in Auburn just for the day.

It was a Chamber of Commerce weather day for northern California. The weather here is outstanding this week (last year it rained for the entire two weeks I was here). So the three hour drive up and back was made with at least one window partially down. I had almost forgotten the feeling of warm, fresh air. Traffic was light through San Jose, which can be a bottle neck on the drive to and from the East Bay.

My son, who will be unable to attend my brother's party (he didn't want a memorial) next week wanted to see Barbara and be in my brother's home.

Next Saturday, February 7, a number of family (including a group of cousins who haven't seen each other for dozens of years) and close friends will gather and remember the life of Michael B. Smith. As my son William said yesterday: "You can still feel Uncle Mike in the house."

Barbara, a truly great cook, fed us like kings.

It's been four weeks since my brother died on New Year's Day, but the emotions sometimes well up and overflow, as they did yesterday when it was time to leave and drive back to Aptos near Santa Cruz.

Barbara is doing well, keeping busy and her many friends are taking good care of her. I'm going back (glad I have a rental with unlimited miles) next Wednesday and Thursday to help set up the party. Then I'll return to the Bay Area, pick up my wife at the airport Friday and drive back up with the cousins on Saturday for the party.

Do I know the way to San Jose? Oh, yeah.

Larry Laurain, a reporter's editor

Some have challenged, and with some justification, that I have been very rough on some editors. So while it may sound that I take no quarter with editors I have actually had more editors who have been good or great than the other kind.

Here is just one example, and because the others are living and probably would appreciate not being named here right now, we'll just talk about the late Lawrence A. "Larry" Laurain today.

Larry was the City Editor at the Oakland Press during my first couple years there in 1984 and 1985. He was my first experience with a "big" city editor and it was perhaps somewhat unfair to measure those that came after against his standard.

In this case let's go to the end of the story: Larry died of esophageal cancer in August 1985. He had just served as president of the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists at the time of his death. In fact, the chapter awards an annual $2,500 Lawrence A. Laurain Scholarship annually to a student in Southeast Michigan with an interest in journalism.

On his death bed in the hospital, he asked that I come and visit and he gave me directions to his computer file and a pre-written obituary. Another editor and I pulled up the file and it had "xxx" where the date of his death was. It included a short description of his successful battle over alcoholism which I'm sure he believed we would have not included in an obit we would have written about him. He wanted honest and so he wrote his own obituary.

Before I met him, his 17-year journalism career which included a variety of assignments, included The Royal Oak Tribune, The Macomb Daily, United Press International and finally the City Editor of The Oakland Press.

Larry was a steely-eyed, quiet man who often smoked a pipe back in the days when cigarette, cigar and pipe smoke was allowed in the newsroom. He was direct, but kind about it. If you messed up you knew from his eyes before you heard it from his mouth.

You could argue with him and he would listen. Sometimes you could even change his mind about an assignment. Having been a street reporter who covered cops, courts, cities, schools and the great range of topics that a beat reporter can cover, reporters more than not, respected his judgement on stories.

His editing style was to call you over to his desk and have you stand behind him while he showed you what he proposed to do with your story. If you disagreed and had a good reason, he would return your copy to its original state. Except on extreme deadline, he wanted your input on what he was doing to your copy.

All of that concern grew out of his long experience as a reporter and his dealings with editors.

He fiercely defended his reporters to the editors above him.

Example: The Oakland Press was my first "real" daily newspaper job. I had worked there for about three or four months when a source at the Oakland County Sheriff's Department pointed me to a shoplifting report that involved the Chief of Police of Redford Township.

The detective was upset that the episode had been handled quietly in court and that the man remained as chief of police because no one knew about it. The chief had lifted a small amount of film from a store and left without paying for it. The report indicated he had more than $50 in his wallet and was capable of paying the bill when he was detained by store security.

It appeared the chief was having more of an emotional breakdown than that he had become a criminal. When I told Larry about the story he told me to go get it. Of course, that meant I had to call the Chief of Police. When I first called him at work, he freaked and told me he couldn't talk about it at work and that he would call me later from his home. He also ended the conversation that if I was going to do this story his life would be ruined and he would not have a reason to live.

When I told Larry that, he told me to let him know when the chief called back because he wanted to eavesdrop on the conversation. (Probably because I was new he wanted to make sure I covered all the bases).

A couple hours later, the chief did call back and Larry picked up on another extension. The chief started with an impassioned plea that I drop the whole thing, that he was getting psychiatric help and that release of a story would leave him few options. It was obvious he was talking about suicide.

I went forward with the questions, most of which he declined to answer, but it ended with a second plea that I drop the story. When I got off the phone I really felt I had this man's life in my hands. "What now?" I asked Larry. "Do your story," he said.

When the editor-in-chief spotted the story in the queue and read what I was working on, she called Larry into her office and recommended he pull me off the story and give it to a more experienced reporter to handle. The closed door conversation was loud enough I could hear much of it from my desk in the now almost empty newsroom.

A half hour later, Larry emerged from the office and I looked at him like "what's up?" Again, he looked at me and said: "It's your story, do it." I worried that my story would drive a man to kill himself, but Larry reminded me that this was a person who was in charge of a large contingent of armed employees, his shoplifting and the reasons for it were indications he was not emotionally capable of doing that.

The story ran the next day, the chief resigned the next day and what I learned later was that the chief got help, that the stress of the police job was simply too much for him and he later went on to a fairly successful real estate career. So there was, fortunately, no dramatic end to the story.

But Larry stood up, looked out and fought for me. I never forgot that.

Another thing Larry would do to help reporters involved minor holes in a story. Say he wanted information from another city source, police source, etc., instead of bothering you while you working on your next thing, he would pick up the phone, make the call himself and add the information he wanted to the story. It was something he did that was very, very much appreciated by the reporters who worked for him.

Because he knew his way around reporting he became your helper, not your boss, although he was always that as well. There were a few times, a short press release would arrive on his desk that would normally be on my beat. I was always busy, so he would frequently rewrite the release, sometimes making a call to get a quote, and the story would appear in the paper with my byline on it even though I had never seen it.

That may seem like a violation of some kind, but I always appreciated the fact that Larry understood that even brief interruptions for a press release rewrite could cost you an hour or two on another project you were working on. And because story count at the Oakland Press was everything at the time (it was charted like daily stocks) those little bylines helped keep the wolf away from the door.

That leads to another example of how Larry was the first line of defense between his reporters and the editor. One time my story count dropped by half during a month. That troubled the editor who wanted to call me on the carpet, but Larry intervened and reminded the editor that she should check the schedule first as I had been on vacation for two weeks.

He reprimanded (and boy could he reprimand) in private, he praised in public and he never allowed the editors above him to interfere with his reporters. He often took a beating for me and others and I am eternally grateful to him for that.

As I have mentioned before, one of my first editors at the Journal was very much like Larry and those were the great days at the Journal. One time when I was arguing with him over an assignment, the Journal editor looked at me with a wry smile and told me: "You have now argued with me longer than it would have taken to do the story." We both laughed and I shut up and did the story. We recently talked about this incident, which he does not remember, but agreed it was something he would have said.

Being an editor is not easy, being a good editor is even tougher. But the editors that I have had and enjoyed working with were those who treated the job like an Army foxhole. They were in it with you and they never asked you to do anything they wouldn't do or hadn't done themselves.

My little stand for American made

One of the little pleasures I have in coming to California for a couple weeks (besides knowing that my wife will enjoy the peace and quiet of the house in Michigan during the same period) is insisting on an American brand car at the rental counter.

I sometimes get an odd look when I say I prefer driving only American brand cars, but they will always accommodate you. Today, I'm driving a Pontiac G6, which for all I know was assembled in Bangladesh, but it stands out on the freeways here which are filled with Hondas, Toyotas, Hyundai, KIAs and any number of other foreign manufacturers.

It's my little protest for buying American in a sea of "I'll buy whatever I want."

As an aside, the brand name KIA is one of the most curious names for a car. As any Vietnam veteran will tell you KIA, means and will always mean, Killed In Action. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a vehicle.

Just a thought for today. (And for my former editor friends (I'm talking you SC), I originally spelled Bangladesh - Bangledesh, but because I don't have you for a backstop anymore actually looked it up myself to make sure it's right. See an old dog can learn a new trick.)

A Booth editor says good-bye to his staff

Thanks to the blog "Inside Out" (link at right) for this item on a Booth editor doing a good job of saying good-bye to much of his staff.

http://www.mlive.com/opinion/muskegon/index.ssf/2009/01/departing_chronicle_veterans_h.html
For the complete "Inside Out" take go to:

http://mcwflint.blogspot.com/2009/01/saying-goodbye-in-public.html

And just in case you wondered: An embedded hyperlink and my lazy man's hyperlink both work pretty much the same.

Time to Spare: Go by air

Actually that's my father's motto as it relates to commercial air travel. Today was a great illustration of that on my trip out to California. (Where it's a balmy 59 degrees in Aptos, California - just south of Santa Cruz).

Left Flint on time at 6:10 a.m. (well away from the gate on time, but then it was time for de-icing. Which I heartily approve of as I would rather be late than be in a ball of flaming wreckage off Bristol Road).

At Chicago, a sprint (more like a fast waddle) from the American Eagle Gate at O'Hare in Chicago to the adjacent terminal to catch my next flight to Phoenix (Don't you love the multiple connections all in the name of saving money). More de-icing and we took off 30 minutes late, which didn't bode well with a 38-minute connection time in Phoenix.

Got in just in time for my luggage - but not me - to be loaded aboard the 10:55 a.m. flight to San Jose, California. No problem, we'll get you on the 2:30 p.m. flight to San Jose. (Something not so comforting about having my luggage arriving four hours before I did.)

I was not alone, a group of about 20 of us arrived at the gate just as the plane was pulling away from the jetway right on time. If they could have held the plane just five minutes, they would have had 20 very appreciative passengers, instead there was a whole lotta angry going on. It's always nice when someone else blows a gasket so you don't have to. I actually ended up feeling very badly for the young woman behind the counter and told her I knew it wasn't her fault.

Off to lunch at the Fox Sports restaurant and then still had a couple hours to kill. Found a free wireless signal at the airport and did a little work and then noticed that although the digital sign said "On Time" the jetway for the gate was missing one important ingredient - a plane.

The airline employee sweetly told us the plane was about "5 minutes late" and after 20 minutes, she came back on the microphone to tell us "the plane is on the ground and will taxi for about 10 minutes and then it will be at the gate." Obviously her watch is on a warp time that I'm not familiar with. But the plane actually arrived at the gate about five minutes after our flight was supposed to be taking off.

Then, of course, it took more than a half hour to deplane the passengers and load the $2 cokes and $4 snack packs aboard for our flight. Then it was time for about 130 passengers to shoe horn into the airplane including the group of 20 already very frustrated travelers.

We heard more talk of head winds slowing us enroute to San Jose and the long and short (mostly long) of it was that I arrived exactly 5 hours and 13 minutes after I was supposed to, on a bright, clear day with not a cloud in the sky. Not the worst airline experience that I have had, but considering this is the same airline that has proven its ability to land safely on the Hudson River, you would think they could work out a procedure that would hold a plane for five minutes so 20 passengers could accompany their luggage to the next stop.

Their was a silver lining. When your luggage catches an earlier flight, at least you don't have to wait for the endless carousel to find it. There was my little suitcase all curled up in the corner waiting for me.

And although I'm apparently too stupid to embed a hyperlink (actually I know how, I just am too lazy to do it, it's very similar to the Html embed of a Youtube, which I obviously know how to do) I am an ace at pirating wireless signals.

So here I sit overlooking the Pacific Ocean (well, it's two blocks away anyway) and I'll have contact with the outside world and the blog.

Blogger has media saving ideas

For those who like to wear their hats on backwards here's someone with a few tips on how to use social networking sites to help with news coverage:

http://savethemedia.com/

Sports, the last outpost of the newspaper

OK, the headline is hyperbole. But I think one of the things people will miss most if newspapers slip into oblivion in the next decade or so is the coverage of local and professional sports.

In addition to local breaking news, the Flint Journal has always excelled (in my humble opinion) in covering high school, college and professional sports. As a former part-time sports writer at the Lansing State Journal during my college career, I can tell you that high school sports nights are a high energy production at any daily newspaper.

During the high school football season, all's quiet until about 9:30 - 9:45 p.m. and that's when the calls start trickling in as games end. The trickle turns to a flood and any young reporter can learn a lot about deadline reporting and speed when you only have three to five minutes to summarize a whole game.

Oh, and it better be right because a couple thousand people who witnessed the event will read your account in the morning paper and let you know if you got it wrong. Not to mention trying to get stats out of a losing coach who would rather be having a root canal than talking to you.

So what will happen to that kind of coverage as newspapers shrink or, heaven forbid, disappear altogether. Like breaking news and court coverage, I think a lot of folks will miss it a lot.

Guys like Len Hoyes, Dean Howe, Doug Mintline, etc. were household names in the community and their loss was already being felt when the current downturn came. News reporters might consider the sports department the toy department, but a lot of people, more than many news reporters like me ever dared to admit, buy the paper primarily for sports.

Tom Kowalski, a former colleague from the Oakland Press, has spent nearly all of his career covering the Detroit Lions (he ought to get extra pay just for that) but he knows that team as well as anyone, including the folks at the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News. He's also a pretty nice guy.

So for the folks who are bailing on buying or subscribing to the newspaper, just try and think of where you will get the Saturday morning coverage of your Friday night football games.

Mark Cuban has weighed in on this issue as well: (Borrowed :) this from the Fading to Black site:

http://www.vator.tv/news/show/2009-01-25-why-pro-sports-need-newspapers

I want some TARP!

This is the best description and example of the current status of Washington, D.C. giveaways. And if the clowns who we elected continue to think mortgaging our childrens' futures is the way out of this mess, we're all in big doo-doo.

But enjoy the song and it even has a catchy tune.

Food for thought on buyouts

From Jim Carty's blog, this ditty about a buyout gone wrong somewhere else:

http://www.minnpost.com/braublog/2009/01/20/6003/star_tribune_some_buyout_checks_will_bounce

A word about information

Just a reminder for those who read this blog: If you are a Boothie and you enjoy coming here, don't do it from work. Any communications with me should be done from your home e-mail or from your cell or home phone.

Some believe there is a real hunger among management to find whoever is providing information to FFE.

This is, has been, and will be as long as you want, a forum about newspapers in general and Booth newspapers in particular. But I don't want anyone to lose their job or be disciplined because of it.

I have plenty of things I want to write about that do not include newspapers and am really ready to move on to those. Most of the folks I knew well at the Journal are now gone from there or will be shortly so the need for venting should soon slacken.

In the very near future I will be returning to California to honor my brother's memory and visit my two grown sons and granddaughter. Not to mention a little down time with my sister and cousin and blogging will drop off considerably then.

Soon after that, my wife will retire and we will be hitting the open road for frequent and extended trips to places that either one of both of us have never been. I hope to write about those travels and may start another blog for those.

My hope and prayer is that the Flint Journal will survive and thrive and that it will remain a life force in and around Flint. As we have discussed here at length I don't believe the current model or leadership will do that, but I'm open to being surprised.

New local editor selected at FJ

I received a flurry of contacts today about the selection of a new local editor. Picked to replace the new editor was his hand selected choice just last year as an assistant editor.

Here's the text of the e-mail sent out to staff:

"Everyone:

I'm pleased to announce that MR (per the policy of Free From Editors, I'm withholding her full name) is our new Local News Editor. In that capacity, M will direct our local news efforts, acting as the day-to-day supervisor for reporters and overseeing the daily and Sunday budgets. She will be in charge of editorial operations when I am not available. Since leaving the reporting ranks to become an editor, M (missed the name in the first go round, I have fixed it, sorry) has demonstrated a great news sense, organization, enthusiasm and a strong leadership style. It should serve us well in the future."

I was a desk neighbor of MR for several years when we were both reporters. She was always nice to me and often complained - along with the rest of us - about the poor personnel skills of the now editor. I liked her a lot. To be fair, I have not worked as a reporter under her and can't really offer an opinion as to her skills, or the lack thereof, but I do know a number of folks sent me the announcement of her appointment with not many nice things to say. None which I will repeat here.

What I do know is that an excellent editor, one with two decades of editing experience - actually much more editing experience than the big editor - is being pushed out the door while the editor continues his policy of rewarding those he personally likes. Guess that's just human nature.

Someone also pointed out that another person who had been a Sunday editor for a number of years was also passed over for this new promotion.

Unlike most other businesses, the news business has a secretive and non-competitive process for selecting who gets promoted. There are rarely postings for advancement and the new promotions simply are announced without offering others a chance to apply. If a government agency ran its advancement programs in that fashion you can believe that any good newspaper editorial writer would lambast them for not giving everyone an equal chance.

What I also know is that whatever editors are left after the latest downsizing, they better start grabbing a phone and a keyboard and start helping out with writing stories or the morale will sink even further than people tell me it is today.

Flint Journal launches new website

The Flint Journal launched its new website today and it is a definite improvement over the old MLive version.

I'm still not sold on the soft blue type, but the information was easier to find and I like the "Most commented" tabs at the bottom of the page.

The mlive.com logo at the top of the page is a useless distraction, but probably required by corporate types. I still think an identifiable banner completely linking the webpage to the paper would be the best, but at least some of the navigation problems have gone away.

Anyway, here's the link:

http://www.mlive.com/flint/

How one Gannett executive recovered from giving layoff notices

Found on the Internet:

http://gawker.com/5135888/gannett-president-hits-luxury-golf-course-after-warning-workers

Good article on blogging versus conventional reporting

A good column on why blogging won't replace traditional journalism:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123033777465236429.html

Here's the conclusion:

"Over the past few weeks, I've watched a parade of top-notch reporters leave the Star-Ledger for the last time. The old model for compensating journalists is as obsolete as the telegraph. If anyone out there in the blogosphere can tell me what the new model is, I will pronounce him the first genius I've ever encountered on the Internet."

More trimming at the Flint Journal

The deadline for taking the buyout came and went last Friday and the results show another major downsizing in the newsroom.

Several veteran reporters, a senior editor, the entire imagining department and members of the Internet team will be leaving the Flint Journal as a result of the buyout offer.
On top of that the Community Newspaper division is now down three reporters. A couple have been let go and another one found a job to parachute into. I don't know if there are plans to replace them.

Those staying have received about a one percent raise plus a one percent bonus at the end of this month. That's pretty good, considering what's going on elsewhere.

Let me just say something about several of the news and imaging folks. I know most of them and they were friends, colleagues and wonderful people. They deserved better, but all will survive and thrive. One of them was my next door neighbor in our newsroom pod and is one of the kindest, nicest people I have ever met in or out of journalism.

The feature writer who is leaving wrote some of my favorite feature stories and used to give me a bad time about my lack of culture.

It does seem as if the Internet team is actually shrinking rather than increasing which is surprising because the mantra is, and has been for several years, that the Internet is the way out of the "troubles."

Many of the reporters left (I don't know some of them because they came after I left) are excellent writers and researchers and no doubt will be beaten like rented mules to produce copy. With the departure of a senior editor who also took the buyout, the level of editing and personnel skills will likely drop. Not sure who is in place to replace her, but her departure will also remove one layer of sanity between the editor and the staff.

I worked for this editor for many years, and she took many verbal beatings on my behalf from those above her, so I apologize to her now and thank her for her strength and perseverance when it would have been easier to capitulate. If anyone is looking for a really good editor, one who knows how to assign, organize and edit stories, contact me and I'll try and get you in contact with her.

I haven't heard anything about other departments, but feel free to chime in with that information.

Vietnam, Uganda stop by

Two more countries stopped by Monday to Free From Editors. Someone from Vietnam and Uganda made stops yesterday.

Having been to Vietnam some 42 years ago, courtesy of Uncle Sam, it was nice for at least one person to return the favor.

Just for information, people from 217 Michigan cities and every state except Wyoming and North Dakota have also visited.

Ah, the good old days

A video look at the good and bad old days of journalism. Notice that the newsrooms were pretty much all-white and women had to stay in the "Women" and "Society" sections. Also if you make it to the 9:20 mark of the 10-minute video you will see an old platen press. I ran one of these monsters in my high school printing class. With Mr. Carrington's help I could really make that thing hum. In those days I worked on writing the paper as well as printing the paper. (A result of having too many course electives).





Idea borrowed from another blog, video obviously borrowed from YouTube.

Big pow-wow could decide copy desk question

A meeting among the Booth publishers and Newhouse, either just held or just about to be held, will likely decide the fate of the central copy desk idea.

A lot of folks have something riding on this decision and there seems to be some reluctance on the part of Newhouse to the central desk strategy.

You have to wonder if Booth/Newhouse may at some point decide whether they need as many publishers as they currently have as well.

Stay tuned.

An Internet editor hits the road, involuntarily

Another blog, another perspective on online news:

http://robargeblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/crisis-hits-home.html

Pakistan checks in

Free From Editors hit a milestone of sorts overnight. A visitor from Pakistan checked in. That makes it an even 50 countries that have sent visitors to this site. Not sure what there is here for someone in Pakistan, but we are glad they stopped by. The Pakistan flag is at right next to the American flag.

Matt Drudge on the Internet in 1998

Found this long read (on another blog) from a speech Matt Drudge made to the National Press Club on June 2, 1998. I'm not a Drudge reader, although I have stopped there a couple times to see what the hub-bub was about, but this speech, given ten years ago is very enlightening.

While I disagree with some of what Drudge said in this speech and in the question and answer session that follows, you can certainly see that this man, who has no formal journalism or media training, saw the future of journalism far clearer than all the high-priced suits in all the top media organizations.

And given that a lot of them were in the room at the time he gave the speech their reticence to challenge the status quo and move forward into the new media is surprising.

http://www.libertyroundtable.org/library/essay.drudge.html

Here's a little sample from the Q&A:

MR. HARBRECHT: How many leaked stories do you get from mainstream journalists, and would you speculate on their motivation?

MR. DRUDGE: That's a good question, because what I've been doing lately is breaking news that's about to be broken, coverage of the coverage of the coverage. But that's where we are, since the media is so powerful. The media is comparable to government - probably passes government in raw power.

A lot of the stories are internal. They leak it to me wanting to get attention, wanting to get that headline. More times than not, I will not give it to them. It has to get - has to raise my whiskers. It has to be a good headline. I'm a sucker for a good story. I go where the stink is. I'm a partisan for news. If you got a story, I'll be listening outside when we're done. [Soft laughter]

Chesley Sullenberger III - a real hero

Not much else to say about the incredible Hudson River landing of U.S. Airways pilot Chesley Sullenberger II on Friday. http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=6658493&page=1

Also slightly strange that I had put up an item about the weather on Wednesday that referred to, among other things, Danville, California (which is the home of one of my favorite cousins) and is interestingly the home of pilot Sullenberger.

But while everyone is lauding the pilot - and put me at the top of the list - it won't keep some Philadelphia lawyer (and some New York and New Jersey ones as well) from filing a negligent lawsuit on Monday or sometime next week against the airlines. Wait and see.

Because in America, there always has to be a pot at the end of the tragedy (or near tragedy) rainbow even when the fault lies with a flock of geese.

Timothy F. Geithner - a get out of jail free card

Just when I was worried that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert would have nothing to joke about with the end of the Bush Administration comes Timothy F. Geithner, President-elect Obama's choice for Treasury Secretary.

You folks are all smart so you already know that the Treasury Secretary is in charge of, among other things, the Internal Revenue Service.

So how funny is the news that Geithner (who is the darling of both Democrats and Republicans) forget, neglected, delayed, or mistakenly did not pay $34,000 in federal taxes between 2001 and 2003.

When was the last time you forgot, neglected, delayed or mistakenly did not pay your federal taxes? But if you ever do, now you can simply say: "I just did the same thing the head of your agency did."

If this doesn't argue for a simplified tax code (not to mention a higher degree of honesty) I don't know what does.

And how about the awful results of a Ponzi scheme in which someone takes money from you to invest for your future and then, instead of investing it, they give it in large quantities to another client who needs the money right now. What should happen to someone who does that to your money?

No, I'm not talking about Bernie Madoff who took $50 billion from his investors, but 70 years of Congressional representatives who have done that to your Social Security money. The problem for Madoff is that he can't print more money to get out of his hole, but Congress can.

If Madoff has done something horrible, how about those representatives who have withheld more than two trillion dollars from you and your employer and instead of investing it handed it to someone else to spend?

Just a little Saturday morning musings while we sit here buried in snow in frigid Buffalo.

More manufactured money after bad

Four months ago here I blasted Congress and President Bush for the stupid bail out plan for the banking institutions. It seemed hasty, ill thought-out and tragically reckless. The fact that much of the money has disappeared into the ether without creating any of the so-called credit it was supposed to bears out my concerns.

Now comes word of a second wave of the same.

At the same time, the very banks and financial institutions who we handed over our childrens' and grandchildrens' money to, are now donating big bucks to the Inaugural Party and events in order to win favor with the same politicians who have already rewarded them beyond their wildest dreams.

The fact that they are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars individually and millions collectively to the Inaugural events simply shows how blatantly arrogant they are to spend "our" money to win more influence for "them."

And yet Congress, both parties, wink at this excessive celebration at a time of great suffering and financial woes in the this country. Nearly 10 percent of the country is unemployed, millions of people are in foreclosure, we are fighting a war on two fronts and so what's the answer:

Let's have a Party!

So when you see these high-rolling bank executives in their formal wear Tuesday night, just remember all that glamor and glitz was purchased with our money.

I have high hopes for President Obama, but I have very, very low expectations for what his supporting cast in Congress will do to support him. I better see some heavy duty tax relief, as promised in the campaign, and I better see it soon.

If Congress wants to get people spending again, how about giving us back more of the money we earn, rather than printing up more and more money to give to a bunch of bankers who have proved over the last decade they not only don't know how to spend money, but even worse they know how to lose it in large quantities.

Colder than Alaska

Just a quick note to point out that in Michigan and Buffalo today it is 40 degrees colder than it is in Anchorage, Alaska.

As of 7:24 a.m. today, Anchorage was 37 degrees and Lapeer, Michigan was -7.

So there Alaska!

Back in Buffalo

Nothing like a winter getaway to Buffalo, NY. We are back in my favorite city for a short visit with the folks.

We left the 0 degree weather of Michigan and arrived to the 0-degree weather here in Buffalo. Fear not, the temperatures are supposed to soar into the teens over the weekend so we may get to do a little sunbathing then.

As you can see I have found a signal so blogging may continue through the weekend. But first a trip to Niagara Falls tomorrow.

Ricardo Montalban R.I.P.

In honor of Ricardo Montalban - a true working actor - here is a 9 minute, 45 second segment from Star Trek. (Also notice the young female officer working on the bridge who later starred in the great Cheers series). I came late to Star Trek, but was a big fan, although I never went to a convention. I borrowed this from a Facebook entry, which had borrowed it from YouTube.

New FJ web page coming

In a note buried in a story about the indictment of the Flint police chief a Journal web staffer notes that the Journal will launch a new webpage for the news product by the end of this month.

The employee pointed people to the website syracuse.com as a template for what the Journal is going to do.

I just breezed over there and on first blush it would seem to be a much better format than the current MLive one. It is well past the time the change should have been made, but it is a hopeful sign that the online product may become a much better platform.

The MLive colloboration has been, by nearly all accounts, a total disaster and has contributed to the Booth's tardy entry into the real online news world. So this is good news.

Just like clockwork

And just three hours after I posted my cold weather television prediction comes this:

http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story/Protecting-Pets-from-Dangerously-Cold-Temps/0PhsRmroaEO_ud9w_mmThQ.cspx

These guys are nothing, if not predictable.

Oh yes, and this one too.

http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story/Car-Safety-During-The-Cold/Cuh-Dyz1M02efqCBoXCc8Q.cspx

And to my friends and family in warmer climates, you can spare me anymore of your local weather reports.

Frozen eggs and water

Sometimes there is nothing funnier than TV news. Take last night for example, as the television news reporters were stumbling all over themselves to try and describe how cold it is going to get here over the next few days.

For the many readers in California, especially the ones who have never experienced a real Michigan winter, we are in the beginning of a major cold snap.

This morning it was -14 degrees (actual temperature) on our deck. For a point of reference that's colder than your chicken breasts are in your freezer there in Santa Cruz, Danville and Los Angeles.

As if -14 degrees wasn't cold enough the television folks like to embellish the misery by adding the "windchill" which is the mathematical factor that makes -14 into -30 or -40 if there is a breeze or wind blowing through.

Trust me on this, once you get to the minus numbers, it doesn't really matter how fast the wind is blowing, it's just major league cold. Note they never use the windchill factor when it's 90 degrees and the wind is blowing.

"Folks it may be 90 degrees out here, but with the 20-mph winds it really only feels like 70," the reporter should say.

Anyway back to the tricks of the television trade. This morning, on two different stations, I watched with amusement as one reporter cracked an egg on the sidewalk and then timed how long it took for it to completely freeze. (Not long). Someone should tell this intrepid reporter that eggs should only be broken to show how hot it is, as in a 100-degree summer day in Tucson.

Later, another reporter poured a bottle of water into a plastic ice tray to show how quickly you could have ice cubes in the cold temperatures. As if anyone wants a nice cold drink with ice cubes when it's -14 outside. Here's what I propose, open your mouth until your tongue freezes and you can't talk. That I'll watch.

Tonight there will be obligatory story on keeping your pets warm and to make sure you carry a blanket, a shovel and enough food to feed West Covina in your car in case you break down in the cold.

Note to TV stations: We get it. It's cold outside. Any responsible pet owner knows that they must care for their pets in this arctic weather. The other kind of pet owners are likely watching reruns of the Beverly Hillbillies on a cable channel and not your news show.

Yes, it's cold. Yes, it's Michigan. Move on, nothing to see here.

Story confirmed, new editor selected

Hate to do the I beat the Journal thing, but 16 hours after I posted the news, the Flint Journal put up a story about the changing of the guard at the paper.

Here's the link:

http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2009/01/john_foren_named_editor_of_the.html

I noticed there was no mention of his current residency in the announcement. In case anyone wants to know it's in a Lansing suburb.

Can you say Peter Principle?

Just when you think that maybe, just maybe, someone at Booth or Newhouse would seek a new vision or new leadership, they prove that they are nothing, if not suicidal. And just when I said things had become suddenly quiet over there.


So the word is out that the current local news editor, affectionately known here as the editor-in-charge-of-corrections, has been elevated to the top Editor spot in the newsroom to replace the former captain of the Titanic.

And just for the record, I don't have anything personal against either of these men - and that's also the operative word here, men - it's just that between the two they have provided perhaps the poorest, most incompetent leadership of the Flint Journal in its history.

At times, I've shared a laugh or two with the new editor of the paper, but his skills at handling people and news are laughable. For Booth or Newhouse to believe this is the way out of the abyss is equally funny. For one thing, he lives in a suburb of Lansing with his very nice family and has for his entire career as an editor of the Flint Journal.

I wonder if the promotion comes with a push for him to finally move into the subscription area of the Flint Journal. It was always laughable when he commissioned stories on the residency of police officers and teachers when he himself not only lived in a different area code, but many, many miles outside the Journal's subscription area.

This is a guy who covered politics, and nothing else, early in his career and who has so little understanding of breaking news and how it needs to be covered that it was painful to those of us who did.

This just makes it plain that Booth is not really interested in surviving the long term.

There's a cliche that says when you're in a hole the first thing you should do is to "stop digging."

Booth just brought in a backhoe.

Gloom and doom

If you love newspapers and want them to succeed you may want to skip this story:

http://www.247wallst.com/2009/01/twelve-major-me.html

Source: Newspaper Death Watch

All's Quiet on the FJ front

It used to bug me when people would say, "no news is good news."

Well, when you are a newspaper reporter, not so much. But things are unusually quiet on the Booth front and frankly I haven't had time to shake the tree much.

What I do know is that one or two more people have been called aside and encouraged to lighten Booth's wallet by taking the buyout. The final date (or at least the latest final date) for those considering the buyout to sign on the dotted line is Friday.

Because of some pressing family health issues in Buffalo, my wife and I will be heading there for the weekend and so blogging will be sporadic between now and then.

So sorry about the dearth of news. Feel free to visit the links to the right as those folks are pretty regular about putting up news about the news business.

And, of course, if you have some information feel free to e-mail me at: jlsmediaservices (at) gmail (dot) com. Only use the symbols. Duuuuh!

If you are interested I added the obituary I wrote for my brother to the entry below where I announced his death. And again, thanks to all of you who have contacted me on - and off - line to express your concern and sympathy. It is very much appreciated and at some point I will try to respond to them all.

Good dog, needs a good home - update Home Found!

January 11 - Home Found!

In the current economy many folks are just leaving behind or turning loose animals they can no longer afford or care for. That is pretty sad, but to prove how ecletic this blog is I am posting this short article and picture to hopefully help a friend and a dog who showed up on her property the Saturday after Christmas.

Initially my friend turned the dog into the Animal Shelter, but no one came to claim him, so she reclaimed him before it was time for the evil deed to be done.

Here, in my friend Tracie's own words, is the information on the dog:

"He’s a husky/chow mix. He’s got a husky coat, with the chow coloring and black tongue. He’s good with kids and normal dogs (he’s not wild about my spastic young male husky, and I can’t blame him). My Kodi is constantly in his face being a pain in the butt. I’ve been calling him Teddy Bear because of his beautiful reddish coat. He gets along well with my female husky who is calmer. He is neutered and well mannered. He knows sit, stay, shake, lay down. He is housetrained and likes to have a crate to lay in. He’s very comfortable laying on the floor at your feet. He’s obviously a wanderer, so he would need some sort of containment. Either in the house, cable system or fenced yard (I use a wireless fence for my huskies). I had my vet check him out and he is heartworm and parasite negative. She feels he is around 5-6 years old. I also took him to the doggie spa and got him all shined up.

You can put my email: huskywalkr@gmail.com and my phone 810-441-5819."

If we weren't tied up with family and traveling issues, I would think about it, but it simply is not in the cards for now or in the forseeable future, but maybe one of the readers of this blog is looking for a decent dog with all the hard training work already done.

Margaritaville, Margaritaville

While I was away, a loyal FFE reader sent me a note that the Flint Journal published the exact same story and exact same photo of Jimmy Buffet in separate sections of the Journal on the same day over the past weekend.

By the time I arrived home the dead tree versions of the FJ had been recycled so I did not personally see this. But I know of at least one Parrot Head at the Journal so, who knows?

And just to show I'm not anti-Jimmy Buffet (I went to his show back in the old Pine Knob Days with the resident Flint Journal Parrot Head) here is the Buffet performance on "The Today Show" a couple years ago.

Central copy desk now not a certainty

Word is that the owners of Booth are not yet sold on the idea of a central copy desk for all the State's newspapers located out of Grand Rapids.

The cost saving measure to reduce and consolidate copy desk functions was perhaps the most confusing part of the Booth rescue plan.

Now word is that the Flint Journal (and presumably the other Booth properties) are being asked to craft proposals on how they would continue local copy editing functions with the personnel that remains after the buyouts.

Of course, a number of local copy desk folks have already accepted the buyouts after this word came down so one has to wonder if that was intentional or simply coincidental. This has all the appearance of a beached whale trying to find its way back to the ocean.

It is simply hard to imagine the lack of foresight and leadership in a business that so sorely needs it now. And yet, those in charge find a home for those most incompetent folks in the future leadership.

Too true, so sad

Here are links to two very funny journalism related cartoon panels:

http://www.arcamax.com/mothergooseandgrimm/s-470750-695411

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2009/01/06/?campid=0&ssns=9&

More self-inflicted journalism wounds

Then there's this decision by the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.

http://www.theledger.com/article/20090104/COLUMNISTS/901040311?Title=Cuts_Dry_Up_Dixie_s_Dew___and_News

More Oakland Press short cuts

From a reliable Oakland Press source.

Want to get your story or better yet a free advertisement in the Oakland Press?

Here's how; You don't need to be a good writer or photographer.

There are two ways to get free "ink." First, and the easiest, is to just send a fax or email to the editor or city editor. Outline what you want covered. ie; say you have a new business,? it need not be new, just say so.

A used dress shop, a hamburger joint that is cerebrating its first year in business, or say a barber that is retiring after a decade in the same location. All of that is ok, just outline it and almost without a problem a reporter ( or one of the new unpaid "citizen reporters") will take a picture and give a non-factual, one-sided glowing coverage of a story that only you care about.

If you're able this works even better: Supply a decent photograph and a story telling how great your business is. Look! It's done every day in the Oakland Press. If you are in public relations and need to give your client a boost just e-mail your story, all packaged-up to the Oakland Press and, Bingo! there it is on the front page. News content is not a requirement.

Just fill space. Good luck, but you will not need much to be a hero to your company. 'Almost forgot, if your retiring from any job for any amount of years it almost a given you will get a story published. Just ask.

Catpaws.

Don't blame the lower editors for this one either. They are very short staffed and the leadership basically believes that it doesn't matter what you put in the blank space around the ads.

I once worked as an editor for the Ingham County News and a business owner called me to say if we would do an article, he would buy an ad. "Now," I told him, "would you want to read a newspaper filled with gratuitous articles like that?" He admitted he would not. I convinced him that a good readable newspaper, filled with articles people actually wanted to read would be the best way to make his ad work. Don't remember if he bought an ad, but we did not do the story.

The Oakland Press enlists reporters to train free journalists

Thanks to an anonymous, but impeccable source, I have a copy of the e-mail sent from editor Glenn Gilbert of the Oakland Press. Here is the memo, I will comment after:

Subject: citizens unite

From: Glenn Gilbert [mailto:glenn.gilbert@oakpress.com]
Sent: Tue 12/30/2008 1:32 PM

Our first citizens journalism class was a stunning success. We had 45 people in news and seven in sports. Jeff will handle sports, but in news, 29 of the individuals filled out forms desiring to continue in the process.

There is no way to make this work without staff commitment. I would never ask you to believe something that you don't believe in, but I do need your help. Names will be divided up among newsroom personnel. You will be responsible for working with the individual and accountable for their progress and your contacts with them.

Be generous with your time, but time-efficient. You can learn valuable teaching, coaching and management techniques in the process. Some of you who are teaching oriented will enjoy the process. Just remember, those who teach learn. Let me know if you think you can handle more than one or two individuals, or your interest in the process (or even lack of interest if you feel strongly).

(memo ends here)

Ain't this grand, the editor is strong arming his staff to help those who are in line to replace them. And I love his little aside at the end "or even lack of interest if you feel strongly." If you feel strongly about that you may be replaced sooner than you might anticipate.

And don't think of this as extra work, think of this as a chance to learn more. Where did this guy come from? He had to have been a press secretary for some politician to put out doo-doo like this.

If this is journalism, then Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is the Indianapolis 500. I don't even know what more to say about an idea this stupid.

Back home, blogging to resume

Arrived home late Tuesday and made my way home in a two and one half hour (usually one hour and fifteen minute trip) from Detroit Metro. Freezing rain turned all the freeways into ice rinks. There were accidents everywhere and I-94 eastbound was completely shut down at M-39 for a half hour.

I appreciate all the kind sentiments here and on Facebook about the loss of my brother. The world seems oddly out of place with the loss of my younger brother, but life does go on and my brother, a frequent commenter here under the name "jim's brother", would not want it any other way.

So after I go to work today I will return to blogging. I received a copy of a memo from the editor of the Oakland Press who was literally giddy over the turnout at his first citizen journalist seminar and is now asking all reporters and editors to take on one of two of the reporters to help them learn the ropes.

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. I'll put the memo up later today. There is also some additional Booth news and that will go up as well. I just don't have time this morning to put it in some readable form.

If you come back this time tomorrow (Thursday) it should be up.