Judges to judge: Overruled!

Last week, Orange County Judge David Velasquez ordered the OC Register to beg off reporting on a class-action lawsuit filed against the paper. On Monday, the 4th District Court of Appeal reversed Velasquez's order in no uncertain terms. From the Register:

Prior restraint is "the most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights," said the 4th District Court of Appeal.

Citing U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the appeals panel said gag orders are only justified to prevent dissemination of information about troop movements during wartime or to suppress information that "would set in motion a nuclear holocaust."

In Drudge we trust

In his latest blog post, Alan Mutter declares that "Drudge shows how to do news."

Matt Drudge, of course, has the luxury of employing the entire English-speaking media for free; he doesn't have to spend time or money checking the accuracy of their work, nor does he have to take responsibility for their mistakes. He doesn't have to make difficult judgments on deadline about sensitive issues, or plan coherent coverage for major events. He doesn't have to send anyone into dangerous territory for story, go to court to protect a confidential source, or sit patiently all day waiting for just the right shot.

None of this to say Drudge Report isn't an interesting and valuable website. It is. However, it's silly to argue that Drudge stands as a model that other news organizations should - or even could - emulate.

Here's what Mutter says:

But with all due respect to the penetrating stories, elegant writing and dazzling multimedia presentations the mainstream media create, they can’t get the hang of delivering breaking news when their readers/viewers – and potential reader/viewers – most crave instant enlightenment.

By effectively conceding this opportunity to sites like Drudge, the mainstream media forfeit in significant measure their value and credibility, which, in turn, will constrain future audience growth and revenue prospects.

When are they going to learn how to compete?

I don't know what he means in saying the mainstream media is "conceding" an opportunity. Does he mean the Washington Post and CNN and the Pasadena Star-News should cherry pick stories from across the Internet and publish them on their websites?

The chief concession mainstream media (and alternative media) is forced to make is hiring a staff - there's nothing to post unless someone reports it. Staff requires salaries and salaries require revenues and that often leads news organizations to take a proprietary interest in their reporters' work. At the same time, the best media seek to boost their value and credibility in the marketplace by exhibiting good judgment, consistent standards and strong editing.

I know Mutter's argument centers on Drudge Report's presentation of breaking news. Still, whatever Drudge's talents in putting together his Web page, he needs to mine the entire media landscape to fill it. He can pick the best headlines from 30 different papers. When news breaks, he doesn't have to worry that his economics reporter is sick or his political writer is suffering from writers' block or his stable of reporters too small to get every angle (or is busy trying to get video for the paper's blog). Even with multi-layered media partnerships, I'm not sure that any one organization can match Drudge's palette.

How do you compete with free?

This street is my street, this street is your street

Bipartisanship in America is the practice of taking complex problems and turning them into sound bites - preferably ones that create false divisions.

Take, for instance, the bailout package being contemplated by Congress. After rendering the debate of all the fat of thought and nuance, Republicans and Democrats came together to boil the problem down into a simple concept: Main Street versus Wall Street.

As regular Americans spit bile at the thought of rewarding Wall Street Fat Cats with a $700-billion check for robbing their own banks, the Wall Street fat cats are suffering a massive panic attack over Main Street's woeful misunderstanding of the dangers overleveraging and undercapitalization will have on an ever-tightening credit market.

The thing is Wall Street and Main Street are two sides of the same street. Regular Americans are watching the crisis unfold on flat-screen TVs purchased with credit cards, in homes purchased by mortgages, with cars in the driveway purchased by loans. Wall Street force-fed our credit addiction through easy terms meant to fluff up household bottom lines as the trickle down failed to create real wealth. In the process, WS got addicted to its own supply of magical derivative-based flimflam. Now we're all jonesing some liquid credit.

I can't say whether the bailout package that went down yesterday is the right answer. And I do subscribe to the old adage that the rich are different - they do have more money. Way, WAY more money. That has to change. But in the meantime, enough of this fake suburban populism. It only makes our politicians believe what they're saying.

Fun with cliches

Our new most overworked political phrase: "In the tank."

Slip, sliding away*, **

The bailout plan appears to be going down in flames in the House of Representatives, although the vote has been kept open to do some heavy duty arm twisting and turn 11 recalcitrant lawmakers around.

The Dow plunged more than 700 points as traders saw the bailout wasn't passing and is now down about 460 points (although it could be up or down 100 by the time I hit the button to publish this).

Oh, and Wachovia and Washington Mutual have disappeared.

*11:08 a.m. PST: The bill has failed, at least for now... Dow down 620 points, but swinging wildly like a cornered and wounded animal.

**11:14 a.m. PST: The New York Times reports: House Rejects Bailout Plan, 228-205; Leadership Plans Second Attempt to Pass Bill. Stories in the Washington Post and NYT.

Also, a federal grand jury subpoenas documents from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

UPDATE: Read the roll call of today's vote here. Interestingly, given that Pelosi hails from the Bay Area, the bill would have passed had she been able to convince 13 of her fellow California Democrats to switch their votes from 'nay' to 'yea.'

In all, 15 California Democrats voted against the bailout package: Adam Schiff of Pasadena; Loretta Sanchez of Garden Grove; Linda Sanchez of Lakewood; Joe Baca of San Bernardino; Xavier Becerra of Los Angeles; Grace Napolitano of Santa Fe Springs; Lucille Roybal-Allard of East Los Angeles; Hilda Solis of El Monte; Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks; Mike Thompson of Napa; Lynn Woolsey of Marin; Barbara Lee of Oakland; Diane Watson of Los Angeles; Pete Stark of Fremont; and, Bob Filner of San Diego.

That's nearly half of the 34 Democrats in the California delegation. On the other side, nine of the 19 California Republicans opposed the bill.

UPDATE II: As of the closing bell, the Dow had fallen 778 points, the worst single-day drop in two decades.

At the Courier

The Claremont Courier is one of the few remaining independently owned newspapers in Southern California with a history of producing strong journalism in a small market (hyperlocal before it was cool). Los Angeles Times reporter David Zahniser is one of the better known alumni.

The paper has faced an uncertain future ever since publisher and owner Martin Weinberger had to step down for health reasons. Weinberger's son, Peter, recently took over as publisher and has promoted Kathryn Dunn as managing editor.

Peter W. has worked as a photojournalist for 30 years, most recently as photo director at the Charlotte Observer. Dunn has worked off and on at the Courier for 17 years, most recently as production editor. I hope they work to restore the scrappy but ambitious newspaper I remember from when I worked there.

Bailout breakthrough

Congress has reached a tentative deal on a bailout bill, which should be ready for a vote on Monday.

Shorties

Why think when someone else can do it for you? Mark Halperin's analysis of last night's presidential debate is spot on (meaning, of course, that I agree with it).

AIG was too big to fail because it threatened to sink Goldman Sachs (former employer of our Treasury Secretary). But the trouble started when a small operation in AIG's midst went viral.

Will House Republicans get behind a bailout bill? If they don't, will John McCain be forced to oppose it as well?

A history of the blog

A sign bloggers are going pro.

going, think, now

The kids over at Indecision 2008 fed the transcript of last night's debate into the Wordle machine to see what kind of clouds would form. Obama's is more diverse, McCain's is more exact. Obama thinks, McCain knows.

What are you doing, Dave?

What could go wrong with a government program aimed at reading your thoughts in a crowded, anxiety filled airport?

Welcome to MALINTENT:

MALINTENT, the brainchild of the cutting-edge Human Factors division in Homeland Security's directorate for Science and Technology, searches your body for non-verbal cues that predict whether you mean harm to your fellow passengers.

It has a series of sensors and imagers that read your body temperature, heart rate and respiration for unconscious tells invisible to the naked eye — signals terrorists and criminals may display in advance of an attack.

Paul Newman dead

He was a natural born world-shaker.

Debate! Debate! 5

Onto Iran:

McCain first. Iran with nuclear weapons is a threat to Israel... "We cannot allow a second Holocaust." He brings up his League of Democracies proposal - "We could impose significant, meaningful, painful sanctions" that will affect Iranian behavior. In addition to nuclear, McCain says they are bringing in the most lethal IEDs into Iraq.

Obama says the war in Iraq is the single biggest reason Iran has become an immediate threat in the region. Says it's attempt to acquire nuclear weapons has accelerated since we invaded. Agrees we need tougher sanctions but also need to work with China and Russia - which aren't democracies. Also says we need to engage in tougher diplomacy with Iran.

No surprise that McCain rips into Obama, saying he would talk with nuts like Ahmadinejad and bring them legitimacy. References Reagan and says preconditions must be met... No surprise, Obama says Kissinger supports his ideas, says it is not like you'd be inviting over for tea. Uses North Korea as an example of where not talking does not work. Brings up McCain's weird assertion that he wouldn't meet with Spanish prime minister.

Back and forth and back and forth on what preconditions mean. McCain calls Obama's approach dangerous and naive. Obama says it's a nuanced way to engage our enemies that works better than simply isolating them.

Onto Russia:

Obama says we should offer some promise of NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, but don't isolate because we have to deal with the potential for nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands.

McCain once again calls Obama naive. Calls Russia a KGB-run government. Gets very fixated on Georgia, talks about the energy pipeline that plays a big role in the showdown there.

Obama links Russia's resurgence to America's use of oil and then hits McCain for not doing enough to get us off oil over the last 26 years.

Final question, what's the chance of another 9/11:

McCain: We're safer than we were but not safe enough. Brings up his support of a 9/11 commission. Announces his opposition to torture. Says he knows our allies better and will do a better job working with them. Oh, and border protection!

We are safer in some ways but we have a long way to go. The biggest threat to the U.S. is a terrorist getting their hands on a nuclear weapon, making nuclear proliferation a major issue. We have to refocus on al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Restore America's standing in the world - we are lest respected now than 8 years ago.

McCain - Obama still doesn't understand. Withdrawal from Iraq will lead us to defeat and offer al Qaeda a training ground. "That is the central issue of our time."

Obama - McCain and this administration have been solely focused on Iraq. Meantime, al Qaeda resurgent and we're borrowing billions from an increasingly influential China. Iraq has handcuffed our foreign policy and damaged our economy.

McCain - Obama is not ready to lead and has made major errors in judgment, including in his response to Russian aggression in Georgia (huh?).

Obama - kids around the world don't see us like they used to (huh?). Point of course is that our standing in the world matters.

And done.

Debate! Debate! 4

Obama didn't bring up Iraq on the spending question, but Lehrer asks about the war. First to McCain:

McCain explains his support for the surge and praises Gen. Petreaus. Says the surge prevented a wider war and will allow us to leave Iraq with victory.

Obama: The first question is whether we should have gone into Iraq in the first place. Uses the question to imply he was a maverick, standing up to oppose the war at a time when it wasn't popular. He then circles back to the spending issue.

McCain: The next president of the issue isn't going to have to address whether we should go into Iraq, but how we get out. He hits Obama on the surge and pokes him for not going to Iraq or meeting with Petreaus.

Obama accedes that McCain is right, our troops and Petreaus have done a brilliant job since the surge began. But it is a tactic to address a war that was out of control. He then starts to hammer McCain on his judgment at the outset. This is the most aggressive he's been in this debate.

This is a fascinating back and forth on Iraq and Afghanistan... the thing everyone was waiting to hear. Two opposing views clearly defined - If you're gonna back up the TiVo to replay any part of the debate, here's where you should start.

Obama the first to invoke the name of bin Laden (i.e., let's capture or kill him). McCain says Obama's withdrawal could "snatch victory from the jaws of defeat." This after McCain said Iraq is the central front in the war on terror; Obama smartly dismissed the charge that he voted against funding the troops.

Onto Afghanistan:

Obama again begins. Says things are getting worse, Taliban and al Qaeda crossing into Afghanistan to cause trouble, and then links the war there to Iraq - saying the military cannot respond with more troops in Afghanistan because of we're bogged down in Iraq - place that had nothing to do with 9/11 and didn't harbor al Qaeda. He then lays out what he calls a comprehensive approach to the problems there, in addition to the military buildup.

McCain says he will not repeat the mistake of abandoning the mujahadeen. He says Obama is making a mistake saying he would send troops into Pakistan, says the U.S. needs to strengthen diplomatic ties with Pakistan rather than make military threats. He then says we need to employ the same strategy in Afghanistan that we employed in Iraq and gain the cooperation of the people on the ground.

Obama restates his policy re: taking out al Qaeda in Pakistan if Pakistani forces refuse to act on their own. He makes a glancing blow about McCain's bom-bom-bomb Iran song (whatever). He then criticizes the Bush administration for coddling Mushareff and for letting al Qaeda reconstitute itself under his rule.

McCain responds to the glancing blow with a restatement of his serious breaks with Republican foreign policy. "I have a record..." He starts to turn this into a discussion about experience and having to make life-and-death decisions... and then brings it back to Iraq: "We will win this one and we won't come home in defeat and dishoner and probably have to go back if we fail."

Obama has a bracelet, too. Oy. Would have been more effective if he remember the guy's name. "Senator McCain, no one is talking about defeat in Iraq." And then says he will take Afghanistan seriously rather than "muddle through."

McCain hits back: My subcommittee takes on the big issues and Obama should have visited Afghanistan.

Debate! Debate! 3

Asked what he'll have to scale back, Obama uses the opportunity to lay out his agenda for the next year. Energy independence, health care, education, investing in green jobs, infrastructure (Broadband reaching into rural communities... That's right, I said "rural.")

McCain says government will have to cut spending, starting with ethanol subsidies (nice line on Obama's liberalism, "It's hard to reach that far over to the left.") He brings up fixed-cost contracts for defense spending... Says every agency will have to be scrubbed for efficiency.

Lehrer, noticing neither man said what they'd cut specifically asks again. Obama says he may scale back his energy plan and will cut $15 billion in subsidies to insurers under Medicare.

Lehrer again asks for a broad

A freeze on spending on everything but defense McCain says. Obama brings up Iraq and says the war needs to come to an end. McCain says we spend $700 billion in foreign, a lot of it going to countries that don't like us very much and then brings up nuclear power.

Will this crisis affect the way you rule the country?

Obama: There is no doubt it will affect our budgets... but we need to know what our values are and what our priorities are.

McCain responds by saying Obama's health care plan will federalize health insurance and then says we can adjust the budget (didn't he just say he'd institute a spending freeze?). McCain says the crisis is partly due to out-of-control spending - will Obama bring up Iraq now?

Obama doesn't go for the Iraq issue but does bring up Bush - saying this "orgy of spending" happened under his watch. McCain says he's different, calls himself "a maverick of the Senate."

Debate! Debate! 2

Both men look nervous in their opening remarks. The gravity of times are such that cute and pithy just won't do.

Given an initial chance to tear into each other, the two men keep their eyes on Jim Lehrer and try once again to restate their opening statements. My guess is that Obama will relax some when he gets on the ropes - he seems to prefer playing defense.

Lehrer tries again to prompt them into a face-to-face and once again they demur.

No surprise that the debate is starting out with a discussion about the economic crisis. Not only the first but the second question focuses on the issue, as did both the candidates' opening statements.

As McCain gets onto the issue of corruption he starts to gain some traction, repeats his "I'll make them famous" line and lays into Obama for requesting earmarks. How will Obama respond?

Obama moves past the earmarks issue and opens up a line of attack on McCain's tax-cut plan. He uses the opportunity to say he'll cut taxes, too, but for the middle class... and McCain comes back and hits him on earmarks again... he admits Obama will make cut taxes - is this the first time? Obama is also the first to interrupt.

Lehrer again asks McCain to respond directly - it's an awkward conceit to command them to confront each other in some manufactured way. Perhaps Lehrer should notice it's a losing strategy.

Obama made a muddle of the tax loopholes vs. tax cuts for businesses... finally makes it back to clarity in talking about health care tax credits. McCain then breaks in with talk about an energy vote and then moves it back to tax cuts.

Debate! Debate!

If you need to have a computer on your lap while watching the debate, try this Web site.

Or stay here.

No R-E-S-P-E-C-T

The reviews of Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric are overwhelmingly ugly. Is it really her fault, though? Christopher Orr at the New Republic surmises that she's been broken by an overly tough coach:

I'm reminded of the situation you see every now and then in sports, when a talented athlete--which, conveniently enough, Palin was--gets a taste of heavy duty coaching and, rather than being built up, is broken down, losing confidence in his game, becoming tentative, second-guessing himself even to the point of paralysis. I don't know whether that's what's happened to Sarah Palin. But from where I sit, it sure looks like it.

Orr stops short of saying why the campaign would treat its top draft pick this way. Once again, I have to ask: Does McCain respect his VP pick?

By the skin of its teeth*

Breaking from the Wall Street Journal:

McClatchy won important concessions from its banks, sparing the newspaper company from defaulting on its debt.

*UPDATE: The Sacramento Bee looks at what McClatchy had to give up to win these concessions:

But the agreement comes at a price. The Bee's owner will have to pay a higher interest rate. Its line of credit has been scaled back. And it could be prohibited from paying any shareholder dividends under certain circumstances, although that ban wouldn't take effect until next spring.

Comings and goings*, **

Long Beach Press-Telegram reporter Samantha Gonzaga gave her two-weeks notice yesterday. She plans to study urban planning at Cal Poly Pomona, according to the Stress Telegram.

I'm told San Bernardino Sun reporter Robert Rogers is leaving his job also to attend grad school. He covered social and economic issues for the newspaper.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune added a couple reporters last week, Rebecca Kimitch and Daniel Tedford.

*UPDATE: Three more reporters exit the shrinking Press-Enterprise, the iepapers blog reports.

**UPDATE: Rogers says goodbye to readers on the SB Now blog. (Thanks to a commenter for passing this along.)

Eastside musings

Via LA Observed: Former Timesman Jesus Sanchez launches the Eastsider LA blog, which will keep an eye on "Echo Park and beyond":

Defining the Eastside can be a touchy and heated topic. For the purposes of this blog, and practical reasons, The Eastsider LA will focus on Echo Park, where I live, and other neighborhoods in the northeast section of the City of Los Angeles.

Well, duh

John McCain heads to Mississippi after an interesting day on Capitol Hill. Here's the ABC News breaking news update - in all caps, naturally:

JOHN McCAIN WILL ATTEND TONIGHT'S PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE WITH BARACK OBAMA

Bailing on the bailout

Much like a mirage, the Wall Street bailout deal that was said to be imminent this morning recedes on the horizon.

Oh, and so does Washington Mutual.

Singleton in San Diego

Dean Singleton, head of MediaNews, has been spotted in the hallways of the San Diego Union-Tribune, fueling speculation that he and his partners at Hearst might be interested in buying the newspaper.

The economy such as it is and the mountains of debt such as they are, it might seem an insane time for MediaNews to make a bid. Then again, maybe Singleton will surprise us.

McCain's second Hail Mary

As new polls show John McCain slipping, he has announced he will suspend campaigning to focus on the Wall Street bailout and has asked Obama to do the same. He is also seeking to delay Friday's debate.

Quiet in the courtroom

A judge in Orange County has barred the OC Register from publishing testimony from a class-action lawsuit filed against the paper by its carriers. First Amendment experts rightly panned the decision and expect it to be overturned on appeal.

Peter Scheer of the California First Amendment Coalition told the Register: "Hopefully, the judge will quickly pick up his copy of the Constitution and re-read it."

Of course from a news perspective there's a question as to whether the Register would even want to publish testimony from this type of civil trial.

(via LA Observed)

On the home front

I first learned of the U.S. Army's plan to deploy an infantry brigade inside the United States from historian, former journalist and former soldier Chris Bray at his historiblogography blog. Now, Glenn Greenwald at Salon has picked up the story and looking at the precedent it sets.

The new vocabulary

In times of strife, old or obscure words are often called upon as our thinking class tries to get its mental arms around the crisis at hand. Old words in particular can be comforting, since they imply a continuity between what is happening now and what has happened before.

Writers try words on for size, trading them on blogs and in columns. Those that succeed in hitting the sweet spot of the current ethos find their way into common circulation.

For instance, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reintroduced us to "slog" back in 2003. Perhaps already familiar to fans of cricket, the word had a poetical precision that both denoted and connoted an as-yet-defined angst about the Iraq war (it was used to refer to the war in Afghanistan, as well). "Slog" has found its way into the vernacular. "Stentorian" may well have had a better run had John Kerry won in 2004.

As journalists, academics, think tankers try to gain an intellectual foothold on the scope of the credit crisis/mortgage crisis/$700-billion Wall Street bailout, I've noticed the words "plutocrat" and "corporatist" popping up. The phrase "moral hazard" has also come into fashion. Will any of them succeed? "Clusterfuck" might also make a return; although I'm not sure it ever went away.

Daily News on the move

From LA Observed: The Daily News settles into its new digs.

Beware the bait of September

In light of McCain campaign chief strategist Steve Schmidt's assertion that the New York Times has become a "pro-Obama organization," Jay Rosen asks a question over at the Poynter Forum:

If the McCain campaign says, on the record and before the national press, that the New York Times is not a legitimate news organization, or a journalistic enterprise at all, but a political action committee working for Obama (and that is what Steve Schmidt said to reporters; listen to it...) then why does the Times have to treat the McCain crew as a "normal" campaign organization, rather than a bunch of rogue operators willing to say absolutely anything to gain power and lie to the nation once in office?

The first step is to recognize that Schmidt's assertion is illegitimate and let the argument stop there. It's part of Schmidt's strategy to label all news outlets as having partisan bias. Unless the New York Times got the facts wrong, and it didn't, then the paper shouldn't take any action.

Indeed, in taking action the New York Times would play into Schmidt's hands. Recognizing what is bait and not swallowing it is a tactic employed by most good journalists. There is no smart way to argue your legitimacy - just as there's no smart way to explain when you stopped beating your wife. Times Editor Bill Keller's response to Howard Kurtz seems sufficient.

Here's a question of my own: Is it a good idea for members of the media to declare what constitutes a legitimate political ad?

A little rebellion

If a vice presidential candidate meets with foreign leaders and no one covers it, did it really happen?

The press corp threatened to boycott Sarah Palin's planned visits with dignitaries today at the UN after learning coverage would be limited to a few photo ops. The campaign, which wants those photos shown on all the nightly news programs, compromised on a few details, allowing producers to join their TV camera crews and one print reporter o attend two of the meetings.

New publisher at Chicago Tribune

Tony Hunter takes over as publisher at the Chicago Tribune. The boss calls him a "change agent":

"Tony has spent his life in the publishing business and we still think he's the right guy for the job," Randy Michaels, Tribune Co. chief operating officer, said in a statement. "He understands the Trib and appreciates its history, but he's also a change agent, a creative leader who is eager to move the paper in a new direction so it can compete for more readers and advertisers."

(via Romenesko)

Fallows at CMC

James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic, will be speaking about foreign policy, China and the presidential election on Tuesday, Sept. 23, at Claremont McKenna College's Athenaeum. The event is free and open to the public - although packed houses often mean late-comers are relegated to watching the speech on a video screen in a nearby building.

Fallows was raised in Redlands, California - technically a part of the 'Inland Empire' - before leaving to earn his bona fides as an elitist at places like Harvard, Oxford, the Washington Monthly and, worst of all, public radio.

You won't read this all the way through

Word, words... yawn.

Newspaper execs have spent many sleepless nights and confused days trying to nip and tuck traditional newspaper journalism into a shape that fits the Internet. The tendency is to go for shorter, snappier, less wordy, more graphic-y, bullet-points-will-do front pages that entice grazers and excite the ADHD mind.

They may be on to something. A new study by Web researcher Jakob Nielson reinforces the idea that Internet users, on the whole, don't go online to read. Not in the traditional sense, anyway:

In the eye-tracking test, only one in six subjects read Web pages linearly, sentence by sentence. The rest jumped around chasing keywords, bullet points, visuals, and color and typeface variations. In another experiment on how people read e-newsletters, informational e-mail messages, and news feeds, Nielsen exclaimed, "'Reading' is not even the right word." The subjects usually read only the first two words in headlines, and they ignored the introductory sections. They wanted the "nut" and nothing else.

This has given rise to what I refer to as distraction journalism, which is designed to provide the click-through reader with bite-size packets of information, with a blog or sports score on the side.

While newspaper publishers seem to be increasingly cognizant of the way people "read" the Internet, and design their Web sites accordingly*, they should be just as cognizant of the downside of our online habits:

Ever since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, money has poured into public-school classrooms. At the same time, colleges have raced to out-technologize one another. But while enthusiasm swells, e-bills are passed, smart classrooms multiply, and students cheer — the results keep coming back negative. When the Texas Education Agency evaluated its Technology Immersion Pilot, a $14-million program to install wireless tools in middle schools, the conclusion was unequivocal: "There were no statistically significant effects of immersion in the first year on either reading or mathematics achievement."

If the primary mission of news organizations is to inform readers through well-reported and accurate stories, then we have to face the fact that Web-only publications cannot fulfill this role. At least, not unless we actively participate in shaping the way we use the Web (teaching kids to read on the Internet, making them use it to do more in-depth research, creating software to facilitate a more traditional literacy, etc.), rather than passively accepting it's design as inevitable.

To that end, journalism schools should stop trying to convince students to hop on board with the newest gimmick and instead lobby to make the Internet a place where good reporting can thrive.

*In this online environment, one would think small and medium-size papers would invest in smart copy editors who can quickly digest news stories and produce informative, accurate and interesting headlines and summaries for the Web page. In my own experience, and from what I see on many sites, this ain't happening.

No buyers market

With the San Diego Union-Tribune up for sale, reporter Thomas Kupper looks out onto the media market wasteland to see who might be willing to buy a newspaper right now:

How many people would be willing to buy a newspaper at a time when online competition is eating into the business, while the weak economy takes a further bite?

"It would be one thing if there were a success story to point to how one of these would work," said Mike Simonton, an analyst who follows media companies for Fitch Ratings in Chicago. "But there's not a template as to how one would operate in this environment."

In recent years, the big chains have relied heavily on debt to build up their empires; dwindling revenues and tightening credit markets make these types of deals less attractive. However, companies that are engaged in a pattern of "creative destruction," like MediaNews, might be willing to gobble up yet another dominant paper in the California market.

Blame the young

The AdCouncil targets the real threat in the credit crisis: irresponsible young people.

(via historiblogography)

Back to Iraq

Dexter Filkins returns to Iraq.

Otherness*

How big of a factor is Barack Obama's race in the race for president? An AP Yahoo News poll indicates it's substantial:

Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice.

It may be impossible to quantify the effect prejudice will have on the election. Certain other factors could compensate for or even magnify feelings about race - Obama's age, how closely he resembles black stereotypes, rumors he's Muslim, McCain's age, etc.

To the extent the Obama campaign can make the election one of issues rather than one of affinity, the chance that race becomes a decisive factor in the voting booth diminishes. And so McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, an affinity candidate, becomes all the more important to the Republican side.

It's in that regard that the Palin pick could pay off for McCain among Hillary Clinton supporters. It's not that she's a woman, it's that she's an attractive choice to those looking for a reason not to vote for Obama (despite their general agreement with him on the issues).

From the poll:

Among white Democrats, Clinton supporters were nearly twice as likely as Obama backers to say at least one negative adjective described blacks well, a finding that suggests many of her supporters in the primaries — particularly whites with high school education or less — were motivated in part by racial attitudes.

*Update: Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com has some interesting observations about the poll results and the so-called Bradley Effect (see comments).

Socialism for capitalists

The calcified arteries of Wall Street are clogged with bad debt. Our government plans a $700-billion emergency bypass straight through our pocketbooks. Socialism for capitalists. We're told the sacrifice is needed to ensure our own healthy circulation.

Most of us, however, would prefer to let the patient die. He's a greedy, duplicitous, scoundrel. He refused every ounce of preventative medicine and now unashamedly mainlines taxpayer dollars.

Why keep him alive? Why perform miracle surgery on this pathetic form? Why can't we "decouple" ourselves from the excesses of Wall Street?

Because we're linked like Siamese twins. Our entire economy rides on a shock absorber of Wall Street credit. We've been able to ignore the bumps and now we're in the ditch.

For too long we've let Wall Street do the navigating for us. It told us we were in charge and then made all of the decisions. It shifted risk onto us and then collected most of the rewards. It made us believe that asking for more was a sign of weakness, an affront to the American ideal of self-reliance. It told us to cherish our small town ways and then went out and got involved with the world. It taught us that math no longer mattered if you had the right credit card and mortgage rates.

So, we're going to get jacked this time. But it's time to end the Great Bamboozle... time to stop being the rubes and start keep the other half in line.

The other white guy

There's another old white Senator out on the hustings pressing the flesh. Mark Leibovich takes a look at what Sen. Joe Biden has been up to in the last few days:

Mr. Biden’s venues are, in many cases, economically challenged areas of swing states. His crowds are up-and-down in number and enthusiasm — some loud and in the thousands, others sleepier and small. But his reviews are generally good from voters, some who came in unconvinced about Mr. Obama.

“Biden is a guy who I really believe, who really seems like he is going to help us out,” said Sheryl Kline, a loader for the United Parcel Service who attended a rally in Maumee, Ohio. “He sounds like someone who knows how we’re struggling.”

Despite his hard words, there is also a joy to Mr. Biden’s pursuit. On Monday, he walked into a Ford plant in Macomb County, Mich., jumped behind the wheel of a red Mustang convertible and let loose with a few satisfying vroom-vrooms of the engine.

“I know I’m not supposed to like muscle cars, but I like muscle cars,” Mr. Biden said as clusters of autoworkers whooped around him. “I tell you man, this is nice,” he said, giving a few extra revs of the engine for good measure, and his Senate cuff links clicked on the side of the car as he jumped out to more applause.

As the Sun turns

The latest former San Bernardino Sun reporter to be profiled in Paul Oberjuerge's periodically updated "Seasons in the Sun" series is Nate Ryan '98, now a sports writer at USA Today:

I’ve known some very good journalists. But I don’t think I would want to share a beer — let alone a confidence — with most of them. There’s just something about the profession, especially the reporting side. To really get ahead requires selfishness, a willingness to use/betray sources and colleagues, and a keen eye for self-promotion. Actually, some of the best journos are almost sociopathic.

Then there is Nate Ryan, who has managed the fairly rare feat of being a good guy and a good journalist and reporter.

Is there any higher praise in this business than 'not a sociopath'? Read the rest of the post here.

The other meltdown

Job losses in the newspapers industry approach 11,000 this year, according to the Paper Cuts tally. The map now includes Hawaii - will Alaska be next?

Wall Street flack jacket

Here's a question I never thought to ask: What does the crisis on Wall Street mean for PR? Unfortunately, I think the post needs a PR firm to help it find its point.

My Pulitzer pick

Who could have foreseen the Doomsday Scenario now playing out as the federal government tries to rescue Wall Street? That elite, East Coast media, that's who.

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times sounded the alarm back in February with a long, detailed piece describing the massive credit default swaps market that is now threatening to swallow Wall Street in a swamp of toxic debt. On Feb. 17 she wrote:

Few Americans have heard of credit default swaps, arcane financial instruments invented by Wall Street about a decade ago. But if the economy keeps slowing, credit default swaps, like subprime mortgages, may become a household term.

Credit default swaps form a large but obscure market that will be put to its first big test as a looming economic downturn strains companies’ finances. Like a homeowner’s policy that insures against a flood or fire, these instruments are intended to cover losses to banks and bondholders when companies fail to pay their debts.

The market for these securities is enormous. Since 2000, it has ballooned from $900 billion to more than $45.5 trillion — roughly twice the size of the entire United States stock market.

No one knows how troubled the credit swaps market is, because, like the now-distressed market for subprime mortgage securities, it is unregulated. But because swaps have proliferated so rapidly, experts say that a hiccup in this market could set off a chain reaction of losses at financial institutions, making it even harder for borrowers to get loans that grease economic activity.

Morgenson went on to report that American International Group (AIG) failed to properly value it's swaps, leading to a $3.6 billion loss. Look how that turned out.

Morgenson won a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her coverage of Wall Street. She deserves another.

In what I still think is my best "To The Point," Morgenson came on our show to talk about the effect of the housing crisis on the economy. John Cassidy of the New Yorker was also a guest. He talked about the volatility of the free market and the inevitability of these terrible bubbles when government takes a hands-off approach.

Tribune responds to Times lawsuit*

The Tribune company has put out a press release to respond to yesterday's class-action lawsuit filed by six current and former LA Times reporters against Sam Zell:

TRIBUNE STATEMENT ON CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT

CHICAGO, Sept. 17, 2008— Tribune Company today issued the following statement from Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sam Zell:

“The lawsuit filed yesterday is filled with frivolous and unfounded allegations, and I hope every partner in this company is as outraged as I am at having to spend the time and money required to defend ourselves against it. The media industry is in crisis, the advertising environment is extremely difficult and the economy is in turmoil. The overwhelming majority of our employees have taken up the challenge—they are working hard, leading by example, and devoting themselves to re-inventing our businesses by developing new and innovative products for our readers, viewers and advertisers. As a company we are attacking our problems and revolutionizing the media industry.

“This lawsuit is a mere distraction, and we will work quickly to see that it is dismissed. It will not deter us from completing the work ahead.”

In addition, Zell sent an e-mail around to Tribune employees calling for solidarity with management:

Partners,

We are about to release a statement on the lawsuit filed yesterday by a staffer at the LA Times and several former Times employees. I want to share it with you first, but I also want to stress that as we work to fix our company, we are all in this together.

As newspaper advertising revenues have declined severely over the last several months, we’ve had to take some tough steps. We’re not alone, of course—the entire publishing industry is trying to deal with the challenges posed by a tough advertising environment and an economy in turmoil. At Tribune, we’re making tremendous progress—reinventing our newspapers, expanding television news, growing WGN America, and developing a new Internet platform. We’re being watched and imitated.

The overwhelming majority of our employees have risen to the occasion—they are working extremely hard, innovating as never before, trying new things, pushing the envelope. They are using their own best judgment and questioning authority when they need to—something employees at this company rarely did in the past.

But there is a difference between questioning authority or challenging the “business as usual attitude,” and maligning the company in public. That’s just bad judgment and does no one any good. It’s a distraction that’s unnecessary.

We are partners. We need to act like it.

Sam

*Update: Dan Neil, LA Times auto critic Dan Neil, a named plaintiff in the suit, talks with Warren Olney on "Which Way, LA?" tonight at 7 p.m. Listen at 89.9 FM or KCRW.org.

Meet-up

I hear Gov. Schwarzenegger and top legislative leaders, known collectively as the Big Five, are meeting in an apparent attempt to head off a veto showdown over the budget bill.

Times on the Times lawsuit

The class-action lawsuit filed by former and current Times reporters against Sam Zell and Tribune Co. gets covered in today's business section. Tribune management says no comment.

Drowning in a fast moving current

The New York Observer looks at whether the best, most in-depth political stories are getting the attention they deserve in this presidential campaign.

Pomona College remembers

Pomona College students, parents and alumni remember David Foster Wallace. The novelist, best known for "Infinite Jest," was teaching writing at the school. He was found dead of an apparent suicide in his Claremont home earlier this week.

McClatchy cuts again

McClatchy plans to cut another 1,150 jobs, or 10 percent of its workforce, in the second major "rightsizing" in the last three months. Falling revenues are blamed.

Fed bailing out AIG

The Federal Reserve's cherry-picking-rescue-plan approach to Wall Street (save Bear Stearns, let Lehman Brothers fail) continues with the Fed agreeing to loan the country's largest insurer, American International Group, $85 billion to save it from bankruptcy. In exchange, the Fed will get an 80 percent stake in the company.

This is an extraordinary turn of events. And a bizarre one - A quasi-public agency has decided to spend billions of dollars to buy a controlling stake in a company that no one in the private sector was willing to buy. There's no way of knowing the repercussions of this; although the Fed clearly decided the known consequences were more alarming than the unknown ones.

Time's Justin Fox tries to explain:

Confused? You're not alone. The best case for the bailout seems to be that nobody has the faintest idea what the consequences for financial markets of AIG's failure would be, but they were afraid that it could lead to total chaos. The biggest fears had to do with the credit default swaps, which AIG appears to have sold in large quantities to practically every financial institution of significance on the planet. RBC Capital Markets analyst Hank Calenti estimated Tuesday that its failure would cost its swap counterparties $180 billion.

Budget deal illegal?*

Mark Paul of the New America Foundation says the budget deal passed by California legislators violates the law and calls on state controller John Chiang to block it:

In 2004, near the beginning of California’s long budget nightmare, newly elected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and most of California’s leaders, offered voters a two-part deal. Approve $15 billion in deficit borrowing to get the state through the budget crisis, the state’s grandees told voters, and then we “tear up the credit card.” Voters took them at their word. They approved both Proposition 57, authorizing the unprecedented borrowing, and Proposition 58, called “The California Balanced Budget Act,” forbidding the state from further deficit borrowing and making it illegal for the Legislature to pass, or the governor to sign, a budget in which spending exceeds revenue.

-snip-

The budget just passed by the Legislature is plainly illegal and unconstitutional under those provisions.

*Update: Gov. Schwarzenegger vows to veto the budget bill; legislators in both parties vow to override the veto.

Current and former Times employees sue Sam Zell

Dan Neil, auto critic for the Los Angeles Times, and former Times writers Corie Brown, Henry Weinstein, Walter Roche, Myron Levin and Jack Nelson, have filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Sam Zell.

The group alleges Zell and his cohorts acquired the Tribune Company as part of a "scam" that saddled employees - who own the company through an Employee Stock Option Plan - with all of the risk while Zell shouldered none of it. From the press release:

It's a classic grift, played out under the cover of legal technicalities.

-snip-

When Zell hung “You own this place now” banners at the Los Angeles Times, employees could not know the high price they would pay for this “privilege.” According to the complaint, Zell has de-funded employees retirement packages, raided the employee pension fund for more than $400 million, and eliminated more than a thousand Tribune Co. jobs. Meanwhile, Zell and his band of publishing rookies are wrecking the company’s marquee properties – including the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun, and the Chicago Tribune – alienating readers by launching aimless redesigns while dramatically cutting coverage. Seemingly ignorant of journalistic ethics, they have, for instance, turned control of the Los Angeles Times Magazine over to the advertising staff, with no indication to the reader that this product is now a “pay-to-play” advertorial. All the while, revenues have continued to decline.

Further, the plaintiffs allege the Los Angeles Times and other publications could have weathered the tough economic times had Zell not so completely damaged their reputations through massive layoffs, unwise cuts and a general contempt for the product:

The media landscape is changing and, yes, newspapers are just learning how to navigate this new world. Unfortunately, current management is making things worse, led by Zell and his Chicago gang who can't shoot straight. Zell does not consider himself a publisher and has shown nothing but contempt for journalism. He notoriously said “F… you” to an employee-photographer who dared question his leadership. Speaking to the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times, Zell referred to the staff as “overhead, not producing any revenue.” Zell’s history is specializing in profiting from the purchase and sale of distressed properties. He has said he expects to make a fortune for himself during his tenure at the Tribune Company. And, as it stands, he can do that while leaving the coffers of the Tribune ESOP empty and the readers of the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and Tribune Company’s other news outlets without an authoritative local source for news and information.

Should these institutions, vitally important to the life of the nation – indeed, never more so – be allowed to fall victim to ruthless corporate raiding and the pump-and-dump machinations of predatory “investors”? News organizations are both businesses and public trusts. A free press is the only business stipulated by the Constitution. No other entity – no website, no blogger – is on the horizon to replace the boots on the ground around the world providing Americans with the information we need to function in a global economy. The Los Angeles Times, alone, spends $2 million a month to support its Baghdad bureau, making its war coverage among the finest in the world. If Zell and his cronies continue to cut the staffs of these news organizations, it means inevitably that they will give their readers less content that is valuable to them. As these newspapers become less valuable to readers, they become less valuable to advertisers as well.

To that point, Zell and his cronies say they plan to close the Los Angeles Times’ Baghdad bureau.

Read the full press release here.

Robbing Paul to pay Paul

It may surprise you to learn that the secret budget deal worked out by California lawmakers will put off tough decisions and leave "gaping holes in future budgets." From the Sacramento Bee:

But much of the $15.2 billion budget shortfall would be bridged by advancing revenues to be collected in future years, shifting or borrowing money from other state funds and employing accounting maneuvers. The plan would generate immediate revenue but leave gaping holes in future budgets.

Radio in pictures

This picture earned me my first, and probably my last, photo credit in the New York Times. It was taken to accompany a story about the gadget in fellow "To The Point" producer Frances Anderton's hand.

It took a bullwhip to convince Warren and David Corn of Mother Jones to sit down for a chat. They'd just finished a 40-minute interview for the real show and wanted to go eat. So did I, but our Web people were desperate for a shot of one of us using the Nokia camera phone to capture an interview. So, I stood up on a chair and this is the magic that resulted.

Unfortunately, the Times got the caption wrong. We weren't in our Santa Monica studio, but inside our makeshift broadcast booth in Denver on the final day of the Democratic National Convention. If you want to watch the interview, click here.

Are you regular to?

Maybe those East Coast liberal media elites don't get Sarah Palin, but the New Yorker does:

Now, let us discuss the Élites. There are two kinds of folks: Élites and Regulars. Why people love Sarah Palin is, she is a Regular. That is also why they love me. She did not go to some Élite Ivy League college, which I also did not. Her and me, actually, did not go to the very same Ivy League school. Although she is younger than me, so therefore she didn’t go there slightly earlier than I didn’t go there. But, had I been younger, we possibly could have not graduated in the exact same class. That would have been fun. Sarah Palin is hot. Hot for a politician. Or someone you just see in a store. But, happily, I did not go to college at all, having not finished high school, due to I killed a man. But had I gone to college, trust me, it would not have been some Ivy League Élite-breeding factory but, rather, a community college in danger of losing its accreditation, built right on a fault zone, riddled with asbestos, and also, the crack-addicted professors are all dyslexic.

Humpty Dumpty wrote a bad mortgage...

Our financial houses are folding. Bank of America sops up Merrill Lynch; Lehman Brothers falls into bankruptcy; AIG begs for a $40 billion government bailout. This is what happens when transaction-making becomes your leading industry.

Who will put Wall Street back together again?

A budget deal in the works

The California Legislature this afternoon agreed on a budget deal. It will include no tax increases to close a $15.2 billion deficit, but is likely to be chock full of fuzzy math. A vote could come as early as tomorrow. From the LA Times:

Details of the final budget package have not been released. Without a tax increase, it is likely to include accounting maneuvers and other financial gimmicks that would push much of the budget gap into next year. Democrats had vowed they would never balance the budget through cuts alone, and even Republicans who held the line against taxes were unable to show how the gap could be wiped out entirely with spending reductions. Their own budget plan relied heavily on borrowing.

Sarah's secret life

The New York Times ran a lengthy story yesterday on Sarah Palin's governing style. The picture the story paints is one reminiscent of the ugly power grabs that have gone on over the last decade in the cities surrounding Los Angeles, as ambitious partisans ride into office on the crest of changing demographics and then begin to sweep out anyone not loyal to their partisan cause:

In 1997, Ms. Palin fired the longtime city attorney, Richard Deuser, after he issued the stop-work order on a home being built by Don Showers, another of her campaign supporters.

As new partisans try to cement their power, they sometimes find it more comfortable to surround themselves with friends:

The Wasilla High School yearbook archive now doubles as a veritable directory of state government. Ms. Palin appointed Mr. Bitney, her former junior high school band-mate, as her legislative director and chose another classmate, Joe Austerman, to manage the economic development office for $82,908 a year. Mr. Austerman had established an Alaska franchise for Mailboxes Etc.

Surrounded by friends, a desire for secrecy can start to creep in as the new partisans try to keep their friends shielded from criticism and their critics out of the conversation:

While Ms. Palin took office promising a more open government, her administration has battled to keep information secret. Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a “personal device” like a BlackBerry “would be confidential and not subject to subpoena.”

In some cases, the culture of secrecy begins to dissolve as the new partisans become secure in their leadership and turn to policy-making. In other cases, insecurity builds and secrecy becomes a way to rationalize decision-making and squash dissent. In the echo chamber secrecy produces, derision builds for those outside of the inner circle:

The administration’s e-mail correspondence reveals a siege-like atmosphere. Top aides keep score, demean enemies and gloat over successes. Even some who helped engineer her rise have felt her wrath.

Unless there is a change of course, secrecy finally finds its way into decision-making. It becomes a shortcut to pesky deliberations that slow your path to getting what you want. It shields you from unwelcome opinions:

Rick Steiner, a University of Alaska professor, sought the e-mail messages of state scientists who had examined the effect of global warming on polar bears. (Ms. Palin said the scientists had found no ill effects, and she has sued the federal government to block the listing of the bears as endangered.) An administration official told Mr. Steiner that his request would cost $468,784 to process.

When Mr. Steiner finally obtained the e-mail messages — through a federal records request — he discovered that state scientists had in fact agreed that the bears were in danger, records show.

“Their secrecy is off the charts,” Mr. Steiner said.

The population of Alaska is about 670,000. That's about twice the size of the city of Riverside. So it's no surprise that the nuances of close-combat city politics would creep into the governor's mansion in Alaska. The question is whether Palin would replicate this level of secrecy in the White House.

Update: Still a bad idea

The editor of the Rocky Mountain News explains his decision to Twitter a 3 year old's funeral:

Most of us couldn't attend the service. But that doesn't mean we don't empathize with the family and don't want to join in their mourning in some way. Marten was one family's son before he died. But because of the way he died, his loss was felt by thousands.

One way for a news organization to help a community connect is to send information live from the service, just as we do from events ranging from political conventions to road closings to concerts and parties. We don't have to wait to publish in the next day's paper anymore. TV and radio don't wait, and people seem to value that.

I can imagine some might think live updates during a solemn event might be disruptive. But typically reporters can sit at the very back of a hall, out of the way of mourners.

Ultimately, to me, it's all about execution. Poorly done, such journalism might very well feel inappropriate. Done well, I don't think so.

David Foster Wallace is dead

Novelist David Foster Wallace, who was teaching writing at Pomona College in Claremont, was found dead in his home. He apparently hanged himself. He was 46. (via LA Observed)

Comings and goings

Ben Demers left the San Bernardino Sun for the Glendale News-Press in May. Now I'm told Demers has left the Glendale News-Press to become the city editor of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the San Bernardino Sun's sister paper.

Good luck to Ben.

*Correction: I mistakenly posted that Demers was going to become CE of the Sun. That, of course, gave Sun City Editor George Watson a bit of a fright. My apologies. The above post has since been corrected.

Shrinking in Sacramento

Reporters are becoming as hard to come by in Sacramento as budget deals.

On this day 74 of the Great Budget Impasse, we learn veteran political reporter Bill Ainsworth, of the San Diego Union-Tribune, has agreed to take a company buyout and will be leaving at the end of the month. His colleague in Sacramento, Bill Mendel, has applied for the buyout as well.

Their rush to early retirement is surely hastened by reports that the U-T is on the chopping block.

Ainsworth's departure is part of a depressing trend in Sacramento, as bureaus that had beefed up when Gov. Schwarzenegger first swept into office now cut back or close down altogether. The Sacramento Bee reports that both the San Francisco Chronicle and Orange County Register are down to a single reporter.

Let the caged bird sing

Sarah Palin does not look comfortable flakking the McCain campaign talking points on foreign policy. That's about all I can say with any confidence after watching her interview with Charles Gibson last night.

I have no idea what she thinks of the Bush Doctrine of preventive war, about what America can do to stifle Russian aggression in former Soviet republics, about whether the U.S. military should seek approval from the Pakistan government before deploying special forces in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier.

I do know she had a hard time matching the answers she was given by her handlers to the questions asked by Gibson. As a result, the interview inevitably looked like an interrogation. She stubbornly stuck to the story her lawyers told her to tell and Gibson was stuck trying to find out what she really knows - and doesn't know - by trying to knock her off script.

The sad part is that Palin went in overprepared (and thus unprepared) because her handlers don't trust her to speak for herself. They don't trust her because they don't know themselves what she thinks - and probably don't really care. She was a trooper, for sure. And she does seem to believe she's ready to lead. But does John McCain agree?

Which brings me back to a point I made right after she was picked:

But all of this works only if Palin has McCain's respect. The choice has echoes of the trophy wife/young assistant storyline. Older man picks younger companion to show he is still in the game, still "with it" culturally and socially. But that's also a choice meant to leave the older man in control. It's a relationship in which he wants to give as little of himself as possible and still get what he wants in return.

Twittering on the edge

Enlisting the new technologies, the Rocky Mountain News provides shovel-to-shovel coverage of 3-year-old Marten Kudlis's funeral (via Romenesko).

Thinning paper

The anonymous IE Report has put up a memorial site for editorial employees who took the buyout at the Press-Enterprise.

The list includes my good friend and honorary big sis Mary Schubert Bender, a long-time reporter in Southern California and a former colleague of mine at the Pasadena Star-News. Mary, who'd also worked at the Los Angeles Daily News, was one of the first to get laid-off as MediaNews began the slow bleed of its SoCal properties a few years back. Fortunately, she ended up in a more stable place - at least it was at the time.

Media blowback

Charles Babington at AP comes close to calling McCain a fibber:

Republican presidential nominee John McCain, a self-proclaimed tell-it-like-it-is maverick, keeps saying his running mate, Sarah Palin, killed the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere when, in fact, she pulled her support only after the project became a political embarrassment. He accuses Democrat Barack Obama of calling Palin a pig, which did not happen. He says Obama would raise nearly everyone's taxes, when independent groups say 80 percent of families would get tax cuts instead.

Even in a political culture accustomed to truth-stretching, McCain's skirting of facts has stood out this week. It has infuriated and flustered Obama's campaign, and campaign pros are watching to see how much voters disregard news reports noting factual holes in the claims.

Institutionalized

Maybe we should relocate the White House to Wall Street to save on jet fuel.

The Washington Post reports today that the federal government is going to arrange the sale of financial giant Lehman Brothers. Just a week ago, the federal government pledged potentially billions in taxpayer money to prevent the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Just yesterday, this was the top story on cable news.

Might I suggest that some of our core institutions - government, private enterprise, media - are in a bad way?

From the Post:

The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve are engineering a sale of Lehman Brothers through a consortium of private firms. The details are not finalized, but sources familiar with the matter say the purchase is expected to be completed and announced this weekend before Asian markets open on Monday morning.

Tough talk?*

ABC News reports that Gov. Sarah Palin "warns war may be necessary if Russia invades another country."

This one-line exclusive atop the ABC News website is light on details - in fact, it provides no details, so it is hard to discern whether Palin's assertions falls outside the realm of reasonableness, or whether this is simply a tease to get people to watch tonight's interview with Charles Gibson.

*UPDATED: Here's what I believe is the relevant excerpt from the interview with Gibson. It doesn't sound like Palin issued a warning, but she is willing to accept the possibility of war with Russia as the price of getting Georgia into NATO:

GIBSON: Would you favor putting Georgia and Ukraine in NATO?

PALIN: Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes, and Georgia.

GIBSON: Because Putin has said he would not tolerate NATO incursion into the Caucasus.

PALIN: Well, you know, the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, those actions have showed us that those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO.

Putin thinks otherwise. Obviously, he thinks otherwise, but...

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to -- especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn't have to lead to war and it doesn't have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

One of these kids is doing his own thing

...can you tell which one?

Proud Americans

Howard Fineman sees a common theme behind Obama's missteps: pride.

Another way to say it is fear. His decisions in the past few months have largely left him diminished. He's given up the speeches that won him so many converts. He gave the Democratic Party the convention it wanted, not the convention he needed. He's taken to competing against McCain's VP choice. This isn't to say he's acting pathologically, just that his missteps are those of someone unsure he wants to win, not someone so prideful he's ignoring the obvious.

Interestingly, I think McCain suffers a similar fear of success. However, he's gotten over it (for now) by picking Palin.

Drill, baby, drill!

From the New York Times:

As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

Read the rest here.

The affinity gap

Are presidential campaigns in the United States more about affinity than about facts? Republican strategist John Feehery answers the question, somewhat crudely, in today's Washington Post:

John Feehery ... said the campaign is entering a stage in which skirmishes over the facts are less important than the dominant themes that are forming voters' opinions of the candidates.

"The more the New York Times and The Washington Post go after Sarah Palin, the better off she is, because there's a bigger truth out there and the bigger truths are she's new, she's popular in Alaska and she is an insurgent," Feehery said. "As long as those are out there, these little facts don't really matter.

Indeed. The bigger truth is that once voters begin to identify with a candidate they begin to perceive as slights even legitimate challenges to their candidate's statements. Then they start to feel those slights personally. Affinity is irrational and anti-intellectual. Logic and facts are no antidote.

If the boss fires a stranger, you assume the stranger probably did something wrong. If the boss fires your sister, you assume the boss is a biased prick.

Sarah Palin provided the McCain ticket with instant affinity. When the media says she "fires up the base," what it really mean is she stands as a tribal symbol. Objectivity is out the window. An attack on her is an attack on the family.

Affinity enables the McCain campaign to chastise Obama for chastising the media a few days after the McCain campaign chastised the media for asking legitimate questions about Palin. This is cognitive dissonance to an objective observer, but there is little danger McCain-Palin will lose support for embracing a contradiction. McCain supporters plainly see that the press that questions Palin is biased and the press that questions Obama is fair.

Obama had mojo, but he isn't running an affinity campaign anymore. He chose at his convention to run on the issues. On unity. But, no matter how those issues resonate, they do not build a familial bond with voters. Being black hasn't helped him either.

Steve Schmidt saw all of this. He knows the media - increasingly opinionated and desperate to be popular - prefers an affinity campaign to an issues campaign. It's more entertaining and easier to handle. That's why Palin is on the ticket. That's why McCain in his convention speech emphasized his cell in Hanoi over his campaign platform.

A fractured media landscape also ensures that readers/viewers can readily find the "facts" they need to prove the truth they already believe. Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic considered this in a recent column:

[P]erhaps the media -- hereby defined as a single entity consisting of the collective mindset of reporters, editors, producers, writers and pundits working for broadcast nets, cable news nets, TV News magazines, radio news nets, entertainment news mags, online nonpartisan news media, online partisan news media, print magazines, national newspapers like USA Today, online newspapers like Politico, Matt Drudge, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, local TV news, local talk radio, national talk radio, the Netroots, Belo, Hearts-Argyle, Clear Channel, the Rightroots, the nutroots, hyperlocal citizen journalists and corporate news executives -- has failed to create a coherent narrative about the truth that -- I hasten to add -- neatly fits with an ideological worldview.

The McCain campaign has used affinity and the media to define Palin and push the Obama campaign into a position where it's responding to a storyline rather than driving one. In the next couple of weeks, Obama will have to decide whether the affinity younger voters feel for him plus Democratic registration plus his get-out-the-vote operation are enough to hold the swing states in the final stretch run to Election Day. If not, he is going to have to fundamentally shift his strategy. (Hint: Play to your strengths. Maybe giving speeches isn't so bad after all.)

Just deny it

A new McCain ad accuses Obama of wanting to teach little kids about sex. The graphic includes a floating Obama head casting a lecherous glance downward.

It made me think of a story Hunter S. Thompson once told about old "Landslide Lyndon" Johnson:

Back in 1948, during his first race for the U.S. Senate, Lyndon Johnson was running about ten points behind, with only nine days to go. He was sunk in despair. He was desperate. And it was just before noon on a Monday, they say, when he called his equally depressed campaign manager and instructed him to call a press conference for just before lunch on a slow news day and accuse his high-riding opponent, a pig farmer, of having routine carnal knowledge of his barnyard sows, despite the pleas of his wife and children.

His campaign manager was shocked. "We can't say that, Lyndon," he supposedly said. "You know it's not true."

"Of course it's not true!" Johnson barked at him. "But let's make the bastard deny it!"

Johnson ... won that election by fewer than a hundred votes, and after that he was home free.

Shorties

Sarah Palin and 'Salmongate' (via Blockbuster Democracy Blog)

Lieberman loses legislative director

Decapitations in Mexico

Keith, Chris lose anchor chairs

Who Steve Schmidt is*

If John McCain walks into the Oval Office next January, the credit will belong to Steve Schmidt. The New York Times looks at his influence on the McCain campaign and includes a gem that says more effectively than any media analyst has what's at risk as newspapers disintegrate and journalism standards decline:

Mr. Schmidt is considered by members of both parties to have a superior sense of a greatly altered news media environment, caused by the proliferation of political Web sites and blogs, providing all different ways of getting out information. This new environment, he has told friends, is easily manipulated because of round-the-clock thirst for news, increased competition, lowered standards created by the proliferation of outlets and hunger for the outrageous.

It was Mr. Schmidt, a fan of both pop culture and Ultimate Fighting, who pressed for the campaign to include Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in advertisements attacking Mr. Obama, aides said. It was Mr. Schmidt, they said, who pushed to drive blogs and other media organizations to present Mr. Obama’s outdoor convention setting as a pretentious temple by circulating photographs of columns and sending out a news release calling it the “Temple of Obama,” which were gobbled up by Web sites and cable television shows.

*Media manipulation is a big reason Palin was picked; already you'll see a marked shift in the tone on such aggregator sites as RealClearPolitics and Drudge Report, fewer analysis pieces and more stories and commentary that mimic the sarcastic line of attack heard at the Republican convention. Television media is the worst at handling this type of campaign. It cows them. Notice how anchors are busy praising Palin's political gifts and meekly explaining why they're delving into Palin's record. They become overly deferential. Mark Leibovich considers the media-bashing strategy in today's New York Times.