Terkel dead at 96

Pulitzer-prize winning author and commentator Studs Terkel has died. He was 96.

From the obit in the LAT:

The author of blockbuster oral histories on World War II, the Great Depression, and contemporary attitudes toward work, Terkel roamed the country engaging an astounding cross-section of Americans in tape-recorded chats -- about their dreams, their fears, their chewing gum, about racism, courage, dirty floors, the Beatles.

With his loud laugh and raspy voice, plus his inept fumbles with his tape recorder, he set his subjects at ease and tugged from them memories, predictions and simple truths about their everyday existence. Terkel transcribed and edited the interviews, then compiled them into books at once intimate and sweeping, among them "Division Street," "Hard Times," "Working," and "The Good War," which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984.

Four to go at Daily News

In an email to union members, guild rep Vicki Di Paolo named the four Daily News journalists who lost their jobs this week: photographer John Lazar, features reporter Evan Henerson, business reporter Barbara Correa and sports reporter Timothy Haddock. Haddock, according to Di Paolo, took a "voluntary lay off."

From the email:

"In speaking with Dennis Healy earlier today he said these lay offs are for financial reasons - the decisions made, on who will be laid off, are very difficult to make they are all good people."

Dan the Gunmaker

Dan Cooper, founder and (former) CEO of Montana-based Cooper Firearms, a maker of fine rifles, has been forced to resign his post for his announced support of Barack Obama, USA Today reports.

Cooper, a lifelong Republican, said he felt the GOP had ventured too far right in recent years and supports the Democratic candidate's position on the war. In response, incensed gun owners and conservative bloggers formed an online firing squad and blasted the 38-person company with boycott threats.

The company responded:

"The employees, shareholders and board of directors of Cooper Firearms of Montana do not share the personal political views of Dan Cooper. Although we all believe everyone has a right to vote and donate as they see fit, it has become apparent that the fallout may affect more than just Mr. Cooper. It may also affect the employees and the shareholders of Cooper Firearms. The board of directors has asked Mr. Cooper to resign as President."

Cooper acquiesced and left the company. However, he indicated that, once the smoke clears, he might take legal action, telling the paper, "stronger measures may be forthcoming."

God and good prices

The folks behind Proposition 4, which would require minors to notify a parent before getting an abortion, are beating the bushes for votes. To that end, they've asked supporters to reach out to Latinos in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

But where would one go to find a Latino in Southern California? According to the campaign: Wal-Marts and churches (Evangelical or Catholic, take your pick).

Joe Mathews at Blockbuster Democracy has a copy of the campaign email here.

Even magazines are doing it

Condé Nast, which owns the New Yorker and Vanity Fair among others, told its publishers to trim 5 percent of their staff and cut 5 percent from their budgets. Condé Nast's Portfolio will take an even bigger hit, slashing 20 percent of its staff and publisher only 10 times a year.

Not to be outdone, Time Inc. plans to cut 6 percent of its staff - about 600 jobs. The companies best known properties are Sports Illustrated, People, Time and Fortune. That's about 600 jobs. From the New York Times:

No magazines are scheduled to close, but some are likely to be severely cut back. Ann S. Moore, Time Inc.’s chairman and chief executive, was already planning an overhaul because of the upheavals in print media, but she was forced to speed up those efforts amid the financial crisis and looming recession.

The politics of Halloween

Yet another effigy pops up (or hangs down) - this time its was an Obama doll fake bleeding from a fake hatchet wound and hanging from a Redondo Beach balcony. From the Daily Breeze:

The lynched effigy of Democratic candidate Barack Obama came down after police officers and a representative from John McCain's local campaign office paid a visit to Lisa Castaneda last night and convinced her to take it down, according to authorities.

Emotions stirred in a Redondo Beach neighborhood Wednesday when a resident hung an effigy of Sen. Barack Obama from her balcony with a meat cleaver slashed through his throat as a Halloween display.

Previous fun with effigies here and here.

P-E takes from Sun

Despite recent layoffs, the Press-Enterprise in Riverside managed to lure two journalists over from the San Bernardino Sun in recent days: prep sports reporter John "Prep Dog" Murphy and senior editor Louis Amestoy.

Daily News layoffs

At the end of what has been a bleak week for newspapers in Southern California comes word that the Daily News plans to lay off four people from editorial side - "possibly two today and two Friday," according to an email from union reps to newsroom employees.

Pimp the j

Ana Marie Cox is seeking donations to continue covering a losing presidential campaign.

(If anyone is looking to donate dollars for journalism, send it to me and I'll go cover some shit.)

Bray vs. LA Impact

The Metropolitan News-Enterprise is the first newspaper to talk to Chris Bray about his frustrations with the countywide narcotics task force LA Impact over its foot-dragging in complying with his public records requests. Bray - his latest missive to LA Impact attorney Christy O'Donnell is here - plans to file a complaint with the DA's public integrity division and threatened another lawsuit.

From the MNE story:

A former newspaper reporter who successfully sued to have a task force organized by Los Angeles County police chiefs to coordinate the battle against drug trafficking to open at least some of its meetings to the public over four years ago said yesterday he will ask District Attorney Steve Cooley’s Public Integrity Division to investigate the agency for further violations of the Ralph M. Brown Act.

Chris Bray, who once covered the Los Angeles Interagency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Crime Task Force for the Claremont Courier, also said he may file another lawsuit against the agency.

Bray and open-government activist Richard McKee of Californians Aware sued the agency, popularly known as LA IMPACT, for violating the Brown Act in 2004.

This district’s Court of Appeal ruled that the task force was subject to the act’s requirement that meetings be “open and public,” but Bray told the MetNews the organization is “playing a ridiculous game” to thwart his ability to obtain minutes and agendas from LA Impact Board of Directors meetings.

Chop, chop*

In what is the fourth round of job cuts this year, the Orange County Register announced today it will cut another 110 people, about 30 of them from the newsroom.

It's possible cuts will be announced later today at the Gannett-owned Desert Sun.

*UPDATE: The LA Weekly gets into the act.

**UPDATE II: No cuts announced at the Desert Sun, yet, but publishers at Gannett are supposed to file plans in early November for how they'll trim their employee rolls by 10 percent.

Another effigy

This time it's an Obama effigy, hung from a tree on the University of Kentucky campus.

Carr reads my blog

Well, no he doesn't, but he sums up more eloquently than I do the media angst of the week.

A blog, or not a blog?

Is Huffington Post a blog? Simon Owens argues that it's not, and in doing so indirectly raises a larger issue: The need to hack through the euphemisms that pretend to describe rather ordinary activities as something extraordinary because it happens on the Web.

I suggest we start by dropping the "new media" mantle when referring to our Internet-savvy hired guns and start describing more precisely what they actually do. Some things news organizations are doing online are new - and many things aren't. Defining which is which will not only save money by making us more efficient, it will save jobs.

WWLA? on Times cuts

LA Observed's Kevin Roderick joins Warren Olney on tonight's "Which Way, LA?" to talk about the latest newsroom cuts at the Los Angeles Times. Also on the show, the Sacramento Bee's Dan Walters to talk about the Legislature's lame-duck session and Matthew Garrahan's series on Los Angeles in the Financial Times. The show begins at 7 p.m. on 89.9 FM.

Antonovich: Palin effigy a hate crime*

L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, a staunch Republican, wants authorities to investigate the hanging of a Sarah Palin effigy outside a West Hollywood home as a hate crime. Here's the press release:

LOS ANGELES COUNTY — Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich raised concerns over a display depicting Governor Sarah Palin hung in effigy and a likeness of Senator John McCain emerging from a fiery chimney -- and directed County Counsel to work with the District Attorney to determine whether a hate crime was committed.I drive past the home on my way to work and didn't at first realize that was McCain crawling out of the faux burning chimney.

“This is a deliberate hate crime and should be condemned – had this stupid act been done to Senator Obama, there would appropriately have been a national outcry,” said Antonovich. “The definition of a hate crime includes insults, or offensive graffiti, images or letters targeting a person because of his or her membership in a certain social group including gender, sex, or political affiliation."

P.S. I drive by the house (it's on Fountain near Fairfax) on my way to work each morning. I remember first seeing the McCain effigy emerging from the chimney - although I didn't know it was supposed to be McCain. As of Oct. 29, the Palin effigy is still up.

*UPDATE: The Palin effigy came down this afternoon (10/29).

Everyone's giving 10 percent*

Gannett is no longer contemplating job cuts by year's end, it's actually doing it - to the tune of 3,000 employees, or 10 percent of its workforce, at Gannett's 85 daily newspapers.

Newpaper division president Bob Dickey dropped the memo today (h/t Gannett Blog):

As all of you are painfully aware, the fiscal crisis is deepening and the economy is getting worse. Gannett’s revenues continue to be severely impacted by this downturn, and our local operations are suffering. While we are doing our best to reduce all non staff-related expenses, I am sorry to report that we must do another round of layoffs across our division.

To that end, we will institute an involuntary staff reduction of approximately 10% by the first week of December. The terms of the severance will be one week for each year of service with a cap of 26 weeks.

Each Publisher is responsible for developing their local plan to achieve the expected goal. Decisions will be made locally because each of our markets is unique, with differing market conditions and individual needs in light of our previous reductions.

*UPDATE: USA Today, the flagship of the Gannett empire, will not be affected by the cutbacks, according to a story in Bloomberg (h/t Romenesko). In the story, a Gannett spokesperson says the "involuntary staff reduction" of 10 percent will result in "significantly less" than the 3,000 job losses Gannett Blog predicts. GB responds, saying this only makes sense if this is a 10 percent cut in payroll expenses.

In related news, I'm told folks at the Gannett-owned Desert Sun in Palm Springs have been told to gather for a mandatory staff meeting tomorrow afternoon.

Guilty on all counts

A jury has convicted Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens on seven felony counts for lying about the gifts he received from a friendly businessman. Stevens was indicted back in July and is running for re-election to the Senate.

Question: Does this throw a banana peel in front of John McCain? (I don't mean to suggest McCain has anything to do with Stevensgate, just that this is another black eye on the Republican Party in a critical week.)

Giving 10 percent*

The Los Angeles Times will fire another 75 newsroom employees, about 10 percent of its editorial workforce, Kevin Roderick at LA Observed confirms. Here's the memo from Russ Stanton:

Colleagues,

The growing economic downturn is forcing us to undergo another round of job reductions and cost cuts. I deeply regret to report that today, 75 of our friends, colleagues and capable staff members in Editorial will be told that they are losing their jobs. This is about 10% of our total staff and these cuts are comparable in scale to those made on the business side of The Times last week.

The severance terms being offered to our colleagues are similar to those offered in the other reductions we've faced this year.

I appreciate your patience, understanding and cooperation during this difficult period. Your department heads and the senior editing team, including John, Davan, Meredith and I, are available to hear your concerns and answer any questions.

Russ Stanton
Editor
Los Angeles Times

* UPDATE: Roderick has posted the names of some of those who have departed.

Poor circulation*, **

Circulation is down at nearly all of the top 25 daily newspapers. The two exceptions are the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, both of which broke even. The Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe, Houston Chronicle, Star-Ledger and AJC saw double-digit declines.

*UPDATE: It struck me in reading these numbers that the idea of the physical newspaper as a secondary source of news is solidifying among readers. I'm sure higher gas prices helped chase off those who subscribe out of mere habit. But given the fact that circulation dropped at major dailies amidst a fascinating presidential campaign and as the economy was just beginning, we're seeing more and more people rely on the Internet for news.

Most news junkies graze among the news sites throughout the day. Those who continue to subscribe to a newspaper either pour over it in the morning before heading to work (ritual) or find in it things that they can't find during the day - in-depth features, crosswords, comics, business stories and editorial/opinion pages, etc. Or, they may turn the paper later in the day when they have time to read through longer articles.

None of this is evidence that newspapers should be cutting back on editorial staff, although I'm sure it will be taken that way.

**UPDATE II: What Ken Doctor at Content Bridges has to say about it:

One big reason the numbers are declining is the product itself. In the last year, we've seen unprecedented cuts in the product -- and the customers are noticing. It looks like the amount of newsprint is down about 10-15%; some in stories, some in ads. Trusted bylines have disappeared overnight. Readers notice, and talk to their friends, and they're saying: it's not the newspaper it used to be. When the subscription notices come, they're a little less likely to be acted upon.

50 state strategy

Roughly 12,300 journalism jobs lost this year across the United States, according to Paper Cuts.

Hope

Hope + Joy = This

(starts at about minute 4)

Fear

Fear + Anger = This

(warning: slow loading)

KCRW elections page

Get yer election on at the KCRW elections page, where you can listen to insightful pieces about the presidential race on "To The Point" and get to know more about the dozens of propositions on "Which Way, LA?". Links to ballot measures, polls, candidate statements and sundry official sites also included.

Let the fracturing begin

Politico reports that Sarah Palin wants to "go more rogue" as she kicks through the fence the McCain people used to corral her the moment she was selected as McCain's running mate.

It should be clear to everyone now that the Republican Party has been running two campaigns for president - campaigns that worked together only when they were ahead. As the clock runs out, they're now competing with one another to spin a probable election loss and take hold the reins of power as the party prepares to rebuild.

Palin represents an influential piece of the Republican base that McCain needed to win over to win on Nov. 4. He never really did. That piece of the base never truly respected McCain and McCain never truly respected it. The unhappy relationship has played itself out in a bizarre but memorable ritual dance across a dwindling number of battleground states. If McCain-Palin lose, watch the body politic try to cut off its own head.

Layoffs in LANG?*, **

Looks like the revolving cost-cuts at MediaNews will result in three likely layoffs at the Long Beach Press-Telegram and Daily News of Los Angeles. In a letter to Southern California Media Guild members, guild reps note that as many as six layoffs were being considered, "which included content, production and supervisors," but "[t]he list has been trimmed to 3 and is still being reviewed."

*The letter leaves unclear whether both papers would be affected by the layoffs. I'm seeking clarification.

**From what I'm told, the layoffs would most likely occur at the Daily News.

Hot wheels

Tribune wants to squeeze DC bureau

More rumblings that the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune will merge their DC bureaus after the Nov. 4 election and that LAT bureau chief Doyle McManus will step down, maybe to return as a writer or columnist. Politico's Michael Calderone said the boys in Chicago are currently discussing consolidation plans.

Shrinking in Trenton; Gannett may cut

The Star-Ledger of Trenton, NJ has cut its newsroom nearly in half, mainly through buyouts:

Jim Willse, the Star-Ledger's editor, said Friday that the newspaper accepted 151 buyout offers from its news staff, or about 45 percent of its 334 editorial employees. He said 17 buyout applications were rejected.

Meantime, Gannett today reported weak third-quarter profits and is contemplating more job cuts by the end of the year.

Robocop

L.A. Police Chief William Bratton has recorded a robocall for the Obama campaign in response to a robocall from Rudy Giuliani, a McCain supporter, attacking Obama's record (via LA Observed). Bratton was police commissioner in New York while Giuliani was mayor; the two didn't see eye to eye.

More curious, however, is the article Bratton co-wrote in the New York Daily News warning of a potential terrorist attack from Osama bin Laden in the waning days of the campaign. Is this wholly speculative or based on intelligence?

"B" is for bullshit

If you read the Drudge Report, you saw this face posted prominently on the site - a young Texas woman and McCain volunteer allegedly the victim of an ATM robbery-turned-political assault with a backwards "B" scratched into her cheek. "B" for Barack, it's to be assumed.

The McCain camp released a statement after the initial report: "We're shaken by this. It's disgusting."

Maybe it was the fact that the "B" was backwards, or the idea that a knife-wielding robber would take the time to make such a crude political statement, but the story sounded made up to me. And it was. She's now confessed to cops.

Drudge, to his credit, linked to the story about the confession.

(h/t TPM)

Salary freeze

AH Belo Corp announced today a company-wide salary freeze effective Nov. 1. Belo owns the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, the Dallas Morning News and the Providence Journal in Rhode Island.

In addition to salary freezes, Belo has begun laying off employees as part of a plan to cut the workforce by 13% - Belo initially offered buyouts in hopes of reaching the goal. Pink slips have already hit the PE and employees at the ProJo and DMN expect them to drop as early as today.

I'm not impressed by you either

For those of you following the FOIA saga between LA Impact and Chris Bray, here's LA Impact attorney Christy O'Donnell's e-mail response to Bray:

Mr. Bray:

Correspondence has already been drafted to your October 20, 2008 letter and will be sent out via U.S. Mail advising you of your appointment next Thursday, October 30, 2008 at 7:00 am at LA IMPACT, and also addressing your allegations of Brown Act violations which lack merit and are less then professional. Thus, as they are addressed in my correspondence I will not waste my clients money repeating them here.

Anxiety in Dallas

Are layoffs looming at the Dallas Morning News?

Rural standoff

Barack Obama has a slight lead over John McCain among Real Americans, according to a Center for Rural Strategies survey. McCain had led rural voters by 10 percent as of September.

The undecided

David Sedaris ponders the elusive undecided voter in a piece for the New Yorker:

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

History

Regardless of the outcome this is an historic election.

Awkward!

John McCain and Sarah Palin sat down together for an interview with Brian Williams today that will be serialized over the next couple days.

Having watched the interaction of the two, NBC News political analyst Chuck Todd said the two seemed, well, uncomfortable with each other. That doesn't surprise me. Here's what I said about the Palin pick on Aug. 30:

...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. Republicans should worry the two will end up at odds. Will he resent her for trying to lay claim to her rightful place on the ticket? She is clearly ambitious. How will McCain respond when she tells him how to shape policy or steer the campaign? Will he accept her counsel gladly? Or bristle at being told what to do? This tension has a male-female dynamic and an insider-outsider dynamic as well.

McCain is a maverick and he wants to go it alone. He has a few close advisers he will listen to. The question now is whether he has the fortitude necessary to forge a believable-looking partnership with someone young, relatively inexperienced and highly ambitious. Because he clearly despises Obama for exhibiting these same qualities.

Buy American (copy editors)

The three guilds representing editorial employees at many of Dean Singleton's California newspapers released a joint statement criticizing a comment Singleton made on Monday about the possibility of consolidating his copy desks and then shipping the work overseas.

Here is what Singleton said:

"One thing we're exploring is having one news desk for all of our newspapers in MediaNews ... maybe even offshore."

The guilds' response:

“We understand the need for newsrooms to operate more efficiently in tough economic times,” said Sara Steffens, chair of the BANG-EB bargaining unit. “But outsourcing copy-editors is a terrible idea. The move would damage beyond repair the things readers and advertisers value most about newspapers: Our wealth of local knowledge, and our commitment to accuracy and fact-checking.”

Baltimore Sun copy editor John McIntyre had this to say:

Imagine as a comparable instance that General Motors and Ford, fighting desperately to reverse their plummeting sales and stock values, concluded that it would be smart to save money by eliminating the quality control function. Think they’d wind up selling more cars?

White powder in letter to New York Times

The New York Observer reports that an envelope containing white powder was sent to the New York Times. Police are investigating.*

Here's the email sent to NYT employees:

Folks,

At about 11:30 a.m. today an employee on the 13th floor of our headquarters building in New York opened an envelope addressed to The New York Times. A white granular substance was in the envelope. The New York City police were called and are now on site investigating. The 41st Street side of the lobby is closed but people are able to get in and out of the building. We will keep you updated on any developments.

*UPDATE: NYPD investigators do not think the substance is dangerous, according to the Observer.

Times layoffs

LA Observed has an update on the latest round of job cuts at the LA Times.

'I am not impressed by you'

In a letter that's just begging to become an exhibit in a court case, former reporter Chris Bray responds to the foot dragging of LA Impact attorney Christy O'Donnell in filling his request for some basic public records from the agency.

This might be the first time that the countywide narcotics task force has been asked to turn over public documents since Bray and government watchdog Richard McKee won a court order requiring LA Impact to come out of the shadows and comply with California's open-records and open-meetings laws.

Bray writes:

I requested public documents from your client, a public agency. State law gives public agencies ten days to respond to such requests. L.A. Impact received my request -- my second request, by the way -- on September 9, 2008 (see enclosed photocopy of U.S. Postal Service "Domestic Return Receipt," labeled as Document 1). Your letter of October 14 begins, "This letter will confirm our receipt of your correspondence, dated September 8, 2008..." (see enclosed photocopy of your October 14 letter, labeled as Document 2). No explanation for your delayed response follows. Should I wish to argue that L.A. Impact does not comply with the terms of the California Public Records Act, your own letter serves as the plainest evidence of that fact.

-snip-

[O]n Wednesday, October 15, 2008, we exchanged email in which I asked for an appointment this week to review public records at your client's office. You responded at 9:36 a.m. on that day that you would contact your client and arrange such an appointment for me. It is now 8:45 a.m. on Monday, October 20, and I have not heard from you. You had most of the day Wednesday, and all of Thursday and Friday, to arrange an appointment at a public agency to review simple public records that should be easily available.I am requesting an opportunity to review the recent agendas and minutes of a local legislative body, a set of records that any City Clerk in the state would instantly provide to me over the counter without an appointment. This is not hard.

I am not impressed by you. Do your job.

Any reporter who's faced a public agency's clumsy stonewalling will feel a tinge of recognition in reading the entire correspondence between Bray and O'Donnell.

Go West, young man... much, much farther West

Dean Singleton, speaking Monday to the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, urged his belt-tightening brethren to consider "consolidating and outsourcing news operations" in these tough economic times. From USA Today:

MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton, who also serves as chairman of the board of The Associated Press, told the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association that papers should explore outsourcing in nearly every aspect of their operations.

-snip-

Singleton said sending copyediting and design jobs overseas may even be called for.

"One thing we're exploring is having one news desk for all of our newspapers in MediaNews ... maybe even offshore," he said during the speech.

Singleton added after the speech, "In today's world, whether your desk is down the hall or around the world, from a computer standpoint, it doesn't matter."

From computer standpoint, a lot of things don't matter. Computers, for instance, don't care if you know how to do your job. They're also quite immune to concerns about quality, standards and good judgment.

But I digress.

James Macpherson, editor and publisher of pasadenanow.com, makes an appearance in the USA Today piece where he extols the virtues of hiring overseas reporters to cover local city council meetings - mainly, they're cheaper. Macpherson, who doesn't seem to think a lot of things matter either, says he's quite content if his noncorrespondents get the facts even if they don't know what those facts mean:

"You might miss the nuance of a sneer on a councilman's face but you know how he voted and what he said," he said. "That's factual and can be reported on from anywhere."

Indeed. Another place where what a councilman said and how he voted are reported without nuance is in the meeting minutes. Cost-cutting publishers can buy them from the city for a mere 10 cents a page.

A traitor in our race?

Former Inland Valley Daily Bulletin political cartoonist Gordon Campbell gives his take on Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama with a cartoon that pictures Benedict Arnold in black face. The cartoon is entitled "Benedict Powell...Race Patriot." Not surprisingly, the cartoon has gotten Campbell some attention.

Campbell, who was one of the victims of the March layoffs in LANG, had this to say about his decision to tie Powell and Arnold together in the wake of the endorsement:

"The only reasonable explanation for such a public political "about-face" in the midst of this important election is that Colin Powell, perhaps understandably, wishes to see someone who looks like himself in the White House," Campbell said.

"It's my opinion that General Powell has based his endorsement of Barack Obama on the color of his skin, not his qualifications, his experience or the content of his character."

Last day to register

Today is the last day Californians can register to vote in the Nov. 4 elections.

Arrest in voter fraud case

No, it wasn't ACORN.

Powell endorses

For what it's worth, Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama for president. Also, the Obama campaign reports raising $150 million in September.

Move 'em out

The San Jose Mercury News will consider selling its headquarters and moving into rental space to save money. Such moves are a tradition in the cut-and-consolidate MediaNews empire. The Long Beach Press-Telegram, L.A. Daily News and Torrance Daily Breeze are some of the most recent practitioners.

Credit card mentality

I've argued before that the credit card has altered our perceptions of value and is partly to blame for how consumers have spent and how banks have lent. Now here is some proof that the credit companies not only know this but have acted upon it.

LA Times sued again

A former copy editor has sued the LA Times for age discrimination, claiming he and other older editorial employees were dumped because they were "stereotypically" thought not to understand how to deal with online news.

The Tribune Co.-owned Times also faces a class-action lawsuit over alleged mismanagement of employee pension funds.

On the other side

I'm told 10 non-editorial employees got pink slips this week in the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, which encompasses the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Whittier Daily News. Editorial layoffs were limited to one.

'Anonymous' hacker to plead guilty

An 18-year-old New Jersey man has agreed to plead guilty to hacking the Church of Scientology's official website in the name of an anti-Scientology group that calls itself 'Anonymous.' He faces up to 10 years in prison. The Department of Justice press release is here.

LA Times endorses*,**

The Los Angeles Times endorses Barack Obama for president. This is the paper's first presidential endorsement since 1972, when it went for Richard Nixon.

*UPDATE: For the first time in history, the Chicago Tribune endorses the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

**UPDATE II: MediaNews mothership the Denver Post endorsed Obama as well.

The politics of e-mail

Apparently, government e-mails in Alaska get buried pretty deep inside the magical tubes, making for a costly exploration and excavation process. For example, the quoted price for copies of Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mails is $15.4 million, plus copying charges. And you thought oil drilling was a lucrative business.

Now, $15 million might at first sound unreasonable given that it cost less than $250,000 to renovate Alaska Sen. Ted Steven's home. But this is only an estimate. The real cost will be whatever the media end up paying their lawyers to win release of the e-mails in a court case that drag past Nov. 4.

The thin blue line of transparency

Way back when I wrote for newspapers, I reported on a narcotics task force formed by a group of L.A. County police chiefs called LA Impact. The police chiefs met in private to set policy for and distribute funds from task force investigations. Government watchdogs Richard McKee and Chris Bray said the police chiefs - who had expressed an interest in branching out from narcotics to domestic terrorism - had to meet in public. McKee and Bray took the cops to court and the court said the cops were breaking the law.

Flip the calendar forward a few years and Bray, who now teaches history at UCLA, got an itch to see if the police chiefs were still following the law. He sent the LA Impact governing board a letter requesting minutes from past meetings and notification of future meetings (which appear to be being held at the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District building in Santa Fe Springs). Such requests are routinely made of California's city councils and school boards and most comply. LA Impact's lawyers did their best to do the bare minimum.

Bray responds:

Thanks for your prompt reply to my request. I had hoped that LA Impact minutes and agendas were created and stored as Word files, or something similar, and could be emailed as attachments with very little cost or hassle to your client. But I would be happy to spend time in the LA Impact office instead, even if it is a substantial time commitment for us all. If I'll be required to travel to the office to read minutes every time there's a meeting of the Board of Directors, perhaps we can come up with a regular appointment time for those frequent visits. In the meantime, I'd like to schedule any morning next week after nine a.m. to review the requested minutes. I plan to read them carefully and methodically, so I may need to visit the LA Impact office quite a few times in the coming days.

Read all the letters the here.

Layoffs in Riverside*, **

Layoffs are underway at the Press-Enterprise in Riverside. A big meeting is planned for 5:30 p.m. Who and how many yet to be determined.

The newspaper just went through a round of buyouts and departures.

*UPDATE: I'm told management is looking to axe about 30 people overall, at least 10 from the editorial side.

Also, the P-E just promoted two executives to expand Spanish-language and new media initiatives.

**UPDATEII: IEPapers posts some of the names of those pink slipped today.

Bad decision-making, take two

Diane Fedele of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated created an interesting flier to "deride" Barack Obama's assertion that some critics claim he is different because he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." The group is active in Upland and Rancho Cucamonga.

To prove Obama wrong, Fedele put Obama's face on a fake food stamp and surrounded it with fried chicken, ribs, watermelon and Kool-Aid:

"It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don't want to go into it any further," Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."

Fedele tells the Press-Enterprise that she "doesn't think in racist terms."

This follows Political Byline's graphic effort to show Obama that his intimations of racism are unwarranted and a double standard.

Debate! Debate! 4

Last question is on education.

Obama: More to do with out economic and national security than any other issue. More accountability, more teachers, higher pay, parent involvement, affordable college.

McCain: Civil rights issue of the 21st century. More competition. School choice. Improve student loan system.

Should federal government get involved?

Obama: Local control but more federal involvement. "No Child Left Behind" left the money behind. More early childhood education and higher salaries in exchange for accountability. More charter schools. Opposes vouchers.

McCain: Aggressively pushes vouchers, using Washington, DC as an example. Says Head Start needs more transparency and reform... and we'll find the cause of autism.

Closing statements.

McCain: America needs a new direction. Can't do what we did the last 8 years. I have a record of reform. I've been a careful steward of your tax dollars. Have to stop the spending that mortgaged your children's futures. Spent entire life in service to the nation.

Obama: The policies of the last 8 years and Washington's unwillingness to tackle tough problems has put us in bad situation. Can't risk continuing the same failed policies and politics and expect a different result. Fundamental change is needed. Won't be easy or quick. Need spirit of sacrifice and responsibility.

Debate! Debate! 3

On to dependence on foreign oil.

McCain: We can eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East and Venezuela. Canadian oil is A-OK...within 7 to 8 years. More renewables and nuclear. Calls Obama an "extreme environmentalist" and naive on Nafta.

Obama: Ten years is realistic to get off foreign oil. More domestic drilling, but can't drill our way out of problem. Have to have more renewables, more efficient American-made cars. Advocate for American workers in trade agreements.

McCain goes after Obama for failing to understand Colombia's benefit to the U.S. Is there a big pro-Colombian vote out there? Obama brings it back to automanufacturers. McCain, in the last word, accuses Obama of being anti-free trade just like Hoover.

On to health care.

Obama calls it heartbreaking and then outlines his plan. McCain agrees and then outlines his plan. McCain revives Joe the plumber and says he'll be fined over mandates. Obama: Here's your fine, Joe: Zero. Some back and forth over Joe.

On to Supreme Court.

McCain says no litmus test on abortion, but doesn't really think a pro-Roe v. Wade jurist would meet his qualificiations. Then says Obama voted against Roberts and Breyer on ideological grounds (I think he means Roberts and Alito).

Obama says he wouldn't apply a strict litmus test either, but supports Roe v. Wade. Uses the Ledbetter case (equal pay for women) as a point of difference.

The two tussle over abortion in the classic Dem/Rep way.

Debate! Debate! 2

Now comes the question on campaign attacks. Are they willing to make the accusations their campaign have lodged to each others' faces?

McCain: "It's been a very tough campaign..." Brings up the town hall meetings proposal again as a reason he got "pretty tough." He then defends himself against the accusation by Congressman John Lewis and calls on Obama to apologize; then he hits Obama for flip-flopping on public financing.

Obama: "The American people are less interested in our hurt feelings..." Goes on to say the two camps should focus on the economy for the next three weeks.

Here comes Joe the plumber again...

Obama continues to keep turning the question on attacks back to the same point, that Americans want a different kind of debate. McCain agrees, but continues to lay out accusations, finally bringing up Ayers (I don't care about him, but we want to know about him!) and ACORN. Obama explains his relationships and then names the people he really relies on for advice. McCain once again presses ACORN and Ayers and then says his campaign is really about the economy.

How did the independents see that exchange?

On to the VP choices.

Obama" Biden fights for the little guy (is he dropping his "g"s on gerunds?) and will make a fine president if something "happens to me."

McCain: Palin a role-model to women and reformers all over America.... a reformer through and through...A freath of bresh air.

Obama doesn't criticize Palin but says special needs kids need more funding, which you can't do under a spending freeze. McCain criticizes Biden for "cockamamie" ideas about partitioning Iraq and then says Obama's answer to everything is more spending.

Debate! Debate!

Last debate between Obama and McCain. Here we go...

McCain makes a point of making eye contact with Obama at the start before getting into his economic proposals. As he goes, he starts to channel Hillary Clinton in talking about mortgage relief to troubled homeowners. Obama sounds wonky as he tries to weave through his point.

McCain accuses Obama of wanting to raise taxes on Joe the plumber. Obama says Joe the plumber has been watching too many of McCain's commercials. McCain accuses Obama of waging class warfare and, in so many words, embracing wealth redistribution. (How many reporters are on the Internet right now trying to track down Joe the plumber?)

McCain reiterates his call for an across-the-board spending freeze and a line item veto, returns to his earmark attack against Obama. Obama tries to shift the conversation back to George Bush's economic record.

McCain: "Sen. Obama, I'm not President Bush..."
Obama: "When it comes to economic policies, essentially what you are proposing is eight more years of the same thing..."
And there you have the nut graf of the debate.

History must be a Democrat

The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in ourselves, but in our stars...

The downward trend line steepens

The economy is bad and getting badder, and a bad economy is bad for newspapers, which are already struggling from a bunch of bad news. Alan Mutter has the stats:

Unless the global economy miraculously turns around on a dime, newspaper advertising revenue may plunge some $7.5 billion in 2008, according to a new projection attempting to assess the impact of the meltdown on the industry.

Should this forecast prove to be correct, sales would tumble by 16.5% to $37.9 billion from last year’ s depressed level and the industry will have lost a staggering 23.4% of its revenues since producing a record $49.4 billion in sales in 2005.

Children of the corn

Another teen abandoned at a safe-haven site in Nebraska:

The 13-year-old told officers his mother said as she left him, "Just do what you have to do, and I'll check back with you soon." He had luggage, extra clothes and $10, according to an affidavit.

-snip-

The youth is in Nebraska custody under the state's controversial safe haven law, which allows parents to relinquish children up to age 18 to the custody of the state, while most states, including Michigan, permit only the abandonment of newborns and infants.

Collaboration celebration

Former Los Angeles Times reporters Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber, both now with ProPublica, got the Legislature's attention with an investigation into the criminal backgrounds of licensed nurses. The story ran as a "special to the Times" and is called a collaborative effort between the newspaper and the non-profit investigative unit.

On the outside now

My exit from newspapers was nowhere near as dramatic as Steven Smith's resignation from the Spokesman-Review, but I strongly agree with his sense of what we on the perimeter should be concerned about. Asked if there was any place for the old-guard newspapermen in the news world order, Smith said:

It’s absolutely not going to be like it was. It never can be. What I try to emphasize is that the values that are at the core of our calling, the Fourth Estate value, the defending the defenseless value, the telling people what we know when we know it value, holding up and honoring and perpetuating those core values ought now to be our mission.

I'm not out to save newspapers. It may not be possible to save newspapers. But it ought to be possible to save journalism.

Voter registration

Final day to register to vote in California is Monday, Oct. 20.

Taking both roads

In the wake of the terrorist-sympathizer-tinged attacks against Barack Obama, some in the media have busied themselves constructing a rescue-boat narrative that says John McCain is desperately trying to dial back the nastiness, but that he has been thwarted by some invisible hand.

Here's Roger Simon of Politico making that case:

There are those whispering in McCain’s ear that if he gets into the gutter, he can get into the White House. Ads are not enough, they tell him. He must launch the attacks personally and without reservation.

But honor is still an important word to John McCain. He would like to win the presidency and retain his honor.

Some tell him he cannot do both. At this point, however, he is trying.

A second, emerging narrative is that McCain has welcomed the invisible hand even as he appears to take the high road on the stump - and that the invisible hand carries the fingerprints of Karl Rove.

Which narrative is more true?

The GOP tactic of negative attack is now so routinely attributed to Rove that it may not matter if he's involved personally or the ghost in the machine.

But Simon's argument fails to take into account very recent history. In St. Paul, Republicans spent two nights tearing into Obama (including from a VP nominee he never really respected) before McCain came out on the third to give a speech heavily laced with post-partisan rhetoric. At that point it was clear McCain had embraced cognitive dissonance in an effort to simultaneously whip up the base and run a campaign of ideas and honor. What we are seeing now is the downside of an inherently unstable strategy that held together only as long as McCain remained tied or ahead in the polls. With the base now worried about a loss, they have amplified the attacks to the point that the ideas side is being drowned out. McCain must now spend time and energy trying to regain control in a turbulence of his own making.

Wind and fire

Guy McCarthy has been covering the fire near Porter Ranch and the winds that are whipping up flames across the Southland:

"It was hell, hell in the mountains," said Abdessamad Elyamani, a doctor who feared for the lives of his wife and children as Santa Ana winds hurled a storm of flames and embers into their hillside community.

McCarthy also gets the photo credit.

Comings and goings

Several changes to report at the Daily News of Los Angeles (via LA Observed). Kerry Cavanaugh moves from City Hall to become an editorial writers, John Miller moves from night city editor to full-fledged City Editor, Jason Kandel becomes online news editor, and Barbara Jones takes over as special projects editor.

LANGers should pay attention to the last line of DN Editor Carolina Garcia's memo regarding the Jones move, in which she says Jones will "work closely with Oscar [Garza] as we explore new weekly sections aimed at bringing in new readers for the Daily News and other LANG papers."

When I see "new readers" I generally think "new revenues" and that generally means special advertorial sections. Anyone know what's being planned?

Another layoff in LANG

Tim Berger, new media editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, was laid off this morning. He has worked for the group for well over a decade. Editorial employees were told that this is the only layoff planned between now and the end of the fiscal year.

SGVN is part of the larger LANG cohort and consists of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, the Pasadena Star-News and the Whittier Daily News.

What bad decision-making looks like

The blogger "Libertarian Conservative" at Political Byline has posted an angry and racially charged attack ad aimed at Barack Obama. And when I say angry and racially charged, I mean the ad pictures the black Democratic candidate alongside a noose with the words "asphyxiation" and "The Fucking Solution."

See the ad here.

The 36-year-old blogger (he lives in Detroit and suffers from ADD - read his "about me" page) claims he put up the ad as a frustrated response to nasty attacks leveled against Sarah Palin by "Anti-American, God Hating, Baby Killing, Fascist bastards" - a taste of their own medicine, in other words.

He has this to say to any liberals who doesn't get his point:

It seems that a few Liberals have spotted this posting and one even wants to organize to get my ads pulled. Good luck with that! Anyhow, any liberal who doesn’t get it, is just terminally stupid.

(Hat tip to Simon Owens at Bloggasm for pointing me to the site.)

Douthat asks

Is the McCain campaign playing to stereotype?

Also, ABC News finds that the lines of attack on Obama have left the McCain camp looking out of touch on the issues in the eyes of registered voters.

Slaves to the algorithm

Dip below the surface of the credit crisis and you'll find yourself immersed in a cloudy soup of strange financial instruments - credit default swaps, mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations.

Even the term "financial instrument" fails to do the job of explaining what's at the center of this crisis, especially when prefixed with words like exotic, esoteric or toxic. Clearly, though, what we have is an economy within an economy that creates value out of its ability to make a transaction rather than the production of any tangible thing.

But in what space do these instruments exist? How is their value calculated? Are they fact or fiction?

In today's NYT, Richard Dooling locates the derivative inside algorithms being processed by computers and asks, is our credit economy at the mercy of the machine?

Somehow the genius quants — the best and brightest geeks Wall Street firms could buy — fed $1 trillion in subprime mortgage debt into their supercomputers, added some derivatives, massaged the arrangements with computer algorithms and — poof! — created $62 trillion in imaginary wealth. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that all of that imaginary wealth is locked up somewhere inside the computers, and that we humans, led by the silverback males of the financial world, Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson, are frantically beseeching the monolith for answers. Or maybe we are lost in space, with Dave the astronaut pleading, “Open the bank vault doors, Hal.”

-snip-

When Treasury Secretary Paulson (looking very much like a frightened primate) came to Congress seeking an emergency loan, Senator Jon Tester of Montana, a Democrat still living on his family homestead, asked him: “I’m a dirt farmer. Why do we have one week to determine that $700 billion has to be appropriated or this country’s financial system goes down the pipes?”

“Well, sir,” Mr. Paulson could well have responded, “the computers have demanded it.”

Putting the rabbit back in the hat

Chris Bray writes about one of my favorite issues: the false economy of credit (two of my better posts here and here). In his criticism of the bailout plan, he pens a classic line: "[W]e're working frantically to prop up the dying fiction."

I agree with the line but am more sanguine about the bailout package. I don't know if it's the best deal we could get and I'm a little disturbed about the capitulations Paulson has reportedly made in the prelude to injecting capital directly into the arteries of struggling banks, but I don't think we can break our credit addiction cold turkey.

We'll have to demand the next White House, the next Congress and the next generation help deliver us from derivatives and start to face the fundamental weaknesses of our economy - namely, that we consume (often using credit) what others makes. Loosening the levers of credit is not a solution to the credit crisis, because the crisis isn't that we have too little credit.

On those capitulations, here's a troubling passage from today's NYT (h/t Media Nation):

Industry executives quickly told Mr. Paulson that they liked the idea, though they warned that the Treasury should not try to squeeze out existing shareholders. They also begged Mr. Paulson not to impose tough restrictions on executive pay and golden-parachute deals for executives who are fired.

Mr. Paulson heeded those pleas. In his remarks on Friday, he carefully noted that the government would acquire only “nonvoting” shares in companies. And officials said the law lets the Treasury write most of its own restrictions on executive pay, and those restrictions can be lenient if they are applied to a set of fairly healthy companies.

Sunday shorts

Content Bridges lauds the Alaska Daily News coverage of Troopergate.

Speaking of Sarah Palin, she remains a lightning rod in the Dem/Rep culture wars.

Eastside LA offers some interesting stats for the area ($300 for an acre of land!).

Finally, is Foothill Cities blog still offline? Yep.

Ratings game*

Franklin Avenue reports the ratings for public radio stations in Southern California and classical music comes out on top. KCRW, my employer, comes in fourth. Here's the list from Arbitron:

KUSC - 756,400
KPCC - 557,900
KKJZ - 400,900
KCRW - 322,100
KPFK - 187,900

*UPDATE: On the other side of the public-private divide, CBS Radio announced layoffs at KFWB and KNX, and KFWB has shuttered its Orange County and Long Beach bureaus (h/t LA Observed).

Three via LAO

Charles Gerencser, publisher of LA CityBeat and former VP of sales at the Pasadena Weekly, is leaving to join the Obama campaign.

Carolina Garcia, editor of the Daily News of Los Angeles, presses diversity in the newsroom.

The Orange County Register will trim 30 editorial positions in the never-ending race for less is more, and Register editor Ken Brusic may be one of the first to go.

Deep thoughts

Simon Owens, who blogs at Bloggasm and writes for PBS MediaShift, interviewed me and a few other writers a couple weeks ago about the challenges of publishing a private blog while working as a professional journalist. My answers were a bit rambling but the story turned out well.

I'd be interested to hear what my cadre of readers think on the subject. Comment section is thirsting for your wisdom.

Incidentally, I am not of the opinion that objective journalism is some false notion that we should do away with in the name of honesty.

7 in San Diego*

Seven media companies, including sometimes-partners MediaNews Group and Stephens Media, have made the swing through San Diego to take a look at the Union-Tribune, which is up for sale.

This isn't the first report that MediaNews owner Dean Singleton has shown an interest in the Union-Tribune.

The other visitors include Platinum Equity, Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Cos., Sam Zell's Tribune Co., local TV station KUSI and Canadian publisher Black Press.

*UPDATE: Make that eight potential suitors - The New York Times Co. has also sent representatives to look at the U-T. Editor & Publisher rightly throws cold water on the notion that the NYT would buy in California after dumping the Santa Barbara News-Press and picks Singleton and the likely buyer. If Singleton does do the deed, I'd bet he does so with a partner or two.

New editor in Spokane

Gary Graham, 59, will succeed Steven Smith as editor of the Spokesman-Review. Smith, as you'll remember, resigned last week in the face of major cutbacks at the paper.

Graham, whom I've had the pleasure of meeting and who is not a slash-and-burner, moves up from the managing editor position to lead a paper that will, in the end, have three-quarters of the editorial staff it has now.

Anger management

A slipping American economy has left many people angry. The $700-billion rescue package has made them even angrier. The McCain campaign has a plan to capitalize on that anger in the race for the White House. The plan's name is Sarah Palin.

Dana Milbank writes:

Barack Obama, she told 8,000 fans at a rally here Monday afternoon, "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist!" This followed her earlier accusation that the Democrat pals around with terrorists. "This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she told the Clearwater crowd. "I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country." The crowd replied with boos.

McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

More Times cuts

The Los Angeles Times will trim another 75 editorial positions, according to Kevin Roderick at LA Observed, with the aim of bringing the total number down to 650.

Like a heart attack (Updated)

A false report showed up on CNN's iReport claiming Apple founder Steve Jobs had suffered a major heart attack. Proof that whether you call it "citizen" journalism or blogging or the next best thing in news, you still have to do the basics - like fact-checking.

UPDATE: Another basic, as Ken Doctor at Content Bridges points out, is labeling what is news and what is opinion. However, I don't think Doctor fully takes into account the uncontrollable urge CNN and other mainstream media outlets have in blurring the lines between commentary, opinion and news. They called it iReport because they wanted readers and contributors to consider the content as some form of journalism. The blurred line gives CNN more hits without much expense and gives the company some street cred in the world of "citizen" journalism. To use an economic metaphor, CNN wanted to benefit from the upside while minimizing the risk on the downside. We all see how well that worked in the housing market.

UPDATE II: Wired.com speculates as to whether the author of the erroneous iReport could get prison time.

News unit zappa

Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine says he's found a version of the thing he says will replace the news article as the "fundamental unit of news coverage."

The thing he has found is an interesting blog post by Mark Thompson called The Money Meltdown. It's a smart, clean-looking page of links to other people's work, including news articles, radio pieces and video clips. Basically, a collection of stories Thompson considers to be insightful reading/listening/viewing on the economic crisis.

Maybe I'm thick, but I don't see how a collection of stuff represents a "fundamental" unit. Thompson built his page on the original reporting of outside sources, all of which can stand on its own. Original reporting, then, is the fundamental unit.

Stitching together original stories to create a larger narrative arc is important, but it's not the revolution that Jarvis exhorts it to be. Online technology does allow for linkages that couldn't otherwise have been made at a single newspaper or television station of old, but unless some or all of that reporting is done under your own masthead, it's news coverage twice removed. As I argued in my unsolicited response to Alan Mutter's praise of Drudge Report, aggregation can be useful and illuminating, but it's hardly the thing we've been waiting for.

In Texas

I'm visiting family this week, so there may be fewer postings than usual.

You fill in the blanks

Education revolution or LA Daily News historical site?

Pornographer sentenced to jail

A Florida judge has sentenced pornographer Paul F. Little of Altadena to 46 months in prison for violating obscenity laws. Not sure if he plans to appeal on First Amendment grounds, but he did offer an apology:

Before he was sentenced, Little apologized to the court and said the videos and DVDs in question were labeled and intended for the more permissive European market, not for sale in the United States.

Bailout bill passes

In its second try in a week, the House of Representatives passes by a vote of 263-171 a $700-billion bill to "rescue" the credit markets from collapse.

The subprime mortgage meltdown picture book

See Jane sell a bad mortgage. See Dick buy the bad mortgage and bundle it with other bad mortgages, creating a collateralized debt obligation he can sell to institutional investors. Sell, Dick, sell!

A picture book account of how the subprime mortgage mess tanked our economy. There's a few words, too. (Note: The link is to a Power Point file.)

Slashing in Spokane

The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington has announced that it will cut as many as 27 newsroom employees (a quarter of its editorial staff), prompting Editor Steven Smith to announce his resignation after six years at the helm.

From the story:

The Spokesman-Review will cut about one-fourth of its editorial staff this month, laying off as many as 27 employees in a move its publisher says is a reaction to economic conditions of the newspaper industry.

Steven A. Smith, who has been the newspaper's editor for more than six years, is resigning as part of the reductions, which he called devastating to the news operation. The newsroom cuts will affect writers, editors, photographers and support staff.

-snip-

Publisher W. Stacey Cowles said the reductions were "nothing unusual" and a reaction to the economics of the newspaper industry.

The job cuts are part of a plan to save more than $1 million a year. The paper also will shrink in size from 13 inches down to 11.

Earlier this week, Smith criticized MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton's stewardship of the Associated Press and his claim that the AP had become a "whipping boy for an angry bunch of editors who want to blame somebody for their woes." Smith said in response:

Now Mr. Singleton has never shown much interest in maintaining strong local news staffs. He talks about supporting strong local journalism. I've heard him. But the record tells the real story. With the possible exception of the Denver Post, he has gutted newspaper after newspaper, leaving gray shadows, lingering ghosts of once fine, even great news organizations. Of course, in Singleton's world, AP is a bargain. It's far cheaper to fill your papers with AP copy than local reporting.

Poll wars

Whatever political polls really mean, they do affect public perception and public perception affects campaign coverage. To that end, Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight calls out RealClearPolitics for bias, alleging that the site cherry picks poll results that favor John McCain to include in its rolling averages.

Whether fudging the numbers would actually help McCain, or hurt him, is hard to say. On the one hand, favorable polling might bolster enthusiasm for the candidate, influencing volunteerism and donations. On the other hand, it might instill a false sense of security that slows a necessary change in tactics.

Either way, the real clear issue here is ethics among pollsters. I'll post any responses I find to Silver's allegations when I find them.

Funny

From LA Observed: In his wager with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley on the outcome of the playoff series between the Dodgers and the Cubs, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has put up LA Times owner Sam Zell. If the Cubs win, Chicago gets Zell back. If the Dodgers win, Chicago gets Zell back... as a consolation prize.

Oh, and the Dodgers won the opener, 7-2.

Gotcha

In the wake of the Couric interviews, John McCain has claimed that questions put to Sarah Palin have amounted to "gotcha" journalism. Palin herself said this, "I have a degree in journalism... so it surprises me that so much has changed since I received my education in journalistic ethics all those years ago."

So Portfolio asked Abubakar Alhassan, who teaches media ethics at the University of Idaho School of Journalism and Mass Media, where Palin earned her degree, whether she's been a victim of unethical reporting. Here's what he said:

"I think the media that's had the opportunity to interview her was just giving her that opportunity to explain to people the controversies out there she hasn't hasn't spoken about," he says. "I don't think they asked any 'gotcha' questions. I don't think a question about which it turns out she doesn't know much is a 'gotcha' question."

Read the rest of the entire story here. (via Romenesko)

22 seconds

The National Transportation Safety Board released a memo today that says the engineer of the Metrolink train that crashed into a Union Pacific freight train on Sept. 12 in Chatsworth, killing 25 people, sent a text message on his cell phone 22 seconds before the collision.

Read the memo here.

You can hear more about the NTSB's findings on tonight's "Which Way, LA?" at 7 p.m. on 89.9 FM or online.

Credit crisis hits state budget

California Treasurer Bill Lockyer warns that the credit crunch could lead to a cash shortage.

Obama sign burned

An Obama campaign sign was torched in Altadena and the sheriff's hate-crimes unit is on the case.

BANG publisher steps down*

MediaNews announced today that John Armstrong, president and publisher of the Bay Area News Group-East Bay, will step down as of October 17. David Rounds, vice president of circulation at the San Jose Mercury News, will replace Armstrong. That, and a few other personnel moves in the Bay Area, detailed here.

*UPDATE: Looks like this was more of a 'pushed out' than a 'stepped down.' As Armstrong tells his own Contra Costa Times:

BANG leadership "concluded that I didn't have the skill set that really was a good fit for the company as it moves forward," said Armstrong, a 45-year newspaper veteran who said he was told of the move last week.

Indeed, Armstrong rose from the editorial ranks and Rounds, his replacement, comes from circulation and advertising. If Southern California is any guide, this move is a harbinger of a further consolidation of operations among Singleton's East Bay papers. Already they share content, but look for them to consolidate copy desk and editorial functions, and then to reduce original content by producing core sections that will run in multiple papers - same features pages, same sports pages, same business pages, same inside-A pages (I'm sure some of this is happening now, especially at the smaller papers like the Hayward Daily Review and Fremont Argus, but I'd guess it will only accelerate).