Alpine rescue

Guy McCarthy at Watershed News reports on today's mountain rescue high above Palm Springs:

Alpine-trained volunteers and a helicopter crew today plucked two overdue climbers high off the north face of Mount San Jacinto, one of the steepest escarpments in the continental United States.

-snip-

The rugged drainages of Snow Creek and Falls Creek rise from about 1,400 feet at Snow Creek Village to San Jacinto's summit at just over 10,800 feet elevation. The north face direct route requires more than 9,000 feet of walking, scrambling and technical climbing - including snow and ice in ideal conditions.

"It's a classic alpine route when the snow is right," said RMRU volunteer Pete Carlson, 59, of Lake Arrowhead, who has climbed the north face route a half-dozen times. "You can do it in 12 hours when the route is hard underfoot."

Four in the morning

The Columbus Dispatch to cut 45 staffers ... The Los Angeles Times ends California section today ... Is the pen mightier than the (concealed) pistol? ... What sells is what's being cut

Consolidation creep

The Philadelphia Daily News will soon be printed as an edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer, a move the company that owns the papers says will save on wire copy costs and assist in ad sales. Coincidentally, the company filed for bankruptcy protection last week.

The rant of a Boulder congressman

As the left laughs at the Republican Party's show of obedience to conservative talk radio, they might want to start worrying about the hubris of some in the progressive blogosphere who seem giddy at the prospect of starring in their own political puppet theater routine.

From the Denver Post:

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who made his fortune selling greeting cards and flowers online, gave a shout-out to the blogosphere Saturday, giving it — and himself — credit for the "demise" of traditional journalism.

"I have to say, that when we say, 'Who killed the Rocky Mountain News,' we're all part of it, for better or worse, and I argue it's mostly for the better," Polis said at the Netroots Nation in Your Neighborhood event in Westminster, according to a recording posted online. The group supports progressive politics.

"The media is dead, and long live the new media, which is all of us," said Polis, a Boulder Democrat.

A little paper that couldn't

The closure of the Rocky Mountain News last week rocked the newspaper industry, but a few weeks earlier another newspaper died a quieter death. The Oak Cliff Tribune, a 3,500-circulation weekly in Dallas, Texas, published its final edition on Feb. 5.

Calling all cars, be on the lookout for easy money

The California Legislature has tacked a few new fees onto the cost of a traffic ticket to pay for a variety of special projects. The San Francisco Chronicle breaks down what the $490 fine to run a red light pays for.

The Legislature also raised the price of a fix-it ticket on Jan. 1 to pay for courthouse construction.

A researcher at St. Louis Federal Reserve recently did a study showing how governments turn to traffic tickets as a way to boost revenues in hard times.

(h/t LA Observed)

Losing the beat

Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Weintraub is moderating a forum on his paper's website that asks readers to respond to this question: "What is the public's stake in the future of newspapers?"

I'd like to submit David Simon's March 1 article in the Washington Post as my answer. It's a cops story written by someone who knows the beat. Before Simon created "The Wire" and other celebrated TV shows, he covered the Baltimore police for the Baltimore Sun. He knows the daily rituals of gathering information and the stonewalling and obfuscation thrown up by people in power who want to avert critical eyes.

Simon is also keenly aware of the need for the press to stand as institutions against those institutions in society that have the power to shape our lives - and even take them.

The article is about a shooting. A police officer named Traci McKissick struggles with a 61-year-old man for control of her gun. McKissick and another officer shoot the man and he dies. The story, of course, is in the details - details officials want to hide from public view, details fewer and fewer journalists are around to uncover:

There is a lot of talk nowadays about what will replace the dinosaur that is the daily newspaper. So-called citizen journalists and bloggers and media pundits have lined up to tell us that newspapers are dying but that the news business will endure, that this moment is less tragic than it is transformational.

Well, sorry, but I didn't trip over any blogger trying to find out McKissick's identity and performance history. Nor were any citizen journalists at the City Council hearing in January when police officials inflated the nature and severity of the threats against officers. And there wasn't anyone working sources in the police department to counterbalance all of the spin or omission.

I didn't trip over a herd of hungry Sun reporters either, but that's the point. In an American city, a police officer with the authority to take human life can now do so in the shadows, while his higher-ups can claim that this is necessary not to avoid public accountability, but to mitigate against a nonexistent wave of threats. And the last remaining daily newspaper in town no longer has the manpower, the expertise or the institutional memory to challenge any of it.

At one point last week, after the department spokesman denied me the face sheet of the shooting report, I tried doing what I used to do: I went to the Southeastern District and demanded the copy on file there.

When the desk officer refused to give it to me, I tried calling the chief judge of the District Court. But Sweeney's replacement no longer handles such business. It's been a while since any reporter asked, apparently. So I tried to explain the Maryland statutes to the shift commander, but so long had it been since a reporter had demanded a public document that he stared at me as if I were an emissary from some lost and utterly alien world.

Which is, sadly enough, exactly true.

(h/t Romenesko)

Four in the morning

U.S. journalist arrested in Iran ... "...the best journalism in Los Angeles: The New York Times" ... Where the hot air came from to inflate the credit bubble ... Tesco's Fresh & Easy stores stuck in the quicksand of America's economic crisis

A note to readers

The situation facing newsrooms across the country, and especially in Southern California, is dire. Whether blogs like this one do any good shedding light on the dismantling process is for others to decide. But the comments section has too often sunk itself into irrelevance with anonymous personal attacks on newspaper managers. Initially, I thought the comments would police themselves, but maybe too many people have been laid off in recent years to keep the conversation rational. Or maybe one or two people with deep grudges can't help themselves. Either way, I ask that this name calling stop, because an echo chamber full of "he's a douchebag"s isn't going to make it with anyone anyhow.

Salt Lake Tribune trims op-ed pages

We're as angry as you are by what we've done.

Calling on citizens

The New York Times is set to launch a handful of "citizen journalism" sites on Monday, collectively to be called The Local. The reporting will be overseen by two Times staffers, who will in turn be overseen by a Times deputy metro editor.

In some ways, this is a return to newspapers' roots. Local reporters and editors traditionally relied on strong community ties to develop stories and shape coverage. The Internet offers near infinite space to allow these sources to record their own thoughts and observations, and help spark discussions that go into specifics that a general-interest paper shouldn't. It seems reasonable that a newspaper would build a centralized online forum, and the Times, despite recent financial turmoil, is one of the few papers with the resources to put something like this together.

But newspapers should be careful of two things. First, they should not allow "citizen journalism" to replace professional reporting. If someone, anyone, puts together a story that's worthy of running in the paper and meets strict editorial standards, that person should be paid for the work. Would it make sense to ask an excellent amateur chef to cook for free making dishes for sale in a restaurant? At some point, the "citizen" crosses over a boundary and the people making money off the work have a responsibility to drop the "volunteer" bullshit and pony up.

(Unfortunately, the trend of deprofessionalizing journalism is going to continue, and not because newspaper owners want to encourage open debate. It's a way for debt-ridden chains to drive down wages and benefits - maybe even eliminate them altogether for certain content.)

Second, papers need be mindful of the 'city council effect'. Anyone who's covered City Hall for a living knows the score. Very few people in a community have the time or inclination to get involved in multiple community issues. They usually show up when they feel passionate about something - a change in zoning near their home or child's school, traffic problems in their neighborhood, a plan to build a Wal-Mart at the end of the block. Once the issue is resolved, the council room empties, except for staff, a few activists and a gadfly or two - these are the stalwarts of public debate.

Ensuring an open, interesting and diverse citizen forum will be difficult. It will take time and money. Hopefully the Times invests both.

Daily News goes to Gardena

The Daily News and the Long Beach Press-Telegram will both outsource their printing operations to Gardena-based Southwest Offset Printing, the same company that prints the Torrance Daily Breeze. All of this appears to be part of a plan to sell the Daily News-owned printing plant in Valencia.

As noted in the preceeding post, the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group will outsource printing of its three papers to the Orange County Register.

OC Register to print San Gabriel Valley newspapers

The San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group - San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star-News and Whittier Daily News - today announced plans to outsource the printing of its papers to the Orange County Register.

Rod Leveque reports at the group's Economic Alert blog:

The papers had been published at a facility in Valencia owned by the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, which includes the Tribune, Star-News and Whittier Daily News. The move is part of a larger effort by the group to restructure its printing and production operations.

According to CEO of LANG, Ed Moss, "Outsourcing our printing will enable us to reallocate vital resources to our editorial and advertising sales efforts and refocus on our core mission of being the premium local content provider in the communities we serve."

I'm told LANG plans to sell the Valencia plant, which also prints the Daily News, within the next few months. The announcement here would seem to add credence to this.

Four in the morning

California's unemployment rate hits 10.1 percent ... Layoffs at Latham & Watkins: Even lawyers aren't safe ... How good is Obama's cross-over left? ... Obituary for former state lawmaker Nell Soto

The electric newspaper

Fortune reports that Hearst Corp, owner of the imperiled San Francisco Chronicle and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, is working to develop a Kindle-like electronic reader for newspapers. (via Romenesko)

Thug politics in Cudahy

Freelance reporter Jeffrey Anderson and LA City Beat senior editor Matthew Fleischman detail the rough politics of Cudahy, a city with about 26,000 residents, 1,000 registered voters, and "a dark side":

The images are grainy, but surveillance video from the night of October 26, 2008, is clear enough to show a hooded thug run up to the home of Cudahy City Council candidate Luis Garcia and hurl a brick at his front window. Seconds later, Garcia emerges from his house in a full sprint, clad only in his underwear, chasing after the assailant.

In the last 18 months, police reports show unknown assailants have launched a half dozen similar attacks on his house and property – including a Molotov cocktail assault that scorched the front end of his truck just feet from his home.

-snip

On March 3, the 1.2-square mile city in southeast L.A. County will hold just its second election in 10 years. The last election, in 2007, ended in a razor-thin, 33-vote defeat for Garcia and his running mate Daniel Cota, amidst allegations of electioneering and gang influence at the polls. That same election saw challenger Tony Mendoza drop out of the race after receiving telephone death threats.

Under reported

The story that the San Francisco Chronicle planned mass layoffs, and might even put itself up for sale, sparked heated speculation about what it all means for the newspaper industry, for Bay Area readers, for the workers, for Hearst Corp's various newspaper partners...

Indeed, there seemed to be a lot of room to speculate given all the questions left unanswered. David Cay Johnston, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, think he knows why - the Chronicle failed to do what it's supposed to do: cover the story.

Johnston lays out what went missing:

Not one word makes it into the paper from Chronicle unions, whose contracts Hearst CEO Frank Bennack wants to “quickly” rewrite with “significant” concessions under threat of closing the newspaper.

Not one word from others with an interest in whether the Chronicle dies after 144 years—say, interviews with the mayor, city supervisors, major advertisers, political scientists, or perhaps just a few scattered longtime readers.

Not one word from, say, an authoritative voice on Bay Area journalism like Alan D. Mutter, or from the Chronicle’s most severe critic, Bruce B. Brugmann, owner of the Bay Guardian.

And not one word about the changes in ownership of the Bay Area’s twenty-one newspapers, Hearst’s role in financing ownership changes in places like San Jose and the East Bay, and their meaning in the context of the demands for job cuts and, no doubt, reductions in wages and benefits and relaxation of work rules.

Rocky Mountain News to close*, **

AP reports that the Rocky Mountain News will close after Friday:

DENVER (AP) — E.W. Scripps says the Rocky Mountain News in Denver will publish its last edition Friday.

The company announced on the newspaper's Web site Thursday that its search for a buyer for the paper was unsuccessful.

*Updated 12:18 p.m.: The Rocky Mountain News has posted a story, which says Scripps still plans to sell "the masthead, archives and Web site" of the paper in a deal that excludes the agency that ran the paper with the Denver Post. The story ends with what seems to be a lament that even good work couldn't save the day:

In the past decade, the Rocky has won four Pulitzer Prizes, more than all but a handful of American papers. Its sports section was named one of the 10 best in the nation this week. Its business section was cited by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers as one of the best in the country last year. And its photo staff is regularly listed among the best in the nation when the top 10 photo newspapers are judged.

**Updated 2:17 p.m.: The Denver Post is hiring some of the Mountain News journalists. Dean Singleton says the Rocky's demise will help the Post financially. (via Romenesko)

Campaign derby

Board of Equalization Vice Chairwoman Judy Chu is scheduled to kick-off her campaign for Congress tomorrow. Chu has hired veteran political strategist Parke Skelton to run her campaign. Chu's chief rival in the race, State Sen. Gil Cedillo, has hired strategist Leo Briones, husband of former state Sen. Martha Escutia.

Dadaism?

I'm stumped.