Newstradamus

Paresh Nath/National Herald, India

Two questions about the opinion page popped up recently from several different readers that deserve some discussion.

The first, which I usually hear following an editorial related to a governmental meeting of some type, goes something like, “Your editorial misrepresented what occurred. I didn’t see you there. How can you write an editorial if you weren’t there?”

While I have been known to tiptoe into a meeting now and then (often when fireworks are expected), it’s true that most of the time I am not in attendance. Sometimes I watch on public access television, but most of the time a surrogate (a Times-Standard reporter) will have been there. The basis for the editorial could be their news story, a discussion with the reporter, a call to a key player at the meeting, or the editorial writer’s knowledge of the issue. (Most of the local editorials are written by me, but occasionally it could be another member of the Editorial Board.)

No doubt that’s how people form opinions about issues a majority of the time — sifting various source inputs through the filter of one’s experience and reasoning, rather than direct observation. For instance, everyone has an opinion about the war in Iraq, yet how many actually have been “on the ground” there? Relatively few of us.

I have to keep reminding myself of the “Rashomon Effect”: The same event may be seen differently depending upon one’s perspective. That why readers often get upset if they don’t agree with an editorial, calling it “biased.” Editorials are inherently biased in that they are subjective opinions. If you agree with them, of course, they are the epitome of reasoned logic.

The other question heard a number of times lately is why “My Word” guest columns are — as our guidelines state — “reserved for regional issues and related items of high local interest.” Isn’t a My Word column about the Iraq war, one reader asked, of high local interest?

It certainly is, and that’s why we cover Iraq-related issues both in the news columns and in syndicated columns on the opinion page. But since the Times-Standard is first and foremost focused on North Coast issues, we feel the guest column feature should do the same.

That’s not to say that a local writer couldn’t have a unique or in-depth perspective about a national, world or state subject that would interest our readers and enhance their understanding. To continue to use Iraq as an example, we might consider a My Word from an area soldier who served a tour there, or an Iraqi living in Humboldt County, or a retired government official here who had been involved in mapping war strategy.

However, a 750-word My Word column (our length limit) by an average citizen lacking special expertise is not significantly more valuable than a 250-word letter to the editor. Letters are a great outlet for those who want their voice heard, and we make every effort to publish all that we receive.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 05:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Ward Bushee

Hardly any time elapsed after my blog about a former colleague, Jim O'Shea, being bounced as editor of the Los Angeles Times than another — Ward Bushee — was tapped to be editor at the San Francisco Chronicle.

At one time, Ward and I were editors in the Gannett group, and in fact he was my predecessor as editor of the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D. Interesting story: Ward editorialized that National Guard maneuvers were dangerous, and was persuaded to go along on a training flight so he could see how safe it was. The pilots, who I suspect were showboating, clipped wings and crashed. Ward — strapped in his seat — was catapulted through the canopy and a ball of flame. He survived, but had severe burns and a neck injury.

The incident prompted Gannett to institute what came to be called the Bushee Rule, which was that (for liability reasons) Gannett employees had to get permission from the corporate offices before flying on military aircraft. Some years later, when I was working in Honolulu, this was a bit of a pain in the butt because reporters and photographers often hitched rides with Coast Guard choppers on rescue missions.

Ward has been editor at a lot of papers since then, including Reno, Cincinnati and — most recently — Phoenix. But his return to the Bay Area is a homecoming. His dad was a longtime editor of the Watsonville paper, which has one of the strangest names — the Register-Pajaronian. (I know what an Argus is, but have no clue about a Pajaronian.)

In fact, his father, Ward Bushee Jr. (the son is Ward III) became the youngest daily newspaper editor at Watsonville in 1951, and under his leadership the paper won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for exposing a corrupt district attorney — the smallest paper ever to win the prize up to that time. The elder Bushee died in 2002.

The younger Ward, a graduate of San Jose State, also worked for the Salinas Californian and the Marin Independent Journal. He replaces Phil Bronstein, who moved into a corporate job with the parent Hearst company. Phil was most famous for being married to the actress Sharon Stone, and for having his foot chewed on by a 10-foot-long Komodo dragon at the L.A. Zoo.

Another interesting side story: Randy Lovely replaced Ward as editor of the Arizona Republic, making him the only openly gay editor of a major U.S. newspaper, and the first one to be appointed while out of the closet. (Roy Aarons, who died in 2004 of cancer, came out in 1990 after he had been editor of the Oakland Trib for seven years. Bill Cox, who was managing editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin a couple of years before I joined that paper, revealed he was gay in a column in 1986. He died of complications of AIDS in 1988.)

Bushee has his work cut out for him at the Chronicle. It is the poster child for newspaper circulation decline, with a drop of about 20% since 2004 to less than 370,000 weekdays. In response, staff cuts have been severe (more than a quarter of its newsroom was let go last year).

Part of that is due to increased competition from the San Jose Mercury News to the south and the Contra Costa Times and the Oakland Tribune in the East Bay, not to mention the Internet. Yet the Chron remains the second-largest paper on the West Coast after the L.A. Times, and there are some who say the circulation drop has a profit motive, at least in part. (With a fewer but more upscale readers, a paper can earn more advertising dollars.) Plus, SFGate is a strong newspaper Web site.

San Francisco is still a great city for a news organization, and I know first-hand that Ward is an innovative editor. (Ironically, considering the Chron is in serious competition with the MediaNews papers that surround it, Ward was a featured speaker at last summer's conference of MediaNews editors in Colorado. He talked about what Gannett and the Arizona Republic were doing with their Information Center concept. (The Times-Standard is a MediaNews paper.)

It will be interesting to watch the changes he will bring to the Chron.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 05:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Jim O'Shea

The newspaper business is very homogeneous. If you're in it long enough, you get to know a lot of people. Jim O'Shea, who has been getting a lot of attention this week after being fired as the editor of the Los Angeles Times, is one of them.

Somebody asked me a few weeks ago what I thought would happen now that Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell had bought the Tribune Co. I didn't guess that one of the first casualties would be O'Shea, who was at the Chicago Tribune for 30 years.

He and I first met as young journalists in Des Moines in the early 1970s. When I bought my first house, he helped me wire it for 220 to accommodate a huge window air conditioner. (As I recall, he had put himself through college as an apprentice electrician.)

He went off to the Chicago Tribune as a business reporter and in the ensuing years he worked his way up the ladder to become managing editor. We kept in touch in a casual way, seeing each other at conventions, or when I would occasionally stop at the Tribune where I have a number of friends.

In 2006, he was sent to take over in L.A., and now has become the third editor there in as many years to leave or be fired over budget issues. Apparently, instead of cutting his budget 1% as requested, he proposed to increase it in order to meet the demands of covering the presidential campaign and the Olympics. So it seems that even though Jim was fired, it could be ruled a suicide. But he went out with his head up, getting in some licks at the state of newspaper journalism today.

I'm sure he'll land on his feet, as his two predecessors have. John Carroll became a visiting lecturer at Harvard, and Dean Banquet is now the New York Times Washington bureau chief. (Michael Parks, who preceded Carroll, became dean of the journalism school at USC.)

Now today we learn that Phil Bronstein is out as San Francisco Chronicle editor, bumped upstairs to what sounds like a corporate figurehead position. It follows close on the heels of Carol Leigh Hutton's departure from the San Jose Mercury News.

These are tough times to be a newspaper editor, although those of us toiling at smaller community papers have a tough time identifying with editors who have staffs of hundreds, get six-figure golden handshakes and leave for jobs as good or better.

However, we all face difficult decisions during tough economic times, which we're going through these days. The best way to deal with it is to help your staff put out the best news product with the resources you have, and be willing to walk away when it stops being fun. As O'Shea said in his comments to his staff in L.A., "There are plenty of other challenges out there for me and I don’t intend to sit around idle. There are bike rides to be had, books to write and hopefully another opportunity or two to make a difference."

It is hard to generalize about the news business; L.A.'s messy situation is unique in many ways. I prefer to think about what's going on as a painful birth process of a new journalism, with a business model rededicated to the role of the Fourth Estate in a democratic society. On the other hand, maybe Woody Allen was right:

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

Posted by Rich Somerville at 07:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Christo Komarnitski/Cagle Cartoons

The obituaries for Bobby Fischer, who died in Reykjavik, Iceland, last week at 64, fittingly centered on the high point of his life — the 1972 world championship match in Reykjavik with Boris Spassky.

It was also the high point of chess’ popularity in America. Sure, part of the chess craze that exploded during the match was due to the sense of a Cold War showdown between a Soviet and an American (although Spassky wasn’t political and Fischer was just wacky). Some was the excitement over Fischer becoming the first (and so far only) American champion. But mostly it was a very weird, ongoing story for almost two months.

Each match was closely followed. Television offered daily analysis of each game. The newspaper where I worked published the moves so that chess-crazy readers could follow along.

I was like many people. I had learned the basic chess moves when I was a kid, but the Fischer-Spassky match sent me to the store for books on how to tell a Ruy Lopez opening from the King’s Gambit.

A colleague, Constante Casabar — a former editor in the Philippines whose family had fled the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos — turned out to be a chess whiz. After each title game, he and I would replay the moves on a chess board at the copy desk — ostensibly to make sure they were correct for publication, but really to experience the vicarious thrill of the game in faraway Iceland.

The eccentric and often insufferable Fischer drove the event’s organizers crazy. He insisted on TV coverage, then said he could hear the cameras and would only play in a room away from the audience. There were disputes over the chairs, the schedule and air quality.

The American chess bubble burst when, after winning the title, Fischer refused lucrative offers to defend it. The title was taken away, and he eventually dropped into a weird, rootless existence.

He would surface now and then to spout anti-Semitic views (although he was at least half-Jewish) and to denounce America. He called the 9/11 attacks “wonderful news.” He was detained nine months in a Japanese prison in a passport dispute.

Fischer gave up his U.S. citizenship and lived in self-imposed exile in Japan, Budapest, Switzerland, the Philippines and finally Iceland, where he died of kidney failure. It was a sad end for the former boy genius, who was said to have an IQ of more than 180.

I still have those chess books. I can’t remember the last time I played a game, though.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Lining up at Redwood Acres (Mark McKenna/Times-Standard)

The afterglow of having former President Bill Clinton visit Humboldt County is still tinged with grumbling by those who feel betrayed by being left out in the cold.

One way to look at this organizational car crash would be like an insurance claim: percentages of fault.

About 50 percent of the fault goes to the Clinton campaign, because the site selection was their job. I'm sure the local Democrats were telling them there could be a crowd of 1,000 or more. Phones were ringing off the hook all over town from people wanting to know when and where they should show up.

And why not? It's one of the most wide-open presidential elections in a generation, and even if you're not interested in politics, it's been 40 years since a sitting or former president came here. The historic implications are enough to make any parent want to take their kid.

(I remember the thrill as a 14-year-old Boy Scout attending the National Boy Scout Jamboree in Colorado in 1960, when I saw President Eisenhower drive by in his convertible limo.)

But the thing is, a campaign organizer is absolutely terrified of booking a candidate — or the candidate's spouse — into a venue where there is a possibility of empty seats. Visually, they want the place to look packed to overflowing, and people looking like they're on the Titanic, trying to get into a lifeboat. Great visuals for the evening news.

Then there is the Secret Service, which doesn't want to have to deal with a humongous mob packed into an arena. And the campaign advance team doesn't know for sure how many will turn out; they've never set up a campaign appearance here before. If they overdo it, and leave four or five times as many people outside than inside, the local party people can take the heat, not them.

But 25 percent of the blame should go to the local Democratic organizers, because they knew a throng was going to show up, and they seemed to react like deer in the headlights.

No. 1 on their planning agenda should have been a simple and fair way to ensure that those who lined up early were rewarded by getting in. Instead, although it appears those in line were handed numbers for some purpose, it all went awry when the doors opened and it was "survival of the fittest" — the biggest and most aggressive shoved their way in.

No. 2 should have been figuring out what to do with the hundreds who inevitably wouldn't get in. The only strategy seemed to be to tell people, "Tough luck — go home and listen on the radio." How hard would it have been to put chairs in some other, heated rooms — Redwood Acres is a big place — and rig speakers to bring them the speech.

Instead, there were reports that much time was spent making sure the friends of the Democratic committee members got seats. I am told that a great percentage of people at the event claiming to be "media" were no such thing. Hey, there's nothing wrong with rewarding loyal party people. Just be up front about it, and don't fool Joe and Jill Sixpack and their kids into thinking they actually have a chance of getting in.

And the final 25 percent of the blame? It falls on those people who were whining about how they didn't have somebody hold their hand to escort them to the front row, just because they showed up. I'm being facetious, but as Bill Clinton kept repeating, "You see what I'm saying?" Welcome to the real world. You really didn't think it would be a disorganized mess? Life is like that.

It wasn't much different at Bill's earlier stop in Napa, where they crammed 500 people into the opera house, except Bill spent much more time there in glad-handing the crowd outside before he went in, and afterward at the opera house cafe.

In general, although I didn't attend his Eureka appearance (I'm an enochlophobe), my impression is that things here were handled about as well as could be expected, and at least there were last-minute efforts to let folks outside get a peek at the former president, or to rig external speakers.

When people called me on Wednesday morning to ask about where and when, I told them there would be more than 1,000 there, and even if they got in line that afternoon the odds were against them. Every one said they still wanted to take a chance — if they didn't get inside, maybe they could get a glimpse of Bill.

I respect that — you take a chance, you lose, you shrug and go home. Like in baseball, there should be no crying in politics. But wait — that seems to be "in" this year. Waaaaah!

Posted by Rich Somerville at 06:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

Bill's golf course crying jag?

Since most of a candidate's (or surrogate candidate's) stump speech is boilerplate stuff, repeated at stop after stop, a more interesting exercise is to listen for where they seem to depart from or embellish the same old, same old.

I was particularly watching whether Bill Clinton, in his trip to Humboldt County, was going to adhere to the so-called "truce" the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns seemed to have declared the day before, after the racial-oriented dialogue (including Bill's crack about Obama's "fairy tale") got overheated and verged on damaging both candidates.

Somewhere between his stop in Napa and his speech in Eureka Wednesday, Bill apparently heard about the interview in which Obama — asked for examples of "transformative" leaders, like he says he will be — said Ronald Reagan had been transformative in ways that Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton had not.

It was obviously a trial balloon for what Obama might do if he gets the nomination, which is to show he can appeal to moderate Republicans ready to desert a GOP candidate that models himself after George Bush. But it also was a conscious slap in the face to Bill, and it seemed Clinton was itching to respond as soon as he got off the plane here.

Right at the top of his speech, he admitted that unlike Reagan, he had not claimed trees cause pollution or told "welfare Cadillac" stories, but then went on to list the many ways in which his administration had been better for the people than Reagan's.

Just when I thought he was going to make his speech all about Bill, he segued into talking about what "real" presidents do (as opposed to wannabe presidents) and how Hillary would be one of those kinds of leaders.

But how quickly the kid gloves came off, although it didn't get much notice. However, John Edwards picked up the banner yesterday, taking shots at Obama for his reference to Reagan. Possibly Bill Clinton's response here will be uncovered and get more national attention — or Bill will be repeating it at other stops, unless his handlers yank the kid gloves back on.

I also found the story Bill told at the end to be revealing. Again, he was trying to make a point about how compassionate a president Hillary would be, but the anecdote was more about Bill. He told of being stopped on a golf course by a caddie who really was a New York fireman. The fireman said he was backing Hillary because she championed medical help for those who breathed toxic air while hunting for remains at Ground Zero after 9/11.

Bill repeated several times that he was "crying like a baby," seeming to be saying, "Hey, if you think my wife getting verklempt in New Hampshire was something, look how much of a sob sister I am!"

Other tidbits from my notes during the speech:

— Unlike politicians who like to dress like Paul Bunyan when they come to redwood country, Bill was very sharp, in a suit and tie. I appreciate the respect. He had even upgraded from his earlier stop in trendy Napa, where he wore a sportcoat.

— I haven't have time to listen to the whole speech again (although you can here), but I'm sure I heard him misspeak once when he referred to America having to get loans abroad to pay for "Bill Clinton's tax cuts," when of course he meant George Bush's.

— Bill had an irritating tic of — after illustrating something with an amusing story — saying, "I'm kidding, but you see the point I am trying to make?" He did that several times, and I wanted to say back to the radio, "I get it, Bill, and I'm sure all the hayseeds you're talking to get it as well."

Nonetheless, the old pitcher showed he can still bring the heat, kind of like an unjuiced Roger Clemens. Certainly keeps the campaign from getting dull. Maybe local voters' enthusiasm for his visit may prompt other campaigns from both parties to bring their people here — after all, there are plenty of Republicans on the North Coast, too.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

"Mr. Change" of 1992

Today's anticipated visit by Bill Clinton to Eureka gave me a 16-year flashback to the presidential campaign of 1992, when Clinton — that year's Barack Obama — came to Sioux Falls, S.D., where I was editor of the Argus Leader.

Back then, that state's primary was still significant because it was in February at a time before so many states had moved theirs to early in the year. (Not much else to do in South Dakota in the winter.)

You may recall that Clinton took a beating that year in the Iowa caucuses, then came in second in New Hampshire and called himself "The Comeback Kid."

But there were still plenty of rival Democrats in the race — because Clinton had not fully recovered from the Gennifer Flowers scandal, despite Hillary holding his hand on "60 Minutes" — and they all headed to South Dakota. The one who really was under the gun to win was Bob Kerrey, former governor of neighboring Nebraska. But Massachusetts' Paul Tsongas still had a chance, as did California's Jerry Brown.

I never got to meet Clinton, but Brown, Tsongas and Kerrey sat down with the Argus Leader Editorial Board. If memory serves, Clinton spoke at the local college or something. He rarely spoke to newspaper editorial boards, except maybe the New York Times. (I suspect he won't be stopping by the Times-Standard, either.)

The newspaper ended up endorsing Tsongas, but Kerrey won the primary. Not that it made any difference. Clinton soon was on a roll, sweeping Super Tuesday (in March that year), and taking the nomination going away.

I think what eventually handicapped Tsongas (a very bright man) was voter worry about his health. He had stepped down from the Senate in 1984 after being diagnosed with cancer. He had fought the illness off and ran for president, but even though he beat Clinton in New Hampshire, he could never overcome the Arkansan's "comeback" momentum. (He died five years later, in 1997, when the cancer returned.)

It was a strange election in many ways, kind of like this one. There was a raft of strong Democratic contenders, including a woman, Sen. Pat Schroeder of Colorado (a graduate of my high school).

That was also the year of Ross Perot's quixotic third-party candidacy. And on the Republican side, President George Bush the Elder was trying to run for re-election in the face of a recession that even had GOP voters thinking about jumping ship. (In South Dakota's Republican primary, with Bush's name the only one on the ballot, nearly a third voted for "Uncommitted.") Not hard to see why he lost.

I'd be interested in going to see a Clinton stem-winder in person, but I'm averse to crowds, and it's sounding like Redwood Acres will be a mob scene. So I'll be content to tune the radio to Clinton who, as a front-line Baby Boomer three months older than I am, has crossed paths with me once again.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Arcata last week kicked off its year-long celebration marking the 150th anniversary of the city, and I’m sure it will be a wonderful party, just as Eureka had a good time a couple of years ago marking its 150th.

But for the record, Arcata is really celebrating the 150th year since the politicians in Sacramento officially recognized the city at the north end of Humboldt Bay. Of course, Arcata (like Eureka and many of the oldest cities in northern California) was founded in 1850 during the gold rush, and had a whole passel of exciting, degenerate history before they were officially incorporated.

The truly smart “miners” in 1850 were those who mined the pockets of those rushing to the Trinity gold fields. The Union Company laid claim to what is now Arcata (first named Union), and the Mendocino Exploring Company grabbed Eureka. Then commenced a string of corrupt dealings that first put the county seat in Union (through a rigged election), then shifted it to Eureka in 1856 (through back-room political dealings).

Interestingly, Union — which initially was the most prosperous community because of its closer proximity to the gold fields, until Eureka became a timber capital — was incorporated in 1854 when it became the county seat. So going by that benchmark, its 150th anniversary should have been in 2004, two years before Eureka’s.

However, the state supreme court ruled that while Union’s voters had OK’d incorporation, the Legislature had not, and the charter was dissolved. That’s why the city (given the Indian name Arcata in 1860) celebrates its “official” anniversary this year.

No wonder the two towns have been rivals for more than 150 years.

This era is described in a fascinating North Coast Journal article by Jerry Rohde published during Eureka's sesquicentennial in 2006. Another tidbit I learned: One of the losing candidates for the state Assembly seat from Humboldt — a seat used to finagle the county seat for Eureka — was E. D. Coleman, editor of the Humboldt Times, predecessor of the Times-Standard. He was a pro-slavery Democrat and a resident of Union.

It would be fun if the celebration could include some recognition that the earliest settlers in those lawless days included more than a fair share of drunks, murderers, thieves, ladies of ill repute, thugs, racists, corrupt businessmen and politicians for sale. But I’m sure the concerts, art shows and festivals will be fun, too.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 08:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The $21.3 million Magna Carta

How far the dissemination of information has come was brought home powerfully by a recent New York Times magazine article about the auction of a copy — not the original, a copy — of the Magna Carta. You'll remember from your high school history that the Magna Carta was an English charter from 1215 that was the historical first step for the establishment of a rule of law and democratic society.

This particular 15-by-17-inch piece of parchment from 1297 was sold at Sotheby's for more than $21 million. (Its previous purchaser, Texas billionaire Ross Perot, paid $1.5 million for it. Shows why he's a billionaire.)

The article goes on about the nature of "historicity" adding value to relics, but one paragraph by the author, James Gleick, stood out in noting that even at a time when all information is perceived as being free, some remains extremely valuable: "In one way, the Magna Carta is already yours for the asking: you can read it anytime, at the touch of a button. It has been preserved, photographically and digitally, in countless copies with no evident physical reality, which will nonetheless last as long as our civilization."

Back when this copy was made, he notes, the creation of parchment required the soaking, stretching, scraping and drying of sheepskin to make vellum, making ink from oak galls, and painstaking penmanship by scribes with quill pens. These copies would be dispatched to country churches and county seats to be read aloud to the populace, who were largely illiterate.

It continuously amazes me what arcane information can be accessed instantaneously these days — all within the past 20 years since the creation of the Web. And yet there is so much more that could be online, including all government documents. If you can access the Magna Carta, you should be able to access anything.

By the way, the guy who bought the copy was David Rubenstein, a founder of the Carlyle Group investment firm, who is worth about $2.5 billion himself. He plans to return it to public view at the National Archives, where it has been on display.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Michael Kountouris

My goodness — 68 comments on The Humboldt Herald blog regarding Hank Sims' ruminations about whether or not Larry Glass changed his mind about filing charges against developer Rob Arkley in the Avalon incident.

Although Heraldo sagely acknowledges the powers of "the all-knowing Times-Standard editor Rich Somerville," delving into this debate would be like engaging in a Clintonian exercise into what the meaning of the word "change" is. The entire episode seems to be related to the councilperson's fear of being accused of apostasy by the high priests of the Church of the Anti-Arkley. Mustn't let even the tiniest waverings undermine the faith.

Of course, the pro-Arkley religion has its rites and rituals as well, only it's more like a Polynesian cargo cult.

I was reminded of the religious struggle going on in the Republican presidential race, which doesn't mean much to the average voter but to many fundamentalists and Mormons it's what the election is all about. Remember when a wide-eyed Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister who has studied theology, asked a New York Times reporter whether it was true that Mormons believe Jesus and Satan were brothers. That's always my first source for theistic analysis — journalists.

Actually, I believe the scriptures show Satan was Jesus' ne'er-do-well brother-in-law, and not actually a blood relative. Makes, me wonder, though, if Glass and Arkley might be related...

Posted by Rich Somerville at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)

Dario Castillejos

I've long believed that we are in the middle of a decades-long reconfiguration of how journalism is practiced, and how people make money at it.

Take a look at some other businesses, like the film industry. It used to be highly vertically integrated, with studios owning the whole process — actors, screenwriters, directors, production, marketing and distribution. Now pretty much everything is contracted out on a project-by-project basis. That's why we're paying $10 for movie tickets soon — everybody offers their skills on the open market, and the best at what they do get top dollar.

Or professional sports — once the players won the right to claim free agency, the best of them before long became multi-millionaires, and even the journeyman pros did a lot better than before.

As technology has pushed change at all levels of journalism, it seemed that this sort of caste model could be possible. Early signs came years ago, in television news, when handsome or beautiful talking heads started drawing down huge salaries based on their Nielsen numbers.

Then, in print journalism, Bob Woodward parleyed his "All the President's Men" fame into a career as both a newspaperman and a millionaire author of investigative books. Bob Barlett and Jim Steele, former investigative reporters with the Philadelphia Inquirer, leveraged a couple of Pulitzers into fat contracts — first with Time Inc. and now Vanity Fair — and seven books.

More recently, just in time for the presidential campaign, Washington Post writers John Harris and Jim VandeHei jumped ship and created Politico, which disseminates its political journalism via TV, the Web, newspapers and radio.

The latest evidence of this trend, in a New York Times story, shows the latest hot commodities are top sportswriters. The story notes that ESPN and Yahoo Sports "are on a furious hiring binge, offering reporters and columnists more than they ever imagined they could make in journalism."

How much? At ESPN, $150,000 to $350,000 a year for several writers, the story says, and far more for a select handful.

Some magazines like Sports Illustrated, have tried to keep up, but newspapers don't have a chance — they don't make that kind of profit. One of those who has profited is the SF Chronicle's Mark Fainaru-Wada, one of the duo who uncovered key info in the steroid scandal. He's how with ESPN, and says it's amazing considering what's happening elsewhere in the business: "We just went through a 25% newsroom cut at the Chronicle,"

The assistant ME for sports at the Washington Post is quoted as saying, "We're used to being a destination, not a stepping stone." That may be changing — starting with an elite few in hot-commodity beats like sports and politics.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Pat Bagley/Salt Lake Tribune

A Saturday New York Times story following up on the Iowa caucuses had this provocative paragraph:

Advisers said that both Clintons had miscalculated the endurance and depth of what they called “the Obama phenomenon.” They both believed that, in the final months of 2007, more voters would question whether Mr. Obama was ready to be president and more reporters would pick apart his political record and personal character. Now anger inside the campaign at the news media has hardened; Mr. Clinton, in particular, believes reporters will be complicit if Mr. Obama becomes the nominee and loses to a Republican.

Talk about chutzpah! Here is a candidate who rose to the top of the presidential pile back in '92 because of his appeal and coziness with the national press covering his campaign. Because of that, he coasted over his own "personal character" problems, the Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones sex accusations and the issue of his avoidance of the Vietnam war draft.

So now he and his wife's handlers are upset because the reporters aren't doing what the Clintons want them to do? Sounds like a vast improvement in media ethics in the past 15 years. Of course, reporters shouldn't lie down on the job of fully exploring the past foibles of Barack Obama (if there are any beyond what's already been dissected), or any other contender.

Seems like this is a general problem for politicians, government officials and business leaders: News organizations that don't do as they're told, and are unsatisfied by non-answers, half-answers, or outright lies. But they need to get used to it.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A caucus or primary night is a perfect example of the value of cable news — if you're a campaign junkie. Sure, I flipped around the dial to see what the networks were doing, but for sheer longevity and wall-to-wall coverage, you can't beat CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. If you want more of everything — full candidate speeches, long-winded bloviation from pundits, and endless digging into (in the case of Iowa) entry polls, that's where you get it.

A few impressions of the evening:

— Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee provided excellent examples of why they won. Obama — who already had a good reputation as speaker but had seemed lackluster at times on the campaign trail — unleashed an emotional stemwinder. Anyone who heard the whole thing couldn't help but see him now as very tough to beat for the nomination.

— Huckabee also made a good speech, but I was impressed with his folksy and humorous banter in an interview with Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. He was like a snake-charmer with these guys. You could see Huckabee's training as a preacher underneath, but leavened (genuine or not) with the folksy southern political warmth. It was way more appealing than the oily, cold-smile persona of Pat Robertson or the corporate glibness of Mitt Romney. Howard Fineman of Newsweek, one of the MSNBC analytical panel, thought it was a hoot that Matthews and Olbermann — for a minute, anyway — seemed ready to pass the plate for Rev. Huckabee.

— Back in 1992, Bill Clinton worked the same mesmerization with the press — stump emotion and personal warmth — to rise above the large Democratic field that year.

— The other candidates were not as impressive in glossing over their disappointment and rallying their troops for New Hampshire or beyond. Hillary, in particular, amid praise for her opponents, created an image of knife-sharpening going on in the back room.

— Hardly anybody mentioned Giuliani. One senses that his strategy of waiting to win in Florida may be a strategy to disappear before Florida.

— I found myself watching MSNBC most, perhaps because when the pundits got tired of talking, they ran full candidate speeches and then reran the whole evening. I have to say, though, that it's a tossup between Matthews and Olbermann as to who can produce the most convoluted, never-ending and self-important questions.

— I kept looking for Chris Kerrigan in the crowd behind John Edwards when the runner-up spoke to the faithful. The Eureka city councilman has been on leave for months, working Iowa for Edwards. Maybe Chris was somewhere having a stiff drink. Never has a second-place finish seemed so . . . uninspiring.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)