The Newspaper

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Makes Great Kindling

“A 19th century Irish immigrant named O’Reilly called the newspaper ‘a biography of something greater than a man. It is the biography of a DAY. It is a photograph, of twenty four hours’ length, of the mysterious river of time that is sweeping past us forever. And yet we take our year’s newspapers—which contain more tales of sorrow and suffering, and joy and success, and ambition and defeat, and villainy and virtue, than the greatest book ever written—and we use them to light the fire.’”

—Adair Lara, columnist, The San Francisco Chronicle, December 30, 1999

Editorial Comment: Speaking of kindling, see Yi Le and Billy Joel’s account of journalism’s fire.

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The Dying Newspaper

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Snakes

“We’re as popular as snakes—below politicians. You have to have courage to do news; you wouldn't believe the people who yell at me, and the letters I get. But I have to remember they’re mad at the newspaper, not at Nancy Conway. Once you do news, though, everything else is sort of dull. What I do matters—it’s important. . . . In this very great country that we all pledge allegiance to, if you care about community, if you care about country, if you care about democracy, you have to care about journalism.”

—Nancy Conway, editor, The Salt Lake Tribune,

“The Myth of the Dying Newspaper,”
Morris Media & Society Lecture, Utah State University, March 29, 2011.

Editorial Comment: We might be sick, but rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated.

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Protect Your GRAMA

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Freedom of Information

“More than anything, FOIA helps set the terms of the relationship between the governed and those who govern. It puts flesh on the idea that government ought to be accountable to all of us. It says we have a right to know. We have a right to question. It constantly reaffirms a basic standard of transparency, and this standard has served the American people well. It has helped reporters, researchers, historians, bloggers, activists and ordinary citizens shine a light on countless examples of incompetence, waste and corruption. It says that we are governed, not ruled—a distinction at the core of the American experiment.”

—David Barstow, investigative reporter, The New York Times, March 16, 2011.

“Freedom of Information Day: Five Questions With David Barstow,
Investigative Reporter for the New York Times”

Congress created a national Freedom of Information Day in 1989, to be observed on or around March 16, the birthday of James Madison, fourth president of the United States and primary architect of the Bill of Rights.

Editorial Comment: Bright light: A good remedy for government mildew.

HB477 Cartoon by Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune: Utah’s House Bill 477, which rolled back the state’s open-records law, was repealed in a special legislative session on Friday after widespread outrage by citizens and journalists, and a statewide petition campaign. The existing Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA) law will be reviewed by a working group and may be rewritten this summer.


The ‘Dying Newspaper’? Salt Lake Tribune editor Nancy Conway comes to Utah State TODAY to deliver a Morris Media & Society Lecture—“The Myth of the Dying Newspaper.” As Mark Twain might have said, rumors of the death of the newspaper are greatly exaggerated, says Conway, the first woman to lead the 132-year-old Trib. Come hear why. Eccles Science Learning Center 046, 9 a.m., followed by Q&A for journalism students. URL

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15 Minutes of Fame

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Chickenfeed

“It’s the birthday of a fiction writer who didn’t want a biography written about her because, she said, ‘Lives spent between the house and the chicken yard do not make exciting copy.’ That’s Flannery O'Connor, born in Savannah, Ga., in 1925. When she was 5, she trained a chicken to walk backward, and a newsreel company came her house to make a film about it, which was shown all over the country. ‘I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life,’ she said. ‘Everything since has been anticlimax.’”

—From Writer’s Almanac, 3/25/2011
Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964), novelist, short story writer of the “grotesque South”
(Thanks to alert WORDster Javan Kienzle)

Editorial Comment: So Andy Warhol was right?

The ‘Dying Newspaper’? Salt Lake Tribune editor Nancy Conway comes to Utah State Tuesday to deliver a Morris Media & Society Lecture—“The Myth of the Dying Newspaper.” As Mark Twain might have said, rumors of the death of the newspaper are greatly exaggerated, says Conway, the first woman to lead the 132-year-old Trib. Come hear why. Eccles Science Learning Center 046, 9 a.m., followed by Q&A for journalism students. URL

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Woof!

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Watchdog

“Almost every survey I’ve seen where people in the community are asked what role does their newspaper play that they really value, they talk about the watchdog role. They want newspapers to hold their public officials accountable. They fear that, in the absence of a newsroom doing that, no one will do it. . . . Newspapers need to understand how much that role is valued, and they need to understand that it’s a unique role that they can play.”

—Butch Ward, managing editor,
The Poynter Institute, March 2011 URL

Editorial Comment: Nuthin’ but a hound dog...


Save Your GRAMA! Today @ 11! Citizens and journalists supporting repeal of HB477, the new law rolling back Utah’s open-records law that won the Society of Professional Journalists’ “Black Hole Award,” rally today at the Utah Capitol as the Legislature convenes in special session to reconsider the law. Gov. Gary Herbert has called for its repeal and for a rewrite. Herbert to get “Green Hole” Award for law forbidding e-petitions, thus requiring wasteful paper petitions.

PR Conference Today & Tomorrow: Utah State’s PRSSA chapter hosts the Mountain West Regional Public Relations Conference, this Thursday-Friday in Logan, Utah. Click here for information.

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More Than Ads & Agate

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What Newspapers Do

“As for the arguments that newspapers just want to sell newspapers, those who make them don’t understand the news business. If that were true, newspapers would simply fill their pages and websites with sports, celebrity gossip and entertainment news. Some profitable tabloids already use this formula. That’s what sells, but it does not promote a democratic (or republican) form of government. The fact that ... news organizations make such a large expenditure of resources to cover local and state government, even in the face of some public apathy, illustrates this commitment.”
—Joel Campbell, columnist and BYU journalism professor, “Legislators can’t blame open-records woes on media overkill,” The Salt Lake Tribune, March 19, 2011

Editorial Comment: And recipes. Newspapers have great Velveeta recipes.

PR Conference Today & Tomorrow: Utah State’s PRSSA chapter hosts the Mountain West Regional Public Relations Conference, this Thursday-Friday in Logan, Utah. Click here for information.

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Northern Border Fence

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Oh, Canada!

“As America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin barricades—against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate toadies at Fox News—fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can take comfort from a significant victory north of the Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canadian regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada’s right-wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news. Canada’s Radio Act requires that ‘a licenser may not broadcast ... any false or misleading news.’ The provision has kept Fox News and right-wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom.”

—Robert F. Kennedy Jr., author and activist,
“Fox News’ Lies Keep Them Out of Canada,” March 2011
(The orginal piece is on Reader Supported News, whose server
was down this morning. You can also find the full column here.)

Editorial Comment: Oh yeah? Well, we won't take your hockey either, eh? because Americans don’t like violence in sports.

Green Eyeshades Wanted: Alert WORDster Bruce Adomeit of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis is looking for decent green eyeshades. He remembers good ones with leather bands, not the cruddy plastic ones that I remember.... Any ideas?

PR Conference This Week: Utah State’s PRSSA chapter hosts the Mountain West Regional Public Relations Conference, this Thursday-Friday in Logan, Utah. Click here for information.

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Hide & Seek

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Transparency

“So much is hidden. I get up in the morning and I ask the question: ‘What are the bastards hiding?’ Not as a cynical reporter, but as a realistic reporter. People are always hiding things.”

—Bob Woodward, author and assistant managing editor, The Washington Post, March 2011
URL

(Thanks to alert WORDster Andrew Merton)

Editorial Comment: Kind of that prickly-on-the-back-of-your-neck thing.

Utah’s Black Hole: Woodward’s quote seems timely as Utah grapples with its open-records law. Gov. Gary Herbert now calls for repeal of HB477, which the Legislature slipped in at the end of the session to gut the Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA), and the governor has called the Legislature back into special session on Friday to “modify” the law. But the Senate Republican leadership (all of whose caucuses have been behind closed doors) says it will block repeal. Petitions to repeal HB477 continue to circulate and will demonstrate citizen concern over rising government secrecy and lack of citizen access to what our elected representatives are doing in our name. For information, see the Utah Citizens FOI Network FB page. In Cache County, I have a petition packet if you’d like to sign.

Green Eyeshades Wanted: Alert WORDster Bruce Adomeit of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis is looking for decent green eyeshades. He remembers good ones with leather bands, not the cruddy plastic ones that I remember.... Any ideas?

PR Conference This Week: Utah State’s PRSSA chapter hosts the Mountain West Regional Public Relations Conference, this Thursday-Friday in Logan, Utah. Click here for information.

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Dissonance

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That’s Entertainment!

“I watch the catastrophe play out on television. In Japan, a baby is lifted from the rubble and swathed in a blanket. A young woman is bleeding. An unconscious man is strapped to a stretcher. The streamer at the bottom of the screen says: ‘Victoria Beckham expecting a girl ... Aerosmith, J-Lo both slated to appear on ‘Idol’ ... Tiger Woods to appear on ‘Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.’ . . .

“[A]ll tragedy is promoted on television as if it were entertainment: the trial of O.J. Simpson for a grisly murder, the car-crash death of Princess Diana, Chilean miners trapped below ground and yes, even the combination earthquake-tsunami-nuclear calamity in Japan. It is the nature of TV that everything is promoted the same way, no matter how ghastly the event.

“There are rewards for doing so. According to FishbowlDC, ‘The Japan tragedy sets a new record for CNN.com with more than 60 million viewers watching.’”

—Roger Simon, Politico columnist, “High ratings at a human cost,” March 2011

Image: “Cocooned Against the Cold,” by Damir Sagolj, Reuters. Swaddled in blankets, evacuated tsunami survivors try to keep warm in a Japanese Red Cross hospital on March 13. See National Geographic, “Japan Tsunami: 20 unforgettable images.”

Editorial Comment: March madness, year-round.

A WORDster’s Plea: Alert WORDster Bruce Adomeit of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis is looking for decent green eyeshades. He remembers good ones with leather bands, not the cruddy plastic ones that I remember.... Any ideas?

PR Conference This Week: Utah State’s PRSSA chapter hosts the Mountain West Regional Public Relations Conference, this Thursday-Friday in Logan, Utah. Click here for information.

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<— Battery Point Light House at Crescent City, Calif., which was hit hard by last Friday's tsunami.






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NPR

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Defundamental

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 228-192 yesterday to eliminate federal funding for National Public Radio. Voices from the floor debate:

• “The American people are not concerned about jobs or the economy or what's going on around the world. They are staring at their radios saying: Get rid of Click and Clack. Finally, my Republican friends are doing it. Kudos to you.” —Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-NY

• “As much as any of us here, including myself, may enjoy programs like Car Talk [and] Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, you can't tell me that that's a core mission of the federal government.” —Rep. Rich Nugent, R-Fla.

• “We've seen NPR and its programming often veer far from what most Americans would like to see as far as the expenditure of their taxpayer dollars. That's the bottom line.” —Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.

• “This legislation does not serve any fiscal purpose. But it does serve an ugly ideological one. This legislation is not about reforming NPR; it is about punishing NPR.” —Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

• “NPR can survive on its own. It has quality programming.... They could survive and even thrive. So let's let them loose from taxpayer subsidies.... I would be doing this if this was right-leaning or neutral because there’s no need for government to be subsidizing media.” —Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., who introduced the bill.

Editorial Comment: Defenestration?

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<— Battery Point Light House at Crescent City, Calif., which was hit hard by last Friday's tsunami.






• Agricultural Communication/Journalism Faculty Wanted! The joint program in Agricultural Communication & Journalism at Utah State University seeks candidates for a full-time, tenure-track assistant professor. See the posting at USU’s HR site here or email ted.pease@usu.edu for details. Review begins in March. Start date: August 2011.
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Irish Times

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Press and Begorrah!

“Whatever their political preferences, the Irish American journalists I know seem to share a love for language, an abiding sense of family, a deep disdain for injustice, a fervent embrace of the social gospel, a theological affinity to good works as a means to salvation, an attachment to ritual and an openness to the mysteries of the universe. On some days they see themselves as saints and sinners, on others as sinners and saints."

—Roy Peter Clark is not Irish, he says, but he admires the Irish influence on the journalistic ethic. “‘Father’ Tim Russert: Irish Catholicism and American Journalism,” The Poynter Institute, 2008.

Editorial Comment: Explains why they’re green eyeshades...

By the Way . . . 2010 update on the Irish press, FYI.

Black Hole Update: Story on Utah’s Black Hole Award yesterday from the Society of Professional Journalists. (Image: SPJ’s Freedom of Information chair David Cuillier delivers a black wreath to the Utah Capitol. Salt Lake Tribune)




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• Agricultural Communication/Journalism Faculty Wanted! The joint program in Agricultural Communication & Journalism at Utah State University seeks candidates for a full-time, tenure-track assistant professor. See the posting at USU’s HR site here or email ted.pease@usu.edu for details. Review begins in March. Start date: August 2011.
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Secret Victims

WORDman Note: Apologies if this is too parochial, but Utah lawmakers’ passage of a law rolling back government transparency leads the nation today as the Society of Professional Journalists come to Salt Lake City to award Gov. Gary Herbert SPJ’s national “Black Hole award.” So proud.—TP

A Black Hole for Gov. Herbert

“The new version [of Utah’s open-records law], set to go into effect July 1, allows government agencies to presume that records should be closed unless a citizen can show, ‘by a preponderance of the evidence,’ that they should be open instead.

That places a great burden on the public, and goes far beyond any reasonable need to keep any individual’s private medical or financial data on a need-to-know basis.

A law that protects government secrecy is being sold on claims that it protects personal privacy. The people of Utah should make it clear they resent the fact that they are not only the excuse for such subterfuge, but also the victims.”

—Editorial, The Salt Lake Tribune, March 15, 2011

URL

• Editorial Comment: I have a secret urge to review government records.

Image: (PAUL FRAUGHTON | The Salt Lake Tribune) With religious, community, business and government leaders behind him, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert on Tuesday signed into law immigration bills passed in this year's legislative session, including a controversial guest-worker program (HB116) and an enforcement bill (HB497).

• Background: HB477, which sharply restricts Utah’s open-records law, passed the House with 42 votes. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert declined to veto it, saying his veto would have been over-ridden; he has called a special session in June to revise the bill. But the national Society of Professional Journalists condemned Herbert’s action as dishonest and said it “effectively ends Utah’s long history of government transparency.” Utah SPJ President Tom Haraldsen said: “I am disappointed, both as a journalist but first and foremost as a citizen of Utah, in the actions of our lawmakers and governor. The intent of this bill — and the process by which it was rapidly introduced and passed in just two days near the end of the legislative session — negated any opportunity for the public to truly weigh in and have its say about this law.” —Salt Lake Tribune story, March 10, 2011

• Salt Lake Tribune Editorial: “Herbert sells out: Gov. Gary Herbert has sold his political soul, and sold out his constituents, by signing a dreadful bill that will eviscerate the state’s prime open government law.” —The Salt Lake Tribune in a rare page-one editorial, March 11, 2011

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Black Hole

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No Utah Sunshine

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s restrictive new open records law has brought the state national recognition for reducing public access to government.

The national Society of Professional Journalists plans to present Gov. Gary Herbert with a first-ever Black Hole award Wednesday to highlight the law, which increases fees for records requests and makes text messages private.

David Cuillier, SPJ’s national Freedom of Information Committee chief and a journalism professor at the University of Arizona, said he’ll try to present the award to Herbert on Wednesday. ...

“The cards are stacked against citizens so badly that almost everything can be kept private,” Cuillier said. “They can say no to every request, and there's nothing that can be done.”

—The Associated Press, Monday, March 14, 2011
URL

Image: (SARAH A. MILLER | The Salt Lake Tribune) Protesters congregate inside the Utah State Capitol Rotunda Thursday night after rallying outside to condemn passage of HB477, adding new restrictions on public access to government records.

Background: HB477, which sharply restricts Utah’s open-records law, passed the House with 42 votes. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert declined to veto it, saying his veto would have been over-ridden; he has called a special session in June to revise the bill. But the national Society of Professional Journalists condemned Herbert’s action as dishonest and said it “effectively ends Utah’s long history of government transparency.” Utah SPJ President Tom Haraldsen said: “I am disappointed, both as a journalist but first and foremost as a citizen of Utah, in the actions of our lawmakers and governor. The intent of this bill — and the process by which it was rapidly introduced and passed in just two days near the end of the legislative session — negated any opportunity for the public to truly weigh in and have its say about this law.” —Salt Lake Tribune story, March 10, 2011

Salt Lake Tribune Editorial: “Herbert sells out: Gov. Gary Herbert has sold his political soul, and sold out his constituents, by signing a dreadful bill that will eviscerate the state’s prime open government law.” —The Salt Lake Tribune in a rare page-one editorial, March 11, 2011

• Editorial Comment: Our tax dollars at work.

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• Agricultural Communication/Journalism Faculty Wanted! The joint program in Agricultural Communication & Journalism at Utah State University seeks candidates for a full-time, tenure-track assistant professor. See the posting at USU’s HR site here or email ted.pease@usu.edu for details. Review begins in March. Start date: August 2011.
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Post-Tsunami

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It’s True: The WORD was kicking back at St. Mumbles on the Northern California coast when the tsunami hit. All OK and back at work now. Pretty amazing. Good thoughts to earthquake victims.

Moments of Silence

“Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.”

—Henry Anatole Grunwald, former TIME magazine editor

• Editorial Comment: Earth-shattering.








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Suitable for Spring Break

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Pooh-Pooh

“The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-class mind is only happy when it is thinking.”

–Alan Alexander Milne, (1882-1956), English author

“Good morning... If it IS a good morning... Which I doubt.”

—Eeyore, clear-eyed realist

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<-- This is where I am! hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!





• Agricultural Communication/Journalism Faculty Wanted! The joint program in Agricultural Communication & Journalism at Utah State University seeks candidates for a full-time, tenure-track assistant professor. See the posting at USU’s HR site here or email ted.pease@usu.edu for details. Review begins in March. Start date: August 2011.
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No News

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Can you hear me now?

“Like it or hate it, it is really effective. In fact, viewership of Al-Jazeera is going up in the United States because it is real news. . . . You may not agree with it, but you feel like you're getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news that is not providing information to us, let alone foreigners.”

—Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State,
“Hillary Clinton’s Al Jazeera Comments Draw Attention of U.S. Media,”
HuffPost 3/7/2010

• Editorial Comment: What intrigues me about this is that Clinton’s observation “draws attention of U.S. media.” How can anything that’s not Charlie Sheen or the weather interest U.S. media?

A decade ago, a former student/National Guard sergeant returning from a tour in Iraq told me and students at Utah State University that he and his fellow soldiers sought out Al Jazeera “in-country,” because the U.S. media were so bad. Today, the best we can hope for from U.S. global media is some guy's cellphone. In the “information age,” we are deaf, dumb and blind. On a good day.

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• Agricultural Communication/Journalism Faculty Wanted! The joint program in Agricultural Communication & Journalism at Utah State University seeks candidates for a full-time, tenure-track assistant professor. See the posting at USU’s HR site here or email ted.pease@usu.edu for details. Review begins in March. Start date: August 2011.
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Ailments

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Wizard of Ooze

“Rotund, bald and ferocious, the Fox television boss Roger Ailes is said to have two speeds – attack and destroy. Every night under his watch, millions of Americans are enthused, engrossed or appalled by a lively diet of angry rightwing rhetoric served up on Fox’s rolling news channel.”

—Andrews Clark and James Robinson, reporters,
“Fox hunt: Cracks in Murdoch dynasty as TV news chief finds himself on firing line,”
The Guardian, Jan. 15, 2010

• Editorial Comment: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

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Burnout

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More With Less

“For journalists charged with feeding the digital news flow, life is a barely sustainable cycle of reporting, blogging, tweeting, Facebooking and, in some cases, moderating the large volume of readers who comment online. I applaud these journalists for their commitment, but worry that the requirements of the digital age are translating into more errors and eventual burnout.”

—Arthur S. Brisbane, public editor, The New York Times, 1/10/2011
(Thanks to alert WORDster John McManus)

• Editorial Comment: What about their readers?

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Gonzo TV

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Crazy Wilbur

“People think I watch TV too much, but they are wrong. There is a huge difference between merely ‘watching’ TV and learning to respond aggressively to it. The difference for most people is the difference between the living and dying of their own brains. The lesson is simple, yet it must be learned: if all you get from watching TV most of your life is the jumble of disconnected information it imparts, you are doomed to a life of fear and confusion—especially if you receive 500 or 600 channels 24 hours a day, like I do.

“The difference between Dan Rather on CBS and a Crazy Wilbur pimping junk jewelry on the RIP-U home shopping network is not easy to see or grasp when you’ve been watching the whole world happening constantly on three 40-inch Interactive HD/black matrix Mitsubishi TV monitors that make Bill Clinton’s head appear twice the size of yours, and his voice so pure and real that it sounds like it’s coming from the depths of your own throat, all day and all night for 55 straight months.”

--Hunter S. Thompson (1938-2005) , gonzo journalist, Better than sex, confessions of a political junkie, 1994 (Thanks to alert WORDster Seth Bracken)

• Editorial Comment: That would be enough to make me shoot my TV.

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• Agricultural Communication/Journalism Faculty Wanted! The joint program in Agricultural Communication & Journalism at Utah State University seeks candidates for a full-time, tenure-track assistant professor. See the posting at USU’s HR site here or email ted.pease@usu.edu for details. Review begins in March. Start date: August 2011.