As President Obama mentioned in his speech, there is in fact an informative website one can use when assessing the recovery plan, recovery.gov. I just visited it, and I must say that my first impression if very positive. Given how much money is about to be spent, it will probably quickly fill up with loads of data, and commentators, including bloggers, will have to sift through a lot of information to keep tabs on all of the money being spent. However, for once it seems like a tool has been created that will encourage public oversight of the Federal government. The tone of the website is entirely different from what we have come to expect from president Bush, and its very existence will probably encourage the people in charge of recovery money to be a bit more careful about how they spend it.
February 2009
My important blog contribution of the weekend:
1 – Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 – Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your album.
3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 – Photoshop it all together. (Or, if you don’t have Photoshop, Picasa it all together.)
When the Independent Record and the other Montana newspapers are reduced to running stories designed to reassure readers that Lee Enterprises is doing just fine almost weekly, it’s embarrassing and not terribly convincing.
The latest story goes beyond embarrassment to absurdity. Why? Because despite reading like a personal message from the interim publisher to the readers, it’s just boilerplate copy, probably appearing in every Lee paper across the country. It’s one thing to claim that newsrooms are being cut without sacrificing coverage or that reductions in the paper’s size are temporary responses to a challenging economy, but it’s quite another, in the age of easy Internet access, to insult your readers with a faux ‘personal’ message like this.
Jim Rickman, interim publisher, Independent Record, today:
Just in case you’ve heard some of the uninformed speculation in a few circles, I’d like to give you an update on the financial health of our parent company.
For more than 140 years, we have served the Helena community as, by far, the primary source of local news, information and advertising. To this day, we reach 79 percent of the adults in this market, with strength across all age groups in print as well as online.
We’ll match our experienced newsroom with any of our size in the country.
Rick Emanuel, publisher, Glens Falls Post Star, yesterday:
Just in case you’ve heard some of the uninformed speculation in a few circles, I’d like to give you an update on the financial health of our parent company.
For many years, we have served our community as the primary source of local news, information and advertising.
To this day, we reach more than 75 percent of the adults in this market, with strength across all age groups in print as well as online.
We’ll match our experienced newsroom with any of our size in the country.
Nathan Bekke, publisher, Casper Star Tribune, Friday:
Just in case you’ve heard some of the uninformed speculation in a few circles, I’d like to give you an update on the financial health of our parent company.
For more than 117 years, we have served Wyoming as, by far, the primary source of local news, information and advertising. To this day, we reach 80 percent of the adults in our local market, with strength across all age groups in print as well as online.
We’ll match our experienced newsroom with any of our size in the country.
I wonder who would win if they were forced to match the experienced newsrooms of Casper, Helena, and Glen Falls in a copy cage match. I really feel for the people working in newsrooms across the state, even if I occasionally disagree with some of their coverage. I admire a few of them, either as a writers or reporters. But more than anything, I pity them, for working for such a hapless collection of corporate drones, people who treat their readers and their newspapers (many with fine historical legacies) with such contempt.
Though this list seems pretty transparently designed to draw traffic from people mocking its obvious absurdity, it’s hard not to enjoy the spectacle of conservatives making the case for the best movies in the past twenty five years. Enjoy the list for yourself, but I can’t help but comment on a few items.
The appearance of Red Dawn on this list isn’t surprising, but it’s telling. John Nolte reminds us that the movie is just like Ronald Reagan: “Released at the midpoint of Reagan’s presidential showdown with the Soviet Union, this story of what was at stake in the Cold War endures.” You know what? I loved Red Dawn too, when I was 12. It seems like too many of the Fighting Keyboardists of the right just never grew up past their adolescent, macho fantasy world. It’s too bad that they are willing to let other people die to feel like children again.
According to the list, Juno was a pro-life film about “a broken culture in which teen sex is dehumanizing.” Maybe I saw another film, but I saw too very human kids struggle with a difficult situation. For me, the characters played by Michael Cera and Ellen Page were humanized by their experience.
The hell with them for turning The Lord of the Rings into right wing propaganda. Somehow, I doubt that Professor Tolkien would have endorsed torture or Guantanamo.
As for The Dark Knight, the list is right to compare the film to President Bush. At the end of the film (his term), no one could stand the bastard. The difference is that one was falsely accused of heinous crimes.
At least they got one film right, 2007’s The Lives of Others. Of course, I can’t understand how the National Review can honestly spend half of the list decrying the liberal Hollywood establishment’s bias while noting that this “conservative” film was awarded an Oscar and received effusive praise. Ignore the National Review, and watch this movie if you haven’t—it’s an incredibly powerful story.
How seriously should anyone take this list? Well, any list that includes a Brendan Fraser comedy as a serious treatment on feminism or includes An American Carol anywhere near the top, pretty much invalidates itself. It’s certainly interesting to see what it reveals about the mind of the modern American conservative, though.
It’s bad enough to make readers pay for a smaller paper with less local coverage, but to charge them to read a press release from your corporate parent?
I do love the corporate-speak, though.
“At the same time, we have initiated a broad range of cost reductions, which are now expected to total 11 to 12 percent in 2009. Some have been short-term steps to help us weather this storm, but most are long-term, streamlining initiatives to provide ongoing benefit in the years ahead. All of this reinforces our confidence that Lee will emerge strong when the recession ends.”
See, it’s not cutting newsroom staff and shrinking the news coverage. It’s “long-term streamlining!”
“Even in this unprecedented downturn, we remain, by far, the leading provider of local news, information and advertising in our markets.
No worries, stockholders. In most markets, we’re the only daily newspaper, so it doesn’t matter how bad the product gets!
One note the press release didn’t mention was the hugely positive impact this deal had on Lee’s stock value, which skyrocketed to 39 cents following the news.
