Southwest Airlines To Rescue Nevada Budget

While the "more taxes vs. less spending" crowd continue their battle of doomsday scenarios and nonspecific solutions (heaven forbid a Nevada politician actually steps forward with a budget that features real world spending cuts and/or tax proposals), leave it Southwest Airlines to provide a first quarter boost to the Silver State economy. 

Southwest is currently (today and tomorrow) running a 50% off sale on airfare to Vegas for travel between 1/13 and 3/11.  One-way tickets from Los Angeles are just $35 and Chicago just $80.  Heck, Vegas to Reno and vice versa are just $35 a pop too.  Maybe our Vegas legislators should book their 2009 session tix now and save the state some money.  You know, an actual spending cut.

Tweet Congress A Work In Progress

Tweet Congress allegedly follows all the members of, well, Congress who Twitter and urges those who don't, to start.  They'll need a lot of work as according to their charts only 44 out of 535 currently do.

But you have to even wonder about those numbers.  Nancy Pelosi's Twitter activity is pretty consistent, third most, but it turns out that's not really her account.  It's an unofficial one ran by Political Feeds, which also has Sarah Palin's "account".  Plus, for Nevadans, Tweet Congress failed to mention Harry Reid's account (another unofficial Political Feeds creation) or John Ensign's one post for that matter.  Oh well.

Texas congressman John Culberson is by far the most active (though I have to wonder how he follows 5,600+) and appears to be one of the few who actually interacts with others.

Hillary Clinton's is interesting in that the "I never would have guessed Governor Sarah Palin had a style team. Her outfits are so hideous and her hair is quite unprofessional looking" post is still there (though deleted from the official Twitter site).  Still, she seems to have abandoned the concept.

Media Blunders, Strange Bedfellows and HuffPo Hand Caught in the Cookie Jar

That and Sarah Palin's search engine rise.

• Top 10 Media Blunders in 2008 -- According to the fine folks at Politico.  #1?  New Hampshire Dem primary.

• Hell freezes over -- Air America Radio founder agrees with Rush Limbaugh on Fairness Doctrine.

• HuffPo caught stealing content? -- So says the Chicago Reader.  And the screenshots in Wired's story seem to agree.

• Sarah Palin #1 -- According to the 2008 Google Zeitgeist.  She edges out "Beijing 2008" and "Facebook login" for fastest rising.
  

Santa Claus Asks For Government Bailout

Who knew National Lampoon was still kicking around.  I thought they disappeared when Otter had to sell it in the early 90s.  Anyways, a fairly funny spoof of the never-ending bailouts.

Note the guy playing Santa.  Looks like character actor Larry Hankin who famously played "TV Kramer" in the Seinfeld episode where they film the NBC pilot.  (And, yes, he did steal George's raisins.)

A Vegetarian's Nightmare in Vivid Panoramic Color

Somehow I stumbled across this story in the NYT on the Peter Luger Steak House and their dry aging process.  And while the story itself is interesting, it is the accompanying photo by Fred R. Conrad that knocked my socks off.  Technically, it is a series of shots taken in their meat vault pieced together, but the effect is incredible.  Watch in full screen and play with the mouse to see all of it.  It's like you are literally there.  Not sure what was used to create this, by maybe Jerz or somebody knows.

Oh yeah, if you watch the full pan note the color of the meat near the end.

Polled Again ... In December

First it was a pro-life push poll last week, now it is a robo poll on whether one supports the electoral college process.  At least this one was legitimate (asking demographic, political affiliation, etc. questions).  Still, it's December. 

I Think I've Heard This Before

The writing style of this RGJ letter-to-the-editor sounds strangely familiar in a bloggeresque kind of way.

Push Polls Still Going In Nevada

Apparently the end of the election didn't mean the end of political polls or, in this case, a robo push poll for Nevadans.

Wednesday night I was polled, or so I initially thought, about the Freedom of Choice Act.  The first few questions were pretty straight forward on whether I supported it or not. Unlike a lot of these polls, though, there was no "Press 1 for yes, 2 for No" option.  Since there was the appropriate pause after each I figured it might be voice activated.  But then when I said "What?" once, and it went to the next question, I quickly realized it not only wasn't capturing responses it wasn't intended to.

The main reason was to ask questions like "Shouldn't a hospital provide medical care for an infant if a partial-birth abortion didn't work?" and others that even the most hardcore abortion rights supporter would probably say yes to.  The payoff, of course, is after listening to all those "reasonable" questions you are told that each one of these options would disappear if Barack Obama signs the Freedom of Choice Act.

The "poll" was paid for by a group with "United" in the name (it went by so fast).  Not sure if it was Americans United for Life, but the views would match.

It's Not Just the Internet Killing the Newspaper

It seems like almost everyone online is writing an obituary for the newspaper industry which, ironically, is about the last profit source for papers lately. Locally, Ann Onn and Zeke have sounded the death knell for newspapers while Russ Smith over at Splice Today has a very interesting piece on the day he realized the newspaper had died.

Most point to the internet as the end of print, which is obviously hastening their decline, but for me it was two events decades ago that stand out as the writing on the wall for newspapers.

Back in college during the 80s there were two constants on Bruin Walk.  A performance protester, like Stoney Burke, and somebody hawking the L.A. Times.  I'd always bite on the paper offer, two bucks or less a week, as I grew up in a family that always subscribed to the small local news and the Sacramento Bee on Sundays.  Quite frankly, I figured everyone else did too.

But that first week of delivery to my dorm room was where I had my initial inkling the future of the newspaper industry wasn't going to be too bright.  Each morning as I'd grab my paper I would take a gander down the hall at the other 35 or so rooms on the floor and see only one other subscriber. One, out of 70+ college students!  Even sadder, on the days I wisely scheduled afternoon classes and could sleep in, I quickly found I didn't have to worry about my Times being pilfered, and our room was right next to the elevator.

In fact, there were only two occasions when someone lifted our paper -- Mondays during the NFL season somebody grabbed a couple of our sports sections, they left the rest, and the day Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando opened.  Twentieth Century-Fox had inserted full-size film posters for the flick in the paper and, needless to say, that edition suddenly, for one brief shining day, became a hot property.  This theft particularly annoyed my roommate, who made sure we appropriated a few posters before day's end.  But that was it, nobody cared to buy or even steal (well 99.9% of the time) the Times and these were, in theory, future leaders of our country in the pre-internet era.

The second epiphany was a few years later when I was covering sports, and everything else for that matter, at a small five-day-a-week paper.  I was interviewing the high school girls field hockey coach at an away game (yeah, my 280Z took a pounding) and mentioned something about the previous story I did on the team.  To this day, I still remember the awkwardly blank look on her face that seemed to last forever.  Obviously she hadn't read the article but, perhaps some form of wishful thinking on my part, I figured she had just missed an issue.  She had.  All of them.  She told me they, her husband was also a coach, didn't subscribe or, apparently, even drop the occasional quarter in the news rack.  These were teachers.  Teachers who were actually routinely quoted in the paper, yet they didn't see a need to read the local news.

So while the internet receives most of the blame for the decline of newspapers, and among news junkies it is, I think the bigger and gloomier picture for the industry is the ongoing trend of a general lack of interest in real news by most Americans.  Most people couldn't care less about your average city council or planning commission meetings.  Or how the JV boys baseball team did over the weekend.  If you ever look at the "most popular stories" feature on some papers' sites it is almost completely populated with either crime, sex or celebrity pieces. 

It's "junk news" people want ... and they want it for free.  That's what is killing the newspaper.

Those Southern Auto Plants

A lot has been said in general about auto plants not in Michigan, but I get a feeling most people don't really know exactly where they are or what they are building.  Mississippi's The Clarion-Ledger must have thought the same and came up with a nice interactive page for all those southern auto factories.  Toyota has a lot.

Bailing On or Out Detroit

It seems like everyone and their brother is opining about the latest in what promises to be a never-ending chain of bailouts.  And despite the public, who ultimately will foot the bill, being against it I suspect GM will get a load of cash, management and UAW contracts will stay the same and all Big Three automakers will be knocking on DC's door again with open palms before the end of '09.  I wonder which industry is up next?

A couple of auto bailout stories that caught my eye:

• Detroit Free Press auto reporter attempts to shoot down seven myths about why Detroit cars stink.  But, as one commenter noted, if these assumptions are all untrue, then why are the Big Three on the brink of going out of business?

• Perhaps likening senators voting against the auto bailout to some Confederate payback for an 1861 battle isn't the best way to change their minds.  But in Detroit, even the sports guy has to get involved (which, actually, may be better than covering the Lions).

• While everyone keeps focusing on the Big Three's hourly labor cost, and arguing about the true amount ($55 vs. $75), something that isn't being addressed is the sometimes onerous work rules and job classifications the UAW has instituted.

• Not all car communities are suffering.  West Point, Georgia, is celebrating the arrival of Kia.  Yes, Kia.

Now That's a Good Photo

I wonder how long the Sun-Times' John White waited for this Blagojevich photo op?  Classic.

But apparently it will be a one-time shot as the sign has mysteriously disappeared despite a) being on city property and b) actually serving a purpose by warning people about rat poison.

"We plan to repost [it] some time in the near future when it isn't likely to be the center of attention," said an official.

The Obama "O" Logo Story

While it's famous now, the Barack Obama logo was initially one of 15 designed in 2006 by Sol Sender.  Political Punch has the top three, while you can see all 15 and the design process below.



Part two can be viewed here.

Culture of Corruption is Bipartisan

I guess corruption is the one thing that truly is bipartisan.

Also, it looks like Jesse Jackson Jr. may get snared into the Blagojevich mess.

 

RGJ, Gannett and Book Publishers All Announce Layoffs

Bad day at the Reno Gazette-Journal and Gannett nationwide.  The RGJ announced it was letting 61 people go and ceasing publication of weeklies Douglas Times and Fallon Star Press.  Its commercial press in Carson City is also being closed.  As of 4:42 p.m PST the independent Gannett Blog was reporting 1,400 layoffs nationwide, with more papers yet to report.

Posted anonymously in the Gannett Blog comments section was the letter RGJ publisher Ted Power allegedly sent to staffers today.

December 3, 2008

To: The Staff

From: Ted Power

We’ve just posted at rgj.com that by the end of the month we will have 61 fewer employees, will cease publishing the Douglas Times and the Fallon Star Press and will close Eastern Sierra Publishing.

Thank you for the patience and support you have shown each other and your supervisors during the past weeks. Mostly, thank you for the dedication you have shown our readers and advertisers during a trying time.

• The Information Center completed an outstanding immigration series, produced a compelling multi-media foreclosure report, drove 1 million page views to Metromix in its first month and covered an historic election and the arrest in a notorious murder case.

• The advertising staff took lessons learned in comprehensive online sales seminars and grew its online retail revenue in November, sold 400 gifts to the digital holiday gift guide, launched and sold foreclosed home package to real estate agents, and reduced the number of errors and dollars refunded.

• Online built the digital holiday gift guide, helped the Info Center with its foreclosure package, built a prototype for a rentals site and continued to redevelop gotorenotahoe.com.

• Our circulation staff completed its own reorganization, audited our single copy locations and prepared for new efficiencies in 2009.

• The production team honed our new web width, found savings in newsprint and ink expense and re-sectioned our classified pages to save more newsprint dollars.

• Marketing put on a successful Journal Jog and Fantasies in Chocolate, the finance staff prepared to entrust others with paying our bills and the IT department provided critical reports and upgrades to help us make critical decisions and plan for future initiatives.

They are significant accomplishments under normal circumstances and show true dedication and focus given the environment in which we have found ourselves.

Our headlines tell the story of our city and state: foreclosures, empty hotel rooms, closed casinos, budget shortfalls, special legislative sessions, difficult forecasts. Given the continued apprehension, we have 11 vacant positions which we do not anticipate filling.

More than ever before, it is critical for us to work together and to be partners with others in our communities so our market can regain the momentum of the first half of this decade.

I know I can count on each of you to help each other help our readers and advertisers.

The written word business as a whole took a hit today as Random House, Simon & Schuster and Thomas Nelson Publishers all announced layoffs as well.

Does the Begging Ever Stop?

A month after winning, the Barack Obama campaign is still shilling for donations.  This time it is for a special Limited Edition Obama Holiday Mug.  Just $15+.

In keeping with the theme, apparently the Clinton's view Hillary's SOS appointment as a chance to refill the coffers.  Check out the big "Contribute" button on Bill's surprisingly short congats to the wife.

They Still Do Flaming Bags of Feces?

There's something about reading a small-town newspaper I always love.  Many, without an AP feed, are strictly local news.  And when you are local, you print virtually everything. 

When I worked at a small daily, the most popular section was always the Police Notes.  No matter how hard I slaved to put up complete varsity and JV pieces (I never liked the whole slap the JV results to the end of the varsity story bit) for both the boys and girls teams or covered a debate or meeting, I always knew the first page our readers would turn to was the one with the crime reports (next was the obits).  I still remember the time some lady called 911 because her alarm clock wouldn't turn off (true story!).

Anyway, it's nice to see the tradition continue in the small markets.  You won't find crime notes like these in the RGJ.

From the Police Reports section of the November 25th Red Bluff Daily News:

One-third of a black trash bag worth of grapefruits was reported stolen Saturday afternoon from a tree on Johnson Street.

A flaming bag of feces was thrown onto a trampoline Sunday night on Alvord Court.