Do we need the Fairness Doctrine back?

I don’t know exactly what California Congresswoman has in mind to replace the old Fairness Doctrine, killed in 1987. But, contrary to MSLBs who insist we’ve moved far beyond its days, due to the wonderments of the Internet, I disagree.

First, there’s no guarantees about what the future of the Internet will be, vis-à-vis Net Neutrality and other issues.

Second, folks like Steve Benen spin this out from the viewpoint of the left-hand side of the two-party duopoly, instead of looking at additional viewpoints beyond its left and right hands that need protecting.

For example, wouldn’t it be great for a socialist — a REAL one, and not you, Sen. Bernie Sanders — to have had access to the airwaves to talk about the lenders’ bailout?

Third, despite some shrinkage on traditional network TV, the cable news networks continue to grow. And, a network, whether old-time broadcast like NBC, newer cable like CNN, or newer yet cable-Net fusion like MSNBC, still has cachet that some third-party or fourth-viewpoint website doesn’t.

Unfortunately, it is 20 years too late. As the comments on the Press Club blog post show, 20 years of a free ride for Rush and dittoheads mean that they're cluelessly infantile about the First Amendment, among other things, as the Fairness Doctrine clearly WAS constitutional.

I’m not saying we need the same Fairness Doctrine today, but we need something. We don’t often get a lot of TRULY different information out of the left and right hands of the two-party duopoly and its emissaries and most people don't even know of something like Pacifica.

The Iranian philosopher Idries Shah says there are never just two sides two an issue. But, a real FD would protect the three or more sides.

You need a recruiter to hire a community newspaper editor

That's a blind ad taken to a whole new level. Hell, even Park Cities People hires openly. A community newspaper using a recruiter is a whole new level of snootiness.

That said, if anybody in Texas knows a recruiter named Allen Wright, let me know anything you know!

A strange way to write a headline at the Snooze

Attention, Dallas Morning News copy editors/page designers:

Cars don’t kill people, car drivers do, unless an unattended car has its “Park” lock shear off or something.

And, it takes two people to byline a story that short? Is this make-work before the next layoff ax?

Tribune Co. bailing on AP

The Tribune Company, parent of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times,, is looking at not renewing its AP contract in 2010.

The Associated Press’ proposed new package of services in 2010 is unpopular with many papers, including controversial new rate structure next year.

Member papers now pay AP for a general news package tailored to their size and location. The new plan will have papers getting all available breaking news dispatches from around the world and other states with premium non-breaking content available at an added cost.

The gist of the complaint is that, even as many newspapers want more local news, the AP is forcing more international news on them.

Editor and Publisher has more:

Under current AP policy, each newspaper buys a package of general news created by AP based on that paper's location and circulation. The package usually includes breaking news, sports, business, and other national, international, and regional news relevant to the client's market, including its state AP wire.

Under the new structure, AP member newspapers will receive all breaking news worldwide (including items from other state wires), as well as breaking sports, business, and entertainment stories. In addition, a package of premium content — made up of five types of non-breaking stories including sports, entertainment, business, lifestyle and analysis — will be available at an additional cost.

The base rate is lower, but the material isn’t targeted by location.

So far, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is the largest paper to officially opt out. Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., is trying to get out at the end of this year, claiming AP’s two-year advance notice doesn’t apply as the new service package is that much different than the old one.

So far, the AP has been indifferent to member newspapers’ complaints, but I don’t see how it can ignore the Trib Co.

But, per E&P, the Trib’s empire also includes: The Sun Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; The Orlando Sentinel; Red Eye of Chicago; the Hartford Courant; The Baltimore Sun; The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa.; and The Daily Press of Newport News, Va.

I just don’t see how the AP can ignore than many newspapers of BIG circulation.

AP reporters’ arrogance toward ‘little people’ in Denver

While eating lunch at the EXCELLENT New Mex-Mex restaurant Jack-N-Grill Sunday (try the chile [sic] relleno burrito, or about anything), an AP editor, and other members of the Fourth Estate, showed up for lunch.

And, overlooking the fact that is a popular restaurant, it was Sunday lunch, and this is a relatively slow-paced restaurant with a price range of about everything under $15 and most items under $10, Mr. Pinstriped Suit Pants, especially, seemed to get a little huffy toward wait staff.

Dude, chill out. You were at the good end of the outdoor seating area, next to the propane chile roaster. (My burrito, made with two Hatch rellenos rather than one ancho, had chiles roasted earlier Sunday morning.)

FOX reaches new ethical low with Photoshopping pics

Here’s the story on how it deliberately Photoshopped the pics of two NYTimes staffers.

Marshall certainly didn't have Fortas’ baggage, and there is no way Northern Republican Senators would have voted against cloture, or voted against Marshall's actual nomination.

L.A. Times continues to crater

When a 21st-century newspaper cuts Internet news jobs, you know it’s floundering.

The Times’ editorial staff will be shrunk 17 percent by Labor Day. The paper will also put out about 15 percent fewer pages.

The heartless mainstream media continues to filet itself

The Miami Herald lays you off. After a bait-and-switch sending your job to India.

Then, it wants you to blog about it, and about how you’re going to survive without full-time income! (Scroll down to the June 22 post, or go directly there.

And, this is McClatchy.

Outside its more thorough, non Bush-shitted coverage of Iraq, it shows again it is Just.Another.Newspaper.

Bob Woodward – ‘self-effacing guy’

That’s the word from Washington Post Executive Editor Len Downie said about the legendary-in-his-own-mind Woodward continuing to work for the WaPost at a buck a year as a “special asset” after taking a Post buyout.

McClatchy — just another newspaper company

Forget their in-depth, unbiased Iraq coverage. When outsourcing jobs to India is he least problematic of your newspaper job downsizing actions, you’re just another big conservative newspaper company at bottom line.

Hey may not know Mavericks hoops, but he does know CEO-ing more than Snooze

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban makes a compelling case to make CEO pay cash-only:

Make companies generate 100 percent of their compensation in cash that will be 100 percent expensable in the quarter paid.

Counteracting the “CEO as riskmeister” myth, Cuban writes:

Everyone who works for that company is at risk – of losing their jobs, benefits, raises, you name it. Employees live in the corporate cash zone, while CEOs and the top few in management live in the equity/lottery ticket zone.

Too bad an outsider like Cuban had to write something like this instead of the Dallas Morning News’ own op-ed staff

Of course, given that Bob Decherd, CEO of Belo Corp., the parent of the Snooze, got a $3 million bonus last year, despite a negatively performing company — a bonus that works out at about $60,000 per each of 50 fired editorial employees — it’s no wonder it took an outsider to write this.

The only wonder is that the Snooze even published it.

Dallas Morning News gets Jewish-Roman history wrong

The Snooze lumps Rome’s two wars against Jewish rebels with Nazi persecution of Jews in what sets a new low standard for non-political stupidity on the editorial pages of the Snooze.

The murder of 6 million European Jews in the 1940s fiercely and urgently showed why Israel was, and is, necessary. It is no small mystery, though, that the failed attempt to exterminate the Jewish people would resurrect an ancient nation murdered by Roman legions.

As I e-mailed Snooze Editorial Page Editor Keven Willey, this is totally ahistorical. First, while Rome may have provoked Jews at times, nonetheless, the Jewish people had full religious freedom in the Roman Empire before the first Jewish Revolt. That’s TOTALLY different from the Nazis going out of their way to proscribe Judaism then kill the Jewish people just for being Jews.

And, it wasn’t until after the SECOND Jewish revolt that Rome put restrictions on Jewish practices and forbade them from living in Jerusalem.

Hypocrisy alert – Bob Decherd and Belo Corp

Only eight of Dallas-Fort Worth’s 50 largest companies had both a revenue decline in 2007 from 2006 AND negative value to shareholders in 2007.

One of those was Belo Corp, parent of The Dallas Morning News.

The News has been slumping even by the standards of seven-day daily newspaper declines. (Interestingly, the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Orange County Register, two other openly conservative papers, have joined the Snooze at or near the bottom of worst-performing major dailies the last three or so years. The New York Post and Washington Times are perennial money losers.)

That did not phase the board of directors of Belo, apparently. Decherd, at $3 million, got the fifth-biggest bonus of those top-50 company CEOs. His total compensation for the year ranked 13th, at a shade over $10 million.

That $3 million bonus? What is that, about $60,000 each for the 50 or so editorial folks who have gotten the ax at the Snooze in the last three years or so?

Sorry I can’t find a link to the graphic box illustrating this that goes with the main story. I’d love to ask Pamela Yip, who wrote the main store and has seen dozens of friends and coworkers get axed over the last three years, how she felt about digging up that nugget.

If you’d like to ask her, here you go.

Apparently jump-page orphans don't matter at Snooze

In what I would definitely consider bad copyediting/pagination, multiple stories in today's Dallas Morning News have single-word orphans on their page jumps.

Bloodbath at the Times

Only 70 editorial staffers at the New York Times have accepted buyouts, less than the 100 Executive Editor Bill Keller wanted. So, the NYT is expected to engage in its first-ever mass firing. Why?

You know the drill. Poor ad revenues. Well, poor for the newspaper biz, that doesn’t want to lower profit margin expectations, especially in the middle of a board restructuring cave-in.

Murdoch wants Newsday next

Considering that any deal isn’t likely until near the election, I highly doubt Rupert Murdoch will clear the antitrust hurdles necessary to complete his proposed $580 million offer for Long Island daily Newsday.

Having three of the nation’s top 10 papers, plus three in the NYC market (the Sun and the Wall Street Journal as well) would probably draw close regulator scrutiny.

But, a dingy gray knight is prepared to do battle with Murdoch the black knight. Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of the Daily News, also wants Newsday and is crafting a counteroffer.

Mort wouldn’t be much better than Rupert.

Better yet, and more reflective of NYC political realities, would be a takeover by the Observer, which is reportedly partnering with Cablevision to prepare an offer.

All three would want joint ad deals and sales the combo could offer. At the same time, Newsday continues to sag in its performance.

There goes the newspaper neighborhood

A lot of liberal bloggers may be wringing their hands about Rupert Murdoch being elected to the Associated Press board of directors, but as an ink-stained wretch/member of the Fourth Estate myself, I can tell them their concerns, while not necessarily overblown, are too narrow.

Among other new board members? Donna J. Barrett, president and chief executive officer of Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. CHNI is the “Chainsaw Al” of small-town daily newspaper operations. They buy a newspaper, or small group thereof, and immediately attempt to recoup their money ASAP.

Of course, Dean Singleton, already on the board, and his MediaNews, aren’t exactly a gem of newspaper ownership either. After all, it was Deano who asked Barack Obama if he planned to do more to fight Obama bin Laden. It may have been an accident, but I wouldn’t be so sure.

If you want to know more about Deano (disclosure – I worked at one of his papers in the late 1990s), all you need is the quote below from this NYT story:

“Mr. Singleton, 54, a bantam figure with flinty blue eyes, is indeed thought of as something of a magician in the newspaper world — having transformed himself from the son of a ranch hand in a tiny town in Texas to a media baron who now controls a newspaper empire that sprawls from coast to coast,” the Times adds. “He has, in a manner of speaking, sawed many of his competitors in half, only to have them hop off the table and become his partners.”

But, don’t underestimate him, says John McManus from San Jose State’s j-school:

“He aspires to be a mogul in the ranks of Pulitzer and the Hearst of old, and I think he's going to achieve it.”

Trust me, Rupert Murdoch isn’t really an “outlier” here.

Local TV going the way of the newspaper?

It would seem so, given the ad drops, viewer drops and now, the job-slashing, that’s hitting local network affiliate stations.

Outside of Baltimore, CBS is seeing cuts at network-owned affiliate stations in New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. The story says no order came out of HQ for this, but did note these were allegedly low-performing stations. CBS as a company lost 14.6 percent in the first quarter of this year.

Contrary to the newspaper article, though, it’s more than fragmenting of the market, or audience. And, yes, I agree that part of this is recession-driven.

It’s more than just the “traditional” Internet, of newspaper and TV station websites, supplemented by the Yahoos and Google News of the world.

Instead, just as blogging provided an outlet for some sort of “print” citizen journalism, now YouTube has done the same for video citizen journalism.

In other words, TV is facing the same future that hit newspapers a decade ago.

Newspapers have adapted, in many cities, by cutting staff writers and hiring more freelancers. In general assignment work, that’s OK. But, as The Dallas Morning News has shown here, when you have freelancers doing things like science journalism, it backfires.

Of course, TV does less in-depth stuff like that. You could keep staff reporters and videographers for investigative work, and start farming out the rest. The flip side of that is, TV stations could “bureau” their news by suburban areas, in the larger TV markets.

It’s coming, in some way, shape or form.

Beyond the world of local news, entertainment is not just going to cable channels. YouTube has more and more of that to offer, too.

And, if this story about Internet 3.0, Hypernet, or whatever you want to call it is true, we’ll see a lot more people leaving the traditional boob tube turned off.

Illiterate science journalism at Morning News confuses nature and nurture

In a health story today at The Dallas Morning News, (don’t forget the initial capital!) freelancer (I’m sorry, “special contributor”) Elsa K. Simcik made a whopper of a mistake on nature vs. nurture. She says:

Reed also didn't realize that being African-American automatically put her at high risk for developing colon cancer. According to the American Cancer Society Web site, “African-Americans have the highest colorectal cancer incidence and mortality rates of all racial groups in the United States.”

Yes, but there is NO definite evidence linking anything genetic in African-Americans to the higher colon cancer rates, therefore, Martha Reed was NOT “automatically” anything.

There are a variety of environmental risk factors, to be sure. Lower screening rates and detection often being in more advanced states of cancer both contribute to the higher fatality rate. Traditional black foods, higher in saturated fats and lower in fiber, are certainly likely contributory to higher rates of occurrence.

BUT … those are all “nature” factors, not “nurture” ones.

As for claims of genetic-driven difference, all of them are weak at this stage, and even if they do pan out with more research, nonetheless, their effects will be seen as much smaller than the environmentally-caused ones.

I know the Snooze got rid of its fantastic science editor, Tom Siegfried, in what seems like an eon ago. But, that’s not an excuse for not having at least a staff writer with some science writing doing this story.

Dallas Morning News appears to misformat column as story

The Dallas Morning News has a very good freelancer’s column on potential for a “low bottom” on the housing bubble. The grimmest news is that as much as 4 percent of home loans could be in foreclosure by the end of this year. That is, barring an economic regulatory reform package that also offers homeowner some relief. Anyway, here’s where we’re at right now, along with projections for the future:

Unfortunately, the author of the story, Will Deener, says that getting mortgage defaults behind us, will allow this wonderful benefit:

Then the banks, brokerage firms and mortgage companies will start packaging those mortgages again and selling them to institutions, which is how the system is supposed to work.

Uhh, no, Will. Wrong. Exactimento wrong.
That’s how the system was gamed to get us to this point in the first place. The “system” as it currently stands is broken.

Oh, and Dallas Morning News? Why isn’t this run in hardcopy, or identified online, as news analysis or a column, which it clearly is. (Going by a column in hardcopy today, which is NOT run ragged-right on line justification like columns are supposed to be, I am assuming this one, too, if/when it appears in hardcopy, will be run as a straight financial news story.)

Oh, and why isn’t the Snooze posting e-mail addys for most of its freelance contributors anymore? I’m guessing some of them might not like it, but, the Snooze could either set them up with corporate e-mail addresses or else simply say that’s part of the price of freelancing.

Newspaper ad dropoff reflects recession ahead?

Newspaper ad rates dropped almost 10 percent in 2007. The decline, in percentage, was the biggest since the Newspaper Association of American started tracking ad sales stats in 1950.

National print advertising revenue dropped 6.7 percent to $7 billion last year. Retail slipped 5 percent to $21 billion. Classified plunged 16.5 percent to $14.1 billion.

That last number, the anchor bringing the total print advertising drop to 9.4 percent, shows the effects of Craigslist, which continues to try to be like a newspaper classified advertising website when it suits its purposes, but then claims it isn’t one when it wants to avoid federal fair housing law. (Click the Craigslist label for more.)

Meanwhile, online ad revenue, while continuing to grow, had its rate of growth slow last year. Some of that is natural. Between all of the above, online ad revenue now makes up 7.5 percent of total newspaper ad revenue.

Google makes it easier to avoid Morning News website

First, let me say, as tens of thousands of others in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex have said over the last three-plus years since the Snooze, officially known as The (don’t forget to capitalize that “the,” New York Times pretentiousness and all) Dallas Morning News, changed its website to its current form.

It sucks.

It sucks donkey dongs.

It sucks George Bannerman Dealey’s donkey dong, in fact.

It is probably THE WORST website of any major seven-day daily newspaper in the United States, excepting of course, other A.H. Belo papers in Riverside, Calif. and Providence, R.I. (Belo websites suck because Belo blows — the different papers’ websites are mirror images.)

One of the worst things about the Snooze’s website is the impossibility of finding any Snooze story that is not actually linked on the website’s homepage. The story may have been written in the last 24 hours; it may have run in that day’s hardcopy.

But, if it ain’t on the homepage of the website, you ain’t gonna find it.

Solution? After getting frustrated at the donkey-dong sucking Snooze website (see for yourself), I go to Google News, hit the advanced news search, enter Dallas Morning News as my search (don’t even have to use “the,” let alone the prissy-fit capitalized version), and then enter my normal Google search words.

Voila! Link(s) spit out to just the right articles.

Well, now, Google is going one step further.

This month, the company introduced a search-within-search feature that lets users stay on Google to find pages on popular sites like those of The Washington Post, Wikipedia, The New York Times, Wal-Mart and others. The search box appears when someone enters the name of certain Web addresses or company names — say, “Best Buy” — rather than entering a request like “cellphones.”

The results of the search are almost all individual company pages. Google tops those results with a link to the home page of the Web site in question, adds another search box, and offers users the chance to let Google search for certain things within that site.

The problem, for some in the industry, is that when someone enters a term into that secondary search box, Google will display ads for competing sites, thereby profiting from ads it sells against the brand. The feature also keeps users searching on Google pages and not pages of the destination Web site.

Tough shit. Your unsearchable website, with further editorial cuts ahead, certainly won’t get better. If anything, it will get worse.

Oh, and to throw you further under the bus… you have a paper always bragging about the APME awards it wins for sports coverage, then it outsources all its high school stuff to a third-party site, one that doesn’t have as much online high school sports as the DMN did five years ago.

You don’t like it? Make your own website better. Google is, indeed, just saving me more work now.

More layoffs ahead at Dallas Morning News

That’s what I’ve heard through the grapevine; no numbers mentioned on the job cuts. I guess, if enough editorial staff gets cut, Southwest can go back to flying uninspected airplanes without it getting noticed in the public as readily.

Court makes wrong ruling on Craiglist housing ad bias liability

Although Craigslist steals a boatload of ads from traditional newspapers and even more from alt-weeklies, a federal appeals judge said it doesn’t have the same legal burden as them to make sure its classified ads for housing aren’t discriminatory.

The lawsuit, filed by a consortium of Chicago attorneys in February 2006, accused Craigslist of violating federal housing laws by publishing more than 100 ads that excluded potential buyers or tenants on the basis of race, gender or religion.

I strongly hope this is pursued to the Supreme Court and overturned. And, the Chicago lawyers who started the legal action say they’re not giving up yet on rooting out discriminatory housing lenders and sellers.

But, that’s a toughie.

The decision upholds a November 2006 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve ruled that Craigslist serves as an intermediary party, not a publisher.

And, that’s why it’s a toughie. You have both a district judge and an appellate judge unwilling to tackle new media issues. And, you know SCOTUS, should it even take such an appeal, isn’t going to be any better.

So, unless those Chicago lawyers find grounds to appeal this particular ruling, this gives Craigslist a hugely unfair legal advantage over traditional newspapers.

Reporters and media protection latest BushCo ‘security threat’

I guess a media shield law will give al Qaida “aid, hope and comfort,” or some other stupidity.

First, we have the Subtler, Suaver Alberto Gonzales™, Attorney General Mike Mukasey, claiming a shield law now wending its way through the Senate, defines a journalist too broadly.

Of course, this is the same AG Mukasey who cut blog/online news source Talking Points Memo off the list of daily e-mail media recipients from the Department of Justice.

And, doorknob bless Patrick Fitzgerald for prosecuting Scooter Libby, but he’s just wrong in claiming a shield law isn’t needed.

Dismissing notions that media subpoenas would dampen investigative reporting, Fitzgerald said, “Journalists have been saying the sky is falling since 1972 ... and that suddenly the stories will dry up. But I'm not seeing big blank spaces on the front page.”

Uh, Pat, the worry isn’t what has happened since 1972, but what has happened since 2001. Get a clue. Or else admit that you’re spinning a line here.

‘Weblog’ not ‘blog’ guaranteed to make paper website look old-school

So, a weekly newspaper group has had a website since, oh, 2002, 2003. It’s finally entering the blogosphere, and what does the newspaper’s webmaster do?

He calls the front-page link Weblogs.

Weblog as a term, other than in the mouths of people who still wear pocket protectors in their shirts, died out about the same time five or six years ago that this newspaper group started its website.

A trite lede that is long past usable

I saw this one most recently in The Dallas Morning News. It’s the old “he/she must be smiling from heaven” type lede.

With the number of Hindus, Buddhists and secularists increasing in our country, this is a lede that is of no relevance to the first two groups and off-putting to the third. That’s not to mention the fact that it was beaten to death a decade or more ago.

So, Herb Booth and thousands of other reporters? Can it.

Newspaper website marketing no-no

Why would you have an “about” link on the front page of a website for a daily newspaper if you don’t actually have any information posted about yourself? Hmm, Yreka, Calif., can’t be that behind the times, right?

Journalists get depression wrong with ‘chemical imbalance’ meme

No, I still don’t believe memes exist, at least not in a strong sense, but the word is a handy catch-all. Anyway, that’s besides the point.

A set of psychology researchers say that media use of “chemical imbalance” to describe depression is scientifically inaccurate. Rightly, they note that the idea comes from classical Greece’s concept of the four “humors” in the body.

Science journalists get depression wrong by dissing SSRIs

A set of psychology researchers rightly say that media use of “chemical imbalance” to describe depression is scientifically inaccurate.

However, the researchers then have to follow up on the overhyped recent Public Library of Science report and claim, as does the author of the World Science story, that modern anti-depressants really don’t work:

The drugs, known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors or SSRIs, recently turned out to be largely ineffective.

Boy, that’s wrong in several ways. First, the PLoS story only claimed that antidepressants were relatively ineffective in mild or moderate depression, not all depressions.

Second, the PLoS authors overstated their case. From the study:

On average, the SSRIs improved the HRSD score of patients by 1.8 points more than the placebo, whereas NICE has defined a significant clinical benefit for antidepressants as a drug–placebo difference in the improvement of the HRSD score of 3 points.

That may not be great effectiveness, but it’s nowhere near “largely ineffective.” And, since milder depressions are usually likely to ring up lower diagnostic scores, the numeric steps of improvement, by HRSD scores, that provide relief, will be lesser anyway.

So, perhaps science journalists aren’t so great about writing about depression, either.

How newspapers endorse candidates, with one dirty little secret

In between comments I made at Washington Monthly yesterday about “la Mésalliance McCain,” somebody commented about Mitt Romney being upset about the New York Times endorsing McCain instead of him; that person also wondered a bit about the process involved.

I touched a bit on the process here, but thought I could do a bit more public service by detailing the editorial endorsement process, from my experience at (much smaller) daily newspapers.

The NYT editorial board would likely have publisher Pinch Sulzberger, Executive Editor Bill Keller, Managing Editor Jill Abramson, Opinion Editor Gail Collins, possibly the top editorial writer (editorial writers and bylined op-ed columnists are different critters at major dailies), possibly/probably the deputy managing editor for politics, or similar position, and perhaps a couple of others.

You’d also have some ad hoc members. For example, for New York City mayoral endorsements, the city editor might sit in. For gubernatorial endorsements, the Albany editor. For presidential endorsements, Dean Baquet, the Washington editor.

First, outside of campaign endorsements, here’s a bit of how an editorial board operates in general. It will meet once, maybe twice a week, plus special meetings on hot button issues. At the NYT, for example, the board would develop a consensus on what issues the paper needs to officially opine about in the next week. It then, after discussion and some sort of vote, especially in a division of house on tough issues, decides the official stance to take, talking points to be mentioned, etc. (If the division on an issue is fierce, an op-ed column might be devoted to the leading representative of the minority view.) Collins would then, after the meeting, assign different editorials to her various writers, copy edit them, etc.

When it comes time for endorsements, the board would first schedule interviews, whenever possible, with the candidates involved, in elections big enough to warrant. (The full editorial board is not going to interview NYC municipal judge candidates, or even get involved in the process.) Before the interviews, board members will discuss questions they want to raise, angles they want to pursue, issues they see of importance, etc. For endorsements in primaries, rather than general elections, these issues will also be connected to some degree with party stances, etc. Interviews may be in person, speakerphone, video, e-mail or whatever.

The board then discusses the candidates after the interview and makes their call.

How this relates to Keller sitting on the story?

As I noted before, I’m sure Keller played his cards close to the vest. If Baquet was in on the McCain vs. Romney endorsement, of course he knew. Abramson was in on the loop, too. Pinch may have been. Collins, likely not.

So, this was something that could have been discussed in the endorsement process. If necessary, you could boot most the people out of the room and have discussed the McCain story and its relation to an endorsement just between Pinch, Keller, Baquet if there, Abramson and Collins, bringing her in the loop.

Was it discussed? Ahh, that’s a whole different kettle of fish.

Given that the endorsement didn’t mention McCain being ethically challenged on lobbyist issues, let alone personal issues, I’d say no. Pinch is neoconish enough, I think his mind would already have been made up for McCain. For different reasons, ditto on Keller. Baquet would have pushed to talk more about the story, I think, and not been in McCain’s endorsement corner, but I’m guessing Keller had him on an officially very short leash if he was there. Abramson? Guessing she had an open mind on the endorsement, and at this point at least, figured the story didn’t have enough new, or wasn’t moved enough by the story, for whatever reasons.

And, the dirty little secret?

It’s well-known inside the biz, and discussed, but editorial endorsements from major daily newspapers provide little “bump” in the polls to candidates. In fact, some newspapers, whether to save time or to save face, are moving away from doing them.

Follow-up thoughts on the McCain scandal story and the New York Times

One: Why did the New York Times endorse John McCain over Mitt Romney if it was working on “la Mésalliance McCain”?

I'm guessing that the NYT op-ed structure has Executive Editor Bill Keller on the editorial board for endorsement interviews, endorsements, etc. (I'm a newspaper editor, but never at a paper of nearly that size; so this is my semi-insider guesstimate.)

I would guess that Keller kept his cards close enough to the vest that nobody else on the editorial board knew what was up. Prolly nobody had read the WaPost story in December or seen any blog linkage to the Drudge piece at that time. And, as we see most often and most spectacularly at the WSJ, major dailies can sometimes have huge disconnects between newshole staff and op-ed writers.

Other points:

First, the importance of Schmuck Talk hiring Bob Bennett. You just don't do that unless some real shit is up. So, right-wingers who claim this is all smoke, if they know inside Washington, know there's plenty of fire. And, they know they’re lying about this being a tempest in a teapot.

Second, is the sex side unimportant, or a matter of “private lives”?

No. McCain is pandering to the Religious Right again, and has been from the start of this campaign, after years of mutual antagonism. Given that the RR often focuses on sexual issues, it’s perfectly legitimate to focus on this.

And, given McCain has a “track record” in this area, it’s even more legitimate.

Of course, that’s not to deny the importance of the impropriety of McCain’s attempted interference with the Federal Communications Commission.

In short, looking at McCain’s life, it looks like we have a mash-up of Keating Five redux and wife-cheating round two.

Third, just how castrated, or self-castrated, can Bill Keller be? Without some combination of the staff defections over the pace of the story, D.C. editor Dean Baquet pushing back to run the piece, the earlier Drudge leak, and TNR’s sniffing around the Times news staff this week, it’s quite likely this story would be continuing to molder in a bottom-drawer file, if not actually getting an official File 13.

Keller has, and not for the first time, damaged the Times’ news-gathering credibility.

Contempt, fines for journo failing to cooperate in lawsuit: where do we draw the line?

Judge Reggie Walton may hold former USA Today reporter Toni Locy in civil contempt for refusing to cooperate with former Army scientist Steven J. Hatfill in his suit against the government.

Hatfill, as some may recall, was named a “person of interest” by the government in its investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks that hit the U.S. Capitol and other sites shortly after 9/11.

Hatfill, who worked at the Army's infectious diseases laboratory from 1997 to 1999, was publicly identified as a “person of interest” in the 2001 anthrax attacks. He is suing the Justice Department, accusing the agency of violating the federal Privacy Act by giving reporters information about the FBI’s investigation of him.

Five people were killed and 17 sickened by anthrax that was mailed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the news media in New York and Florida just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. After initially being identified as a "person of interest" in the investigation by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, the case remains unsolved.

Walton ordered Locy, James Stewart and three other reporters to reveal their sources to Hatfill. Stewart claims his sources have had their info corroborated by other persons identified to the public. Locy is not wanting to cooperate at all. The other three, Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek and Allan Lengel of The Washington Post, have revealed at least part of their source information.

There is precedent on this, on the civil side, from Wen Ho Lee’s suit against the AP and other media sources. After Lee reached a settlement in his suits, reporters who had been found in contempt had their appeals turned away.

I’m inclined to cut reporters some more slack in civil cases. That said, civil contempt in a suit like this may be the slap on the wrist needed to get reporters to treat government sources more critically.

Dateline: Maureen Dowd and New York Times editorial deceit

A “Dateline: Kerry, N.H.” tag on a column about Hillary Clinton potentially crying her way to election loses a lot of objectivity and ethical credence when it was actually filed from Jerusalem about the obesity crisis.

Meanwhile, the column itself engages in psychobabble pseudo-analysis below even her normally vapid and puerile standards.