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.