Jim Hightower hits syndication doo-doo

Creators wouldn't pass out Hightower's latest column, because he criticized Dead Fricking Media and Slavehouse Media.

Not the first time a syndicated columnist, or cartoonist, has been kneecapped briefly. But, given media consolidation, to attack particular absentee paper owners will get more perilous.

Eastern front captains and lieutenants

I've heard further to confirm my suspicion that one captain on the eastern front interviewed with a new captain elsewhere on the eastern front and forced the hiring of an editorial lieutenant that that captain didn't want.

Given that this intervening captain later left his outpost, reportedly for a certain type of dereliction of duty, inquiring minds might wonder about what issues might be behind the interventionary hiring of that other editorial lieutenant.

And, ....

Peter Principle at community papers world too

I've repeatedly ranted on Twitter at the likes of Bret Stephens, Bari Weiss, and Tom Friedman, among newer and established members of the NYT op-ed page as example numero uno of the Peter Principle in action.

But, it happens at a lower level, too. Guy who I replaced at one paper and beat me out to run another, which he left less than a year later?

Has left multiple spots after less than a year's to an even year's time, all for non-downsizing reasons, either just quitting or getting fired. The only place he stuck was GateHell, and probably because he couldn't get out.

Currently at a place where ... who knows? (He's been there less than a year, too.) But, it's a place I wanted to be some number of years ago.

It's not just this person, it's just that his is the case I know best.

Sales management issues

In small towns, many businesses don't open until 9 a.m. Therefore, a community newspaper's ad sales people can't do much business before then.

But, they can make hay for sure after the 9 a.m. sun shines.

So, if they're coming in to the office at 8 or 8:30, and you're the ad sales manager, or publisher, and you have sales meetings, shouldn't they be before 9 a.m.?

And, if they were after 9 a.m. at your previous paper, shouldn't you unlearn old habit?

Newspaper struggles in New Mexico

Years and years ago, when on vacations, I would look at newspapers for design ideas — fonts, headers, layout, etc.

Today? I look to see how small of a web the paper is on, how few of pages it has, and how small of an adhole it has.

And, boy, oh boy.

First, the Farmington Daily Times, since my brother lives there.

City is 45K. County is 115K. Paper is a seven-day, and the only daily in town.

Just 16 pages on a Saturday, and no high school football. People are told to see the website.

Early press deadlines? But why? Did they sell their press and now they print in Durango? Weird. Crappy.

==

Grants is about 10,000 people. An hour east of where I grew up.

The Grants Daily Beacon apparently became non-daily a number of years ago, then became the Cibola Beacon, whether as weekly, semi-weekly or tri-weekly, I don't know, then closed at least two years ago. The non-daily Cibola Citizen replaced it.

Weirdly, the Albuquerque Journal made no move to be more aggressive with its Grants coverage.

But the Gallup Independent did. A Mickey D's in Grants had rack boxes for it alone with the Citizen, but no journal. I didn't go inside any C-store to look at either paper.

==

And, the Albuquerque Journal.

A 24-page Monday isn't bad, right? Especially if almost 25 percent ads.

BUT ...

Of those?

More than half were classified. And without reading through each one, more than half of those had liners that said "non-governmental legal." WTF? A special on divorces, wills and pay no bills ads? Clear all those out, and get rid of two pages, and you're at 22 pages, but below 20 percent. Still better than the Fort Worth Startle-Gram, which doesn't say a lot.

More on the kerfufflement in Marlin, Texas

Dear citizens of Marlin, and current and past subscribers to, readers of, and advertising customers with the Marlin Democrat:

In a previous post, I mentioned I felt 'uncomfortable' about some things at the Democrat.

Well, I am going to identify one by name.

IT"s called overcharging advertising customers.

And, I say 'overcharging' rather than 'overbilling' deliberately. That's because of how it works.

The Phillipses have been very aggressive about getting personal as well as business customers to leave credit card information on file, from what I have heard.

Then, they may bill a person twice, three times, or even six times for an ad that was only supposed to appear once.

Like a classified ad for a garage sale. No need to run that six times. (That's confirmed from a customer.)

It's overbilling rather than overcharging if the customer has a credit card on file and, say, once a month, gets a new billing for that same classified ad.

I talked directly to this particular person and I take their word at it, as I have heard similar things happened to others.

Accident? Possible. But, the more often it happens, the less likely it seems an accident.

I saw an ad for a nonprofit group out of Hearne, a combination ad for both papers, that was still listed on a 'run sheet' of ads the week after their big event was done.

Having already heard what I listed above, I didn't run the ad in the Marlin paper. Even if it was an accident, it didn't need to run. If this, too, was deliberate, I wanted to be no part of this.

Nor of this practice in general.

As I noted, this was a combination ad, sold out of the Hearne office.

Whether such things were done deliberately in Hearne before they took over the Marlin papers, I don't know.

But I can't stop others from speculating.

I have now shared this with a few more people.

Kids, don't do this layout at home!

Before I moved to this Eastern Front newspaper, I had never seen anything like:

Yes, that's a subhed next to a cutline. 

By the ME boss lady.

That's just fugly.

If you do insist on doing that, don't brag about your design skills.

No, a redesign won't save you, either

Whether it's a redesign of your physical print paper or the electrons of your website, it won't save you unless it leads to more ads.

Even as, by necessity, circulation becomes a larger part of the revenue pie, it hasn't yet replaced advertising. And it won't for some time in the future.

So, unless your redesign leads to more ads, or at a minimum, to twice as much in circulation revenue as you've lost on ads plus circ in the ... last two years, it won't save you.

And, thus, it's not worth massive time investment.

All you're really doing is playing around with the Internet 2.0/social media shortened attention span hamster wheel.

The Snooze slouches further on ads

Update, Dec. 7: It's gotten worse. An 11.5 percent adhole on Thursday, Dec. 6. AND, that was with cutting back to 36 pages, below the 38 that has been a previous Thursday low, and the 42 or so that's normal.

About zero Christmas-shopping related ads. Thin on inserts.

Update, Jan. 4, 2019: The slippage got worse. A 7.5 percent adhole on 36 pages on Christmas Eve.

===

Last Thursday, Aug. 2, I saw something I am sure I've never seen in a Dallas Morning News before, because it almost certainly has never existed before.

That would be a non-Monday paper with an adhole below 20 percent. Well, no, even worse.

Below 15 percent.

Yep, the Snooze had a paper with a 13 percent ad run.

How do I count this?

Inserts, preprints, pay a separate rate, of course, and aren't traditionally counted.

I don't count house ads.

I don't count house ad filler on things like classy pages.

I do count obits as paid inches though.

And the Snooze had just 13 percent. On a Thursday.

Now, defenders will counter that August is a slow ad month.

Tis, in general. But, Thursday traditionally isn't as slow as Monday-Wednesday.

AND ....

They got the adhole as HIGH as 13 percent by running just 38 pages on a Thursday. Run 44 pages and you're at less than 11.5 percent.

And, it didn't get much better a week later. Again on 38 pages, the Snooze was at 18.5 percent Aug. 9.

Remember, the Belo parent has sold all TV stations, and all non-Dallas print properties as well. It did have the ethics to separate its digital marketing earlier this year.

But, wow.

They're going more and more digital first. An acquaintance of mine writes almost entirely digital now.

But, I don't know how well that will hold up.

They've bled market share. On politics, especially on endorsements, they remain with their old white core readers, not so much from Dallas itself now as the north burbs. On Dallas news itself, Jim Schutze, augmented more and more by Stephen Young and others, kicks their ass at the Observer, including Schutze's old running mate, Robert Wilonsky.

Things all kerfuffled in Marlin, Texas

It hurt somewhat to give two weeks' notice at the Marlin Democrat because I saw things that ... as I've told people, and within limits of some non-disclosure paperwork — I didn't feel comfortable with.

It felt more uncomfortable when my two weeks' notice was shortened. (I and the person making the call shortening it will use different words for what happened. I'll leave it at that.) 

It felt uncomfortable and hurt to see people in Marlin, before I prepared to move back to my previous job, see me around town not knowing I was no longer at the Democrat.

But, as I said, I "felt uncomfortable." Let's leave it at that. I've already talked to at least one person on the phone and said that was enough to share publicly.

Directly or indirectly, the Democrat will be back under the control of the Hearne folks, from all I know. That's not going to change. How much some of the things I learned after I moved back to Marlin and that made me uncomfortable will continue — for those who have heard about such things or maybe even been a victim of – I don't know.

The possibility of not being able to fix things like that — not editorial things such as writing, page layout, editing, etc. — was my primary area of discomfort.

I perhaps could have known more about some of the things that made me feel uncomfortable when I was looking for housing in Marlin, and changed my mind at that time about taking the job and moving.

I don't want to say too much more.

I've already been accused of attacking Hearne people. If saying "I don't know why they didn't want to run club news, but I will again" is attacking, so be it.

People who know me from when I was here before, or want to ask people from when I was here before, I hope still trust my word. You might not have agreed on my take on matters of opinion on local political and cultural issues in the past, but I hope nothing personal resulted from that.

As I said when I returned to Marlin, I just wanted to move forward.

I still want what's best for Marlin's future.

In fact, before I left, I told people that I'd come back to Marlin again for the right position, or at least to the Marlin area (Waco) and do what I could to boost the Marlin community.

Obviously, that job would not be as publisher of the Democrat under current ownership.

Nor, respectfully put, would it be as publisher of the Democrat under one possible alternative owner. I heard about that, and no, I don't think that would be the best possible owner.

But, if the hospital or the school district needed a PR person, or somebody in Waco or Temple needed similar? I"m there. Obviously, once I decided that I felt uncomfortable, and that I didn't think I could get more comfortable in my current circumstances, this is America and a guaranteed job of OK pay, even with the hassle of the re-move, was certainly better than nothing.

I am not joking coming back to that area for the right position, though.

Obviously, removed from Marlin again, there's not too much I can do. I may pass on an email address associated with this blog to a few people, both for tidbits about Marlin that may not get on either the paper's pages or official Facebook pages, as well as for people who honestly have jobs like I just mentioned. Or for other things.

Meanwhile, I look down the road at Hearne. A Ty Clevenger, love him, hate him, or a bit of both, has been "plugged in" there for years, and there's only so much he can do from Brooklyn.

As for other possibilities for news coverage in Marlin, or informed and caring commentary about that? Otherwise, I know choices aren't too great. Clubs don't thrill as much to having their meeting news on a Facebook group as in a newspaper, and older (and some younger) club members may not "do" Facebook that much anyway.

And, I may be wrong otherwise. Maybe some of the things that made me feel uncomfortable are readily fixed and will be. (Though some, I am sure won't be.) I made a judgment call influenced by yet other factors out of my control. I'm over a certain age, when a certain type of job discrimination can happen. And my previous job was still open.

I otherwise felt it was easier writing out some of these issues to the degree I could, and in a relatively dispassionate way with the passage of a few months.

I'm still not sure what Jim Moser, owner of both the Marlin and Hearne papers, knew about this in Marlin. I do know that Clevenger, a few years back, published Moser's email over stuff in Hearne. I also know that a few people in Marlin know Clevenger.

In any case, thanks for reading.

Take a pass on Wick Communications

A couple of blog posts ago, I asked, rhetorically, "How do you run a daily paper without an AP wire?"

As I interviewed at said paper, and as it hasn't hired me, I'm going to "decloak" that previous blog post and let you read in detail who I was talking about.

Obviously, the parent company is Wick Communications. Below, most the rest of that old post, paper locations revealed.

==

I'm not talking a five-day daily, where that wouldn't be that hard.

I'm talking six- and seven-day dailies, where it would be, unless you tighten page count, drop a day of the week or both.

I recently interviewed to be managing editor of the Montrose Press. Wick's stable includes one seven-day daily, one that ... sounds like was a seven-day and now it's now six-day and is being delivered by USPS, interestingly and five or six other six-day dailies, all 3,000 circ or above.

Demographic background? Montrose, Colorado is about 19K. County is 42K. Montrose was "discovered" and presumably "Californicated" in the 2000-2005 period. City pop jumped from 13K to 19K. Froze after the Great Recession, and interestingly, has stayed frozen since; the Californication was a one-off.

Note: I'm going to drop some new updates in here based on a close direct comp with the Gainesville (Texas) Daily (until COVID, in print) Register. Gainesville is 16K in a county of 40K.

Page run? 12-14 a day, I was told, on weekdays. Dunno about the weekender. Since, interestingly, it's a 6 day AM, not PM, there isn't a weekender, to be technical. It's Tuesday-Sunday.

Gainesville, pre-COVID, was a five-day daily in print. Usually 8 pages Tuesday and Wednesday; 12 on Thursday, IIRC, because it still (WHY?) ran weekly TV guide in print. Then 10 Friday and 12, IIRC, weekender.

So, Montrose, with no Colorado equivalent of something as wide as the Texas Tribune? Even though it was more of a regional center than Gainesville (which is only 30 miles from Denton)? Two pages a day too many, arguably, even WITH the wire. Definitely needed to cut two without it, and pre-COVID, cut a day of the week, probably.

Company policy is to can the AP wire. Not as in "someday," but "we're doing it." Related to that is the usual "digital first" etc. blather. Which is what it is.

First, they don't have a separate online-only subscription. I know a lot of smaller dailies do a forced combo buy of print plus digital but if you're really digital first, that itself is bullshit. (That said, assuming they use Blox as their website content platform, I don't know how easy it is to set Blox up to do that. On the other hand, given that Blox comes from Lee Enterprises, owner of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, surely it's doable.)

So, do you cut a day a week? Same sked but cut two pages a day? IMO, yes, that second option at a minimum. Filling 12-14 pages in a county of less than 50K without a wire and typical smaller six-day editorial staff? Uhhhhhh ...

See above. Tuesday-"weekend" five-day daily. Say, 10 pages on Tuesday, 12 on Wednesday with it being shopper flier day. Back to 10 on Thursday. Then 12 on Friday with weekend sports previews and 12 or 14 on weekend.

There are ways around this. One can either cut two pages a day, or one day a week. I speak from personal knowledge.

My current six-day baby is in a town 3/4 the size and a county 4/5 the size of the one at which I interviewed. At my previous semiweekly, the nearest daily was a small seven-day in a town and county both half again as big as Montrose.

My current six-day runs 10 pages on weekdays. On average, 1/2-3/4 a page a day of news, maybe a bit more, and 1/4-1/2 of sports is wire. That seven-day, to my best memory, usually ran 12 on Mondays, 14-16 the next four and Saturdays. It ran one full page or bit more a day of news wire and probably 1/2-3/4 day of sports wire.

So, yes, unless one wants to use cheapie brief sites like State Point, or canned product-placement copy from a place like NAPS, or third, hope your state extension office has plenty of non-ag consumer news, etc., cutting two pages a day is ... a no-brainer.

It's even more a no-brainer with the Trump paper tariffs, which also offer said company the perfect excuse to cut either two pages a day or one day a week, whichever is deemed better.

"Dear Readers: Due to the ongoing Trump tariffs, and their threat to the profitability of this newspaper, we have had to make some painful decisions.

"One of them is cutting two pages of the paper each day.

"In order to keep the same amount of local content as before, we are getting rid of our Associated Press service. Given that we are a community newspaper, and we only ran selected items from the Associated Press in the past, and will look for other sources for state of Colorado and Four Corners news outside the AP, we think this is the best way to provide the best community news content to you our readers."

Now, that said, if your state press association doesn't have at least a weekly roundup column, while national wire might not be a biggie, some state news, especially in-depth state lege coverage while it's in session, to me is de rigeur. That's even more the case if you're running a seven-day daily and there's a bigger seven-day daily next county over. That's true of Montrose and the Colorado press association, or Wick's core in Arizona. (more on that below.)

On the other hand, in a location like Montrose, dumping the wire might not be the smartest. Are the Californicators going to be as interested in a paper without state wire? Or regional Western news? If they can read a header and first 100 words of local news on your website, you may lose them. I don't know. (Remember, no wire means no wire on web as well as print.)

See note above about no Colorado equivalent to the Texas Tribune.

Anyway, with papers bigger than Montrose either narrowing their web on the pages, cutting pages or cutting staff because of the newsprint tariffs (which Congressional bills going nowhere won't stop if they're going nowhere), keeping the same page count without a wire is simply stupid.

That said, the parent company doesn't seem brilliant.

Wick's flagship is Sierra Vista, Arizona, home of Fort Huachuca. It has a six-day daily at Lake Havasu, but that's far away. Much closer, it has weeklies and a semiweekly in SE Arizona; it and a presumably LARGE weekly in a town of 15K are in what should be a hub relationship with Sierra Vista; specifically, Nogales is the semi-weekly in a town of over 20,000 and Douglas is a large weekly.

But, a much bigger seven-day daily, Tucson's Arizona Daily Star, is 75 miles away. If I were it, I might roll the dice and start trying to poach subscribers at the edge Sierra Vista radius. If I really wanted to roll the dice, I might figure that Cochise County is big enough for me to open a bureau (one-person) there. (Douglas is also there; Nogales is due south of Tucson in Santa Cruz County and actually as close to Tucson as to Sierra Vista in miles, and shorter in drive time.) I might add an ad person full-time in Sierra Vista, too. Maybe even a regional sectional 1x or 2x a week. Douglas should be a semiweekly, IMO, and old jokes aside, why Nogales isn't a triweekly, if not a five-day daily, no idea. Santa Cruz County is almost 50K. If the Arizona Daily Star pushed hard enough, it could probably blow up that whole house of cards.

With Sierra Vista a military town, cutting sports wire as well as news wire? My guess would be that's going to definitely hurt print circulation.

(I also saw nothing about Spanish-language papers in Wick's stable; that SHOULD be a no-brainer. Get one reporter who can write some Spanish and translate English and have them do a semi-weekly that combines material from all three of those papers. If Nogales and/or Douglas are deemed too heavily Hispanic and/or too poor to expand English-language papers, to me, that seems a no-brainer that probably should have been done long ago. If someone else has a Hispanic paper in either locale, or Sierra Vista, Wick should have bought it long ago.)

And, that gets to one way you can get rid of the wire more easily — clustering. Not necessarily immediately next door, but increased clustering within a state. That lets you do a state-level version of Gannett's state-by-state daily news roundup. Wick is actually in position to do this in Arizona. With one or two buys in either North or South Dakota, or both, it could do it in one or both of those states, especially since it has the South Dakota capital paper in Pierre.

But ... I doubt Wick is that forward thinking, even though it's in a position to do so in one place.

And, not to be too immodest, but ... I could be a great newspaper company consultant. Companies would just have to pay me to tell them at times that I think they've been stupid, then challenge them to tell me why I'm wrong.

Also, at least one paper in the chain doesn't include special sections for subscribers. No, really ...

All subscriptions may include up to six premium issues per year. For each premium issue, your account balance will be charged an additional fee of $2 in the billing period when the section publishes. This will result in shortening the length of your billing period. …  These (listed but deleted by me) months will have the effect of reducing the length of delivery service otherwise covered by your payment. Months are subject to change without notice. You may choose to opt-out of receiving premium issue content by calling xxxxxxxx

OK now. (I can't remember which paper that is; I think it's one of their North Dakota dailies.)

Nickel and dime time.

It's not unethical, in that it's printed up front. But 3,000 subscribers x $2 x four quarters a year? $25,000 or so out of what should be, oh, $1.25 million gross revenue easy? Three percent is not nothing, but it's not a lot.  Throw in the progress issue and the city/county guide issue free to subscribers and save your bookkeeper and circ staff some hassle if nothing else.

Otherwise, on the double no-brainer vs. reality? Let's just say I've visited Glassdoor as well. The answers I got, as mentioned in the italicized paragraph, didn't surprise me.

To go into detail? I am leery of a company that has less than, say a 3.3 rating out of 5 stars on Glassdoor. Knowing newspaper struggles, I would be OK taking that down to 3.0 for papers.

Wick as a corporation didn't even hit that.

This might be a good point to refer you back to my MSM bingo, community newspapers division, blog post.

==

Sidebar —

That said, I wouldn't write this much about the Montrose Press if I didn't know something about Montrose. I do; Montrose wouldn't be a bad place to live. I also know something about Mountain/Intermountain West towns being discovered, even being full-blown Californicated.

Taos is a good, or bad, example of that. On a small city scale, arguably Fanta Se is, too.

That said, in Nuevo Mexico, I also know the other end of the stick. A decade or so, Silver City had the first nibbles of being "discovered" but that's all that happened. It was more rumors than reality and it continues to lose population. Maybe Californicators thought it was too isolated, though it's only 2 hours from Las Cruces. Maybe local civic fathers planted rumors to try to make reality happen.

Last time I was in Montrose was at the tail end of the Californication or whatever. As it was mid-Census, I didn't realize it had grown that much, though I did note the amount of traffic surprised me.

And, now, it's a puzzler. Why did the Californication stop? Was it entirely due to the housing bubble bursting? If so, why hasn't it restarted again, as it has in, say, Bend, Oregon?

==

Sidebar 2 —

Said job has been readvertised a month after initially advertised. Maybe others, like me, said "huh" about the dropping the wire but not dropping the pages, or other things?

Magazines are NOT the answer, newspaper owners / publishers

For community sized dailies, and even more nondailies, magazines aren't the answer to continued struggles. They're certainly not "THE answer."

Any county of less than, say, 50,000, from my experience, they should not be considered the answer. They may be a part of a partial answer. Don't expect more.

First, while you may get a few advertisers who say they wouldn't advertise in a regular newspaper, or even newspaper special sections, it won't be that many. Half of your magazine ads will be cannibalizing. Related to that, if a biz advertises in both that magazine and your newspaper, but has separate accounts on its books, it will suddenly hit advertising annual budget redlines quicker than normal, and leave you dry for the rest of the year.

Second, all of this was true even before the Trump paper tariffs.

Magazine slick, or even lower grade semi-slick, is getting even pricier than regular broadsheet. And, speaking of separate accounts, if you the newspaper publisher or owner aren't running separate accounts for the magazine yourself, how do you know you're not even losing money there?

Case in point from latest issue of a magazine within the eastern front.

A 15 percent adhole? And, since all pages are in color, there's no special charge for color ads?

The one after that was better, at more than 20 percent. But the one after THAT was 12 percent or so.

December 2018 issue? Worse. Flat 10 percent.

I'll be dollars to donuts, even with all content from salaried staff or John and Jane Q. Public, there's a 50 percent chance that first one lost money, and certainly the third one.

Let's also not forget that many of these magazines are given away free, even if they have a cover price that's basically purely nominal.

(Oh, and not all papers in the same chain do them monthly; papers twice the size only do bimonthly ones.)

"We're digital first!" No you're not

This is the most irritating bullshit slogan from today's newspaper world after the ever-ongoing "We're learning to do more with less."

The New York Times may be "digital first." But you, small newspaper chain owners of some five-day and six-day dailies, are not.

You're not digital first if you don't have a separate subscription plan for online only readers, rather than a single forced buy combo of print and Net.

You're not digital first if you cut the AP wire to save money, but then invoke that "more with less" BS by refusing to cut pages even with the Trump paper tariffs.

You're not digital first if most of your online advertising is nothing other than your print section classifieds.

You're not digital first if you haven't done the paperwork to figure out if you're close to digital first on revenue vs overhead.

You're not digital first if you're part of a chain and you don't train your ad salespeople on selling digital ads.

You're not digital first if your graphics person(s) at a daily paper have no real experience or training in building quality digital ads.

You're not digital first just because you post a podcast and video on your website, if you're not getting anybody to sponsor that.

You're not digital first if you see being online as a way to fill print gaps.

Saying "we're digital first" as a self-hypnotic mantra doesn't make it so.

To be successfully digital first takes thought and strategy.

Beyond the advertising and circulation side I mentioned, that includes issues of whether you want to post every story online first, at least in full story format. Even with word-count delimited paywalls, if I can read a header and 50 words of text, that might be enough for me to not need to read more.

How do you run a daily paper without an AP wire?

And, I'm not talking a five-day daily, where that wouldn't be that hard.

I'm talking six- and seven-day dailies, where it would be, unless you tighten page count, drop a day of the week or both.

Had an interview recently to be ME of a six-day. (As of the time of this blog post, I don't know where I stand at on getting close to the finish line, should I want to be there, either.) Keeping this semi-anonymous on the company, it is not a big one, but its stable includes one seven-day daily, one that ... sounds like it's now six-day and is being delivered by USPS, interestingly) and five or six other six-day dailies, all 3,000 circ or above.

And, company policy is to can the AP wire. Not as in "somebody," but "we're doing it." Related to that is the usual "digital first" etc.

But, they don't have a separate online-only subscription. I know a lot of smaller dailies do a forced combo buy of print plus digital but if you're really digital first, that itself is bullshit.

So, do you cut a day a week? Same sked but cut two pages a day? IMO, yes, that second option at a minimum. Filling 12-14 pages in a county of less than 50K without a wire and typical smaller six-day editorial staff? Uhhhhhh ...

There are ways around this. One can either cut two pages a day, or one day a week. I speak from personal knowledge.

My current six-day baby is in a town 3/4 the size and a county 4/5 the size of the one at which I interviewed. At my previous semiweekly, the nearest daily was a small seven-day in a town and county both half again as big as Mystery Paper.

My current six-day runs 10 pages on weekdays. On average, 1/2-3/4 a page a day of news, maybe a bit more, and 1/4-1/2 of sports is wire. That seven-day, to my best memory, usually ran 12 on Mondays, 14-16 the next four and Saturdays. It ran one full page or bit more a day of news wire and probably 1/2-3/4 day of sports wire.

So, yes, unless one wants to use cheapie brief sites like State Point, or canned product-placement copy from a place like NAPS, or third, hope your state extension office has plenty of non-ag consumer news, etc., cutting two pages a day is ... a no-brainer.

BUT ... even though it's a double no-brainer with Trump's ongoing tariffs on Canadian newsprint, the company ain't doing it. And, as ppl in the biz know, staff writers are hourly, not salary, and corporate yells about overtime. So, the managing editor is the shit dumping grounds then. Especially when combined with me inquiring about the adhole percentage and I was given an answer about what their target percentage is, not what they actually do. Now, ad sales are ultimately a publisher and ad manager issue, but ... if it's easier to hit a 40 percent target with the page cutting, and even exceed it, again, it sounds like a no-brainer.

It's an additional no-brainer as the Trump tariffs give you the perfect excuse for whacking both the wire and the two extra pages. Write a customer note like this:

Dear Mystery Paper readers:
Due to the ongoing tariffs against Canadian newsprint paper, which makes up about 80 percent of what we use, we have come to some hard decisions.

The best way for us to address this financially is to reduce our papers by two pages a day. The easiest way to do this without affecting local content is to drop our Associated Press membership.

Voila.

Now, that said, if your state press association doesn't have at least a weekly roundup column, while national wire might not be a biggie, some state news, especially in-depth state lege coverage while it's in session, to me is de rigeur. That's even more the case if you're running a seven-day daily and there's a bigger seven-day daily next county over.

Or, there's a third option, which is unethical, but is probably already being done somewhere, and could be filed under "turnabout is fair play." And, that is stealing AP news off its public website (not its download website for member newspapers). Or stealing if off a bigger newspaper, as long as it's not in your neighborhood, seven-day daily mentioned above.

The particular place in the presenting problem Mystery Paper is also a place in the West that was, briefly at least, "discovered." Presumably Californicated, by timelines.

It added about 50 percent to its population, in the first half of the previous decade, right before a housing problem hit LaLa Land before the rest of the nation.

Since then? Literally, in a dozen or so years, no growth. And average population seven years above the state average.

Are the Californicators going to be as interested in a paper without state wire? Or regional Western news? If they can read a header and first 100 words of local news on your website, you may lose them.

As for that seven-day daily that has a bigger one less than 100 miles away? If I were the bigger one, I might roll the dice and start trying to poach subscribers at the edge of the other paper's radius. If I really wanted to roll the dice, I might figure that other county is big enough for me to open a bureau (one-person) there. Since said smaller seven-day also owns a semiweekly to its west and your south, and only a semiweekly in a town of 20K, where bigger seven-day may already have a bureau ... I might add an ad person full-time in there, too. Maybe even a regional sectional 1x or 2x a week. Said smaller company also sees fit to run just a weekly in a town almost as big as the semiweekly town, same distance to the other side. If bigger seven-day pushed hard enough, it could probably blow up that whole house of cards.

And, that gets to one way you can get rid of the wire more easily — clustering. Not necessarily immediately next door, but increased clustering within a state. That lets you do a state-level version of Gannett's state-by-state daily news roundup.

Anyway, with papers bigger than Mystery Paper either narrowing their web on the pages, cutting pages or cutting staff because of the newsprint tariffs (which Congressional bills going nowhere won't stop if they're going nowhere), keeping the same page count without a wire is simply stupid.

But ... I doubt this company is that forward thinking, even though it's in a position to do so in one place.

Also, at least one paper in the chain doesn't include special sections for subscribers. No, really ...

All subscriptions may include up to six premium issues per year. For each premium issue, your account balance will be charged an additional fee of $2 in the billing period when the section publishes. This will result in shortening the length of your billing period. …  These (listed but deleted by me) months will have the effect of reducing the length of delivery service otherwise covered by your payment. Months are subject to change without notice. You may choose to opt-out of receiving premium issue content by calling xxxxxxxx

OK now.

Nickel and dime time.

It's not unethical, in that it's printed up front. But 3,000 subscribers x $2 x four quarters a year? $25,000 or so out of what should be, oh, $1.25 million gross revenue easy? Three percent is not nothing, but it's not a lot.  Throw in the progress issue and the city/county guide issue free to subscribers and save your bookkeeper and circ staff some hassle if nothing else.

Otherwise, on the double no-brainer vs. reality? Let's just say I've visited Glassdoor as well. The answers I got, as mentioned in the italicized paragraph, didn't surprise me.

This might be a good point to refer you back to my MSM bingo, community newspapers division, blog post.

==

That said, I wouldn't write this much about Mystery Paper if I didn't know something about Mystery Town. I do, and I also know something about Mountain/Intermountain West towns being discovered, even being full-blown Californicated.

Taos is a good, or bad, example of that. On a small city scale, arguably Fanta Se is, too.

That said, in Nuevo Mexico, I also know the other end of the stick. A decade or so, Silver City had the first nibbles of being "discovered" but that's all that happened. It was more rumors than reality and it continues to lose population. Maybe Californicators thought it was too isolated, though it's only 2 hours from Las Cruces. Maybe local civic fathers planted rumors to try to make reality happen.

Anyway, I've been through the mystery city before. Last time I was there was at the tail end of the Californication or whatever. As it was mid-Census, I didn't realize it had grown that much, though I did note the amount of traffic surprised me.

And, now, it's a puzzler. Why did the Californication stop? Was it entirely due to the housing bubble bursting? If so, why hasn't it restarted again, as it has in, say, Bend, Oregon?

Late-stage capitalist newspaper ethics, part 1

If you're going to advertise for a job, then actually fill the job.

Take the Lake Powell Chronicle of Page, Arizona. A decent sized weekly. Six months ago, its editor-publisher left. Position was advertised on Journalism Jobs.

Senior editorial staffer was the sports writer, who said in a column that he barely knew pagination.

Well, six months later, he's the editor, but not the publisher. The paper has no publisher listed, and instead hired some sort of paginator-designer person.

You leave yourself open to scrutiny in other ways. If the budget is that tight, shouldn't you have seen that before advertising for a replacement editor-publisher? If you did, you look deceitful. If you didn't see that before, you look borderline incompetent.

Newspaper bingo, community papers division

A few weeks ago, after Chris Tomlinson and some other staffers at the Houston Chronic joked about it, I did a "newspaper bingo – Texas MSM division" blog post. (I included a bit of radio and TV too.)

Now, in less joking fashion, it's time for what the header says. Here's your bingo card, with explainer below.

(I originally built it with the same color scheme as the Texas MSM bingo. But, when I opened the PDF in Photoshop to j-peg it, I decided to do an inverse as well. I like it enough I'm using the inverse.)

This bingo is inspired by personal reality.

When did it become a "thing" for newspapers to run ads more than the customer desired, then bill them for the extra runs? (Until and unless a customer notices, that is.)

And, in my opinion, to state those magic words, I don't think it's being done by accident. I of course cannot read minds. So it has to remain my opinion, which remains protected by the good old First Amendment.

Look, through laziness or whatever, I can see a classified ad simply staying on a classified page an extra week at a small-town non-daily paper. But, with ad billing software programs, the customer should only be billed for the number of runs purchased. That is of course true assuming the insertion order clearly says "one run," or "1x," or similar.

I know of this happening at one pair of papers. Personal contact with customers. Both classified AND display ads. On the one case, it ran 6x instead of 1x. Been told it might have happened before. Suspect it's happened nearby. Heard that it's not just an issue with one newspaper company.

I can't say anything more, for various reasons.

But, where I know it's happening? I wouldn't do business with that paper, let alone with a sister paper, if you put a gun to my head.

==

If you're a newspaper customer, and this happens, and you suspect that, in your opinion, or ear to the street, it is part of a pattern? Rather than just fighting to get your money back, consider legal alternatives. Even if you do get your money back and you have the time, the money, and a lawyer willing to do discovery.

Or, better yet? Rather than threatening suit, file a criminal complaint for credit/debit card abuse. Under section (b)(1)(A) there, I believe an offense has been committed in such cases, and mental intent does not have to be legally proven. And, here in Texas, per that link, it's a state jail felony. (That said, intent will be in the center of jurors' mind if that goes to a jury trial, and probably in a judge's mind, too. With that said, good luck getting a county or district attorney to file a case.)

Tip 2? Sure, it's fine for a newspaper, like your grocer, to want to be paid in advance. If you're going to pay by credit card, just pay for that ad. You do not have to leave a card number on file.

==

If you're a newspaper publisher, or owner of a group, and don't like the possibility of being tarred with a broad brush?

You have two options.

The first is to call out your newspaper peers. Not by name, of course, even for places where you've heard of this practice being done. But, yes, call them out. Not in an op-ed in your paper, of course. That does nothing. Try the TPA Messenger or whatever state newspaper association trade letter exists in your state, or Publisher's Auxiliary or whatever.

The second is to adopt a public policy at your paper, if you're a publisher, or your group, if you're an owner, if this practice spreads at all. Something like:

"We will give you double your money back for any overbilling for advertising runs you did not authorize."

Then, internally, make repeat violations, even if you can't prove intent, a fireable offense.

And, speaking of the TPA Messenger, one could argue for TPA to be more proactive.

At this time, I suspect it's a tiny minority. But, a minority of 1 is one too many.

MSM Bingo, Texas version

We've got a runoff for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination between the the incompetent (so far) Loopy Lupe Valdez and the insufferable "I personally" Andrew White.

Meanwhile, last week, the Austin Stateless was sold to Gatehouse's parent for pennies on its one-time dollar. This just a year after the Dallas Snooze outsourced its pagination/copy editing to Gatehouse.

What do these two things, and others, have in common? This graphic of mine below.

This is primarily about newspapers, from my expertise. But, one magazine that you should know is included. So is the pack of TV and radio stations, more and more of whom are owned by folks like Sinclair.

Of course, the clear square does mean something. It is certainly understandable by me. But, the ownership class at the media knows that well and continues to exploit it. The bottom, lightest-shaded square in the gray column also means something in the big picture of media things in the Pointy Abandoned Object State™.

The bottom left square also means something, in a reverse-snark way. And, in a real way, non-daily papers, with smaller five- and six-day community dailies at least somewhat on the same side of the fence, face their own worries.

A lot of the other squares, though? Newspapers, not just with ownership, but with upper-level editorial staff, are digging their own graves.

Take the Dallas Snooze, with a clickbait child-level header on a story that wasn't much more than a nothing burger and certainly not "investigative journalism," about city sewage infrastructure, which the Observer first gave a moderate level skewering by Stephen Young, then the full Monty by Jim Schutze.

The actual story? And the Curious Texas project behind it?

This belongs on Quora, not a theoretically serious and theoretically major daily paper. (And, thus, the death of a thousand cuts from the online world goes both ways.)

If the Snooze wants to keep this Curious Texas project, accept questions like this and do stories on them, at a minimum, it would go with non-clickbait headers AND writing. And, they should be no more than, oh, 300 words?

As for Ms. Jennifer Emily?

You're on MuckRack, too? Hope you've raked actual muck.

Publisher flexibility — except when it's not?

OK ...

I've moved from the Eastern Front to the MCM Elegante hotel chain.

Combo editor-publisher position.

"We don't intervene a lot with individual publishers" I heard pre-hiring.

"We go straight by the rate card" on ad rates I heard post-hiring.

Just leaving that out there.

That said, I can ... blame others for that, on the issue of ad sales rates.

On the issue of quotes, whether direct quotes or nearly so?

Just leaving that out there. I'm not blaming myself for what I misheard, and my interpretation of the first quote based on previous experience in a similar editor-publisher role.

(That said, to be fair, the person who made the two quotes may have been influenced by a phone call concerning the information behind the second quote.)

As for legal advertising being "cleaned up"? Well ....

I'm still trying to figure that out.

Maybe I'll ask Clevinger some day.

I wrote all the strike-through before giving two weeks notice after noticing even more stuff, then getting fired when two weeks notice wasn't good enough.

I suspect if the money were right, someone in Hearne named Dennis Phillips would sell his own grandmother to Clevinger, too.

Clevinger runs the Lawflog blog. From what I know, it has a fair degree of accuracy on Hearne and Robertson County issues. That said, as Clevenger is both a lawyer and a former journo, he knows just how far to push something on the side of opinion or speculation while getting close to calling it fact, or on stuff that is fact but controversial, he knows just how much legal footing he has.

And, the further away from Robertson County you get, the less trustworthy he is. He's a gun nut, from what I can tell on Twitter, enough of one to do the "David Hogg Hitler salute" meme. He's also a Seth Rich conspiracy theorist and a MAGA-head, one who touts right-wing and even far-right-wing blogs.

All of this adds up to make him less than 100 percent trustworthy even on Hearne issues and even given the reality of what I know about Hearne. There, even, he's ... he's Joey Dauben with a brain and a law degree. Or, a more acerbic, low-rent, wingnut Glenn Greenwald.

Clevinger reminds me a bit of Dauben in other ways. Dauben would cybersquat on misspelled versions of website URLs. Clevenger creates websites like "Booger County Mafia" and "Dirty Rotten Judges" then lets them expire after a year or so.

On the third hand, per TPM, as well as the link below, he does take on Republicans as well as Democrats.

On the fourth hand, I'm not sure how much in the way of civil rights case work he does, and how broadly he defines that term.

And, while part of it may be contempt for being held in judicial contempt, he — he of liking to expose financial irregularities – owes $150K in judicial fines. If he refuses to pay, the DC court, on that fine, should convert his now-completed suspension into a disbarment.

He also has too narrow of a focus about some things in Hearne.

But, that's for him to figure out, not me.

And, as for that sale? Clevenger would reject Phillips' offer. And, would then write about it. And after that, both sides would engage in innuendo.

Besides that, Hearne's got other issues which even Marlin doesn't. Still the place where Walmart first (I think) CLOSED a store ... big enough for a NYT piece.

Meanwhile, I have my own reasons to distrust both Dennis and Teresa. In my opinion, adjectives like sneaky, snitchy, suck-uppy and even pretentious might apply. Yes, even that last one.

Texas newspaper ethics slouching toward Gomorrah

When did Ken Starr become a contributing op-ed columnist for the Waco Tribune? And why? This is the man who turd-polished Art Briles' reign of sexual assault by Baylor footballers, even after he was canned as president,then resigned as a professor.

==

When did it become a "thing" for newspapers to run ads more than the customer desired, then bill them for the extra runs? (Until and unless a customer notices, that is.)

And, in my opinion, to state those magic words, I don't think it's being done by accident. I of course cannot read minds. So it has to remain my opinion.

Look, through laziness or whatever, I can see a classified ad simply staying on a classified page an extra week at a small-town non-daily paper. But, with ad billing software programs, the customer should only be billed for the number of runs purchased.

I know of this happening at one pair of papers. Personal contact with customers. Both classified AND display ads. On the one case, it ran 6x instead of 1x. Been told it might have happened before. Suspect it's happened nearby. Heard that it's not just an issue with one newspaper company.

I can't say anything more, for various reasons.

But, where I know it's happening? I wouldn't do business with that paper, let alone with a sister paper, if you put a gun to my head.

==

If you're a newspaper publisher, or owner of a group, and don't like the possibility of being tarred with a broad brush?

You have two options.

The first is to call out your newspaper peers. Not by name, of course, even for places where you've heard of this practice being done. But, yes, call them out. Not in an op-ed in your paper, of course. That does nothing. Try the TPA Messenger or something.

The second is to adopt a public policy at your paper, if you're a publisher, or your group, if you're an owner. Something like:

"We will give you double your money back for any overbilling for advertising runs you did not authorize."

Then, internally, make repeat violations, even if you can't prove intent, a fireable offense.

And, speaking of the TPA Messenger, one could argue for TPA to be more proactive.

==

If you're a newspaper customer, and this happens, and you suspect that, in your opinion, or ear to the street, it is part of a pattern? Rather than just fighting to get your money back, consider legal alternatives. Even if you do get your money back and you have the time, the money, and a lawyer willing to do discovery.

Or, better yet? Rather than threatening suit, file a criminal complaint for credit/debit card abuse. Under section (b)(1)(A) there, I believe an offense has been committed in such cases, and mental intent does not have to be legally proven. And, here in Texas, per that link, it's a state jail felony. (That said, intent will be in the center of jurors' mind if that goes to a jury trial, and probably in a judge's mind, too. With that said, good luck getting a county or district attorney to file a case.)

Tip 2? Sure, it's fine for a newspaper, like your grocer, to want to be paid in advance. If you're going to pay by credit card, just pay for that ad. You do not have to leave a card number on file.

==

If any big dailies see this, will they try to dig into it?

Probably not. They're losing the manpower, and besides, this is enough inside baseball that one newspaper or company wouldn't want to shit on another.

==

Meanwhile, ethics applies to use of the English language, too. A 20-something kid who can't write in complete sentences half the time is allegedly being trained to use InDesign enough to be given the label of "publisher" or something.

The local captain at the 'eastern front'

The eastern front's local editorial captain has multiple problems.

One is being a control freak. (I'm somewhat of one at times, so I know what I mean.)

Two is being a poor manager of other editorial staff, and derived from one, I'm going to say a poor manager of people in general. (Not the only person that way within the eastern front's outposts.)

Three is back to being a control freak. NOBODY proofreads the pages she builds because she doesn't let them. Stories may be edited OK, but headers and cuts written on pages regularly have errors. And, I'm at the point I don't care.

That's because, per Point 2, the company doesn't care. The bottom line is very much the bottom line at this place.

==

And, plain stupidity. I've NEVER, at a daily paper before, heard of a writer being asked to choose which photos shot by a staff photographer should be used. That's either the photographer or the ME.

And, what good does it do when she then goes off the board and chooses a picture of her own from the set anyway? And screws up the cutline to boot?

Oh, and creating the word "Handicapable" as a PC word in a headline for a handicapped event? Oh my fucking god. I about threw up over that one. This is also from a person who says you can't use "pot" in a story line. Bullshit. If you're going to invent a word, I'm going to use a vernacular word.

And, other crap?

Misspelling the name of Gov Greg Abbott as "Abbot." Misspelling "wrangle" as "rangle." Both in headers.

That said, I am learning new lessons in detachment from this.

==

Well, actually, I've moved on now.

She's a nice enough person. But ... most matters aren't up for discussion. Just "her decision."

Meanwhile, over at the Star-Telegram

From my years and years of living in or near the Dallas side of the Metroplex, I've seen the continued decline of the Dallas Morning News, and blogged about it repeatedly, in part because of the paper's pretentiousness, usually doubled down upon by the Belo corporation's own pretentiousness.

That said, over on the other side of the Metroplex, over in Cowtown, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram isn't totally hunky and dory either.

The StartleGram may not have the same individual, or corporate, pretentiousness as the Snooze. But, it's got problems.

I saw these problems when, for the first time in years, I looked through several issues at a fair-sized library when I got the chance.

Paid ad numbers by adhole percentage, in column inches, are no better than the Snooze's. And, that's with downsizing to a 46-inch web AND downsizing page counts — in some cases dramatically.

How dramatically? Or how drastically?

They run a 16-page paper on Mondays. That sounds like something for the Waco Tribune, or a few years ago, still for the Wichita Falls Times-Record-News. Yikes. (The Snooze, for comparison, runs 32 pages.)

AND, with that, and the smaller web, and, as I normally do, counting obits as paid ad inches, they STILL barely hit 25 percent on Mondays.

In addition, they've basically gutted the op-ed staff over there. NO local columns or editorials on that Monday paper. The dean of commentary of the StartleGram, Bud Kennedy, runs on a "Lifestyles" page and section the days he runs. (Bud may have been there in the past, to be honest.)

I used to think that, if a joint operating agreement was going to happen between the two papers, based on increased collaboration in the past decade, the StartleGram had the upper hand based on Snooze bleeding.

Now I'm not so sure.

A smaller newspaper following Snooze pretentiousness?

What is it with a paper even as small as the Waxahachie Daily Slight trying to turd-polish and repackage itself as being in part a marketing company, a la the Dallas Snooze?

At least, that's the way I'm reading its Texas Press Association ad.

It also has the same conflict of interest issues the Snooze did before spinning off its marketing folks as a separate entity.

If that ad is for a plain old ad salesperson, then it's simply BS, as well as doubly pretentious.

Oh, wait. We're at triply pretentious.

The Slight, at least as far as print version, is NOT the Daily Slight.

It's triweekly, in a town of 33K and county of 170K.  I mean, the Waxahachie population has grown more than 50 percent since 2000, plus the Snooze doesn't cover anything south of the Dallas County line. Yes, the Ennis (Daily) News is also in Ellis County. BUT! Ennis is 60 percent the size of Waxahachie AND it's cut to semiweekly. (It used to be a six-day daily.)

At least Ennis is honest enough to remove the "daily" from its website.

Oh, and old Today Newspapers sidebar — does that mean David Goodspeed is no longer doing automotive writing there?

(Insert joke about Ellis County reading comprehension. Insert second joke about Joey Dauben.)

So, Waxmyassmore, why would anybody want your "marketing services" if you've cut two days a week off your print product? And when, despite Ennis being only 60 percent your size, it has one-third more print subscribers?

That's not to bash individuals who work at these papers. I indirectly know people who have worked at Waxahachie and obviously directly know someone who used to, through small-level syndication, work for/with Ennis.

It IS to bash the corporate owners, or the privately trading owners, of community newspapers, who have their own Peter Principle problems at times as much as reporters and editors at the Beltway-Acela MSM.

The Dallas Morning Snooze slouches yet further toward Gomorrah

Three specific ways in which the last remnant of the mighty Belo empire continues toward new levels of craptacularness.

That's even as it claims to be the flagship newspaper of A.H. Belo. Well, yea, if you have only two print products, and the other's a Spanish-language tab, that's going to be you by default.

First, the Snooze, between Austin bureau writers like Bob Garrett and political analyst Gromer Jeffers, seem hell bent for high water to make the Democratic gubernatorial primary a two-person race only, despite Tom Wakely having run for Congress before and having entered the gubernatorial race before Andrew "Maybe we won't fry them" White and Loopy Lupe Valdez. They know what they're doing, too. Garrett did it again at the state AFL-CIO rally.

Garrett and Jeffers are technically skilled enough, and have a contact list of state politicos enough that they could do better. Either they're doing this on their own or else editorial higher-ups are making this call. In either case, it's deliberate.

I'm not sure if the state's other big dailies are engaged in the same. I do know the Stateless mentioned Wakely by name at the San Angelo party forum.

Second is the naming of Brendan Miniter to replace Keven Ann Willey as editorial page editor, or as the snooty Snooze says, "editor of editorials." (The story later says the new title is to emphasize the Snooze's push to be digital first. This from the company that was a sucker for the CueCat then rolled out not one but two clusterfucked attempts at paywalls.)

The Snooze is known for its "one Democrat a year" general election endorsements. Hiring someone who is a Wall Street Journal editorial page alum is bad enough. That tenure includes:

From 2000 to 2010, Miniter was an assistant editorial page editor at the Wall Street Journal, which included writing a column and crafting political analysis for its "Political Diary" newsletter. He also collaborated with Republican strategist Karl Rove on two books, and with Republican Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana, on another.

But wait, that's not all!

He then worked at Shrub Bush's presidential library!

Miniter moved to North Texas in 2011 and worked for three years with the George W. Bush Presidential Center, where he was director of scholarship and editorial content.  There, he led a team of more than 50 that created a 14,000-square-foot permanent exhibit about the Bush presidency, including 35 films and interactives and four audio tours.

Editor Mike Wilson said this does not represent a "shift to the right." Publisher Jim Monroney said he's sure that Miniter will continue to uphold the Snooze being "progressive on social issues."

Yea, like Shrub hating gay marriage or even civil unions? Like Shrub as governor doing the Karla Faye Tucker imitation cackle?

I've not read much out of Wilson's pen, but I've seen Monroney turd-polish the Snooze and Belo for years. This is nothing new, either on the idea that Miniter will be progressive on social issues or that the Snooze has been progressive on them in the past.

(Bill McKenzie calls him a "compassionate conservative" who "cares about ... neighborhoods." Oh, yeah? Cops following the "crack in the sidewalk" model of policing "care about neighborhoods." Crack dealers not wanting competition "care about neighborhoods.")

Besides, getting below national, or even state, issues, Miniter probably will be a fucking hack on editorials and columns about Dallas, Dallas County, Dallas ISD and other Metroplex governance.

I hope Jim Schutze kicks his ass at first opportunity.

But, that's only two of three. 

The third?

The Snooze's ad sales continue to decline.

On Thursdays during the Thankgiving-Christmas shopping season, even then, its adhole was barely above 25 percent. This doesn't count any house ads, and deducts for part of PR space on things like classys and auto liner listings, but does count obits inches as paid ad space. 

Thursdays in general are supposed to be a fairly solid ad day, in part to prime people for shopping and buying over the weekend.

It's worse since then. I know January is a slow month, but SIXTEEN PERCENT on an adhole for Thursday, Jan. 18? Cut the page if you have to.

Seriously, that would be meh on a Monday, bad on a Tuesday, in my book. Horrible on a Thursday. Period.

No, Jay Rosen, this Yascha Mounk screed was NOT the story of 2017

Albert Camus wannabe Yascha Mounk

Journalistic overviewer and sometimes scourge of the industry Jay Rosen says this NYT piece by Yascha Mounk is "the story of the year." 

Well, to expand on a Twitter thread of mine last week, maybe, maybe not. Or, to move from the teaser? Probably not that close.

First?

Rosen also knows the history of US journalism, and that, before its alleged golden age, we had an openly partisan press. (See more below on this.) Now, there was no electronic media, let alone social media, and presidents were relatively weak. But, are these more differences of kind, or of degree? Rosen doesn't answer, and his Tweet did NOT appear to be part of a thread.

Second?

This is just a brief point, but I must note it. We must remember that this is an op-ed, not a news piece. Rosen knows that as well, but didn’t note that in his Tweeting either. Yeah, op-eds can at times include news analysis. This one doesn’t. It’s a straight opinion piece. So, Rosen's Tweet shout-out is itself a bit iffy.

Third?

We must also ask, which the op-ed does not, how much of this, or how little, in Trump's case is deliberate strategy? With Modi, Erdogan, etc., that's not a question; we know it. But in Trump's case, some of this is simply narcissism. Now, tis true that actual dictators may be driven by similar narcissism. But they aren't always so. Take Erdogan's predecessor Ataturk. He ruled with a relatively light hand over Turkey's media.

Related?

Mounk also ignores the clownishness of Trump and his ilk. That's related to the above. But, per the quip that Mussolini made the trains run on time, I'm not sure Trump could make his own bowel movements run on time. (I must add that John Kelly as the latest chief of staff appears to be doing some of that, while also appears largely simpatico with Trump's political beliefs.)

Fourth?

He ignores other factors.

If Hillary Clinton had a cakewalk lined up after Biden took a pass and Bernie treated her with relatively kid gloves, Trump had his own good fortune.

Mitch McConnell would never leave his Senate mancave. House GOPers were too fractious for anybody to emerge. That left smarmy Booger Ted Cruz as the most viable alternative after Jeb! Bush had an even worse campaign than his first try at being Florida's gov, Little Marco Rubio and his Marco Polo-ing himself, Carly Fiorina reminding us she is as inept a CEO as Trump, and god ... I mean George Pataki at one time talked about running, which shows how craptacular the GOP field was.

That's even as Trump henchman Steve Bannon claims Donald Duck is the best political orator since William Jennings Bryan. No,really!

Fifth?

Mounk — and Rosen, for good measure — also overlook bits of authoritarianism from Dear Leader even before Debbie Wasserman Schultz tried to rig the Dem primaries for Hillary Clinton. That includes his AG, Eric Holder, spying on the Associated Press, and his AG's FBI impersonating an AP reporter, among other things.

And, speaking of? 

It's also "amazing" that neither Mounk nor Rosen notes the possibility of neoliberal authoritarianism, even as in France, as we speak, Emmanuel Macron seems to be acting sub specie Louis Quatorze with the idea of "L'etat, c'est Macron!" And here is a GREAT profile of him being just that. The author also notes that Mounk cluelessly thinks Macron is boosting democracy even as he's undercutting it. (Maybe it's not cluesless, though; per the piece, Mounk may be enough of a neoliberal elitist to claim that IS democracy.)

Sixth?

Not everybody on Fox plays along with such things. Not even counting Shepard Smith, it's not as monolithic as Mounk claims, and I know Rosen knows that, and that it's not the same as World News Daily or even worse.

And, to the degree a relatively sane bigger conservative media player like Fox is involved, if it goes overboard for Trump, there's the possibility of getting burned even within the GOP later. Say a paleoconservative or Paulist is the next GOP president; to the degree Fox still has warmongers, it could be out of the loop.

Related to that?

As both Mounk and Rosen should also know, and maybe do know, the real authoritarianism isn't so much with Trump but with one faction of the conservative movement that has glommed on to him, starting with Rupert Murdoch — and Murdoch at the WSJ, which he still runs himself without as much interference from his kids as at Fox. Sam Tanenhaus has the details.

Granted, that’s not the same as governmental authoritarianism. It’s more cultism. But Trump would by no means have the same apparent power as he actually does if more of the conservative media and think tank world were more oppositional and stronger in it.

Seventh?

How about a sense of history?

That's not to say this isn't some kind of a problem, or that it's not worse, even if "only" in degree, than the Gilded Age partisan journalism. Or, say, the Jefferson-Adams election. Or the Jackson-Quincy Adams battle of 1828. Trump's travel ban doesn't rise to the level of the Alien Acts, and nothing he's done comes close to the Sedition Act. If Mounk, a German native, doesn't know that, Rosen certainly does, or should.

Eighth?

While Mounk notes that Barack Obama might have had too much optimism about the American voter and that he might have had his own blind spots about Hillary Clinton's weaknesses,, he has written noting about things like the DNC fraud lawsuit, and appears to be a deep-fried "Putin Did It" person. Jay didn't note that, either. And, it took me just 30 secs with the Google to find his "Putin Did It" and his lack of concern about the DNC.

Finally, he's a fellow of both New America and the German Marshall Fund. In other words, some sort of left-neoliberal interventionist.

Yes, not everybody at New America is like that. I’ll call a Matt Stoller a left-left-neoliberal. ((I’m not ready to call him a leftist.) German Marshall Fund, on the other hand? Mix of straight neoliberalism on domestic issues with straight NATO/Atlanticist “consensus” on foreign policy. People at a think tank like that write "consensus" foreign policy pieces for places like the NYT, or CNN (the Obama link).

In other words, the type of people who might not like Trump because he might create a non-“consensus” foreign policy. The type of people who might, elsewhere, smear Jill Stein for appearing on RT.

Either Rosen knows these things better, too, or maybe he gives too much credence to the "Putin Did It" bullshit himself. (He doesn't actually write that often at his website, and what he has during this year doesn't even mention the Russiophobia McCarthyism 2.0, and the MSM's part in fueling it. He has, elsewhere, mildly scolded the Deep State but I don't think it's a fixation of him.)

What this does is remind me of why I don't follow Rosen on Twitter, why I think he's overrated, why he's rightly called a liberal not a left-liberal, and is certainly not a leftist. (Anybody who links multiple times to Josh Marshall in one piece, and uncritically, impresses me little.)

Thomas Frank is also not a big fan of Jay Rosen, and rightly so. (Their dialogue also underscores Rosen's political identification is correctly pegged.) That also said, per his dialogue with Frank, Rosen's website, PressThink, is not his alone. It's specifically labeled "a project of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University."

Ninth?

Jay, you're a wonk about how the media operates. The MSM's uncritical pushing of claims that the Russians hacked the 2016 election and that Trump is a Putin stooge, claims pushed in semi-lockstep with much of the Democratic party, is the story of the year as also noted at The Nation — and specifically the story of the year on media malfeasance.

Rosen also won't tell you, per the Macron link, that Mounk is at minimum, not a fan of the likes of Corbyn, and lumps all sorts of "populisms" together.

My guess is that Rosen is simply signal-boosting Mounk, while content to play along with worshiping neoliberalism in general.