Time to dog on CNHI again

 Because it's so fun.

I thought that, about 2 years ago, it had consolidated its North/North Central/East/East Central Texas (but NOT Deep East Texas) printing at Palestine, as in Gainesville, Greenville and Weatherford were all there.

Well, either I heard wrong, or else the UnitedHealth of newspaper chains has done something stupider yet.

Gainesville now prints in Norman, which CNHI doesn't even own. Weatherford prints way down in Huntsville!

Per terms of mileage in today's newspaper printing world, Norman is only 120 miles from Gainesville. It's about a flat 200 from Weatherford, a bit less, but not tremendously less, than Huntsville.

The main thing is a blown economies of scale issue.

Both are semiweekly, but Gainesville is Tues/Sat while Weatherford is Wed/Sat. Change the midweek print day of one of them, maybe? 

Then I thought maybe they're partnering Weatherford with their Cleburne paper?

Nope, it's still triweekly, at Tues/Thu/Sat. So is Greenville. Neither one should be, arguably, in today's world. But, if you are doing that, still fix Weatherford or Gainesville.

This comes to mind because all four have the same publisher, without, I think, local "general managers" for each (don't get me started), and they have a different policy on inserts, at least new ones.

Weatherford wants a prepay; Gainesville didn't ask. 

Yes, Facebook IS a publisher

At least it is in Brazil, where that country's Supreme Court ruled recently that social media companies are legally liable for user posts if they don't take them down, even if they don't have a court order.

In other words? Facebook IS a publisher. Just like at newspapers I run.

I've argued in this space and elsewhere more than once with blanket defenders of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. I have said that it needs to be updated, not junked, but they still don't accept that, nor the media principle behind it. 

Oh, and related to that? Zuckerberg aka Hucksterman will surely try to gut or end-run this ruling, based on his past US history on broadly similar issues. 

TPA contest awards thoughts

 First, I apparently, contra an old post, misunderstood the configuration of current divisions of semiweekly and weekly papers. I have no complaints about anybody I was running against.

Now, the actual awards? 

Yes, and not just in my division, as far as observations on judging, which I have long questioned. (I did it for another state's newspaper association contest once, long ago, and I'll admit it's not fun.) I also have a non-judging observation about one winner in another division, in one category.

I entered more categories than I have at any time previous, at my current position, and still just took one first and one fourth.

I didn't even place, not even fourth, in sports coverage, despite one of my two entries being the the issue of the local public school winning a state football title. (With the other paper I run, I won that category two years ago with a volleyball team finishing state runner-up.) Since I didn't even finish fourth, I won't have any judges' comments on why.

SMH.

Now, the other division and judging? Two levels above me, in sports photography, the picture TPA highlighted on its slideshow? It was simply of a high school pitcher, on the mound, pitching. It wasn't even as creative as one of my shots, or one of my stringers, to get the ball 2-3, or 5-6, inches out of his hand. Really?

Then, because I love dogging on CNHI?

Gainesville won the news writing award in its circulation class, even though one of its two entries, and the one displayed, had less than the full story.

That was about the Black Lives Matter-related organization, PRO Gainesville. At its last march, it did NOT have a parade permit, walked in a street that's also a state highway, and got its three leaders arrested.

After losing in county court at law, it appealed. ACLU of Texas then got involved and made it a political issue. The Gainesville Register never reported then one big issue, nor after they lost that appeal and appealed again to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, nor after THAT, when, with ACLU national now involved, they did a Hail Mary to the US Supreme Court. That "big issue," which I noted more than once in news stories and in columns, is that the ACLU's own pamphlet, available as a PDF online, says you can't march in a street, without possibility of arrest, if you don't have a permit.

I tweeted both state and national ACLU about that as well. No response.

(Any civil liberties organization donations I've made in the last 15 years have gone to the Center for Constitutional Rights, and this only confirms that.)

Sigh. 

There IS NO First Amendment right to media funding

That's why, per Axios, the Public Broadcasting System and a Minnesota PBS station, and per Corey Hutchins, National Public Radio and member stations in Colorado, are suing over Trump's executive order cutting of public broadcast media funding.

Now, per the Axios story, and Hutchins', cobbling together the details on both, Trump's executive order does reference my header, near the start of the order, before going on to call both organizations, and the funding parent, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, biased.

The question is, what burden of proof, beyond my caveat and Trump's, lies with the plaintiffs?

If the suits have breach of contract and/or executive arrogation of legislative powers in their language, they're probably in better standing.

As for biased? Public broadcasting has done no better job than MSM broadcast journalism on covering third parties, Gaza, the Russia-Ukraine war and other things, so this non-duopoly leftist says maybe they are biased, just not in the way Trump claims. As for biased? PBS whoring itself to the David H. Koch Fund for Science has led to its pulling punches on things like the climate crisis.

Related? I recently finished Steve Oney's "On Air," a very interesting look at NPR, from the start, and including its Reagan-era funding reduction, and how they tried to handle that, which was less than totally productively, but without suing the government.

Euphemism creep and the media

 

First, "euphemism creep", or the "euphemism treadmill," per Steven Pinker is a real thing. James McWhorter has also written much about it.

It's when a euphemism replaces a no-longer acceptable term, but soon enough becomes no longer acceptable itself.

Think "handicapped" being replaced by "disabled," then that becoming not acceptable and it being replaced by "differently abled." Some day in the not too distant future, because of the word "differently," that will be replaced as well.

This is a field with enough to mine that I am going to write about this on various spots, including my philosophy and critical thinking blog. But, there as here, I'll use the same starting point — Substacker Corey Hutchins talking about how different media outlets in Colorado struggle (or maybe "struggle" with scare quotes intended) on how to talk about "people who aren't supposed to be here," or if I need scare quotes inside that, "people who aren't 'supposed' to be here."

Or, per old friend Brains, who used it non-disparagingly? "Ill Eagles." 

Here, it's not just ground-level, but, in media, an official style issue, as the Associated Press long ago said both "illegal immigrant" and "illegal alien" aren't allows.

I agree for sure with the word "alien." That said, quoting Hutchins, I disagree with the AP already trying to get ahead of euphemism creep three years ago.

“We don’t use the terms illegal immigrant, unauthorized immigrant, irregular migrant, alien, an illegal, illegals or undocumented (except when quoting people or documents that use these terms),” the AP wrote. “Many immigrants and migrants have some sort of documents, but not the necessary ones.”

As I said in a comment to Hutchins, why not just add "allegedly" in front of "undocumented immigrants"? 

Per that Shitter link, the AP does offer alternatives. But? Most of them are kind of cumbersome, which undercuts the usefulness of language.

The AP also says that if an official statement has "illegal immigrants" and it's being quoted, quote as is — no bowdlerizing.

However, that's print media. Political interviews, or everyday oral communication, political or otherwise, the issue is not so avoidable.

And, it will get politicized within the media. The story Hutchins writes is about a Fox station in Colorado Springs, which actually wrestled with the issue and edited a website headline. Fox nationally on Fox News? Probably still using "illegal immigrant" and much of its staff not caring. For the likes of Newsmax? Absolutely.

Also, per the authors I cited at the top of the page, this issue tends to get politicized. And, it's usually "conservatives" vs "liberals." Setting aside L/libertarians and some Green types who claim to be neither right nor left, the politicized polarity also ignores friendly skeptical non-liberal leftists.

And, it gets politicized within the media, not just this phrase, but larger issues and related ones.

In my first comment, Hutchins noted that I had used the word "roundup" and he had edited it out of his post, when thinking about using it, as dehumanizing. I noted that I've seen "roundup" in places like a "kindergarten roundup" at a local school district.

I also commented, in a short bit lower in his post, about a Denver TV news anchor wearing a tie from a Soviet journalist to make a statement about the Russia-Ukraine War. I first noted the fact that, pre-invasion, Zelensky was already restricting press freedom in Ukraine. I then referenced Gaza. Hutchins didn't refer to either one.

And, with that, it strikes me that he's probably framing this in a politicized sense, and within the conservative-liberal axis, or, within the two-party duopoly axis.

To me, right-thinking (NO pun, intended or unintended!) people in general should step outside that box. And, media shouldn't step into that box in general. 

(It's also a reminder that we don't have leftist media in the US.)

This leads to another issue, even if not technically euphemistic.

Let us take the "word" (that's a scare quote, not a reference quote, folks) "trans."

I don't use it. It's either a prefix missing a referent noun or adjective, or the first name of an old GM car.

We can talk about "transsexual" or "transgender." 

The final, big picture?

We all should move beyond language that's harmful, but at the same time:

• Recognize the euphemism treadmill is real;
• Avoid politicization;
• Accept we won't please everybody, including readers and listeners as members of the media;
• And, per Humpty Dumpty, never let language be the master. 

And, that's that.

Gainesville Register hits new low

I thought their regional editor, since they no longer have a local editor, has more brains than this, but I stand corrected.

In the ongoing saga of 235th District Court Judge Janelle Haverkamp, defense attorney Michael Lassiter's filing of a writ of habeas corpus for client Michael Newberry, district attorney John Warren signing off on that writ, visiting judge Lee Gabriel officially recommending to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that it order a new trial for Newberry, and Eighth Judicial Administrative District presiding judge David Evans ordering a mandatory recusal of Haverkamp from active and future criminal cases brought by Warren ...

Last week, county judge John Roane decided he had to row his oar.

He wrote a LONG open letter to all local media. The last two paragraphs not only threw Warren, and also County Attorney Ed Zielinski, under the proverbial bus, they had Roane at least approaching, if not sticking his toes over the border of, a certain legal issue.

The local radio station, which really doesn't do news reporting, posted the letter in full on its Facebook page an hour after it came out.

The local shopper-plus paper, which got the letter before its press deadline, unless that deadline has been moved up with a change in its printers, did not. (We will see if it runs this week.)

The CNHI-owned Register, currently a semiweekly in print?

It not only ran the letter in full, it also referenced it in a news story.

The Register does not have a local editor, and has not for almost a year. Instead, it has a regional editor overseeing the CNHI papers in Cleburne and Weatherford as well as Gainesville. Even before Sally Sexton took over Gainesville, she — and CHNI in general in this area — were stretched so thin that (Aledo) Community News owner Randy Keck started an online-only competitor to Weatherford.

The Register has a local staff writer, a Gainesville native in their first journalism job out of college with no journalism degree, whom the regional editor wouldn't allow to touch anything on the matters at hand.

There's additional issues, which happen when you have non-local editors.

There's a number of backstory issues behind Roane's letter, among them that his claims to be trying to mediate two sides aren't true, per comments that may be running around elsewhere. There's also backstory behind the county's would-be original legal contract for a law firm to write an amicus brief for Haverkamp. But, nobody is talking off the record to a rookie reporter, and don't have the relationship with a non-local editor to do that. I don't know if anybody is doing that with either the reporter or the owner of the shopper-plus.

Anyway, I am not linking to any Register coverage nor quoting from Roane's letter.

The decline of audited — and unaudited — circulation accuracy

 We all know in the print bureau that the old Audit Bureau of Circulation's newspaper audits have long ago gone by the boards, and that what counts as paid circulation is more and more a matter of framing and public relations.

That's true enough of a conventional newspaper with a second-class USPS permit.

But, what of a shopper, which was free, like most of them are, but gradually converted more and more of its ZIPs to paid and finished the process about 18 months ago?

I hear things about a "bulked-up" shopper in my area, which did exactly that. I would whack one-third off their circ claims now that they've gone paid. And, as far as I know, they're still on a third-class permit, so they don't have to run an annual postal statement in October on their pages.