Waiting for CJR and Jay Rosen to do some self-reporting

 Columbia Journalism Review is often a very good overseer over what's what in today's media world.

But, it's not perfect, as I've blogged about more than once. That includes earlier this year noting that it went down a post-truth rabbit hole over COVID, had claimed last year that early-days Voice of America did NOT engage in propaganda, had language non-maven Merrill Perlman commit a paired doozy of etymological-related errors and ... that's not all.

In 2019, I accused it of pulling its punches on Zionism issues. Long ago, I issued a shark-jumping accusation about its bromance for I Fucking Love Science. 

Some of those aren't too bad, but some are. The VOA and Zionism ones in particular are serious.

And, it's getting dinged again, and will further in the future if it doesn't write about its own journalism school's massive grifting at the master's level, and that's per the journalism school's own website, via part of a Slate story on master's-degree grifting in general. Slate, in turn, referenced a Wall Street Journal piece on MFA programs in general.

First, the first degree offered? Laughable, and laughable for even more reasons than Slate lists.

NO master's degree in journalism should be an MS rather than an MA. Journalism ain't a science. Period and end of story.

OK, now, the stuff that Slate did list, starting with that More Shitty degree.

NO "master's degree" should be a nine and one-half month project. Period. But, as Slate notes, there's little regulation for what lipstick you can paint on something and call it a master's degree.

Third, $80K for tuition and "fees" which probably aren't itemized is laughable even with NYC costs of living.

BUT! Per the WSJ piece, if you're running low on money, university president Lee Bollinger will hire you as a dog walker. No, really!

But, it's not just Columbia.

Across town, at NYU, home of media critic Rosen, the WSJ piece notes a master's in publishing had enrolled students with an average debt of $116K and income of $42K. The piece was July 8 and as of 10 days later, bupkis on Rosen's Twitter feed.

And, Rosen, I've kicked you in the past, too, most recently over naivete on ideas for COVID coverage. Long before that, I kicked his ass for kissing Yascha Mounk's tuchis. And, long ago, we had Rosen the paywall hater.

In reality? Rosen and CJR ain't biting the hand that feeds them while impoverishing students. (CJR and the individuals involved in the past have never offered the slightest apology.)

An A for marketing in Spokane but not much else

The Spokane Chronicle, which hasn't been published since 1992, has been resurrected.

Except not really.

The Spokane Spokesman-Review is doing what a number of other papers have done recently: fluffing out its e-editions. Part of the fluff includes adding breaking afternoon stories, whether local or regional from the Inland Northwest. Part includes PUZZLES! Just fucking shoot me there. I've blogged before, focused on the print side, about how they too are NOT a "savior." And, they're not digitally, either. Example? I can do the NYT Crossword myself online, no e-edition newspaper needed.

And, it's branded as ... the Spokane Chronicle.

The news release says nothing about how the Chronicle will be editorially different from the S-R, like in the "good old days," because it won't. No new editorial staff is being hired for this.

Dear newspaper publishers: About those legal notices

Yes, I know many of the reasons state legislatures continue to entertain, and to sometimes pass, laws allowing local governments to avoid posting legal notices in their newspapers of record are far less than pristine. In many cases, the local governments as well as the legiscritters are perfectly fine with hiding away such information.

(Then you have schizophrenic, in its non-technical, "split personality" use, bodies like the Texas Legislature. Here in Tex-ass, the Lege will entertain, every other year, in our banana republic not-every-year body, bills to kill public notice. UNLESS it's for setting local tax rates. In that case, the Lege has EXPANDED public notice requirements over the last decade. They call it "truth in taxation," but what it really is, is trying to egg on local wingnuts to file rollback elections and other stuff.)

But, I digress.

With fewer and fewer people reading print newspapers, local governments argue back, "why should we have to pay for print notifications?" Some would just want to post it on their city, county, or school district websites (and probably eighty-six it if they could). Others, more honestly, would argue that posting on a website for a newspaper meets requirements of getting out of local government, while still saving money and potentially addressing more people.

That argument's not all wrong.

And, some local governments might argue that their local publisher wants to nickel and dime them, or even gouge them.

And, THAT argument's not all wrong.

I've seen one arguable "gouging" and a couple of "nickel and dimings."

As newspaper budgets and revenue for many of them get tighter, publishers are going to more and more start running the risk of clutching the public notice brood of eggs so tightly that they smash it.

What's to stop newspaper owners from pocketing money from the Local Journalism Sustainability Act?

 The Local Journalism Sustainability Act has been reintroduced to Congress. Full bill here.

And, given that it would use taxpayer money to help people buy subscriptions, and its pricing level is clearly targeted to help six-day community dailies of 3,000 circulation or above, up to small seven-day dailies, rather than focusing on smaller daily and non-daily papers, then sliding out to partial support of larger community dailies, my question is not facetious.

On the second credit, for hiring journalists? A 100-hour per quarter standard for an employee's work is WAY too low. Remember, there's 13 weeks in a quarter. A newspaper owner would get a tax credit for hiring any new employee that works more than 8 hours a week.

The advertising tax credit? There's a loophole there. I presume lawyers could use this money to run the "notice to creditors," "letters testamentary," etc. that they have to already.

I don't know what, if anything, could be done to fix the first credit.

Second credit, I do. 250 hours a quarter would be about 20 hours a week for an employee. I mean, 8 hours a week? That's an invitation to reverse-loophole your "independent contractor" delivery drivers for a print newspaper. And, yes, people who run hedge funds and also own newspapers would work on a way to do that.

Address the loophole on the third credit.

(I Tweeted America's Newspapers CEO Dean Ridings at his personal and the America's Newspapers Twitter accounts raising in brief the issues on No. 1 and 2. And, have heard bupkis back.

Update, Aug. 27: I have just tweeted this to the National Newspaper Association. We'll see if I get any more response.)

Also, "local newspaper" needs to be made smaller than "750 employees" on max size. That current definition would allow just about any paper up to Dallas Morning News size (and maybe including the Snooze by now) to qualify. Most Alden-owned papers, including Dead Fucking Media/Media Snooze papers would qualify. Most of New Gannett/Craphouse would qualify. McClatchy papers, now also also hedge-fund owned, would qualify. Yes, "regional or local" is in there, but, you know what? Per media analysts, anything smaller than the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today by default and just maybe the L.A. Times is considered by them to be "regional" and not "national." And, unless that number is moved down to, say, no more than 500, the Aldens of the world would use it as an excuse for further job-slashing to qualify for the payola.

I mean, in the ad credit section, it restricts THAT to small businesses of less than 50, the standard federal definition.

And, speaking of? I see nothing in the language of the bill that says something like: "This offer shall not include any newspapers owned by hedge funds." (Since this is not criminal law, it's not a bill of attainder and carve-outs are totally allowable.)

So, in the end?

Hard pass, as both an informed taxpayer in general AND an informed taxpayer who's also a newspaper editor. Because, the answer to my rhetorical question above is "nothing."

Besides, there's a much, MUCH better way to do this, and to actually target real community newspapers. (It's by no means original with me.)

And, that's to increase funding to the Ad Council and to require it to buy spots in community newspapers. This was first mentioned at the height of COVID. Could be done right now with things like reminders not to leave kids and pets in hot summer cars. Or don't drink and drive paid PSAs.

Sidebar: It IS interesting to see that the bill's cosponsors are almost totally Dems.

Some TPA love, some questions for judges

 Got a third and two fourths at the most recent Texas Press Association Better Newspapers Contest.

And, while it's not that I think I should get firsts in everything, it's not the first time I've had questions for judges.

Column writing seems the most fraught category. Submit humor columns and not every judge may like your sense of humor. Submit serious ones, and who's to say a judge's POV isn't enough different, and deeply enough held, from yours as to undercut you? (One of my two column submissions this year was about Confederate monument removal. Al Cross liked it when he saw a copy. But, if a more conservative contest judge was in on the reviewing? I might have been screwed.)

As for notes on two of my three "places"?

A commenter on my feature stories said he didn't like one of them being placed at bottom right. Sir or madam, perhaps you didn't notice that I had two feature stories in the same issue, and the one at top left went there because it had a better photo. And, last I checked, this was the "feature story" category, not "page design."

On feature photography, a judge said "crop closer." Now, while my photos as submitted weren't airgap-tight, they weren't loose, and I had good reasons IMO to crop every one as I did. This isn't obit mugshots.

AND, I've won a few TPA awards. Never a first in feature writing, but I've won first in page design more than once, re the feature story judge's comments.

So, suggestions duly noted.

The Dallas Snooze slouching further? Dodging NYSE delisting?

Earlier this month, A.H. Belo said it was leaving the New York Stock Exchange for NASDAQ. Specifically, it's headed for NASDAQ's Capital Market. Why?

Reading between the lines, and learning more about that Capital Market is, I think it was in danger of being delisted.

NASDAQ Capital Market, per Investopedia:

The Nasdaq Capital Market is one of Nasdaq's U.S. market tiers containing early-stage companies that have relatively lower market capitalizations. Listing requirements for companies on the Nasdaq Capital Market are less stringent than for the two other Nasdaq market tiers, which focus on larger companies with higher market capitalization.

More on the Capital Market here further confirms this idea.

In short, Belo, a one-newspaper (Dallas Morning News, aka the Snooze) with adjuncts like Al Dia, and a digital marketing agency that must not be doing THAT well, doesn't have much money on tap. This is kind of like NASDAQ's "penny stocks" wing.

One thing that I'm kind of curious about: why didn't it go to the former AMEX instead? Is the bottom tier of NASDAQ even weaker?

Sidebar: I've long speculated about a full JOA between the Snooze and the Fort Worth StarleGram. Between this by Belo and McClatchy now under hedge fund ownership, that day is probably yet closer — if the two owners see that as the next best step.

RIP David Klement

Klement, a Pulitzer Prize winner with the Detroit Free Press, and for many years, editorial page editor of the Bradenton Herald, has passed away at 81.

As editor of the Muenster Enterprise, I appreciate getting to know David by phone and email, as well as through his book, over the past year. His thoughts and skills as a journalist, as well as his personal insights, were all appreciated.