CNN FINALLY DISPLAYS JOURNALISTIC TESTICLES

CNN took every possible opportunity to disappoint me with most of its coverage -- until close to the very end -- of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, receiving an overall D- in terms of any seriously hard hitting reportage or stand-up-on-the-hind-legs journalistic courage in its Trump coverage until the GOP convention.

Until then the CNN's coverage essentially treated Trump as little more than a loudmouth buffoon whose rantings made great video snippets, but they in almost no way took into account the idea that he might win the nomination and did very little to show that he was thoroughly unfit to be elected street sweeper, much less president of the United States. At times, they even seemed to be quite cozy with him allowing him to frequently call in to say something or respond to something in a manner not really accorded to other candidates Republican or Democrat. I don't think they allowed this in order to give him an edge over the other candidates but rather they did it because they thought it was humorous and just ASSUMED their viewers would understant Trump was just making a fool of himself. Well, you know the old saw about the word "assume," and it the end CNN did make an ass out of itself.
Now that it's too late, I think CNN is finally doing a responsible job of covering Trump's pathethic "presidency." Nothing CNN has done, however, has really wowed my in the area of journalistic courage as much as its response to the incredibly childish and frighteningly ominous tweet that Trump released over this past weekend showing him in a WWE wrestling mode, violently taking down a person whose face was replaced on the video with a CNN logo. If you've not seen or heard CNN's pull-no-punches response, here it is and it earns the network my first "BRAVO" in a very, very long time:

“It is a sad day when the president of the United States encourages violence against reporters. Clearly [deputy White House press secretary] Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied when she said the president had never done so.
Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea and working on his healthcare bill, he is instead involved in juvenile behaviour far below the dignity of his office. We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.”

This is the first time, in a long time, that CNN has looked like the news network Ted Turner founded. Now, CNN, STAY STRONG!!

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TV NETWORK PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY COVERAGE: All Trump, All The Time?

NOTE: This marks the return of The Ancient Newspaper Editor, which has been on too long a hiatus, which was due in part to my having been through an extended hospital stay in connection with a heart attack and bacterial spinal cord infection. I'm doing better now, thank you, but will be having back surgery next week. My apologies for the hiatus.



A story on Huffington Post Politics this morning (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-networks_us_56df9346e4b0860f99d72720?section=politics) makes in it's headline this interesting observation:

Networks Didn't Cut From Donald Trump's Speech Once To Air Hillary Clinton

Instead, America got to watch Trump promote his line of steaks

The story by Jennifer Bendery, White House and congressional reporter for the Huffington Post, goes on to say: "Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton gave a stump speech Tuesday night, but chances are you didn't see it, since none of the major TV networks covered it. They were all glued to GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump's rambling speech/press conference/self-promotional event happening at the same time."

 

It seems to me that this has gotten to be a really serious problem with all of the networks and not just when providing live primary election night coverage.

This morning, for instance, ABC's Good Morning America allowed Trump to drone on unchallenged, and virtually uninterrupted for way more than 5 and probably closer to 10 minutes -- which is an exceedingly long and unusual amount of time to devote to a single "news" interview -- about his win in Michigan. Meanwhile, George Stephanopoulos sat there largely staring into the camera slack jawed, particularly after Trump verbally slapped him around for "making a negative out of a big win" after the GMA anchor pointed out that exit polls showed Trump had "lost" with late deciders -- a valid point considering 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney's recently launched "Stop Trump" campaign.

On the other side, how long was the GMA interview with Bernie Sanders regarding his stunning upset win in Michigan?

Yeah, that's right, what interview with Bernie Sanders. Or, what interview even with Hillary Clinton for that matter.

Yep, you've got it, the ONLY candidate from either party actually interviewed live or even recorded on GMA this morning was Trump.

This has become the disturbing reality thus far during this presidential primary election season. It's been my feeling for months now that for all practical intents and purposes when it come to viewing political news on the TV networks, Trump almost appears from the frequency, the coverage time devoted and the extent of coverage to be the only candidate running. Certainly, he's the only candidate given so much network time to just run his mouth. It's gotten so bad on Good Morning America, an about 25-year viewing habit that my wife and I just can't seem to break, that we refer to the show these days as the "Morning Trump Hour."

The all-Trump, all-the-time coverage by the networks has gotten so pervasively bad in at least my view that is has me wondering -- against my normally better judgment -- if it's not time to employ some provisions of the Equal Time rule to help retool and bring back the Federal Communication Commission's Fairness Doctrine, which died in 2011.

Between them, the Equal Time rule and the Fairness Doctrine recognized the advantage that excessive TV time/coverage could give a politically charged issue or political candidate and required the networks to provide fair and balanced coverage and/or to give all political candidates equal time on the air.

Granted, living by and complying with an FCC rule that would combine aspects of the Equal Time Rule and the old Fairness Doctrine would be burden on the networks, but I think it would insure equitable and responsible coverage -- something the networks seem to have totally tossed out the window this election season.

It's my feeling that they have done so in favor of fawning over Donald Trump and giving him whatever his bullying heart desires and demands to the detriment of the kind of fair, balanced and inquisitive political coverage they should be providing. In essence, the networks -- intentionally or not -- have been helping Trump sell a rotten bill of political goods that is based on hatred, bigotry, jingoism and Fascist/Nazi philosophy -- all things that are supposed to be totally un-American.

I'm sure the current crop of network news department "leaders" justify to themselves the excessive Trump coverage by telling themselves that they want to be careful to avoid being accused of being "liberal media," which is a myth anyway.

Once upon a time, TV network news operations were run, or heavily influenced, by the likes of  Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings -- journalists with an inbred sense of fairness and balance and the intestinal fortitude and character to challenge bullshit no mater how powerful, wealthy or well-placed the source or politician it was coming from. In their day, network news programming was regarded almost strictly as the coverage and passing along of vital information. Electronic news media leaders with their character and keen sense of journalistic ethics didn't need the Fairness Doctrine or the Equal Time Rule to ensure fair coverage or equal time and treatment.

Today, network news is run by the likes of Fox's Roger Ailes and has become way too heavily regarded within the industry as entertainment and -- particularly in the case of Fox and to a slightly lesser degree MSNBC -- point-of-view propaganda that are passed off as news.

It's as if all of the TV networks have lost any and all sense of journalistic responsibility at a time when their influence is extremely powerful, particularly as the usually much more inquisitive, hard-hitting, fair, balanced and in-depth print media continues to fade from public consumption.

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(As a footnote and for the sake of transparency, let me point out that during this primary season I have personally supported Bernie Sanders because he is the one person running who I regard as a progressive idealist of the John and Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey variety.)

 

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A VETERAN EDITOR AND FORMER BOSS SPEAKS UP ON PAY-FOR-PLAY REPORTING

My old friend and former boss, Henry J. Holcomb, who retired a few years ago from his last newspaper position  at The Philadelphia Inquirer, posted a comment on my last blog entry "NEWSPAPER ETHICS: MAINTAINING (OR NOT) THE LINE BETWEEN DOLLARS AND SENSE" (Feb. 12) that I think deserves more prominent play than just as simple tagged on response to the entry.

I've always held Henry -- who, as managing editor of The Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, hired me away from The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., to be his business editor -- in high regard as one of the best, though not always easiest to please, editors I ever worked for.

Henry is one of the most philosophically thoughtful editors I've known, and that aspect of him frequently showed up in our editor meetings when he would toss out for discussion an often controversial idea or concept that would land like a hand grenade chunked onto the middle of the conference table where we all gathered.

One of the things I admired most about Henry was his finely honed sense of journalistic principles and ethics and the fact the he truly believed in the adage that holds "the purpose of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable," which seemed to serve as one of his philosophical guideposts in managing the news department at The Star-Telegram.

Henry departed Fort Worth in, I think, 1983 to go to an editing position at The Inquirer, which under legendary editor Gene Roberts was, at the time, perhaps the nation's leading newspaper when it came to afflicting the comfortable, but his influence remained with me throughout the rest of my newspaper career -- another 30 years.

Weighing in on pay-for-play journalism, here is what Henry had to say:

"Steve: You raised issues here that need raising (and stirred unpleasant memories of the Camel scoreboard affair).

Sponsored content is spreading in digital media. Ads pop up in stories — even in digital products of good papers — according to data modern technology is harvesting for advertiser about the individual reader’s needs and interests. This is leading to stronger efforts to manipulate content — and even greater reader cynicism about journalists' ability to tell it like it is.

Crowdfunding is unlikely to produce clear thinking and vigilance that serves the whole community. I've written and edited so many stories that irritated a large number of people for a time until the full impact of what was being reported sunk in.

Reporting funded by foundations poses risks, too. Foundations tend to be controlled by the wealthy whose good fortune gives them a different feel and sense of a community. Some may not to meddle in the stories they fund. But they clearly influence which projects were pursued.

This, of course, is hazardous to the health of a free society. So write on.

You remember the past more fondly than I do, though.

These issues have always been a struggle. There have been a few newspaper owners like James B. Quigley of The Orange (Texas) Leader, where I worked long ago, who understood the importance of credibility and what built it. For example, he stood strong when a local car dealer threatened to pull his ads if we reported on his son's rather public misbehavior.  Mr. Quigley told the dealer that he hoped he wouldn’t do that — because that would mean he couldn’t afford a new car.

'If we don’t run the story,' Mr. Quigley said, 'the people in this city won’t respect either of us.' (Eventually declining car sales forced the dealer to advertise again,  and Mr. Quigley could afford to buy his badly needed a new car.)

Few fresh-out-of-business-school publishers of papers owned by the big chains have been able to be as principled as Mr. Quigley was on this story -- and on broader issues related to the news and commentary needs of the community. Missing the corporate revenue goals has long been very hazardous to career health."

Thanks for the comment, Henry, I couldn't agree with you more.

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NEWSPAPER FRIENDS: WHEN LIFE STOPS GIVING AND STARTS TAKING AWAY

UPDATE (1-8-2015): Queenie Pemelton, my friend and my Community Editor for the nearly 13 years I was editor of The Monitor, succumbed to her long battle with breast cancer this evening after more than a month in hospice care. Rest in Peace, Queenie. They simply don't make them like you anymore. 

UPDATE: Sometimes, there really is nothing I like better than good news. My friend, Monitor Community Editor Queenie Pemelton, after having her ventilator removed last night and breathing on her own, has taken a turn for the better. Perhaps prayers and well wishes do work. Either way, there now appears to be some reason for at least cautious optimism.

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This morning I am reminded of an actually pretty poignant line from the last Indiana Jones movie, "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:"

"We've reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away."

For the second time in less than a week, a newspaper friend could to be headed toward the final edition.

Last Wednesday, we lost longtime friend Larry Nighswander, who was my assistant managing editor for photo and design when I was managing editor of The Cincinnati Post, who died of a sudden heart attack. Larry was one of the media's best photo editors and visual educators of the past 30+ years.

Today, Queenie Pemelton, my community editor for the nearly 13 years I was editor of The Monitor, in McAllen, Texas, before my retirement last year, is hanging on by a thread at Rio Grande Regional Hospital. Like Larry, Queenie, 61, is a very special person.

She is a veteran of more than 30 years at The Monitor. And, although Queenie is not a "trained" (i.e., college graduate with a degree in journalism) journalist, she is nonetheless not only the news staffer best known to the public, she is probably the person whose name most often comes to mind when anyone in the public thinks of The Monitor.

For tens of thousands of full-time area residents and part-time "Winter Texans," Queenie -- who came to the newsroom from the back shop and got her journalism training on the job -- personifies The Monitor.

As community editor, a title I crafted for her years ago, her job for more than two decades has been to do the intake, editing and placement of the scores of press releases the newspaper receives every day from a wide variety of community people, groups and organizations from across The Monitor's circulation area, many of them hand delivered by the procession of mostly ordinary people who show up at her desk daily. Although most of these people could just as easily mail or email their press releases about a garden club meeting or a son or daughter receiving special honors at college or graduating from military boot camp, etc., they come in person because they love talking with Queenie, who always gives each of them a few minutes to chat despite her inordinately heavy workload created by the many press releases in need of editing.

To me, Queenie represents one of the things that I've always liked best about The Monitor -- it makes room daily to run many seemingly mundane community press releases dealing with the accomplishments and highly localized interests of thousands and thousands of readers and subscribers and does so not in some segregated "special" publication, but as part of the daily newspaper without in any way "harming" the paper's well-recognized professionalism.

I firmly believe that through her work, her character, her caring and her boundless love for the ordinary folks of the Rio Grande Valley, Queenie, for years, was highly instrumental in helping The Monitor stave off some of the precipitous circulation drops experienced by many other daily newspapers.

But for years now, Queenie has been waging war against breast cancer. For a while there, after several operation and much chemotherapy, many of us thought -- and hoped -- that she had won her battle. However, last week she suffered a seizure that again sent her to the hospital where she ended up being put on a ventilator. A CAT scan, according to information passed along to me, revealed that she had developed five brain tumors that have been ruled in operable.

Yesterday evening, the decision was made to remove the ventilator and although she was breathing on her own afterward, the prognosis is not good.

A mutual friend, who is keeping my updated via text messages, sent one last night that said: "Queenie is no longer the Queenie we know."

But, I beg to differ. Regardless of what happens next, in my mind, Queenie will ALWAYS be the Queenie I have known -- a very special person and a very special brand of journalist.

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A JOURNALIST'S TALE: JAMES MEREDITH ENROLLS AT OLE MISS

It's almost impossible to spend even a few years in the news business as a reporter or editor without accruing some interesting, if not thoroughly bizarre, personal stories or, at the very least, being entertained by the personal tales shared by colleagues.

Of course, as we all know, such stories are often altered from being PRECISE truth by the fog of memory or by the need for some creative alterations to make them, shall we say, a slight bit more interesting. I know that most of these sorts of personal tales usually are not TOTALLY true, nor are they downright fiction. There are those, however, who will tell you that the only difference between a journalist's personal stories and fairy tales is that fairy tales start off "once upon a time" while a journalist's personal stories typically start off "no shit, this is the truth."

With a newspaper career that spanned nearly 45 year as a reporter and editor, I have amassed plenty of tales of my own. However, one of my all-time favorite journalist's personal stories was told to me by my old friend and colleague Bob Gordon in about 1980, while I was managing editor of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., and he was managing editor of our now-defunct sister paper The Jackson Daily News.

Bob Gordon, sitting on desk, and me, in the overly large glasses,
horsing around in The Clarion-Ledger newsroom, circa 1980.

For me, Gordon's tale took on special significance with the opening of The National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta in June because it is tied to one of the watershed events of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement -- James Meredith's enrollment on Oct. 1, 1962, as the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi, where Bob himself had gone to school.

Gordon, who passed away in 2007 at age 69, was an outstanding journalist who -- as a reporter for United Press International and later in various UPI management roles -- covered or directed coverage of many of the Civil Rights Era's key stories in the South during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. Bob was a model newsman, a great friend and funny guy. But, more than that, to me he was something of personal hero because of his staunch belief -- despite his upbringing as a white, native Mississippian -- in the rightness of the Civil Rights Movement. Perhaps you will better understand why I've always held Bob in such high esteem if you take a look at his obituary, published July 2, 2007, in The Clarion-Ledger. Here is the link:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/clarionledger/obituary.aspx?n=robert-h-gordon&pid=90058916.

Bob, working as a reporter out of UPI's Jackson office, covered the entire Meredith-Ole Miss saga, up to and including the morning the veteran of nearly 10 years service in the U.S. Air Force was finally allowed to enroll at the university after a day and night of campus rioting. The violence had to be put down by U.S. marshals and other federal agents, Army paratroopers and the Mississippi National Guard, leaving two men -- an Oxford area jukebox repairman and a French reporter -- dead and scores of pro-segregation student and non-student protesters injured.

Meredith -- with the support of the NAACP and eventually President John F. Kennedy and his brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy -- in 1961 began his protracted battle to gain admittance to Ole Miss after his honorable discharge from the Air Force and after attending Jackson State University for two years. He had the appropriate academic credentials and background and believed that he had a right as a veteran, as native Mississippian and as an American to enroll at the university. However, die-hard Mississippi segregationists, including -- and in most instances led by -- Gov. Ross Barnett and members of the state legislature felt otherwise. The struggle for and against Meredith's enrollment eventually became known in some circles as the "last battle of the Civil War."

James Meredith is escorted to the Lyceum
Building at Ole Miss by federal agents to enroll
as the university's first African-American student.

Under extreme pressure from the Kennedys and in the face of a federal court order, Barnett seemingly gave in and agreed to allow Meredith to enroll at Ole Miss, with the enrollment to take place at the Capitol building in Jackson on Sept. 20, 1962. There was, however, a catch. After Barnett had initially consented to enroll Meredith on that date, he tried unsuccessfully to get Bobby Kennedy to agree to staging a ludicrous tableau in which federal marshals would appear to be forcing him into submission at gunpoint.

Kennedy, of course, did not agree. So, when the morning of Sept. 20 came, despite the enrollment agreement, Barnett remained defiant and things did not go the way the Kennedys wanted.

Gordon, representing UPI, was among the reporters waiting at the Capitol that morning to witness and report on the historic moment.

The way Gordon told it, when the appointed time came, Meredith,  flanked by an escort of four huge federal marshals, approached the Capitol's east side steps with the morning sun behind and casting long shadows in advance of them.

Gordon said Barnett was waiting at the top of the long steps leading up to the entrance, seated on a chair at a table. As Meredith and the four agents walked up the stairs, preceded by their long shadows,  Barnett, seemingly oblivious, sat writing -- perhaps just doodling -- on a sheet of paper. At the top of the stairs, the entourage, their shadows now shading Barnett and the table, stopped and waited to be acknowledged by the governor.

Finally, Gordon said, Barnett looked up and surveyed the four large, looming, white federal agents and the short, thin black man they were flanking.

Gordon said that after a very pregnant pause, Barnett, finally spoke, asking:

"Now, which of you gentlemen is Mr. Meredith?"

To the surprise of Meredith, the federal agents, the assembled media and the Kennedy brothers, Barnett again refused to grant the Air Force veteran admission to Ole Miss and blocked his entry into the building, Gordon said.

******

Although that concluded Gordon's tale, it did not end the Kennedys' pressure on Barnett to allow Meredith to enroll. Under threat of being found in contempt of a federal court order, a substantial fine and possible imprisonment, Barnett finally gave in.

After the night of violence on the Ole Miss campus, and with Barnett nowhere to be found, Meredith was escorted by U.S. marshals across the riot-torn campus -- still reeking from the lingering odors of tear gas and burned out cars -- from a dorm room where he had been secretly ensconced to the Lyceum Building where he was finally allowed to enroll on Oct. 1, 1962.

So ended the final battle of the Civil War.

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MODERN MEDIA PERIL: NEWSPAPER INTESTINAL FORTITUDE VS. ADVERTISER BULLYING

Renowned media blogger Jim Romenesko (jimromenesko.com) reported recently that Ken Hart, a 25-year veteran reporter for the Ashland (Ky.) Daily Independent was fired over a Facebook post criticizing a local auto dealer's TV commercial featuring his kids "baby talking" about the dealership -- Fannin Automotive.

Hart, who, according to the media blogger, has frequently been critical of such advertisers as Hobby Lobby, with regard to its U.S. Supreme Court birth control coverage case, and Chick-Fil-A, told Romenesko: “It appeared to me [that they] were being coached to talk like babies because it was ‘cute, I [wrote on Facebook] that making them do this was likely to get them teased unmercifully in school.”

The next day, according to Romenesko, Hart was called into Publisher Eddie Blakely's office and fired. Here is the link to Romenesko's full report on the firing: http://jimromenesko.com/2014/07/21/kentucky-reporter-is-fired-for-criticizing-a-local-car-dealers-tv-ads/

Considering how kids are -- despite national efforts to combat schoolyard bullying and teasing -- Hart is probably right, the dealer's kids likely will be teased unmercifully and possibly even traumatically over the commercial when school starts this fall. And that, in my book, makes his Facebook comment fair criticism. It should be noted that he apparently merely criticized the commercial and not the dealership per se.

Speaking in retrospect, Hart told Romenesko:  “Should I have posted what I did? Probably not. Did I deserve to lose my job over it? I personally don’t think so."

From a personal perspective, I think Hart's firing is outrageous. However, I believe that it is, unfortunately, symptomatic of a frightening change in the way the nation's financially troubled newspapers are reacting to bullying by advertisers who see things they object to in the newspaper or on social media posts by news staffer and go off on hell-raising tangents.

I speak from personal experience having, over my nearly 45-year career as a newspaper reporter and editor, frequently (and often unknowingly) gotten crosswise with an advertiser.

The most recent -- and thankfully final -- such incident occurred about 18 months before my retirement as editor of The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, on April 30, 2013. Fortunately, I was working for a great publisher, who on several occasions during the 10 years I worked under him went through hell with advertisers on my and the newsroom's behalf. Had I had a different, weak-kneed, publisher, I might have faced the same fate as Ken Hart.

As it happens, this incident also involved automobile dealerships.

We ran a front-page story on the opening of an upscale auto dealership for a luxury brand new to the Rio Grande Valley in one of McAllen's smaller neighboring cities. Probably because it was a competitor, the story thoroughly pissed off the owner of the metro area's largest group of dealerships that together comprised our single largest local advertiser. He contacted our advertising director and the Publisher Olaf Frandsen threatening to cancel his advertising, contending he never got that sort of play when he opened a new dealership.

In an effort to placate him, Olaf arranged a meeting at the paper among himself, me, our advertising director and the irate dealer and his marketing director. I was forced to sit in silence as the outraged mega-dealer, who I had previously regarded as a friend, browbeat me and called me and my staff "irresponsible and incompetent." He even accused me and the reporter who wrote the story of taking a payoff to run it. In retrospect, we might have (and I repeat "might have," but I doubt it) avoided the problem had the story run on the business front instead of Page 1. However, I believe it deserved the play it was given because the dealership was lured to the neighboring city with incentives that stirred up a controversy in that community. Some of the stories regarding the controversial incentives had run on the front page.

In the end, Frandsen -- who was wonderfully skilled at calming waters without surrendering news integrity -- managed to smooth over the situation. However, as penance, a couple of weeks later, I wrote a story that validly was news that went with a full Business Page presentation announcing that the irate mega-dealer was building a new store to house yet another luxury brand new to the Valley.

I should point out that this was not the first time I had gotten crosswise with this particular auto dealer. For instance, years earlier, he took great offense and caused an uproar when we ran -- on an inside page -- a national wire story that accurately described one of the brands he then carried as Detroit's worst gas guzzler.

Although attempted bullying of newspapers by their advertisers -- and particularly by auto dealers -- is hardly a new phenomenon, it does seem to me that over my last few years before retirement that advertisers became more brazen in their intimidation attempts as papers sank deeper into their economic woes and advertising lineage and revenue shrank.

I believe and fear that newspapers today are far more susceptible than ever to caving in to this sort of pressure designed, in some instances, to force things that are not news into print and keep things that are news out of print.

However, it has not always been thus.

While I was managing editor of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., in the late 1970s and early '80s -- before it was bought by Gannett -- we published a series on unnecessary auto repairs done by both independent auto shops and dealership service departments in the area. We well documented numerous instances where unnecessary and costly repairs were made even by well-respected auto dealership shops.

Although it enraged local auto dealers, Publisher Robert Hederman Sr. and Editor Tom Hederman stood by the series, refusing to stop or retract it. Consequently, the local auto dealers' association encouraged an advertising boycott that most -- but not all -- dealers went along with, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue for the paper.

The boycott, however, only lasted a little over 30 days before the participating dealers realized they were losing more in sales than the newspaper was losing in ad revenue. A group of dealers met with Robert and Tom -- who were not only respectively publisher and editor, but also the owners -- and informed them that they felt that the "lesson" they were teaching the paper had gone on long enough and they were "ready to start advertising again."

As was their southern gentlemanly habit, Robert and Tom politely thanked the dealers for wishing to return to the advertising fold. Then they informed the dealers that since they had not advertised for over a month, their advertising contracts had been nullified and that if they wanted to advertise again they were welcome to do so under new contracts at a 10 percent increase. All sheepishly signed the new, more costly contracts and the newspaper quickly made up for and significantly exceeded the lost revenues.

Simply because they can't afford to, I seriously doubt that many of today's newspaper top executives would display the sort of intestinal fortitude with which Robert and Tom Hederman countered the bullying by those auto dealers. And THAT, in my opinion, is a pretty sad state of affairs.

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Blog Readers: If you enjoy reading my postings here on The Ancient Newspaper Editor, I sure would appreciate if you'd consider subscribing to or following the blog. It's easy to do and there are several options for doing so. If you look on the right side rail, you'll see the "Subscribe to" buttons and a "Subscribe by email" button. Just click any of those and follow the instructions. If you are a Google+ user you can click on the "Follow" button right under my profile picture and follow the instructions. Or, you can click on the "Google+ Add to Circles" button next to my photo and add me to your circles and get notifications of new blog entries when I post them. Also, please share the blog with your friends and colleagues.  Thanks for giving this consideration.

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Your thoughts and/or comments are welcomed.

IS CNN HEADED FOR ANOTHER BLACK EYE?

Could CNN -- which has been nailed several times in recent years for lack of transparency or jumping the gun without all of the facts in it's reporting on certain stories -- be headed for another black eye for possibly failing to check into or to reveal details of former U.S. Army Sgt. Josh Korder's military background before giving him pretty much free rein in calling Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl a deserter?

Shortly after Bergdahl's release on May 31, after five years in Taliban captivity, CNN aired an interview with Korder, who served in the same unit with him, in which the former sergeant accused Bergdahl of being at best a deserter and "at worst a traitor." Although CNN and other media outlets have since broadcast or written about other former soldiers making similar accusations, Korder remains as the center of the political maelstrom swirling around Bergdahl's release in exchange for the release of five Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Now. a new undercurrent is percolating with regard to Korder and his accusations. Beginning last Friday, a number of liberal websites started reporting that Korder received a "less than honorable" discharge from the Army and suggesting that his type of discharge may be providing him an ulterior motive for lashing out at Bergdahl. Thus far, I can find no evidence that CNN or any other "mainstream" media outlet has reported anything about this.

How true this tidbit of information regarding Korder is I can't say since I haven't had time, or really even the need, to do any research into it myself since I'm retired and no longer a member of the active news media.

However, if it is true, it's something that should have been checked out before Jake Tapper's original CNN interview with Korder was aired and should have been revealed in conjunction with that interview. That would have been the proper and transparent thing to do. It seems to me, that if this information is true, viewers were entitled to know it in order to help them assess how much of what Korder said -- despite having signed a non-disclosure agreement with the Army -- to believe.

Throughout my nearly 35 years as at various editor levels at newspapers, I always insisted that reporters look into the background of those who came forward to provide information for "GOTCHA" stories and to, at least briefly, reveal in those stories anything possibly negative in the accuser's background that readers ought to know as they weighed the veracity of the accusations.

The need to do that as a matter of credibility was one of those things drummed into my head by editors during my reporting years at the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal & Times -- sister morning and afternoon newspapers that were among the first to have a written and strictly enforced news department code of ethics.

If CNN failed to run a background check on Korder, including looking at the type of Army discharge he received, it was significant example of lackadaisical basic reporting and the viewing public has a right to expect better from a media organization that still has loads of resources and bills itself as the nation's premiere all-news network.

If a background check was run by CNN and Korder was honorably discharged, that fact -- to insure fairness to Korder, who they should have known would come under attack from Bergdahl defenders -- should have been reported somewhere in connection with the original Tapper interview.

If a background check was run and it was learned that Korder received a "less than honorable" discharge and that information was not revealed as part of the Tapper interview, CNN richly deserves any black eye that might develop as a result of its failure to do so.

If you want to know more about what constitutes a "less than honorable" discharge, there is an easy to understand explanation of it here:  http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawlegislation/l/aadischarge1.htm

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JILL ABRAMSON APPARENTLY DISPLEASURED HER PUBLISHER, IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE

I've been trying very hard to just keep my mouth shut regarding the New York Times' firing of Executive Editor Jill Abramson, the first woman to hold that post at the paper, and the swirl of hubbub that has grown in wake of it. After all, I have never met her or her bosses or ever even been in the New York Times building, much less its news department. What's more, I am writing from the border in deep South Texas, some 2,000+ miles from the granite canyons of Manhattan.

However, two factors do come into play that led me to finally say something here. First, after 45 years in the business at eight different newspapers, I do know something about the nature of the beast. And, second, as anyone who knows me can readily attest, after more than 69 years of living I still lack the willpower to keep my mouth shut even about things that may not directly involve me.

The impetus for me to finally unshackle my tongue (or, perhaps, more accurately my fingers) with regard to the firing was this Facebook post this morning my by friend Jimmie D. Davis of Fort Worth, Texas, another former, longtime newsman:

"Oh, the ignominy. Getting unfriended by Amy Siskind. I had the audacity to disagree with her about the NYT mess.

She took out after Rachel Maddow for lack of coverage of the mess. If anyone out there has definitive knowledge of who is right and who is wrong in this, please share with the rest of us.

From the facts I so far have been able to gather I tend to lean with the NYT. But that may be totally wrong, so I am hesitant to go deeper than that. Rachel Maddow may just have the same problem.
But, apparently Amy Siskind thinks that any woman journalist worth her salt must take the default position in favor of the female in any dispute of this sort. That's thinking like a Fox."

Clearly, Abramson's seemingly abrupt firing on May 14 has sent the national journalism community into a tizzy.

Her supporters, in general, contend she is a victim of sexism and speculate that she might have been fired because she "may" have been being paid less than her predecessor and wanted a salary boost that cost her her job.

Her detractors, in general, contend she was let go because of her "management" style, alleging that she played favorites and sometimes publicly vilified those who weren't and, therefore, got just what she deserved.

Since I have no knowledge of what she or her predecessor were being paid, the only thing I have to say about that is that gender rightfully should have absolutely nothing to do with pay. If she had the same skills -- which I think you must assume or she would not have or should not have gotten the position in the first place -- and the same experience level, she should have been paid the same, or even more if she could have negotiated it at the time of her promotion. The only justification for having paid her less should have been, in my opinion, based solely on her skill and/or experience level compared to her predecessor. Gender should never play a role in a pay decision.

As for her "management style," I  have to suspect that considering the era in which she got into the business, she may have been a bit old school -- a style that sends today's newspaper H-R people into fits of apoplexy, but from which many of us learned one hell of a lot and became far better newspaper people than we might have been otherwise. However, being a tough, unyielding and possibly even harsh editor is one thing and playing favorites to the detriment of the others is quite something else. But I don't know anything about her personal management style.

What I DO know is that Abramson had established a reputation within the industry as a good and qualified editor and I, for one, was pleasantly surprised when she was named the NYT's first female executive editor in September 2011.

This all brings me back to my response to Jimmie Davis' Facebook post which was based on what all of us who have ever been the top news executive at any newspaper in the United States regardless of size or location knows all too well. My comment was:

"JIMMIE: There is one immutable fact here and that is that regardless of race, gender, ethnic origin, religion or sexual preference, if you are the editor of a newspaper, you serve at the pleasure of the owner and/or publisher. The question here is not one of whether or not the publisher had a right to fire her or whether or not it was the right thing or wrong thing to do, but rather how the dismissal was handled and from what I can see, it was not handled well nor with anything bordering on class from either side."

Whatever the "real" reason for Jill Abramson's firing -- fair or unfair, just or unjust -- it would appear, in the final analysis, that she displeased Publisher Arthur Sulzberger and he decided to show her the door. It has always been thus for chief news executives at newspapers and very few have ever survived getting irrevocably crosswise with their publisher.

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Blog Readers: If you enjoy reading my postings here on The Ancient Newspaper Editor, I sure would appreciate if you'd consider subscribing to or following the blog. It's easy to do and there are several options for doing so. If you look on the right side rail, you'll see the "Subscribe to" buttons and a "Subscribe by email" button. Just click any of those and follow the instructions. If you are a Google+ user you can click on the "Follow" button right under my profile picture and follow the instructions. Or, you can click on the "Google+ Add to Circles" button next to my photo and add me to your circles and get notifications of new blog entries when I post them. Also, please share the blog with your friends and colleagues.  Thanks for giving this consideration.

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NEWSROOMS NEED TO DIVERSIFY DIVERSITY

For decades, the most commonly heard buzzword in newsroom staffing has been "diversity." Over the years the scope of what that term means has changed, slowly becoming more inclusive.

When I started in the newspaper business more than 44 years ago, newsrooms were, as they still sadly are today, primarily male dominated from management to worker bee level. Many newspapers began to officially recognize this as a problem in the early '70s and started talking about "diversity" in terms of trying more aggressively to hire female news staffers, a drive that seemed to reach its apex when Geneva Overholser was named the first female editor of The Des Moines Register in 1988. During her seven years in that post, Overholser led the paper to a public service Pulitzer and helped solidify its standing as one of the top 10 newspapers in the United States. Her success helped, in particular, to open more newspaper management doors for women across the country.

Meanwhile, although most newspapers still remain conscious of the need to hire and retain female staffers, the primary focus of newsroom diversity efforts slowly shifted from gender to race following the passage of the Equal Opportunity Employment Act in 1972. At some point, editors began looking around their newsrooms and realized that they saw very few black faces even at papers in cities where a substantial percentage of the residents were African Americans. Slowly, the nation's newspapers began the push to hire more black staffers, an effort which -- despite an extreme commitment on the part of many papers -- has met with what I believe is only limited success, but still continues.

Today, the primary drive for newsroom diversity has again shifted as newspapers push to become more ethnically diverse. Although newspapers have grown more conscious of the need to hire staffers of all sort of ethic backgrounds, the effort seems to be mainly focused on recruiting staffers of Hispanic origin, in large part because Hispanics have become nationally and in nearly every state the fastest growing minority population.

As an editor, I was -- and still am -- a strong supporter of every effort to make newsrooms more diverse in gender, race, ethnicity and sexual preference. I firmly believe that if a newspaper is going to effectively serve its community, it must strive to reflect that community's demographic make up. Yes, it's a difficult task, made even more so in recent years as newspapers have slipped into their financial morass that has led to staff reductions and frozen or reduced salaries, making it more difficult to recruit staffers of all sorts.

Nonetheless, the efforts must continue and, in fact, should be expanded beyond just cold demographics into an area of diversity that I am not sure has really been given anywhere near enough consideration to this point.

For lack of a better term, I will call it "experiential" diversity.

To date, the common thread throughout the various diversity drives has been the idea that gender, racial and ethic staff gaps must be filled by "qualified graduates" of college journalism programs. A mantra that ignores the fact that many of the best journalists this country has ever known never even went to college, much less graduated with degrees in journalism. Once upon a time -- including during the "heydays" of American newspaper in the '20s and '30s when nearly every major city had two, three, four or even more daily newspapers competing for dominance -- a large number of staffers started out as copy clerks who, in many instances, weren't even high school graduates. They learned the journalism craft from the ground up. They understood the news interests of the ordinary citizens of the communities their newspapers served because they were products of those communities and reflected them well.

I am not saying that newspapers need return to the days of hiring non-college grads and training them from the ground up. However, I do believe that to fully reflect and understand their communities, newspapers do need to give greater consideration to hiring staffers who didn't merely graduate from high school, go off to college to major in journalism and then offer themselves on the job market. Newspapers need to give greater consideration in hiring to a job candidate's background of life and educational experience.

Here's a for instance. If you are an editor, take a look around your newsroom. How many military veterans do you see, particularly among those staffers who are not creeping close to retirement and keeping in mind that after a decade of war in two countries we have more vets now than at anytime since the end of the Vietnam War?

When I retired as editor of The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, a few months ago, one of the things that worried the bejesus out of me was that fact that when I departed the staff, there wouldn't be a single person left who had ever served in the military. This worried me for a number of reasons, one of the most significant being that the area of deep South Texas The Monitor serves has one of the highest per capita population percentages of veterans in the nation and a substantial portion of them are subscribers. I can't even count the numbers of times over my nearly 12 years as editor that I caught potentially embarrassing mistakes regarding the military before they got into print. Granted some of them might seem, particularly to non-veterans, fairly inconsequential -- like referring to a former Marine as a soldier -- but to the many former Marines in our community, such a reference would be considered the sort of slap in the face that could shake their faith in the paper at a time when we can ill-afford to lose public confidence on any level.

My concern over the presence of veterans in newsrooms was brought home to me again this morning as I watched a news report on one of our local TV stations. A teenage Mexican national was arrested before crossing one of the local border bridges after apparently getting cold feet on a attempt to smuggle a hand grenade back into Mexico. He was seen tossing the device into a dumpster at a Whataburger just this side of the border and was arrested. In her report, the TV reporter referred to the grenade as "a dud." Which to me, as a veteran, would suggest that the suspect pulled the pin, tossed the grenade into the dumpster and it failed to go off. Most veterans know that a "dud," by definition, is an explosive device that fails to detonate. My guess is that the grenade was a "dummy," not a dud. A dummy grenade has no explosive charge. It is typically filled with sand instead of gunpowder and is used as training device to teach GI's how to throw a grenade without the risk of  doing something stupid and blowing their hand off. Consequently, I concluded that not only was the grenade a dummy, but so, too, was the TV reporter, who might have known better had she ever served in the military. What's more, she might have been saved the embarrassment had someone at her station been able to point out the difference between a dud and a dummy grenade.

The problem with life experience among today's news staffers, however, goes beyond merely how many have been in the military. How many have ever worked in a factory? How many have ever worked on a farm? How many have a physical handicap that does not impede their ability to gather information and write or edit copy and design pages? How many have ever had experience in any of the multitude of occupations filled by the people we expect to read our papers and trust us to understand what makes them tick and what is important news to them?

Unfortunately, many of the people who are involved in the employment process for America's newsrooms engage in a form of hiring snobbery. They are unwilling to "take a chance" on candidates who didn't have the right type of internships or no internships in college, or who didn't go to a "quality" journalism school, or who didn't even graduate from college but have been working perhaps for a couple of years on a weekly, or who got their training through one of the military's journalist training programs rather than from a college or university, or who display a strong desire for an opportunity to become a newspaper staffer despite having no training of any sort in the craft but, nonetheless, possess an ability to write and gather information.

For example, about a month or so before I retired, we posted a job opening for a copy editor/page designer, one of the toughest positions to fill at any newspaper.  Among the applications we received was one from a woman who was in the military. She had been trained in one of the military's journalist programs and had been working for several years as a copy editor/page designer for a military base newspaper. I wanted us to give her a serious look, but met resistance from some of my newsroom managers who felt that the military journalist training and the years of working for a base newspaper were not adequate. While we wrangled over that, she was hired by another newspaper that was more willing to take a chance and where, I am reasonably sure, she likely is performing up to expectations and preventing stupid mistakes regarding the military from getting into print.

Of course, there have been some noble efforts aimed at bringing people with possibilities but no formal journalism training into the newspaper business.

One of those was undertaken by Thomson Newspapers as part of it's broader Readership Inc. project that died when Thomson Corp. sold off its U.S. newspaper holdings in 2000. As part of the project, the company established a training program under which the newspapers would identify potential journalist candidates from among ordinary people in their communities who had a strong interest in becoming journalists and possessed decent spelling and grammar skills and displayed some rudimentary skills in information gathering and writing. The candidates could have been housewives, hair dresser, carpenters, bus drivers, teachers or factory workers. Those selected were to be sent to a training site where they would undergo an intensive, crash course of journalism training. Upon successful completion of that course, they were to be sent back to the newspaper that selected them where their training would continue under the watchful eyes of trained staff mentors. It was an innovative idea that could have yielded some potentially outstanding journalists who possessed a background of life experience and understanding outside the newspaper business.

Unfortunately, the Thomson training program concept didn't have a life beyond the sale of the papers and, considering the financial condition of most newspaper groups today, it is not too likely that anyone else will pickup on the idea and run with it.

That, however, does not mean newspapers should just ignore experiential diversity. Instead, if they hope to continue to be as relevant as possible to the communities they serve, they need to embrace the concept and value of experiential diversity as much as they do diversity in gender, race and ethnicity.

 

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Blog Readers: If you enjoy reading my postings here on The Ancient Newspaper Editor, I sure would appreciate if you'd consider subscribing to or following the blog. It's easy to do and there are several options for doing so. If you look on the right side rail, you'll see the "Subscribe to" buttons and a "Subscribe by email" button. Just click any of those and follow the instructions. If you are a Google+ user you can click on the "Follow" button right under my profile picture and follow the instructions. Or, you can click on the "Google+ Add to Circles" button next to my photo and add me to your circles and get notifications of new blog entries when I post them. Also, please share the blog with your friends and colleagues.  Thanks for giving this consideration.

 

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GEORGE ZIMMERMAN: JUST PLAIN NEWS OR JUST PLAIN NUTS?

A friend of mine, Matt Robertson -- who, among his numerous other duties is the web and, I assume, social media, editor for The Morning News in Florence, S.C. -- posted this on his Facebook page yesterday:

"I'm taking an informal poll here. George Zimmerman's marital status and woes -- news or drek. You tell me."

He didn't exactly get a slew of responses, but more than 60 percent of those he did get leaned toward "drek." One of the more interesting responses came from Bernie Elliott who wrote: "Drek, unless she shoots him, then its karma."

My response at the time (with the profanity deleted) was: "Considering that these are keys to what may have caused him to kill Trayvon Martin...I vote news (as well as drek)."

Twenty-four hours later, and with more of a swirl developing today over his latest defense for allegedly violent behavior -- in this case against his now estranged wife and her father -- which essentially is "I was in fear of my life; she pulled and iPad on me," I stand by that statement.

Following his controversial arrest and trial for the slaying of Trayvon Martin -- an African-American Florida teenager with no serious record of violent behavior -- Zimmerman has managed to stay in the public spotlight thanks to his part in the rescue of a motorist following a traffic accident and then a couple of traffic citations, his wife's decision to possibly seek a divorce and, now, his alleged threats of violence against his wife and her father.

One would think that after his acquittal in the Trayvon Martin trial, Zimmerman would be trying very hard to stay out of the public spotlight. If that, in fact, is the case, you must admit that he hasn't done a very good job of it.

Frankly, it appears to me that Zimmerman has a strong propensity for finding trouble, or maybe he's simply a natural-born screwup. Either way, he just keeps on attracting trouble and media attention.

Naturally, the argument can be made that he is showing up in the news more simply because he is getting more attention from the media than some other Average Joe Sixpack. Of course, as is often the case with "celebrities," Zimmerman's antics since the trial are getting far more prominent play on television and on the Internet than in the print media, where the latest stories about him are largely being relegated to inside pages except in some papers in Florida, where his latest alleged offense occurred.

But, is all of this, in the classic sense, news? Well, yes...and no.

I am not sure that the fact that he got a couple of traffic tickets is earth shattering. Any of us could get picked up for driving too fast and the police dash-cam video most likely won't show up on the network evening news programs, and I am not at all sure that Zimmerman's traffic stops should have unless he had led police on a high-speed chase or if significant road rage had been involved. That was not the case and, in my opinion, the news coverage those incidents got was not warranted.

However, I do believe this latest incident, in which he allegedly threatened violence against his estranged wife and her father, is news.

For the sake of transparency (excuse me for employing that buzzword), I will admit that I was among those who did not feel justice was in anyway served by Zimmerman's acquittal in the Trayvon Martin slaying. The way I see it, a kid is dead for no really good reason and the person who killed him got off Scot free based on Florida's ludicrous "stand your ground" law that is little more than a license to kill. I blame the law in this case and, to a degree, the prosecutors, not the jury.

Clearly, at least to me, Zimmerman armed himself and went out looking for trouble on the night of Feb. 26, 2012, in Stanford, Fla.  He found it when he accosted the 17-year-old Martin, who's only discernible offense before getting into the scuffle with Zimmerman was that he was a black kid walking through a largely white neighbor wearing a hoodie after dark. At the time, Martin was armed only with Skittles and a soda. If Zimmerman had minded his own business, Martin would be alive today and Zimmerman would not keep finding himself on television in the public eye.

And now, with this latest incident, he's done it again. The argument certainly can be made that Zimmerman was courting -- if not outright looking for -- trouble Monday when he showed up at the house in Lake Mary, Fla., where he and his wife, Shellie, lived during the trial. His estranged wife and her father -- who, together, own the house -- were there when Zimmerman and several friends arrived. Apparently, George, Shellie and her father had some sort of heated exchange that prompted her to call 911 and allege that he had threatened her and her father.

Apparently, at some point during the confrontation, Shellie Zimmerman started filming with her iPad, which ended up getting smashed, allegedly by Zimmerman, who apparently is contending that Shellie assaulted him with the device.

Police are trying to sort the whole mess out and could end up charging someone with domestic violence.

Granted, all this is still quite convoluted, but I, nonetheless, believe this incident IS newsworthy because it does show that Zimmerman apparently has a knack for placing himself in tense situations that have a potential for turning violent and then may let anger -- or fear -- get the better of him. These factors, which if better known about him before or during the trial, might have made a difference in the way the jurors viewed his behavior on the night of Feb. 29, 2012.

In her initial 911 call, Shellie Zimmerman alleged that George threatened her and her father with a gun. Police did not find a gun and Shellie later recanted the gun allegation. However, there apparently was a tussle of some sort between George and her father which may have resulted in the father getting punched in the nose -- more violent behavior on Zimmerman's part.

All things considered, Shellie Zimmerman and her father may have been quite fortunate that George did not have a weapon. After all, under Florida law, he could have contended that he was "standing his ground" against a woman armed with an iPad.

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Blog Readers: If you enjoy reading my postings here on The Ancient Newspaper Editor, I sure would appreciate if you'd consider subscribing to or following the blog. It's easy to do and there are several options for doing so. If you look on the right side rail, you'll see the "Subscribe to" buttons and a "Subscribe by email" button. Just click any of those and follow the instructions. If you are a Google+ user you can click on the "Follow" button right under my profile picture and follow the instructions. Or, you can click on the "Google+ Add to Circles" button next to my photo and add me to your circles and get notifications of new blog entries when I post them. Also, please share the blog with your friends for colleagues.  Thanks for giving this consideration.

 

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