PSoTD

When government revenues diminish, and budgets get tight, one of the first things at risk for cutting or reduction are the processes for informing the public about government activity. I'm not saying there isn't merit for looking at best practices and efficiency, and cutting the number of newspapers a county may advertise in may be a worthy idea, but changes should be based on effective distribution of information, not on budgetary squeezes.

And then there's this question - is a newspaper more likely to reduce news coverage of a county's activities if the county is no longer a paying client?

I’m so glad Dylan posted the entry he did. There is something I’ve wanted to write about for awhile and this provides a good catalyst.

The nurse’s office at my kids’ elementary school keeps some extra clothes on hand in case the younger children have accidents. It recently came to my attention that they had very few girls underpants (don’t ask me how I know this). Next time I was in a store that carried them I bought some to give to the school. It was hard to find regular briefs. There were plenty of bikinis and low cut styles, but very few briefs. Fortunately no thongs.

This past summer just about your only choices for fall girls’ sleepwear were character related (Dora, Disney Princess, etc.) and things like looked like Gaborwear, feather boas, opaque negligees, and so on. So much for flowered flannel nighties.

This spring look at the shorts being marketed for little girls and little boys. Boys’ shorts are nearly knee length with lots of pockets for rocks, dead chipmunk parts, cards (Pokemon, YuGi’Oh, baseball), and so on. Girls’ shorts have inseams about 2 inches long, made of spandex, often with side slits and with no pockets. What message does this send? It might as well all be made by the House of Hootchie Mama.

Look at toys. The hot new items for girls are Bratz Dolls. They are big eyed, curvy, thin, dressed in clothes with most midriffs showing, and usually stand hipshot. If you look hard enough you can find Ello’s (sort of like Legos for girls), and computer games like Barbie as Rapunzel where Barbie has to redecorate the castle, and find the missing jewels in order to rescue Prince Stefan. In the great majority of games and movies aimed at girls there is a love interest. Games and movies aimed at boys tend not to. What is this teaching? That girls are incomplete without a boyfriend?

I wonder how much of this attitude is created by marketers and how much is responding to research on what girls want. I only know that I don’t like it very much.

(cross-posted to Above Average Jane)

From Reuters:

Joseph Wilson, the husband of outed CIA operative Valerie Plame, called on Thursday for an inquiry by The Washington Post into the conduct of journalist Bob Woodward, who repeatedly criticized the leak investigation without disclosing his own involvement.

"It certainly gives the appearance of a conflict of interest. He was taking an advocacy position when he was a party to it," Wilson said.

So how long will The Washington Post drag their feet? Aren't the rest of their reporters getting damn embarrassed by this?

I know it makes little difference to the owners of the Post, but just for the record, I'm not linking to any articles from the Washington Post until they fire Bob Woodward, or at least put him on administrative leave until they figure out just how much he screwed their credibility in the Plame story, and their general coverage of the Bush Administration. And then fire him. There's a cancer on the punditry at the Post, and it should be removed. I will, however, link to articles in other newspapers that reference the same content of Post articles.

I'm probably going to build a Pennsylvania Cable Network blog in December to provide a venue for comments on programming and content there, particularly the Pennsylvania government programming/content. I don't plan on becoming a full-time viewer of their programming, so I could use some help with posts. Let me know if you're interested in helping as a posting contributor, thanks!

From the Seattle Times:

Text of Bob Woodward's Statement

On Monday, November 14, I testified under oath in a sworn deposition to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for more than two hours about small portions of interviews I conducted with three current or former Bush administration officials that relate to the investigation of the public disclosure of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.

It appears to me that the Washington Post has a Judy Miller problem of its own now, with Bob Woodward. The guy has been spoonfeeding his opinion on the Plame case in the press, mostly to the benefit of the Bush Administration, and never, ever letting on that he was involved.

Washington Post: follow the Miller example. Shitcan Bob Woodward. He is a pawn. Do him a favor, and release him from the value that allows him to be so used.

TalkLeft: Is Bob Woodward the Next Judy Miller?
Media is a Plural: Woodward: Mr. Run Amok?
NewMexiKen: Judy Woodward
Marc Cooper: Who does Woodward think he is? Judy Miller?
The Left Coaster: What do Bob Woodward and Judy Miller have in common?

You can almost feel sorry for Woodward. Almost. Fire him.

The sports media allows their reporters to vote on various awards and recognitions for participants, from MVPs to Hall of Fame to sports team rankings, etc.

Why doesn't the Washington DC Press Corps do something like this? Say, once a month, they get together and vote for the government official MVP (or MVS, for Most Valuable Source) for providing the press with information of value for the news? It could be Bush, it could be someone from the Congress, it could be some lowly staffer at an important Department... why not give the rest of us some insight on who they are finding valuable for reporting on a month to month basis?

I was just reading the AP story about the capture of David Ludwig, accused of murdering the parents of Kara Beth Borden and then kidnapping her, when I found this paragraph:

It was the second violent incident in a week in normally quiet Lititz, a Lancaster County village known for quaint shops, local artists and Sturgis Pretzel House, which bills itself as America's first pretzel bakery.

There are lots of businesses in Lititz. How did Sturgis Pretzel House get free advertising in an Associated Press murder article? What possible value does the blurb "bills itself as America's first pretzel bakery" have for the point of this story? Bizarre.

I just did a search on Technorati about the Pretzel House. 3 posts in the past 173 days - including one today quoting that AP story. I'll check again tomorrow.

Update: Tada! One day later, Sturgis Pretzel House shows up here and here and here in blogs, just for starters. Product placement in AP reverberates in blogs.

And all you hear is about how they envision the country operating, what do Americans turn to on television?

Sexual escapism.

Perhaps bloggers that find Judy Miller's reporting and antics appalling over the past several years ought to do publishers a favor. I want to state for the record for any potential publisher of the future Judy Miller (aka Judith Miller) "I Was So Wronged" book, before they sign a contract with Miller for such crapulence, the following:

There is no way I will buy or positively recommend that anyone else buy a Judy Miller book. Period. I will, however, do what I can legally to try to reduce sales.

Bloggers ought to carry this torch now and throughout the period of time when Miller is writing this book. We should specify the questions that should be answered about her career, and her involvement with the Bush Administration the past five years. This is as good as anywhere to start the list of questions that must be explained in her book. Post them in comments.

I saw this advertisement yesterday on Political Site of the Day, served up by Google:

CIA Leak Investigation
Complete Coverage of the CIA Leak Investigation, Key Players and More
www.washingtonpost.com

For whatever reason, I have mixed feelings about this advertisement. I think it's important that more people know more about this story, but...

Isn't the story development its own advertising? Does the Washington Post really need to advertise that it has complete coverage of this story? (And, by the way, what do they mean by "complete"?)

Crushed by Inertia could not have tagged Leno any better. Go read.

One of my smaller complaints about blogging is that the larger venue news sources tend to hog most of the blogging reference posts. For every article by the Nevada Appeal that is blogged about there are probably 100 or 1000 articles in the Washington Post that receive blog coverage.

Part of that is readership. Part of it is the national focus versus local nature of articles. But part of it also is availability. You can get to Washington Post articles easily at any major news hub, from Yahoo! to Google News to MSN, etc. They're often highlighted. The Nevada Appeal has no such outletting. And yet... I'm sure there are thousands of reporters around the country at smaller news outlets that are doing more important work than Nedra Pickler.

That's because there are thousands of Nevada Appeals around the country, providing content that from time to time deserves blogging attention but not receiving it. If there were better web sites to review all these hundreds of news sites, hopefully those news outlets would get better blogger followup. Currently I look at the links offered at United States Newspapers, which advertises links to over 3300 newspapers. I find it useful, but not nearly as useful as if there were an up-to-date search engine tied to it. Has someone done that in the free web world? If so, I'd like to know about it - and please don't say Google, because they don't cover the waterfront.

From The Guardian:

Miller, whose reporting has been publicly slated by her paper's editor, reader's editor and one of its senior columnists, is now embroiled in intense negotiations with the paper's management over the terms of her severance.

According to the New York Observer and sources with knowledge of the negotiations, Miller is demanding the right to reply to her critics in an opinion piece and a non-disparagement agreement as condition of her departure. Otherwise she has threatened to return to work. She has been on leave since her release a month ago after spending 85 in jail days for refusing to reveal her source in the Valerie Plame case.

Even if the Times gives her the non-disparagement agreement, basically all that is going to do is stop one publication from disparaging her or reporting on the multitudes of other publications and bloggers disparaging her. She's the butt of a national joke - today's journalism - and part of the curse of a national tragedy - the Iraq War. She is now completely at the mercy of the whims of history and what America finds out further about her role the past few years, and the realities of what will happen because of the War. Any effort for her to "fix" her name is like scooping water with a thimble at the bottom of the Niagara - futile and just something else to mock and judge.

Some folks don't know when they should just go away. Judy Miller apparently is one of them.

So, you're dumping Aaron Brown. Can't say I'm surprised. Why keep news anchors that are capable of original thought when you have a stable full of Wolf Blitzers and Larry Kings and Paula Zahns to fill the broadcast hours like so many artificial sponges.

Upon the future firing of CNN president Jon Klein, I believe there should be a national celebration. Klein has been on a steady march to dumbify the news since he began, and the removal of Aaron Brown is just one more step in the process.

Best of luck to Aaron Brown. He deserved better, and by leaving the shipwreck of CNN, he'll probably get better.

For free. Smart move. It will be VERY interesting to see how much bloggers will reference NBC nightly news broadcast now.

Other comments about this move: The English Guy, TVNewser, Freyburg.com, In the Agora...