PSoTD

Time for my daily busting on State Newspaper Association web sites. Today, I'll pick on the Nebraska Press Association, although it's representative of most of the state press association sites I've seen. I try to use these associations' links to individual member newspaper sites, but really... dead links, links to sites where the domains have expired, and a strong suspicion that there are other legitimate newspaper member sites that aren't even linked make it very frustrating. If I were a member of this association, I'd be on their communications people about getting the benefit to the newspapers on the site with accurate, up-to-date links. This seems like pretty basic membership service kind of stuff. C'mon!

It is quite hard to be impressed with the use of power by the nation's State Press Associations. Many of the web sites suck, so much so that I couldn't tell you what the priorities are of several of the organizations, other than self-promotion and luncheons and working to sell advertising for members.

Does the public value by the efforts of State Press Associations? If so, how? What are they doing for their members that are to the gain of the reading population?

Apparently, the press in the State of Missouri feel the need for further protection via the law. Missouri Press Association poll:

Does Missouri need a shield law for journalists, protecting them from being required by government to divulge their news sources?

Yes (69%) = 218
No (31%) = 99
TOTAL 317

Wonder if that would be about the standard results for any similar poll done by a statewide press association for their members at the current time?

If so, is it really so believable that newspaper associations are so weak that they can't get that accomplished legislatively? Or is it that press corporations really just don't care that much about this issue, as opposed to whatever business advantages they can get via lobbying?

Bill Bostic has started his campaign to legitimize Pennsylvania's political bloggers by getting on a Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN) talking heads show.

Specifically, he wants himself, or another blogger, at the table on Journalists Roundtable (JRT) that shows most Thursdays at 8 p.m.

Good luck to him, although I think it would be better if PCN came up with a Blogger Roundtable, and perhaps ran it every few weeks or so instead. I'm just not sure that the structure of the Journalists Roundtable lends itself to the richness and viewpoints of Pennsylvania's blogger community. But one step at a time, I guess.

Both Kevin Drum and Susie Madrak picked up on John McCain's appearance on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show last night. Crooks and Liars has the video.

Two thoughts about it. First of all, when Stewart puts his mind and heart into an interview, and sets it up for both laughs and content, there's just no beating him. One of McCain's best political assets is his ability to play interviewers. It didn't work last night... at all.

And McCain knew it. You have to wonder if he went into last night's interview thinking he was going to get another powderpuff interview, since I've seen Stewart go pretty lightly on him before. But by halfway through the interview, it appeared McCain knew that he was in deep, that he wasn't going to be able to work himself out of it with his own "jokes", and most importantly, the audience was laughing at him, not with him.

It will be interesting to see how well this sticks. Did Stewart make it "cool" to laugh at John McCain? It worked last night. We shall see. Most comedians tread VERY lightly with McCain.

This is fan club territory. The White House Press Corps has to do a better job of explaining to new coverage reporters what constitutes a question, and what constitutes gushing. From yesterday...

Goyal.

Q Thank you. First of all, I'm really thankful to President Bush. I will never forget the ride of my life on Air Force One. And I've been staying there to review his visit in India, talking to thousands of Indian --

MR. McCLELLAN: Had a great visit to India. Do you have a question?

Q My question -- also, President was covered widely by Zee News in India, and I have a special CD for the President and also am thankful to my friend (inaudible) and others in the community. My question is that, officially, can you state now how President feels or felt, and officially how the visit -- we can view, or the view -- as far as his point of view?

Katie Couric Set to Leave NBC's 'Today'

As you can tell, I am not a fan of Couric. Nor have I been a fan of The Today Show or CBS News for that matter, although Schieffer has been an improvement to the CBS Evening News.

There's a problem for any program that depends on a "personality" to make the show - the audience has to want to watch that personality. I don't want to watch Couric. For whatever reason, I've found her grating to listen to, and her daily black eyeliner homage always makes watching her a challenge as well. She doesn't cover the detail of most news stories that I'm interested in, but that's more of a general indictment of The Today Show.

And so... I'm hopeful. Hopeful that NBC will decide to rejigger the formula for The Today Show with Couric leaving, because it wasn't going to happen with her there. Hopeful that they won't think they need a "Couric Clone" to replace her, but look at this as an opportunity to redefine the show. It is likely that those hopes are misplaced, but until proven otherwise, hope remains.

As a web developer, have a question about this:

Newspapers' online audiences are growing rapidly, according to a new industry study, highlighting a key growth area that newspapers are seeking to exploit as print circulation continues to be challenged.

A study being released Monday by the Newspaper Association of America, a trade group, found that one in three Internet users — 55 million — visit a newspaper Web site every month.

Also, unique visitors to newspaper Web sites jumped 21 percent from January 2005 to December 2005, while the number of page views soared by 43 percent over the same period.

The obvious question: how much of this usage growth tracks with a growth in referrals from blogs? Is the relationship of blogs to online newspapers a major factor in the growth of online newspaper usage?