Wall Street Journal Needs to Spend More Time On The Couch

Let's Keep Jason Gay's Butt Planted in Front of the TV More Than One Day a Week

It's all too rare in newspapers nowadays to have destination reading, especially in the sports section. Columnists quit or get fired. Beat writing is, well, beat writing, assuming the paper is even covering the team anymore.
That state of affairs is why going to the back of the Marketplace section to read Jason Gay's "The Couch" column in Monday's Wall Street Journal is a must.
Sure, you get insights without the bombast. But what you mostly get are laughs, and plenty of them. From yesterday's column:

Well, at least it wasn't a boring Wimbledon final, like last year's.

What can you say about Sunday's All England Club epic match between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick? Here's what we can say: We started, as usual, with breakfast at Wimbledon. Then we had brunch at Wimbledon. Then we had lunch -- a cold chicken sandwich at Wimbledon. Our house guests had cocktails at Wimbledon. Then more cocktails at Wimbledon. We debated marinating a steak at Wimbledon. Then we grew terrified: was this all-time classic sporting event going to preempt NBC's "Merlin"?

Or this gem about the U.S. collapse to Brazil in the Confederations Cup final:

It was cruel and mesmerizing to watch. The yellow-and-green soccer juggernaut scored early in the second half and relentlessly pounded U.S. goalie Tim Howard until they finally prevailed 3-2. When it was over the American players were crestfallen. They'd come within one half of a Wheaties box. Now they had to watch Brazil celebrate a title, which is like watching Derek Jeter celebrate getting a phone number.
"It's one thing to see the Promised Land," intoned ESPN analyst Alexi Lalas, whose hair we vastly preferred in its mangy, Big Lebowski form, as opposed to its current Dead Poets Society clean look. "It's another thing to get there."

Since Gay's column often features an item on TV the day before, it's clear he doesn't need much turnaround to turn in A-level work. The Journal should give him the chance to let a few more missives loose during the week, so we don't have to wait a whole week to once again sit on The Couch.

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Federer's Epic Win Also a Victory for The New York Times

Nothing Like Some Color Full-Page Ads to Soothe A Publisher's Soul

The five-set thriller at Wimbledon was entertainment on a grand scale, enough to make you not get too hot and bothered about missing out on some high-quality outside time on one of the primo weather days of the year.
Almost as happy as Federer was the ad department at The New York Times, which played host in yesterday's sports section to a full-page color ad featuring Federer from Gillette. And on the back page was a full-pager from Lacoste, which congratulated runner-up Andy Roddick, dour but stoic after his five-set defeat. You can bet your alligator there was another version of the ad ready to run had a few shots gone the other way.
Not to be outdone, Federer was on the back page of today's Business Day section, which contained the sports pages. This time it was Rolex shelling out the bucks so we could get a close look at Federer planting a big wet one on the Wimbledon trophy.
And, yes, there's a big shiny Rolex on his left wrist.

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The Art of Artful Phrasing in The New York Times

Jennifer Steinhauer Goes Balls to the Wall Trying to Describe California Budget Crisis

In case you didn't get to the end of yesterday's story in The New York Times about the latest budget woes in the Golden State, you should catch up to how Jennifer Steinhauer bobbed and weaved out of saying what she really wanted to say.

Political posturing infused the Capitol last week, with the governor and the Legislature decrying one another. Darrell Steinberg, the Senate president pro tem, sent Mr. Schwarzenegger a package of mushrooms in response to the governor’s saying the Legislature was “hallucinating” with its budget plan; the governor sent Mr. Steinberg a sculpture of a bull testicle, suggesting something like backbone, only not quite, would be needed to make tough cuts.

Clever and cute.

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Should Johnny Gilbert Be Worried?

TV Ad Still Running with Him, Ed McMahon and Don LaFontaine Even Though Latter Two Now Appearing Posthumously

The New York Lottery has had no problem running this ad featuring three storied announcers, even though one of them, Don LaFontaine, has been dead since last year.
Now that Ed McMahon has joined him in voiceover heaven, maybe it's time for this spot to finally be retired.




After all, only Johnny Gilbert, the third announcer in the spot, is around to collect residuals.
R.I.P., Ed. Say hi to Karnac.

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Ann Curry Is Pissed Off

And If You Care About Foreign News, Maybe You Should Be Too

Heard yesterday at the 140 Character Conference on social media in New York, this broadside from NBC's Ann Curry, who's often popping up in some remote locale when she's not reading the news on "Today."

Here's what's pissing me off. The reason I have to fight every time to do these stories is because the truth is that it's hard to get the majority of Americans or even a significant number of Americans in NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS's world, to care. I think journalism is a battle and I feel the scars and I see the blood on my sword on a daily basis for fights for foreign coverage to be more present in our broadcasting.

Curry had been in Iran to cover the elections there, and has been sent out on just about every major overseas assignment in recent years. So, it's a bit of a surprise to hear she has to convince the brass to put her on a plane when big news breaks on another continent.
Her remarks came amid some testy exchanges on the panel with CNN's Rick Sanchez. For more of that, read here.

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Are These SNY-TV Ads Racist?

Mandeep and Sharvarish Seem Like South Indian Versions of Stefan Fetchit

Maybe it's just me, but the more I watch a series of spots for SNY-TV, the more I wonder if I'm watching stereotypes gone amok.
They feature two South Asians named Mandeep and Sharvarish, presumably Indians, who own a New York sports memorabilia shop. Some of the ads are nominally funny. Others are merely bewildering.
But what's troubling are the centerpieces of the ads are little more than caricactures that fulfill the worst prejudices of anyone whose only contact with Indians is from the back of a cab or watching "Slumdog Millionaire on DVD.
Judge for yourself:


Of course, you could argue, maybe I should lighten up. But if SNY tried pulling off these ads with a couple of blacks who sounded like they just came off the plantation, or Hasidic Jews one step removed from the shtetl, you might feel differently. And so would SNY.

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Wall Street Journal Hearts Cholesterol-Drug Ads

More Health Coverage is Nice, But Ads Shouldn't Be So Intertwined With Editorial

It's great The Wall Street Journal is bulking up its health and fitness coverage in the Tuesday edition of the Personal Journal section.
After all, why not provide more of the news its aging readers can use before they age out. Case in point is a column called Heart Beat by Ron Winslow about all things related to the ticker, that is, the one that doesn't spew out stock prices (remember them?).
The column focused on why it's not enough to simply lower the LDL, or bad, cholesterol; that the HDL/good cholesterol and triglycerides also play a big role and why exercise and diet need to act in concert with statins.
It's a subject near and dear to my, um, heart, given that I pop a Zocor every day.
All well and good content-wise. However, I was a little troubled that the article was flanked by an ad for a new drug called Trilipix, which is designed to be taken with a statin to, you guessed it, raise good cholesterol and lower triglycerides.
Nowhere does the column mention Trilipix. However, the ad should have been placed elsewhere in the section. It's one thing to live in the neighborhood. It's another to be the nosy next-door neighbor.
Even if there's no quid pro quo, it does the Journal no good to leave the impression that there could have been.

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Can the iPhone Save Journalism? Nope

Apple's Darling Thrives on Short Attention Spans; Journalists Don't

Atlantic blogger Derek Thompson wondered aloud about whether the new, whizbang iPhone could prove to be an inhaler for the wheezing news industry.
Seems there's an app called Scrollmotion that promises to 220 magazines and newspapers, along with 1 million books.
Of course, you'd be paying for this; a presumably premium selection of articles and news sources aggregated so you don't have to do the heavy lifting.
Trying to apply the iTunes model to news has its own set of problems, as Thompson notes, including the fact that, information is disposable and hardly unique, unlike music you would buy.
But the biggest problem is one of size: are you really going to spend enough time on an iPhone to read enough content you'd pay for? It's fine to check Gmail or Facebook, but to read a column, movie reviews or an analysis of the TARP program, the iPhone is just too small and distracting (all those other apps, oh, la, la) to make reading a meaningful experience.
If you're going to pay for your content -- and sooner or later, all of the good stuff online will cost you one way or the other -- the Kindle, or your laptop or PC is infinitely more commodious to read anything for more than 90 seconds at a time.
For media outlets who don't care how much you read, as long as you ante up for it, such a strategy will only nip them in the arse before long. People will soon realize there's a lot less than meets the eye -- and for good reason.
All of this isn't to say back to the drawing board. But desperate media outlets should be looking elsewhere for a savior. Scrollmotion ain't it.

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Will Bunch Avoids Being Thrown Under the Inky's Bus

Give Brian Tierney Credit, For a Change: Philadelphia Daily News Writer Gets to Slam Newsroom Brethren Without Getting Slammed


Philadelphia Weekly has a good piece out on local media badboy Will Bunch, a senior writer for the Philly Daily News.
I think Bunch is kinda cool, and not because he went to the fancy-schmancy private school down the road from where I live and worked on the school paper with Keith Olbermann.
Rather, I like it that he gets to criticize bigger sibling the Philadelphia Inquirer and doesn't wind up on the unemployment line in the process.
Bunch got the Inky brass all hussied up because he ripped the choice of Bush torture-meister John Yoo to be a regular columnist in his Attytood blog. He also had a few things to say when the Inquirer inked former rightie senator Rick Santorum to pen a column.
Of course, that's over at the Inky, not the perpetual-underdog-and-loving-it Daily News. “It might have been a little more complicated if the hire had been at the Daily News," Bunch told Philadelphia Weekly.
All of this doesn't mean Bunch has a death wish. Brian Tierney, the major domo of Philadelphia Newspapers, has remained skewer-free in Attytood. Bunch instead leaves that to blogs like this one. As he said diplomatically: “He’s entitled to have influence on the editorial boards–owners and publishers always have. He pledged not to interfere in news operations and to my knowledge, and I’m pretty plugged in at the Daily News, he has honored that pledge.”

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Sending Good Thoughts to Pyongyang Central Court

Trial of Current TV's Laura Ling and Euna Lee Set for Tomorrow

Unlike the high-profile campaign to get Roxanne Saberi out of Iran, any efforts to get Current TV's Euna Lee and Laura Ling out of North Korea have been well-concealed.

We're assuming there's a good reason for that, given the loose cannons in control in Pyongyang, some of whom would dearly love a propaganda slam-dunk against the U-S.

The pair were detained March 17 and charged with illegally crossing into North Korea from China and other so-called "hostile acts" that could land them up to 10 years in a labor camp.

North Korea has denied diplomats -- in this case, Swedes representing U.S. interests -- since March 30 in contravention of international law. Surprise, surprise.

And we can all guess how a purported trial will turn out. Will Kim Jong-Il and his gang put on a show, convict the two and then give them an unceremonial boot from the country? Or, will North Korea try to scapegoat Lee and Ling while the contretemps over the missile tests rages on? It probably also doesn't help that nobody knows who's really in charge over there and what their agendas might be.

Current is, of course, Al Gore's baby. It's hard to tell whether that's hurting or helping the reporters' cause. The channel has put up a wall of silence about Lee and Ling in the apparent belief that saying nothing increases the chances of not pissing off the notoriously pissy North Koreans.

Let's hope Kim and Co. know that silence doesn't mean Lee and Ling have been forgotten. On that front, North Korea cannot win.

Let's also hope they consider the trial their own little show -- a perverse amusement to brighten their otherwise-dour lives -- and then remember that when the show is over, it's time for the performers to go home.

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No Film at 11: L.A. Mayor Gets the Scoop on Another Local Anchorette

Somehow, KTLA Says Lu Parker Not Ethically Challenged by Bonking Area's Top Politician and Reporting on Him

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa likes the media. Actually, he loves the media, specifically two local anchors.
First, it was an affair with Telemundo's Mirthala Salinas. When news of that liaison broke, so did the mayor's marriage, along with Salinas' career at channel 52.
Now, Mayor V has moved on to Lu Parker at KTLA. Their coupling was apparently news to her bosses, until recently. But according to The Los Angeles Times they don't seem too hot and bothered by one of their anchors doing the mattress mambo with Hizzoner.
"Now that we're aware of the relationship, she will no longer be covering local politics," said KTLA-TV news director Jason Ball. "I have the utmost faith in Lu Parker's abilities."

And lest you think Ball wasn't toeing the station's party line, his boss adds for emphasis:
"There is no concern as to the ethics whatsoever," said General Manager Don Corsini. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a personal matter."
Corsini's answer is very convenient, not to mention unsatisfying.
It's not that Parker isn't allowed a personal life. But to then say her love life can be managed on-air by simply having her read the stories about pileups on the 405 and a triple murder in Watts puts the station in a bind, to say the least.
And what does it say about Parker's judgment, that she and Villaraigosa have been an item since March, yet she, in effect, had to be outed for her station to know about her relationship? In doing so, she compromised whatever credibility KTLA has in the process. Yet her bosses don't seem to have a problem with her choices.
That, in and of itself, is a problem.

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Westchester Magazine Feature on Top Dentists Has Credibility Cavity

A Shameless Mix of Ads and Editorial

You can't fault Westchester Magazine for running advertising supplements; just about every magazine does.
But you can easily find fault when they try to pawn off those supplements as legitimate editorial copy, as it did in its latest issue with what was ostensibly a feature on the county's top dentists. The "piece" was bannered across the front cover.
Inside, is one paragraph that explains how the magazine "asked" topDentists, an Augusta, Georgia, database of dental professionals to do the tallying "as determined by peer reviews collected and analyzed by topDentists from thousands of dental professionals in the Westchester area."
Yeah, right.
From the get-go, this list had a big stink to it, and not because my own in-demand dentist wasn't on the list.
It's because there is absolutely no editorial copy about said dentists. There's copy all right, 18 pages worth. But it's a giant supplement paid for by, you guessed it, topDentists.
This wouldn't be a problem if it was a standalone ad supplement. But it's promoted on the cover, is in the magazine's table of contents and has its imprimatur ("Westchester Magazine asked topDentists....")
At best, it's shameful for a magazine that recently has tried to raise its profiles with several news features that are a departure from their more-typical service articles (10 Most Romantic Places to Kiss, 25 Great Getaways).
Westchester Magazine has long arrived in my mailbox on the thick side, remarkable in these recessionary times. But it turns out, as a source told me, many of their ads are actually bartered. So, while it's covering one of the most-affluent counties in the country, it's not rolling in as much dough as they'd like you to believe. I found that out a couple of years ago when I interviewed for a senior editor's job there. All was going swell until we started discussing money.
The magazine wanted someone who lived in Westchester. But they only wanted to pay a salary more befitting for West Chester, Pa.
Yet, still I read, and I generally like what they do. Until now.
The dentist supplement is a fiasco, to put it very kindly.
The money might have been nice, but what price credibility?

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Oy, Vey! The Jewish Week Needs A Geography Lesson

White Plains is Where?

The May 15 issue of New York Jewish Week had an article on how a syngagogue in the city of White Plains, north of New York, was going to transform its space into a replica of Tel Aviv, in honor of that city's centennial.
The headline: Tel Aviv on the Hudson.
Cute? Feh.
The problem: White Plains is about 10 miles from the Hudson River. Tel Aviv on I-287 would have been more accurate.
However, that's what happens when you have editors who may never have ventured north of the Bronx and think anything outside of the city is "the country."
Which would be news to folks in White Plains, what with its skyscrapers, including a luxury 42-story condo that's also home to a Ritz-Carlton.
You know, the country.

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It's a Spelling Bee, Not a Steel Cage Match

Washington Post Live Blog Too S-N-A-R-K-Y For Its Own Good

It's all well and good that The Washington Post is covering the National Spelling Bee, and live blogging it no less.
But a little perspective, please, is needed from writer Dan Steinberg, even if tongue is planted firmly in cheek.
In other words, lose phrases like: "As expected, the massive success in Round 4 led directly into a Round 5 bloodbath."
Bloodbath? C'mon.
These are kids. Let them be kids. This isn't Ultimate Fighting. A big deal, yes. But blood won't be spilled, even in a euphemistic way.
I know first-hand what it's like to lose in a spelling bee on a word you should have known (abhor, I added an e). I almost cried. But no blood was shed.
Sure, it sucked. But even in my 12-year-old way, I put the loss in perspective. Steinberg should do the same.

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New Metropolitan Section M.I.A. From New York Times....

At Least at My Front Door

I'd be curious for your impressions of the print version of the new Metropolitan section of The New York Times in part because the folks who drop the paper on my stoop every morning (and like to have conversations at 5:15 a.m.), neglected to give me a copy.
Normally, I got my late and lamented Westchester section on Saturdays with all the feature sections. But its replacement didn't show yesterday either.
Judging by what I see online, the aim is a little, and I mean little, something for everyone. That's too bad, given the final Westchester section had several articles that the hometown incumbent, The Journal-News, with its Gannett-imposed mediocrity, would never dream of doing.
At least there are still zoned arts and restaurant reviews, also badly needed in the 'burbs.
So, maybe next week. And if you see whomever's dropping off my paper, please tell them to shut the hell up.

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Clemens Book by Daily News Reporters Gets Rave Review --- From The New York Times

Michiko Kakutani Goes Deep In Praise of "American Icon"

The New York Daily News doesn't have the same hate-hate relationship with The New York Times that it does with the New York Post.

Still, it was a bit jarring today to see Michiko Kakutani's lengthy Times review of "American Icon," a thorough dissection of Roger Clemens by the sports investigative team of the News (Michael O'Keeffe, Christian Red, Tori Thompson and Nathaniel Vinton, above), refer to the book as "gripping."

By focusing on Clemens and the people around him, the authors have turned the sprawling story of steroid-use into a sleek narrative that reads like an investigative thriller, peopled by a Dickensian cast of characters, from big-name ball players and their high-powered lawyers to small time bodybuilders and gym owners, from federal investigators and members of Congress to denizens of “the violent criminal underworld of muscle-building drug distribution.”

Nothing wrong where giving credit where credit is due. Which is why you'll never see the book mentioned in the Post.

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Digging The Grave of Business Magazines Real Easy When You Don't Have a Clue

Douglas McIntyre and 24/7 Wall Street Again Prognosticate in a Vacuum

Analyzing the state of business magazines and forecasting their imminent doom in their current form is the media equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. Yet, somehow 24/7 Wall Street misses the mark.
The Web site has a missive from media doomsayer Douglas McIntyre with all sorts of "the sky is falling" perspectives on the state of things at Fortune, Forbes and Business Week.
Some of it's true and obvious, i.e. ads are waaaaay down. McIntyre makes the case that come the end of the year, one or all of them will continue to exist but not in their current forms and makes his case with web traffic numbers and ad revenues.
Fine, at least to a point. But then he pisses away his thesis with observations like these:

Fortune could decrease its frequency of publication to monthly and rely on the Internet to cover current news.

C'mon, is Fortune really in the business of covering news in print? Nah, never really has been. It's about profiles, investigations, looking at the big picture, the Fortune 500. News is not on its radar. And monthly? The folks who used to work at Portfolio could tell you how that worked out.
McIntyre issues a similar prescription for Forbes, which he says wouldn't be a big deal because its Web site is so successful and its readers are already accustomed to going online. But at the same time he also states Forbes' online revenue isn't growing. And how would reducing frequency change that? We never get an answer.
As for Business Week, McIntyre may be on to something. Maybe.

No matter what McGraw-Hill does, BusinessWeek will not be a weekly magazine with over 200 employees and a rate base of 900,000 at the end of the year. BusinessWeek will have to become a much, much smaller operation.

Of course, anyone who's opened a copy of Business Week lately (the latest issue is all of 76 pages), knows it can't get much smaller.
Less frequent, yes. Leaner? Ditto. But smaller? You're there already.

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Door Hits Reading Eagle Employees On the Way Out

No Severance Pay, Even For Those Who Put In Decades at the Paper


Long gone are the days when you got laid off from a newspaper that you took it personally. At some shops, it's probably more of a surprise when you can still log on to your computer.
So, at first glance when the Reading Eagle announced May 1 it was eliminating 12 percent of its workforce, it was sad but hardly unexpected news.
But what the paper didn't tell its readers was the affected employees were escorted from the building after being told they were getting no severance pay.
No as in nada, zip, gornisht.
That includes guys like Ron Romanski, the assistant photo editor who put in 45 years at the Eagle.
"It shocks everybody I talk to," he told Editor & Publisher. "I'm thinking about suing them. I didn’t think it would happen to me."
Oh, to be fair (sort of), the Eagle did provide two weeks of benefits to give those kicked to the curb enough time to apply for COBRA.
But no severance pay? How do you do that if you're the type who can still look at themself in the mirror and sleep at night? That especially goes for a private, family-owned business.
For the Ron Romanskis of this world, family has taken on a whole new meaning.

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Boy, I Didn't See This One Coming

Headline for a Boston Herald story with the latest twist in the saga of the accused Craigslist killer:

Philip Markoff's fiancee calls off wedding.

I know, me too. A real shocker.
Still, it's quite a turnaound from two days ago, when she was doing her Tammy Wynette imitation.
Guess it was better to call off the wedding now rather than go through a D-I-V-O-R-C-E later.

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Balls, Strikes And A Pink Slip

Baltimore Sun Staffers Get Laid Off While Covering Orioles Game

By now, many have you heard about the latest bloodbath at the Baltimore Sun, which shed 61 more journalists -- one-third of those left -- from the Sun's already-lonely newsroom.
No layoff, no matter where it occurs, is pleasant.
But someone in the Sun brain trust apparently wanted to take that maxim to a new level. From the Guardian in the U.K. comes word that writers and photographers covering the Orioles-Angels game on Tuesday were told during the game their jobs would soon be no more.
During the game. As if they didn't have enough on their mind keeping a close eye on the action, now they also had to think about how to feed their families along with getting their work in on deadline.
The poop in the pressbox was first reported by the Orange County Register's Bill Plunkett, who was there when the news was delivered.
The article doesn't name the journalists, and the Sun isn't talking specifics, but Jeff Zrebiec, who wrote yesterday's game story, and national baseball writer Dan Connolly are likely on the chopping block.
All of which shows Sun managers are a bunch of losers, just like the Orioles.

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E-Golenbock: Alert Correspondent Cries Foul Over New Steinbrenner Book

When Facts Strike Out; Checking a Manuscript Too Much of a Bother for John Wiley & Sons

Author Peter Golenbock has been nothing if not prolific for more than 30 years, churning out sports books -- many of them about baseball.

Perhaps the best known, "The Bronx Zoo," about the then-hugely talented but immensely dysfunctional New York Yankees, rode The New York Times best-seller list for 29 weeks in 1979.

Golenbock has since collaborated with several Yankees on their autobiographies, and has now returned to his motherlode with "George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire," about now-enfeebled Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.

So, with all that time spent with the Yankees, you'd think Golenbock would have his material down cold. Instead, as CBS News Radio Correspondent Peter King found out, Golenbock merely shows why every author needs an editor. And what happens when he doesn't have one -- at least one who knows the subject matter.

King (full disclosure: a former colleague and current friend), who has logged many hours in and around ballparks during his career, was slated to interview Golenbock about his book. Then he read it and found it riddled with enough errors to have Golenbock sent down to the literary bush leagues for life. Among them, as King writes:

--On page 277, there was a reference to the 1981 White Sox and their General Manager Dave Dombrowski. That would have been amazing because in 1981, Dombrowski was just 23 and hadn’t been in baseball that long (his first GM job came with the Expos in 1988).
--On page 314, he mentions Florida Marlins owner "Bob Luria." Maybe he was thinking of ex-Giants owner Bob Lurie? The Marlins’ owner is actually Jeffrey Loria.
--On page 144, he had Billy Martin trying to get himself fired from Texas in July of 1974 so he could manage the Yankees. He was off by one year; it happened in 1975.
Perhaps the most amazing error of them all came on page 196 when he had the Yanks trading away relief pitcher Sparky Lyle in the spring of 1979. Here, Golenbock contradicts Lyle - and himself - since they co-wrote Lyle’s book "The Bronx Zoo." The last paragraph of that book is a post-script, saying that Lyle was traded away on November 11, 1978.

King called the flack working for the publisher, John Wiley & Sons to cancel the interview and express his dismay. Wiley has since owned up to the problems, as has Golenbock, who has also been roundly attacked by knowledgable fans on Amazon.com. Word is the errors will be corrected in the next printing. We'll see.

Of course, Golenbock is hardly the first non-fiction author to get facts wrong. It happens all the time. And that's the problem. Most publishers don't have the inclination or resources -- unlike magazines -- to do proper fact-checking, or any at all. They want you to pay 25 bucks to read nonfiction. After that, you're on your own.

But it didn't have to be this way. Any editor with even an adequate knowledge of baseball would have easily been able to flag these errors before the book went to press. It's bad enough Golenbock was so consistent in his sloppiness. However, Wiley compounded Golenbock's errors by letting them go unchallenged.

Sadly, this not an isolated incident for Wiley. It also publishes the Frommer's travel guides. As I wrote in 2007, my experience using their 2008 guide to Walt Disney World was an experience in frustration, as it was often badly outdated or just plain wrong.

Sound familiar?

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One Tough Assignment: Writing About Why You'll Soon Be Out of A Job

Portfolio Shutting Down; Blogger Jeff Bercovici Serves Up His Own Bad News

The whispers got rather loud real fast about the demise of Conde Nast Portfolio this morning on Peter Kafka's All Things Digital blog.

And now it's official.

Portfolio media blogger Jeff Bercovici confirmed to the world at large that, indeed, he and a bunch of others will soon be out of a job.

Too bad. Portfolio was a grand experiment that debuted in a perfect storm of the print media business tanking, while the recession pretty much took care of what advertising was left.

Portfolio was also a victim of its own ambitions. It paid to play to offer up quality articles -- and pay dearly, at that.

For example, Michael Lewis was rumored to have been paid a maharajah-esque sum of five bucks a word for an article in the December issue fittingly titled The End, about the passing of an era on Wall Street.

And you wondered why Conde Nast couldn't make the numbers add up for Portfolio. And now 85 people are out of a job.

Not that Lewis is to blame for the magazine being shuttered. But when Conde Nast is laying off receptionists to help its sagging bottom line, those are luxuries -- along with the endless supply of town cars and business-class junkets -- that could be done without.

Portfolio will be missed, and not just as a source of cannon fodder for Gawker.

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Winning a Pulitzer Prize Is Great, But.....

It Gets Harder to Celebrate

Robert Smith on NPR's Morning Edition had a good piece this morning on the sobering reality behind this year's Pulitzer Prizes.

That includes the story of Alexandra Berzon, the winner of the public-service prize. Her paper, the scrappy Las Vegas Sun, has now shrunk to eight pages as part of a supplement inside the larger Review-Journal, which graciously acknowledged Berzon's award in an editorial.

Smith also cites Paul Giblin, who shared the award in the local-reporting category. He couldn't take part in the requisite newsroom celebration at the East Valley Tribune in suburban Phoenix because he had been laid off. That fact was conveniently omitted by editor Chris Coppola in his column about the award (he merely says Giblin now works for the Arizona Guardian online news service).

Coppola does point out, however, that the Tribune, which had already cut its frequency to four days a week, while eliminating circulation in several cities, will now go down to three days a week next month.

That will do nothing to help the Tribune in pursuit of another Pulitzer. But that's not what newspapers should be focused on nowadays, in any event.

First, just find a way to survive to publish another day. Worry about the rest later, Pulitzers included.

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Massive Loss By NY Times Co. Could Force Boston Globe Unions to Cave

Dreary 1Q Numbers Accentuated by Ad Plunge in New England

Everyone expected the first-quarter results for The New York Times Co. to be bad. But not this bad.

It lost $74.5 million or 52 cents a share. Analysts had been expecting a loss of no more than 6 cents a share. Ouch.

But that's what happens when ad revenue for all your newspapers falls 28.4 percent. It was even worse at the Times' New England Media Group, where ads plunged 31.6 percent.

That will make today's negotiations between the Boston Newspaper Guild and the Times even more interesting, as the company seeks to wring $20 million of concessions from the unions, who are faced with a threat of the Globe being shuttered.

The Times has already said the Globe is on track to lose $85 million this year. If so, the unions may have little choice but to swallow hard and cough up lots of givebacks, including pension contributions, lifetime job security and 401k matches.

Unions always want to have some leverage when dealing with management. But with this earnings report, leverage has left the building. Left in its place is some guy from finance holding a plug that he looks too eager to pull.

Checkmate.

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Newspaper Doomsayer at It Again With Magazines

But Sloppy Editing Hurts Credibility of Douglas McIntyre, 24/7 WallStreet

Last month, a list of the ten newspapers that will either fold or go digital from a Web site called 24/7 Wall Street was picked up by Time.com and wound up getting a lot more attention than it probably deserved.

It was easy to quibble with at least half of the picks, especially the New York Daily News, whose demise, author Douglas McIntyre opined, was predicated on the fact that it wasn't owned by a big corporation, and based on the performance of other dailies, could lose $70 million this year.

First off, have you seen the performance of newspaper companies lately, at least those that haven't been delisted by the NYSE and NASDAQ? Not being one is actually a good thing.

Further, McIntyre's extrapolating about the News' finances are a reach, to put it charitably. And if the News was in such dire straits, why would it be spending tens of millions of dollars on new color presses?

Anywhoo, that was then. Now McIntyre is back with another list. This one is devoted to the "Twelve Major Brands That Will Disappear" by the end of 2010. Two come from the media, Esquire and Architectural Digest,

In Esquire's case, it's the 97-pound weakling in a crowded category that's already taken a beating. AD is the grandmama of shelter magazines. But it's way-upscale ambitions are out of step at a time when millions of homes are being foreclosed on and its ad pages -- or lack thereof -- reflect that.

McIntyre's analysis is a bit more spot on this time around. But it's marred throughout by having been pushed out without being proofread. The final entry alone, which basically predicts United Airlines will need a merger partner, has at least 10 spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors. And that's just one of 12 entries.

That's why there are editors. McIntyre could sure use one. You can't stand behind your reasoning if it's not coherent in the first place.

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No Escaping Cost-Cutting at New York Times

And No Escapes Section Either (Not to Mention Suburban Sunday Weeklies)

The rumors bore out, and The New York Times is thinning out some of its offerings, offing the Escapes section that appears on Friday, along with the regional sections for Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York City.
Escapes will be dispatched to oblivion as of May 1, with some of its offerings melded into the Weekend section. So maybe we'll still get to read about the particulars of vacation homes, weekend getaways and what it's like to live in some idyllic town far away from you. It was usually a pretty good read and I'll be sorry to see it go.
Same goes for the regional sections. Even though they had been watered down the last couple of years by sharing content across some of the titles, they still served a purpose, especially in Westchester -- my neck of the woods.
The local paper, The Journal-News, is so wanting as a publication that the Times was frequently able to offer stories the J-N never even thought of. Ironically, several of the section's freelancers were J-N alumni who had wrested themselves from that vortex of mediocrity.
And that is another part of this story. These sections were written almost entirely by freelancers who now have many fewer outlets for their work in the Times. Indeed, cutting the freelance budget will likely save millions.
There will be a zoned page in a new regional section that will debut May 24. But that doesn't leave room for much. Nor does it likely leave room for restaurant reviews, much needed as most of what passes for reviews in the J-N tend to be fawning rather than authoritative.
But what's more troubling is these and other cuts announced today may be yet another harbinger of more troubling cuts to come. Judging by this memo from Bill Keller, another day of reckoning may be at hand -- and soon.

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MLB Network Squanders Chance To Be Relevant

Fledgling Baseball Channel Whiffs in Initial Coverage of Death of Legendary Phillies Broadcaster Harry Kalas

The new MLB Network wants to be all things baseball. After all, that's the only reason for its existence.
Today, it proved it's still working out the finer points of that business model.
This afternoon brought word of the sudden passing of Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas, who collapsed as he prepared for the Phillies-Nationals game in Washington later in the day. Kalas, a Hall of Fame broadcaster, had become as identified with the Phillies as any player, and his fame was known well beyond Philadelphia.
MLB broke in to a taped program called "Cathedrals of the Game" for a brief update from its main anchor, Matt Vasgersian and then quickly returned to the program, which was inexplicably cued up from where it picked up after the last commercial break.
The rub: the network was showing a feed of the Phillies-Nationals game at 3 p.m. ET, just minutes away. So, by re-racking the program they jump in late. But just as baffling, they use the feed from the Nationals broadcast, rather than the Phillies.
True, Nationals announcers Bob Carpenter and Rob Dibble said all the right things about Kalas. But the only right call was to switch gears and go to the Phillies cast -- and hear from Tom McCarthy and Chris Wheeler reflect on their departed colleague.
Also left unanswered is why MLB Network only has in-studio programming at night with its complement of analysts when there were four games being played during the day Monday, including the one it was showing.
Clearly, the network has to be more nimble for when events dictate, especially when ESPN is waiting to clean your clock. ESPN News for a time simulcast its Philadelphia radio affiliate, as listeners called in with their heartfelt thoughts about losing Kalas.
MLB Network doesn't have that luxury, but it does have the ability to react sooner than later, especially with the broadcast resources of all teams available to it.
Fans who went to the network thinking it would be a go-to source of information deserved better.
So did Harry Kalas.

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Harry Kalas Dead At 73

"We Lost Our Voice Today"





"Struck him out! The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008 world champions of baseball!"

There were many memorable calls in the storied career of Harry Kalas. That he finally got to call a World Series victory for his beloved Philadelphia Phillies last year must have been one he treasured.

Kalas died this afternoon after he collapsed in the press box at Nationals Stadium in Washington.
He was 73.
It's no accident that he's in Baseball's Hall of Fame. You knew the voice. That his unmistakable baritone will no longer be telling Phillies Nation about the latest exploits of Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels is stunning, no matter who you root for.
Given that he was with the team since 1971, at least two generations of fans meant following the Phils meant listening to Kalas.
The games will go on. They just won't sound the same.

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Merkin Op-Ed Shows Why Public Editors Matter More Than Ever

Clark Hoyt Slams Times Op-Ed Page for Less-than-Full Disclosure on Madoff Piece

Public Editor. Readers' Representative. Ombudsman.

Whatever the title, it's one that has been gradually disappearing from newspapers, as a convenient way to cost-cut.

And that the membership rolls of the Organization of Newspaper Ombudsmen continues to shrink cannot be a good thing, as yesterday's column by New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt (above) showed us.

Hoyt excoriated the Op-Ed editors for a March 21 piece by frequent Times contributor Daphne Merkin about the Bernard Madoff scandal. The fifth paragraph begins:

"What Mr. Madoff brought to the table, I think, was a sense of mishpocha, of being part of an extended family, but one you carefully chose rather than being arbitrarily born into," and then parenthetically mentions: (I did not know Mr. Madoff nor did I invest with his firm, but have a sibling who did business with him.)"

And the winner for understatement of the year is....

As Hoyt and other readers have pointed out, that sibling is none other than Ezra Merkin, a prominent money man who funneled more than $2 billion of his clients' money to Madoff and collected $470 million in fees. Merkin has not been charged with any crime, but is being sued by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for civil fraud.

And yet Daphne Merkin -- with the approval of her editors -- was allowed to essentially skip past that mess. While what she wrote is true, Hoyt notes, it's "about as forthcoming as saying that Milton Eisenhower had a sibling in the United States Army in World War II."
The wording was meekly defended by Op-Ed editor David Shipley, who had sought out Merkin for the piece. Merkin obviously -- and perhaps correctly -- didn't want it to be about her brother. Still, you can't ignore the $2 billion gorilla in the room. And that's essentially what the Times did, and which Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal essentially admitted to Hoyt was an error.

At a time when newspapers are teetering on the brink of oblivion, the last think they can risk is their credibility. They need to be held accountable, just like they do to the public officials and scoundrels who run or ruin our lives.

Ombudsmen can only make newspapers better. And when more readers and advertisers are deciding whether to abandon them for good, newspapers need to be at their best. The Clark Hoyts of this world are the best insurance for achieving that goal.

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OMG! A Cheeky "Hannah Montana" Review in New York Times that Works

Jeannette Catsoulis: Tween Wannabe

omg ashley, i’ve just seen “hannah montana the movie”!! and it’s just as awesome as the tv show only bigger and prettier and she doesn’t fall down so much.

Fear not, we haven't intercepted an 11-year-old girl's text message. It's the cheeky lede for The New York Times review of "Hannah Montana: The Movie."

Freelancer Jeannette Catsoulis obviously knew what she was getting herself into and decided to have a little fun. OK, a lot of fun.

Not that I'm going to shell out 11 bucks to see if she hit the mark, but I'll wager a pack of bubble gum she did. However, not all commenters on the Times Web site apparently got the joke.

"surely hannah montana movie deserves a respectful review, is as if they are making fun of her. Miley does not speak this way at all," is a typical comment, grammatical errors and all.

Maybe Catsoulis' detractors should take a look at Miley Cyrus' Twitter feed. They might think she plagiarized the review.

"omgomg! my fans rock! the movie is doing great you guys! omg AND its all cause of you!!!! I LOVE U ALL! IF YOU HAVENT SEEN IT YET CHECK IT!"

A double omg? This is serious.

Catsoulis and Co. can be as snarky as they want. Disney couldn't care less. It's too busy counting money. "Hannah Montana" raked in $34 million over the weekend. It's doubtful many of the girls who invaded theatres over the weekend relied on the Times or any other newspaper to help them decide what to go see.

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A Slimmed-Down Ira Joe Fisher Looking Good on The Early Show

We Haven't Seen Much of Ira Joe, and Now We See Even Less

There was never any official reason why Ira Joe Fisher was dumped as the weather guy on the Saturday edition of The Early Show on CBS, but you can guess it was all about the money.

Fisher had also done time on the daily edition of the program, but was relegated to Saturdays and voice-over work.

Fisher had been with the Saturday Early Show since its inception in 1999, but quietly disappeared in 2007, replaced by WCBS-TV meteorologist Lonnie Quinn.

Nothing against Quinn, but Fisher was an avuncular, affable presence on the program, especially when it came time to the Chef On A Shoestring segment. Fisher, shall we say, liked to eat, leading to one notorious moment on the show in 2006, when co-host Tracy Smith is helping cookbook author Nancy Silverton prepare dessert.

"One scoop or two?"Smith asks Silverton about some ice cream.

"I think I'll do one today," and then turns to Fisher, "I don't think you need two, right?"

To which the abashed but hungry Fisher replies: "No, but let's have two."

It was both chastening and inappropriate. So, when Fisher filled in on The Early Show two days ago, it was great to see him, especially so, because it looks like he has shed in the neighborhood of 100 pounds.

Having spent decades on the air in New York and on the network as a jolly if portly weathercaster, it was a startling but welcome change.

Now that there's a lot less of him, here's hoping we can see him more.

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New York Times Eating Crow (Sort Of) With Correction of Bird-Brained Story

What Happens When Even The Fact-Checkers Don't Get It Right

Editor & Publisher magazine's head honcho Greg Mitchell has the scoop on a whopper of a correction appearing in this Sunday's Times magazine.

What's discomfiting -- besides that the story, about a supposed vending machine that would allow crows to exchange coins for peanuts, had almost no factual basis -- was that it took the Times nearly four months to fess up to the faux pas.

The excuse: additional reporting, which led to this conclusion: "These details [read: in other words, what would have debunked the story] should have been discovered during the reporting and editing process. Had that happened, the article would not have been published."

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Is Eddy Hartenstein the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse?

Or Just a Pragmatist Trying to Keep The Los Angeles Times Breathing?

Don't get me wrong, I find the front-page ad that snaked up the left side of yesterday's Los Angeles Times just as odious as the next guy.

Even the Times seems to be holding its nose in its own story today of the controversy, when it noted: "The Times appears to be the first major U.S. newspaper in modern times to have run a front-page ad in a format that could be mistaken for a news story, said Geneva Overholser, director of the School of Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication."

So, with all the outcry over the ad for the new NBC show "Southland," Times Publisher Eddy Hartenstein regrets the move. Not. "Because of the times that we're in, we have to look at all sorts of different -- and some would say innovative -- new solutions for our advertising clients," Hartenstein chirped, noting the ad garnered a "significant premium" from regular rates.

It's small comfort to know that Times Editor Russ Stanton objected to the ad, but wisely didn't throw himself under the train and quit in protest. As he's seen his staff sliced and diced by buyouts and layoffs, he knows there aren't any jobs out there. Better to fight from the inside than go on the dole as a martyr.

Granted, Hartenstein has the herculean task of trying to right the Times' finances when circulation and ads are like lemmings that have an appointment with the nearest cliff. That means if has to live dangerously, so be it.

I wouldn't put it past Hartenstein to pull a similar stunt again. What may hold him back, though, are the advertisers themselves, who might wind up with more bad press than the extra visibility of a front-page ad is worth. So long to that "significant premium." But then at least you wouldn't have to say so long to integrity.

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Cleaning Up Athletes' Quotes: An Obligation or Disservice?

Black Sportswriters Split on How to Handle Grammatical Trainwrecks

I only recently stumbled upon a March 20 column by the Maynard Institute's Richard Prince a fascinating discussion on whether sportswriters should quote verbatim athletes who mangle the English language, or fix their quotes without changing their intent so the players sound coherent.
Prince digests an extensive email dialogue by members of the sports task force of the National Association of Black Journalists.
Mike Freeman of CBSSports.com started the discussion when citing a transcript of a quote from a player from Tennessee-Chattanooga at the start of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, who said: "When we seen that we got UConn, I mean, we was happy to be up there on the board."
Freeman asked whether the transcription service should've cleaned up the quote (no, the service replied) and what can sportswriters do about the profusion of black college athletes who speak like this.
Some posters said quotes should be fixed because black players are subject to a double standard. Said one: "How many times have you seen a White person quoted as saying 'gonna,' but everyone says that. When the guy's Black, you usually see 'gonna.'"
But J.A. Adande of ESPN.com says he sticks to verbatim, because the actual quotes are easily accessible. "If readers can see the discrepancy it's fair of them to ask what other words we've changed in quote."
There are some who not only favor changing quotes but taking it a
step further. Omar Kelly of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel said he actually
counsels athletes on the importance of speaking properly.

"Just so you know," Kelly wrote, "I just helped out an agent friend of mine by instructing three draft prospects on what to say during their team and media interviews. Part of it was encouraging them to use the Kings English. We joked about it a lot, but they got the point."

Just so you know, Omar, however well-intentioned you might be, that's not your job. Nor should you make it yours. At least not while you're writing for the Sun-Sentinel. That's what teams have media-relations staffs for.

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Sure, The Boston Globe Can Stop Spinning. Here's How

No Broadsheet Out of Morrissey Street Hard to Fathom, But Not Out of the Question

Let's first work from the assumption that the initial threat by The New York Times Co. to -30- The Boston Globe was a combination of saber- rattling and a cry for help.

There was a time, not too long ago, when I would've dismissed it as a bluff that could be easily ignored in spite of the prodigious amount of red ink spilling from the Globe's balance sheets. But that was before I saw Newhouse playing hardball with the Star-Ledger in New Jersey.

I wrote last year how I was skeptical when Newhouse threatened to close the paper, unless a huge chunk of the newsroom -- 40 percent, as it turned out -- took buyouts and agreed to other concessions. After all, how could Newhouse shutter its flagship paper and leave a gaping hole in coverage of the Garden State? However, I'm now a reluctant believer. At blinding speed, the newspaper biz has gone from bad to worse to extremely crappy, with a forecast of more apocalyptic adjectives to come.

That means the Globe, which lost $50 million last year and could lose $85 million in 2009, while not in a death spiral yet, is in the newspaper I.C.U. with little hope of getting out. Sure, the unions can agree to concessions. Heck, maybe those lifetime job guarantees for veteran employees can be disposed of. Higher newsstand prices just enacted can help. But is all that merely putting off a date with the inevitable?

The New York Observer has a piece on how the Globe could become, in effect, a New England edition of the Times. Conceptually, it sounds ridiculous. But so does the notion that a buyer can be found for the Globe, or that the Times can sustain it indefinitely.

The Times would not have to look far for a precedent, namely its own national edition, which features a couple of pages of New York news. That could be swapped out for Boston-area items with a skeletal staff of 6-10 reporters, maybe a columnist and a couple of editors. Same goes for the sports pages, a couple of whiich could be repurposed for a Boston audience. Much of the rest of the paper could go out as is, with a tweak here or there for New England, e.g. a column of local business briefs.

I'm not saying this is an optimal solution -- of course, it isn't -- but it may be the only way to preserve what little capital the Times Co. has left in the Globe without incurring huge costs for a shutdown (one analyst values the Globe at no more than $20 million, a far cry from the$1.1 billion the Times paid in 1993).

Regardless of the outcome, the Globe that readers will see in 6-12 months will be vastly different from the one they have now. Which is a lot different than the one they used to have. All that change has done nothing to make the Globe a better paper.

But at least it's still a paper.

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Coupon Nazis Strike Again at Checkout Counter

A&P, Bed Bath & Beyond Busted for Going Out of Their Way to Piss Off Customers.

Coupon clipping is in my DNA. I'm not cheap, but I love a good deal.

Supermarkets ostensibly want the business of folks like me. The ones that operate where I live double my coupons up to 99 cents. So, a policy I found out about the hard way today at A&P is weird, to say the least, not to mention infuriating.

I printed out from the computer a 55-cent coupon for a half-gallon of Horizon organic milk. The coupon came straight from the company Web site. It's the only way you can get the coupon -- Horizon doesn't advertise in the coupon supplements that come in the Sunday papers.

Yet, when I gave my coupon to the A&P cashier, she wouldn't accept it. Why? Because it was an Internet coupon.

Thinking I got stuck with a lunkhead, I asked for a manager. Sure enough, no e-coupons. "I'm sorry, but it's company policy."

What's behind the policy. "I don't know," she said again apologetically. "It's policy. We've asked them to change it and they won't."

It's not like I'd photocopied an original coupon and brought it in for redemption. This was the coupon. But no matter. Suffice to say, I gave back the milk. A&P lost a sale and ticked off a loyal customer.

I went down the road to Shop-Rite, where they took the coupon without comment. A bonus: it was 50 cents cheaper too.

This was my second coupon caper recently. I had been to Bed Bath & Beyond, which I never enter without a wad of the 20-percent-off coupons that show up in the mail every couple of weeks.

The checkout was uneventful until the cashier told me I could only use five coupons in one transaction. Why? "I don't know."

That didn't sit well, as I had 10 items and coupons for each one. She said, "Well, you could do two separate transactions." And so I did.

But that took more time and made no sense. And it cost Triple-B more money too, as they pay a fee for each credit-card transaction.

For whatever lame rationale the company has for this policy, the only thing it does is anger shoppers, which is exactly the wrong thing to do during a recession. The store wasn't exactly overwhelmed with patrons when I was there. Coupons should be the least of their worries.

If anyone from either company would like to chime in, the space is theirs for the taking.

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PCMag.com Barks Up Wrong Tree Singing Praises of Hound.com

Guilt and Scorn from Spam King If You Have Temerity Not To Sign Up

This morning I checked out a list of the supposed Top 20 best job-search sites, courtesy of PCmag.com.

Remember when PC was a fat and happy magazine that came out twice a month. That was then. Now computer and tech print advertising has shriveled like a prune past its prime, and the magazine is online-only.

Apparently, fact-checking was also a casualty of the cost-cutting.

My attention was caught by mention of a site I had never heard of before called Hound.com, which only searches company job boards. "In theory, this cuts out duplicate listings and shows opportunities that are not posted on other job boards."

In theory, because it wasn't in the budget to pay the $29.99 a month to actually use the site, which I departed soon after I saw it wasn't free and someone on live chat tried to engage me.

But, it seems, that was not the end of it.

A few minutes later, an elaborate email arrives that says "We have a marketing problem at Hound."

You betcha.

Then the email proceeds to scold me for running away.

You made a mistake. It’s ok. Lots of people leave without ever completing the sign up process. This is par for the course.

Oookay.

About that marketing problem? Seems it's getting people to pay:

You can go to a soup kitchen tonight for a free dinner if you want but the food and the company will probably not be very good.

In other words, you dumb ass who won't pay us, the best things in life aren't free.

But the bad guys in all this are really the other job boards who charge employers for listings, rather than prospective employees. Hound presumably is a way to help companies that wouldn't pony up for a help-wanted ad and only post vacancies on their Web sites. Can there really be that many stupid enough to do that? I'm not going to be stupid enough to take the "leap of faith" to find out, even with a seven-day free trial. More on that in a bit.

Who's behind Hound? One A. Harrison Barnes, who is the wizard behind many other career sites, especially the ones ending in "Crossing" that are especially prevalent on HotJobs and aggregators that spider thousands of other sites.

It should be no surprise that the Crossings all charge to see their full listings and apply for the posted jobs. And if some of the jobs sound familiar, well, that's because they are. Other job sites have complained that Barnes is scraping from their free listings, putting them together with other posts and then charging $29.95 to view them all.

“We visit over 100,000 sites a day and take as many jobs as we can find, classify them, and then publish them on our site,” Barnes told the blog Cheezhead. “In this way, what we’re doing is a lot more advanced than Indeed and Simply Hired.”

So, in essence, Hound is another "Crossing," but one devoted to company sites. It searches so you don't have to. Still, it's hard to verify just how many worthwhile listings would otherwise go unearthed if not sniffed out by Hound.

Put me in the "highly dubious" column. I will not pay to let this dog hunt.

Barnes' name sounded familiar, so I checked another email account and, sure enough, there he was, extolling the virtues of LegalAuthority.com, which bills itself as the "largest portal of legal opportunities in the world."

Never mind that I've been continually spammed by LawCrossing and LegalAuthority despite continually emailing them to be unsubscribed and putting the address on my blocked senders list (sometimes it works).

What's galling is that Barnum, er, Barnes, is selling a dangerous bill of goods.

"...I can get you a job. How confident am I that I can get you a legal job? Just about 100% confident. If you can put on a suit and tie and walk into an interview and not act crazy, I am about 100% confident."

Among those he claims to have gotten jobs for:

A drooler,
People with ridiculous lisps,
Two transvestites (that I am aware of),
A guy who looks like Charles Manson on a bad hair day.

Woo-hoo! There's hope for me yet.

Just how does he do it? Magic. I mean, marketing. Pay him a lot of money to market you, and Barnes'll get you a job. Posh, to the thousands of lawyers who've lost their jobs in the recession. They're on the dole because "99% of attorneys do not know how to look for jobs and just keep doing the same stupid things over and over," Barnes bleats.

At least that what he wants you to believe. Some did, and now they're sorry. Among them: an anonymous California lawyer with an unequivocally titled blog called Legal Authority Scam.

There's someone who's crossed Barnes off his Christmas-card list.

I won't put myself in the position to contribute fodder for that blog, which does make for some interesting reading. But even if I didn't open my wallet, based on this missive from a former employee it appears it'll be hard to make Andrew Harrison Barnes truly go away.

Please work, spam filter. Please.

As for PCmag.com, do your homework before you press the send button. Or maybe you can pay Barnes $29.95 a month to do it for you.

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Buy A Newspaper and Chill Out

British Study Finds Reading Can Reduce Stress

Now you can help save print journalism and your nerves at the same time.
A study at the University of Sussex found that reading, even for only six minutes at a time, is more effective at reducing stress than listening to music, taking a walk, or having tea.
As local paper The Argus reports: "Psychologists say this is because the human mind has to concentrate on reading and the distraction eases the tensions in muscles and the heart."
OK, so presumably you can read a magazine or book and achieve the same salutary effect. And reading about how the economy, the latest natural disaster or terror attack doesn't exactly do wonders for the nerves.
But that's why there are comics, the sports section and food pages. Even in the most-middling of newspapers, there is usually something to distract you from the rest of the world if only for a little while.
Surely that's worth 50 cents a day.
What's that? Many of those Gannett and McClatchy papers that have decimated their news holes are boosting their newsstand price to 75 cents? Hmmm, maybe a book's not such a bad idea, after all.

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Sun-Times Minces No Words About Its Own Bankruptcy

Up Yours, Conrad Black!

The only surprise about the Sun-Times Co. filing for bankruptcy is the fact that it took so long to reach this point.
The company behind Chicago's perennial underdog paper has long been in Chateau Bow-Wow from a fiscal standpoint.
The bromides were left to Chairman and Interim CEO Jeremy Halbreich in a letter to readers. As for the news story about the Chapter 11 filing, the gloves came off in the story by David Roeder:

The company has one significant creditor -- the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has said Sun-Times Media Group owes up to $608 million in back taxes and penalties from past business practices by its former controlling owner, Conrad Black, now imprisoned for theft from corporate coffers.

Kudos for not beating around the bush and making note that your former owner was a crook and big-time fraud.

Sun-Times Media Group shares are traded on the Pink Sheets and closed Monday worth just a nickel each. That means that based on the stock, the entire company is worth about $4 million. As of Nov. 7, the company had assets of $479 million and liabilities of $801 million, according to the bankruptcy filing.

And now those shareholders foolish enough to hold on, even at that price, will be wiped out, as the article notes. More ominously, for employees, Halbreich said he will use bankruptcy to seek "unspecified concessions."
My guess is you don't need a road map to know where Halbreich is heading with that. Time to fasten your seatbelts over at North Orleans St.

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