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| Friday, July 14, 2006 |
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Fits in your pocket! 
And why not?
Cackalacky bound
| | If we're lucky, by the end of August we'll have a house to move into. |
| | Meanwhile, it'll be good to take a little time off. |
| | Bonus link: Flightview. Shows delays at airports, among other things. |
She said, they said
| | ... so much misinformation given to other media by departing employees, we felt the need to set the record straight. |
| | There are some disgruntled ex-employees who are making these matters public. Their media campaign manipulates facts to divert attention from the truth. |
| | Barney Brantingham, Santa Barbara's Herb Caen, who left the News-Press after 46 years on the job there, explains why he left the paper in the cover story of the Independent, our local arts and entertainment weekly. Barney's column will now run there. |
| | I've only met one of the disgruntlers: former business editor Michael Todd. As I said here, Michael did a rare thing when he reported on a talk I gave recently: he got it all right. |
| | The Daily Nexus at UCSB has a scoop about developments at the paper. They reportedly got their hands on a spiked News-Press story (unflattering to management) about the departures. Michael Todd was a prime source, and called the McCaw-Travis spin bogus. (Thanks to Nexus and UCSB alum Tony Pierce for that pointage.) |
| | One of the best (also most objective and helpful) pieces about the whole frackle is The Real McCaw, by veteran L.A. journalist John Stodder. Dig: |
| | So much of the coverage of News-Press turmoil is journalist-centric. Reporters are covering the story from the standpoint of what it would like to be a reporter employed by Wendy McCaw. But reporters aren¹t the only stakeholders here. For readers — in Santa Barbara and elsewhere — this might be an opportunity. With falling circulation an almost universal condition for newspapers, many see the classic newspaper format fading into history. Maybe now that Wendy McCaw has dispelled any illusions that she¹s planning on running a museum-quality publication, someone will talk her into doing something completely new and different. |
| | Start with her environmentalism. There is so much significant environmental news that never gets covered in the mainstream press; news that, to my mind, transcends the stale dichotomies, business vs. nature, that inform most environmental stories. (If you read this blog regularly, you know I¹m drawn to gee-whiz stories about how environmental imperatives might make the future more interesting. Kite-powered freighters anyone?) |
| | If Wendy McCaw wanted to turn her newspaper brand (including its online version) into the world¹s leading destination for the coverage of environmental issues, with an editorial policy that aggressively reflected her point of view, she¹d have that niche almost to herself. "Santa Barbara" is the perfect name to associate with such a publication, given the historic significance of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill in galvanizing changes in environmental policies worldwide. |
| | Another way to go would be to launch a laboratory for Citizen Journalism. That city must have the highest percentage of under-utilized intelligence of any city in America, with so many early retirees and their spouses and kids hanging out in ranchettes and seaside palaces, cashing their dividend checks instead of doing what made them rich in the first place. There must be at least a few such persons who would be fit the profile of the Citizen Journalist; talented writers who care enough about their communities to monitor local goverment and other institutions, and blog about what they learn. Another source of good minds with not enough to do is UCSB. The News-Press could give new writers an on-line home. |
| | By the way (I'll go on being a broken record on this), Wendy & Company could avoid all kinds of bad PR by simply getting rid of that paywall. (They'd have to do it anyway to achieve what John Stodder suggests.) Look-ups on Google and Yahoo of subjects like Wendy's name, Santa Barbara, and anything the paper covers, bring up piles of results that don't include the paper or its writings, and are therefore kinda skewed. This in effect is a media bias caused by the paper's own decision to hide its editorial. Which, by the way, would make much more money by carrying advertising from Google. With approximately zero effort, I might add. |
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