The great plate debate rages on in the Great State.
This, as reported by the Omaha World-Herald, is the latest salvo . . . on behalf of Nebraska's slighted professional graphic-design pros:
A leading Nebraska advertising executive is urging a design do-over for the new state license plate.
Jim Lauerman, chief executive officer of Bailey Lauerman of Omaha and Lincoln, said the four "embarrassing" designs now being considered should be scrapped as not bumper-worthy.
Instead, Lauerman offered to enlist graphic artists from the state's top marketing firms to, at no charge, design a new plate that would convey a sharper image for the state.
"This is an opportunity for millions and millions of exposures to express your (state) brand. Why wouldn't you take that opportunity?" said Lauerman, who grew up in the farm town of Stromsburg, Neb.
His offer - the latest criticism of the license plate designs - landed with a thud on the doorstep of Gov. Dave Heineman, who was out of his Capitol office on Thursday.
"The governor has made his comments on this issue," said his spokeswoman, Jen Rae Hein.
Translation: He likes the four designs submitted, as he's said before. He's sticking to his license-plate-picking-guns, even though naysayers have sent a wave of critical letters and e-mails to The World-Herald and other newspapers.
YES, YOU COULDturn matters over to the professionals, and somebody might decide that Nebraska's modern branding needs require something hip, now, happening and symbolically avant garde. (See above.)
That's my abstract statement about the state's unity through diversity. And, being that the '70s are hot once again, it has that certain funky, earth-toned sumpin' sumpin' going for it.
Actually, it's supposed to be a joke . . . but I've seen weirder things that weren't.
OF COURSE,vee haff veys of settling such license plate disputes here -- ways that are pretty straightforward. OK,reallystraightforward. This was the not-so-elegant 1984 solution:
COME TO THINK OF IT, though, that would be an improvement over some of the contest choices.
There will be a brave new world of journalism someday.
But until it arrives, newspaper management will just live in an Aldous Huxley novel instead.
A CASE IN POINT:The Wall Street Journal.
Staffers at The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday were given a newly compiled list of rules for "professional conduct," which included a lengthy guide for use of online outlets, noting cautions for activities on social networking sites.
In an e-mail to employees, Deputy Managing Editor Alix Freedman wrote, "We've pulled together into one document the policies that guide appropriate professional conduct for all of us in the News Departments of the Journal, Newswires and MarketWatch. Many of these will be familiar."
Dow Jones spokesman Robert Christie declined to comment to E&P today on why the updated rules were put out at this time, saying they speak for themselves. But it is clear they are in place for those involved in social networking on the likes of Facebook or Twitter, requiring editor approval before "friending" any confidential sources.
"Openly 'friending' sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex," the rules state, adding, "don't disparage the work of colleagues or competitors or aggressively promote your coverage," and "don't engage in any impolite dialogue with those who may challenge your work -- no matter how rude or provocative they may seem."
THE ARTICLEin Editor & Publisher, to me, is another omen -- and not a good one -- concerning the future of newspapers in this country. Right up there with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution'spaean-to-Luddites ad campaign for its "new" Sunday paper.
The fact is, Twitter and Facebook are excellent ways for a journalist to keep his or her "ear to the ground." And the fact is -- isn't it? -- editors of The Wall Street Journal don't hire immature teens or half-wits.
It seems to me, when you're dealing with adults, a few simple rules should be sufficient:
* Don't trash, or bitch about, your colleagues. * Don't divulge proprietary information. * Act like a grown-up and a professional. *Do promote your stories.
THAT'S IT. Break those rules or do something else stupid, and we're going to have a talk.
You really have to wonder how much productivity, innovation, creativity and morale is lost to idiotic micromanagement and pointless corporate bureaucracy. It seems to me that productivity, innovation, creativity and morale are all things American newspapers have lost too much of already.
If people could catch the swine flu from pork, the entire state of Louisiana ought to be dead by now.
Then again, the Gret Stet quickly is heading toward room temperature from just the pork -- forget the flu. Right now, the Louisiana Legislature is considering a "pared-down" annual budget of $27 billion.
And if $27 billion spent over a population of 4.4 million is getting you massive cuts in higher education and everything else -- assuring the further cementing of Louisiana's place on the extreme wrong end of almost every conceivable national ranking -- somebody's getting royally screwed.
Except, I assume, for politicians' brothers-in-law.
PER CAPITA, that comes out to state spending of (rounding off) $6,136.36. And being that $27 billion doesn't go that far in providing decent schools on the bayou, "per capita" means the Gret Stet aims to spend $6,136.36 for every single Louisianian.
But double check me here, I went to Louisiana schools, too.
I've been thinking for a while that $27 billion ought to be plenty for a state the size of Louisiana. Plenty enough, at least, that lots of stuff that does suck so badly there really oughtn't.
So, I thought I'd take a look at the just-passed biennial budget for my present home, Nebraska, where schools are pretty good and suckage seems to be minimal. (See update below.)
NEBRASKA, over the next couple of years -- barring a budget-cutting special session if tax revenues keep coming in under projections -- will spend $6.2 billion. Annually, let's just split that down the middle for a budget of $3.1 billion.
Divide that by the state's population of 1.78 million, and you get per-capita annual spending of $1,741.57. And we're not even at the bottom of any good national rankings . . . or the top of any bad ones.
I suspect some of that per-capita state spending difference comes from municipalities, via local property taxes, paying more of their own way here in Nebraska. And I'm assuming per-capita welfare and Medicaid costs are a lot higher in Louisiana.
But $4,394.79 worth of difference per resident? Really?
IF I WERE still living in Louisiana, I'd be wondering how the state can spend that much and still have that Third World je ne sais quoi about it. I'd also be wondering why cutting a relatively small percentage out of such a large state budget stands to wreak such havoc with, for example, higher education.
But mostly, I'd just be wondering what the hell was going on in Baton Rouge, and why the state was spending so much just to suck so badly in, well . . . everything.
UPDATE:OK, my numbers were off. That's what I get for comparing press reports about the state appropriations bills instead of looking up actual spending requests.
What I didn't account for was that Nebraska separates out all federal and recurrent revenues, and the press was reporting budget figures based on just the state monies plus stimulus money.
Still . . . .
Let's compare what Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal requested for fiscal year 2008-09 and what Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman requested for the same time period. Rounding off for Louisiana, that would be $29.7 billion.
And rounding off for the Cornhusker State, the figure comes out to $7.6 billion.
On a per capita basis, the 2008-09 budgetary request made by Louisiana's Jindal came out to $6,750 in state spending for every Louisianian. In Nebraska, the per capita figure was $4,269.66.
That's still a hell of a difference -- almost $2,500 a head.
At the same time, and born of the same duty, a Catholic university has a special obligation not just to honor the leader but to engage the culture. Carrying out this role of the Catholic university has never been easy or without controversy. When I was an undergraduate at Notre Dame, Fr. Hesburgh spoke of the Catholic university as being both a lighthouse and a crossroads. As a lighthouse, we strive to stand apart and be different, illuminating issues with the moral and spiritual wisdom of the Catholic tradition. Yet, we must also be a crossroads through which pass people of many different perspectives, backgrounds, faiths, and cultures. At this crossroads, we must be a place where people of good will are received with charity, are able to speak, be heard, and engage in responsible and reasoned dialogue.
I am saddened that many friends of Notre Dame have suggested that our invitation to President Obama indicates ambiguity in our position on matters of Catholic teaching. The University and I are unequivocally committed to the sanctity of human life and to its protection from conception to natural death.
Thus said Jesus to Our Lady -- the Virgin Mary -- just before He died on the cross. What did Jesus say next?
A) "Remember, woman, that dialog is paramount, and you must not be doctrinaire. Pilate, after all, made a compelling point about truth."
B) "Always look on the bright side of life."
C) Speaking to John, "Behold your mother."
D) "Arrest him!"
If you answered A, B or (especially)D, you probably are an administrator at the University of Notre Dame -- the university of Our Lady. You long ago stopped contemplating what it means to be a Catholic school named for the Mother of God and, truth be told, you probably think Jesus was a sucker for turning down a devilish deal after 40 days in the desert.
Then again, we live in interesting times, and it should be no surprise to us that evil should roll in and out of Catholic chanceries and colleges like trains roll in and out of Grand Central Station. Or would if Amtrak were half as efficient as Beelzebub.
ANOTHER hell-bound train left the station Friday. Left the station named for the mother of Jesus.
After meeting at the front gate for prayer and speeches, Alan Keyes, a conservative politician and commentator, pushed a baby stroller onto the Notre Dame campus.
Two hundred feet past the front gate, he and 20 other protesters were arrested.
Keyes — a long-shot candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, 2004 and 2008 — came to Notre Dame on Friday to protest the University's invitation to President Barack Obama to speak at commencement.
"We are walking onto this campus of people, visiting what ought to be a kingdom of God," Keyes told a gathering of about 75 who met outside the campus gate, "but instead has been a kingdom of darkness."
As two dozen students looked on, Keyes and the other protesters pushed the strollers — each containing a doll covered in stage blood — along the sidewalk shortly after noon. Officers, who had been waiting for protesters to enter campus, quickly stopped the procession.
THAT'S the South Bend Tribune's short version of events. The video above is the protesters' long version. And if you search YouTube, it's not difficult to find videos of Notre Dame security officials confronting Keyes, et al, outside the university gates -- on public property -- to forbid them from stepping on campus.
Leave aside for the moment that Alan Keyes is a well-known nutwagon and, in fact, is matched in the "their zeal consumes them" department by Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, arrested a week earlier on the Notre Dame campus. What the video shows is security forces stopping an understated, peaceful and prayerful protest march against abortion . . . on the campus of a Catholic university.
Cops, with paddy wagons standing by, busting up a protest against abortion by a bunch of Catholics praying the Rosary. Busting up the protest and arresting the protesters on the orders of a Catholic priest.
What's wrong with this picture?
ALAN KEYES DOES one thing in his life that's not marred by intemperate rhetoric or -- let's face it -- plain old crazy talk, and the president of the country's most prestigious Catholic university makes sure he goes to jail for it. All because Keyes and his band of protesters find it offensive that the Catholic academic, the Rev. John Jenkins, will honor a notoriously pro-choice president at his Catholic institution in defiance of the nation's Catholic bishops.
Imagine, if you will, Bull Connor as a regular at the faculty club. Fascist repression over brie and a tasteful chablis.
The pictures of peaceful Catholics being arrested on a Catholic campus for upholding Catholic teaching speaks louder than any of Notre Dame's public-relations bunkum in defense of its giving props to Pilate. One's gut can recognize evil when it is encountered, and sophistry thus can persuade no longer.
And it no longer matters that Alan Keyes and Randall Terry love TV cameras like a hog loves slop. It becomes irrelevant that PR-challenged yahoos are driving around -- and flying over -- South Bend with giant pictures of aborted babies.
IT'S ALL DWARFED by a single spectacle: prayerful Catholics being set upon by cops under orders from a priest, all because the prayerful Catholics had the temerity to insist that a Catholic university not render unto Caesar -- a Caesar with the blood of innocents on his policy prerogatives -- the blessing of an institution dedicated to the Mother of God.
8 Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, 9 and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me." 10 At this, Jesus said to him, "Get away, Satan! It is written: 'The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.'"
NOTRE DAME is prostrate. Has been for a while now. And it doesn't even have the kingdoms of the world to show for it.
Or, for that matter, a decent football team.
Notre Dame sits within the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. And it is within the purview of Bishop John M. D'Arcy, who is boycotting the university's graduation exercises, to decide which institutions within his diocese may -- and may not -- call themselves Catholic.
Given the university's recent actions -- actions which follow a pattern over the past quarter century -- is it too much to ask that the good bishop put Notre Dame, at long last, out of our misery?
Remember that in the age of the Internet and the Game Show Network, the embarrassment you suffer from really screwing up on national television may well be eternal.
This insight came to me not from on high, but instead as I sat on the couch watching a 1960s-vintage episode of Password, slowly being subsumed into the stream of ones and zeroes of the newly installed digital cable.
If you don't hear from me again, it likely means I have disappeared into the box, into a better place where Gene Rayburn and Allen Ludden will shepherd me toward my major award.
I can imagine that a lot of folks -- in the wake of a long, cold winter here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska -- would say the weather of late has been a perfect 10.
Sounds like a pretty good starting point for this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth to me. OK, let's make it official:
The Big Show this week is being brought to you by "Sweet!" and the number 10.
I COULD EXPOUND on that, but then you might not download3 Chords & the Truth and hear for yourself what we're talking about. That, mon ami, would be a major faux pas.
Suffice it to say there's a lot of "sweet" -- and sweet -- music on this week's show, and that many might rate it as highly as Omaha's weather of late. I think that's a pretty strong way to come back into the swing of things after taking a week off due to . . . the flu. But I'm feeling much better now. (John Astin, "Night Court," 1990-whatever.) And you will, too, after giving a listen to 3 Chords & the Truth.
The Republican Party has had it with the strong-arm tactics of the Obama Administration, and its leading pols are saying enough is enough.
In fact, one GOP senator is drawing a line in the sand trap on No. 16, telling the evil Democrats to cease and desist molesting fine, upstanding Americans whose jobs may be threatened by the socialist cabal.
THAT WOULD BE(ahem) the CEOs of Wall Street banks who blew up the economy and now suckle at the federal teat. Somehow, James Rowley of Bloomberg stopped ROTFLMAO-ing just long enough to pound out this story:
A leading Senate Republican warned the Obama administration against removing chief executive officers at banks that received U.S. assistance, saying “the great fear” would be government management of companies.
“If you think that Washington can run car companies and banks and so on, well, then you’ve not been paying attention to how we’ve been doing back here,” Senator Jon Kyl said of the Treasury’s threat of management changes at banks getting “exceptional” aid. Last month, the administration forced out General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner as a condition for more U.S. aid.
While a financial review showed most banks don’t require new assistance from the Treasury, “the government appears to still have control over the major banks to the extent of saying they’ve got to raise capital,” Kyl said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing today.
This continued government leverage over companies such as Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. “does raise some questions,” Kyl said. “Hopefully they can all get out of that relatively quickly.”
Kyl, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, also said it would be “absolutely unnecessary” for Congress to create a commission to investigate harsh tactics that the Central Intelligence Agency used to interrogate suspected al-Qaeda operatives seized after the Sept. 11 attacks.
PRO-ROBBER BARONS, pro-torture -- now that's what I call a winning political strategy. (Did the Chinese Communists take over the GOP while I was sleeping?) It can't be too soon until this spent political party just goes away and spares us any more of this vulgar spectacle.
Don't consider this an endorsement of the Democrats; it's just that we can deal with only one plague at a time. And this is the GOP's time.
Why say something intelligent when you can just demonize people?
Probably because stereotyping and demonizing sells when you're an also-ran Boston newspaper during these "interesting times," in the Chinese-curse meaning of the words. At least I'm sure that's what columnist Howie Carr and his Boston Herald editors must have been thinking when they learned the commonwealth of Massachusetts has been giving used cars to select welfare recipients who need wheels to get work.
YOU WANT TO SEE a prime example of the "Culture of Death" that has nothing directly to do with abortion? Here you go:
Let the taxpayers worry about those billion-dollar deficits. If you’re on welfare, come on down!
Nice enough that the layabouts get a free car - plus the state picks up the tab for insurance, excise tax, title, registration, inspection, and approved repairs. The absolute frosting on the cake is a free AAA membership.
Please, try not to let this newest handout destroy your faith in the truth of the budget crisis. You’re just angry because you can’t afford AAA. But your average welfare leech needs guaranteed road service a lot more than you do.
Don’t you hate it when you’re fleeing a department store after utilizing the five-finger discount, and the store security and the mall cops are in hot pursuit, and you jump in your Coupe DeVille and it won’t start. Damn!
Of course the gimme girls and gals need Triple-A for their welfare Cadillacs. (And yes, I understand they’re not really Cadillacs. Only the governor gets a Caddy on the arm.) You can’t expect a body to walk to the packy for their nightly supply of forties, can you?
Supposedly, these free welfare cars will enable the non-taxpayer to get a job. If they lose the job, the state comes down hard on them -- we the taxpayers will not reimburse the cost of insurance after the first six months. If the client quits work or is laid off during the first 12 months, all transportation benefits end, but the client will still keep the car. But, but . . . what about the Triple-A? That’s an entitlement, you know. Has anybody got a phone number for the ACLU?
A lot of snotty people at the Boston Globe are going to be unemployed very shortly. Finally, a ray of hope for the bow-tied bumkissers. Maybe they, too, will be eligible for a welfare Cadillac.
GIVEN THAT YANKEE BOSTON fought school desegregation harder in 1974 than did many Southern cities previously or subsequently -- complete with the stoning of school buses full of black students and attacks on the police guarding them -- you'd think newspaper columnists in Beantown might be humble enough to tread carefully through this country's minefields of race, class and poverty.
You'd think that, but you'd be wrong.
Instead, Carr hops aboard a steamroller and assaults that minefield where race, class and poverty gets jumbled in a gumbo of statistical probabilities, stereotypes, reality and stubborn racism. And where there lie legitimate questions of policy, equity and the best use of scarce taxpayer dollars, the columnist decides to become something of a "layabout" himself.
WHY PUT TOGETHER a thoughtful piece full of thoughtful criticism when you can sign up for the pundit's dole and take a leisurely trip down the road angrily traveled? Why call state officials and ask some hard questions (or propose some sensible alternatives) when you can go all "Southie" on "the gimme girls and gals" who, no doubt, all are "fleeing a department store after utilizing the five-finger discount."
Why not lump every single recipient of public assistance together as bums and trash in a hateful orgasm of invective?
Well, I'll concede that Howie Carr and his Herald editors know their audience better than I do. Maybe hate and outrage is what sells in their corner of the New and Improved America.
But it sure is sad to think --35 whole years after South Boston and other neighborhoods went all George Wallace on a bunch of black kids -- that continuing to act, and write, like a bunch of lawless white trash can't get you "banned in Boston."
You want to know how bad things are in the newspaper business?
The Virgin Mary is appearing to Washington-bureau reporters. Jewish ones, no less.
YOU CAN'T make this stuff up -- even if telling stories is your business. The story of Mary in the coffee stain comes to us from one of the New Orleans Times-Picayune's reporters in the nation's capital, via a letter to the Poynter Institute's Romenesko blog:
I have never written you before.
But that was before I saw the Virgin Mary. I have been a reporter for more than 30 years, most of them at the Newhouse bureau in Washington. When they announced last year they were closing, I was rescued by The Times Picayune, which took me on board as a second Washington correspondent. In November, when the Newhouse bureau shut its doors, four of us - survivors from Newhouse - moved into some empty cubicles in the Cox bureau on Capitol Hill, a beautiful office with a lot of extra space. Within weeks of arriving, Cox announced it would be closing its Washington bureau in the spring.
Last week, the four of us, like hermit crabs, moved into empty cubicles in another beautiful newspaper office in Metro Center, subletting space from Hearst Newspapers, which sublets from McClatchy, which took over the office when it bought Knight Ridder.
On Monday evening, May 4, I went back to the Cox office to pack the rest of my boxes and clean out my cubicle. And there it was, on my desk, a coffee stain in the image of the Virgin Mary. I was a little surprised. Why me? I'm Jewish.
(snip)
I am still not sure what it means, but I confess that amid all the layoffs and furloughs and forced relocations, seeing the image comforted me. As it has been written, "When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me ..."
THERE IS little consolation these days for those in the newspaper business. This is particularly so when so many foaming-at-the-mouth members of the conservative tribe seek to blame all their ills -- indeed, all the ills of the country -- on the "liberal" media.
And this is obscenely so when those same unhinged denizens of the Limbaugh right take such unfettered joy in the demise of newspapers and the firings of thousands of their employees. Employees with spouses, children, dogs and mortgages to feed.
So if our mother, Mary, comes to comfort some of her children via a coffee stain . . . it sounds about right to me.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me, Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
If you're going to have a contest for your state's new license plate, is it really too much to ask that most of the choices don't suck?
Well, yes. Itis too much to ask if you live in Nebraska, where state government -- taking political correctness and inclusiveness to new heights -- apparently had students from the (deep breath) Nebraska Center for the Education of Children Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired (ain't THAT a name and a half?) choose the license-plate finalists.
I mean, this (at right) is a finalist. For the love of God, stuff like this is what keeps Rush Limbaugh in business railing about the evil and incompetence of government.
Come on, what state official's brother-in-law did this? If the state wants to get into the graphic-design bidness, it should start by restricting the sale of Adobe software and making owners pay a yearly license fee.
Give the money to arts in the schools.
ANYWAY, I'm not the only one dismayed. Advertising and graphics-arts types in the Great State are livid the state opened up license-plate design to legislators' brothers-in-law instead of just awarding a contract to a Nebraska design firm.
From the NE Creative blog:
Here we go again... We went down this road already so you don't want to see my vent but this pisses me off. Bland license plates that will reflect our state as we drive to other states and others drive through our state. Spend some money, help a small design business out.
NE CREATIVE'S Zach Origitano then quotes from the Archrival youth-marketing agency's Facebook page:
The State of Nebraska is missing a huge opportunity. The license plate is more than just a functional sheet of metal, it's a branding opportunity. As the state tries to grow its tourism and change the perception of being a boring piece of flat land, it should think about all its touch points. The license plate could have been a big one. Instead of creating an image that enhances Nebraska, the four designs presented as our options do us one worse: it maintains and reinforces the status quo.
It's hard to critique the amateur designers--- they did the best they could and took part. In many ways we applaud them for making the effort to get involved. Rather, we have to look at the final designs as a result of the process. With an image opportunity so big, how could the State think it's even a semi-good idea to have an open-ended design contest? This would have been worth the time, effort and money to pay for the best talent the state has to offer. Nebraska has some incredible design talent. But you won't get them through a non-paid open call for entries. Instead, you'll get the amateur works you see with our final four. You get what you pay for.
OH, I DON'T KNOW.Yes, the amateur designs selected by the state stink. Well, that's not entirely true . . . a couple are competently done, if not exactly inspired or original. But I keep thinking professionals -- high-priced professionals, no less -- came up with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution redesign.
Face it, pros can suck as bad as anyone.
So, I think the problem we have here is one of suckage and not of amateurism. I mean, I'm an amateur designer, and my first reaction to the story today in the Omaha World-Herald was "I can do better than any of these."
So I figured I'd try. It took me about an hour or so from conception to finish. The result is at the top of this post.
I thought I'd go for a blend of simplicity, Nebraska tradition and breaking the mold.
MEANWHILE, the whimsical artwork of the crusty old "cornhusker" is taken from the pre-1962 logo for the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers:
THEN, I just brought back Nebraska's traditional license-plate slogan, "The Cornhusker State."
It was as simple as that. I don't think it sucks, and I think it injects an element of whimsy that laughs at how folks on the coasts try to stereotype Nebraskans. Of course, what do I know about "branding"?
Then again, you get what you pay for. The designers all said.
The American newspaper is dead, and we just need to start figuring out what replaces it. We need to start figuring out what keeps quality journalism alive.
I don't have any empirical data telling me the newspaper is dead, dead, dead. I do, though, have a nose that can smell a rotting corpse.
And when this(see right) is the best a major metro newspaper can come up with for a redesign, the parrot has expired.
Of course, the people who have gotten newspapers into their present state of repose would just have us believe that institutions like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution aren't dead, they're just pining for the fjords.
THE EDITOR of the Journal-Constitution, Julia Wallace, is one of those trying to convince us her newspaper is not an ex-parrot:
Nearly two years ago, we set out to chart a course for the future. As information habits changed and more of our print audience shifted to the Internet, we knew the status quo was not an option. A struggling economy only added to the challenge before us.
We thought the best answers would come from our readers. We talked to thousands of them. They guided us to the new product you’re holding in your hands today.
This daily newspaper is one designed for newspaper readers. For years our industry has chased those elusive nonreaders. Our market research led us down a different path. What we’d have to do to win over those nonreaders risked driving away our core readers. We believe we can thrive by increasing the satisfaction of those who already engage with us regularly. So . . . you see a newspaper that looks and reads very much like a newspaper.
We’ve invested millions in press upgrades, more color and a more newsy, sophisticated look. We hired an award-winning design firm, Lacava Design, from Montreal to help us create a newspaper that is easy to use and filled with information.
Also along the way, we found ways to do things more efficiently. Our reader feedback proved valuable when economic necessities forced us to scale back plans and coverage. It was our readers who helped us set priorities for what to keep and what could be sacrificed.
WE TALKED to thousands of readers. (We're blaming it on our audience research.)
We hired an award-winning design firm. (We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for this turkey. After all, nothing says "In touch with north Georgia like designers from Montreal." I'll bet the TV listings have the late news coming on at 2300h.)
We adopted a more newsy, sophisticated look. (We laid off all our photographers.)
This paper, and others just like it, are bleedin' demised because editors and publishers didn't see the handwriting on the wall two decades ago and start looking for a new way forward. Since, classifieds have disappeared into a black hole called Craigslist, readers have abandoned print at warp speed for various Internet offerings and The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central -- Comedy Central! -- are where smart political commentary and sharp writing have gone to hide out.
NEWSPAPERS, on the other hand, are where the corncob suppositories at least keep the grim reaper alert for the next spate of layoffs.
The Daily Blab isn't dying because it didn't do enough readership surveys and tracking of how members of focus groups say they use the newspaper. The Daily Blab is "pinin' for the fjords" because of the one thing editors and publishers have forgotten: Imagination.
They couldn't imagine a future different from the printed past. They couldn't imagine, amid their MBA armies of men uniformed blue suits and red ties, that newspapering -- indeed, journalism -- is just as much artform as it is science.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution front page you see is the result of research and science. It reflects none of the passion, art and creativity involved in bringing the news to one's neighbors . . . every day.
The news is an ongoing conversation -- one cooked up with equal parts yelling, reasoned argument, compassion, "just the facts, ma'am," fire in the belly, smartassery, sobriety and a good belly laugh. What you see here is a research report.
It's what everybody said they wanted in a newspaper. Only lifeless. And the Internet Revolution will proceed apace. Without newspapers.
YOU WANT TO KNOW what really gave me that gut feeling of doom? The moment I noticed the dead parrot had been nailed to his perch by the pet-shop editor owner?
At a time when newspapers are in a fight for survival in the Internet era, one is fighting back with an ad campaign that positions the paper as a chance to escape the tyranny of digital devices in everyday life.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has rolled out a new "Unplug. It's Sunday" campaign to promote the old-school Sunday newspaper as a refuge from the constant buzzing and beeping of smart phones, instant messages and e-mail that marks the modern workweek. The campaign, which runs until the end of the year, coincides with a recent redesign of the paper.
The Cox Enterprises paper is ironically turning to a digital agency to make the case for print.
The campaign, which costs over $1 million, is designed, in part, to reach readers of the AJC who don't get the paper on the Sunday, said Amy Chown, vp of marketing. It isn't meant to replace their Web use with the paper, she added.
"This is not an anti-Internet campaign," Chown said. "It’s not that we don’t want them to read us online. We wanted to balance the use of AJC.com during the week with the paper on Sunday."
"It's about how to reposition the newspaper," said Tony Quin, CEO of IQ Interactive, the independent Atlanta digital shop that created the campaign. "We came up with the idea as a counterpoint to the digital cacophony that exists in everyone's lives. Sunday is the day to relax and do something different than you do the rest of the week."
I GET A MENTAL IMAGE of buggy-whip makers putting up billboards saying "Horseless carriages are noisy, and shoveling manure is good for you."
The ink-stained wretches in Atlanta could have saved themselves a lot of money and embarrassment. Before launching such a pointless and stupid campaign, they could have done one more bit of audience research.
They could have tried to pry a cellphone out of a teen-ager's hand and see what happened.
The Omaha World-Herald, as it sheds employees and cuts back its circulation area, actually paid a pollster to see whether Omahans think the footbridge across the Missouri River is oh, so good or oh, sooey much budgetary lard.
The Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge, financed mainly with a $19 million federal earmark, has been controversial from it inception. Now it is a popular gathering point for families, bikers, runners and tourists.
But what do Omahans really think about the bridge linking Omaha and Council Bluffs?
See the results of The World-Herald Poll in Monday's newspaper. And watch for other poll results on the important issues facing Omaha in The World-Herald all this week.
TO BE FAIR, the pollster also was checking on important things, like the upcoming mayoral election. But you have to figure adding such stupidity to the poll effort didn't exactly make it any cheaper to conduct.
And what if Omahans don't like "The Bob"? What are we gonna do? Spend a few million more to tear it down?
File this poll under "Don't know. Don't care." And if you're the World-Herald, save the money it cost for this bit of pointless polling and buy an extra case of pencils or something.
See what I mean? The virtual photography possibilities are virtually endless . . . and Omaha offers a lot to photograph.
VIRTUALLY, of course. Or tangibly, if you roll "old school."
With Google's 360/180-degree photographic bubble on its "street view" function, you get to pick your own virtual "shot." Just like the "real" thing. Sort of.
Above is a shot of downtown's Gene Leahy Mall, facing westward, taken from the 10th Street bridge over the park's central lagoon.
Hey! If nothing else, just say I've discovered a great -- and creative -- time waster.
Here, in the Googledy view of Omaha, we have the old refusing to be intimidated by the towering hulk of the new.
ON THE LEFT is the Brandeis building, constructed in 1906 and added to in 1921. Originally the city's largest department store -- 10 whole floors of everything you ever needed -- the building now houses condominiums and apartments.
Meanwhile, on the right, is the new kid in town -- the First National Tower, opened in 2002 and the city's tallest building at 40 stories. It's the corporate headquarters of First National Bank.
The other day, I was doing a virtual drive through my hometown, during which I discovered the artistic -- the virtual photographic -- possibilities of the "street view" option on Google Maps.
Tonight, I thought I'd do the same with my present home, Omaha., Neb. Likewise, I thought I'd try the same subject matter -- the original transmission tower outside the studios of one of the city's venerable television stations.
So, here's the "street view," artistically selected, of KETV, Channel 7, at 27th and Douglas Street in downtown Omaha. I call this photography for the Facebook age.
AND I DO THINK there are possibilities in this for developing students' "artistic eye" in the classroom . . . and for photographers planning cityscape shoots before they get to the city and have to shoot "scapes."
On a personal level, though, I find I can just go to Google maps and virtually do what my late father-in-law did tangibly more than half a century ago when crews were erecting the Channel 7 tower, now the station's auxiliary transmission site.
OMAHA was a smaller place in 1957, television still had a large element of the whiz-bang to it and -- face it -- pleasures largely were of the "simple" variety. At least comparatively.
Back then, as a promotional thing, the future Channel 7 started the KETV Tower Watchers Club, and Dad was "hereby admitted to the circle of those who regularly observe the rise at 27th and Douglas Streets of this newest addition to Omaha's skyline."
I probably would have joined, too.
After all, I am the guy coaxing virtual art photography out of the functional, "how the hell to I get there" world of Google's "street view" gizmo.
