Friday, May 08, 2009
HeraldTrib Today: May 7, 2009
I had a snarky piece already to go about how tough it was to find the Sun Gazette's coverage of its parent company's troubles on its web site.
(The parent, American Community Newspapers Inc., filed for Chapter 11 protection at the end of last month.)
But I see the coverage is on page 10 of the current print edition. Good. (I don't actually like being snarky it just makes us all defensive, and that's not a good position for journalists to be in.)
Scott McCaffrey, the Sun Gazette editor, has been covering his parent company's troubles, but only on his blog, which no doubt gets far less readership on the main news pages.
Here’s the really interesting part: in one of the blog posts, there’s a link to “read the story here”. It’s an actual news story that has a date stamp of April 29, but I went back to find it on the main site, and not there! So, the story exists, you just have to know to look for it. When you click the story, it says it is archived in "hot news." Was it posted there? Here, and only here, is the Sun Gazette story on line.
I wrote about the story last week. After I covered the story, I sent it to some area newsies who hadn’t heard (though I was nearly a week late in my coverage), and then I sent it along to my realtor (who I talk with or email daily) who said he hadn’t heard anything. He also said he would have liked to have known this as his office does a lot of advertising with the Sun Gazette (no kidding!).
People, in other words, seem interested in this as news, not banter, Scott. You probably should have made sure this story stayed on the main News site, not just on your blog.
By the way, Scott, I liked the first blog entry you posted yesterday with the headline: “That’s why you shouldn’t let amateurs loose in the newsroom." It got my snark way up! I was happy it hadn't been aimed at me. (In fact, you've been very nice to me and my blog lately. I'll admit it makes me nervous.)
And so that this joke isn't only inside baseball, Scott was poking at the Loudoun Times-Mirror which quoted its own staff in a story about the Sun Gazette's parent company filing for Chapter 11 protection. Unfortunately, the Loudoun paper apparently did not mention that the people quoted were their staff--reason enough to poke them.
When I went back to find the post for my own snark-filled reasons, at 9:13a.m., I found the post was was gone! At noon it came back on-line with a different headline and different content. (As Scott would say,“Whoopsie” —we’ve all hit “post” when we don't mean to.)
Today, the blog covers the same story (I think) but gets angry at the misspelling of the Sun Gazette's name.
If you read the actual newspaper, drink beer, and feed your kids beans from cans, you know what joy it is to get the big, blue recyclable canisters.
My family and I recycle everything we can—newspapers, envelopes, sheets of paper (including the 80 or more that come home every Friday in the kids’ folders), bottles, cans, plastics. We’re still unpacking, so we have corrugated and flat cardboard. Tissue boxes, toilet paper rolls, milk jugs. Everything. Pull the cardboard tag off a new shirt? Yup, into the recycle bin. This is something I’ve taken from Arlington Oaks. I was on the board and active in the community while there, so I know that recycled waste was cheaper to haul away than garbage destined for the landfill. So I did my part to save the condominium a few bucks a year. When I arrived at the new house about six blocks away (in Arlington Forest, aka “West Buckingham”), I found the yellow recycling bucket on the back porch, lacking. The sorry excuse for a container worthy of saving the environment had broken sides and was, at best, half the size of what we required. Because of its small and lidless design, on Wednesdays (just before garbage day) our back porch looked like a small landfill. I think the squirrels (stupid squirrels!) even took out some of the items hoping to find remaining food. But now, now we have reached recycling Nirvana! I am at peace and in love!
The students that I mention in my essay, below, are back together (didn’t see that coming). I was rather surprised, I’ll admit, that they broke up just in time for me to write the essay!
The race for the House of Delegates’ 47th District gets weirder by the minute. The chatter I have heard and read seems to leave people in the dark as to what the endorsement by POTUS-42 means. Turn out on June 9 for the Democratic primary will be the key, I’m guessing. Will an endorsement by the former Commander-in-Chief be enough? We’ll see…
The Week’s Headlines…
As always, you can scroll down to see all the recent stories, or simply click the links below (if the link doesn't work, scroll down to find the story, and email to tell me what's busted: heraldtrib@gmail.com --Steve Thurston).
Headlines from Earlier in the Week:
Public Service Announcements
Labels: 47th, environment, sun gazette
Monday, May 04, 2009
Sun Gazette Parent Co. Files Chap. 11
"ACN will continue to operate its businesses, during the reorganization process. There will be no change in the Company's day-to-day operating activity and its newspapers will continue to serve their local communities, readers and advertisers without interruption," ACN said in a statement on April 28.
“A difficult economic environment and weak advertising market have created a number of challenges for our industry and our company,” said the company Chairman, Gene Carr, in the statement.
In separate statements, the company wrote that it would consider selling papers, but closing them is not likely, and that the restructuring should not affect readership or advertising clients.
Within 90 days, the company plans to pull out of the reorganization stronger their statements say.
The Sun Gazette nearby covers the northern Virginia communities of Arlington and northern Fairfax counties.
Related sites…
Labels: acni, bankruptcy, sun gazette
Sunday, February 08, 2009
HeraldTrib Today Feb. 8, 2009
In a story about Alan Howze’s entry into the race for the 47th legislative district (he’s the fifth to enter), the Arlington Connection’s David Schultz also mentioned that Ashton Heights Civic Association President Ted Bilich was considering a run. I’ll admit this was news to me. Read David’s full story here.
Scott McCaffrey, editor of the “Big Dog” newspaper, Arlington's Sun Gazette, wondered on his blog if my rather snarky comment on the Jan. 25 HeraldTrib Today was in jest. I wrote:
“A Jan. 12 article in the Wall Street Journal reports that David Lereah, a chief economist with the National Association of Realtors, was asked to make his predictions rosier than they really were, especially just before the housing market hit crisis levels.
“The Journal wrote: ‘[Mr. Lereah] says he was pressured by executives to issue optimistic forecasts -- then was left to shoulder the blame when things went sour. ‘I was there for seven years doing everything they wanted me to,’ he said, looking out his window to his tree-filled yard in this Washington suburb.’
“Funny that Scott McCaffrey has not written about any of this in the Sun Gazette.”
A bit snarky, I’ll admit, but my point is this:
The Sun Gazette covers the real estate market more than any other news source in Arlington. If the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors says he was pressured to make his analysis of the numbers rosier, perhaps the Sun Gazette should give a call to the economist and others in the industry and find out for itself if the Sun Gazette has been misled.
The sort of reporting the WSJ ran makes me wonder if the Sun Gazette’s coverage is accurate. A note from the editor saying that he has looked at the issue and has made adjustments as needed would go a long way to making me trust the paper. If no adjustments are needed, then explain why not and write that.
Newspapers do this sort of thing whenever they find out a source has gone sour, even if it is just sour grapes.
Had Scott McCaffrey done this, he would have also found the correction and clarification the WSJ ran which says Mr. Lereah was not asked really to cook the books when projecting, but just to make the current numbers look nicer than they were. All of that is worth a phone call or two, I think.
Instead of running a story about this, however, the “Big Dog” talked about how far he can reach when he urinates (read the blog post here). That is both gross and off-topic.
Generally, when newspapers talk about being dogs, they talk about being watchdogs protecting their readership. When you’re a watchdog, nobody cares how far you piddle, just that you’re guarding the house.
The Week’s Headlines…
As always, you can scroll down to see all the recent stories, or simply click the links below (if the link doesn't work, scroll down to find the story, and email to tell me what's busted: heraldtrib@gmail.com --Steve Thurston).
Headlines Since the Last HeraldTrib Today:
Labels: politics, sun gazette
