A little comma-doctoring for the WaPo

Betting on Hype Tech
I have to get in a little comma-doctoring now and then, and when one of the nation's major dailies gives me the opportunity in the lead sentence of a Page 1 story, I simply won't resist it.

By Kim Hart and Tomoeh Murakami Tse
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 1, 2007; Page F01

For the giddy Apple groupies who spent hours, or days, in line for an iPhone, it all came down to the final reward: snagging a new technology for $600 that has yet to prove itself.

So, how does $600 prove itself, really? Or perhaps they meant to say, "snagging a new technology that has yet to prove itself, for $600." Maybe even, "snagging, for $600, a new technology that has yet to prove itself."

Ya think? I personally would dump the snazzy "snagging" and go with "spending $600 on a new technology that has yet to prove itself." But that's just me, and that lead sentence is supposed to be catchy.

WWAY-TV and ethics: it's worse than I thought

As I wrote not long ago, I really don't look for reasons to write about the people at WWAY, but they seem to try really hard to give them to me.

This is just stunning. Stunning actually doesn't begin to describe my reaction - I wrote earlier about a "news" story about a company award won by the local BMW dealer, but even then I tried to give the benefit of the doubt, and thought perhaps it was just an ethical slip on the part of some junior members of the sales and/or news staff, perhaps born of inexperience. And I thought, when I wrote earlier about "Dancing with WWAY," that it was nothing more than one of the stupidest sweeps series I ever saw.

WWAY TO GO: LIVE, LOCAL, INTERACTIVE
But no, as this article published on TVNewsday, a subscription-only trade website (but almost certainly mostly written by WWAY staff themselves) brags loudly and lustily, they are proud of the success of a new plan to completely disregard the separation between sales and news. The article even reports that the ridiculous failure (as a news series at least) "Dancing with WWAY" earned them $5,500 for that ethical breach. I don't have time to go into the Mother's and Father's Day promotions, which were equally stupid if not quite so annoying, and apparently just as unethical.

Weatherman Chris Phillips was a good sport about it, but nonetheless seemed rather pained to be participating in "Dancing" even before he was actually injured and had to sit out the rest of the "contest." Stephanie Beecken, on the other hand, threw her entire talentless self into it. While it is probably accurate to describe him as one of "two of our most popular news talent," how on earth could they include her in that?

Even after the pretty much complete turnover of the newsroom over the past year, it is ludicrous to claim that yet another imported bottle blonde is even familiar to anyone in Wilmington, much less "popular," after three months here. I had felt sorry for her up till then, definitely including her in the list of those I mentioned earlier who arrive here on their "first or second jobs out of college and spending one contract term here working for their big break somewhere else, or showing us and themselves why they don't have what it takes to get any further." While I wasn't thinking of her specifically when I wrote that, she is definitely in the latter camp. The only talent I have observed in her thus far is an entirely uncalled-for self-esteem. She wasn't bad at the dancing, but who gives a flying flip about that? I just noticed on the WWAY website (no link in order not to give them more traffic to brag about) that even after his injury, Chris still somehow won the contest - that would pretty well underscore the lack of "popularity," then, wouldn't it?

Getting back to the real subject here, the ethical impropriety of selling a news series, I am basically flabbergasted. The slogan "Live, Local, Interactive" doesn't mean that you do news items just for the sake of getting ad revenue out of a sponsor. I used to say that perhaps it's OK to solicit and credit donations of clothing, decorations and services for the news set and anchors, but apparently that was the slippery slope that let these people end up in the ethical swamp at the bottom of anyone's acceptable news ethics guidelines.

They should be ashamed, and in another day, they would be facing FCC investigation, I truly believe.

In case you think I'm exaggerating the absolute wrongness of this practice, see this article on the website of the Poynter Institute, acknowledged as one of the leading sources of journalistic guidance. The article is three years old, but I can't imagine that the wall between news and sales that had existed for decades has fallen in that period of time. Here's the best, most applicable, quote, with my emphasis added:

Candy Altman also views these challenges from the corporate level as vice president of news for Hearst-Argyle Television. She says the news/sales line ethical dilemma "continues to raise its ugly head."

"Thankfully, our company is very clear on this issue," Altman says, "but I still hear horror stories about deals being made to sell news content that should not be for sale."

(I'm pasting this entire article below in case WWAY realizes that this isn't something they want to brag about, and takes it off their website. I've added emphasis on the key points mentioned above.)

Market Share by Arthur Greenwald: WWAY TO GO: LIVE, LOCAL, INTERACTIVE
TVNEWSDAY, May. 21, 6:21 AM ET

The ABC affiliate in Wilmington, N.C., is finding success with "just right" promotions that involve viewers and rely on the humblest of new media—e-mail.

By Arthur Greenwald

When it comes to new media, small- and medium-market stations face the classic Three Bears dilemma.

Too few interactive features make a station look dated and permit competitors to gobble up online advertisers.

But too much fancy digital content can waste money and staff time, while delivering a minimal boost to ratings and revenue.

But those clever Goldilocks at WWAY in Wilmington, N.C., have got it just right. The Morris Multimedia ABC affiliate has branded itself as WWAY-TV3: Live, Local, Interactive! They achieve all three with a smart and selective combination of old and new media.

To make certain the station lives up to its slogan, General Manager Andy Combs ordered his team to scrutinize every daypart for opportunities to add a local slant and, when possible, an interactive twist. But there was a catch. Combs insisted that each innovation prove cost-effective.

That was just fine with News Director/Senior Strategist Jack Pagano, who set about refreshing both the station’s newscasts and Web site with the most tried-and-true of all "new media"—e-mail.

"We invite viewers to comment on every story, and they certainly have a lot to say," says Pagano. "We’ve been able to build viewer opinions right into the newscasts, in the form of e-mail [excerpts] and direct viewer polls. (Click here and see what WWAY viewers say about immigration reform and other stories.)

"It worked so well," adds Internet Sales and Marketing Director Charlie Bragg, "that we wanted to see what we could do with ABC primetime."

Not long ago, MarketShare asked why more ABC affiliates weren’t leveraging the network’s solid success with Dancing With The Stars. It turns out that this ABC affiliate was, well, WWAY ahead of us.

"We created Dancing With WWAY," says Bragg, "and we built it around two of our most popular news talent: meteorologist Chris Phillips and reporter Stephanie Beecken." In fact, Phillips and Beecken are the only contestants, locked in a running battle for weekly bragging rights.

Although the newsroom colleagues dance in tandem, "our viewers decide each week who"s the better dancer," explains Pagano. "Chris and Stephanie have to learn the same steps as the primetime contestants."

Making sure they do is Babs McDance, a local dance studio and social hall that Bragg quickly signed up as a series sponsor. "Neither was an especially good dancer before starting lessons," says Bragg. "So viewers could really appreciate their progress as they followed along at home."

And follow they did, thanks to weekly news features, which Internet Director Chase Clark repurposed as online videos on a dedicated Web page. Viewer response was so enthusiastic that tomorrow (May 22) the station will celebrate the season finale of Dancing With The Stars with a live event. All of Wilmington is invited to the Babs McDance studio to applaud ABC’s primetime winner and, more important, to cheer on Phillips and Beecken in their final face-off.

It’s like a combination of a local contest and an Oscar Night Party," crows Pagano. "We’ve even lined up another sponsor, Chelsea’s Wine Bar and Eatery, which is donating refreshments for attendees, just as Babs McDance is donating the location."

Whoever triumphs, WWAY has taken steps to ensure that the real winner is Wilmington. In lieu of tickets, viewers are asked to make a donation at the door. "One hundred percent of the proceeds go to the Lower Cape Fear Hospice," says Pagano, who predicts hundreds of attendees.

According to Bragg, this promotion netted the station around $5,500 in new revenue, on air and online, from Babs McDance alone, not bad for the 136th DMA. The station earned added value in the form of increased viewer interest in the newscast and online. There was even a bonus effect: it seems that eavesdropping on Chris and Stephanie’s lessons inspired WWAY viewers to get up and try it themselves.

"We heard from several senior citizen homes that residents were imitating the steps on their own, and even demanding dance lessons," says Pagano. "Naturally we sent out our crews and got some very nice feature stories."

Indeed, the viewer response to Dancing with WWAY was so encouraging that midway through the promotion, the station quickly scheduled another: a Queen For A Day-style campaign with an interactive twist they called Make Your Mother’s Day.

Jump-started with an appealing promo shot at a local elementary school, the campaign invited viewers of all ages to write to the station and explain why their moms deserved a day of luxury. Over 150 responses soon followed, mostly by e-mail, but some by fax and regular mail.

Charlie Bragg’s team made sure that Wilmington’s Top Mom was showered in prizes, provided by the six local sponsors who also spent a collective $3,500 on airtime and online ads.

The station received so many thoughtful entries that despite many hours of overtime, the newsroom staff was hard-pressed to select just one winner. But choose they did, along with six runners-up who received large bouquets, thanks to the extra generosity of one of the sponsors, Azalea Coast Florist.

(See the Make Your Mother’s Day Promo and winning entries by clicking here.)

Just like Dancing With WWAY, the Mother’s Day promotion resulted in a big boost to the station’s Web traffic. So much so that they’re ready to launch a third promotion for—you guessed it—Father’s Day. But the deadline will be a few days earlier so they can once again compliment a Web-based contest with traditional TV production.

"We plan to surprise the winner by presenting the prizes during our newscast." says Pagano. "We’ll knock on the winner’s door and surprise him live on the air."

Which could lead to yet another interactive feature on administering CPR to a shocked father.

Market Share by Arthur Greenwald focuses on successful station promotions of every shape and size. Have you produced the Mother of All Marketing Campaigns? Don’t keep it a secret. Let us share your success with your colleagues around the country. Write to Arthur at greenwald@tvnewsday.com.

To criticize someone else's usage, get yours right

Today's really the day for the Durham newsroom of the News & Observer. A third blog item, from the education beat reporter, gets all snotty about the local school system using a tricky word wrong, arguably. However, the post, School policy uses poor grammar, is itself wrong out of the gate by using the word grammar to gripe about a usage error.

Here's my post in reply:
The error in the item you are so distressed about is not of grammar but of usage - and by calling it grammar you have committed an equal error of usage.

See Lingua ex Machina, from MIT Press:

grammar Not to be confused with socially correct usage. In order to handle novel sentences, we not only need to access the words stored in our brains but also the patterns of sentences possible in a particular language. These patterns describe not just patterns of words but also patterns of patterns. There are three aspects of grammar: morphology (word forms and endings), syntax (from the Greek "to arrange together" – the ordering of words into clauses and sentences), and phonology (speech sounds and their arrangements). A complete collection of rules is called the mental grammar of the language, or grammar for short.

The Maven's Word of the Day from Random House suggests doing what I do - avoiding the word altogether - at the same time it quotes no less literate an author than Saul Bellow as using it the "wrong" way that upsets you so badly.

"Put together the slaughterhouses, the steel mills, the freight yards...that comprised the city" (Saul Bellow).

The American Heritage Dictionary allows that:

Even though careful writers often maintain this distinction, comprise is increasingly used in place of compose, especially in the passive: The Union is comprised of 50 states. Our surveys show that opposition to this usage is abating. In the 1960s, 53 percent of the Usage Panel found this usage unacceptable; in 1996, only 35 percent objected.

So I would suggest you unknot your panties and pay attention to something really important.

Sophomoric hijinks at the News & Observer

The News & Observer's Bull City blog, covering Durham, appears to have been taken over by 8th-graders. One entry today made fun of firecracker-safety tips provided by the Durham Fire Department, and another consisted of an informal contest to write a caption for a photo of a man with his head under the tail of the city's large bronze Bull Durham statue.

I posted the following comments on the blog, and after the second item appeared, sent an email including both of the comments to Melanie Sill, the managing editor, and to Rob Waters, the Durham editor. I received two responses quickly: one from Ms. Sill, telling me that she couldn't reply without knowing who I am, and one from the author of the firecracker item, telling me to lighten up. Interestingly enough, he did that only in a direct email, and not as a comment on the blog.

Following is the email exchange with Ms. Sill:

June 25, 2007, 5:40 PM
TO: Melanie Sill
From: Bella Parola
Subject: Is anyone paying attention to the Bull's Eye blog?

This makes two incredibly juvenile posts on that blog today. Are there no adults paying attention?

RE: Firecrackers: The Silent Killer
Are there any adults paying attention to what you people do over there? The tone of this post is completely inappropriate and downright disrespectful for a newspaper that claims to be doing community service - this is not the Lampoon, nor Weekend Update, nor the Simpsons or whatever ridiculous prime-time cartoon that begat your character above. I think people who shoot off fireworks are idiots, but mass media that claim a public-service mission are beholden to at least try to take these kinds of messages seriously.

RE: Insert clever punchline here
How sophomoric and totally inappropriate for the News & Observer. This kind of photo is fine for internal newsroom yucks, but I don't think there is any reason to share it on the website in this fashion. Grow up.

From: Melanie Sill
Date: 2007/06/25 Mon PM 05:50:31 EDT
Subject: Re: Is anyone paying attention to the Bull's Eye blog?

If you'd care to identify yourself, I might be able to reply to this note.

June 25, 2007, 6:04 PM
TO: Melanie Sill
From: Bella Parola

As I have said before, I fail to see what difference that makes. You were able to reply, by using that handy feature on your email program, and I have received your reply - which indicates only that you choose not to address any issue unless it's presented by someone you can identify. I am not interested in providing comments or correspondence for attribution in the paper (or elsewhere) and so cannot understand why you insist on knowing who I am.

I have no connection to the News & Observer, or to any other media organization, but I do care about the news and about how it is presented. If you care more about identities than the quality of your product, that is not my problem.

From: Melanie Sill
Date: 2007/06/25 Mon PM 06:09:54 EDT

Basically, I think people who send anonymous email are somewhat cowardly, especially when they are criticizing others. I generally don¹t reply.

Date: 2007/06/25 Mon PM 06:23:18 EDT
To: Melanie Sill

You are welcome to that opinion.

I think people who ignore reasonable criticism based on an inapplicable journalistic standard are ivory-tower snobs.

What difference would it make if my actual legal name were Bella Parola or Jane Doe? You don't know me, and you are not being asked to verify that I am a credible source of information in a published news item. I alerted you to inappropriate material on your website, which requires you only to click on the link and see it for yourself, not to validate my credentials.

Obviously we are on opposing sides of this issue, and I will not bother you again.

Leaping before an onrushing train

RE: Leaping before an onrushing train

This is a very interesting trend. However, I will quibble with your use of the statistic of the number of suicides in Japan vs. the U.S. Raw numbers from one country to the next rarely make for a meaningful comparison - while the rate, dividing the number into the population, does.

I also disagree strongly with your apparent alarm about families who receive a 'sizable insurance payout' from a train-track suicide being required to pay for the resulting delays. Who would you prefer to pay? And why would we not want to give those hellbent on self-destruction, and who are also insured in order to provide a reward for it to their survivors, a good reason to avoid flinging themselves in front of a train? I would think any way to reduce that particular method would be welcome. Carbon monoxide in a parked car isn't pretty, but only a very tiny number of first responders and/or family members are traumatized by it, while hundreds or thousands witness the train-flingings and many thousands are affected by the resulting delays.

Jousting a little with a much brighter light

G.D. Gearino, the late lamented columnist at the News & Observer, on his website Words Assembled Well, makes a couple of interesting points today about the Nifong spectacle and about journalists and political contributions. He is a heavyweight in the world of verbal sparring, but I don't mind a quick turn in the ring with him. Fortunately, I don't particularly disagree so it's not a real fight, more like trying to keep up the rhythm he started at the speed bag. (That was a long and interesting boxing metaphor, especially when you consider I detest boxing.)

Here's my reply to his post:

Thank you for making clear a mostly unmentioned meaning of the Nifong spectacle. I'm still too mad, and mulling over what how many others have to say about the lacrosse/Gell (as a glaring example, of course not the only instance) conundrum, to have written about it myself. Clearly, the impact of the prosecutorial misconduct is more severe in capital cases - but I believe that ardent supporters of the lacrosse players labor under the worldview wherein people of their class suffer equally, when they are inconvenienced or discomforted temporarily, as do lesser mortals when they are executed or incarcerated wrongfully for the bulk of their adulthood. There is a real belief that people of their station in life are of inherently higher value, and infinitely higher sensitivity. The same dichotomy is also visible to a more ridiculous extent in the discussions of the "persecution" of Paris Hilton.

I would quibble mildly with your assessment of the media political contributions. Don't most media employers prohibit any political activity, certainly including participating in a campaign in any way, on the part of the journalists (if not all employees) in their employ? I find it conceivable that people with strong political views hindered from expressing them in that most visceral of ways, by giving their own money to a candidate who they believe will pursue their views, may be more likely to sublimate those views in their work - not necessarily intentionally, but perhaps with the same result.

While most journalists adhere to the credo of objectivity, and many try hard to remain apolitical, things do change from the beginning of a career through the later years of it. Living and observing and caring all lead to the formation of beliefs more basic to one's being than mere opinion about current events - and while you have said you are a conservative and I definitely am not, I think we both, along with many others who use words to make a living, have no choice but to reflect our beliefs.

That said, I do tend to disagree that there is a liberal media bias - the values of the journalists being nicely balanced, and perhaps overbalanced, by the views of their corporate employers. And I don't think an analysis of media member's political contributions can prove it either way, because of the ban on contributions I mention above.

Looking a little different at WWAY News

It's too early to say exactly what the change is, but there are definitely some changes on the anchor desk at WWAY TV.

The hapless humanoid Kaci Christian appears to have been demoted from her three-month or so reign as 6 & 11 co-anchor with the slightly hapless Steve Rondinaro. I'm not sure exactly what his title, "managing editor," means, beyond an ego boost and an excuse to pay a middle-aged white man more than anyone else, but I assume it allowed him to transfer the energy he generated grimacing at her absolute, appalling, lack of ability to relate - to him, the weather people, the camera, the viewers and her subject matter - into a decision to back her out of the main anchor gig.

The long-suffering Ann McAdams, the only member of the adult sector of the newsroom (not counting Chris Phillips, who they definitely need not to force out!) to remain since new management came in swinging the budget scythe last year, has been restored to the 6 & 11 anchor chair next to Steve. She isn't the best anchor the world ever saw, but she is head and shoulders above the imported botox bimbo - and she has one of the key ingredients of an audience-building cornerstone of the newsroom: she is local and she's not going anywhere.

If there has been any mention on the air (which I really wouldn't expect) I have missed it, but the new configuration began the first of this week, I think, and it's reflected on the newsteam page of the WWAYtv3.com website, where Ann's photo has moved up next to Steve's, bumping Kaci down to the second tier of images, and her title has changed from Anchor/Producer to Evening Anchor, formerly the province of Steve and Kaci only. Kaci retains that title right now, but that could change as quickly as Ann's did, the move taking place one day and the title change later.

You don't have to look far to see that continuity and the level of trust and familiarity that come only with years of exposure, combined with an unspoken assurance that she's not spending half her time looking for her next job, are the keys to building and keeping a loyal local news following. Charlie Gaddy at WRAL, Larry Stogner at WTVD, Ken Murphy and Frances Weller at WECT - there's nothing groundbreaking about the rewards of having an authoritative, "permanent" face on your anchor desk. Spread the radius farther, and everywhere you look, the leading news sets in most markets are led by someone with not just years of experience but years in that very chair.

It's a given in this size TV market that the reporters and probably the second-tier anchors will be transients, probably in their first or second jobs out of college and spending one contract term here working for their big break somewhere else, or showing us and themselves why they don't have what it takes to get any further. (Kim Lehman at WECT/WSFX is the best anchor in the market by far, in terms of talent and performance, but at this point I don't think anyone has the feeling she's staying around. If she is, Frances' replacement is in the house!)

The only way to get audience loyalty is by getting and keeping a copacetic anchor team - including the weather folks and, everywhere but WWAY right now, including sports. Get Ann some speech therapy or a dental appliance to lose the lisp, and assuming her doctor-husband is happy here, you've got your main standby. The jury's still out on Steve - if he can tone down his hokey 80s-style selling of every word a little bit, and increase the already hugely improved chemistry with Ann vs. the total lack with Kaci, and if he and the management are both committed to the long run, he may be a keeper too. There is a pretty clear lack of news judgment over there, significantly more effort spent promoting stories than ensuring the reporters have a grasp of the subject they are addressing, so perhaps he can exercise the "managing editor" part more, too.

It's not rocket science, y'all ....

Product placement works - on WWAY news

I truly do not look for reasons to pick on WWAY. But the news item I saw last night about the local BMW dealer earning a 2007 "Center of Excellence Award" - from BMW, not some objective outside party - is the single worst instance of pandering I've ever seen.

I can't provide a link to the story, as they had the good sense not to post it on the website. But here's what I recall: it was an actual reporter package, with a soundbite from someone from BMW who looked like a deer in headlights, probably startled to have TV coverage of such absolute non-news. It was as gushy as if someone from UNC Wilmington had won the freaking Nobel Prize - ONLY the top 10% of dealers each year attain this pinnacle of customer satisfaction blah blah .....

OK, so there are about 350 BMW dealers in North America, which means that 35 of them won this award this year. In fact, a quick google finds that at least one other dealership in North Carolina won it this year - and they earned it in February, which I suspect would also be true of the local award. This award isn't for having the most kidney donors on staff. BMW says: "The Center of Excellence award is reserved for those dealers who excel in brand values and customer satisfaction while achieving key business objectives related to vehicle and parts sales. "

I wouldn't consider it worth a reporter package on the 6:00 news if they were named the very best BMW dealership in the country, but this is absolutely ridiculous. An internal company award is simply not real news, EVER and one announced four months ago isn't even slightly like news. If they want to buy commercial time and brag about it, that's fine, but it just doesn't get news coverage.

This was so transparently either a direct tie-in to an ad sale already made, or a big pitch to make one, that I almost lost my lunch. I suppose it's conceivable that an amateur news director might think it acceptable to call this news, but I simply can't believe the wall between ads and news has so completely crumbled.

Scholarship contest teaches self-confidence

Star News

This is an exceptionally amateurish story. It builds expectation for some kind of revelation about our semi-Iranian neighbor, which never comes.

And why, pray tell, is the spotlight of a story about a scholarship contest on a non-winning competitor? I didn't call her a loser, because I am indeed impressed with her effort and do not wish to denigrate her accomplishment. But just because she's a cute blonde (actually, I'm not sure the photo accompanying the story online is her: the caption says "An aerial view looking North along Wrightsville Beach in 2005. " !!!) and apparently the writer thought her story was the most interesting doesn't mean she deserves the focus of the story. That should have been squarely on the WINNING competitors. Do a feature on her some other time, if you wish, but the story about the contest should be about the contest, I believe, and not give such short shrift to the actual winners.

Personally, I think the winning speech, while it may have been entertaining, sounds awfully fluffy to win a soberly named "Oratorical Contest." If they used an applause meter to pick the winners, that might make sense. It makes me wonder whether there is some back story to the judging process, like who is related to whom, and whether the "mission" orientation of the boy winner's speech contributed to his victory, that bears reporting on.

Finally, please get this reporter a dictionary and take away her thesaurus. The "patron" of an endeavor, when it means sponsor, remains the patron regardless of gender. Mrs. Williamson is NOT the "matron" of the event. If the writer, or editor, can't handle that conflict, then use sponsor or benefactor or supporter or namesake or donor. Matron is simply wrong. And while it was very big of you to actually mention who won, "discreetly ecstatic smile flitted" is about the stupidest description of a facial expression I've ever read outside of cheap romance fiction. It goes way beyond feature writing into the realm of treacle - use the dictionary on that one, too, while you're at it.

Personality features are nice, but fraught with the danger of showing inappropriate personal preferences on the part of the writer. This story succumbed to that danger.

A Reprieve for the Paddlewheel in Wilmington

Star News Forums

RE: A reprieve for the paddlewheel - editorial

See my post on the related news article here.

I'm disappointed that this editorial merely adds to the hot air about this issue. The museum "may want to use the paddlewheel in a fundraising campaign" is the best you can come up with?

Why don't you suggest that Mr. Merritt pull out his checkbook and keep the promise he made to throw in a big chunk of money to keep the boat here? You seem to be congratulating him for pulling personal political strings in pursuit of something personally important to him - isn't that the same as earmarks and pork and all the other political sins so often decried in these pages? Now that he got his way, there is no suggestion that he indeed bears responsibility for the expense.

To suggest as you do that the museum rethink all of its financial priorities and base a facility expansion on this boat is a real slap in the face to the people who run it. Are you laboring under the assumption that they have no strategic plans, that they have never considered what among their missions is important, and how much they could afford to achieve which of them?

I have no affiliation with the museum, in fact have barely set foot in it, but I've never heard anything to indicate that they are either clueless or profligate - rather that they do the best they can with very limited funding.

Americans often misuse the word "romantic" when what is being discussed is actually maudlin sentimentality. You have done precisely that here - if the romance with this boat were genuine, you and Mr. Merritt would have more to offer in terms of actual, financial support instead of this phony gushy love, like a baby-daddy who thinks he's doing his job when he brings a rose on Mother's Day but never sent a single support check.

Historic boat's future uncertain

Star News Forums

This May 8 article said:

The decision comes just hours before officials were to begin dismantling the engine and just days after downtown developer Gene Merritt has said he'd be willing to move and store the steam-powered paddle wheel at his own expense to keep it from leaving the Port City.

But today Mr. Merritt says:

"It's not leaving town, and as far as I'm concerned my mission is accomplished on that level," he said.

Now that the museum has pointed out that it would take a huge fundraising effort to get the boat restored and on display, Mr. Merritt is finished. It seems to me that if he were truly sincere, he would put a dollar figure on the table that he's willing to pay - based on the earlier grandstanding - so the fundraising can get started in a big way, right away. Otherwise, it appears to me to be a lot of self-serving hot air.

And now for something completely different

There's no media criticism in Wilmington, so I was in the mood to do some.

Star News Forums

I'm a little tired of the news itself, and wondering who and when will ever make a comment about the newest news team in town.

Grinny Ginny and her partner Ron Burgundy have been on Channel 3 for a couple of months now and while I did my best to give them a fair chance, I am just flabbergasted that anyone thought this was an improvement over Ann McAdams and Jon Evans.

Where do you start? Kaci Christian is probably the worst excuse for a main news anchor I've ever seen anywhere. She appears to have both the personality and intellect of a houseplant, but a carnivorous one that has been trained to bare its teeth when the lights come on, and to enunciate clearly. I have never seen anyone worse at camera changes, happy talk between segments, or applying the appropriate facial and vocal emotion to what she is reading. She will grin manically, batting the lashes on her caricature-sized eyes, as she lists the dead from a mass murder. I would joke that an AM radio station somewhere must be missing its traffic girl - except that it's true. How anyone bought her as a serious journalist, or even a good news reader, is simply beyond belief. I think it's testimony to the power of self-promotion. It's certainly not humility.

Steve Rondinaro probably isn't as bad as he seems to be as a result of debuting with her as a team. At least he's been to North Carolina before. He certainly has a nice voice and a particularly strong ability to use it to sell his stories. I don't know whether he's writing the promotional copy he reads - both during the news, as teases before commercials, and freestanding promos during other shows - but some of them are hilarious in their resemblance to 80's news parodies. He truly seems to have stepped out of a time machine from about 1981 - and pairing him with her only reinforces the worst aspects of his presentation.

Other things seem to have changed around there too. What the heck was this Dancing with WWAY garbage? Wasn't there any news for a whole month or whatever? The thing they did on Good Morning America was pretty stupid but at least they have a bigger budget to waste than these guys down here in Podunkville-size market.

Most of the reporters on Channel 3 seem to try hard to do a good job, but it's almost impossible for me to watch a whole show with those two on it. I end up laughing at the incredible stupidity of the blonde one and then giggling at the apparent eyelid paralysis of the other one, and the next thing you know it's the weather. But not the sports - apparently those two were so expensive to get that they don't have a sports department anymore. Gene Motley wasn't the best sports guy who ever lived, but people around here were definitely used to him, he still cared about his job after about 80 years doing it, and you could say he was an institution. The only thing I can imagine worse than being fired and replaced with a younger version is to be fired and replaced with Grinny-Ginny-and-Ron-Burgundy-do-SPORTS-too!!

Finally, while I was poking around the web, I found something that may explain a lot of this stuff. Perhaps this has something to do with the level of news judgment being exercised over there. The auteur of the behavioral music video - yes, that's what he calls it in this item on their website - Baghdad My Love - yes indeedy, that's the guy to figure out what's news right here in River City. If you're not familiar with high level information operations products, which he brags about as his background, you might want to do a little research and then get a little afraid every time you turn on Channel 3.

Congratulations .... you have printed spam in the newspaper

This is an email exchange with the News & Observer.

May 18, 2007, at 8:29 AM
Congratulations ... you have printed spam in the newspaper.

See text, same as earlier post

2007/05/21 Mon PM 05:41:58
Thanks for your reaction to the item in the News & Observer. By printing it, we meant to neither endorse the idea nor imply that it would be effective. Pesonally, I share the skepticism of anyone who doubts that loosely organized consumer boycotts will drive oil companies to their knees, but these kinds of boycotts are being talked about by a lot of people these days -- and that's the only reason for printing it. In a different format, of course (e.g., a news story), we would have discussed the potential effectiveness of the strategy.

May 21, 2007, at 7:29 PM
Thanks for your reply. I didn't infer endorsement, and I still object to your having printed it at all - the fact that it was not the individual's own original thought should have knocked it out of contention.

It's the same as printing a letter to the editor that arrives as a bad photocopy with "Dear N&O" scribbled at the top and the "sender's" signature at the bottom. As I attempted to point out, that particular message has been around since 2001 or so, and to print it as anything other than an example of the stupidest kind of spam is simply bad judgment of the worst sort.

Who Sets the Gas Prices?

News & Observer's Editors Blog
Sue's story was good, as her reporting usually is. So how does the N&O follow up the education it provided in that story? By printing spam in the newspaper today.

All week I have been yelling at people for passing along yet another stupid spam campaign about sticking it to the oil companies. Now the N&O in a total lapse of good judgment has decided to validate it by printing it, as below, in a "Love it/Hate it" feature. I am just flabbergasted.

Before passing along this kind of nonsense, whether from your own email to annoy your own friends or in the News & Observer's pages, I suggest you check out the validity at a site like Snopes. Here's their response to the SEVEN-YEAR-OLD bright new idea you have just shared.

Hate it
We are going to hit close to $4 a gallon by summer, and it might go higher! ... With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! ... For the rest of this year, don't purchase any gasoline from Exxon and Mobil. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices.

-- ARTHUR SHUMATE (PASSING ALONG IDEA FROM FRIEND), CARY

Which part of speech is that?

N&O Grammar Errors Forum
RE: Father finally reunites with children

" For years, Denis Mukoka has sweat over a mop and corralled shopping carts ..."

Has SWEAT? Most of us have sweat, but I think in this instance he may have sweatED.

Today it's more style than grammar

N&O Grammar Errors Forum
RE: Teen dies in Wake Forest accident

This story refers to a 17-year-old several times as a woman. Has the style changed recently? Or do you not use AP at the N&O? The cutoff between girl and boy or woman and man has always been 18, I thought. Perhaps you're working on the current NC legal conversion from juvenile to adult at 16, but this story just jangled my nerves.

Today's most annoying

N&O Grammar Errors Forum
Under the Dome:

" McKissick said he has owned homes in each of Durham's Senate districts since 1993."

Is that two districts, nine districts, or 22 districts? Seems germane to me, considering the expense of owning homes and the rarity of owning even two homes in the same city/county, much less more. I assume that there are two districts and he owns two homes. If the writer and editor wish to convey that succinctly, then the word is both, not each.

"Could GOP bring Dole down?

A top political observer said this week that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole could falter in her bid for re-election in 2008, but that North Carolina Democrats still have a tough road ahead of them."

I'm pretty sure GOP still means Republicans, and there isn't the slightest hint in this item that they intend to commit fratricide upon the good Senator. I nearly spit out my tea, wondering how that could be a subordinate item in the column, then read and realized it was just a stupid error.

Star News photo caption problems

Star News Forums

I won't go into a lot of detail as the last time I assessed the apparent professionalism of the online staff, they disappeared me for weeks.

This CQ business has been going on for months - it comes from whoever enters the information about the photograph into their computer archive, and CQ indicates the spelling has been verified. That makes this even funnier, as the person who wrote this added "I HAVE CALLED SGT. WILLIAMS AND THIS IS THE PROPER SPELLING OF HIS NAME" even though that is what CQ is supposed to stand for.

It is normally removed before publication, don't know why they don't bother to do it for the online edition, but then again I think we've already established that I don't understand a lot of how and what they do to the online edition ....

The "satalite" typo is separate but related, just more failure of whoever makes the online edition to do the most basic part of the job.

By the way, you missed the other typo in the same sentence, Pman - "Nesbit" Courts.

p.s. I also agree with you that this was a poor choice of photos to accompany the tax increase story. And the caption doesn't tie it into the story at all - maybe I missed it, but I don't see anything in the story about satellite offices or anything about morale or whatever the last sentence in the caption is referring to.

Remembering Halberstam

News & Observer Editors Blog

To clarify the statistic about black baseball players mentioned above: the report from the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport says that 8.4% of major league baseball players are AMERICAN, non-Hispanic blacks.

American black athletes, it seems, have moved from baseball to other sports because of the programs available to them in their youth, or perhaps because of community preferences for football and basketball or the increasing number of Michael Jordan and Warren Moon and Donovan McNabb role models.

The news is not that black people are being pushed out of baseball, as the striking decline might appear to indicate, but that people from other cultures now make up more of the player pool. There are also significantly fewer WHITE Americans playing major league baseball now, with 29.4% of players considered Hispanic, which could be black or white, American or not. However, the bulk of them are from Latin American countries, including Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and many of them would be considered black by any standard.

Under the Dome makes the leap

News & Observer Editors Blog
04/22/07 at 09:54
I have already weighed in on the topic of anonymity and posting. However, speaking of faults, I am posting this here because among other things wrong with it, the comment function on the new Dome blog doesn't work.

Your web folks appear to have unveiled that blog a little prematurely. Or do you truly think the names listed in the Profiles section are appropriate? Or worse yet, does someone think they are amusing?

I suspect the following politicians highlighted there might disagree with all three of the above concepts. (It's not ready, it's not correct and it's certainly not funny.)

Speaker John Hackney
U.S. Representative George Butterfield
U.S. Representative John Coble
Candidate Johnny Edwards
U.S. Representative Robert Hayes
"H. Majority Leader" Lindsey Holliman
U.S. Representative Douglas McIntyre
U.S. Representative Ralph Miller
U.S. Representative Joseph Shuler

I suppose you might argue that it's correct to list them by their given names, and I am assuming that that's what they all are, without researching every single one. But you don't follow that practice in the newspaper and no one else does either - and there is also disparity in the titles, with Jim Black listed as "Former Speaker" but Mr. Edwards disparaged with only "Candidate" - since when is that appropriate standing alone, without including either "presidential" or "former senator?" I also don't believe using "H. Majority Leader" or "S. minority leader," or for that matter, "Former speaker" is appropriate either. There's lots of room in that box, and you need to include the body in which each profiled individual serves - assuming, that is, that it is for the use of the general public on the web and not an internal document for those who already know who these people are.

This looks to me like the unsupervised and unreviewed work of an intern – or should I say, that would be the only possible explanation, while still not excusing its appearing in a product trumpeted on the top of the home page of your website. Most of the profiles indicate that they were last modified days ago, and still no one appears to have noticed a little problem. This does not bode well for the future of that web section.

05/07/07 at 14:43
I don't know whether any of you get email alerts about posts to this blog, so I may be speaking into the abyss here. Even so, I figure here is the place to note that a) the problems with the Dome website noted above have been fixed (mostly - apparently the unsuitable abbreviations don't bother you as much as they do me) and b) as of today, it appears the problem that was engineered into the "Printer Friendly" function some months ago has been fixed. I've only tried four or five articles, but they all resulted in an actual usable, printer-friendly page.

Thanks for paying attention, sort of, sometimes!