Jilted Journalists

SPJ's Town Hall Forum in San Francisco

2010-03-18T09:44:00.001-07:00

Passing this along from our San Francisco Friends:

SPJ Presents: “Your Views on Local News – A Town Hall Forum”

Community members will have a chance to discuss their views about the local news with a dozen leading figures in journalism, education, business and politics at a town hall meeting produced by the Society of Professional Journalists on Thursday, March 25.

“Your Views on Local News – A Town Hall Forum” will take place from 5:30-7:30 pm in the Koret Auditorium of the Main San Francisco Public Library in Civic Center. Admission is free.

We’ll discuss how the current crisis in the news industry creates opportunities for the public to help shape new kinds of journalism that contribute to a vibrant democracy. The conversation will explore strategies and business models for ensuring robust and reliable news coverage in a changing economic, technological and social environment.

Participants will include:

* Craig Aaron, senior program director, FreePress

* Mark Adkins, president, the San Francisco Chronicle

* David Callaway, editor in chief, MarketWatch.com

* Sandy Close, executive director, New America Media

* Paul Connolly, senior vice president, the TCC Group, manager of the Challenge Fund for Journalism

* Ron Dellums, Oakland mayor and former congressman

* Glenn Frankel, Pulitzer Prize-winning Stanford professor and former Washington Post London Bureau chief

* Lisa Frazier, publisher, Bay Area News Project

* Dr. Dina Ibrahim, assistant professor for Broadcast and Electronic Communications, San Francisco State

* Pat Kenealy, managing director, IDG Ventures SF

* Barry Parr, media analyst and entrepreneurial publisher, Coastsider.com; and

* Venise Wagner, Journalism Department chair, San Francisco State

Sandip Roy and Hana Baba of public radio station KALW-FM will moderate. The program will be recorded and broadcast by SFGTV, San Francisco’s government channel.

SPJ is the nation’s broadest-based organization devoted to encouraging the free practice of high-quality journalism in accordance with the highest ethical standards.

Going to the dogs - Find 2010 Westminster on TV

2010-02-14T11:00:00.011-07:00

(At right, WKC photo, "Stump" gets the 2009 Best In Show Trophy. Stump's formal name is "Ch Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee," a Sussex Spaniel " )

When the show is on
For local journalists with the assignment to see if there is a local dog in the 134th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show Feb. 15-16, or for others who may want a break from watching two-legged competitors and wish to tune into the four-legged furry ones, or for anyone with any reason, TV coverage is a bit scattered this year. Westminster's Web site offers this guidance:

USA Network and CNBC will be home to The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show presented by Pedigree®, for the 27th consecutive year in 2010. USA Network and CNBC airs exclusive live coverage from Madison Square Garden on Monday, February 15, and USA Network airs exclusive live coverage on Tuesday, February 16.

Schedule

NIGHT 1:
Monday, February 15
Hound, Toy, Non-Sporting and Herding Groups
8-9 p.m. (ET) live on USA Network
9-11 p.m. (ET) live on CNBC

NIGHT 2:
Tuesday, February 16
Sporting, Working and Terrier Groups, Best In Show
8-11 p.m. (ET) live on USA Network

Breed judging highlight videos are available throughout the day on Monday and Tuesday on the Westminster Web site. These highlights will be available after the show, as well.

To our West Coast viewers: Please note that the West Coast telecast is delayed for your time zone. Since results are posted to our Web site as they occur live, if you want to enjoy the drama of the moment, please avoid the Westminster Web site after 5 p.m. Pacific Time on each evening.

Other details: www.westminsterkennelclub.org/
A New York Times article about the money spent on promoting dogs gave us paws [good story but wrongly said WKC is on 'Animal Planet']. Read it here.

Pratt Jobs saved -- for now

2010-02-06T20:42:00.004-07:00

A couple of updates from Hartford:

Pratt & Whitney
Regarding our blog below about our five favorite business stories carrying froward from 2009 to 2010, the Hartford Courant reports that a federal judge on Feb. 5 forbade Pratt & Whitney from closing its Cheshire factory and a smaller East Hartford unit before December 2010 as planned. Comcast's NECN (at left) said machinists workers continued to celebrate Saturday.

(Scroll down to see our original post.)

Cabela's vs. Bass Pro

2010-02-01T13:39:00.008-07:00

We hope you appreciate like we did the juxtapositions of these two stories.

One is from The Buffalo News, where writer Donn Esmonde worries about the gamble Buffalo is taking on subsidizing a Bass Pro Shop for a largely taxpayer-funded Waterfront development.

The other is from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where writer Tom Daykin says not only did a taxpayer-subsidized Cabela's not pay off as promised, a Bass Pro Shop that's coming may make the promise of riches from Cabela's even tougher to get.

We know: different places, different cases. Still, is Milwaukee a lesson for Buffalo?

Your comments are welcome on whether these or other types of subsidies are worthy.

5 favorite business stories affecting 2010 economy

2010-01-03T12:09:00.008-07:00

See that stack of money with the googly eyes? That's the money Geico is saving on sales taxes in Amherst, NY, where it's expanding a call center.

Geico's story is just one of many 2009 business stories that will affect local economies in 2010. We list here the five we found most fascinating. Many carry a common thread: state and local tax incentives.

Much was written in 2009 about the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and federal stimulus dollars (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009). But state and local governments continued to offer varieties of incentives so communities could capture the holy grail of economic development: jobs -- no small feat when the unemployment rate is around 10 percent and corporations are looking to save money, especially on labor costs.

The Associated Press on Jan. 2 ran a story carried on msnbc.com saying some communities, in what's termed clawbacks, want incentives returned when companies don't hire as many workers as they say they will. It noted few national statistics are available on the use of incentives.

We don't look at incentives as right or wrong. Online comments posted with stories at news sites run the gamut from branding them as "corporate welfare" on one side or "welcome to socialism" on the other. Some blame government and union "thugs" for companies' troubles, others cite corporate greed.

Those who hold jobs subsidized by incentives no doubt earn more than if they were on unemployment. And their earnings continue to flow through their communities as they buy goods and services with the wages they earn.

We hope these five examples compiled from news reports cited below fascinate you too, and maybe stimulate you to contribute some finds of your own for our comments section.

Geico: Ensuring the insurer jobs
In August, Business First of Buffalo reported on an incentives package put together by the Amherst Industrial Development Agency for Geico for a call-center expansion. Geico, the paper said, already employs more than 1,700 in Amherst. The expansion would mean 91 hires immediately and 536 over the next decade as Geico branches out from car insurance to homeowners, renters, condominium, flood and boat insurance. An expansion would also mean buying about $1 million dollars in furniture that normally would generate $91,094 in sales taxes.

The agency said it would forgive the sales tax if Geico would expand in Amherst. The story pegged the Geico expansion's economic impact at $20 million.

Agency directors approved the tax break by a 4-1 count with only University at Buffalo Professor Stuart Shapiro dissenting. Shapiro said Berkshire Hathaway is a major shareholder in Geico and Berkshire Hathaway is chaired by billionaire Warren Buffett (at left).
“I think they can afford to pay sales taxes like the rest of us,” Shapiro said."
[Geico actually is a wholly owned subsidiary Berkshire Hathaway.]

Update: Geico went back for more. Minutes of the Amherst Industrial Development Agency's September 2009 board meeting show approval of $815,428.43 in sales tax savings over 10 years on purchases expected to be $9.3 million. They returned to lock in savings as New York's Empire Zone Program was changing.

But wait, there's more.

Berkshire Hathaway soon after offered to pay $26 billion for Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad. Bloomberg news, citing an SEC filing for the railroad deal, said Berkshire Hathaway shed about 21,000 jobs, or 8.6 percent, of its workforce between 2008 and 2009. About 100 of those jobs were at its Buffalo News, which includes Amherst its coverage area. A Dec. 20 Buffalo News editorial took the state to task for changing the rules of Empire Zones and noted twice that the change could harm Geico and its 1,500 jobs in Amherst. The online editorial and earlier news stories on the topic did not tell the newspaper's relationship to Geico.

Berkshire Hathaway in November reported earnings for the first nine months of 2009 were nearly $5 billion. Geico's pre-tax contribution was $459 million. The company does not break out the Buffalo News earnings but lumps them together in a group with "other services," including NetJets. The group's pre-tax loss for the first nine months of 2009 was $67 million as group revenue declined.

Mercury Marine: Fond du Lac vs. Stillwater
These are tough times for outboard motor maker Mercury Marine and its parent, Brunswick, a leader in marine, fitness, bowling and billiards products. But consumer spending on leisure times is down.

To cut costs, Mercury Marine considered shifting much of its manufacturing work from its Fond du Lac unionized plant to its Stillwater non-union plant, which also benefited from Oklahoma state tax credits through a legislative act dubbed the MerCruiser bill.

At least it's not Mexico, some observers told Jilted Journalists when the move looked certain.

Gannett Wisconsin Media, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Stillwater News Press and others covered various aspects of the deal-making with 2,000 jobs at stake.

Mercury Marine asked 850 Fond du Lac union members, reportedly earning about $40,000 a year each, for wage concessions and said if they didn't pass, they'd shift not only the manufacturing jobs but possibly the whole Wisconsin headquarters operation, too. The union first rejected concessions in an Aug. 23 vote, and Mercury said the manufacturing jobs were on their way to Stillwater.

Stillwater officials cheered.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle said his state came up with a $70 million incentive package including a combination of tax credits, grants and forgivable loans. The city of Fond du Lac offered up $3 million. Fond du Lac County offered up a low-interest, forgivable $50 million loan to pay for research into an environmentally friendly outboard motor and other company expenses. The loan would be funded by a half-percent sales tax, the county's first.
Mercury allowed the union a second vote Sept. 4.

Concessions passed.

Mercury agreed not only to stay in Fond du Lac, but to shift work and jobs there from Oklahoma.

Stillwater officials booed.

Mercury Marine repaid Oklahoma about $1.6 million in credits and announced the Stillwater plant will close in 2012.

Shoppers in Fond du Lac County will begin paying their new sales tax on April 1, 2010.
Stillwater officials said that although they are losing the MerCruiser plant, the near-deal put them on the economic development map and other firms are inquiring about locating there.
Brunswick reported a $462.2 million loss for nine months ending Oct. 3.

Republic Airways: Jobs land in Milwaukee, Indianapolis
Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings bought Midwest Airlines on July 31 and Frontier Airlines Oct. 1, and those moves set off a shift of workers that mainly landed in Milwaukee. The changes were covered by a range of media, including The Huffington Post, Denver Post, Denver and Milwaukee Business Journals, the Las Cruces Sun-News and others.

Incentives played a big role.

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter said, "The City of Denver and State of Colorado worked closely with Republic over the past few months in an effort to keep as many jobs as possible here locally. However, as competitive as our package was, Milwaukee offered incentives we simply didn't have available to us."

Those incentives are about $27 million in tax credits through 2021 vs. just $16.5 million in Denver.

Republic is moving about 200 maintenance workers from Denver to Milwaukee, where it also gets Midwest's hangar deal that isn't free but costs less than it would elsewhere.

About 100 Frontier call center jobs in Las Cruces, N.M., are going to Milwaukee. The Las Cruces center opened in 2000 and once employed 200 workers. It closed Dec. 15.

Republic is adding 300 jobs in Indianapolis, where it will be eligible for up to $4 million in incentives. About 140 of those jobs will be filled by dispatchers, engineers and crew schedulers moving from Denver, which will still retain 3,500 workers Frontier workers -- for now.
Republic Airways in November reported $19.5 million in net income for the first nine months of 2009.

Pratt & Whitney: Should they stay or should they go now?
Hartford, Conn.-based United Technologies plans to close its Pratt & Whitney jet engine repair and overhaul operations in Cheshire and East Hartford, Conn. The case was widely covered in The Hartford Courant/Fox 61; The New Britain Record-Journal and other news sites.

Pratt & Whitney says it wants to send most of the work performed by about 1,000 Connecticut employees earning around $90,000 a year (including overtime) to its Georgia, Singapore and Japan facilities. Pratt claims costs at its Columbus, Ga., repair operation are 40 percent lower than at Cheshire.

The machinists union offered $63 million in cost cuts (especially overtime) and Connecticut officials offered incentives they said were worth $100 million over five years.

Pratt said the offerings were not enough to close the cost gap and on Sept. 21 announced the closure, discussed as early as 2008, would go forward. The union sued the next day in federal court. A trial got under way Dec. 21 in Bridgeport.

United Technologies is also the parent of Hamilton Sunstrand aerospace products, Carrier air conditioners, Otis elevator and Sikorsky helicopters. The company in October reported net income of nearly $2.8 billion for the first nine months of 2009. In December, UTX issued guidance that its 2010 revenue will rise and its margins will improve based on a weak dollar and 5 percent workforce reduction.

Goldman Sachs: A Beehive State of activity
The nation's sixth-largest bank didn't get aid just from the federal government, Goldman Sachs is taking a handout in Utah. The state aid package was covered by The Salt Lake Tribune, Desert News and others.

Goldman Sachs in 2009 repaid its $10 billion TARP loan plus in July paid another billion-plus to redeem stock-purchase warrants.

On Sept. 10, Utah officials agreed to up their ante in Goldman Sachs incentives to $47.3 million from the $20 million granted a year earlier for a 375-worker expansion.

Goldman told the state it now expects to add 690 jobs, averaging $85,00 in wages and benefits, in 2010, bringing its total state head count to 1,040. Bank execs had told Utah officials they might expand elsewhere without the incentive.

The money is in the form of tax credits for 20 years.

Goldman expects to pay $1.7 billion in new state wages over the 20-year life of the agreement.
The bank in October reported nine-months net earnings of $7.4 billion dollars.

Keeping track
What do you think? Have you got some favorite incentives?

Is it worth trying to develop a national data base of incentives? Goodjobsfirst.org tracks some and offers guidance to what it thinks good incentives are. We are also asking if business reporters need or want guidance on how to cover incentive plans.

Business coverage guides are available at http://www.sabew.org/ (Society of American Business and Editors and Writers), which recently relocated offices to the Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The school is also home to the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, which offers guides, commentary, tip sheets and other resources at http://www.businessjournalism.org/.

[Blog author is a Cronkite copy editor course instructor. We are not shilling for the related groups but seeing if there is a way they can be of help.]

Yearnings for Earnings

2009-09-06T10:08:00.007-07:00

Have you ever hopped onto a friend's computer, or maybe you share a computer workstation ... we're not talking intentional history snooping, but ... you hit the pull down menu on the URL bar. There's some fun address history, Facebook, the person's blog, news sites (we wish), Jilted Journalists (dream on) and some of the latest in workplace distractions aside from keeping FB chat open. At least these recent examples provide hope that we're still literate, and looking for news at some base level.

Awhile back Dirty Scottsdale morphed into nationwide The Dirty.com, and its main content is cell phone pictures of maybe hot babes or hunky guys, with captions like, "I have seen some far away pics not bad but looking straight at her she isn’t as hot as she thinks she is" with host Nik responding. "Why does she have Fling-V lips? Must be a tough recruitment year for Tempe 2.- nik."

While The Dirty is still popular, two other sites prove you don't need pictures, although cartoons are available on one. And they are the, um, epitome? of reader involvement and engagement.

In fmylife.com, you can tell what you did and viewers comment and vote on whether your life sucks or if you deserved the fate. They even turn some into cartoon representations. Recent tame example: "Today, I was at my boyfriends house, meeting his family for the first time. We were all standing in the kitchen when suddenly a small white and brown mouse ran by. As a natural instinct, I stomped on it. Turns out, it was his little sister's pet mouse that had gotten out of its cage earlier. FML" (The vote on that, BTW, was, when we peeked, 'sucks' 3309 to 'deserved' 9714.)

Textsfromlastnight.com usually runs pretty raunchy, and you can search by your favorite area code. A tame but fun entry: "(231): Those 2 guys from the sonic commercial will be virgins for life." But most usually center on waking up the next morning, like on the kitchen floor with a phonebook for a pillow. And viewers comment and vote if the text means good night or bad night.

News is so personal. All this reflects why the most earnest efforts of community sites aren't always the earning-est.

But that won't stop us from trying. Check out what Connecticut Consumer Watchdog Geoge Gombossy says about making a success of his site after the Hartford Courant kicked him to the curb after a 40-year career with the paper.
Read the story at Jilted Journalists and continue the discussion by commenting back here (click link below).

Hyper-local, Part II

2009-08-25T19:51:00.004-07:00

Keeping the discussion going

Carll Tucker responds to comments left from our Saturday post (see original story here):

"Thanks, R and Anonymous, for your comments. After two decades as a community news publisher and hanging out with other community news publishers, I know there are lots of folks who care about their community.

"They want to know about their kids’ schools and games, their houses of worship, the value of their homes, local crime, what local politicians are up to, who was born and who died, what’s doing over the weekend. Yes, some parents attend any given Little League game, but not all, and the ones who couldn’t attend want to hear about it (not to mention Gramps and Granny).

"Does an individual need our help starting such a site? No. It’s not rocket science. But it’s hard. How many people are expert at all the disciplines required: reporting, ad sales, technology, billing, community relations, promotion? One can spend one’s precious time learning all those things, but why not spend it gathering the news and rustling ads, the two keys to success? With our tools, experience, guidance, and launch capital, we can help local entrepreneurs get off to a faster, more profitable, and less risky start.

"Is that worth paying for? Depends on your point of view. To those who want to go it alone, we say, More power to you. The folks who’ve started viable community sites are our heroes – but there aren’t that many of them. Many communities in America have no local news right now (my wife and I live in one). In other communities, the local newspaper is wobbly.

"Our first objective is to assure quality local news in all the communities where the newspaper is doomed. We think we can help build success – but we’re rooting for all the other folks who are doing it too. Nothing makes me happier than seeing a high-quality community news site whose proprietor is making an OK living. Thanks again for your thoughts. C "

What do you think? Please add your comment.

Saving local news, will it work? What do you think?

2009-08-22T20:07:00.006-07:00

With 20,000 or more journalists and other newspaper professionals out of work, and tradtional printed newspapers seeming to shrink all the time, who's going to cover local news?

Publisher Carll Tucker, right, developed a local news franchise and sold it to Gannett; now it's just not the same.

But maybe by applying some old-fashioned country editor principles to modern technology, his franchise business plan will save local news franchises.

Personal finance columnist and author Jane Bryant Quinn, left, says she is involved because she's a believer in local news.

Take a look at our story on Jilted Journalists.
What do you think?
Will it work?
Would you try it?

Please add you comment.

What's in your future Beloit Mindset List?

2009-08-19T16:00:00.009-07:00

Some news of course is cyclical in nature and reporters and copy editors try to make coverage different, be it Christmas, Fourth of July or the current crop of back-to-school stories.

One of our favorites in that genre is The Beloit College Mindset List, providing 75 "cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college."
This year's list presumes students entering the class of 2013 were born in 1991.
Just a few of our favorites - they have more serious ones:

-- The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables.

-- Salsa has always outsold ketchup.
-- Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream has always been a flavor choice.
-- There has always been a Cartoon Network.

The list also addresses some of the same issues creating havoc in the news and media.
"Members of the class of 2013 won't be surprised when they can charge a latté on their cell phone and curl up in the corner to read a textbook on an electronic screen. The migration of once independent media — radio, TV, videos and CDs — to the computer has never amazed them."

So help us help Beloit editors get ready for future lists. Here's a few media-news-related items that may come up in a few years or possibly for the class of 2031. Please add items that you might dread or embrace. (Please use the comments section and we'll pull them back out to our main site.)

Will we see items such as these:

-- News has always been downloaded free to handheld mobile readers and never printed on paper.

-- Pictures have always been digital and Photoshopped in broad daylight and never burned and dodged in a darkroom.

-- Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative reports have always been written 140 characters at a time by citizen journalists and never by well-paid or even poorly paid reporters working for a news organization.

-- Great literature has always been read for free on 2-inch-wide screens.

-- TV shows were always watched on demand and never at a time scheduled by a so-called TV network.

-- Facebook friends have always shared their private thoughts through HuffPost Social News and never emailed each other, picked up a phone, or met at a Starbucks, which has always only had tables for one.

What's on your future Beloit list?

Not as bad = It's getting better

2009-08-09T10:59:00.007-07:00

It seems we inadvertently touched someone's nerve. A friend of a Facebook friend took umbrage when we added a comment about the jobs report to which the friend was linking. The New York Times story she cited:

247,000 Jobs Lost in July; Rate Falls Slightly to 9.4% - NYTimes.com .

There was some fun banter, so we quipped, "Is the rate down because there just aren't that many people left to lay off?"

Which brought further discussions and a serious retort with a US Census Bureau citation: "There are more than 153 million jobs in the US. This idea that there are fewer jobs to lose is ludicrous."

Ludicrous or not, above is the Bureau of Labor Statistics chart showing net monthly changes in jobs. (We're not making this up.) Since January, 2008, the net change has been negative each month. The bureau's monthly net count (those are minus signs):

2008
Jan. -72,000
Feb. -144,000
Mar. -122,000
Apr. -160,000
May -137,000
Jun. -161,000
Jul. -128,000
Aug. -175,000
Sep. -321,000
Oct. -380,000
Nov. -597,000
Dec. -681,000

2009
Jan. -741,000
Feb. -681,000
Mar. -652,000
Apr. -519,000
May -303,000
Jun. -443,000 (Preliminary)
Jul. -247,000 (Preliminary)

So, we have no quibble with the report that the pace of job loss is slowing, and the other monthly figure, the jobless rate, dropped a point to 9.4%. Recession may be ending. Jobless counts lag economic movement.

Our point:

If you're one of the 153 million at work, congrats.

If you're one of the 247,000 who lost a job in June, one of the 5 million the bureau calls long-term unemployed (27 weeks or more), or have been out of work some other period of time, we may have help for you, especially if you are a jilted journalist.

Check out our latest story on reinventing yourself. Lots of advice, particularly aimed at journalists, from career coach Madhu Krishnappa Maron.

Hope it helps.

Corporate bedfellows

2009-08-01T09:59:00.005-07:00

We knew something was amiss when we noticed news stories citing Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls.

Not a normal story topic for Jilted Journalists but perhaps something worth pursuing for our readers.

The particular topic here is how polling partnerships come about and what they mean.

For example recent national stories quote Washington Post/ABC News poll or USA Today/Gallup or CNN/USA Today. Some of those pairings have been around for years.
The Wall Street Journal is paired with NBC News in recent polls on President Obama's health-care plan, Sarah Palin's political future and government spending, to name a few.

That seemed odd considering the venom usually spewed between arms of the companies' parents, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and GE. Particularly Fox News' O'Reilly and MSNBC's Olbermann.

Why wouldn't WSJ pair with FNC, we wondered?

Along comes The New York Times' Brian Stelter shedding some light on what's going on.

"Voices From Above Silence a Cable TV Feud"

But are there even more reasons for the two organizations to get cozy?

Insights welcome in comments.

E-Books update

2009-07-27T19:18:00.005-07:00

We knew this was coming, in case you hadn't seen, it's here.

Barnes & Noble launched its eReader email campaign, touting 700,000 titles, anytime, anyplace.

And if you sign up now to download the free, "fast and easy" eReader, they throw in 6 free ebooks for iPhone and PC users: The Last of the Mohicans, Sense and Sensibility, Little Women, Dracula, Pride and Prejudice, and a handy Pocket Dictionary.

An example of pricing: The House at Sugar Beachby Helene Cooper, $9.99 on ereader, $25 list. (Their links.)

Just an example of how publishing changes so rapidly.

If only newspapers could get their $9.99 from customers who could download e-editions.
People may not be paying for stories, but they may pay for convenient delivery.
Pipeline owners often (ok, El Paso Gas, not always) make more money than the products they deliver.

We're all Caesars

2009-07-26T09:41:00.004-07:00

Have you ever noticed how the Caesars in Caesars Palace has no apostrophe in it?

(Waxing nostalgic:) It was a detail that escaped us way back in 1979 at Lake Tahoe.

Back then, Harrah's and Caesars were rivals. Back then, there was a Harrah, Bill, and he owned the poshest hotel-casino at Tahoe's south shore. Across the street, Highway 50, was another rival, Harvey's Wagon Wheel, owned by Harvey Gross. The names of Harrah's and Harvey's casinos each had an "apostrophe s" in them, Bill and Harvey owned them back then.

Along comes Halloween night of 1979. At the stroke of midnight, Caesars, without an apostrophe, would take over the Park Tahoe hotel-casino, a couple doors down from Harrah's and across from the fourth major club, Sahara Tahoe. We were there to witness the changeover as a reporter for what was then the Tahoe Daily Tribune. Gaming pretty much never stops and we chronicled how one hand at a blackjack table was the last dealt under the Park Tahoe's auspices, a tray of chips was quickly subbed and the very next hand was dealt under Caesars ownership. (Caesars lost, but the player's streak only lasted three hands.) And so it went table by table, watched by officials from Del Webb, which operated Park Tahoe's casino, Caesars, and Park Cattle Company, owner of the land on which the hotel-casino sat.

The Tribune then was a 5-day, afternoon daily. So the Nov. 1 edition carried our front-page story of the changeover under the headline, "Caesar's comes to Tahoe."

A couple days later comes the letter from the Caesars PR department, thanking us for the story but pointing out the ghastly error of the apostrophe. There is no apostrophe, the PR folks stress, because all their customers are Caesars, to be treated and honored like rulers of their own gaming empire (the fate of the namesake Roman emperor notwithstanding).

(Getting to the point:) Caesars no longer operates at Tahoe, it's part of the same company that also includes Harrah's and Harveys (no longer boasting an apostrophe in its logo) and seven other familiar hotel-casino brands. The Tahoe Daily Tribune is no longer daily. We no longer work for any newspaper, but we publish stories at Jilted Journalists and blog for free here.

In looking at the parallel upheavals in the newspaper and book-publishing industries, we can see more parallels in the way changing technology, industry consolidation, a deep recession and changing customer habits conspire against traditional casino operations just as they do the news and book industries and so many other businesses.

In the news and book publishing worlds, more readers are rising to be Caesars.

They can choose their experiences, they can publish their own stories from Tweets to treatises more inexpensively than ever before, and in doing so they build their own personal brands of themselves.

What can we deal them?

Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

Bastille Day and The Fourth Estate

2009-07-13T10:07:00.008-07:00

How can we let Bastille Day, July 14, pass without examining the future of "The Fourth Estate?"
Heads are figuratively rolling as more media companies place jobs under the blades of corporate guillotines.

Coming to terms
"The Fourth Estate" as we think of it today is a phrase invented in England but likely rooted in French history.

In France, King Philip IV in 1302 convened the Estates-General triad of clergy, nobility and commoners. His deal: They would approve new taxes, he would grant them more freedom. The Estates-General was active at first and then went dormant.

Along came 1789, a financial crisis, the guillotine, King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, a reconvening of the Estates-General and a commoner-led revolution.

Later in England the three estates were parallel, The Lords Spiritual, The Lords Temporal (together making up the House of Lords) and the commoners (The House of Commons).

It was also in England where the term The Fourth Estate as applied to journalism stuck.

Author Thomas Carlyle in 1849 credits politician Edmund Burke, who likely was thinking about French history: "Burke said that there were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporters Gallery yonder, there sat a fourth Estate more important far than they all."

British politician and historian Thomas Babington Macaulay is quoted this way: "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm."

Even in a more egalitarian America, the term is often applied to the news media because of its government watchdog role, a de facto regulator.

Coming to termination
Under a generations-old business model, those who rule news media "tax" advertisers to underwrite much of their operations.

It worked in newspapers, then later for over-the-air broadcasts. And cable. The trade of course was advertisers gained more and more freedom to say what they wanted and where they wanted to say it. Part of that model, too, was control over the flow of news.

Business cycles came and went, but for the most part, the model held for so long that those who ruled the media could not fathom transformative technology and the quickening pace of change.

Nor were they ready to cope with the loss of control as the Internet first and then the Web and now app after app puts the "commoners" more in control of what they want to see and when they want to see it and what they want to say about it and how they want to create their own flow of "news."

In theory, anyone can say anything. Anyone can be a citizen journalist, whatever that turns out to be.
Just about anyone can start a blog, open a Facebook account, tweet on Twitter, text, sext or toss in their two cents in a Web site's story chat. Despite the fees to access 3G networks or set up Wi-Fi home networks, it all comes at a much lower cost for "commoners" who don't need to tax advertisers to get their "jobs" done and their "news" delivered to friends, foes and followers of all sorts -- and even if only at 140 characters at a time.

Thousands of traditional "Fourth Estate" jobs are perishing never to return in the forms we once knew them. But don't let anyone get too complacent. There are more revolutions ahead.

Nothing stays.

Even the guillotine fell out of favor.

Your journalistic origins

2009-07-04T13:18:00.004-07:00

Anything unusual help spur your drive to become a journalist?

"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record: prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and the thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own, for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is... that these things cannot be confined... to The Twilight Zone."
- Rod Serling,
closing narration.
"The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,"
"The Twilight Zone"
Episode first aired, March 4, 1960, says IMDB.

Holiday Greetings

2009-07-04T11:15:00.004-07:00

Wishing everyone a happy Fourth of July holiday.

Jilted Journalists is a site for sore eyes when your newspaper has or is about to declare independence from you.

Hope we can all help each other.

With about 1,400 more Gannett employees about to join the Jilted Journalists ranks, the recent departure of a great top-ranking Los Angeles Times editor, and whatever else is coming down the pike, we're here to help each other.

New Items at Jilted Journalists

2009-06-27T15:03:00.003-07:00

Pensions:
Tom Brown, a Daytona Beach News-Journal business reporter who took a buyout in June 2008 at age 61 after 38 years in the news business, sends this reminder:
Terminated people who worked at newspapers that still have defined-benefit pension plans need to pay attention to annual disclosures about the financial condition of their plans.
http://www.jiltedjournalists.com

401(k):
Should you contribute even if your company jilted it matching contribution?
Answer may surprise you!
http://www.jiltedjournalists.com/TheGoldWatch.html

AP jobs:
We asked AP how many of the Central and West editing hub jobs that were widely posted over the winter went to insiders vs. applicants from outside AP. The answer was vague.
Do you have information you can share for a Jilted Journalists story?
jiltedjournalists@jiltedjournalists.com