Reality Bites Back

Wall Street Journal Needs to Spend More Time On The Couch

2009-07-07T21:52:00.002-04:00

Let's Keep Jason Gay's Butt Planted in Front of the TV More Than One Day a Week

It's all too rare in newspapers nowadays to have destination reading, especially in the sports section. Columnists quit or get fired. Beat writing is, well, beat writing, assuming the paper is even covering the team anymore.
That state of affairs is why going to the back of the Marketplace section to read Jason Gay's "The Couch" column in Monday's Wall Street Journal is a must.
Sure, you get insights without the bombast. But what you mostly get are laughs, and plenty of them. From yesterday's column:

Well, at least it wasn't a boring Wimbledon final, like last year's.

What can you say about Sunday's All England Club epic match between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick? Here's what we can say: We started, as usual, with breakfast at Wimbledon. Then we had brunch at Wimbledon. Then we had lunch -- a cold chicken sandwich at Wimbledon. Our house guests had cocktails at Wimbledon. Then more cocktails at Wimbledon. We debated marinating a steak at Wimbledon. Then we grew terrified: was this all-time classic sporting event going to preempt NBC's "Merlin"?

Or this gem about the U.S. collapse to Brazil in the Confederations Cup final:

It was cruel and mesmerizing to watch. The yellow-and-green soccer juggernaut scored early in the second half and relentlessly pounded U.S. goalie Tim Howard until they finally prevailed 3-2. When it was over the American players were crestfallen. They'd come within one half of a Wheaties box. Now they had to watch Brazil celebrate a title, which is like watching Derek Jeter celebrate getting a phone number.
"It's one thing to see the Promised Land," intoned ESPN analyst Alexi Lalas, whose hair we vastly preferred in its mangy, Big Lebowski form, as opposed to its current Dead Poets Society clean look. "It's another thing to get there."

Since Gay's column often features an item on TV the day before, it's clear he doesn't need much turnaround to turn in A-level work. The Journal should give him the chance to let a few more missives loose during the week, so we don't have to wait a whole week to once again sit on The Couch.

Federer's Epic Win Also a Victory for The New York Times

2009-07-07T21:40:00.003-04:00

Nothing Like Some Color Full-Page Ads to Soothe A Publisher's Soul

The five-set thriller at Wimbledon was entertainment on a grand scale, enough to make you not get too hot and bothered about missing out on some high-quality outside time on one of the primo weather days of the year.
Almost as happy as Federer was the ad department at The New York Times, which played host in yesterday's sports section to a full-page color ad featuring Federer from Gillette. And on the back page was a full-pager from Lacoste, which congratulated runner-up Andy Roddick, dour but stoic after his five-set defeat. You can bet your alligator there was another version of the ad ready to run had a few shots gone the other way.
Not to be outdone, Federer was on the back page of today's Business Day section, which contained the sports pages. This time it was Rolex shelling out the bucks so we could get a close look at Federer planting a big wet one on the Wimbledon trophy.
And, yes, there's a big shiny Rolex on his left wrist.

The Art of Artful Phrasing in The New York Times

2009-06-23T16:31:00.003-04:00

Jennifer Steinhauer Goes Balls to the Wall Trying to Describe California Budget Crisis

In case you didn't get to the end of yesterday's story in The New York Times about the latest budget woes in the Golden State, you should catch up to how Jennifer Steinhauer bobbed and weaved out of saying what she really wanted to say.

Political posturing infused the Capitol last week, with the governor and the Legislature decrying one another. Darrell Steinberg, the Senate president pro tem, sent Mr. Schwarzenegger a package of mushrooms in response to the governor’s saying the Legislature was “hallucinating” with its budget plan; the governor sent Mr. Steinberg a sculpture of a bull testicle, suggesting something like backbone, only not quite, would be needed to make tough cuts.

Clever and cute.

Should Johnny Gilbert Be Worried?

2009-06-23T09:55:00.003-04:00

TV Ad Still Running with Him, Ed McMahon and Don LaFontaine Even Though Latter Two Now Appearing Posthumously

The New York Lottery has had no problem running this ad featuring three storied announcers, even though one of them, Don LaFontaine, has been dead since last year.
Now that Ed McMahon has joined him in voiceover heaven, maybe it's time for this spot to finally be retired.

After all, only Johnny Gilbert, the third announcer in the spot, is around to collect residuals.
R.I.P., Ed. Say hi to Karnac.

Ann Curry Is Pissed Off

2009-06-17T11:37:00.002-04:00

And If You Care About Foreign News, Maybe You Should Be Too

Heard yesterday at the 140 Character Conference on social media in New York, this broadside from NBC's Ann Curry, who's often popping up in some remote locale when she's not reading the news on "Today."

Here's what's pissing me off. The reason I have to fight every time to do these stories is because the truth is that it's hard to get the majority of Americans or even a significant number of Americans in NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS's world, to care. I think journalism is a battle and I feel the scars and I see the blood on my sword on a daily basis for fights for foreign coverage to be more present in our broadcasting.

Curry had been in Iran to cover the elections there, and has been sent out on just about every major overseas assignment in recent years. So, it's a bit of a surprise to hear she has to convince the brass to put her on a plane when big news breaks on another continent.
Her remarks came amid some testy exchanges on the panel with CNN's Rick Sanchez. For more of that, read here.

Are These SNY-TV Ads Racist?

2009-06-16T22:21:00.003-04:00

Mandeep and Sharvarish Seem Like South Indian Versions of Stefan Fetchit

Maybe it's just me, but the more I watch a series of spots for SNY-TV, the more I wonder if I'm watching stereotypes gone amok.
They feature two South Asians named Mandeep and Sharvarish, presumably Indians, who own a New York sports memorabilia shop. Some of the ads are nominally funny. Others are merely bewildering.
But what's troubling are the centerpieces of the ads are little more than caricactures that fulfill the worst prejudices of anyone whose only contact with Indians is from the back of a cab or watching "Slumdog Millionaire on DVD.
Judge for yourself:

Of course, you could argue, maybe I should lighten up. But if SNY tried pulling off these ads with a couple of blacks who sounded like they just came off the plantation, or Hasidic Jews one step removed from the shtetl, you might feel differently. And so would SNY.

Wall Street Journal Hearts Cholesterol-Drug Ads

2009-06-16T21:45:00.002-04:00

More Health Coverage is Nice, But Ads Shouldn't Be So Intertwined With Editorial

It's great The Wall Street Journal is bulking up its health and fitness coverage in the Tuesday edition of the Personal Journal section.
After all, why not provide more of the news its aging readers can use before they age out. Case in point is a column called Heart Beat by Ron Winslow about all things related to the ticker, that is, the one that doesn't spew out stock prices (remember them?).
The column focused on why it's not enough to simply lower the LDL, or bad, cholesterol; that the HDL/good cholesterol and triglycerides also play a big role and why exercise and diet need to act in concert with statins.
It's a subject near and dear to my, um, heart, given that I pop a Zocor every day.
All well and good content-wise. However, I was a little troubled that the article was flanked by an ad for a new drug called Trilipix, which is designed to be taken with a statin to, you guessed it, raise good cholesterol and lower triglycerides.
Nowhere does the column mention Trilipix. However, the ad should have been placed elsewhere in the section. It's one thing to live in the neighborhood. It's another to be the nosy next-door neighbor.
Even if there's no quid pro quo, it does the Journal no good to leave the impression that there could have been.

Can the iPhone Save Journalism? Nope

2009-06-09T16:56:00.003-04:00

Apple's Darling Thrives on Short Attention Spans; Journalists Don't

Atlantic blogger Derek Thompson wondered aloud about whether the new, whizbang iPhone could prove to be an inhaler for the wheezing news industry.
Seems there's an app called Scrollmotion that promises to 220 magazines and newspapers, along with 1 million books.
Of course, you'd be paying for this; a presumably premium selection of articles and news sources aggregated so you don't have to do the heavy lifting.
Trying to apply the iTunes model to news has its own set of problems, as Thompson notes, including the fact that, information is disposable and hardly unique, unlike music you would buy.
But the biggest problem is one of size: are you really going to spend enough time on an iPhone to read enough content you'd pay for? It's fine to check Gmail or Facebook, but to read a column, movie reviews or an analysis of the TARP program, the iPhone is just too small and distracting (all those other apps, oh, la, la) to make reading a meaningful experience.
If you're going to pay for your content -- and sooner or later, all of the good stuff online will cost you one way or the other -- the Kindle, or your laptop or PC is infinitely more commodious to read anything for more than 90 seconds at a time.
For media outlets who don't care how much you read, as long as you ante up for it, such a strategy will only nip them in the arse before long. People will soon realize there's a lot less than meets the eye -- and for good reason.
All of this isn't to say back to the drawing board. But desperate media outlets should be looking elsewhere for a savior. Scrollmotion ain't it.

Will Bunch Avoids Being Thrown Under the Inky's Bus

2009-06-09T16:19:00.002-04:00

Give Brian Tierney Credit, For a Change: Philadelphia Daily News Writer Gets to Slam Newsroom Brethren Without Getting Slammed

Philadelphia Weekly has a good piece out on local media badboy Will Bunch, a senior writer for the Philly Daily News.
I think Bunch is kinda cool, and not because he went to the fancy-schmancy private school down the road from where I live and worked on the school paper with Keith Olbermann.
Rather, I like it that he gets to criticize bigger sibling the Philadelphia Inquirer and doesn't wind up on the unemployment line in the process.
Bunch got the Inky brass all hussied up because he ripped the choice of Bush torture-meister John Yoo to be a regular columnist in his Attytood blog. He also had a few things to say when the Inquirer inked former rightie senator Rick Santorum to pen a column.
Of course, that's over at the Inky, not the perpetual-underdog-and-loving-it Daily News. “It might have been a little more complicated if the hire had been at the Daily News," Bunch told Philadelphia Weekly.
All of this doesn't mean Bunch has a death wish. Brian Tierney, the major domo of Philadelphia Newspapers, has remained skewer-free in Attytood. Bunch instead leaves that to blogs like this one. As he said diplomatically: “He’s entitled to have influence on the editorial boards–owners and publishers always have. He pledged not to interfere in news operations and to my knowledge, and I’m pretty plugged in at the Daily News, he has honored that pledge.”

Sending Good Thoughts to Pyongyang Central Court

2009-06-03T13:25:00.003-04:00

Trial of Current TV's Laura Ling and Euna Lee Set for Tomorrow

Unlike the high-profile campaign to get Roxanne Saberi out of Iran, any efforts to get Current TV's Euna Lee and Laura Ling out of North Korea have been well-concealed.

We're assuming there's a good reason for that, given the loose cannons in control in Pyongyang, some of whom would dearly love a propaganda slam-dunk against the U-S.

The pair were detained March 17 and charged with illegally crossing into North Korea from China and other so-called "hostile acts" that could land them up to 10 years in a labor camp.

North Korea has denied diplomats -- in this case, Swedes representing U.S. interests -- since March 30 in contravention of international law. Surprise, surprise.

And we can all guess how a purported trial will turn out. Will Kim Jong-Il and his gang put on a show, convict the two and then give them an unceremonial boot from the country? Or, will North Korea try to scapegoat Lee and Ling while the contretemps over the missile tests rages on? It probably also doesn't help that nobody knows who's really in charge over there and what their agendas might be.

Current is, of course, Al Gore's baby. It's hard to tell whether that's hurting or helping the reporters' cause. The channel has put up a wall of silence about Lee and Ling in the apparent belief that saying nothing increases the chances of not pissing off the notoriously pissy North Koreans.

Let's hope Kim and Co. know that silence doesn't mean Lee and Ling have been forgotten. On that front, North Korea cannot win.

Let's also hope they consider the trial their own little show -- a perverse amusement to brighten their otherwise-dour lives -- and then remember that when the show is over, it's time for the performers to go home.

No Film at 11: L.A. Mayor Gets the Scoop on Another Local Anchorette

2009-06-02T11:48:00.002-04:00

Somehow, KTLA Says Lu Parker Not Ethically Challenged by Bonking Area's Top Politician and Reporting on Him

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa likes the media. Actually, he loves the media, specifically two local anchors.
First, it was an affair with Telemundo's Mirthala Salinas. When news of that liaison broke, so did the mayor's marriage, along with Salinas' career at channel 52.
Now, Mayor V has moved on to Lu Parker at KTLA. Their coupling was apparently news to her bosses, until recently. But according to The Los Angeles Times they don't seem too hot and bothered by one of their anchors doing the mattress mambo with Hizzoner.
"Now that we're aware of the relationship, she will no longer be covering local politics," said KTLA-TV news director Jason Ball. "I have the utmost faith in Lu Parker's abilities."

And lest you think Ball wasn't toeing the station's party line, his boss adds for emphasis:
"There is no concern as to the ethics whatsoever," said General Manager Don Corsini. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a personal matter."
Corsini's answer is very convenient, not to mention unsatisfying.
It's not that Parker isn't allowed a personal life. But to then say her love life can be managed on-air by simply having her read the stories about pileups on the 405 and a triple murder in Watts puts the station in a bind, to say the least.
And what does it say about Parker's judgment, that she and Villaraigosa have been an item since March, yet she, in effect, had to be outed for her station to know about her relationship? In doing so, she compromised whatever credibility KTLA has in the process. Yet her bosses don't seem to have a problem with her choices.
That, in and of itself, is a problem.

Westchester Magazine Feature on Top Dentists Has Credibility Cavity

2009-05-28T21:50:00.002-04:00

A Shameless Mix of Ads and Editorial

You can't fault Westchester Magazine for running advertising supplements; just about every magazine does.
But you can easily find fault when they try to pawn off those supplements as legitimate editorial copy, as it did in its latest issue with what was ostensibly a feature on the county's top dentists. The "piece" was bannered across the front cover.
Inside, is one paragraph that explains how the magazine "asked" topDentists, an Augusta, Georgia, database of dental professionals to do the tallying "as determined by peer reviews collected and analyzed by topDentists from thousands of dental professionals in the Westchester area."
Yeah, right.
From the get-go, this list had a big stink to it, and not because my own in-demand dentist wasn't on the list.
It's because there is absolutely no editorial copy about said dentists. There's copy all right, 18 pages worth. But it's a giant supplement paid for by, you guessed it, topDentists.
This wouldn't be a problem if it was a standalone ad supplement. But it's promoted on the cover, is in the magazine's table of contents and has its imprimatur ("Westchester Magazine asked topDentists....")
At best, it's shameful for a magazine that recently has tried to raise its profiles with several news features that are a departure from their more-typical service articles (10 Most Romantic Places to Kiss, 25 Great Getaways).
Westchester Magazine has long arrived in my mailbox on the thick side, remarkable in these recessionary times. But it turns out, as a source told me, many of their ads are actually bartered. So, while it's covering one of the most-affluent counties in the country, it's not rolling in as much dough as they'd like you to believe. I found that out a couple of years ago when I interviewed for a senior editor's job there. All was going swell until we started discussing money.
The magazine wanted someone who lived in Westchester. But they only wanted to pay a salary more befitting for West Chester, Pa.
Yet, still I read, and I generally like what they do. Until now.
The dentist supplement is a fiasco, to put it very kindly.
The money might have been nice, but what price credibility?

Oy, Vey! The Jewish Week Needs A Geography Lesson

2009-05-28T21:44:00.002-04:00

White Plains is Where?

The May 15 issue of New York Jewish Week had an article on how a syngagogue in the city of White Plains, north of New York, was going to transform its space into a replica of Tel Aviv, in honor of that city's centennial.
The headline: Tel Aviv on the Hudson.
Cute? Feh.
The problem: White Plains is about 10 miles from the Hudson River. Tel Aviv on I-287 would have been more accurate.
However, that's what happens when you have editors who may never have ventured north of the Bronx and think anything outside of the city is "the country."
Which would be news to folks in White Plains, what with its skyscrapers, including a luxury 42-story condo that's also home to a Ritz-Carlton.
You know, the country.

It's a Spelling Bee, Not a Steel Cage Match

2009-05-28T21:10:00.002-04:00

Washington Post Live Blog Too S-N-A-R-K-Y For Its Own Good

It's all well and good that The Washington Post is covering the National Spelling Bee, and live blogging it no less.
But a little perspective, please, is needed from writer Dan Steinberg, even if tongue is planted firmly in cheek.
In other words, lose phrases like: "As expected, the massive success in Round 4 led directly into a Round 5 bloodbath."
Bloodbath? C'mon.
These are kids. Let them be kids. This isn't Ultimate Fighting. A big deal, yes. But blood won't be spilled, even in a euphemistic way.
I know first-hand what it's like to lose in a spelling bee on a word you should have known (abhor, I added an e). I almost cried. But no blood was shed.
Sure, it sucked. But even in my 12-year-old way, I put the loss in perspective. Steinberg should do the same.

New Metropolitan Section M.I.A. From New York Times....

2009-05-24T07:48:00.002-04:00

At Least at My Front Door

I'd be curious for your impressions of the print version of the new Metropolitan section of The New York Times in part because the folks who drop the paper on my stoop every morning (and like to have conversations at 5:15 a.m.), neglected to give me a copy.
Normally, I got my late and lamented Westchester section on Saturdays with all the feature sections. But its replacement didn't show yesterday either.
Judging by what I see online, the aim is a little, and I mean little, something for everyone. That's too bad, given the final Westchester section had several articles that the hometown incumbent, The Journal-News, with its Gannett-imposed mediocrity, would never dream of doing.
At least there are still zoned arts and restaurant reviews, also badly needed in the 'burbs.
So, maybe next week. And if you see whomever's dropping off my paper, please tell them to shut the hell up.

Clemens Book by Daily News Reporters Gets Rave Review --- From The New York Times

2009-05-12T13:10:00.003-04:00

Michiko Kakutani Goes Deep In Praise of "American Icon"

The New York Daily News doesn't have the same hate-hate relationship with The New York Times that it does with the New York Post.

Still, it was a bit jarring today to see Michiko Kakutani's lengthy Times review of "American Icon," a thorough dissection of Roger Clemens by the sports investigative team of the News (Michael O'Keeffe, Christian Red, Tori Thompson and Nathaniel Vinton, above), refer to the book as "gripping."

By focusing on Clemens and the people around him, the authors have turned the sprawling story of steroid-use into a sleek narrative that reads like an investigative thriller, peopled by a Dickensian cast of characters, from big-name ball players and their high-powered lawyers to small time bodybuilders and gym owners, from federal investigators and members of Congress to denizens of “the violent criminal underworld of muscle-building drug distribution.”

Nothing wrong where giving credit where credit is due. Which is why you'll never see the book mentioned in the Post.

Digging The Grave of Business Magazines Real Easy When You Don't Have a Clue

2009-05-05T16:31:00.002-04:00

Douglas McIntyre and 24/7 Wall Street Again Prognosticate in a Vacuum

Analyzing the state of business magazines and forecasting their imminent doom in their current form is the media equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. Yet, somehow 24/7 Wall Street misses the mark.
The Web site has a missive from media doomsayer Douglas McIntyre with all sorts of "the sky is falling" perspectives on the state of things at Fortune, Forbes and Business Week.
Some of it's true and obvious, i.e. ads are waaaaay down. McIntyre makes the case that come the end of the year, one or all of them will continue to exist but not in their current forms and makes his case with web traffic numbers and ad revenues.
Fine, at least to a point. But then he pisses away his thesis with observations like these:

Fortune could decrease its frequency of publication to monthly and rely on the Internet to cover current news.

C'mon, is Fortune really in the business of covering news in print? Nah, never really has been. It's about profiles, investigations, looking at the big picture, the Fortune 500. News is not on its radar. And monthly? The folks who used to work at Portfolio could tell you how that worked out.
McIntyre issues a similar prescription for Forbes, which he says wouldn't be a big deal because its Web site is so successful and its readers are already accustomed to going online. But at the same time he also states Forbes' online revenue isn't growing. And how would reducing frequency change that? We never get an answer.
As for Business Week, McIntyre may be on to something. Maybe.

No matter what McGraw-Hill does, BusinessWeek will not be a weekly magazine with over 200 employees and a rate base of 900,000 at the end of the year. BusinessWeek will have to become a much, much smaller operation.

Of course, anyone who's opened a copy of Business Week lately (the latest issue is all of 76 pages), knows it can't get much smaller.
Less frequent, yes. Leaner? Ditto. But smaller? You're there already.

Door Hits Reading Eagle Employees On the Way Out

2009-05-05T16:09:00.004-04:00

No Severance Pay, Even For Those Who Put In Decades at the Paper

Long gone are the days when you got laid off from a newspaper that you took it personally. At some shops, it's probably more of a surprise when you can still log on to your computer.
So, at first glance when the Reading Eagle announced May 1 it was eliminating 12 percent of its workforce, it was sad but hardly unexpected news.
But what the paper didn't tell its readers was the affected employees were escorted from the building after being told they were getting no severance pay.
No as in nada, zip, gornisht.
That includes guys like Ron Romanski, the assistant photo editor who put in 45 years at the Eagle.
"It shocks everybody I talk to," he told Editor & Publisher. "I'm thinking about suing them. I didn’t think it would happen to me."
Oh, to be fair (sort of), the Eagle did provide two weeks of benefits to give those kicked to the curb enough time to apply for COBRA.
But no severance pay? How do you do that if you're the type who can still look at themself in the mirror and sleep at night? That especially goes for a private, family-owned business.
For the Ron Romanskis of this world, family has taken on a whole new meaning.

Boy, I Didn't See This One Coming

2009-04-30T16:21:00.004-04:00

Headline for a Boston Herald story with the latest twist in the saga of the accused Craigslist killer:

Philip Markoff's fiancee calls off wedding.

I know, me too. A real shocker.
Still, it's quite a turnaound from two days ago, when she was doing her Tammy Wynette imitation.
Guess it was better to call off the wedding now rather than go through a D-I-V-O-R-C-E later.

Balls, Strikes And A Pink Slip

2009-04-30T11:48:00.002-04:00

Baltimore Sun Staffers Get Laid Off While Covering Orioles Game

By now, many have you heard about the latest bloodbath at the Baltimore Sun, which shed 61 more journalists -- one-third of those left -- from the Sun's already-lonely newsroom.
No layoff, no matter where it occurs, is pleasant.
But someone in the Sun brain trust apparently wanted to take that maxim to a new level. From the Guardian in the U.K. comes word that writers and photographers covering the Orioles-Angels game on Tuesday were told during the game their jobs would soon be no more.
During the game. As if they didn't have enough on their mind keeping a close eye on the action, now they also had to think about how to feed their families along with getting their work in on deadline.
The poop in the pressbox was first reported by the Orange County Register's Bill Plunkett, who was there when the news was delivered.
The article doesn't name the journalists, and the Sun isn't talking specifics, but Jeff Zrebiec, who wrote yesterday's game story, and national baseball writer Dan Connolly are likely on the chopping block.
All of which shows Sun managers are a bunch of losers, just like the Orioles.

E-Golenbock: Alert Correspondent Cries Foul Over New Steinbrenner Book

2009-04-30T09:09:00.005-04:00

When Facts Strike Out; Checking a Manuscript Too Much of a Bother for John Wiley & Sons

Author Peter Golenbock has been nothing if not prolific for more than 30 years, churning out sports books -- many of them about baseball.

Perhaps the best known, "The Bronx Zoo," about the then-hugely talented but immensely dysfunctional New York Yankees, rode The New York Times best-seller list for 29 weeks in 1979.

Golenbock has since collaborated with several Yankees on their autobiographies, and has now returned to his motherlode with "George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire," about now-enfeebled Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.

So, with all that time spent with the Yankees, you'd think Golenbock would have his material down cold. Instead, as CBS News Radio Correspondent Peter King found out, Golenbock merely shows why every author needs an editor. And what happens when he doesn't have one -- at least one who knows the subject matter.

King (full disclosure: a former colleague and current friend), who has logged many hours in and around ballparks during his career, was slated to interview Golenbock about his book. Then he read it and found it riddled with enough errors to have Golenbock sent down to the literary bush leagues for life. Among them, as King writes:

--On page 277, there was a reference to the 1981 White Sox and their General Manager Dave Dombrowski. That would have been amazing because in 1981, Dombrowski was just 23 and hadn’t been in baseball that long (his first GM job came with the Expos in 1988).
--On page 314, he mentions Florida Marlins owner "Bob Luria." Maybe he was thinking of ex-Giants owner Bob Lurie? The Marlins’ owner is actually Jeffrey Loria.
--On page 144, he had Billy Martin trying to get himself fired from Texas in July of 1974 so he could manage the Yankees. He was off by one year; it happened in 1975.
Perhaps the most amazing error of them all came on page 196 when he had the Yanks trading away relief pitcher Sparky Lyle in the spring of 1979. Here, Golenbock contradicts Lyle - and himself - since they co-wrote Lyle’s book "The Bronx Zoo." The last paragraph of that book is a post-script, saying that Lyle was traded away on November 11, 1978.

King called the flack working for the publisher, John Wiley & Sons to cancel the interview and express his dismay. Wiley has since owned up to the problems, as has Golenbock, who has also been roundly attacked by knowledgable fans on Amazon.com. Word is the errors will be corrected in the next printing. We'll see.

Of course, Golenbock is hardly the first non-fiction author to get facts wrong. It happens all the time. And that's the problem. Most publishers don't have the inclination or resources -- unlike magazines -- to do proper fact-checking, or any at all. They want you to pay 25 bucks to read nonfiction. After that, you're on your own.

But it didn't have to be this way. Any editor with even an adequate knowledge of baseball would have easily been able to flag these errors before the book went to press. It's bad enough Golenbock was so consistent in his sloppiness. However, Wiley compounded Golenbock's errors by letting them go unchallenged.

Sadly, this not an isolated incident for Wiley. It also publishes the Frommer's travel guides. As I wrote in 2007, my experience using their 2008 guide to Walt Disney World was an experience in frustration, as it was often badly outdated or just plain wrong.

Sound familiar?

One Tough Assignment: Writing About Why You'll Soon Be Out of A Job

2009-04-27T10:33:00.004-04:00

Portfolio Shutting Down; Blogger Jeff Bercovici Serves Up His Own Bad News

The whispers got rather loud real fast about the demise of Conde Nast Portfolio this morning on Peter Kafka's All Things Digital blog.

And now it's official.

Portfolio media blogger Jeff Bercovici confirmed to the world at large that, indeed, he and a bunch of others will soon be out of a job.

Too bad. Portfolio was a grand experiment that debuted in a perfect storm of the print media business tanking, while the recession pretty much took care of what advertising was left.

Portfolio was also a victim of its own ambitions. It paid to play to offer up quality articles -- and pay dearly, at that.

For example, Michael Lewis was rumored to have been paid a maharajah-esque sum of five bucks a word for an article in the December issue fittingly titled The End, about the passing of an era on Wall Street.

And you wondered why Conde Nast couldn't make the numbers add up for Portfolio. And now 85 people are out of a job.

Not that Lewis is to blame for the magazine being shuttered. But when Conde Nast is laying off receptionists to help its sagging bottom line, those are luxuries -- along with the endless supply of town cars and business-class junkets -- that could be done without.

Portfolio will be missed, and not just as a source of cannon fodder for Gawker.

Winning a Pulitzer Prize Is Great, But.....

2009-04-21T11:35:00.003-04:00

It Gets Harder to Celebrate

Robert Smith on NPR's Morning Edition had a good piece this morning on the sobering reality behind this year's Pulitzer Prizes.

That includes the story of Alexandra Berzon, the winner of the public-service prize. Her paper, the scrappy Las Vegas Sun, has now shrunk to eight pages as part of a supplement inside the larger Review-Journal, which graciously acknowledged Berzon's award in an editorial.

Smith also cites Paul Giblin, who shared the award in the local-reporting category. He couldn't take part in the requisite newsroom celebration at the East Valley Tribune in suburban Phoenix because he had been laid off. That fact was conveniently omitted by editor Chris Coppola in his column about the award (he merely says Giblin now works for the Arizona Guardian online news service).

Coppola does point out, however, that the Tribune, which had already cut its frequency to four days a week, while eliminating circulation in several cities, will now go down to three days a week next month.

That will do nothing to help the Tribune in pursuit of another Pulitzer. But that's not what newspapers should be focused on nowadays, in any event.

First, just find a way to survive to publish another day. Worry about the rest later, Pulitzers included.

Massive Loss By NY Times Co. Could Force Boston Globe Unions to Cave

2009-04-21T11:08:00.003-04:00

Dreary 1Q Numbers Accentuated by Ad Plunge in New England

Everyone expected the first-quarter results for The New York Times Co. to be bad. But not this bad.

It lost $74.5 million or 52 cents a share. Analysts had been expecting a loss of no more than 6 cents a share. Ouch.

But that's what happens when ad revenue for all your newspapers falls 28.4 percent. It was even worse at the Times' New England Media Group, where ads plunged 31.6 percent.

That will make today's negotiations between the Boston Newspaper Guild and the Times even more interesting, as the company seeks to wring $20 million of concessions from the unions, who are faced with a threat of the Globe being shuttered.

The Times has already said the Globe is on track to lose $85 million this year. If so, the unions may have little choice but to swallow hard and cough up lots of givebacks, including pension contributions, lifetime job security and 401k matches.

Unions always want to have some leverage when dealing with management. But with this earnings report, leverage has left the building. Left in its place is some guy from finance holding a plug that he looks too eager to pull.

Checkmate.

Newspaper Doomsayer at It Again With Magazines

2009-04-21T10:36:00.002-04:00

But Sloppy Editing Hurts Credibility of Douglas McIntyre, 24/7 WallStreet

Last month, a list of the ten newspapers that will either fold or go digital from a Web site called 24/7 Wall Street was picked up by Time.com and wound up getting a lot more attention than it probably deserved.

It was easy to quibble with at least half of the picks, especially the New York Daily News, whose demise, author Douglas McIntyre opined, was predicated on the fact that it wasn't owned by a big corporation, and based on the performance of other dailies, could lose $70 million this year.

First off, have you seen the performance of newspaper companies lately, at least those that haven't been delisted by the NYSE and NASDAQ? Not being one is actually a good thing.

Further, McIntyre's extrapolating about the News' finances are a reach, to put it charitably. And if the News was in such dire straits, why would it be spending tens of millions of dollars on new color presses?

Anywhoo, that was then. Now McIntyre is back with another list. This one is devoted to the "Twelve Major Brands That Will Disappear" by the end of 2010. Two come from the media, Esquire and Architectural Digest,

In Esquire's case, it's the 97-pound weakling in a crowded category that's already taken a beating. AD is the grandmama of shelter magazines. But it's way-upscale ambitions are out of step at a time when millions of homes are being foreclosed on and its ad pages -- or lack thereof -- reflect that.

McIntyre's analysis is a bit more spot on this time around. But it's marred throughout by having been pushed out without being proofread. The final entry alone, which basically predicts United Airlines will need a merger partner, has at least 10 spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors. And that's just one of 12 entries.

That's why there are editors. McIntyre could sure use one. You can't stand behind your reasoning if it's not coherent in the first place.