Grumpy Editor

Is Iraq 'civil war' being used for dramatic effect?

Big discussions in newsrooms this week center on whether to label the Iraq conflict as a "civil war."  Some media are using that phrase.  Others are shying away from that term.

Among the biggies going with civil war are the Los Angeles Times and NBC News (along with its MSNBC).  Others, such as the New York Times, CNN and Newsweek, sprinkle the phrase into stories, leaving it up to correspondents for the usage.

The White House objects to the civil war description.

Other phrases used to describe what's going on in Iraq are sectarian conflict, sectarian strife and "on the verge of civil war."  Associated Press generally calls it "the war in Iraq" but sometimes works in sectarian fighting and sectarian violence.

The generally accepted definition of a civil war is one in which parties within the same culture, society or nationality fight for political power or control of an area.  In such an insurgency, Grumpy Editor sides with some historians who classify a civil war as one in which organized armies fight conventional battles.

Too many PR people lack a sense of distance

Invitations always are welcomed.  Occasional noteworthy ones warrant editorial coverage.  But too many are dispatched by PR folks for a local event in their community without thought as to where distant recipients are located.  Obviously, they are trying to impress clients with wide-scale distribution.

Two examples of happenings this week:

·  An e-mail invitation to attend the "official groundbreaking" for a Panama City Beach, Florida, condominiums and town homes project.

Including a post-groundbreaking press conference, the whole affair is slated for two hours tomorrow.  So the PR people seek media representation from someone based in the West who will have to go through airport hassles, hop on a jet and fly cross-country to view the excitement of some Florida dirt being turned over?  Not likely.

·  A slick snail-mail invitation seeking attendance at a press preview of a contemporary art institute in Boston on Friday.

Sounds good with guided tours and catching glimpses of inaugural exhibitions.  And, separately, Grumpy Editor relishes lobster in Bean Town.  But, again, what editorial rep is going to travel almost 3,000 miles to attend an event of a few hours duration?  Again, not likely.

Perhaps more PR people need to have a better grasp of geography with mass invitations.  Best bet:  Focus on media in their region, coupled with trade publications.

Major Vegas casino chases Salvation Army 'ringer'

Not getting into the holiday season spirit is the 2,600-room Aladdin, a major resort-casino in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip.  While there's plenty of round-the-clock action on its 100,000-square-foot casino floor that includes 2,800 slot machines and 87 table games, on the sidewalk outside the Las Vegas Blvd. entrance, the traditional Salvation Army bell-ringer was chased away by hotel security to a location between the Aladdin and its Paris Las Vegas neighbor.

That's naughty, not nice at this time of year.  It's also dopey public relations.

The Las Vegas Sun reported an Aladdin spokeswoman, citing construction near the hotel's entrance, declared, "Our primary concern is for the safety of our guests and the safety of the people walking by."

That didn't register well with Charlie Desiderio, the Salvation Army's area director of development and marketing.  He mentioned the ever-present dispensers of pornographic material positioned on Strip sidewalks, adding, "But the bell-ringers?  They shut us out?  I mean, come on.  Look at all the good we do in the world."

The Salvation Army in Clark County (where Las Vegas is the key city) annually raises about $18 million to assist jobless, homeless and others in need of assistance.

Seems the Aladdin (soon to be rebranded Planet Hollywood) needs a solid shot of proper PR.

Black Friday leaves retailers glowing in green

Count the times "Black Friday" has been seen in print or heard on radio or TV since the day before Thanksgiving.  Must be hundreds.  Even thousands.  Grumpy Editor says while Black Friday is an eye-attracting, catchy phrase --- and not original --- it's time to put a lid on it and aim next year to label the year's paramount shopping day "Green Friday," which is much more appropriate since mounds of money fill retail stores' cash registers.

Last Friday's estimated sales at mall-based retail outlets alone rose 6 percent, to about $9 billion, compared with the same year-ago day.

Media thrives on negative connotations.  It goes back to the stock market crash on Oct. 24, 1929, quickly labeled "Black Thursday."  That was so nifty, four days later, Oct. 28, became "Black Monday," followed by "Black Tuesday" the next day.

Then, of course, black cats are to be avoided, especially on another Friday (the 13th).

Among movies that produce shivers:  "Black Friday," a 1940 horror epic starring Boris Karloff; another "Black Friday" film, released  in 2005, tied to the 1993 bombings in Mumbai (the former Bombay), and "Black Bart," a 1948 movie relating to an old West outlaw.  These are among close to 100 motion pictures that start titles with the word black, a favorite hue with film makers, too.

The No. 1 retail sales day that "officially" kicks off the holiday shopping season shouldn't be cloaked in gloom.  Retailers are smiling.  Shoppers are smiling.  So it's time to go with the season for a brighter hue next time around, something linked to folding green or long green.

But hold on.  Color madness isn't over yet.  Today is (fill in the color) Cyber Monday when on-line transactions go wild.

Turkey-minded Grumpy Editor is taking time off

Marking  Thanksgiving, Grumpy Editor is getting away from his cluttered desk to feast on turkey dinner today and turkey sandwiches on Friday.

He will return to this site, a few pounds heavier, on Monday.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

AP goes back 371 years for 'Pilgrims hurricane'

With no hurricanes reaching U.S. shores this year, Associated Press editors continue to have the windy word on their minds (see Grumpy Editor Nov. 16 item). So why not turn back the weather to Aug. 25, 1635 when a storm brought winds calculated to be up to 130 m.p.h.  It smacked an area where the Pilgrims landed.  (Hey, that makes it timely for this week with Thanksgiving Day tomorrow.)

USA Today, among other news outlets, ran the lengthy "The Great Colonial Hurricane" story by Larry McShane yesterday.  Some publications included an AP chart of the affected area showing the storm's eye track even though modern weather measuring devices, including anemometers, were not among the gear Pilgrims packed in their trunks.

Some of the information relied on input from a Queens College geology (not meteorology) professor and details from colonial journals that were fed to computer models.

Citi card quietly slashes cashback on credit cards

A paragraph in the savings and credit section of Money magazine's November issue caught the attention of Grumpy Editor.  It mentioned the Citi Dividend Platinum Select card, which had been featuring 5 percent cashback on gas station, supermarket and drug store transactions, has cut back the reward to 2 percent.

While it is cheers to Money for bringing out that information, it is thumbs down to Citi Cards, New York, for quietly sneaking in that change that sends users, including Grumpy Editor, mumbling. No notice came through announcing the reduced awards, not even in monthly statements' fine print.

It borders on bait and switch.  Just a few months ago, Citi lured credit card folks to sign up for the appealing 5 percent attraction.  Citi is attempting to soothe grumbling card users by adding convenience stores and utilities, including cable, to the 2 percent cashback.  All other purchases earn a 1 percent reward.

The rollback became effective Oct. 17.  In the competitive world of banking, the stealthy action reflects negatively on Citi Cards, which should know better as a major component of giant financial services company Citigroup Inc. with 200 million customer accounts in more than 100 countries.

Hotel chain lops CNN after airing insurgents' video

CNN and its Headline News sister network have lost a flock of Midwest viewers in hotels as a result of televising its Oct. 18 "exclusive look through the gun sights of an insurgent sniper team" that picked off U.S. troops in Iraq.  Insurgents supplied the video to CNN.  (See Oct. 23 Grumpy Editor, CNN's enemy snipers footage triggers complaints.)

Stoney Creek Hospitality Corp., which manages 10 inns in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin, has yanked the cable news channels from all its rooms.  Gutsy Stoney Creek president James H. Thompson called the multi-repeated footage "offensive," declaring, "We will not be a party to propaganda for terrorists."

Thompson added, "As a concerned citizen, I just couldn't see providing content like that to my patrons.  I thought CNN had stepped over a line that I could no longer accept as a standard by which I conduct myself and felt I had the obligation to no longer cooperate with them."

Confusion reins getting to core of inflation numbers

Getting a grip on inflation numbers via the consumer price index gets confusing.  For October, numbers are up --- or down --- depending on what categories are included or omitted.  It can be head scratching, before or after monthly statistics are released.  Grumpy Editor feels it's time to recast the CPI and come up with one solid figure.  Agree?  Let's hear from you.

Two examples of predictions before yesterday's CPI was announced for last month:

l October consumer prices for goods and services probably eased 0.2 percent.  Minus energy and food, the index most likely rose 0.2 percent.

--- BusinessWeek, issue dated Nov. 20, 2006

l The core consumer price index, which excludes energy costs, is expected to rise 0.2 percent for October.

--- The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 13, 2006

Officially, consumer prices in October dropped 0.5 percent in a compilation by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor.  But things do get cloudy, as with most government tallies.  Core inflation (that's minus energy and food prices) rose 0.1 percent.

To get to the CPI, the BLS compiles a basket of tallies from various categories, including all urban consumers, urban wage earners and clerical workers and chained consumer price index for all urban consumers. To that, seasonally adjusted basis is added. Topping off the mix are other indexes ranging from apparel to education and communication.

Like full CPI statistics for October?  Then check out a bucketful at:

www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi/nr0.htm

U.S. hurricane predictions since April sputter

With the end of the 2006 hurricane season, which saw no storms in that category smacking U.S. shores, the only big wind came from the media.  Since April, print and broadcast outlets periodically have been issuing dire warnings about "Bracing for the Worst," as a large headline read over a major Wall Street Journal May 31 story that focused on the hurricane season.

An April 5 report from Colorado State University (CSU) meteorologists envisioned 17 named Atlantic tropical storms, with five of nine hurricanes labeled "intense."  Then, a May 23 story reported National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers predicted a "very active" hurricane season, indicating as many as 10 of the 13 to 16 named storms were expected to attain hurricane force.  They figured two to four hurricanes were expected to reach land in the Caribbean or U.S. by the end of this month.

Those predictions so "scared" major insurance companies that one homeowners' insurer dropped New York City and Long Island customers while others restricted new policies in the Northeast and other hurricane-prone areas.  Insurers used the forecast to jack up homeowners' premiums as much as 30 percent.

On June 1, which kicked off the hurricane season, U.S. television networks went overboard, rerunning last year's Katrina footage, then injecting fear that the same thing could happen this year.  Example of that day's radio reporting:  ABC News informed listeners "it's the start of the hurricane season and in New Orleans they're watching and waiting."

As the hurricane-less season progressed and with no storms in sight hitting U.S. shores, an Oct. 3 report from CSU researchers downgraded possible activity to 11 named storms and six hurricanes.  While some hurricanes swept the Caribbean, none reached the U.S.

Grumpy Editor notes that with the hurricane season winding down, media last Thursday were still searching for above-average wind.  Associated Press found one, labeled tropical storm Rosa off Mexico's Pacific Coast, 235 miles southwest of Manzanillo.  Its 40 m.p.h. winds fizzled the next day.  But then a real hurricane, named Sergio, developed off the western Mexico coast yesterday, getting some TV weathercasters excited.  But it posed no threat to the U.S., since it was 415 miles south of Acapulco or 1,150 miles south of El Paso, Texas.  It, too, is expected to fade within a few days --- hopefully, along with meteorological panic attacks.