Grumpy Editor

One newspaper scrubs outsourcing, another eyes it

While the Miami Herald has decided to cancel outsourcing some production to a firm in India, the San Diego Union-Tribune told 18 advertising artists their positions would be outsourced later this year.

As Grumpy Editor noted in a Jan. 9 posting, the Miami Herald planned to outsource some copy editing and layout design to Mindworks, based in New Delhi.  The Indian company was to tackle those activities in producing the “Broward Neighbors” weekly section containing community news and special advertising.

The Miami Herald, is part of the Sacramento-based McClatchy Co. chain of  31 dailies in 29 U.S. markets.

Miami Herald Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal said outsourcing "would not be an appropriate use of this service so it won't be tested, nor will other newsroom and editing design like it.  The more we looked at the prospects of editing and layout from outside the newsroom, the more it was clear these skills involving news judgment and experience are not likely to work well from afar."

However, Gyllenhaal added, "Other outsourcing projects, such as the production of some advertising sections and monitoring of website comments, will continue.”

Meanwhile, the San Diego Union-Tribune, faced with decreasing circulation and dramatic revenue losses, laid off 27 employees Tuesday, including at least five in its newsroom, once estimated to have about 360 staffers on the payroll.  The newspaper has lost at least 51 news people from layoffs and two rounds of buyouts since late 2006.

There was no indication of the location where the work of 18 departing advertising artists will be outsourced.

Owner privately-held Copley Press 15 years ago merged the Union and Tribune.

Palazzo gives short notice to media for unveiling

Planning festivities linked to the formal unveiling of The Palazzo, newest Las Vegas Strip hotel-resort, is a mighty undertaking.  That includes press relations efforts.  In connection with the grand opening tomorrow through Saturday, getting the word out by attracting national media on-scene requires punctilious advance planning.

The $1.9 billion, 50-story Palazzo is a Las Vegas Sands Corp. property along with The Venetian hotel-resort next door.  The newest hotel on the Strip in nearly three years contains more than 3,000 suites, luxury shopping, world class dining and entertainment.  The Palazzo combination with The Venetian makes it a vast hotel-resort complex with 7,074 suites and rooms.

For PR folks, that’s a hefty task to promote.  However, some public relations specialists have no conception of time, probably because they have never faced print/broadcast routines, deadlines and often slow decisions by editors, especially those with growing bottom-line-conscious newspaper or magazine operations and slimmer staffs, contends Grumpy Editor.

This was highlighted by a Jan. 10 e-mail press invitation, giving one week’s notice, to attend tomorrow’s grand opening of The Palazzo plus lingering two more days for a busy schedule, including press conferences and interviews.  Seven days advance word does not allow much time for a writer, whether staffer or freelance, to obtain a green light to attend (a firm assignment from a news outlet was a requirement from the hotel-resort’s PR people), adjust the work schedule, book and travel --- and perhaps get a haircut.

The Palazzo’s formal unveiling in January was penciled in by management more than two months ago.  The grand opening date was refined by late November when Jan. 18 was circled.  (One day off from Jan. 17, but in the middle of the three-day celebration.)

Among easy solutions:  Public relations departments should post large, easy-to-read wall calendars and give well-in-advance notice to prospective media invitees, especially those based in distant cities.

Clinton sidesteps Russert’s ‘Meet the Press’ questions

Hillary Clinton on Meet the Press rocked the NBC studio Sunday with perhaps the biggest laugh from a guest in months, observed Grumpy Editor.

Before moderator Tim Russert --- going back to 1998 at a time of the Monica Lewinsky scandal --- completed his question on if the vast right-wing conspiracy still exists, the presidential aspirant broke into a hearty laugh.  Then she responded, “Oh, I don’t know.  I haven’t paid much attention to it for about 10 years.  I really don’t have any idea…I’m just too busy to worry about that.”

Indeed, it was almost 10 years ago, on Jan. 27, that the former first lady appeared on NBC’s The Today Show and declared:  “The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it an explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.”

Also on Sunday’s broadcast, after Clinton mentioned that she “answered hundreds and hundreds of questions in New Hampshire,” Russert had trouble prying a solid response with another question, “Do you believe that Barack Obama is ready to be president?”

“This is up to the voters of our country to determine,” summed up Clinton who then went into touching on the war in Iraq, the economy and the uninsured.  Determined Russert gave it a second try:  “Is Barack Obama ready to be president?”

Russert got an almost carbon copy, but firmer, reply, “That is up to voters to decide, Tim.”

Including the dual short questions from Russert, that interaction took up almost two minutes.

Spears coverage competes with presidential aspirants

As the presidential campaign period picks up steam, Associated Press staffers seek every bit of information gleaned from the camps of Clinton, Obama, Edwards, McCain, Huckabee, Romney, Thompson, Giuliani --- and Spears.

Spears, as in Britney Spears?

Yep.

A memo to staffers from the AP’s Los Angeles Bureau reminds:  “Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal.”  It calls for confirming all reports “that we feel warrant the wire…we must expedite it,” notes Grumpy Editor.

In the past few days there has been reporting on the entertainer escaping to south of the border with her paparazzo boyfriend, wearing a hot pink wig, drinking coffee at Mexico’s Rosarito Beach and flying on a private jet from California to New York.

Thus, she covers about as much territory over a span of 24 to 48 hours as any one of the presidential candidates.  And AP is closely following the trail.

Over-coverage, however, may lead to a Britney ban.

That’s what happened last February when AP, knee deep in Paris Hilton copy, decided not to run any mention of Paris.

But the wire service’s editorial restriction didn’t last long.  It was lifted in a few days, dashing hopes of older news reports becoming collectors’ items.

Confusion prevails with free credit report sites

Getting heavy play on radio and TV these days are commercials touting free credit reports.  They gain attention with a catchy, toe-tapping ditty spotlighting FreeCreditReport.com.

That “free” word may inspire prompt telephone dialing.

But Grumpy Editor notes the radio version has a fast-talking, almost inaudible voice-over at the end of the spot that mentions, “Offer applies to enrollment in Triple Advantage.”  The TV version has small-print at the top of the screen with a similar disclosure.

What’s interesting about the pitches is that the “free” credit report service, requiring membership in Triple Advantage credit monitoring, costs $14.95 a month.

Confusion occurs because truly free credit reports are available at a similar-titled Web site, AnnualCreditReport.com.  It is a centralized service that provides consumers with a no-cost credit report once every 12 months from each of the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies in accordance with the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act.

The three credit reporting companies are TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. 

Interestingly, the membership-linked FreeCreditReport.com, part of the Experian family, has triggered interesting “reviews” (mostly negative) by users of the service at a Better Business Bureau site.

Despite ‘R’ word building, stock market advances

Most major print and broadcast outlets, in recent days, increasingly have sprinkled the “R” (for recession) word in business and financial reports, contributing to jittery investors.

Tossing some hot salsa into that mix yesterday was Goldman Sachs’ chief U.S. economist Jan Hatzius who informed clients that “recession has now arrived, or will shortly.”

Two days earlier, Merrill Lynch economists said a recession was “a present-day reality.”

Also yesterday, with an opposite view but getting less media play:  St. Louis Fed President William Poole, told financial planners that he doesn’t see an economic contraction this year and that “the fundamentals of our economy remain strong.”

Joining in that stance is Jeremy J. Siegel, a professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  “There will be no recession in ’08,” he writes in an investing section column in the February issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.

The crosscurrents certainly make things confusing for investors, observes Grumpy Editor, noting the zig-zagging Dow industrials yesterday closed up 146.24 points to 12735.31.  The Dow added 117.78 points today, closing at 12853.09 --- jumping 264.02 points in two days' trading.

Professor Siegel sees 2008 starting slowly but by the middle of the year “the economy should begin picking up steam,” growing 2 to 3 percent in the second half.

He also sees “the subprime mortgage disaster” easing by June while “the Fed is likely to lower short-term rates several more times in early 2008 and bring its key federal funds rate down to about 3.5 percent by midyear.”

Miami Herald follows others in outsourcing to India

More work, normally performed at newspaper offices, is going overseas.

The Miami Herald, a McClatchy Co. daily, this month starts outsourcing some copy editing and layout design to Mindworks, based in New Delhi, India, notes Grumpy Editor.

The Indian company will tackle those activities in producing a weekly section of Broward County community news and special advertising sections.

Key city in Broward County is Fort Lauderdale.  Hollywood, Pompano Beach and Sunrise are among other areas.

Perhaps the Mindworks flavor will spill over to boost some of the popular eateries in Broward County, including Nabab Indian Cuisine and Royal India in Fort Lauderdale, Little India Restaurant, Sunrise, and Madras Cafe, Pompano Beach.

The Herald also is outsourcing ad production to Express KCS with offices in New Delhi and Gurgaon, India.  Express KCS also does work for McClatchy newspapers in California:  Fresno Bee, Modesto Bee and  Sacramento Bee.

McClatchy owns 31 dailies in 29 U.S. markets, making it the nation's third largest newspaper publisher by circulation.

Dallas Morning News cites ‘illegal’ as Texan of 2007

Texas, with a population of about 24 million --- from cattle ranchers to community leaders and bank executives --- certainly must possess scores of exceptional candidates noted for leadership and vision that could have been branded “2007 Texan of the Year.”

So who does the Dallas Morning News select?

The newspaper bestowed the honor to (deep breath, now) --- the illegal immigrant.

Not unexpected, a number of readers were angry, notes Grumpy Editor.  So far almost 1,000 have responded via e-mail and snail mail.

As DMN editorial page editor Keven Ann Willey put it:  “But let's be candid: 95 percent of all that reaction to our choice was negative. Readers we heard from were angry, insulted, in disbelief that we'd do such a thing. Some cancelled their newspaper subscriptions.

“It was never our intent to anger readers – at least not gratuitously. Our goal was to provoke, yes, but in a way designed to elevate the issue of illegal immigration to the prominence it deserves and to increase the pressure on Congress to enact meaningful reforms to a system we called ‘a joke’ in our essay.”

She added, “We've chosen to interpret ‘Texan’ rather generically, colloquially. To us, it means somebody who lives here, or who has lived here, or who has spent considerable time here - somebody who's affected Texas in some major way.”

Past recipients of the “Texan of the Year” title include President Bush in 2003 and Karl Rove in 2004.

Media overlook surprise flood in Nevada desert city

When a levee in a foreign land bursts sending cascades of water into streets and homes, network TV crews generally are all over it.

So Grumpy Editor wonders about inaction by many assignment editors after observing scant coverage in the aftermath of a 4 a.m. Saturday breach in the Truckee Canal in Fernley, Nevada, resulting in the flooding of 800 homes in a high desert area. 

Fernley, 30 miles east of Reno, has seen its population swell to more than 12,000 from 8,543 in the 2000 census, making it the fastest-growing city in the Silver State.

Much of the TV coverage from week-end storms that slapped the West Coast focused on snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains and slick streets in California.

On the print side, most Sunday newspaper editors apparently weren't aware of the extent of flood damage in the Nevada city.  Among those recognizing the situation and placing front-page dramatic photos showing hundreds of Fernley homes invaded by water were the Fresno (Calif.) Bee, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada Appeal in Carson City, and Bucks County Courier Times, Levittown, Pa.

Scope of the Nevada town’s damage from water, knee-high in some places, hasn’t yet hit.  Along with 1,500 people being displaced, autos and possessions were lost and pets perished as a result of a 30-foot section of an earthen levee giving way following unusually heavy rains in the area.

It is reminiscent of the New Orleans flood linked to Hurricane Katrina in August, 2005.

Into the latest disaster was a mix that included Navy and National Guard helicopters and boats rescuing stranded residents.  Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons promptly observed the scene in an aerial tour and declared a state of emergency for Lyon County.  And on the way to conduct damage assessments today are officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) --- which is well remembered for its role in New Orleans.

What will make headlines in coming days will be the same as in the post-flood period in New Orleans:  problems in rebuilding structures and roads plus insurance companies nixing payments because most residents lacked flood coverage since Fernley, far from hurricanes and ocean waves, is in a desert.

Rite Aid dividend ‘boost’ leaves shareholders confused

On the heels of a Rite Aid Corp. announcement Friday on store closings, The Wall Street Journal in Saturday’s “dividend changes” section showed Rite Aid with a quarterly dividend increase to .875 cents a share from .115, payable Feb. 1 to shareholders of record on Jan. 15, notes Grumpy Editor.

Shareholders undoubtedly were scratching their heads, since the indicated in-print dividend projects an annual RAD payout of $3.50 a share on a stock that closed Friday at $2.15 a share.

Actually, Rite Aid directors declared the .875 cents a share on the 7.0 percent Series E mandatory convertible preferred stock for the Nov. 1, 2007 to Jan. 31, 2008 period.

Also odd was Saturday’s WSJ print edition that overlooked the other Friday announcement:  Rite Aid is closing 28 stores in Nevada, mostly in the Las Vegas area, which it entered in 1996 when it purchased about 1,000 Thrifty Payless stores on the West Coast.  This despite three stories (two by John Flowers and one by Karen M. Lee) on The Journal’s Web site Friday relating to “Rite Aid to Pull Out of Las Vegas Area.”

Only Rite Aid store remaining in Nevada will be in Gardnerville, near South Lake Tahoe and close to the California border. The closings will leave the drug store chain with 5,060 U.S. outlets.