Grumpy Editor

Wall Street Journal takes poke at prompt loan-repaying Tesla Motors; Fast Company cites 'golden age for TV'

Rather than kudos to Tesla Motors, Inc. for paying off an almost half billion dollar government startup loan in a swift three years, a Wall Street Journal editorial took a swipe at the fast-growing electric car maker, notes Grumpy Editor.

Tesla wired a $451.8 million payment to the government on Wednesday. That sum, coupled with two prior payments, paid off a $465 million loan the company received from the Department of Energy in 2010 to foster development of advanced-technology vehicles.

The repayment came nine years early.

Despite the prompt payment (while other companies with recent government loans have defaulted or are about to) a WSJ editorial writer, in giving a bit of history on the California-based company, decided to “take apart Tesla by the numbers, if only to give our reader-taxpayers a better sense of what they’ve paid to make Tesla’s owners rich.” 

Taking up one fourth of the editorial page on Friday, the material cited subsidies, windfalls, a brokerage report and a Los Angeles Times analysis.  It even mentioned an environmentalist who noted “manufacturing and charging electric cars over their life cycle can produce more carbon than small, gas-powered vehicles.”

The negative editorial was contrary to the hefty applause WSJ’s auto writer Dan Neil recently gave Tesla after a comprehensive test drive. 

And on Saturday’s The Journal Editorial Report on Fox, Kimberley Strassel, WSJ editorial board member, praised Tesla in the week’s hits or misses segment, giving the high-tech auto firm a solid hit in paying off the loan. 

Meanwhile, those “rich owners” --- big and small investors of the publicly-held stock --- gave their answer to the WSJ editorial at the market close on Friday:  Tesla jumped $4.35 a share, reaching $97.08, almost four times above its 52-week low.

 

Magazine hails TV as top creative medium

 

Catching Grumpy Editor’s eyes was some material in the June issue of Fast Company that lead off with:  “Once a wasteland, TV is now the most thoughtful creative entertainment medium of them all.” 

Then it added, “It’s a golden age for TV, where on any given night, viewers can find multiple examples of American comedic and dramatic genius.” 

Huh? 

Sounds like something that was written in the 1950s, not the current fare that includes easy-on-the-budget reality shows, unfunny comedies peppered with laugh tracks and a parade of reruns in prime time. 

It’s hard to beat the TV menu of the 1950s.  Among top shows was Playhouse 90, a 90-minute weekly drama series on Thursdays that ran from 1956 to 1960 on CBS.  Playhouse 90 began as a live series, making a transition to tape in 1957. 

On the comedy side was Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows,” on NBC from 1950 to 1954.  The Saturday night “live” 90-minute variety program, which produced genuine laughs, also featured Carl Reiner and Imogene Coca.

 

In case you missed these… 

Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, warning on the Justice Department investigation of Fox News reporter James Rosen, declared:  "U.S. government efforts to prosecute leakers by obtaining information from journalists has a chilling effect domestically and sends a terrible message to journalists around the world who are fighting to resist government intrusion."  Meanwhile, in connection with the Rosen case and the Associated Press scandal, Jay Carney, White House press secretary, said:  The president was "a strong defender of the First Amendment and a firm believer in the needs of the press to obtain information."

 

While accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has been paid more than $278,000 since the Nov. 5, 2009 incident that left 13 dead and 32 injured, soldiers wounded in the mass shooting are fighting to receive the same pay and medical benefits given to those wounded in combat…ESPN is cutting about 10 percent of its work force…Bob Schieffer, the 44-year CBS News veteran and moderator of “Face the Nation,” received the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism…A panel of news and news/talk experts named Hubbard Radio's WTOP, Washington, D.C., the U.S.’s top news station in Radio Ink Magazine's first listing of news and news/talk stations…ABC News’ Diane Sawyer and Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren made Forbes’ 2013 list of the world’s most powerful women.  Sawyer ranked No. 73 and Van Susteren No. 97.

 

Young spellers --- perhaps some will be future copy editors --- will be in the spotlight tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday for the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee in National Harbor, Md.  The Bee, promoted by E.W. Scripps Co. since 1941, started in 1925 with nine contestants.

Sequester cuts trigger major air traffic delays, loom as hindering National Weather Service forecasts, too

Not widely grabbing space over the past few days to inform travelers:  Federal spending cuts that furlough air traffic controllers --- requiring one day off without pay for every 10 days work --- kicked in over the weekend, that could delay close to 7,000 flights a day at about a dozen of the biggest U.S. airports, notes Grumpy Editor. 

Thus, few passengers heading for airports are aware that sequester cuts are now triggering disruptions in air travel. 

At Los Angeles International Airport, for example, aircraft arrivals are expected to sink to 48 an hour from 80.  Departures also are affected. 

The Federal Aviation Administration’s plans are “illegal, irresponsible and damaging,” says Nicholas E. Calio, chief executive of Airlines of America, which represents major U.S. airlines. 

Michael Huerta, FAA administrator, says the air traffic controllers furloughs are unavoidable.

“We’re basically dismantling” the world’s safest and most efficient air traffic control system, warns Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

 

Budget cuts could affect weather forecasts 

Also not widely mentioned is that sequester action also could affect the National Weather Service. 

The Washington Post reports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proposes furloughing employees for four days across the agency that includes the National Weather Service. 

The newspaper notes NOAA would give labor unions the opportunity to offer alternatives to furloughs before finalizing its plan for reducing costs as part of the sequester. 

The union that represents National Weather Service employees criticized the furlough plan, saying it is “unnecessary and places the public at greater risk,” adds the Post.

 

In case you missed these… 

Boston radio stations plan 60 seconds of silence at 2:50 p.m. today to honor victims of last Monday’s Marathon bombing at that time…While much TV coverage of the Marathon bombing saw reporters standing in streets over the past few days, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this morning was still reporting from a breezy, cool (temperature in the low 40s) Boston street corner --- competing with busy vehicular background traffic and sounds --- when his stand-up could easily (and more comfortably) be done from a quiet studio…A first in baseball:  the Red Sox-Kansas City Royals game in Boston was postponed Friday because of local manhunt…Still no explanation, one week after the bombing in Boston, on the role or observations of two law officers with rifles seen on the roof of the Lenox Hotel overlooking the marathon’s finish area in an Associated Press photo by Elise Amendola…Newly christened 21^st Century Fox will include the 20th Century Fox film studio, 20th Century Fox Television, Fox Broadcasting network, Fox News Channel, FX, Fox Sports, National Geographic channels and interests in foreign TV broadcasting companies, including British Sky Broadcasting...Las Vegas Sun editorial cartoonist Mike Smith captures the busy news week with a news junkie saying, "Me? Just trying to keep up with the news" while facing monitiors tuned to NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, Fox, CBS plus You Tube, Facebook and Twitter.  See it here.

 

Some mature information seekers dump wobbly news outlets; barbecue editor new position at Texas Monthly

The Pew Research Center finds nearly one-third (31 percent) of more than 2,000 adults surveyed say they have deserted a particular news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to, observes Grumpy Editor.

The survey also uncovers those most likely to have walked away are better educated, wealthier and older than those who did not.

News organizations’ financial problems (including reduced ad revenues and circulation), triggering slashed news staffs and reduced coverage, are prime factors behind the audience recoil.

Yet 60 percent of news consumers say they have heard “a little” or “nothing at all” about financial conditions.

Meanwhile, in a poke at NBC's left-leaning cable operation, Brent Bozell, president of Media Research Center, barks, “don’t dare call MSNBC a news organization.”

Referring to a Pew Research Center poll, Bozell says only 15 percent of MSNBC air time is devoted to straight news reporting (vs. 45 percent at Fox News) with the remainder described as commentary.

Tasty job in Texas 

With growing newspaper staff cutbacks, titles such as science editor, aviation editor, boating editor, investigative reporter and such, are fast disappearing.

However, here’s a first: barbecue editor.

Daniel Vaughn joins Texas Monthly, which focuses on the Lone Star State’s politics, environment and education, along with Texas food.

He is being hailed as the only full-time barbecue staffer on a major U.S. newspaper or magazine. 

Texas Monthly editor in chief Jake Silverstein says Vaughn “is one of the state’s foremost experts on the subject of smoked meat,” adding, “his passion for the subject is unrivaled. He understands good barbecue, he understands what it takes to make great barbecue, and most important of all, he understands the way that with good barbecue --- as with all the world’s great traditional foods --- cuisine and culture are completely intertwined.”

That’s certainly a tastier position than the police beat.

 

In case you missed these…

Getting heavy play in print and broadcast media last week was salt, with coverage focusing on a study that claims too much sodium intake contributed to 2.3 million deaths from heart attacks, strokes and other heart-related diseases worldwide in 2010.  Could a focus on the effects of pepper be next, then soy sauce?...Most interesting headline of the week illustrates where U.S. taxpayers’ money is going: $384,949 Federal Study Looks at “Plasticity in Duck Penis Length.”  The CNSnews.com story notes the National Science Foundation issues that grant --- made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus package --- to Yale University for a study on “Sexual Conflict, Social Behavior and the Evolution of Waterfowl Genitalia.”  The study aims to show age, environment and breeding changes can impact the penis length of certain ducks.

Endless winter:  Two words absent in weather coverage as unseasonal cold weather and snowstorms sweep across the Midwest and East at the start of spring --- global warming.  The U.S. is on track for the coldest March in 17 years...The late movie producer and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio executive Louis B. Mayer would have chased out of his office (and perhaps Culver City) creators of a “zombie romantic comedy” script that goes like this:  A walking corpse eats the brain of a young fighter, falls in love with the dead man’s girl friend and slowly becomes more human.  But it has been made into a movie, “Warm Bodies,” now showing

The Kiplinger Letter sums up current “not good” economic conditions in one compact paragraph:  “Growth is listless.  For every job that’s open there are three job seekers.  Nearly 8 million part timers can’t find full-time work.  Wages are stagnant.  Export growth is lackluster, and average home prices…still 15 percent below the peak.”

“Swift” progress:  Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, on CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday, declares the Obama administration has a plan to eliminate a 600,000-case backlog in veterans’ disability and compensation claims --- by 2015…Not getting much coverage:  A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of likely voters believe everyone should be required to prove his or her U.S. citizenship before being allowed to register to vote…Four days into spring, Target Corp. --- in an ad in yesterday’s newspapers --- pitches a portable ice maker with “our lowest price of the season.”

Quiet Fed pay raise; overused fiscal cliff; ‘new’ Tribune

Despite a heavy flow of news stories on fiscal crisis and spending cuts at year-end 2012, somehow overlooked by major media was President Barack Obama’s executive order granting federal workers a pay raise, notes Grumpy Editor. 

The Weekly Standard’s Daniel Halper got wind of it and covered the development on Dec. 28. 

That was on a Friday afternoon, a time when most key media are snoozing. 

The raise becomes effective March 27. 

As an example of the pay increase:  Vice President Joe Biden will make $231,000 a year, up from $225,521. 

See how other federal workers fare here:  

Halper points out that a senior Republican congressional aide who reviewed the executive order and consulted with the Congressional Budget Office says the pay raise for federal workers will cost $11 billion over 10 years.

*        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *      

“Fiscal cliff” much overused by media in 2012 

Fiscal cliff, meanwhile, was one of the most overused phrases by print and broadcast media in 2012. 

Yet, the phrase is now new. 

Some writers credit Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke with the words when he warned the House Committee on Financial Services last Feb. 29 of the coming “fiscal cliff” that would take effect with upcoming spending cuts and tax increases. 

Annalyn Kurtz, a reporter at CNNMoney, finds the earliest reference to the term was in a 1957 New York Times article on home ownership. 

Kurtz also notes Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) used fiscal cliff in 2008 in describing Obama’s spending program while Reuters used the phrase in several articles two weeks prior to Bernanke uttering the words in February.

*        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *   

Future owner candidates eye Tribune Co. assets 

Now that Chicago-based Tribune Co. enters 2013 emerging from bankruptcy, talk centers on new owner candidates. 

Tribune Co. properties include the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Baltimore Sun, Daily Press (Newport News, Va.), The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) plus 23 television stations. 

Coming out of bankruptcy, senior creditors Oaktree Capital Management, Angelo, Gordon & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. now control the Tribune Co.’s portfolio of publishing and broadcasting assets, which are expected to be sold. 

Among names mentioned as possible future owners: 

Aaron Kushner, owner of the Orange County Register.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (for the Los Angeles Times).

Doug Manchester, San Diego real estate developer who bought the Union Tribune (now U-T San Diego) newspaper in 2011.

Austin Beutner, former venture capitalist and former deputy mayor of Los Angeles (for the Los Angeles Times).

*        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *

In case you missed these... 

Ten minutes into the 2013 Tournament of Roses parade yesterday, it was cutaway time in coverage for ABC and NBC networks which decided to air commercials just as the 100-plus-member precision-marching Marine Corps band passed the reviewing stand.  But the HGTV network, without commercial interruptions throughout, showed all…The Pasadena parade included the first Defense Department float.  It depicted the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. while an added attraction was an Air Force B2 bomber timed to fly over the reviewing stand at 1,000 feet as the Korean War float passed…The Food and Drug Administration moved toward approving genetically-modified salmon for human consumption…Chicago’s Sun-Times Media Group said it will consolidate its suburban newspaper chain…Most discussed story on news/talk radio in 2012 was the presidential election, topping chatter on the fiscal cliff, according to Talkers magazine…A dopey move by District of Columbia police was starting an investigation of David Gregory, Meet the Press host, after he held up to NBC cameras a high-capacity magazine during a gun control discussion.  Police said possession of a high-capacity magazine was not permissible.  One wonders if police would get as excited if a Washington Post photographer, for example, used a similar magazine to illustrate a story on guns.

*        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *                         

Note:  Going into 2013, Grumpy Editor with daily postings since September 2006, will now appear in expanded format weekly.

 

Forget the TV mute button, ad decibels now reduced

After a half century of complaints about loud television commercials, a new --- and welcomed --- federal law went into effect yesterday aimed at lowering the ad decibels, notes Grumpy Editor

Although the Federal Communications Commission since the 1960s has been receiving consumer complaints about TV commercials being louder than programming, it took a California congresswoman to do something about it. 

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D., Calif.) said she came up with the legislation idea more than two years ago after a loud commercial interrupted a family dinner.

“TV programs use a variety of sound levels to build dramatic effect,” she said at that time.  “But advertisements have been neither subtle nor nuanced.  My bill reduces commercial volume, allowing them to only be as loud as the decibel level of regular programming. Consumers will no longer have to experience being blasted at. It’s a simple fix to a huge nuisance.”

She said the TV volume legislation brought more response than anything she has sponsored during 20 years in Congress.

Under the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, television commercials are required to have the same average volume as the programs in which they air.

Actually, the CALM Act passed the Senate and House two years ago and President Barack Obama signed it.

However, it took time for the (often not so speedy) FCC to draw up rules and for industry groups (including reluctant ad folks) to sort through technical issues.

Major Garrett returns to White House beat --- for CBS

Grumpy Editor learned that Major Garrett --- who did a great job while at Fox News before going back to print --- next week is returning to full-time television as CBS News’ chief White House correspondent. 

He left Fox News two years ago for National Journal where he will continue the print relationship as correspondent at large. 

At CBS’ Washington bureau he joins Bill Plante, Mark Knoller and Peter Maer on the White House beat starting Sunday. 

For campaign 2012 coverage, National Journal  forged a partnership with CBS News.  That led to Garrett becoming a substitute anchor on "Face the Nation." He also appeared on "CBS This Morning." 

Garrett was Fox News’ chief White House correspondent for eight years.  Prior to that, he was a White House correspondent for CNN. 

Earlier, in the print field, he was a staffer at U.S. News and World Report, Washington Times, Houston Post, Las Vegas Review-Journal and Amarillo Globe-News.

 

TV documentary details WWII Marine aviation disaster

Sometimes it’s a long road getting a “never-before-told” documentary on a World War II event to the television screen, finds Grumpy Editor, in the airing Sunday of “The Flintlock Disaster” involving the loss of 22 Navy aircraft in the Pacific when bad weather was encountered. 

How difficult was it? 

Los Angeles-based Leon Furgatch 15 years ago started work on the true story involving the Marine squadron in which he served as an aviation mechanic on F4U gull-winged Corsairs. 

Furgatch, an executive producer of the documentary, says he didn’t learn about the Jan. 25, 1944 tragedy until he attended a reunion of VMF-422 squadron mates in the early 1990s. 

“I was smitten with it and decided to break it to the American public because it was the greatest disaster in Marine Corps aviation history, where not a shot was fired in anger, and it also involved a cover-up by the general in charge of the Marine Air Wing," he relates.

The planes were lost on a flight from Tarawa to a safe haven.  The central Pacific atoll had been taken two months prior by Marines. 

Six pilots, including the squadron commander, died in the disaster, with remaining fliers rescued after several days at sea in one-man life rafts, notes Furgatch.  One pilot managed to get his aircraft through to the final destination 750 miles away. 

Narrated by veteran NBC newsman Tom Brokaw, the one-hour documentary airs at 5 p.m. on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, on KOCE, the Public Broadcasting Service TV station that covers Los Angeles and Southern California. 

Hopefully, the full PBS network, or others, will get around to airing the program produced by Triple Threat Television. 

Furgatch says in an attempt to go the motion picture route, he ran into roadblocks “because producers or their reps informed me that WWII was out of style with the 18-to-49 age group who were the principal moviegoers.”

He adds, “Another excuse was that it was a ‘period’ piece and it would be too costly to film.”

Hurricane Sandy blows advertisers to Weather Channel

Hurricane Sandy blew in a record number of viewers to the Weather Channel along with a boost in advertising revenue and digital traffic, notes Grumpy Editor.

The cable network received an increase in watchers after an 18.5 percent dip from last year. 

Atlanta-based, the Weather Channel tracked Sandy as it roared through the northeast, positioning 10 reporters at various sites for frequent updates. 

"There is no question that as horrible as the storm is, from a business standpoint, we are in the business of weather and more audience tends to mean more revenue," Curt Hecht, chief global revenue officer for the network, told Jon Lafayette, writer for Broadcasting & Cable. 

Lafayette added, “In addition to advertisers traditionally attracted by coverage of bad weather --- notably companies selling insurance and equipment like generators --- new advertisers, including movie studios, were drawn to Weather Channel's big audiences.” 

Launched on May 2, 1982, the Weather Channel broadcasts weather information and related programming, such as “Storm Stories,” around the clock.  NBCUniversal acquired a controlling stake in 2008.

With the storm knocking out power in its New York offices, Lafayette pointed out, Weather Channel sales executives worked from home.

Keeping a close eye on  Sandy was accomplished in the wake of a recent company-wide layoff involving 80 employees.

TV, the morning after, lingers on superstorm Sandy

The morning after superstorm Sandy smacked the East Coast, especially the New York City-New Jersey area, brought Grumpy Editor some interesting observations. 

A sweep of the television dial Tuesday morning started at CNN which framed live coverage with lightning flashes in efforts to stir viewers --- even though no lightning was associated with the historic hurricane as it hit the East Coast. 

CNN also picked up live shots of a WABC, New York, TV reporter sloshing through water in a flooded Little Ferry, N.J. street.  The live action was simultaneously fed to HLN. 

With the New York Stock Exchange closed for the second day, CNBC market experts discussed how post-Sandy trading would affect business. 

The Weather Channel continued to track Sandy as it headed northwest, with 10 staffers at various sites set to give updates. 

NBC still had reporters standing in the brisk wind at Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, with a backdrop of New York Harbor waves churning against a gray sky.

CBS also posted on-camera folks at Battery Park, a favorite location with TV coverage, and then replayed the previous day’s comments by President Barack Obama on how he is going to cut red tape for folks in the storm’s aftermath. 

ABC remained fascinated with the dangling crane atop a Manhattan building under construction and mentioned Sandy brought out the “biggest use of manpower since 9/11” to get things back on track. 

Fox News focused on overlooked Delaware with flooded streets at Rehoboth Beach as waves continued to splash against docked pleasure craft.

Meanwhile, an eyebrow-raising word was heard on CBS radio in the early morning when on-the-hour news led off with the “typhoon” hitting the northeast. 

Typhoon is the term used in the western Pacific area, including China and Japan, along with India, for what is called a hurricane in the U.S.

Schieffer set to be ‘clock watcher’ for Monday debate?

Hopefully, with eyes on the countdown clock, CBS’s Bob Schieffer will bring a little calm --- and “equal time” --- to the third and final presidential debate Monday with President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, figures Grumpy Editor. 

Uneven time allotments favoring the Democrats’ side from this year’s two prior presidential and one vice presidential debates have caused some grumbling. 

National Review’s Katrina Trinko noted Democrats received more time in all three 2012 debates. 

Citing the CNN debate clock (the timer “bug” at the lower right of the TV screen), Trinko pointed out, “President Obama spoke at greater length than Mitt Romney during both debates, as did Vice President Biden during his debate with Paul Ryan.” 

So Schieffer, who has been with CBS News since 1969, knows something about watching sweep hands on clocks --- or timers --- while broadcasting. 

Moderator of Sunday’s CBS public affairs show, “Face the Nation,” Schieffer is a veteran moderator of presidential debates. 

Schieffer since 2004 has been moderator for the third presidential debate. 

He was moderator of the third presidential debate on Oct. 13, 2004 between president George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry.  

Then on Oct. 15, 2008, he moderated the third presidential debate between then Sen. Obama and Sen. John McCain.