Grumpy Editor

Writers quickly label Breitbart died of ‘natural causes’

A few hours after conservative blogger and Tea Party favorite Andrew Breitbart collapsed on the sidewalk shortly after midnight near his home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles last Thursday, news stories attributed the 43-year-old’s death to “natural causes” --- indicating the writers never worked on police beats, notes Grumpy Editor.

Long before official findings from an autopsy, reporters --- without raising an eyebrow --- almost immediately pinpointed the cause of death. 

Results of a Friday autopsy by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office will not be known until early to mid-April, when toxicology and other lab tests are finalized.

"It's standard procedure," said Craig Harvey, coroner’s office spokesman.

"We have a very young man who died suddenly and unexpectedly, so we want to make sure we cover all the bases,” he added.

Highly-active Breitbart collapsed while walking home from a bar-restaurant where he sipped red wine and spent almost two hours in what has been termed “a friendly debate” with a marketing executive.

Breitbart entered journalism editing the Drudge Report in 1994.  Eleven years later Breitbart and Arianna Huffington founded the Huffington Post. 

On his own, he later started several news websites including breitbart.com, bighollywood.com and biggovernment.com. 

Along with that, in recent years he became a favorite target of liberals in the media.

 

AP, LA Weekly take different views of future media study

Grumpy Editor finds widely different versions of reporting by the Associated Press and LA Weekly yesterday based on the same University of Southern California study on the future of media.

AP’s Barbara Ortutay’s byliner focuses on the Internet, mentioning “most people don’t consider online content reliable” while LA Weekly’s Dennis Romero writes “the print product some of you like to pick up on your driveway every morning will go the way of the dinosaur within five years.”

Basing information on the study authored by Jeff Cole, director of USC Annenberg School’s Center for the Digital Future, AP’s version points out: 

“Last year, 15 percent of Internet users said they found only a small portion of online information reliable.”

Taking a different angle, LA Weekly summarizes the study with:

“Most print newspapers will be gone in five years.”

The Center says only four major daily newspapers would survive, naming The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, adds LA Weekly.

USC’s Cole figures “the only print newspapers that will survive will be at the extremes of the medium --- the largest and the smallest.”

The latter include local weekly newspapers.

 

Poll finds most people turn on TV for breaking news

When a sudden development occurs, most curious people turn on their television sets and check out the news networks, according to a new poll, notes Grumpy Editor. 

A Poll Position-TV Newser survey finds 58 percent of Americans cite TV news networks as the source for breaking news details, while 17 percent go to Web sites, 14 percent tune in news radio stations and eight percent head for social media. 

It marks the initial survey (via telephone to 1,110 registered voters nationwide, conducted Oct. 23) in a Poll Position-TV Newser polling partnership. 

The two plan a periodic ongoing series of surveys on news media coverage and consumption. 

Poll Position describes itself as a “non-partisan news, polling and social media company.” 

TV Newser, an industry "ticker" blog hosted by mediabistro.com, covers daily developments in the TV news field.

 

Fewer fingers on Yellow Pages loom in San Francisco

Future deliveries of printed Yellow Pages look glum in San Francisco as the Board of Supervisors takes a final vote this week calling for restricting directory deliveries only to residences and businesses that request them, notes Grumpy Editor.

The Yellow Pages put a blight on the community and banning the book of names, numbers and addresses will protect the environment, claims the board. 

The likely ban on unsolicited distribution of Yellow Pages is the latest in a series of “green” measures in the City by the Bay.

An estimated 1.6 million Yellow Pages directories are distributed annually in San Francisco. 

A ban would make San Francisco the nation’s first city to thwart Yellow Pages distribution. 

Backers say the Internet makes the directories unnecessary. 

"If we're serious about the environment, it's time we recognize that phone books are a 20th century tool that doesn't meet the business or environmental needs of the 21st century," Supervisor David Chiu pointed out when his directory-banning idea surfaced three months ago.

 

Air New Zealand ‘happy’ pre-flight video gains attention

With airline passengers fretting a bit more these days in the wake of Southwest Airlines’ problem Friday with a 737 fuselage rupture, one gets the feeling of happier flight times ahead after viewing Air New Zealand’s pre-flight safety video, observes Grumpy Editor.

It's entertaining as well as educational, especially for first-time air passengers.

With a disco feel, fitness legend Richard Simmons leads a happy crowd of energetic dancers in an aircraft.

To viewers/passengers Simmons announces, “In the next three minutes we’re going to work hard, work out and get you fit to fly.”

Various safety steps range from stretching to store luggage in an overhead locker or under a seat to buckling seat belts.

It’s the most-viewed YouTube in New Zealand and Australia where Air New Zealand is a household name.

View it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iaTEgoezNQ

Meanwhile, with Southwest Airlines, more inspections of its Boeing 737-300 fleet continue after cracks were found in several jets following one in which part of the skin ripped away at 36,000 feet.

No happy video with that incident, however.

 

Nearly 6,000 journalists cover Washington lawmakers

The reason why there are so many stories with a Washington, D.C. dateline --- even when Congress is on a break --- is because the number of print, broadcast and digital journalists credentialed to cover the Senate and House is nearing 6,000, notes Grumpy Editor.

That number is almost equal to the population of cities such as Wickenburg, Ariz. or Essex, Conn.

Even during the past week (when both the Senate and House were on a nine-day break, returning yesterday) Washington pieces pepper print pages and broadcast news.

While major newspapers and broadcast networks maintain sizable bureaus in the nation’s capital, some of the heavier coverage now is linked to Web news sites that have been beefing up staffs.

Among print and Web outfits expanding writing staffs:  National Journal, Bloomberg Government, Huffington Post, The Hill and CQ Roll Call.

While most of the talent grabs news releases to rewrite, few amplify the handouts or ask tough questions (starting with “why”) and only a handful put on investigative reporter hats.

One area to start is why are there so many Senate and House days off as the nation faces mounting significant and unexpected developments at home and abroad.

Lawmakers, while back on the scene this week from a March break, are gearing up for a “spring break” less than three weeks away, April 16 to May. 1. 

 

View how spam pages are overwhelming the Internet

Imagine, every hour one million spam pages are created.

That’s the finding on the Security Alert page in this month’s PCWorld magazine, notes Grumpy Editor.

Writer John P. Mello Jr. says analysts estimate 90 percent of email traffic is spam.

A clock at www.spamclock.com counts the number of spam pages created on the Internet every second.

Since Jan. I this year, the figure this morning passed the 2 billion mark.

Behind that site is search engine newcomer Blekko, points out Mello.

Based in Redwood City, Calif., Rich Skrenta, its founder, tells Mello that, “As the online economy continues to grow at double digits compared to stalled growth for the offline economy, the incentives for spammers get even more lucrative.”

 

Latest trend? Dual magazine covers for same issue

At a time when magazines are seeking to contain production costs, what’s going on with two major magazines producing dual covers with separate photos that popped up this month, wonders Grumpy Editor.

Bloomberg Businessweek (the capital W has been retired), in its Feb. 14 issue, came up with two cover versions touting “The Infidelity Economy” which gave much space to a Web site operation that focused on the hot topic of linking married men to married women.

The western version showed a man’s (non-hairy) legs with pants dropped down to his ankles.  The eastern cover captured V-shaped female legs, topped by high heels, pointed upward.

One response was: “This is not your father’s biz magazine.”

Meanwhile, distributed this week, was Woman’s Day --- dated April 1 --- also with dual covers.

Some subscribers received a Woman’s Day cover showing a pasta dish (technically, creamy pasta with leeks, peas and Parmesan) while the other displayed two shelves on a wall that included “cheerful” assorted knick knacks.

Readers were invited to vote --- via the Web --- on the Woman’s Day cover they prefer, spurred on by, “Don’t be afraid to judge our book by its cover: what’s inside is exactly the same!”

Early voting leaned toward the shelves.

 

Some non-paid HuffPost bloggers seek piece of rich pie

In the wake of the AOL Inc. agreement to acquire online news site The Huffington Post, a mutiny could be brewing in the ranks of the thousands of HuffPost non-paid blog writers, finds Grumpy Editor.

Many frustrated HuffPost writing-for-free bloggers, after digesting the $315 million transaction price, are wondering how to get a piece of the rich pie. 

They also note Arianna Huffington, after the deal is finalized, will become president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group with a lofty $4 million annual salary.

So a HuffPost writers group is banding to air their beefs at www.facebook.com/heyarianna.

Among comments:

• HuffPost bloggers and other contributors need to unionize.

• Demand a share of the sale be distributed and/or a new contract for pay for contributions.

• If you don't want to be treated like a peasant, you have to make it clear you're going to do more than cry about your circumstances.

• Arianna has more dollars than dimes, so I don't anticipate her sharing any coins with us any time soon.

The six-year-old HuffPost operation, which employs 70 paid staffers, has been utilizing the talents of 6,000-plus volunteer blog writers.

The planned HuffPost-AOL combination is expected to close by mid-year.

 

Super Bowl advertiser E*Trade promotes baby outtakes

Along with televised Super Bowl action on Sunday are commercials that advertisers hope grab attention, talk and sales since News Corp.’s Fox Broadcasting is charging $2.8 million to $3 million per 30-second spot, including one from E*Trade Financial Corp. that features its talking baby in a high chair, notes Grumpy Editor.

E*Trade, the New York City-based online brokerage firm that claims 2.3 million customers and $148 billion in customer assets worldwide, uses a talking baby to bring viewers what it and its advertising agency think is hilarious humor.

To drum up additional interest in its talking-baby, a quarter-page ad in The Wall Street Journal yesterday invites readers to “see uncensored E*Trade baby outtakes before the big game.”

Going to youtube.com/etrade shows segments of several spots such as a baby, reading The Wall Street Journal, who tells his same-size friend:

“Interesting.  The building across the street is going condo.”

Another, with an elderly woman sitting on a sofa in the background, has the baby noting:

“I love how my grandmother is so comfortable in her own skin.  Probably because it’s a little loose.”

Viewers who erupt in side-splitting, hearty belly laughs with these sample clips must have a super sense of humor and are eagerly sought to sit in front rows at comedy clubs.