Grumpy Editor

Grumpy Editor gets into holiday spirit, returns Jan. 2

Grumpy Editor, mellowed somewhat by holiday goodies, is taking time off to celebrate Christmas and welcome in year 2008.

He --- and his grumpiness --- will return Jan. 2.

Sacramento Bee outsources ad production to India

More media outsourcing activity is going overseas with some Sacramento Bee advertising production heading for India, notes Grumpy Editor.

Could hypoing the bottom line be behind the move that transfers work 7,684 air miles from California’s capital city rather than keeping it local?

Certainly not (ahem!).

“It’s about improving our service to our customers,” relates Ed Canale, vice president of business development at the Bee, a McClatchy Co. newspaper.

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

The ad production shift is expected to be completed next summer and will affect about half the artists’ jobs in the Bee’s ad department.  Thirteen staffers will be eligible for severance pay and other benefits, said Canale.

Ad production work is being transferred to Express KCS with offices in New Delhi and Gurgaon, India.  Express KCS has done work for the Fresno Bee, another McClatchy daily.

Four months ago, McClatchy outsourced its circulation customer service to a company that operates sites in the U.S. and the Philippines.

November revenue for McClatchy fell 9.2 percent while revenue in California dropped 16.2 percent, the publisher announced yesterday.

AP travel story suggests vacation in Afghanistan

What type of vacationers seek to visit an area where remnants of the Taliban regime and the terrorist al-Qaida network and other groups hostile to the Afghan and U.S. governments remain active?

Obviously, thrill seekers with no fears of car bombings or kidnappings, figures Grumpy Editor.

So it was interesting to note an Associated Press 37-paragraph article plus photos on war-torn Afghanistan as “no ordinary vacation” appear as a major Sunday travel section front-page feature.

Under a Kabul dateline, writer Cassie Biggs warned:  “With suicide attacks in the capital, kidnappings of foreigners and a resurgence of the extremist Taliban in the south, Afghanistan doesn’t get many tourists.”  Then she admits, “Independent travel is not easy or recommended, especially for a single Western woman.”

At least she is honest about that.  It’s far different than relaxing while sipping a pina colada by a quiet lagoon on a nice, tropical island in the Pacific.

One wonders why AP would choose to highlight Afghanistan as a travel destination.

See if this State Department strong warning against travel to that war-torn nation makes you want to dial your travel agent and book a trip ---

“There is an ongoing threat to kidnap and assassinate U.S. citizens and non-governmental organization workers throughout the country.  The ability of Afghan authorities to maintain order and ensure the security of citizens and visitors is limited.  Remnants of the former Taliban regime and the terrorist al-Qaida network, and other groups hostile to the Afghan and U.S. governments, remain active.

“Travel in all areas of Afghanistan, including the capital, Kabul, is unsafe due to military operations, landmines, banditry, armed rivalry among political and tribal groups, and the possibility of terrorist attacks, including attacks using vehicular or other improvised explosive devices (IEDs).”

“The security environment remains volatile and unpredictable.  No part of Afghanistan should be considered immune from violence, and the potential exists throughout the country for hostile acts, either targeted or random, against American and other western nationals at any time.  Carjackings, robberies, and violent crime remain a problem.”

Gulp!

Yes, it can be an eye-opening experience.

Mainstream media snub other global warming report

Overlooked by mainstream U.S. media during heavy coverage of the recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gathering in Bali were several U.S. scientists’ views, made public via a British publication, that insist global warming is not man-made, observes Grumpy Editor.

They declare global warming, backed by reams of data, is a natural phenomenon.

"The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, doesn't show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming," lead author David Douglas, a climate expert from the University of Rochester, wrote in The International Journal of Climatology, published by Britain's Royal Meteorological Society.

"The inescapable conclusion is that human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming," added Douglas.

Their conclusions were reported by AFP (Agence France-Presse).

Among those spotting, and relaying the whole story, were NewsMax.com and Neal Boortz, radio talk show host, with almost 4 million listeners nationwide.

Newspaper editors obviously weren’t stirred by the report --- or were busy watching weekend football games played in snowbound conditions.

But many Web sites, pro and con, jumped on it.  It was especially popular with “save the planet” types who harpooned the scientists’ findings.

The AFP story also noted co-author John Christi, from the University of Alabama, said satellite data "and independent balloon data agree that the atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface," while greenhouse models "demand that atmospheric trend values be two to three times greater."  He pointed out data from satellite observations "suggest that greenhouse models ignore negative feedback produced by clouds and by water vapor that diminish the warming effects" of human carbon dioxide emissions.

The authors said they "have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases."

Fred Singer, a climatologist at the University of Virginia, also a co-author of the Journal article, noted the current warming "trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep sea sediments and stalagmites . . . and published in hundreds of papers in peer reviewed journals."

Available data are ambiguous, Singer said, citing global temperatures rose between 1900 and 1940, well before humans began burning quantities of hydrocarbons.  Then temperatures fell between 1940 and 1975 when the use of oil and coal increased, he added.

Greenspan, still spotlighted, says ‘R’ word, stocks drop

Still welcomed by the media even though he ended his 18-year term as Federal Reserve chairman 23 months ago, Alan Greenspan, 81, has been on a print-radio-TV interview spree, spreading the word on stagflation and (again) the possibility of the dreaded “r” word, recession, notes Grumpy Editor. 

And, as usual, Wall Street analysts and others take note of his melancholy utterings.  The Dow Jones industrials closed yesterday down 172.65, or 1.3%, to 13167.20.

Meanwhile, for balance in the quotes department, media have bypassed current Fed chairman Ben Bernanke.

A front page Wall Street Journal article on the “mortgage mess” Saturday, based on a Friday interview, included Greenspan’s input, along with a half-column illustration of his smiling face (right on the fold).  He came up with a typical Greenspanism:  “The financial erosion will come to an end when the prices of homes and equity in homes stabilize, probably not before.”

Also on Friday, he told a National Public Radio audience that the odds of a recession are “clearly rising” and “we’re getting close to stall speed” in economic growth.

Then Sunday on ABC’s This Week, he declared, “We are beginning to get not stagflation, but the early symptoms of it.”

In another interview, repeating earlier statements, he said prospects for a recession are about 50-50.

BBC News picked up a Greenspan warning:  “Fundamentally, inflation must be suppressed.”

With all those bright words, the stock market reacted.

Focus on ‘torture’ overlooks hostiles sans uniforms

Print and broadcast media actively reporting on “CIA harsh torture” --- especially “waterboarding” --- over the past few months would do well to talk to Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R., Mich), top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, suggests Grumpy Editor. 

The House voted 222 to 199 in passing legislation that would require the CIA and other intelligence agencies to use only interrogation techniques authorized for the military in the U.S. Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations.  The bill now goes to the Senate.

While U.S. law and the 1949 Geneva Conventions on treatment of non-combatants and prisoners of war ban torture and cruel treatment, many lawmakers and news people who should know better, overlook that in the current conflict, the U.S. is not dealing with regular prisoners of war.

Unlike wars of the past, U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are confronted by terrorists who are not part of an organized army.

In connection with the House vote on Thursday, Hoekstra pointed out that terrorist suspects “are not normal enemy combatants.  They don’t wear uniforms.”

Since they are not part of a regular army, the hostiles --- sans uniforms --- don’t wear stripes, bars or other military insignia.  They don’t report to captains, majors, colonels or generals.  And they don’t possess serial numbers.

They are just plain terrorists.

That should be sufficient to cap discussions on waterboarding and other so-called harsh interrogation methods.

L.A. Times beefs up local coverage via area ‘bureaus’

Seeking to broaden local news coverage, the Los Angeles Times is establishing three community bureaus.  This isn’t new.  The Times has had editorial offices in outlying sections before --- and then shuttered them.

The sprawling Los Angeles metropolitan area is plain difficult to cover.  Dispatching reporters and photographers to far-flung sections from The Times building at First and Spring Sts., near the Los Angeles Civic Center, has always been a hassle, especially with mounting traffic and clogged freeways, notes Grumpy Editor.

As Kevin Roderick reported Tuesday on the LA Observed site:  The Times has had (local) bureaus before, “then justified dropping them by calling it more efficient to run reporters off the city desk downtown — and started them again, and dropped them again. Now they're back yet again, apparently on a reduced scale.”

The plan calls for three bureaus, each headed by a “bureau chief.”  Editorial staffers and office space have yet to be completed.  Goal is to have the bureaus running early next year in south and east Los Angeles County plus the San Fernando Valley.

The Oct. 3 Grumpy Editor posting noted that The Times, which has been long-winded and ignoring many local happenings in recent years, is going the shorter stories and more local coverage route.  The moves stem from recommendations from a “Reinvent Committee,” composed of Times employees representing a cross-section of the daily, that went into action in July.

Like many major newspapers, The Times, founded in 1881, has been losing circulation over the past decade.

So it’s back to hypoing local coverage with the goal of boosting readership.

Miniature ‘ice age’ brings no global warming comments

With an unusual meteorological dose of sleet, freezing rain and snow sweeping across the Midwest to New England, resulting in ice --- up to 1½ inches thick covering surfaces in much of the central U.S. --- print and broadcast media have not sought comments from experts concerned about global warming, notices Grumpy Editor.

Officials in Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas declared states of emergency while President Bush declared a federal emergency in Oklahoma.

Power was knocked out to nearly a million homes and businesses.

The storm’s frigid mix today is expected to spread over the northern mid-Atlantic and into southern New England.  It is likely to bring snow, possibly mixed with sleet, to New York City and snow northward to Boston.

On Thursday afternoon the blinding storm paralyzed roadways in the Boston area with snow falling at the rate of 1 1/2 inches an hour.

High temperature today is predicted to reach only single digits in far northern Maine.

Meanwhile, a second blast of howling Arctic air, sleet and freezing rain is slated to hit the Upper Midwest and Plains states today, adding a fresh coat of ice.

A winter storm watch is posted for eastern North Dakota and adjacent areas of northwest Minnesota for blowing and drifting snow that may occasionally lower visibility to near zero.

This powerful storm is expected to bring wind-whipped rain and snow to the Northeast by Sunday.

All this with the official start of winter nine days away (Dec. 22 this year).

Anecdotal leads in stories waste readers’ time

Among things that make Grumpy Editor grind his teeth is the anecdotal lead.  So it was nice to note an article in Capitol Weekly, Sacramento, by Will Shuck who agrees.

As his lead, not anecdotal but smacking the target right away: "I am sick to death of the anecdotal lead, that annoying habit of news writers to start a straightforward story by painting a quaint little picture of everyday life.”

Cheers!

Some newspaper and magazine editors call for the anecdotal treatment.  This results in the facts or purpose of the story finally revealed in the eighth or 10th paragraph, often in the jump portion.

They forget that readers these days want to get to the meat of the story pronto.

That’s because most people are busy --- holding two jobs, coping with long commuting times or tending to kids before heading for work --- and don’t have time to read several paragraphs of fluff before getting to the point.

Readers may get the feeling that the writer is being paid by the word.

Getting back to Shuck’s comments: “Of course there is such a thing as a great anecdotal lead, a picture so compelling it sticks with you like great fiction.  But most of them just waste your time and make you hunt for the point of the story.  Not only is the typical example time-consuming and boring, it represents a basic misunderstanding of the main motivator for reading newspapers in the first place.”

Grumpy Editor reminds that the mark of a good news writer is one capable of summarizing a story with the who, what, when, where, why and how compactly in the first paragraph.  Some editors may say that’s the old-fashioned way.  But, hey, it saves precious editorial space, allows room for other stories --- and pleases readers.

Hythiam’s stock flat, following ‘60 Minutes’ feature

Does spotlighting a publicly-held firm on a popular TV news program give the company and investors a boost?

It has its ups and downs, notes Grumpy Editor.

Take the case of Los Angeles-based Hythiam, Inc.  Featured in one of the three segments on Sunday night’s 60 Minutes on CBS, the focus was on the company’s program designed for use by healthcare providers seeking to treat individuals diagnosed with dependencies to alcohol, cocaine or methamphetamine, as well as combinations of these drugs.

Hythiam provides behavioral health management services to health plans, employers, criminal justice and government agencies through a network of licensed and company managed providers.

Pros and cons were aired.  One treated patient called the company’s program “a wonder.”  Others on camera were cautious.

Hythiam  (NASDAQ:HYTM) enthusiastic for the TV exposure, issued a press release via Business Wire on Friday alerting investors and others of the upcoming 60 Minutes segment.  Another Business Wire news release, mentioning the 60 Minutes airing Sunday night, was sent out yesterday morning.

So how did this affect the stock?

Grumpy Editor observed that despite some gyrations and big volume jumps Friday and yesterday, the stock --- a day after the TV airing --- ended the trading session at $3.37, four cents above last Thursday’s close.

But the high reached on Friday was $4.26 (when it closed at $3.99) while yesterday’s high was $4.10.  Volume last Thursday, before the news releases, was 350,000 shares.  That jumped to 1,919,390 on Friday and expanded to 2,446,499 yesterday.

The 52-week high was $10.48 and low, $2.88.