Grumpy Editor

Misleading ‘swine flu’ becomes clinical ‘H1N1 virus’

After a few days of wide usage and following complaints that it is not accurate, the “swine flu” term now appears as “H1N1 virus,” thus making some editors (especially headline writers) and reporters unhappy with the rebranded, clinical-sounding virus, notes Grumpy Editor.

Full name now is Influenza A H1N1 virus.

However, many print and broadcast media (including Associated Press) stories today continue to use "swine flu."  In some print cases, both old and new terms appear on the same page.

Pressure from Washington officials, especially the agriculture department, and the pork industry is behind the name change because "swine flu" implies a problem with pork products and pigs.

Officials now maintain the current in-the-news virus is not carried in pigs and therefore is not in any pork products.

Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports no evidence has been found that indicates the virus stems from contact with pigs, pointing out H1N1 is a respiratory health issue and is in no way transmitted by food products.

The link to pigs this week scared several nations to halt imports of U.S. pork products.

That action and less buying of pork products in U.S. supermarkets irk hog farmers and pork purveyors, as they see hog prices drop --- when they should be rising in the spring --- with the heightened print and broadcast news coverage of “swine flu.”

Perry, Iowa, hog farmer Francis Gilmore, stirred up by the crisis that could ruin his operation, declares:  “Where they got the name, I just don’t know.”

National Pork Producers Council spokesman Dave Warner, also nixes the “swine flu” term.  “It is an unfortunate use of words,” he comments.  “To call it ‘swine flu’ is a little bit misleading.”

The European Union’s health commissioner earlier suggested the virus be renamed “novel flu.”

But then, book stores and publishers probably would become angry.

747 aerial photo session over N.Y. turns into PR blunder

Ordinarily, the extraordinary media coverage, especially in the New York City area, would have been a public relations person’s dream, observes Grumpy Editor:

A photo op with the focus on a sleek, blue-and-white presidential Boeing 747 aircraft flying a circuitous loop at a low 1,500 feet over Lower Manhattan’s financial district and New York Harbor, trailed by an F-16 fighter jet.   

The mission was to photograph the lumbering 747 flying around the Statue of Liberty.  (When President Barack Obama --- who remained in Washington --- is aboard, the aircraft is labeled Air Force One.)

But, in its wake, it turned out to be a major blunder that left a lot of red faces, especially on officials in New York City and Washington, D.C., and startled (and angered) New Yorkers who were forced, some in near panic with memories from the terrorist attack eight years ago, to evacuate office buildings in Lower Manhattan, close to the former World Trade Center site.

The 747 and fighter slowly circled for about a half hour while city and police switchboards lit up.  Meanwhile, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, not cued in on the event, almost blew up, calling the photo op "insensitive" to fly so near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"Why the Defense Department wanted to do a photo op right around the site of the World Trade Center catastrophe defies the imagination," Bloomberg growled.  "Poor judgment would be a nice way to phrase it.”

The Air Force mission grabbed bold headlines in New York, where the New York Times ran a large photo of the flyby on its front page.  The Wall Street Journal ran two photos:  The 747 and fighter aircraft on its front page, the other snapped from a Lower Manhattan apartment that captured the jumbo jet, fighter and Statue of Liberty in one frame.

When word got to the White House press room about the surprise buzzing of the 747, press secretary Robert Gibbs initially plead ignorance as to what was happening in Gotham, telling newsmen to check with the White House --- apparently unaware that he spoke while in the White House.

Not asked by media:  Why the photo op at this time?  Current Air Force One has been flying around the world, including to New York, for almost 20 years.

The aircraft at the center of attention was one of two specially configured Boeing 747-200B's --- one with tail number 28000, deployed in 1990, the other, identified as 29000, deployed a year later --- that the Air Force designates VC-25.

Why wasn’t advance word of the photo op given to alert people in New York?

It was hush-hush.  Obama administration officials said the mission was “classified” by the military.

Meanwhile, the photo op with the military aircraft cost taxpayers $328,835, according to the Air Force.

24 of 25 top U .S. newspapers show circulation drop

Circulation at 24 of the top 25 U.S. newspapers continues to decline and most publishers and editors, who continue to deteriorate their publications, seem to be stymied on how to “plug the dike,” notes Grumpy Editor.

Instead of making their products better, they keep chopping everything from staffers to popular sections and features, making their newspapers less appealing while often hiking subscription or newsstand costs.

Take business sections, for example.  While interest in business coverage is heightened in the current economy, publishers and editors, in many cases, are continuing to reduce the number of business pages, cutting stock tables, dropping standalone business sections and even dumping Monday and Tuesday business pages.

Among other factors for the decline, Grumpy Editor points to:

•  Front pages of broadsheets now contain two, three or four stories, compared with 15 to 18 (most jumping to inside pages) when dailies were loaded with news items at circulation peaks.

•  Fewer news stories of great interest to readers in the first (or A) section of newspapers.

•  Some newspapers’ A sections, especially on Mondays, contain only a handful of stories.  As an example:  One newspaper in a metropolitan area yesterday worked in only nine stories (most long winded to fill up around ads) and seven “briefs” in an eight-page section.
 
•  Editorial slant of some newspapers gives some readers indigestion.

•  Too many stories, both wire and local, don’t get to the point pronto.  Readers busy with two jobs, for example, don’t have time to get down to the eighth or 10th paragraph for “the meat.”

Newspaper executives blame some of the circulation drop-off to young people getting their information off the Web.  But let’s face it, few of the younger Internet surfers have ever subscribed to daily newspapers.

Of the top 25 newspapers, only The Wall Street Journal ekes out a circulation gain (plus 0.61 percent) to 2,082,189, based on daily averages Mondays through Fridays for the six months ended March 31, compared with the same period last year, in a tally released yesterday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Biggest losers in the top 25 are the New York Post, down 20.55 percent to 558,140, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, off 19.91 percent to 261,828.

USA Today holds its first-place position but declines 7.46 percent to 2,113,725, affected by fewer hotel copies.

Read the full list here.

Calif. lawmakers leave state, ask why businesses leave

News media covering a group of California legislators seeking reasons why businesses are bidding farewell to the Golden State then relocating in Nevada missed a major twist: the politicians themselves left California for a fact-finding meeting 111 miles to the northeast --- in Reno, observes Grumpy Editor.

Thirteen Republican lawmakers at a forum heard from ex-California business people now based in the Silver State.  The legislators promised to take their findings back to Sacramento where the legislature is controlled by Democrats.

Of course, telephone calls or mailed questionnaires to the former Californians would have saved costs and time involved with the trip across the state line (where gambling is legal).

California Assemblyman Dan Logue, who chaired the forum, said the goal of the gathering was to address California’s job crisis and come up with measures to create a friendlier business climate.

As if the lawmakers didn’t know, main reasons for the outflow to Nevada, and other states, remain California’s steep taxes and choking regulations.

But the California representatives got an earful.

Among comments from the replanted attendees, as reported in the Reno Gazette-Journal:

“I got tired of being treated like crap. I was being taxed to death,”

“Is there a benefit to living and working in California?   No.”

“I kind of like Nevada. It’s the last bastion of the Wild West.”

“(California crime) got so bad I had to carry a sidearm because of the break-ins.”

“The deal killer was our inability to find land for our factory.  Here, we ended up on the most beautiful site on the planet for half the cost.”

Nevada, second in business climate after South Dakota, has no state income tax, no inventory tax, no estate tax and no corporate tax.

However, the Silver State, as with other states, is under pressure to raise taxes as a drop in tourism and housing have contributed to less revenue. But going the higher taxes route would put a dent in Nevada’s aggressive campaign to lure businesses from its neighboring state.

Week’s wrapup: GE irks shareholders at annual meeting

General Electric Co.’s shareholder meeting Wednesday in Orlando, Fla., took on the atmosphere of a small-town city council meeting where, if inquiring residents don’t agree with the local politicians, the microphone is cut off.

That’s the way it was when questions from shareholders critical of cable news channel MSNBC’s left-leaning political slant were brought up.

With about 600 shareholders on hand, others were upset about GE's plan to cut its dividend by 68 percent for the second half of the year, to 10 cents per quarter.

A retired attorney, holder of 56,000 shares, expressed his dissatisfaction with the slashed dividend, saying it would reduce his retirement income by 60 percent. "To me, GE, which I always admired, now means Go Elsewhere,” he declared.

In other Grumpy Editor end-of-week leftover notes:

Judge rejects TV show participation.  No trip to Costa Rica for former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to participate in I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here, a reality TV show planned for NBC.  Judge James Zagel called modifying terms of Blagojevich's bail on political corruption charges "a bad idea,” adding there are other ways for the former governor to earn money.

Pink slips mix with bonuses.  On the day the Chicago Tribune handed out more than four dozen pink slips, the newspaper asked a bankruptcy court to approve $13 million in bonuses to nearly 700 managers, directors and others.

Newspaper launched.  The Global Times, a new English-language newspaper made its debut Monday --- in China.  Claiming it has more than 500 special correspondents and contributors around the world, it’s published by China’s Communist Party which hopes to spread the party line to an international audience.  An editorial says the paper aims to continue the tradition of "presenting news from a Chinese perspective, in a fair, insightful and courageous manner.”

More green needed in Iowa.  Much-covered President Barack Obama’s Earth Day trip to Newton, Iowa, on Wednesday, focused on the replacement at a large factory that produced Maytag appliances until it was shuttered two years ago.  New occupant Trinity Structural Towers produces wind turbine parts.  Not emphasized was that the Maytag plant employed 4,000 people (one in four residents) while the new tenant employs 90.  No mention was made on how to make up the 3,910 jobs that disappeared.

Gray Lady engulfed in red.  New York Times Co., owner of The New York Times, Boston Globe and 16 other daily newspapers, reported a $74.5 million first-quarter loss, compared with a $335,000 loss in the like year-ago period.

Caption writer’s day off?   Fast Company magazine, in its May issue, named Seattle “2009 City of the Year.”  A long article on the Emerald City opens with a double-page spread containing 18 photographs --- from crabs on display to a Matson freighter --- but minus captions to identify sights, locations and what’s happening.

Free newspaper set for Colorado.  The Colorado Springs Gazette on May 6 launches a free newspaper that will combine original reporting with pickups from the Gazette and wire services, along with readers' stories.

Dick Cheney not reliable source, pokes Hillary Clinton

It’s not often that Grumpy Editor gets a hearty laugh while watching usually dry question-and-answer sessions of House and Senate committees.

That rare moment occurred Wednesday when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, responded to a question from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.) seeking her position on former Vice President Dick Cheney’s suggestion of more declassified memos that showed effectiveness of interrogation techniques. 

Clinton said of the former vice president of the United States:  “It won’t surprise you that I don’t consider him a particularly reliable source of information.”

That brought some chuckles from attendees, too.

The Secretary of State (who, as a senator, sat on the Armed Services Committee) then worked in, “I think we should get to the bottom of this entire matter.  I think it’s in the best interest of our country and that is what the president believes and that is why he’s taken the actions he’s taken.”

As Rohrabacher was ready to toss another question to the Secretary of State, committee chairman Howard L. Berman (D., Calif.) put a damper on the quizzing by injecting the “time has expired” phrase.

Strangely, the exchange (view it here) between the Secretary of State and Rohrabacher didn’t make it into most newspapers’ coverage of the event which Berman declared on his Web site as Clinton’s “first appearance before Congress as Secretary of State.”

An exception was a New York Daily News story by Richard Sisk under the headline:  Hillary Clinton takes jab at Dick Cheney over his defense of waterboarding in Hill testimony.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Grumpy Editor’s end-of-week leftover notes now appear on Saturdays.

‘Torture’ talk again makes front-page headlines

With all the things happening around the world these days, some Washington politicians are getting back to focusing on the word “torture,” this time linking it to the possibility of prosecuting Bush administration lawyers who approved “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terror suspects, notes Grumpy Editor.

What is “alarming” some politicians is use of “harsh” techniques on the bad guys.  These include waterboarding, face slapping, sleep deprivation and being placed in close quarters with insects.

Much of this sounds a lot like plain, old college fraternity initiation rites.

But it is enough to make front-page headlines (again) with lengthy stories this week.

Apparently stirred-up members of Congress have forgotten some of those World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War movies that depicted what enemies did to captured U.S. military personnel in efforts to produce intelligence.

Those dastardly tactics include yanking off toenails, hanging upside down for a lengthy period and 30 days in dank, underground space.

Now, that’s torture.

But the big things vocal politicians are overlooking in the current cacophony:  terrorism suspects they are so concerned about are not members of any military organization.  They represent no country.  Most of all, they wear no dog tags and bear no military identification, rank, serial numbers or uniforms.

Simply put, they are suspected terrorists.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and others from the Bush administration claim the enhanced interrogation techniques obtained valuable information that prevented additional terrorist attacks on the U.S.

This is echoed by the “Obama administration’s top intelligence official (who) privately told employees last week that ‘high value information’ was obtained in interrogations that included harsh techniques approved by former President George W. Bush,” according to the Washington Post.

 

McClatchy faces delisting from N.Y. Stock Exchange

The McClatchy Co., which publishes 30 daily and 50 nondaily newspapers, faces delisting from the New York Stock Exchange because it is now below NYSE listing criteria, notes Grumpy Editor.

Sacramento, Calif.-based McClatchy says it was notified by the NYSE that it is not in compliance with listing standards since its market capitalization fell below the Big Board minimum of $75 million.

The nation’s third largest newspaper company’s stock price (ticker symbol: MNI) at yesterday’s NYSE close was 57 cents, down 2 cents from Monday.  That compares with a 52-week high of $10.70 and $31.99 two years ago.

Among newspapers in the McClatchy chain are the Sacramento Bee, Miami Herald, Modesto (Calif.) Bee, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Kansas City Star, Charlotte Observer and (Raleigh) News & Observer.

It also operates direct marketing and direct mail operations.

McClatchy last month said it would cut 1,600 jobs --- about 15 percent of its work force --- and lower salaries.

Reductions will stem from a combination of layoffs, attrition and outsourcing, says the company.

The company lost $21 million in 2008’s fourth quarter.  Contributing to that was high debt from the purchase of Knight-Ridder two years ago.

3 U.S. female journalists held by ‘axis of evil’ nations

Overlooked in the heavy flow of recent news developments is that two “axis of evil” countries are holding three American women journalists and no tough, bold action is coming out of Washington, observes Grumpy Editor.

In a rushed trial, Iran on Saturday convicted Roxana Saberi of spying and sentenced her to eight years in prison.  Meanwhile, Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been held for more than a month near Pyongyang, North Korea.

Saberi, 31, a dual American-Iranian citizen and a native of Fargo, N.D., was arrested in late January and initially accused of working without press credentials, but earlier this month the charge was changed to spying for the U.S.

She had been living in Iran for six years and worked as a freelance reporter for several news organizations including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp.

The White House said President Barack Obama was "deeply disappointed" by the conviction.

On the other side of the world, Ling and Lee --- held for more than a month --- had hoped to interview North Korean defectors.  Details of their capture vary but some accounts indicate they were arrested by North Korean troops after they ventured across the Tumen River that forms the border between Russia, China and North Korea.

The duo are employees of Web-based Current TV, founded by Al Gore, former vice president.

Ling, a 32-year-old reporter, is Chinese-American while Lee, a Korean-American, is a photographer.

The State Department said that it is making every diplomatic effort to free the two women and Gore was reported to have contacted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking for her assistance.

Koh Yu Hwan, a professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, said that Pyongyang was unlikely to release the journalists soon, according to The Times of London.  Holding the two Americans was like having a “piece of rice cake rolling in for free,” he said.

PR firm’s Earth Day news release omits ‘holiday’ date

For public relations people, special days are a great time for a tie-in with clients.  This week, for example, features Earth Day, certain to draw much print and broadcast attention on April 22, notes Grumpy Editor.

So when a PR firm decides to do some tub thumping linking Earth Day to some of its “green” clients, it’s important to pinpoint the April 22 date, right?

But a PRNewswire-distributed news release last week from an Austin, Texas, PR firm somehow forgot to pinpoint Earth Day is Wednesday.

It also calls Earth Day a “holiday” in mentioning the PR firm’s “new public relations campaign…is shedding important light on a holiday that too often passes with little fanfare.”

Mention of a holiday may stir some city, county, state and federal employees to take the day off, keep some kids from going to school and banks to hang up the “closed” sign.

The PR firm, exuding excitement over the occasion, declares it “is giving Earth Day 2009 the respect it deserves by making it the focus of its clients’ April publicity.”

Its news release cites the Earth Day participation rate “has grown to exceed a half billion individuals” and if it “has anything to say about the matter, that statistic will skyrocket even higher this year.”

That’s because the PR firm’s “Earth Day campaign is highlighting the environmental endeavors of nearly a dozen businesses and individuals.”

Then the PR firm lists its eco-friendly clients, including one that distributes dog poop bags that on its separate Web site claims “reduces your dog’s carbon pawprint.”

That’s certainly what is needed on a holiday --- or any day, for that matter.