Grumpy Editor

AP writers uncover fuzzy figures in stimulus jobs count

Associated Press set the White House grumbling yesterday when the wire service reported that President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan “overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved” tied to the $787 billion stimulus program, notes Grumpy Editor.

Writers Brett J. Blackledge and Matt Apuzzo should be applauded for their efforts in reviewing an early progress report of stimulus contracts that found the government’s accounting of jobs linked to the program claimed more than 30,000 positions paid for with recovery money --- but the figure was overstated by at least 5,000.

The AP pair discovered errors in one out of six jobs credited to the stimulus program.

That represented about a 17 percent job inflation.

The AP writers also uncovered some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs, some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times, and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.

But not to worry, responded the White House because “it is aware there are problems.”  Obama adviser Ed DeSeve told AP, “If there’s an error that was made, let’s get it fixed.”

* * * * * *

Look for additional scrutiny of government figures with new data, slated for release today, showing the stimulus program helped create or save about 650,000 jobs.

Home Depot fires employee wearing patriotic button

Home Depot is reaping a ton of negative publicity this week following (the now much publicized) firing of a clean-cut young male staffer wearing a button with the words “One nation under God, indivisible” over a U.S. flag background, observes Grumpy Editor.

The story, a case for free speech, broke in the Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Monday and was noted by Fox News on the same day.

It gained momentum yesterday when other TV coverage focused on the action.

Trevor Keezer, a 20-year-old Okeechobee, Fla. resident, a cashier for 19 months at the Home Depot in his home town, was terminated for wearing the button but only after bringing a Bible to work for reading during break time, he mentioned on TV interviews.

He had been wearing the button for more than a year.

With an older brother, Army Spc. Steven Keezer, Jr., slated in December to deploy to Iraq for a second tour of duty, the younger Keezer said the button was his way of supporting U.S. troops.

Keezer said he was a model employee at Home Depot and liked his job to earn money for college in hopes of becoming a nurse.

“I was cashier of the month and I’ve won six ‘Homer’ awards --- that’s the highest award you can get at Home Depot,” he told the Sun Sentinel.

A Home Depot spokesman said the company has a “proud history” of supporting the military and that it sanctions several of its own buttons for employees to wear, including one that reads, “United We Stand,” the newspaper reported.

Yes, Keezer now has an attorney.

Expect confusion with lookalike Sarah Palin book

Get ready for a double take when Sarah Palin’s book, “Sarah Palin: Going Rogue, An American Life,” hits book stores on Nov.17, predicts Grumpy Editor.

Two senior editors at The Nation are busy putting together a book with a copycat cover containing similar words, type style, layout and title, “Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare.”  It is slated to reach book stores also on Nov.17.

In other “coincidences,” covers of both the true and facsimile show color photos of the smiling former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate --- attired in red jackets --- looking off to her left, with clouds in the background.

However, two distinguishing characteristics of the imitation’s cover shot:  A lightning bolt in the background strikes downward from dark clouds over her left shoulder, and Palin’s hair is up (while in the true version, the style is down).

Politico.com says the mocked book is the work of  The Nation’s Richard Kim, a senior editor, and Betsy Reed, executive editor, along with contributions from 23 writers.

Work on the carbon-copy book started four weeks ago, notes Politico.

Getting the lookalike package together and to book store shelves in about 10 weeks, rather than months, is quite an achievement.

Too bad other books with timely issues aren’t produced in such record time.

The lookalike book’s description terms Palin “an American obsession that just won’t go away” and examines “the nightmarish prospect of her continuing to dominate the nation’s political scene.”

U.S. newspapers' circulation drop picks up speed

U.S. newspapers’ average daily circulation fell 10.6 percent in the six months ended in September from the same six-month period last year, reflecting a growing problem for publishers and editors, notes Grumpy Editor.

The latest drop in figures released yesterday from the Audit Bureau of Circulations exceeded the 7.1 percent decline in the October 2008 to March 2009 span and the 4.6 percent drop in last year’s April to September frame.

While a chief factor for the drop-off is the Internet, with its abundance of free news, publishers and editors have been hacking away at their products, making them less appealing.

This has resulted in skimpier newspapers with less business and travel pages, fewer comics, compressed weather page, dumping of special sections, cutbacks in regional/local news and even area bureaus.

Added to this were periodic newsroon staff reductions in efforts to contain bottom lines.

To compound things, some newspapers hiked subscription rates.

Rising above USA Today as the top selling newspaper in the U.S. was The Wall Street Journal.  The Journal showed the least circulation dip at 2,024,269, off  a slim 0.61 percent in the latest six-month period.

No. 2 USA Today came in with 1,900,116, down 17.15 percent.

These were followed by The New York Times with 927,851, off 7.28 percent; Los Angeles Times, 657,467, down 11.05 percent and The Washington Post, 582,844, a 6.40 percent decline.

Biggest decliner in the latest period among the top 25 was the San Francisco Chronicle, with its circulation down 25.82 percent to 251,782.

World Pasta Day focuses on nutrition, scientific research

While two well-known, major events occur this week --- Halloween and start of baseball’s World Series --- another is relatively new and unfamiliar, even to those who delight in eating spaghetti and meat balls, notes Grumpy Editor.

Today marks World Pasta Day 2009, an observance started in 1995.

But look for coverage mainly in food sections. 

That's because a conference in New York City will attract food editors and perhaps some medical writers rather than general assignment people.  

The National Pasta Association and the International Pasta Organization are behind the conference that features the world’s leading pasta manufacturers spotlighting latest nutritional and scientific research on pasta.

Presentations will include a scientific update on nutritional aspects of pasta, research on the effect of the Mediterranean Diet on Alzheimer’s, and a summary of recent research on carbohydrates.

Then, world-class chefs roll up their sleeves for demonstrations on preparing appetizing and healthy pasta recipes.

In the current economic climate, pasta is being hailed as a budget-friendly meal coupled with health benefits.

The pasta folks point out the average price of a one-pound box of pasta --- enough to feed a family of four --- is $1.33. When taking into account additional ingredients, such as sauce that goes with it, the cost of a meal comes to about 83 cents a serving.

Halloween iPhone app scores with spooky features

Grumpy Editor used to mark Halloween time with a hair-raising visit to the Haunted House in Disneyland, but that is no longer necessary with Halloween Experience, a scary app for Apple Corp.’s iPhone and iPod Touch users.

Since it came out last year, Halloween Experience has been enhanced and this year made it to Apple’s "U.S. Entertainment Top 100 Paid Apps" list.

With more than 34 million iPhones and more than 20 million iPod Touch active units --- Apple sold 7.4 million iPhones and 10.2 million iPods in this year’s third quarter alone --- users of the multi-game app will find plenty of eeriness, with haunting background music, flying/cackling witches, playing spooky hangman, solving a puzzle, tilting the device in one of eight directions to hear scary sounds and, of course, carving a pumpkin.

Halloween Experience allows:

•  Creating a virtual Halloween pumpkin by moving 30 facial pieces via pinch and rotate gestures.

•  Working on nine versions of pumpkin creations at different times.

•  Playing a Halloween-themed hangman game with more than 150 spooky words randomly displayed, coupled with a percentage score.

•  Going to a haunting Tower of Hanoi puzzle game with 10 levels including a display of number of moves and time elapsed.

•  Sending an e-mail of a created pumpkin directly from within the program (with 3.0+ devices).

Developer Energize Software has more details plus a demonstration video, and Halloween Experience can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store.

Halloween Experience tops the Halloween list at AppReview.com which also hails the multi-game in its “Apps Worth a Buck” list.

Georgia daily offers $1 subscriptions to unemployed

Grumpy Editor finds it refreshing to discover that the 162-year-old The Daily Citizen, Dalton, Ga., recognizes some of its readers are out of work, and to maintain their readership --- while keeping advertisers happy and circulation up --- it is offering them a three-month subscription for $1.

The offer is for residents of Murray and Whitfield counties who are receiving state unemployment benefits. 

The one buck subscription can be renewed if the subscriber remains unemployed past the initial three-month period.

It’s a splendid public relations gesture by The Daily Citizen, published seven-days-a week with a circulation of about 11,000.  The morning newspaper is the flagship publication of the North Georgia Newspaper Group, part of Birmingham, Ala.-based Newspaper Holdings Inc.

“The reason we are doing this is two-fold,” says The Daily Citizen publisher William Bronson.  “We want area residents who are experiencing difficult times to stay connected to the community so they can read about their schools, sports and all the other activities happening, while also helping them find a job.”

The unemployment rate for Metro Dalton (Murray and Whitfield counties), as of August, is 12.5 percent.

Bronson says it is important that people looking for work are aware of the job opportunities in The Daily Citizen.

Getting the $1 deal requires bringing verification to the newspaper office that the delivery home address matches the location where the unemployment check is received.

Dalton, known as the “carpet capital of the world,” is a 25-minute drive from Chattanooga, Tenn., and about an hour north of Atlanta.

N.Y. Times cuts Gotham staff, builds in San Francisco

With rather strange timing, a New York Times Co. announcement of further reduction of its newsroom staff came three days after it debuted its San Francisco Bay Area edition, notes Grumpy Editor.

Executive Editor Bill Keller said The Times plans to eliminate 100 editorial jobs by year’s end.  That would leave about 1,150 newsroom positions, down from about 1,330 at the news department’s peak in spring, 2008, before a prior round of cuts.

Earlier, the “newspaper of record” made deep reductions in other, non-newsroom departments, where layoffs have occurred several times.

Staffers, who earlier took a 5 percent pay cut for most of this year, weren't the only ones being hit.  The Times already lowered the budget for freelancers and trimmed other expenses.

Stockholders, too, have felt the ripples.  To cope with revenue declines, The Times suspended its dividend in February for the first time in four decades as a publicly-traded company.

Yet, with all the slicing, The Times last Friday unveiled its San Francisco Bay Area edition with local content that included a dining and wine section that focused on the importance of wine lists.  It also lured two Northern California writers as columnists and ran local stories that included a profile of the Oakland police chief.

The effort, from a 10-person San Francisco bureau, is aimed at the affluent population segment and newcomers to the area along with hopes of siphoning readers from local newspapers. 

If it works, The Times has its eyes on a similar local edition for Chicago and, later, in other key areas around the country.

White House advisers continue sparring with Fox News

The rhetorical battle between the White House and Fox News continued over the week end with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel describing the network “not a news organization so much as it has a perspective,” observes Grumpy Editor.

His comment was on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

Then on ABC’s “This Week,” also on Sunday, President Barack Obama’s adviser David Axelrod declared Fox News shouldn’t be treated as a news organization.

“And the bigger thing,” he continued, “is that other news organizations, like yours (ABC), ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way.”

Referring to an earlier comment by Anita Dunn, White House communications director, who slapped Fox News by terming its output as “opinion journalism masquerading as news,” Axelrod --- apparently not aware of the difference between a TV station and a TV network --- said, “The only argument Anita was making is that they’re not really a news station…It’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming.  It’s really not news.  It’s pushing a point of view.”

Perhaps he has overlooked station, er, the MSNBC network to hear a distinct point of view that is noted for being strongly aligned with White House positions.

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch informed shareholders Friday that since White House officials started criticizing Fox News, ratings have jumped.

As part of the News Corp. family, Fox News --- with a motto of “fair and balanced” in its coverage --- is available to 102 million households in the U.S.   The network also has international viewers.

Fox News also operates a radio division heard through a number of U.S. stations.

It also produces a Web site featuring latest coverage, including video clips from the network's television division and audio segments from radio.

 

AP marks 20th anniversary of San Francisco earthquake

While many editors look at an anniversary story as an easy, little-effort way to fill up editorial space around ads, combine that with the fascination of earthquakes (especially in California) and one has the makings of a “blockbuster” anniversary-more danger ahead piece, notes Grumpy Editor.

Such was the case over the weekend when Associated Press marked the 20th anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake known as the Loma Prieta.

The lengthy story (a half-page with art in some papers) recapped the aftereffects of the 6.9-magnitude shaker that killed 63 people, injured almost 3,800 and caused $10 billion in damage.

Then, in usual efforts to shake up readers, Jason Dearen wrote: While bridges and landmarks have been fortified, “other earthquake safety problems are far from fully addressed in this region where experts say another major temblor is certain to strike.”

Fifteen paragraphs later, Dearen recycled the prediction angle with a forecast from last year that “another large earthquake is destined to occur --- scientists in 2008 said there is a 63 percent probability of a comparable quake in the Bay area over the next 30 years.”

Forecast of another large quake is nothing new.  No doubt about it, major shakers are in California’s future.  The Golden State, lined with faults, is in earthquake territory.

Such predictions make the rounds, and print, three or four times a year.

Yet, long-time Californians are immune to constant reminders of “big ones” to come.

Nevertheless, look for another story in October, 2014, marking the 25th anniversary of the Bay area’s Loma Prieta quake --- with a prediction of more rumblings in the future.