Grumpy Editor

Navy set to arraign 3 SEALs who nabbed key terrorist

Getting scant coverage --- while stirring controversy, especially with active and former U.S. military people --- is the case of three Navy SEALs who secretly captured a most-wanted terrorist in Iraq and now face criminal charges in a military court because the detainee claimed a bloody lip, observes Grumpy Editor.

The SEALS nabbed Ahmed Hashim Abed around Sept. 1.  Branded one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq, he is the alleged mastermind behind the killing, mutilation, burning and public display of four American security guards employed by Blackwater USA.

The incident, in which insurgents dragged the bodies through the streets of Fallujah before hanging two of them from a bridge, occurred five years ago and was widely covered on television.

Word of the upcoming criminal action seeped out last Wednesday when Fox News reported the story along with the New York Post, Navy Times, Army Times, Air Force Times and the Daily Press, Newport News, Va.  CNN followed.

Most broadcast and print media overlooked the SEALs story because the focus since last Tuesday --- and continuing --- has been on the two dinner crashers last Tuesday at the White House where President Barack Obama held a state dinner for Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh.

At a time when military recruitment and reenlistments are sought, the SEALs story puts a damper on such efforts.  Meanwhile, the criminal action sought by unidentified higher-ups, also knocks morale of men and women in uniform.

Abed told investigators he was punched “and he had the bloody lip to prove it,” reported Fox News.  Others suggest the bloody lip was self inflicted.

And it’s strange that the Navy brass --- who should know better --- set Dec. 7 as the date in Norfolk, Va. for arraignments of the SEALs.  That date marks the 68th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  

 

Turkey-minded Grumpy Editor is taking time off

Marking Thanksgiving, Grumpy Editor is getting away from his cluttered desk today to feast on turkey dinner.

Turkey sandwiches follow tomorrow.

He will return, a few pounds heavier, on Monday.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Remote editing sends shivers up spines of copy editors

Subediting.

That’s the word that will trigger grumbling in newspaper editorial departments in the days ahead as publishers, seeking to boost bottom lines, employ more outsourcing, predicts Grumpy Editor.

Latest to go that route in a big way is the 117-year-old Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper.

With the move, the Star is eliminating 78 editing jobs, figuring it will save 3.8 million (equivalent in U.S. dollars) in the conversion.

Also look for more involvement in outsourcing production activity via Pagemasters North America, with roots in Australia, which will be handling subediting for the Star.

Pagemasters North America, wholly owned by national news agency Canadian Press, was launched three months ago with the aim of providing Canadian and U.S. newspapers with editorial services, including subediting and design. 

It’s an offshoot of Pagemasters, formed in 1991 in Australia. 

The Down Under operation, owned by the Australian Associated Press, employs more than 100 subeditors and produces more than 10,000 editorial pages a month for the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, New Zealand Herald, Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age.

Australian Associated Press is part-owned by Rupert Murdoch's Australian subsidiary, News Ltd.

While cutting production costs is uppermost in newspaper publishers’ minds these days, editing copy and writing headlines from a remote location also points to some loss of editorial control and increases chances of errors in headlines and copy.

 

Gremlins gum up Wall Street Journal dividends list

In this slow recovering economy, when a major global company announces a 10 percent increase in its quarterly dividend, that is upbeat news.  But Camden, N.J.-based Campbell Soup Co. --- marking its sixth consecutive year of hiking payouts --- sure didn’t get much of a spotlight last week when it upped its dividend, notes Grumpy Editor.

Neither did some other operations, including spirits company Brown-Forman, Louisville, with a 4.3 percent quarterly dividend increase; Houston headquartered Sysco Corp., food service distributor, with a 4 percent rise in its quarterly, and Boston-based NSTAR, an energy delivery company, with a 6.7 percent jump.

And that’s just in The Wall Street Journal.

Gremlins got to the dividends table in the WSJ last Thursday and Friday. 

Twelve publicly-held companies with dividend increases came out in print with identical figures for both new payouts and old in the agate-type roundup.

No corrections have been observed.

Errors in agate type are difficult to spot.

Grumpy Editor recalls working at a newspaper with a sharp-eyed night managing editor (with dangling cigarette, suspenders and rolled up shirt sleeves at a news desk, rather than sitting in the cozy M.E.’s office) who, amazingly, would zero in on a typo or two in the lengthy New York Stock Exchange list in an early edition.  It happened almost every day.  Fixes were promptly made.

Apparently that type of editor is hard to find these days

Obama’s jobs creation line contains a big ‘if’

With President Barack Obama’s radio/Web address Saturday, Associated Press writer Philip Elliott’s lead on the weekly chat mentioned the president “is citing talks with Asian allies that he says could help create thousands of jobs.”  But Grumpy Editor notes there was a big “if” attached to that jobs-creation line not mentioned in the AP story.

Namely, “If we can increase our exports to Asia Pacific nations by just 5 percent, we can increase the number of American jobs supported by these exports by hundreds of thousands.”

Acknowledging the U.S. recession has “left millions without work,” Obama said:  “Increasing our exports is one way to create new jobs and new prosperity.”

Indeed, the big thing is curbing the flow of work to foreign lands.

After 10 months in office --- as U.S. employment dwindled while billions in stimulus funds were dispensed --- the president has decided to go the forum route (not mentioned in the AP story) to seek jobs-creation ideas.

“In the next few weeks we’ll be holding a forum at the White House on jobs and economic growth,” he declared.  “I want to hear from CEOs and small business owners, economists and financial experts, as well as representatives from labor unions and nonprofit groups, about what they think we can do to spur hiring and get this economy moving again.”

Also in the weekly address, Obama offered an interesting line (also not picked up by AP) as the U.S. Senate was getting ready for a rare Saturday night vote (that passed) to move forward with a health care bill that would cost $848 billion over 10 years:

“In order to keep growing, we need to spend less, save more, and get our federal deficit under control.”

Health bill won’t add one dime to deficit, says Sen. Reid

Some Washington decision-makers certainly can use a calculator --- make that a big main-frame computer --- to verify figures in connection with the health care reform bill that faces an initial vote tomorrow in the Senate, advises Grumpy Editor.

The Senate measure, at a price tag of $848 billion over 10 years, calls for expanding coverage to 94 percent of Americans.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), in aiming for an 8 p.m. (Eastern) vote tomorrow to cut off Senate debate on a motion to proceed to the health care reform bill, mentioned at a press conference this week that “it’s not going to add one dime to the deficit.”

While that line was fed to print and broadcast reporters, few newspapers worked it into stories.

Actually, the complete line uttered by Reid was:  “It will save lives.  It saves money and it’s not going to add one dime to the deficit.”

That sounded familiar.

Sure enough.

President Barack Obama, in a health care address to Congress in September, declared, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future…period.”

California imposes TV set restrictions to save power

Rather than erect job-creating power plants in the Golden State to accommodate increased electricity usage as the population grows, the California Energy Commission voted 5 to 0 to require large television sets sold in the state, starting in 13 months, to meet energy efficiency standards in efforts to reduce power consumption, notes Grumpy Editor.

Officials in the state, where the population has swelled to 37 million from 29.7 million in 1990, seem to lack crystal balls --- or adequate projections in meeting future power generation needs.

Instead, the focus is on TV sets that use less wattage.

Affected will be models up to 58 inches.  For example, 42-inch plasma and liquid-crystal display (LCD) sets must use less than 183 watts by 2011 and under 116 watts two years later.

TV industry executives point out the upcoming standards will force manufacturers --- including Sony, Sharp, Hitachi and Samsung --- to produce sets for California that will have poorer picture quality and fewer features.

Meanwhile, TV broadcasters, more concerned about ratings, are mum on the tougher requirements.

State energy commissioners, estimating TV sets account for about 10 percent of a home’s power use, claim it’s “the cheapest and easiest way to conserve electricity.”

In looking to reduce power consumption further, could future targets be publications with a requirement for shorter press runs (already happening at newspapers as fewer copies roll off presses with dwindling circulation)?  That should worry publishers.

Next in line could be curbing electric ranges and ovens plus another shot at air conditioners, refrigerators and other household appliances.

And could dimming or blacking out street lights be far behind?

The trend toward less California power consumption seems to be going back to the level of the early 1940s when the population was a sparse 7 million.

AP skips fact check routine with other politicians’ books

More details stemming from the Sarah Palin book fact-checking-by-Associated-Press saga, covered here on Tuesday, illustrate how AP --- using 11 reporters to scrutinize “Going Rogue: An American Life” --- ganged  up on the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, notes Grumpy Editor. 

Her top-selling 432-page book debuted Tuesday, the same day AP laid off at least 57 editorial staffers, with more to come by year end as the news service seeks to cut 2009 payroll costs by 10 percent.    (UPDATE:  AP on Nov. 19 announced it laid off 90 news staffers.)

“The treatment Palin's book received appears to be something new for the AP,” writes Robert Shaffer on FOXNews.com. 

“The organization did not review for accuracy recent books by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, then-Sen. Joe Biden, either book by Barack Obama released before he was president or autobiographies by Bill or Hillary Clinton,” adds Shaffer.  “The AP did more traditional news stories on those books.”

Shaffer also mentions, “Palin supporters believe 11 reporters poring over every word of her book is excessive and further proof of the media's obsession and maltreatment of the hockey mom from Wasilla.”

He quotes Adrienne Ross, New York state organizer for the 2012 Draft Sarah Committee:  "They're obsessed with trying to discredit her.  Because she's a conservative woman, they make fun of her accent, comment about her looks. She doesn't come in the package they want her to come in."

Wall Street Journal reinstates regular dividends in table

The Wall Street Journal without fanfare --- although it should trumpet the move --- has quietly reinstated the listings of regular payouts in its dividend table within the Money & Investing section, discovers Grumpy Editor.

The WSJ abandoned regular dividends in print months ago, spotlighting only changes, including reduced, increased, initial, irregular, special and foreign.

Since then --- while more convenient to open up the Journal and check the dividends table --- readers/investors had to search the Web to see dividend action of companies with unchanged payouts.

Important to investors:  knowledge of record and payable dates, even with regular dividends.

With the reinstatement of regular payouts, The WSJ still headlines the table Dividend Changes rather than Dividend Digest or such.  Also, the Money & Investing front page index box continues to omit reference to the dividends table in that section.

Now if The WSJ print version would only reinstate its past convenient-to-view Digest of Corporate Earnings Reports table which was scrapped seven months ago.  

Palin blasts AP’s fact checkers on book due out today

Not too many book reviews are produced after being scrutinized under a microscope by almost a dozen writers at one news organization.

So with Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue: An American Life” (HarperCollins), it’s noteworthy that Associated Press turned 11 writers loose to pick through the 432 pages of the book, due out officially today --- which marks the 50th day in the top 100 of the amazon.com list, notices Grumpy Editor.

While under the byline of AP writer Calvin Woodward, 10 other AP staffers are listed at the end of the text.  The fact checkers say the book, by the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, at times misrepresents her record.

In firing back, Palin declares, "We've heard 11 writers are engaged in this opposition research, er, 'fact checking' research. Imagine that --- 11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to ‘fact check’ what's going on with Sheik Mohammed's trial, Pelosi's health care takeover costs, Hassan's associations, etc.  Amazing."

AP, she adds, is “now erroneously reporting on the book's contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign and afterwards."

Paul Colford, the news service’s media relations director, calls the fact checking “strong reporting by AP.”

Writer-political commentator-cultural critic Mark Steyn notes AP assigned 11 writers to fact check Palin’s book “and in return the 11 fact checkers triumphantly unearthed six errors.”

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More layoffs today at Associated Press

Layoffs started this afternoon at AP offices, with one source indicating up to 80 staffers could be affected.  More are planned by the end of next month as the news service seeks to cut 2009 payroll costs by 10 percent.

That means the face checkers pool likely will dwindle.