Grumpy Editor

Grumpy Editor, observing the holidays, returns Jan. 4

Grumpy Editor is taking time off to celebrate Christmas and welcome the year 2010.

He --- and his grumpiness --- will be back on the scene Jan. 4.

Downsizing smacks newsroom at Dayton Daily News

There’s good news and bad news this week at Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, finds Grumpy Editor.

The good:  10 reporter positions will be added.

The bad: 10 editor positions will be eliminated.

Translation:  If, as an editor, you want to continue to work in the Daily News newsroom, you’ll have to apply for a lesser position.

Gulp.

And the newspaper, with an eye on the bottom line, gets to boast that its editorial department headcount will remain unchanged.

It’s all part of restructuring at the newspaper, with 104,000 daily subscribers, owned by Cox Ohio Publishing which also operates dailies Middletown Journal, Hamilton Journal News and Springfield News-Sun.

Now the question:  With 10 editor positions being vaporized, how does that affect assignments, editing and guidance in the newsroom?

Yale list of 2009’s top quotes overlooks ‘deficit neutral’

During the latter part of the year, Grumpy Editor runs across lists of new words getting a play and overused words getting even more play.

Now, with the fourth annual list of The Yale Book of Quotations, Fred R. Shapiro, associate librarian and lecturer in legal research at Yale Law School, compiles the top quotes of 2009.

1 --- "Keep your government hands off my Medicare."

From a speaker at health care reform town hall meeting in Simpsonville, S.C., relating to the Medicare program, quoted by The Washington Post on July 28.

2 --- "We're going to be in the Hudson."

US Airways Capt. Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger, responding to air traffic controllers regarding the runway he preferred to land Flight 1549 on Jan. 15 before putting down on the Hudson River, New York.

3 --- "There's an app for that."

Apple's advertising slogan for the iPhone.

4 --- "You lie!"

The shouted retort by Congressman Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) to a statement in President Barack Obama’s address before a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9.
 
5 --- "The Cambridge police acted stupidly."

Obama, commenting on a white police officer's arrest of a black scholar in Cambridge, Mass., at a news  conference July 22.

See five others among the top 10 on the list here.

With that, Grumpy Editor would like to add his favorite quote of the year --- not on Yale’s list --- that has rumbled through print and broadcast media in recent months and as recently as yesterday when it was uttered by Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary, at a White House press briefing in response to a question on health care:

“The legislation is deficit neutral.”

Transfer of terrorist suspects stirs up quiet Ill. town

Chatter today is on the decision to transfer about 100 terrorist suspects from the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to an underused $145 million Illinois prison, 150 miles west of Chicago, observes Grumpy Editor.

With federal spending galore during the fragile economy, it was noted as far back as June that costs stemming from full closing of facilities at Gitmo could surpass $200 million.

Some in Washington seem to have forgotten that seven years ago millions were spent on erecting special facilities for enemy combatants (as they are classified) at the island base.

The planned move of terrorist suspects to the small town of Thomson --- population 450 --- on the banks of the Mississippi River, has some residents concerned on housing the new inmates in the quiet agricultural area where the main activity is growing watermelons.

Not supporting the move is Mark Kirk (R., Ill) who sees transferring Guantanamo detainees to Illinois making the state a greater target for terrorist attacks.

Kirk has a handle on this aspect.  As a Naval Reserve intelligence officer, he holds the rank of commander and has served during Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti and Bosnia conflicts. The Navy named Kirk “Intelligence Officer of the Year” in 1999 for his combat service in Kosovo.

Meanwhile, Sen. Dick Durbin (R., Ill.), gushy on relocating terror suspects to his state’s 1,600-cell Thomson Correctional Center since the move was first mentioned, for weeks has been claiming the facility will create jobs.

Aside from more prison staff, Durbin sees something approaching a boom town with workers hired in the construction of schools and libraries, as he put it in a TV interview.

Expanding on this, Durbin yesterday said he expects the move "to dramatically reduce unemployment, create thousands of good-paying jobs and breathe new economic life into this part of downstate Illinois." 

All that in a rural town of 450.

What is not mentioned with all the construction and hiring that Durbin envisions, is higher taxes looming for Thomson residents.

Print/broadcast media would do well to visit Thomson late next year to see how the small town --- known as “The Melon Capital of the World” --- is coping with foreign enemy combatants on the scene.

NPR News plans to boost investigative activity

With mushrooming scams, safety issues and other concerns, NPR News is bolstering its investigative program by adding a deputy managing editor, investigations, and beefing up an investigative team, finds Grumpy Editor.

Getting that title is Susanne Reber, who joins NPR Jan. 4.  She has been investigative radio editor and producer at Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and has led its news investigative unit since 2003.

While other news gathering organizations are trimming payrolls, including investigative talent, NPR says it plans to staff up a core investigative team that works with beat and field reporters and partner with other non-profit news organizations doing high-level investigative work.

"Susanne is a tremendous investigative reporter, storyteller and newsroom leader," says Dick Meyer, NPR News' executive editor.

"Her arrival and the creation of a dedicated investigative unit is just the start of NPR’s deep commitment to expand and strengthen serious, ambitious investigative and accountability reporting at a time when so many other newsrooms are retreating."

Reber’s jobs at CBC National Radio News include deputy managing editor and executive producer.

Law & Order episode jabs O'Reilly, Beck, Limbaugh

Not only does bias and politics creep into news stories these days, but now weird things were worked into a TV script of long-running Law & Order on NBC, notes Grumpy Editor.

Law & Order: SVU last week featured a character portraying an attorney who compared Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck plus radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh to “a cancer spreading ignorance and hate…they've convinced folks that immigrants are the problem, not corporations that fail to pay a living wage or a broken health care system..."

There used to be a time when names of characters in scripts were strictly fictitious, pulled out of thin air --- unless the TV fare was a documentary.

Not so with creator and executive producer Dick Wolf whose Law & Order, launched 19 years ago, now has reruns all over the place.

Firing back, O’Reilly called Wolf a “despicable human being” plus “coward” and “liar.”  He added, “Enough is enough with these network pinheads who shove propaganda down our throats under the guise of entertainment."

Words alongside O’Reilly’s Talking Points commentary read:  “Law & Order propaganda.  The NBC program ‘Law & Order’ is run by far-left guy Dick Wolf.  He uses the show to promote his progressive point of view.”

Beck, meanwhile, asked for evidence of inciting violence.

Limbaugh remained quiet on the episode.

The Wall Street Journal again dumps regular dividends

It appears that resumption of regular payouts in the dividends table in The Wall Street Journal --- as reported here on Nov. 18 --- was a short-lived fluke, or perhaps a staffer was filling in for someone on vacation, discovers Grumpy Editor.

The WSJ, without fanfare last month, quietly reinstated regular dividends in the Money & Investing section.

But regular dividends have again vanished.

Maybe scrapping regular dividends stems from a space problem.

On Nov. 21, for example, 54 regular dividends --- taking up most of the Dividend Changes table --- were listed in The Journal.

In today's edition, for example, the hard-to-find dividends table takes up only six column inches with only half of that space devoted to listing announcements. 

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

Without regular dividends in print, readers/investors again have to search the Web for record and payable dates.

That triggers grumbling among some time-strapped readers.

Editor & Publisher, after 125 years in print, is folding

Editor & Publisher, the monthly journal covering the newspaper industry, is ceasing operations, gasps Grumpy Editor.

The monthly, started 125 years ago as the weekly The Journalist, has covered all aspects of the North American newspaper industry, including newsroom developments, business, advertising, circulation, marketing, technology, online and syndicates.

Owner Nielsen Business Media today announced its decision to cease operations for E&P and Kirkus Reviews.

It also reached an agreement with e5 Global Media Holdings, LLC, a new company formed jointly by Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners, for the sale of eight brands in the Media and Entertainment Group:  

Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek, The Clio Awards, Backstage, Billboard, Film Journal International and The Hollywood Reporter.

Federal workers get pay hike as seniors see zero COLA

While Social Security recipients will enter 2010 --- and perhaps to 2013 --- without the usual upward cost of living adjustment (COLA), something that hasn’t happened since automatic adjustments were adopted 34 years ago, word out this week is government workers are slated to get a 2 percent pay increase, observes Grumpy Editor.

“Civilian federal employees have made significant contributions to help our country respond to the challenges we face both domestically and abroad, and I believe their pay adjustments should reflect that,” says Rep. Steny Hoyer (D., Md.), whose Congressional district is home to thousands of federal employees.

In addition, members of Congress (unless they decide otherwise --- a slim chance) are a month away from receiving a hassle-free, annual automatic pay boost.  It was a $4,700 hike this year stemming from an amendment members passed in 1989.

All this even with constant reminders that there is “no inflation in sight.”  It’s just plain “tame,” to use a favorite word with economists, reporters, editors and politicians.

Already forgotten is the mid-October headline of President Barack Obama calling for one-time emergency payments of $250 for the 50 million seniors, disabled and others receiving Social Security.

Intended to soothe potential cries from seniors, the Obama proposal was made one day after the no-COLA-in-2010 announcement.

Where are Washington media watchdogs seeking an update on that suggested $250 payout to seniors that grabbed much space two months ago?  And is any news person inquiring if  members of Congress are going to shelve their slated automatic pay increase for 2010 because of “tame” inflation?  Also, where does AARP (the former American Association of Retired Persons), representing a staggering 35 million members, stand with seniors being passed over with no COLA increase?

Photo-snapping orangutan becomes a big hit at zoo

Newspaper and magazine editors who go ape over some photographers’ efforts will be interested in an orangutan in a Vienna zoo that is being hailed as a whiz in capturing images of nearby playmates, finds Grumpy Editor.

Snap-happy 33-year old Nonja, at the Schönbrunn Zoo, is becoming a sensation on the Internet and was featured this week in an NBC-TV segment.

With the recent publicity, there has been a surge of visitors to see Nonja.

The orangutan has a portfolio of interesting images, highlighting expressive facial studies and impressionistic action shots.  See them here.

Nonja, as seen in the video clip, also used to paint.  Did a good job, too.

Now editors know where to go for some behind-the-scenes photos of zoo animals.

The long-haired, orangish primate does the job without a steep fee.

Will work for pieces of fruit, as seen in the video.

The Schönbrunn Zoo, by the way, calls itself "the oldest zoo in the world." It goes back to the mid-1700s.