Grumpy Editor

Al Gore to speak in Vegas; will subject be ‘warming’?

Former Vice President Al Gore, unusually quiet these days as global warming claims are melting in the wake of climategate, will be making an appearance as featured speaker in Las Vegas next month with ticket prices starting at $1,500 each, finds Grumpy Editor.

Gore, in the forefront in citing the evils of global warming (updated to “climate change”), is scheduled to attend a Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner hosted by the Clark County Democratic Party on March 27.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), facing a tough reelection in November, also is slated to be on hand at the fundraiser in the Rio Hotel and Casino’s 55,488-square-foot Pavilion convention area.

With all the recent input debunking global warming in recent days, Gore has been tight lipped in responding to mounting claims of “fraud” on the topic.

Seeking a response to misrepresentations, false information and exaggerations in connection with climate happenings on Earth, apparently no inquisitive news person has contacted Gore’s Nashville residence where the Nobel Peace Prize winner maintains a home office.

Much of the faulty science on the subject has come from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which the former vice president relied on for claims that climate ruin is inevitable unless, as The Wall Street Journal puts it, “the world reorganizes its economies with huge new taxes on carbon.”

ABC News to rely more on versatile ‘digital journalists’

While newspapers continue to whittle newsroom staffs, the contagious cutback malady is spreading more to broadcast news as ABC News, a unit of Walt Disney Co., is expected to cut up to 400 positions out of about 1,500 in its news division, notes Grumpy Editor.

The action follows CBS Corp.’s announcement earlier this month that it is laying off dozens of employees.

ABC News President David Westin says the move is part of restructuring the news operation to take advantage of digital technology.

He calls the cutbacks a “fundamental transformation” that will lead to a leaner, smaller organization.

A key component of the new look will be more use of “digital journalists” rather than traditional journalists. 

The high-tech digital types are versatile.  They wear three hats:  Reporting, capturing images and editing stories.

As part of the restructuring, some ABC News foreign news bureaus will be shuttered.

Taking over much of the work overseas, and elsewhere, will be the multi-tasking digital journalists.

That means ABC News will be relying more on freelancers in the days ahead. 

In news magazines and long-form programming, the network will “move to a more flexible blend of staff and freelancers,” reveals Westin.

E. W. Scripps seeks consolidating copy editing tasks

E. W. Scripps Co., which operates daily and community newspapers in 14 markets along with 10 broadcast television stations, has some good news for stockholders this week but bad news for copy editors, notes Grumpy Editor.

Although reporting a fourth quarter profit yesterday of  $12.1 million, compared to a loss of $12.62 million a year earlier, Scripps in May plans to shift the entire news and sports copy desk of its Ventura (Calif.) County Star to Corpus Christi, Texas, where it  operates  the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

The cost-cutting move to centralize copy editing and designing activities will affect at least 15 Ventura staffers.

The Cincinnati-based media company also operates Scripps Howard News Service and United Media, the worldwide licensing and syndication home of Peanuts, Dilbert and 150 other features and characters.

Scripps says it expects to take restructuring charges of as much as $22 million this year because of changes it is implementing with newspapers.

Other news operations are trying outsourcing of editing to far-off places, including India.

Veteran editors maintain it is difficult to edit copy and perform design work by remote control from a distant location.  Without local knowledge it can lead to errors, especially with landmarks, streets, buildings, people and such.

Copy editors, overlooked because they usually are the most silent staffers in newsrooms, double as fact checkers.

With a question springing from a story, for example, a copy editor gets faster response from the writer under the same roof in a time-sensitive newsroom.

That’s something that cannot be done when copy editors are based in remote locations (and different time zones) such as India or the Lone Star state.

PETA seeks to ban ‘donkey basketball’ school fundraiser

A Nevada town’s use of “donkey basketball,” popular in some parts of the U.S. as a fundraiser, is being frowned on by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), in part, because ‘”the noise and chaos of the games are extremely stressful for the donkeys,” observes Grumpy Editor.

PETA seeks to halt the Yerington (Nev.) High School donkey basketball game fundraiser slated for next Monday.

Yerington, 82 miles southeast of Reno, has about 4,000 residents.

The traditional fundraiser comes at a time when the school district --- as with others around the Silver State and the nation --- is facing a budget squeeze. 

(Nevada’s education spending per student, at $7,133, puts it in 48th place in the U.S.)

The game involves community members riding donkeys in a basketball game where no dribbling is required.  All the action, including aiming for the hoops, requires remaining on the donkeys.

PETA also points out donkeys in the basketball games are “often dragged, kicked, or hit by stray balls and are sometimes seriously injured in falls.”

In response to the animal rights group, Lyon County School District Superintendent Caroline McIntosh says she believes the animals are not mistreated and “I haven’t seen any sign of cruelty to these animals.”

PETA should be aware that with about 44 million donkeys worldwide (11 million of them in China), the hardy animals have been doing some heavy work for 6,000 years.  That includes being used for riding and goods transportation or pulling carts.

A current example where the animal shines:  Only donkeys and bicycles provide public transportation on Greece’s Hydra, one of the Saronic Islands in the Aegean Sea.  That’s because cars and motorcyles are banned by law, including in the main town, Hydra port with a population about 3,000.

That’s much harder work than participating in a basketball game.

Dalai Lama’s White House visit (very) low-key affair

The Dalai Lama’s visit to the White House, indeed, was a low-key affair, with some aspects --- bordering on embarrassment --- not widely covered by media, notes Grumpy Editor.

The Thursday meeting with President Barack Obama was intentionally kept low-key in an attempt to avoid inflaming tensions with China, a growing economic force.

China had urged Obama not to meet with the spiritual leader of Tibet because it “seriously harms U.S.-China relations.”

During a West Coast visit over the weekend, the Dalai Lama, 75, now living in exile in India, told the Associated Press that he was not offended by the low-key reception he received.

Some of the happenings at the White House closed-door meeting that most Americans --- and some media --- may have missed:

•  Obama met briefly with the Dalai Lama in the Map Room, not the Oval Office.  The Map Room is in the basement.

•  No outside press photographers (or reporters) were allowed to cover the meeting, only a White House lensman.  That triggered AP Photography Director Santiago Lyon to declare AP “won’t accept or use handout photos if we feel access would have been possible by the media, either as a group or through a pool photo arrangement.”  He added, “Access to the public activities of the president of the United States…is a fundamental right of the media.”

•  Obama presented the Dalai Lama with a long-lost 1942 letter from President Franklin Roosevelt.  The letter was a replica.

•  The Web carried several reports that Obama, as a parting gift, handed the Dalai Lama a set of presidential cufflinks despite the fact the shirtless visiting guest wears robes of a Tibetan monk.

•  Rather than using the traditional White House exit, the Dalia Lama departed through a rear door, walking around a high mound of trash.  That scene was captured by Linda Feldmann, Christian Science Monitor staff writer, who got the shot via her BlackBerry camera.  See it here.

Phony French pinot noir dupes 2 U.S. wine companies

Two major U.S. wine distributors are blushing following word from France that 12 winemakers and traders have been convicted in exporting “mislabeled” French pinot noir, notes Grumpy Editor.

Such things stir up public relations departments.

E. & J. Gallo Winery, Modesto, Calif., and Constellation Brands, Inc., Victor, N.Y., are companies known to have been duped in purchasing the phony product from France.

The “pinot noir dozen” were convicted Wednesday in  a French court for falsely labeling less costly syrah and merlot grape varietals as pinot noir in a scheme --- dating from January, 2006, to March, 2008 --- that netted $9.5 million for the defendants.

Gallo was quick to issue a statement, saying:  “We are deeply disappointed” about the falsely labeled French pinot noir and that “Gallo imported less than 20 percent of the total and is no longer selling any of this wine to customers.”

No statement, as of yesterday afternoon, was issued by Constellation which lists a family of wine brands that include Robert Mondavi, Ravenswood, Jackson-Triggs, Hardys, Clo du Bois, Blackstone, Esttamcia and Nobilo.

Pinot noir is a thin-skinned grape mainly associated with the Burgundy region.

One of the oldest grape varieties in production of wine, pinot noir received a boost in the wine-flavored 2004 motion picture, “Sideways.”

Census Bureau employs expensive ads rather than PSAs

Think Proctor & Gamble Co. is the biggest advertiser in the first quarter?

Not quite.

It’s the U.S. Census Bureau, now in a four-month $133 million taxpayer-funded 2010 Census advertising campaign that used to come under public service announcements (PSAs) to get government messages out, observes Grumpy Editor.

The television ad campaign, spending 50 percent more that P&G in the period, already has appeared during expensive programming, including the Golden Globe Awards and Super Bowl.

Also included in the ad campaign are radio, print, outdoor and the Internet.  Ads are produced in an unprecedented 28 languages. 

More than half of the budgeted advertising is being targeted to minority and ethnic audiences.

The commercial ad push, aimed at getting people to respond to Census forms received by mail, is being handled by advertising agency Draftfcb, with headquarters in New York and Chicago.  (Formed by the 2006 merger of Foote, Cone & Belding and Draft, it is owned by Interpublic Group.)

The high expense in a down economy is raising some eyebrows, including those of Sen. Johnny Isakson (R., Ga.) who serves on the Senate Commerce Committee.

Isakson in letters to Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and Census Bureau Director Robert Groves requests detailed information about the multimillion-dollar television ad campaign.

“Given the difficult economic times our nation is facing, I am very concerned with the amount of money spent by the Census Bureau for the production and airing of these commercials,” writes Isakson.

The senator asks for information on how the contracts were awarded to the consultants and agencies in connection with the Census campaign.

Meanwhile, no-cost PSA announcements for other public agencies and non-profit organizations continue to be used on radio and TV.

 

After knocking Las Vegas, Obama heads there Thursday

Despite President Barack Obama’s anti-Las Vegas comments earlier this month and a year ago, he’s heading for a quick visit to that city tomorrow for several events --- including a $1 million fundraiser and a town hall meeting --- to promote Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who is up for re-election in November, notes Grumpy Editor.

But eyes will be on Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman who may have a few choice words to say, too --- to the president.

Obama on Feb. 2 declared, “You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

This followed an address last February when the president warned convention planners against Las Vegas visits “on the taxpayers’ dime.”

That immediately scared off tourist and convention activity and resulted in cancellations, affecting the Las Vegas economy where casinos and supporting businesses are the prime industries.

The sour economy resulted in Las Vegas leading the nation in the foreclosure rate as thousands of casino workers lost jobs in the past year.

This month’s swipe at the entertainment capital of the world angered Mayor Goodman --- changing from Democrat to nonpartisan last year --- who bellowed at a hastily-called news conference:  “An apology won’t be accepted this time.” 

Goodman added, “I want to assure you when he comes (to visit), I will do everything I can to give him the boot back to Washington and to visit his failures back there.”

Obama’s remarks also shocked Reid, who is seeking his fifth term.

So Las Vegas, with Democrat Reid behind in the polls, is being targeted by Obama to boost the high-ranking senator. 

This week’s 24-hour visit by Obama “will include discussions with citizens and business leaders about working together to address the economic challenges facing Nevada and the rest of America,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Indeed, among economic challenges recession-smacked Sin City is trying to overcome are anti-Las Vegas remarks by the president.

Tipped-off Taliban slow advance of Marines and allies

After the U.S. and its allies earlier this month gave advance notice directed to the Taliban and others of a planned attack on Marjah in Afghanistan, the actual major military push over the weekend was impeded, as expected, by numerous booby traps, land mines and homemade bombs, notes Grumpy Editor.

After three days of fighting, Associated Press’s man on the scene, Alfred de Montesquiou, yesterday reported, “The harassment tactics and the huge number of roadside bombs, mines and booby traps planted throughout Marjah have succeeded in slowing the movement of allied forces through the town. After daylong skirmishes, some Marine units had barely advanced at all by sundown.”

Some of the slowness can be attributed to tipping off the enemy via a news release pinpointing a target before a major military move.  That was contrary to top-secret labels clamped on plans leading to past military engagements (as pointed out in a Feb. 5 Grumpy Editor posting).

A ground assault Saturday came after more than 30 transport helicopters ferried troops over mine fields into the center of the town of 80,000 people.

The offensive involved 15,000 troops, including U.S. Marines, British and Afghan.

AP reported the bridge over the canal into Marjah “was rigged with so many explosives that Marines erected temporary bridges to cross into the town.”

U.S. troops battled in at least four areas of Marjah, added AP.

As a result of advance word of the town targeted for attack, some insurgents, as expected, did flee.

However, as AP noted, the scattered Taliban members are “possibly waiting to regroup and stage attacks later to foil the alliance’s plan to stabilize the area.”

Grumpy Editor observes Presidents’ Day, back tomorrow

Grumpy Editor is taking the day off, observing Presidents’ Day.

He will be back on the scene tomorrow, Feb. 16.