Grumpy Editor

Visit Santa Catalina ‘soon’ --- researcher: island sinking

 

The Los Angeles Times, which likes to shake up readers periodically with earthquake stories, came up with a slightly different version over the weekend, with word from a researcher that sinking Santa Catalina island, a tourist destination off the Southern California coast, could pose a tsunami threat, observed Grumpy Editor.

And when is this likely to happen?

Times writer Rong-Gong Lin II, in the 13^th paragraph of the story, indicated the researcher, Stanford graduate student Chris Castillo who presented his study at the Seismological Society of America meeting in Pasadena last week, estimated Santa Catalina is sinking an average of one millimeter every five years.

Translation:  one inch in 127 years.

Underwater imaging, according to the researcher, suggested Santa Catalina could be fully submerged and the movement could pose a tsunami risk for Los Angeles and Orange counties --- in three million years.

Stay tuned.

 

FYI, IN  CASE YOUR FAVORITE EDITORS MISSED THESE…

Relax, folks, world peace prevails.  In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, President Barack Obama said, “I remind people that, you know, there actually is probably less war and less violence around the world today than there might have been 30, 40 years ago. It doesn’t make it any less painful but things can get better”…Meanwhile, as Obama spoke about the dire threat of climate change/global warming Wednesday at the Everglades in south Florida, China’s top nuclear experts warned that North Korea may have 20 nuclear warheads and could double its arsenal by next year.  Range of its nuclear bomb on a ballistic missile could reach the western United States…For those seeking to know the names of the 10 Senate Republicans who, despite being urged by conservative groups and others to vote against confirmation of Loretta Lynch as attorney general, voted along with Democrats for her: joining Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Ky., were Orrin Hatch, Utah; Lindsey Graham, S.C., Jeff Flake, Ariz.; Thad Cochran, Miss.; Susan Collins, Maine; Mark Kirk, Ill.; Kelly Ayotte, N.H.; Ron Johnson, Wis., and Rob Portman, Ohio…Investigation continued on reports members of the University of Florida’s chapter of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity spit on disabled wounded veterans and their service dogs and urinated on American flags while both groups were at a Panama City Beach resort.  An attorney said the incident could qualify as a hate crime with additional battery charges for the students involved…U.S. media, in reporting ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi sentenced by an Egyptian court to 20 years in jail for his role during protests in 2012, overlooked mention of his stay in the U.S. when he became a lecturer at California State University, Northridge, in the San Fernando Valley, and later an assistant professor from 1982 to 1985.  He also worked for NASA in the early 1980s…CNN hired 40 political reporters to beef up coverage of campaigns leading  to next year’s elections…While a ticket for the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao megafight May 2 in Las Vegas went into thousands of dollars, watching the action via 50,000 closed circuit TV sets at 10 MGM Resorts International properties on the Las Vegas Strip sold out when offered Thursday.  Charge per TV set:  $150 plus a handling fee.

 

Reporters covering Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign will be busy dodging traffic in Los Angeles on May 7 where three back-to-back fund raisers are planned.

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High school journalism instruction hit by budget cuts

Global warming exaggerated, say most GOP college grads

Will on-the-way asteroid clip climate change coverage?

 

With Earth Day on Wednesday, look for much chatter on climate change/global warming, but overlooked by many (including U.S. media) is something else zooming in from beyond the atmosphere --- an asteroid which some claim is on a collision course headed for our planet, observed Grumpy Editor.

President Barack Obama on Earth Day will be on scene at southern Florida’s Everglades --- the tropical wetlands home of snapping alligators --- to amplify his Saturday radio address in which he warned, "there's no greater threat to our planet than climate change.”

Earlier this month he said climate change is a primary national threat.

Look for the president on Earth Day to again repeat those lines along with how global warming threatens the U.S. economy.

Obama, at a Washington event in early April, also linked climate change to health problems such as allergies and asthma.

Meanwhile, from outer pace, Asteroid 2012 TC4, as it was labeled, is heading our way.

The UK’s London Daily Mail carried the story late last week while U.S. print/broadcast newsrooms were focused on other matters.

Mail writer Alix Culbertson reported the asteroid is about the size of the Statue of Liberty, twice as big as the meteor that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February 2013, injuring 1,500 people and damaging more than 7,000 buildings.

“The impact of the larger 2012 TC4 asteroid, predicted to near Earth on October 12, 2017, could be even more devastating,” Culbertson pointed out.  “And, worryingly, experts cannot yet predict where in the world it will strike.”

 

FYI, IN  CASE YOUR FAVORITE EDITORS MISSED THESE…

Columbia University today at 3 p.m. (Eastern) will announce 99th Pulitzer Prizes winners…Worst job of 2015?  Newspaper reporter ranked at the bottom of a list of 200 jobs tallied by Carlsbad, Calif.-based CareerCast.  That profession displaced lumberjack, now at the 199^th spot.  Meanwhile, broadcaster ranked 196^th on the list while photojournalist was 195^th.  Top position:  actuary…NewsBusters caught it, pointing out that "a blaring red headline" flashed across the TV screen that read "Breaking News; NBC News Exclusive Interview With Hillary Clinton." Length of last Tuesday’s “exclusive interview” was a brief eight seconds…Despite several days of heavy coverage of Doug Hughes, the postal worker who landed his gyrocopter on U.S. Capitol grounds, media failed to note that the attention-getting, putt-putt flying machine flew to Washington from Gettysburg, Pa.  That’s 65 miles through protected air space.…Another example how taxpayer funds are spent:  The U.S. Labor Department will target $13 million to promote employment among at-risk youth, ages 14 to 17 --- in El Salvador and Honduras…Through the end of fiscal year 2014, Social Security numbers were issued to 541,000 illegals authorized to work under the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy…Cheers to Torrance, Calif.-based Daily Breeze reporters Rob Kuznia and Rebecca Kimitch plus project editor Frank Suraci in winning the prestigious National Headliner Award for Investigative Journalism for exposing a school district superintendent’s excessive salary with  unusual perks along with other serious issues within the district…Good PR with readers:  The Des Moines Register provides tours of its downtown offices, showing how staffers work.

Tough going in the field: 

A reporting team from Seattle TV station KIRO, covering a massive bee spill from an overturned semi truck, were stung numerous times.

High school journalism instruction hit by budget cuts

 

School budget cuts are curbing journalism interest in high schools across the nation, an unfortunate development, observed Grumpy Editor, who, incidentally, developed early interest in the field as an assistant editor on a Los Angeles high school newspaper.

Chicago Tribune writer Vikki Ortiz Healy on Thursday noted many high school journalism programs in Illinois and the U.S. “are struggling to stay afloat.”

She added, “In an era of tight school budgets, high-stakes testing and changing news consumption habits, the once time-honored tradition of offering students the chance to be newspaper reporters has joined the list of school activities becoming obsolete for today's students. 

"Yet with public school funding shortfalls --- and school days often structured to focus on subjects covered on standardized tests --- school administrators say they are forced to make tough decisions, and journalism programs are another casualty of tight economic times."

That’s why there is a growing trend of college graduates with degrees in political science, history and law, as examples, entering print and broadcast news.  For those, basic training in journalism is lacking.

A veteran journalist said that’s like having a physician, holding a geography degree, for example, diagnose an ailment.

But there’s hope.

WNEP-TV, Scranton, Pa., reported Friday that about 200 high school students in the area attended the 15th Tom Bigler Journalism Conference at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre.  (Bigler, a former TV newsman, became a professor at the university.)

With input from those working in the field, the aspiring journalists attended workshops, lectures and seminars on the changing face of journalism, with a focus on globalism and international communities. 

 

FYI, IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE EDITORS MISSED THESE…

President Barack Obama said it again last week:  Climate change is a primary national threat…Allied with that, a two-page global warming story, “ A Glimpse at 2115,” in The Sunday, a Greenspun Media Group weekly publication, contained the word “could” 35 times, as with “maple trees could disappear” and “changes in wet and dry periods could increase flooding and fires” a century from now…Another word that brought reaction --- treason.   Maj. Gen. James Post III, who was Air Combat Command vice commander, used that word in a bid to block retirement of the low-flying A-10 Warthog aircraft, highly regarded by ground troops in providing close air support.  Result: Post was reprimanded and removed from his job…Said Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz  in a CNBC interview:  "Historically the media's had two caricatures for Republicans --- that we are either stupid or evil.  They’ve to some  extent invented a third caricature for me, which is crazy.  I get portrayed in a lot of outlets as a wild-eyed lunatic with dynamite around my chest”…CBS radio news on Wednesday was overly excited,  trumpeting four words heralding the lead item on the trial of  Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev:  “The verdict is in.”  But the 2 p.m. (Eastern) top-of-the-hour news had no decision to announce on the newscast.  Nevertheless, the segment ended repeating “The verdict is in.”  Stay tuned…In the wake of some faulty reporting in Rolling Stone,  Mike Smith, whose editorial cartoons are distributed nationally,  developed one depicting an editor addressing three staffers with: “We’ve decided  to add some new elements to our reporting…they’re called facts”…In connection with U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter ‘s visit to  South Korea last week  to discuss North Korea’s growing missile and nuclear threat, North Korea, flexing its muscles in a "greeting," fired  six short-range missiles.

Some baseball humor from New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez :

Sidelined via a year-long drug suspension, the veteran player hit his first home run  in nearly 19 months and commented, “I felt like I needed a Google map to run the bases, it’s been so long.”

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Military readiness sags; will tattoo policy boost ranks?

Global warming exaggerated, say most GOP college grads

Military readiness sags; will tattoo policy boost ranks?

 

With the focus lately on Iran, Russia, terrorists and likely U.S. presidential candidates, most print/broadcast media missed eyebrow-raising developments concerning U.S. military that turned up last week, notes Grumpy Editor.

As saber-rattling around the world grows, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno warned, “The unrelenting budget impasse has compelled us to degrade readiness to historically low levels." Only a third of the Army’s brigades are ready, due to budget cuts, he added.

Gen. Odierno explained that the Army’s active force has seen a reduction of 80,000 soldiers while 13 brigade combat teams and three aviation brigades have been slashed and reorganized.

“Even today,” continued the general, “we only have 33 percent of our brigades ready, when our sustained rate should be closer to 70 percent. We are unable to generate readiness for unknown contingencies and under our current budget, Army readiness will at best be flatline over the next three to four years.”

But --- and shocking to former military personnel --- a change in long-frowned-on tattoos is seen as yielding more recruits.

Gen. Odierno said, "Society is changing its view of tattoos and we have to change along with that."   Thus, he indicated a revision in the number and size of soldiers' tattoos is coming soon.  New rules still will prohibit tattoos on necks and tattoos that are extremist, racist or sexist.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in a speech at his former high school in Abington, Pa., said the U.S. military faces another challenge:  signing up recruits with high-tech skills.

Carter pointed out the military has to attract about 250,000 people a year to replace those who leave the service.

Only about a third of the 21 million Americans age 17 to 21 are eligible to join the military, he revealed, and half are unable to pass the entry examination while the remainder are ineligible, unable to meet physical fitness or character standards.

 

FYI, IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE EDITORS MISSED THESE…

Fuzzy framework?  While Iranian leaders and followers were shouting “Death to America,” some Washington politicians and political writers were high fiving over agreement to a "framework" on Tehran’s development of nuclear weapons --- with another meeting (after a long list of prior meetings) slated in June.  Meanwhile, FreeBeacon.com reported just hours after that announcement, “Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused the Obama administration of misleading the American people and Congress in a fact sheet released following the culmination of negotiations with the Islamic Republic”…A Washington ceremony at the National World War II Memorial marking the 70th anniversary of the battle of Okinawa received scant coverage by media.  A wreath was presented to honor the 183,000 allied service members who fought in the 82-day struggle on Okinawa that began April 1, 1945, leaving more than 12,500 U.S. service members killed and  38,000 wounded in combat…Although major media covered President Barack Obama’s remarks at last week’s opening of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Boston, all was mum about his participation two hours later in a DNC fundraiser in Bean Town…With cries of drought bouncing around California, Dublin --- with about 50,000 population in the East Bay region of Alameda County --- was moving ahead with construction of a $35 million water park, after 10 years of planning…Circle April 24.  That’s Tax Freedom Day --- 114 days into the year, longest yet --- "when the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay federal, state and local taxes for the year,” said the Tax Foundation…In the “dah” department, guess how a Republican answers this ---  Among questions sent to GOP supporters by the Republican National Committee, seeking a yes, no or no opinion response: "Do you think our Republican leaders in Congress should be aggressive in forcing the Obama White House to work with them to create jobs, cut taxes and regulations, end economic uncertainty and make American more competitive?"...Not so “smart”?  Exploding smart meters were reported in Stockton, Calif., with a power surge that left more than 5,000 homes without electricity.

Talk about multitasking ---

A Reno radio station is searching for an experienced full-time talk show producer and on-air operator.  Does that sound interesting?  But wait:  skills sought include running the studio, screening calls, scheduling guests, researching topics, locating/editing audio, posting content to social media, updating the website, maintaining podcasts, creating promos and working with the team.

 And, oh, yes, handling stress, deadlines --- and “crazy hours.”