Grumpy Editor

Fed workers' pay beats private wages, Chinese clone WSJ page, Sin City targets pigeons, among year-end items

Grumpy Editor today concludes a list of news items that some folks (and editors) may have missed during the busy year-end period ---

FED WORKERS’ PAY TOPS PRIVATE WAGES

Job hunting?  Head for a federal position.

A year-end USA Today analysis found federal employees received an average $75,296 in pay during the past year --- about 60 percent above the average private sector wage.

What’s more, federal workers also scored an average $28,323 in medical, pension and other benefits, noted the Gannett publication which added, “Federal compensation has soared in the past decade, especially in the past five years, at a time when private wages and employment have sputtered.”

All this followed President Barack Obama 13 months ago declaring a pay freeze for federal employees in 2011 and 2012.  Despite the so-called “freeze,” 1.1 million fed workers will receive more than $2.5 billion in raises during the two-year span, calculated Federal Times. 

PEJ RANKS  ECONOMY AS TOP STORY IN 2011

The big story in 2011 was the economy, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual “Year in News” tally. 

PEJ said 20 percent of news time and space was dedicated to the topic via print, online, TV news and radio, up from 14 percent from 2010. 

The other major trend was "a jump of more than a third in coverage of international news,” added PEJ, with half of the year's 10 most-covered stories occurring overseas.  Combined, 28 percent of all coverage last year was about international events.

  

PROMOTING JADE, CHINA CLONES WSJ PAGE

Drawing attention to the green gem prized for jewelry, The Wall Street Journal last week ran a full page report with three color photos under a bold across-the-page headline:  Jade craze takes hold. 

Unless readers noted the two “paid advertisement” placements in fine print --- slightly larger than the page number --- atop the A section page, they were unaware that the text, art (complete with credit lines), bold-faced boxes and subheads were for China Watch, prepared by China Daily.  It was close to WSJ format. 

LAS VEGAS AREA EYES PIGEON FEEDING BAN

Despite the Las Vegas area ranking high in unemployment, home foreclosures and sinking property values, at the top of the list for action at the first 2012 meeting of the Clark County Board of Supervisors: pigeons. 

As a reader wrote in a Jan. 1 letter to the editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal under a "Pigeon-feeding ordinance is for the birds" headline:  “With all the rampant economic and social woes facing Clark County, it is amazing that the Clark County Commission will be holding a public hearing Tuesday on an ordinance that would ban the feeding of pigeons in unincorporated areas of the county.”

Following yesterday's meeting on the subject, commissioners again will peck away at proposed enforcement and other issues on Jan. 17.  Rules could lead to pigeon feeders getting up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Along with causing problems for residents who have bird feeders, commissioners will have to distinguish the many varieties of pigeons, some raised for food or sport.

Aside from the common (or rock) pigeon, others include band tailed pigeon, red billed pigeon, white crowned pigeon, white king pigeon and racing pigeon. 

But commissioners always welcome feeding slot machines in Clark County --- and the rest of Nevada.

PETA SEEKS MEMORIALS FOR  DEAD CATTLE

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was seeking permission in Illinois to buy highway markers in memory of cattle killed when trucks hauling them, in two separate accidents, flipped. 

PETA said the signs would pay tribute to more than 20 cattle killed last year because of negligent driving. 

Doesn’t look like the PETA request will go far.  A Department of Transportation spokesman said it probably will be denied because Illinois’s Roadside Memorial Act specifies only relatives who lost loved ones in highway accidents may request memorials.

 

ENQUIRER PRINTING PLANT TO CLOSE

About 200 newspaper jobs will be axed this year when the The Cincinnati Enquirer, a Gannett Co. Inc. publication, closes its printing plant in the fall.  Plans call for The Columbus Dispatch to print The Cincinnati Enquirer and The Kentucky Enquirer.

A Gannett news release in late December made no mention on the number of jobs to be eliminated.  Closest it got:  " As part of this initiative, The Enquirer’s production facility will close fourth quarter, 2012, as printing transitions to Columbus."

 

Coeur d’Alene top dog-friendly city, barks Dog Fancy

With front-page headlines today on Libya, East Coast earthquake and Hurricane Irene in the western Atlantic, some overworked (and short staffed) editors may have missed news from Dog Fancy magazine that the most dog-friendly city in the U.S. is Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, mentions Grumpy Editor. 

The revelation comes, appropriately, during “dog days,” defined as the hottest and most sultry summer days between early July and early September. 

In naming the winner of the 2011 DogTown USA competition, Ernie Stone, Dog Fancy editor, relates:  “What we discovered is that whether a dog likes a place to run and hike, loves to mingle downtown, or needs a new home, dogs and their owners have it made in Coeur d’Alene, a little slice of dog heaven.”

Coeur d’Alene, with a population of about 45,000, is 30 miles east of Spokane, Wash. 

Criteria used to select the winning city include an abundance of dog-friendly open spaces and dog parks, events celebrating dogs and their owners, ample veterinary care, abundant pet supply and other services, and municipal laws that support and protect all pets, cites the magazine. 

Four regional winners are: Northeast, Doylestown, Pa.; Southeast, Knoxville, Tenn.; Northwest, Bend, Ore., and Southwest, Santa Cruz, Calif. 

Full story on DogTown USA is in the October issue of Dog Fancy.

 

Fortune magazine two-page spread focuses on 4-H Club

It is refreshing to see the July 25 issue of Fortune magazine focusing on the much-overlooked 4-H Club, a long-time youth organization, taking up most of two up-front pages including a dominant photo of two members showcasing their 18-month old bulls at the San Diego County Fair on June 29, notes Grumpy Editor. 

The 4-H program, born in 1902, is a bit of Americana but gets surprisingly little coverage in print and broadcast media, especially in large cities. 

Few realize that the 4-H (which stands for head, heart, hands and health) Club is the nation’s largest youth development organization. 

The clubs can be found in every county in every state, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands plus Army and Air Force installations worldwide. 

While members’ projects used to focus mainly on raising animals --- from rabbits to pigs --- the program in recent years has expanded to topics of members' choice. 

Modern 4-H members, usually nine to 19 years old, zero in on such categories as gardening, technology and Web design.  And animals remain popular projects. 

Fortune, a Time Inc. publication, points out there are 6 million young people enrolled in 4-H programs, up from 1.9 million in the 1950s. 

The clubs, linked to university cooperative extension systems, are in urban neighborhoods, suburban schools and rural farming communities. 

An Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University study finds 4-H members are: 

• Nearly two times more likely to get better grades in school.
• Nearly two times more likely to head for college.
• 41 percent less likely to engage in risky behaviors.
• 25 percent more likely to contribute positively to their families and communities. 

With that uplifting profile, more news editors should seek features on wholesome 4-H members in their areas.

 

Smokey-the-purring-cat story finally makes it to the U.S.

Despite the Internet and other instant worldwide communications, sometimes these days it still takes a while before news crosses the Atlantic from England, the most recent example being the “loudest cat in the world” story that made it to U.S. shores this week, observes Grumpy Editor.

An illustrated piece on loud-purring Smokey, a 12-year-old British tabby appeared in London’s Daily Mail on Feb. 22.

Yet, it took more than a month for an Associated Press story, with art of the noisy feline, to grab space, including front pages, in many U.S. newspapers yesterday.

U.S. broadcast networks, including radio, always on the alert for news items with sound, jumped on the story, giving the loud-purring cat air time.

While the story in the Daily Mail had the British Shorthair's purrs reaching “an incredible 92 decibels --- the same as you’d experience watching a Boeing 737 coming in to land,” the AP version ranked the sound at 73 decibels.

The cat was obtained by Ruth and Mark Adams, in the central England village of Pitsford, from what the British call a “rescue center.”

Efforts were being made to get the tabby into Guinness World Records.

So how noisy is Smokey?

Hear the tabby in action, along with more details, via:

www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/03/31/134983274/cat-lovers-can-your-pet-purr-louder-than-smokey

 

Animal Planet 'Bowl' game goes to dogs, sets record

While Super Bowl XLV set TV viewership records on Sunday, alternative Bowl programming on Animal Planet also reached a high mark for that channel, something not readily reported by print and broadcast media, notes Grumpy Editor.

Action on the field was even rougher, with hairy players knocking over, barking at --- and even biting --- opposing participants.

Animal Planet drew an audience of 9.2 million viewers to its Puppy Bowl VII marathon, reported Andrea Morabito in Broadcasting & Cable.

That compared with 111 million viewers who watched the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers on Fox Sports.

Animal Planet’s tail-wagging event marked the seventh year for terrier tackles, spunky spaniels, barking beagles, puppy penalties and some growling on that channel.

Viewers also saw a different view of thirsty players via a water-bowl cam.

See some of the rough-and-tumble action at:

http://animal.discovery.com/tv/puppy-bowl

 

Mongolia’s frigid winter takes out 17 percent of livestock

As eyes continue to be focused on Gulf of Mexico’s man-triggered oil spill and how it is affecting bird and sea life plus business in the region, another disaster is gripping herders and millions of farm animals in Mongolia following a nature-made extremely frigid winter, notes Grumpy Editor.

Perhaps the development is missing from most newspaper pages because there is an absence of global warming there.

Aftereffects of its worst winter in memory are reeling the country that saw temperatures plunge to 40 degrees below zero at a latitude equal to Seattle, Montreal and Paris.

Andrew Jacobs, writing for the New York Times News Service, reports the severe winter has socked a whopping 800,000 herders.

Using figures from United Nations relief officials, he lists the animal toll:  About 17 percent of livestock in the nation, almost the size of Alaska, has perished.

That includes nearly 8 million cows, yaks, camels, horses, goats and sheep, Jacobs reports.

“Even if the spring rains arrive soon,” he mentions, “500,000 more animals are expected to succumb in the coming weeks.”

The United Nations estimates the current disaster may prompt as many as 20,000 herders to abandon their nomadic life and flee to the city, he adds.

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.