Grumpy Editor

THOUSAND OAKS NEWSPAPER TACKLES DUAL TRAGEDIES

With shootings and massive fire striking Thousand Oaks, Calif., within days, the local newspaper --- Thousand Oaks Acorn --- certainly jumped in to tackle coverage of the events in a city that was ranked third safest in the U.S., observed Grumpy Editor.

Under publisher Jim Rule, managing editor John Loesing and editor Kyle Jorrey, it operated much like a major city daily in getting the word out.

 

With a circulation of almost 40,000, serving the communities of  Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park, North Ranch and Westlake Village, the 44-page weekly tabloid did a commendable job in reporting the shooting at Borderline Grill & Bar along with a raging fire, the most destructive in Conejo Valley history, that consumed about 500 homes in its circulation area.

 

For a paper of its size, it has a photo editor and two photographers and eight editorial staff writers, all highly active during the week.

 

Its opinion page last week carried an editorial, "A community in mourning tries to heal."

 

It mentioned, "Never in the history of our community has there been such a terrible one-two punch to the gut:  a mass murder followed by massive destruction from fire.

 

"People need to be heard.  If your life was inconvenienced for a few days, seek out and comfort the neighbor whose life was destroyed during those same few days.

 

"Look for ways to console, to donate and to volunteer --- not just in the immediate aftermath of the horrible past week but throughout the year when recent events are no longer in the headlines or trending on social media.  Those who have suffered great loss will need our help."

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE...

 

PRESS PASSES NOT EASY TO GET.  Amazing about the heavy coverage given to the yanking of CNN's Jim Acosta's White House press pass.  It's been Grumpy Editor's observation that over the years before a press pass is issued, via police department or city hall, as examples, the issuing authority screens the applicant thoroughly and can nix or pull issuance for any reason.

SURPRISE!  MORE NORTH KOREA MISSILE SITES.  There shouldn't be any surprise that tricky North Korea was found --- via satellite imagery --- to have 13 secret missile development sites, making it tougher to formulate an arms control agreement.

 

MACY'S CUTS STAFF.  Macy's, where it's already difficult to locate a store employee for guidance, plans to reduce the amount of merchandise and number of workers while walling off sections of stores, leaving the space vacant.

LONG COLD WINTER AHEAD?  Global warming folks will find it hard to agree, but NASA scientist Martin Mlynczak, declared a long, cold winter could see temperatures across the planet plunge to depressing lows stemming from sunspot activity on the surface of our star dropping so low that it could herald the arrival of a "uniquely grim Ice Age."  Mlynczak at Langley Research Center, warned "our atmosphere is losing heat energy."

JAL SEEKS TO KEEP PILOTS SOBER.   Japan Airlines, facing a problem with pilots showing up for work drunk, introduced a breathalyzer system at foreign airports.  Japan does not set alcohol limits for pilots, so it's up to airlines to keep them sober, reported BBC.

TOSS THE RAZOR BLADES.  Men who have full beards are more attractive than those who are clean-shaven, according to a study published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Researchers asked more than 8,500 women to rate men on their attractiveness as a long-term romantic partner.  Heavy stubble (10 days worth) topped the list, followed by full beards and light stubble, with clean shaven at the bottom.

PIG FEVER SWEEPS CHINA.  An outbreak of African swine fever over the last three months has spread to over half of China's provinces.  China has labelled the epidemic "very serious," reported Asia Times. The virus doesn't affect humans but it is fatal to pigs.

Climate change causes wildfires, say senators Reid, Boxer

Two U.S. senators, without meteorological or scientific backgrounds, have grabbed chunks of print space with their “expert” comments on climate change, notes Grumpy Editor 

Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) in the Las Vegas Sun opinion page yesterday declared, “There should be no doubt: Climate change is contributing to wildfires in the West and causing them to be more ferocious, frequent and devastating.” 

He pointed out 28,000 acres recently burned in the mountains west of Las Vegas.  

But he did not mention that wildfire was started by a lightning bolt, and U.S. acres burned this year through mid-July ranked second lowest for the like period over the past decade, (according to a tally by National Interagency Fire Center). 

Reid, who co-hosts a Las Vegas gathering tomorrow on clean energy, said extreme weather will be one of the issues to be discussed and “how clean energy investments can make communities more resilient to such weather.” 

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), in the wake of a wildfire that burned 19,000 acres near Palm Springs, also puts the blame on climate change --- but also indicated budget cuts are limiting resources to fight such blazes. 

(She did not mention that budget cuts are man made.)

 

Many say news reports often inaccurate, finds Pew 

Outside of the media’s role of watchdog, 67 percent of those surveyed by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press say news reports are often inaccurate.

Pew Research also finds 76 percent of those surveyed say news organizations tend to favor one side while 75 percent mention media often are influenced by powerful people and organizations 

Ratings of news organizations have declined steadily since Pew Research first began tracking attitudes in 1985. Many current ratings stand near all-time lows reached in 2011. 

For 69 percent of those surveyed, television remains the top news source. This compares with 28 percent who prefer newspapers and 23 percent who tune in to radio as their main source. 

“The current media landscape is starkly different than in 2001, when 45 percent said newspapers were their main source for news,” relates Pew.

 

In case you missed these…

With TV:  Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus threatens to pull NBC and CNN access to the 2016 Republican primary debates unless those networks shelve their recently-announced Hillary Clinton film projects.  Priebus says if the networks fail to pull those films by Wednesday’s RNC summer meeting, he will "seek a binding vote of the RNC stating that the committee will neither partner with you in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates which you sponsor”…John Seigenthaler Jr., remembered for his 11 years at NBC, joins the new Al-Jazeera America network as a prime-time news anchor of the network's nightly prime-time show to be broadcast from New York.  When it launches Aug. 20, Al-Jazeera America will have bureaus in a dozen U.S. cities…Bad TV day:  A news crew from San Francisco’s KGO-TV and its security guard were greeted in Oakland mid-afternoon last week by three men, one with a gun, who ran off with camera equipment…Jay Leno’s final “Tonight” show on NBC will be on Feb. 6. 

On the heels of the recent Internal Revenue Service scandal, small business owners in the U.S. are receiving letters from the IRS questioning the reporting of their cash income. Some lawmakers and business owners say the move is alarming…Maybe the IRS seeks additional funds for this:  The U.S. government needs an estimated $1.7 billion annually to keep up 6,700 empty and 71,000 underused buildings, reveals Bloomberg Businessweek…After cutting newsroom staffers, the Cleveland Plain Dealer now publishes a free-standing business section only on Sundays…AccuWeather introduces a 45-day (that’s right, a month and a half) weather forecast offered free-of-charge on Accuweather.com.

Speaking of weather --- and illustrating hot summer days --- rather than the usual U.S. beach, sailing or kids running through sprinklers shots, Associated Press last week transmitted a photo (used by U.S. editors, no less) of children cooling off via water in a park --- in Bucharest, Romania.

ABC News omits pinpointing blaze that destroys 20 homes

A news report about a growing wildfire always triggers concern for folks on the road and away from home. 

But omitting the precise, or at least the general, location is a faux pas (to use a delicate French term) that seems to be growing in radio news reports with fires and other disasters, notes Grumpy Editor after hearing a top-of-the-hour ABC News account about a wildfire in California’s San Diego County. 

Nowhere in the 30-second piece early yesterday afternoon did ABC correspondent Alex Stone mention the location of the blaze that caused evacuations and “at least 20 homes are gone, burned to the ground.” 

His report opened with “San Diego County.”  But that’s as far as it went in pinpointing the location. 

San Diego County, in the southwest corner of California, is the state’s second most populous with 3.1 million residents.  Major cities are San Diego, Chula Vista and Oceanside. 

The county, spanning 4,525 square miles, extends from the Mexican border to Orange County.

Only clue in the ABC radio report was that the fire was in a rural location stemming from a short quote from an evacuating resident who said he “loaded up the horses.” 

The lack of pinpointing continued today with a noon on-the-hour ABC News radio report noting only that the fire was "in San Diego County."

Meanwhile, U-T San Diego, said the fire, which started early Sunday afternoon, was near the Campo Indian Reservation in eastern San Diego County.  Campo is near the Mexican border. 

Officials yesterday said the fire had burned 2,000 acres and 80 homes continued to be threatened.