Grumpy Editor

WOULD TODAY’S MEDIA KEEP D-DAY PLANS A SECRET?

 

 

D-Day landing, 1944

 

 

With the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landing in France being observed on June 6, press action — or more precisely inaction at that time — on activity leading up to the event that led to liberation of Europe would never happen today, declares Grumpy Editor.

 

Those representing print and radio at that time were patriotically mum on the most heavily guarded secret on the planet:  Invasion of Normandy across the English Channel.  It was the major turning point in the war.

 

Nowadays most members of the media can't keep a secret, or even a rumor, without firing it off.

 

On that noteworthy day in 1944 surprise was crucial, especially with Germany’s 55 divisions in France.

 

Six parachute regiments, with more than 13,000 troops, flew from nine British airfields in more than 800 aircraft, part of a massive flight of more than 11,000 planes.

 

More than 300 aircraft dropped 13,000 bombs over coastal Normandy in advance of the invasion when more than 160,000 troops stormed the beaches.

 

The main Allied invasion force of almost 7,000 naval vessels carried troops, weapons and heavy equipment, including tanks.  The armada included 1,200 warships that transported the troops and nearly 30,000 vehicles.

 

Ships of various sizes dotted the 100 miles across the channel, stretching as far as the eye could see.

 

True journalists at that time kept the secret that resulted in a surprise landing in Normandy.

 

Most of today’s media, with many members holding political science rather than journalism degrees, simply wouldn’t abide by a top-secret label on a major event.

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE…

 

NAVY UNIFORM PATCH UNDER REVIEW.  The federal government was reviewing Defense Department policy regulations on dress code after some service members wore a uniform patch with the words “Make Aircrew Great Again” along with a likeness of Donald Trump during the president’s visit to the USS Wasp in Japan.

WETTEST 12 MONTHS SETS RECORD.  The National Weather Service said there's never been a wetter 12 month period in the past 124 years. The continental U.S. averaged six inches of precipitation above average during the period.

 

PATRIOTIC PARADE GETS SLIM COVERAGE.  Outside of the nation’s capital, there wasn’t much coverage of the thousands of spectators who lined Constitution Avenue to pay tribute to the past and present U.S. military in the National Memorial Day Parade.  Parade participants wore uniforms dating back to the Revolutionary War.  Along with floats, vehicles carried the parade's grand marshals — World War II veterans — as well as Medal of Honor recipients and celebrities.

 

MAN SHOOTS PROWLERS, GETS ARRESTED.  A 64-year-old man was arrested for possession of an illegal handgun after he fatally shot a pair of prowlers burglarizing his home in Deerfield, N.Y.  He told the district attorney the weapon he used in self-defense was his late father’s.   He was charged with felony possession of an illegal handgun.

SINGLE PURCHASE BOOSTS STORE SALES.  Costco performed a price check after noting a nearly $400,000 purchase at one of its stores during its most recent quarter. The lofty price tag was linked to one item — a diamond ring.

 

CANINE RULES TOWN.  Maximus Mighty-Dog Mueller II (Max for short), has been Idyllwild, Calif.’s mayor since 2014. The non-incorporated community in the San Jacinto mountains has has been electing canines for its highest office since 2012.  

 

BANK ROBBER NABBED IN CASINO.  A suspect in at least four armed bank robberies in Massachusetts and Rhode Island was captured as he gambled at the Plainridge Park Casino in Plainville, Mass.

 

CHINESE COUNTERFEIT GOODS CITED.  Military Times reported military and government agencies plus others purchased more than $20 million worth of Chinese-made counterfeit goods designed to look like domestically produced gear from a company that defrauded the government and helped to orchestrate the counterfeiting process between January, 2013 and October, 2018. 

 

51ST STATE LOOMING?  A House committee will hold a hearing July 24 on a bill that proposes Washington , D.C. be recognized as the nation’s 51st state.  The bill calls for two senators and one representative for D.C.

Most eighth graders rank low in geography knowledge

 

Pinpointing national and world locations seems to be a problem these days for youngsters in schools --- and, as mentioned in last Monday’s Grumpy Editor, geography fuzziness also extends to grownups in newsrooms.

Analyzing test data from the U.S. Department of Education, the Government Accountability Office found only 27 percent of eighth graders nationwide scored at either the proficient (24 percent) or advanced (3 percent) level on standardized geography tests last year, reported CNS News.

Nearly half (48 percent) exhibited only partial mastery of the subject, and a quarter (25 percent) scored below basic competency on the geography tests, it added.

Last year’s tally showed virtually no improvement since 1994, when 4 percent of eighth graders tested at the advanced level, 24 percent at the proficient level, 43 percent at the basic level, and 29 percent below basic competency.

Lack of geography knowledge also showed up this month with some newsroom writers and editors, as pointed out here last week when major national print/broadcast outlets --- in heavily-reported stories --- placed  dry, sunny Los Angeles and Southern California in a storm-triggered mudslide area that actually was in Kern County in California's Central Valley.

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED THESE…

Back in July GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump banned Des Moines Register reporters from an Iowa rally following a critical editorial in that newspaper.  Staffers late last week were probably delighted to place into print a Register survey that showed Dr. Ben Carson leading Trump by nine percentage points in Iowa...So how on-target are Washington media predictions?  Most were confident that Vice President Joe Biden would toss his hat into the presidential race.  “Biden is almost certain to run,” they echoed in print and broadcast outlets for days.  Result:  They were the most surprised folks by Biden’s decision not to run…Los Angeles residents were shaken up by a printed report that indicated there was a whopping 99.9 percent chance of a 5.0 magnitude or greater earthquake in the Los Angeles area by April 1, 2018.  The figure was labeled suspect by a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist…“Poor management is not a crime,” was in a message from the Justice Department on Friday with word that it won’t charge former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner in connection with decisions on Tea Party groups’ applications for tax-exempt status…Overlooked by media last Thursday with the highly-covered 11-hour Benghazi quizzing of Hillary Clinton by a House committee:  A U.S. pledge of $70 million to Pakistan to help educate 200,000 adolescent girls plus building about a dozen schools and rehabilitating hundreds of facilities…Blaming sluggish global economy slowing its sales growth, 3M Co. said it plans to eliminate about 1,500 jobs…Also cutting staff, ESPN sports network, part of Walt Disney Co., cited rising programming costs and a loss of viewers with plans to eliminate as many as 350 positions.

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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L.A. schools go soft on lawbreakers, but not Compton

While the Los Angeles Unified School District, with more than 640,000 students at nearly 1,100 schools and charter schools, was getting wide media attention in softening its policy on students with bad behavior by sending them to principals offices or counseling centers rather than issuing citations or arresting them, a nearby school district was getting tougher, notes Grumpy Editor.

On the same day the new, less punitive Los Angeles policy involving students caught fighting, vandalizing, possessing alcohol or marijuana, or worse, was announced for the nation’s second largest school district, Compton --- a Los Angeles suburb --- revealed the new policy for schools in its unified school district will allow campus police to carry semi-automatic AR-15 rifles in trunks of patrol cars.

As activists, educators and justice officials praised the new L.A. policy for misbehaving students, some Compton residents were unhappy about the new policy for the 27,000 students in their district.

Compton’s policy allowing rifles in patrol cars, as presented to the school board, could be a “more effective means to protect the students, staff, community and police personnel in high risk and/or dangerous situations.”

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE…

FEMA.  Those four letters were not heard in broadcast news reports from the 6.0 magnitude California earthquake yesterday centered around Napa.  The shaker, biggest in the region in a quarter of a century, damaged buildings and set some homes on fire.  Yet, no mention of the Federal Emergency Management Agency coming to the rescue with assistance... It wasn’t too far back when widely-appearing photos of wilting corn stalks illustrated “climate change/drought effects.”  Now, U.S. farmers are up to their ears (a bit of humor from Grumpy Editor) in the crop.  As The Wall Street Journal puts it:  “Months of wet weather have fueled expectations for a corn crop so large that mounds of the grain will be a common sight across the Midwest after the harvest, which starts next month.”  Production is expected to exceed 14 billion bushels, topping last year’s historic harvest…The Washington Post’s editorial board says it will no longer use the “Redskins” term in identifying the D.C. football team. Reason?  Some Native Americans consider use of that name offensive…Whoops!  A 28-year-old contestant from Long Island who appeared on VH1’s “Dating Naked” series on July 31, files a $10 million lawsuit against the show’s producers and Viacom, the network’s parent company, claiming she felt “beyond embarrassed” by an uncensored naked crotch shot.  Seems her genitals were not pixilated, as promised…With less advertising sales that supported its $291,000 budget, the student newspaper at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, eliminates Fridays and now publishes Mondays through Thursdays…Post-vacation surprise:  When Gopal Ratnam, national security reporter, returned to the Washington, D.C. Bloomberg News bureau after two weeks reporting in the field, he was immediately laid off, joining others at the D.C. office who bid farewell over the past two weeks… More on Los Angeles Times new publisher Austin Beutner:  LAObserved.com notes, “While being paid $675,000 a year base salary plus an annual bonus with the target of the same amount, Beutner will also start to build up a little ownership stake --- a head start in case he ever wants to buy The Times”…Double whammy:  Along with Florida’s orange growers facing a bacterial disease hitting trees, Americans are snubbing the breakfast beverage for more exotic juices.

Some listeners and Department of Justice (DOJ) staffers tuned to ABC Radio news on Tuesday may have missed a slip of the tongue by President Barack Obama who declared:

“The D-O-Gee works for me."

 

 

Ashanti paid $20,000 for non-singing daytime gig in N.J.

Newspaper and trade publications’ show business reporters somehow missed a new venue for entertainers that brings easy daytime money without the hassle of going to places like Las Vegas for a one nighter, notes Grumpy Editor. 

Singer Ashanti was paid $20,000 in taxpayers’ money earlier this month for a day-long appearance at Atlantic City High School in New Jersey. 

As explained by WNYW, Fox 5 in New York City: 

“The 2003 Grammy winner led assemblies, met privately with a group of middle school students and did an interview with the high school’s radio station.” 

The TV station said funds from a district budget account designated for the improvement of instructional services were used to pay Ashanti who was in town for a multi-cultural festival. 

The performer (full name:  Ashanti Shequoiya Douglas), also a record producer, model and actress, was named after the Ashanti Empire in Ghana.

 

Eighth-grade lunch patrons at Hooters stir editors

A number of broadcast outlets and newspapers --- stretching to London’s Daily Mail --- went all out on an Associated Press story yesterday about some eighth-grade students on a Baltimore field trip eating lunch at a restaurant that includes a children’s menu, notes Grumpy Editor.

So why the excitement?

The restaurant is Hooters, known for its busty servers.

After 100 Berwick (Pa.) Middle School students visit the National Aquarium in Baltimore, chaperones split them up for different restaurants because the group was too large for one eatery.

So 15 to 20 end up at a Hooters, one of the restaurant chain’s 455 locations in 44 states and a number of overseas nations from Argentina to Taiwan.

The menu at the casual beach-theme restaurants --- where servers wear orange shorts --- includes seafood, sandwiches, salads and spicy chicken wings.

Some editors running the story probably feel the restaurant selection was “shocking.”

But there are no complaints from parents, says Wayne Brookhart, school superintendent.

The Hooters Web site notes 68 percent of customers are male (probably including some of the “shocked” editors), most between 25 and 54 years old.

However, "10 percent of the parties we serve have children in them,” it adds, boosted by a children’s menu.

 

$500 million U.S. competition targets kids under 5

First paragraph of a news release from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services heralds a new program with “investments in early learning to reduce crime, strengthen national security and boost U.S. competitiveness,” notes Grumpy Editor.

Seems like a splendid idea. 

But the Obama administration’s $500 million state-level grant competition --- labeled Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge --- is targeted at youngsters under five years old. 

That zeroes in on infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers. 

Puzzling and not amplified in Wednesday’s 10-paragraph news release is how the “competition,” involving tiny tykes, contributes to reducing crime, strengthening national security and boosting U.S. competitiveness. 

“To win the future, our children need a strong start,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is quoted in the news release. 

Vice President Joe Biden is included with, “For kids, high quality early learning programs mean they will enter school better prepared with a greater chance of finishing high school and college.” 

Hopefully, that will lead to strengthening national security, too.

 

Stories focus on class size as school budgets tighten up

School districts around the country are being squeezed as budgets shrink, triggering newspapers to run sympathetic stories on the problem, notes Grumpy Editor. 

An example of  “crowded classrooms” was spotlighted this week as the Las Vegas Review-Journal ran the first in a series that will span three weeks, focusing on the Clark County School District, the nation’s fifth largest. 

The series kicked off with the headline CROWDED CLASSROOMS in capital letters across the front page, above the fold.  Subhead read:  “As budgets shrink, class sizes grow.” 

It all sounded pretty dire, a reader pointed out, until reaching an inside page where, tucked away in the second paragraph, was "Officials expect to raise the average class size in grades 6-12 from 32 students to 34."

No mention was made that in belt-tightening times, two more students shouldn’t create a hardship.  Also, figuring two or four absences per class bring the total to about unchanged or below average class size. 

The story did not indicate total enrollment (latest figure: 312,761 in 2009). 

With Las Vegas ranked as the U.S. home foreclosure capital, school attendance likely has decreased from one and two years ago as parents during the recession were forced to relocate to other states in search of jobs.

Also forgotten:  In good times, when money was no object and hefty property tax funds were rolling in, the school district went on an expansion spree, complete with planting of expensive mature palm trees in school parking lots.

 

School tells teenager to remove U.S. flag from bike

It didn’t get much national media coverage --- even after breaking on Veterans Day --- and Grumpy Editor wonders what is going on when a 13-year-old patriotic California boy, who rides to school with an American flag on the back of his bike, is told by a school official to remove the flag to avoid “racial tension.”

The action occurred in Denair, 20 miles southeast of Modesto, Calif.

United Press International (UPI), picking up the item from Sacramento TV station KCRA, reported Edward Parraz, Denair Unified School District superintendent, said Cody Alicea was told not to fly the U.S. flag from his bike while at Denair Middle School after complaints from other students.

KTXL, another Sacramento TV station, reported the teenager displayed the American flag on his bike to be patriotic and as a tribute to veterans, including those in his family.

“In this country we’re supposed to be free and I should be able to wave the flag wherever I want to,” said Cody.  “And they’re telling me I can’t.”

Superintendent Parraz mentioned to KCRA that Hispanic students “bring their Mexican flags and they’ll display it” around the Cinco de Mayo observance.

No mention was made on banning Mexican flags near or at the school.

Survey: Teens stumble on money matters, budgeting

Money management and budgeting loom as problem areas for teenagers, a new survey finds, as a majority think they should get credit cards by age 21, notes Grumpy Editor.

This indicates more information on consumer matters should be emphasized in schools and covered in newspaper business pages.

Chances are that a story on findings of a Junior Achievement and Allstate Foundation survey, released yesterday, does not appear in your local daily --- which illustrates the point.

The survey discovers 45 percent of  U.S. teens say they are unsure about how to invest their money effectively and 22 percent admit they do not budget their money.

Among teens who do not manage their money, 42 percent aren't interested in money management, 37 percent don't know how to manage their finances and 32 percent think budgeting is for adults so it doesn't matter how they spend their money, uncovers the survey in a sampling of 1,000 teens.

What’s more, 54 percent of them say they are unsure about how to use credit effectively, yet 74 percent think they should get a credit card by age 21.

"Teens are admitting that they don't have knowledge of some of the basic money management skills around investing, budgeting and using credit. Despite the alarming numbers, teens overwhelmingly have high hopes for future financial stability," says Jack E. Kosakowski, president of Junior Achievement USA.

"The poll shows we need to do a better job of ensuring our youth are financially literate," he adds.

Vicky Dinges, assistant vice president, public social responsibility at Allstate, adds, "This volatile chapter in the nation's economy is bringing teens and parents together in agreement about at least one topic: there is a huge need in this country for financial literacy education.”