Reader Beware: There Could be Gaps in Your Venue

February 1st, 2012 · Uncategorized

By Denise Tessier

This past weekend, a friend in Colorado lamented the thinness of the Monday Denver Post, saying she was considering limiting her daily subscription to Sundays. But then, she’d miss out on the Post’s weekly cultural events supplement. And having a complete listing of arts and cultural events is important to her as a reader of the Post.

Losing that Post supplement would be like giving up the Albuquerque Journal’s Friday entertainment supplement, Venue.

As it turns out, however, what my friend and I have come to expect of our daily newspapers might no longer be true in terms of the Journal.

Check out the Venue of Jan. 27, Pg. 6, and one finds the Journal is quite upfront about its new development. Above the movie listings, second graph, it states that:

. . .  listings include only theaters that advertise in the Journal.

In other words, when a Journal reader peruses movie listings to see what’s playing, s/he might be reading an incomplete list.

[Read more →]

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The Capitol Press Corps: There’s Life in Old Mediums

February 1st, 2012 · Uncategorized

By Arthur Alpert

Fogey. Fossil. Geezer.

We have lots of words for older folks who seem to live in the past. This past week I joined that club.

First, I was time-machined back some 50 years to the New York City newspaper scene by the powerful opening chapter of Pete Hamill’s 2011 novel, “Tabloid City”.

I was there and that’s how it was.

Next, because I spent a day at the Round House last week, my mind’s eye flashed on pictures and sound from 1983-4, when I lived and worked in Santa Fe.

I remembered colleagues, all of them gone now, with whom I shared coffee, food and talk – Ernie Mills, Fred McCaffrey and my dear friend, Bob Barth.

And I recalled my shock at the togetherness of legislators, lobbyists and hangers-on, their intimacy facilitated by alcohol at the Bull Ring, then steps away on Old Santa Fe Trail.

If our Big Apple sin was cynicism, in Santa Fe, it was clannishness. (Or deficiency of doubt). Reporters collaborated with the politicos, rarely challenged them, did little digging. So what they brewed for their readers and radio listeners was frothy, lacking body.

(The 1980 State Prison riot, to use a horrific example, was a surprise because nobody had reported the scandalous mismanagement.)

But that was 25 years ago. The picture probably is quite different in the City Different. Statewide, too.

Political power is more dispersed in this generation. Also, we have the Internet. Web sites monitor the Capitol as well as local politics, among them Heath Haussamen’s outstanding NMPolitics.net.

And, as I realized while exchanging pleasantries last week with some old hands in the Capitol press corps and meeting some new people, there’s life in the old news mediums, too.

The Santa Fe New Mexican, in particular, is well positioned to do a bang-up job with two exceptional reporters, Trip Jennings and Steve Terrell.

Also, I bumped into veterans working for small newspapers; e.g., Sherry Robinson for the Gallup Independent and Milan Simonich representing a half-dozen downstate papers. The Associated Press, too. The presence of ageless Stuart Dyson of KOB-TV was a reminder that TV pays attention. So does public radio.

[Read more →]

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Carrying the Water for ‘Fracking’

January 22nd, 2012 · Uncategorized

By Denise Tessier

Journal letter writer Richard Cook on Nov. 17 urged New Mexicans to read “The Truth About Fracking,” an article that ran in the October issue of Scientific American, “before issuing any permits or rights to this type of drilling/exploration. Please!”

Two days later, New Mexico regulators ruled that drillers must disclose what they inject when fracking. As the Journal reported in an Associeted Press story at the time, “hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has been used for decades to enhance well production, but federal regulators have been investigating whether the practice is contaminating drinking water supplies.”

Final language for the regulation are expected to be released at the end of this month.

But while a number of stories have surfaced about the potential hazards caused by fracturing rock to release oil and gas reserves – most notably “The Fracturing of Pennsylvania“ in the New York Times Magazine — I’d urge readers to read an article that appeared Jan. 16 in the  independent Texas Tribune, which talks about another aspect of fracking: its tremendous use of water.

[Read more →]

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Petitioning for Democracy

January 21st, 2012 · Uncategorized

By Denise Tessier

How’s this for serendipity?

Having just read Bloomberg Business’s account of Google’s estimated 7 million signers to its petition protesting anti-Internet piracy legislation, I decided a post about the role of petitions in today’s democracy was overdue.

Then, refreshing my email to get the Bloomberg link I’d sent myself, in came the serendipity: a mass-mailed message from Sen. Dede Feldman, D.-N.M. saying she’d just posted a petition at SignOn.org asking for support of  legislation that would give New Mexico cities, counties and the governor the power to ban fireworks during dry times.

In asking for petition support of Senate Bill 5, she had perfectly made my point.

Further research Friday turned up another New Mexico petition event: Change.org was reporting that the “dangerous animal” legislation Sen. Sue Wilson-Beffort, R-N.M., had proposed to impose on pit bulls was already dead because the governor and  legislators had received more than 463 pages of petition signatures from outraged pit bull fans.

Citizens – and now even legislators like Feldman – are using petitions not only to call attention to injustices and to chastise offending retailers, but to influence Congress and the President as well. [Read more →]

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Predictable in Favoring the Pipeline

January 20th, 2012 · Uncategorized

By Denise Tessier

It’s pretty safe to predict that the Albuquerque Journal will respond to President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline with editorial criticism.

The editorial did not run this morning (Jan. 20). Perhaps it will be saved for Sunday — the Journal’s highest circulation day — because it seems opining in favor of the pipeline is important to the Journal.

I say this because the Journal has published three editorials – not guest columns, but the paper’s official opinion on the pipeline – in the last five weeks. All promote the project.

It’s likely the editorial’s language will echo same talking points used by U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., and all three Republican congressional candidates the Journal quoted Thursday (Jan. 19) in its stories about the president rejecting the pipeline plan.

Those two points? That rejecting the pipeline is 1) costing Americans jobs and 2) jeopardizing energy security.

Trouble is, one must go beyond facts to make either of those claims.

[Read more →]

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Omitting the News is Hard Work

January 19th, 2012 · Uncategorized

By Arthur Alpert

When as a kid I argued with my father, he’d often reply to my challenging “Why?” with a smile and refer me to “general principles.”

While that didn’t satisfy, I have come to recognize the virtue of revisiting general (or first) principles.

Editorials, for example, are arguments intended to persuade the reader to a point of view or course of action.

The point of a newspaper as a whole (after making a buck) is to create an informed citizenry; that’s one popular statement of purpose, anyway.

Of course, if the owners of a newspaper want to turn the entire publication into an editorial (as many did in the 19th and early 20th centuries), they can.

But it’s hard work.

After assigning and publishing stories promoting its editorial agenda, for example, management cannot rest. It must also screen out (or minimize) accounts that question or contradict that agenda.

Albuquerque Journal honchos don’t shrink from either of those tasks, which leaves me (selfishly) resentful; critiquing sins of commission is a snap but I’d rather not make the extra effort needed to identify stories, ideas and situations that are missing.

Sometimes, though, Journal censorship is so egregious (and consistent) that even I catch on.

E.g., the grassroots rebellion against several state governors who used the effects of the Wall Street debacle of 2008 against organized labor.

Last November 9 I wrote here about the Journal’s failure to report that Ohio voters rejected Gov. Kasich’s stab at weakening collective bargaining for public employees.

Ten days later, I noted the Journal’s failure to report the kickoff of a recall effort against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, author of a successful attack on bargaining rights for public employee unions.

Presumably both stories fell by the wayside because they contradicted the Journal’s narrative – that unions are instruments of the Devil. (Exaggeration? Yeah, but not huge.)

Anyway, mindful of the above censorship I searched the Wednesday, Jan. 18 Albuquerque Journal for an account of Tuesday’s happenings in Wisconsin.

First, here’s what Associated Press reported:

[Read more →]

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Expert Exemption

January 18th, 2012 · Uncategorized

By Arthur Alpert

Decisions. Decisions.

They’re the essence of reporting and writing a story. Many decisions are relatively unimportant, but not so the reporter’s choice of an “expert” or “experts” to add information, context or opinion.

So when Dan Boyd enlisted the aid of Paul Gessing of the Rio Grande Foundation for his solid piece on public employee retirement options (Albuquerque Journal, Jan. 8), I took notice.

Before tackling Boyd’s story, can we stipulate, counselor, that the Journal considers public employee pensions the Enemy, right up there with unions, progressive taxation, government and al Qaeda?

Of course we can, judging from the frequency and prominence of Journal stories on the subject. (Maybe we can also agree that skullduggery in private sector pensions is nobody’s business, given that the Journal rarely mentions them, never investigates them and has ignored Wall Street Journal reporter Ellen Schultz’s 2011 exposé, “Retirement Heist”.)

But back to Boyd’s piece – it’s his usual good, fair job, conveying the complexity of retirement plans for public employees who double as state lawmakers, with comments from legislators on both sides of the aisle.

The only questionable element (for which I doubt Boyd was responsible) is Gessing’s role as the only non-legislator quoted.

There’s an argument for consulting him, of course – the president of an organization for which “public” is a dirty word can be depended upon to know the subject and have an opinion thereon.

But why use nobody else?

Why not seek out a public pension expert from ERB, ERISA or the National Public Pension Coalition (unions)? Why not a legal or university faculty specialist?

Given Gessing’s consistent advocacy of far-right political economics, a professional editor might have suggested that. Fairness, you know. Ah, but we’re talking about the Journal, aren’t we?

This newspaper exempts Gessing and the Rio Grande Foundation from normal journalistic scrutiny.

And it publishes his views so often he should be on retainer.

Gessing writes Op Ed columns, letters to the editor and Business Outlook pieces. He’s been profiled in Outlook, too. In fact, as my colleague Denise Tessier noted Nov. 7, he’s even managed to drive right into the Road Warrior column!

(I expect him to make “Fetch” any day now, arguing that leashes infringe on the Constitutional rights of dogs to dump anywhere.)

Seriously, happenstance is not why Gessing appears (Zelig-like) all over the Journal; management casts him in those roles.

Yesterday, it lionized Pete Domenici when the cause was subsidizing corporations. Today the Journal features Gessing in its effort to move libertarianism from “the fringes to a position of prominence in a major party.” (The quote is from Charles Krauthammer’s column on Ron Paul in the Jan. 16 Journal.)

That is what, after weighing the evidence, I’ve decided – the Journal uses its “news” columns to promote laissez-faire.

You may decide otherwise, of course.

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Story Placement Clues Readers Into What the Journal Views as Important

January 12th, 2012 · Uncategorized

By Denise Tessier

Old-school journalism taught the “inverted pyramid” style – in which the most important aspect of a story was in the lead sentence, followed by facts that fleshed out the narrative in descending order of importance.

The inverted pyramid was designed to leave less important details, no matter how colorful, toward the end. This way, nothing critical would be lost if the pressman was forced to cut a story to make way for last-minute ads.

Page layout and the story placement within that layout – a still significant differentiation between print media vs. electronic format – allows for a similar pyramiding of stories based on importance.

Before too many more days of 2012 disappear, I’d like to look back at 2011 and note a significant change in Albuquerque Journal layout and its accompanying implied shift in news value and importance – that is, the paper’s decision to give daily business news the “respect” it deserves when, starting Aug. 16, it gave Business a permanent place as a section front, Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Granted, before (and after) Aug. 16, business news had its own magazine – Business Outlook (which at one time was published twice weekly, Mondays and Thursdays, then was pared down to Mondays). But other than Sunday, when “Money” shows up leading a section, one couldn’t be sure where to find daily business news until the August change. Was it buried behind Sports? Behind Food?

Even Fetch! – devoted to dogs, cats and other critters –merited a section-front slot more often than Business did.

[Read more →]

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Fig Leaf

January 11th, 2012 · Uncategorized

By Arthur Alpert

Why does Albuquerque Journal management run E.J. Dionne Jr.’s syndicated essays?

Surely, the editors don’t believe that publishing the soft-spoken liberal fools anybody into thinking the Journal is fair.

Not when there are umpteen columns by Cal Thomas and Jonah Goldberg and Charles Krauthammer and George Will to every Dionne piece.

And not when Journal editors consistently write headlines that obscure Dionne’s arguments or are so dull you don’t want to read the piece. Or both.

Take the headline over the Dionne column the Journal published Tuesday, Jan. 10:

“GOP Needs a Shift and a Lift”.

Consider first what the rubric writer decided not to put atop the essay:

• Dionne’s view that GOP presidential candidates may be helping President Obama by wooing the party’s far right.
• Or, that Iowa caucus-goers are not middle of the road voters.
• Or, that the current bloodletting in the GOP primaries may hurt the party come November.
• Or, that the candidates haven’t had to “hone arguments that have wide appeal.”

Rejecting those down-to-earth theses, the headline writer indulged in a kind of abstraction.

“GOP Needs a Shift and a Lift”.

Yes, this misrepresents Dionne’s column. And yes, it’s very dull. On re-reading, however, I realize it might be taken as Dionne’s brotherly advice to the GOP.

So, why indeed does the Journal run Dionne? Do his columns (and other “liberal” essays constitute a fig leaf intended to cover the anatomical facts?

Like management’s shameful disdain for fairness?

Sorry, what I just wrote is too earthy.

Give me some time and I’ll come up with an abstraction thereof.

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Flashes of Wit Give Relief from Negativity

January 6th, 2012 · Uncategorized

By Arthur Alpert

Who knew that John Fleck had a sense of humor?

Perhaps his friends and family, but not me, not until I read his Upfront column headlined “The Locksley Factor, Plus Tasty Bratwurst” Tuesday, Jan. 3.

A riff on the presumed correlation between losing football teams and high student GPAs, it was slyly funny, as well as thoughtful; thus breaching Leslie Linthicum’s monopoly on wit at the Albuquerque Journal.

Fleck’s other front-page story, a feature on a Sandia retiree whose Rio Rancho home depends for its entire water supply on the rain that runs off his roof, was more serious, but it was excellent, too; particularly where he explored the limitations as well as payoff of the conservation strategy.

This was good stuff and I was enjoying relief from the negativity that reading the Journal usually provokes, when I spied another Robert J. Samuelson column on A5.

As I’ve pointed out here too often, Journal management’s economics menu is brief, consisting of Establishment economist Samuelson (on the left!) and “libertarian” voices from all over.

This time, the contrast between the Journal’s wares and those you’d get in a real marketplace of ideas was bright because I’d just read the Sunday, Jan. 1, N.Y. Times.

The Times had six economists weighing prospects for 2012, including:

Gregory Mankiw, conservative advisor to Mitt Romney; Christina Romer, liberal former Obama adviser; Tyler Cowen, “moderate libertarian”; Robert H. Frank, scholar of motivation and status-seeking; Robert Schiller, housing and bubbles expert and Richard Thaler, economic behavior specialist.

All six are regular contributors to the Times, which adds up to a slightly better stocked store, doesn’t it?

My relief from negativity was waning.

Then, another contrast – I read a fascinating Wall Street Journal story (Tuesday, Jan. 3, A3) on Ohio shutting down oil and gas wells after making a tentative link between seismic activity (earthquakes) and hydraulic fracturing.

I never found it in the Albuquerque Journal.

There was, however an Op Ed (Dec. 29) extolling the virtues of fracking, from one Thomas Molitor, identified as “an adjunct scholar with the Rio Grande Foundation in New Mexico and a regulatory analyst with the American Action Forum in Washington D.C.”

The American Action Forum, a Google search reveals, has a board of right-wing political activists including Fred Malek (who I remember as John Mitchell’s deputy in the Nixon reelection effort that birthed Watergate), plus former Senators Norm Coleman and George Allen. It’s kin to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads.

Adjunct scholar? Regulatory analyst? Sure.

Darn, I was back in negative territory.

And then the Wednesday, Jan. 4 Journal boasted a front-page story headlined, “USDA Scuttles Valencia Matanza”. Having once read a great matanza scene in Rudy Anaya’s novel, “Alburquerque”, I was intrigued.

And the front page of the Food section, B4, contained a special surprise – another big matanza story, also in Valencia, with a big color photo.

As an aside, I used to edit a monthly and it was a kick to link related stories. Editors do that.

Sadly, the Journal’s editors didn’t.

It’s not a sin, just a missed opportunity and I think I understand. Spending so much energy turning the newspaper into a political tool leaves little for the basics.

But I’m negative, again. Maybe I can re-read Fleck’s piece on the “genius of Mike Locksley’s tenure” for a pick-me-up.

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