Posted 10:05 PM by Peter Fallow
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

UPDATE: After doing a bit of reading, I feel compelled to link to a couple of excellent Thanksgiving-related columns that celebrate the true diversity of this great nation and remind us of the many ways that Americans, at our very best, remain a beacon of hope for humanity.

First is Andrew Sullivan's wonderful 1996 column that he republished on his Web site. Among three things Sullivan was thankful for is this:

Second, I'm thankful for the American talent for contradiction. The country that sustained slavery for longer than any other civilised country is also the country that has perhaps struggled more honestly for the notion of racial equality than any other. The country that has a genuine public ethic of classlessness also has the most extreme economic inequality in the developed world. The country that is most obsessed with pressing the edge of modernity also has the oldest intact constitution in the world. The country that still contains a powerful religious right has also pushed the equality of homosexuals further than ever before in history. A country that cannot officially celebrate Christmas (it would erase the boundary between church and state) is also one of the most deeply religious nations on the planet. Americans have learnt how to reconcile the necessary contradictions not simply because their country is physically big enough to contain them, but because it is spiritually big enough to contain them. Americans have learnt how to reconcile the necessary contradictions of modern life with a verve and a serenity few others can muster. It is a deeply reassuring achievement.

Next is Stanley Crouch's Thanksgiving column:

But, somehow, even for all our troubles, I do have to say that I would rather be singing the blues in America than living anywhere else. There is something so special about our nation. Much of that special quality comes from how hard we have fought to move this country beyond all its shortcomings. For all the miles we have to go before sleep, we have done so well that we are appalled by things that are very common outside this country.

When we think of how race used to be in this nation - even when it was at its very worst and the redneck flag flapped unchallenged in the minds of white Southerners - we can look at something like Rwanda and know that Negroes were never slaughtered here on the scale that Africans were in that tragic bloodbath.

A few months ago, when I looked at a tape of a woman being stoned to death in Iran and heard that hysterical self-righteousness screaming through the air as her white clothing and white face covering turned red before she fell, I knew there were horrors under which people live that Americans can only imagine.

At such times, I often think of how marvelously the Rev. Calvin Butts spoke at Yankee Stadium in the memorial following 9/11. We had heard those words so often, beginning with "My country 'tis of thee," but he made them sound new and absolutely true. At that moment, the soul of Harlem became the soul of our country, and for that we should be most thankful.

In this nation, at the right moment, anyone can speak for all of us and we will recognize ourselves in that single person because our country is about doing the work to make it all for one and one for all - in our sorrow, in our triumphs, in our humanity.

I updated this late Friday night after a couple of beers and a lovely day spent with the Amazing Techie Girlfriend and her parents. Here's a snapshot:

Four native Southerners enjoying a jaunt through the big city. Everywhere we go, we encounter every conceivable skin tone and every conceivable language and dialect, but this amazing diversity has become so mundane and unremarkable that we almost forget how special it really is. Along the way, we enjoy a most American menu: bagels and coffee for breakfast, turkey leftovers and iced tea and pumpkin pie for lunch, and wonderful, spicy Thai food for dinner. (And England's Bass ale late at night.)

In short, we had the whole world -- in our refrigerator, on our sidewalks, and in our ears and eyes. And I had to sit down and blog about it to appreciate the beauty -- and simplicity -- of it all.

Among the thousands of things we have to be thankful for, that must rank near the top.

Posted 8:17 AM by Peter Fallow
FAIR WATCH: OK, let's see how FAIR is doing in its role as a left-leaning media watchdog.

A journalist in Nigeria has had a fatwa placed on his head for writing the Miss World pageant article that so enraged Muslims that they had no choice but to riot. Now, those Muslims have no choice but to murder a reporter:

According to sources in the southern city of Lagos, the order to kill Daniel was passed early this morning after a meeting between members of the Zamfara State government and representatives of at least 20 Islamic organizations.

Although the newspaper had retracted the story and issued several front-page apologies, Zamfara State deputy governor Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi insisted today that, "It is binding on all Muslims wherever they are, to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty."

Such an affront to the basic human right of freedom of the press would surely be something that would outrage FAIR, right? Especially the confluence of religion and government conspiring in such an evil effort?

Wrong. As of this posting, nothing. Not a word. But I'll hold out hope that maybe they'll say something. After all, FAIR, oppression is oppression, even when it's practiced by non-white, non-Christians, right?

Right?

Posted 7:20 AM by Peter Fallow
TEED OFF: The great Jack Shafer takes a look at the New York Times' crusade against Augusta National and its policy against admitting women as members.(The headline: "The New York Times' Augusta blog"):

As crusades go, the intensity of the Times' against Augusta, which included a Nov. 18 editorial urging Tiger Woods to boycott the Masters in protest, seems somewhat out of proportion. If Augusta's ban is such a godawful thing (and I'm not saying that it isn't), then where was the Times all those decades that the club was practicing its unholy discrimination—out shooting the back nine? A Nexis search of "New York Times and August National and women and member" before this summer's confrontation produces less than three stories a year going back to 1990 and none before. This indicates that either the Times overlooked one of the decade's greatest injustices until alerted to it by Johnson and Burk's summer duel, or that the Times found a story that it could conveniently exploit for months to the smug satisfaction of its liberal readers: A nation of 140 million women against a men's club of 300.

Calling the Times on its posturing last week was the Kansas City Star's crotchety business columnist Jerry Heaster. "Instead of encouraging Tiger Woods to boycott the Masters, the New York Times should make its own statement by refusing to cover the prestigious golf tournament until Augusta National admits a female member," Heaster wrote.

That would free up the sports pages for the Times to pursue additional crusades for social justice in baseball (no black owners), swimming (what a white sport!), hockey (still not enough American-born), stock-car racing (too Southern), and yachting (how about scholarships for poor folks?).

Just go read the whole thing.

Posted 7:14 AM by Peter Fallow
AWARD-WINNING NAME-CALLER: Howard Kurtz has a column today about New York Times columnist Paul Krugman that has an appropriate headline:

"The Man Who Calls Bush A Liar"

I think that pretty much sums up the appeal, and the intellectual honesty, of Paul Krugman.

In other Krugman news, he was named columnist of the year by Editor & Publisher. It seems he was chosen for his talent at "sticking it to The Man."

Posted 6:53 AM by Peter Fallow
TAKING AIM:The Columbia Journalism Review has posted its Darts & Laurels roundup of the good, the bad and the ugly in the world of journalism. Check it out.

Posted 9:03 AM by Peter Fallow
DIVERSITY DEBATE: Damn, I missed this. Last week, "Coloring The News" author Bill McGowan debated Juan Gonzalez, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, on C-SPAN. According to Editor & Publisher, it was quite cantankerous. (Here is E&P's next-day coverage of the debate.)

You can watch the debate here. (Scroll down.)

Posted 8:36 AM by Peter Fallow
AD AGE: Meet Ms. New Republic and Mr. National Review, based on a quick check of the advertising in each political magazine. Check it out. It's a pretty fun read from The American Prowler.

Posted 8:28 AM by Peter Fallow
BLOWHARD ALERT: There's an interesting article from the Los Angeles Times up at Romenesko today. David Shaw, the LAT's media critic, interviews Jay Harris, the former San Jose Mercury News publisher who caused a stir last year when he resigned to protest what he saw as the destruction wrought on journalism by the drive for profits. In Sunday's interview, he makes one good point and a few not-so-good points. Here's the good one:

But Harris thinks he's been preaching to the choir. He thinks journalists talk too much to each other -- and not just in speeches. He thinks many stories they write and broadcast, ostensibly to enlighten the public, are also -- even if only subconsciously -- aimed primarily at their colleagues and their sources, rather than the reading and viewing public.

This is so true, especially when one newspaper is trying to catch up to the coverage of another. Reporters will jump through hoops to find some subtle little nuance or extra little factoid that the competing paper missed, but which adds next to nothing to the narrative. A lot of other pundits have pointed out how this approach is especially problematic for political coverage. The impact of political decisions on everyday voters often gets lost amid coverage that celebrates the chess moves of the political game in Washington or the state capital.

But then Harris runs off the rails with this statement:

Harris is not alone in either his concerns or his efforts, but I think he's right when he says, "Democracy is less vital now than it once was. Not only are voting and the level of civic engagement and participation down, but even among those who vote, the level of discourse has declined, in quantity and quality, on issues related to the common good.''

Apparently, "democracy" is only practiced in the pages of "good newspapers." To Harris, the only significance of the vast media choices we have today is this: the process has been dumbed down. All those Web sites, blogs, radio stations, magazines and cable news channels are so much white noise. Harris goes on to blame "the media" for not doing a good job of reporting on the most important issue of the last election: Bush's imperial plans for world domination:

Only 39.3% of the country's voting-age citizens turned out for the recent election -- the second-lowest total since 1942 -- and Harris thinks the turnout would have been better (and maybe the results would have been different) had the news media done a better job of covering the Bush administration's foreign and economic policies.

"There are forums," he says, "where you'll hear very thoughtful discussions about how America, as the one hyper-power in the world, should conduct itself, what our guiding principles should be. This raises important questions of national security and of empire, and yet these issues were not discussed much during the campaign.

(I've been toying with a kooky theory on why voter turnout is so poor, and it has nothing to do with the media. I may fully articulate it someday into a post, but it kind of boils down to this: Voter turnout is poor because most people are content with our political system. They don't see either party as likely to implement radical changes. But more on that at a later date.)

Bush's foreign and economic policies haven't been covered properly? Where is the proof for that? Reading between the lines, it seems that, for Harris, the "proof" lies in the fact that the Republicans were such big winners on election day. (Apparently Noam Chomsky's speeches and anti-war rallies led by groups that regard North Korea as an enviable society should have been covered more in the media.) And he blames the media for not fulfilling its role as Democratic Party cheerleader:

Although the media have addressed these issues in election post-mortems, they've largely done so, Harris says, by "laying much of the responsibility on the Democrats' doorstep ... for their decision not to campaign on those issues and not to draw serious distinctions between themselves and the president.

"But I think it's fair to wonder ... no matter where you come down on the issue itself: If we had covered all this in a more compelling way, would it have shifted the focus of the debate?"

In other words, perhaps an increase in the amount of slanted, left-liberal reporting, which has driven millions of potential readers to the Internet and elsewhere, could have saved American democracy from itself. If you believe that, I've got some free-falling newspaper stock I'd like to sell you.

Posted 8:15 AM by Peter Fallow
HEADLINE NEWS: Here's a fun column from the Washington Post. Metro columnist Bob Levy writes about the headlines he's collected over the years. I won't spoil it by excerpting any. Just go read them for yourself.

Posted 8:11 AM by Peter Fallow
MEDIA CONSOLIDATION: IT'S NO BIG DEAL: Benjamin Compaine, a research consultant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Program on Internet and Telecoms Convergence, has written a provocative article asserting that media conglomeration is not as widespread as believed and is not as much of a problem as many make it out to be, anyway. That should stir some debate. (In fact, a lively discussion is under way in the comments to the article.)

I think the writer makes some good points. He's weakest on the economic argument and strongest on the analysis of media content and vast number of choices available today. He echoes the Matt Welch Reason article I blogged about yesterday. Check out Compaine's article, and if you care, tell me what you think in the comments section. (Warning: It's very long. And I mean Compaine's article, not the comments section.)

Posted 7:55 AM by Peter Fallow
MATT WELCH ROUNDUP: Blogging journalist Matt Welch gives recent hand-wringing books about the state of American journalism a good, solid reaming in this mega-review from Reason. Because I'm so busy today, just go check it out. It's well worth your time.

Posted 7:43 AM by Peter Fallow
GOOD FOR WHAT AILES YOU: The American Prowler, which I don't visit often enough, has a nice piece on the brouhaha surrounding Fox News chairman Roger Ailes' letter to President Bush in the days after Sept. 11.

This whole thing about Ailes giving Bush advice seems like it's being blown way out of proportion. After all, the letter appears to be fairly generic and innocuous, and frankly I'd be a lot more shocked if someone inside the White House WASN'T telling Bush that the American public wants him to take the "harshest measures possible" against the terrorists who attacked us. There are certainly some ethical concerns here, but it's not like Democrats haven't enjoyed the same close contact with a prominent media executive -- and with a lot less outrage. Check out this post from the Media Research Center on former CNN chief Rick Kaplan's much more intimate involvement with President Clinton's administration. MRC sums it up best:

Bottom line: Media ethicists may properly question the appropriateness of the Ailes communication to the White House, but the media hypocrisy on this issue is overwhelming.

Excellent point.

Posted 6:53 AM by Peter Fallow
'A NATURAL FOR THE TIMES': The New York Observer takes a look at the New York Times' "ownership" of the Augusta National story. I loved this part, from the Observer's inside guy at the times:

Of course, the story is a natural for The Times, the source acknowledged. "You have an old white guy at a country club who doesn’t want women to come in. Every women’s group in the country will eat it up, and we’re a liberal paper, so the feeling is: ‘Let’s jump on it.’"

Give it a look.

Posted 8:33 AM by Peter Fallow
BAD LINK, BUT INTERESTING STORY: The National Review is ripping a USA Today story on the Federal Elections commission, but linked to the wrong story. (Here's the story NRO meant to link.)

Posted 8:04 AM by Peter Fallow
IT'S NOT POKER, BUT IT STILL INVOLVES CARDS: This looks like fun for copy editors. Some newsies at the New York Post have invented a board game called Man Bites Dog. The object is to come up with one of those great headlines you wish you could write every day:

Players are dealt a hand of five cards, each containing a tab-friendly word or phrase. But not all are created equal. "Sues" is worth five points, while "Drugs" scores 25 and "Bizarre" goes for 50 points. Playing a hand such as "Romantic Mob Boss Falls For 340-lb Judge" would earn you a whopping 150 points, if not a copy-desk job. The first player to score 500 wins.

Could be a gas after a beer or 10.

Posted 7:57 AM by Peter Fallow
BRITISH PRESS ROUNDUP: Ben Sheriff of the excellent Layman's Logic sent me this story on the state of the media in Britain. The author believes English newspapers are the best in the world:

This is not about The Sunday Times. It is about the totality of the British press. So let me go even further than I went a few sentences ago. We probably have the best press in the world. We certainly have the best press in the English-speaking world and, yes, I include the United States. Have I forgotten about its greatest newspaper, The New York Times? No, I have not. I read it every day for six years. It demands to be taken seriously. God knows it takes itself seriously. You feel it is doing you a favour allowing you to read it.

It has some great writers and it is truly a paper of record. But a newspaper is about more than its editorial content. Appearance is important — especially when the competition is fierce. The New York Times has little competition, which may explain why its layout makes an accountant’s balance sheet look exciting and its headlines have all the verve and panache of an insurance company’s actuary presenting his annual report. Deeply serious, deeply responsible — and deeply boring.

The high-minded — Douglas Hurd, perhaps — will argue that being boring does not matter so long as the paper upholds certain standards. Well, I’m sorry, but it does matter. Journalism, however serious, must be popular. If serious journalism is not popular it betrays its seriousness. I don’t mean populist or even likeable and comfortable. I mean “of the people”. The more people it speaks to, the better. And choice is even more important. We are well served in this country — probably too well served for the comfort of some newspaper owners who have to turn a profit.

The author makes some good points. Certainly, the vast majority of American newspapers of all sizes are rather straightforward and fairly dull, and more salacious stories are generally not given the same prominent play they receive in England. But it also must be noted that the newspaper market in England is much different than it is here. In America, virtually every town has its own Daily Bugle, and big national papers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today don't have circulation numbers as huge as you'd expect. That's not quite the case in England. Yes, there are small local dailies, but by and large, huge national newspapers dominate the market and reap circulation numbers that the big papers in the U.S. can only dream of. For example, on this list of the world's 100 biggest newspapers, there are only seven American newspapers, and only four of those have circulations over 1 million. (And remember, the USA has a population of about 280 million.) Great Britain, with a population of about 58 million, has eight newspapers in the top 100, and five newspapers with circulations over 1 million.

Obviously, newspapers are a much bigger business in Britain than they are in the U.S. As such, there is the kind of intense competition that makes for a lively press. Unfortunately, there are problems, too. A lot of the big British papers are pure tabloids, pandering to the lowest common denominator. But even the serious papers have some credibility issues caused by the pressure to be first with the news. In an excellent overview of the difference between British and American papers, you find this nugget buried near the end:

Even British journalists concede that the dark side of their emphasis on speed and exclusivity is the persistent problem of inaccuracy. Indeed, that problem is so great that The Associated Press is particularly hesitant to pick up material from the national newspapers unless it can be independently confirmed.

One highly visible example: The Times reported at the top of page one on December 8, "Mullah Muhammad Omar was last night being held captive as the Taleban lost control of their spiritual stronghold Kandahar in a major breakthrough for the American-led coalition." The New York Times, on the other hand, acknowledged that report but added that the American military was "unable to confirm" it. Nor could anyone else.

So the British and American newspaper models each have plusses and minuses. Perhaps we could learn from each other, like we have in so many other fields.

On another note, Andrew Sullivan had a piece in the Sunday Times of London on media bias in Britain. Check it out.

Posted 6:52 AM by Peter Fallow
LET'S GET PERSONAL: Slate's Jack Shafer has a nice piece today on The Wall Street Journal's "Personal Journal," the lifestyle section the paper recently launched:

It would be unfair to describe "Personal Journal" as the paper's "Women's Section." Men buy art, houses, cars, and travel. They invest, go to movies, read books, and are even known to shop via catalog, all topics that "Personal Journal" covers expertly. But only an unreconstructed feminist would ignore PJ's potential chick factor. How many men would pose the question, "Is a face-lift ever allowed as a work or medical tax deduction?" as Mary Dirkes of Lathrup Village, Mich., did in the "Ask Personal Journal" column in October. (No, came the ruling from writer Lynn Asinof, unless surgery is needed to correct a facial deformity.)

Shafer mostly approves of the mission of "Personal Journal," and points out that the Journal has actually been publishing so-called "lighter" stories for years. Check it out.

Posted 6:28 AM by Peter Fallow
MEDIA JUSTICE: Reuters, the wire service that routinely puts the word terrorist in scare quotes (i.e., Palestinian "terrorists" gunned down 12 Israelis today) and has been accused of slanted, dubious reporting on the Middle East, reportedly has received the worst press coverage of any British media company in the past year. I suppose there is justice in the world.

Posted 10:10 AM by Peter Fallow
PRESS RELEASES GO IN THE ROUND FILE: Here's an interesting story. It seems the New York Post is not ashamed to admit that it is throwing away press releases without even looking at them.

Bravo, I say. You simply cannot imagine the amount of crap that gets mailed to newspapers every day. It boggles the mind. But beyond the sheer volume of junk mail, there's simply a basic distrust of PR folks. If you want the perfect example of why this is, read the photo caption in the link above. Here goes:

Faye Penn, features editor, N.Y. Post. Photo taken with a Sanyo 5300 camera phone being released and marketed by Sprint in the U.S. this month. Gibbs & Soell is handling PR.

Good. God.

Posted 9:17 AM by Peter Fallow
FIRED COLUMNIST UPDATE: Yesterday, I blogged about the sports columnist from the Westchester (N.Y.) Journal News who resigned for allegedly plagiarizing another article on a retarded football player. As a comment on that post indicated, Bill Dedman has issued a correction. The article he found on Lexis Nexis was NOT the same as the one that appeared in the newspaper. (See Romenesko's Letters page and scroll down.)

By the way, Romenesko has been redesigned and looks pretty spiffy. In a nod to its blog-like nature, Poynter has added comments to each post.

Did I mention that I love Romenesko's Media News? Hell, I rip off 90 percent of my material from there.

Posted 6:45 AM by Peter Fallow
'HI!! I'M BARRY BONDS AND YOU'RE NOT': That was the memorable headline on a Sports Illustrated cover story several years ago about baseball superstar Barry Bonds' jerk quotient. With that in mind, check out this piece from Slate suggesting that Bonds' unpleasant media persona is actually sophisticated manipulation of the journalistic mob.

As a former sports reporter and editor, I can appreciate the writer's inside look at the post-game press conference. Now, I don't want to give you the illusion that I ever covered anything major. Low-level Division I college football and basketball were as big as it got for me. I mostly covered prep stuff. But the number of stupid questions you hear from journalists at sporting events is truly mind-boggling, regardless of the level of competition. I think the reason you hear so many of these screamers is the herd mentality of sportswriters, who feel like they have to ask SOMETHING, ANYTHING to appear as hard-working as their media brethren. I quickly learned that most of the important questions would be asked within the first two minutes of the press conference, so there was no need to do much more than sit back and listen. And heck, at big college sporting events, the sports information directors SUPPLY you with quote transcripts, anyway. You could easily write a solid story from those alone as you eat the free food they provide in the press box.

Posted 6:19 AM by Peter Fallow
SOMETHING'S FISHY: Here's an interesting story from Romenesko. A sports columnist for the Westchester (N.Y.) Journal News has been forced to resign for allegedly plagiarizing another journalist's work in a column about a mentally retarded football player. However, Bill Dedman of Power Reporting did a little digging and discovered that there's not much "there" there. (I'm familiar with Dedman, a Pulitzer winner, because I engaged in a polite yet spirited debate on newsroom diversity with him several months ago; the links are here, then here.) Dedman, who specializes in computer-assisted reporting, whipped out some of his fancy software and revealed that the "plagiarism" amounted to a few words, and nothing substantial at that:

-- The longest matching phrase in the two columns is nine words: "Waverly led with just a few seconds left."

-- If you set a more stringent filter (matches of six-word phrases), you get these additional repetitions: "goes to Northwest High School in," "close to the West Virginia border," "Frantz went back to his sideline," and "the Waverly players were pointing, too." Hardly the heart of the narrative.

So what's the deal? The explanation may be this: The accused columnist, Barry Stanton, has worked for Gannett since 1976. In other words, he's reached that level of seniority where his higher pay scale may have become a problem for the media conglomerate. It sounds pretty cold-blooded, but I've heard plenty of stories indicating that this kind of thing has happened before with Gannett. They know there are plenty of young journalists just out of school who would love to have Stanton's job, and they don't have to pay them nearly as much. It sucks.

Gee, and all this after I sang the praises (kinda) of corporate journalism in the post below. Not like I ever really had any illusions.

Posted 7:01 AM by Peter Fallow
"TAKE IN MORE MONEY THAN YOU SPEND, WRITE GOOD STORIES, AND DON'T SCREW UP": That's the (paraphrased) advice to newspapers in this enjoyable column by Michael E. Waller, a former publisher of the Baltimore Sun who tackles some tough questions about corporate ownership. Waller's column was inspired by a new book that, for the umpteenth time, complains about the ruin corporate-owned newspapers have brought to the industry. Waller says the book makes some valid points, but he points out that the glorious past before Gannett and Knight-Ridder "took over" wasn't always that glorious. Check it out.

I've blogged before about my experiences at family-owned vs. corporate-owned papers. Hands down, corporate is better. The pay is better, the working conditions are better, and the corporation, which can often make the newsgathering process more complex than it needs to be with its edicts and mandates and programs and formulas and goals and such, nonetheless prevents the sort of arbitrary pettiness I've seen at the family-owned level. This arbitrary pettiness includes refusing to report on certain politicians for purely personal reasons, or placing the monthly meeting of the Civitans on the paper's front page because the publisher is a member. That simply wouldn't fly at a corporate-owned paper.

Posted 10:07 AM by Peter Fallow
REAL WORLD INTERCEDES AGAIN: Apologies for the lack of posts this week. I had to work early yesterday, I had a doctor's appointment today, and I'll be working early (during my regular blogging hours) again on Wednesday and Thursday. Hopefully I'll be able to get back into it by Friday or next week.

Posted 6:17 AM by Peter Fallow
MORE ELECTION COVERAGE -- 2004 ELECTION COVERAGE! Andrew Cline at the excellent Rhetorica blog has started blogging about the 2004 election. Remember, it's November of 2002! Now that's getting ahead of the curve!

Posted 2:18 PM by Peter Fallow
APOLOGIES TO ALL: I haven't been posting much the past few days because work has been on my ass like a cheap pair of pants. I may post some things tomorrow. Then again, I may not. In either case, regular blogging will resume Monday for sure. Thank you to all for stopping by, and please patronize the bloggers on the right side of this page.

Posted 7:20 PM by Peter Fallow
POST-ELECTION FOLLOWUP: The Last Page answers the burning question that was rebounding all over America's newsrooms on a hectic election night: When do we eat? Check it out.

Posted 9:11 AM by Peter Fallow
ELECTION NIGHT: Well, it wasn't too bad. I got home about 1:30 a.m. instead of 2:30, and the copy flowed pretty smoothly all night. They were also merciful and didn't swap out photos on me too often, which was nice.

I don't really have much to add to the discussion of how the vote went. Suffice it to say that I'm pleased with the outcome. If you're looking for illuminating political commentary, look to the Web sites on your right.

That's about it for me today. I've got another late night at work tonight. This time, it's the Country Music Association awards (yee haw)!

Posted 9:29 AM by Peter Fallow
PRAY FOR ME: Ah, Election Night. It's one of the busiest, most stressful nights of the year for newspaper employees, and I'll be right in the thick of it. I'll probably be working until about 2:30 a.m. tonight, helping put out something like five editions. But at least they'll feed us, and it's usually pretty good. Pizza or something like that.

Anyway, if you don't want to wait for the election results to come out on dead wood, watch TV. (As if I had to tell you that.) Fortunately, The Wall Street Journal has a nice guide for when polls close in each state. Check it out. Also, Bill Quick has a list of bloggers who are following the election. It's right here.

Additionally, bloggers will want to check out this new collaborative effort, Blog The Vote. It will provide up-to-the-minute news on tonight's election from various states.

Now get out there and vote as often as you can.

Posted 8:16 AM by Peter Fallow
A BIASED REPORT: The United States is ranked 17th in the world in press freedom, according to some group called Reporters Without Borders. And that's all it took to set Susanna Cornett off. Check it out.

Posted 7:17 AM by Peter Fallow
BOGUS NEWS ON THE MARCH: Newspaper readers in New Jersey, beware! Someone may be placing fake copies of an election-themed special issue of The Jersey Journal in your front yard. You have been warned.

Posted 7:14 AM by Peter Fallow
MORE ON WAR PROTESTS: Editor & Publisher reports that the hand-wringing continues over the coverage of anti-war rallies across the country. Many major newspapers, such as The New York Times, felt they didn't do enough; apparently the Times' sister paper, The Boston Globe, feels like it did too much. A telling quote:

The Boston Globe, which sent a reporter to the Washington demonstration by bus, devoted a front-page Associated Press photograph to the story in Oct. 27's paper, along with an 882-word article and staff photograph on A29. "It seems to me a staff-written story and a front-page article might have been a bit much," says National Editor Kenneth Cooper. This might surprise many who would expect the traditionally liberal Globe to cover the rally in-depth. "There have been many protests in Washington," Cooper explains. "We don't cover all of them. A protest there with 100,000 people is actually kind of middling. ... If another protest happened on the same topic with the same amount of people, we'd probably do less."

Along those same lines, I'd like to point out something I missed yesterday. Coverage of the anti-war rallies has invariably failed to provide much information on the forces behind them. The excellent Ombudsgod did some digging around the blogosphere and elsewhere, and he discovered that ANSWER is affiliated with the Workers World Party, which apparently still thinks Stalin was a good guy who was simply misunderstood. Check it out.

Posted 6:29 AM by Peter Fallow
TAKE A TABLET: Editor & Publisher has a story today on the debut of the Tablet PC, a handheld electronic device for reading newspapers that has some promise. It sounds like the graphics are great, but I'm still concerned about the size. It's roughly the same dimensions as standard letter-sized paper, it's an inch thick and it weighs 3 pounds. Too big to fit in you pocket, but perhaps about right for the now-ubiquitous "commuter bags" everyone (except me) seems to be carrying.

Posted 6:14 AM by Peter Fallow
WHERE DO YOU PUT THE NEWS? I'm sure a lot of folks will be blogging about the wave of newspapers apologizing for their coverage of anti-war rallies across the nation. It certainly seems strange to me, considering that polls indicate Americans on the whole support military action against Iraq. It seems entirely possible that the size of the protests could represent successful organization by anti-war forces rather than some huge groundswell of popular support for their position. Also, I have to wonder if papers would be groveling this much to pacify anti-abortion protesters. But I'd like to point out a passage from Washington Post ombusdsman Michael Getler's weekly column that illustrates the difficult decisions that have to be made regarding the placement of news stories in the paper:

There was a lot of competition for a place on that Sunday front page: two stories about the horrendous attempt to rescue hostages from a Moscow theater, two follow-up stories to the sniper capture, and timely political stories about races in Maryland and Minnesota. That left one spot, and there was internal lobbying to claim it. Senior Post editors said it was a "close call" but they felt that the story from Mexico about the reported setbacks to two Bush initiatives, combined with a photograph from the Washington demonstrations, was the weightier way to go. Besides, they argued, most people also read the Metro section.

That sounds logical, but I'm with the complaining readers on this. Washington gets a lot of protest rallies, and most go into Metro. But this was one big demonstration -- a lot bigger, these Post editors acknowledge, than they expected -- and it was not about some narrow special interest. People had traveled here from all over the country. Post editors, in my view, fumbled this one, not because they are pro-war but because they were surprised at the turnout, and talked themselves into a compromise solution that pushed the story inside.

These sorts of debates go on every day in newsrooms, and not just in the news section. I'm glad Getler gave the public a glimpse of how it works.

Posted 8:41 AM by Peter Fallow
'SUN' RISING? The New York Sun, in an attempt to attract more readers, will cut its price from 50 cents to 25 cents. I hope the paper can survive in New York's competitive newspaper market.

Posted 8:34 AM by Peter Fallow
PROTESTING THE 'TIMES': Editor & Publisher has an article on why The New York Times ran a "make-up" story on the anti-war protests that took place across the country last week. It appears reader pressure made a difference:

Editors have refused to comment on the turn of events, but on Thursday, Kathy Park, manager of public relations for the New York Times Co., e-mailed the following statement to E&P: "We were attentive to complaints from a fair number of readers that the number of demonstrations around the country and the number of participants in Washington warranted further coverage. We also looked at what news agencies and other publications had reported, and we felt that there was more we ought to say."

I really have to wonder if pressure from, say, Second Amendment groups would have led to such a do-over in the Times.

Posted 8:29 AM by Peter Fallow
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, AJR: The American Journalism Review's 25th anniversary issue is out, and it takes a look at the changes in the newspaper business since 1977. Check out the whole issue. It's chock full of journalistic goodness.