More ghost news from the Arizona Republic
Two weeks ago, it was a haunted library.
Today it’s a haunted hotel in Douglas:
It doesn’t have to be Halloween for ghost stories at the Gadsden. Employees and guests have reported eerie tales all times of the year. There are so many stories that the issue is met with a shrug. Employees don’t seem upset that their workplace is haunted. The ghosts apparently are frisky, not nasty.
“They’re nice,” said Brenda Maley, the assistant manager who’s worked at the hotel for 32 years. “I think they’re happy here.”
These stories join the Republic’s hard-hitting psychics coverage.
In the haunted library story, the reporter mentioned a group called “Sonoran Paranormal Investigations Inc.” This group’s web site says that its work is based on “true scientific inquiry and stringent analysis.”
This story has a whole other paranormal investigation group to call on, called the “Phoenix Arizona Paranormal Society.” This group boasts of its use of “modern techniques and documented evidence aquired during investigations”—and of its “years of paranormal experience both personal and investigative.”
Both sound like reliable sources for newspaper articles.
A representative of the Phoenix Arizona Paranormal Society is called in to attest to the hauntedness of the hotel:
Count in Rod Franklin, a computer technician and founder of the Phoenix Arizona Paranormal Society, as a believer. His group tries to help people get rid of unwanted spirits.
“There are a lot of people who don’t take it seriously, but they’ve never had an encounter,” he said.
It’s hard to argue with that logic!
11:14 AM
And just when you thought the Arizona Republic couldn't get any weirder...
… it runs a story about a haunted library.
This is the paper’s evidence:
“I’ve had books fly at me, so I’ve seen it. I mean, you’re just standing there. You just say, ‘OK, it’s because I walked by.’ You always justify what it is,” librarian Colleen Gorman said.
Does any of that make sense? If the librarian saw a book flying around, shouldn’t the reporter ask when it happened and if anyone else saw it?
Or if, besides being incoherent, she’s just nuts or a big liar, shouldn’t she be kept away from kids?
The rest of the story descends into the parodic; there’s a lot of scenes of some alleged paranormal investigator looking at lights flashing on an “electromagnetic-field meter” like some bumpkin version of Dan Ackroyd in Ghostbusters—except Dan Ackroyd didn’t have a newspaper reporter following him around and hanging on his every word.
Or a daily newspaper editor willing to print it.
The Republic, as we’ve seen, likes paranormal stories almost as much as it likes dog stories.
In March the paper ran a story about how psychics were getting more popular. That’s what the hedline said, anyway: The actual story offered no evidence of it.
And last year the paper ran a similar story.
News not so much.
7:46 AM
PHXations—Saturday, June 5, 2010
Were UFOs scouting Phoenix?
Nine silver, flashing objects were observed at high altitudes over the metro Phoenix area on June 1, 2010, according to testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
The first object was seen at approximately 30,000 to 40,000 feet that moved behind clouds. A second object was seen that also moved behind clouds. Then a third object was seen that moved into clouds.
Five additional objects were then seen at even high altitudes. These were viewed as dots of flashing lights moving in formation.
A ninth object seemed to be tumbling down from the sky and the moved behind clouds.
I guess they couldn’t find any intelligent life forms here… it is an election year after all. /yaa
Some journalistic scholar will some day have to figure out the behind-the-scenes magic that produces major features on the same subject in both the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Business Journal on the same Saturday morning.
They are both about ongoing Sky Train construction at Sky Harbor. The Republic story is better, in that it focuses on the details of a hundred-foot-tall overpass above a taxiway that planes will use. The PBJ story just ledes with the news that construction has reached a “fever pitch.” There’s lots of geeky details, though.
Services for Scottsdale city councilperson Tony Nelssen are being held this a.m. at West World, in Scottsdale, the PBJ says. He died May 26. The service will be outdoors, and temperatures are supposed to run far above 100 degrees today.
9:30 AM
Freedom Communications says it's coming out of bankruptcy
The company is still the owner of the beleaguered East Valley Tribune, the Orange County (Calif.) Register, and about thirty other newspapers and eight TV stations. The Register reports:
Freedom Communications’ reorganization calls for the company to more than double pretax earnings to $98 million within four years. [Interim Chief Executive Burl] Osborne said that improvement will be achieved by:
Continued efficiencies in management and operations. One example already implemented is joint newspaper delivery with the Los Angeles Times
Revenue growth, especially from online activity, such as an existing partnership with Yahoo
Improved coordination among divisions within the company
Joint efforts with other media companiesOne example of that last point might be shared printing agreements among Southern California publications, but Osborne does not expect Southern California to wind up with one regional newspaper.
The company brought its problems on itself, by lading up with too much debt. One good side of the story is that the remaining members of the Holles family are now out of the picture.
A confirmation hearing is scheduled for March 9, at which a write down of just under a half-billion dollars will be finalized.
As Nick Martin reported on Heat City some time ago, the company’s was gifting a lot of its execs with bonuses, even as it was capsizing. Details here.
11:49 PM
New Times music guy bashes former freelancer!
Martin Cizmar, the New Times’ music writer, trashes a former longtime NT music contributor in this blog post.
Now, the point of all of this very long post is difficult to follow, because way too much of it has to do with the finer points of the last ten years of history of a band, Alice in Chains, whose artistic and commercial heyday had ended long before.
But it’s kind fun to read nonetheless. Here’s how the jeremiad begins:
I find it hard […]to respect a journalist who gets totally snookered by [guitarist Jerry] Cantrell’s publicity machine. A puff piece in the Arizona Republic advancing Wednesday’s Alice in Chains show at Dodge Theatre seems to suggest former longtime New Times freelancer Dominic Salerno (he employed the pen name “Serene Dominic” at NT) got taken for the proverbial ride.
6:35 PM
EVT sale finally going through
A complete disaster seems to have been avoided in the East Valley. The Tribune, which might have closed entirely at the end of the last year, has been rescued, sort of, by a company called Thirteenth Street Media, which is based in Boulder, Colorado.
The owner of Thirteenth Street, Randy Miller, also owns a weekly paper it distributes to the tonier areas of North Tucson and a weekly called the Telluride Daily Planet in Colorado. Stories from Tucson make it seem like the former is a slight outfit and getting slighter.
On the other hand, the latter, the Telluride paper, doesn’t seem to be a silly operation. It’s not an easy feature to get going or to use, but it does boast an “e-Edition” that lets you see what the actual printed paper looks like, and it seems to carry actual news, despite its small circulation.
On the other hand, there are still a few hitches in the giddyup web-wise, as this this About Us page demonstrates.
Nick Martin has a lot of details on the sale in Heat City:
Under the just-announced deal, Miller would get the three newspapers, their printing presses and the building in Sun City occupied by Daily News-Sun, as well as all the trimmings that go along with owning a newspaper, such as its fleet of vehicles and use of trademarks.
Noticeably missing from the deal, however, is the Tribune’s headquarters in downtown Mesa, which the county government says is worth almost $7 million.
In exchange, Miller would pay $2.05 million. But he would also take over an operation which Freedom said is losing about $60,000 a week.
Any deal is still subject to approval from the federal bankruptcy judge in Delaware who is overseeing the case. The same judge will also be choosing from among the bids if others decide to compete against Miller.
Other bidders have until March 8 to submit their offer. A hearing will be held the following day to discuss the sale, and the judge could decide as soon as then whether to allow the deal to take place.
A superficial PBJ story on the sale here. It says that the Telluride Daily Planet is a weekly. All I could find in the Republic is this four-graf story.
How embarrassing is it that an unpaid blogger like Nick Martin completely out-reports the newsrooms staffs of two established news organizations on a business story involving an institution—a newspaper—that’s obviously part of a lot of people’s daily lives?
Despite its impressive win of a Pulitzer last year, for a series on Joe Arpaio, the Tribune has lost many employees in the last year and now publishes just three days a week.
It may or may not be true that the EVT is losing $60,000 a week. (A company like Freedom can make any sort of financial case it wants.) And it’s possible that the ancillary publications will help out. Still, it’s hard to believe a company the size of Thirteenth Street is prepared to carry any losses very long, and that’s not including the issue of how much debt it’s taken on to finance the deal. (Even in newspaper fire sales, debt is killing a lot of recent deals.)
All that said, $60,000 is the equivalent of some 60 employees. Even if the new owners can somehow find some internal savings that had eluded Freedom, it’s hard to see how it’s repositioning the paper for the future isn’t going to include some significant new layoffs.
2:54 PM
An odd land deal in Glendale
Another great story by the Republic’s Robert Anglen:
A controversial real-estate investor sold Glendale a piece of land for $6.6 million on the same day he bought it for about $5.5 million.
The land, which the city previously leased for a youth-sports complex and overflow parking near the University of Phoenix Stadium, was bought by the California investor and his wife from a Valley family on Dec. 21 and then sold to Glendale on the same day, according to interviews and property records obtained by The Arizona Republic.
The guy had a sketchy history:
Court records show that while serving as an elected member of the San Diego Board of Port Commissioners, [David Malcolm] was convicted of a felony charge of violating conflict-of-interest laws. He was working as a $20,000-a-month consultant to Duke Energy while helping the company win a contract from the San Diego board. He was sentenced to three years of probation and 120 days of work furlough, ordered to pay $260,000 in restitution and barred from holding elected office.
[…]
Malcolm was also investigated by the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office after he was heard on a tape recording urging someone to blow up a house and collect $1.3 million in insurance money. He said he was play-acting during the discussion.
5:41 PM
Just when you thought the Arizona Republic couldn't get any worse ...
… it shows a commitment to go to the mat and suck even more.
The lede story in the business section today, taking up nearly half of the section’s front page, is about how Heinz ketchup is changing the design of the little packets of ketchup you get in restaurants.
The photo here, which was online, can’t do justice to the massive one in the paper, an exciting action shot of ketchup being squeezed onto a hamburger.
Why in the world would a local newspaper with falling circulation run a wire-service story about a company with no local ties on the front cover of its business section?
2:59 PM
PHXations—Wednesday, February 3
The Tucson Weekly is looking for a writer to contribute to its film coverage. They need someone to write a full-length review every other week, and contribute film-capsule reviews as well. “Ideally, the reviewer would be in Tucson, and as for pay, that depends on the experience of the reviewer.” says Editor Jimmy Boegel.
Apply through mailbag@tucsonweekly.com.
Students at the Cronkite School have formed a Hispanics journalists club, a chapter of the NAHJ. Details on a new blog here.
Sarah Palin’s coming back to Arizona a couple of times in the next few months. In March to do a fundraiser for John McCain, and then in May for a group called Center for Arizona Policy, which is led by creepy anti-sex crusader Cathi Herrod, who’s obsessed with abortion and gays fucking.
The Espresso Pundit, who is a good barometer of the far right’s wishfulness, if not reality per se, says:
Frankly this takes some of the wind out of McCain’s sails. There are plenty people who want to see Palin but don’t want to write a check to McCain…and a CAP check is deductible. It will be interesting to compare the turnout at the two events.
Neither he nor the PBJ story on Palin answers an obvious question about Palin’s CAP appearance: Whether she’s getting her typical $100,000 speaker’s fee.
5:44 PM
More on the Marquee-Hoodlums ticket-fee war
The Republic and the New Times are catching up on the stand Tempe’s Hoodlums record store has taken against Lucky Man Productions, which operates the Marquee rock club. The store, which collected a reasonable $1 for each ticket it sold for Marquee shows, balked when Lucky Man tried to add on an additional $3.
The store’s blistering original statement post here. PHXated’s December story on it here.
The Republic story is here, with a consistent statement from Hoodlum’s co-owner Steve Wiley:
Wiley […] stresses he’s not on an anti-Marquee crusade.
“It’s not a personal thing,” he says. “We’ve had a great relationship with those guys at the Marquee for many years. I’m not against service fees. We charge a one-dollar service fee for carrying the tickets at our store, and everyone is fine with that. But if the Marquee or whoever needs to charge $28 in order to make ends meet, then I’m a businessperson, I don’t have a problem with that. Just make it $28 dollars. But don’t put $25 on the tickets and the Web site and then expect me to collect an extra $3 for you.”
New Times blog post on the issue by Martin Cizmar is here. Besides being late and misinformed, it’s about a tenth as good as the Republic story, which is a little embarrassing.
PHXated’s previous posts on the outlandish ticket fees charged by the Marquee are here.
8:00 PM
What's up at the EVT?
Here’s the feature well of the East Valley Tribune’s site right now:
The top story—the cop tragedy in Gilbert—is two days old. The bottom one is about … a book reading at a library? From the outside it looks like the paper isn’t staffing its website over the weekend.
8:43 PM
Go Daddy's banned Super Bowl ad
CBS is refusing to show the local internet company’s 2010 Super Bowl ad, the Phoenix Business Journal reports. Here it is:
The ad is offensive, but since when are mincing homosexuals not allowed on network TV? The real issue, I think, is that it shows a former footfall player in that role—and one mustn’t disturb the fragile sexuality of the current players.
1:18 AM
A few notes about the Arizona Republic
Q: Who’s writing the paper’s Arizona Living section?
A: Not Republic reporters. Two days into the week, a total of nine feature stories. One was written by a Republic staffer. The rest were all wire stories, and lame ones at that. (“Facebook buds make workouts a bit easier.”)
On Sunday, there was a big page of things to do this week. Top item: John Mayer doing a VH1 Storytellers show. (I can’t link to it because it doesn’t sem to appear on the web.) It’s hard to be optimistic about the future of the paper when it seems like virtually no one working at the place cares about the substance of what they are publishing. A city the size of Phoenix and the best thing they can suggest doing over the course of the week is sitting on your butt and watching a routine basic cable show?
Our favorite story this week, however, was a strong Richard Ruelas feature Saturday about the frontier-day newspaper wars between the Republic and the Phoenix Gazette.
In a history of the Republic Ruelas noticed a funny story, dating from 1912, about how the Gazette was caught stealing news from the Republic, then called the Republican, which planted a fake story that the Gazette duly lifted. Wrote the Republic:
Lacking the enterprise which it boastfully claims and being utterly devoid of the commonest ethics belonging to the newspaper business, [the Gazette] has been brazenly and methodically stealing the news which The Republican has paid to have gathered and to publish.
Ruelas is one of the few people at the paper who does actual reported features. A week or so ago he did a long and fairly interesting reconstruction of an ineresting bit of rock ‘n’ roll arcana: Was Bono targeted for a shooting at a Tempe show back in 1987?
The year Arizona was consumed with controversy over Gov. Evan Mecham’s decision to cancel a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. was also the year that the Irish band U2 played four concerts here.
And dealt with death threats, according to the band. According to the oft-told tale, lead singer Bono would be shot while performing the group’s ode to King, “Pride (In the Name of Love).”
The band’s memory of this 1987 incident has appeared in various books, in magazines and in Bono’s induction speech when the band entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Ruelas skeptically pieces together various recollections to figure out how much of the story was true.
2:55 PM
Le Templar's goodbye column
The opinion pages editor is leaving the EVT to join the Goldwater Institute.
Loyal Tribune readers know of the newspaper’s challenges over the past year — the switch in January 2009 from a metro daily to a community paper with a smaller staff, company bankruptcy in September, the Nov. 2 announcement of a pending closure followed a couple of weeks later by a proposed sale that has yet to be completed.
Today, I have a great deal of hope for the Tribune’s future. But I won’t be there in the Mesa newsroom to see what happens next. I am taking advantage of a rare opportunity to join the staff of the Goldwater Institute, a public policy institution (what reporters used to call a political think tank) that shares the vision and values that the Tribune’s editorial pages have pursued with vigor for so long.
7:06 PM
Is the Phoenix New Times “facing bankruptcy”? No.
I’m seeing talk on blogs and on twitter that the New Times paper is in financial trouble based on a court case in San Francisco. I think the reports are overstated.
New Times went into SF in 1996 or so, buying a small local weekly and going up against an established paper, the Bay Guardian. The Guardian eventually sued, saying, essentially, that New Times was deliberately selling its ads at a low price to try to put the Guardian out of business. The papers have been locked in a debilitating (and costly) range war for nearly 15 years.
I used to work at SF Weekly but was fired after some editorial disagreements; I find the muddy, unattractive battle between the two papers over the ensuing decade interesting, but won’t bore you with the details.
New Times lost the case, and a $15 million or so judgment has now increased with interest to some $21 million. As you can imagine, the Guardian is saying “Pay us the money” and New Times is saying, “Screw you, we’re appealing.”
You can make the case that New Times’ prospects aren’t good: A jury heard the case and ruled for the Guardian, and a judge doubled the penalties. On the other hand, to a lot of people, the ruling doesn’t make sense. Newspaper advertising is a different commodity than widgets, and I can testify from having worked there that the main plan for success involved putting out a better paper.
Whatever. In any case, after a recent hearing, stories have come out suggesting that New Times was about to be forced to pay or at least post as a bond the entire judgment. Locally, the Espresso Pundit has jumped on it. New Times has posted this response.
(Over the years New Times has bought up most of the major alternative weeklies in the U.S. and ultimately changed its name to Village Voice Media, after its most famous acquisition. Most people in the industry still call it New Times, and the company is run out of the New Times building downtown.)
New Times’ contention is that if the judgment were to be affirmed on appeal, it would in any case be held against the holding company of the San Francisco paper, which the company says doesn’t have much in the way of assets. In other words, it’s saying that its legal structure would prevent the Guardian from collecting its money.
This may all just be a fiercely argued lie, or maybe after the company loses the appeal a judge will say, “Oh, that’s just a financial facade”—I"m not a lawyer. But it’s also true the company lost the case two years ago, and nothing has changed in the years since to make a potential bankruptcy an issue. The hatred of the Guardian inside the company runs so deep that it’s hard to believe the case will be resolved any time soon.
7:00 AM
Potential East Valley Tribune sale is expanded
The East Valley Tribune is reporting that its long-discussed sale to Thirteenth Floor Street Media has been delayed because the company is negotiating to get the EVT’s sister papers in the Valley as well:
The new letter of intent also includes assets of the Sun City Daily News-Sun, Ahwatukee Foothills News and Arizona Interactive in Chandler, which publishes the Clipper advertising shopper and does commercial printing. The Daily-News Sun also publishes the Glendale/Peoria Today and Surprise Today newspapers.
The deal expanded because the operations are so closely intertwined, Freedom said in a statement.
Thirteenth Street owner Randy Miller was expected to be in the Valley this week visiting the staff at Freedom locations.
More details on the new developments at Heat City.
7:00 AM
538.com on John McCain's 2010 senate race
Nate Silver’s clear-thinking analysis of the possibility of party flips in next year’s senate races sees things as pretty balanced right now: Eight Republicans and seven Dems in the fifteen races most likely to see a party switch.
The possible re-election of Arizona’s senior senator comes far down on his list, number 23 out of 38 races. (There’s more than 33 or 34 because of vacancies.) Here’s what Silver says about the race; the down red arrow means the chance of a party flip has decreased in the past month:
23.
Arizona (R-McCain) — Finally some polling numbers out; PPP shows him with somewhat tepid approval numbers, but doesn’t show any of the potential Democratic candidates coming particularly close — certainly not close enough to get anyone like Gabby Giffords interested in a kamikaze mission. Still, McCain has been very quiet, and it might be wise to hedge some against the possibility of a last-minute retirement.
12:47 AM
Bill Goodykoontz on the disappearing critic's screening
The Republic’s film critic notes that the movie studios are showing fewer and fewer movies to critics for review:
I’m starting to feel like Charlie Brown. I never get invited to anything.
OK, that’s an exaggeration.
But this much is true: Of the three major releases that open Friday, Sept. 11, today none was available for review. I watched a fourth film, “Lorna’s Silence,” on DVD.
The three films are Sorority Row, a slasher pic; Whiteout, a thriller with Kate Beckinsale set in Antarctica; and I Can Do Bad All By Myself, the latest bit of sentimentality from Tyler Perry.
Slasher films make money whether they are good or bad, and Perry presumably doesn’t care or doesn’t need to care what white critics say about his black films.
Whiteout is more of a puzzle; locally, it was screened on a Wednesday night, which is too late to make the Republic’s deadlines. That strategically leaves local word-of-mouth to the screening audience and to less-serious local critics. Beckinsale, as Goodykoontz notes, is a fairly respectable actress, but in the end even respectable actresses end up in bad films, and the studio was trying to give the thing whatever protection from critics it could.
Manohla Dargis in the NYT, for example, reviewed it today. Her verdict? “[A] perfunctory, by-the-numbers approach to the story and its characters.” And she ended with this kiss-off:
And shouldn’t there be penguins? I thought every movie about Antarctica had to have penguins. Has someone done market research proving otherwise? Is the whole penguin thing over? Or maybe the penguins read the script and told their agents to pass. Smart birds.
Goodykoontz’s is a good reminder, though, that the movie studios, like the record companies, while busily marketing themselves in public as friends of consumers and fans, often work behind the scenes in ways to screw over their customers—and in this case their news sources.
6:00 AM
Who's writing what at the Arizona Republic?
Yesterday, the paper had a big spread on long-gone Phoenix landmarks—everything from Legend City to the Cine Capri to Caf’ Casino.
The byline? There was none. Just “By The Arizona Republic.”
In the Calendar section was a big full-page review of the new movie 9. The byline? There was none.
I assume it was Bill Goodykoontz, but what’s up with that?
p.s.: And why, after the paper has just printed a story about something called “Caf’ Casino,” does a search for the phrase “Caf’ Casino” not produce the story in the AZCentral.com search engine?
Ditto for “Legend City.”
And ditto for the “Cine Capri.”
And why, oh why, is the damn thing immediately accessible in Google News?
6:00 AM
Dramatic journalistic one-upsmanship at the Arizona Republic
A few days, ago, you will recall, we examined the news briefs of the Arizona Republic’s Valley and State section and found that no bit of press-release banality was too low for the paper to assiduously chronicle and waste newsprint on. (“Republic Watch: Another example of why newspapers are dying.”)
One item in the Phoenix news briefs column, you will recall, was the breathless accounting of the opening of a community-college cafeteria.
(“The Phoenix College Culinary Cafe officially reopens today for the fall semester. Lunch is served every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.,” the story began—and went on for another four paragraphs.)
After perusing the paper this morning, we are sensing a little office rivalry. Not to be outdone, the West Valley news briefs section sees the Phoenix one’s Culinary Cafe—and raises a student-run eatery!
Student-run eatery opensAVONDALE – Estrella Mountain Community College’s student-operated restaurant opened last week on campus, 3000 N. Dysart Road.
The cost for a three-course meal at Regions Restaurant is $8.95, plus tax.
The restaurant opens to the public from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays.
The brief goes on from there, but you get the idea. The important news is that Republic’s not-to-be-outdone coverage of community-college dining-room offers continues.
6:00 AM
Is KFNX selling off its airtime?
Some local female business people got the email below from Francis Battaglia, billed as the “president” of radio station KFNX-AM, 1100 on your radio dial.
Basically, the station is now bartering off airtime. The move is interesting first because it’s another step in the slow decline of the radio industry. Debauched by Clear Channel, clogged with too many ads, having abandoned any pretense of serving its community, the industry is dying a slow death.
Second, this is interesting because of how it’s dying. Back in the day FM, then the industry’s stepchild, was the home of bartered weekly hours. In big cities, different ethnic groups would have their own few hours of paid-for programming each week. The “hosts” of the show would then sell ads to businesses catering to that community. As FM radio came to prominence in the late 1960s and the early 70s, fueled by tony classical stations and then so-called progressive rock radio, the bartering faded away.
Anyway, we’re now seeing the industry regressing to an unspeakably cheesy format it abandoned years ago. It always gets chuckles in the industry when you mention it, but federal law requires that that broadcasters, who after all are making billions off public airways they purchased for a song, operate in the public interest.
Note how Battaglia leaves the uncomfortable subject of the “production costs” to the end.
The memo:
Dear Prospective KFNX Broadcaster,
KFNX NEWS/TALK RADIO 1100 would like to offer you the unique opportunity to host a new radio program. The program will focus on the female entrepreneur and business woman. We are contacting informative professionals such as yourself to host this exciting new show. The show can be done live in the studio or conveniently over the telephone. It will be a weekly one hour radio talk show and have an initial pilot run of thirteen weeks. It is tentatively scheduled to start in the next 2 to 4 weeks. Our staff provides simple yet comprehensive training and full support throughout the run of the show. You as the host will determine the topics of discussion, plus select the guests desired and take phone calls from the listening audience.
KFNX was voted one of the Top Ten Radio Stations in Arizona by Ranking Arizona with over 89,000 weekly listeners. KFNX has one of the largest signals of any Phoenix Radio Station with 50,000 watts reaching almost 5 million people throughout Arizona from Sedona to Tucson and Yuma to Globe as well as worldwide at www.1100kfnx.com. KFNX exclusively features Six of the Top Ten Talk Shows in the country including – ‘Imus In The Morning’, mornings 3–6 a.m., ‘The Laura Ingraham Show’ mornings 6a.m.-8a.m., ‘The Neal Boortz Show’ mid-mornings 10a.m.-12 noon, ‘The Dr. Laura Program’ mid-day’s 1-3 p.m., ‘The Lou Dobbs Show’, afternoons 5p.m.-7p.m., ‘The Lars Larson Show’ and ‘The Jerry Doyle Show’, Nights. KFNX sports include NFL games, and are the Phoenix radio broadcast home of the University of Arizona Men’s Football and Basketball games. KFNX carries national features such as The Osgood File and Marketwatch and offers CNN national news as well as local news, weather (with Jim Howl) and traffic around the clock. Log onto the official KFNX website at www.1100kfnx.com for more information and live streaming 24 hours a day.
As I am currently scheduling our programming please contact me at your earliest convenience to discuss further details; including the production cost of the program, sponsorship and income opportunities.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Francis Battaglia
President
602 277-1100 ext.——
A previous PHXated post on the issue is here.
6:00 AM
Why newspapers are dying: A case study from the Arizona Republic
Your host here at PHXated has an interest in the media, and recently wrote a long article on the state of the daily press. The essay, “Five Key Reasons Newspapers Are Dying, and Why They Don’t Get Talked About Much,” was printed over two days in Splice Today.
After a day of radio silence, during which I thought no one cared about the subject (and even if they did I’d bloviated too long) a few folks noticed the article and started tweeting about it.
I was happy about the interest that resulted, because it demonstrated to me that serious subjects could still be treated substantively these days, and that people would take the time to read the result. For a few days, life was fun. I was interviewed by the Times and got some nice words from some people who are spending a lot of time figuring out the future of the industry.
Anyway, I just saw that I even got noticed by the Seeing Red AZ blog.
But neither they nor anyone else wondered about the identity of one major character in the piece, an unnamed paper in “one of the very largest cities in the U.S., … in classic flyover territory, a sociological light year away from a major media center.”’
Here’s part of it:
You can see the evidence of it [i.e., what I argue is the press’s thoroughgoing timidity and blandness] in the pages of virtually every daily in the U.S. I live now in one of the very largest cities in the U.S., but it’s in classic flyover territory, a sociological light year away from a major media center. Here’s a list of the headlines that appeared on a recent day on the front cover of the paper’s feature section, including both stories and news squibs:
“Wooden Memories”
“Test your hearing”
“Free burrito for teachers”
“Post office food drive”
“Fight Crohn’s and colitis”
“Mom and Estában”
“Healthful salsa non-guilty pleasure”
“Great gifts for teachers”The first of those—“Wooden Memories”—was the compelling headline of a big feature about folks who keep old wood-shop projects around the house because … they just can’t bring themselves to get rid of them.
“Wooden Memories”! “Healthful salsa”! It’s obvious from reading down that list of headlines that there was nothing there of remote interest of just about any sentient being. But that’s not what the paper’s editors were aiming for. The point is that there was nothing there that could possibly offend anyone.
Any editor who presided over such a sorry collection of non stories and journalistic Malt-o-Meal at a time when papers should have been fighting to make themselves relevant to readers should of course have been fired.
But, inside newspapers, that’s what is, paradoxically, regarded.
Indeed, the top editor of that paper just got a new job: He was stolen away by another well-known American newspaper, one of the ones currently facing bankruptcy and closure. You’d think a paper in that position would be fighting back. Instead, they turned to a guy who’d overseen the publication of sections like that.
6:00 AM
How Andrew Thomas wastes taxpayer money ...
… is detailed in a New Times story by Sarah Fenske. The angle is a single case Thomas has been appealing,
one of the many quixotic legal attacks the Dimmer Twins, he and Joe Arpaio, are pursuing at any given time.
This one is about Spanish language legal service, specifically the probation phase of DUI offenses. According to Fenske, Thomas characterizes it as “discrimination,” apparently against English speakers:
In press releases and op-ed columns, Thomas claimed that the issue was about a separate court for Spanish speakers. He’s tried to make it sound as though Latinos who get charged with DUI get an easier time of it than us poor whiteys.
She says its a useful program that, after the drunk driver has been convicted and served his or her time, does a better job of keeping the offenders out of the system again.
The main point of the piece, though, is the cool and fruitless half-million dollars Thomas has spent on outside counsel alone on unrequited appeals for a case that was laughed out of court from the first. He’s been hacking at it in district court and on the ninth circuit, and lost every time.
She says Thomas is hooked on outside legal fees:
In 2007 and 2008, Thomas managed to spend $16 million and $13 million on outside counsel, according to county records. That’s a 124 percent increase over what Rick Romley spent on outside lawyers during his final two years in office.
7:00 AM
Personal to ABC-15’s Nicole Beyer:
What’s an, um, “anal beer bong”?
Dear Nicole:
Your breathless story about new trends in teen drug use on the local news the other night sure was scary!
Of course, we couldn’t not watch after we were warned at the beginning the story had graphic content.
But in the end we felt cheated.
You told us kids were using “anal beer bongs.” Your interviewee then said, meaningfully:
“It’s quicker absorption, it’s hidden, and it’s new!”
I guess we’re slow, but that wasn’t enough explanation for us.
And we also think you missed a big story. Just going from the description, we can’t imagine that this is a device or practice involving just one kid.
We mean, think about it. There are anal beer bong parties going on out there!
And we also don’t quite get how the beer mixes with the pot. You can’t smoke wet pot, right?
So were thinking this must involve some sort of fairly complex device; something with a chamber that can allow something to be smoked; another, separated from the first, to put the beer in; and then some fiendish mechanism that, according to Meyer’s interviewee, would allow something to be “absorbed”—presumably (and here we have to extend a graphic content warning ourselves) into the anus of the good sport who offered up his or her posterior as the host of this particular anal beer bong party.
Nicole Beyer didn’t tell us what these get-togethers are called.
Kids, if you don’t have a euphemistic name yet, we have one.
How about: “Party at Nicole’s!”?
9:51 PM
Live, from the Cronkite School!
Live-blogging as Joe Arpaio meets the press.
* PHXated is live-blogging the event as it happens. Refresh for updates *
Thus endeth the live-blogging.
In the end, a little anti-climactic. The professors did a good job, but Arpaio just blandly deflected the inquiries.
The students who disrupted the event are still milling around upstairs. Seems odd that the school had no way to shut them up or hustle them out. It’s a bad precedent that ten or twenty people—I’m guessing—can disrupt the desires of hundreds of others.
They seem to be ending it.
This is wrong. The event is over. Callahan is trying to lecture the disruptive students. He points out they’ve lost twelve minutes of questioning. And that they’ve effectively left Arpaio to have his views unfiltered in other media venues.
Wide applause from those left here.
A disruption. Protesters are singing a parody song to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody. Arpaio puts a funny hat on, but then took it off.
Callahan is trying to quiet the crowd.
This is embarrassing for the school. It’s wrong to disrupt an event in a venue called a “First Amendment Forum.”
Callahan can’t be heard from the dais. Some students are yelling “Shut up” to the idiotic protesters.
RR is asking him about racial profiling and targeting political opponents. Are you above the law?
Why have there been so many officials saying they were targeted?
A: Implies he got his question from someone else. RR: My words came from me.
A: I don’t know about police chiefs who don’t like me. I don’t know about mayors. RR: Phil Gordon. A: Well him.
He’s getting pressed on making records available—another thing he’s been getting dinged on. He says they are getting better.
SG presses him on releases video of a certain inmate. “I’m not too familiar with that one. I”m sure they got the information."
What do you consider a reasonable amount of time? There’s been an unwritten law of ten days, but when they ask for thousands of pieces of information it takes time.
Steve Elliott: Presses him on his home address being publicized. I found your address in public document in five minutes.
A: There might be some slipperage but it’s still a violation. I have a lot of threats on me.
A: What’s the saying? “The buck stops here? There?” I feel comfortable when I go home at night. Blustering: “I will continue to deal with the media!”
A: “I have nothing to hide. I want to thank you students. You are the future of journalism. I love this Cronkite.”
SG: Have you rethought that? A: No, there are times you might re-evaluate.
SG: Do you stand by what was done? A: I’m saying it was a learning process.
“Everyone’s afraid to drink with me. The media is not my enemy.” He’s getting a little unhinged.
Would a normal politician agree to this? Green: Absolutely.
A: “I kinda like the media!”
Green bring up his subpoena of all New Times’ information from its web site, including IP addresses of visitors for three years.
A: Not going to go into all the reasons things were done.
He pleads litigation again. But concedes he’s “learning.”
No one’s laid a glove on him yet.
RR brings up New Times. They do hard-hitting reporting. They published your home address. In Oct. 2007, you arrested the editor and publisher of the paper i the middle of the night, on a misdemeanor. I was an executive editor of a paper. We often reported on grand jury testimony. I was never threatened with arrest. Were the arrests appropriate? Was it a mistake?
A: They increased my popularity.“By the way, it’s a free weekly paper.” (Groans from the crowd. A deputy, he said, made the decision to arrest the pair. Most arrests are for misdemeanor. Can’t talk more—litigation.
RR: Is publishing grand jury testimony automatically grounds for arrest in AZ now?
A: It all depends.
Steve Elliott asks him about not sending press releases to the EVT. The scrape wound up in court and the paper won. The judge said you were petty. Did you act properly?
A: Two issues. The judge never ruled against us. “You have to improve,” he said. They had a way to get press releases. They could drive downtown. (!) He said the problems were fixed. We did improve. The releases are now on the web.
Susan Green asks what about those not allowed to a press conference?
A: I average 200 interviews a month with media.
SG: People have shown up and been denied access to press conference.
A: One or two out of thousands. Security reasons. They use the press conference to sandbag me, or disrupt it.
She presses him: They are doing the stories that aren’t so favorable. Are you using access as a weapon?
A: I’m not afraid to face the media. They ask questions that are off the subject of a press conference.
This is a specious point. He has a crazy idea of what a press conference is. She should be pressing him on the fact that he doesn’t allow himself to be questioned on hard topics.
Rick Rodriquez starts off the questioning. “It’s going to be a learning experience for students.”
Q: Media relationships—he got great press coverage for being tough. Your son in law works for Republic. Other side: Journos who do critical stories get frozen, even arrested. Deputies have threatened to arrest a report. Is media a tool or the enemy?
There’s protest noise from outside
A: I have to get to people I serve. I have an open door policy. You can come to the tents. I don’t have to have handlers. [I’m paraphrasing] Sometimes there are problems with media. I’m human. I’m still going to deal with the media.
I’m still here, will continue to do my job. I report to the people directly. I have nothing to hide and I do my job.
RR presses him. What about threatening to arrest a reporter asking for public records? A says he’ll arrest anyone who breaks the law.
Callahan asks for “respect” from the audience and says he’ll stay after and answer questions. His mike is going in and out.
Callahan is explaining the format—he notes there’s been some "misunderstanding"about the “Meet the Press”-style format. He’s referring to the rabble-rousing by Stephen Lemons and some student activists. He’s making the case that it’s appropriate to have profs question Arpaio without letting the audience at him. It’s sad he has to do it, but whatever.
Then he amps it up to “misreporting.” He’s not paying Arpaio. It’s not “a speech, an interview or a debate.” It’s journalists asking questions of a political leader.
See below for background on the three interviewers.
About to begin. The session will last one hour, Dean Callahan just said. Arpaio just walked in, to smatterings of applause.
Some early photos from the event.
The live internet stream of tonight’s event will be here, the school says.
The event will also be shown on video on the pedestrian mall just south of the school. It’s on Central Avenue between Fillmore and Van Buren.
One of the benefits of the event tonight is that I will be able to indulge my fondness for the word interlocutor. Our interlocutors this evening, as described on the school’s website:
The interviewers are three Cronkite professors and veteran journalists: Steve Elliott, digital news director of Cronkite News Service and former Associated Press Phoenix bureau chief; Sue Green, broadcast news director of Cronkite News Service and former managing editor of ABC15; and Rick Rodriguez, the school’s Carnegie Professor of Journalism and former executive editor of the Sacramento Bee.Meanwhile, Nick Martin, at Heat City, is tracking one of the many ongoing Arpaio legal sideshows:
An all-out showdown could be in the works today over whether one of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s officers will apologize for taking an attorney’s confidential files. It all goes back to an Oct. 19 incident in which Maricopa County detention officer Adam Stoddard was caught on a courtroom security video swiping a document from the files of a defense attorney while her back was turned. Superior Court Judget Gary Donahoe has since ordered the detention officer to hold a news conference to apologize for taking the document. If he refuses to do so by the deadline – set for today – Donahoe said he would throw the officer in jail for contempt of court.Stephen Lemons, at New Times, continues to be skeptical that the Cronkite School profs will be hard-hitting enough tonight:
Arpaio and his PR staff are practiced media manipulators. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Arpaio play the profs like a flute tonight. Though out of pride, if nothing else, you would hope these J-school teachers would not wish to be bested like that.
The site tonight is the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. It’s a key part of ASU’s move into downtown Phoenix; the school sits in a distinctive orange building on Central Avenue, just across the street from the new Civic Space Park and a massive piece of public sculpture, Janet Echelman’s “Her Name Is Patience.”
The school’s Monday evening events are held in its second-story atrium, which allows room for several hundred students to sit in front of the stage and on steps and balconies above it.
Arpaio’s relationship with the press can be said to be dismal. The East Valley Tribune won a Pulitzer Prize this year for its investigation into his various managerial and legal deficiencies.
The series, “Reasonable Doubt,” can be read here.
The Phoenix New Times has spent untold resources over the last few years investigating Arpaio’s practices as well. There’s a fairly complete rundown of its work here.
During the course of one of these series, County Attorney Andrew Thomas and Arpaio actually sent deputies to arrest the editor and publisher of the New Times chain, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, in the middle of the night.
While the arrests drew national attention (New York Times story here?) the reaction against Arpaio in Arizona was something less than wholesale outrage, suggesting either that the image of the press is much worse than one might expect … or that Arizonans, being Arizonans, haven’t thought too hard about the implications of mass arrests of journalists.
For the convenience of readers, I’m inserting my previous coverage of this event below.
Live, from the Cronkite School: Joe Arpaio meets the press.
If you’re just coming to the story of Joe Arpaio’s appearance at the ASU journalism school tonight, here’s a precis of developments thus far:
Many months ago the school got Arpaio to agree to a “Meet the Press”-style grilling at the school. The interlocutors will be three professors: Rick Rodriguez, Susan Green and Steve Elliott. The event is at 7 p.m. Monday, that’s tonight, in the second floor atrium of the Cronkite School, which is the east side of Central Avenue downtown, between Van Buren and Fillmore.
(The session itself is open only to students; the school’s going to show the event on video on the mall just south of the building, and will stream it live here.)
Arpaio’s talks a lot—blusters, really—in public, of course, but he’s a slippery figure; who wouldn’t want to see him in an enclosed space questioned closely by three journalists?
Besides the obvious—the extraordinary number of inmate deaths in Arpaio’s jails, the myriad documented cases of mismanagement, his excessive use of his police powers against rival elected officials, and any number of other abuses of power—it will be interesting, given the setting, to hear Arpaio talk about the decision-making processes that lead to the 2007 early-morning-hours arrests of the editor and publisher of the Phoenix New Times alternative newspaper.
Well, this is Arizona, and things don’t always make sense. Some students, misapprehending the nature of the event, have said they will protest, saying they were “outraged” that there won’t be questions from the audience.
PHXated went to Berkeley and is, uh, not unsympathetic to the idea of student protest. In this case, it’s dumb. It’s a rare chance to see a public figure as brittle and indefensible as Arpaio in a controlled situation. Why not see how it plays out?
As PHXated has written before: It’s uncool to say it in this Age of Everyone’s a Journalist, but this serves the public a lot better than having a bunch of Arpaio’s opponents declaiming at him from a microphone. The students should shut up and come watch the session. If it turns out to be filled with lobbed softballs, then they can protest.
And speaking of dumb, now the local tea party folks are riding to Arpaio’s defense. Again, this being Arizona, they’ve managed to trump even the misguided students. Here’s a press release I got the other day:
American Citizens United is organizing a rally in front of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. There is a great push from the Hispanic students of Journalism (some of them children of illegals and others illegals themselves). They have been encouraged by “La Raza” and other local pro-amnesty organizations to go into journalism so they can have an influence on public opinion. And you can guess what opinion they want to change to get amnesty.Again, it’s tonight at 7 p.m. MST. Let the zoo begin!
Arpaio at the Cronkite School: The zoo approacheth
The Arizona Republic and KPHO have both posted stories about Monday’s live “Meet the Press”-style interview of Joe Arpaio at ASU’s Cronkite School of journalism.
Arpaio’s going to be questioned by three profs from the school at 7 p.m.
Both stories are pretty incompetent. The Republic story says that interest in the event will surely swamp the smallish school atrium where the interview will be held, so the school’s going to show it on a large video screen and stream it over the internet.
The paper doesn’t bother to tell readers where the screen will be, or what the web address for the stream is.
For the record, the video will be shown in the public mall just south of the Cronkite building, which is on the east side of Central Avenue between Polk and Fillmore.
The video stream will be here, according to the school.
The KPHO story is equally unhelpful; worse, it lets the sheriff natter on about how good he is with the press:
“There have been blips about some weekly newspaper — we didn’t give an answer to a request — but that’s been straightened out. But I think it’s great. If there’s anyone who has an open door policy, I think it’s the sheriff,” said Arpaio.There are three inaccuracies in merely the first sentence alone. The KPHO reporter doesn’t bother to ask him about them.
The Republic story doesn’t mention that some students plan to protest the event; the KPHO story does, but neither note that local Tea Party activists are showing up as well.
PHXated’s background on the event is here and here.
Is the Cronkite School’s “Meet the Press” night with Joe Arpaio going to be a zoo?
As you might know, Sheriff Joe Arpaio is going to be interviewed by three journalism professors onstage at the Cronkite School on Central at 7 p.m. Monday. The event is looking more and more like it’s going to be a spectacle.
First, a bunch of misinformed ASU students have decided that, since audience members don’t get to question Arpaio at the panel, the school is somehow giving him a platform to spread his views unchallenged.
The students are planning a protest outside the event.
But as the title of the session—”Meet the Press”—makes clear, the point is to have the sheriff questioned closely by some informed professionals.
It’s uncool to say it in this Age of Everyone’s a Journalist, but this serves the public a lot better than having a bunch of Arpaio’s opponents declaiming at him from a microphone. The students should shut up and come watch the session. If it turns out to be filled with lobbed softballs, then they can protest.
(By the way—Stephen Lemons notes here that CBS 5 has a new investigative report on Arpaio scheduled to run tonight at 10 p.m.)
Now the Sheriff Joe contingent is getting into the act, too. Below is a press release I just got from the Phoenix Area Tea Partyers. (Note the slur on the students half-way down.)
Looks like Monday is going to be quite a scene:
SUPPORT SHERIFF JOE
Time: November 30, 2009 from 7pm to 7pm
Location: First Amendment Room-Second Floor
Organized By: American Citizens United
Event Description:
This is an event I saw posted on Resistnet and thought our group may be interested.American Citizens United is organizing a rally in front of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.
There is a great push from the Hispanic students of Journalism (some of them children of illegals and others illegals themselves).
They have been encouraged by “La Raza” and other local pro-amnesty organizations to go into journalism so they can have an influence on public opinion. And you can guess what opinion they want to change to get amnesty.
Please keep it orderly, no yelling or name calling. Resist the anger we all feel when our country and those who protect it get attacked. We must remain civilized to be credible.
Will Joe Arpaio really “meet the press” at the Cronkite School?
It’s been an unobtrusive line at the bottom of the this semester’s ASU j-school event calendar:
Meet the Press: Sheriff Joe ArpaioThe title at once says it all and nothing; but the idea, if it works, will be an unusual opportunity for a few serious journalists to question Arpaio about his record and methods live on a stage.
Those scheduled to be asking the questions are three profs from the school: Rick Rodriguez, Susan Green and Steve Elliott. The event will be held at 7 p.m. Monday in the second floor atrium of the Cronkite School, which is on the corner of Taylor and Central downtown, just two blocks north of Van Buren.
Already, the event has been misinterpreted; Stephen Lemons of New Times is, unusually for him, off the mark on this issue today in his blog:
As mind-numbingly impossible as it is to imagine, Sheriff Joe, avowed enemy of a free press and brown people everywhere, will be the guest speaker at the ASU Cronkite School of Journalism’s “First Amendment Forum” this Monday, November 30. Talk about eating turkey after Thanksgiving. Arpaio lecturing at a First Amendment Forum? Too bad Idi Amin’s not around anymore. ASU could have him come chat about human rights.From the start, the idea was exactly the opposite; Arpaio will not be lecturing, he will be being questioned by three journalists.
That’s why the student activist Lemons cites, who says she’ll be protesting the event because the audience won’t be allowed to question the sheriff, is off the mark as well.
Sure, it’s an old media model—but in this case, it could be revelatory. Arpaio’s a slippery figure, and it will be interesting to see if the three interlocutors, if they’re prepared, can pin him down on the facts he’s so casual with.
And let me just say this about that dull old Old Media format: There’s no substitute from questioning by smart and prepared people; the idea to sacrifice that so that a bunch of political opponents of Arpaio declaim at him from a mike on the floor is not a smart one.
Arpaio could as yet back out, the questioning could turn out to be pallid—but it’s wrong to criticize the school for giving Arpaio free rein to speak when that’s not the idea at all.
6:44 PM