Click Here
Ed. Note: Whoops. The #1 best prank on the above link has been removed from YouTube for copyright infringement, but my secretary found the original, which is below ....
Scare Tactics- mutated rat boy
The forthcoming Sacha Baron Cohen movie, in which the actor attempts to seduce Congressman Ron Paul into a homosexual liaison, has been hit with an NC-17 rating by the motion picture censors.
The movie has to have an R rating under its contract with Universal, so Cohen has to rid his movie of the objectionable parts.
Will this mean Our Congressman's unwitting appearance in the film might be cut?
Probably not.
Two scenes from the movie that may have been "over the line" depicted the movie's main character, Bruno, "appearing to have anal sex with a man on camera. In another, the actor goes on a hunting trip and sneaks naked into the tent of one of the fellow hunters."
By contrast, Congressman Paul amscrayed out of a hotel room before "Bruno" could go too far, though "Bruno" did drop trou, which kinda freaked the congressman, as we (and Slate) reported here.
The Bruno movie website said Cohen (pictured above) is appealing the tenative rating given his movie.
The difference between an R and an NC-17 in terms of financial reward is vast. "Borat," which cost a piddling $18 million to make, took in $261 million in worldwide box office. Universal paid $42 million for the English-language rights to "Bruno," but will spend far more than that in marketing the film. Major Hollywood studios almost never release films with NC-17 ratings.
Cohen is currently appealing the decision while simultaneously struggling with cutting the film to suit the ratings board. But the ratings board, a secret panel of parents appointed by the studio-owned movie association, is notoriously inexact about what it requires to move from an NC-17 to an R.
Baron Cohen has butted heads with the MPAA before. Borat was given an NC-17 on its first go-round, and still ended up with a hilarious, outrageous scene in which he wrestled naked with his obese driver, ending up with his face in the man’s genitals and anus.
The spokesman said that Baron Cohen had shot a lot of material, and would be able to cut it without a problem. “With the quantity of material available, I cannot foresee a problem,” said the spokesman. “It's not even April and the film comes out July 10 so it's nonsense to say there's a struggle of any kind."
The Headliners Awards are a big deal every year in the world of media. Here's how Texas media did. For the whole list click right here.
TELEVISION
Continuing coverage of a single news event: 2nd Place, KHOU-TV, Houston, Mark Greenblatt, David Raziq, Keith Tomshe, "Go Army or Go to Jail"
Public service: 3rd Place, KHOU-TV, Houston, Jeremy Rogalski, Keith Tomshe, David Raziq, "A Dangerous Lesson."
Environmental reporting: 3rd Place, KTRK-TV, Houston, KTRK Green Team, "Green to Green."
NEWSPAPERS
Newspaper Photography and Graphics: Newspapers/sports: 1st Place, The Dallas Morning News, Tom Fox, "Usain Bolt Breaks World Record"
Photo essay/story: 3rd Place, The Dallas Morning News, Sonya N. Hebert, "At the Edge of Life."
Newspaper Affiliated Online Journalism: 2nd Place, Austin American-Statesman, statesman.com
RADIO
Documentary or public affairs, 1st Place and Grand Award, Texas Music Matters/KUT 90.5, Austin, Texas, David Brown and Michael May, "Amazing Grace: The Story of Willie Nelson."
(Editor's note: Another in a series; as always, aggregated by Wilson in St. Louis.)
"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."
-- Comedian Jack E. Leonard (1911-1973) to Ed Sullivan (pictured above w/ Michael Jackson)
"Lee (owner of the Post-Dispatch) stock traded at more than $35 a share in early 2007 but on Monday closed at 28 cents a share. On February 20, the day after the refinancing was announced, the stock closed at 52 cents a share."
--the River Cities Reader of Davenport, Iowa , March 18
"A single sentence will suffice for modern man: He fornicated and he read the papers."
-- Albert Camus (1913-1960
"Well, things could be worse. Take St. Louis, for example."
--Kevin Collison, Kansas City Star business columnist, on development in KC, March 23)
(hardhat tip to Chron biz columnist Loren Steffy, who's still employed.)
Meanwhile, for a different account of the bailout, we strongly urge you to read this story in Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi.
The layoffs at the Houston Chronicle cut much deeper into the editorial side of the newspaper than the announced company-wide 12 percent reduction that was announced by publisher Jack Sweeney.
By the count of newsroom workers who survived, 27 percent of the paper's editorial staffers were let go yesterday. That amounts to 90 employees, they said.
"Unbelievable," said one writer who managed to stay employed.
Chronicle management has not released any raw numbers regarding newsroom employees who were laid off, an omission that was noted by several readers who reacted to the online offering of reader representative Jim Newkirk, who posted a two-sentence "column" asking for reaction to the newspaper's "reorganization" -- without giving any details of the changes.
Several readers obliged.
"It is impossible to comment when almost no information is provided.
I find it humorous, actually. If another major business in Houston announced a 12% staff reduction with as little information as this, the Chronicle would be all over it like white on rice," said one.
Wrote another: "Funny that you have to read the Houston Press blog to find out the details of what's going on. The Chron is acting just like the TV stations do...they invite you to become familiar with a personality/writer, but give you no information when they're gone."
The newspaper, naturally, soft-pedaled its layoff coverage with a three-paragraph story that was buried. The online story promised readers "more information" in Newkirk's column, which, naturally, provided none.
The good news, at least for editorial workers, is that all the newsroom layoffs were handled yesterday.Today, management will notify employees in advertising, circulation and other departments that will be laid off.
Those who survived were left to ponder how the decisions were made and what it will mean for the future of Houston's only daily newspaper.
Several points stand out, some of them not-so-shocking and a few of them weird.
-- No upper management employees were laid off. Natch.
-- Management told employees no serious consideration was given to invoking wage cuts or involuntary furloughs, two strategies other newspapers are trying in dealing with the newspaper industry's decline.
-- The only two women on the editorial board -- Claudia Kolker and Veronica Bucio -- were laid off, leaving the board composed entirely of five white males. "They're talking about moving somebody up there that doesn't have a penis," snarked one miffed employee.
-- Houston is home to NASA, right? And they lay off the guy (Mark Carreau) who's covered NASA since the Challenger blew up in 1986?
-- The Chon, just a few months ago, brought in Tracy Barnett, the travel editor for its sister paper in San Antonio, to handle the travelogue beat for both papers from her new home in Houston -- then canned her yesterday.
-- The religion writer's gone. The book editor's gone. The transportation reporter's gone. Details to be worked out later, evidently.
-- With this layoff and previous ones, the newspaper has effectively abandoned the suburbs outside Beltway 8, where in past years the Chronicle was finding circulation gains. If you don't count the so-called Neighborhood staff, which puts out the weekly zoned editions (Zzzzzzz) and offers a handful of blogs (but which also suffered at least two layoffs we know of) there aren't any Chron newshounds in Sugarland, Katy, Conroe, Brazosport/Angleton or Beaumont. Ah, they're all hayseeds anyway, right? Good news for the local rags, we guess.
-- Four Chron newsroom couples were effectively "split up," with one getting the ax and the other remaining employed. Lawyers call that splittin' the baby.
-- Medical coverage to those laid off during this reduction will be given only 5 weeks medical coverage; the last layoff extended medical coverage for 3 months and the layoff previous to that payroll reduction provided for 6 months coverage. It has something to do with federal stimulus money now available to laid-off workers that's too complicated for us to fully explain, but it's a money-saver for the Hearst Corp. in New York.
-- Chronicle Vice-President and Editor Jeff Cohen never came out of his office to address the staff during the day-long process of buttonholing employees to deliver the bad news. Instead, he issued a memo. What a leader.
So what kind of newspaper will the Chronicle be with so many employees gone?
"Less a paper of record and more of the quote/unquote Big Picture," opined one.
We'll see.
Good luck to those who lost their jobs.
*********************************************
An Update
*********************************************
Wednesday afternoon --
It's clear now that mid-ranking managers at the Chronicle had no idea the newsroom reductions would be so dramatic.
As one worker bee put it, a management figure told him "he knew they'd be laying off a lot of people, but had never heard an actual figure. He also said that if Dan Cunningham or Jeff Cohen had told him that 90 people were getting the ax, he'd have figured his time had come and would have had his bags packed."
The Chron manager went on to say, " that he's been told the cuts were so deep this time because Hearst wanted to get down to the bare bones in hopes of riding out this downturn. The corporate prognosticators apparently are expecting a really rough year or 18 months ahead, and then a gradual rebound until things turn around at about the two-year mark," the employee told me.
More than one person with whom I once worked at the Houston Post when it was bought out by the Chron in 1995 said that in a way it's better losing your job at a newspaper that entirely collapses instead of watching coworkers get fired by the droves while you, somehow, manage to stay.
"At least back then, we were all in it together. This time, so many familiar faces have just vanished, and we're left with a much bigger workload and a load of survivors' guilt. I'd better stop there. This is getting way too depressing," the Chron employee said.
It's pretty much official now.
The Houston Chronicle doesn't give a damn about covering southern Brazoria County.
The newspaper has laid off Richard Stewart, who covered the county for the "regular" edition of the big city daily (as opposed to the pitiful weekly zoned edition that only covers Pearland.)
Mr. Stewart, a veteran journalist who's been with the Houston paper for as long as we can remember, is among a whole bunch of people who were let go at the monopoly Houston paper today. More layoffs will come down tomorrow.
We refer you to Hairballs, the blog operated by The Houston Press, for further coverage here, here, here and, yes, even here.
Best of luck and vaya con huevos to all the newspaper folks laid off.
The local Clute paper says Brazoria County is losing one of its most reliable contributors to our area's emissions events.
The Equistar plant over by Alvin is shuttin' down.
Here's "the facts" from local daily:
LyondellBasell announced today it will permanently shut Equistar Chemicals’ Chocolate Bayou complex Aug. 4, ending the company’s presence in Brazoria County.
Equistar is a LyondellBasell subsidiary.
Spokesman David Harpole said the decision will result in about 30 additional job losses. In November, officials said the site staffed more than 400 people, both full-time employees and contractors.
The site has been shut down since December, but officials hoped demand would pick up and the site could come back online. In January, the site was shuttered indefinitely due to a lack of demand. The following month, 220 employees were cut.
On Jan. 6, LyondellBasell filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The Austin daily newspaper is for sale (still) with no apparent buyers offering enough money yet to make a deal.
The Houston Chronicle is fixin' to do a double-digit reduction in force. It's been the same story with the San Antonio Express-News. Same story with the Fort Worth daily. And in Dallas.
But there's one paper in Texas that appears to be doing something right -- the weekly in Austin.
Or at least there doing enough things right to get NY Times media writer David Carr to write this glowing report.
The Austin Chronicle, a weekly newspaper as funky and idiosyncratic as the town it covers, continues to thrive with a relentlessly local news agenda — state government, the school board and the City Council, along with deep coverage of the arts — and a willingness to lead, as opposed to simply criticize, in artistic matters.
At a time when daily newspapers seem to be going away at the rate of one a week and weeklies are madly cutting to stay afloat, The Chronicle, which has revenue of approximately $8.5 million a year, has not laid off anyone, has no plans to do so, and its business is off just 7 percent in the last three years.
(Another in a series from St. Louis by Wilson.)
"Half-truths, obfuscations and apparent deceit -- these are the wages of a world in which newspapers, their staffs eviscerated, no longer battle at the frontiers of public information. . . .There is a lot of talk nowadays about what will replace the dinosaur that is the daily newspaper. So-called citizen journalists and bloggers and media pundits have lined up to tell us that newspapers are dying but that the news business will endure, that this moment is less tragic than it is transformational. Well, sorry, but I didn't trip over any blogger trying to find out McKissick's identity and performance history. Nor were any citizen journalists at the City Council hearing in January when police officials inflated the nature and severity of the threats against officers. And there wasn't anyone working sources in the police department to counterbalance all of the spin or omission. I didn't trip over a herd of hungry (Baltimore) Sun reporters either, but that's the point."
-- David Simon (pictured), writer/producer of The Wire, in an oped piece in the Washington Post, March 1, '09
"I want the president to succeed. I love my country a lot more than I love politics. I'm not going to spend my time criticising. There are plenty of critics in that arena....If he wants my help he can pick up the phone." -- George W. Bush answering a question in Calgary, Canada, as demonstrators outside threw shoes
"What's next? Will they mandate that I can't have more than three cheeseburgers next week at McDonald's?"
--- Ivy Walker, New Hampshire restaurant owner, about his state's move for mandatory seat belt laws
“I think always, in the end, the better team will win, whether it’s the better team for the season or the better team that night. If you play solid, execute and play hard, the better team will always win, and I think tonight, whether it’s for the season or just tonight, the better team won.”
---Ron Artest, who had 18 second-half points Tuesday after going scoreless in the first half in a Houston win over New Orleans when Yao Ming was out with the flu.
“Ronny’s a funny fellow.”
--- Lakers Coach Phil Jackson about Ron Artest’s trash talking while guarding Kobe Bryant last week
Sacha Baron Cohen, an actor/comedian who lures people into seemingly legitimate interviews or situations in the guise of someone he most definitely is not, has ensnared our own congressman into his web of comedic deceit.
This comes with the territory when you get as beloved and/or reviled as US Rep. Ron Paul. We're certain he can "take it" and believe it will only add to his legend.
HOWEVER, it is a bit embarrassing. By now, if you don't know you're getting punk'd by the guy who made a feature movie impersonating a Kazakh journalist named Borat or a popular HBO series portraying a British numbskull named Ali G., your finger ain't exactly on the cultural pulse.
The latest prank will be in movie theaters in July. Cohen is in the guise of Bruno, his gay Austrian journalist character (see photo), and has managed to lure our congressman into a hotel, ostensibly for an interview.
As described by an article in Slate, one of the lights illuminating the interview set blows out, so Congressman Paul is invited into an adjoining room to wait while the light is replaced.
The other room, it turns out, is a bedroom. The lighting is low, and the film is now grainy—not unlike a sex tape—as it cuts to a hidden spy camera. There's a spread of Champagne and strawberries and caviar on a table.
Bruno tells Paul to make himself comfortable. Paul sits down on the bed. Bruno turns on some music and starts dancing. Paul is visibly uneasy but doesn't say anything at first. He picks up a newspaper and pretends to read it. "You can tell at each weird gay detail, he [chalks] it up to, This guy is European," says one of the attendees.
Finally, Paul asks what's going on. "Don't worry about it, Dr. Paul," says Bruno, who then unbuckles his belt and drops his pants. At that point, Paul snaps up and storms out of the room.
As Paul is walking away, you can hear him say, several times, something like, "This guy is a queer!" "The word queer comes out of his mouth three or four times," says an attendee.
Here's a shot sent in by a reader during the latest emissions event at Dow. Thanks, reader.
We've always liked the vernaclar employed by the petrochemical industry to explain what goes on behind the fence line.
When there's a "plant upset," it conjures up the mental image of a case of mild indigestion. A few belches, a shot or two of Pepto and it will pass.
Maybe the nomenclature is apt, but, c'mon, there's a difference between the after effects of last night's pepperoni pizza and what went down beginning at 4 a.m. this morning at Dow Chemical in Freeport.
The three-hour plant "upset" is under investigation, and the flares are still burning like sumbitches last we heard.
A random sampling of the emissions:
-- 6,000 pounds of carbon monoxide
-- 1,600 pounds of ethylene (gaseous)
-- 400 pounds of toluene
-- 800 pounds of nitrogen oxides
-- 58 pounds of benzene
(Another in a continuing series, as compiled by Wilson in St. Louis, an alleged "dying city" that once hosted the World's Fair.)
"If Chuck couldn't rebound, he would be that funny guy with all the opinions driving a forklift."
------- commentator "Ratatat" on Boston Herald website after Charles Barkley was released from a Phoenix jail after serving 36 hours on a DUI charge
"The British are islanders who conquered and colonized throughout their history. After the Roman Empire, Italians have always been invaded and dominated, so we had to learn how to defend ourselves. We developed a very shrewd mind set where I defend myself but in the meantime I quietly move my pawns underground."
-- Gianluca Vialli, former Juventus striker and Chelsea coach, on the stylistic differences between English and Italian soccer, on the new Wall Street Journal sports page, March 11, '09
"Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen."
--- Mort Sahl
"I could see Numero 57 lying crumbled up on his side, his face sticking out over the side of the bed, and toward me. He had died some time during the night, nobody knew when. . . . . . There you are, then, I thought, that's what is waiting for you 20, 30, 40 years hence: that is how the lucky ones die, the one who lives to be old. One wants to live, of course, indeed one only stays alive by virtue of the fear of death, but I think now, as I thought then, that it's better to die violently and not too old. People talk about the horrors of war but what weapon has man invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the common diseases? "Natural" death, almost by definition, means something slow, smelly, and painful."
--- "How the Poor Die" essay by George Orwell, circa 1934
"If you are gonna owe money, owe more than you can pay, then the people can't afford to foreclose." --- Clint Murchison, Texas oil baron, in the book "The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes." by Bryan Burrough
"I've tried Spanish male, Spanish female, Asian female and Southern. I"ve even tried my own voice, and it didn't work very well."
--- Victor Patenaude, a specialist in debt collection, commenting that the best response he gets from the debt collection calls his company makes is when they use a British female voice. (Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, March 3rd).
“In the beginning, we didn’t want our daughter to play. We were worried that it would affect her posture, her character, even her sexual orientation. We put her in volleyball, in track, but nothing could stop her. Now her father is a fanatic fan.”--Selmin Odabas, mother of Selin Odabas, a player in Turkey's women's pro soccer league (NY Times)
“Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.” -- George Orwell
Crime never sleeps, not even in Alvin, where there's a statue of Nolan Ryan, who left town several years ago.
As Bill Crider, a novelist known to some as The Bard of Alvin, explains it:
A guy I know lost his wallet in Kroger yesterday. Dropped it while looking for a coupon or something. When it came time to pay -- no wallet. He called his credit card company immediately to cancel his card. The helpful person on the line said, "Did you charge gas at Wal-Mart about five minutes ago?" He hadn't, of course, so he called the station there. The cashier said there was no way she could identify the purchaser, who'd paid at the pump.
End of story? Not quite. About fifteen minutes later, the cashier called the guy and said, "He's back. He just filled up another car with gas."
How'd she know the guy was back? Because he came to the window to tell ask her for help because the pump wouldn't accept his credit cart. The cashier told him to go back to the pump, and she'd see what she could do. He left, and she called the cops, who swooped down and caught him, still waiting at the pump.
The guy I know lost about 60 bucks and has to get a new credit card, but it could've been worse.
So says Quality Health.
It's the Live Music Capital of the World, brimming with well-stocked bars, clubs, and dance halls. So, is it any wonder that Austin earns a high spot on our list? The city ranks sixth for heavy drinkers, eighth for binge drinkers, and tenth for overall drinking.
From NYC's Craigslist comes this classified.
We quote, in full ...
Is your hedge fund in dire financial straits? Are you totally screwed and now realizing that someone has to take the fall? Has your ponzi scheme enveloped numerous celebrity-endorsed charities benefiting Laotian children with AIDS and been discovered by the SEC?
I'm your man.
I will take the reins of your hedge fund for as long as necessary to establish credibility, then present a dramatic "mea culpa" to the press declaring that my poor decisions have saddled your company with mounds and mounds of "toxic assets" and "ponzi schemery." I will personally apologize to anyone and everyone I [you] have wronged and swear I had only the best intentions for your clients and shareholders. Death threats do not phase me. If necessary, I will go to jail. I will look Bernie Madoff in the eye and say "Hey bro, I feel you" on national television. You and the rest of your company can shake your heads and say "for shame" and then continue on your merry way losing money and what have you.
Minimum compensation one million dollars. Serious offers only.
The Sporting News predicts a dismal season for the Astros, saying "Cubs, Cardinals and Brewers are better than the Astros, and the Reds also should pass them by this season."
The teams gets a grade of C in every category, says TSN.
Offense: C. Houston finished in the bottom half of the N.L. in runs, on-base percentage and slugging in 2008, and it added no impact players in the offseason. Because Tejada isn’t what he once was, Berkman and Lee have a heavy load to shoulder.
Pitching: C. Without Oswalt, Houston would have the weakest rotation in the division, even if Rodriguez and Hampton stayed healthy (far from a safe bet). The bullpen is solid with Geoff Geary, Doug Brocail and LaTroy Hawkins setting up Valverde, but it needs to reduce the homers allowed (MLB-high 70 last season).
Bench: C. Aaron Boone, expected to platoon at third, and fourth outfielder Darin Erstad bring experience and leadership, but their best days are behind them. Blum also is the club’s most versatile infielder. Fifth outfielder Jason Michaels drove in 53 runs in 286 at-bats in 2008.
Manager: C. A full season of experience will help Cooper after a commendable rookie season. He is a players’ manager who still is learning how to balance all of his responsibilities. He seems to be a quick learner, as evidenced by the Astros’ strong second-half showing.
For all his bluster and bombast, Dow Chemical Co. Chairman Andrew Liveris lacks a little sand in the pants when confromted with the cold, hard facts.
Dow caved in today and made a deal to complete the poorly conveived merger with Rohm and Haas, and now Dow "plans to lay off 3,500 workers, on top of 5,000 already announced by the company," says the Wall St. Journal.
We can only hope the additional cuts don't hurt the working men and women of B'port too much.
For all the media attention the bad eggs in pro sports receive, there are others we rarely read about, like Corey Smith, one of the two NFL players lost at sea last week in a storm.
He didn’t live his life in the flashy way that so many pro athletes choose to do. His house, for example, didn’t reveal the wealth of a man who spent seven seasons in the NFL with the Buccaneers, 49ers, and Lions.
“I was there three weeks ago,” (Smith's agent) Del Duca said. “He’s got eight, nine rooms in there, but he’s got furniture in three. And he’s had the place, like, six years! I said, ‘What are you doing?’
“Corey said, ‘I only live in three rooms, I don’t need furniture in the other six. I’ve got my big room with my big TV, got my kitchen, got my study, got my bedroom. That’s all I need, thank you. I’m saving my money.’”
Alan D. Mutter attended a conference that discussed how to save the print media.
One of the suggestions he heard was "use fewer words."
I'm not kidding.
Read his blog report here.
On Thursday we posted an old Dylan song via Blip.fm and passed along a comment from Jay Rosen, new media savant. wondering whether the title character in the song was a journalist.
Turns out "Mr. Jones" was a journalist at the time he interviewed Bob. And his surname was Jones (no relation to me.)
Oh, and he also passed away late last year, but it sounds like he led an interesting life.
A reader sent us this info and you can read it here.
Gawker, Nick Denton's flagship blog in New York, has passed along the rumor that the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News are going to combine into ONE newspaper.
This sounds ludicrous and we don't buy it, but we wouldn't be surprised if the two Hearst dailies decided to share more resources, content, etc.
But just for fun, here's what Gawker said:
We heard a downright bizarre unconfirmed rumor that Hearst's flailing newspaper division is considering merging the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News into one operation. Bizarre, we say, for two reasons:
1. San Antonio is 200 miles away from Houston.
2. San Antonio is 200 miles away from Houston.
According to our tipster: "In theory, each paper will still have a base of operations in each home city. There hasn't been an official announcement yet, but everybody knows and all the staff at least suspect it."
Hearst has already threatened to shut down the money-burning San Francisco Chronicle, and they cut 75 newsroom jobs in San Antonio just a week ago. And don't forget the imminent death of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer! So this rumor could certainly be true, as a new frontier in cost-cutting. Still: two failing papers combine to form... a larger failing paper. [Details or denials? Email us]
Looks like the Hearst Corp. is going to put out an online version of its Seattle paper after it fails to find a sucker to buy the damn thing.
They're making offers to select staffers now for the online operation, but they're cheap bastards, as illustrated by this reporter who said he declined the offer.
He said the offer increased his health insurance cost, cut his salary by an unspecified amount, matched his 401(k), required him to forgo his P-I severance pay, reduced his vacation accrual to zero and required him to give up overtime.
The most famous son of Wharton, Texas. A helluva screenwriter -- To Kill A Mockingbird, Tender Mercies, Trip To Bountful. [NYT]
The head of Hearst newspapers (which include the Texas dailies Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, Beaumont Enterprise, Laredo Morning Times, Midland Reporter, Plainview Daily Herald, etc.) plans to erect a pay wall for some of its online content, but Ken Doctor asserts those newspapers don't produce enough "proprietary content" to convince readers to cough up some dough (though he does commend the Hearst bloggers.)
New Hearst News head Steve Swartz' leaked memo talks about charging for access to some online content, to be determined. Hearst execs have been told, since the announcement, not to erect any paywalls yet. In fact, they've been told to reach out and lasso more community content, another (better) idea newly regaining attention all around the country.
Odds of Happening: 4-1. It sounds good, but Hearst newspapers have little proprietary content that readers are going to be willing to pay for. Business content still merits, and rewards, walls, witness the WSJ.com and FT.com successes. But business content doesn't drive Hearst newspaper sites. Where they are strong is in staff and community blogging, in fact, led by strong editors, ahead of the industry as a whole.
The Houston Chronicle's resident Pentecostal blogger, Ken Gurley of Pearland, asks his readers today, "Can You Go One Week Without Cussing?"
Responds commenter TexasRed55, "F^@& Yeah I can!"
Well, he asked.
It was the first commercially successful video game.
Manufactured by Atari in 1972.
Two-dimensional graphics.
Now for what you may not have known, via the NYT blog Bits:
The first Pong system was installed at a Sunnyvale, Calif., bar called Andy Kapps, which used to be the site of the first bus stop in the city. The lines to play the game would stretch out the door, and the system had to be shut down often to clear out the coins blocking the over-filled payment slot. Today, the site is host to the Rooster T. Feathers comedy club.
Paul Harvey, the radio legend, died over the week, as you know.
When anyone dies, the temptation is emphasize the good and soft-peddle the not-so-good.
J.D. Allen, a Vietnam vet who writes the Mouth of the Brazos blog out west o' the river, resists the temptation in this post:
I remember Paul Harvey, too. I remember how pro-Vietnam war he was. I remember his ranting and raving about how we were doing such a fantastic job, saving the Vietnamese, fighting for freedom and if you weren’t pro-Vietnam-war you weren’t worthy to be an American. I remember hearing him spouting that bullshit on the radio every time he came on. (Good AM radio stations were few and far between in the daylight hours in 1960’s Magnolia, Arkansas, so we were a bit limited. WLS and WNOE at night. FM? Forget it, even after it came around.) Yeah, he was a stone hawk, all right. After I got back from Nam I could not stand to listen to him, because then I knew without doubt that he had no fucking idea what he was talking about. Then, one of his or his relative's kids got KIA, or WIA. Or maybe it was a close friend’s kid. I don’t remember that. What I do remember is his conversion. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like all that good an idea to be over there at all. He completely switched sides. Changing your mind is fine - it's WHY you change your mind that matters. Long as it wasn’t somebody he cared about getting maimed or killed, it was fine, heroic, necessary. Well, fuck him. And now you know the rest of the story.
The Hearst Corp., owner of the dailies in Houston, San Antonio, San Francisco and smaller places, is going to start requiring its online readers to pay a fee to access some of its Web content.
This is not shocking in the least to us (it's already been reported a pay wall plan was afoot for the San Francisco Chronicle) but the odd twist is each Hearst newspaper will change what's kept behind the pay wall on a daily basis.
In a memo to employees, Hearst President Steve Swartz explained:
Exactly how much paid content to hold back from our free sites will be a judgment call made daily by our management, whose mission should be to run the best free Web sites in our markets without compromising our ability to get a fair price from consumers for the expensive, unique reporting and writing that we produce each day.
We must do a far better job of reaching out to prominent citizens in our communities, those who already have a blog and those who don’t, and providing them a prominent platform to state their views. We must develop a rich network of correspondents to help us grow the deepest hyper-local community microsites in our markets.
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