What If You Don't Have A Computer?

Tonight there is a "chocolate walk" in downtown Coeur d' Alene. Hub and I thought about going but there was no ad in this morning's paper telling times and places participating. I spent the next while going through the weeks papers until I found the one. One ad. In it we were told to go to a web site.

I got to thinking about how often we hear that. The local news always tells us if we want a more complete story go to their web site. So do all the network news shows and the cable shows. Even Jon Stewart will post an over long interview.

My computer space is not unlike the one pictured. I spend way too much time here. How many, however, don't have a computer or ready access to one? It must be frustrating for them if they want to dig deep into a story. Newspapers don't go into nearly the depth they did awhile back. Budget restraints. Smaller paper, fewer reporters. More and more news to investigate. Not a heartening equation.

Then there are those who don't have a computer nor do they read a newspaper. If they get news, it's the sound bites that pass for it. I'm assuming those without computers or papers do have television. It is the mass media of the moment. Computers soon will be.

Computers are a luxury becoming a necessity. In the meantime does the broadcast media have an obligation to get away from the soundbites and actually report the news? British Broadcasting does the best job of anyone at the moment but I'd guess it's not available everywhere.

I worry about our uninformed electorate. They still vote. As issues and policies become more complex and confusing how will they decide who to vote for with limited information or information skewed by political philosophies? Will it merely be the person they like best? The one they relate to? It will be interesting to see if the Republicans can unearth a candidate that will counter the cool, elitist image of the President. One who understands what the people are saying. Could it be a "personality" like Scott Brown or Sarah Palin? Should it?

Web sites will have analysis twenty four seven as elections draw near. Television tends to be reducdant and papers skimpy.

Will those with only televisiont be a class of voter unto themselves? How will they figure into the results? Or are they too insignificant to matter?

Just wondering.

A Fox For FOX!

"All good things come to he who waits." You betcha! It had to happen. Word is out that Sarah Palin has signed on as a contributor to FOX News.

Wow. Just when I've started viewing selective FOX programming. What a bonus! Sometimes I think FOX News Sunday has some merit. That is until Brit Hume suggested Tiger Woods would do well to forgo his Buddhist beliefs in order to redeem himself in the eyes of his public. FOX News Watch also grabs my attention unless FOX contributor Douglas Kennedy is on. He of little knowledge and large opinion. Yesterday he insulted fellow panelist Judith Miller then talked over the entire panel for the remainder of the program trying to right his wrong. The Journal Editorial Report (Wall Street) is another one I try to catch. Not bad for a network I distained as being far too right wing for years.

Of course, during the Bush years I listened the MSNBC. It was probably my imagination, but at the time I thought they at least made an effort to stay the middle. No more. They are so far left you'd think Obama taught them how to write. You know, left leaning script as left handed writers tend to have. Maybe that's too much of a reach.

CNN seldom gets a listen any more for no better reason than I don't particularly care for it's personalities. Networks are now a "recap of the day's events" which means if it isn't breaking it isn't news. So it's catch as catch can.

Back to Sarah. We all knew it was going to happen. We just weren't sure where or in what format but FOX would have been a good bet. Had I been her agent I'd have pushed for a talk show. Lack of knowledge is more easily concealed; hosts depend on their guests to provide substance. Being a contributor would indicate you have something to contribute. I'm not convinced Ms. Palin does.

No matter. It keeps FOX at the top of the heap for "fair and balanced". To be fair, they have some balance. They have their right wingers, the family values group which will now be Palin along with Huckabee - and everyone else including their token liberals. I can't think of anyone else that comes close.

As for my concern that as a contributor Ms. Palin may be expected to contribute, it could be a negative should she decide to try for office again. For that reason alone. She'll need to do better than reciting talking points. On the other hand, if the going gets too rough she can always do as she has been known to do before. Quit. For the good of FOX News!

Kaboom?

We misstepped in Honduras big time. Obama is getting ready for his photo op of the week which will be at West Point to explain his decision on troop levels for the war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile the three musketeers of bad behavior are scurrying around right under our nose. One can only wonder what they're up to.

Who are these pesky fellows? The Castro boys, their student to the South, Hugo Chavez, and the new kid on the hemispheric block, Iran's Ahmadinejad. Here's a trio that ought to make your blood run cold. Let's just hope that's all it does!

When Mahmoud tells Hugo, "we're going to be together until the end", I have to wonder just what they have in mind. Especially when Chavez has just returned from an unannounced trip to Cuba. Both, according to the Jerusalem Post, entertained one another by denouncing U.S. imperialism and that "murderous arm of the Yankee empire", Israel.

I also quake when I read they're talking about a direct flight route between Tehran and Caracas! Think about it. If Iran is successful in getting it's nuclear program against all our efforts and they have a direct flight path to Caracas, it's only a hop, skip and jump to Cuba. It's even less of one from Cuba to the U.S. Kaboom!

Then there is Cuba. Cuba, who's Fidel mentored Chavez. Even though tensions have eased under Obama, the military might feels it hasn't been enough since they are still listed as a "terrorist" country. So what are they doing about it? According to Reuters , they began their biggest military maneuvers in five years because they need to prepare for an invasion by the United States.

Of course this is nonsense, the invasion part. When three bad boys who are little more than dictators in countries that have no free press, what are their people to think? Is our State Department busy trying to quell these fears? I hope so but could find nothing about it.

Perhaps our "free press" should take note. Perhaps it's time to get back to covering the news. What's happening in the world is not predicated on where the President is at any one particular time. It's predicated on what's happening in the world! Right under our nose. Is that so hard to grasp or is it just too much work? Covering party crashers is so much more entertaining.

Assumptions Can Be Counterproductive

Leonard Pitts had a good column in this morning's Spokesman Review. He addressed, as everyone seems to be doing, the issue as to whether or not our President is legitimate based on the assumption by many that he is not a natural born citizen.

He feels, and perhaps rightly so, that the already weak Republicans are trying to build their platform on this issue. He also points out, importantly, that the "copies" of Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate are considered legal. I might add to the argument that Photoshop is an excellent tool for those who wish to dispute it.

Yesterday was a scorcher so I stretched my aching back out on the couch and watched the Sunday talk shows that I hadn't seen for several weeks. Summer yard work you know.

Three subjects dominated. The "beer summit", Palin's resignation and the "birther" movement. That those subjects dominated didn't surprise me. What did was the venom aimed at our President. Criticize his policies all you want; I've certainly done it often enough. But to "assume" he has all this deep seated hatred for whites is, pardon the pun, beyond the pale. Those espousing this were the FOX conservatives led by Glenn Beck. Others, from other networks, have also pushed the issue with vigor.

That it is being done this long after the election, when it first began, indicates to me the Republicans are even more weak than I thought. If this is the best they can do we'll have Democrats running the country for a good long time. Whether you think it's happening or not, Obama campaigned on hope and change. Not questionable truths and fear. Who won?

Assumptions, presented as truth are dangerous. They are opinion unless backed up with provable fact.

On a lesser level, I received an e-mail from a commenter, "assuming" I was "pissed" because I defended another commenter on my blog. There is nothing further from the truth. I was not "pissed"; I just felt the second commenter had a valid point and said so.

Why do I point this out? It goes to the point that those who "assume" they have the only valid opinion and one dare not disagree with them are little more than bullies. That the Republicans taught and learned this lesson well in the previous administration does not encourage me regarding the party's immediate future!

Fortunately for us there are still journalists and columnists such as Mr. Pitts who can and do present rational commentary on the subjects they address. We may agree or disagree. Their tone makes their view readable. A rant, as hate filled as some have accused Professor Gates as being, only deafens. Hopefully.

The Great Crash Of 2009!

I hadn't finished my first cup of coffee this morning. I had finished both the morning papers. There just wasn't enough in them to keep me busy. I don't read the want ads which are skimpy at best. I avoid the obituaries like the plague and the stories pulled from the wire services are at least a day old if not more.

The only regional newspaper has completely eliminated the northern Idaho edition and stories in the local daily are mostly that - local. Unfortunately, things that would be of interest like city council meetings or commissioners' meetings are rarely covered. We get more coverage of Chamber of Commerce ribbon cuttings and photos of social events than hard news.

Newspapers have become an endangered species. Advertising revenues are way down. The cycle has become self perpetuating. Okay. Enjoying the papers with my morning coffee may now be a generational phenomenon. Who else has the time to spend an hour or so reading a paper from cover to cover other than retirees?

So what do you do? Turn to TV news? Living in a small market, viewers are at a disadvantage to begin with. We tend to get inexperienced young reporters who's names we've barely learned before they, if they're any good at all, move on to larger markets. We get those left behind and their lack of reporting skills leave us more often in the dark than not. I can't help but question their financial woes when we're told a news crew is being dispatched to the scene of an accident hours after it has happened. On the next newscast we get to watch a reporter standing on an empty stretch of highway explaining to us what had happened hours before. Go figure.

Now advertising revenue is down for the broadcast media. Is it any wonder? Just this last week there was a story in the Inlander regarding substantial layoffs at the local CBS affiliate. They've cut mostly behind the scenes personnel, including producers. You know, the very people who make the newscasts work!

Even the network news has become little more than a recap of the day's headlines. As for cable, you'd have to watch a full slate of both FOX and MSNBC to get both sides of what's happening then figure out where the middle is and you may have an approximate idea of reality.

That leaves the computer. The papers have their blogs and on line editions, the TV stations have their blogs and on line editions and the Internet has it all.

Who has time to sort through all of it? I do but I won't. There are too many other things to do! Too many bloggers already spend too much time at work on line; I've never understood that!

I'm lucky. I have a Mac. Mac's rarely crash. Hub runs Windows and has spent the last three days sorting out a problem. During that time he had to read his headlines and papers on my computer. If it should crash - or the whole Internet should go down as it does more often than is convenient with our local Time Warner, how does one stay informed?

It has become a downward spiral that reminds me of a tornado. At the very bottom there is nothing left except the devastation. The remnants will be an uninformed populace.

Who will know? How will they find out?

I'm already devastated and it's only because I have too much coffee to drink with my papers. I can make a smaller pot. I'll really be devastated when there is no reason to brew a pot at all!

Newspapers As Non-Profits

Every time I write a post about the print media I lament the fact that it is slowly, or maybe not so slowly, disappearing. I talk of how I'll miss it with my morning coffee. Just today it was announced the Boston Globe has been added to the list.
True, I sit at my computer browsing on line editions every day. It just isn't the same. So when I read that Senator Ben Cardin, D-Md, introduced the Newspaper revitalization Act I took notice.

Why not? Most newspapers are non profit already! That's why they're going under like corpses encased in cement!

The suggestion is that this may be more suitable for small local papers rather than those held by large media conglomerates. The ones vital for communities, like ours, to get the information needed to be well informed. There are a few caveats however. They must have a staff of reporters large enough to cover what the community needs. The dull and boring stuff like city council meetings, regardless of what's on the agenda, and school board meetings, commissioners meetings, etc. All the non-glamorous stuff. And they must do it. Picture pages of social events and pages and pages of legal notices doesn't cut it.

According to Cardin's thinking, this could open the door for a non-profit paper to purchase one held by one of those conglomerates. Imagine the Coeur d'Alene Press being able to buy, say the Spokesman Review! Now that would be something! Yeah, I know, Hagadone owns a chain of papers but I don't think he's in the same league as, say Gannett or even Spokane's Cowles!

As a 501(c)3 they'd be operating for educational purposes similar to public television. That should be a slam dunk. Isn't that what newspapers are for in the first place? Education?

The best part of all is that while they would still be able to cover all things political, including campaigns, they'd be prohibited from giving political endorsements. Locally that would put a crimp in the style of the blogs operating under the newspaper's banner. It would certainly make for an interesting change of pace. Maybe they'd get back to something else a newspaper is supposed to be. Objective.

Animal Magnetism - Who Knew And How Did I Find Out?

As I was browsing through blogs this afternoon, Bacchus was laying near by turning the air blue. Just about the same time I noticed an article on how cattle respond to magnetic fields from power lines and it got me to thinking about all the wonderful studies being done - like why pigs smell the way they do and how much gas is expelled by cattle - and sleeping Saint Bernards. So I read further.

Studies have shown that
cows and deer tend to align their bodies with the Earth's magnetic poles. Why these studies have been done I have no idea. I have even less of an idea who funds them but it does keep researchers employed. It's fascinating stuff though. They've found there are no particular weather patterns that go along with this behavior other then when the sun shines they will not stand in one another's shadow. I never noticed, but then I don't frequent pastures when cows are present.

It has now been discovered that if power lines are in the area it messes up a cow's compass. Since power lines produce their own magnetic field the animals are more likely to stand in random directions according to their proximity to the lines. Here I always thought they stood with their backs to the wind!

This is all very scientific. Researchers used Google Earth satellite images in a study of 8,510 domestic cows in 308 pastures randomly located across six continents! I'm delighted Google Earth is being put to such good use. I've only used it to check out properties we've been interested in or how our house and yard looks from on high. But then I'm not a scientific researcher.

True, such study helps determine the migratory patterns of birds and other four legged critters with the same disposition like red and roe deer, whatever they are. It also could come in handy, as the reporter suggests, if you become lost in a cow pasture.

There is a more pertinent point, however. I found this information by reading, albeit on line. If our newspapers continue to disappear, who will hire and pay reporters to unearth this information? I'm probably being unnecessarily flip when it comes to the subject matter, but I'm completely serious about my last question. There is a lot of heavy duty scientific research and institutions involved in these studies and it took some heavy duty journalistic research to find it. To lose or not have access to it, no matter what your field of interest may be, is the tragedy of the decline of the newspaper industry.

Blogging Does Not Automatically Equate Journalism

There is an article on Breitbart that tells me journalism is evolving, not dying. It points to the ever widening spread of the Internet as the reason. I, for one, skim many news sources on the web just to put together a post. But what of the millions of people, not only in this country, but worldwide, who do not have Internet access be it because of location or financial ability? Without hard copy newspapers how are they to be informed?

This brings to mind a headline today from the Salisbury, Maryland paper in which the Mayor, in her State of the City address suggested that mean spirited bloggers were the biggest threat the city faces. The news story was a fair analysis of the Mayor's comments.

The Spokesman Review's Huckleberries picked up on it and asked the following:

Question: In Coeur d’Alene, there are three online sites that touch of city of Coeur d’Alene business regularly — this one, OpenCDA.com, and the Coeur d’Alene Press comments section. The latter two sites are openly antagonistic to Mayor Sandi Bloem’s administration. Do you think those sites help or hurt the city?

I find it interesting when asking if readers thought the local blog sites were detrimental to the city, the moderator neglected to include his own. While he is correct that the other two sites are mostly antagonistic to the city administration and it's urban renewal agency, it is not always without cause. I should think being pro administration, no matter what, can be just as detrimental.

Following is the pertinent excerpt from Mayor Parsons' speech:

While we face the same challenges that other cities and towns are facing, our biggest
challenge by far is a small element within the City that consistently seeks to find
“smoking guns” and conspiracies within the ranks of the City workforce. Daily, I run into
citizens who are weary of the constant “gotcha” mentality on the part of a few citizens
and City Council members. Citizens fear standing up and serving because it quite simply
is not worth the vilification they chance at the hands of blogs and with threatening phone
calls.

Each week I do a taping on a radio station. This past week, I interviewed Gary Comegys
who is running for Mayor. The day the taping was to be broadcast, the station received a
very early morning call from a local lawyer threatening the station manager that if the
station aired the program they would be in violation of the FCC regulations. The week
before, that same lawyer called the owner of a senior complex at his home in
Westminster with a similar threat. The owner of the complex had invited his residents to
a lunch for Comegys and Councilwoman Shanie Shields. This lawyer stated that if the
luncheon were held, the owner would be in violation of federal law because the complex
was built through a program that awards tax credits on a highly competitive basis to
ensure affordable rents for residents. In both cases, there appears to be no legal backing
for his statements. He simply is utilizing threats and intimidation in the hope that those
whom he opposes in the election will have no advantage.

This is the same man who fostered the idea of a taxpayers’ suit against me during my first
year in office. This was dismissed at the most basic judicial level, but not before it cost
the City and our insurance carrier $32,000. In the intervening years, he has enjoyed the
ears of at least one member of each City Council and has cost the City tens of thousands
of dollars in legal and staff time. In almost every case, there has been no legal basis for
his claims and accusations. However much like the taxpayers suit against me in 1998, it
costs money, energy, time and focus from those good and decent people who come to
work everyday to simply do their job.

This is not about differences of opinion and policy questions. This is quite simply mean-
spirited ugly constant intimidation. Combined with the lies and innuendo of several
“bloggers” this city is under siege. Routinely, I receive calls and e-mails from citizens
who disagree with my positions on individual matters. We talk and often find common
ground, and sometimes agree to disagree. It is a very valuable process and I always find
that I see whatever issue under consideration from a new perspective.

This poses a far greater danger to the Salisbury’s future than the current financial crisis.
When people are afraid to step forward, run for office, speak on relevant issues, write
letters to the editor expressing individual opinions, then the future is in jeopardy. I leave
this job, an adventure that I have enjoyed with a firm conviction that the people of this
great city need to stand up and say, “No More”. Only then can we move forward to meet
the serious challenges and build upon the dreams and hard work of the twenty-four
mayors who preceded me in service to this City.

Sorry it is so lengthy, but it goes to the point that Coeur d'Alene's Mayor Bloem could have used much the same rhetoric. What isn't known, in either case, is how close to the truth the "mean and nasties" have come versus the credibility of the mayor's complaint?

There is no "journalism" involved in these blogs even though the Press blogs are under the banner of the Coeur d'Alene Press and Huckleberries is under the Spokesman Review's banner. Blogs are not necessarily and most often not journalism! They are opinion - right, wrong or indifferent. Bearing a newspaper's banner, at least locally, does not change that.

Rhetoric, on either side, can mask the truth. It cannot negate the truth. The question is will the truth will out? And if so, without good journalism, how?

Dueling Headlines

I'm going to miss newspapers when they're gone. Somehow scanning the morning headlines with my feet on a footstool, my dog beside me and a cup of coffee in hand doesn't quite translate to scanning a computer screen.

It will also deprive me of one of my favorite pursuits. Seeing how two different papers report the same story. There may be hope, however, even if my reading stack is reduced to a pile of one. In this morning's paper there were two stories side by side. One was illustrated with a photo of a distraught woman standing in what was left of her tavern, mud and debris from a mud slide piled as high as the tops of the bar stools. The headline read Dog, ax-wielding son save woman.

The story tells of how she was wakened by a phone call suggesting she take a look out her window. Water was up to the sill and beginning to creep through cracks. Her son, who lived nearby, hacked a hole in a fence freeing the flow so she could struggle to the slightly higher ground of her tavern. Three times her dog stopped to help her get up after falling into the muck.

The son himself fell four times and had to be helped back to his feet. Once in the tavern they realized it would be a short respite. A friend with an excavator came to the rescue, diverting enough water from around the tavern to allow them to escape.

The kicker of the story is she had flood insurance on her home but not her tavern and the damage was from a mud slide rather than directly from the flooding. The final blow came when she returned to survey the damage and found that a deer head that had belonged to her late husband had been stolen by looters.

The headline on the article right next to it read Flood damage isn't so bad.

Maybe you had to have been there.

Pickin' On Palin

As long as Joe the Plumb...oops, I mean Journalist, remains fodder for the media, Sarah may as well keep her visibility high too. Who knows, one day they may be running mates!

Actually I think I may have underestimated Sarah's suitability for public office. She has learned a great many lessons that will serve her well should she ever move up the ladder! One is to use the media to her advantage. Then blame the media for everything that goes wrong. And whine. Oh yes, whine.

She can't honestly think Caroline Kennedy hasn't taken her lumps for her "you knows" and "ums" during interviews. She has. They both need some lessons on how to communicate effectively.

When she is wondering out loud, to a reporter of course, if Caroline is receiving preferential treatment for a Senate seat because of her name, education and the fact she lives in Manhattan and is more cosmopolitan than the rurally oriented Palin, it makes me chuckle. Kennedy is after all making a run for the Senate seat from New York. Manhattan is in New York. Many of the reporters are based in New York. Yet I find no lack of scrutiny because of it.

One thing Ms. Palin might bear in mind. She was running for the office of Vice President of the United States. Perhaps the enormity, the significance of that position hasn't occurred to her. Perhaps it hasn't occurred to her that being a Mayor of a small Alaskan town wasn't quite enough to convince us she was ready to run the country. It seemed like some kind of a lark to her. I can't begin to imagine how she'd be handling the current situations - the crumbling economy, the escalation of middle east conflicts, had McCain won and become unable to serve.

She might also bear in mind that the scrutiny really wasn't against Sarah Palin, the person as it was Sarah Palin the persona. Now however, it is the person!

Remember the Katie Couric interview and Tina Fey's portrayal of her on Saturday Night Live? According to an AP article, Palin complained that they had "exploited" her. And that Couric had been condescending. Every time these tired old subjects are re-addressed it seems her victimism increases!

She even went on to complain that the reporter doing the interview took her comments out of context "to create adversarial situations." How long has the election been over? Why is this even out there for me to comment on?

She's got it down pat. Use the media. Blame the media. She even has a body double in Fey if the going really gets rough - if she can afford her. She also shows she's in touch with reality for the next go round. If blaming the media doesn't get the traction she needs, she has the rest of us covered too.

As she wrapped up the interview she commented, "When did we start accepting as hard news sources bloggers, anonymous bloggers especially?"

I'm not sure the rest of the world has. But then most of us can name the papers and magazines we read.

Joe The War Correspondent

Wow! The fewer qualifications you have the better job you can get! Heck, I ought to be Michelle Obama's Press Secretary! I was browsing around and found this AP headline: Joe the Plumber to become war correspondent. Yep. He's being sent to Israel to cover the Gaza war. Let's see. Samuel J. Wurzelbacher. He could be Jewish. Which would give pause to the credibility of his reporting. But then if he's German, that would too! Never mind the fact that he's not even licensed as a plumber what's more a journalist!

He told WNWO-TV in Toledo he'll be spending ten days covering the fighting. From safely behind the lines I'm sure. Even the likes of NBC's Richard Engel are being kept on the Israeli side of the border. That's probably okay for his purposes though. He just wants to let "Israel's average Joes' share their story." I won't look for objective journalism here!

The big question, however, is who would hire him? It wouldn't be MSNBC. They are far too liberal these days and already have a full roster of "personalities". FOX. It must be FOX. The icon of conservative reporting. Nope. As lopsided as their viewpoint is, they for the most part have reporters with at least a modicom of journalistic experience. None of the major networks nor CNN would send him. That duty is reserved for their anchors. Then who?

Searching, searching. Here we are. PJTV.com. A conservative web site.

What does PJTV stand for? Pajamas TV. Seriously.

Oh well. Yawn.

Personal Responsibility - Becoming Informed

I was cleaning up my gardening tools in the shop this morning. Hub had the radio tuned to Rush Limbaugh for background "noise". And noise is certainly what it was!

I never listen to talk radio for just that reason - it's noise. Free speech aside, sometimes I think the whole concept should be banned. He claims, what, 20,000,000 listeners a week? For many its like Hub, in the car for a brief time or for background noise, but never-the-less people do listen. They do buy into the venom he spews. You can tell by the comments from his "ditto heads". He's not alone. There is Hannity and Ingraham and Savage and on and on.  Conservative and Liberal. Each promoting their political ideology with, to be kind, loose facts and meanness of spirit.

Not much better are the talking heads that fill the cable tv channels. While the hosts are slanted, they at least have the faithful from both sides of the political spectrum going at one another. It's a starting place to sort through differing view points.

The newspapers are becoming less and less effective due to budget restraints that show no sign of easing and a lack of reporters who are schooled to be objective.

Much to the chagrin of the "professionals" the blogs, more and more, are becoming the place to go to get information. At times I think we're a pretty insignificant part of the information highway, and true, bloggers such as myself are. But the bigger ones do have the information. Just as slanted as tv and the papers and most certainly talk radio, but there are more to choose from and with some diligence the accurate information is there to be found.

An article by Time Magazine's Joe Klein talks about how the neocons are trying to get him fired because he dared to criticize them. He talks of going against his better judgement, appeasing them and later regretting it.

He goes on to say he won't make that same mistake twice. That they were wrong, they are bullies and he won't be intimitated by them. A reporter for Time Magizine. You can't even depend on what you read there to be fact. How many other publications have reporters submitting articles for our consumption under the same circumstances?

So it's up to us. You and me. If we don't we'll end up believeing Barack Obama is a Muslim and John McCain doesn't get his facts mixed up at all!

What kind of President will we elect with thinking like that?

Bloggers Rule!

Awhile back, at the suggestion of my blogging mentor, Dave Oliveria, I was invited to participate in a forum about blogging as communication. The event was the Coeur d'Alene Chamber of Commerce Leadership Program Media Day.

My co-participants included Dave, Mike Kennedy from the City Council and Dan English, the County Clerk. And me. The retired old gal who lives on the prairie, walks her old dog and blogs. It was an interesting mix. I represented what I think of as the nuts and bolts of blogging. The individual who posts on a blog day in and day out. Driven by no more than what interests me at the moment.

I think it went quite well. We each had our own slant on why we participate and how much the different styles of blogging intertwine.

What was of more interest to me, however, was what I learned by sitting in on two preceding sessions. It told me a lot about why we get such lousy news coverage from both the print and broadcast media. Mostly its the bottom line. We have been suffering locally by the cutbacks made by the Spokane based Spokesman Review. A speaker from the Coeur d'Alene Press made it clear there was no intention of picking up the resulting lack of in depth reporting. Their mission, basically, is to be all things to all readers. Of course without talented staff that's pretty hard to do.

I sat, too, and listened to a young TV reporter talk about how their hours are being cut and they more often than not have no background knowledge about the stories they are assigned to report.He spoke of how difficult it is to get a hook for a story because they become so jaded nothing phases them. It was not an encouraging scenario if one has hoped for better.

Then we bloggers took the stage. I don't think we were particularly smug, but we did, collectively, understand where blogging fits into all of this. From Dan and Mike using it to correct bad information, answer questions about activities in each of their fields of endeavor to Dave covering a bit of everything in real time day in and day out. Me? I talked of how blogs can open the world to you on a one to one basis about anything from anywhere you want to go. Exchanges, unfiltered and unfined, between two people without layers of editorializing or mind bending analysis. Real information, again, in real time.

I'm glad our panel was last. I found it telling that the participants from the other panels did not listen to ours. They might have gotten a few ideas about how blogs can be a benefit to them rather than something to fear.

Those in the media who learn how to embrace new technology and techniques will survive. They'll change but they will survive.

Those who do not will leave the news hungry public with just about what we have now.

The questions were good and well answered. The response was positive. I've put my note cards away.

I've always enjoyed blogging. Mostly because it's just plain fun. But today, I can say I'm proud to be a blogger. We matter. Far more than you may expect.

Bottomed Out?

The newspaper business is in trouble. Their very existence depends on revenue and the largest chunk of that revenue is derived from advertising. It is diminishing.

Our regional paper, The Spokesman Review, is not immune from such problems. Those of us who hang around it's blogging arena are well aware of it. Not so long ago there were huge cuts in not only reporting and support staff but even the geographical areas of coverage. With a great deal of reshuffling and reassignment it appeared they had gotten a handle on the problem for at least the time being.

A column written about the president of the Better Business Bureau serving eastern Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana, Jan Quintrall, made me wonder if in fact they have. In her column she asks a very valid question. When reporting complaints should names be named or merely categories.

For better than five years she was free to name names, but now those names are being edited out for the most flimsy of reasons. She was told that the editors "believe our readers came away from from your column with exactly the information you sought to convey - be careful when dealing with companies in these 10 industries."

Bunk! Ms. Quintrall goes on to explain the fallacy of this type of thinking - why specific companies are named. It's a no brainer. Not every business in a category is guilty of questionable practices! We probably, at one time or another, patronize businesses in all categories. If certain ones are not serving us well we need to know and that is the function of the Better Business Bureau. It is the one neutral avenue the consumer has!

It also brings into question the ethics of the newspaper and perception. One could assume that some of those named are heavy advertisers. Or is it merely perception? It opens a Pandora's Box on the issue of trust. If one perceives the above, one could also question the credibility of the paper's news coverage. I often point out stories covered by one of the two papers in the area that are not reported by the other. Or the differences in content if covered by both. I've never probed the issue of why.

Is it time? I hope not.