Atwood's Ghost

The Onion, the satire tabloid founded some fifteen years ago in Madison, is on its way to becoming the nation's newest newspaper chain. The paper, ahem "brand," announced its plans to begin distributing a regional edition in the Twin Cities, building upon its base in Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, Denver and Boulder. Their main selling point to advertisers was that their "reach is especially strong among the younger demographic so many companies find so hard to reach. The average Onion reader is 29 versus 37 for readers of alternative newspapers nationally." Like Madison's forthcoming Core Weekly, the motivation for expansion seems to be an attempt to make hay from the aging demographics of most print media readers. This is due in part to the growing popularity of online media, including theonion.com, which suggest that the Onion's owners see significant profits in increasing print ads. Currently, about half of the company's revenues come from this source.

Coverage by both McClatchy's Star Tribune and Knight Ridder's St. Paul Pioneer Press focused on this demographic aspect (aka the hipster quotient -- note the cookie-cutter PBR promos for local bands in each edition) and the affects it might have on Voice Media's City Pages. As noted in the Pioneer Press, "[majority owner David] Schafer and Onion president Sean Mills say their advertisers view the Twin Cities market as a natural extension of the company's presence in the Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison corridor." Future expansion of the nascent chain will likely target San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, Austin, Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C.

Humor-based media outlets are notoriously ephemeral, however, and this is a primary concern at the Onion. Quoted in a Chicago Trib article about the expansion, one media consultant said "The Onion began as this small, avant-garde publication, and if they do anything to lose that feel, say getting too big or too flashy, they could lose their readership."

Isthmus received accolades for its news coverage from GarveyBlog yesterday, but was criticized at the same time by Brenda Konkel, Madison's Second District Alder and City Council President. The venue for the criticism was Isthmus' The Daily Page message board, and the subject was its August 13 cover story "Big Plans, Little City: Capitol West and Union Corners are bold ideas - maybe too bold for a city that views development with distrust?" by Tom Laskin, a long-time Isthmus music writer who was also reported on regional labor and agricultural issues.

Konkel's post, Big Plans, Little City ... Inaccurate, Lopsided Story, asks if the cover story was "bait," and wonders "what the purpose of the story was, except to add to the anti-business hysteria and propaganda..." that have been at the center of Madison political hysterics in a greater-than-usual amount for the last several months. Konkel makes nine detailed points in the post to challenge the article, as well as touches on the development process, definitions of density, and the role of neighborhood associations in urban development. Laskin responds as "teddymanny" several posts down in the thread, touching on a few points made by Konkel and others, but ultimately resorts to the kind of "anti-business" hyperbole the alder decried in the first place, writing "just 'cause you dislike business folk doesn't mean you have to condemn as monsters them at every turn."

This isn't Konkel's only response to Madison media about city affairs on The Daily Page. When WKOW-TV, Madison's ABC affiliate ran an investigative report (parts one, two, and three) last week about high workers' comp costs at Madison Metro, a thread was initiated about the reports, and Konkel posted her two cents (scroll about halfway-down) about the issue and the television station's coverage of it. Konkel primarily discussed how the online article claimed that she "refused to talk to 27 News on camera," even though she "used to getting misquoted, having my comments taken out of context and even having a reporter miss my point entirely." Most interesting was her notes about getting contacted at the last minute by the reporter, and her irritation over the circumstatnces of the reporter's deadline.

Konkel has made several other pro forma posts on the site (see For reals: What does business want the Council to do?, Notes from EDC hearing round one . . ., and notes from EDC hearing, round two . . .) about Madison development and economic politics. This is partially in response to a recent screed on the site castigating the alder for her comments about a proposed city ordinance to limit the scope of big-box store development. It is also partially in response, too, to a silly controversy that has flared hot and cold all spring in the city about pseudonymous posts (sometimes accompanied by tasteless photoshopped images) about a couple of local politicos on The Daily Page that led to very questionable seizures of the posters' computer equipment by the Dane County Sheriff's Department. Public recrimination over the controversy fell roughly along the main political divide in city politics, namely conservative and centrist Democrats vs. liberal Democrats and Greens. Since the latest flare-up in June, several Madison politicians and activists on both sides have taken to posting under their public names on the message board in an apparent effort to promote "dialogue," the most notable of which is Konkel.

Ed Garvey noted Bill Lueders' Isthmus coverage on the downsizing of George Hesselberg at the State Journal. Lauding the need for independent publications like Isthmus, Garvey noted that Hesselberg's column was shuttered because "George had the [c]hutzpah to ignore advice about how to write his column from the new editor Ellen Foley." Garvey goes on to note the new Cap Newspapers Isthmus-targetting "youth" rag, Core Weekly, and asks "[I]f WSJ can't stand a little diversion from the party line from Hesselberg, what are the odds they will appeal to the younger audience?"

As a parting shot, Garvey turns our attentions to the Sunday State Journal, which ran associated stories on Wisconsin's status as a swing state and Jim Doyle's grappling with Tommy Thompson's continuing gubernatorial image. . The source of these reports? The quite out-of-state New York Times.

Ouch.

Lueders' recent piece about onetime/sometime? State Journal columnist George Hesselberg was not his first in recent months about shenanigans on Fish Hatchery. About a month ago, he reported about Capital Newspapers' entrant in the weekly tabloid realm Core Weekly (more on this in coming days). A couple months before that, he wrote about the hiring of Ellen Foley by the Wisconsin State Journal (well, by publisher and Lee VP Jim Hopson primarily) to replace outgoing editor Frank Denton, who decamped to the Tampa Tribune (generally regarded as the pulpier competitor to the St. Petersburg Times).

The article (which is also unfortunately not online) was a feature-y look at Foley's hiring and her previous role as the managing editor of the Philadelphia Daily News tabloid, pondering how much of that 72-point sensibility she would bring to Madison's self-regarded stolid and corporate-canoodling daily.

An April 7 article from the Philadelphia Weekly, one of Philly's two "alt-weekly" tabloids provides some assistance. All the Young Dudes focused on the promotion of a couple of local guys following Foley's departure to Madison. Appartently, Foley was not well-liked around the DN newsroom, as the paper's editor Zach Stahlberg was quoted as saying he was "not sure readers will notice any change at all," though "[i]nside the newsroom, it will probably be a different story," following Foley's departure, though he did qualify that Foley "did a really good job as managing editor."

So which is it, tabloid or broadsheet? Though Lueders' article played up her tabloid experience, Philly Weekly suggested that she was perfectly suited for the State Journal. The article cited Foley's "midwestern politesse" as one reason for her rep at the paper, while "[o]ther newsroom staffers point out that Foley's background is at broadsheets, and suggest that she never fully managed to make the transition to a tabloid mentality." Of course, some of this might also have something to do with the mookish ancestry of newsroom culture (which I would imagine to be lingering worse at a big-city tabloid), and the Young Dudes' dislike for their female boss. Indeed, the article notes, "Foley was also seen as softening the paper's mien with front-page celebrity puff pieces and chick-friendly features like Girlfriends' Locker Room."

Foley is the first of two new high-profile Fish Hatch hires spearheaded by Jim Hopson that have ruffled feathers at previous papers (the second being Catherine Nelson, publisher of Core Weekly), and it would appear that she is on her way ruffling some here too. Is this simply because she's an editor, and that authority irks people? That's likely in part, but this tin-eared move with Hesselberg makes it likely to be far more.

This week's Isthmus contains a piece by Bill Lueders in his Watchdog column about the bumping of Wisconsin State Journal writer George Hesselberg from his popular column (one part news, one part feature, and mixed with the city's unique blend of genteel liberal spice) makes its discontinuation rather curious. At least by the standards of the annual Isthmus popularity contest, Hesselberg was the region's favorite print columnist, followed by Lueders himself in 2003, while their placement was reversed in 2002.

The decision was made by newish State Journal editor Ellen Foley, a recent transplant from the Philadelphia Daily News, a tabloid owned by Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. (think NY Daily News or Chi Sun Times). The dropping of Hesselberg's regular column (he may still have an "occasional" or "Sunday regional" column) was accompanied by a general shuffling of assignments amongst the paper's most recognizable bylines, all of which will be enacted this Sunday, aka Moving Day aka Hippie Christmas.

As explained by Lueders in the piece (which is unfortunatly not online, as is the case with most Isthmus content), "these reassignments are the result of a Foley-initiated reassessment of the paper's editorial content called the Madison Master Narrative, which aims to make tha paper more hip, lively and focused on Real People -- or RP's, as they've come to be called in the State Journal newsroom."

Lueders concludes by quoting Foley as saying this shuffling is "just the first wave of changes," and that they are "realigning all of our editorial coverage in the newsroom to help the newsroom speak with one mind," and imparts final words betting that "that one mind will be a lot like hers."

Last Tuesday, August 3, both the State Journal and Cap Times ran an AP article about former Winnebago County DA Joe Paulus, who was sentenced the day before to almost five years in prison for operating a long-term scheme dispensing special treatment to defendents and potential defendents in exchange for bribes from their defense attorney Milton Schierland. The article had a byline of Robert Imrie in Green Bay, and ran in different forms in each paper.

They did not run in the same form, however. The version printed by the State Journal buried information about Paulus' party affiliation (Republican) about 330 words into the 535 word article. On the other hand, the version printed by the Cap Times notes Paulus' affiliation in the second sentence; this version was a little more than half as long as the other. It looks like the Cap Times inserted the affiliation near the top of the piece due to its cutting of most of the second half of the article. The variation conforms to the editorial slants of each paper, conservative for the State Journal and liberal for the Cap Times, and illustrates the little ways in which copy-editing of wire-service articles for content is standard at daily newspapers. It also is worth noting how deep the affiliation was buried by the AP reporter.

Other versions of Imrie's article ran on the websites of a number of other papers, again burying Paulus' GOP affiliation when highlighting his failed 2002 primary run for reelection.

An article in today's Wisconsin State Journal noted a couple changes in their smaller papers based north of Madison. It announced that "Kay Lapp James will become opinion page editor of six newspapers owned by Capital Newspapers." These papers include the Portage Daily Register, the Baraboo News Republic, the Juneau County Star-Times, the Wisconsin Dells Events, the Reedsburg Times Press and the Sauk Prairie Eagle. James has been the managing editor of all of these papers for the last six years. The latter four are all bi-weeklies, coming out on Wednesdays and Saturdays, with a combined circulation of 7850, while the former two are dailies with a combined circ of about 9400. In other words, they are the primary local print news source for a nice-sized swath of the state between Madison and La Crosse.

Interestingly, this short press-release type article the State Journal published about its chain-mates illustrates a couple of reasons why newspaper consolidation is becoming an increasing problem.

One, it illusrates how six newspapers, in six different communities in the central and southwestern part of the state, come to have their opinion pages directed by a single person. Even though four of the papers come out only twice a week, assigning James to all six leads one to question whether she can adequately serve each of those communities. One can't live in all of them, and thus won't be familiar with the specific and highly personal issues that communities face and are typically debated in small town papers' opinion pages. There is a word for what this creates; homogenization, and this is a clear example of how it operates at the editorial level.

Secondly, this also shows how the parent chain (Capital Newspapers, and by extension, Lee Enterprises) can control the ideological position (i.e., editorial bias) of their stable of papers by simple staff management. In this case, you put a single person in charge of a bunch of opinion pages, and you will get six papers shaped by that single person. Specifically, these communities will get an opinion page editor who back in Oct. 2001 defended the Baraboo News Republic for firing a cartoonist for the thought crime of suggesting via cartoon that the American media was drumming for war in the aftermath of 9/11. Her editorial defense for the firing? "We were purchasing cartoons on a cartoon by cartoon basis," she said. "We decided to stop purchasing them. That does not mean we won't purchase them in the future." James also noted that the paper received complaints about the cartoonist in the past, and though the paper "received seven letters" on the cartoonists behalf, she said, "I don't think that's a lot out of 4,000 subscribers." The Cap Times article about the issue went on to explain that James said "publishing the letters as a package is under discussion as is publishing a column explaining the decision to discontinue Persche's cartoons." I checked the Baraboo's paper archives, and though I might have missed something, there was nothing of the sort published in the News Republic, at least through the end of 2001.

So there you go Baraboo, Portage, Wisconsin Dells, Reedsburg, Mauston, and Sauk City; your hometown paper's new opinion editor will fire a contributor for criticizing the media, and address criticisms about such actions with, well, not much really.

Wisconsin's homegrown media fauna continue to drop to national chains. Several years after Capital Newpapers went on a buying binge in the southern part of the state, Brown County Publishing and the Green Bay News-Chronicle were sold last week (along with 31 other publications) by its long-time owner to Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain. Gannett already owned the Green Bay Press-Gazette, which has been in an intense pulp war with its cross-block rival; this was documented in the 1996 book, The Chain Gang by Richard McCord. Gannett claims that there are no plans to alter operations in either of the two Packerland papers they own now.

The contrast of coverage of the sale by the News-Chronicle and the Press-Gazette is most significant in discussing criticisms of Gannett and the need for a diversified and competitive news environment.

Gannett's other papers are concentrated in most of the larger citites in the central and northeastern parts of the state; Stevens Point, Wisconsin Rapids, Wausau, Marshfield, Fond du Lac, Oshkosh, Appleton, Manitowoc, and Sheboygan. With a circulation of just over 10k, this makes the Marinette Eagle-Herald the largest daily paper in that area of the state not owned by Gannett.

One-time WI gubernatorial candidate Ed Garvey has a regular opinion slot in the pages of The Captial Times, and is also editor of FightingBob.com, an essay and blog site oriented towards state issues. His Cap Times op-eds are usually posted on his site a couple of days later. His most recent piece (Keep Spotlight on Pols, Execs So Public Isn't Left in the Dark), about open records laws, was published in the paper on July 20, and reposted on FB (Dark Days) on the 22nd. As is customary on these repostings, there is language at the bottom of the piece stating "a version of this article originally appeared" in TCT.

Such a disclaimer was necessary beyond simple copyediting, however. An entire paragraph was cut by TCT near the bottom of the piece, right before it reads "Now for the solution." The missing text read, "What about Beaver Dam’s local newspaper, The Daily Citizen? The Citizen reporter “covering” the story told COG that Beaver Dam “needs the Wal-Mart jobs” and he supports giving Wal-Mart six million tax dollars to locate a distribution center near Beaver Dam. Shouldn't they at least change the name from Daily Citizen to Daily Corporation?."

In the original Garvey vernacular, Whoa Nelly! The Daily Citizen is owned by Capital Newspapers, which is partially owned by TCT. Apparently even the editorial staff of "Madison's Progressive Newspaper" is incapable of printing a little criticism of their chain-mate. I wonder whose call this was there?

The Capital Times's Saturday Extra feature proved what in my eyes was a bias in favor of mayoral candidate Paul Soglin. It is initially visible in the headlines. The lengthy article on Soglin is titled "Soglin on the street: The voters aren't shy." His opponent's: "Cieslewicz meets and competes while he dreams of being home." Voters aren't shy for Soglin. Cieslewicz wants to be at home. Soglin is meeting people. Cieslewicz wants to be at home.

The pictures visible on the page also suggest at a bias. On the upper half of the page, there's a picture of Soglin smiling as he talks to a potential voter. For long-time Madisonians, the very concept of Soglin smiling is rather odd. But here he is, doing it again. Of greater import would be the fact that it shows Soglin smiling at and talking with an African-American man -- a practice which may be unusual to many in Madison.


The first picture of Soglin.

The photo on the top half of the page for Cieslewicz is an awkwardly cropped photo of a name tag reading "VOTE DAVE" and "Mint Brownies (no nuts)" stuck on top of a brownie. No picture of for Cieslewicz himself. For that, you have to flip to the lower half of the page, where the first thing you see is Paul Soglin, hands extended in a gesture while he speaks. The other people in the picture are generally of non-Caucasian heritage. It is from a meeting with a group in the ostensibly troubled Allied Drive neighborhood.

The second picture for Cieslewicz, this one actually showing the man, is in the lower right corner of the page. Cieslewicz's face is not quite as visible as Soglin's in either of the other two pictures. And a woman at the house party Cieslewicz is attending is more prominently featured than Cieslewicz himself, even though he is supposed to be the object of the photo.


The photo with Cieslewicz in it. The online version is significantly smaller than the photo which ran in the newspaper.

Enough about pictures. It can be argued that they prove little. Let's count the number of paragraphs devoted to each man. Soglin nets 71. Cieslewicz gets only 35. And that's if you count the single lines that have line feeds after them as being individual paragraphs. To put it in a more tangible term, Soglin got over a full page while Cieslewicz only warranted about half of that.

The copy of the article also hints that Cieslewicz simply doesn't matter when he's running against the big dog. It emphasizes how he wants to be at home, how his wife comes across as not having much faith in his Spanish speaking abilities. How he doesn't meet anyone on the streets. But both common people and Madison's micro-celebrities readily approach Soglin.

To extend my barrage to the writers, I would wager that the Soglin profile being written by Ms. Samara Kalk Derby has something to do with the way it goes on at length about Soglin's apparent ease of conversation, his stylish yet sensible Infiniti I30 sports sedan. (Anyone who grooves to B.B. King in their luxury car must be worthy of note!) In direct contrast, Aaron Nathan's piece on Cieslewicz offers almost nothing of hope or interest. Cieslewicz comes across as being of little interest to the world. And Nathans' article on Cieslewicz quotes none other than Paul Soglin, talking about the differences between himself and Cieslewicz. As if Cieslewicz could not be drawn to differentiate them.

Poor marks all around, I'm afraid, for the Times. The paper that fervently denied favoring either candidate seems to have that a preference does exist.

Links: Soglin on the street: The voters are not shy
Home plays big role in Cieslewicz's world

Once again, the sole pro-war protester at an anti-war protest gets the attention of The Media. [sigh]



Is it that they find themselves unable to talk to the anti-war protesters? Can they not pick just the right one to talk to? Or perhaps they are under orders not to talk to them. I don't know, but it may bear some investigating. Of course, knowing The Media today, the investigative reporting would have to be done by someone else.

Disgusted,
Simeon Mills