Back home again. It’s been a week of jet lag, held-mail sorting, and of course re-immersion in the toxic politics of the Land of the Free. Congratulations to all who voted for Nikki Haley in Indiana. Pulling 20 percent when you’re not even in the race bodes well for the Dems in November, but I’m not in the prediction business. The Politico piece on the primary that you guys have already chewed over underscores something that’s happening everywhere, i.e. the nationalization of every election, no matter how small.
I noticed one of the candidates for Indiana governor led with her proposal to eliminate all propertyincome taxes. Which is already laughable, as Hoosier property owners pay pocket change in property taxes. In the olden days, say 10 years ago, someone would have asked her how she planned to pay for such a drastic policy change, but given the diminishment of local and even statewide news coverage, that won’t happen. It doesn’t matter now, because she lost, but still. There’s a movement to eliminate property tax in Michigan, but they need to get a shitload of signatures to get that one on the ballot, and I doubt they’re having much luck, the movement being mainly comprised of MAGA goobers.
Speaking of diminished local media, here’s a great but unfortunately paywalled story about Gannett’s firing of a west-Michigan journalist, an editor, who led the way on coverage of Ottawa Impact, the right-wing group that took over Ottawa County’s commission, making national news in the process (free link). The oafs who roared into office have behaved like the Three Stooges, unable to conduct the simplest government business without poking one another in the eye, etc. They hired a losing congressional candidate to be county executive, and fired him a year later. The health director dug in her heels when they tried to defund the entire department, and they threw money at her to leave, but when the amount was made public ($4 million), the public objected, Larry stepped on Moe’s foot, etc., and they eventually retreated. (They wanted to replace her with a COVID nut, whose public-health qualifications consisted of being a health and safety officer for an HVAC company, with the online degrees to prove it.)
Anyway, this woman, Sarah Leach, covered it all. And get this:
Leach oversaw news operations at the Holland Sentinel and 25 other newspapers across four states — 15 in Michigan, eight in Wisconsin, two in South Dakota and one in Minnesota — the largest group within Gannett’s Center for Community Journalism division.
She handled budgeting, hiring, goal-setting and managed overtime. Short-staffed on local editors, she was also editing and managing reporters at three of the newspapers herself: the Daily Telegram in Adrian, the Hillsdale Daily News and the Monroe News.
This is Gannett these days. Many of these papers are entirely ghost ships, assembled remotely with wire copy and press releases. Leach had complained about Gannett’s empty promises to increase staffing to a writer for the Poynter Institute, a journalism nonprofit that tries to hold the industry to account. She wasn’t quoted by name, and she suspects the suits accessed her work emails to find out she was the whistleblower. She was fired over Zoom:
“I was asked, ‘Why did you do this?’ And I just stared at the screen for a long time because it was difficult to process what this moment was,” Leach recounted.
“I admitted that I had a phone call with this person, you know, because I am dying. I have been asking for resources, and I’m doing my best to try to serve these communities to the best of my ability, and I feel like I can’t. … Then I was informed that was my last day.”
I wonder about the person who swung the sword. Traditionally, publishers and executive editors start as reporters or other low-level employees. Anyone old enough to have that kind of job today probably has at least a dim memory of what it was like to work in a newsroom that wasn’t an echoing space. And today they’re the goon tasked with firing a good employee. One who did this:
Leach jumped in last January to help cover the crush of Ottawa Impact news when the Sentinel was down to just one full-time reporter. She soon became the face of the paper’s coverage, striving to explain to the community the unprecedented nature of the board’s sweeping new decisions and their potential effects.
A trio of retired journalists in the community elevated Leach’s work for the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting last fall, with the nomination citing the 130-plus stories she’d written. The nomination letter also noted the Sentinel’s subscriptions had surged 38% at that point in the year, making it the fastest-growing website in Gannett’s division for small newspapers.
One significant obstacle noted by the nominating committee is that Ottawa Impact commissioners generally refuse to answer questions or be interviewed by mainstream news reporters, though Leach tried to fairly represent their views anyway, according to the committee.
“More than any other journalist she has held our local elected officials accountable. We need her to preserve democracy in this town,” said Milt Nieuwsma, a retired journalist and author who was part of the nominating committee.
Well, too bad, Milt.
Which leads us to this:
The new iteration of “The Office” has been picked up to series at Peacock.
According to the official logline, the series will focus on “a dying historic Midwestern newspaper and the publisher trying to revive it with volunteer reporters.” https://t.co/HfMJ65oK73 pic.twitter.com/xRV0EHs30j
— Variety (@Variety) May 8, 2024
We laugh to keep from crying. Have a great weekend, all.
FDChief said on May 10, 2024 at 10:36 am
I’d love to blame Gannett and all the other brunchlord failsons whose idiocracy has helped crater local journalism.
But We the People need to look hard in the mirror.
Perfect example: Oregon’s “kicker” law.
I won’t link to it because the bot will flag this comment, but Google “Oregon” “kicker” and you’ll find it. It’s hands-down The World’s Stupidest Fiscal Notion; make the state estimate projected tax revenue and, if the estimate is below actual intake, force the public treasury to disgorge a sum – this year’s is a monster, up in the billions overall – to the public.
It means hundreds to thousands to Joe and Molly, and millions to tens of millions to Stoel Rives and Flav-r-pac. It means that when the economy slumps there’s nothing in the state treasury to offset that. It means that stuff like roads and schools go begging.
And the “local news” coverage of this nonsense? Yeah, don’t make me laugh.
But the Portland paper of record (the Oregonian) ran a TWELVE-part story on a talking crow.
You can imagine how upset the public comment was about that.
Yeah, suuuuure.
If we want a better country, it’s up to us to be better citizens.
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nancy said on May 10, 2024 at 11:06 am
Very true. All those Ottawa Impact commissioners were elected, after all. (One was just recalled, and a similar movement in the UP went down in flames, too.)
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Deborah said on May 10, 2024 at 11:43 am
There’s a local paper in Espanola, NM which is about 15-20 miles south of Abiquiu. It’s called the Rio Grande Sun, a weekly, it’s owned by a guy who recently also bought 3 small town NM papers that were dumped by Gannett. The Sun has tried to make Espanola less corrupt by exposing what has been going on in City Hall and local law enforcement but it’s an uphill battle. Rio Arriba county, the poorest county in NM also has a presence there, the county seat is actually in Tiera Amarilla (spelling?) which everyone refers to as TA, the county buildings are the only things in that town. Espanola is bigger than TA and other surrounding towns and also more central so county business happens there.
The Sun can be a hoot to read, although I haven’t looked at it online in quite a while. It’ll be interesting to see what the owner does with the newspapers he acquired. It’s amazing to me how many people purchase it in Abiquiu, it’s for sale at Bode’s the local general store and gas station. When we drive through Espanola to get to Abiquiu and it happens to be on a Wednesday there are hawkers on the streets selling the Sun and it’s always surprising how many cars stop to buy a copy. I think it costs a buck fifty.
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basset said on May 10, 2024 at 11:44 am
You could not make this shit up.
On a happier note… looks like the band has been in some interesting places, can we have an update?
Norway trip is still in flux, travel agent didn’t work out so we are starting again from the beginning. We might be able to see the lights here in Tennessee in the next few days, though, that’d be remarkable.
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Heather said on May 10, 2024 at 12:03 pm
FWIW, I found this nugget in a Forrester report of 2024 predictions while doing research for a client project:
“News organizations will have a resurgence as trusted sources of information. In a world of misinformation fueled by AI-generated images, deepfakes, and faux human influencers, together with social media’s disintegrating reputation, news outlets like The New York Times and BBC, as well as independent journalists, will become coveted sources of information.”
Let’s hope so. I think I might have already mentioned here that the Chicago Reader is going back to weekly publication after years of doing it every other week? Maybe it’s a good sign. Although it means my beau will be even more stressed out and overworked.
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ninja3000 said on May 10, 2024 at 12:53 pm
There was a long-time excellent daily in the Lower Hudson Valley, The Times Herald-Record, based in Middletown NY. It went through a few owners in the past decade after Ottaway sold it, however, but Gannett has now finished wrecking it. I was a subscriber until last year, RIP.
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Jeff Gill said on May 10, 2024 at 1:12 pm
If you’re intrigued by central Ohio news, a free weekly newsletter can be yours, courtesy of our local attempt to keep journalism afloat and in print in Licking County, where you can find sex dolls in culverts and billions spent to make chips and UNESCO World Heritage sites:
https://www.thereportingproject.org/coming-soon-the-reporting-projects-weekly-newsletter/
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Sherri said on May 10, 2024 at 3:47 pm
Let’s establish that Hamas is a terrorist organization, and that what they did on Oct 7 is bad. Let’s establish that anti-semitism is bad, and it’s a tricky line to walk between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism, and that the protests have not always walked that line successfully.
That being said, when you read this article, ask yourself, who’s on the right side of history, the kids putting up tents, or the administrators calling cops, or the administration continuing to support Israel?
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/10/middleeast/israel-sde-teiman-detention-whistleblowers-intl-cmd/index.html
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David C said on May 10, 2024 at 4:44 pm
It’s been about five years since I decided our local Gannett paper wasn’t worth it. It had state news cut and pasted from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Local news beyond high school sports was practically non-existant. We have a weekly now that’s pretty good for city hall news. It adds up to about half the paper, the rest being high school sports and obituaries. I guess we’re lucky to have even that.
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alex said on May 10, 2024 at 5:15 pm
I was just bitching to Nancy this morning about how my small local rag is filling space with crap from the Indiana Policy Review, a one-man show bankrolled by some rich idiots who adore publishing racist right-wing crap. But I support the Auburn Star nonetheless because local journalism is important, even if I want to pour bleach in my eyes every time I see Ben Shapiro’s and John Stossel’s mugshots.
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Dexter Friend said on May 10, 2024 at 6:12 pm
Norris Alfred’s “The Polk Progress” was the best little weekly I ever subscribed to, from Polk, Nebraska. The older Norris would really give it to right wingers and also write of bird watching along the Platte River on Sunday mornings. He also wrote about the eccentrics about and around town, and would compliment scholars of excellence at the local high school. I got my dad a sub and he loved it too. The paper folded when Norris got old and then passed. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn95069341/
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FDChief said on May 10, 2024 at 7:33 pm
Sherri: Sadly, the victors usually write the history, and it’s hard to see how the Palestinians escape this ethnic cleansing. You’re right; what Israel is doing is a war crime, carpet-bombing cities that was so horrific when the combatants did it in the Forties that it was MADE a war crime afterwards.
But Israel is still the third rail of US politics. It was a stupid idea to begin with; setting up a sectarian Jewish ethno-state in part of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, WTF?!? But guilt over US indifference to the Shoah meant Truman’s Administration was all in, and outside Ike in ‘56 we’ve been reliable bobos for Zionism ever since.
What annoys me is that I don’t get it. As an “ally” Israel is a strategic liability, the geopolitical equivalent of the mouthy “friend” whose attitude drags us into other people’s brawls.
But for the Biden Administration to dump this annoying little bastard is domestic political poison. So here we are…
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Jeff Borden said on May 11, 2024 at 1:20 am
Netanyahu is an ogre. Corrupt as fuck and clinging to power through this bloodbath despite being loathed by most Israelis. News coverage of these tiny Palestinian children bleeding to death in barely functioning hospitals is creating a new generation of terrorists. Hamas got exactly what it wanted
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Sherri said on May 11, 2024 at 4:59 am
Total solar eclipse: check!
Aurora Borealis: check!
Never really expected to see the Northern lights right outside my own front door, but there they were! Colors were more visible through the phone camera than the naked eye, but still, amazing, and filled the sky, a full 360 degrees of the horizon and all the way overhead.
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David C said on May 11, 2024 at 5:49 am
It was cloudy overnight here, so no aurora. It’s supposed to be clear tonight and it usually lasts a couple of days after the coronal mass ejection. I haven’t seen it since the early 90s.
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Deborah said on May 11, 2024 at 7:10 am
I missed it too, sound asleep and raining when I was awake. Not sure they were visible in the city of Chicago anyway but some say they were. I saw the lights twice before in my life, once. In Minnesota and once all the way down in New Mexico even. Both times they weren’t spectacular like they are in photos I’ve seen of them in Finland but it was still cool to know that’s what they were.
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Suzanne said on May 11, 2024 at 7:49 am
Saw the aurora right from my own back yard! Clouds obscured some and it was pink, not green here, so we weren’t even sure of what we were seeing. But it was great, nonetheless. Total eclipse & aurora within weeks of each other. Is the universe sending a message?
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basset said on May 11, 2024 at 8:44 am
Went to bed early and missed everything, did get a “look at the sky” text from a neighbor about ten-thirty though… got up briefly just after two, too late then. SIL got some really nice pics from her backyard outside Flint.
Another Beatle event tonight… we take turns hosting dinner and a movie with some friends, this time we will watch the rejuvenated “Let it Be” and eat Lancashire hot pot… thought about beans on toast and scotch & coke, but no.
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robert said on May 11, 2024 at 9:43 am
Welcome back, Nancy – I enjoyed your travelogue.
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Mssr. Coffee said on May 11, 2024 at 10:00 am
“They wanted to replace her with a COVID nut …”
Careful with this “covid nut” business. That’s pretty much your entire audience, best I can tell.
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Mark P said on May 11, 2024 at 10:15 am
A friend who lives in Huntsville,Al, texted some photos of the aurora. It was pink and fairly big. HSV is at 34.734°N. She said to look through the camera. I saw a faint but distinct pink glow here in Rome, Ga. We are almost the same latitude, 34.257°N. It was not visible to the naked eye. It might have been more impressive if I had had an unobstructed view to the north, but the trees were too close.
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Julie Robinson said on May 11, 2024 at 10:46 am
Friends have been posting spectacular pictures, but I didn’t know you could see them in Alabama; amazing. None here, but nevermind, because we got two inches of rain overnight and the parched plants are rejoicing. It’s a lucky break for the new neighbors too, with their illegally laid sod.
Yesterday they poured a second parking pad in the driveway. Talk about tempting fate.
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Icarus said on May 11, 2024 at 1:08 pm
I posited a theory on Zorn’s substack that newspapers are purposely screwing up their print subscription services so that the hedge funds that own them could get rid of the print editions.
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tajalli said on May 11, 2024 at 1:19 pm
At 37°N, I’d thought the lights wouldn’t be visible but if it’s clear tonight, a glimpse might be available. This is right kind of excitement for my tastes.
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Julie Robinson said on May 11, 2024 at 2:00 pm
basset, I hadn’t heard of Lancashire hot pot, so I looked it up and it sounds like something my family would enjoy. Did you make it with venison?
I have to stand corrected about the northern lights, having just seen photos from someone local. Apparently they couldn’t see them with the human eye, only the lens on their camera.
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Sherri said on May 11, 2024 at 3:43 pm
Here, to the naked eye, the aurora looked like mostly whitish strands across the sky, with faint hints of purple and green and red. Through the camera, they really came alive with color. We went to a nearby park which has lots of open space (along with what felt like most of the population of Redmond!) and saw the first streaks of aurora to the east around 10:30. By 11, the entire sky, was filled with aurora, in all directions, and overhead. We came home around midnight, and we could see the aurora above our house, despite light pollution and trees everywhere.
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David C said on May 11, 2024 at 5:51 pm
I’ve seen reports that the aurora was seen in Northern Mexico. I don’t know if it’s true or wishful thinking.
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Dexter Friend said on May 12, 2024 at 4:18 am
I was contentedly watching “Hijack” on Apple TV when guilt took over and I decided I should take a look…alas, at 2:30 AM, not much to see. I drove to the dark countryside and no colors, no clouds either, just a faint light like when you notice city lights from 40 miles away, a little glow. I came home and found out I should have been outside at 10:00 PM…hell, it’s barely dark at all until then. I didn’t prepare, don’t much give a shit about it since I have seen it a few times going back to when I was a tiny boy in Indiana in the 1950s.
My people in Maumee, Ohio recorded it Friday night from their backyard…stunning.
And the baseball team I follow along with Detroit, the CLE Guardians, have lost 3 straight to the totally horrible ChiSox.
Signs and Wonders, signs and wonders….
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David C said on May 12, 2024 at 7:43 am
Nothing here. We really didn’t stand a chance. To the north is a prison that’s lit up like its own little sun and the lights from Neenah and Appleton.
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tajalli said on May 12, 2024 at 12:36 pm
Done in by the marine layer – obscuring the crescent moon so didn’t bother to go outside.
Inside, however, was Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars which I’m reading in the wake of his There There, both about urban indigenous people. Truly excellent.
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Sherri said on May 12, 2024 at 1:44 pm
I complain a lot about the overreaches and overpromises of tech and AI, so let me take a moment to praise an area that has just been astounding. Smart phone cameras are incredible, with their combination of sensors and computation. I have the latest iPhone, and the only thing I had to do was turn off the flash in order to take pictures of the aurora that were unbelievable to me. My phone was taking a 3 second exposure, compensating for the fact that I was holding the device so it was not totally steady, and producing photos at a press of a button that I would have to work to get with a “real” camera.
I never cease to be blown away that I have a camera of this quality that I just carry in my pocket all the time.
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Dexter Friend said on May 12, 2024 at 2:07 pm
David C., Neenah, home of frames and covers for manholes, and Appleton, which 50 years ago had a White Sox minor league team where Gossage and Forster developed their skills, and where my old baseball team roommate Adrian Kenary pitched well enough to be called to The Show but never got the call.
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Jeff Gill said on May 12, 2024 at 2:22 pm
Icarus, I think you have something, but I can also note that the whole delivery model is not working fiscally, which does have newspapers looking away from print to doorstep. When I was eleven, there was a cadre of district staffers entirely devoted to managing the carriers, putting on the promotions to get us to sell subscriptions, and running out shortages to us for delivery. When I was seventeen-eighteen, I ended up being a district service manager fielding the complaint calls for six months; by 1979 the district circulation staff were all discontinued, and thru the Eighties they went to motor routes. By 1990 the young carriers who did their own collections were mostly no more; in northwest Indiana it was mail subscriptions and motor routes of 400-500.
To my knowledge, in eastern Ohio, the motor routes in the area got up to 800-plus; it was still a contractor position, no benefits, and the routes changed hands frequently, with all the reliability you would associate with low income family vehicles.
Since COVID, my father-in-law and his neighbor in Indianapolis still got home delivery. In 2022 & 2023 it was not quite $1,000 a year, plus Christmas tip, and the route driver was remarkably consistent; I got to know her a bit sometimes waiting out for the paper to walk over to the neighbor’s door and back inside. She had a regular job and this supplemental kept her and her husband on disability paying their bills. I never heard what she made a year, but her route was 1,000 and she covered a startling range of miles, as very few still got home delivery relative to ten years ago when she started. There were two on our block. I discontinued his delivery in mid-December when he went on hospice, and two weeks later got a notice that they were discontinuing home delivery in that area.
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jcburns said on May 12, 2024 at 2:55 pm
Sherri, you’re right about the cameras. I think Apple was reticent to use ‘AI’ as a term for their use of technology to do useful things…but now they seem to have decided to say ‘AI’ because everyone is looking for that.
Me, I love the computational photography, and I am not craving ‘AI.’
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basset said on May 12, 2024 at 3:19 pm
Made it with beef, Julie… I was the only one here willing to try the traditional lamb, and I suspect lamb’s kidneys would be tough to find here on short notice. Venison next time.
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David C said on May 12, 2024 at 3:25 pm
Yeah Dexter. Appleton has had quite a few baseball luminaries pass through. Earl Weaver was their manager and Boog Powell hit 100 rbi when they were an Orioles affiliate. They’re not the Foxes anymore, they’re the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers and a Brewers affiliate. It’s nice to have them here. Every other year they play a home series with the West Michigan Whitecaps so I get to watch my home town team.
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Deborah said on May 12, 2024 at 6:16 pm
Hope the moms herewith had a pleasant Mother’s Day as it is celebrated now. Heather Cox Richardson had another letter from an American about its origin https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-11-2024.
I had a relaxing day in Chicago, I’ll be seeing LB in 2 weeks in Santa Fe where we’ll celebrate then. I finished the book I was listening to on Audible, Ordinary Grace by the mystery writer William Kent Krueger which turned out to be pretty good and the narrator was excellent, brought life to the characters in an entertaining and compelling way. My niece who was raised in small town Minnesota and lives in Minneapolis now recommended it to me. I can see why she liked it so much.
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Brandon said on May 12, 2024 at 9:48 pm
The 12-part video series on Cosmo the talking crow. (Thanks to FDChief for mentioning it.)
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