by Rich Herschlag

Iraq got you down? Plummeting real estate values? Bad credit? Soaring fuel prices? Impending recession? Fear not. Your six-hundred dollar or so tax rebate check is on its way. Time to pay off the bogus internet charges on your cell phone bill. Time to finish decorating the trailer. Time to get that Fender Strat out of hock. Don’t spend it all in one pawn shop.

Six big ones will keep us in our overleveraged homes for weeks and our kids in college for days. It may even cover a lab fee or two, which will come in handy when you and Junior open that crystal meth factory you’ve been dreaming about.

Six hundred dollars will get you a few minutes with Ashley Alexandra Dupree. And not even prime minutes. Speaking of which, Eliot Spitzer never got full credit for his own stimulus package. A new independent study says idle hookers are bad for the economy. Full Story »

About 10 months have passed since the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed into the Mississippi River during afternoon rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring 145. Construction of the bridge’s $234 million replacement may be finished in mid-September, three months ahead of schedule, earning builders a $20 million bonus. The Minnesota Legislature and Gov. Tim Pawlenty have agreed on a $38 million state fund to help compensate the victims of the Aug. 1 disaster.

All’s well, eh? Perhaps for this bridge in this city. But nationwide, all is not well. Road, bridge and other important public-works infrastructure continue to age and deteriorate as Congress dithers elsewhere. Only disasters move our representatives to act — and in an election year, even those actions seem spotty at best and disingenuous at worst.

The United States has much more than failing bridges to find, fund and fix. The proposals of the remaining presidential candidates do little to inspire faith that they understand the breadth of the problem or have the political skill, will and courage to address it forthrightly.
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If our profits are taxed, that means we’ll have less capital to invest in new production.

— John Hofmeister, president of Shell U.S., to CNNMoney.com; May 6.

These companies are spending a very small amount of their operating cash flow on exploration. They are spending the majority of their funds buying back stock.

— Amy Myers Jaffe, a fellow in energy studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, discussing results of her just-finished a two-year study looking at oil companies and how they spend their money; May 6.
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Long ago, in the beginning, a newspaper developed a Web site. Hundreds followed that lead. Now, one newspaper has only a Web site. In the end, what will there be? And what will be the consequences for readers?

A Wisconsin daily newspaper, whose readers have been increasingly shedding it, has now shed a significant expense — newsprint. The Capital Times of Madison, whose circulation has fallen from more than 40,000 to 18,000, said “-30-” to its printing press. It has become an online information enterprise around the Madison.com portal.

The 90-year-old newspaper — one of two serving Madison under a joint operating agreement — will only publish a tabloid-sized edition twice per week carrying some news, opinion and a weekly arts, entertainment and culture section. It will be distributed in its home-delivered partner paper, the Wisconsin State Journal.

It’s a dicey move, but critics like me have said for years that the Web-only newspaper will see its day come (which does not mean we have argued that online-only is a good idea). So what does this end-of-print mean for Madison and beyond?
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My congressman sent me his May 2008 newsletter today via e-mail to explain to me why gasoline prices are so high and what he’s doing about it. His analysis is unimpressive.

According to the newsletter and its link to his Web site, Rep. John R. “Randy” Kuhl (R-N.Y.) says:

Why are gas prices so high?

The high price of gasoline results from the cost of crude oil, the world demand and supply for oil, our limited refining capacity, and taxes. [emphasis added]

But what didn’t make his list?
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I think blogs are dedicated to cruelty, they’re dedicated to dishonesty, they’re dedicated to speed.

— Buzz Bissinger, author of “Friday Night Lights” and other bestsellers, castigating blogs on HBO’s “Costas Now”; May 1.

It’s one of the bigger Cadillacs. I’ve got a desk in it. It’s like an airplane. … I want them to feel that they are somebody and their congressman is somebody. And when they say, ‘This is nice,’ it feels good.

— Rep. Charles Rangell, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, describing the 17-foot-long, 300-horsepower, 2004 Cadillac DeVille he leases for for $777.54 a month; House rules permit members to lease any vehicle at taxpayer expense; May 1.
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Finally, an American corporation is getting serious about supporting our troops and their families.

You get used to listening to that Alvin and the Chipmunks voice.

— New York state Gov. David Paterson, who is legally blind, on the special tape recorder he uses to listen to long articles or books played “at speeds so fast, it is difficult for others to comprehend”; April 21.

We shouldn’t have to give employers complete control over our private life so they can save a few dollars on medical care.

— Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, which advocates for employee privacy, on a report that Whirlpool Inc. “suspended 39 workers who signed insurance paperwork claiming they don’t use tobacco and then were seen smoking or chewing tobacco on company property”; April 23.
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In the first quarter a year ago, The New York Times Co. made $23.9 million in profit. This week, the company reported a loss of $335,000. That’s about the worst quarter-to-quarter loss the company — and the news biz — has ever seen.

In a story by The Times‘ Richard Pérez-Peña, president and CEO Janet L. Robinson said “it was ‘a challenging quarter, one that showed the effects of a weaker economy,’ compounded by ‘a marketplace that has been reconfigured technologically, economically and geographically.’”

That’s Robinson-speak for “Holy crap! We’re screwed!”
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In a garbage dump in Haiti, people scavenge for food.

They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry.

— Saint Louis Meriska of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, whose “children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day”; food prices in Haiti have spiked 45 percent since 2006; April 18.
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Our friend at the Niagara Falls Reporter, the Pulitzer-winning John Hanchette, today comments and expands on Denny’s analysis concerning the need for a new business model for news organizations. Denny’s post and Hanch’s follow-on, taken together, represent about as coherent a starting point for the discussion of the future of news as I’ve seen, and while I’m certain that no self-respecting media exec would be caught dead in the presence of this kind of lucid thinking, there’s no reason you shouldn’t give it a read.

According to the folks who run broadbandreports.com — the most informative site I’ve found yet on this subject (and one which also took note of the relevance of Adlai Stevenson’s famous quote) — this is because “we lack a comprehensive national broadband strategy of any kind.” Full Story »

Has the financial tipping point of life vs. death finally arrived? Do you now need to be financially healthy (meaning rich) to ease suffering from or survive diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, hepatitis C and some cancers (such as metastatic breast cancer)?

The lead story in the print edition of today’s New York Times reports this chilling fact:

Health insurance companies are rapidly adopting a new pricing system for very expensive drugs, asking patients to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for prescriptions for medications that may save their lives or slow the progress of serious diseases.

With the new pricing system, insurers abandoned the traditional arrangement that has patients pay a fixed amount, like $10, $20 or $30 for a prescription, no matter what the drug’s actual cost. Instead, they are charging patients a percentage of the cost of certain high-priced drugs, usually 20 to 33 percent, which can amount to thousands of dollars a month.

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Is the answer to the above question “No?”

Well, that’s part of the problem–millions of Americans are in the same boat, and they are equally unaware of the situation

The basic gist is this: On February 17, 2009, “over-the-air” (OTA) broadcast television stations that use analog signals (which you pick up through the familiar “rabbit-ear” antennae) are switching to digital signals, which means that unless you have a strong enough antenna set and a special set-top converter box, your television will not be able to pick up the new signals. The government’s official DTV site gives a concise description of the whole event.

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This is actually a boost to remind people that we can produce this kind of journalism at any time. We’re going to have a large enough newsroom to continue to produce this kind of quality journalism.

— Leonard Downie Jr., editor of The Washington Post, winner of six Pulitzer Prizes for 2008; The Post’s front-page story by media critic Howard Kurtz did not mention the paper has endured three rounds of staff cuts since 2003, but the AP’s story did; April 7; emphasis added.

I can only confirm that the route is dynamic.

— Nathan Ballard, a San Francisco city spokesman, as, said The New York Times, “The precise route remained in flux on Tuesday as the torch extravaganza threatened to become more civic migraine than celebration in the face of potential protests by those upset with China’s human rights record and recent crackdown in Tibet”; April 9.
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by greg stene, phd

Okay. It’s 3:21 in the ayem. The bright digital numbers in the dark tell you that. The generalized anxiety of impending death sometime in the next three decades or so (if the game gets played out that long and some bus doesn’t take you out while you’re on your way to the life insurance company offices to add another $50K onto the policy) … slammed your eyes wide open and you know, like so many other nights before, that there’s no sleep coming just by hanging in bed.

The only way out of this is to let the TV work its early-morning trank-effect on you with the white noise of meaningless dialog and visuals. Full Story »

It’s the new conventional wisdom: The news biz is dying. Declining circulation. Abandonment by advertisers. Falling revenues. Cuts in staffing to reduce costs. The news biz needs a new business model, the critical harpies proclaim.

But what should a new business model for an industry whose principal product is journalism look like?

It would have to recognize several new — and old — realities.

• Any new business model must generate profit.

There’s no way around this. Journalism is best sustained within a for-profit frame. A company that engages in newspaper journalism as a product is not supported by government (unlike public television) nor should it be. The same holds for commercial broadcast journalism as well. To provide news, the company must make a profit to attract investors and secure the resources to collect, report and transmit that news. A non-profit model cannot immediately match the breadth and depth of news reporting that a healthy democracy of more than 300 million citizens requires.
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I was deeply amused to read the breathless news coverage of Hammerin’ Hank Paulson’s “ambitious” and “sweeping” plans to restructure the federal financial regulatory structure. It says something about how far the goalposts of this country’s discourse have been moved towards rampant, unchecked, unbridled “law of the jungle” financial pillaging that modest reforms like these are considered a major move.

If these pathetic hot-flashing stenographers that call themselves “reporters” would actually take a closer look at the plan itself–hell, even just the fact sheet–they would see that not only is Paulson’s reform agenda miniscule at best, but that it’s a shell game, a distraction designed to accomplish the long-held mantra of the Bush administration–centralizing federal power and weakening consumer protections at the state level. Full Story »

Timothy Crouse’s book gave us the overused phrase “boys on the bus.” Now, it seems, the boys (and girls) are being yanked off the bus in droves. Fewer and fewer reporters for the nation’s major dailies are riding the campaign bus and flying on the press plane to regularly cover the remnants of the pre-convention presidential race.