Seriously?

So, Sunday is the only day we get the Dallas Morning News now. We used to get it every day, but then when they quit responding to our stop paper requests on vacations, we canceled the subscription. We got an offer for Sunday only, and decided to give it a whirl again. It's an easy whirl, given that the paper is so light and I only allow myself to read the first three graphs of any Rod Dreher or Steve Blow column. But imagine my - no, wait, a little background is an order here. Just a few short years ago, I was responsible for not only cleaning the newspaper bathroom, but also writing all major stories and designing the paper - laying it out, as it's called in newsroom vernacular. So reading the print version of TDMN is not just an exercise in frustration because of some of the writing (btw, Elizabeth Souder rocked that T. Boone Pickens story Sunday), but also because of the design. So imagine my dismay to page through the paper to find this gem - a black and white photo of fireworks. May I just ask how many layers of boneheadedness did that have to go through before it landed in my yard. I can see being an overworked copy editor and it not registering. But doesn't this page go through at least two more layers before it makes it to the press? At some point, shouldn't someone have said, "You know, this is a great photo, but a black and white picture of fireworks is really kinda stupid?" And then it also dawned on me - we can expect more of this. Through mismanagement - which led to decimating the newsroom and overworking people who were already overworked anyway - there is literally nobody there to say, "Guys, we can't put a freakin' black and white picture of fireworks in the paper." So while I thoroughly intended to mock Dallas' Only Daily for this, all I can really muster is a slow head shake, and going to find a black mourning band for my sleeve. Because really, while this may seem small to many, it's one of many symptoms that this patient is very, very ill. This photo is one of many death rattles over the past year, and management has given every indication they've signed a DNR. Let's sit shiva for the Dallas Morning News, and try to figure out how we're going to accurately tell the story of Dallas in years to come without it.

How Do You Save the Dallas Morning News?

In the wake of another round of devastating layoffs at the Dallas Morning News, one might be hard pressed to find any silver lining that hasn't already been sold for scrap to pay for A.H. Belo bonuses. But maybe there could be, if there was a dream scenario where someone actually stopped and thought about not only the good of the company, but also the good of the community it serves. As I've said before, I do not think the demise of the Dallas Morning News came solely - as some insist- on it's politics. I do think that some of it comes from its hypocrisy - and I point to the fact that every rah-rah convention center hotel story never mentions that the DMN parent company stands to benefit greatly if the hotel is built, because the property it owns adjacent to the site will go up in valuation. I mean, heck, it doesn't have to mention it in every story, I suppose. I'd be happy if its editorial board saw fit to add it to its missives occasionally, and if the metro desk would insist it be added to anything its columnists put out. But I digress. I said this last year, but it's still true - technology and our industry's failure to be early adopters of it is responsible for, in my opinion, 60% of the crisis we're now facing. Instead of partnering with established leaders in technology, we insisted the Internet was a fad, and eventually the hubbub would die down. So aggregators came along and left us in the dust. This is the past, however. I do think that there will always be somewhat of a market for the dead tree version of a newspaper. But producing one and maintaining the status of Dallas' only daily may take some reversal in mindset for both management and subscribers. In short, the DMN is going to have to go backwards to go forward. It's going to have to embrace the notion that people want a community feel from their newspapers, as evidenced by the fact that many community newspapers are faring far better than their large metro counterparts. That's not to say that they haven't been affected by the economy as well, but they can weather the storm far better because their communities are invested in the paper. The bigger the paper, the bigger the egos, the bigger the disconnect between writer and reader. How do you keep that connection? How do these small weekly community papers do it? Subscribers see themselves in the paper - literally. They don't just see their communities represented, but they can actually see their names in the paper on a semi-frequent basis. Think of this: In Dallas, there are people who will never see their names in print. Ever. They'll never do anything wrong, and since the DMN doesn't offer more than the perfunctory acknowledgement of a sparse set of milestones, there's a good chance they'll never see themselves in the paper. So run the honor rolls. Run the birth announcements from the hospitals. Run them only in the paper, not online. Having worked at a small paper, I can tell you that our best-selling issues were the ones that contained the honor rolls. Mothers like seeing their kid's names in print. Period. Secondly, embrace this pared-down version as a positive if you work it right. At one of my first papers, everyone did everything. Yes, you had a beat, but you also knew how to cover a city council meeting. You knew who your county commissioners were. Everyone had to know where to find the police reports at the station. Everyone had an obit day, which meant you didn't have to hire an obit clerk. Everyone had to take turns being the reporter on call on the weekends. You had a Sunday package every six weeks or so (it rotated among all the reporters), and a Monday profile, which also rotated. And with that smaller, streamlined staff, the paper managed to put out major award-winning stuff. You can cover a beat and engage in enterprise reporting at the same time. I know for a fact it can be done. I come from a place that sounds almost mythical - a place with three major metro dailies in a metro area smaller than Dallas proper. But it happens. All are doing as well as can be expected in the economy, and you're not hearing about massive layoffs, either. So how do you save the DMN? You realize that there's no need for scads of columnists and editorial board members. You realize that to keep the ship afloat and on course, everyone must row, together, which means that you become a general surgeon and not a brain surgeon. The valuable reporter in the new reality newsroom is water - you can pour him or her out and she will travel to the things that need the coverage, filling in ably. In other words, there is no room for ego in the new news room.

Oy ..

Back to you, Jim.

Dear George Rodrigue:

I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Kettle. You probably know him, because you called him black a week or so ago. Well, he'd like to tell you today that you need to legally change your name to pot, because you're black, too. Hugs and kisses, Me

Not a Promising Sign

When even a former president can't get his paper delivered properly by the DMN, what does that bode for the rest of us? It seems that Laura Bush has told People that their neighbors are bringing the paper over every day, because the DMN has been slow to deliver it.

They even have to rely on the kindness of friends to get the local paper. "The only thing we don't have are the newspapers. It has been slow to get The Dallas Morning News delivered," she says. "People bring the newspaper to us later in the day. It's just not being delivered yet."

Perhaps It Would Be Fun to Actually Check Your Own Paper ...

... before getting people all riled up. The DMN's Ed Housewright, over on the Metroblog, wonders if the bond election for Parkland will be a hard sell because so many don't like the fact that Parkland treats illegal immigrants. But instead of making putting a little information out there to help clear up misconceptions, Housewright just kind of lets it hang there, like a dingleberry. And this is a disservice to readers, and to Parkland, and to anyone who might need Parkland some day. Because it's not just as simple as "Parkland treats illegal immigrants." Yes, it's true. But in leaving that statement just hanging there, you allow the unsaid to germinate as well, "and we have to pay for it." Which is only partly true. Yes, we do, but we also pay for white Betty Jo down the street when she has her baby, and she hasn't worked a day in her life, but instead spits out baby after baby about the time the state is going to tell her the last child she had is old enough for her to leave and go to work. Yet Maria, who works and whose husband works, will probably actually pay her bill. Say it ain't so? In a quick Google search to just look up articles on Parkland's policies, I found this exact subject addressed on snopes.com. In the answer, the folks at Snopes quote liberally from one periodical in particular - the Dallas Morning News. Specifically, a 2006 series of articles that compared how Parkland and Tarrant County's JPS Health Systems handled the issue of treating illegal immigrants. One interesting part of the story:

Most immigrant patients have jobs and pay taxes, through paycheck deductions or property taxes included in their rent, administrators at the Dallas and Fort Worth hospitals said. At both institutions, they have a better record of paying their bills than low-income Americans do, the administrators said.

Movin' On to a Little Plagarism

I'm a station flipper when I'm driving. I can't stand commercials, but I like listening to the radio. A week or so ago, my battery exploded (don't ask) resulting in a dead car. One battery and two cables made of spotted owl gonads and unicorn later, I found myself redoing the eight presets in my car. I thought it was a dandy time to check out a couple of new stations and see if they're worth putting on the presets. One of those stations was Movin' 107.5. My first introduction was on a drive home, in the rental car, and I was bemused to hear Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer," then Fergie, then Timbaland, then Milli Vanilli. But the past couple of mornings, I've been slightly disturbed. See, the morning show itself - "Movin' Mornings with Chris and Mel," is amusing enough. I don't think either of them will be having commitment ceremonies with local magazine editors anytime soon, but they're a harmless enough listen on my way to work, in between commercials when, you know, I flip to another station. But its their news breaks. Some mornings - not every morning, but some - I actually have a chance to read the Dallas Morning News before I go to work. The first time I heard their newsreader, Sara, do the news, I thought maybe it was a coincidence that every single story was pretty much the lede from the first four stories on dallasnews.com. But the second, third, fourth and fifth (today) times? Not so much. And nary a mention of where she got all that news. She certainly didn't gather it herself. And yet, it was definitely branded as Movin's news. Back in Fayetteville, we also had this problem. Work your ass off on a story, then look up at 10 p.m. to see some anchor read it pretty much verbatim on air. It drove my editor and our publisher nuts. Solution? Adding the line "Copyright Northwest Arkansas Times" to the byline, under the reporter's name. It was stupid, though, that we had to do that to get the local news station to acknowledge the story was first reported in our paper. But that's what it took - and threat of a lawsuit. But really, I think, Movin' is missing out on a prime opportunity to do some co-marketing. It's a pretty well-documented fact that TDMN is hurting for business. A simple, "Movin' News brought to you by the Dallas Morning News" would probably be the mutual back scratch both need, right?