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Tuesday, May 13, 2008
As I've written, the ProJo's SoxBlog is among the paper's best new-media efforts. There's a lot of content and a steady effort to try new things, such as a daily recorded interview with Sean McAdam, far and away the ProJo's best baseball writer. The downside? McAdam, speaking from some sort of phone while on the road, sounds like he's trapped in a metallic can. Isn't there a way to get better audio for this?
Meanwhile, as someone who has long had an unusually high level of interest in squirrels (due to how a relative had once dubbed a hyper co-worker "the Squirrel"), I appreciated this post from ProJo blog savant Sheila Lennon:
Journal / Kris Craig
The ultimate ethical meal: a grey squirrel The Guardian (U.K.) coos,
It tastes sweet, like a cross between lamb and duck. And it's selling as fast as butchers can get it.
That's in England, where the North American Eastern grey squirrel is overrunning their beloved red squirrels. So it's almost patriotic to eat them to help cull the species, at about $6.82 per cleaned squirrel at the butcher shops.
I'm thinking depression-era protein, if things get bad here. Lord knows we have enough grey squirrels eating our tulip bulbs and all the pears from our tree every year.
Texas A&M offers instructions for harvesting acorns, squirrel, opossum and raccoon "(for traditional community coon suppers)", "dressing" and cooking them,:
Squirrel is one of the most tender of all wild game meats. The rosy pink to red flesh of young squirrel is tender and has a pleasing flavor. The flesh of older animals is darker red in color and may require marinating or long cooking for tenderness.
There are recipes for squirrel, although I wouldn't expect much meat from these scrawny city critters.
Here's a recipe for Braised acorn-fed grey squirrel with roasted loin and squirrel pie, garlic mash by Craig James, head chef, at Butlers Wharf Chop House, near Tower Bridge, London.
There's even a review of Butler's squirrel specials in the Evening Standard by restaurant blogger Charles Campion:
During May there is a “squirrel and rook” season. When I visited only the squirrel element had kicked in - and the menu listed “Grey squirrel and rabbit terrine with piccalilli” – the terrine had a good texture, the sweet close-textured squirrel meat ends up pretty much indistinguishable from the rabbit – this would be a great dish for nervous squirrel sensation seekers. On the main course list there is “braised Grey squirrel and Guinness stew with carrots and horseradish dumplings” – very rich and discernibly squirrel, the meat falling from the bones of those long back legs – the dumplings need work, they are a little solid (which need not be a bad quality in a dumpling but can be taken too far) and they also need a bit more of the promised horseradish bite.
 UKTV Food offers a recipe for squirrel pancakes, pictured at right.
Other squirrel recipes.
There are reports of prion disease -- Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease -- in five people from Kentucky who all ate the brains of diseased squirrels. (Hard to know how the squirrels might have acquired it on their diet of nuts and berries, though, so the link may be tentative.) Don't eat the brains if you're being fastidious. (Of course, if you're being fastidious you wouldn't be anywhere near a dead squirrel.) Rabies is rare among squirrels.
How to: Squirrel hunts are great ways to enjoy fall days and teach new hunters field skills. - Wisconson Natural Resources magazine
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Tim Schick, administrator of the Providence Newspaper Guild, the main union at the ProJo, appears to have piloted a winning campaign in a national Guild election (h/t E&P, via Romenesko):
NEW YORK Challenger Bernie Lunzer will win The Newspaper Guild presidential election, according to voting data obtained by E&P that indicates he has a lead of more than 900 votes with only some 600 potential ballots left to be counted.
Sources within the guild revealed that out of 6,420 votes tabulated so far, Lunzer, the longtime secretary-treasurer, has 3,648, while incumbent Linda Foley has just 2,722.
"We are pleased with the results we have seen this far," said Tim Schick, campaign manager for Lunzer and administrator of the Providence (R.I) Newspaper Guild. "That is about as far as I want to go."
Schick declined to comment on the specific data, but several sources said that the votes tabulated so far gave Lunzer an insurmountable lead.
Although votes from the York Newspaper Guild in York, Pa., are still yet to be counted, along with some 600 potential votes from a handful of Canadian units, the vote totals from those locations would not give Foley, the 13-year incumbent, enough to win.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
It's the last day on the job at the ProJo for executive editor Joel Rawson, who has cast a big shadow there for most of the years going back to the early '70s.
G. Wayne Miller's previous report is here, and mine here.
Rawson was feted with a farewell/final teaching moment last week at Local 121.
Good night and good luck, Joel.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
When I broke the news last month that Joel P. Rawson, the executive editor of the ProJo, is retiring, Jim Romenesko seemed a bit surprised by the lack of an official announcement from the paper. That comes today, in the form of a fitting tribute by G. Wayne Miller, who gives the venerable editor appropriate credit while also offering a full-bodied picture. Particularly good are the details from some of the former ProJo types who have moved on to other places:
“He knew how to instill excitement in the craft of nonfiction writing; how to make what happened in, say, the Lower Arctic section of West Warwick seem as relevant and as dynamic as anything occurring in Manhattan or in Boston,” said Dan Barry, who was a member of The Journal’s 1994 Pulitzer-winning team and is now with The New York Times. “I wrote a magazine piece once, about a particularly troubling arson case in Providence, and he sent me an encouraging note. The note pretty much changed my life.”
Rawson’s signature impact was first felt more than 30 years ago, when he assigned staff writer Bruce Butterfield, who later moved to The Boston Globe, to write “The one defines all the others,” a front-page Sunday feature about Route 95. Published on Aug. 31, 1975, the piece depicted the highway as more of a character –– or characters –– than a ribbon of asphalt.
Rawson recalled asking Butterfield to consider Route 95, which runs the length of the state, as “its own Mississippi River with its own Huck Finn, its own stories.” Readers were intrigued –– if also, perhaps, initially puzzled — by this unconventional approach. “People wondered if I was out of my mind,” Rawson said, “but they liked it.”
In including some bits on Rawson's temper and his early penchant for screaming from desktops in the newsroom, Miller notes:
Outsiders complained that he was inaccessible, and rarely available to comment to other publications that were writing about The Journal.
Hmmm. Might the reference be to the Phoenix, to which Joel has opted not to talk about 98 percent of the time? A few days after my print followup on his impending depature, for example, he did talk with Editor & Publisher.
Anyway, Rawson, whose last day is April 29, remains a stalwart journalist and a true believer, of the good kind. I wish him well. After having had a huge impact for so long, Rawson, or more specifically, his departure, will leave the ProJo a changed institution.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Art Martone's Sox Blog is a prime example of how a blog based at a MSM daily can do a great job with blogging. Martone is a super-informed baseball observer, his blog is updated frequently, and it's chock full of posts of interest to Sox enthusiasts.
Yet some of us in the local blogosphere continue to wonder why the ProJo, which has a three-person State House staff and a number of other talented staffers who write about politics, does such a lame job with its Politics Blog -- which is rarely updated and consists mostly of reprinting Political Scene.
Now, a new study out of Ball State University (h/t Romenesko) finds that newspapers are generally doing a poor job with their political blogs.
Newspapers will have to change the way they approach blogging if they are going to be a force in increasing public dialogue on political issues, says a new study from Ball State University.
A study of blogs and audience engagement during the week before the fall 2006 elections found that most newspaper staff-produced blogs contained a small number of postings, failed to create much interaction between the blogger and the audience and attracted few audience comments.
In the review of 360 newspapers, Ball State journalism professors Lori Demo and Mary Spillman, found that 42 percent of newspapers had blogs with political content but discovered commitment to blogging widely varied.
"Political blogs are seen as providing a meeting place for journalists interested in promoting the democratic process and readers looking for a chance to share observation and beliefs," Demo said. "These blogs offer individuals an opportunity to communicate outside the dominant media structure found in news stories, staff columns and letters to the editor. To be as effective as some of the more popular citizen-produced blogs, however, newspaper versions must attract an audience and generate a conversation.
"This study provides a snapshot of an emerging newspaper feature during a five-day period before a national election. While much has been written about blogs' potential to save democracy and revive journalism, this picture of newspapers' blog posts does little to support that notion."
The ProJo's lack of a better political blog is all the more surprising given the recognition on Fountain Street that the Web represents the future of the newspaper.
Yet as P+J report this week, the ProJo is apparently focused on ramping up a less than newsy part of projo.com.
It’s P+J’s understanding that Tom Heslin, the Other Paper’s Web ubermensch, has announced that a new women’s portal is in the works, and that it will feature all sorts of hard-hitting featurettes, with titles like “Let’s Chat,” “All About Me,” and “Blush.”
Ooooooh, your superior correspondents haven’t been this excited since we received a DVD boxed set of the entire run of The View for Christmas, darlings! To quote from an unsigned (for sooooo many reasons) in-house memo for the aforementioned “Blush” briefing get-together on Fountain Street, “This session will cover such topics as Romance, Dating, Celebrity, Astrology, Surprise, Buzz, Inspire Me!, E-postcards, For Men Only — The Other Team’s Playbook, and anything else you think might appeal to women (and men!) as individuals. When you sign up for this session, think Cosmo, Glamour, Self, Lucky magazines”
Wheeee! “Glamour Dos and Don’ts” all around!
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Speaking of the Other Paper, two of the more distinguished people who have written there over the years are Ben Bagdikian, best known for his landmark work The Media Monopoly, and a young A.J. Liebling [above, left], who went on to become the father of modern press criticism.
Liebling took a somewhat different view of local politics than Ed Achorn. As Johnny Apple wrote in 1998:
If sleaze remains a local art form, well, nobody gets very upset. Perhaps Roger Williams's sermons on tolerance have echoed down the generations. A. J. Liebling, who began his journalistic career here, wrote about his days in Providence, ''There was nothing you could do about anything, but then nothing was so bad that you felt a burning urge to do anything about it.''
But I digress.
Pete Hamill is another great journalistic institution, in New York, and Columbia Journalism Review has a podcast of a talk that he recently devoted to Liebling (h/t Romenesko).
As I've written before, I think the ProJo's Ed Achorn writes a very good column. While N4N might not agree with everything he says, his writing is clean and elegant, imbued with a knowledge of history (and a love of baseball), and his weekly Tuesday piece is generally pointed and provocative -- qualities that are highly desirable in opinion writing.
And I can totally get with the view that a more competitive two-party system would be good for Rhode Island. As Achorn wrote this week:
Needless to say, competitive elections would be great news. One-party dominance in any system is bad for the public. Nothing sharpens a politician’s focus on the common good, and diverts his gaze from the blandishments of special interests, more than a tough re-election battle. Real elections, with a real chance of shifting power, are the ultimate ethics reform.
But Rhode Island will never get healthier unless good people run for office, from both parties. There is no better time than now to give it a try. Operation Clean Government (ocgri.com) is planning a nonpartisan candidates’ school for April 12 in North Kingstown, to help citizens master all the details of running for public office. Candidates must file papers by the third week in June to get on the ballot.
A challenge even by a political unknown with little chance of winning does much good. It means an incumbent no longer has the luxury of running unopposed.
Yet as I've noted before, some of Achorn's embellishments strike his critics as less than fair:
One union leader calls Achorn’s invective one-sided and highly selective: "He’s extremely anti-labor, at least in terms of public employees. He also engages in a certain amount of name-calling, like referring to [RI AFL-CIO president Frank] Montanaro as ‘Boss Montanaro.’ Referring to labor leaders as union bosses is the equivalent of using ethnic slurs. You don’t see them referring to [retired industrialist] Henry Sharpe as a robber baron. They don’t refer to lawyers as shysters, so why are they calling a labor leader a union boss?"
So it's not especially surprising that one of the rhetorical bits in Achorn's column this week has inspired a sharp response from the executive director of the National Education Association Rhode Island, who is also the secretary-treasurer of Working Rhode Island.
Sent: Tue 4/1/2008 7:27 PM
To: letters@projo.com; rwhitcomb@projo.com
Subject: Letter to the editor
Journal editorial columnist Edward Achorn’s bias against public employee unions is well known in Rhode Island. This time, however, he has gone well beyond the bounds of propriety. His statement that unions have “storm troopers” to do their electoral bidding (“The only thing to fear is apathy itself”, Tuesday, April 1, 2008) would make the propagandists from the regime he attempts to evoke proud. The Journal should be embarrassed and ashamed that a member of its editorial board, and an editor of these pages, equated Nazi soldiers with union members, and should apologize immediately. Your readers, and all union members, should expect no less.
Robert A. Walsh, Jr.
Monday, March 31, 2008
The bottom of today's ProJo carries a notice indicating how the daily newsstand price of Rhode Island's dominant daily has climbed to 75 cents, the first such increase in 18 years. Considering the woes of the newspaper industry, this decision was certainly not made lightly.
The problem for newspapers is not that fewer people are reading them. Combined print-Web readership figures are impressive, but newspapers' Web-based advertising is far less profitable than the vanishing amount of dead-tree advertising.
Writing at RI's Future, Forsanri attributes the growth in readership of that site to dissatisfaction with, and distrust of, the MSM. I don't think that's entirely right. While blogs can make a stir with original reporting and commentary, such as Matt's recent post on RI's housing mafia, the blogosphere's growth is more a byproduct of a changing media landscape.
This can be seen in the explosive growth of HuffPost, as today's NYT reports:
When Ms. Huffington, the 57-year-old author and former conservative pundit, announced her plans for The Huffington Post three years ago, many critics dismissed the idea as a digital dinner party for her new liberal friends. But it has grown in ways that few, except perhaps Ms. Huffington herself, expected.
In February, The Huffington Post drew 3.7 million unique visitors, according to Nielsen Online, for the first time beating out The Drudge Report, the conservative tip sheet with which The Post is often compared. On Technorati, a blog search tool, The Huffington Post is the second-most-linked-to blog, behind only the technology site TechCrunch. As Roy Sekoff, the site’s editor, said, “We’ve always wanted to be part of the national conversation.”
When Barack Obama made his first public remarks about his controversial pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., he did so in a post on the site. “It was immediately picked up everywhere,” Ms. Huffington recalled. “It helps to be bookmarked by the mainstream media.” ....
According to one person who was briefed on discussions but was not permitted to speak for attribution, the company has at least looked at the value of the site if it were put up for sale, and a figure around $200 million was used. That would put the price at more than $50 for each visitor, a high valuation. Using the site’s internal figures, 14 million unique visitors for the most recent month, the price would be closer to $15 for each user.
This is well and good. In crisis, there is opportunity, and more Facebook and YouTube-style new media darlings will emerge in the months and years to come.
The danger, at least for now, is how very few blogs come remotely close to producing as much original reporting as dead-tree newspapers -- which are steadily downsizing and shrinking their commitments. Maybe TPM will serve as a model for a new way.
Yet even if Governor Carcieri and some of his supporters don't much like the ProJo these days, we should agree that the paper has long played an important role in rooting out corruption and wrongdoing. The shame will be if this tradition fades over time.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
In following up in this week's Phoenix on the news that ProJo executive editor Joel Rawson is retiring at the end of April, I use an anecdote from my first story, back in 2000, on the changing face of the Providence Journal. The delay in critical in-house coverage of the :CueCat, a tech boondoggle backed in part by the Belo Corporation, the ProJo's Dallas-based parent, had signaled how the Journal's commitment to self-scrutiny was withering. Yet considering how the paper had changed three years earlier, from a locally owned small jewel of journalism to a distant hub in Belo's sprawling corporate media empire, this wasn't much of a surprise.
As it turned out, that was one of the very few times in which Rawson talked with me during my ongoing coverage of the ProJo. This stance has been curious for an editor who has steadily pushed for the public's right to know (an irony not lost on some of the staffers on Fountain Street), but it can also be understood in the changed internal politics of Rhode Island's statewide daily (particularly with the bitter labor conflict that persisted from 1999 until 2003).
Yet Rawson is a distinguished newsman first and foremost, and he has played a huge role in Rhode Island journalism:
“I think he cared about the newsroom in a way that not many people have,” says metro columnist Bob Kerr, who credits Rawson with handing him his assignment 14 years ago. “And I think he protected it for a long time during the decline, during the decline of the paper.” Kerr says it’s his sense that, as autonomy of the newsroom gradually eroded, “I think he tried to keep us able to do what we do without too many outside influences. I think that’s how many people will remember him.”
While Rawson would have been required to retire when he turns 65 next March, one reporter, who requested anonymity, says staffers were nonetheless surprised by the news of his impending departure, since “he has been so much a part of the paper for so many years.”
Phoenix contributor Brian C. Jones, who spent more than 30 years at the Journal, was particularly eloquent in assessing Rawson's impact:
Via e-mail, Jones writes, “Rawson changed the way the Journal told its stories, weaning reporters from pedestrian, formulaic stories that read like every other story spilling out of the news assembly line. He introduced writers to narrative story-telling, borrowing techniques of filmmakers and novelists, bringing out the excitement, emotion and nuance that often bleached out in conventional news writing.
“He engineered the paper’s trademark: the really big story. I mean big, literally, as in enormous, in-depth, page-after page stories; Stories that reporters worked on for months, even years; stories that when they finally were written ran day after day, sometimes week after week. And he did this at a time when most other papers, led by USA Today, declared that readers have short attentions and small brains, crying to be fed their news in tiny bits and crumbs.
“Rawson-style marathons explored the state’s jewelry industry, the inner workings of its international toy company, the mind of a serial killer, joblessness, the dying days of a man fighting to his right to die, the work of a bishop, the perilous lives of illegal immigrants, the tragedy of the Station nightclub fire. He once gave me a year to interview five families to chart the changing nature of American households, and another year to do a series about how men’s roles where evolving with a changing economy.”
As Rawson prepares to leaves, the newspaper industry continues its downward trend. The challenge facing his philosophical successors, industry-wide, is helping to create a future which provides a financial underpinning for the robust journalistic commitment marked by the bygone heyday of print.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Joel P. Rawson, the executive editor of the Providence Journal, has told fellow employees that he is retiring, effective April 29.
Rawson's career at the ProJo bridges the headier days of fuller staffing and greater journalistic ambition in the '70s and '80s to the current uncertainty and anxiety facing the newspaper industry. He is known as a consummate journalist who played an important role in elevating the national reputation of Rhode Island's dominant daily.
While the ProJo is a thinner imitation of its former self, the paper, in part through multiple buyouts, has avoided the kind of sharp layoffs that have taken place at many papers. And the ProJo still plays a vital role in unearthing corruption and offering the most detailed coverage of government in Rhode Island.
There is no clear word on succession, although new media czar Tom Heslin would almost certainly be on any short list.
Rawson communicated his retirement, long speculated upon by ProJo types, in conversations with a few people in the newsroom today. The word quickly spread throughout the staff. (Rawson did not immediately return a voice mail left on his phone line.)
I'll post more on this tomorrow, but I wanted to get the news out. [UPDATE: I'll be writing about Rawson's retirement for this week's Phoenix, so I'm going to hold off on additional blogging on the subject.]
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The ProJo sports columnist's bit is one of the first things I go for in the Saturday paper.
Here are two of Chairman Bill's highlights from today:
•Line of the Week comes from former PC great Marvin Barnes: “I went to two great institutions in the state. PC and the ACI.”
•Line of the Week II comes from Buddy Cianci, who when told on his radio show that his comatta had been the city of Providence, said, “Yeah, I used to wrap my arms around Olneyville every night.”
Saturday, March 01, 2008
As befits the intense presidential fight in Rhode Island -- which gets front-page attention in today's New York Times -- last night's Providence Newspaper Guild Follies had some high-profile guests from the world of national politics. The event, held at the Venus de Milo in Swansea, Massachusetts, ritualistically takes place on the last Friday in February.
Chelsea Clinton, in town to campaign for her mother, was squired around by US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. And US Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic nominee in 2004, turned up as a surprise guest about a third of the way into the program, upstaging the eventual Mystery Guests, Attorney General Patrick "Superdelegateman" Lynch, his Clinton-supporting brother Bill, chief of the RI Democratic Party, and their mother, who mediated their clashing presidential choices. Vote your conscience, she said.
Kerry, seeming more loose than he appeared from afar in 2004, offered a deft comedic touch, yet he also upset some of the Clinton supporters in the audience of more than 1200 by closing with an impassioned endorsement of Obama.
After Kerry was introduced, the audience seemed to anticipate something other than the actual senator. As he bounded on stage and was recognized, Kerry called himself the best you can get on a Friday night in Massachusetts when Ted Kennedy isn't available. Surveying the packed crowd of Rhode Islanders, he said, "[So] this is what four electoral votes looks like."
Kerry went on to call the gathering the biggest collection of Ocean State pols since a 2005 get-together at the Allenwood Federal Pen. Having paid so much for so little "makes us like Mitt Romney's supporters right now," he said. Kerry explained how some of the past and present presidential contenders couldn't make the event, Fred Thompson since his wife has "a lot of homework this weekend," and John McCain because "he used to date Venus de Milo."
The junior Bay State senator spoke of his recent trip to Pakistan, a place "where the candidates are Swift-goated," and where some hot air vented by Joe Biden, one of his traveling companions, helped to right their listing aircraft.
In contrast to memorable remarks associated with FDR and JFK, Kerry lamented he will be remembered for the phrase, "Don't Tase me, bro." He brightened, though, in outlining hopes for environmental Dems and death-penalty Republicans to come together -- thanks to a solar-powered electric chair.
Turning more serious, Kerry recalled talking with President Bush after the 2004 election and telling him of the need to bring the country together. The senator called Obama the best person to immediately begin that process. The Illinois senator, Kerry said, has the potential "to turn the page of history," and to be "a transformational, not a transitional" leader. Responding to critiques that Obama lacks experience, Kerry pointed to the scant previous national time in office of Abraham Lincoln, the man who observered that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
The forceful partisan endorsement led to cries of "Hillary!" from some of the Clinton supporters in the audience. The Obama supporters loved it.
Friday, February 29, 2008
The Providence Newpaper Guild's annual Follies, the most Rhode Island-related fun that someone can have while eating and drinking in Massachusetts, takes place tonight, as always, at the Venus de Milo in not-too-distant Swansea. By statutory requirement, the event can not take place in the Ocean State. (It's sold out, if you don't already have tix.)
The Follies is a satirical send-up of the year in Rhode Island news, performed by Journal employees and co-conspirators, accompanied by a rich high-cholesterol buffet and a thronged cocktail hour featuring lively chatter among pols, reporters, and more than 1000 assorted movers and shakers. The whole thing began in the early-mid '70s as a way of healing the wounds of a brief but bitter strike at the ProJo. And in terms of creative fodder, not for nothing, but Vo Dilun is the gift that keeps giving, as we inkie wretches like to say.
One highlight of the night is the reveal of a Mystery Guest from the world of politics. Last year, Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts did a bravura turn, playing against her friendly, down-to-earth manner as a secretly hyper-controlling Machiavellian of the first order. A very young lad portrayed Paul Tencher, her 20-something chief of staff.
Other Mystery Guests in recent years include Bill Murphy + Joe Montalbano, David Cicilline, Linc Chafee, and Patrick Kennedy.
As always, we expect a great show. And since Chelsea Clinton is in town to campaign for her mother, as part of Rhode Island's hard-fought March 4 primary, could she be the One? Ted Kennedy is another possibility.
Hey, what could be better than the both of them?
Stay tuned.
At any rate, Guild members can be thankful about the ProJo's relatively frugal style of management, and how the paper, unlike the New York Times-owned Boston Globe and Worcester T+G, isn't seeing sharp staffing cuts.
In related news, Guild administrator Tim Schick, a shameless ham during his annual on-stage moments, is a busy guy these days. Not only has he been rehearsing and overseeing the distribution of Follies' tickets, Schick is managing the top of one of the two slates facing off during a national Guild convention at the Providence Westin (rank and file will vote in an Apri electionl). About 180 Guild folk from across the states, Canada, and Puerto Rico are in town.
In what Schick calls the first contested races in 12 years, he is co-managing A Stonger Guild, topped by Bernie Lunzer, currently secretary-treasurer of the organization. Lunzer is challenging incumbent Linda Foley of Team Guild. Regarding the convention, which began yesterday, Schick says, "I'm sure there will be lots of fireworks."
With the newspaper industry in a continued state of change and high anxiety, Schick says, "A lot of the concerns deal with how the Guild as an organization is approaching these issues, and what sort of influence we can have on the employers to listen to us."
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Ed Achorn had a strong column yesterday about the questions that remain unanswered about the February 2003 Station nightclub disaster, and he's right to give his employer -- the ProJo -- a lot of the credit for leading the quest for information about the deadly fire.
Why did Rhode Island, in stark contrast to Massachusetts after the Coconut Grove disaster (1942) or New York after the Triangle fire (1911), fail to demand accountability from its well-compensated officials — those responsible for protecting the public?
Why did it fail to ask officials, under oath, why the standing-room occupancy of the Station was dramatically raised, from 253 to as high as 404? Why did it fail to explore the reason 462 people were allowed into the club the night of the fire? Why did it refuse to ask how inspectors could have neglected to notice highly flammable foam all over the Station’s walls?
Yet today, once again, it's another news organization, the Associated Press, that is breaking news about the Station and its aftermath, this time with an Eric Tucker story (via the Boston Globe):
PROVIDENCE - The man who set off the pyrotechnics that sparked a 2003 nightclub fire that killed 100 people will be released from prison on March 19, an official at the state corrections department said yesterday.
Daniel Biechele, the former tour manager for the rock band Great White, has been at the state prison since May 2006 for his role in the fire at The Station nightclub in West Warwick.
Besides the 100 people killed, more than 200 others were injured in the fourth-deadliest nightclub fire in US history.
Biechele pleaded guilty two years ago to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter, admitting that he ignited the pyrotechnics without the required permit on the night of Feb. 20, 2003.
He was sentenced to four years in prison and will be released on parole after completing less than half of that sentence.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
The Boston Globe today scoops the ProJo with the news of a potential settlement, in a case against WPRI-TV, stemming from the February 2003 Station fire disaster (disclosure: I am an unpaid weekly panelist on WPRI's Newsmakers).
The Rhode Island television news outlet whose cameraman was filming inside The Station nightclub when a fire killed 100 people has reached a tentative $30 million settlement with families and survivors, the biggest civil settlement stemming from the 2003 tragedy so far, according to two sources familiar with the case.
The images recorded by cameraman Brian Butler provided haunting evidence of the fire's ignition by a pyrotechnics display during a performance of the band Great White and the ensuing panic. His footage has also been used extensively by criminal investigators and civil litigants to build cases.
Butler was, ironically, filming a segment about nightclub safety for station WPRI-TV, whose reporter, Jeffrey Derderian, was a co-owner of The Station nightclub, when the fire broke out. In a federal lawsuit, Butler was accused of blocking an exit while filming, making it difficult for patrons to flee, an allegation that Butler's lawyer has previously and strenuously denied.
The $30 million settlement tentatively reached in mediation last week involves plaintiffs, LIN-TV (the Providence-based owner of the TV station), WPRI-TV, and Butler. According to the two sources, the settlement was propelled as much by a wrinkle in Rhode Island law as it was by any admission of wrongdoing. In Rhode Island, an insurer who rejects a written settlement demand can be forced to pay a judgment handed down by a jury later, even if that judgment is greater than total insurance coverage.
It is the largest settlement so far in the massive civil case pending in US District Court in Providence, which has hundreds of plaintiffs and more than 50 defendants. Last year, several companies settled claims worth a combined $18.5 million. Dozens of defendants remain, including Derderian and his brother, Michael, who co-owned the club; Anheuser-Busch Inc., which sold beer at the concert; and Clear Channel Communications, which owns a Providence radio station which ran advertisements promoting the show.
Among other defendants remaining are the state of Rhode Island, the Town of West Warwick, members of Great White, and various manufacturers of foam insulation that fueled the fire.
The latest settlement was mediated by Paul Finn of Commonwealth Mediation, who decided two years ago how much approximately 550 victims of sexual abuse by priests would receive from the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that Butler caused the death of an undetermined number of people by standing in a doorway and filming the chaos.
"Rather than leaving the building, or assisting patrons of The Station to escape," says the suit, "Butler stood within the building, directly in an egress route, and filmed distressed patrons trying to leave the nightclub. Butler's actions directly impeded the exit of patrons and contributed to the slowdown, backup, and additional logjam for those attempting to leave through the main exit."
At last week's session, Butler insisted he did not block anyone's escape and filmed only briefly as he was leaving the club, the two sources said. After Butler first spotted the flames, he kept his camera running as he exited the club. Plaintiffs charge that he paused at the door for 10 to 15 seconds, an allegation that was in dispute, one source said.
Butler's lawyer, Charles "Chip" Babcock, could not be reached for comment. But he insisted when Butler was added to the lawsuit in August 2004 that Butler did nothing wrong, saying that "Brian Butler saved lives that night." He also implied that Butler was sued because his employer had vast resources that could be tapped by the plaintiffs.
The ProJo has done a voluminous amount of reporting about the Station fire and its aftermath, much of it representing a valuable public service. At the same time, this isn't the first time that out-of-towners have set the pace on some of the important stories related to the fallout of the disaster.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
UPDATE: Here it is.
....
A day before the holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the ProJo's Mark Arsenault brings his considerable narrative skills to bear with a sweeping takeout today on the challenges and accomplishments of gays and lesbians in Rhode Island. Along the way, he uncovers some fascinating history and talks up related topics with Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin.
Curiously, although the ProJo -- according to what I read in print this morning -- plans to support Arsenault's package with an online multi-media presentation, I just spent about three minutes searching and couldn't find his main story on the ProJo's Web site. Whether by accident or design, a lot more attention, not surprisingly, is devoted to the Patriots' game this afternoon.
At any rate, Arsenault's work on this subject is a public service, and it continues the Journal's forays into in-depth reporting.
And if you want an example of how the stigma that some associate with homosexuality can still have lethal consequences, consider this case from a few years ago, when a vice bust in Johnston was followed by a media frenzy and the suicide of one of the men who was arrested.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
As expected, the Providence Newspaper Guild last week ratified a new three-year contract. According to the Guild's Web site, the vote last Wednesday was 228-to-17, with more than 70 percent of members taking part.
I reported on the agreement on December 21:
In remarkable contrast to the acrimony that preceded their current pact, the Providence Journal and the Providence Newspaper Guild reached agreement yesterday on a new three-year contract, intended to run from January 1 through the end of 2010. The deal includes a three percent raise in the first year; two percent or whatever is received by the Teamsters or the Pressmans' Union, whichever is higher, in the second year; and the same raise as the other unions in the final year.
Members of the Guild, which represents more than 400 reporters, photographers, and other workers at the ProJo, are scheduled to vote on the contract January 9. The union's bargaining committee has unanimously recommended voting in favor of it.
The Guild's last contract agreement, in 2003, came after four years of a divisive union-management battle that left many employees with a bitter taste following the Belo Corporation's 1997 acquisition of the ProJo. The pain of the last battle, as I reported earlier this month, left both sides in a decidely more collaborative state of mind.
"It's a pleasant change," Guild administrator Tim Schick says. "To be in a situation where you can have constructive dialogue and work at problem-solving, not just in terms of this round of bargaining, but in what's been going on in the last couple of years [is] a lot more preferable than duking it out and litigating everything. It's the way labor relations should be practiced. It doesn't mean we resolved all our problems .... but we currently have a better situation than most newspapers do."
Schick calls the agreement "a reasonable deal given the state of the economy and what's been going on in the newspaper industry right now." Initial feedback "is that most people are satisfied with it. There are aspects that some people don't like, but ultimately we'll know where the members stand on January 9."
Sunday, December 23, 2007
It wouldn't be the holiday season in Rhode Island without Charlie Bakst's annual poetic greeting, and it's good to see this back this year, as M. Charles himself explains:
Chanukah’s lights have blazed, now comes Christmas in tow,
So this would be my 21st holiday poem in a row.
But in a chapter of my life I’d much prefer to heave
I found myself last December on a medical leave.
Thus, this is only the 20th time I’m sending out greetings
To officials who dominate debates and meetings.
But also to others who have a skill or a gift
To entertain, to educate, to give Rhode Islanders a lift.
I revere reader loyalty, I’m much in your debt,
And if you’ll just bear with me, I’ll get the hang of this yet.
And just in time, because big things are coming,
The presidential election already is humming.
We know that Charlie has a strong social conscience, yet he proves himself quite the clever wordsmith:
Let’s visit the State House, where there seems a great fuss,
Workers are unloading barrels from two trucks and a bus.
You’ve got to see this, pay attention, don’t blink:
It’s the world’s largest supply of flowing red ink.
Don Carcieri ordered it, but that doesn’t mean the gov should be fired,
After all, for a problem this large some Assembly was required. ....
The governor’s bills go to die in legislative chambers and halls,
With House Speaker Bill Murphy making most of those calls.
Certainly House legislation suffers from a pox
Unless it’s backed by Majority Leader Gordon Fox.
And by Rep. Steve Costantino, who tries to be fair
In House Finance, where he presides as the chair.
Hi to Portsmouth’s Amy Rice, of the Democratic side,
With her 10-vote reelection, you can call her Landslide.
The funny thing here is how Charlie, a Red Sox season ticket holder and diehard fan, somehow forgot to mention the home town team's World Series triump in 2007! Mr. Bakst, is the new paradigm of Sox' success dulling your senses?
Friday, December 21, 2007
In remarkable contrast to the acrimony that preceded their current pact, the Providence Journal and the Providence Newspaper Guild reached agreement yesterday on a new three-year contract, intended to run from January 1 through the end of 2010. The deal includes a three percent raise in the first year; two percent or whatever is received by the Teamsters or the Pressmans' Union, whichever is higher, in the second year; and the same raise as the other unions in the final year.
Members of the Guild, which represents more than 400 reporters, photographers, and other workers at the ProJo, are scheduled to vote on the contract January 9. The union's bargaining committee has unanimously recommended voting in favor of it.
The Guild's last contract agreement, in 2003, came after four years of a divisive union-management battle that left many employees with a bitter taste following the Belo Corporation's 1997 acquisition of the ProJo. The pain of the last battle, as I reported earlier this month, left both sides in a decidely more collaborative state of mind.
"It's a pleasant change," Guild administrator Tim Schick says. "To be in a situation where you can have constructive dialogue and work at problem-solving, not just in terms of this round of bargaining, but in what's been going on in the last couple of years [is] a lot more preferable than duking it out and litigating everything. It's the way labor relations should be practiced. It doesn't mean we resolved all our problems .... but we currently have a better situation than most newspapers do."
Schick calls the agreement "a reasonable deal given the state of the economy and what's been going on in the newspaper industry right now." Initial feedback "is that most people are satisfied with it. There are aspects that some people don't like, but ultimately we'll know where the members stand on January 9."
The deal comes as the ProJo reports today that Belo is writing down the value of Rhode Island's statewide daily:
The Providence Journal is worth less today than it was 10 years ago, when it was bought by Belo Corp., of Dallas, Texas.
The same is true for a newspaper in Riverside, Calif., which Belo also bought 10 years ago.
To account for the decline in value of its Providence and Riverside newspapers, Belo will have to lower the value of the assets it carries on its balance sheet. Belo’s net worth — the amount by which the company’s total assets exceed its total liabilities — will probably drop, too.
The write-down in the value of the Providence and Riverside properties will also result in a charge against Belo’s earnings for the three-month period that will end Dec. 31, according to a document that Belo has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington, D.C.
Here are some of the additional highlights of the new contract agreement, as described on the Guild's Web site:
Medical benefits: No change, employees will still pay 15 percent of the health care co-pay.
Upgrades: Upgrades for 31 employees, with wage increases ranging from of 5.2 to 8.7 percent
Sales goals: The Company will now provide advertising reps with sales incentives within 10 business days of any new goals period.
Short-term disability: Employees will now receive 70 percent of their total pay while out on STD; except following childbirth, which will remain at 100 percent.
Cell phone policy: Employees required to use their cell phones for work will receive a minimum of $50 a month in reimbursement.
Mileage reimbursement: The auto allowance has been increased to $50 a week.
Online video: A two-year trial period between Company and Guild has been agreed to on the use of online sound and video on ProJo.com.
Leaves of absence: Long-term disability leaves will be capped at one year and a system of light duty work will be implemented for employees injured on the job.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Every November, the Audit Bureau of Circulations releases more sad news about the sinking circulation of America's biggest newspapers. The Providence Journal hasn't been immune from this trend, but as I describe in this week's Phoenix, the paper is fairing relatively well: it maintains its traditionally strong market penetration, its crown jewels (including the four-person investigative team) remain intact, and if the ProJo is thinner and less ambitious than in the past, it has also been spared the big layoffs seen at a number of once-great metro dailies.
And unlike in 1999, when a protracted and bitter labor dispute broke out between management and the Providence Newspaper Guild, amicable relations have marked the run-up to what is expected later this month to be a new three-year contract agreement.
Now, as a leading part of the effort to push more readers to its Web site, projo.com, the Journal (and its parent Belo Corporation) are placing a heightened emphasis on its coverage of high school football.
So if propelling readers online through printed sports section references is part of what might help preserve the ProJo’s journalistic mission in the years to come, that seems quite reasonable. The sad thing, though, in a time of widespread retrenchment in the newspaper industry, is how trying to preserve a diminished status quo appears to be about as good as it gets.
The ProJo and Belo are bullish in assessing their respective places in a fast-changing media environment.
In a marketing blurb on its Web site, for example, the ProJo touts its “quality circulation,” and how, “Most of our readers have the Journal delivered to their homes: 74 percent of our daily circulation and 65 percent of our Sunday circulation, to be exact — one of the highest home-delivery counts in the nation! That means you can reach your audience right where they live.”
In its 2006 annual report, Belo was similarly upbeat: “Throughout its 165-year history, Belo has emerged from every major industry transition in a strong position. As we venture through the current changes in media-usage habits, we are maintaining and expanding Belo’s core competency: delivering distinguished journalistic content to the local communities we serve.”
It’s closer to the mark, however, to recognize that the ProJo occupies more of a middle role in the highly uncertain and still-unfolding transition between the print and Internet eras.
On one hand, an ongoing public-minded tradition can be seen in how the paper’s investigative and State House reporters did much of the spade work preceding the investigation and conviction of two corrupt former state legislators, John Celona and Gerard Martineau. The ProJo generally does a good job in covering the top stories of the day and marshaling its resources for big stories. And G. Wayne Miller’s voluminous recent series on Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin offered a deep look at a subject presumably of strong interest in such a heavily Catholic state.
Yet while the ProJo remains a must-read for Rhode Islanders who want to remain informed, there are days when it represents a very quick read — a point sometimes made by its own readers.
As Kevin J. Corey of Cranston wrote a in a letter to the editor published last Saturday, “I have noticed for some time now the Journal has had very little content and is mostly advertising. In the past I enjoyed reading human interest, science and a variety of articles. The subscription price we pay is for a diverse newspaper, not an advertising flyer with a limited number of articles. Please return your newspaper to the quality publication it used to be.” . . . .
The hyper-local focus signified by scholastic football and hsgametime.com represents a back-to-basics approach for the ProJo, which made its bones by mixing above-average journalistic ambition with a strongly local orientation.
Yet the narrow slice of hyper-localism also marks a contradiction from how the paper, once a pioneer in offering statewide coverage through a network of suburban bureaus, closed most of these offices last year — except for those in Wakefield and Bristol — and assigned the corresponding staffers to cover their old beats from the main office in downtown Providence.
It tells a lot about the current state of the industry that some insiders are left with contradictory feelings: describing the cost-cutting as pragmatic because of the expense of maintaining the former offices, yet hoping, too, that the new hyper-localism presages a heightened emphasis on local events.
But you can’t have it both ways, not in this day and age. As one reporter wonders, “Everyone’s in uncharted waters — how do you square that circle?”
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Kudos and congrats to the ProJo's Cynthia Needham, who has landed the State House assignment vacated when Elizabeth Gudrais decamped for Harvard Magazine.
Needham, a graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, is an experienced scribe at the ProJo, having taken on a variety of assignments since covering the Blackstone Valley earlier in her tenure.
As Needham joins Steve Peoples and the redoutable Kathy Gregg, the ProJo's State House bureau will be at full strength when legislative action resumes in early January.
Two longtime Belo Corporation executives have been named to head the newspaper group recently spun-off by the Dallas-based outfit (h/t Romenesko):
Robert W. Decherd, Belo's chairman and chief executive, will assume the role of chairman, president and CEO of the newspaper company, as previously announced. He will also serve as nonexecutive chairman of Belo, the television company.
James M. Moroney III will become executive vice president of the newspaper company, with oversight responsibility for papers including The News, The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif., and the Providence (R.I.) Journal.
Mr. Moroney will continue to serve as publisher and CEO of The News , and he will replace Mr. Decherd on the board of The Providence Journal Co. Mr. Moroney will also join Belo Corp.'s board of directors after the spinoff.
"Jim has done an outstanding job as publisher and CEO of The Dallas Morning News since he assumed the position in 2001," Mr. Decherd said. "He has been a driving force in leading numerous transformational initiatives that have improved Belo's newspaper products and operations."
Skip Cass will also serve as executive vice president of the newspaper company after the spinoff, in the same role he now has overseeing Belo's companywide Internet, business development and technology activities.
Mr. Moroney and Mr. Cass will both report to Mr. Decherd.
Monday, November 12, 2007
On one level, I guess it should be a point of pride when the MSM picks up the work of us humble bloggers. On another level, we are increasingly becoming a tip sheet for Rhode Island's dominant daily (whose 7 to 7 blog is taking the day off, btw.)
So last week, Matt reported on Steve Kass perhaps being a bit out of the loop.
Today, Political Scene reports on Steve Kass perhaps being a bit out of the loop.
We've seen this before.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Conspicuously absent from today's ProJo coverage of John Simmons's ascension to the top job at the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council is any mention of the recent Fund for Providence issue. Buddy Cianci and Dan Yorke, who have used this topic to deem Simmons unfit for the RIPEC job, will no doubt focus more criticism on this development today.
In a nutshell, the Fund for Providence, which is managed by the Rhode Island Foundation, previously paid a chunk of Simmons's salary as director of administration in Providence. A few years back, Yorke seized on the anonymity of the donor/donors as being at odds with good government and David Cicilline's self-description for transparency. Cicilline has defended the approach, noting the city was facing a $60 million deficit after he came into office, and describing the | |