One Year After The Vampire Bit

October 29, 2009 --

October 29, 2008, is one of those days that will always stand out for me. There are three reasons.

• After several days of rain, the Phillies finally closed out their World Series win.
• Arsenal wee-weed away a two-goal lead in stoppage time in a 4-4 draw against bitter rivals Tottenham.
• The guy who runs this place: www.jsicapital.com/jsi_contactus.cfm, who shall hence be known as "The Vampire," called me into his office, closed the door behind him, and, without even looking me in the eye, said, "I'm going to let you go," after less than nine weeks on the job.

Getting canned is one of those things that affects your worldview. It sure has mine.

The funny part about it is that I took that job largely out of fear I was soon to be laid off from my job as night sports editor at The Union Leader. I figured I'd rather jump than be pushed from the sinking ship that is newspapers, because I thought I couldn't endure the mental trauma of being let go from a job.

Yeah, life's funny like that, isn't it?

But this is a good news/bad news story. I still don't have a full-time job, but being fired hasn't been nearly the soul-crushing event I'd feared (nowhere near as soul-crushing as spending nine weeks in an office with The Vampire, that's for sure). I'll spare you the "discovering-my-inner-resourcefulness" psychobabble and just say, hey, I'm still here. That has to count for something.

And in some ways it's been a great year. Since that day I've:

• Had Thanksgiving and Christmas off for the first time in 10 years.
• Traveled to Colombia and Ireland.
• Started a master's degree program in counseling.
• Not missed a meal, mortgage payment or bill.
• Not taken on a penny of credit card debt.
• Learned we're expecting our fourth child.
• Not gone a week without working.
• Turned down a full-time job offer (the money was short and the schedule not workable).

We have complicated relationships with our work. (BTW, that line isn't mine. I stole it from a friend after a great Facebook chat the other night.) We place huge importance on it -- more than the income it generates. It defines us in a lot of ways. Yet, given the option, many of us would bail out of work the first chance we get. And, as we've discovered in the past year or so, a lot of employers are more than happy to kick folks out the door at the first sign of trouble.

But it hasn't been work that has helped me get through the past year. It's been family and friends. It's been the realization that I have a ton of support from so very many people (more than I deserve, really) who care only that I'm happy, healthy and thriving. Whether or not I'm working full-time or making a robust income doesn't seem to factor into the way they feel about me.

And some of that support has translated into the work I've gotten. I am very lucky to have friends who have confidence in the work I can do, and they've thrown enough my way to keep a modest income going. That's been very gratifying. I confess to being a bit unsettled at depending on part-time work, especially when the bulk of it is on-call, but it's been a year and the hours always seem to be there when I need them. It's as if someone's looking out for me, y'know?

Speaking of looking out for me, time to recognize the one who's done the most to get me from one year ago to today. People chuckle when I call Olga the Fabulous Bride, but if you'd lived the past year I have, you'd understand why that's the best name I can come up with for her, and why it still manages to fall far short of the mark. I've depended on her completely -- emotionally, physically and financially -- and that burden hasn't once seemed to cause her to worry or be weary. I live with her and still I can't grasp how she manages to be so reliable and present to an employer, dozens of students, three children and a husband. Some people are unfairly and unfathomably gifted, and I was smart enough to marry one.

And what about the children? The great thing about kids is that they don't see you as your job or your income. They see you as Mom or Dad and they love you because of that. How else to explain my eldest son, who shortly after I was fired gave up recess, went into the church at his school and prayed for me to find work. He didn't do it because he worried that Christmas was going to be light. He didn't do it because he worried for our family. He did it because he knew I was hurting, and he didn't want me to hurt anymore. Do you have any idea how proud I am to be raising a kid like that? The fact that, when I come home, my little ones come to the door for hugs and kisses means more to me now than ever. What a great lesson to learn.

Lessons? What have I gained from the past year? I guess only this: A job is a business arrangement. When you or an employer have no more use for one another, one of you will end the arrangement. Business is nasty, brutish and short. Relationships last, and good relationships last through good times and bad.

If you're in a tenuous or unfulfilling job situation, here's my advice: Grab hold of the people who mean the most to you. Understand that they will be there long after the business arrangement has ended. Let them be there for you through trying times. And know that they, more than anyone else, are the folks who believe in you and will be your biggest supporters.

One of my journalism professors at BU (in whose honor the men's room in a Kenmore Square pub is named) was fond of the phrase, "May you live in interesting times," which he said was a Chinese curse. I don't know if that's true. But I do know that I believed losing my job would be a curse. Instead, I have found the most interesting of times. I hope I can say the same on October 29, 2010.

More on the future of journalism

Matt's last post is a great read.

It has not been a good past few years in the print journalism. But it's really ramped up the past few weeks.

The lynchpin was the demise of the Rocky Mountain News at the end of February. This was the proverbial canary in the coal mine. I have a friend and former co-worker who was in that newsroom, which was told on Thursday that they were putting out the paper's final edition that night. That was it - a business that was two months shy of its 150th anniversary went "poof!"

I think one of the problems we've run into in newspapers the past few years was a simple attitude of how there would always be a place for print, even in a crowded media landscape. (I plead guilty to this as well.) After all, people have been writing the, ahem, obituary of newspapers since radio was invented.

Thing was, those changes with broadcast media happened gradually and there was a clear delineation between the styles of broadcast journalism and print journalism. So even when TV came out, people knew they had to go to newspapers for the stories that couldn't be covered in a half-hour or even an hour of nightly news.

Now, print has been challenged by something that has blossomed nearly overnight in the scheme of things and has nearly unlimited content. And newspapers' space is ever-shrinking.

It doesn't matter how all this happened. Quite frankly, I'm sick and tired of the hand-wringing and analysis of why this has happened, which is why I've kept my venting as brief as possible. I want to know what we can do. And when it will happen.

-JDE2

The future of journalism is up for grabs

Fantastic item by a gent named Clay Shirky on the demise of the newspaper. If I can boil it down, the point it this: Publishers have known for a long time that what's happening now was a freight train bearing down on them. They tried any number of things to maintain their industrial-era newspaper structures in the digital age. Nothing worked, and those structures are now collapsing before us.

What replaces them? Nobody knows. The Internet is still in its relative infancy. It's critical that journalism -- not necessarily newspapers, as Mr. Shirky makes the distinction -- survive, and he believes it will, but contends no one can know what that survival will look like.

This has been part of my own thought process. I no longer have any confidence that journalism, at least in the near term, is a viable business where one can make a confident living. And, ultimately, in the midst of all the platitudes about a free society's need for good journalism, for me the most compelling thing of all is that I am not blessed with family wealth, so I have to have an income-generating skill to survive. Right now journalism isn't it. And no one knows when journalism will again become a way to make a confident living. And if it takes 10 years, well, I don't have 10 years. The only option is to find a new career. Not exactly what I had hoped for as a 40th birthday present, but it is what it is.

http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/

-- MJM

Bitter Post-Super Bowl Rant

Congrats to the freakin' Steelers, even though I don't like them very much.

But here's my bitter observation: After being taken to the final minute by a tough and gritty team that gave its all, not a single Steeler said a word about the gallant effort the Cardinals put in.

And it occurred to me that if the Patriots or Bill Belichick did that, an entire nation would never let them hear the end of it.

It's true. I'm still bitter about last year. So shoot me.

-- MJM

And hey, France makes a nice corporate jet

The latest example of corporate clulessness has apparently been averted: Citigroup has decided against spending $50 million on a new corporate jet after some folks pointed out that didn't look too cool for a firm that just received $45 BILLION in government bailout funds.

Hey Citi jackasses - fly coach and get over it. Sacrifices have to be made.

And what is also not mentioned is that the jet is made by a French company (though at least the interior is customized in Little Rock, Ark.)

-JDE2

Vive Le France!

From our main man Alan Mutter: France's plan to bail out newspapers, and why it won't happen here.

And while I love the idea of saving our jobs, the bottom line is that the "good angel" just went "poof!" on my shoulder to point out to my principled side that government aid to newspapers is a bad idea, for obvious reasons. ("How come you spiked that story on the conditions for veterans at that Walter Reed site?" "Ohhh, nothing . . . no reason. . . ")

Sigh. . . .

-JDE2

Reach out and touch someone

I know, again, I haven't posted in a while. Laziness is only part of it.

This blog was started partly as a fun exercise, and partly to dust off writing muscles that had grown stale since becoming an editor. And while I try to write this without sounding self-pitying, it's not as much fun now, sad to say.

Truth is, these are tough days in the newspaper industry (duh). And while I try not to bitch too much, it's hard to watch an industry I dearly love go down the tubes.

By nature, I'm more skeptic than optimist, so it's tough for me to see a bright side. Especially when every day seems to bring news of more layoffs across the board in all industries, not just here in the fourth estate.

Even President Obama's magnificent inaugural address, with its solid message of determination in the face of adversity, can't temper the sobering reality it also outlined: We're in deep doo-doo.

But there is one ray of sunshine when I hop on the Web now: Facebook.

Look, I work on the Web, but I don't get to play on the Web that much. It's hard to explain.

However, my wife joined Facebook and LinkedIn earlier this year, and she is now an addict. To be fair, she uses her account for mostly professional purposes. Many of her Facebook contacts are co-workers and professional colleagues.

At first, I was skeptical. First of all, I'm not the most social of people. But all it took was one incredibly nice friend invite on Facebook from someone I wouldn't have expected to open my friends list up. And make me re-think this whole thing.

Let's face it: High school, timed to coincide with all the awkwardness of adolesence, can be a special circle of hell. At least it was for me. I haven't kept in touch with many people from there.

But I have to look in the mirror for a lot of why high school sucked, too. I was a bit of a self-absorbed jerk. OK, I'm probably still a bit of a self-absorbed jerk.

Then again, our class, the smallest in our high school's history (an honor I believe we still hold) was also known for (and at the time, prided itself on) its apathy.

But with one click from the batch of friend invites I got, I got to see a childhood friend's beautiful triplets for the first time. He's not the only one with kids now. We're all at or near 40, with children of various ages. Amazing.

And it hit me: Maybe we can all grow up a bit in 22 years.

Even me.

-JDE2

Uh, Happy New Year?

Just an observation while at work today: Some people seem to be in seriously cranky moods, judging by our message boards.

We had some rather innocuous features today (to be expected on a holiday) that seemed to stick in people's collective craws. There was the obligatory first baby of 2009 story, a nice piece on how seventh-graders are trying to make the Chinook the state dog, and another feature on a guy who enlisted in the Army at 39 (Note: These stories always bring out both sides in the the message board debates, but in light of the other "lighter" stories, thought it was worth a mention).

What happened to hoping 2009 is better? Yikes.

-JDE2

Pats post-mortem

While I await a response from customer support on a work-related issue, thought I'd dash off a few thoughts on the Patriots season:

--I will never second-guess Bill Belichick again. Remember that sick feeling we had in our stomachs when Tom Brady went down on the second series of the season? As Matt Cassel came out to take snaps, my colleague Mr. McSorley texted me with the message, "The one thing we never wanted to see."
Seriously. The best QB in the NFL was down (and I knew it was bad when he went back to the locker room. There would be no miraculous, uplifting return a la Larry Bird/Paul Pierce.) And this guy, who hadn't taken a snap when it counted since high school, whose main claim to fame was backing up not one, but two Heisman winners at USC, who had spent four years wearing a baseball cap and holding a clipboard instead of a helmet and a football in games, and who had looked, to put it charitably, lousy in preseason . . . THIS was the guy who was going to take the reins of a team that came within 30 seconds of an undefeated season last year?
And the kid pulled it together magnificently. Yes, there were rough spots, which are to be expected when someone basically has to learn on the job. But 11-5? I had visions of 8-8 . . . which, come to think of it, might've been good enough to win the NFC West.

-- Yes, I wanted blood after last year. I wanted no mercy. I thought Brady sitting out the preseason was an effort at sandbagging. I came damn near close to buying a "37-1" t-shirt. But in some ways, this was more satisfying. We were treated to discovering an emerging star in Cassel, reminding us what it was like to watch Brady take over in 2001. With all their injuries, especially on defense (hey, give Cassel credit, but he still did have Moss and Welker to throw to), they still came together nicely. We as fans have really been spoiled, with no tell-tale holes in any unit on the team the past couple years. This year, the secondary was a big question mark, and once Rodney Harrison went down for the season, that was tough to overcome. Losing Tedy Bruschi and having to get Junior Seau off his surfboard and Rosevelt Colvin off from wherever was, in hindsight, probably a push - mainly because of the strong rookie season of Jerod Mayo and the continued solid play of Mike Vrabel.

-- Speaking of defense, someone raised this intriguing possibility: Why not trade Cassel and trade Brady? The resulting draft picks and players could be used to shore up the defense.
As we've learned from the Lawyer Milloy situation in 2003, Belichick recognizes that what makes the team better now is what matters. Yes, I'd love to see Brady finish his career with a Flying Elvis on his helmet. But if the team truly believes in Kevin O'Connell (and from accounts, they seem to) a move like that wouldn't and shouldn't shock folks.

--Part of me wonders if this works out better for Cassel's possible free agency. Leading a team with a decimated defense to a fighting chance of a playoff spot looks good on the resume, perhaps better than if said defense had been run over in a first-round blowout, overshadowing any QB's performance.

--This is not Pats-related, but hey, Brett Favre: 9 picks and 2 TD passes in the final 5 games? That doesn't look good, even on your HoF resume.

--Again, when all is said and done, it was a fun ride. Let's hope it doesn' t end this soon in 2009.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Bruins bandwagon to jump on. . .wearing my new Celtics fleece, no less.

-JDE2

Ice Storm, Part Deux

We have power at our house once again, after 172 hours and change - more than a week for you math-challenged types.

Here's a few thoughts:

-- Plenty of people still don't have power. Many will go without power on Christmas. But the job the utility companies did getting as many people back online within a week was remarkable.

-- And of course, it may not be over yet: We got about a foot of snow in some spots yesterday and another big storm is forecast for Sunday.

-- My minor bitching aside (and it was minor: You should see our comment boards at unionleader.com . . . even the ones we didn't let through! Hey!), this thought occured to me: We are a bunch of wimps.

Seriously, the myth of the "hardy New Englander" was somewhat demolished this past week, especially after seeing some people upset they were without power . . . for hours.

Somewhere, our Pilgrim ancestors are laughing their buckled shoes and hats and knee breeches off at us. Granted, a major reason they stopped here was because they ran out of beer. In hindsight, don't you think an extra barrel or two of porter or stout would've helped them settle in warmer climes?

Anyway, I've been through the Blizzard of '77, the Blizzard of '78, Hurricane Gloria in '85, "The Perfect Storm" in '91, the "Storm of the Century" in '93, a 39-below air temperature in '93, the Ice Storm in '98, and probably a few other weather phenomena I forgot to mention. I can't remember any storm ever displacing me, until now.

And full disclosure: My in-laws got power back Friday night. So for a week, my wife and I and our two toddlers got to crash there. We had hot meals, hot showers and a warm bed. (Granted, at midweek our 4-year-old son confessed he missed his room. Even a playland like Nana and Pop-Pop's has its limits.) I honestly don't know what we would have done if they didn't get power back. So my criticism can be taken with a grain of salt.

At any rate, I actually saw someone compare the situation here to Katrina. Come on: You may have had to throw away a fridge full of food (in our case, a fridge and stand-up freezer-full, though we were in time to salvage the holiday birds), you may have frozen your tuckus off in your home (38 degrees in my house when power was restored), you may have even gone without a shower for a week . . . or longer (yikes!) . . . but you weren't on the roof of your house, watching water rise, praying for rescue as everything you owned was swept away.

Communication was tough to come by. Funny how that switch to the cable phone system seems a bit short-sighted now. Previously, I remember the phone always working in a power outage. But the way we saved trips back to the house was to call. If voice mail picked up, it was still dark. It got to the point where my wife and I couldn't stand the sound of my voice saying, "Hi! We're not able to come to the phone right now. . . "

Look, was I prepared for this? No. Guilty. And yes, I've made fun of all those folks who crowd the supermarkets before a storm to stock up on things. Sufficiently chastised, especially after a run to grab batteries on Friday, I won't again. And a generator is on the to-do list now, as is looking into a wood stove, something I had in my previous house that worked brilliantly during the 1998 ice storm.

Yes, our ancestors were hardy sorts. But they were lucky to bathe once a year and, ahem, relieved themselves outdoors. I like indoor plumbing and modern conveniences.

So I'm a wimp, too.

So be it.

-JDE2

This Abe Lincoln/Amish/Living-Off-The-Grid/Little House on the #!@&ing Prairie Life Sucks

We haven't posted in a while, and while I can't speak for Matt, my issue for what will have been a full week now as of midnight tonight is a lack of electricity. I'm writing this from work.

The question everyone has been asking when greeting an acquaintance in Southern NH the last few days isn't, "How are you?" or even, "How's the Christmas shopping going?" Nope, it's been "Got power yet?"

Last Thursday night, a massive ice storm hit the state and region. Those of us whose previous reference to "a bad ice storm" was the one we had in December 1998 were totally unprepared for the scale of this one.

Do the math: In 1998, my previous house was without power for four days. Some 70,000 customers lost power in the state. A staggering 424,000 customers (note the term, as that probably means far more people) were without power a week ago tomorrow after the storm. The fact that the number has gone down to below 70,000 as of this morning is a testament to the hard work of the crews who have come from as far as Ohio and Maryland to help out.

I really can't complain: My in-laws got power restored within a day, and my family and have had a warm place to stay, hot meals and hot showers for the week. And we should get it restored to our house this weekend, weather permitting. Many folks won't have power for Christmas.

Still, it's been a disheartening experiece to pull up to our dark, cold house (39 degrees inside when I checked this morning) and hear the roar of my neighbors' generators still going after a week.

As I post this, the house is going on its 160th hour without electricity. Amazing.

-JDE2

Historically speaking

For reasons unknown to me, I got to wondering if the Patriots' recent run of brilliance had made them the historic kings of the AFC East. Now, with three Super Bowl wins (the rest of the division has three combined -- Miami with two and the Jets with one) and six Super Bowl appearances (one more than Miami, with five, and two more than Buffalo, with four) that case is probably already made. But I wondered which team has won the most AFC East titles since the AFL-NFL merger.

Turns out New England still has work to do there. Here's the roster:

Miami: 12 (1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1992, 1994, 2000)
New England: 11 (1978, 1986, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007)
Buffalo: 7 (1980, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1995)
New York: 2 (1998, 2002)

Notes on a few other teams: Pittsburgh has won 18 division championships since the merger; San Francisco has 17; Dallas has 16; the Raiders have 12; the Colts have 11; Denver has 10.

-- MJM

Updated Pats Playoff Odds

New England gutted out a come-from-behind 24-21 win at noisy Seattle today. Meanwhile, San Francisco did the Pats an unexpected favor by beating the J-E-T-S JetsJetsJets, and Miami beat Buffalo in the Bills' second home, Toronto. Eh?

That places all three teams at 8-5 with three games to go. New England is at Oakland, home to Arizona and at Buffalo. New York is home to Buffalo, at Seattle and home to Miami. Miami is home to San Francisco, then at Kansas City and at the Jets. The Pats have the toughest schedule because Arizona, yes, it's true, is a division champion. The Jets have two games at home. Miami has two very winnable games before the season-ending Meadowlands encounter.

The Patriots most likely have to finish ahead of both the Jets and Dolphins as New England is in a tough spot in a tie-breaker with both teams. So the Pats have to win their next three and hope both Miami and the Jets lose one of their final three. They play each other, so one of those two teams is going to lose a game.

So let's play this out: Pats win three, Jets win three. That means the Jets will have beaten Miami, so the Dolphins finish a game behind and out of the picture. The Jets win the division because of a superior record in the division (5-1, as opposed to New England's 4-2).

Pats win three, Dolphins win three. That means the Dolphins will have beaten the Jets, and New York is dropped. You have to go to the fourth tie-breaker to sort this one out. The tie-breakers are:

1. Head-to-head record (that's even at 1-1).
2. Best record in the division (that's even at 4-2).
3. Best record in common games (that's even at 9-5).
4. Best record in conference games. That goes to Miami, which finishes 8-4 in conference under this scenario, while New England finishes 7-5.

Most likely picture to help the Pats? Stumbling Buffalo plays for pride and beats the Jets next week. Then hope the Jets can beat Miami in the season finale. Miami and New York finish 10-6, Pats finish 11-5 (if they run the table) and win the division for the sixth straight year.

Still a lot to happen before this one is settled.

-- MJM

Pats' Playoff Odds

After today's disgraceful loss to Pittsburgh (not that losing to the Steelers is a disgrace but five turnovers and sloppy play is), the Pats have two realistic shots at the playoffs, but only if they run the table in their four remaining games.

That feat is possible. The Pats next visit Seattle, who's awful, and the Raiders, who are awful. Then they host Arizona, which benefits from a weak division and is a game the Pats should win. The end-of-season matchup is a biggie at Buffalo against a respectable team in a place that's always tough to play. But it's a game that can be won.

But that's not enough. The Pats need help to get in at this point and that help can come in one of two ways:

1. AFC East. The Jets are a game ahead of the Patriots so New England needs Gang Green to lose another game before the season ends. Ah, but it can't be just any game the Jets lose. It has to be a divisional game. That's because in case of a tie, the second NFL tie-breaker in a divisional race (after head-to-head, which is 1-1, so that won't break a deadlock) is record in divisional games. The Pats are 3-2, the Jets 3-1. If the Pats beat Buffalo, which they absolutely have to do to play in January, that'll make New England 4-2. If the Jets win their remaining divisional games, against the Bills and Dolphins (both at home), the Jets win the tie-break with a 5-1 mark. So the Pats need New York to lose an AFC East game to come down to 4-2.

The next tie-breaker is record in common games and that breaks in the Pats' favor, thanks to Denver's win over the NYJ today. The Pats are 6-2 in common games, the Jets 5-3. If the Pats win out (and all four of their remaining games are against common opponents) that mark jumps to 10-2. The Jets could do no better than 8-4 (remember, to get to this tie-break the Jets had to lose a divisional game, which is also a common opponent).

HOWEVER, there's a spanner in the works and its name is Tuna.

If Miami wins its four remaining games, which would include a season-ender against the Jets, the Fins end 11-5. If the Jets win their other three games, that would create a three-way tie between New England, New York and Miami at 11-5. Under that scenario, the first tie-breaker is record against the other two teams. That would be: NE 2-2, Mia 2-2, NYJ 2-2. Second tie-breaker is record within the division. That would be: NE 4-2, Mia 4-2, NYJ 4-2. Third tie-breaker is record in common games: That would be NE 10-2, Mia 10-2, NYJ 8-4. So finally we knock out the Jets. Fourth tie-breaker is record in conference games. That would be: Mia 8-4, NE 7-5.

SO, the plot thickens. The Pats need to win out. They need the Jets and Dolphins to go 3-1 or worse. And they the need Jets to lose to Miami or Buffalo. And if the Jets lose to the Dolphins, the Pats need the Dolphins to lose one of their other games (their remaining opponents are Buffalo, Kansas City and San Francisco).

Ideal scenario for Pats to win the division: Win out, have Jets lose to Buffalo and win the rest of their games, including Miami. That way NE finishes 11-5, NYJ finishes 11-5 and Miami finishes 10-6. And the Pats win the tie-break with the Jets.

Confused? Wait. There's more.

2. Wild Card. Right now the Colts and Ravens are the prime competition for wild card berths. Forget the Colts. They're 8-4, a game better than New England, and they beat the Pats head-t0-head. They'll have to go 2-2 the rest of the way to fall behind New England and that isn't likely. The Colts have two wins in the bag -- their next two games are against the Bengals and Lions and their combined 1-22-1 record. Indy finishes with two toughies -- at Jacksonville and home to Tennessee. But figure the battle-tested Colts can win one of those and finish no worse than 11-5, which is the best the Pats can hope for.

Overcoming the Ravens will be hard, too, and here's why. They sit 8-4, one game better than the Pats. They didn't play head-to-head, so the first tie-breaker between New England and Baltimore is record in conference games. Right now the Pats are 7-5, the Ravens 9-3. So if my run the table theory holds true, the Pats finish 11-5, 9-5 in conference games. The Ravens have to lose their two remaining conference games, home to Pittsburgh and home to Jacksonville, to go 9-5 in conference games. Losing those two would also put Baltimore at no better than 10-6, so an 11-5 Pats team finishes ahead. So, basically, the Pats have to finish ahead of Baltimore. If the Ravens go 11-5, that means they won one of their two conference games and finish with a better conference record and go to the playoffs ahead of the Pats.

Got a headache yet? You could skip trying to absorb it and reach a reasonable conclusion: No playoffs in Foxborough this year. The Super Bowl loser jinx strikes again.

-- MJM

The New Bangalore Union Leader?

An industry we thought couldn't possibly be outsourced is being outsourced:

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: November 29, 2008
PASADENA, Calif.
I visited the future, and it was wearing a bow tie and calling itself “Thomas Edison.”
The newspaper business is not only crumpling up, James Macpherson informed me here, it is probably holding “a one-way ticket to Bangalore.”
Macpherson — bow-tied and white-haired but boyish-looking at 53 — should know. He pioneered “glocal” news — outsourcing Pasadena coverage to India at Pasadena Now, his daily online “newspaperless,” as he likes to call it. Indians are writing about everything from the Pasadena Christmas tree-lighting ceremony to kitchen remodeling to city debates about eliminating plastic shopping bags.
“Everyone has to get ready for what’s inevitable — like King Canute and the tide coming in — and that’s really my message to the industry,” the editor and publisher said. “Many newspapers are dead men walking. They’re going to be replaced by smaller, nimbler, multiple Internet-centric kinds of things such as what I’m pioneering.”
I wondered how long it would be before some guy in Bangalore was writing my column about President Obama.
“In brutal terms,” said Macpherson, whose father was a typesetter, printer and photographer, “it’s going to get to the point where saving the industry may require some people losing their jobs. The newspaper industry is coming to a General Motors moment — except there’s no one to bail them out.” He said it would be “irresponsible” for newspapers not to explore offshoring options.
He said he got the idea to outsource about a year ago, sitting in his Pasadena home, where he puts out Pasadena Now with his wife, Candice Merrill. Macpherson had worked in the ’90s for designers like Richard Tyler and Alan Flusser, and had outsourced some of his clothing manufacturing to Vietnam.
So, he thought, “Where can I get people who can write the word for less?” In a move that sounded so preposterous it became a Stephen Colbert skit, he put an ad on Craigslist for Indian reporters and got a flood of responses.
He fired his seven Pasadena staffers — including five reporters — who were making $600 to $800 a week, and now he and his wife direct six employees all over India on how to write news and features, using telephones, e-mail, press releases, Web harvesting and live video streaming from a cellphone at City Hall.
“I pay per piece, just the way it was in the garment business,” he says. “A thousand words pays $7.50.”
A penny for your thoughts? Now I knew my days were numbered.
I checked in with one of his workers in Mysore City in southern India, 40-year-old G. Sreejayanthi, who puts together Pasadena events listings. She said she had a full-time job in India and didn’t think of herself as a journalist. “I try to do my best, which need not necessarily be correct always,” she wrote back. “Regarding Rose Bowl, my first thought was it was related to some food event but then found that is related to Sports field.”
Macpherson admits you can lose something in the translation — the Pasadena City Council Webcast that the Indian reporters now watch once missed two African-American lawmakers walking out in protest — but says the question is, how significant is it?
At first the reaction to covering Pasadena from 8,000 miles away and 13.5 hours ahead was “absolutely brutal,” Macpherson recalled. Journalism professors keened and Larry Wilson, the public editor at The Pasadena Star-News, called it “nutty.”
But then in October, Dean Singleton, The Associated Press’s chairman and the head of the MediaNews Group — which counts The Pasadena Star-News, The Denver Post and The Detroit News in its stable of 54 daily newspapers — told the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association that his company was looking into outsourcing almost every aspect of publishing, including possibly having one news desk for all of his papers, “maybe even offshore.”
Noting that most preproduction work for MediaNews’s papers in California is already outsourced to India, cutting costs by 65 percent, Singleton advised, “If you need to offshore it, offshore it,” and said after the speech, “In today’s world, whether your desk is down the hall or around the world, from a computer standpoint, it doesn’t matter.”
Macpherson feels “vindicated,” but also “conflicted” about the idea of having an American newspaper industry fueled by Indian labor. “I mean, I am an American too,” he said. “I had two ancestors in the Revolutionary War. My mother was in the Daughters of the American Revolution.”
It’s not easy being a visionary, he said: “I have essentially been five years ahead of the world for a long time, and that’s a horrible address at which to live because people look at you, you know, like you’re nuts.”

Leave it to a film critic to sort this out

Matt's turned us on to Alan Mutter's "Newsosaur" blog, but this entry from the man who -- with his former rival, the late Gene Siskel -- made a half-hour show of movie reviews possible, is also great reading on the celebrity-obsessed culture we have:

Roger Ebert: Death to film critics! Hail to the CelebCult! (click for link).

-JDE2

Number Four, (or Two, if you're in Oshawa)

Any chance I get to mention Robert Gordon Orr isn't a bad thing, unless it's referring to the thieving agent who robbed him (and other players) blind.

Orr's junior league team, the Oshawa Generals, retired his number last night.

Two questions jumped out at me about this story: (1) What took the Generals so freakin' long to retire the number of one of the five greatest players ever? and (2) Is Bobby Orr really 60 YEARS OLD? Wow.

-JDE2

Ah, memories. . .

Allow me this diversion from the bad news of the day to something incredibly frivolous: Remember when there were only three broadcast networks?

That's when stuff like "Battle of the Network Stars" aired. The show pitted stars from the three networks in "athletic" competition. I most vividly remember the "Simon Says" battles.

Bill Simmons at ESPN remembers, too. Here's his take on the joy of a recently discovered YouTube video featuring a match race between Robert Conrad and Gabe Kaplan.

-JDE2

Does This Irritate Anyone Else?

I need a good liberal (I'm counting on you, Maureen!) to explain why this is OK, because it frosts me no end:

Obamas Pick Sidwell School, Ending a Washington Guessing Game

By RACHEL L. SWARNS
WASHINGTON — After a school search that set off weeks of frenzied speculation among parents in the nation’s capital, President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, announced Friday that their two daughters would attend Sidwell Friends School, the pricey and prestigious academy that has educated generations of this city’s elite.
The Quaker-run Sidwell, which was established in 1883, has educated the children of two sitting presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Bill Clinton. And there was an added bonus: grandchildren of Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., who are friendly with the Obama girls, attend Sidwell.
The Obama family had considered two other private institutions, Georgetown Day School and Maret School, for their girls, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7.
But Sidwell has long been described by some as the Harvard of Washington’s private schools. Its tuition runs as high as $29,442 a year.
“A number of great schools were considered,” said Katie McCormick Lelyveld, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Obama. “In the end, the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now.”

Now, far be it from me to criticize any parent for sending their kids to a private school because they think it's the best fit for their kids. I send my own children to a Catholic school, at a not inconsiderable cost, because I believe it's the best fit for my kids. I couldn't possibly afford the school the Obama kids are going to, but the president-elect can, so good for him.

What bothers me is when rich liberals like the president-elect engage in windy oratory about the glories of public schools -- and then refuse to send their own kids to them. Of course they made the decision they thought was best for their kids. Any parent would. But many parents can't. And liberals like the president-elect seem to think that's OK. So the rich get richer. Class divides never get bridged and bright DC children who don't happen to be named Obama or Biden or Bush or Rockefeller go to underfunded schools that can't provide the challenge those kids need.

I don't mean to sound too harsh on public schools. I have no objection to them. Hell, I went to them. But the model doesn't work. Wealthy public schools in wealthy communities cater to wealthy families that can afford to offer things that poor public schools in poor communities that cater to poor families can't. Wouldn't we be better off to shake things up, perhaps go to a charter school model? The Irish system intrigues me. The Irish government doesn't run schools -- churches and secular education groups do. The government just pays the bills. The result is smaller schools, more parental involvement, a scholastic identity shaped around values rather than community or class, and higher overall achievement. Rather than gut public schools, I'd like to see them unleashed so they can reach their full potential.

Who knows? Maybe then the Obamas would consider sending their kids to one.

-- MJM

How on Earth Could This Be Unexpected?

Story today on jobless claims. Observations after the text:

WASHINGTON – New claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to a 16-year high, the Labor Department said Thursday, providing more evidence of a rapidly weakening job market expected to get even worse next year.
The government said new applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 542,000 from a downwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week. That's much higher than Wall Street economists' expectations of 505,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.
That is also the highest level of claims since July 1992, the department said, when the U.S. economy was coming out of a recession.
The four-week average of claims, which smooths out fluctuations, was even worse: it rose to 506,500, the highest in more than 25 years.
In addition, the number of people continuing to claim unemployment insurance rose sharply for the third straight week to more than 4 million, the highest since December 1982, when the economy was in a painful recession.
The financial markets fell on the news. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped about 160 points in morning trading, and broader indexes also fell.
The jobless figures come as the Senate is expected to vote Thursday on legislation that would extend unemployment benefits. The White House said President George W. Bush would quickly sign the bill.
The measure would provide seven additional weeks of payments to those who have exhausted their benefits. Those in states where the unemployment rate is above 6 percent would be eligible for an additional 13 weeks beyond the 26 weeks of regular benefits. Benefit checks average about $300 a week nationwide.

So, the numbers were a surprise to Wall Street analysts? The same baboons who drove Lehman, AIG, Bear Stearns and countless other institution either to liquidation or the arms of a government bailout? Haven't the views of Wall Street's vaunted analysts been thoroughly discredited by now?

The galling thing is that these "analysts" are still pulling down enough coin to choke an elephant while doing a positively Julio Lugo-like job. Meanwhile, good workers everywhere who are strong performers in their professions are looking for work.

It's capitalism gone mad. Markets are supposed to reward success and smarts. Our markets are rewarding failure and boobery. No wonder we're in this fix.

-- MJM