At W$J -- more international news

As a Johnny-come-lately fan of the news coverage and features contained in the Wall Street Journal over the past few years, I’ve been concerned about the 2007 acquisition of the Dow Jones Company (publisher of the Wall Street Journal) by business tycoon Rupert Murdoch.

No wallflower, Murdoch has a reputation for taking charge and meddling in the day-to-day activities of the various journalistic enterprises that he’s bought and controlled.

An unabashed opponent of big media consolidation, I didn’t much like the idea of the W$J having a new owner – especially Rupert Murdoch. I still don’t. But a feature story in the New York Times today, slugged as Murdoch’s Head of Content, assuages my fears…..a little.

It seems that Murdoch’s top lieutenant, 47-year-old Robert Thomson, is making waves as publisher of the paper – and so far, they’re soothing waves. He says parent company News Corporation will plow some $6 million into the Wall Street Journal, allowing the paper to add four pages of international news.

At a time when newspapers are struggling to stay afloat financially, that’s a significant investment. It’ll be interesting to see how things unfold.

Something about The Six

I’m glad that KEVN (Fox-7) has moved its suppertime newscast on weeknights to 6:00 p.m. The Six, as they call it, gives many of us an opportunity to get a different take on the latest happenings throughout the Black Hills. And if they were going to change anything, the time of the cast was probably most important, but they tinkered with a few other things, too.

Having talent stand rather than sit behind a desk is one of those changes at The Six. It’s a technique intended to provide a sense of energy and involvement that many news consultants have recommended over the years. I don’t object to it, but it’s largely a cosmetic tool – one you can employ when other things (like staff size and other resources) don’t seem to help in the ratings race.

We’re still talking about a measly amount of time – less than 20 minutes nightly for news, sports, markets and weather, after you extract the commercials. Of course, if you’re really looking for depth, you’re probably over at KBHE-TV (PBS, Ch. 9) watching the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (or turning to the Rapid City Journal for local content with more meat).

KCLO-TV (CBS-15) airs its local news at 5 p.m., but repeats it again at 6 o’clock. However, since it originates in Sioux Falls, there’s not much that’s “local” for Black Hills viewers. Like public broadcasting, they lay claim to a statewide audience and sell advertising statewide, so their “local” news is largely Sioux Falls with tidbits from the Black Hills and the rest of the state.

KOTA (ABC-3) outclasses KNBN (NBC-21) at 5:30 p.m. and seems to have an edge on all of the stations because of its seasoned experience in the market. Simply put, Duhamels have been in the market a long time, and they know the market.

While I still occasionally hear about Nielsen ratings -- even among public television folks -- I’ve never put much stock in them, particularly here in sparsely populated South Dakota. I consider it a blessing NOT to have to deal with them or pay much attention to them. Our personal taste for local broadcast news/weather/sports gravitates toward KOTA, probably because it has a great lead-in with ABC’s Charlie Gibson. But KOTA Territory’s local presentation is rock solid – if not original.

I plan to watch The Six a bit more in coming days – and NewsCenter1, too -- in an effort to get better acquainted with their talent and how they go about their business. I’ll probably spend some time with KELO-land, too.

The best change for The Six is its new time slot.

Disappointing Interview

After watching the Bill Moyers interview with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright tonight on PBS, I was reminded what a real gentleman Bill Moyers is. He is gracious to a fault in person and on the air.

Reverend Wright, you’ll remember, is the black minister whose “damning” of America from the pulpit several weeks ago caught media attention, particularly because Wright is the pastor of Senator Barak Obama’s home church in Chicago.

The hour-long interview on Bill Moyers Journal demonstrated what we all should have known anyway, that Reverend Wright – like all of us – is more complex than can be reflected in a 30-second sound bite.

Nonetheless, I was sorely disappointed tonight by the lack of incisive questioning from Bill Moyers. Not so much over Wright’s “damning” of America statement, but his vitriolic statements about an unfeeling America that has killed innocent people in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

That innocents died – on both sides in these wars – is undeniable. That our troops, our government, and our nation did so as a matter of policy and with no feeling is blatantly untrue. Why did Bill Moyers not challenge Reverend Wright on this point?

Reverend Wright’s snipped comment about God “damning” America made national news, and Senator Obama promptly distanced himself from his old pastor. How, Moyers asked, did Reverend Wright feel about that?

In fresh candor, Reverend Wright acknowledged that Senator Obama is “a politician” and must say to his audience what is necessary; and as a pastor, he (Reverend Wright) must say to his audience what is necessary. Wright speaks at the National Press Club next week. I think I smell a book in the writing.

How unfortunate that Bill Moyers did not do what HIS audience expected: ask insightful questions and challenge the guest. Instead, it was kind of a “good ol’ pastors discussion down at the seminary.” Giving Reverend Wright 60 minutes to paint his own portrait on C-SPAN would have been equally revealing.

Bill Moyers has done some great interviews. This was not one of them.

Some people just "Vanished"!

It’s hard to believe that innocent citizens could be swept from their homes in the middle of the night and tossed in jail…..then transferred to a “detention camp” and held for months – even years – as “prisoners of war.” But it happened during World War II all across the United States.

The Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 had been enacted 140 years earlier, at the end of the American Revolution. It was later modified and only its “Alien Enemies” provision remained. But after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, heightened fear broke out across the United States, and there was great suspicion that aliens – even people who just “looked” to be an aliens – might be enemy spies or even saboteurs.

Because of their obvious difference in physical appearance, oriental persons were easy targets. It’s estimated that more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans were interned under the Alien Enemies Act during World War II. Most of the internees, probably about 80 percent, were U.S. citizens.

Less well know is the fact that between 11,000 to 15,000 German-Americans were whisked off to detention camps during World War II. Their story has been little known, but thanks to an exhibit aboard a reconditioned bus called the BUS-eum, we’re finally getting a glimpse of this frightening era in American history. Entitled Vanished, the exhibit uses posters, photographs, and old films to help tell the story. German-Americans were interned in camps all across the country. The nearest to our part of the world was Camp Lincoln, located near Bismarck, North Dakota.

I first learned of the exhibit earlier this week, while it was traversing the state. Alas, before the bus could make it to Spearfish, a cracked engine cylinder put the vehicle out of business. Fortunately, the exhibit was shipped on to Black Hills State University, where it was exhibited for a few hours today in the Student Center.

The Director of the exhibit (and bus driver) is Iowan Michael Luick-Thrams, whose passion for the subject is obvious. He told our small assemblage at BHSU, that the Bus-eum has visited 1,015 communities across the country and has been seen by more than 100,000 people.

Vanished tells another sad but important story in the history of our country. While tens of thousands of internees of World War II thought it couldn’t happen to them, we are left wondering: could such a thing happen today?

A good question….and this exhibit helps us better understand this chapter of U. S. history. If you’re interested in learning more, I’d recommend visiting the Vanished web site. An even better site, in my opinion, is that of the German-American Internee Coalition. To get to that web site, just click on GAIC.

As a grandchild of German-Russian immigrants, I appreciate the passion brought to this project, and I support efforts to learn more and better understand the circumstances surrounding these internments. Knowing our history will always stand us in good stead.

And while it is appropriate for the GAIC to try to get the U.S. government to “review and acknowledge” the violation of civil rights perpetrated on Japanese-Americans, German-Americans, and others, let’s hope it stops there. Document this experience. Understand it. Never forget it. But avoid the pervasive victimization mentality that cloaks much of our country and stop short of seeking reparations.

Better that we focus our vigilance upon open government and fight to ensure that civil rights of all citizens are doggedly protected. We should learn from the past, act in the present, and focus on the future.

Turned off by the TV turn off

There was a time when I thought participating in a national “Turn Off the TV” campaign was a pretty cool thing to do. No longer.

Part of my disillusionment with letting the tube go dark has to do with its effectiveness, or lack thereof. It fits right in with the notion that – if we all don’t buy gasoline on a certain day – we can change the behavior of the big oil companies. Pardon me if I play the skeptic.

Expecting that a one-week TV turnoff may “prime the pump” to a lifetime of reduced television watching is, to my mind, disingenuous.

All of this is not to say I’m opposed to the concept. Spending 29-34 hours a week plopped in front of the tube – as the average American does – is a bit much. And it detracts from doing more productive things, especially if the viewer is consumed by reality shows and “shock” television. That's the cheaper fare that helps television production companies and the networks turn a better profit. Quality costs. Junk is cheaper.

Better, I think, for us to focus on the quality of television that is produced and watched. That’s a tougher row to hoe, but its outcome would have far greater impact.

It’s easy to be absolutely cynical about the prospects of television transforming itself and offering better quality programs. I suspect there’ll always be a market for shock television and pornography. I must confess that even until very recently, I didn’t believe there was any way to stem the decline of television programming into an abyss of self-absorbing muck.

But my cynicism has given way to a flicker of optimism for the future. It has been fueled mostly by the high quality programs of public television and a handful of cable channels (History Channel, C-SPAN, and a few others).

But the real clincher was to see veteran smut peddler HBO launch its seven-part historical series on John Adams. A superb series that stands head and shoulders above an earlier tripe-cast called Deadwood (with apologies to a few of my South Dakota friends who believe that distorted history is better than no story at all).

Turn off the TV this week? I don’t think so. But it would be a good idea to start pushing the industry for better programming and supporting those offerings with our viewership. Admittedly, really good television programs are few and far between – but they can be found. They and their sponsors should be supported.

Where's "the rest of the story"?

I was sorry to see the Rapid City Journal provide lots of ink as something of an apologist for Congressional earmarks (Tue. 4/15/08). Their front-page story by Kevin Woster and a sidebar regarding just how “essential” earmarks are for South Dakota missed the point many of us would like to see explored further. I expressed that view in my Oink-Oink posting a couple of weeks ago.

Earmarks tend to avoid the rigors and scrutiny of the budget process, and they are far more subject to the whims of individual senators and representatives – particularly those in power. That’s why it seems half of the public construction initiatives in West Virginia are named for Senator Robert Byrd.

“Whims,” of course, can be a part of political horse-trading. A less delicate way of describing them would be political pay-offs.

Even when visiting the Congressional Pig Book web site, which is stuffed with information about questionable earmarks, I am surprised at the apparent legitimacy of many projects. Certainly, most of those described in the Rapid City Journal seem worthy of funding – particularly to us South Dakotans.

But what about projects that smack blatantly of favoritism and appear to be highly questionable? Just how do they compare with projects that were "cut" from the formal budgeting process?

Perhaps the Rapid City Journal would do well to dig a bit deeper on all earmarks within their circulation area. At the very least, explore the “short-cut” process that goes with earmarks, and shine a bit of journalistic light upon this unsavory process.

Worthwhile projects should be able to withstand the rigors of the budgetary process – whether they’re in West Virginia, Alaska, Mississippi…….or South Dakota.

"...Without the Rap!"

Part of the mystery has been solved about a new Rapid City radio station. Connoisseur Media’s new FM station at 102.7 played Christmas music for several weeks – becoming something of a curiosity, and leading some folks to wonder what music format the station would eventually adopt.

Well, the cat is out of the bag, and KXMZ/102.7 (Box Elder-Rapid City) bills itself as “Hits 102.7, Today’s Best Hits Without the Rap.” They’re streaming commercial-free music on their web site with a format that is clearly aimed at teens and young adults. We understand that Connoisseur, which is headquartered in Westport, Connecticut, picked up the 50,000-watt station in an FCC auction for just over $1 million. It’s one of 18 radio stations in the Rapid City market.

The more intriguing parts of the mystery remain: 1) When will they start generating some advertising revenue? 2) How successful will they be? And, perhaps most important to many of us: 3) just how much local service will 102.7 provide?

Memories of Biography

I became a Mike Wallace fan back in the early 1960s when I was Program Manager of WGBY-TV, the Armed Forces Radio & Television outlet on the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Those were the days before satellite broadcasts. Each week, we’d received air shipments of kinescopes from the mainland, including a wide variety of popular programs from all of the broadcast networks.

That’s when I was first exposed to a documentary film series entitled Biography, produced by David Wolper -- pictured here -- and hosted by Mike Wallace. Documentaries in those days were few and far between, and I was impressed with Wolper’s effective use of archival film footage and still photographs. These were well before the days of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns (who would have still been in elementary school). Of course, Mike’s narration added significantly to the authoritativeness of the Biography programs.

While I can’t offer up a link to the old Biography series, I can steer you to a rich collection interviews done even earlier in a series called The Mike Wallace Interview. This series ended up at ABC, and the University of Texas has managed to persuade the 89-year-old Wallace – who owns the copyright – to allow UT to make 65 of the programs available on the internet. Another nice touch: transcripts of the programs are also on the site at the Harry Ransom Center on the UT campus in Austin.

Enjoy!

Couric to Leave CBS Evening News....Soon?

The media business is abuzz with much talk about Katie Couric possibly leaving her anchor job at CBS Evening News -- perhaps sooner rather than later. The New York Times offered up the story yesterday. It'll be interesting to see if the speculation of an early departure becomes reality. A key part of the Today show at NBC for many years, she's been unable to help CBS navigate its way out of third place in the evening network news competition.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

I believe that much, if not most, of the travel done by our congressional delegation and their staffs is justifiable in doing their jobs. I suspect some isn’t.

But just how much do they travel? Where do they go? Why? How much does it cost?

Many of these questions and others are answered in a fairly new web site I discovered this week. It also includes salaries and other financial information relative to our tax dollars. Take a look at the site http://www.legistorm.com/ and see what you think. I promise that it’ll keep you busy for a while!

It would be good to see such an initiative in South Dakota. A few state governments – Alaska comes to mind – have launched web sites that post state expenditures.

Thus far, there’s been no appetite amongst the administration of Governor Mike Rounds to make this kind of information available on line. Perhaps that’ll change down the road – with a good bit of nudging!

Mistaken Identity

Her Spearfish neighbors just can’t keep a secret about writer Lorraine Collins, whose talents reach beyond classy narratives and into the realm of neighborhood “handyman,” or so we thought!

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MISTAKEN IDENTITY

By Lorraine Collins

Recently I received a remarkable invitation. I was invited to join The Handyman Club of America. I was “chosen from thousands of handy people” to become an official product tester. They wanted to send me a circular saw to try out. After I tried it, I had to send in a report of what I thought of it, but I could keep the saw. As I read on, I wondered why I was chosen for this job of “testing home improvement products around your house and keeping them for free” but my question was soon answered. “Why you?” the letter asked. “Well it’s no secret among your friends and family that you are an outstanding handyman.”

I looked at the mailing label again to be sure this letter had been sent to me, and it was. But the thing is, it’s no secret among my friends and family that you really don’t want to trust me with any sharp object. When I pick up a pair of scissors to cut something, anyone nearby leaps up to say, “Let me do that!” I’m probably most famous for stabbing a refrigerator to death trying to dislodge a frozen salmon. However, I have also punctured soda cans trying to open up one of those refrigerator twelve-packs, and anyone who has seen me trying to open up a childproof lid on a bottle containing a drug or cleaning product knows that whatever else I may be, I’m not “handy”.

I don’t know how I got on the mailing list of the Handyman Club of America, though it might be because I ordered something from a tool catalog for Christmas. This has made me think about how people sometimes do get labeled or identified on the basis of flimsy evidence, and also about how easy it is for con men or scam artists to fool us into believing they are someone they are not. Both of these situations are especially pertinent in an election year.

To begin with, I think many of us do use a kind of shorthand to identify who people are, and we make certain assumptions about them based on their political affiliation, what their job is, where they live, what church or civic organizations they belong to, and so forth. We tend to think we know people based on such things, but as political candidates have sometimes discovered, such assumptions can be wildly wrong. More than one candidate has been baffled at losing what was supposed to be a safe seat. It doesn’t pay to underestimate the diversity of opinions and experiences within any demographic group. Folks just don’t like to be labeled. And we don’t want to be taken for granted, either.

At the same time, we in the electorate have to remember the times we or our neighbors have been fooled by somebody who showed up at the door with an offer too good to be true. By now we may know that somebody in Nigeria really isn’t going to make us rich if we just give them our bank account number, and we know that any plan to make thousands of dollars in our spare time at home probably isn’t as good as it seems to be. But we may still be vulnerable to political candidates who look and act like the people we want, who say the things we want to hear, but who may also be offering us something too good to be true.

We in South Dakota are on the cusp a very interesting political season. We not only have several candidates, but there are also numerous ballot issues to consider. I hope we examine those issues as carefully as we do a contract to fix a roof or the latest offer from a credit card company. Things are not always what they seem there, either. Just think of the possibility of my being a member of the Handyman Club of America, and you’ll do the right thing.

Millage Goes Back to School

Long-time news executive Mark Millage is leaving broadcasting to head Kilian Community College in Sioux Falls. Millage has been with the KELO-land stations, based in Sioux Falls, for some 25 years, most of them as News Director.

KELO-TV is the flagship station for a network of transmitters that cover most of South Dakota. Millage was tapped from among more than 40 applicants to become President of the two-year school.

I don’t know a lot about Kilian Community College – or Mark Millage – but they both have good reputations. According to the news release posted by the college, the school was formed as a “joint venture” by Augustana College and two other institutions that used to be known as Sioux Falls College and the North American Baptist Seminary.

I met Tom Kilian in the 1980s when I was with South Dakota Public Broadcasting. He’s the long-time South Dakota educator for whom the institution is named. He is a class act.

Good luck to Mark Millage and Kilian Community College.

Earmarks Top Ten! - Oink Oink!

The end justifies the means. As long as we go home with the bacon.

That seems to be the stance taken by our South Dakota congressional delegation to criticism that South Dakota ranks in the top 10 states for receiving federal earmarks. The rankings are the handiwork of the Citizens Against Government Waste, which annually identifies political pork in their “Congressional Pig Book.” It's worth reading.

Senators John Thune and Tim Johnson along with Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin wasted no time in defending earmarks. The Rapid City Journal this morning (4/3/08) said Herseth Sandlin agreed with her counterparts in the Senate that earmarks pay for “essentials,” not waste, in South Dakota.

It is apparently lost on Herseth Sandlin and our Senators that it’s not the projects that are funded to which many of us necessarily object, it’s HOW they’re chosen and funded. Like it or not, earmarks are outside an appropriate budgetary process. Simply put, earmarks are bad public policy.

If earmarks are the only way South Dakota and other states can obtain legitimate federal funding for “essentials,” we are, indeed, in deep political do-do. And, unfortunately, members of Congress will never apologize for “bringing home the bacon,” much less change the way they do the public's business.

They’ve not yet discovered that it’s tainted and stinks to high heaven.

Earmarks often are the means of political pay-offs, favoritism, and good-ol'-boy backroom deals. Those with seniority are most adept at obtaining earmarks, thus adding clout to the notion that the only way South Dakota (and other states) can get their “fair share” of federal funding is by continuing to re-elect incumbents to deliver the goods.

In short, we are slipping even further down the slopes of good government. We become less a nation of laws and more a nation of men (with apologies to Rep. Herseth Sandlin, because she’s deservedly a part of the club.)

We may not be able to alter the ban on federal term limits, but this sad situation points to the need for it – and an obvious need to overhaul the budgeting process in Washington, D.C.

Here Comes Santa Claus? 102.7 FM

Radio listeners in the Black Hills who tune around the radio dial just for the fun of it discovered something a bit odd the other day. A time warp, right out of “The Twilight Zone.” What else could explain the gentle strains of Silent Night and Jingle Bells blasting from the radio in early April?

Perhaps someone at this station, 102.7 FM, forgot that Christmas is over for this season?

Maybe it’s a radio signal returning to earth after bouncing off of a distant galaxy.

It might be an April Fool’s prank.

Or….maybe it’s just a new radio station with a gimmick to get our attention. Well, it seems to be working.

102.7 FM is on the air from Connecticut, or wherever, blasting away at the Rapid City market with Christmas music. Clearly, it’s an effort that seems to be working. I first learned about it from Dan Daly's Rapid City Journal blog site. Dan reports that the station call sign will be KXZM and the city of license is Box Elder, while the transmitter is atop "M" hill in Rapid City. Who are these people and what do they want?

Well, it turns out they’re Yankees from Connecticut. The company is called Connoisseur Media, and it’s headed by Jeffrey D. Warshaw, a well-to-do businessman who says he’s a broadcaster. Mr. Warshaw sold his first Connoisseur company – a collection of 27 radio stations -- for a cool $258 million. The Connoisseur web site indicates their new operation is “characterized by well researched and targeted programming, intense training and development of its people, and dedicated local service.” They list 17 radio stations from Erie, Pennsylvania to Billings, Montana.

It’ll be fascinating to see just how many Connoisseur employees populate the Rapid City market. Even more interesting will be watching them scramble to provide a “dedicated local service.” That’s a refreshing concept that even many locally-owned broadcasters struggle to attain but seldom achieve.

My bet is that their local service is promotional hype…..that their local staff is comprised mostly of a few sales people – and perhaps a contract person to keep the satellite gear and transmitter operating.

In the end, I doubt that Mr. Warshaw is Santa Claus coming to town with a bag of local services for Rapid City and the surrounding area. I predict they’ll have a competitive music service – whatever that may be – with a strong promotion strategy, a local sales force, and a creative way of trying to “sound local.”

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The measure of their local service will be how much they really become a part of the community. How many news staff will they have? How effectively will they report the weather? Just how much will they really become a part of the social fabric of the Black Hills? I doubt that “dedicated local service” is a big part of the holiday strategy unleashed by Connoisseur Media.

I could be wrong. I hope I am. Stay tuned.