CaliforniaTube

posted by Zach Patton

The state of California this week launched its own YouTube channel. It brings together videos from several different state agencies -- including, as this San Jose Mercury News story points out, some that are actually pretty entertaining. Like the videos promoting the state's free Ready Return tax preparation service.

Of course, California isn't the first government to start a YouTube channel. Officials like Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, localities like the city of Norfolk, VA; and other government entities, like the South Carolina State Library and the Virginia Dept. of Emergency Management, have all staked their claim with a dedicated YouTube channel.

But the California site still seems like a big-ish deal. I mean, I can't seem to find an example of any other state -- or city government -- with such a broad, organized channel that incorporates different agencies' videos the way California's does.

If there's one out there, let me know.

Bringing "Gotham" to Gotham?

posted by Zach Patton

New York City has a lot of nicknames, but no official one. But one elected official is trying to change that.

Queens Councilman Hiram Monserrate is pushing the New York City council to adopt "Gotham" as the city's first official nickname -- just in time for this summer's release of Warner Brothers' new Batman film, "The Dark Knight."

"I see that as a marketing tool," Monserrate told the Village Voice. "'Come visit the real Gotham City,' taking advantage of this movie which will be one of those gate-breaking, record-selling movies like it always is."

As the Voice notes, NYC has been linked with "Gotham" for quite some time:

The dark and gritty streets of Batman fame were modeled after the landscape of Lower Manhattan. But long before the D.C. Comics depiction connected New York City and Gotham City, Washington Irving made the reference in 1807, drawing a comparison between the residents of the City and those of the town of Gotham in Nottinghamshire, England who evaded taxes by faking dementia, a condition thought to be contagious at the time.

But in this case, the idea of New York as the "real" Gotham City might come as a surprise to Richard Daley, since both "The Dark Knight" and 2005's "Batman Begins" were filmed in Chicago.

Off Beat in Connecticut's Capitol

posted by Mark Stencel

The Journal-Register Co. in Connecticut has axed its last full-time Capitol reporter, veteran New Haven Register political writer Greg Hladky. As the Hew Haven Independent noted, Hladky was "the sole daily eyes and ears under the dome" for the newspaper chain, which also publishes the New Britain Herald, Torrington Register and Bristol Herald.

Governing's Rob Gurwitt wrote about the slow demise of government coverage in local newspapers in a December 2006 cover story (Blackout: Big-city newspapers aren’t telling citizens the things they need to know). And as Rob pointed out, the trend is as alarming to many in government as it is to those who cover it.

That seems to be the case this week in Connecticut, where some public officials denounced the Journal-Register group's decision to give Hladky his walking papers after 28 years on the beat.

"Today, as a result of layoffs and cutbacks, with fewer eyes keeping watch, the public and electorate will be less well informed," Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz told the Hartford Courant.

Courant political bloggers Mark Pazniokas and Christopher Keating gave some sense of what would be missing in the halls of the Capitol:

"Hladky's irreverent and uncomfortable questions sometimes grew into a fine entertainment for his peers in the press corps when an official would give a less-than-responsive answer and Hladky would begin revving up with follow-up queries that grew sharper as he went along. On the best days, he would play the official like a hooked marlin until the subject of his interrogation left indignant or dispirited."

What's In Your Wallet?

posted by Mark Stencel

The Sacramento Bee is learning what several other news organizations already knew: The salaries of government employees may be public information, but the employees really hate it when you make it public.

Bee Editor Melanie Sill (pictured right) published a note to readers this week responding to complaints from state workers about its new employee salary database. Sill's note said the complaints picked up steam "in the wake of an employees' union email to members."

"The Bee did not set out to embarrass anyone or to invade anyone's privacy," she wrote, emphasizing that "government pay is public record, not private information," and that the database was part of bigger push by the newspaper to provide access to public information online. (Sill, with whom I used to work at the News & Observer in North Carolina, also wrote about that push in another recent column.)

State workers gave the Lansing State Journal, the Boston Herald and several other newspapers similar lashings after they posted government pay databases on their Web sites -- as I wrote in a short article for Governing last year (second item: "PAYROLL PEEKING").

Based on Sill's note, it sounds like California's capital city paper is hearing many of the same arguments now. Some employees, the Bee editor said, complained that the newspaper was compromising their safety by revealing where they work and possibly exposing them to identity theft.

Sill said she and her colleagues did not think they had published "information that could not easily be obtained from other public sources. State workers' names and locations, for instance, are available online through the state government employee directory." She also said the paper did not think "names and pay levels are adequate information for identity theft," noting that addresses, Social Security numbers, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and other personal information were not part of the database.

BREAKING! L.A. Council Member Did NOT Kill That Kitten

posted by Zach Patton

You know what's hilarious?  Killing kittens. 

At least, that's what a couple Associated Press editors thought last week, when they changed a word in an AP story to make it seem as if a Los Angeles city council member had harmed a cat during a press conference:

The AP piece said an LA councilman "held a kitten at a City Hall news conference" while a pet sterilization ordinance was signed. Two staffers at the North County Times changed "held" to "strangled."

The AP has fired the editor who made the change "as a joke," and the editor who allowed it to go to print has been suspended.

Most importantly, though, the widdle kitty is fine.

A Bridge, Unabridged

posted by Zach Patton

Not sure this is new, but I just heard about it. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has compiled all of its coverage from last summer's 35W bridge collapse into one stunning website, "13 Seconds in August."

It's a remarkably elegant site. Car by car, the newspaper has profiled everyone who was involved in the event. Many of the links contain video interviews with people who were injured in the disaster, or who lost loved ones in the collapse.

It's very impressive, and very moving.

DC's 311 Could Use A Little TLC

posted by Zach Patton

Walking home during yesterday afternoon's fierce 30-mph winds, I had a moment of excitement. I had my first opportunity to use DC's newly revamped 311 system!

Yeah, yeah: nerd alert. Whatever.

Now, first of all, it should be said that I'm a little spoiled on 311 systems. I've attended a few Governing conferences in which cities (most notably New York) have shown off their incredibly advanced 311 call centers. Cities like New York, Chicago, Denver and San Francisco have worked incredibly hard to streamline a caller's experience, often with goals like having a human being answer the phone within 15 seconds.

So I tried to keep my expectations for DC low.

Even so, I was underwhelmed.

Lose Weight the Hrbacek Way!

posted by Zach Patton

Are you a public official who's concerned that your not-so-svelte figure might be an obstacle to your campaign for a higher office? Don't want to waste your time with Mike Huckabee's boring ol' diet-and-exercise plan?

Then you need the Dean Hrbacek Miracle Weight-Loss Plan!

Hrbacek, a former mayor of Sugar Land, TX, is running for Congress. But judging by a flyer sent out by Hrbacek's campaign, you'd think he was running a marathon.

See, here's the deal. Hrbacek's not fat, but he's not the thinnest guy around, either.

Last week, though, his campaign sent out a flyer with a photo of a very trim Hrbacek -- or, as it turned out, Hrbacek's head Photoshopped onto someone else's very trim body.

This week, Hrbacek admitted the photo was a fake, although he wouldn't address why his camp had doctored the image. (A campaign aide had previously said the image was faked because Hrbacek didn't have time for a photo shoot.)

Photoshopping yourself in campaign literature just seems like a bad idea all around. The benefits are questionable, and you're just opening yourself up to a chorus of "if we can't trust him on this, how can we trust him in office?". 

Canadians Must Have Stronger Stomachs

posted by Zach Patton

When I was a little kid, I had this children's book that, depending on how you look at it, either scarred me for life or taught me some very valuable lessons.

The book had all these short stories featuring distinct moral lessons -- look both ways before crossing the street, don't talk to strangers, etc.  But the stories were REALLY detailed, and the illustrations accompanying them were REALLY gruesome.  Like, Fred the Fox didn't look both ways, and now he's mangled in the street, with bones sticking out of his arms and legs.

Or I remember one about a little wolf (like, you know, Wally the Wolf or something) who stuck his finger in an electrical socket.  There was a photo of him (I swear to God I think he was dead), with, like, smoke coming off him because he had been electrocuted to death.

And another one about Hilda the Hippo who couldn't learn to use the toilet.  Her hippo parents held up her poopy diaper (yes, with accompanying illustrations) in front of all her friends, and Hilda was so embarrassed that she started learning to use the potty.

Anyhow, obviously the book did the trick in terms of making a lasting impression.

I was reminded of this book today when I came across these terrifying public service announcements from Canada's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

Looks like they've been around for a few months, but if you haven't seen them, be warned! They really are not for the faint of heart.

So...think we should have ads like these in the U.S.?

Extreme Makeover: MA Speaker's Office Edition

posted by Zach Patton

If you're a public official, how do you renovate your office when you've made hay of someone else doing the same thing?

If you're Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi, the answer is "very carefully." DiMasi (a Friend of Governing) is redecorating the Speaker's office, but he's keenly aware of the jeers that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick faced when he redid his office earlier this year. In fact, DiMasi himself joined the chorus of criticism over items such as $10,000 drapes.

So DiMasi is taking charge of the PR. His office sent out a preemptive press release titled "House Speaker Begins First Renovation in 20 Years, DiMasi Committee Paying for Majority of Costs." As the release noted, DiMasi's campaign committee is shouldering the lion's share of the expenses.

The DiMasi camp also emailed reporters photos of somewhat shabby office, including images of the carpet, which is stained in several areas and, in one place, held together with duct tape.

It's a good lesson in the power of smooth media relations -- even if Massachusetts taxpayers still won't be keen on spending $13,000 for the office's new carpet.

Map Time

posted by Josh Goodman

The Wichita Eagle has a neat feature on its Web site: A map, which is updated every weekday, of all the crimes that took place in Wichita in the past day. The part I like best is the fine print that says, "Data is based on information from the Wichita Police Department."

Lots of police departments are mapping crime data and lots are putting the maps online. Usually, though, they end up buried deep within government Web sites. I'd guess that most are rarely visited. So, if governments really want the public to see their data (and, in some cases, that might be a pretty big "if"), working with the media on projects like this one makes a lot of sense.

It also helps prevent those pesky journalists from taking information out of context. When he or she has each day's crime map at hand, a reporter is less likely to cast a single incident as part of a disturbing trend, unless, of course, it's part of a disturbing trend.

Speaking of cool online collaborations between media and government, the San Diego Union Tribune has a new searchable database: "Structures burned in the 2007 San Diego County wildfires."

Other People's Money

posted by Alan Greenblatt

Our readership, which is largely made up of public officials, might like to read this exchange from one of The Washington Post's regular political online chats, featuring one of its congressional reporters:

Tampa, Fla.: What is it about D.C. that makes it such a thoroughly corrupt city, professionally and socially?

Shailagh Murray: Very simple. Everyone here is spending other people's money.

A Step in the Right Direction?

posted by Josh Goodman

I know two things:

1) I've never spoken with anyone who, in a casual conversation, follows "way" with "forward."

2) Politicians, marketers and the media are obsessed with the "way forward."

Don't know what I mean? Consider the nation's governors. They understand the versatility of those two little words.

Generic: "The public has entrusted all of us to choose and chart a way forward."

--New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine

Sappy: "The only way forward, the only way out, is with each other."

-South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford

Ideological: "The way forward is not to look left, but to look ahead. There is too much at stake to do otherwise."

--Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney

Biographical: "I have grown up in poverty and worked my way forward."

--Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick

Confused: "We are where we are -- now which way forward?"

--Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels

I'd like to tell you that this is a case of states serving as laboratories of rhetoric, but that's probably not true. As William Safire has noted, the phrase has popped up everywhere, seemingly simultaneously, seemingly overnight.

Little Sunshine Miss

posted by Josh Goodman

I like a lot of different foods -- pie, hash browns, apple danish and lamb rogan josh to name a few -- but there's nothing more delicious than a steaming bowl of irony. This one must have been prepared by a master chef.

The state of Washington has a new Sunshine Committee that is charged with reviewing open records laws. After Governor Christine Gregoire named some of the committee members, the Associated Press asked for documents relating to the selection process.

Gregoire turned over some documents, but refused to turn over anything related to applicants who weren't selected, saying that the law exempts applications for public employment. Open records advocates disagree that membership on the unpaid committee constitutes employment. So now the governor and the AP are engaged in an open records battle over appointments to the Sunshine Committee.

They could at least change the name to the Partly Cloudy Committee.

Pet Peeve Department

Every once in a while, a word or phrase or rhetorical trope will spread throughout the writing world like kudzu. A few years ago, there seemed to be stories every day that paraphrased the "shocked, shocked" Captain Renault in Casablanca.

Just now, there are a couple of words that journalists can't seem to live without. One is "famously," as in, "Bush famously said in 2001 he trusted Putin after looking him in the eye and gaining a 'sense of his soul,'" or, "John Quincy Adams famously warned against going abroad in search of monsters to destroy," or, "In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad famously fell out with his deputy Anwar Ibrahim."

I would argue that nothing Mahathir Mohamad has ever done actually became famous, at least in this country. But these are just some of the many examples of the use of this word over the last couple of days in two news outlets alone (The Washington Post and Reuters). It's past time to retire using this word for this type of emphasis.

But the one that really peeves me at the present time is the word literally. Writers have often used the word to add extra emphasis, as in, I would have to be literally insane. Today, it's just used to spruce up cliches.

The writer will reach for a handy cliche and then insert the word "literally" next to it, so we know that what he or she is describing is not just a figure of speech but actually happened. "The train pulled out of the station -- literally -- as Jeremy set off for college."

It's beyond tiresome. I made that last one up but I've collected many real examples. Here is my least favorite, from The New Yorker: "When investigators examined the records later, they found Mrs. Clinton's fingerprints, literally, on them."

Does that writer think anyone would be so confused by the term "fingerprints" that she would need this further explanation? If you're not portraying things in a way that they might be taken literally, are you still practicing journalism?

The New Yorker's View of Los Angeles

posted by Alan Greenblatt

My copy of the May 21 New Yorker got delivered to a neighbor's house, so I've only just gotten around to reading Connie Bruck's profile of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. For the most part, it's fairly negative, in ways that are instructive about the current state of political journalism.

Not surprisingly, Bruck focuses much more on Villaraigosa's life story and personality than on policy. She portrays him as opportunistic, quite probably a backstabber and someone who expects support without extending much respect to others. Inevitably, she spends some time speculating about what his ambitions for future office might be. The only policy issue that she writes about at any length is his attempt to takeover the city's schools, which ended up as kind of a botched compromise, along with a nod toward gang problems.

All this stands in contrast to Rob Gurwitt's piece in the February issue of Governing, which shows Villaraigosa as a get-it-done consensus maker, adept at community relations and making smart deals on union negotiations, downtown development and bureaucratic reforms. It's also quite a different take from Dissent last summer, which saw Villaraigosa's early record of success as potentially "laying the groundwork for the next New Deal:

"Villaraigosa is at his best when he uses his personal charm and diplomatic skills to bring contending forces together and resolve a logjam, forging a compromise that results in victories for unions, environmentalists, and community groups that allows the other side to save face," that piece's academic authors conclude.

I don't claim to know much about Villaraigosa as a personality; clearly, authors with different takes had no problem eliciting quotes either critical of him or praising him.

But, while it would be foolish to expect a publication like The New Yorker to delve too deeply into policy matters, the fact that Bruck loaded the deck in focusing on a failure while ignoring many clear victories says a lot about how writers will sometimes present a public figure in one particular light, rather than trying to achieve three-dimensionality by casting light from all sides.

Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Blogs?

posted by Josh Goodman

How many governors currently have blogs? The same number that communicate through smoke signals, homing pigeons and telepathy (so far as I know). Zero.

Here's a quick rundown of the so-called blogs on governors' sites:

* Delaware's Ruth Ann Minner started a blog last May. Her first post concluded, "I hope you will continue to check back for my weekly entries." She kept that schedule for one week. Now she hasn't posted anything since December, which means the blog is dead.

* So far as I can tell, there aren't any other governors with blogs of their own that are anywhere close to active (RIP Phil blog, 2005-2005), although a couple have staff blogs. Members of Arnold Schwarzenegger's staff write entries that sound like press releases and post videos where they appear to be reading from scripts. In the past year, Arnold has only posted once.

* Kathleen Blanco also has one, although, in spite of the bylines and author photos, every entry could have been written by a PR person (otherwise, wouldn't there be personal anecdotes and unique writing styles?). Blanco hasn't ever posted.

That's it -- which raises two questions to me: Why aren't governors and/or their staffs blogging? And, should they be?

The wrong answer to question #1 is that they don't have time. Sure, governors and their staffs are busy, but that doesn't stop them from producing weekly columns, radio addresses, podcasts, videos and e-mail updates.

Far, far more often than not, however, all of those forms of communication end up sounding like regurgitated press releases, just like the Schwarzenegger and Blanco staff blogs. As long as governors are intent on banishing all personality, humor, wit and creativity from their communications, there's not much point to having blogs. Most realize that, which is why they don't have them.

That's a safe decision (we in the media are happy to create a firestorm out of any off-the-cuff remark), but it also represents a missed opportunity. Technology gives today's public officials an unprecedented ability to bypass the media's filter and communicate directly with constituents, be it through blogs, e-mails, podcasts, etc. The trouble is that governors have failed to create much of anything that anyone wants to read, hear or see.

'Price Is Right' Politics

posted by Josh Goodman

I learned something important from Rudy Giuliani's inability to name the price of a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread: Reporters ask really silly questions.

Giuliani badly underestimated what you and I are paying at the grocery store. This is supposed to show that the millionaire former mayor of New York City isn't the common man.

Gotcha questions like this one have become a staple of presidential politics and state politics too. In a debate last year, candidates for governor in Texas were asked everything from the year of the Battle of the Alamo to the interest rate for a 30-year mortgage.

If mastery of trivia is a prerequisite for executive leadership, we might as well appoint Ken Jennings to be Benevolent Dictator for Life. Or, better still, Bob Barker.

But how often do you say to yourself, "That politician is incompetent, corrupt, lazy, stubborn and stupid, but I LOVE the way he can recite what I'm paying for dish soap"?

'A Special Place in Hell'

posted by Zach Patton

In this day and age, it's kind of amazing how quickly a public figure can fall from grace -- and how it's so often caused by the tiniest thing. A flub caught on YouTube, say, or an inappropriate sentence on a MySpace page.

Today's entry in this file comes from Colorado, where last week state Rep. Mike Merrifield caused a firestorm of controversy that ended in his resigning as chairman of the House Education committee -- in the span of about 36 hours.

On Thursday, Face the State, a Colorado politics blog, posted an email Merrifield had written in December, in which he had criticized charter school supporters. But his criticism was a little...abrasive:

"There must be a special place in hell for these Privatizers, Charterizers and Voucherziers. They deserve it!"

Not surprisingly, the email, which Merrifield sent to Sen. Sue Windels, the chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, quickly set off a lot of controversy. It's likely an email like this would catch attention any time, but the state Senate is set to debate a bill -- sponsored by Merrifield and Windels -- that would restore public school districts' authority over most charter schools in the state.

On Friday morning, the story had been picked up by the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver Post and the Colorado Springs Gazette.

By Friday afternoon, Merrifield had apologized on the House floor and had stepped down from his committee chairmanship.

It's just another form of the age-old lesson, kids: NEVER WRITE IT DOWN.

Extreme Propaganda

posted by Alan Greenblatt

Here's a legislative example of the phenomenon I described the other day with the anti-Hillary YouTube video.

Two videos have been posted on YouTube deriding legislators for their role in the debate over a piece of pro-union legislation.

One, shot from the balcony of the House chamber, shows Representative Dolores Mertz leaving the floor on a day she took ill. The person narrating the video accuses House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, described as "a complete jerk," of having made Mertz sick by pressuring her regarding her vote on the bill.

"This is what's going on with these Democrats," says the video narrator. "They're sick, they're extremely mean-spirited, they're trying to hurt people.

Both McCarthy and Mertz have denied this account. "It's extreme propaganda from people who apparently don't mind lying," McCarthy told the Des Moines Register.

Yet another anonymous electronic medium lowers the level of discourse -- not surprising, but troubling and something to watch.

UPDATE: By the way, the maker of the anti-Hillary video, a consultant with ties to the Obama campaign, has been outed and has resigned. 

Curses, FOIAed Again!

posted by Josh Goodman

I recently received a publication from the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas that raises an interesting question: At what volume (if any) do requests for public information become so burdensome on government that they constitute harassment?

This question has come up because the curiosity of two Lake Travis residents, David and Melissa Lovelace, has allegedly killed the local school district's budget. The Lovelaces, who have a son who is disabled, have submitted over 2,200 requests under the state's Public Information Act, many related to special education in Lake Travis schools. School officials say responding has cost them more than $600,000.

Last year a district court judge rejected the school system's claim of harassment, saying nothing in the law limits how much information the public can demand. Legislators are considering changing that, with a bill that would establish additional fees for large FOIA requests.

The bigger question here is why members of the public should even need to ask to have access to government records. As the Austin American-Statesman opined:

Most of those costs could be avoided if school officials made more records available to the public, posted more information online and didn't fight so hard to keep taxpayers in the dark.

Information Devolution

posted by Alan Greenblatt

By now it's become a tired cliche that independent voices, granted new power and tools by technology, have up-ended traditional public discourse, challenging both media institutions and politicians seeking to control the message.

Still, as with many cliches, there's a good deal of truth to it. There are two excellent examples at hand just now.

One is the video that attacks Hillary Rodham Clinton as an Orwellian "Big Sister." It was put up on YouTube by a Barack Obama supporter and has become quite the phenomenon as word spreads via blogs and mainstream news outlets. Yet another example of the difficulty candidates have in controlling the messages of their own campaigns.

The other is happening right now at TPM Muckraker, a Web outlet published by TalkingPointsMemo.com. Blogs like these, of course, are a big part of the new media mix and these particular sites were way ahead of the bigger news organization in pursuing the U.S. attorney purge story.

Now they have taken the information devolution a step further by asking their readers to help read through and comment on the latest document dump in the case.

"Josh and I were just discussing how in the world we are ever going to make our way through 3,000 pages when it hit us: we don't have to. Our readers can help," writes reporter Paul Kiel.

It reminds me of the sign-off line used by the news reader at San Francisco's KFOG radio years ago: "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own."

UPDATE: The maker of the anti-Hillary video, a consultant with ties to the Obama campaign, has been outed and has resigned.

The Demand-Side Management Version of a Rock Star

posted by Alan Greenblatt

Obama is one, of course. So is Clinton -- actually, both Bill and Hillary are. Even Junichiro Koizumi is one.

I refer, of course, to politicians who have been described by news outlets as "rock stars." This means that they possess the bright sheen of celebrity, can draw and easily excite crowds and sometimes are guilty of trashing hotel rooms without remembering to tip the maid.

This also means that political reporters feel free to refer to their star quality as a way of distinguishing political royalty from the rest of the pack. So free that the political rock star has become the reverse of an endangered species, a phenomenon that can be cited with persistent and annoying frequency.

There are probably more political rock stars these days, in fact, than actual rock stars. Seriously -- isn't is all hip-hop or Mariah Carey-style "American Idol" vocalizing?

But political rock stars (or the more cautious, and rare, subgenus, "the political equivalent of a rock star") include all the major presidential candidates -- McCain, certainly; Guiliani, obviously; Bill Richardson, why not?

Sadly, no one said that Tom Vilsack was a rock star, rather that he was outshone by those who were. Both the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post declared that Vilsack was "not a rock star." So much for objective journalism.

Vilsack rather humbly took to describing himself, to those who would listen, as "rock solid," rather than a rock star.

But there have been thousands more stars named in the political galaxy over just the past couple of years, as a quick foray into Nexis shows.

Annals of Bigotry

posted by Alan Greenblatt

A columnist with AsianWeek in San Francisco was fired after publishing a column entitled "Why I Hate Blacks."

Naturally, the paper has taken the column off its site, but you can read it here.

He had earlier printed columns called "Why I Hate Asians" and "Proof That Whites Inherently Hate Us." This track record led to questions at a news conference yesterday about the paper's editorial policies and why they had published the most recent offending column in the first place.

But the columnist's firing at least will spare us having to read his take on "Why I Hate Transgendered City Managers."

A Dissatisfied Customer

posted by Alan Greenblatt

I had a lengthy phone conversation the other day with a legislator full of complaints about press coverage of a bill he had sponsored. What struck me was how unusual his type of complaint seems to be.

Colorado state Representative Mike Garcia sponsored a bill that would have made it easier for workers to choose to make their workplaces into all-union shops. The bill became hugely controversial, with the business lobby saying it would destroy economic development efforts while unions pushed hard for it.

Ultimately, Governor Bill Ritter vetoed it, disappointing the unions that had worked hard for his election. Ritter felt the whole debate surrounding the bill had gotten too partisan to allow it become law.

Garcia agrees. He said the governor did the right thing by judging the bill not on its merits but on the bad blood it had stirred up and the further trouble his signature would have caused.

But Garcia blames much of the rancor on media coverage -- the bill drew considerable attention both in-state and nationally.  By his own count, about 75 stories were written, but "only a handful" were accurate. "The media has done an awful job in terms of reporting what the bill does," he said.

Pension Envy

posted by Alan Greenblatt

For Governing's upcoming March issue, I wrote a little piece about how there could be some grumbling about the generosity of government employee pensions and retirement health care benefits. Those types of goodies are being cut in the private sector, so government workers are going to be pressed to make the case for why they should get them, I wrote.

Not surprisingly, the spokesmen I talked with at the big public employee unions weren't thrilled with my line of questioning. They seemed to deny that this could be an issue, arguing that rather than attacking public sector employees, private sector workers should also be getting good health and retirement coverage.

At any rate, USA Today runs a front-page story today about "pension tension" that I think will be fairly typical of the type of thing that I believe the unions are going to have to grapple with.

"Rather than lower the bar for public employees, we need to stabilize retirement programs for everyone," Richard Ferlauto, director of pension and benefit policy for AFSCME, told the paper.

But he did acknowledge that the benefits are drawing more attention. "People want to know, 'Why should you have more security than us?' " he said. "It's pension envy."

Alcoholics Unanimous

posted by Zach Patton

Pop Quiz: You're a public figure who's just had a very public fall from grace. You're flailing. Your PR people are scrambling to manage the situation. What do you do???

Answer: Check into rehab!

That's the answer for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has just announced that he's entering a treatment program from alcohol abuse. Newsom's affair with a staffer was disclosed last week.

Nevermind that Newsom's problem doesn't really have anything to do with alcohol per se.

It's getting to be a well-worn playbook for public officials. Last fall, when Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty to his ties with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, he blamed alcohol and announced he was entering rehab. And Rep. Mark Foley, famously dethroned over the House page scandal, checked himself into rehab, just to be safe. Mel Gibson followed his anti-Semitic meltdown last summer with a stint in rehab.

Checking into an alcohol treatment program (even non-residential ones like Newsom's) gives public figures a chance to say, "Look! I'm healing! I'm doing something." And in many cases it means hands-off to the inquiring press.

Look, if these people do have an alcohol problem, then it's good they're getting treatment. Blah blah blah. But the whole scandal+rehab thing is getting so predictable, it's offensive.

Apparently, Homer Simpson was right when he said:

Here's to alcohol, the cause of — and solution to — all life's problems.

Good News Is No News

posted by Alan Greenblatt

Have you heard? Meth use is down. Both in terms of overal use and the number of new users.

So says a National Survey on Drug Use and Health report. In contrast to the heavy coverage of a meth "epidemic" in recent years, though, this federal report has gotten next to no mention.

Jack Shafer, Slate's media critic, lays out the reasons why news of increased use is news, while news of decreases are ignored.

Guerillas in the Midst

posted by Zach Patton

Here are a couple videos that might interest you.

First, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Lite Brite guerilla marketing campaign that shut down Boston:

Second, here's a video of the guys behind the campaign talking to the press. Because their lawyers told them not to talk about the case, they decide to talk about something else: 70's haircuts.

Unadulterated Truth

posted by Josh Goodman

Governing gave William Glaberson of the New York Times our annual journalism award yesterday. There's lots that we liked about his series on New York's town and village courts, but one of my favorite things about the series was what it didn't have: balance.

While he clearly did his homework, talking to people inside and outside the court system, Glaberson doesn't suggest that having a favorable or unfavorable view of the courts are equally valid viewpoints.

Instead, what he writes is this:

"The examination found overwhelming evidence that decade after decade and up to this day, people have often been denied fundamental legal rights. Defendants have been jailed illegally. Others have been subjected to racial and sexual bigotry so explicit it seems to come from some other place and time. People have been denied the right to a trial, an impartial judge and the presumption of innocence."

That very unbalanced judgment just so happens to be strongly supported by the evidence he goes on to present. As such, Glaberson's series shows that there's a principle that, for good reporters, trumps balance every time: the truth.

Socked for Sockpuppets?

posted by Zach Patton

From SFist comes this interesting tidbit about the commenting habits of San Franciso Mayor Gavin Newsom's communications director, Peter Ragone.

Apparently, SFist found some indications that Ragone had been using multiple aliases -- or sock puppets -- to comment on their blog, defending Newsom and blasting his critics.

Then the local ABC news affiliate checked their own blog, and it turned out that Ragone appeared to be using the same tactics there too. (You can watch the ABC News report here.)

What Ragone did isn't illegal or anything, although you could argue that it's a little...underhanded.

But now the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is suggesting that Newsom fire Ragone.

Aaron Peskin, president, SF Board of Supervisors: "If I were mayor, he would not be working for me. There's no question about it.... It smacks of kind of Nixonian political trickery, and it's just not leaving a good taste really in anybody's mouth."

Something in the Aer

posted by Zach Patton

This is either a testament to UNC business professor John Kasarda's awesome PR machine, the staying power of a good urban-planning concept, the laziness flattery of journalists, or some combination of the three.

Kasarda's concept -- which he calls an "aerotropolis" -- describes the mega developments that can spring up around a city's airport. It's a neat word to describe a fact of urban planning, but it's not exactly a new idea. Even Kasarda's word for it isn't new.

But that hasn't stopped a few major media outlets from recently jumping on a bandwagon that Governing was on six years ago. To wit:

Wall Street Journal, 1/24/07, Flight Plan: Airports Take Off As Development Hubs:

Airports are "the new central business districts of the postindustrial economy," says the University of North Carolina business professor.

Memphis Commercial Appeal, 12/14/06, Memphis leads nation en route to 'aerotropolis':

If you've heard the term "aerotropolis," thank John Kasarda... Memphis International Airport is the closest America has to an aerotropolis, said Kasarda...

New York Times, 12/10/06, 2006 Year in Ideas: The Aerotropolis:

Traditionally, of course, airports have served cities, but in the past few years airports have started to become cities unto themselves, giving rise to a new urban form: the aerotropolis.... “Access, access, access is replacing location, location, location as the most important commercial real estate principle,” Kasarda says.

Governing, 9/01, Freight Expectations:

"Airports have become the new downtown," says John Kasarda, a professor in the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who uses the term "aerotropolis" to describe cities such as Columbus.

Gaffe of the Day

posted by Zach Patton

Virginia House Del. Frank Hargrove is certainly efficient with his insults.  He was able to offend blacks and Jews in pretty much the same breath yesterday.

In arguing against a proposed state apology for slavery, Hargrove said that, while slavery was reprehensible, he thinks "that our black citizens should get over it."

In trying to put his remarks in context, Hargrove countered, "Are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?"

Um, needless to say, he's receiving some criticism for his remarks.

Huckabee STOPS by The Daily Show

posted by Zach Patton

To promote his new book, From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 STOPs to Restoring America's Greatness, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee went on The Daily Show earlier this week. 

Huckabee was affable and funny, and the Daily Show audience (which, let's face it, isn't prone to like a self-described conservative, Evangelical Republican) really seemed to like him.

Here's Part 1 of the interview.  Part 2 is after the jump.

Wholely Crist

posted by Zach Patton

You've probably seen the headlines about Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's website typo, in which his staff accidentally labeled the governor's leadership group as "The Christ Team":

Fla. gov's staff fixes 'Christ' typo

Christ's, er, Crist's staff quickly fixes Web page typo

Gov. Crist given higher title, but just for a minute

But the best headline of the day -- by far -- is in the Miami Herald:

For Crist's sake, get the 'h' out