"America: Now, slightly Socialist-leaning"

According to a new Rasmussen Reports survey, only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism

(News)paper Chase: From downsizing to digitizing

The ongoing saga of how to sell the story -- resuscitate the ad revenue lifeline for print media -- is more often than not becoming the story itself.


While the newsprint and newsroom personnel downsize ...

“In 2009 and 2010, all the two-newspaper markets will become one-newspaper markets, and you will start to see one-newspaper markets become no-newspaper markets,” said Mike Simonton, a senior director at Fitch Ratings, who analyzes the industry.

[...]

Nearly every large paper in the country prints fewer pages and fewer articles, and many have eliminated entire sections. Bureaus in foreign capitals and even Washington have closed, and papers have jettisoned film criticism, book reviews and coverage of local news outside their home markets.

[...]

The steady trickle of downsizing that sapped American papers for almost a decade has become a flood in the last few years. The Los Angeles Times still has one of the largest news staffs in the country, about 600 people, but it was twice as big in the late 1990s. The Washington Post had a newsroom of more than 900 six years ago, and has fewer than 700 now. The Gannett Company, the largest newspaper publisher in the country, eliminated more than 8,300 jobs in 2007 and 2008, or 22 percent of the total.

online expansion is a window of opportunity for companies looking to transition in the technological age -- to adjust and adapt to, instead of avoid, the digital domain ...

The death of a newspaper should result in an explosion of much smaller news sources online, producing at least as much coverage as the paper did, says Jeff Jarvis, director of interactive journalism at the City University of New York’s graduate journalism school. Those sources might be less polished, Mr. Jarvis said, but they would be competitive, ending the monopolies many newspapers have long enjoyed.

though it may not be greeted with the warmest welcome ...

Many critics and competitors of newspapers — including online start-ups that have been hailed as the future of journalism — say that no one should welcome their demise.

“It would be a terrible thing for any city for the dominant paper to go under, because that’s who does the bulk of the serious reporting,” said Joel Kramer, former editor and publisher of The Star Tribune and now the editor and chief executive of MinnPost .com, an online news organization in Minneapolis.

“Places like us would spring up,” he said, “but they wouldn’t be nearly as big. We can tweak the papers and compete with them, but we can’t replace them.”

the transition is seen as an inevitability

A number of money-losing papers should “have the guts to shut down print and go online,” he said. “It will have to be a much smaller product, but that’s where we’re headed anyway.”

Industry executives who once scoffed at the idea of an Internet-only product now concede that they are probably headed in that direction, but the consensus is that newspapers going all digital would become drastically smaller news sources for the foreseeable future.

Again, the print media needs to break down the barriers between itself and online news media. Print needs to start from the ground up in the digital sphere, and that begins with interacting with online journalists -- and yes, bloggers -- to get acclimated to the new world of online news journalism.

Even Howard Zinn can attest to early Pilgrims' alliance with Natives in the U.S. That collaboration was integral to the settlers survival -- much like an alliance on behalf of the print media with the online news media community is integral to the newspaper's survival.

Naturally, as the settlers gained manpower, capital, a manifesto, and regained enough sanity to remember why they ventured here in the first place, they went from friends to forefathers of a new nation built on the backs of Nativ-- I mean morals and ideals of true Patriots. I see print doing the same; I see print's future relying on a collaboration with bloggers, online journalists, etc., to gain the basic grasp of this new medium. More importantly, I see that as the "cut losses" in time and revenue before rebranding and rebuilding the corporate print news empire online.

Print media needs to start from the ground up. Many companies -- obviously the increasingly paranoid, but rightfully so, New York Times -- take the fear-of-the-unknown route and choose to valiantly play on the sinking ship. There's nothing wrong with humbling yourself and starting from square one; for the print media, they've got nothing -- and so nothing to lose.

Watch this space: especially you advertisers, it's for sale -- still

See, there's hope for the bullied kids yet ...

Glenn Beck. Rising star. -- no, that's not right. Glenn Beck, rising star?! -- that's more like it.

I mean with a glam-fab head shot like that, how could he not be a rising star? Not to mention his on-screen presence ...



Plus he's been doing it for years. It hasn't always been easy, but he had to take what Diddy calls the "Rihanna Road," where progress is a slow process. Beck's been nose to the grindstone forever, I suppose it is about time he see the fruits of his labor ...

Not everyone can support Global Warming as the world's biggest scam ...



or stand on the same pedestal of political pre-eminence as Ann Coulter ...



or make candy bars come out of their butts?



or be creepy ...



all the time ...



but that's called moxy and moxy makes it to the top.

Watch this space: Especially, if you've never seen a star on the rise. I've been watching this space forever, but I liked it better when it was called Public Access Television.

Distriction: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...

... and the flurry of finger pointing a la British investigative journalism puts a possible smudge on the as-of-yet snow white reputation of the second daughter, Ashley Biden -- but more so on her father, "Can-I-call-you-Joe" Biden


Biden -- Mr. that is -- is an adamant supporter of the anti-drug campaign, specifically -- you guessed it -- the trafficking of cocaine from Columbia

Since becoming a senator for Delaware in 1973, Mr Biden has pushed for harder penalties for cocaine possession and trafficking and last year sponsored a new bill aimed at curbing the smuggling of Colombian cocaine into the US in submarines.

Say it ain't so Joe! even if it is so joe, there's worse things she could do ... her last name could be Dupre

In related news: sports

British print media: 2; Young American public figures: 0
Disabled list: Michael Phelps, Ashley Biden

American print media: we lost count; British public figures: 0
Disabled list: Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Kate Moss, Pete Doherty, Russell Brand, etc.

Distriction: Springing back from cy-bernating slumber

This weekend welcomed the Cherry Blossom Festival, DC's cultural introduction to Spring -- and the perfect way to wake from a late winter hibernation from the digital domain.


A brief greeting after my semi-extended stint away from the blogosphere. I took some time to rest and refuel my creative reserves -- similar to a bear's hibernation for the digital age, more tech and less time.


So, I'm back now: like Bipartisanship a la Britney ...



black ...



babies ...


Bush (W.) -- a la Barack ...


the sound of dot-com bubbles bursting ...


and dot-com bubbles broadening ...



Scientology -- a la Palin's people ...


bracketology ...


and those beautiful cherry blossoms.


A week (end) in review -- in case you missed it

Distriction: Ba-sham-rack O'bama

The Hill was alive with the sound of Gaelic today -- and the green garb to boot -- as President O'Bama welcomed his "brother from another mother" -- land, Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen


It's all fun and festive until the water is flowing from your faucet ...


Green might be having the best day ever: White House fountain, Ba-sham-rack's tie, Dow arrows, AIG Exec's pockets, sprouting soon-to-be-Springtime grass ... fitting and fresh.

Because I'm busy that's why

Like N.E.R.D. said "It's time for some action," so while I'm out studying the world in 4 minutes just know I've got the wiings to stay fly. Schoolwork, work work, life work: only work if you work them

In between inspiration: synthetic ...


and organic ...


I work hard now so I won't have to settle for situations involving Sarah later.

Though it's still not too late for her to employ my no-fail two-step plan: magazines and manners, remember them -- keep those in mind and it should be easy sailin' for Palin. As for where that tugboat is going exactly, I'm sure I don't know; but there's bound to be a loyal fleet of good ol' boats following.

Watch this space: Will discuss after I TiVo it ...

photo credit: munzz

Distriction: DC HIV/AIDS Rates Surpass West Africa

Because it's not just a third-world problem, it's a problem on Third and Maryland Ave too


More imperative -- but innately intertwined -- with the "Anti-Journalism" movement is the need to debunk the (mediated) HIV/AIDS mythologies within the U.S. For example: toting Africa as the world's AIDS haven. HIV/AIDS -- like hunger, like poverty, like inadequate education -- does not stop at our doorstep. The sooner we come to terms with social pandemics -- and take accountability and ownership of them as our own -- the sooner we can solve the problem.

As the Obama Administration aims to reconnect the U.S. with our international partners, it is key that we as Americans look -- beyond politics, to people -- at shared experiences between ourselves and our fellow global citizens -- flaws and all.

Hopefully, this sparks an expansion initiative for the Project Red -- who's brilliant campaign stimulates charity, capitalism, and consumption ... all in one! The brand's mission to "fight AIDS in Africa," would provide worlds of support -- literally -- to fight the AIDS within the U.S. as well. Even a campaign to establish sub-projects -- country/region specific extensions within the larger "Project Red" umbrella -- would present the gravity in sheer breadth of the social crisis, but more so the solidarity behind the solution.



Watch this space

Tweeting Made Easy: We Follow

Per T.I.'s suggestion: "They don't know which way to go/I'll make it easy follow me." Twitter launched a site rendering "I have a Twitter, but I don't know what to do with it now that I'm there," a thing of the past. We follow is a "user powered Twitter directory," -- a Twitter search engine, of sorts, using hashtags as keywords to find and follow fellow Tweeters of a feather.

To add yourself to the directory enable/follow @hashtags, then tweet @wefollow three 1 word tags that describe you/your twitter page (i.e. @wefollow #blogger #music #dc) ... it's just that easy!


Obviously the big tags at the mo are (in very particular order) celebrity, music, tech, news -- and yes this is an apt reflection on priorities within the Twitter community.

After a winded round-the-world "Twitter is no threat to G" lecture series, Google is resting its voice and opting to Tweet instead of talk for the time being ... If you can't beat em, define yourself in three tags or less and enter the directory like everyone else ...


Speaking of Twitter -- which is becoming the modern day equivalent of "How's the weather?" -- I'll make it easy ... for you to follow me.

Watch this space: Old man Google's Tweets are speaking louder than his words -- for Twitter to be such a non-threat, We Follow got the leader to G Follow pretty quickly

Bristol Palin: Why ya buggin?!

Oh. Right. The whole "my-mom-ran-for-vice-president-and-lost-and-all-i-got-was-this-baby-and-pending-child-support" thing ...


When life gives you lemons Bristol ... ask, "In what respect, Charlie?" ... then pass the baby to your little sister for grooming, and pre-game for the heli-hunt. By the looks of the new and improved lil' Miss Palin -- talking Pro-Choice, using logic, ending up on Keith Olbermann and not as the embodiment of evil -- it might be your last hunt.

Two thumbs fresh for Bristol. Her mom may not know politics, and I ain't sayin' she a gold digger, but Bristol knows Deepthroat: "Follow the money."

Levi Johnson: Levi's jeans and Johnson & Johnson?! oh ... he's broke. Figures, after all, Johnson & Johnson is "a family company," while Levi is on "Federline company" kind of time.

Well, either way, I don't know what 20% of zero is but after carrying ones and working out remainders Bristol is bound to be ... on the receiving end of the stimulus package -- doesn't seem so silly now, does it?

Watch this space: Bristol might be the one to pull through ... who knows she might even be able to name a magazine she reads

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