Originally posted 5.3.19, updated 5.17.19. Although another candidate has withdrawn from the final pool of applicants for a new UW-Whitewater chancellor, conditions that led to the present (stretching over the last two chancellors’ tenure) matter more than the immediate and futile hope that a single appointment will overcome years of the wrong direction. Genuine change…
Babbittry
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Despite Denials, Foxconn’s Empty Buildings Are Still Empty
by JOHN ADAMS •
This morning, Joe sent along a comment mentioning a story about Foxconn from the national technology website The Verge. (Many thanks for the pointer.) Josh Dzieza reports One month ago, Foxconn said its innovation centers weren’t empty — they still are (“Foxconn still hasn’t done anything with the buildings it bought in Wisconsin”): Last summer,…
Babbittry, CDA, Government Spending, Local Government, Marketing, New Media, Public Relations, Social Media
Wasting Money on Whitewashing Marketing
by JOHN ADAMS •
Old Whitewater – a state of mind and not a person – loves little more than a one-size fits all boosterism plan. This kind of approach was tired even in print – it’s next to worthless in a diverse digital world. And yet, and yet, along comes a public relations man and his assistant to…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
America’s Best Know Better
by JOHN ADAMS •
A story from the Wall Street Journal‘s Valerie Bauerlein explains the damage that the Foxconn scheme has done to ordinary people in Foxconn Tore Up a Small Town to Build a Big Factory—Then Retreated (“The iPhone maker got fat incentives to build a $10 billion LCD plant that largely hasn’t materialized on land where Mount…
America, Babbittry, City, History, New Media, Newspapers, Press, Social Media, Writing
The Media’s ‘Post-Advertising’ Future
by JOHN ADAMS •
Nationally and locally, the media (whether profit or non-profit) continue their significant transformation: the decline of print, the rise of (interactive) digital media, and the collapse of a middle-of-the-road partnership of boosterism between mediocre newspapers and middling officials. Print’s doomed, and so is digital that merely repeats the same banal style of contemporary print. Traditional…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Tony Evers, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn Confirms Gov. Evers’s Claim of a Renegotiation Discussion
by JOHN ADAMS •
Yesterday, Gov. Evers was proved right on a key contention about Foxconn. Earlier this week, Evers released a letter to Foxconn executive Dr. Louis Woo in which Evers mentioned that Foxconn had sought to “suggest several changes to the existing agreement.” Gov. Evers also stated that Woo had also met with Vos and Fitzgerald and…
Babbittry, Beautiful Whitewater, CDA, Culture, Demographics, Diversity, Economics, Economy, Good Ideas, Lifestyle, Local Government, WEDC
‘Migration Key To Wisconsin’s Workforce’
by JOHN ADAMS •
For many years – and despite nearly a decade of corporate welfare and crony capitalism from the WEDC and local versions of it – Wisconsin has seen a decline in younger workers and families. Shamane Mills writes Report: Migration Key To Wisconsin’s Workforce (“State Has Seen Large Drop in Net Migration Of Families With Children…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Marketing, Propaganda, Public Relations
The Myth of a ‘Backfire Effect’ to Fact Checking
by JOHN ADAMS •
When someone debunks a claim or article through fact-checking, does doing so generally produce a backfire effect where others commit even more strongly to the debunked notion? No, not generally. Laura Hazard Owen writes The “backfire effect” is mostly a myth, a broad look at the research suggests: The growing stream of reporting on and…
America, Babbittry, Culture
The Antidote to Boosterism
by JOHN ADAMS •
Bret Stephens offers Neal Armstrong as a worthy example in Apollo 11’s Forgotten Virtues (“Armstrong stayed humble, and human, in the era of relentless puffery and self-promotion”): There’s a short scene near the end of “Apollo 11,” the thrilling new documentary about history’s greatest spaceflight, in which Mike Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong make…
Babbittry, Blogging, City, Freedom of Speech, Law, Liberty, Newspapers, Open Government, Press
Sunshine Week 2019
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s Sunshine Week in America: a seven-day focus from the American Society of News Editors and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press on “access to public information and what it means for you and your community.” One doesn’t have to be a reporter (and bloggers, for example, are not reporters) to understand the importance…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Mendacity, Newspapers, That Which Paved the Way
Quality Rests on Quality
by JOHN ADAMS •
Never Trump conservative Tom Nichols, on Twitter, writes sensibly in reply to a question about which news sources one should read. He advises Start with a national newspaper every morning. Any of them. NYT, WaPo, WSJ, LAT, whatever. If you just read one newspaper a day, you’re light years ahead of anyone who’s staring at…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Employment, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC, Wisconsin
Lost Homes and Land, All Over a Foxconn Fantasy
by JOHN ADAMS •
Wisconsin State Senator Jon Erpenbach reminds that people lost homes and land over the Foxconn proposal, and communities spent far over one-hundred millions on an idea that was – to any reasonable, discerning person – doomed to fail. Doomed to fail: dozens of analyses and warnings from across America, of which merely one is Tim Culpan’s Wisconsin…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Employment, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Tony Evers, WEDC, Wisconsin
WISGOP Assembly Speaker Vos Hopes You’re Stupid
by JOHN ADAMS •
With the news that Foxconn plans to drop manufacturing at a plant that was supposed to hire thousands of workers, for which people lost their homes, and that was the centerpiece of Scott Walker’s corporate welfare and crony capitalism, Speaker Robin Vos blames…newly-elected Gov. Tony Evers. Oh, brother: Vos must hope that Wisconsinites are stupid enough to believe…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Employment, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Foxconn Talks of Folding Wisconsin Manufacturing Plans
by JOHN ADAMS •
No one who thought about Foxconn seriously would be surprised to read from a Reuters exclusive that Foxconn [is] reconsidering plans to make LCD panels at Wisconsin plant. The Taiwanese manufacturer has already broken its promises on the kind of panels it would build at the plant, and failed to meet even its low, first-year hiring…