Among the items in its ‘Monday Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down’ editorial, the Gazette argues against allowing Wisconsinites to drink organic milk (subscription req’d). It’s not merely that the paper’s editorial board thinks that drinking raw imprudent (pointing to illness from a recent incident), it’s that the board thinks sales should remain illegal. Without a law, the…
Press
Politics, Press
The Last Newspaper Gubernatorial Endorsements You’ll Notice
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
We’ve eight days until this gubernatorial election, and it’s been quite the battle. However happy or sad you’ve been with ’14, here’s one thing you likely won’t notice in ’18: newspapers’ political endorsements. That’s because print newspapers either won’t be around by ’18, they won’t be making endorsements by ’18, or their few remaining readers…
Press
When Endorsements Are Effective
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Political endorsements are effective when they bolster those who similarly believe, or when they persuade doubters to start believing. Otherwise, they’re no better than singing in the shower: they sound good to the singer, but no one else hears or enjoys the song. Good luck to print publications that don’t seem to grasp these simple…
Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Press
Does the Gazette‘s Editorialist Think that Janesville’s Residents Can’t Count?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
All around, daily print newspapers are in decline. For most of them, there will be no more than several years of life left. By 2020, almost all of them will be gone. (See, along these lines, Clay Shirky’s Last Call: The end of the printed newspaper.) If a newspaper is at ideological odds with ordinary…
Press
About the Editorialist’s Call for Others to ‘Do Better’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Over at the Janesville Gazette, they’ve an editorial stance occasionally focused on telling common people in that city to sit down, stop questioning, and just shut up. Where once one heard that the proper use of the press was about speaking truth to power, what’s left of the Janesville press is about speaking half-truths to…
Planning, Politics, Press, Wisconsin
Goat-Level’s Not Enough
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Political bloggers – left, right, libertarian, etc. – often find themselves critiquing the ill-considered proposals that government, business, labor groups, and a fawning press insist are for everyone’s good. That’s certainly true in Wisconsin – we have an active blogosphere running the whole political spectrum, and united (if in little else) at least in a…
Police, Politics, Press, University
The Politics of Informants at UW-Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
In a well-ordered community, there should be an accord between good policy and good politics. That’s not yet Whitewater, and this post will address the political implications of using confidential informants. (For a review of policy, please see yesterday’s How Rural Wisconsin Campuses Coerce Students into Becoming Drug Informants.) 1. Police Leadership. There’s almost no…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Government Spending, Marketing, Press
In a City of Sixty-Thousand, Fifteen People Aren’t a Sign of Community Enthusiasm
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Nearby Janesville is considering a downtown revitalization, and at the most-recent meeting for the large & expensive proposal, only fifteen-people attended. The Gazette wrote about the plan with this headline: Last meeting for Janesville’s downtown plan doesn’t reflect ‘widespread championship’ (subscription req’d). Well, no, it doesn’t. (The online version of the Gazette had a more…
New Media, Press
So, “How is Social Media Changing Journalism?”
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
At this year’s Aspen Ideas Festival, we asked a group of media professionals to discuss how new platforms are transforming radio, TV, print, and digital. “I have always been a champion for old media flinging open its doors and allowing citizens to participate,” says radio journalist Jay Allison. Other panelists include Paula Kerger, Jon Steinberg…
Books, Business, Development, Economy, Local Government, Press
The Book on Janesville
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Amy Goldstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Washington Post, is writing a book about Janesville after GM’s departure, entitled, Janesville: An American Story. I’ve been awaiting the book, and recently (also happily) discovered publishing information about it, from PublishersMarketplace.com: Pulitzer-winning Washington Post reporter Amy Goldstein’s JANESVILLE: An American Story, following three families as the GM…
Press
Why ‘This Woman’ Over and Over?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
At the Gazette, that paper’s editorialist has a new editorial entitled, Our Views: Support K. Andreah Briarmoon and her ramblings at your own risk (subscription req’d). Readers may recall that I’m opposed to Ms. Briarmoon’s light and trivial discussion of litigation – it’s a serious matter, worthy of careful reflection. Ms. Briarmoon takes a more…
Local Government, Press
No Official in America Reigns
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Over at the Gazette, yet another editorial goes wrong. While trying to praise the work of retiring Rock County Administrator Craig Knutson, the Gazette headlines with Our Views: Rock County’s Craig Knutson deserves salute for solid reign (subscription req’d). (The editorialist uses reign once again, in the body of the editorial.) The use of reign…
Press, Radio, Television
Some Assets Can Only Be Sold Once
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
A person with an apple orchard can – and expects – to sell apples for more than one season. In fact, his success almost certainly depends on more than one year’s crop. For media companies selling radio or television stations, or spinning print from broadcast assets, it’s a one-time transaction. When the broadcast properties are…
Government Spending, Local Government, Press, Taxes/Taxation
What Steve Jobs Understood About People That Local ‘Movers and Shakers’ Don’t
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It’s an easy – and false – pose to assume that people can’t understand a supposedly complicated project. There was some of this thinking in an editorial about which I commented yesterday, in the Gazette‘s contention that that “SWAG’s [Southern Wisconsin Agricultural Group’s] complex, though intriguing, always seemed grand and hard for average residents to…