And Heart’s problems are the tip of the iceberg. The Tribune Company, Gannett, Scripps and many others are struggling to keep their papers afloat. All of which makes it difficult to understand the optimism in this Ad Age piece by Nat Ives.
For all the apocalyptic news about newspapers, there’s a distinction worth making: Newspaper owners are far more endangered than the medium itself.
Even as they take blow after blow from recession and digital media, newspapers themselves still earn decent profits. They do even better outside big cities, which tend to get all the attention.
Ives goes on to discuss write downs, interest payments, taxes, depreciation, amortization and other financial jockeying while pointing out that publicly owned newspapers averaged an operating profit of 10.8% in the first three quarters of last year.
So why all the blood letting? Can it be that all the downsizing we’re seeing is really rightsizing? I know it doesn’t look that way inside the nation’s spartan newsrooms. Steve Buttry of the Cedar Rapids Gazatte had to let 13 colleagues go today.
These were many of the same colleagues responsible for my proudest day. Every one of them deserves a job with this company. Every one of them deserves a job somewhere in journalism or somewhere in this community. But Tuesday I had to tell them they no longer had jobs here.
So the human drama plays out while number crunchers rework the balance sheets of America’s newspapers. Meanwhile, talented writers, editors and photographers are out of work and there’s a mountain of news that goes unreported everyday. All this, at a time in the nation’s history when it’s absolutely critical to have greater oversight of government and industry.
Newspapers are working to adjust themselves to the digital realities of our time, but one of those realities is that it’s much harder to monetize online content than it is printed content. In other words, moving to an online only edition isn’t the perfect answer when the online edition has zero paid subscribers and relies solely on a diminished pool of ad dollars.
The bottom line for all online content producers is we won’t have it right until we have the economics right. Value is being created online, but in too many cases it’s not being exchanged for money.
[UPDATE] Rocky Mountain News closed down today (Friday). They leave their audience with this well made documentary about their demise:
The nine stories in Livability by Jon Raymond are jangling around in my head, like chimes after the wind has come.
For me Raymond is a discovery, a new writer to follow and a local one at that. His book of short stories released just before Christmas has already garnered reviews from The Denver Post, San Francisco Chronicle and LA Times. Raymond also did an interview with Seattle Times art critic, Michael Upchurch.
Upchurch asks Raymond about his priorities, since he also the Editor of Plazm, an art mag, writes screenplays—two of Raymond’s stories in this collection have already been made into films—and has a novel under his belt.
Writing fiction is the “job” I try to keep at the center of things. The movie stuff has been a wonderful accident, though not entirely bizarre, either, as I have done some work in film before, and even directed a ridiculous, cable-access feature back in my 20s. As far as paying the bills, though, I’ve had the pleasure of falling into an odd series of freelance jobs over the years, mainly in advertising, or para-advertising capacities. I also teach from time to time and review books and art. So far it’s worked out all right, but long-term survival remains kind of mysterious to me. The father’s artistic/financial anxiety in “New Shoes” is definitely something I relate to, and something I think a lot of other artists probably would, too.
In the story “New Shoes” the screenwriter at the heart of the story learns to not get his hopes up. Here’s a sample of Raymond’s prose:
Along the way, dozens of people had proclaimed their love the project before ultimately, grudgingly, with great regret, etc., passing. In the movie industry’s spectrum of affection, Dan had come to find, loving something didn’t actually mean that much. It was all hyperbole. If something was “good,” it was generally terrible. If something was “great,” it was not embarrassing. Merely to love something was a form of neutrality at best. It implied fear that someone else might see potential there, and thus it might be worthwhile to buy the author a few lunches, but it foretold no commitment of any kind. In a world of delicate egos, Dan could see how hyperbole was useful. Loving ensured no one’s feelings got hurt. But he was not deceived by the word anymore either.
The only word that mean anything was “special.” “Special” was the highest praise. He never got “special.” (p.185)
There’s a deep yearning in Raymond’s characters. In “New Shoes” Dan the writer-director longs for the approval of distant producers and money men. His longing is palpable, but it doesn’t compare to the needs of other characters in Raymond’s book. In “The Suckling Pig” every character the reader meets has some sort of hole to fill with work, recognition, respect, and of course, love. The story “Benny” is another classic. Benny’s family needs to know their junkie son is safe. Benny’s childhood friend (and narrator of the story) needs to prevent himself from drifting too far away from his roots. Benny himself is desperate for his next fix. In the story “Young Bodies” a teen-aged immigrant from Russia is tough on the outside, but she’s desperate for the intimacy she’s never know. And so on.
What the reader is left with is a sort of melancholy. The kind one might find in a certain brand of indie rock songs, say by The Decemberists. That is to say, it’s a charming and welcome state of mind, even when it’s not joyous. I also get the sense that these stories are a 21st century update on the pioneer’s dream. All the stories are set in Oregon, which is a grand stage, however you look at it. Raymond intentionally showcases urban and suburban Portland, along with The Cascades and the coast. It’s complex, this dream we dream in Pacific Wonderland. And like it’s always been, the dream comes true for some while others’ have their hopes crushed and possibilities continually minimized.
The last story in the book, “Train Choir” is rib aching sad. It’s been made into a film by director Kelly Reichardt. It’s called Wendy and Lucy and stars Michelle Williams. You can see in the trailer the sense of living on the edge that’s inherent in Raymond’s work. You can also see the Western themes played out cinematically, the pace is slowed and one’s struggles are made to seem almost picturesque.
If Jeremiah Johnson (as depicted by Robert Redford in the 1972 film) were alive today and living in Oregon, I’m confident Jon Raymond would capture him in a narrative framework.
Sean McCann, a professor of English at Wesleyan University, writes in The Wall Street Journal that we may see a new batch of American writers emerge from the chaos of our times.
He recalls how Sherwood Anderson, James Agee, Edmund Wilson, John Dos Passos and Louis Adamic travelled the back roads of America in the fall of 1933 hoping to discover how economic disaster had affected the common people.
Like many of his peers, Anderson had anticipated anger and radicalism among the poor and unemployed. Instead, he discovered a people stunned by the collapse of their most cherished beliefs. Puzzled America, the title of the book he composed out of his journeys, said it all.
McCann also notes that “never in American history had the vision of social mobility been more forcefully asserted than in the 1920s,” when interestingly enough, The Republican Party ruled and Herbert Hoover remarked, that ours is “a fluid classless society…unique in the world.”
That rhetoric was redoubled by a booming new advertising industry which promised that consumers might vault up the ladder of social status through carefully chosen purchases (often with consumer credit, a recent invention).
McCann says the term “social mobility” was coined in 1925 by the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, who used the phrase to identify a phenomenon in apparent decline.
The conflict between the American myth of a classless society and the reality of the nation’s deepening caste divisions was the irony at the core of some of the greatest literary works of the 1920s, including Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. But it was not until the Great Depression that the traditional vision of social mobility imploded.
It did implode. And plenty of writers since have described a hardscrabble America, where dreams vanish. Yet, just as many have worked to keep the vision of upward mobility alive. I can tell you from my own experience, having done both, it pays much better to cleverly say Coors or Camel will make you a desirable person, than it does to critique the very premise of a commercial society.
This is the community weblog that gives crowdsourcing a good name.
I’m making note of it because MetaFilter is the work of McMinnville, OR resident, Matt Haughey.
Since moving to Portland last August, I’ve taken note of how many craftsmen and women are at work here. Many. In every conceivable field. To stay with content creators for now, I’d like to present my list of Portland’s top producers.
Dave Allen of music site Pampelmoose is a founding member of UK Post-Punk band, Gang of Four. He hosts a show on 94.7 knrk and holds down a big time day job at Nemo Design.
Rick Turoczy is the Silicon Florist. He keeps Portlanders up to date on all the local happenings in tech. He also writes for ReadWriteWeb, one of the most prominent tech publications online.
Marshall Kirkpatrick is Vice President of Content Development at ReadWriteWeb, and also the Lead Writer.
Dawn Foster is a social media maven, community manager and event organizer. She writes Fast Wonder and contributes to Om Malik’s WebWorkerDaily.
Amber Case is is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Consultant. She writes at Hazelnut Tech Talk and Discovery Channel’s new NerdAbout.
Julian Chadwick is the content generating mad man behind PDXPipeline, the best source for upcoming cultural events in the city.
Cami Kaos & Dr. Normal are the city’s husband and wife podcasting team par excellence. They produce Strange Love Live, a weekly interview show featuring Portland’s movers and shakers in the social web space.
By no means is this list exhaustive. A quick run through Strange Love Live’s archives, for instance, shows how much deeper it all goes.
This morning I headed down to SE Belmont for my first taste of Pine State Biscuits. I had a country ham and cheese biscuit and a side of hash browns. Both were perfectly prepared.
Afterward, I scooted down the street to Stumptown Coffee where I ordered an iced quad espresso. I decided to post up next door in the Annex since it’s a bit easier to focus in that space.
It turns out my choices were serendipitous. Glen in the Annex was busy working up his daily ritual—the 11:00 am cupping (there’s also a 3:00 pm cupping every day). I asked him what he was doing and the next thing I knew I was being offered an education normally reserved for coffee buyers and award show judges.
Glen had five different roasts available to smell and taste. We bent over each cup, using a spoon to release aromatics while dipping our noses into the rich brews. Glen mentioned that coffee is three times more complex—chemically speaking—than wine. My nose agrees. With wine I can detect the subtle gifts of chocolate, tobacco, berries, etc. Picking up the elemental differences in coffee is a bit trickier.
I did pick up an intense citrus nose in the Ethiopian Bera. Glen said that it evokes strawberry-flavored Jolly Ranchers for him. I brought a pound home, so whatever we were smelling, it was worthy of $14.00 and further exploration.
I have to give it to Stumptown. This free daily cupping is a wonderful experiential marketing offering. It solidifies Stumptown’s place in our minds, but even better, it tells us more about who Stumptown is. Many companies would be content with providing exceptional coffee. Stumptown is doing more and reaching higher. Coffee is passion and Stumptown is wisely inviting others to share in their particular passion.
The New York Times Sunday Magazine today features Chicagoan Bill Ayers, college professor, author and former member of Weatherman Underground. He provides some great answers.
How do you define yourself politically?
I think I am a radical. I have never deviated from that. By radical, I mean someone trying to go to the root of things.
Do you regret your involvement in setting off explosions in the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol?
Anyone who thinks what we did is despicable should look at the fact that the U.S. government killed three million people in Indochina between 1965 and 1975. That’s really despicable.
How do you feel when you wake up?
Happy, and then I drink coffee and I’m even happier. I’m a work in progress and, even at 64, living in a dynamic history that’s still in the making.
You’re weirdly cheerful for a former bomb-thrower.
I suffer from a genetic flaw, whichis that my mother was a hopeless Pollyanna.
Diego Rodriguez, partner at IDEO and blogger at Metacool, got to hang out in Philip Johnson’s Glass House with RISD’s President John Maeda and other big thinkers.
One of the topics that day was the power of simplicity.
The record was made at Trucks’ new studio, behind his home in Jacksonville, Florida, and features songs Trucks wrote there with fellow Allman Brothers guitarist Warren Haynes, and guitarist Doyle Bramhall II, Trucks’ bandmate in Eric Clapton’s touring group over the last two years. Bramhall also sings and plays on the album. The Trucks-Haynes acoustic hymn “Back Where I Started” is a geniuine family affair: Trucks’ wife, singer-guitarist Susan Tedeschi, is the featured vocalist, Trucks plays the Indian sarod in a striking Delta-blues bottleneck style and Trucks’ brother Duane plays cardboard-box percussion.
Fricke, who is the consummate music critic, says this new album has hints of Dixie Chicken by Little Feat and Brothers and Sisters by The Allman Brothers. The album opens with what Fricke calls “a crunchy cover of Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes song ‘Down in the Flood.'” I don’t know if crunchy is the word that comes to mind. I’m listening to the track now, and it’s sultry, yet nourishing like the humid air of north Florida.
The second track, “Something to Make You Happy” could easily have been the title track. It’s classic DTB. Vocalist Mike Mattison delivers the soul, the band brings the funk and Derek tears it up.
After Songlines, DTB fans had to wonder if the band could ever rise that high again. It’s too early for this fan to say, but the fact Already Free is a contender out of the box is saying a lot.
“It is impossible to imagine a less complacent major writer.” -Thomas McGuane
Charles McGrath, former editor of the New York Times Book Review, wrote a lovely piece in honor of John Updike. It ran in Sunday’s edition.
McGrath points to an outpouring of tributes from writers, including Gish Jen, Julian Barnes, John Irving, Jeffrey Eugenides, Richard Ford, Paul Theroux, T. C. Boyle, Antonya Nelson, George Saunders, ZZ Packer, Thomas McGuane, Lorrie Moore and Joyce Carol Oates. In his own tribute, he notes:
What other writers, young and old, prized most about Mr. Updike was his prose — that amazing instrument, like a jeweler’s loupe; so precise, exquisitely attentive and seemingly effortless. If there were a pill you could take to write like that, who wouldn’t swallow a handful? Equally inspiring was his faith in the writing itself. He toyed once or twice with magic realism, but the experiment never really worked and he gave it up. Though he loved Jorge Luis Borges, he didn’t in his own work go in for Borgesian mirror games, and he was free from the postmodern anxiety about the fictiveness of fiction, the unreliability of language. He was an old-fashioned realist, with an unswerving belief in the power of words to faithfully record experience and to enhance it. If other writers, younger ones especially, couldn’t quite subscribe to that belief, still it was reassuring to know that there was someone who did.
And other writers surely admired — and maybe envied a little — Mr. Updike’s success, his ability to make a living just from the fashioning of sentences, without selling out himself or others. He seldom took an advance and he never tailored his work to suit the fashion. The literary life as he led it seemed a higher calling, not a grubby one.
One of the things I admire in Updike’s approach is the wide net he cast. We think of him as a novelist, but he also wrote letters, essays, journalism, poems, reviews, and short stories.
I quaffed my first pint of Terminal Gravity IPA last night. While considering my choices at McPeet’s Tavern on Fremont Street, I found the branch-of-a-tree tap handle intriguing. Thankfully, the beer was right there with it.
Here’s how Beervana describes the liquid from Enterprise, in the NE corner of the state:
Pours a surprisingly dark, deep amber/orange with a nice head that, not suprisingly, doesn’t survive the alcohol long. Malt and alcohol dominate the nose, hops singing harmony.
I enjoyed this pint on the heels of Widmer’s Broken Halo IPA, which was a refreshing opener to the night’s beer session. Terminal Gravity’s IPA provided a deeper, richer, more brooding experience and the perfect segue into even denser liquids of the stout variety.
