LocalLinks: WV Mining Disaster

WVNS in Beckley, West Virginia seems to be doing sort of a liveblog with updated information, plus they're streaming and archiving the various press conferences.

The Beckley Register-Herald, thus far seems to have one major story that appears to have been put together in increments and it certainly has the "local" angle. One assumes their larger website will be updated, as information about the Montcoal mining disaster becomes available.

Also worth monitoring: WVVA (Beckley); WSAZ (Charleston); the Huntington Herald-Dispatch; Charleston's Daily Mail and Gazette

Massey Energy: Official Site; Wikipedia

U.S. Mine Safety & Health Administration
WV Division of Mining & Reclamation

If and when other local sources are identified, this post will be updated accordingly and suggestions for local blogs or other sources are more than welcome in the comments.

Entire Paper's Staff Quits, Starts New Paper

The headlines say that the entire staff of the Manning Times, a 125 year-old newspaper have quit to launch a competing product.

Barry Moore, who is identified as the owner of the South Carolina paper says that "entire staff" may be misleading because there were only "about five or six folks", but a comparison between the Manning Times staff directory and the masthead of the new Clarendon Citizen shows an overlap of nine, or every employee including the receptionist.

Cleve Dowell, who was the managing editor of the former paper, a position he also holds with the new, told WLTX that "the Clarendon Citizen will be a locally owned newspaper" and his co-owner, Jefferey Black is quoted on the Clarendon Citizen's website stressing community involvement and "locally-owned".

It is unclear to me as of this writing, who might actually own the Manning Times. Their website identifies Times Publishing, Inc. as "a South Carolina corporation headquartered in Manning" and the SC Secretary of State's database backs-up this contention, while it's not known who owns the majority of shares.

Remotely-Related: Upcoming Connecticut Suburban Paper War

Hawaii's Musical Newspapers to Merge

From 1971 to 1993, Gannett owned Honolulu's Star-Bulletin, then they sold it to purchase the Honolulu Advertiser, while the Star-Bulletin continued publishing under a joint operating agreement.

In 1999, Liberty Newspaper and Gannett announced the severance of this agreement along with plans to shutter the Star-Bulletin, which caused local activists concern and as a result, the State of Hawaii ordered them to look for a buyer.

Black Press of British Columbia purchased a controlling interest in the Star-Bulletin, set them up as a standalone company, then lost money on their investment for the next nine years.

On February 25th, the 55,000 circulation Star-Bulletin and its parent announced that they had reached an agreement to buy the 130,000 circulation Honolulu Advertiser from Gannett for an undisclosed sum.

Most likely, Gannett sold because Honolulu is the only market, where they do not not enjoy a monopoly; The Star-Tribune will now have that monopoly, if a buyer for the smaller paper can not be found and they'll gain a modern printing plant, something the smaller paper had lacked.

The U.S. Justice Department has ordered Oahu Publications to put the Star-Tribune on the market for antitrust purposes, but since no buyer is expected and the state has indicated that they will not stand in the way of a merger, the employees of the Advertiser have started fearing for their jobs and questions are being raised about future ad costs, when Honolulu becomes a one paper town in about six weeks.

Another Nail in the Classified's Coffin?

Several state legislatures are considering changing their laws, so that some or all municipalities could forgo publishing legal notices in the local newspaper in favor of the web.

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities says that such a move will save governments thousands of dollars a year and the smaller cities of Missouri say they have limited access to community papers, so they are forced to advertise in the more expensive city publications.

While the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association argues that around 30% of their state's residents do not have access to the web and that legal notices only account for less than one percent of a municipality's budget. They also suggest that the loss of revenue could be devastating to the industry and because member papers already mirror the notices on the web, their site's higher traffic volumes might actually make the notices available to more people.

The State of Arizona is also considering a change.

Lede: Paper Temporarily Disables Comments

Reader comments on Pantagraph.com often are informative, sparking serious dialogue on an issue of local or national interest. At other times, they are offensive and devoid of civility, the worst of which include personal attacks and/or assertions that have nothing to do with the story.

In recent weeks, we have seen too much of the latter on some local stories. Far too much. So, effective immediately and through the New Year’s holiday weekend, no comments will be allowed on new local content posted on Pantagraph.com.

Bloomington (IL) Pantagraph

Upcoming Connecticut Suburban Paper War

Late last year, the Journal Register Company shut down three weekly newspapers serving Hartford suburbs, so Melissa Marinan, a former employee launched one to serve the five abandoned communities.

Her free, mailed-delivered Valley Press printed its first edition in February, which was the same month, the Journal Register Company filed for bankruptcy protection.

Now that they have regained their footing, the Journal Register has figured out a way to inexpensively serve three of the affluent suburbs, so they will launching three town-focused papers which will also be distributed free by mail, except it will be wrapped around an ad shopper they have kept going.

Ms. Marinan and her partners are all set to compete against their former employer, but there is a question of having a limited ad-base.

Viv Lazich, who operates a business catering to quilters has faithfully advertised once a month in the Valley Press, but she told the Hartford Courant that she is not looking to do more because she finds greater value in her Facebook page, blog and sending emails to customers.

Sheriff, Deputy, County, Reporter & Paper Sued

Dave Lovejoy was a candidate for Rockingham County (NH) Sheriff in 2008, when the person holding the office and one of his deputies leaked information about Mr. Lovejoy's annulled criminal record to the press, just over a week before the election.

Sheriff James "Dan" Linehan and his second-in-command Maj. Mark Peirce unlawfully told Portsmouth Herald reporter Karen Dandurant that Mr. Lovejoy had been "involved in a case of simple assault" in 1989. It appears that the Sheriff's office did not tell Ms. Dandurant that the case had been annulled, but when reached for comment, Mr. Lovejoy informed her of this fact. Under New Hampshire law, annulled cases can not be disclosed under any circumstances.

The state Attorney General's office investigated and last week, both Sheriff Lineham and Major Peirce resigned. To avoid prosecution, Mr. Lineham promised that he'd never seek another law enforcement position and both relinquished their law enforcement credentials.

On October 27th of 2008, Karen Dandurant of the Portsmouth Herald wrote an article, which included comments by the Sheriff about Mr. Lovejoy's knowledge of courtrooms because he's been involved in 22 civil cases and she discloses that the paper was "provided" with information about Mr. Lovejoy's arrest. When reached for comment, Mr. Lovejoy told the reporter that the case was part of a "domestic dispute" and that his conviction had been annulled.

Ms. Dandurant is no longer employed by the paper, but because a crime has been established by the state's AG, Mr. Lovejoy has filed a four-count lawsuit against the former Sheriff, the Deputy, the county, the reporter and her paper. He has also asked the county delegation to name him interim Sheriff based on his status as runner-up in 2008.

Answering Howie

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post and CNN's Reliable Sources did a segment on his show about a perceived "turn" in the Obama coverage and around the four and a half minute mark of the embedded clip, the following exchange took place between him and Chrystia Freeland, U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times.

From the show's transcript;

KURTZ: OK, but let's look at another possible failure, Chrystia. Is it possible that with the 10,000 stories that have been written in broadcast about health care, the public option, the trigger, opting in, opting out, all that, that the press missed the boat on the story that most Americans really care about, and that's jobs?

FREELAND: Well, I work for "The Financial Times," so we write about jobs and the economy constantly.

KURTZ: Right. But look at the broad media landscape.

FREELAND: I think the press has really focused on jobs, and I think, actually, it would be a mistake for us to be short-termist in how we look at the health care debate.

Personally, I don't think Howie widened the media landscape quite broad enough because if you get below the networks and the national newspapers, especially in the areas experiencing the greatest losses, I'm sure he'd find countless stories about layoffs, company closings, economic uncertainty and a regular diet of stories suggesting people start their own businesses, helpful hints toward that goal from non-profit agencies and occasionally something explaining eBay.

I also don't believe Mr. Kurtz has been paying a lot of attention to the situation in his own industry because the trade press and media blogs have been all over the job losses and rumored staff reductions.

Perhaps, President Obama's lower poll numbers is a reflection of the public's concern over jobs and it, along with the recent flood of media layoffs has alerted, possibly even angered the national media about a situation, they may have been more insulated from in the past.

After all, unemployment is bigger issue, when you fear for your job or know people who have been affected.

Gatecrasher Minutia

Tareq Salahi, the White House State Dinner gatecrasher graduated from UC-Davis, which means the Sacremento Bee dispatched a reporter to the campus in hopes of finding someone who remembered him.

Professor emeritus Ann Noble says that Mr. Salahi struck her as coming from a strict family, who enjoyed the social aspects of college life.

"He was a kid in a candy shop," she said.

BOLO Alert: Racist Tricksters

Using a front companies, a white supremacist group called "Victory Forever" has bought ads in high school and college newspapers in at least three states offering free music downloads as part of what the group calls, a nationwide recruiting drive.

The latest victim was a high school in Indiana and previously the group had hit a school in California, where according to the San Francisco Chronicle, they had maintained a dummy site until publication, then switched it for one offering "white resistance music", t-shirts, stickers and racist links after the ad had ran.

Clay Aiken Ministorm

Intermixed with a knock on Carrie Prejean, a story about losing a contact, an update on his next album, musings about possibly doing a PBS special and a review of the movie Precious, Clay Aiken posted a paragraph on his blog about the Wake County School board.

What happened to Wake County Schools?!?1 Now that i have a kid i am so much more invested and I am EXTREMELY disappointed that so many selfish idiots ran and won seats on the school board. i hope we can get rid of them as soon as possible before they ruin my school system. Idiots.

Mr. Aiken is a product of Wake County schools and a current resident of neighboring Chatham County, where he lives with his 15-month old son. In college, he trained to become a special education teacher.

When contacted by the Raleigh News & Observer, new school board member John Tedesco said it was "repugnant" for Mr. Aiken to call him an idiot when they've never met, he made an aside about someone finishing second (on American Idol) writing about those who finished first, then compared the blog comment to the title of the singer's last album, "Invisible".

A conservative activist, Joey Stansbury told the paper that he intends to file a Freedom of Information act request for Mr. Aiken's voting record because the State Board of Elections website shows that Clay voted in last month's school board election using his mother's Wake County address, while he doesn't live there.