Chasing the Blues

Times-Picayune Retreats

The big news of Thursday was that the New Orleans Times-Picayune will cut back its print edition to three days a week. The New York Times thought the story worthy of the front page. The newspaper's arc from horrible rag to Pulitzer-winning newspaper, community hero during Katrina and now diminished publication continues, with the next step presumably no print edition at all, with just a web site. The move will also result in an undisclosed number of staff layoffs.

The Newhouse family's Advance Publications also announced a similar reduction at papers in Mobile, Birmingham and Huntsville, Ala. These are the type of midsized towns where daily newspapers were believed to have continued strength, unlike major metro areas like Philadelphia and Chicago. The Newhouses a few years ago halted print publication all together in Ann Arbor, Mich., a college town that would supposedly be a strong newspaper market. Perhaps the only future for print newspapers are suburban shoppers or small town weeklies.

Even when the Picayune was horrible, it always captured the local flavor of New Orleans with local columnists and features. News was another story, as if the paper like the city it served lacked a serious work ethic. Then the paper stirred itself with a strong series on the endangered oceans and Louisiana's coastal disappearance, before serving as the major information source during the Katrina flooding. The newspaper in the early days of the Katrina disaster was able to play its role because of its web site, with the print side out of operation. Now, the web site will be the sole source of information four days a week. The Picayune will publish on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday come this fall, not even giving Monday print coverage of Saints games.

Before the paper's renaissance, the Newhouse family was notorious for milking profits without putting adequate resources into the newspaper, and longtime Picayune watchers will wonder if they are crying wolf here and cutting back out of greed. Still, the Picayune's print circulation has plunged from 260,000 to 130,000 since Katrina, reflecting a similar drop in the city's population, although that is coming back.

The NYT article claimed that the Picayune is a fixture at New Orleans barbershops and coffeeshops. Readers there would have helped the paper by actually buying it.

Facebook Goes Public

Facebook with its IPO Friday takes the stage as the latest Internet-era company to defy grafity. Already GM is pulling its ads from the social media site, whose money-making ability appears out of balance with its exorbitant suggested stock price.

The Wall Street Journal's excellent, if at times inscrutable, Holman Jenkins pointed to Facebook's problem: Ads cluttering the site will take away from its spontaneity and personal appeal. The best path for the company would be to partner with other media companies; Jenkins points to the Washington Post, an old-line media firm with whom Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has built ties.

On the eve of its IPO, Facebook's value looks inflated, more the product of hype and buzz than the reality of its ability to make profits. Facebook is good for "friends" to share the trivia of their lives, but Twitter has proven itself a better site for instant sigificant news. With GM pulling its paid ads in favor of remaining on the site with free marketing material, Facebook's appeal as an adverising medum is also under question. As Jenkins points out, Facebook after its IPO will have to build true equity as a media property. If not, Facebook, like an old cartoon character. will find itself hanging off the cliff in midair and sinking.

 

 

 

 

 

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Saints and Tigers Head for Football Top

I'm amazed by Drew Brees and the Saints, their offensive machine even more efficient than when they won the Super Bowl. The Saints got screwed on the seeding, and so face a daunting patch to headed back to the Super Bowl, having to travel to San Francisco and then probably Green Bay, but this is the most proficient offense in the history of football. Watching the Saints, I wonder if I'm in some kind of childhood dream, especially since I remember the old, goofy Saints, a standing joke. 

New Orleans is known for great creativity, in food and music, but the Saints are a different kind of success for which the old city has never been known. Cuisine, jazz, blues and rap are associated with decadence, while pro football success is tied to discipline, business, purpose, teamwork, etc. So, Brees and the Saints bring a different model for the city.

Meanwhile, the LSU Tigers prepare for the national championship. I'm glad the Tigers are enjoying such success in football, but it breaks my heart that the university's academic purpose is severely wounded by budget cuts by the inexplicably popular Bobby Jindal. I love the Southern Review and LSU Press as much as the football team.

One amusing item I saw on Facebook: The Roosevelt Hotel now has a drink for the Honey Badger, LSU's flamboyant defensive back. Seeing the menu raised memories of Huey Long, who loved LSU and strove to make it a great institution, unlike today's short-sited, tax-averse governor. 

Recently, I read a piece by Tom Friedman in the Times about how America's future depends on cities with great universities, a vibrant, creative population and innovatative busineses. Baton Rouge could be a city like that, and has been at fleeting moments, but LSU and Louisiana's capital city has often been crippled by short-sighted, corrupt politics and a provincial, uncommitted population. 

 

Crawfish, and Flood, Season in Louisiana

We crossed the Mississippi on the trip to pick up the crawfish. Looking down from the Mississippi River Bridge from Baton Rouge to West Baton Rouge, I saw that the water line had reached near the top of the bank.

"If they hadn't opened the Morganza spillway, LSU and downtown Baton Rouge would have flooded," said my sister, in the driver's seat.

Big ships still plowed down the heart of the river, leaving a wake of white turbulence behind. The day was hot and dry; a juxtaposition of drought and high water. My sister turned to the ramp headed to West Baton Rouge, and we were headed through Brusly, divided into Back Brusly and Front Brusly, as my brother-in-law reminded me from the back seat.

I was visiting from Atlanta, interested tyo see this road, La. 1, that I used to travel frequently when my late father had a camp in Bayou Pigeon in Iberville Parish. We would not be going that far today, but would stop in Bayou Sorrell on the other side of Plaquemine to get two sacks of living, writhing crawfish for boiling that afternoon.

As we road, my sister and brother in law commented upon how much the area had grown; and sure enough, what I remember as sugar cane fields now were covered with strip shopping centers, condos, apartments and subdivisions. Appaently, the recession had not hit the area that badly, although Louisiana's state budget was in serious arrears.

Just outside of Plaquemine, my sister pointed out a commercial crawfish pond, and I turned to see a long, rectangular body of dark, still water. A squad of white herons stood on sentinel duty, statoned about 20 feet from each other in rows. They looked real, but in retrospect might have been fake birds to scare off whatever predator a crawfish pond might need protection from.

Headed into Plaquemine, the trip began to feel familiar. I saw the old rusted railroad bridge at the Plaquemine city limits and the lovely collection of ante-bellum homes. The names of the politicians on the eternal political signs were also familiar, dynasties of one or two families that had been running the parish when I left 30 years ago were still running things. Plaquemine had an exhausted, run down atmosphere, as if the 20th century and now the 21st had not quite settled in deeply. To my amusement, I noticed a sign for an Islamic temple beside a low-slung house of yellow stucco.

"I'm surprised Osama Bin Laden wasn't found in southern Louisiana," my sister said.

We turned off on the road that led to the Atchafalya Spillway and the road where my father had his camp. Again, homes, quite nice ones, lined the road where once sugar cane fieids lay. We turned off on a street where mobile homes and trailers alternated with nice houses. I recalled the strength of Louisiana's off-the-books economy. Although the state lags far behind most economic indicators, it's really quite prosperous, with many industries conducted outside of the bounds of govermental accounting.

We turned into a nice house with a big boat in front and picked up the crawfish. I looked at them in their sacks, packed in tightly with their familiar, distinctiive brown-gray color. We threw them in the back, and my brother in law covered them in newspaper to keep them from dying in the brutal sunrays beaming through the back window.

We headed back toward Baton Rouge, traveling beside the stressed levees along the Mississippi. I'd last traveled this road as a young man, and here I was back again at 60, taking part in a unique Louisiana ritual. We crossed the bridge, Huey Long's state capital rising into the bluish-white sky to our left, Tiger Stadium and LSU to our right. Folks had been flooded in the Morganza Spillway, but Baton Rouge was dry, by God, dry and resplendent beneath the hot Louisiana sun.

Vanity Fair Highlights Wall Street Journal-New York Times Battle

Vanity Fair magazine is one of my indulgences; I used to subscribe but stopped when the stacks of thick, slick issues grew alarmingly high. Now I resist buying the print copy every month, since most of its content is available online, where the amusing James Wolcott holds forth in his blog.

Yet, some issues compel me to buy the print copy, usually because I want to read one of the magazine's long, in-depth pieces on the page, since my patience runs out quickly when I try to read a substantial piece on the computer screen. I bought the new October issue, featuring a cover of Lindsay Lohan looking like Grace Kelly or perhaps Doris Day, to read Sarah Ellison's look at the Wall Street Journal-New York Times newspaper war.

I enjoy watching the war play out from the safety of my own den. We subscribe to both newspapers, which I diligently read, although I often let them pile up during the week. Many lovely Saturday mornings are consumed plowing through newsprint, the previous week's happenings consumed and tossed away in an inky blur.

Alas, our local issue of the Wall Street Journal lacks on of the key weapons of Wall Street Journal maven Rupert Murdoch's assault on the Times, the recently launched New York section. I did get hold of one of the WSJ local sections on a trip to NYC in late May, but the insert made little impression. The reviews have been lukewarm.

Ellison, a forrmer WSJ reporter who wrote a book about how Murdoch wrested the WSJ from the Bancroft family, gives an interesting portrait of the two companies, Murdoch's News Corp. and the Sulzbergers' NYT. She quotes an expert who sees it as the Corleones against the Royal Tannenbaums.

Since taking over the WSJ, Murdoch has moved the newspaper from its specialization in business and financial reporting, increasing its international news and coverage of politics, art, culture and sports. Now the WSJ is launching a stand-alone book review, in another attempt to invade one of the Times' strongholds. With its Personal Journal profiles of musicians, writers and artists, and strong weekend sections, the WSJ impressively covers cultural news. Some of its sports coverage strikes me as elitist and superficial, although I like Jason Gay's weeklly From the Couch column, although his wit is starting to fray.

While I miss the Journal's old business stories, such as the in-depth profiles of a company it used to run, I like the WSJ's international stories. The WSJ often has an interesting story that the Times, with all of its exhaustive coverage, has missed. Judging the two papers on covering the same events is interesting; they differ quite a bit in what they emphasize, their tone, their interpretation of vents. Overall, my impression is that the WSJ is clearer and more readable, the Times more detailed.

Also edifying is the difference between the two papers' editorial stances. On key issues, the economy most strikingly, the papers take totally opposing sides. On international economics, the WSJ shows a depth of knowledge that the Times struggles to match. On questions such as whether the Bush tax cuts should be continued, the Times arguments seem more original and reasoned, while the WSJ falls on formulaic GOP orthodoxy.

Ellison's piece is entertaining and informative to an old newspaper junkie like me. Yet, it leaves the impression of two dinosaurs battling each other in a doomed jungle.

No Bullet Holes in Louisiana State Capitol From Long Shooting

Among fascinating revelations in Times-Picayune reporter Robert Travis Scott's second article marking the 75th anniversary of Huey P. Long's asssassination is that the identations in a State Capitol hallway pointed out for years as bullet holes from the eventful night turn out to be just irregularities in the marble. Another myth collapsed.

While Scott mentions medical controversties in passing, the gist of the article is the continuing controversy over Long's death, about whether he was shot by the young doctor Carl Weiss or killed by a stray bodyguard's bullet. Scott uncovers fascinating evidence, incluind the late discovery of the .32 caliber pistol owned by Weiss. Weiss' son, Carl Weiss Jr., three months old at the time of the assassination, says his father didn't kill Long. In the 1980s, he had a cordial lunch with Huey's son, Sen. Russell Long.

Citing a variety of sources, the article ends without a definitive answer. Among the links in the Picayune report are a gallery of Long photos; a report by the MONY Life Insurance Co. that found the shooing "accidental";  a State Police report issued years after the slaying; and the newspaper's coverage of the shooting.

...An LSU fan's sign at the Chick-Fil-A game against North Carolina at the Georgia Dome: "Thanks to BP, we're Tarheels too."

...LSU will play the Oregon Ducks at Jerry Jones' palace in Dallas to open the 2011 football season. LSU will receive up to $3.5 million, and it will be a chance to expose the "LSU brand," according to an athletics department official. Glad to hear LSU is a brand, and that the football team remains profitable as the state slashes funding to the school's academic programs. If the school eventually closes its doors, at least the LSU football brand will remain. The Oregon Ducks are a brand too, if frequent appearances of their cute Duck mascot on ESPN is any indication. Of course, Oregon receives a bunch of money from another famed brand, Nike, which also gives equipment to LSU. So, "the Cowboys Classic" should be a great branding moment for all involved. 

A Man Like Herbert Hoover Again?

With the economic signs red-lining once more, it's beginning to look like the summer of 1932. Mr. Sun Tan, Joe Boehner, screams that tax cuts for the wealthy will save us, and to fire Larry Summers. Hmm,  didn't Harvard already do that?

Meanwhile, with Obama and family on their latest vacation -- is this a National Lampoon series? -- Joe "Prosperity Is Just Around the Corner" Biden says things are fine in Iraq and right here in the USA. Joe, who strongly opposed the troop buildup in Afghanistan, says things are looking up there as well.

A few weeks ago, The New York Times' Tom Friedman suggested that Obama, if he ever gets back to work, invite business leaders, academics, economists and whoever to Camp David to come up with an economic plan. The idea was to produce a consensus on what can work to boost the economy and create jobs. Friedman's plan sounded good, except we've had a number of panels and so forth whose reports and suggestions always seem to be thrown on the shelf. Still, it would be good to have some people who reportedly know what they're doing, although the Wizard of Oz model is always prevalent, come up with some ideas.

Meanwhile, who was that mosqued man? Don't worry, kiddies, it's just old Newt, flapping his wings again. Boo.

Farewell to Bobby Thomson

Bobby Thomson's death comes in late summer, when the anticipation of autumn grows keen. I associate Thomson's famous home run, overly hyped as "the shot heard round the world," with fall, the end of a season, shadows across a green field in the dying afternoon.

The opening chapter of Don DeLillo's novel "Underworld"  explores the significance of Bobby Thomson's home run, which won the 1951 National Leage pennant for the New York Giants and crushed the Brooklyn Dodgers in sudden, shocking defeat. On a crisp autumn morning, I first heard of DeLillo, and Thomson for that matter, while driving to the Lenox MARTA station. Bob Edwards, who  if I remember correctly  was still working at NPR at the time, marked the anniversary of Thomson's home run by interviewing DeLillo, or perhaps just reading his short story "Pafko at the Wall," appearing in that month's Esquire magazine.

The short story, the basis for the opening chapter of "Underworld," talked about the deciding playoffs game for the National League pennant, the fans rushing to the stadium, the New York Giants announcer Russ Hodges in the booth, the Brooklyn Dodgers' two-run lead in the ninth inning, the bringing in of the Dodgers' ace Ralph Branca with two Giants on base, Thomson's swing, Hodges' famous call, "The Giants Win the Pennant," and Dodgers left fielder Andy Pafko's disconsolate sag against the short fence in the old Polo Grounds. That day after work, for the first time in years I bought Esquire to read the story, and later purchased "Underworld" on the very day it was published. Even 13 years ago, when the book came out, the publication of a major novel generated great immediacy and excitement, which I rarely if ever feel today. Reading the book, which had as a central motif a search to discover the lost ball hit by Thomson, awoke within me a fascination for the game and Thomson's blast. Later, I searched the Internet and found a photo of Pafko at the wall (above left), which I printed out and kept taped to my desk at work.

The home run capped a Giants run to the pennant after being at one point 13 games behind the Dodgers. When asked about the Giants' chances, Brooklyn manager Charlie Dressen said about Leo Duroucher's club, "Are the Giants still in the league?" The Giants, with their brilliant rookie Willie Mays, steadily gained ground on the Dodgers. Later, a Wall Street Journal writer, with apparently no need to keep up with the stock market, uncovered evidence of an ingenious Giants system to steal opponents' signs. The article even hinted that Thomson knew what pitch was coming from Branca -- a fastball -- although Thomson steadfastly denied being tipped off.

The event continues to shine in the imagination of baseball lovers, although many other dramatic home runs have been hit since, several of them winning the World Series, not just the pennant. It was the dawn of the television era, but only a few people had TVs in the home as yet, especially outside of New York and other big cities. I have the impression of most TV viewers witnessing the home run on sets in neighborhood bars.  Radio and newspapers were still the dominant media for sports and news. Baseball was still the undisputed sports king; avidly followed throughout the land, although one wonders if Thomson's home run was that earth-shattering outside of the metropolis. It seems a very New York-centric moment.  The home run was an epochal moment in the ancient Dodgers-Giant rivalry, but proved anticlimatic; the Giants were on to lose to the New York Yankees in the World Series in five games.

After Thomson's home run, TV would rise in in importance, bringing with it the primacy of pro football over baseball in the sports world. The 1958 NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants would mark the new dominance of both pro football and TV.

Following Thomson's death at 86 on Tuesday, ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" had the good sense to interview Branca, forever linked with Thomson. The two had made a career of recalling the home run, appearing together at autograph shows and other events. Branca's strong New York accent sounded vibrant as he gracefully said farewell to his old nemesis. Once again, a grainy black and white film showed him as a young man, standing on the mound and throwing the ball, and Thomson swinging.

On deadline, Red Smith wrote an account of Thomson's shot for the old Herald-Tribune. Red Smith and Don DeLillo; two masters who recorded the event for different purposes and for different audiences. TV and film recorded the event, but Thomson and Branca's immortality is captured best in Red Smith and Don DeLillo's language.

 

The Rise and Fall of Sea Island

The bankruptcy and fire sale of the Sea Island Co. is one of those signficant business stories worthy of deeper examination in a major magazine article or book. It's a tale of a long established family's downfall through overreaching and straying from the standards that first ensured its success.

I've always wanted to stay at Sea Island, but never did, although I've driven through it a couple of times while at adjacent St. Simons. The resort epitomized the grace and understated style of the old Southern money class. The story of Sea Island's downfall represents a disastrous attempt to break away from that class and its customs.

One thing I noticed once on a drive through Sea Island: many of the cars were Lincoln Continentals.

Where Has All the Oil Gone?

The welcome news about the oil's disappearance from the gulf is a testament to nature's resilience, along with the eventual effectiveness of the massive cleanup effort. Still, concerns remain about the long-term effects on coastal marshes and wildlife. The oil's breakup brings feelings of unease and wariness, with worries of what might be happening beneath the surface and how much oil is in the marshes.

According to The New York Times, much of the oil has evaporarated (what does that do for the atmosphere?). Apparently, oil continually seeps from the ocean floor, and the gulf has natural defenses such as oil-eating bacteria. While BP and the government were slow to react, they've eventually shown problem-solving perseverance. Government front man Thad Allen is a calm leader, and all of those volunters have made a difference.

If the oil spill crisis proves to be waning, the country shouldn't rush ahead and forrget about the long-term problems of the Louisiana coast. The marshlands are rapidly disappearing, and agricultural and industrial pollution dumped into the Mississippi from upper states keeps pouring into the gulf, a constant threat to wildlife.

The oil spill's breakup is another demonstration of nature's amazing recuperative powers. But this doesn't show that we can keep doing nothing and continuep pounding her with our carbon, our plastic, our trash. The spill is a momentous sign that the U.S. must reduce its oil dependence. Yet, the Congress is unable to pass legislation such as the cap-and-trade bill to counteract climate change. After encouraging signs of bipartisan support for such legislation, the Senate drifts into political paralysis. As the old folk song said, when will they ever learn?