Arizona's Own Espresso Pundit

Pearce to Boycott New Times

Russell Pearce's supporters just sent out this email.

Sen. Pearce and I are calling on all conservatives across Arizona to boycott businesses which advertise with the Phoenix New Times.The PNT is entirely reliant on ad revenue to fund its pro-amnesty, anti-Arpaio, pro-illegal immigration agenda that rabidly attacks Arizona law enforcement, Arizona conservatives and the community leaders and public servants who dare oppose their dangerous, leftist beliefs. 

That companies such as local auto dealers, Harkins Theaters and many local restaurants we all patronize fund this campaign against Sheriff Arpaio is something that cannot go on. Corporate responsibility is not limited just to environmental causes and the like. Arizona businesses are (possibly inadvertently) funding the Left’s campaign for lawlessness, crime, illegal immigration, amnesty and worse. 

http://www.banamnestynow.com/buy-cott/and in each week’s edition of THE RUSSELL PEARCE SHOW, live on Monday’s at 7pm on KFNX News Talk Radio 1100.

Could this work?  The Limbaugh boycott has fizzled, and boycotts are so retro--and so over-called for--that they seem to have lost any punch.  In fact, a few years ago I would have said that Pearce is wasting his time, but now I'm not so sure.  There are a some factors at play that might just make a Pearce-led boycott an effective tool:

First, New Times itself has changed.  We think of New Times as liberal, but it's really more anti-authoritarian.  The paper was certainly a pain in Napolitano's backside.   Now that the state has a Conservative Governor and Legislature, New Times' anti-authoritarian outlook is also a hard left outlook.  The paper has also become a one note tune that's anti Arpaio all the time.

These changes will not be lost on advertisers.  After all, Arpaio/Pearce supporters can go to, say, Dan Harkins and rightly say that New Times is trying to destroy them personally.  We can debate how much popular support Arpaio/Pearce enjoy, but the number is not small.  If Arpaio/Pearce supporters simply stop attending Harkins theaters, that would be noticed.  If they start demonstrating in front of Harkins Theaters that would be huge.  Harkins would be foolish to risk even one protest for whatever benefit he gets from New Times ads.

Which leads to the second point.  New Times has picked up some "respectable" advertisers.   Nothing against car alarms, breast augmentation and tatoo removal but those industries are unlikely to care about Russell Pearce's views on anything.  Car dealers, restaurants, movie theaters and yes, breast augmentation surgeons however, will be sensitive to large pro-Arpaio crowds in their parking lots.  Pearce is smart enough to use the Alinsky rules and will target, freeze personalize and polarize individual advertisers--and not just in Mesa.  Shutting down the Harkins megaplex at Scottsdale and the 101 on the opening night of each summer Blockbuster would be a powerful message.

Next, the world is changing in three important ways that will have the potential to make the boycott successful.  First is that Pearce can get his message out through the social media, twitter, email plus his radio show.  I know that everyone uses social media now, and it may not be the organizational panacea that people claim, but it is very effective for organizing a midsized--a few thousand--group of highly motivated individuals.  And having a thousand people break into groups of five or ten and target New Times' 50 biggest advertisers for a few weekends can only be organized--and reported--through social media.

The Internet also gives advertisers more choices.  Businesses shouldn't be expected to forgo revenue just because someone is offended by their advertising choices.  But now they don't have to.  Newspaper advertising is now one of many alternatives and if companies took the money they spent on those full page ads and devoted those same resources to their own social media campaigns they might be better off.

Newspaper economics have also changed.  It's not like Pearce is trying to take out New Times at its anti Mecham, anti Symington peak.    New Times used to run 224 pages now its often fewer than 100.  Newspapers are on life support. Pearce is just going to stand on its oxygen hose.

This boycott is different because Pearce is not trying to change behavior.  Most groups launch a boycott because they oppose a specific policy...the company doesn't hire enough minority workers, it offers benefits to its gay employees, it uses sweatshops in Thailand...but Pearce doesn't want to change New Times, he wants to bankrupt New Times.   The paper is not ever going to stop opposing him. His only option is to ignore it or destroy it.  He's been ignoring it for years and look where it got him.

The Pearce boycott is unlikely to actually drive New Times out of business, but he will hurt them and he may even manage to tip the balance and finish them off.  

Would you like ketchup with that ice cream?

A coaltion called "Quality Education and Jobs" is pushing a one-cent sales tax increase directed at new spending and the initial reception has been tepid indeed.

The Republic's Bob Robb pounced on the plan...

The initiative filed last week to enact a permanent one percent sale tax to replace the expiring temporary one won’t do anything to alleviate this general fund shortfall. In fact, for most state agencies, it will make it worse.

That shouldn't be too surprising considering that Robb is considered a conservative columnist.

But here's what the Arizona Daily Star said.

Their kitchen-sink approach and the jargon-laced insistence that the measure would create "incentives" for schools that are tied to "performance measures" reek of new bureaucracy and still more intrusions on local schools by the state.

Ouch.

When you draft an initiative, the goal is to make it broad enough to appeal to a large coalition.  The danger is that you can cobble together so many different interests that no one likes the final product.  This inititiative with its mix of education and freeway funding has followed the second path...it's like ketchup and ice cream--two great tastes that go badly together. 

Any plan that can draw the ire of Bob Robb and the Star Editorial Board is destined to collapse of its own weight. 

Here's predicting that it doesn't even make the ballot.

 

Rapidly becoming a black hole....

This is how Stars die.

Lee Enterprises, the long-troubled parent company of the Arizona Daily Star and other daily newspapers, plans to charge readers to access the chain's websites, the company announced Wednesday.

Lee plans to introduce "digital subscriptions" within three months, and to build paywalls at most of the company's websites by the end of the year, CEO Mary Junck said at Lee's annual meeting.

People ask me why I think paywalls will wipe out the Republic and the Star....after all, they might work.  Actually I have little doubt that they will "work."  Paywalls will result in the paper having moderatly more revenue and dramadically fewer readers.  How do you think that's going to work out in the long run?  Newspaper owners don't seem to understand that newspapers are like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton...they are famous for being famous.  Like forest fires, they generate their own weather.  If a newspaper doesn't touch enough people to generate its own buzz then no one cares about its coverage. (I could insert a discussion of breeder reactors here, but I think I've pushed the metaphors far enough.)

Take the Birther Bills, or "Guns in Bars"...no one cares about those bills, and the legislature doesn't spend any time on them.  They are a media creation.   Here's a fun example.  If the Republic was only read by 1,000 people who each paid $1,000 a month for a subscription, then the paper would be in great financial shape, but no one would have heard of EJ Montini or Laurie Roberts, or "Guns in Bars".  Those 1,000 who are paying to be part of paper would rapidly lose interest.  That's because there would be no buzz. The people they talk to at work would not have the same shared knowledge base. 

Try this experiment, look up the Dallas Morning news and read the state stories.  How long can you last?  About 5 minutes.  That's because you have never heard of any of these people and the people you talk to today will not have heard of any of these people, so the Dallas Morning news has no value to you.  The Republic has value because you have friends with common interests who have also read the paper.  Once it's behind a paywall, that value goes away.  Pretty soon you are the only one who has read the paper and you can't discuss it with anyone.  Then you cancel.  Then they go bankrupt.  Or in the case of the Star, they implode. 

Won't be long now.

The Republic Finally Admits the Truth....

The Republic has been pounding the Fiesta Bowl story for months, and in today's Republic editorial, the paper made a major admission....well actually three admissions.  Check out these few sentences:

Many of the legislators on the receiving end of the Fiesta Bowl cornucopia -- with both parties amply represented -- argue that they did nothing wrong and simply got caught up in murky rules and reporting requirements.
 
Exactly. Arizonans don't need a game of "gotcha" at the Legislature. 

What?  Let's start with the last sentence.  Arizonans don't need a game of "gotcha" at the Legislature?   The Republic has written scores of "gotcha" pieces aimed at Legislators.  Have they suddenly decided that these pieces were not appropriate?

Now let's move up to the parenthetical in the first sentence:  "with both parties amply represented".  Really?  BOTH parties were involved?  Even Democrats?  The stories that I read ignored Paula Aboud, Robert Meza and Ed Pastor and focused almost exclusively on Republicans...and by "Republicans" I mean Russell Pearce.

Finally, let's look at the first sentence and the Republic's response to it.

Many of the legislators on the receiving end of the Fiesta Bowl cornucopia argue that they did nothing wrong and simply got caught up in murky rules and reporting requirements.
 
Exactly.

Exactly?  The Republic is conceding that what the Legislators have been saying all along is CORRECT. They did nothing wrong and simply got caught up in murky rules and reporting requirements.

I could show you dozens of examples, but check out this editorial in which the Republic plays "gotcha" and mocks Russell Pearce for his attempts to explain his trips...under rules that the Republic now concedes are "murky".

So if the Legislators have been right all along, why has the Republic ridiculed and mocked them for months?  If the public doesn't need a game of "gotcha", why has the Republic been playing gotcha with with legislators?  If the Republic is conceding that what legislators have been saying all along is actually correct and at the same time arguing that the "gotcha" game is inappropriate, then where is the Republic's apology?

My guess is that the management waiting to run the apology story on Sunday so it has a bigger audience....ha, I slay me.

Speaking of Bullies...

Funny how the Limbaugh story started to fade the moment the left had to try to explain Bill Maher.  Not safe for work, so keep the audio low.

 

So Much For Civility...

Cap Times Reporter Jim Small busted Sen. Schapira for this comment today.

This really isn't surprising.  "Civility" is just code talk that liberals use when they want Conservatives to shut up.  Where were the civility advocates when protesters photo shopped pictures of Gov. Brewer in a Nazi uniform? 

Where were the grown ups at the Republic when Steve Benson drew Governor Brewer as Muammar Gaddafi?  What happened to the Star's David Fitzsimmons after his nationwide rant against conservatives in the wake of the Giffords shooting?  What happened to Pima County Democratic Party Chairman Jeff Rogers after he proclaimed that TUSD Board members who voted against the ethnic studies courses should be "tarred and feathered and run out on a rail" and are "unfit to live in a multicultural community like Tucson."

Why did the Republic ignore Linda Valdez when she voiced support for laws that would prohibit men from wearing "Jewish Skullcaps" in public? 

The French said it straight up with their ban, which includes Islamic head scarves, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses. They want to preserve France's secular foundations.

 That's a good idea.

A good idea? That's insane.  How can she still be working for the state's paper of record? 

The answer is that none of these egregious cases of incivility generated any reaction--despite the fact that half of the examples were generated by the media themselves.

So will anyone--except me--call for Schapira to apologize?  No.  Will anyone in the media point out that it's unseemly for a State Senator to call a member of the public a terrorist simply because she disagrees with him on legislation?  No.

Will the media continue to demand civility while they stand by and let folks pummel conservatives?  Yep.

Will the major corporate newspapers demand civility while their own employees portray Conservatives as terrorists and call for bans of religious "exhibitionism" such as wearing "large" crosses, "Jewish Skullcaps" and head scarves?  Yes.

Will the corporate newspapers continue to shrivel and die as thinking adults decide not to let offensive progaganda onto their driveways?

Fortunately---yes.

Five years from now, Valdez, Benson, Fitzsimmons and Schapira will be unemployed.  Maybe over drinks they can whine about Cathi Herrod.  Naturally, she won't have time to join them.  She'll be getting legislation passed that she supports...and killing bills that she doesn't like.

How NOT to handle a News Story

Jim Hopkins over at Gannett Blog has reported that Gannett employees are going to have to re-apply for their jobs.  The Business Journal picked up the story and the Republic made a classic blunder by not denying the story immediately.  So this is what the Journal ran...

Employees at The Arizona Republic and KPNX-TV Channel 12 may have to re-apply for their jobs as their corporate parent, Gannett Co.tries to navigate the challenging media and advertising terrain.

Gannett spokeswoman Laura Dalton said Wednesday the media company does not discuss personnel matters.

This must have caused quite a firestorm--can you imagine Linda Valdez trying to actually get re-hired? 

Instead of denying the story immediately, the Republic waited for the Business Journal article to run and cause widespread panic....then Publisher John Zidich issued a denial...which forced the Business Journal to rehash Gannett's problems in a new story that corrects the old one.

Arizona Republic CEO and Publisher John Zidich says employees at the daily newspaper and at KPNX-TV Channel 12 in Phoenix are not being asked to reapply for their jobs.

Dude, hire a professional.  Just because you guys own a paper, doesn't mean that you know how to deal with a paper...in fact, owning one may make you less qualified to deal with one.  I recommend you hire Stan Barnes, Jason Rose or Chuck Coughlin to handle these things in the future.

You Have the right to remain silent...

Read this paragraph and see that Rep. Miranda actually did one thing right.

Former Arizona Rep. Richard Miranda, who resigned from the Legislature last month citing family and health reasons, pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to felony wire fraud and attempted tax evasion.

We know, of course, that Miranda's resignation wasn't due to health and family reasons, but by resigning immediately, he was able to establish the initial narrative.  He also avoided being pummelled by story after story until his colleagues threw him out, or he couldn't take it and finally resigned. 

Too bad that Bundgaard didn't take my advice and do the same thing.

Daniel Patterson has chosen the foolish and childish Bundgaard path as well....which I guess is to be expected.

Where Does Jack Harris go to Get his Reputation Back?

Bar Exam Question:  Armed men burst into a hotel room occupied by two guys and filled with merchandise for a trade show.  One of the intruders yells "Don't let nobody out of this room" they then take a handful of merchandise and leave.  The whole incident takes a few minutes.

What crimes have been committed?  The Burglary, Robbery and Assault (all with a deadly weapon) are obvious. But did you catch the other crime?   Kidnapping. Did you catch both counts?... Plus the conspiracy to commit kidnapping?

This was the scenario when OJ Simpson broke into a Las Vegas hotel room in 2007.  Simpson is the one who yelled the phrase and it was enough to get him convicted of two kidnapping counts, plus one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping--and nine other felonies.

Is that what you think of when you think of kidnapping?  If you had been keeping track of the statistics, would you have counted that as two kidnapping incidents?

Fast forward from OJ's 2007 problems to the city of Phoenix in 2010. At that point, Phoenix was declared the Kidnapping Capitol of the USA. Naturally, this riled up the folks who like to ignore the underbelly of illegal immigration. 

How to rebut the Story?  What the media needed was a catalyst. They got one in the form of a letter from a Phoenix Police officer who made a variety of complaints about the department.  Here was one of the complaints.

Roberts also said the department had "inflated kidnapping statistics to unlawfully obtain federal government stimulus monies."

Wow, that's an explosive charge.  That would involve falsifying the statistics and then lying to Congress about them in order to get federal money...that's perjury and fraud against the United States. 

And it was frankly ridiculous.  After all, who would commit that kind of crime in order to get a few million dollars in grant money for his employer--especially when that employer is a major city that gets hundreds of millions of dollars in grants annually?

Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris made that point when he denied the charges.

"Why would I jeopardize millions in grants by lying about those statistics?" Harris said. "How many people do you know that commit fraud to get money to help the place where they work? They commit fraud to pad their own wallet."

The media however went crazy.  There were dozens of stories about the implications of Harris fabricating the statistics in order to get additional grant money.

Eventually, City officials removed Harris as Police Chief.

Then after  few months of defiant objection,  Harris chose to retire.

The controversy died down after Harris was gone, but then last week an interesting thing happened--the federal audit that examined the statistics...confirmed them. Sure, there were some incidents that weren't technically kidnappings that were in Harris's total, and there were crimes that included kidnapping but weren't classified as kidnappings...but the bottom line was that Harris's totals were right.  It's not even that they were wrong but he made innocent mistakes--the numbers were right.

The U.S. Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General confirmed that Phoenix had more than 350 kidnappings in 2008, just as police officials reported on a pair of grant applications to the federal government.

So we have a complaint filed by one officer--a complaint that makes no sense on its face.  Followed by a media frenzy...enough pressure to sideline and eventually remove Harris...and then exoneration after he is long gone.

Just like they teach you in J School.

 

Like I said...

In 2007, then conventional wisdom was that newspaper content, advertisers and revenue were simply going to migrate to the web.  After all, newspapers sold content and they were simply going to deliver that content through a different media.  That's when I wrote a post called "The Web Will Not Save You."

Since that time, I have been proven right.  Web advertising comes no where near making up for lost print advertising revenue.  The industry has finally admitted that the web will not save them.

Those who obsess over the fate of newspapers have something new to validate their worst fears. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism released the results today of a survey of 38 newspaper executives around the country, who were asked about the industry’s halting transition from print to digital advertising sales. The most unsettling statistic: Pew reports that, on average, for every $1 these newspapers gained in digital ad revenue, they lost $7 on the print side.

The report made the front pages of such journalism websites as Poynter.org, and will be read closely by people who toil in newsrooms and fear for their livelihoods. But it’s not likely to affect stock prices of their publicly traded employers. “I don’t know if this is a big surprise,” says veteran industry analyst John Morton. “It shouldn’t be. I’ve written a lot about the decline of newspaper advertising and what’s causing it. The 7-1 ratio sounds about right to me.”

Take a moment and read the whole thing.....