Arizona's Own Espresso Pundit

Republic's Union Meltdown

This is an unbelievable meltdown.  Check out this story.

Arizona Republic Executive Editor Greg Burton sent a staffwide email Thursday lamenting a “divisive unionization effort” that had taken hold in his newsroom. But his email probably didn’t go far in restoring harmony.

Burton alleged that ”several employees, in pursuit of their goal of unionizing our newsroom, are tracking the comings and goings of a number of their co-workers” who don’t support the effort. Without elaborating on the allegation, Burton went on to tell the story of how a shady former detective he once reported on had entered his house and made a recording, as an illustration of the sort of scumbag who would surveil somebody.

Read the whole thing.

Some Thoughts:

Karma

Burton is falling victim to the tactics that reporters use all the time.  He sent an email rant to the group and one of the reporters sent it to the Huffington post.  Welcome to the party pal.

Burton is complaining that journalists are "tracking the comings and goings of their co-workers".  Seriously Greg?  What makes you think that your reporters are going to respect boundaries?  Check out this Tweet from the Republic's Joshua Bowling

Bowling went to City Hall but didn't get a comment, so he WENT TO THE MAYOR'S HOUSE. He later pointed out that she lives in a gated community.  So he got past the gate and knocked on the door.  Where she....didn't comment. 

Notice that this is a "Pinned Tweet".  Joshua Bowling is proud of his actions and proud of this tweet.  Note to Greg Burton.  If this is the culture that you have established, then this is the culture that you have to live under.  You can say all you want about your employees "tracking the comings and goings of their co-workers" but you have tolerated them tracking the comings and goings of everyone else so you shouldn't be surprised when they show up at their co-workers' doors. 

Notice also that Greg Burton refused to comment to Huffington Post.  He gave the ultra-lame excuse that he doesn't discuss personnel matters.  Really?  His email is not a "personnel matter". 

Burton's unhinged rant about murderers, child molesters and his employees is fair game and he should either comment or not, but don't also lie and say that he won't comment because it's a "personnel matter."

Burton has obviously lost the trust of his colleagues and Gannett management can't be happy with the way he handled the issue. 

He'll be gone by year end. 

Rebekah Sanders

The Republic's Rebekah Sanders is quoted in the Huffington Post story.  It would be logical to assume that she also supplied them with the email.  She is the one who Tweeted the story to her followers.  So far, there have been 67 retweets, but none of them are from Republic Reporters.  This will be good test of character.  We'll see who supports her.  So far it looks like they are going to let her twist in the wind. 

Twitter Accounts

I'm curious to see how the Republic responds to Rebekah's Tweet.  Does Gannett consider these accounts to be personal?  Former employees like Robert Leger seem to be using their old accounts.  The reporters certainly treat the accounts like they are personal.  I can't imagine that Gannett would sanction something like this:

It will be interesting to see if any of these players are here in six months. 

 

The Republic's Subscription Model has Collapsed.

The Republic's Greg Burton announced with great solemnity that the paper was marking some of its best content (gasp) subscriber only. 

Then we saw in-depth stories like the one about Congressman Schweikert's office supplies. 

Now the Republic is offering 3-month digital subscriptions for $1. 

That's right.  3 months for $1.  That's a fake subscription.  That number obviously doesn't generate any revenue.  By offering that price, the Republic is conceding that people will not pay for its product.  What it refuses to concede is that the subscription only model has collapsed.  So the Republic is pretending that it has a subscription plan and then pretending to charge for it. 

 

I think we found her...

Check out this video that Karina Bland posted and then notice the escaped prisoner on the right.  Hmm. 

(Ok. calm down.  This is supposed to be funny.  Karina is the one who posted the picture of herself looking frazzled on the freeway and she was being funny.  Her story is light hearted.  I pointed out the juxtaposition of her looking frazzled and hot on the freeway next to a picture of an escaped convict who looks frazzled and hot on the freeway.  I think that the two pictures next to each other is funny.  It may not actually be funny, but it's not supposed to be mean.)

(I was serious about this part though.)

Also, I don't want to be that guy.  You know, the guy who is offended every time someone says Hell or Damn.  But Jesus' last words on the cross are significant to a lot of people.  They are probably not appropriate for the headline of your broken car AC story.  Just Sayin'.

Cleaner and Greener

Check out this interactive map of the world's coal mines. 

Energy law is my day job.  (Holding journalists to their own standards is just a hobby.)

The map is accompanied by an article that should shake up both sides of the political spectrum. 

No matter what your political persuasion,  please take a moment and absorb this paragraph from the article. 

Today, coal is experiencing fierce competition from low-priced natural gas and ever-cheaper renewable power—most notably from wind and solar. Further, solar power costs will continue to decline each year and be cut in half by 2020, relative to 2015 figures.

If you are on the left side of the spectrum, notice that "low-priced natural gas" is making coal economically obsolete.  Why do we have low-priced natural gas?  Fracking.  Yes.  Fracking has done more to eliminate carbon than any other technical innovation.  Natural gas plants can run as base load and produce the same electricity with half as much carbon.  Cheap gas replaces coal.  It's fracking that produces cheap gas.

If you are on the right side of the spectrum, read the second part of the previous sentence.  We are past the Holy Grail of "Grid Parity".  Renewables are cheaper than coal.  They are often cheaper than natural gas.  Renewables won the economic race.  It's time to recognize that.  Sure you can whine about renewable subsidies and I can respond with a biography of Lyndon Johnson.  But we are talking about the future and the future is the marginal cost of the next KWH and the cheapest marginal KWH is renewable. 

It's good news all around.  Just go with it.

 

 

 

 

The Day the News Died

USA Today is reporting that Starbucks will no longer sell newspapers.  Here are three observations from the article.

The New York Post first reported Starbucks' decision to drop newspapers.

Ha, the post scooped the Times on a story about the Times.

No one was immediately available to comment from Gannett, the parent company of USA TODAY.

Is this even legal?  I thought that reporters were supposed to show up at people's houses or endlessly call them on their private cell phones.  Or maybe that's just the standard that they set for elected officials.  I think that they should take these Gannett executives to task by getting copies of all of their emails, phone logs and social media...and then camp on their doorstep until they comment.

This isn't the first time Starbucks has decided old media is too passe for its cafes. It dropped the sale of CDs – remember those? – in 2015. .

Music has an advantage over news.   People like specific songs by certain artists.  So they have some loyalty and incentive to pay, yet CDs are gone and most music is free.   Compare that to news.  It's pretty rare that folks will pay to get a specific columnist.  News is a commodity.  Bands make most of their money touring.  The product is pretty much free.  If musicians can't make money selling content then newspapers are truly doomed. 

Finally, I am reminded of this joke.

That's funny because it is true.  It is so rare to see someone at Starbucks without a phone that it looks crazy.  People who buy $5 soy macchiato, pour overs have phones.  Sure, in 2005 some folks went to Starbucks to read the full Sunday New York Times.  Now those guys are at the library. 

 

 

Montini Spends the Day Liking Himself

The Republic's EJ Montini is a Twitter master.  He spends his days Tweeting, Retweeting and Liking his columns.  His screeds drive up traffic, but as we now know, they drive away advertisers.  It's not a great way to finish a career, but I'm sure it's better than spending his days yelling at kids to get off of his lawn.

Montini spent most of yesterday tweeting and retweeting this story about Jeff Flake. 

 
OK.  So Jeff is critical of the President but won't actually call him a racist.

Here's the lesson of the story:  It's never enough.

No one has sacrificed more by opposing Donald Trump than Jeff Flake.  Agree with him or disagree with him, but Jeff is a man of principle who sacrificed a promising career by opposing a President of his own party.  He's been out of office for a year and is still critical of the President.  Yet Montini spent the day excoriating Flake for not going all the way and calling Trump a racist. 

For any Republican who is tempted to pander to folks like EJ Montini, just look at Montini's treatment of Flake.  Flake can never do enough to satisfy someone like EJ.  Politicians might be tempted to concede a point or put a little distance between them and the President but it will never be acknowledged.  Reporters constantly badger Ducey or McSally to say something negative about Trump.  For their part, Ducey and McSally might be tempted to give a little ground or throw Howie or Yvonne a bone.

Don't fall for it.    Flake spoke out publicly, sacrificed his career and even wrote a pretty entertaining book about the experience and as recently as last week went on to criticize the president in the Deseret News.   Montini spent the day tweeting that Flake hasn't gone far enough. 

It's never enough.

What Do John D'Anna and Santa Clause Have in Common?

 

 

 

 

 

Here's some parenting advice that I received at church.  "Don't tell your kids that Santa Clause brings their presents and then expect them to believe that Jesus fed the 5,000."

Santa Clause seems like good clean fun, but your kids will eventually figure out that he's not real and will wonder what other things you have been lying about. 

Which brings me once again to this story by the Republic's John D'Anna.

How vain is Phoenix? A new survey ranks the most conceited cities in the country

We know all of this because a company you've probably never heard of (Quality Logo Products) surveyed 2,700 people across the country on a subject you've probably never cared about, namely, how much time do people spend on "personal care" each morning?

When a for-profit company does  "survey" not a "poll", the result is unscientific and meaningless.  You can tell by D'Anna's tone that he knows this isn't a real story. 

I would be tempted to give the paper a pass, however today's print edition of the Republic gave us another fake story.

How do we know the story is fake?

SimpleTexting, a text marketing service, used screen time data from 2,103 survey respondents to show how much of our day we probably spend tweeting, watching YouTube videos or posting Snapchat stories that our exes won't even see.

Again, this is not a poll; it was not conducted by a polling firm an it's not scientific.  It's a marketing ploy by a company that is hoping to get its name printed.  Mission accomplished. 

There are two points to consider.  First is that the print edition of the Arizona Republic is pretty precious space.  The Republic has abandoned a lot of beats--Maricopa County Government for example--because the paper is so much smaller than it used to be.  So why fill this precious space with an endless series of joke stories?

The second point brings me back to Santa Clause and credibility. 

Don't claim that your bogus stories about Arizona being number 1 in screen time and number 2 in vanity are true and then expect me to believe that we are number 48 in education and get an F in air quality.  Either the stories that you present as news are fact based, or they are not. 

Many of us have followed the paper for years and concluded that the answer is "not."

Ho Ho Ho.

 

Robbed Again

Check out the latest column by EJ Montini.

 

Opinion: Over the years the Republicans who control the Legislature have made it more difficult for working people to vote, educate their kids and, yes, earn a decent living.

Set aside the fact that these assertions aren't actually true.  Montini uses an analytical tool that explains this process.  I'm more interested in the writing style. Check this out.

Late in the last legislative session the Republican lawmakers who run the State Capitol decided to pass a law that would punish any city or county in Arizona that came to the conclusion that working people deserve to earn a decent wage.

It goes back to lawmakers not liking the fact that voters in Flagstaff decided to raise the minimum wage for workers in their city to a level higher than the rest of the state. (It’s $11 per hour in the rest of Arizona, $12 in Flagstaff.)

The Republicans who control the Legislature can’t abide cities or counties in the state believing they have a right to govern themselves. They don’t like it, and have passed laws to prevent it when it has come to things like voting and ballot initiatives and education and firearms and, yes, wages.

Bamm.  In your face.  That's what the left side of the blogosphere/TwitterVerse looks like.  You don't have to read it twice to know who the enemy is. 

Now check out this column from Bob Robb on the same topic.

The case for the minimum wage is an odd amalgam of agitprop and wishful thinking.

There will be two ballot propositions in Arizona this election increasing the minimum wage. The statewide initiative, Proposition 206, would increase it from $8.05 an hour to $10 this January, rising to $12 in 2020. Flagstaff voters will decide a measure, Proposition 414, that also increases it to roughly $10 in January, rising to $15 by 2021.

For the minimum wage, reductio ad absurdum is actually illuminating. People instinctively understand that government couldn’t just legislate a minimum wage of $100 an hour and make us all rich.

However, the economic dislocations of a government-imposed wage floor aren’t a cliff – nonexistent up to a certain point, after which they become destructive. Instead, they are on a continuum, existing wherever the wage floor is set. The lower the floor, the less the dislocations. But at no point are they nothing.

What the heck is that?  Perhaps I should refer to it as an odd amalgam of gobbledygook and condescension.

While I'm sure that Bob Robb would be the most popular guest at the Economist magazine Christmas party he is wasting his time--and our time--at the Republic.

If the Republic is looking for someone to balance the leftist screeds of EJ Montini, they have the wrong guy.

Note to management:  I'm sure that some of you think that Montini gets a lot of clicks and therefore adds value.  However that type of analysis is so 2014.  We now know that advertisers don't want their products associated with this type of shrill invective.  So while EJ might generate a lot of clicks, he's a net drain on revenue. 

His screeds damage the reputation of the paper, drive away subscribers and offend advertisers.  (Besides being an odd amalgam of agitprop and wishful thinking.)

 

All is Proceeding as I Have Foreseen

The Arizona Daily Star has announced that it is selling its building and moving its employees to a smaller location.  I have been to that location many times.  My first visit was tour with my Catalina high school Free Enterprise class in 1978.  It was an incredible operation. 

 

 

 

John D'Anna Mocks his Bosses

Did you see the front of the Valley & State section today?  Don't worry, no one else did either.  The lead story is so meaningless that it's clearly a parody. 

The Republic's John D'Anna writes that:

We know all of this because a company you’ve probably never heard of (Quality Logo Products) surveyed 2,700 people across the country on a subject you’ve probably never cared about, namely, how much time do people spend on “personal care” each morning?

The premise is absurd.  This is not a poll; it's not scientific.  It's a marketing ploy by a for-profit company that makes custom clothing logos.  Moreover, it's a survey about bathroom habits such as nose and scab picking.  The article is not appropriate content for Az Central much less the hard copy of the Republic.

Yet the article is marked "subscriber content" and it is placed as the lead story in the Valley & State section.  Then the Republic Twitter Minions all retweeted it. 

I don't want to be the guy who complains about the special effects in  the movie "Airplane!"   It's a joke.   

Let's assume that it is a very sophisticated joke. 

John D'Anna is not telling the type of joke that you see in Airplane!.  He's telling the kind of joke that you see in Office Space. 

D'Anna is mocking the direction that the Republic and the entire newspaper industry is going. 

The reason that D'Anna's joke works is that the story is real enough that it can get past Republic management.  That's because the Republic prints fake stories like this all the time. 

Check out this front page story from last August. 

Ozone pollution in Maricopa County has declined over the past two decades, but not enough to escape an "F" rating from the American Lung Association, which tracks air quality across the nation.

Despite vast improvements, the American Lung Association gives Phoenix a failing grade for air quality.  If the Republic wanted to quote a real report or write a real article, there are plenty available at Maricopa County Air Quality Department.  These stories are simply propaganda. 

D'Anna is also protesting stories like this one.

WalletHub released its 2018 list of Best Coffee Cities in America. Gilbert is the national capital of coffee pod makers, but Arizona's coffee scene fared poorly.

WalletHub is not a polling organization.  It's unbelievable how much free press they get from journalists who are willing to publish their clickbait surveys.

Not all of these rankings are harmless. 

The Arizona town placed 10th on affair website Ashley Madison's 2019 "Infidelity Hotlist," where it beat out cities such as Cleveland, Seattle and Boston in would-be cheaters per capita.

Again, this isn't a scientific result and it's not from a credible organization.  Yet the Republic prints it as real news.

D'Anna's fake story is so over-the-top that he's actually protesting stories like the last three. 

D'Anna has another point as well.  Newspaper content doesn't matter.  The package IS the content.  Here's why my mom subscribed to the newspaper. She wanted the physical experience of reading the paper.  The rest of us are looking for dopamine hits from our phones.  The content is meaningless.

Newspaper investors have figured out that content is meaningless which means that they finally understand the difference between American Airlines and NASCAR. 

In NASCAR, the performance of the driver effects the value of the enterprise.  That means that NASCAR drivers make a lot of money.  At American Airlines, the performance of the pilot adds no value to the enterprise.  Sure, pilots have to meet certain standards of performance and safety.  That's why they make more money than UPS drivers.  But a really good pilot doesn't get you to the airport faster than an average pilot.  Good pilots do not impart additional value. 

Journalists used to be NASCAR drivers.  Really good ones increased the value of the enterprise and they received the payment and prestige associated with that incremental value.  Over the last decade, investors have realized that the newspaper industry isn't NASCAR.  Really good reporters don't add value.  So for the last 10 years, journalists have been like pilots.  Their work is a commodity, but they are highly trained and not everyone could do their job.  So even though there are fewer journalism jobs than before, the remaining ones have a decent salary and benefits.

The industry has now realized that content doesn't matter.  Journalists are UPS drivers...and soon they will be Uber drivers.  They simply crank out commodity articles that serve to fill the real product--that is, they fill out the packaging.  They provided content for the tactile feel of the paper or the dopamine hit of the next update. 

Anyone can do that.  And they will be paid as entry level people doing a job that anyone can do. 

That's what D'Anna is protesting.  He is proving that his industry is absurd and that content doesn't matter by posting a gross and meaningless story on Az Central and then on the cover of the Valley & State section. 

The only question is who else is in on the joke. 

My guess is that some of those Twitter minions thought that he was serious. 

 

Post Script.  Notice the picture in the story. The funniest part of the story is that D'Anna used the same picture as all the other fake survey stories.  And it's not even a Republic pictures.  It's from a stock photo site.

Even the photographers are becoming commodities.