Let The $4 Billion Rumpus Begin! (Super Tuesday Edition)

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Now that the Michigan primary is in their rear-view mirror, the GOP slapfighters have moved on to the (Not So) Super Tuesday states, starting with a kibitzer AFSCME TV spot in Ohio (via Politico):

[Politico] reported last week that AFSCME had purchased $360,000 worth of TV time in Ohio, and this is the spot the labor group is running that dings Mitt Romney on his opposition to the auto bailout.

 

In other areas of Romney’s World, the pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future has launched its own ad in Ohio savaging Rick Santorum (R-We Almost Had It All):

 

Destroy Rick’s Future – sorry, Restore Our Future – is also running this spot in Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Alabama:

 

On another front, Winning Our Future – the Super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich (R-Forgotten But Not Gone) – has gotten another cash infusion from Super Sugar Daddy Sheldon Adelson and launched TV ads in Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Tennessee that say not everyone likes Newt, but you should:

 

Come to think of it, not everyone in the GOP establishment likes this primary campaign. But apparently, it’s not yet time to choose.

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Campaign Outsider’s Fearless Michigan Prediction (pat. pending)

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

With the polls (not to mention Rick Santorum) all over the place, it’s hard to say what will happen in the Michigan primary today.

Then again, hard is the hardworking staff’s middle name. Or something . . .

Anyway, our pick:

Mitt Romney (R-Am I the Right Height?) by five.

Just get the feeling Santorum’s driven the Crazy Train one stop too far.

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New Paywall – Sorry, “Membership Program” – At The Los Angeles Times

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

The hardworking staff just received this email from the LA Times:

Dear Readers,
We are making an exciting change to latimes.com, and we want you to
be the first to know how we’re evolving.
NEW LOS ANGELES TIMES MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM
On March 5, we’re launching a membership program. If you’re an avid latimes.com
reader, but not currently a home delivery customer, we hope you’ll consider joining for
a nominal fee to get:
• Unlimited digital access to all of The Times’ award-winning news and information
• Unique storytelling
• Investigative reports
• In-depth local news
• Signature blogs
• Compelling photo galleries
• Original video content
• Revealing data projects and analysis
Membership privileges also include:
• Special opportunities at select Times events
• Exclusive discounts and deals
• Giveaways and contests
If you are already a subscriber, you simply need to follow a few registration steps to
activate your membership at no additional cost. Non-members can continue to browse
The Times online for limited reading and breaking news.
To activate or join on March 5, please visit latimes.com/membership.
As always, the Los Angeles Times is your all-access pass to the news, culture and
happenings that matter. Our high-quality journalism consistently wins the country’s
most prestigious accolades and provides you with the trusted news and information
crucial to navigating and enjoying Southern California. We believe our coverage — from
around the world and right down to your neighborhood — provides perspective and
incomparable value and we appreciate that you do too.

(Yeah, yeah – we know it’s a visual mess. But that’s not our fault. We’re just the messenger.)

More important, check out the language the LAT employs: exciting, evolving, nominal, unique, original and etc.

Reality check via TechCrunch:

The Los Angeles Times reports that The Los Angeles Times will be adopting a paywall (they prefer the term “membership program”) starting March 5th, joining the ranks of other large newspapers hoping to replace plummeting subscription revenues. Readers, naturally, are incensed, though the change was inevitable for such a large newspaper.

Although the move to a paid or at least somehow powerfully monetized online model is going to be critical for the L.A. Times and other major print establishments, it appears that everyone in the industry is still in the “flailing” stage, and hoping that a model rejected and circumvented by readers will somehow work for them as it has (in a way) worked for others.

Accent on in a way. Which is no way out of the newspaper industry’s current dilemma.

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“Artist”-ic License, Political Style

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Now that The Artist has cleaned up at the Oscars, here come the knockoffs.

Via Time’s Swampland:

 

Via the Daily Caller:

 

More nominations?

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Zander’s Theater

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

The hardworking staff (and the Missus) walked by the Copley Plaza Saturday evening and encountered maybe two dozen protesters holding signs that said “Reinstate Zander.”

That would be Benjamin Zander, late of the New England Conservancy Conservatory, which cashiered him after it was revealed that he’d “knowingly hired a registered sex-offender to videotape NEC’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra over the past decade,” as WBUR’s Radio Boston reported.

Saturday’s protest was organized by YPO alumni (Facebook page here) and previewed at Slipped Disc:

Starting Saturday evening at 6pm in the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel, NEC will be holding its annual “Feast of Music” fundraiser, which the members of the Board of NEC and President Tony Woodcock will be attending. This is our opportunity to show the NEC administration, donors, and greater community how we feel: treating Ben unfairly and dismantling his legacy at NEC Prep is wrong and reconciliation is right. We have alerted the Boston Police Department and City Hall of our plans.

Hopefully you have read the thoughtful and informative letter by Neil Rudenstein, former President of Harvard University, and Michael Zander, Professor Emeritus of Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science:

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2012/02/harvard-president-to-bostons-nec-youve-committed-an-injustice.html

Sadly, the NEC administration continues to ignore its constituents, first squashing students’ voices, then ignoring the petition, and now dismissing these respected, influential voices as “concerned family members,” just because these leading thinkers happen to be Ben’s brother-in-law and brother, respectively. The letter details the history of the videographer’s engagement at NEC and the lack of due process in firing Ben. Considering the environment of fear that has engulfed NEC, it is sad but not surprising that the most confident voices calling for reconciliation come from outside the institution rather than from within.

Case in point: this Letter to the Editor that ran in Sunday’s Boston Globe:

Conductor punished by a sanctimonious mob

THE FIRING of Benjamin Zander by the New England Conservatory has all the elements of a great opera: a talented, compassionate man offers aid to an outcast, and is punished for his kindness by a sanctimonious mob ( “Conservatory will not rescind Zander firing; Officials rebuff letter from family,’’ Metro, Feb. 22).

Zander was fired for hiring Peter Benjamin, a man who had sinned and been punished. Under our laws, however heinous Benjamin’s crime, once he was released from prison, he was entitled to another chance. Zander offered him that chance and there is no evidence that Benjamin betrayed his trust. Unless the Board of Trustees has contrary proof, they should show some forgiveness and allow him get on with his life.

A larger question is why bother with prison if we do not think inmates can be redeemed; why not just bring in the guillotine and behead a transgressor as soon as the guilty verdict is read?

I applaud Zander’s supporters for standing up for him, but I would add that the Board should reinstate both Zander and Benjamin.

Jane Mathews

Revere

The hardworking staff searched for coverage of the protest in Sunday’s Globe or Boston Herald.

Result: Zero Zander.

Keep an eye on this one. It could jump ugly.

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Mazda Gets Some Lorax-ion

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Universal Pictures’ new release The Lorax features a major buildup and a major built-in: A marketing partnership with Mazda.

From Mediaite:

Really?! The Lorax Is Being Used To Shill For SUVs

Irony died this week when the hyper-saccharine, “rainbow-barf monstrosity” 3D-CG film adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax announced they were partnering with Mazda to greenwash their CX-5 sport utility vehicle. Are you kidding me?

Mother Jones‘ Kate Sheppard observes that “the car is a standard fuel-injection-engine SUV” and while, “apparently better than other SUVs on the market” it still was “not that good.”

The offending ad:

Mediaite’s conclusion: Shame on everyone involved in this abomination.

Sneak ADtack! conclusion: Amen.

Originally posted on the Newer! Improveder! Sneak ADtack!

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The Case Of The Missing Link (NYT Division)

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Right after the hardworking staff wrote about the New York Times’ failure to credit the Nation for its groundbreaking investigation of the U.S. military’s digraceful personality disorder discharges, this turns up in GigaOM (via Mediabistro’s Morning Media Newsfeed):

Is linking just polite, or is it a core value of journalism?

Late last week, TechCrunch writer MG Siegler broke the news that Apple was buying an app-discovery service called Chomp — although he didn’t say where that news came from, just that it was a reliable source. The Wall Street Journalreported the same news several hours later, confirmed by an Apple source, but didn’t link to Siegler, who then wrote aprofanity-laced tirade criticizing the WSJ for its failure to include a link to him in its story (we at GigaOM, meanwhile, wrote about why the acquisition made sense for Apple, and credited TechCrunch with breaking the story).

I’ve argued before that I think this failure to link is a crucial mistake that mainstream media outlets make, and also an issue of trust: since the Journal must know that at least some people saw the Siegler post, why not link to it? The only possible reason — apart from simply forgetting to do so — is that the paper would rather try to pretend that it was the first to know this information (and it also apparently has a policy of not linking if a WSJ reporter can independently confirm the news).

The GigaOM writer, Matthew Ingram, says it’s a matter of reader trust and journalistic fairness, and provides a Storify version of the discussion that followed.

Granted, the Times/Nation case is not about hot news misappropriation (or impropriety), but rather a sort of historical credit for groundbreaking work. So maybe the hardworking staff is way off base here.

Regardless, we’ve sent a note to the Times Public Editor to see what he thinks. We’ll keep you posted.

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Attack Of The Googletron

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

There’s bad news and worse news about Internet privacy these days.

The bad news (via the Boston Globe):

As the online search giant Google Inc. prepares to change the way it uses information about Internet users, regulators and consumer watchdogs worry that the company will compromise the privacy of millions of consumers.

On March 1, Google will alter the way it uses data it collects on Internet users to build more detailed individual profiles of many consumers.

The changes will affect only users who are signed in to a Google account, but that includes millions of consumers who use Google services such as Gmail, the video site YouTube, or smartphones running the company’s Android operating system.

Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey (D-Empty Suit) adds, “The new Google privacy policy is, you have no privacy.’’

More bad news (via the Washington Post):

State attorneys general: Google privacy changes appear to harm consumers

Dozens of state attorneys general on Wednesday wrote Google’s chief executive to express “strong concerns” that the company’s new privacy policies starting next week will violate consumer privacy.

In a letter to CEO Larry Page, the state attorneys general said the plan to begin sharing consumer data across Google’s services on March 1 “forces these consumers to allow information across all of these products to be shared, without giving them the proper ability to opt out.”

The worse news (via Bloomberg):

Privacy Group Can’t Force FTC Google Action, Judge Rules

A legal challenge to Google Inc. (GOOG)’s privacy policy was dismissed by a judge who said she lacked authority to order the Federal Trade Commission to take action against the world’s most popular search engine.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in a ruling today in Washington said Congress didn’t give federal courts jurisdiction to monitor FTC enforcement of consent decrees.The ruling did hold out some hope, though.

“[The Electronic Privacy Information Center] – along with many other individuals and organizations – has advanced serious concerns that may well be legitimate,” Jackson wrote in her ruling. “The FTC, which has advised the court that the matter is under review, may ultimately decide to institute an enforcement action.”

Hope springs eternal. But Google remains infernal.

Originally posted on the Newer! Improveder! Sneak ADtack!

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NYT Behind The Times On Military Bait ‘n’ Switch Discharges

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Saturday’s New York Times featured this Page One report about the U.S. military using “personality disorder” diagnoses to discharge thousands of soldiers and save billions of dollars.

Nut graf:

Since 2001, the military has discharged at least 31,000 service members because of personality disorder, a family of disorders broadly characterized by inflexible “maladaptive” behavior that can impair performance and relationships.

For years, veterans’ advocates have said that the Pentagon uses the diagnosis to discharge troops because it considers them troublesome or wants to avoid giving them benefits for service-connected injuries. The military considers personality disorder a pre-existing problem that emerges in youth, and as a result, troops given the diagnosis are often administratively discharged without military retirement pay. Some have even been required to repay enlistment bonuses.

The Times says this issue has arisen because “In recent weeks, questions about whether the Army manipulates psychiatric diagnoses to save money have been raised at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Wash., where soldiers undergoing medical evaluations before discharge complained that psychiatrists rescinded PTSD diagnoses, leaving the soldiers with diagnoses like personality disorder that did not qualify them for medical discharges.”

The Times is actually five years late to the party.

The Nation first reported this travesty in a 2007 piece by Joshua Kors:

A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits. The conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans’ rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals.

They say the military is purposely misdiagnosing soldiers like [Purple Heart recipient Jon] Town and that it’s doing so for one reason: to cheat them out of a lifetime of disability and medical benefits, thereby saving billions in expenses.

The Times glancingly references the Nation piece with a web link, but never explicitly acknowledges its groundbreaking report:

Although the number of personality disorder discharges is small relative to the total number of troops who have served since 2001, Congress was concerned enough about the issue to hold hearings in 2007 after reading reports that troops with post-traumatic stress and other combat-related injuries were being discharged for personality disorder.

Bad form, Gray Lady. Exceedingly bad form.

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Journo-Tweeters Of The World, Unite!

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

This week’s WSJ Friday Journal section features an Oscar-themed front page piece:

I’d Like to Thank My Twitter Followers

With a slate of small, arty movie nominees and an old-school host who is more reliable than buzzy, this year’s Academy Awards broadcast may not set any television ratings records. But it’s poised for a shot at another title: It could be the biggest night yet for social media.

The awards show is working hard to pump up its social-media clout as it tries to leverage a growing phenomenon: More and more viewers are supplementing the experience of merely watching their favorite TV shows by joining in simultaneous running commentaries on Twitter and Facebook.

A companion piece carries this headline:

From Comics to Chefs: Top Celebrity Tweeters

Accompanying graphic:

 

Okay: Shaq, Taylor Swift, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin – sure.

But not a single Tweeterific journalist?

No Anderson Cooper (2,179,788 followers) or Rachel Maddow (2,045,196) or David Pogue (1,414,688)?

C’mon, WSJ editors.

Journalists are celebrities too.

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