Charging for web content? ‘Nothing is imminent’ at this paper

On Valentine’s Day, a Buffalo business news magazine reported annual operating profits at my regional metro daily, The Buffalo News, had “for the first time in at least 25 years … [fallen] below $10 million and the paper is exploring the possibility of perhaps charging for online content to offset circulation declines.”

Such is the trend — ad revenues diving into fiscal oblivion — at many of the nation’s large metropolitan dailies. As Alan Mutter at Newsosaur wrote in December:

Newspaper advertising sales this year will come in at less than half the record $49.4 billion achieved as recently in 2005, according to an analysis of the year-to-date performance of the industry. [emphasis added]

Imagine that: An industry’s ad sales have fallen by half in just seven years. But to listen to the publisher of The Buffalo News, you’d conclude he’s saying, “It’s not our fault.”

In a Buffalo First story by reporter James Fink, publisher Stan Lipsey suggests that the Buff News‘ sinking financial fortunes are due to factors beyond the newspaper’s control. Perhaps, but like many such managerial pronouncements in the industry over the past decade, admission of flawed management decisions past and present is nowhere in sight.

Dems’ super PACs, trailing in money race, to coordinate fundraising

The law forbids super PACs — political action committees permitted to raise unlimited funds with little disclosure of donors — from coordinating their activities with those of candidates’ formal campaign committees.

But, it seems, nothing prevents super PACs from coordinating their fundraising activities with each other. And this comes with the blessing of the Democratic fundraiser-in-chief.

From a report by Peter Stone of the Center for Public Integrity comes this tidbit:

Five Democratic super PACs are reaching out to party mega-donors, in a fledgling effort seeking $1 million to $10 million contributions, now that President Barack Obama has blessed the outside spending group working to get him re-elected.

And the reason? Stone reported in January that Democratic super PACs and nonprofits, formed last year, had only raised about $19 million.

Report: Super PACs raise $181 million from fewer than 200 people

As if we needed still more evidence that financial authority over national political campaigns is increasingly wielded by fewer and fewer really rich people, consider this exhibit:

Super PACs raised about $181 million in the last two years — with roughly half of it coming from fewer than 200 super-rich people.

That’s the news from a study called “Auctioning Democracy” jointly conducted by Demos, an organization that says it practices “advocacy to influence public debate and catalyze change,” and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Both groups seek to strengthen, if not compel full disclosure and expenditure rules.

Super PACs’ power stemmed from the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 2010 SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission decision. The Court’s Citizen United decision further strengthened corporations’ claim to personhood and weakened the requirement for full disclosure of donations to super PACs.

Politico’s Ken Vogel and Abby Phillip’s analysis of the study noted that

A relatively few wealthy backers are keeping super PACs afloat — and they’re saying so. Last year alone, individuals gave super PACs $63 million.

The news only worsens.

How to get ahead on Capitol Hill: Use a leadership PAC to buy power

I’m in my second term in the U.S. House of Representatives. I’m a Republocrat. I like the job. It pays $174,000, has great medical benefits, provides a really nice private gym to use, and lots of people have to be nice to me. And there are those $110,000 in taxpayer-funded fringe benefits I get (including plush retirement plans, paid time off, and contributions to Social Security and Medicare taxes). I’ve got a staff to answer the phone and email, run my Twitter and Facebook stuff, and deal with those damned constituents. And I’m in a relatively safe district, thanks to that Republocrat-friendly redistricting bill passed in my state last year. Hey, sometimes people let me use their corporate jets! (Well, as long as I keep quiet about those trips and pay commercial airfare for it.)

Yeah. This is a sweet gig. I want to stay here. In fact, I want to … move up. Be in the leadership. Be a mover and shaker. Now how am I gonna do that beyond kissing the speaker’s ass (and those of his damn deputies, too) and voting however he (or she) tells me to?

It will take money for that Republocrat to ascend higher in the House’s toadying ladder of leadership. Lots of money. And as we know, House members (and senators) have a vehicle to collect and dispense money to other House members — the leadership political action committee. A principal reason for the existence of leadership PACs to is buy friends and influence on Capitol Hill. Apparently, hard work and intelligence are insufficient.

Deaths of millions of bats in U.S., Canada have ecological, economic impacts

I do not like bats. Once, as a college student living in a third-floor apartment with no air-conditioning, a bat landed on me during a hot summer night. I fled my room, shrieking. Even today, on summer nights at my rural home, when bats fly low over my deck, I instinctively duck.

Bats have a bad rep. Think bat and you likely think bat with rabies. Think bat and you likely think dirty bat or bat as vampiric bloodsucker. Think bat and you likely think evil harbinger of doom and destruction. (Okay, that last one’s a tad over the top … but you get the idea.) Bats have fewer defenders than fear-laden critics.

But bats, the only mammal structurally capable of sustained flight, are just creatures with significant ecological — and economic — roles. Hate mosquitoes and other insects? They’re on the nighttime menu for bats. Like bees, many bats pollinate plants and spread seeds. Bat shit (sorry; bat guano) is rich in nitrogen and is a profitable fertilizer. Bats’ ability to navigate in the dark (echolocation) is a subject of significant scientific study.

But in the past five years, up to 6.7 million bats are estimated to have died in 16 states and Canada, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. Three species face extinction — the little brown bat, the northern long-eared bat and the tricolored bat. A malady called white-nose syndrome is killing them.

University wrong to fire student paper adviser over photo of nude streaker

Paul Isom is looking for a new job today. He was the student media director at East Carolina University. Why was he canned?

On Nov. 8, the [student] newspaper published a full-frontal photo of a streaker who ran onto the field during that weekend’s home football game. The decision prompted outcry from some readers and from university administrators who said it was “in very poor taste.”

If this photo was so controversial and in “very poor taste,” why did the university require two months to decide to give Isom four hours to clean out his office and get outta Dodge?

No doubt lawyers were consulted. After the photo was published, the university’s vice chancellor for student affairs, Virginia Hardy, presaged what would come to pass:

We will be having conversations with those who were involved in this decision in an effort to make it a learning experience. The goal will be to further the students’ understanding that with the freedom of the press comes a certain level of responsibility about what is appropriate and effective in order to get their message across.

Learning experience my ass. The goal of the lesson being taught here is to warn student journalists and their advisers to not cross the university when it comes to maligning its image.

GAO: U.S. government’s checkbook still too screwed up to audit

Consider the continual political warfare among tea partiers, Democrats, Republicans, President Obama, members of Congress, and anyone else with a media megaphone over size of the deficit run up by the American government. You’d assume they were confident the government knew how much money it took in and how much it spent. You’d assume the government knew how to keep its checkbook in order.

And you’d be wrong. According to the fiscal 2011 financial report by the nation’s bookkeeper, the Government Accounting Office, some government agencies cannot soundly manage their fiscal affairs.

The GAO said in a press release today it cannot

render an opinion on the 2011 consolidated financial statements of the federal government, because of widespread material internal control weaknesses, significant uncertainties, and other limitations.

As was the case in 2010, the main obstacles to a GAO opinion on the accrual- based consolidated financial statements were: (1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD) that made its financial statements unauditable, (2) the federal government’s inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal agencies, and (3) the federal government’s ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements.

Surely the feds have tackled this problem, right? They’re getting a handle on it, right?

In the era of terrorism, whom have we become?

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

When a Hellfire missile fired from a drone aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency struck ground in Yemen last month, it killed two American citizens. One was New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki, 40; the other was Samir Khan, 25, who publishes media for Al Qaeda promoting terrorism.

Al-Awlaki, says the American government, is a terrorist. Officials say he had crossed the line between propagandist and operations planner. That earned him a spot on a kill-or-capture list nearly two years ago. Is he a bad guy? Probably. Did he deserve to die? Perhaps. But neither “probably” nor “perhaps” is the standard for conviction in American criminal trials — beyond a reasonable doubt.

So, reports Charlie Savage of The New York Times, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel more than a year ago crafted a 50-page memorandum. It justified the killing of an American citizen without benefit of trial, reports Savage. According to the unnamed sources quoted by Savage, the document provided steps to bypass the Fourth and Fifth amendments regarding unreasonable seizure and due process of law. Such extralegal acts, coupled with the American military’s global reach, raise troubling questions few in power — or seeking power — are willing to address publicly.

End poverty. Attack it. Now.

You know someone who lives in poverty. You may not realize it, but you do. Given that one of every six Americans lives in poverty, someone you know suffers from one of the most punishing and oppressing of all human conditions.

Too many of us blithely consider poverty to be limited to certain geographical locations such as the “inner city.” Too many of us believe poverty is limited to, perhaps, mostly a certain skin color. Too many of us attribute poverty to the lack of an “appropriate” work ethic, a lack of ambition, or a desire to “cheat the system.” The poor live in cities, they’re not white, they’re lazy, and they’re sucking up my tax dollars unfairly.

Discard that attitude. It’s disgusting. Poverty privileges no race, no gender, no occupation, no geography.

Kerry grandstands; The Boston Globe cheerleads

Sen. John Kerry’s decision to not meet with “a whole bunch of lobbyists right now” and not fundraise while serving on Congress’ deficit-reduction “supercommittee” fails to impress. And the story by his hometown cheerleader, The Boston Globe,” equally fails to impress.

The Massachusetts Democrat may have scored a few points with voters. But his decision is really only inexpensive grandstanding. He said in August he’ll seek a sixth term in 2014. And he’s a shoo-in to win. He won his fifth term in 2008 with 66 percent of the vote and faced a primary opponent for only the first time in decades.

And who would want to face a sitting senator who has, thanks to his leadership PAC and campaign committee, $3 million in the bank and zero debt? And whose personal wealth, tops in the U.S. Senate, hit nearly $190 million entering 2010?