I finally ended up at a juke joint I hadn’t been in for awhile and saw the very famous Dirk Diggler, who was looking chipper, who tried to be just another person on the list that tried to explain NASCAR to me. This list of fine, concerned folks have tried to explain this soap opera of wheels and gears to me before and I appreciated him trying to teach me, especially about some bad, intentional wreck last week but I still don’t get the allure of NASCAR, but I do enjoy people trying to educate me about it. I think that I like that best. I also don’t understand neurosurgery either, so there is that.

He had seen a statue of a monkey holding a baby monkey near a dumpster. He had deemed it close enough to be Bigfoot and decided he was going to get it for me as a gift. When he returned to pick it up, it was sadly gone.  The fact that someone was willing to dumpster dive for me to get a statue of “Bigfoot” tickled me to no end. As I haven’t been in Hoots very much recently, it was also good to see Mr. Jimmy. He didn’t look like he felt very good so I didn’t get to hear him cuss. I was admittedly somewhat disappointed because I usually learn new curse words that I try to incorporate into everyday life from him.

I heard talk of newspapers, which honestly this time, I recused myself mentally from because I don’t work for one anymore and it was of the one I used to be at. I have found that listening is better than participation because I don’t need to throw gasoline on a fire. I was too close to the situation so it’s hard for me to be unbiased. It’s taken me eight months to learn that lesson because these are my friends from there.

They are still living it. I am not.

I’ve been on the road so my time is not my own right now. I love being busy. I love meeting new people, so life is good. As I keep telling myself that it’s become a reality. I’m pleased to know that sometimes when you do indeed talk the talk, walking the walk becomes much easier.

And to all the bloggers I’ve met in the past few weeks, ones that I have known before and new ones I’ve met, thanks for keeping me sane and keeping me company.

That’s what makes this little place on the web quite wonderful. It gave me all of you.

Now, with that said because I’m going to do some self-promotion here, put Speak to Power in your RSS feeds if you are so inclined, join us on Facebook or on Twitter.

Thanks guys.

Oh dear.

UPDATE: Snopes disproves it. See the comments. If it had of been real, I would have hated to cover that story. I need to stick with goat murder.

Image Credit

Now let me say that every philanthropic organization in Hoots has Santa stopping by this month. Santa is in parades, passing out toys, sitting in little Santa houses listening to children’s Christmas wishes. You know, the whole Santa thing. And, of course, they want the newspaper to take Santa’s picture. So each week (we are a bi-weekly) I have to make the decision of which Santa goes front page because I usually have four or five different Santas to choose from.

It’s Santa central around here.

For the past four years, the battle of the Santas has been like a WWE competition fighting for front-page domination. So when I pick the best photo to use, other Santas feel a bit left out and, each year, they let me know about it. There is usually a throw down, where I am, of course, emotionally abused by the perception that I have “dissed” their interpretation of Santa.

It’s already started again but this year there is a new spin. This year the Santas who haven’t even been Santa yet are letting me know that THEY want scheduled Santa front page time. This is also, usually, the time of year I go into hibernation and cry in my Coma cave.

Would the real Santa stop the faux Santas for me please so I can have a break?

So, as is a holiday tradition here at Newscoma, I present to you Santa is a jerk.

The reduction in force represented about 10 percent of the organization’s workforce and included 13 newsroom employees.

Newspapers nationwide have been struggling with a variety of economic issues that have affected profitability, including sharply rising newsprint prices, increasing costs of pension and health care contributions, changes in the nation’s retail sector, shifts in classified advertising and the overall slowdown in the economy.

“The KNS Media Group and the News Sentinel have been taking steps to address the changes happening in the media industry with new information and advertising solutions,” said News Sentinel Publisher Bruce Hartmann. “However, current economic conditions and challenges based on cost realities make internal staffing changes necessary.

The Knoxville News Sentinel is cutting staff. Everyone is.

But I did take note of this:

The News Sentinel’s family of Web sites, including knoxnews.com, knoxvillebiz.com and govolsxtra.com, will be unaffected by the changes.

“Traffic to our online sites is growing rapidly, and, as a result, we are reaching more readers than ever before,” Hartmann said. “We are committed to continuing to expand this vital part of our business and to being East Tennessee’s first source of news online.”

“Although these are challenging times for the newspaper industry,” Hartmann added, “We are confident that, after a period of transition, a bright future lies ahead for the News Sentinel and its associated products.”

Where you get your news is changing. I tell members of my staff that news is still news regardless of where you get it.

Ron at PopFi found this gem. Read about the artist who created this screaming news sculpture.

I suspect we’re all suffering from election fatigue, economy fatigue, potential layoff fatigue, and other fairly daunting existential crises that seem to surround us at all times. I don’t know. That’s all I can say lately, actually: “I don’t know.” It’s my go-to phrase. I should at least mix it up. “No se.”

I want to fix things for everybody. And for myself. But I don’t know how.

I don’t know.

Me neither. And, for once in my long and goofy-assed life, I don’t know how to even start.

Editor Bates will do just fine with it. It has to run. She’s a rock star anyway, although I don’t think she knows it. She’s amazing.

And I’m dealing with the emotions that go along with seeing someone that I know, that I grew up with and that is part of my family behave, how do I say it, absolutely awful.

Why, you may be asking? A distant family member was arrested. If he did what he’s accused of doing, then he will go to jail. For a long time, I might add. What did he do? Well, and the reporter is coming out in me, he allegedly beat the hell out of his girlfriend and held her captive. How bad was it?

Let’s just say the TBI is involved.

And the nieces found out about it at school. We knew over the weekend but we waited for the details. We didn’t tell them because we didn’t know the extent of what was happening. We knew it was bad. We didn’t know how bad it was. Some kid spilled the beans in all of it’s horribly glory to the oldest niece.

It’s bad. It’s heinous.

I talked to the oldest niece this morning. I told her I went to court and watched the arraignment, let those folks know that because of the family connection, I was out of it. Yesterday, she cried, according to Homer. I asked to speak to her which Homer said might be a good idea.

I own that this morning, as I talked to this 7th grader, I told the truth and another brick out of the wall of her innocence I personally knocked out. I’m not a mother, but we needed for her to know that Mister Right died a long time ago. I explained that it wasn’t a reflection of her but sometimes we get hit by emotional shrapnel. Being an adult in the life of a young person whom I adore is not always fun, but it’s necessary for her to know the realities.

Damn.

Note to young journalists in small town news, sometimes you have to just go look people in the eye because sometimes you will run things that are going to hurt feelings including your own. Own it and move forward. If you don’t make people mad, then you aren’t doing your job. It’s best to make both sides of an issue mad, because then you know you are doing your job well.

But it’s news. And despite the personal connections you might have, you HAVE to run these things because if you didn’t, then you become part of the problem.

There are no favors in news. There can’t be.

And, my dear friends, these things are the downside of working in small town news. I have put relatives on the front page and it’s never fun. With a writing staff of two and a half people, you can’t run from these things. And, although it can be painful and everyone thinks reporters are barracudas, we really aren’t. We are human and in the coming days,  I will see the hurt look on the faces of people I care about. Sometimes the news biz is amazingly wonderful, but there is always a flip side. This is a social business, a business where trust is crucial. We have to maintain that trust by reporting things we might want to hide our heads in the sand about but we can’t. Journalists just can’t.

And, although I recused myself, I’m still the editor and my name is all over that newspaper.

I say again, there are no favors in news and no one is above the law.

Is this person guilty? I am not a judge but I will say that the evidence thus far is overwhelming. And the sad fact that it’s not the first time.

I have put him on the front page before.

My day yesterday was one of the busiest I’ve had since I rejoined the news biz. And last night, I had to put on my Mary Sunshine face and go to a local event.

It took everything I had in me as I found out a friend had died just moments before I went.

I’m not a robot and there is a hole in the pit of my stomach this morning.

Sorry about the rambling. One week from today, I turn 43-years-old and I feel every bit of it this morning.

And we move forward.

And in a society where advertisers — not consumers — pay for journalism, the answer to the question “what is good” is not necessarily one my mentor Jim Shumaker would have approved. What is good? What gets the most attention and moves the most product. Good for society? That’s another question.

Adherents of the newsroom religion had actually been struggling with this realization for years, but what really brought the issue to a head was a simple fact about the Web: Because it’s a competitive market with lower entry costs, Web-based advertising is significantly cheaper. And though the reach of newspapers (via print and Web) has increased since 2004, the rise in Web readership doesn’t account for the loss of more lucrative print readership.

Read the rest at this place. I just adore this guy.

Head over there. The local newspaper isn’t happy, and nor should they be.

People need information, especially during a crisis.

Chicago – Barack Obama has chosen Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia as his vice presidential running mate, bringing to the ticket a politician who could reinforce Obama’s message of change but who also shares the drawback of inexperience.

Obama’s decision – kept secret amid intense speculation as next week’s Democratic convention draws near – was announced via text messages and e-mails to supporters.

Kaine, who took office in January 2006 and who previously was lieutenant governor and mayor of Richmond, grew up in the Kansas City area. Fluent in Spanish, he worked as a missionary in Honduras before graduating from Harvard Law School, where Obama also earned a degree.

Together with the 47-year-old Obama, Kaine, 50, would give the Democrats the youngest presidential ticket since 1992, when 46-year-old Bill Clinton selected 44-year-old Al Gore as his running mate.

Umm, this obviously didn’t happen.

Your Dewey Beats Truman moment of Zen.

SAN FRANCISCO — Gannett Co. will cut 1,000 newspaper jobs, or about 3% of that division’s workforce, the company said Thursday. Employees affected by layoffs will be notified by the end of the month.

I’ve got to wrap my head around this one.

Basically, employees of the network cannot use Facebook, Twitter, Blog or even comment in forums and chat rooms without permission from the CNN higher ups according to Chez Pazienza, who was famously fired from CNN for blogging at Deus Ex Malcontent. His story is here.

You can head to their blogs to get the vibe of what’s going on.

I agree with Mark who says this:

Did I give up my right to protest or vote when I started working for a newspaper? I hope not.
Many newspapers are actively encouraging reporters to take up blogging.  Newspapers invite reporters to express opinion in the print editions. Newspapers have long held that as long as the opinion expressed is marked clearly as that of the reporter, it is acceptable.

I talk about evolving trends in the news business a lot. I don’t understand why more media folks don’t blog or use Twitter. I’ve seen more breaking news on Twitter that it still boggles my mind.

Ryan Sholin points us to a post written by an outgoing newsman of the LA Times, who is getting out of the dead tree business.

1. Technology has run laps around the print media — giving readers instant news, open-source journalism, no barriers to become publishers, and an infinite news hole.
2. The idea that your daily news is collected, written, edited, paginated, printed on dead trees, put in a series trucks and cars and delivered on your driveway — at least 12 hours stale — is anachronistic in 2008.

I think these things are connected. The writer talks about his 18 years with the Times. I’ve worked in news off and on for nearly 20 years. The way I started out has vastly changed in those two decades.

And the blogosphere has changed in the nearly three years I’ve been blogging. Some media outlets get it and have actively worked toward changing their model to accommodate changes that will happen in the future, which is smart. Even some rural outlets do although there are a great deal of folks who do not and angrily (yes, I said angrily) hold on to that the old ways are the only way to do news.

There is chasm that exists between old and new.

And CNN is treating online communication like a dinosaur. When you edit free thought, then what do you have?

Zombies in a newsroom.