45° 
Hollow Column
Submitted by Al Diamon on Thu, 08/16/2007 - 12:13pm.
August 15, 2007
Jeannine Guttman doesn't have much to say. But she certainly takes up a lot of space not saying it.
Guttman is the editor of the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram. Most weeks, she writes a long column in the latter paper's Insight section filled with what might politely be described as promotional fluff about the newspapers she edits.
But don't take my word for it. Read for yourself.
May 6: "When columnist Bill Nemitz journeyed to Iraq a third time to report on Maine troops deployed there, he went with a commitment `to telling it like it is.' What he found there as a journalist was what he would report to his readers at home - unvarnished, unfiltered, unwavering."
(Guttman never explains why "telling it like it is" would be unusual for a newspaper, nor does she offer examples of times her paper has varnished, filtered and wavered in its journalistic endeavors.)
May 20: "[N]ewspaper Web sites are gaining readers at nearly twice the rate for Web sites overall."
(Guttman doesn't mention that newspaper circulation has plummeted.)
May 27: "Third on our topics list today [the first two were a study that showed most parents encourage their kids to follow the news and the announcement of new blogs on the Press Herald's Web site] - and no doubt the most sweeping of the three subjects - is the launch of a 15-part Sunday series on shipbuilding."
(Sweeping?)
June 24: "Over the course of the past eight years, it's become clear that we are serving the needs of these readers [on an advisory group called the Community Council] pretty well. We know, in general, that our core audience is happy with what we are doing."
(How nice for you.)
July 1: "Today is a historic time at our newspaper. It marks the first week that the newsroom assumes responsibility for publishing pressherald.com, our online newspaper."
(Historic? Isn't that something historians decide?)
August 5: "Our online audience is growing - a lot."
(And what about that off-line audience?)
I don't mean to imply that Guttman devotes all her columns to advertising her papers' attributes. Occasionally, she gets personal ("As [Joan Didion] walked through her life, I walked through mine. Sometimes, through her words, it felt as though she had been in my shoes, and I in hers"), sentimental ("Moms have perfected the knack of unconditional love"), philosophical ("And that, I think, is what fuels our sometimes rabid fascination with these celebrity travails. We are fascinated not by the individual implosion, but by what celebrities collectively tell us about ourselves") and painfully obvious ("It's easy to dislike Barry Bonds").
What she never seems to get around to is discussing a lot of serious questions about her editorial decision making.
Is the topic of shipbuilding really worthy of a 15-part series?
Why did the paper devote so much space to the alleged brain-harvesting scandal in the state medical examiner's office, when it was obvious after the first story that this was a relatively minor scoop?
How come the Press Herald and Sunday Telegram are taking that same overkill approach to the Portland school system's budget deficit, particularly since the papers hadn't bothered covering many of the School Committee meetings over the last year at which the mistakes that led to the shortfall were made?
Don't readers deserve better coverage of the Legislature than can be provided by one full-time staffer and a rotating cast of inexperienced general assignment reporters?
Why is the Press Herald's political coverage, particularly when it comes to legislative candidates, so lame that no voter could possibly find it helpful in deciding how to vote?
Isn't the weekly iHerald section a complete waste of space?
Is it possible that the reason young people don't read the newspaper is because people like you are boring them to death?
Some of these questions are provocative, but I don't think that makes them unfair. It would be fascinating to see any of them discussed in Guttman's column in the near future. In the meantime, take heart in knowing that the preceding sentence may be the first ever to contain the words "fascinating" and "Guttman's column." And maybe the last.
Al Diamon has a long pedigree in the Maine media, having spent the past 30 years in radio, TV, print and, now, on the Internet. He writes the weekly column "Politics & Other Mistakes," which appears in 10 Maine newspapers, as well as the monthly column "The Other Column," which appears in three. Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
Jeannine Guttman doesn't have much to say. But she certainly takes up a lot of space not saying it.
Guttman is the editor of the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram. Most weeks, she writes a long column in the latter paper's Insight section filled with what might politely be described as promotional fluff about the newspapers she edits.
But don't take my word for it. Read for yourself.
May 6: "When columnist Bill Nemitz journeyed to Iraq a third time to report on Maine troops deployed there, he went with a commitment `to telling it like it is.' What he found there as a journalist was what he would report to his readers at home - unvarnished, unfiltered, unwavering."
(Guttman never explains why "telling it like it is" would be unusual for a newspaper, nor does she offer examples of times her paper has varnished, filtered and wavered in its journalistic endeavors.)
May 20: "[N]ewspaper Web sites are gaining readers at nearly twice the rate for Web sites overall."
(Guttman doesn't mention that newspaper circulation has plummeted.)
May 27: "Third on our topics list today [the first two were a study that showed most parents encourage their kids to follow the news and the announcement of new blogs on the Press Herald's Web site] - and no doubt the most sweeping of the three subjects - is the launch of a 15-part Sunday series on shipbuilding."
(Sweeping?)
June 24: "Over the course of the past eight years, it's become clear that we are serving the needs of these readers [on an advisory group called the Community Council] pretty well. We know, in general, that our core audience is happy with what we are doing."
(How nice for you.)
July 1: "Today is a historic time at our newspaper. It marks the first week that the newsroom assumes responsibility for publishing pressherald.com, our online newspaper."
(Historic? Isn't that something historians decide?)
August 5: "Our online audience is growing - a lot."
(And what about that off-line audience?)
I don't mean to imply that Guttman devotes all her columns to advertising her papers' attributes. Occasionally, she gets personal ("As [Joan Didion] walked through her life, I walked through mine. Sometimes, through her words, it felt as though she had been in my shoes, and I in hers"), sentimental ("Moms have perfected the knack of unconditional love"), philosophical ("And that, I think, is what fuels our sometimes rabid fascination with these celebrity travails. We are fascinated not by the individual implosion, but by what celebrities collectively tell us about ourselves") and painfully obvious ("It's easy to dislike Barry Bonds").
What she never seems to get around to is discussing a lot of serious questions about her editorial decision making.
Is the topic of shipbuilding really worthy of a 15-part series?
Why did the paper devote so much space to the alleged brain-harvesting scandal in the state medical examiner's office, when it was obvious after the first story that this was a relatively minor scoop?
How come the Press Herald and Sunday Telegram are taking that same overkill approach to the Portland school system's budget deficit, particularly since the papers hadn't bothered covering many of the School Committee meetings over the last year at which the mistakes that led to the shortfall were made?
Don't readers deserve better coverage of the Legislature than can be provided by one full-time staffer and a rotating cast of inexperienced general assignment reporters?
Why is the Press Herald's political coverage, particularly when it comes to legislative candidates, so lame that no voter could possibly find it helpful in deciding how to vote?
Isn't the weekly iHerald section a complete waste of space?
Is it possible that the reason young people don't read the newspaper is because people like you are boring them to death?
Some of these questions are provocative, but I don't think that makes them unfair. It would be fascinating to see any of them discussed in Guttman's column in the near future. In the meantime, take heart in knowing that the preceding sentence may be the first ever to contain the words "fascinating" and "Guttman's column." And maybe the last.
Al Diamon has a long pedigree in the Maine media, having spent the past 30 years in radio, TV, print and, now, on the Internet. He writes the weekly column "Politics & Other Mistakes," which appears in 10 Maine newspapers, as well as the monthly column "The Other Column," which appears in three. Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
The views expressed on this Web site are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Down East Enterprise or its employees.
