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Handle Hannaford with care: Pardon my suspicious nature, but could the fact that the Hannaford Bros. supermarket chain is one of the state’s largest advertisers have something to do with how gently the company seems to have been treated by the news media in coverage of the theft of as many as 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers from its customers? Maybe I missed some enterprising reporter asking a Hannaford official why the company waited over two and a half weeks – from Feb. 27, when the problem was first discovered, until March 17, when the story broke – to notify the public of this major security breach. Perhaps, when I wasn’t looking, some fearless journalist inquired as to whether Hannaford would be willing to reimburse everyone who lost money due to that delay. Or whether the company was gearing up for lawsuits. Or just hunkering down until the whole mess blows over. I did notice two paragraphs buried in the Portland Press Herald’s first story on the crime on March 18, in which some bank officials complained about the late notification. But there was no response from Hannaford. Of course, everybody could be saving that angle for the third or fourth day’s stories.

Handle numbers with care: T. Cushing Munjoy, the pseudonymous blogger who operates the Pressing The Herald Web site (www.pressingtheherald.blogspot.com), has come up with some new sale-price figures for the Blethen Maine Newspapers, which include the Press Herald, Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal. Munjoy had previously guessed the company would sell for $75 to $80 million (well below the $100 million or more Blethen executives have suggested), but now writes, “My estimate … is way off, according to a much more knowledgeable industry source.” He quotes the source as e-mailing, “The property, in my view, is worth peanuts today – a result of structural changes in the business and Blethen’s management. I’m guessing it will go for $25-50M.” The source goes on to say a local buyer for the papers is “a possibility. The money’s there, and I think the interest is too.”

Handle attribution with care: WGME-TV, Channel 13 in Portland, has a habit of not identifying all the people it interviews on camera, particularly in person-on-the-street segments. Back in January, when I asked news director Robb Atkinson about that frequent omission, he blamed it on deadline pressure, but added that it really wasn’t necessary when surveying the public for comments (see “Exclusive! You won’t read this anywhere else!”). On March 18 at 6 p.m., that lax attitude may have burned News 13. According to an e-mail from a viewer named Mary Fitzgerald, WGME supplemented its coverage of the suspension of the president and other leaders of the largest union at Bath Iron Works with interviews with unidentified BIW workers. Fitzgerald said the first anonymous person to comment – in support of the ousted officials – was the brother of the union’s president. I didn’t see the newscast and wouldn’t recognize the president’s brother, so I can’t judge the accuracy of these claims. But I can point to her complaint as yet another excellent reason to clearly identify every talking head on camera. As Fitzgerald put it, “Your viewers are entitled to decide for themselves whether he is a credible critic of the investigation.”

Handle conflicts with care: The Blethen Maine Newspapers can’t seem to get their ethical problem with Plum Creek straight. After failing to inform readers for almost two years that the giant land development company’s president, Rick Holley, sat on the board of two of Blethen’s parent companies, the papers finally came clean in December. For a few weeks, all stories about Plum Creek were accompanied by a disclaimer explaining the conflict of interest. But that belated ethical effort seems to be over. A story in the March 19 Morning Sentinel about new criticism of Plum Creek’s plan to develop thousands of acres near Moosehead Lake carried no mention of Holley’s relationship with Blethen. And just to show how complicated these kinds of issues can become, when the Press Herald contained no coverage of the latest attack on the project by environmental groups, I wondered if that was a news decision or a corporate one.

Handle that last issue with care: The Daily Bulldog is calling it quits on its print edition. The year-old Farmington news outlet is primarily Web-based (www.dailybulldog.com), but has also been putting out a free monthly print version containing longer stories and columns. In an e-mail to contributors (of whom I’m one), editor Bobbie Hanstein said the April issue will be the final one. “This was a difficult decision,” Hanstein wrote, “because there is something about spreading a real newspaper out on the table with your cup of coffee that a computer screen will never replace.” Hanstein said eliminating the dead-tree version of the Bulldog will allow her to devote more effort to the online version, with the goal of doubling readership in the next year. Meanwhile, another Web news site is heading in the opposite direction. The Bollard (www.thebollard.com), a Portland news outlet, is increasing the frequency of its print editions from quarterly to monthly beginning this summer.

Handle publicity with gusto: This week’s award for over-the-top coverage goes to the Original Irregular. The weekly paper in Kingfield not only gave the Sugarloaf ski area’s publicity department credit for contributing portions of its front-page story on the upcoming U.S. Alpine Championships at the mountain, but also waxed mystical about the experience. “A true winter treat for alpine racing fans is back,” staff writer David Hart wrote. “Some remember it as a wonderful, even magical event; some felt truly privileged to be part of it as a spectator.” Easy, tiger.


— Filed March 19, 2008
Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.

Posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 in Permalink