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Bad forecast: The Forecaster chain of weekly papers will be one edition smaller after this week.

The parent Lewiston Sun Journal has pulled the plug on the Forecaster’s Lewiston-Auburn edition, but the move probably doesn’t indicate the other four Forecasters are in any trouble. That’s because there was only a slight corporate connection between the L-A edition and the Forecasters that cover Portland, its southern and northern suburbs, and the Brunswick area.

The L-A paper was written and edited in Lewiston. The only thing it shared with the four publications produced from the other Forecasters’ Falmouth office was its name and the Sun Journal ownership. Unlike its sister papers, the Lewiston version was heavy on design and light on hard news.

While the more coastal Forecasters deal with local politics, business, education and crime, the L-A paper was filled with fluffy features (“Literary Union opens its doors for fair,” “Twin cities, church offer safe Halloween fun”), because to do otherwise would have been to compete for real stories with the parent daily paper.
The Lewiston Forecaster was originally launched as the Sun Journal’s answer to the Twin City Times, a free weekly from Auburn that’s been taking a considerable bite out local advertising budgets at the expense of the daily paper.

But the L-A edition never had much impact, economically or editorially, although its demise might result in some differences in the Sun Journal’s pages. All four of the Forecaster’s staffers will now be working for the parent publication.

Bad geography: Once again the Portland Press Herald has proved it has no idea where Maine’s 2nd Congressional District is or what’s in it.
After putting the town of Gardiner in the wrong district earlier this month, the paper again resorted to creative interpretations of the state map in its Oct. 31 story on the upcoming elections.

The 2nd District, reporter Elbert Aull wrote, “is also home to several of the state’s colleges – Bates, Colby and every University of Maine System campus except for the University of Southern Maine.”

Colby College is in Waterville, which the Secretary of State’s Office seems to think is in the 1st District.

The secretary feels likewise about Augusta, where there’s a thriving U-Maine operation.

Bad idea: It didn’t work at the New York Times. Likewise at the Wall Street Journal. In fact, it’s flopped at just about every newspaper that’s tried it over the last decade or so. To date, almost nobody in the news business has been successful at convincing online readers to pay for access to their Web sites.
 

But that hasn’t discouraged the Original Irregular, a weekly newspaper published in Kingfield. After mostly ignoring the cyber world (at one point this summer, the Irregular’s Web site hadn’t been updated for more than six months), the weekly launched an updated online product this week.

The new site is free until Nov. 26, after which it will cost subscribers $25 a year (or $35 for a joint print and online deal).
 

Looks like the hottest product since the L-A Forecaster.

Bad wording: Ex-Press Herald reporter Linda Fullerton Hersey runs her own Web site covering South Portland news, often scooping her former employer on what’s happening over the bridge. Among her avid readers, apparently, is somebody on the Portland daily’s staff.

On Sept. 23, Hersey posted this information on her site:

"It has been two years since the City Council voted to buy the Armory after meeting behind closed doors—causing some members of the public and some councilors to say that residents were shut out of the process. Now residents will get their say in how the Armory should be used."

On Oct. 27, the Press Herald’s Web site played catch up by employing some familiar phrases: "The City Council voted to buy the Armory a little more than two years ago after meeting behind closed doors, a move that caused some members of the public and some councilors to say that residents were shut out of the process. Tonight is the chance they've been waiting for: Getting their say in how the Armory should be used."

After Hersey complained in an e-mail, the copy-cat copy was removed from the daily’s Web site, but in an exception to the Press Herald’s usual policy, no mention of the change or the reason for it was posted.

Late wording: Late wording: The Press Herald isn’t exactly burning up the ‘burbs with its hot scoops. The American Journal in Westbrook was weeks ahead of the Portland daily in reporting on the turmoil at the Westbrook Fire Department. Here’s the story originally published Oct. 9, and the one originally posted Oct. 16:

Reporter Leslie Bridgers had the scoop on sexual harassment allegations in print at least two weeks before the PPH noticed. Bridgers’ latest story is also well ahead of the daily’s catch-up effort.

Does the Press Herald think Westbrook is in the 2nd District?

(Disclosure: My weekly political column runs in some publications owned by the company that owns the AJ.)
 

More bad wording: The Maine Freedom of Information Coalition is a group of journalists, lawyers and policy wonks dedicated to transparency in government. It’s a noble cause, but, like most noble causes, the public’s right to know what its elected officials are up to means different things to different people. When the coalition sent a questionnaire to legislative candidates asking if they supported open government “at every opportunity,” most would-be senators and representatives didn’t bother to respond.

Only 40 percent of state Senate hopefuls and 24 percent of House wannabes replied. When contacted by a Sun Journal reporter, the non-responders said they were concerned the question was too broad.

“My position is very much to support transparency in government,” said state Rep. Richard Sykes of Harrison. “In fact, we need to do more of that. But to promise something when I haven’t seen the actual information in front of me, as to what the bill or resolve would be, is a little disingenuous on my part.”
 

As the Morning Sentinel editorial page pointed out, a group that includes veteran reporters ought to be able to draft a question on open government that would allow candidates to state their positions clearly, without forcing them to promise to vote for almost anything with the words “right to know” in it.

I’m also uneasy about an organization that includes the news media asking candidates to take a pledge of any sort. That’s not our job.

Stick to reporting the news, folks.

The big, bad word: Looking for some insight into the political biases of Richard Connor, the man who might soon be publisher of the Press Herald and its sister papers in Maine, the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel? Check out his Oct. 26 column in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader on his failed efforts to get his editorial board to endorse Republican John McCain for president.

(Thanks to “mediadog” on the As Maine Goes Web site for spotting this one.)

Bad coverage: Portland Phoenix editor Jeff Inglis did a comprehensive job of assessing the reporting on Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s visit to Maine in his monthly media column.

(Another disclosure: My weekly political column runs in the Phoenix, but I’m not sucking up. Honest.)

According to Inglis, television did its usual superficial job (although WCSH and WLBZ deserve credit for passing on a Palin interview because the campaign insisted on choosing the reporter who’d conduct it), but numerous bloggers, mostly of a liberal persuasion, hit on the sharp angles TV glossed over or ignored.

Better coverage: According to North East Radio Watch, student-run WMEB-FM (91.9) at the University of Maine’s Orono campus will soon be boosting its power from a meager 600 watts to 10 kilowatts, which means you’ll be able to hear it in lots of places where there are more trees than people.

Batter coverage: This has nothing to do with Maine, except that just about everybody in Maine once passed their time in the supermarket checkout line reading the Weekly World News for the latest info on Bat Boy and the Loch Ness Monster. Since WWW’s demise, grocery shopping hasn’t been the same.
The publication that bills itself as “The World’s Only Reliable News” still exists online, but may soon be restored to its supermarket splendor of yesteryear. WWW is now owned by a company called – what else? – Bat Boy LLC, which is making plans for a print edition in 2009. With the online version offering such scoops as “Michelle Loves Obatma,” can there be any doubt the new tabloid will at last give us the lowdown on Sarah Palin’s romance with Bigfoot.

Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
 

Posted on Friday, October 31, 2008 in Permalink