Al Diamon
“The Political Edge” Needs Sharpening
(page 1 of 2)
Needs honing: On Sept. 2 at 7 p.m. I turned on the TV to check out the first edition of WGME-TV’s “News 13 at Seven: The Political Edge.”
Well, not really.
I’d already had enough politics for one day, so I watched the Red Sox game. But I recorded Channel 13’s new program, and this morning, I gave it my undivided attention. For much of the half hour, that was three-quarters of my attention too much.
There’s nothing edgy about “The Political Edge.” It begins with a brief roundup of the day’s news, followed by a lengthy weather forecast. Only then does it turn its attention to politics.
First, there was a clip from the previous night’s Larry King show in which Democratic political consultant James Carville suggests Maine’s own Olympia Snowe would have made a better vice-presidential pick for the Republicans than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Interesting, but there isn’t much more host Gregg Lagerquist could think to do with this nugget, so it’s on to person-on-the-street interviews. What do Mainers (Portlanders, really) think of the news that Palin’s teenage daughter is pregnant? Based on a half-dozen brief soundbites, we can conclude that some of them think it’s a big deal and others don’t care.
The show is now about half over, and I’m happy I didn’t miss the first inning of the Boston game for this.
Posted on Wednesday, September 3, 2008 in Permalink
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Reader Comments:
Christian here from GrowSmart Maine - the NBC video is still online, and its available on our "Charting Maine's Future" blog (see below)
We're also trying to stimulate a discussion about practical ways for Maine's print newspapers to survive and adapt in the internet age, and I hope that Al's readers here will chime in with their own thoughts and ideas:
http://www.growsmartmaine.org/blog/?cat=3
The NBC piece on the Press Herald was dreadful. I realize it's hard to do a story when only one side will comment for the record. But it was so shallow that no one could take it seriously. If that's going to throw a monkey wrench into the negotations to buy the papers, God help us - and the PPH employees.
Don't blame the messenger. I didn't think the NBC story was that dreadful. It was superficial because it didn't discuss the big financial issues involved in the Press Herald's future, but that's TV..
There are two big problems facing the Press Herald: the physical plant has been left to deteriorate to the point where it needs drastic modernization, top to bottom. And there's the huge amount of debt. Both are separate issues, but together they are why even the Cohen group walked away.
The physical plant looks modern to outsiders, but it is really antiquated in comparison to other newspapers. What this means is that it requires more manpower and has limitations on the amount of color pages it can publish. Today's advertisers want color in their ads, and don't expect to pay a premium price to get it. The presses the Press Herald now has can't deliver that, and they are more costly to run, both in the price per page of the plates they use, and in terms of manpower needed to run them. On the other end of the operation, new computer systems and software are desparately needed in the newsroom, advertisement and business offices. Again, the lack of new software means more manpower than is necessary and more costs.
The bottom line is that it is not cost efficient to run the Press Herald with the equipment it has. Blethen has bled the papers of money for a decade, and needed improvements have been postponed until it is too late.
That brings us to Blethen's debt, which is forcing the newspaper to pay the banks money it needs to modernize. The only solution I see is for bankruptcy reorganization, under which the courts give the paper breathing time to rearrange its debt so it can buy some new equipment, with the prospect of paying off banks in the future.
Could printing of the Blethen Maine Newspapers be outsourced to a nearby modern press like the plan for the Boston Herald to be printed in Chicopee, MA?
FYI: Huang was one of the PPH reporters who took the buyout. She was not laid off.
Yes, the Portland paper (and other Blethen Maine papers) could be contracted out to some other printing plant, and I am sure they have looked at this. But you have to consider the debt side of the problem when considering this. Outside printing plants would want a contract for a set number of years at a certain price for the job so they could judge their workforce and supply needs, etc. But because of the precarious debt issue, outside companies don't trust that Portland will be around to pay these contracts. In the event of bankruptcy, contracts like this can be broken by the bankruptcy courts.
No - the NBC report was awful. In the intro - Portland is not "Downeast..." idiots. Second - in talking about struggling industries, they used lobster processing as a backdrop. I thought the lobstah industry was doing pretty freakin' well. Third - some claptrap about a beacon no longer used or something spewed in front of a lighthouse. A still-utilized lighthouse.
Typical TV parachute garbage.
As noted by one of the many anonymous commentators above, Josie Huang left the Press Herald as part of a voluntary buyout program, so, technically, she wasn't laid off.
Al Diamon
Sorry to hear about Munjoy giving up again. I enjoyed his comments and wish someone would give him a regular column.