The Rage Diaries

Media deathwatch: Domino magazine

Since every magazine I warm to is doomed immediately thereafter -- Budget Living, Blueprint, Cottage Living -- it is not really a surprise that Domino may go on the chopping block next month. ("It Could Get Conde Nasty," NYP, Dec 26, 08)

This is a bad time to be a shelter magazine: people think "house" and do not automatically think "decorate" any more -- they think "refinance" or "crisis." So magazines that coo over spending on the home seem out-of-touch to a readership that's worried about how their home's lost 20% in value since they bought it.

There are two other items in that story that I found interesting for a media landscape at large:

"Digital accounts for only 3 percent of [Conde Nast's] total revenue," said one knowledgeable executive. "They don't make a penny on digital - and they never have."

Speaking personally: With the exception of the New Yorker, which is sui generis, Conde Nast's consumer titles have become increasingly irrelevant to me -- and I'm a fairly avid media junkie. The big reason: the magazine-supporting sites are terrible. There's no reason to go to them at all -- and there's no reason to pick up the magazine if I can't extend my engagement online. I am not particularly enamored of how the Time family of magazines has taken to the Web -- there is no announcement on the front page of Cottage Living that the company's shuttering the Web site within days, for example -- but they look like online visionaries compared to your average Conde Nast site.

(Also, it amuses me to no end that Martha Stewart's come the closest to achieving perfect cross-channel synergy via her website. Of course she has. Now if she could only revive Blueprint ...)

AHEM. On to item #2 of interest to us all:

Vogue, the biggest money maker in the company, had a poor year, sliding 9.6 percent in the ad-page count to 2,893.

And all those ads were in the September issue. Ba-da-bum! Thank you, I'll be here through the 31st.

If Thursday Styles was an opera ...

... it would have to be called Gottendammerdumb.

Two stories had me rolling my eyes today:"Cost Cutting, aka Mooching," in which two media professionals decide to nickel-and-dime their budget to offset the panic over their big expenditures (a house in Marin county, their retirement accounts). Entire passages read like a collaboration between Goofus and Gallant:

We decided that the only way to get a handle on our expenses was to swear off credit cards. The all-cash diet meant pay as you go, for every single thing except, of course, the dress I secretly planned to buy for the Los Angeles party. We allotted a daily budget of $100 — we wanted to ease into this, after all — to cover food, clothing, gas, gym, dry cleaning, entertainment, our daughters’ weekly allowances and the footlong rawhide bones to which our dog, Otto, was contractually entitled.

As for the mooching mentioned in the title, if you were hoping for any insights on the fraught interactions between friends with money and friends without ... well, we should all live in hope.

However, the article provides an underscore to the second piece that made me go "Hmmmm," a personal-finance piece titled "Failing Home Economics." The basic premise:

As Americans attempt to perform cost-benefit analyses of their needs and behaviors, they are whittling pennies from cable bills only to squander dollars on gas driving miles to discount stores, or on coupon-spurred splurges for nonessential items, like Cheez Whiz or organizing supplies.

Please read the opening anecdote about EconoWhiner founder Jill Andresky Fraser going into vapor lock at the grocery store and overstocking on one item while overpaying for another; the piece is studded with further examples of irrational spending behavior. Apparently, people get weird and self-jutifying about money. Who knew?

I read the first piece and thought, "Why didn't the Slatalla/Quittner household use Quicken and the envelope system for better budgeting?" and then I read the second, and I wondered, "Why not put together a price book during one week's shopping, then use those numbers to gauge bargains in subsequent weeks?"

Both pieces underscore something that I expect to see get a lot more play in the coming months: many self-identified (upper) middle-class people have no personal finance skills. I look forward to seeing the inevitable Hipster Guide to Personal Finance.

Content is dead; long live comments

So I read Peter Sagal's blog explaining why the Obama-is-secretly-a-radical-communist-Muslim! theory is patently idiotic, because you'd have to accept some of the following premises:

That Barack Obama is, and has been at least from his college days, a conscienceless, hermetic liar, who refused to reveal his true agenda and thoughts to anyone other than his co-conspirators; not to his casual friends, students, colleagues, employers, clients and constituents, and that his two books on his life and political beliefs are nothing but a pack of lies, possibly ghostwritten by others. Further, that Obama never acted in any significant way to advance that Marxist/radical agenda in any of his prior jobs or offices, presumably because if he had done so (by, say, putting forward a radical Marxist bill in the Illinois State Senate, where he served for 12 years,) he would have blown his cover, and ruined his chance to become President, which has always been his goal, and from which office he will finally enact his true agenda

... and when I got to the comments, the revels really began. On the Internet, nobody may know you're a dog, but they'll soon learn what a echo-skulled nutbar you are.

I am beginning to think that really, there is no point to bothering with writing decent blog posts, when the real educational or entertainment value is found in the comments. It may be time to abandon my prolix posts and attributions of sources and just put up photos and broad half-truths. Give the people what they want!

When current events are history

The Watchman trailer has revived a comics conversation in some online circles, and a sentiment I've run across a few times was this one: "Yeah, I read it, but I don't get what the big deal is." And then old people like me had to explain that if you grew up in the post-Watchman world, you took things like dysfunctional superheroes and densely-layered narrative for granted, the same way that comics readers who came of age in the post-Sandman, post Love & Rockets world take for granted the idea that women in comics aren't always the real characters' love interests, but well-textured characters in their own right.

This got me thinking: is there ever anything that feels more historic than a work that embodies the seed of a new status quo?

I just spent a little time on the other end of that time-dilating media continuum. New York magazine -- the city magazine by which I measure all others -- turned 40, and it featured links to some of its most iconic covers. Some have articles. I clicked and read, and was charmed by each piece's tone of immediacy. It helped the words reach across the years, and gave their subjects the contemporary context that explains why Ms. magazine and disco and Central Park crime and Bill Clinton were so appealing when they appeared. And from a historical context, it's enlightening to look at where we are now while reading these pieces.

So tear your thoughts away from your ever-dwindling 401(k) and read the following:

"The Housewife's Moment of Truth," by Jane Reilly, Dec 20, 71 ... "The nineteenth century ended 72 years ago, but we are still trying to arrange our households according to that "ideal" image of family life. Think of something new."

"Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night," by Nik Cohn, June 7, 76 ... "The sixties, unlike previous decades, seemed full of teenage money. No recession, no sense of danger. The young could run free, indulge themselves in whatever treats they wished. But now there is shortage once more, just as there was in the fifties. Attrition, continual pressure. So the new generation takes few risks. It goes through high school, obedient; graduates, looks for a job, saves and plans. Endures. And once a week, on Saturday night, its one great moment of release, it explodes."

"Rendezvous in the Ramble," by Doug Ireland, July 24, 78 ... "Others gravitate toward the Tunnel, that part of the Bridle Path which runs under the 77th Street overpass. The Tunnel is the most active group-sex scene in that area of the park. Some nights it will be crowded wall to wall with men until four in the morning."

"Bill Clinton: Who Is This Guy?" by Joe Klein, Jan 20, 92 ... "The other half of the confluence and the key to Clinton’s early success is a message that transcends traditional labels (and therefore is often called “moderate” or neo-something) but appears to be connecting with actual civilians. Clinton is offering activist government—national economic, educational, health, and energy plans—but he’s also ready to acknowledge that it hasn’t been just the Republicans or the Congress, the rich or the poor, but a lack of responsibility across the social spectrum that has caused the economic drift and strange, sour mood that permeates the country."

Cranky post of the day #1: "exotic Hawaii"

A few days ago, NPR's Cokie Roberts opined of Barack Obama's vacation to see his grandmother in Hawai'i, "It makes him seem a little bit more exotic than he would want to come across at this stage of the game."

This was, in my opinion, both Beltway-blinkered ("Oh my God! He's vacationing west of the Appalachian range. But there's nothing there!") and somewhat racist ("Oh my God! He's spending time in a state that has lots of tan people. How exotic!").  But I have not been able to articulate my disgust with the same eloquence that Jon Caroll does in today's SF Chron:

He's a guy visiting his grandmother, and Cokie Roberts believes that might be politically unwise. Why? Because Grandma lives in weird far-off Hawaii. It's ludicrous.

Also, you know which other group of Americans feels an affinity to Hawaii? Asians. Hawaii is a state where Asian Americans, particularly people of Japanese and Filipino descent, have really made their mark. There's ethnic pride involved, and it's neither peculiar nor inappropriate. Oh, and duh: Pacific Islanders. Yes, they really live all over the country, and they look to Hawaii as sort of the mother ship, even if they were not born there.

They don't think that Hawaii is an odd place to visit - and they vote. Dig that, Roberts.

I am so tired of the East Coast bias in national media.

[...]

Am I overreacting? Oh, probably. Am I hysterical? No, no, no! Well, maybe. But the America of the 21st century is going to be distinctly multicultural and multiracial and mixed and blended in ways we are just beginning to see, and the cabal of powerful white people who dominate the chat shows is going to seem less relevant than it already does.

-- "My Little Grass Shack," Aug 14, 08

Vaya con dios, BPP

The NYT effectively gave the Bryant Park Project's two-week notice on Sunday with "Public Radio to Cancel an Experiment." The bad news is broken with little industry context, as this:

It’s an expensive failure — the first-year budget was more than $2 million — and comes at a time when NPR is facing the same financial constraints as other news media thanks to higher costs and a downturn in underwriting.

was actually not as expensive as you might think, given that $2 million had to produce 10 hours of programming weekly for at least 26 weeks. Or so says public radio professional Jesse Thorn, in a well-researched and nuanced post on Metafilter. Credit to him for cutting through a lot of BS arguments there ("I listen to public radio. I never heard of BPP. Therefore, because I never heard of it, it can't be good.") and making a point about what BPP was trying to do:

I listen to public radio too, but you can simply look at the numbers and know that the content, tone and style are borderline hostile to people outside of a very narrow demographic strip. I'm glad some of you are proud to be in that group, but that doesn't excuse public radio from serving people outside of it. That certainly includes young people, but it also includes people who simply have different cultural perspectives, whether it's because of age, geography, race, whatever.

Needless to say, news of the BPP's imminent demise has galvanized we podcast listeners. Thanks to the outpouring of "Nooooooo!"s in the comments, the blog's now posted how you can register your opinion with the higher-ups at NPR. Hint: it does not involve threatening to withhold pledge money.

I am personally skeptical of any write-in campaign's effectiveness, but I'd like to be proven wrong.

What drives me batty about foodie media

So Phil and I were sacked out on the couch the other night, and our TiFaux did deliver unto us the Good Eats episode "Tuna, Surprise." I was pleased, as I currently have twelve 6-oz cans of Starkist in the pantry and am open to finding things to do with them above and beyond the old standard tuna salad.

Sadly, I am still bereft of ideas. The episode focused on Alton advocating that we ditch the humble can for either the pricey tuna-in-a-pouch or the even more pricey tuna-imported-from-Italy. (How pricey, you ask? One four-ounce tin costs $17; I picked up ninety ounces of tuna packed in water -- i.e. fifteen times the quantity -- from Costco for a mere $9.)

This episode stands out as an anomaly, because Good Eats has provided us with many, many great recipes that do not require pricey or hard-to-find ingredients. It has been one of the happy exceptions of foodie media insofar as I am concerned. Our local food section often includes recipes that call for things that can only be mail-ordered, purchased on an installment plan, or procured up in Yreka on the first Sunday of the month between two and four p.m.

Fair, balanced and in love with the Photoshop filter menu

The same "news" "organization" that thought it would be cute to refer to Michelle Obama as a baby mama has now decided that verbal distortion of a public image isn't enough. According to MediaMatters:

On the July 2 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade labeled New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe "attack dogs," claiming that Steinberg's June 28 article on the "ominous trend" in Fox News' ratings was a "hit piece." During the segment, however, Fox News featured photos of Steinberg and Reddicliffe that appeared to have been digitally altered -- the journalists' teeth had been yellowed, their facial features exaggerated, and portions of Reddicliffe's hair moved further back on his head. Fox News gave no indication that the photos had been altered.

As of posting time, Fox News had not yet found a producer upon whom to blame this decision. Nor had they announced their decision to hire Perez Hilton as a digital graphics producer.

Spare me all that baby mama drama

Oh, Fox News, you crazy little vixen. You've just been at sixes and sevens since your number-one lady target eased out of the race. First there was E.D. Hill working herself into a tizzy over the Obamas' secret signal to Hizbollah, and now there's producer Jessica Herzberg's decision to refer to Michelle Obama as a "baby mama."

Below are the issues I have with this little lapse in judgment:

1. "Baby mama" is pretty much understood to be a term that men use to refer to the women they impregnate, but do not maintain a sustained partnership with. Michelle Obama bore her first child after six years of marriage to Barack Obama. In other words, she does not fall within the colloquially understood definition of "baby mama."

2. It is not okay to call Michelle Obama a "baby mama" just because she once referred to her husband as "my baby's daddy." Not to get all "it depends on what the definition of 'is' is," but that apostrophe matters; it's Michelle basically calling him "the father of my children" in a more colloquial manner. Again: not the moral equivalent of calling someone a "baby mama."

2a. And even if Michelle Obama did call her husband a "baby daddy" (which she did not), that doesn't make it okay for any news organization to do so. If you think that any cable news channel calling Michelle Obama  a "baby mama" is okay because you heard once (and incorrectly) that she called her husband a baby daddy, then I'm sure you're fine with any cable channel calling John McCain a cocksucker because you read that he once called his wife a cunt. What? It's not? Then neither is your specious "reasoning" about why it's okay for national news organizations to hang loaded labels on people.

3. And let's not kid ourselves: the phrase "baby mama" is loaded. Just because Tina Fey feels free to use it at the box office doesn't make it okay for every woman to slap it on to other women*. "Baby mama" is another way of saying "welfare queen," and deliberately applying it to the well-educated and accomplished Michelle Obama is a way to make people think, "Oh, Christ, another one of them no-count [fill in the blanks]." It's a race card.

So, yeah. I have a problem with referring to Michelle Obama as anyone's baby mama. I have a problem with Jessica Herzberg's judgment. And I have a problem with anyone who tries to defend what Fox did here. Anyone got a problem with that?

Digital sharecropping it is

You will recall the June 2 post wherein I sputter over how sites like the Huffington Post don't compensate the majority of its writers? Get a load of this:

[Mayhill Fowler] is one of 2,500 people, from writers to academics to accountants, working with Off the Bus, a $200,000 venture launched by the Huffington Post and New Assignment, the brainchild of New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen. The idea is to unleash ordinary folks on the presidential campaign and give them a technology-powered megaphone.

"When you're in the bubble, you cover every story the same way," says Arianna Huffington, founder of the liberal Web site. "At Off the Bus, because they're not part of the professional gaggle, they can come up with their own views of what's happening, which may be different from what the conventional wisdom is saying."

They also have to be well off, since most are given technical support but little reimbursement, although a limited number receive stipends. With help from her lawyer husband, Fowler has been paying for her own cross-country travel, often chasing the Obama bus in a rental car and blogging in her pajamas in the middle of the night.

-- "Amateur Campaign Blogger Scoops the Pros," WaPo, June 9, 08

The Huffington Post generates anywhere between 1.4 and 4 million hits per month. and its annual revenue is "on pact" to increase from $4 mil in 2007 to $7.5 mil this year. ("Huffington Posts a Profit," Portfolio, Nov 07) And yet ... it doesn't pay its writers? It's not even funding this election coverage properly?

(Insert your own snarky comment here on why anyone should bother funding election coverage "properly" when bloggers like Fowler have ambushed the candidates without anything resembling "proper" disclosure.)

I get why people write blogs for free. Lord knows I've been doing it for nearly five years. But my site is fairly small potatoes. When you're talking about a site that rakes in millions of pageviews and millions of dollars, isn't it time to fairly compensate the people who added value to your venture?