Call-in Show Tonight on BT's On-Again Off-Again Relationship with Al Jazeera

Seven Days reported last week that municipally owned cable TV provider Burlington Telecom is dumping Al Jazeera's English language channel from its broadcast line-up.

We got one letter supporting BT's decision to drop the Arab news network, and several protesting it.

Tonight, the controversy is the subject of a live call-in show at 5:25 on Channel 17 (BT channel 317). You can show up at the studio at 5 to be part of the discussion.

Blogger and VCAM producer Bill Simmon wrote about BT's announcement on Monday, then posted about it again today. He poses the following questions:

• If you pulled Al Jazeera because of subscriber complaints, and that many subscribers (or more) have asked for it to remain, what is your justification for pulling it, exactly?
• Will you pull other channels out of the line-up because of similar complaints?  Would you pull Fox News if you received enough emails?  If not, what's different about that situation?
• Don't customers have the ability to block unwanted channels themselves (as required by law)?  Why pull an entire channel so nobody in the community can see it?  Why not just instruct customers who don't want the content in how to block it?

Tune in tonight. Looks like you might even be able to catch the program on CCTV's fancy pants new website.

UPDATE: Burlington Telecom's Ricard Donnelly responds to Bill's questions in the comments thread on that post.

Cubicle Casualities

It's no secret that newsrooms around the country are in trouble. But how many readers, I wonder, have seen the inside of a struggling one?

Funny I should ask myself that rhetorical question. Just now, I came across an interesting slideshow by Martin Gee, a San Jose Mercury News designer who took photos of his newsroom after a round of layoffs. The slideshow comes to you courtesy of the folks at Mother Jones magazine.

This photo is titled, "Hallway Desk Cleared Off." "A guy who writes an antiques column used to sit there," Gee says. "He was like the heart of the Mercury News."

Burlington Telecomical

I was just checking out what was available on Burlington Telecom for movie rentals. I find it funny that they're getting rid of Al Jazeera, but you can rent movies like High School Reunion Rammin', Creamin' Mamacitas and Eat My Black Meat (pictured).

Tricky Tinkle

So, I just made a visit to the Little Girls/Guys Room and much to my dismay, there was nary a piece of TP on the roll. Luckily, I had my cell phone in my pocket and I called the office. General Manager Rick Woods answered and became my knight in Charmin armor by delivering some TP to me.

Whoever did that: Shame, shame on you!

Burlington Blogger Interviews David Sirota

Burlington blogger and former City Councilor Haik Bedrosian interviewed writer David Sirota last Friday. Sirota is coming to Vermont on May 27 and sent an email around to local bloggers, hoping to drum up some publicity .

The interview is pure Haik. Informative, semi-serious but also sorta half-assed — in an endearing way. I'm never quite sure if he's joking. An excerpt:

HB: What's your job?
DS: I'm a political columnist and I write books.
HB: Oh. What paper do you write for?
DS: My column runs in 40 papers including the Denver Post, The Seattle Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
HB: Yeah. I did't [sic] really do my homework for this interview. I mean, I used to hear you on the Al Franken show. Ma-ma-ma-ma-my-my-my Sirota. We can't get Air America on the radio in Burlington anymore. Hey! Do you know Rachel Maddow?
DS: I'm on her show all the time.

Read more at BurlingtonPol.

Don't Mess With the Model Horse Hobbyists!

Freelance writer Alice Levitt went to the "Everything Equine" horse show last weekend and wrote about it for our column, Scene@, that appears in the Calendar section of the newspaper. Scene@ is a short little feature — 350 words or less. It's basically a first-person "being there" piece, so it has more "attitude" than a news story would. 

Well, the model horse hobbyists Alice mentioned in her write-up thought that she put a little too much attitude in her account. One of them started a thread at modelhorseblab.com called
"A good example of Ignorance towards this hobby (or any hobby really)"
 
There are 9 pages of angry replies, including one that ends thusly: "She's still a bitter dried up inside she-snake and woe to her if she steps foot in our barn." Whoa, Nelly!

Consequently, the "Everything Equine" Scene@ is the 6th most popular item on our website this week, and climbing. (Photo from the horse show by Matthew Thorsen.)

Very Short List

Every now and then the title of the daily e-mail from Very Short List urges me to not hit delete. Today's culture du jour is about a project on Library Thing called "I See Dead People's Books," a growing list of the books found in the libraries of famous dead folks.

There's something appealing about picturing yourself in, say, F. Scott Fitzgerald's library and craning your neck sideways to see what he's been reading. This website is no substitute for such an experience, but, like the bottom-trawling that internet browsing has become these days, there's a chance to net a tasty morsel.

Before he leaves, they let the intern speak

It's my last day as an intern and someone suggested I might have a bit to say here. This didn't happen until after being given a thank you gift so I think that makes it a bribe, but fortunately I'm not above such things.

I've only been here for one semester and in ways it was an experiment. Could the people and the office behind a fun, cool, alternative newspaper actually be interesting or would it turn me off from wanting to be involved in that scene? The answer, which lets me continue to imagine a certain future for myself, is, for the most part yes. Much like science class, the experiment wasn't entirely fun. The work itself was mundane, the greatest strain came in finding a new way to move my wrist while still hitting the same keys over and over. Inputting events, videos, and links, throughout the day is not, surprisingly, interesting. So, the work as an intern, not my ideal. But once again, I'm not above things like mundane work to get involved with something better.

What made the whole thing worthwhile was that the people are fun, funny, helpful, and sometimes most importantly, acknowledged the work was boring while being grateful. I've worked at a movie theater for a few summers, and it makes a difference when people don't assume you are content with simple repetitive tasks. Dan Bolles gave me advice on writing reviews, I learned some level of functionality with website stuff, and I got to enjoy (suffer?) the rambling and active humor of the sales department, the last place I had expected such fun. If I had guessed beforehand, I would have ventured their laughter would center around inside jokes involving sale-pitches and bad puns.

In general I discovered that there is the possibility of a post-college life that is not filled with boring despair; that I can continue doing most of the things I enjoy now while replacing classes and work I pay for with work that pays me.

Between right now and that moment is, of course, the horror of finding a job that pays enough for me to have a roof of some sort and edible food. I expect, however, that this pleasant post is enough a bribe of my own to conjure a worthwhile recomendation.

Free Press = Fruit Loops?

Last week, Burlington's CCTV Channel 17 taped another episode of its Media Literacy Series. This one features Burlington Free Press environmental reporter Candy Page, Seven Days Staff Writer Ken Picard  and Champlain College professor Craig Chevrier. Chevrier teaches a class called "Social Responsibility in Media." His bio on the CCTV website says he serves as Vice President for the activist group Action Coalition for Media Education, although he's not listed as such on the ACME website. (UPDATE: Chevrier is the veep — and the secretary! — of the Vermont chapter of ACME).

The podcast is an hour long, and some of the questions are less than exciting (i.e. "Where do you get the photos that appear in your paper?") But it's worth listening to, if only to hear Chevrier accuse Page and the Free Press of being "Fruit Loops." The exchange happens about halfway through the podcast.

Says Chevrier, "The news is a product, for most news outlets. They need to sell it, and they need to make a profit on it. I equate the mainstream popular press, or the corporate press, to Fruit Loops, or Cheez Whiz. Nabisco or Kraft sell that stuff, they make money on it. Is it nutritious? No. It possibly does more harm to you than it does good..."

He goes on a for another few sentences, then Page interrupts. She sounds pissed.

"So are you saying that the Free Press is Fruit Loops?" she demands. "That my work is Fruit Loops? That it doesn't have any nutritional content?"

Chevrier responds, "I'm saying on the whole, yes, I think the Free Press is the journalistic equivalent of Fruit Loops."

"I cannot disagree more," says Page. "I think that is insulting, it's inaccurate, and it's an attack on the work that I've spent the last 30 years doing." 

Ok, I'm a frequent critic of the Free Press, but I gotta say, Candy Page is no Fruit Loop. In my mind, she epitomizes what's right about the Free Press, not what's wrong with it.

Woe is They

The suits at Gannett, I mean — those dashing men and women charting the future of America's largest chain of "information centers," which includes The Burlington Free Press.

While we awaited a response — which never arrived — to the news that the Free Press had begun outsourcing advertising design to India, Gannett executives were releasing the company's latest quarterly performance report.

While holding their noses, presumably.

Here are the numbers: Publishing advertising revenue, down 13%; classified revenue, down 18%; real estate ad revenue, down 26%; help-wanted ad revenue, down 24%. The net result is that operating revenue for the first quarter 2008 is off more than 10 percent from first quarter 2007.

Over at Gannett Blog, former Gannett investigative reporter Jim Hopkins checks the financial wires and finds that the company's share price "has now traded down a whopping 8%, to a low of $25.17," the lowest since spring 1995.

Meanwhile, SmartMoney magazine has an interview with Gannett CEO Craig Dubow. The story notes, in the opening paragraph, that since Dubow took over the company  three years ago, its stock price has fallen by about 50 percent.  "Yet ask the affable 53-year-old about the industry and he'll use a word you might not expect: wonderful."

Well, for him, anyway — thanks to that $1.75 million bonus he received in 2007.

Half the News, Not Fit to Print

Under the category of "Why Your Daily Newspaper is Becoming Useless" comes Tuesday's front-pager in the Free Press, under the headline "Divorce, unwed parents taking toll on taxpayers." The story, from the Associated Press, was about a study that purportedly proves "divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing costs U.S. taxpayers more than a $112 billion a year."

Two things caught my eye about the piece — its A1 treatment and its brevity. The play seemed to indicate the research is newsworthy. On the other hand, its length (about 160 words)  suggested there is nothing particularly significant about the study beyond the ONE-HUNDRED-AND-TWELVE-BILLION DOLLAR price tag and the desire among its sponsors for more government investment to "bolster marriage."

Turns out neither of those things are exactly what they seem.

The first clue is the story as it was reported and written by AP staff writer David Crary, which was how it appeared in the Freep's online edition. Unlike readers of the paper, you will note that the study was sponsored by four groups, including the Institute for American Values, the Georgia Family Council, an "ally" of the Rev. James Dobson's band of conservative homophobes, Focus on the Family, and the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, whose president Maggie Gallagher was exposed as a paid hack for the Bush Administration's $300 million marriage initiative.

Astute Vermonters might remember Gallagher and IMPP for their ardent opposition to Vermont's civil-union statute. Gallagher, an affiliate scholar for the study's lead sponsor, the Institute for American Values, has said that the very future of the republic rests on society's willingness to establish "a national definition of marriage" that would prohibit same-sex unions.

My complaint is less about the views of Gallagher and her ilk, which have plenty of detractors, than it is with how the Free Press treated this supposedly "new" research. First of all, it's not new — the IAV and the IMPP are major cogs in the conservative machinery that wants a constitutional ban on gay marriage and civil unions. Second, why were the opposing viewpoints that Crary included in his story left out of the Freep's print version?

I can see the story getting this kind of treatment in a lot of places — Texas and Oklahoma, for example, which are spending millions of taxpayer dollars on "pro-marriage" programs. But, here in Vermont, where residents — some of whom may actually read the Free Press — have fought to create a supportive environment for same-sex couples and their children, a "new study" by the same old ideologues deserved a more thoughful — and skeptical — approach.

MySpace? WhoseSpace?

The ACLU of Vermont is sponsoring a panel discussion in Montepelier tonight about how the internet and social networking are changing our perspective on privacy.

Blogger Bill Simmon is on the panel going to be in the audience. Fred Lane is on the panel.

I wish I could go!

New Event Calendar

Alert Seven Days web readers may have noticed something new on our website this week — we've changed the way we display events.

Our old static listings pages have all disappeared, replaced by a searchable database of events. Search by day, interest, region or venue to find club dates, movie times, art shows or calendar events.

We know it's not perfect yet — we're still making adjustments, adding features and working out some kinks — but we're excited for everyone to start using it. Check out our evolving event FAQ page. And let us know what you think.

:(

Yes, our website is down. We're working on it.

Nevermind... It's back.

Extreme Blunder

Here's one for the "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" blooper reel.

Less than a year ago, the reality TV show's producers chose the Vitale family in Athens, Vermont, as the recipients of a new, custom-built home. The Vitale's son was born with severe birth defects, and their home wasn't handicapped accessible. So the "Extreme Makeover" crew descended on Athens, tore down the family's old house, and built them an energy-efficient, handicapped accessible, 3000 square-foot home.

Too bad they didn't double check their work on the septic system — the Vitales have now abandoned their new house after the town health officer discovered E. coli in the water running off their property. D'oh!

Even worse, the Brattleboro Reformer reports that the Vitale family may be responsible for making the necessary repairs.

The production is tightly scripted and the Vitales had to sign a contract with ABC and with the McKernon Group, the Brandon contractor that led the project.

That contract, which puts strict limits on what Vitale can say about the experience, appears to hold the Vitales liable for any problems that occur away from the general construction, according to Vitale.

"The contract is designed to protect them," [Louis] Vitale said. "When they were finished, we had to take the house. No questions asked."

And fixing the mess won't be cheap.

Vitale said he has been talking with representatives from the McKernon Group. And while they have agreed to help with engineering for a new septic system and leach field if that is needed, the Vitales are going to have to come up with the estimated $10,000 to $30,000 it will likely cost to install a new system.

"It's terrible. We don't have $30,000 to fix it," he said. "We can't use our septic system and I sure as hell can't afford to put in a new leach field."

Vitale, who works at a 7-Eleven in Bondville, said his only option is to mortgage the new property and sink a couple thousand dollars into the field near his house.

Maybe they'll do another episode on the leach field.

Enough Already

We get a fair amount of letters here at Seven Days world headquarters. Most of them are pretty thoughtful responses to our stories and reviews and, for better or worse, they largely reflect Vermont's distinctly liberal ethos, especially when it comes to the environment.

In other words, it's pretty rare when we hear from someone like Angela L. Emerson of Essex Junction, who is living proof — she can correct me, if I'm wrong, but I don't think I am — that there is at least one global-warming denier living in the Green Mountain State.

"I have just been notified," Ms. Emerson states, breathlessly, in an April 4 email to Seven Days, "that the Essex High School Science Department has been showing the highly controversial movie 'The Inconvenient Truth.'"

After informing us that the movie was "made by a politician who has no scientific background what so ever" (sic), and whose motivation is mere "money and power," she directs our attention to "The Great Swindle," a British documentary that focuses on the scientists and "commentators" who don't believe that human-produced CO2 is the primary cause of climate change.

"These are the minds of science that we should be listening to," she says, "not some politician."

I understand there are people who don't like Al Gore, and I understand that not every person worried about climate change found "The Inconvenient Truth" to be flawless or, for that matter, worthy of an Oscar. But I've never understood people, like Ms. Emerson, who scream "propaganda," then attempt to set the rest of us straight by doling out manipulative and easily discredited pap of their own.

Seven Days wins BBA award!

It was an honor to be at the Sheraton last night while Pamela & Paula accepted the 2008 Burlington Business Association award for exemplary business practices, contributions to the community and promotion of a positive image for Burlington! As one excited fan shouted out "Go girls!"

Read their remarks after the jump.

Glad I'm Not a TV Reporter

My busy boss Paula got this video from her friend Dwight, and promised to blog about it tomorrow. But after watching this it, I realized that I couldn't wait to blurt it.

Mainly that's because after I watched this video, two of my co-workers came over and asked me what was going on — they could hear me laughing on the other side of the office.

So here you go: The Dangers of Being a Television News Reporter, from Gawker.

Free Press Explores Hyperlink Ads

Online readers of the Burlington Free Press may have noticed an interesting new development: The paper is now including hyperlinks in its stories. But when you mouse over the links, an ad pops up.

Other area news sources — like a certain alternative weekly — use hyperlinks to provide bonus editorial content. For example: If I were writing a blog post for Seven Days about newspaper websites that blur the boundaries between editorial and advertising content by linking directly from the former to the latter, I might include a hyperlink to a related story by the Columbia Journalism Review.

Now let's look at the way the Free Press is hyperlinking its stories:

In an April 8 story by Freeps reporter Sally Pollock about enviro guru Bill McKibben and his inspired climate crew, Pollock writes, "The 47-year-old Ripton resident, a writer and activist with an expertise in climate change, is on the road again."

The climate change link has since disappeared, but when I moused over it yesterday, a pop-up window opened with — wait for it — an Earth Day ad from General Electric, which recently came under fire for its efforts to combat global warming.

Hmmm.

Green Mountain Derby Dames

Green Mountain Derby Dames from Howlermano on Vimeo.

Well hello there, Blurt readers.

Yesterday afternoon, I posted a new video featuring The Green Mountain Derby Dames over on my own little slice of cyberspace, Solid State, and I thought I'd share it with you folks, too.

A little bit of background:

The video was filmed by Jeff Holwett from Howlerman Productions. Mr. Howlett is better known among music fans as the front man for local hardcore outfit 5 Seconds Expired, who rock. Hard. The music for this particular vid was provided by Boston punk band The Faithfull, who rock pretty hard themselves.

The Derby Dames are . . . well, you'll see. But they rock too. Just as hard, if not harder, than the previously mentioned bands, in fact. If any of you folks happen to run into them, please let them know I said so, because I believe they have it out for me . . .

Without further adieu, The Green Mountain Derby Dames!

Am I a journalistic polar bear?

Just read this interesting — or frightening? boring? dated? pretentious? — story from the New York Observer. The writer suggests that long-form, and specifically magazine, journalism isn't as highly regarded or lucrative as it used to be. Also, she claims there is still a vast divide between web and print journalists, and that while twentysomething journalists are finding new opportunities in the blogosphere, they're finding it increasingly tough to break into print magazines.

Fittingly, an indignant blogger from In These Times asks the Observer reporter to "quit your nostalgic blabbering."

I read this stuff with great interest for several reasons: 1) I'm a fully employed — a.k.a. dumbly lucky — twentysomething print journalist who, until last month, was a blog virgin; 2) I am currently gobbling up — at the suggestion of one of my editors, who lent me his dog-eared copy — an anthology of works from the "New Journalism" movement of the 1960s and 70s (which, of course, is the "old" form of journalism the Observer story so wistfully recalls; 3) I had about a half-hour on my hands to wait for edits on my feature story for this week's paper (and website).

And just for good measure, here's one final meta-journalistic irony: I found the (web version of the) Observer's 'What's happening to print media?' story through FAIR, a progressive online journalism aggregator site that linked me to the In These Times blog about the original story.

Oh, and I'm writing this post — without printing it out — on a new blog that is connected to a newspaper that prides itself on its award-winning long-form feature writing. A newspaper whose bloggers are also leaders in the Vermont blogosphere. A paper, for that matter, that is not just a paper anymore, but rather something sexier, albeit harder to define.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this could all be summarized in a Yogi Berra-ism. Yet, print-addled romantic that I am, I refuse to find one on wikipedia.

Commenters Bash Cops on Addy Indy Site

The Addison Independent recently put a controversial poll on its website, asking if readers think the police are doing enough to find missing Middlebury student Nicholas Garza.

The poll has generated 727 votes, and two pages of reader comments, many of them critical of the Middlebury PD. Apparently, the cops asked the Indy to take down the poll, and editor/publisher Angelo Lynn refused.

This is from Lynn's comment on the poll:

The criticism of the Middlebury Police Department is no reason to take the issue off the site. Rather, the police department and its supporters should view this discourse as a measure of public concern, frustration and anxiety about Nick Garza’s disappearance. By understanding the frustration and anxiety, they can better respond to that aspect of the operation.

Seven Days Hires Shay Totten As New Political Columnist

Stop the presses!

Veteran Vermont journalist Shay Totten will be taking over as our new political columnist. We sent out a press release earlier today.

SEVEN DAYS HIRES SHAY TOTTEN AS
NEW POLITICAL COLUMNIST

Vermont’s only alternative weekly, Seven Days has a new political columnist: Shay Totten of Burlington will take over the beat previously covered by Peter Freyne, who retired his popular “Inside Track” column two weeks ago.

Fwd: A Guide to U.S. Newspapers

I got this email from my sister in Wisconsin. I'd seen it a million times before, blah blah blah, but then.... This one came with a nice twist.

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they should run the country.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like the colorful bar graphs and pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave L.A. to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country either, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if a leader is handicapped, a minority, a feminist, a homosexual, an atheist, a dwarf, or an illegal alien from ANY country or galaxy as long as he, she or it is a left-wing liberal.

10. The Miami Herald is read by people who would like to run another country, but need the baseball scores.

11. Seven Days is read by people who don't like the way the country is being run, and would rather listen to good music anyway.