Conservative Musings

Newpaper's Continued Slide

Hugh Hewitt today comments on the continuing fall of the Los Angeles Times and the fall of the New York Times.  There is so much they could do to stabilize their fall, or maybe even turn themselves around (as noted in Hugh's comments on the LA Times).  But sadly, these guys are in their own little niche, only listening to others in their industry.

Reminds me of Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.  These guys fit that definition, if they think doing the same thing they've been doing for years will eventually get them in the black financially, again.  Times have changed.  These 2 "Times" need to change as well.

-Colonel Steve

Liberal Bias and Barack Obama

John Hinderaker at Power Line hits the nail on the head.  When it came to all the things going on at Trinity United Church of Christ, not much got reported because "It sounded right to them."

I think that could be said for so much that the media doesn't report.  A lot of what they see isn't news due to it looking normal to them.  They only report the abnormally strange stuff (read: conservative).

-Colonel Steve

Web 2.0 In The Business

Business First of Louisville recently wrote on Best Buy's use of Web 2.0 technology within their business.  Their site, www.blueshirtnation.com, has had attributed to it a) lowering of in-store turnover from double digits to just slightly more than 8 percent, and b) increasing enrollment of their 401k by 30 percent.

It has fostered in-store and across-store connections within its employees ranks.  Best practices have been shared across all the stores.  Product ordering issues have been tracked down within stores.

Blueshirtnation type setups aren't going to go over well at places that have a top-down control management style.  Places like that have been successful in the past, that's for sure.  The debate will be about what will be successful in the future.  Top-down control management?  Peer-to-peer openness like a blueshirtnation?  Combination of both?

-Colonel Steve

Around The Blogs Today

Some things I see around the blogs today:

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson treats wounded soldiers to a weekend in Las Vegas.   Great press for Sheldon!  (HT: Neocon Express).

A picture of some bitter folks, found clinging to religion and guns:

Poor, bitter folks.  Probably didn't accomplish much, either.  (HT: Blogmeister USA).

Right Wing News has an interesting list of Barack Obama gaffes and other comments, as well as statements by his wife, Jeremiah Wright and other associates, and comments by political foes about him.  (HT: Blonde Sagacity)

-Colonel Steve

Elitist Opinions

I see a small battle brewing here in Kentucky, concerning news and journalism.  This battle sounds so much like Laura Ingraham when she speaks of Elitists.

I'd like to tell Bob White of Elizabethtown that it's great to be proud of the profession he's in.  I'm proud of the one I'm in.  Many people call us just computer programmers, although I personally like "Software Engineer".  But hey, I can live with computer programmer.

Among those in my technical profession, there are great ones who have no degree at all, and lousy ones who have Ph.D's.  What one comes into the job with doesn't always show how good they are.  I'm sure journalism is much like that.

Personally, I think there are lots of folks in the journalism profession defending their turf at all costs.  They are seeing their hold on news and opinion crumble.  Like what occurred to the Cincinnati Post, even their finances are crumbling as well.

I understand them running scared.  I would be scared as well.

Let's see again what Bob White wrote:

Mark is one of the most knowledgable reporters in Louisville and one of the few true journalists with TV news. Others do a 5 second bit consider themselves journalists, or grab their news from the local paper and regurgitate it - not Hebert. He does his own work -
blogs are blogs, too - they're not meant for true news, just opinions, rumors and BS
So I've taken 30 seconds to defend Mark and school others to not confuse blogs as journalism.

Journalism, as defined on dictionary.com, is:

–noun 

1.	the occupation of reporting, writing, editing, photographing, or broadcasting news or of conducting any news organization as a business.

2.	press1 (def. 31).

3.	a course of study preparing students for careers in reporting, writing, and editing for newspapers and magazines.

4.	writing that reflects superficial thought and research, a popular slant, and hurried composition, conceived of as exemplifying topical newspaper or popular magazine writing as distinguished from scholarly writing: He calls himself a historian, but his books are mere journalism.

---

[Origin: 1825–35; < F journalisme. See journal, -ism]

That last definition intrigues me.  If journalism truly is writing reflecting a superficial thought, or just a hurried composition, then yes, we aren't journalists.  I'm better than that.  If, however, definition number 1 fits, then maybe we are journalists.  Our blog is more opinion on the news, but folks have commented on finding out things for the first time by reading something here.  Sounds like news to me.  So, we don't make any money at it.  Newspapers aren't making much, if any at all, these days.

So, Bob White, you've expressed your opinion to the public.  So has Jefferson Poole at Blue Grass Red State.  Now, so have I.  This nation is great!  We get to do this, in public no less!  I look forward to more days, where all 3 of us can express, in your words, our "opinions, rumors and BS."

-Colonel Steve

More Industry Blogging II

Thank you, Michael, for your dialog on the al-la-carte pricing ideas.  Yes, I am in agreement with your 2 comments:

1) "government-mandated a-la-carte would be a bad deal for consumers."  Only that government-mandated is not the preferred choice.
2) "An a-la-carte model that is created by free market conditions would be far more palatable to me."  It would be more palatable to me as well.

You had mentioned in another post that cable is not a monopoly.   I would agree to a point.  Of the 3 businesses I see that Insight competes in, they are anywhere from highly competitive to not so highly competitive industries.

1) Phone - Very competitive, with tons of local and long distance companies to choose from.
2) Internet broadband - less competitive.  Phone company DSL, cellular "broadband" (if you want to call it that), other company DSL (like Speakeasy, AOL, and Earthlink), and some satellite broadband vendors.
3) Television - Very little competition.  I can only come up with 2 vendors for Louisville.....Insight or Direct TV.  Am I missing something here?

I would be much more agreeable to a free market solution if item 3) above had more competition.  One way (of many I'm sure) would be to remove government regulation out of one piece of the picture.  Right now, for Jefferson County Kentucky, only one franchise is awarded rights for cable TV.  That currently is Insight.  Opening up more rights, to at least one more company, would be a good move in that direction.

This is not a complaint on Insight's service.  I have been rather happy since the network upgrade.  This is an argument for a free market.  If there were more choices in TV reception, then I can agree on letting the free market also decide between a-la-carte, current style bundling, or something else altogether.

Again, thanks Michael for keeping the dialog going.  Any company that listens in new and expanded ways will do well!

-Colonel Steve

More Industry Blogging

A long time ago, I mentioned the company blog that Southwest Airlines has up and running.  The folks at Nuts About Southwest have been opening up the company to their customers by their posting.  This presents a fantastic opportunity for them to attract positive attention to themselves.  A great form of advertising.

Now Insight's CEO is doing the same thing, via his Michael's Insight blog.  Way to go!

It may sound strange, but the dialog Michael is opening up is already allowing me to disagree.  Strange in the sense that disagreeing is actually a good thing (counter-intuitive to most liberals).  Disagreement is what dialog is all about.

Michael's latest post at the time of this post's writing is about "Cable A-La-Carte - A Great Idea, or Is It?"  You've seen Lady Colonel here post on the same opinion I have.  Let the economy decide, not businesses.  The economy decides thru what customers decide.

Let channels live or die thru a Darwinian "survival of the fittest"-like theory.  With this, we could and probably will end up with less channels then now.  So what.  We don't need to be subsidizing channels with few watchers/listeners.

Let them stand or sink on their own.  Yes, startups might need some cash to get going.  But let's not let the cable customer be an unwilling venture capitalist, thru the bundling of channels.  If a cable customer wants to help finance a new channel, there are other ways to invest for them.

Anyway, as far as the Insight blog goes.....way to go Michael!  I think this is a great idea for Insight, as well as any other company.

-Colonel Steve

Times They Are A Changing

It doesn't take a stock market analyst to know that the newspaper business has been going downhill financially for awhile.  Probably because most of us, outside of the bastions of liberalness (like newspapers) actually know a thing or 2 about capitalism.

Capitalism hinges on one principle: one has to have a product that people will pay money to get.  Even then, it may only last a season, before the product isn't as financially successful as it once was.  Think of the old buggies attached to horses.  They're still around, just not like they used to be.

So goes places like the New York Times.  Seventy folks have accepted buyouts to shrink the Time's staff.  But sadly, thirty more will be chosen shortly to leave for the last time.

It will be interesting to see if this will be the end of their financial problems.  I doubt it.  As the New York Post article states, things move slow at the Times.  I'm not sure they've figured out what their next product is, besides newsprint.  I'm afraid they'll still be holding their buggy whip when everyone else is holding their car keys.

-Colonel Steve

New Competition For Main Stream Media

Daryn Kagan is formerly of CNN.  She is now showing how the internet has become the great leveler.

It once took money only folks like Ted Turner could provide to build a media company up from scratch.  Now Daryn is able to create her own media company, darynkaygan.com, to do only those stories "that made my heart go zing."

Way to go Daryn!  While you're at it, check out her book What's Possible.

-Colonel Steve

Having to Describe What A Blog Is

Ever had to describe what a blog is to someone?  Like maybe grandma? Or a non-techie neighbor?

The folks at commoncraft.com have put together a video that may be a great easy description of blogs.  Not exactly Blogging for Dummies, but it makes for a good 3 minute primer.

-Colonel Steve