Is this the future of newspapers?

The "SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER: 1863-2009" is the tribute to the end of a print newspaper. However as it ends the paper era it is asking that all of its loyal readers go to the online version here.
Will it work and is this webpage any different from any other newspaper webpage, and will it retain or repel readers? These questions are up for answering, but what we do know is that ad revenue is down and the operating costs of papers are the same, a lttle lower now that newsprint prices have tumbled, so deficits loom.
Joel Connelly write an op-ed piece extolling the virtue of the new online venture (he would,and as a survivor of the move he'd better make it work to save his job) here . However all of these optimists forget one thing - advertising revenue. You still need lots of it and it's hard to fit it into an online design without becoming overpowering.
I bet the Sun-Media gurus are watching this move very carefully, why else would the new consolidated Northumberland paper have .com in its title. Perhaps the most telling argument against local success in the online edition of both local papers is that the "interactive part" - blogs and comments sections are not well used. Can't say I blame the journos who have been asked to write blogs, what is there to say after you have banged out the maximum number of words for a pay cheque? And checking the names of the commenters there a few who I recognise as being multiple posters - they will comment on all and sundry no matter where the operation is.
Drudge has posted this link wherein former staffers of the Rocky Mountain News, the latest large market newspaper to shut down leaving inhabitants of a large urban area without newspaper coverage, have announced their answer to the problem. They will offer free content but charge a subscription for commentary and special content.
For another in depth look at the problem read this only on the web would you get this much distribution of such a long article (for instance in the NT.com columnists have been told to reduce their contributions from 750 words to 400. An edict like that would never happen online.

Finally back to the top here is a video from Seattle. It may take time to load, it's a busy day in Seattle today!

It goes on and on today, I guess the failure of the Seattle PI has brought everybody in on the discussion, here is an opinion about how the Internet will save local papers. I can really relate to this one. The hits on this site have doubled in the last two weeks. Now why is that? perhaps local content reigned supreme in the last couple of days!

A nice tidy job!

The Spooner affair will be put to bed next Monday when the committee report will reveal that the vote to put Miriam in her place will remain at 5-2. So much for Spooner's efforts to stay on side.

Into the Breach

This is the ad that pushes the biggest load of BS that I have seen for many days. Not that Earth Day isn't important for outlining the need to conserve the Earth's resources. Where the BS comes in is the great PR campaign by local municipalities to push the idea that we should all switch our lights off to bring attention to the matter. Talk about "bread and circuses" this push by our local leaders is an exercise in hypocricy and designed to make them look good whilst doing not much.
What these guys should be doing is to not put up hydro rates to maintain their revenue in the declining consumptive environment. What they should be doing is to establish teams of reno-conservation tradesmen and then back up those teams with grants to fix up our houses. We have been bombarded with exhortations for years now from all kinds of agencies to reduce our consumption and fix up our old and leaky houses, yet people still ignore those pleadings - Why?
Probably because they don't have the money to take advantage of the offers to renovate. They are reeling under the increases that utilities have demanded. If governments want us to reduce, let them help pay for it. Slick PR campaigns are just that - spin to make politicians feel good. If they want to good things mandate energy audits, enter every house and take stock. Make the bad homeowners fix up their houses and have the utilities pay for it. Local utilities should not be penalised by the market place for declining revenues brought on by reduced consumption. The Province saves money by not having to expand the hydro production and transmission systems, they should compensate local utilities from those savings.
How about working on the real problems instead of engaging in silly games that only illustrate the stupid competition between local municipalities!

Just a quick Sunday post

Manfred Schumann has copied me a letter that he has written to NT.com and I decided to rerun it here as it may not be published because he has already written about the situation and been published. So here it is:
Dear Editor,
Until now, the recent "censure" fiasco at Cobourg Council could have been cast as a minor blemish but that is no longer accurate. It has quickly become something more comparable to an infected pimple, or worse, an abscess, in a sensitive nether-region.

While the debate circles around words implied yet unspoken, questions characterized as accusations, anonymities and revelations, it has yet to be dealt with in an honest and forthright manner, in order to set the records straight and provide, to the public, a factual explanation of the issue. That one issue, as it was, has now erupted into several more. It reminds me of the theorem 'lies beget lies'.

As everyone who has been in attendance is aware, the issue stems from one councillor asking a straight forward and perfectly legitimate question (or two). Instead of a simple answer, the response was framed as an accusation of impropriety and interestingly remains unanswered. Subsequently, compromise turns into betrayal as names are made public by a third but significant party (mayor). Immediately, the original question is yet again characterized by the deputy-mayor, as an outright accusation aimed at those now publicly named, and is further vilified as an attack on staff who have no means of self-defense in the public forum, where they were surprisingly thrust by the third-party's (mayor) highly improper revelation just moments before.

While council accepts without question, such an improper and treacherous betrayal of a confidence in open council and then votes to censure a perfectly legitimate question of process by a councillor, is incredibly valuable material for a study in municipal practices that are close enough to being corrupt that light would not pass through that gap. Such conduct is not often found in isolation, but as an escalation and further deterioration of practices already exhibiting dubious tendencies. Why should this be any different. This is where scandals find their genesis.

To complicate the matter even further, the records show the vote to censure resulted in a 5 - 2 count in favour. However, since then, a purported 'correction' has apparently been noted by the flip-flop councillor to amend the vote to 6 - 1. Rules of order are clear on what must be done to change the record of a vote, and that has not yet been done here. More shenanigans! - just when we thought it was as bad as it could get. Can the 'C' word be far behind?

As we can all see, 'perplexing' is heavily outvoted by 'deplorable' as an appropriate word to describe what has been going on and shows no sign of abating in this council's term. As more such instances occur, as they are likely to, the decline of confidence in this council will gather momentum and the securely entrenched 'old guard' has no one to blame but itself.

Just as the blemish becomes a pimple, the festering underneath creates a full-blown boil, and the only remedy for healing to begin is a lancing to exorcise the underlying infection that characterizes the antagonism, revilement, viciousness, ostracism, distrust, and cronyism that appears to be emerging from this collective we acknowledge as our council. The question is - how?

M. Schumann
Cobourg
905-372-8906
Mar. 13, 2009

So after much money this is what we get

This is the portion of tomorrow's agenda for the CoW to discuss. It is a recommendation from the highly paid consultants, that studied the need for a Recreation/Community Centre. Look carefully and you will see that a key component of any Community Centre - a swimming pool is missing. So the Hockey guys get THREE pads and the swimmers still have to pay above market prices in a small pool at the NON-profit YMCA, of which we pay to uphold.
Silly me I thought the idea of such a grandiose scheme was to consolidate recreational needs and that includes cutting off the annual subsidy to the YMCA because we will need every penny for this. But if the nabobs and manipulators leave out a swimming pool then the Y can get the subsidy and the taxpayer still gets the shaft.
BTW the site for this grandiose structure has yet to be announced it was buried in the report that was not posted on the internet. There are seven sites and one involves using existing soccer fields, but the CSC has been promised replacement fields (further adding to the end cost!)

This vote thing has a life of its own

Just in: a link to another posting about Bob Spooner's changed vote here

Who is gritgirl?

The only political videos to surface this week have been coming from Warren Kinsella's website. He is publishing videos from a person called "Gritgirl". These videos are obviously not amateur garage photoshop ones and that has led John Ivison, of the national Post, to wonder if Kinsella whose real job is to advise Iggy on Political Stuff and to lead the Liberal War Room,is directing the Liberals to match the Conservatives video for video by using a proxy - Gritgirl. I have posted the video on my video page and John's article can be read here

Was it legal to change the Vote?

An extract from "The Scott, Foresman "Robert's Rules of Order"":






Page 345 sect.44

So there you have it foks the plot thickens with Councillor Spooner's vote. If the Official Recorder, the Manager of Legislative Services records the vote as 5-2 and the Chair of the meeting announces the result as 5-2 officially it is is 5-2. It will be interesting to see if the minutes are amended for the next Council meeting in the adoption of those minutes. If they have been changed it will be disputable and subject to discussion.

In another vein a comment has been posted on a previous post but must be repeated here for wider education of the readers:

I am the original "anonymous" about the Spooner vote-change trick. For the record, I am NOT any of the "anonymous" since then until now --though those anonymouses had interesting comments. Every person I spoke to who was at the meeting all agree Bob Spooner cast a "Nay" vote. Every person I spoke to who watched the meeting on TVCogeco agree Bob Spooner cast a "Nay" vote. People at the meeting and watching on TV all agree that the Town Clerk read it back that way and Councillor Spooner did not correct her. The vote was announced as 5 - 2.
The fact that the Town Clerk acknowledges a change happened THE NEXT MORNING clearly confirms that Spooner voted "nay" at the meeting. He was not correcting an error. He was changing his vote after the fact.

What is the legality, in a Recorded Vote, to cast the vote one way at the meeting and then change it the following morning? What does the Municipal Act say about this?

As is his habit, the morning of Tuesday March 10, Councillor Spooner was out and about in different places downtown. He told anyone who asked that he had voted "Nay" and also said he went into the in-camera meeting that came right after the meeting with the censure vote to tell all who voted "Yay" that he did not agree what they did. Apparently he underwent an adjustment to his p.o.v. soon after that, contacted Lorraine Brace and changed his vote. Make no mistake. He changed his vote. He did not just correct an error in the way everyone else in the world heard him.

Who gave him a viewpoint adjustment? How can this be "not important"? Councillors know a recorded vote is a significant event. How can such a significant formal procedure be revised 16 hours after the fact? Ben, what does the Municipal Act or Robert's Rules say about changing a vote after the vote is taken and announced, after the meeting ends, after 16 hours elapses? To know what he did, we don't need Spooner to tell us what he did, we saw it for ourselves. We need him or someone to tell us why he did it. We need Mayor Delanty or someone to tell us why he was allowed to do it.

If Bob Spooner thought this was going to go away because he says so he is wrong a lot of people are now really talking about this situation. It doesn't look good!

The Mystery Sale

This is the Daves No Frills flyer that whizzed through the mail slot yesterday. What could this sale be? And whatever it is saves you $50.00. So armed with a huge sense of curiosity I walked up the store. Joined the other twelve people waiting to get in (last sale there were fifty people waiting but I guess advertised turkeys were more than a come-on than a big question mark) and entered when open.

So you ask yourself what was the sale item, the piece worth lining up for and if bought will save $50? Looking in all the usual bargains bins I flailed around until the obvious hit me - a skid of B&D Toasters was standing where the knocked down toilet paper usually stood. These black, trimmed with chrome double bagel toasters were it! Remembering the words of the love of my life, "Have you got $20.00 if you find out what it is, it has to be worth $20 and useful!" So wondering if this item fell into that category I wandered off home knowing that Dave wouldn't be moving two skids of these things before we got back. Will we buy one? Maybe. The $9.00 Wallymart one we use is due for replacement but I don't know if we can go upscale just yet!

First post of the day

The beat goes on. Did Bob Spooner vote Yea or Nay. The audience and the tallyman heard what they though to be Nay but that does sound an awful lot like a nasal Nyay. Anyway that doesn't matter because he told the tallyman to change the result and he committed himself on the Yea side. All he has to do is live with himself!