Newspapers
Friday, May 18, 2012
Dept. of Overreaction Dept.: Rayne sportswriter fired after "bullshit" makes the paper
Posted by Kevin Allman on Fri, May 18, 2012 at 1:02 PM
Yesterday a sports report from the tiny town of Rayne, La. went viral when reporter Kade Seibold's story about a high school baseball game ended with the words " ... unfortunately no stats were available due to the coach's bullshit and laziness."
Most people, it seemed, got a kick out of the newsroom error — and it was a good reminder to all reporters and editors never to write joke copy.
It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt — and now Seibold has been fired from the Rayne Independent.
Jim Romenesko reports that Seibold told him the coach in question accepted an apology and even managed to laugh about it. On his Twitter account, Seibold said, "This is still haunting me. It will haunt me for a long time. I just wish in time i can be forgiven by everyone."
Seems like a hell of a punishment for one stupid move. In fact, one might even call it —
Thursday, May 17, 2012
How they report sports in Rayne, Louisiana
Posted by Kevin Allman on Thu, May 17, 2012 at 4:42 PM
Jeannine LeJeune, online editor of the Crowley Post-Signal out in Cajun country, caught this and sent it out over Twitter. Seems a sports reporter for an even smaller Acadian paper, the Rayne Independent (so small it doesn't even have a website), had a unique take on a softball game played at Rayne High School:
Why do I suspect the reporter had some personal relationship to pitcher Hailey Habetz?
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
A serious news website redesign
Posted by Kevin Allman on Tue, May 15, 2012 at 11:32 AM
News website redesigns are all the rage these days, from this much-discussed "improvement" to The Lens' makeover (nice!) and, today, a new WDSU.com (good job). And then there's our new mobile site. But none of them are a patch on what The Baltimore Sun did today to commemorate its 175th anniversary. Check it out.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Prison privatization bill probably dead for year, sponsor says
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Sat, May 12, 2012 at 11:21 AM
The Times-Picayune reports from Baton Rouge:
"...the sponsor of a stalled bill that would allow the privatization of Avoyelles Correctional Center was asked whether the measure, House Bill 850, would be brought forward for another vote. Rep. Henry Burns, R-Haughton, said, 'At this moment, my intention is that the bill will probably not move.'"
Read our cover story on the plan to privatize Avoyelles here.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Introducing the new Gambit mobile site
Posted by Kevin Allman on Thu, May 10, 2012 at 9:00 AM
Rather than attempting to replicate the experience of reading a newspaper, but doing it on a tiny screen, we've completely rethought what our readers want out of mobile technology. If you like using Yelp! or IMDB on your phone, or if you're out in New Orleans and suddenly need a movie listing, a bar recommendation, the phone number for a restaurant, or just something to do right that minute, we think you'll like Gambit Mobile.
Here are some of the highlights:
Monday, March 26, 2012
The Advocate reports on mental health bed shortage in Baton Rouge
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 12:49 PM
In our recent cover story on the mental health crisis in New Orleans, we spoke to Interim LSU Hospital's emergency director Dr. Peter DeBlieux, who said that the closure of a number of emergency beds as a result of LSU budget cuts:
"As we're having this conversation, I am down to 15 [emergency mental health beds]," DeBlieux says. "You know this is a misnomer. I've got a room with six chairs and I call them beds. So, just so that we're talking about the same thing, I have nine true beds, like you could sleep in them beds. And that's what I have right now. And that's what I will have going forward."What the cuts amount to, DeBlieux believes, is a loss of the city's safety net. ILH is the only inpatient public mental health provider in the metropolitan area, serving a population of more than 1 million people.
Today, The Advocate reports on similar problems in Baton Rouge, where the Earl K. Long Medical Center has lost 10 of its 20 emergency mental health beds :
The bed closures at the Mental Health Emergency Room Extension, or MHERE, come at a time of increased need as the number of those with behavioral health problems continue to climb, said Jan Kasofsky, executive director of the Capital Area Human Services District, called CAHSD.“We are seeing so many more people in crisis now than ever before. More people have lost insurance, are having emotional difficulties, anxiety with loss of jobs, the recession and how to handle their bills,” she said. “There’s a demand for psychiatric services.”
Hospital and mental health officials report patients with acute mental health problems are being delivered by family, police and others to hospital emergency rooms because of the drawback of facilities designed to specifically address mental health emergencies. The result is much longer waits for patients who need medical care at hospital emergency rooms, known as ERs.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
"Jungleland": This Sunday's New York Times Magazine cover story
Posted by Kevin Allman on Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 10:36 AM
Part of the story is about all the new fauna living in the abandoned houses and overgrown lots in the Ninth Ward (a topic we covered last year in our own cover story), part of it is about the Sisyphean task of keeping the neighborhoods clean and the growth cut back ("In the Lower Ninth, a property remains cleared for only three to six months. A Chinese tallow tree, for instance, will grow from seed to two-foot-high sapling in a summer and six feet within a year.") ... and part of it focuses on the ongoing "Katrina tours" of the Ninth Ward, which remain a sore subject with people who are just trying to live their lives.
A moment from one of those tours is under the cut ...
Friday, March 9, 2012
Will The Times-Picayune print next week's abortion-themed Doonesbury cartoons?
Posted by Kevin Allman on Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 6:12 PM
- UCLICK COMICS
- A panel from one of next week's Doonesbury cartoons.
Here's an example of the barbed humor in the Thursday strip, as described by Romenesko:
In the stirrups, she is telling a nurse that she doesn’t want a transvaginal exam. Doctor says “Sorry miss, you’re first trimester. The male Republicans who run Texas require that all abortion seekers be examined with a 10″ shaming wand.” She asks “Will it hurt?” Nurse says, “Well, it’s not comfortable, honey. But Texas feels you should have thought of that.” Doctor says, “By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.”
A representative for Trudeau's newspaper syndicate, United Press Syndicate, told Fox News that replacement strips would be made available for papers that want them.
The Oregonian of Portland, Ore. — which, like The Times-Picayune, is owned by Advance Publications —Â wrote a letter to its readers today explaining why it wouldn't be running the strips. Would the T-P follow suit?
Reached by phone this afternoon, Times-Picayune editor Jim Amoss said, "I don’t want to be disingenuous, but we don’t discuss our editorial deliberations in advance." Amoss said he'd read the strips, but didn't say whether the paper would be publishing Doonesbury next week: "I’m afraid you’re just going to have to stay tuned."
The Oregonian article said that the Los Angeles Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch were among the papers choosing not to run Doonesbury next week. In an interview late today with The Washington Post, Trudeau said that to ignore the Texas law "would be comedy malpractice."
Friday, March 2, 2012
Farewell, Matt Davis
Posted by Kevin Allman on Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 5:00 PM
His memorable pieces for Gambit included chronicling the state of New Orleans Recreation Department facilities, interviewing Spike Lee and profiling the proprietors of a Gulf Coast tattoo shop affected by the BP oil disaster. At The Lens, he's been dogged in his reporting on Orleans Parish Prison, particularly Sheriff Marlin Gusman ... and somewhere in there, he found time to co-write a guidebook to New Orleans.
Not bad for less than two years in town. Good luck back in London, Matt.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Milwaukee weekly on sheriff: "Disingenuous" media hound
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 10:16 AM
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke hates the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (HRC), a position he was more than pleased to share with members of the New Orleans media, including Gambit, who were investigating the HRC after the Landrieu administration adopted its own version of the "Milwaukee Model" in an attempt to reduce New Orleans murders.
Clarke on the homicide reduction model: "This is how politicians attack problems, right? A commission, a task force, a blue ribbon committee, whatever," Clarke says. "It's OK to try these different things; I'm all for trying new initiatives. But after a certain point ... this thing started in '05, so we're coming on year seven or eight. Is this thing producing anything of value any more?"
That sort of position, taken in the media, would likely come as no surprise to Milwaukee Shepherd Express writer Joel McNally, who offers this description in a scathing column about Clarke's opposition to a new sentencing reform program:
Clarke is welcomed with open arms and microphone by right-wing talk-show host Charlie Sykes whenever the sheriff wants to denounce black political leaders, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, judges or the district attorney, to the delight of Charlie's conservative white listeners.The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel carries almost daily stories on whatever Clarke thinks about people controlling his budget or successful criminal justice reforms he despises.
But, of course, reality never bears much relationship to right-wing rhetoric, white or black.
A prime example occurred at a black conservative forum in Washington, D.C., at which Clarke declared of Milwaukee: “It's a city that has forever been in the throes, if you will, the brace of liberal orthodoxy. And I've been a man alone—a man alone, trumpeting conservative values.”
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