I have already broken my promise...

Not too long ago, I decided it was time to post more often here. Maybe I'd post some random thoughts about something new I was learning...you know, self-indulgent stuff.

But I've broken my promise.

It's been a couple weeks since our editor told us to expect layoffs in the newsroom. In fact, it was the week after IRE. A lot of numbers have floated around, but it's safe to say we're talking significant layoffs from a newsroom of 300 or so reporters and editors.

It's real tough to stay motivated about journalism when the ax is falling all around you. Mr. Hartnett up in swanky Palm Beach Co. has a picture that illustrates things perfectly.

I realize THIS is the time we have to stay motivated. This is when we have to innovate, kick ass and take names. But it's almost like you need that period to catch your breath, to take account of what's happening and what's going to happen.

I need a new shrine...or offering...human sacrifice, maybe?

For those who don't know, our friends down south at the Miami Herald had an idea to save their jobs: Make offerings to the Santeria chicken brought in by some priest. Or that's how I understand the story.

So I made a little electronic shrine to the chicken over at a site I set up for just this reason.

But either the chicken didn't like being mocked, or the Santeria chicken didn't work, bringing to mind scenes from the movie Major League:

Pedro Cerrano: Bats, they are sick. I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid. I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come.
Eddie Harris: You know you might think about taking Jesus Christ as your savior instead of fooling around with all this stuff.
Roger Dorn: Shit, Harris.
Pedro Cerrano: Jesus, I like him very much, but he no help with curveball.
Eddie Harris: You trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curveball?

Anyone have an idea of a new shrine to make offerings? Human sacrifice? It's all in the name of not being canned. Judging from this article, we could use all the help we can get.

Case for a JOA?

Interesting idea in this article here....don't know what to think about it.

"Any form of collaboration in south Florida would unhinge the proud staffs of the Herald and Sun-Sentinel, who have competed fiercely against each another forever. But things are getting so grim that there may be no other choice."

Caspio and frameworks...

Mr. Hartnett up in trendy, swanky Palm Beach Co. gets the nod for finding this interview with David Milliron of Caspio.

Now I'm not as anti-Caspio as a lot of some people, who are way smarter than me. We've seen the blowups between Milliron and various bloggers.

In fact, for full disclosure, I pushed for my current employer to get involved with Caspio when I started back in October.

I think Caspio is absolutely, positively great for allowing reporters to put up searchable tools. Especially if a reporter has pieced together a small database on their own and needs a way to get it out there. But I don't think it's the ultimate solution, either.

But Milliron's quote here really gets me:

"Publishers are looking for tools that do not require huge upfront costs. More and more publishers are outsourcing the creation and maintenance of their database applications. A relative low entry point with a high return on investment is the mantra for today’s online database publishing world."

With all due respect, that's because newspaper owners are dumb. And their schemes, cheap ways and monopolistic haughtiness is what got our industry into the situation we face today.

We need research and development. We need investment in new ways of providing content. And that's not a one-size-fits-all application like Caspio.

Again, I think it serves its role well. But in the end, we need imaginative, new research and development that keeps readers reading our papers and Web sites. Please, no more schemes.

Talk about depressing...

So props to Danny Sanchez up in Orlando for giving us this great list of newspaper-related blogs.

But it's like a death watch. Especially here at Tribune Co.

One article is particularly scary.

It's tough to work when you're thinking about whether your company is going to pay its bills.

So it makes me wonder what's next? It's no secret the Sun-Sentinel is having layoffs, along with all our other Tribune papers. But what happens if we default on our loans? I'm no business lawyer, so it'd be nice to know what happens. Does that mean bankruptcy? Does it means we get the bankers to restructure the debt? What?

So could this only get worse?

Sam Zell and Me....

I've never been part of a newspaper ownership change.

My previous job was a family-owned newspaper that had stayed in the Gaylord family hands since statehood (1907, for you non-Okies). Interesting enough, the other major metro in Oklahoma --- the Tulsa World --- is also a long-time family owned broadsheet.

And until not too long ago, Oklahoma also had the Tulsa Tribune, a family owned newspaper that traced family links to Frank Lloyd Wright.

So when I came to the Sun-Sentinel, it was my first time working for a publicly traded company. Now we're part of a private ownership group that is owned by employees. Oh yeah, and a guy named Sam Zell.

I'm normally a cynic. At my old shop, I heard executives say words like "communications vehicle," "solutions-based," and "multiplatform communications company." It seemed like there was always promise of reasons to be optimistic.

I usually felt like Office Space, just like most of you.

But this time I'm optimistic. After the Zell press conference, which was beamed into our auditorium, many employees clapped. I am excited.

I can imagine what they're thinking at the LA Times, which seems to be dancing a jig in print:

"There's no need to belabor the multiple reasons for that failure, but suffice to say that, as of Wednesday, there were only three places in the world where you still could find people who believed in the efficacy of Brezhnev-style bureaucracy and central planning: North Korea, Cuba and Tribune Tower in Chicago."

So this could be a wild and fun ride. Count me among the optimists for a change.

And another thing....

Check out the work of my collegues...John Maines, Sally Kestin, Peter Franceschina and Joe Demma today launched the first of a six-day look at the Seminoles ...

Clicky clicky.

And what a good thing to see....

William Hartnett, CAR specialist at the Palm Beach Post, points out a fine follow-up to an earlier post of mine.

And it was right under my nose. A nod to him for doing my work for me.

The Sun-Sentinel is hunting a municipal reporter to cover Pompano Beach, where yours truly lives.

"Spanish skills as well as knowledge of computer-assisted reporting are preferred."

I like.

Even daily reporters need CAR....

Joey Senat, a media law and public affairs reporting professor at Oklahoma State University's journalism school, always told us to stay in a public records state of mind.

In today's world, we need to take it a step along. We need to also stay in a data state of mind.

Ziva Branstetter, projects editor at the Tulsa World, once told a panel I attended that the best ideas for investigations typically spring up from beat reporters. I think it's the same way with CAR stories.

I've always preached that all beat reporters need data skills.

When I first arrived at the Sun-Sentinel earlier this month, one of the first people who e-mailed me was Mc Nelly Torres, who I'd seen around at several IRE and/or NICAR conferences. Mc Nelly, a member of the consumer watchdog team here at the paper, had done some neat analysis of gas pump inspections in south Florida.

"In South Florida, 34 percent of the gas stations inspected in the past
three years had at least one gas pump that failed accuracy tests used to determine if the devices are giving consumers the correct amount of gas they pay for, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel analysis found."

Mc Nelly produced a great Sunday p1 by requesting the data from the Florida agency with oversight. She knew not only how to get the data, but how to analyze it.

Newspapers across America are spending an awful lot of money training reporters how to get audio and video, and then how to edit it. But aren't newspapers missing the boat by forgetting about content? It doesn't matter what kind of equipment you have or how much audio/video is on the Web site if the content isn't there.

Isn't that what we dislike about TV? All flash but no content?

CAR skills aren't hard to pick up. It just takes time and some monetary commitment from organizations.

Steve Lackmeyer, one of the finest reporters around, is old school. He's a shoe leather guy. But Lackmeyer recognized CAR skills aren't a substitute for shoe leather reporting --- they show you how and where to do better shoe leather reporting.

Lackmeyer, a mentor of mine at The Oklahoman, went to NICAR with me in Denver. He went through some of the boot camp stuff on Access and Excel. He came out excited.

"I can do this!"

This after just a couple hours of training.

I hope the industry doesn't forget that content is the No. 1 issue. Without content, we have nothing.

And I can make a great case that CAR skills will pay off big for beat reporters and the content they produce.

Mc Nelly's story proves it.