Archive for May, 2009
May 28th, 2009
If I’d been asked to place a bet five years ago that United Auto Workers members would take it in the shorts on everything from benefits to wages, the answer would have been no-brainer: not a chance.
Maybe not even a year ago, although by October 2008, the bet would have been a little less risky. One day before Chrysler gave it up to bankruptcy, about eight of 10 union workers swallowed hard and tossed in the towel to do what they could to save their jobs and the car-making company that is one of the Rock River Valley’s most visible manufacturing linchpins.
General Motors likely will join that bankruptcy sandbox later this week. Its unions will take the same sick-making cuts as did Chrysler.
The UAW, like the United Mine Workers and the United Steel Workers back in the “old days,” is the very model of making certain workers get Class A compensation, benefits, pensions and long-term care and comfort. The work they do is mind-numbing, but if one can stand on one’s feet for eight hours a day and transcend the boredom, the paycheck-cum-benefits was considered a worthy trade off.
Today, the auto union membership has one choice: a job or no job. To keep the job, the nifty compensation package goes away.
Non-union — public and private — workers were first into the global meltdown. For us, defined benefit pension plans disappeared a decade ago. We’ve lived with wage freezes and pay cuts for at least two years. Bonuses ditto. Benefits costs increases ditto. Freezes in 401k matches ditto. Buyouts and layoffs ditto. Furloughs (or fur-cations as some are calling them) ditto.
Now the private sector union workers have headed into the meltdown. What happened at Chrysler will ripple through all the formerly powerful, private sector unions.
And, up next? The public sector unions and employees. That’s government from clerks to cops, from legislators to judges, from teachers to fire fighters.
The only questions are how soon, how deep and how done. No one could have imagined a decade ago that the private sector unions would give it up. They did. The public sector is next.
May 28th, 2009
You don’t know Mrs. Saul. Back in the 1950s, she was the strictest, most demanding fifth grade teacher at Edgewood Elementary School in Whiteville, N.C. My recollection is that she was really old, wore those clunky, lace-up corrective shoes and pulled her hair back in a bun, though those memories are likely a tad off-the-mark due to the vagaries of five decades.
Regardless, she loved her kids and she made a difference in our lives. She expected the red-clay farm kids and the white anklet townies to know their multiplication tables and which fork to use first. Yep, Mrs. Saul taught etiquette right along with arithmetic. By the end of the school year her kids were ready for sixth grade, we passed our tests and we no longer chewed with our mouths open.
Yeah, said the fourth-graders-soon-to-be-fifth-graders, “I hope I get Mrs. Saul.”
Kids and their parents know which teachers they “hope they get” and which they pray they don’t. In schools, the customer (that’s parents and students) knows exactly which teachers teach and which are little more than a paid sitter. And those customers know that what counts most is the skill, expertise and passion of the teacher in the classroom.
Perhaps the easiest, most efficient way to grade teachers is to rank them by “most chosen.” The teachers that parents and students say they “hope they get” stay and get the raises. The ones over which prayers are prayed — please, do not let me get Mrs. Perry — get a year to improve before being shown the door.
This week the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation released its own similar conclusion: the key to a student’s success is the quality of the teacher — not the quality of the building, the number of students, the facilities or the curriculum, though those things are nice to have. It’s the teacher. Good teacher good results. Bad teacher bad results.
The Gates Foundation, which spent billions creating and supporting smaller high schools in the belief that smaller classes and more personalized attention would improve student performance, plans to continue its research. I am confident the foundation will come to the same conclusion I did back in the fourth grade: “Oh, I hope I get Mrs. Saul.”
May 20th, 2009
One of the things Register Star Media (that’s everything we do down here at the News Tower) does exceptionally well is something I don’t often write about: We connect consumers with local advertisers — and we get results for both.
Almost six of 10 adults in the market say the Register Star is their primary source for advertising for the stores where they shop. More than half consistently turn to the Register Star for advertising for vehicles, real estate, groceries and jobs — making the newspaper and rrstar.com the primary source for advertising in the Rock River Valley.
We are not limited to a single product. We have a diverse portfolio that includes the daily and Sunday Register Star, rrstar.com, Rockford Woman Magazine, Foundation, Espejo, GoNOW, BusinessRockford.com, HealthyRockford.com, The Weekly, the Boone County Weekly, RockfordWheels.com, RockfordHomeOnline.com (coming soon), Hot Jobs, Real Estate Marketplace, front page labels as well as mobile and online solutions.
We know that when consumers close their pocketbooks, our local businesses hear the snap. They, in turn, question where they spend their advertising dollars. Then, it’s our turn.
We know it’s expensive to market one’s product or service. We know it’s tempting to cut back. But, we also know — as do our local businesses — that advertising in bad times is perhaps more important than at any other time. If one doesn’t advertise, that potential customer forgets you’re out there.
Register Star Media decided that if we could help our local businesses reach customers in a special promotion, everyone benefits: Advertisers reach customers ready and willing to spend; Register Star Media benefits from new revenue; and customers are reminded of the strength of the local businesses.
All that to say: If you miss the Friday and Sunday newspapers this week, you’ll be way sorry. On Friday and again on Sunday, we bring you the Great Economic Stimulus Event. Two sections (on each day for a total of almost 100 pages) feature 62 local businesses in full page ads. Each advertiser agreed to offer consumer incentives (coupons and similar) in return for deep advertising incentives from us.
We have invested in marketing of the section with in-store posters and online, radio and print campaigns. And, we sweeten the deal for you, too: There’s $1,000 in cash prizes for participants in the print and online contests.
I can’t remember over my four decades an win-win-win project like this one. That so many advertisers have jumped on this one-time project demonstrates how great the need is. Sure we benefit; no apologies from me on that. I’m proud of what we’re doing. A helping hand helps all it touches.
Want to advertise? You’re too late for Friday, but if you call Advertising Director Michele Massoth (815-987-1320), you might convince her to cut you a deal for Sunday. I’m just saying….
May 14th, 2009
How come Wall Street investors and so-called financial experts are so surprised at the latest unemployment numbers? Simple answer: They cannot add. They cannot read.
An Associated Press story Thursday morning reported that stock futures were down before opening bell because, tada, unemployment numbers just released were worse than expected.
Allow me a mini-rant: Worse than expected? Are the so-called experts/investors so clueless that they don’t know that all this bailout-auto-companies-down-the-tubes stuff is having a huge, negative impact on unemployment. Can they not read headlines? Can they not count? Shouldn’t they have already figured out — and factored in? How in the world could they be surprised?
I mean, for crying out loud, even the Register Star knows that with the local Chrysler plant shut down for two months, unemployment numbers are going to increase.
Advice to Wall Street: Factor in a lot more now. Because once that auto bankruptcy stuff ripples through to Main Street, the unemployment numbers are headed higher.
May 11th, 2009
Shortly after 5:30 this afternoon, Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey called me to say the MetroCentre ad hoc committee meetings will be open to the press and public.
The conversation went just like this:
Mayor: Linda, it’s Mayor Morrissey. How are you doing?
Me: Mad.
Mayor: Let’s just cut to the chase. The meetings will be open.
Me: Thank you, Mayor.
And, I do.
You’ll find details and news coverage later at rrstar.com, and in the Register Star tomorrow. Here’s the link to the blog I posted today.
May 11th, 2009
Here’s why I am ticked off — and why you should be, too. Remember the MetroCentre, that time-sucking, controversy-creating civic center downtown? The one that needs a taxpayer revenue stream? The one that now has a newly created ad-hoc committee reviewing its finances?
That one. Well, the city’s official position is “all discussions by the ad hoc committee are behind closed doors.” Why? Well, for starters, because they want to. That’s the real reason. They want to. They do not want you or the media there.
They can cite a court case to allow them to close the meetings, though by no means is that court case definitive. So, by gosh and by golly, they can, so they will.
Your elected public officials have no intention of walking their talk. They tell you (and us here in the News Tower) they believe in transparency. That they want open, public government. That no good comes of doing the public’s business in secret.
Then they go about creating public-private partnerships that allow them to circumvent Illinois’ Open Public Meetings Act. They create ad hoc committees, again to circumvent the OPMA. They cite lawyerly reasons why they can jolly well lock out the great unwashed, unelected and just plain un-powerful.
Not one of them does anything to open the doors. The OPMA states clearly that meetings are presumed open. The law says they “may” be closed for a handful of reasons. No where does the OPMA say they MUST be closed. So every governmental and quasi-governmental meeting in the region could be open.
But, these guys work hard, very hard, to close them because they don’t want you and me to know what they are doing. They pass the buck, they beg to be allowed to brainstorm in private so they don’t look stupid (as if….). They say they don’t want to reveal stuff to competitors or mess up a contract.
They want, they say, the freedom to talk among themselves without anyone hearing them.
Rockford’s mayor, Larry Morrissey, touted openness in both his campaigns. If he’s for open public meetings, then he ought to tell his legal beagle Patrick Hayes and administration side kick Jim Ryan to get with the program. I think the mayor wants the meetings closed, too; he’s just letting the front guys do their thing.
I called the mayor’s office and left a heads up that this column and blog post were coming. I figured I owed him at least that. Reporter Jeff Kolkey and Editorial Page Editor Wally Haas also have pieces of this story. Jeff on the news side; Wally on editorial. Senior Editor Chuck Sweeny is likely to weigh in as well.
There are three ways to open the MetroCentre ad hoc committee meetings. The mayor can do so. As of this writing, he’s choosing not to. The city council can introduce and pass a resolution to open them up. So far, the alderman are running for cover. Heaven forbid that they stand up for open government.And, third, I can take them to court. Perhaps they will decide that spending tax dollars on a court case would be silly. Just open the meetings, boys and girls. Save everyone a lot of hassle.
May 8th, 2009
People say unpleasant things about the Register Star and those of us who do the news and opinion in the News Tower. Usually we shrug it off; an opinion is, after all, an opinion. But when a statement is flat out inaccurate, we expect a correction, retraction or clarification the same as any reader would.
Thursday afternoon I called Dan Lewandowski, chair of the Winnebago County Democratic Party asking for an explanation and a retraction. Lewandowski recently sent a text message to what he told me was four or five people. That text message read: “Register Star top brass killed (a story on Dave Syverson’s appearance at Ellis School) against the wishes of editors per a source in the media.”
Since I figured that as editor it was safe to assume I was “top brass” or close, and since I knew we had not killed any such story, I was perplexed.
Killing a story, in journalism parlance, is a big deal, a very big deal. It doesn’t happen casually because killing a story can conjure all manner of mad, unethical, unsavory things. In 37 years in the business, I cannot remember a single time I have ever killed a story. Delayed publication? Yes. Sent it back for more reporting? Yes. Told reporters and editors to take it back to the drawing board and start over? Yes. Decided not to report and write it in the first place? Yes. Killed it? No.
Lewandowski either was burned by his source or he didn’t understand what he was hearing. Either way, what he texted was wrong. Top brass at the newspaper did not kill a story.
We did, however, decide late in the day not to cover it because we had reporters working on other stories we thought had higher priorities. Lewandowski would have known that had he called to confirm what he said his source told him. (Chuck Sweeny was there for about an hour, but since the meeting was the result of a column he’d written, it would not have been appropriate for him to cover the news meeting on it.)
He didn’t call any of us “brass” to ask about it or anyone else in the Tower either apparently. He wrote the text and sent it. And, it got forwarded a lot because it eventually ended up on my desk.
Lewandowski sent a text correction Thursday. He said he would do so. I trusted he would. And, on Friday morning, I knew that he did.
The great thing about text messages and the Web world is that we don’t have to wait for anything. It’s not called instant messaging for the heck of it.
But speed can kill, to borrow a phrase. Sending without verifying is at best dumb, at worst damaging. Once you hit send, you cannot take it back. Text messages take on lives of their own as receivers forward them on — and on and on.
We saw that at work in the Rockford mayoral campaign when a forwarded message ran close to the defamation line. And it happened again with the Lewandowski text.
Two things out of this: (1) I am not going to sit idly by and have public officials and public figures malign this newspaper, this newsroom, or our journalists. When we screw up, I’ll take the heat. When we make mistakes, we correct the errors. But, I will not be quiet when we are misrepresented; and (2) if there’s any doubt about the damage that can be done by carelessly texting without regard to the ramifications, this situation ought to clear that up.
Now, before I post this, I am going to edit it, sit on it, re-read it, and then send it.
May 4th, 2009
Vocabulary lesson 101.
Epidemic: An outbreak of something that spreads or grows suddenly (usually refers to a disease, although one could, I guess, have an epidemic of happiness.) The key word is suddenly.
Pandemic: An outbreak of something that spreads or grows over a wide area and affects an exceptionally high percentage of the population. (Again, usually refers to a disease, though we could have a pandemic of happiness). The key words are wide and high percentage.
I knew, just knew, we were in for dumb-cluck times when the television and radio talking heads discovered, tada, PANDEMIC. Scary sounding word said with ominous, breathless overtones. Darn, it sounds so much worse than epidemic.
I am pretty sure no one bothered to look it up; just figured if an epidemic were serious, then, by gosh, a PANDEMIC would be ever so much better. And, they were off to the races.
I am tired of being blamed for the scare stuff of the swine flu, or as it as been renamed to protect the pigs, H1N1. Newspapers did not, repeat, did not, turn this into a circus. For that three-ring event that resulted in a crazy quilt of closed schools, canceled vacations and nutty interviews, you can call up the television and radio stations, led by CNN and FOX.
Their little local brothers did tag along though. WREX posted an ALL CAPS, second coming Facebook post on one school closing. All caps? What will they use when the world ends?
Do we need to know about H1N1? Yes. Do our emergency responders need to be ready? Absolutely. But, do we need broadcast hysteria? Hardly. So, call them up. Stop including newspaper reporters in the “who was nuts” game.
I’m going to wash my hands. But, before I do, one last thought: This has all been a global governmental disaster drill. It’s testing emergency preparedness around the world and was agreed upon during those big economic summits of the past two months. Either that, or it’s a reality TV show and we’re all characters in the series.
Warm up ‘dem black helicopters…..
