How to save newspapers

The premiere of Greg In Hollywood

Of all the thousands of journalists to lose their jobs lately, few can be luckier than our friend Greg Hernandez. Offering to help -- and meaning it! -- was an incredible posse of talented friends: one of the world's leading Internet search experts, a brilliant web designer, an expert web engineer and a marketing guru.

The result: A week after losing his job at the Los Angeles Daily News, Greg today launched his new venture, Greg In Hollywood, a site that has the feel of an instant winner.

Greg and Michelle are close friends so I'll let her tell more about his story and their common friends who helped launch GIH, but the site's only been up a few hours and I wanted to post a quick shout-out.

Good luck, Greg. I'm sure you'll rock in the new gig. I wish you equal measures of success and fun.

Coolerversary

What with our job hunts, health concerns, ennui about the dying newspaper business and the stolen attention of Michelle's new journo-training blog, Print to Online, it's been awhile since we've given more than a passing glance at M&M. Both of our readers have pointed this out. It's too bad too, since there is actually stuff to talk about here sometimes. I vow to be a more regular visitor to this site.

For now though, I just want to send a quick shout out to my friend Jason Bellamy over at The Cooler, my favorite film site, which this week celebrated its one-year anniversary.

In his birthday post the other day Jason gave me a smidge of credit for encouraging him to launch The Cooler. That's nice of him, but having read his ink-on-paper film criticism I thought Jason and blogging were a no-brainer combo. As I said in a comment over there I'm not surprised he has turned out to be such a good blogger, but really The Cooler is better than I thought it would be. In addition to regularly and insightfully reviewing new releases -- check out his takes on "Revolutionary Road" and "The Wrestler," two recent 4-glioma flicks on my scale -- Jason has found interesting ways to develop and engage an audience. He discusses filmmaking with other critics, invites readers to debate and help solve mysteries like "Where's Chigurgh?" and, during down periods at the multiplex, recommends DVD rentals in an ongoing feature called "Queue it Up."

All great stuff. Along with The Night Note -- updated almost as sparingly these days as M&M -- it's one of the few personal blogs on my must-read list.

If you haven't already, I encourage you to check it out. Congratulations, Cooler!

Belated happy inauguration day

In honor of Obama's inauguration the other day I went to Obamicon.me and made these images in the style of candidate Barack's famous "Hope" poster.

Apparently a lot of people have had the same idea. I keep seeing Facebook friends who have changed their personal photos to Obamicons, and an email from the Obamicon site tells me it's catching on:

"We knew we had a fun idea when it hit us, but we had no idea we'd get this kind of response. In less than two weeks, we've had millions of page views and nearly 200,000 Obamicons have been created--and activity grows by the hour."

I enjoyed watching part of the ceremonies and parade at Mich's house, over a cup of coffee and a turkey sandwich, and Michelle and I watched the Tivo'd Obama speech at home later Tuesday night. Very good, I thought: just the right stern, serious tone to lay out the problems and yet with a believable sense of can-do optimism. (Aretha, sadly, was not as awesome as her hat.)

A bunch of friends went to Washington for the inauguration. My friend Jason, who lives there, spent the day on the Mall and posted some great photos over at his site, The Cooler. Check them out.

Did you watch the ceremonies? Your thoughts? Also, if you have your own Obama-style photo, please send it along; we'll post an M&M-icon gallery.

Best movies, A to Z

In another nod to The Cooler (and because I feel guilty about not participating in the awesome Politics & Movies Blogathon), I recommend checking out Jason's latest meme, a list of favorite movies, by letters of the alphabet.

It's tougher than it sounds. Forces some difficult choices.

Here are mine. Feel free to add yours here or over at The Cooler. Or both.

Annie Hall
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
Chinatown
The Deer Hunter
Easy Rider
Fargo
The Godfather
Heat
It's a Wonderful Life
Jaws
The King of Comedy
Lawrence of Arabia
Magnolia
North by Northwest
On the Waterfront
Pulp Fiction
Quiz Show
Raging Bull
Singin' in the Rain
Taxi Driver
Unforgiven
Vertigo
The Wizard of Oz
X, Malcolm (a cheat, I know, but I'm thinking of the poster)
Y Y tu Mama Tambien
Zodiac

And a bonus, beginning with a number:
2001: A Space Odyssey

Politics & Movies Blogathon

Over at The Cooler, my favorite film site, Jason and Co. are five days into an awesome six-day blogathon on the subject of politics and movies.

Jason conceived this as a post-election release, to fill the empty space he imagined in all our lives with the end of nonstop campaign commercials and cable-news punditry. Instead, Cooler readers could write about movies and politics, quenching the election jones and hitting the blog's target topic all at one time.

He came up with the idea a month ago, and I've been remiss in not promoting it here earlier. With only a day-plus now left in the blogathon it's getting late, but there's still time to participate. The rules are pretty simple and inviting. The subject of your post doesn't have to be a political movie, such as Robert Redford's "The Candidate," pictured above, but it can be. Or it can be about any other film subject that tangentially touches politics. So far, in addition to explicitly political movies including "JFK," "Nixon" and "W.," there are nice essays on assassination films, Godard, movie posters and much more.

As Jason says in his original blogathon announcement, "The parameters are these: Your post must deal with politics and movies. Simple as that."

He has details there about how to participate. I've been meaning to write something for the blogathon myself but haven't gotten around to it. I hope you'll join the fray, or at least check it out. There's some good reading and fun conversations going on over there.

Blog on!

First ladies (and other first residents)

With a new First Family headed for the White House it's important to put the moment in context.

Take Michelle Obama's election-night dress. A forum on its stylishness or suckishness was the most read item at the Seattle P-I for a day-plus. But how did all those other first ladies look? Fortunately here comes Us Magazine with a "First Ladies Through the Years" photo gallery, including President William Henry Harrison's wife Anna, above.

And what kind of puppy will those Obama girls get? NPR noted today that dogs have been regular White House residents, and it's got its own photo spread to prove it: "Presidential Dogs through History." Here are the Kennedys and their brood, two- and four-legged.


So now a dog, two kids and a stylish (or not) first lady, how will the Obamas get around? The LA Times comes through with photos of all the First Rides -- "Presidential cars then and now." Here's Warren Harding, the first president who knew how to drive before he entered office, and his Packard Twin Six.

Congrats, WSB!

Looks like Tracy Record of the awesome West Seattle Blog is about to be named one of Seattle's 25 most influential people.

Well deserved.

'You could literally register to vote ...

... while pooping.'

Another M&M milestone

Don't look now, but we've jumped into the top 1 million blogs as tracked by Technorati. Number 966,270, to be exact. Now, 1 million isn't all that impressive, you may say. But it took a long time to get here. And it's not bad considering we have only the same seven readers coming back to visit.

I think what may have put us into the six figures was this recent link from WordCount/by Michelle Vranizan Rafter, a blog about freelance writing. She included M&M in a post about using an avatar or illustration to promote yourself. As Rafter says,

Michele Nicolosi, assistant managing editor at Seattle PI.com maintains a personal Website called M&M for herself and her S.O. Mark. The Simpsons-esque characters totally works because Michele really looks like that!

Leaving aside the spelling thing and the fact that we don't use M&M to promote ourselves as freelancers ... True that. She really does!

What genius created that picture anyway?

Poker hall of mirrors

As Michelle's cool Google news reader pointed out this morning, Stuart "Pay The" Pfeifer's excellent poker story -- and, even cooler, M&M's backstory version of it -- were picked up on a site called Fishbowl LA, by editor Mayrav Saar, whom Michelle worked with back in the day in OC.

Mayrav mentions yesterday's post, and then does a quickie Q&A with Stu, in which he confirms (whew) that I did in fact introduce him to casino gambling. My favorite question: "Do you curse his name for having introduced you to this?"

It's all kind of fun. At one point Stuart says of me, "So I really owe all this to him." Cool, so where's my cut, sucker.

I had lunch with Mich yesterday. Her two-word review of the entire post: "He's cute."

'I am a newspaperman'

"For some unexplainable reason, I am compelled to say that tonight."

That's how Steve Smith, my old Eugene reporting colleague and now editor of the Spokane Spokesman-Review, opened his elegiac blog post last night on the passing of the newspaper business as he and I once knew it. Some might find Steve's essay overly nostalgic or even treacly, but it struck me for its naked pining and undercurrent of frustration. I feel his pain. As Michelle and I talk about all the time around here -- too much, maybe -- how the hell do you rescue this stupid business?

Should Seattle-size papers turn into a collection of hyperlocal West Seattle Blogs? Can the LA Times be the LA Times without the half of its newsroom it has lopped off since I worked there? Do you really need a newspaper film critic when you've got The Cooler?

I found Steve's post while checking back to reread something I'd spotted on his "News is a Conversation" blog earlier this week, a report by the Spokesman-Review's "Task force for content evaluation," appointed by Steve. The report, available here, isn't particularly groundbreaking and I don't agree with all the conclusions -- "Have a dedicated Web re-write person" seems upside-down to me, for example -- but I like the discussion of priorities. It's a start, and something every newsroom should be doing if it hasn't already.

It's easy to get lost in all the industry's hand-wringing. Michelle's recent Google Reader pick, "Newspaper Stories We Tell Ourselves," by Ken Doctor, is a nice tour through the head-in-the-sand thinking that helped get us here. But it doesn't reach any brighter conclusions than Steve Smith's anxious newsroom committee.

Interestingly, while his "content evaluation" crew may have inadvertently spurred Steve's lament for old-time "newspapermen," his own paper is among those smartly bridging the new and old eras. The Spokesman-Review is a leader in newsroom transparency, for example, beginning with Steve's blog and including a daily look inside the paper's news meetings and other decisions. And it's still rockin' the house with some old-school shoeleather stuff like this week's investigative report naming the 10,000 people who bought counterfeit high school and college degrees from a Spokane diploma mill.

As a fellow dodo -- Steve's metaphor -- I read that and felt like I'm "still a newspaperman" too. Even if I'm really not one anymore.

Battle of the tech whores

Wham. I can't believe Kaye just rushed right out and bought an iPhone without any warm-up angst or anything, and then announced it with such a cool post on the newly resuscitated NiteNote.

Like she says in a comment on her own post, I'll have more to say about my iPhone "when I can tear myself way from it long enough to form a thought other than - ooooooooo or aaaahhhhhh or wowee!"

The attraction of stuff

One thing Michelle and I share is a geeky fascination with cool gadgets. We don't spend a lot of money on nice furniture or fashionable clothes, but dangle a new computer or the latest tech wizardry and we're both likely to feel a burning sensation in our pockets. Michelle refers to the Best Buy circular in the Sunday paper as "the porno."

And so, despite our better judgment, we both find ourselves pulled with Newtonian force toward the new iPhone 3G. You've seen the ads and heard the hype, I'm sure. It's a cell phone! It's an iPod! It's the Internet at your fingertips! It's a mini TV in your pocket! Your calendar, a camera, instant messaging, games, even a GPS system to tell you exactly where you are right now! (Aisle 2 of the Best Buy, no doubt.)

How can anyone resist? This is a device that would have come in quite handy on Pie in the Sky II, and we talked about it often. We're in the middle of Kansas; where's the nearest cup of coffee? What's the deal with these "Purple Heart Memorial Highway" signs everywhere? OK then, where's the largest cross in the Eastern Hemishphere?

Look it up, look it up, look it up, that's what you could do with the cool new iPhone!

Except, back at home, in rare moments of clear thinking, we've both noted the many reasons to resist. Such as, if you're not on the road, how often would you really need to look something up on your phone? Maybe to check a movie time or settle an argument, but not all the time. Also, iPhones are expensive, both to purchase and to operate over the life of the required two-year contract. We already have cell phones that work just fine, and in fact the quality of our Verizon service is excellent. The AT&T service required for the iPhone is spotty, and last time we had that carrier we couldn't get a signal at our house, which is why we switched to Verizon. If we switched to an iPhone and then had to switch again we'd have to pay twice for the privilege.

Another problem with the attraction of stuff is that you end up with more stuff. We've already got a basement full of old network routers, Tivos, computer parts, power cords and formerly cutting edge cell phones that we don't use anymore. I'm not one of those back-to-nature, live-off-the-land freaks, but even I see that piling up so much plastic and silicon is ridiculous and wasteful.

Also, I'm not sure I want the extra level of connectivity that the iPhone offers. As it is I don't want to answer my phone half the time, and I delete plenty of email without even reading it. If anything, I'd like to be less available to most of the world, not more.

And then there are questions about the iPhone device itself. It's gotten terrific reviews, but already there's some backlash out there among people disappointed with the service, or with Apple's bungled rollout, or with the relatively feeble battery life. Some iPhone fans are boasting on message boards that they're able to get through an entire day without charging the battery -- if they turn off the wireless, the GPS, the enhanced "3G" network and they don't play any music ... all the stuff that makes this thing better than a regular old cell phone.

Some are having a tough time reconciling their tech love and their tech snootery. "I just noticed today that the buzz is gone," said one poster on Gizmodo. "Almost makes the instability and constant call-dropping worth it."

I stopped by the AT&T store the other day (my car was parked right next to it) and asked about the cell coverage problem. The service has been upgraded, the guy said, and you always have 30 days to return the phone if it doesn't work, but if you're worried about it you could borrow the phone of a friend with AT&T and check it at your house.

Hmm.

Wednesday, between doctor appointments, I poked my head in at the University Village Apple Store. A line of people out the door waiting to buy from the limited supply of iPhones, with the average wait time two hours. Whenever a customer emerged from the store with that little rectangular bag in hand, the people in line would cheer. It was kind of sick.

And still, I keep surfing back to the Apple review sites to check the latest news. The porno has its pull. I can't decide.

Michelle and I are heading out to the movies this afternoon -- the new "Batman" -- and we'll probably stop at the Southcenter Apple Store. The force will be strong, I'm sure.

Somebody, quick, talk me out of it. Or, alternatively, if you happen to have AT&T, can I borrow your phone?

He has seen the future

... and it is grayer.

That's Ross Anderson, a friend and former reporting colleague, reporting on his idyllic retirement at Cape George, a little enclave just outside Port Townsend, Wash.

Ross retired from the Seattle Times a few years ago, and last year he and his wife Mary Rothschild, who was an editor at the paper, decided to give up their beautiful Seattle house and move up to the Peninsula. But Ross can't stop writing, and he has started a nice new site, RossInk, to capture his observations.

The above post describes his move to what sounds like a beautiful and welcoming little community of oldsters.

Every neighborhood has its cranks and whiners, but seniors seem to have more to be cranky about and more time to whine about it.
Still, we're a diverse group of people living diverse lives. Take our street: a retired airline pilot, a former history professor, a nurse-turned-part-time gardener, a software engineer, a retired physics professor who runs a small technology company in town, a couple of ex-schoolteachers, and Mary and me. One of my friends is a former Fulbright Scholar who's written a novel about revolutionary China. Another spent 30 years building Boeing airplanes.

He also has a mini-history lesson on the beautiful Discovery Bay, little takes on Seattle politics, the environment, the news business and more. I can tell it's going to be a regular and worthwhile stop for me.

How funny

I noticed in the Live Traffic Feed in the left sidebar that someone from Indiana came to our blog directly on the the post Hot naked chicks ...," about Rosanne Olson's new body-image book. So I checked Google: Sure enough, we're the No. 8 result for the search "hot naked chicks," behind one science fiction story and a bunch of porn.

Yay for M&M! SEO rocks!

Sorry, Mr. Indiana. But pick up a copy of Rosanne's book.

She was on "Good Morning America" today, by the way. I watched, thanks to Tivo; you'll never see me awake at 7 a.m. on a Sunday. Short, sweet segment with Rosanne and several subjects of her book. Nice plug, and everyone looked and sounded great on TV.

Yet another new FOM&M

Kaye informs us that our Long Beach friend Laurie, an occasional commenter here, has launched her own new blog too, lauriesue.com.

Her first post, "Crap-Shit," is terrific. Check her out.

Another new FOM&M

This week we've already announced one new Friend of M&M -- The Freda Blog -- and now there's another: Wish I Were Here, by Jim Thomsen.

Jim showed up in the comments yesterday, remarking first on my post about Ellen Craswell. As night news editor at the Kitsap Sun, Craswell's home paper, Jim had crossed paths with Ellen too and had a few thoughts to share.

I searched around and found his blog, which I immediately liked. I recognized Jim's name but couldn't quite place him; in fact I had to ask him in a comment thread on his site whether we knew each other. Turns out no, but he was an intern at the Seattle Times the year I started there; we may have met at an orientation or a writing workshop somewhere along the line.

Anyway, Wish I Were Here is a smart and eclectic blog about stuff going on in Jim's life, with topics that will be familiar to M&M readers: writing, music, the news biz, ethics.

And he's already shown up in several comment threads here, with good points or discussion joggers about whales, Stones, politics and more. Hey, anybody who shares my disgust for Richie Sexson is more than welcome.

Angry Journalist Part Deux

I like this guy, but I can't tell whether to feel sorry for him or not. He keeps going back and forth:

"Angry Journalist #689:


I hate the fact that when I started as a reporter for a community newspaper 15 years ago I was paid $13,000 a year, and loved my job! I was part of the life of the community, running around covering city hall, the police, schools, natural disasters and anything else that struck my interest. It was local, but people actually gave a damn about what went in “their paper.” Now, I make $77,000 as a writer/editor for an industry trade publication, and I wonder what happened to me. I sit in a corporate office all day waiting for PR flacks to set up interviews with fat-cat executives who don’t give a damn about my publication. But then I read about the big dailies laying off hundreds of workers and I think, “heh, it could be worse.”"