Category: Media

“A popular local blog” receives mention

After months of lamenting on this here web log, the citizens of Sacramento were rewarded today as the Sac Bee finally did a piece on the whereabouts of Paul Joncich and Jennifer Whitney and in doing so found time to mention the Sac Rag.

It helps that he’s had tremendous support from viewers, Joncich says. A popular local blog, sacrag.com, has served as something of a grief-support group for fans of “Paul and Jen” — their casual on-air names for each other.

Casual on-air names for each other? At any rate, it is a good piece and answers many of the questions many Sacramentans have asked since their departure.

Joncich and Whitney still wish they had been given the opportunity to say farewell to viewers on the air when they left. (Valenzuela, who left in late January, negotiated a good-bye statement into her severance agreement.) “The viewers were confused when Jennifer and I just disappeared,” Joncich says.

They sure were.

Not sure what to make of this, but …

… according to this piece in the Los Angeles Times (Bugmenot will get you in without registration), the Sacramento Bee has the most diverse sports staff of any big newspaper in the country.

The level of The Bee’s diversity wasn’t noted in the LAT piece, but the national stats showed that “94.7% of sports editors, 89.9% of columnists and 87.4% of reporters are white. The study also showed that 95% of the editors, 93% of the columnists and 90% of the reporters are male.” From the LAT:

The report, the first of its kind, was released Thursday at the Associated Press Sports Editors’ convention in Las Vegas. It was requested last year by the APSE board. [Richard] Lapchick, who compiles similar reports on professional sports leagues and the NCAA, said this was his first such report requested by the organization studied.

“We hope they’ll be looking at this as a tool by which to expand who will be hired in the future, to better represent the workforce and the athletes they are covering,” Lapchick said, noting that women make up 40% of the country’s workforce, that minorities constitute more than 37%, that black athletes dominate the NFL and NBA, and that Latinos have a strong presence in baseball and soccer.

Make an offer

Talk about your golden parachutes! Footnoted,org reveals this little gem deep in the filings on the purchase of Knight-Ridder by McClatchy (a/k/a the Best LittleBig Media Company On Q Street):

Earlier today, McClatchy & Co. (MNI) filed this amended S-4, which substantially upped the severance payments that Knight-Ridder’s (KRI) top executives will receive once the merger is completed. CEO Tony Ridder, which earlier news accounts estimated would receive $7.28 million in severance, would actually get $9.36 million in severance according to today’s filing, or nearly 10 times his annual salary of $980K last year. Other top executives also will clean up: as a group, they’ll collect nearly $30 million, with each of Knight-Ridder’s four other top executives collecting over $4 million a piece.

Haven’t been around here long, but I bet McClatchy could get the Rag folks to sell out for a fraction of the price.

High-pitched whine

I admit it: I’m an NPR junkie. Not only do I listen to KXPR to and from work, but I also download the NPR podcasts so I can listen to the stories I missed.

And yes, I donate every year.

Like any good Catholic girl (Sacred Heart, St. Francis), I am driven by nothing so much as a sense of responsibility seasoned with more than a little bit of guilt. Which is why when the begathon begins, I pay up. I don’t even ask for the free year’s subscription to Target Demographic magazine that’s offered if I pay with my platinum Amex card.

“Use it all for the station,” I say magnanimously, turning down the Capital Public Radio commute cup or umbrella as if my $120 annual toss-in were on a level with donations of the late Joan Kroc.

Of course, I’m not in Kroc’s class, but I would gladly double the pledge if only I never again had to hear Donna Apidone, usually the smooth-voiced professional, chirping like a big-haired QVC pitch girl during this week’s run of the “shortened pledge drives” that seems to go on longer than the career of Kings coach Rick Adelma — uh … well, a long time, anyway.
Continue reading “High-pitched whine”

DIY Morning Shows

I caught some of Good Day Sacramento this morning. It’s a train wreck. Not sure if that is the intent, but it’s sort of slapped together with little to no production value as if they are literally making this stuff up as they go.

For example, Nick threw it to UPN 31’s “tech” guru (I forget her name already) who was going to walk the viewers through the new “Gas Watch” section of their website which includes a map of local gas prices (a la gasbuddy.com). This was a painful process. Watching her fumble about the site trying to find an actual reported gas price (and if she did, it was 5 or more days old) was brutal. So much so that a few of us at the gym watching this on our individual treadmill monitors changed channels almost simultaneously. Then Mark S. comes on with that silly haircut to talk about the new September 11, 2001 movie, which really didn’t work. Hard to talk about something so serious while trying to blow your overgrown, highlighted bangs out of your face.

And yes, Scooter, I know, I know, there’s a method to his madness…

Channel changing

I am usually the last to know when it comes to personnel changes at local news stations. As such, I’d like to solicit the help of you, the finger on the pulse of all things Sacramento, Sac Rag reader.

What happened to Elissa Lynn over at News 10? And when did Patty Souza jump ship from KCRA to News 10? Or did Elissa Lynn even leave? I’m seeing her bio still on the News10.net site, but she is not mentioned in Patty’s shout out to her team at News 10 (“Our weather department at News10 has a talented group of people, and I can’t say enough good things about Monica, Darla, Gregg and Harry“). Not to mention her mug is noticeably absent from the team photo.

From the Q & A with Patty:

Why did you want to come to News10?
News10 caught my attention because of the way the people there are connected to the community and care about the people that live here. You hear the slogan “committed to news and connected to the community”….but it’s totally true.

Can I take that as subtle dig at KCRA? Or is it simply news lingo for “I got fired and News10 offered me a job so here I am”?
Continue reading “Channel changing”

Lowered Expectations

This whole Internet thing has really taken off over the years. So much so that it is widely considered a credible medium for communication, especially from “trusted” news sources. With that said, when did it become so acceptable to publish mistake laden and/or poorly written news stories?

Take this “story” from the Associated Press via cbs13.com.

(AP) FAIRFIELD, Calif. Fairfield police are looking robber who wore only black underwear as he held up a convenience store.

Please to explain how an author, editor, journalist, etc. can publish a story without viewing it for errors. I know I can’t publish a post on this here web log with a typo or grammatical error without hearing about it before it has even finished pinging rss feeds. Furthermore, the date on this story is “Apr 19, 2006 7:08 am US/Pacific” and it is currently Apr 19, 2006 12:48 pm US/Pacific as I type. Ugh.

Perhaps I am just annoyed because this error has distracted me from the overall hilarity of this story. And that title, come on, is rich.