Is the Washington Post about to spoil the NY Times’ big payday?

Last week Washington Post CEO Donald Graham, addressing a financial analysts conference in New York, said the Post has no current intentions of erecting a paywall to charge for his newspaper’s online content, making it one of the few papers not planning to do so. This comment was only lightly reported in the media, but it is earth shattering in the newspaper industry and especially for the NY Times which had announced it would begin charging for content in 2011.

For the past three years, newspapers have struggled with declining advertising and circulation with ad sales down on the order of 10 to 25% each year. Losses like this render their business model unsustainable. They have rued the day they decided to give away their internet content for free, and yearned to put Humpty Dumpty back together with a fee based system. But it’s not that easy. Should any direct competitor continue to provide free content, the one charging is committing suicide.

In December 2008, shortly after the election, Stanford journalism professor Joel Brinkley got the ball rolling by penning this gem:

Now, here's my idea: The newspaper industry should ask the Justice Department for an antitrust exemption that would allow publishers to collaborate on a decision to begin charging for their Web sites. No paper would have to charge, and each paper could determine its own price. But if most papers in a region - San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, for example - began charging for Web access at more or less the same time, many readers would likely subscribe.

An unsympathetic Tim Burden on his journalism blog Printed Matters comments on Brinkley’s proposal and puts it more succinctly (emphasis added):

Brinkley implicitly understands that unless all news sources start charging at the same time, everyone will just go to the free sources, killing the paid ones quick-fast. So he proposes a government-sanctioned cartel.

It didn’t take the administration long embrace the concept. In mid-March 2009 Attorney General Eric Holder told Reuters he was willing to consider loosening antitrust enforcement of the newspaper industry. While couched in terms of production and distribution cooperation between newspapers, those familiar with the industry know these are back burner items. The only issue that counts is getting unanimity on the online paid content issue. But coordinating between competitors is an anti-trust violation that can land publishers in jail. Did newspaper publishers take Holder up on his pass? It appears so.

In late May 2009, Atlantic.com’s James Warren broke the story that the NY Times and major newspaper chains were attending a secretive and unannounced meeting, entitled: Shhhh. Newspaper Publishers Are Quietly Holding a Very, Very Important Conclave Today. Will You Soon Be Paying for Online Content?

He goes on: Here's a story the newspaper industry's upper echelon apparently kept from its anxious newsrooms: A discreet Thursday meeting in Chicago about their future."Models to Monetize Content" is the subject of a gathering at a hotel which is actually located in drab and sterile suburban Rosemont, Illinois; slabs of concrete, exhibition halls and mostly chain restaurants, whose prime reason for being is O'Hare International Airport. It's perfect for quickie, in-and-out conclaves.There's no mention on its website but the Newspaper Association of America, the industry trade group, has assembled top executives of the New York Times, Gannett, E. W. Scripps, Advance Publications, McClatchy, Hearst Newspapers, MediaNews Group, the Associated Press, Philadelphia Media Holdings, Lee Enterprises and Freedom Communication Inc., among more than two dozen in all. A longtime industry chum, consultant Barbara Cohen, "will facilitate the meeting."One hopes it displays the same sense of purpose as, say, troubled world leaders did at Yalta in 1945 or, in a rather less respectable sector of the economy, beleaguered mob bosses did at a legendary Apalachin, New York, confab in 1957. Read it all. It will curl your hair.

Enter the Washington Post, which, it appears, was not a participant in the Chicago meeting. It has pretty much avoided the paywall issue in the past other than to say it has no plans for paid online content, similar to last week’s statement. It has become the spoiler, especially for the Times. Both have significant national and international coverage and following. If the Times goes the pay route and the Post doesn’t, online Times readers will gravitate to the Post, jeopardizing the Times’ reputation as the “newspaper of record.”

With the Post a holdout, something concerns me. It is the possiblity the administration is pressuring the Post to conform. The Post owns a substantial interest in Kaplan, a for-profit college operation. It is a highly profitable enterprise that contributes heavily to the Washington Post Co’s bottom line. Since this summer Kaplan and other for-profit colleges have been viciously attacked the in same way as the health insurance companies and bankers. And in at least one case it has led to a downgrading of Post stock. Coincidence? Maybe.

My guess is the Post is not being an opportunist. I think it has more to do with the legal aspects. While Holder may signal an easing of anti-trust enforcement, the law is the law. Another administration might not be so tolerant, and two years is not that far away. And there still remains the potential for civil suits that Justice can’t control.

Note: The last two paragraphs have been edited (12/15/2010 3:00pm).

Unusually good video of Restore Honor rally … from the Washington Post

I was pleasantly surprised by one aspect of yesterday’s Restore Honor rally on the Mall. It came from a surprising source, the Washington Post. It is Anna Uhls superb video coverage of the event. She covers it from the perspective of David Meister, a 40 something father and his 12 year old son Adam who took a ten hour “red eye” bus from New Richmond, Ohio to participate.

David expresses his concern that President Obama is taking us down the wrong path and to turn things around he would have to change his policies 180 degrees. He adds that as America’s first African American President, he has the opportunity to become one of the greatest. But thinks he won’t and will be a one term president.

The video is interspersed with clips of the rally and speeches of the event’s organizer, Glen Beck, and from Sarah Palin. It finishes with bagpipe strains of Amazing Grace which will bring tears to your eyes. The Post’s treatment here is in stark contrast to the scant coverage of last September’s Tea Party rally in Washington. There is no snarkiness and no mention of Al Sharpton’s counter rally. It simply treats the sincerity of David Meister and his son with the dignity it deserves.

Two thumbs up for Anna Uhls.

Nature abhors a vacuum … that’s what we are getting from the media on ClimateGate

After its miserable failure to cover the O’Keefe/Giles expose of ACORN, the MSM is striving for a repeat performance in ClimateGate with near silence. This is a story of “hacked” emails from the Hadley Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in the UK that were made public about 12 days ago. It is a story of the top climate research scientists cooking the data, queering the peer review process and encouraging each other to destroy data covered by two nations’ Freedom of Information Acts.

Coverage by the nation’s two “leading” newspapers has been underwhelming. A total of three print articles have been written in the NY Times and Washington Post. All three ignore or minimize the underlying corruption of the scientific method, find the most significant aspect is that CRU scientists are antagonistic to skeptics, and reach the same conclusion (in strikingly similar wording - note bold text) that it’s no big deal.

From the Times (11/21):

“This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents. Some of the correspondence portrays the scientists as feeling under siege by the skeptics’ camp and worried that any stray comment or data glitch could be turned against them. The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument.

 First article from the Post (11/22): While few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world's climate -- nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal -- public debate persists. And the newly disclosed private exchanges among climate scientists at Britain's Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies. The second Post article (11/25) reaches a similar conclusion as the Times. "This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud," proclaimed one skeptic. Not quite. Assuming the documents are genuine -- the authenticity of all has not been confirmed -- critics are taking them out of context and misinterpreting at least one controversial e-mail exchange. None of it seriously undercuts the scientific consensus on climate change. But a few of the documents are damaging for other reasons.

 Fortunately we have the internet, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and several UK newspapers that aren’t part of the journalistic omerta (code of silence) to cover this scandal. In particular the internet has been the conduit to the scientific community for the technical aspects of the emails. The MSM isn’t really needed here. They have dissected the data and the statistical code used in the temperature calculations and many are appalled. And some very prominent names are calling for blood.

Green activist and renowned columnist for the leftist Guardian, George Monbiot, has called for the resignation of Phil Jones, Director of CRU. Eduardo Zorita of Germany’s climate research center, GKSS, has said Michael Mann (of now discredited hockey stick fame) and Phil Jones should be barred from further participation with the UN’s IPCC “because the scientific assessments in which they may take part are not credible anymore.”

The University of East Anglia (home of the CRU) has announced it will now release all source data into the public domain. And Penn State University has said it will investigate the writings of Michael Mann in light of new information revealed in the recent emails. No doubt there will be new revelations and accusations. Remember all of this has happened without the assistance of the US media, save Murdoch’s group which is not part of omerta.

Fortunately we have Canadian Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit (damned in many of Phil Jones emails) and Anthony Watt of Watts Up With That keeping us informed. So heavy was traffic on Steve’s website after the release of the emails, it melted down. He now has an alternative site (use it) which can handle the load.

Watt’s site has been setting records, doubling its viewership from earlier in the month. Both are good reads. Steve’s are heavy on the statistical side and often Anthony will translate Steve’s Geek into English for less informed (such as me) on his website. Both are good friends of each other and work well together.

Anthony’s cause, outside of reporting on climate change, is attempting to document some of the absurdly biased siting of US weather stations. Some are on blacktopped building rooftops, some subject to jetwash at airports, and some are near hot exhausts of a/c compressors. He is leading a citizens’ effort to photograph and note discrepancies from proper siting standards.

The best wrap up of ClimateGate so far ran in the Telegraph (UK) today. Read it. It will open your eyes. Again the old media has stepped in it. By ignoring the story they hope it won’t “get legs” and damage the warmists’ agenda at the upcoming Copenhagen climate conference, December 7. They will fail in that as they have failed in so many others. They seek to marginalize conservative thought, but they only marginalize themselves. Their circulation numbers are tanking. Climate Audit and Watts Up With That are setting record highs.

Update: The Times of London is now reporting much of the underlying raw data to determine the actual measured temperatures for the past 150 years was destroyed in the 1980s. There is no way to verify this data other than Phil Jones' word. The whole global warming scenario simply can't be verified.

What happens when utopians fail? … Their best friends turn on them, and that is good.

I was struck by the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson opinion piece today entitled The Biggest Disappointment of the Obama Presidency. In it he berates Obama for giving short shrift to New Orleans when he visited Thursday. Of all the Post’s writers, Robinson has been the most supportive of Obama, seldom finding fault, but this time he skewers him.

President Obama's brief display of drive-by compassion Thursday in New Orleans was, for me, by far the worst outing of his presidency thus far -- and the biggest disappointment. 

I covered Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath -- the flood in New Orleans that drowned a great city, the storm surge in Mississippi that erased whole communities, the devastation, the agony. For weeks afterwards, I had trouble sleeping. I couldn't forget the scenes I'd witnessed or the stories I'd heard. 

More than a year later, I covered a Senate subcommittee hearing in New Orleans on the lagging reconstruction effort. I watched as a young senator who was thought to be considering a presidential run -- that would be Barack Obama -- used his Harvard Law skills to eviscerate Bush-era officials for not doing enough to rebuild and revive the Gulf Coast region. 

So it was strange and disheartening that Obama would wait nine months to make his first visit to New Orleans as president. It was stunning that he would spend only a few hours on the ground and that he wouldn't set foot in Mississippi or Alabama at all. But worst of all was the way he seemed to dismiss the idea that his administration could and should be doing much more.

The problem with utopian leaders or those carrying utopian messages is, once in power, they can never deliver on their promises. When that happens, they are subject to challenge or even ridicule. Holding on to power becomes more important than delivering utopia. So they attempt to silence critics who threaten them. The next phase is assuming total power and controlling all decisions from the top. With the best of intentions, all utopian states or sects devolve into failed enterprises. It has happened in Cuba with the Castros. It happened in the Soviet Union. It happened with Jim Jones’ People’s Temple (Jonestown) and in the innumerable utopian movements of the Burned-over District of New York in the 1800s.

The most important check to keep this from happening is a free and critical press. It is important that Fox and talk radio not lose their voice. But most important is the compliant old media must assume a more active role in critiquing government. Eugene Robinson’s article is an excellent start.

Democrats’ Attack on CIA … Now Total Retreat by Pelosi’s Forces

Two weeks ago Democrats were in full attack mode, intending to prosecute any and all who “tortured” enemy combatants. Thanks to the backbone of some former senior CIA folks and I might add, the Washington Post, there has been an abject reversal, culminating in a letter from the House Intelligence Committee to all CIA personnel.

Here's the story. Recently the CIA has come under assault recently like no other time. The first insult was the appointment as Director of Leon Panetta, a political hack with no previous intelligence experience. The agency soon became a punching bag, in an orgy of Bush bashing from the White House to Nancy Pelosi’s office. The reaction from Langley was swift. Three former CIA Directors openly criticized the release of documents outlining details of the interrogation techniques. In a blistering one-two attack, the Washington Post carried op-eds against Democrat critics written by former CIA case officer, House Intelligence Committee Chairman and CIA Director Porter Goss and Michael Scheuer, a longtime CIA operative and a Bush critic, now retired.

First was Goss on Saturday, April 25 in which he describes the selective amnesia of Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what those techniques were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers. Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

The following day Scheuer writes about the damage the politically motivated revelations are causing inside the agency and the short sightedness of eliminating tradecraft tools that one day might save the country. He points his finger directly at President Obama:

Americans should be clear on what Obama has done. In a breathtaking display of self-righteousness and intellectual arrogance, the president told Americans that his personal beliefs are more important than protecting their country, their homes and their families. Americans and their country's security will be the losers. The Republicans do not have the votes to stop Obama, and the world will not be safer for America because the president abandons interrogations to please his party's left wing and the European pacifists it so admires. Both are incorrigibly anti-American, oppose the use of force in America's defense and -- like Obama -- naively believe that the West's Islamist foes can be sweet-talked into a future alive with the sound of kumbaya.

Joe Babbin writing in Human Events (Friday May 1), reports that the agency’s anger over its demonization, and the attendant morale sapping, was reaching top level Democrats who demanded Pelosi and others call off the dogs. He reveals two secretive meetings Nancy Pelosi conducted to bail herself out. It culminated in an unprecedented letter to all CIA personnel from Congressman Silvestre Reyes, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

The first meeting, on Tuesday (April 28) evening, was attended by Pelosi, Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Tx) and others. The following night, (April 29) Pelosi and some or all of the other attendees met with CIA Director Leon Panetta, also behind closed doors. No Republicans were invited to either meeting which means the Democrats were assessing the damage and deciding how to maneuver their way out from under the responsibility for it. Spin and strategy. Later Wednesday evening, Reyes sent an unprecedented letter to CIA director Panetta making a sort of apology to the CIA. Reyes’ cover letter asks Panetta to “…disseminate it to the CIA workforce as soon as possible.” The letter to CIA employees is a very odd mixture of praise for the CIA and CYA for Reyes.

Here is the letter written by Reyes, at the behest of his boss Pelosi, to CIA personnel. It’s a total retreat from the threats of exposure and prosecution the week before. It’s as close to an apology as Democrats can make. Unfortunately the damage has been done and can’t be undone.

April 29, 2009 Central Intelligence Agency Washington, DC 20505 Dear Friends and Colleagues: In recent days, as the public debate regarding CIA’s interrogation practices has raged, you have been very much in my thoughts. I write to let you know, without sound-bites or political calculus, my view on this debate and to remind you of my deep gratitude for the work you do each day. First and foremost, I wholeheartedly support the President’s decision that no CIA officer or contractor will be prosecuted for authorized actions they took in the context of interrogations.

I may disagree with some of what the Agency was asked to do, but I understand that my disagreement lies with the policies, not with the officers executing those policies far from Washington. As the President said, this is a time for reflection, not retribution, and I do not want to see anyone punished for doing his or her job.

At the same time, I think we should take seriously the President’s call for reflection. The public rarely learns of CIA operations, with good reason. In this case, though, the public disclosure of interrogation operations and the OLC opinions underlying them gives us an opportunity to engage in a public discourse about what policy is best going forward. I think that discourse can be a healthy thing for the country and for CIA. One important lesson to me from the s interrogation operations involves congressional oversight.

I’m going to examine closely ways in which we can change the law to make our own oversight of CIA more meaningful; I want to move from mere notification to real discussion. Good oversight can lead to a partnership, and that’s what I am looking to bring about. I recognize, of course, that there will always be inherent tensions between the branches of government; the Framers intended it that way.

But,I also believe that there are positive changes we can make to the way we do business, and I will be working toward those changes in the coming months. Finally, I want to say again what I have said to many of you in my travels throughout the world: thank you. I know that your work is difficult and often dangerous, and takes you away from your families, your country, and the comforts of home. I am grateful for your sacrifices, and I am mindful of them daily. 

Respectfully Sylvestre Reyes Chairman

Soon, probably very soon, this county will face a major crisis. An unstable Pakistan will face the threat of a takeover by the Taliban. Pakistan’s President Zardari and Afghanistan’s Karzai are meeting today in Washington to address the imminent danger. Pakistan’s 60 or so nuclear weapons are at risk. We have no troops in Pakistan, nor will we. The CIA will have to play a key role and it will have to act decisively.