Bruce Blog

Eureka! There’s more Eurekaism!

08.25.06 - 1:39 pm | Bruce Brugmann |

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What happens to the news when the conglomerati corner the Bay Area newspaper market

By Bruce B. Brugmann (B3)

As you will remember from my last blog, I unveiled the term Eurekaism to replace the term Afghanistanism for the bad habit of many daily papers to cover stories in Eureka, but not the local big scandal or embarrassing stories in their hometowns. Read more »

Eureka! Here comes Eurekaism!

08.23.06 - 1:54 pm | Bruce Brugmann |

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Why is it news when Dean Singleton competes in Eureka, but not news when he works to destroy daily newspaper competition in the Bay Area?
By Bruce B. Brugmann (B3)

In my first journalism class at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln in the fall of l953, Professor Nathan Blumberg laid out the useful concept of Afghanistanism. This means, he said with gusto, that the press covers the big story in Afghanistan (obviously, times have changed) instead of covering the big local scandal in their own city (obviously, as I am reporting, times have not changed on this score). Read more »

Benefit for a journalist in jail (Josh Wolf)

08.18.06 - 2:12 pm | Bruce Brugmann |

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Benefit for a journalist in jail (Josh Wolf)

By Bruce B. Brugmann (B3)

The item below was sent out by Riley Manlapaz, the Guardian’s ace promotions manager, to our email action list for a Saturday night benefit for Josh Wolf, who was jailed on Aug. l for refusing to honor a federal grand jury subpoena for the “out-takes” of his filming of an anarchist rally against the G-8 Summit Bush Administration economic and foreign policies. Read more »

Why people get mad at the media, part 7, a letter to the editor of Business Week/McGraw Hill

08.15.06 - 10:51 am | Bruce Brugmann |

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Note to the reader:

This is a copy of a letter I emailed today to the unidentified "editor filter" at bw@businessweek.com, as instructed yesterday by Assistant Managing Editor Mary Kunz at Business Week/McGraw Hill headquarters in New York City. I copied her and Editor-in-Chief Stephen J.Adler and Executive Editors John A. Byrne and Kathy Rebello. I asked for an acknowledgment that they had received my letter and that, if there was any editing, that they show it to me in advance to help prevent further "correction" messes. Read more »

Why people get mad at the media, part 6, “Grungy” or “not grungy,” the Guardian presents some candid photos of its offices and building

08.14.06 - 11:55 am | Bruce Brugmann |

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Well, to continue this “grungy” saga, Mary Kuntz, an assistant managing editor at Business Week/McGraw Hill, called me from the splendorous McGraw Hill building in midtown Manhattan.
She was, it turned out, the designated editor and stonewaller to deal with my complaints that a cover story in the Aug. l4 edition of Business Week had made three major errors in the first three lines of the lead story. The first errors: the article referred to the "grungy offices offices of the SF Weekly," our chain competitor, when the offices were those of the Guardian. Read more »

Where are Hearst and the Chronicle? The conglomerate cometh

08.11.06 - 2:00 pm | Bruce Brugmann |

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Yet another signal on what is happening to daily newspaper competition in San Francisco and the Bay Area:

The Contra Costa Times, now a MediaNews/Singleton paper, ran some minimalist stories Friday by George Avalos on the new developments in the new conglomerate that is poised to destroy local newspaper competition, according to a Singleton filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission inWashington.

Among other things, the story disclosed that Hearst made a $299 million equity investment in MediaNews and that MediaNews had “obtained a financing package from a syndicate of lenders that e Read more »

Why people get mad at the media, part 5, up pops a real editor at BusinessWeek/McGraw Hill

08.11.06 - 2:00 pm | Bruce Brugmann |

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Following up on my reports of the BW/MGH stonewall on my modest request for a full correction to what has become an “atrocious” correction:

I got a call today (Friday) on my answering machine from Mary Kuntz, who is listed as an assistant managing editor on the BM/MGH masthead. She said that the Aug. l4th Business Week with the original errors was a double issue, every one was off this week, and so there would be no issue this week for any correction to appear. She said she was leaving the office for the weekend, but would call me on Monday. Read more »

Why people get mad at the media, part 4, will guerrilla email help?

08.10.06 - 1:35 pm | Bruce Brugmann |

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It looks to me as if there isn’t anybody from Business Week /McGraw Hill that will be graduating from the Rock Rapids College of Community Journalism (see my first blog about journalistic principles as practiced at the Lyon County Reporter in Rock Rapids, Iowa.) The Business Week folks really don’t want to deal with readers who have legitimate complaints.

As you will remember from my last post, the stonewall continues. Read more »

Why people get mad at the media, part 3, The case of “grungy offices” and “grungy journalism”

08.09.06 - 1:27 pm | Bruce Brugmann |

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Following up my attempts to my attempt to get a full correction from Business Week/McGraw Hill:

I finally got a call yesterday (Tuesday) from Jessi Hempel, one of the two authors of the front page piece on Kevin Rose. She apologized and said the error about mixing up the Guardian and the SF Weekly/VVM/New Times offices was “atrocious” and that Business Week/McGraw Hill would correct it in their next issue.

Fine, thanks, I replied, can you read me the correction? No, she said it is our ethical policy not to do that. Read more »

Help, BizWeek, Help!!! Why the public gets mad at the media, part 2

08.07.06 - 9:21 am | Bruce Brugmann |

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Below is a letter I have just emailed to the only email address I could find in the Aug. l4th Business Week of Business Week, formally asking for a correction and explanation for three factual errors the magazine made about the Guardian in the first paragraph of the lead story (note my previous blog). Follow along and see how a major communications company (McGraw-Hill) handles reader complaints about factual errors in their stories. Read more »