DON'CHA LOVE LIVE TV????

Check out Big Apple NBC news anchor Sue Simmons in this on-air promo for the news. Who was she cursing at? Herself? The booth? Methinks she was talking to a snoozy Chuck Scarborough, who looked dazed at the clip's start.

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DRUDGE: THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL JOURNALIST

Wonder what Papa H would've thought of this interesting little article which came from The Telegraph in London. Whether you love him or hate him, Matt Drudge is the preeminent force of online news, reporting and posting and quite frankly, a trailblazer.

Matt Drudge: world's most powerful journalist

By Toby Harnden in Washington

Ten years ago, he was a reclusive, pasty-faced 31-year-old who, bashing away on his laptop in his grungy Hollywood apartment, shot to prominence when he threatened to bring down Bill Clinton's presidency by breaking news of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Now, Matt Drudge owns a luxurious Mediterranean-style stucco house on Rivo Alto Island in Florida's Biscayne Bay, a condominium at the Four Seasons in Miami and is said to drive a black Mustang. He remains an elusive, mysterious figure but the internet pioneer is arguably the single most powerful journalist – though his detractors even deny that is his occupation - in the world.

Drudge is still an outsider, contemptuous of the cosy relationships and closed-door deals that keep the ordinary person from being privy to the secrets of the Establishment. He is the reason why people across the globe are now reading about Prince Harry serving in Afghanistan after he shattered a blackout agreed between Fleet Street and Buckingham Palace.

This week, he posted a photograph of Barack Obama dressed in the tribal garb of a Somali elder during a 2006 trip to Africa, claiming it had been emailed by a member of Hillary Clinton's campaign. It appeared to be a brazen attempt to fuel rumours that her rival was a dangerous Muslim.

Within minutes, the photograph was the talk of Washington news rooms and New York television studios. BlackBerry messages flew back and forth between reporters and political operatives. The story spread across the worldwide web as bloggers weighed in on a juicy item that was suddenly topping the news agenda.

To read the rest of the story, click HERE.

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CAFFERTY HAS HAD IT

There are some real newscasters left out there.

Check out news vet Jack Cafferty on CNN when the network writers try to get him to update the Lindsay Lohan arrest story.

Bravo, Jack, bravo ...

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DOWNFALL OF DIGG IS FORTHCOMING

* Thanks to http://home.actlab.utexas.edu/~lveale/ctest%20dummy.jpg for the above pic

Hemingway's Lounge came across this awesome blog post that needs to be read by people who use DIGG.

For those not-in-the-know, Digg is a community-based popularity site that combines social bookmarking, blogging, and syndication with a form of non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control.

If you believe that, I got some swampland in Nevada for you.

News stories and websites are submitted by users, and then promoted to the front page through a user-based ranking system. Boxing commissions and rankings are more legit than Digg.

Of late, the site has come under major fire with many bloggers finding their accounts cancelled for no reason other than "misuse."

It's been said and reported on Wikipedia that the top 100 Digg users control more than half of Digg's frontpage content, and that a niche group of just twenty individuals submit 25% of the frontpage content.

In the REAL news game, where the big dogs bark, more than one writer can cover topics. That's the way it is. It's called competition. The censorship going on at Digg, quite frankly, is pathetic. Digg users are burying stories that have nothing to do with "spam." To them, they're burying their competition and, as a result, decent bloggers are banned from posting stories.

In any case, read this awesome blog post below that sees Digg's demise as imminent.

The Downfall of Digg is Forthcoming and Here is Why

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HOPE PAPA H. AIN'T ROLLING OVER ...

Being that Papa H. spent some time as a reporter (for The Toronto Star and Kansas City Star), we feel he'd think this to be priceless. And it is. Read on ...

The online community magazine PasadenaNow.com, recently made headlines when they decided to do something a tad different in the modern news game.

In these days of stringent belt tightening, the bottom-liners are starting to rear their ugly heads in newsrooms throughout the nation. That said, the editor and publisher of Pasadena Now, recently announced that he hired two reporters to cover Pasadena city government — from Mumbai and Bangalore, India.

You read correctly. India.

Starting Tuesday, the dynamic duo will begin sloshing out about 30 Pasadena-centric pieces a week between them. Halfway across the globe.

In exchange, one reporter will make $12,000 a year, the other $7,200, for covering budget battles and zoning meetings in a city of 146,000 best known for the Rose Bowl and Caltech.

Hiring foreign correspondents in reverse makes good sense to head honcho, editor and publisher James Macpherson, 51, a longtime Pasadena resident.

The fledgling two-year old site garners roughly 45,000 visitors a month, but has yet to return turn a profit. Until now, any news coverage consisted mainly of rewritten press releases. He wants to change that.

To his credit, there's a wealth of material available online - city council meetings are webcast and most municipal documents are posted. Truthfully, anyone can write those stories, given they have enough skill and computer expertise.

But is it journalistically ethical? Or bottom-line saavy?

Just how did Macpherson snag his offshoring Clark Kents? They responded to his ad on Indian versions of craigslist.org.

As a result, a male staffer in Mumbai gets to cover city politics over the Internet, while a woman in Bangalore will write features about business and government based on interviews done by staffers in Pasadena, which will be transcribed (in India) and e-mailed to the reporter.

The visionary newsman told MSNBC and Newsweek that the news has already netted him angry e-mails, mostly from journalists. No shock there.

Outsourcing news gathering to a foreighn land. Kinda gives new meaning to the term telecommute, huh?

What's the country coming to? We think most members of the Greatest Generation may be shaking their heads right about now.

I know Papa Hemingway is.
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Take a look at an excellent special report on Indian outsourcing done by ABC News.

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FOURTH ESTATE SUFFERS YET AGAIN

Since Papa H spent much of his time dabbling in The Fourth Estate, the lounge figures we'd drop the goods on the current state of circulation for the nation's top daily newspapers.

The prognosis isn't good. People have to realize that once a newspaper folds, the news gathering folds along with it.

Granted, while most of the country may get their news online, via phone, TV or whatever, way more than half of the actual gathering of news is garnered by newspapers themselves.

Help them out. Buy a paper. Read the paper. Subscribe to a paper.

___________________________________

Average Weekday Circulation at the Top 20 U.S. Newspapers, for the six-month period ending in March, as reported Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The percentage changes are from the comparable year-ago period.

Circulation at the Top 20 Newspapers

1. USA Today, 2,278,022, up 0.2 percent
2. The Wall Street Journal, 2,062,312, up 0.6 percent
3. The New York Times, 1,120,420, down 1.9 percent
4. Los Angeles Times, 815,723, down 4.2 percent
5. New York Post, 724,748, up 7.6 percent
6. New York Daily News, 718,174, up 1.4 percent
7. The Washington Post, 699,130, down 3.5 percent
8. Chicago Tribune, 566,827, down 2.1 percent
9. Houston Chronicle, 503,114, down 2 percent
10. The Arizona Republic, 433,731, down 1.1 percent
11. Dallas Morning News, 411,919, down 14.3 percent
12. Newsday, Long Island, 398,231, down 6.9 percent
13. San Francisco Chronicle, 386,564, down 2.9 percent
14. The Boston Globe, 382,503, down 3.7 percent
15. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., 372,629, down 6.1 percent
16. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 357,399, down 2.1 percent
17. The Philadelphia Inquirer, 352,593, up 0.6 percent
18. Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, 345,252, down 4.9 percent
19. The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, 344,704, up 0.5 percent
20. Detroit Free Press, 329,989, down 4.7 percent

The Dallas Morning News is reporting for the first time since being censured in 2004 for misstating circulation figures. The Chicago Sun-Times has not yet resumed reporting.

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations

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