Before I write about the fall of the New Britain Herald and the Bristol Press, I must fully disclose that I worked as a freelancer for the Herald in 1997, and worked full-time for its sister paper, the Register-Citizen in Torrington, CT for a year from mid-1997 to mid-1998.

 

When I left the Register, I filed a complaint for unpaid overtime with the federal Department of Labor (because the state D.O.L. promised to take three years to deal with the complaint, while the feds said they could do it in 18 months). We won the lawsuit against the Register.

 

Reporters and photographers, including me, got thousands in backpay, and this prompted a number of other overtime-recovery suits against papers owned by the parent Journal Register Company, whose policy it was to violate federal wage and hour laws.

 

That being said, the fall of the Herald and the Press are easy to understand. The JRC, like its peers, abused the First Amendment as a profit center, paying reporters practically poverty wages. Reporters used the papers for a year or less to get better jobs. Without a stable newsgathering staff, the papers could not sustain connections to the communities.

 

JRC execs were greedy, overextending debt, and buying more properties than it could manage, a direct result of the Reagan-Clinton policies of relaxing rules on media ownership.

 

By 2000, JRC had colonized a significant number of Connecticut media properties, among them the New Haven Register, the Middletown Press, Connecticut Magazine, the Litchfield County Times, the Imprint weeklies in the Farmington Valley, the Shoreline Weeklies and the previously mentioned dailies.

What to do with the closing dailies in Connecticut...

 

If Gabriel Ruiz was going to high school this year, and not five years ago, the following inspirational tale would not be possible.

 

That’s because Echoes from the Streets youth newspaper, the vehicle for Gabe’s growth, is being put on "hiatus" by Our Piece of the Pie, a Hartford anti-poverty agency, according to former Echoes youth business manager Doug Hardy.

 

In the efforts of full disclosure, I started Echoes, and Doug is a friend and colleague of more than a decade.

 

But let’s get back to Gabe, because his story is what Echoes is about.

Link...

 

Terry D'Italia, public relations officer for the Hartford Public Schools, wants us to send him story ideas for The Hartford Educator, a 16-page tabloid sponsored by Hartford Public Schools.

 

So, Terry, here goes.

 

For those not familiar with the quaint little paper - half in English, half in Spanish - it is yet another public relations vehicle from Eddie Perez's office that gives the school board chair yet another opportunity to weave his narrative on the taxpayer dime. Here is the .pdf.

 

The Spring 2007 issue (first edition of the second volume) features stories about the construction progress on Hartford Public High School, summer school, a new credit union at Bulkeley High School and parents who strengthen the school system, like Perez-supporter Sam Saylor.

 

Color photos grace the cover, and sharp black and white photos on the inside. Of course, one color image shows Mayor Eddie Perez giving the state champion girls high school basketball team from Bulkeley free tickets to the Big East Women's tournament back in March.

 

The Educator is a professionally produced, slick development tool that I can see fundraiser Kelvin Roldan carting to meetings with high level donors, in hopes that they will read the favorable stories and say, geez, Hartford has neat stuff going on, we should give them money.

 

But the stories are so tilted towards the Perez camp that anyone with half a brain would know they don't represent reality. For example, the story on HPHS construction ignores the problems that have plagued the project.

 

Or the cover feature "Summer School in the City" focuses on the mandatory kindergarten through grade three programs while neglecting mention of the fiasco about canceled programs for middle schools.

Link...

 

A regular installment in the Continuing Saga of Morning Radio in America's 28th or so largest media market - New Haven/Hartford.

 

So, in our last adventure, Chaz and AJ put a halt to my fledgling career as a progressive morning radio commentator.

 

But I didn't stop listening to PLR - I have it programmed onto button 3 in my car. 99.1 is mid-spectrum on the FM dial, not around many other listenable stations. So it has a spot on my rotation.

 

Once in while they play a good tune that still has some listenability, some life and spark left in it, otherwise, I'm comfortably numb from hearing comfortably numb. The Wall contains a dozen other great songs, like Nobody's Home: "I got a little black book with my poems in it, a bag with a suitcase and a comb, when I'm a good dog they sometimes throw me a bone."

 

Whatever, I'm done beating PLR's dead horse playlist.

 

This one August morning, Tuesday, August 19, I took off from work to head down the beach with friends, get in a good day at the beach before school started. I'm sitting a drug store parking lot waiting for a friend who ran in for something, flipping stations, and I hear Gov. M. Jodi Rell's voice.

 

Gov. Rell deigns to grace them with her presence regularly. They don't ask hard questions, and she's a morning show maven. Check out Andy Bromage's reporting in the Advocate about how Grandma Rell studiously (if anything she does can be considered studious) avoids WNPR's John Dankoski and his hour-long interview-call in format, Where We Live.

Link...

 

A regular installment in the Continuing Saga of Morning Radio in America's 28th or so largest media market - New Haven/Hartford.

 

Way back, a few months ago, before law school kicked in, before my time disappeared into text books, I hammered out a deal with Chaz and AJ, the morning crew on WPLR 99.1FM, Connecticut's so-called number one morning show.

 

Chaz and AJ granted me a pre-recorded minute every Monday morning for four weeks, to be aired at 6 a.m.

 

They set out some sacred cows, like that I couldn't go after their advertisers. PLR, a classic rock monster in Milford, is owned by Cox Communications.

 

I disagreed with limits on editorial content, and the next week, giving them credit for accepting alternate points of view, I went to work.

Week 1 - July 21
Good morning. This is Ken Krayeske with the40yearplan.com checking in with 60 seconds worth of not normally heard-on-the-radio news and views.

On Thursday last week, President-elect Al Gore challenged Americans to transition all electrical power supplies in this country away from fossil fuels and go to renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal. And he wants us to do this in the next ten years.

A debate has ensued whether or not this will be included in the Democratic party platform for the 2008 presidential election. What is odd about this is not that I called Gore the President-elect, but that the Apollo Project, the 10-year plan to energy independence, was pushed by Gore's opponent Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential election.

My notes for week one are in a notebook, and I don't have a sign off. I'm sure I did one. I'm not sure the response, because my alarm didn't wake me up. But one of my oldest friends in the world, Pete the Pole, called me up afterwards and said that I didn't sound good.

I vowed to improve. I wrote and rewrote and practiced and recited the words for week two.

Read What Happened in Weeks Two, Three and Four...

 

Chaz and AJ of WPLR proved today that they are the state's best morning radio show. They confronted a critic head on, and while they haven't won me over, they did the next best thing - they offered me four one-minute spots over the next four weeks to discuss pressing issues that they fail to cover.

 

What Luck! And now, I am trying to figure out how to use that time. I need your help to determine the best ideas for it.

 

But first, let's review how I got there, what I said and how listeners responded, and try to craft 240 seconds worth of message that resonates and potentially grows into something larger.

 

Twice since May, I've written posts critical of Chaz and AJ and their kid-gloves handling of elected officials. They've let the likes of Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain talk without answering a difficult question.

 

This morning, they gave me ten minutes of rebuttal time, after reading on the air some of my complaints about them. They found my posts on Myleftnutmeg.com and at the40yearplan.com, and they mentioned both websites prominently. Big up for MLN!

 

Then they asked me what I thought. I had a lot I wanted to say in 10 minutes, but basically, I said that the airwaves are public property, that Chaz and AJ are lucky to be doing the job they do, and that they have a responsibility to represent all points of view equally.

 

Link- and email your ideas for a minute a week on FM...

 

It appears that Chaz and AJ, Connecticut's self-proclaimed number one morning show, are open to criticism.

 

Tomorrow morning, July 16, the morning show at 99.1 FM WPLR has invited me to appear on their show for 10 minutes to talk about alternative news and views. It's not much, but hey, they're trying.

 

I'll be sure to blog about it when it's all over.

Link...

 

Have WPLR Morning Show hosts Chaz and AJ learned nothing from Scott McLellan, the former Bush/Cheney press secretary?

 

McLellan just wrote a book, undertitled at What Happened. You helped unleash the dogs of war is what happened, Scotty. When we finally prosecute the Iraq War Crimes Tribunal, McLellan will get less prison time for his mea maxima culpa.

 

After admitting to lying to the press and manipulating the media to march to the pro-war beat, McLellan in his book criticized complacent reporters for kowtowing to the Bush/Cheney putsch.

 

So what do Chaz and AJ - the all-star members of Connecticut’s number one morning radio show on WPLR 99.1 FM - do when they land the show of a lifetime, thanks to the vice-presidential ambitions of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman?

 

Chaz and AJ bowed before the masters of war Thursday morning.

 

For more than an hour, live from Lieberman’s DC office, Chaz and AJ played starstruck stenographers for the likes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, Vice President Dick Cheney, and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R).

Read the thrilling conclusion...

 

Mass media personalities have a responsibility to hold people in positions of power accountable. WPLR morning show hosts Chaz and AJ continue to land great interview subjects, yet they continue to grant deferential treatment to these public officials.

 

And the big picture - particularly on transit - flies right by. Let me say that I think Chaz and AJ have the best morning show in the state. But they still don’t meet the standards that our democracy should demand on its airwaves.

 

Consider this critique of their 50,000 watt press releases not just in the interest of deflating hot air bags, but in the interest of improving what is already good to become better.

 

For example, Tuesday morning, Chaz and AJ gave outgoing Speaker of the House Jim Amann at least 30 minutes of air time, where he answered live listener calls.

 

Compare that to the time they gave my attorney, Norman A. Pattis, last week. Not only is Norm funnier than any politician I have ever met, but he actually attempted to discuss a potential ethical lapse of a state cop who landed his fiancé by getting her phone number in exchange for not giving her a speeding ticket.

Link...

 

You can send a check to the Charter Oak chapter of the Red Cross, said the Governor to morning deejay today, urging citizens to contribute to the relief fund for the home fire that knocked 150 people out of 120 apartments in Norwich this weekend.

 

Can't somebody do something about this traffic, gasped the Congressman trapped on the Merritt Parkway to the morning jock about the price of gas and the situation on the highways.

 

Ain't nothing we can't handle, said the man pushing the broom to his friend as they stood under the grocery store awning, under the raining gray sky.

 

Of all the conversations I heard today, I like the man pushing the broom the best.

 

I was ready to pull out my hair by the time I was done listening to Chaz and AJ and Billy and Megan Dahl hang out with Governor M. Jodi Rell and Congressman Chris Murphy this morning on WPLR.

 

And that was after I missed the beginning of their conversation while channel surfing down I-91, on my way to a property law exam from Hartford to Hamden, by car, of course.

 

What little I heard, though, at first sounded like Governor Rell being extremely gracious and patient to the seventh graders at PLR's PeeWee's playhouse. As she seriously tried to tell the listening audience how to help those made homeless by the fire, Chaz and AJ made bad jokes.

Link...