all about the numbers.

Good, bad, indifferent. Some quick hits:

Read here about a newspaper bailout bill now working its way through Congress. Is Obama a fan?

San Francisco Chronicle Editor-at-large Phil Bronstein goes on HuffPo to combine two words you rarely see in the same sentence: "future" and "print" and to offer his take on the above.

Finally, the bad news: journalism jobs are disappearing at three times the rate of other jobs throughout the economy, says Editor and Publisher.

But, but, but. The audience for news isn't going away. Still need people to do the jobs. We can sit and moan or we can put the thinking caps into overdrive. I vote for door number two. Ideas? bk

blodder fog

In a somewhat refreshing, if not just a little bit cranky, twist, Slate's Jack Shafer proposes that it's time to lose the idea that newspapers are "essential for democracy". He also points out the irony in the fact that, suddenly, newspapers' impassioned champions are some of the same folks who formerly wrung their hands in despair over the industry's failings. He writes:

The insistence on coupling newspapering to democracy irritates me not just because it overstates the quality and urgency of most of the work done by newspapers but because it inflates the capacity of newspapers to make us better citizens, wiser voters, and more enlightened taxpayers. I love news on newsprint, believe me, I do. But I hate seeing newspapers reduced to a compulsory cheat sheet for democracy. All this lovey-dovey about how essential newspapers are to civic life and the political process makes me nostalgic for the days, not all that long ago, when everybody hated them.

And, somewhat related, but not really: Today's Chron has a review, by Saul Austerlitz, of a collection of pieces by the late A. J. Leibling, who wrote for The New Yorker for several decades. Austerlitz finds Liebling's "The Wayward Press" columns especially timely right now. From the review (yep, the Chron still prints them...):

Astute readers will find much to enjoy here, but it is "The Press," Liebling's collection of pieces written for the New Yorker's "Wayward Press" column between the late 1940s and early 1960s, that is of the utmost interest in this time of media uncertainty. "The Press" is a reminder, above all, that the purported Golden Age of journalism was never all that golden. Liebling bemoans the state of his profession, ridden with money-hungry publishers, newspapers providing everything except news, and journalists living in mortal fear of losing their jobs. (If any of this sounds remotely familiar, by all means stop me.) Publishers, in Liebling's estimation, are like saloon-keepers, thinking of news as "a costly and uneconomic frill, like the free lunch that saloons used to furnish to induce customers to buy beer."

Ever the master of the pungent metaphor, Liebling cunningly defines the media as an industry poised halfway between the gleaming future and the creaky past. "The American press makes me think of a gigantic, super-modern fish cannery, a hundred floors high, capitalized at eleven billion dollars, and with tens of thousands of workers standing ready at the canning machines, but relying for its raw material on an inadequate number of handline fishermen in leaky rowboats."

Today, the fish cannery has been repossessed, and the machines are every bit as leaky as the rowboats, but the fundamental principle remains the same. Newspapers - the media - are our first resource, and our last line of defense.

"A large number of competing newspapers," Liebling observes, "permitting representation of various shades of thought, are a country's best defense against being stampeded into barbarism." Having only recently returned from covering the North African front, where American soldiers fought Nazis, Liebling did not use the term "barbarism" lightly.

three quick hits...

Again with the three dot bloggery...

But all good stuff, tho only connected by a slim thread. Anyhow...

Go here for a good laugh, re making a career out of the newspaper deathwatch, from Paul Dalling, who writes on Huff Po that he has decided to become a "Death of Newspapers" blogger:

I'll join the ranks of Jeff Jarvis, Paul Gillin, Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky in competing to see who can use the most jargon to describe something everyone knows is happening.

Apparently, it's very simple. The more you self-reference, pick feuds and talk about the failure of TimesSelect, the better you're doing. If you make it sound like you're the one who figured out newspapers are dying, you win.

I mean, the point's not to fix anything. It's to describe the problem more dramatically than the next guy. If Steve Outing says newspapers have a "death spiral" and Clay Shirky predicts "a bloodbath," the point goes to Shirky.

Thus prepped, go here for something more serious: A reading list from Jay Rosen on the future of news (or death of news, whichever), featuring links to thoughtful pieces by many of the names you may remember from Dalling's piece.

Finally, go here for an op-ed in today's Chron by David Sirota on "newspapers' self-inflicted blows". He makes many good points, which you will have to read for yourself, but what really caught me was his lead:

At Northwestern University in the mid-1990s, the journalism professor with the most devoted student following was an understated teacher who said that substantive writing and reporting isn't everything, it's the only thing. Alternately despondent and sanguine, he reminded me of Grady from the book "Wonder Boys" when he told us that he spent weekends drinking in his closet and that he corrected papers in green ink because "green is the color of hope."

I love it: ".... it isn't everything, it's the only thing." And that's why, all evidence to the contrary, I could never become a "death of newspapers" blogger.

Unless of course, there was money in it. bk

three quick linx..

...on the future of journalism:

1. Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker (with whom I rarely agree) offers the following insight on the implosion of journalism as we once knew it. Read the whole column, where she castigates Rush Limbaugh and others, here.

The biggest challenge facing America's struggling newspaper industry may not be the high cost of newsprint or lost ad revenue, but ignorance stoked by drive-by punditry.

2. Go here to read San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll's reflections on the hangover from Saturday's vote on the new union contract. Call it melancholy:

I try to view this without nostalgia. Of course I grew up with newspapers; of course I romanticized them. My first day in the city room of The Chronicle, I felt like a prince of the realm, even though I was editing the crossword puzzle. But it seems to me that the death of newspapers would rapidly contract the world, even as the Internet is supposed to be expanding it.

Yes, we'll know about something cool that happened in Bangalore, but will we know about something uncool? Will we know about the problem with the sewer system? Would you click on that? No, but you might read it. And if you read a lot, then maybe you'd begin to have a visceral sense of the problems with the world's water supply, and what we might to do to help.

I know that if Britney Spears takes her shirt off in South Africa, I'll know about it. I am not at all sure that if four young protesters in Cape Town have their shirts ripped to shreds by bullets from police rifles, I'll ever know about it. That's what newspapers do: They connect, using the most accessible technology of all. People who do not have electricity can still have a newspaper.

And 3. Finally, go here to read about Nancy Pelosi's suggestion to the DOJ antitrust division "to look at the 'market realities' of competition in the digital age when reviewing mergers or 'other arrangements' of competing newspapers. The local angle? A collaborative venture that merges the Chron with the Merc, something that I've heard whispered more than once. Years ago, such consolidation would have sent shivers up and down the spines of anyone even tangentially related to journalism. Today, it's just one more sign of desperate -- and changing -- times.

From the story:

The Justice Department has traditionally been concerned that a merger of papers in the same market would give the surviving entity too much power to set prices for advertising.

Newspapers, however, have argued that the market for advertising is much broader, including online news and advertising competitors such as Craigslist, Google and Yahoo.

Antitrust regulators' other concern has been with preserving the number of editorial voices in a community. For that reason, when newspapers have combined operations in the past, they have been restricted to back office, printing, circulation and other non-news functions.

the guy who killed newspapers

Go here for a comprehensive and insightful look at the demise of American journalism via a long piece in Canada's Globe and Mail, which gets it right.

The story is pegged to the near-death of the SF Chron and includes an interview with Phil Bronstein, who sees himself -- almost facetiously -- as the guy who killed newspapers.

BTW, the Chron reports that its guild agreed last night to concessions in a new contract that "clear the way for cutting at least 150 union jobs and eliminating certain benefits and rights, measures the company says are essential to save the newspaper." Most of those cuts would come from editorial.

Sad, actually. The new contract, which may save the paper, was approved by a 10 - 1 majority. Though the concessions may save the paper, a year ago, agreeing to those same provisions would have been unheard of. From the Chron's story:

Carl Hall, lead negotiator for the Guild, said the outcome demonstrates a "clear-eyed attitude" among members hoping to protect workers and their families from a worse fate.

"This is the start of the real battle," he said in a statement. "We have to find a solution, a real solution, to save what we really care about here - quality journalism and quality jobs."

more

Phil Bronstein, former executive editor of the SF Chronicle and now vice-president and Editor-at-large, weighs in on the Stewart-Cramer inquisition (see my previous post, below). He writes that Stewart is no Edward R. Murrow (to whom The Atlantic's James Fallows had compared him).

From the post:

I didn't know Edward R. Murrow. I didn't serve with Edward R. Murrow. Edward R. Murrow was not a friend of mine. But I do know that Jon Stewart is not Edward R. Murrow. But neither is he Carrot Top. He is more like Jonathan Swift, the brilliant 17th/18th century satirist and author of "Gulliver's Travels." Only Mr. Stewart uses all sorts of contemporary visual and electronic tricks to enhance the effect.

I think Fallows might have been conflating Murrow, whose courageous and probing reporting and broadcasting stemmed the ferocious bullying by Senator Joe McCarthy, and Boston lawyer Joseph Welch, who famously asked the anti-commie crusader during a hearing, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

Jon Stewart did both: he pressed Cramer, using the CNBC host's own video interviews to trap him (just like Tim Russert used to do), and then relentlessly called him out on the contradictions. The full quote from 1954 was: "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness... You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

That's pretty much what Jon Stewart said to Jim Cramer, only it took him longer.

Joe Garofoli, the Chron's media critic, also chimed in. He writes:

Stewart regularly uses the steady stream of overheated, underreported stories coming from the 24-hour cable news networks as comedic fodder. But Thursday's interview was another example of the passion for good governance and aggressive journalism that informs his satire. In 2004, he went on CNN's "Crossfire" and told the hosts that they were "hurting America" with hackneyed, partisan banter, which he found long on opinion and short on reporting. Three months later, when CNN canceled the program, network president Jonathan Klein said, "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise."

Last summer at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Stewart gathered a dozen national political reporters for breakfast. He scolded them for letting the 24-hour cable networks set the nation's political agenda and for being so cuddly with the people they cover. Rosenstiel said Stewart helped reshape the opinion of the Iraq war (through his ongoing segment dubbed "Mess O'Potamia") and helped highlight the foibles of the Bush presidency.

hesitation cuts

Aggregation or aggrevation:

Re the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Reuters reports that Hearst will make a decision next week whether to "name a buyer for the daily newspaper, close its print edition or shut it down entirely."

Re the SF Chronicle: WaPo and others have reported that the union has agreed to concessions that "will allow the Chronicle to lay off union employees without considering seniority, which means it can more easily cut higher-paid employees." The union ratification is set for today.

Re MediaNews and Gannett: The same site reports that "unions at Gannett and MediaNews may eventually have to decide on whether to accept unpaid furloughs next quarter."

Re McClatchy: HuffPo reports that "about 175 employees at the Miami Herald will lose their jobs, and most of the remaining full-time staff will see their salaries reduced as the newspaper tries to cut costs amid plunging advertising revenue."

Molly Ivins had it so right. bk

more on the chron

The SF Chronicle reports that management and the paper's largest union are closed to an agreement that might save the paper.

The cynic in me wonders if forcing union concessions was the plan all along. Or -- if the pact is approved -- what, if anything, will remain of the Chron as we know it today. Despite losing bags of money on a weekly basis, the paper maintained bureaus outside SF, kept a stable of talented writers who chronicled the life of the city itself with style and voice, wrote its own arts reviews and obituaries, and held onto not only a (monthly) Sunday magazine, but a book review section as well.

From the story:

The Media Workers Guild represents 483 Chronicle employees, including 218 in editorial and 265 in advertising, circulation, finance, ad production and other functions. The company said it expects to eliminate about 150 of those jobs.

"The terms reached late Monday include expanded management ability to lay off employees without regard to seniority," the Guild said in a statement. "All employees who are discharged in a layoff or who accept voluntary buyouts are guaranteed two weeks' pay per year of service up to a maximum of one year, plus company-paid health care for the severance term, even in the event of a shutdown."

Other concessions include reductions in vacation time, sick leave and maternity/paternity leave; expansion of the work week from 37.5 hours to 40; and the right for the company to subcontract any work.

what we lose

More on the potential demise of the San Francisco Chronicle, this time from the horse's mouth (which may or may not be the best source.) Read it and weep right here.

I did, even though I posted the news yesterday. But what struck me today were the comments to today's piece posted online. Reading those, I realized there is a third rail in the rapid implosion of the news industry. And that is the sheer and utter ignorance of the people journalism is designed to serve with regard to:

The work involved in putting out a newspaper -- whether on paper or screen. Not for nothing have newspapers been called a "daily miracle."

The difference between editorials and news. Or for that matter, the difference between editorials and editorial decisions.

The mission and mindset of those who put it together. Do you really think that folks who work long hours for lousy pay and have nothing going for them but their name and reputation are going to purposely tank a story?

And most important, WHY journalism matters.

This is not just about the Chron. (Read what the WSJ had to say here.) Whether you loved it or hated it or referred to it as the San Francisco Comical, this is about news in general and what we lose when, you'll pardon the cliche, we throw out the baby with the bathwater.

And what we lose when a major U.S. city loses its voice. (sure, we have the examiner.com. but check it out.) Or when that voice, as has been rumored, might be taken over by MediaNews' Dean Singleton, who has singlehandledly presided over the near-destruction of the San Jose Mercury News.

I blame us: reporters, academics, parents, readers -- folks who could have and should have passed on an appreciation for the importance of journalism and how the job gets done, folks who should have been looking forward instead of back.

Maybe for the rest of us, what's left to do now is call people out for their ignorance and cynicism:

When people say they don't pay attention to the news, from any medium, show them the same disdain you might if they said they don't believe in reading books.

When people say they don't trust the news because it's too biased toward the left or the right (pick one), give them an education on the work it takes to gather the news, and that for a reporter to purposely get the story wrong is like a professional basketball player purposely missing a layup.

When people say that citizen journalists can fill in the void, ask them why they trust the guy down the street to cover a school board meeting at his kid's district -- rather than an education reporter with no vested interest in the outcome of the story.

When people say they can find what they need online, ask them if they know the difference between oreos and broccoli, how they will vet the credibility of what they find, where the reporting that underlies the blogs they may be reading comes from, and, most important of all, how much time they have. Staffs of editors, that's plural, work long days to find and vet what appears on the screen or in the paper on a daily basis. Who's going to put in that amount of time at the computer after a long day of work?

When people say we can leave the national and international news to a few big guns like the New York Times and leave shrunken dailies for hyperlocal news, ask them what happens if the one watchdog gets it wrong (hello: war in Iraq?) -- or how long they used to let that free "hyperlocal" neighborhood weekly sit in their driveway before they threw it unread into the trash?

When people say shrug and say "whatever" when the paper shrinks to the point where there are no features whatsoever, or the few that remain are all from the wires, ask them who will provide a record, as Will Durant put it, of life on the riverbanks. Ask them if they want to read a review of "Milk" written by Suzy from Ohio.

I'm sputtering. The point is, when things go away -- like a cup of decaf in the afternoon at Starbucks, or a Mother's Cookies Taffy Creme -- they rarely come back. There has been a lot of talk, here and elsewhere, of a new and improved news media rising from the ashes of the old. Today, i am not so sure. bk

R.I.P. San Francisco Chronicle?!

Another heartbreak. And a bit of a coincidence -- or is that irony -- given this morning's post.

MarketWatch reported this afternoon that the Hearst Corporation said today that without "critical cuts" within the next few weeks, it will be forced to sell or close San Francisco's daily newspaper. Whether you liked the paper or not, you've still got to root for the survival of this 144-year-old fixture of the city's history. What will replace it?

I noticed today that the front section of the San Jose Merc was all of eight pages.

Thanks, Andrea, for the tip and the link. bk

and for the mag class...

We're not in Kansas anymore. Oh, wait:

Also from today's Chron, a piece about ReadyMade magazine's move from Berkeley to, uh, Des Moines, Iowa and whether location-location-location affects the ethos of a publication in the internet age.

Read the piece here.

And find ReadyMade here. bk

Which Facebook Friend are YOU?

To add to the never-ending list of "Which (fill in the blank) are YOU?" -- quizzes that tally your likeness to anyone from Sofia on The Golden Girls to Samantha on SATC -- the SF Chron's Peter Hartlaub offers these stereotypes of the nine basic friends you find on Facebook -- and rates their annoyance factor.

Pretty hilarious. If you're on Facebook, you know them all (though none of them are YOU...)

From his piece:

"What I didn't expect was how much the online social networking community would be just like going back to 11th grade. There are fewer people wearing Depeche Mode T-shirts and more people sharing random things about themselves, and my locker combination has been replaced with a password. But the sting of rejection, the sanctimony of the popular kids, dressing up for picture day and even the random chatter in the hallways is pretty much exactly the same.

"Facebook, which started as a networking site for Harvard University students and is now based in Palo Alto, boasts 175 million active users. As of December, hundreds of thousands of new users were joining each day.

"Amazingly, it's possible to break them down into a handful of stereotypes. Here are nine of the most common friend types on Facebook. Each one has been assigned an annoyance factor, on a scale of 0 to 100. Please add your own categories to the SFGate.com version of this story."

Juicy loses its ju-ju

The SF Chronicle (and others) reports that as of last Thursday, Juicy Campus has gone dark. Hooray for that. I guess....

The college gossip site allowed anonymous posts on, among other things, who did what with whom and lists of "the biggest sluts on campus". While the posters were anonymous, the posts themselves named names.

Acccording to founder Matt Ivester, the blog was losing ads because of the economy, but possibly the real reason, according to another piece in the Chron, was that the site -- the cyber equivalent of a bathroom wall at a dive bar -- was the subject of a growing number of investigations and defamation lawsuits.

As I posted here back in October, the site was protected by the Communications Decency Act, which shields "Web publishers from liability for libelous comments posted by third parties." But as the Chron piece notes, legalistas are starting to ask whether the law needs rethinking on the grounds that it allowed far too much "irresponsible speech."

And yet. I find every possible thing about Juicy Campus to have been reprehensible in every possible way. Still, its demise brings us some interesting questions about both the web and First Amendment protections. What constitutes protected speech on the web? Does restricting the free speech protections of such sites as Juicy Campus (or Yelp!, which is facing its share of legal problems as well, as the Chron reports) hurt us all in the long run?

And, as the Chron's piece questions: is the so-called "wisdom of the crowds", which is the backbone of Web 2.0, wise enough to be truly a corrective to either erroneous, irresponsible or defamatory speech? Stay tuned. bk

three-dot bloggery

Quick hits -- with very little in common:

Want a concrete explanation on how the economy has impacted journalism? Go here for a video on the end of "Day to Day" on NPR...

Go here for an eloquent and charming obituary -- in an era when most newspapers have abandoned that elegant art in favor of revenue-generating funeral announcements in agate type -- on Maitland Zane, an iconic reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle...

Go here for an editorial from the Toronto Star on why the paper does not "unpublish" stories that appear online. It's an interesting issue, related to one we've discussed in class often: words on paper have a limited shelf life -- unless you make a conscious effort to save them. Thanks to Google, words on the web live on forever....

And finally, please join me in bitching about the rumors that Brit has a book deal for $14 million and Sarah Palin may get $11 million. How many books will not get published because these will?! bk

and more.

Jack forwards this piece about the possible demise of the Tucson Citizen, owned by Gannett. The paper gave him his start in journalism and has been publishing continually since 1870, some 40 years before Arizona became a state.

Be sure to read the comments, which are not only creepy, but show a thorough lack of understanding of what journalism is all about.

On a better note, Max forwards this link to Talking Points Memo, which in turn quotes a reader who sees a possible silver lining in the cascade of newspaper bankruptcies: namely that the survivors will return to the original purpose of the press. They'll be in it for the news, not the money.

And finally, in what looks to be a pricey display of hope over reality, the San Francisco Chronicle (currently losing some million bucks a week) will unveil a spiffy new printing press this spring, during its "144 days of surprises" to celebrate its 144-year anniversary. Go figure. bk

youtube politics

In an attempt to do I-don't-know-what, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom decided to go directly to the masses with his State of the City speech this week. Read all about it right here.

Was the point to feed democracy? Provide direct access to constituents? Bypass the press?

His speech logged in at some seven-and-a-half hours, kid you not, and has been posted in webisodes on his own youtube channel in blocks of up to an hour. Sounds like a fun way to spend the day, yeah?

Is anyone watching? Not really, when you compare the number of hits he has gotten so far with the circulation, measly as it has become, of the hometown newspaper, which has spent more ink on his manner of delivery than on what he actually said.

Columnist C.W. Nevius, for example, wrote about the whole exercise in today's Chronicle, bringing up a bunch of questions that echo my own, some of which I noted here a few weeks ago when I posted a link to the WaPo article on president-elect Obama's plan to use the web to communicate directly with his supporters, again bypassing the press. Nevius, of course, was funny. You can read his piece here.

And so you gotta wonder. Is this the way of the future? Has the news media not only lost its readers -- but its talking heads? In theory, speaking directly to the people, with access for all, is good. But then there's that little nag, even if that politician happens to be your guy. Don't we want someone to vet what s/he has to say? The journalists' job is to provide the whole pix, and sometimes speechification doesn't quite get it done.

Pallin' around with a terrorist, for example, might be nothing more than serving on a committee with a college professor. bk

fast break

Thirty years ago, the city of San Francisco underwent ten days of unfathomable tragedy, bookended by the Jonestown mass suicide of 900 members of the People's Temple (many of them with family in San Francisco) -- and the murders of S.F. Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk by Dan White, a former member of the Board of Supes.

The SF Chronicle has run a three-day series on those "Ten Days That Shook the City". Today's final piece is written by the reporter who dashed to City Hall to cover a police action, not knowing that the mayor had been shot.

Read closely and you will feel the adrenaline rush that comes with covering fast-breaking news. You'll also catch a glimpse of police beat reporting at a pretty horrific moment in time. bk

the day after christmas

On Monday I got a text from someone very near and very dear to me who wrote: "Don't you feel like a little kid on Christmas Eve today?

The answer was yes. Indeed.

On Tuesday, I like many others around the nation, was so excited/nervous, I was about ready to jump out of my skin. Imagine trying to be coherent in the classroom. I came close to letting my afternoon class talk me into migrating from the classroom to a nearby bar with a TV tuned to CNN.


Then Tuesday night: euphoria. One of those capsules of time when all of us will remember exactly where we were at the historic moment.

And now today. On Tuesday, I had gotten an email from Alice Joy, a former capstone kid, who had previously done a piece in my magazine class about the brutal withdrawal among young campaigners who had worked long and sleepless hours for the Kerry campaign. She forwarded this link to a recent piece on This American Life that seems particulary relevant.

She wrote: "I don't know if you remember my magazine article on youth campaign workers in the 2004 election and their post-election depression but this piece just seems like the natural set-up to the article I had written - all these young people 110 percent invested in a cause, pouring all their time and energy into it. I was really thinking just how devastating it's going to be if Obama does lose. It occurred to me, however, that there will probably be some sense of loss for these volunteers even if he DOES win, just because of the inevitable let down once something is over."

The San Francisco Chronicle's Steve Winn also addressed the issue for the rest of us who participated vicariously (Full disclosure: Tom and I did our part in a battleground state at the other side of the country over the weekend. Four turfs in one day, thank you, if you happen to know what that means) Winn quotes media guru Robert Thompson: "This year more than in a very long time, come the day after the election, it's going to feel like the entire nation has woken up in a collective political equivalent of Dec. 26," predicts Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "The presents look more promising before they're opened. The tree is starting to look a little funky. Reality sets in."

Finally, here's a piece from The New Republic that looks at the end-of-the-campaign from the point of view of the reporters who have been on the campaign trail for what seems like forever.

None of which is to say that the outcome of this campaign has been any less than spectacular. Just that real life will be dull by comparison. bk

object lessons in objectivity

It's about the methods, folks. Not some freakish sense of balance in the finished piece.

In class discussions on objectivity, I often quote something from a piece by Joshuah Bearman I found on alternet a few years back: "Contrary to dogma of J-schools across country, there are not always two sides to a story. Balance is often necessary and indispensable, but there are times when media might have to mediate a bunch of information and make a judgment. And in those instances, presenting contrasting information as if it’s equally important is, in fact, the false representation – more false than saying, 'I’ve gathered a lot of material and vetted it all, and here’s my assessment.'"

Take Sarah Palin's speech in SoCal on Saturday. She was quoted in the LA Times as characterizing Obama as someone who "pals around with terrorists". From the article: "Evidently there's been a lot of interest in what I read lately," she said. "I was reading today a copy of the New York Times. And I was really interested to read in there about Barack Obama's friends from Chicago. Turns out one of his earliest supporters is a man who, according to the New York Times, was a domestic terrorist, that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and the United States Capitol.' "

The LA Times piece balanced her claim thus: "The New York Times article, an investigation published Friday into whether Obama had a relationship with Ayers, concluded that the men were never close and that Obama has denounced Ayers' radical past, which occurred when Obama was a child. The article also said Obama 'has played down his contacts with' Ayers."

And then gave the Obama camp a chance to respond: "Gov. Palin's comments, while offensive, are not surprising, given the McCain campaign's statement this morning that they would be launching Swift Boat-like attacks in hopes of deflecting attention from the nation's economic ills," said spokesman Hari Sevugan.

"In fact, the very newspaper story Gov. Palin cited in hurling her shameless attack made clear that Sen. Obama is not close to Bill Ayers, much less 'pals,' and that he has strongly condemned the despicable acts Ayers committed 40 years ago, when Obama was 8. What's clear is that John McCain and Sarah Palin would rather spend their time tearing down Barack Obama than laying out a plan to build up our economy."

Balanced, right? But objective? You decide. Here's the whole story from the New York Times to which Palin was referring.

One last exasperated riff: Today's "Lies, Half-Truths Outed" chart, a weekly compilation of campaign lies and misrepresentations in the San Francisco Chronicle, focused on Thursday's debate between Biden and Palin. Take a quick look at the chart and it appears as if both candidates lied and/or stretched the truth in equal measure. Really? What a coincidence. bk