Category Archives: media

A Moment of Silence for Crosswinds Weekly

Crosswinds’ closure puts spotlight on print

media By Sue Vorenberg, Tribune Reporter

“People are reading less and relying less on daily newspapers for news and

information,” [Steve Lawrence] said.

“I think that’s a tragedy. It’s bad for the country. It means we have a

less informed citizenry, and that means we have a less informed democracy.”

When I

wrote last week to argue with Steve Lawrence, editor of Crosswinds Weekly, about his dismal take on blogs, I had no idea he would shut down within days. I never got to see my letter in print! The

lengths people will go to to avoid acknowledging criticism.

And damn! if he wasn’t unrepentant to the bitter end. “Bad

for the country.” Under BushCo, we have no idea how many articles that have appeared in print in respected publications were actually

just ads paid for by Duhbya and Friends. THAT’S bad for the country. Reporters and memoir-writers who casually admit, ‘sure I made that

up’ — THAT’S bad for the country. Media giants buying up and unifying channels of communication — THAT’S bad for the country.

Alternative weeklies folding because advertisers oppose their liberalism — THAT’S bad for the country. Blogs? Blogging makes me read

more than ever, from a wider variety of sources than ever. As a blogger, I’m working hard to be informed and to help others connect to

information (and opinions, it is true).

I will actually miss Crosswinds, as I miss NuCity and others. Crosswinds was often

unabashedly liberal and alternative while, at the same time, a booster of local business — some of which stabbed it in the back. We are

a poorer community without it.

Of course, given Lawrence’s disdain for blogs, I don’t expect it to occur to him that he has an

existing Website (www.crosswindsweekly.com) that needs little advertising to support it. Like Arthur Alpert after Prime Time, Lawrence, Sharon Kayne, Hal Rhodes, et. al., could continue to

write and interact with the community. Surely he doesn’t want his last hurrah to be his silly poke at the blogosphere. What could be

more ironic than to be reborn as one of us! But he has his TV show to play with now (as for me, I couldn’t stay in the same room that

long with Dimdahl without flipping him off; every time Dimdahl spewed “socialist” I would respond with “fascist.”). mjh

PS: Thanks to Lori for the tip. And to Sophie for the link.

Crosswinds’ closure puts spotlight on print

media By Sue Vorenberg, Tribune Reporter

Crosswinds Weekly was a forum for alternative viewpoints around Albuquerque, readers

said, and now it’s gone.

The free alternative paper has closed because it didn’t have enough advertising income to continue,

said Steve Lawrence, Crosswinds editor and publisher.

“There just wasn’t enough support from the business community,” Lawrence

said today. “That’s really the bottom line.”

Crosswinds Weekly hits financial turbulence, ceases

publication Paul Krza, NMBW Staff

[Lawrence] did admit, however, to recently alienating one advertiser with his opinions. In

January, he took restaurateurs Jennifer James and Michael Chesley to task when he expressed support for a hike in the state’s minimum

wage. He noted that in 2004, the paper, in a cover article, had “raved” about James’ food-preparation talent, but when he and other

columnists backed fair-wage campaigns, James’ and Chesley’s Graze restaurant pulled its Crosswinds’ ads.

“I’ve been a journalist for forty years here and in New York City and always believed that journalism should be watchdogs of

government and business,” he says.

In an ironic twist, the demise of Crosswinds was announced in at least three

Albuquerque-connected “blogs,” none with any attribution or words from Lawrence, only days after he had launched an attack on blogging in

what turned out to be his final column for the newspaper.

Sharon Kayne commenting on the DukeCityFix: In fact, our support of the city�s living wage initiative cost us business. Lost revenue did not change our

editorial policy even though we clearly needed the revenue. Occasionally local businesses told us they wouldn�t advertise with us

because we were �too liberal.�

PPS: a note about how news travels. I heard about this via

email from my wife who heard about this in face-time from a co-worker who read about it in, gasp, the paper — the Trib, that is.

Granted, the blogs scooped the papers, as you can see with DukeCityFix on Wed acknowledging the Alibi’s blog from Tues. Poor old MSM caught up 48 hours after the Alibi. But, wait, even a constant blogger like me still

got it second hand via the old dinosaur, paper.

Unlike paper, the blogs give us a place to post our condolences (or cheers), as

you will see at TheFix. Interesting times. mjh

More of Jeffrey Gardner’s Nonsense

Regarding Jeffrey Gardner’s latest nonsense: No one

disputes that 9/11 happened. In fact, some of the strongest critics of BushCo include the families of those killed. Most of us realize

the terrorist threat has escalated dramatically thanks to our bumbling in Iraq. And all of us are aware that a free society will always

be at risk to unscrupulous scoundrels, domestic and foreign.

As a consistent critic of BushCo’s wrong-headed and ham-handed

response to 9/11, I don’t want a dime more money from Homeland Security in Albuquerque. Vast amounts are pouring into small towns all

over AmeriCo for security cameras in every corner — more corporate welfare. The lines between the police, the military and the spies are

all gone. I feel no safer than I did on 9/12.

I heartily agree with the Tribune that “the incompetence and ignorance of Homeland

Security and the Bush administration in addressing the real issues of homeland security is staggering.” mjh

[published 1/28/06 in The Albuquerque

Tribune: Opinions]

Home spun By Jeffry Gardner, Tribune

Columnist

Well, first and foremost is the fact that there truly is a terrorist threat. Ask the family members of the nearly 3,000

people murdered on Sept. 11, 2001. …

So, other than wanting money for money’s sake, why the beef with Homeland Security?

Clearly, it affords an opportunity for more Bush-bashing.
—–

mjh’s

Blog: Generous Jeffry January 7, 2005
mjh’s Blog: Everybody Knows Nihilists

Vote Libertarian November 4, 2004
mjh’s Blog: Right’s Wrong March 17,

2004

When MSM Attacks

The Net, relationships

and credible information by Steve Lawrence, Editor of Crosswinds Weekly

Blogs are the New Journalism, the new sources for

information for the masses, the new News. Blogs and those Internet hangouts, share some glaring and disturbing

commonalities. Each is a high�tech substitute for a bedrock social or intellectual institution. Each poses as its

predecessor. And each is profoundly different in ways that are changing the culture � and not for the better. Each is

diluting, if not perverting, the quality, intensity � reliability, if you will � of the institutions they are quickly

replacing.

It’s a little ironic that Steve Lawrence used an opinion piece to denigrate the entire

blogosphere. He reminds me of those bloggers, mainly conservatives, who completely dismiss the “MSM” (Mainstream Media) as archaic. Both

extremes are ridiculous.

With millions of people blogging, we can find anecdotal evidence we need to support any argument. Suffice

it to say, you used to have to be a Steve Lawrence to get your opinion out there and now that’s no longer necessary. The Internet has

opened up communication world-wide, the Web has put a printing press in every person’s hands, and the blogosphere is a public forum as

faulty as any group of people.

While there are just a handful of print publications in Albuquerque, there are several dozen very good blogs.

If Steve’s editorial were a blog entry, you

could easily add your reaction *now*. In such a case, we might see hundreds of people from anywhere in the world participating in a real

discussion, instead of waiting a week for Steve to print his favorite letter-to-the-editor.

Ironically, when Steve’s column is 6

days old, the paper version will never be seen again. Whereas, linked from a blog entry, it could find new readers to appreciate and

appraise it. Most of my blog entries involve excerpts from and links to items from the MSM that I think my readers may have missed; some

find them months after the original item has sunk beneath the constantly growing mound of “news.” Often, I don’t include any opinion at

all, though as often, my opinion is probably obvious. But, by linking to the source that stimulated my thoughts, I let you decide for

yourself.

I have a place in my daily life for both old and new media. If Lawrence completely dismisses new media for being beneath

his dignity, he’s depriving himself, as is his right. But his wholesale dismissal comes across as a bit self-serving (as is my defense

of blogging, you’ll note). mjh

Update 1/26/06: mjh�s blog — A Moment of Silence for Crosswinds Weekly

the pornification of advertising

alibi . september 1 – 7, 2005
Ad Nauseum
BK loves BJ?
By Devin D. O’Leary

For the last month or so, I–and most of America by extension–have been subjected to Burger King’s ubiquitous ad campaign for “chicken fries.” Frightening inedibility of the alleged “food” product aside, the television commercials have crossed new boundaries of idiocy and raunch and are–I believe–contributing to the wholesale degeneration of American society as surely as the vomitoriums and coliseums of ancient Rome contributed to that once great empire’s death.

Did Devin O’Leary just turn 30 or have a kid? How else to understand his sudden concern about the pornification of advertising. Devin, whatever you do, don’t look at the rest of the Alibi!

Devin’s still young enough to imagine the slick young man putting one over on the out-of-it oldsters who head the ad agency. Yeah, right, Devin. Those old guys grew up to the Who singing “I hope I die before I get old.” They just didn’t get their wish.

But, perhaps Devin was actually born yesterday, if he doesn’t realize Rock ‘n’ Roll has been about sex for 50+ years — your grandparents felt each other up to “Great Balls O’ Fire!” And the saying that “sex sells” has been around for at least 40 years; time to read “The Hidden Persuaders” by Vance Packard (so tame by today’s fallen standard). What is rock or adversing but the effort to get into your pants?

I hope an actual journalist will look into the advertising agency behind BK’s coq roq, the earlier Singing Cowboy (“and the breasts that grow on trees!“) and, more than likely, Carl Jr’s Paris Hilton soft-core soak. It’s no longer about the meat that satisfies a conventional hunger. If that bothers you, get a job at Crosswinds. mjh

mjh’s Blog: You Are What You Eat

Am I the only one disturbed by the Burger King Singing Cowboy commercial? ….