Well, I can’t tell you everything just yet. I can say I’ve joined another blog collective and you’ll be able to read it soon. This group has a focus on all things Albuquerque, with a variety of perspectives and styles. I’ll be looking at local media with a jaded eye. I hope you’ll like it. I’ll tell you more in a few weeks. If you can’t wait, write me. mjh
Here’s what I wrote over there this week…
Let’s ease into a look at local media through something the left- and right-brain can enjoy together: political cartoons. Here, the big fish in our small playa is John Trever, the editorial cartoonist for the Albuquerque Journal.
Like any decent cartoonist, Trever makes his point visually, often employing recurring iconic figures (the generic anglo New Mexicans with the sun symbol on hat or shirt, the dim-looking Dem Donkey, the put-upon GOP Elephant). As an artist in his chosen field, he is at least OK, maybe even better then that. I do keep reading him.
My sense is that Trever is more conservative than liberal. In itself, that’s fine; I read lots of conservative columnists and, at least, he is not nearly as infuriating as Ramirez (who is the better artist).
I know from my friends at the Journal that they delight in being attacked from both the left and the right — they actually believe that proves they are neutral. So, I took a few minutes to plow back through all of Trever’s cartoons to date in 2005.
Trever may be at his best when he marries two hot topics. Near the start of the year, he combined the very real tsunami with Chicken Little’s, er, Duhbya’s warnings about Social Security. Our Leader says “activate the emergency plan” (there is no plan) and the hostile Donkey says, “What? And risk frightening the public?” I thought that is the plan. Florida Today’s Jeff Parker was much closer to the truth with his “Where’s the fire?”
Trever has plenty to say about local affairs, especially our inability to reduce DWI, and our hypocrisy about gambling. APD, APS, Richardson, the state legislature ? they’re all here in our local comedy-drama. He must gore somebody’s ox in this, but I don’t usually have a cock in that fight.
I wish you could see some of Trever’s work here, but the Albuquerque Journal’s copyright notice is pretty clearly hostile towards that common blog custom. So, I’ll provide some links with one sad observation: you have to be a subscriber to follow most Journal links. I am a subscriber, and I think that’s a wrong-headed choice by the Journal (shared by the Santa Fe New Mexican) — it severely limits its value to Web users. Some have observed that by opening their archives they would profit more from ads than they do from subscribers.
There will be more about the Albuquerque Journal and, separately, about local media websites down the road. In the meantime, thank you for reading this. Let me know what you think. mjh
A few Trever links (for Abqjournal.com subscribers ? others should investigate BugMeNot.com):