{"id":267,"date":"2006-01-26T15:52:05","date_gmt":"2006-01-26T21:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/loco\/a-moment-of-silence-for-crosswinds-weekly\/"},"modified":"2006-04-27T15:12:49","modified_gmt":"2006-04-27T21:12:49","slug":"a-moment-of-silence-for-crosswinds-weekly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/loco\/media\/a-moment-of-silence-for-crosswinds-weekly\/","title":{"rendered":"A Moment of Silence for Crosswinds Weekly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crosswinds’ closure puts spotlight on print <\/p>\n

media<\/a> By Sue Vorenberg, Tribune Reporter<\/p>\n

“People are reading less and relying less on daily newspapers for news and <\/p>\n

information,” [Steve Lawrence] said.<\/p>\n

“I think that’s a tragedy<\/em>. It’s bad for the country<\/em>. It means we have a <\/p>\n

less informed citizenry<\/em>, and that means we have a less informed democracy<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

When I <\/p>\n

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

lengths people will go to to avoid acknowledging criticism.<\/p>\n

And damn!<\/em> if he wasn’t unrepentant to the bitter end. “Bad <\/p>\n

for the country.” Under BushCo, we have no idea how many articles that have appeared in print in respected publications were actually <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

up’ — THAT’S bad for the country. Media giants buying up and unifying channels of communication — THAT’S bad for the country. <\/p>\n

Alternative weeklies folding because advertisers oppose their liberalism — THAT’S bad for the country. Blogs? Blogging makes me read <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

information (and opinions, it is true).<\/p>\n

I will actually miss Crosswinds, as I miss NuCity and others. Crosswinds was often <\/p>\n

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

a poorer community without it.<\/p>\n

Of course, given Lawrence’s disdain for blogs, I don’t expect it to occur to him that he has an <\/p>\n

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

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 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

long with Dimdahl without flipping him off; every time Dimdahl spewed “socialist” I would respond with “fascist.”). mjh<\/span><\/p>\n

PS: Thanks to Lori for the tip. And to Sophie for the link.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Crosswinds’ closure puts spotlight on print <\/p>\n

media<\/a> By Sue Vorenberg, Tribune Reporter<\/p>\n

Crosswinds Weekly was a forum for alternative viewpoints around Albuquerque, readers <\/p>\n

said, and now it’s gone.<\/p>\n

The free alternative paper has closed because it didn’t have enough advertising income to continue, <\/p>\n

said Steve Lawrence, Crosswinds editor and publisher.<\/p>\n

“There just wasn’t enough support from the business community,” Lawrence <\/p>\n

said today. “That’s really the bottom line.”<\/p>\n

Crosswinds Weekly hits financial turbulence, ceases <\/p>\n

publication<\/a> Paul Krza, NMBW Staff<\/p>\n

[Lawrence] did admit, however, to recently alienating one advertiser with his opinions. In <\/p>\n

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

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

columnists backed fair-wage campaigns, James’ and Chesley’s Graze restaurant pulled its Crosswinds’ ads<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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

government and business,” he says.<\/p>\n

In an ironic twist<\/strong>, the demise of Crosswinds was announced in at least three <\/p>\n

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

what turned out to be his final column for the newspaper.<\/p>\n

Sharon Kayne commenting on the DukeCityFix<\/a>: In fact, our support of the city\u00ef\u00bf\u00bds living wage initiative cost us business. Lost revenue did not change our <\/p>\n

editorial policy even though we clearly needed the revenue. Occasionally local businesses told us they wouldn\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdt advertise with us <\/p>\n

because we were \u00ef\u00bf\u00bdtoo liberal.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd<\/em><\/p>\n

PPS: a note about how news travels. I heard about this via <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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

got it second hand via the old dinosaur, paper.<\/p>\n

Unlike paper, the blogs give us a place to post our condolences (or cheers), as <\/p>\n

you will see at TheFix. Interesting times. mjh<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading A Moment of Silence for Crosswinds Weekly<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}