Portland Press Herald & Plum Creek - joined at the hip.

As noted by Jeff Inglis in the Portland Phoenix (Click Here) Plum Creek's CEO joined the Board of Directors of the company that owns the Portland Press Herald 18 months ago - just as the Creeklings began its efforts to sell the public on their plan to build nearly 1000 homes and condos and two hotels around Moosehead Lake in Maine’s North Woods.

The Portland Press Herald, known for trumpeting the "historic" nature of the Plummies' plan, had never revealed this little fact about their ties with Plum Creek until it was mentioned as an aside in the Seattle Times, another paper in the Blethen stable.

PPH's Richardson drops "historic" from Plum coverage?

Perhaps there's hope for him yet. If J-Rich continues he might find his coverage praised by historians of the future, not discarded as syncophantic.

But can the Press Herald afford not to be syncophantic towards Plum Creek?
How strong is the corporate interlock betwixt PPH-owner Blethen and the Plum People?

That there is one is known. What part it plays in the day to day coverage of industrial forestry in Maine as well as PPH scrutiny of Plum Creek's mega development efforts can only be seen through the lens of the paper's news and editorial archives. Something to be done in later posts.

Portland Press Herald's John Richardson: Plum crazy about sprawl.

In his recent article "Plum Creek plan aired, 2nd hearing set for today in Augusta" 12/2/07 (which, thanks to the reduction in reporters in the Blethen Company's Maine bundle of newspapers, appeared simultaneously in the Maine Sunday Telegram, the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel) reporter John Richardson repeatedly salutes the "historic" nature of the massive Plum Creek sprawl proposal for the Moosehead Lake region, and relegates nearly all opposition to the proposal to the distant parts of his article well beyond the fold.

Get a grip, John: what's "historic" here are the untrammeled views and natural wide spaces of Moosehead Lake, better known for the last few thousand years as Mousinibes, btw, and its environs. Not the sprawl wannabe.

He starts off well, contrasting the pro and con one liners of two residents of Greenville , the small town nestled on the southern tip of Moosehead Lake. But it all goes downhill from there.

Richardson found that "Strong opinions weren't lacking" at the Saturday meeting, but manages to quote only the strong opinions of Plum-huggers Ray "Bucky" Owen, Millinocket resident Dan Corcoran, Rep. Doug Thomas, R-Ripley, "one of several current and former state legislators who spoke in favor of the plan" (did any speak against, one wonders), Randy Comber ( owner of Moosehead Cedar Log Homes, obviously a potential beneficiary of a building boom at Moosehead Lake, and Christopher Fife, of Moose River, in Jackman, west of Moosehead Lake.

Richardson's selection of opponents verged more on the milktoasty: "Some opponents agreed that the plan today is better than the one first unveiled by Plum Creek three years ago" Richardson writes, going on to quote only one of the "some", Sally Farrand. Her position?

"I think we can all agree the current application is much improved," said Sally Farrand of Beaver Cove. But, Farrand said, "I ask that Lily Bay be removed from the development plan."

Certainly every other opponent of the Plummers will agree that the shore of Moosehead Lake's Lily Bay shouldn't be sprawled upon; they also, however, urge the same status for the rest of the acreage within Plum Creek development footprint. All of it

While he does acknowledge there are 'critics' of the plan, they are given short shrift and are, apart from one, exiled to the end of the article, and in general portrayed as merely quibbling over bits of the Plum Creek proposal, not against the whole kaboodle as the overwhelming number of Mainers across the economic and political spectrum are.

Come on, J-Man: What's this? You're not doing a fair 'n balancin' act on us, are you?

The bright stars and Milky Way reflecting on Moosehead waters in the deep dark of unspoiled night. The keeping of this vast lake largely in a state of Nature through all these years and now into the 21st century. That's Maine history, alive and well.

Large scale developer wannabe Plum Creek's plan isn't historic. It's the very opposite of historic. It is the destroyer of history.

Save journalism to save the world

From The Tyee, October 29, 2007

News Media Revolt: Canada Next?
Activist scholar Robert McChesney rallies growing movement.

Journalism faces a crisis around the world and unless it's fixed, society is in big trouble, American scholar and media activist Robert McChesney says.

"The market's not going to solve the problem.... The technology's not going to rescue us."

Great journalism requires resources, institutional support, well-paid journalists and competition, McChesney told an audience at the Simon Fraser University downtown campus Saturday.

Creating institutions that can produce great journalism is going to take "enlightened, engaged, creative policy-making," he said.

"Short of that, we'll never be a free society."

Read the full article

CSPAN Blinks for Bolly and Bush

When CSPAN began its coverage of the Iranian Prez's unique recipe of fact and fancy at Columbia University, we were treated to not one, not two, but ten minutes of suddenly-worried-about-his-job Columbia President Lee Bollinger's hastily penned and poorly edited name-calling Introduction-as-Tirade. Once the Bollywood performance was through, though, we realized, we would would acttually hear from the Iranian horse's ass --oops--horse's mouth himself.

Imagine our surprise when, 7 minutes into the Bollybelch, CSPAN suddenly added a streamer to the screen noting that CSPAN would shortly cut away to coverage of a mini-subcommittee's hearing on a minor maritime safety bill. We looked at each other - Impossible! CSPAN isn't SO politicized that it would let the Basher speak, but then censor the Bashee.

Ah but 'twas so. Bollinger vanishes from the screen in the midst of a finger point and the still mostly empty committee room appears. Shades of Big Bruddah! No Iranian Prez! Such courage! Protecting CSPAN viewers from unfiltered Ahmadinijad? But not to worry, the CSpaniels whined, the Iranian Big Cheese's speech would appear on....CSPAN 3. Oh fine, we muttered grabbing the channel changer.....WHAT? We HAD no CSPAN 3? A little searching, and it turns out that only a tiny minority of US cable services offer CSPAN 3. Not the one we were looking at in the remote wilds of suburban Washington DC. Sly indeed Cspan.

Perhaps the commercial cable stations would carry him.....? Nope. Tired of flicking through cop shows and the rest of the dreck making up television these days, I turned to ol' faithful: WPFW, Pacifica Radio, and.... tadaah !....there's Ahmadinejad - honking and crowing in the background while a translator rendered into English in the foreground.

We listened, eyebrows raising at times, frowning at others, chuckling or laughing along, communicating in a way with his live audience. Impressed by some of his statements, comtemptuous of others, and massively embarrassed by the anti-free speech frenzy that preceded and followed his talk. And ashamed as a journalist of CSPAN's gutless retreat from making the Iranian President's speech available to all cabled Americans. One hopes Washington Post TV Columnist Tom Shales and/or the Village Voice's Nat Hentoff calls them on it.

WRFR- Station mgr deletes programmers' files without warning

WRFR's station manager Cathy McGuinness does it again.
This morning McG discovered that one of the station's pc computers' memory was only a few hundred megabytes from being full. Did she notify the station staff via her one-way-list serve (having shut down the two way one last month) and request they remove their info from the computer by some deadline, or at least download the offending data onto a CD, for program hosts to access later? While basic professionalism would augur for such simple courtesy, t'was not to be so. McG simply cleared it off and notified the staff and programmers after the fact.

"I don't think I deleted anything crucial to anyone's existance" she wrote, " but I do apologize if I deleted something that was important to you!"

Thanks a LOT, Cathy....
Sigh....

PPH's John Richardson: Supine before 'near royalty'

Portland Press Herald reporter John Richardson's obsequious paean to ex-governor Angus King and ex-NRCM chief Rob Gardiner would be stomach-turning if it weren't so laughable.

The X-men (Richardson gushing refers to them as "near royalty") plan to jump into the windfarm landrush currently besetting Maine. The usual platitudes are trotted out: King is "tired of talking about global climate change" and has "decided to do something about it".

The joke is, King's plan will more likely increase global warming than decrease it.

Richardson, evidently too busy fawning over the 'near royalty' to think straight, could have asked a simple question about the x-men's proposal for a 50 megawatt windfarm in Oxford county: Where are they proposing to reduce fossil fuel energy use by 50 megawatts?

For unless King and Gardiner also plan to purchase and close down a 50 megawatt coal, oil or gas burning power plant, there will be no decrease in fossil fuel consumption in Maine resulting from their windmills. King 's windfarm will simply increase the amount of energy available for consumption, making fossil energy suppliers to reduce their prices to stay competitive with wind and solar. Energy efficiency expert King knows that cheaper energy invariably results in increased energy consumption.

There will be no benefit to our climate. If anything, greenhouse gas production will INCREASE.

But Richardson is evidently a believer in the divine right of near royalty to bloviate, and declines to ask such a simple and basic question of the x-men.