The Periodical Table

A weekly (usually - apologies for falling behind!) roundup of magazines laying around Beachwood HQ.

Bikini Journalism
As a Beachwood reader points out, Amy Jacobson is on the cover of the new New Yorker.

Mr. San Quentin
The must-read in this week's New Yorker is "Dean of Death Row," Tad Friend's profile of Vernell Crittendon, who was ostensibly the spokesman for the famed California prison for 30 years but in reality held a variety of roles including, most importantly, orchestrating executions. What seems most striking about Crittendon to Friend is his uncanny ability to modulate his perfect tone of impartiality with a variety of constituencies, and thus wield an odd kind of power and influence. What struck me the most was Crittendon's inability to tell the truth; he modulated with himself as well.

Perhaps more striking to some readers will be the insights Friend delivers about Crittendon's role in the campaign for and eventual execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, founder of the Crips. Crittendon's surreptitious contacts with reporters - passing along allegations he now admits were not true - is yet another reminder of the dangers of the media relying on friendly official sources with whom they naively imbue with an undeserved and unscrutinized authority.

Beyond all that, though, is the story of a man so cooly composed on the outside but so obviously searching and restless inside.

God's Parole Officer
Crittendon would only speak on behalf of prisoners seeking parole if they believed in God.

President Paul
How Ron Paul lost my vote.

"Whipping westward across Manhattan in a limousine sent by Comedy Central's Daily Show, Ron Paul, the 10-term Texas congressman and long-shot Republican presidential candidate, is being briefed. Paul has only the most tenuous familiarity with Comedy Central. He has never heard of The Daily Show. His press secretary, Jesse Benton, is trying to explain who its host, Jon Stewart, is,"The New York Times Magazine reports in a well-executed - and fascinating - profile.

How Ron Paul almost won it back.

"'GQ wants to profile you on Thursday,' Benton continues. 'I think it's worth doing.'

"'GTU?' the candidate replies.

"'GQ. It's a men's magazine.

"'Don't know much about that,' Paul says."

Abort Mission
Did this really happen?

"Paul opposes abortion, which he believes should be addressed at the state level, not the national one. He remembers seeing a late abortion performed during his residency, years before Roe v. Wade, and he maintains it left an impression on him.

"'It was pretty dramatic for me,' he says, 'to see a two-and-a-half pound baby taken out crying and breathing and put in a bucket.'"

1. Before Roe v. Wade? So it was an illegal abortion - and infanticide at that? Did Paul report this to police?

2. Roe v. Wade is built around viability. Maybe this is why abortion needs to be regulated, not performed illicitly.

3. As far as I understand, this does not even fall under acceptable late-term abortions.

News Values
RedEye is many things, but a newspaper it is not. In the latest Lumpen, Jamie Trecker compares a week of front page stories in the Tribune's commuter entertainment tab with a week of front page stories in the New York Times. Let's take a look at two days just for a taste:

TUESDAY, JUNE 5

RedEye
- Paris Hilton 'Jail Hell' (two-page wrap)
- Tank Johnson's NFL suspension; Lou Piniella's suspension
- 'Fate of CTA is in your hands'
- Chicago woman nets $184m in divorce
- Margarita week!

New York Times
- Military judges throw out two Gitmo cases; all Gitmo cases said to have same flaw
- Appeals court throws out FCC 'decency' policy
- Proposed point system for immigrants incites passions
- Iraq facing education drain
- Congressman sought bribes
- Puerto Rico's AIDS care in shambles
- China releases its own climate plan
- Stocks in China tumble

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6

RedEye
- CTA crime
- What's wrong with the Sox?
- $20m 'gay center' opens doors
- Porn and how it affects women today
- Don't hassle the Hoff
- Beer garden guides

New York Times
- Lewis "Scooter" Libby jailed for 30 months for perjury
- No pardon forthcoming for Libby
- Bush chastised Russian president Putin
- Diabetes drug Avandia has signficant heart risks
- Series: Energy
- Stocks fall on Fed comments
- ETA end cease fire with Spain

Johnny and the General
The Economist says "John Edwards trails in third place. But his policy ideas are shaping the Democratic presidential race."

Really? That sure isn't what I observe.

On the other hand, the mag says "General Musharaff cites the extremist threat to justify staying on as Pakistan's president in uniform. The White House falls for it."

Please, general, we need a military dictator to help us establish democracy in you region! Oh, and bin Laden - no worries.

Sinking Ship
"In what is supposed to be the Information Age, there are fewer staff correspondents out there asking fewer questions, raising fewer issues, and filing fewer dispatches from fewer places."

- Former New York Times editor Joe Lelyveld, as quoted from a commencement address in the latest Columbia Journalism Review

And fewer readers. Coincidence?

Elsewhere in the July/August issue, CJR takes a look at the damage wreaked on The Dallas Morning News:

* 200 newsroom employees laid off, bought out or not replaced from 2004 to 2006
* 33 percent wire stores in Page One in a two-week survey in 2007
* 14.3 percent circulation drop in the six months ending in March 2007
* 19 percent drop in satisfied readers from 2004 to 2006

Coincidence?

* $5 million total compensation to Robert Decherd, CEO of Belo Corp., which owns the Morning News
* 50 percent increase in Decherd's 2006 compensation compared to 2005

Because only someone with his unique talents could have pulled off what he did.

Passages:
* "The buyout offer, in fact, sparked a stampede: 112 reporters, editors, photographers, and artists, almost one-third more than management's initial estimate, took the offer."

What does it say when so many people don't want to work in their chosen field anymore? Expert management?

The thrust of the CJR piece is that those who left the paper are happier than those who stayed. Think about that.

* "Then there's Michael Precker, fifty-two. For years, he wrote features. Before that, he was the paper's Middle East bureau chief. Now Precker is a day manager at The Lodge, an upscale Dallas gentleman's club, making sure no on harasses the pole dancers. 'If you're going to leap out a window,' he says, 'you might as well have a mattress.'"

* "It seems to me that papers that do what Dallas just did have decided to liquidate the business and get as much money out of it as they can," says Philip Meyer, who holds the Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of North Carolina.

* Esther Thorson "examined four years of financial data from hundreds of newspapers. Thorson, who has studied media for twenty years, says those who try to cut the newsroom to maintain profitability are doomed to failure. 'That's not a business model,' she says. 'That's a death model.'

"Thorson found that larger newsroom investments would translate into greater profits. 'A newspaper is a rich environment of information and entertainment,' she said. 'That makes it a fabulous locale for advertising. But if your product is degraded and circulation plummets, why would advertisers want to invest in that?'"

* Morning News publisher Jim Moroney says: "We're the most progressive newsroom in the United States in terms of shooting video."

That's great! Too bad you're not a TV station!