The Past Makes a Comeback

Live long enough and you’ll be amazed at which ridiculous trends, long forgotten, will come back in style. Some are not so bad—I remember when I used to fight with my daughter about which radio station to listen to in the car, and then one day, she magically turned on Rock 105 and left it there. Led Zeppelin had finally trumped Britney Spears—thank God!

But once again, the past is making a comeback, this time in the form of recession marketing. Advertisers are choosing to use images and slogans of the 1950s through the 1980s to remind consumers of “better times.” Quoting Frank Cooper, marketing chief for a unit of PepsiCo, “It’s about yearning for the past, a simpler time, even though the ‘60s and ‘70s were not simple. They just seem simple, looking back.”

He has a point. I distinctly remember the Carter era of rampant inflation, the Vietnam War, campus riots, civil rights injustices, racism, sexism, bubblegum pop music, hideous shoulder padding in women’s fashions, big hair, leisure suits, disco, etc. I could go on, but I grow tired thinking about this.

Somehow, the glossy illusion of a better past (“Leave it to Beaver,” “Happy Days”) is what advertisers now believe will make consumers forget the present, and the fact that they have no surplus funds to spend. Target is now selling sock monkeys and gumball machines as part of a sale on “selected retro toys.” I’ll have to whip out my old Eight Ball to predict the success of this latest venture (“Signs are unclear at present”).

And Madison Avenue is launching a 1950s family in the "I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter" commercials and resurrecting the “Yum, yum, Bumble Bee, Bumble Bee Tuna” song to help sell these products. Ouch! I’m waiting for the Shake and Bake commercial (“And I Helped!”) and Mr. Whipple’s “Please Don’t Squeeze the Charmin” to come back to life in some form. And then there’s always obnoxious Marge plunging the fingers of innocent women into Palmolive Dishwashing Liquid to “soften them.” I didn’t like this stuff when it was current!

Advertisers admit that these new ads could lead consumers to believe a brand is outdated—like maybe anyone under the age of 30—and therefore not for them. But who knows? Perhaps the new campaign will succeed after all. Especially since income levels have fallen to about what they were in the 1970s, maybe we finally have a match.

How the Media Could Help Athlete$ (and the Rest of U$)

While scrolling through the NPR stories I missed last week, I spotted yet another financial story, this one about professional athletes and their lack of financial savvy. This was a summary of a larger piece in Sports Illustrated on how a very large percentage of professional athletes are often bankrupt not long after retirement. The causes are varied--from poor investments, to divorce to out-of-control paternity payments.

Media Stresses Performance, Not Finances
Well, nothing new here, and nothing to blog about regarding the press, until I noticed the subhead, “no financial education,” which described how the media is good at encouraging talented athletes to worry more about performance and less about a financial education. And this is true—I remember when Derrick Harvey finally signed his contract with the Jaguars for over $17 million in guaranteed money, and the article stressed that Harvey was now a millionaire with a huge responsibility to—the Jaguars and fans. What about his responsibility to himself and the people depending on him to take good care of all that money?

Well, given this article and all the recent woes about the economy, I just had to know how many articles The New York Times had written recently on the benefits of early financial education. I found an excellent article on teaching personal finance in our high schools—from 2003. I also found a terrific article on credit card abuse by college students, and how high schools spend precious little time teaching students about budgeting and banking—from 1995.

Of course, here’s an interesting article about necessary courses in business for high school students, dated March 19, 1897!

Why Not Talk About Importance of Financial Education?
Maybe I could have done a more thorough search, but my point is, with all the problems caused by credit card debt, dishonest investors and mortgage madness, where’s the emphasis in our society on learning financial basics? There are plenty of stories on the broken economy—how about some more on ways to fix it, beginning with what’s offered in our schools? Why not report on ways to make the courses that are left, after the legislators chop up the budget, really count for something? (Maybe requiring that all economics or math classes include a segment on understanding interest, writing checks and balancing a budget.)

It seems like the media could perform a real public service here, since education may be the only way for the general public (and professional athletes) to understand the importance of learning basic finance.

If you make $17 million or $17,000 a year, it’s crucial to understand money management so you don’t go broke and take down innocent people with you.

Health Care Coverage Overshadowed by Everything Else

In a report on the status and health of American journalism, the Project for Excellence in Journalism revealed that health care press coverage over the past two years has totaled six tenths of a percent. That’s right, not even a full one percent. Apparently, health care has had trouble getting its fair share of press coverage due to racier headlines like the economy, the pecking order of prominent Republicans, the latest celebrity scandal, etc.

Health care was finally in the news on March 5, when President Obama hosted a health care summit to address what many recognize as an enormous problem in America. Even so, the coverage paled when compared to that of the financial crisis, and according to the article, the summit generated about half the attention created by the debate over who is leading the Republican Party.

That’s something we all need to know right now, isn’t it?

A couple of weeks ago, Time Magazine did a big story on peanut allergies. This week, NPR aired a few stories on AIDS, and I guess both of these topics could be considered “sexy” health care pieces, as opposed to a story on the sorry state of the American health care system.

As of October 2008, 46 million Americans, including 9 million children, were living without health care coverage. Ho hum, says the American press. Our system isn’t convenient either--on same day appointments, only 30 percent of Americans report that they can access a doctor on the day they need one as opposed to 55 percent of Germans. Boring, says the American press—give us something sensational to write about.

How about this? A friend of mine was recently admitted to Baptist Hospital for a routine appendix removal--too bad for her that it was the weekend, because Baptist doesn’t employ an on-call surgeon on the weekends. So, she waited in agony for Monday to come while getting sicker and sicker. By the time she was transferred to another hospital, which had only one on-call surgeon, she had to wait her turn. Meanwhile, her appendix had ruptured, necessitating the removal of most of her bowel and landing her in intensive care for a week. She almost died.

Maybe our new president can jump start some interest in health care with our press. Outside of what Bernie Madoff and AIG executives did, I think health care is the biggest scandal currently taking place in our country.

Community Newspaper Makes Light of Fowl Fury

The news industry isn’t all that glamorous for everyone, especially if you happen to get a job with your local, community newspaper. It must be hard to feel inspired writing about broken water mains, so when a piece shows up in print that takes an ordinary event, mixes it with humor and manages to stay within newspaper parameters, it’s worthy of a second look.

On a lighter note this week, The Beaches Leader had been following a story involving the discovery by the Atlantic Beach Police of chickens in the front yard of a resident’s home (the online articles cited are dramatically reduced from the more descriptive print versions). This  Atlantic Beach couple was trying to teach their daughter about responsibility and about being creative during a recession by using the chickens’ eggs for food. The reporter details how the family presented a slide show to city commissioners, explaining the benefits of “urban chickens,” in an attempt to bypass the ordinance banning livestock.

And before you laugh, there is a wealth of material out there about urban chickens—the article on transgender hens is especially enlightening.

The reporter straightforwardly goes on to say that the “chicken controversy” couldn’t be addressed initially because the ordinance prohibiting chickens was not on the commission’s agenda.

If this is the most controversial thing happening in Atlantic Beach, life is good.

Anyway, of course the inevitable happened, and the commission rejected the family’s request to keep the chickens. Did I mention that this involves just TWO chickens? While the reporter started off with a straight hard news lead, the headline for the print version read, “Clucks Out of Luck in AB.” The reporter quoted Mayor John Meserve as saying, “We can’t see a way to do it, that it won’t create a mess.” Ok, a bureaucratic mess or a literal mess?

Then the reporter probably skipped a few "in-between" quotes from Meserve and ended with, “I don’t know if people thought about what would happen if people don’t take care of chickens properly.”

Whoa! I had not thought about that! Something worse than Iraq?

It’s good to know that even if you work for a weekly paper, there’s still some fun to be had as long as style rules aren’t bent to breaking. The value of interjecting humor in print is not just for entertainment but also for humility, to keep us laughing at ourselves. Here's a nod to The Leader for giving me my laugh of the week.

Is This the New Face of U.S. Journalism?

Can Alexander Heffner, a 19-year-old first-year undergraduate at Harvard transform the face of journalism for his generation?

This piece was a day brightener for me because a young person got involved in making the world a more informed place for people who have been largely ignored in previous elections. Last year, Heffner created an online magazine entitled Scoop08 that was exclusively written by 18-to-25 year olds, with a mission to bring a new generation to a better understanding of politics. According to the article, it became a national student online newspaper and caught the wave that carried Obama all the way to the White House.

This election answered the question for me, where are all the college students and why aren’t they voting? Apparently, the answer was that traditional news sources (television, magazines, newspapers) weren’t reaching this audience of Americans. So, this enterprising young man found a way to connect with a large group of people by using writers who could relate to this particular audience and placed the end result online.

And you saw the results in this past election—college students came out in droves to vote for the first time in ages. Politicians and traditional media outlets could hardly ignore the numbers of student voters exercising their political muscle and registering their mark as a voice to be reckoned with in the future.

Scoop08 has been reinvented as Scoop44, a daily online magazine designed to “serve as the distinct source of news affecting young Americans,” according to Heffner, who believes that there is a place for his magazine given the American press’s loss of credibility during the Bush administration.

My generation has left a truckload of unsolvable problems for the next group to deal with, and some of us, (myself excluded, of course), have voted out of ignorance and tradition rather than paying attention to the issues. Smart, young minds need to be involved, and more importantly, need to be informed in order to make wise political choices.

If online newsmagazines are the answer for reaching this new generation of voters, I’m all for it. If print newspapers want to stay in business, now is the time to get creative and stop doing “business as usual.”

Altered Video Creates Journalism Missteps

To think that I was recently singing the praises of how the Internet allows everyone the opportunity to alert the world to wrongs brought upon it by corporations or individuals. Here is an example of how the powers of the Internet and sloppy journalism can be abused.

Apparently, Baltimore television reporter John Sanders got creative last week, and created a YouTube video in which he doctored the speech of conservative Fox News Radio host John Gibson. And not just a little. In the spirit of using monkey symbols to connote racism, Sanders decided to cast Gibson in the role of over-the-top racist, with comments that seemed to compare Attorney General Eric Holder to a monkey with a “bright blue scrotum.” Sanders engineered this colorful bit of dialogue by splicing a clip about such a monkey, which had escaped from a Seattle zoo, with Gibson’s comments regarding Holder, who is African American.

After posting the video online with a disclaimer that it wasn’t true, the upshot was that Sanders was fired from his television station, and Gibson claimed to be personally affected by the video. “These days it’s really dangerous on the Internet,” he said. “These things go viral, and people don’t see the correction and the mea culpa. You can’t unring the bell.”

The problem was not just that a television reporter had made an inflammatory video, presumably for the amusement of his friends, but that the news website, The Huffington Post, picked up the doctored video and posted it without any disclaimer and without calling Gibson or Fox for comment.

I’m sure I would disagree with most of what John Gibson and his guests have to say on his conservative talk show. Many of them may indeed be racists, for all I know. Still, I can’t condone a deliberate and false attack on someone’s character just because of different philosophies—this is especially wrong for a journalist.

How did a reporter not know that making public a fake video on a nationally known personality, even with a disclaimer, would reflect badly on his television station? If he is not aware of libel laws, I’m sure his former employer is familiar with the expensive damage that can be caused by a defamation of character lawsuit. And c’mon, The Huffington Post was so eager to jump on the racism bandwagon that no one called to confirm legitimacy and sources? And no one noticed the disclaimer?

The combination of careless reporting and the ease of access offered by the Internet can make for some ugly consequences. People are all too eager to believe outrageous news, even if it is false. Reporters have a responsibility to their profession and themselves to use their heads before diving into murky waters.

Selling Stability in the New Economy

American companies are discovering that consumer anxiety over the economy is forcing them to take a different approach when hawking their wares. In the past, advertising agencies have positioned products by emphasizing a special ingredient or property. Lately, companies have promoted low prices as a pathway of appeal for consumers. But with everyone offering low prices, drastic sales and deep discounts, the question is how to stand out in the crowd?

Geico’s new approach involves the psychological manipulation of its potential customer base in what may be a new wave of advertising strategy. Venerable financier Warren E. Buffet controls Berkshire Hathaway, the company that has owned Geico for more than a decade. Therefore, Geico’s recent ad campaign, run by the Martin Agency, features the well-known investor’s name being used as a symbol of financial stability. By linking Geico’s status with the Buffet empire, the company hopes to portray itself as the one to trust in these uncertain times.

According to Ted Ward, vice president for marketing at Geico, “The strategy for this is driven by the need to emphasize to people that there’s a way to save money without risking anything.” By using their trademark gecko in various situations (getting a tiny suit from an executive, participating in trust exercises) the company hopes to offset the “doom and gloom” aspects of the economy to create ads that are lighthearted but will stand out with the Buffet connection.

I am always fascinated at the strategies ad agencies come up with to appeal to customers (Super Bowl ads are the most creative attempts every year), and this one, in my opinion, could be the beginning of a new trend to promote stability as a selling point for companies--not that it hasn’t been done before, but usually for very conservative, staid companies with very serious ads. This approach pairs a lizard with a symbol of stability, which is very different.

Hard times can make for a wave of creativity as people work to find new ways to make money. I expect to see more ads along these lines by other firms anxious to convey limited risk.

But mostly, I have to say, I am relieved to see that Geico has decided to replace those boringly-awful cavemen ads with something (anything) else! It will be interesting to see if Geico’s business fares better with this new approach.

Lucky Plus iPhone Equals Bliss

The sting has been taken out of shopping. Last Monday, the Condé Nast magazine, Lucky, debuted an iPhone application called, “Lucky at Your Services.” Initially, this new application will feature more than 70 shoes listed in the March shoe guide, and shoppers can choose shoe type, brand, color or size. After deciding on this information, shoppers can click the “Find it Near You” button, which directs them to area stores with the available shoes using either GPS or ZIP code.

In an interesting twist on combining electronic and print media, Lucky has hired a call center with representatives who will confirm that the shoe is available. Reps will even go so far as to text shoppers with information about where the shoe has been set aside for pickup. Lucky is planning to update this application in future issues to offer other items for purchase in a similar manner.

While Lucky has been accused of being more of a catalog than a magazine, “Lucky at Your Services” represents the first combination(at least to me) of using print plus electronics for direct shopping. This differs from calling up a company to order a product—the new service lets someone else deal with finding the item you want in an area store, thus no shipping charges. All you have to do is pick it up.

I love it. What can I say? Some people live to shop, but I have no talent in this area. I’ve been waiting years to have someone do all the looking and locating for me. Surely, this will be a trendsetter!

I realize that Lucky is trying out this new idea because ad revenues fell 11 percent in 2008, and the magazine hopes to prove to its advertisers that shoppers are using the service; thus, advertising in Lucky would be a good way to reach them. Condé Nast publications, in particular, have been hit hard by the retreat of advertisers.

So, yes, the recession is a drag, and magazines are getting thinner all the time. But hard times can bring creativity and an onslaught of different ideas for dealing with less. Other publications should try this approach. Just think--Gourmet Magazine could have a “Cook it For You” iPhone application, directing readers to a company that would cook or deliver the pictured meal in a timely manner.

The possibilities are endless.

How to Save Your Newspaper

This week’s cover of Time magazine features an article on how to save the daily newspaper from becoming extinct. While it’s noted that newspapers have more readers than ever, the bottom line is that fewer of these readers are paying because the same thing is online for free. The three revenue sources for a newspaper are newsstand sales, subscriptions and advertising. Because most publishers have relied on advertising, the freefall of ad revenues in 2008, both in print and online, have made for a shaky foundation, resulting in many severe cuts.

Relying on advertisers exclusively has another downside because, ideally, the editorial content of a publication should be geared to its readers, not its advertisers. How many people have flipped through articles in any magazine, only to find that the content features the products of several advertisers? When articles fail to be of interest to consumers, readership is bound to fall.

And going back to Thomas Paine and the time of the American Revolution, the free press has been essential to any free democratic society. Journalists and the content they produce in interaction with their readers are really the intelligence of a society, as well as THE institution of public discourse.

But back to the article, this is happening because news organizations are giving away their news online. In the spirit that all things on the Web should be free to readers, publications like Time initially watched its online ad revenues increase for getting the information to more people, but at the same time, abandoned being paid for content. When ad revenue hit bottom last year, cuts had to be made.

Well, what’s wrong with going back to getting paid for content? In a real twist of irony, I subscribe to the print version of Time, but as I looked online for a hyperlink to this article, there it was, almost in its entirety, laid out online for absolutely free. So, why should I buy this magazine?

The writer suggests that a system of micropayments would allow readers to pick and choose which online news to pay for rather than forcing people to subscribe.

I love freebies, but I love this profession more, and I hate to see it go down in flames, and along with it, jobs for budding writers, photographers and graphic designers. If the dailies go, yes, there will still be online jobs, but markedly fewer. If the print versions stick around, combined with online, more college graduates in the field will be able to seek jobs in a FUN profession (one of the few left, in my opinion). They may have to work harder and write high quality pieces, but there will be jobs.

Some argue that readers will balk at payment for what was once free, and some will say that remaining free sites will attract more readers. I don’t think so; as long as the fees are small enough, I would expect that there will still be enough researchers and just fans of good journalism to pay for the distinguished sites.

This isn’t just about keeping the print versions of newspapers and magazines; in my opinion, this is about the survival of a great profession.

Newspaper Book Sections Almost Extinct

The Washington Post has decided to stop the print version of Book World, its Sunday stand-alone book review section, opting to shift reviews to inside sections of the paper. The last issue of Book World will appear in a print version on Feb. 15, but will continue to be published online as a separate entity. Occasionally, Book World will appear as a stand-alone print section for special themes like summer reading or children’s books. As one of the last remaining stand-alone book review sections in the country, Book World fell victim to a decline in advertising revenues. While the award-winning staff will remain intact, the pages devoted to book reviews will likely shrink.

After a petition was circulated in an effort to save the section, Marcus Brauchli, executive editor of The Post, justified the move by saying that the paper would experiment with different types of book coverage; for example, one review might cover three books containing a similar subject. Others see this as just one more example of newspapers combining sections and decreasing book coverage.

With the largest remaining Sunday tabloid book section, The New York Times separately sells its acclaimed Book Review to 23,500 subscribers, with an additional 4,200 copies sold in bookstores across the country, thus adding to the paper’s revenues. This might be an option for other papers to follow suit.

So, why cry about a book section that has been left intact online but has been eliminated in print? This move supports statistics that reflect the decline of book reading among younger adults. And the book reviews are still there; you just have to make the effort to go online and find them or hunt them down in the lifestyle section.

As someone who has loved books all her life, I’m not ready to abandon them any time soon. And, I don’t want to do everything online. I have to agree with the idea proposed by Douglas Brinkley, who says, “I think book review sections almost need to get subsidized to keep the intellectual life in America alive.”

Books are to the culture of thoughtful reflection and discourse what roads are to travel; without easy access, our society’s intellectual life is made more difficult and further degraded. The book industry has been hit hard in recent years, and removing separate review sections from newspapers that highlight select books cannot be good for the publishing industry or for authors.

I see the economic difficulties here. But I’m not ready to cuddle up with my laptop while I’m waiting for the doctor, or late at night when I want to get in bed to read. Having a separate print section for book reviews allows me to compare what’s out there for sale far faster than I could online because I can carry the paper with me when I leave the house and have the time to read it. I can take the same section to the bookstore or library, so I don’t forget the names of the books I want. And finally, I just hate to see the already ailing book industry take another hit from a prestigious newspaper in a position to make a difference.

Access Issues a Concern to Government Reporters

The Washington Post reported that news organizations covering the White House are squabbling over access issues for photographers and protocol regarding briefings.  The day after the inauguration, news representatives took exception to the new press secretary's initial decision to issue official White House photographs rather than allowing access to outside photojournalists for specific events.

The controversy stemmed from the denial of access to photojournalists for Obama's do-over oath of office and his first day at work.  Along with still photographers, broadcast cameras were denied access to these events as well.  The story goes on to say that four reporters did witness the oath of office, and an official White House photo was issued instead.  White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that the move was upfront and transparent, arguing that a "bigger room" would have been needed to fit in everyone for the ceremony.

The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse refused to distribute White House photos of the new president in the Oval Office in response to this perceived snub.  CBS News' Christopher Isham said that news agencies and the Obama administration were in "an awkward phase," with some bumps to work out.

The article goes on to state that additional objections were raised over why reporters were not allowed to use the names of administration officials giving background briefings.  Finally, the article says that Gibbs never addressed this issue directly.

So, I was wondering how long it would take the press to find fault with the new administration; I just didn't realize it would be this soon.  Yet, this is naive on my part, because these people may be less interested in getting the news out there (I, for one, would have welcomed any photos of President Obama in the Oval Office on his first day) than they are in establishing their turf.  Robert Gibbs has been press secretary for two days, and already, news organizations have implied that he is deceptive, exclusive and ignorant of past protocol.

I realize the importance of allowing outside photojournalists to cover White House events.  Obviously, if this trend continues, I would be the first to cry foul.  But can't the media give Robert Gibbs a break--at least this week?  Poor guy has to be terrified of misrepresenting his boss (the head of the country, military, etc.), as well as issuing potentially objectionable comments of his own!  

After all, the cultural change we're hoping for with President Obama's leadership and example is a new appreciation for civil, "mutually respectful" negotiations between parties with different interests.  It's well recognized that the polarization, which has infected our society, both domestically and in foreign relations, needs to stop.  Why not start at the source--the new White House?

Environmental S.W.A.T. Team

This week, The New York Times will present a radical departure from its format of reporting environmental issues.  Rather than cover different aspects of the topic using various reporters, the newspaper has opted to form an environmental reporting team comprised of eight specialized writers from the areas of science, national, metro, foreign and business. 

The purpose of this new unit is to devote more prominent coverage to a topic that has become increasingly newsworthy in recent years.  The idea is that reporters will bring their own area of expertise to write more "big-thought" environment articles that will make it onto the front page, according to Erica Goode, the new environment editor.

This new approach will employ investigative work and the use of storytelling techniques to decipher a complex, multifaceted topic for the reading public.

The article goes on to say that the Times's arrangement is progressive for its ability to probe into the variety of ways a single environmental issue can affect daily life.  Goode says that a recent story about an ultra-efficient home was an example of a piece that generated tremendous interest while combining information from the areas of science, business, home and lifestyle.

Whether or not this move was a disguised effort to cut costs, I applaud the Times for taking a responsible approach to an issue that many have dismissed as unimportant.  When any issue can be supported by scientific or technological information, it seems to gain credibility in the minds of many readers.  And who better to report on specific statistical information than reporters with expertise in each field?

I think that environmental articles will become more interesting and informative with a group of reporters responsible for content rather than a single source.  If this approach proves to be effective, perhaps newspapers will use it to address the coverage of other pressing subjects.

Do you think the Times was being innovative in coming up with this "group approach" to reporting, or do you think the organization just wanted to consolidate and cut costs?

Networks Keep Anchors Home for Gaza Story

Although the three major networks sent their top news anchors to the Middle East in 2006, ABC, NBC and CBS opted out of sending them to cover Israel's latest conflict with Hamas, reported USA Today in a January 8 article.

While the networks claim that this was an editorial rather than economics decision, it does come at a time when most news divisions are facing cutbacks in their overseas divisions.

According to the article, a story becomes a major event when a top anchor in the field covers it. In years past, all three networks broadcast the evening news from Middle East locations, particularly in 2006 when Israel invaded Lebanon.

News organizations cite an overwhelming number of competing stories right here in the United States, such as the Presidential inauguration and the unstable economy, as reasons for keeping top talent at home rather than sending them overseas.  Network top brass claim that access restrictions to the conflict make coverage, "just not worth it," according to Paul Friedman of CBS News.

The article goes on to discuss that while the networks argue that foreign correspondents have been assigned to cover the conflict in the Middle East, CBS News recently laid off staff in foreign bureaus, including Tel Aviv.  And ABC News has worked out an agreement with the BBC to have their reporters provide news coverage from Iraq, therefore cutting costs.

Call it what you will--editorial or economics--but the decision by the networks to keep the top anchors at home, thus reducing the stature of any Middle East story from major to minor, reflects a growing media trend that allows broadcast budgets to determine what is perceived as top news.

If a major story is defined by the network's chief representative traveling to the source of that story, then we can assume that the decision by network executives to limit this travel has an indirect effect on the perceived importance of the story.

Naturally, there are only so many resources and so much money to cover all the stories out there that seem worthy of being brought to life.  But the worry is that given the costs of competing with other news outlets for viewers' attention, some significant stories may become "too expensive" to cover.

Given the ability of the medium to subtly influence the audience by placement and length of stories, I wonder if selection of future news broadcasts will be driven by professional journalistic considerations of significance or economic expediency.  Will viewers see a reasonably accurate portrayal of what's happening in the world or the world according to the chief financial officer of the network?

What do you think about the decision of the networks to keep their top anchors out of the Middle East?  Do you think the upcoming events in this country and the lack of access to the actual war sites are reasonable excuses for this decision?  Or, do you see economics more severely influencing which stories will be covered and which will not?

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