For sale: Coverage in The Economist ($1,000 obo)

The 2003 California Recall Election offered one of the best values for shameless self-promoters in recent history. For $3,500 and 65 signatures, your name and personal statement would reach tens of millions of people as a candidate for Governor.

This bar-lowering allowed people often left out of gubernatorial politics, such as brewers, satanists, pornographers, railroad car brake operators, prop-based comedians and tiny thespians, a chance to get their name and message across in an arena where millions were likely to notice.

Fast forward to 2008. This time it's The Economist offering low cost publicity.

Attempting to justify an article attacking Senator Jim Webb as a poor choice for Barack Obama's running mate, despite neither Webb nor anyone in Obama's campaign suggesting he's under consideration or would take the position, presented the following explanation:

"No one but Mr. Obama knows whom he will pick, but the buzz around Mr. Webb is loud enough to make in the favourite on Intrade, a betting website. So it is worth examining his weaknesses, too."

The problem with this is that only about $1,000 was actually wagered on Jim Webb via InTrade. Don't tell Gallagher.

Catching up with a former Voice intern (unfortunately not THAT one).

The Economist has apologized for plagiarizing a story that former Voice intern David Herbert wrote while in Uganda this summer. Yes, that David Herbert. (Turns out I'm not the only Voice alum who's "basically ethically bankrupt.")

Suggests Herbert, "If you reference this on your blog, try not to talk about my own indiscretions."

Sorry Dave. Maybe next time you'll think twice about telling a higher-up, "That's your lede? Why don't you print that out so I can wipe my ass with it."

A card for my colleagues

I couldn't find a "Congratulations on your new boss" card anywhere on-line, but I did come upon a message which I think does a good job of conveying my feelings for the staffs of the San Jose Mercury and the Palo Alto Daily News.

Earlier this afternoon, they officially learned that they would be working (or perhaps not working) for new owner MediaNews, which apparently had run out of papers to ruin and felt like testing the government's stomach for antitrust cases. Soon, the paper CEO Dean Singleton called "the crown jewel" of Knight Ridder (hint: he wasn't talking about the Daily) will be another notch in the company's bedpost, right along with the Berkshire Eagle, the Oakland Tribune, the Fremont Argus, the Houston Post (R.I.P.) and the San Mateo County Times. After buying the Times, MediaNews the company forced all of the paper's editorial employees to resign, rehired only 75 percent of them and paid them at reduced salaries.

There was much celebrating at the Palo Alto Weekly offices today for breaking the story this morning, which again reminded me how little readers care anymore about who has a story first. I'm not saying I wouldn't have done it myself, but reporters' compulsion to pat themselves on the back for being the first to publish something is similar to all the hand-wringing over the sale of KR, in that we overestimate how much readers care about it.

As the Economist wrote about Katie Couric's jump to the CBS Evening News, in this week's feature story on the new participatory form of media:

Those in other countries, as well as Americans under 30, may be forgiven for thinking that a news story about a newscaster is just a spectacular bout of navel-gazing. Of course it is...

On the other hand, "Oooh, look at me, I read the Economist!"