October 18, 2007

Shield us

Ever see those scenes in "All the President's Men" when a mysterious government source nicknamed Deep Throat helped Bob Woodward discover all the shady goings-on in the Nixon White House?

Well, in this day and age, those people are a little hesitant to talk, and journalists may be reluctant to seek them out, thanks to the fact that the federal government can ask them to identify their sources in a court of law. (Hello, Judith Miller.)

That may be changing, though. And we journalists could use YOUR help.

The U.S. House of Representatives this week passed legislation, 398-21, that would keep us from being forced to testify or reveal sources in court. That's called a shield law, and while it's in effect on the state level, that's not the case on the federal level. (Props to Rep. Zach Wamp for being one of the good guys on this bill.)

Now the bill is going to be debated in the Senate, and the White House has threatened a veto of the measure.

Here's what we need you to do: get in touch with your senators (Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker) and encourage them to support the Reporters Shield Law.

Lamar Alexander
alexander.senate.gov
752-5337

Bob Corker
corker.senate.gov
756-2757

While it may seem that this law only benefits reporters, it actually benefits YOU more. Because the more we can find out about what the people in power are doing, the more educated you can become and the better decisions you can make at the ballot box.

So get busy!

Posted by pulseblogger at 01:35 PM | TrackBack

September 23, 2007

The EPB/Comcast Showdown

EPB, a city-regulated utility, has been holding public meetings regarding its proposed citywide fiber-optic infrastructure plans for broadband. The City Council is scheduled vote on the initiative on Tuesday. Last Friday, the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association (TCTA) filed a lawsuit against EPB, claiming it will violate a state law that prevents utilities like EPB from subsidizing telecommunications initiatives with electric utility revenues.
see Chattanoogan.com article.

EPB has responded by accusing the TCTA (read Comcast) of "attempting to limit the choices available to people in the Chattanooga area," according to Harold DePriest, EPB President & CEO.

Apparently there is already adequate, if not overwhelming, support from both the city Mayor's office, as well as the city council ahead of the Tuesday vote.

Continue reading "The EPB/Comcast Showdown"

Posted by pulseblogger at 12:47 PM | TrackBack

August 08, 2007

Update: Video -- The Death of An Independent Journalist

UPDATE: 24 alt weeklies across the country are running this story.

Our cover story this week (written by John Ross) details the death of independent journalist Bradley Will. Below is a YouTube version of the video Will was shooting when he was killed.

There is also a related video on Esquire's site.

Here's a brief summary of our AAN-commissioned piece, written by the San Francisco Bay Guardian's Tim Redmond:

On Oct. 27, 2006, independent journalist Brad Will was shot and killed in Oaxaca Mexico. He filmed his own murder; his camera was rolling when he was hit in the chest, and the footage clearly shows the Mexican police officers that fired the fatal shots.

The two cops were arrested -- but then released from custody after a few days. They are back on the streets, and face no charges of any sort.

At a time when the numbers of murdered journalists is setting records, veteran Mexico correspondent and author John Ross asks: How did a child of privilege from a Chicago suburb become a symbol injustice in Mexico? What did he die for -- and why has nobody been held accountable? How did the cover up happen, what was the role of the US -- and what is the connection to the politics of oil privatization in Mexico?

Posted by pulseblogger at 02:21 PM | TrackBack

TFP Boomers Stories to Be Scaled Back

In case you missed Tom Griscom's column this past Sunday, the Times Free Press is scaling back the frequency of their boomers stories:

Frequency will be driven by good storytelling and not the push to have at least one story each day.

So, in conclusion, forcing your paper to do stories for reasons other than good storytelling leads to bad storytelling.

Posted by pulseblogger at 11:33 AM | TrackBack

July 20, 2007

Times Free Press "Boomers" Series: Officially Ridiculous

By all accounts, TFP reporter Cliff Hightower is a great and talented guy. His talents, however, are being thoroughly wasted on completely pointless tripe such as: "Boomers the right age for roles in Scopes play."

They have officially run out of ideas.

Not to worry, though. We can help. We've already done this once, but we'd like to offer another list of possible TFP "Boomers" story topics.

1. Left-handed boomers do a lot of things with their left hands.

2. Many boomers likely to have graduated high school a few decades ago.

3. Boomers eat food.

4. Boomers remember things that happened before the birth of those who are much younger than boomers.

5. Boomers more wrinkled than younger people.

6. Boomers legally able to buy alcohol.

7. Boomers getting closer to death with each passing day.

8. Boomers go to the bathroom every day.

9. Boomers mathematically old enough to be grandparents.

10. Boomers' intelligence being insulted by insipid boomers stories in daily paper.

I mean... I just... I... Uh... Just... Uh... I...

Posted by pulseblogger at 01:12 AM | TrackBack

June 15, 2007

The Pulse on PBS Tonight

Michael Kull will be representin' The Pulse tonight at 8:30 on WTCI's "Tennessee Insider."

(An encore broadcast can be seen Sunday morning at 10:30.)

Posted by pulseblogger at 03:18 PM | TrackBack

May 23, 2007

M. Trevor Higgins Leaving the TFP

Trevor will be leaving the Times Free Press for a position with an Internet firm in Chicago.

His last column will run in the TFP on June 1.

Trevor is a great, talented guy and we wish him the best.

Posted by pulseblogger at 11:23 AM | TrackBack

April 19, 2007

Don't Limit My World, Banner Ad!

Spotted on the TFP site today:

...unless you'd like to read OUR preview of 4 Bridges...um...today.

I'm just sayin'...

Posted by pulseblogger at 04:39 PM | TrackBack

April 18, 2007

For All Your Front Page Needs

The Virginia Tech story has prompted WGOW (via their website du jour) to remind me that Nuseum.com is pretty dang cool.

Posted by pulseblogger at 01:34 PM | TrackBack

February 26, 2007

Channel 9's Bob Johnson Has Parkinson's Disease

From NewsChannel 9:

Bob Johnson Discusses Parkinson's Disease

Bob Johnson announced on NewsChannel 9's This-N-That program that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. Bob said the disease first began about two years ago. Bob jokingly said he first attributed his symptoms "to old age." He has been under the care of neurologists, but the definitive diagnosis of Parkinson's has just come recently. "It is not classic Parkinson's (with tremors) but Parkinson's nonetheless," he said. In a frank and open interview with Don Welch, Bob of course said he was shocked by the diagnosis but hoped that medication would help ward off the symptoms. "To compound the problem, I've had a chronic back disorder for some years," said Bob. "Degenerative discs that caused me stiffness, lack of movement and some pain." Bob expressed gratitude at the concern, the prayers and the inquiries viewers have expressed.

Click here to watch Bob discuss his illness with Don Welch.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Bob, his family, friends, co-workers, and longtime audience at WTVC.

Posted by pulseblogger at 12:51 PM | TrackBack

February 19, 2007

The Word "Sex" is Too Much to Handle for One UTC Professor

An item from last week's UTC Echo student newspaper caught our eye:

At 4:45 p.m. police responded to Holt Hall to speak to a professor regarding an obscene phone call she received on Feb. 2 at 2:51 p.m. The professor said she was in her office and received a phone call from an unknown phone number.

The suspect said "hello" and asked if he could speak with her. She responded, "This is she."

The suspect stated that her name was Angela, with The Chattanooga Times, and she claimed to be quoting a survey saying, "When asked about women's sexual satisfaction..."

At that time the professor hung up the phone and retrieved the phone number from her caller ID. The professor attempted to locate the source of the phone number but was unsuccessful.

The "suspect" was actually Angela Tant, our news editor and not an employee of the Chattanooga Times, now known as the Times Free Press. Angela called a professor -- just like she called other people around town -- to get feedback about the data we collected in our Sex Survey. Thinking it was an obscene phone call, the professor hung up on Angela.

This is, officially, the funniest thing we've ever read.

Posted by pulseblogger at 10:11 AM | TrackBack

October 08, 2006

Who Won the Debate?

I watched the thing on TV last night and walked away thinking Corker's high-minded problem solving CEO talk made him sound egotistical with a subtext of, "I'll figure out how to be a politician when I get there and learn all those facts and figures and things that politicians seem to know about."

I also walked away thinking Ford's overly effusive "heart talk" and references to his "God" coupled with his assurances that he is not a liberal made him sound like a slight of hand politician hell-bent on re-imaging himself before our very eyes.

Is this our choice?

Continue reading "Who Won the Debate?"

Posted by pulseblogger at 12:09 PM | TrackBack

September 07, 2006

Our World of Warcraft Story Discussed in Enigma

In case you missed it, Blair Hickman's recent Pulse piece on World of Warcraft was referenced by Matthew Anderson in last week's Enigma.

Posted by colrus at 10:21 AM | TrackBack

July 06, 2006

Everything You Wanted to Know About the Gangster Disciples But Were Afraid to Read About Elsewhere

Perhaps you did not take the time to read the Time Free Press’s three-day, nine-article investigation of gang activity in Chattanooga. That is why we did. So you can be lazy, yet still able to name-drop “Mike-Mike Daniels” at dinner parties.

Among the things we did not know before:

-- The attitudes Chattanooga’s police and politicians have taken toward gangs over the past decade have basically corresponded to the way Roy Schneider and the fat mayor approached the shark in Jaws. “Cops have always known there are gangs [here], and politicians have always denied it,” says Chattanooga Police Deputy Skip Vaughn.

-- While the recent Emma Wheeler Homes and East Lake shootings have apparently involved people affiliated with the Bloods and the Crips, the gang most prolific in the Hamilton County Jail is called the Gangster Disciples. (The jail has catalogued seven Disciples.)

-- The same night (April 29) that five fights broke out after showings of ATL and Ice Age: The Meltdown at Rave Motion Pictures, several hundred young people “dressed either in red or blue” rumbled in Coolidge Park. Earlier that day, two teenagers were injured by gunshots fired into a crowd at the Boys Club in East Lake. So maybe the whole thing had nothing to do with T.I. after all.

-- Residents of East Lake Courts are convinced that 20-year-old Michael “Mike-Mike” Daniels, the Skyline Bloods leader who allegedly ordered the first of last month’s killings (pictured at left), still wields influence from inside his jail cell. “He’s in jail, but he has a gang out there that is willing and ready,” says Robyn Griffin, a former resident.

-- Chattanooga Police Sgt. Alan Franks says that the recent wave of violence can be directly traced to the release of “Mike-Mike” from state prison within the past year.

-- On the positive side, a hip-hop duo has released a song called “Stop the Violence.” “They say gangster rap is causing kids to go bad,” says the record’s producer. “Then can positive hip-hop cause them to go good?”

Things we still would like to know:

-- Is it possible to identify gang members by their wardrobes? Police mention “red or blue” identifying colors – but they don’t say which insignia identify which gang affiliations. Franks says gang customs change daily, but he declines to tell reporters if he’s seen any long-term cultural identifiers.

-- What exactly does it mean to say that a guy living in Emma Wheeler Homes is a member of the Skyline Bloods, the Crips, or the Gangster Disciples? Jailers talk about “wannabe” gang members and “full gang members” – but full of what? Is there a meaningful connection between the Skyline Bloods and the national Blood movement? What ties them together, if anything? Is it simply a shared channel for distributing drugs?

-- Which leads to the next question: is Chattanooga’s gang activity a purely internal problem within poor, black communities, or a result of gangs in Atlanta (and elsewhere) making inroads here? Community leaders seem to suggest the former: “If city and county officials had spent a fraction of the money on technical training in the downtown area that has been spent for the waterfront development or other developments, the problem would have never gotten this bad,” says Hugh Reece, vice president of the Southeast Council of the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth. But while more jobs couldn’t hurt, will those opportunities be competing with mere local thugs, or a regional network?

That seems like the biggest question not being addressed by police, government officials or community leaders – or the Times Free Press – and it may be the one that most determines whether gang activity metastasizes here in coming months.

Posted by mesh at 04:17 PM | TrackBack

April 29, 2006

Knoxville Has a New Paper

Click here to read the online version of the Knoxville Voice, now published biweekly.

Posted by colrus at 06:11 PM | TrackBack

Divisive Mail from the North

One of the benefits of having a progressive-leaning father who still lives back up in my home state of Connecticut is that he makes it a point to collect issues of the New Haven Advocate -- the altweekly I grew up reading while hanging out in and around Yale and New Haven during my younger years -- and mail them to me. My dad has sent me other publications, too, over the years (Z Magazine comes to mind) in hopes, I'm guessing, that some of his politics would rub off on me. Though I'm now quite comfortable with my slightly right-of-center, proudly independent perspective, I appreciate the thought nonetheless. The Advocate has always been of interest to me because, well, it contains news about Connecticut and because there is, more often than not, something worthy of discussion within its pages.

Chief atop the dicussion-worthy list in the batch of papers I received today was Advocate Managing Editor Tom Gogola's March 23 piece, "War of the Antiwar". In the piece, Gogola (whom I had the pleasure of meeting at last year's AAN East conference in D.C.) offers the conclusion that the "the question of connectivity between Israel, the Palestinians, and the Iraq War" is at "the heart of what's wrong with the antiwar movement today."

Gogola, a sympathetic antiwar liberal himself, attended two antiwar rallies -- one in New Haven and one in Hartford -- and grew increasingly incensed with much of the cliquey, competitive and counterproductive rhetoric. He saved a big chunk of his ire for the "9/11 Was An Inside Job" crowd who were handing out DVDs arguing their case. Gogola not-so-nicely refused a copy and devoted some column space to the "longhaired bozo" that tried to give him one.

"Your point of view is disrespectful in the extreme to the thousands of people who died on 9/11. Your paranoia mocks those innocents, and the 'inside job' nonsense is exactly why movement activists are so often tarred with the 'wacko' brush in the national media.

Can we at least all agree that this is one segment of the antiwar movement that deserves to have a wall built around it? Throw in some rubber padding, too."

Though I don't think the national media is as quick to paint the "wacko" brush as Gogola does (I think they're actually sympathetic to the "wackos" more often than not), in light of my recent thoughts about the remaining effectiveness of the now-cliched marching/chanting/sign-carrying protest model still widely popular across the globe, Gogola's column was a timely read.

Skimming through the stack of Advocates, I also learned that indie darlings Mates of State now reside in East Haven. Weird. I didn't peg them as Camaro-driving Italians. Read David Morton's review of their latest album here.

Posted by colrus at 04:50 PM | TrackBack

April 24, 2006

The Greatest-Ever Headline on Chattanoogan.com

Click here to be amazed.

Painful, just painful.

Posted by pulseblogger at 01:24 PM | TrackBack

April 13, 2006

Mayor Bans TFP Reporter from Contacting City

Read about it here, here, here and here.

Posted by colrus at 09:06 PM | TrackBack

April 10, 2006

Paul Roberts Has Died

Longtime Chattanooga newsman Paul Roberts has died.

Our thoughts and prayers are with his friends, family and co-workers.

Posted by colrus at 11:12 AM | TrackBack

April 04, 2006

Must Watch Video: A Leprechaun in Mobile

This might be the greatest news package ever.

Posted by colrus at 11:05 AM | TrackBack

March 31, 2006

George Jones Show Postponed

Saturday night's George Jones show at the Memorial Auditorium has been postponed. Jones has pneumonia. A new date has yet to be set.

Posted by colrus at 09:03 AM | TrackBack

March 30, 2006

Craigslist: Now with Even More Owl Pellets!

When Craigslist first set up shop in Chattanooga last month, some were skeptical that the online classifieds page would fit a more rural market. "In cities with a highly computer-literate population – like San Francisco, New York, Chicago – there’s been a tremendous impact on classified revenue," said Molly Zanone, the director of new media for Contemporary Media Inc. "But in cities like Little Rock, or Memphis, daily papers and weeklies have seen no impact."

Well think again, lady. A recent glance at Chattanooga's Craiglist page shows exactly how well the locals have adapted to their brave new world. Consider this posting for a job available in "Rural Tennessee":

We are looking for a responsible individual willing to collect and sell Barn Owl pellets. Barn Owls cough or gag up pellets which contain the remains of prey they have ingested ( mice, moles. rats, voles etc.). We use barn owl pellets in science dissection labs in grades 1-12. By looking at the bones that are found in the pellet students can be lead into discussions about birds of prey, the cycle of nature, skeletal structures and anatomy etc. We will pay 35 cents per pellet. It is not unusual to find over 200 pellets in one day where owls are hunting, nesting and roosting. Barn Owls kill and eat over 3,000 rodents a year.

Let's see... 35 cents per pellet... 200 pellets a day... That's $70 dollars for a day of rifling through the underbrush in search of bird vomit. You won't find a job like that in New York City!

Posted by mesh at 03:17 PM | TrackBack

Bart Whiteman Links

There are some more folks discussing last week's passing of local arts booster and writer Bart Whiteman.

Here's his obit in the Washington Post.

There's a thread discussing his passing at the Theatreboy blog.

He's also being discussed at the brand spankin' new Washington City Paper editor's blog:

Today, there are 56 professional theater companies eligible for the Helen Hayes Awards (and plenty of smaller operations that aren’t quite big enough to be included in that count). The HH-eligible troupes produced 7,169 performances last year and sold 1.9 million tickets to them.

And if you read what D.C. theaterfolk are saying about Bart Whiteman, that richness, that diversity, that sheer number of people making theater had a lot to do with his role as evangelist and cattle prod and crazy-ass visionary.

There is also a feature story on Whiteman in this week's print edition of the WCP.

Posted by colrus at 09:29 AM | TrackBack

March 15, 2006

Bart Whiteman, 1948-2006

Bart Whiteman, an arts reviewer and political columnist for local publications including Chattanoogan.com, the Chattanooga Outlook and the Enigma, died of a heart attack last night.

Whiteman, a Yale graduate and Lookout Mountain resident, specialized in strongly-worded attacks on the Bush administration and careful analysis of local theatrical productions.

When not writing, he worked as a mortgage specialist, and his final column addressed the virtues of FHA mortgages. It concluded:

I could have gotten the house for SP for nothing out of pocket, even getting his earnest money deposit back. His first year savings could have been over $2000. That’s money he could have spent furnishing his new home.

I guess he likes the spare look.

I also guess he didn’t want to save money. His gratification was in spending more money to get the same thing and not having to “mingle with the poor people.” Maybe he didn’t want someone else to know he had used an FHA mortgage. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried so hard with him. Smart people use FHA when they can. Not so smart ones or people who have listened to the wrong advice don’t.

Happy mortgage shopping!

Posted by mesh at 10:05 AM | TrackBack

March 02, 2006

Craigslist Revisited

Officials at Craigslist did not respond to inquiries by our press deadline for this week's cover story. But they did respond. Below are the full comments of Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster.

Continue reading "Craigslist Revisited"

Posted by mesh at 03:27 PM | TrackBack

February 27, 2006

Bob and the Taxman

Pith in the Wind, the Nashville Scene's fine alt-weekly blog, is hosting a jolly discussion of whether Bob Corker should have paid some taxes in the 1980s. Join in.

Posted by mesh at 08:59 PM | TrackBack

February 20, 2006

Chattanooga Now Has Craigslist

See it here.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Posted by colrus at 10:33 AM | TrackBack