Media wrong about Iraq in 2003 at it again?

Everybody – reporters and news site -- has an agenda so it’s hard to know what to believe.

But Media Matters for America senior fellow (impressive title, huh?) Eric Boehlert writes that the people who botched the Iraq War in the first place – George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, etc. – are being given ready access to criticizing President Obama for what’s happening today because the same media helped convince the American public that the original screw-ups were right.

Why? The same guys in the media who helped sell the war before the 2003 invasion now are trotting out the WMD liars to attack President Obama because Iraq is a civil war mess, thanks to an ISIS so on the fringe that even Al Kaida rejects the group.

"The neoconservative program cost the United States several trillion dollars and thousands dead and wounded American soldiers, and it sowed carnage and chaos in Iraq and elsewhere," writes Harvard University professor Stephen Walt in Foreign Policy.

Boehlert writes: The media got it wrong 11 years ago and is using the original architects of the Iraq debacle to slam President Obama for it.

Media Matters for America is at the opposite end of the agenda spectrum from Fox News, and admits its goal in life is to “correct conservative information in the media,” so take all this with a truckload of salt.

I’ve pretty much lost faith in people with R or D in front of their names because they seem to be beholden to people and companies with B in front of their wealth indicator.

You can read the entire article and judge for yourself at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/by-rehabilitating-iraq-wa_b_5521565.html

Kevlar inventor dies

Stephanie Kwolek, a DuPont chemist who in 1965 invented Kevlar, the stronger-than-steel body armor that has saved thousands of lives of military and police force members, died Wednesday at 90.

Kwolek made the breakthrough while working on specialty fibers at a DuPont laboratory in Wilmington, Delaware. She is the only woman to be awarded DuPon’s Lavoisier Medal for outstanding technical achievement.

Kwolek was born on July 31, 1923, in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, graduated from Carnegie Institution of Technology with a chemistry degree and was hired by Dupont a year after the end of World War II.

Kwolek found a solvent that was able to dissolve long-chain polymers into a solution that was much thinner and more watery than other polymer solutions. The fibers are five times stronger by weight than steel. DuPont had to get new equipment to test the tensile strength.

More than 3,100 police officers are members of a "Survivors Club" formed by DuPont and the International Association of Chiefs of Police to promote the wearing of body armor

Kevlar today is used in airplanes, armored military vehicles, cellphones, sailboats, spacesuits, baseball bats, notebook computers and underground mining equipment.

To read the entire article, click on http://alj.am/1svlxkW

Mizell prowling in California

Former Beacon Journal managing editor Mizell Stewart III, vice president/content of the

Mizell Stewart

newspaper division of E.W. Scripps whose current home is near Middletown and Hamilton in southwestern Ohio, is roaming northern California now that his eyepatch is gone from cataract surgery.

It's work, not fun, or so he says. He and his group are checking out Scripps properties in the La-La Land.

Explains Mizell:

"Visiting the Scripps-owned Redding Record Searchlight (about two hours north of Sacramento) and then joining Scripps journalists attending the Investigative Reporters & Editors conference in SF later in the week. Eye is fully recovered!"

Mizell lives in West Chester Township, which is convenient to his Cincinnati-based Scripps job but a lot different than his native Cleveland.

Mizell succeeded Debra Adams Simmons as the BJ’s top newsroom dog and was replaced by Bruce Winges, the current big kahuna in the BJ newsroom, or what’s left of it (about 60 people, down from 200+ when I retired in 1996). Debra succeeded Jim Crutchfield.

Mizell left the BJ in 2007 to become editor of Scripps’ Evansville, Indiana Courier & Press. His newspaper stops included Dayton, where I was with the Daily News till I switched to the BJ, and Tallahassee, where Florida politics are run in the state.

Ex-BJ TV critics team to help New Jersey celebrate

David Bianculli, former BJ TV critic, enlisted the help of his BJ successor, Mark Dawidziak, who migrated to the Plain Dealer as TV & pop critic,

  David Bianculli    Mark Dawidziak

in preparing for New Jersey’s 350^th birthday on June 24.

Bianculli will show film clips Sunday, June 22, in the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton about the Garden State and filmmaking set in Joisey over the decades. 

Not wanting to do all the heavy lifting himself, David got Mark and others to round up the NJ movie list for him.

Bianculli’s roundup includes Clint Eastwood’s new movie, “Jersey Boys,” but David didn’t mention the most famous Jersey icon of all, “The Sopranos,” probably because it's a successful TV series. Good thing James Gandofini has been permanently cremated with his ashes delivered to family and/or friends or the waste management business might have another pickup.

The Bada-Bing Strip Club in the Sopranos was in Lodi, New Jersey in real life. Satriani’s pork store in real life was in Kearney, New Jersey.

To read the entire article about Bianculli, New Jersey and David’s co-conspirators, click on http://www.tvworthwatching.com/BlogPostDetails.aspx?postId=7617

Post-Dispatch drops George Will column

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has decided that Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative George Will’s columns have gone too far over the line, dropped his column and apologized for his column on college campus sexual assaults.

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Illinois native Will’s column is syndicated in newspapers across the country by the Washington Post, which bills him as “the most influential writer in America.”

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch notification:

“The change has been under consideration for several months, but a column published June 5, in which Mr. Will suggested that sexual assault victims on college campuses enjoy a privileged status, made the decision easier. The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it.”

The irony is that the Pulitzer Prize was set up by Joe Pulitzer, Post-Dispatch owner.

With a tip of the hat (of course) to Stuart for posting the photo on his Facebook page. 

And that's Susan Kirkman Zake, former BJ photographer who joined the Kent State journalism faculty, as part of the perpetual migration from the BJ to KSU, in 2013.

Mark J. Price chimes in:

That's copy editor Joe Kiefer in the bottom left corner of the Wheels of Fortune photo. He was the lead copy editor on the series. He works at the Columbus Dispatch now and is married to copy editor Debby Stock Kiefer (who also works at the Dispatch).

Thanks, Mark.

Advertisers balk at CNN’s high rates & lower ratings

CNN, whose advertising revenue has plummeted from $347.8 million in 2011 to $320 million in 2013, isn’t impressing advertisers by switching emphasis from instant news coverage to documentary series.

CNN’s high ad rates in the industry are getting less bang for the buck, particularly with younger viewers, advertisers complain. Fox News, the right-wing bastion, regularly out-draws CNN.

And CNN can only beat the drums on the Malaysian plane crash for so many months without losing traction.

To read the article, click on http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/ad-buyers-resist-cnns-upfront-pitch-1201222831/

54,200 newspaper, magazine jobs gone since 2003

Newspapers and magazines have lost 54,200 newsroom jobs since 2003, according to Pew Research. Newspapers lost 16,200 full-time jobs; magazines were hit harder, axing 38,000 jobs.

Blame it on a reader shift to digital media, which newspaper owners failed to get in front of while clinging to century-old strategies. That contributed to the evaporation of classified and display advertising, the heart and soul of newspapers’ existence.

When I retired from the Beacon Journal, there were 200 or so in the newsroom. Today, about 60 jobs have survived, and cutbacks to even that sparse supply keep happening. 

Worse, the most valuable and experienced reporters and editors are the ones to go, because they cost the most.

More than half the media Washington bureau jobs are gone, which must make politicians delirious. The watchdogs slinked away, whimpering.

While 54,200 were slashed from newspapers and magazines, internet-based news jobs added less than 5,000. So nearly 50,000 journalists went elsewhere, or just went away.

To read the article, click on http://washingtonexaminer.com/pew-54200-newspaper-magazine-jobs-axed-since-2003/article/2549876

Ernest Borgnine dies

Actor Ernest Borgnine, who won an Oscar for the lonely Bronx butcher in “Marty,” died Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 95. “Marty” won the Oscar for best picture.

Ernest Borgnine

Borgnine also the “Fatso” Judson, the sadistic sergeant who beat a private to death in the 1953 movie, “From There to Eternity.”

And in 1962-66, the PT boat commander in the sitcom, “McHale’s Navy.”

Born Ermes Effron Borgnino in Hamden, Conn., on Jan. 24, 1917, Borgnine was the son of Italian immigrants.

To read the entire Los Angeles Times article, click on http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/09/local/la-me-ernest-borgnine-20120709

Jim Carney reflects on his 6-week-old retirement

Retired Beacon Journal reporter Jim Carney, one of the class people in this world, takes a look at his new life, which is six weeks old:

Jim Carney

“Report from the land of the retired. It has been quite an adjustment. Kind of like landing on a planet far away. It made no sense at first. Someone told me you really need deprogrammed after you stop working. That is true. I miss my pals and the excitement of daily newspapering. The paper looks good.

“Am glad I did what I did. I've been cleaning the basement, the garage, working on photo projects, getting Michael and Laura married, babysitting a friend's grandchild. Been reading and writing. Taking naps. Babying Alfred. Making KT's lunch. Tonight, put together mac and cheese and chilli dog dinner. And praying for a pennant. Reading the obits. A classmate died this week. It will be six weeks tomorrow. Blessings to all.”

Speaking as someone who has been retired 18 years after running to work at the BJ for 26 of my 43 years on newspapers because I loved it, Jim, I think you’re going to ADORE retirement, but maybe not till Katie joins you in this hallowed land.

I’ve been to 52 countries and 43 states, and that never would have happened if I had stayed at the BJ. And winning my (and 49 other retirees’) lawsuit against the BJ over its health care reneging helps tremendously. $2 prescriptions for ANY 30-day medications, brand name or not ($4 for 90 days if I do it by mail) and restoration close to my retirement-day 80% Medicare/20% BJ medical coverage for everything else helps, too.

The retirees’ lawyers in Cleveland got a $750,000 (give or take a few bucks) check from the BJ for handling our case. I got a substantial reimbursement for out-of-pocket medical expenses that the judge said the BJ was not entitled to take away. So did the 49 others.

Every day I thank the late Dave White, Composing honcho, for starting that lawsuit. The Canadian picked on the wrong dude who ran into the right dude (a lawyer) on the Siesta Key beach in Florida.

Enjoy your retirement, Jim. Find something you love to do, but didn’t have the time or money while you were working. Hell, with your bent in life, volunteer in a soup kitchen or, like retired photographer Don Roese, find people living under bridges and help them with better shelter. You were made for helping others.

Don't be in a hurry to find it. Let it find you.  

Maybe the Black Keys kid can help, too. He can pay for carrying his drum sticks.

Get back to me in May 2015 and we'll have lunch and see what you worked out. Plenty of good restaurants near me in Chapel Hill.

Trexler on ‘Nancy Grace Show’ about Painesville murder case

Phil Trexler

Beacon Journal reporter Phil Trexler appeared on CNN Headline News’ “Nancy Grace Show” Tuesday night to discuss the Painesville, Ohio case of Kevin Knoefel, 43, found guilty having sex with his foster daughter, Sabina Zunich, and then convincing her to kill his wife, Lisa Knoefel, for nearly $785,000 in insurance money while Knoefel was elsewhere.

Sabina stabbed Lisa 178 times in 2012.

Knoefel was found guilty of six counts of sexual battery, three counts of complicity to commit aggravated murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder.

John Dunphy & wife Rebecca Allen enjoy Trevi Fountain, cafe in Rome

Dunphy enjoying Rome

Former BJ reporter John Dunphy, retired from the Orange County (California) Register, is enjoying Rome with wife Rebecca Allen, who spent a lot of years as deputy Features editor at the same newspaper.

Writes John:

“Rome's famed Trevi fountain was all fenced in and dry, looking more like a shipwreck than art. But we had a great walk around the area. Next was the Vatican tour which was great, but bit too long for these old feet. Nothing a cold glass of wine couldn't cure. Stay tuned...”

Rebecca chimed in:

 “We had a 5-hour tour of the Vatican museums and the St. Peter's basilica today. The weather was perfectly sunny and breezy. After we got back to the hotel to have lunch and rest our aching feet, thunder and lightning crashed through the sky and a wonderful downpour cleaned the air. We must be doing something right! Sorry for the delay on letting you know we arrive safely. We couldn't figure out how to use our international data plan at first.”

The Trevi Fountain was constructed around 19 BC by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, son-in-law and favorite general of Emperor Octavian Augustus, to supply the thermal baths he built in the Campus Martius, by the Pantheon. The display spilling water was on the site of the Church of St. Ignatius.

In 2006 when Paula and I visited the Trevi Fountain an Italian policeman blew his whistle vigorously when I dunked my bare feet in the swirling waters. It was part of our 15-day bus tour of Italy, from Venice to the Isle of Capri, before we headed for my heritage. That’s my hand around Paula behind the photo of Dunphy sitting at a Rome café outside table in the montage above.

I walked through the 1884 stone house where my grandmother grew up, and slept in one bedroom with seven other family members, in Mione, a 2-block-by-3-block hamlet in the foothills of the Alps. And later we drove about 20 miles southwest to Pellizzano, today a whitewater rafting tourist attraction, where my mother, grandfather, aunt and uncle were born.

They all came to America by 1920, and wound up in Fairmont, West Virginia, where my mother met my Monongah coal mining father, whose family came to America from Mogilno, Poland and got to West Virginia after trying their luck in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Casey Kasem dies

Casey Kasem

Casey Kasem is spinning the Top 40 in the Hereafter.

Kernal Amin Kasem was born to Lebanese parents in Detroit in 1932.

"American's top 40" radio host for decades, Kasem was the voice of “Shaggy” in the “Scooby Doo” cartoon show and other cartoon characters for other series.

He died today. He had been suffering with dementia for a long time.

To read the article, click on

http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=873092#scpshrjwfbs

To read former BJ critic Mark Dawidziak's even better article, click on

http://www.cleveland.com/tv-blog/index.ssf/2014/06/casey_kasem_made_himself_heard_and_made_himself_welcome.html#incart_river

13 at BJ win state awards

The Beacon Journal won first place in various state competitions.

Phil Masturzo

Photographers Phil Masturzo and Ed Suba, reporters Betty Linn-Fisher, Nate Ulrich, Marla Rodenour, Ryan Lewis, Katie Byard, Mary Beth Breckenridge, Paula Schleis, Doug Livingston, Rick Steinhauser, Mark Turner, Bob DeMay were all first in one category or another.

That’s 13 staff members, out of just over 60 total. The other 47 must feel really left out.

I tried to find the story on Ohio.com for a link, but couldn’t. So you’ll have to check today’s BJ B section for it.