Push To Save Herald, Press Sparks Debate In National Media

The push by local legislators, as mentioned in November 28's post, to involve the Department of Economic Development (DECD) in efforts to save The Herald of New Britain and the Bristol Press is drawing national media attention.

A Reuters story posted at The Huffington Post focuses on questions of a free press and the potential conflicts that would arise if newspapers got government "bailouts" or other forms of assistance.

The coverage is being driven by a mistaken notion advanced in some reports (including those by Courant columnists Stan Simpson and Kevin Rennie) that the proposal would give the newspapers a handout or "bailout" in the face of falling revenues and readership.

That wasn't the case at all when State Rep. Tim O'Brien (D-24) first asked economic development officials to lend a hand in finding a buyer or potential investors to replace the absentee and failed ownership of The Journal Register Company. The state DECD Commissioner, Joan McDonald, said as much in noting that the push by local elected officials has drawn up to five potential buyers who would take advantage of incentives that her department could provide.

In the Reuters analysis, writer Robert MacMillan notes that legislators, who this week were joined by the Mayors of New Britain and Bristol, sought state intervention to find a way to save these hometown dailies, both of which have a long tradition as the local commercial dailies in once thriving factory towns.

MacMillan, quoting journalism professors and experts, frames the issue in terms of the conflicts that would ensue with state assistance for a newspaper:

To some experts, that sounds like a bailout, a word that resurfaced this year after the U.S. government agreed to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the automobile and financial sectors.

Relying on government help raises ethical questions for the press, whose traditional role has been to operate free from government influence as it tries to hold politicians accountable to the people who elected them. Even some publishers desperate for help are wary of this route.

Providing government support can muddy that mission, said Paul Janensch, a journalism professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, and a former reporter and editor.

The Reuters story correctly points out that the separation of the press and government is just as important in a democracy as the separation of church and state.

That separation, however, would not be jeopardized at all if a buyer is found for the Herald or Press, or both, and the newspapers survive via the public sector incentives that DECD would provide.

Whether DECD incentives were part of the sale or not, the assumption that newsrooms would be compromised in New Britain and Bristol is based on unfounded speculation by those journalists and academics who are calling these efforts by DECD a "bailout."

With the Herald due to close January 12th, it is the longest of long shots to assume a deal will come together in time to save it. Some other form or forms of journalism need to emerge to keep the fourth estate alive locally. The best scenario is that a community newspaper (using both print and the internet) be locally owned and self-sustaining, not another absentee owner seeking to plunder these local papers as the Journal Register company has done.

O'Brien's Call For Special Elections For U.S. Senate Vacancies Gets Traction With L'Affaire Blogojevich

State Rep. Tim O'Brien (D-24) gets a well deserved accolade from Connecticut Local Politics this weekend on his legislation requiring that special elections be held when vacancies occur for the U.S. Senate.

O'Brien saw his proposal die in the 2007 General Assembly with a criticism that his motive was "partisan." Democrats haven't held the Governor's office in a long time and Jodi Rell, the incumbent, would be the sole appointing authority now should Chris Dodd or Joe Lieberman move on before their terms end.

You can't blame O'Brien for bringing up the legislation (filed as HB 5034) again in light of the machinations of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the bipartisan calls springing up in the Land of Lincoln for "Blago's" removal. "Blagojevich, according to FBI-related wiretap sources, wanted to sell Barack Obama's vacated seat to the highest bidder, among other "pay to play", indictable ideas.

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL)quickly called for a special election. It is a likely scenario that the Illinois Legislature will move quickly to impeach the sitting governor and set a date for an election -- denying the cornered incumbent the chance to appoint or leaving it to the Lieutenant Governor who has called for the incumbent's resignation. An Illinois special election, however, would bring electoral credibility to whoever fills Obama's shoes and certainly promote the idea in other states.

O'Brien, who researched and offered the legislation as a member of the General Administration and Elections Committee (GAE), found it odd that U.S. Representative seats are always filled by special elections but not U.S. Senate seats. There was a time when senators were not elected by the people, but by legislatures. Gubernatorial appointment powers may be a throwback to those days. O'Brien cited the contradictory methods in filing the bill.

"My proposal was simple - let the people decide who represents them." says O'Brien on his blog. "It is already the process we use to fill a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives when someone leaves that office. There is no good reason for why the process for filling vacancies in the U.S. Senate should be any different."

O'Brien intends to file the bill again in the 2009 session. Opponents arguing that the Governor should remain the sole appointing power will be sure to have the Illinois situation thrown back at them.

Saving The Hometown Dailies

A plea by legislators for state assistance in saving the Herald of New Britain and The Bristol Press -- the two dailies slated for closure by the parent Journal Register Company -- is getting a mixed reaction among the commenters and bloggers who offered their opinions this week.

That's because many people thrive on complaining about their daily newspapers, and continue to do so despite the painful reductions and eliminations of local coverage by all three dailies serving Bristol and New Britain -- the Press, the Herald and The Courant.

When Henry Paulson of the Bush Administration is lurching from one financial services giant to another doling out bailouts for some but not others, it's a reasonable question to ask why public investments and resources should be applied to flagging businesses at the local level.

The lawmakers, however, are doing nothing more than watching out for the economic well being of their communities. If the Herald or the Press were machine shops making widgets for United Technologies, no one would raise a fuss about saving jobs and commerce. Intervention by the state Department of Economic Development (DECD) would be uniformly welcome. They have been around here much longer than the absentee ownership of the Journal Register Company.

An exact assessment of the economic impact of The Herald and Press is probably not available beyond the payrolls and expenditures directly involved in putting out these papers.

But town and regional newspapers -- print and online -- are much more than the sum of their parts. They have much more utility than 24-hour cable and mass media that offer up more "infotainment" than broadcast journalism

Economically, small businesses build traffic and remind repeat customers of their goods and services in local mainstream media that has a targeted circulation area for maximum effect. The shutting down of the Herald and Press would likely reduce the local economy by millions of dollars and add to a ripple effect of business closures.

Beyond the dollars and cents,local newspapers -- despite the hits their newsrooms have taken over the last decade -- keep the flow of information going about city and town governments, giving residents the knowledge needed to make informed judgments about actions and decisions that have a direct impact on their lives.

There is something noble about the work of local journalists Steve Collins and Jackie Majerus over in Bristol. And in New Britain over the last year, Marc Levy and Rick Guinness of The Herald have been upholding the best traditions of the fourth estate by demanding public officials obey the FOI laws.

It's being argued that bloggers and internet outlets will now fill the void. The ease of blogging and exchanges of opinions online are addressing some gaps in the greatly diminished coverage of the dailies. It's also true that there is infinitely more news and opinion available globally for any interested reader. The news and views ("news you can use")we require, however, are local. Too often emerging town blogs and forums are a poor substitute for dispassionate coverage that people need to make informed judgments. Anonymous comments on blogs and news threads sound like the opinions of village idiots or persons with personal axes to grind, and nobody you would want as your neighbor.

Where does this story go from here? The state lawmakers push with the DECD is worth trying as doubtful as investments, public or private, in newspapering may seem.

The discussion of alternatives should continue. Local commerce needs a local medium. Community journalism that can sort out opinions and personal agendas from the facts and interpret decisions and events for readers is needed -- a vacuum that a thousand bloggers cannot fill.

Whatever emerges from talks to save the Herald and Bristol Press let us recall the old axiom: "There is nothing as powerful as the truth and nothing so hard to come by..." It will get harder without the Press and Herald and the now greatly-downsized Courant.

Ending Wall Street Welfare: Economist Says Democrats Need Long Term Strategy

Robert Kuttner, a widely published economist based at The American Prospect is providing some of the best commentary yet on the economic emergency precipitated by the excesses of the unregulated home mortgage and securities industries.

"Democrats will shortly become stewards not just of a temporary bailout but of a long term recovery strategy," writes Kuttner in a September 30th post "Learning from 1929". "They might as well begin by pointing us on the right path. That includes direct refinancing for homeowners, direct government involvement in the management of failing financial institutions that are recapitalized by government money, through something like the Reconstruction Finance Corporations of the Roosevelt era; and a transfer tax on stock and bond transactions, both to raise needed revenue and to damp down the kind of speculation that led to the meltdown. Then Congress can begin the task of regulating the financial system properly. The basic concept is that any financial enterprise capable of taking down the system requires the tight government supervision that in the recent past has been limited to commercial banks."

Kuttner suggests that the congressional Democrats are a long way from finding an authentic Democratic response that can effectively deal with the laissez faire and failed policies of Republicanism. Regulating the financial system correctly, argues Kuttner, is "the Democratic ideology. But lately, that set of core convictions has gotten rusty. It needs to be reclaimed, and fast. Too many Democrats are still thinking small."

Not, it should be noted, is the thinking of U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney (D-2) who voted no on the amended Paulson proposal this week for all the right reasons. He was the only member of the Connecticut delegation to do so.

Kuttner doesn't stop at the Wall Street "rescue". "Government will need to rely on substantial public spending to pull the wider economy out of the hole. Most of that can be raised by surtaxes on the wealthy and by transaction taxes on speculation, but it will also require a temporary increase in public deficits. Raise enough revenue to cover about $700 billion of financial recapitalization in year one, and in years two through eight use the proceeds for public works, infrastructure, good jobs, universal health coverage, expanded pre-kindergarten and child care."

Kuttner's corrections, in other words, call for a New Deal in the 21st Century, not just to quell the high-finance meltdown on Wall Street, but to reduce the economic insecurity felt by a growing number of working and middle income households. Let's hope that when the Congress votes again, more of Kuttner's formula will be part of the rescue.

Original post from http://newbritaindemocrat.blogspot.com

Back to the Future: Divisive Bozek Gets GOP Nod For State Senate

Tom Bozek, the former state senator and self-described "conservative Democrat", wants a soapbox to spew his racially divisive views and bizarre ideas on shrinking New Britain via the elimination of low-income households.

The New Britain Republican Party has obliged Bozek, anointing him as the Republican nominee for state Senate against Democrat Donald DeFronzo, who ousted Bozek from the state Senate in 2002 behind a broad-based coalition of Democrats and Unaffiliated voters. In that 2002 contest Bozek bitterly blamed more than 1,200 newly registered Hispanic voters for his loss.

Republican Town Chair Paul Carver sheepishly told the New Britain Herald on September 27th "nobody came forward but Tom. He's got a conservative record, and the committee did not want the seat to go unchallenged."

Bozek's nomination points to the sorry state of the local GOP. Of 3,600 Republicans in New Britain and a few thousand more in Berlin, local Republicans couldn't field any fresh, conservative blood to oppose DeFronzo.

Bozek, who still occupies a seat on the Democratic Town Committee in District 1, revived his tirades against "the professional poor" and "minorities" last year in an unsuccessful, independent bid for Councillor at Large. According to the Herald, Bozek is attacking public housing, Section 8 rental stipends and Senator DeFronzo again.

The 2008 Bozek isn't hiding his racially charged rhetoric and campaign against the poor:

"We have 11,000 kids, when we should have 7,000."

"These people destroy these places (public housing). They are 80 percent minorities...They can't make friends with people in their own neighborhoods."

While Bozek has been espousing an anti-public housing and anti-family housing stance for most of the last two decades, Senator DeFronzo points out that Bozek never introduced a bill on the public housing issue while in the state Senate. There is also a bit of irony in a candidate such as Bozek attacking the "professional poor" He is a big beneficiary of taxpayers as he cleverly worked the system to become "a double- or triple dipper" in receipt of public pensions -- the last being arranged by former Republican leader Lou DeLuca who employed Bozek briefly to qualify him for more income on the public's dime.

The nomination of Bozek by Republicans may ensure that the party filled a line on the November ballot. However, they are getting a candidate whose divisiveness and appeals to the lowest common denominator may shrink their numbers even more in 2008.

The Nomination: Clinton, Obama, LBJ and Martin Luther King

In the back and forth of the Democratic Presidential primary season Hillary Clinton's remarks about Rev. Martin Luther King, Lyndon Johnson and civil rights sparked an unfortunate exchange between hers and the Obama forces.

Clinton was trying to make a point about governing, but her remarks were criticized for pitting Lyndon Johnson's delivery of landmark civil rights laws with the movement led by Rev. King -- all of this in the context of her running against a rapidly rising African American politician who ultimately deprived her of the nomination.

Barack Obama's acceptance speech on Thursday at the Denver convention provides a better opportunity to bring up King, Johnson, the presidency and the Democratic Party.

On 8/28 45 years ago, Rev. Martin Luther King delivered his "Dream" speech -- one of the most heard and admired pieces of oratory in U.S. history. King's speech and the movement he led pushed Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats to forge ahead with stronger, landmark civil rights laws for voting rights, accommodations and other aspects of equal opportunity in 1964 and 1965.

Clinton's intent was not to diminish the civil rights struggle but to say King's movement and Johnson's power and legislative acumen were not mutually exclusive. One complemented the other. The Southerner Johnson knew the consequences. "There goes the South for a generation," Johnson was quoted when he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law, predicting his party would lose elections and the "solid" South for many years as they surely did.

And now should it surprise anyone that Obama's multi-cultural background is still fodder for a GOP divide and conquer strategy first invoked by Richard Nixon in 1968?

Obama needs to draw the distinctions sharply between his vision and that of John McCain, especially on economics and the interests of people who "work hard and play by the rules." In doing so, he should revisit the King and Johnson legacy, perhaps noting that Clinton wasn't dissing King over LBJ at all.

The betting here is he will recall that long ago August 28th as he prepares to lead Democrats into the fall election. The moment will not be lost on Obama that his political ascendency this week is a direct consequence of both King's movement and Johnson's Democrats and what was said and done a generation ago. Obama's nomination will not be the end all for civil rights struggle, but a fulfillment of a huge piece of the "Dream".

(Photo Credit: Johnson Library and Museum from wikimedia.org)

Salvio's Latest Salvo: Putting His Pet Projects and Partisanship Ahead of the Public Interest

It's bad enough that New Britain's share of federal community development grant funds have been dwindling for a long time. Mid-sized U.S. cities such as New Britain used to count on a bigger share of CDBG dollars to address neighborhood and housing issues and to deliver community services that the local property tax would not support.

"Twenty five years ago New Britain possessed more than double the CDBG funds it has today," noted NB Politicus in a May 2007 post. "When inflation is taken into account the city has no more than a third of the resources it once had to address blight and community development
issues. Of CDBG dollars currently available, much of current funding is dispersed to human and social service agencies because the federal and state pipeline for their services has been cut to the bone as well."

New Britain's share has shrunk to $1.9 million in the current fiscal year. Those dollars are sometimes used to fend off blight and improve neighborhoods. Increasingly the federal allocation has also been used to fill gaps in the budgets of community agencies and social service organizations.

That's why the recent action of GOP Councilman Lou Salvio is so disturbing. Salvio, whose modus operandi has been to use up public resources by filing official complaints against those he disagrees with, complained to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)about City Council approval of CDBG allocations.

Salvio's latest political salvo was directed at three Democratic Council members who are affiliated or related to persons affiliated with the Human Resource Agency (HRA) and the United Labor Agency, two organizations traditionally in line to get federal dollars because of their anti-poverty and job development services. The three Council members Michael Trueworthy, Toni Lynn Collins and Paul Catanzaro, appropriately abstained from voting on any funds directed to those agencies. In fact, Catanzaro who is Chair of HRA's Board of Directors, was absent. No conflict on their part. The Council acted in accordance with the regulations.

Salvio, who initially signalled unhappiness with the allocations because one or more of his pet projects did not get funded, complained to HUD over the failure of the city to file a perfunctory waiver to HUD about the Council abstentions. The irony is that the Stewart administration, which uses Salvio as its Council mouthpiece, failed to file the required waiver. This omission opened the door to Salvio's complaint and a divisive move to derail legitimately voted allocations on a technicality.

Maybe it's time for Mayor Stewart and his Chief of Staff Lisa Carver to put a muzzle on their Council point man when his actions serve no ethical or public purpose. Heaven knows they know how to muzzle city departments when the press and public come calling for information that should not require an FOI order to be shared.