The Chief Takes on Blogging Candidates and Candidates Who Blog

The discussion is here.

Read it and respond if interested...

What's Up with WOSH Lately?

I need to confess to something. I'm not proud, but if I find myself in my car over lunch, I listen to Rush Limbaugh.

I do it as opposition research, I promise.

Locally, WOSH 1490 is the station that plays the show. Has anyone else noticed their problems with production? Almost every commercial is played over another on. They seem to be playing two newscasts at the same time, dead air and one time they even played 10 minutes of Dennis Miller out of nowhere.

WOSH is a Cumulus station. According to their website:

Including all pending acquisitions announced through March 31, 2005, we will own and operate a total of 310 stations in 61 U.S. markets upon FCC approval and consummation of all of our pending acquisitions.

Therefore they are no small puppy.

What's the deal. Is it the only way they can make sure the breaks are less listenable than Rush?

Standards... Something to remember in online journalism:

OshNW Executive Editor Stew Rieckman, Executive Editor in their online forum:

If you read the print version of the Northwestern and compare it with the Web you will notice that most of the strange, bizarre and titillating stories from Sheboygan and Fond du Lac never make into print. The reason is that the print version of the Northwestern has different standards than the Web version. So we're not selling any extra papers with the Web only content.

While I understand his point, I think this is a real problem with journalism today. The focus on the 'titillation' over substance. We understand this from the blogs and the tabloids, but you would hope that the print mainstream would hold their standards no matter the forum.

Even more in light of the anonymous quotes that the Northwestern pull from their website and publish in the print edition, as pointed out in this recent letter to the editor:

Letters: Online comments not fit to print in newspaper

I would like to question the purpose of, and helpfulness of, publishing on the "Today's Conversation" page snippets of on-line chat, especially as the chat is anonymous. Is it because you think that the published chat is somehow representative of Oshkosh, and therefore newsworthy?
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How does the publishing of anonymous, apparently uninformed (no substantiating evidence is offered by the writers) opinions contribute to the betterment of our city? By all means continue the online chats -- but let's leave it there, just as we leave the bar banter at the bar. At least there we know who's talking.

How can the OshNW claim that they have "different standards" between the print and online aspects, when they use content across both platforms?

I would hope the OshNW would hold the same (high) standards for their brand no matter what the delivery method.