At newspapers, the slashing continues

Budget-slashing at newspapers continues, both locally and nationally.

At the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, 36 positions are being cut and zoned local editions are being eliminated, according to the Daily Worcesteria, which adds: “This is the journalistic equivalent of bunkering in at the last, strongest point and abandoning the outposts.”

Ironically, the Daily Worcesteria is part of Worcester Magazine, which is shedding positions following an ownership change, reports the, uh, Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

The T&G, as you probably know, is owned by the New York Times Co., whose New England Newspaper Group (the T&G, the Boston Globe and Boston.com) suffered a 24.5 percent loss in advertising revenue in July as compared to the same month in 2007.

Things are at least as grim on the North Shore and in the Merrimack Valley, as CNHI, the corporate owner of the Eagle-Tribune papers, announced this week that it is eliminating 52 jobs, writes Boston Herald media reporter Jessica Heslam. The chain comprises the Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence, the Daily News of Newburyport, the Salem News and the Gloucester Daily Times.

And it’s no better elsewhere. Alan Mutter, who writes the Newsosaur blog, tells us today that newspaper revenues are down $3 billion over the first six months of 2008, bringing revenues to their lowest level in a dozen years.

Even online revenues are slipping, Mutter says, which shows that what’s happening now has as much to do with the economic recession as it does with the stampede from print to the Web.

Private e-mails, public records

According to the Washington Post, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sent e-mails from her private Yahoo account to ask the state public-safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, why her brother-in-law was still working. Monegan, whom Palin fired, showed the e-mails to the Post, but wouldn’t provide copies.

Is it legal under whatever open-access law is in effect in Alaska for the governor to use her private e-mail account while conducting official business? An e-mail from the governor to the public-safety commission could be obtained under a freedom-of-information request in many states. How about Alaska?

I’ve sent an e-mail to the AP’s Larry Campbell, who’s listed as the contact for the Alaska FOI Coalition. I’ll let you know what I find out.

Sarah Palin’s debut

She projected strength but not authority. She made a reasonably good case for herself, but grossly exaggerated her reformist credentials on the “Bridge to Nowhere.” She was charming and well-spoken. Given that no one knows who she is, I suppose she had to go on about her family longer than most politicians would.

Surely Palin had a more difficult task than Joe Biden, who delivered a “B” speech last week. Biden’s been around forever, so no single speech was going to make or break him. Palin, too, turned in a “B” performance, or maybe a “B-plus,” under much more challenging circumstances.

I think Palin established herself as potentially an effective surrogate for John McCain, but she’s got a ways to go before she establishes herself as a credible potential vice president. Is she now going to do the Sunday shows? Hold a press conference? Given the McCain campaign’s blame-the-media strategy, maybe they’ve decided to skip all that.

The speech of the week so far, by the way, was Rudy Giuliani’s.

Exploiting Bristol Palin

Josh Marshall puts forth a provocative argument that I half-agree with: that it’s the McCain campaign, not the media, that has wallowed in Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, while the media have been drilling down on the investigation into Sarah Palin’s firing of the state-police commissioner, her hypocrisy over the “Bridge to Nowhere,” her and her husband’s ties to the wacky Alaskan Independence Party and the like.

I think Marshall is on to something, but it’s not as clear-cut as he makes it sound. I have seen a lot of coverage, nearly all of it stupid and irrelevant, about Bristol Palin, her pregnancy and her self-described “redneck” boyfriend. It’s not all coming from the McCain camp. But the campaign is clearly exploiting it.

Peggy Noonan’s hilarious lie

Read and then listen to Peggy Noonan’s open-mic exchange with Mike Murphy, in which she says the McCain campaign is “over,” and describes the choice of Sarah Palin as “political bullshit.” Then read her lies about what she really meant.

What’s fascinating is that Noonan clearly understands everyone knows she’s lying. So what’s important to her is that she demonstrates her loyalty by lying rather than confessing to the obvious truth.

The education of Adam Bond

Middleborough Board of Selectmen chairman Adam Bond, a prime mover behind plans to build a casino mega-complex in his adopted town, is complaining that Mashpee Wampanoag tribal leaders failed to call their old pal before asking state officials to negotiate with them.

Matthew Burke reports in the Cape Cod Times today that the tribe has formally approached Gov. Deval Patrick in order to work out a compact that would allow the Mashpee to build a $1 billion casino in Middleborough.

Bond, writing on his blog, can’t believe it. “The spirit and the letter of the agreement make it absolutely clear that we should be present, or our rights have been irreparably harmed,” says Bond, a lawyer, who criticizes the tribe for approaching the state “with no mention of Middleborough being at the table for the talks.”

Please. Does Bond think for one moment that the big-money folks behind the casino plans care about Middleborough? As I and others have been arguing for more than a year now, Bond says he sought the casino in order to save the town; but he’s going to end up destroying it. No doubt the town will get a seat at the table, as the agreement appears to require it. But that’s hardly “mutual respect for the partnership,” the lack of which surprises no one other than Bond.

As Burke’s story notes, the tribe can’t operate a full casino unless the state Legislature legalizes Class III gambling, which the House declined to do earlier this year. Speaker Sal DiMasi is presumably as opposed now as he was then, but you can be sure casino proponents — including Patrick — are going to make another run at it.

As for the latest development, perhaps yesterday will stand as a landmark moment in the education of Adam Bond. And here’s a thought: The agreement forbids town officials from opposing the Mashpee’s plans. But if the Mashpee abrogate the agreement, Bond and his fellow selectmen would presumably be free to do the right thing the second time around. Indeed, Bond even hints at it toward the end of his post.

Matt Viser of the Boston Globe has more.

Wednesday afternoon update: Alice Elwell of the Brockton Enterprise reports that tribal leaders are now claiming the document that Bond complained about was just a draft, and that they never meant to exclude Middleborough officials.

A good night for the Republicans

A pretty good night for McCain. He really caught a break with President Bush, who I thought came across far better as a chief executive on the job than he would have if he’d actually been in the hall. Bush was at his charming best and stayed on message, making it about McCain instead of himself. Discordant note: his out-of-context reference to “the angry left.”

What got into Fred Thompson? If he’d been this energetic and folksy during his presidential campaign, he might have gotten someone outside his immediate family to vote for him. I agree with David Gergen, who said on CNN that Thompson was unusually effective in talking about McCain’s experience as a POW, but no doubt angered Democrats with his distortions* (my word, not Gergen’s) of Obama’s stands.

It was pretty funny to follow Thompson’s hyperpartisan attacks with Joe Lieberman’s call for bipartisanship. Lieberman was a considerable upgrade over Zell Miller, the then-Democratic senator who made a fool of himself at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Lieberman took a couple of shots at Obama, but you had to laugh with some appreciation at his success in getting Republicans to clap for the Clintons.

I also enjoyed the smirk firmly planted on Lieberman’s face as he praised Sarah Palin.

*And, as Josh Marshall points out, a damn vicious distortion in at least one case.