Update: Esperanza Unida's payroll problems continue under Miranda's administration

The Capital Times just corrected their editorial, “Van Hollen should act fast on petition fraud case” (July 25).

At issue is the nonsensical and internally incoherent assertions of some of Esperanza Unida's people that one of their two opponents for state assembly (whom they failed to knock off the ballot, making Esperanza Unida zero-for-two in this campaign) had improperly received legal counsel.

Ridiculous.

Editorializes the Capital Times today:

We have, as well, come to the view that the law firm and associates of attorney Michael Maistelman acted appropriately in this matter. ... We have been impressed with [attorney] Halbrooks' forthright and detailed responses to the concerns that have arisen. ...

Update: Esperanza Unida's payroll problems continue under Miranda's administration

I just want to say that I am truly disappointed in the Capital Times. It is supposed to stand up for the truth and be thorough in its investigations. When the format of the Capital Times was changing, I took Dave Zweifel and John Nichols at their words that the quality of the journalism would not suffer as they changed media.

Why then did they print an editorial that was so shabbily researched? I am referring to the editorial column “Van Hollen should act fast on petition fraud case” (July 25).

Today has been a much more exciting day here at the conference.  Video and pictures (I hope) later. 

There are several recurring themes:

• Community Building - how do you succeed with this?
• Building a financially self-perpetuating model (dear to my heart)
• Collaboration between sites and how to promote that.

There is a remarkably large contingent of cheeseheads here.  We are in the process of working on a plan for all of the above.  More later after I believe it's actually under way - but there's a lot of exciting stuff going on.

John NicholsIn other Wisconsin news - John Nichols gave a really great talk this morning in regard to the direction that journalism is taking, and how the Cap Times is part of that (and how some of it has not worked).

Check this out ... come back with me to 1988 ... Dan Rather ... reported by the investigative unit of CBS, plus an interview featuring unanswered questions by Bush 41 regarding the Iran-Contra Scandal - ON LIVE TELEVISION.

Seriously, watch this and think about how far the bar has been lowered in twenty short years, folks.

It's like Dan Rather is an Internet blogger or something. It's seriously WEIRD.

Fourth estate, where are you now? I miss you. <sniff>

Ah, if only I did even 25% of the things for which I get the blame. 

This is an email I sent this morning to the Associated Press:

An  AP story in Sunday papers by Scott Bauer includes this false statement, which I would ask you to correct:

Gableman 's appointment to the bench has been called into question by the Greater Wisconsin Committee, a liberal group run by Democratic Party operative Bill Christopherson. It implied in an ad that Gableman won his appointment only after donating $1,250 to McCallum 's campaign.

I suppose I was as surprised as anyone about yesterday's announcement at the Capital TImes, that they are going to publish a paper twice a week and expand their web presence . Then again, I'm not.

My personal involvement with the Capital Times is peripheral - many years ago when I lived in Madison my ex was a reporter at the Cap Times. I think the eventual fate of the paper as a going physical paper was sealed with the joint operating agreement with the State Journal. What seemed like a great deal for the paper at the time turned out to be a big liability, as afternoon papers folded throughout the country. The fact that Madison has maintained two daily papers up till now is fairly amazing, so with the continuing drop in readership at the Capital Times, its not surprising that some changes are in the works.

I think this may eventually be a great thing for the paper. Newspapers all over the world are facing these issues. It's very possible that the circulation issues at the Madison paper are going to force it to be a leader in a change that I think is inevitable. It's becoming harder and harder for a physical publication that "only" comes out once per day to compete with the ever-refreshed news cycle of television, radio, and the Internet.