Executive Media
Public Affairs Public Relations
J
Thu, Aug 14 2008 12:57 PM
Cris Colllinsworth of NBC should be ashamed of himself. It's one thing for overly dramatic TV producers to display their ignorance of sporting motivations. It's another for a guy who's been there. He had a long NFL career as a wide receiver.
Collinsworth had a brief interview with Jason Lezak, who won the 4X100 relay at the Olympics with an unreal final leg that was a second and a half faster than he'd ever gone and faster than anyone has ever gone, touching out the French swimmer by eight-hundredths of a second.
He asked Lezak if he had made that effort in order to preserve Michael Phelps' dream of eight gold medals. Lezak, the 32-year-old senior statesman of the U.S. men's swim team, said Phelps' Olympic record had nothing to do with it. He said it was one gold medal – the one for this race – that mattered; that he'd been on a couple of relays that had not won in past Olympics and he wasn't going to accept that again.
That rang with truth. You compete to win. Period.
It would have been delightful if Lezak had said to Collinsworth, "Gee, Cris, did you catch passes in the Super Bowl with the idea of helping Ken Anderson become the MVP of the NFL?"
But Lezak would have known that idea was preposterous. So should Collinsworth.
Collinsworth had a brief interview with Jason Lezak, who won the 4X100 relay at the Olympics with an unreal final leg that was a second and a half faster than he'd ever gone and faster than anyone has ever gone, touching out the French swimmer by eight-hundredths of a second.
He asked Lezak if he had made that effort in order to preserve Michael Phelps' dream of eight gold medals. Lezak, the 32-year-old senior statesman of the U.S. men's swim team, said Phelps' Olympic record had nothing to do with it. He said it was one gold medal – the one for this race – that mattered; that he'd been on a couple of relays that had not won in past Olympics and he wasn't going to accept that again.
That rang with truth. You compete to win. Period.
It would have been delightful if Lezak had said to Collinsworth, "Gee, Cris, did you catch passes in the Super Bowl with the idea of helping Ken Anderson become the MVP of the NFL?"
But Lezak would have known that idea was preposterous. So should Collinsworth.
T
Thu, Aug 7 2008 11:10 AM
I survived having a daughter without having to buy a horse. My parents had three daughters and ended up buying several horses, which I think gives gives me a good understanding of the "sale of the Greenfield campus" announced by Eli Lilly and Co. this morning.
With each of these horses, at some time the sister who was responsible for it would lose interest, run out of money for boarding or go away to college, raising the issue of what to do with the horse. For the casual owner, my observation is that it's a lot easier to buy a horse than to sell one. So my parents would agree to this solution: the stable where the horse was boarded would buy back (at used value) the equipment it had sold us, take ownership of the horse and charge us some amount for feed for a certain period in exchange for allowing my sister to ride it whenever she wanted.
Would it have been accurate to describe that transaction as "selling" the horse? My father liked to tell it that way, but he knew better. Really, he was phasing himself out of the horse-owning business.
So with Lilly.
The pharmaceutical company announced – in the Indianapolis Star – the "sale" of its Greenfield laboratories to Covance, a lage drug-development company, for $50 million. Covance gets a 450-acre campus that has been developed for animal science research and toxicological studies and that also houses Elanco's animal health products research. In addition, Lilly has agreed to give Covance $1.6 billion in drug-development work over the next decade.
Based on real estate values in the Greenfield area, I'd imagine that 450 acres of bare land would probably fetch well over $50 million, and that's without the laboratories and other facilities. And that's without the hundreds of highly trained and experienced Lilly staff that will go to work for Covance.
My dad would know this is not a "sale." This is a way to ease out of the drug-development end of the business.
The above does not constitute any criticism of Eli Lilly and Co. The move makes sense. It's really not a criticism of the Indianapolis Star. Lilly is a big player here and if they want to call it a sale, hey, it's their transaction.
But it's really a way to get rid of a horse no one's riding.
With each of these horses, at some time the sister who was responsible for it would lose interest, run out of money for boarding or go away to college, raising the issue of what to do with the horse. For the casual owner, my observation is that it's a lot easier to buy a horse than to sell one. So my parents would agree to this solution: the stable where the horse was boarded would buy back (at used value) the equipment it had sold us, take ownership of the horse and charge us some amount for feed for a certain period in exchange for allowing my sister to ride it whenever she wanted.
Would it have been accurate to describe that transaction as "selling" the horse? My father liked to tell it that way, but he knew better. Really, he was phasing himself out of the horse-owning business.
So with Lilly.
The pharmaceutical company announced – in the Indianapolis Star – the "sale" of its Greenfield laboratories to Covance, a lage drug-development company, for $50 million. Covance gets a 450-acre campus that has been developed for animal science research and toxicological studies and that also houses Elanco's animal health products research. In addition, Lilly has agreed to give Covance $1.6 billion in drug-development work over the next decade.
Based on real estate values in the Greenfield area, I'd imagine that 450 acres of bare land would probably fetch well over $50 million, and that's without the laboratories and other facilities. And that's without the hundreds of highly trained and experienced Lilly staff that will go to work for Covance.
My dad would know this is not a "sale." This is a way to ease out of the drug-development end of the business.
The above does not constitute any criticism of Eli Lilly and Co. The move makes sense. It's really not a criticism of the Indianapolis Star. Lilly is a big player here and if they want to call it a sale, hey, it's their transaction.
But it's really a way to get rid of a horse no one's riding.
A
Wed, Jul 30 2008 12:43 PM
Last night's 6: 30 p.m. ABC News was a perfect illustration of how a combination of timing, the race for ratings, the video obsession of television news and Coastism can skew news judgment.
When I turned on the ABC news, the lead was the moderate – 5.4 on the Richter scale – quake that had hit California just before noon. It was bigger than recent earthquakes, but there were no reports of serious injuries or major damage.
Ok, I thought, done with that. Then the next story was about mental anxiety produced by the quake. Then some hysterical-witness footage, sure that buildings would crumble. Then the next story (I may be getting this out of order) was about how this was interesting because the center point was deep underground. Then a story about the California public officials reacting. From then, I don't know. I just knew that I had been victimized by a news meeting run amok.
Basically, nothing that affected me happened. So why was it consuming half the national news block?
Easy:
In today's Indianapolis Star, this major disaster rated three paragraphs in the briefs column, with a one-column photo.
It did not get as much play as the real disaster of the day out of Los Angeles: the city council's decision to ban new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles for a year. Now there's terror Hoosiers can understand.
When I turned on the ABC news, the lead was the moderate – 5.4 on the Richter scale – quake that had hit California just before noon. It was bigger than recent earthquakes, but there were no reports of serious injuries or major damage.
Ok, I thought, done with that. Then the next story was about mental anxiety produced by the quake. Then some hysterical-witness footage, sure that buildings would crumble. Then the next story (I may be getting this out of order) was about how this was interesting because the center point was deep underground. Then a story about the California public officials reacting. From then, I don't know. I just knew that I had been victimized by a news meeting run amok.
Basically, nothing that affected me happened. So why was it consuming half the national news block?
Easy:
- It's an earthquake. It's just like weather or a plane crash. A magnet for cameras.
- It's in LA. Big media market. Gotta serve it. To death if possible. Get me a scared starlet!
- It's on the West Coast, which is almost as important as the East Coast.
- It happened while the editors were deciding what would be in the newscast for the day.
In today's Indianapolis Star, this major disaster rated three paragraphs in the briefs column, with a one-column photo.
It did not get as much play as the real disaster of the day out of Los Angeles: the city council's decision to ban new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles for a year. Now there's terror Hoosiers can understand.
T
Thu, Jul 3 2008 12:10 PM
Every day, we read about layoffs at newspapers, record newsprint prices, the effects of oil prices on print material distribution and the drastic drop in print advertising sales. It's a crisis of the old way. Time to make way for the future.
The newspaper business model – low-cost, mass-market vehicle of news and advertising delivered to your home – is out of date.
There's no need for delivery. Indeed, there's no need for a great portion of the material that is routinely included in a newspaper. Crossword puzzle? Recipes? Birth, marriage and death records? You can look it up online. Until recently, many papers carried complete stock tables until the editors realized no one who was investing needed to look at the newspaper to see how she was doing.
We do need reporting by observers who are paid well enough to be independent from their sources. Why does this reporting have to be on paper? It doesn't.
One of the great surprises to me is that very few web-based local news reports have prospered. I believe that's because the local newspapers, bearing their capital-intense operations, have cut their own throats to keep competition from succeeding. I'll bet there are few newspaper publishers who do not dream of simply wishing away the millions of dollars worth of presses and trucks and buildings they need to support. Television, too, has been slow to adapt to web-based news because of their huge investment in equipment and broadcast frequencies.
That dying attack of the newspaper dinosaur has kept down the web publishers for a long time, but we're coming close to the end. I believe when the web-only publications prevail, we'll see a new generation of professional reporting. Access is an issue, but of course we can't pretend that the disadvantaged are reading newspapers, either.
It's coming. And it won't be so bad.
The newspaper business model – low-cost, mass-market vehicle of news and advertising delivered to your home – is out of date.
There's no need for delivery. Indeed, there's no need for a great portion of the material that is routinely included in a newspaper. Crossword puzzle? Recipes? Birth, marriage and death records? You can look it up online. Until recently, many papers carried complete stock tables until the editors realized no one who was investing needed to look at the newspaper to see how she was doing.
We do need reporting by observers who are paid well enough to be independent from their sources. Why does this reporting have to be on paper? It doesn't.
One of the great surprises to me is that very few web-based local news reports have prospered. I believe that's because the local newspapers, bearing their capital-intense operations, have cut their own throats to keep competition from succeeding. I'll bet there are few newspaper publishers who do not dream of simply wishing away the millions of dollars worth of presses and trucks and buildings they need to support. Television, too, has been slow to adapt to web-based news because of their huge investment in equipment and broadcast frequencies.
That dying attack of the newspaper dinosaur has kept down the web publishers for a long time, but we're coming close to the end. I believe when the web-only publications prevail, we'll see a new generation of professional reporting. Access is an issue, but of course we can't pretend that the disadvantaged are reading newspapers, either.
It's coming. And it won't be so bad.
T
Sat, Jun 28 2008 07:06 AM
For three out of every four years, Olympic sports such as wresting and gymnastics lose the money battles in college athletics departments. Programs are cut, venues die. You can blame Title IX, but gender equity doesn't make football and basketball the all-consuming passions of college sports fans.
Then comes the Olympics. Every top swimmer knows it's those years divisible by four that are the opportunities to multiply sponsorship contract money.
The prime-time broadcasts of the summer games buoy these sports. Here in Indianapolis, with our historic prowess in diving, swimming, basketball, track and field, amateur baseball, rowing and more, it's a treat for the traditionalists who view colleges' non-revenue sports as the real real deal.
This year, NBC – which of course wants to leverage its huge investment in Olympics coverage – has provided an online site that may boost fan fever to its highest pitch. Go here to see NBC's Olympic sports site and be dazzled. Stories, profiles, analyses, records and lots of video – they're even showing this week's swimming trials preliminary sessions from Omaha.
It's a feast. It'll pay off for NBC and it's got me hooked.
Then comes the Olympics. Every top swimmer knows it's those years divisible by four that are the opportunities to multiply sponsorship contract money.
The prime-time broadcasts of the summer games buoy these sports. Here in Indianapolis, with our historic prowess in diving, swimming, basketball, track and field, amateur baseball, rowing and more, it's a treat for the traditionalists who view colleges' non-revenue sports as the real real deal.
This year, NBC – which of course wants to leverage its huge investment in Olympics coverage – has provided an online site that may boost fan fever to its highest pitch. Go here to see NBC's Olympic sports site and be dazzled. Stories, profiles, analyses, records and lots of video – they're even showing this week's swimming trials preliminary sessions from Omaha.
It's a feast. It'll pay off for NBC and it's got me hooked.
L
Thu, Jun 26 2008 09:48 AM
The recent media stir about a light rail line from downtown to the northeast suburbs is a nonsensical solution to our mass transit needs fostered by railroad romantics, legitimized by cost-is-no-object transportation planners and glorified by reporters who don't understand transportation economics.
Let me be clear: spending $160 million on a single rail line is ridiculous when we won't make any investment in IndyGo. Nowhere in the media reports about this capital expenditure are any estimates about operating costs and the inevitable subsidies it will take to keep a rail line solvent.
At a time when fuel costs are escalating the importance of shipping costs for anything – including people – an expensive, government supported rail line will promote sprawling, low-density development. Such development will doom neighborhoods close to the city center by taking away the economic advantage of their proximity.
Laying out huge amounts of capital on rail lines will leave us with inflexible transportation corridors that will interfere with highway traffic and create barriers to future development in the areas they traverse. Those expenditures eventually will demand additional highway construction to route traffic above or below the rail line intersections.
Who knows how much a light rail system serving the metro area would cost? $3 billion in capital alone? Just a guess.
Do you know what IndyGo could do with $160 million? Well, they could blow it on 400 brand-new buses, but more reasonably they could increase the level of service from a system that serves only those who have no other option to one that meets the needs of most commuters.
While current buses don't look environmentally friendly, they are efficient when full. New technology is is bringing hybrid buses, electric buses and other alternatives. Buses have the advantages of using the same right-of-way as cars and trucks and being able to change routes for special events and for long-term living trends and commuting patterns.
If we want to be serious about mass transit, creating a respectable bus system is a far better idea than one mighty expensive rail line.
Let me be clear: spending $160 million on a single rail line is ridiculous when we won't make any investment in IndyGo. Nowhere in the media reports about this capital expenditure are any estimates about operating costs and the inevitable subsidies it will take to keep a rail line solvent.
At a time when fuel costs are escalating the importance of shipping costs for anything – including people – an expensive, government supported rail line will promote sprawling, low-density development. Such development will doom neighborhoods close to the city center by taking away the economic advantage of their proximity.
Laying out huge amounts of capital on rail lines will leave us with inflexible transportation corridors that will interfere with highway traffic and create barriers to future development in the areas they traverse. Those expenditures eventually will demand additional highway construction to route traffic above or below the rail line intersections.
Who knows how much a light rail system serving the metro area would cost? $3 billion in capital alone? Just a guess.
Do you know what IndyGo could do with $160 million? Well, they could blow it on 400 brand-new buses, but more reasonably they could increase the level of service from a system that serves only those who have no other option to one that meets the needs of most commuters.
While current buses don't look environmentally friendly, they are efficient when full. New technology is is bringing hybrid buses, electric buses and other alternatives. Buses have the advantages of using the same right-of-way as cars and trucks and being able to change routes for special events and for long-term living trends and commuting patterns.
If we want to be serious about mass transit, creating a respectable bus system is a far better idea than one mighty expensive rail line.
A
Mon, Jun 23 2008 04:38 PM
For the past year, Ann DeLaney has been warning on Indiana Week in Review that the summer of 2008 would see a dramatic aftershock of the 2007 property-tax earthquake that cost Indianapolis its mayor and provided lawmakers with endless opportunities to attack the problem with smoke and mirrors.
She was right. At least in my backyard.
When the assessors were instructed to redo their guesses on property values, they apparently decided that my neighborhood, the Butler-Tarkington blocks that have resisted the spread of violence and drugs for years, were actually undervalued in 2007. So my assessment was corrected upwards enough that I will end up paying the entire bill that drove homeowners to revolution last year.
Today I received a notice from my landlord, who owns the small suite of offices in which I have been building a business for more than a decade, that its assessment doubled this year and that I had to cough up my share of the new taxes, which amounts to about $300 a month extra. Since that wasn't paid for 2007, I need to find a year's worth of that increase so that the landlord can pay its bill. And I have to pay the monthly difference for the first six months of 2008.
Together, the home and business tax increases that I have to pay are about equal to what I'll pay for health insurance – as a small business owner – for a year. And it won't cover me for anything.
Ann was right. We haven't fixed a thing.
She was right. At least in my backyard.
When the assessors were instructed to redo their guesses on property values, they apparently decided that my neighborhood, the Butler-Tarkington blocks that have resisted the spread of violence and drugs for years, were actually undervalued in 2007. So my assessment was corrected upwards enough that I will end up paying the entire bill that drove homeowners to revolution last year.
Today I received a notice from my landlord, who owns the small suite of offices in which I have been building a business for more than a decade, that its assessment doubled this year and that I had to cough up my share of the new taxes, which amounts to about $300 a month extra. Since that wasn't paid for 2007, I need to find a year's worth of that increase so that the landlord can pay its bill. And I have to pay the monthly difference for the first six months of 2008.
Together, the home and business tax increases that I have to pay are about equal to what I'll pay for health insurance – as a small business owner – for a year. And it won't cover me for anything.
Ann was right. We haven't fixed a thing.
N
Thu, Jun 19 2008 03:00 AM
The championship win by the Boston Celtics marks the end of an entire season in which I did not watch a single NBA game, either in person or on television. I never listened to a radio broadcast, even in those 20-minute, dog-walking times when I've been known to suffer through Doug Gottlieb on ESPN Radio.
I am a sports fan. When I could have been watching men's professional basketball, I've seen and listened to plenty of pro and college football, major and minor league baseball, college basketball, baseball and softball, swimming, auto racing, golf and volleyball. No bowling. A little soccer.
Nothing about the NBA game attracted me this year. I am not a lifelong basketball fan, I admit, but I did follow every minute of the Pacers' winning years. My diversion from pro basketball this year was not a Pacers boycott or even a conscious rejection of the whole league. It just didn't interest me. I didn't care, I think, because I had no connection to the players and because my reaction to the thought of watching the game is a negative one. Boring, frustrating and ugly are the associations that come to mind.
I didn't miss the game this year. I hope the obvious efforts by the Pacers and the league itself to make the NBA attractive to the casual fan work, but meanwhile I'll be recording the various Olympic Trials and going to see the Indianapolis Indians.
I am a sports fan. When I could have been watching men's professional basketball, I've seen and listened to plenty of pro and college football, major and minor league baseball, college basketball, baseball and softball, swimming, auto racing, golf and volleyball. No bowling. A little soccer.
Nothing about the NBA game attracted me this year. I am not a lifelong basketball fan, I admit, but I did follow every minute of the Pacers' winning years. My diversion from pro basketball this year was not a Pacers boycott or even a conscious rejection of the whole league. It just didn't interest me. I didn't care, I think, because I had no connection to the players and because my reaction to the thought of watching the game is a negative one. Boring, frustrating and ugly are the associations that come to mind.
I didn't miss the game this year. I hope the obvious efforts by the Pacers and the league itself to make the NBA attractive to the casual fan work, but meanwhile I'll be recording the various Olympic Trials and going to see the Indianapolis Indians.
T
Sat, Jun 14 2008 07:26 AM
It was 25 years ago that I worked with Tim Russert, while he was New York Gov. Mario Cuomo's communications chief and I covered the New York State government for Gannett News Service. Tim died Friday, leaving a huge legacy in American broadcast journalism.
The Russert I knew then was the same one who transformed the Sunday morning public-affairs talking head shows, making Meet The Press worthy of weekly podcast retrieval. Tim then was smart and funny and irreverent, marked forever by his years of working for Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. When the Albany press corps played softball with the Governor's staff team, they wore jerseys saying, "Authority Always Wins." Gov. Cuomo believed that in order to cover government well, a reporter should have worked in government for a while. I think it works the other way as well: that in order to represent government to the media effectively, it helps a to lot to have worked in news.
Tim never had the elitist streak that, seen in some New York leaders, often demeaned the newspapers we represented – in Utica and Elmira and Rochester and Binghamton – because he always took his orientation from his home town of Buffalo.
In 1984, when I moved to Indianapolis and he moved to NBC in Washington, we wished each other luck. Tim went on to lead the NBC Washington Bureau and to transform "Meet the Press" from a dry, Sunday morning news conference to a conversation not just fit for political junkies but designed to turn casual viewers into political junkies. Instead of a formal question-and-answer on proposals and events of the week, Russert used extensive preparation to talk about political figures' thought processes, their ambitions and their relationships. Most guests were overmatched by Russert's extensive notes, clips and insight. Those who weren't created absolutely compelling television.
You could argue that the 2008 Presidential campaign overtaxed him, since he was everywhere on NBC's networks, including many, many exhausting overnights on MSNBC. His last "Meet The Press" may have been one of his favorites. Sunday's show was the media equivalent of a smoke-filled room. All the NBC Presidential campaign reporters gathered around Russert's table to recall the best moments of the campaign and compare viewpoints. A gem. At the end, he told them to get back out in the field and cover the rest of the race.
It's a great shame he missed the end of the game. It will miss him as well.
The Russert I knew then was the same one who transformed the Sunday morning public-affairs talking head shows, making Meet The Press worthy of weekly podcast retrieval. Tim then was smart and funny and irreverent, marked forever by his years of working for Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. When the Albany press corps played softball with the Governor's staff team, they wore jerseys saying, "Authority Always Wins." Gov. Cuomo believed that in order to cover government well, a reporter should have worked in government for a while. I think it works the other way as well: that in order to represent government to the media effectively, it helps a to lot to have worked in news.
Tim never had the elitist streak that, seen in some New York leaders, often demeaned the newspapers we represented – in Utica and Elmira and Rochester and Binghamton – because he always took his orientation from his home town of Buffalo.
In 1984, when I moved to Indianapolis and he moved to NBC in Washington, we wished each other luck. Tim went on to lead the NBC Washington Bureau and to transform "Meet the Press" from a dry, Sunday morning news conference to a conversation not just fit for political junkies but designed to turn casual viewers into political junkies. Instead of a formal question-and-answer on proposals and events of the week, Russert used extensive preparation to talk about political figures' thought processes, their ambitions and their relationships. Most guests were overmatched by Russert's extensive notes, clips and insight. Those who weren't created absolutely compelling television.
You could argue that the 2008 Presidential campaign overtaxed him, since he was everywhere on NBC's networks, including many, many exhausting overnights on MSNBC. His last "Meet The Press" may have been one of his favorites. Sunday's show was the media equivalent of a smoke-filled room. All the NBC Presidential campaign reporters gathered around Russert's table to recall the best moments of the campaign and compare viewpoints. A gem. At the end, he told them to get back out in the field and cover the rest of the race.
It's a great shame he missed the end of the game. It will miss him as well.
N
Mon, Jun 2 2008 03:30 PM
John Sebastian watches himselfperforming at Woodstock
Woodstock
I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm
I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an' get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it's the time of man
I don't know who I am
But you know life is for learning
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden
– Joni Mitchell
Did we lose our way? That's what some would have you believe, judging from stories about the opening of the Woodstock Museum in Bethel, NY, right there at Yasgur's Farm. But if Woodstock was a nation, it was never the nation. Fatigue and recession brought down the Vietnam War as much or more as idealism did. That does not mean that there were no dreamers and no stardust.
We – and I include my bow-tie granddaddy self with a yard to mow and central air – were children of rare privilege in that we had the freedom to dream and strive for a society that did more than survive. In some ways, we succeeded. In some ways, we left the next guys a lot of work to do. But as long as Crosby, Stills and Young's singing of Joni Mitchell's words bring tears to my eyes, I know that the dream of getting back to the garden can live.