You won’t need directions.

I made a new muxtape.

As you can see I just broke my own webpage trying to be cute and hand code CSS. I don’t have the wherewithal to fix it right now, but rest assured that a) I know it is fucked and b) I will rectify it sooner rather than later.

[Cross-posted at Eye on Blogs.]

The 600-pound gorilla in the newsroom where I write right now is that 14 people have been terminated from KPIX due to drastic budget cuts. No, this isn’t a twisted April Fools Day prank, since the involuntary cuts happened yesterday. It’s a reality; seasoned, veteran reporters who have decades upon decades of Emmy-winning experience have been shown the door because advertising revenues are way down in this election year (when they were projected to be much higher). And it wasn’t just on-air individuals who lost their jobs, but those behind the scenes as well. Every single department in the station was subject to cuts.

Word of cuts left the newsroom in near solemn silence, which is a departure from the lively chatter that typically permeates the building. It was (and is) a day of mourning at CBS 5–for those who had to leave, for those whose dear friends are no longer their colleagues and for those who were put in the difficult position of making such hard decisions. Manny Ramos, Bill Schechner, Tony Russomano and John Lobertini are class acts and have brought 60+ years of top-notch journalism to the Bay Area. Their contributions cannot be overlooked. The outrage from SFGate readers is palpable (and suprisingly coherent for newspaper web comments, frankly). Many in the community are feeling a sense of loss today, and not just sadness for good newsmen who lost their jobs, but cynicism about what kind of news they’ll get going forward. These journalists have been a foundation of ace television reporting for decades. Their absence will be noticeable for a long time to come.

I can’t quite describe how strange it is to be writing about this situation from where I sit. I have only been employed at KPIX since mid-November when I was hired to do a job that didn’t exist before. Full-time blogger at a news station is not a common position, in fact, it’s pretty rare (though becoming more and more common). Having a newsroom staffer monitor and produce blog(s) as their sole responsibility is not something even I, a blogger since 1999, would have imagined five years ago. Now stations across the country are making new media, social networking and online publishing a priority as advertising dollars are moving from the silver screen to the computer screen. They are hiring up bloggers who are well-versed in internet news and culture to manage those web properties. Some would debate that a position like this is superfluous, and frankly, they’d have a lot of good arguments, no doubt. Other still would say that the landscape of news dissemination is morphing so quickly that to ignore new media innovations like blogging is a death knell. Those people, too, have many valid points.

It is undeniable that, despite current economic trends that do not bode well, the t.v. news and newspaper business is struggling. They are struggling to catch up to the power of the web which has, in many ways, robbed them of many of their most valuable assets. News gets made online and broken online before traditional media types can even react. Not their fault, exactly, the machine is just too huge and cumbersome. Mainstream media organizations simply aren’t as nimble as independent online newsmakers. However, what the machine lacks in dexterity, it makes up for in spades with exclusive contacts, years of knowledge and hard-won reputation. It’s a morphing industry, no doubt about it. These cuts are an illustration of that inevitable fact.

Here is what other bloggers are saying about the unfortunate KPIX layoffs:

TV Freak:

Yesterday was a sad one at KPIX-Channel 5, where the downsizing trend that has had the newspaper industry in its grips came to the local television station…In the case of KPIX, the station is losing plenty of valuable experience. Ramos and Schechner have five Emmys between them and decades of on-air experience. Schechner has been on TV in the Bay Area since 1972.

TVPhotogBlog:

I recieved a phone call tonight from a friend in the know. He’s lucky to still have a job but he’s still worried…

From Forbes Field to the Bay and Back:

So much for stations being loyal to long time employees.

Ever notice they never fire the General Manager ?

Or so it seems anyway…

California Majority Report:

Lobertini is a solid reporter, one of the best of putting the inner workings of state government into laymen’s terms. He also isn’t shy about putting state leaders on the spot with tough questions, as Gov. Schwarzenegger (and Gov. Davis) found out the hard way on several occasions. I’m sure he’ll land a spot somewhere, but it’s sad to be reporting nearly weekly on the further decline of veteran Sacramento reporters.

And here are some select comments from the active SFGate section in regards to this development:

norcalguy101 wrote:Who watches news on tv anymore. I’ve cancelled my cable. If I want to watch baseball, basketball, or live video coverage, or read the news….it’s all online….plus you get what interests you rather than have to sit their and get stuffed with what a producer thinks I need to know….which based upon the three leading Bay Area news programs is not much…

<WeatherGuy wrote:I don’t know any of these fired reporters. I stopped watching the news when the internet came around in the middle 90s and I could find my own information at my leisure. Local news is just depressing anyway

hoecakes wrote:That’s a shame. Those fired reporters were really good and credible. I worry that they’re going to turn into KRON with idiots like Ysabel Duron (laughs inappropriately and cuts everyone off with her inane driver) and Henry Tannenbaum (complete idiot blowhard). KTVU’s new male morning anchor sucks too with his yukking delivery. Man, local news used to be so good, and now?

wakeupalive wrote:You will all be missed. Just another reason not to watch local news anymore. They are putting on people that can barely read and definitely aren’t news reporters. PBS or nothing else at this point. Sad.

spidra wrote:I’m sorry to hear about these folks joining the host of others in the Bay Area who were laid off or will be laid off this year. It would be great if the experienced reporters, the ones who are truly journalists, could take advantage of not having to please a corporate boss anymore and produce their own blogs and podcasts. It would be interesting to see what they’d come up with if they no longer had to worry about sponsors and shareholders.

leake wrote:Local news is not news - it’s advertising dollars. So what if they move the props around a little, or give the anchors new haircuts every now and then - it’s all about the packaging, not the content. Let’s face it, from a business perspective KPIX and its local news programming is not and will never be “60 Minutes”… And older TV news reporters are not about to start blogging their way to success anytime soon.

I’ve invited some staffers here at CBS 5 to contribute their words on what is a great loss this has been to them both personally and professionally. I hope they do so. I watched yesterday as those who have seen one another most mornings for many, many recent years shed tears for those who were affected. Those wrapped in embraces were then called into manager offices to get the same news that had just stricken their friend. It was hard to watch. I can’t imagine how hard it was for those sent home after 20 or 30 years. The level of distress was at a fever pitch. Employees talked in tiny puddles, wondering aloud if they’d be next. They wondered to their comrades how this news organization would change in the days and weeks to come. Would there be enough of them to get it all done? Their work is done at break-neck pace as is.

Friends are gone. They aren’t coming back. It’s been hard around here, and I imagine it won’t get easier, at least on an emotional level, for a long while.

Readers, you are welcomed to comment on these unfortunate turn of events in our comment section below. Leave well wishes for those who are gone or express your displeasure. You have the floor.

RELATED:

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1% of CBS News Staff Cut in Round of Layoffs

• Learn to french braid hair
• Get a glimpse of the Great Wall
• Write a letter in calligraphy
• Sit near a snail and watch it
• Show a child a shooting star
• Learn how to do the worm
• Ride a mechanical bull
• Get really excellent at chess
• Scale the side of a cliff
• Knit a whole something. Anything.
• Slow dance with my father
• Put my three pairs of tap shoes back into use
• Shave my legs with a straight razor
• Write an elaborate play never meant to be staged
• Be someone’s secret admirer
• Skydive
• Dig my toes into the sand in search of other toes on the beaches of Costa Rica
• Hold a stranger as they grieve
• Fast
• Learn to read braille
• Drink absinthe with someone seasoned at it
• Sleep with a cat in a hammock
• Hike until I collapse
• Send a postcard to PostSecret
• Write my memoir
• Learn to make sushi
• Throw a fancy black tie party
• Learn to throw a football
• Spend the night in a tree house
• Host all day Lynch film fest
• Visit Snoqualmie Falls
• Grow my own food
• Ice skate at Rockefeller Center
• Learn a burlesque routine
• Scream in an empty canyon
• Look over a shoulder on the back of a motorcycle racing up the coastline
• Deep sea diving
• Love my body 100%
• Write a will
• Leave a favorite book to be found with a note that says so
• Learn a foreign language fluently
• Chart my genealogy
• Tell on him
• Serve on a jury
• Jump on a train with a notebook and a pen and no plans
• Act as a monster in a haunted house
• Have my portrait painted
• Watch a live birth
• Have dessert at the restaurant first
• Put down onto paper how much my Mom means to me, then give it to her

I made a mix on Muxtape.com, the biggest shit this side of the Tumblr/Twitter line*, of bands from Nashville (and Murfreesboro) that I like. Some of those songs are demos, so forgive the quality. I know many of the people in some of these bands, I hope they’ll forgive me my trespasses.

*Muxtape.com went up about two days ago and basically blew up like nothing I’ve ever seen. Because it’s awesome. And about to get shut down soon, I imagine, so I had to get in on that.

Current Mood: elated

Because Kleinheider got a job!:

Adam “A.C.” Kleinheider, who until recently ran the respected VolunteerVoters.com site for WKRN-TV News 2, will on Monday join NashvillePost.com to augment the site’s breaking news coverage with a political blog.

Kleinheider ran VolunteerVoters.com for almost two years, amassing a loyal readership of local business and political leaders with his aggregation of and commentary on political blogs from all corners of Tennessee.

Kleinheider’s work will supplement the political reporting of NashvillePost.com veteran Ken Whitehouse, who among other stories recently broke the news that John Wilder will retire.

“We’re excited about bringing on board A.C., whose skills and network are a terrific addition to our team,” said Geert De Lombaerde, associate editor of NashvillePost.com. “Diversifying our content with his aggregation experience will cement our place as the premier source for Nashville-area political news and views.”

Go read the rest from the Nashville Post. It has always been a good paper, but it just got a lot more valuable in my eyes.

So, some shit went down. You probably gathered that from the cryptic post and change in tone around here. (However, if you are following me on Twitter you are probably catching on to plenty.) Things, to categorize the situation sloppily, are different around here. And they are continuing to change.

My job is the same (and I’m very happy there), but my personal life is in transition in many facets. I may be moving soon, away from Berkeley and into the city of San Francisco. If not soon, it will be as soon as the lease is up. I will live alone. The very, very short of it is I fucked up, made some hard decisions, hurt some people, got some courage and went out on all sorts of tiny, fragile limbs.

Despite all that, and in part because of it, I’m flying where I have always wanted to go, on to fulfilling lifelong imaginings. Oh, the things I would do differently, but I’ve never been more primed and ready to steer this singular life I’ve been given into one that is fully realized. Whatever that means. I’m going to fucking find out.

There are some people whom I love dearly who may never speak to me again. Meanwhile I’m meeting some of the most fascinating and generous people I’ve ever encountered, people who make me feel more alive than I have felt in recent memory. Everything is a blur. Almost all of it. Since moving I experience air, food, faces so intensely and fully that I can’t make heads or tails of anything.

It’s been four months since I left Tennessee for the Bay Area, and this crazy parrot-having place I landed in could not be more different than where I lived for the entirety of three decades. When I think of trying to put down into words how it makes me feel to be walking the dogs in the morning just as the sun is pulling itself over the crests of the Berkeley Hills, to see a palm tree in my peripheral vision, I go numb. Which is insane, it’s just a palm tree. What could be so fabulous and compelling about it that I cannot manage to convey its impact in writing? The issue isn’t the tree itself, it’s the unexpectedness of it. It’s purely foreign to me. A palm tree, to a girl who always lived in Tennessee, is an exotic thing. It is a large, looming figure of otherness; an iconic beast that exists in postcards and at the movies and on vacation. Never when you are walking the dog. So, when I see it out of the corner of one eye my chest brims with the thrill of not just something new, but a regular something new. Something different from what always was, and I can see it whenever I want. I just walk outside.

I am still experiencing culture shock a third of a year later. Today as I rounded the corner to take the stairs down at the Embarcadero BART I got stuck behind two older gentlemen, one of which walked with the aid of a cane. They slowly ambled forward at a pace just quick enough to prevent me from easily slipping around them. Side by side they walked down each step at an exceedingly slow pace making it impossible for me, or anyone, to pass.

Initially this annoyed me. I thought about walking too closely on the heels of the man not assisted by a cane to not-so-subtly imply I wanted to pass on the left, which is standard operating procedure. The thought quickly dissipated, and I decided instead to enjoy the leisurely trip down the stairs while I gave thanks for my youth and my healthy, able legs.

Moments later, over the roar of mp3s in my ears, I heard a hostile voice. “Move it. Move over! You can’t take up the whole fucking staircase!”

My immediate thought was that the loud voice I heard was a friend or acquaintance of the older gentlemen, and that he was teasing the men somehow. It became quickly apparent this wasn’t the case. Music was playing at a substantial volume in my ears - in part so I can avoid these situations, mind you - but I heard one or both of the older men say something in response to the guy yelling. And it wasn’t friendly banter, I can tell you that much. It was then that a man with long hair shoved under a baseball cap pushed past my left shoulder, and the men blocking the stairwell while yelling, “I don’t care how old you are!”

Stunned, I took the opportunity to follow the screaming man into the gap he so forcefully made for us and past the two bewildered men. I let the interaction wash over me as I scrambled down the left side of the escalator, which happened to be clear.

Had the yelling man not forced his way past the amblers I would have missed the Richmond train. My wait would have been another six minutes.

Once on the train car I found a place to hang on since all the seats were taken. I let the previous few minutes run over in my mind and I stood, mouth agape, at how I was in such a different place where the dynamics of daily interactions are played out in ways fully foreign to me. Frankly, I think if people rode mass transit in any significant numbers in Tennessee and that had happened, rude dude might have gotten a beat down, cowboy-boot-in-his-ass style. Or at least the serious threat of one. You just don’t curse seniors like that in public without someone calling your ass on it. At least, I think I’m right about that. It’s been a while since I’ve been home.

Anyway, I want to tell you, favorite reader, about my adventures in this fantastic place where every red cent I pay in rent is worth it because I love my life more than ever. I want to chronicle all the newfound fascinations I find in The Big City at every turn. I’m just too mired in the wonderfulness of it all to know how just yet.

It’s coming.

This morning I was on the t.v. again, this time with the super smart Sweet Melissa, who could teach me a thing or two about how to act in front of the camera. If you watch the video above, notice when they cut to the two-shot of us how she is leaned forward on her forearms in a very serious, woman-to-watch-for way while I lean back with the goofy grin on my face. She looks so self-assured. I should smile less.

There were less uh’s and um’s this time, so cheers to that. And thanks to Melissa for getting up so early on a weekend to come in for the show. She was my first choice for the blogger segment, which may become a regular thing*

*I need to find out how often I can appear on the air before I am considered “talent” and have to pay $1500 in dues, I was told today. I’d NOT like to get surprised with that sort of bill, so thank you very much, Mr. Producer, for the heads up.

I’m no fan of Bill Hobbs*, but I try to give props where they are due, so here goes nothing. Hobbs left a comment at the farewell post at Volunteer Voters that deserves praise on a couple of levels. First, I’ll make with what he said:

It’s been a week, and I’ve come to a conclusion about the demise of VolunteerVoters.com. It’s not a big loss. It’s a MAMMOTHLY HUGE loss. There is a giant hole in the media fabric in Tennessee when it comes to political news. VV was the indispensable go-to source for all things political involving Tennessee, and provided depth and context that the various disparate news outlets often lack.

Additionally, while MSM outlets mention or quote from press releases and documents and such, VV often uploaded the whole thing, or gave readers a link to it - making it a far more valuable resource than any single MSM outlet for politics junkies.

It’s a damned shame that WKRN couldn’t figure out how to monetize the single most valuable political news property in the state. Here’s hoping that some other news outlet, one which understands the new media - and the new media consumer - and wants to be an information portal for its readers rather than just an information destination, decides it wants to take over VV, or at least hire Kleinheider to build a VV replacement for them.

This comment from Hobbs is about as close to how I feel about the situation as it can be. That site was special. It did something no other site does, at least not on the same level (hard for those with other jobs to compete with a full-time, paid blogger), which is streamline local and related national political news and opinion for an influential and sizable audience. Nashville editors, Tennessee senators and journalists all over the country logged in on a daily basis to read what Kleinheider brought. Surely someone with some smarts and a little vision can turn that into a profitable endeavor, at least in the long term. Bill’s dead on with that statement.

Here’s what also deserved recognition, and what prompted me to write this post: Kleinheider gave Hobbs hell. I mean, he deserved it, but VV was relentless when it came to the GOP blogger who is, no matter how you slice it, a force to be reckoned with. And yet, Hobbs comes to one of his biggest critic’s defense because what Volunteer Voters gave to its readers was bigger than all that. Cheers to Bill for being a big man. At least about that.

*Oh hai, understatement.