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Jun

29

Review of Plain Dealer changes unveiled in today’s paper

Filed Under Announcements, Business, Cleveland+, Media, Ohio, Tech, Writing | 1 Comment

Here’s the letter and here’s the pdf that details the changes. What I notice:

1. When I looked at the one page overview of “numbers,” my first thought was: oh, no – you do not want to do this (i.e., show all these numbers that will make people think about/see how much gas is used and how much paper is consumed rather than any information about how the paper is trying to go green or greenify its operations at any level, not to mention using/maximizing its online capabilities) (to wit, the paper won another award, this time from the APME, for its multi-platform presentation of the Johanna Orozco story – “ONLINE CONVERGENCE, Over 150,000: The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, for deep reporting on the grueling recovery of an 18-year-old girl shot in the face; you can read about a different award they won for the coverage here).

2. The Page Two WakeUpCall: Did anyone from the PD check with James Pindell of Politicker.com, where one of the features is called Wake-Up Call? The PD’s version is described as,

…your guide to what’s new online at cleveland.com. If you only have a few minutes, this page is your watercooler study guide, led by its “Five Smart Things You Should Know Today” summary.

3. Moving the Opinion page to the back of the first section reminds me of how the New York Times in print is organized. Now, unless I’m reading it incorrectly, which is possible, it sounds like there will no longer be a dedicated op-ed page but rather just one page that will be, “…a lively one-page mix of editorials, columns and your letters.” Hmm. But the Sunday Forum will go to six pages.

4.  Thursday will have a feature in the back of the Inside & Out section called “New on the Net.” There doesn’t appear to be a visual preview of what the section will include or look like.

5. The Business section appears to have the most changes that interplay with cleveland.com: there will be no section at all on Mondays, but rather will be represented by changes at its place on cleveland.com, including the provision of “online-only features.”  Now, the thing here, in describing this change? Is that, if, you know, the section won’t be anywhere in print on Mondays, and it will all be online on Mondays, then isn’t the entire section, on Mondays, an online-only feature?

And that’s the bulk of the summary. Now, whether it results in the rumored 35 page per week cut addressed by Roldo Bartimole in early June, I can’t really visualize.  I might have to buy it for a week just to see.

Areas that aren’t mentioned at all: politics, women, education, jobs, real estate, crime. May or may not be relevant but to me, as a reader, especially after reading Rocky Mountain News‘ publisher/editor John Temple’s column about individualizing newspapers, well – if I had an individualized newspaper, those are some of the topics I’d want to know will be covered in an organized and well-displayed way. (As an aside, I e-mailed Temple about one observation I had regarding the idea of individualizing print papers and he responds to it here in his blog.)

I’m also curious to know the price of the revamp. Would I buy a smaller paper, that had more essential info to me in it, at the same price it’s now charging?  This is an interesting question.  One reason I stopped buying it was because I felt that the editorials were poorly reasoned and failed to serve the community in a way commensurate with the brain resources and talent that exists at the PD. That doesn’t mean the conclusions had to be the same as mine, but at least solid reasoning needed to be provided.  It’s hard to believe, but it’s been more than 18 months since I received it regularly.

The revamp doesn’t say much about the guts of the stories themselves or how the editorial process may change (but there is this pdf that goes over the process of producing the paper). Will we see more wire reports or fewer?  Will the brief items be so brief that even someone who spends a minimal amount of time online will already know those stories? Will we see more narrative, or no?

The Business re-do indicates that there will be some front-paging of news about local business and I know that there have been some changes to the front page as well re: local highlights.

I am kind of a news junkie – I have to say – so I might just talk myself into getting the paper again.  Just so I can, you know, trash it. Right? For the record, I’ve sent a link to this post to the changes AT plaind DOT com e-mai, as an FYI.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:39 pm June 29th, 2008 in Announcements, Business, Cleveland+, Media, Ohio, Tech, Writing | 1 Comment 

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Jun

29

Black Maternal Health: a series by Women’s eNews, Part I

Filed Under Culture, Government, Health Care, Illness, Mental health, Parenting, Politics, Science, Women | Comments Off

We’ve heard before about how, prior to Bernadine Healy (former head of the research institute at the Cleveland Clinic and dean of OSU’s medical college, before heading up the American Red Cross) being the head of NIH, few if any studies included enough women and made the results relevant to more than 50% of the United States’ population.

Well, we should also realize that there are other ways in which research and reporting on health can be skewed, intentionally or not, because it fails to take other demographics into account.

Today, Women’s eNews published its first article in what they call a series on Black Maternal Health. They don’t mention how many articles or how often the article will be published, but I receive they’re daily e-mails and will be sure to cross-link to each one in the series as they appear.

From the first one, titled, “U.S. Black Maternal Hazards Tied to Social Stress,”:

Regardless of their age, marital status, education or early prenatal care, African American women are more likely to bear premature and low-birth-weight infants, those under 6 pounds, whose survival odds are below the U.S. norm.

Nationwide, black women are three to four times more likely to die giving birth than either white or Latina women. Their infants’ mortality risk is doubled, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disparity has persisted even as infant mortality rates for the nation as a whole have fallen.

…

Over the last 10 years, the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Research on Women’s Health, led by its first full-time director, Vivian Pinn, an African American appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1991, has encouraged a body of research indicating that the roots of black maternal ill health run deep. Among the findings:

Black immigrant women have fewer low-birth-weight babies than native-born black women.

Pregnant African American women are most likely to develop hypertension and diabetes. They are also most likely to retain weight gained during pregnancy.

The problems get worse as the mothers get older, indicating a cumulative effect of stress. (Women of Color Health Data Book, 2005).

Now, I can’t even pretend that I know much about this topic – I don’t, other than to say that I am familiar with some of the statistics and the search for understanding them. I hope that some readers who are more familiar comment on the opinions in the piece.

For more information on the work being done on this issue, take a look at the Black Women’s Health Imperative, which hosted a conference last week in celebration of their 25th anniversary. They don’t appear to have a blog, but you can sign up for a newsletter.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:02 pm June 29th, 2008 in Culture, Government, Health Care, Illness, Mental health, Parenting, Politics, Science, Women | Comments Off 

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Jun

29

Haveil Havalim #171 now posted

Filed Under Announcements, Blogging, Carnivals, Jewish, Writing | Comments Off

I had to smile as I recognized the nearly universal ritual of lining up warm weather shoes on the front page of this week’s Haveil Havalim, edition #171 on Ima on (and off) the Bima (for those readers who might be unfamiliar with Hebrew, “Ima” is pronounced “EEE-ma” and means “mother” in Hebrew, so it rhymes with “bima,” which is pronounced “BEE-ma).

But that smile could be attributed equally to her subtitle for the carnival of Jewish blogs, “The Packing for Camp Edition.”

Oy indeed.

Thanks for the good humor, Ima.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:02 pm June 29th, 2008 in Announcements, Blogging, Carnivals, Jewish, Writing | Comments Off 

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Jun

29

Evidence of unequal pay in Cuyahoga County Recorder Russo’s office

Filed Under Cleveland+, Elections, Gender, Government, Ohio, Politics, Voting, Women | 1 Comment

Sure, this article in the Plain Dealer today is intended to focus on the cronyism and nepotism among Cuyahoga County Recorder Frank Russo-related individuals at the county’s recorder’s office.

But when I opened this pdf to check out who was who, the main thing I noticed was how many women with the title of “office assistant” or “senior office assistant” make less than even the lowest paid male counterpart who was listed as an office assistant. I also thought, how many office assistants does an office usually have?

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:44 pm June 29th, 2008 in Cleveland+, Elections, Gender, Government, Ohio, Politics, Voting, Women | 1 Comment 

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