The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Randy Kuhl hasn't been in the State Senate for over three years, but his Senate grants and earmarks still make the paper.  Reader Elmer sends this example from the front page of today's Corning Leader [pdf].

Reader Elmer sends a story from the Corning Leader [pdf] about Randy Kuhl's appearance at the dedication of the community center in Addison.  This example of retail politics is one of the many examples of the natural advantages of incumbency. 

Another is the high-quality four-color foldout [pdf] I received earlier this week from Rep. Kuhl's office.  This mailer, produced and mailed at taxpayer's expense, is an example of the power of the franking privilege.  Each representative uses their franking budgets in different ways.  Before I was gerrymandered out of Louise Slaughter's district (NY-28), I used to receive her mailings, which were more like a cheap newsletter than Kuhl's polished document.  As of 1997, each Member of Congress' franking budget was $112,000, a number which has probably been adjusted for inflation in the last decade.

The five anti-war protesters who occupied Randy Kuhl's offices in Bath today received a stay of execution of their sentences until an appeal next April. 

Update:  Reader Elmer sends the Corning Leader coverage of the stay, and WENY and the Ithaca Journal also have the story.

The Hornell Evening Tribune has a story on Kuhl's energy bill vote, which also contains Eric Massa's reaction to Kuhl's vote.

All of the activists who occupied Randy Kuhl's Bath office will appear in Steuben County court this morning at 9 a.m. to appeal their recent conviction for criminal trespass, according to a Finger Lakes for Peace press release.   

Randy Kuhl voted against the latest version of the Energy Bill yesterday.  The Washington Post has a good summary of the major components of the bill.  This bill was originally passed by the House in January.  Kuhl voted for it at that time, but the current version of the bill contains Senate amendments, and House amendments to those amendments. I assume the bill will now go back to the Senate for another tune-up, so this story isn't finished yet.

The Hornell Evening Tribune has a story on the whole "apology" issue, which says that both parties agree that Massa did not apologize.  Massa says he called Engel's office to verify details of the trip.  Kuhl says he called Engel's office to apologize, but didn't since he didn't get Engel on the phone, he didn't do it.  How Kuhl knows what Massa was going to do isn't explained in the article, but it certainly assumes "facts not in evidence" (as lawyers say on TV).

I'm going to post a bit more on the D&C next week, but those of you who have a long-term interest in the Gannett empire would do well to check out Gannett Blog.  "The Editor", who runs the blog, gets lots of inside tips from Gannett employees.

Here's a short sample of the corporate dysfunction he finds:

• Online ad growth at Gannett is half the industry average.
• Gannett stock is at a ten-year low.
• Gannett bought a video publishing service that doesn't let users embed video in blog posts, a key feature that helps video go "viral".
  
• Gannett's crisis management pales in comparison to Coke, which also faced a crisis in the 80's.

The Editor wraps it all up in a "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" post, which contains this important insight about what Gannett needed to do with its new corporate plan:

It needed more reporters, editors, photographers and artists to gather the exclusive content -- from city council meetings to high school football games -- that would give Gannett papers and TV stations a competitive edge.

"Exclusive content" is critically important, because few will visit a newspaper's website to read reprints of stories they can get elsewhere.  If Gannett adopted the Editor's strategy in Rochester, we'd have more beat reporters, which means more coverage of debates, town hall meetings and other events of interest to constituents in the 29th.

Of course, none of this is forthcoming.  Gannett has elected to do more of the same, and their stock price reflects the market's judgment on that strategy. 

In the old newspaper days, the heart of the newspaper was beat reporters.  These reporters would be specialists in one part of town, such as  the police, the courts, local politics, and sports.  If you were a good writer and could stay off the sauce, you might get a column, where you could both report and express an opinion based on your years of experience.

If that newspaper tradition ever existed at the D&C, and my read of Smugtown makes me doubt it, it is certainly dead today.  The only D&C beat populated by long-time reporters is sports.  Every other area is serviced by a quickly changing group of writers who will soon be moving on to better assignments in the Gannett chain. 

Politics, a beat which cries out for a long-term team of reporters, has one beat writer.  Joe Spector had that job since late 2000.  He's since moved on to the Gannett Albany beat, taking all of his experience with him.  Spector's replacement, Jill Terreri, covered politics for the Niagara Gazette until moving to the D&C this year.  She has her hands full as the only reporter writing about politics at a paper that covers four congressional districts, a dozen or so state legislators, a large municipal and county government, and numerous suburban governments.

The drawback of revolving door beat reporters is obvious:  if you haven't been in the job for a long time, you don't know the history of the beat you're covering, and you're a sap for politicians who have been around forever (like most of them in Rochester).  Every old trick is a new trick when you're a newcomer.

Because the D&C doesn't keep its beat reporters, and since it's hard to be a good columnist without knowing the city inside and out, the D&C doesn't have many columnists.  The D&C's columnist roster is deceptively large, since many of them are tied to suburban communities and write only on local issues.  The few generalists write mainly human interest stories.  Their rare ventures into politics are usually pegged on examples from the community.  For example, Mark Hare is currently focusing on inner-city violence.  Of his last 6 columns, only one fails to put a local resident front and center. 

Gannett is willing to spend millions on RocMen, the Insider, herRochester, RocMoms, and ConXion, not to mention the "living" sections in the D&C.  But they're not willing to spend a tiny fraction of that to add a couple more beat reporters or columnists to cover real news.  This, beyond any other issue, contributes to the low quality of Rochester's only daily paper.

There were three other reporters on the line from local papers at the lengthy Massa news conference today.  A huge number of topics of national and local interest were covered, with a bunch of skeptical questions.  In other words, reporters did what reporters are supposed to do.
Massa led off with a statement that covered the recent stories on the National Intelligence Estimate which says that Iran has ceased its nuclear weapons program. Noting that it was prepared in August but released yesterday, Massa said:

Since [August], the President has threatened World War III. [...] Yesterday, he denied that he knew anything about it.  This is what Karl Rove has taught the administration to do: to make it up.  [...]  It's done great harm to this nation here and around the world.

Massa then mentioned Kuhl's trip to Brazil, and his response that Massa is "ignorant". 

If I'm so ignorant, then we all are.  So please tell us about this trip.  [...]  What does visiting waterfalls at Iguazu tell us about ethanol? [...]  There is no sugarcane being grown at the base of Christ the Redeemer statue on Ipanema beach. 

If Randy Kuhl thinks it's appropriate to take a trip to Brazil for six days funded by the taxpayer, and completely distort the facts, it's because he's learned well from the person he supports, George W. Bush.  They simply can't tell the truth.  There was no reason for Randy Kuhl to be on that trip.  That trip was sponsored by the Foreign Relations Committee.  He's not on that committee. 

Massa then added a new take on the trip:

By calling me ignorant in the newspaper, Randy Kuhl clearly wants this trip to become the central issue in this election.  I want to talk about the economy, health care for children, how we fund home heating assistance. Randy Kuhl wants to talk about this trip because he won't answer simple questions.

Massa got some skeptical questions on these statements  Rick Miller of the Olean paper asked whether it wasn't Massa who's making it an issue.  Massa pointed to an example from Corning, where the city council was "excoriated" by the Corning Leader because they took a trip to Albany to meet other city councils.  They stayed two to a room and drove four to a car, yet there was significant controversy.  He contrasted that trip with Kuhl's first-class visit.  Massa pointed to a recent press release where he asked a number of questions on the trip.  'If it's not an issue, let him answer the questions."

Another set of concerns was raised by another reporter on the call, either Denise Champaign of the Fairport-East Rochester Messenger, or Cathy Ross of the Wellsville Daily reporter.  She asked what Massa would do to study energy efficiency.  Massa says he's been doing it for years, and went through an explanation similar to that from the last press conference, noting the research he's done at Cornell.  He also noted that he heated his house with a pellet stove that used compressed switchgrass.

More broadly, Massa said that the real issue is an energy bill "that stops rewarding oil companies."  When asked whether he thought study at Cornell was sufficient, he also pointed to a number of papers available at the USDA website.  "Both of these are cost-effective ways to begin the study of ethanol."

The same reporter gave the example of Petrobras, which is the most successful company distributing ethanol in the world.  Isn't that worth a study trip?  And isn't Brazil constantly held up as the best example of successful use of ethanol?

Massa noted that the oil company would probably have been happy to meet with Kuhl in Washington.  He also said:

I don't have a problem with flying to Brazil and having a meeting on ethanol.  But that doesn't answer the other five days.  I happen to believe there's a heck of a lot better ways to spend the taxpayers' money.

The ethanol discussion morphed into a general discussion on energy, and Massa noted that raising the CAFE (fleet fuel efficiency) standard was vitally important, as is new bill to remove the subsidies given to oil companies.

The Iran issue sparked a discussion on Iraq.  Massa said "fundamentally, the surge has failed".  Rick Miller countered that a number of people, including Democrats, are saying that's not the case.  Massa countered:

Don't tell me what Democrats are saying, I don't go by political party, I go by what the President said.  The goal was [a functional Iraqi government].  The reason we've failed to do that is that we're forcing a democracy on a country [that fundamentally doesn't want it.]  

Another reporter countered that casualties are down:

With all due respect to others saying otherwise, I don't consider 37 American soldiers killed in Iraq a success.  We should not be there.  The longer we are there, the worse it will be for the Iraqi people and ourselves.

The discussion circled back to Bush's NIE announcement.  When asked if Bush lied, Massa said, "I do not believe he was telling the truth."  So, the reporter wondered, was Massa calling for impeachment.  Massa said he was calling for a full investigation of the facts around the NIE.  But, the reporter asked, wouldn't that tie up Congress when it has more important things to do?

The House of Representatives passed all the appropriations bills this Summer.  It's not like the Democratic leaders aren't getting things done.  President Bush is vetoing all this legislation. 

There's nothing more important in the US Congress than the security of our country.  [...]  When the President of the United States takes us to the brink of war in Iran over blatant misuse of intelligence information, I consider that an issue.

The final part of the conference focused on the Presidential race.  While not officially endorsing any Democrat, Massa said that "I'm a New Yorker, and I anticipate that I'll be voting for a New Yorker, and it won't be Rudy Guliani."
 

Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader story [pdf] (jump [pdf]) about Mark Carver, the protester who was sentenced to 30 days of jail last week.  Carver has appealed his conviction so he was released after five days in stir.