Zell Hell Makes Bloggers All A-Quiver

I'm a miserable bastard. I spend most nights at home, swilling coffee and assailing poor newspapers editors, reporters, and local politicians with snotty emails. Unfortunately, most of my instructive missives are intercepted by the devil, the Mailer-Daemon.

That's why I blog.

Naturally, I would be ecstatic to see one of my epistles shared in the print media. In fact, I often send blog entries to both local papers. I modestly call them "pearls of wisdom." I've even included a few publicity photos and a brief adult video.

Unfortunately, that bastard, The Mailer-Daemon, blocks almost all of them.

Until now.

The Mourning Call has fallen on hard times. Sure, the paper still makes money for the Zellions, but a twelve per cent profit is not enough. No siree! The Zellions want more. Money, money, money!

It now costs more money to buy a frickin' obit than to pay for a funeral limo. If it's a Sunday obit, make that two limos. A classified ad for an apartment costs more than you'll see in rent.

So does the paper reduce advertise rates? Nah. Instead, it shoots itself in the head. First, it raises newsstand prices. Then it rids itself of the very writers who prompt us to read the paper in the first place. This is why places like the Bethlehem Steel closed down. Poor management and decision making from the top.

Management at the paper is so cowardly they just let their fingers do the walking, phone-firing on a Sunday night. One reporter spent the entire day sweating it out at Eagles Training camp, filed his work for the following day, and was promptly fired at 7:30 p.m.

To make it impossible to congratulate those who survived the Sunday Night Slaughter, editors have even removed their "contact us" feature on the mcall webpage. All that remains is a contact for "internships."

Amazingly, the editorial board still insists the "welcome mat" is out there. "Our contact information is on these pages every day, and it also is in the Opinion section of mcall.com on the Internet."

Ummm, bullshit.

In an effort to make do with less, the paper has watered down its opinion page, now called "Lehigh Valley Town Square." I'll refrain from passing judgment, but early signs are bad.

Every Tuesday, the paper will now be saluting two local blogs. Michael Molovinsky and Michael Donovan are the first local bloggers to see their posts in print. That shocked the hell out of Donavan. You see, no one had cleared it with him in advance. He woke up to see an entire blog post on The Morning Call opinion page. Edited, too! Donovan complains, "I found it strange that I was not given the courtesy of notification for its potential use, nor was I given the right to review edits that they made from the original."

Picky, picky.

Obviously, the paper screwed up. Shocker, eh? I don't think that will happen again.

Kinky Paprika is a Lehigh Valley blogger who does not want The Mourning Call publishing his blogs. Kinky is afraid it could hurt his credibility. So he decided to "start lacing every single post with liberal lashings of the F-word, just to dissuade the powers that be from considering me for the "honour" of a Valley Blogosphere appearance."

Sounds like a plan.

Bill Villa tells me, back channel, that Blogger Tuesday is really just another diabolical plot to quash all blog dissent. "The Morning Call has Molovinsky, Donovan, you, and who knows which other local bloggers just absolutely a-quiver at the prospect of being selected (such an honor) for blog linkage at The Morning Call Forum, formerly known as a cesspool of racism and hate. Ironic, isn't it? Why is everyone a-quiver? More readers, baby. And a chance at being a celebrity like Bill White."

I resent that. ... Wait, do you really think I could be a celebrity like Bill White?

Actually, I think Blogger Tuesday has great potential, although Villa's concerns are legitimate. The MSM is giving us a weekly forum to vent views that they've normally suppressed. Are we playing right into their fiendishly evil plans? Will we be less likely to crticize? I don't know, but I am all a-quiver.

Here's what I did. First, I told Michael and Michael what a frickin' great honor it was to see their blogs in print. Then I immediately called the paper to complain. I couldn't email because the contact list is gone. After rotating through several people from Sri Lanka and the Phillipines, I eventually got someone who works at the paper.

"Listen, my stuff is way better than some year-old post about a graveyard or some dinky essay about being lucky. I even know how to do graphs. Do you know how hard that is in HTML? I went to college, damn it!"

I'm told they're going in alphabetical order. I think I'm next.

I'm all a-quiver.