Website offers lowdown on Webb City High School trip to Rose Bowl

Anyone wanting to follow the adventures of the Webb City High School Band en route to the Rose Bowl Parade can do so by going to this school-sponsored webpage. The page will be updated daily.

Newspaper names Nexstar/Cable One one of top 10 stories

The Texarkana, Texas, Gazette has named the battle between Nexstar Broadcasting and Cable One over retransmission rights one of the top 10 stories of 2005.
KTAL in Texarkana was affected by that battle as well as KODE and KSNF in Joplin. The conflict was resolved in December after the local stations had been kept off Cable One since the first day of 2005.

Globe website now has New Year's baby story

All right, so the New Year's baby is not the biggest scoop that a publication has ever landed, but the Daily did beat the Globe to it and managed to mention that the baby was born to a couple from Goodman. The address remained conspicuously out of the Globe's article, written by veteran reporter Nammi Bhagvandoss. Ms. Bhagvandoss also had a list of other babies that were born and their parents, but again, no hometowns were provided.
The photos are also already posted on the Daily's website. The Globe mentions a photograph in the story, but most likely that will not be posted until about 6 a.m.

Carthage Press shifts to Sunday publication

The Saturday, Dec. 31, edition of The Carthage Press was the last Saturday edition, Managing Editor Ron Graber announced in a page-one story. The Press will switch to Sunday publication as of Jan. 8.
The switch will enable the Press to offer coverage of Saturday events, Graber said, "and may make it easier for us to include more southwest Missouri news some time in the future."
This would appear to be opening up the possibility of sharing material with two other Liberty Group Publishing publications, the Neosho Daily News and the new Joplin Daily.com, which could make the Sunday editions in Neosho and Carthage more of a threat to the Globe in those communities.

First week of Joplin Daily begins with a scoop

Joplindaily.com is already living up to its promise of constantly updating its website and providing breaking news.
The Daily website features photos and a feature story by Kaylea Hutson on the first baby of the new year, which was born at Freeman Hospital to a Goodman couple.
I haven't heard much reaction to the newspaper otherwise. It wasn't delivered to my place and I finally found it at about the 10th place I looked, the 15th Street Wal-Mart Supercenter.
It would be easy to count the way in which the Daily is a superior product to the Globe's weekly, The Joplin Herald, so I will.
-The Daily print edition has advertising. In fact, it has a lot of it, and it appears the website does, also.
-All right, I'm obviously prejudiced, but the Daily's columnists were far more interesting.
-John Hacker made a strong case for the existence of the Daily, something that neither Susan Redden or Dan Chiodo were able to do for the Globe's knockoff weekly.
-The design, thanks to Nick Parker and Rick Rogers, is far easier on the eyes than the Herald, which looks too much like the mother Globe.
The biggest problem the Globe has is it simply cannot make a reasonable case for its weekly. To say it was necessary because there is not enough room in the Globe for Joplin news has to be one of the most disastrous public relations moves a newspaper has ever made in this area. If there is not enough room in the Globe for Joplin news, then why should Joplin residents subscribe to it"
***
Today was also the unveiling, coincidentally or not, of the Globe's new look Sunday edition. I liked the Jobs section. It would have been nice if it had been formatted that way back in the days when I was looking for work. The real estate section is a waste of paper, a bunch of filler material surrounding very little local copy.
The Metro section appears to be the Globe's way of saying, "Hey, we have Joplin news in our newspaper, too, and if that is the case, great. On the other hand, there was a day when the Globe routinely broke major stories and had long, explanatory or investigative pieces in its Sunday edition. The last big story I associate with the Globe was the arrest and handcuffing of the 11-year-old by two Joplin Police officers and most of that story was centered around Globe editors crying about how the police wouldn't tell them anything. Perhaps if they simply had bided their time and worked their sources (if they have any) instead of immediately bellowing, "We're the Joplin Globe; we represent the people and you have to tell us what we want to know," they may have already had the information they wanted. Instead, they have made certain that city officials will dig their heels in until the bitter end rather than give Globe reporters a scrap of information.
A new news publication seems to be just what the Globe and the city of Joplin need.

Industrial farms could be major legislative topic

Industrial farms, which have been a major topic in Neosho due to the Moark expansion, could be a major topic on the 2006 legislative agenda, according to an article in the Dec. 30 Kansas City Star.
You will remember that the state legislature, by a narrow margin last year, managed to thwart legislation that would have limited what local governments could do about these operations. The same legislation will be making its way through the General Assembly this year.
The industrial farms and their lobbyists are willing to spread a little money out among legislators to increase the lawmakers' sympathy for this type of legislation.
That happened with the Moark battle. As noted in the Nov. 17 Turner Report, on the same day that more than 300 people filed into the Neosho Municipal Auditorium to discuss the impact of Moark's proposed expansion of its Neosho facilities, company official Jerry Wells, Joplin, contributed the maximum $1,200 to Governor Matt Blunt's campaign committee.
The Nov. 17 post continues, "Only a month earlier, the Wells family had contributed $600 to the campaign fund of Rep. Ron Richard, R-Joplin (the maximum $300 for both individual contributors). On July 26, Wells put $1,000 into the Friends of Roy Blunt campaign for the Seventh District Congressman. He had contributed $2,000 to Blunt earlier in the year.
"Missouri Ethics Commission records also indicate that he contributed the maximum $300 to the campaign fund of Rep. Marilyn Ruestman on Sept. 27.
"Wells did not just begin his largesse to coincide with the Neosho expansion. Federal Election Commission records indicate, he wrote out a $2,000 check to the Seventh District Republican Committee on March 11, 2004, and another $2,000 check to Friends of Roy Blunt on April 14, 2004. He contributed $2,000 to Congressman Blunt's campaign in February 2003."

Nexstar strategy appears to be catching on

According to today's Arizona Republic, Cable One has been forced to drop NBC programming from KPNX in Phoenix and KNAZ in Flagstaff, stations owned by Gannett Co. (owner of USA Today and the Springfield News-Leader) after the two sides failed to reach an agreement on retransmission rights.
Saturday's News-Leader indicated that the owners of KY3 in Springfield, as well as the Springfield UPN station, are also threatening to remove their programming from Branson cable if an agreement cannot be reached on retransmission rights.
Nexstar Broadcasting, owner of KSNF in Joplin and KSFX in Springfield, as well as operator of KODE in Joplin and KOLR in Springfield, stations allegedly owned by Mission Broadcasting, pioneered the effort to get paid for retransmission rights. In Joplin, the battle between Nexstar and Cable One ended only recently after the KSNF and KODE were pulled off Cable One for nearly a year. Nexstar has also reached agreements with Cox Communications and several other cable firms.

Another no-expenditure report filed by Blunt

The nicest thing about being the governor's brother for registered lobbyist Andrew Blunt is that he doesn't have to buy a lot of meals for elected officials in order to get their attention.
For the 11th straight month, Blunt filed a non-expenditure report with the Missouri Ethics Commission. The November filings were placed on the Commission's website today.
Despite his not giving out any gifts, Blunt's list of clients is a veritable who's who among special interests who achieved success during the 2005 legislative session, including Ameren UE, the Missouri Hospital Association, and AT&T, as well as ACS Heritage, a company that has worked heavily in states where changes are made in the Medicaid system.
The lack of expenditures has certainly not deterred new clients from signing up with Blunt's firm. As The Turner Report initially noted in its Dec. 17 edition, Blunt is now the registered lobbyist for the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation, the Indianapolis organization founded by economist Milton Friedman, who first proposed educational vouchers in 1955. The Friedman Foundation has been at the forefront of all efforts to extend vouchers across the United States.
Blunt's representation of this organization is a story that should have been reported by the traditional media, but a Google search indicates that it has only been mentioned in The Turner Report.

Nodler bill would change sex education in state

Any information about contraceptives, abortion or pregnancy would have to come from "designated family practitioners" and not from teachers if a bill sponsored by Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, is passed.
Currently, 170.015.RSMo says that course materials shall "Present students with the latest medically factual information regarding both the possible side effects and health benefits of all forms of contraception, including the success and failure rates for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases."
If Nodler's bill, SB 776, passes, that would be changed to read, "Inform students that medically and personally relevant information regarding contraception, abortion, and pregnancy may be available from their previously designated family practitioner under section 167.611, RSMo.
Other additions under the Nodler bill would require:
-All curriculum materials "used in human sexuality instruction" must be made available for public inspection (that has always been the case), "as well as provide the names of the instructors and the instructors' affiliations to any entities involved with human sexuality instruction, at least one week prior to the use of such materials in actual instruction or presentations by such instructors."
-No school district or charter school can permit a person to provide materials or instruction "if such person or entity is a provider of abortion services."

Attack on public schools has begun in Missouri

Anyone who thinks that public education hasn't been targeted in Missouri is living in a fool's paradise.
The signs are all there. One of them is the 65 percent plan that Governor Matt Blunt supports and plans to submit to Missouri voters. The plan has come under attack, naturally, by school superintendents, and it has been easy for Governor Blunt's supporters to claim the school officials are simply protecting their high pay, but there is a lot more to it than that.
Supporters of the proposal say that it will put more money into the classrooms by having 65 percent of school budgets directly geared to the classroom and that, of course, would include the classroom teachers.
But even they would not be safe from the Machiavellian tendencies of GOP leaders like Rep. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield,chairman of the House Education Committee. Ms. Cunningham is a top official in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and at one of that organization's meetings in August in Grapevine, Texas, she criticized benefit packages for teachers, including pensions. At the meeting, she led a discussion over the 65 percent proposal and how it might be impacted by teacher benefits, according to the Hernando, Fla., Classroom Teachers Association website.
"Chair Jane Cunningham seized on this, suggesting that legislators could 'define it (65 percent solution) a little tighter' to exclude pensions or other benefits from spending on classrooms - in other words: driving down spending for teachers and staff."
That representation of the way Rep. Cunningham feels about public schoolteachers comes from what appears to be what some of our GOP legislators would refer to as a liberal website.
However, an even more illuminating picture of Rep. Cunningham's true views about public education comes from an Oct. 1, 2003, article in the conservative School Reform News.
Under the headline, "Trying to Make a Difference in the Show-Me State," the article tells the story of how Ms. Cunningham came to favor vouchers following her experiences as a school board member. When she tried to do something about parents taking their children out of public school and placing them in private school, she said, she ran into a lack of interest. "We have fewer children to educate and we still get their taxes," she says her fellow board members told her. She said that with her background in economics she could see the harm this education "monopoly" was causing.
The point was further driven home, she said, after she took one of her sons out of public school (the article does not say why) and put him in a Catholic school. Her son, who had been receiving A's and B's in math in public school, did poorly in the private school.
"The staff at the Catholic school thought he must have a learning disability, because they could not imagine his local school had done such a poor job," Rep. Cunningham said.
The article goes on to say that "after intensive personal attention by his teacher, her son rose to the 90th percentile in math."
Rep. Cunningham makes no bones about her efforts to move Missouri toward a voucher system. The School Reform News article says, "In 2003, Cunningham sponsored two school choice bills, both designed 'to get folks comfortable with the concept.' One bill addressed the issue of access to programs in public schools denied to non-public schoolchildren whose families were residing in and paying taxes to the public schools. The other, HB 345, would have given school choice to at-risk children in low-income families and in families where a parent is a prison inmate. Although neither bill passed, she was happy to be able to bring some Black Caucus members on board with HB 345." The magazine article was written by Laura J. Swartley, communications director for the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation, Indianapolis, Ind. The Friedman Foundation began the school voucher movement in 1955.
Rep. Cunningham is serving as chairman of the ALEC Education Task Force. Her co-chairman is Robert Enlow of the same Milton & Rose Friedman Foundation. The Friedman Foundation recently hired a lobbyist to represent its interests in Missouri...Andrew Blunt, the governor's brother.
And let us not forget that Rep. Cunningham created quite a stir last year in a multi-page letter she wrote asking to be reappointed chairman of the House Education Committee. One of her selling points was the amount of money she had brought into the state from All Children Matter, another pro-voucher group.
An Aug. 7, 2005, Associated Press article explored the connection between Governor Blunt and All Children Matter. The pro-voucher group spent $196,252 on radio advertising blasting Blunt's opponent, State Auditor Claire McCaskill during the final days of the 2004 gubernatorial campaign.
The AP article noted that Blunt served as keynote dinner speaker for "an invitation-only conference of about 150 leaders and activists for All Children Matter, hosted in Siverthorne, Colo. The group was picking up the tab for his trip, said Blunt spokeswoman Jessica Robinson."
The attack on public education has begun and some of those bills have already been pre-filed in the Missouri House and Senate.
When I wrote about Rep. Cunningham earlier this week, some readers asked me to provide you with a way to contact her. According to her state webpage, she can be reached at Jane.Cunningham@house.mo.gov or at janecunningham@charter.net