"Let's Get Real"
Mike Hashimoto, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, favorably cites a Wall Street Journal op-ed essay by Robert Bryce, the managing editor of something called Energy Tribune, which, when it isn't undermining renewable energy, is denying climate change science. Bryce's latest book is "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence'". Only Mike Hashimoto doesn't tell us all that. Hashimoto tells us only that Bryce lives in Austin and has solar panels on his roof, as if that makes Bryce some kind of liberal environmentalist.
What's the gist of Bryce's essay? That renewable energy supplies only a tiny fraction of our energy needs today and will not make up an appreciable fraction even if we double output and double it again. D'oh. Bryce says "It would be refreshing if the president or perhaps a few of the Democrats on Capitol Hill would admit that fact." Hello? Democrats and environmentalists have been sounding the alarm for decades about how dependent our society is on oil and how hard it is to break our addiction. Bryce presents it as some kind of new insight of his and something Democrats want to hide in a closet.
Only buried deep in the eighth paragraph does Bryce admit,
"Of course, you might respond that renewables need to start somewhere. True enough -- and to be clear, I'm not opposed to renewables. I have solar panels on the roof of my house."That's the most support for renewable energy Bryce can summon. In another time and place, I can imagine him saying, "I'm not anti-semitic. Some of my best friends are Jews." The tone of the rest of the essay reeks of disdain for renewables. The problem of scale. Wind is intermittent. So is sunshine. What does Bryce have to say about oil's problems? Bryce dismisses the environmental problem caused by carbon emissions as merely a problem of "political pressure" to cut carbon-dioxide emissions. Bryce's essay might not rise to the level of a "gusher of lies" but it sure isn't "the most clear-eyed view of our near-term energy future" that Mike Hashimoto bills it as, either.
Another Spin of the Death Spiral
Another round of layoffs was announced by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To its credit, the newspaper's Web site has the story. If a newspaper can't cover what's happening in its own newsroom (I'm looking at you Dallas Morning News), why should it think it can cover what's going on outside?
Even though Fort Worth Star-Telegram has the story, it's Frontburner and Tim Rogers who have the full text of publisher Gary Wortel's memo to employees. In it, he lists six steps the paper is taking to cut costs: layoffs, pay cuts, elimination of bonuses, a one-week furlough, a freeze of pension plans.
Observant readers will have noticed that was only five steps, not six. That's because step #3 in Wortel's memo was left blank. Frontburner's Rogers explains, "I don't know what No. 3 was or is. It appears to have been a typo." Hmmm ... a typo in a memo by a newspaper publisher (how ironic). Or a typo in the announcement about a newspaper's troubles (how explanatory). Or a deliberate warning that other steps are still to come (how ominous). In any case, my sympathies to the employees of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
P.S. In the comments to the Frontburner story about Fort Worth Star-Telegram, there are these two intriguing comments:
Biff Ryan: "I've heard major cuts at D as well."Can't any news media be first with the best, most comprehensive information about themselves?Tim Rogers: "Please stay tuned. I'll give you the D update when I can."
P.P.S. Other Frontburner readers spread a rumor that Adam McGill was let go. If true, there's irony at work at Frontburner, too. History will show Adam McGill's second to last blog entry, a link to a Gawker story forwarded to McGill by a reader, is titled, "SMU Provides Backdrop For Sad State Of J-School Graduates." Adding insult to injury is a comment by reader "Carlo":
"Taking a litty bit of this media pie and mixing it into a litty bit of this other media pie, making a daisy chain of linky-poos from here to there to thence and back again isn't jouralism, it's patty-cake."
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