Rusty Syringes

Having spent 30 years as a newspaper journalist - 20 in management as an editor and 10 of it as a reporter - I haven't picked up a newspaper in almost five years, and I rarely look at a newspaper website. Newspapers started struggling after the 1970s but found ways to remain financially strong until about 2007, when the industry realized it was in a death spiral from which it most likely would not survive. So began the cutbacks, layoffs and "do more with less" philosophy. I had to pull employees, some of them who were friends, into an office and tell them their services no longer were needed. I horded responsibility in order to make myself invaluable, but the ax fell on me in August 2014. I got laid off and replaced with someone with 20 years less experience, and that position has since been cut altogether. What you have left are a bunch of inexperienced journalists running the show, and the most important thing of all - content - takes an enormous hit. Journalists just run with whatever news release comes along and don't bother to hunt down all the other angles. For example, Walgreens a couple of years ago put out a news release naming my city as the nation's flu capital. The local newspaper just ran with it, not bothering to talk to local health-department officials, the CDC, anyone affiliated with a local health-care outlet or even anyone who had or recently had the flu. If you're going to do a flu story, you need to talk to real people who have it or have had it. Super easy to find in today's social-media world. Walgreens based its news release on Tamiflu sales, and if the newspaper journalists had done some digging, they would have discovered that the two major hospitals here had prescribed Tamiflu to all of its employees - thousands of them - as a pre-emptive measure. They also failed to report that local doctors would prescribe Tamiflu to an entire family if even a single member of it came down with the flu. It was a terribly reported story - and Walgreens got a ton of free advertising - but that's what you get today. Newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and New York Times still put out excellent work, but the industry as a whole is barely a shell of a shell of itself. Television news is in just as bad a shape. Who makes time to sit down and watch the news at 6 or 10? Yet both newspapers and TV continue to use their busted business models, hoping doing the same thing over and over will somehow get different results. Insanity. The only survivors will be the big outlets that remain a vital source of community news. And the small-town newspapers that don't have to compete for precious advertising dollars with local television. It's sad, but fock 'em. I started at a time when newspaper organizations enjoyed a 30 percent profit margin while paying peanuts to its journalists. And then they went and gave it all away for free online, thinking the ad dollars would just follow from print to the website, but it turned out to be only pennies on the dollar, because online advertising was far more competitive than they expected, and anyone could start a website and slap revenue-generating ads on it. I wouldn't be surprised if half the newspapers operating now are gone in five years.

Cersei is SMOKING. I liked her better with the long hair, though.

In the preview for the next episode, Euron is looking into the sky, presumably searching for the dragon. I wonder if the focker can swim underwater ...

My predictions: Danny and her dragon get killed in action. Jaime takes out Cersei. Arya and Hound take out The Mountain. Jon Snow takes over Iron Thrown.

Would anyone drop Josh Gordan to pick up Golladay?

It's amazing how these women go on these shows and have the uncanny ability to deny even the slightest corn shot.

Wiffle, my love How the hell are you?

Kind of a bummer to see some of these Silverbacks in such hardships.

Wow, I seem to have missed a lot.

I haven't been in Buttmont since 2008. I got the fawk out of there when the poo started hitting the fan in the newspaper world, thinking getting out of a big company and into a family owned daily would be where it was at. So I took a big pay cut and demotion to come to Tyler as business editor and then got promoted to managing editor a year later. Got laid off in August 2014 and replaced with someone with 20 years less experience. Now I'm a licensed financial planner with New York Life. Wish I'd done it sooner. The newspaper industry SUCKS.

Is this a good place to hang out, meeting some Geeks and maybe learn something?

Look at all the old FFtoogayers! I rarely go to the Sanctuary. Rusty II is turning fawking 14 this month. He's still autistic, but the little focker makes straight A's in school and is like the Eddie Van Halen of the euphonium. Had dinner and drinks recently with TRF. He's still very much a hom0sexual. I'm Facebook friends with a lot of the dudes here. You can friend me at Brian Thure Pearson I've put out another CD since the last one I posted. I think it's pretty good. I've got rough recordings of like a dozen more songs and a whole bunch more I've done nothing with yet. I had to quit because I got focking tennis elbow from PLAYING THE UKULELE.

Yes, I am a Silverback!