God is dead: The TL cites the Scranton Times in a staff edit

We missed this on Thursday, but the institutional voice of the Times Leader cited in support of its staff editorial... the Times-Tribune of Scranton. Does this mean that TL plans to publish a Scranton edition are on hold?

Zing! Walzer calls McHugh's son "virtually unemployable"

The allegation comes in Friday's TL, writing about the newspaper's latest response to former editor Allison Walzer's discrimination suit.

Clutch work from the T-T's Jason Farmer at fatal Scranton fire

Great work at a sad scene.

Steve Mocarsky of the TL does the polar plunge

A cute story in the Times Leader from Steve Mocarsky, who jumped in a cold lake and lived to talk about it. Note that the picture was taken by Mocarsky's wife.

Walzer: Connor won't hire me, McHugh has it out for the Jews, etc.

Allison Walzer can't get a job at the Times Leader. Wow. Former TL editor Allison Walzer alleges in court papers that Connor is retaliating against her, continuing a course of conduct that started with Pat McHugh -- who favored Catholic charities over Jewish ones, Walzer claims. She alleges that McHugh traded favors with a Catholic charity to get his son a job and his wife a board position. Good stuff.

Kudos to Dave Janoski of the CV, who had the story Thursday - scooping the TL

Roger DuPuis II of the Times-Tribune also writes about his snow tales

DuPuis walked from his South Scranton home to the paper and barely made it, he reports in Thursday's paper.

Lisa Sokolowski of the TL stood up on Valentine's Day by 70-year-old singer

We have visions of some third-string PR flack in New York City laughing at the pathetic reporter from "Wilkes-Barre" working during the storm of the century and calling every five minutes to talk to Engelbert Humperdinck, a singer that the PR flack probably couldn't pick out of a lineup. Not every day as a reporter is glamourous.

Wernowsky of the TL: My editor made me walk to work, people don't fight to write weather stories, etc.

Wernowsky blogs about the newspaper's weather coverage, the mayor being a big meanie to a TV girl, and other things at the Times Leader.

The St. Valentine's storm of 2007: Who won?

Today will be one of the few days when readers look forward to the newspaper, devouring it online and in print. Who hit a home run? Who mailed it in? Discuss. To start:

The TL's one and only video was shot at 10 a.m. -Wednesday- by online "producer" Lee Ann Orsheski. From her deck. Craptacularly bad.

The roof collapses at the library, and the TL's Ed Lewis waits until the 14th paragraph to mention the books. Classic.

The CV's Denise Allabaugh does her old buddy Ed Lewis one better, by writing about the destruction of a library while only using the word "books" once. Her lead is also identical to the TL lead.

Sledding pictures of the little kids of TL VP Kathy Schwartz -- taken by Schwartz -- are mixed in with staff shots. Stay classy, TL.

As others have noted, the Times-Tribune video contained an amazing variety of snowblowers, most within a block of the Times-Tribune

Worst-ever use of good Flash animation: Winter driving advice.

Matt Kemeny of the Times-Tribune in Scranton turns in the lead of the year: "Brian Wrightson thought his dome was invincible."

Ken Vogel gets made fun of (kind of) by Wonkette

For former TL Harrisburg reporter Kenneth P. Vogel, this is kind of like kissing your sister. Wonkette makes fun of Vogel's employer, The Politico, for filling its Web page with photo galleries of staffers at events. The screen grab (above) shows Vogel. But Wonkette only bothers to identify Vogel and his pals as "three Politico staffers." So Vogel gets blog fame, but not with his name attached. Click through to the Politico gallery to see other pictures of Vogel, as well as lots of Hill tail.

Chris Kelly: Everyone reads weather stories

"Some people will read the stories on the commissioners, taxes and Iraq. Everyone will read the stories on the snow," Chris Kelly writes in today's paper. "Newspaper columns, like snowstorms, are measured in inches. In terms of substance, there’s not much to this one. In fact, I wrote it for no other reason than that it was snowing." Oy.

Kellar: My old TL editors were dangerous SOBs

Times Leader Jerry Kellar takes a couple shots at the old regime at the end of his column, recounting stupid orders from (presumably) Walzer and Iseman.

Everyone welcome new reporter Sherry Long to the TL

Sherry Long comes to Wilkes-Barre from The Ellis County Press, a weekly in little Ferris, Texas, just down I-45 from Dallas. She has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Tex. and has also worked at the Henderson (Tex.) Daily News. Welcome.

TL Web Editor Joe Soprano welcomes Long to northeastern Pennsylvania

TL writes a love letter to WNEP's Jill Garrett

Jessica Grizzanti of the Times Leader writes a strangely amateurish puff piece about Jill Garrett, WNEP's health "reporter." No mention of the VNR scandal Garrett got caught up in a year ago.

Jill Garrett caught using video news release without attribution (Beale's Bites)

Richard Connor: I collect typewriters and I like Maureen Dowd

The Times Leader editor and publisher mails it in this week with ruminations about kids today and their buying habits.

Times-Tribune source in prison case held in contempt

A month (!) after a judge ruled that a Scranton Times-Tribune source illegally leaked grand jury testimony to the newspaper, the Times Leader (Friday) and The Times-Tribune (Saturday) are on the story, kind of. The source, state narcotics agent James Kolojejchick, was fired in the summer of 2004 and is to be sentenced for contempt of court in March. Ron Lieback of the TL names reporter Jennifer Henn and editor John Murphy as the newspaper staffers involved in the case, while Michael Race's terse nine-paragraph story does not. Neither piece really does the story justice, given the stakes (the shield law for reporters, as well as a lot of professional reputations) involved.

Click the headline for the TL story, click here for the T-T story

Read the January 2004 Scranton Times story that started it all

Chris Ritchie turns up in journalism story

The former Times Leader editor is in a Lancaster New Era story about the ethics meltdown at the newspaper there.

Coffee with Alan K. Stout and Steve Corbett

The Weekender editor has a lengthy interview with former colleague Steve Corbett. The story at least addresss, but glosses over, Corbett's messy and sudden departure from the TL in 2002.

Read Corbett's blog on the WILK site, which has lots of ball-busting and a few typos

Jolyn Resnick is dead

We're sorry we didn't learn of this earlier, but Jolyn Resnick -- the feisty Wilkes-Barre City Hall reporter who covered Mayor Tom McGroarty for the Times Leader -- has died of pancreatic cancer. Resnick was at the TL from 1999 to 2002 and covered City Hall from 2000 to 2002. Barely a year after being named the paper's top reporter, she was demoted suddenly and was forced out in October 2002 shortly before her cancer diagnosis. The obituary includes memorial information. Condolences.

Resnick talks with WNEP about living for a year with pancreatic cancer (Nov. 18, 2003)

A good Resnick story about municipal mismanagement in Wilkes-Barre

I say Scranton, you say Scanton, let's call the whole thing off

Two days after its Feb. 4 publication, this is still on the Voice Web site. Stay classy, CV.

Kelly: Barbaro was just a horse

So who is "a certain veteran journalist whose opinion I would respect even if he couldn’t fire me for insubordination," as Chris Kelly put it in the Sunday Scranton paper?

Connor: We went local and put Renita Fennick, Joe Butkiewicz and Anne Woelfel in command

Times Leader editor/publisher Richard Connor says the TL putting locals in leadership positions might hold some lessons for the chamber, searching for a new president.

Crazies still get their letters in the CV

Ric Morris of Nanticoke is one of those guys who thinks criminals read the Voice to adapt their operations to avoid police detection. "The general public doesn’t need to know how the LEAs do their crime solving," the letter reads. Apparently no one edits these letters before publication.

The TL's Sandy Snyder goes on (and on, and on) about her house

Quite a lot of value for Wilkes-Barre readers when an editor talks about her carpet.

New editor at the Pocono Record

Jesus, what a terrible story. "A thorough review of 100 high-caliber applications from all corners of the United States?" "A great leap forward in the Record's effort to become a 24/7 multimedia local news organization?" This shit reads like the Onion. Does this mean they're not calling Iseman back for a second interview?

Former TLer Kevin Hoffman to take over Twin Cities alt-weekly

This is a little late, but former Times Leader reporter Kevin Hoffman has been named editor of City Pages, the Village Voice Media-owned alternative weekly in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Kudos.

Weekender model of the week desktop wallpaper

Did you know you can now download your very own Weekender model of the week desktop wallpaper? The Internet is truly amazing.

Lisa Sokolowski, Joe Soprano go the extra mile for NSYNC interview

Tuesday's newsroom note details the hassle the two TL staffers went through to secure an interview with J.C. Chasez.

Mellow, others say they want to beef up Pennsylvania's FOI laws

Won't ever happen. Times Shamrock statehouse reporter Michael Race has the story from Harrisburg.

Connor: Bush speech was his best yet

TL Publisher Richard Connor weighs in on health insurance, Iraq, and more.

Calling Strunk & White the AP Stylebook

It's 11:30 p.m. This has been on the Web 18 hours.




UPDATE:

We should have called Strunk & White, or at least gotten off our asses to get our copy off the shelf, before invoking the two Cornellians. Indeed, The Elements of Style says to always use " 's " after a singular possessive proper noun.

However, the AP Stylebook, under the "singular proper names ending in S" section of "possessives," says this: "Use only an apostrophe. Achilles' heel, Agnes' book, Ceres' rites, etc.

This would seem to be the rare case where the stylebook and The Elements of Style disagree. We could have easily made the same mistake.

25 years later, the Times-Tribune still has a women's page

Everything you ever wanted to know about Northeast Woman, the Times-Tribune's page for women.

The CV catches up on Corbett's return to NEPA

Mary Ondrako, the CV's radio "columnist," writes about the return of former TL columnist Steve Corbett. Corbett has been on the radio, and Radio Free Corbett is allegedly returning soon.

Two more execs join TL

Dee McCants will run the TL's advertising department, while Mark Amendola -- who has never worked at a newspaper -- will be the vice president of administration and CFO, Ron Bartizek reports.

TL quotes former reporter Kenneth P. Vogel, now working for politico.com

Vogel, who used to cover Harrisburg for the Times Leader, wrote a widely-repeated story Wednesday about Don Sherwood allegedly not paying the money he promised to his ex-mistress to settle her lawsuit. The TL's Kevin Amerman quotes Vogel in Thursday's TL story. Politico.com has generated a lot of buzz for picking top political reporters off big papers and paying them big bucks.

Check out Vogel's profile page at politico.com

UPDATE: Borys Krawczeniuk and The Times-Tribune of Scranton also has the story, without Vogel but with proper sourcing

EC/DC puts best face on for journalismjobs.com

Besides the usual "Internet-savvy" editor, Matt Smith and Electric City might also want someone who can spell.

Blakely cop charged with DUI after crashing into newspaper carrier's car in Scranton

The Scranton Times-Tribune carrier, Arlene Sembrot, 59, is recovering at the hospital, WNEP reports.

TL to upgrade Web site

The "Time Leader" of Wilkes-Barre has signed up with Clickability, a California content management system vendor that will allow the paper to shed its Knight Ridder look. If this is anything like the T-T "upgrade," look for a Web site out of 2003 or so.

Wilkes J-prof Frantz granted tenure

Andrea Breemer Frantz teaches journalism and advises the student newspaper at Wilkes University. Kudos.

Corbett back in town

Mary Therese Biebel writes today about longtime former columnist Steve Corbett, who has been back in town for months but was only recently discovered by the TL. Be sure to enjoy the audio clips of Corbett holding forth. Corbett will be on WILK as a fill-in host, but the glowing TL story -- which ignores his sudden departure in 2002 -- begs the question of whether Corbett will be returning to the TL.

T-T, CV sites mostly back up

Web editor Edward Pikulski reports that a vendor's "complete network failure" was to blame.

Chis Kelly on news meetings, library crime

Editors at the Times-Tribune of Scranton are having meetings about meetings, if Chris Kelly is to be believed.

Meltdown for CV, Scranton Times Web sites

Townnews.biz, the Moline, Ill.-based company that hosts the Web sites for the Voice and the Times-Tribune is having some "problems," not for the first time. The CV and T-T sites are up (mostly) in truncated fashion. Really, what do you expect from a company with a .biz domain name?

Hazleton wants TL lawsuit tossed

“Hazleton cannot lock the courthouse door to the right of the public to access public information and then keep the keys to the courthouse door in Hazleton’s pocket,” the TL's lawyer says. Catchy.

Janoski makes his first CV appearance

It has begun. Dave Janoski wrote Tuesday about the sale of the Fox station no one watches, and in the story's last legs he gets in a shot about the unidentified owners of the newspaper across North Washington Avenue.

Times-Tribune overhauls Web site

This was announced more than a week ago, but here is the 'story' about the new and improved Scranton Times-Tribune Web site. Interactive media boss Matt Haggerty and Web editor Edward Pikulski are both quoted in the unbylined piece.

RIP former TL editor James Lee

Lee, 91, worked on the paper from the 1930s until retiring in 1985. Richard Connor and Tom Mooney both weigh in with reporter Ron Lieback.

Read his obit and sign his guestbook

The TL newsroom note returns

Joe Sporano is writing the newsroom note, a Web feature "pioneered" by the late Matt Golas. Readers dying to know what each reporter is doing every day now has an outlet.

Thursday's notes

Wednesday's inagural note

Scranton Times-Tribune wins appeal in shield law case

The Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled that a reporter doesn't have to give up her sources even if someone broke the law giving her the information. The two Scranton politicians who sued the paper and former reporter Jennifer Henn for libel -- and who want the source's name -- will appeal, their lawyer says.

Read The Times-Tribune's story

Read the court's decision in full

WNEP sold to out-of-state private equity firm

NEP is now owned by some rich guys in Connecticut, James Haggerty reports. Disinterested moneymen seems to be the latest trend in media ownership.

WNEP boss Louis Abitabilo jumps to WYOU/WBRE, Jerry Lynott reports

More positivity from TL publisher Connor

Times Leader editor Richard Connor vows that Wilkes-Barre will still have a newspaper in 2107. The real question: Will anyone still be alive in Wilkes-Barre in 2107?

Dave Iseman out at the TL

Holy shit. Ding dong, the witch is dead, part two. Iseman "no longer works at the newspaper." Way to tell the whole story, fucktards. The Times Leader is on its way to becoming indistinguishable from the CV, one of America's worst dailies.

Update: Some classic file art came in. Thanks.

Read the TL's exceedingly brief brief

Huge news: Pocono Record editor resigns

Kim de Bourbon, editor of the Pocono Record, quit. Or was fired. Hard to tell. She will be joining Allison Walzer and Casey Jones in a new Audiotex venture based in Nanticoke.

EARLIER: de Bourbon Writes about naming the wrong guy in a fatal car crash and about shaking up the comics page -- all in one column!

Dave Falchek chats with Times-Tribune readers about wine

This is obviously a week out of date, but still fun reading - at least the part about hookers at the end.

The Times-Tribune makes Jim Romenesko's obscurestore.com

Kudos to reporter Matt Kemeny, whose story about a Scranton couple who made their toddler smoke and drink for the camera is making the rounds nationally.

The poor, pathetic TL

Now, the paper was never above promoting its business interests in the McHugh/Walzer days. But would the paper have ever published toilet paper like this as news? Sad.

The defection revealed: Dave Janoski goes to the Voice

The Citizens' Voice, not the Village Voice. How the mighty have fallen. Janoski spent years trashing Fred Ney and the CV for its shitty journalism and for Ney's coziness with the county. And now he had become what he has beheld. Anyone who has suffered through the TL's we're-holier-than-thou is laughing their ass off.

Soprano gets a promotion

Joe Sporano will work solely as the TL's online editor (third item in corporate ladder). Kudos.

TL sues for names of donors to Hazleton legal fund

Kudos to the TL for pressing the city of Hazleton with an FOI lawsuit. A shame that the CV won't join them on this and other matters.

>>

TL managing editor Dave Iseman gives his two cents on the matter

Letter writer: Tom Venesky is doing a real nice job

Joseph D. Miceli of Wilkes-Barre wants people to know that Venesky, the TL outdoor writer who came from across the street at the CV, is a good man.

Scranton Times: We've abandoned our City Hall press room

Meow! In an unusual and lengthy "note to readers," Scranton Times-Tribune editors write that the mayor lets all Scranton reporters use the City Hall press room gratis -- not that the Times-Tribune needs it.

Former TL reporter Marques Harper places third in bodybuilding contest

This is passed on without any editorial comment.

Advertorial for TL job fair this week

"There will be giveaways, prizes for qualified applicants, live radio remote broadcasts and employers eager to meet job candidates," Jerry Lynott reports on the TL's Sunday business page in lieu of real news.

Breaking: Tornado hits Mountaintop, TL sleeps

The TL reaffirms its place at the kiddie table by ignoring the alleged tornado that blew in all the windows at the Mr. Z's, blew off the roof at the Crestwood High School gym, and closed Route 309. As of 11 p.m., The CV has an OK story and one (1) photo. The TL didn't have dick. The Times-Tribune had some shitty brief slugged "County EMA not expecting flooding."

WNEP did the best on the broadcast Web sites, with a (small) slide show of viewer-submitted photos, some video from Mr. Z's and an OK story. WBRE (come on, Agent Andy!) had nothing. WYOU had nothing. Come on, fellows! THE WEATHER CHANNEL is leading with "tornado in Luzerne, Pa." and NEPAites across the land are going to your Web sites. Right now. Fuckin' amateurs.