FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2005
NATION
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President promises respite
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J. Scott Applewhite/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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BY NEDRA PICKLER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Bush comforts Priscilla Herrera during a visit to a relief center in Pompano Beach, Fla., as he surveys damage from Hurricane Wilma on Thursday. This has been a record year for hurricanes and even storm-savvy Floridians are still trying to find food, water, ice and gas in the wake of Hurricane Wilma.
POMPANO BEACH, Fla.
— President Bush on Thursday promised a robust response to Hurricane Wilma, offering reassurance that things would improve soon for victims who are angry that supplies have been slow in coming.
"Things don't happen instantly, but things are happening," Bush said. As Bush reassured storm victims, a political storm swirled around the White House back in Washington.
In Florida, Bush spoke at a relief supply distribution center, as people gathered around him while they waited for a hot meal of barbecued pork, potatoes, bread and crushed pineapple.
Alongside his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president greeted volunteers with the Southern Baptist Convention who traveled from Tennessee to hand out food and water. Storm victims mobbed the brothers to get handshakes, hugs and, for the women, kisses on the cheek.
"A lot of the gasoline lines that people are standing in will be alleviated by new ships coming in."
Bush held a closed-door meeting with local officials and also got a tour of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield showed Bush data on Tropical Storm Beta, the 23rd named storm of 2005. Staff at the center expect it to grow to hurricane strength as it moves over the Caribbean Sea, continuing the year's record-setting hurricane season.
About 2 million homes and businesses remain without power in Florida in the wake of Wilma, which struck the state on Monday. Floridians have grown angry about the response as they struggle to find food, water and fuel.
Criticism has been directed toward the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is trying to recover from its failures in response to Hurricane Katrina. Gov. Bush said Wednesday that the responsibility was the state's and promised a huge infusion of supplies.
George Bush President
The president said he came to Florida to make sure the federal and state responses "dovetail."
"People are getting fed. Soon and more and more houses will have their electricity." Bush said. "A lot of the gasoline lines that people are standing in will be alleviated by new ships coming in."
He said generators being
brought in from other states and the presence of 6,000 electrical workers from across the country would help restore power — a key step to also addressing the gas shortages, since many stations have gasoline, but no electricity to deliver it to customers.
The president, meanwhile, ignored reporters' shouted ques
tions about Harriet Miers' surprise withdrawal as his nominee to the Supreme Court.
The announcement about Miers roiled through Washington Thursday and the White House is bracing for possible indictments of one or more top aides in the CIA leak case. Indictments could be announced Friday.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN MEDIA
After landing at Miami International Airport at lunchtime, Bush took a short helicopter flight to a Goodyear blimp hangar here. His motorcade route to the relief center took him down streets lined with downed branches.
MEDIA
Newspapers seek ways to survive
DT MATTHEW FORDAHL THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN JOSE, Calif. — To survive in the age of blogs, iPods and Craiglist, newspapers must capitalize on their credibility and local strengths while figuring out how best to make money from their new media ventures, a panel of industry experts said Thursday.
The task is hardly simple as newspapers struggle at the same time with declining print readership, dwindling revenue growth and smaller staffs, even as the need to innovate and competition from new media businesses is growing.
"The world is changing, and clearly the demand for our product is not as high as it once was," Lynn Dickerson, publisher and president of The Modesto Bee, said at a panel at the Associated Press Managing Editors annual conference examining the challenges newspapers face.
That's made more difficult by the financial pressures associated with the shrinking readership and staffs of the traditional newspaper, said Ann Morris, managing editor of the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C.
"I still think we're the last collective effort for democracy," she said. "We've got to survive, and we've got to succeed."
"At the same time, I'm trying to reach younger readers. I'm trying to do online. I'm trying to do multimedia," she said. "I'm trying to do a lot more, and I've got a lot less in terms of staff resources. And I've got a smaller newwhole."
Panelists agreed that online appears to be the most attractive revenue prospect. But while revenue from online businesses is growing, competition in that sector is fierce. Traditional newspaper sites must compete not only with each other but also with an estimated 20 million people who publish blogs, news sites and other forms of new media.
Unlike the upstarts, however, newspapers carry a longstanding reputation of accuracy, fairness, credibility and independence, the panelists noted. Their reporters are skilled at digging through paperwork at City Hall and other local reporting that the average blogger can't or won't pursue.
"Our franchise is local news. It costs a lot of money to do what we do. That's our core competency," Morris said, adding that it's the reason most people pick up the newspaper.
"The problem is some information is becoming commoditized," said Rich Skrenta, chief executive officer of the online news aggregation site Topix.net.
Once local coverage shifts from paper to the computer screen, newspapers see considerably less revenue, noted Peter Appert, senior research analyst at Goldman Sachs.
"The industry has not done a good job of monetizing the online traffic," he said. "Revenues don't match up with the Googles or the Yahoes."
Appert said success will take a rethinking of business plans, including possibly a reassessment of the relationship between the editorial and advertising departments of newpapers.
Despite the highly competitive landscape, the best online resources are owned by newspapers and television stations, said Walter Baer, senior policy adviser at the Rand Corp. But newer online companies are better at pulling in revenue and profiting from the information they provide. Baer said.
Google, for instance, is increasingly branching beyond its core business and has generated billions of dollars by targeting relevant ads to its viewers based on their searches, e-mails and other interactions with Google products.
"Newspapers are using the traditional model of putting up banner ads from different advertisers," Baer said. "Google is showing us a different way."
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