Tag Archives: newspapers

BI’s “boring” symphony story goes national, becomes quiz show question

News traveled fast about the woman who was tossed out of BPA for uttering “boring” during a symphony performance.

Once I put it up on this blog, the Associated Press grabbed it and put it on the wire. Fastest in the West was the Wenatchee World, which had it up first (even before the Kitsap Sun’s main site). In short order, it was reprinted in the Bellingham Herald, the Olympian, Tacoma News Tribune, Seattle Times and other papers. TV and radio stations in Seattle and Portland soon followed suit.

The magazine Seattle Met advocated for more witty heckling and the Seattle P-I expressed sympathy for the woman.

“Really, who hasn’t been bored to tears at a concert, recital, or school play?” wrote the P-I’s Vanessa Ho.

Out of state, the story popped up in San Antonio, a small paper in Indiana, Washington D.C.s Examiner and Toronto’s Globe and Mail. Even CBS News put it on their website.

KIRO radio’s Dave Ross and Luke Burbank spent quite a bit of time discussing the issue. They even tracked down the symphony’s program and played various clips to see which tune could have sparked the “boring” comment. Listen to their discussion here.

Best of all, though, was the blotter item’s appearance as a quiz show question on National Public Radio’s Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me.

When quizzed about why the woman had been removed, panelist Mo Rocca guessed it must have been for passing gas. Burbank (who also happened to be a panelist) showed off some of his research, surmising that the boring comment must have come after Bizet’s Carmen Suit, which he insisted is anything but boring (as Tom & Jerry can attest to).

“So the woman was both rude and not musically accurate,” Burbank said.

You can listen to the “Wait, Wait” symphony bit below. It’s at the 1:07 minute mark.

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Poll: What was the top Bainbridge story of 2010?

We recently polled readers and ourselves here in the newsroom about Kitsap County’s top news stories of the year.

You can read the results here, and weigh in on the reader poll at the bottom of the page.

Seeing as how the poll offerings are slanted toward Bremerton (a fish statue is a top story?), and that most Bainbridge Islanders have never heard of Bremerton, I have created Bainbridge Island’s very own top stories of 2010 poll.

Head over to the right side of the screen to weigh in.

And have a happy New Year.

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Former BI couple’s newspaper biz is booming

Around this time last year, I wrote a story about the Matthees, a longtime Bainbridge couple that moved to a small Eastern Washington town to take over its tiny newspaper.

Buying a newspaper in this day and age might seem about as sane as hiring a battery of scribes during the advent of movable type.

But Imbert and Karen Matthee were undaunted. In short order, they redesigned the paper and gave it its first-ever online presence with social networking tools like Facebook, and later a Web page, waitsburgtimes.com.

Their success continues to grow. The Washington Newspaper Publishers Association reported this month that the Waitsburg Times’ circulation has increased 30 percent since the Matthees took over.

They’ve also opened an office in the neighboring city of Dayton and hired their first news staffer – a managing editor – to help expand their coverage area and take on some of the varied duties shouldered by the Matthees.

The main office, in Waitsburg, may soon become something of a community information and copy center, with a public-use computer workstation, high-volume copier and image scanning services.

For a more in-depth update on what the Matthees are up to, check out this recent profile of Imbert Matthee by Walla Walla Lifestyles.

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Marshall: We’re entering an era of ‘mcnews mcnuggets’

Islander columnist Becky Fox Marshall entered the journalism world in the era of Woodward and Bernstein. Now, some of the best reporting is coming from Comedy Central and most people only hunger for tasty little morsels of news rather than full meal deals.

Read Marshall’s column below…

Industries and professions come and go with the times. It is part of the march of time. The iceman no longer cometh, because we have freezers in our houses. Farriers are few, and exist mostly for girls who ride in horse shows, rather than serving as a critical cog in the wheel of commerce. It’s a painful transition. It’s even more painful when it’s an industry to which you’ve devoted most of your working life, and surreal to watch it peak and fizzle within your lifetime. It’s downright scary when the industry is a cornerstone of democracy.

I speak, of course, of the demise of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and likely, The Seattle Times. Seattle a no-traditional-newspaper town? How can that be? Last week, a list of 10 newspapers circulated in the surviving media as in their death throes – newspapers in the cities of Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Miami, Detroit, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Fort Worth and Cleveland. And while many in the media believed that community newspapers were not threatened, we on Bainbridge Island have seen drastic changes in our local newspapers.

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Bainbridge press forum airs on BITV

If you missed the Bainbridge Island press forum last weekend, you can still catch it on BITV (Channels 12 and 22) starting tomorrow.

Channel 12:
Tues., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Channel 22:
Mon., Fri. and Sat. at 12 a.m. and 7 a.m.

For those that don’t get cable but have high-speed Internet, BITV streams all their shows on the web: BITV.org. (Mac users have to download a doohickey to watch)

Crosscut columnist and former Seattle Weekly editor Knute Berger moderated the event, which included representivives from Bainbridge Island’s print, web and TV-based media. Here’s the recap Berger wrote in his blog:

Last Sunday (Feb.8) I moderated a panel on the future of media at the Bainbridge Island Library. The focus was, naturally, on local, Bainbridge and Kitsap County media, and the panel participants were Dennis Anstine, editor of the Bainbridge Review, David Nelson, editor of the Kitsap Sun, Althea Paulson, island blogger, Selina Shearer, news director of the island’s cable TV program BNews, and Crosscut.com’s media reporter Bill Richards. The highlight for me was the turnout. It’s a good sign when a library parking lot is full on a Sunday. The room was packed and the audience Q&A alone lasted an hour and could have gone longer. People are incredibly concerned about where the news is going to come from in these times of big media change. Technology, the collapse of old advertising models, the recession, all are taking a huge toll on traditional newspapers and radio and TV as well. No one is immune. And it’s not as if people were happy with the media’s overall performance even in good times.

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Twittering

Like many journalists these days, I’m now linking to readers through Twitter. Some call it “instant blogging.” Some call it “Internet text-messaging.” And some call it the Next Big Thing…before the Next Big Thing.

My guess is that Twitter is one piece in the ever-changing puzzle that may soon show us the new face of newspapers (hint: it likely won’t include paper).

I’m using Twitter to keep tabs on that discussion (a lot of it is happening on Twitter) and to keep Islander/Kitsap Sun/Bainbridge Conversation readers posted on what I’m up to, the stories I’m working on and what I ate for breakfast (just kidding…maybe).

Kitsap Sun web editor Angela Dice is a hardcore Twitterer. You can see her Twit it up here, or check out the Sun’s Twitter newbies Josh Farley (cops) and Steven Gardener (politics) over here and here. The Sun has all-purpose Twitter page here. It’s a good spot to keep an eye on breaking news.

You can visit to my Twitter page here. If you set up an account, you get what they call “tweets” (…ugh…) on your Twitter from me and everyone else on your e-mail address list who Twitterizes.

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TV in the newspaper

The Kitsap Sun is arming its photographers and reporters with cameras these days. That’s old news for folks that live on the mighty mainland, where everything from windy weather to school board meetings have been captured by Sun videographers. Lately, though, Sun photographer Carolyn Yaschur has made treks across Agate Pass with her camcorder in hand.

Here’s Carolyn’s video tour of Bainbridge High School’s new earth-friendly 200 Building:

And here’s a nice little piece on Sunday’s mochi festival:

You can read my stories about the 200 Building here, and my coverage of the mochi festival here.

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