New Blog: Third-Chance Book Reviews

Why third-chance book reviews? Well, why not? Authors work hard to create their books -- sometimes one, two, three, or even more years. Then their books are published, put on display in bookstores, only to be unceremoniously yanked from the shelves a few weeks later to make way for newer books.

Meanwhile, newspapers and magazines are eliminating book reviews or tightening up on the number of reviews they publish, on paper or online, to try to cut costs as they struggle to survive. Thus, it is getting tougher and tougher for authors to get their books reviewed anywhere.

If your book doesn't get reviewed right away, it rarely gets a second chance. And after it has been on the market for a year or two, it has almost zero chance of getting reviewed, except on a book-review blog. These days, the shelf life of a book is much shorter than the time it takes to create it.

Hence, Third-Chance Book Reviews. It offers one more opportunity for a few books to get reviewed.

To be honest, I am an old-fashioned book reviewer who is now in mortal danger of becoming unemployed in the dwindling world of print media. After many years of reviewing books in newspapers, magazines and literary journals, I have started this book review blog as a means of self-defense. It also reflects my longtime desire to help keep books -- words printed on actual paper -- in front of readers.

Much of my bias, initially, will be on books about the American West and Southwest or written by authors who live in the American West or Southwest. These types of books have been my speciality for about 25 years.

But I intend to expand my coverage to any and all types of books that interest me and entertain me.

I will not review books that I dislike. I will only post brief reviews of books that I have found interesting and entertaining and think others might like, too.

Likewise, I won't post "paid" reviews. If a particular book grabs your interest, I hope you will click on the link posted in the blog. It will take you to Amazon.com. If you buy the book via that link, I will make a few cents from the transaction. If you don't like that arrangement, just go to Amazon.com, search for the title and make your best deal.

Thank you in advance for visiting Third-Chance Book Reviews, and thank you for considering some of the books I have chosen to review.

Si Dunn
Third-Chance Book Reviews
Sagecreek Productions LLC

Volunteer to Fight for the U.S. Economy

Things now are officially so bad in the Great Recession that those of us near the bottom of the economic food chain need to start doing something--anything!--to try to fuel a recovery from the bottom up.

President Obama and the Democrats on Capitol Hill--with almost no constructive help from the Republicans--are struggling to do what they can, within the painfully slow, inefficient and chaotic framework of U.S. politics.

Meanwhile, many among us are suffering and getting their butts kicked. We need to try to help them, today.

Can you start a business, no matter how small? Can you create a job, even part-time, temporary or something for a consultant to do? Can you do it today?

Will you do it today?

Can you buy something extra? (It almost doesn't matter what: a latte, a Lamborghini, a Lava soap bar, a lava lamp, a leg waxing, a loaf of bread.) Almost anything you buy can help save or create a job. Can you buy something today?

Will you do it today?

Can you use and pay for somebody's service? Get the gutters cleaned, get a bicycle repaired, get a haircut, get a pizza delivered--today?

Will you do it today?

Can you donate money or food to a food bank and clothes, unneeded tools and other useful items to Goodwill, the Salvation Army and other organizations and agencies in your community? Can you do it today?

Will you do it today?

And don't forget churches, whether you attend or not. Many churches now are struggling to keep unemployed members, parishioners and strangers afloat even as they try to keep their own doors open, too. Can you donate a few bucks to one or more of them today?

Will you do it today?

Anything and everything we can comfortably afford to do needs to be done...today. Now. Immediately.

Do it today.

Start pushing the economic recovery from the bottom up and keep pushing. Do it today.

Maybe those at the pinnacle of the economic food chain soon will learn how to stop playing "gotcha" games (we can only hope) and start helping push recovery dollars downward where they are now desperately needed.

And maybe we'll all meet in the middle soon and hope things never get out of control like this again.

But it all starts by doing something today.

-- Si Dunn

Republicans Confirm Move to Parallel Universe

WASHINGTON (D:O) -- While their party leaders proudly unveiled the presentation folders for their details-to-follow "Road to Recovery" budget alternative, anonymous sources within the Republican Party quietly conceded today that the GOP soon will move "lock, stock and barrel of tax cuts" to a separate universe "where no one can ever again attack our plan as the 'Road to Ruin.'"

One source explained: "We're moving everybody and everything--within certain limits--to a much better world. It's a parallel universe where no one will ever have to pay taxes, and there are no pesky poor people, homeless veterans and unemployed middle-class families to gum up our strategies. It's a world open to those solid citizens who make $100,ooo and up, on a steady basis."

The name of the parallel universe, the source added, is still being debated within party circles.

"Some want to call it 'Rushmore,' and some want to call it 'Jindalville.'" A conference committee is attempting to come up with a compromise, another GOP source emphasized.

Not everyone likes the move, the second anonymous source conceded. "A number of Republicans who make less than $100,000 say they feel betrayed and may become Democrats. Or Libertarians. Or Communists. Their point is that they can't stay in the Republican Party if it insists on leaving them behind in this reality."

-- B.W. "Blanque" Page, Washington correspondent for Dateline:Oblivion.

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The Republican Ticket from Hell

According to CNN Political Ticker, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is defending Republicans who want President Barack Obama to fail. He has joined conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh in wishing aloud that the President's efforts to rescue the American economy will flounder, so that millions upon millions of people will suffer and somehow, magically, sweep the G(NO!)P back into power.

So, there you have it: The G(NO!)P ticket in 2012 will be Jindal/Limbaugh or Limbaugh/Jindal.

Either way, it will be the political ticket from hell.

Gov. Jindal and radio-mouth Limbaugh keep talking past the point that if the President's efforts fail, the havoc set in motion by the Bush era (and the Bush errors) will leave the nation severely damaged, and much of the resulting destruction will be directly tied to, and properly blamed upon, Republicans' obstructionism and resistance in this time of crisis.

"NO!" is not an economic plan. But it will look great on campaign bumperstickers: "Bobby & Rush in 2012? Just Say NO!"


-- Si Dunn

Health Insurance? Help Us Afford It

The Associated Press has reported that the health insurance industry is offering "for the first time to curb its controversial practice of charging higher premiums to people with a history of medical problems."

If you've ever had a medical problem, then lost a job or started a small business and tried to buy individual health coverage, you likely have run into this little problem:

If you need it, you really can't afford it.

Republicans have long pushed for "market solutions" to the health insurance problem. And the "solutions" the market keeps delivering tend to be priced somewhere beyond sky-high.

According to the AP article posted by CBS News, "[a]bout 7 percent of Americans buy their coverage as individuals, while more than 60 percent have job-based insurance."

The percentage for individuals likely would be much higher if monthly premiums for health insurance did not rival or exceed mortgage payments and car payments. Meanwhile, people with employer-provided health insurance are paying sharply higher premiums and co-payments and getting squeezed hard, too.

"The offer here is to transition away from risk rating, which is one of the things that makes life hell for real people," health economist Len Nichols of the New America Foundation public policy center told the AP. "They have never in their history offered to give up risk rating."

According to the AP report on the CBS News site, insurers hope to head off the creation of a government insurance plan that would compete with them, something that liberals and many Democrats are pressing for.

The AP report did not mention that Republicans long have opposed government-sponsored health insurance plans, touting vague "market solutions," instead. These are the same "market solutions" that have helped keep many of the 47 million or so uninsured Americans priced out of the health-insurance market and in the "if you need it, you can't afford it" category.

The current offers from the insurance industry fall short in one very big category: small business, which creates the vast majority of new jobs in the American economy. Small businesses, under the new proposal, would have to keep paying higher premiums and deal with risk ratings. One sick employee could send premiums through the roof.

So the news on risk ratings seems to be significant, but now is not the time for the Obama Administration to ease off on its health-insurance plans. If anything, the White House needs to ratchet up its proposals and keep holding the health-insurance industry's feet to the fire.

-- Si Dunn

Is 65 the New 35?

My 65th birthday rolls around tomorrow, and I still feel as if I am 35. Or younger.

Inside my head, at least.

Yeah, some of my moving parts now grind, click and rattle. And I've had some issues that a few bits of surgery (okay, a couple of BIG bits) have been able to repair.

Life at 65 is a bit more of a chemical balancing act than I expected it would be. Pills for this, pills for that. Keep this down; keep that up. But, hey, the pills work, and life goes on. I remain full of ideas, ambitions, energy, drive, vitality--and even youthful stupidity, sometimes.

Some mornings when I drag (albeit more slowly) out of bed, I do joke that 65 is the new 64. Or the new 75. But inside my head, I still feel as if I am 35--or younger.

Tomorrow, I turn 65. And so what? I'm retired but still working part-time, mostly because I like having a small busisness. My wife still loves me. I love her madly, too. And my head and heart remain full of goals and curiosity and causes. And songs.

Life is good. Indeed, I think life at 65 is much better than it ever was when I was 35.


-- Si Dunn

Stimulating New Jobs: Where's the Leadership?

New York Times columnist Frank Rich got it exactly right when he stated:

"As the nation’s anger rose last week, the president took responsibility for what’s happening on his watch — more than he needed to, given the disaster he inherited. But in the credit mess, action must match words. To fall short would be to deliver us into the catastrophic hands of a Republican opposition whose only known economic program is to reject job-creating stimulus spending and root for Obama and, by extension, the country to fail. With all due deference to Ponzi schemers from Madoff to A.I.G., this would be the biggest outrage of them all."

Anger did rise, and it's still boiling up. There should be more job-creating stimulus spending now and more focus on the "real" people in the American economy: workers, mid-level and low-level managers, small-business owners and entrepreneurs starting new companies.

Yes, the appalling problems in the upper levels of the American economy must be fixed. At the same time, it is vital to deal with the difficulties, challenges and economic emergencies now facing people below the rank of "Master of the Universe." Specifically, emergency focus now should be given to Main Street and rural America, as well.

Where are the Congressional and White House leaders who can cut through the bailout noise and be stronger--and louder--advocates for the millions of Americans struggling in the heartland? These layoff victims need jobs now and can't find any, and thousands of small businesses who could hire them are unable to get crucial loans.

"Congress and the White House Team Up to Tackle Middle America's Deepening Crisis" -- that should (but won't) be tomorrow's big headline.


-- Si Dunn

A Digital March on Washington

It's time for a digital march on Washington--a million-blog, million-Tweet march--to get Congress and the White House to pay more attention to small business.

Small businesses are responsible for producing about 75 percent of all new jobs in this economically troubled land.

If small business owners could receive just a fraction of the staggering billions of dollars now being shoveled into the bailout shredders, we could create millions of jobs at a time when millions of jobs are needed.

Put economic crooks like Bernard Madoff under the jail. Fire the mega-wealthy executives who flew their companies deep into the ground. And start distributing money to everyone with a small business, no matter how small--with the restriction that it be used to expand operations and hire new employees.

A digital march on Washington. No one needs to organize this or set up a non-profit group or collect membership dues.

Just blog, Tweet, email...make any kind of digital noise you can toward our leaders in Washington. Do it now!

Tell Congress and the White House to quit staring, mouths agape, at AIG and other firms that have done horrendous damage to the national and world economies.

Urge them, implore them, order them (we elected them) to wake up and put some significant new muscle into small business.

It's time to start the recovery from the bottom up. The top, clearly, is just too screwed up.


-- Si Dunn

My most recent poetry book "Anchoring"

I've posted a PDF version of my most recent poetry book, "Anchoring," on my website. Click here to read it or save it. All of the poems previously have appeared in other publications, ranging from obscure literary magazines to Rolling Stone.

Comments and feedback welcome.

-- Si Dunn

Website: Sagecreek Productions

Blog: Dateline: Oblivion

Advice for New Screenwriters

Finished the first draft of a feature screenplay? Congratulations! #Screenplays appear simple on paper but require huge amounts of work just to complete.

Most people who start screenplays never finish them.

Now for the bad news: Your work has just begun.

As a script doctor, I see a lot of first-draft screenplays, and I can say this almost without exception: First drafts are never ready to pitch to producers and never ready for Hollywood "coverage." The professional script readers simply will eat the screenplay alive.

Trust me on this: Before you pitch it to a producer (and he or she farms it out to a reader for "coverage"--a preliminary evaluation to determine whether the producer should waste any time looking at the script), send your script first to a screenplay editor.

The same caution applies when sending new scripts to screenplay contests. Your magnum opus likely will be read by a small panel of contest readers--who often just happen to be professional script readers for producers, as well.

Have it edited, first.

Almost all first-draft screenplays I receive are replete with errors of grammar, spelling and screenplay formatting. You may think Hollywood will be too amazed by your story to notice or even care about these "minor" matters. Trust me on this, too: Many professional script readers will quit reading your story and start counting the mistakes after the first few misspelled words or misplaced commas or random apostrophes. Your screenplay will be a "pass" on page 1.

Writers cannot be their own editors. And family and friends are too busy and too kind to give your first draft the kind of feedback it really needs. They'll just flip through it and say: "It's great, dude! Send it off!"

Don't send it off. Not yet. Not until you've had it reviewed by at least one professional screenplay editor who will tell you what works and what doesn't work and who will show you the errors--both glaring and subtle--in your script.

You may be both chagrined and amazed at the number of blunders you have overlooked. But, once you fix them and maybe do a little rewriting, the second or third draft of your screenplay will be much closer to being ready to submit to producers and screenplay contests.

A little patience and a few revisions can go a long way toward success as a screenwriter.


-- Si Dunn

Scientist: "We Have Added the Blogosphere to Earth's Atmosphere"

Researchers at the East Mephisto Institute of Technology (EMIT) announced today that they have turned Earth's blogosphere into a new layer within Earth's atmosphere.

"It turns out there was just enough room within the thermosphere to slide the blogosphere on top of the ionosphere," said Dr. Timothy Zelony-Karandash, EMIT's director of atmospheric research.

"By using radio waves to continually transmit Internet data into the upper atmosphere, we have created a new use for old blogs. They are now helping us maintain a 'smart' -- and quite often 'not-so-smart' -- buffer between the thermosphere and the exosphere, which marks the upper limit of Earth's atmosphere," Dr. Zelony-Karandash announced.

"The new blogosphere won't provide any added deterrence against incoming meteorites, falling satellites, or North Korean or Iranian missiles," he emphasized. "But it will provide a handy new place to store the tons of digital pollution now being spewed out around our planet each day."

Eventually, solar radiation will break down the blogs. "But they will just fall back to Earth as a gentle rain of electrons," the atmospheric scientist promised. "According to our atmospheric models, the only effect we may ever notice is a slight brightening of auroras and rainbows."

--Si Dunn

It's the BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh Economy, Stupid

It's funny--yet not really funny at all--how the current economic crisis suddenly exploded into public view just a few short weeks before the end of the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Limbaugh Administration. And lawmakers were given something like one week to come up with massive amounts of bailout cash, or else the American and world economies would all swirl down the tube like a flushed toilet.

Conspiracy theorists might postulate that Republican insiders were frantically trying to keep the meltdown hidden until BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh made it out of office, so the economy then would implode just after President Barack Obama was inaugurated. And Democrats would get all of the blame for the collapse just as they tried to put forth their agenda of change and help for the downtrodden middle class and poor.

Anyway, it all blew up on the GOP's watch, and the elephant boys now are feeling the wrath from people all over America and the world while they frantically try to deflect the criticism toward President Obama--and make it "his" economy.


“Never underestimate the capacity of angry populism in times of economic stress,” Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, recently told the New York Times. “A big challenge for President Obama will be to maintain a rational and tactical public discussion in the midst of this severe downturn. The desire for culprits at times like this is strong.”

The blame needs to stay squarely on the true culprits: the "free market" Republicans who pushed financial regulation almost completely out of the economy and let crooks, pirates and others driven by greed take over and rip us off while steering corporations, funds and worker benefits straight into the ground.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney recently has said "Don't blame us for this mess." He was just trying--very unsuccessfully--to steer the spotlight away from the economic sins of the past eight years, during which he helped advise and preside.

It's still not Barack Obama's economy--not yet. We're still trying to cope with the financial horrors of the BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh economy. And we will continue trying to cope with them for many months to come, until the Obama Administration's frantic flurry of emergency measures finally starts turning things around.

So, yes, do blame the free-market, anti-regulation Republicans for this current mess. Keep the spotlights squarely focused on BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh--and make them keep paying the electric bills for the illumination, as well.

For a long while, it seemed that the messes in Iraq and Afghanistan would be their main--and dubious--legacy. But those are small potatoes now, compared with the huge pile of burnt hash browns the GOP and their free-market cronies have made out of the American and global economies.

Once a recovery starts to take hold, remember who refused to help and cooperate in our nation's time of peril: the House Republicans and their incessant "No!" votes against the Obama Administration's proposals; and most (but not all) of the Senate Republicans, who keep clinging to the failed policies that nearly sent us into the Great Depression of 2009.

Oh, and especially the real head of the Republican Party: Rush "I Hope Obama Fails" Limbaugh.

--Si Dunn

Tonkin Gulf Redux? DARK SIGNALS draft finished -- 68,000 words

I guess I should be bouncing up and down with literary joy. I have just completed a new, 68,000-word draft of my next book, DARK SIGNALS: A Navy Radio Operator in the Tonkin Gulf, 1964-1965. I can now send it to the publisher and take a couple of weeks off while I wait for feedback and the inevitable requests for changes and corrections.

It's funny (or maybe not so funny) how history repeats itself. While writing this book, I kept thinking: Well, this is old news. Not many people will even remember or care about what happened in the South China Sea and Tonkin Gulf in the mid-1960s, just when the Vietnam War was heating up.

Now, suddenly, there has been breaking news from those very waters. An unarmed American "ocean survey" ship, the USNS Impeccable, recently was surrounded and harrassed by several Chinese vessels in the South China Sea. And the Impeccable's crew had to open "fire" with fire hoses to try to keep the Chinese boats from colliding with them.

The Chinese charged that the U.S. ship was violating international laws with its "surveys."

Some disputed parts of the South China Sea and Tonkin Gulf have been repeatedly "surveyed" by U.S. naval ships since the late 1950s and early 1960s, initially sent there by Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. The goal, in those long-ago days, was to try to stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia.

In 1964, U.S. surveillance operations along the North Vietnamese coast helped lead to some confrontations and miscalculations that caused the Vietnam War to flare up and drag on for many years. That was how I ended up in the South China Sea and Tonkin Gulf for almost a year aboard a destroyer.

The Soviet Union also operated some "ocean survey" ships in those waters, including the spy trawler Gidrofon. It often tried to get in the way of aircraft carriers launching bombing raids on North Vietnam. Sometimes, my ship had to get in the Gidrofon's way and keep it out of a carrier's way.

Will there be a new Tonkin Gulf crisis that will make my military memoir suddenly timely again--after 45 years? It's a scary thought.

-- Si Dunn

Movie producer seeking co-producers for my screenplay

Canyon Pictures is seeking co-producers for my low-budget horror-thriller screenplay, Ravine.

Here's the tagline: Two personal wars. One haunted battlefield.

And the logline: Trapped in an isolated ravine, a combat veteran who fears violence must save himself and his family from a crazed gunman who is haunted by the ghosts of three men he killed in Iraq.

For more information, contact Rob Walker at Canyon Pictures, canyonpictures@yahoo.com.

Thanks!

Si Dunn
Sagecreek Productions LLC

Area Man's Plea: "Help! I'm Being Followed by The Onion!"

Kevin Klyzmymytzky, 78, a retired farmer and resident of this area for nearly 80 years, awoke this morning to the terrifying news that The Onion is following him on Twitter.

"I was just minding my own business, indulging in my old habit of checking soybean futures prices. Then I checked my email and saw an ominous warning that I am being 'followed on Twitter.' Moments later, I saw a blob-shaped shadow move across the shades that I keep drawn in my office. I was completely terrified."

Mr. Klyzmymytzky said that now, each time he steps outside his house, "I feel this hovering presence spying on me. I can't describe it, except that I sometimes see little flashes of white or yellow or purple while something--I never can see exactly what--quickly pulls out of sight around the corner.

"And when I'm driving my pickup truck, I have this eerie feeling that someone with bad onion-breath is breathing right on the back of my neck. But that's plumb silly, because my old truck is just a two-seater. And I don't never keep nothing in the other seat except my shotgun and two cases of beer."

Mr. Klyzmymytzky admits that he recently may have opened a Twitter account accidentally. "There's no other explanation. I thought I was applying for a federal bailout for retired soybean farmers, but I guess I clicked on the wrong link."

The longtime area resident reported that after he read the email warning and saw the shadow, he "called the police right away. But they just said I should buy a couple of pounds of liver and have a nice meal and a nice day.

"I also called Homeland Security. They just suggested that I should try to catch The Onion, then slice it up and invite them over for hamburgers."

Mr. Klyzmymytzky warned that he now carries his shotgun at the ready, even when he is inside his house.

"I tell every shadow I see: 'Go ahead, make my day!' Look, I'm just an old man who lives alone, and there ought to be a law against anything called Twitter that takes advantage of senior citizens. And it ought to be a felony for onions to follow people. None of this would be happening if Franklin Delano Roosevelt was still president, I assure you!"

-- Si Dunn

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"Totally outrageous celebrity news" experiment a complete failure!

I am pleased to report that my blog took a big hit in daily page views after I posted a headline via Twitter, hyping "Totally outrageous news about today's most vapid celebrities."

According to Google Analytics, posting that "celebrities" headline apparently was the digital equivalent of blasting Dateline: Oblivion with a nuclear torpedo. Page views sank sharply, rather than increasing as I had hypothesized.

So the effort to trick new readers into rushing to my blog was an utter failure.

Apparently, many fewer Twitter-ers are enthralled by celebrity news than I had thought and feared. Excellent.

However, I did gain a number of new followers, most of them wanting to sell me something and none of them commenting on anything I have written.

Seems to be a lot of that going on these days. We're all trying to sell something to each other on Twitter: soap, world views, sensibilities, our souls, ourselves.

Thanks to all who participated in this test, and even bigger thanks to all who did not. I'm glad almost nobody really wants to read celebrity "news" from some random blog in Texas. It gives me a bit more hope for the digital world.

May the farce be with you...and also with you.

--Si Dunn


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Totally outrageous news about today's most vapid celebrities?

Blame Howard Kurtz for "inspiring" me to come up with this headline. It's one of my responses to his recent Twitter question asking us to name our biggest gripe about today's media.

At one level, this little post of mine is just a cheap trick to see if people will overlook the headline's complete meaning and its question mark and actually click on the link to my blog, thus at least momentarily boosting its circulation and generating a few angry responses.

If you hype it, they will come!

At another level, it is just one old writer's futile rant against the incessant cult of celebrity worship--which no doubt has been going strong since the days of totally cool cave people, but now is made more visible and pervasive by electronic media and the Internet.

So, sorry, you'll learn nothing new or even old about celebrities here, vapid or otherwise. My answer to Howard Kurtz's question is that the media world seems to increasingly revolve around entertainment and sports stars--and to rely upon them for survival--while many, many worthy stories, causes and issues languish or are completely overshadowed or ignored.

Hey, but thanks for dropping by. While you're here, feel free to read some of my other missives that have been blotted out by the glare of the glitterati--and the fact that there are now millions of other blogs competing for the even barest bits of attention.

-- Si Dunn

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A Few New TV Series Proposals

I've recently updated my "TV Series Proposals" web page. It now lists three comedies, two dramas and a reality show.

Check out the brief summaries for my current series proposals here.

The proposals themselves are registered and posted as PDF files at WriteSafe.com. I can email them to producers who wish to read them.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

-- Si Dunn

http://www.sagecreekproductions.com/

The New Business Model for Newspaper Survival?

All over the U.S., newspapers are in deep trouble. Some have closed their doors; others are teetering toward collapse.

Their incomes from advertising and paid subscriptions are shrinking as more and more of us turn to online sources for news, sports, information, classified advertisements and updates on restaurants, movies, products and services.

Now there is urgent talk that newspapers may have to become mostly digital and try to sell their content online, to subscribers and to single-copy buyers (the digital equivalent of those who occasionally purchase newspapers from coin racks and news stands).

Selling digitized newspaper content already has failed several times. The New York Times and others previously have tried and abandoned it. Internet users are used to getting almost everything for free, except on music sites such as iTunes.

Some pundits already have floated this idea: Why not sell digitized newspaper content the same way music is sold on iTunes?

There's one big problem, however. Newspapers going digital with the iTunes model in mind will have to spend a lot of money on trying to make their reporters, feature writers and columnists into national and international media stars, so people will want to buy what they write.

Every journalist will have to become his or her own "brand"--You sell, you can keep working here.

The emphasis on "gotcha" journalism and scandal mongering then will just increase, as journalism "brands" battle each other for sales and marketplace dominance.

Nobody will want to cover local news--Boy Scout promotions, wedding announcements, obituaries, two-car accidents at Main and Elm--because almost nobody (except a few family members) will pay any money to read such reports, print them out and put them in scrapbooks.

Meanwhile, there will be hundreds, thousands of journalist "brands" rushing to cover President Obama, Kate Winslet and the Jonas Brothers.

Why, after all, write a story that will bring in two dollars when you can write one that might, potentially, bring in thousands for the newspaper and hundreds for your pocket?

If you sell, you can stay. If you don't sell, we'll replace you with a better "brand."

Doesn't sound like a very promising future for American journalism.

-- Si Dunn

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