Media Watch

[Don Coombs <dcoombs@uidaho.edu>]

The Sunday Papers, which I spent time with because it was too rainy to go
out to borrow the money to pay to put gas in the boat--

The Lewiston Morning Trib featured "payday loans" in its business section,
under the headline "Payday loans can help you out in a cash pinch, but be
careful -- there can be a costly catch to LIVING LIFE IN ADVANCE." Good
graphics, a photo illustration (produced by not one but two
photographers!) and a potful of quotes from relevant sources, many of them
local. (To get a payday loan, you write out a check for the amount of the
loan plus interest/service fee and date it in the future, when you expect
to have money in the bank. The interest/fees are large.)

The Trib was up front about the high fees ($40 to borrow $200 for two
weeks), but I was surprised that no actual percentage appeared until deep
in the story, where it was jumped on page 3. There, in paragraph 27, one
loan operator said his interest rate was 360 percent. The story went
on to report that most Lewiston payday loan providers charged $20 per
$100 for two weeks, but didn't spell out that that would be better than
520 percent on an annualized basis.

I think most readers know you're lucky to get paid 6 percent interest at a
bank and that you can borrow money at 8 percent or so to buy a house, so
you could hit them with a percentage -- especially a stunning one like 520
percent -- up near the top of the story.

Anyway, an excellent story. And wouldn't you know it: In Washington,
the state law limits the fee to $15 per hundred per two weeks, but in
Idaho the spirit of the frontier lingers and "the market determines the
interest rate."

Among the reasons given in North Central Idaho for taking out a payday
loan: buying an anniversary present, visiting a relative in Seattle who
just had a bad face lift, going on vacation and buying gas for the boat.

And now for something completely different:

The Spokesman Review puts out an Idaho edition, and it goes to press
considerably before midnight, so it's not unusual for the sports section
to show up at Moscow front doors lacking late scores. The truly unusual
happened Saturday night: A columnist had a feature on page 1 of the
section about the college student who plays -- or I guess IS -- Butch the
Cougar at WSU basketball games. WSU won its first conference game
Saturday night, and here was this column (apparently written right
after the halftime entertainment) which must have been filed with
references to the team's winless record. The truly unusual: Either the
columnist or an editor went through the feature and updated it with
references to WSU upsetting Cal in overtime to get its first conference
victory. Excellent performance, and that feature about Butch got in the
Idaho edition.

But the game story didn't.

You could argue that people in Idaho don't care about Washington
State athletics, but you couldn't win the argument. Many WSU faculty,
staff and students live in Moscow. (Actually, the score did get in, under
the updated "conference standings," but if you have time to update a
column you have time to get in a story.) 

As part of the fun of being a constant reader, I'll be interested to see
what the Spokesman's sports desk does in Monday morning's
Idaho edition: 1) admit they screwed up when they could have wedged in a
story, and then print pretty much what they put in the Washington edition
(no, I don't think this is likely) 2) ignore the situation and print
nothing) 3) print pretty much what ran in the Washington edition and
perhaps explain that the game ended too late to get the game story in the 
paper. Some people have said kind things about "Media Watch" in the past, 
but if I knew a lot about journalism I'd be able to predict whether
tomorrow morning will bring 2) or 3). I'll guess 3) but it's only a
guess.

And back to the Lewiston Morning Trib: As Bill London already pointed out,
the Trib came in with sort of a "feature-obituary" on Charlie Brown, and
apparently it's the first printed report of his months-ago death. It's
good: it's full of great quotes and even a dug-up file photo and when
you've read it you realize why some people didn't admire the guy. The
only reason I'm discussing the story here is the timing: This was a guy a 
whole lot of people knew, at least by reputation, and it's months before
we read about his death (except for vision2020 subscribers)!

You know what this means? It means that until a funeral home sends a
press release (well, you know what I mean) to the newspaper, the person
isn't really dead, for a while. There may be something deeply
philosophical here.

And: I'm going to hate myself in the morning, but what will the Daily News
do about being scooped on this?

*  *  *  *  *

I know what I want my obituary to say: "He considered himself a critic of
the press and often said he was fortunate to live in an area where there
was so much opportunity."

Don Coombs