WAVING JOHNSON PROMISES CHANGES AT THE PILOT
Yoo Hoo, readers! In his column today (4/27), Daily Pilot publisher Tom Waving Johnson is promising some changes at the Pilot. Most appear to be stylistic changes, but maybe Johnson will also try to make the paper more relevant to readers in this area (we can hope). Here's the link: http://www.dailypilot.com/
In announcing the changes, Johnson assures readers that the changes won't be as, ah, radical as the one happening at the LA TIMES, where a long time male sports writer is going on vacation and will return as a woman.
Although Johnson tries to put a happy face on matters, the truth is that you don't fix something if it isn't broken. And, some readers have been saying that the Pilot is broken.
The general complaints we've heard revolve around the Pilot being perceived as being too liberal and too out of touch with most of the citizens of this area. And, one specific comment we've repeatedly heard is a perception that the paper is illegal alien friendly.
Our guess is that Johnson isn't going to change the perceived liberal focus of the paper, but we'll just have to wait and see. He promises we'll see changes starting with this Sunday's edition.
Now, about that Waving Johnson appellation. Long time readers of the CM PRESS will remember that we added "Waving" to Johnson's name after he wrote a glowing column a couple of years ago about the joys of sitting for a few hours with suspected illegal alien day workers at the then open Job Center on 17th and Placentia as they sought day work. Johnson thought the Job Center was a great idea and shouldn't be closed down. Oh, the humanity of it!
We thought it was hilarious. And, it was made more so because Johnson was serious. To us, the scene sounded like a cross between Where's Waldo and Alfred E. Neuman.
If you don't get it, take a look at the picture of Johnson on the front page of the Pilot today and then picture that face in the middle of a sea of day workers sitting on folding chairs in the front of the closed down gas station that was the Job Center. Think he might stick out?
In our spoofing of the event, we had Johnson waving and yelling "Yoo Hoo," to potential employers as he sought day work as a publisher.
As we fictionalized the scene, we had Johnson losing out on a day publishing job for a couple of bucks an hour to an illegal alien whose extensive publishing experience was in making false ID cards (to be used at the Job Center). The illegal alien not only promised to do better work for less money than Johnson but also to do some yard work for the employer.
In his column today, Johnson also indicates that Tony Dodero is back in the editor's seat at the Pilot.
We wonder about the change in editors. When S.J. Cahn was editor, we were surprised when we picked up a copy of the Pilot and saw our name among the Daily Pilot's 103 most influential whatevers in Newport-Mesa. We even beat out the dead swan. We thought the swan should have asked for a recount.
Anyway, not long after that, Cahn left the Pilot. Sought other opportunities, as we say in the biz. Was there a connection between us being put on that list and his leaving? We'll never know.
So, we'll have to wait until Sunday, and then for at least a full week of newspapers, to see if, in addition to the stylistic changes promised by Johnson, there is a change in attitude at the paper.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
