CM PRESS # 126

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.

CM PRESS # 28

LUNCH AT THE POLONIUM 210 CAFE

[Tom Johnson has a column in the Daily Pilot today that we comment on below. What does Katrina Foley think about this? Get ready for more quotes from her in the Pilot.] http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2006/12/08/columns/dpt-fairgame08.txt]

So, first, Tom Johnson--known around the HQ of the CM PRESS as Waving Johnson (more about this a little further on)--pulled out all the stops to try to defeat Allan Mansoor and Wendy Leece by inflicting paper cuts on them with the Daily Pilot, and now he's going to make nice and have lunch with them.

Mansoor and Leece should remember what the Libertarians say: TANSTAAFL. There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

What's with Johnson? This is the sort of stuff reminiscent of barroom fights in cowboy bars in 1950's movies where everyone shakes hands and becomes new best friends after trying to beat each other's brains in with balsa wood chairs.

The difference from those old fake barroom fights is the fact that this just past election wasn't a meaningless barroom dispute among Hollywood extras pretending to be drunks, and the head beating wasn't with balsa wood.

This election was about Costa Mesa's future--no, really--not in the cliché and glib way that this expression is normally used, but in reality. There were no phony drunks duking it out. There were very sober people trying to convince voters that their way was the best way.

Had Johnson's pals won this election, Costa Mesa would have had a new job center for illegal aliens, and the welcome mat for criminals would have been extended even further. In addition, the Westside Revitalization would have been aborted and our city would have reversed direction and headed away from being more like our coastal neighbors and more like an inner city to our north.

Now, if Johnson really wants to mend his ways, and get on the path to making Costa Mesa the Shining City on the Hill instead of the Slum on the Slopes, by having the Pilot be more even handed--not just with Mansoor and Leece--but also with the improvement minded citizens who elected these two, then that's a great thing.

A daily newspaper actually helping improve Costa Mesa would be something new in our city.

Could it be that this just past election was the equivalent of a Zen slap that opened Johnson's mind? Anything's possible, Grasshopper. However, Johnson has probably telegraphed his true intentions with some squirrel phrases in his column.

For example, Johnson writes: " I respect Mansoor and was happy that he was elected mayor of Costa Mesa for a second term. In my mind, given the council make-up, he was far and away the best choice."

TRANSLATION: "Mansoor is the mayor, damn it, and I have to live with it and try to at least be civil or the only two people on the city council who will talk to the Pilot will be Katrina Foley and Linda Dixon, and they were on the losing side in the election and have been sent to the sidelines. And, if the council had not selected Mansoor as mayor, the job would have gone to Eric Bever who has publicly said that he doesn't even read the Pilot and who mostly won't talk to us at all."

Johnson then writes, of Wendy Leece: "I also believe that she's open to people's ideas and thoughts."

TRANSLATION: "Maybe she's not as tough as Mansoor and Bever, and maybe she's not as focused on improving Costa Mesa and can be turned against improvement with a little sweet talk. This will destroy the three person improvement majority on the Council. Maybe I can romance her to side with Foley and Dixon. Hey, maybe her gender will trump her desire to fix broken Costa Mesa. I'll give her some flowers or something."

If Johnson and his pals think they can turn Ms. Leece's head, we think they'll be in for a shock. We've watched her on the school board for several years, and she's no one's weak sister. Think Margaret Thatcher without the accent. No smoke is going to be blown up her skirt.

Now, about that Waving Johnson appellation for Tom Johnson. Sometime ago, Johnson went to the now closed job center and sat there in a crowd of day workers and later gushed in a column how wonderful the place was. Oh, the humanity of it.

We thought the whole thing was funny. When he was at the job center, it looked like a Where's Waldo scene as a goofily smiling pale faced Johnson sat there in a sea of day workers. We then spoofed the whole thing in the CM PRESS and we had Johnson waving and yelling "Yoo-hoo" to potential employers from Newport Beach as he tried to find day work as a publisher based on his resume from the Daily Pilot.

In the end, we had Johnson being rejected in favor of an illegal alien whose publishing experience was far more extensive than Johnson's in that the illegal alien published fake ID cards to be used at the very job center where Johnson was sitting.

If Johnson, as he seems to indicate in his column, has heard the will of the voters in Costa Mesa, and if he now wants to be on their side in helping turn Costa Mesa into a first rate city that is more like our coastal neighbors, we'll know that in the direction and the tone of the Pilot over the next few months. Johnson is Mr. Big at the Pilot, and he's told us as much in an email, so what you see in the Pilot is coming from Johnson.

And, of course, if he isn't on board with this, we'll also know that.

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