Winners
Las Vegas
Next time you see the Oct. 2008 issue of Sunset, peruse the pages until you find a quarter-page photo of a Queen Anne Victorian house. A profile of New England? Nope. It's a feature on our little county seat to the west, Las Vegas. The plug contains a couple useful tidbits (Plaza Antiques gets a well-deserved nod) and a kind-of misleading one ("Local lingo: Acequias are centuries-old irrigation canals…") gives readers the impression acequias only exist in Las Vegas. The magazine piece is a counterbalance to the town's recent spout of bad press.
Citizen Pundits
It's alive…it's alive! The blogosphere and media message boards have been particularly active lately with the news of Public Regulation Commission Democratic candidate Jerome Block Jr.'s continuing legal troubles. While SFR and other papers have been following "Blockgate" closely, citizens have been very outspoken on this issue, particularly on the Internet. Example: The Santa Fe New Mexican received 49 reader comments in response to its story on Block's refund of campaign money and 93 comments on its story about the burglary of Block's home-office.
Obama-loving Taoseños
"Vamos a votar por Obama!!" reads a just-released campaign video promoting the Democratic presidential candidate. The video, produced in Taos and featuring music and lyrics by Franco Mares, shows a tanned dude with a guitar singing mariachi music, all in Spanish, and people waving and smiling and presumably sending out positive vibes to Obama and his supporters. You can almost smell the sage. With so much slick media coming from the Obama and McCain campaigns, this Taos entry comes across as a heartfelt homage to the Illinois senator.
Losers
New Mexico Free Press
The Sept. 24 issue of the New Mexico Free Press included two non-bylined articles that, upon examination, are verbatim reprints of City of Santa Fe press releases. One "article," headlined "City ready to unveil convention center," copies verbatim the text of a press release issued by the City of Santa Fe on the center. Another "article" promotes the city's green collar job program and uses, again verbatim, quotes from the mayor in the city's press release on the subject. Both articles appear under the auspices of "staff reports," with no indication that the material has come—wait for it—verbatim from press releases.
Leland Lehrman
The vegetarian-friendly café owner, political activist and now-former editor of the Sun-News is going through a tough transition. He sent a mass e-mail on Sept. 19 detailing the financial woes of his business, the Green Palace Teahouse. More recently, the Sept. 28 edition of the recently renamed New Mexico Sun News states that Lehrman is no longer the editor and has been replaced by a Colorado Springs lawyer who goes by the pen name JAGman.
Pentecostals
According to a Sept. 28 story in the Washington Post, Santa Fe resident (and renowned political cartoonist) Pat Oliphant has been invoking ire among Pentecostals. His Sept. 9 cartoon, in which Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is featured speaking in tongues—and is responded to by God himself with, "All I can hear is some dam' right wing politician spouting gibberish!"—was not exactly welcomed by the Post's Christian readership. Ombudsman Deborah Howell writes that the paper received more than 750 angry responses to Oliphant's cartoon. We love you Pat.
