WINNERS
City of Santa Fe
The city's Public Information Office just keeps getting savvier and savvier. At the end of October, the city's website beat out 51 other small cities to win the Communications Technology Award at the City-County Communications and Marketing Association's annual awards banquet. Now, city Public Information Administrator Carla Lopez has upped the ante with a YouTube hub (youtube.com/cityofsantafe) to showcase the latest public service announcements, including a police recruitment video and a frozen-pipe warning.
Tourists
US Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, brought home nearly $850,000 in tourism pork this month, including $45,200 for a New Mexico scenic byway guidebook. Good timing: Santa Fe-based Xola Consulting, Inc. just released its 2008 tourism industry report, which shows that 31 percent of tourism media consumers make their travel decisions based on what they read, see or hear. However, Bingaman oughta consider bringing home money for New Mexico's websites: Another company, Forrester Research, predicts travel will be the top online retail category, worth $119 billion, by 2010.
Santa Fe business interests
When Santa Fe media mini-moguls Hutton Broadcasting bought up the local Air America affiliate (KTRC 1260 AM), co-owner Scott Hutton told SFR his family planned to supplement the syndicated shows with local programming. This week, SFR learned that two have already been doled out: Santa Fe Alliance's Vicki Pozzebon will host one show, tentatively titled Local First Radio, and her arch-nemesis, Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce President Simon Brackley, will also host a show, currently pending a title. Mayor David Coss is also expected to receive a show, Hutton says.
LOSERS
New Mexico press corps
The New Mexico Press Association's annual awards banquet left SFR's editorial team thinking the industry organization staff needs to re-enroll in Journalism 101. A month after the event, SFR still doesn't know which stories earned it awards in both news writing and columns because NMPA lost, yes, lost the entries. Also, the association has yet to post the complete winner list (or the names of its newly elected officers) on its website. Oh, woe, the irony: New Mexico's news industry can't even give itself the scoop.
Santa Fe haters
Recently, an enemy-of-the-city began posting ads on Craigslist asking for negative anecdotes about the City Different for a new website, SantaFeSucks.com. "Please end [sic] me your Santa Fe horror stories!" the hater writes. "No one will ever move or even visit this fucking shit-hole again after I do some tweaking and search engine optimization." SFR cannot provide a link to the ad because each time the user uploads it, another user ("pencil dick…asswipe," the poster writes) flags it for removal.
New Mexico Independent
The New Mexico Independent, a nonprofit news site edited by former SFR staff writer David Alire Garcia, turns out to be less independent than advertised. Recently, a memo, written by Center for Independent Media Deputy Program Director Robin Marty, threatened termination for any employee who leaked info about recent firings (four in NM) to other journalists. As it turns out, Marty's background is in "public relations and corporate communication," and her chief journalistic qualification, a blog, is dominated by baby pictures. Meanwhile, campaign finance records show CIM President David Bennahum donated the maximum $2,300 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
