ByWillAtkinson.com

My apologies for the extended absence. I’ve been at law school for the past year and plan to restart this little website of mine. More to come…

Winthrop students pay almost $1,000 each academic year for an “activity fee.” More than 80 percent of that fee goes to the athletic department. The amount going to the athletic department has also been increasing steadily:

Read the entire story.

My sincerest apologies for the sporadic updates. This is Winthrop’s last full week of classes and I have a great deal of exams and projects to complete.

The Johnsonian will be releasing a special investigative reporting issue next week. The issue will not be published under The Johnsonian’s masthead, due to a technicality involving funding. The name has yet to be decided. The issue will contain projects that took a semester of reporting to produce.

More later…

Talk of an ‘08 Fred Thompson presidential run is once again surfacing.

Never discount the importance of superficiality in American politics (for reference, see Jesse Ventura, the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon debate, or the Washington Post story on “the politics of beauty”). That aside, Thompson’s prospects - already aided by a strong speaking voice and a memorable “Law & Order” acting role - might be bolstered by his resemblance to the recently deceased President Ford. He looks presidential and recently deceased presidents are often remembered favorably.

Does anyone else see it?

President Gerald Ford:

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson:

Jim Cramer, of Mad Money fame, has nothing good to say about newspapers. According to Cramer, papers “don’t need to exist” and they missed the opportunity to capitalize on the Web. Above all, Cramer lampoons these companies for their poor financial management. Newspapers “seem to be run, frankly, by jokers or dreamers who had no idea how to deploy capital,” Cramer says.

Billionaire real-estate entrepreneur Sam Zell has purchased the Tribune Company in an $8.2 billion buyout.

In the Johnsonian’s office Monday night, we brought up a point that may be overlooked: why not alter the delivery method of print newspapers? Why not make a nice looking machine that delivers a newspaper and a hot cup of a coffee for 75 cents? It could be a great way to increase the print product’s popularity.

Soda manufacturers already experiment with vending machines. Coca Cola recognized the need to have hip machines in order to attract demographics.

Coca Cola machines have evolved over the years:

Newspaper vending machines, on the other hand, have remained relatively stagnant:

Surely someone can come up with an attractive machine that dispenses a coffee and newspaper (partnership with Starbucks in trendy apartment buildings and hotels??). Maybe it could even have a cool delivery like those Coke machines that have a mechanical arm that visibly picks up and delivers the bottle. A nice looking machine with attractive graphics and a fun delivery system might be a great way to attract a younger, urban audience.

Just a thought.

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Herald blog continues

From the paper that brought you the Staples Center revenue sharing controversy, a new scandal has hit the LA Times.

Brian Grazer, the noted Hollywood producer, was slated to guest-edit the Times’ editorial page. Unbeknownst to readers, the LA Times’ editorial page editor, Andres Martinez, was having a romantic affair with Brian Grazer’s PR woman. Martinez’ involvement constitutes a textbook journalistic conflict of interest. You can leave Martinez your thoughts on his blog. Deadline Hollywood has the full breakdown.

PC World named Packard Bell computers as the worst PCs of all time. The company “was a perennial bottom dweller in PC World’s reliability and service ratings” and had twice the industry-standard product return rate. Packard Bell no longer sells PCs on the American market.

I actually have a soft spot in my heart for the old Packard Bell 406CD. Although it had its fair share of problems, I first learned Windows, HTML and a host of other skills on the old corner PC. Perhaps its inclusion is warranted, but I’d have to disagree with its placement at the top of PC World’s list. The corner PC, with its whopping 16 Mb of RAM and an entire 1 Gb of hard drive space, served my family well.