PRESS-LESS PRESS RELEASES

Granted, the state Democratic Party, in the wake of the NM Caucus fiasco, has bigger problems to worry about.

But here's another one.

Apparently on Tuesday afternoon the party sent a news release about Laura Sanchez stepping down as executive director.

The news was posted on a couple of blogs. But the release was not sent to The New Mexican, nor to the Associated Press. I can't speak for The Albuquerque Journal, but seeing that they didn't have the story until today, I'm assuming they didn't get the release on Tuesday either.

I probably spend too much time reading blogs at work, but because I was working on two stories Tuesday afternoon, I neglected my Internet patrol.

I spoke to new interim executive director Josh Geise yesterday. He wasn't sure what the problem was but assured me we'll be on the list for future news releases.

That's a start.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: SOME "FAMILY" DINNERS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
February 21, 2008

During the recently concluded legislative session, I reported how legislators’ social calendars remain filled with big parties and expensive meals on the lobbyists’ dime, despite a law aimed at restricting gifts to lawmakers.

Required reports filed by lobbyists showed some spent more than $20,000 of their clients’ money on huge receptions. (In fairness, the $20,000 affairs tend to be thrown by business organizations such as auto dealers or mining company executives. So much of the expense is for food and drink consumed by members of the associations, not just the invited politicians.)

There is, of course, nothing illegal about throwing parties or hosting dinners for elected officials. And nobody claims any votes were bought or sold in exchange for a fancy meal at a downtown restaurant or cocktails at some reception. Sometimes the lobbyist paying the tab won’t even have any bills pending before the committee whose dinner he buys.

Both lobbyists and lawmakers will tell you these gatherings are just to “build relationships,” opportunities for the lobbyists, and sometimes their clients, to get to know legislators in a relaxed environment.

Some say it even creates a feeling of “family” at the Capitol. Longtime lobbyists hold a special place of honor in the Roundhouse family. They are considered the wise elders who have seen it all before and know what can and can’t be done. Indeed, as one lawmaker pointed out, lobbyists tend to stick around longer than legislators. And many are former legislators, making the big step from eating free meals to buying the meals.

“There are some lobbyists I go to for advice on how to get things done, not because of who they represent or what bills they’re backing, but just because they were around in 1978 and have seen other young-Turk legislators try to make changes,” one senator told me during the past session. “They know which walls you can’t tear down.”

Of course, sometimes it might be in a lobbyist’s interest not to tear down certain walls.

Final lobbyist reports: Under state law, lobbyists are required to report expenses of more than $500 within 48 hours after the event. Last year’s Gift Act restricts gifts — including food and drink — to no more than $250 per legislator.

It’s the lobbyists — not the lawmakers — who have to file reports.

Here’s what was in what should be the last batch of the “48-hour” reports for the regular session:

* The 100th Bill Party, held Feb. 8 at La Fonda, featured the music of Darren Cordova. The event has become one of the biggest annual soirees for legislators. The party is sponsored by whoever introduced the 100th bill of the session in the House and the Senate. This year, the “winners” were House Majority Leader Ken Martinez, D-Grants, and Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque. But the lawmakers don’t pay for the party — at least not all of it. According to lobbyist reports, Natasha Ning, a lobbyist for the city of Albuquerque and several other clients, spent $5,000 on the party while Vanessa Alarid, a lobbyist for Sun Cal Management, pitched in $1,500 and Reese Edwards, a lobbyist for Butch Maki & Associates and clients including Forest City Covington and Westland Devco, kicked in $1,000.

* Bob Gallagher, president of the New Mexico Oil & Gas Association, spent $3,013 on a dinner for the House Education Committee at Eldorado Hotel’s Old House restaurant Feb. 11.

* Roman Maes, on behalf of his clients Microsoft and Partners in Learning, spent $2,044 for a legislative reception on Feb. 5 at the Rio Chama Steakhouse.

* Mark Duran is a lobbyist who represented 15 clients, including the city of Santa Fe; Deloitte Consulting of Austin, Texas; Inx Inc. of Albuquerque; New Mexico Manufactured Housing Association; Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co., Trex Enterprises Corp. of San Diego and Uranium Resources Inc. He spent $1,448 for dinner for unnamed senators and staff on Feb. 13, the last night of the Legislature.

* Qwest paid $1,070 to take the Senate Judiciary Committee out to dinner at the Bull Ring on Feb. 6. Attending were Sens. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, and a guest; Richard Martinez, D-Española, and a guest; Bill Payne, R-Albuquerque; Rod Adair, R-Roswell, and a guest; Kent Cravens, R-Albuquerque; Clint Harden, R-Clovis; Lidio Rainaldi, D-Gallup; and Feldman.

* Paul Gutierrez of the New Mexico Association of Counties spent $866 treating the Health and Government Affairs Committee to a meal at the Cowgirl BBQ and Western Grill on Feb. 8. Guiterrez said Wednesday that mainly staff members attended.

* Ning also spent $225 for dinner for unnamed House members and staff at Tomasita’s on Feb. 13.

Bang for bucks: It’s not just parties and meals that end up in lobbyist reports. Advertising and other expense reports have to be reported as well.

Steve Allen, executive director of Common Cause, reported spending $7,091 for patching calls directly to legislators from constituents supporting House Bill 564 — which would have expanded the state’s public financing of campaigns.

That bill never even made it to a House floor vote. Maybe next year supporters should consider spending $7,000 on a nice dinner somewhere.

MISC. POLITICAL STORIES

In Wednesday's New Mexican I had a story about Carol Miller making an independent run for Congress in Congressional District 3. (The headline incorrectly says it's her second run. But if you read the story itself you'll realize it's her third race. Remember, gentle readers, reporters don't write the headlines.)

You'll find that HERE.

I also did a story about two of the state's Democratic "superdelegates" getting campaign contributions from presidential candidates, whose fate they might decide this summer. Spoiler alert: Gov. Bill Richardson got $5,000 from Hillary Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton got $4,200 from Barack Obama. That story is HERE.

I also had a couple of pieces in Tuesday's paper.

One is about Secretary of State Mary Herrera saying she won't personally appear in public service announcements -- a practice that has brought criticism for her predecessor Rebecca Vigil-Giron and others. (Click HERE).

The other is about state Dem Chairman Brian Colon saying he'll investigate why the voter rolls used in the recent state Democratic Caucus had so many omissions and errors. That one is HERE.

R.I.P. NO DEPRESSION

This is really sad. I just received word that No Depression magazine will cease to publish after its May-June issue.

No Depression started out as an "alternative country" publication back in the mid-90s, but evolved into a magazine that covers lots of great American music -- traditional country, rock, blues, soul, gospel -- even a couple of stabs at commerical country, which was unsurprisingly controversial among its readership.

Although I hadn't contributed anything to ND in the past few years, for a period of three or four years I had something in almost every issue. I've always been proud of my association with No Depression.

(The image on the left -- featuring Brian Henneman of the Bottle Rockets and Rhett Miller of the Old 97s -- is the cover of the May/June 1997 issue, the first one that carried my work -- a review of a Bill & Bonnie Hearne album.)

Here's the official press release:

No Depression, the bimonthly magazine covering a broad range of American roots music since 1995, will bring to an end its print publication with its 75th issue in May-June 2008.

Plans to expand the publication’s website (www.nodepression.net) with additional content will move forward, though it will in no way replace the print edition.

The magazine’s March-April issue, currently en route to subscribers and stores, includes the following note from publishers Grant Alden, Peter Blackstock and Kyla Fairchild as its Page 2 “Hello Stranger” column:

Barring the intercession of unknown angels, you hold in your hands the next-to-the-last edition of No Depression we will publish. It is difficult even to type those words, so please know that we have not come lightly to this decision.

In the thirteen years since we began plotting and publishing No Depression, we have taken pride not only in the quality of the work we were able to offer our readers, but in the way we insisted upon doing business. We have never inflated our numbers; we have always paid our bills (and, especially, our freelancers) on time. And we have always tried our best to tell the truth.

First things, then: If you have a subscription to ND, please know that we will do our very best to take care of you. We will be negotiating with a handful of magazines who may be interested in fulfulling your subscription. That is the best we can do under the circumstances.

Those circumstances are both complicated and painfully simple. The simple answer is that advertising revenue in this issue is 64% of what it was for our March- April issue just two years ago. We expect that number to continue to decline.

The longer answer involves not simply the well-documented and industrywide reduction in print advertising, but the precipitous fall of the music industry. As a niche publication, ND is well insulated from reductions in, say, GM’s print advertising budget; our size meant they weren’t going to buy space in our pages, regardless.

On the other hand, because we’re a niche title we are dependent upon advertisers who have a specific reason to reach our audience. That is: record labels. We, like many of our friends and competitors, are dependent upon advertising from the community we serve.

That community is, as they say, in transition. In this evolving downloadable world, what a record label is and does is all up to question. What is irrefutable is that their advertising budgets are drastically reduced, for reasons we well understand. It seems clear at this point that whatever businesses evolve to replace (or transform) record labels will have much less need to advertise in print.

The decline of brick and mortar music retail means we have fewer newsstands on which to sell our magazine, and small labels have fewer venues that might embrace and hand-sell their music. Ditto for independent bookstores. Paper manufacturers have consolidated and begun closing mills to cut production; we’ve been told to expect three price increases in 2008. Last year there was a shift in postal regulations, written by and for big publishers, which shifted costs down to smaller publishers whose economies of scale are unable to take advantage of advanced sorting techniques.

Then there’s the economy…

The cumulative toll of those forces makes it increasingly difficult for all small magazines to survive. Whatever the potentials of the web, it cannot be good for our democracy to see independent voices further marginalized. But that’s what’s happening. The big money on the web is being made, not surprisingly, primarily by big businesses.

ND has never been a big business. It was started with a $2,000 loan from Peter’s savings account (the only monetary investment ever provided, or sought by, the magazine). We have five more or less full-time employees, including we three who own the magazine. We have always worked from spare bedrooms and drawn what seemed modest salaries.

What makes this especially painful and particularly frustrating is that our readership has not significantly declined, our newsstand sell-through remains among the best in our portion of the industry, and our passion for and pleasure in the music has in no way diminished. We still have shelves full of first-rate music we’d love to tell you about.

And we have taken great pride in being one of the last bastions of the long-form article, despite the received wisdom throughout publishing that shorter is better. We were particularly gratified to be nominated for our third Utne award last year.

Our cards are now on the table.

Though we will do this at greater length next issue, we should like particularly to thank the advertisers who have stuck with us these many years; the writers, illustrators, and photographers who have worked for far less than they’re worth; and our readers: You.

Thank you all. It has been our great joy to serve you.
GRANT ALDEN
PETER BLACKSTOCK
KYLA FAIRCHILD

No Depression published its first issue in September 1995 (with Son Volt on the cover) and continued quarterly for its first year, switching to bimonthly in September 1996. ND received an Utne Magazine Award for Arts & Literature Coverage in 2001 and has been nominated for the award several times (including in 2007). The Chicago Tribune ranked No Depression #20 in its 2004 list of the nation’s Top 50 magazines of any kind.

Artists who have appeared on the cover of No Depression over the years include Johnny Cash (2002), Wilco (1996), Willie Nelson (2004), Ryan Adams’ seminal band Whiskeytown (1997), the Drive-By Truckers (2003), Ralph Stanley (1998), Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint (2006), Gillian Welch (2001), Lyle Lovett (2003), Porter Wagoner (2007), and Alejandro Escovedo (1998, as Artist of the Decade).

SPECIAL SESSION DECISION BY FRIDAY?

Gov. Bill Richardson, talking to reporters in a Capitol hallway earlier this evening, said he thinks he'll have an announcement about a special session by the end of the week.

He gave no indication as to what that decision might be.

Heath's weekly poll this week is whether there SHOULD be a special session. As of a few minutes ago, it was running 3-1 against.