A little comment(ary)...

Leaner, more creative -- and at the moment, live from China
By JEANNINE GUTTMAN
Portland Press Herald

WE WILL begin posting online rather than printing the Congressional Roll Call, which tracks the votes of Maine's representatives in the U.S. Congress. Congress is on recess until Sept. 8, so the first such posting will be Sept. 14. You'll find Roll Call then at www.pressherald.com.

FOR MORE ON changes to the opinion pages of the Press Herald/Sunday Telegram, read John W. Porter's column.
During the past week, I know many of you have read or heard news reports about various changes and challenges facing our newspaper.

Today's Telegram reflects some of the adjustments we have reluctantly made to again tighten our resources.

The Maine/New England section is now part of the A section, which will feature more local news and fewer wire stories in its new format. Outdoors has returned to its original location on the back of Sports, moving from a Sunday publication cycle to Thursday. We moved this two-page section in part to give readers more time to plan their weekend activities. Additional, Web-only Outdoors content is available on pressherald.com.

We also reduced the Business/Insight section by two pages. And, rather than eliminate the Sunday TV book, as so many other newspapers have done, we opted to trim a couple of pages from that section. We did this to preserve the presence of "On Screen" in the Telegram. That change will take place in the coming weeks.

Finally, Travel can now be found in the Home & Garden section, starting on the back cover.

As our loyal readers know, this is not an easy time for the newspaper business. And nearly every daily paper in America is continuing to make adjustments in both staffing and page counts.

Here at the Press Herald/Telegram, our newsroom is using this tumultuous time to renew our vow to provide the very best local journalism in the state.

We believe our journalistic work, published each day in the pages of Maine's largest daily newspaper, is the best antidote to these challenging times. We're choosing to stay positive, to focus on the mission of serving Maine people with a comprehensive, reliable and trusted local news report, in print and on the Web.

Even with recent staff cutbacks, we still boast the largest news team in Maine. And our goal to cover important local news about Maine people wherever that news may happen -- whether in Portland or Down East or the Far East -- remains a top priority.

Fortuitously, developments this past week allow a wonderful illustration of this point.

Our newspaper is among only three New England newspapers sending local staffers to cover the Olympics in Beijing, China. The other two are the Boston Globe and the Hartford Courant.

You might think it odd for us to be spending the money to cover these global games at a time when we have reduced staffing and trimmed news pages. But covering the Olympics is not a spur-of-the-moment decision; it is something that must be planned for, and paid for, well in advance.

This assignment was set in motion two years ago when we applied for credentials to these Summer Games. As a part of that process, we paid substantial sums of money, up front, for hotel accommodations and other expenses. Given all the resources that we had sunk into this assignment and the powerful reader impact we knew this news coverage would have in Maine, we decided to go forward, sending sportswriter Mike Lowe to China.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=203763&ac=Insight

Victim of forgery may have to prove bank was wrong to cash the check
Bangor Daily News

Q: My daughter wrote a check to herself on my checkbook for $3,000 and forged my name, and the bank cashed it. This caused other checks to bounce. The bank says it’s not their fault, and won’t reimburse me, but aren’t they responsible for making sure the signature on the check is really mine?

A: Maine law states you are not liable on the check unless you signed it or you authorized the signature. If an unauthorized person forges your signature on your check and if the bank pays the check, in most cases you can make the bank reimburse you for the amount of the forged check. But you must be alert. If the bank missed the forgery, someone has to spot it, and this means you. Review your statements. If you spot a forgery, contact the bank immediately. Maine law sets a one-year time limit, but don’t let the grass grow under your feet. If you are late, the bank is usually under no obligation to reimburse you.

In some cases a bank may refuse to be responsible because customer negligence caused the forgery. If your daughter has done this before and if you did not keep your checks in a safe place, maybe you were negligent. But even if you were, it may not be the end of the story. If you could show that the bank was also negligent — say it was cashed by a teller who has known you personally for years — the bank may be held partly responsible and be required to reimburse you in part.

It seems you tried and failed to persuade the bank to cover your loss. It may be time to ask a qualified lawyer if your case is as good as you believe. If it is, a strongly worded letter from the attorney may work. If it does not, consider small claims court. This may well bring the bank around and it may be possible to come to an agreement. If it does not, be prepared to press forward. This area of law is complicated. The assistance of an attorney will be critical.

Before pushing on, though, do a cost-benefit analysis. How much will you invest in legal fees and how much could you get? One last thing to keep in mind: If the bank reimburses you, it will expect your daughter to cover its losses. This could involve a lawsuit against your daughter or even criminal charges. Be careful what you wish for.

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/50707.html

Plum Creek Questions
Bangor Daily News

As the Land Use Regulation Commission begins its deliberations next week on Plum Creek Timber Co.’s development plan for the Moosehead Lake area, three big questions should guide their consideration: Is the proposed development appropriate for the region? Is it in the right places? Is it appropriately offset by conservation?

Addressing these questions will keep the focus on whether the plan — for hundreds of house lots and two resorts — meets LURC criteria for development. These include a demonstrated need for the development and knowledge that the change will have no adverse impacts on existing uses and resources. Conservation must also compensate for development.

Ensuring appropriate conservation is especially important because the proposal has become confused with Plum Creek’s insistence that a private easement and purchase agreement be considered along with the development plans. Commissioners must be careful to keep separate the conservation that is required by the type of rezoning request Plum Creek has made and the voluntary easement, for which Plum Creek will be paid $35 million.

If LURC members feel there is too much development, they must either scale it back or require that more land be set aside. If they feel some development is in the wrong areas, they must either move it to a more appropriate area or remove it from the plan.

Nearly three years ago, Plum Creek first applied to LURC to rezone more than 20,000 acres near Moosehead Lake to allow for development as part of a lake concept plan, which allows the company to develop faster than under other LURC rules but requires compensatory conservation. Since then the plan has been revised several times.

One resort was moved from a more remote area to near the existing downhill ski area, nearly half the development proposed for shorefront lands and remote ponds was moved elsewhere and the amount and location of the land required to be set aside for conservation has improved.

On the other hand, the number of house lots — 975 — has remained constant and the development still sprawls over an area stretching from Kokadjo to near Jackman. A conservation framework, a private agreement to preserve more than 300,000 acres negotiated by Plum Creek and the Nature Conservancy, Forest Society of Maine and Appalachian Mountain Club, still hinges on LURC approval of the development proposal.

Studies have shown that Maine would benefit from more high-end tourism offerings like those included in the Plum Creek plan. Such development, however, must be in the right place and of the right scale so as not to ruin the natural character that draws tourists to the area.

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/51096.html

Share your thoughts on story-sharing
By JEANNINE GUTTMAN
Portland Press Herald

For about a week now, we've participated in a story-sharing system with the other morning daily newspapers in Maine.

Last Wednesday's newspaper provided a strong example of what this partnership can yield for our readers: We featured five stories from newspapers outside our market – including a Page A1 offering.

All those stories were published "on cycle," which means that our readers saw them the same day as did readers in Bangor and Lewiston, where the stories originated.

The news, in other words, wasn't delayed. It didn't need to pass through the repackaging process of the Associated Press, which is the traditional method for receiving content from other newspapers. Each day, the AP takes stories from members' newspapers and Web sites. The wire service rewrites the stories – sometimes a lot, sometimes not much at all – affixes the "AP" moniker to each and distributes the collected content around the country and sometimes the globe. Other newspapers that belong to the AP can use these stories – usually a day after their initial publication.

After years of this practice, Maine editors decided to develop their own story-sharing system. By offering stories in real time, on deadline, we can deliver news more immediately and urgently to our readers. And we can make it clear to our readers where that news came from – by naming the writer and the newspaper. There is far more transparency and accountability in this process.

Still, if you are looking at journalism through the prism of, say, 1977, when I graduated from j-school, the arrangement sounds revolutionary, completely counter to the concept of newspaper competition and rivalry. What kind of editor would partner with competitors? Why would a newsroom engage in this sort of collaboration? What do we stand to gain?

If, however, the partnership is examined in the current context of media, it is far from radical.

Appropriate is more like it. And, given all the concerns about the health of American journalism, kind of obvious, too.

Some background: As a Blethen newspaper, we have always shared breaking news – stories, features, photos and graphics – with our two sister papers in Central Maine – the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel. We have used the descriptive "Blethen Maine News Service" atop such shared content.

But last Monday, we embarked on a broader partnership that added the Lewiston Sun Journal and the Bangor Daily News to that story-sharing system.

Some general guidelines: Each paper would offer three to four stories and photos each day, of its own choosing. Each newsroom decides what it wants to share. If a story or photo were picked up for publication, the journalist's byline would be featured along with the name of the newspaper. Credit is given where credit is due.

To kick off this partnership, all five newspapers published a story Saturday, Sept. 20, detailing the whys of this arrangement.

Today I want to delve a bit deeper into the purpose of this partnership – and explain why its existence may be the best thing for both readers and member newspapers.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=212414&ac=Insight

A bailout, reconsidered
By BDN Staff
Bangor Daily News

Here’s some perspective on Congress’s failure to pass a financial rescue plan: As soon as the House vote was announced Monday, the stock market plummeted, falling nearly 800 points and wiping out more than $1 trillion in assets.

Many will point out that the market “losses” were only on paper and that the market rebounded a bit on Tuesday. This is true. But the $700 billion price of the bailout was only on paper, too. And, on paper, it appears the cost of doing nothing was more than the cost of the bailout.

The bigger message is that financial systems — around the world; this mess isn’t just clobbering Wall Street — crave certainty. With House rejection of the rescue plan, certainty — or at least some level of it — vanished, causing a massive sell-off.

Public outrage over the bailout is understandable. Big investment companies made bad decisions and put trillions of dollars into investments that even analysts can’t explain. Why should their mistakes be remedied with taxpayer dollars when no one is offering rescue plans to homeowners who were talked into mortgages they couldn’t understand?

One answer, that is far from satisfactory, is that the stakes — further erosion of the U.S. economy — are too high to not have the government buy up the troubled assets.

The other, which is troublingly vague, is that the bailout won’t cost $700 billion. When the government, sometime in the future, sells the securities after markets have stabilized, much of the $700 billion, perhaps all of it or even more if they sell for a profit will be returned to the treasury. The Congressional Budget Office, in a recent analysis, says the bailout likely won’t cost taxpayers $700 billion, but it refused to hazard a guess as to where between zero and $700 billion the program would actually cost.

This vagueness, and the lack of consideration of alternatives, prompted 2nd District Rep. Mike Michaud, along with 94 other Democrats, to vote against the bill. “In the end, after a very careful review and meetings with top economists and financial experts, I concluded that the package as presented to the House for a vote did not adequately protect the taxpayer,” he said Monday.

For 1st District Rep. Tom Allen the risk of inaction was the deciding factor in his vote for the plan. “It is unconscionable that the House failed to reach consensus on legislation to stabilize financial markets as America stands on the brink of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s,” he said. “The jobs, the savings, the homes, the educational opportunities and the retirement security of millions of Americans are at risk.”

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/90172.html

For new owner, diner means home cooking
By BILL NEMITZ
Portland Press Herald

Some people leave their hometown at a young age and never look back. Tom Manning, 55, isn't one of them.

"My roots have always stayed here in Portland," Manning said Wednesday amid the post-election breakfast buzz at the newly resurrected Miss Portland Diner on Marginal Way.

His Miss Portland Diner.

To some, it might make no sense whatsoever. Manning, a child of Munjoy Hill who went to Cathedral grammar school and Cheverus High School before going to work for Newsweek in New York City 32 years ago, knows a lot more about running a magazine's business office than he does about owning and operating a restaurant.

But this much he does know: The Worcester Lunch Car diner, in its third location since it opened on Forest Avenue in 1949, is a piece of Portland's past. And Manning, who left for the Big Apple at age 23 and rose to become Newsweek's director of administration, has a thing for local history.

"Look at the Portland Observatory," he said. "When I was a kid, you could never go up there -- with all the broken stairs and stuff. I've always had a good feeling about how (the city) saved that thing and brought it back. And I kind of felt this might be a little similar. I knew the city was looking for someone to step up."

He's got that right. After accepting the diner as a gift from Randall Chasse in 2004, the city tried and failed to find a new owner. Three years ago, the once-bustling diner was removed from its previous site a short distance down Marginal Way and put into mothballs.

Enter Manning, who often visited his family and friends in Portland and kept track of local goings-on via his Blackberry.

"One day we're walking down 8th Ave. (in Manhattan) and I said to my wife, 'What do you think about buying the Miss Portland Diner?'" he recalled. "And she looked at me and said, 'What?'"

Two years and $1.2 million later, the Miss Portland opened last week without fanfare -- the idea, Manning said, was to quietly break in his 25-person staff before holding a grand opening next month. But by Saturday, the diner car and adjacent 48-seat dining room were packed.

"This is our second time here," said Chellie Pingree, newly elected to be the 1st District U.S. House representative, as she settled into a gleaming booth. She first came by on Saturday to campaign; now she was back with two staffers for a celebratory breakfast of steak and eggs.

"It's great," Pingree said. "It's hard to beat these old diners."

Sitting nearby on a counter stool, Arthur Fink of Peaks Island said he'd just dropped off his car at nearby Century Tire and "instead of waiting there, I could actually walk someplace."

"It's an interesting mix of the old and new" said Fink, who once served on the city's historic preservation commission. "This place has character."

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=220381&ac=PHnws

The voice amid the fish fades away
By BILL NEMITZ
Portland Press Herald

The daily auction was in full swing Sunday morning at the Portland Fish Exchange. Lot after ice-covered lot, buyers snapped up 62,000 pounds of fresh pollock, hake, cod, cusk, redfish and more.

Yet through it all, save the occasional click of a computer space bar, you could hear a pin drop.

"I've become a white elephant," Paul Dewey, the exchange's longtime auctioneer, said with a rueful grin.

He's got that right. Late last month, the man who for two decades has overseen the movement of countless tons of fish through Portland was replaced by, you guessed it, a computer.

And while Dewey, 76, has stuck around to help the often-befuddled fish wholesalers adjust to the changing times, his last day, Dec. 1, is fast approaching.

"The only thing that would drag me out of here would be a computer program," said Dewey, his voice not much more than a whisper above the clicking keyboards. "Which is what's happening."

He showed up on Portland's waterfront shortly after retiring in 1985 as police chief in Deerfield, N.H., where he still lives. A collector of antique knives and razors, Dewey had stopped by a yard sale one day and got to chatting with Ken Martin, a licensed auctioneer who had just landed a job with the Portland Fish Exchange and needed a backup.

Martin moved on a short time later, and the auctioneer's job, complete with its 142-mile daily commute, has been Dewey's ever since.

Back when he started, Dewey stood out on the display floor atop a small ladder surrounded by two dozen buyers and row after row of plastic tubs brimming with freshly landed fish. Occasionally, if the bidding got really hot, someone might toss a clipboard across the room or explode with a string of profanities at a lost lot of cod or haddock.

Now the auction takes place in a small room just off the fish floor. Fewer than a dozen buyers sit silently over their assigned computers, tracking the bidding without so much as a raised eyebrow.

Back in the day, up to 30 million pounds of groundfish moved through Portland's auction in a given year. This year, the catch is expected to top out at a mere 8.5 million pounds.

"Times change," Dewey said as he strolled between 200 pounds of monktails and a solitary ocean catfish. "It used to be a guy could go out 365 days a year if his boat and his body could take it. Now it's down to 40 or 50 days and a lot of boats have been sold. It's amazing that any of them are still in business."

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=224009&ac=PHnws

Show casts businesses a lifeline
By BILL NEMITZ
Portland Press Herald

You've seen the Marden's Lady. You've "hi-hoed" back at Jolly John Pulsifer more times than you can count. You've heard that old guy who says "Thanks for shopping at Reny's" and then breaks out laughing for no apparent reason.

That's right, we're talking quintessentially local TV advertising – the kind that leaves people from away shaking their heads and wondering what they got themselves into when they decided to visit Maine.

"If you look at the (local) commercials out there today, some of them are pretty raw. But you know what? They work," Ken O'Brien said. "It's all about brand recognition – and small businesses just can't afford that in this economy."

That is, until O'Brien came along. A part-time marketing instructor at Central Maine Community College and founder of the fledgling New England Marketing LLC, he's about to do for promotion-starved small businesses what actor Robert Vaughn has done for Portland lawyer Joe Bornstein.

Starting this weekend on WPXT (Channel 51), O'Brien & Co. will provide one 60-second spot each to a nonstop parade of local businesses – not as paid advertising, but rather as pure entertainment. His 10-week series, which premieres at 1 p.m. Saturday, is aptly named "Pitch It or Ditch It."

"It's a cross between 'All-Time Greatest and Worst Commercials' and 'America's Funniest Videos,' " O'Brien said.

But wait, there's more!

As viewers decide, via text messaging, which of the 60-second spots live on for another week and which are immediately put out of their misery, the sales staff that produces the snippets will be competing for the title of sales-and-marketing director for New England Marketing LLC (www.ne2you.com).

Hence the Wednesday morning "casting call" at WPXT in Westbrook, from which a dozen "contestants" will be selected and divided into two competing sales teams.

"It's kind of a show within the show," O'Brien explained.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=231368&ac=PHnws

What's that smell?
Unbridled greed has left us with a still-smoldering economy. Now we must fix both it and investing itself with a return to fundamentals.
By FRANCIS T. DAVIES III
For the Portland Press Herald


Staff Illustration/Michael Fisher

Literally French for the end of a century, "fin de sicle" has a subtler meaning, suggesting both dreariness at the end of an age of extravagance and an eager anticipation for a new, saner era. The fourth quarter of 2008 saw the end of easy access to borrowed money. Without this endless borrowing, our asset-based economy could not continue. The credit markets froze solid and brought on the extinction of the mammoth investment banks, unable to survive without massive lines of credit. This was the ruination of the Wall Street culture that has shaped my work life reality since my first day in the business in May 1982. The financial engineering, outlandish compensation and vulgar arrogance will not be missed.

Essentially any firm that sponsored a golf tournament is either dead or wounded. Lehman is gone, along with their legendary fixed income desks. Morgan Stanley and Goldman are now bank holding companies offering toasters to new customers. Poor old bumbling Merrill Lynch, the butt of every Wall Street joke, is now part of Bank of America, a fate worse than death. No word yet on the toasters. All of this is good news. It is clear that unbridled greed is not only bad morals, it is also bad economics. Greed caused a fixation on short-term results; a cut-and-run mentality that violated the trust the public had that the investment industry would at least pretend to safeguard our money. Now we will pick up the pieces and soldier on.

At the end of the third quarter, I wrote of the still developing bailout plan, " it has an essential flaw. It tries to maintain the status quo. ... We cannot afford what we have. The plan should really be to shrink the economy back to a sane level. Shrink the massive debt down to a level where earned income can support it." As always, government Band-Aids were no match for the will of the market. The global economy is now in the midst of a massive deleveraging. This painful step is essential for the return to an economy based on real productivity. It will be easier to accomplish this without the huge investment banks lobbying against it every step of the way. That is one small silver lining.

The belief in the infallibility of long-term investing also ended in 2008. For years, investors were told that all they had to do make money in the equity markets was buy and hold. The longer they held, the lower the risk and the higher the return. Unfortunately, nothing is that simple. The relative value of the investment when purchased matters much more than length of time of ownership. Financial advisers also love to tell their clients, "No one can time the markets." This is the coward's way of admitting they cannot judge whether an investment is cheap or expensive, therefore there is no way they can help you to "buy low and sell high," which is the most misused cliche in investing. So the client is left to ride the waves of the market – up, down, sideways, and hope for the best.

Preservation of capital is paramount precisely because the economy moves in cycles and cycles eventually end. What is important is that we profit from the growth periods and are patient in times of economic contraction. The only true test of a portfolio manager is performance during these difficult times. Anyone can make money in a bull market. Not many can hold onto those gains. To preserve capital, one must be able to sell at the right times. When valuations are stretched, assets must be reallocated to cash. This is why we were raising cash in May and putting that cash back to work in December.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=232063&ac=Insight

'Blindsided' by bank, car dealer closing doors
By BILL NEMITZ
Portland Press Herald

SANFORD — Cars are flying off the lot at Miller Ford these days. But no, this is not a good-news story.

"It hasn't been pleasant," said owner Gary Miller. "I'm embarrassed and ashamed and I just don't know what else to do."

Miller is at ground zero of what the talking heads on television call the "economic meltdown."

At the end of this month, he'll shutter the dealership he's owned for the last eight years – leaving his 35 employees to fend for themselves in a job market that grows bleaker by the week.

The problem? In a word, money – but not the money Miller gets from loyal customers who know an honest, reputable car dealer when they see one.

No, Miller's money problem is with a bank.

Without warning, he said, Rhode Island-based Citizens Bank recently pulled the plug on his $18 million "floor-plan" credit line – the short-term financing that enables a car dealer to purchase vehicles for his lot.

"It was a total surprise," Miller said. "It blindsided me."

Hence the "Going Out of Business" sign outside the Main Street business and the everything-must-go liquidation sale with sticker prices cut by as much as half.

Hence, the customers – some of whom actually apologize for their good fortune – who last weekend plucked 33 new and used cars from Miller's ever-shrinking inventory.

"Normally in a weekend, we'd sell maybe four cars," Miller said ruefully. "It's easy to sell stuff when you're losing money. It's that simple."

What makes it all so maddening for Miller is that before he was forced to liquidate, he wasn't losing money.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=236385&ac=PHnws