LEO Has A New Publisher

SouthComm Inc., which owns the Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO), has named Lauren Feldman publisher of the newsweekly.

Feldman comes from the The Sun in Lowell, Massachusetts. She replaces Pam Brooks, who has published LEO since 2003. Brooks will remain publisher of NFocus, which she launched in 2010. In a post on the LEO website, officials say NFocus is growing, and Brooks will dedicate her full attention to the publication.

Flow Chart Leads To New Print Jabs (Updated)

Did you see the flow chart of the “power elite” in the Courier-Journal this week? The chart maps who reasonably powerful people in Louisville think the most powerful person in Louisville is.

Jake at the Ville Voice was the first to criticize the chart, saying:

A Kentucky Newspaper apparently asked a single family who the most powerful person in Louisville happens to be. It’s no surprise that they all named their family members or super-close friends.

Then LEO Weekly joined in, with a blog post.

These fleecers of the entity once known as “Louisville’s Economy” have been been compiled into one convenient and eminently printable dartboard courtesy of the Louisville Courier-Journal, whose own Matt Frassica posed to them the question, “Who’s the most powerful person in the city?”

That prompted this response on Twitter from the chart’s author, Matt Frassica:

What? No vampire squid?

That is a reference to Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi.

UPDATE: Insider Louisville has their own list of powerful Louisvillians.

We’ve seen LEO Weekly and the Courier-Journal at odds before over issues of journalistic merit, quality and integrity.

One of the chief criticisms of the chart is that it doesn’t explain why the people pictured are powerful and what influence they have in the city. It presents fact as fact, but leaves out analysis. However, it’s one of the few reports to acknowledge the power select wealthy, non-elected Louisvillians have in the city.

Without wanting to stir the pot, I attempted to start a discussion between interested parties, but no debate ensued. As with the last LEO/CJ disagreement, it may be best to bring some transparency to the matter. Neither paper has a public editor to explain why stories were pursued and published, but it’s hard to think insight from both sides would do anything but benefit the audience. The journalistic process isn’t always complicated, but it can be muddy, and isn’t clarity one of our goals as reporters?

Next Time, LEO Will Put A Mirror On The Cover

LEO’s annual Loserville issue is out. Spokespeople, personalities, a TV station, politicians and assorted inanimate objects all get a fun dose of negativity. But the final entry is…you, or…us.

Yeah, you. You’re overweight, but you can’t stick to a diet. You’re undereducated, yet you pretend to be an expert after browsing Wikipedia. You voted for Rand Paul, even though you’re not a millionaire and are benefiting from state and federal programs that you can’t even name, and, speaking of names, you probably don’t even know who your congressman, councilperson or state representative is, but you think Barack Hussein Obama is a dirty Kenyan socialist. You breed like there’s no tomorrow, you drive your car to the Wal-Martdown the street, and save your meager intellectual prowess to debate last night’s episode of “Lame Ass TV Show.” Meanwhile, the world is growing more polluted, the gap between rich and poor increases, and all you care about is whether you got shortchanged on the levels of your Big Gulp soda.

We’ve all fallen so far. We were Time’s Person of the Year in 2006.

Public Radio Wins

WFPL has won the Readers’ Choice award for Best Radio Station. Our sister station WFPK finished third. WFPK’s Laura Shine came in second in the Best Local Radio Personality category.

Thank you, LEO readers, and congratulations to the other winners.

Remembering Francene

Jonathan Meador at LEO has a piece up about the late Francene Cucinello. You can read it here.

Here’s an excerpt, a quote from Congressman John Yarmuth:

“People would say to me, ‘God, Francene was tough on you today,” said Yarmuth, a frequent call-in guest on the show. “I figure if I can handle Francene, then I can just about handle everybody, because she does ask the questions that need to be asked.” Yarmuth — who introduced himself as “Francene’s Friday morning punching bag” — joked that they each had secretly brought football helmets to the town hall health care forum they moderated last year, just in case things got too rowdy.

By the end of his brief eulogy, Yarmuth, like so many others in attendance, was in tears.