BREAKING NEWS: Founder Chris Korzen ‘quits’ Maine’s Majority #mepolitics

Published on thePhoenix.com

See the following email exchange (read up from the bottom). Not sure who's empowered to accept his resignation, but it's as clear as day: Chris Korzen is leaving the Maine's Majority group he founded. Further, he admits that does not understand the difference between requesting public records from the government to use in a publicity campaign to promote a political perspective and, well, requesting public records from the government to use in a publicity campaign to promote a political perspective. He's just sure that when he does it, it's good, and when Bruce Poliquin does it, it's bad.

Here's my last message to Chris:

You have made my exact point. Poliquin would likely say he is exposing abuse of the system, and that you're advertising. All I'm saying is that I don't want the government determining whether either, both, or neither of you is telling the truth. Open government and free speech can get messy, but the mess is better than the alternatives.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

Please. Print this, so the world can see how ridiculous my life has become. If you don't, I will. If exposing abuse of the system is now synonymous with advertising, then seriously, I quit.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 2:14 PM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

In your 12:21 pm message you finally boiled down your argument against Poliquin to this:

"He used public information to advertise himself for business/political/personal purposes."

You did too.

You used public information (the results of your FOAA request that included Poliquin's request for the email list) to advertise yourself (your point of view, your organization, your political cause) for business/political/personal purposes (to promote your perspective on both a potential candidate and an existing state law).

(Okay, I'll let you off the hook on "personal," but with the observation that I hear more about Poliquin from MM than I do from the man himself - which is damn hard to do.)

And you do this all the time - you make FOAA requests, receive the results, and do with them what you want to.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

I feel like I'm in the twilight zone here. How is what Poliquin did something that we do all the time?

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

Let me summarize:

-You put out a press release accusing Poliquin of doing something you do all the time, including the exact same thing you did in order to discover and publicize his action.

-You claim that what he did is "abuse" of FOAA.

-You claim what you did is not.

-You say that releasing the 10,000 email list would be "wrong" - though not illegal (and it's clearly legal).

-You admit that Poliquin did not release the email list.

So what message was I supposed to get from the press release? 

Right now I'm at:

Maine's Majority hates Poliquin so much it'll attack him for doing something MM does all the time, and is so out-of-its-head bothered by Poliquin's behavior that MM will attempt to take down Maine's open-government act in the process.

Somehow I think that's not the message you meant to send.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

That's right - he has not.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

That's a fair point, and worth having a decent argument over. It's just not even close to what you said in the press release, or in any of our correspondence up until this very message. You also haven't claimed that Poliquin released the 10,000 email records to the public.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

I do understand your point. I just think you're wrong. We released a public document consisting of an email from one public official to another. We did not release the 10,000 email records - which I do have in my possession. Releasing those records would have been wrong.

-------- Original message --------
From: "Inglis, Jeff" <JInglis@phx.com> 

Date: 03/26/2013 12:32 (GMT-05:00) 
To: Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> 
Subject: Re: PRESS RELEASE: Former Treasurer Poliquin abused Freedom of Access Act to obtain public list for personal use 

My point is that you're trying to object to his actions on a principle so broad it indicts your own actions. (And if the legislature agreed with you, we'd have no more open government at all - because the government would always retain control what's done with its information.)

It's extremely simple: You "used public information to advertise (yourself/your organization/your point of view/your cause) for business/political/personal purposes."

You object to what he did, but depend on doing the exact same thing to make your objection. I simply fail to see the difference, and you haven't made it any clearer.

I think it would be equally interesting to see if a broad segment of the public thinks we should shut down government transparency in an attempt to remedy spam.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:28 PM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

I don't know where you're going with this, Jeff, but I've already answered this question.

It's a good question, though, and I hope you're planning to write about it. It would be interesting to hear what a broad segment of the public thinks constitutes abuse of the FOAA.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

I'm not sure you did either of those things - given that responding to FOAA is hardly collusion.

But what you're suggesting is that people shouldn't be allowed to use public information for business/political/personal purposes. That's pretty broad. So what should they be allowed to use public information for?

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 12:21 PM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

Really? We exposed the government's abuse of the public trust and collusion with big-monied outside interests. That's exactly what FOAA is for.

He used public information to advertise himself for business/political/personal purposes.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 11:25 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

Perhaps more succinctly: What do you see as the difference between what he did and what you did?

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 11:16 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

And so the legislature has. FOAA stands as it does, making both your actions and Poliquins perfectly legal and procedurally and morally defensible. (Private contracts with private companies aside.)

Your complaining about it fails my logic, as follows:

1. It has been for years - and is likely never to change - legal to get voter registration information from the government, and send to those addresses mailings for political purposes - whether from a campaign or a political-action committee, or even an elected official doing constituent mailings. (I'm pretty sure Maine's Majority has used this process, too.)

2. It is a long-standing principle of open government that requests must be granted without regard to the requester's purpose. Example 1: If you ask for your neighbor's property-tax record from town hall, you must get it, whether you intend to take out a newspaper ad claiming your neighbor is a freeloading crony of local politicos who gets a break on his taxes, or whether you are going to contest your own property-tax assessment based on information relating to your neighbor's property, or if you want to frame it and put it on your living-room wall. Example 2: If you ask for correspondence with a state agency or official, you must get it, regardless of whether you are going to publish it in print, post it online, issue a press release, or keep it in a safe-deposit box.

3. Poliquin asked for an email list, which is public record under FOAA. The government had to give it to him, and can place no restrictions on what he does now.

4. You asked for correspondence, which is public record under FOAA. The government had to give it to you, and could place no restrictions on what you do with it now.

5. You imply that the government should be unable to prevent you from doing what you did, but definitely claim that the government ought to stop him from doing what he did.

6. You fail to make a distinction between these two acts, which are, again, utterly identical in procedural, legal, and moral terms.

7. When offered a suggestion of a more nuanced problem you might use to refine your argument, you not only reject that argument - which is an issue of public debate - but reiterate your insistence that the government should somehow control information that is in the hands of the public (or perhaps condition release of public information on the intent of the requester).

8. When asked for a means by which that could happen, you defer to the body that created the provisions you object to.

What am I missing?

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

I'll let the Legislature write the laws.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 10:59 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

Okay, so what do you think should or shouldn't be allowed? And how would that be enforced?

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 10:55 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

I don't have a problem with the public having access to personal information. I have a problem with the notion that it's OK for the public to do whatever they want with that information.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

What you seem to be saying suggests that my guess was right - your concern is not about abuse of FOAA, but rather about public access to personally identifying information, some of which has for many years been available through FOAA, with no problems.

Unless I'm terribly mistaken, you want to be able to continue to do what you did - ask a government agency for correspondence (including with private citizens), get that information unredacted, and announce to the public that a specific person, whose name you use, has done something or other.

That's exactly what you did. But the way you constructed your release suggested that you want to outlaw doing that exact thing - because you claimed that taking a government response to an FOAA request and using it for whatever you wanted should be prosecuted. Contrary to the language of your release, I think you and I agree that it's simply not an abuse of FOAA to use public information for your own gains.

If your concern is that Poliquin can get people's email addresses in bulk from the state, that's something very different than saying the government should have control over what the public does with public records that have been released.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 10:30 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

Maybe we just live in different worlds, or maybe we just disagree. A lot of people I talk with are furious that the BDN tried to publish the names of concealed weapons permit holders. It doesn't matter that the BDN expressly said it wouldn't do this; the fact is that they could have, and that was enough for people. So, in that respect, at least part of FOAA now has a bad name. We're now likely going to lose the ability to verify that there aren't any felons running around out there with concealed handguns, because the public is afraid that information will be misused.

It seems that your point is that it's a necessary consequence of open government that your name can wind up in the paper or on an ex-treasurer's email list. It's a fair point. I simply disagree. I think we can make a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate use of FOAA data, and that they way to strengthen the legitimate uses is to denounce the illegitimate uses.

It's the same thing with SPAM. The law allows you to buy lists, harvest email addresses from web sites, etc. You can send these folks an individual email or compare them with your own list. But as soon as you send them a bulk email asking them to buy something you're on the hook for big penalties. That's a legal distinction between a legitimate and in illegitimate use of information. We can do the same with the FOAA.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 10:04 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

Since when does open government have a bad name? People give themselves bad names. Open government is an admirable concept. And almost never are open-government rules given criminal penalties - they're civil violations at best.

But where I'm really running into confusion is with your apparent idea that the government should (or even can) control what members of the public do with information they have in their possession.

The whole point of open government is so people can get information about their government. What they do with it, and why they ask for it, is not in the purview of open-government principles. In fact, it's counter to the ideal. If the government is going to prevent someone from disseminating, analyzing, or otherwise using the results of open-government requests, then how exactly is government open? ("We'll tell you how many people we're abusing in prison, but you can't tell anyone else?" That's the opposite of the point.)

I can't believe you're intentionally advocating that the government exercise prior restraint on use of public information. It strikes me as against your goals, and your group's goals, as well as being mutually exclusive. 

What if, for example, a person or group were allowed to ask for FOAA requests made by others, and the government says "We have to give it to you, but you are forbidden from telling others. They all have to ask individually for exactly the same thing." Your press release would vaporize, as a violation of the law. What you're claiming to want to outlaw is something you did in getting this information, something you do all the time, something news organizations and members of the public do constantly, and is in fact the reality of open government: Once information it out of government's hands, its dissemination and use is no longer under government control.

If I try to imagine what you might actually mean, I wonder if you are somehow trying to argue for protecting some types of personal information when it's in the government's hands - but that's a very different thing than suggesting someone who asks for information from the government should be restricted in how they use it.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:43 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

They exist so the public can ensure that government is doing its job, not so aspiring piblic officials can build their email lists. I would love to see the law changed so we can prosecute people who do what Poliquin did. He gives open government a bad name.

-------- Original message --------
From: "Inglis, Jeff" <JInglis@phx.com> 
Date: 03/26/2013 09:35 (GMT-05:00) 
To: Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> 
Subject: Re: PRESS RELEASE: Former Treasurer Poliquin abused Freedom of Access Act to obtain public list for personal use 

He may well have violated terms of a private agreement with a private company. That's not my beef - and it doesn't seem to be yours, either, from the release.

You're claiming it's an "abuse" of open-government laws for a requester to get information from the government and use it for whatever the requester wants. 

Problem is, there's no other purpose of open-government laws - they exist so that people can ask questions of their government and get answers, and then publicize those answers, for whatever purpose the requester has.

Go ahead and shout about him breaking the rules of Constant Contact. Nobody cares, and you know that - which is why you made the release sound like he had misused open-government laws, when he used them exactly properly. And so did you, in announcing to people that he did this. The issue comes when you call both of those things - which are procedurally, legally, and morally identical - "abuse."

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:31 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

He's going to lose his Constant Contact account over this. I'll take my chances with the court of public opinion.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

If it's "abuse" to make FOAA requests and use the resulting information for whatever your private purposes are, you're as guilty as Poliquin. Which, by the way, is not guilty of anything at all.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:23 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

And your job? Pretending that abuse doesn't happen because you're afraid of the consequences? The only reason why we know he did this is that we were obtained his request through another FOAA request. The system works. Go write that story.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

Sucks that your job is weakening open government.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:13 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

Jeff, Jeff, Jeff... I really don't care. This is my job.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:10 AM, Inglis, Jeff <JInglis@phx.com> wrote:

Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris - 

It's a VERY slippery and dangerous slope to try to start dictating what can and can't be done with public records after they're released to the public. Please don't weaken Maine's existing open-government laws further by pursuing this.

Jeff

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:07 AM, Chris Korzen <chris@mainesmajority.org> wrote:

For Immediate Release
March 26, 2013


Contact:
Chris Korzen

207-358-9731

chris@mainesmajority.org

Former Treasurer Bruce Poliquin abused Freedom of Access Act to obtain public list for personal use

Portland – In February 2013, mass emails from a personal account of former state treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Poliquin began inexplicably turning up in some Mainers' inboxes. A Maine's Majority investigation has determined that Poliquin obtained the emails through a Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) request, and subsequently used this public information for his own personal gain.

In the early hours of December 9, 2012, Poliquin submitted an FOAA request to the Treasurer's office for “a copy of all email and other addresses used in the Office of the State Treasurer's Outreach Program.” In response, he received 10,742 email addresses. Five days earlier, the legislature had confirmed Neria Douglass to succeed Poliquin, effectively ending his tenure as treasurer.

Some two months later, Mr. Poliquin began sending bulk emails to the owners of those addresses through a Constant Contact email marketing system. The emails are political in nature (titled, for example, "How to Fix Maine's Ongoing Budget Crisis”) and point recipients toward a brucepoliquin.net web site.

“Although Mr. Poliquin legally obtained his former office's email records, his personal use of this public information constitutes a blatant abuse of the Freedom of Access Act,” said Maine's Majority executive director Chris Korzen. “Poliquin is clearly trying to set himself up for a future election bid, and he's now using state resources to build his communications infrastructure. He should stop using this publicly-owned email list immediately.”

Ironically, at least one influential Maine Republican appears to agree. Earlier this month, Sportsman's Alliance of Maine director and former state representative David Trahan told the Maine Heritage Policy Center's Maine Wire blog, “FOAA was designed for citizens to keep government in line, not for political targeting.”

While Poliquin does not appear to have broken any laws, he has likely violated Constant Contact's Anti-Spam policy, which requires users to obtain informed consent from recipients before sending bulk email.

###

Driving Expenses: Not all toll hikes are created equal

Published at thePhoenix.com

The Maine Turnpike Authority has decided to increase tolls, starting November 1, to raise $21 million in additional revenue for highway maintenance and debt repayment. The steepest hikes will be for commercial trucks, but most drivers will take a hit. That said, depending on what routes you drive, you might see no increase at all. And if you switch from paying cash to getting an E-ZPass, in some cases you can even lower your toll rate from what you pay now.

You probably guessed a toll hike was coming, what with the reports on Maine Turnpike Authority fiscal excesses dating back many years (see "E-ZPass on Ethics," by Lance Tapley, August 4, 2006) and the more recent jailing of 23-year MTA head Paul Violette for stealing between $150,000 and $230,000 in MTA funds to subsidize an extravagant lifestyle. Present MTA executive director Peter Mills swears the latest rate hike has nothing to do with those misdeeds, but many of his board of directors, and many of his employees, are holdovers from that era (see "Many Maine Turnpike Enablers Still in Power," by Lance Tapley, August 5, 2011).

So what's changing? Right now, the major barriers on the Turnpike charge $1.25 at West Gardiner, $1.75 at Gray/New Gloucester, and $2 at York. They'll go up to $1.75, $2.25, and $3, respectively. E-ZPass users pay on a more varied scale partly based on the distance they actually travel on the highway, but apart from the free trips between Lewiston, Auburn, and Sabbatus, everybody pays at least 50 cents per trip. (E-ZPass users are guaranteed at least the same toll rates as cash payers, so you'll never pay more, but often pay less.)

We broke down the numbers to find some interesting tidbits.

• Of the 314 total variations on trips on the pike (from every exit to every other available exit, northbound and southbound), 92 — just shy of one-third — won't see any toll increase at all. Most of these are trips in the greater Portland area, such as driving to Gray from Rand Road on the Portland-Westbrook line, though some no-increase trips cover a lot of ground, like going from the "Portland North" exit 53 to exit 19 in Wells.

• And 94 trips, including 46 of those seeing no increase at all, will cost the same whether you use cash or an E-ZPass. So if, for example, you drive from Gray to Kennebunk, you'll pay $1.50 no matter what. And driving from Kennebunk to Gray will cost you the same $1, cash or E-ZPass, before and after the rate change.

• For 76 trips, nearly a quarter of the possibilities, converting to E-ZPass as the new rates take effect will actually save you money over the cash payments at the current rates. (A driver entering the Turnpike by driving south on I-295, heading to New Hampshire or Massachusetts, at present pays $3 cash — $1 at the 295-Pike interchange, and $2 in York — or $2.50 E-ZPass. The new rate will be $4 cash or $2.85 E-ZPass. So you can drop that $3 to $2.85 by switching.)

• For an additional 11 trips, switching to E-ZPass will let you avoid an increase and keep the same toll rate you had when paying cash. For example, driving to Portland North from Lewiston, Auburn, or Sabbatus will cost $2.25 cash or $1.75 with E-ZPass; the old rates were $1.75 cash and $1.50 with a pass.

• On long trips, E-ZPass savings increase. Driving the full length of the Turnpike, for example, from Augusta to York (or vice-versa) at the moment costs $5 in cash, or $4.80 with an E-ZPass. Starting in November, it will run you $7 cash or $6.45 E-ZPass. Rather than saving just 20 cents, you'll save 55 cents per trip.

• Very short trips can have wide cost variations depending on how you pay. At present, if you go from Wells to York, you pay $2 in cash but just 80 cents with an E-ZPass. That difference will only grow with the new rates: $3 cash, or 90 cents E-ZPass.

• Some trips that previously saw no savings will see modest breaks for E-ZPass users under the new rates. Drivers who used to enter at the Gray tolls heading to the Portland area didn't see any benefit to using E-ZPass, because they paid the same amount either way. Now, they'll save at least 10 cents each time.

If you're considering switching from cash to an E-ZPass, you should know a few more things:

• If you get an E-ZPass, it costs $10 plus 5 percent tax for the device. New Hampshire charges $8.90; Massachusetts gives them out for free.

• As in other states, you have to pre-load the device with at least $20 in credit, with tolls deducted from your balance as you drive, rather than shelling out cash. (There's a certain irony about paying up front to an organization so it can pay down its debts.)

• By the time the toll change takes effect, you'll be able to order an E-ZPass online in Maine — a new initiative, though New Hampshire and Massachusetts have had it for years. MTA spokesman Dan Morin says states with online ordering have significantly higher E-ZPass participation.

• If you want to sail through a toll area at highway speeds, you'll still need to go to New Hampshire for that modern convenience. In Maine, E-ZPassers have to sit in the traffic jams just like everyone else.

ACA ruling proves Roberts #SCOTUS most politicized in history

Published at thePhoenix.com

The Roberts Court is — it can now be said most confidently — the most political in American history. Today’s surprising — to almost everyone — upholding of the Affordable Care Act is proof that it’s even more politicized than we thought.

If the decision had gone the way most people expected — with Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. siding with the majority to overturn large portions of ACA (or the whole thing entirely), Democrats and Republicans would have (rightly) viewed the Roberts Court as an arm of the Republican Party’s ultra-conservative wing.

The Court’s standing in public opinion, and the respect for the institution across America, would have collapsed. Its impotence might have echoed the darkest days of the Marshall Court, when President Andrew Jackson apocryphally said of the 1832 Worcester v Georgia decision, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.” (That’s not actually what Jackson said, but it’s close.)

Roberts is a scholar of Court history, and knows well the perilous ground on which he treads. So in a startling move that landed him far to the political left of Justice Anthony Kennedy (who uncharacteristically took up an absolutist right-wing opinion), Roberts moved to save his Court — and his reputation — from certain denigration with the epithet “politicized.”

Unfortunately, the nature of his decision — because it was based not on Constitutional scholarship nor case law nor even the arguments in the case before the Court — was political, and most cravenly so. He ruled on a major issue of law and principle for reasons of reputational and political ends.

So in seeking to protect the Court from allegations that it was overly political, Roberts has in fact confirmed what he sought to disprove.

What killed the Jetport’s summer series?

Published at thePhoenix.com

In the wake of near-immediate outcry objecting to the terms of a proposed musical series at the Portland International Jetport, the summer-long program was canceled the day after it was announced. The proposal — and the backlash — brought complaints from many corners of the city’s music scene, and may suggest a possible growth area for the Portland Music Foundation, a non-profit established in 2007 to help musicians improve their business and promotional skills.

But first, a brief run-down of the events. On Thursday, a call went out online and over social media for musicians interested in playing at the Jetport over the course of the summer, with terms laid out on the website of event sponsor Dispatch Magazine, including the compensation: “free parking” and in-airport meal vouchers. Performers could sell their CDs and any other merchandise, but would have to pay 30 percent of the revenue to the jetport’s concessions company, Paradies Shops.

The lack of pay for performance, as well as the high commission rate on sales, quickly attracted objections online. Brian D. Graham, saxophonist of Sly-Chi and the Fogcutters, has two Facebook threads on the topic, each with more than 50 comments; pianist Kelly Muse authored an open letter that was signed by 17 other local musicians. Amid efforts to change the deal to be better for musicians, the jetport “pulled the plug,” Frank Copsidas said Friday afternoon, going on to blame the complainers for the event’s cancellation. (Jetport director Paul Bradbury says there wasn’t time to resolve the “miscommunication issues” before the series’s June 28 start date.)

Graham says he actually liked the idea, until he learned about the compensation terms from the website. And there was some misunderstanding about what the terms actually were.

Portland Music Foundation president Pat May said his group agreed to help publicize the call for artists with the understanding that performers would have their CDs sold in the jetport gift shop all summer long, and “there is some type of stipend.”

Frank Copsidas, the owner of Dispatch Magazine, who also serves on the PMF board, said those were good ideas but became impossible. “We were trying to get a sponsor to give stipends. Nobody will come to the table,” he said Friday, before the event was canceled outright. And CDs could only be placed in the gift shop for a few artists, he said, due to lack of space and the fact that the bar codes for local artists’ CDs were not in the store’s existing database.

Bradbury, at the jetport, says when Copsidas came to him with the idea, the jetport saw it as a way to provide musicians free advertising, while entertaining passengers waiting for their flights. He says musicians didn’t have to sell anything, but if they did, Paradies’s commission would apply.

But there remained the question of whether the musicians would be compensated for their performance. Oddly, nobody had thought to ask if players could put out a hat for donations until after the series was announced. (Bradbury says he’d have to seek legal advice, in part because the performers would be in a secure area of the jetport.)

In any case, Copsidas’s view was that the merchandise sales should be enough. “If they can’t really sell 20 CDs to 1000 people there over the three hours, that’s pretty bad,” he said. “Two percent should be the lowest that you sell.”

He said he was planning to spend about $5000 on a stage, sound system, and a person to run the audio, and was unwilling to spend more to pay the musicians. May said paying each of the projected 28 performers even $100 would use up most of the PMF’s bank account.

And in the wake of the cancellation, Copsidas, obviously upset, took to Graham’s Facebook page, beginning a series of posts with this line: “Brian, you single handedly set back the Portland music scene about a year in getting any kind of corporate support so that shows like these can pay.”

(In an interview with the Phoenix, Copsidas was similarly blunt: “Is it the best opportunity? No. You should be paid” but blamed the lack of funds on local businesses and musicians themselves: “No business in this town is willing to put money behind the artists. That’s a problem the artists have created for themselves in this town.” In a Monday website posting, he suggested applying to the Maine Arts Commission to underwrite such a program.)

May, for his part, wrote a letter of explanation and apology, posted Sunday to the PMF website, admitting that the group didn’t do a good job explaining what the situation was, nor why group organizers thought it would be a good idea. He called it “a case study in how poor communication can wreck a good idea.”

Bradbury says the jetport is very interested in having something like this happen in the future, so perhaps it’s not completely wrecked.

In fact, it presents an opportunity for the PMF that May intends to capitalize on, writing that he wants members’ feedback on how to make future efforts more successful.

Given Copsidas’s statement that “This was meant for younger artists trying to establish themselves. There was no budget for anything else,” and his claim that as many as 25 musicians expressed interest, it seems clear there’s plenty to do.

Graham says those younger artists need to know how to evaluate proposals like this: “The up and coming people are the most important people to be educating. They need to know that if you’re going to perform you need to be compensated. You can’t just give it away.” People who perform for free lower the ability — and rates — for others to get paid, and in the end undercut their own hopes of earning money in the future, he says: “You’re ruining your career.”

But PMF seminars on the topic may not be well attended, given the organization’s history. Some recent sessions have had small audiences, even for opportunities to talk with big names in the music business.

Copsidas says “nobody goes to them. (Musicians) don’t want to hear they have to work.” He went on to say local musicians are "lazy" about taking advantage of money-earning opportunities. He added that negativity can hurt: complaints about "opportunities" like this are "exactly why sponsors won't come on board; because they're afraid (people will) bitch about the sponsors."

Then again, if musicians were getting paid for their performances — and not just for their merchandise — it’s hard to see what the bitching would be about. “People would never think to ask a plumber to work for free. . . . That’s the mindset we need to break,” Graham says.

The #menews op-ed, and my response

Published at thePhoenix.com

Some of you might remember my long post about the #menews forum a couple weeks back. Well, they're still at it - and so am I. In my inbox this morning comes moderator Mike Cuzzi, with an opinion piece jointly penned by him, Maine State Chamber of Commerce head Dana Connors, and Tony Ronzio, the Sun Journal's new media director - one of the more clued-in folks on the panel. (BTW, Tony, I've had a website since 1992. Can we stop calling it "new media" soon?)

They asked if I'd consider printing it, so I took a look. And I've agreed to publish it here - with my responses in line. And no, this doesn't stop me from shaking my head at Maine's daily newspaper situation. 

Anyway, here's the op-ed, with my responses. I'm in bold.

The Future of Maine's Newspapers

Despite National Trends, Maine's Newspapers Remain Strong

The national narrative about newspapers is expressed in two words: they're dying.  

Let's be clearer: the national narrative about daily newspapers is that they're dying. Weekly newspapers, including alternatives, have hit a rough economic spot just like everyone else, but are doing just fine.

Over the past few years, newspaper circulations have declined, staffs have been cut back, budgets have tightened with the shrinking economy and the explosive growth of digital and social media, and some publications even closed their doors. 

Yep, such as the Portland Press Herald, the Portland Press Herald, and, well, the Portland Press Herald's York County bureau. And Village Soup Media, of course. Or were you going to tell me Maine's an exception to this stuff?

However, the national narrative is largely driven by the experiences of big, publicly traded newspaper chains, like Gannett or McClatchy, or the big institutions, like the New York Times or Washington Post. Neither represents the real story of newspapering in Maine. 

Except, of course, for the obvious and well-known facts that Maine daily newspapers have lost circulation big-time, shrunk their staffs significantly, tightened budgets, and closed their doors.

First, most daily and weekly publications are owned by Maine individuals and families who live and work in this state.  While committed to turning a profit, these local owners read their newspapers like broadsheets -- as opposed to spreadsheets.  

And as we know, people who live locally are by definition better than people who live far away. This is why, as we all know, Maine has the best telecommunications companies, the most innovative universities, the world's best teachers, the most talented artists, and more Nobel Prize winners than anywhere else on the... (Fine, we have some of these - but Maine-centric exceptionalism is hollow rhetoric that substitutes boosterism for substance.)

This also attempts to get away with lumping the struggling all-things-to-all-people daily newspapers in with the successful niche-publication weeklies. Don't let this sort of silliness cloud your vision. Daily papers print the Internet - after it's been posted online. Weeklies print the news first, with insight and context.

Second, there is cautious optimism in Maine that its newspapers are rising again, albeit slowly, after some difficult years. 

Who is optimistic about that? Is it anyone outside the newspapers in question?

Maine's papers are making money, hiring newsroom and other staff, either holding or growing circulation, and reaching more people than ever before with their print and online offerings.  

If the dailies are making money, it must just not be enough for their local owners, who continue to seek greater profits by cutting back on content while raising cover prices. They're not "holding" circulation, though by some measures they are slowing the losses. But it's important to note that how circulation is measured has changed, allowing greater flexibility in determining what counts - specifically so that the newspaper industry can make its numbers look better, in an attempt to regain control of the narrative of the obvious.

And if they're claiming to reach "more people than ever before," make sure you get them to show you how they know that they're not reaching the same exact people in print, online, and mobile devices - and just counting them multiple times. What's that? Oh right - they can't show you that. Because they don't know that. Also, make sure they show you how many of those online readers are people who would gladly pay to read what's there. Oh yeah, they can't show you that, either, because most of them wouldn't.

That greater reach hasn't necessarily translated into greater profitability, but even so, Maine's newspapers' balance sheets as a whole are trending in the right direction.

Just cut the word "necessarily" from the sentence. And if the balance sheets are looking up, it's not because there's more revenue. It's because costs are lower. That means fewer workers, at lower salaries, less employee benefits, and smaller circulation (accompanied by smaller print runs).

Third, Maine's newspapers are now more competitive than ever before, battling for the best reporters and investing in new, more robust technologies to deliver content to ever more sophisticated consumers.  

The dailies are indeed more competitive with each other. Perhaps that's because they're engaged in a race for survival. Can this state really support three major dailies and three smaller ones? They are as uncompetitive as ever with weeklies, who trounce them time and again, week in and week out, in print and online.

What are these "new, more robust technologies" they're talking about? Better blog engines? Slightly faster websites that might load faster in a state whose overall broadband speed is terrible?

The existential crisis of Maine and national newspapers is reshaping their mission and invigorating them to rapidly adapt to new challenges. This strong competition and renewed sense of purpose promises to keep Maine's newspapers vibrant. 

Innovation, competition, and reinvigoration do not directly and automatically equal success. Some innovations fail. Some businesses lose competitions, and renewed energy can be wasted by mismanagement, or by outside economic factors.

So what does the future hold for Maine's newspapers? The precise answer is unknown. What is known, however, is the future exists -- despite gloomy predictions to the contrary. 

Ah, that's some refreshing honesty. Despite the original interpretation of Mayan predictions that the world would end in 2012, the new interpretation is that the Mayans expected the world to continue for many more years. "The future exists" is the banner of promise that is held high by people whose entire jobs have for decades, even down to today, been obsessed with telling you what happened yesterday. Their newspapers certainly don't reflect the idea that the future exists - and only rarely even address the present. They just talk about what happened in the past.

So daily newspapers are discovering that "the future exists." This is important, but continues to underline the idea that daily newspapers and their leaders are profoundly detached from the rest of the world, in which we're constantly worrying about the future and talking about what's next, and only rarely deeply interested in what happened in the past. (And yes, I'm a trained historian, and I recognize the distinction between my interests and those of regular people. Daily newspaper workers have continued to think theyare regular people - and they're not.)

Recently, in Portland, we hosted a panel discussion about the future of Maine's newspapers. The participants came to some common conclusions, although with divergent opinions about how to get there. 

What? I was there, and didn't hear any common conclusions - besides "We don't know what's happened, but the future exists."

First, print editions are not going away anytime soon. Plenty of fans still exist for printed newspapers, particularly in Maine, which supports dozens of excellent weekly papers that cover every inch of the state. 

And the fact that weekly newspapers are successful has what bearing, exactly, on daily newspapers, which are an entirely different animal?

Going forward, though, print will become just one vehicle for readers, as opposed to the dominant one. Digital journalism and advertising will eventually supplant printed papers for primacy, but never replace them entirely. 

This is already true - and not just something we'll see "going forward." Print is just one vehicle - for a decreasing number of readers. Perhaps printed papers won't ever entirely disappear. Some people still put music out on cassette and vinyl, after all.

This will happen not as readers' news consumption changes, but as advertisers optimize how they pursue and attract customers online. For decades, newspapers have aided businesses in the quest for customers; as the digital age dawns, newspapers still remain ideally suited to provide this service for years to come.

Here's another bright spot of honesty: This transition won't happen because of what daily newspapers think their readers want. (Reason: They have no idea what their readers want.) Rather, it'll happen because of what advertisers demand, and what makes the numbers work. Sounds a lot like what's already at work killing daily papers.

And what it really says is that Maine's daily newspapers will not be leaders in innovation, but rather will follow the innovations of others, who will determine the future of advertising. Being a follower - especially when calling it innovation - is always a good way to save your failing business, right?

Moreover, newspaper advertising departments are transforming themselves into full-service digital providers to businesses, offering value-added services such as website design in response to businesses' growing digital needs.

Ah yes, website design - so glad that's a new offering of Maine's newspapers. Have they heard of Blogger, Tumblr, Google Sites, or any of the zillions of free and low-cost, easy-to-use services already out there? Oh wait - newspapersstill aren't used to the idea that they're competing with the entire Internet.

In other words, local advertisers will have as much to do with the evolution of Maine's newspapers as any other force, actively driving news organizations to become more rooted in the digital economy. 

Any chance those local advertisers could drive daily news organizations to become more rooted in their actual physical communities? Yeah, didn't think that was on your radar.

The willingness of consumers to pay for information received online is also increasing. While not a full answer to revenue challenges, digital subscriptions add another revenue stream when done right and are proving successful at large and small papers across the country.

The pay model requires two things: scarcity and quality. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times can limit free access and require payment because they do stuff nobody else does. Maine's papers not only share each other's stories, but are heavily dependent on wire copy. Associated Press copy you read in your daily newspaper is by definition at least 12 hours old - that's how long it takes to receive, edit, lay out, print, and distribute information that's been online for free for most of a day.

If Maine's daily papers even want to think about charging for access, they have to start providing information that's unique to themselves, hasn't been published in weekly newspapers already, and is of unquestioned quality. Right now, there are fewer than five journalists in the state working for daily papers whose work is worth paying for. The rest of them may have talent and smarts, but are being ground into meaningless, useless dust by outdated management and editorial ideas - such as those that think making websites is a business opportunity for the future.

These models prove that readers value what newspapers have historically provided to their communities: unbiased, objective reporting and engaging, insightful information about the places where we all work, live and play. 

You forgot the word "timely." You also forgot the word "exclusive." And when we see all that as a regular feature of all three of Maine's daily papers - and not as a special exciting extra, we'll think about being willing to pay. But if the NYT can't command more than $15 a month from subscribers - half the monthly print rate - how is a lower quality publication with smaller readership that has plenty of other options for getting information for free going to get any amount worth counting? If the PPH allowed digital subscriptions at half its present rate, that would be $6.50 a month. And remember, PPH quality, volume, and exclusivity are all far lower than the NYT, so we'd really be looking at something far lower as a subscription rate.

It's not yet clear what Maine's digital subscription models might look like, but it's fair to say greater experimentation is coming.

And experiments always find success, so positive results are assured, right? Right?

Finally, all newspapers agree that providing excellent, engaging content is paramount. Content is king and is driving competition and innovation across the industry, top to bottom.

Yep - and this is the first time that "content" and its quality have appeared in this missive. So we see where it rates as far as a priority for the daily newspaper leaders of Maine.

It is a golden age for journalism and those that practice it. With more people consuming more content in more ways than ever before, journalism's mission has never been more obvious or more important. 

More boosterism, with no relevance or insight into how this will help Maine's daily newspapers in any way. Plus, any newspaper editor would have made sure "those that practice it" was properly edited to "those who practice it."

And as long as that mission is valued, a business model will emerge to support it.

Again, placing the foundation of this argument firmly in the clouds.

It won't be what newspapers looked like in the past, but it will be innovative and responsive to the rapidly evolving expectations of Maine's media consumers.

And closing with a heartfelt, meaningless, boosterish platitude. Maine's daily papers haven't changed a bit. And I wouldn't hold your breath about that.

Dana Connors is the President of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce.

Michael Cuzzi is a Senior Vice President with VOX Global, a strategic communications and public affairs firm located in Portland.

Anthony Ronzio is the Director of New Media for the Sun Media Group & Past President of the Maine Press Association.    

Jeff Inglis is the managing editor of the Portland Phoenix, Maine's largest single weekly newspaper, and its only alternative weekly newspaper.