Press Releases: Invisible Paywall

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The Lewiston Sun Journal’s online paywall launched last week, and nobody really noticed. It’s a new experiment in both structure and sales-pitch for converting formerly non-paying web readers into customers with open wallets.

Many papers around the country (as big as the New York Times and as small as theEllsworth American) have variations on paywalls, and more are likely coming; the Press Herald’s parent company has said it’s planning one too. As on many sites, Sun Journal readers don’t have to have pay to see every story. That’s good because many of the stories occupying front-page real estate on sunjournal.com are freely available elsewhere online, from their actual sources: the Bangor Daily News and the Associated Press.

But the stuff that is behind the paywall bears headlines like this one Monday: “Lewiston Councilors-Elect to Meet Tuesday.” If you think that headline is bad, you haven’t read the 218-word snoozer by Scott Taylor. It’s unclear why anyone would pay to read a tiny daily-news brief.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to. While it is marked with a key icon to show that it’s a “premium article,” non-subscribers can read 10 such stories every 30 days. After that, it costs as little as $2.99 per week.

That doesn’t sound like a bad deal, and it actually isn’t when you factor in the Sun Journal’s creative assembly of a larger package. The weekly newspapers the Sun Journal owns have been pillars in their communities, bolstering the daily; six of those (theNorway Advertiser Democrat, the Bethel Citizen, the Franklin Journal, the Livermore Falls Advertiser, the Rumford Falls Times, and the Rangeley Highlander) are included in the paywall (though not the Forecaster papers, which still have a free site).

In fact, it’s downright cheap: Unlimited online-only access to all the papers costs $2.99 a week. If you want online access only to the Sun Journal, that costs $4.59 a week — which includes your choice of print delivery (every day, weekend, or Sunday-only) as well. The full-price $4.99 a week only comes into play if you want full online access to all the papers, plus Sun Journal delivery, plus one weekly print publication.

Cleverly, there’s no way to get just the weekly papers — nor even just one weekly — as part of an online package. Showing additional attention to detail, a number of the stories on the SJ front page link to weeklies’ stories; someone with the SJ-only deal will quickly get frustrated trying to click through, and will likely up their subscription by 40 cents a week.

The benefit of that is a boost not to the numbers of the SJ’s circulation, which may be in the low 20,000s, and certainly is no higher than 31,000, according to recent self-reported statistics. Rather, it boosts the circulation of the weeklies by giving people access to all six for less than the price of any one. That strengthens the smaller papers’ appeal to advertisers, unless they see through this numbers game.

Speaking of which, there’s a numbers game being played on the public too. The Sun Journal is calling this paywall “membership.” In a November 10 note to readers explaining the upcoming change, executive editor Rex Rhoades spent a good amount of space extolling its virtues and benefits, the first and most prominent of which is financial: “most subscribers will join a membership program offering extra discounts and benefits that will more than cover the cost of your subscription.”

Specifically, subscribers will be entered in monthly drawings for free tickets to various local events: “Portland Sea Dogs, Portland Pirates, Oxford Plains [Speedway], local arts shows, hot air balloon rides, golf, ski, concerts and more” says the online description. They’ll also get “exclusive coupon deals . . . offered by local businesses on a weekly basis.” In boldface comes the real pitch: “The total value of the deals offered . . . will exceed the cost of your membership package.”

Which is the final experiment. The Sun Journal is asking its readers to pay to get the news, and then promising them they’ll get their money back in savings that are only available to paying customers. The quality of those deals — and the frequency with which people actually take them — will determine whether this marketing pitch works. 

Use your mind: A meditation for newcomers to buying art

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Buying art can be intimidating. It can involve Galleries and Dealers and Other Important People whose Opinions Matter. Or it can just be you (and perhaps a loved one) seeing something you like and buying it. Which is much simpler. But still, it’s an emotional and psychological process with a few important things to think about.

In fact, art buying is — or can be — a lot like meditation. For starters, it’s best to approach it with a relaxed body and mind.

Then you need to throw away all conventions and social norms. Buying art is a very personal thing, and it’s not up to anybody else to decide it for you. Beauty is, as the ancient adage goes, in the eye of the beholder. If you don’t like a piece of art, it doesn’t matter if it’s a piece beloved by The Art World or Culture In General, or even if it’s a masterpiece by Picasso or Calder. Similarly, if you like a piece of art, what it “looks like” or depicts, or what someone else sees in it, doesn’t matter a whit. You need to connect with the art you’re going to buy in some sort of important emotional way. What that is, and what that feels like, is also up to you.

But you should want to look at it every day, forever. Unlike partners or children or pets, it won’t change itself — only your meaning for it can. But just like partners and children and pets, it can represent — and serve as a constant reminder of — a moment, or a feeling, or a belief, that lasts a lifetime. (Fortunately, medical research has shown that viewing art activates parts of the brain called the “reward circuit,” bringing pleasure and encouraging the person to view more art. So the more you look at art, the more you’ll want to look at art. Accompanying this piece are some works I’ve purchased and enjoy looking at daily.)

Next, observe what’s in front of you. This doesn’t necessarily take a long time. It can certainly involve books and online research (see sidebar, “Online Galleries”), but the best way to experience art — whether you’re buying or not — is in person. Portland makes this process extremely easy, and free: On First Fridays, find a few galleries you visit every time, and then mix in a few other new ones each month. Walk in, look around — make sure you put your eyes on every item there — and see what happens. If you like something, look at it longer. If you don’t see anything that just plain grabs you, thank the gallery owner and leave.

Fourth, reflect on yourself. If you’re drawn to a piece of art (sorry for the bad pun), there’s a reason. You don’t have to know or articulate the reason, but you do need to acknowledge it exists, and that its existence is valid and meaningful.

Fifth, let it go. Once you’ve had a good look at a piece of art, from many angles, walk away. Go look at some other art (again, First Friday is fantastic for this). If you find yourself still thinking about that one piece, observe that, and perhaps indulge that feeling’s persistence by going back to take another look. If you don’t want to expend the effort to even do that, then you don’t really want to buy the work, do you?

Making sureNow, just like in meditation, you will at times during your art search come across items that you really feel are important to revisit, to reconsider, to examine. When those arise, and they will, you can move to the second phase of purchasing art: Not actually buying it.

It’s important to do this properly. The initial not-buying-art step happens only in your imagination. Envision yourself without this piece of art. Is anything missing? Is your life less without it? If the answers to those questions are “No” and “No,” then go ahead and don’t actually buy the art.

If, however, you do think that this art truly has something to bring to your life, that this particular work could improve your existence, then you need to take the next step. Which is not (yet) buying the art.

Think about whether this piece is really the ultimate expression of what you’re looking for and feeling. If it is, then buy it (and skip to the “Spending The Money” section below). But if not, you may have found not the work you’ll end up buying, but a clue to locating that piece.

So look at the sticker nearby (or the information sheet, or the exhibit catalog) and note the artist’s name. (Do not look at the price. It doesn’t matter — yet.) Then either find more work by that person, or simply Google them and get in touch. Contacting the artist is actually an important step a lot of art buyers skip, ignore, or don’t even know is possible. But it can be useful for two reasons: You may find, among that
artist’s other pieces, a work you actually like better than the one you’ve spotted; and you’ll meet a person you can start to connect with as human beings.

Artists love knowing who has their art, why the people bought it, and what its meaning is for them. And it’s super-fun to look at a work in your home and know you’ve shaken the hand that created it.

Eventually, following this process, you’ll both meet a lot of artists and find works you want to have in your home. When that moment comes, you’ll know. And then it’s time to open your wallet.

Spending the moneyNow you can look at the price. You’ll have one of two reactions: relief or panic. If it’s relief, then great — you’re all set. Settle up and head home with your new treasure. You needn’t necessarily frame it, but if you do, see the sidebar, “Up Against The Wall?” for a pointer to some help.

If it’s panic, then take a deep breath. If you’re buying directly from an artist, accept that whatever the artist is charging is a fair price for the creativity, effort, time, and energy spent learning the skills, honing the eye, and making the work. So it’s not really kosher to negotiate, though if you’re buying more than one piece in a single transaction, feel free to ask for a small break on the price of the cheapest one. But don’t be disappointed if the answer is no — artists have to eat, too.

If you’re buying from a gallery, a sizeable chunk of the cost — as much as half — is going to the gallery, with the rest going to the artist. It might be tempting to ask for a price break from the gallery portion of the cost. But gallery owners have to pay rent, heat and light their spaces, and hey — it’s only because of the gallery that you found that artist or piece of art, right? That’s worth something, whether you prefer to recognize it or not. And remember, you’re not buying a piece of art to hang on your wall to remind you what an awesome wheeler-and-dealer you are:

You’re buying it because you like it and have an emotional connection to it. Put a price on that, if you want to try.

Once you’ve settled on a final price, it may still be more than you can afford right at this moment. Relax: Artists and gallery owners know what it’s like to be strapped for cash. Ask to pay in installments — even small ones, like $10 a week or $50 a month. Most of them will be more than happy to make arrangements to connect an eager buyer with a wonderful piece of art. While you shouldn’t expect to get the actual piece in your hands until you’re done paying, ask to take a photo (or several, if different angles matter). Get them printed out and hang them in your home — it’ll be a motivating reminder of what you’re in the process of buying, and you’ll get a little bit of the joy the real piece will bring once it’s finally your own.

Up against the wall?How to display your new treasureA new book co-written by a Portland author will help you make the most of your new piece of art. How to Hang a Picture: And Other Essential Lessons for the Stylish Home (St. Martin’s Griffin, $19.99) is just the sort of really useful, not-too-precious how-to book that can actually help make your home’s decor better even before you open it. A beautiful volume with really fascinating illustrations, How to Hang a Picture could be a coffee-table book as much as a handyman’s manual.

Written by Brooklyn-based writer and illustrator Jay Sacher and Portland-based graphic designer Suzanne LaGasa, it teaches the basics of hanging artwork, and moves beyond into the finer points of selection of framing and matting, lighting placement, and how to deal with various wall types (whether drywall or cement or something else).

With clear statements of principle like “Centering your art at eye level is a key component to a well-planned wall” and elegant images showing what the words mean, you’ll be ready to show off your artwork in the best possible way.

Online galleriesTo get a sense of your tastes and a range of styles, check out this selection of online art galleries.Museum sitesmoma.org (the Museum of Modern Art in New York City)
si.edu (the Smithsonian Institution)

Groups of artists who sell direct from onlineartmajeur.com
artspan.com
zatista.com
ugallery.com

Auction sitesartspace.com
artsy.net
paddle8.com
saatchionline.com

Off world-class surfing beach, Kiwi protesters in small boats confront a Texas oil giant

Published in GlobalPost

New Zealand's government sides with Anadarko, legislating a protest-free zone around its rig.

PORTLAND, Maine — Located in the South Pacific, hundreds of miles from its nearest neighbor, New Zealand has a long history of peaceful protest — particularly at sea. And the country’s Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.

But earlier this year, multinational oil companies convinced lawmakers to restrict seaborne demonstrators who oppose oil drilling surrounding the island nation.

This week, the law is likely to get its first big test as the two sides approach direct confrontation.

A six-boat “Oil Free Seas Flotilla,” is sailing to stop deep-sea drilling 120 miles off some of New Zealand’s most iconic surfing beaches, Piha and Raglan. On Nov. 16 the vessels arrived at the site where Texas oil giant Anadarko was about to sink an exploratory well into the ocean floor 5,000 feet below the surface of the Tasman Sea.

The drilling ship Noble Bob Douglas arrived three days later and immediately declared, via radio, that the controversial new law applied, requiring the boats to stay 500 meters (1,640 feet) away from the drill rig. The flotilla responded that its boats would not comply. It has regularly radioed the Noble Bob Douglas with requests to leave New Zealand waters.

The oil-friendly law is opposed by figures as prominent as former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer, a legal scholar, as an unlawful limit on the rights of free navigation and free speech. 

It also defies historical precedent in enviro-friendly New Zealand, which once sent its navy to protect protesters at sea.

In the late 19th century, long before Mahatma Gandhi wielded nonviolence against Britain, native Maori people at Parihaka sent dancing children to face English soldiers attempting colonization.

In the 1970s and 1980s, private boats crossed the South Pacific to protest nuclear testing inFrench Polynesia. Closer to home, vessels blockaded Auckland Harbor against nuclear-powered US Navy ships.

This time around, leading the anti-drilling flotilla is the Vega, a 38-foot vessel that pioneered seaborne nuclear-testing protests and helped make New Zealand a nuclear-free nation. Vega is co-captained by the head of Greenpeace New Zealand, Bunny McDiarmid. Each boat in the flotilla is flying a white Parihaka pennant representing “peace, justice, resistance, and solidarity,” according to an accompanying letter from community elders.

The controversial law that Anadarko has invoked to repel the flotilla was hurriedly passed by the New Zealand Parliament after significant, and secretive, lobbying of government ministers by the oil industry. Allowing boarding and takeover of private boats by police, it is seen as a response by the conservative government to protests against a 2011 offshore expedition byBrazilian oil giant Petrobras, which soon thereafter scrapped all its New Zealand drilling plans.

Since the radio warning, the 38-foot-long Vega has stayed about 800 to 1,000 feet from the 756-foot Noble Bob Douglas. At times, according to Anadarko New Zealand manager Alan Seay, they have been within 330 feet of each other. The Vega is operating primarily under sail. To remain that close, it must tack about every eight minutes, according to Anna Horne, a flotilla spokeswoman who has sailed on the Vega to protest nukes.

According to Prime Minister John Key, drilling began early Tuesday morning, Nov. 26. Nonetheless, the Vega has remained within the exclusion zone.

Steve Abel, a Greenpeace New Zealand campaigner, says there has not been any sign of any authorities, nor any word from them. During the Petrobras protest two years ago, police arrived aboard navy vessels.

The protesters object to the environmental danger. New Zealand’s current ocean-drilling industry operates in very shallow waters. The deepest is about 400 feet. The country’s three small spill-response boats are not ready for operations beyond sight of land, they contend. “We are woefully underprepared,” Abel said.

Seay admits that the rig’s safety procedures have not yet been made public. That is to happen “shortly,” he said, noting that there is an “enormous amount of design and planning work that goes in up front to ensure that we have a safe and incident-free operation.”

The risk may be statistically low, but if a spill or blowout occurs, the damage will be “catastrophic,” Abel said, covering the entire west coast of the North Island within weeks,according to models of the spill. It would threaten tourism, fishing, and agriculture — all vital sectors of the New Zealand economy.

Abel also noted that the Deepwater Horizon blowout in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico was also in roughly 5,000 feet of water — and that Anadarko was involved in that disaster, ultimately paying $4 billion as part of the legal settlements of that cleanup. “It’s the same company, the same depth,” Abel said. Anadarko is one of the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas exploration corporations.

Sharing those concerns, more than 5,000 protesters thronged the western beaches of New Zealand on Nov. 23. The demonstrations included a significant Maori presence. In fact, the Tainui tribe may issue a legal trespass notice to the Noble Bob Douglas, which is in their traditional fishing waters.

“In many ways, [the Maori] hold the last line,” said Horne, noting not only their moral and cultural tradition of “kaitiakitanga,” or guardianship, but also their legal rights to many natural resources under the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which shares sovereignty between the Crown and the Maori.

The 70-day drilling project was slated to begin Monday, but unspecified technical problems caused delays. Anadarko will leave enforcement of the exclusion zone to New Zealand authorities. Seay said “we respect the right to protest but ask in return that protesters respect our right to carry on our business free of interference.”

But the protesters have no desire for the oil giant to operate unobstructed.

New Zealand could be oil-free, and even the world’s first carbon-neutral nation, Abel said. The country already is home to the world’s biggest geothermal plant, Ngatamariki in the central North Island. It also has a strong forestry industry, whose byproducts could be used in place of petroleum derivatives, Abel said. “For us it’s not a hard ask” to get off fossil fuels.

In fact, Abel noted drily, “None of this oil, if it’s found, will ever land in New Zealand — unless there’s a spill.”

Jeff Inglis is managing editor of the Portland Phoenix. During the past 15 years, he has traveled extensively in New Zealand.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/131125/surfing-kiwi-protesters-oil-drilling-anadarko

Balancing Rights: Council protects clinic patients, invites lawsuit

Published in the Portland Phoenix

On Monday evening, the Portland City Council voted unanimously to create the state’s first limited-speech buffer zone around a reproductive health-care facility, for the purpose of protecting patients at the Planned Parenthood of Northern New England clinic at 443 Congress Street from intimidation by anti-abortion protesters. The ordinance includes a last-minute amendment allowing it to take effect immediately.

The decision invites a legal challenge, such as those that have been brought against other states’ and towns’ buffer zones; a case before the US Supreme Court’s current session will test a very similar Massachusetts law.

Abortion opponents began demonstrating outside the PPNNE clinic last fall, after its move downtown from a Forest Avenue location that was never a site of significant or sustained protests. The new space’s improved access for patients also brought expanded publicity for people who oppose abortion rights, despite the fact that most of the clinic’s patients are not seeking abortions but other services such as birth-control medication, cervical-cancer screenings, and blood tests.

According to written testimony submitted to the council, patients have frequently felt intimidated when attempting to enter the clinic, but they also understand the underlying conflict, between the rights of the protesters to express themselves freely on public sidewalks, and the rights of the patients to have unfettered (and private) access to health-care services.

A woman identified as Jo described her experience entering the clinic on March 22: “I firmly believe in free speech and the free flow of ideas. This crosses the line with vile photos of aborted fetuses and scripture being chanted. The sidewalk is like walking a gauntlet [sic]. This poses an intentionally threatening and intimidating environment, encroaching on my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.”

Maine law already prevents protesters from blocking a patient’s path to the door of a clinic, bans threats made toward clinic staff or patients (including by telephone), and outlaws excessive noise aimed at disturbing the occupants of a clinic or health-care facility. PPNNE has hired a Portland police officer to patrol the sidewalk nearby, to help enforce those laws, but problems remain. The buffer zone was proposed as a way to balance the competing rights, keeping protesters away from the entrances to the PPNNE clinic without forcing them so far away that their message would be utterly unable to reach its intended audience.

Decades of strife around Massachusetts reproductive-health clinics led to the 2000 passage of a statewide so-called “floating buffer,” requiring protesters to keep six feet away from patients and staff who are within 18 feet of the clinic entrance. Other states have similar laws; Colorado’s offers broader safety: an eight-foot “floating buffer” within 100 feet of clinic doors.

But a 2007 revision in Massachusetts exchanged the distance-from-people rule for one imposing a “hard” 35-foot buffer around clinic entrances — saying that protesters had to stay that far from clinic doorways and driveways, regardless of their distance from patients and staff.

The Portland ordinance imposes a hard buffer of 39 feet (expanded from an originally proposed 35 feet to prevent small gaps in coverage); effectively, the whole sidewalk around the PPNNE building will be off-limits to protesters, as well as short distances on the sidewalks of Elm and Congress streets beyond the extent of the PPNNE building.

Both supporters and opponents of the hard buffer law say its difference from a floating one is significant. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has argued that harassment and intimidation happened despite the previous floating buffer, which was also hard to measure and therefore enforce. (Most people do not want to bring a yardstick to their doctor’s appointments.) Protesters say their desire to simply give information to women approaching the clinics would be made too difficult by the hard buffers.

Another key element of the Massachusetts law, which is also included in Portland’s ordinance, is a specific provision protecting employees or volunteers at the clinic who seek to escort patients to or from the facility.

As described by Stephen Wermeil of SCOTUSblog, buffer-zone opponents claim this “allows viewpoint discrimination: advocates for abortion services may speak within the buffer zone, but anti-abortion protesters may not.” Massachusetts’s response, Wermeil writes, is that the provision “is part of the public safety rationale for the law, so that clinic workers may help women approaching clinics navigate their way past the protesters.”

Protesters suing Massachusetts also argue that the law is too narrow because it does not impact other health-care facilities, and that at three specific clinics in Massachusetts the specific locations have problems that prevent them from presenting their information to patients.

The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Massachusetts law in January; its ruling also applies in Maine. And while the US Supreme Court upheld Colorado’s “floating” buffer-zone law in 2000, the Court is now considering the challenge to Massachusetts’s different restriction; some briefs were filed last week, oral arguments are slated for early 2014, and a decision is expected by the early summer.

Abortion-rights supporters are worried that the addition of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito to the Court in the intervening years will tip the balance toward the protesters. If that is the case, Portland councilors were warned by city staff while considering the proposal, the local ordinance would likely be challenged and struck down as well.

Seeking high ground: Rising sea levels may affect future development

Published in the Portland Phoenix; sidebar to a larger feature by Deirdre Fulton on development in the Bayside area of Portland

As developers, residents, and city officials plan the future of Bayside, they’ll have to wrestle with some very difficult questions. A sense of the flavor of those discussions was on display at the Portland Society for Architecture “Waterfront Visions 2050” community workshop, held a couple weeks back at SPACE Gallery.

The first several minutes were spent defining common terms, such as what the phrase “100-year storm” means. (Confusing but true: It’s not a storm that happens every 100 years, but rather a storm that has a one percent chance of occurring in any given year. They can happen in back-to-back years, or with far more than 100 years between them.)

The basics are hard enough in a room of 50 people paying close attention; when dealing with public policy, it’s important to ensure the wider public is accurately informed, which also means ensuring journalists covering the process understand variations in terminology.

For example, maps and scientific disciplines discuss sea level in different terms, such as  measuring distance above the normal high-tide line or calculating a mean sea level that equals out tides and waves. So when one person talks about sea level rising four or five feet, another might need to translate that to as many as nine or 10 feet, depending on how each is measuring the changing water level.

But even after that is sorted out, it’s not enough to think about just the parcel of land being developed. In some cases, high ground may seem safe enough to build on, but a look at the surrounding land will reveal that new shopping center will one day be on an island with no road access.

And when multiple interconnected and interrelated properties are under consideration, owners’ differences can cause tension. One small group at the PSA event seemed focused on what to do about the piers on Commercial Street — raise them, protect them, convert them to floating platforms? — while another group simply moved their projected waterfront back far enough to surrender some property to the ocean. But that would mean consigning the piers to the deep, something the other group didn’t even discuss.

Of course, expense is a problem. Developers have to determine how much they’re willing to invest in a property — which, in places near sea level, means calculating how much it costs to raise the street levels, or how much profit can be squeezed from a development in the few remaining years or decades before it’s underwater . Public officials have to figure out what’s cost-effective to use taxpayer dollars for. (See “How Wet Will Portland Get?” by Jeff Inglis, October 4.)

Also making discussions challenging is the fact that some waterfront land is contaminated (or just plain made of trash used to fill in wetlands 150 years ago both on Commercial Street and the area around Back Cove) — if that land is submerged, the contaminants may leak out into the global seas.

And beyond that is a whole host of state and federal regulations about what can be built, with what restrictions, near the shoreline.

Even if an individual project seems straightforward (and they rarely do!), each new proposal will stir up these and other important questions, as we determine how to adapt to our changing planet.