Here is a short 2008, year-end report for adn.com. It has been an amazing year. We averaged 2 million unique visitors, 14.6 million page views, and 3.4 million “visits” a month.

We especially like the visit measurement because it shows just how engaged our audience is with our content: news, features and advertising. (A visit is when one person is continuously active on the site for at least 30 minutes.)

This year’s peak traffic came in September, with 24.8 million page views and 4.4 million unique visitors. The reasons for the high traffic in September are pretty obvious: the intense national interest in Gov. Sarah Palin and the fact the Daily News was uniquely situated to provide it. To a lesser degree, the same was true of the trial of Sen. Ted Stevens and his ultimately unsuccessful re-election effort.

From Julie Wright, ADN managing editor --

We've had more complaints than usual lately about the hostile, crude and uncivil nature of comments on our stories and blog posts. I've spent more time than usual the past couple of days looking at the comments, and I have to agree that they've taken a turn for the worse. We've allowed a relatively free flow of ideas in hopes of stimulating a vigorous conversation about happenings in our state. The problem is that the comments now threaten to become so toxic that they kill any chance for civil, quality conversation among thoughtful readers.

So, beginning now, we are going to more strictly apply the rules that we've always had in place for comments on stories and blogs. When we see them, we will delete comments that are off topic, crude, attack other posters or are part of an apparent campaign to spam the boards with messages. We will ban users whose comments are particularly egregious, those who show a pattern of unwillingness to follow the rules and spammers. We will continue to allow critical comments about public figures and subjects of stories, but we will not allow crude comments about them or their personal lives. We will also block users who report abuse on others' comments just because they disagree with them.

udub wrote on 01/13/2009 10:40:16 PM:

Here is the thing. At this point, the main group of people who would be targeted by the Palin's submitting further proof are the conspiracy theorists, the majority of whom are the ones flooding your newspaper's e-mails and comment sections. However, if you read in detail, as I have, the messages written on the conspiracy web sites, the level of acceptable proof for these people is well beyond birth certificates and doctor statements. The level of distrust in any officical documents, and the certainty of their beliefs, has resulted in many of them stating that NOTHING can be submitted as proof that will persuade them now. NOTHING!!!!!!

Here is another series of emails between Gov. Palin and myself. I hadn’t intended to post these, but Sharon Leighow in the governor’s press office wrote this morning to ask, on behalf of the governor, that I post hers.

What you will see is first an email from me, written yesterday, saying that since almost two weeks had passed and I hadn’t received a reply to my New Year’s Eve email – though the ADN had been the subject of a critical press release from her office – I planned to post the original email.

She replied shortly thereafter, and I responded to her late that afternoon.

Eric Boehlert at the MediaMatters website has written an excellent post -- Palin, the press, and her pregnancy -- recounting the actual history of the Trig Palin conspiracy nonsense. For anyone who is interested in facts about what was reported, when and by whom, this is must reading. For the rest of you, continue to make up your own pseudo-facts.

Find the link here.

One thing I found interesting was the degree to which all responsible, "mainstream media" dealt with this rumor the same way we did.

Pat:

In looking at the tally of complaints the governor's office has with the media, this is but one of them with one outlet, the list is quite long, and I'm attempting to be as thorough as I can in contacting the outlets and reporters they've taken issue with to see if you'd like to address the complaint. If so, i'd love to have your response to that in the article. Thanks.

Gov. Palin’s press office claims that she has pointed out errors in Daily News coverage that we have refused to correct. The only such complaints of which I’m aware are below, in an email from Gov. Palin to the publisher and me.

I posted a portion of these two emails last week in a naïve effort to explain that the newspaper never took seriously the conspiracy theory that the governor did not give birth to her son Trig, but that recently we had made an effort to document his birth in pursuit of a story about why the Trig rumors, while baseless, are apparently so widespread and persistent.

The governor’s office issued a press release this afternoon with the title:

Governor Palin Says to Media, "There You Go Again"

You can read the full press release on the Alaska Politics blog, but this was the paragraph that jumped out at me:

Meanwhile, bloggers, the Atlantic magazine and even the Anchorage Daily News continue to give credence to the sensational allegation that the governor's child, Trig, is not hers.

The comment about the Daily News struck me as curious, at the least. Here’s why:

On Dec. 31, eight days ago, I received an email from Gov. Palin asking several questions about news coverage in the Daily News. I took her inquiry seriously and by the end of the day had prepared a long email addressing each of her questions in detail.

I was on the Mike Porcaro show on KENI radio last Friday talking about the newspaper business. Mike was asking about a proposal by a state legislator in Connecticut that the state government bail out a couple of newspapers in deep financial trouble.

PORCARO SHOW

NEWSPAPER BAILOUT

Since the show, the Connecticut newspapers that Mike was asking about

Earlier this morning Nat Hentoff, a columnist recently laid off from The Village Voice in New York, was interviewed by National Pubic Radio. He commented that he was stunned to find out that McClatchy had closed its Washington bureau. That's hard to understand because it's completely untrue. McClatchy bureau chief John Walcott called NPR and asked for a correction. We don't know why Nat said it or NPR put it on the air.

NPR correction posted here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98960029 &ps=cprs

Online magazine Slate summarizes a story in today's LA Times about changes in the movie business:

Some think that the ongoing recession could "force Hollywood to fundamentally change the way it does business.". . . Studios and production companies are already cutting back on their lavish ways in an attempt to save as much money as possible. It's not just that TV-ad revenue is down or that DVD sales have been on a downward spiral, but the credit crunch has also made it more difficult to obtain financing for expensive projects.

As consumers continue to cut back on their spending as a result of the bad economy, some think studios

I'm sharing this post today from Howard Weavers blog:

You may be interested in Jeff Jarvis' collection of "Bad news, good news" facts about the news business. As you might guess, his list is heavier on the bad news, so I tried to help by adding some good news in a comment, which I'm pasting in here:

What these individualized statistics and measurements fail to show is that companies like McClatchy are already far down the road to transformation. (I write from memory and approximately; I am not a spokesman for the company).

I received this press release from the U.S. attorney's office:

Anchorage – Acting United States Attorney Karen Loeffler announced Dec. 17 that Clifford Nelson of Juneau was indicted by a federal grand jury in Anchorage on charges of copyright infringement for the illegal reproduction and distribution of copyrighted movies.

The two-count indictment named Clifford Nelson, age 55, as the sole defendant.

Assistant United States Attorney Andrea Steward, who presented the case to the grand jury, indicated that the law provides for a maximum total sentence of three years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both, and forfeiture of all computer equipment used to infringe the copyrighted works. Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the actual sentence imposed will be based upon the seriousness of the offense and the prior criminal history, if any, of the defendant.

Some of you will remember Howard Weaver as a long-time reporter for the Daily News, who was editor of the paper from the early '80s to the early '90s. While here, he won two Pulitzer Prize Gold Medals for Public Service, and then left to work in the corporate office of McClatchy, owner of the Daily News. He recently announced his retirement as McClatchy's top edtor.

The following is his email today to the 30 newsrooms he oversees:

Dear colleagues,

In just a few days now, I'll conclude almost 30 years at McClatchy and 40 years in newspapers to head out for different adventures. As you'd imagine, that involves some complicated, intense emotions.

Phil Munger is a local blogger and critic of the Daily News. Despite his disdain for the paper, he is nonetheless shameless about appropriating the work of the Daily News to enhance his blogging efforts. I noticed over the weekend that Munger has again, for at least the second time, lifted the work of the Daily News, in this case a photo from our coverage of Snowzilla, the giant outlaw snowman.

Munger backhandedly acknowledges that he took the photo from the Daily News. There is no credit actually on the photo, but apparently if you look hard enough you can find one somewhere on the blog.

I am told that some folks working for Morris Communications were upset with, and questioned the accuracy, of this paragraph I wrote in a recent column:

Closer to home, Morris Communications, owner of the Juneau, Kenai, Homer and Eagle River papers, the Alaska Journal of Commerce, KFQD and five other Anchorage radio stations, as well as Alaska magazine, is in danger of defaulting on its loans by spring.

Maybe they missed this story on the Alaska Public Radio Network last month.

Dear Pat,

If you could make the international and national news the priority in the 1st section, I'd like that. Keep all the Alaska and local parochial stuff in section B, like before, I'd like that too.

Editor:

Look I'm no Palin supporter, however I'm shocked at the disgust with the comments and it appears you all are wanting such ilk by leaving front and practically center of the webpage. Disgusting.

Dear Editor:

Sincerely,
Jeff Budd

Mr. Budd:

I believe you are referring to the decision we've made not to continue to air freight newspapers to communities where we lose money on those papers.

Other than being located in the state of Alaska and distant from Anchorage, geography is irrelevant to this decision; communities from north to south and east to west have been affected.

Here is a link to a New York Times story about the loss of Washington reporters from news organizations across the country, including the McClatchy. Co.