The Florida Times-Union Has Lost Its Mind

The Florida Times-Union’s management has lost its collective mind. They want to charge readers up to $72.28 per year for the new TV Weekly. This is scheduled to replace the weekly TV schedule that has been included in the Friday paper at no additional charge beginning June 5, 2011. If you are a subscriber, you can get it for as low as $34.84 per year with a 24-month subscription. This works out to 67¢ per week. Their promotional ads have the nerve to call this the “BEST DEAL” in bright red letters as though they were doing us subscribers a favor.

Well, this subscriber is not so gullible. After reviewing the free sample included in today’s Sunday paper, I went online to see what a subscription to TV Guide would cost. What I found at www.tvguide.com/magazine was a subscription rate of $16.50 for 56 issues if you paid immediately by credit card or $16.50 for 48 issues if you wanted them to bill you. For credit card payers, that works out to only 29¢ per issue or a savings of 38¢ every week over the best offer for the Times-Union’s TV Weekly. TV Guide’s format is very similar to TV Weekly’s and TV Guide has made major improvements in its coverage of daytime and local stations. Plus TV Guide has more extensive editorial content. In other words, I can get a better product for substantially less. That’s a no-brainer for any savvy consumer who wants a paper TV program schedule. (Yes, I know I can check the current schedule on the TV itself or online. However, I like to know ahead of time what is going to be on so I can plan my schedule accordingly.)

So, I immediately subscribed to the TV Guide to save $18.34 per year for a paper television schedule. That is not the only savings I will be enjoying. The only reason I subscribed to the Friday-Saturday-Sunday (weekend) package of the Times-Union was to get the TV schedule that came in the Friday paper. Now, I can go back to a Sunday-only subscription for the coupons. This will reduce my subscription cost from $12.79 to $8.54 per month, a savings of $51 per year. Even after deducting the cost of the TV Guide, I will save $34.50 a year.

It really pleases me that I can reduce the money I give the Times-Union after their support and active promotion of Alvin Brown for Mayor. If it were not for the shopping coupons I use from the Sunday paper, I would cancel my subscription all together. (And, yes, I know I could get coupons online but then I have to pay for the ink and paper to print them out. Plus, it costs a lot more time to find them than clipping coupons from the paper while I watch TV.)

Election of Alvin Brown: "Yes, Massa; No, Massa"

Jacksonville, Florida elected Alvin Brown as its mayor on Tuesday. He is the city's first black mayor. Today's Florida Times-Union screamed "Historic Election" on its frontpage.

In the accompanying articles, many expressed their expectations of "change" for the city. Where have we heard that before? Ah, yes, Obama promised transformative change for the nation. God help our city if we experience that kind of change here. The bad news for those expecting change in Jacksonville by voting for Alvin Brown for mayor is, in reality, they were snookered into voting for more of the same old, same old. They will be sorely disappointed in the next four years.

For decades, Jacksonville has been run as a plantation by a clubby group of local businessmen, landowners and developers. Whatever they wanted, they got. They owned City Hall. I once overheard a discussion between several of this group in which one of them expressed regrets that the "natives were getting restless" and it was getting "harder to manage the plantation."

If any politician, mayor or councilmember, dared to defy them, this group financed and backed their replacement. Few dared such defiance, and even fewer survived in office if they did. One of those who did stand up to this group on occasion was Mike Hogan, Brown's Republican opponent in the mayoral race.

Jacksonville's powerbrokers were horrified when Hogan won the primary in May. Their support was split between Rick Mullaney and Audrey Moran, although the bulk went to the latter. That was a strategic mistake that allowed Brown to squeek by Moran for second place. Even Brown's supporters were surprised that his mobilization of the black vote gained the prize of a run-off against Hogan.

So, what did the majority of Jacksonville's Republican (in name only) plantation owners do? They decided to back Democrat Alvin Brown. Led by Pete Rummell, a former St. Joe Paper executive, the group of thirty or so business leaders poured money into Brown's campaign coffers. They did so because Brown, unlike Hogan, promised to watch out for their interests, especially the development of downtown Jacksonville.

For decades now, this group has promoted downtown over the interests of other neighborhoods and needs in the city. Thanks to them, we have the mostly riderless Skyway Express, the shopperless Jacksonville Landing, the businessless LaVilla section, the workerless office buildings, the dinerless restaurants, the walkerless sidewalks, the readerless Main Library, the conventioneerless Prime Osborn Convention Center, the winless Jacksonville Jaguars and the residentless condo high-rises in downtown Jacksonville.

A few weeks ago, I had an appointment at a doctor's office in LaVilla. Riding through downtown, even I was shocked at how dead downtown was at 10 a.m. Almost the only people I saw were the homeless. Yet, we have the monuments to this gang of thirty's skewed priorities of the Baseball Grounds and Everbank Field that sit vacant most days and the money pit of the new County Courthouse under construction.

Those of us who think other areas and other priorities -- like jobs, the port, transportation, taxes and small businesses -- deserve City Hall's attention saw hope for change in Hogan. He promised to give downtown no more (and no less) attention than other neighborhoods around the city. In other words, he was willing to buck the plantation's owners.

Unfortunately, the owners whipped Hogan. They showed him, Brown, and all the other politicians in Jacksonville that they better not dare to buck the plantation system. Brown is completely beholden to these plantation owners. When they tell him to do or not do something, he had better answer "Yes, massa" or "No, massa" if he wants to keep his new job.