Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/tag/billings-gazette/page/6/)
In his Sunday column in the Billings Gazette, editor Darrell Ehrlick dropped this nugget, just two days before the election: Prior to September’s debate in Billings between U.S. House candidates Ryan Zinke and John Lewis, Zinke said, “John plays the guitar. I waterboard.” (more…) Continue Reading →
I just about dropped what’s left of my teeth when I saw on Sunday that the Billings Gazette had endorsed John Lewis for the U.S. House over Ryan Zinke. Zinke seemed to be the natural pick in this race: tons of experience, some of it relevant; an unflappable public presence; a history of edging toward moderation. Even the Butte Weekly, a Democratic-leaning newspaper in a Democratic-leaning town, has endorsed Zinke, a Republican. (more…) Continue Reading →
October is domestic violence awareness month, but it already seems to have been domestic violence awareness year. There has been an outpouring of stories on the subject since football player Ray Rice’s brutal assault of his then-fiancee Janay Palmer early last month was captured on videotape. (more…) Continue Reading →
I am honored — not to mention tremendously thankful — to announce that Dan Berry has joined Last Best News as an ad salesman. Dan retired from the Billings Gazette last year after a career of more than 25 years there. He and his wife, Kay, moved to Billings in 1979 and Dan joined the Gazette as an ad salesman in 1985. (more…) Continue Reading →
We appear to be stumbling into another war in the Middle East. Pro football is buckling under the weight of its own violence. In Montana politics, the only issue appears to be whether Steve Daines wants to destroy the country overnight by gutting environmental laws or whether he is willing to wait a few decades for global warming to do the job. So let’s talk about grammar. (more…) Continue Reading →
When a business can’t wait to tell you what a great deal it is offering you, without quite explaining what the deal is, watch out. (more…) Continue Reading →
There’s an interesting story in today’s Billings Gazette, in which the organizer of the anti-marijuana ballot initiative concedes that the effort probably didn’t gather enough signatures to get on the ballot. But then I noticed one very odd thing: comments appear to have been disabled on this story. In other words, there’s no comment bar under the story. Was it an oversight, a mistake? Is this something the Gazette does on certain stories it fears will attract too many trolls? Continue Reading →
I hope the Billings Gazette is proud of itself. It has been more than a week since it published an editorial bashing President Obama, and it remains the “most read” story on the Gazette’s website. (more…) Continue Reading →
The Motley Fool is reporting today that Lee Enterprises, publisher of the Billings Gazette, as a member of the “specialist media,” “will be better positioned than their generalist peers to survive and even thrive in the new media landscape.” This could be good news for investors, the Motley Fool’s audience, but it remains to be seen whether readers of Lee Enterprise-owned newspapers and the people who work for them will see any benefits if Lee does outperform its “generalist peers.” So, how does Lee Enterprises qualify as a “specialist” media company anyway? Quoth the Fool: “Lee Enterprises is a publisher specializing in community newspapers that are focused on mid-sized to small markets. Community newspapers belong to a specialized category with unique characteristics.” Continue Reading →
As reported by the Billings Gazette this morning, the city has released a draft of the nondiscrimination ordinance that will be the subject of a City Council work session Monday night. Here’s the most surprising thing I noted in the draft: it prohibits discrimination not only on the basis of “sexual orientation, gender identity or expression,” but also on “Veteran’s status, political beliefs or obesity.” Leaving aside the question of why “veteran” is capitalized, I doubt anyone will object to including veteran status in the ordinance. Who doesn’t want to protect veterans from discrimination? But what about obesity? Continue Reading →
