As is customary at McDonald’s, Marriott or Macy’s, the customer is always right no matter how angry he gets. And so it is at CQ Roll Call. Enter Paul Martino, an international trade specialist for the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, whose beef is that he wants his papers delivered on time or not at all.

Here’s the exchange between Paul and LaWanda Council regarding Roll Call deliveries. This happened back in late March. Hopefully, for LaWanda’s sake, the issue has been resolved.

Paul: “Hi LaWanda- thanks we are already receiving the .pdf. Please stop delivery of the newspaper if you cannot guarantee timely (within 2 days).”

LaWanda: “I am sorry that your CQ Roll Call papers are not arriving to you on time. May I offer to set you up to get the pdf that will come directly to you each night? Please confirm and we can get this going for you.”

Paul: “This is ridiculous. STOP SENDING US NEWSPAPERS> [sic] Today we received 12 Newspapers dated May 8, May 9 and May 10, from last Wednesday Thursday, Friday. Again I ask you who would have any interest in receiving newspapers a week old and three days all at once. This is nuisance. I have sent you half a dozen emails on this matter over the past few months and your organization has done nothing to remedy the issue. You are wasting tons of money and I wonder why you haven’t stopped it or figured out how to ensure timely delivery. I would think this would be a priority. Again stop sending us week old newspapers.”

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This just in…

As part of the transition from print to digital, CQ Roll Call has announced that it’s offering a “small handful” of employees in editorial voluntary buy-out packages. In order to achieve their goals, they have to make reductions to the print product, hence the buyout option. There are 180 employees in the department. The number of buyouts needed depends on who takes it — obviously a person earning more will cancel out having to eliminate other positions. The goal is to complete the process within two weeks, but there is no set deadline date.

UPDATE: The newsroom is clearly on edge and yet eerily pleased this is being spun as good for the company. The general sentiment: “No matter what anyone does, they can get cut at any turn.” (Paraphrasing): As is the case with many pubs, this one gets made with fewer and fewer people. The folks in London want to starve newsroom resources and keep more for themselves. Management doesn’t take responsibility for its own decisions. Many reporters are looking to business side employees who have left to secure them jobs elsewhere.

See the memo. Read more

Danielle Vogel, wife of Politico’s Ken Vogel gets a big writeup in Wednesday’s WaPo Food section. She’s opening “Glen’s Garden Market” just north of Dupont Circle. According to the profile, by WaPo’s Tim Carman, every “1,100-plus items on the shelves will come from regional producers, each personally selected by Vogel.” Sounds like a grueling process, but compared to working for Jim VandeHei, it should be a cakewalk.

Sure, everyone likes “local” and “farm to table” these days, but Vogel takes this work very seriously. Carman tells the story of her tenacity over a peanut order:

“When a Virginia peanut producer told her the company was going to shift its warehouse operations to New Jersey, Vogel was ready to cancel her orders. She couldn’t stomach the thought of all that fossil fuel burned to truck Virginia peanuts to New Jersey, only to have the goods shipped right back to the District. Her stance led to a surprising result: The company agreed to package and send Vogel her orders straight from Virginia.”

It is particularly interesting that WaPo published such a high profile piece on the spouse of a Politico reporter considering the bad blood that has existed between the organizations. Have the wounds healed? Are we seeing a blossoming friendship? (Probably not. Still, good of WaPo to be above competitive squabbling and print a worthy story.)

First, a nod to The Boston Globe

Washington Post

The Washington Times

WaPo Express

Washington Examiner

The Baltimore Sun

Photo credit: front pages c/o the Newseum.

Hot off the presses from Akron, Ohio…

A reader writes in that he was initially confused this morning while reading his hometown newspaper, the Akron Beacon Journal. In it is a regional roundup of briefs. This being the Akron Beacon Journal, where sunflower displays are as likely to be found in the news section as budget cuts, he was surprised to see the headline “Fudge commended” in a section typically devoted to crime. Just below “Fudge commended” is “Relative arrested” about a woman accused of stealing jewels from a relative. Below that: “Three men robbed” and “Man stabbed.” The brief was not crime related. Rather, it was about how the Akron City Council commended Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) this week for opening up an Akron office.

“I burst out laughing,” the reader wrote. “When I scanned the section where crimes are usually posted, and the first thing is ‘Fudge commended’ I figured they were talking about like a fudge award. Or a good fudge. They put her basically in the criminal section.”

We wrote Fudge’s spokeswoman Belinda Prinz for comment on how prevalent fudge jokes are as in pertains to constituents and press. We’ll report back should Prinz have a response. UPDATE: Prinz got back to us about 30 minutes ago (I’ve been conducting an interview or this would’ve posted sooner.) Her response: “The topic of her name does not come up often, by either the media or constituents.  When it does, it’s generally been in good humor. Congresswoman Fudge is a good sport and she appreciates tasteful humor as much as anyone.”

Sitting in the media center on the final day of the Conservative Political Action Conference was the relatively discreet Paul Mulshine of the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

Conservative comedian Steven Crowder had just taken the stage to introduce the next speaker. “Are you ready?!” Crowder yelled into the microphone three times as a way to warm up the crowd. That’s when Mulshine turned around in his seat and said, “I hate that. I’ve been to a lot of CPACs. That is the worst fucking thing when they do that.”

Mulshine isn’t keen on crowd warming or the people who do it. “I want to strangle them,” he continued. “I’ve been to 10 of these things. Certain lines you hear over and over. And that is the fucking worst.”

Asked about himself, Mulshine told us… Read more

(A Sprinkling of Things we Think you Ought to Know…)

CPAC’s Saddest Panel – Now that CPAC is over, Twitter will be a LOT less interesting. I think we’ll kinda miss all the pictures of weirdos wearing “Zombie Obama” face-paint, sad Presidential mascots and Newt Gingrich. One of the sadder events that was featured at CPAC was an event called, ““Stop THIS: Threats, Harassment, Intimidation, Slander & Bullying from the Obama Administration.” Catchy, right?

On the panel was Breitbart’s Ben Shapiro, who has been getting a lot of attention lately. Unfortunately for him, all that attention doesn’t translate into attendance at CPAC. Little Green Footballs snapped this shot of the panel, which looks emptier than minibar in a CPAC hotel room.

WaPo‘s Weingarten thinks he can play baseball and Tapper’s debut…

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TWT CEO Larry Beasley (a.k.a. “Evil Santa”) and the gang of suits over off New York Avenue are contemplating another deep round of layoffs at the troubled newspaper. Sources say the next axe to fall may not be far off.

The reason: A TWT insider tells FishbowlDC that the publication is bleeding money. More specifically, management was told they had three years to get to zero subsidy from the parent company. Only six months are left on that timetable and TWT is still tens of millions away from breaking even. We’re told management is “cornered and desperate” and doesn’t have many cards to play.

Over the weekend, WaPo‘s ombudsman Patrick Pexton signed off for the last time. Pexton completed his two-year position. And now his position has died. As has widely been reported, WaPo‘s days of having an ombudsman are over.

In the writeup, Pexton compliments the paper, the reporters, the copy editors and management profusely. He insists people should have compassion for those tasked with making tough calls where layoffs are concerned. But one line that jumped out at us as odd in Pexton’s farewell was the following, perhaps unintentional, kick in the pants that he sandwiched in right after thanking Post Co. chief executive Donald Graham and Publisher Katharine Weymouth for never interfering with what he wrote.

“And readers, you should know that, although the future Post may not look like the present Post, the commitment of Graham and Weymouth to the survival of this publication is ironclad.”

Whoa! Survival? Read more