The Arkansas Project

Fisher vs. Brummett: The Next Round

By David Kinkade - December 3, 2008 4:58 pm

John Brummett vs. Kristin Fisher: It's on.

As I noted in a post last night, KATV’s “Choose Your News” whiz kid Kristin Fisher and Arkansas News Bureau veteran John Brummett had agreed to a friendly debate on new media and its role in news-gathering and reporting. It’s to be hosted by the good folks at the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, who continue to be nice to me despite my complete lack of journalistic ability, professionalism and sociability.

Just got word of the official time and place for The Big Event: It’s Tuesday, December 9, at the Arkansas Press Association Building in Little Rock (411 S. Victory St).

I’ll note that Ted Dancin’ at the Fayetteville Flyer weighs in on the dispute today, worth reading in its entirety, but here’s a taste:

KATV’s ‘experiment’ isn’t all that innovative in terms of being the first up to bat, but it gets serious props from us here at the Flyer for at least doing something to try and engage its audience and bring some relevance back to local news. It might not be the perfect way to engage a community around a new business model but it certainly doesn’t deserve to be blasted.

And seriously, I now hope to give this issue a rest for a few days.

Stuff From Around Arkansas

By David Kinkade - December 3, 2008 12:57 pm

Hey look, it’s a bunch of random stuff:

Rowr

The Lil Spark Plug That Could: Gov. Mike Beebe will name Northwest Arkansas banker and man about town Dick Trammel as the next highway commissioner, the Morning News of Northwest Arkansas’ Doug Thompson reports. Noted: Thompson’s story has two separate people referring to Trammel as a “spark plug.” “Spark plug”? What the hell is that? Is it supposed to be a compliment? Beats me.

Camera Shy: Rep. Donna Hutchinson of Bella Vista will intro a bill to toughen penalties against video voyeurs who secretly tape or photograph people and post the images online, reports the AP’s Andrew Demillo. I suggest we call it “Tina Sherman’s Law.”

Victoria’s Secrecy: If you wanted to watch CBS’s annual Victoria’s Secret lingerie show, you’re out of luck in much of Arkansas, because KTHV won’t broadcast it, the Arkansas Times reports. Memo to Max Brantley: These trashy sexy stories are supposed to be my territory, so back off. Get back to writing about the Little Rock School Board, pal.

P.S. In an earlier version of this post, I tried to include both a photo of Dick “Spark Plug” Trammel and that shot of Victoria’s Secret model Allesandra Ambrosio, but I couldn’t get them to fit together on the page, so I just went with the one photo. I sure hope I made the right choice.

It’s On: Brummett, Fisher to Debate New Media

By David Kinkade - December 2, 2008 7:32 pm

David Kinkade and Kristin Fisher on the KATV Daily Debrief (photo courtesy of The Tolbert Report)

Just finished the Daily Debrief with KATV’s Kristin Fisher, and I was, of course, just awesome, thanks for asking.

But I come back with a little nugget that may be of interest to those of you following the dispute between Fisher and newspaperman John Brummett as to the relative merits of new media in the news-gathering and reporting process: The local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has confirmed the two combatants for a friendly debate on the issue at their next meeting (time and location to come).

Incidentally, the dispute got a little national attention today with a link from the Romenesko media blog, a top source for media watchers.

(Thanks as ever to Jason Tolbert of The Tolbert Report, who grabbed the little screen capture shot of me and Fisher you see above).

Arkansas Project on KATV Daily Debrief

By David Kinkade - December 2, 2008 8:51 am

I’ll be tonight’s guest (Tuesday, Dec. 2) on Kristin Fisher’s Daily Debrief webcast, part of KATV’s “Choose Your News” package. We kick off at 6:15 p.m.  and go to 6:40 p.m. with lots of talk about Arkansas media, blogging and more. I might even field a few e-mailed questions from all you unwashed masses out there. Seriously, when are you gonna wash?

To watch, go to the “Choose Your News” page here, if you’re a fan of watching people on tiny little screens having conversations.

Don’t miss it, because they don’t archive the videos, so once it’s over, it’s over—a fact that will be terribly frustrating to future historians of The Arkansas Project.

Brummett to New Media: ‘Drop Dead’ (Updated!)

By David Kinkade - December 1, 2008 9:08 am

Eight days ago, KATV’s Kristin Fisher invited columnist John Brummett to come on her Choose Your News Daily Debrief webcast to talk about news-gathering in the age of new media—and Arkansas media watchers are held hostage as they anxiously await his answer!

Oh, wait—never mind. We have his answer, which is that he has no intention of accepting. In a Sunday column, Brummett writes that Fisher and the rest of the new media gang—all you bloggers, Twitterers, Facebookers and other assorted riffraff out there—can go hang as far as he’s concerned.

Brummett’s mighty skeptical of all this flashy technology and user-generated content, which is fair enough. People have a tendency to get a little hyped up over these amazing technological tools, so his questioning as to whether all this technology is in and of itelf a good thing is well-taken. In fact, it’s an inherently conservative gesture on Brummett’s part, though I don’t think he’d like being called that.

What’s difficult to understand is Brummett’s cranky dismissal of all these new turns. Sure, the “Choose Your News” segment that Fisher hosts on KATV may be kind of gimmicky, but a great many worthwhile innovations start out as gimmicks. And in difficult times for traditional media properties, KATV should certainly be credited for trying something new to engage viewers.

And of course, don’t tell Brummett, but this train has already left the station. For example, within minutes of reading Brummett’s column, I caught this through Google Reader: Business Week magazine runs a regular “What’s Your Story Idea?” blog feature that focuses on collecting ideas from readers on business stories they’d like to see covered.

Brummett himself has dipped a toe into the new media world in the past, experimenting with blogging back during the 2007 legislative session, and he says he’s getting ready to start up again when the Arkansas News Bureau launches its new website soon.

So why the reactionary dismissiveness against other media practitioners who, like him, are simply trying out new innovations in an effort to find the way forward in this new media terrain? It’s puzzling.

Update: Max Brantley at the Arkansas Times blog, who is incidentally an object lesson of one old newspaper dog who’s willing to learn new media tricks, offers a thoughtful response to Brummett’s grumpy outburst.

Update to the Update: Kristin Fisher responds to Brummett with a post at her blog. It’s much more impressive than my response, as she includes actual statistics, which means that she has now officially blinded me with science.

Another Update: Blake Rutherford at the Think Tank weighs in with some additional context on how the BBC is embracing viewer input to improve news coverage.

Kane Webb’s Big Box o’ Books

By David Kinkade - November 30, 2008 5:29 pm

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Kane Webb published his annual “Best Books of 2008″ compendium today in what has become an annual tradition. Webb solicits submissions from various luminaries around Arkansas as to what they enjoyed reading in 2008 and why.

If you wanted to read it online, you could go here, but you have to be a subscriber to get past the firewall, because the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette hates you and doesn’t want you reading their content.

Or you can go here and read it in the Northwest edition, where much of the content is free online, but then they didn’t bother to post the entire article, cutting it off about halfway through, because the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette hates you and doesn’t want you reading their content. You probably won’t be able to make heads or tails of it anyway, because the formatting and paragraph breaks are all over the place, since they don’t bother formatting the text for an online environment, rendering it virtually unreadable. Do you know why they do it that way? Because the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette hates you and doesn’t want you reading their content.

Or, if you’re only interested in what I submitted, then I’ll just publish it for you here, because I generally like you and appreciate that you bother reading my content:

What I’d Say to the Martians and Other Veiled Threats, by Jack Handey.

If you were sentient in the 1990s, you probably remember Jack Handey’s “Deep Thoughts” on Saturday Night Live, back when that show was still funny, in which Handey would offer surreal and absurd bits of comic philosophizing. What I’d Say to the Martians collects some of Handey’s finest humor writing, including numerous essays, sketches and, yes, some of his favorite “Deep Thoughts.” There’s something to make you laugh out loud on every page.—David Kinkade, TheArkansasProject.com.

Also recommends: Flash for Freedom, by George MacDonald Fraser; Spy: The Funny Years, by Kurt Andersen, Graydon Carter, and George Kalogerakis; The Road, by Cormac McCarthy; Liar’s Poker, by Michael Lewis.

By the way, I’m adding all these books to that little Amazon widget over in the sidebar, and if you should happen to click through and buy them that way, The Arkansas Project will get like, I don’t know, maybe a nickel.

Over at the Think Tank blog, lonely misfit Blake Rutherford has also listed his best reads of 2008, and he and I apparently agree about the merits of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.”

Suspect Nabbed in Pressly Murder

By David Kinkade - November 27, 2008 7:08 am

Curtis Lavelle Vance, 28, of Marianna, Ark., was arrested last night for the murder of Ann Pressly, the Little Rock television news reporter/anchor who was found beaten in her home last month and who died several days later. More from FOX 16:

More from the AP’s Tom Parsons and from Max Brantley at the Arkansas Times.

New Media Whippersnapper vs. Curmudgeonly Print Guy!

By David Kinkade - November 24, 2008 8:25 am

John Brummett vs. Kristin Fisher: Media Battle Royale

Last week, Arkansas News Bureau columnist John Brummett opined that all this gee-whiz technology the kids are using these days is overrated: “Why, back in my day,” quoth the curmudgeonly newspaperman, “we hammered out six stories a day on a rusty old Underwood typewriter, and we liked it that way, by cracky. Now get me rewrite!”

Well, maybe that’s not exactly what he wrote, but it was something like that.

Anyway, Brummett was offering up a skeptical perspective on the work of a Little Rock KATV reporter who’s pursuing a new media experiment in news-gathering by soliciting suggestions and feedback from viewers. She calls it “Choose Your News,” and it allows viewers to weigh in on the development of a story at each step of the way, from conception to broadcast.

Said reporter is Kristin Fisher, and she takes exception to Brummett’s dismissal of her work. She’s offering Brummett a friendly invitation to come on the air and talk with her about media and technology. And since she’s a feisty newcomer, she proffers the open invitation via her blog:

This kind of “new media” debate is exactly what Choose Your News is all about. That’s why I would like to formally invite Mr. Brummett to be a special guest on the Daily Debrief. I would love to learn from his many years as a “trained news hound.” And maybe, in return, I could teach him a thing or two about that crazy thing called Twitter.

Will Brummett accept? Will this meeting of the minds result in a generational breakthrough of understanding? Will we ever, ever get to see the REAL Tina Sherman nude cell phone photos? All this and more on this week’s… “Arkansas Project”!

Update: More on this epic showdown from the Think Thank’s Blake Rutherford, whose inattention to the “Tina Sherman nude cell phone photos” story has been nothing short of scandalous.

Arkansas News Bureau Revamping Website

By David Kinkade - November 20, 2008 7:32 am

Columnist John Brummett

Arkansas News Bureau columnist John Brummett unleashes a grouchy jeremiad against these dang kids and all their goldarn technology today, but the old codger sneaks in a little newsy teaser for you Arkansas media watchers out there.

Brummett writes that the arkansasnews.com website will soon be undergoing an overhaul, “shiny and new with bells and whistles,” and that he’ll be back to blogging. (Some may recall that Brummett dipped a toe into the blogging waters during the 2007 legislative session, but soon backed away, unfortunately.)

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. I’ve long thought that the Arkansas News Bureau would benefit from a stronger web presence (the current site seems frozen around 1999 in terms of design and functionality). With the many Stephens properties in Arkansas, it makes sense to create an aggregated site that pulls the content together.

But if the new site has all these “bells and whistles” and blogging tools—which have a way of being time and labor intensive—will the bureau have enough personnel to use them effectively? Especially given the cutbacks in personnel they’ve undergone recently?

Consider the Politics in Arkansas blog that the bureau launched a few months back. This blog started off looking like a promising venture, with first-hand reports from reporter Aaron Sadler from the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Since then it’s been little more than a parking place for early drafts of tomorrow’s news stories. Will the new website be better executed?

We’ll be watching to see how this shapes up.

Update: Max Brantley over at the Arkansas Times blog offers up a glimpse at how his paper has gradually embraced web strategies and new media tools.

‘Two Cheers for the Arkansas GOP’

By David Kinkade - November 18, 2008 7:13 am

That’s the title of my latest piece up over at CapSearch.com, the new (and growing) site for Arkansas legislative tracking and government research. My column’s a look at some of the good news that came out of Election ‘08 for Arkansas Republicans, which I wrote to prove that I can say something nice every so often when I want to. And you didn’t believe it!

Of course, the focus now is shifting to 2010, and we’ve already started looking ahead here at The Arkansas Project. If you missed it, look back to yesterday’s post on the 2010 Senate race between Senator Blanche Lincoln and a fantasy Republican who has not yet revealed him or herself, and may or may not exist. Commenters Br549, Bill from Sheridan and others argue out the possibilities.

Incidentally, Matt Price and Katie Bodenhammer over at CapSearch also are running a blog at the site with a focus on state legislative doings. That’s my way of telling you that I’m not going to be recounting every organizational step in the House and Senate that takes place over the next few weeks, so I’ll refer you to them if you need to follow every step of the process.

Also, Steve Harrelson at the Under the Dome blog offers a good source for information on how things are shaping up heading into the 2009 legislative session. And I may weigh in on these matters from time to time, when the mood strikes.

Blogging may be a bit sporadic the next day or so as I focus on some other duties. We’ll see.

‘City Wire’ is New Fort Smith News Site

By David Kinkade - November 10, 2008 11:14 am

This just popped up in my inbox and looks interesting: The City Wire is a bloggish site dedicated to coverage of local news in Fort Smith, a co-production of Michael Tilley and Tom Kirkham. (Tilley’s a longtime business reporter up in Fort Smith and Kirkham’s a web guru.) As they tell it:

It is their goal to establish The City Wire as a reliable, informative and entertaining source of news and other happenings in the Fort Smith region. Each Monday and Friday, The City Wire will e-mail a newsletter providing more than 2,000 people in the Fort Smith region a preview of what the week might hold and a review of key local, state, national and global events of the week that ended.

Tilley explains it all in much more detail here. It appears he was a victim of the recent Stephens Media cutbacks up in Fort Smith, and ‘The City Wire’ is his new reportorial home. Check it out.

What I’ve Learned from Max Brantley

By Dan Greenberg - November 10, 2008 10:29 am

Max Brantley at the Arkansas Times is once again grumbling about my work on ethics reform, which reminds me of the last time I met with him about it. In early 2006, I asked Max out for lunch to discuss what I thought was common ground on good-government issues.

Lunch was unusual, because he started to lobby me quite aggressively. He was critical of the common practice of lobbyists giving legislators various undisclosed gifts, such as free food and drink, and he told me that lawmakers should either require full disclosure of or mandate a ban on gifts. I thought, and think today, that these are both good ideas and told him I’d vote in favor of either one.

I was struck by what happened next. “That’s not good enough,” he said, more than a little angrily. “Everybody always says that. Nobody ever actually introduces anything. You need to sponsor one of them.”

Legislators, Max said, always can rhetorically commit to ethics reform, at no cost, secure in the knowledge that no one would ever actually introduce an ethics proposal. Max then started peppering me with questions about what I was prepared to sponsor, not just to support.

This was a pretty good argument, and at some point near the end of the lunch, I told Max that I would sponsor a disclosure requirement. At that time I was preparing to teach a class on how Congress works, and I was so struck by what Max said that after lunch I went home and wrote down his words in the margins of a book I frequently refer to—David Mayhew’s terrific Congress: The Electoral Connection—given that Max’s quote so perfectly illustrated a problem that Mayhew discusses more elliptically.

In late 2007, Rep. Steve Harrelson and I introduced a measure that would require full gift disclosure by every legislator in the House. I will always be grateful to the four other legislators who notified us immediately that they wanted to cosponsor it. Because Speaker Benny Petrus’s gift ban bill had received 89 of 100 votes in the House earlier that year (although it failed in the Senate), we assumed that there was sentiment for binding ethics reform. In retrospect, we were quite naïve. (more…)

Another Arkansan Takes to the Blogosphere

By David Kinkade - November 10, 2008 7:20 am

K. Ryan James, a Little Rock native and former spokesman for GOP Rep. John Boozman in Arkansas’ Third District, has now joined the elite team of blogging Arkansans. James lives and works in the D.C. area, so the blog covers mostly national issues (rather than Arkansas issues). It comes from a feisty Republican perspective, and it’s worth a look.

If memory serves, he’s the son of Ken James, who heads the Arkansas Department of Education.

Rumor Mongering: Morning News Resists Layoffs?

By David Kinkade - November 7, 2008 6:58 am

Well, the title has a question mark at the end, which can only mean it’s time for more Arkansas Project rumor mongering! Nothing goes better on a Friday than the mongering of a few rumors, I’ve found. Let’s get to it:

A tipster sends along word that the ax that swung through Stephens Media newsrooms last week, reported here on The Arkansas Project, has yet to draw much blood at the Morning News of Northwest Arkansas. But it’s not for want of trying on the part of Stephens bosses….

Our correspondent indicates that Morning News management was instructed to lay off about 20 people, including cuts to the news staff, but that thus far they’ve only cut 3 and are resisting further bloodshed.

Tipster indicates that word is getting around through the Stephens network and that it’s depressing morale among employees further:

“Nobody can understand how the Morning News can ignore orders from Las Vegas and get away with it. This is especially true since the Morning News is one of the least profitable papers in the chain.”

If true, it’s hard to see how they could “ignore orders” from higher-ups. Perhaps they’re dragging their feet?

What the Hell is KFSM Talking About?

By David Kinkade - November 6, 2008 2:28 pm

A loyal Arkansas Project reader sends along a note about Northwest Arkansas TV station KFSM’s report yesterday on Barack Obama’s remarkable and historic win in Washington County.

They interviewed a bunch of Fayetteville residents who were surprised by the Democratic ticket’s victory in the county. Also surprised was John McCain, who carried the county with 55 percent of the vote, according to the Arkansas Secretary of State’s office. By most conventional measures, that counts as a win.

A chastened KFSM apparently pulled the story off the web, but not before your enterprising blogger could grab a screenshot:

Political Notes from the Arkansas Blogosphere

By David Kinkade - November 3, 2008 6:51 pm

One of our periodic check-ins with our friends and colleagues in the Arkansas blogosphere:

At the Think Tank, Blake Rutherford has an end of the day political round-up that brings together all kinds of dandy Election Day scraps for all you political obsessive-compulsives out there. Includes a guide to who’s hosting watch parties where on Tuesday night in Little Rock.

Max Brantley at the Arkansas Times blog notes that a Time magazine political watcher tagged Arkansan Clint Reed, former state GOP director and now a Republican National Committee campaign honcho, as one of the “Five Most Important People in American Politics Not Running for President.” Ha! Suck it, U.S. Senators!

The Tolbert Report is tracking Gov. Mike Huckabee’s campaigning in Florida, with some good video.

In the Griffin Room, Tim Griffin writes that former Sen. Fred Thompson’s name is being bandied about to serve as the next RNC chair. He’s no doubt being cheered on by the same delusional lunatics who thought that Thompson would make a fine presidential nominee, a ridiculous fantasy that faded quickly in 2007. Yeah, that worked out great. Can’t wait to see what he has in store for the RNC.

The Youth Vote: Big in'08?

Finally, Lance Turner of Arkansas Business ponders the question, “Will the youth vote matter?” Oh, great, this again. We’re always having to talk about “the youth vote,” and it drives me nuts. Because there’s nothing stupider than a young person, and the younger they are, the stupider they are. I mean, like, babies and little kids. Have you ever talked to a baby or a little kid? They’re totally stupid. I can’t even carry on a conversation with one, so they’re boring, too. And they frequently don’t smell very good.

I’m going to go ahead and say, “no, the youth vote will not matter in Election ‘08,” and we’ll see if the numbers bear me out. But regardless of what happens tomorrow, believe you me, we’ll have to have the same damn discussion about the youth vote in 2012, because every four years is the election when the damn youth vote is really, really, really going to break out, and we really mean it this time. Don’t get me started on the damn youth vote.

More on Stephens Media Cuts in Arkansas

By David Kinkade - November 3, 2008 2:02 pm

Last week, The Arkansas Project noted impending cutbacks at Stephens Media papers that were having a big effect on newsrooms in Arkansas. On Friday, blog commenter “In the Know” weighed in with a look at the cuts and their impact on Stephens employees in Arkansas. It seems pretty authoritative, so I’m promoting it to its own post:

The reduction in force is being felt companywide.

Between 50 and 100 people were asked to accept buyouts in Las Vegas. The buyouts in Washington - where Aaron Sadler and a Nevada beat reporter were let go - were mandatory, as were those at news bureaus in Little Rock, Honolulu and Carson City, Nevada.

By comparison, the Little Rock office fared the best among the bureaus. It lost one of several reporters. Carson City went from two to one and Honolulu’s one reporter is gone.

The only Washington reporter will now be expected to cover federal news for 11 daily newspapers in eight states.

It was 14 people cut at Fort Smith (no reporters), not the 16 as originally posted, as if it matters. Some folks that have been at that paper for a long time are now looking for new work. The other papers in Arkansas will also have casualties.

Meanwhile, the Argenta News blog has a look at how Stephens cutbacks have affected the North Little Rock Times, and forecasts dark times ahead for the weekly paper:  “The product has suffered and the Times is losing their way as a local paper,” Scott Miller writes.

Any other news or observations to share on the Stephens cutbacks, layoffs, etc., leave ‘em in the comments section.

Update: A bit more on the cuts from Arkansas Business.

Arkansas Project Contributors in the News

By David Kinkade - November 2, 2008 12:49 pm

Posting on the blog has been a little slow the last few days, as I had to travel out of state to visit Arkansas Project Mother (APM), who was having gall bladder surgery last week. I think she was having it taken out. Or maybe she was having an extra one put in. I wasn’t real clear on that. Anyway, she’s fine.

Growing Up Kinkade: The Ancestral Manse

I couldn’t do any blogging from the Kinkade ancestral manse, as they only have, get this, DIAL-UP INTERNET. I know, I didn’t know that was still around either. I may as well have been in the middle of Amish country, where the Internet is powered by some sort of modified butter churn hooked up to some wheels and pulleys. It’s antiquated, you see. That’s the point I’m trying to make with this now painfully extended riff on old-timey technology. Next up: More gags from the olden days before the polio vaccine was discovered!

Anyway, I’ll be catching up on a few things I’d wanted to post about, and thought I’d point up a few notes about The Arkansas Project team:

Dan Greenberg and Freeman Hunt

Rep. Dan Greenberg gets a mention in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette today for his opposition to the ballot proposal to enable annual legislative sessions. For more from last week on why Dan believes this is a bad idea, go here.

Meanwhile, occasional Arkansas Project Contributor Freeman Hunt, who’s expecting her second child, noted today on her other blog that it’s going to be another boy, so you can go ahead and expect one more right-wing voter on the Northwest Arkansas rolls around the year 2027 or so. Congrats to the Hunt family.

And I noted this earlier today, but I don’t want to be left out of this round-up, so I refer you to Kane Webb’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette column from today in which I, and this blog, make a cheerful guest appearance.

Even the Losers…

By David Kinkade - November 2, 2008 9:23 am

…get lucky sometimes, and get to have their moments of humiliation enshrined for the ages. That’s the case today in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Kane Webb’s Sunday piece looking at a couple of his favorite anecdotes from the losing side in elections past.

Specifically, Webb looks at the shining moments for two fellows employed by Arkansas Republican gubernatorial campaigns, 16 years apart: me, when I served as spokesman for Asa’s Hutchinson’s 2006 run, and Rex Nelson, who was communications director for Tommy Robinson’s 1990 unsuccessful primary run against Sheffield Nelson. On our respective election nights, both Rex and I were dispatched to serve as the smiling faces of optimism—on television—as the world collapsed around us.

Short version: We got to look like jackasses, for the entertainment of tens of thousands of viewers. But read Webb’s piece for the full effect. Ah, precious memories.

Update: Stephens Media Layoffs Hit Arkansas

By David Kinkade - October 31, 2008 2:16 pm

We reported last night that the Stephens Media Washington D.C. bureau was bracing for cutbacks, as two of the bureau’s three reporters were being laid off. The news today is equally grim for some Stephens workers in Arkansas:

Arkansas Project commenter “Ink-Stained” reports that the layoffs hit Fort Smith (Stephens owns the Southwest Times Record newspaper there) today, with at least five employees being let go, maybe more. (Update: A commenter adds that the Fort Smith hit totals 16 individuals.)

Over at the Arkansas Times blog, Max Brantley reports that the cuts are hitting the Little Rock Capitol Bureau as well.

If you’ve got more information, feel free to leave it in the comments section. All comment submissions can be anonymous, if you so choose.