• by John Gaffney , November 26, 2002

Pop Culture Riff Of The Week: A song called "M-U-S-L-I-M" and is sung by Native Deen, a Washington-based group which fuses its African-American culture and Muslim faith to create a hip-hop sound with a unique message. “So always be proud, you can say it out loud/I am proud to be down with the Muslim crowd!/M-U-S-L-I-M /I'm so blessed to be with them..." The two-year-old trio performs at Muslim weddings, celebrations, conferences and fund-raisers. You will not find them where there is dancing or alcohol is served. They will be performing in front of an expected audience of 1,000 in New York Dec. 7 and are preparing for their first five-city tour in Britain as part of the Nasheed Extravaganza from Dec. 13-17.

Riff To Think About All Weekend: LA Times sportswriter Mike Penner went off this week on sportwriters on TV. “Why aren't sports sections as good as they once were? Penner says the answer is on ESPN, where sportswriters shout at each other on "Around the Horn" and "Pardon the Interruption." He writes: "Sportswriters who appear on these shows are desperate for money and attention, always that combination, always in that order. Some get pushed in front of the camera by editors who believe that trading in the quality, credibility and reputation of their newspapers for a little cheap TV publicity is a good deal."

Reader Riff Of The Week:Forgot about this one last week. When I floated some ideas about keeping the newspaper ad revenue roll going, I got a lot of mail. Most of it was very well thought out. Jackie Brown, who spent 20 years in newspapers before becoming a Public Relations Associate PENTA Communications, had one of the best: “The burden for local dailies to carry significant national content has shifted as more people turn to the Internet for those stories. When they see the same stories in the paper tomorrow, it's already yesterday's news. Over the past decade as readership has dropped, and innumerable focus groups were brought in and fed donuts and bad coffee, a trend began to emerge: People wanted to read local news in their local newspaper. It was an epiphany for publishers…. Taking a cue from the more community-oriented weeklies who had been doing this all along, they began not only to expand local coverage, but to position themselves as "of the community and for the community" through high-visibility sponsorships, donations, newspaper-in-schools programs, even in some cases reinstating paper routes for local kids instead of employing adult carriers (great advertising and even better PR)……This has primarily been driven by the editorial side, and editorial continues to drive. The advertising side has been slower to catch on, mainly because yearlong contracts with big companies tend to be more lucrative than pounding the pavement and getting short commitments from local, downtown merchants. A more thoroughly-read newspaper prompts more calls from those local businesses, but until the guy with the pizza shop can get a call back from an ad rep to place a 2X3 ad, advertising will still be a step behind.