We’re on another countdown: just about two weeks ‘til Mardi Gras, and the purple, gold and green is everywhere!

The January 21 issue of Newsweek that featured a list of the 10 “dying” cities in the US, based on the decrease in population from 2000 to 2009 and a decrease in population under 18.

New Orleans topped the list as the number one “dying” city as our population dropped 26.8 percent, and the change in the under 18 population has decreased by 5.1 percentage points

Dying? Huh? I don’t think so.

Of course, everyone in New Orleans is outraged at this. I suppose the intern/lame reporter at Newsweek who put this schlock together conveniently forgot that we had the largest disaster in this country’s history that displaced an entire city’s population only five years ago. It’s a miracle and a testament to the resilience of the city, and its ability to recover that that the population of New Orleans has grown as much as it has since Katrina almost destroyed us.

IMHO, this is just another way in which the “news” media has to create content that will titillate the masses. I get enough of that crap with the outrageous wanking that I have to endure day-to-day from television broadcasts and the out-of-control web sites and blogs that now infest the Internet. I used to enjoy the Huffington Post (even though they allowed another ill-informed blogger to blast OffBeat last year—but that’s another story). Now it’s populated by a lot of non-news crap, including slideshows of starlets’ gowns: anything to increase traffic. And sho’nuf, it must’ve worked: Ariana Huffington sold out to AOL for megabucks. Well, good for her. It’s capitalism’s way.

But it shouldn’t be the way of journalism.

It’s becoming ever harder to be ethical and journalistic, as virtually every newspaper in the country will tell you. Advertising is so far down that local papers are falling, and slipping down a slippery slope of advertorial content just to get enough money to stay afloat—much less make a profit. News as content is slowly but surely becoming a tiny part of the massive amount of content that sucked into the great maw of the Internet.

Blogs, like this one, are entertaining. But they are almost always OPINIONS, not news. I do not, nor have I ever considered myself to be a journalist and I was not trained as one, but I do know and I highly respect the profession, its ethical values, its altruism and its search for exposing the truth. I’m a publisher and oversee the overall content of what we publish. When truth—championed by journalist ethics—is squashed or diluted by entertainment versus hard facts of news, we all lose as a free society. What is real and what should we really be concerned about? What’s entertaining and what’s bullshit? It’s getting harder and harder to tell.

Splashing stupid statistics across a national magazine is just another way of entertaining the public, and selling magazines (and advertising, ultimately). It’s just not good journalism. And it’s not real news.

Okay, I’ll climb down from that soapbox and jump up on another one:

Armstrong Park.

Why has nothing been done, or said, about completing the renovation of Armstrong Park? Our former mayor, C. Ray, in trying to create something (anything) positive for his legacy, hurried it up, hired some friends to start the renovations, and their incompetency has stalled the park. The city is apparently suing the contractors for shoddy work, and the park revival—so touted by the last administration—is now on hold indefinitely. I know the current administration has a lot on its plate, but please! The sign at the entrance to the park has half the light bulbs out. The statues (which have already been paid for) have still not been set up in the park. This park should be the centerpiece of development on North Rampart.

And another:

I’ve gotten quite a few positive calls regarding my ongoing campaign to create a music museum in New Orleans. I’ve spoken to city reps, tourism reps, and museum people. This is a no-brainer, people.  It’s a damned shame that New Orleans—the birthplace of jazz, the progenitor of rhythm and blues, the musical mecca for millions around the world—doesn’t have a place where locals and visitors can see why this city is important musically. We’re missing the boat if we don’t do this. What we need is a groundswell of support for this effort. Anyone…anyone???