For the next two months, Baltimore magazine will be participating in a democratic media experiment designed to help people find and promote good local journalism.

NewsTrust, a national non-profit that helps people share and promote good journalism from various news sources, has just today launched NewsTrust Baltimore, it's first ever local site. At the site, users can post stories about Baltimore they want to share with others, and also read, rate, and comment on stories that others have posted. The best stories will be promoted to the top of the home page. Several local news organizations, including Baltimore magazine, The Baltimore Sun, and WYPR have agreed to partner with Newstrust to promote the experiment. In addition, several local high schools and colleges will be using the site as a teaching tool to learn about journalism.

We're really excited to excited to be involved in this project, which is supported by a grant from the Baltimore-based Open Society Institute. Sign up at the site (it's free), start exploring, and stay tuned for more information.

Anyone who cares about The Baltimore Sun must read the shocking story on the front page of today's New York Times, "At Sam Zell's Tribune, Tales of a Bankrupt Culture".

In it, superb Times media reporter David Carr uses more than 20 sources, many inside the Tribune Company, to detail the sexist, incompetent, and callous leadership of the media conglomerate, which owns The Sun, as well as The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Orlando Sentinel, and The Hartford Courant.

The story, which lists The Sun as one of "the most important newspapers in the country," opens with a jaw-dropping story about Randy Michaels, the former shock jock and radio executive with no newspaper experience that Sam Zell appointed CEO of Tribune Company soon after he bought it in 2007. It describes how Michaels, at a lunch meeting with other top executives at Tribune  offered a waitress $100 to show him her breasts. Unfortunately, this is only one of a series of stories detailing how Zell, Michaels, and the cronies they brought in from their years in the radio business brought a boorish and despicable attitude to the storied Tribune Company and its properties.

Beyond its tawdry behavior, the leadership displayed complete ignorance of the newspaper industry, using various ostensible redesigns and innovations at its properties as covers for cost-cutting:

James Warren, the former managing editor and Washington bureau chief of The Chicago Tribune, said: “They wheeled around here doing what they wished, showing a clear contempt for most everyone that was here and used power just because they had it. They used the notion of reinventing the newspapers simply as a cover for cost-cutting.

Those sentiments echo those we reported in our 2009 cover story about The Sun, in which one laid-off staffer referred to "the wacko guys in Chicago," who had tons of terrible ideas to save money, but "none of them are journalism-based."

Worse, even as the company shed 4,200 jobs as cost-cutting measures, the top executives who were ruinng the company took home millions in performance-based bonuses:

Despite the company’s problems, the managers have been rewarded handsomely. From May 2009 to February 2010, a total of $57.3 million in bonuses were paid to the current management with the approval of the judge overseeing the bankruptcy. In 2009, the top 10 managers received $5.9 million at a time when cash flow was plummeting.

The whole story, even at about 4,000 words, is worth reading. The hard-working people putting out the paper under these conditions deserve better. Baltimore deserves better.

City Paper yesterday lost a defamation suit brought by a Miami restauranter who CP's Van Smith incorrectly identified in a 2008 story as a federal fugitive (Press Check detailed the case earlier this week). The alternative weekly has been ordered to pay defendant Ionnas Kafouros $350,000 for defamation and actiing with negligence. They did not find that Smith or CP acted with malice, and so the defendent is not entitled to punitive damages.

Press Check got in touch with City Paper publisher Don Farley this afternoon and asked if the the $350,000 judgement would affect the alt-weekly's survival or ability to continure publishing, he said, flatly, "No."

"The outcome was certainly disappointing," said Farley. "When you're dealing with a jury and what a jury believes, as far as money, that's where we ended up."

Farley added that he and City Paper's lawyers haven't decided whether or not they will appeal the decision. He also declined to say whether or not the alt-weekly, which is owned by Scranton, Penn.-based Time-Shamrock Communications, had insurance that would cover the damages.

The eyes of the world were on Baltimore yesterday, during the tense armed standoff at Johns Hopkins Hospital that left the gunman and his mother dead and one doctor wounded. And our local media, particularly Sun staffer Justin Fenton and the staff at WBAL, shined.

Less than an hour after Paul Warren Pardus shot Dr. David B. Cohen, apparently in frustration over his mother's condition, both Fenton and WBAL's Jennifer Franciotti and Dave Collins were on the scene. Fenton was a tweet machine, passing along crucial information as it came to him, whether through official sources, his own observations, or overheard chatter on police scanners and conversations. His dozens of tweets in the hours after the shooting providing the most accurate real-time account of what was happening. Fenton was interviewed on CNN fairly early in the ordeal and became the outlet's best source for accurate info.

As The Sun's Dave Zurawik details today on his excellent blog, Z on TV, WBAL really shined among local outlets, with Franciotti breaking news of the gunman's death before police announced it. And CNN, apparently because of its affiliation with WBAL and WMAR provided excellent footage and national coverage.

During a dark and disturbing day in Baltimore, it was great to see our local media on top of the situation.

[photo: Justin Fenton for The Sun]

Welcome to Press Check, a new blog where we'll cover the local media, keeping tabs on Baltimore newspapers, TV stations, magazines, radio stations, websites, and blogs.

It occurred to us that Baltimore's media landscape is going through some major shifts, from the existential questions faced by our paper of record, to the emergence of truly vital news outlets on the web. It seems that this industry—which impacts local residents more than most others—doesn't get the coverage it deserves. We aim to change that here.

To get rolling, let's start with some news at The Sun:

+ After several years of shedding pages and sections, The Sun seems to intent on building new content vehicles lately. Our favorite addition has been the return of the Friday "LIVE!" section (which won "Best Comeback" in our August Best of Baltimore issue), but Sun editors have also added a stand-alone business section and a Monday-only "Sunrise" section. This Sunday, The Sun revives its Sun Magazine. At first, the glossy feature-oriented supplement will be a quarterly, but editors hope to increase its frequency, and we hear that ad sales have been fairly brisk, which means that might happen quickly. Jean Marbella—a Best of Baltimore winner for "Best Columnist" and a true local treasure—is working on a feature for the debut issue.

+ In semi-related news, one of the prime movers of the "LIVE!" section, entertainment reporter Sam Sessa, gets a promotion today, becoming The Sun's entertainment editor (or something like that—read his explanation). This means that he will hand over the reins of his nightlife blog, "Midnight Sun"—one of the paper's most popular, and a runner-up for "Best Blog" in our Readers' Poll—to new Sun hire Erik Maza, a recent University of Florida grad who previously interned at the Orlando Sentinel (which, like The Sun, is owned by the Chicago-based Tribune Company). Newly-married Sessa says going out two to three nights a week to cover nightlife had become a bit of a grind. "I'm happy to take a desk job and let Erik have all the fun," he says. We'll miss Sessa's always-sharp observations and his tireless promotion of Baltimore arts and culture (check him out on NPR's "Sound Opinions," at about the 8:45 mark), but we wish him the best in his new role.

Got a media tip? E-mail me at sevan@baltimoremagazine.net.

As part of the pre-Preakness festivities, the 20th annual "Crab Derby" was held at Lexington Market today. Local celebs like 92-Q's Konan, 98 Rock's Stash, and WMAR's Kelly Swoope each competed in the races, trying to coax a snappy blue crab—fresh from the Faidley's stand nearby—across the finish line. WJZ's Stan Saunders (left) was one of many who simply couldn't motivate the snappers, despite ample water-spritzing and toy-dangling. The odds-on favorite was Fox Sports 1370-AM reporter Anne Boone-Simanski, who won two of the past three years and cruised to the finals again this year, with a controversial technique that looked suspiciously like poking the crustacean (if that isn't a euphemism for something, it should be). Joining her in the finals were Konan, West Baltimore developer Ron Kreitner, and Michael Filipelli of 100.7 The Bay. At the starting pistol, longshot Kreitner—a perennial contender, never a winner—watched his crab take off, crossing the finish line in seconds. "The trick this time was, I talked to the crab," Kreitner said after the victory. "He said he likes a sloppy track, so I just gave him all the water he needed."

The race for second place took considerably longer. Filipelli frequently checked his watch, while his lay-about seafood played dead. He ultimately lounged on the Market floor (left), waiting for his contender to get back in the race. Ultimately, Boone-Simanski took second and Filipelli claimed third. Let's hope the horses show a little more spunk...

The connection between Utz potato chips and Baltimore is legend. Yes, as many a would-be smarty parts will tell you, they're manufactured over the border in Hanover, PA, but Baltimore was the first major market to embrace the Utz brand, founded by Will and Salie Utz in 1921. As Wikipedia tells us, "After Salie cooked the chips, Bill delivered them to local grocery stores and farmers’ markets in the Hanover and Baltimore, Maryland areas." For years thereafter, our own Lexington Market was the primary distribution point for Utz products. Utz embraced its Baltimore connection with its Old Bay-seasoned "Crab Chips." Utz even made a cameo on The Wire! We owned you, Utz!

Well, not anymore. Consider yourself disowned. Feel free to hangout with your soulless Yankee friends and all their bought-and-paid-for championships. But remember this Utz: New York doesn't care about you. You may have made some Miltonian deal to become the "Official Snack Food of the New York Yankees," but New Yorkers will never claim you the way we have. To them, you're just a second-rate Dorito. And now, that's all you'll ever be.

By Jeanne-Michele Vigna

The National Katyn Memorial in Baltimore's Harbor East has become an impromptu meeting spot for mourners of President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, who died in a plane crash along with 95 others, including several cabinet ministers and legislators, in a devastating plane crash early Saturday morning.

Mere hours after the crash—which occurred shockingly close to the site of the massacre marked by the memorial—a group of approximately fifty formally-dressed people gathered around the site, an event that kicked-off a week of nightly vigils there.

On hand that Saturday, were members of the Polish League of American Veterans Ladies Auxiliary outfitted in matching navy blue blazers. Senator Barbara Mikulski, among others, sported red clothing, while some simply held the Polish flag. A representative from the Polish embassy, donning an armband, began to explain the significance of Katyn in Polish.  A member of the crowd shouted out that all Poles know the history, so it would be better if he just spoke in English. After a speech by Mikulski, the assembled sang the Polish national anthem and said prayers for Poland and victims of the crash. Flowers and wreaths were laid at the feet of the memorial and candles were lit.

After the ceremony, some mourners moved on to the Polish National Alliance Lounge for shots of the popular Polish honey liquor, Krupnik, in honor of the fallen President and others on the plane.

A couple months ago, we gave Baltimore Suneditors a lot of grief over a pretty atrocious front-page error. This morning, we noticed an equally egregious error in The New York Times (left). Granted it wasn't on the front page, but the Times' error is even more laughable. Is "Po Basketball" what poor people play in the South?

Also, given that media-watching blog Gawker recently reported that the minimum salary forTimes staff reporters is $90,500, I think they ought to at least get their section headers right. Of course, I know that reporters aren't responsible for those, but if they've got that kind of money to throw around, you'd think they could afford to hire people to make sure they don't embarrass themseleves—and maybe even to stop laying people off