This is what Journal Star reporter Dave Eminian said:

ON SECOND THOUGHT: The Quad City Steamwheelers, meanwhile, rescinded a trade that had been verbally agreed upon in which Peoria acquired fullback Jason Null in exchange for the Pirates spot in the af2’s waiver claim order.

Peoria was not expected to be a serious threat to beat the Steamwheelers in Sunday’s opener, but instead surprised the Quad City with a potent offense that kept the game within seven points well into the fourth quarter.

Quad City eventually won, 72-56, but on Monday backed out of the trade that would have upgraded the Pirates offense even more.

Then I found this little nugget on the Quad City Times:

– Steamwheelers coach Troy Biladeau said reports out of Peoria that he nixed a done deal to send the Pirates backup fullback Jason Null on Monday were erroneous. He said the trade was never made because Null, who didn’t dress last week, expressed a preference to remain with the Wheelers. “I’m not going to trade somebody who wants to be here,” said the coach. “It’s an entertaining newspaper to read,” he said of the Peoria Journal-Star.

I don’t think me meant that affectionately. Damn nice of the QCTimes to quote him on it.

By all means, guys, let’s fight it out. I newspaper way might be just the thing for boosting circulation.

And I definitely will be taking in a Pirates game or two this season.

LOCAL RADIO STATION TO BE FIRST IN NATION TO TEST NEW TECHNOLOGY!

CANTON, IL – Beginning April 1st at 7am, The Voice of Fulton County, AM 1560, WBYS has been selected to be the first radio station in the United States to offer AromaRadioTM, a new technology that will actually allow a radio signal to send out a computer-generated “aroma” to match a particular program or commercial that is being aired.

“We think this could be the next big thing in radio advertising,” said WBYS General Manager B.J. Stone, “and once our customers see the benefit of adding the ‘sense of smell’ to their radio commercials, our industry will benefit as well, through the additional revenue stream that will be created. TV added pictures to the words, we’re adding the sense of smell, and you know how your brain reacts when you smell something…be it pleasant or not so pleasant.”

The system has been created by RAM Laboratories, based in Rochester, Minnesota, and consists of a software program that can be added to a radio station’s programming computer, which when combined with a special electrical diode that is attached to a radio station’s outgoing antenna at the tower location, sends out a precoded “smell” that matches the current commercial or program. The system was created based on the theory that the sense of smell could be digitized, just like sound or pictures.

WHY WBYS AND WHO CAN SMELL IT?

Dr. Sven Thompsson of RAM Labs chose WBYS as his first test site for the new technology based simply upon the fact that the tower, located in Canton, is the newest in the United States, having just been erected in January after the previous tower collapsed in a tornado in July, 2008, and is also relatively close to his Minnesota-based facility. Thompsson said, “this breakthrough was 8 years in the making. I began working on it after a conversation with (then FCC Chairman) Michael Powell, who suggested that radio needed something revolutionary to keep it viable amongst all the new technologies of the new century. We’re confident that AromaRadio will indeed work, as although this is our first commercial test, we’ve had great success with in-house testing for the past 20 months.”

Thompsson says that the technology uses a channel inside the recently developed RDS system, another new technology that allows radio stations to attach digital signatures to call letters and song titles. Many late model cars have RDS capability. Dr. Thompsson said only the second generation RDS radios, those manufactured after 2006, will work with AromaRadio. Thompsson and other RAM engineers have been in Canton for a little over a week installing the technology, and will be moving in and around Canton Wednesday, measuring results and the quality of the digitized odors.

Contact information:

BJ Stone, WBYS General Manager: 309-647-1560

Dr. Sven Thompsson, RAM Labs can be reached at his hotel through Friday: 309-645-3605

The Sun-Times Media Group, owner of the Chicago Sun-Times and dozens of suburban newspapers, says it has filed for bankruptcy, making it the fifth newspaper publisher in recent months to seek protection from creditors.

The company said it filed for Chapter 11 protection in a Delaware court Tuesday. It will continue to operate its newspapers and online properties.

Feh. I used to like the paper. But I couldn’t stomach reading the thing after Conrad Black infected it with his grimy touch. I hope Lord Black is enjoying life in prison.

Roger Monroe reports that radio partner Royce Elliott was hospitalized. Roger also has his election predictions. Meanwhile Sara Browning has a wrap-up of who is on ballot. Bill Knight reports on new pollution reporing requirements, while Dale Goodner has a pro-environment message that is thousands of years old. Also, I manage to spew forth some comments about how even accused police officers have rights.

There are letters to the editor and all the regular columnists too. And check out Happenings and Briefly too. And publisher Debbie Adlof operates CW Notes? Check it out.

As we all know by now, WEEK and all local television stations have stopped broadcasting in analog format and switched to digital. As I’ve noted before, WEEK was all over the place in the lead-up to the switch about how people need to make sure that if they didn’t have a digital-ready television, they needed to have a digital converter. As well they should, since WEEK decided to make a buck off the switchover and actually wrapped their announcements around ads for a local store that sells televisions. Niiiiiiice.

So one would think that this station that hectored and frightened so many people into the awful, terrible fate that awaited anyone who was not ready for the digital switchover would, itself, be ready for the digital switchover.

Yeah. One would think.

Do why are so many folks complaining that they suddenly are getting little or no reception on their antenna. The person I spoke to says that they WERE getting DIGITAL reception just fine in her central bluff home — right up until WEEK decided to pull the plug on it’s analog signal. Suddenly, they can’t get WEEK.

She and many others have complained on WEEK’s Website, but they aren’t getting any answers, except that the station is blaming interference from trees that must have spontaneously doubled in size the very instant they stopped analog broadcasting.

But if I know WEEK boss Mark DeSantis — and I do — these complaints will be written off as problems on the user end and not treated as something the station has to fix.

Meanwhile, my friend is learning to live without WEEK.

Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That’s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead.

I’ve said this for years. The value of a newspaper isn’t that it’s printed on paper. It’s that the newspaper employs a staff of people to go out and gather the news. The printing press is simply a means of delivery. Until the Internet came along, it was a pretty good business to be in, the owning of a printing press.

“Because my attitude is that if we capture an enemy combatant in the battlefield — or we can use Osama bin Laden — who may have information about a pending attack. You know what, I don’t have any problem taking his head sticking it underwater and scaring the living daylights out of him and making him think we’re drowning him,” declared Hannity, “and I’m a Christian.”

The daughter of Sen. John McCain was his guest at the time. She politely disagreed.

But he forgot some of them:*

• Tom McIntyre doesn’t read from a teleprompter. Tom McIntyre speaks into the camera and the teleprompter, out of fear, transcribes his words.
• Tom McIntyre doesn’t “Gotta Eat.” Tom McIntyre derives sustenance from the Yellow Rays of the Sun.
• That big smile on Vanna Whitewall’s face? Tom McIntyre. Enough said.
• Bob Larson has a Tom McIntyre voodoo doll. But every time Bob tries to stick it with a needle, the needle breaks.

* The inspiration for this list.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So, what stories were you working on the week the paper went under?

LAURA FRANK: What would have been in our Saturday paper, the first paper that The Rocky missed because of its closure, we had stories ready to go about a government agency that had allegedly misused public money, we had a story about how children in state custody were being abused. And we had a story about a bus driver in Denver who was helping an elderly lady and her daughter across the street when he was hit by another vehicle, and the State Patrol gave him a ticket for jaywalking. Our reporter was ready to write that the bus driver was actually in the legal crosswalk; he should never have been given the ticket at all.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Were these stories being covered by the – forgive me – Denver Post?

LAURA FRANK: In this case, no, none of these stories have been covered by the other media.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Where do these stories go now?

LAURA FRANK: Well, I’ll tell you, it’s interesting, because on Monday Kevin Flynn, one of our terrific reporters who was working on that jaywalking story, went ahead and published it online. When the Scripps Company announced The Rocky Mountain News was for sale December 4th, some of the staffers created a website called Iwantmyrocky.com, and it’s been a place for people to post their feelings and concerns and to get to know the staff of The Rocky a little bit better. Kevin posted his story right at the top of Iwantmyrocky.com, and others are continuing to do that. You know, when you’re a reporter, reporting is in your DNA, you can’t just pull the stops and quit. So, some of it’s still going, actually.

The lesson from this? The reporters gathered the content, and delivered it themselves. Without the direct approval of any greedhead media company. They might as well have walked into any library with free-to-use Internet-read computers and uoloaded it to a free Blogger blog.

I’ve said this is zillion times. Online is the cure for what ails the newspapers. The way to save newspapers is to stop printing on paper and start printing on the Internet. If media companies are too chicken to change, then they will due. Companies need to bite the  bullet and set date for when their companies will be all on line.

The entire segmentis available in mp3 format.

UPDATE: Commenter Eyebrows McGee wonders how the former Rocky writers are getting paid. Answer: They weren’t. But that doesn’t mean that they and other will never get paid for writing online only. All it takes is is some entrepreneurship:

March 10 (Bloomberg) — As newspapers hemorrhage money and cut staff, the future of the industry is playing out in the suburb of Maplewood, New Jersey.

Internet sites have started blanketing the town with press coverage, with a new Web venture backed by a Google Inc. executive battling two locally run Web pages for readers. The New York Times joined the fray this month with a Maplewood blog. Their prize: online ads from local companies — the fastest- growing source of revenue for the news business.

Meanwhile, the greed-heads who own printing-press based media companies fume about how Google is “stealing” their  content, while they are laying off writers and wondering while circulation drops.

Hat tip: Chase Ingersoll.

Retired journalism professor Howard Price reached many students in his more than 20 years at Eastern through his enthusiastic teaching styles and commitment to education.

Damn.