Newspaper battle in Thunderdome

It's been fun watching the back and forth between The Capital Times and Isthmus.

Isthmus news editor Bill Lueders has actually been taking a lot of jabs at the Cap Times, just recently Lueders poked at the later's columnist Doug Moe for not using "table scraps" of Lueder's Watchdog column on MG&E.

About two weeks ago, Lueders wrote about some crank who was worried about the availability of information on personal energy use, with anyone on the Internets being able to search for averages of individual households. Just click here to find out the energy use of the person that you stalk.

Lueders questioned why Moe and State Journal's Melanie Conklin didn't use this info to write columns on energy usage by prominent Madisonians.

Though I wonder why Lueders made a big deal out of Moe's non-use of his article. Is there some inter-paper feud that no one knows about? Perhaps the two papers are struggling for any topics on which to write as the slow, hot days of summer drown out any inspiration for actual news? Well, aside from the state budget debate and all the murders and missing persons.

These questions might be interesting fodder for a local media watchdog group or independent blogger...

By the way, Isthmus editor Marc Eisen averages $89 per month in gas use and $115 per month in electricity use. Whereas Dave Zweifel's home address wasn't publicly available.

My energy use is included in my rent. So you can't search me! But I do use fluorescent bulbs, as advocated by former Ald. Austin King

In addition to privacy issues of energy consumption, Cap Times and Isthmus editors have been arguing about the cost/benefits of Monona Terrace.

See Zweifel's view here.

And Lueders's view here.

And a follow up by Cap Times Hawkes intern, Kristin Czubkowski, where revelers extolled the virtues and slight drawbacks of the Terrace at it's ten year anniversary.