Media News Monday is a compilation of media news from the past week posted on Monday. Media is an integral part of politics, and I think that it’s important to get to know media and media innovation in order to forecast future ways of campaigning, targeting voters, and disseminating information. If any of you are interested in campaigning, this weekly diary may help you with ideas.  It is also important to keep up with right wing corporate media (RWCM) news.  If you have any media news to add, please do so.  

Previous edition: July11, 2005
For more previous editions, search my diaries.  

Now for the news from the past week posted today, July18, 2005:

Note: I’m going to put a %%% next to things that are more interesting or go into things more in-depth. Those links/stories that get singled out before the media personalities section are obviously must-reads, so I don’t bother with the %%%.

Note 2: Rove, Plame, Cooper, and Miller stuff are filed in Week in Reviewsies unless it’s about journalism in general.

The Colbert Report
Comedy Central Press Release: CC is focusing on late night programming this fall You can get a sneak preview of The Colbert Report by clicking on the video segment titled “The Colbert Report: The Truth”.

“The Colbert Report” Premieres Monday, October 17 at 11:30 p.m. No “news” show can contain the personality, insight and overall rightness of “The Daily Show’s” Stephen Colbert. That’s why he now has a half-hour platform each night to give his take on the issues of the day and, more importantly, to tell you why everyone else’s take is just plain wrong. What “The Daily Show” is to evening news, “The Colbert Report” is to O’Reilly/Scarborough/Hannity/AndersonCooper, et al except Colbert’s show will be intentionally funny. This is the first project developed under the network’s first-look agreement with Jon Stewart’s Busboy Productions, Inc. and will be produced by Busboy in association with Spartina Productions, Inc. Stewart, Ben Karlin and Colbert are the executive producers.

Out of Touch
And maybe a little lazy. The Note drops the ball on Plame/Rove. This should be so embarrassing for the online publication that is for some the be all and end all of DC insider-ism.  

Fire Kyra Phillips
* Or at least email cnn.com and make some phone calls and get her to apologize. Contact info:
One CNN Center, Box 105366, Atlanta, GA 30303-5366
Phone: 404-827-1500
Fax: 404-827-1906
* CNN contact webform

Fire Judy Miller
Ha, ha. Martyr Judy has made up quotes and outed confidential sources before.

Turning public broadcasting into GOPropaganda
Major GOP Donor Favored as Next CPB Chairman

Amen, Margaret Carlson
link

On the CIA leak scandal: “The one good thing to come out of all this is that journalists have been reminded to say ‘no’ to those cowards trying to get revenge or dish dirt without putting their names on it. Our promise of confidentiality should be given for information that corrects an injustice, not perpetrates one.”

Interesting Take
link

What special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has done for journalism, according to Michael Miner: He’s angered it, shamed it, and awakened it. The press critic writes: “Plenty of newspaper readers must wonder why other reporters — at the Times or anyplace else — didn’t do the work of reporters and find out who was feeding the media information about Valerie Plame. If they had, they could have saved Fitzgerald time and [Judith] Miller anguish.”

Howard Kurtz Finally Puts Forth a Decent Column
I think that there is a little bit of truth in what has happened regarding the freedom of the press issues and its effects on the press, but Kurtz is right that this is a similar reaction to the Clinton years. In light of that, the right cries of bias is just the usual whining.  
Ganging Up 7/14/05

Many on the left are saying it’s about time that journalists found some backbone and got tough on the Bush team.

 Others are saying that the White House gang are showing their true anti-Bush colors and are hopping mad because their colleagues are involved (Matt Cooper, who testified yesterday about Rove and other “double super secret background” sources, and Judy Miller, who’s now spent a week in an Alexandria jail).

Well, here’s the deal. Reporters don’t like being misled. That is the hottest of hot buttons. As the White House gang sees it, McClellan came out 21 months ago and said it was ridiculous to suggest that Rove had outed Valerie Plame as a CIA operative and that any staffer found to have done so would no longer being working at 1600 Penn. He said this, by the way, while a criminal investigation was going on. Then Newsweek gets the Cooper e-mail showing that Rove did have a background conversation with him about Plame (or “Wilson’s wife,” as the note put it), and suddenly Scott can’t possibly comment because of the investigation–a position that Bush also took yesterday.

That, to the press, smacks of stonewalling. And if you think such a reaction is unique to the Bush administration, you’ve forgotten about all these tense briefings in which reporters smacked around McCurry and Lockhart as they dueled over various Clinton scandals. The notion that the Clintonites weren’t being straight with the press, I wrote at the time, fueled a lot of the animosity in that briefing room. And now it’s flared up again.

Plame, Cooper, Miller, Rove

Newsie’s Media Coverage Notes
* Media Coverage Notes: ABCNews, CBSNews, Hardball, Countdown Notes on Rove coverage, and on UK Iraq troop withdrawal memo.

What a reporter working in Iraq has to say
Andrew Marshall CJRDaily interview

Liz Cox Barrett: How do you respond to some of the most common criticisms of the reporting coming out of Iraq — usually from critics safely stateside — such as that good news is under-reported or not reported on at all, that things on the ground are better than reporters would have readers believe, or that reporters are out of touch with the day-to-day life of Iraqis because they’re safely in the Green Zone, in their hotels, etc?
Andrew Marshall: I reject any suggestion that the international media are presenting an inaccurate picture of the situation in Iraq. It is a complaint that I have never heard from any of the ordinary Iraqis I have worked with and lived with over the past two years. It is certainly true that some progress has been made since the invasion of Iraq — hospitals are functioning, schools are open, some areas of the country are relatively free from violence, and on election day millions of Iraqis braved the threat of violence to vote. And this progress has been reported by the media in Iraq.

But large areas of the country are gripped by a relentless insurgency, crime and kidnappings are rife, and the level of reconstruction has fallen far short of expectations. Every single day, civilians are killed in Iraq, sometimes by insurgents, sometimes by Iraqi forces, sometimes by U.S. troops. In many parts of the country, particularly the major cities and the regions where the insurgency is strongest, Iraqis live their lives in a climate of fear and great uncertainty. We would be doing the Iraqi people a great disservice if we did not reflect this in our reporting. Anybody who argues that the media is giving a false picture should come to Iraq to see the country for themselves, and spend time living and working with Iraqis.

It is true that the daily drumbeat of bombings, mortar attacks and shootings sometimes drowns out the broader picture of what is happening in Iraq, and that journalists in Iraq must be careful to set events in context. That is one of the many reasons it is essential for foreign journalists, who are increasingly pinned down in fortified compounds behind vast concrete blast walls and rolls of barbed wire, to ensure that they spend as much time as possible talking to ordinary Iraqis about their lives and the conditions they face. It is our duty to report on the violence, and on political developments, and on the reconstruction effort, and to ensure that we tell the full story of what is happening in Iraq. I strongly believe that we have done that.

People in the Media

While it might not be omnipotent, Omnicom Group can create advertising that is omnipresent. The company ranks as the world’s #1 corporate media services conglomerate, with advertising, marketing, and public relations operations serving some 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries. It serves global advertising clients through its agency networks BBDO Worldwide, DDB Worldwide, and TBWA Worldwide, while such firms as GSD&M, Merkley Partners, and Zimmerman Partners provide services for regional and national clients. More than 160 other firms in its Diversified Agency Services division, including Fleishman-Hillard, Integer, and Rapp Collins, provide public relations and other marketing services.

RWCM Watch

“It’s not just that they despise liberals. They do. But I think the whole liberal thing is a ruse. What they really dislike is journalism.” He says truth may well be the first casualty of war in some quarters, but that doesn’t give reporters a deferment from searching for it. “Some people just hate that. Any hint of criticism is viewed as treason.”

Notes & News on Programming & Specials

State of the Media, Trends, Research Reports, Innovations

Ratings, Circulation, & Ad Revenue Strength

For more RWCM watch & Media News: Penndit’s News, Media News, and RWCM Watch Links. I get the advertising, public relations, targetting voters information, and media research from a variety of sources other than the links listed there.

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