8/29/05 Media News Monday

In this edition: Jon Stewart gets Wired, Iraq worse than Vietnam in number of journalists killed, Media Cowardice (then & now), the “Needs Gingko” Award, how Novak is paying for those legal bills, measuring viewership/readership/listeners, and more!
Thoughts, and Then, the News
Is ABCNews grooming Terry Moran to become anchor in a few years?  Just wondering, because he’s getting more seasoning with his recent reports from the Middle East and, of course, all of his WH coverage.  It’s not a bad idea. He’s young, and has done alright when he does anchor (usually on Sundays). I don’t think he’s developed the gravitas yet, but we’ll see in a few years.  Even if ABCNews taps Charlie Gibson to be anchor, Gibson is getting older, and ABCNews will have to find a new anchor in a few years anyway.  

Speaking of ABCNews, their production, The Note, is read and quoted more than First Read from NBCNews. For me, I think The Note has more items, but First Read has better analysis.  First Read does a better job of putting issues in a broader context.  First Read is also less pretentious. What’s your preference for free, daily dose of DC insiderism and political news?  Free, being the operative word, because The Hotline trumps everyone easily.  Too bad it’s subscription only.

Now for the news from the past week posted August 29, 2005:

Note: I’m going to put a %%% next to things that are more interesting or go into things more in-depth.

RIP

• Another Reuters Staffer Killed by US Forces in Iraq 8/28/05
• Iraq worse than Vietnam–in Number of Journalists Killed Why is this? Click here.

Nomination for Election 2004 Coverage Cowardice Award
TIME magazine. Turd-blossom gate related.

FNC needs to make it up to this family
FNC wrongly identified this family’s home as the one of a terrorist. At the very least, they should pay for any damages to the home. In addition, FNC should issue an on-air public retraction and apology. A one-line apology to the LAT is insufficient. (Update: FNC finally fired John Loftus, the FNC contributor who made the ghastly error).

The “Needs Gingko” Award…
… goes to Brit Hume for saying that Pat Robertson’s influence is dwindling. He doesn’t watch his own channel, watches and forgot, or watches and deliberately tried to mislead.

Can we file an FEC complaint about this?

• Robertson keeps trying to make excuses for his comments.
• Robertson called for assassination of Venezuela’s president Patti Davis (Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s daughter) asks: “What does it mean to be Christian?”.
• Tell ABCFamily to give liberal religious leaders equal time. In addition, call your cable company.

Does the money goes toward paying off his legal bills?
Pay $595 to see Bob Novak’s “exclusive” forum with newsmakers.

Media, My What Big Egos And Lazy Asses You Have!

• Atrios is right. The media should revisit this story.
• DemFromCT wants to know if the WaPo editorial staff reads its own paper
• Democrats Want Official to be Reinstated over report on Profiling. This NYT write-up tells us that six Democrats signed a letter to AG Gonzales. Only Sen. Corzine is named. Who are the other 5? There’s no reason to not list who they are, since there are only six of them.
• WaPo ignored Republican divisions over Iraq
• Katie Couric is just SOOOOO proud of NBCNews’ Jennifer Wilbanks coverage. Honest and well-produced, she calls it. It’d be nice if the media had done such a good job in the run up to the war in Iraq. Please keep Katie away from the CBSNews anchor chair. Thanks. Link via Atrios.
• A story idea for media who thinks it’s a slow news period
• Media on Niger: We Started Reporting After So Many Kids Had Already Died and Everyone Was Ticked at Us for Not Reporting!
• NYTimes uses Chalabi again
• TDS slams CNN Pres. Jon Klein for all that “meaningful” stuff on CNN

Objectivity at risk

• White House press corps fawns over Bush, by DowneastDem
• LINK The media shouldn’t be surprised that they are losing credibility and popularity when this sort of thing comes out.  With all the bloggers out there demanding more transparency, these shindigs can’t be kept quiet.
• NBCNews producer recaps “A picnic with the president”

FAIR asks: Will News Media Help Bush Exploit the 9/11 Anniversary Again?
FAIR 8/25/05 media beat article

Cowards

• Coverage of the civil rights movement in the 1960s was shameful. Let’s not forget.
• ABC, NBC, and CBS refuse to air ad criticizing their (lack of) coverage on Darfur.

Meow! Roger Ailes v. Jon Klein’s CNN
Alies on CNN’s The Situation Room

Most Shocking Media Moment of the Week
Piling on the Defenders of US policy in Iraq

You knew it was a bad day for the White House when even Fox News was piling on President Bush’s counselor, Dan Bartlett.

E.D. Hill, one of the “Fox & Friends” morning show anchors, said she thought the Iraq war “was a justified one” but now worries “that there’s not a plan to actually win that ground war.”

“Well, E.D., I can assure you that’s not the case,” Bartlett assured her. Allowing that it’s been a “bumpy process” with “difficult days,” he asserted: “We have the right strategy to prevail.”

Hill was not reassured by this assurance. “I guess I’m not convinced,” she replied.

For you TDS & Jon Stewart Fans

Jon Stewart and TDS executive producer Ben Karlin are interviewed by Wired. %%% Funny guys who really understand what is wrong with the news media.  Very savvy people.

Lovebird Alert
and

• Rep. Anthony Weiner is dating ABC newswoman Gigi Stone
• Gigi Stone bio from ABCMedianet

Cindy Sheehan & Camp Casey RWCM Watch: Dear Media, Don’t Editorialize Patriotism

• Wingnut radio host Melanie Morgan is a liar.
• The Augusta Chronicle attacks Cindy Sheehan, by Synergy
• A Clear Channel owned TV station in SLC isn’t going to run a Cindy Sheehan ad, by VirginiaDem
• Bob Novak! You’re just jealous! By SusanHu Excellent use of snark, my dear.

Dear Media, Please Google. Love, the News Consumer

• The NYT should have googled former Reagan admin AG Edwin Meese
• CNN Goes Wild (“Civil Rights” groups back Roberts), by maxomai
• Why does Nora O’Donnell think that anti-war activists are extremists? Because she didn’t Google. If she had, she’d realize that she’s a moron for calling 54% of the American people extremists. Nora O’Donnell has long been a little snot, but this is really beyond the pale.
• A majority of the American people liked Clinton, but aren’t so keen on Bush. He’s an unpopular and unlikable president.

RWCM Watch

• RNinNC continues 30 Days in Ignorance: Watching FNC
• Time sucks up to Walmart again, by JR Monsterfodder
• AUDIO: C&L interviews Larry Johnson %%% “Johnson also talked about his days as a political analyst for FOX News and why he was virtually fired because he said that it was impossible to fight two wars at once.”
• CNN carries water for Pat Robertson
• Robert Scheer column: Embedded Over Her Head in Washington. %%% Judy Miller gets a well-deserved spanking.
• Iraq: The Unseen War. %%% Why the media isn’t showing difficult-to-view photos from the war.  Link goes to some very graphic photos and an article.
• WaPo’s Mike Allen on anti-war protestors Oh sure, those other parents of soldiers KIA in Iraq aren’t Little League dads and Pop Warner moms.
• Jonathan Chait is a Raving Idiot, by Dr Tom More
• Jonah Goldberg on NPR.  Here’s why Goldberg’s face or voice should never see the light of day on another mainstream media outlet: Goldberg writes that Sheehan has rallied the Nazis to her cause.
• Chris Matthews on how he knowingly lets guests lie on the air. %%%
• VIDEO: CNN’s Jack Cafferty bemoans media coverage of BTK killer
• Media bias: Cindy Sheehan & her supporters are depicted as unpatriotic. Bush supporters are depicted as patriotic. Hat tip Atrios.
• CNN makes news with WMD special, but press deserves blame, too. %%% Damn straight it does.
• VIDEO: TDS busts Pat Robertson and cable news pundits/hacks
• Savvy people manipulate the “both sides” rule giving unwarranted legitimacy to a fringe idea, like “intelligent design.” %%%
• What Judy Miller did as an embed, series by emptywheel
• Multiple media outlets screw up reporting on RU-486, from CJRDaily %%%
• More Media Bias in Religion Coverage
• Olbermann: Limbaugh versus Limbaugh lol.
• Did Murdoch bend the rules when it came to entering the market in China?
• F-bomb heard on FNC, by Larry Horse

Media Personalities

• Ted Turner to be inducted into The International Civil Rights Walk of Fame Rep. John Conyers is another inductee.
• Profile of Markos Kounalakis, president and publisher of The Washington Monthly
• Bill Hemmer debuts as Fox News Live anchor at noon on 8/29.
• Sounds like a company guy already. Bill Hemmer pumped up about move to FNC. Hat tip TVNewser.
• Will Hemmer become the next FNC star? You have to hand it to FNC.  Their hosts are stars.  They’re dishonest, but dynamic.  CNN hosts are bland in comparison. MSNBC has hosts with some personality, but as a network, MSNBC doesn’t seem to have much of an identity and seems to be in fewer homes than FNC or CNN.
• Profile: Sports writer switches gender, keeps job %%% Hat tip Romensko.
• “The Hill” editor Albert Eisele retiring in September
• Anderson Cooper to his Pants: “Let `em rip!” Funny. Hat tip TVNewser.
• Roll Call’s Chris Cillizza is leaving Roll Call for washingtonpost.com At WaPo.com, Cillizza will be writing a daily political column/blog.
• B&C columnist: Charlie Gibson is the clear choice for new anchor of WNT He’s the obvious choice, but I do think that ABC could do better.
• Soledad O’Brien profile at Modern Mom
• Fareed Zakaria dishes about his upcoming PBS show and a few other things, too. %%% Praises TDS. IDA with the writer dubbing TDS “ultra-liberal.”  That’s not the first adjective that should be used to describe the show.  I’d describe it as ultra-anti-establishment.
• Costas Refuses to Host Show on Holloway. Article notes that Olbermann left MSNBC in the late 1990s because of the obsessive coverage of Monica Lewinsky he was being asked to do. Costas gets praise from AJC and the SacBee. (Hat tip to TVNewser for the last two links.)
• Court TV’s Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, MSNBC’s Dan Abrams, and FNC’s Bill Hemmer, A Love Triangle?
• David Gregory gets jiggy with it. Video is too funny.
• Hunter S. Thompson goes out with a bang.
• Washingtonian asks Judy Woodruff what her favorites are. She was an army brat, doesn’t watch much television, says her favorite TV show is TDS, thinks John McCain is Washington’s most interesting politician, and more…
• Mort Kondracke proposed in Paris to his fiancée.  Fiancée is a right-winger as far as I can tell. Google her place of work.

News & Notes on Programming, Specials, etc.

• The Daily Show has struck its first full-scale overseas syndication deal with UK broadcaster Channel 4. CNNInternational already airs a weekly digest of TDS, but Channel 4 will be the first overseas network to air TDS in its entirety.
• Starting Oct. 5, the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes will offer newspaper publishers in the US a roundup of military stories from Europe, the Pacific, and the Middle East
• AdAge (sub. req.): Kroger Co. (supermarket & drug-store chain) has signed a deal with In-Store Broadcasting Network to launch a TV network in 2500 Kroger stores.
• How NBC Nightly News is put together  %%%.
• AP Explains Its Iraq Coverage With a New FAQ %%%. Truly interesting, and an absolute must read for anyone who is blogging a lot on Iraq.
• CNN & “Ethics Guy” don’t see eye to eye on his face time
• NBC told not to air jail cell video
• NYT article on Costas saying no to covering Holloway case. Highlights (or should I say lowlights?): CNN President Jon Klein makes some dumb comments.
• Air American on XM: Randi Rhodes full show, by puppethead %%% Starts Sept. 1.
• NYT review of CurrentTV
• CNN Presents “Dead Wrong” on 8/21/05. The dead wrong doesn’t come from CNN, but from the Silbermann-Robb Commission report.
• Ten reasons why network news anchors are here to stay Hat tip Romenesko.
• Liberal evangelist in a network news story! Just color me shocked.
• New Publishers at New Yorker, Vanity Fair
• Local TV stations being sold Click for the transactions.
• DCRTV.com reports:

“Hardball” Hits The Wall – 8/26 – FTVLive is reporting that big changes are in store for MSNBC’s DC political talker “Hardball,” hosted by Chris Matthews (left). Apparently, MSNBC honcho Rick Kaplan “voiced extreme concern that the show looks sub-par and the quality of the producing needs to be stepped up in a big way. Kaplan is said to be furious at the recent results in bookings and ratings,” which are down 41 percent. And, the show may be moved from 7 PM to 5 PM…..

State of the Media, Trends, Research Reports, Innovations

• NYT write up on The Daily Nightly, the NBC Nightly News blog written by anchor Brian Williams and correspondents. Trend of TV news branching out and embracing blogs (amongst other ways of getting content to consumers online).
• Get washingtonpost.com on your cell phone
• Newsweeklies (Time, USNWR, Newsweek) should go back to covering hard news
• Mag consultant on newsweeklies: “If they really believe in their websites, then why do I need a magazine, and isn’t it just a vehicle to drive me to the web?”
• Newspapers see surge in online revenues
• Latest trend: Vlogging!
• Confidence in Military News Wanes Hat tip Armando.

According to a McCormick Tribune Foundation/Gallup poll scheduled for release today, Americans are more interested in national security than they were in the past. But only 54 percent of Americans say they feel the military keeps them well informed, down from 77 percent in 1999 — before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Similarly, the public grew increasingly skeptical of the news media’s efforts, with 61 percent of Americans saying that the media keep them well informed on military and national security issues, down from 79 percent in 1999. More than three-quarters of Americans also believe that the military occasionally provides false or inaccurate information to the media, according to the poll, which surveyed 1,016 adults during the first two weeks of June.

Media and military experts said the data are troubling at a time when Americans are becoming more savvy about the information they receive and are seeking their news from an increasing number of sources.

Cori Dauber, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said, “One of the most important findings here is how interested the public is and that both the military and the media underestimate how many national security topics the public cares about.”

Ratings, Circulation, & Ad Revenue Strength

• The Stat from Business Week (print): 2. The percentage of US households that visit blogs once a week or more. Only 6% report ever reading a blog. Other surveys show use is higher–up to 30%–for regular Internet users. (Data: Survey of 68,664 North American households conducted by Forrester Research.)
• CNN’s “Dead Wrong” does well in the ratings. Audience feedback was mostly positive.
• Via ABCNews report on 8/23/05: About 300,000 watch The 700 Club each day.
• Political Talk radio ratings in the Twin Cities In the key 25- to 54-year-olds demographic, Limbaugh is down 43%, and Hannity is down 63%. Franken’s show has gone up in the demo. War fatigue and post-election drop off are reasons cited.  That Limbaugh and Hannity are broken records all the time probably doesn’t help. Hat tip to Kayakbiker at DKos.
• The Nation subscriptions up; The New Republic subscriptions down
• Morning show ratings wars & spin
• Hard News Magazines Struggle, Gossip Gains Time’s newsstand sales fell to 157,217, while Newsweek’s newsstand sales fell to 126,163. Time circulation: 4.05 million. Newsweek circulation: 3.2 million (It says 1.05 million in the article, but a correction ran later that had it at 3.2 million.
• Nielsen Media Research: TV households now 110.2 million

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.  

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 above.  Cross-posted here. For more previous editions, search my diaries or Penndit.  

If you like this diary and don’t want to miss, consider subscribing. Thanks!