Media News Monday 5/30/05

Media News Monday!

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: May 23, 2005
For more previous editions, search my diaries.  

Now for the news from the past week posted today, May 30, 2005:

A sampling of Newsweek cartoons from the last two weeks:

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 are obviously must-reads, so I don’t bother with the %%%.

Good RIDDANCE!
NYT Public Editor Daniel Okrent

Alert! Right Wing Nut Job Is New Producer at The Today Show
It ain’t pretty…Noah Oppenheim

CNN: World Report Conference
Info here for this conference which is happening in Atlanta this week

The Public & the Press: APPC Poll

• APPC Synopsis: The American public disapproves only narrowly of partisan journalism, splits about evenly on whether news organizations usually get their facts straight, and narrowly accepts the idea that the government can limit the right of the press to report a story.
• PDF of Press release
• Survey Questions Asked to the Public
• Survey Questions Asked to the Public
• E&P write-up on the story
• CJR Daily write up
• FishbowlDC comments

The Ben Bradlee Rule
link “There was an old rule in journalism, and Ben Bradlee represented that at the Washington Post, if an unnamed source lies to a news organization, that source loses his anonymity, by definition, because he’s misled people.”

Question of the Week
Why hasn’t the press bothered to explore just why 57% of the public feel that the war was not worth it? Because it would then have to admit all of the things they did wrong in the lead up to the war.

Really Stupid Media Headlines
Those internet headlines writers must be bored.

• CNN headlines: Al-Zarqawi: Alive? Dead? Wounded?
• And this is real from CBS.com. It was eventually changed.

Why Thoughtful Journalism Would Win Viewers
It’s because there’s so little of it. Alexandra Pelosi Could Have “Paid A Monkey” To Cover Presidential Campaigns

Media & Facts
link This is pretty much right on.

“there is much else the media can and should do to regain that trust. Perhaps the most obvious is, in the [New York Times credibility] committee’s words, ‘reducing factual errors.’ …I’ve long since lost track of the number of times that readers from all walks of life have told me, ‘Any time I read anything in the paper that I know anything about, it’s wrong.'”

Media Jeopardy
FAIR article

Media Personalities

• Falafel O’Reilly: Black People Aren’t “Regular Folks”
• Katie Couric v. Diane Sawyer %%% Morning show wars.  I’ve heard many times from people who work at NBC’s Today Show, that Ms. Perky can be a big-time bitch.  The unnamed sources in the many articles that have appeared lately about Couric are very believable to me.
• “The Situation with Tucker Carlson” Carlson’s new MSNBC show is going into rehearsals soon. The name of the show, IMHO, is going to be ridiculed one way or another. Predicted comment when the show premieres June 13: “The situation with Tucker Carlson is that he is a partisan hack incapable of being truthful.”
• Zap2it talks to Bob Schieffer %%%
• Email ABCNews’ Terry Moran to ask which of his colleagues have an anti-military bias. If he’s going to make a general statement like that, then, he should have the cojones to name names.
• A day in the life of Bob Schieffer %%%
• Aaron Brown says Schiavo debate was a “great cable story.” Ugh. No wonder so many hate cable news. The squawking and push for fast turnaround (as opposed to factual reports) is unattractive.
• When the Columbia accident happened in 2003, NASA was about to announce CNN’s Miles O’Brien as the first reporter in space. %%%
• CNN’s Carlos Watson could get an expanded role. Sometimes Watson is okay, but this, IMHO, like almost all job promotions in cable news, would be an undeserved promotion. Others defend Carlos Watson. Watson is lousy on CNN. Maybe TV just isn’t his thing. He doesn’t provide much insight at all.  
• The Self-Deception of Bill O’Reilly
• LATimes: Falafel O’Reilly should knock it off re: decapitation & Newsweek story
• CJR Daily takes on Falafel O’Reilly’s Churchill obsession
• Newshounds: Liberal Lady Lawyer Runs Rings Around Bill O’Reilly on Subject of GITMO Detainees
• McClellan backs away from claims that Newsweek story cost Afghan lives
• (WakeupCall) “I think this will end up being a blip” – Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, who says he dropped the ball, on “Charlie Rose” (AP). (Newsie: Well, if you say so.) More from Isikoff.
• White House News Photographers Assoc dinner. Joe Scarborough hosted and apparently, bombed. Heh.
• Rather on Topic A with Tina Brown. He remains loyal to Mapes, apparently.
• Alabama GOP Congressman calls Bill Maher a traitor.  I think the Congressman took Maher’s comment too literally. Maher responded.

RWCM Watch

• EJ Dionne: “Assault on the Media” %%% Frame it.
• Where are the liberals on TV?
• Connection between CPB head Tomlinson and Sen. Joseph McCarthy %%%
• Mitchell and Moyers fight back %%%
• Where’s the outrage over the Army lying about Pat Tillman? %%%
• Daniel Okrent lies in his final NYT public editor column Re: labeling Moyers as liberal. %%%
• NPR’s Tom Ashbrook says two ombudsmen for public broadcasting is a bad idea. %%% He makes good points and has good reasoning.
• When stories and ads are placed and timed… interestingly
• The State of CNN? What it is becoming… %%%
• CNN Birthday: Primetime Special on June 1. Details in link
• CNN rudely interrupts and inserts right wing opinion %%% Stem cell `debate’… FNC does the same thing.
• NYT lies in story about Quran desecration
• Coverage of Saddam in his undies Does it reveal a right-wing bias?
• Local media buys Bush lies hook, line and sinker
• Jeff Dvorkin from NPR is a tool
• Congressional panel of right-wing media bias, organized by Rep. Conyers, gets ink in AP & is posted at E&P
• Rieder: Newsweek doesn’t have blood on its hands %%%
• Kos calls Media Bias Against Military Claims a crock of shit
• Malkin gets a quote wrong
• Sinclair Broadcasting now “applauds” Nightline for its tribute to “The Fallen.” Yeah, right…some misunderstanding.

State of the Media, Trends, Research Reports, Innovations

• Salon.com’s balancing act %%% It doesn’t make a profit, but its sitepass model is inching towards profitability. Interesting article worth reading.
• Lobbying Congress %%% An Abosolute MUST READ. Staffers talk about what will get attention and what won’t. There’s lots of stuff in the article, but to summarize: Congressional reps. consider in-state or in-district contact more. Form letters don’t make as much of an impact as original letters. Some lobbying doesn’t make much of a difference when there’s a 50-50 split.
• Adage (Sub. Req.): FCC Commissioner Adelstein decries commercialization of media. Doesn’t like “fake news” and “relentless marketing.”
• CNN.com video project could be basically another channel online only. Ahh, so when the regular CNN sucks, just develop another CNN (this time online) so that it, too, will suck! (In other words, could the people at CNN try fixing the existing CNN so that the online CNN doesn’t suck?)
• MSNBC.com and ABCNews announced plans to do podcasting segments. ABCNews will produce “The AlterNote.”
• Newsweek Unveils New Policy On Anonymous Sources, by Addison
• Unnamed Sources are a Necessity When Covering the Bush Administration
• FAIR’s Jeff Cohen said cable channels are “‘dis-infotainment channels’ because so much of the info is wrong.”
• Brian Williams says Network News Obits are “Baloney”
• Pa. Paper Is First in U.S. to Publish Both Broadsheet and Compact
• Journos file briefs supporting Apple bloggers
• CNBC programming notes
• Efforts to improve quality of journalism schools.
• USAToday columnist: Once blogs ‘change everything,’ fascination with them will chill
• Firefox Internet Guerilla Marketing strategy is gaining attention. %%% Maybe this could be implemented in political campaigns (better)?
• Pew poll on Blog Buzz

The studies posit a blog-buzz connection for some of the following reasons:

1. The internet is a great place to roam for buzzworthy topics. All sorts of social and political communication occur online, from commercial advertising to educational symposia, concerted rabble-rousing to casual chewing the fat, technical databases to home-made cartoons.
2. The blog as a net form is conducive to buzz. A blog is basically a web site consisting of a collection of entries in reverse chronological order. It is personal, accessible, spontaneous and open to discussion.
3. Adjacency develops out of shared interests, as do audience followings. Internet users do not go to blogs out of obligation, nor do internet users see blog content as a consequence of someone else’s financial arrangement to have that content placed before them. Blogs are perused voluntarily, and returned to automatically or habitually.
4. The A-list bloggers occupy key positions in the mediascape. Journalists, activists, and political decision-makers have learned to consult political blogs as a guide to what is going on in the rest of the internet.

Ratings, Circulation, & Ad Revenue Strength:

• Today Show wins race against GMA… but barely. One news analyst in a Philly Inq story said that there’s an 85% chance that GMA will overtake the Today Show.
• CNN HLN beats MSNBC in some key timeslots last Monday night It’s not the first time this has happened.  There are still many nights when MSNBC beats HLN, but it can’t be comforting for MSNBC that HLN can beat MSNBC.
• Some Sunday Talk Show ratings
• CNBC’s The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch has a week of relatively high ratings Better than the usual scratches.

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.  

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Cross-posted at Penndit.