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and local news producer in Southern New England.
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Saturday, August 28, 2004

Huge Backlog Number One, Part A:

Okay, there is just too much gobbledygook going past for me to talk about it all. Here is some of the backlog of notes and links from Media Bistro, I Want Media and others. Alas, some of these links, generic as they were, are now kind of outdated. They're also disorganized at this writing; hope to bring them together under headings later.

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Gosh:

Dallas Morning News Overstated Circulation - Belo

Belo admits it overstated the circulation of its Dallas Morning News and says the paper's VP of circulation has resigned. Tribune and Hollinger have also disclosed inflated circulation numbers.

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Speaking of Hollinger, who do they own?:

Hollinger Canadian Says Parent May Take It Private

Hollinger International is interested in buying the 13% of Hollinger Canadian Newspapers it doesn't already own. Such an offer would trigger an independent valuation under Canadian laws.

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Remind me to buy a subscription to The Onion paper edition next time I have cash to burn:

Satirical Weekly Plants Self in Twin Cities

The Onion publishes local editions in New York, Chicago and other cities. The satirical newspaper plans to expand into other markets, putting the heat on local alternative weeklies.

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Aha! Buy a good spot on Fark:

Fark Sells Out

Are blogs messing with traditional publishing principles? Popular blog Fark.com is accused of "selling out" for selling preferential placement of story links without informing its readers.

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Holy sh*t:

Kerry: I'll Keep Cross-Ownership Rules

John Kerry says he would renew the ban on same-city ownership of TV stations by daily newspapers: "I don't know how many of you have seen 'Outfoxed'... But look at the conventions ..."

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Too late, we've seen the enemy and it is us:

On ABC, CBS and Fox, a Whole Lotta Cross-Pollination Going On

ABC and CBS will devote portions of their Friday newsmagazines to infomercials for products in which the networks hold financial stakes. Fox will run a half-hour infomercial for a 20th Century Fox movie.

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Try out spinsanity.com... and yet, how much exposure is there to be done with the spin doctors for the Bush Adminstration? Don't people just have to look closely at what the administration does? Maybe this book does the looking for them:

EXCERPT: ALL THE PRESIDENT'S SPIN
In the introduction to their new book, the editors of Spinsanity.com set out to expose the Bush administration's tactics of media manipulation.

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So are they illegal aliens or undocumented persons? Tonight on Sabado Gigante!:

The BBC reports A Spanish-language TV show in the U.S. is offering as its top prize help from immigration lawyers to gain a green card.

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Where to find my next job:

DESPERATELY SEEKING COPY
The Economist: If the web can help two isolated hearts find love, surely it can help an editor find the freelancer of his dreams—and vice versa. [Check out the Freelance Marketplace.]

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Did you hear about white horse John McCain? (is that the right term? Dark horse? White hat? The guy extending an olive branch? The Republican most Democrats would be okay with?)

John McCain repudiated a new advertisement accusing John Kerry of Massachusetts of lying about his Vietnam War record and called on the President Bush to do the same. Salon.com: Republicans' dishonorable charge.

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Incidentally, I Want Media and Media Bistro both like the same things, their daily newsletters of links both pitch many the same things...

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Oh, stop:

The Media Monotony

Despite the "dangers" cited in the book "The New Media Monopoly," the "Big Five" media giants don't own any of the agenda-setting newspapers, such as the New York Times, says Jack Shafer.

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Again, FNC covering its behind in case Kerry wins:

News Corp. President Endorses Kerry

According to the Kerry for President campaign, News Corp. president and COO Peter Chernin has endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate. News Corp. owns Fox News Channel.

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When the amber alert went out, did 12 get caught with their pants down? I dunno, the only place I didn't see either a live cut-in (breaking news or amber alert or other) or a crawl was WPRI... trouble is, I know exactly why no basic boring crawl aired (the crawl machine is on the fritz at least from my end) but why didn't an EAS style crawl air? WLNE aired a crawl and an audio alert, I believe WJAR aired a crawl, but I didn't see anything on 12... and of course the Boston stations, 4, 5, I think 7, and 25 were all over it... no word on 56, and I couldn't see NECN...

First there was Emergency Broadcast System. Now there's Emergency Alert System. And even that's not good enough:

FCC Commish Copps Talks Homeland Security

Addressing issues raised in the 9/11 Commission Report, FCC commissioner Michael J. Copps admits that a reliable emergency alert system "just doesn't exist today, but it can and it should."

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Another one of those "I'm so scared" stories where the scaredy cats know it's too late to put the cat back in the bag and could probably just embrace it being out:

TiVo Gets Nod for Users to Share Digital Shows

TiVo has received FCC approval for TiVo To Go, which will permit users to share online copies of digital broadcast shows. Movie studios fear a "Napsterization" of movies and TV programs.

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From the "Are you really surprised" department: Look at all the Mickey crap Target is selling, I now own a pair of FRS glorified walkie talkies that say "Over" in Mickey's voice and "How-dy!" in Goofy's voice:

Disney Ready to Introduce Mickey Mouse PC

Disney's new Mickey Mouse personal computer for children comes complete with a pair of Mickey Mouse ears with built-in speakers. The PC will include built-in Internet-filtering software.

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Bloggers are your word of mouth, get your page views up by freeing, not cutting off, their tongues:

Dear Bloggers: Media Discover Promotional Potential of Blogosphere

The Wall Street Journal Online is promoting one story per day outside its subscription wall to bloggers. Media companies are starting to work with -- instead of against -- the blogosphere.

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Metro is literally the free word on the street for cities with high urban professional foot traffic:

Metro International 'World's Most-Read Newspaper'

Free newspaper publisher Metro International says it is seeing a 50% increase in sales. Metro, which recently launched an edition in New York, claims to have a core readership of 25 to 34 year olds.

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America's ABC Does a BBC America In Old Blighty:

Disney to Launch ABC1 Channel on UK's Freeview

Disney will launch a version of its ABC television network in the U.K. next month, bringing U.S. shows like soap opera "General Hospital" and offbeat comedy "Sports Night" to Britain.

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Wanna see Xanadu? Apparently you're the only one:

Hearst Castle Sees Worst July on Record in Attendance

Higher ticket prices and slumping tourism are blamed for the worst attendance in the past 20 Julys at Hearst Castle. The onetime estate of William Randolph Hearst is run by the state of California.

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There's more schwing on the net than ever before: (and am I learning to enjoy euphemizing?)

NEWS SITES: WHERE THE MEN ARE
While the gender ratio of people who read print newspapers is about 1-to-1, 60 percent to 70 percent of the people who read the websites of the same newspapers are male.

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Aw, geez, am I going to have to start reading Maureen Dowd?:

DOWD BOOK BUSHWORLD OUT
Maureen Dowd's fans and foes are in for a bonanza starting today, when her first book, Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk, clocking in at 523 pages, gets its official launch.

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Should I care, or more accurately, worry, about Lew Wasserman?:

EDITING FROM THE GRAVE
Even in death, the great MCA/Universal mogul Lew Wasserman retains his power. His friends and family are trying to put the kibosh on a documentary by Barry Avrich.

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Postmodern are we? How so? Read more about it:

SHAKING UP THE SOUND-BITE CULTURE
Tina Brown: The media have gotten so damn postmodern. All they talk about when a speech is done is not the content but how it plays. Does it have legs? Will it fly?

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Yowtch, make it hurt so good:

RON JEREMY IN RUG BURN
The porn star's spoof of a local TV ad rubs the "Queen of Carpets" the wrong way.

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Oh, so THEY're the people behind American Baby. So their print is doing okay, but is the print picking up the slack of the screwed-up television division? Where, unless Hell has frozen over, the biggest market station is always down the tubes?:

Meredith Sets Record for Yearly Earnings

Meredith says it is outperforming other magazine publishers in terms of advertising and is enjoying the best year in its 102-year history. Its American Baby Group has "been a home run."

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I was just in Kmart and Martha Stewart Everyday stuff is nearly wall to wall, and quite distinctive (one of the reasons I was looking at it was because I happened to see Martha on and she was dishing these interesting measuring cups that are more like huge spoons – and kind of heavy, but I like that), so my question is: will Kmart dump Martha?

Martha's Appeals Miss with Ad Buyers

Advertisers continue to abandon Martha Stewart. The more she fights her prison sentence, the more of an expensive headache she becomes, say the execs who now run her company.

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"I can't get a frickin' newspaper ad!" "Boss, why don't we just publish our own newspaper?" "Great idea! Call up the competition and we'll get them in on the game to cut costs!":

Island Uprising

Car dealers whose ads have been banned from Newsday are exploring launching their own weekly paper to reach the Long Island market or moving their ads to existing publications.

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God knows, The Berkeley Beacon may already be brought to you by Stolichnaya, but now you can read about it in print:

Ruling Could Put Alcohol Ads Back in College Newspapers

A federal court has overturned a Pennsylvania law that barred paid alcohol ads in student newspapers. Student papers are awaited the chance to draw on a lucrative revenue source.

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How about news sites just don't require registration at all and just get their information from cookies and other backstage channels like everyone else?:

What, Me Register?

News sites that require registration annoy their readers, so many users submit bogus data. Web publishers should set up a one-stop registration for everybody, writes Adam L. Penenberg.

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How is infotainment supposed to imply advertising? And how long are these items going to be? 250 characters max? I'm already getting bullsh*t advertising with abbreviations from AT&T Wireless...:

Virgin Mobile UK Launches Mobile Magazine

Virgin Mobile is launching a mobile "magazine," called Virgin Mobile Bites, described as a cross between a celebrity gossip magazine and an infotainment service on the phone.

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Sleeping with the enemy. How the frig would this work? Okay, fine, when the evil Yankees play the Sox they're both on the same thing but how about when each team is in totally different cities? Maybe they just want to give Fox Sports Net New York/New England a run for their money. And is YES now combined already with MSG? I can't remember...:

Yankee Panky

The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox are exploring a plan to merge their two regional sports cable networks, YES and NESN, creating a super regional sports channel.

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Bring it on, we all want to escape the evildoers we have to work under every day:

HIDE AND SEEK
How to search for a new job without the old one catching on.

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In one of Murdoch's biggest countries of holdings, (think Sky TV,) Outfoxed is going cinematic on his behind:

OUTFOXED GETS CINEMA RELEASE
The controversial documentary accusing Fox News of political bias is to be shown in cinemas, following the success of its DVD release.

Outfoxed is also going to big screens in the lower 48:

Theaters Get 'Outfoxed': DVD to Get Theatrical Release

"Outfoxed," the anti-Fox News Channel film released on DVD July 13, will receive a domestic theatrical release Aug. 6, opening in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

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Need more reality shows? Try an entire friggin' town!!:

MAKEOVER SHOW FOR TOWNS
Jeffersonville prepares for a televised makeover courtesy of The Learning Channel's new reality television show, Town Haul.

http://nytimes.com/2004/08/04/nyregion/04towns.html

Need even more reality TV? Try the prez uncut and catchin' fish (too bad we let that one get away):

BUSH REALITY TV?
Joe Hagan: On Friday, Aug. 6, for an entire hour, you can watch President George W. Bush sit in a boat on a pond in Crawford, Texas, and fish for bass.

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Dude, did you see Bush totally blow off Helen Thomas at his last Rose Garden newser? He must be taking lessons for handling the media from Jesse Ventura (who put "OFFICIAL JACKAL" on press credentials):

THOMAS TRIMS BUSH
So what happens when a small weekly newspaper invites journalism legend Helen Thomas to its annual summer social? It gets an earful, that's for sure.

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And just WHY would Popular Mechanics do this?:

"Media Offline"

+ The cover of Popular Mechanics depicts a bomb destroying the Empire State Building.

+ Peter Jennings and Dan Rather speak out against media consolidation.

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Imus and Stern do it on MSNBC and E! respectively, so why not Him, Al Franken, on Sundance? (Why Sundance was chosen is anybody's guess):

Al Franken Radio Show to Be on Cable TV

Al Franken's radio show on Air America is starting a TV edition for the Sundance Channel, beginning Sept. 7 and running through the November election and maybe beyond.

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Rather than another home shopping network getting added to your programming lineup, why not the Pentagon?:

Time Warner to Launch Pentagon Channel

Time Warner Cable will begin rolling out the Pentagon Channel later this month. The Defense Department's news network for the military will be available to digital-cable subscribers.

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Is Logo on the air or what? But I love the title of "And Baby" [makes three], how cute:

Gay Media: Heading Toward the Mainstream

And Baby magazine, aimed at gay parents, plans to expand into radio and TV. The publisher of gay magazine Out is in talks about incorporating content into MTV's Logo gay channel.

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The other day when I was bored and playing with the radio I listened to Rush Limbaugh for a few minutes and he was reading an article about how the Democrats didn't get enough "red meat" in the convention, there wasn't ENOUGH Bush-bashing:

MEDIA STICKING TO THE SCRIPT?
Paul Krugman: Many watched the convention on cable news channels, and what they saw was shaped by a script portraying Democrats as angry Bush-haters who disdain the military. Fair.org: News reporting is usually so mired in the muck of cliches and corporatized assumptions that the spin often renders the coverage worthless, writes Norman Solomon. Media Matters: Fox aired significantly less of Dem convention speeches than other cablers.

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Dude, why do we care so effing MUCH about the intimate details of celebrities' lives? Do we have absolutely NOTHING to talk about?:

PREGNANCY PORN
Rebecca Traister: Wacky names! Baby "bumps"! The "most anticipated baby in the world"! Why do we (and the media) salivate over spawning celebrities?

TABS DROP MARY-KATE COKE CLAIM?
Page Six: American Media seems to be backing off its bombshell claim that Mary-Kate Olsen was treated in a Utah clinic for cocaine addiction.

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Isn't this all just empty recycling of electrons?:

BLOGGERS THE ONLY STORY AT DNC?
Andrew Ferguson: Complaining about the empty ritual of the press complaining about the "empty rituals" that conventions have become has now become an empty ritual.

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So then what the hell are we supposed to do? Throw bots in chat rooms saying "Drink Coke!"?:

Young People 'No Longer Believe TV Ads'

Younger audiences no longer believe commercials and are likely to find Internet chat rooms more credible, says a marketing exec with Procter & Gamble. "Today's generation is much more media savvy."

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More exposure to Craigslist:

How Do I Love Craig? Let Me List the Ways

Employers in San Francisco pay to post want ads on Craigslist. That policy will extend to New York City and Los Angeles this week. Does Craigslist spell the end of newspaper classifieds?

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My job will go to the guy on the other side of the TV screen:

Book Review: 'Big Media' May Lose Out to Readers' Reporting

The lines will blur between news producers and consumers, writes Dan Gillmor in "We the Media." "Greater participation in the national conversation will mean an alteration of electoral politics."

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Everybody loves a Drudge, so why don't You?:

Why Gossip Is Losing Its Hold as a Media Staple

"Once fearsome, today's would-be Winchells are filling their space with warmed-over press releases," writes Randall Rothenberg. "Now that everyone's a Drudge, gossip is mere sludge."

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Who will buy? (Later statements from NBC say this is totally untrue; read more about it and you be the judge):

Must-Flee TV

With Microsoft in talks to sell online magazine Slate, analysts say the software giant may be looking to shed another of its last remaining media assets -- MSNBC, the third-ranked cable news network.

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What the hell is Magna Global USA? And besides, what's your point?:

'Friends' Rather than Family

NBC's "Friends" destroyed TV's family hour, says an exec with Magna Global USA. Back in 1994, NBC began airing adult-themed "Friends" at 8 p.m., the time slot reserved for family programs.

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So there goes the idea of leaving the microcassette recorder in my boss's office:

Fired FX Exec Kept Listening In on Network Brass, D.A. Says

Publicity exec Randolph Steven Webster was arrested Friday for illegally wiretapping confidential senior-level staff meetings at the FX cable channel that had earlier fired him.

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Oooh, when can I go to a party in Boston?:

MediaBistro PARTY PHOTOS: COCKTAILS IN DETROIT
PARTY PHOTOS: THE TV PARTY IN NEW YORK CITY
PARTY PHOTOS: COCKTAILS IN BOSTON
Three new sets of party photos.

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One of the bad things about New England, it's still all an old boys network, and they're either not inviting me, or I keep throwing away the invitations:

HERALD SQUARES
John Cassidy: If the Globe represents Boston's desire to be taken seriously, the Herald embodies its parochialism, truculence, and hostility toward anything showy or false.

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Aha... when it becomes necessary to swear on teevee! Thank you Dick Cheney:

DROPPING THE F-BOMB
David Shaw: When the obscenity itself becomes big news, we owe it to our readers to be specific about what was said so they can judge for themselves whether it's relevant.

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Oh, for f-sake, this administration is just not flying anymore with us:

BUSHIES WANTED TO KNOW RACE OF PHOTOG
President Bush's re-election campaign insisted on knowing the race of an Arizona Daily Star journalist assigned to photograph Vice President Dick Cheney.

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Barefoot in the Fleet? Barefoot how? Kicked off her slingbacks? And by the way I heard Charlie was p.o.'ed:

BAREFOOT COURIC BESTS GMA
The Today show's barefoot Katie Couric snagged a live interview with the Democratic nominees, while GMA's well-shod Charles Gibson got nobody.

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Most shocking episode? What happened? Necrophilia?:

CAPTIVE AUDIENCE
Emily Nussbaum: Six Feet Under's most shocking episode thrilled some viewers, sickened others, and triggered a debate about what we expect from TV.

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More on freelancing's rise:

FREELANCE-A-LOT
The rise of independent workers highlights challenges facing today's U.S. labor market.

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To read, reluctant metrosexual:

EXCERPT: THE RELUCTANT METROSEXUAL
In his new collection of first-person humor essays, Peter Hyman reflects on his mid-'90s stint as a Vanity Fair fact checker.

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Blogging, reporting, and trivia news:

BLOGSPLOITATION
Mark Glaser: The mainstream media didn't just write about those bloggers--they launched their own high-profile blogging efforts while poaching talent from the blogosphere. CBSMW: Free blogging software is the fertilizer that has allowed thousands of flowers to bloom on the Internet, and mediabistro.com plans to transfer a few for profit.

DOES REPORTING REQUIRE GOING PLACES?
Jonathan Chait: What's so bad about sitting around? You can learn a lot sitting behind a desk, mining the papers for interesting factual nuggets, reading political commentary from every perspective, poring through books and reports.

TRIUMPH OF THE TRIVIAL
Paul Krugman: Somewhere along the line, TV news stopped reporting on candidates' policies, and turned instead to trivia.

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That's what we annoying Democrats like to hear:

Poll Power: Gallup's Editor Discusses Presidential Race

"Only a fool at this point" would predict who will be elected president, says Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. "We do know, however, that Bush is vulnerable."

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Did Michael Moore censor himself? And if he had would we have been offended by what he said? And if he did was it to further his oust-Bush agenda?:

An Issue Too Hot for 'Fahrenheit'?

The "unstated villain" in "Fahrenheit 9/11" is our national media, says filmmaker Michael Moore. NBC parent General Electric is a "war profiteer" that has $600 million worth of contracts in Iraq.

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Structured? How is blogging not structured? Post as soon as you have content. Hey, some TV people go live with a story as soon as they have some kernel so what's wrong with blogging?:

Stars of Convention: Bloggers

Last year CNN said: "CNN.com prefers a structured approach to presenting the news. We do not blog." Now, CNN is blogging the Democratic convention, along with Knight Ridder and the AP.

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Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 8/28/2004 06:09:00 PM ... Email this entry ...
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