We report, you decide...what is true or not.
Ah yes...oversight..... can be a real b*tch.
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....you go girl...
Posted on 06/23/2008 4:37:07 AM PDT by abb
WHEN the NBC News host Tim Russert died on June 13, NBC tried to hold back the news from going public for more than an hour to notify his family vacationing in Italy and presumably to prepare for what became six hours of coverage on its cable news outlet, MSNBC.
And King Canute, ancient legend has it, tried to hold back the tide.
Mr. Russert collapsed from a heart attack in NBC’s Washington newsroom around 1:40 p.m.; he was treated there and then taken to a hospital, arriving at 2:23 and being pronounced dead shortly thereafter, according to press accounts. The network, in the voice of its respected former anchor, Tom Brokaw, announced the news at 3:39.
Long before Mr. Russert’s death was reported on air, however, it was flashing across the Internet via the text-messaging service Twitter and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
snip
The lesson seems to be this: as long as there is news, people will try to share it. And new technology promises to turn the process into a tide that can swallow us up, good intentions and all.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"Network evening newscasts will go dark after the '08 elections and their news divisions disbanded."
ping
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/business/media/23cannes.html?ref=business
Ad Leaders See Web’s Threat and Promise
By ERIC PFANNER
CANNES, France — The growing advertising ambitions of technology powerhouses like Google and Microsoft are creating alarm in the executive suites of ad agencies.
At an annual gathering here, executives harshly criticized Google’s recent agreement to place ads next to Yahoo search results. The move could strengthen Google’s dominance over the most lucrative portion of the fast-growing online advertising field.
Ad executives worry that Google and Microsoft, which is moving to bolster its capabilities in search and other areas of online advertising, will not stop there. They fear that the companies want to extend their reach into traditional advertising — transforming, as they see it, a business built on creativity to one controlled by the sterile algorithms of computer programmers.
Google “clearly wants to replace the advertising industry in its totality,” said Cindy Gallop, a former chief executive of the New York office of the ad agency BBH. She added, however, that she thought Google would be “fundamentally undermined” by what she saw as its antipathy toward traditional advertising.
snip
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/business/media/23drill.html?ref=business
More Time Spent With Online Videos
By ALEX MINDLIN
Compared with previous years, the number of Internet users who watched videos on YouTube and other Web sites has risen only slightly. The overall number crept to about 135 million in April from 132 million in May 2007, according to comScore, an online measurement firm.
But each of those users is watching far more video than before. ComScore reported that the average viewer watched 228 minutes of video in April, compared with 158 minutes in May 2007. One reason is that the videos people watch are becoming longer — the average viewer spent about 17 seconds more per video in April than in May 2007 — but most of the rise came from a spike in the number of videos that each person watched.
“It’s no longer that people just get sent a link by one of their friends,” said Andrew Lipsman, a senior analyst at comScore. “Now they actively seek things out, ‘I just saw this on TV, and I’m going to find it online.’ I think video is being seen more and more as an extension of search.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/business/media/23paper.html?ref=business
Papers Facing Worst Year for Ad Revenue
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
For newspapers, the news has swiftly gone from bad to worse. This year is taking shape as their worst on record, with a double-digit drop in advertising revenue, raising serious questions about the survival of some papers and the solvency of their parent companies.
Ad revenue, the primary source of newspaper income, began sliding two years ago, and as hiring freezes turned to buyouts and then to layoffs, the decline has only accelerated.
On top of long-term changes in the industry, the weak economy is also hurting ad sales, especially in Florida and California, where the severe contraction of the housing markets has cut deeply into real estate ads. Executives at the Hearst Corporation say that one of their biggest papers, The San Francisco Chronicle, is losing $1 million a week.
Over all, ad revenue fell almost 8 percent last year. This year, it is running about 12 percent below that dismal performance, and company reports issued last week suggested a 14 percent to 15 percent decline in May.
snip
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/business/media/23veoh.html?ref=business
ABC Moves to Expand Its Reach on Video Web Sites
By BRAD STONE
SAN FRANCISCO — ABC, the stingiest of the major television networks when it comes to syndicating its programs across the Web, is loosening up a little.
The network, owned by the Walt Disney Company, is expected to announce on Monday that full episodes of prime time shows like “Lost,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Ugly Betty,” along with short clips and game highlights from the cable network ESPN, will be accessible through the independent video site Veoh.com.
Like YouTube, Veoh features short, user-submitted video clips. But lately it has also mixed in material from large media companies like CBS, Viacom’s MTV Networks and USA Network. Veoh Networks, based in Los Angeles, is backed by the former Disney chief executive Michael D. Eisner, along with other private investors.
The deal with Veoh is ABC’s second agreement to stream free, advertising-supported shows on a Web site other than its own or its broadcast affiliates’. Last fall, it struck a similar deal with AOL. Though it is not disclosing financial arrangements of the Veoh deal, ABC said it was paying Veoh for the traffic driven to its programs and commercials, which ensures Veoh will heavily promote ABC’s offerings on its home page.
snip
Pathetic.
The real question revealed in the article is what else have they “held back” from the public?
So let it be said. So let it be done.
Their monopoly of what the public learns, and manipulation of it, is coming to an end...hopefully, in time.
Back in the mid 90s I attended a software conference where the keynote speaker was a computer science professor from MIT. He talked about lots of things, but one thing was the web, and its potential for upheaval (my word) on a grand scale. He divided the web into three periods: B2B, B2P and P2P. I think we are well into the third period now. That’s Peer-to-Peer. Sites like this are a good example. The ability for us common folks to share information without relying on traditional information-peddling agencies is a huge leap forward, both socially and economically. If some business entities, ie The Raleigh News & Observer, get left in the dust, that’s too damn bad.
This is a twofer, dinosaur newspapers, and dinosaur ad agencies. Who says everything is going to hell?
Yes, and the ability for us common-folk to share bogus information as fact, without any form of oversight, is also a huge leap forward. We will have more and more groups of people that will only listen to what they want to hear, whether true or not, and this will result in less people knowing what really happens, then ever before.
We report, you decide...what is true or not.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1117172.html
Next Monday, a new page
N&O will get you up to speed on the week that’s coming
In 1966, the Mamas and the Papas had a No. 1 hit with the song “Monday, Monday.” It included the line, “Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be.”
Forty-two years later, The News & Observer hopes to rectify that lapse.
Starting June 30, Monday’s front page will focus more on what’s going to happen than what has happened. It will look at what’s coming in politics, government, business, sports and culture. In place of the news summary on the left side of the page will be a staff-written news forecast. Stories will be shorter, some holding to the front page.
Financial pressures have put a new emphasis on coverage that uses less space. The Monday A section, for instance, will lose two pages, including the Monday op-ed page. But necessity can spur improvement. Next Monday, we hope you’ll agree.
“Starting June 30, Monday’s front page will focus more on what’s going to happen than what has happened.”
Translation: We’ll just make it up from now on.
To whom do you propose this 'oversight' authority be granted?
I don’t, that’s why I don’t think it’s a good idea. At least now, when a national news agency, or other form of big corporate media says something questionable, all sides get to see it and challenge it. When you have stuff only on the internet and accessible to only those that want to see it, the chance of having something challenged, is greatly reduced.
Respected? By whom?
Interesting, very interesting. Your statement begs the question, why is it that when a FReeper makes a statement that is above accepted 5th grade knowledge level, that in many instances someone will immediately challenge and request a LINK to a reliable source?
How many of us are willing to accept any statement or claim by any anonymous person as fact and make decisions accordingly? Is everyone willing to accept information from unknown sources without any accountability?
Perhaps some of you are, but then, what is to be expected?
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=127893
Th-Th-Th-That’s All, Folks! No More Talk of Media End-Times
Yeah, the Sky Is Falling. But It’s Time to Stop Mourning the Demise of the Golden Age of Easy Media Profits
By Simon Dumenco
Published: June 23, 2008
In Medialand, the sky is falling, the sky is falling! No, really, it’s totally falling, for real. Every last bit of it — the sun, the stars, the clouds, the rainbows. And somebody (Google, I think) has even made off with the pots of gold that used to anchor those rainbows.
We’ve been getting the news, in dribs and drabs, about the disintegration of traditional media models for how many years now?
The chorus of death rattles — all that gruesome gurgling and gasping! — is getting to me. So I propose a moratorium: Let’s stop obsessing about the lost golden age of easy media profits and just get on with inventing the media future (which will, let’s face it, involve lower margins for just about everybody — except Google!). I’ll go first. I’m going to do my best, from now on, to stop writing about any of the following Top 10 Media Death Memes. Wish me luck.
The end of Madison Avenue hegemony. Thanks, Sergey and Larry! (By the way, did you realize the 10-year anniversary of Google is this September? That’s right, 10 years ago today, there was no Google Inc. AMC should make a “Mad Men” spinoff about how sexy and awesome things were in the summer of 1998!)
The end of (duh) newspapers. Honestly, I can barely stand to read Jim Romenesko’s journalism-industry blog anymore because it’s like reading the obits.
Actually, the end of all print. Tip of the hat (of course) to Romenesko for giving big play to Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer’s pronouncement (to The Washington Post) that “there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.”
The end of the album. The iPod forever trashed our musical attention spans, and no matter how much full-length album auteurs such as Radiohead expect that we’ll listen to their Complete Works start to finish, life has become one big random mix tape.
The end of the rock star. Nobody will ever again sell 100 million copies of a record (like Michael Jackson did with “Thriller”) or even 25 million (like Nirvana did with “Nevermind”). Ever. Ever ever! Rapper Lil Wayne sells a measly million records in a week and there’s practically dancing in the (record-label) suites. With easy money no longer propping up rock-star lifestyles, what will we be left with? More multimedia moguls like Kanye West, for whom music making is just one part of the equation.
The end of broadcast TV. In the future, everybody gets their own on-demand, internet-delivered viewing experience with custom-tailored ad insertions (for when they’re not watching the “American Idol” finale on Fox).
The end of media civility. Thanks, apparently, to bloggers. And blog commenters. And bad parenting.
The end of journalism in general. Seriously, who’s gonna bankroll the bulk of it once the newspaper industry collapses and network TV throws in the towel on the evening newscast? (Watch for CBS to go first, after Katie Couric’s successor also sinks in the ratings.)
The end of objectivity. With the death of journalism and the rise of millions of pro and semi-pro opinionists on the web, in the future every media person will be an insufferable partisan.
The end of paid content, period. Wired Editor in Chief Chris “The Long Tail” Anderson has a book in the works that will expand on his recent cover story, “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business.” (Basically, nobody’s going to pay for content anymore, so you have to give it away and figure out how to merchandise and monetize everything that surrounds the content.)
Cue chorus of the Smiths’ “Shoplifters of the World Unite.”
I agree with you about the ability to share bogus info., but the media certainly wasn’t honest before the internet. I grew up thinking Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, etc. were honestly giving us the news, only later to find out they fed us only their own agenda. Peter Arnett was an extremely dishonest reporter, especially in his reports on the Vietnam War. Where was the oversight?
Some people want to know what is going on in order to shape their thinking- some already have set ideas on how things are and only want to know things that will support what they already think. It has always been this way.
I think the internet just allows us to see the different groups of people up close and see how they think about things. I don’t think it is changing human nature. When I want to know something I try very hard to find reliable sources- and some will accept the first source they come to or only sources that match their agenda.
Respected? By whom?
LOFL... By the "same people" who give themselves "awards," for the being the champions of truth and guardians of our democracy, or so they think...the MSM
The only reason Jack F Kennedy did not get tainted as Bill Clinton (screwing everything in sight), is because the media "decided" that we the public, did not "need to know that."
King Canute (or Knute) did not try to hold back the tide. He did it to show his sycophantic courtiers that he was not so powerful.
One of the things I’ve concluded after much posting and reading and studying on the history of communications is there’s really never been such a thing as “news” as a product.
News is nothing more than information sharing - something humankind has been doing since the cave man days.
What news distributors (newspapers, television, radio, etc.) were able to do that caused value to be created was control. That is they made “news” valuable by denying its distribution until they chose the place and time.
That control is no longer theirs to wield.
What they had was a distribution system monopoly. And since information distribution was capital intensive (printing presses, broadcast networks, paper making machinery, etc.) few were able to compete.
And I suspect peer to peer information sharing will probably be about as accurate as what Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite and Howell Raines have been telling us for years.
No they weren’t honest, but at least people from all sides of an issue were aware and could make a stink about suspect reporting.
Is it really shaping their thinking when all you hear is what you want to hear? Who will go to a web site that expounds something other than what they want to hear? Who would even know where to go? At least with the current media, one is exposed to alternative ideas.
I for one would hate to see newspapers and tv news disappear. Besides, the last thing I want to do after work, relaxing in my own home, is to have to go sit in front of a computer, just to get the news or other entertainment.
America has strayed far from his vision for news. Jefferson might be puzzled by modern journalism’s mandate to sanctify facts over opinion, when the formation of individual opinion was exactly what he believed was required in America's new form of government. In fact, to help mold public opinion in his own time, he and James Madison launched their own highly opinionated newspaper, critical of Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists. He would no doubt be discouraged by today’s prevalence of a single national conversation, in which most outlets seem to present the same news stories and angles.
(excerpt)
Right. We report, you decide...whether or not it’s true. If one reports the facts, what is there to decide?
Among many other things people ought to decide the relative weight of given facts to keep the perfect from becoming the enemy of the good.
For many years I don't think most people were aware that the "news" wasn't honest. I know when I grew up most adults I knew acted as though the news was unbiased and honest. I don't remember anyone questioning that premise until the late 1960s- 1970s. When it was questioned, most still acted like it had previously been honest and was changing- I don't remember anyone saying- gotcha, you've been lying to us all along!! In fact there are many people today that still believe the mainstream news media is honest and unbiased.
Is it really shaping their thinking when all you hear is what you want to hear?
Those that only hear what they want to hear are not likely to have their thinking shaped by anything- newspapers, TV newscast- internet. You can take a horse to water but you can't make them drink. I do go to websites for the other side of the issue- I have no trouble finding information that is different or analyzed differently than what is found here- I don't think others would have a problem finding alternate ideas- they are everywhere on the internet. I find even with newspapers and news magazines that many people choose the ones in line with their thinking and never bother to open one that might have an alternate view. One can find all the differing views they want easily if they are seeking it.
You made several good points, good post.
We report, you decide...what is true or not.
Ah yes...oversight..... can be a real b*tch.
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....you go girl...
What I’m reading this very day.
http://books.google.com/books?id=cKVhOdpieXoC&dq=news+over+the+wires&pg=PP1&ots=LG7reH6PKw&sig=2c-bhWpdRpi—HiB61fdxOeaiFg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
News over the Wires
The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844-1897
Must read for anyone interested in the history of information sharing.
http://www.miamiherald.com/540/story/577757.html
snip
Many of the comments posted at www.MiamiHerald.com on the story about cuts focused on the newspaper’s columnists, such as Leonard Pitts, Dave Barry, Andres Oppenheimer and Dan Le Batard. These anonymous comments tended to be highly opinionated and suggested eliminating one or all of the columnists.
But beyond whether you agree or disagree with the columnists, should The Miami Herald offer more of them, and more informed, opinionated debate? The Wall Street Journal, for example, has added a third opinion page every day to the standard two pages that The Miami Herald and most newspapers publish.
As for the mix of columnists, I totally agree with those readers who are sure to write that The Miami Herald needs a politically conservative local columnist, and Gyllenhaal says the newspaper has been looking to find one.
snip
I've bookmarked your post.
-PJ
I certainly think you are right, that traditional news organizations are going the way of dinosaurs and buggy whips.
It cuts both ways. On the one hand, reporters and editors have become so incredibly one-sided, ideological, and willing to lie, that their disappearance will be gratifying. On the other hand, who will gather the news so we can dissect it here on FR?
I suppose most news begins, essentially, as press releases, which are then investigated (or not) by a reporter. Maybe the internet can take over that function, as traditional journalism-school-brainwashed reporters become a vanishing breed.
Police departments will hold interviews, politicians will issue news releases, businesses will release information about new developments, courts will report judicial findings, and maybe they will make this stuff available to the internet or to local bloggers rather than news editors.
The old news media will be missed, I suppose. But they basically committed suicide with their supposedly most triumphant moment—Watergate—when a new generation arose determined to manipulate the news for purely ideological purposes rather than simply report it. There’s nothing new about such news manipulation and distortion, as we remember from stories about William Randolph Hearst and others, but it was never so blatant and one-sided as it became after the Great Cultural Revolution of 1968. At least you had two sides telling their lies, and you could read both.
Watergate was a Drive-By Media coup d’état. I await the book that will one day be written about that very subject.
OK
“We were not prepared to say anything until all the family had heard,” said Allison Gollust, an NBC News spokeswoman. “The last thing we wanted to do was to have the family discover this on the air.” She said NBC had asked the other networks to hold back and they readily agreed.
~~snip~~
Holding back the news certainly isn’t the norm for journalists. Keith Olbermann, the MSNBC host, said on his prime-time show “Countdown” that Friday: “We wanted to be sure, absolutely certain, that every member of Tim’s family who needed to be told in person in private had that opportunity, was given that small piece of grace today. Other organizations did not do that.”
What a bunch of sanctimonious phony @$#%ing egomaniacs.
These bottom feeding maggots, and all their fellow travelers in the MSM-DBM, have zero problem with putting National Security Secrets on their front pages and in the process - Endangering Us All - or outing a CIA agent the second they heard about them --- all under the guise of the 'Public's Right To Know'. Yet when one of their own demigods die, it gets classified 'Ultra Top Secret'.
A pox on them all!
They also shape.
Why is it that every news story about the economy always begins with "Maria, a single mother with 9 children, who can't make ends meet on food stamps and two minimum wage jobs...?"
-PJ
Opinion media -- by which I include talk radio, blogs, and, yes, Free Republic -- is a vital resource. But you raise a very important and worrisome issue. There's a risk of all of us becoming Pauline Kael, who after the 1972 election wondered, "How could this have happened? Everyone I know voted for McGovern."
I for one would hate to see newspapers and tv news disappear. Besides, the last thing I want to do after work, relaxing in my own home, is to have to go sit in front of a computer, just to get the news or other entertainment.
Newspapers and wire services are absolutely critical to any sort of an informed populace. Watch the wires in the morning, and other than any late-breaking developments, you'll know what will be on the evening news.
The alternative media, at this point, is not really an alternative -- bloggers and talk radio hosts aren't doing the old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting that gets news out. Take away the MSM, and Rush, Drudge and FR would have little to talk about.
I have little doubt that there eventually will be alternative newsgathering operations to replace the dead-tree newspapers and the news broadcasts on a particular time and channel, but no such operation currently exists. Hate the MSM all you want, but if it were to disappear tomorrow, it would take ten times the work to be half as informed; you'd have to work every beat as your own reporter.
http://realitybitesback.blogspot.com/2008/06/time-for-newspapers-to-prepare-for.html
Monday, June 23, 2008
Time for Newspapers to Prepare for the Inevitable
With Publishers Out of Good Ideas, Maybe It’s Time to Kiss The Saturday Paper Goodbye
We all know the newspaper business is bad, but The New York Times today gives us the macro view of just how bad.
Dismal as in ad revenues off about 12 percent this year from 2007’s lousy numbers, which themselves were justifiable causes for depression in publishers’ suites. And the numbers for May may be off as much as 15 percent.
Meanwhile, it will get harder to make the argument that newspapers are still making money, only less than they used to. The San Francisco Chronicle has long wished it could say that. But the Times reports it’s losing about $1 million a week, even though the paper is being put out by a near-skeletal staff that’s already made big sacrifices in pay and benefits.
So, where do we go from here? Bankruptcy and defaults are certainly a possibility at some companies. But will they instead go for the nuclear option, and jettison some papers instead?
It’s hard to fathom San Francisco being without a major daily paper. But Hearst is not a charity and didn’t become a media behemoth bleeding red ink the way Rupert Murdoch does for sport at The New York Post.
Nonetheless, the ripples from the impact of shutting the Chronicle could turn into a media tsunami.
No major publisher wants to be the first to blink and throw in the towel for their print edition. But if Hearst, MediaNews, Tribune or some other company in trouble went that route, others would be less hesitant to follow, regardless of the precedent.
However, I don’t think Big Newspaper is ready for that fallout just yet. What you’ll likely see first, though, is the end of the daily paper. Saturday print editions could — and in some markets, should — become a thing of the past. They’re the thinnest and least-read editions of the week. It’s one way to trim without turning out the lights in the newsroom.
When I started at The Record in Hackensack, N.J. in 1989, the paper did not publish on Saturdays. That soon changed, however, though the end result was a perfunctory product with shorter, superficial articles to account for a lesser interest in Saturday reading. The Record felt six-day publishing was an anachronism that needed to be eradicated. But if readers were clamoring for a The Record on Saturday, what they got might have prompted them to reconsider.
That was 18 years ago. Now, with readership and profits in sharp decline, maybe it’s tiome to revisit that six-day model, not only in New Jersey but the other 49 states as well.
Newspapers with a strong web presence can keep the bulk of their report out there on Saturdays without having to kill any trees or spend a fortune gassing up delivery trucks on a day that offers little R.O.I.
As for those papers that fatten up the Saturday delivery with circulars, those can be moved up to Friday or even back to Sundays, now that those editions — the supposed cash cows — have become more gaunt.
It’s not that I want newspapers publishing one less day. But it could be the first painful, but necessary step toward ensuring that some newspapers continue to publish at all.
Sphere: Related Content
Posted by Steve Gosset at 8:59 AM
Besides that, my dog would be really disappointed if he didn’t have the newspaper to get every morning.
I know at least one person who's been fired for using Wikipedia as a sole source for information. And that was for photo captions, not for the main story.
A lot of reporters use Wikipedia as a first lead -- a lead, not a source -- and it often links to primary source material. It's a quick and easy first read, but only a damn fool would trust it with his reputation, and every newsroom I've heard about makes sure its people know that it is not to be trusted.
it is a taleIMHO Brinkley's observation applies to mass media in its entirety.
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. -- Shakespeare
"The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were." -- David Brinkley
Or said another way, editorializing. And that 'shaping' is often done by the very act of choosing what shall and what shall not be 'reported.'
Again, they could do this because of their control.
All gone now.
“If the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough.” — Charles Foster Kane
In a strange reversal, the news is becoming like a parody of Saturday Night live — a couple of good sketches in each show (if you’re lucky), padded out with bad (usually) music, and a bunch of recurring characters who weren’t all that interesting the first time out.
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