In this edition: SNL parodies lots of media figures; Judy's free; Walter Cronkite finds love; Does DeLay want some cheese with that Whine?; Right-wing takeover of CPB complete?; Nightline's makeover; Did national media get fooled by BushCo image-making when it came to the federal response to Rita?; More graphic media coverage; Evidence or ploy for Judy Miller sympathy?; Questions for Stephen Colbert; Fewer indecency complaints to the FCC; HDTV's Who's Hot and Who's Not; Media's primary job is to inform readers, not protect sources; Iraq-based Time correspondent says that putting a positive spin on Iraq would be "dishonest and disingenuous"; A Newsie rant on the media and polls; and etc.
Joke of the Week
"House Majority Leader Tom DeLay says he is innocent of all wrongdoing and is the victim of a plot by the Democrats. Fox News does too; they've been spinning this story so hard they had to give the staff Dramamine today." --Jimmy Kimmel
Rant
What the f--- is up with the media and polls? A 1-2% drop or rise from week to week is not particularly significant. Doesn't anyone know how to read polls in the media, or is everyone just too bored to come up with real journalism and fall back on polling `analysis' that wouldn't pass muster with any statistics teacher? This is a running problem that never seems to end. If the media wants to make polls easier to report, it should consider sticking to long-term trends and refrain from over-hyping the usual week-to-week fluctuations. Leave the over-hyping to the partisans who get excited or down when a new poll is reported. Hey, if the media wants to sit in their ivory towers and look down on bloggers, then, the least the media could do is inject a little accuracy into their reporting.
Thoughts, and Then, the News
Um, I agree with Walter Cronkite:
"We [as a nation] are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders," Cronkite, 88, said during a day of speeches and interviews Tuesday at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, where he helped present the biannual Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism.
Cronkite issued a call-to-arms for fellow journalists -- primarily broadcast -- to pressure "our employers, those who are more concerned with profits than they are with performance," to replace the current roundups of celebrity profiles and personal health and finance pieces with "the news of the day."
"If we fail at that," Cronkite said, "our democracy, our republic, I think, is in serious danger."
Now for the news from the past week posted October 3, 2005:
Note: I'm going to put a %%% next to things that are more interesting or go into things more in-depth.
SNL on Media People
- Norah O'Donnell, Terry Moran and Wolf Blitzer in opening segment. Terry Moran impression was the best of the bunch. The Blitzer on SNL needed more facial hair.
- Aaron Brown impression was "eh." It's hard to imitate Brown's voice.
- Anderson Cooper impressionist had the basics down, but it's not as memorable a parody as Darrell Hammond's Clinton. The Geraldo Rivera one was funny, but it's too easy to make fun of him.
Can I get an amen?
Froomkin:
Note to reporters: There is nothing intrinsically noble about keeping your sources' secrets. Your job, in fact, is to expose them. And if a very senior government official, after telling you something in confidence, then tells you that you don't have to keep it secret anymore, the proper response is "Hooray, now I can tell the world" -- not "Sorry, that's not good enough for me, I need that in triplicate." And if you're going to go to jail invoking important, time-honored journalistic principles, make sure those principles really apply.
What a novel idea
Media's job is to inform readers not protect sources. Which begs the question (asked by Michael Isikoff and others): why didn't the NYT and Time magazine pursue the story of who revealed Plame's identity?
Judy Pity Party
The truth sucks, and the media has to report it
Time correspondent in Baghdad says that
putting a positive spin on Iraq would be "dishonest and disingenuous".
Bush & GOP Propaganda
Nonpartisan GAO says BushCo broke law with "Covert Propaganda". Email to everyone you know, and post on any message boards or blogs that you visit.
Does DeLay want some cheese with that Whine?
Following indictment, Tom DeLay points finger at Austin paper. The paper's response? "[...] the newspaper didn't indict Mr. DeLay. A grand jury did." Yup, and the editorial that DeLay is complaining about? It doesn't mention DeLay by name; there wasn't even an allusion to him. Seems to me like DeLay is making himself look more guilty, here.
HDTV: Who's Hot and Who's Not
HDTV makes it harder to conceal bad skin. Who's hot and who's not? On the not list? Dubya, Letterman, Bill Clinton. In the future, we might be able to do lists for news media personalities. Bill O'Falafel is sure to make the "not" list.
Look ma! No indecency!
Or at least fewer indecency complaints to the FCC. Hat tip Lost Remote.
Cue The Daily Show writers...
* Blog chicks, who were made fun of during a segment on The Daily Show, might get an expanded role in the future. God help us.
Conservative Michael Medved praise NYT and slams CNN
* Wierd. 5...4...3...2...1... [Insert inevitable right-wing teeth gnashing.] Hat tip Romenesko.
Attn: Media Matters. Cue your recording devices to PBS & NPR
Right wingers control every important position at CPB. More on the new CPB chief: link. As for another CPB appointment, click here.
Actual anecdotal evidence or Ploy for more Judy Miller sympathy?
NYT exec. Editor Bill Keller claims that sources in government are more hesitant to disclose information.
More Graphic Media Coverage?
* CBS 60 Minutes producer says that there's a lot of self-censorship when it comes to difficult images
How dumb are the people at the NYT?
Entire basis for article was a memo NOT written by John Roberts.
Hurricane Coverage
RWCM Watch
- Howard Fineman, Beltway Schmuck, by daveweigel
- Murdoch's News Corp. goes on a shopping spree for internet companies.
- VIDEO: Brit Hume sucks up to DeLay; smears the left
- Drudge Report doesn't mention DeLay 9/29/05 Hmm...
- WaPo editorial board could use a little fact-checking in its 9/29/05 editorial on DeLay.
- Bill Bennett should be taken off the air. Jackass. I don't think this helps Ken Mehlman's efforts to help GOoPers win more of the black vote. John Conyers has sent a letter to Bennett's employer. Bennett's quote got airtime on ABCNews WNT 9/29/05. Bennett should also be dropped from FNC, where he is currently an FNC contributor. In related news, Bill Bennett's brother Bob Bennett (attorney for Judy Miller) wasn't happy when asked about Bill's comments. As for Bill Bennett's comment, my mom noted that despite Bennett's explanation or insistence that the comments were taken out of context, Bennett wouldn't have used the language he used unless there was some underlying racism. More Bill Bennett jackassery: A true story about Bill Bennett, by Reed Hundt.
- Media complicit in hiding GOP bigotry against gays?
- Washington Times doesn't print an editorial or op-ed about DeLay on the day after the indictment.
- That #2 Al Qaida leader in Iraq who was killed? Maybe not so much. In fact, we don't even know if al-Zarqawi has a number two.
- CNN runs some DeLay rants that are demonstrably false.
- CBS Marketwatch critic Jon Friedman declares that the morning shows have become a joke. You mean they haven't always been jokes?
- FNC PR flack smearing Obama. Don't mess with Obama. The numbers don't lie, and he's got Oprah in his corner. Besides, that sense of humor is ten times better than funnybones of FNC hacks.
- %%% Tim Russert's Effective Ambush. Why doesn't Tim Russert question his panelists as hard as questions Broussard?
- Jack Shafer follows up on the shoddy NYT story on career v. motherhood
Media People
- Peter Jennings leaves estate of over $50 million
- Jon Friedman interviews Frank Rich %%%
- New TDS correspondent Jason Jones is Samantha Bee's hubby
- Hotline excerpt: "Most trusted man in America" Walter Cronkite "has fallen madly in love with the charming opera singer deluxe Joanna Simon, the sister of Carly Simon."
- Nicknames from Dubya. Maureen Dowd is nicknamed "Cobra."
- Ari Fleischer, former BushCo flack & involved in the CIA leak scandal, now works for Bud Selig, a man so hated that Red Sox and Yankee fans can find common ground in their distaste for Selig.
- Rush Limbaugh's doctors to be questioned in "Doctor Shopping" case
- For next anchor, ABC should go younger than Charlie Gibson.
- Profile of Gawker media founder Nick Denton
- Anderson Cooper profile from his alma mater's newspaper
- Media types screen ABC's new drama Commander-in-Chief
- Al Jazeera Hires an Ex-Marine. Josh Rushing from the movie Control Room.
- Judy Woodruff nervously heads to Harvard to teach. Well, her husband teaches at another Ivy League school, so there's a person in her family to talk to when it comes to teaching.
- Dan Rather interviewed by Marvin Kalb
- %%% Katie Couric talks to AARP magazine. Hat tip Romenesko. Couric says that she wants to do "important journalism," and that doing the evening news is appealing to her.
- %%% Questions for Stephen Colbert . The Colbert Report premieres 10/17.
- Another article on Kinsley's departure from the LATimes
- Oct. 11 panel at Harvard on politics and culture. Participants: Roger Ailes, Paul Begala, Judy Woodruf, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Jehmu Green (from Rock the Vote). Tom Brokaw moderates.
- CSpan's Brian Lamb gets married. Congrats.
- Finalists announced for 2005 Online Journalism Awards
- Yahoo TV expansion. Could include a TDS-like show.
- Howard Kurtz is shopping his satire on the media to book publishers. Yawn.
News & Notes on Programming, Specials, etc.
State of the Media, Trends, Research Reports, Innovations
The study concludes that although TV is still the major force, radio remained in second place by incidence, and computer use came in at just over half the average amount of time of TV use. Key findings of this study, summarized here by the author, show how people spend their media time budget:
- TV wins as the highest-exposure medium every hour of the observed day in terms of minutes of exposure. At no time were less than 30% of the sample exposed to it, and, at some times, as much as 70%
- On average, respondents spent more time with the computer than any other medium with the single exception of the TV (including online activities such as web, email or instant messaging and offline desktop software)
- 56.9% of media exposure took place in the home, but 21.1% took place at work, 8.3% in the car and 13.7% in other locations
- TV use, newspaper reading and use of video are highest per average day on the weekend. Various online activities are highest during the week while radio remains virtually unchanged day to day
- Although not the most significant medium in terms of time spent, the telephone (landline and mobile phone combined) reaches 94.6% of all people in any given day
- Overall, the biggest computer users are 25-64, especially the 25-44 subgroup
18-39 and 40+ year old women spent the most time on the web and using email
"Good Night" arrives, post-Katrina, at what feels like a watershed moment in the relationship between the press and the presidency, and a turnaround in the public's attitude toward TV news. Clooney wants us to remember what reporting at its best can be. "In the end it all comes down to journalists," he says, looking relaxed on the day of his movie's festival debut. "They're the first writers of history. There is no civil-rights movement without journalists. There is no end of McCarthy. It's been a tough time for journalists--if you ask a tough question of this administration, on a rare occasion when they have a press conference, you're put in the back of the room, or you're Maureen Dowd and you get your credentials pulled. To question anything about them is meant to be unpatriotic."
Ratings, Circulation, & Ad Revenue Strength
- Danny Goldberg on the state of AAR
- "For the week of 9/25, NBC's "Meet the Press" won with a 3.1 rating/9 share and 4.225M viewers. CBS' "Face the Nation" was second with a 2.6/7 and 3.619M viewers. ABC's "This Week" was next with a 2.1/6 and 2.823M viewers. "Fox News Sunday" came in with a 1.2/3 and 1.609M viewers (Hotline sources, 9/29)."
- The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch scratches in the ratings. Scratches = sucks.
- Newspapers grab local markets. The reach of papers. Hat tip FishBowlDC.
- AAR dropped by WHAT-AM in Philadelphia. Ratings were bad. Part of it was because the WHAT signal sucks; part of it was because WHAT-AM's other programming didn't jive with AAR's kind of programming. This could be a good thing if AAR gets on another Philly talk station that has a signal that can reach into the Philadelphia suburbs.
- Hurricane ratings Note that Mad Money is the #1 show on CNBC, and that CNN and FNC were the big ratings winners in the hurricane ratings sweepstakes. In case you were wondering, MSNBC still exists.
- September cable ratings from AJC
- Of all ad-supported cable networks (not just the cable news channels), FNC was the #2 network.
- Q3 Ratings: Program Ranker See which programs are hot and which ones are not. FNC, MSNBC, and CNN are all up in general; part of it has to do with the major news events in Q3 (e.g. Hurricanes Katrina & Rita.)
- AAR gets a boost in the ratings. Growth seen in key markets: Los Angeles, D.C., Phoneix, Portland, OR, Cincinnati, Denver, Honolulu, Memphis, and Miami. Network affiliate base jumps from 1.3 million listeners to 3.1 million in one year.
- Hurricane Rita caused CNN's ratings to go up. At times CNN actually beat FNC in both total viewers and in the 25-54 demo. When things subsided, FNC returned to first place.
- Evening news ratings for week of 9/19.
- XM Satellite Radio has gotten passed the 5 million subscriber mark.
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
at Penndit, and
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