A story published in the Worcester Telegram this week encapsulated a disturbing trend - one that Dan touched on in his commentary on the right wing driving the agenda of conventional media. In...
Archives for June 2010
Harsh reality: Andrew Alexander wimps out on White House party crasher coverage
posted by Ralph Ranalli on June 29, 2010
Sorry, Andrew, it's not "gossip crap" in quotation marks. It's just crap.
I was encouraged when I saw the headline of Andy Alexander's Ombudsman column in Sunday's Washington Post: "How much Salahi news is too much?" Prodded by some disgruntled readers, Alexander set out to examine who the paper was serving by running 11o stories and columns in 7 months by 30 different reporters about White House party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi.
His conclusions were a mixed bag. Some coverage, he wrote, "struck me as excessive" - especially the June 15 edition of the paper that featured not one, but three photos of Michaele Salahi, including a front-page teaser, that ran with a Style section story about her selection for Bravo's "Real Housewives of D.C."
But mostly it was more excuse-making of the "the readers made us do it" variety that we typically hear when news editors take a pass on excercising self-control. I was particularly struck by this paragraph:
Ned Martel, an editor of the Style section, believes the Salahis fascinate readers because "they are a couple that says a lot of things about a lot of things . . . about society, about pop culture and reality television, about social climbing, about people who feel included or excluded, about falsity and overextension in terms of personal finance."
What about people whose names begin with M or T? And what exactly needs to be said about pop culture and social climbing that we haven't heard a thousand times already? The sheer pseudo-profundity of it reminded me of my favorite "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey" from the old SNL: "The face of a child can say a thousand things ... especially the mouth part."
In his conclusion, Alexander tries to convince us that it's a good thing for nation's political paper-of-record to remain firmly within the infamy-notoriety-reality-tv feedback loop. He writes:
"... the Salahi's offer an entertaining -- if often maddening -- break from the steady died of grim and gloom that so often dominates the Post. There's a place for their 'gossip crap.'"
There is, Andy. It's a place inhabited by People, US weekly, TMZ, Perez Hilton, and a thousand soulless reality TV producers. And they don't need any help.
Rolling Stone magazine causes a military shake-up
posted on June 25, 2010
A Rolling Stone article got General Stanley McChrystal, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, fired in less than 48 hours. Much of the initial reporting attributed the most damaging quotes to McChrystal. But the real damaging quotes were not McChrystal’s but unidentified associates.
Eliot Spitzer's new prime time gig at CNN
posted on June 25, 2010
Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was forced out of office after a sex scandal came to light. Now Spitzer now has a prime-time gig on CNN. Is this a smart move or just a blatant ratings grab by CNN?
Boston Med: ABC's new reality medical show
posted on June 25, 2010
In some ways, , ABC's new medical drama Boston Med is television at its best. But the 8-part series is being produced under the news division while ABC has been cutting its news staff. Instead of taking a look at real medical issues, Boston Med is more entertainment than enlightening.
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Panel Peeves
posted on June 25, 2010
The always-lively segment where our panelists bring a variety of their own short topics to the discussion. Rants and raves include: Reuters displays a racy picture of pop star Miley Cyrus; BP's latest PR blitz; shameless self-promotion from NBC's Today Show; reports of Al Gore's sexual misconduct; and a YouTube puppet video takes a jab at technology reporters.
Today's Beat the Press Topics
posted by Ralph Ranalli on June 25, 2010
We've got a live studio audience today, it's given an interesting little jolt to the atmosphere around here, to be honest. We should do it more often.
Here's the topic lineup:
McChrystal Cracks: Rolling Stone magazine's story on General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, unmasked a locker-room atmosphere within McChyrstal's command where the general and staff made disparaging remarks about President Obama and key administration policymakers. The piece got McChrystal fired and had other media outlets wondering how Rolling Stone got such extraordinary access.
Pardon My Pundit: CNN's choice of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as it's new 8 p.m. co-host has been met with critical pans and charges of a publicity-driven ratings grab. But if his former call girl-pal can get a column in the New York Post, why can't Spitzer be a journalist too? He teams with Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Kathleen Parker.
Bedside Manner: When ABC News went inside three Boston hospitals to film a documentary, they seemingly forgot the "news" part. While big on drama, "Boston Med" surgically excises almost any mention of health care reform, insurance, pre-existing conditions or any of the other pressing issues of the day from the user experience. Welcome to "docu-tainment."
Plus Panel Peeves.
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Another dumb move by CNN
posted by Dan Kennedy on June 24, 2010
Why would anyone at CNN think it was a good idea to give a prime-time talk show to former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker? There is only one reason anyone thinks Spitzer will be a ratings winner, and it's not his non-existent journalism background or even his sharp analytical mind.
I'm not going to rehash what I've said before about CNN; you can read it here if you like.
Briefly, though, CNN touts itself as a profitable, news-driven alternative to the ideological talk shows on Fox and MSNBC. So why act as though your every programming decision is based on ratings?If CNN is truly in a different business from Fox and MSNBC, then what does it mean to say CNN comes in "third"?
Given that there is almost no way CNN can have an impact at 8 p.m. against the O'Reilly-Olbermann juggernaut, Jon Klein and company should have tried something radical. Like news. How about an hour of CNN International, which everyone who has traveled overseas tells me is exponentially better than what's on the three U.S. cable nets?
Names, faces and anonymous comments
posted by Dan Kennedy on June 22, 2010
Have we reached the final days for anonymous news-site commenters? Probably not — that's more hope than reality. But there's no doubt the tide is shifting away from the anonymous and pseudonymous insults, libel and hate speech that comprise the majority of comments at news sites.
This past Sunday, the Boston Globe Magazine posted a feature by Neil Swidey on the anonymous commenters who waste electrons on the Globe's website, Boston.com. Except that Swidey didn't quite succeed. The truly anonymous whackos with whom he hoped to connect refused to crawl out from under their rocks. Instead, he ended up with a highly entertaining profile of two men who didn't mind revealing their identities and to a female Red Sox fan who all but identified herself. Swidey writes of his quest to interview the worst of the worst:
[H]ere are the people I didn’t hear back from: the screamers, troublemakers, and trolls (Internet slang for people behind inflammatory posts). Not a single one. The loudest, most aggressive voices grew mum when asked to explain themselves, to engage in an actual discussion. The trolls appear to prize their anonymity more than anyone else.
The story is accompanied by a video starring the two men. Also, last night Swidey talked about the story (photo) with "Greater Boston" host Emily Rooney on WGBH-TV (Channel 2). There's no direct link, but you'll find it easily enough if you click here.
For much of the year, the news business has been growing increasingly uneasy over anonymous comments. Swidey himself discusses some of the problems — legal challenges that could force news organizations to help potential libel plaintiffs expose commenters they want to sue, and the bizarre situation at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which outed a judge who had apparently been commenting on her own cases under a pseudonym. (I started requiring real names on my blog, Media Nation, earlier this year.)
(Click "continue" to keep reading.)
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Pundits and the President
posted on June 18, 2010
Even the most supportive pundits of Barack Obama have been critical in the wake of the Gulf oil crisis. After his Oval Office speech, some once friendly talking heads criticized the President for a lack of passion and vision on energy policy.
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Don't ask, don't tell: checking reporter bias
posted on June 18, 2010
The Boston Globe assigned Michael Corcoran to cover Israel’s U.S. Ambassador Michael Oren’s commencement address at Brandeis University. The Globe claims they were unaware of his anti-Israeli internet bloggings. What do newspapers have to do to ensure their freelance reporters are unbiased in their reporting?
