News – Page 2

Another network quote that could be subject to (mis)interpretation…

Words do matter… The real question is – and this has nothing to do with ABC – when did we lose our way in the world with truth? When did we decide to use words as shields for what we really don’t want to say?

ABC News has reportedly moved its “World News Tonight” into an automated control room, much as it had previously done with other news broadcasts including “Nightline”. I saw the story when it appeared on TVNewser .

The ‘old’ model was certainly effective for broadcasts with Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel, so there must not have been anything wrong with what they had — this is simply the future – this is automation – this is also an investment which pays dividends in the diminution of soft costs often otherwise referred to as human operators. The article featured this quote explaining the advantages, “An ABC spokesperson says: “The automated technology allows the news division to have greater uniformity and consistency in the way all broadcasts are produced – from creating a more streamlined production workflow to allowing producers more creative control throughout the production process.”

I am glad they cleared that up.

My point is this – why be obtuse? As communicators and journalists who theoretically are pledged to speak simply and accurately, why not be forthright and say this is more efficient from an economic base. The problem many people – including me – is that we read quotes like these which feel massaged – which read as saccharin, false or phony – which fail to be credulous… and because of that, we begin to feel a lack of trust, a loss of trust.

The real question is – and this has nothing to do with ABC – when did we lose our way in the world with truth? When did we decide to use words as shields for what we really don’t want to say? When did spin, manipulation and verbosity become preferable to just plain old speech?

And why does it continue – even when so many of us – maybe you – really see through it? My posting, while admittedly feeble, is my way of saying – “Caught ya! I accept your decision, but I don’t buy your words.”

A Nifty Interactive Feature on the History of US Newspapers

Take a look: A terrific interactive feature on US newspapers.

Interactive map based on Library of Congress holdings and records.
You can move forward year by year (laborious) or advance the
interpretative panels on the right side (by era or decade).
You can move the map north, south, east or west.
You can zoom in on a city or area.
You can sort by language.
You can sort by publication frequency.
You can look at a detail list of newspapers on the bottom right for any city.

Thanks to my friend RA for sharing this.

Ditzy reporting – when a story becomes personal

Time Warner Cable reporter Suzi Theodory’s live shot about a brush fire in Southern California becomes more about her than the fire after she is soaked by a helicopter air drop. She transforms live from being young and inexperienced but sincerely trying into a ditzy rookie. Sorry. But the water drop becomes apparently more of the story about her instead of the fire as she repeatedly assures us that she and her crew are “so close to the fire”…. though this is not manifested in the pictures for there are no flames to be seen.

Note too the contradictions within the minute forty-seven second story from being “a growing fire at 10 acres” to suddenly being “almost under control” after the water drop. Huh? How did that happen? Oh, and by the way, one speaks of a fire being contained, not controlled, but what’s language have to do with anything when you’re all wet. Literally.

And again, we wonder why audiences think the press is often too silly for words?

ABC Rains Money

Paying for interviews is against network standards but there is nothing prohibiting payments for licensing rights and other perks paid to news sources and potential interviewees. The latest? A two-hundred thousand dollar ($200,000.00) payment to Casey Anthony! It isn’t new – it happened as recently as last night (Sunday)with a six figure deal with Jaycee Dugard and her publisher for a ‘first-look’ at her story. It has happened over many years – and each network is guilty of doing it, although ABC and NBC have been in a more financially secure position reportedly to be more lavish in their offers.

And don’t think that money only flows to the victims or good guys in such stories. Two networks were in a fierce bidding war for the songbook of Phillip Garrido – Dugard’s admitted captor and rapist – shortly after the story broke. Attorneys representing a friend of Mr. Garrido received six figure offerings for his songs which included lurid details of a cross country sex odyssey and other perversions.

The audience doesn’t seem to see a difference between paying for news or paying for access. In a celebrity driven world it seems as if we have become accustomed to the habit of stars and news makers wanting to be compensated for their first hand stories. Networks have been more than obliging in paying sums for what guarantees them the right to brand the interview an “exclusive”. But does all this loot change the story – does more money make it ever so much more necessary to add an adjective or color the telling of a story in a particular way to make it seem worth the cash? One cannot demand top dollar and then disappoint the paymaster. It wouldn’t be good for business, especially when that is show business.

It may be good for business but it is bad for ethics, and there’s just no way around that.

A Smart Move – or just strageic? Or am I a skeptic?

ABC News hires kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart to cover child kidnapping and missing person cases. It is worth asking is this good journalism or smarmy public relations and booking?

ABC News has hired Elizabeth Smart, formerly in the news as a Utah kidnap victim when she was a child, as a correspondent assigned to kidnapping and high profile missing person cases, according to The Hollywood Reporter and reported in People Magazine.

Is this a strategic move or one aimed at creating and fostering special appreciation among victim’s families?
Is she a bona fide journalist or a talented ‘talking horse’?

The issue is simple – what’s her training, journalistic experience or story telling? Obviously she will work alongside talented producers; obviously she will be guided and hand-held… but is she being sent out as a lure to sway the sympathy of victims?

It is worth asking is this good journalism or smarmy public relations and booking?

Paying for News Interviews – is it ethical or just another example of: it’s not personal it’s business?

Paying for interviews? Rewarding executives or news makers or personalities for their bon mots?

Not in the old days – not when news wasn’t expected to make money – not before corporate ownership took hold and made news divisions responsible for their bottom line and turning a profit. But now, in the wild west of media frenzies thanks to networks, tabloids and scandal sheets, it’s anything goes – and the highest bidder may win, regardless of the terms or conditions associated with the interviewees’ demand.

This For Instant Ratings, Interviews With a Checkbook in a recent New York Times received very little attention, or so it seemed to me. I would have expected, maybe just hoped, for more attention to be paid to the consequences.

Once upon a time people appeared on media because it was truly an opportunity to reach a mass audience. Now thanks to a plethora of media there’s little doubt that any one can get attention, some times far too much or unwarranted attention.

Paying for interviews – or rather for access is not new. The Times piece makes it seem as if it is a recent development… it has existed for years – prime time programs have done it, programs with the most prominent of news anchors have done it. A wink and a nod and money is paid for family photos or archive material in the thin guise that this is the cover for what will become a guaranteed interview with the personality too.

It can be paid to the prospective interviewees, or it may come in the form of lavish wining and dining for friends or families. It happened during the Koby Bryant case, for John Mark Karr who confessed to the Jon Benet Ramsey killing, even to people associated with Phil Garrido who recently plead guilty to the kidnapping and rape of Jaycee Dugard. It’s just not new. And it feels skanky to do it – even when under the direct instructions of senior news managers in New York.

There are so many questions – if you pay, will some one be more forthcoming? If you pay too little, will they hold back? If you pay for one media does that count if some one else pays more for a different platform? Does payment change their story – are they more likely to juice it up to hike the price, or claim to know more than they really do — but money makes them be bold, even to the point of lying?

News divisions once had a policy that prohibited paying any one for a news story. That existed as a fire wall within news, but was not as rigid for prime time magazines or the morning shows which at some networks are produced by the entertainment divisions. Times have changed. Networks demand all programs produce a profit. And now news figures – even temporary news headliners – are sought after as exclusives. They may or may not have much to say – they may not even offer much to discourse or common knowledge – but they command payments just to speak. I don’t feel good about a lot of this whatsoever.

The Media is behaving as Lame and Lamer

If some one isn’t a bona fide, announced candidate – and says they’re not a candidate – why should any one in the media cover them as if they are any thing but a private citizen?
The Palin tour up the east coast raises serious ethical, moral and sensibility questions. Two very good articles Palin, Trump, pizza – and a debased media in tow and Sarah Palin and the Politics of Winging It raise serious questions about the conduct of the press.

Here’s the simple question – apart from the timing of Ms. Palin’s tour, her ongoing role on FOX News as a paid commentator and critic of the administration and all things Democrat, her rather repetitious allegations and assertions about the ‘lamestream media’ the question remains, why cover her at all?

We don’t cover other media personalitiess the same way – on either side of the political aisle – those darlings are not followed in caravans by eager journalists who seem to believe that if they might miss a stop on Ms. Palin’s tour they will somehow miss the scoop?

Ms. Palin is riding the crest of media attention – surely she does not warrant such attention based on what she says, her view of history, her appreciation of geography. Merely having a passport does not make her a world leader; having a driver’s license or hiring someone who has a bus license does not make her a tour guide.

So I just am left to wonder, when is some one who says they are not a candidate really some one who does not warrant further coverage? When does some one who prefers to lob verbal attacks from the sidelines of a single network find herself squeezed out of the rest of the media simply because she does not deserve greater attention? There is always an argument around the time of political debates over who to include – who has garnered enough public attention – who has a significant enough standing in the polls to deserve inclusion; but that is ALWAYS restricted only to those who want to be candidates. Ms. Palin – at this point – says she does not… she has opted not to join the fray – she has elected to opt out of the process.

To which – I wonder – why does the lamestream media she seems to hate so much feel so compelled to cover her every move, every word and every bite of pizza?

And just because it deserves to be called out again and again, FOX is so eager to be mainstream that their self-representation as the bulwark of the anti-press – every one else is lamestream, not them, is simply disingenuous.

Hail, Hail Trumpmania

The NYT’s piece “Trump Bows Out, but Spotlight Barely Dims” focuses attention on the hoopla surrounding Donald Trump and Trumpmania in the media.

But the most salient question is posed by former Ronald Reagan adviser Stuart Spencer “The media made him, the media kept him, the media kept promoting him…. Speaking of the proliferation of news outlets interested in politics, Mr. Spencer, 84 and admittedly fascinated by the new landscape, lamented, “There’s no referee anymore to evaluate what are serious issues and what are serious candidates.”

So who should be the referees? Who has the stature, the clout, the reputation, the gravitas, the following, the audience loyalty and confidence, the trust?

Just posing the question – is the media a paper watchdog? A toy tiger? What role should the media play – apart from monitoring and worse, fostering the noise?

Huckabee from the sidelines

Until this weekend’s unexpected announcement that he would not be running for President former Arkansas Governor and currently Fox News host Mike Huckabee was a leading contender for the 2012 Republic nomination.

But I wonder whether this early decision to bow out of the race was a strategic move to separate himself from the rough and tumble of a divisive and expensive primary campaign and wait until other candidates have destroyed themselves, battered and bruised the party, before a fractured convention proclaims Huckabee their nominee by acclamation?

Will it be easier – simpler – less costly on all levels – for Huckabee to comment from the media sidelines instead of subjecting himself to the political discourse and voter approval?

FOX news – O’Reilly and Hannity in particular – are already harping that the “mainstream media” will be highly partisan in this campaign – AKA, code for liberal and pro Obama. It seems so disingenuous for FOX to proclaim itself a David vs. Goliath… when Rupert Murdoch already owns such a piece of global media it seems insouciant to play the ingenue.

But what of FOX News commentator Huckabee? Will he be impartial… entirely neutral? Or will his comments by partisan, fomenting debate and suggesting how he’d handle an issue differently? Will Fox be his platform, his messenger until a blistering convention brawl results in no clear candidate from within the party and a call for Huckabee to become the standard bearer?

Just wondering aloud… will FOX police their host, or should they in an arena of free speech? But is this a strategy of Murdoch to truly have a candidate from within his broadcast empire? Maybe it is too much a grassy knoll theory. Perhaps.

Staged photo ops – staged anything is problematic

A good piece by Poynter Photographers debate what should replace staged photo opps now that White House is ending the practice”raises questions for the political campaign and corporate world too — at what point should all publications cease to use staged, canned or handout video? What happened to the insistence by media to do it alone – to do it ourselves – to vouch for it because we knew it to be true, honest and authentic?
A good debate – the piece raises both ethical as well as technical considerations. It also raises questions of ownership and bragging rights… all part of the nature of this debate.