Uncategorized – Page 2

Dazzling the eye and luring audiences with more than clickbait

{Principally this post is aimed at my students but the profile of Teddy Banks makes for fascinating reading for all of us who create and post content}.

We appreciate the eye is always drawn to the headline, but do we pay as much attention to the font and appearance as we ought to?
Similarly, how attractive and eye-catching are our lower thirds and identifying graphics?
Do we just splat the words on our screens – or think about combinations of fonts, colors, and their juxtaposition as we might?

While this story is about a master craftsperson whose work admittedly is aimed at major motion picture studios, his thoughtful and artistic approach is worthy of your consideration too.

Terrific Long-form Journalism – The Sidney Awards

NYTimes columnist David Brooks’ annual “The Sidney Awards” is a fascinating collection of long-form journalism, again chosen this year from small and medium-sized publications.

Brooks award is “in honor of the philosopher and polemicist Sidney Hook”. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sidney-hook/

I saw none of these in their original publications, but I wish I had. Read Brooks’ column. Start there. He hotlinks to the sources.

Does Accuracy and Completeness Matter? I think today’s NYTimes missed its mark.

A basic tenet of journalism is attributing statements, .pronouncements, proclamations, and declarations or expansions of war to those who made the decisions.

A basic rule for headline writers is to strive for clarity and completeness.

But in today’s (12.26.24) NYT is an apparent breakdown in both a headline and sub-headline that reads: “Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians
Surprised by Oct. 7 and fearful of another attack, Israel weakened safeguards meant to protect noncombatants, allowing officers to endanger up to 20 people in each airstrike. One of the deadliest bombardments of the 21st century followed.”

The problem here is the headline. The country made this decision? All the elected officials? All its citizens of every stripe and party? Everyone? Was there a vote? A referendum? The whole kit and caboodle? Israel loosened its rules?

It is partially inaccurate and in that, it feels unclear and imprecise.

The story’s lede properly attributes the decision to “Israel’s military leadership” but that’s still vague. Someone in the chain of command
is responsible for making this change. Shouldn’t s/he/they be named and take responsibility for their actions?

Just as a rule of journalism, decisions like this are made by people on behalf of a country’s policies. Don’t the readers of the Times deserve to know the “who” is in charge here? And, if there is concern for the safety of the decision-makers, then state that in the body of the story.

Just a thought: we should demand a completeness in all reporting, including headlines, lest any one misunderstand what is already a complicated and complex war.

Yellow Journalism?

Is this story about $75./per pair of concert diapers from Depends worthy of being in the daily news stream?

Appearing in the SF Chronicle
https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/liquid-death-pit-diaper-concert-19984718.php

“Designed to absorb “recycled Liquid Death water” (translation: urine) during concerts, the Pit Diaper promises to keep fans dry and comfortable with leak-proof technology and odor-neutralizing materials. They also come with adjustable waist and hip sizes.”

But who even cares about a random woman relieving herself in public at a music concert?
That depends on one’s view of what’s urgent.
How did the story get so much attention?
Presumably, there must have been a leak

Clearly, the story whets the interest of the Chronicle editors. Surely, the trickle-down effect for the PR agency and manufacturer is one of relief as the product is flowing off store shelves.

Perhaps we should change the subject?

We’re in the news desert between election day and Christmas.

First, there were Chinese weather balloons that turned out to be spy satellites.
Today, there are drones over New Jersey and an Iranian ghost ship patrolling off the East Coast.

“They” say there’s nothing to worry about.
But the government can’t tell us for sure what those drones are doing above New Jersey and Ohio.

Nothing so exciting has happened in the sky above New Jersey since Orson Welles’s adaptation of “War of the Worlds” at Grovers Mills in 1938.

The local police and sheriff are mobilized. So too is a cadre of citizen observers.
Thank goodness the Coast Guard is out there with binoculars searching for Mideastern warships that have apparently wandered west of the Mediterranean Sea.
Additional FBI agents are being urgently dispatched to investigate.
The FAA placates the public saying the brouhaha is only about fixed-wing airplanes.
But a government spokesperson says that while he can assure us everything is safe, he can’t say what is really happening.
But, if he doesn’t really know, how can we trust him to be assuring of anything?

The president-elect speaks. The White House communications office comments.

Cable talk TV has filled hours with speculation from aviation and espionage ‘experts’ and yet, now on day umpteen of the crisis, why is our knowledge so muddled, the government’s response so clouded (think: obfuscation), and our ears are ringing?

I guess among the Trump transition pronouncements, Congressional befuddlement over endorsement, and mysterious drones hovering over the Garden State, it’s little wonder what really captures the audience’s imagination.

Noteworthy in the media

To all of my students still interested in improving their skills of interviewing, two pieces on today’s (12.15.24) CBS Sunday Morning are a master’s class.

The first from David Martin in a profile of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the second from Tracy Smith in an assessment of the talent of Nicole Kidman are well worth studying.

The reporter’s innate curiosity, authenticity, poise and focus are all to be emulated. The structure of their questions, their brevity and insight are noteworthy.

Even their on camera questions, bridges, and cutaways are executed so very well.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sunday-morning/

And the beat goes on… and on

Just when I (foolishly, naively?) thought there couldn’t be yet another attempt to market the presidency, imagine my surprise to discover: Trump Fragrances.

https://gettrumpfragrances.com/

From Bibles to fragrances, airlines, steaks, vodkas, even University degrees, the Donald’s shopping list goes on to add new ventures…tho the eua de parfume is getting a bit thick.

With apologies to Sonny and Cher, these lyrics canter through my mind:
And the beat goes on, the beat goes on
Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain
La-de-da-de-de, la-de-da-de-da

And the beat goes on (yes, the beat goes on)
And the beat goes on (and the beat goes on, on, on, on, on)
The beat goes on
And the beat goes on

The beat of all this commerce in the guise of government is hurting my head.

I feel as if we have returned to the Medieval Ages where one can buy indulgences from the church and crown. Is there a difference today?

Soliciting (demanding) money from donors for Inauguration Ball tickets is not unusual, it just seems the sums (thank you Elon, Jeff and many others) have become extraordinary.

It’s OK to market a political campaign, but I am left to wonder, after you win… after you pay the bills, when does it stop?

When does the Office of the Presidency become beyond price?

When does a man who is ostensibly serving his country decide that obsessively seeking greater profit is enough?

Investing in technology instead of human assets is bad for news and the public

LATimes owner Patrick Soon-Shiong has revealed and boasted about his plans to add a button to check the bias of articles written for his newspaper.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/los-angeles-times-owner-bias-meter-1236078458/

I’m confused…. Isn’t it the inherent role of media to present both sides of a story?
Isn’t that what journalists – trained and educated and practiced journalists – already do?

Soon-Shiong is admitting that he doesn’t trust the reporters on his payroll to present the news. Huh? What a revelation! He’s willingly paying people he thinks aren’t doing their jobs!
Have we reached a new depth of corporate insanity?

I see an even greater danger in aggregating viewpoints from AI, which hardly can distinguish truth from hallucinations itself, posting amendments or corrections to a story from cyberspace. This isn’t balance but risks making more noise and confusion… This risks perpetuating a universe of ‘alternative facts.’ Once upon a time, those of us in television news would decry an audience who believed anything they saw when the set box lights flickered. Relying on a bias meter seems equally preposterous.

Methinks his money might be better spent investing in the paper with more reporters and editors and less reliance in a faux technological solution.

Try Apologizing!

After all else fails, it’s still not too late and best to remember the truth was always the best alternative.

When deep in the middle of a crisis, acknowledge your responsibility and even complicity, and pledge to make a clean sweep of whatever are the causes.

I provide crisis training for clients and so am admittedly watching United Healthcare closely, tho I am not involved professionally.

I am puzzled by the apparent silence from United Healthcare’s corporate communications in the wake of this crisis. (Visual analogy: ostrich).
What can they be waiting for, unless they concede their reputation is beyond repair?

At first, it would have been ‘easy’ to play the victim card… their CEO was viciously assassinated. Now they can play the victim card again, that their business is the target of a deranged attacker.

But when will they address the real problem? So many of their customers hate their business practices and those of the healthcare insurance industry at large. What do you do to fix a tattered reputation when your brand appears to be despised?

I’m skeptical that silence is the solution. I have better ideas, not that anyone has asked me.

Media Coverage of Political Regimes: A Study on Vietnam and Syria

Watching the news…
I see parallels between the fall of South Vietnam in the spring 1975 and the equally stunning collapse of the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad within the last fortnight.
I see similarities in political regimes rotted by corruption and propped up by foreign powers motivated by their own fears, ideologies and self-interests.
I see decades long totalitarianism – over a half century for Syria – and 30 years of foreign colonialism in Indochina post WW2 – finally unraveling as their once vaunted armies abandon their posts and tear away their uniforms to obscure their identities.
I see an apparent collapse of the intelligence organization, or its willingness to deceive its minders.
I see jails being liberated of political prisoners and senses of joy and relief by a populace which feels it is finally free to embrace the future.

One difference… the global press corps has done a responsible job of years-long critical coverage of the Assad regime… I don’t remember an American press corps equally critical of its South Vietnamese puppets culminating with the fall of “Big Minh” (Dương Văn Minh)

(And yes… there are parallels too between the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan under President Ashraf Ghani and reinstatement of the Islamic Emirate… among other world conflicts…)

It proves the stink and the plague of corruption at the core will rightly, inevitably be unsustainable. But we should not be shocked… tho we should feel profound sadness for the pain and suffering endured by its citizens, the ultimate victims.

What I find tragic is the American press corp has largely abandoned its foreign posts decried for being economically unsustainable and for management’s assessment that US isolationism doesn’t warrant the time, space or expense of offering a diet of global news. We are too ignorant, in some cases like ostriches choosing the bury our heads, lest we confront realities which are too unpleasant for conversation or action that loom in our path.

Is there anything on our horizon which augurs change?