Smaller city newspapers are thriving, says Media Daily News. The Chicago Sun Times suffered a big first-quarter loss and the owner is reportedly seeking to sell the paper, says Associated Press.
Pundits like to claim that young people learn more about national and world news from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show than they do from traditional news sources. Journalism think tank The Project for Excellence in Journalism decided to test that premise. Associated Press reports.
Public radio show The Infinite Mind has won awards for its coverage of neuroscience and mental illness and wellness. But online magazine Slate is questioning the show's independence after a recent episode of the show, Prozac Nation: Revisited, featured four experts allegedly dismissing the dangers of antidepressants without disclosing that they all allegedly have financial ties to the makers of antidepressants and that the show itself has received grants from drug makers, including Prozac manufacturer Eli Lilly. Slate's Shannon Brownslee and Jeanne Lenzer write that "undisclosed financial conflicts of interest among media sources seem to be popping up all over the place these days. Some experts who appear independent are, in fact, serving as stealth marketers for the drug and biotech industries, and reporters either don't know about their sources' conflicts of interests, or they fail to disclose them to the public." Host Dr. Fred Goodwin, Slate reports, is on the board of drug company-funded organization Center For Medicine In The Public Interest, whose president, Peter Pitts, was one of the episode's guests and who also serves as a vice president at public relations firm Manning Selvage and Lee, which represents Lilly and other major pharmaceutical companies. In New York it aired on WNYC-AM 820. The article also criticizes other shows, including NBC Nightly News, for interviewing researchers without disclosing the subjects' financial ties to companies with a vested interest in their research.
The CW television network - which has been plagued with low ratings on Sundays evenings - is selling its entire Sunday prime time, from 7 to 10 p.m., to an advertising agency, which will then turn around and develop original programming and sell the ad time independently of the network. In New York, the CW affiliate is WPIX channel 11. Variety reports.
All digital TV broadcasting in the U.S. begins next February 17, but eleven TV stations in central Florida will jointly conduct a 1-minute test of digital-only broadcasting, report the Orlando Sentinel and TV Week.
The media can "end" the Democratic presidential race by simply ignoring the Hillary Clinton challenge, says the Washington Post.
Cable TV provider Cablevision will offer high-speed wireless Internet service across its coverage area in the New York region, reports Associated Press.
Some 36.2 million women actively participate in the blogsophere every week, with 15.1 million publishing and 21.1 million reading and commenting, says a new study, reported by Media Post.com.
The social networking site Facebook has reached an agreement with 49 state attorneys general to institute a broad set of principles intended to protect young users from online predators and bullying. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Associated Press report.
Will Microsoft, which just lost out on taking over Yahoo, get Facebook as its consolation prize? The Wall Street Journal reports.
Microsoft remains mum on its future plans, now that the Yahoo takeover bid has failed, says Associated Press.
Microsoft has dismantled its Yahoo slate, says the Los Angeles Times.
The Google - Yahoo alliance could expand, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Apple computers agreed to pay refunds of $25 to $79 to as many as 2.3 million computer customers to resolve claims that some of its power adapters were prone to spark, reports Bloomberg News.
There is a clash of cultures between eBay and Craigs List, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Radio station group owner Radio One's stock shares have dropped below $1 a share, says the Washington Post. Radio One has declined in the past two years, says the Washington Post. A decline in national advertising is being cited by Radio One, says the Baltimore Business Journal.
Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage, who won a 2007 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the George W. Bush administration's sweeping expansion of executive power, is headed to the New York Times. He'll start there later this month, says the Boston Phoenix.
With the switch to all digital broadcasting now just 9 months away, TV stations are focusing on the many facets of the changeover, reports TV Newsday.
Any glitches in the transition to digital TV broadcasting in the U.S. next February will be felt first in coastal Wilmington, North Carolina, where, under an FCC test, all digital broadcasting begins five months early, on September 8, says the San Francisco Chronicle. The mayor of Wilmington, North Carolina calls the selection of the city for the test "exciting" and "historic." The Wilmington Star News reports.
A new battle front over use of movie and TV clips on the Internet has emerged in angry contract talks between actors and Hollywood studios. Meanwhile, talks with one union broke off and another began. Associated Press reports.
Polls to assess drunk driving have a major blind spot: they are bedeviled by their reliance on self-reporting about bad behavior. The Wall Street Journal reports.
In Palm Beach, a jury has ruled against a move by a former radio personality who left one station - WEAT-FM 104.3, and joined a competitor, WRMF 97.9, and has awarded $7 million in damages to WEAT-FM, reports the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel.
In Seattle, Fisher Communications says it has no plans to sell its radio stations, KVI-AM 570, KOMO-AM 1000, and KPLZ-FM 101.5, reports the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
In Canada, cable TV companies are telling the government that it has no business telling them which broadcast channels to carry. The Toronto Globe And Mail reports.
Full coverage of the upcoming elections in the Dominican Republic will be available to New York area viewers next week. Univision's Spanish-language WXTV channel 41 New York will feature a week (May 12-16) of special reports leading up to the Friday, May 16, presidential election in the Dominican Republic. TV Newsday reports.
If the FCC approves the XM- Sirius satellite merger, should it allow even more consolidation of ownership of FM and AM broadcast stations? Greater Media CEO Peter Smyth says that if the FCC approves the merger, the satellite company may use some of its 300 channels for local programming, even though that is prohibited. "With 300 channels, there is absolutely no reason the monopoly company could not or would not use some of its channels to provide local programming aimed at specific large markets, competing directly with terrestrial radio but not on a level playing field," he wrote. "Last year when Greater Media purchased a sixth FM station in Boston, we had to sell a station we already owned to be sure we complied with the FCC?s ownership limitations. The inconsistency is mind-boggling." Therein lies Smyth's main bone of contention: If the FCC allows the satcasters so many channels to "flood" its markets, it should have the opportunity to have larger station clusters. Greater Media owns stations in New Jersey, Boston, and Los Angeles among other markets. Smyth comments in From The Corner Office - Greater Media. All Access reports. (scroll down)
In a satellite radio world of 300 channels, is just eight for minorities enough? Senior U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee member Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) wrote FCC Chairman Kevin Martin on May 6, disavowing a letter about the XM/Sirius merger he had co-signed to Martin only the day before. In the original letter, on which Rush teamed with Brooklyn (New York) Democratic congressman Edolphus Towns, they had "fully supported" the voluntary commitment of XM and Sirius to carve out eight channels, four apiece, for minority owners. Rush says that he and Towns had a "miscommunication," and that while he certainly advocates setting aside channels for minorities - both he and Towns are African American - he says eight channels aren't nearly enough. Broadcasting & Cable reports.
The New York State Broadcasters Association has released details of its 2007 conference at the Sagamore in Lake George June 22 and 23. Those making presentations include Chris Rohrs, president of the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB); David Rehr, CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB); Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) president Jeff Haley; and Stephen Warley of Boston Knows.com. New York Giants football player David Tyree is New York Of The Year, and novelist Mary Higgins Clark - who wrote radio scripts earlier in her career - is receiving the Carol M. Reilly Award. Five individuals are being inducted into the New York State Broadcasters Hall Of Fame, including Bob Bruno, former general manager of WOR-AM 710 New York and previously of WVIP-AM 1310 and WVIP-FM 106.3 Mount Kisco, Westchester County; John Kelly, director at WVCR 88.3 Siena College, Loudonville; and previous owner of WFLY-FM 92.3 and WPTR-AM 1540 Albany-Troy; Roger King, the Father of Modern TV Syndication; Ed McLaughlin, former president of the ABC Radio Network, who discovered Rush Limbaugh at Sacramento's KFBK 1530 and put him on national radio; and Van Miller, the voice of the Buffalo Bills. More information may be obtained from the New York State Broadcasters Association, telephone 518 456-8888.
Pundits like to claim that young people learn more about national and world news from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show than they do from traditional news sources. Journalism think tank The Project for Excellence in Journalism decided to test that premise. Associated Press reports.
Public radio show The Infinite Mind has won awards for its coverage of neuroscience and mental illness and wellness. But online magazine Slate is questioning the show's independence after a recent episode of the show, Prozac Nation: Revisited, featured four experts allegedly dismissing the dangers of antidepressants without disclosing that they all allegedly have financial ties to the makers of antidepressants and that the show itself has received grants from drug makers, including Prozac manufacturer Eli Lilly. Slate's Shannon Brownslee and Jeanne Lenzer write that "undisclosed financial conflicts of interest among media sources seem to be popping up all over the place these days. Some experts who appear independent are, in fact, serving as stealth marketers for the drug and biotech industries, and reporters either don't know about their sources' conflicts of interests, or they fail to disclose them to the public." Host Dr. Fred Goodwin, Slate reports, is on the board of drug company-funded organization Center For Medicine In The Public Interest, whose president, Peter Pitts, was one of the episode's guests and who also serves as a vice president at public relations firm Manning Selvage and Lee, which represents Lilly and other major pharmaceutical companies. In New York it aired on WNYC-AM 820. The article also criticizes other shows, including NBC Nightly News, for interviewing researchers without disclosing the subjects' financial ties to companies with a vested interest in their research.
The CW television network - which has been plagued with low ratings on Sundays evenings - is selling its entire Sunday prime time, from 7 to 10 p.m., to an advertising agency, which will then turn around and develop original programming and sell the ad time independently of the network. In New York, the CW affiliate is WPIX channel 11. Variety reports.
All digital TV broadcasting in the U.S. begins next February 17, but eleven TV stations in central Florida will jointly conduct a 1-minute test of digital-only broadcasting, report the Orlando Sentinel and TV Week.
The media can "end" the Democratic presidential race by simply ignoring the Hillary Clinton challenge, says the Washington Post.
Cable TV provider Cablevision will offer high-speed wireless Internet service across its coverage area in the New York region, reports Associated Press.
Some 36.2 million women actively participate in the blogsophere every week, with 15.1 million publishing and 21.1 million reading and commenting, says a new study, reported by Media Post.com.
The social networking site Facebook has reached an agreement with 49 state attorneys general to institute a broad set of principles intended to protect young users from online predators and bullying. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Associated Press report.
Will Microsoft, which just lost out on taking over Yahoo, get Facebook as its consolation prize? The Wall Street Journal reports.
Microsoft remains mum on its future plans, now that the Yahoo takeover bid has failed, says Associated Press.
Microsoft has dismantled its Yahoo slate, says the Los Angeles Times.
The Google - Yahoo alliance could expand, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Apple computers agreed to pay refunds of $25 to $79 to as many as 2.3 million computer customers to resolve claims that some of its power adapters were prone to spark, reports Bloomberg News.
There is a clash of cultures between eBay and Craigs List, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Radio station group owner Radio One's stock shares have dropped below $1 a share, says the Washington Post. Radio One has declined in the past two years, says the Washington Post. A decline in national advertising is being cited by Radio One, says the Baltimore Business Journal.
Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage, who won a 2007 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the George W. Bush administration's sweeping expansion of executive power, is headed to the New York Times. He'll start there later this month, says the Boston Phoenix.
With the switch to all digital broadcasting now just 9 months away, TV stations are focusing on the many facets of the changeover, reports TV Newsday.
Any glitches in the transition to digital TV broadcasting in the U.S. next February will be felt first in coastal Wilmington, North Carolina, where, under an FCC test, all digital broadcasting begins five months early, on September 8, says the San Francisco Chronicle. The mayor of Wilmington, North Carolina calls the selection of the city for the test "exciting" and "historic." The Wilmington Star News reports.
A new battle front over use of movie and TV clips on the Internet has emerged in angry contract talks between actors and Hollywood studios. Meanwhile, talks with one union broke off and another began. Associated Press reports.
Polls to assess drunk driving have a major blind spot: they are bedeviled by their reliance on self-reporting about bad behavior. The Wall Street Journal reports.
In Palm Beach, a jury has ruled against a move by a former radio personality who left one station - WEAT-FM 104.3, and joined a competitor, WRMF 97.9, and has awarded $7 million in damages to WEAT-FM, reports the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel.
In Seattle, Fisher Communications says it has no plans to sell its radio stations, KVI-AM 570, KOMO-AM 1000, and KPLZ-FM 101.5, reports the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
In Canada, cable TV companies are telling the government that it has no business telling them which broadcast channels to carry. The Toronto Globe And Mail reports.
Full coverage of the upcoming elections in the Dominican Republic will be available to New York area viewers next week. Univision's Spanish-language WXTV channel 41 New York will feature a week (May 12-16) of special reports leading up to the Friday, May 16, presidential election in the Dominican Republic. TV Newsday reports.
If the FCC approves the XM- Sirius satellite merger, should it allow even more consolidation of ownership of FM and AM broadcast stations? Greater Media CEO Peter Smyth says that if the FCC approves the merger, the satellite company may use some of its 300 channels for local programming, even though that is prohibited. "With 300 channels, there is absolutely no reason the monopoly company could not or would not use some of its channels to provide local programming aimed at specific large markets, competing directly with terrestrial radio but not on a level playing field," he wrote. "Last year when Greater Media purchased a sixth FM station in Boston, we had to sell a station we already owned to be sure we complied with the FCC?s ownership limitations. The inconsistency is mind-boggling." Therein lies Smyth's main bone of contention: If the FCC allows the satcasters so many channels to "flood" its markets, it should have the opportunity to have larger station clusters. Greater Media owns stations in New Jersey, Boston, and Los Angeles among other markets. Smyth comments in From The Corner Office - Greater Media. All Access reports. (scroll down)
In a satellite radio world of 300 channels, is just eight for minorities enough? Senior U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee member Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) wrote FCC Chairman Kevin Martin on May 6, disavowing a letter about the XM/Sirius merger he had co-signed to Martin only the day before. In the original letter, on which Rush teamed with Brooklyn (New York) Democratic congressman Edolphus Towns, they had "fully supported" the voluntary commitment of XM and Sirius to carve out eight channels, four apiece, for minority owners. Rush says that he and Towns had a "miscommunication," and that while he certainly advocates setting aside channels for minorities - both he and Towns are African American - he says eight channels aren't nearly enough. Broadcasting & Cable reports.
The New York State Broadcasters Association has released details of its 2007 conference at the Sagamore in Lake George June 22 and 23. Those making presentations include Chris Rohrs, president of the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB); David Rehr, CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB); Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) president Jeff Haley; and Stephen Warley of Boston Knows.com. New York Giants football player David Tyree is New York Of The Year, and novelist Mary Higgins Clark - who wrote radio scripts earlier in her career - is receiving the Carol M. Reilly Award. Five individuals are being inducted into the New York State Broadcasters Hall Of Fame, including Bob Bruno, former general manager of WOR-AM 710 New York and previously of WVIP-AM 1310 and WVIP-FM 106.3 Mount Kisco, Westchester County; John Kelly, director at WVCR 88.3 Siena College, Loudonville; and previous owner of WFLY-FM 92.3 and WPTR-AM 1540 Albany-Troy; Roger King, the Father of Modern TV Syndication; Ed McLaughlin, former president of the ABC Radio Network, who discovered Rush Limbaugh at Sacramento's KFBK 1530 and put him on national radio; and Van Miller, the voice of the Buffalo Bills. More information may be obtained from the New York State Broadcasters Association, telephone 518 456-8888.
NBC plans to start a 24-hour local metropolitan New York cable news channel similar to New York 1. It will de-emphasize the identity of NBC?s flagship station, WNBC, Channel 4, rechristening it a "content center" and making it one part of a larger media presence. The new channel will provide the first 24-hour local news coverage of the New York region, including New Jersey and Connecticut. The New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post and TV Newsday report.
Do people enjoy violent video games? The new controversial video game Grand Theft Auto IV has brought in a half billion dollars in its first week, say the San Francisco Chronicle and Associated Press. A video game sales record has been set, says the Los Angeles Times.
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has removed billboards and ads for the violent video game Grand Theft Auto IV, and is being sued for doing so. CAGO - The publisher of Grand Theft Auto says the CTA interfered with its free-speech rights by allegedly removing ads for the latest version of the hugely popular video game. Take-Two Interactive Software wants a federal judge to stop the CTA from taking down ads for Grand Theft Auto IV. The New York-based company made that request in a lawsuit filed in Manhattan. The lawsuit says the CTA may have removed ads for the action-driving video game because of its mature-use rating. But Take-Two says the ads promote what it says is "an entirely lawful, mainstream entertainment product." Critics say the extreme violence in Grand Theft Auto video games could be harmful to children. Associated Press reports.
Grand Theft Auto IV has car-jacked pop culture, says the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Young video makes are trying to alter the intimidating face of Islam, says the New York Times.
Comcast Corp., the nation's second-largest Internet service provider, is considering setting an official limit on the amount of data that subscribers can download per month and charging a fee for those who go over. Associated Press reports.
Gwen Ifill of Washington Week on PBS spoke about politics and race after receiving an award in Philadelphia, says the Philadelphia Inquirer.
TV Guide is for sale - again. Just days after getting new owners and new editors, the long-troubled TV Guide is back on the block. Another sale would be the fourth change in control during the last decade for TV Guide, which has long been trying to forge a new identity as an entertainment magazine, while moving away from what was once its primary mission, television listings, including for local VHF and UHF stations as well as cable channels. TV Guide has claimed that technology and changing viewing habits have made keeping up with listings more difficult and irrelevant. The New York Times reports.
Did conservative radio talk host Rush Limbaugh tilt the vote in Tuesday's Indiana primary? The Washington Post reports.
The Hillary Clinton camp is chiding NBC and MSNBC, says the Washington Post.
The TV pundits have pronounced their judgement in the Democratic presidential race: it's over. The New York Times reports.
A U.S. Senate homeland security committee report details a growing threat from terrorists' use of the Internet as a recruiting and training tool. The report concludes that the U.S. government should consider its own outreach program as a counter to the Web strategies of groups such as al-Qaida. The Hartford Courant reports.
The quality of digital converters for analog TV sets is uneven, says the Baltimore Sun.
Those who have used portable radios to receive the audio portion of TV programs, will be losing reception of the audio after the switch to all digital TV broadcasting next February 17. The New York Times reports.
Rather than purchase an HDTV set at $1,000 or more, viewers can use their computers. The typical monitor can display HD video of respectable quality - not up there with a true HDTV set, but not bad. All the viewer needs is a fairly robust personal computer, and a digital TV tuner that plugs into a USB port and captures the video signals. The Boston Globe reports.
The FCC's test of the transition to all digital TV broadcasting will take place in coastal North Carolina. It will take place in Wilmington, North Carolina. TV Week and the Washington Post report.
Baltimore native and former CNN Headline News anchor Thomas Roberts who is gay, was outed by a blog when he was an anchor at CNN in 2006, and has since openly discussed his sexual orientation. "If people don't like that I'm gay or that I talk about being gay, I'm sorry. Because that's not my problem." Roberts made the news a few years ago when he revealed that he, as a youth, was molested by a priest while attending a Baltimore Catholic school. The Advocate reports.
ABC News is giving university journalism students a chance to have their local reporting carried on any of Alphabet's digital or broadcast platforms, including World News With Charlie Gibson and Good Morning America. The network announced a partnership with five colleges, where ABC News will open "digital bureaus" in September. The five schools involved are Arizona State U., Syracuse U., U. of Florida, U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and U. of Texas. Variety reports.
MTV is blending ads and programming, says the New York Times.
Can Web video cure DVR ad skipping? Ad Week reports.
Rupert Murdoch is keeping his sights on the Long Island daily newspaper Newsday, say the New York Times and Washington Post. Broadcast TV upped Murdoch's revenues for the first quarter, says Associated Press.
A major technology - termed a "third way - is coming to an end. Broadband service over power lines in Texas is to shut down, reports Associated Press.
Everyone is talking about mobile social networking, reports eMarketer.
Those who saw the movie War Games a quarter century ago in which Matthew Broderick plays a high school student - remember him breaking into the school's computer system. Now in Illinois, New Trier Township High School senior has been charged with one count of misdemeanor computer tampering for allegedly breaking into the school's electronic student records in February, and some parents and students are coming to his defense. Jonah Greenthal, 18, of Glencoe, Illinois turned himself in to police and could face up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine if convicted. The arrest has prompted an outcry in the New Trier community by some who said that while Greenthal was in the wrong, the school already has punished him and involving police is overkill. The Chicago Tribune reports.
It's hard to believe that Google looked vulnerable just two months ago. Now, Google is golden again, says Associated Press.
More big companies are inviting customers to sound off online, says the Boston Globe.
Sprint is renewing its WiMax network plan, say the Washington Post and Bloomberg News.
In Boston, a show on FM station WMJX 106.7 focusing on women, Exceptional Women, is marking 15 years, says the Boston Globe.
The NAB is asking the FCC not to retreat on the relaxation of the cross-ownership rules for broadcast stations and newspapers in the same market. Radio Online and Radio Ink report. Here is the NAB filing.
A half-dozen police officers kicked and beat three men pulled from a car during a traffic stop as a TV helicopter taped the confrontation. The video, shot by Philadelphia Fox station WTXF-TV channel 29, shows three police cars stopping a car Monday. The tape shows about a dozen officers gathering around the vehicle. About a half-dozen officers hold two of the men on the ground. Both are kicked repeatedly, while one is seen being punched; one also appears to be struck with a baton. The third man is also kicked and ends up on the ground. Associated Press and the New York Times report.
Cablevision is buying the Sundance Channel, says the New York Times.
Dan Rather has filed an amended lawsuit against CBS, says Associated Press.
Randy Michaels, a former top executive at Clear Channel Communications, has been named chief operating officer at the Tribune Co., overseeing Tribune's newspapers, TV and radio stations, say the Los Angeles Times, paidContent and the Baltimore Sun.
Group TV station owner Sinclair may go private, says the Media Daily News.
Jay Bakker, the son of evangelical Tammy Faye Bakker Messner will spend his first Mother's Day weekend since her death in Houston, waiting to hear from Texas pastor and national televangelist Joel Osteen. Jay Bakker, a high-profile supporter of Soulforce - a group that fights religious and political oppression of gays - wants televangelist Osteen to join the nontraditional families at a picnic Saturday and welcome them to Osteen's Lakewood Church in Texas on Sunday. The Houston Chronicle reports.
A long-running Orlando, Florida pirate FM station has drawn the attention of a local TV station for public complaints of profane content. Clientell Radio is drawing complaints about profanity, with one parent saying "I don't want my children to hear stuff like that on the radio," while others interviewed said that they like the music on the station. Clientell Radio operates on 93.5 FM (formerly at 91.7 FM) and has its own My Space page. WFTV channel 9 News reports.
Florida has just become less attractive for filming movies and TV shows, says the Miami Herald.
Do people enjoy violent video games? The new controversial video game Grand Theft Auto IV has brought in a half billion dollars in its first week, say the San Francisco Chronicle and Associated Press. A video game sales record has been set, says the Los Angeles Times.
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has removed billboards and ads for the violent video game Grand Theft Auto IV, and is being sued for doing so. CAGO - The publisher of Grand Theft Auto says the CTA interfered with its free-speech rights by allegedly removing ads for the latest version of the hugely popular video game. Take-Two Interactive Software wants a federal judge to stop the CTA from taking down ads for Grand Theft Auto IV. The New York-based company made that request in a lawsuit filed in Manhattan. The lawsuit says the CTA may have removed ads for the action-driving video game because of its mature-use rating. But Take-Two says the ads promote what it says is "an entirely lawful, mainstream entertainment product." Critics say the extreme violence in Grand Theft Auto video games could be harmful to children. Associated Press reports.
Grand Theft Auto IV has car-jacked pop culture, says the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Young video makes are trying to alter the intimidating face of Islam, says the New York Times.
Comcast Corp., the nation's second-largest Internet service provider, is considering setting an official limit on the amount of data that subscribers can download per month and charging a fee for those who go over. Associated Press reports.
Gwen Ifill of Washington Week on PBS spoke about politics and race after receiving an award in Philadelphia, says the Philadelphia Inquirer.
TV Guide is for sale - again. Just days after getting new owners and new editors, the long-troubled TV Guide is back on the block. Another sale would be the fourth change in control during the last decade for TV Guide, which has long been trying to forge a new identity as an entertainment magazine, while moving away from what was once its primary mission, television listings, including for local VHF and UHF stations as well as cable channels. TV Guide has claimed that technology and changing viewing habits have made keeping up with listings more difficult and irrelevant. The New York Times reports.
Did conservative radio talk host Rush Limbaugh tilt the vote in Tuesday's Indiana primary? The Washington Post reports.
The Hillary Clinton camp is chiding NBC and MSNBC, says the Washington Post.
The TV pundits have pronounced their judgement in the Democratic presidential race: it's over. The New York Times reports.
A U.S. Senate homeland security committee report details a growing threat from terrorists' use of the Internet as a recruiting and training tool. The report concludes that the U.S. government should consider its own outreach program as a counter to the Web strategies of groups such as al-Qaida. The Hartford Courant reports.
The quality of digital converters for analog TV sets is uneven, says the Baltimore Sun.
Those who have used portable radios to receive the audio portion of TV programs, will be losing reception of the audio after the switch to all digital TV broadcasting next February 17. The New York Times reports.
Rather than purchase an HDTV set at $1,000 or more, viewers can use their computers. The typical monitor can display HD video of respectable quality - not up there with a true HDTV set, but not bad. All the viewer needs is a fairly robust personal computer, and a digital TV tuner that plugs into a USB port and captures the video signals. The Boston Globe reports.
The FCC's test of the transition to all digital TV broadcasting will take place in coastal North Carolina. It will take place in Wilmington, North Carolina. TV Week and the Washington Post report.
Baltimore native and former CNN Headline News anchor Thomas Roberts who is gay, was outed by a blog when he was an anchor at CNN in 2006, and has since openly discussed his sexual orientation. "If people don't like that I'm gay or that I talk about being gay, I'm sorry. Because that's not my problem." Roberts made the news a few years ago when he revealed that he, as a youth, was molested by a priest while attending a Baltimore Catholic school. The Advocate reports.
ABC News is giving university journalism students a chance to have their local reporting carried on any of Alphabet's digital or broadcast platforms, including World News With Charlie Gibson and Good Morning America. The network announced a partnership with five colleges, where ABC News will open "digital bureaus" in September. The five schools involved are Arizona State U., Syracuse U., U. of Florida, U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and U. of Texas. Variety reports.
MTV is blending ads and programming, says the New York Times.
Can Web video cure DVR ad skipping? Ad Week reports.
Rupert Murdoch is keeping his sights on the Long Island daily newspaper Newsday, say the New York Times and Washington Post. Broadcast TV upped Murdoch's revenues for the first quarter, says Associated Press.
A major technology - termed a "third way - is coming to an end. Broadband service over power lines in Texas is to shut down, reports Associated Press.
Everyone is talking about mobile social networking, reports eMarketer.
Those who saw the movie War Games a quarter century ago in which Matthew Broderick plays a high school student - remember him breaking into the school's computer system. Now in Illinois, New Trier Township High School senior has been charged with one count of misdemeanor computer tampering for allegedly breaking into the school's electronic student records in February, and some parents and students are coming to his defense. Jonah Greenthal, 18, of Glencoe, Illinois turned himself in to police and could face up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine if convicted. The arrest has prompted an outcry in the New Trier community by some who said that while Greenthal was in the wrong, the school already has punished him and involving police is overkill. The Chicago Tribune reports.
It's hard to believe that Google looked vulnerable just two months ago. Now, Google is golden again, says Associated Press.
More big companies are inviting customers to sound off online, says the Boston Globe.
Sprint is renewing its WiMax network plan, say the Washington Post and Bloomberg News.
In Boston, a show on FM station WMJX 106.7 focusing on women, Exceptional Women, is marking 15 years, says the Boston Globe.
The NAB is asking the FCC not to retreat on the relaxation of the cross-ownership rules for broadcast stations and newspapers in the same market. Radio Online and Radio Ink report. Here is the NAB filing.
A half-dozen police officers kicked and beat three men pulled from a car during a traffic stop as a TV helicopter taped the confrontation. The video, shot by Philadelphia Fox station WTXF-TV channel 29, shows three police cars stopping a car Monday. The tape shows about a dozen officers gathering around the vehicle. About a half-dozen officers hold two of the men on the ground. Both are kicked repeatedly, while one is seen being punched; one also appears to be struck with a baton. The third man is also kicked and ends up on the ground. Associated Press and the New York Times report.
Cablevision is buying the Sundance Channel, says the New York Times.
Dan Rather has filed an amended lawsuit against CBS, says Associated Press.
Randy Michaels, a former top executive at Clear Channel Communications, has been named chief operating officer at the Tribune Co., overseeing Tribune's newspapers, TV and radio stations, say the Los Angeles Times, paidContent and the Baltimore Sun.
Group TV station owner Sinclair may go private, says the Media Daily News.
Jay Bakker, the son of evangelical Tammy Faye Bakker Messner will spend his first Mother's Day weekend since her death in Houston, waiting to hear from Texas pastor and national televangelist Joel Osteen. Jay Bakker, a high-profile supporter of Soulforce - a group that fights religious and political oppression of gays - wants televangelist Osteen to join the nontraditional families at a picnic Saturday and welcome them to Osteen's Lakewood Church in Texas on Sunday. The Houston Chronicle reports.
A long-running Orlando, Florida pirate FM station has drawn the attention of a local TV station for public complaints of profane content. Clientell Radio is drawing complaints about profanity, with one parent saying "I don't want my children to hear stuff like that on the radio," while others interviewed said that they like the music on the station. Clientell Radio operates on 93.5 FM (formerly at 91.7 FM) and has its own My Space page. WFTV channel 9 News reports.
Florida has just become less attractive for filming movies and TV shows, says the Miami Herald.
Dr. William F. Baker gave the following address at the Baden-Wurttenberg Seminar in Tubingen, Germany.
"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter."
These words were spoken about 2 centuries ago by Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States.
Jefferson also spoke other truths very relevant to our times:
Like...
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
Governments almost never like a free press investigating their actions, and the press must remain vigilant. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of the press.
But there is a grave danger to today's press: an economic one. Classified ads traditionally accounted for about half of a newspaper's revenue, but in this new cyber age Craig's List has arisen, offering instant and free classified ads on the Web, where most young readers are anyway.
Also, young people are not reading hardcopy newspapers, and with the shift of audiences from the papers and magazines to the Web, advertising revenue is moving along with it.
Newspaper articles are free on most newspaper sites. The crux of the problem is that newspapers have not found a way to make money on the Web. To survive, they will have to do so.
The survival of newspapers is key to the survival of democracy - they have the resources and expertise to conduct major investigative reporting, on a regular and continuing basis.
In the world of 500 cable TV channels, broadcast network audiences have also shrunk, and their news operations have been cut sharply.
First Amendment freedom has been an evolving concept in the United States. As recently as World War One, anti-government speech was illegal and could result in imprisonment.
In the latter half of the 20th century this freedom broadened, thanks to the courts. In the case New York Times Company vs. Sullivan, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling which established the actual malice standard before press reports could be considered to be defamation and libel, and hence allowed free reporting of the civil rights campaigns in the southern United States. It was and is one of the key decisions supporting freedom of the press in the U.S.
Totalitarian governments of the left and right - be it Stalin's Russia or Hitler in Germany - have maintained total control over media.
The clich? is that the first casualty during war is the truth. But during the Second World War, the BBC reported Allied defeat after defeat, and did not sugar coat or doctor the reality. What this meant was that when the tide turned, and the Allies started registering victories, the BBC was believed - all around the world.
After Stalin secured control of Eastern Europe, and imposed the iron curtain, and then China went communist in 1949, meaning one third of the world's population was now under communist control, a red scare swept across America.
A demagogic senator named Joseph McCarthy was able to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Witch-hunts ensued and the careers and lives of thousands in media and the arts were destroyed. The medium that was able to stand up and help bring an end to this tyranny, this dark period in American history, was commercial television. Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly of CBS television news presented a half hour on the telecast See It Now, using clips of McCarthy to depict his ruthless strategy and loose tactics intimidating witnesses and ruining innocent people. Finally in 1954 McCarthy was censured by the Senate, and stopped.
The 1960s proved to be the most turbulent American decade since the Civil War. In the U.S. and in Europe and around the world, this was the decade of the counterculture, in which everything establishment was challenged. This decade witnessed the civil rights legislation ending Jim Crow and discrimination in America. Local newspapers in the old South - because of economics and local pressures - were previously unable to report the repression and trampling of rights of black citizens.
But the news wire services - especially Associated Press and United Press International, had no such pressures and were free to expose what was taking place. This in turn notified the major TV networks and nation's major newspapers which then dispatched reporters and photographers to record and show the nation the unleashing of dogs and of fire hoses on citizens, and see a racist governor blocking the entrance to the halls of education, while proclaiming "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"
The Vietnam War brought another of the great showdowns of history to the United States - the press challenging false claims by the federal government. Television network news brought into the living room the horrors of the war - villages being burned down - an arrestee being shot and executed on the spot by a South Vietnamese police official - the hundreds of thousands in Washington protesting the war policy.
Those who supported the war blamed the media - the newspapers which obtained secret documents about the war and printed them - the TV networks showing in living color what was taking place in Vietnam. Some critics said the press brought about the defeat of the United States in the Vietnam War. The news organizations were not patriotic some claimed.
The great power of the media was demonstrated again in the 1970s in a different way, with the genocide in Cambodia carried out by the Khmer Rouge. Because television and print media had almost no access to Cambodia, this horror was virtually unknown to the American public and to the West. Only when the movie "The Killing Fields" was released did some come to know about 2 million of Cambodia's 6 million perishing in this reign of terror spanning 3 years.
The 1980s a new administration - headed by Ronald Reagan - came to Washington. A key tenet of Reagan was to deregulate the media - and take a hands off policy toward the concept of public service by broadcasters, and of trying to regulate concentration of control of media by a few corporations.
The Fairness Doctrine, which required that stations broadcast opposing viewpoints of controversial subjects, was eliminated, leading perhaps to the rise of strident political talk shows.
Broadcast stations more and more have become cash cows for corporate owners, rather than outlets serving the public interest, convenience and necessity, as required under the Communications Act of 1934. The largest of the radio conglomerates, Clear Channel, owns 1,200 of the most powerful FM and AM radio stations in the most important cities.
One station - in New Haven, Connecticut - a news and information AM station,- no longer has a single local news person on the air - news is recorded at a Syracuse, New York station hundreds of miles away, and all talk programs are nationally syndicated, so there is not a single local on-air person at the station, which once boasted local talk shows and a nine-person local news department.
On a national network level, the big three network news operations, ABC, CBS and NBC, have spent the last 3 decades closing down news bureaus around the nation and world. It was because NBC still had a news bureau in Berlin in 1989 that among American networks, NBC had a scoop on one of the biggest stories of the 20th century - the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Just last month, the New York Times reported that CBS, the home of the most celebrated news division in broadcasting, has been in discussions about a deal to outsource some of its news-gathering operations to CNN.
Today finds the news media in America and around the world very much at a crossroads. Coverage of the Iraq War ordered by George W. Bush is very much in question by journalistic critics today.
The press did not play the role of censor of the government, as Jefferson envisioned. Rather, it may have played the role of cheerleader, and has been accused of suppressing views opposing Bush and the war.
The story was told a year ago in the PBS special Buying The War anchored by Bill Moyers.
BILL MOYERS CUT: "FOUR YEARS AGO THIS SPRING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TOOK LEAVE OF REALITY AND PLUNGED OUR COUNTRY INTO A WAR SO POORLY PLANNED IT SOON TURNED INTO A DISASTER. THE STORY OF HOW HIGH OFFICIALS MISLED THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN TOLD. BUT THEY COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT ON THEIR OWN; THEY NEEDED A COMPLIANT PRESS, TO PASS ON THEIR PROPAGANDA AS NEWS AND CHEER THEM ON.
SINCE THEN THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE HAVE DIED, AND MANY ARE DYING TO THIS DAY. YET THE STORY OF HOW THE MEDIA BOUGHT WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WAS SELLING HAS NOT BEEN TOLD IN DEPTH ON TELEVISION. AS THE WAR RAGES INTO ITS FIFTH YEAR, WE LOOK BACK AT THOSE MONTHS LEADING UP TO THE INVASION, WHEN OUR PRESS LARGELY SURRENDERED ITS INDEPENDENCE AND SKEPTICISM TO JOIN WITH OUR GOVERNMENT IN MARCHING TO WAR."
Officials in the administration knew they could not say Iraq had a direct role in the 9/11 attacks, but in sentences would repeatedly refer to 9/11 and then to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, so that 70% of the American public believed Iraq was involved in the attacks.
The broadcast networks, the cable news networks, the major newspapers and groups all marched in lockstep and virtually no dissent was reported, in the period leading up to the war. The so-called "Patriot police" would call or show up at any offending news operation.
The patriot or patriotism police referred to in-house censors within the networks or media companies concerned that their network be sufficiently pro-administration, and that it not be exposed to charges of being unpatriotic by a presentation or a spokesperson opposed to the pro-Iraq war policy. The patriotism police might even include an advertiser sponsoring a program on the network. They were described in the Bill Moyers show on the Iraq War and the media.
When 100,000 anti-war demonstrators protested in Washington in October 2002, the Washington Post covered it by putting a picture on the front of the metro section, with no story on page one. Howard Kurtz, media reporter for the Post, says there were about 140 front-page stories in the Post making the Bush administration's case for war, between August 2002 and March 2003 when the invasion began.
Bill Moyers said that when Democrats did go against the grain, they were denounced by the partisan press and largely ignored by the mainstream press. War opponent Senator Ted Kennedy was given just 36 words in the Washington Post.
Phil Donahue, who had the one show on MSNBC featuring war opponents, was told he must have two pro-administration guests for every single dissenter to the administration. Donahue was cancelled 22 days short of the invasion of Iraq and an internal NBC memo said "Donahue presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
Dan Rather, formerly of CBS, describes the atmosphere of intimidation:
DAN RATHER CUT: "FEAR IS IN EVERY NEWSROOM IN THE COUNTRY. AND FEAR OF WHAT? WELL IT'S THE FEAR - IT'S A COMBINATION OF: IF YOU DON'T GO ALONG TO GET ALONG, YOU'RE GOING TO GET THE REPUTATION OF BEING A TROUBLEMAKER. THERE'S ALSO THE FEAR THAT, YOU KNOW, PARTICULARLY IN NETWORKS, THEY'VE BECOME HUGE, INTERNATIONAL CONGLOMERATES. THEY HAVE BIG NEEDS, LEGISLATIVE NEEDS, REPERTORY NEEDS IN WASHINGTON. NOBODY HAS TO SEND YOU A MEMO TO TELL YOU THAT'S THE CASE. YOU KNOW, AND THAT PUTS A SEED IN YOUR MIND OF WELL, IF YOU STICK YOUR NECK OUT, IF YOU TAKE THE RISK OF GOING AGAINST THE GRAIN WITH YOUR REPORTING, IS ANYBODY GOING TO BACK YOU UP?"
The Knight Ridder newspaper chain was the only major mainstream American news organization to question the run-up to the war at the time, but its influence was minimal, since the stories were not printed in New York or Washington. John Walcott of Knight Ridder speaks:
JOHN WALCOTT CUT: 'YOU KNOW, WE'RE SENDING YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN, AND NOWADAYS NOT SO YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN, TO RISK THEIR LIVES. AND EVERYONE WANTS TO BE BEHIND THEM. THE QUESTION FOR US IN JOURNALISM IS, ARE WE REALLY BEHIND THEM WHEN WE FAIL TO DO OUR JOBS? IS THAT REALLY THE KIND OF SUPPORT THAT THEY DESERVE? OR ARE WE REALLY, IN THE LONG RUN, SERVING THEM BETTER BY ASKING THESE HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT WE'VE ASKED THEM TO DO?"
There are no simple answers - there is no book with the answers to difficult journalistic questions, what to do in each situation. It's not just a question of caving in to fear - it's also the hollowing out of newsrooms across the U.S. Reporting is expensive, and there are no longer the resources to maintain large staffs of reporters.
Some questions now confronting journalism in the United States and around the world include:
How can newspapers become profitable on the Internet? Stories are free, but if they charge for the stories, almost nobody will read their sites.
Why are print newspapers continuing to flourish in Canada and in Europe and Asia while they are declining dramatically in the U.S.?
The press is the government's censor, but should there be exceptions in time of war? The New York Times knew all the details of the D-Day landing in June 1944, but did not publish them ahead-of-time, so the other side would not be tipped off, and there would be a disaster for the landing Allied troops.
What about television news, which has become in many ways the most powerful medium. Today, instead of reporters in capitals all around the world, there are pundits on the air offering their opinions of what might happen. How can these bureaus of reporters be reopened? Bureaus are expensive - especially foreign ones.
At one time newspapers such as the Boston Globe and Baltimore Sun maintained foreign bureaus, but they have all been closed. Only the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post maintain small bureaus overseas.
What about concentration of control of broadcast and print media in the U.S., where there are fewer owners?
Can consolidation be reversed? It was way back in 1943 when NBC was ordered to divest its second network, the Blue Network, which became ABC.
How can newspapers make up for Craig's List and their lost classified ad revenue, which traditionally brought in half of the papers' revenue?
When journalists do exhibit courage, it is often not rewarded by bosses at the time. When CBS broadcast the See It Now episode on Senator McCarthy, a top CBS executive told Fred Friendly the next day, "You may have cost us our broadcast licenses." But of course today Friendly and Edward R.Murrow are revered for their courage.
A year ago, it was reported that during the previous decade, eleven hundred journalists had been killed worldwide, doing their jobs.
What about the Internet? It continues to siphon viewers from TV, listeners from broadcast radio, and readers from newspapers and magazines. Along with them is a huge chunk of advertising. Can a way be found to direct some of this revenue to support major professional news organizations, as in decades past?
Can Americans still count on the press to keep their leaders from abusing power? Has the ostensibly independent press become little more than a mouthpiece for government, completely abandoning its role as "censor" of government power?
Up to the present most news organizations operate as for-profit businesses. Can this continue? Should there be a new model?
US MEDIA 2008
U.S. Households 112,800,000
Cable Households 48,130,200 (87% of total)
Satellite TV Households 29,553,600 (26% of total)
Total Broadcast advertising (2007) $22.43 billion (+2% from 2006)
Total Cable TV advertising (2007) $17.84 billion (+26% from 2006)
Spot Network TV advertising (2007) $15.59 billion (-10.2% from 2006)
Syndication (2007) $4.17 billion (-1.5%)
All media advertising (2007) $148.99 billion (+.2%)
Internet display advertising (2007) $11.31 billion
Consumer magazines (2007) $24.43 billion (+7%)
Outdoor ad revenues (2007) $4.02 billion (+4.9%)
Newspapers ad revenues in 2007, down 5.6% from 2006
Radio ad revenues in 2007, down 2.5% from 2006
Time spent with Internet per week per person, 32.7 hours
Time spent with TV per week per person, 16.4 hours
Time spent per day by children watching TV (per child) 3 to 4 hours
Time spent listening to radio per person, 3 hours and 3 minutes per weekday
Read a newspaper total: 43% in 2006, 50% in 1996 (-7%)
Read a newspaper yesterday 18 to 29 year olds: 29% in 2006, 29% in 1996
Read a newspaper yesterday 30 to 49 year olds: 40% in 2006, 49% in 1996 (-9%)
Read a newspaper yesterday 50 to 64 year olds: 50% in 2006, 58% in 1996 (-8%)
Read a newspaper yesterday 65 and older: 58% in 2006, 70% in 1996 (-12%)
Numbers of stations/newspapers:
4,776 AM stations (all licensed to be commercial)
6,309 Commercial FM stations
2,892 Non-commercial FM stations
831 Low Power FM stations (all non-commercial)
TOTAL Radio stations: 14,808
1,180 Commercial TV stations
363 Non-commercial TV stations
2,173 Low Power commercial TV stations
1,452 Daily newspapers
6,704 Weekly newspapers
SOURCES: International Data Corp., Radio Advertising Bureau, TV Week, PEW
Center, FCC, Editor & Publisher, Journalism.org
"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter."
These words were spoken about 2 centuries ago by Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States.
Jefferson also spoke other truths very relevant to our times:
Like...
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
Governments almost never like a free press investigating their actions, and the press must remain vigilant. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of the press.
But there is a grave danger to today's press: an economic one. Classified ads traditionally accounted for about half of a newspaper's revenue, but in this new cyber age Craig's List has arisen, offering instant and free classified ads on the Web, where most young readers are anyway.
Also, young people are not reading hardcopy newspapers, and with the shift of audiences from the papers and magazines to the Web, advertising revenue is moving along with it.
Newspaper articles are free on most newspaper sites. The crux of the problem is that newspapers have not found a way to make money on the Web. To survive, they will have to do so.
The survival of newspapers is key to the survival of democracy - they have the resources and expertise to conduct major investigative reporting, on a regular and continuing basis.
In the world of 500 cable TV channels, broadcast network audiences have also shrunk, and their news operations have been cut sharply.
First Amendment freedom has been an evolving concept in the United States. As recently as World War One, anti-government speech was illegal and could result in imprisonment.
In the latter half of the 20th century this freedom broadened, thanks to the courts. In the case New York Times Company vs. Sullivan, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling which established the actual malice standard before press reports could be considered to be defamation and libel, and hence allowed free reporting of the civil rights campaigns in the southern United States. It was and is one of the key decisions supporting freedom of the press in the U.S.
Totalitarian governments of the left and right - be it Stalin's Russia or Hitler in Germany - have maintained total control over media.
The clich? is that the first casualty during war is the truth. But during the Second World War, the BBC reported Allied defeat after defeat, and did not sugar coat or doctor the reality. What this meant was that when the tide turned, and the Allies started registering victories, the BBC was believed - all around the world.
After Stalin secured control of Eastern Europe, and imposed the iron curtain, and then China went communist in 1949, meaning one third of the world's population was now under communist control, a red scare swept across America.
A demagogic senator named Joseph McCarthy was able to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Witch-hunts ensued and the careers and lives of thousands in media and the arts were destroyed. The medium that was able to stand up and help bring an end to this tyranny, this dark period in American history, was commercial television. Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly of CBS television news presented a half hour on the telecast See It Now, using clips of McCarthy to depict his ruthless strategy and loose tactics intimidating witnesses and ruining innocent people. Finally in 1954 McCarthy was censured by the Senate, and stopped.
The 1960s proved to be the most turbulent American decade since the Civil War. In the U.S. and in Europe and around the world, this was the decade of the counterculture, in which everything establishment was challenged. This decade witnessed the civil rights legislation ending Jim Crow and discrimination in America. Local newspapers in the old South - because of economics and local pressures - were previously unable to report the repression and trampling of rights of black citizens.
But the news wire services - especially Associated Press and United Press International, had no such pressures and were free to expose what was taking place. This in turn notified the major TV networks and nation's major newspapers which then dispatched reporters and photographers to record and show the nation the unleashing of dogs and of fire hoses on citizens, and see a racist governor blocking the entrance to the halls of education, while proclaiming "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"
The Vietnam War brought another of the great showdowns of history to the United States - the press challenging false claims by the federal government. Television network news brought into the living room the horrors of the war - villages being burned down - an arrestee being shot and executed on the spot by a South Vietnamese police official - the hundreds of thousands in Washington protesting the war policy.
Those who supported the war blamed the media - the newspapers which obtained secret documents about the war and printed them - the TV networks showing in living color what was taking place in Vietnam. Some critics said the press brought about the defeat of the United States in the Vietnam War. The news organizations were not patriotic some claimed.
The great power of the media was demonstrated again in the 1970s in a different way, with the genocide in Cambodia carried out by the Khmer Rouge. Because television and print media had almost no access to Cambodia, this horror was virtually unknown to the American public and to the West. Only when the movie "The Killing Fields" was released did some come to know about 2 million of Cambodia's 6 million perishing in this reign of terror spanning 3 years.
The 1980s a new administration - headed by Ronald Reagan - came to Washington. A key tenet of Reagan was to deregulate the media - and take a hands off policy toward the concept of public service by broadcasters, and of trying to regulate concentration of control of media by a few corporations.
The Fairness Doctrine, which required that stations broadcast opposing viewpoints of controversial subjects, was eliminated, leading perhaps to the rise of strident political talk shows.
Broadcast stations more and more have become cash cows for corporate owners, rather than outlets serving the public interest, convenience and necessity, as required under the Communications Act of 1934. The largest of the radio conglomerates, Clear Channel, owns 1,200 of the most powerful FM and AM radio stations in the most important cities.
One station - in New Haven, Connecticut - a news and information AM station,- no longer has a single local news person on the air - news is recorded at a Syracuse, New York station hundreds of miles away, and all talk programs are nationally syndicated, so there is not a single local on-air person at the station, which once boasted local talk shows and a nine-person local news department.
On a national network level, the big three network news operations, ABC, CBS and NBC, have spent the last 3 decades closing down news bureaus around the nation and world. It was because NBC still had a news bureau in Berlin in 1989 that among American networks, NBC had a scoop on one of the biggest stories of the 20th century - the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Just last month, the New York Times reported that CBS, the home of the most celebrated news division in broadcasting, has been in discussions about a deal to outsource some of its news-gathering operations to CNN.
Today finds the news media in America and around the world very much at a crossroads. Coverage of the Iraq War ordered by George W. Bush is very much in question by journalistic critics today.
The press did not play the role of censor of the government, as Jefferson envisioned. Rather, it may have played the role of cheerleader, and has been accused of suppressing views opposing Bush and the war.
The story was told a year ago in the PBS special Buying The War anchored by Bill Moyers.
BILL MOYERS CUT: "FOUR YEARS AGO THIS SPRING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TOOK LEAVE OF REALITY AND PLUNGED OUR COUNTRY INTO A WAR SO POORLY PLANNED IT SOON TURNED INTO A DISASTER. THE STORY OF HOW HIGH OFFICIALS MISLED THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN TOLD. BUT THEY COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT ON THEIR OWN; THEY NEEDED A COMPLIANT PRESS, TO PASS ON THEIR PROPAGANDA AS NEWS AND CHEER THEM ON.
SINCE THEN THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE HAVE DIED, AND MANY ARE DYING TO THIS DAY. YET THE STORY OF HOW THE MEDIA BOUGHT WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WAS SELLING HAS NOT BEEN TOLD IN DEPTH ON TELEVISION. AS THE WAR RAGES INTO ITS FIFTH YEAR, WE LOOK BACK AT THOSE MONTHS LEADING UP TO THE INVASION, WHEN OUR PRESS LARGELY SURRENDERED ITS INDEPENDENCE AND SKEPTICISM TO JOIN WITH OUR GOVERNMENT IN MARCHING TO WAR."
Officials in the administration knew they could not say Iraq had a direct role in the 9/11 attacks, but in sentences would repeatedly refer to 9/11 and then to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, so that 70% of the American public believed Iraq was involved in the attacks.
The broadcast networks, the cable news networks, the major newspapers and groups all marched in lockstep and virtually no dissent was reported, in the period leading up to the war. The so-called "Patriot police" would call or show up at any offending news operation.
The patriot or patriotism police referred to in-house censors within the networks or media companies concerned that their network be sufficiently pro-administration, and that it not be exposed to charges of being unpatriotic by a presentation or a spokesperson opposed to the pro-Iraq war policy. The patriotism police might even include an advertiser sponsoring a program on the network. They were described in the Bill Moyers show on the Iraq War and the media.
When 100,000 anti-war demonstrators protested in Washington in October 2002, the Washington Post covered it by putting a picture on the front of the metro section, with no story on page one. Howard Kurtz, media reporter for the Post, says there were about 140 front-page stories in the Post making the Bush administration's case for war, between August 2002 and March 2003 when the invasion began.
Bill Moyers said that when Democrats did go against the grain, they were denounced by the partisan press and largely ignored by the mainstream press. War opponent Senator Ted Kennedy was given just 36 words in the Washington Post.
Phil Donahue, who had the one show on MSNBC featuring war opponents, was told he must have two pro-administration guests for every single dissenter to the administration. Donahue was cancelled 22 days short of the invasion of Iraq and an internal NBC memo said "Donahue presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
Dan Rather, formerly of CBS, describes the atmosphere of intimidation:
DAN RATHER CUT: "FEAR IS IN EVERY NEWSROOM IN THE COUNTRY. AND FEAR OF WHAT? WELL IT'S THE FEAR - IT'S A COMBINATION OF: IF YOU DON'T GO ALONG TO GET ALONG, YOU'RE GOING TO GET THE REPUTATION OF BEING A TROUBLEMAKER. THERE'S ALSO THE FEAR THAT, YOU KNOW, PARTICULARLY IN NETWORKS, THEY'VE BECOME HUGE, INTERNATIONAL CONGLOMERATES. THEY HAVE BIG NEEDS, LEGISLATIVE NEEDS, REPERTORY NEEDS IN WASHINGTON. NOBODY HAS TO SEND YOU A MEMO TO TELL YOU THAT'S THE CASE. YOU KNOW, AND THAT PUTS A SEED IN YOUR MIND OF WELL, IF YOU STICK YOUR NECK OUT, IF YOU TAKE THE RISK OF GOING AGAINST THE GRAIN WITH YOUR REPORTING, IS ANYBODY GOING TO BACK YOU UP?"
The Knight Ridder newspaper chain was the only major mainstream American news organization to question the run-up to the war at the time, but its influence was minimal, since the stories were not printed in New York or Washington. John Walcott of Knight Ridder speaks:
JOHN WALCOTT CUT: 'YOU KNOW, WE'RE SENDING YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN, AND NOWADAYS NOT SO YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN, TO RISK THEIR LIVES. AND EVERYONE WANTS TO BE BEHIND THEM. THE QUESTION FOR US IN JOURNALISM IS, ARE WE REALLY BEHIND THEM WHEN WE FAIL TO DO OUR JOBS? IS THAT REALLY THE KIND OF SUPPORT THAT THEY DESERVE? OR ARE WE REALLY, IN THE LONG RUN, SERVING THEM BETTER BY ASKING THESE HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT WE'VE ASKED THEM TO DO?"
There are no simple answers - there is no book with the answers to difficult journalistic questions, what to do in each situation. It's not just a question of caving in to fear - it's also the hollowing out of newsrooms across the U.S. Reporting is expensive, and there are no longer the resources to maintain large staffs of reporters.
Some questions now confronting journalism in the United States and around the world include:
How can newspapers become profitable on the Internet? Stories are free, but if they charge for the stories, almost nobody will read their sites.
Why are print newspapers continuing to flourish in Canada and in Europe and Asia while they are declining dramatically in the U.S.?
The press is the government's censor, but should there be exceptions in time of war? The New York Times knew all the details of the D-Day landing in June 1944, but did not publish them ahead-of-time, so the other side would not be tipped off, and there would be a disaster for the landing Allied troops.
What about television news, which has become in many ways the most powerful medium. Today, instead of reporters in capitals all around the world, there are pundits on the air offering their opinions of what might happen. How can these bureaus of reporters be reopened? Bureaus are expensive - especially foreign ones.
At one time newspapers such as the Boston Globe and Baltimore Sun maintained foreign bureaus, but they have all been closed. Only the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post maintain small bureaus overseas.
What about concentration of control of broadcast and print media in the U.S., where there are fewer owners?
Can consolidation be reversed? It was way back in 1943 when NBC was ordered to divest its second network, the Blue Network, which became ABC.
How can newspapers make up for Craig's List and their lost classified ad revenue, which traditionally brought in half of the papers' revenue?
When journalists do exhibit courage, it is often not rewarded by bosses at the time. When CBS broadcast the See It Now episode on Senator McCarthy, a top CBS executive told Fred Friendly the next day, "You may have cost us our broadcast licenses." But of course today Friendly and Edward R.Murrow are revered for their courage.
A year ago, it was reported that during the previous decade, eleven hundred journalists had been killed worldwide, doing their jobs.
What about the Internet? It continues to siphon viewers from TV, listeners from broadcast radio, and readers from newspapers and magazines. Along with them is a huge chunk of advertising. Can a way be found to direct some of this revenue to support major professional news organizations, as in decades past?
Can Americans still count on the press to keep their leaders from abusing power? Has the ostensibly independent press become little more than a mouthpiece for government, completely abandoning its role as "censor" of government power?
Up to the present most news organizations operate as for-profit businesses. Can this continue? Should there be a new model?
US MEDIA 2008
U.S. Households 112,800,000
Cable Households 48,130,200 (87% of total)
Satellite TV Households 29,553,600 (26% of total)
Total Broadcast advertising (2007) $22.43 billion (+2% from 2006)
Total Cable TV advertising (2007) $17.84 billion (+26% from 2006)
Spot Network TV advertising (2007) $15.59 billion (-10.2% from 2006)
Syndication (2007) $4.17 billion (-1.5%)
All media advertising (2007) $148.99 billion (+.2%)
Internet display advertising (2007) $11.31 billion
Consumer magazines (2007) $24.43 billion (+7%)
Outdoor ad revenues (2007) $4.02 billion (+4.9%)
Newspapers ad revenues in 2007, down 5.6% from 2006
Radio ad revenues in 2007, down 2.5% from 2006
Time spent with Internet per week per person, 32.7 hours
Time spent with TV per week per person, 16.4 hours
Time spent per day by children watching TV (per child) 3 to 4 hours
Time spent listening to radio per person, 3 hours and 3 minutes per weekday
Read a newspaper total: 43% in 2006, 50% in 1996 (-7%)
Read a newspaper yesterday 18 to 29 year olds: 29% in 2006, 29% in 1996
Read a newspaper yesterday 30 to 49 year olds: 40% in 2006, 49% in 1996 (-9%)
Read a newspaper yesterday 50 to 64 year olds: 50% in 2006, 58% in 1996 (-8%)
Read a newspaper yesterday 65 and older: 58% in 2006, 70% in 1996 (-12%)
Numbers of stations/newspapers:
4,776 AM stations (all licensed to be commercial)
6,309 Commercial FM stations
2,892 Non-commercial FM stations
831 Low Power FM stations (all non-commercial)
TOTAL Radio stations: 14,808
1,180 Commercial TV stations
363 Non-commercial TV stations
2,173 Low Power commercial TV stations
1,452 Daily newspapers
6,704 Weekly newspapers
SOURCES: International Data Corp., Radio Advertising Bureau, TV Week, PEW
Center, FCC, Editor & Publisher, Journalism.org
Media Briefing for Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Two powerful members of Congress want to know whether news networks bear any culpability related to a U.S. Department of Defense program to recruit ex-military officers to talk up George W. Bush's Iraq policies, and other policies, on TV, online and elsewhere. Following a story in the New York Times about the program, House Telecommunications & Internet Subcommittee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) have asked FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to investigate whether the program may have violated requirements of sponsorship identification. Broadcasting & Cable reports.
Jay Iselin, president of Thirteen/WNET from 1973 to 1987, has passed away at the age of 74. He led WNET during a period of great innovation, and great cuts by the federal government during the 1980s, the years of the Ronald Reagan Revolution. The New York Times reports.
In New York, WNBC channel 4 is considering launching a 24-hour-a-day local news channel, says FTV Live. (paid subscription)
Since the merger with Thomson, the Reuters news service has undergone a shakeup, says Paid Content.
Once again, a video depicting police roughing up a suspect has been captured, this time in Philadelphia. A half-dozen police officers kicked and beat three men pulled from a car during a traffic stop as a TV helicopter taped the confrontation. The video, shot by Philadelphia Fox station WTXF-TV channel 29, shows three police cars stopping a car Monday. This is two days after a city officer was shot to death responding to a bank robbery. The tape shows about a dozen officers gathering around the vehicle. About a half-dozen officers hold two of the men on the ground. Both are kicked repeatedly, while one is seen being punched; one also appears to be struck with a baton. The third man is also kicked and ends up on the ground. Associated Press reports.
V-Me, PBS' Spanish language channel, is examining additional programming options, says the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The New York Times and MSNBC are joining forces for a new cable show. Yesterday was the debut of The New York Times Special Primary Edition, a new political show hosted by John Harwood whereTimes journalists will handicap the election. From a Times memo, it appears these shows will appear as specials - that is, they won't run every week, but whenever MSNBC and the paper choose to do it. The New York Observer reports.
Dan Rather has filed an amended lawsuit against CBS, reports the Hollywood Reporter.
Marvin Gaye is featured on tonight's American Masters on PBS and Thirteen/WNET at 9. The Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel and the New York Daily News review the telecast. The program is also reviewed by the Detroit News and the Buffalo News.
Howard Stern is the top star on satellite radio, says the New York Daily News.
The cellular giant T-Mobile is seeking to build a soaring 100-foot-tall cellphone tower in a wooded patch at the edge of a Framingham, Massachusetts graveyard. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, which owns the cemetery, has approved the plan and agreed to lease the spot to the company. The proposal - which still must be approved by Framingham's Zoning Board of Appeals - has enraged the Cherry Street Neighborhood Association, a band of several dozen self-appointed guardians who say that installing the planned tower and a surrounding 8-foot-tall fence violates the memories of people buried nearby. The Boston Globe reports.
The Democratic presidential candidates and their supporters bought more television advertising in Indiana and North Carolina ahead of Tuesday?s primary, pleasing stations in both states. The spending spree on behalf of rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton also has been helping TV stations in Louisville, Kentucky, which reaches southern Indiana. However Chicago broadcast stations, which reach northern Indiana, were left behind in favor of local cable purchases. TV Week reports.
The Washington Post examines last night's Indiana primary coverage on the TV networks.
Last evening, CBS called Indiana early for Hillary Clinton, but remained alone in the very tight race for the entire night, says the New York Times.
A German host was taken off the air after using the Nazi phrase "Arbeit macht frei," which was posted on the entrance gate to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and means "work makes you free." Haaretz reports.
TV Guide has a new top editor, says Associated Press.
A nationwide wireless network is being planned, says the New York Times.
The collapse of the Microsoft-Yahoo talks leaves advertisers with less leverage, says Associated Press.
Microsoft's Bill Gates says Microsoft will follow an independent path after the Yahoo deal collapse, reports the Associated Press.
Bill Gates says "key decisions" at Microsoft's following the company's withdrawal of a $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo will be made by CEO Steve Ballmer, says Associated Press.
Associated Press is providing an inside look at Microsoft's increased bid for Yahoo.
After fending off months of threats by Microsoft Corp., Yahoo's directors still will have to fight for their jobs as the company's own irate shareholders plot a mutiny. Spurred by widespread criticism about how Yahoo's board responded to Microsoft's sweetened takeover offer of $47.5 billion, an activist shareholder is trying to recruit an alternate slate of directors to present at Yahoo's annual meeting on July 3. Associated Press reports.
Microsoft may yet own Yahoo, says the San Francisco Chronicle.
Advertisers are finding that on Craigs List.org it's survival of the sneakiest, says the Sacramento Bee.
Apple is getting a boost from iPhone deals, says Marketwatch.
Does online counseling to save marriages and relationships really work? The Hartford Courant reports.
Spot Runner, which helps marketers buy TV ad spots on local cable and broadcast using its online service, has raised a big $51 million fourth round from an international group of investors with an eye on expansion beyond the U.S. paidContent reports.
E-Marketer looks at the social networking site My Space's revenues.
Clearwire and Sprint-Nextel are announcing that they have entered into a definitive agreement to combine their WiMax wireless broadband business to form a new company that will have sufficient resources to be a competitive force going forward, reports mocoNews.
Sprint is beefing up its wireless broadband venture, says the Los Angeles Times.
Nearly one out of every four permission-based email messages sent to U.S.-based ISPs lands in the junk mail folder. Slightly more than 76 percent of invited email successfully makes it to the inbox. Media Post.com reports.
Brian T. Keane, who departed Boston technology services firm Keane Incorporated under a cloud two years ago, has resurfaced as chief executive of a private-equity-backed Wakefield, Massachusetts company focused on outsourcing software applications and services to China. The company, which is set to relaunch today under the name Dextrys, seeks to become the leader in a fragmented Chinese technology services market that's poised for rapid growth. The Boston Globe reports.
Singer Neil Young is tapping the same new technology used in the latest movies and video games to release his archive of music, photos, videos and other memorabilia. Neil Young, in a baseball cap and dark sunglasses, appeared on stage at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco to introduce the Neil Young Archive, report the San Francisco Chronicle and Associated Press.
Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Zune are fighting over TV downloads, says the Los Angeles Times.
A Wall Street Journal reporter played a walk-on role in the Uma Thurman stalking trial, says the Wall Street Journal.
The 77-year-old host of Talk Sex, a call-in show - colorful educator Sue Johanson on the Oxygen cable TV network - is ending the broadcast this week, reports Associated Press.
In Sacramento, the music director of FM station KWOD 106.5, is showcasing Sacramento bands, says the Sacramento Bee.
ABC's Barbara Walters airs a life of glass ceiling and romances in her new book, says the Washington Post. She broke barrier after barrier, says the San Francisco Chronicle.
Barnes & Noble will sell discounted magazines online, says Folio.
There is still no buyer for Young Broadcasting's San Francisco MyNetwork TV affiliate KRON channel 4, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Cablevision is buying the Sundance cable channel for $496 million, reports Bloomberg News.
North Carolina U.S. Congressman Mike McIntyre has joined a chorus of lawmakers telling the FCC to back off of the proposed localism mandates, writing a letter to Chairman Kevin Martin. In the letter McIntyre says that the "processing guidelines are, in effect, programming quotas that give certain types of speech the government stamp of approval. The First Amendment was written to prevent this kind of action by our government, and it should prevent the FCC from pushing forward with these old and unnecessary rules." He adds, "Marketplace incentives have driven FCC policy for the last 25 years, and there is little reason to change that policy today." A total of 28 senators and about 130 members of the House have written to the Commission with similar concerns. All Access reports. (scroll down)
A suburban Chicago AM radio station, WMCW 1600 Harvard, Illinois, has gone dark. The Kovas Communications-owned all-talk WMCW located in the suburbs west of Chicago, has gone silent, switching off on Saturday. WMCW presently on 1600 AM, has an application to move to 1180 AM in Weston, Wisconsin, near Wausau. The move is part of Kovas' long-running attempt to improve the coverage of its ethnic WONX-AM in Evanston at 1590 on the dial, which has an application on file to increase from 3,500 to 7.000 watts days. WMCW had been simulcasting the Health Radio Network programming with sister WKKD-AM 1580 Aurora, which has an FCC construction permit to move to Silvis, Illinois (in the Quad Cities market across the state) with 1,400 watts days/1,000 watts nights. All Access reports. (scroll down)
Two powerful members of Congress want to know whether news networks bear any culpability related to a U.S. Department of Defense program to recruit ex-military officers to talk up George W. Bush's Iraq policies, and other policies, on TV, online and elsewhere. Following a story in the New York Times about the program, House Telecommunications & Internet Subcommittee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) have asked FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to investigate whether the program may have violated requirements of sponsorship identification. Broadcasting & Cable reports.
Jay Iselin, president of Thirteen/WNET from 1973 to 1987, has passed away at the age of 74. He led WNET during a period of great innovation, and great cuts by the federal government during the 1980s, the years of the Ronald Reagan Revolution. The New York Times reports.
In New York, WNBC channel 4 is considering launching a 24-hour-a-day local news channel, says FTV Live. (paid subscription)
Since the merger with Thomson, the Reuters news service has undergone a shakeup, says Paid Content.
Once again, a video depicting police roughing up a suspect has been captured, this time in Philadelphia. A half-dozen police officers kicked and beat three men pulled from a car during a traffic stop as a TV helicopter taped the confrontation. The video, shot by Philadelphia Fox station WTXF-TV channel 29, shows three police cars stopping a car Monday. This is two days after a city officer was shot to death responding to a bank robbery. The tape shows about a dozen officers gathering around the vehicle. About a half-dozen officers hold two of the men on the ground. Both are kicked repeatedly, while one is seen being punched; one also appears to be struck with a baton. The third man is also kicked and ends up on the ground. Associated Press reports.
V-Me, PBS' Spanish language channel, is examining additional programming options, says the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The New York Times and MSNBC are joining forces for a new cable show. Yesterday was the debut of The New York Times Special Primary Edition, a new political show hosted by John Harwood whereTimes journalists will handicap the election. From a Times memo, it appears these shows will appear as specials - that is, they won't run every week, but whenever MSNBC and the paper choose to do it. The New York Observer reports.
Dan Rather has filed an amended lawsuit against CBS, reports the Hollywood Reporter.
Howard Stern is the top star on satellite radio, says the New York Daily News.
The cellular giant T-Mobile is seeking to build a soaring 100-foot-tall cellphone tower in a wooded patch at the edge of a Framingham, Massachusetts graveyard. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, which owns the cemetery, has approved the plan and agreed to lease the spot to the company. The proposal - which still must be approved by Framingham's Zoning Board of Appeals - has enraged the Cherry Street Neighborhood Association, a band of several dozen self-appointed guardians who say that installing the planned tower and a surrounding 8-foot-tall fence violates the memories of people buried nearby. The Boston Globe reports.
The Democratic presidential candidates and their supporters bought more television advertising in Indiana and North Carolina ahead of Tuesday?s primary, pleasing stations in both states. The spending spree on behalf of rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton also has been helping TV stations in Louisville, Kentucky, which reaches southern Indiana. However Chicago broadcast stations, which reach northern Indiana, were left behind in favor of local cable purchases. TV Week reports.
The Washington Post examines last night's Indiana primary coverage on the TV networks.
Last evening, CBS called Indiana early for Hillary Clinton, but remained alone in the very tight race for the entire night, says the New York Times.
A German host was taken off the air after using the Nazi phrase "Arbeit macht frei," which was posted on the entrance gate to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and means "work makes you free." Haaretz reports.
TV Guide has a new top editor, says Associated Press.
A nationwide wireless network is being planned, says the New York Times.
The collapse of the Microsoft-Yahoo talks leaves advertisers with less leverage, says Associated Press.
Microsoft's Bill Gates says Microsoft will follow an independent path after the Yahoo deal collapse, reports the Associated Press.
Bill Gates says "key decisions" at Microsoft's following the company's withdrawal of a $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo will be made by CEO Steve Ballmer, says Associated Press.
Associated Press is providing an inside look at Microsoft's increased bid for Yahoo.
After fending off months of threats by Microsoft Corp., Yahoo's directors still will have to fight for their jobs as the company's own irate shareholders plot a mutiny. Spurred by widespread criticism about how Yahoo's board responded to Microsoft's sweetened takeover offer of $47.5 billion, an activist shareholder is trying to recruit an alternate slate of directors to present at Yahoo's annual meeting on July 3. Associated Press reports.
Microsoft may yet own Yahoo, says the San Francisco Chronicle.
Advertisers are finding that on Craigs List.org it's survival of the sneakiest, says the Sacramento Bee.
Apple is getting a boost from iPhone deals, says Marketwatch.
Does online counseling to save marriages and relationships really work? The Hartford Courant reports.
Spot Runner, which helps marketers buy TV ad spots on local cable and broadcast using its online service, has raised a big $51 million fourth round from an international group of investors with an eye on expansion beyond the U.S. paidContent reports.
E-Marketer looks at the social networking site My Space's revenues.
Clearwire and Sprint-Nextel are announcing that they have entered into a definitive agreement to combine their WiMax wireless broadband business to form a new company that will have sufficient resources to be a competitive force going forward, reports mocoNews.
Sprint is beefing up its wireless broadband venture, says the Los Angeles Times.
Nearly one out of every four permission-based email messages sent to U.S.-based ISPs lands in the junk mail folder. Slightly more than 76 percent of invited email successfully makes it to the inbox. Media Post.com reports.
Brian T. Keane, who departed Boston technology services firm Keane Incorporated under a cloud two years ago, has resurfaced as chief executive of a private-equity-backed Wakefield, Massachusetts company focused on outsourcing software applications and services to China. The company, which is set to relaunch today under the name Dextrys, seeks to become the leader in a fragmented Chinese technology services market that's poised for rapid growth. The Boston Globe reports.
Singer Neil Young is tapping the same new technology used in the latest movies and video games to release his archive of music, photos, videos and other memorabilia. Neil Young, in a baseball cap and dark sunglasses, appeared on stage at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco to introduce the Neil Young Archive, report the San Francisco Chronicle and Associated Press.
Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Zune are fighting over TV downloads, says the Los Angeles Times.
A Wall Street Journal reporter played a walk-on role in the Uma Thurman stalking trial, says the Wall Street Journal.
The 77-year-old host of Talk Sex, a call-in show - colorful educator Sue Johanson on the Oxygen cable TV network - is ending the broadcast this week, reports Associated Press.
In Sacramento, the music director of FM station KWOD 106.5, is showcasing Sacramento bands, says the Sacramento Bee.
ABC's Barbara Walters airs a life of glass ceiling and romances in her new book, says the Washington Post. She broke barrier after barrier, says the San Francisco Chronicle.
Barnes & Noble will sell discounted magazines online, says Folio.
There is still no buyer for Young Broadcasting's San Francisco MyNetwork TV affiliate KRON channel 4, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Cablevision is buying the Sundance cable channel for $496 million, reports Bloomberg News.
North Carolina U.S. Congressman Mike McIntyre has joined a chorus of lawmakers telling the FCC to back off of the proposed localism mandates, writing a letter to Chairman Kevin Martin. In the letter McIntyre says that the "processing guidelines are, in effect, programming quotas that give certain types of speech the government stamp of approval. The First Amendment was written to prevent this kind of action by our government, and it should prevent the FCC from pushing forward with these old and unnecessary rules." He adds, "Marketplace incentives have driven FCC policy for the last 25 years, and there is little reason to change that policy today." A total of 28 senators and about 130 members of the House have written to the Commission with similar concerns. All Access reports. (scroll down)
A suburban Chicago AM radio station, WMCW 1600 Harvard, Illinois, has gone dark. The Kovas Communications-owned all-talk WMCW located in the suburbs west of Chicago, has gone silent, switching off on Saturday. WMCW presently on 1600 AM, has an application to move to 1180 AM in Weston, Wisconsin, near Wausau. The move is part of Kovas' long-running attempt to improve the coverage of its ethnic WONX-AM in Evanston at 1590 on the dial, which has an application on file to increase from 3,500 to 7.000 watts days. WMCW had been simulcasting the Health Radio Network programming with sister WKKD-AM 1580 Aurora, which has an FCC construction permit to move to Silvis, Illinois (in the Quad Cities market across the state) with 1,400 watts days/1,000 watts nights. All Access reports. (scroll down)
Media Briefing for Tuesday, May 6, 2008
FCC commissioner Robert McDowell disagrees with his fellow Republican, FCC chairman Kevin Martin, over new rules and proposals that would require more community outreach and local programming by broadcasters. TV Newsday reports.
A survey of editors feel that newspapers will be free at some future date. Reuters reports.
CNN's John Roberts declared yesterday's televised interview with Barack Obama a "Reverend Wright-free zone" to telegraph he wouldn't ask the Democratic presidential contender about the controversy over his former pastor. The reference was flip, but Roberts primarily talked about Iran, the gasoline tax and the economy during a six-minute interview with Obama that aired at 6:20 a.m. Associated Press reports.
In the Microsoft-Yahoo fight, the winner is Google, and Microsoft and Yahoo are both losers, says the Boston Globe.
Google has triumped, says the Los Angeles Times.
The deal's collapse is good news for Google, says the San Francisco Chronicle.
Google was the spoiler, says the New York Times.
Google's checkbook stymied Microsoft, says the New York Times.
Jerry Yang, the chief of Yahoo, says Microsoft was the stubborn one, says the New York Times.
Yahoo president Sue Decker offers her take on the deal collapse, in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Yahoo investors are up in arms, as the prices of Yahoo shares drop, says San Jose Mercury News.
Yahoo is getting a backlash for rebuffing the Microsoft takeover bid, says the Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo is facing shareholder fireworks at its annual meeting July 3, says Associated Press.
Yahoo is bruised but not battered, says Associated Press.
The president of Yahoo is confident in Yahoo's product lineup, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Now in play: America On Line (AOL), Facebook, and many others, says the New York Times.
The Microsoft - Yahoo merger died before it had a chance to live, says the New York Times.
Yahoo is teaming with McAfee to offer security on search results, says Associated Press.
T-Mobile USA is now offering service in New York City, reports Associated Press.
Sprint may sell or spin off its Nextel unit, says Bloomberg News.
Quest has dropped Sprint Nextel, and is now offering Verizon, says Associated Press.
Microsoft is sharpening its social networking skills, says the Seattle Times.
More jobs are coming to Google's campus in Kirkland, Washington near Seattle, says the Seattle Times.
Radio is not dead, says CBS's CEO Dan Mason. Mason said "$1 billion in ad dollars were telling you that the iPod and satellite radio will lead to the death of radio. That's a myth. Like when you were told the eight-track tapes, cassettes and the CD would sign radio's death warrant. To say that an iPod or satellite radio, with little or no human connection will ever replace radio is absurd." The Washington Post reports.
There is free Wi Fi, but not for all, says the New York Times.
Barack Obama is counting on a "grown-up" electorate, says the Washington Post.
In a merged Sirius-XM satellite radio service, there would be eight minority radio channels, says Seeking Alpha.
A new poll shows viewers would like to see Katie Couric on morning television. http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2008-05-05-couric_N.htm>USA Today reports.
Some are predicting that prices for HDTV sets will go up in the next year, reports the Dallas Morning News.
Liberty Mutual has struck a deal with NBC to be the most prominent sponsor of a two-hour movie premiere of Kings, one of the Peacock network's new shows. What's more, the program's themes match those of Liberty's current ad campaign. Liberty expects the show will be identified as being presented by Liberty Mutual, said Steve Sullivan, the company's senior vice president of communications. Liberty is still mulling the kinds of ads it will run during the program. Like Liberty, more marketers are looking for places where they can best reach people, and then shove other marketers aside. The Boston Globe reports.
Chasing Apple, Microsoft is adding TV shows to Zune Marketplace, says Associated Press.
Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro has gotten her own TV show where she will star as a judge, reports Associated Press.
Cult leader Michael Travesser says being a cult leader requires great sacrifice. In his case, that includes bedding his son's wife, getting naked with teenaged girls and pocketing his followers' worldly possessions.So how does a guy with two failed marriages, a bad childhood and the look of an underfed bridge-dweller pull this off? You can find out by watching Inside a Cult, a fascinating National Geographic Channel program that airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. Travesser, 66, allowed a crew to spend seven months filming what he promised was a run-up to Judgment Day, which he had penciled in for October 31, 2007. Though the world didn't end as scheduled, we do hear startling admissions from some of the 56 Strong City cult members, including Travesser's son Jeff, a former San Francisco policeman. Bloomberg News reports.
The long-stalled Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, Illinois has been hit with a foreclosure lawsuit by its general contractor over $4.5 million in unpaid bills, says Chicago Business.
FCC commissioner Robert McDowell disagrees with his fellow Republican, FCC chairman Kevin Martin, over new rules and proposals that would require more community outreach and local programming by broadcasters. TV Newsday reports.
A survey of editors feel that newspapers will be free at some future date. Reuters reports.
CNN's John Roberts declared yesterday's televised interview with Barack Obama a "Reverend Wright-free zone" to telegraph he wouldn't ask the Democratic presidential contender about the controversy over his former pastor. The reference was flip, but Roberts primarily talked about Iran, the gasoline tax and the economy during a six-minute interview with Obama that aired at 6:20 a.m. Associated Press reports.
In the Microsoft-Yahoo fight, the winner is Google, and Microsoft and Yahoo are both losers, says the Boston Globe.
Google has triumped, says the Los Angeles Times.
The deal's collapse is good news for Google, says the San Francisco Chronicle.
Google was the spoiler, says the New York Times.
Google's checkbook stymied Microsoft, says the New York Times.
Jerry Yang, the chief of Yahoo, says Microsoft was the stubborn one, says the New York Times.
Yahoo president Sue Decker offers her take on the deal collapse, in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Yahoo investors are up in arms, as the prices of Yahoo shares drop, says San Jose Mercury News.
Yahoo is getting a backlash for rebuffing the Microsoft takeover bid, says the Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo is facing shareholder fireworks at its annual meeting July 3, says Associated Press.
Yahoo is bruised but not battered, says Associated Press.
The president of Yahoo is confident in Yahoo's product lineup, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Now in play: America On Line (AOL), Facebook, and many others, says the New York Times.
The Microsoft - Yahoo merger died before it had a chance to live, says the New York Times.
Yahoo is teaming with McAfee to offer security on search results, says Associated Press.
T-Mobile USA is now offering service in New York City, reports Associated Press.
Sprint may sell or spin off its Nextel unit, says Bloomberg News.
Quest has dropped Sprint Nextel, and is now offering Verizon, says Associated Press.
Microsoft is sharpening its social networking skills, says the Seattle Times.
More jobs are coming to Google's campus in Kirkland, Washington near Seattle, says the Seattle Times.
Radio is not dead, says CBS's CEO Dan Mason. Mason said "$1 billion in ad dollars were telling you that the iPod and satellite radio will lead to the death of radio. That's a myth. Like when you were told the eight-track tapes, cassettes and the CD would sign radio's death warrant. To say that an iPod or satellite radio, with little or no human connection will ever replace radio is absurd." The Washington Post reports.
There is free Wi Fi, but not for all, says the New York Times.
Barack Obama is counting on a "grown-up" electorate, says the Washington Post.
In a merged Sirius-XM satellite radio service, there would be eight minority radio channels, says Seeking Alpha.
A new poll shows viewers would like to see Katie Couric on morning television. http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2008-05-05-couric_N.htm>USA Today reports.
Some are predicting that prices for HDTV sets will go up in the next year, reports the Dallas Morning News.
Liberty Mutual has struck a deal with NBC to be the most prominent sponsor of a two-hour movie premiere of Kings, one of the Peacock network's new shows. What's more, the program's themes match those of Liberty's current ad campaign. Liberty expects the show will be identified as being presented by Liberty Mutual, said Steve Sullivan, the company's senior vice president of communications. Liberty is still mulling the kinds of ads it will run during the program. Like Liberty, more marketers are looking for places where they can best reach people, and then shove other marketers aside. The Boston Globe reports.
Chasing Apple, Microsoft is adding TV shows to Zune Marketplace, says Associated Press.
Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro has gotten her own TV show where she will star as a judge, reports Associated Press.
Cult leader Michael Travesser says being a cult leader requires great sacrifice. In his case, that includes bedding his son's wife, getting naked with teenaged girls and pocketing his followers' worldly possessions.So how does a guy with two failed marriages, a bad childhood and the look of an underfed bridge-dweller pull this off? You can find out by watching Inside a Cult, a fascinating National Geographic Channel program that airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. Travesser, 66, allowed a crew to spend seven months filming what he promised was a run-up to Judgment Day, which he had penciled in for October 31, 2007. Though the world didn't end as scheduled, we do hear startling admissions from some of the 56 Strong City cult members, including Travesser's son Jeff, a former San Francisco policeman. Bloomberg News reports.
The long-stalled Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, Illinois has been hit with a foreclosure lawsuit by its general contractor over $4.5 million in unpaid bills, says Chicago Business.
Media Briefing for Monday, May 5, 2008
Quotes from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright are played over and over on news channels and programs, while vitriolic and hateful comments from the Rev. John Hagee about the Catholic Church and about homosexuals are not played at all. John McCain, who sought out Rev. Hagee's endorsement this year, has not been held to the same standard as Barack Obama. Is it that black preachers making radical statements are more theatrical and interesting to watch than white preachers making radical statements? The New York Times' Frank Rich `reports. John McCain has his own pastor problem, says the Philadelphia Daily News.
Yahoo may not have heard the last from Microsoft, says the Los Angeles Times.
Now that Microsoft has walked away from its bid to take over Yahoo, all eyes are on the CEO of Yahoo, Jerry Yang, says the San Francisco Chronicle.
Microsoft is walking away from its bid to take over Yahoo, say the New York Times, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Times, and Associated Press
Here is the letter from the CEO of Microsoft withdrawing its offer to take over Yahoo.
Here is Yahoo's response.
How is Microsoft going to catch Google without Yahoo? The Seattle Times reports. Microsoft was trying to buy its way out of the issue of competing with Google, by trying to take over Yahoo, says the New York Times.
With the Yahoo deal's collapse, stymied Microsoft must find new online strategy, says the Seattle Times.
It looks like Microsoft came to its senses, says the Seattle Times.
Here is the timeline on Microsoft's takeover bid for Yahoo from Associated Press.
After the Microsoft deal dies, Yahoo is weighing its next move, says the New York Times.
Depending on one?s definition of "tech deals," Microsoft?s unsolicited offer for Yahoo was the largest-ever, says the New York Times.
The debate over stereotypes in video games is a no-win situation, says the Boston Globe.
After the race horse broke both her legs on the racetrack at Saturday's Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky, NBC elected to cut away and not show the horse - writhing in pain - on the ground, and elected not to show the horse being euthanized. NBC is being called "cowardly" by the Washington Post, essentially being in cahoots with the racing industry. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is reacting to the death, says Associated Press.
It's the ultimate "little black book": One firm routes all phone calls in North America. The Washington Post reports.
In the Internet age, AM radio in some ways exhibits the diversity and quirkiness that one finds on the Web, says the Washington Post.
Two senior congressional Democrats are saying that XM and Sirius Satellite Radio should be required to allow manufacturers to offer additional options in satellite receivers, making them accessible to HD digital radio broadcasts and the Internet. Congressmen John Dingell (D.-Mich) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) have laid out their position in a letter to Kevin Martin, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Dingell is the chairman of the U.S. House Commerce Committee, while Markey is chairman of its Telecommunications Subcommittee. Media Post.com reports.
The Iraq War drags on - 49 Americans and over one thousand Iraqis dead last month alone - and four thousand Americans killed since George W. Bush launched the war. Yet there is very little media coverage, says the Boston Globe.
Tim Russert of NBC's Meet The Press and George Stephanopoulos of ABC's This Week are both former political aides, says the New York Times.
Karl Rove is number one and Chris Matthews is number two on the London Telegraph's list of most influential political pundits in the United States.
The new list of gurus in the United States include media figures and journalists, says the Wall Street Journal.
The first President George Bush is profiled in a 2-part documentary on American Experience on PBS tonight at 9 with the second part tomorrow night at 9 on PBS and Thirteen/WNET. The telecast is reviewed by the Boston Globe.
Why did the press turn on Barack Obama? The Washington Post reports.
Clear Channel Communications is all over the New York City FM dial, but is now under one roof. Clear Channel now has a consolidated location at 32 Avenue Of The Americas in Manhattan, housing WHTZ 100.3, WKTU 103.5, WAXQ 104.3, WWPR 105.1 and WLTW 106.7. The New York Times reports.
NPR now has an alternative news program to Morning Edition aimed at a younger generation, called The Takeaway, originating at New York City NPR stations WNYC-AM 820 and WNYC-FM 93.9, says the New York Times.
Rupert Murdoch has decided to not raise his bid for the Long Island daily newspaper Newsday even though Cablevision has bid more, says the Los Angeles Times. Newsday is a hot property among publishers, says Media Post.
In Canada there is a debate over censorship of films, says the New York Times.
ESPN has been sued for using a Norman Rockwell illustration, says Associated Press.
TiVo has made watching commercials unnecessary. Is it now trying to make watching reality shows a thing of the past, too? The New York Times reports.
Verifying ages online for social networking sites does not solve all possible problems, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Online profiles on social networking Web sites may be aliases, says the Washington Post.
Web social networking sites are friendly to identity thieves, says the Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles Times lists ways to protect your identity.
Customer support telephone numbers may be difficult to find, says the Los Angeles Times.
A lot of us carry a little bit of Apple's Steve Jobs around in our pocket, in the form of iPods and iPhones. Now, Apple is after the remaining bit of life-share that it doesn?t already own, the home front. The New York Times reports.
Apple computers is green, flush with cash, says the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
AT&T has launched TV service on phones, rivaling Verizon, says Associated Press.
Mobile TV is spreading in Europe and to the U.S., says the New York Times.
Electronic gadgets might be the right ticket for Mothers Day presents, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Amazon.com is suing the state of New York over the collection of state sales taxes, says Associated Press.
A publisher tested the waters online, and then dove in. The niche publisher I.D.G. has been working out the answers to some big mainstream questions. The biggest: Can print media survive the transition to the Internet? The New York Times reports.
The state of New York is cracking down on film piracy, sharply stiffening the penalties, says the Los Angeles Times.
The Santa Barbara News Press is laying off ten, including two editors, reports the Santa Barbara Daily Sound.
The Hartford Roman Catholic Archdiocese has operated since 1976 a non-commercial 9,000 watt FM station, WJMJ 88.9 Hartford, that has been offering "beautiful music" during the day, and classical music, organ music, opera and broadway music programs in the evening. It has offered ABC Information Network national and world news on the hour. It also offered messages from various religious denominations with a format it called "Ecumenical Radio." Sundays, it offered sermons of many denominations. A radio station operated by an archdiocese is extremely rare. Now, with the new ultra conservative Pope heading the Catholic Church, the Protestant, non-Catholic voices are being eliminated on WJMJ, says the Hartford Courant. One listener is distressed by the change, while a priest applauds it, saying it eliminates leftist and relativist sermons from WJMJ, in letters to the Hartford Courant.
Promised donations to help keep free-form Pacifica affiliated non-commercial FM station WPKN 89.5 Bridgeport, Connecticut afloat may now be in jeopardy. The Fairfield County Weekly reports.
After a scandal, students are leaving Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, says Associated Press.
Newspaper Web sites bash other media in local ad sales efforts, says Media Post.com.
Michael Bloomberg is not a newspaper man, or even a media person, says Business Week.
A TV news anchor in Minneapolis stumbled over the word "neighborhood" and the n-word came out, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
William Frankel, who reinvigorated the venerable London-based newspaper The Jewish Chronicle as its editor for two decades, broadening its coverage of world affairs to include the Vietnam War and the American civil rights movement, has passed away at age 91, says the New York Times.
A federal appeals court on Friday said regulators were reasonable in sticking to a June deadline that requires Sprint Nextel Corp. to vacate some wireless channels that will be used by public safety agencies. Associated Press reports.
German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom may be making a bid to take over Sprint Nextel, say the Seattle Times and Associated Press.
Technology is guest-starring on television, says the Seattle Times.
The Federal Communications Commission is requiring Sprint, the nation's third-largest wireless carrier, to clear certain channels by June 26, a move designed to eliminate radio interference with thousands of public safety agencies across the country. The company would essentially swap spectrum with the public safety agencies. Associated Press reports.
George W. Bush's celebration of World Press Freedom Day is examined by the Philadelphia Daily News.
Former U.S. congressman Bob Barr of Georgia, known for his right wing credentials in the 1990s, is now a paid consultant to the American Civil Liberties Union, has renounced the war on drugs, and says that in the wake of 9/11, the administration has used the attack as an excuse to do anything it wants. Barr may run as a Libertarian Party candidate for president this year. Conservative Republicans fear he could be a spoiler, siphoning off votes from John McCain, says the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The new autobiography by ABC's Barbara Walters is reviewed by the New York Times.
Bob Schieffer should be restored as anchor of the CBS Evening News, says a piece in Market Watch.
NBC, which owns NBC affiliate KNTV channel 11 San Francisco, is maneuvering to buy the financially ailing KRON channel 4, San Francisco's MyNetwork TV affiliate. KRON has been suffering large losses, resulting in cuts at other Young-owned stations across the nation, including Albany, N.Y. ABC affiliate WTEN channel 10. NBC would convert KRON to a Spanish-language Telemundo affiliate. NBC owns Telemundo. This report is from Newsblues. (paid subscription)
Interactive television is being tested in Boston, on ABC affiliate WCVB channel 5, says Broadcasting & Cable. Connecticut's CBS affiliate WFSB channel 3 is also in talks to test interactive television.
In central Florida, in the Orlando area, the government channel Orange TV has gone way beyond its original intent, says the Orlando Sentinel.
Quotes from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright are played over and over on news channels and programs, while vitriolic and hateful comments from the Rev. John Hagee about the Catholic Church and about homosexuals are not played at all. John McCain, who sought out Rev. Hagee's endorsement this year, has not been held to the same standard as Barack Obama. Is it that black preachers making radical statements are more theatrical and interesting to watch than white preachers making radical statements? The New York Times' Frank Rich `reports. John McCain has his own pastor problem, says the Philadelphia Daily News.
Yahoo may not have heard the last from Microsoft, says the Los Angeles Times.
Now that Microsoft has walked away from its bid to take over Yahoo, all eyes are on the CEO of Yahoo, Jerry Yang, says the San Francisco Chronicle.
Microsoft is walking away from its bid to take over Yahoo, say the New York Times, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Times, and Associated Press
Here is the letter from the CEO of Microsoft withdrawing its offer to take over Yahoo.
Here is Yahoo's response.
How is Microsoft going to catch Google without Yahoo? The Seattle Times reports. Microsoft was trying to buy its way out of the issue of competing with Google, by trying to take over Yahoo, says the New York Times.
With the Yahoo deal's collapse, stymied Microsoft must find new online strategy, says the Seattle Times.
It looks like Microsoft came to its senses, says the Seattle Times.
Here is the timeline on Microsoft's takeover bid for Yahoo from Associated Press.
After the Microsoft deal dies, Yahoo is weighing its next move, says the New York Times.
Depending on one?s definition of "tech deals," Microsoft?s unsolicited offer for Yahoo was the largest-ever, says the New York Times.
The debate over stereotypes in video games is a no-win situation, says the Boston Globe.
After the race horse broke both her legs on the racetrack at Saturday's Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky, NBC elected to cut away and not show the horse - writhing in pain - on the ground, and elected not to show the horse being euthanized. NBC is being called "cowardly" by the Washington Post, essentially being in cahoots with the racing industry. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is reacting to the death, says Associated Press.
It's the ultimate "little black book": One firm routes all phone calls in North America. The Washington Post reports.
In the Internet age, AM radio in some ways exhibits the diversity and quirkiness that one finds on the Web, says the Washington Post.
Two senior congressional Democrats are saying that XM and Sirius Satellite Radio should be required to allow manufacturers to offer additional options in satellite receivers, making them accessible to HD digital radio broadcasts and the Internet. Congressmen John Dingell (D.-Mich) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) have laid out their position in a letter to Kevin Martin, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Dingell is the chairman of the U.S. House Commerce Committee, while Markey is chairman of its Telecommunications Subcommittee. Media Post.com reports.
The Iraq War drags on - 49 Americans and over one thousand Iraqis dead last month alone - and four thousand Americans killed since George W. Bush launched the war. Yet there is very little media coverage, says the Boston Globe.
Tim Russert of NBC's Meet The Press and George Stephanopoulos of ABC's This Week are both former political aides, says the New York Times.
Karl Rove is number one and Chris Matthews is number two on the London Telegraph's list of most influential political pundits in the United States.
The new list of gurus in the United States include media figures and journalists, says the Wall Street Journal.
The first President George Bush is profiled in a 2-part documentary on American Experience on PBS tonight at 9 with the second part tomorrow night at 9 on PBS and Thirteen/WNET. The telecast is reviewed by the Boston Globe.
Why did the press turn on Barack Obama? The Washington Post reports.
Clear Channel Communications is all over the New York City FM dial, but is now under one roof. Clear Channel now has a consolidated location at 32 Avenue Of The Americas in Manhattan, housing WHTZ 100.3, WKTU 103.5, WAXQ 104.3, WWPR 105.1 and WLTW 106.7. The New York Times reports.
NPR now has an alternative news program to Morning Edition aimed at a younger generation, called The Takeaway, originating at New York City NPR stations WNYC-AM 820 and WNYC-FM 93.9, says the New York Times.
Rupert Murdoch has decided to not raise his bid for the Long Island daily newspaper Newsday even though Cablevision has bid more, says the Los Angeles Times. Newsday is a hot property among publishers, says Media Post.
In Canada there is a debate over censorship of films, says the New York Times.
ESPN has been sued for using a Norman Rockwell illustration, says Associated Press.
TiVo has made watching commercials unnecessary. Is it now trying to make watching reality shows a thing of the past, too? The New York Times reports.
Verifying ages online for social networking sites does not solve all possible problems, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Online profiles on social networking Web sites may be aliases, says the Washington Post.
Web social networking sites are friendly to identity thieves, says the Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles Times lists ways to protect your identity.
Customer support telephone numbers may be difficult to find, says the Los Angeles Times.
A lot of us carry a little bit of Apple's Steve Jobs around in our pocket, in the form of iPods and iPhones. Now, Apple is after the remaining bit of life-share that it doesn?t already own, the home front. The New York Times reports.
Apple computers is green, flush with cash, says the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
AT&T has launched TV service on phones, rivaling Verizon, says Associated Press.
Mobile TV is spreading in Europe and to the U.S., says the New York Times.
Electronic gadgets might be the right ticket for Mothers Day presents, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Amazon.com is suing the state of New York over the collection of state sales taxes, says Associated Press.
A publisher tested the waters online, and then dove in. The niche publisher I.D.G. has been working out the answers to some big mainstream questions. The biggest: Can print media survive the transition to the Internet? The New York Times reports.
The state of New York is cracking down on film piracy, sharply stiffening the penalties, says the Los Angeles Times.
The Santa Barbara News Press is laying off ten, including two editors, reports the Santa Barbara Daily Sound.
The Hartford Roman Catholic Archdiocese has operated since 1976 a non-commercial 9,000 watt FM station, WJMJ 88.9 Hartford, that has been offering "beautiful music" during the day, and classical music, organ music, opera and broadway music programs in the evening. It has offered ABC Information Network national and world news on the hour. It also offered messages from various religious denominations with a format it called "Ecumenical Radio." Sundays, it offered sermons of many denominations. A radio station operated by an archdiocese is extremely rare. Now, with the new ultra conservative Pope heading the Catholic Church, the Protestant, non-Catholic voices are being eliminated on WJMJ, says the Hartford Courant. One listener is distressed by the change, while a priest applauds it, saying it eliminates leftist and relativist sermons from WJMJ, in letters to the Hartford Courant.
Promised donations to help keep free-form Pacifica affiliated non-commercial FM station WPKN 89.5 Bridgeport, Connecticut afloat may now be in jeopardy. The Fairfield County Weekly reports.
After a scandal, students are leaving Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, says Associated Press.
Newspaper Web sites bash other media in local ad sales efforts, says Media Post.com.
Michael Bloomberg is not a newspaper man, or even a media person, says Business Week.
A TV news anchor in Minneapolis stumbled over the word "neighborhood" and the n-word came out, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
William Frankel, who reinvigorated the venerable London-based newspaper The Jewish Chronicle as its editor for two decades, broadening its coverage of world affairs to include the Vietnam War and the American civil rights movement, has passed away at age 91, says the New York Times.
A federal appeals court on Friday said regulators were reasonable in sticking to a June deadline that requires Sprint Nextel Corp. to vacate some wireless channels that will be used by public safety agencies. Associated Press reports.
German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom may be making a bid to take over Sprint Nextel, say the Seattle Times and Associated Press.
Technology is guest-starring on television, says the Seattle Times.
The Federal Communications Commission is requiring Sprint, the nation's third-largest wireless carrier, to clear certain channels by June 26, a move designed to eliminate radio interference with thousands of public safety agencies across the country. The company would essentially swap spectrum with the public safety agencies. Associated Press reports.
George W. Bush's celebration of World Press Freedom Day is examined by the Philadelphia Daily News.
Former U.S. congressman Bob Barr of Georgia, known for his right wing credentials in the 1990s, is now a paid consultant to the American Civil Liberties Union, has renounced the war on drugs, and says that in the wake of 9/11, the administration has used the attack as an excuse to do anything it wants. Barr may run as a Libertarian Party candidate for president this year. Conservative Republicans fear he could be a spoiler, siphoning off votes from John McCain, says the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The new autobiography by ABC's Barbara Walters is reviewed by the New York Times.
Bob Schieffer should be restored as anchor of the CBS Evening News, says a piece in Market Watch.
NBC, which owns NBC affiliate KNTV channel 11 San Francisco, is maneuvering to buy the financially ailing KRON channel 4, San Francisco's MyNetwork TV affiliate. KRON has been suffering large losses, resulting in cuts at other Young-owned stations across the nation, including Albany, N.Y. ABC affiliate WTEN channel 10. NBC would convert KRON to a Spanish-language Telemundo affiliate. NBC owns Telemundo. This report is from Newsblues. (paid subscription)
Interactive television is being tested in Boston, on ABC affiliate WCVB channel 5, says Broadcasting & Cable. Connecticut's CBS affiliate WFSB channel 3 is also in talks to test interactive television.
In central Florida, in the Orlando area, the government channel Orange TV has gone way beyond its original intent, says the Orlando Sentinel.
Media Briefing for Friday, May 2, 2008
The Washington Post has reported that Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin could be called to testify before Congress regarding his handling of the regulatory agency. The U.S. Commerce and Energy Committee, chaired by congressman John Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, started investigating the FCC after allegations surfaced accusing Martin of burying studies that did not support his plans for gutting the media cross-ownership rules and his desire to push a la carte options for cable subscribers, according to the Seattle Times.
Information on thousands of University Of California-San Francisco medical patients was accessible on the Internet for more than three months last year, a possible violation of federal privacy regulations that might have exposed the patients to medical identity theft, the San Francisco Chronicle says it has learned.
The National Association Of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB), holds their "32nd Annual Spring Broadcast Management Conference" beginning Friday, May 16th through Wednesday May 21st at the Sonesta Maho Beach Resort in Saint Maarteen in the Caribbean. NABOB, a non-profit corporation and trade organization representing the interests of African-American owners of radio and television stations across the U.S., has held their annual spring conference in various parts of the Caribbean over the past decade, and in Saint Marteen for the past seven years. The theme of this year?s NABOB spring conference, "Attracting Audiences, Advertisers and Investors in the Advanced Technology Era," will be addressed through panels focusing on: Programming, Washington Update, Employment, Finance, PPM, Advertising and a General Managers/General Sales Manager?s Roundtable. All Access.com reports.
TV Guide has laid off its top editor and several other senior staff members, after declining circulation, says Associated Press.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution is cutting its work force by 62 jobs, and shrinking its circulation area from 74 to 49 counties, says Media Daily News.
The Seattle Times and are banking on local coverage for ad dollars, says Click Z.
Just a year ago, Fox News Channel was considered a pariah in many Democratic circles. But it appears that the cable news network is no longer in the doghouse. Now both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are appearing there, say the New York Times and Los Angeles Times.
A U.S. Marshal in Boston is facing a World Series investigation. Federal authorities are investigating whether he assigned deputies to drive Fox News Channel sports announcers to Fenway Park in Boston to announce last year's series games, says the Boston Globe.
After 30 years of total silence, Barbara Walters is disclosing a past affair with married U.S. Senator Edward Brooke, whom she remembers as "exciting" and "brilliant." Appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show scheduled to air Tuesday, Walters shares details of her relationship with Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s, according to a transcript of the show provided to Associated Press and the Boston Globe report.
Steven Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, told employees on Thursday that the company would announce "in very short order" which of three paths it would choose in its three-month-old pursuit of Yahoo, says the New York Times.
The man behind the president?s speeches was called his "thinking machine and his writing machine," and not least of all "his lying machine." That criticism might have come yesterday - or almost any time in the last 175 years, because the president was Andrew Jackson, whose aide Amos Kendall sometimes polished his words. Andrew Jackson?s name-calling political opponent couldn?t have guessed how much our awareness and suspicion of people putting words in presidents? mouths would grow. It?s been a long road from Jackson to our age of spin.A new book by Robert Schlesinger, White House Ghosts, focuses on presidents' speech writers, says the New York Times.
Fiji's military government defied a High Court order and deported a Rupert Murdoch publisher - the Australian publisher of the South Pacific country's leading newspaper - continuing a campaign of media intimidation it began within days of seizing power. Reuters and Associated Press report.
In Bolivia, President Evo Morales celebrated May Day by announcing the nationalization of Bolivia's leading telecommunications company, Entel, says Associated Press.
Microsoft may go hostile in its pursuit of Yahoo, report the Seattle Times and Associated Press.
And this is your brain while watching an ad, says Online Media Daily.
Two shock jocks at Washington area FM station WJFK 106.7, who call themselves The Junkies, are a magnet for young male listeners, says the Washington Post.
Ted David is leaving CNBC. He says that when he first joined in 1989 he didn't know a stock from a bond, according to the New York Daily News.
New York City AM station WOR 710 bets again on John Gambling, reports the New York Daily News.
Looking to capitalize on its brand recognition and success with original programming such as E! Entertainment Television?s The Girls Next Door,Playboy Enterprises is creating the Playboy Audience Network, a suite of digital partnerships to distribute the company?s lifestyle and video content. Broadcasting & Cable reports.
Democratic congressional leaders are asking the FCC to impose restrictions on any merger between satellite radio companies XM and Sirius, says C/Net.
The FCC?s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau will hold a summit on the nation?s Emergency Alert System (EAS) May 19 from 9 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. at commission headquarters in Washington, D.C. Broadcast Engineering reports.
The Washington Post has reported that Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin could be called to testify before Congress regarding his handling of the regulatory agency. The U.S. Commerce and Energy Committee, chaired by congressman John Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, started investigating the FCC after allegations surfaced accusing Martin of burying studies that did not support his plans for gutting the media cross-ownership rules and his desire to push a la carte options for cable subscribers, according to the Seattle Times.
Information on thousands of University Of California-San Francisco medical patients was accessible on the Internet for more than three months last year, a possible violation of federal privacy regulations that might have exposed the patients to medical identity theft, the San Francisco Chronicle says it has learned.
The National Association Of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB), holds their "32nd Annual Spring Broadcast Management Conference" beginning Friday, May 16th through Wednesday May 21st at the Sonesta Maho Beach Resort in Saint Maarteen in the Caribbean. NABOB, a non-profit corporation and trade organization representing the interests of African-American owners of radio and television stations across the U.S., has held their annual spring conference in various parts of the Caribbean over the past decade, and in Saint Marteen for the past seven years. The theme of this year?s NABOB spring conference, "Attracting Audiences, Advertisers and Investors in the Advanced Technology Era," will be addressed through panels focusing on: Programming, Washington Update, Employment, Finance, PPM, Advertising and a General Managers/General Sales Manager?s Roundtable. All Access.com reports.
TV Guide has laid off its top editor and several other senior staff members, after declining circulation, says Associated Press.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution is cutting its work force by 62 jobs, and shrinking its circulation area from 74 to 49 counties, says Media Daily News.
The Seattle Times and
Just a year ago, Fox News Channel was considered a pariah in many Democratic circles. But it appears that the cable news network is no longer in the doghouse. Now both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are appearing there, say the New York Times and Los Angeles Times.
A U.S. Marshal in Boston is facing a World Series investigation. Federal authorities are investigating whether he assigned deputies to drive Fox News Channel sports announcers to Fenway Park in Boston to announce last year's series games, says the Boston Globe.
After 30 years of total silence, Barbara Walters is disclosing a past affair with married U.S. Senator Edward Brooke, whom she remembers as "exciting" and "brilliant." Appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show scheduled to air Tuesday, Walters shares details of her relationship with Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s, according to a transcript of the show provided to Associated Press and the Boston Globe report.
Steven Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, told employees on Thursday that the company would announce "in very short order" which of three paths it would choose in its three-month-old pursuit of Yahoo, says the New York Times.
The man behind the president?s speeches was called his "thinking machine and his writing machine," and not least of all "his lying machine." That criticism might have come yesterday - or almost any time in the last 175 years, because the president was Andrew Jackson, whose aide Amos Kendall sometimes polished his words. Andrew Jackson?s name-calling political opponent couldn?t have guessed how much our awareness and suspicion of people putting words in presidents? mouths would grow. It?s been a long road from Jackson to our age of spin.A new book by Robert Schlesinger, White House Ghosts, focuses on presidents' speech writers, says the New York Times.
Fiji's military government defied a High Court order and deported a Rupert Murdoch publisher - the Australian publisher of the South Pacific country's leading newspaper - continuing a campaign of media intimidation it began within days of seizing power. Reuters and Associated Press report.
In Bolivia, President Evo Morales celebrated May Day by announcing the nationalization of Bolivia's leading telecommunications company, Entel, says Associated Press.
Microsoft may go hostile in its pursuit of Yahoo, report the Seattle Times and Associated Press.
And this is your brain while watching an ad, says Online Media Daily.
Two shock jocks at Washington area FM station WJFK 106.7, who call themselves The Junkies, are a magnet for young male listeners, says the Washington Post.
Ted David is leaving CNBC. He says that when he first joined in 1989 he didn't know a stock from a bond, according to the New York Daily News.
New York City AM station WOR 710 bets again on John Gambling, reports the New York Daily News.
Looking to capitalize on its brand recognition and success with original programming such as E! Entertainment Television?s The Girls Next Door,Playboy Enterprises is creating the Playboy Audience Network, a suite of digital partnerships to distribute the company?s lifestyle and video content. Broadcasting & Cable reports.
Democratic congressional leaders are asking the FCC to impose restrictions on any merger between satellite radio companies XM and Sirius, says C/Net.
The FCC?s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau will hold a summit on the nation?s Emergency Alert System (EAS) May 19 from 9 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. at commission headquarters in Washington, D.C. Broadcast Engineering reports.
Media Briefing for Thursday, May 1, 2008
In Texas, the Fort Worth Star Telegram is being blocked from computers at the local hospital after a multi-part series about the hospital.
Time Warner is selling off its cable TV operation, the nation's second largest after Comcast. Associated Press, the Washington Post and the New York Times report.
Should Democrats appear on the Fox News Channel? The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The top radio groups say they will post their ratings online, to build confidence among advertisers, says Media Daily News.
The strength of the TV signal the viewer is seeking to watch determines the type of antenna needed, says the Baltimore Sun.
James Day, a founder of San Francisco PBS station KQED channel 9 in 1954, and president of Thirteen/WNET from 1970 to 1973, has passed away. The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle report.
The Early Show on CBS television has sent hosts Harry Smith and Maggie Rodriguez, news anchor Russ Mitchell and weatherman Dave Price to Greensburg, Kansas the small town nearly wiped off the map by a tornado that killed 11 people on May 4, 2007. They're pitching in to build an eco-friendly playground and reporting on the town's recovery, reports Associated Press.
Don Imus, now on New York AM station WABC 770, has declined among 25-to-54 year-olds compared to one year ago, when he was on WFAN 660 until being fired. Crain's New York Business reports.
A new startup company, Sezmi, is delivering TV channels and programming via the Internet, say the San Jose Mercury News and PC World.
During the past week, no one in the media has been saying Hillary Clinton should drop out of the presidential race, says the Washington Post.
After all the media coverage of Pastor Jeremiah Wright has been given, and the resulting firestorm, Northwestern University is withdrawing its offer of an honorary degree, which he was to have received next month, says the Chicago Tribune.
The television division of the CBS Corporation helped it beat the financial forecast for the first quarter, says the New York Times.
AT&T has launched video service on two new telephones, says Associated Press.
Most insidious Internet security problems today rely on human gullibility, not tricky software. The Wall Street Journal reports.
Marissa Mayer, Google's first female engineer and current vice president, talks about her personal style philosophy, in the Wall Street Journal.
Hewlett-Packard reports a big advance in memory chip design. Hewlett-Packard scientists report in the science journal Nature that they have designed a simple circuit element that they believe will make it possible to build tiny powerful computers that could imitate biological functions. The device, called a memristor, would be used to build extremely dense computer memory chips that use far less power than today?s DRAM memory chips. Manufacturers of today?s chips are rapidly reaching the limit on how much smaller chips can be. The New York Times and Associated Press report.
eHarmony.com has had 20 million users since its founding in 2000. Founded by a 72-year-old conservative Christian self-help author named Neil Clark Warren, the dating site requires users to answer 256 questions about personality traits and values. Then, with the help of a complex algorithm, it matches people with much in common. But among the young and the single - especially those with Blue State values - wariness about eHarmony runs high. There's the association with conservative leader James Dobson. Warren published several of his books under the imprint of Dobson's Focus on the Family and then, when he was first promoting eHarmony, he did it largely via Dobson's radio show. A competitor, Chemistry.com is capitalizing on these suspicions. In television ads, seemingly eligible young people face the camera and complain that they returned their library books on time or were only occasionally depressed - and still were rejected by eHarmony. Next month, a California judge will hear a plaintiffs' motion for class certification in a case that accuses eHarmony of discrimination against gays and lesbians. eHarmony does not reject gays - it simply doesn't accept them: the only choices on the site are "man seeking woman" or "woman seeking man." A company lawyer explains that eHarmony makes matches based on unique scientific research into what makes heterosexual unions work. Newsweek reports.
A former chief operating officer at Monster Worldwide, the job recruitment Web site, has been indicted on charges of securities fraud and conspiracy in connection with what prosecutors said was a scheme to backdate millions of dollars in employee stock option grants. The executive, James J. Treacy, is accused of conspiring with other former top executives at Monster to systematically backdate option grants to company employees from 1997 to 2003, falsely inflating the company?s earnings, according to an indictment filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Reuters reports.
The deputy consul general at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco is defending China's activities in Tibet and is lashing out at the western press for taking the Dalia Lama's side, a move that some believe is an attempt to minimize criticism of the sentences doled out this week to 30 Tibetans. Weilian Shen, the second in charge at the consulate, is accusing the western press of distorting facts about the "Dalai clique," which he claims instigated the violence in Lhasa, Tibet on March 14 in an attempt to disrupt the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Politics and the economy are occupying the advertising agencies, says the New York Times.
Gramophone - the leading classical music magazine in the world, 85 years old and based in London - plans to allow readers to buy CDs and downloads from its Web site. The New York Times reports.
Some of those on social networking sites are now looking for work. Social networking sites are turning into business tools,. says the New York Times.
Teenaged social networking is still growing, says eMarketer.
Microsoft might increase its bid for Yahoo. Bloomberg News reports. Push is coming to shove in Microsoft's bid to take over Yahoo, says the Los Angeles Times.
Backups are a breeze online, says the Boston Globe.
Why is eBay suing Craig's List? The San Francisco Chronicle and Associated Press report.
The Philadelphia Daily News looks at Sunday's Masterpiece Theatre being telecast at 9 on Thirteen/WNET.
3Com is getting a CEO - and is hitching its wagon to China. Telecommunications equipment maker 3Com Corporation is based in Marlborough, Massachusetts. But the announcement that its new chief executive will be based in Hong Kong leaves no doubt the company's future is in China. The Boston Globe reports.
Tim Russert of NBC's Meet The Press, Michael Bloomberg, owner of Bloomberg News including WBBR-AM 1130 radio New York, and Bloomberg Television, and Rupert Murdoch are among Time magazine's 100 most influential people, says Associated Press.
The Tribune Co. is purchasing the Chandler properties related to the Tribune operations the Chandlers once owned, says the Los Angeles Times.
The NBC Studios in Burbank, California are getting a complete makeover by the new owners, says the Los Angeles Times.
PBS and NPR broadcaster Tavis Smiley has given only $50,000 toward his promised $1 million donation to Texas Southern University, a lapse his spokesman describes as collateral damage from the scandal surrounding Priscilla Slade. Smiley and TSU's new president, John Rudley, are set to talk by telephone, a step that could lead to resuming payments, says the Houston Chronicle.
An Aurora, Illinois man has been sentenced for cyberstalking a former Playboy model, who is the wife of a Chicago Bears football player. The Chicago Tribune reports.
In Texas, the Fort Worth Star Telegram is being blocked from computers at the local hospital after a multi-part series about the hospital.
Time Warner is selling off its cable TV operation, the nation's second largest after Comcast. Associated Press, the Washington Post and the New York Times report.
Should Democrats appear on the Fox News Channel? The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The top radio groups say they will post their ratings online, to build confidence among advertisers, says Media Daily News.
The strength of the TV signal the viewer is seeking to watch determines the type of antenna needed, says the Baltimore Sun.
James Day, a founder of San Francisco PBS station KQED channel 9 in 1954, and president of Thirteen/WNET from 1970 to 1973, has passed away. The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle report.
The Early Show on CBS television has sent hosts Harry Smith and Maggie Rodriguez, news anchor Russ Mitchell and weatherman Dave Price to Greensburg, Kansas the small town nearly wiped off the map by a tornado that killed 11 people on May 4, 2007. They're pitching in to build an eco-friendly playground and reporting on the town's recovery, reports Associated Press.
Don Imus, now on New York AM station WABC 770, has declined among 25-to-54 year-olds compared to one year ago, when he was on WFAN 660 until being fired. Crain's New York Business reports.
A new startup company, Sezmi, is delivering TV channels and programming via the Internet, say the San Jose Mercury News and PC World.
During the past week, no one in the media has been saying Hillary Clinton should drop out of the presidential race, says the Washington Post.
After all the media coverage of Pastor Jeremiah Wright has been given, and the resulting firestorm, Northwestern University is withdrawing its offer of an honorary degree, which he was to have received next month, says the Chicago Tribune.
The television division of the CBS Corporation helped it beat the financial forecast for the first quarter, says the New York Times.
AT&T has launched video service on two new telephones, says Associated Press.
Most insidious Internet security problems today rely on human gullibility, not tricky software. The Wall Street Journal reports.
Marissa Mayer, Google's first female engineer and current vice president, talks about her personal style philosophy, in the Wall Street Journal.
Hewlett-Packard reports a big advance in memory chip design. Hewlett-Packard scientists report in the science journal Nature that they have designed a simple circuit element that they believe will make it possible to build tiny powerful computers that could imitate biological functions. The device, called a memristor, would be used to build extremely dense computer memory chips that use far less power than today?s DRAM memory chips. Manufacturers of today?s chips are rapidly reaching the limit on how much smaller chips can be. The New York Times and Associated Press report.
eHarmony.com has had 20 million users since its founding in 2000. Founded by a 72-year-old conservative Christian self-help author named Neil Clark Warren, the dating site requires users to answer 256 questions about personality traits and values. Then, with the help of a complex algorithm, it matches people with much in common. But among the young and the single - especially those with Blue State values - wariness about eHarmony runs high. There's the association with conservative leader James Dobson. Warren published several of his books under the imprint of Dobson's Focus on the Family and then, when he was first promoting eHarmony, he did it largely via Dobson's radio show. A competitor, Chemistry.com is capitalizing on these suspicions. In television ads, seemingly eligible young people face the camera and complain that they returned their library books on time or were only occasionally depressed - and still were rejected by eHarmony. Next month, a California judge will hear a plaintiffs' motion for class certification in a case that accuses eHarmony of discrimination against gays and lesbians. eHarmony does not reject gays - it simply doesn't accept them: the only choices on the site are "man seeking woman" or "woman seeking man." A company lawyer explains that eHarmony makes matches based on unique scientific research into what makes heterosexual unions work. Newsweek reports.
A former chief operating officer at Monster Worldwide, the job recruitment Web site, has been indicted on charges of securities fraud and conspiracy in connection with what prosecutors said was a scheme to backdate millions of dollars in employee stock option grants. The executive, James J. Treacy, is accused of conspiring with other former top executives at Monster to systematically backdate option grants to company employees from 1997 to 2003, falsely inflating the company?s earnings, according to an indictment filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Reuters reports.
The deputy consul general at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco is defending China's activities in Tibet and is lashing out at the western press for taking the Dalia Lama's side, a move that some believe is an attempt to minimize criticism of the sentences doled out this week to 30 Tibetans. Weilian Shen, the second in charge at the consulate, is accusing the western press of distorting facts about the "Dalai clique," which he claims instigated the violence in Lhasa, Tibet on March 14 in an attempt to disrupt the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Politics and the economy are occupying the advertising agencies, says the New York Times.
Gramophone - the leading classical music magazine in the world, 85 years old and based in London - plans to allow readers to buy CDs and downloads from its Web site. The New York Times reports.
Some of those on social networking sites are now looking for work. Social networking sites are turning into business tools,. says the New York Times.
Teenaged social networking is still growing, says eMarketer.
Microsoft might increase its bid for Yahoo. Bloomberg News reports. Push is coming to shove in Microsoft's bid to take over Yahoo, says the Los Angeles Times.
Backups are a breeze online, says the Boston Globe.
Why is eBay suing Craig's List? The San Francisco Chronicle and Associated Press report.
The Philadelphia Daily News looks at Sunday's Masterpiece Theatre being telecast at 9 on Thirteen/WNET.
3Com is getting a CEO - and is hitching its wagon to China. Telecommunications equipment maker 3Com Corporation is based in Marlborough, Massachusetts. But the announcement that its new chief executive will be based in Hong Kong leaves no doubt the company's future is in China. The Boston Globe reports.
Tim Russert of NBC's Meet The Press, Michael Bloomberg, owner of Bloomberg News including WBBR-AM 1130 radio New York, and Bloomberg Television, and Rupert Murdoch are among Time magazine's 100 most influential people, says Associated Press.
The Tribune Co. is purchasing the Chandler properties related to the Tribune operations the Chandlers once owned, says the Los Angeles Times.
The NBC Studios in Burbank, California are getting a complete makeover by the new owners, says the Los Angeles Times.
PBS and NPR broadcaster Tavis Smiley has given only $50,000 toward his promised $1 million donation to Texas Southern University, a lapse his spokesman describes as collateral damage from the scandal surrounding Priscilla Slade. Smiley and TSU's new president, John Rudley, are set to talk by telephone, a step that could lead to resuming payments, says the Houston Chronicle.
An Aurora, Illinois man has been sentenced for cyberstalking a former Playboy model, who is the wife of a Chicago Bears football player. The Chicago Tribune reports.
Media Briefing for Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The CBS Evening News audience has taken a noticeable dip ever since the latest round of speculation over Katie Couric's job. The broadcast averaged 5.34 million viewers last week, breaking a record low for CBS News' flagship show that had been set the week before, according to Nielsen Media Research. Associated Press reports.
The political spending this year cannot save local TV broadcasting station revenues, says the Wall Street Journal.
The New York public television stations Thirteen/WNET and WLIW21 plan to drop a BBC-produced nightly newscast in the fall and replace it with a new half-hour program focused on international issues that will be produced by WLIW21, the station is expected to announce. The weekday program, with the working title Your World Tonight, is also expected to replace BBC World News on an undetermined number of the more than 200 public stations nationwide that carry the BBC program. WLIW21 has distributed the BBC show to public television since 1998. The executive producer will be Marc Rosenwasser, a longtime network news producer. This report is from the New York Times.
Escape From Auschwitz examines two who escaped the Nazi concentration camp, tonight at 8 on PBS and Thirteen/WNET. TheMiami Herald reviews the program.
Has Barack Obama been "swift-boated"? The Washington Post reports.
Will MSNBC's Chris Matthews run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, challenging Republican Arlen Specter? The New York Sun examines this question.
As Congress examines the FCC, will Republican FCC chairman Kevin Martin be asked to defend his leadership? The Washington Post reports.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is looking for a market in which to test the DTV conversion before the mandatory February 2009 switch-over, but so far TV broadcasters say they'd rather not - or can't - participate. TV Newsday reports.
Proctor & Gamble is taking a poll, asking people to vote by telephone, after being attacked by the conservative American Family Association for allowing a gay kiss on a soap opera it sponsors, says Gay Newsnet. The American Family Association is attacking Proctor & Gamble for allowing a gay kiss to appear on the CBS soap opera As The World Turns, says Advertising Age.
The little town of Orting, Washington has lost its weekly newspaper, but local residents are filling the void online with a local Internet newspaper, says Lost Remote.
A top official of the Federal Trade Commission said today the agency is stepping up its oversight of marketing of sub-prime mortgages and related transactions, responding to concerns that the government isn't doing enough to stop misleading marketing, reports Advertising Age.
Americans are selling prized possessions online to make ends meet, says Associated Press.
Two Anchorage, Alaska shock-jocks suspended over a derogatory remark about Alaska Native women return to the airwaves today, a radio manager said. Greg Wood and Chris Wilcox, known as Woody and Wilcox on their popular morning show, were taken off the air April 15 following public outrage over the comment that had Alaskans comparing the disc jockeys to Don Imus. The two were joking April 9 about what makes someone a real Alaskan, when one of them switched the verbs on an old saying that real Alaskans have urinated in the Yukon River and made love to an Alaska Native woman. The original saying also is offensive to many. Alaska Natives and others have since canceled advertising with KBFX-FM 100.5, the Clear Channel hard rock station that features Wilcox and Wood. Associated Press reports.
Cablevision is making a bid for the Long Island daily newspaper Newsday. Cablevision joins Rupert Murdoch and the New York Daily News in bidding for Newsday. Reuters reports.
There is little the federal government can do to block Rupert Murdoch from buying Newsday even though Murdoch owns two TV stations in the same market, WNYW channel 5 and WWOR channel 9, says Newsday.
Fortune magazine says it appears Murdoch will succeed in purchasing Newsday.
The ouster of The Wall Street Journal?s top editor last week did not live up to conditions that the Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation had agreed to when it bought the paper in December, according to the special oversight committee for the newspaper. The committee, created to protect the editorial integrity of The Journal, has the power to block the firing or hiring of the newspaper?s managing editor. But the editor, Marcus W. Brauchli, was not fired; he resigned on April 22, albeit under pressure, and accepted a role as a consultant to Murdoch's News Corporation. The New York Times reports.
Washington Post columnist Steve Pearlstein says too much local news can cut into a proper level of business news, in a piece in Talking Biz News.
James Day, the co-founder of San Francisco public television station KQED-TV channel 9, has passed away, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
High-definition TV is bringing sub-channels with more programming - along with more space for ads, says the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Public radio is drawing its largest audience ever. But at the same time, public radio is making moves to reignite its public, says the New York Times.
CBS and NBC are expected to bid for the Weather Channel, each bidding between $3.5
The CBS Evening News audience has taken a noticeable dip ever since the latest round of speculation over Katie Couric's job. The broadcast averaged 5.34 million viewers last week, breaking a record low for CBS News' flagship show that had been set the week before, according to Nielsen Media Research. Associated Press reports.
The political spending this year cannot save local TV broadcasting station revenues, says the Wall Street Journal.
The New York public television stations Thirteen/WNET and WLIW21 plan to drop a BBC-produced nightly newscast in the fall and replace it with a new half-hour program focused on international issues that will be produced by WLIW21, the station is expected to announce. The weekday program, with the working title Your World Tonight, is also expected to replace BBC World News on an undetermined number of the more than 200 public stations nationwide that carry the BBC program. WLIW21 has distributed the BBC show to public television since 1998. The executive producer will be Marc Rosenwasser, a longtime network news producer. This report is from the New York Times.
Escape From Auschwitz examines two who escaped the Nazi concentration camp, tonight at 8 on PBS and Thirteen/WNET. TheMiami Herald reviews the program.
Has Barack Obama been "swift-boated"? The Washington Post reports.
Will MSNBC's Chris Matthews run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, challenging Republican Arlen Specter? The New York Sun examines this question.
As Congress examines the FCC, will Republican FCC chairman Kevin Martin be asked to defend his leadership? The Washington Post reports.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is looking for a market in which to test the DTV conversion before the mandatory February 2009 switch-over, but so far TV broadcasters say they'd rather not - or can't - participate. TV Newsday reports.
Proctor & Gamble is taking a poll, asking people to vote by telephone, after being attacked by the conservative American Family Association for allowing a gay kiss on a soap opera it sponsors, says Gay Newsnet. The American Family Association is attacking Proctor & Gamble for allowing a gay kiss to appear on the CBS soap opera As The World Turns, says Advertising Age.
The little town of Orting, Washington has lost its weekly newspaper, but local residents are filling the void online with a local Internet newspaper, says Lost Remote.
A top official of the Federal Trade Commission said today the agency is stepping up its oversight of marketing of sub-prime mortgages and related transactions, responding to concerns that the government isn't doing enough to stop misleading marketing, reports Advertising Age.
Americans are selling prized possessions online to make ends meet, says Associated Press.
Two Anchorage, Alaska shock-jocks suspended over a derogatory remark about Alaska Native women return to the airwaves today, a radio manager said. Greg Wood and Chris Wilcox, known as Woody and Wilcox on their popular morning show, were taken off the air April 15 following public outrage over the comment that had Alaskans comparing the disc jockeys to Don Imus. The two were joking April 9 about what makes someone a real Alaskan, when one of them switched the verbs on an old saying that real Alaskans have urinated in the Yukon River and made love to an Alaska Native woman. The original saying also is offensive to many. Alaska Natives and others have since canceled advertising with KBFX-FM 100.5, the Clear Channel hard rock station that features Wilcox and Wood. Associated Press reports.
Cablevision is making a bid for the Long Island daily newspaper Newsday. Cablevision joins Rupert Murdoch and the New York Daily News in bidding for Newsday. Reuters reports.
There is little the federal government can do to block Rupert Murdoch from buying Newsday even though Murdoch owns two TV stations in the same market, WNYW channel 5 and WWOR channel 9, says Newsday.
Fortune magazine says it appears Murdoch will succeed in purchasing Newsday.
The ouster of The Wall Street Journal?s top editor last week did not live up to conditions that the Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation had agreed to when it bought the paper in December, according to the special oversight committee for the newspaper. The committee, created to protect the editorial integrity of The Journal, has the power to block the firing or hiring of the newspaper?s managing editor. But the editor, Marcus W. Brauchli, was not fired; he resigned on April 22, albeit under pressure, and accepted a role as a consultant to Murdoch's News Corporation. The New York Times reports.
Washington Post columnist Steve Pearlstein says too much local news can cut into a proper level of business news, in a piece in Talking Biz News.
James Day, the co-founder of San Francisco public television station KQED-TV channel 9, has passed away, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
High-definition TV is bringing sub-channels with more programming - along with more space for ads, says the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Public radio is drawing its largest audience ever. But at the same time, public radio is making moves to reignite its public, says the New York Times.
CBS and NBC are expected to bid for the Weather Channel, each bidding between $3.5