Month: January 2004

A lot of critics of American capitalism and American society often point to the different way regular bad guys — drug dealers, bank robbers, and thugs — are treated differently than white collar criminals by the media. Local television news programs in the U.S. and sometimes in Canada, for example, will be filled with scenes of police officers roughly treating arrested persons who are too often black and often poor and often accused of relatively minor crimes. But local TV news doesn't humiliate white collar criminals in the same way. Well, for what it's worth, there are some different images filling TV screens today. My colleagues at CTV Newsnet are showing video in which former Enron executive Jeffrey Andrew Fastow and his wife are being paraded today by scores of media cameras and it's pretty clear that they're in handcuffs and have done something wrong. I suppose the images are arresting, if you'll pardon the pun, because we see so few of these kind of white collar criminals arrested and given the media perp walk. For what it's worth, regulators and police investigators are happy to oblige media requests for these kind of perp walks, even if the rich and powerful don't like it, because they believe that if the TV screen is filled with images of corporate executives in expensive suits and handcuffs, there will be a powerful deterrent effect. The Associated Press has more on the Fastow story today and also the news that Fastow could be looking at 10 years in jail for his role in the Enron affair.

Reuters reports on a study by the World Internet Project, which, among other things, dispels the stereotype of the computer geek as a loner staring into his computer screen all day. Computer geeks — and I'm proud to be part of that herd — tend to watch a lot less TV, apparently, and are avid readers of books and love to socialize. Sounds a lot like that Accordion Guy, if you ask me, or that Craphound, to name a couple of geeky types known and loved by all.

Now this is a
bit silly —

The Conan O'Brien show — to be taped shortly in Toronto – won't let
journalists from the National Post
in because it doesn't like the Post's coverage of the event.
The Post, earlier had played up the fact, in a front page story, that the
show was coming to Toronto and taxpayers were picking up the tab.
Whether or not you agree with tax dollars being paid to have New York-based
TV shows tape their segments — including, on Conan's show, “The
Masturbating Bear” — it seems awfully thin-skinned of Conan's people. And
these people work in New York? I thought those New York papers were supposed
to be tough. Ladies and gentleman, please welcome, Conan the Idiot Talk Show
Host . . .

I
blogged on this about a minute ago and immediately ran across more
discussion. So here's what I found:
Survey: Internet Grows as Campaign News Source
Reuters – Daily newspapers and nightly network newscasts are
declining as primary sources of presidential campaign news for many
Americans, says a new survey from the Pew Research Center.

This Just In: Late-Night News?
Hollywood Reporter Is Jon Stewart the new Walter Cronkite? The new
Pew Research Center report suggests that an increasing number of young
adults are getting their news from late-night comedy and talk shows.

Next Anchor is the Big Story at 'Nightly News'
USA Today NBC's Brian Williams rejects the theory that it's only a
matter of time before the Internet and cable news become the main source of
news in America. “I'm not fond of the dinosaur argument,” he says.

A
Morbid Finger on the Pulse of Politics
Washington PostIn today's cable and Internet age, says President Bush
media adviser Mark McKinnon, “the role and importance of the White House
press corps today have diminished — perhaps significantly.”

A new report from the folks at The Pew Research Project says
that the 2004 presidential campaign in the United States is notable for the
way voters/consumers are getting their information about that race and the
issues:

Television news remains dominant, but there has been further
erosion in the audience for broadcast TV news. The Internet, a relatively
minor source for campaign news in 2000, is now on par with such traditional
outlets as public television broadcasts, Sunday morning news programs and
the weekly news magazines. And young people, by far the hardest to reach
segment of the political news audience, are abandoning mainstream sources of
election news and increasingly citing alternative outlets, including comedy
shows such as the Daily Show and Saturday Night Live, as their
source for election news.

But that's just one of several remarkable insights in this comprehensive
survey that looks at the phenomenon of Howard Dean and the Internet;
differences between Democrat and Republican media use and preferences;
perceived bias in political reporting; and much more.
Here's the chunk on bias, much of which is just begging for some followup:

A solid majority of Americans say they see a great deal (30%) or
a fair amount (35%) of political bias in news coverage generally. In
contrast with the growing perception of biased campaign coverage, this
measure has not changed markedly since January 2000 when 67% saw at least a
fair amount of political bias.
Conservative Republicans are significantly more likely to perceive the press
as biased in its news coverage than are moderate and liberal Republicans,
Democrats, and independents. This ideological difference is mirrored in the
disparate opinions among audiences of different news sources.
People who get most of their news from the Fox News are much more likely to
say the press shows a great deal of bias than are viewers of CNN, Network
news, and local TV news. People who cite radio or the Internet as their main
source of campaign news are also more likely to see widespread bias in the
media.
Interestingly, younger generations express somewhat less concern about press
bias than their elders. Barely one- in-five Americans under age 30 say they
see a great deal of media bias in general news coverage, compared with
roughly a third of those age 30 and over. More – well educated Americans
also perceive the press to be more biased than those who never attended
college.

The report says that local television news, network television news, and
newspapers are being hit hardest in this “fractionalized media environment”.
This study surveys the American media and political landscape, of course. I
wish there were some Canadian groups taking a look at this trend. I'm sure
there are, but I just don't know of them. If you can help, send me some e-mail or drop a line
into the comment box below.
Also of some note, considering the nasty war between CNN and Fox (we don't
get Fox News up here in Canada, by the way), is that the Pew Report finds
CNN is turned to more than Fox by American viewers for political news:

While cable news and the Internet have become more important in
informing Americans about the election, television as a whole remains the
public¹s main source of campaign news. When individual TV outlets are
tested, 22% say they get most of their news from CNN, 20% cite Fox, and
somewhat fewer cite local news or one of the network news broadcasts.
Mind you, the difference between Fox and CNN in this Pew poll is close
enough, it might as well be considered a tie. Pew says its survey could miss
by as much as 4 per cent points.

I'm reading Margaret MacMillan's fabulous Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World and in it, she notes that the U.S., in preparation for the peace negotiations that were to follow World War I had commissioned scholars and others to prepare more than 60 reports on the Far East and the Pacific. These reports, though, were largely ignored by the American delegates to the Paris Peace Conference. One of the reasons might have been was that these 'scholars' unearthed breaktaking conclusions like this one, on India, “A great majority of the unmarried consist of very young children.”
In a similar vein, the good folks at Ipsos-Reid (and I don't mean to pick on them but this is a little too good to resist) published a press release this week in which it announced that “online Canadians, especially young online Canadians, are embracing the Internet as a way to meet new friends and stay in touch with old friends.”

For the last several years, I've led some workshops at the annual conference for the Canadian Association of Journalists on computer-assisted reporting. This year, though, I'm going to lead a workshop and participate in a panel on blogging for journalists. I've started asking other journalists for their input as I start to think about what I ought to say and teach. I'll post some suggestions and responses as I get them (names removed to protect the innocent), but I'm looking for all and any input, particularly from journalists in Canada and elsewhere who blog.
From a former colleague who now teaches at a journalism school:

I think the issue of starting your own blog is a complicated one for journalists (we talked a lot about this in my online class). Does the blog represent part of the work the reporter does for the
paper? Or TV station? Is it entirely personal and if so, can the blogger reveal personal
views and biases and still operate as a reporter? What goes on the blog? Rumour you can't publish but want to get out? Is
that fair? All of this makes blogging pretty controversial for the professional journalist.

Here's one from a student in a journalism program at a Canadian university:

I have my heart set on freelancing (I know, I know…but let me experience the poverty before saying “I told you so.”) so my interest would definitely by more along the lines of starting a personal blog. For instance many blogs, yours included, have a little XML logo. I’m 23 and like to think I’m pretty ‘with it’ when it comes to online stuff…but I have no idea whether this is a specific company that has created these blogs (which would be good) or whether you and all the other bloggers out there are just really familiar with the XML language (which would be bad…very bad).
. . . My personal website will be up and running (hopefully) within 24 hours and I definitely would like to add a blog element there, preferably without having to rely on templates that are, frankly, ugly…but free.

And this from a broadcast journalist:

For whatever it's worth, I'm much more interested in
learning how to use blogs as news sources than I am in learning how to
immortalize my own priceless prose. This is no reflection on your blog. It
looks good and has some interesting stories. But most of us already have a
way to get our writing/broadcasting into the public eye. So, I'd be much
more interested in finding how to use blogs as an additional source for
news/features.

From a piece I did for CTV's National News tonight:

Don't look now but tech stocks are back.

Shares of Nortel have increased nearly eight-fold in just over a year; Intel and Hewlett-Packard are at 52-week highs; and investors are salivating over the prospect of an initial public offering from all-world search engine operator Google Inc. “As bad as things got during the technology winter, at least there's a bounce-back. Spending taps that were shut off at least were coming back a little. That's one of the reasons why the Nasdaq was up 50 per cent [in 2003],” said Duncan Stewart, a partner at Tera Capital Corp. which manages some technology mutual funds . ..; [Read the piece and watch the video]

If I could switch professional places with anyone, it would likely be with Henry Jenkins, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose job is to read lots of newspapers, watch all kinds of TV programs, ingest all kinds of books, collect comics and play videogames. He does all this so he can think and write intelligently about popular culture and teach others how to think and write intelligently about popular culture. Basically, he gets paid to do a lot of the things I think most of us would want to spend most of our day doing. Mind you, he's a pretty smart cookie, too, and, if you get a chance to hear him speak, an engaging lecturer.

This week, Jenkins has some important things to say about media literacy programs in public and high schools:

“Media literacy education must be integrated into our curriculum from kindergarten through college. But to succeed, educators need to update and rethink the assumptions shaping many existing media literacy programs.
. . . . Much media literacy education is actually anti-media indoctrination rather than an attempt to develop the skills and competencies needed to function meaningfully in the current media environment . . . Too often, media literacy advocates depict kids as victims. We are told that advertising is “killing us softly,” that we are “amusing ourselves to death,” and that the only real alternative is to “unplug the plug-in drug” [But] Increasingly, kids are demonstrating the capacity to use media to
their own ends and adult authorities are holding them accountable for their practices. Schools are suspending students for things they post on their Web sites; the recording industry is suing kids and their parents for the music they download. The problem of media power hasn't disappeared, but it operates very differently in an age of participatory media. The new media
literacy education needs to be about empowerment and responsibility.”

I think this is a really valuable idea.

But we urgently need just Media Literarcy 101. I'm frequently surprised at how poorly understood even the basic workings of a newspaper are by otherwise sophisticated business and academic professionals. Many don't have any idea what the difference is between a columnist and a reporter; between an editor and a publisher; and so on.
One of the big problems with our (by our I mean, those of us in the craft) relationship with a news audience, is that they have a better understanding of the making of a blockbuster like Lord of the Rings than they do of their own letters-to-the-editor page.

My former colleague Barb Shecter — at not one, but two papers, in fact — makes the rounds of the possible scenarios for more consolidation in Canada's media sector in 2004-05. Some old rumours in this good read but also plenty of new ones, or at least some new twists. She touches on just about every major media company — including my employer, rumoured to be ready to sell the Globe to the publisher of [the Canadian version of] TV Guide this fall (although it's my gut instinct the Thomson family would die before that happened) — except for what I think might be among the juiciest of rumours: Torstar Corp. meets Gerry Schwartz and Onex Corp. meets the Asper family meets the National Post. This is one that's been around for a while now and it goes a bit like this: Schwartz' Onex puts some significant cash into Torstar Corp. and Torstar Corp. makes some deal — either an outright purchase or some sort of operating agreement — to become the publisher of the National Post, relieving Canwest of the financial burden of the Post and giving the Star its entrée into a national footprint
and putting an absolute lock on Toronto-area readership and and sales.
Aaah, the new year and rumours . .
Here's a clip from Barb's article

Media shakeup expected

Canada's broadcasters and publishers look set to head out on the acquisition trail

In the minds of investment bankers, 2004 will be the year of renewed consolidation in the Canadian media sector. After a flurry of activity when the new century began, calamities including terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and the collapse of dot-com companies took the steam out of what was then called convergence.
Yet according to a number of high-level executives at Canadian broadcasting, newspaper and entertainment companies, investment bankers are working overtime conjuring up matches, public floats and spinoffs.
“There's not a quarter that goes by that any of us in the business aren't being talked to about various combinations and permutations,” said John Cassaday, chief executive of Corus Entertainment Inc. . .