Interesting thread on Edward Tufte’s website about the Columbia explosion evidence. Useful timing, given the ongoing space shuttle challenges.
Category: Media
Virgin’s Free Daily
Richard Branson’s ever-expanding Virgin Group is considering a foray into the newspaper business with a free daily publication in New York City, according to an individual familiar with the company’s plans.
The newspaper, which would focus on show business and entertainment, is still in the preliminary stages of planning at Virgin, the source said. It would be sponsored by the company’s entertainment division, which includes the Virgin Megastores.
Free newspapers have flourished, though not always profited, in major metropolitan areas over the past decade. New York is already home to two such papers, am New York and Metro, though both feature general interest news.
I think we’ll see more of this. The daily paper will be free (ad supported), then some will go weekly only.
Milwaukee Talk Show Host Faces Court Date for Weblog Post
Barring a late settlement, talk-radio host Charlie Sykes faces a court date as a defendant in a libel suit this week.
The plaintiff, Spanish Journal editor Robert Miranda, sued Sykes in January over a November post on Sykes’ Weblog on the WTMJ-AM (620) site that alleged Miranda had helped foment a protest at a 1991 pro-Gulf War event in which several speakers were pelted with small objects. Miranda wasn’t in Wisconsin at the time of that protest, which Sykes described in his essay as an “an example of the assaults on free speech on university campuses.”
Although Miranda’s original requests for a court order mandating Sykes publicly apologize, undergo sensitivity training sessions and make diversity presentations to middle and high school students are no longer in play – a small-claims court doesn’t have that authority, it turns out – Miranda said the suit, which now requests the small-claims maximum of $5,000 in damages, will serve as a forum in which Sykes’ “journalistic integrity will be questioned,” among other matters.
George Gilder on Hollywood
Scott Kirsner interviews George Gilder about the pending “dissolution of the television and motion picture industries as we know them”. MP3 Audio. Meanwhile, our good Senator, Herb Kohl has some decisions to make on whether he supports the future, or the past.
Cap Times on Media Concentration
A Capital Times Editorial on “Breaking up Big Media Concentration“:
The consolidation of American media has robbed this country’s citizens of the competing journalism, the honest dialogue and the cultural diversity that the founders intended when they wrote a “freedom of the press” protection into the First Amendment to the Constitution.
American media were never perfect, of course.
But the quality and independence of the media have suffered over the past three decades, as Congress and federal regulators rewrote the rules to make it easier for big media companies to buy up more and more of the country’s communication outlets. As recently as 1996, a single company could only own a few dozen radio stations nationally. Now, because of the rule changes contained in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, one company, Clear Channel, owns more than 1,200 stations and dominates many local media markets around the country.
Not a word about the increasing concentration of the daily newspaper business, however. The internet is addressing this question, of course.
Media Changes SF Chronicle Cutting Jobs
“We understand that they’re losing money,” he said. “We were trying to be good Samaritans, and we got stabbed in the back.”
The paper is in a strong position to seek union concessions because it opened its financial records to a union auditor, who confirmed that the Chronicle lost more than $62 million last year. Ms. Hoyt said that in the last two months the paper has been losing money at a faster rate — about two million dollars a week* — though the loss was less earlier this year.
Because Hearst is a privately held company, it is under no obligation to explain its finances to the public. While the union has confirmed the multimillion-dollar losses, it doesn’t know all the details, such as the salary and benefits of the publisher. The union said the paper is being mismanaged and has too many managers per employee.
Via Dan Gillmor (I agree that it’s hard to believe the Chronicle is losing $1m per week).
Jay Rosen Pieces Together Rove/Plame
Lying to the press—though a serious thing—is what all administrations do. In Washington leaking to damage people’s credibility or wreck their arguments is routine, a bi-partisan game with thousands of knowing participants. I rarely see it mentioned that Joseph Wilson (who is no truthtelling hero) began his crusade by trying to leak his criticisms of the Bush White House. When that didn’t work he went public in an op-ed piece for the New York Times.
But business as usual is not going to explain what happened in the Valerie Plame case, or tell us why its revelations matter. For that we need to enlarge the frame.
My bigger picture starts with George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Andrew Card, Dan Bartlett, John Ashcroft plus a handful of other strategists and team players in the Bush White House, who have set a new course in press relations. (And Scott McClellan knows his job is to stay on that course, no matter what.) The Bush team’s methods are unlike the handling of the news media under prior presidents because their premises are so different.
Madison’s Advertising Climate
Sandy Cullen takes an interesting look at local government, and perhaps public education’s willingness to support advertising. Advertising is everywhere and will be more so in the future. One of the reasons for this is the ongoing fragmentation of media. The internet provides many, many options for local, regional, national and international news, weather, sports and arts information.
Advertising is simply following eyeballs.
I have some other candidates for advertising:
- Kenton Peters’ Blue Federal Courthouse and the WARF building – advertising can only help these eyesores
- Camp Randall and the Kohl Center’s exteriors. I think we have enough grey, certainly during our winter months
- The City/County Building, East Berlin architecture, circa 1960’s at its best.
Cullen interviewed a number of local advertising firms, but not the largest – her own publisher, Capital Newspapers. Capital (SEC 10-Q) reported six months revenue (through March 31, 2005) of $60,225K and operating income of 14,081K (23%!)
Green Bay Press Gazette (Gannett) Wants Teen Bloggers
In an effort to connect with teenagers, The Gannett owned Green Bay Press Gazette is looking for teen bloggers. I can see the Press-Gazette’s benefits (advertising), but what’s in it for the teens? Blogging software and domains are extremely cheap, if not free these days. Mark Deuze’s paper on Participatory Journalism is surely related. I’m not sure that the cathedral of newpapers is where it will happen, however.
We are using more media than ever before in history, yet this intensive engagement with media does not translate into more attention paid to the stories told by the two archetypical media professions: journalism and advertising”
Madison’s Free Weekly Circulation Analysis
Kristian Knutson pens an interesting look at the local newspaper rackspace wars.