Category: Media

Tufte in Madison

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Presenting Data and Information: A One-Day Course Taught by Edward Tufte is in Madison August 8, 2005 ($320/person):

I attended his course in Chicago last year. Highly recommended. More on Edward Tufte.

Jean Feraca’s Here on Earth on Podcasting

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Wisconsin Public Radio’s Jean Feraca hosts a weekly program called Here on Earth. Driving around between events Saturday, I heard a bit of her program on Podcasting. A list of participants can be found here. However and unfortunately, WPR’s podcasts, like our dear Airport’s WiFi, is non-existent.
I did chuckle a bit as both Jean and the BBC’s Peter Day speculated about their job security as a result of Podcasting’s growth. Times are changing. I would agree that some radio stations have reasons to be concerned. Advertising overkill and the same old same old playlists have pushed more and more listeners away – to ipod’s attached to their car radios or ipods and short distance fm transmitters. Wikipedia on podcasting.

Future of News from the Media Center

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The Media Center:

It’s mobile, immediate, visual, interactive, participatory and trusted. Make way for a generation of storytellers who totally get it. This briefing summarizes key findings from Media, Technology and Society, a multi-disciplinary research project on the media landscape conducted for professionals engaged in strategies, research, thinking, education, policy and philanthropy related to the future of journalism and media.

3.8MB PDF

A Thursday Morning Look at Local Media

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(Click the photo for a larger version)

I walked to the bottom of my driveway early this morning to grab the NY Times (I still get the fishwrap version) and saw that another paper was dropped off (the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal periodically drop promotional copies around the neighborhood).
The 2nd paper was rather interesting: the first two pages were advertising “Brought to you by Middleton Ford”. Perhaps this advertiser bought x number of copies that were dropped around the area? Most interestingly, the advertiser pages completely covered the Wisconsin State Journal. From the advertiser perspective, it is certainly in your face for those who take the paper out of the bag (why not direct mail?). From the State Journal’s perspective, however, it is a big dilution of the brand. Promo copies (try us) are one thing, but a promo copy completely wrapped in an ad is another.
This approach is identical to traditional advertiser only publications. Perhaps that’s where the daily papers will end up: free to all readers, but with a much larger and more invasive ad presence.
Meanwhile, Joseph T. Hallinan covers McClatchy’s circulation woes at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Finally, I took a look at local coverage/links to today’s very unfortunate London events around 7:00a.m. at two popular local news sites, Capital Newspapers’ madison.com site and Morgan Murphy Media’s channel3000.com. At 6:48a.m., channel3000 had a photo of British PM Tony Blair’s press conference along with a story and links. madison.com did not mention this breaking story (they later posted a link to an AP story on the London bombing). (click to view a screen shot of the two sites at 6:48a.m. today). The internet’s news cycle is clearly different than the traditional paper’s 24 hour process.

Having said all that, I think the local sites are much better off 99% focused on local issues. There was and is no shortage of coverage on the London events around the net.

Wisconsin Press Gives Kohl a Pass?

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Joel McNally asks some timely questions about the mainstream media’s coverage (or lack thereof) of Senator Kohl (and Feingold, frankly):

It would be remarkable for any local sports owner to be protected by such a shield of invisibility, but it is nothing short of astounding when the owner also happens to be one of the state’s top elected officials. It’s not as if the press doesn’t know where to find the guy. He has a public office in Washington, D.C. And when he’s in Milwaukee, he eats breakfast almost every morning at Ma Fischer’s restaurant.
It has to be a conscious decision on the part of reporters not to ask Kohl questions about anything he’d rather not talk about.

There are actually a number of important votes that our media should be asking both Senators about.

Why do they run from these stories? McNally raises some very interesting questions. Read the whole thing.

Kohl/Feingold Oppose CAFTA, Local Coverage

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The Capital Times covers Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold’s opposition to CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement). Perhaps the Wisconsin Media might start asking questions about recent Feingold and Kohl support for:

An Open Letter to SBC’s Ed Whitacre and Yahoo’s Terry Semel

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I find it ironic that SBC, a regional “Baby Bell” and the dominant telco in Wisconsin, that makes its money on two way voice conversations and a growing data business would invest heavily in legacy one way media (more cable TV). SBC is offering customers bundling deals with satellite tv providers along with their Yahoo DSL service. [Stephanie Mehta’s article]:

Whitacre may well be honing his schmoozing skills for his newest—and unlikeliest—role: aspiring media mogul. In a few short months, SBC will unveil what it hopes will be the ultimate weapon in the war between cable and the Bells—a high-tech TV service that Whitacre insists will offer viewers as many channels as they currently receive from regular cable and then some. SBC has anted up $4 billion just to get its network ready to offer the service, known as Internet protocol TV, or IPTV, and it will spend additional hundreds of millions to acquire TV content. But much more is at stake: SBC’s future as a major player.

Ironically, and with perfect timing, it appears that true high speed fiber networks are starting to appear (The US lags well behind other countries on broadband costs and performance).

  • Cablevision is implementing 50Mbps service in NY (slashdot discussion)
  • LaFayette, Louisiana is going to a local referendum to fund a municipal fibre network July 16, 2005
  • Verizon, far more aggressive than SBC in broadband implementation is actually rolling out fiber to the home in some markets.

SBC, in trying to become a TV player when there is little meaningful growth in that market, evidently refuses to spend the money required to upgrade its network (keep in mind that we, the ratepayers, paid for the copper network years ago). Why Yahoo, ironically, a major beneficiary of the two way web, would spend any brand capital on this is a mystery.

SBC, in an effort to keep the cash flowing for these forays, still requires that the purchaser sign up for traditional phone service as a tax on the dsl product. This is a blatant attempt to stifle VOIP service across sbc dsl service.

Meanwhile, IEEE Spectrum says goodbye to AT&T (SBC plans to acquire what’s left of AT&T).

Update: Bellsouth plans to accelerate their fibre rollout.

Star Tribune Sued over Circulation Fraud

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Associated Press:

MINNEAPOLIS – Four advertisers sued the Star Tribune and its parent company on Tuesday, claiming Minnesota’s largest newspaper inflated its circulation numbers so it could charge more for ads.
The federal lawsuit seeking class-action status alleges the Star Tribune required distributors to dump unsold papers and failed to report returned papers accurately.
The newspaper denied the allegations in a statement Tuesday.

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