The American Medical Association Alliance issues periodicreports on depictions of smoking in popular movies. The group seemed to come up with agoodway to publicize their findings–that is, until corporate reality intervened: In May, the organization, working with the Los Angeles Department of Public Health, announced that the studio found to be the biggest smoking offender would be publicly shamed on nearby billboards. But billboard vendors throughout Los Angeles–which the alliance said are heavily dependent on entertainment industry advertising–refused to run the ad, according to Ms. Kyler. "It's a sad day when movie studios can promote smoking to youth, but public [...]
Oct
19
2009
Bon Jovi Is News?
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The New York Times reported (10/15/09) that rocker Jon Bon Jovi has arranged an unusual deal to become an "artist in residency" on NBC, appearing across the network's various shows to promote an upcoming album. The deal is all the more striking because it includes a segment on NBC Nightly News–part of the show's "Making a Difference" series–topromote Bon Jovi's philanthropic pursuits. The idea apparently originated with Bon Jovi, who took it to NBC.The financial arrangements behind the deal don't appear to be available, but the network already seems devoted to the idea:"NBC indicated that it intended to make the [...]
Oct
06
2009
FTC Fights the Blog Schwag Menace
The New York Times reported (10/6/09) that the Federal Trade Commission was planning to establish new rules for bloggers: The FTC said that beginning on December 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently…. For bloggers who review products, this means that the days of an unimpeded flow of giveaways may be over. More broadly, the move suggests that the government is intent on bringing to bear on the Internet the same sorts [...]
Oct
06
2009
John Stossel, Free at Last
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Rupert Murdoch's latest hire John Stossel, speaking at a Michigan college: I quit ABC a couple weeks ago partly because they didn't like what I was doing. They viewed it as too biased. Yes, ABC promoted Stossel to 20/20 anchor, gave him regular "Give Me a Break" commentary segments and one-hour, factually challenged primetime specials…all because they didn't like him. It's scary to think what the network would have done if they did like him.
Sep
20
2009
Localism: Corporate Media's Ultimate Bogeyman
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On his Media Citizen blog, Free Press' Timothy Karr (9/17/09) has compiled some astounding Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs quotes propounding a "fear that's laced with paranoia, stoked by misinformation and prejudice and fed to millions of people via powerful media"–namely that "the most anti-American notion of the lot is the idea that we need to reform the media itself": While Beck and his ilk want to portray diversity and localism as a dangerous conspiracy to censor, the fact remains that these ideas have been staples of communications policy since the beginning. The central mandate of the Federal [...]
Sep
16
2009
Lauding 'Those Who Chose to Look' at Economic Crisis
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By now it's old news to any reasonably critical observer that corporate outlets' "business reporters failed to see the crisis in the mortgage and credit markets as it brewed and bubbled," as former City Limits editor Alyssa Katz puts it (CJR.org, 9/14/09), but Katz also gives props to others who noticed how "evidence of its unsustainability was plain to see for those who chose to look": The fact is, and as immodest as it may seem to say, independents were repeatedly ahead of the curve on covering the mortgage and real estate bubble and in connecting the dots between vital [...]
Sep
10
2009
Newsweek Continues Wrestling With Aggregators
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Under the charming headline "Eliminate the Parasites," Newsweek's Daniel Lyons (9/12/09) advances another brilliant scheme to save corporate media from the menace of Google. Lyons likes the idea put forward by billionaire Ayn Rand fan Mark Cuban: Cuban's advice: declare war on the "aggregator" Web sites that get a free ride on content. These aggregators–sites like Drudge Report, Newser and countless others–don't create much original material. They mostly just synopsize stuff from mainstream newspapers and magazines, and provide a link to the original…. He says the media companies should kill off these parasites by using a little piece of software [...]
Sep
05
2009
PBS Sells 'Prime Demographic Groups to Underwriters'
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A Tiny Revolution's John Caruso (9/5/09) caught an instance of the Public Broadcasting System "Putting the 'BS' in PBS" when they recently "took a break to blandish us thusly: 'If you are seeking a unique sponsorship opportunity for your business and want to reach a prime demographic group through multiple platforms email us today.'" Reacting to the crass appeal for a California Bay Area underwriter, Caruso reminds the broadcasters: "C'mon, guys, we're sitting right here. Can't you at least do us the courtesy of being subtle about the fact that as far as you're concerned, we're nothing but pairs of [...]
Sep
05
2009
NY Post Steals From, Refuses to Credit Bloggers
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In looking at "all the angst over online appropriation of newspapers' work," Nieman Foundation blogger Zachary M. Seward (Nieman Journalism Lab, 9/4/09) thinks that "information actually flows in all directions, right?" As "blog posts inspire newspaper articles, newspapers lift from other newspapers, and radio stations do the rip-and-read," Seward writes that "when a blogger uncovered a major zoning violation in her Brooklyn neighborhood last month, it was only natural that the New York Post would pick up the story": But credit the blogger? That would be a violation of policy. The Post prohibits crediting blogs and other competitors for scoops, [...]
Sep
04
2009
Big Media Ponder Source of Right's 'Media Firestorms'
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One of the items enumerated in Glenn Greenwald's round-up of "Various Matters" for Salon (9/4/09, ad-viewing required) addresses how NBC's "Chuck Todd this week noted the series of petty scandals the right has been manufacturing and remarked: 'The ability of some conservatives to create media firestorms is still much greater than liberals these days'"–which viewpoint Greenwald calls out as really reflective of one of the more irritating media syndromes: their tendency to talk about media coverage as though they have nothing to do with it and can't exert any influence over it; media coverage is just something that happens to [...]
Sep
01
2009
Legal Transparency Another Victim of Ailing MSM
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Adam Liptak of the New York Times (8/31/09) says that we can thank Riverside, California's Press-Enterprise for having "fought ferociously" in multiple Supreme Court battles ensuring "the press and the public have nearly an absolute constitutional right to attend jury selection in criminal cases." According to Liptak, "news organizations used to consider those kinds of lawsuits a matter of civic responsibility": "For the last four decades, maybe longer, citizens have been able to rely on small, medium and large news organizations, mostly newspapers, to fight their access battles on their behalf," said Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters [...]
Aug
29
2009
Way Cleared for More 'Excessive Media Consolidation'
By 1 Comment
On news that "today, a federal court threw out the Federal Communications Commission's rule to cap cable ownership at 30 percent," Free Press (8/28/09) comments "the rule served as an important consumer protection from media consolidation and growing cable cartels, and encouraged diversity in ownership in the cable industry." The media advocacy group's Ben Scott further calls it regrettable that the court tossed out an important public interest protection against excessive media consolidation. Congressional intent in the Cable Act of 1992 is very clear–the goals of federal policy in the cable industry are to promote competition, consumer choice and a [...]
Aug
28
2009
WSJ 'Scumbag' Columnist Gets Predictably Slimy
Noticing that Democratic strategist Mark Penn "is the Wall Street Journal's 'Microtrend'-spotting columnist" and "also CEO of PR giant Burson-Marsteller," Gawker blogger Hamilton Nolan (8/26/09) posits that "only a scumbag would abuse the former to drum up business for the latter." Alas, "Scumbag spotted!" is Nolan's cry when writing that Penn's latest (old, and none too insightful) "Microtrend" column is about "glamping"–glamorous camping. It ran last weekend. By Monday, according to an internal email obtained by Gawker, Burson was already trying to recruit companies from the industry featured in the column as clients. Nolan goes on to remind us that [...]
