Matthew Diffee
If you're like me, the kind of person who does stuff, you will inevitably face rejection. For some people, that rejection comes in the form of an official rejection slip or a coldly spoken "no thank-you" for others it's a slap across the face or a splashed mojito in same. (For at least one of my Texan friends, it's a restraining order), but for cartoonists at The New Yorker, rejection comes in the form of...
The Colbert Report
Leave it to the National Bureau of Economic Research to confirm what we've suspected all along: Fox News affects how people vote.
Per a recent post: "The introduction of Fox News had a small but statistically significant effect on the vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000."
NBER's Les Picker examines "The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting" (NBER Working Paper No. 12169) by Stefano DellaVigna and Ethan Kaplan who examine the correlations between the introduction of Fox News into cable markets and subsequent voting patterns.
Using a voting data for 9,256 towns, they examine whether Republicans gained vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000. They found that Republicans gained 0.4 to 0.7 percentage points in the towns receiving , and "significant effect of Fox News on Senate vote share and on voter turnout" to the tune of 3-8 % voting Republican as a result of exposure to Fox News. (NB: They interpret those results "in light of a simple model of voter learning about media bias and about politician quality. The Fox News effect could be a temporary learning effect for rational voters, or a permanent effect for voters subject to non-rational persuasion").
According to Picker's write-up (we have not read the full report), "Fox News appears to have induced a generalized ideological shift" that resulted in a "decisive" role in the 2000 presidential election (not unlike hanging chads, Katharine Harris and the Supreme Court).
The authors note that in June 2000, 17.3 percent of the U.S. population reported watching Fox News regularly; it's 2006. Those numbers are no doubt larger today.
Note: Stephen Colbert is not on the Fox News Channel, we just like this graphic.
Jossip reports it this morning:
We're hearing MSNBC talking head Tucker Carlson is out the door in what's perhaps one of the biggest, though least surprising, shifts by the network. Meanwhile, FTVLive is reporting that Rita Cosby, who's already taken a backseat role after being removed from her primetime talking head gig, will also be without a home. Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, we hear, will hang on to their seven-figure deals.
When asked by ETP to confirm the report, MSNBC General Manager Dan Abrams said Abrams via email: "We have made no decisions about any possible programming changes."
We shall see what develops.
Update from Abrams: "Reports this morning about Tucker Carlson's status at MSNBC are false. Tucker is a huge talent and incredible asset to the network."
from fishbowlny.com
Via the LA Times, we learn today that Google's profit grew by 92% in the third quarter, thanks to online search query revenue. That's 92%. Please note that this is not an isolated occurrence, either; their profits are ALWAYS growing by huge margins.
The numbers:
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company reported net income of $733.4 million, or $2.36 a share, for the three months ended Sept. 30, up 92% from $381.2 million, or $1.32, in the third quarter of 2005. Not including $100 million in expenses related to employee stock compensation, the company's per-share earnings were $2.62, easily beating the Wall Street consensus forecast of $2.42... Google's shares, which gained $6.75 to $426.06 during the regular session, surged $31.94, or 7.5%, to $458 in after-hours trading.
Google's results help explain Yahoo's dismal Q3 results, wherein profits fell steeply as they lost ground in — surprise! — search advertising. Per the LAT, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, Google gets fully half of online search requests, compared with just under a quarter (23.4%) for runner-up Yahoo.
All those people at the Good party who didn't recognize Larry and Sergei, bet you're kicking yourself now, huh?
from gawker.com
Yesterday's New York Times story questioning the bankability of Jared Paul Stern's just-sold book, "Stern Measures," needs some questioning of its own. The Times' Julie Bosman bluntly wondered "why" publishers Simon & Schuster would have paid a reported six figures for Stern's book, preferring to ignore the rationale given by the publisher in a press release ("Stern will deliver the scoop on the glamorous heights and seamy underbelly of the gossip industry and the New York tabloid wars") and of Mark Gompertz, the guy who actually bought the book (likening it to a "Kitchen Confidential" for the gossip industry) in favor of pushing its own theory about why the book would underperform.
The problem is, the Times theory sucks. It posits that Stern's book is "likely to land in one of two spaces": That of the "misbehaving journalist's fall from grace" a la Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass, or the gossip "tell-all" a la Page Six compatriots
Paula Froelich, Ian Spiegelman and Deborah Schoeneman. Let's address these in turn. (But before we do, a note: The Wall Street Journal ran a piece this summer similarly crunching the gossip-book numbers, and Gawker took care of speculating on Stern's fate in the wake thereof. Okay, on we go.)
The first category is unsupported by the facts on two counts: For starters, Stern has never, ever copped to misdoing in l'affaire Burkle. As mentioned previously on this site, allegations made against him originated with Burkle, have been disputed by Stern, and thus far have not otherwise been supported by any legal action. So comparing him to admitted "misbehavers" Blair and Glass is a misnomer. Second, and just as bad from a reporting standpoint, is to suggest that Stern would write anything characterizing his experience as either "misbehaving" or a "fall from grace." Anyone who has even superficially dug into the matter knows that Stern's position is one marked by bravado, outrage, and plans to sue Burkle himself. So it's a safe bet that he won't be writing an apologia (but hey, don't believe me, believe the description of the book from the very same press release cited in Bosman's piece. Or, come to think of it, believe the book proposal, which has been online for months).
Next: Bosman dismisses all gossip-themed books as one and the same, ignoring that Stern's non-fiction book is not a self-help/how-to (Froelich) or novel (Spiegelman and Schoeneman). She does, however, omit reference to the non-fiction memoir of gossip columnist Jeanette Walls, which has sold almost 300,000 copies.
Bosman asks "Why?" Yet funnily enough, she doesn't bother to ask the guy who gave the hard sell in the first place. Sorry, did I say she didn't bother? Make that she actively declined to accept comment from him. According to Stern, Bosman contacted him for confirmation after news of the book deal broke on Gawker, and he declined to comment (rather tartly, as seems to be his custom). However, in her short item on the sale, dated Oct. 18, 2006, Bosman wrote that Stern "did not respond to an email message." When Stern heard that Bosman had contacted his publishers for follow-up, he said he sent her an email message offering comment and subsequently called. According to Stern, "they refused my comment for the hit piece."*
Seems rather odd to refuse comment from the author of the just-sold book you're speculating about — particularly when comparing it to clunkers written by charlatans and fakes.
It is, of course, entirely proper to mention the circumstances of Stern's recent notoriety, but it is also entirely proper to get it right: In Bosman's first article, she writes that Stern is "under federal investigation" but "has not been charged"; in her second, she writes that "The criminal investigation focusing on Mr. Stern's actions earlier this year has not been closed, but prosecutors have not brought charges against him." But, in Choire Sicha's Observer piece this week he quotes Heather Tasker, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney (S.D.N.Y.): "As you probably suspect, we can't confirm or deny the existence of an investigation." Bosman's assertions are not sourced.
Not surprisingly, Stern was less than pleased with the piece, saying in an email:
"This kind of cheap shot doesn't bother me as much as the derogatory pattern of the Times coverage of my situation since day one. As my lawyer noted we are going after Burkle for defamation; the Times has repeatedly aided and abetted his smear campaign while failing to disclose their Burkle ties, and that will be part of our suit."**
ETP isn't calling the motives of Bosman and NYT into question here, just the execution.
Gossip Gets a Book Deal, but What About Sales? [NYT]
Exclusive: Jared Paul Stern's Book Proposal, Ghostwritten by Sammy "the Bull" Gravano [Gawker]
*It should be noted that Stern's offer of comment came with a condition. Per Stern: "I myself had already been waiting several days for a response from them to a request for a clarification on a David Carr piece, so I told them that took precedence."
**"Burkle ties" refers to this partnership between the NYT and Source Interlink, in which Burkle holds a 35% stake.
***It should also be noted that I have met Jared Paul Stern once and enjoy a friendly relationship with him. He has never offered to send me anywhere on a stretcher.
