from valleywag.com
Nick Denton is tearing a page out of the Jann Wenner school of editorial management: Today, he announces to the world that he has taken over the driver's seat at Silicon Valley gossip site Valleywag, relieving founding editor Nick Douglas who has been with the site since it launched last February. According to Denton's post, Gawker is looking to take Valleywag in a more hard-reporting news-gathering direction (Douglas was "plucked from college" — well, from Blogebrity — to launch Vallywag) and in the meantime the most qualified person he can find for the job is, well, himself ("This is the beat I covered at my last gig as a reporter. Okay, so I was bored running a business").
It is not entirely clear from the post whether Douglas went voluntarily, but one can read between the historical lines, particularly here where Denton freely admits that "we will look stupid for letting him go" (emphasis ours). Elsewhere, shades of a Sumner Redstone-Tom Freston dynamic may be seen, particularly in this Marketwatch interview with Bambi Francisco wherein he reflects that "It would have been nice to get the Google-YouTube deal." No kidding. There's also the dissolution of the Gawker/Yahoo syndication deal, which at least in part was attributed to Valleywag's "persecution" of Lloyd Braun. But that was back in July, and its November, so we can assume that the issue has more to do with the site, which has been overhauled in both design and, Denton hopes, focus: Valleywag has typically been on the more gossipy side, and Denton wants to bring it back to pure Silicon Valley deal talk: "More money, a little less sex." Just good ol' clean Silicon Valley fun.
Denton, who never does anything without a plan, has already changed the tone of the site by breaking some real news nuggets for his audience: John Battelle's loss of the Fark network to Maxim, and confirms the rumor that Michael Wolff is in talks with Barry Diller's InterActive Corp. for a potential new internet news project (Denton also rehashes the Wolff-Diller backstory, so we know that Valleywag won't be turning up its nose at all gossip).
Wonk reaction thus far is good: Tech blogger Mathew Ingram liked Douglas but appreciates Denton's snarky insiderism, and the Blog Herald thinks Denton is "bringing sexy back" to tech blogging, which sounds like an oxymoron if there ever was one.
from nymag.com
Adam Sternbergh takes a refreshing tack at New York magazine this week in his examination of the nightly news: Instead of proclaiming to be an expert in the matter going back to the days of Cronkite and Brinkley and (cue reverent pause) Edward R. Murrow, he goes in tabula rasa, freely admitting that he doesn't watch but willing to find a cumulative 90 minutes per night relevant for the span of one week, should it happen. He has never seen Charles Gibson on Good Morning America, finds Katie Couric's eye makeup distracting (and is not alone in that) and wishes Brian Wiliams would drop the Mr. Anchor voice and let us see an arch eye roll or two. You won't learn anything new from this article, unless you haven't been steeped in the oodles of coverage from Katie's ascension to speculation and analysis on how the three would measure up on their shared rookie election night, but he does distill some important, key points, including the following: Networks hate how blogs "feed parasitically" on network access, and blogs hate how badly networks squander that access once they get it; Gibson, Couric and Williams may right now be in the shadow of legends past, but in their current incarnation they will leave no shadow of their own; and networks need to know why they exist. If they exist for truth, then they have to "call bullshit when bullshit is being served" (note that that's a common trait between Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Anderson Cooper flying off the handle at Mary Landrieu in New Orleans). It's good, simple advice, and the CBSers seem to be taking it already by dialing back their "freeSpeech" segment (what Sternbergh calls "all-you-can-eat bullshit buffet" and what ETP calls a missed opportunity to really find and showcase some smart, fresh voices that aren't carrying water for the GOP). Of course, in order to see if they take it, you'll have to tune in — and that is the one obstacle that may be too much to overcome.
from nytimes.com
The NYT Magazine tackles comedy this week, determined to unlock the secrets of humor and deconstruct it mercilessly down to the minutest of building blocks, with (we assume) unintentionally ironic pearls like this from A.O. Scott : "The genius of a well-executed gag is that getting it requires nether schooling nor explanation. Nor does the humor appeal to the audience's sense of superiority." Yes. Indeed. Also, A.O. really, really liked it when Borat and his friend wrestled naked.
There is great writing and there is humor and there is great writing about humor. ETP will leave it to the reader to make those calls, though we will cite with approval Paul Rudd's "How To Be Funny When You Are Incredibly Good-Looking." We do, however, take issue with a few things: (1) The breezy characterization of Will Ferrell's characters as "vapid," which anyone who witnesses his quietly growing self-awareness in "Stranger Than Fiction" will take issue with (and might prefer the phrase "sunny simplicity" as applied to Buddy The Elf); (2) The same tired meme about how women aren't being recognized as funny — see article on Anna Faris asking — but not answering — "Is there a place in Hollywood for a funny woman who doesn't want to just play dumb?" (Answer: Yes; though Faris' pratfalls in the "Scary Movie" franchises are great, forgotten is the new SNL generation hitting the screen, i.e. Tina Fey , Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch in films like "Mean Girls" and the upcoming "Spring Breakdown" which also features Parker Posey which leads into all the star turns in the Christopher Guest movies, notably Catherine O'Hara's Oscar turn in "For Your Consideration" which just might garner actual buzz) (see the NYPost's Reed Tucker on her here); and (3) Worthy of note, and consideration, is that the article on the new breed of YouTube comedy phenoms features eight men and zero women. Probably justified — ETP can't think of a single YouTube girl comedy phenom — but still, worthy of exploration.
Probably the best distillation of comedy, however, comes from Chris Rock to Deborah Solomon: "You want to know what's not funny? Thinking about it."
Bonus: 15 men and 3 women list their top five comedies! [NYT]
Update: Broadsheet has a more nuanced take here.
from TVNewser.com
Dan Rather was on Don Imus this morning (or as Rather referred to him, "The I-Man") to promote his long-awaited new show on HDNet, "Dan Rather Reports" which airs for the first time tomorrow night at 8pm ET. Rather told USA Today's Peter Johnson that billionaire Dallas Mavericks/HDNet owner Mark Cuban gave him carte blanche to "do good journalism and don't worry about ratings, demographics or advertising," which Rather is contracted to do/not to do for three years. Though Rather couldn't tell Johnson by press time, he announced today on air that the first program would be an hour-long story about Iraq war veterans returning home from the front. Says Rather of his potential viewers: "If they don't do anything else, they'll learn something about these troops, the price they have paid, their families, and what we need to be thinking about in terms of the care of these people who've been wounded both physically and psychologically, and their families." (See it on Ch. 79, sez them.)
Rather also chit-chatted about his experience reporting election results on Comedy Central (which Imus noted was regarded by some to have been his most entertaining election night work) and about the election-night reports by some other networks with which Rather may have happened to have some experience. Rather happily lauded former colleague Bob Schieffer ("Shieffer's an old pro, and there's nobody knows more about Washington politics — print, electronic journalism or otherwise — than Bob") but was more circumspect when it came to opining on CBS Evening News" successor Katie Couric:
"When I left CBS — not because I left — Les Moonves and others said they wanted to go in a new direction. I think it's clear from what I can see that they are going in some new direction. I think one should give them time — they're in a transition period, a tremendous transition, [with] Katie Couric [coming over] from another place. So — let's talk, say, at the end of February - once we get thorugh November sweeps and February sweeps, then we'll know more about what these new directions are, which ones they settle on, which ones they don't, and make a judgment at that time how they're doing.
Concluded Rather: "You'll recognize that as a punt."
Imus did not similarly punt: "We've watched it, it's awful." Said Rather: "I disassociate myself from those remarks." Then they all laughed.
Rather said he was excited to have "complete and total creative and editorial control" over his HDNet program, which will run at an hour a week for a planned 42 weeks per year. (Per Rather: "I like to work, Imus"). He also plugged his return to Comedy Central this evening as the guest on "The Colbert Report," proclaimed his disdain for tofu turkey, and even let loose with a Ratherism when Imus was trash-talking his wife's shopping habits: "If you keep talking like this, I-Man, you're gonna be so far back in the doghouse that they're gonna have to ship you daylight by FedEx."
from www.wcsh6.com
NBC's recently-announced cuts were put in motion on Friday with the pink-slipping of 17 "Dateline" employees from New York to California. This number doesn't include buyouts, which have been offered to dozens of employees company-wide (and which, according to TVNewser, are being taken up in numbers exceeding the layoffs). Correspondents Robb Stafford and Edie Magnus were reportedly among those laid off, as well as producers and bookers; apparently there are further cuts to come, which is understandably undermining staff morale (a report from Friday: "People who have been here for nearly 20 years were walking around weeping"). That situation will likely repeat itself later this week when, according to TVWeek, the axe will fall at "NBC Nightly News" and "Today." (NB: TVWeek's Michelle Greppi refers to the layoffs as the "involuntary separation process.")
Despite rumors that "Dateline" itself was cancelled, the show will go on, though its airtime has been cut from its former five-nights-a-week schedule to once per week on Saturdays, and, according to Variety, is "focusing editorially on true crime and its "To Catch a Predator" series on sexual predators."
James Boyce
My seven year old son wanted the Patriots cards you can get for free with a coupon in yesterday's Globe. Considering the price of sports cards these days, the $2.50 for the Globe seemed like a fair deal. I last bought a Sunday Globe in the spring - when my son wanted the Red Sox cards you could get for free with a coupon in the Globe.
I have a few observations.
First of all,...
from time.com
Time's cover take on the midterms last week picks up the meme that the election was as much about the Democrats pushing centrists candidates veering right as much as it was about roundly rejecting the Republican party, the Iraq war and all the various scandals in between. However, the visual depiction, though arresting, is misleading: The center is not perfectly balanced between an equally extreme right and left wing, and the reason the Democrats look so centrist is because the Republicans have been moving more and more to the right over these past six years. Not exactly news, but something that has been lost in the rush to proclaim the newly-elected Democrat leadership a "new" breed of centrists. Per Media Matters:
The simple fact the pundits won't tell you is that the national Republican Party has veered far to the right over the past dozen years, and the national Democratic Party is quite centrist. (Whether that's a good thing, or reflective of the positions of the parties' rank-and-file voters is another question.) On issues ranging from tax and budget policy to health care to the minimum wage to abortion to the war in Iraq to the environment, so-called "far left" Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi hold positions that enjoy the support of the American people. Even on issues that Democrats have essentially stopped talking about and acting on, like universal health care and gun safety legislation, their positions are quite moderate.
Ankush Khardori makes this point: "There's a difference between running a moderate campaign and appealing to moderate voters. This is true particularly when voters have only two choices; it's entirely possible that a moderate voter could vote for what he views as a relatively extreme ideological position, so long as he thinks it's the lesser of two evils." As was made apparent by the fact that all incumbent Democrats were re-elected, and incumbents like Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island, who voted against the war, were defeated, is indicatve of a corrective change that most certainly moved the needle left, but whether Democrats moved themselves right to meet voter demand does not yet seem apparent, particularly in an America where more women were electedthan ever before and the issues on the ballot are more and more liberal as the years go on (gay marriage being the obvious example). Suggesting that the Democrats have moved right suggests that the corrective shift that happened happened on the left, not the right, which is just part of the continous message that the Democrats are less effective than the Republicans, even while they're delivering a so-called "thumpin'" to them across the country. That's not to say that relative shifts in positions should not be observed and analyzed, but it would be nice to see more caution exercised before just passing around another media meme.
Related: The GOP's Post-Election Spin [TNR]
from cravenscartoons.com
The field of suitors for the Tribune Company and its assets is becoming crowded indeed. Since last week's announcement of a bid from billionaires Ron Burkle and Eli Broad, it has been reported that Gannett Co. Inc has also also put in a bid for the whole company; former chairman of the American International Group insurance company Maurice R. Greenberg is also looking to throw his hat in the ring. The 81-year old Greenberg (known as "Hank") has also expressed interest in the New York Times-owned Boston Globe (currently being eyed by Jack Welch) and Dow Jones which publishes the Wall Street Journal. David Geffen, who made an informal offer for the Los Angeles Times this summer (payable in cash) has so far not re-entered the fray.
The Tribune Company, valued at $8 billion, has floated the possibility of breaking up the company for sale, eliciting (and soliciting) interest in specific properties. For example, according to the WSJ, Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp is interested in Newsday, and MediaNews Group Inc., has expressed interest in Connecticut's Hartford Courant and the Stamford Advocate. There are apparently a number of potential buyers for the Tribune Co.-owned Chicago Cubs baseball team as well.
The NYT's David Carr thinks that millionaires buying up newspapers, Citizen Kane-like, is a sketchy proposition and not one that bodes well for success or the promotion of good journalism; over at New York mag, Sridhar Pappu provides a little LAT-NYT backstory, and theorizes that the flow of talent will largely be eastward, especially since Howell Raines is gone (and, on the other coast, Dean Baquet is gone, too). It will be interesting to see where the chips fall, and how — and if — they scatter.
Harry Shearer
Regular readers to this space may have despaired of my repeated posts on the subject of the paltry sums dispensed by the "Road Home" program to compensate New Orleans homeowners for the damage inflicted by the federally caused floods, and on the subject of the mental health crisis in the city.
Well, it's never too late for the mainstream news media to discover what's going on outside New York. Saturday's NYT front-paged a...
