via TVNewser.com
You've got to hand it to Fox News, really — they've managed the art of the insult with such deft brio. Whether it's the excoriation of Keith Olbermann by FNC PR giantess Irena Briganti (delivered, one can only imagine, in the dismissively icy tones of Emily Blunt from The Devil Wears Prada), an "amused Foxie" wishing CNN and MSNBC "well on their quest for relevancy," or IDing Sandy Berger in the chyron as "Sandy Burglar," as an incredulous tipster informed us last week ("no quote marks, nothing!"), the Fox News Network knows how to let loose with a zinger. That's why you can't help but chuckle at their brazen ad in the most recent TVWeek and Mediaweek, wishing "Congratulations to Larry King For Joining Fox News In The Top 15!" Larry King Live was #7 in the 2006 top cable news programs...and everything else, incredibly, was on Fox. The graceful thing, of course, is to avoid overt gloating, but they certainly have earned that right. That said, maybe pride goeth before a fall; as we've pointed out in the past, the cable ratings game is heating up as MSNBC continues to find its voice and CNN invests in growing properties like Glenn Beck. Then again, it could go in the other direction, too. As always, we'll have to stay glued to the 24-hour news cycle to find out...but in the meantime, we can count on Fox to at least make the rivalry entertaining.
Poynter.org
Editor & Publisher brings word that seven minority staffers at the Philadelphia Inquirer met with publisher Brian Tierney today to deliver a letter protesting the percentage of minorities included in the recent round of layoffs at the paper, which first announced its plan to cut 70 newsroom jobs on January 3. The letter, signed by over two dozen minority employees, claimed that management had included too many African Americans, Asians and Hispanics among those selected for job cuts. Reporter Melanie Burney, who attended the meeting, told E&P that the group was opposing the "disproportionate" number of minorities included in the layoffs; while the Inquirer newsroom is comprised of 18% minority employees, 28% of those laid off were minorities. Additional concerns addressed in the letter are stated as follows:
Inadequate consideration was given to diversity not only in naming those to be laid off, but in subsequently carving out specific newsroom jobs to be protected from the layoffs. (For example, immigration is one of the hottest topics in the nation, yet The Inquirer's immigration reporter, an Asian American, was laid off.)
The meeting, which was also attended by Inquirer editor William Marimow and Philadelphia Daily News editor Michael Days, did not result in Tierey's making any changes to the final layoffs list, though he agreed to form a diversity committee charged with studying the issue at both papers. While Tierney spokesman Jay Devine implied to E&P that the meeting's outcome may have been different had many of the layoff decisions not been "tied to seniority provisions in the newspaper guild contract," he said that Tierney considered the meeting to be "terrific" and "cordial." Nonetheless, Burney expressed disappointment that no laid off employees would be reinstated, saying, "I wanted to see something concrete happen today... I wanted too hear that there would be more of a commitment to bring people back quickly."
montclair.edu
Following last year's much-lauded (and lambasted) performance by Stephen Colbert that skewered the President and tossed darts at the D.C. press corps, the planners for the White House Correspondents Dinner have chosen "master impressionist" Rich Little to host this year's event, reports Editor & Publisher. The sexagenarian comic, who hosted the dinner in 1984 after winning fame in the '70s for his regular appearances on Dean Martin's celebrity roasts and spot-on (and then relevant) impersonations of Richard Nixon, marks a notable change from the hosts of recent years (a list that, in addition to Colbert, has included Jon Stewart and Cedric the Entertainer). E&P quotes President of the White House Correspondents Association Steve Scully, who made the decision to book Little, as saying, "My approach is to try to make it a comfortable venue that is enjoyable, funny and interesting...But you don't want to offend anyone." Scully then invoked the reported slogan for the Washington Gridiron Dinner: "Singe, don't burn" (though he later noted that Colbert's appearance was a "success" and played no role in this year's tamer choice). Meanwhile, Ron Hutcheson, a McClatchy Newspapers reporter and former WHCA president who organized the 2005 dinner, reportedly applauded the choice of Little, saying, "We don't need to have a blogfest and a partisan slugfest after the dinner. We don't need that." Oh no, certainly not. After all, who needs that?
(ETP Value-Added Fun Fact: Though he now lives full-time in Las Vegas, Rich Little grew up in Ottawa, Ontario, where he attended Lisgar Collegiate with Peter Jennings, as well as ETP editor Rachel Sklar's mom, who confirms that Little used to perform at school concerts doing impressions of teachers, the principal, and Jimmy Stewart.)
Photo from Front Row King
Ghostbusters
Netflix streams movies
Blockbuster's Netflix-killing deals haven't, well, killed Netflix. The online DVD renter gave the New York Times its growth charts to prove it. Netflix also announced its plan to let users stream movies — up to 18 hours per month, meaning that if a movie stinks, a viewer can turn it off and have most of that two hours left for something better. So long to the "I've rented it, now I have to watch it" phenomenon.
Who shall defeat Evite?
Web 2.0 geeks use Evite like everyone else, but we can't stand it. The ads, awkward interface and (most of all) the cluttered noninformative e-mails drive us crazy. Thus every startupper with some free time has invented an Evite killer. But so far none of the competitors (like Renkoo, Skobee, Socializr) have caught on, as they all lack one or another of Evite's features. Even Yahoo's successful Upcoming.org doesn't fully replace it. The startup MyPunchbowl, which is about to make a deal with a party supplier, aims to be more thorough, giving party planners a complete package (and doubtlessly raking in kickbacks). But since it doesn't look as on-the-fly as Evite, it may not be the invitation of the future.
Wired goes see-through
Writer Clive Thompson seeks reader suggestions for a Wired story on "Radical Transparency," the method of making data public and trusting the "wisdom of crowds" (the buzzphrase of 2004) to find patterns that a few trusted experts wouldn't have found. He wants to flesh out three ideas: "Secrecy is dead," "Tap the hivenmind," and "Reputation is everything." This is a drum that Thompson and Wired EIC Chris Anderson have been beating for some months now. It's also Anderson's plan for Wired itself.
New Macs have new wifi, but it'll cost you
The blog AppleInsider reports that Apple has crippled next-generation wireless technology in its new computers. The Intel-based Macs won't run the 802.11n wifi protocol without a $5 software patch. A source tells AppleInsider that Apple will charge the fee to get around some accounting laws concerning adding unadvertised features to already-sold products. Users can pay the fee, buy an Airport wifi router that comes with the unlocking software, or hope that an outside developer makes a free fix.
Joost: It's TV without the good stuff
The makers of Skype and Kazaa are building a video startup called Joost. It's not like the jungle of YouTube but like the familiar channel-flipping interface of TV. Problem is, as Cnet reports, Joost hasn't cut any content deals and it doesn't have many viewers. With Apple, YouTube and BitTorent offering so many ways to watch computer video on TV and vice versa, is there any reason to bet on Joost? Online channel-flipping, after all, is the model that failed in the 90s.
AP via nytimes.com
Jury selection began today in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice, kicking off the long-awaited excitement at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, D.C. where all eyes will be watching to see whose feet will get held to the fire in the latest act of PlameGate. The trial has been gettting lots of attention these days for the notable inclusion of bloggers, permitted in the coutroom as genuinely-accredited press (including the intrepid newshounds of the Huffington Post, we might add), but the prospect of Dick Cheney on the stand giving new meaning to the term "hostile witness" has the media in a tizzy. WaPo "Bench Conference" blogger Andrew Cohen cautions that the trial may be an event marked less by drama than dense, boring legal nitpickery; still, the excitement of the potential Cheney testimonyand all-star roster of witnesses (Tim Russert, Bob Woodward, Ari Fleischer, Bob Novak) seems to promise at least a few cheap thrills. U.S. v. Libby presiding justice, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton has reportedly been girding for the massive media onslaught, and according to MSNBC began today's voir dire by reminding potential jurors that participation in the trial would mean swearing off all media for the duration. He has also barred attorneys from both sides from speaking to the media. Even so, plenty of details will come out, given that the media has designated seats in the courtroom as well as in an overflow room with a live-feed of the courtroom, and discussion on the subject is sure to be rampant (perhaps even distracting from a certain election that will be taking place in twenty-two short months!). At any rate, legal nitpickery notwithstanding, the next few weeks should be very, very interesting.
From The Stanford Daily
The blog "Innovation in College Media" has an interview with long-time web journalist and Gatehouse Media Director of Digital Publishing Howard Owens on the future of "new media." His advice for journalism schools includes redesigning curriculums and publication efforts to include web-geared skills like blogging and video (good news for Jay Rosen and his "Blogging 101" students), and to "be even more dismissive of print than mainstream pubs are right now." For students themselves, he offers the following words of wisdom:
Every student journalist should spend at least six months totally immersed in blogging. Start a blog and try to draw an audience. Do the things that bloggers need to do, read other blogs, create a blog roll, link to other blogs, post frequently on topics relevant to the audience you're trying to reach (and read those blogs in that category), comment on other blogs.
Meanwhile, over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Georgia Southern University Professor Sonya Huber-Humes worries that the growing emphasis in J-school curricula on "subject-driven, in-depth reporting" may in fact be producing students who overestimate their own knowledge. "Yes, reporters must be able to wrestle with complex subjects, but too often the role of expert that reporters tend to adopt results in patronizing news coverage that distances itself from and even disparages the events and people being reported on," she laments after noting that "the focus on advanced analysis encourages students to think they know everything." Funny how little things change once they're all grown up.
from msnbc via extrememortman.com
If you were wondering where former wunderkind MSNBC war correspondent Ashleigh Banfield has been, wonder no longer: She's been riding on planes with her one-year-old baby boy and getting bylines in the New York Times under the old "as told to" rubric, which she should feel free to use as an excuse for why her lede makes no sense. It's a niggling thing, really, but the piece, which details her falling asleep in a number of war-torn and high-pressure places, begins: "I used to think that being a war correspondent was one of the most difficult jobs in TV journalism," but never resolves that statement either way, instead falling back on the old truism about how motherhood is the hardest job there is. No one who's ever watched a mom struggle with stroller/carseat/diaper bag/screaming baby would deny that (or should) but it's a weird ending to an even weirder article, about how basically she used to be so tired from her various travels and travails as a war correspondent that she'd snatch a nap wherever she could, including on Shimon Peres' couch before an interview. Now, though, she's too busy to even write the article, which might explain why it's all over the place, from her naps to how the airline lost her luggage to latter-day justifications for dyeing her blonde hair before going to the Middle East, for which she was roundly mocked (it's not that the reasoning doesn't make sense, it's just that it's a strange detail to linger over at this stage).
Odd little article, and odder still that Banfield didn't take the time to write it herself, but it does offer an interesting nugget: Apparently, before she departed for Islamabad in September 2001, the then-president of NBC News told her: "This is one of the most refused assignments in the history of NBC News." It would have been great to have had some clarification on that point — this specific assignment, covering the war on terror and the invasion of Afghanistan, or more generally the job of war correspondent? And if it was the former, how many people were offered the spot before they got to Banfield? How many were women, how many were men? And either way, why then was she compelled to take it? Now, with her new baby boy by her side, does she see things differently? Would she still take on such an assignment? And by the way, what exactly is she doing now besides taking planes with her baby? Ashleigh Banfield is an interesting woman (a Canadian, no less) and her story is far more nuanced than this stitched-together squib would suggest. Her (literal) war stories are interesting, to be sure, but a little context would have done wonders to elevate this piece from filler to something with an actual takeaway.
Update, and Correction: A kindly reader informs us that as-told-to is the modus of the recurring Frequent Flier column, and then faithfully transcribed by Christopher Elliott. ETP regrets and apologizes for the error, but still would liked more details, like whether Banfield drooled on Shimon Peres' couch.
CBSnews.com
The Duke rape case is back on the front page, with the New York Times and Washington Post reporting the stunning news that prosecutor Michael Nifong has recused himself and turned the case over to the North Carolina Attorney General, thereby allowing the D.A. to respond to ethics charges brought against him by the state bar for allegedly engaging in "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation" and making comments that stirred "public condemnation of the accused," as quoted by the Post. The defendants' attorneys are hoping that the attorney general's set of fresh eyes will lead to all charges being dropped, particularly given the accuser's changing story and the lack of physical evidence.
Meanwhile, 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl jumped in Sunday night with her own Nifong smackdown, further highlighting the D.A.'s sketchy conduct with a set of interviews, the second in the show's coverage of the case. Her report opened with an exclusive sit down with Dr. Brian Meehan, the forensic expert who conducted DNA tests leading to the discovery that the accuser's underwear contained DNA from four unidentified men. Under Stahl's grilling, Meehan admitted for the first time that his decision to follow Nifong and deliberately omit these findings in an evidentiary report was "an error in judgment on [Meehan's] part." Nifong waited six months to turn over the exculpatory DNA evidence to the defense. While he has since claimed that his failure to disclose the information was an oversight, he could face possible sanctions, and Meehan's company is under investigation by the organization that accredits forensic laboratories.
Additional bits revealed in the report were the accuser's history of taking anti-psychotic medications Depakote and Seroquel, as well as a hot seat moment with Duke President Richard Brodhead, who was questioned about the invitations to return to campus extended to Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann. When asked, "Are you now saying that Duke University thinks they're innocent?" Brodhead responded, "What we are now saying is that given all the facts, and the way the facts have evolved, we think it is just and fair that the students be welcomed back at this time," adding that he had relied on D.A.'s early statement of certainty that a rape had occurred. But the most resonant moment occurred during the interview with the well-dressed and -coiffed parents of the three defendants, when Kathy Seligmann said, "Every mother of a son in this country should be scared to death that this was so easy to perpetrate." With that, she hit the nail on the proverbial head - the entire scandal was frighteningly easy to set off, and for a while the media devoured it hook, line and sinker, from mug shots on the cover of national magazines to questions about Duke's ability to heal its sullied reputation before charges had even been filed. Besides providing the obvious opening for Ann Coulter to spout some trademark "liberal oppression of the white male" jargon, maybe these revelations of Nifong's personal agenda and subsequent cover-up will inspire caution the next time the media gets tempted to convict in the court of public opinion.
ETP's prior coverage of the Duke rape scandal:
Media Completes Its Full 180 On Duke Rape Case
from BarackObama.com
Breaking via MSNBC: Barack Obama has announced that he will be launching a presidential exploratory committee, escewing fancy launching pads like the Sunday talk shows or a Katrina backdrop and taking it straight to YOU — the people — via his website. In keeping with all the other honors YOU have received this year, starting with the Time Person of the Year and continuing on with nods from AdAge, Fox Sports, and Spin, Obama has specifically bypassed the usual messengers and taken his message straight to the heart of it::
Years ago, as a community organizer in Chicago, I learned that meaningful change always begins at the grassroots, and that engaged citizens working together can accomplish extraordinary things.So even in the midst of the enormous challenges we face today, I have great faith and hope about the future - because I believe in you.
And that's why I wanted to tell you first that I'll be filing papers today to create a presidential exploratory committee.
According to MSNBC, the message went up online shortly after 10 a.m., along with the text of the message sent out in an email sent to supporters.
Pretty savvy move, actually, on Obama's part, with the obvious bounty of media coverage to come (never mind in the lead up), to say nothing of the suddern traffic possibilities on his website (if he slaps Google ads up there quick he can totally rake it in!). That's why it's savvy — Obama knows that he's been the object of scrutiny and fascination, obviously, and this is a great way to sow he's not courting it (even though the citizen journalism touch will provide additional play). Says Obama in his message: "Running for the presidency is a profound decision - a decision no one should make on the basis of media hype or personal ambition alone," which addresses the "rock star" buildup around him and, methinks, takes a wee poke at other competing candidates who shall remain nameless for whom naked ambition for the presidency has become something of a defining characteristic. He also takes more than a poke at Iraq — "a tragic and costly war that should have never been waged" — and that, as a junior Senator who came on in January 2005, he can safely say he did not vote for. All that said, now that he's declared let the knives come out; there's no buildup without backlash, so we'll see what the next few months bring.
Update: Apparently John Edwards pre-empted his New Orleans announcement with a YouTube video, though technically the YouTube announcement was an announcement of the announcement — I kid you not. Here's the quote: "Tomorrow morning, from this place, I will announce that I'm a candidate for the President of the United States," which had been similarly announced prior to the actual announcement. I know. Confusing, isn't it? Perhaps that's why the YouTube announcement-of-announcement slipped under the radar; see more at this detailed post from the Blogger's Blog.
Lawrence K. Ho / LAT
ABC dominated the TV Golden Globes, winning best comedy series for "Ugly Betty" and best dramatic series for "Grey's Anatomy." This gives the network three straight years at the top in the best comedy category, after two straight wins for "Desperate Housewives." [LAT/Variety]
A federal judge tossed former government scientist Dr. Stephen J. Hatfill's defamation suit against the New York Times: The biological weapons expert had claimed he was defamed in 2001 by a series of Times columns about the anthrax mailings, which identified Hatfill as the subject of a government investigation. [NYT]
After plenty of speculation about potential buyers, the Tribune Co. may wind up with few, if any bids by tomorrow's deadline, while any offers it does receive are expected to be close to the current share price. Eli Broad and Ron Burkle remain in the running, stating a motivation to return the Tribune-owned Los Angeles Times to local ownership. [LAT]
True to its name, Doubledown Media is doubling its size by adding two magazines to its roster. The new titles include Private Air, a 5-year-old mag targeting owners of private jets and aircraft, acquired for $3 million, and the newly-launched Corporate Leader, aimed at CEOs and CFOs. Company officials predict that ad revenue will triple as a result of the new titles, and Doubledown president and editorial director Randall Lane told the Post, "Tell all the people who are getting laid off at Time Inc. to send their resumes here." [NYP]
Eponymous celeb website TMZ, owned by Time Warner, has reached a deal with Fox to begin airing a daily half-hour show that will air on all 35 Fox-owned television stations beginning this fall. The cheeky site that broke the Mel Gibson arrest and brought terms like "firecrotch" to our daily parlance is the most popular celebrity news destination on the Web, attracting more than 6 million monthly visitors. [NYP]
NBC Universal plans to continue its Today Show expansion by adding a fourth hour to the show, both to further extend the profitable franchise and to fill the space left by the formerly-syndicated and now-defunct "Megan Mullally Show."
Larry King lays the smackdown on Bill O'Reilly and Nancy Grace, dubbing them ''I'' hosts due to their propensity for lecturing guests rather than listening to them. He describes Grace's style as "accusatory, harpoonish." We've used a few other words as well. [Miami Herald]
