villanova.edu
From TVNewser: Tonight NBC's Nightly News will become the first national evening newscast to broadcast in widescreen high definition, according to director Brett Holey. The network's field gear, meanwhile, is gradually being upgraded to HD, while the John Williams score will be beefed up to 5.1 surround sound.
No word yet on whether number one-ranked ABC World News With Charles Gibson or the CBS Nightly News plan to follow suit, though the transition to HD can be rocky for anchors (or actresses, or porn stars). While NBC's move will likely benefit the overall broadcast (more Brian Williams to love!) the potential dangers of switching to HD for those in front of the camera have been well-documented (including tales of a female newscaster seeking plastic surgery in anticipation of going high def), and not everyone looks as laden with invisible pores and visible gravitas with their face broken in two million pixels. It'll be interesting to see the overall effect, and whether other networks follow - though we all know how much everyone loves an excuse to deconstruct Katie Couric's looks.
from the New Yorker
Wow - big week for corrections. First the New York Times had to 'fess up to a double whammy: A subject in last week's cover story on women who had served in Iraq had not, it turns out, actually been in Iraq. The woman, Amorita Randall, had made it all up, including being injured in an IED attack. The military had told the Times that it had had no record of the attack or her injury, and that her unit had been deployed but not in combat. Those qualifiers were included in the article (which was cautiously-worded where the woman was concerned). After the article ran, the Times learned that only half of Randall's unit had been sent to Iraq and that she had actually been in Guam. Said the NYT: "If The Times had learned these facts before publication, it would not have included Ms. Randall in the article."
The Times also got into an embarrassing situation with an essay in the March 4, 2007 Book Review, regarding the essay "Confessions of a Book Abuser," by Ben Schott, which turned out to have a numer of marked similarities to the essay "Never Do That to a Book," by Anne Fadiman. Both essays dealt with the treament of books, including "similarities" like referring to "dog-earing pages either at the top or at the bottom depending on referential purpose and to travelers who rip previously read sections from paperbacks and discard them before boarding an airplane." Both essays also began in European hotel rooms where indignant chambermaids disapprove of the author's book treatment. Coincidence? Sure - those Euros are nosy. And Schott stuck by his story. But still, per the Times: "Had editors been aware of Fadiman's essay, the Book Review would not have published Schott's." See both corrections online here.
Finally, a correction that is not online: Following the kerfuffle two weeks ago regarding Dana Goodyear's February article on Poetry magazine and the Poetry Foundation, wherein NYT poetry critic David Orr called into question Goodyear's characterization of the Poetry Foundation and her own relationship with the New Yorker as both a submitting poet and the former assistant to New Yorker editor David Remnick, the New Yorker has issued a small Editor's Note on the matter. It turns out that Goodyear, a poet herself, had submitted poems to Poetry for consideration. Goodyear herself disclosed in a parenthetical that she had "submitted poems in 1998, just before graduating from college; the editor at the time, [Joseph] Parisi, had the good judgment not to publish them." She did not, however, disclose an additional submission to Poetry in 2003, by which time she was an accomplished poet with numerous bylines in the New Yorker. Presumably, Goodyear would not be so quick to dismiss those latter works, which, according to the Poetry website, were also not published. 2003 is a long time ago in poet-years, and Goodyear is certainly quite accomplished in her own right. Even so, it's a disclosure that ought to have been made, somewhere along the line.
Corrections - March 25, 2007 [NYT]
The New Yorker - Letters Page (unlinked)
cwtv.com
Here's an item to make even the most hardened feminist weep in her latte: Last week's episode of America's Next Top Model featured a photoshoot in which the perennially waifish contestants were made up and posed to look like blood-spattered and mangled corpses. The causes of the graphic-but-always-photogenic deaths ranged from stabbing to strangulation to shooting to semi-decapitation. No possible cluster of synonyms for "repulsive" could do these pics justice, so peruse them here at your leisure. [ETP Warning: The following may cause revulsion, indignation and excessive screaming at the computer screen. We advise readers to refrain from viewing in the office or while drinking hot liquids.]
Alert women's issues sites like Feministing and Broadsheet were on the case right away, excoriating the show and expressing disgust at the salt-in-gushing-wound responses of the judges, which included lines like, "What's great about this is that you can also look beautiful in death;" "I think you look absolutely wonderful;" and "Death becomes you, young lady." As Broadsheet noted, the decision to feature "dead" models is made even worse (if such a thing is possible) by the fashion industry's recent eating disorders controversy, in which several models died from anorexia. Classy move, guys! Jennifer Pozner over at Women In Media & News offered this insight about the show (which she described as "a series that traffics in bottom-feeder humiliation, objectification and degradation of women in the name of fashion, fun and beauty for the deep profit of integrated marketers"):
For decades, media critics such as pioneering advertising theorist Jean Kilbourne have argued that ad imagery equating gruesome violence against women with beauty and glamour works to dehumanize women, making such acts in real life not only more palatable and less shocking, but even aspirational. ANTM's pretty-as-a-picture crime-scene challenge epitomized the worst of an insidious industry trend that, ahem, just won't die.
Meanwhile, BuddyTV reports that women's rights advocates are "irate" over the episode (slight understatement perhaps?), with New York City NOW president Sonia Ossorio condemning the shoot in the Daily News. Starting last week, female bloggers were already mobilizing, encouraging readers to contact sponsors of the show and providing e-mail addresses (like this one and these...not that we're hinting or anything) for letter-writing campaigns. As for the CW network and ANTM supermodel host Tyra Banks? Both declined to comment.
Via FishbowlDC: Last week the New Republic (with the NRO) launched "What's Your Problem?" — an online video debate series that reminds us of something, hmmm, wait a second, it's just on the tip of our tongues. Oh, right: Only the strangely addictive Bloggingheads.tv, which also features debate between two earnest-intellectual talking head-type people, except with better light and sound and technology and — sorry, TNRO — content. The drama has been a-swirlin' of late on Bloggingheads now that Mickey Kaus and Ezra Klein are apparently gonna rumble (says Ezra: "It's broughten!"). We think the TNRO offering would maybe work better if they wore more pink, like Mickey; knew about God n' stuff, like Bob Wright; were boldly bearded like Spencer Ackerman and Ross Douthat; or were pretty, like Klein and Will Wilkinson. We think they easily qualify as pundit-hot . Oh look, here's TNR's Ryan Lizza, wearing pink and sorta like Lou Diamond Philips. Why don't they use him? Or that nice Mike Crowley. I would say they could use all the women who write for them but, well, you know. (Bloggingheads, you're doing okay on that front, but just okay!). Agree? Disagree? Let's set up a webcam and argue about it! Looking forward to enjoying the socratic stylings of a pink-shirt-wearing bearded lady on TNRO real soon! That's not just pundit-hot, by the way.
project1947.com
From E&P: Time Inc. announced today that it's pulling the plug on the last incarnation of Life, following a 9.2% drop in advertising revenue and 21.3% tumble in ad pages through February. The magazine, which is reportedly carried in 103 newspapers with a total circulation of 13 million, will run its final issue on April 20, 2007. The legendary photojournalism title first launched in 1936 and ran as a weekly until 1972 when it closed its doors until re-emerging as a monthly in 1978 (and then folding again in 2000). The current version was relaunched in October 2004 as a weekend magazine newspaper insert. No surprise, Time Inc. reportedly has plans to shift what's left of the mag online, placing its collection of 10 million iconic images on the internet for free public access, and maintaining its name on books and other brand items.
image courtesy of LA Observed
Yesterday came and went and with it, a brand-new installment of the LATimes' Current section — hot off the presses and featuring absolutely none of the content curated by abortive guest-editor Brian Grazer, whose section was unceremoniously yanked last week when it was revealed that Opinion editor Andrés Martinez had had a romantic relationship with Kelly Mullens, an employee of PR firm 42 West, a firm which just so happened to represent Brian Grazer. This was apparently not news to the publisher, David Hiller, who initially backed the project when word of the relationship leaked last Wednesday.
The whole backstory is chronicled by David Carr in today's NYT, spun juicily ("The Los Angeles Times last week brings to mind a scene in which you come upon a sinking vessel and see people scrambling everywhere. And then you realize they are not looking for buckets, but guns"). This was in reference to Andrés Martinez's belligerent and defensive post on LA Observed as well as the rather tart response from Baquet-replacing editor James O'Shea ("It is true that we have journalists in the newsroom who don't agree with Andres' views on the ethical problems that led to his resignation. I count myself among them"); meanwhile, business had to go on as usual, which left the op-ed editor Nicholas Goldberg and deputy Current editor Gary Spieckerop and their staffers with the task of putting out a brand-new Current from scratch (per Gawker Weekend's Leon Neyfakh: "With a Friday night press deadline, the Current staff had two days to do something that usually takes over a week"). They did it though! Hooray for unsolicited articles!*
The upshot? Guest editors are a bad idea unless they're Bono.
Oh and another fun LAT bombshell, per Nikki Finke: The next Current guest editor was supposed to have been — wait for it — Donald Rumsfeld. Oy.
*Kidding. Luckily they had some good stuff on hand. But it would have been sorta hilarious if the whole slush pile had floated to the top. LA's got some crazy cats, man.
In the press file.
We have taken a vote.
We don't want to write about health care.
Please adjust accordingly.
— Press center email to Time's Karen Tumulty, Moderator, Nevada Health Care Forum, Swampland.
Glynnis MacNicol
Welcome to another installment of RussertWatch! This week's Meet the Press saw an energetic Tim Russert firing off (mostly) pertinent questions to two of the eight fired US attorneys, followed by Senators Arlen Specter and Dick Durbin (both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee), before rounding things up with the genial Bill Bradley; former senator, Democratic presidential hopeful, and newly published author. (Spoiler warning! Re: the Final Four; his heart is with Obama Georgetown)....
