Showing posts with label Michael Kinsley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Kinsley. Show all posts

Friday, November 4, 2011

Spot-on! Michael Kinsley re-thinks his notions of the relationship b/w journalists and sources; LA Times: "Journalism and the art of betrayal"


University of California Television video: Conversations with History: Michael Kinsley

Saw this fascinating column in the LA Times this afternoon while making my way to their online Entertainment page to look at some film reviews, and knew I had to share it with you all ASAP, since it concerns the thoughts of someone I've long liked and admired even when I disagreed with him on an issue, Michael Kinsley.

Los Angeles Times
Op-Ed

Journalism and the art of betrayal
The explanations newspapers give for why anonymity was granted can be hilarious. But they tend to prove what was famously asserted by New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm: Journalism is about betrayal.
By Michael Kinsley
November 4, 2011, 8:34 a.m.


In 1989, New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm published her famous essay, "The Journalist and the Murderer," with its notoriously overheated opening sentence: "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible."


I used to talk to media personality Michael Kinsley fairly frequently back in the days when he was one of the co-hosts for CNN's Crossfire, and he'd be over at the Army-Navy Club office bldg. on Eye Street where the New York Times' DC bureau was located -usually waiting for his close friend, Maureen Dowd, to come down from her office after 5:30 or so.

The Army-Navy Building was a place where I spent LOTS of time the last ten years I was in D.C, as I mentioned here previously back on April 6th, 2011, in a post I titled, Memories of D.C. bureau of N.Y. Times; Cool stuff from NYT Graphics: Key states for Obama in 2012; 2010 Census interactive map


People were often split on their opinions about Michael depending upon their politics, ideology or subject, of course, but in my many experiences, I found him to be one of THE friendliest media personalities out of many I ever met or knew in Washington, with a good sense of humor.

On his TV show, given their confrontational format, that humor often came across as sarcastic I suppose, but in person, he was was often amusing and engaging in ways that were truly remarkable.
And he's got that amazing memory for details, so...

Somewhere in storage, up in the D.C. area, I think i still have a few great photos of the two of them posing in front of the bldg. lobby's Christmas tree and decorations, which were always one of the nicest in all of downtown and K Street, the same way that the NY Times' March Madness basketball pool was one of the best and most lucrative to get in on, since you had Times employees not just from the DC bureau participating, but their employees from all over the world (and their spouses) also putting their money where their mouth and brackets (or heart) was.

(To this day, I still find it amusing that so many people who would say so many vituperative or sarcastic things about her at the time at social events I attended in the DC area had no idea how truly sweet and concerned with people's feelings she could be, even when she didn't have to be.
Also, of course, famously, most people who knocked her had no idea how petite Maureen is. 
In a winter parka with a lined hood, walking by in a crowd, she'd look like a kid counting their days until she could leave Junior High.)

I still think it's pretty amazing that in the year 2011, a guy who is as clearly smart and curious as Michael about both people and ideas and trends, and who has his ability to draw people out in interesting ways, doesn't have a national TV show now.

IF I was a media mogul... I'd rectify that.
-----


Bill Geist interviews Maureen Dowd on CBS News' "Sunday Morning"




Thursday, October 7, 2010

Obamacare death panels won't save legacy media's Newsweek: You could've been a MSM news mogul for the small introductory price of $1

On September 18, 2009, I wrote a post about my observations about Newsweek magazine's future, and as you can tell from the title I gave that post, Obamacare Death Panels have bad news for Newsweek: Doctors will pull the plug on mag at $75 a year; Newsweek R.I.P.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/obamacare-death-panels-have-bad-news.html

I suggested that the reality was that there wasn't much of a future for them, because they had become increasingly irrelevant to the larger public discourse going on in America, in large part, due to their own insular liberal, hipper-than-thou parochialism and dis-connectedness to the country west and south of the Hudson River, and some rather uninspired editorial choices.
It was a mess.

Not that I was alone in my observations, given Michael Kinsley's spot-on take in The New Republic, Backwards Runs Newsweek, which could've easily been made the year before it ran last May and been just as accurate.

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/backward-runs-newsweek

It's hardly breaking news that Newsweek had never been relevant in the first place in longstanding public policy backwaters like South Florida, since as far as I can remember, it was never ever cited by anyone at any time at any public policy gathering I or any of my civic-minded friends ever attended from the mid-'70's on.

But in certain places throughout the country where ideas, especially new ideas, still really matter and have not just currency but urgency, and are argued about and discussed at length -and I don't mean that in a pejorative fashion but simply as a descriptive- it actually was relevant as recently as ten years ago.

I know because I've been to places where that really was true, at least among a certain sub-group of the local population that I knew, which is to say, friends of mine whom reporters and columnists call for quotes.

Places with serious, smart and well-educated people who read voraciously and who consume multiple hard news sources and trade/specialty journals weekly by the barrel and mega-bite.


Cities like Boston, New York, New Haven, Washington, D.C. , The Research Triangle in North Carolina, Atlanta, Nashville, Louisville, Austin, Chicago and Evanston, Champaign/Urbana, Milwaukee, Madison, Ann Arbor, Columbus, Lawrence (KS), Albuquerque, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Berkeley, Palo Alto and Silicon Alley, Sacramento, certain parts of Los Angeles and Orange County, and yes, Bloomington.

See
http://www.theatlantic.com/richard-florida/ for more on why it is certain U.S. cities are incubators of ideas, public policy amd innovation, while other places, like South Florida, aren't.



To its own dismay, Newsweek had become the proverbial boyfriend who hadn't gotten the hint that he was about to be tossed overboard in favor of the new, more-interesting boyfriend, who was lurking discreetly off-camera, who doesn't take her for granted.

Boyfriend #1 is blindsided, of course, but to anyone actually paying any attention, it had seemed self-evident and rather inevitable since it was clear that there were no longer any sparks in the relationship, just a drab, mundane sameness and shallow me-too-ism.
Loser.

Well today, or rather yesterday, we learned that you, too, could have become a media mogul for the low introductory price of exactly $1.


But the fact that one American dollar was more than hundreds of people and entities thought Newsweek magazine was worth as a going concern is perhaps the most salient fact of all, and a real warning to those who currently take their dwindling readership for granted, like the Miami Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel, who are barely relevant or trusted in their very own neighborhoods, as they continue to dangerously list.

Man the lifeboats!

-----------
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/06/AR2010100606096_pf.html
Post Co. discloses Newsweek's price tag: $1


The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 6, 2010; 7:11 PM


NEW YORK -- The Washington Post Co. has revealed exactly how much cash that audio equipment magnate Sidney Harman paid for Newsweek magazine this summer: $1.


The Post Co. also agreed to cover up to $10 million of Newsweek's existing bills. And it will hold on to certain employee pension liabilities, though it did not spell out a dollar figure in a regulatory filing Wednesday.

No one thought Harman paid much for Newsweek, which lost almost $30 million last year amid circulation and advertising declines.


But the magazine's sale for less than its $5.95-per-issue price on newsstands is still a grim milestone for a brand that was once a prized asset at the Post Co., which bought Newsweek in 1961.


The filing comes as speculation builds that Harman's Newsweek will form some kind of partnership with The Daily Beast, a news and opinion site owned by Barry Diller's media conglomerate, IAC/InterActiveCorp, and run by former New Yorker magazine editor Tina Brown.

In a piece commemorating the site's second anniversary on Wednesday, Brown answered the buzz about a deal with Newsweek by saying, "Yes, there have been some interesting discussions going on, as we have with potential partners large and small all the time."

Calls to The Daily Beast and Newsweek seeking further comment were not immediately returned. The Post Co. also declined to elaborate on its filing.

-------

The Daily Beast: http://www.thedailybeast.com/

Media and investigative reporter Howard Kurtz joins The Daily Beast as Washington Bureau Chief.
By Tina Brown

October 5, 2010 12:40pm
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-05/howard-kurtz-joins-the-daily-beast/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsR4

-----
New York magazine's Daily Intel blog
What Would a Tina Brown–Helmed Daily Beast–Newsweek Hybrid Look Like?
By Chris Rovzar
10/6/10 at 3:20 PM

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/10/so_what_would_a_tina_brown-hel.html

New York magazine's Daily Intel blog
Michael Kinsley Attacks the New Newsweek, and We Feel Bad About It
By Jessica Pressler
5/22/09 at 10:11 AM

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/05/michael_kinsley_hates_the_new.html

New York magazine's Daily Intel blog
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/

Friday, September 18, 2009

Obamacare Death Panels have bad news for Newsweek: Doctors will pull the plug on mag at $75 a year; Newsweek R.I.P.

Obamacare Death Panels have bad news for Newsweek:
Doctors will pull the plug on mag at $75 a year;
Newsweek R.I.P.

Well, it's not like we didn't get a well-informed
head's-up from South Beach Hoosier favorite
Michael Kinsley
about five months ago on
what was to come from the magazine side of
the Post-Newsweek family, of which Local 10
(WPLG
) is a blood-relative.

(I discussed the positive side of this family
relationship in my March 31, 2007 post
about my 1982 summer internship at
Channel 10 that fell by the wayside because
of some very silly and truly
anti-competitive
rules at the IU
Telecommunications Dept.)
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/hbs-national-moment-in-news-proves.html )


In case you already forgot or never ever
heard about Kinsley's all-too-true LIVE
autopsy on Newsweek and traditional news
magazines in general, i.e
The shot that was heard around... well,
The Beltway
and certain media-centric
zip codes in New York City
, here it is:

The New Republic

B
ackward Runs 'Newsweek'
Blah blah newsmag remake blah blah.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/backward-runs-newsweek
---------------------
Two takes on what Kinsley wrote:

New York magazine
Daily Intel

Michael Kinsley Attacks the New
Newsweek,
and
We Feel Bad About It
May 22, 2009
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/05/michael_kinsley_hates_the_new.html

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen:
Michael Kinsley, don’t be hating on Newsweek

http://trueslant.com/lisacullen/2009/05/22/michael-kinsley-dont-be-hating-on-newsweek/
--------------
As to Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham?
Very, very bright guy, obviously, but he
seems almost blind to the fact
that in the
eyes of many, including other journalists
I know in Washington and elsewhere
whose names you'd recognize, he is,
quite literally, the
placeholder for all the
journalism blandness that stretches from
coast-to-coast.

The sort of too-clever-by-half editorial
commentary -hello, Miami Herald-
on
illegal immigration that routinely takes place
in news articles, and not just on the editorial
page.

Supposed news articles where some basic
journalistic questions are never asked or
even hinted at, perhaps for fear of queering
readers about what are undoubtedly intended
by the editors to be sympathetic heart-wrenching
stories about American-born kids of illegals.

Illegal aliens who routinely ignored court orders
and ICE for years and finally got deported
back to Colombia, El Salvador or fill-in-the-blank.

Meacham is also emblematic of the very
high self-regard of many in the MSM,
as well as their cozy relationships
with
powerful corporate elites, whom they
are generally loathe to criticize by name,
even while they joke together with the
likes of a Jeff Immelt, GE's Chairman
and CEO,
about their latest appearance
on The Charlie Rose Show at the
afterparty at an Aspen Institute event
or over in Davos, hanging out with Bono..

(I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said
before in this regard, but whether in Davos
for the
World Economic Forum and chatting
with Tom Friedman, or in New York
for
some Clinton Global Initiative meeting,
any place where
Queen Rania is, by default,
almost always
THE place to be!
See http://www.queenrania.jo/ and
http://www.style.com/vogue/feature/2009_March_Queen_Rania/
and
http://www.youtube.com/QueenRania
)



As Michael Kinsley coyly notes in his excellent
New Republic essay:

In his editor's letter--one of many traditional newsmagazine features that have survived the scythe of change--Jon Meacham says, "We are not pretending to be your guide through the chaos of the Information Age," which concedes a lot of ground from the get-go. Why not at least pretend? Why else would people pick it up, let alone subscribe?
Later, he writes with disdain:

And so we progress to "Features," which seems to be longer articles on myriad subjects, many written by outsiders (Michael Bloomberg, Tina Brown…), who are prized because they bring an independent luster. Also, you don't have to give them health care. But the section's lead story is the magazine's cover story: an essay about and interview with President Obama by Meacham himself. This kind of thing was a staple of the old newsmagazine, and it follows strict rules. It always opens with an anecdote or telling detail that flaunts the magazine's access to the great, and illustrates whatever the point of the piece was supposed to be. Disappointingly, Meacham's reinvented Newsweek has not abandoned this stale formula.
Then comes a deft and well-delivered Kinsley punch to the jaw of D.C-dom.:
Another piece in the issue--I guess it's supposed to be a "reported narrative … grounded in original observation and freshly discovered fact"--is about curing autism. "It's spring in Washington," the piece begins, "and Ari Ne'eman, with his navy suit and leather briefcase on wheels, is in between his usual flurry of meetings." It's spring in Washington. That doesn't seem to qualify as either an "original observation" or a "freshly discovered fact." Nor does it have any apparent relevance to the story that follows. Could it be a "provocative (but not partisan) argument"? And what about that blue suit? I have news for Newsweek: Washington is the blue suit capital of the world. Let's give them the leather briefcase on wheels.
Killing with kindness!

The current purge of reporters across the
country for bottom-line economic reasons
is a
particularly tough pill to swallow for
many journalists
in D.C., New York and
other hipper-than-thou urban hubs,
particularly
among those who were in
J-School in the early to mid-90's,

during the golden era of reporter as
highly-paid and sought-after social
commentator.

That's because they
imagined that they'd
be the natural inheritors of the self-aggrandizing

corporate and college speaking tours of
Cokie Roberts and her husband
Steve
Roberts
, before and after their various
books came out.

The culture which so aggravated longtime
South Beach Hoosier favorite (and Asia
expert) James Fallows when he took
over
the reins at U.S. News & World Report,
that he engaged in addition-by-subtraction
by dumping Steve Roberts
to show he was
deadly serious about ending that kind of
behavior at any
magazine he was at.

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/

In fact, if you listen rather carefully when
Jon Meacham is on a TV chat show,
you might even say that it's apparent that
Meacham has fallen under the spell of the
sound of his own voice, pontificating thru
18th-century historical allusions, something
that was never true of the late Robert Novak


It's my personal belief that we need more
journos digging for facts and examples of
hypocrisy in Washington and among the
powerful, like Bob Novak, not more Jon
Meachams
drawing imprecise comparisons
to matters little remembered by most
Americans, as if he was channeling Shelby
Foote's
powerful and pithy anecdotes in
Ken Burns' masterpiece, The Civil War.

Please leave the grandiloquent American
historical allusions to George F. Will.
He's already got it covered.

In a media universe that actually made sense
and reflected current and future economic
and social realities, one of the things we'd
have in this country
is a weekly one-hour
network TV program starring Fallows or
Kinsley
-or both.



They'd one-up Charles Kuralt, John Madden
and the C-SPAN Bus by going on the road,
interviewing and interacting with some of the
dynamic people who are changing the face of
our country with their thinking, acumen and
boldness.
Despite what Congress and the president
say or do to screw with that effort.

A variation of this theme was tried with Tom's
excellent foreign policy/economic specials
a few years ago, on what was then called
the Times-Discovery Channel but is now
called ID: Investigation Discovery.
http://investigation.discovery.com/

Below, Tom's
The Other Side of Outsourcing



Hm-m-m... how about calling their series
on business and technological innovation,
The Road to Innovation.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.
LOL!

That
title has only been used a million times
over the past 20 years, based on my last
1.001 trips to the Business section of
Borders or Barnes & Noble.

Who are the leading thinkers, engineers and
managers at Google, Microsoft, Intel or
JPL, and what sorts of problems are they
routinely running into in trying to continue
their research and innovation?
What sorts of things/solutions might be
possible if those roadblocks didn't exist?

Who are the brilliant former NASA engineers
and technicians who've been so thoroughly
burned-out and exhausted by the myopic
space policy in Washington of the past
twenty years that they've left the Feds,
Cape Canaveral and Houston in the
rear-view mirror, and are now using their
natural curiosity, enthusiasm, brains and
network of smart, savvy friends, to create
their own innovative companies?

Companies that will help make the country
more economically competitive internationally,
to get the country closer towards the sort of
smart, adaptive and energy-efficient technology
that made them decide to apply to grad school
in the first place?
Curiosity.
The sort of firms that ought to be all over the
place in Central Florida if Tallahassee was
paying any kind of serious attention.

(But do you really think such non-serious
pols like Sansom, Geller, Gelber
and Crist
did any critical thinking along those lines?
C
ould their collective neglect and failure to
seize self-evident opportunities here be
any more patently obvious?)


What's going on these days in a chastened
Silicon Valley
among the smart set who
didn't put all their eggs in one basket?
What areas are successful VCs putting
their money into so they can put their money
where their mouth and hearts are -and why?

Are so-called innovative Foundation-funded
'strategies' in local communities really producing
practical and tangible results that will have
staying power after the initial round of grants
and media hoopla have run their course?
Why or why not?

That leads to an important related question.
Who are the decision-makers at the
well-known national Foundations like
Ford, MacArthur, Eli Lilly, et al,
i.e.,
the groups that bankroll the only PBS
programming that most Americans actually
watch.

What are the common characteristics of
successful applicants, whether individuals,

government agencies, cities or counties?

What do they do to prevent their personal
or institutional biases and daily exposure to
corporate cronyism from impeding their
funding decisions?

Or from clouding the necessary empirical
fact-finding that takes place afterwards to
determine whether the grantee was successful
or not?

Do they have a pronounced tendency to
only give money to those groups or individuals
who will produce most positive publicity
for the Foundation versus those who
actually need it the most?

And name some names the way that Sixty
Minutes
did in the mid-70's when it was
earning its stripes, not doing fawning celeb
profiles on over-exposed Tiger Woods.
who bores me silly.

That the particular subjects I've just
highlighted here are all ones that I'd also
like to see in a smart weekly newsmagazine
like Newsweek, but won't, is precisely
the point.
Buh-bye Newsweek.

-----------------------
Washington Post
Newsweek Changes Subscription Strategy

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
September 12, 2009

Money-losing Newsweek hopes to break even by 2011 and plans to as much as double its subscription rate over the next two years, the magazine's top executive said Friday.

Ann McDaniel, managing director of Newsweek, which is owned by The Washington Post Co., said the magazine will aim for a "smaller base of very committed subscribers and get more money from each of them," while speaking at The Post Co.'s annual shareholders meeting at the company's D.C. headquarters.

See rest of story at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091103713.html