Showing posts with label The New Republic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The New Republic. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Selected 2014 stories/tweets re News Media worth taking a 2nd and 3rd look at: Hyperdemocratization of news, sleepwalking journalists, elite media, news media bias, swooning White House press corps vs. stonewalling Obama, collapse of The New Republic, et al






Sharyl Attkisson - Stonewalled - My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington. 
Seasoned former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson reveals how she has been electronically surveilled while digging deep into the Obama Administration and its scandals, and offers an incisive critique of her industry and the shrinking role of investigative journalism in today’s media.
https://twitter.com/SharylAttkisson






 






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CBS News YouTube Channel: Former CBS correspondent Richard C. Hottelet dies at 97
Uploaded December 18, 2014. http://youtu.be/TgUNmijqNFM
Richard C. Hottelet on D-Day

 The first time I ever walked into the CBS News Washington office on M Street, around '91, the very first person I saw was Eric Sevareid. 
I stopped in my tracks and immediately thought of all the amazing things he'd witnessed first-hand, for both good and bad. 
And we even got a chance to talk for 5-10 minutes while he waited for his driver.
Hearing THAT voice from a few inches away was both thrilling and other-worldly. 
But even he was never held in solitary for a LONG TIME by the Gestapo like Mr. Hottelot.

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Blondinbella does it again!






























Per saturation coverage of Ray Rice story at ABC News but no follow-up to an earlier story that shocked people:










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Monday, March 7, 2011

Coincidence that three anti-Glenn Beck stories appear in one week? His show draws 300,000 more total viewers than ALL cable news competitors COMBINED

Just a coincidence that three anti-Glenn Beck news stories/columns appear in same week?

Of course, since so few American TV/print reporters, editors or producers actually read and speak passable Arabic, or are the least bit knowledgeable about the Mid-East, they can't very well write about Libya intelligently, now can they.
Which is why beyond the actual news value of what happened to and with him last week, there were so many stories and columns in the American press about Charlie Sheen, because you don't have to know anything to write or talk about him...
Everybody's an expert.

Before you read the following three stories/columns, here's something to keep in mind, since facts actually matter.

The Glenn Beck Show on Fox News Channel is drawing 300,000 more total viewers than ALL cable news competitors in the time period COMBINED.
Just saying...

If I was the news director at a local TV station in a major market in the United States and my eyeball numbers were more than the total of ALL the other local TV stations COMBINED, plus, I was also leading in the 25-54 demo to boot, and my adversaries were saying that I was in a slump, I'd take that kind of losing streak and laugh all the way to the bank.
And so would my family!
CNN would take that kind of losing streak right now at 5 p.m. Eastern in a heartbeat.
And so would MSNBC and CNBC.

But they can only dream of a such an upside-down news world now, since at 5 p.m., they're merely ants at the picnic, not the guest of honor.
They're barely noticeable unless one of them crawls on your arm or leg -and completely harmless and useless- so you just flick them away with your finger and they go buh-bye. Just saying...

Apropos of these stories, coming soon, I may soon have a blog post here on some real actor/celebrities who actually HAVE lost their hold on film audiences at the box-office, but you rarely if ever see the sort of joyful negative stories on them in the American press like the stories below on because... well, they really, really don't like Glenn Beck -or his audience.
Just ask them, they'll tell you.

Hmm-m... note to self: Their film grosses fizzling and reviews not-so-positive, have Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Anniston, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt lost their juice?

More after the links.

-------

TheWrap
Media | Books
His Ratings Fizzling, Has Glenn Beck Lost His Mojo?
March1, 2011 @ 6:59 pm
http://www.thewrap.com/media/article/behind-glenn-beck-fox-news-slumping-ratings-24967


The New Republic
Politics
The Decline of Glenn Beck What caused it?
James Downie, Reporter-Researcher
March 3, 2011, 10:59 pm
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/84662/the-decline-glenn-beck


New York Times
The Media Equation
The Fading Power of Beck’s Alarms
By David Carr
March 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/business/media/07carr.html

----

None of these pieces have mentioned the most obvious and most likely reason for the lower numbers.

Beck's TV show, which I watch everyday, usually, the 2 a.m. repeat, has been pre-empted more often than usual due to what was going on in Egypt, often for pointless -often nine-hour old- coverage of Tahrir Square in Cairo when NOTHING was happening.

Reminder: Just because you point a TV news camera at something doesn't mean it's news.

Because of those pre-emptions on the repeat show at 2 a.m., before RED EYE, I actually saw some Fox News weekend panel program I'd never seen before, which itself was a few days old and was clearly intended to run-out-the clock until 3 a.m. came around.

Additionally, there have been many more repeats since January than at about any time since Beck joined Fox News Channel.

Seems like I even recall him being sick and having surgery, though I can't recall the exact details.

Sometimes, there's no conspiracy, it's just that there's either no program to see, or the one that airs is one you've already seen twice before -I don't need to see it a third time.

I love pizza, but sometimes when I was out with friends in the D.C. area, after a movie or ballgame or whatever, sometimes when asked what I was in the mood for, I'd choose Vietnamese, unless I knew that we were near a great pizza place. If it isn't what you want the way you like it, TV, like pizza, isn't the same.

Similarly, with all the news about Tunesia, Egypt and Libya on Beck's show, why would loyal viewers who really don't care about foreign policy compared to domestic or economic issues watch something they really don't have any interest in, something that isn't their cup of tea?

I love well-played basketball, esp. top-tier college basketball, not surprisingly, considering I only went to college at a school like IU where basketball is much more than tradition but a culture.

Still, I haven't watched the NBA All-Star Game since about 1990, and haven't watched more than 20 minutes of the NBA this entire season.
It's not interesting to me since nothing matters until May.

Or, maybe those fans see a repeat or a pre-emption and finally get around to watching one of those prime-time shows they've been continually taping for weeks and STILL NOT started watching yet, so they think, today is the day I start watching 'em, otherwise I'm deleting them all.
Just saying... sometimes, lower ratings are not so mysterious.

And when you STILL have MANY more viewers than all your time-slot competitors combined, it's really absurd to talk about a SLUMP.

When the Yankees of the 1920's amd '30's actually lost a game or two in the World Series instead of sweeping their opponent in four games, were they in a slump, too?
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Thursday, October 29, 2009

Seeing positive public policy opportunities in a deserved object of ridicule

My comments follow the article.
------------
The Hill
GOP launches sarcastic 'friend czar' Facebook application
By Christina Wilkie
October 21, 2009

The GOP has unveiled a new tactic in its ongoing effort to dominate social media sites like Twitter and Facebook: a sarcastic Facebook Application that assesses a "tax" on Facebook users deemed to have more than the average number of friends.

Read the rest of the article at:

------------
If you see the trees for the forest in this story,
you'll see an opportunity...

If only I knew someone who could write computer
code so that we could make Social Media applications
that cross platforms and bundled all the info on
selected Facebook, Twitter, myspace, blogs,
websites, et al into a dynamic version of a
Google Alert, creating a forum for news and pithy,
sarcastic or trenchant comments about civic issues
of mutual concern.

Whether that's longstanding, intractable issues in
all our individual regions of Florida, or more recent
issues, like in the case of South Florida, the highly
suspect Miami Port Tunnel; the taxpayer bailout
of the Marlins Stadium and the already ballooning
costs of that rip-off; the expansion into Broward
County of I-95 tolls -Comm. Sue Gunzburger
has written me that she agrees and doesn't
approve of the plan to change the commuter
lanes into toll lanes; the Broward School Board's
entrenched culture of corruption, where members
feel emboldened enough to rip their own auditors
in public for actually bringing waste to light; the
continuing lack of proper and vigorous enforcement
of Sunshine Law violations by Florida cities,
counties and their Advisory Boards, as has become
an institutional practice in my town of Hallandale
Beach, made all the worse because the city attorney,
who draws his salary from the wallets and purses
of city taxpayers, yet just sits idly by, just winking
at everything...

You could share news, tips, first-hand observations
and photos, plus receive alerts when someone
whose past comments you deem trustworthy adds
something new about the individual issue you follow.
And it's with you wherever you go.

Plus, with individual issue applications, it puts you on
record as being AGAINST them so that like-minded
people could arrange Meet-ups once in a while to see
whether there were sufficient numbers to support more
direct citizen action, whether in the form of ballot
initiatives, PAC formation, et al, and not be dependent
on press accounts of events or rallies to determine
whether there was broad or just sporadic support
for your particular position.

No longer would you be left to ponder whether a
particular sentiment about some public policy issue
was shared by just you and a few of your friends,
something you wonder about when the civic and
public policy events you attend are often full of
articulate and very well-informed people, but the
public hearing, forum or summit doesn't receive
any press coverage at all.

For instance, to cite something I'm all too familiar
with personally, and have previousdly written about,
the Tri-county Transportation Summit I attended
on Feb. 21st in Fort Lauderdale at the Broward
Convention Center, which drew hundreds and
hundreds of smart and savvy citizens from all over
South Florida, but which received zero media
coverage afterwards, on a slow news weekend.

When everyone's an informed and empowered
watchdog, and it doesn't genuinely matter whether
a news reporter shows up or not to give your meeting
validity, it makes it infinitely harder for the the
entrenched crowd and their professional mouthpieces
and flacks to try to frame the public debate and
manipulate the media.

The press actually benefits, too, by having access to
a whole new universe of well-informed (if opinionated)
people to interview to give stories some meaningful
context, so that the Tyranny of the Usual Media
Suspects could be ended and no longer monopolize
public discourse.

For instance, to cite one glaring example, the Florida
media's continually quoting of Steve Geller regarding
almost any aspect of gambling in the state, but
conveniently neglecting to mention how much he
and his PAC have received in political contributions
from that very same industry, especially from
The Mardi Gras.

He's not an objective observer, but the press seems
unable to actually go 'cold turkey' on his quotes.
Please give him a rest.

There's a market here in Florida just waiting for someone
to fill the vacuum, as I'd happily pay a few bucks a month
to stay better-informed on the public policy issues that
I'm most interested in.
Just saying...

Meanwhile, some media folks aren't letting the bad
economy get in the way of a good idea whose time
has come.
Mediabistro's dcfishbowl, which I subscribe to,
had this post on Tuesday that caught my attention
and which I followed-up on.
--------------
dcfishbowl
Allbritton to Launch DC Metro News Website
By Matt Dornic
October 27, 2009 08:35 PM
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/online_media/allbritton_to_launch_dc_metro_news_website__141469.asp

The New Republic
The Owner of 'Politico' Is Going After the 'Post.' Again.
By Gabriel Sherman
October 27, 2009
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/the-owner-%E2%80%98politico%E2%80%99-going-after-the-%E2%80%98post%E2%80%99-again


The Albritton's family owned WJLA-TV, the ABC
affiliate in Washington, D.C. and created one of the
great tools for any Beltway news junkie, NewsChannel 8,
http://www.news8.net/, which provides in-depth
coverage of local news in the greater Washingon area:
The District, Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland.
It also re-airs all ABC News programs on weekends,
and Nightline the following morning at 10 a.m.

I've made pretty clear my strong feelings about this
area desperately needing a similar 24/7 Local News
operation here, so that context and information that
reporters actually know can actually get on the air
in something more than just small bits their alloted
time during a regular newscast.

Would've been nice to watch the myriad Marlins
Stadium hearings from home on TV with an expert
analyst in public financing, a la what Steven Brill's
Court TV used to do so well in high-profile trials.

Reminder, Monday morning is the next meeting of
the South Florida Regional Planning Council,
SFRPC,
http://www.sfrpc.com/council/agenda11-09.htm
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Saturday, August 23, 2008

2 Hillary Visits in South Florida, 3 Different Media Views; Biden anecdotes

Saturday August 23rd, 2008 2 a.m.

When I saw the three news headlines below, I thought back to those little nuggets I used to love seeing in The New Republic in the early '90's -back when they were riding the waves of so many interesting stories before anyone else in Washington- showing wildly varying headlines for the same story.

That was back when I used to read TNR cover-to-cover and would run into Ruth Shalit all the time as she made her way up TNR's masthead, yet still used her Princeton ID card to write checks at the Borders Books on 18th and L Street, N.W., where I worked in the evenings during the week after my day job.

In retrospect, as I've written here before, I think I had a bit of a crush on her, because she could turn on the wit and charm in a nano-second, and could draw you out almost against your will.

See my previous post on Ruth Shalit from South Beach Hoosier on February 17th, NBC's David Gregory's Super Tuesday brain fart; Michelle Cottle the bore; Ruth Shalit is a charmer!http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2008/02/david-gregorys-super-tuesday-brain-fart.html

Having lived in Chicago and Evanston for a few years not too long before I met Shalit, whom I'd constantly run into all over D.C., esp. between K Street and Dupont Circle, I found her 1993 TNR cover story on one-and-done Illinois Senator Carol Moseley-Braun devastatingly accurate!

Other reporters I knew in Washington, esp. those assigned to Capitol Hill, told me at the time that they marveled at the column's power, sweeping away all the senator's alibis and excuses so deliciously and completely.

Many of them were pre-disposed to like her, but they found her so un-prepared for office that it shook them up that someone like her could become a senator for a big state like Chicago.

See Shalit's interesting essay on pp. 38-43 of POLITICIANS AND ETHICS
http://www.apubb.ro/Documents/Ringsmuth/Cozic_Politicians_and_Ethics.pdf

(Since I mentioned the bookstore, I should say here publicly that by far THE friendliest media personality who was a frequent Borders customer was the late Jack Smith of ABC News, son of the legendary Howard K. Smith. He was very un-assuming and couldn't have been nicer! I was very sad at the time to hear that he'd died of pancreatic cancer, just as NFLPA head Gene Upshaw did on Wednesday. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/jpsmith.htm )

New York Times, August 21, 2008
At Rally, Finding Clinton's Aid to Obama Too Tepid
By Damien Cave
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/us/politics/22clinton.html

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, August 21, 2008
headline above newspaper masthead: Hillary Clinton fires up Democrats in South Florida
headline on story, front page of local section: Stumping for Obama, Clinton calls for unity
By Mark Hollis and Lisa Huriash
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbclinton0822xsbaug22,0,3207003.story

7th paragraph from above reads as follow: (my emphasis in red)
"Obama campaigners were looking to sway minds at Thursday's events. But in characterizing her party as steadfast for Obama, Clinton came across to some of her supporters as overly optimistic. Several said after Clinton's speeches that they know many local Democrats and independents who aren't convinced Obama has the credentials they demand in a president."

So which is it, tepid or overly optimistic?

Miami Herald, August 21, 2008 headline on page 5A: Clinton stumps for Obama in South Florida by Beth Reinhard http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/652652.html

Meanwhile, at midnight, the lead headline at the Herald's website,
http://www.miamiherald.com/ is Democrats on the verge of a sharp turn to left
http://www.miamiherald.com/509/story/654325.html

I could prove to be wrong -though I doubt it- but I'd be willing to bet that the headline in the actual newspaper will be different in a few hours.
The Herald typically only uses the word "left" in their stories or headlines about Latin America. That's the list!

By the way, pre-Neil innock, I was a Joe Biden supporter in '87, after having written a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Robert Bork confirmation hearings and being surprised to receive a note from him.
Later I received a printed copy of the hearings, which were great to re-read Bork's brilliant points, even the ones I disagreed with.

Over the years that I lived in Washington, I eventually wound up with a complete copy of all the Judiciary Committee SCOTUS nomination hearings from Bork onwards towards 2003.
That included the questionnaire they had to answer, which were fascinating reading on morning Metro rides into downtown D.C.!

To set the scene the day I left on Super Tuesday 1988, let me quote from my January 12th, 2008 South Beach Hoosier post:

http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2008/01/on-heels-of-jim-leyritz-arrest-another.html
As it happens, back in the days when he was talking and acting more like a DLC Democrat than the person he's become since then, in 1988 I defied South Florida's supposed Democratic CW (conventional wisdom) about the electability of Michael Dukakis and voted for Al Gore during the FL primary on Super Tuesday, March 8th. (Gore's senior thesis at Harvard was on "The Impact of Television on the Conduct of the Presidency.")

After voting, I promptly drove up to Washington, listening to election returns on the radio throughout the South on my drive up, which had been my game plan all along. Lots and lots of Charlotte's WBT and Nashville's flamethrower, WLAC, as well as many smaller stations reporting local races with just as much drama, intrigue and backbiting as farther up on the ballot. Lots of talk about whether Gore would be able to win in northern states!

Mostly, they were the very same radio stations I'd always listened to for American Top 40 with Casey Kasem (AT40) during its heyday, so I was a veritable walking-talking Billboard hit list by the time my drive north ended, just as I'd been on my drives down here and back from Indiana for spring break. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Top_40 and http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/index.jsp )

(jingle and lines that are always in my head on long droves by myself)

"Casey's Coast-to-Coast!"

"Hi, I'm Casey Kasem on American Top 40, coming to you on great radio stations like...

We're counting down the top hits...

Now on with the countdown!...

When Sen. Biden entered Walter Reed Hospital because of the brain aneurysms, I wrote him a letter expressing my thoughts and concerns, thanking him for his kindness months before and sent along a (new) cassette of one of my favorite and most relaxing albums, featuring lots of Gershwin, so that he could listen to it in his hospital room when nobody was around.

A while later, after he was back on the Senate floor, completely out-of-the blue, I received a wonderfully penned Thank You note from his wife, Jill, a school teacher, which was about as classy as you could possibly ever imagine, especially given the awful circumstances.
That really hit me hard.

As it will otherwise continue to occupy space in my long-term memory, I wanted to share the previously meaningless trivia that after the Biden campaign office moved out of their office over on C Street, N.E., the next tenant was the Church of Scientology.

Given the late breaking news about his selection and where Biden will be in a few hours -Springfield- where Barack Obama made his formal presidential declaration, not far from the original law office of Lincoln and Herndon, http://www.online-springfield.com/sites/lhlaw.html , it's semi-ironic to me that Biden's '88 campaign office was just 2-3 blocks north of Lincoln Park.

Over the years I was living and working in the Washington area, because of my job and my own interests, I was probably at well over one hundred Senate Judiciary or Foreign Affairs Committee hearing where Joe Biden was either the Chair or the Ranking Member, and at everyone, regardless of the topic, he was always well-prepared, voluble and funny.
The latter may prove more helpful than ever over the coming months, as I think it stands in stark contrast to Obama's self-evident thin-skin.
A sense of humor is something you have to acquire by hook or by crook if you're serious about spending any time in Washington getting tangible results for the country.

I'm still going to be for McCain in November because of the experience gap and the personality of Obama, but I have a strong feeling that David Broder's great column from 1988 on Biden's potential political future will be re-read a lot in coming days, with references to it appearing in all the usual places in Washington, print and electronic.

I have it somewhere in a folder with my small circular red, white and blue campaign button that simply says, "Joe."

I'll try to post it here in the next few days.
-----------------------------
http://www.miamiherald.com/509/story/654325.html
CAMPAIGN '08
Democrats on the verge of a sharp turn to left
Two days before their party's national convention, Democrats are more liberal than at any time in a generation.
------------------------------
As a bonus, I'll leave you all to consider this excerpt from UVA (University of Virginia) prof Larry J. Sabato's typically insightful essay from his 1991 book Feeding Frenzy, titled The Media Should Not Sustain Rumors About Politicians, which was selected for inclusion in the aforementioned POLITICIANS AND ETHICS.
It seems even more timely given the news of a few hours ago.

The 1988 Presidential Campaign
• When Michael Dukakis's campaign sent out the "attack video" that torpedoed Joseph Biden's candidacy, Richard Gephardt at first received the blame.
Private speculation about the identity of the perpetrator was unavoidable, but when the conventional wisdom fingered Gephardt and this conclusion seeped into print—as it did almost everywhere—the Missouri congressman's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination was dealt a body blow. Gephardt's 1988 press secretary, Don Foley, offered this assessment:
It did us a lot of damage. Up until that time Dick Gephardt was viewed by most people as someone who would not engage in dirty campaigning, and he had a Boy Scout image. But this incident painted him as somebody who was a bit overanxious for the prize;
in the eyes of a lot of people this took the shine off of the Gephardt aura.

Even when Dukakis's staff was revealed to be behind Biden's troubles, the tarnish seemed to stick to Gephardt's image.

See also Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball, http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/
which I've been subscribing to and reading -and found invaluable- for years since my days living in the Washington area.
And it's FREE.
It's conveniently on the Hallandale Beach Blog link list, too, n'est-ce que pas?
Oui!

"A comprehensive Web site run by the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball features analyses of presidential elections, Senate, House and gubernatorial races."
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