Posted on 06/23/2008 4:37:07 AM PDT by abb
WHEN the NBC News host Tim Russert died on June 13, NBC tried to hold back the news from going public for more than an hour to notify his family vacationing in Italy and presumably to prepare for what became six hours of coverage on its cable news outlet, MSNBC.
And King Canute, ancient legend has it, tried to hold back the tide.
Mr. Russert collapsed from a heart attack in NBC’s Washington newsroom around 1:40 p.m.; he was treated there and then taken to a hospital, arriving at 2:23 and being pronounced dead shortly thereafter, according to press accounts. The network, in the voice of its respected former anchor, Tom Brokaw, announced the news at 3:39.
Long before Mr. Russert’s death was reported on air, however, it was flashing across the Internet via the text-messaging service Twitter and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
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The lesson seems to be this: as long as there is news, people will try to share it. And new technology promises to turn the process into a tide that can swallow us up, good intentions and all.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"Network evening newscasts will go dark after the '08 elections and their news divisions disbanded."
ping
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/business/media/23cannes.html?ref=business
Ad Leaders See Web’s Threat and Promise
By ERIC PFANNER
CANNES, France — The growing advertising ambitions of technology powerhouses like Google and Microsoft are creating alarm in the executive suites of ad agencies.
At an annual gathering here, executives harshly criticized Google’s recent agreement to place ads next to Yahoo search results. The move could strengthen Google’s dominance over the most lucrative portion of the fast-growing online advertising field.
Ad executives worry that Google and Microsoft, which is moving to bolster its capabilities in search and other areas of online advertising, will not stop there. They fear that the companies want to extend their reach into traditional advertising — transforming, as they see it, a business built on creativity to one controlled by the sterile algorithms of computer programmers.
Google “clearly wants to replace the advertising industry in its totality,” said Cindy Gallop, a former chief executive of the New York office of the ad agency BBH. She added, however, that she thought Google would be “fundamentally undermined” by what she saw as its antipathy toward traditional advertising.
snip
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/business/media/23drill.html?ref=business
More Time Spent With Online Videos
By ALEX MINDLIN
Compared with previous years, the number of Internet users who watched videos on YouTube and other Web sites has risen only slightly. The overall number crept to about 135 million in April from 132 million in May 2007, according to comScore, an online measurement firm.
But each of those users is watching far more video than before. ComScore reported that the average viewer watched 228 minutes of video in April, compared with 158 minutes in May 2007. One reason is that the videos people watch are becoming longer — the average viewer spent about 17 seconds more per video in April than in May 2007 — but most of the rise came from a spike in the number of videos that each person watched.
“It’s no longer that people just get sent a link by one of their friends,” said Andrew Lipsman, a senior analyst at comScore. “Now they actively seek things out, ‘I just saw this on TV, and I’m going to find it online.’ I think video is being seen more and more as an extension of search.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/business/media/23paper.html?ref=business
Papers Facing Worst Year for Ad Revenue
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
For newspapers, the news has swiftly gone from bad to worse. This year is taking shape as their worst on record, with a double-digit drop in advertising revenue, raising serious questions about the survival of some papers and the solvency of their parent companies.
Ad revenue, the primary source of newspaper income, began sliding two years ago, and as hiring freezes turned to buyouts and then to layoffs, the decline has only accelerated.
On top of long-term changes in the industry, the weak economy is also hurting ad sales, especially in Florida and California, where the severe contraction of the housing markets has cut deeply into real estate ads. Executives at the Hearst Corporation say that one of their biggest papers, The San Francisco Chronicle, is losing $1 million a week.
Over all, ad revenue fell almost 8 percent last year. This year, it is running about 12 percent below that dismal performance, and company reports issued last week suggested a 14 percent to 15 percent decline in May.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/business/media/23veoh.html?ref=business
ABC Moves to Expand Its Reach on Video Web Sites
By BRAD STONE
SAN FRANCISCO — ABC, the stingiest of the major television networks when it comes to syndicating its programs across the Web, is loosening up a little.
The network, owned by the Walt Disney Company, is expected to announce on Monday that full episodes of prime time shows like “Lost,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Ugly Betty,” along with short clips and game highlights from the cable network ESPN, will be accessible through the independent video site Veoh.com.
Like YouTube, Veoh features short, user-submitted video clips. But lately it has also mixed in material from large media companies like CBS, Viacom’s MTV Networks and USA Network. Veoh Networks, based in Los Angeles, is backed by the former Disney chief executive Michael D. Eisner, along with other private investors.
The deal with Veoh is ABC’s second agreement to stream free, advertising-supported shows on a Web site other than its own or its broadcast affiliates’. Last fall, it struck a similar deal with AOL. Though it is not disclosing financial arrangements of the Veoh deal, ABC said it was paying Veoh for the traffic driven to its programs and commercials, which ensures Veoh will heavily promote ABC’s offerings on its home page.
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Pathetic.
The real question revealed in the article is what else have they “held back” from the public?
So let it be said. So let it be done.
Their monopoly of what the public learns, and manipulation of it, is coming to an end...hopefully, in time.
Back in the mid 90s I attended a software conference where the keynote speaker was a computer science professor from MIT. He talked about lots of things, but one thing was the web, and its potential for upheaval (my word) on a grand scale. He divided the web into three periods: B2B, B2P and P2P. I think we are well into the third period now. That’s Peer-to-Peer. Sites like this are a good example. The ability for us common folks to share information without relying on traditional information-peddling agencies is a huge leap forward, both socially and economically. If some business entities, ie The Raleigh News & Observer, get left in the dust, that’s too damn bad.
This is a twofer, dinosaur newspapers, and dinosaur ad agencies. Who says everything is going to hell?
Yes, and the ability for us common-folk to share bogus information as fact, without any form of oversight, is also a huge leap forward. We will have more and more groups of people that will only listen to what they want to hear, whether true or not, and this will result in less people knowing what really happens, then ever before.
We report, you decide...what is true or not.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1117172.html
Next Monday, a new page
N&O will get you up to speed on the week that’s coming
In 1966, the Mamas and the Papas had a No. 1 hit with the song “Monday, Monday.” It included the line, “Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be.”
Forty-two years later, The News & Observer hopes to rectify that lapse.
Starting June 30, Monday’s front page will focus more on what’s going to happen than what has happened. It will look at what’s coming in politics, government, business, sports and culture. In place of the news summary on the left side of the page will be a staff-written news forecast. Stories will be shorter, some holding to the front page.
Financial pressures have put a new emphasis on coverage that uses less space. The Monday A section, for instance, will lose two pages, including the Monday op-ed page. But necessity can spur improvement. Next Monday, we hope you’ll agree.
“Starting June 30, Monday’s front page will focus more on what’s going to happen than what has happened.”
Translation: We’ll just make it up from now on.
To whom do you propose this 'oversight' authority be granted?
I don’t, that’s why I don’t think it’s a good idea. At least now, when a national news agency, or other form of big corporate media says something questionable, all sides get to see it and challenge it. When you have stuff only on the internet and accessible to only those that want to see it, the chance of having something challenged, is greatly reduced.
Respected? By whom?
Interesting, very interesting. Your statement begs the question, why is it that when a FReeper makes a statement that is above accepted 5th grade knowledge level, that in many instances someone will immediately challenge and request a LINK to a reliable source?
How many of us are willing to accept any statement or claim by any anonymous person as fact and make decisions accordingly? Is everyone willing to accept information from unknown sources without any accountability?
Perhaps some of you are, but then, what is to be expected?
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=127893
Th-Th-Th-That’s All, Folks! No More Talk of Media End-Times
Yeah, the Sky Is Falling. But It’s Time to Stop Mourning the Demise of the Golden Age of Easy Media Profits
By Simon Dumenco
Published: June 23, 2008
In Medialand, the sky is falling, the sky is falling! No, really, it’s totally falling, for real. Every last bit of it — the sun, the stars, the clouds, the rainbows. And somebody (Google, I think) has even made off with the pots of gold that used to anchor those rainbows.
We’ve been getting the news, in dribs and drabs, about the disintegration of traditional media models for how many years now?
The chorus of death rattles — all that gruesome gurgling and gasping! — is getting to me. So I propose a moratorium: Let’s stop obsessing about the lost golden age of easy media profits and just get on with inventing the media future (which will, let’s face it, involve lower margins for just about everybody — except Google!). I’ll go first. I’m going to do my best, from now on, to stop writing about any of the following Top 10 Media Death Memes. Wish me luck.
The end of Madison Avenue hegemony. Thanks, Sergey and Larry! (By the way, did you realize the 10-year anniversary of Google is this September? That’s right, 10 years ago today, there was no Google Inc. AMC should make a “Mad Men” spinoff about how sexy and awesome things were in the summer of 1998!)
The end of (duh) newspapers. Honestly, I can barely stand to read Jim Romenesko’s journalism-industry blog anymore because it’s like reading the obits.
Actually, the end of all print. Tip of the hat (of course) to Romenesko for giving big play to Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer’s pronouncement (to The Washington Post) that “there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.”
The end of the album. The iPod forever trashed our musical attention spans, and no matter how much full-length album auteurs such as Radiohead expect that we’ll listen to their Complete Works start to finish, life has become one big random mix tape.
The end of the rock star. Nobody will ever again sell 100 million copies of a record (like Michael Jackson did with “Thriller”) or even 25 million (like Nirvana did with “Nevermind”). Ever. Ever ever! Rapper Lil Wayne sells a measly million records in a week and there’s practically dancing in the (record-label) suites. With easy money no longer propping up rock-star lifestyles, what will we be left with? More multimedia moguls like Kanye West, for whom music making is just one part of the equation.
The end of broadcast TV. In the future, everybody gets their own on-demand, internet-delivered viewing experience with custom-tailored ad insertions (for when they’re not watching the “American Idol” finale on Fox).
The end of media civility. Thanks, apparently, to bloggers. And blog commenters. And bad parenting.
The end of journalism in general. Seriously, who’s gonna bankroll the bulk of it once the newspaper industry collapses and network TV throws in the towel on the evening newscast? (Watch for CBS to go first, after Katie Couric’s successor also sinks in the ratings.)
The end of objectivity. With the death of journalism and the rise of millions of pro and semi-pro opinionists on the web, in the future every media person will be an insufferable partisan.
The end of paid content, period. Wired Editor in Chief Chris “The Long Tail” Anderson has a book in the works that will expand on his recent cover story, “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business.” (Basically, nobody’s going to pay for content anymore, so you have to give it away and figure out how to merchandise and monetize everything that surrounds the content.)
Cue chorus of the Smiths’ “Shoplifters of the World Unite.”
I agree with you about the ability to share bogus info., but the media certainly wasn’t honest before the internet. I grew up thinking Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, etc. were honestly giving us the news, only later to find out they fed us only their own agenda. Peter Arnett was an extremely dishonest reporter, especially in his reports on the Vietnam War. Where was the oversight?
Some people want to know what is going on in order to shape their thinking- some already have set ideas on how things are and only want to know things that will support what they already think. It has always been this way.
I think the internet just allows us to see the different groups of people up close and see how they think about things. I don’t think it is changing human nature. When I want to know something I try very hard to find reliable sources- and some will accept the first source they come to or only sources that match their agenda.
Respected? By whom?
LOFL... By the "same people" who give themselves "awards," for the being the champions of truth and guardians of our democracy, or so they think...the MSM
The only reason Jack F Kennedy did not get tainted as Bill Clinton (screwing everything in sight), is because the media "decided" that we the public, did not "need to know that."
King Canute (or Knute) did not try to hold back the tide. He did it to show his sycophantic courtiers that he was not so powerful.
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