Alternate Reality Advertising? I noticed this peculiar advert on this morning's commute. Seems it's part of an immersive ad campaign. Since when do gamers have enough money to buy luxury rides?
posted on Apr 21, 2005 - View this thread

More to the story? So what are the chances that the whole Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert thing is about more than partisan media manipulation?
posted on Feb 11, 2005 - View this thread

Easy ways to improve Men's Magazines. Ever notice that the content in men's magazines such as GQ and Men's Health seems a bit vapid? Perhaps they could learn a thing or two from this list of suggested additions. More sharks, less cologne ads. Sounds better already, doesn't it? Now if only they could have Stallone personally deliver the copies to my door. Looks like he could use the work anyway.
posted on Jan 28, 2005 - View this thread

Apologevents Cuban says "Please make me apologize… The FCC as Marketing Partner" and he hits on the latest network trick.
posted on Nov 17, 2004 - View this thread

Lucire the fashion website becomes the next website to go real world with a magazine in newsagents. It's not the first (see Chud which publishes Movie Insider) but they've taken the step of putting the prototype May issue online in .pdf format and are asking readers for their input. How well can they do in an already crowded market place and is it significantly different for us to care?
posted on May 31, 2004 - View this thread

Start saving for your childrens future therapy. What they learned this month is dead bodies being burnt and strung up on a bridge is ok to print on the front page of a newspaper, and watch on the news at dinner time; but you better not see any nipple, even for a half a second.
posted on Apr 3, 2004 - View this thread

Simpson stars strike for more 'D'oh!' The voices of the Simpsons are on strike for $360,000 an episode. Seems almost reasonable for such a pop culture phenomenon, but the voiceover work equates to one work day per episode.
posted on Apr 2, 2004 - View this thread

News 14 in North Carolina had an online system where people could post school closings, etc that would scroll on the screen. The postings all got reviewed before they went live, but after they’d been reviewed/approved, the system was open for the original poster to go back and change the copy, so you could essentially submit something benign, then go back and monkey with it. Screen shots of the results.
posted on Mar 9, 2004 - View this thread

Median's Relief! If you like Little Brother, you should like these three free mp3's from Median. He's in the Justus League too and he's got beats from 9th Wonder, hip hop producer of the moment right now.
posted on Feb 25, 2004 - View this thread

"The Media vs. Howard Dean." Salon (subscription or Flash ad viewing required) observes that the media have been doing everything in their power to attach negative labels to US presidential candidate Howard Dean. Will the adage that "there's no such thing as bad publicity" prevail? Meanwhile, the Internet is increasing in relevance as a news source, according to a recent survey. Which websites do you peruse for political coverage, if any?
posted on Jan 13, 2004 - View this thread

Dying for your country no longer warrants a picture in the paper. Ban on pictures of the coffins of soliders killed in Iraq.
posted on Oct 23, 2003 - View this thread

Bush orders officials to stop the leaks. News of Bush's order leaked almost immediately. And speaking of leaks, two U.S. officials are the primary sources of information about Israel's Harpoon cruise missiles which may or may not be used to attack Iran.
posted on Oct 16, 2003 - View this thread

Big FCC rollback vote this Tuesday. I know a lot of mefites are passionate about this issue and it looks like Senators Byron Dorgan (D–ND) and Trent Lott (R-MS) are doing something about it. More info, free faxes, etc at the ACLU. Read S.J. res 17 here.
posted on Sep 15, 2003 - View this thread

Future of the Net: "Information wants to be free" vs. "truth costs extra" "...a coalition that included Amazon.com, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Disney and others....spoke of "tiered" service, where consumers would be charged according to "gold, silver and bronze" levels of bandwidth use. The days where lawmakers once spoke about eradicating the "Digital Divide" in America has come full circle. Under the scenario presented by the lobbyists, people on fixed incomes would have to accept a stripped-down Internet, full of personally targeted advertising. Other users could get a price break if they receive bundled content -- news, music, games -- from one telecom or media company. Anybody interested in other "non-mainstream" news, software or higher-volume usage, could pay for the privilege. The panel's response was warm, suggesting that the industry should work this out with little federal intrusion. That approach has already been embraced by the industry-friendly Federal Communications Commission." For more, see The Center For Digital Democracy
posted on Aug 5, 2003 - View this thread

The Big Ten Media Corporations and Clear Channel Communications control most of the major media already. This includes print media, film archives, movie and television production, and the largest Internet Service and News Provider. Right now is the argument is to prevent further consolidation. But should it instead be to break up these mega-corporations instead? Should anti-trust law cover horizontal as well as vertical market ( and employee) domination?
posted on Jun 3, 2003 - View this thread

Senators seek to reverse FCC ruling A bipartisan coalition of Senators intends to overturn the FCC's latest decree ordering greater corporate media consolidation. "I'm convinced, just noodling around, that we can get a majority vote and report that out (of committee) and get some action on the floor of the Senate," Hollings told reporters. Anyone else surprised?
posted on Jun 2, 2003 - View this thread

Ok, I'm biased. I admit it. I never pass over the chance to gloat or take delight in some misfortune that befalls Rupert Murdoch or his media empire (this is, after all the man who disses the Dalai Lama.)
So it is with great and admittied delight that I announce that the Fox News Channel (which has fought for and won the right to lie to it's viewers) may be stopped from broadcasting in the UK because of it's bias (such a thing has happened before.)
~fingers crossed~
posted on May 7, 2003 - View this thread

This 'news'... it vibrates? Yes, more than six months after it appeared here on MeFi, New Scientist has just found out about the vibrating broom. I can feel my confidence in them dripping away...
posted on Apr 3, 2003 - View this thread

Not All Iraqis Dancing in the Streets. To watch the neutered embedded reporters, you would think that every Iraqi is overjoyed to see America in his or her country. But the reality seems to be quite different: "Why are you here in this country? Are you trying to take over? Are you going to take our country forever? Are the Israelis coming next? Are you here to steal our oil? When are you going to get out?"
posted on Mar 22, 2003 - View this thread

You may not read Arabic, but do the pictures speak for themselves? [warning: graphic images] One big difference between Desert Storm and the current operation is the emergence of Gulf satellite news stations such as Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV, beaming live into homes across the Arab world. Questions of access aside, it's a given that these news sources will be broadcasting materials that inflame opinion, and would never get past the 'taste and decency' rules of British or American stations. Trouble is, most westerners don't read Arabic: so, should we be bookmarking such sources for another perspective?
posted on Mar 22, 2003 - View this thread

ABC's blog "The Note" suspends operations, citing lack of resources needed for war coverage, the blog's humorous style not being "the right national tonic," and this shocker: "We suspect that the amount of strictly political news — the kind of stuff that is the meat and starch of The Note — is likely to dramatically decrease in the coming days." GUH? Aren't blogs now more important than ever? Aren't politics now more important than ever? What message is being sent by the mainstream media here? (Via the indispensable Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post.)
posted on Mar 11, 2003 - View this thread

Like Slate’s International Papers, the US Department of State collects foreign media reaction to a policy or event. Instead of blatant propagandizing (like some other State Department pages) there is simply a lot of useful translation and short descriptions of the newspapers.
posted on Mar 4, 2003 - View this thread

CNN Wins Ratings for Shuttle Coverage Despite the absence of chief anchor Aaron Brown, CNN scored a significant ratings victory over rival Fox News Channel on Saturday when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated Reading that immediately reminds me of what I hate about the news media. One can only imagine how they are salivating over the pending Iraq situation.
posted on Feb 4, 2003 - View this thread

Less advertising, more national and international news. Star Tribune editor Anders Gyllenhaal writes, "How can we improve coverage in big and small ways?"
posted on Jan 13, 2003 - View this thread

The Massey Lectures are the CBC's annual effort to give exposure to eminent minds working on 'big ideas' in the realm of social criticism. This year's lecturer, Margaret Visser, undertakes a very engaging attempt to explain and undermine fatalism. The site links to transcripts and audio files of some past lectures. Some Canadian book-learnin' for those of you who aren't sleepily digesting your Thanksgiving turkey!
posted on Nov 28, 2002 - View this thread

Want to listen to the World Series on the Web? Pay $9.95. I know, it's a sports post, so (most) everyone will hate it, but I see a disturbing trend of no more free media lunches on the Web. CNN went subscription months ago, and most other places I've gone for free video/audio are drying up. All I wanted was to listen to the game. But I can't find it anywhere. All the regular stations I listen to that carry the game are silent. And how will the Angels make a valiant comeback if I can't cheer them on? (sigh)
posted on Oct 26, 2002 - View this thread

I will not forget the liberal media who abused freedom of the press to kick our country when it was vulnerable and hurting. This is just one of the lines of text in a recent email forwarding. The piece is attributed to one Ed Evans, MGySgt., USMC (Ret.). Google turns up page after page of the exact same text. It's being plastered all over the internet, repeated hundreds of times by hundreds of people. By what means does something like this become so ubiquitous? If a person wanted to create this sort of buzz, how would they do it? How do you combat such a tidal wave of jingoistic hooey?
posted on Sep 18, 2002 - View this thread

I guess the media does have some good qualities after all. Yesterday was 9/11. Much of the media spend the day remembering what took place a year ago. A local pop radio station here in Pittsburgh B94 did something a little different. Yes they did the remembering but they also did something that went along the lines of "going about our business". They organized a little something called Operation Jumpstart Pittsburgh. They collected faxed and emailed resumes and hooked people up with companies that were hiring on the spot. It's nice to see the media doing something constructive for a change. I just wonder if anyone else might have some information about things that media outlets in other cities might have done like this.
posted on Sep 12, 2002 - View this thread

So it's come to this. I don't know about you, but in the midst of various orgies (911, West Nile and kindernappings, to name but a few), I've never hated our media more.
posted on Sep 8, 2002 - View this thread

Israeli backlash to Ted Turner's comments prompts CNN offer a series of pieces focusing on the toll Palestinian terror has taken. "Ted Turner apologized, CNN's executives were quick to disassociate themselves from him and to announce he has no influence over the content of the broadcasts, and Eason Jordan, news director for the network, hurried to fly over to Israel and offer 'compensation' - a series of reports on the victims of terrorism.". Indeed, a visit to CNN's website this morning uncovers a series of focus items reporting on Israeli casualties and victims. Is this a case of journalism caving to political and commercial interests, or is Israel effectively combating the liberal bias of Western media?
posted on Jun 24, 2002 - View this thread

Ottawa Citizen publisher fired for criticizing Chrétien.
CanWest Global keeps it real for the little guy once again by continuing to silence dissident voices. The Citizen's own coverage of the sacking is, unsurprisingly, scant on details.
posted on Jun 17, 2002 - View this thread

ClearChannelSucks.org has launched with the goal of being the "premier source for information about Clear Channel, its corporate mentality, and its practices, on the Internet." Site owern Clint Sharp alleges that Clear Channel strategically uses its monopolistic position as the largest owner of radio stations, the largest concert promoter, and largest outdoorsignage company to stifle competition and set their own tangible price tag on what it takes to have any success as an artist in the music industry.
posted on Jun 11, 2002 - View this thread

This evening 20/20 broadcast a report on the new payola.Names are named. This explains a lot about the current state of music radio. Ironically, one of those complaining the loudest was good ol' Hilary Rosen of the RIAA who are doing their damnedest to destroy internet radio, along with college and public radio, the only alternative to the institutional corruption she decries. But in this case, she's on the side of the angels, it would seem. This report is timely though and does illustrate what's wrong with concentrating media power in too few hands.
posted on May 24, 2002 - View this thread

Celebrating 40 years of Amnesty International, shine02 is a mixed-media project by various artists, and an "art initiative created to examine the aesthetics and the potential of the internet for international networking". Flash only.
posted on May 17, 2002 - View this thread

A Weblog Foundation proposal aninteresting proposal via http://aintnobaddude.blogspot.com/ to help sustain blogging as an important aspect of media and online community. Any ideas for or against this proposal?
posted on May 13, 2002 - View this thread

Media Silent on Pipe Bomber's Leftism So newsmax says The same media establishment that is quick to label right-wing extremists refuses to call admitted pipe bomber Luke John Helder a left-wing extremist.
I did a little (very little) digging, and they might have something there, more below.
posted on May 9, 2002 - View this thread

When I was a newspaper-slinger back as a youngster, I became acquainted with that odd funnypages subgenre-the soap opera comic strip(i.e. Winnie Winkle,Rex Morgan, M.D. and the pinnacle of the genre Gasoline Alley). Moving at the brisk pace of 4 panels a day, these entertainments must have seemed quaint even in their early radio days infancy, yet they gained devoted followings and Dr. Rex and Skeezix and the Gang are actually still active. While the strips are published on the web, I'm surprised that there hasn't been a whole-hog revival of the genre. Heck, Brenda Starr could be truly funky hip modern woman if the right person retooled her a bit and I imagine many web community administrators could relate to Mary Worth at times.
posted on Apr 28, 2002 - View this thread

French culture in crisis ? After the Vivendi Universal french CEO Jean-Marie Messier fired Canal+ chairman Pierre Lescure yesterday, many questions arise in France. Will Vivendi, through Canal+, continue to help French cinema the way Canal+ did in the past ? Is this the last straw in a long series of acts and declarations from Vivendi's CEO against "Franco-French cultural exception" ? Has The Man finally won in France ? What's to happen in all the other countries were Vivendi (or any of the BigCo) basically owns the culture through local companies ?
posted on Apr 17, 2002 - View this thread

WebLogs bring less traffic than major media sites. There isn't any surprize there, but what kind of traffic does each bring?

...those Google/Scientology articles I wrote didn't get nearly as many links from blogs... but they were of much broader interest to readers than the blog articles, so when a few major media sites linked to them, they got a ton of traffic.

Major media sites have to appeal to a common denominator, while smaller sites (MeFi) can focus on quality and thought provoking content. Is there any wonder there's less people interested in the specifics?
posted on Apr 5, 2002 - View this thread

Media Torrent: ""I think this is one of many weird phenomena that contributes to a national attention deficit disorder."The crawl -- that stream of info-morsels and promotional hooks that seemed so urgent right after Sept. 11, but now seems so annoying and distracting -- seems to carry Gitlin's point with it as it creeps across the screen." Is this a real problem, or is it just the old guys not hip to the kids' video world? (via i want media)
posted on Apr 1, 2002 - View this thread

E Online (via Yahoo news) just can't seem to get enough of itself. I'm all for creativity in presenting light-news pieces, but one line in this piece strikes me as over the top: "The feds launched their, um, probe into the matter after fielding dozens of viewer complaints about the salacious commercial cum fall-sweeps stunt." Did a major news organization just use a pun on the word "c*m" in one of their stories? Is this what our media has sunk to?
posted on Mar 26, 2002 - View this thread

File under "How Low Can You Get?". Las Vegas TV station dubs in sound and gunshots on a video tape showing an attempted robbery at Harrah's. Original footage had no sound so it had to be made more "dramatic".
posted on Feb 21, 2002 - View this thread

Court of Appeals Rules That the Media Belongs to Those Who Can Buy It: Today, the CoA has just declared that the 35 percent ownership cap (applicable to broadcasters who reach more than 35% of the American public) was a prohibition "capricious and contrary to the law," meaning that Viacom and Fox, who were over the limit, are now in the clear to monopolize the airwaves. What does this mean for the future of media conglomerates? Discuss the implications.
posted on Feb 19, 2002 - View this thread

Drudge clone Mens News Daily, has vowed to challenge the drudgereport in this Washington Times article. Politics set aside, with hundreds of other second rate "drudge wannabe" breaking news sites like OnlineWorldNews , Aheadnews, ultra-news, etc etc. when does it stop? How much breaking news do we really need. The news can only break so many ways, no?
posted on Feb 1, 2002 - View this thread

Al-Jazeera Severs Ties With CNN: Does it strike anyone as particularly rich that Al Jazeera, the Arab television network, decided to sever ties with CNN after CNN broadcast portions of a video showing bin Laden making his least ambiguous statements yet on al Qaeda's alleged involvement in the terrorist attacks of 9/11? [more inside...]
posted on Feb 1, 2002 - View this thread

The Best Notable Quotables of 2001 Awards by Media Research Covers a wide range of categories from 'Selected Not Elected Award for Claiming Bush Is an Illegitimate President' to 'Good Morning Morons Award.' There are certainly some classics included. (more inside)
posted on Jan 1, 2002 - View this thread

S-11 Redux: (Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse So, in the face of our media's shameless propaganda campaign, we have taken it upon ourselves to intuit what the intentions and goals of this war truly are. In what is surely a departure from our traditional NewsVideo format, GNN presents S-11 Redux: (Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse. Culled from over 20 hours of television footage recorded over a one month period and across 13 networks, S-11 Redux is a sound-bite blitzkrieg that challenges the messages we have been fed from our mainstream media and the government it serves. Be warned - this video moves quickly and will require at least two viewings to digest its full impact. You may never be able to look at the coverage of S-11 and its post-impact coverage the same way, ever again
posted on Dec 24, 2001 - View this thread

What is the future of online news. Will subscription eventually win through? Is there a viable business model that will allow independent publishers (such as Salon) to survive, or will we see further media consolidation? Where does blogging fit into this spectrum?
posted on Dec 19, 2001 - View this thread

Here Comes the Sun Beware NY Times. Watch your flanks NY liberal establishment. Lord Conrad Black to back Smarter Times Ira Stoll and co in new conservative daily paper. Will they make it? (PS. Apparently are looking for editorial staff "willing to work long hours in an entrepreneurial, start-up environment") Start spreadin' the news, these little town blues are melting away, it's up to you, New York, New York...
posted on Dec 4, 2001 - View this thread

In death, J.D. O'Neal leaves few with fond memories “Jerry Dow O’Neal II owned The Current News, a small gay magazine. [...] By last month, when J.D. O’Neal committed suicide to avoid prosecution and shame, hardly anyone in Kansas City considered him a good friend. The 37-year-old white-collar crook and gay-rights opportunist had created enemies throughout the community. [...] ‘It was important for [J.D.] to appear successful.’ [...] ‘I’ll believe he’s dead when I see the body’ ”
posted on Nov 24, 2001 - View this thread

Will pictures like this [not graphic, but disturbing] turn popular support against the bombing in Afghanistan? Or will stories like this bolster support for military action against the Taliban? What story sways you more?
posted on Oct 24, 2001 - View this thread

Is The Media's "Whining" About Access Justified? A journalist criticizes his colleagues: "The disconnect between the U.S. media and the public they purport to serve has turned into a virtual chasm in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks." What are/should be the limits on the ability of the press to obtain unfettered information in sensitive times?
posted on Oct 17, 2001 - View this thread

Will Durst: "ABC has its blue circled logo in the bottom right with red-and-white stripes shooting offscreen, and CBS has a motto: 'America on Alert.' Not all of the cable stations have official mottos but that's why I'm here. To help."
posted on Oct 4, 2001 - View this thread

Daily comic strips have started to react to the attacks. The only two I noticed in today's paper were Fox Trot and The Boondocks. Their tones are, predictably, somber. The one comic I'd expect to have something to say, Doonesbury, is still stuck on an older storyline. Have other strips referenced September 11?
posted on Sep 24, 2001 - View this thread

Networks, Movies Cutting Images of New York Skyline I don't get it. Sort of like going through your family albums and digitally editing out loved ones who passed away.
posted on Sep 15, 2001 - View this thread

Palestinian leaders try to repair image includes threats to media. Palestinian Cabinet Secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman called international news agencies and said the safety of their staff could not be guaranteed unless they withdrew the embarrassing footage of Palestinian celebration of the carnage in New York.
posted on Sep 14, 2001 - View this thread

Sorry but it's a little too late to muzzle this beast. The Palestinian Authority tries to stop press coverage of post-bombing celebrations (sorry if this has already been posted).
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

The Examiner spells it out. As a newspaper page designer (for a much smaller, tamer paper), I wonder what you all think of the San Francisco Examiner's semi-profane but heartfelt front-page headline. On one hand, it's editorializing, but on the other, it expresses what an awful lot of people are thinking. I think I like it, but I also know it'd never get printed in a lot of papers, including my own.
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

Special editions Poynter.org has begun posting pdfs of newspaper front pages from around the country. Oddly, the San Fran Examiner's special edition front isn't up. Does anyone else have a link to it? How has your local paper handled it?
posted on Sep 12, 2001 - View this thread

Farewell, eXile Russia's caustic English-language bi-weekly, The eXile, has been sold to a Dutch media company and its expat editors have been forced to resign. The magazine, which has pulled nary a punch in its quest to both inform and disgust, will apparently become just another inoffensive local guide to sports and entertainment in Moscow.
posted on Sep 1, 2001 - View this thread

Industry Standard folds. I knew this was coming, and yet it's still unbelievable. How could such a cool publication (and even cooler automated e-mails) call it quits so fast? I think the sky really is falling. And Welcome back, y'all.
posted on Aug 20, 2001 - View this thread

CNN & FOX: Birds of a feather? In an effort to improve his network's image with conservative leaders, new CNN chief Walter Isaacson huddled with House and Senate GOP leaders last week to seek advice on how to attract more right-leaning viewers to the sagging network.
posted on Aug 5, 2001 - View this thread

Serendipitous convergence of current events and "underground" marketing efforts — coincidence? Or maybe this is a better question: which will still be around in six months, the worm or the sickeningly-sweet, caffeine-laden beverage?
posted on Aug 3, 2001 - View this thread

Liberals Now Target Media Terry Anzur is not happy with reporting on the internet. She is unhappy that anybody with a website can be a reporter or a pundit.
posted on Jul 16, 2001 - View this thread

Americans less supportive of 1st amendment. Roughly four in 10 people (41%) said the media have too much freedom. Four in 10 respondents (39%) believed the First Amendment goes too far in guaranteeing rights. 71% said it was "very" or "somewhat" important for the government to hold the media in check.
posted on Jul 8, 2001 - View this thread

Webzines. Independent magazines published on the web in the same vein as "old school" printed ones. Sort of the step between a blog and a full blown Salon (as in MetaFocus?). I'm thinking about doing one, any you can recommend?
posted on Jul 6, 2001 - View this thread

Black leaders refuse to pledge allegiance to flag is an example of a story that The Washington Times blows way out of proportion. The term *black leaders* would imply that there are multitudes of African-American politicians/community leaders who are refusing to pledge allegiance to the flag. However, if you read the whole story, it turns out that only ONE person, an assembly-women from Tennessee is the focus of the whole story! Of course, the Times doesn't forget to remind the readers that she, and all who support her, are Democrats...
posted on Jun 22, 2001 - View this thread

A Society of Aliterates? Confused article in the Washington Post Style section indicts an aliterate society (one where people can read, but choose not to) for selling its soul at the going rate of 1 pic = 1000 words. Conflating "printed material" with "reading" and then with "quality", the author completely ignores what information people actually take away from different media (eg, doesn't notice that "reading" may be crappy s-f [hey, I had to give romance novels a break], while tv can be Frontline or 60 Minutes). Further, they throw in a brief screed against multimedia including highway signs. Bizarre and hypocritical, or maybe just illustrative, in that the writer completely forgoes logic and goes for scare tactics like:

You can walk through whole neighborhoods of houses in the country that do not contain books or magazines

in addition to the old stand-by of ignoring any real historical trend in reading. I want to say it's just some old crank, but can't quite, because the article was passed along by a friend earnestly worried about our aliterate society.
posted on May 14, 2001 - View this thread

Like smartertimes, but dumber - dumbertimes.com is kind of like the Onion of small independent sites that provide daily criticism of the New York Times.
posted on May 8, 2001 - View this thread

Woman's sheep killed in her living room after she blockaded them and herself indoors to stop the foot-and-mouth related culling (this link is slightly behind the news, which was following this Very Important Story minute by minute, including an Sheep Cam inside the house).
posted on May 4, 2001 - View this thread

Gag order at Indy Media lifted. Looks like the FBI wanted to get "all user connection logs" from a 48-hour period although the feds were seemingly just concerned with one or two specific postings.
posted on Apr 27, 2001 - View this thread

Foreign Media Reaction. A regular report from the Office of Research of the US State Department which summarizes opinions, official and journalistic, on hot-button issues in newspapers around the world. Currently covers the Sino-American dogfight. Incredibly thorough. A good one to set up under an Internet Explorer subscription.
posted on Apr 5, 2001 - View this thread

A Clarification -- Dave Eggers wants to expose the process, "By reprinting your correspondence to me I hope to illuminate the journalist's mind: how a writer starts by telling me he is a fan of my work, supports my company's endeavors, etc, then writes a snippety little thing full of sneering and suspicion." so he's posted ALL of the email correspondance he had with david kirkpatrick before this unflattering piece was printed... and after.
    "I think it's important that our exchange be published. It's the only remedy commensurate with the impact you enjoyed with your original piece. I want your friends and family to see it, and to say 'David, ew.'"
    Meanspirited all around, but can you blame him?
posted on Feb 22, 2001 - View this thread

"My Untold Story" - What if we threw a presidential campaign and nobody came? Ralph explains how he tried to engage the press, and why it didn't work.
posted on Jan 26, 2001 - View this thread

I was reading this article about the new breed of modern airships when I stumbled over the line "Not your grandfather's airship". That started me off thinking about the "Not your father's X" meme that's been part of the journalistic background noise for a while now. It seems to me to evoking something oedipal, a male child's revulsion of his father and his father's way of doing things. It's usually juxtaposed against technology or at least things that aren't all that old to begin with. Does anyone know who used it first? A quick search of Google reveals it in everything from "Cuba: not your father's stagnant nation" to "XML: Not your father's HTML". Anyone got any favorites?
posted on Jan 4, 2001 - View this thread

Media recount boosts Gore in Hillsborough County, FL I wish they would have recounted the whole state. Including the "undervotes."
posted on Dec 30, 2000 - View this thread

Bush receives more newspaper endorsements. Also, editors are predicting a Bush win. While I wince and grimace at the thought of that man in office, I also think the editors are deluded in thinking they have much influence over their readers' voting habits.
posted on Nov 2, 2000 - View this thread

Flutterby wonders what the difference is between those who have faith in media and those who see them as "an unending stream of barely edited press-releases."
posted on Oct 6, 2000 - View this thread

Superfluous and unnecessary. The :Cue Cat reader has insinuated itself into the very fabric of the Dallas Morning News, promising links to "expanded content" and "special promotions" by using this $50 future garage sale item. Is there a real need for bar code scanners in the average household? Or is :Cue Cat merely artificially creating a need for their services?
posted on Oct 3, 2000 - View this thread

What if they had a school shooting and no one reported it? *sigh* I watched the typical US evening news broadcasts hoping to see some coverage of this event, but there was none. I don't want to believe that the reason it went underreported was because it happened at an "inner city" school and the media has the perception that "those people kill each other all the time, what's one more?" but the small, dark, pessimistic part of myself is starting to believe I'm right.
posted on Sep 26, 2000 - View this thread

Democratizing the Mass Media -- A way to finance Metafilter without banner ads: -- "Under Baker's proposal, the government would grant every adult citizen an entitlement to direct the U.S. Treasury to allocate a specific sum of money (let's say $150 per person per year) to a non-profit communications organization, or portions thereof to organizations, of his or her choice. The allocation could work something like the current taxpayer check-off to political parties, except that non-taxpayers would be entitled to participate as well as taxpayers -- just pick-up a form at the post office or at the ballot box, fill it out, and hand it in."
posted on Sep 21, 2000 - View this thread

This piece on comic genius Jonathan Winters makes me sad.
I would have expected that this master improvisor would have come up with a more creative analysis of the current state of entertainment than trotting out the usual suspects of "freak shows" and "political correctness".

BEGIN RANDOM BLATHERING: Then again, the current media environment must be awful, if the Miss America pageant can't seem to get publicity for its Miss America Instant Celebrity Judge Contest. (One caveat: this is NOT the competition where Big Brother's Jamie won Miss Microsoft State -er, I mean Washington State) And how did the premiere of Battlebots slip below my personal radar? And what IS the All-star Newspaper all about? Can I get Dan Gillmor or Aaron Barnhart trading cards now? And why did I need PRNewswire to find out the old rock band Survivor was suing the TV show of the same name? What's going on around here?!?!? END RANDOM BLATHERING
posted on Aug 24, 2000 - View this thread

John Stossel Reprimanded but not Fired by ABC - It is not exactly new information that Stossel has a habit of distorting facts and misleading the public. However, in this case he apparently thought he could get away with fabricating two complete sets of lab results related to food safety. Willingly disseminating false health information strikes me as a serious breach of journalistic ethics. In any case, ABC thinks a slap on the wrist will suffice, and tonight Stossel is expected to make an on-air apology. Will he admit he lied or blame an intern?
posted on Aug 11, 2000 - View this thread

I approached this review expecting it to be of the "major media providers are the problem, not the solution" sort, but discovered something somewhat different: "It’s not that the medium of the modern political campaign–television advertising–failed to do justice to men of substance, but that men of substance failed to adapt to television advertising..."
posted on Aug 7, 2000 - View this thread

"Fire Bryant Gumbel for His Intolerant Remark"?? -American Family Association-- What the hell is going on with people in this country? I can't have an opinion any more? Bryant wasn't being intolerant... He simply didn't like the guy. He was uttering his opinion under his breath when he thought the microphone was off and he was off camera. (It took a lip reader to ascertain what was actually 'mumbled') Must I agree with everyone's opinion ALL the time and actually 'LIKE' everyone all the time? Or what? Do I get a 'timeout'?
posted on Jul 5, 2000 - View this thread

Sony to introduce new CD format. No, it's not DVD-Music. It's a new double-capacity CD format that Sony says "will be able to prevent illegal copying." I'm assuming the new format will require all-new hardware to read and to write. So my question is, what's the point? Won't another music format just increase consumer confusion and make them more reluctant to buy? Why come out with a 1.3GB format just as recordable DVDs, with much larger capacities, are becoming practical? Do they really expect people to buy all new hardware to support what is obviously a dead-end format?
posted on Jul 5, 2000 - View this thread

Designer-programmer-actor-model-waiter? Finally, someone giving one or more fingers to Toronto's tightarsed, outdated nouveaux-médias hiring practices. How would you like to be on call 24 hours a day as an interactive-TV manager for the Weather Network way the fork out in Mississauga? Lila Feng worship isn't enough of a payoff, kids.
posted on Jun 12, 2000 - View this thread

the age weblog [via wetlog, of course]

it's pretty obvious she's reading MeFi [and memepool] -- but not linking to them.
posted on May 25, 2000 - View this thread

Time Warner Pulls ABC Get used to this kind of thing, as mega corp. 1 takes on mega corp. 2 to control what you see.
posted on May 1, 2000 - View this thread

Crackpots brought to you by 'balance" is a piece over at the Boston Globe on the state of the media today. It focuses on the media's handling of the whole Elian G. business, but it also takes a different angle on the more general matter of being journalistically 'fair' . . . which I thought interesting too in the light of growth of online fora and web logs (and perhaps also ask-an-expert sites?) which are coming to be considered as legitimate news resources.
posted on Apr 27, 2000 - View this thread

ABC reports on Napsters usage on University Campuses.
posted on Feb 27, 2000 - View this thread

"[Model Guinevere] Van Seenus must have been a saint in a previous life, because she sure is an evil bitch in this one." Finally, mean-spirited gossip about the fashion industry. And a chance to add your own, too!
posted on Feb 19, 2000 - View this thread

Pursuitwatch.com is a typical American piece of fecal matter. It's a news service dealing totally in high speed chases. And now, one can get chase news sent directly to one's alphanumeric pager. It's a symbol of the general rise of 'dumbth'. If you don't know what dumbth is, I cover it a little in my column for the thirtieth of October. The article is really about some crazy stuff going on in Britain, but it's a good read. MattDabrowski.com is better than Pursuitwatch.com any day.
posted on Oct 29, 1999 - View this thread