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I like the concept of the FAIR Media Council. Have gatherings with the public and members of the media. Promote understanding. All very bloggy. Lots more regions should do this. And the 150-200 or so people who showed up all had a wonderful and bloggy feel about them. (Mostly, anyway.) Some pictures from the day, along with a quote from each, after the jump.
Read the full post 7 comments October 12th, 2006
Just returned from the FAIR Media Council’s “Connections Day,” an event on Long Island dedicated to bringing community members together with the media for good conversations, all in the name of understanding. Unfortunately, understanding was not on the mind of one of the gentlemen who shared a panel with me and three others. Thus, the discussion billed as “Blogging: The Power of Citizen Journalism” became yet another Traditional Media vs The Big Bad Bloggers debate. Sad, because the public came out to hear the media talk about co-operation and there we were defending blogging against one decidedly old school former journalist. Still, props to Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association who was on the panel and was to blame for me being on it as well. Liza Sabater, the publisher of culturekitchen.com helped the audience get a grasp on the importance of blogging. “Blogs are changing the responsibility and process of writing and reading,” Liza said. (I haven’t heard a better Blog 101 summary yet.) Prof. Norm Prusslin from Stony Brook University discussed how he’s educating students to be good media consumers. Jim Cameron, president of Cameron Communications unfortunately took the panel down the bunnyhole by decrying anonymous blogs and posters, and calling for registration and “real names” on comments without any sense of how to mandate such a process. I suggested the occasional hater is a small price to pay for 65 million bloggers voicing their opinion. (And I’ve paid that price.) Jim said: “No, it’s not.” I had written a much longer, considerably more self-righteous column about that, but I’ll let Jim summarize for himself with his own quote: “I’m in favor of free speech as long as it’s responsible,” said Jim without any sense of the inherent irony in the statement. Ask Cory what it’s like to be on a panel with me when I get all self-righteous and rant against the old guard… it looks something like this:
(Photo by Dan Shelley, who may or may not wish credit.)
21 comments October 12th, 2006
A friend called me today to tell me to watch Oprah because she was discussing “truth in America”. She was interviewing Frank Rich of The New York Times about his new book “The Greatest Story Ever Sold”. It was a very well done town hall discussion about getting Americans to think more critically about the information they consume. Then the ABC affiliate in Boston delivered a perfectly timed example of “infotainment news” by breaking in with a live FAA press conference in New York about the Cory Lidle plane crash. Yes, it was a horrible tragedy. No, it’s not breaking news. It’s not even a local Boston story! If only Oprah and Frank could have commented on it! Didn’t anyone in the newsroom check out the topic today on Oprah? This is one episode of Oprah every journalist should watch.
17 comments October 12th, 2006
The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric is now third place in the ratings. “Although she is doing a fine job, her presentation and the CBS Evening News in general is not different enough, young enough, radical enough a departure from the show before Couric to change American viewing habits,” says Paul Levinson, professor and chair of the communication and media studies department at Fordham University. Thoughts…?
21 comments October 12th, 2006
The show with the most delayed viewing, according to Nielsen’s new DVR ratings, is NBC’s The Office. The show’s ratings jump an amazing 11 percent when you count all the people who watched it within seven days of airing. (Keep in mind, DVRs account for just 9 percent of Nielsen’s sample.) Fox’s House gained 10.5 percent from DVRs. Grey’s Anatomy, 8 percent. And Lost, 5 percent. Meanwhile, TiVo’s list of the top season pass shows (shows that people have signed up to watch the entire season) begins with Grey’s, Desperate and Lost. The Office ranks 16th.
2 comments October 12th, 2006
Instead of going out and hiring consultants (like everyone else), the LA Times has tapped its own investigative unit to put together a report of ideas to increase readership, both in the newspaper and online. Code name? Manhattan Project. “We realized we had to act fast or we wouldn’t have anything to act for,” said Vernon Loeb, the paper’s California investigations editor, who helped originate the idea.
2 comments October 12th, 2006
This is no surprise to me, but an interesting factoid nonetheless. Nine of the 10 sites with the largest proportion of visitors ages 12-17 are either social networking sites or sites that offer tools to submit content to social networking sites. (Free reg. req.)
7 comments October 12th, 2006
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