The trending story here at Living in a Media World is the rapid rate at which social media are becoming a leading source of real news for people.
We saw this in January with the rapid spread of the news about the Haitian earthquake spreading by Facebook and Twitter, not only among individuals, but also through news organizations.
Before that it was news from the election protests out of Iran and from the 2008 terror attacks from Mumbai. These are all stories where the news itself was flowing via social media, not just links to the legacy (MSM) media.
But this weekend the story of social media as a source of news became personal for me. A source of community journalism.
The news of the earthquake in Chile on Saturday hit my family with a shock. Benny, one of my eldest's best friends, is on a Rotary student exchange to Chile right now, and his host city is about 60 miles or so from the epicenter of the quake. To make matters worse, his mother was visiting him. All of Benny's friend's started posting "Tell us you are alive" messages to his Facebook page. All of his dad's friends (myself included) started posting "Tell us Benny and Roz are ok" messages to his Facebook page.
Benny's dad quickly got the word out that he had heard nothing, but was assuming that meant everyone was ok. He also told us to keep watching Facebook for updates. Later in the day, he announced that Benny and his mom were safe, traveling about 500 miles from where the quake had happened. It was an enormous relief to us all.
I've been writing for a couple of years about how important social media are as a source of breaking news. I've joked about how all the news I need I can get from Facebook. But this time I mean it - Social media are great sources of news when you want it to be about your own community, your own group of people you care about. And this is something all news media, including community media, really need to understand.
Today would have been Johnny Cash's 78th birthday. Fans are being urged to wear black in his honor. Are you wearing black today? I am.
It would be impossible to to talk about Cash's entire career, but let me just mention the brilliant American recordings he put out with producer Rick Rubin in the later days of his career. Here's a video of what may be his greatest recording ever, a cover of Trent Reznor's Hurt. (As a side note, I've owned a copy of the song for some time but just saw the video for the first time today.)
Earlier this week we looked at discussion of who were the top journalists from the right or left. Here are a couple of more readings on ideology and journalism:
Ana Marie Cox Talks About Reporting With a Point of View
Ana Marie Cox is one of my favorite progressive reporters/commentators because she comes at it with a real appreciation for mid-country conservatism. I think much of the lib/con conflict could better be framed as a central-states-rural/costal-states-urban conflict.
(As a side note, I was really offended as a Midwesterner by NYT columnist Gail Collins who recently disparaged North Dakota for getting two senators even though it has a tiny population. That sort of patronizing attitude towards the central states explains a lot of the charges leveled against the "media elite." Her problem isn't that she's liberal (though she is), her problem is that she is an urban journalist with no appreciation for the rural United States, something many urban conservatives share.)
Tony Rogers- Why Is Investigative Journalism Liberal?
Blogger Tony Rogers recently interviewed my friend and conservative journalist Danny Glover. In the interview they discuss why investigative journalism skews liberal and what conservative journalists need to do about it.
By and large, the two of them make a number of good points, especially those related to the reformist attitude that informs much of investigative reporting. Rogers looks at the roots of contemporary investigative reporting in the Washington Post's Watergate investigation. And he correctly notes that there are liberal investigative blogs, such as TPMuckraker; while conservative blogs skew more towards commentary.
But Glover argues that investigative journalism tends to have a pro-government bias -- i.e. government is the solution to our problems. Maybe. But I have a hard time seeing how bringing down President Nixon can be seen as pro-government. Or the investigation of President Clinton's sexual misconduct by Michael Isikof of Newsweek.
I personally think there is more of a pro-scandal bias going on here. But, as I said, I think there's a lot of value in this article - especially in the call for good quality investigative journalism of all flavors.
In my commentary class, we're starting work on column writing this week. Here are some links to columnists of various stripes from my favorite paper, The Washington Post:
Journalism and Ideology
Regular readers of this blog know that I'm not a big believer in there being any unified bias or political orientation to American journalism beyond the basic journalistic values outlined by Herbert Gans in his non-ideological book Deciding What's News. (Most books on media bias start with a premise that it exists and then sets out to prove it. Gans looked at what was being reported, and then tried to extrapolate the values behind that reporting. Much more illuminating.)
But this last week there's been a lot of talk being generated about a couple of lists published through Tina Brown's news/commentary site The Daily Beast by Tunku Varadarajan. First came a list of the top 25 conservative journalists, followed by a list of the top 25 liberal journalists. Number one on the conservative list? Paul Gigot, editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal. Number one on the liberal list? Daily Show host Jon Stewart. Fascinating that the top journalist from the right is traditional "mainstream" media and the top journalist from the left is a cable television comedy show host. And this is a list created by a conservative thinker -- Varadarajan is a former assistant managing editor for the Wall Street Journal and a research fellow for the conservative Hoover Institution.
As I said, there's been a lot of talk online generated by these lists. The first objection is that most of the folks on both lists are opinion journalists - editorial page editors, bloggers, TV/radio talk show hosts. In some cases, they are people most journalists wouldn't even consider to be journalists.
The left has complained that there are many people who are genuine lefty journalists who didn't show up anywhere on the list - Seymour Hersh, Jane Mayer, Jeff Sharlet, and Amy Goodman, to list a few mentioned whom I would agree strongly with. There have also been complaints from the left that Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt was number three on the list of liberal journalists. because many lefties view Hiatt as a neocon, not a liberal (at least when it comes to foreign policy).
On the right, there have been complaints that there is too much Wall Street Journal on the list (wonder how that happened?), complaints about talk radio hosts being on the list (even Rush Limbaugh says he shouldn't be on the list because he has too good of a reputation to have it sullied by being called a journalist.) And much like the left's objection to Hiatt, righties say that number seven David Brooks of the NY Times is a conservative in name only. On the other hand, noted conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer didn't make the list.
Esquire Profile of Roger Ebert Movie critic Roger Ebert became one of the first big name movie reviewers with his long run on first public television and later on syndicated television. But in recent years he's been restricted to writing rather than speaking when he lost his jaw, his ability to eat, and his ability to speak following cancer surgery.
Esquire's Chris Jones, who wrote a brilliant book about the astronauts stranded on the space station following the Columbia accident, profiles Ebert. And in a really interesting twist, Ebert, on his blog, tells how he feels about the article. What makes this particularly interesting is that Ebert wrote for Esquire back in the 1970s.
Are Actors Doing Motion Capture Really Acting?
In other words, why didn't anyone get an acting nomination for Avatar. Not to be cruel, but it could be because no one deserved one. But the question is serious: Are actors who don motion capture suits and have animation layered on top of them still live actors? This is going to be a big issue in years to come.
Mystery Writer Dick Francis Remembered I never could have made it through commuting from Flagstaff to Phoenix, AZ to earn my doctorate without Dick Francis books on tape. The jockey turned novelist wrote dozens of wonderful horse-racing based mysteries. He died this week at age 89. (Washington Post)
Olympic Ads Boost Brands
NBC commissioned a report from Google that shows a big spike in searches for brands featured during the Olympics . (Ad Week)
Super Bowl Blog-Off: Vote For Your Favorite
My blogging students were all asked to write a blog entry about the recent Super Bowl, and you get to pick your favorites. Read them all, then cast your vote for your three favorites here. One vote per person, anyone can vote, deadline is Sunday, Feb. 21, 11:45 p.m.
Shouldn't Adding Competition to the eBook Field Lower the Price of Electronic Books?
You would think so. But Amazon has been dominating the eBook field for the last couple of years and dictating eBook prices to publishers. Now with Apple's iPad coming on the market, publishers are feeling that they have the option of fighting what they consider to be Amazon's artificially low prices.
How Are Toyota Dealers Responding To Negative Stories on ABC Television? Southeast Toyota dealers are pulling their ads from ABC local affiliates in protest of "excessive stories on the Toyota issues." Are they trying to influence ABC's coverage of the story or just protecting their own self interest? Discuss.
What Does MTV Stand For? Not music, apparently. The words "Music Television" have been taken off the network's logo for the first time in 30 years. Of course, as the LA Times points out, MTV is more about cheesy reality shows these days than music videos.
Super Bowl Commercials 2010 Part III - Commercials That Worked For all the lousy, offensive, ineffective commercials out there, there were also those that did a good job of appealing to audience members, improving brand image, or moving consumers to action. (Or maybe even all three!) Here's a discussion of those special few:
My Favorites
CBS David Letterman Spot
David Letterman's 15-second promo featuring Oprah Winfrey and Jay Leno was brief, funny, and an attention getter. What more could you ask for. Reportedly Letterman wrote the spot himself. No surprise there - good concept and good writing leads to good commercial! Letterman says he wanted to do the off-beat promo because "it was funny."
VW PunchDub Finds Nostalgia, Fun, and Brand Image
Volkswagen revived the old kids game of punchbuggy in their Super Bowl ad, reminding us of our childhood, our love of Volkswagens, and of the brand itself. And unless you are offended by Stevie Wonder doing a blind joke, it was in good taste.
And My Favorite (Along With Many Other Judges) - Google's Romance It stands out from all the rest of the ads with virtually no talk and no people. It tells a complete romance story in under 60 seconds with a beginning, middle and end. Just a beautiful ad. If you haven't seen it, watch it now.
So Enough About Feelings.... Whose Ads Worked?
Nielsen rated the commercials in multiple ways - which had the most viewership and which had the most measurable effect:
Most Watched Commercials
And given that this Super Bowl had the biggest American TV viewership of all time, these ads also had the biggest viewership of any commercials. And the winner is... A Doritos commercial???
NYT's Stuart Elliot - Nostalgia Sells
NYT advertising columnist Stuart Elliot argues that nostalgia was the big winner with commercials from Sunday, with Betty White, Abe Vigoda, Stevie Wonder, Chevy Chas & Beverly D'Angelo, Charles Barkley, Cheap Trick, Kiss, and Sock Monkey.
Super Bowl Commercials 2010 Part II - Commercials That Probably Weren't Worth $3 Million Per 30 Seconds We know that Super Bowl commercials need to be edgy to gain traction, and even crude, offensive ads can be effective. But crude and offensive doesn't guarantee success, and it may not help your brand. Here's a look at some of Sunday's less wonderful ads. (BTW, I'm not going to bother mentioning the GoDaddy ads that are as deliberately tasteless as possible.)
E-Trade Babies Should Not Have Sex Lives
I saw numerous tweets complaining about how creepy the E-Trade babies were this time out, especially those that dealt with implications of their sex lives. Which is a shame because the one that started the series about creepy party clowns was brilliant.
Does Misogyny Sell Product to He-Man Women Haters?
A lot of ads during the Super Bowl implied (implied, nothing -- screamed is more like it) that men in committed relationships with women were being emasculated, and the only way they could reclaim their manhood was by buying something. A few of these ads were pretty clever, most of them weren't. Here are some examples:
Super Bowl Commercials 2010 Part I - Tim Tebow, IMC, and the Focus on the Family Commercial. It was not a brilliant year for Super Bowl commercials. Few, if any, stood out in viewer memory. Ad critic Bob Garfield points out that even the ever-reliable Anheuser-Busch beer ads were unexceptional. But that doesn't mean there weren't any interesting commercials out there. So, for the next couple of days we're going to be looking at what was aired during the biggest TV commercial event of the year.
Most of the attention pre-game was placed on the Focus on the Family pro-life/anti-abortion ads staring football standout Tim Tebow and his mother. Actually, all the PL/AA part of the ads was... not in the ads.
Watch the ads and then think about how you would react if you had heard nothing about them in advance.... Would you really know these were PL/AA ads?
No, I didn't think so.
What you really had was a bit of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) with the Super Bowl ad buy being used as a way of generating attention for Focus on the Family's message. In this case, the unstated message is that Tim Tebow and his mother are both glad mom didn't abort a dangerous pregnancy.
But the overall technique was pretty similar to that used by Breathe Right or Denny's. Buying an ad for the Super Bowl if you are not one of the regulars draws attention to you. Media outlets start covering your ad and your organization. Other organizations start talking about you. You engage in PR and promotion to draw attention to your brand/organization. Use the attention and your ad to drive traffic to your web site where you provide a more well-developed message. Good, solid IMC.
By and large, Super Bowl broadcasters have not allowed advocacy/issue ads during the game. For example, back in 2004, CBS refused an ad from the United Church of Christ welcoming gay church members. (Here's a sample of UCC ads that have been rejected by the networks at other times.) But in this case CBS reportedly worked with Focus on the Family for several months in scripting this ad. The network also told journalists that it had "moderated its stand" on advocacy ads aired during the Super Bowl. That may mean that the network can't afford to turn away paying customers any more.
At any rate, here are two versions of the Tebow Focus on the Family ads.
We Need a Cure!
Casey Johnson died of diabetes-related complications.
Is loving ESPN 360 and Sirius Sports.
This new digital media thing is cool.
(NOTE: No link here; I was just grooving on being able to watch the WVU/Pitt basketball game last night on the ESPN 360 streaming Internet video, and listen to it in my car using Sirius satellite radio. I see today that ESPN and Microsoft may be partnering to deliver an ESPN 360-like service through the X-Box. Who needs cable?)
Should Africa Be Building SMS or Mobile Internet Services?
How can we find the answers when we don't even know the questions? Seriously, this is a big question - Which does Africa need more? How do you provide communication infrastructure to a continent with very little of it. You don't get the choice of saying - "Just build it all!" Found this story by following the Twitter feed of Indian social media expert Gaurav Mishra.
What's Going On With LOST This Season?
If anyone could figure this one out, LOST wouldn't be LOST. But if you scroll down on this link, you'll find links to many stories about the future of LOST.
Publishers were not happy about this, and once the Apple iPad was announced with flexible pricing e-book downloads (up to $14.99 a book) publishers saw this as a chance to fight back against Amazon. The battle went so far as to all Macmillan titles being removed from Amazon. Not just from the Kindle but from the whole store. Now Amazon is giving in to offering flexible pricing on books, and portrays the big book publishers as evil monopolies.
Now keep in mind that I am an author, my wife is an author, and my mother-in-law is an author. I do have a dog in this fight. But it seems seems to me that Amazon had the monopoly position here and was pricing books so to force people to go to their store.... Eventually the market will determine what people will pay for electronic books. And publishers will have to price these books competitively if they want to sell them to consumers.
On the other hand, it does seem a bit odd to have competition lead to higher prices rather than lower prices...
On Wednesday, Apple announced its new tablet computer, the iPad. No doubt about it, it is incredibly cool. It’s Apple, after all. The bottom-of-the-line version with insufficient RAM is not too expensive, but equipped the way you'll want it, it will not be cheap. It’s Apple, after all. It had been the target of endless speculation for the last couple of weeks because the company kept a very tight lid on it. It’s Apple, after all.
Following the announcement, my Twitter feed was full of tweets proclaiming, "The iPad is really cool, really nice, but it isn't the second coming."
To me, however, the important thing to remember is that all media technology has a hardware and a software component. I think what will make the iPad stand out is not just its great hardware but the the infrastructure behind it to make distributing printed material like newspapers, magazines and books over the Internet profitable. It’s Apple, after all.
(If you haven’t seen Wired’s thoughts on this topic, you should do so. This article got me thinking about this, and helped me coalesce my own thoughts on the topic.)
To follow what Apple is up to here, set the wayback machine for 2001 with the introduction of the iPod. The iPod was an incredibly cool piece of hardware (It’s Apple, after all…), but as cool as it was, I think it was iTunes that made the device stand out. This was a comprehensive program that would let you scan in your existing music, incorporate your “shared” music, and buy legal downloads, all with a consistent environment to work in. What’s more, while you can certainly make purchases though iTunes with a credit card, you can buy iTunes cards with $15 - $100 of value on them at almost any store. This opens up the online transactions to everyone, not just people with plastic.
Then in 2005, Apple started selling a new iPod that could play video, and the company started selling single episodes of current TV shows for $1.99 each. At the time I wrote:
Journalist Ken Auletta, writing in his book Three Blind Mice wrote that the television networks were facing an earthquake in slow motion in the late 1980s. There was the rise of cable, the growth of VCRs, the growth of new broadcast networks, and audience members who started to think that they ought to be able to control what they watched and when they watched it.
That earthquake continue rattling on through the 90s and Y2Ks with the growth of digital cable, satellite television, and the digital video recorder.
And then on Wednesday, Oct. 12, Apple set off what may turn out to be one of the biggest tremors in this ongoing quake. Apple announced a new version of the iPod music player that would now handle video files as well as music. All well and good, you say. We've had cool digital video players before. But the big news was that Apple was partnering with Disney to sell ABC's top rated television shows through the iTunes music store. These programs, including Lost and Desperate Housewives, will be available the day after they air on the network and will cost $1.95. They will come without commercials. So, for $1.95 you can download a legal copy of your favorite show to watch on either your computer or your iPod.
What makes this so revolutionary is that it is changing the entire economic framework for television programming. Instead of selling audiences to advertisers, Apple is selling programs to consumers, who will pay directly for the programming.
As I told my freshmen in class this morning, all mass media have both a hardware and a software component. There's been cool video hardware before (though you would be hard pressed to find anything cooler than an iPod). But there has not been a truly revolutionary new source of programming for these devices that can be used by ordinary people. The fact that Disney is willing to sell their top television titles the day after they air on broadcast in a form that you can keep and replay as often as you want is truly a major change in the media world.
Then, in January 2007, Apple announced its iPhone, which answered the question of "What would a truly mobile, use it anywhere, Internet enabled computer look like?" Because if you think about it, the least innovative part of the iPhone is the phone part of it. What makes the iPhone special is that it is such a great mobile media device. At the time I wrote:
Apple announced it's new iPhone on Wednesday, and in typical Apple fashion it is absolutely too cool for words. As the NYT's David Pogue puts it, the iPhone is "not so much a smartphone as something out of Minority Report."
In typical Apple fashion, the iPhone is already becoming a pop culture icon, just the way the iMac and iPod did before it.
In typical Apple fashion, the iPhone is redefining what we think a cell phone should be able to do. It's not enough for it to have a lame "mobile" browser. It's got to have a fully functional standard browser. It's not enough for it to have voice mail, it's got to have a voice mail system that looks just like E-mail. It's not enough to be able to show movies, it's got to have widescreen video. It needs to be smart enough to turn off the power hungry screen when you put it up to your face to talk.
In typical Apple fashion, it has a my-way-or-the-highway idiosyncratic interface that says however Steve Jobs think you should use it is the only way you should use it because he's cooler than you are.
In typical Apple fashion, the company neglected to clear all its trademark issues in advance, but instead just assumes that "Hey, we're Apple, and we'll clear up all our problems because we're too cool not to have what we want."
In short, it is a typical, mind blowing, infuriating Apple product. I'm glad I've got a new PDA that I won't be ready to replace for a couple of years, which gives the technology the time to catch up to Apple's brilliant vision.
BTW, Apple is no longer Apple Computer. Just Apple.
So where does the new iPad fit in? It takes a second look at the question the iPhone asked with one key difference - "What would a truly mobile Internet-based media device look like if it didn't have to be a phone?"
Steve Job's answer is the iPad. It will excel at displaying printed materials like books, magazines and newspapers and provide a fully integrated store to market these. It's Apple, after all....
It's late tonight, so I'm going to end this too-long post. But in part 2 of this entry sometime this weekend, we'll look at some of what the iPad will deliver. In the mean time, here are a couple of thoughtful pieces on the iPad:
Any Fresh Thoughts on Apple Tablet?
As I write this, Apple is a little over an hour away from announcing its new tablet computer. No doubt it will be incredibly cool. It’s Apple, after all. It will also be expensive. It’s Apple, after all. It will likely be different from what we are expecting because the company has kept a very tight lid on it. It’s Apple after all.
But most importantly, I believe it’s going to have the infrastructure behind it to make distributing printed material like newspapers, magazines and books over the Internet profitable. It’s Apple, after all.
(If you haven’t seen Wired’s thoughts on this topic, you should do so. This article got me thinking about this, and helped me coalesce my own thoughts on the topic.)
More later today...
Does Apple Have Something Going on Today? Like Maybe a New Tablet????
The blogosphere and twitterverse is going bananacakes over Apple's expected announcement today of its new tablet device. It has been billed as the coolest thing since the iPhone, a device in search of a market, too expensive, and Apple's entry into the eReader market. What will it be? (Will it be an expensive piece of $#!% that doesn't work?) What will it do? Stay tuned! (As for me, I want one. But I probably will want the second version of it. Ralph's Rule of Apple? Always wait for version 2.0. Or at least 1.2.)
Buried sells at Sundance for $3.5 Million Buried is a small Spanish film about a contractor in Iraq trying to escape after being buried alive in a coffin. It has been a hit at the Sundance Film Festival, with sold out screenings, and it has now been picked up by Lionsgate for $3.5 million. This is, of course, what every small filmmaker hopes for. We're going to follow the story of Buried here over the next few months and see how it does. One reason I'm interested in it is that it was written by Chris Sparling, the husband of my favorite diabetes blogger, Kerri Morrone Sparling. (She writes the wonderful Six Until Me blog.) This is a very low budget film, the complete opposite of the current hit Avatar, but it holds incredible upside potential with it's tiny budget and low acquisition cost. We'll talk more about this later.
Which brings us to our second movie....
Avatar Still Making Lots of Money, Becomes #2 on American Box Office, and #1on International Box Office
As the third edition of Living in a Media World is rapidly approaching its printing date, I'm facing the problem of Avatar. The problem? I talk about Titanic being the top grossing movie of all time and use it as an example to illustrate some key points in the movie chapter. But in about two weeks from now, more or less, Avatar will be the number one box office champ in the US. (And not so oddly enough, both Titanic and Avatar were hideously expensive James Cameron helmed flicks.)
Now the Avatar haters out there will be delighted to point out that the only reason it has made so much money is that tickets are so expensive. Domestically, 80 percent of Avatar's income has come from 3D screenings, including the 16 percent that has come from 3D IMAX showings. Movie goers are paying as much as $15 a ticket for the 3D screenings, compared to $8-9 for conventional showings. But.... that also means people want to see this movie in 3D badly enough to pay $15 to see it, and to see it multiple times. (As for me, I've seen it locally in 2D, and am planning to see it in 3D IMAX when I go to Omaha in another week.)
To be fair, Avatar is only 26th on the inflation-adjusted list, a list topped by Gone With The Wind, initially released in 1939, followed by Star Wars in 1977. (Confession time: I saw Star Wars 13 times the summer it came out. This was pre-cable where I lived, and pre-VCR.)
But we should also keep in mind that Avatar cost somewhere between $300 and $400 million to make and promote, so while it is printing money this winter, it did cost a huge amount to make. So it's return on investment is nowhere near as good as the microbudget Paranormal Activity (which so far has made $108 million on a budget of $15,000. This is why we are interested in following Buried).
Social Media and the News From Haiti
Back in 2008, when terrorists attacked Mumbai, the heart of India's film industry, the news flowed out of the country over Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and other social media, and then out to the Western world via legacy media. We saw the same pattern repeat itself with text messages and cell phone video during the Iranian election protests during the summer of 2009.
Indian social media expert Gaurav Mishra writes that news coverage of the Mumbai attacks was a story not about old vs. new media but rather about them working well together. “[T]he story is that many people, thousands of people, came together and tried to make sense of what was happening, using a new service like Twitter, and new media and mainstream media complemented each other in covering this story.”
Writing in his social media blog, Mishra says: "Let’s get used to it. From this moment onwards, every accident worth reporting, anywhere in the world, will be reported first, via SMA (text message), by a bystander who has a mobile phone. In most cases, the first photos or videos of the accident will be taken by a bystander who has a camera phone. If the accident occurs in a developed country, or a metro city in a developing country, the SMS will be sent to a microblogging service like Twitter and the photos and videos will be uploaded to photo- and video-sharing services like Flickr and YouTube. From this moment onwards, we will do well to expect it to happen, and reserve our surprise for the cases where it doesn’t happen."
When the massive earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday, Jan. 12, legacy media (what many call the "mainstream media") once again depended on images, video and words coming in by way of social media. Here are several articles that illustrate how our media landscape is changing when it comes to covering breaking news:
Huffington Post, Ari Herzog - Viewing Haiti through social media
This is a great, in-depth look at how the news about Haiti broke through social media, and how these tools helped legacy media cover the story and make it personal. This one is a must read/view.
Guardian UK - In Haiti earthquake coverage, social media gives victim a voices
For all the blathering about media bias, one thing we know for sure is that legacy media tend to focus on the rich and powerful, or at least those with institutional connections. Social media opens the door to those who have traditionally been ignored by the media. This article looks at how CNN used social media reports to widen their sourcing in Haiti.
How Much Sex Is There On TV?
So much! HINT: If it's on pay cable, it's getting really explicit and showing lots of stuff. If it's on broadcast it's getting more explicit and not showing lots of stuff. (USA Today)
Can You Still Listen To Air America?
Nope. Filed for bankruptcy today. So much for liberal radio.... (Oh, yes, you knew that all the media is liberal, right?) Rachel and Ana Marie are out of their radio gigs.
The news from Haiti has been so overwhelming that I'm somewhat at a loss as to what to write about. So I will instead let you read how my students in Global Media Literacy first learned about the news from Haiti. Keep in mind that a number of these comments come from international students for whom English is a second langauge. Very interesting how many students depend on word of mouth for their news.
I received the information by seeing newspaper, which was USA Today. It was not my newspaper, but a student puts the newspaper under her chair. I could see the topic on the first page.
First I heard someone talking about it and then I went on the internet and checked www.elpais.com. Since then I have been checking that website. (El Pais is Spain's leading newspapaer)
Internet news, television news in Café Cerza.
I received the information about Heidi from people (my roommate, a couple of professors in the class.
I know that from the interpersonal communication. I didn't watch TV and internet when I talk with my friend, she said to me "do you know about earthquake?" So I know about it.
I heard about it through people and then seen it on the news.
I've received most of the information about the earthquake via television and the internet. I don't read the paper much so those are my primary source of information.
I have gathered most of my info on the news channels CNN and MTV.
Most of the information I have seen on the situation on Haiti was from NBC and others news casts.
Friends randomly bringing it up, television news, online websites, classroom discussions
Altell/Verizon internet off of mobile phone news.
Word of mouth. I have only heard of what happened from people. I probably should watch some stuff about it.
I first learned about the earthquake through the internet, but I got most of my info on it through the television.
The fox news update on Hits 106 in the morning and a status update on Facebook.
Most of the information I received about the earthquake in Haiti came from news broadcasts on TV. Mostly from CNN.
Through internet articles on google news andCNN.com.
I saw a picture and headline on the newspaper. Other than that I haven't gotten any news on the earthquake.
I have received most of the info via my Natural Disasters class. She has spent two days on it and has assigned a paper assignment on it. TV was also a useful resource.
NBC Meltdown Continues - Jay/Conan Cage Match Edition Back in December of 2008, NBC announced that Tonight Show host Jay Leno would be moving to prime time, thus providing the fourth-rated network with an inexpensive way of programming the last hour before the local news. But local affiliates were reportedly nervous about this because many people bail on the Tonight Show after Jay's monologue. After an unusually candid interview with Broadcasting & Cable magazine, it became clear that Leno was not particularly happy about making the move.
So now the news has broken that Leno at 10 p.m. Eastern is not working, and that they are bringing him back to 11:30-35. (That would be 10:30-35 Central, for those of you, like me, who live on the prairie.) This creates a big problem for NBC because Conan O'Brien has been slogging away at the 12:30 slot for years with the promise that he would be given the TonightShow chair when Jay left in the fall of 2009.
NBC might claim they are keeping their promise, but if Jay comes back at 11:30, the Tonight show would be bumped back to midnight.... Suffice to say that Mr. O'Brien was not amused, and he has announced to the world that he will be leaving NBC if the Tonight show gets bumped to the late time. Here are links to a few cartoonsdealingwith the whole fight.
This is absolutely news, if only because it shows how utterly clueless NBC is about where their business (their audience!) is headed. But what amazes me is how much people care about the injustice of how O'Brien was treated by NBC. (Kudos to O'Brien, who in his statement pointed out that his life is (and was) pretty good.
Blogs For My Blogging Students Here's a list of a dozen blogs for my blogging students to look at. They go from the most corporate to the most personal. They will give you some idea of how blogs get used:
The Daily Beast
Tina Brown's online publication. Is this a collection of blogs? Kinda, but it looks more like just plain ol' new media to me. (But I do read it regularly.)
Howard Kurtz's Media Notes
Kurtz writes conventional stories and columns for the Washington Post, but he also does lengthy, link-heavy, quote heavy posts for the Post's web site that look an awful lot like blog posts, even though they aren't posted using standard blogging conventions. He also has a great Twitter feed.
Bombi(llo) A pop culture blog, heavy on video and images, by St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter Julio Ojeda-Zapata. He's also a pioneer in the area of using Twitter for reporting. He also writes the Your TechBlog.
"Am I the only one wearing pure, virginal white these days? Whores!"
Then, of course, there was my friend Brian who had no idea what was going on, who set his status to azure d'or because he didn't want to be left out of the list of people "blurting out colors." Which led to a great deal of amusement from his female friends.
What was this all about? Somehow, no one is exactly sure how it started, women started posting the color of bra they were wearing without any comment beyond the color as their facebook status last Thursday as part of an effort to build awareness of breast cancer. It wasn't part of a campaign by the American Cancer Society. The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation wishes it could claim credit for the meme. The foundation has two people employed to work on social media, but the group had nothing to do with the event. (Though the Washington Post reports that the Komen Foundation Facebook page grew from 135 fans to 135,000 fans over the course of the day!)
Not everyone was amused by this. One of my wife's facebook friends wrote:
"You know, if the millions of women who sat around writing about their bra colors wrote a $10 check to the breast cancer society, they'd be in a lot better shape than what they are with everyone proclaiming their bra colors. This happens to be one of the most nonsensical things I've ever seen."
In principle, the friend was right. But it sounds like there was an increase in contributions to cancer foundations. There was certainly an increase in talk about breast cancer.
Chinese Dissident Writer Liu Xiaobo Appeals 12-Year-Prison Sentence Liu was sentenced for participating in writing a lengthy manifesto calling for more individual rights in China and asking for the Communist Party to share its power. The NYT reports that China's state-controlled media have made no mention of Liu's arrest, trial, or sentence.
Pop Candy - The Lost Supper
Who cares about The Da Vinci Code? Decade the meanings in the two versions of the Lost Supper. Lost returns for its final season starting in February.
Avatar Passes the $1 Billion Mark World Wide in Three Weeks
A lot of folks were looking for James Cameron's sci-fi epic to fall on its face because it was too expensive, too weird, too long, too James Cameronish.... But after three weeks in theaters, Avatar has grossed $360 million in the US, and $702 million in the rest of the world. With that kind of box office, it really doesn't matter whether it cost $300 million or $400 million to produce. For the record, that puts Avatar at the number 4 spot on the all time worldwide unadjusted gross. And by the time you read this, it will have passed Pirates III and be closing in on Return of the King. Here are a couple of more on Avatar while we're at it:
Avatar = Pocahontas This is the same argument my wife made after we saw Avatar. I buy more into Avatar = Dances With Aliens. My two-word review of it was "Sexy Ewoks."
Entertainments For Little Christmas Eve Scandinavians call the night before Christmas Eve "Little Christmas Eve." Here are a couple of media entertainments for your holiday viewing pleasure.
Have Very Blondie Christmas! 80s icon Blondie has a new music video out - a power-pop version of "We Three Kings." Merry Christmas to all! (Thanks, Clicks and Pops)
Are HP Computers Racist? This isn't a serious question. Obviously, a computer doesn't have an opinion on racial equality. But... HP is dealing with a bit of a public relations problem from a tongue-in-cheek YouTube video that illustrates that fancy new facial recognition software for a new Hewlett Packard computer works great on white faces and not at all on black faces. Oops.... (Not sure where I originally came across this, but the link is to Wired's Gadget Lab.
Christmas Caroling With The Roches
Maggie, Terre and Suzzy sing favorites. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
The news was tragic. Cincinnati Bengals player Chris Henry died this morning in a senseless accident - falling out of the back of a truck being driven by his fiancé. The outpouring of Facebook statuses and Tweets was immediate.
"Very sad to hear of Chris Henry's untimely death...
"RIP Chris Henry ... troublemaker, but a life ended WAY too early... tragic. :("
"A sad day for fans, wherever you may be. RIP CH."
It was a sad day for all who loved to watch Chris Henry play football, and an even sadder day for his fiancé and three children.
Chris Henry was supposedly one of my students several years ago. I say supposedly because although he was enrolled in my class, he never showed up. He wasn't the sort of person you could miss, even in a 350-seat class. By the end of the semester, he had left the university to go on to his checkered NFL career.
Chris Henry could certainly play football. I don't know whether he was ever really able to be a student.
During my 20+ years as a university professor, I've seen a number of athletes who are excellent students and many more who are hard-working, dedicated students. I have seen the hard-working athletic support staff trying to make sure student athletes perform well in the classroom as well as on the field or court.
But I have also seen student athletes struggling through multiple-choice tests with scores that were no better than random guessing. And these students were trying. They would spend the whole 75 minutes of test time attempting to figure out the answers. I am convinced that a few of them couldn't read the test.
I know that many athletes use their talent to pay for an education they couldn’t get otherwise. And I know that Division II and III athletes oftentimes compete simply to be able to compete. I enjoy watching college football and basketball.
But that doesn’t eliminate the real tragedy of Chris Henry. All that mattered was that he could play football. No one ever held him accountable to be a fully developed human being.
The death of Chris Henry was a tragedy. On many, many levels.
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Esquire 
On Wednesday, Apple announced its new tablet computer, the iPad. No doubt about it, it is incredibly cool. It’s Apple, after all. The bottom-of-the-line version with insufficient RAM is not too expensive, but equipped the way you'll want it, it will not be cheap. It’s Apple, after all. It had been the target of endless speculation for the last couple of weeks because the company kept a very tight lid on it. It’s Apple, after all.
