Permanent link to MTA daily media news

I will be a guest today on the Tony Trupiano Show, at 1:00 PM ET.  Listen to Tony’s show every day between noon and 3:00 PM ET on listener supported RadioPower.org.

Steve Bradenton

Meme of the Day
Karl Rove, martyr to Democratic partisanship.Bill Plante’s Having None of This Garden Party
As Karl Rove embraced President Bush today following an emotional farewell announcement on the South Lawn, the solemnity of the moment was shattered by Bill Plante of CBS, who bellowed to Bush: “If he’s so smart, how come you lost Congress?”
Thanks to The Carpetbagger Report.

The Reviews Are In: Major Papers Cast Rove’s Record As Failure
In the wake of Karl Rove’s resignation [Monday], television talking heads were quick to heap praise on the political strategist, lauding him as a “superstar,” “the mastermind,” and “Boy Genius.” But [Tuesday] morning, major print outlets exhibited a more careful analysis of Rove’s record of false predictions, scandal, and his failed attempts to engineer a “permanent Republican majority.” In both analysis and editorial pieces today, major papers slammed Rove’s legacy.

Novak again asserted that Armitage’s role in leak case exonerates Rove
In a column discussing Karl Rove’s resignation, Robert D. Novak asserted that “[a]lthough [special counsel Patrick] Fitzgerald knew from the start that not Rove but the politically nondescript Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was my primary source in identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA employee, the prosecutor came close to indicting Rove for perjury or obstruction of justice.” However, Rove confirmed the information Armitage divulged, as Novak himself has admitted.

Pundits Uniformly Ignore Rudy’s Hideous Recovery-Worker Gaffe
As you know, Rudy [Giuliani] caused a bunch of controversy last Thursday by saying that he’d spent as much or more time at Ground Zero than “most” of the recovery workers. The comments prompted an outcry and Rudy later said he’d misspoke…   A grand total of two pundits mentioned this on the networks, one critically, and one national columnist.

First Lady Documents Not to be Released
Archivists at the Bill Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock said it is unlikely that documents from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as First Lady will be released to the public before the 2008 election. According to the Los Angeles Times, these documents include calendars, meeting logs, memos, and documents relating to her work on healthcare.

Spy Agency OKs Bloggers as Journalists
The CIA recently updated its policies on Freedom of Information Act requests to allow bloggers to qualify for special treatment once reserved for old-school reporters. And last August, the NSA issued a directive to its employees to report leaks of classified information to the media — “including blogs,” the order said.

On Hardball, Boyer claimed Webb “was not exactly a Daily Kos Democrat”
On Hardball, The New Yorker’s Peter Boyer asserted that “Jim Webb was not exactly a Daily Kos Democrat in Virginia.” In fact, Webb is a Daily Kos member who has a diary at the website. He has also repeatedly credited bloggers — including Daily Kos — and Internet support for his 2006 Senate election. Further, Webb was endorsed by Daily Kos and others as one of their “Netroots Candidates” during the 2006 election cycle.

Mythbuster: The NAFTA Superhighway doesn’t exist
Human Events, a ridiculously-conservative political magazine, recently reported, “Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S.”… [Monday], Christopher Hayes at The Nation tackled the subject, debunked the myths, and connected the bizarre ideas to domestic fears over globalization.

USA Today editorial suggested Bush’s Social Security plan would have defused “underfunding time bomb”
In an editorial, USA Today suggested that President Bush’s proposal to “partially privatize Social Security” would have addressed the program’s “underfunding time bomb, set to detonate in about a decade.” But as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, even the administration has acknowledged that its plan for private Social Security accounts — on their own — will do nothing to address the “time bomb.”

NYT: The Oystermen Are Strangling the Oil Companies
No one disputes that the oil industry does harm the oyster harvest with its occasional spills. So the problem is that some of the money may go to people who don’t actually deserve it, making the oystermen rich and the oil companies poor. How much money is at stake? The NYT reports that it runs from $10.1 million to $14.8 million a year. Or put slightly differently, about 6 hours worth of Exxon’s profits or maybe two months of their CEO’s pay.

The Post Still Pushes the Realtors Line
The paper has a front page article highlighting the problem of a woman who had a contract to buy a condo in a building that is still under construction. Because the market has fallen out the developer is instead turning the units into rentals. She got her deposit back, but now doesn’t [have] a condo in which to [live]. While the Post wants us to cry for this woman, the reality is that she got an enormous gift. She likely paid 10-20 percent too more than the current market price for her condo. If the price was $450,000 (likely for a one-bedroom condo in DC), then she got a gift worth $45,000 to $90,000. She should be thanking the gods of real estate for her good fortune.

Watchdog asks U.N. to help reporters
UNITED NATIONS - A journalists’ watchdog group said Tuesday it sent a letter to the U.N. chief asking him to intervene in the cases of two Iranian journalists who were sentenced to death.

Carroll: I’ll take Google over Murdoch as a newspaper owner
Jon Carroll says Google doesn’t know anything about the news business and probably doesn’t want to know anything about it, so as an owner “it might let news people run the newspaper, which would be a refreshing change.” He adds: “It would be, as I see it, sort of like McDonald’s buying a lot of cattle ranches. It would be vertical integration. Google buys the groups that make the news, and then they aggregate the news. They might even assign more stories about complicated issues, because that’s what some people want, and the Lindsay Lohan market is already served.”

‘The Simpsons’? Scientific?
Good news: All the hours kids spend watching The Simpsons, they also may be learning something about science. Paul Halpern, a physics and mathematics professor at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia and a fan of the show, uses episodes in his classes… Halpern says that while not everything in the show is scientifically correct, it can spark an interest in science.

Half Hour News Hour Shelved
In a memo to senior producers this afternoon, FNC’s SVP of programming, Bill Shine announced the network “will not continue the Half Hour News Hour beyond its current 15 episode run.” Shine did leave the door open, however: “we are considering ways to retool the show for future scheduling needs.”
Right wingers are as funny as a heart attack.

Imus settles with CBS, may make comeback
NEW YORK (AP) — Don Imus has reached a settlement with CBS over his multimillion-dollar contract and is negotiating to resume his broadcasting career.

Imus, CBS sued by Rutgers women’s player
A member of the Rutgers women’s basketball team sued Don Imus and CBS on Tuesday, claiming the radio personality’s sexist and racist comments about the team damaged her reputation.

Shifting Internet landscape: Content is now king
Internet users spend almost half their time online reading and watching content, dwarfing the time spent searching for information, communicating with others and buying products, according to a four-year analysis of Internet activity released Monday. The new study from the Online Publishers Association (OPA) found that the time Internet users spend viewing online content is up 37% from four years ago.

Kodak’s Subtle Use of Blogging
Sometimes corporate blogging can feel so forced… But it feels like to me Kodak has hit on a fresh and clever way to approach blogging… The blogs are low key, but I think that’s what’s clever about them. By a lot of people contributing posts, you get a sense of the people at Kodak. And that gives you a sense of the company. The posts are earnest and funny and technical and full of photos.

Site or network? Own or join?
I think it’s wonderful that The New York Times did a deal to bring Freakonomics under its wing — hosting it, selling ads on it, promoting it, but not buying it or hiring its creators and not treating it like so much freelance fodder to go through the Times’ editing mill. That’s new… What I like about this is that we see big-media services starting to act like members of networks. They are beginning to realize that they can’t — and don’t want to — do everything themselves. They are also recognizing that creators want to keep ownership of their creations and so hiring or buying isn’t always the best option.

Jesus Loves Your Crappy Videos
Behold GodTube.com, the place where sex, humor and warm spiritual inclusiveness go to die

Book Excerpts to Be Viewed on IPhone
NEW YORK (AP) - The publishing world is hooking up to the iPhone. HarperCollins announced Wednesday that it had set up a special link, , that will allow browsers to view excerpts from more than a dozen new releases, including Michael C. White’s “Soul Catcher” and Michael Korda’s “Ike,” a biography of President Dwight Eisenhower.

Apple Debuts DRM-Free John Lennon Solo Works on iTunes
Apple is debuting the John Lennon solo catalog at iTunes, which includes sixteen of Lennon’s solo pieces from EMI Music becoming available for the first time on iTunes. The collection “Lennon Legend” and “Acoustic” are making their digital debuts as well. There’s also some exclusive videos that will be included.

They’ve Just Got to Get a Message to You
For music fans, the modern mobile phone - equipped with camera, Internet access and more - has become as important an accessory as an all-access wristband.

WikiScanner Identifies Editors on Wikipedia
WikiScanner is a relatively new site that will track the edits made on Wikipedia. The purpose of this service is to see who’s behind edits made, and how these actions generally lend themselves towards the self-interested corporations hoping to promote and protect brand identities.

Russian detained over Internet Nazi murder video
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police detained a man on Wednesday for the suspected distribution over the Internet of a video showing the apparent murder of two men by neo-Nazis, Interfax reported, quoting an Interior Ministry source.
So, does that mean showing murders on the internet is a good thing?

Australian fetus a Facebook Internet star
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Bubba Waring has not even been born yet and he, or she, has its own Web space with cyber “friends” clamoring to get acquainted.

The $200 Billion Rip-Off
This is part three of my explanation of how America went from having the fastest and cheapest Internet service in the world to what we have today — not very fast, not very cheap Internet service that is hurting our ability to compete economically with the rest of the world.

Google Wins First Battle For Open Wireless Spectrum
Google looks likely to enter the US wireless market after the FCC bowed to pressure to change the way it plans to sell off part of the airwaves

Kids In Europe Justify Piracy: “Papa Pirates, So I Do, Too”
“Everybody’s doing it!” That’s one excuse provided by European kids as to why they pirate media or software from the Internet

GAO: Only 5% of Government Ad Business Goes to Minority Firms
Democrats Blast Contracting Process as a ‘Mockery’

If Imus Comes Back, Some Advertisers Are Likely to Follow
Buyers Mixed About Possible Return, but Say Sponsors Could Give Him Another Chance

The Effectiveness of Brand Placements in the Movies: Levels of Placements, Explicit and Implicit Memory, and Brand-Choice Behavior
The results [of a study] confirmed that levels of brand placements [in movies] influence recognition of the target brand and attitudes toward the brand. On the other hand, simple placement of the brand within the movie influenced implicit memory and the implicit choice task.