Permanent link to MTA daily media news

The V-Word Heats Up the Iraq Debate: August 19 - 24, 2007
Two different destructive storms struck the continent and even in the dog days of summer, the presidential race continued to attract significant media interest. But several factors—an intelligence report, a senatorial statement, and a presidential analogy—all combined to re-ignite the debate over U.S. policy in Iraq.

Threats To Journalism Are Also Threats To Society
At least 81 journalists were killed in 2006 in 21 countries, and at least 56 journalists were kidnapped…”I was one of them.”

Sen. Tim Johnson to discuss recovery with Bob Woodruff on ABC’s Nightline
South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson is giving his first TV interview since he nearly died of a brain hemorrhage in December. His interviewer will be Bob Woodruff, who is, as ABC News points out,  recovering from a traumatic brain injury himself.

Russia Says Politkovskaya Murder Ordered From Abroad
Russian prosecutors said they detained 10 suspects in the murder of reporter Anna Politkovskaya, but that the killing was masterminded from abroad by anti-Kremlin forces trying to discredit Russia.

Anna’s Killers? (by Larisa Alexandrovna)
Now this is an interesting development regarding Anna Politkovskaya’s murder: “The group suspected of killing the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was led by an ethnic Chechen organised crime boss, Russian authorities said today.”… [T]he way I read this is that on the orders of the FSB (which does not act alone, take that as you will), their proxy agents in Chechen organized crime were given a contract to take out Anna P and also Paul Klebnikov.  That is called a state sponsored assassination.

There may need to be a PBS ombudsman just for Moyers
Michael Getler says he’d rather not spend so many of his columns on one person, but Bill Moyers (left) keeps on providing material that viewers react to and that the PBS ombudsman hears about. The latest flap: Moyers’ editorial on Karl Rove. “Although there are undoubtedly large numbers of viewers who applaud Moyers’ perspective, all the letters that came to me were uniformly critical (with one exception),” writes Getler.
Sounds like the right wingers are campaigning against Moyers.  We’d better start a counter-campaign, or we’ll lose him.

A Tale of Two Anchorwomen
Christiane Amanpour, the erudite, cosmopolitan correspondent who used to signify CNN — but who somehow didn’t get a show when Nancy Grace and Glenn Beck did on cable cousin Headline News — ran a well-considered, compelling three-part documentary, “God’s Warriors,” that returned CNN to its reporting and ratings legacy. The first two nights upended the cable news race, beating the usually unbeatable Fox News Channel and the halting MSNBC’s momentum by delivering a .33 and .42 in the demo. True, that’s less than half the rating of “Anchorwoman.” But after this week, at least it’s a start.

A tale of two headlines: AP, “Iran agrees to reveal nuclear info”; Reuters, “Iran resolves plutonium issues under atom pact: IAEA”.

What do the “surge” and the “Anbar Awakening” have in common
Not much

‘Hearts and minds’ campaign insults Afghans.
On Friday, the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan distributed footballs as part of its “hearts and minds” campaign to win over “support from the local population.” But the footballs instead “kicked off a storm of protest” because they were illustrated with the flags of several nations, including bearing “Koranic verses as part of the flag of Saudi Arabia.” Protestors said it was “insulting for texts from the Koran to be put on the ground and kicked.”
Would that be one of Karen Hughes’ campaigns?

Civility
After playing a concert clip of guitarist Ted Nugent profanely urging Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to respectively “suck on” and “ride” his fake machine guns, Fox’s Sean Hannity tellingly describes the video as “friend and frequent guest on the program Ted Nugent expressing his feelings.” When a Democratic guest recalls the outrage of right-wingers like Hannity when the Dixie Chicks’ “said something about George Bush which was mild compared to this,” and asks if Hannity is “prepared to disavow this,” the host flat out refuses, saying “No, I like Ted Nugent, he’s a friend of mine.”

Facing a draft, Nugent bravely wet his pants
That Nugent, he’s a man’s man. He talks the talk and walks the walk, right? Except when it was time to register for the draft during the Vietnam era. By his own admission, Nugent stopped all forms of personal hygiene for a month and showed up for his draft board physical in pants caked with his own urine and feces, winning a deferment.

WSJ Notes Fall in Temporary Employment
The Wall Street Journal noted the weakness in the temporary employment sector in recent months. It is down by 2 percent since the start of the year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics establishment survey… Employment in the temp sector has come to be seen as a harbinger of the future direction of the labor market, since employers will often add temps before they hire full-time employees and also will be more quick to layoff temporary workers than regular employees.

Olbermann’s NBC Ratings
We’ve received the Nielsen fast-national ratings (not the actual national ratings) and have a sense of how last night’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann did in its premiere on NBC. The upshot: in total viewers it beat “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?” on Fox. But finished behind “60 Minutes” and “America’s Funniest Videos.” 4,146,000 total viewers watched.
There was much more celebrity “news” than Olbermann usually has, and Mo Rocca was on for much too long.  Mo is cute, but he just isn’t funny.

Vint Cerf, aka the godfather of the net, predicts the end of TV as we know it
Thirty years ago he helped create a technology that has revolutionised millions of lives around the world. But yesterday the man known as the “godfather of the net” laid out his vision of where our online future might be, including a time when we download entire TV series in seconds - and even surf the web from Mars.

Newspapers should take a cue from CNN.com’s packaging
Craig Stoltz credits CNN’s web editors for figuring out that readers want a succinct summary on top of the story, above the fold, that needs no clicking or scrolling to read. “If newspapers took a cue from CNN’s packaging, and topped their full reports with easily skimmable summaries, they’d have the best of both worlds: Important, original news that carries out the vital functions of the Fourth Estate — and reaches the maximum audience.”

Hippy Bloggers of the World Unite
So apparently October 15th is Blog Action Day, a day when bloggers will unite to blog about the environment… Thank goodness the top politicians who have the power to divert resources to this stuff are experts on blogs and the Internet; otherwise this one would be a complete waste of time. It’s also great to see bloggers taking real action, instead of just sitting around blogging all day.

The Promise of Low Power FM
The new knowledge that “expanding low-power radio, even in denser markets, would not disrupt existing stations” begat the Local Community Radio Act of 2007; “nonetheless, the National Association of Broadcasters recently reprised its warnings of ‘inevitable interference,’ while opposing the bill.”

New Shop Promises Results Clients Can Gauge
A new agency, called Engauge, intends to provide marketers with tangible results from campaigns and plans to grow by acquiring other agencies.