Media
04-Oct-07
Permanent link to MTA daily media news
State Department now offers “an alternative source to MSM”
The State Department’s Dipnote blog is up and running, and Al Kamen is excited: “This is what we’ve all been waiting for! No more media filters and distortions. Unbiased news directly from the federal government, a news source long noted for truthful, unbiased reporting.”
Web 2.0 Goes Mainstream
NEW YORK Mainstream Internet users are employing simple tools to personalize their Web experiences, though they are skipping some of the popular totems of Web 2.0, according to a newly released survey… More mature Web 2.0 technologies have higher adoption: 85 percent used “most e-mailed/most popular stories” links, 60 percent personalized their home pages and nearly the same amount subscribed to RSS feeds. Blogs are regular fare: 61 percent read them on at least a weekly basis.
Editorials Amplify Call for Congress to Act Against Telco Censorship
Verizon and AT&T’s attempts to sweep away the controversy over cell phone censorship isn’t working. Despite their best spin, another message is getting through: Phone companies can’t be trusted to protect free speech.
The Point of Net Neutrality (by Timothy Karr, campaign director for Free Press)
Supporters of net neutrality aren’t asking that users pay one fee for all grades of access. We want a truly competitive marketplace where people can choose from numerous broadband companies offering access at different speeds and costs. What we are demanding is a better system, where the few phone and cable companies that dominate the market can’t leverage their control over Internet access to become gatekeepers of Web content.
SLOWLY WE TURN: (by Bob Somerby)
Rush Limbaugh’s “phony soldiers” exchange was actually pretty tame stuff—for him. He has said worse, for many years, while Potemkin liberals sat and stared, refusing to notice or comment. But we were thrilled watching Countdown [Tuesday] night—thrilled to see the liberal world starting to teach itself how to respond to fact-challenged blather… We liberals are teaching ourselves very late. In the past fifteen years, many phony stories have been generated—and these phony stories did change history, while the “liberal” world sat and stared into space.
Clear Channel CEO responds to Reid
Clear Channel CEO Mark P. Mays responded to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in a letter hand-delivered to his office [Tuesday] evening… He took a respectful tone, saying he regretted that Reid and others might have been offended by Limbaugh. But ultimately, Mays wrote, he didn’t believe Limbaugh’s statements were “intended to personally indict combat soldiers simply because they didn’t share his own beliefs regarding the war in Iraq.”
Mays doesn’t know what Limbaugh said, but he knows Limbaugh couldn’t have said what he said.
Glenn Beck: “Context is everything” (by: Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars)
Watch how [Glenn Beck’s] defense of Rush jumps from smears against Media Matters, to MoveOn to George Soros to “fringe left elements” to socialism. Socialism? So a socio-economic philosophy is now persecuting Rush Limbaugh?… Please, for the love of everything holy, why does this man have a show?
Click through to watch the video.
Two For One! NY Times Reporter Fact-Checks Rush Limbaugh And John Boehner (by Greg Sargent)
Credit where credit’s due: The New York Times’s Carl Hulse has come through with a fair piece on the whole Rush Limbaugh “phony soldiers” controversy. Hulse fact-checks Rush Limbaugh’s bogus pushback that his remark was taken out of context, and for good measure also runs the facts on John Boehner’s phony efforts to spin his way out of his assertion that troop deaths in Iraq are a “small price” to pay for defeating Al Qaeda.
Even as . . . (by Jeff Jarvis)
[Wednesday] the Times reported that Hillary Cliinton beat Barack Obama in fundraising — in dollars and people. But they had to get in digs against — that’s what they call balance, you see — and they did it in this bullshit paragraph: “Mrs. Clinton’s fund-raising success came even as some Democratic elected officials continue to have concerns about her electability…” Name those Democratic elected officials, please. There’s nothing else in the story quoting these people. There are no links online to the stories that say that. There’s no particular reason given why that is relevant in this story. A lot of things are happening “even as” this is happening.
I’ll bet those are the same unnamed Democratic officials who told the media that Howard Dean wasn’t electable, but John Kerry was.
Hillary Chuckles; Pundits Snort (by Howard Kurtz)
Forget the cleavage. It’s now about the cackle. No joke: Hillary Clinton’s laugh is now being analyzed, scrutinized and, yes, mocked… Lacking much of a horse race, … journalists are resorting to a classic general-election question: Are Americans ready to have this woman in their living rooms every night for four years? Are they comfortable with her personality? Do they like her voice? Plus, examining her personality quirks is more fun than deconstructing her stance on Iraq.
More fun, sure, AND A LOT LESS WORK! What did we ever do to deserve such a lazy, herdlike press corps?
Candidates are building up cash to guard against the Swift Boats and MoveOns
The Democratic and Republican frontrunners for their parties’ presidential nominations [are], according to … Donna Brazile, socking away funds because they expect that third-party groups will be on the attack — just as the Swift Boat Veterans were against Sen. John Kerry in 2004 and as MoveOn.org has been against President Bush for much of the past four years.
I have yet to see a Democrat successfully defend him- or herself against a Swift Boat style attack, however. Because they won’t go for the jugular.
The Daily Show: Chris Matthew’s “Book about Sadness” (by Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars)
[T]he always brilliant Jon Stewart–after reading [Chris] Matthews’ new book “Life’s a Campaign“–calls it …: for Tweety, it’s all strategy. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing right or good. It doesn’t matter if you are sincere…all that matters is that you play the game… “MATTHEWS: …, you’re trashing my book. STEWART: I’m not trashing your book, I’m trashing your philosophy of life.”
Click through to watch the video.
From the You Can’t Make This Shit Up Files
1. Bush declares Oct. 1 Child Health Day: “Our Nation is committed to the health and well-being of our youth. … My Administration supports programs that give parents, mentors, and teachers the resources they need to help and encourage children to maintain an active and healthy way of life.” 2. Bush vetoes children’s health care bill Oct. 2.
Coulter on Giuliani: ” He’s crazy enough to Nuke Iran”
The TODAY Show does it part to help make Coulter into some sort of “voice of reason” for Conservatives once again. They had her open up the show [Tuesday] to be a really serious person and analyze why Christian Conservatives should or would vote for Rudy Giuliani. “Coulter: ….and also he seems sort of crazy enough that he’d nuke Iran and that warms our hearts…”
Click through to watch the heartwarming video.
Europe-bashing
It’s a fixed idea among Americans that Europe – France, in particular – is an economic wasteland. According to documents leaked to the Boston Globe, Mitt Romney’s strategy is based on the equivalence “Hillary=France.” The horror, the horror. But a visit to France – and/or a look at the statistics – makes it clear that the French economy gets a bum rap. I don’t want to go overboard here: France has a lot of problems. But it’s doing much better than the American caricature would have it.
WSJ News Section Works Overtime for Trade Agreements (by Dean Baker)
Should we blame Rupert Murdoch for the fact that the term “free trade” appears seven times in a front page article in places where “trade” would have been more accurate? The point of course is that the trade agreements pursued by recent administrations, while named “free trade” agreements for public relations purposes, actually do not promote free trade. They often do little or nothing to reduce the barriers that protect highly paid professionals (e.g. doctors, lawyers, investment bankers) and actually increase some trade barriers, such as copyrights and patents. Reporters can both save ink and paper and increase accuracy by dropping the term “free.”
Media Matters for America headlines
Asked about Limbaugh’s “phony soldiers” comment, McCain told CNN: “[H]e should not have said it”
CNN’s Beck claimed Media Matters “twisted” Limbaugh’s words, revisited Soros falsehood
National Review’s York ignores Limbaugh falsehood about splicing of audio and transcript
Cavuto links Dems’ use of kids in SCHIP debate with Saddam’s TV interview with young British hostage
O’Reilly: Media Matters President David Brock “biggest villain … in the country”
On Fox News Live, Angle repeatedly misrepresented Limbaugh’s and “critics’” comments
ABC News opens mini-bureaus in India, Africa, other places
The small offices in Seoul; Rio de Janeiro; Dubai; New Delhi and Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Nairobi, Kenya are staffed by a reporter-producer with the latest in hand-held digital technology. They cost a fraction of what it takes to run a full-time bureau.
Blogs should be a daily routine for every dedicated journalist
“They should read every blog related to their beats,” says Howard Owens. “They should read blogs about their own interests and hobbies. They should read blogs about their profession. To get blogging is to get how things have changed.” Owens lists eleven more things journalists can do “to help us recreate journalism for the 21st Century.”
Amazon, Penguin & HP Search for Next Top Author
Amazon, Penguin Group and Hewlett-Packard have teamed up to bring us the first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Starting November 5th, authors with an unpublished, English-language novel manuscript can enter their work for consideration. Submissions can be sent through CreateSpace, the self-publishing service which is part of the Amazon online family of properties.
Cosmpolitan Magazine Launches Mobile Version
Cosmopolitan Magazine is set to launch Cosmo Mobile to give its readers a quick fix of Cosmo wherever they are. Cosmo Mobile offers fun features like “Dude Decoder” for deciphering a guy’s actions or subtle non-verbal messages he’s sending. You can also use Cosmo Fake Call, a service that calls you and provides perfect excuses whenever you want to get out of a bad date. The mobile version also features blog posts, quizzes, cocktail recipes, and city guides – the usual stuff that Cosmo is known for.
All the most important things in life are available at your fingertips.
UC Berkeley’s YouTube Channel Offers Full-Course Lectures
UC Berkeley is making full course lectures available online starting today. These courses will be distributed on YouTube… Berkeley has over 300 hours of videotaped courses that can be found on the university’s branded YouTube channel on a variety of subjects, including chemistry, physics, biology, and search-engine technology, the last of which is from a lecture given by Google’s own Sergey Brin.
National Geographic Widgets Launch Soon
National Geographic has just launched a widget that can be placed on your blog or personal website. It brings you the incoming top news stories from National Geographic, including video footage and images… USA Today, Time Magazine and The Washington Post are other traditional media companies that have begun to roll out widget offerings. Others like Reuters are also teaming up with distribution networks …to spread content.
HD DVD to Launch Online Shopping Feature
NEW YORK (AP) - Just watched “Evan Almighty”? Did its environmental message make you want to buy ecologically sound toilet paper? Well, now you can get instant gratification - if you watched the movie on an HD DVD player and are willing to give the remote a workout.
Tailoring Messages to a New Audience: Wrinkled Baby Boomers
After decades of ardor for young consumers, marketers are looking for ways to reach older audiences as the baby boomers reach the upper age brackets.
Microsoft as Media King?
Most people still see Microsoft primarily as a software company, but on Oct. 2 at a media event in Paris, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer painted a surprisingly different picture of the company’s future: Over the next 4 to 10 years, he said, as much as 25% of Microsoft’s revenues are likely to come from advertising. Microsoft, the media company? That’s right.
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