Permanent link to MTA daily media news

CondeNet Pushing Content (And Ads) Through YouTube (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
CondéNet, one of the old media members that has been a bit more fearless in its online efforts, has signed an advertising and distribution deal with YouTube. CondéNet gets to sell the advertising, and it’s then split with Google… Now that enough of its online properties have achieved a certain amount of growth and have been rather established for some time, the larger push for traditional media to give out more free content puts pressure on the entire industry to better monetize online products.
Better monetizing, of course, means more support from advertising.  It’s the same in progressive media.  We complain about the control corporations have over our lives, but we push content providers into supporting themselves by depending on advertising money from those same corporations.

When Media Content is Free, It’s Worth Every Cent  (by Ted Rall)
Print media is dragging content providers into the abyss. First comes downsizing. Writers, cartoonists, and photographers are losing their jobs to peers willing to do the work for less or, in the case of readers invited to submit their comments and images for the thrill of appearing in the local rag, nothing. Then they squeeze those who remain for pay cuts.
Gee, it’s just like what happened to me in computer work.  With all the in-sourcing and out-sourcing over the last 15 years, salaries and job opportunities in IT have been devastated.  And the Democratic Party is doing it, too.  See below.  When does allowing participation become exploitation?

Via email from Mike Gehrke, Research Director of the DNC:
For a few months, we’ve had Democratic Party “trackers” recording hundreds of hours of Republican candidates in the field… [W]ith the Internet giving ordinary Americans like you access to the tools you need to change an election with the click of a mouse, we need to make sure you have everything you need to do just that.  The video is yours — you can just let us know what you find, or you can take it, re-mix it, add music, and make your very own ad out of it.  It’s up to you… Take a look at the video, forward your favorite clips to your friends, and make a contribution of $20 to keep this and other programs going strong through the 2008 election.
My response: You want ME to PAY YOU to DO YOUR WORK FOR YOU?  Please tell me that I’m misunderstanding this message.

Study: More Than 60% Don’t Trust Campaign Coverage
The Harvard University survey also revealed four out of five people believe coverage focuses too much on the trivial and more than 60% believe coverage is politically biased. “Americans believe the media focuses too much on the polls and candidates’ personal lives,” the report said.

THE USES OF TRIVIA: (by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler)
Kevin [Drum] is right … [that by] the official rules of the game, modern reporters are not allowed to come out and say who would make the best president. But that doesn’t mean that they’re driven to trivia because they aren’t allowed to [state] their view and have nothing else to discuss. Do you mind if we state the obvious facts concerning what actually happens on earth? Here’s what happens: Forbidden to tell you directly who’s best, reporters use elements of trivia and personality to convince you, indirectly, about who would make the best president. Surely, everyone knows that they do this by now—unless they believe the earth is flat.

WaPo Edit Page Says White House Outreach To Syria Might Work — After Blasting Pelosi For Same Thing (by Greg Sargent at TPM Horse’s Mouth)
As you may recall, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last spring, The Washington Post editorial page was the leading institutional editorial voice against it. The paper published a widely discussed editorial, called “Pratfall in Damascus,” that helped set the tone for much mainstream criticism… Now, however, the Bush administration has decided to engage Syria as part of its current Mideast initiative. And right on cue, WaPo has published a new editorial which, while pessimistic about the initiative in general, nonetheless offers modest praise of the Bush administration’s invitation of that country.

Expert: Both parties cooperate to keep administration crimes secret (by  David Edwards and Muriel Kane at the Raw Story)
[Jonathan Turley, on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown,] “Today, the [so-called national security] privilege is used primarily not to keep something secret, but to keep something from being used against the government”… [According to Turley,] members of both parties are happy to see these cases dismissed because they are determined to keep impeachment off the table. “There’s a lot of people, both Democrats and Republicans, that … don’t want a court to say that the president did something that is a federal crime.”
Click through to watch the video.

CNN Rejects 5,000 YouTube Questions Submitted By The Public To Give Airtime To Grover Norquist
CNN and YouTube billed tonight’s Republican debate as one in which “YOU ask the questions of the candidates through videos you submit on YouTube.”… Out of almost 5,000 video submissions, CNN chose to pose 34 to the candidates [Thursday night]. Instead of alloting all slots to ordinary citizens — who don’t normally have access to politicians — CNN gave airtime to a question from Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist.
Click through to watch the video of that segment of the debate.

Democrats Cancel Debate At Picketed CBS
So much for anchor Katie Couric’s moment in the presidential political spotlight. That televised debate set for next month among the Democratic presidential candidates has been canceled to avoid a potential conflict with striking WGA writers.

Tough times for local TV reporters who play it straight
They’re being shunted aside for those with flash and panache and who entertain more than inform, writes Sam McManis. Former Sacramento TV reporter Naj Alikhan recalls being encouraged to slap his neck while doing a report on West Nile virus spraying. He refused to do it and eventually left the station, deciding he’d had enough.

BREAKING: State Department official Iraq update is really compilation of plagiarized major media articles (by John Aravosis) at AMERICAblog)
Kind of pathetic when the official report from the US State Department on what’s “really” happening in Iraq is actually just a bunch of plagiarized paragraphs from the major media in the US… State outright plagiarized much of the major media in making its “report.” And what’s really funny, they even stole a number of paragraphs from a New York Times article when, as I recall, the NYT is the newspaper that George Bush refuses to read because it supposedly has such a “liberal bias.”

Rove, Newsweek join forces in mutual exploitation
Newsweek got plenty of attention earlier this month when it announced that Karl Rove, who masterminded George W. Bush’s two successful presidential campaigns, would be writing occasional columns. This arrangement — in which a publicity-hungry newsweekly joins forces with a publicity-hungry Washington insider — looks like a fascinating case of mutual exploitation.

Mythbuster: Zombie ideas about income mobility (by Paul Krugman)
Many politically charged topics are overrun with zombie ideas — false stories that refuse to die, and just keep coming back. Another one has just resurfaced — the idea that America’s rich are just kings for a day, and that pretty soon they’ll be replaced by another lucky group. Been there, dealt with that: “… much of the movement up and down represents fluctuations around a fairly fixed long-term distribution.”

More Social Securty UFOs at the Post (by Dean Baker)
Ruth Marcus is on the warpath again arguing that those who don’t want to jump in line on the SS crisis train are [being] irresponsible… Only the Post would argue that it’s better to raise taxes and/or cut benefits on much poorer workers today than to risk the possibility that we may have to raise taxes or cut benefits on the much wealthier workers of the future in order to cover the greater cost of their own retirement (they are projected to live longer also — that’s the real problem. We’re so cruel to our children.)

Media Matters for America headlines

Citing “Clintonian answer,” Carlson found another reason to call Obama “a wuss”

On Glenn Beck, Buchanan repeated his claim that allowing immigrants from “the whole world in” the U.S. will lead to “a tangle of squabbling nationalities”

NY Times’ Herbert claimed few congressional Dems opposed Iraq war resolution; in fact, most voted against it

Morning Joe failed to note Bill Clinton’s statement against March 2003 invasion of Iraq

Boortz: “[M]aybe the reason” Obama doesn’t wear flag pin is “the flag of this country irritates a lot of Democrat [sic] voters”

Matthews cited Zogby Interactive poll without noting criticism of methodology

NPR’s Liasson cropped quote to suggest Pres. Clinton accused Democrats of “Republican-style, Swift-boat attack” on Hillary

MSNBC’s O’Donnell aired Thompson ad without challenging its claim that Thompson helped “expose the truth during Watergate”

Reporters say Baghdad too dangerous despite surge
Nearly 90 percent of U.S. journalists in Iraq say much of Baghdad is still too dangerous to visit, despite a recent drop in violence attributed to the build-up of U.S. forces, a poll released on Wednesday said. The survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center showed that many U.S. journalists believe coverage has painted too rosy a picture of the conflict.

Activists seek independent Cuba colleges
HAVANA – A group of Cuban students and young professionals said Tuesday it has collected 5,000 signatures petitioning the government to allow universities that would operate independently of the state while encouraging freedom of speech.

Court Awards Damages to Reporter Whose Home Was Raided
A European court has awarded damages to an investigative journalist whose home was raided and computers confiscated after he published articles alleging fraud within the E.U.

Turkish prosecutor probes atheist book
ANKARA, Turkey – A Turkish prosecutor has launched a probe into whether a book by best-selling atheist writer Richard Dawkins is an attack on religious values — a move that could lead to the prosecution of the book’s Turkish publisher.

US Senator Kennedy in eight-million-dollar memoir deal: reports
NEW YORK (AFP) – Senator Edward Kennedy, the elder statesman of the US political clan scarred so often by tragedy, is to publish his memoirs in a deal reportedly worth eight million dollars.

Wasserman: Papers shouldn’t pander to the bestseller list
News about bestsellers “is already pretty obvious and pretty widespread [so] we ought to focus on those kinds of books which, in the judgment of editors and reviewers, are neglected but are nonetheless worthy of people’s attention,” says former Los Angeles Times books editor Steve Wasserman.
But major publishers will only publish books they think will be bestsellers.  They, too, are neglecting books containing information worthy of people’s attention.  So there wouldn’t be any books to cover.

Sad newspapers (by Jeff Jarvis)
I was in Detroit on business Monday and thanks to many too many hours in the airport, I picked up the Free Press (where I once interned) and the Detroit News. I was shocked at how thin they were in every sense of the word: few pages and not much in them. We in New York don’t see just how desperate the situation is becoming for metro papers in much of the rest of the country because we have more than five of them in the area. Detroit should be luckier than most with two. But the two of them don’t add up to much.

New York Times in Peril Again: Hiring Freeze and Lost Jobs (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
The New York Times may be having more trouble with its publishing company. The company has frozen new hiring, and has also cut a “small amount” of newsroom jobs. No journalists have lost their jobs (yet), and it doesn’t seem to be as bad as the massive layoffs and buyouts the industry faced over the summer. Jobs will be filled internally, which means that more people will be taking on more work, likely without more pay. Clerical and secretarial jobs have been cut as well.

Analyst lowers rating of NYT Co. to “sell” from “neutral”
Banc of America’s Joe Arns says the Times Co. is his least favorite in the newspaper publishing sector. His price target on the stock, which traded at all-time lows in the last two months, went to $14 per share from $21. It closed Tuesday at $16.83.

Dow Jones signals local papers sell-off
Dow Jones, the US media group in the process of being sold to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, has said it may sell the Ottaway group of local papers. The company is considering a sale of some or all of Ottaway’s eight daily and 15 weekly community newspapers.

FCC chief favors waivers for Tribune
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday said he has proposed that the agency clear the $8.2 billion buyout of Tribune Co. this week with temporary waivers of media cross-ownership rules.

News Web Sites Seek More Search Control
NEW YORK (AP) – The desire for greater control over how search engines index and display Web sites is driving an effort by leading news organizations and other publishers to revise a 13-year-old technology for restricting access.

Interview: Jason Tanz
[F]ocus your magazine on the things the Internet can’t do really great—write long stories, print it on nice paper, have beautiful layouts. I think that a lot of other magazines are trying to make stories shorter and become adaptable to the web, and essentially make the magazine product something that dovetails quite nicely immediately into the web format. So why buy the magazine? Even though we do put all the content of our magazine online for free, people still do find a different experience in coming home and opening it up and spending time with it.

MSNBC Closes the Gap on CNN in November
MSNBC will close out November within firing distance of CNN, averaging 230,000 viewers in the key adults 25-54 demo versus CNN’s 232,000.

MTV eyeing expanding myMTV beyond Japan
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Viacom Inc’s MTV Networks is eyeing an expansion of its myMTV mobile video social network to other countries beyond Japan, said MTV’s president for global digital media, Mika Salmi, on Wednesday. The service lets members use cell phones to share their favorite videos with others in the community.

CBS Signs Truveo to Add Video to Radio Websites (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
What goes well with music? Apparently video… CBS has teamed up with AOL’s video search service Truveo to extend its tools to nearly 3 dozen of CBS’s online radio websites. Not many details pertaining to the deal have been released, so it’s uncertain whether there will be any advertising revenue shared between the two companies, or in what capacity the videos will be integrated into the online radio stations.

Disney To Make Up To 20 Startup Acquisitions In Next 24 Months
A new group has been created within the corporate strategy group at Disney, we’ve heard, and they are gearing up to make a number of consumer Internet acquisitions over the next 24 months.

TV, film and game violence seen as a threat
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Violence depicted on television, in films and video games raises the risk of aggressive behavior in adults and young viewers and poses a serious threat to public health, according to a new study… The findings, which are reported in the Journal of Adolescent Health, support earlier research which showed that children who watch violent television shows and who identify with the characters and believe they are real are more likely to be aggressive as adults. The results were true for both men and women.

Discovery to make nature-themed video games
Get ready for “Meerkat Manor: The Video Game.” Discovery Communications is partnering with Activision Inc to make video games based on “Meerkat Manor” and other popular nature television shows, Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav told the Reuters Media Summit on Wednesday.

Size Limits for Cable Look Likely
WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — Coming off a setback at the hands of the cable television industry, the head of the Federal Communications Commission moved to reassert himself on Wednesday by proposing that the commission quickly adopt a rule that would prevent Comcast, the nation’s biggest cable company, from becoming larger, commission officials said.

New Software Detects Web Interference
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) – Increasingly worried over Internet providers’ behavior, a nonprofit has released software that helps determine whether online glitches are innocent hiccups or evidence of deliberate traffic tampering.

Bollywood shorts on AIDS to get YouTube release
PANAJI, India (Reuters) – Four short films made by top Bollywood directors to spread awareness about HIV/AIDS in India are slated to be released on the video-sharing Web site YouTube in February after making their debut on local television.

US withdraws subpoena seeking identity of 24,000 Amazon customers
U.S. prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com Inc., newly unsealed court records show. The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a right to keep their reading habits from the government.

Arbitron Delays New Radio Ratings System
NEW YORK (AP) – Arbitron Inc. is delaying the rollout of a new ratings system for radio stations in nine markets following complaints from broadcasters that the system’s samples were too small to provide reliable data.

TiVo’s Latest: Record Shows on Your PC (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
TiVo is teaming up with Germany-based Nero, a digital media technology company, to make the home more digital. This will be achieved namely with the ability to get TiVo service on your computer. TiVo’s looking to take advantage of the continued merging between the television and the PC, not to mention the growing number of PC television tuners that are expected to be purchased in the coming years (estimated at 50.8 million worldwide).

Canadian Bosses Think Facebook Is More Important than TV (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
Forty-six percent of those surveyed have said that … social media is even more important than television, radio, newspapers and magazines. This isn’t a surprising set of statistics, but it does highlight a turning of the tide, where the online sector is more important than every other aspect of traditional media. And if it’s more important than traditional media for marketing purposes, the implications are that social media has become far more important for a great many aspects of our lives. Marketing goes where the people are.

Once a Mainstay of Magazines, Cigarette Makers Are Dropping Print Ads
The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company disclosed this week that it would run no ads in 2008 in consumer magazines and newspapers for cigarette brands like Camel, Winston, Pall Mall and American Spirit.

Viral is Fine, but It’s Not a Big Idea Unless You Have Scale
Media Mavens Discuss How to Make Integrated Campaigns Work

What Do Media Mavens Wish For?
How About a Restructuring of the Entire Advertising Industry

Google Knows Where You Are Too; Launches “My Location” for Mobile (by Adam Ostrow at Mashable)
Google has released a new version of Google Maps for mobile, which includes a new “My Location” feature that approximates your location by using information from cell phone towers. This means that instead of typing in your current location to get directions, Google knows already knows where you are, and can help steer you from there to your destination.

Google’s Storage Plans Raise Plenty of Concerns
In the wake of this week’s buzz about Google’s plans for a new online service for file storage, Internet privacy specialists are raising concerns about the potential vulnerability of such data to government investigations.