Helen Thomas retires following controversial remarks
Topic: Media
12:32 pm EDT, Jun 7, 2010
Veteran reporter Helen Thomas, who has covered the White House since the John F. Kennedy administration, is retiring immediately following her controversial statements about Israel, Hearst Newspapers reports.
What a lousy way to end an amazing career. Thomas really screwed the pooch...
Tim Russert, NBC News’ Washington bureau chief and the moderator of “Meet the Press,” died Friday after a sudden heart attack at the bureau, NBC News said Friday. He was 58.
Russert was recording voiceovers for Sunday’s “Meet the Press” program when he collapsed, the network said. He and his family had recently returned from Italy, where they celebrated the graduation of Russert’s son, Luke, from Boston College.
No further details were immediately available.
I'm really bummed out. Russert was one of the greats.
'Daily Show,' 'Colbert Report' returning without writers - CNN.com
Topic: Media
3:54 pm EST, Dec 21, 2007
"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" will resume production on January 7 without their striking writers, the Comedy Central network announced Thursday.
I'm so glad they are resuming production. It's going to be interesting to see what they are like without the writers...
Viacom offering free South Park downloads - TECH.BLORGE.com
Topic: Media
11:02 pm EST, Dec 1, 2007
MTV Networks, the biggest division of Viacom Inc. has announced plans to make every South Park episode available online for free as part of a plan to make the show available to a larger audience.
MTV originally based this decision from the success of providing “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” online. Since offering the “Daily Show” videos in October, viewership has been up with no obvious harm to ratings.
“One does not diminish the other by any stretch of the imagination. That is kind of our hat trick,” was said by Judy McGrath the Chairman and Chief Executive at Reuters Media Summit in New York.
YouTube Seeks to Depose Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert
Topic: Media
3:55 pm EDT, Aug 14, 2007
YouTube wants to question Comedy Central comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as part of its defense against claims that the online video-sharing site illegally shows snippets of sports and entertainment videos.
YouTube says it needs depositions from more than 30 people to fight legal challenges that "threaten to silence communications by hundreds of millions of people across the globe who exchange information, news and entertainment" through its Web site.
The company said it also intends to show that the plaintiffs themselves had put their own works on YouTube or permitted others to do the same.
YouTube is also seeking to depose Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone, CEO Philippe Dauman, general counsel Michael Fricklas and various executives with MTV, Comedy Central and other Viacom's networks.
The New York Times is poised to stop charging readers for online access to its Op-Ed columnists and other content, The Post has learned.
After much internal debate, Times executives - including publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. - made the decision to end the subscription-only TimesSelect service but have yet to make an official announcement, according to a source briefed on the matter.
The number of Web-only subscribers who pay $7.95 a month or $49.95 a year fell to just over 221,000 in June, down from more than 224,000 in April.
REPORT: The Right Wing Domination Of Talk Radio And How To End It
Topic: Media
8:33 pm EDT, Jun 20, 2007
The Center for American Progress and Free Press today released the first-of-its-kind statistical analysis of the political make-up of talk radio in the United States. It confirms that talk radio, one of the most widely used media formats in America, is dominated almost exclusively by conservatives.
The new report — entitled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” — raises serious questions about whether the companies licensed to broadcast over the public radio airwaves are serving the listening needs of all Americans.
While progressive talk is making inroads on commercial stations, right-wing talk reigns supreme on America’s airwaves. Some key findings:
– In the spring of 2007, of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming was conservative, and only 9 percent was progressive.
– Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk — 10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.
– 76 percent of the news/talk programming in the top 10 radio markets is conservative, while 24 percent is progressive.
Asshats asking 'tough questions' of canidates press staff
Topic: Media
4:05 pm EDT, Jun 6, 2007
I want more info. This is quite outrageous if true.
I agree with what terratogen is saying in the thread.
There are contexts when you must separate the function of collecting information, from the commentary aspect inherent in presenting it. This was clearly one of those situations. He wasn't trying to collect information, he was trying to make commentary. It was very two-faced.
What we should be doing, is striving to get the candidates into more situations where they can be confronted. I like to see how they respond to this type of thing. It often says volumes about their character.
However, in situations like this one, there are a metric fuckton of reporters wanting to ask questions. It is necessary to accommodate as many of them as possible. The root cause of this guy getting kicked out was that he was obstructing that process. I don't think "ambush" is a good tactic.
Reporters often have to ask questions many different ways, at many different times, in order to get real answers. That's part of the challenge. The other part, is being able to present what you get the way you want it. Be it as objectively as possible, or embedded with commentary, bias, or a certain world view.
We can make many well grounded arguments that the public discourse is broken.. Regardless of that, the concept is still fundamentally broken that people who have grievances can voice them by obstructing the ability of the entity they have grievances with to share their message.
Large press conference situations are chaotic logistical nightmares. They are very far from ideal for any kind of real dialog. However, we are stuck with that framework for a large number of things. The approach taken by this guy doesn't achieve anything, except maybe a dancing session in front of his own choir.
This hurts their changes of getting any real dialog with a candidate, because it makes them look like complete asshats to anyone who could/would get them access. It also hurts the chances of other new online media entities from getting access to these type of conferences. They had a chance, and they blew it for many more people then just themselves.
"unprofessional" conduct leads to less access to people who don't quality as professionals. Using tactics like this causes the divide between the mainstream professional media and new online user-generated media to grow wider and harder to traverse.
