THINKing

News Media: Your Slip Is Showing

You’ve probably read about it by now – the hoax pulled on the media by a group posing to be from the US Chamber. The CopyWrite, Ink blog has a good overview.

And it was a hoax on the media, not on the US Chamber of Commerce, as Bloomberg characterized it. Says Bloomberg,

The Yes Men, a New York group that pulls pranks on corporations, issued a fake press release and the text of a purported speech by Chamber President Thomas Donohue under the chamber’s letterhead yesterday, said Jacques Servin, a Yes Men member. The imposters also held a news conference at the National Press Club with ersatz chamber officials.

No, this was a hoax on the media. Plain and simple. Today’s media follow their template and biases, try to get the “news” out too fast, with little to no fact-checking.

Reuters called it more correctly after the fact. Initially, they too ran with the false story that the US Chamber of Commerce was changing its position on cap and trade. That’s what the liberal media wanted to hear and that’s why they didn’t question it. That’s what I mean by the template.

Today’s media members are overwhelmingly liberal.  A 2005 UCLA study confirms this. Former CBS newsman Bernard Goldberg has written a book on the subject – Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How The Media Distort The News that was spawned by an op-ed piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal. Goldberg says that it’s not a purposeful left-wing conspiracy. According to an article in Newsmax,

Goldberg, who spent his last years at CBS in the doghouse for his 1996 Wall Street Journal piece, says that if these correspondents were to take a lie detector test as to whether they slanted the news leftward, they would deny it and pass with flying colors. Many of them don’t consider that they’re leaning in any political direction. They really think they are simply mainstream. There is no other side of the argument except what you hear from a few right-wing nut cases. In their world, mainstream conservatism doesn’t exist.

Don’t be surprised by more of these hoaxes.They are just too easy to perpetrate.

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MSM Ain’t What It Used To Be

The mainstream media (MSM) continues to suffer through bad times. And it is not just the print media that is in a freefall. TV News also is having it’s problems, according to David Zeeck of the Tacoma News Tribune. His contention is that newspapers aren’t dying. Here I disagree with Mr. Zeeck. Newspapers are dying, but they are doing slightly better than TV news is.

In his column, Zeeck responded to a comment by Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News that  “Internet and changing reader habits are killing the old newspaper business. Circulation is declining almost 1 percent every passing month.”

Says Zeeck,

Nationwide, daily newspaper circulation was down 4.6 percent for the six-month period ending in September, compared with the same period a year ago, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. That’s less than half the rate at which Brian said it was shrinking.

Between 2006 and 2007, when daily newspaper circulation dropped about 2.5 percent nationwide, ratings for the national TV network news dropped 6 percent (though share remained steady).

Over a 10-year period, from 1997 to 2007, ratings for network news dropped 34 percent and share 33 percent, November to November, according to Nielsen data. In the same period daily newspaper readership declined a relatively modest 16.9 percent, according to Simmons Market Research Bureau and Scarborough Research.

I’ll tell you this, if my business dropped 16.9 percent I wouldn’t call it modest.  Sounds to me like both media are on life support. Newspapers haven’t figured out how to monetize their internet content, and TV hasn’t figured out much of anything. What’s your take?

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MSNBC Drops Olberman, Matthews As Political Convention Anchors

The Washington Post reports that MSNBC is dropping Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews as anchors of live poltical events due to increasing criticism that they are too opinionated. NBC’s David Gregory will take over the duties. According to the Washington Post,

The move, confirmed by spokesmen for both networks, follows increasingly loud complaints about Olbermann’s anchor role at the Democratic and Republican conventions. Olbermann, who regularly assails President Bush and GOP nominee John McCain on his “Countdown” program, was effusive in praising the acceptance speech of Democratic nominee Barack Obama. He drew flak Thursday when the Republicans played a video that included a tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that if the networks had done that, “we would be rightly eviscerated at all quarters, perhaps by the Republican Party itself, for exploiting the memories of the dead, and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again. If you reacted to that videotape the way I did, I apologize.”

MSNBC’s more liberal outlook has boosted its ratings, though it remains the third-place cable news channel. But both parties began castigating its coverage last spring. Steve Schmidt, McCain’s top strategist, called the network “an organ of the Democratic National Committee,” and Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said Matthews was “in the tank” for Obama.

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Links 8/20/2008

The Future Of Twitter
Twitter’s business model is starting to show. An early sign came in April, when the popular microblogging service launched in Japan and the home page for every Japanese user included a big banner ad in the top right corner.

Downturn Gives Rise To New Consumer Beliefs
The current downturn has consumers building on trends that were already gathering momentum, like the simplicity movement.

Pet Health Still Important During Downturn
Even as the financial squeeze is making it increasingly tough to cover living basics, pet owners are striving to do their best by their four-legged family members.

TV News Still Beats Internet
The Internet has made major inroads as a source of American news–largely at the expense of newspapers–but television is still the favorite medium for news.

From Online To Offline
MeetingWave is the latest free social networking site that is designed to connect people digitally and then bring them together for meetings offline.

Fox News Chooses Facebook
Fox News Channel wants more friends. But instead of reaching out on the News Corporation’s own social network, MySpace, the cable news channel is choosing to network on the site’s chief rival, Facebook.

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Links – 8/5/2008

Broadcast Usurps Newspapers, Online To Dominate

Despite broader issues in the overall economy, the media industry continues to be among the fastest growing industrial sectors in America.

Into The Abyss: Newspapers Continue Freefall

Most of the big newspaper publishers have seen their ad revenues fall sharply over the last year, if not longer. The downward trend is clearly established, with executives warning investors that there are more declines on the way.

Newspapers Could Be Bargains

WANT to buy a newspaper company? No? You’re in good company.

SEC To Recognize Corporate Blogs as “Public Disclosure”

SEC special counsel Kim McManus outlined new guidance the SEC is about to give companies on when they can use their Websites, including blogs, to disclose material information. What this means is that we can now finally kill the press release, at least in its current form

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Mammals 1, Dinosaurs 0

Photo Courtesy of Morguefile
Crowdsourcing applications, like Knewsroom, are going to kill the traditional media behemoths. Knewsroom is a news publication where readers help decide on content and they get paid to use the system. Here’s how Knewsroom describes itself:

The Knews” gets published every morning, featuring the previous day’s top stories in Politics, Business, Technology, Design, Sports, and Entertainment. What makes it in? The community decides. The best part? 20% of every dollar we generate in advertising gets split with the people who make the Knews happen: writers, readers, evangelists…anyone looking to turn extra brainwidth into extra cash.

This is where news is headed. MSM dinosaurs continue to lose readers for a variety of reasons I don’t need to dwell on. Read this recent SocialMediaExplorer post for some thoughts on the matter.

Further, Knewsroom explains,

We want to know what YOU think is news. Unlike mainstream media, Knewsroom™ leaves the decision of what’s worth publishing up to you. So yes, if enough people want to see a story about something no one else is covering, it’ll be in tomorrow’s Knews. The more involved you are in Knewsroom,™ the more power you’ll have to shape it. You accumulate watts—our official community currency—by being an active member of the community: suggesting topics, writing stories, voting, and referring other members. The idea is to invest your watts in what you think should tomorrow’s Knews should be. Just like on Wall Street, your return on investment is determined by the risk you take. You can invest in Topics—which are kind of like mutual funds (lower risk/lower return), or you can bet on Stories—which you can think of as individual stocks (higher risk/higher return). Of course, you can diversify and do both. Like everything else at Knewsroom,™ it’s entirely up to you.

Citizen journalists – like small mammals – are supplanting the dinosaur MSM. And the bad thing for them is, the large reptiles won’t notice until it’s too late.

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Twittering Journalists – Part 2

Here are some more media outlets using Twitter, mostly from Red 66. Please add to the list if you know some we’ve missed.

47 News, Tokyo, Japan @47news

ABC News, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia @abcnewsbrisbane

AgendaTwiMedios @agendatwitter

AmericasReport @AmericasReport

Breaking News Alerts @BreakingNewsOn, @LivePressAlert

CNET News @CNETNews

ESPN Headlines @espn

Mahalo News @mahalonews

MarketWatch @MarketWatch

Marketwire @marketwire

Motor Awards, Venezuela @MotorAwards

MSN Noticias, España @msnnoticias

MSNBC @msnbc_world

Noticias Emol @twitter_emol

WFPL News (NPR – Louisville) @wflpnew

More Twittering Journalists

Adam Boulton, Sky News, London, UK @SkyNewsBoulton

Darren Waters, Technology Editor, BBC News @djwaters1

Ginny Skal, WNCN NBC 17, Raleigh, NC @ginnyskal

Jim Long, NBC @newmediajim

Wayne Sutton, WNCN NBC 17, Raleigh, NC @waynesutton

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Twittering Journalists

UPDATE 12/19/2009 – I have consolidated all of the Twittering Journalists wiki into Twitter lists. 

Twittering Media Outlets

Twittering US Journalists

Twittering Canadian Journalists

UPDATE: Twittering Journalists has been moved to this wiki.

I’ll be adding to this list, and if you have names of Twittering journalists, please feel free to post them. Here is what I’ve dredged up to-date from sources including Red66, CNET and keyword searches on Twitter:

MEDIA PEOPLE

BusinessWeek: Sara Lacy

CNET: Charles Cooper, Caroline McCarthy, Ina Fried, Dan Farber, Jim Kerstetter, Elinor Mills, Maggie Reardon, Stephen Shankland

Techcrunch: Michael Arrington, Duncan Riley

The Charlotte Observer: Jeff Elder

The New York Times: Saul Hansell, John Markoff

The Wall Street Journal: Kara Swisher

MEDIA OUTLETS -Newspapers

Charlotte Observer, @theobserver

Financial Times @FTmedianews, @FTfinancenews

Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu, HI @starbulletin

Knoxville News Sentinel, Knoxville, TN @knoxnews

LA Daily News @ladailynews

LA Times @latimesbreaking, @latimesworldNashua Telegraph, Hudson, NH @NashuaTelegraph

The New York Times, NY @nytimes

The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC @newsobserver

The Oregonian, Portland, OR @oregonian, @OregonianBiz, @OregonianTraff, @OregonianSports

The Orlando Sentinel, Orlando, FL @orlandosentinel

USA Today @ondeadline

MEDIA OUTLETS – Radio & TV

CNN @cnn, @cnnbrk, @CNNNewsroom

Fox News @foxnews

KOAT, Albuquerque, New Mexico @KOAT

KPBS News, San Diego, CA @kpbsnews

News 2 Colorado, Denver, Colorado @News2Colorado

NPR News @nprnewsblog, @nprnews, @bryantpark

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Bad Rep

As we’ve seen recently with the self-inflicted wounding of Eliot Spitzer, reputations take years to build but only seconds to destroy. It is particularly so now that digital technology has given us a minute-to-minute news cycle. DC (digital colleague) Rodger Johnson has an interesting piece on reputation management in the digital age.

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And Now The News

Just a few quick links today to media news of note:

Print version of newspapers continue their downward spiral (MediaPost)

Newspaper sites soar (Hitwise)

Mobile ads make a move (Nielsen)

TV invades kids bedrooms (NY Times)

Radio ad revenues slump (Wall Street Journal)

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