THINKing » TV http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog My CreativeTeam Thinks About Creativity, Marketing, PR & Social Media Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:40:12 +0000 en hourly 1 Media Continues Self Destruction http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/media-continues-self-destruction/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/media-continues-self-destruction/#comments Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:07:36 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2528
Photo credit: Grafixar from morguefile.com

The US media aren’t trusted by Americans, and the self destruction continued this weekend with the incessant drumbeat of impending doom ahead of so-called Hurricane Irene. As Kendall Allen tells us in her piece Fools In Raincoats,

I was not at all helped along by the sensationalized, character-driven coverage on the major networks and even on the Weather Channel. In all these segments, the slapstick reporter standing IN the surf getting hammered was the story. Does that not break some journalistic principle: thou must not make oneself the story?

I saw video of one reporter excitedly talking about the wind and rain, that obviously was light. I’m sure his producer had told him to hype it up. When I was a reporter back in the 20th Century, we were told to cover the story as it was. No editorializing, no hyperbole. That day, sadly, appears to be gone.

Untrustworthy mainstream media are looking for something – anything – that will bring back their days of dominance.  This was not their finest hour. It was clear before the storm hit the NC coast, that the weakened hurricane was not on the order of 1989′s Hugo. As Irene moved up the coast, it brought a lot of rain and produced serious flooding, but she just couldn’t live up to the hype. Poor Anderson Cooper was clearly disappointed that NY was not about to be wiped out.

I am not saying that there was no responsible coverage of the storm. But the national broadcast and cable networks did not cover themselves in glory. Like the dinosaurs they are, today’s media outlets are one meteor strike away from extinction. Let’s hope some agile mammal is in the wings to take their place.

Did you see any responsible coverage? Wade in to the conversation, but watch out for that deadly hurricane-driven surf.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/media-continues-self-destruction/feed/ 0 Blown Up, Sir! http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/blown-up-sir/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/blown-up-sir/#comments Tue, 05 Oct 2010 20:15:25 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=1332

Remember Bill Murray’s line in the movie, Stripes, when asked “where is your drill sergeant?” He responds, “Blown up, Sir!” (at 2:40 in this clip). Keep that in mind for a moment.

There’s a new ad by an environmental group that has to be the dumbest ever done if the intent really was to change minds about cutting carbon emissions. Just watch and be the judge, and remember what Bill Murray says.

Dumb, too is the new ad from Christine O’Donnell, the Republican running for Senate in Delaware. Not as dumb as the carbon ad, but dumb nonetheless.

Accused of being a witch, she now comes out with an ad refuting the charge. Give the voters some credit. They are not going to believe you are a witch, Christine. Here’s what I would have said in that ad:

“I’m Christine O’Donnell and I’m just like you. I’m an average American, not a professional politician like my opponent. Yes, I have had my problems but I worked through them with the help of my friends, family and church. I’m not perfect and have never claimed to be. But I am perfectly focused on turning our government around and returning it to the people. I’m Christine O’Donnell and I’m asking for your vote this November.”

What do you think of these two ads? Let us know.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/blown-up-sir/feed/ 2 America’s Worst Ads http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/americas-worst-ads/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/americas-worst-ads/#comments Mon, 27 Sep 2010 07:00:44 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=1287

It’s time to vote on the worst ads in America. The Consumerist has launched its first contest to find America’s most annoying ads. And, sadly, there are a lot from which to choose this year.

There does seem to be a theme in 2010. From Progressive’s annoying Flo to State Farm’s pocket agent, insurance companies are dominating the list.

The categories are:

America’s Absolute Worst Ad – (I’ve gotta give it to Flo)

Most Grating Performance By A Human – (Nationwide’s World’s Greatest Spokesperson is my choice)

Most Annoying Animated Spokesthing – (my vote goes to Charmin’s Bears)

Duo Or Group That Needs To Be Broken Up – (Toyota Sienna couple, hands down)

Celebrity Who Must Have Lost Money In The Housing Crash – (Troy Aikman, Hulk Hogan – Rent-A-Center)

Creepiest Commercial – (although I like these ads, Allstate’s Mr. Mayhem is really creepy)

How did you vote?

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/americas-worst-ads/feed/ 1 News Media: Your Slip Is Showing http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/news-media-your-slip-is-showing/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/news-media-your-slip-is-showing/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:46:28 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=976 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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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/news-media-your-slip-is-showing/feed/ 0 MSM Ain’t What It Used To Be http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/msm-aint-what-it-used-to-be/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/msm-aint-what-it-used-to-be/#comments Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:32:58 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=858 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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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/msm-aint-what-it-used-to-be/feed/ 0 MSNBC Drops Olberman, Matthews As Political Convention Anchors http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/msnbc-drops-olberman-matthews-as-political-convention-anchors/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/msnbc-drops-olberman-matthews-as-political-convention-anchors/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:14:04 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=824 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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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/msnbc-drops-olberman-matthews-as-political-convention-anchors/feed/ 1 Links 8/20/2008 http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/links-8202008/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/links-8202008/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:25:47 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=812 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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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/links-8202008/feed/ 0 Links – 8/5/2008 http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/links-852008/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/links-852008/#comments Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:13:45 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=798 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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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/links-852008/feed/ 0 Mammals 1, Dinosaurs 0 http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/mammals-1-dinosaurs-0/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/mammals-1-dinosaurs-0/#comments Thu, 29 May 2008 14:28:58 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=733 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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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/mammals-1-dinosaurs-0/feed/ 1 Twittering Journalists – Part 2 http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/twittering-journalists-part-2/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/twittering-journalists-part-2/#comments Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:24:40 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=696 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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