COMMUNICATION
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When News Meets PR
From the department of kicking the US mainstream media while it’s already down: it’s not unusual for US TV stations to run corporate product pitches as straight news items, according to a new report by a media watchdog. Over a ten-month period, the Center for Media and Democracy found 77 TV stations guilty of airing video news releases (VNRs) created by PR companies for corporate clients. – Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed What happens is that the news anchor stops talking about murder and mayhem on Main Street and cuts to a colleague who talks about a great new… >>>
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Esprit De Apple Corps
More corporate copyright capers. The Royal Courts of Justice in London swung to the sounds of the latest popular beat combos on the opening day of Apple vs. Apple, in which the Beatles’ record label is demanding damages from the computer giant for the alleged scrumping of its apple logo. QC Geoffrey “Loudmouth” Vos, resplendent in what excited journalists took to be an Adidas hoodie, chopped from the classic disco of Chic’s Le Freak to the big street hot riddims of Coldplay’s Speed of Sound while waving Hunter S Thompson’s pump-action wordage in the air – the music business is… >>>
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Harmful If Swallowed
Yeah, the Kool-Aid does taste funny. Molly Ivins tears into the assumption that the newspaper business is dying because it isn’t delivering profits. Sure, there’s a steady decline in the industry over the long term. But profits are still happening. What’s killing newspapers is a mania for profits at any cost. Cut reporters and the space devoted to news. Profits will certainly go up. But then newspapers will certainly die. Which wouldn’t matter if newspapers weren’t fundamental to the creation of a well-informed citizenry. Yeah, but – isn’t the growth of the blogosphere making up for this? And acting as… >>>
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Multitasking and the Journalist
A profile of Jon Snow, Channel 4’s chief news anchor, in which he does some “thinking from the mouth” (and nothing about his taste in ties, thank the gimmick editor): As a journalist I think technology where it advances communication is plus, plus. Technology that merely inflects whizzbangs of information I think merely tends to get in the way of it. I’m against virtual reality, for example, because I think there’s nothing virtual about the reality of the news. But I’m absolutely in favour of blogging, vlogging and podcasting. My only anxiety is that there genuinely is a limit to… >>>
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Booted, Suited and Uploading
Viral video enthusiasts using YouTube: potential copyright infringers or corporate shills? YouTube’s DIY video site includes clips “stolen” from big media companies, allege lawyers representing big media companies – the likes of NBC Uni, CBS and ABC. But big media companies, or at least their marketeers, are starting to realise that mashed-up clips represent, forgive the marketing spiel, bottom-up branded content. Loaded with slap-happy credibility because they appear to be generated by users rather than corporations, they create the buzz needed for ratings success – or so says YouTube: There’s been a few examples of marketing departments uploading content directly… >>>
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Anti-Muslim Cartoons: A Burning Issue?
There’s not much to laugh about in European op-ed sections just now. The decision by newspapers in Denmark, Norway, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary and Spain to publish cartoons considered blasphemous by Muslims has the potential to turn into the first skirmishes of a renewed culture war, to morph into the clash of civilisations hoped for by extremists – but, insert hope contingent on the beneficence of any transrational belief system you fancy here, the mayhem seen yesterday and today may resolve into a relatively civilised spat over free speech. What happens next largely depends on what the newspapers do… >>>
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Iraq – ‘Party’s Over’
I didn’t see any Westerners at all until my second day, when I contacted the acting bureau chief for an American paper who was staying in my hotel. As we were discussing the state of reporting in Baghdad and Iraq in general, he told me that I was a little late to the game. These days, more American reporters are leaving Iraq than arriving. In large part, for the U.S. press, “The party’s pretty much over.” – Paul McLeary, embedded reporter, Iraq >>>
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A Reporter in Iraq
We’re supposed to be the voice of the people, the truth-tellers and the ruler of accountability. But the blast walls between journalists in Iraq and the rest of the country grow higher as fear outweighs responsibility. I’m always told that no story is worth your life. – Leila Fadel, Knight Ridder, Baghdad bureau >>>
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Journalists Under Fire
Governments around the world are failing to prevent the murder and assassination of journalists, says the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ): The truth is that even democratic governments turn a blind eye to the crisis of violence against media… In Iraq, where media people hardly dare walk the streets, there are 18 cases of unexplained killings of journalists and media staff by United States soldiers. Justice demands that these deaths are properly investigated. If not, speculation about military targeting of journalists will persist. – Aiden White, General Secretary, IFJ >>>
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Solid Air
“All that is newspaper melts…” – Scott Rosenberg on the end of print newspapers: … the same process that ate their classified income is going to affect [newspaper owners’] other revenue streams. Just as classifieds went from costly to free, the display advertising will begin to dry up, as youth-seeking national advertisers follow their targets to the online world. And the very core of the newspaper product, the professional news report, is under siege, thanks to a myriad of missteps in the newsrooms and the rise of amateur (in the best sense), free alternatives. … the only kinds of reporting… >>>