Media Consolidation

Having the media controlled by roughly 20 or so megacorporations has clearly had a deleterious effect -- lessening competition, squelching dissent, choking off debate, and elevating profit over the public good.

Arianna Huffington, in The American Prospect, June 17, 2004

By combining HuffPost with AOL's network of sites, thriving video initiative, local focus, and international reach, we know we'll be creating a company that can have an enormous impact, reaching a global audience on every imaginable platform.

Arianna Huffington, in The Huffington Post, February 7, 2011, announcing its acquisition by AOL.

Super Bowl of Interviews: Obama vs O'Reilly

While the Steelers and Packers were the marquee event of Super Bowl Sunday, the NFL on Fox decided to tackle (sorry for the lame football pun) some hard news with a pre-game interview of President Obama by Bill O'Reilly. Many people wondered whether there would be more contact during the interview or the actual game. O'Reilly did interrupt the President more than 20 times in the 15 minute interview.

As a Bears fan, the President of course had to pick against the Packers. It's interesting to see how the interview can go from such a heavy subject such as the crisis in Egypt to a debate about blitzes and touchdowns.

Here's the interview

Last year Mr. Obama sat down with Katie Couric since CBS broadcast the game. It's interesting that the biggest day in sports and biggest event in television each year is becoming an annual platform for a serious interview...not exactly what you expect all those football fans drinking Miller Lites and eating too many buffalo wings all day long to want to spend their tailgate time watching.

Murdoch's New Project

Last week, Rupert Murdoch launched the first "newspaper" exclusively designed, from scratch, for tablet devices.

The Daily, produced by a team of established, old-school journalists, premiered on the iPad last week in conjunction with a heavy push from Apple Inc. to promote the application, which can be downloaded from the software giant's iTunes Store.

Unlike some other news applications offered, The Daily will require a fee of its readers after two months of use.

Speaking to journalists at the Guggenheim in New York, Murdoch called the production of the app an effort to "completely reimagine our craft," and suggested it would become "the future of journalism."

But whether its possible for such a costly product to survive that provides the same news as other, free apps - including apps from Murdoch's own News Corp. - remains an open question.

While Murdoch has spent $30 million on the project, first critics of The Daily suggest the issue with the app is not its uniqueness as a business model, but whether it could become competitive as a necessary source of news.

One such critic was Slate's Jack Shafer, who related The Daily's founding to the start-up days of his own employer.

"Part of Slate's stuffiness derived from the fact that we were striving to make it look like a print magazine," Shafer wrote. "Why? Billions of people knew what a print magazine looked like, but only the few hundred thousand who had ever read Salon or Feed knew what a Webzine was supposed to look like."

Shafer continued: "The Daily needs to stop being a novelty app and start being an essential app."

A Story Pitch

As I have mentioned before, Politico "Playbook" has become a must-read for the political community. Today's "Playbook" gives a nice example of how political figures pitch stories. Mike Allen writes:

BEHIND THE CURTAIN -- CONSERVATIVES PLAN TO USE EGYPT TO ATTACK OBAMA NEXT WEEK - E-mail with subject line "Developing story idea for you," from Joe Brettell of CRC Public Relations, which represents many conservative policy groups: "Dear Mr. Allen, Given the confluence of stories in the last couple weeks regarding Egypt and the Middle East, rising oil prices and challenging economic numbers, I wanted to suggest a story that looks at the parallels between the challenges faced by President's Carter and Obama. Obviously, there have been whispers about the similarities, but not a lot of actual stories that have taken it on objectively; it's a brewing angle and I think you should be the one to write it.... You can expect a big push on this from conservatives in the next week or so." (Joe and I know each other, so the 'Dear Mr. Allen' was the tip-off it was a mass pitch, not a personal e-mail. Let's see who bites!)

Not from OK! Magazine

Tweet and blog from Time.com:

Obama loses Internet connection. (See, he's just like us - except when this happens to him, it's "news")

Journalists Face Danger in Egypt

ABC reports:

A group of angry Egyptian men carjacked an ABC News crew and threatened to behead them today in the latest and most menacing attack on foreign reporters trying to cover the anti-government uprising.

While ABC News and other press agencies had been taking precautions to avoid volatile situations, the road to the airport had been a secure route until today. One of their two vehicles was carrying cameras and transmission equipment strapped to the roof, indicating they were foreign journalists.

Hartman says it was only through the appeal of Abi-hanna, who is Lebanese and a veteran ABC cameraman, that they were saved from being killed or severely beaten.

"We thought we were goners," Hartman said later. "We absolutely thought we were doomed."

Word of their harrowing ordeal came in a Twitter message from Hartman that stated, "Just escaped after being carjacked at a checkpoint and driven to a compound where men surrounded the car and threatened to behead us."

"The men released us only after our camera man appealed to the generous spirit of the Egyptian people, hugging and kissing an elder," he added in a subsequent tweet.

Time reports:

Sources have told TIME Magazine that Lara Logan, chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News, has been detained along with her crew by Egyptian police outside Cairo's Israeli embassy.

This detention comes only a day after Logan herself reported on the intensified efforts of the Mubarak regime to clamp down on foreign journalists covering the ongoing protests.

"The army just shifted dramatically to a much more aggressive posture, and they have absolutely prevented us from filming anywhere," Logan said Wednesday. She has been filing reports from the country since Jan. 31. She went on to note that even when Logan and crew left their hotel without cameras, they were followed relentlessly by officials.

Chicago Tribune on How It's Reporting

Interesting for me because I am from Chicago, but also a relevant article for our class on how the Tribune will cover the blizzard in Chicago.

« How the Chicago Tribune is covering this blizzard | Main

02/02/2011

How the Chicago Tribune is covering the 2011 Chicago Blizzard cleanup

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The Chicago Tribune, like the city we cover, is engrossed in the extent of the 2011 blizzard, and also dealing with its effects. In many cases, we weren't able to deliver our print edition on time today, so we've been offering the e-edition for free. (Our full blizzard coverage is here.)

In one particular case, we were intimately involved in one of the most dramatic stories of the storm -- the paralyzed Lake Shore Drive where hundreds were trapped as they tried to get home. One of those people was reporter Dahleen Glanton, who is writing a first-person story about being trapped with dozens of others on a No. 146 bus until 2 or 3 in the morning. Check out Brian Cassella's photo blog of the night on Lake Shore Drive.

But much of our focus is on the cleanup and the aftermath. We're looking at public transportation in Chicago, where towed cars are going, where the SNOW is going, the remarkable accuracy of forecasts and scope of the weather -- and what impact a "lame duck" blizzard will have on Chicago politics during a mayoral election year with no incumbent.

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/tribnation/2011/02/how-the-chicago-tribune-is-covering-the-2011-chicago-blizzard-cleanup.html