Tag: media

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Putting the News to Sleep

Thomas Friedman is a moron. The guy is still traveling around touting his dated pipe-dream World is Flat book. Eerily reminiscent of the misinformed-but-sticking-with-it administration to which he’s been an advisor. I was hoping someone would step up to the mic when he visited USC on Monday, and ask: “Is there any free trade agreement you would not support?”

But he didn’t have time for the students, apparently, and kudos to the Daily Trojan‘s editors for calling him out.

Speaking of the DT, Zach Fox really gave it to the USC admin in this Op-Ed:

While the student editors and reporters who work for this newspaper are free to print whatever they wish, calling the Daily Trojan a student newspaper is like saying the Tribune Co.-owned Los Angeles Times is independent.

Now sleep on this….

A former Canadian defense minister is demanding governments worldwide disclose and use secret alien technologies obtained in alleged UFO crashes to stem climate change, a local paper said Wednesday.

Read more.

The neighborhood right-wing skeptics are pouncing on this just as fast as they’re trying to nail Gore for… um… using electricity.

photo via Naum.

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Tim Fite’s ‘Over the Counter Culture’

One of the best records of the year cannot be found in stores. It’s not available on iTunes. Last Tuesday, Tim Fite released “Over the Counter Culture” exclusively on his Web site. For free.

Fife is signed to Anti-, the record label currently responsible for releases from such stalwarts as Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Neko Case, and Mavis Staples. But “OTCC” is just too anti-establishment and anti-commercial to NOT be given away for free. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune wrote an in-depth profile:

“This record is a soundtrack for war, and in many ways it’s a soundtrack for a war that’s waging within everyone,” Fite says. “There’s the war outside, but then there’s the war inside ourselves about how much we acquiesce to market culture. That’s what the record was about for me, finding out what I’m fighting against and being truthful with myself about what I allow myself to fall victim to.”

Interview w/ Fite on “Sound Opinions — why he was inclined to go the DIY route with this particular content (press play):

VIDEO: “Camouflage”

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News War III – Bloggers & the Future of News

From part III of the PBS Frontline series:

Dean Baquet:

Kos:

Interviews from Parts I & II are here.

Also, read Joe Gandelman’s excellent post sizing up today’s entertainment-obsessed news media (see also here, here, here, and here.

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The Newsroom That Spends More, Earns More

The first good news story about the newspaper industry that I’ve read in a while and I sure hope it ends up on the desk of editors and publishers of the country’s finest newsrags.

My colleagues and feel acutely futile arguing that rampant job-cutting at newspapers not only lowers the quality of the rag, but shrinks profits in the long run (we’re months from graduating, J-school, so give us a break), Finally, there’s a study to back us up.

The upside for papers to hire, hire, hire:

“If you invest in the newsroom, do you make more money? The answer is yes,” Esther Thorson, an advertising professor and associate dean for graduate studies at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, said in a statement.

Reuters discloses the ugliness of the recent management of the news media industry that is (I pray) at its nadir.

According to job outplacement tracking firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of planned job cuts in the U.S. media sector surged 88 percent to 17,809 last year.

Since the start of 2007, Time Warner Inc.’s Time Inc. said it would cut 289 jobs, and the New York Times Co. announced plans to shed 125 jobs and close foreign bureaus for its Boston Globe newspaper.

“Until recently, people have been doing it because the results looked good to investors on Wall Street, but it’s… ignoring the long-term aspects,” said marketing professor and study co-author Murali Mantrala.

The study (which I can find no mention of on the Missouri site) will be published in April’s Journal of Marketing