Collected and Edited by Rick Kaempfer
Highlights and links to the big stories in the news this week about the media. This column appears twice a week at MEDIA NOTEBOOK
Happy Valentines Day!
VIDEO: Jim Cramer says radio is dead!(Anyone who has read my book knows how I feel about this. When people like Jim Cramer on Wall Street say it's dead, radio finally has hope. The conglomerates will have to sell and then local operators have a chance to reclaim a lost medium. At least that's my hope...)
Hollywood is back to work
(Deadline Hollywood Daily) The official statement from the moguls: "This is a day of relief and optimism for everyone in the entertainment industry. We can now all get back to work, with the assurance that we have concluded two groundbreaking labor agreements - with our directors and our writers -- that establish a partnership through which our business can grow and prosper in the new digital age. The strike has been extraordinarily difficult for all of us, but the hardest hit of all have been the many thousands of businesses, workers and families that are economically dependent on our industry. We hope now to focus our collective efforts on what this industry does best - writers, directors, actors, production crews, and entertainment companies working together to deliver great content to our worldwide audiences."
CLICK HERERobert Feder interviews Jonathon Brandmeier
(Sun Times) Robert Feder writes: "Twenty-five years ago this week, Chicagoans heard an energetic young radio personality named Jonathon Brandmeier for the first time. The pride of Fond du Lac, Wis., turned up on WLUP-FM (97.9) by way of Phoenix, where he'd taken the market by storm with his prank phone calls and wacky song parodies. 'Brandmeier hopes to be king of comedy' read the headline of my column the following Monday -- Feb. 21, 1983. His launch on the Loop proved anything but smooth. Just days later, a court order obtained by his previous employer kept him off the air until, appropriately enough, April Fool's Day. Despite that inauspicious start, Johnny B. would become one of Chicago radio's greatest successes. For the next 15 years at the Loop, he dominated young adult listenership in the market."
Who's Afraid of 60 Minutes?
(Columbia Journalism Review) Liz Cox Barrett writes: "How do you make thirteen of 60 Minutes feel like an eternity? Sic Katie Couric on Senator Hillary Clinton. What struck me first about Couric’s questions Sunday night during her thirteen-minute interview of Clinton was not that they were too soft (though they weren’t particularly tough and nor were those Couric’s colleague, Steve Kroft, posed to Senator Barack Obama in his companion interview…more on all that in a second) it’s that they were, often, too…beside the point. I found myself wondering aloud, These are the things you—even you, Katie Couric—choose to ask a presidential candidate?"
Layoffs arrive at Yahoo!
(New York Times) Miguel Heft writes: "These are trying days for everyone at Yahoo — not just for Jerry Yang, the co-founder and chief executive. As Mr. Yang and his board try to keep Microsoft from buying Yahoo — or try to get it to raise its offer before they agree to sell — the ax came down Tuesday on some 1,000 employees. Yahoo is not saying who is being cut, but various employees say the layoffs are, if not across the board, certainly touching a lot of different groups across the company. That’s a bit of a surprise, as during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call late last month, Mr. Yang said: 'Rather than across-the-board cuts, we will make targeted reductions.' Employees say the cuts range from a small, entrepreneurial group in San Francisco called Brickhouse, through headquarters in Sunnyvale, and down to the media and search marketing groups in Southern California."
CLICK HERE
"Someday there will be people who don't know there is a print version"
(Folio) Time magazine’s managing editor Richard Stengel opened the Direct Marketing Association’s 22nd annual Circulation Day event today in New York with a keynote that largely addressed the magazine’s relationship with the Web site. Recounting the last year and a half, Stengle noted the magazine’s redesign, ratebase reduction, the new publication date and the Web site’s expansion into a product that stands out as a separate, 24/7 news site. Broadly, Stengel said the magazine needed to regain its status as a vital read, in a way that vaguely echoed the luxe leanings of other high-end publications. “We have to become a more premium product with beautiful paper and photography,” he said. “Each medium needs to do what it does best. A magazine should be something you’re addicted to.”
NBC's Ann Curry can't find Illinois on a map
MSNBC's David Shuster suspended for comment about Chelsea Clinton
(Associated Press) A distasteful comment about Chelsea Clinton by an MSNBC anchor could imperil Hillary Rodham Clinton's participation in future presidential debates on the network, a Clinton spokesman said. In a conference call with reporters, Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson on Friday excoriated MSNBC's David Shuster for suggesting the Clinton campaign had "pimped out" 27-year old Chelsea by having her place phone calls to celebrities and Democratic Party "superdelegates" on her mother's behalf. Wolfson called Shuster's comment "beneath contempt" and disgusting. "I, at this point, can't envision a scenario where we would continue to engage in debates on that network," he added. MSNBC said Shuster, who apologized on the air for his comment, has been temporarily suspended from appearing on all NBC news broadcasts except to offer his apology.
New York Times: Clinton letter blasts Shuster
CLICK HEREChet Coppock suspended for racial remark
(Chicago Tribune) Ed Sherman writes: "Quick, somebody has to invent a vaccine. There's an epidemic of broadcast personalities who can't control what comes out of their mouths. Chet Coppock is the latest to suffer from this dreaded malady. WMVP-AM 1000 has suspended the veteran sportscaster until Feb. 23 after he made an offensive remark about Jews on his show Feb. 2. During an exchange with Ben Finfer, Coppock was asked to spell Jewish. He replied, "Money, M-O-N-E-Y." After hearing the remark, WMVP general manager Jim Pastor took Coppock, who works weekends, off his show Sunday and will keep him on the sidelines for the next two weekends."
Another Great Video: ESPN's Chris Berman talks about Canadian Drugs
(He is talking to someone off camera as he waits for his turn on the Monday Night Football halftime show)
Campaign Stories Lines, All Knotted Up
(Washington Post) Howard Kurtz writes: "Reporters consistently overestimate the importance of money in presidential campaigns: McCain was out of cash, and Huckabee never had any, so their chances were drastically downgraded. Romney gave his own campaign $50 million and his chances were constantly talked up. There have been factual errors as well. The Associated Press blew a major call Tuesday, projecting Clinton the winner in Missouri based on exit polls, even though much of the St. Louis vote hadn't come in. The wire service withdrew the call 90 minutes later, after Obama moved ahead in the state he would soon win. Another embarrassment was the Reuters/C-SPAN pre-election poll -- widely picked up online -- that gave Obama a 13-point lead in California. Instead, Clinton scored a 10-point win in the state. The poll also had Mitt Romney ahead by seven points in California; McCain easily carried the state. Pollster John Zogby, who conducted the survey, says he underestimated Hispanic turnout and overestimated black turnout."
CLICK HERE
Trading Pinstripes for Politics
(New York Times) David Carr writes: "The Wall Street Journal, which has historically had a thing for guys in pinstripes rendered in stippled drawings, is taking its makeover very seriously. During a week when the stock market fell more than 4 percent, a recession seemed more likely, and Microsoft was putting the moves on Yahoo, The Journal spent almost all of its front-page real estate above the fold on politics, replete with flashy graphics. Out with Ballmer and Bernanke; in with Obama, Clinton and McCain. When Rupert Murdoch closed his deal for The Wall Street Journal at the end of 2007, there was speculation that the paper’s news columns would take on an ideological tilt. Nothing of that sort has occurred, which raises the question of what Mr. Murdoch is going to do with the paper. And the answer after a week of wall-to-wall politics on the front page? You’re looking at it."
An Interview with Dean Richards
(Chicago Radio Spotlight) This past weekend on Chicago Radio Spotlight I spoke with WGN's "Man of Many Hats" Dean Richards about his WGN radio and television career, as well as his days as a music disc jockey. Coming this weekend: WXRT jock and WBBM air copter reporter Ken Sumka.
