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
UPDATE: This video is the winner of the Chicago Sun-Times "Cubs song" contest. The contest was done to rip Sam Zell. The joke ended up being on the Sun-Times, however, when Tribune staffers won the contest...
Girls Gone Wild has video of Spitzer's hooker
(Huffington Post) Stop that $1 million check: It turns out the call girl linked to Eliot Spitzer had already shed her clothes for "Girls Gone Wild" as an 18-year-old while partying in Miami, the video company's founder said Tuesday. Joe Francis had reached out to Ashley Alexandra Dupre, now 22, with an offer of $1 million to appear in a non-nude spread for his company's new magazine, plus a chance to join the "Girls Gone Wild" tour bus, his company announced Tuesday. But Francis said someone had a revelation at the Tuesday morning staff meeting: Did anyone think to check the archives? They did, he said, and there she was. "It'll save me a million bucks," Francis told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "It's kind of like finding a winning lottery ticket in the cushions of your couch." Francis said at that point, his offer was off the table.
Dan Rather's Lawsuit to Continue(Huffington Post) Rachel Sklar writes: "There's been some more movement in the matter of Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS, after yesterday presiding judge Justice Ira Gammerman of the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan re-affirmed January's preliminary ruling against CBS on their motion to dismiss. Here's a statement issued last night by Gary Meyerhoff, an attorney at Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal representing Rather:
Today, Judge Gammerman re-affirmed that Mr. Rather's lawsuit will not be dismissed, that he expects to issue a written opinion on defendants' motion to dismiss within the next few weeks, and that, accordingly, discovery will proceed. The Judge also heard brief argument on certain document disputes. Mr. Rather's counsel challenged CBS' assertion that certain of its communications with investigator Eric Rigler were privileged; CBS defended its position, and Judge Gammerman requested that the documents be delivered to the Court for its review. Mr. Rather's counsel also requested that defendants identify the names of employees whose documents were searched in response to Mr. Rather's requests and, after brief argument, the defendants agreed to do so. Defendants' counsel demanded to know when Mr. Rather would begin producing documents they had requested, and Mr. Rather's counsel responded that production would begin next week.
Supreme Court to hear fleeting profanity case
(Broadcasting & Cable) With the current Supreme Court, there's very little doubt how they will rule. Get ready to do everything on a 5-second delay, broadcasters. John Eggerton writes: "The Supreme Court agreed to weigh in on fleeting broadcast profanity. The court Monday granted cert (agreed to hear) Fox’s and others’ appeal of a lower-court ruling that the Federal Communications Commission's fleeting-profanity policy was insufficiently justified, arbitrary and capricious. The court will likely hear the case in the fall, which means that the FCC’s profanity-enforcement regime remains in limbo until then. 'The issue now is how far the parties can persuade the court to go,' said John Crigler, a partner with Garvey Schubert Barer and a prominent First Amendment attorney. The key now, he added, is 'whether it is just going to look at the administrative issue of whether the commission gave a rational explanation for its regulation or whether the court will go further and reach constitutional underpinning of indecency regulation itself.'"
CLICK HEREBed Bug infestation at Fox News
(NY Times) Jacques Steinberg writes: "While grappling with MSNBC and CNN for viewers, Fox News has also been battling a smaller, more insidious enemy closer to home: bed bugs in its Midtown Manhattan newsroom. In an interview on Monday, Warren Vandeveer, senior vice president for operations and engineering at Fox News, said the cable channel had realized it had a problem a few weeks ago, when an employee 'caught a bug and showed it to us.' An exterminator determined that the incursion was limited to a 'very small area in the newsroom.' But the source of the bugs was not determined until the exterminator inspected the homes of about 20 employees. Mr. Vandeveer said the exterminator later described one employee’s home as having 'the worst infestation he had seen in 25 years in the business.'"
An interview with Comedian Lee Camp(Cara's Basement) A comedian on the rise is currently in Cara's Basement. Lee Camp was recently a guest on Fox News, appearing as a "left wing comic" vs. a "right wing comic". At the end of the live segment he couldn't help but speak his mind, calling Fox News "a parade of propoganda" and a "festival of ignorance". Video of the segment quickly spread over the internet, getting over a half million hits in the first 24 hours. If you haven't seen it, click HERE. To hear Cara's interview, click on the link/headline.
Tina Fey rips the Daily Show
(Reader's Digest) Here's part of the Q&A from her Reader's Digest interview...
RD: What pleases you more, applause or laughter?
Fey: Laughter. You can prompt applause with a sign. My friend, SNL writer Seth Meyers, coined the term clapter, which is when you do a political joke and people go, "Woo-hoo." It means they sort of approve but didn't really like it that much. You hear a lot of that on [whispers] The Daily Show.
CLICK HERE
NY Governor David Patterson and the art of the leak
(NY Observer) Choire Sicha writes: "Here’s something odd. Why did the Patersons submit to carefully conducted sit-downs with Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News, in which they each broke the news of an affair—when the new governor would then, fourteen and a half hours after that story was published, go on to announce affairs with a whole herd of other women? There’s a public-relations strategy gone somehow off the rails there. For one thing, it pissed everyone off. In the long and dark intervening hours between the Daily News story at 10 p.m. Monday and Paterson’s press conference at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, some tried to say what they couldn’t quite say. 'Neither Paterson nor his wife identified the individuals with whom they cheated. This would, of course, become more of an issue if the woman with whom Paterson had an affair is or was on the state payroll,' Liz Benjamin wrote on the Daily News’ Daily Politics blog. Oh, look, it turned out one of the women was. 'It was not clear if he had subsequent relationships outside his marriage,' Danny Hakim posted at The New York Times. Oh, but he did."
Innovator Rethinking Tribune's Ways
(Chicago Tribune) Phil Rosenthal writes about the arrival of Lee Abrams: "There has been considerable speculation over where at Tribune Co. his impact will be first felt. Although Abrams gave both Steve Dahl and Howard Stern their first major-market radio jobs, Dahl and former partner Garry Meier aren't getting reunited on Tribune's WGN-AM any time soon. Meier has reached out to Abrams about potential work. But Dahl, heard mornings on WJMK-FM 104.3, is under contract to CBS Radio for another 40 months."
(Rick responds: Oh well, I guess my speculation last week wasn't correct.)
Has Fox News Mellowed Karl Rove?(Washington Post) Howard Kurtz writes: "No one would accuse the newly minted pundit of being balanced, but to the surprise of some critics, he has been generally fair-minded in his commentary. The man long derided by the left as "Bush's brain" is trying to move beyond his attack-dog reputation. 'I'll never be able to fully shed it, because I am a partisan,' Rove says in an interview. 'But I'm doing the best I can to focus on my role in giving insight. . . . I'm not a journalist. I don't spend my days calling people up in the Clinton campaign or the Obama campaign. I've got more experience than the average reporter, I just don't have as much inside information as the average reporter.' Still, he adds, 'I know it's shocking, but I actually do have Democrat friends.'"
Storm blows through CNN headquarters
(Associated Press) The headline should be taken literally, not figuratively. David Bauder writes: "CNN switched to its scheduled taped programming early Saturday even though a major story -- downtown Atlanta's first recorded tornado -- had literally blown right through its news headquarters. The storm shattered windows in the CNN.com newsroom and the network's library late Friday. A computer was missing after it was apparently sucked through a window. No one at CNN was hurt, a spokeswoman said. The storm caused damage and injuries, but no fatalities in the Atlanta area."
CLICK HEREThe current state of journalism
(Associated Press) The Internet has profoundly changed journalism, but not necessarily in ways that were predicted even a few years ago, a study on the industry released Sunday found. It was believed at one point that the Net would democratize the media, offering many new voices, stories and perspectives. Yet the news agenda actually seems to be narrowing, with many Web sites primarily packaging news that is produced elsewhere, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual State of the News Media report. Two stories — the war in Iraq and the 2008 presidential election campaign — represented more than a quarter of the stories in newspapers, on television and online last year, the project found. Take away Iraq, Iran and Pakistan, and news from all of the other countries in the world combined filled up less than 6 percent of the American news hole, the project said.
Tracey Morgan responds to Tina Fey on SNL
Are News Habits Really Changing?
(Broadcasting & Cable) More on that journalism study from B&C's John Eggerton: "The trouble with journalism may not be a loss of audience, per se, but the challenge of getting advertisers to follow that audience to the Web. That’s one of the conclusions in the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s fifth annual State of the News Media report, an often-critical and often-criticized analysis of the news business. The report is being released Monday, but in an executive summary supplied to B&C, it concluded that Americans are still relying on the same sources for most of their news, but just getting to them in different ways. The "legacy media" -- CNN, MSNBC, CBS, The New York Times -- in both their original and Internet forms are attracting even larger audiences than they did before the explosion of information sites on the Web. But advertisers aren’t following yet."
CLICK HERE
Resolution Opposing Media Ownership Changes in House
(Radio Ink) Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) is the lead sponsor of a resolution of disapproval that aims to nullify the FCC's recent change to the media-ownership rules to lift the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban in the top 20 markets. The resolution is the House companion to a resolution introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) earlier this month. "Consolidation already has brought us to the point where two companies control 70 percent of market revenue in an average radio market," Inslee said. "We need to use every tool available to prevent further weakening of media-ownership rules." Co-sponsoring the resolution are Reps. Dave Reichert (R-WA), Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI).
An interview with Matt DuBiel(Chicago Radio Spotlight) Last weekend I spoke with the PD/OM/afternoon host of WERV, Matt DuBiel. We talked about his career, from his early days with the Loop to his current gig at the River. We also talked about the future of radio, and why there aren't many young people working in the medium. Coming this weekend: an interview with WBBM's Joe Collins.
