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
FCC official wants probe of blacked out 60 Minutes report
(Reuters) A U.S. Federal Communications Commission official is seeking an inquiry into the blacking out of a politically charged segment of the CBS News magazine "60 Minutes" by a local television station in Alabama. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said he had asked the chairman of the FCC to open an inquiry into the February 24 incident at WHNT, a CBS affiliate in Huntsville, Alabama, in which civil rights footage from the 1960s was blacked out. "The FCC now needs to find out if something analogous is going on here," Copps said at a luncheon with media watchdog groups. "Was this an attempt to suppress information on the public airwaves, or was it really just a technical problem?"
Dan Rather left out of 48 Hours anniversary party(New York Magazine) Everybody who is anybody in television news — with one glaring omission — showed up for last week’s twentieth-anniversary blowout for 48 Hours, which, after 60 Minutes, is CBS News’ most durable magazine program. On hand for the party in the twentieth-floor lounge at 230 Fifth Avenue were CBS chairman Leslie Moonves, CBS News president Sean McManus, 48 Hours executive producer Susan Zirinsky, former CBS president Sir Howard Stringer, and former news president Andrew Heyward. Missing was Dan Rather.
CNN is beating Fox News again
(NY Times) Tim Arango writes: "After a long malaise, CNN is finally getting its swagger back. In the last four years CNN, which includes not just the flagship American network, but Headline News, CNN International and CNN.com, doubled its profits. 'There are not a lot of 27-year-old companies in America that can make that claim,' Mr. Walton said. All three cable news networks — CNN, Fox News and MSNBC — have enjoyed ratings bumps during the primaries. But CNN is able to brag about something it had not been able to since 2001: it topped Fox News in the prime-time ratings for a single month in the 25 to 54 age category, the group most coveted by advertisers."
CLICK HEREHow Self-Censorship Works in the Rupert Murdoch Empire
(The Guardian) Roy Greenslade writes: "In the run-up to Rupert Murdoch's takeover of Dow Jones, he went to great lengths to assure the staff of the Wall Street Journal , not to mention the wider journalistic community, that his editors are able to exercise editorial freedom. The WSJ would be safe in his hands. But, as we all know, editors are always aware that their freedom to edit relies on having an editorship. Their jobs depend on the owner, and that tends to encourage them to second-guess his desires. So Hugo Restall, editor of a small former Dow Jones asset, the Far Eastern Economic Review, knew exactly what to do when confronted by a review of a book about Murdoch's Chinese business forays, Rupert's adventures in China: How Murdoch lost a fortune and found a wife. He spiked it."
Murdoch tell-all book nears publication(Publisher's Weekly) Lynn Andriani writes: "Tuttle Publishing, the independent house that specializes in Asian-interest books, is considering moving the publication of the book, which they have re-titled Rupert Murdoch's China Adventures: How the World's Most Powerful Media Mogul Lost a Fortune and Found a Wife, from July to May because of the media interest. Publicist Rowan Muelling-Auer said Tuttle has not made changes to the book’s content, aside from Americanized English, and at this time does not have plans to vet the book from a legal perspective. 'It’s not something that we’re particularly worried about,' she said."
A place for angry journalists
(Editor & Publisher) Steve Outing writes: "Earlier this month, Kiyoshi Martinez started an experimental website that gives journalists a chance to vent their feelings about their profession and their work lives. And have they ever. AngryJournalist.com is a simple yet powerful concept: a gripe board where journalists are asked to say what's making them angry today. It's the modern-day equivalent of the anonymous suggestion box in the company lunchroom. All posts to the site are anonymous. Everything submitted goes through Martinez, who screens out trolls and spammers and non-relevant stuff. Most of the gripes are from journalists, though a few non-journalists manage to get their comments through Martinez' filter. (He spends about an hour a night on moderation duties.) The postings appear to come mostly from newspaper and TV news people (traditional and new media sides), with the occasional magazine or radio journalist chiming in."
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FCC has chilling effect on shows
(TV Week) Ira Teinowitz writes: "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin may be winning the fight he has picked with TV networks that air racy programming. Mr. Martin’s agency lost the last major indecency court case in federal appeals court and he’s awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on whether it will resuscitate that action against Fox. But the FCC’s legal setbacks aside, groups that represent show creators say the agency’s crackdown is affecting which shows end up on broadcast TV, and which shots or lines get pulled. Does that mean that without winning a decisive battle, the FCC is winning the war?"
The Real Media Bias(Newsweek) I think Evan Thomas is right on the money when he writes this..."The mainstream media (the "MSM" the bloggers love to rail against) are prejudiced, but not ideologically. The press's real bias is for conflict. Editors, even ones who marched in antiwar demonstrations during the Vietnam era, have a weakness for war, the ultimate conflict. Inveterate gossips and snoops, journalists also share a yen for scandal, preferably sexual. But mostly they are looking for narratives that reveal something of character. It is the human drama that most compels our attention."
The British Media and the Prince Harry secret
(NY Times) Stelter and Lyall write: "Every morning for 10 weeks, Bob Satchwell typed the words 'Prince Harry' and 'Afghanistan' into Google, and every morning, the top result was the same: 'Prince Harry Is Forbidden To Fight Alongside Soldiers In Afghanistan.' Mr. Satchwell was relieved; as the executive director of the Society of Editors in Britain, he had brokered a top-secret agreement to keep the prince’s presence in Afghanistan out of the cutthroat British papers and off the airwaves to reduce the chances that the prince or his fellow soldiers would become special targets of enemy fighters."
CLICK HERESun-Times launches Oprah blog
(suntimes.com) This site is all about Oprah all the time, for those people who just don't get enough Oprah Winfrey. Here's what it says on the site about the blogger: "Mark Bieganski is an online content guru for the Chicago Sun-Times and RogerEbert.com. He follows the Oprah phenom like it's a religion. He's been to the show three times as an audience member (he'll make the show as a guest someday) and has had the Oprah show on season pass ever since getting a Tivo two years ago."
Bloodbath at WLS Radio(Chicago Tribune) Jim Kirk writes: "In what staffers referred to as a "bloodbath'' Friday, WLS-AM 890 fired a number of staffers, including several news veterans, as owner Citadel Broadcasting slashed costs nationwide during one of the biggest advertising downturns in radio history. Among those let go were station news director and longtime Chicago radio news journalist Jennifer Keiper and longtime City Hall reporter Bill Cameron, sources said. Also among the group let go were news reporter David Jennings, a producer on the Don Wade & Roma morning show and various ad sales and support staff. Saturday morning host, Jake Hartford, was also shown the door, sources said."
WLS' Roe Conn reacts to bloodbath
(Roeconn.com) "On Leap Day, the barbarians breached the gate. WLS News was stripped to its core. Leaving only morning and afternoon drive anchors and a single reporter. This will be lamented by newspapermen who have watched their newsrooms similarly dismantled. Television newsroom staffs will avert their eyes with ominous awareness. Bloggers will anonymously crow about the dismantling of the old order with the schadenfreud-induced ferocity of those once cast aside by the medium they now decry...The magic and power of radio may be lost on Wall Street analysts, but it is not lost on you. According to those who monitor such things, more people listen to Chicago radio than ever before. 7,784,000 people over the age of 12 listen to terrestrial radio in this market alone. A record number despite the competition for your attention provided by cell phones, satellites and potholes."
Listeners Lash Out At WLS
(Chicago Sun Times) Robert Feder printed letters in his column today from outraged listeners. Judging by the tone and tenor of these letters, the management at WLS is getting an earful these days.
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It was 20 years ago this week...
(Richsamuels.com) ...that WMAQ (Chicago's oldest radio station) went all news (March 1, 1988). If you've never checked it out before, and you're interested in WMAQ history at all, you really should check out Rich Samuel's excellent history of the frequency at the link above. It's very well done.
An interview with Lisa Greene(Chicago Radio Spotlight) Last weekend I spoke with the midday personality at Chicago's newest radio station (Fresh FM), Lisa Greene. We talked about the new radio station, her previous stops on the radio dial, and the passing of her friend Mark Sullivan. Coming this weekend, WLS Radio's Dobie Maxwell.
