(Note: Sorry I can't seem to post a title...)
*The new media and the mayor
Interesting column by Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times about how the new media has driven the story of the affair of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-rutten7jul07,1,3927783.column
He also mentions the issue of what Mirthala Salinas, the Telemundo anchor and reporter involved with the mayor, knew, and what Telemundo knew about this relationship, and when they knew it. That’s a relevant case study for all journalists.
Reporters and columnists have sometimes been friendly with sources. But how friendly and how much it affects coverage is always a concern. Good rule of thumb for journalists: When in doubt, beg out of the story. Make sure someone else covers it.
By the way, I wonder how Hillary Clinton feels about Villaraigosa’s endorsement now. Yikes!
*Make the Internet count
Given the Chicago Tribune’s article today about how people are catching television newscasts online and on Ipod, and given the fact that more people are catching movies on DVD instead of (or in addition to) theaters, it’s time to make the new media count alongside the old. Whoever calculates ratings, box office, etc. should count everything. Take it from a Floridian who knows the importance of counting everything, and the consequences when it’s not….
*Speaking of newscasts….
New York magazine has a story about Katie Couric (still “Katherine” to me after her 1980s Miami stint) and her second thoughts about accepting the CBS Evening News job. People just want to know what’s going on in the world; they don’t want any fancy stepping.
I still don’t know whether she can adjust, and audiences with her, or not….But expect to see her going the Barbara Walters route of newsmagazines and special interviews if she doesn’t make the adjustment within two years.
By the way, I never did comment on Dan Rather’sstatements a few weeks ago. No, he wasn’t being sexist. Yes, he was right about what’s been done to the newscast. And I don’t agree with CBS boss Les Moonves that national audiences aren’t ready for a woman. They’re ready for the right woman. I think Diane Sawyer would have been the right woman. And audiences have had no trouble with weekend and substitute anchors that have included some of the best, including former ABC anchor/reporter Carole Simpson.
By the way, this paragraph in Joe Hagan’s piece hits the nail perfectly:
“The reaction to Couric as anchor has less to do with the fact that she is a woman than it has to do with the type of woman she is—or at least the type she has played on TV. Despite a long list of accomplished interviews with world leaders and politicians, fromTony Blair to President Bush to Kofi Annan, Couric has a hard time shaking the perception that she’s light and girlish, as opposed to serious and mature.”
Bingo.
The article continues:
“She blames it on the later incarnation of the Today show.
'I think the show got increasingly soft during my tenure, during the end of it,' she says, referring to the version of the program run by former executive producer Tom Touchet, with whom she often clashed.'And that’s one of the reasons I wasn’t fulfilled journalistically in the job. Perhaps the most recent memory of me in the eyes of some people is of the softer, fun aspects of the Today show, which I totally enjoyed and I think I did well in, but it wasn’t the whole enchilada for me.'
The algorithm for why a news personality appeals or doesn’t turns out to be much more complicated than gender or reporting chops or whether someone came from morning television. After all, Charlie Gibson—the leader in the ratings—came from Good Morning America. Although, as Couric points out, 'he was more of anavuncular figure on that show. I was encouraged toshow a fun, playful side more.' And Diane Sawyer,Couric’s chief competitor for the mantle of most powerful and respected woman in television news, has done basically the same job as Couric for the last decade, yet no one questions Sawyer’s seriousness and credibility when she bags exclusive interviews or does hard news. Couric suspects that if Sawyer were doing an evening news broadcast, she might have run into the same issues. 'Perhaps.'
But as it stands, Sawyer has exceptionally high favorability ratings, topping a Gallup poll last year measuring viewer opinion on TV news people. Meanwhile, as Couric has shifted away from her flirty, funny, line-flubbing, relatable morning personality to a harder, edgier, and ultimately more humorless evening persona, her Q score—the gold standard of favorability ratings—has declined. (As of last year, she was on par with Dan Rather.) Maybe it’s just growing pains as she moves from one phase of her career to the next. But the worry is that her transformation into Anchor Katie might be obscuring what made many people like her to begin with.”
Here’s the link to the whole article:
http://nymag.com/news/features/34452/
*Watch your language, AP
I must question the Associated Press headline that says anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan “threatens” to run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Threatens?” By whose standards?
If she’s an American citizen and has her civil rights, she has a right to run. Someone please tell the AP headline writer.
*1977 Yankees: At the library
If you watch (or even if you don’t) the ESPN miniseries “The Bronx is Burning,” about the 1977 NewYork Yankees and based on a 2005 book, you can get even more by looking for a great book written the year after that season: “The Best Team Money Can Buy,” by then-Newsday Yankees beat writer Steve Jacobson. It’s in diary form and an excellent chronicle of that tumultuous season. Jacobson, incidentally, was a consultant for this film.
*Williamsburg Five-O?
The answer to last week's question about the longest-running movie ever: "Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot," shown in Colonial Williamsburg every day for the last 50 years. Hmmm....50.....Appropriate, then, that its star, playing fictional planter John Fry, is Jack Lord, who would later go on to play Steve McGarrett in the long-running CBS series "Hawaii Five-O." Lord, who died in 1998, seemed to have a thing for records: "Hawaii Five-O" is still the longest-running police drama in television history ("Law and Order" topped it as the longest running crime drama, but "Five-O" had mostly cops, rarely courtroom.).
Anyway, here's more from the Colonial Williamsburg site on the film:
http://www.history.org/Foundation/general/patriot.cfm
And here's an article about the film....I love the title:
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