The Kicker
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March 18, 2010 02:10 PM
The End of The Ether
This week C-SPAN launched a full searchable online video library, dating to twenty-three years ago.
But let’s go a bit further back, to the earliest days of television broadcast, when the real worry was content dissemination, not preservation.
Clunky kineoscopes—essentially film cameras trained on in-house televisions monitors—allowed some moments to be recorded for prosperity, but with copy-of-a-copy quality issues. Electromagnetic video was cheaper, easier, and allowed recordings that matched or exceeded the quality of viewers at home.
But if video tape surmounted many of the quality issues, it left an major limitation, one obvious to anyone who’s grown used to instant access to video online. Even once home video formats and players were widely available, the tapes still required mechanical reproduction, and physical distribution. Want a program from 20 years ago? Even if you can fathom the exact air date and find someone with a copy they’re willing to sell, it still has to be copied and shipped.
You know the story, but the internet essentially unlimited capacity for data dissemination has eliminated these barriers.
It used to be said that television simply disappeared into the ether, a fact that was once obvious and is now astonishing. We’ve come a long way from where the only way to catch a repeat of a television was to hop out to the Alpha Centauri system. Let a 1991 episode of Nickelodeon’s “Adventures of Pete and Pete,” once ethered, now easily available via YouTube, explain what I mean.
Forget about space travel. Now C-SPAN’s their years and years of video are available at an instant, even, in another technological marvel, with a surprisingly robust full text search function. Again, it wasn’t very long ago that this was technically impossible.
Now though it will be easy for all to access the once hard to retrieve television record of politicians and journalists. (That last bit is key for CJR and others who keep an eye on the media.) Yes, C-SPAN is sui generis, a non-profit mostly broadcasting programs with little traditional commercial interest, and with little potential for distribution snagging copyright claims. But once they can be monetized I think we’ll see similar program libraries from commercial broadcasters.
But until we do, I know I’ll be enjoying C-SPAN’s offerings, from the serious to the silly. Let’s start:
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March 17, 2010 12:28 PM
Wise Words
In a perfect world, a publication is edited for readers. In the imperfect world that we inhabit, too many publications are edited for the benefit of their staffs and their friends and associates.
The particular culprit he has in mind is The Washington Post op-ed page, but the point applies more broadly. Of course, staffs and friends and associates can provide the psychic benefit of professional esteem and approbation, not to mention the material benefit of access to future employment opportunities. Compared to that, what do readers have to offer?
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March 16, 2010 02:30 PM
“We felt a lot better once we got back to camp and had a cup of tea.”
Here's some captivating video of what it's like to come under fire when embedded on patrol in Afghanistan from Stuart Webb and Alex Thomson, journalists with British television network Channel 4.
Yikes.
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March 12, 2010 12:37 PM
If Democrats do not contribute to the Greg Marx Retirement Fund, midterms will be costly
I’m not going to attempt to dissect each of the arguments made by Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen in their Washington Post op-ed about why Democrats should abandon their push for comprehensive health care reform. But the headline on the piece—“If Democrats ignore health-care polls, midterms will be costly”—is simplistic to the point of being misleading. That's because it's possible to construct any number of true statements such that if the Democrats do X or don't do Y, "the midterms will be costly"—their outlook for this fall is brutal.
Caddell and Schoen do offer a somewhat more nuanced case in the body of the piece, arguing that Democrats will face “a far greater calamitous reaction at the polls” if they pass health care than if they do not, and that claims to the contrary are “self-deluding.” But it's not clear that this is correct. It’s true, as they say, that the idea that “the public will suddenly embrace health-care reform” if it’s passed is mistaken. But the political case for passing reform is not that “the public” will embrace it, but that Democrats will. Indeed, as the party leadership has recently united behind the effort, there are signs that this is happening.
But arguments about whether reform will help or hurt Democrats in the fall are in the end somewhat beside the point. Political parties exist, in part, to advance the electoral interests of co-partisans. But more importantly, they are machines for achieving policy goals in the political arena. Comprehensive health care reform has been a goal of the Democratic Party for a loooong time. If the party has an opportunity to pass it, it will do so—that’s what parties do. After that, the proof is in the pudding: if it works well and people like it, Democrats will benefit in the long run, both electorally and by virtue of having realized a core goal. If it’s a failure, voters will reject it, the reform initiatives will be scaled back, and the party will be discredited. That’s the political message to keep in mind.
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March 12, 2010 11:46 AM
A Late Arrival to the Party
Over at Politico, Mike Calderone reports that The Washington Post will be stepping up its Tea Party coverage. Local writers Amy Gardner and Sandhya Somashekhar will be moving to the National desk, where Gardner “will train her sights on the emerging Tea Party movement and developments inside the Republican Party,” according to a memo to Post staffers obtained by Calderone.
The move is overdue. While it makes sense that beat specialists like The Washington Independent’s excellent Dave Weigel were among the leaders on this story, outlets like Politico and, later, The New York Times jumped in months ago to outline both the sentiments driving the movement and its nascent infrastructure. The Post is late to the game.
There’s an explanation of the timing contained in the memo, which is posted in full by Calderone: the new assignments for Gardner and Somashekhar are designed “to help [National] cover the midterm elections." (I heard something similar from a Post editor—that the paper would step up its coverage of the movement as part of a broader pre-election push—while discussing Tea Party coverage with various news outlets some time ago).
This approach makes a certain sense; elections are, after all, the defining events of our political life. But beyond leaving the Post behind its competition, it misses much of what’s interesting about the Tea Party folks. For all their anger at Washington, and all the infighting about ownership of the movement, there’s a good chance that the Tea Partiers won’t be too significant, electorally—most of them have been reliable Republican votes in the past, and they’ll be reliable Republican votes in the future. Things like enthusiasm and turnout and engagement matter, of course, and there are some questions in that vein surrounding the Tea Party that journalists should try to answer heading into November. But evidence for any sort of seismic shift in ideology or formation of cross-cutting coalitions is thin.
But just because we shouldn’t expect the Tea Party to swing many election results doesn’t mean it’s not newsworthy. Among the interesting questions it raises: How will the movement shape the running battle over priorities within the Republican Party? And how it is affecting the people who are part of it—what is driving them to join committees, host rallies, and organize campaigns for the first time in their lives?
While other news outlets have taken a crack at those stories, the Post can still cover them, and hopefully it will. But while they're clearly political, they’re not exactly "election" or "campaign" stories—and there’s no need to wait for campaign season to tell them.
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March 11, 2010 11:29 AM
Limiting Sunshine
Florida quite famously has one of the nation's most expansive public records access laws. And it's not uncommon for such a law to butt up against some people's views of common sense and common decency.
Take for example, the recent death of a trainer at the hands of a Tilikum, a SeaWorld whale. The park has turned over video of the incident to the Orange County Sheriff's office, which is investigating the death. And now that the video is in government possession, once the inquiry has concluded it will likely be ripe for release to anyone savvy enough to file a records request.
Not surprisingly, the victim's family isn't interested in having the potentially graphic—and certainly tragic—video disseminated.
This isn't simply matter of prurient public desire to see the death. There's interest in assuring that the video squares with the park's explanation and description of the killing.
Mike Thomas, a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel has an excellent column chewing over the issue. He lists several instances where Florida media have agreed or decided not to release gruesome images that they gained access to in order to tell stories of public interest and watchdog the claims and work of government officials. His conclusion:
I think we in the media have to recognize such realities and even consider supporting a bill introduced in the Florida House before the SeaWorld incident. It would not cut off access to public records such as this video—but it would enshrine in law this compromise we always seem to arrive at: Look, but don't publish.
You can see the material. You just can't take it out of the building or copy it. If the media feel there is a compelling need to do so, it can petition a judge for release. Everybody knows the rules up front, and it stops these gut-wrenching recurring battles.
Says Rep. Kelli Stargel, the House sponsor: "I think it is a happy medium to protect families from having their tragedies exploited while allow full scrutiny by the media and others of our public agencies.''
In the long run, this may well preserve our access to such information.
Understood. Still, it's a complicated knot to unravel. Most public records laws don't discriminate on what a person plans to do with the records upon their release—public is public. And that's usually a good thing; you don't want government empowered to limit who can exercise their freedom of information rights based on how they want to use the information.
Technological and cultural barriers have usually gone a long way towards preventing the release of such images where they've been available via court records or access laws. But the internet has eroded those barriers, both for good and for bad. Tilikum and others are testing what barriers, if any, will be erected in their stead.
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March 10, 2010 04:34 PM
Said What?
The perils of relying on prepared remarks. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius appeared before a group of insurance executives today, ready to deliver a tough camera ready sound bite. But then things changed. Here's ABC's account:
According to the White House-provided excerpts, Sebelius was planning to say: "You can choose to take the millions of dollars you have stored away for your next round of ads to kill meaningful reform, and use them to start giving Americans some relief from their skyrocketing premiums."
Instead, Sebelius actually said: "So there's another choice: I hope that you will take the assets that you have, the influence, the bully pulpit that you have and use it to start calling for comprehensive reform to pass. Start looking at giving Americans some relief with market strategies from those who are facing skyrocketing premiums."
Alas, over at Talking Points Memo, where someone apparently didn't watch the speech, Sebelius is still saying the things she never said:
Sebelius appeared before AHIP to ask the insurance companies for their help anyway.
"You have a choice," she said. "You can choose to continue your opposition to reform."
Or, she said, there's the other option. "You can choose to take the millions of dollars you have stored away for your next round of ads to kill meaningful reform, and use them to start giving Americans some relief from their skyrocketing premiums," Sebelius said. "Instead of spending your energy attacking the parts of the President's proposal you don't like, you can use it to strengthen the parts you do."
Anyone else make this error? If you find an example, feel free to paste the link in comments.
UPDATE 3/11: Wow. The Huffington Post's Jason Linkins finds a shockingly long list of outlets missing the bus on this one, including The Financial Times, Bloomberg, CNN, CBS, and Reuters. C'mon people!
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March 10, 2010 12:15 PM
Remembering Where People Get Their News
Riffing off of Kevin Drum’s post about Terry McDermott’s cover story about Fox News in the latest CJR (which you should read!), Matthew Yglesias yesterday made the now-familiar point that the folks in Washington are constantly watching cable news during the day, even though almost no one else is. Then he added:
By contrast, outlets that really are influential in terms of determining what people know—things like local broadcast TV news—are never watched by DC political professionals because you can’t see them without living in the local area.
It’s a good point, and one that not only politicians but also elite-media types (and the people who review them) should keep in mind. It’s fair to say that journalistic hierarchies are constructed so that national trumps local. And, while most media professionals love the chance to appear on camera, if you were to ask reporters who produces “good journalism,” in general the answer would be print/Web over TV. Put the two together, and local TV news is toward the bottom of the journalistic food chain.
But non-journalists don’t seem to see it that way. Last fall’s Pew survey on perceptions of the media found that TV remains the “dominant news source for the public,” with 71 percent of respondents saying they get most of their international/national news,* and 64 percent saying they get most of their local news, from TV. That’s not all: asked who does the most to uncover local stories, 44 percent of respondents said their local TV stations, while only one in four said their local paper. And while favorability ratings for all traditional news sources have declined, they’ve dropped less sharply, and shown less partisan polarization, for local TV news than for either daily newspapers or national newscasts. (The fact that local TV news generally focuses less on politics and government coverage than do other media is often held against it, journalistically-speaking, but in a polarized climate it may account for its relatively broad-based popularity.)
Obviously, given the radical shifts in the media environment all this is changing fast; the patterns of high-information news consumers—which, without looking up a study, I’m fairly certain are not oriented around local TV news—may become more widespread in the near future. Still, as a picture of how the broad public, such as it exists, gets its news today, it’s worth keeping in mind.
* Among these folks, about half cited cable and about half some form of over-the-air news, suggesting a somewhat larger role for cable than the ratings do. Still, nearly 1 in 5 respondents cited local TV programming as the source for most of their national/international news. -
March 09, 2010 03:51 PM
Joe the Plumber, You’ve Got Company
In an entirely unsurprising development, Charlie Crist is trying to capitalize on the Marco Rubio haircut story to claim the banner of conservative populism in Florida's Republican Senate primary. According to Politico, Crist told Fox's Greta van Susteren:
“I get my haircut for $11 from a guy named Carl the barber in St. Petersburg, Florida where I grew up. And to me that's real fiscal conservatism.”
First Joe the Plumber, now Carl the Barber... if one or two more of these characters crop up during the midterms, we'll have a line of action figures ready for the holiday shopping season!
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March 05, 2010 04:13 PM
More Fun With Headlines
Earlier today, Clint flagged this gem of headline word-smithery. Well, here is another chuckler, noteworthy for the very lack of cleverness that made the first one so good - in fact it's a perfect candidate for our magazine's funny headline feature, The Lower Case.
A prize to anyone who can figure out which paper this appeared in.
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March 05, 2010 02:56 PM
RadarOnline, Consider Yourself Warned
At The Monkey Cage, John Sides flags the fascinating Above the Law item that details how those short-lived "John Roberts is stepping down" rumors got started, then comments:
Meanwhile, in my American politics class next week, we’ll be discussing the presidency. If any rumors about Barack Obama’s physical well-being emerge at, say, 2:30 pm on Tuesday, I know nothing about them.
In comments to Sides's post, meanwhile, fellow Monkey Cager Andrew Gelman asks a typically quant-minded question: "what are the relative costs of falling for a false rumor or passing on a true one?"
If what he's referring to here is the reputational costs to the media outlet pushing the rumor, this is actually a topic that came up earlier in the CJR newsroom. Obviously, the answer is quite different for different outlets. But given Radar's current profile—and leaving aside those irritating questions about professional "standards"—was running with this rumor, in some sense, "worth it"? Imagine if they'd been right!
As you move up the journalistic food chain, of course, the potential loss is greater—but once someone else has gone first, the liability is diminished, too, because you can simply report that they've reported it.
It's worth noting that the conclusion of the Above the Law post explicitly disavows this sort of thinking:
And that, dear readers, is what we do around here — we talk to multiple sources, including the sources most directly involved in a given story, in the course of our reporting. We exercise judgment in deciding what to report and when to report it. We do want to be first, but we also want to be right.
So if the JGR retirement rumor leads to the usual bashing of online news sources for purported unreliability, please don’t lump us in with the other outlets. Thanks.Indeed.
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March 05, 2010 01:15 PM
Rent a Newspaper Flack
Print subscribers to the Los Angeles Times awoke this morning to find this where the front page—you know, the one with the news and stuff—usually is:
That's an ad promoting today's theatrical release of Disney's “Alice in Wonderland,” splashed underneath the paper's good name and masthead, and on top of dummied-up news copy.
Cue all the standard reasons to find this dispiriting.
But I've got another for the list. Take a look at what the paper's spokesperson told Sharon Waxman, the proprietor of Hollywood news site The Wrap, when she called to discuss the placement:
“We worked very closely with Disney to come up with an exceptional and distinctive way to help them open ‘Alice in Wonderland,’” said John Conroy, a spokesman for the Times. “It was designed to create buzz, and to extend the film’s already brilliant marketing campaign.“
As a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Times, John Conroy's job ought to be to explain, as best can be done, the Los Angeles Times's decision to run such a standards bending ad.
His job is not to blow kisses to the paper's advertisers, praising their exceptional and distinctive marketing brilliance. These are the same advertisers who, mind you, the paper must cover fairly alongside their market competitors day after day.
Let's just think this one through with a contemporary example:
"We worked very closely with Toyota to come up with an exceptional and distinctive way to help them patch up their public image and get people buying their cars again,” said John Conroy, a spokesman for the Times. “It was designed to create buzz, and to extend the company's already brilliant damage control plan.“
Or fast forward a bit:
"We worked very closely with Mitt Romney to come up with an exceptional and distinctive way to help him win more votes and carry California and win the presidency,” said John Conroy, a spokesman for the Times. “It was designed to create buzz, and to extend the candidate's brilliant political messaging.“
I at least hope the Times charges extra for this level of service.
(Image via The Wrap)
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March 05, 2010 12:05 PM
I Heart T-Shirts About Journalism
For all you journalists out there who can get away with wearing T-shirts to work.
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March 05, 2010 09:45 AM
Ripe Headline
Here's how the the Kansas City Star's Crime Scene KC blog headlined a post about a man heading to prison for 8 years after stealing a bag of shredded cheese:
Man gets hard time for soft cheese
Nicely done, and clever enough that we can agree to overlook the complicating fact that soft cheeses don't really shred well.
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