Current News and Media Videos

Dennis Ryerson, editor of The Indianapolis Star, wrote a blazing editorial defending traditional media for not getting the story on John Edwards’ affair before the tabloids did.

Rather than just tell you what he said, I’d rather let you read it for yourself. It’s a rather funny read, only it’s not so funny. It’s tragic. Ryerson would have been better off just writing a three word editorial, “Sorry, we failed.” Nope. Not gonna happen. Instead, we get a string of rationalizations, excuses, and a veneer of respectable standards set against those scalawags on the Internet. Here’s Ryerson’s 30 years of blissful experience:

Anybody can post anything on the Internet. A lot of good information shows up but a lot of lies, innuendoes and outright falsities surface as well.

That never happens to print media, does it? Anyone remember Jayson Blair? Oh, how quickly we forget, Mr. Ryerson. This is funny because just prior to his comment, Ryerson said this:

Those who say the media are biased on this one conveniently forget who did in Gary Hart during his Democratic presidential run. They forget all those front-page stories about Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. They forget Wilbur Mills and Wayne Hayes and Brock Adams, all Democratic leaders brought down when sex-related indiscretions were exposed by the mainstream media.

It’s not that Democratic politicians have cornered the market on infidelity. Rather, people remember what they want to remember and forget what they want to forget in order to further their own bias.

I agree, and Dennis Ryerson is the perfect example. Let’s continue:

At The Star, as is the case with every newspaper for which I’ve worked, it’s not easy to get a story published. We go through layers of editors. At our morning and afternoon news meetings, questions are asked. Stories are held, sometimes for days, until we are convinced we get it right.

Do we have the facts? Are we relying on word of mouth or verifiable information? Are our sources reliable? Do we have not just facts but all of the facts to provide proper perspective?

Even then we make mistakes, which I regret. But our goal is to print the facts and nothing more.

I’ve been a journalist too. I’ve won awards for my journalism. I know that newspapers don’t just print the facts. They also print opinions. That’s why they have editorial pages. But Ryerson’s comment is designed to imply that bloggers don’t report the facts. Tabloids don’t report the facts. OK, maybe tabloids get it wrong more often than they should. Newspapers and TV reporters aren’t perfect either. But you don’t here bloggers bloviating about how much better we are to newspaper reporters because our facts are better. That’s just plain nonsense.

Ryerson’s argument can be boiled down to this: Because we didn’t have the facts, we didn’t print them. In fact, we didn’t print anything. We didn’t have the facts.

Well, Ryerson evidently doesn’t know what a fact is. In his mind, as the “superior” journalist, a fact is something that is verifiable and undeniable. In other words, since no one knew for sure that Edwards had an affair then they couldn’t report it. But what they actually had was an allegation of an affair. The allegation was, in actuality, a fact. It always is. Someone said something. Someone alleged something. It actually happened. It really happened that someone alleged that someone else did something. Now maybe what was alleged didn’t happen, but the allegation itself is a fact and for the media to ignore the allegation is not the same as “sticking with the facts.” This is convenient doublespeak.

News reporters often report rumors. Someone alleged that Senator Larry Craig solicited gay sex in a men’s room at an airport. The media reported that before it was known that he actually did. It was just an allegation. And as the story unfolded, the media told more of the facts. It could have been that the story totally turned out to be unfounded. It often happens. Allegations are made then they are proven false. All along the way, reputable media organizations report the facts as they are known. But not in the case of the Edwards affair.

Here’s more Ryerson:

In my more than three decades in the business, barely a year has gone by that I haven’t heard of some alleged personal indiscretion committed by one politician or another. Few such tips become news stories because those misbehaviors are so enormously difficult to prove.

In most cases laws aren’t broken so there is no string of public records to follow. Often, it’s one person’s word against another. And if we don’t have our facts, who is hurt? Not just some public official, but wives and husbands, sons and daughters.

So yes, I plead guilty. We will be less inclined to report these kinds of stories than the average supermarket tabloid.

OK, I get it. People make false allegations. That’s true. It happens all the time. They’ll allege that such-and-such politician is pro abortion when in fact he simply believes that a woman has a right to make her own choices in that matter. False allegations. Still reported.

People sometimes allege that a politician is for higher taxes when in fact the politician just wants to impose a new tax on a certain group of people for whatever reason. In many cases, those new taxes won’t affect the majority of citizens. False allegations. Still reported.

The fact of the matter is that the traditional news media didn’t pursue the story. Is it possible that maybe they were hoping John Edwards would be the vice presidential pick and therefore conveniently neglected to pursue the facts? Then - then - when it became evident that the facts could no longer be denied and that Edwards might not have a chance at the veep position anyway - then, OK, then we’ll report the facts along with our insipid apologies. Do you think that’s possible?

Oh, and here’s the kicker:

But public officials beware. The Technoworld, for all its assets, also creates something of a Wild West Internet atmosphere. Anybody with a notion of some misdeed has more of an opportunity to report it, to me and my colleagues at The Star with our set of standards, to the National Enquirer with its set of standards, or directly on the Internet without attention to any set of standards.

Wonderful. They’ve got standards. We don’t. Of course, how many news stories have been broken by Internet journalists? The Smoking Gun, Matt Drudge, Huffington Post … these sub-standard news organizations routinely report stories much quicker and more accurately than traditional media do.

Let’s fact it. Traditional print media is out. New media is in. People trust online sources more than print sources. We’ve been losing interest in print news for a long time now. Dan Rather’s mishap on Bush’s National Guard record wasn’t a first. People have been losing faith in traditional media for years and the reason why is because journalists fail at reporting accurately and timely and now the word is out. These virtues that Ryerson is claiming, all bogus. They aren’t virtues. They’re excuses. And we’re not accepting them.

One criticism of news media in recent years has been that most of it is owned by just a handful of media kingpins. But Cox News, one of the largest media organizations in the country, is out to dispel that rumor. They’re selling off newspapers.

You can read the official announcement, in the form of a news article on one of Cox’s own newspapers, right here.

Meanwhile, over at Crooks and Liars, swiftboater Jerome Corsi takes one in the balls. Maybe Cox News would be interested in selling him.

In there area where I live there are a lot of small town newspapers. I am close enough to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to be fortunate enough to see a lot of good historic stuff. Reenactments, tours, visitors, museums, and even the annual Gettysburg Bike Week. I also write the local Gettysburg Blog.

During the course of writing my blog I subscribe to Google Alerts that use the word Gettysburg in any form. Whether it be Gettysburg alone, Gettysburg, Pa. or Gettysburg Pennsyania, I want to see it. I also subscribe to Google Alerts for both York County and Adams County. Interestingly, the paper that I see the most stories in for anything related to Gettysburg or Adams County is the Hanover Evening Sun. Bear in mind, of course, that Hanover is located in York County.

I have often found a story related to Gettysburg that I found in the Hanover Evening Sun that I didn’t find in the Gettysburg Times, the paper that covers Gettysburg. I find this to be rather fascinating. Stories that I’d expect to see in the Times don’t end up there and stories that shouldn’t appear in the Evening Sun do. That brings up a very interesting question, How do local newspaper editors choose what is important enough for their local newspapers?

Have you watched network tv lately? They have a reality show about everything. Lobster fishing, crabbing, disgusting food, hairstylists, and every other profession seems to be getting a reality show now.

Why? Would people really rather watch some crab fisherman than great sitcoms like they used to create? Sitcoms like Cheers, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, Two and a Half Men, and others have audiences that loved them. Other shows like CSI, Law And Order, The Shield, and more also have loyal audiences.

So what is the real reason there are so many reality shows popping up on every tv channel? They are checp to produce. No actors to pay. No script writers. No real talented Directors needed. The networks are cutting their expenses and that is why we have reality shows. They figure that the couch potatos who like to watch tv will adapt and just watch whatever they fill the time slots with.

The reason they have to cut expenses is that the Internet is taking couch potatos away from them and turning them into office-chair or computer desk potatos.

The second way you can notice how networks are reacting to the Internet is the number of commercials they show now. Commercial breaks used to consist of 3-4 commercials in a row. Now it is more like 7 in a row, then we have to sit through 2 more about what shows that channel has coming up later.

Recently the new tv series, In Plain Sight was started. The commercials announcing the upcoming show were being shown 6 months before the first episode was even scheduled to air. In January, they were showing commercials about the great new show they will give us in June. Wow.

So TV Is reacting to the Internet stealing their customers by cutting their production budget and by selling more and more commercials for each show, and by advertising their own programs more than ever before.

There is another indicator that network tv is dying out. The number of infomercials has risen dramatically. In the wee hours of the morning and late at night and on the weekends, we used to be able to find a few shows, repeats, and other things to watch even though there were always a few infomercials. Now it’s 90% infomercials, 10% something to watch.

Now how are newspapers reacting to the Internet?

More and more people are getting their news from news websites and blogs. Many of them get their daily news in their news reader through rss feeds. Commuters are using their laptops and handhelds and cell phones to get news from the Internet. Now you don’t see nearly as many newspapers being read on trains, buses, and subways.

So their sales of advertising is down because their readership is down. What does the newspaper industry do about it?

Almost two-thirds of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did just three years ago, nearly as many print less national news, and despite new demands on newsrooms like blogs and video, most of them have smaller news staffs, according to a new study.

Sixty-four percent of the newspapers reported cutting the space given to foreign news over three years, making that the area that has suffered at the most papers as the business contracts. Only 10 percent of the editors said they considered foreign news “very essential” to their papers.

Ahh, first let’s give readers less news. Good start. TV gives us less TV shows worth watching, so newspapers will give us less news to read. Follow the leader? At a time when more and more of the news that affects us every day is about dependence on foreign oil, the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism in other countries, how our allies are reacting to things we do, and foriegn money markets as well as foriegn currency vs the US Dollar, and other international issues, the newspapers have decided less is more.

Three-fifths of the papers reported having less space for news over all, as newspapers try to save money by shifting to smaller pages and printing fewer of them. The only area cut nearly as often as foreign news was national news, which declined at 57 percent of the papers. Business coverage ranked next, reduced by one-third of the papers.

Yeah, let’s cut out that pesky national news too.

Half of all papers said they had increased the amount of state and local news they published, especially “hyper-local” community news.

Pretty soon maybe there will be an opening to start your own newspaper. The Elm Street Times or the Baker Ave. Post.

At 59 percent of the newspapers, editors said news staffing had declined over the previous three years, and that was true at 85 percent of the large papers. In the months since the survey was taken, the nation’s major newspaper chains have made some of the deepest newsroom cuts on record.

Save your old newspapers and recordings of your favorite tv shows. They could be worth a lot of money on eBay someday soon.

Here’s an interesting blog post that brings up some ethical questions regarding contemporary news practices at the local level. Maybe ethics isn’t the right word, but propriety.

The real question, though, is not so much what the media did, but what parade organizers allowed. Didn’t someone approve the floats? Who was in charge of this parade? Didn’t someone tell these folks to leave that mess at home?

In order for these floats to have made it into the parade someone had to pay an entry fee (I’m guessing) and someone had to line them up in the right order and give them the go ahead to march. Who did that?

The interesting thing about this parade is its 100-year-old traditions. According to one community member:

The floats were part of the parade which has “been in existence for over 100 years and a portion of the parade is designed to poke fun at local and national events,” the committee said.

So if the parade is designed to poke fun at local and national events, does that include teen pregnancy? Does it include a particular act by a particular individual even if it is a teenager? Should the local media “report” on such an event and show the video footage of the “tasteless” acts by those in the parade?

These are all legitimate questions, but it seems to me that if this is a community event and it is designed to poke fun of the culture at large then it has done precisely what its objective is. Offensive? Sure, considering the nature of the culture, how could we expect otherwise?

Lawyers for The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times and The Associated Press filed a motion requesting the Supreme Court to order the Cook County Circuit Court to unseal court records and transcripts related to R. Kelly’s pornography case.

The R&B icon pleaded not guilty to charges that he videotaped himself having sex with an underage girl. Judge Vincent Gaughan (GAWN) has said he’s “trying to protect Kelly’s rights and prevent information from influencing prospective jurors”.

R. Kelly’s trial is scheduled to start May 9th in Chicago. This isn’t the first time R. Kelly has been charged with allegations that he has sexual relations with a minor.

I predict there will be a day when most of what you read in the mainstream press will come from a blog or somewhere else on the Internet.

Some people will read that prediction and say, “They already are”. Some will say, “Duh. I knew that”. And other people will say, “This guy is out of his mind. That will never happen”.

Some people call it Blogging. Some call it the New Media. Some call it Citizen Journalism. But anyone who doesn’t think of blogging as legitimate journalism is in for a rude awakening.

Blogs Influence Journalists, Nearly all Facets of News Coverage

Blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability of news but also influencing the tone and editorial direction of reporting, according to a survey of US journalists by Brodeur, a unit of Omnicom Group.

New media (social media and blogs) are having an impact on many aspects of reporting, particularly the speed and availability of news, Brodeur said.

Newspaper fell behind tv news because newspapers can’t bring you up-to-the minute news. TV news will fall behind or already has fallen behind the New Media, Blogs, because they can’t get the news any faster than bloggers can and journalists don’t get it as fast in many instances.

Another thing to point out is that there are a lot of bloggers who go much further in depth on a story and are more dogged in tracking down sources than journalists are. Bloggers don’t have a publisher with an agenda. Bloggers don’t have a marketing department that tells them the type of stories they need on the front page to sell newspapers.

Citizen Journalism critics say that bloggers are not as reliable as reporters. That’s bunk. It has been a very very long time since journalists who work for newspapers and TV stations were reliable sources for news.

From NYTimes reporters who plagiarized stories to those journalists who President Bush paid to write favorable stories about his No Child Left Behind education policies, journalists in the mainstream press have repeatedly shown they are no more reliable than the average joe who writes a news blog.

Now all newspapers and TV news shows are seen as far left or far right by people. Fox news is seen as far right and CNN as far left. In talk radio you have the al franken’s VS the rush limbaughs.

So the news we get on radio, TV, and newspapers is not unbiased, fair, or balanced as all of these claim they are. Add that to the fact they are owned by mega news corporations that have their own political, social, and marketing agendas and you cannot possibly be still under the impression that the mainstream media is more reliable than citizen journalists who write blogs.

Yes blogs can be slanted far left or far right as well. Usually they are much more open about that though. Fox news claims to be fair and balanced and claims they are not far right, while Redstate.org states right in their rules for posting on the site, “The purpose of this site is promote conservative and Republican ideals.”

Citizen Journalism is much more honest and straightforward about their intent than mainstream media. Mainstream Media has a bunch of lawyers, stock analysts, marketing people, and others who judge a story’s value not on how valuable that news is to the public, but how it might imact their advertisers, their stock prices, and whether or not it might get them sued.

The biggest impact of blogs is in the speed and availability of news.

Over half also said that blogs were having a significant impact on the “tone” (61.8%) and “editorial direction” (51.1%) of news reporting.

“While only a small percentage of journalists feel that blogs are helpful in generating sources or exclusives, they do see blogs as particularly useful in helping them better understand the context of a story, a new story angle, or a new story idea,” said Jerry Johnson, head of strategic planning at Brodeur, during the “Taking the Blogosphere Seriously” seminar at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

With some mainstream journalists it has already happened. With others it will happen. They will be at a point where before they write a story or run a story in the mainstream press, they will check the blogs first to see how the public might react to that story or to get new ideas and angles for that story.

Many people who have been blogging a long time have always predicted this to happen. Now it is happening.

The Rest of The Story on journalists and bloggers here

This is an important issue and hasn’t gotten enough attention in my opinion. Here is what another blogger had to say about the new FCC cross-ownership rules.

The Recorder’s Opinion

Right now you are able to read your local newspapers, particularly the small-town papers, because of a newspaper-broadcast rule adopted in 1975 that bans ownership of a daily newspaper and a television or radio station in the same market. There are a few exceptions to this rule that were “grandfathered” in because they were in place when the rule was adopted.

On Tuesday, Dec. 18, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) effectively changed this rule that has served to protect local news markets for over three decades. In effect, the FCC will now allow the national and international conglomerates to buy or absorb many of the smaller news businesses that cannot afford to compete. In spite of warnings by a bipartisan group of 25 senators on both sides of the aisle that they would fight such a ruling, the FCC voted in a 3-to-2 party-line vote to eliminate the ban on what is known as the “newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership” rules.

Does that mean anything to the general public? We think it does. How would you like to receive only the information or news that just a few multi-million-dollar corporations felt like sharing with the public? Or, to take it only one small step further, would we like to join the countries that are “fed” just exactly what the government and the wealthy few want you to have?

Ironically, the FCC justified their decision by claiming that the Internet has made it easier to get information so the old ruling just wasn’t up-to-date enough.

This is one issue where your voice should be heard. it goes to the basic principless that this country was founded on. Freedom of the Press relies on rules that make sure you have many different sources for your news. As these corporations take over more and more of your news sources, then those corporations merge and buy each other out, it is not far-fetched to see a time where all of your news comes from corporations who have their own agenda.

Here is an easy way to write your congressman and say what you think.

The Rest of The Story here

yes I used the words illegal immigrant rather than the politically correct undocumented worker. If you entered the US illegally, then illegal immigrant is the correct term.

I’m not going to change it because someone doesn’t like it. it is a statement of fact, whether we like it or not and nothing short of ignoring reality will change that.

There are laws on how to enter the US legally. There are laws in regards to becoming a US citizen. If you break those laws, then you have done something illegal.

It is not a racist term or remark. It is not an insult to anyone. It’s simply a fact. It doesn’t even matter whether or not you agree with the immigration laws in the US. The fact remains that they are laws and if you want them changed there is a democratic process in place to do so.

But until that happens, the law remains the same and if someone breaks it they have done something illegal. I’m just tired of the way people try to spin this issue into one of race, poilitics, poilitical correctness, etc. It is a matter of law plain and simple.

If I run a business I have to get a business license. I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to agree that the city has the right to tell me I have to have one. But it is the law and they can shut down my business if I do not get one.

You do not have to agree that a law is just and fair in order for it to really be a law. Disagreeing with a law does not mean that you can ignore the law.

The police officer in this story arrested people who broke laws.

Dream Turns Nightmare: Milwaukee Police Officer to Be Deported
By CATRIN EINHORN

Growing up here, Oscar Ayala-Cornejo recalls, he played chess and devoured comics, hung out at the mall and joined the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps. After high school, he realized a childhood dream, joining the Milwaukee Police Department.

But when Mr. Ayala-Cornejo filled out recruitment papers, he used the name of a dead relative who had been a United States citizen. He had to, Mr. Ayala-Cornejo says, because ever since his parents brought him here from Mexico when he was 9, he has lived in the country illegally.

In other words, he broke the law. We had terrorists who got fake drivers licenses before 911 and everyone screams why didn’t anyone catch them and put them in jail before they hit the world trade center!

Yet, the media spins the immigration issue completely the other way when this poor “undocumented worker” lied to become a police officer.

The life that Mr. Ayala-Cornejo carefully built here, including more than five years with the police force, is to end at noon on Saturday, when, heeding a deportation order, he will board a plane bound for the country he left as a child.

In May, acting on an anonymous tip, immigration agents arrested him on charges of falsely representing himself as a citizen. He pleaded guilty, and is now permanently barred from the United States.

“I’m going to be saying goodbye to my family, my friends, my city — everything that I know,” Mr. Ayala-Cornejo, 25, said in an interview at the home he shares with his widowed mother and his brother, filled with family photos.

See how this is supposed to be a news report of the facts, but they want you to feel so bad because this happened? Yes, it was his parents choice to bring him here at the age of 9, not his. Yes he lived here all of his life.

But he is assumed to be capable of making his own decisions as an adult at age 18. It was then he chose not to apply for citizenship. it was years later that he chose to use a false name to apply to be a police officer.

His decisions led him to be deported, not the decision his parents made to bring him here at the age of 9. He chose to break the law and only got deported. In Mexico it is a felony to be an illegal immigrant and you can be put in prison for years.

Mr. Ayala-Cornejo’s case is familiar to many illegal immigrants. Brought here by their parents illegally as children, they grow up thinking of themselves as Americans, often speaking English without a trace of an accent. But their immigration status frequently catches up with them when they prepare to attend college or take a job.

Those who avoid detection, if only temporarily as Mr. Ayala-Cornejo did, can lead lives more appealing than work at the carwash or in restaurant kitchens. Although usually associated with low-income jobs, illegal immigrants work in every sector, said Oscar A. Chacón, executive director of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities.

“Think about it: 12 million people,” Mr. Chacón said of the estimated number of illegal immigrants. “Does it really mean they are all working in stockyards, as landscapers, in hotels? No, they are doing all the jobs you can think of.”

Gosh. All of those people that claim that illegal immigrants only take jobs that Americans are unwilling to do must be ignoring this purposely. The fact that illegal immigrants do actually take jobs away from American Citizens that they would want does not suit the purpose of those who want to declare amnesty for illegal immigrants.

I’m all for people immigrating to this country. This country was built on it. But becoming a legal citizen is part of the process. Eliminating that part of the process could only lead to chaos.

The news media needs to stop spinning illegal acts into sob stories. If they want to talk about how bad our immigration laws are, then they should write an opinion piece like I just did.

This has been my opinion. I’m not writing a news piece. If I had been writing a news piece I would have reported the facts rather than spinning it to meet some corporate agenda the owners of the newspaper have.

Write opinions and label them as opinions. When reporting the news, try sticking to the facts. CATRIN EINHORN, it’s called journalism.

The Rest of The Story here

(Source) Five of the nation’s largest newspaper publishers are rumored to be working on their own online advertising network. Such a network would allow advertisers to buy advertising from one central destination, and include 7 of the top 10 markets in the US according to the report.

I knew it was just a matter of time before newspapers figured out how to make money online. This kind of effort would pool the resources of the top newspapers in the country and leverage their influence in the new media. While they would still be playing catch up to other online ad networks, at least they’d be in the game.

As Adam Ostrow points out, of course. Newspapers are notoriously slow in adapting to new technologies and business models. Still, if this online ad network is successful, it could very well put an end to Rich Ord’s premise that the AP is dead.

News and Media Blog