All Blog Posts from Public Eye
Stephen Colbert, Mock Debater?
(AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
It's no news that the host of "The Colbert Report" is running for President. It's been the talk of the political world and blogosphere ever since he announced two weeks ago.
But today's New York Times piece got me wondering. Former TVNewser Brian Stelter wrote:
Stephen Colbert's presidential candidacy may be phony, but his supporters are very real…
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Jar Jar Binks, Media Critic
(AP)
"The failure of the major media in the United States to cover the extra-terrestrial issue is one of the great failures of all journalism."
-- Stephen Bassett, to the Toronto Star. (And possibly pushing for a "Ghostsbusters 3?")
Fox's Fair Fight on the Right?
(AP)
Could we be two-thirds of the way there with Fox News Channel and the Giuliani campaign?
Back in August, the cozy relationship between Fox News Channel head Roger Ailes and Rudy Giuliani was discussed in this space. Ailes ran Giuliani's mayoral campaign in 1989, you see, so it was curious that Fox was giving Rudy a lot more airtime (25 percent) than any of his competitors in the GOP.
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Ombudsmania!
(CBS/AP)
Today, Public Eye continues its semi-regular look at the issues at play in Print MediaLand -- at least the ones that seem worth passing along. (As sometimes these things get too insider-y even for us.) So keep your hands inside the car at all times, and we're off:
Heads or Tales:
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Major League Branding
(AP (file))
After watching the first two games of the World Series (thus the bags under my east coast eyes), I'd thought I was the only one who thought that Fox was spending a little too much time talking about a few of their sponsors.
See, there's this nationally-known taco place (yes, that one – the one that's not Baja Fresh or Chipotle) that has a promotion where if a player steals a base, then they give away tacos to America. It was an interesting eyebrow-raiser the first time I heard it.
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VNRs, 2.0
(AP)
These news segments were pre-taped Video News Releases (VNRs) that aped the look and feel of a news story – complete with the quote-unquote correspondent closing out by saying "I'm Karen Ryan, reporting" – discussing the positive effects of Medicare policy.
The tapes were then sent to local news stations nationwide where they all-too-frequently ran without the disclosure that they were government produced. The practice was thoroughly dissected by the famously prolix Jay Rosen. (Where he cites the Cleveland Plain Dealer, in all its brilliant 'plain'-ness editorializing "Karen Ryan, you're a phony.")
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Two Months After The Storm ...
(AP Photo/Matt Cilley)
The story was originally broken by John McArdle of the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, but the journalist who immediately skyrocketed to the top of every TV booker's "get" list was Idaho Statesman political columnist Dan Popkey – who had been covering Craig for years and also conducting his own background investigation regarding allegations of sexual misconduct by the Senator. You couldn't turn around without seeing Popkey being interviewed about the story.
This weekend marks the two-month mark since the story took over America's watercoolers and dinner table conversations – and late-night monologues, of course – so I tracked down Popkey to gauge his thoughts of the experience, now that the media frenzy is in the rear-view mirror.
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In Praise of Print
(CBS/iStockphoto)
The newspaper's genius is putting them together in a way that highlights connections and implicit categories, and that shows off enough of each to quickly tell you what you need to know.
It's like a shopping mall of news; you don't have to enter every store to have any fun. Just peering in the windows -- scanning the pictures and captions, passing over the headline and pull-quotes and the lead sentence, noting the story's placement -- can be worthwhile.
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V-Chip For The Internet?
(CBS/The Early Show)
A lot of Americans seem to be thinking along those lines, according to a new Zogby poll commissioned by DC tech PR firm 463 Communications.
According to the report in Digital ArtsOnline:
More than half of US residents want the government to regulate Internet video in some way, according to a poll released Wednesday.
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Hollywood Goes To War
(AP)
Yeah. I thought so. I'm betting you've probably gotten your fill of watching grim human drama, conflagration and tragedy this week.
But there's interesting news of a continuation of a trend spotted by this writer months ago: Films about the Iraq war or what was once called the 'War on Terror' are flopping miserably at the box office nowadays. (My reference point back then being a Samuel Jackson/Jessica Biel/50 Cent movie "Home of the Brave" that took in only $44,000 at the box office.)
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