All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Everybody has an idea of “How to Fix Nightly Network News.” Go younger! No, wait, go older! Do more Paris Hilton! Show more Wayward Whales! Show Some Leg! But today – like those whales in that story from a month ago – J. Max Robins of Broadcasting and Cable swims upstream and tells the newscasts his secret:

More war.

That’s right. More war. In a world where fluff, cotton candy, and pop culture are bleeding into most newscasts, Robins has decided that hard news – not to mention, harder to watch news – is the next big thing in niche broadcasting. And he suggests that more coverage, and more graphic coverage, is both responsible journalism and a value-added component of a nightly news broadcast:

My suggestion to all in the nightly-news game, even leader World News, is that they get a lot more aggressive in their coverage of the Iraq War and related stories. I’d advise them to provide even more graphic coverage of what’s actually going on in Iraq and to never shy away from the gruesome toll the war is taking.

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"We don't want there to be confusion on this overall policy: that we don't pay for interviews."

--Bill Wheatley, vice president of NBC News, speaking to the New York Times in 2003.

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"NBC has agreed to pay as much as $1 million for Paris Hilton's first after-jail interview, which will appear on the 'Today' show."

--New York Post, today. NBC did not return the Post's call for comment and Hilton's rep said he "can't confirm or deny" the report.

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"Whatever happened to the pretense that the networks don't pay for interviews? Have we just left that behind entirely?"

--New York 1 anchor Pat Kiernan, commenting on the Post story this morning.

Get ‘em while they’re young, Peacock. NBC News has announced a new online venture to supplement America’s high school history, politics and English curricula with NBC News footage. The awkwardly-named project, iCue – which stands for Immerse, Compete, Understand and Excel – will provide historical videos for students using mostly archived NBC footage.

As far as NBC figures it, it’s a win-win. They get the public relations boost from informing (iCue …. IQ, get it?!) America’s youth while engaging in some nifty brand management and product placement at the same time. According to the New York Times:

The effort, which the network is spending nearly $10 million to develop, draws heavily on its exhaustive film and video archives chronicling the most important events of the last half century, as well as on its best-known journalists, who will have a chance to report on stories that occurred long before they were born.

When it comes to product placements, I’m far more comfortable having high schoolers exposed to Huntley and Brinkley than Joe Camel or The Funny Sonic Guys. But an unintended benefit of I-Cue may be a positive bump in how America’s youth sees mainstream media.

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By now, you've probably seen the disturbing pictures and video that Virginia Tech shooter Seung-hui Cho sent to NBC News. The debate has already begun as to whether NBC News, as well as the rest of the media, should have broadcast the killer's final message.

"[W]hat is the possible journalistic explanation for splashing Cho's self-dramatizing poses and self-justifying b------t over network and cable air?," wrote Harry Shearer at the Huffington Post, adding: "Cho's pathetic outpourings deserved to be put back where they came from--in a small room, with FBI guys sentenced to read/see and parse them. Instead, a hundred thousand self-pitying mentally ill young men (and women?) have just been shown the road to glory one more time."

An emailer to TVNewser, menwhile, defends the NBC decision.

"NBC News is taking enormous heat for airing and sharing the video and photos tonight," wrote the emailer. "People do not understand the journalistic obligation to do so. The business has itself to blame for people's lack of understanding because it has blurred the line between news and sensational news/entertainment. All of us who are serious about journalism need to defend a news organization's right and obligation to do what NBC did."

Soon after NBC News aired the video, some commenters denounced the decision to do so on the network's Web site. Wrote one: "I am totally appalled that NBC News has chosen to broadcast the videos of a psychopath according to his wishes and thereby possibly encourage other disturbed individuals to attempt to gain infamy through similar or copycat acts. I find this to be irresponsible and particularly disrespectful to the families of the victims."

NBC News reportedly spent "hours" debating whether or not to release the materials, which included a rambling, 1,800-word letter, and how much to release if they did. "We tried to be sensitive to the families involved and to the investigation," NBC News President Steve Capus told Howard Kurtz. Capus said that while some may be troubled by the network's decision to give Cho the platform he sought, "they also may say, 'We want to know why. We need to know what was in his head, what drove him to do this.' This is a portrait of a killer."

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We missed this when it first happened, but there's an interesting little controversy involving the NBC "Nightly News" that we thought you should know about. As Gary Schwitzer notes, the "Nightly News" did a story on restless leg syndrome, a condition that most of us had never heard about until drug company GlaxoSmithKline started publicizing it. GlaxoSmithKline offers a medication to treat restless leg syndrome, and the company advertises it on the "Nightly News."

The "Nightly News" story focused, in large part, on the fact that this is a condition that you probably didn't know you had until you were told it existed and offered the cure. But the story went on to quote a doctor saying this: "I'm not generally a big fan of direct-to-consumer TV ads. However, for this particular disorder, I think they've done a great service by spending most of the time identifying the problem." Also quoted was a patient who spoke approvingly of the drug.

As Schwitzer points out, the segment prompted an outcry from some viewers, who posted their complaints to Williams' blog. "I thought NBC was trying to cut commercials so we get more news. Does this intergraded ad then count as news or advertising," asked one. Another wrote that "I read all the comments on [restless leg syndrome] and it seemed to me the majority of writers were upset (as was I) about the blatant commercial you ran for an advertiser." (There were also supportive comments from viewers who say they have the condition.)

Schwitzer points to an article called “Giving Legs to Restless Legs: A Case Study of How the Media Helps Make People Sick.” The story discusses "disease mongering," described as "the effort by pharmaceutical companies (or others with similar financial interests) to enlarge the market for a treatment by convincing people that they are sick and need medical intervention."

Concludes the article: "The news coverage of restless legs syndrome is disturbing. It exaggerated the prevalence of disease and the need for treatment, and failed to consider the problems of overdiagnosis. In essence, the media seemed to have been co-opted into the disease-mongering process." In 2002, the "Early Show" ran a segment offering tips for those who might have the condition.

NBC News has started calling the situation in Iraq a civil war. And the network has stressed that they didn't make the decision to do so lightly. On the "Today Show" this morning, Matt Lauer said this: "As you know, for months now the White House has rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war. And for the most part, news organizations, like NBC, have hesitated to characterize it as such. But, after careful consideration, NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted -- that the situation in Iraq, with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas, can now be characterized as civil war."

Over the past week, CBS News has repeatedly used the phrase "civl war" in reference to Iraq – but only when discussing what the situation might eventually become. "…one of the worst weekends of violence in Iraq since the war began, the debate is on: Is this a civil war?" asked Gloria Borger on "Face the Nation" yesterday. Here's Tracy Smith on Saturday's "Early Show": "Also in the Middle East today, Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Saudi Arabia, where he'll meet with Saudi leaders and with Iraq's prime minister. It's part of the diplomatic push by the Bush administration to prevent full-scale civil war in Iraq." And Elizabeth Palmer, on the Nov. 24 "Early Show": "Calm is holding for now. But once the funerals are over for yesterday's victims, Iraqis fear that reprisal killings could spiral rapidly into all-out civil war." Here she is on that night's "Evening News": "Iraq remains on the brink of civil war."

Appearing on CBS News recently, figures such as Henry Kissinger, John Murtha and Claire McCaskill have all referred to Iraq as a civil war. The Los Angeles Times, as Jim Romenesko notes, is calling it as such. But according to Linda Mason, Senior Vice President, Standards and Special Projects, CBS News does not presently see any reason to refer to the situation as a civil war. She said that any decision to do so would come from the network as a whole, not any individual program.

"We're just covering the war, and I think we're doing a good job," said Mason. "We don't see a need to characterize it one way or another right now." Mason noted that "that could change."

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A great deal of attention has been paid to yesterday's announcement at NBC as it pertains to the repercussions for prime time programming. But we're more interested in how the shakeup affects the news. NBC News is being "streamlined," something that involves shifting headquarters and job cuts – 220, according to Radar, though NBC has not set a number. It's unclear if there will be significant new investment in the Web, though the rhetoric suggests as much.

One striking quote, from NBC News President Steve Capus, appeared in this morning's New York Times. "I'm not saying that now every story will get just one person who is going to meet the needs of every entity,' said Capus. "That's not the point. But maybe, instead of 30 people, we can send 25. I believe we can do that, and viewers will have no idea that behind the scenes, those are the conversations going on.'

That may be true, but the comment does seem to suggest that news organizations are continuing to move away from having people on the ground. In recent years, we've seen many news organizations close or scale back foreign bureaus in an effort to cut costs.

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Last night, the NBC “Nightly News” aired a story on the growing number and influence of blogs – you can watch it here. “What started as lonely voices from laptops are a growing influence in the mainstream media,” correspondent Dawn Fratangelo said in the piece, “Most every news outlet — including our own — now has at least one.”

In the world of media-watching (you’re in it right now) this is not a novel piece of news. The subject has been hashed, and re-hashed, and hashed some more. So, somewhat predictably, some bloggers have reacted to the story with nice helping of snark. Wrote Dreadpundit:

It was one of those newsbits that make you wonder in what decade the mainstream media are living. NBC ran a condescending little piece about blogs as if it were a discovery they had just made (maybe it was.) Now we're "real," we've been on the nightly news.

But in their montage of screenshots and happy patter (including a brief view of The Jawa Report's main [page] - another blog I write for) NBC anchor Brian Williams didn't mention the names of Dan Rather or Eason Jordan.

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There was a big trade in the sports world this week: NFL announcer Al Michaels went from ABC to NBC for a rabbit, some golf and a highlight to be named later.

Michaels will now call Sunday night football games on NBC with John Madden, with whom he previously worked Monday Night Football games on ABC. In exchange, the Walt Disney Company, ABC's owner, secured the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a Walt Disney-created predecessor of Mickey Mouse, as well as Friday coverage of the next four Ryder Cups, which will air on Disney-owned ESPN.

But there's another aspect of the deal that is particularly relevant today: NBC Universal granted ESPN increased usage of Olympic highlights through 2012. I've long wondered how the Olympics highlights broadcast rights get worked out – there are few television experiences more frustrating than being told about a dynamic Olympics performance only to be provided with still pictures, not video, of the event. But that's long what viewers have experienced, at least if they're not watching the right network.

NBC paid a whopping $2.9 billion for exclusive rights to broadcast the next three Olympics – more than $700 million for this year's installment – and the company is not going to simply give its asset away out of a spirit of bonhomie. That's why a three page legal document landed in my inbox a few weeks ago outlining the rules NBC has set forth for showing highlights. The company's legal team, no doubt, will not be shy about enforcing them. Among the, um, highlights of the document:

Other networks must wait until the end of NBC's prime time broadcast in each time zone to use highlights. On most nights the broadcast runs until 11:00 or later.

Highlights can only be used within 24 hours of when they air, and must have appeared on an NBC station. (Thus CBS couldn't air video provided by, say, the family member of an athlete, or a foreign network.) An interesting sidenote from the document: Other networks cannot "broadcast, disseminate or otherwise exploit multiple-exposure still images with a refresh rate designed to simulate the look and feel of video."

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While openness and interaction are becoming standard elements of news organizations across the spectrum, “transparency” has its downsides, too. That’s something NBC News has recently learned in trying to provide exactly the type of service that many critics have called for from the MSM.



Here’s the rough overview: NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell recently interviewed James Risen, The New York Times reporter who helped uncover the administration’s use of the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on conversations between people inside the U.S. and abroad. That story set off a storm of debate over the legality of the program, one that was flamed even more when buzz that the government had listened in on a U.S. reporter was introduced.



In her interview, Mitchell asked Risen if he knew whether or not reporters had been spied on and singled out CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. Risen said no. While the footage of that exchange never appeared on air, it was included when the network posted a full transcript of the interview online. Here’s how Lisa Green, Senior Producer for Broadcast Standards at NBC explains the incident on the “Daily Nightly”:

“Nightly News obviously did not report on this because it was an unsubstantiated tip, though we continued to follow other leads on the NSA story. Unfortunately, without Andrea’s approval, the entire transcript was posted on the web, including the brief exchange about Ms. Amanpour. When questions started surfacing in the blogosphere, it became clear that the publication of the transcript had inadvertently called attention to an allegation that had not been verified. We quickly decided to edit out that portion of the Risen transcript while we continued to check out the story. It's no surprise that readers were curious if not suspicious about the whole thing.

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