All Blog Posts from Public Eye

File this under “Why stop there?”

The esteemed and established 150 year-old Atlantic Monthly magazine is no longer.

Nonono, it’s not going anywhere. It’s just changing its name. You know, like Cat Stevens. Or Jack Napier. Or Cher.

According to the New York Post, the magazine – since it comes out ten times a year – is dropping the word ‘Monthly’ from its title. Very literal people there:

THE Atlantic Monthly already had cut back to a publishing frequency of 10 times a year, but only now is the magazine getting around to dropping the word "monthly" from its corporate identity and officially changing its name to The Atlantic.

Which got me thinking, why shouldn’t other news outlets follow suit?

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Skepticism ain’t just for the front pages. Class warfare bleeds into other sections, all the time. So it would be nice if skepticism could be exercised by inside-the-paper writers, too.

Take for example this year’s study of Exhorbitant Sporting Event Prices, courtesy of the people at Team Marketing Report, who came out with data on how much it costs to take the average family out. I don’t think I’m spoiling the plot for anyone by giving away the conclusion – the news isn’t good.

From cable networks to newspapers to angry sports talk radio callers, having actual data has fueled the fire -- with numbers tossed out that easily exceed two hundred dollars. But just how realistic is their calculation?

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There’s a collision looming on the horizon of MediaLand – at the intersection of ‘citizen journalism’ and ‘branding’ – and a few recent items in the news bear it out.

As was the case yesterday and will be the case for days, the dominant story by far is the disastrous inferno in Southern California. One million residents are being evacuated for their own safety, and the images from the scene are heart-wrenching and hypnotic – including the videos supplied to media organs by citizens with handheld cameras or cellphones.

This morning on CNN, “CNN Newsroom” anchor Tony Harris showcased some video sent in by viewers – footage that CNN calls “i-reports” – adding “We should say it every time and we do, please, don't put yourself in harm's way to send us i-reports!”

Along similiar lines, the current New York Observer features an interesting sign-of-the-times-type piece about how mainstream reporters – and they don’t get more mainstream than the New York Times-- are trying to establish their names as ‘brands.’

At one time the whole appeal of the life of the young journalist was that you could happily slip into one world, and then slip out into another; to start out writing about the Vatican and find yourself, years later, reviewing restaurants. And if you were good enough, you got yourself a late-career sinecure that was the love of your life. First came the work, then came the brand…

It used to be okay for, say, salespeople or career coaches to establish Me Inc.

But in the past couple years, journalism seems to have steeled its palate for the rotten taste of personal marketing.

So some journalists are self-promoters. This is not news. We media consumers have grown accustomed to the camera-hungry Kent Brockman media types. But what about people who aspire to be journalists? They’re even more desperate for a ‘branding’ opportunity, wherever one might be.

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Say the words “Sports Journalism” and chances are you either think about funny beer commercials or “Boo Yah!”

You don’t think of determined “All The President’s Men”-style investigative work.


But you should. Don’t believe me; ask Mike Fish.

Mike Fish is the ESPN.com reporter who dug and dug into the Pat Tillman fratricide story and came up with a 19,000-word journalistic gem, one called “the most important story ESPN.com has ever done” by the copy chief at the site.

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From the files of "nifty in theory" media criticism – and I've had to toss a lot of my ideas
ideas in that very file – comes today's suggestion from Washington and Lee journalism professor Edward Wasserman.

In the wake of media frenzies in Blacksburg, Virginia and weather-torn areas and grief-stricken disaster victims, Wasserman has two words for the news media: Keep Out.

Wasserman's critique of over-the-top media Tragedy TV starts out:

In the age of round-the-clock news, misery gets plenty of company. A bad event, if it's bad enough, unleashes a flood of reporters, producers, camera crews, satellite trucks and all the techie plumage that accessorizes the media-industrial complex. Whether a mine cave-in, mudslide, bridge collapse or school shooting, the media swarm around disaster sites has become such a routine of contemporary Americana that rarely do you hear anybody ask whether, on balance, it's a good thing.

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From the files of "nifty in theory" media criticism – and I've had to toss a lot of my ideas in the very same file – comes today's suggestion from Washington and Lee journalism professor Edward Wasserman.

In the wake of media frenzies in Blacksburg, Virginia and Minneapolis, Minnesota and covering grief-stricken disaster victims, Wasserman has two words for the news media: Keep Out.

Wasserman's critique of over-the-top media Tragedy TV starts out:

In the age of round-the-clock news, misery gets plenty of company. A bad event, if it's bad enough, unleashes a flood of reporters, producers, camera crews, satellite trucks and all the techie plumage that accessorizes the media-industrial complex.

Whether a mine cave-in, mudslide, bridge collapse or school shooting, the media swarm around disaster sites has become such a routine of contemporary Americana that rarely do you hear anybody ask whether, on balance, it's a good thing.

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Who has the right to decide what belongs in an obituary?

There’s an interesting discussion going on in MediaLand today over that question.

First off, troublingly, is the issue of how the Hollywood Reporter covered Merv Griffin’s death last week. Long-time friend-of-Griffin and weekly HR columnist Ray Richmond wrote an appreciation that opened up with a revelation surprising to some (and by ‘some’ I mean ‘me.’):

Merv Griffin was gay.

Why should that be so uncomfortable to read? Why is it so difficult to write? Why are we still so jittery even about raising the issue in purportedly liberal-minded Hollywood in 2007? We can refer to it casually in conversation, but the mainstream media somehow remains trapped in the Dark Ages when it comes to labeling a person as gay…

I had more than a passing acquaintance with him, having worked on "The Merv Griffin Show" as a talent coordinator/segment producer in 1985-86 as the show was winding down. Around the office, Merv's being gay was understood but rarely discussed. We knew nothing of his relationships because he guarded his privacy fiercely, and we didn't pry…

Over the past 16 years of his life, however, Griffin deflected the sexuality questions with a quip, determining that his private life remained nobody's business.

This led to the Huffington Post’s reporting the (wince) “Mervgate” hullabaloo caused by Richmond’s column around Tinseltown.

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In this week's installment of "From The Vault," Public Eye takes you back to the protests at the 1972 Republican Convention in Miami, where the news covering the news made the news."Anatomy Of A News Story" -- featuring Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather -- aired on June 28, 1973. Click on the video box to watch.

At this point it’s news to nobody that sites like YouTube are political players. (Though to what extent, and to whose benefit, remains up for argument.)

But Salon today dissects the anatomy of John McCain’s recent gaffe where – in response to an audience member’s suggestion that America “send an airmail message to Tehran” – he half-sang “Bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boy’s song “Barbara Ann” in front of a South Carolina crowd.

Was it news? None of the big boys in the mainstream media outlets considered it worth mentioning. Only the Georgetown Times – and even then 450 words into a 750-word story – decided the musical attempt at humor was newsworthy.

Despite this almost-unanimous omission, McCain’s song ended up becoming a national story. How?

An anonymous/guerilla opposition researcher uploaded the video to YouTube and then made sure to pass it along to the Drudge Report, where it became the lead item and entered the political mainstream.

Opposition researchers – people retained by different politicians or political groups to dig up inconvenient information about politicians on the other side – are doing a lot of the legwork for mainstream journalists nowadays, finding inconsistencies in candidates’ records and dirty little secrets in their past. And the public’s dissatisfaction with the mainstream media seems to ratchet up by the month, giving alternative media outlets increasing momentum and influence.

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It's notable that the latest development to push the Virginia Tech story forward is a debate over whether or not media outlets should have aired the video and pictures that last moved it forward.

All three newscasts led last night with a note about the growing controversy over the media's choice to run materials from Seung-hui Cho's self-glorifying manifesto. On the "Evening News," anchor Katie Couric opened the show by saying this: "A lot of reaction today to that video message from the Virginia Tech shooter – angry reaction aimed at news outlets, including this one, for airing portions of it. CBS News plans to use this video only on a limited basis, and only when we feel it's necessary to tell the story."

The vast majority of the emails I've received have condemned CBS and other media outlets for showing the video, and today brings a fresh round of stories on criticism of media outlets for doing so. One typical missive in the Public Eye inbox begins like this: "Airing Cho's video was inappropriate, unnecessary and malevolent. Sometimes network news staffs need to think less with their wallets and more with their heads."

One aspect of the debate that's been largely lost in all this is the fact that we're not seeing a large portion of the materials Cho sent to NBC News. As Jack Shafer noted in Slate, "Cho mailed NBC News about two dozen QuickTime videos, of which the network has aired only a handful." The network has also held back some of Cho's photos and writings. Shafer characterizes this decision as "odd restraint," stopping just short of calling on NBC to release the whole shebang. "If you're interested in knowing why Cho did what he did, you want to see the videos and photos and read from the transcripts," wrote Shafer. "If you're not interested, you should feel free to avert your eyes."

Another side of this debate that's gone missing – and I say this with nothing but respect and sadness for the Virginia Tech victims and their loved ones – is a sense of perspective. In the neighborhood of 200 people were killed in a single day this week in Iraq, a fact that has been treated as little more than a footnote in the flood of Virginia Tech coverage.

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