Media news digest archive for June 2004

A Fine Ethical Line (May 2004)
SBS Television in Australia is broadcasting a six-part series on the ethical dilemmas faced by journalists. Called Fineline, it started on April 28 (7.30pm). The network's blurb says, in part, "In recent years the public has been alarmed and outraged by the revelations of programs like Media Watch. Yet for every example of the blatant misuse of media power, there’s a case in which there are – quite simply – no right answers. Each week the audience is taken into different newsrooms in rival media empires. Under gentle but persistent questioning from director Ellen Fanning, some of Australia’s leading journalists are challenged to relive their most difficult professional moments, debate the choices they made, reveal the frustrations they face in trying to get at the truth and the sometimes agonising decisions they make about how far to go in pursuit of a story." There is a free PDF study guide available online via http://www.sbs.com.au/fineline/

Australians Report the World (April 2004)
Australian public broadcaster ABC has dedicated a website to revealing the history and activities of its foreign correspondents. See http://www.abc.net.au/aroundtheworld/

Alistair Cooke Dies (March 2004)
USA-based BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke has passed away at the age of 95, a few weeks after retiring, having produced his weekly Letter From America series since 1946. His gentle and often revealing reporting style will be sorely missed. See this BBC tribute page.

From Benton.org (February 2004)
WHY MORE CHOICES MAY MEAN FEWER
The Chicago Tribune's TV critic gives a good overview of how the economics of broadcast TV is changing, how audiences are growing smaller and smaller and what this means to the advertiser-supported model of paying for programming. He offers three possible outcomes for the current trend: the end, or shrinking, of over-the-air free TV to be replaced by much more pay-per-view; more stealth ads sneaked into the content of a show itself, like today's product placement only more so; and, in all likelihood, probably more repeats and a greater ratio of reality schlock to carefully produced scripted fare, because the latter is so expensive to make.
[SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, AUTHOR: Steve Johnson]
(http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0402010530feb01,1,675702.story) (requires registration)

From Benton.org (January 2004)
THE 'FREE' PC MAKES A COMEBACK: Metronomy, a British company based in London, is offering a free computer to every UK household, even promising to replace it with a new machine after three years. The company does admit that there is a catch. In return for an IBM personal computer worth USD$1,400, customers will have to put up with one minute of on screen advertising for every 20 minutes of computer use. Participating households will also have to use the computer for about an hour a day, totaling at least 30 hours a month. "What we're doing is apply the tradition of forced advertising breaks on television and radio to the home PC," said Metronomy chief executive and co-founder John Thornhill. Many of Britain's 12 million households that now own computers may also be tempted to take up its offer, if only to own a new machine or upgrade to a more advanced one, says Thornhill. Customers will receive a CD-ROM containing advertisements each month. These discs have to be loaded onto the computer; failure to do so results in the machine being disabled. If successful, Metronomy could dramatically increase home-accessed online use. Metronomy plans to start deliveries in February, and start advertisements April 1. SOURCE: CNN; AUTHOR: Reuters
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/12/17/free.pc.reut/index.html

From the MEAA's Free2beAustralian site (November 2004)
The Australian film, television and other cultural industries are extremely concerned by reports that the Government will make commitments in an Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to limit the regulation of new media in Australia. These reports run contrary to commitments that the Government has consistently given to the industry and the Australian people over the past 12 months. Comments by the Prime Minister’s office indicate that the Australian Government may decide to trade away their right to intervene in new media. That means trading away our right to support Australian content and for Australian voices to be heard through the technology of the future

From Benton.org (October 2003)
THE ROLE OF THE DELETE KEY IN BLOG: A recent policy change at the Sacramento Bee newspaper requiring journalists' Web logs (blogs) to be reviewed by an editor has sparked debate about the nature and purposes of both blogs and journalism. The Bee has sought to make clear that the policy was not a result of political pressure, but a response to complaints from Bee news staff members who wanted blogs to be treated the same as print stories. Of late, a number of newspapers have jumped on the blogging bandwagon, but not all of them edit their reporters' online journals. Dallas Morning News editor Keven Ann Willey said the paper does not edit posts "because we believe the best blog entries are fresh, spontaneous and instant and that we are able to be fresh, spontaneous and instant without jeopardizing this newspaper's standards or this department's goals." Professor Paul Grabowicz, who taught a class on weblogs last fall, said that many of the traditional aspects of journalism and the new publishing medium are not incompatible. "I think you can do a blog and retain journalistic standards without bleeding the life out of it and without sacrificing what is important about journalism," he said. SOURCE: New York Times; AUTHOR: Michael Falcone http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/technology/29blog.html See our Benton archive at this link.

From AJR.org (September 2003)
The Sacramento-based company, with its hip, high-profile CEO and no-layoff policy, has positioned itself as an alternative to the typical approach to corporate journalism. Does it deliver the goods? See http://ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3078

From Crikey.com.au (September 2003)
An excerpt of a speech by former would-be Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Dr John Hewson on the role of the ABC.
“As I look at the ABC, I think there are three words that stick in my mind that’s very important. The first one which Richard Glover just emphasised was mainstream. The ABC must maintain its position in the mainstream of media in Australia. And it is the balance to the privately owned media moguls in this country.
“The second word that strikes me is independence. We put a lot of weight on the independence of the judiciary, the independence of the Reserve Bank. What about the independence of the ABC? Why aren’t they given some capacity to get on and do what they do well?
“And the third set of words that stick in my mind is PBS – the public broadcasting system in the United States. That’s what we don’t want the ABC to end up. As Richard Glover said, they’re very American these days in Canberra. They’re enamoured by George W and his White House entourage. But we can’t afford to let them emulate the PBS with our ABC.” See http://www.crikey.com.au/media/2003/09/16-0001.html

Return to our newsdigest archive

WWW Guidomedia.com