Recent postings on media issues from Benton.org

March 2005

A PBS WE DESERVE:
[Commentary] The American right and the American left are bashing PBS. This has become such a regular sport that there are some who may have simply stopped taking the threat to PBS seriously. Others, particularly those in the public broadcasting community, may take this as a sign that public broadcasting in the U.S. is on the right path; that is, if the right and the left are unhappy, PBS must be in the sensible middle. Both of these views are wishful thinking. The value of public broadcasting to our society is important enough for us to understand these problems and work to solve them. Why is public broadcasting valuable? The interests of private corporations dominate communications in the United States. No matter how much we might hope they will act in the public interest, commercial broadcasters are not in business to inform the public, they are in business to sell space to advertisers and make a profit. And no matter how much we might hope they will be socially responsible, we do not reward them for being socially responsible. U.S. consumers and investors tend to prefer companies focused on the bottom line. But we need something more in a democracy. We must be willing to pay for it.
[SOURCE: Center for American Progress, AUTHOR: Mark Lloyd]
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14253003&BRD=2318&PAG=461&dept_id=484045&rfi=6

BUSH'S MEDIA CO-CONSPIRATORS
The latest revelation is that various agencies under President Bush are sending out hundreds of government-made "news videos" to local television stations.
[SOURCE: AlterNet, AUTHOR: Jim Hightower, jimhightower.com]
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/21636/
Also see second item at this URL: In a Fox News interview, Laurence Moskowitz, the CEO and President of Medialink Worldwide, defended video news releases (VNRs). "If the government doesn't use VNR as a tool, I believe they would be negligent," he said. Medialink is the largest global producer of VNRs. Moskowitz estimated that some 4000 VNRs are produced by corporate and government sources each year. Bob Priddy, the chair of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, said airing VNRs without the sponsor being identified breaks the Association's code of ethics. "If people take canned material, whether it's from a government agency or anywhere else, and they don't tell their audience who or where it is coming from, they are lying to their consumer," he told Fox.
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/
* Fake News? We Told You So, Ten Years Ago
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3518

CAN JUSTICE SCALIA SOLVE THE RIDDLES OF THE INTERNET?
[Commentary] Has the Internet, the most powerful information pump the world has ever known, drowned the incentive to create in words or images? Has the Internet effectively displaced the antique notion of the profit-motive with a newer, unstoppable reality that everything on the Internet is, if it wants to be, "free"? How is it that millions of Americans who wouldn't cross the street against a red light will sleep like lambs after downloading onto their computers a Library of Alexandria's worth of music or movies -- for free? Peter, It may seem quaintly old school to suggest that people should stop downloading culture without paying simply because it's the right thing to do. But that may be the best option available. For starters, if "the people" don't solve this problem themselves, Congress will, and you won't like the solution. No matter what the Supreme Court decides about Grokster's 15 minutes of fame, this is a philosophical issue for the long run. The Web isn't just a technology; it's become an ideology. The Web's birth as a "free" medium and the downloading ethic have engendered the belief that culture -- songs, movies, fiction, journalism, photography -- should be clickable into the public domain, for "everyone." What a weird ethic. Some who will spend hundreds of dollars for iPods and home theater systems won't pay one thin dime for a song or movie. So Steve Jobs and the Silicon Valley geeks get richer while the new-music artists sweating through three sets in dim clubs get to live on Red Bull. Where's the justice in that? [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Daniel Henninger]
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111232125427395146,00.html?mod=todays_us_opinion (requires subscription)

CRACKING THE STORY CODE [Commentary]: One of the greatest mysteries in our lives lies so close beneath our noses that we don't even recognize it to be a mystery. Why do we tell stories? Why has evolution given us the ability to conjure up these sequences of imaginary happenings, on which, through movies, novels, plays, TV soaps and comic strips, we spend so much of our lives? [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Christopher Booker, author of The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories] http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-booker31mar31,1,4530362.story?coll=la-news-comment (requires registration)

WHAT IS A JOURNALIST? [Commentary]: Journalism today operates under a kind of feudal system. Just as serfs once provided their labor to the lord of the castle in exchange for protection, reporters today rely on the corporations that hire them to give them the legal clout to take risks in digging out the truth. Bloggers and freelance book authors don't have this protection. As the power to disperse information moves from castle to cottage, bloggers need to band together, find patrons to protect them, or both. Bloggers are often compared with the lonely pamphleteers who flourished in the 15th century when printing with movable type was a new technology. Professional associations and support groups will make them less lonely. [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Philip Meyer, author of The Vanishing Newspaper] http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050331/oplede31.art.htm

SO MUCH MEDIA, SO LITTLE ATTENTION: As U.S. children are exposed to 81û2 hours of TV, video games, computers and other media a day -- often at once -- are they losing the ability to concentrate? Are their developing brains becoming hard-wired to “multi-task lite” rather than learn the focused critical thinking needed for a democracy? These troubling questions are raised by a Kaiser Family Foundation media study this month, says educational psychologist David Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family, a Minneapolis non-profit. Even more troubling is the answer: We don't know, Walsh and other experts in the field say. Bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate this month would spend $90 million over five years to research how electronic media affect the mental, social, physical and psychological development of children. [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Marilyn Elias] http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20050331/bl_cover31.art.htm For information about how TV and other media affect children, and how parents can guide kids in their media use: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20050331/bl_cover31_box.art.htm See also: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20050331/bl_cover31_numbers.art.htm

EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY -- THE DANGEROUS SPREAD OF COMMERCIALIZED CULTURE: Advertisers have long relied on 30-second TV spots to deliver messages to mass audiences. During the 1990s, the impact of these ads began to drop off, in part because viewers simply clicked to different programs during ads. In response, many advertisers began to place ads elsewhere, leading to ‘ad creep’ -- the spread of ads throughout social space and cultural institutions. [SOURCE: Multinational Monitor (via Media Savvy), AUTHOR: Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor] http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2005/012005/ruskin.html

THE COMING CONTENT WARS [Commentary]: "Reasonable, mature, reflective and democratic. Ideally, these should be the hallmarks of our media, but with people like [Brent] Bozell and [FCC Chairman Kevin] Martin uninterested in allowing discerning citizens to make their own choices, and politicians interested in scoring cheap points to "protect" us from ourselves, there's a real danger that we will get merely the media we're allowed, and not the one we deserve." [SOURCE: CJR Daily, AUTHOR: Paul McLeary] http://www.cjrdaily.org/archives/001403.asp

CLEANUP CRUSADE COULD CENSOR CONTROVERSY, TOO [Commenary]: One of the signposts of America's cultural divide is the renewed insistence that TV and radio clean up their tawdry acts, or else. But making the "or else" too extreme will do more than clean up the airwaves, it will inevitably lead to so much self-censorship that anything seriously controversial may also disappear, claims this Detroit Free Press editorial. [SOURCE: Detroit Free Press, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff] http://www.freep.com/voices/editorials/eindecency28e_20050328.htm

DOW JONES EXECUTIVE FORESEES MORE PAID WEB SITES: Gordon Crovitz, president of electronic publishing at Dow Jones, predicts that more publishers likely will try to wean readers off free Internet versions of their newspapers by starting to charge online subscription fees. Charging for news that appears in print -- and then giving it away over the Web -- is "an unsustainable business model," he says. [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Martha Graybow] http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=8026971

PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN MEDIA 2005: PQ Media has released a report on the size and structure of the product placement market. See a summary of the report at the URL below. http://www.pqmedia.com/ppsm2005-es.pdf

TV REPORTER EARNED MONEY FROM STATE: At the same time one of Florida's most visible television reporters brought the news to viewers around the state, he earned hundreds of thousands of dollars on the side from the government agencies he covered. Mike Vasilinda, a 30-year veteran of the Tallahassee press corps, does public relations work and provides film editing services to more than a dozen state agencies. His Tallahassee company, Mike Vasilinda Productions Inc., has earned more than $100,000 over the past four years through contracts with Gov. Jeb Bush's office, the Secretary of State, the Department of Education and other government entities that are routinely part of Vasilinda's stories. Vasilinda also was paid to work on campaign ads for at least one politician and to create a promotional movie for Leon County. One of his biggest state contracts was a 1996 deal that paid nearly $900,000 to air the weekly drawing for the Florida Lottery. Meanwhile, the freelance reporter's stories continued to air on CNN and most Florida NBC stations. [SOURCE: Herald Tribune, AUTHOR: Chris Davis chris.davis@heraldtribune.com & Matthew Doig matthew.doig@heraldtribune.com] http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005503260408 Also in -- NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/national/29florida.html

MORE PRODUCTS GET ROLES IN SHOWS, AND MARKETERS WONDER IF THEY ARE GETTING THEIR MONEY'S WORTH: Branded entertainment involves embedding advertising inside the content of television and radio programs and movies by placing products in important scenes or making brands intrinsic elements of plot lines. The goal of such ploys is to regain the attention of consumers who can avoid advertising by using digital video recorders, satellite radio and digital juke boxes. PQ Media, a research company, plans to release a report today that summarizes spending on product placement for the last three decades. The report predicts that spending this year will total a record $4.25 billion, an increase of 22.8 percent from the $3.46 billion spent in 2004. As recently as 1999, the spending totaled just $1.63 billion. [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Stuart Elliott] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/business/media/29adco.html (requires registration)

MORE PRODUCTS GET ROLES IN SHOWS, AND MARKETERS WONDER IF THEY ARE GETTING THEIR MONEY'S WORTH: Branded entertainment involves embedding advertising inside the content of television and radio programs and movies by placing products in important scenes or making brands intrinsic elements of plot lines. The goal of such ploys is to regain the attention of consumers who can avoid advertising by using digital video recorders, satellite radio and digital juke boxes. PQ Media, a research company, plans to release a report today that summarizes spending on product placement for the last three decades. The report predicts that spending this year will total a record $4.25 billion, an increase of 22.8 percent from the $3.46 billion spent in 2004. As recently as 1999, the spending totaled just $1.63 billion. [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Stuart Elliott] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/business/media/29adco.html (requires registration)

BRAZIL: FREE SOFTWARE'S BIGGEST AND BEST FRIEND: Looking to save millions of dollars in royalties and licensing fees, Brazil's president has instructed government ministries and state-run companies to gradually switch from costly operating systems made by Microsoft and others to free operating systems, like Linux. Brazil has also become the first country to require any company or research institute that receives government financing to develop software to license it as open-source, meaning the underlying software code must be free to all. Now Brazil's government looks poised to take its free software campaign to the masses. And once again Microsoft may end up on the sidelines. By the end of April, the government plans to roll out a much ballyhooed program called PC Conectado, or Connected PC, aimed at helping millions of low-income Brazilians buy their first computers. And if the president's top technology adviser gets his way, the program may end up offering computers with only free software, including the operating system, handpicked by the government instead of giving consumers the option of paying more for, say, a basic edition of Microsoft Windows. [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Todd Benson] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/technology/29computer.html (requires registration)

WHEN DAVID STEALS GOLIATH'S MUSIC
[Commentary] When the Supreme Court takes up peer-to-peer file sharing this week, the NY Times hopes it considers individual creators of music, movies and books, who need to keep getting paid if they are going to keep creating. If their work is suddenly made "free," all of society is likely to suffer. The founders wrote copyright protections into the Constitution because they believed that they were necessary for progress. Movies, music and books require investments of money and time. If their creators cannot make money from them, many will be unwilling or unable to keep producing. Or they may have to finance their work in troubling ways, like by building in product placements or taking money from donors with agendas. Grokster's supporters are justified in worrying that if the courts are too quick to rein in new technology, innovation can be stifled. They are also right to point out that copyright has sometimes been given too much protection, notably in the Copyright Term Extension Act, which gratuitously added 20 years to existing copyrights. But these concerns do not erase the continuing importance of intellectual property, which is unquestionably under assault. Both the court and Congress should be sensitive to evolving technologies. But they should not let technology evolve in a way that deprives people who create of the ability to be paid for their work. [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/opinion/28mon1.html (requires registration)

IS ONLINE NEWS REACHING ITS POTENTIAL?
Ten years ago, at the first “New News” seminar held at the Poynter Institute, a group of digital pioneers brainstormed what would be new about online news. They listed what it was that newspapers were not providing that the new digital news space would enable and how the new medium might change news reporting and writing. Many of the predictions were based on the idea of the “limitless newshole,” an endless space for providing deep context and satisfying the “give me more” that reporters thought news seekers were craving. The promise of hyperlinking and easier communication between readers and reporters were all high on the list of ways this new news space would change news. Creating new expressive forms of reporting, providing better follow-up on reported stories and crafting new relationships between words and graphics were noted as new potentials for online news. Ten years later, just how far have we come in realizing these predictions? How much have we truly leveraged the possibilities of new forms of news writing and reporting online?[SOURCE: Online Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Nora Paul]
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050324paul/

THE ART OF MANUFACTURED NEWS
If Professor Noam Chomsky was dead, he'd be spinning in his grave. As the media world assesses new ground rules, producer Medialink Worldwide says “branded journalism” is the best way to advertise in a splintered market. Instead of sending out video news releases in hopes that stations and cable networks will air them, PR firms are actually creating the newscast, then buying spots on networks the way a Madison Avenue firm would. If viewers were confused before, they'll certainly have a hard time discerning news updates from mini-infomercials now. Critics say the most troubling aspect of the latest VNR product from Medialink-a paid ad spot-is that the news content is genuine but serves as a conduit for a brand or corporate mention. Moskowitz says Medialink is exploring a wide range of similar formats in what he calls “marketing public relations” and what other PR-industry insiders dub “secured placements.” By secured, they mean that the media time was purchased and guaranteed to air unlike conventional VNR or B-roll footage. Moreover, Medialink Chairman/CEO Laurence says he is creating a new genre of television that blends news, PR and conventional Madison Avenue media-buying practices. In effect, he is competing with both Madison Avenue and the TV news industry, while blurring the lines between them. Moskowitz sees the distinctions between ad agencies and PR companies fading fast. Ad agencies spend millions producing commercials, buying media time or negotiating branded content deals; their PR counterparts are accomplishing the same for pennies on the marketing dollar. [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Joe Mandese]
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA513090.html?display=Feature&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)

MOSCOW-STYLE NEWS VIDEO FROM THE WHITE HOUSE: [Commentary] Video "news" reports showing Iraqi-Americans jubilant over the fall of Baghdad, praising airport security as "remarkable," and showing the
Bush Administration as determined to maintain open markets for American farmers were all commissioned by government departments, a fact that was not communicated to the viewing public. President Bush was asked at a recent news conference about the video news release practice and replied that the packages are "within the law." He tossed the ball right back to the media, saying it would be helpful if local stations would disclose to viewers that they chose to use these reports. And he added, "Evidently, in some cases, that is not the case." Between the White House and the stations that act like Moscow television, there should be enough shame to go around. [SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR:Daniel Schorr, NPR] http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0325/p09s02-cods.html

PROBLEMS ARE SCOOPING TRIBUNE: Five years ago, Tribune Company said it would acquire rival Times Mirror for $8.3 billion. Tribune figured the two media giants could offer advertisers a coast-to-coast marketplace of television stations, newspapers and Internet sites reaching eight of every 10 Americans. But that purchase was made just before the Internet bubble burst and now the company suffers from maladies afflicting the entire media business, including young adults who don't read newspapers as much as their parents and ad-sale competition from new-media rivals. The Los Angeles Times has not delivered on expected profits, Newsday has been mired in a scandal over allegedly doctored circulation figures and, just this week, a federal judge's ruling threw a legal wrench into the engine that Tribune had counted on to drive growth -- cross-ownership of both newspapers and TV stations in each of several big markets so it could sell lucrative ad packages to major advertisers. What's a giant media conglomerate to do? [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Joseph T. Hallinan joe.hallinan@wsj.com]
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111169664621289017,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing (requires subscription)

MUSIC AND VIDEO DOWNLOADING MOVES BEYOND P2P
About 36 million Americans -- or 27% of Internet users -- say they download either music or video files and about half of them have found ways outside of traditional peer-to-peer networks or paid online services to swap their files, according to the most recent survey of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. [SOURCE: Pew Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Mary Madden, Lee Rainie]
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/153/report_display.asp

CHINESE CRACK DOWN ON STUDENT WEB SITES: Universities across China are tightening controls on student-run Internet discussion forums as part of a Communist Party campaign to strengthen what it calls "ideological education" on campuses. The crackdown has caused widespread resentment among students and prompted at least two demonstrations in recent days. [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Philip P. Pan]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61334-2005Mar23.html (requires registration)

INTERNET AND MULTIMEDIA 2005: THE ON-DEMAND MEDIA CONSUMER: From the Benton news service: One in 10 Americans show a heavy preference to control their media and entertainment, according to the latest study from Arbitron Inc. and Edison Media Research - Internet and Multimedia 2005: The On-Demand Media Consumer. The study focuses on new devices and services that allow Americans to exercise more control over the media they consume. Topics include DVRs, portable MP3 players and other on-demand technologies. [SOURCE: Arbitron] http://www.arbitron.com/home/content.stm

LET'S DEFINE THE PUBLIC INTEREST: [Commentary] The authors, two past-members of a Presidential Advisory Committee, call on the FCC to define the public interest obligations of digital television broadcasters. Public-interest obligations, they write, encourage broadcasters to reach the greatest number of viewers with content that is not peripheral but central to their lives. They conclude: "If broadcasting is continually seen as just a business, like the toaster business, a short-sighted focus on narrow, profitable market segments may prevail. The result will be less and less programming that benefits the broadest segments of society. And TV could soon be seen as just a big box filled with yesterday's technology. When broadcasters embrace their roles as journalists and protectors and proponents of the public interest, we benefit far beyond what TV stations can recover in advertising: People are engaged as citizens; government power is checked; waste and fraud are exposed; and we can value our televisions as much as broadcasters value our well-being. Without public-interest obligations, our country's most time-honored broadcast values of competition, diversity, localism and democracy might all be toast." [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Charles Benton and Jim Goodmon] http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA511880.html?display=Opinion&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)

CAN DEMOCRACY SURVIVE OUR MEDIA-SATURATED SOCIETY: [Commentary] As suspected, young people are spending many of their waking hours absorbed in media of one type or another, primarily television and other forms of visual stimulation. They are obsessed with media -- but seldom the news media or serious reading. Parents have a difficult time even keeping up with the names of the newest electronics (MP3, TiVo, etc.), let alone their effects. Politicians and other mass-media hucksters are well ahead of parents and teachers. They know image trumps substance in a multitasking world. Farsighted authors (Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" in 1932, Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death," 1985) predicted a society in which a love affair with technology and entertainment stripped us of our capacity to engage in the serious thinking that sustains a democratic society. In today's intense, media-dominated society, young people have no spare time to reflect, to think deep or long-range thoughts. They are never away from instant visual stimulation, often a mélange of media at the same time. In the media-saturated world, the importance of image over substance dominates politics, and big money to purchase media time decides elections. More ain't better, and our democracy is already feeling the effects. [SOURCE: Seattle Times, AUTHOR: Floyd J. McKay, Western Washington University] http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002208706_floyd16.html

PROFESSOR'S ONLINE PUBLISHING EXPERIMENT: Further nudging outward the boundaries of online publishing, Stanford University Professor Larry Lessig will put his 1999 book "Code'' online today and invite Internet users to help him write an updated version. A noted copyright expert and proponent of free software, Prof Lessig is putting the 297-page treatise about technology, culture and regulation on the Web in the form of a ``wiki,'' a site that can allow people to freely edit its contents. The law professor will take the contributions at http://codebook.jot.com and edit them into a printed version of the book. [SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Michael Bazeley] http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/11148136.htm

AND NOW, THE COUNTERFEIT NEWS: [Commentary] The Bush administration has come under a lot of criticism for its attempts to fob off government propaganda as genuine news reports. Whether federal agencies are purchasing the services of supposedly independent columnists or making videos extolling White House initiatives and then disguising them as TV news reports, that's wrong. But it is time to acknowledge that the nation's news organizations have played a large and unappetizing role in deceiving the public. Too many television stations run government videos without any hint of where they came from. And while some claim they somehow stumbled accidentally into this trap, it seems obvious that in most cases, television stations that are short on reporters, long on air time to fill and unwilling to spend the money needed for real news gathering are abdicating their editorial responsibilities to the government's publicity teams. If using pretend news is one of the ways these stations have chosen to save money, it's a false economy. If it represents a political decision to support President Bush, it will eventually backfire. This kind of practice cheapens the real commodity that television stations have to sell during their news hours: their credibility. [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/16/opinion/16wed1.html (requires registration) Also see 7 letters to the NYTimes editor under the heading "Hidden News and Government Spin" http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/16/opinion/l16covert.html

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Marketers are reviving yesterday's beloved characters -- from Looney Tunes to Strawberry Shortcake, to Care Bears, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Thomas the Tank Engine -- to rekindle fond memories from adults -- and win the hearts of today's kids. [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Paige Albiniak] http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA510332.html?display=Special+Report&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)

CAN NEWSPAPERS END FREE RIDE ONLINE? Newspaper Web sites have been so popular that at some newspapers, including The New York Times, the number of people who read the paper online now surpasses the number who buy the print edition. But even though consumers are willing to spend millions of dollars on the Web when it comes to music services like iTunes and gaming sites like Xbox Live, when it comes to online news, they are happy to read it but loath to pay for it. [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Katharine] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/business/media/14paper.html (requires registration)

THE STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA 2005: In a 617-page report, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that 73 percent of the stories on Fox News covering the Iraq war last year included the opinions of the anchors and journalists reporting them. By contrast, 29 percent of the war reports on MSNBC and 2 percent of those on CNN included the journalists' own views. The report found that "Fox is more deeply sourced than its rivals," while CNN is "the least transparent about its sources of the three cable channels, but more likely to present multiple points of view." The project describes cable news reporting as pretty thin compared with the ABC, NBC and CBS evening newscasts. Only a quarter of the cable stories examined contained two or more identifiable sources, compared with 49 percent of network evening news stories and 81 percent of newspaper front-page stories. This, says the study, is in part because cable leans heavily on live reports, 60 percent of which are based on only a single identifiable source ("the White House said today," etc.). What's more, cable news is far more one-sided than other media outlets, with only a quarter of the stories involving controversy making more than a passing reference to a second point of view. By contrast, says the report, the network morning shows, PBS and newspaper front pages were more than three times as likely to contain a mix of views. [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32631-2005Mar13.html (requires registration) See -- * The State of the News Media 2005 at: http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2005/index.asp * Report: Non-traditional media gain ground, consumers: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20050314/d_mediamix14.art.htm * Study Warns of Junk-News Diet: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-media14mar14,1,7502444.story?coll=la-news-a_section

STUDY: KIDS ARE MULTI-MEDIA-TASKING: Kids are spending more time with new media, including computers and video games, without cutting back on TV watching, reading or listening to music. That's because they are becoming multi-media-taskers, according to a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation released Wednesday. The study found that since 1999, children and teens' exposure to media has gone up by more than an hour, from 7:29 per day to 8:33, most of that increase coming from video games or recreational computer time. But since much of that has become multi-layered usage--surfing the Web while watching TV, for example--the total number of hours of media usage has stayed virtually the same (6:19 in 1999 vs. 6:21 in the newest study). [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton] http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA509548?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers) Kaiser Press Release: http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia030905nr.cfm Summary of report: http://www.kff.org/entmedia/7250.cfm Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds http://www.kff.org/entmedia/7251.cfm * Electronic world swallows up kids' time, study finds http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050310/1a_bottomstrip10.art.htm * American children juggle media http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/11098189.htm

WHITE HOUSE APPROVES PASS FOR BLOGGER: Garrett M. Graff is to be ushered into the White House briefing room to attend the daily press "gaggle." Is it a big deal? Graff is considered the first blogger to be granted a daily White House pass for the specific purpose of writing a blog. He's the editor of fishbowlDC, a blog about the news media in Washington. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said he had met with the White House Correspondents Association and they had decided to let Mr. Graff in. "It is the press corps' briefing room and if there are any new lines to be drawn, it should be done by their association," he said. Graff said he was surprised at the help he received from "real" reporters covering the White House, given what he described as the animosity between some bloggers and the mainstream news media. Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University says Graff is helping to expand the definition of what constitutes the press, just as radio and television once pushed those boundaries. [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Katharine Seelyee] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/07/technology/07press.html (requires registration) See also -- * At a Suit's Core: Are Bloggers Reporters, Too? http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/07/technology/07blog.html (requires registration) * Apple goes to the source http://news.com.com/Apple+goes+to+the+source/2010-1071_3-5601664.html?tag=nefd.ac

GONZO GONE, RATHER GOING, WATERGATE STILL HERE: Frank Rich marks the passing of Hunter S Thompson and stepping down of Dan Rather by looking at the lack of News in the news. "The death of Thompson represents the passing from the Age of Gonzo to the Age of Gannon," wrote Russell Cobb in a column in The Daily Texan at the University of Texas. As he argues, today's White House press corps is less likely to be invaded by maverick talents like a drug-addled reporter from a renegade start-up magazine than by a paid propagandist like Jeff Gannon, a fake reporter for a fake news organization (Talon News) run by a bona fide Texas Republican operative who was a delegate to the 2000 Bush convention. [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Frank Rich] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/arts/06rich.html

BBC GETS NEW LEASE ON LIFE, BUT GOVERNMENT CALLS FOR OVERHAUL: After months of rancorous debate over its status and standards, the venerable British Broadcasting Corporation won a reprieve on Wednesday when the government approved a further 10-year Royal Charter guaranteeing compulsory public financing. But for the first time in the 83 years that the BBC has been the country's prime public service broadcaster, the government called for a radical overhaul of its top management. It also urged the institution to desist from "copycat" programming intended to "chase ratings for ratings sake." [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Alan Cowell] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/international/europe/03bbc.html (requires registration)

IT'S TIME TO RECONNECT THE PRESS AND THE PUBLIC: [Editorial] As FCC Chairman Powell limps off the policy stage, his attempts to loosen media ownership rules are still having an effect. The ownership debate was poorly covered, yet an impressive number of Americans tuned in and decided that big media - so much in their face already - was big enough, thanks. That's a good thing. But to the extent that people see media as a self-serving behemoth they may disconnect from the behemoth, including the part of it that produces the news. If journalism is seen as just another hungry special interest, the public will toss the good out with the bad. That's... well, bad. Getting straight news now from this hyped and opinion-loaded beast may feel like trying to drink from a fire hose. All that individual journalists can do is rededicate ourselves to journalism's central mission and find ways of explaining that mission to the public. The quality of our press and our democracy really are linked; journalism must produce work that actually benefits the public. [SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff] http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/2/editorial.asp

THE MASS MARKET IS NOT DEAD; WEAK CREATIVE IS THE PROBLEM: [Commentary] Maybe the oft-heard statement that the mass market is dead, that consumers can't be reached via the 30-second spot, that all this talk of needing to reach consumers in radically different ways is a gigantic rationale for the real truth -- that traditional advertising isn't creative enough to move the merchandise. [SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Rance Crain] http://adage.com/news.cms?newsId=44407

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