Is Time Warner going to sell off Time, Sports Illustrated, and People?
Ever since its disastrous 2000 merger with America Online, Time Warner has been playing defense. Outside agitators like Carl Icahn have called on the media behemoth to sell or spin off units that generate cash reliably but don`t offer much in the way of growth, notably AOL and the company`s vast cable holdings. CEO Richard Parsons, refusing to budge from the company`s conglomeration strategy, has politely demurred.
But recent events suggest that Icahn and the professional noodges have focused on the wrong corporate assets. What if Time Warner sold off Time Inc., the company`s mammoth magazine business? Home to such powerhouses as Time, Sports Illustrated, People, Fortune, and InStyle, Time Inc. has always been regarded as a corporate crown jewel and probably America`s greatest magazine publisher. But, while I can`t claim inside knowledge, there are signs that the empire founded by Henry Luce-which began in 1923 as just a single magazine, Time-isn`t exactly pinning its future on the periodicals business.
Source: Slate September 2006
ABC to alter show on pre-9/11 run-up
ABC plans to make minor changes to its docudrama on the run-up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in response to heated complaints from former Clinton administration officials that a number of scenes are fabricated, a network executive said yesterday.
Thomas H. Kean, the Republican who chaired the 9/11 commission and is a co-executive producer of the film, said in an interview that he recently asked for changes that would address complaints raised by the former aides to President Bill Clinton and that ABC is considering his request.
The ABC executive said the "adjustments and refinements" are "intended to make clearer that it was general indecisiveness" by federal officials that left the country vulnerable to terrorist attacks, "not any one individual." The executive, who requested anonymity because the network is making only written comments, said small revisions have been underway for weeks.
Source: The Washington Post 4 September 2006
Controversy over 9/11 film hits press; here is sneak preview
Just bubbling up from the blogs into the mainstream press - a New York Times article appeared on Tuesday -- is debate over the "The Path to 9/11" TV movie to be aired on ABC this coming Sept. 10 and 11. Liberal bloggers have said that it reportedly pins much of the blame for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on President Clinton, often citing as their sources conservatives who made this very point after attending screenings.
Meanwhile, at least two real life figures portrayed in the movie, Richard Clarke and Sandy Berger, have raised factual objections, and it appears that the script has mistaken the Washington Post and the Washington Times at one moment. ABC and an adviser to the series - former Gov. Thomas Kean, co-chair of the 9/11 Commission — have said it is balanced and objective, and a docu-drama, not literal truth.
But few critics have actually seen the film. E&P obtained an advance review copy today, and we summarize the film below. It’s possible that some changes may have been, or will be, made in this cut.
Source: Editor & Publisher 7 September 2006
A new space for public opinion
How many citizens, having their morning breakfast with a cup of coffee in the right hand and the day’s morning newspaper held somewhat precariously in the left, realise that developments in science and technology have changed the contours and colours of mass media and that the emergence of internet and blog sites has provided a new space for public opinion?
The word ‘blog’ itself is of recent origin. The tenth edition of the Concise Oxford English dictionary published as recently as 1999 does not carry the word. Yes, it carries one full page of SMS (electronic test messaging), points out that the initials stand for Short Message (for Messaging) Service and adds that, a further feature of SMS is its use of ‘emotions’, representations of facial expressions which can be formed with keyboard or keypad characters and which are intended as a quick, amusing way of conveying the sender’s feelings or intended tone.
And the dictionary states: "Many SMS abbreviations are rapidly attaining the status of accepted conventions familiar to most users of the ‘language’ and it mentioned a whole lot of abbreviations like AND (Any Day Now), ATB (All The Best) BFN (Bye For Now), F2F (Face To Face), KWIM (Know What I Mean?), RUOK (Are You Okay?), ILOVU (I Love You) and PCM (Please Call Me).
Source: Cybernoon 2 September 2006
Small should be `The New Big` for newspapers and the Web
I`ve been reading Seth Godin`s new book, "Small Is the New Big," which is a collection of the author and marketing guru`s thoughts as expressed in his blog, magazine articles and speeches. There`s a lot in there that is super-relevant to the newspaper industry.
But it`s the title essay that really hits home for me as I think about what newspaper companies need to do to get through this digital transition period and come out the other side as modern, profitable media enterprises.
You see, newspapers are big. Sometimes they`re truly big - as in a New York Times or Washington Post. Sometimes they`re not physically big but are institutionally big within their communities - the small paper that`s truly a small business but looms large in its hometown.
Source: Editor and Publisher 5 September 2006
Rumsfeld hits media for `negative` reports
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday criticized the media and accused critics of the Bush administration`s Iraq and counterterrorism policies of trying to appease ``a new type of fascism.`` In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration`s critics as suffering from ``moral or intellectual confusion`` about what threatens the nation`s security and accused them of lacking the courage to fight back.
In remarks to several thousand veterans at the American Legion`s national convention, Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failed efforts to appease the Adolf Hitler regime in the 1930s.
``I recount this history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism,`` he said. ``But some seem not to have learned history`s lessons,`` he said, adding that part of the problem is that the American news media have tended to emphasize the negative rather than the positive. He said, for example, that more media attention was given to U.S. soldiers` abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib than to the fact that Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith received the Medal of Honour.
Source: Editor & Publisher 30 August 2006
What`s the object of objectivity?
We understand -- and generally support -- the conventions behind the idea of objective reporting; but given the complexities of certain kinds of reporting, that doesn`t mean that sticking to this method is always the best way to tell a story.
We`ve recently documented some problems in the coverage of the upcoming mid-term Congressional elections, where, in a replay of the 2000 and 2004 elections, reporters blithely allowed warring partisans to spin the story into a conflicted, contradictory -- and often misleading -- mess. In its own way, war reporting presents a similar problem when reporters allow government or military officials to offer assessments of a situation that don`t jibe with the reality they`re witnessing on the ground.
An AP piece that came over the wire Monday illustrates just how this blind adherence to balancing "both sides" can at times stoop to the level of black comedy, when the spin is directly contradicted by what the reporter had detailed just paragraphs before.
Source: CJR Daily 28 August 2006
Sri Lankan journalists to take part in ethics training
Due to studies revealing that only 5 percent of Sri Lankan journalists owned a copy of their ethical code or had received ethics training, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Sri Lankan Press Institute held a training event in Colombo.
The ethics training was from September 6 to 10.
According to organizers, the event intended to build capacity for more in-house ethics training at the press institute. Media organizations have been asked to appoint an in-house ethics editor, in order to promote journalism ethics on a daily basis.
Source International Journalists’ Network 5 September 2006
Media mission meets political parties, Maoists
The visiting international media mission has met with the leaders of political parties and the Maoists to seek their commitments for press freedom and freedom of expression.
During a meeting with the visiting media mission at the UML General Secretary’s residence in Koteshwor on Tuesday morning, MK Nepal expressed that the SPA government is committed to press freedom and right to information of the Nepali people.
Led by IFJ president Christopher Warren, the team of international media experts expressed hope that the new government in Nepal would strengthen press freedom, freedom of expression, rights of the working journalists and people`s right to information.
Source: Nepal News September 2006
One comment on "Online international news a duopoly of Reuters-AP: study"
Your article about Chris Paterson’s report on internet news is certainly of interest to us. Our site www.newsknife.com rates news sites based on their appearances at Google News. We have a cornucopia of material about Google News, which allows us to comment with authority on Chris’s hypothesis.
Newsknife’s current rating of Top News for the Lebanon-Israel conflict supports and disagrees with Chris’s central thesis that "international news flow on the internet has..decreased or remained static in actual diversity of original reporting".
Newsknife analysed 75 major news items at Google News about the Lebanon-Israel conflict. We recorded the source sites appearing on the Google News home page and up to 10 sub-pages deep. This gave us a sample of 17,175 individual listings by 1048 sites.
Source: Newswatch 8 September 2006
(Compiled by Dr. I. Arul Aram)