G.E. Gives Up Comcast to NBC
via NYT
Oh boy, it has finally happened. Your wildest nightmares are about to come true. After what seems like eons of deliberations, General Electric has given up some of it’s share of NBC to Comcast. Journalists everywhere can finally stop their nonstop pacing and nail-biting and can get cracking on those suicide notes.
The New York Times cites the deal valued NBC at about $30 billion, and will create a joint venture for Comcast and G.E., giving each company stakes of 51% and 49%, respectively. Comcast will be sharing it’s slew of cable channels with G.E., as well as paying them an additional $6.5 billion in cash, adding up to a total value of $13.75 billion the Times reports.
The deal had been at a standstill for a while due to negotiations between G.E. and Vivendi, but Vivendi finally caved and will be getting $5.8 billion for it’s stake.
The deal has not been finalized just yet, and it is estimated that it will take roughly 18 months to get through “regulatory muster”, as there are hearings on Capitol Hill planned to discuss the deal in detail.
So what makes this such a huge deal, you ask? Well, it puts one of the nation’s largest cable distributors in charge of one of the nation’s largest content providers. There are many who believe that this is not only a violation of the Anti-Trust laws, but also puts Comcast/NBC at an unfair advantage over other not only other networks and cable channels but also other cable distributors. Some feel that Comcast might start to unfairly favor it’s own channels in terms of picture quality and bandwidth, similar to the “net neutrality” arguments.
For now, it remains to be seen what this deal is really going to mean for the consumer, so you may want to put your nooses back in the closet for the time being.
Washington Post Cutting Last 3 U.S. Bureaus
via NYT
In what is being called a “cost-cutting” move, the Washington Post is going to close it’s three reamaining bureaus in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. This means that in order to cover national stories, the Washington Post will have to send reporters out directly from their headquarters in Washington.
The Post’s executive editor Marcus W. Brauchli says the decision was made due to “limited resources and increased competitive pressure.” Publisher Katharine Weymouth says that the paper plans to “cover Washington as a place to live and as a place that has impact on the nation and the world.”
When I see another story like this, I just can’t help but look at graduation day differently. It seems like every day there’s another story about how some newspaper is cutting it’s staff. Regardless of how they spin it, this is still a very bad thing. It makes me think that if there was really something that could be done to save the newspapers, someone would have already done it.
Unlike most of these stories, it’s good to hear that many of the people currently employed in those three bureaus will be offered jobs in Washington, though three news-assistants at these locations will lose their jobs. The Post still has a dozen foreign bureaus, so at least they’re retaining their presence abroad – for the time being, at least.
Newspaper Revival
via SFGate
It looks like Newspapers aren’t going down without a fight, and San Francio writer Dave Eggers is their corner-man. Eggers, along with a group of writers in are putting out a single-issue newspaper called the “San Francisco Panorama” with the hopes of having people realize the value of newspapers and the printed word.
As a former journalism student, Eggers was horrified to hear that newspapers were on the down and out. Afraid that he one day might lose picking up the newspaper form the doorstep, he set out on a mission to show people just how great newspapers can be.
The one-shot papers is going to be massive, with dimensions of 15 x 22 inches and over 300 pages of content, including stories and comics written by Stephen King and Art Spiegelman, respectively. The paper will have sections covering news, arts, sports, and food, as well as over 100 pages devoted to books. Stories range from the elections in Afghanistan to how to make the perfect bowl of ramen noodles.
While I recognize a lot of the positives about this, I can’t help but feel a few glaring negatives about it as well. We’ll start with the good – getting all of these great writers and artists together under one roof is fantastic, and the literary quality of the paper is unquestionable. Also, having such diverse coverage shows people the variety of information and entertainment they can get out of those gray pages.
However, I feel that having this be a single-issue paper is proof positive of the death of newspapers. What makes a newspaper a newspaper is not just the kind of paper it’s printed on, it’s the continued production of said paper, coming out weekly or even daily. It’s kind of ironic, actually, that this newspaper intended to revive people’s interest in the printed word is only happening once, as if it were a failure before it even began. I can see it now – readers being enthralled and looking foward to the next issue only to discover that there isn’t one. If Eggers really wanted to show people the true potential of newspapers, having only one issue isn’t going to cut it. There’s so much that goes on in production of a newspaper that it cannot be grasped in the making (or reading) of just one issue.
My Place In “The New Media Ecosystem”
Assuming that I’m going to be a journalist when I graduate (and that I’m going to write about video-games, dammit!), the first place I’m going to look for a job is online. Print journalism is looking like a train wreck right now and that’s not somewhere I want to put myself. When the layoffs start coming, it’s either the new hires that are the first to go, or they look to give severe pay-cuts to the new people.
Online is appealing for a number of reasons, most notably because I can work from home. While I’d like to think I’ll be moving out of my parent’s house by the time I graduate (fingers crossed), it may not be financially feasible. Having the ability to work from home will give me time to save money for my own place, but it will also give me more time to do more work. Since I won’t need to get on a train or drive my car to an office somewhere, I can not only cut down on the costs of those things, but as soon as I roll out of bed I can get right to work. This obviously cuts down on a lot of expenses ranging from gas money to having to shell out a ton of cash to eat out. Also, being able to do my work from my laptop means I can go where the story takes me without worry about having to get back to the office to submit things.
Working from home also gives me the ability to freelance for a number of different sites. After all, I don’t think my boss would like it if I was sitting in my cubicle on his dime writing stories for somebody else. Writing for more sites certainly equals more work, but more importantly it equals more money. Freelancing for a number of sites is also a great way to get your name out there and is a fantastic networking opportunity, as it could eventually land you a higher and more well-paying position.
Re-reading this, I’m noticing about how bleak the future is journalists. There are a lot of great writers and reporters out there, and the outlets that are hiring (with livable wages) are diminishing. With the state of things today, I have a feeling that it’s going to be really tough to get some decent work. I think I’ll have to be living from paycheck to paycheck for a while, but once journalism breaks in it’s new shoes things should start to smooth themselves out. I hope. *Gulp*
Jon Stewart and The Daily Show Break Actual Stories
via Philly.com with additional information from here.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck’s Protest Footage | ||||
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As someone who doesn’t watch a lot of traditional television news, I was very pleased to hear that I might not have been completely rotting my brain by watching Comedy Central’s fake news program The Daily Show. On more than one occasion, the show has broken news stories that other networks didn’t cover.
The most recent story comes from Fox News’ use of incorrect footage that made it seem like the tea-party protests of November 5th had a significantly larger turnout than they actually did. As seen in the video above, Sean Hannity and various other commentators claim that the protest had an audience of 30,000 to 40,000 people, while the Washington Post reported only ten thousand. The show spliced footage September’s much larger tea-party protest in with the footage of the November 5th rally, making it appear as if there more attendees than there actually were.
So what makes this such a big deal? Well, Fox News, an outlet not exactly known for their “fair and balanced” reporting outright lied to it’s viewers, and it took a comedian from a satirical news showon a cable network to point it out.
This is not the first time that Stewart and The Daily Show have cast light on a news network that was in the wrong. Back in March, the show had an “epic 8-minute takedown” of CNBC’s bogus financial reporting.
So what does this teach us? Well, it teaches us that news can come from everywhere, even though these outlets may be less than traditional. Sure The Daily Show airs at 11pm on the same network that airs South Park, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have their moments. Hell, I could go on forever about the brilliant social commentary on South Park, but I think I’ll save that for later. For now, stop feeling guilty about laughing it up with Jon Stewart, and don’t believe everything you hear from “traditional” news.
Internet Video Ads on the Rise
via NYTimes.com
Video is becoming all the more popular in the news these days. You’ve obviously seen it on television, and you’re starting to find it more online. As broadband access becomes more widespread, it is becoming the norm to see video on a news site. According to comScore, a marketing research company, The New York Times, Gannet and Tribune have more than one million video-stream viewers each month.
This, of course, has caught the attention of advertisers whose main avenue for advertising was mostly through search engines. Online video advertising amounted to $477 million in the first half of 2009, which is up 38% from last year, and the trend is predicted to continue. According to research firm eMarketer, adveritisng dollars put towards video will rise by 35 to 45 percent for each segment of the next five years.
Most of the ways that people advertise through video are through “pre-roll” videos, small 15 second advertisements that play before the real content, and through banner ads. My problem with this lies in how effect these ads actually are? For the most part, I usually either look at a different page when the pre-roll ads are playing or just turn the volume down. For banner ads, I close them immediately. This is mostly because I see them as an intrusion on what I’m trying to watch. With search engine ads, they don’t really get in my way and I’m more open to click on them because they’re not trying to get in my way. So my question is how effective do you think these ads will be before people just find a way around them?
Questions for Michael Rosenblum and Brian Farnham
Rosenblum
You talk a lot about having to “own the site”, well that might seem like a good point to make on paper, but in reality it’s almost impossible for everyone to be working for themselves. Lets say that I don’t “own the site”, what should I be doing otherwise? What would be a good area of employment as a journalist that I wouldn’t be “weak” or “begging” for work?
What would the best way to shop around for investors for my website? Where would I begin? Is this possible for anyone to do or do you need to know someone on the inside? Or, if my website is good enough will they find me first?
Farnham
How far are you looking to take Patch? Do you want a Patch in every town, or do you have a target goal? Have you thought about taking Patch into other countries? At what point do you expect these goals to be achieved?
Are there any plans to take Patch into Suffolk County? It seems like you have a lot of Nassau coverage, but it appears that there are no outposts in Suffolk. Is there any particular reason behind this or are you just not quite there yet?
Questions for Brian Farnham
Was your decision to leave Time-Out New York directly connected to your decision to work for Patch? Is it that you see more potential for growth in the online sector as opposed to print?
What is Patch so appealing to you? Is it the home-grown reporters doing the work for their own community, or are you dissatisfied with the state of local newspapers?
It appears that you’ve had some issues paying your freelancers over at Time-Out New York, will running a website with multiple reporters in so many different areas going to make it difficult to get checks sent out?
Questions for Michael Rosenblum
What are some of the ways that you feel is a good way for journalists to make money? What is your opinion on online subscription models and micropayments? Are you familiar with the recent change in Newsday’s online model? Newsday is now charging a subscription fee for their online content to anyone who is not a Cablevision subscriber (their parent company). Is this what you want to see?
What is your opinion on “advertorials”, which are basically glorified advertisements made to look like real pieces of editorial content? Is this blurring the lines between real coverage and advertising, or would you like to see more of this in the future?
You say in your “How to Make Millions in Journalism” article, you write that “all we really need is one or two Craigslists and we’re in business”. In all seriousness, at what point will these student projects become worthwhile?
What do you believe is the future of print? Do you welcome our robotic overlords or do you still think that there is a place for print in journalism? What business models will print need to adopt in order to compete against online content?
I guess what I’m getting at with most of my questions is at what point is there too much of an overlapping of “Church and State”? I know that this holier-than-thou quest for the truth in journalism is unrealistic, but at what point is there a nose-dive from journalistic content to stark commercialism?
Twitter To The Rescue (And Wikileaks Too)
via The New York Times, Monday, October 19, 2009
Twitter has recieved both praise and condemnation for it’s contributions to the world of journalism, but this story about it’s hand in stopping a gag order placed on UK newspaper The Guardian certainly falls on the side of praise.
Last month, a British judge declared that information discovered by a Guardian reporter about a corporation named Trafigura had to be kept a secret. Not only that, but even the fact that it had to be kept a secret was also to be kept a secret. In other words, The Guardian had received a gag order, but couldn’t tell anyone that they received it.
So, you know it has to be some pretty juicy information if a British judge is trying to stop one of the UK’s largest newspapers from running a story about it, and it is an event of extreme importance. In August of 2006, Trafigura hired a private contracter to dump 400 tons of toxic waste into landfils in the Ivory Coast near the city of Abidjan. This led to approximatley 85,000 people needing to seek medical attention according to a Times report. And before you ask, yes, it gets worse. A year later in 2007 Trafigura paid the Ivory Coast government $225 million in relation to those events without taking the blame, in addition to a court settlement in Britain awarding another $1,500 per person for 30,000 people.
When reports of this fell into the lap of a Guardian reporter, however, Trafigura’s lawyers demanded that a judge protect it. They claimed that it was “confidential communication with lawyers of the company”, and that the information in the report was now outdated due to later, more reliable testing. Thus, on September 11th a superinjunction was issued to protect the report.
So how does Twitter figure into all of this? Well, despite the superinjunction, website Wikileaks posted the report a mere three days after the injunction. A member of Parlaiment mentioned the Trafigura scientific report, and the Guardian and reporter Alan Rusbridger’s Twitter account made teasing remarks about it. Astute readers picked up on this and discovered the Parlaiment member’s question on a government website and proceeded to spread it all over the internet.
Trafigura attempted to quell the Twitter uproar, but with Wikileaks severs sitting securely on United States soil there was little they could do. An army of Tweeters spurred on by British journalists re-tweeted links to the report constantly, leading to Trafigura’s ultimate release of the report.
While Twitter’s 140 character limit may not be enough for many people to consider it “legitimate” journalism, there is certainly a part of it that has a use in the sharing of news. In a way, Wikileaks and Twitter ultimatley broke this story, which is something that one of Britian’s largest and most respected newspapers was unable to do. It’s pretty amazing to hear that something normally used by millions of teenage girls with an unwarranted sense of self-importance can actually bring a multinational corporation to it’s knees.
