GETTING A HEAD

Nicole at A Capital Idea points to a Washington Post column on the art of creative headline writing.
10:08:02 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

LISTING THE ILLS

Tim Porter at First Draft reports on presentations made on media coverage of security coverage in American newspapers and his list of findings makes a pretty good synopsis of symptoms currently afflicting mainstream media.

Porter, speaking to a meeting of the 9/11 Security and Liberty fellowships, reported:

The vast majority of stories are short, off the news, told from an institutional or bureaucratic perspective, and soporific in their "fairness." The exceptions are, for the most part, found in the largest papers, but only 2.5 percent of the newspapers in the United States have circulations of more than 250,000, meaning that the millions of other newspaper readers rely on routine wire stories or condensed versions of Times or Post or Tribune stories to learn about national security issues. (His emphasis.)

He quotes Tom Goldstein, the former dean of Columbia University journalism, on why some stories are not covered by mainstream media. Reasons include:

• contemporary journalism has too narrow an idea of what's important
• "news that oozes" — the slow developing issues in our world — doesn't get covered
• the press is crisis oriented
• the NIH — not invented here — syndrome that causes news organizations, especially large ones, to not report good stories broken by competitors.
• competition homogenizes news coverage; fast-thinking, not thoughtfulness is rewarded
• the press has a "bias toward the middle" so emerging ideas from the edges are undercovered

There's more at Porter's site. It's worth a read.
9:55:00 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

POOR MUSIC INDUSTRY

Mark Cuban, the basketball team owner recently fined for taking on the NBA in his blog, has turned his attention to the music industry. And it doesn't get much of his sympathy, either.

Can the music industry cry wolf any longer ? This is the only industry in the world that can see thousands of its retailers close, reduce the number of products it sells via cutbacks in artist rosters and albums released, cut back marketing and promotional dollars and then blame a reduction in sales on someone or something other than themselves. That big bad boogieman of piracy is blowing down everyone's house. The poor music industry

It's a great rant, although a little tough to read as Cuban doesn't believe much in paragraphs. Not a lot new in the industry vs. P2P debate, but it's all nicely put.

SOURCE: Dave Winer's Scripting News.
9:40:42 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

DOLPHIN SMACK DOWN

Columnist Steve Svekis of The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, is having some fun with the pitiful local football team: a Flash-based "ad" for "The Miami Dolphins' Greatest Hits Album." Pure fun.

SOURCE: CyberJournalist.net.
8:56:16 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

STANDING UP FOR FREEDOM

Reporters Without Borders has launched a major effort to shine the light of publicity on jailed journalists around the world.

Reporters Without Borders, the international organization that seeks to protect press freedom globally, has called on media outlets to sponsor one of more than 130 journalists jailed worldwide. On Nov. 24 (Jailed Journalists' Support Day) and May 3 (World Press Freedom Day) of each year, all media sponsors are asked to call attention to the imprisoned journalists they have adopted by writing about them and in doing so, to ensure that their suffering is not forgotten.

Supporting the campaign wouldn't cost the media outlets a cent, other than freeing up some space and reporting talent for stories that should be told any way. Let's hope a lot of media come through.

SOURCE: OnlineJournalism.com.
8:19:59 PM  LINK TO THIS POST