Archive for the 'News' Category
Old media always goes to war with the new. So the following news is hardly surprising. Too bad for AP. They have no idea what they will be missing, which is a ringside seat to the next media revolution.
AP vs Bloggers: The Mainstream Media Declares War on Blogs:
But lets look a little deeper here, because this isn’t a case of one small media company taking on blogs, this is nearly the entire print media, and for good measure television and radio as well. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which is the vast majority of all mainstream media outlets. Through AP the mainstream media has declared war on blogging, and established law isn’t going to stop them trying to milk every last cent they can from bloggers who may not know any better, and like the music and movie industry before them, they will attempt to pick off blogs one by one with legal threats. Internecine warfare perhaps?
Could it also be the last throws of an empire of news exclusivity that stands on the precipice of defeat? Perhaps not into oblivion in a Battle of the Bulge, but more along the lines of the The Second Battle of the Somme? I don’t subscribe to the mainstream media will die meme that is often a popular call in some blogging circles, but there’s little doubt, proven by evidence that the mainstream media has entered a period of contraction in the English speaking world, a contraction of which at the moment knows no end.
This barely deserves commentary, but I think it’s interesting to compare O’Reilly’s “Far Left Fiesta” with the Lessig post below. Just a few quickies. It’s curious that Robert Greenwald is identified as the director of Xanadu rather than OutFoxed. Hmmm. And calling the conference a fiesta I guess means that media reformers are illegals in the Fox universe. And fascists to boot! Again, look at the Lessig video. Makes one think. How is it possible that we can co-exist in such reality tunnels? For the answer, read True Enough.
Fox decided to ambush Bill Moyers at the National Conference for Media Reform 2008. Watch what happens.
Never before have I seen a symbol treated like a head of state, but such is the treacherous journey of the Olympic torch as it wends its way from one protest to another across the globe.
The brilliant graphic from Reporters sans frontières.
Technorati Tags: Olympic torch
These days I go to author Jim Kunstler’s Clusterfuck Nation to get a grip on the economy. Not surprisingly today he scribes a grim report (snippet below). The thrust of his program is that we have to end the suburban mentality, which leads him to criticize environmentalists for trying to play the cars-can-be-saved-as-a-way-of-life card (as in perpetuating the car fantasy through the promotion of alternative fuels and hybrids). Want a picture of future car travel when gas is ten dollars a gallon? Go to Latin America and see how people get around. (I know, I know. This picture exaggerates to make a point, it’s not meant to depict them as “primitive,” but instead ingenious.)
Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler:
Ultimately, in my view, the issue of what happens next will be settled not by the fantasies of the algae-biodiesel geeks or the wishful thinking of the sustainable futures organizers, but by the natural, self-organizing properties of a society responding ‘emergently’ to new circumstances. One of the implications of destiny-as-emergence is the probability that we will try any damn fool thing besides the right things to keep the old game going for a while — even in the face of obvious failure.
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Over the weekend, the Federal Reserve engineered a $30-billion dollar Saint Paddy’s day present for the JP Morgan bank by handing them the corpse of Bear Stearns. The object of the game is to prevent the “assets” of Bear Stearns from going to the auction block, on which they would be discovered to be nearly worthless, which would instantly render all similar assets held by the other big banks to be similarly worthless, and would result in a universal margin call that would pretty much unwind the hallucinated “wealth” acquired the past ten years.
Bad News at the Pump: The Dangerous Implications of $100-Plus Oil | ForeignPolicy | AlterNet:
Three factors, in particular, are responsible for the current surge: intensifying competition for oil between the older industrial powers and rising economic dynamos like China and India; the inability of the global energy industry to expand supplies to keep pace with growing demand; and intensifying instability in the major oil-producing areas.
File this one under FIY. Though tangential to the topic of media per se, the energy crisis is closely tied to media in a structural way. Indirectly, media are funded by petrodollars because the majority of advertising is for cars, thus the industry that builds and depends on a cheap oil economy uses commercial media as a propaganda machine for the dreams that automobiles would deliver us. Anyhow, I thought the article above was a good, simplified perspective on where the oil economy is taking us.
Know thy enemy.
Lesson 1: The Public Won’t Support You, Unless You Do Things “Harshly”: Soon after 9/11, according to Bob Woodward, Ailes sent a “back-channel message” to President Bush, suggesting that he needed to take “the harshest measures possible” in retaliation for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He added that “support” for war “would dissipate if the public did not see Bush acting harshly.”
Lesson 2: The Public Does Not Need To Know The Full Reasons For Going To War: In 2003, a University of Maryland study found that “those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions” about basic facts related to the war. 80 percent of those who relied on Fox News as their primary news source believed at least one of three lies: the discovery of alleged WMD in Iraq, alleged Iraqi involvement in 9/11, and international support for a U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Lesson 3: When Things Go Bad, The Public Doesn’t Need To Know: “Fox spent half as much time covering the Iraq war than MSNBC during the first three months” of 2007, “and considerably less than CNN.” Fox News “were obviously cheerleaders for the war,” said CNN U.S. President Jon Klein. “When the war went badly they had to dial back coverage because it didn’t fit their preconceived story lines.”
The above video clip happened live during an Italian evening news broadcast I was watching a few weeks ago. Don’t worry about the language, it’s not necessary to know Italian to understand what’s happening. This goes to show what an echo chamber the news is. Rather than the news coverage itself being important, instead the appearance of Gabriele Paolini in the background making funny faces becomes the news. Who is this guy? Paolini is regionally famous for hijacking live news coverage by repeatedly jumping into the camera’s frame. He had disappeared for a while, because apparently he had been institutionalized. Now that he’s free, police have to monitor live newscasts to make sure he doesn’t disrupt them.
Paolini has a cause, which is to promote the use of condoms. But when I was first confronted by this character (and later learned there is another less-dispruptive publicity seeker who simply makes sure his face is always in the camera frame), I thought maybe this was the work of a brilliant prankster. Apparently not, just a well-known village eccentric, which goes to show that Rome is still intimate enough that it’s possible to be a local celebrity for being the weirdo who interrupts the news. I’m just glad it’s still possible to disrupt the slick dissemination of infotainment.
I suggest you enter Paolini’s name into YouTube (OK, I did it for you- click here) and you will be amazed by the numerous clips documenting his interventions, the funnier being when a news reporter kicks him in the nuts, and another when he jumps in front of the camera during the World Cup. The man has no shame, that’s why we love him so. Go Paolini!
The Daily Show is still the best place for media deconstruction.
Via Huffington Post
Technorati Tags: Daily Show, election
You can read my latest column on war, pictures and propaganda at Understand Media. Link follows.
Understand Media -> Articles -> War Pictures by Antonio Lopez:
Regardless of your opinions about the reasons for going to war in Iraq, the Bush Administration has relied heavily on media management and imagery to justify and promote its cause. Whether it is Secretary of Sate Colin Powell using a multimedia presentation at the United Nations Security Council to cajole a resolution to support military action before the war, or the now infamous publicity stunt orchestrated by the White House in which President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier donning a flight suit, framed by a large banner, “Mission Accomplished.”
Add to that the use of imbedded reporters and the vigorous attempt by the Pentagon to prevent photos of dead soldiers and flag draped coffins from appearing in the media furthers the resolve that images of the war would be tightly managed by the government. It’s no wonder than that historians of the future might regard the unraveling of domestic support of the war as coming from images in the media.
As they say, live by the sword, die by the sword.
Sometimes I wish CNN would just roll over and die. An announcement they are creating a news bureau in Second Life confirms that they are trend followers, and are no longer innovators. Yeah, so maybe a 24/7 news network was once a brilliant idea, but with the Web, who cares? Having failed at emulating the Fox News effect (by proliferating right wing news commentators through out their broadcasts) and comedy (by trying to inject Daily News antics here and there), they are now looking for salvation in user generated media, but the thing that they forget is that they are a huge multinational corporation. How does their business model jive with the new media revolution? Hence the humor of the following anecdote from youth media advocate Anastasia Goodstein:
Ypulse: Media for the Next Generation:
… when I was visiting CNN, they were talking about how to get young people to upload their own news video — one person remarked that they have been getting one kind of interesting video from teenagers: video imitating CNN anchors. Teens would create their own satirical skits making fun of the news and upload it to CNN (”The Daily Show” effect?).
Technorati Tags: Anastasia Goodstein, CNN
Once again the fake news surfs the real, and gets down and dirty by reporting on the “real” Iraq. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant commentary how how news is staged.
Technorati Tags: Daily Show
Bloviators of the world, unite! Robert Novak, a cantankerous, professional bloviator whose livelihood is threatened by our grassroots movement of citizen pundits and journalists doesn’t like sharing the stage. I think he just like to say the word “bloviate.” Me too.
‘Prince of Darkness’ Chronicles Novak’s Life in Journalism - July 13, 2007 - The New York Sun:
“The bloggers bloviate. They give their opinions. They don’t try to find things out.”
Technorati Tags: Robert Novak
So, this might surprise you, but I support wholeheartedly the insipid commentary and coverage of Paris Hilton’s prison term. Many in the Left have derided the media for wasting so much time on her, but I find it curious that they are vicariously covering Paris by criticizing the press’ coverage. I think that’s a bit hypocritical. There is nothing wrong with a guilty pleasure such as this.
The chief argument is that when so many people are getting killed everyday in Iraq, why not spend the ink or pixels on the victims of war? Well the problem is that many do not identify with abstract numbers or concepts. They are interested in the drama of people who they are familiar with. One way to address this gap in coverage would be to have more stories on non-glamorous people in war zones. I was disappointed post-9/11 when the New York Times features only profiles of those killed in the Twin Towers and not of those civilians killed in Afghanistan from “our” bombs. No doubt firemen and police officers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan as a result of our war-making efforts. Would we think differently about war if we identified with the victims of “collateral damage”?
I think it’s worth acknowledging the fact that the new media reality promotes a mythological consciousness. For too long our culture has been bogged down by science and facts to our detriment. Somewhere along the way we lost our bearings and sense of purpose. Now, I don’t particularly agree with the philosophy of our new myths, but let the people speak and have their pop culture too! I worry that media critics are becoming too much like Maoists or Jehovah Witnesses. In my book, personal tragedy and drama is the stuff of life. So maybe it is not as artful as Shakespeare, but I think we can admit that we all get a small thrill by living through others as they destroy themselves. The fact that the high and mighty can fall to Earth is a small reality check for the masses that even the rich and famous are subject to the laws of gravity. The obsession with these particular “debucelebs” has a lot to do with this sense of equanimity.
Incidentally, the above image is of a “pano” (the Chicano vernacular for handkerchief prison art) supposedly created by Paris. These days I don’t believe anything, so I don’t know if she really made it with a smuggled ballpoint pen. But…. if she did it is an interesting commentary on the two things that are her particular lifeline, a phone and being on TV. Compare that with the art made by other prisoners and you’ll discover different themes, often religious, but usually about lost love. Perhaps this is a story about another kind of lost love: the one in the media mirror.
PS Speaking of Mao, there was a faux pas committed by Cameron Diaz when she showed up in Peru with a handbag featuring Mao’s likeness. It’s sad that Cameron was unaware of the tragic history of the Shinning Path movement, and even sadder that she is unaware of Mao’s history. Goes to show the truism that in postmodern times signs are drained of content in order to live on as fashion accessories.
PPS When I originally wrote this I forgot to say that one of the main reasons people are upset about the Pairs phenom is because evening news is having an identity crisis. It used to be that if the authorities from mass media, i.e. Walter Cronkite, spoke the truth about the facts, then democracy would properly thrive. I think people are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that TV news is entertainment. My advice, get over it and build new models.