At a social media summit held by the BBC last week, the news outlet posted the process it follows for verifying user content at their user-generated content (UGC) Hub in London. Matthew Ingram wrote about the process at gigaom.com last Friday. Ingram says there is a desk in the middle of the BBC newsroom with dedicated staffers pulling reports from social media outlets and verifying them.
These staffers sometimes spend hours conducting journalism-style forensics to figure out if a certain photo was taken where and when the photographer claims, if a Twitter post holds water, if a video was really taken minutes earlier at the nexus of a revolution. They do this by studying shadows to verify the time of a photo or video, checking locations based on what is visible in the background, identifying accents and dialects to determine whether a video was recorded at the specific location claimed by the person who submitted the piece.
Now, the BBC has an immense wealth of resources. From what I read about its verification of social media leads, the resources are well-used. Staffers can verify accents, dress, locations as easily as emailing or calling a colleague somewhere else in the world and sending them the video or photo. Throughout the Arab Spring of the past few months, individuals or makeshift news teams have been taking the initiative and creating a narrative that would not otherwise be known to the rest of the world. It’s amazing that people in other countries have had access to this information. And if everyone were approaching real-time news reporting like the BBC, it would be great. There, it seems as though nothing hits the presses or airwaves without having met a rather rigorous test of veracity. That is news. But will all news outlets dive into these uncharted waters with equal integrity? Will other outlets hold citizen journalism to the same standards as traditional journalism?
Did you guess ‘no’?
Andy Carvin has sort of been doing the same thing as the BBC over at NPR during his coverage of the Arab Spring. He’s the guy who “tweeted the revolution”. Carvin starts his reporting process with a non-stop onslaught of information coming in through social media. He also has a stable of reporters or sources that he has worked with and trusts. That’s great. What bothers me is that he sometimes retweets unverified information and asks the “crowd” to help him verify it.
Maybe it’s just me, but Carvin seems like (a potentially legit journalist in other realms, but in this one) a big gossip. How does he know the verification that he’s getting from people besides his trusted group is for real? Who is it coming from? Other people steeped in the revolution? The opposition? Either way, I’m guessing it’s not the most unbiased info.
I know a huge shift in journalism is happening, and it is a necessary one. Given social media and new and better technology, journalism cannot be left behind the curve. It should be ahead of it. But this just seems irresponsible. There are growing numbers of people who applaud Carvin and think he’s at the cutting edge; that news is happening and must be reported in real-time. Personally, I’ll take a two-hour lag in reporting any day if it means I’m getting the most accurate information possible and not something that may or may not have happened…can anyone out there verify?
Ingram says that Carvin is not the only newsmaker that uses crowd verification. Mark Little, founder of Storyful, a tool allowing journos to collect video and content on a specific topic, says that the “human algorithm” is the future of media. The human algorithm is a cool idea, but it’s not news.
It’s true that even if expansive foreign news bureaus still existed, they couldn’t be- and never were - everywhere at once. They could not possibly always be everywhere something interesting is happening on the ground. They could not report the kinds of things that were reported by Egyptian youths during their revolution early in the year. But does that mean that we should move to a model of journalism where the standards are so low? Where everyone is a journalist? I hope journalism still requires a lot more finesse than that.
Ingram argues that twitter news is being disseminated in the same way news has always traditionally gotten out to the masses – a report comes in over the wire, it’s fact-checked, then goes to print or air. It’s then updated as necessary when additional information comes in. He calls Twitter the “real-time news wire for the world”. Well, it’s not exactly like the days of yore, Matt. Back in the day, you know, five years ago, news stories consisted of more than 140 characters. There may have been a news flash as soon as a story came over the wire that could be akin to today’s tweet, but then it was followed with a real, in-depth story with some meat to it.
There was a perfect example of this with the raid on Osama’s compound last month. There was a firefight, firefight, FIREFIGHT!! Two days later, we learn there was never anything coming close to a firefight. The whole thing was eerily non-combative. Who ever said anything about a firefight? How did that ever become part of the story, considering it was pure fiction? Why, in the middle of the biggest U.S. security-related accomplishment in years is the White House having to walk back the story of how everything went down?
I truly loved the concept of citizen journalism when I first read about it. I still like it in theory. But I think it needs to be harnessed. If, as Little suggests, anyone can become a reporter and start producing news, who is going to be consuming it? Is the future of media going to look like a room full of demanding children all jockeying for attention? Wait a minute! That’s already what media looks like. And just like that room full of children, it’s a nightmare.
Little’s human algorithm reminds me of some flash mob videos I’ve seen on youtube. Sometimes there are so many people involved in the mob that when everyone is finished revealing themselves as participants, there’s one schmo left in the food court to watch. What’s the point? And was that guy meant to be left watching, or did he just forget to check his email that morning?
Where does media and journalism begin and end in this new model? The line should be a little blurred, a little amorphous. Technology - for good and bad - has made that unavoidable. But I think there should be a set of people expected to reliably deliver a set of facts and a set of people who can confidently consume that information.
Inherently, there’s nothing wrong, and nothing stopping a citizen journalist from creating a news stream. Part of me can relate to the excitement that approach breeds – the wide open possibility of covering a story, and the possibility of reading about something like the Arab Spring from participants definitely has a certain allure. And maybe that is the kind of situation to which Carvin’s approach should be confined – breaking news, one-of-a-kind, you-had-to-be-there-to-get-it kind of stories. But journalism in general is all about having standards and sticking to them. The general public posting “news stories” willy-nilly as it encounters them and legions of staffers going nuts trying to confirm and verify them has the potential to be chaotic and confusing.
I suppose this dumbed-down, inaccurate coverage may well be the future of journalism. Some see that as exciting and cutting edge. I think it’s unfortunate.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Citizen what?
Mayhill Fowler has been called a poster child for citizen journalism….may God help us all. Fowler wrote entries for OffTheBus, a forum on HuffPo for amateur journalists who followed the 2008 presidential campaign. And I mean literally followed – she traveled around the country on buses covering her man Obama during 2007 and 2008.
Fowler heard Obama’s “bitter” Pennsylvania voter comment at a San Francisco campaign event in 2008 - an event to which mainstream media did not have access. Of course, the mainstream outlets were pissed that they didn’t get that info for themselves. To that I say: Suck it up kids. Like it or not, that’s the nature of new media. And to anyone running for any kind of public office I say: Just because an event is closed to the “media”, does not mean that something you say at said event will not go viral...really fast.
Of course, now, two years removed from the fracas, no one wants anything to do with Fowler. And that could be (one of) the ugly flip side(s) to citizen journalism. She had her 15 minutes of fame, and got burned for it – accusations of being in cahoots with Hillary were predictably thrown around after she posted the quote. And that’s fine on a personal level. If you’re going to walk into the fire, you have to be prepared. Honestly, I don’t really care if Fowler ever gets paid to write. I’m more interested in what her story as a citizen journo means for the bigger picture.
A few days ago, the LA Times reported on an interesting caveat to the San Fran story of which I was not aware. Fowler almost didn’t include Obama’s bitter comment in her post about the evening knowing how damaging it could be to the candidate. She only decided to include it after an OffTheBus director encouraged her to disclose all she had heard. What I find so troubling about the heat Fowler caught for including the quote in her post was the fact that as a “journalist”, she absolutely should have included it. In fact, she was - dare I say - ethically obligated to include it. That’s not the kind of comment that a candidate should get away with at a public event.
The fact that the mainstream was pissed to be scooped by Fowler proves that they wished they had gotten the quote themselves. I mean, that’s good stuff, whether or not you’re in the tank for someone. If you are running to be the POTUS and you say something dumb, you should be quoted on it as eagerly as when you say something smart. That’s a journalist’s job.
Now OffTheBus was not a one-time phenomenon. There are citizen journalism sites popping up all the time. Demotix, for example, reviews content and image entries from international Joe Schmos all day. The ones that are up to snuff get pushed to the U.K.-based company’s news feed. The major outlets can then buy them, allowing Schmo to get published in The New York Times if he gets lucky. Demotix gets a 50% cut and the writer or photojournalist gets 50%.
The great thing about Demotix is that it offers hyper local news from around the world, written or filmed by natives from the area – not an old white dude working for the BBC. The down side is that I don’t yet see how this model works to fill the most important role of journalists – investigative reporting. Not that Demotix claims to do this. The site knows its place as an event-based news outlet.
It could be that with the simple passage of time citizen journalism and maybe crowd sourcing will yield powerful insights into the most troubling aspects of society. (Just consider how much a news story written by lawmakers about their initiatives might differ from a collaborative story written by a cross-section of constituents about how the initiative would affect their everyday lives.) Journalists often work with a similar handicap – trying to capture the sentiments of Everyman by speaking with three of them.
But alas, considering how the craft of investigative reporting has been languishing even in traditional media, I have a hard time believing that it will flourish among people who woke up this morning and decided to change the world. Of course I’m wildly oversimplifying the concept, but I feel good about the point I’m trying to make.
The founder of Demotix, Turi Munthe, says that his idea for the site came out of the belief that when a society is open and enjoys free speech, its propensity towards radicalizing decreases. I’m all for that. I’m just leery of a future where the onus for real journalism is placed on a system that is incapable of supplying it.
Fowler heard Obama’s “bitter” Pennsylvania voter comment at a San Francisco campaign event in 2008 - an event to which mainstream media did not have access. Of course, the mainstream outlets were pissed that they didn’t get that info for themselves. To that I say: Suck it up kids. Like it or not, that’s the nature of new media. And to anyone running for any kind of public office I say: Just because an event is closed to the “media”, does not mean that something you say at said event will not go viral...really fast.
Of course, now, two years removed from the fracas, no one wants anything to do with Fowler. And that could be (one of) the ugly flip side(s) to citizen journalism. She had her 15 minutes of fame, and got burned for it – accusations of being in cahoots with Hillary were predictably thrown around after she posted the quote. And that’s fine on a personal level. If you’re going to walk into the fire, you have to be prepared. Honestly, I don’t really care if Fowler ever gets paid to write. I’m more interested in what her story as a citizen journo means for the bigger picture.
A few days ago, the LA Times reported on an interesting caveat to the San Fran story of which I was not aware. Fowler almost didn’t include Obama’s bitter comment in her post about the evening knowing how damaging it could be to the candidate. She only decided to include it after an OffTheBus director encouraged her to disclose all she had heard. What I find so troubling about the heat Fowler caught for including the quote in her post was the fact that as a “journalist”, she absolutely should have included it. In fact, she was - dare I say - ethically obligated to include it. That’s not the kind of comment that a candidate should get away with at a public event.
The fact that the mainstream was pissed to be scooped by Fowler proves that they wished they had gotten the quote themselves. I mean, that’s good stuff, whether or not you’re in the tank for someone. If you are running to be the POTUS and you say something dumb, you should be quoted on it as eagerly as when you say something smart. That’s a journalist’s job.
Now OffTheBus was not a one-time phenomenon. There are citizen journalism sites popping up all the time. Demotix, for example, reviews content and image entries from international Joe Schmos all day. The ones that are up to snuff get pushed to the U.K.-based company’s news feed. The major outlets can then buy them, allowing Schmo to get published in The New York Times if he gets lucky. Demotix gets a 50% cut and the writer or photojournalist gets 50%.
The great thing about Demotix is that it offers hyper local news from around the world, written or filmed by natives from the area – not an old white dude working for the BBC. The down side is that I don’t yet see how this model works to fill the most important role of journalists – investigative reporting. Not that Demotix claims to do this. The site knows its place as an event-based news outlet.
It could be that with the simple passage of time citizen journalism and maybe crowd sourcing will yield powerful insights into the most troubling aspects of society. (Just consider how much a news story written by lawmakers about their initiatives might differ from a collaborative story written by a cross-section of constituents about how the initiative would affect their everyday lives.) Journalists often work with a similar handicap – trying to capture the sentiments of Everyman by speaking with three of them.
But alas, considering how the craft of investigative reporting has been languishing even in traditional media, I have a hard time believing that it will flourish among people who woke up this morning and decided to change the world. Of course I’m wildly oversimplifying the concept, but I feel good about the point I’m trying to make.
The founder of Demotix, Turi Munthe, says that his idea for the site came out of the belief that when a society is open and enjoys free speech, its propensity towards radicalizing decreases. I’m all for that. I’m just leery of a future where the onus for real journalism is placed on a system that is incapable of supplying it.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
"Game Change" plays by the rules
As a reporter, I’ve had plenty of off-the-record conversations. Some juicy, some not so much. I have never, however, had the delicious pleasure of interviewing on the basis of “deep background”. This is the reporting method used by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in their new book “Game Change”.
Basically, operating on the understanding that all sources are providing deep background means that the authors do not have to reveal any of their sources in the finished product. It is an ideal method of gathering a huge amount of information and creating a sweeping omniscient narrative.
I have not read the book yet, only an excerpt in New York magazine. (As a result of reading that excerpt I cannot wait to get my hands on it.) In this instance, writing a book from an omniscient point of view is akin to the reader being transported back in time to be a fly on the wall in some of the most fascinating, infuriating, disastrous, and amazing meetings and gatherings that occurred during the 2008 presidential election. Who wouldn’t love to take that ride?!
The beautiful thing about the crafting of “Game Change” is that the authors got everyone to dish post-election under the agreement that their name would never appear in print…not exactly what the average reporter can promise. As a result, they got the dirt. Some say it’s too dirty – that the authors may have let angry ex- aides and staffers have free reign. The authors rebuttal is that they were very careful with sources and never relied on one person to shape the telling of an event.
Once I do finally meet all imminent work-related deadlines and get the bookstore to buy this gem, I am anticipating a riveting read. I’ve always been a big fan of the omniscient point of view in all kinds of literature. And surely this, of all books, will be intriguing considering that all of the characters are so well-known and have (or had) such carefully crafted public personas.
Now I have to confess, something that has always irked me is “journalism” that is an endless parade of information gathered from unnamed sources. I think there is without a doubt a need for off-the-record conversations, but when they overwhelm an article it begins to read like a flimsy, disposable set of quasi-might-not-actually-be-facts. Writing like this makes my skin crawl. Unfortunately, I’m seeing more and more of it all the time.
“Game Change”, I suppose the argument could be made, is one of these wannabe pieces – full of “facts”, but no substance to back it up. But in this case, that argument does not hold water. I think writing the book in this way was a necessary evil if Halperin and Heilemann wanted to tell the raw, uncensored, gritty truth. And is it really the truth? Do the authors know for sure that everything in the book is completely accurate? I don’t think they have any way of knowing that, but I am convinced that neither of them have any reason to believe that anything in the book is false.
So when all the fuss got kicked up over the Harry Reid comments, I did not find it to be completely unseemly. Some did. But not only did Reid’s staff admit that Reid made the comment to the authors, Halperin and Heilemann probably verified Reid’s feelings through another source as well. Now, should they have written the comment as a direct quote? Well, Reid’s people also never attacked the authors alleging that they violated their sourcing agreement, so it looks as if they didn’t actually do anything wrong.
The excerpt I read from New York magazine was about John and St. Elizabeth Edwards. What I found so fascinating about that part of the story is that no one knew anything about it during the campaign. Stories of John McCain aides being frustrated by Sarah Palin’s lack of intellectual rigor were swirling while the campaign was still going on. Not so with the Edwardses. They fairy tale was definitely unraveling well before Edwards conceded, but the extent of the turmoil reported in the book is staggering – mostly because there was no hint of it in the mainstream media at the time.
Did the Edwards camp just have that tight a grip on what got out to the press? Was the staff so deluded by the promises of their candidate that when he morphed into a woman-crazed narcissistic lunatic, they didn’t have the heart to blow the whistle? Did they actually feel bad for an ill Elizabeth even though she’s portrayed as a raving banshee? So many questions! If the rest of “Game Change” is as good as the excerpt, and lives up to all the hype, I’m in for one awesome winter read.
Basically, operating on the understanding that all sources are providing deep background means that the authors do not have to reveal any of their sources in the finished product. It is an ideal method of gathering a huge amount of information and creating a sweeping omniscient narrative.
I have not read the book yet, only an excerpt in New York magazine. (As a result of reading that excerpt I cannot wait to get my hands on it.) In this instance, writing a book from an omniscient point of view is akin to the reader being transported back in time to be a fly on the wall in some of the most fascinating, infuriating, disastrous, and amazing meetings and gatherings that occurred during the 2008 presidential election. Who wouldn’t love to take that ride?!
The beautiful thing about the crafting of “Game Change” is that the authors got everyone to dish post-election under the agreement that their name would never appear in print…not exactly what the average reporter can promise. As a result, they got the dirt. Some say it’s too dirty – that the authors may have let angry ex- aides and staffers have free reign. The authors rebuttal is that they were very careful with sources and never relied on one person to shape the telling of an event.
Once I do finally meet all imminent work-related deadlines and get the bookstore to buy this gem, I am anticipating a riveting read. I’ve always been a big fan of the omniscient point of view in all kinds of literature. And surely this, of all books, will be intriguing considering that all of the characters are so well-known and have (or had) such carefully crafted public personas.
Now I have to confess, something that has always irked me is “journalism” that is an endless parade of information gathered from unnamed sources. I think there is without a doubt a need for off-the-record conversations, but when they overwhelm an article it begins to read like a flimsy, disposable set of quasi-might-not-actually-be-facts. Writing like this makes my skin crawl. Unfortunately, I’m seeing more and more of it all the time.
“Game Change”, I suppose the argument could be made, is one of these wannabe pieces – full of “facts”, but no substance to back it up. But in this case, that argument does not hold water. I think writing the book in this way was a necessary evil if Halperin and Heilemann wanted to tell the raw, uncensored, gritty truth. And is it really the truth? Do the authors know for sure that everything in the book is completely accurate? I don’t think they have any way of knowing that, but I am convinced that neither of them have any reason to believe that anything in the book is false.
So when all the fuss got kicked up over the Harry Reid comments, I did not find it to be completely unseemly. Some did. But not only did Reid’s staff admit that Reid made the comment to the authors, Halperin and Heilemann probably verified Reid’s feelings through another source as well. Now, should they have written the comment as a direct quote? Well, Reid’s people also never attacked the authors alleging that they violated their sourcing agreement, so it looks as if they didn’t actually do anything wrong.
The excerpt I read from New York magazine was about John and St. Elizabeth Edwards. What I found so fascinating about that part of the story is that no one knew anything about it during the campaign. Stories of John McCain aides being frustrated by Sarah Palin’s lack of intellectual rigor were swirling while the campaign was still going on. Not so with the Edwardses. They fairy tale was definitely unraveling well before Edwards conceded, but the extent of the turmoil reported in the book is staggering – mostly because there was no hint of it in the mainstream media at the time.
Did the Edwards camp just have that tight a grip on what got out to the press? Was the staff so deluded by the promises of their candidate that when he morphed into a woman-crazed narcissistic lunatic, they didn’t have the heart to blow the whistle? Did they actually feel bad for an ill Elizabeth even though she’s portrayed as a raving banshee? So many questions! If the rest of “Game Change” is as good as the excerpt, and lives up to all the hype, I’m in for one awesome winter read.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Tweeting vs. Spending: Which is more universal?
If Time magazine cannot come up with one interesting-enough person in this big, wide, interesting world to name as its person of the year, then they should at least choose the Economy over Twitter.
In what can only be perceived as Time's position that there is currently an absence of news-making, attention-garnering people gracing the world stage, the pub has apparently tossed out the concept of a person altogether and has narrowed the field down to two inanimate contenders. Baffling? Yes. What would make this worse? Picking a thing that lots of people don't care about. Do I personally think that Twitter is inconsequential? Far from it. But the title should go to someone or something that registers with as wide an audience as possible.
After 2006's kitschy cop-out (You), it seems the Editorial department over there needs to step up its game and get back to the roots of its annual POTY story. The You choice was the perfect compliment, time-wise, to what has become the train wreck of blogo-journalism. Sure, technology has exploded and is allowing people to connect and share ideas in ways and in time spans never before imagined. But to make You (Designers, Users, and Keepers of the Information Age) the person of the year? Come on, Eds! Why didn't you just give "The Passage of Time" the honor and call it a day? The You story should have been a feature inside the book and someone good should have been on the cover.
Historically, the person (most usually a man...maybe they should re-think that strategy as well) is a well known, sometimes polarizing figure. (Personally, I think choosing a controversial name is more fun.) In regard to one of the top possibilities for this year, Twitter, I've heard way too much of this over the past two years: "twitter? I've never used it" or "I don't get it" or "it's only for narcissists" for it to be considered Thing of the Year. Hmmm, that just doesn't quite have the same ring to it...
Now the economy on the other hand, affects everyone, very personally. No one can take the 5th on the economy. You will never hear someone say, "the economy? I've never used it."
"The economy? I just don't get it." Now that's something people say, and that's why the story would be so good. If people don't get twitter, they just ignore it. Few people have a tight grip on how the economy works and doesn't work and yet everyone has to use it every day, like it or not. A story about the economy (provided it is handled correctly) will be way more confusing and harder to write than a twitter piece, and I guarantee that will make it a more interesting read and it will have a resonance with a much wider audience.
In what can only be perceived as Time's position that there is currently an absence of news-making, attention-garnering people gracing the world stage, the pub has apparently tossed out the concept of a person altogether and has narrowed the field down to two inanimate contenders. Baffling? Yes. What would make this worse? Picking a thing that lots of people don't care about. Do I personally think that Twitter is inconsequential? Far from it. But the title should go to someone or something that registers with as wide an audience as possible.
After 2006's kitschy cop-out (You), it seems the Editorial department over there needs to step up its game and get back to the roots of its annual POTY story. The You choice was the perfect compliment, time-wise, to what has become the train wreck of blogo-journalism. Sure, technology has exploded and is allowing people to connect and share ideas in ways and in time spans never before imagined. But to make You (Designers, Users, and Keepers of the Information Age) the person of the year? Come on, Eds! Why didn't you just give "The Passage of Time" the honor and call it a day? The You story should have been a feature inside the book and someone good should have been on the cover.
Historically, the person (most usually a man...maybe they should re-think that strategy as well) is a well known, sometimes polarizing figure. (Personally, I think choosing a controversial name is more fun.) In regard to one of the top possibilities for this year, Twitter, I've heard way too much of this over the past two years: "twitter? I've never used it" or "I don't get it" or "it's only for narcissists" for it to be considered Thing of the Year. Hmmm, that just doesn't quite have the same ring to it...
Now the economy on the other hand, affects everyone, very personally. No one can take the 5th on the economy. You will never hear someone say, "the economy? I've never used it."
"The economy? I just don't get it." Now that's something people say, and that's why the story would be so good. If people don't get twitter, they just ignore it. Few people have a tight grip on how the economy works and doesn't work and yet everyone has to use it every day, like it or not. A story about the economy (provided it is handled correctly) will be way more confusing and harder to write than a twitter piece, and I guarantee that will make it a more interesting read and it will have a resonance with a much wider audience.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Dan Plus Jon Plus Kate
Well, the courts have dismissed Dan Rather's case against CBS News. I guess we're not going to get a glimpse into the deep, dark abyss that is network news after all. I was really gunning for it, I have to say.
CBS does not exactly come out of this smelly rosy, but at least they don't have to open their confidential emails and correspondence. I bet that's a pretty enormous relief for them. The big question I have left after this fracas is: Where does Dan go from here? Although I think he had a valid argument, the dismissal of the suit does not bode well for the future of his journalistic career. It will be interesting to see in which direction he decides to go. Can he still draw enough viewers as a correspondent to make it worth his time, or is he better off moving into retirement? Only time will tell.
And in not so surprising...or interesting...news, Jon Gosselin halted production of Jon & Kate Plus Eight, or Kate Plus Eight, or Kate Plus Eight Plus a Shrink and a Life Coach...whatever name it was going by these days. Gosselin stated in a handwritten note that camera crews were not allowed on his property to film. He allegedly feels it is time to get the kids out of the spotlight.
Now whether this is a PR ploy to end up looking like the good guy, or if he has has actually stopped eating brain tumors for breakfast is anyone's guess, but I'm relieved the madness might actually stop. Kate has plenty of other ways to make enough money to send all the little mini Gosselins to fine institutions of higher learning. And maybe they'll even read about themselves
in a Mass Media class in college someday! ...or in a Psych class...but let's hope for the best.
CBS does not exactly come out of this smelly rosy, but at least they don't have to open their confidential emails and correspondence. I bet that's a pretty enormous relief for them. The big question I have left after this fracas is: Where does Dan go from here? Although I think he had a valid argument, the dismissal of the suit does not bode well for the future of his journalistic career. It will be interesting to see in which direction he decides to go. Can he still draw enough viewers as a correspondent to make it worth his time, or is he better off moving into retirement? Only time will tell.
And in not so surprising...or interesting...news, Jon Gosselin halted production of Jon & Kate Plus Eight, or Kate Plus Eight, or Kate Plus Eight Plus a Shrink and a Life Coach...whatever name it was going by these days. Gosselin stated in a handwritten note that camera crews were not allowed on his property to film. He allegedly feels it is time to get the kids out of the spotlight.
Now whether this is a PR ploy to end up looking like the good guy, or if he has has actually stopped eating brain tumors for breakfast is anyone's guess, but I'm relieved the madness might actually stop. Kate has plenty of other ways to make enough money to send all the little mini Gosselins to fine institutions of higher learning. And maybe they'll even read about themselves
in a Mass Media class in college someday! ...or in a Psych class...but let's hope for the best.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Gotta love that Bloomie!
On page 14 of this week's New York magazine - a reporter asks Mayor Bloomberg about Matt Damon's endorsement.
Reporter: "How do you [and Matt Damon] know each other?"
Bloomie: "All young sex symbols know each other."
Classic.
Reporter: "How do you [and Matt Damon] know each other?"
Bloomie: "All young sex symbols know each other."
Classic.
Rather pathetic? I'm not so sure...
If you peruse the reader comments after any given web story on the topic, it seems as though there are two kinds of people when it comes to the Dan Rather vs. CBS saga. One group of people used to care but is experiencing a sharp decline in interest as each day passes. The other group never cared. Me? I find it fascinating. A life-long journalist is working on the biggest investigative piece of his career. The ironic twist is that the genesis of the piece, for all intents and purposes, ended his journalistic career...for now.
Rather reported a story about former President George W. Bush's questionable stint in the National Guard on “60 Minutes II” in 2004. Later, CBS, apparently succumbing to pressure by the administration, assembled a panel to investigate how the piece saw the light of day seeing as how some of the documents in Rather's story were not authentic. The story resulted in an apology to the White House from CBS and Rather being ousted from his position in the anchor seat at the CBS Evening News. (...and the grand entrance of Katie Couric...barring the Palin interview, that choice has not exactly been wildly successful for CBS.)
But instead of quietly going out to pasture, Rather fought back. He launched a lawsuit against CBS in 2007 claiming that he was the fall guy for a story the network said was fraught with flaws. He's also claiming that the network did not live up to the terms of his post-anchor contract which promised continued airtime and appropriate support staff. In the spring of last year, a judge threw out several parts of the claim, specifically the sections that claimed fraud against top execs at the network. What's left is basically a glorified breach of contract claim. But depending on how the imminent trial goes, this could shake out to be much more than a run of the mill contract dispute.
Now, without being limited by the usual shackles of a journalist, Rather has been free to dig deep during the discovery phase of the legal process. It seems that Rather has uncovered some information that could prove quite embarrassing to CBS at trial, including how they formed their independent panel that investigated Rather's story. Emails and memos imply that CBS was intent on assembling a panel that would pacify the right. After all, it was 2004 and there were another four years of Bush and, more importantly, deregulation stretching before them. If (which is starting to look more and more like 'when') the case goes to trial, CBS brass could find themselves on the stand testifying about the assembly of the investigative panel and how said panel compiled its report.
Some have called Rather's actions petty and pathetic, but this lawsuit could provide a rare and fascinating window into the goings-on at a major news organization. How things make it...and don't make it...to the airwaves. The crux of the claim will depend whether Rather can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the records used in his story are authentic. Although the network's lawyers are seeming pretty confident and are fond of talking smack in the press, no one has yet publicly proven that the records are fabricated or inauthentic. And, several people independent of the network maelstrom have corroborated everything that was in Rather's piece. If I were the counsel for the CBS, I'd be pretty skeered. A wealthy reporter who is not interested in a settlement is a formidable opponent.
Having said all this, I have to say that I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, I respect that Rather is not backing down. I have to admit, initially I wasn't following the story closely and I thought he was just being petty and pathetic. It turns out, he's trying to protect his journalistic integrity! However, there are problems here too. Rather did apologize for the story, basically stripping it of all credibility, then later said the apology was coerced...now that's just lame. The other problem I have is all the reports about how Rather sulked about not being invited to Walter Cronkite's funeral. I don't know what the real story is there, but if Rather had anything to do with fanning the flames of that tidbit of information, it was a big mistake. If he wants to have anything resembling a decent legacy, he needs to pray this thing goes to trial, fight like hell to prove his side of the story, and never sulk.
Rather reported a story about former President George W. Bush's questionable stint in the National Guard on “60 Minutes II” in 2004. Later, CBS, apparently succumbing to pressure by the administration, assembled a panel to investigate how the piece saw the light of day seeing as how some of the documents in Rather's story were not authentic. The story resulted in an apology to the White House from CBS and Rather being ousted from his position in the anchor seat at the CBS Evening News. (...and the grand entrance of Katie Couric...barring the Palin interview, that choice has not exactly been wildly successful for CBS.)
But instead of quietly going out to pasture, Rather fought back. He launched a lawsuit against CBS in 2007 claiming that he was the fall guy for a story the network said was fraught with flaws. He's also claiming that the network did not live up to the terms of his post-anchor contract which promised continued airtime and appropriate support staff. In the spring of last year, a judge threw out several parts of the claim, specifically the sections that claimed fraud against top execs at the network. What's left is basically a glorified breach of contract claim. But depending on how the imminent trial goes, this could shake out to be much more than a run of the mill contract dispute.
Now, without being limited by the usual shackles of a journalist, Rather has been free to dig deep during the discovery phase of the legal process. It seems that Rather has uncovered some information that could prove quite embarrassing to CBS at trial, including how they formed their independent panel that investigated Rather's story. Emails and memos imply that CBS was intent on assembling a panel that would pacify the right. After all, it was 2004 and there were another four years of Bush and, more importantly, deregulation stretching before them. If (which is starting to look more and more like 'when') the case goes to trial, CBS brass could find themselves on the stand testifying about the assembly of the investigative panel and how said panel compiled its report.
Some have called Rather's actions petty and pathetic, but this lawsuit could provide a rare and fascinating window into the goings-on at a major news organization. How things make it...and don't make it...to the airwaves. The crux of the claim will depend whether Rather can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the records used in his story are authentic. Although the network's lawyers are seeming pretty confident and are fond of talking smack in the press, no one has yet publicly proven that the records are fabricated or inauthentic. And, several people independent of the network maelstrom have corroborated everything that was in Rather's piece. If I were the counsel for the CBS, I'd be pretty skeered. A wealthy reporter who is not interested in a settlement is a formidable opponent.
Having said all this, I have to say that I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, I respect that Rather is not backing down. I have to admit, initially I wasn't following the story closely and I thought he was just being petty and pathetic. It turns out, he's trying to protect his journalistic integrity! However, there are problems here too. Rather did apologize for the story, basically stripping it of all credibility, then later said the apology was coerced...now that's just lame. The other problem I have is all the reports about how Rather sulked about not being invited to Walter Cronkite's funeral. I don't know what the real story is there, but if Rather had anything to do with fanning the flames of that tidbit of information, it was a big mistake. If he wants to have anything resembling a decent legacy, he needs to pray this thing goes to trial, fight like hell to prove his side of the story, and never sulk.
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