Category: Journalism

St. Louis radio personality Paul Harris regularly shares via his blog and Twitter specific items that he considers to be important or fascinating reads. He dubs them “the best thing I’ve read today.”

Today’s blog by Paul Harris will without a doubt be the best thing I’ll read today. Paul takes the news media to task for their coverage of the Ebola virus, as if it has already become a plague in the United States (it hasn’t). Harris specifically goes after “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd, in response to one of Todd’s tweets.

Yes, Chuck, that’s because you and your colleagues across the media spectrum keep playing it up like there’s an Ebola plague in the US when there isn’t! While thousands of Africans have died and will continue to die from the disease (a story that you’ve been abandoned because the victims are on another continent), Ebola has killed exactly one person here, out of a population of some 320 million. Meanwhile, thirty thousand more Americans will be killed by guns this year than by Ebola, not to mention cigarette smoking, unsafe sex, and salmonella — but where’s that wall-to-wall coverage?

Read Paul’s entire post:  “The Fear Virus Strikes Again”

Todd Zwillich, Washington correspondent for The Takeaway from Public Radio International, was on Julie Mason’s “Press Pool” show this afternoon on the SiriusXM POTUS channel.

Zwillich discussed the dynamics of a political beat reporter in Washington and how important relationships with politicians, their staffers and even colleagues in the press are. In order to build a collective list of valuable sources, political beat reporters have to essentially become part of the “institution,” even when a reporter’s primary interest is supposed to be the general public. Zwillich mentions how some reporters take an alternative, which is to become an adversarial reporter looking for scandals and dirty laundry. Going that route, however, means you burn your chance at ever obtaining first-hand sources. Such reporters must instead rely on public records and second or third hand sources.

Without revealing anything, Zwillich discussed what its like to know the dirty laundry (illegal activities, who’s sleeping with who) of so many prominent people within the beltway and weighing the options of when such information is worth bringing to the public’s attention.

It was a fascinating discussion, that took place during the final 15 or 20 minutes of the 3 p.m. CT hour. I recommend that anyone who has Sirius XM and can listen to the “Press Pool” replay, either tonight on the POTUS channel or via on-demand do so.

Republican consultant Frank Luntz is about to find himself in hot water within the conservative circle. Yesterday, Mother Jones posted the full narrative (written and video) of Luntz criticizing today’s mainstream conservative talk radio hosts while speaking to Republican students at the University of Pittsburgh on Monday. Luntz made his off the record comments after assurance he would not be recorded. In today’s world, he should have known better.

In line with what Luntz has said or written in the past, he believes much of the polarizing talk by conservative talkers such as Rush Limbaugh or Mark Levin are “problematic” for the party’s long-term success. Luntz realizes that conservatives are on the losing battle of specific issues, such as immigration reform or birth control. Conservative talkers opposing such issues is counterproductive if independents or anyone else in the middle vote against Republicans in the future.

Unfortunately, conservative talk radio is no different than prime time cable news on the Fox News Channel — same thing on the opposite end of the spectrum with MSNBC and the abundance of progressive content. It’s all about making money. Political news and discussion is practically entertainment. The people who watch or listen to such polarizing coverage seemingly enjoy getting riled up. So the media companies and their hosts tell them exactly what they want to hear.

Luntz of course will be vilified by the conservative media as a traitor, I’m sure under the premise that he is willing to compromise conservative principles in order to achieve his own individual agenda (whatever that may be — I’m sure they’ll think of something).

As long as there is money to be made in the political news entertainment field, people like Limbaugh or Levin have no reason to change their dialogue.

The news media has been a hot topic of discussion in wake of the Boston Marathon bombings as a result of the reckless behavior by select outlets. At the top of that list of course are CNN and the New York Post, while the Associated Press and Fox News are one level beneath.

In a time where citizen journalism and photography is gaining notoriety thanks to social networking and websites like Reddit, at the very least, we can count on the one sure notion that the mainstream news outlets are held accountable if they screw up.

Or not…

A New York Times story yesterday shows that in the target advertising demographic, CNN had more viewers than Fox News Channel during Friday’s coverage of the lockdown in Watertown, MA and the apprehension of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, aka subject number two.

Despite the embarrassing blunder made last Wednesday by CNN’s John King, the habit of television viewers automatically turning on CNN in the wake of breaking news remains unchanged. To put this in further perspective, the 1.34 million viewers was the best number CNN had for any nonpolitical event since April 2003, when the network was covering the Iraq War.

So much for consequences, at least in the short-term. However, some might suggest that the network’s low ratings on normal days are already consequence enough.

Odds & Ends

• Whether or not John King is under any heat at CNN will probably never be known. According to a Washington Post story from last week, CNN had no plans to “bench” King. He was instead reassigned to cover something far less important (my words) — interviewing former President George W. Bush just ahead of the opening of his presidential library.
• A separate piece from David Carr’s Media Equation column in the New York Times yesterday brilliantly describes the current news media environment, plotting the likely how’s and why’s someone like John King could commit such an embarrassing error. An absolute must-read.
• When news hit late Friday afternoon that federal authorities had Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev cornered, it was a given that WBBM-AM 780 (and its simulcast on WCFS-FM 105.9) would provide wall-to-wall coverage courtesy of CBS News. WLS-AM 890 was all over it as well following Roe Conn’s afternoon show, courtesy of ABC News. After 8pm when turning on WLS to hear more about the capture, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the voice of Lauren Cohn (weekday co-host, 9am-11am), considering moments earlier WLS news anchor Mary Frances Bragiel mistakenly announced that Sean Hannity was coming up next.