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Archive for September, 2009
Blogus Interruptus…
Posted in Blog Announcements on September 14, 2009 by icn2Blogging resumes Tuesday evening…
Tweet of the Day…
Posted in Miscellaneous Subjects on September 14, 2009 by icn2Supposed to throw out the first pitch at Wednesday’s LA Dodgers game. I’m scared…I don’t know if I can do this, anyone have any advice
Van who?
Posted in Miscellaneous Subjects on September 14, 2009 by icn2The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz writes about the MSM missing the Van Jones story…
As a proponent of creating “green” jobs, Jones was a respected figure within the environmental movement. But he was sufficiently obscure as a special adviser to the White House Council on Environmental Quality that major news organizations basically ignored him. Only The Post ran a profile, in December, and a story last month on his government work.
Beck, by contrast, drew an avalanche of coverage for calling President Obama a “racist” who harbors “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture” — the remarks that triggered the boycott. He also raised the race issue against Jones, touting a videotape in which the activist said last year that “the white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people of color communities.” The other cable networks, meanwhile, gave Jones scant attention, with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann assailing Beck’s role in the attacks.
Beck, who also hosts a popular radio show, is enjoying a ratings surge, averaging 2.25 million viewers on Fox. He regularly tries to deflect criticism by describing himself as a recovering alcoholic and “rodeo clown.”
New Pew Survey…
Posted in Miscellaneous Subjects on September 14, 2009 by icn2Pew Research has put out a new survey on the media and the headline seems to be a devolving belief in accuracy/fairness in the media…
The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press’ biennial media attitudes survey, conducted July 22-26 among 1,506 adults reached on landlines and cell phones, finds that even as the party gaps in several criticisms of the press have lessened over the past few years, views of many individual media sources are deeply divided along party lines.
Democrats hold considerably more positive views than Republicans of CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and the news operations of the broadcast networks, and their views of National Public Radio are somewhat more favorable than those of Republicans. By contrast, views of Fox News — and to a lesser extent The Wall Street Journal — are more positive among Republicans than Democrats.
Partisan differences in views of Fox News have increased substantially since 2007. Today, a large majority of Republicans view Fox News positively (72%), compared with just 43% of Democrats. In 2007, 73% of Republicans and 61% of Democrats viewed Fox News favorably. Three-quarters (75%) of Democrats assess CNN favorably, while just 44% of Republicans do so, which is little changed from two years ago. MSNBC also rates substantially higher among Democrats (60%) than among Republicans (34%).
10 Years of Shepard Smith on The Fox Report…
Posted in FNC on September 14, 2009 by icn2A couple of articles on Shepard Smith’s 10 year anniversary on the Fox Report. The New York Daily News’ Richard Huff does one here…
Monday marks Smith’s 10th anniversary as host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox Report,” which airs weeknights at 7. The show will mark his tenure with a montage of clips of him and the show.
“I feel incredibly lucky to be doing what I love for the past 10 years and am very proud of my staff and colleagues for their hard work and dedication in making ‘The Fox Report’ the No. 1 newscast on cable,” Smith said in a statement.
The Orlando Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker does another here…
“I like the news,” says Smith, an alum of the Orlando TV market. “I don’t want to get into that scream-at-each-other stuff. It’s not what I want to do. I grew up wanting to be a reporter. Politics, ginning up emotions on both sides — it’s just ponderous. I don’t have any time for it.”
Ratings for “The Fox Report” are “way, way up,” Smith says with pride.
How high? At 7 p.m., “The Fox Report” is No. 3 in all of cable, and Smith beats CNN’s Lou Dobbs and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews combined, Fox News notes. His ratings have risen 27 percent from the same time last year. And 2009 is his best year ever in the ratings.
Update: TVNewser has a Smith interview as well…
A Matter of Interpretation?
Posted in FNC, MSNBC on September 13, 2009 by icn2I’m mostly bored by the feud between MSNBC and FNC but every once in a while something comes along which catches my attention. For example, this Keith Olbermann retort to a bizarro Glenn Beck rant about hidden art in plain sight. Olbermann would have scored a home run here except he misses the obvious argument: if people walk by art that nobody knows what it is and, taking Beck’s admittedly questionable argument as valid, then what’s the point? If nobody knows what it’s about or the source then how will it accomplish anything? It’s a tree falls in a forest argument. If nobody hears it, nobody knows it fell. If nobody understands the source or the meaning, nobody’s going to be impacted.
The WPiTW that Wasn’t…
Posted in MSNBC on September 13, 2009 by icn2Morning Joe turns to the Left (coast)…
Posted in MSNBC on September 13, 2009 by icn2TVNewser reports that Morning Joe is going to be broadcasting from the Left Coast this coming week including a stop in San Francisco this Friday. Should I go crash their party?
What’s Hot/What’s Not: 09/13/09
Posted in What's Hot/What's Not on September 13, 2009 by icn2What’s Hot:
Glenn Beck – Beck continues to dominate the news and is starting to displace O’Reilly as the face of FNC. Some people are no doubt unhappy with this development but the numbers Beck is turning in are telling.
John Stossel joins FBN/FNC – File this one under “What took so long?” as it’s been speculated for years that Stossel would be a perfect fit on FNC. Stossel joining FBN is a pretty big get for the fledgling network and takes some of the sting out of the hiring of Don Imus (see What’s Not below).
What’s Not:
Don Imus joins FBN – I don’t care how much FBN tries to spin it, it’s still a bad idea in my book and a sign that the network’s early attempts at making a run at CNBC have not worked to the point that the network is willing to damage its brand as a business news channel in the critical early morning time period by putting a non-business show on the air for three hours in what looks like a desperation throw to get eyeballs. The eyeballs may come for Imus, but will they stay after Imus? That’s a question that can’t be answered accurately yet. But if history is any guide Imus doesn’t appear to have coat tails. 10 plus years on MSNBC didn’t do a darn thing to boost the network’s dayside numbers. And I can’t wait until Imus start verbally assaulting some of the talent on FBN like he would do on MSNBC.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss – The rapid fire cancellation of Carlos Watson’s hour on MSNBC has me left with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’m glad because he never should have been put in the anchor chair in the first place. On the other hand, this is the second time that Phil Griffin has shown an unusually quick trigger finger since he took over at MSNBC. The first time was the cancellation of Dan Abrams and his 6pm 9pm (got the old east coast/west coast time period confusion…6pm PT = 9pm ET) show Verdict which had only been in existence a few short months (though Abrams had been in the slot for nearly a year but I consider Verdict as a new show since it was a fresh branding PR launch). Now Watson gets bumped off in less than four months. Four months. This is the sort of thing we saw quite often in the bad old days of MSNBC when shows came and went so fast you needed a score card to keep track of them.
What this says to me is that 9am-1pm is in big trouble but only Watson was expendable. Ratigan’s shift has dropped like a rock in the ratings and Snyderman’s doing worse but there’s too much publicly riding on them to throw in the towel at this point, particularly for Snyderman since her show is rumored to be part of a GE initiative. While Snydermann’s free fall is not unexpected (I called it before the show even launched), Ratigan’s decline is somewhat surprising because the show isn’t that bad. Ratigan has proven to be a capable news host. The problem has been consistency. The show has been tinkered with constantly behind the scenes in who gets booked and who appears when and for how long. That’s not a winning recipe for success. The announcement of a lack of a solid anchor set up at 11 to replace Watson, with Hall being paired with either Witt or Novotny, suggests that this is only a temporary move until a new program can take its place. If we take a step back and look at the big picture on the 9-1 time period we see a pattern of serious tinkering but without an apparent long term gameplan. Again, this is not a recipe for long term success.
Full Circle? – The story of CNN looking for hosts to do a left/right debate show reminiscent of the cancelled Crossfire, although partially shot down by anonymous types at the network, is not welcome news for those who want less opinion in their news…
Olbermann’s hollow Fatwa – Keith Olbermann’s declaration to get any dirt possible on Glenn Beck, Beck’s producer Stu Burguiere, and Roger Ailes is all noise. The chance of anyone digging up anything incriminating on either Beck or Ailes, who have been through the public microscope for so many years now, is all but impossible. If there was dirt, it would have come up already. Burguiere, on the other hand, may not be so lucky since he hasn’t had that kind of light shown upon him. Nontheless, this is a stupid idea. If you want to defeat Beck you have to defeat him on the issues. It can be done (and some have succeeded to some degree). Digging up dirt isn’t the solution.
What’s Hot/What’s Not: Submissions…
Posted in What's Hot/What's Not on September 12, 2009 by icn2Post your nominations for this week’s What’s Hot/What’s not. I’ll post the finalists Sunday night…
Ed Schultz: Poor Sport?
Posted in MSNBC on September 1, 2009 by icn2As I pack to be re-united once and for all with my prized snorkel (see below), this popped up regarding Ed Schultz and a radio debate show he co-hosted with a rival talk show host. Rob Port blogs on SayAnything.com about the story…
Its been an interesting couple of months in Ed Schultz news, which is never usually an interesting news category unless you find men who consider shouting insults to be keen political analysis to be interesting. First Schultz and his North Dakota rival Scott Hennen (full disclosure: I guest host for Hennen and have my own show on his station) announced a partnership whereby Schultz would host a morning show on Hennen’s recently-acquired AM station in southeast North Dakota and debate with Hennen himself once a week on Hennen’s morning show.
This sparked a great deal of criticism of Hennen which I never quite understood. I understand that a lot of people don’t like Schultz (including many on his own side of the political divide), but as far as Hennen goes what’s wrong with debating with the other side? Anyway, last week during the Hennen vs. Schultz debate Schultz got so angry he hung up during the program.
Then Schultz pulls the plug on his radio show on Hennen’s station.
…. (edited by ICN to remove some salacious Schultz side story Port refers to which really has nothing to do with this story)
Now, I could understand Schultz pulling the plug because he’s too busy. After all, he’s got a three hour national radio show and a one hour cable news show on his plate every day and it can’t be easy to keep up with likes of Keith Olbermann when it comes to red-faced, spittle-flecked punditry. But Schultz did commit to the radio show. And he didn’t commit to the segment on Hennen’s show. But as soon as he had to face some heat from someone who disagrees with him, he bailed.
Blogus Interruptus…
Posted in In Depth on September 1, 2009 by icn2
Bear with me as this has a long backstory…
Back in April I took off for Palau for the dive trip of a lifetime. It was all that and more – “more” meaning the hell I’ve put myself through the past few months trying to edit down and assemble two hours of vacation video and 60 gigs of underwater pictures and video into a single DVD that runs three freakin’ hours. It ain’t easy. It’s actually quite insane really. You have to be nuts to do it. And I swear that I’m never gonna put myself through this again. But I digress…
During my trip I lost my snorkel under the raging currents of the world famous Blue Corner. As you know I tracked the snorkel as it drifted across the Pacific ocean using GPS and an abacus and plotted its eventual arrival in the Hawaiian islands in early July. So I went to Maui, specifically Molokini crater, and retrieved my cherished snorkel. Buuuuut…
Read more »
Free for All: 09/02/09 – 09/12/09
Posted in Free For All on September 1, 2009 by icn2Behave yourselves…
Read more »
The Hazards of Live TV: #25,0017
Posted in Hazards of Live TV on September 1, 2009 by icn2Not sure whether Larry King Live was really live last night but nevertheless this is really bad.
Press Releases: 09/01/09
Posted in Press Releases on September 1, 2009 by icn2CNN (1)
CNN’s Anderson Cooper to Broadcast from Afghanistan
Anderson Cooper will anchor Anderson Cooper 360° from Afghanistan the week of September 7th to mark the eighth anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Cooper will be embedded with US troops fighting on the front lines of the war in Afghanistan. Cooper will be joined by CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who will be embedded with the US military and covering battle field trauma surgery. Terrorism expert and CNN’s national security analyst Peter Bergen will join Cooper in Afghanistan and CNN correspondent Michael Ware will also file reports from the field. Anderson Cooper 360° airs weeknights at 10pm ET on CNN and CNN International.
Pieces from throughout the week will culminate in an hour special premiering on Saturday at 8pmET and re-airing at 11pm and on Sunday at 2amET on CNN. Additionally, www.AC360.com will feature a multimedia look at Anderson Cooper 360° Afghanistan trip.
Rachel Maddow Profile…
Posted in MSNBC on September 1, 2009 by icn2The Gothamist’s Jen Chung profiles Rachel Maddow…
How is it going, juggling all your new responsibilities, with the TV show?
I have been trying to simplify my life a little bit, because the TV show is hard. It’s very hard to do this well, and it’s really fun; it’s a really good job. I’ve never had a job this good, and I still sort of can’t believe that I have it. But it’s just wicked hard to do a good job in an hour of television every single day.
Daily production is hard, I knew that already from having been in radio a long time. I just don’t know how to do TV right, and part of that is just what my responsibility is, just as far as talking to the camera, and making sure the script’s right, and saying exactly what I need to be doing, and doing good interviews and stuff like that.
A lot of it is just the overall production day, I don’t know how to work with a big staff of people. There’s a lot of people involved in the production of TV, and that’s a good opportunity, to leverage all that manpower and all that brain power towards the single thing that you all are working together to produce. But that’s a ‘big people organization project’ that I’m completely mystified by.
