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October 28, 2005

Fitzgerald Is a Rock Star

It's generally against my principles and best interests to promote another blog, but this afternoon as I was pondering what I was going to write about Patrick Fitzgerald, I noticed an entry by Ari Emanuel in my NewsGator aggregator on the Huffington Post on which he wrote: "Watching Pat Fitzgerald this morning left me very frustrated. Why isn’t this guy our next Supreme Court nominee? He’s brilliant, courageous, clearly a real leader. And he cuts across party lines. When a reporter asked him about being called a partisan, he said, 'One day I read that I was a Republican hack, another day I read that I was a Democratic hack, and the only thing I did between those two nights was sleep.' Isn’t that the kind of impartiality we want in a Supreme Court nominee?"

I wish I'd written that because I agree that Fitzgerald's performance was brilliant and courageous. Fitzpgerald was also straightforward, honest, apolitical, sincere, articulate, concise, self-deprecating, confident, humorous without being cynical or mean, and humble (he repeatedly said the investigation into White House leaks was not his but a "team effort" and made a point of giving credit to his dedicated, hard-working team). In other words he was the exact opposite of what we have come to expect from politicians such as Bush, Cheney, and Senators like Charles Schumer and Arlen Specter. Fitzgerald was like a blizzard of fresh, honest air coming at us from the TV set.

It was reported that Fitzgerald got his shoes shined in the morning, before his press conference. His shoes shined! This square, unassuming Midwesterner, got a shoe shine, which would never show up on TV, instead of getting his hair combed or his makeup brushed up. No pretense, no sneakers and jeans under the anchor desk; he got his shoes shined and did his job without guile.

While I was watching Fitzgerald on TV, a pal of mine IMmed me: "Fitzgerald is rock star!"

I IMmed back: "You're looking at the next president!"

My young pal wrote: "Right on! Let's hope."

I think he'd be a better president than Supreme Court justice, but if the Democrats or Republicans can't convince him to run for president, then one of the networks will offer him millions or even hundreds of millions in a current marketplace where honest, very intelligent, young, team-oriented, credible anchormen are in very short supply. Sean McManus the newly named president of CBS News (and CBS Sports, where he is currently president) will be looking to revamp the stumbling, old looking, third-place CBS Evening News, and what better move than to go outside CBS News and outside the television news biz and hire someone who appears to be smart, honest, sincere, knowledgeable, and trustworthy, if Fox News doesn't get to him first.

Murdoch is more of a moneyologue than an ideologue, and he might sense that the tastes of the country are changing and are getting sick of highly partisan screaming. So he's wily enough to recognize that, in fact, Pat Fitzgerald is a new rock star and try to hire him first.

Posted by Charles Warner at 10:59 PM | Comments (3) | Print | Mail this entry

NED Author Profile Page at October 29, 2005 3:48 PM writes:

I wonder how you would feel about Fitzgerald if he had pronounced Joseph Wilson guilty as he did Libby. Somehow I missed the" we hope to prove" part.


Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at October 29, 2005 3:39 PM writes:

Paul Atkinson writes:

"That's because he is an alumnus of Regis High School in NYC."


Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at October 29, 2005 10:40 AM writes:

Bill Grimes writes:

"Boooo! You are reacting to guy's style. Of course, he has all the answers (maybe), he has been working on this case for two years. Anyone would deliver great presentation when you have had two years to prepare. As for being once Rep and once Dem, who cares? The guy is a good public servant, but don't elect him to the Hall of Fame unless it is your immense animosity towards Administration public servants which is the real driver of your instinctive admiration for this man.

This Blog gets a D-. Your lowest grade so far. Weak on content, highly emotional, lacking in analyitcs and inspired by political, not intellectual, reasons."


October 16, 2005

Only a Curmudgeon...

Only a curmudgeon would do this: I sent emails to a reporter at the New York Observer, the Wall Street Journal, and to Sunday Business at the New York Times with the same subject line--"Possible Verizon Scam"--included my "Dirty Yellow Secrets" blog, and ended with the line, "You may want to look into this."

Advertising Age reported that Verizon spent more money on advertising than any other brand for the first six months of 2005. According to Ad Age Verizon has invested $775.3 million, an 8.5 percent increase over 2004, in advertising so far this year--$308.6 million in newspapers (almost double what it spent in network TV) and $15.4 million in magazines.

If Verizon is the top spending brand in newspapers, it will be interesting to see if the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Observer have the guts to investigate and print a story about a possible Verizon advertising scam.

Keep your eyes peeled.

Posted by Charles Warner at 10:32 PM | Comments (0) | Print | Mail this entry

Dirty Yellow Secret

My wife, Julia, and I were having breakfast in our home on 95th Street in New York this Sunday morning when a young man dumped a package of six Verizon Yellow Pages books outside our kitchen door. Julia ran after him and made him take the books back. When she returned to the kitchen, she said, "Doesn't printing them cost Verizon money? This is the third package of six big Yellow Pages books we've gotten." The implications of her question got me thinking, "Why is Verizon doing this, and who is it costing?"

It came to me that Verizon was more than likely dumping millions of useless copies to fulfill circulation/distribution commitments that salespeople had made to its Yellow Pages advertisers. It reminded me of the circulation scandals of this past year in which Newsday and the Dallas Morning News fraudulently inflated circulation figures.

Newspaper advertising rates are based on circulation; therefore, as newspaper circulation nationwide has steadily declined, corporate pressure to stop or reverse the declines has intensified in order to keep ad rates up. The Belo Corp., which owns the Dallas Morning News, is a highly respected company that has put integrity high on its list of corporate values. Belo was deeply embarrassed by the circulation scandal and, justifiably, gave advertisers $230 million in rebates on ad rates that they had overpaid because of inflated Dallas Morning News circulation estimates.

Verizon's profligate dumping of Yellow Pages books is costing its unsuspecting advertisers untold millions. Some enterprising business reporter should look into this scam because Verizon's Yellow Pages are stealing ad dollars from other media (primarily local newspapers) with its unscrupulous dumping.

I know of three competing Yellow Pages companies in New York and I know that newsprint prices have increase about 15 percent this year. I also know that Yellow Pages online, especially Yahoo Yellow Pages, have given the dead-tree version of Yellow Pages additional competition. Therefore, I suspect that in the face of all of this competition Verizon has increased its Yellow Pages guaranteed circulation/distribution to naïve advertisers and is dumping copies to maintain the guarantees. I hope someone catches Verizon and forces it to give rebates to advertisers and to come pick up those 18 useless books from my house.

Posted by Charles Warner at 5:35 PM | Comments (4) | Print | Mail this entry

Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at October 17, 2005 4:11 PM writes:

I'm sure John is right about the delivery person doing piece work. He doesn't care that a house gets 18 copies of the books and doesn't want to return any packages and lower his pay. But that doesn't explain why Verizon prints and dumps so many copies.


Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at October 17, 2005 4:03 PM writes:

John Richardson writes:

"Seems like the delivery guy is probably trying to unload books that he was supposed to deliver elsewhere. I'm guessing those guys get paid piecemeal for sucessful deliveries, and if an address is vacant, he's supposed to return the books (and not get paid for them). But I'm just speculating."


Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at October 17, 2005 4:02 PM writes:

Chris Warner writes:

"Verizon is the source of most of my nightmares."


Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at October 17, 2005 4:00 PM writes:

Bill Grimes writes:

"Yellow Pages have the highest profit margin of any Verizon business despite inefficiencies, as you mention, and new competition from both print and Internet directories. In part because of this competition, a cautious, conservative, non-innovative Verizon managemnet is afraid of risking further erosion of revenues and profits to make changes of any significance.

Burdensome labor contracts with production unions exist throughout the Yellow Pages business and Verizon management worries that to ameliorate these union expenses the company may have to endure a strike, and it is concerned that union workers in Verizon's local phone business (fixed line local telco) might walk in support of YP production labor. Further complicating these union issues is the fact that YP ad salespeople in many of their markets are organized union members.

Not surprisingly, Verizon's share price is down 25% this year, reflecting primarily the loss of nearly 2% of its fixed land line business in the last year. This is a hugely significant loss--over one million local phone subscribers--to new cell phones customers cancelling their Verizon line account (like me, no longer a fixed line subscriber) and to cable VOIP customers, which is an increasingly competitve factor in local phone business. (In San Diego, for example, Cox Cable has taken 30% of local phone business from SW Bell(ex-PacTel). In Verizon markets Cablevision has taken over 100,000 customers and Time Warner Cable and Comcast are just beginning serious marketing of their very competitive VoIP local and long distance telephony for $39 a month, unlimited US and Canada phone calls.

So Verizon is a company with large problems, and management has demonstrated little knowledge of solutions--keep in mind that revenues from all telephone business, including cellular are diminishing because of sinking prices. Verizon is a twenty-year victim of its management fearing to make risky decisions about its base business and as a result finally today it is losing revenue daily from its fundamental local phone business.

As a result the paralysis over what to do or not do with its Yellow Pages business continues--a business which is also experiencing no revenue growth, decling margins and profits. However, the cash produced by its YP remains sizable and important to this dinosaur. Veizon today is like the broadcast networks in 1990 except that it has found no cable networks or movie-studio-type business to diversify into while the mother ship continues to slowly sink into a large deep hole."


October 12, 2005

Murdoch's Cable Strategy

In today's Jack Myers Business Report, Richard Morgan wrote a a very intelligent piece titled "Fox News Reports - Cable Operators Pay." Here's what Morgan wrote:

"Remember when Rupert Murdoch paid cablers a one-off fee of $10 a subscriber to carry his fledgling Fox News Channel? And all he asked for in return was 20 cents a month for each of those subscribers?

The fee translated into 4.2 years of free programming before being offset by subscription revenues. Small wonder, then, that MSOs with collective subs of 17 million signed on for FNC's October 1996 launch. Most did so for ten years, may thinking, as much of the press did, that the Rupe was a dupe. "Maybe all the offer means is that Fox News is going to be such a pile of poop that cable operators have to be paid to carry it," was one trade reporter's take.

Now we're nearing payback time. And FNC, with its subscription ranks swollen to 85 million, is headed for a windfall. "They have the most intense brand loyalty of any news channel," says an expert, who expects the per-subscriber fee for renewed contracts to come in between $1.00 and $2.00 a month. FNC subscriptions, which approximated $41 million during the channel's maiden year, would come in between $1 billion and $2 billion under the anticipated bump.

Moreover, before any MSO resists the 400% to 900% increase, it may want to think twice about Murdoch's controlling interest in DirecTV. You can bet the sat broadcaster will have plenty of dishes awaiting disenfranchised customers of cable systems that, rather than pay up, decide to dump FNC."

Morgan has paid justifiable tribute to Murdoch's competitive strategic genius--nobody in media is better at long-term strategy. But I think Murdoch has something else up his sleeve. It is widely assumed that Fox News resident Einstein, Roger Ailes, is preparing to launch a Fox business channel on cable to compete with NBC's CNBC. I'll bet News Corp., Murdoch, and Ailes have waited to launch their business channel until the 10-year contracts for the Fox News channel with MSOs expire at the end of the this year so that when Fox sits down at the poker table to negotiate with the MSOs, it will be holding a very strong hand, as Morgan describes above. Fox will price the Fox News Channel very high, maybe even $3 a sub per month, and will then propose that if MSOs want to carry the Fox News channel at, say, $1.50 per sub per month (negotiable), they can do so if they carry the new Fox business channel. Murdoch and company will do what they did ten years ago, they will buy carriage for their new business channel.

Murdoch is as smart as a fox (Fox?) and the foxes in the News Corp. den don't get dumber as the years go by. I look forward to seeing the new Fox business news channel on my Time Warner cable system after the first of the year, but I doubt the folks at CNBC feel the same way.

Posted by Charles Warner at 10:54 PM | Comments (0) | Print | Mail this entry

Listening For Motivations

In a previous blog, titled "Reading Motivations," I suggested that when you read newspaper stories, you should consider what motivations a paper has for publishing a story and what the possible sources for the stories are. I think you have to be similarly skeptical and thoughful when viewing television or listening to radio, especially sports talk radio.

On one of my first blogs almost two years ago, I wrote about obnoxious, self-absorbed spots radio talkers and cited Michael Kay on ESPN Radio's local affiliate, WEPN, 1050, as an example. He was so obnoxious and self-important that I stopped listening to him for almost two years. But this past summer as I listened to the Yankee games, I became engrossed with the Bronx Bomber's struggle to get to the playoffs. The Yankee broadcasts on WCBS, 880, were much better this year because of the addition of Susan Waldman in the booth. She was terrific--knowledgeable, honest, and a pleasure to listen to. Her intimate knowledge of Yankee history equaled that of Yankee homer and egomaniac John Sterling (who wallows in being called "The Voice of the Yankees") and she dealt nicely with his pomposity and his know-it-all, alpha male on-air persona, something Charlie Steiner was unable to do the two previous years.

Because of the Yankee penant race I began listening to Michael Kay again. In addition to being the host of a sports-talk show on WEPN, 1050, he more famously is one of the announcers for the televised Yankee games on the YES cable network, so I figured I could put up with the self-absorbed, juvenile, often cruel, arrogant kidding and non-sports-related silliness he too often stoops to so I could get some inside stuff about Yankees.

Well, you now how it is with radio, once your buttons are set to a station, you tend to go back there. Also, I like to listen to the Dan Patrick Show from time to time, so I'd tune in to Dan now and then. At times Michael was very good and full of Yankee insights, but eventually he would start acting silly or go into a rant, so when that happened I'd turn to WFAN, 660, which I hadn't listened to in several years.

About a week ago I heard Michael Kay on a rant about Joe Torre. Michael was criticizing Joe for having Robinson Cano bat sixth instead of second, where Michael thought he belonged. He was clearly critical of Torre as a manager. I remember at the time I thought Kay was being too tough on Torre and I didn't agree with him. Then this past Tuesday afternoon, after the Yankee lost the final game in the American Lague playoff series to the Angels the previous night, Kay went on an obnoxious rant against Torre. Kay said that he couldn't believe what Joe had said after the game, that it was the most disappointing loss he'd ever suffered. Kay was outraged at Torre's statement, saying that he couldn't belive it, that the worse loss in Torre's career had to be the loss last year to the Red Sox after the Yankees were up three games and the Red Sox went on to win the next four games and knock the Yankees out of going to the World Series. He bloviated on and on about Torre's statement. Again, I didn't agree with him and thought he went over the line criticizing Torre.

This morning in the New York Times, I read a column by Selena Roberts titled "Time For the Boss to Fire Himself" in which she wrote: "As it is, Steinbrenner is more isolated, more unpredictable than ever. Perhaps the pressure of the payroll--of money lost via early playoff departures--has left Steinbrenner too manipulative to make sense.

The old shipbuilder in Steinbrenner surely has a keen understanding of how damaging leaks can be, yet he was suspected of filtering criticisms through the earpieces of his YES Network talent this year in surreptitious attempts to undermine Torre."

Bingo! The light went on. Michael Kay is one of "the earpieces of his YES Network talent." Michael Kay on 1050, ESPN Radio, was being a toady to George--sucking up to do the dirty work of his mean-spirited, meglomaniacal boss in order to keep his precious YES TV job.

This morning I was listening to Joe Benigno on WFAN and he and his callers were talking about Joe Torre. The vast majority of the callers (at least during the hour plus that I listened) were positive about the job Torre did this year as a manager. Benigno said he thought that Torre did a superb job of managing this year--probably his best as the Yankee manager. Benigno said that he thought Torre was the second-best manager in baseball, Bobby Cox of Atlanta being the best.

WFAN and WEPN are in a fierce battle for sports listeners in New York, a battle that WFAN is winning. But you know that the WFAN personalities and programming people listen to WEPN and to Michael Kay, the biggest personality on the local station, on in afternoon drive time (other programs such as "Mike and Mike in the Morning," Colin Cowherd and Dan Patrick come from the ESPN Radio network). So it's reasonable to assume that the WFAN people knew that Michael Kay was rapping Torre and understood why he was doing it (he was being blantantly dishonest)--WFAN knew it and Selana Roberets knew it.

Does that mean that WFAN had a strategy of supporting Torre just to counter-program Michael Kay? I don't think so. I believe the WFAN personalities--Joe Benigno, Mike and the Mad Dog, and Steve Somers (the ones I listen to at times)--seem to be honest about their opinions and say what they think. I now believe that Miachel Kay is a dishonest mouthpiece for Steinbrenner. It will be interesting to see how many listeners agree with me and if the WEPN ratings go up or down.

I also believe that Selana Roberts is a pretty good, honest sports columnist and I'd link to her column, but it's behind the stupid NY Times firewall and you have to be a Times subscriber or pay $49 a year to read it. If you're a subscriber, I recommend you read this Wednesday's column I mentioned above. If you live in New York and like sports radio occassionally, I recommend WFAN, 660, after 10:00 a.m. Of course from 6-10 a.m. and 4-7:00 p.m. I recommend NPR Radio no matter where you live.

Posted by Charles Warner at 6:49 PM | Comments (1) | Print | Mail this entry

Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at October 13, 2005 11:07 AM writes:

Chris Warner writes:

"Clearly the motivation is to sell cars and the fuel they burn."


October 11, 2005

CBS and CNN? Why?

Advertising Age this week (October 10) had a story on page 6 titled "Dream deal: CNN and CBS?" It started this way: "The notion of a merger between CNN and CBS is surfacing again." The story went on to mention that Viacom and Time Warner talked about a merger in 2003 but the talks fell apart. Now, Ad Age writes: "...but with the need to find a future model for TV news, the time seems right to revisit this one."

I think Ad Age is trying to create some swirl so in case a merger happens the Ad Age editors can say, "We told you so" (a wonderful feeling). However, I think the idea is a little silly. If in fact the goal of CBS and Time Warner is "to find a new model for TV news," why on earth would these two organizations look to each other to solve this conundrum? Neither one of them is any good at figuring out what such a model should like now.

CNN has been getting its clock cleaned by Fox News and hasn’t found any magic elixirs or new models. The only time CNN’s ratings come close to Fox’s is during coverage of disasters like Katrina and then not for very long. CNN’s fumbling answer to Fox’s dominance is to do more missing bride stories and propping up Larry King’s eyelids with toothpicks or putting on even older, duller, more out of touch guests than he is—i.e. election night analyst super-hip Bob Dole. Aaron Brown is the only anchor CNN has who has any credibility and Jeff Greenfield the only commentator with brains, but as Fox News has proven, viewers don’t want credible or smart.

So what does CNN bring to the table? I know—an Atlanta headquarters with cheaper rent than the tony new Time Warner building in NY. And what does Time Warner bring to the table along with CNN? TW brings a history and reputation of distinguished journalism to the table---Time, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated. But the respectable journalism of the Luce legacy is a long-form magazine journalism unsuited for the glitzy lower-expectations that viewers have for today’s televised news, a type of journalism one of Time’s brilliant intellectuals, Walter Isaacson, wasn’t able to bring to CNN when he was its CEO. It’s pretty well established that Walter hurt CNN more than he helped. What did Time Warner expect, that a smart intellectual would help CNN get higher ratings?

And what does CBS bring to the table? I know—a third-place news product that is still sinking after Rathergate and a news division president, Andrew Heyward that let Rathergate happen and can’t figure out what to do now. Heyward embarrassingly listened to ideas from interns last summer in a move that the opposition press, especially the testy New York Observer, had a field day with. Heyward is clearly a lame duck who will be out as head of CBS News when his contract is up at the end of this year. CEO Les Moonves, is now head of the newly split off CBS, and I don’t think he’s dumb enough to merge with CNN and let CNN’s head, Jonathan Klein run the show after the dismal record of spotlighting sleaze and skirt chasing stories Klein has favored (to no avail).

Time Warner’s best news brand is Time, one of the country top five news brands, but it wasn’t able to find meaningful ways to cooperate with CNN or to find synergy for both brands. When AOL came on the scene, the Time people loathed the AOL people and would have a started the mother of all insurgencies if they had been asked to eat with, let a lone cooperate with AOL. Instead of letting Time take over the AOL news channel and brand it as the Time news channel, which would have given AOL’s news product a credible brand name a big boost at the time, it never happened.

The neutron bomb was said to be the perfect capitalist bomb because it killed all the people but left the buildings and hard assets unscathed. If there were such a brand bond and you could wipe out all the people with their enormous egos and craving for power and then let some rational strategists deploy the assets, the strategists would probably do this. Sit the new Time Warner and CBS people down at a table (remember, you nuked the old ones) and tell them, “This is going to be how it’s going to work: Time will be the news brand. It will be the name of the cable news channel, of the magazine, of the CBS Television evening news show, and of the AOL news site.” It will be the combined companies’ news brand that will be cross-promoted and linked to on all platforms—it will have a similar look and feel and a similar voice and style and a similar attitude, even a similar political stance. Our news symbol will be subtly incorporated into everything we do–into to every grahipic—will be an elegant, lordly looking, even gentle, watchdog. Our motto will be “We watch, you act.”

We will ask citizens to be watchdogs for us, too and send us information about corruption and we’ll publish it.” We’ll distribute dramatic posters of ordinary people—citizens (especially boys and girls) proudly holding this elegant watchdog in uplifting poses. We’ll call the dog Time and we’ll begin to run stories about how Time was shown a person drowning and saved the person, how Time caught a crooked politician because he (or she—probably a she—Lassie was a she) was sicced on the crook by an average citizen. Time the dog becomes the metaphor for great journalism bubbling up from the grass roots of citizenship, making the country safe from crooked politicians and greedy corporate bosses (have to be very careful with this one)” “We watch, you act” turns people from being passive deciders to proactive actors—by cooperating with Time, they realize they can make a difference. The biggest area for citizen interaction and communication is the watchdog’s website and blog (blogs, blogs, blogs—a gaggle for blogs like Daily Kos) with a moderated chat room for conversation– the website belongs to Time, the dog. The possibilities are limitless (for good and additional ad inventory, too).

I heard a rumor that George Clooney is going to do a remake of the 1976 Academy Award winning movie “Network.” Clooney is very smart because I think there is a growing frustration and anger with this incompetent president, with his crony-filled administration, and with virtually all politicians. People are feeling mad as hell and aren’t going to take it any more. What a perfect time to brand a cross-platform news organization and a loyal Time watchdog with a message of “We watch, you act.”

Posted by Charles Warner at 2:50 AM | Comments (1) | Print | Mail this entry

Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at October 11, 2005 11:09 PM writes:

Paul Talbot writes:

You're being much too kind to Time.

After throwing reporter Matthew Cooper to the Special Counsel's wolves on the Valerie Plame case the magazine revealed its true colors, few of which reflect the slightest hint of a journalistic hue.

As a news brand Time is now more sullied than ever. Henry Luce did nothing for its integrity with his incessant banging of the Republic of China drum and his strident Republicanism.

With their decision not to stand behind Matthew Cooper, the inheritors of Luce's legacy have sent a clear signal to every reporter worth his or her salt... this is not a good place for you to practice your craft, unless your craft consists of writing softball cover stories such as this week's "Living Better Longer."

Fortunately, all consumers of news aren't interested in brands and positioning statements. Some have an interest in substance, something Time squandered long ago.


October 1, 2005

Media Execs, Be Careful of Must-Cry TV

Peter Finch won a posthumous Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of an aging, emotionally distraught TV news anchor, Howard Beal, in the 1976 film, “Network.” Ironically, Paddy Chayefsky, who gained fame as a television writer won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his “black, prophetic, satirical commentary/criticism of corporate evil” (http://www.filmsite.org/netw.html). Beal’s often-quoted rallying cry against the hypocrisy and corruption rampant in the country and in the media at the time was, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” It’s also a line that I’ll bet Anderson Cooper of CNN and Shepard Smith of Fox News thought of using during their emotional coverage of the devastation in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Cooper, Smith, Robin Roberts of ABC, Jeanne Meserve of CNN, and, of course Geraldo Rivera of Fox News all had weepy, emotional, non-objective on air-responses while they were reporting on the post-Katrina tragedies. In “Network” the unhinged Beal gets his own show that garners big ratings and pulls his network out of the profitless muck into a blooming bottom line. The blogesphere, the trade press, and even the main-stream media have predicted that Anderson Cooper, the lead weeper, would soon be promoted and get his own show—probably becoming network news anchor.

Richard Bradley on Tom Paine.com, in an entry titled “Must-Cry TV,” wrote that “everyone seemed to think that all this emotion was good thing: The more, the better. Thus inspired, CBS Marketwatch’s Jon Friedman posed the oh-so-important question, “Who do you think has emerged as the biggest media star throughout the Hurricane Katrina tragedy?” Obviously Anderson Cooper. Bradley includes a quote from a New York magazine article by Jonathan Klein, Cooper’s boss at CNN: “I think other news executives are drooling over [Cooper.] He brings a new dimension to the job, which is a concept of an anchor as a kind of missionary. It’s a new model for thinking about what the anchorperson ought to be.”

However, Bradley’s view is that, “Their tears were, simply, unprofessional, and the fact that their bosses seem to approve is a sign of how corrupt TV news has become, how insecure it is of its own relevance.” He also writes that “Anderson Cooper may well be the next-generation anchorperson. Assuming network news makes it that long.”

Geraldo was the first of the Katrina emotionalists to get his own show when the Fox TV stations dumped “Current Affairs” and scheduled “Geraldo At Large” starting in November. But I think network executives ought to think twice before giving more of the Katrina weepers their own shows—not because it might hurt the credibility of their news programs, but because putting such emphasis on personalities and star quality too often creates egomaniacal, self-absorbed divas who are not only very difficult to manage but also very expensive.

Instead of hiring reporters who know how to emote, Jay Rosen in his blog, Press Think, which, by the way, in my view is the most intelligent blog about journalism, writes: “Spine is always good, outrage is sometimes needed, and empathy can often reveal the story. But there is no substitute for being able to think, and act journalistically on your conclusions.”

Therefore, network executives should hire anchors who can think instead of hiring passionate emoters for two reasons: They are more credible and they are cheaper. (Being smart doesn’t pay as well as being cute in TV—Jeff Greenfield on CNN doesn’t make as much money as Sean Hannity on Fox News.) However, don’t hold your breath for network execs to make sensible decisions, because they are all scared to death of being beaten by Rogers Ailes’s glitzy, star-driven Fox News and Fox TV Stations. Like Fox, they’ll hire personalities instead of thinkers and TV news will continue its “dumbed-down, tarted-up” coverage, as Dan Rather recently called it.

Posted by Charles Warner at 4:54 PM | Comments (4) | Print | Mail this entry

Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at October 5, 2005 11:57 PM writes:

Neil Derrough. former president of the CBS Television Stations division, sent in the following comment--another intelligent, thoughtful look at the current topic.

Watching the critics weigh in on the Katrina coverage has been fascinating. There seems to be a general agreement that significant journalistic errors were made. The focus now, as it should be, is on the decision makers. What now?

The fact that so many stories were aired without following routine journalistic standards is unacceptable. It’s true that these were not routine conditions, but it still doesn’t relieve the reporter or editors from at least attributing the source of the information they were using. If the normal professional rigor had been used to follow this one basic standard, a lot of false information would not have aired.

The issue of reporters being too involved in their story has been a debate in newsrooms for decades. Immediate coverage of natural disasters compounds this issue. Reporters are subject to their emotions, to the horror of what they are reporting. The standards here are cloudy. The editing process is not available in live coverage. Repeating an unsubstantiated story is different, but in the live report you are left to the reporters judgment. This is where it gets tricky and highly subjective. This also where the importance of the executives making the decisions becomes critical. Do they reward the over-the-top reporters with their own show? Do they encourage these reporters to look for opportunities to show off their emotion?

The reporter involvement issue becomes even more complex now that we have 24-hour cable news outlets all looking for a ways to differentiate their news efforts. The temptation to turn a highly publicized or controversial reporter into a personality is overwhelming. Again, the pressure is on whoever makes those decisions.

Much of this is the evolution of sorting out how to deal with this historic period of getting to the next phase of what the decision makers think works. Stay tuned.


Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at October 3, 2005 11:53 AM writes:

As always, Jesse writes beautifully and makes some excellent points. I'm not necessarily against reporters and anchors reacting emotionally when covering a story when such reaction is genuine and appropriate to the situation. But I can't help but remember William Hurt in "Broadcast News" cynically crying on cue. My fear is that television executives will hire cynical weepers because they weep, not because they're smart and good thinkers, like Jesse Kornbluth is.


Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at October 3, 2005 11:40 AM writes:

Jesse Kornbluth responded to the above blog entry by sending me his blog entry from Mediabistro.com:

Tim Russert and the Dead Woman: Real Men Always Cry

Jesse Kornbluth 9/30/05

It's not exactly breaking news that 'Meet the Press' has become something of an infomercial for the White House --- Arianna Huffington takes a baseball bat to Tim Russert's kneecaps for this sin on her site every weekend. Ms. Huffington is more than equal to the task of counting the number of times per show that Russert bends to kiss the ring of a Cheney, Rice or Rumsfeld. There's no need for me to follow her lead --- I am as in awe of her persistence as I am by Russert's lack of embarrassment.

And yet I am forced to write about Russert. The catalyst is two interviews he did with Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard. New Orleans was still flooded the first time Broussard came on 'Meet the Press,' and he was quite emotional as he told the story of a woman who drowned:

Sir, they were told, like me, every single day, "The cavalry is coming." On the federal level, "The cavalry is coming. The cavalry's coming. The cavalry's coming." The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard Nursing Home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama. Somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday." "Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday." "Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday." "Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.

On that occasion, Russert seemed not to know how to respond. He cut away from Broussard and moved on to an interview with Mississippi Governor --- and veteran Republican leader --- Haley Barbour.

But on Broussard's return visit, Russert was prepared. Indeed, he had a mission --- to confront Broussard.

First, Russert replayed that 'painful, emotional moment.' Then he dug in:

Well, it was important, I think...that our viewers see that again because MSNBC and other blog organizations have looked into the facts behind your comments and these are the conclusions, and I'll read it for you and our viewers. It says: "An emotional moment and a misunderstanding. Since the broadcast of [Meet the Press] interview...a number of bloggers have questioned the validity of Broussard's story. Subsequent reporting identified the man whom Broussard was referring to...as Thomas Rodrigue, the Jefferson Parish emergency services director. ...Rodrigue acknowledged that his 92-year-old mother and more than 30 other people died in the St. Rita nursing home. They had not been evacuated and the flood waters overtook the residence. ... When told of the sequence of phone calls that Broussard described, Rodrigue said 'No, no, that's not true. ...I contacted the nursing home two days before the storm [on Saturday, Aug. 27th] and again on [Sunday] the 28th. ...At the same time I talked to the nursing home I had also talked to the emergency manager...to encourage that nursing home to evacuate...' Rodrigue says he never made any calls after Monday, the day he figures his mother died... Officials believe the residents of St. Rita's died on Monday, the 29th, not on Friday, Sept. 2, as Broussard has suggested."

Watching this, a reasonable viewer would go, 'Huh? What's this guy's point? And whatever it is, why is Russert gunning for a 'gotcha' moment? That's not what he does. And yet here's an attack for the highlight reel --- one of the biggest names in television news is telling us that it doesn't matter how unimportant you are, if you get the facts wrong, he's going to be a hellhound on your trail."

But there was a problem. Before Russert could deliver the knock-out punch, Broussard --- a bug on the windshield of media, a nobody who'd go unrecognized in New York or Washington --- insisted on having his say. And Broussard was clearly reading from a different script:

Sir, this gentleman's mother died on that Friday before I came on the show. My own staff came up to me and said what had happened. I had no idea his mother was in the nursing home. It was related to me by my own staff, who had tears in their eyes, what had happened. That's what they told me. I went to that man, who I love very much and respect very much, and he had collapsed like a deck of cards. And I took him and put him in my hospital room with my prayer books and told him to sit there and cry out and pray away and give honor to his mother with his tears and his prayers.

Now, everything that was told to me about the preface of that was told to me by my own employees. Do you think I would interrogate a man whose mother just died and said, "Tommy, I want to know everything about why your mother just died"? The staff, his own staff, told me those words. Sir, that woman is the epitome of abandonment. She was left in that nursing home. She died in that nursing home. Tommy will tell you that he tried to rescue her and could not get her rescued. Tommy could tell you that he sent messages there through the EOC and through, I think, the sheriff's department, "Tell Mama everything's going to be OK. Tell Mama we're coming to get her."

Listen, sir, somebody wants to nitpick a man's tragic loss of a mother because she was abandoned in a nursing home? Are you kidding? What kind of sick mind, what kind of black-hearted people want to nitpick a man's mother's death? They just buried Eva last week. I was there at the wake. Are you kidding me? That wasn't a box of Cheerios they buried last week. That was a man's mother whose story, if it is entirely broadcast, will be the epitome of abandonment. It will be the saddest tale you ever heard, a man who was responsible for safekeeping of a half a million people, mother's died in the next parish because she was abandoned there and he can't get to her and he tried to get to her through EOC. He tried to get through the sheriff's office. He tries every way he can to get there. Somebody wants to debate those things? My God, what sick-minded person wants to do that?

What kind of agenda is going on here? Mother Nature doesn't have a political party. Mother Nature can vote a person dead and Mother Nature can vote a community out of existence. But Mother Nature is not playing any political games here. Somebody better wake up. You want to come and live in this community and see the tragedy we're living in? Are you sitting there having your coffee, you're in a place where toilets flush and lights go on and everything's a dream and you pick up your paper and you want to battle ideology and political chess games? Man, get out of my face. Whoever wants to do that, get out of my face.

Wow! Russert had Broussard on the ropes, but Broussard didn't get it. None of this 'Russert's game, Russert's rules' for him. He came out of his corner, jabbing, and he connected with every punch. 'What kind of sick mind, what kind of black-hearted people want to nitpick a man's mother's death?' Recognize yourself, you prick? 'That wasn't a box of Cheerios they buried last week.' Chew on that, you heartless, coffee-drinking, toilet-equipped bastard.

Beyond the sheer thrill of watching an unranked club fighter pound the hell out of the champion was the meta-drama: Broussard took a factual error and showed it for what it was --- not the kind of lie that Administration officials have told without significant challenge on 'Meet the Press' for almost five years, but an insignificant shard of a larger story that was truthful in every other way.

On the psychological level, what Broussard did was even more astonishing: Just as he did on his first appearance, he jumped into the moment and relived it. Like a flashback. Or, to use a term of art, abreaction. And when he came out of it, he wasn't dazed and blinking --- he was breathing fire at the sick son-of-a-bitch who, with people dead and displaced, would cook up an exercise like this.

Russert wasn't listening. Or if he was, he couldn't stop to debate Broussard --- he really did have an 'agenda.' Which he finally revealed:

Mr. Broussard, the people who are questioning your comments are saying that you accused the federal government and the bureaucracy of murder, specifically calling on the secretary of Homeland Security and using this as an example to denounce the federal government. And what they're saying is, in fact, it was the local government that did not evacuate Eva Rodrigue on Friday or on Saturday....And, in fact, the owners of the nursing home, Salvador and Mable Mangano, have been indicted with 34 counts of negligent homicide by the Louisiana state attorney general. So it was the owners of the nursing home and the local government that are responsible for the lack of evacuation and not the federal government. Is that fair?

In other words, get outta President Bush's face, little man! The villains? People who know, Mr. Broussard. Your local colleagues. Your friends. Maybe even you, pal.

Again, Brossard wouldn't play:

Sir, with everything I said on Meet the Press, the last punctuation of my statements were the story that I was going to tell in about maybe two sentences. It just got emotional for me, sir. Talk about the context of everything I said. Were we abandoned by the federal government? Absolutely we were. Were there more people that abandoned us? Make the list. The list can go on for miles. That's for history to document. That's what Congress does best, burn witches. Let Congress do their hearings. Let them find the witches. Let them burn them. The media burns witches better than anybody. Let the media go find the witches and burn them. But as I stood on the ground, sir, for day after day after day after day, nobody came here, sir. Nobody came. The federal government didn't come. The Red Cross didn't come. I'll give you a list of people that didn't come here, sir, and I was here.

When somebody wants to nit-pick these details, I don't know what sick minds creates this black-hearted agenda, but it's sick. I mean, let us recover. Let us rebuild. If somebody wants me to debate them on national TV, hey, buddy, be my guest. Make my day. Put me at a podium when I got a full night's sleep and you will not like matching me against anybody that you want. That person is going to be in trouble. If this station or anybody else or any other station wants to do that, you just give me a full night's sleep, sir. I haven't had one in about 30 days. But you wind me up with a full night's sleep, I'll debate every detail of everything you want, sir.

And that was it. Russert thanked Broussard 'for coming on and correcting the record and putting it in context' and said he hoped to talk with him again. Nonsense. Broussard will never return to 'Meet the Press.' He may well be blacklisted on all networks owned by General Electric; he can't be trusted to honor the protocol of news shows, which is, above all else, to make the host look good.

And more: Broussard is too emotional. These shows are about policy; they're too high-minded for visceral appeals to moral principles. Geraldo, voice cracking, as he holds up a baby....Shepherd Smith bitch-slapping Hannity for daring to suggest he lacked 'perspective'...Anderson Cooper confronting the governor of Louisiana --- all that was fine when New Orleans was under water. But that moment has past. Check your emotions at the door.

And more: Russert --- who has a huge audience and the semblance of gravitas ---no longer remembers the lessons that this father --- "Big Russ," a workingman --- taught him as a child. Now, confronted with a commoner, he's all chill detachment and cool professionalism; he has the empathy of a fact-checker. He's no longer a newsman, he's a product manager for one of the world's largest defense contractors --- it would be more honest if he did the show wearing a GE windbreaker.

It is easy to hurl insults --- that's what so much of the liberal blogosphere does brilliantly. There's a larger point to make, and it's about many more news professionals than just Russert. That point is about emotion, about the place of tears.

New Orleans was an exceptional situation: a visible tragedy unseen by Washington. That upped the emotional pitch of the reporters on the scene. The willingness to 'go there' transformed a few TV reporters into instant heroes; it made Brian Williams a god.

But New Orleans was a one-off, and with the flooding gone, the media no longer cares much about the black and the poor, just as it doesn't want to look closely at the white and rich. We're back to the old stories and the old way of telling them.

Which doesn't mean emotion has no place.

The question is: Who cries?

I believe that journalism --- like fiction, like film, like all the arts --- is manipulation. You gather your material, fix on a point of view and then set about telling a story. After the first pass, the writing (or broadcasting, or painting) is not an act of self-discovery. It's a premeditated, calculated process.

I cannot remember an important story I've done that did not, at some point, reduce me to tears. The mother of an 18-year-old who was lynched by the KKK but who told me that any proceeds from her lawsuit would go to those who were really hurting --- afterward, I sat in the car for a long time before I was together enough to drive. Touring the bedroom of a Harvard-bound girl who'd been killed by a hit-run driver --- of course I cried with her mother. And there were other stories that demanded I sit in the victim's chair, so I'd have some idea what kind of hell that was.

And when I went to write, more tears. But you never saw them metaphorically splotching the page. The way I worked, you are tightening a vise on the reader until you have created some approximation of the impossibility, the sheer awfulness, of the situation. And then, with one anecdote, with a seemingly minor quote, you breach the levee of the reader's ability to cope --- you push him/her into empathy, into tears.

You may question that method. I call it art. And I call it necessary, because there is so much media noise these days you have to do something to get yourself noticed. And what's a more honorable way to do that than a true story, told at its deepest resonance?

My problem with what Tim Russert tried to do to Aaron Broussard is not that he'd never raise the bar so high for an Administration official. It's that he can't feel --- for anyone. There's a great interview to be done with Donald Rumsfeld that ends with Rumsfeld in tears; Russert hasn't a clue how to do that. Ditto Rice. Maybe even Bush.

An interviewer can't take anyone to a place he won't go himself. And it's not simple to go to those places. Therapy, meditation, solitude, a good relationship --- these all help. But just as nutrition is barely taught in nursery school, empathy is rarely mentioned in the training of journalists. And so one of the greatest techniques of the trade remains an open secret: Real men always cry.


Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at October 2, 2005 11:31 AM writes:

Author Suzanne O'Malley writes:

Geraldo-at-Large is not essentially new. Networks have been rewarding Rivera's "let's you an him fight" style for decades. [For a fairly accurate c.v. Click here: Flashback: John J. Miller on Geraldo Rivera on National Review Online]

Relative newcomer Anderson Cooper deserves some space apart from Geraldo et al--he does some reporting in between tears.

It bears mentioning that, in the end, Chayefsky's network executives had newscaster Howard Beal assassinated to raise ratings. Cooper, Shepherd, Rivera beware...