Arkansas Blog

>>What many TV and newspaper editors don't get, though, is that nothing sells like news.

Keep telling your selves that. Meanwhile call up any daily editor and ask about the complaints they get if the horoscope column or a popular comic strip is omitted.

On the front page of The Moron News (Brumett's largest daily) are three "news" stories.

-One is about what a significant role amateur radio plays in disaster relief.
-The other is, suprise!, people are saving more and spending less. Big news there!
-Finally a watershed article which reports results of a test that any high school senior should
be able to pass. However, the farmers didn't pass.

-The rest, other than sports which I rarely read, is fluff-filler and about 2 lbs of ad inserts.

Oh, yeah be sure to read The Moron New's Two LETTERs TO THE EDITOR. That's right, two.

There is a full 1/4 page column of unsigned web comments. Mostly stupid as in very.
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"I pay per piece, just the way it was in the garment business," he says. "A thousand words pays $7.50."
M.Dowd

Ok Max pay up.

But kidding aside when Friedman's ironic The World Is Flat hit the stands I was tempted to write the NYT and say as soon as highly paid Friedman is replaced by a $300 month Indian columnist I would believe his premise. Looks like it may be coming.

I see no reason why any literate person in Sri Lanka, Mumbai, or Mexico couldn't put out the 3 front page "news" stories found in today's The Moron News.

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Brummett's previous effort at "blogging" did not allow readers to post comments, so it was a crashing bore.

I watched a bit of Choose Your News last week. It reminded me of the old Max Headroom TV series, which I doubt that Kristen Fisher is old enough to remember. It's now available on the Internet at http://video.aol.com/show/max-headroom

Six years ago I said to a group of friends, "I can tell in about two minutes whether somebody gets their news primarily from newspapers and TV or from the internet." Yes, the difference was that profound to me even then. Today, it's more so.

The kind of short sound-bite "journalism" perfected first by TV then introduced into print primarily by USA Today all those years ago may or may not be actual "news": in many if not most cases it's simply parrot food for those who wish to sound informed but in fact are not.

Depends what you call "news."

TV "news", except for the occasional long-form reports, is largely parrot food. No half-hour program (minus, as Max notes, commercials, promos, sports and weather) can deliver much more than sound-bite headlines.

Shows like "60" minutes may (but often don't) do slightly better on some topics.

24 / 7 news channels like CNN and FOX give the illusion of news and they're good at rapidly breaking stories, yet those still amount to "headlines" rather than informative in-depth reportage.

ALL TV "news" is necessarily propaganda to some degree, because programming decisions are based on advertising sales and "ratings." What does and does not get reported on TV, and HOW it's reported, is determined by marketing demographics.

"Give 'em what makes the most money" is the TV determinant. What sells is what people "want" to hear, not necessarily what they need to hear to make informed conclusions and decisions.

The occasional excellent long-form TV news series, like Christiane Amanpour's three-part "God's Warriors" of 2007, brilliantly informative with in-depth background on the Middle East situation and its foundation in the world's three "Great" religions, was blasted as "offensive" by many advertisers for . . . uh . . . showing the truth.

I haven't had cable or watched TV in five years, once I realized I spent some $700 a year to have it on in the background while I was online getting real news. The rare series like "God's Warriors" I view at friends'.

TV news, for me, is a cost-ineffective way to get headlines which are already old news to me by the time they air -- because I've already read them online.

Print news may or may not be more in-depth and informative, again depending. Local papers are often the "best" (and usually "only") source of local stories. Like the "Arkansas" section of the D-G or its front-page articles on news of value to the state. The rest of that paper is reprints from other sources which, again, are old news by the time they're printed and which are often edited to conform to the D-G's editorial slant.

The Arkansas Times does a far better job with long-form in-depth reportage. But then it's a weekly and not a daily.

Virtually all print media have an "editorial slant" including the WSJ, NYT, WASHINGTON POST, etc. One reading is sufficient to identify the slant of the Washington Post compared to the Washington Times, for instance.

The same applies to most if not all online news sources and blogs. AmericaBlog is liberal. WorldNetDaily is conservative, etc. Salon and HuffPo are liberal, etc.

Further, MOST print media is available online.

Readers naturally gravitate to those news outlets that agree with their already-established biases. Most people don't like their world-views challenged by contradictory facts.

That's why "unpopular" facts and views are more likely found through online news sources.

But real news isn't a popularity contest.

Nor does reading "news" that merely conforms and reinforces one's prejudices make one "informed." It just makes one a more impressive parrot.

Six years ago when I mentioned my observation that the difference between one who got her news from TV and newspapers versus one who got his news from the internet was obvious within two minutes, one of the brightest of that group asked, "But how do you know what you're reading online is true?"

I was stunned by the unspoken naiveté behind the question: the presumption that everything in print media is "true" and not subject to question. Six years later, I like to think most of us know better.

The answer I gave then still applies: "It takes about five minutes to source something on the internet to determine if it's true or not."

That's still the answer. It is, I suppose, the ONLY answer.

Getting real news today demands interactivity and personal sourcing to verify what one is being told.

Most people simply don't have that time. With both parents working full time and raising families, no one has time to verify "news." Illiterates and the undereducated haven't the resources or even the interest to verify "news."

There are those who believe the dumbing-down of America is deliberate, over past decades, to create an unintelligent uninformed working class who will obey authorities rather than ask questions or form protests.

Brummett is right: "In the end, though, we will succeed whatever the medium only if we cover real news when it happens and do so vigorously, accurately, expertly and insightfully."

Once one discovers one's favorite news source lies and cheats, it's exactly like any other human relationship where Trust is broken: it's hard if not impossible to ever get it back.

The converse is also true. Once one learns particular news sources and columnists are indeed "vigorous, accurate, expert and insightful," one may safely return to them again and again until proven otherwise.

Personally, I'm NEVER without access to news. If I'm not on my desktop or laptop, I can whip out my cell phone -- in a restaurant, in the bathroom -- and connect instantly to virtually any news source I like.

In the end, then, being informed requires interactive "sourcing" to verify who's lying and who's telling the truth . . . gradually learning to rely on truthful sources and discounting the liars.

It may not sound easy, but it's certainly not that hard.

Gone are the days when one-source news is sufficient to consider oneself "informed." And THAT'S the quality that shows up within two minutes of talking with anybody about anything.

In the spirit of informed discussion, then, there's this from the NYT about the intersection of the military-industrial-media complex.

What took them so long?

Oh, yeah. Pressure from blogs over the years increasingly breaking stories and posting truths.

At clicky.

Mr Brummett 's persistent determination to talk about things... old, tired, or on good days, poignant but obvious... Reminds me of times I see folks in wal mart with a mullet hair cut.

He's scared.. and that is the bottom line here.. aside form the point he thinks his old style of provincial pearl clutching somehow qualifies him as a hard hitting newsman.

I mean, he will dine and whine at Does with Pryor, but he won't join a youngster down the street who knows AR (and the rest of the media world for that matter) is trying and must try something new!

I don't have an opinion of this young ladies efforts, but considering where she is, I give her big kudos for trying something new in a corner of the world which generally throws folks who think outside of the box to the sharks with glee.

gee whiz JB is there not an obvious way of turning this old/new methods and paradigm argument into a win/win for all concerned ?

go spend a day with Ms. Fisher, doing it her new way, then write a column about the experience

on condition that she reciprocates by spending a day with you doing it your old way and 'writing' (?) a story/column on that experience for her web-cam audience

a good idea yes ? (please pardon the prurient innuendo of 'doing it' and 'ways')

Scientists have determined there is a lag in the time it takes to see something. The amount of time between when light enters the eye and when the brain has processed the optical neural inputs into images is small but significant. To compensate, the brain's visual circuitry doesn't provide a picture of what is but rather what will be. Our "eyes" lead the target by the amount of time it takes to process.

The idea that we "create" our own reality becomes easier to understand once you realize that your brain is always calculating what "will be" and presenting it to you as "what is". If one doesn't believe x (say, evolution) then evidence to the contrary is ignored. Combined with the "least objectionable programming" that is offered by the MSM and the rule of diminishing returns comes into play.

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
Albert Einstein

When MoDo is replaced by a min wage Indian, then I will take notice.

Since virtually ALL news media are about $, here is the NYT Mag's take on advertising in the "new" media age, across all platforms.

WARNING: REQUIRES ACTUAL READING

Didn't sell me Norma.

Katie Couric could be passed off as someone you met on a tivo version of Lost but what
does that do for her content. Wasn't content the subject of your previous post above?
Think so.
And this idea of making a broadcaster more real reeks of the phoniness of "real tv."
You can fake anything with multiple screens and sources. Just keep the story
coherent. Katie as the girl you met on the web. How charming.
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I'd like to agree with your "News sells" but the fact is that I can consume "news" from any of a 1000 free sources. Even in the cases of print media doing investigative reporting or in depth analysis I'd rather read that content on their ad supported website.

I even read Brummett's response online, then twittered it, and now I'm commenting.... What part of interaction does he not get?

Good news will sell but not in the same medium as the past 100 years. And CYN may be gimmicky but at least they are asking what the viewers want. I for one have watched KATV for the first time in over decade solely b/c of meeting Fisher online and interactive via twitter.

Each medium has its place but I'd be careful dismissing online interaction in a fatal swoop.

So where does all this "new" media leave the Arkansas Times?

Ahead by several lengths, relative to the rest of Arkansas' print media; somewhat behind (in electronic interactivity glitz) relative to Arkansas' TV media.

Clicky is the best, most current, take on the direction of successful branding and advertising (i.e., revenue$) across today's (and tomorrow's) multiple platforms.

The Arkansas Times is ALREADY at least a dual platform publication. Its weekly print edition is supplemented (or exceeded) by its online edition which adds instantly breaking news of importance to Arkansans and interactive blogs for discussions and further sources (reader-provided links).

Perhaps it's time for a reassessment of Marshall McCluhan's "the medium is the message" mantra, with its "hot" and "cool" media of yore. For, in the case of blogs at least, that old mantra is reversed: the message (contributors) is now the medium. No, or few, contributors? No blog.

The Arkansas Times provides, so far, seven products unavailable elsewhere in Arkansas media: in-depth weekly articles of importance (UCA, the Memphis Three, et al.), a center-left perspective, more in-depth coverage of the club scene and the arts, more in-depth reviews of restaurants, theatres and movie reviews than the Democrat-Gazette.

Keys? In-depth and center-left.

(Additionally, EVERY column and feature in the A-T is better written than ANYTHING in the D-G. It's impossible to disregard the relatively poor quality of writing in the D-G, much less the factually-challenged right-wing hit pieces by their columnists - at least, it's impossible for those who read other news sources. Roy Reed said to me, years ago, "Paul Greenberg used to be good. I don't know what happened to him." Well, it's obvious: Mr. Greenberg knows who butters his bread.

(Readers of the Arkansas Times also read tons of other sources, judging by their Blog comments. The readership of the D-G seems largely confined to those who watch only FOX news and consider that fair and balanced reporting. They read only the D-G, which filters even its national news-feed reprints like The AP through its rightist lens, and consider themselves informed.

(Who in her or his right mind would pay $2 for ANY archived article in the D-G when the same information, better written, more factual and comprehensive is available elsewhere for free online?)

Likewise Arkansas' TV outlets, which are again conservative filters confined to tiny broadcasts incapable of breaking news on a 24 / 7 basis, or of reporting anything in-depth.

One hopes the A-T recognizes the unique position it's already built for itself in Arkansas media and capitalizes on that solid foundation through growth, marketing and branding across the diverse "new" media we have at home and carry in our pockets in the 21st Century.

As suggested by today's experts at clicky.