I realize this happens on a regular basis now, but last nightís tragic shooting of two Pierce County Sheriffís deputies again illustrates the power of social media – to an extent. Here’s how the news broke in the Layson house: My son received a text from a friend who has family connections with members of […]
Walter Cronkite RIP
July 17, 2009 by
I would say that anybody who went into TV news in the 70s or 80s had Walter Cronkite in mind when they began. Like the generation before him who idolized Ed Murrow, Cronkite’s time came-and-went in the TV news business, but it is with great respect and fond memories that we bid farewell to Cronkite […]
Product placement secrets revealed
June 2, 2009 by
The bloodletting taking place in local TV news operations around the United States is shocking. Newscasts are being cancelled, established talent fired, staffs cut. Frankly, a good chunk of the value proposition in local TV news died a long time ago, but the Great Recession and the demise of auto-related advertising has sped the process […]
A slow death
May 27, 2009 by
Presstime, the magazine about newspapers published by the Newspaper Association of America is going out of print. I think the irony speaks for itself. Losing the print version of the publication will save the association about $500,000 according to president and CEO John Sturm as quoted in the New York Times. The other big newspaper […]
Kiss your Mom with that mouth?
May 7, 2009 by
I don’t think Iím an old fuddy-duddy. I’m hip to technology and am really pretty easy-going about a lot of the social issues that seem to work-up so many. My “who cares?” thing probably comes from a pretty strong Libertarian streak, and dose of cynicism about the nature of people. I watch what people do […]
What. Me worry?
April 28, 2009 by
I just got off the air with CBS radio in Chicago talking about media issues on the afternoon business report. One of the things we discussed was MAD magazine’s move to publish once a quarter. This was intended to be a sort of the “kicker” element of the show, designed to give us a chuckle […]
The News Tribune & Stimson Bullitt passes
April 21, 2009 by
The News Tribune unveiled another new look today and I think it’s just dandy. Karen Peterson previewed the change in her column on Monday, and nowhere in her writing did I detect a hint that the paper considers the re-design a “solution” to the issues surrounding the survival of newspapers. This deserves some kudos. Why? […]
Mark my words
April 1, 2009 by
Mark my words, somewhere around this country somebody in radio or television is going to get blown out the door today as a result of an April fool’s joke gone bad. Not because of the slow economy or the cratered advertising market, but because it’s April first. April first? Are there mandatory firings on April […]
A little strange
March 22, 2009 by
The Seattle Times did a piece today introducing itself to P-I readers who may have migrated. Executive Editor David Boardman wrote it and structured it as a Q-and-A. I thought it was very telling. Boardman made up a small list of “assumptions” that P-I readers might bring to the table, and then proceeded to address […]
Tribune Tribulations
March 20, 2009 by
This blog was out in front of McClatchy’s announcement of another round of layoffs at the News Tribune, but now we have some more specific details. From what I’m hearing, 30 will be laid off at the paper, with about a half-dozen coming out of an already beleaguered newsroom. We also have talked about changes […]
New Media Circus
March 18, 2009 by
Here are my takes on a number of new media issues that have been bumping around in the blogosphere. George Stephanopoulos did a Twitter interview (Twitterview) with John McCain and the transcript is printed here. If we’re killing newspapers so we can spend more time with these kinds of exchanges, we’re all in a lot […]
Goodbye P-I
March 17, 2009 by
I’m sure I won’t be able to get a copy of the last P-I. Even though subscribers have abandoned her, advertisers shunned her and the blogosphere resented her – a good old fashioned hard copy of that particular daily newspaper will be hard to come by. Why? Some people are fool enough to think it […]
Hope for bastards
March 17, 2009 by
The pace of newspaper failures (folding?) is going to pick up. It’s sad, but true. Here in our area, the PI is obviously in dire straights – the Bellingham paper has one foot in the grave – the Puyallup Herald is going to be making some changes I hear – and the News Tribune is […]
More News Tribune layoffs likely
March 9, 2009 by
I’ve been hearing talk of another round of layoffs at the News Tribune for some time now, and it looks like it’s about to happen. McClatchy has announced it will slash about 1,600 jobs across the 30 papers it owns. That’s about 15% of the remaining workforce. It seems clear the P-I (Hearst) is going […]
Oh KOMO
February 10, 2009 by
Look in the dictionary beside the phrase, “Conflict of interest” and you’ll find a picture of the newspaper media critic. For years, newspapers thought they could fight back against television and radio news’ immediacy, emotion and credibility by shooting little rhetorical arrows at the medium, and the people who worked in it. On of the […]
Broadcasters Get Caught
February 9, 2009 by
News Tribune Executive Editor Karen Peterson did a nice column on the ancient practice of broadcast news operations stealing from newspapers. Make no mistake, it is stealing in the strictest sense of the word. If you take somebody’s work product without permission and turn around and sell it, that’s stealing. Now, I’ll give you a […]
