Morning Reading List, 09.20.07

Good morning Washington. Your bet is on Stephen Colbert over Jon Stewart in a fist fight. Roll Call's Moira Bagley celebrates a birthday today. Media Matter's Eric Boehlert reports, "Last Monday, on the same day that Gen. David Petraeus was testifying before Congress about how important progress was being made in Iraq, the Pentagon announced that nine American service members had died that day in Iraq. Given the death toll to date, the sad notice did not qualify as a blockbuster development. But such a high number of dead service members in one 24-hour span certainly qualified as news, especially on a day when so much attention had been trained on Iraq inside Washington, D.C., including its newsrooms. Yet among the four all-news cable channels (CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox, and MSNBC) last week, there were just two mentions of the nine dead soldiers, according to TVEyes.com." "CHBN is proud to announce the launch of our latest innovation for our growing politically active community. Our interactive ads give our viewers an immediate call to action and collect critical data from supporters directly from your videos." Tom Shales can only watch four screens at once. This article claims that UPI is anti-gay. It is "owned by the media-arm of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Moon himself has also called for the destruction of LGBT people. In a speech in 1997 he said: 'What is the meaning of lesbians and homosexuals? That is the place where all different kinds of dung collect. We have to end that behaviour. When this kind of dirty relationship is taking place between human beings, God cannot be happy.'" USNews.com reports, "The Wikipedia model makes it tempting to see the site as a battleground for legions of political junkies making the case for or against a candidate. As the Post writes, 'every day thousands of them are engaging in fierce battles over the life stories of the 2008 presidential candidates.' The data tell a different story. Figures provided to U.S. News Monday by Compete.com, a site that monitors and analyzes Internet traffic, show that the majority of the edits to most of the candidate pages are made by a small group of devoted editors who largely determine what information is and is not included on a page." The National Press Club's Professional Development Committee is hosting a panel event on blogging on the campaign trail. The panelists include Tom Edsall, The New Republic; Jonathan Martin, Politico; Antonio Vargas, The Washington Post; and David All, GOP adviser. Ellen Shearer, co-director of the Medill News Service, will moderate. To RSVP to the September 24 event, call (202) 662-7501. A follow up to this post...A tipster tells us, "one journalist -- portuguese, i think -- was turned away from the same event due to the white house press dress code. he was wearing sandals. i guess women can bare feet but men can't." Reuters reports, "CBS Corp is happy with its deal with iTunes and won't join a battle against Apple Inc over the pricing of television shows on the online store, CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves said on Tuesday." B&C reports, "Fox Business Network will rely heavily on The Wall Street Journal work force for commentary and color, Rupert Murdoch told a room full of investors at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference here Tuesday morning, and the channel will appeal to a broader audience than CNBC when it debuts next month." AdAge.com reports, "Andy Berndt, co-president of Ogilvy & Mather's New York office, has left his post at the agency to go to Google, where he will helm a new global unit dedicated to collaborating with marketers, agencies and entertainment companies." Venture Beat reports, "Today, Comscore released numbers showing GodTube, a YouTube for Christians, to be the fastest growing site on the internet in August. It grew 973 percent and ranked among the top 1000 web properties by unique visitors -- the same month it officially launched, as Mashable's Kristen Nicole points out." Business Week reports, "When Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose launched Digg three years ago, the Web site attracted a community of like-minded people. Digg users were technophiles, not unlike the company's founders. Rather than pay attention to the news dominating the national headlines, many early Digg users were more apt to respond to articles that Rose posted on new Web companies, open-source software, and even stories about mental illness that can haunt mathematicians after they solve complex puzzle." U.S. presidential campaigns are increasingly favoring bloggers over traditional news media with breaking news, some observers say. Reuters reports, "News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch on Tuesday sketched out early plans for Dow Jones & Co Inc, saying he leaned toward making the online Wall Street Journal free but had not yet made a decision." Media Ink reports, "We hear that some folks at McGraw-Hill are getting a little nervous about a new tome about former GE chief Jack Welch that's being written by former Welch speech writer Bill Lane." Jack Myers writes, "Betsy Frank the chief research and insights officer for Time Inc., offers an interesting perspective on the state of magazine advertising today and how media companies are both applying and ignoring lessons of the past. The key question for media companies, Frank suggests, is 'how can media, whether invented yesterday or 100 years ago, create and maintain relevance to consumers and demonstrate and communicate that value to advertisers?'" The 2007 American Spectator Annual Pig Roast is coming up! It is September 29 in Madison, Virginia. Tom Sietsema reveals in his online chat that his fall dining guide is out October 14. There is a "new breed of news junkie" on the loose in Chevy Chase. Linda Perlstein writes, "When I left a reporting job at The Washington Post several years ago, I lost an institution I lovedâ€”not to mention free LexisNexis and an affiliation that pretty much guaranteed that my phone calls were returned right away. But I gained the opportunity to immerse myself in a project that I'm sure could never have been created for the newspaper." Bloomberg reports, "Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Officer Richard Parsons said the media company's board will decide on the timing for Jeffrey Bewkes to succeed him." As a follow up to Deborah Howell's column about the controversy over comics in the Washington Post (and other papers), Ralph Hanson put together a round up of items about comic strip controversies since 2004. Check out the results of the CJR panel, "The Case of the Vanishing Book Review" American University's Center for Social Media presents Foreign Correspondence and the Future of Public Media, "a series that addresses the future of reliable, sober, unbiased information from abroad at a time when our nation is engaged in two foreign wars -- and when the number of mainstream foreign correspondents is actually diminishing. The series, organized by AU's Bill Gentile, is comprised of internationally-recognized foreign correspondents. Each speaker brings unique and valuable insight into the current state of foreign correspondence, and especially its future." Each lecture is in the University's Mary Graydon Center Room 324, from 12:45 until 2 pm. Poynter Online reports, "It's pretty much a foregone conclusion that WSJ.com will be free soon." The Duke Cunningham case will be discussed during 2007 SPJ Convention & Journalism Conference. For more info, click here. No more wondering. The editors of TNR offer a Scott Beauchamp Update. Community Journalism Interest Group writes, "There has been very little coverage of the New York Times' decision to cut the space it allots for printed letters in its paper edition. That's a shame. The move further exemplifies the disdain the 'mainstream' media has for its audience, and, by extension, the communities they serve." Daily Kos has a piece of advice for the Politico: "Memo to Jim VandeHei and John Harris: this is 2007, not 1992." Web 2.Oh ... really reports, "This from Maureen Dowd's column in the New York Times, which has finally been liberated from behind the pay wall the company had built around its marquee columnists under its ill-fated TimesSelect plan: 'Nobody wants to simply admit they made a mistake and disappear for awhile. Nobody even wants to use the weasel words: 'Mistakes were made.' No, far better to pop right back up and get in the face of those who were savoring your absence.' Such a striking confession about her employerâ€™s embarrassing capitulation to reality! From such a proud woman! Oh, wait, my mistake. The column's about Alan Greenspan's new book." The Huffington Post is hiring journalist Marc Cooper to head up its OffTheBus citizen journalism project. Cooper, a columnist for LA Weekly, will work with approximately 15 "campaign correspondents" to cover the 2008 campaigns from their own perspectives. In response to this post...A reader tells us, "'A strong internal candidate has emerged; if you are interested in this or future National bureau jobs, please contact' That actually means...don't bother applying we have already picked someone but we are legally required to post this notice" Jobs The Associated Press is looking for a Business News Desk person. WWICS -- Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies is looking for a Public Affairs Specialist. Times Community Newspapers is looking for a Reporter and a Photographer. Energy Intelligence Group is looking for a Market Reporter. Human Rights Campaign is seeking a Sr. Editorial & Web Content Manager. Hat Tips: DCRTV, TVNewser, IWantMedia, Romenesko, MediaBistro, JournalismJobs, JournalismNext

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Morning Reading List, 09.20.07

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