MSNBC just sort of drifted into lefty stance, Zucker says

Interesting interview with former NBCU chief Jeff Zucker in which he explains how MSNBC came to be "liberal." It wasn't a deliberate reaction to Fox News' right-leaning stance, he said, it just sort of happened. Keith Olbermann's show was a hit, so they added a companion left show, then another.

What makes it most interesting is that, unlike Fox, Zucker doesn't try to said MSNBC is "fair and balanced." He admits the slant. I don't think Fox can, although there is nothing wrong with advocacy media -- if it admits it's an advocate.

I'm too lazy for the news, I guess

While reading yet another breathless pronouncement that Twitter would become the new newspaper, I suddenly had an epiphany: I'm just too lazy for that news media future.

The story, from PC magazine, talks about setting up a TweetDeck alert box on the corner of my computer screen where I can monitor the latest news feeds from selected publications. That's where my laziness comes in. It's not just that I'm way too lazy to set up an efficient TweetDeck that "marvelously condenses your social media profiles and data streams into one highly customizable application," but also that I'm too lazy to keep checking the thing constantly so that news that I care about isn't bumped by even newer news that I care about (that, by the way, is my problem with Twitter; by the time I get around to checking it, important tweets telling me Bill Simmons' opinion about the latest NBA trade or my niece ???'s [name withheld to protect the innocent] latest heartthrob are long gone, bumped by the likes of "Happy 4th of July" or "Today in new ways for the @cubs to lose -- a WILD PITCH," which are the two most recent Tweets).

It's hard work keeping up with all the social media. Facebook posts are here, then buried under even newer posts. If I just weren't so lazy, I'd spend all my time reading the new media. Or I could just read a newspaper, either on paper or online. I will point out that despite the fact that "everybody knows" the evening TV news is dead since "everyone" watches the 24/7 cable channels, viewership for the lowest-rated TV evening news sho is about seven times that of the highest rated cable channel. I guess there are a lot of lazy people.

Fox News' beginnings in the Nixon White House

It's almost too easy, but I never could resist: The folks who brought you the Watergate burglary also brought you Fox News. Gawker.com, using the Freedom of Information Act, found a memo it dates to 1970 with handwritten notes by Roger Ailes, who later was to found Fox News and still heads it, outlining, as the memo was titled, "A Plan to Put the GOP on TV News."

The plan is every bit as heavy-handed and as partisan as could be expected from the White House in that era (and would have been just as heavy-handed and partisan if the Democrats had thought it of during the Johnson Administration, I suspect). It also is stunningly dismissive of the audience: people watch television for news instead of reading newspapers, books or magazines because "People are lazy. With television you just sit--watch--listen. The thinking is done for you." This is indeed the thinking that led to Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck. At no point is "fair and balanced" part of the equation.

The plan reads like a blueprint for Fox News channel and the corporation's feeding partisan stories to its TV stations around the county. This is a vital part of our media history. I recommend you read the 16-page memo then think about where the media is today -- and how vulnerable it is to political manipulation.

Sometime, how a story is told is more illuminating than the story

What I found most interesting about the Wall Street Journal's take on the book "The Deal From Hell" was not only the excellent writing of Reason's Matt Welch, but the more than subtle pro-corporate bias shown in the account of the declines of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.

As could be expected from the editor of the nation's best libertarian magazine, Welch retells the story in a compelling manner. As could be expected from the new Murdoched Wall Street Journal, the incredible mismanagement is largely excused ("What's lacking is any sense of realism about newspapers' collapsing finances and any exploration of the newsroom's own culpability in failing to adapt," he writes). This isn't to say that Welch's basic story line -- after riding high, the newspaper industry is grappling to find new revenue to replace that which fled to the Internet or whereever -- is wrong, but an analysis this well-done needed balance. Maybe that's too much to ask of the WSJ in this new era.

A bold expansion of Wi-Fi and its implications

A month teaching in Italy meant not only lots of gelatto, pasta and wine, but dealing with a country struggling with what to do about wireless Internet access. Wi-Fi is rare and the nation's 3-G network was spotty. All this led to some changes in the way I sampled media. For example, the iPad was virtually useless since the spotty 3-G signal and lack of Wi-Fi meant that most of its links didn't work.

But that's not the case here where Wi-Fi is spreading like wildfire -- the latest is that Taco Bells will offer free Wi-Fi as part of a huge multimedia package just announced -- and it set me to thinking about how closely tied distribution and media success are. This, of course, supports the Obama administration's drive to expand Wi-Fi nationally (even though our state's no-nothings are trying to stop its spread) and the growing use of 3-G and 4-G networks.

I know my iPhone's range has extended my media options. I thought of how its changed the other day while checking my email during the wait for my order at Kopps.

At the same time, I noticed while sitting in the Rome airport waiting for my flight back that, even though Wi-Fi and 3-G were available, almost all the waiting passengers were consuming paper: books, magazines and newspapers. It demonstrated that even though instantly-updated media gratification is available, it's not always the best kind. My three-month old New Yorker was what I wanted to read, so I did.

A guide to Twitter for Journalists

OK, so you've decided you want to take the plunge into social media for journalists, and you just don't know where to start (or you're already doing this, but want to do it better). Well, thanks to a tip from an expert, my Marquette colleague and friend Gee Ekachia, aka FvrythingPR , here's a link to the Knight Digital Center's Tutorial "Twitter for Journalists." Don't miss it --and if you're in one of my upcoming classes, you won't miss it since it's going to be required reading.

"The Deal From Hell" sounds like a must-read

Next week I will be back in the U.S., and I'm headed for a bookstore (paper, by the way). The book is called "The Deal From Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers." It's the story of how disaster overcame two once-formidable American newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. I read a great story in the New York Times that summarized the book, and I can hardly wait.

The book is written by James O'Shea, former editor of the Los Angeles Times, which started the decline with its sale to the Tribune Company. O'Shea details the problems, not only the sheer incompetence of the people put in charge of the new company by outsider Sam Zell who bought out the Tribune Company with a highly-leveraged buyout deal. Who are the baddest of the bad guys? Why the bankers, of course.

Read this, then wait for the book.

Is Groupon really the worst deal for businesses?

To at least one cafe owner, Groupon is way beyond a bad deal. Her story tells us a lot about the Wild West we've got going in Internet marketing.

But Bloomberg says paywalls are "still a bad idea"

The media giant attacks paywalls again, especially for smaller papers.

Columnist Mathew Ingram writes that although limited paywalls seem to work at papers like the New York Times, "Those positives can be more than outweighted by the negatives of a paywall, particularly for smaller newspapers -- the main one being that a wall creates an opportunity for free competitors, of which there are a growing numbers."

I wanted to give you the full quote because that's the crux of the matter -- free competitors. News happenings will always be vulnerable to free competitors since they can rewrite (as I do), link (as I do), aggragate (as I do) news. What they cannot offer free is whatever original content is being offered -- reviews, comments, editorials, blogs, etc. They can offer their own original content. For example onmilwaukee.com has several excellent columnists/bloggers. But it doesn't offer an article by Duane Dudek or Bob McGinn or Bob Wolfley. Original content behind paywalls works.

Yes, it's another story about paywalls. They're not going away.

I'm convinced that paywalls are the key to the future of good journalism. Yes, journalism will survive no matter what, it's just the form that it will take that needs to be defined. Yet another story today about paywalls points out that they cover a whole spectrum from the very tight paywall of the Times of London, which allows no access without a subscription (and there are a lot more like that, especially among smaller American newspapers) to the New York Times, which allows 20 free articles before you have to pay.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has another system that I think has great potential, charging for its expanded coverage of the Green Bay Packers. I've often wondered why newspapers don't make their news free, but charge for only features, reviews, etc. Whatever. The bottom line is that we are in a period of change, and journalism is changing along with it -- in some cases much faster than the rest of society.

Social media steps in when reporting can be fatal

Yet another example of social media stepping in when journalism fails, but this is a tragic case.

It's Mexico where reporting the news can be fatal in the midst of the battle between drug cartels and the government. An Eric Sass story lists a number of links to blogs that are reporting facts about what is happening using anonymous social media. Our media world is sure changing.

When doing your job can cost it

For student journalists, solid reporting about their universities can be very tough. The Wall Street Journal writes about the student journalists who reported on violations by Ohio State University Football Coach Jim Tressel, and puts their dilemma into context with other student journalists, including some who have lost jobs over their reporting and others who received threats.