Monthly Archives: March 2015

March 27, 2015 · 11:04 am

Media mashup

By Christopher B. Daly

A couple of recent developments need noticing:

–The NYTimes’s redoubtable foreign correspondent John F. Burns is retiring. In an unusual note about personnel matters published in today’s paper, the Times gives Burns a fond salute.

With this article, John F. Burns concludes a distinguished career spanning 40 years with The New York Times, 39 of them with the international desk. Beginning with South Africa in 1976, Mr. Burns reported from 10 foreign bureaus and was chief of the Baghdad bureau during the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Along the way, he wrote more than 3,300 articles and collected two Pulitzer Prizes for International Reporting, one in Afghanistan and the other in Bosnia. His portrait of a cellist playing on Sarajevo’s main pedestrian concourse while artillery shells exploded nearby is considered a classic of modern journalism. He will continue to contribute to the international and sports desks, among others.

Also not to be missed: Burns’ last story was a colorful account of the re-burial of English King Richard III. At the end of his final piece, Burns closes with a “kicker” in the form of a quote — “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Not original, of course, but a nice touch.

–The Times flooded the zone in the East Village yesterday to cover the gas explosion and building collapse. By my count, there were 18 reporters and photographers involved (judging by bylines and photo credit lines), not to mention all the nameless

Victor J. Blue/NYT

Victor J. Blue/NYT

editors. Among the team of metro reporters was Tatiana Schlossberg, whose role is featured in the Times’ “City Room” blog. Which is fitting, since she is the daughter of one prominent New Yorker (U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy) and the granddaughter of another prominent New Yorker (Jackie O).

–The gang at Vice Media, the unshaven new news organization, has found a big new platform for distributing its news reports: HBO. Plans call for a daily newscast from Shane Smith and his band of disruptors.

Raising the question: who is NOT a journalist these days?

Shane Smith in a suit.

Shane Smith in a suit.

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March 9, 2015 · 12:39 pm

The Monday Media Mash-up

By Christopher B. Daly 

Looking at the NYTimes Business section this morning, I cannot help but noticing how the Media beat has been hollowed out at the Times since the departure of Brian Stelter and the death of David Carr. I don’t know how to recover from those two losses, but it appears that, so far at least, the Times is not even trying. Today’s effort is very meh.

Speaking of the Times, here are a few odds and ends:

–The Public Editor agonized over the story about HIllary Clinton’s emails (which the Times broke last week). All of which makes me wonder: Who among us who toil away in big bureaucracies hasn’t tried to engineer aimgres work-around to get out of the clutches of the IT Dept? If’s everyone’s nemesis.

I don’t use my university-issued desktop computer, because I assume they are recording everything and because I do not control what software goes on it or when to update. I do all my work on my personal laptop and my own cellphone. Besides, I’d like to know: did a Republican Secretary of State like Jim Baker use an official email account? Did Thomas Jefferson ever use backchannels? Hmmm… context please!

–The Times’ Bits blog has an item at the intersection of journalism and history — about the reaction to the 1934 Communication Act, which created the FCC. Turns out, Republicans didn’t like it much. One even saw it as an attempt to “Hitlerize” America’s media.

–What’s up with the full-page ad in the print version of the Times today by Al-Jazeera? A full-page, color ad can easily cost more than $100,000, so they must have a reason.

Elsewhere . . .

1311010axOn the O’Reilly beat, don’t miss Brian Stelter’s latest Reliable Sources show.

Plus, there’s this item from TPM by O’Reilly’s biographer.

Then there is the mammoth takeout by Gabriel Sherman in New York mag about Brian Williams and the multiple car wrecks inside NBC.

Finally, let me wish good luck to Jim Braude, who takes over tonight on the Greater Boston show on WGBH-TV. Keep it real, Jim.

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March 2, 2015 · 10:07 am

The Monday Media Rdp

By Christopher B. Daly 

I’m still missing my friend and colleague David Carr, whose Media Equation column was usually my first citation in these blogposts. (I wonder what he’d be saying about Bill O’Reilly — and how much of that could get past the NYT copy desk.)

In my mind, one of the worst things O’Reilly has ever done was to say the following (which he has not disputed) to a NYTimes reporter who called him to get his side of the controversy, which is a fundamental principle of journalism:

‘I am coming after you with everything I have,’ Mr. O’Reilly said. ‘You can take it as a threat.’

Elsewhere in the NYTimes:

–Frank Bruni had a penetrating piece Sunday on the faults of the political press corps, especially the 01BRUNI-articleLargeband of reporters who cover the presidential primaries. Having done a bit of that myself in 1987-88, 1992, and 1996, I can affirm that it’s not a pretty picture.

I agree with Bruni that the political press corps would do us all a favor if they would just stop covering Iowa and New Hampshire. That alone would elevate our national political life.

I would add this: most political reporters spend far too much time covering candidates and far too little time covering voters. Turn the lens around!

–Today’s Times brings news that the News Corp. is considering re-hiring Rebekah Brooks, the disgraced (but not convicted) former boss of Rupert Murdoch’s British empire. Raising the question (see O’Reilly above): If they like you, what does it take to get fired by the Murdoch/Ailes crew?

Further afield:

–On CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” Brian Stelter continues to pull away from his predecessor by doing more reporting, by avoiding Washington-style bickering, and by providing a demonstration of good journalism in practice. To his credit, he has continued to report the O’Reilly story, not just milk it.

—The New Yorker is observing its 90th birthday, as only the brainchild of Harold Ross could. From the magazine’s troubled first year, here’s a piece titled “Why We Go to Cabarets: — an article that, according to a digressive story in the current issue by Sandy Frazier, saved the New Yorker‘s bacon by attracting the kind of young, fashionable readers that Ross was seeking. Fun fact: the 1925 Cabarets piece was written by Ellin Mackay, better known as Mrs. Irving Berlin.

Next up: I want to read the magazine’s story by A.J. Liebling about D-Day.

251128_mackay-cabarets-1200

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