New York, June 13, 2008: Media Tenor’s analysis of current candidate coverage in the news media shows an increase in negative statements on both Obama and McCain.

“This week saw a more extensive discussion of the economic platforms of both candidates,” says Head of Political Analysis at Media Tenor International Markus Rettich, “but neither Obama nor McCain was really convincing.” Obama’s plan for tax relief for the middle class drew very little support in the news media.

On the other hand, McCain’s economic platform was also presented negatively. General remarks as well as specific statements on his tax policy were critical.

“Negative statements on both Obama and McCain were coming not only from the candidates’ remarks but from journalists’ assessments as well,“ explains Rettich. “When presented this way, a politician convinces only those voters who are already convinced.”

With today’s report Rettich introduces Media Tenor’s “Slant-O-Meter,” which sums up the coverage of the last four weeks.

“It shows that Obama was rated better – or, more accurately, less poorly – on economic, but not tax policy,” Rettch says.

Neither of the candidates were presented as having the right solutions, while at the same time recession coverage increased sharply in June. Almost one out of five network news reports mentioned the economic situation. 80% of these remarks were negative in tone.

As Senator Obama gained the advantage with his nomination week, polls show a solid lead for him. But Media Tenor’s day-by-day trend – usually a few days ahead of polling data – indicates a slight shift back to McCain in the day-by-day analysis.

“And the “Slant-O-Meter” shows McCain ahead both in leadership issues and in personality aspects,” adds Rettich.

Criticism increases of both Obama and McCain

Week-by-week analysis of candidate coverage shows an increase in negative statements about both Obama and McCain. The two candidates were covered negatively on their economic platform (see following slides in full pdf report here).

Newsweek, Time, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox News coverage, 3/31 - 6/12/2008: tone of coverage by weeks

Basis: all statements by or on Obama and McCain in Newsweek, Time, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox evening news programs 3/31 – 6/12/2008

Media Tenor’s “Slant-O-Meter”: Who’s rated better?

Media Tenor’s “Slant-O-Meter” sums up the last four weeks of coverage on individual topics, directly comparing positive and negative tones for both candidates. It shows that Obama was rated better (that is, less negatively) on economic issues but not tax policy.

Time, Newsweek, ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX evening news coverage, 5/19 – 6/12/2008

Basis: all statements by or on Obama and McCain in Time, Newsweek, ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX evening news programs, 5/19 – 6/12/2008

Recession coverage: media pressure increases

Current data show that coverage of the recession in June is so far showing a sharp increase. Almost one out of five network news reports mentioned the economic situation. 80% of these remarks were negative in tone.

ABC, NBC and CBS coverage of selected topics: Economy, 7/1/2007 – 6/12/2008

Basis: a total of 19,678 stories on ABC, CBS and NBC evening news programs 7/1/2007 – 6/12/2008

To read the full Media Tenor election report in PDF format click here.

For the third time, International Media analysis company Media Tenor is offering a detailed analysis of the U.S. presidential campaign. TV news coverage of the leading Presidential contenders is scrutinized at a detailed level. “The methodology was developed 15 years ago and has been successfully used not only to analyze the 2000 and 2004 U.S. Presidential campaigns, but also for International politics as well,” Rettich explains. Media Tenor’s Presidential Campaign Watch focuses not only on candidate standings, but also on topics and sources, while adding an international perspective. Results of Media Tenor studies will be regularly published on MediaChannel.org.

For further information visit: MediaTenor.com

Popularity: 1% [?]

No Comments »

Blogs have buzzed since late May with ‘news’ that a videotape would emerge of Barack Obama’s wife spewing a racial epithet.

Call me quaint and old-fashioned, but I give most of the mainstream media a hearty pat on the back for refusing to spread the inflammatory and thoroughly unsubstantiated rumor that Michelle Obama once railed against “whitey” from a pulpit.

Fervent e-mails and blogs have buzzed since late May with “news” that a videotape would emerge of Barack Obama’s wife spewing the racial epithet. The claim propped up a fantastical caricature — the mother, lawyer, Ivy League graduate and potential first lady as a seething member of the hate-American-first club.

Both the media and Obama’s presidential campaign faced the unenviable question of whether to ignore the rumor or address it head-on. Most news outlets and the campaign chose not to dignify the “whitey” claims with a response. But that changed Thursday, when the Obama camp issued a flat denial and also launched a website (fightthesmears.com) designed to “push back on false and divisive attacks.”

The know-nothing caucus, with its substantial outpost on the blogosphere, likes to depict traditional news outlets as uniformly careless and unprincipled. But most newsrooms treated the “whitey” rumor with admirable caution.

Some journalists argued that the canard had gained such wide Internet currency that mainstream news organizations had an obligation to try to confirm or refute it.

But for every Web-crawling reader already fully immersed in the controversy, newspapers, radio and television stations avoided spreading the stink bomb to others who still rely on the mainstream media for their news.

“And you don’t want to give oxygen and life to those things that are living in some niche in the blogosphere,” said Tim Curran, political editor for the Washington Post. “Even by writing about it not being true, you would give life to it.”

That standard didn’t hold everywhere, though.

Blogger Larry Johnson apparently launched the rumor of a whitey “rant” on May 26. A few days later, Johnson promised an update. Only one thing remained absent — proof. That didn’t stop talk-radio gasbag Rush Limbaugh from reporting rumors of a tape of Michelle Obama ragging “whitey” from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ.

Then the ever-cartoonish Geraldo Rivera had it both ways on Fox television, letting Republican activist Roger Stone talk up the “whitey” video before Rivera added dismissively: “I’ll give you 100 bucks if it’s true.”

“Whitey” crept toward more general circulation on June 5, when a newspaper reporter flying aboard Obama’s plane asked about it. The Illinois senator responded sharply that reporters should hesitate to even ask about such “dirt and lies.”

The rumor mostly stayed out of the news, although Politico blogger Ben Smith sought a middle ground, writing about Obama’s response, while Smith alluded only to “a derogatory term for white people.”

“If the mainstream media ignores a rumor, the rumor is the first hit on Google,” Smith said Thursday in an e-mail. “If it’s addressed or debunked, the debunking is usually the first thing.”

NBC Political Director Chuck Todd called Obama’s rumor-thwarting website a “sea change” in campaign history. “I think we are going to come to the point where we owe it to the viewers to tell them what is not true,” Todd said. “It used to be we just used to have to tell them what was true.”

The Los Angeles Times demonstrated the continuing ambivalence about the issue in its Wednesday editions. A front-page story referred only to “divisive comments allegedly made by Michelle Obama,” while in the Calendar section, Web columnist David Sarno described the suspect provenance of “whitey.”

Sarno said the rumor had become public enough that it seemed worth explaining, both how it metastasized and failed to gain any credibility. “There’s an almost mythical element to these things,” he said, “that I wanted to explain.”

Just a week after Obama tweaked a reporter for rumor-mongering, his campaign shifted gears Thursday. “At a certain point, you have to take these rumors on directly,” said spokesman Bill Burton, “and arm your supporters with the facts to knock them down.”

New York Times Political Editor Richard W. Stevenson and others predicted that such claims — “one of the trickiest issues that we as journalists are facing in this election cycle” — will continue to light up the Internet.

Indeed, the Obama camp moved quickly to stamp out another myth Thursday, shipping a copy of the candidate’s Hawaiian birth certificate to the dailykos.com website. That came in response to an Internet provocateur who implied that Obama had been born overseas, making him ineligible for the presidency.

The strategy for dealing with such Web snipery is not going to get any more obvious. But it seems most honorable to avoid dignifying cyber-snark, unless the infection spreads to the mainstream.

– By James Rainey

Popularity: 1% [?]

3 Comments »

Since Salon’s Alex Koppelman caught Fox News characterizing Michelle Obama as “Obama’s Baby Mama,” there’s been an uproar over use of such an offensive term.

“A producer on the program exercised poor judgment in using this chyron during the segment,” Fox’s Senior Vice President of Programming Bill Shine said in a statement to Politico.

In addition to being insulting, the phrase “baby mama” is also inaccurate. The Urban Dictionary defines “baby mama” as”the mother of your child(ren), whom you did not marry and with whom you are not currently involved.”

Although Shine doesn’t name anyone responsible, the show’s producer is Jessica Herzberg. A Fox staffer said that others internally were bothered by describing the potential first lady and very accomplished women — as the senator’s “baby mama.”

Unfortunately for the network, this comes just days after Fox’s E.D. Hill addressed her use of the phrase “terrorist fist jab” on-air in reference to the famous Michelle-Barack fist bump (or pound) made just before his celebratory speech in St. Paul.

–by Michael Calderone

Popularity: 2% [?]

15 Comments »

Popularity: 1% [?]

No Comments »

Chicago Tribune Publisher Scott C. Smith announced Thursday that he will leave the company, indicating he agrees that parent Tribune Co. must change but not necessarily in the ways being discussed by Chairman Sam Zell.

News of Smith’s imminent departure after more than 30 years with Tribune Co. comes just one week after Zell and Chief Operating Officer Randy Michaels announced sweeping plans to redesign Tribune Co.’s papers and reduce the number of pages in response to worse-than-expected publishing revenue declines.

But in an interview, Smith said that move didn’t precipitate his departure. He had never intended to stay beyond assisting the Zell team with its transition, and this seemed an opportune time to move on.

“If there’s going to be the next new wave of important changes, it’s important that those decisions be made by people who are going to own the outcomes and that frankly wasn’t my likely time horizon,” said Smith, 57, who began his second stint as Chicago Tribune publisher in 2006.

“What I don’t think is helpful with me moving on is to get into those specifics because it won’t be up to me to figure it out,” he said. “I feel good there is agreement on the high-level goals and … I’ve led as much change as I feel like I’m capable of.”

Michaels has said he wants to see the redesign and page reductions in place at all Tribune Co. papers by the end of September.

“We’ve got to be aggressive and try very aggressive things. I’m all for that,” Smith said. “But exactly which things to try and what pace you can do them at, while serving customers well, has to be determined.”

Michaels, in a note to Chicago Tribune staff, said Smith had been “helpful as we implement our plans for the future,” and noted that Smith was instrumental in helping Tribune Co. go public 25 years ago and again as it went private last year.

‘Criticism is easy’

But Zell and Michaels have been unfailingly critical of the way Tribune Co. was run before their arrival, and Smith was part of that previous management group as head of Tribune Publishing. Michaels now oversees the company’s papers.

Asked if he felt the new leaders have unfairly maligned the past regime, Smith allowed that “criticism is easy” and “it’s what you do to make it better that matters.”

“Time will tell” if the criticism was valid, he said. “I would say we were never as top-down as portrayed.”

Culture clash evident

Dean Singleton, chief executive of Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc., said he wasn’t surprised Smith was departing, given the clash between traditional Tribune Co. culture and Zell’s freewheeling approach. The styles extended to neckwear, with Smith eschewing ties in recent weeks in line with the open-collared Zell team, although he notably wore one for his announcement Thursday.

Singleton called Smith “one of the stars of our generation,” citing as evidence the fact that under his leadership, Tribune put out critically acclaimed newspapers with “some of the best operating margins in the business.”

Besides making the Chicago Tribune a national leader among major metropolitan dailies in reader-to-revenue ratio, Smith gets credit for supporting the newsroom’s push to home-deliver the extra edition of the Chicago Tribune published after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Smith also shepherded the launch of the innovative free commuter tabloid RedEye that has become an industry prototype for reaching new readers and Tribune Co.’s acquisition of Chicago magazine.

As for setbacks, including unrest at the company’s Los Angeles Times on his watch as publishing chief, Smith said, “Part of being a leader and taking risks is not everything works. … I would say my track record is more wins than losses over a career. I wish I had been able to accomplish more as head of publishing.”

Smith, who grew up in the Chicago area, joined Tribune Co. in 1977 in its finance department and, over time, served in a variety of roles including chief financial officer and senior vice president of development.

His first turn as Chicago Tribune publisher was from 1997 to 2005, before which time he was publisher of Tribune Co.’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He re-assumed the reins of the Chicago Tribune when David Hiller was transferred to become publisher of the Los Angeles Times.

“There’s been a lot of chaos in the world and in the company in the time he’s been publisher, and he’s navigated it with tremendous skill and calm,” Chicago Tribune Editor Ann Marie Lipinski said.

Compensation outlined

A document filed in March with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that Smith will exit Tribune Co. with severance and other benefits of $4.7 million and a payment of $2.1 million to settle up his ownership stake in the privatized Tribune Co.

The company will also provide a “gross-up” benefit estimated in the document at $2.6 million to cover any extra taxes Smith might incur as a result of the severance deal.

In leaving Tribune Co., Smith expressed confidence in the personnel that will remain behind.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 30 years,” he said, “it’s success is determined by great people far more than great plans because plans need to change, but great people change with the times.”

– By Phil Rosenthal and Michael Oneal

Popularity: 1% [?]

1 Comment »

Plain Dealer reporter Diane Suchetka has won the MOLLY National Journalism Award for “Bernard’s Story.”

The four-part series detailed the journey of Bernard Hill, a high school dropout from the Mount Pleasant neighborhood who earned a high school equivalency diploma.

The MOLLY award honors the late Molly Ivins, a legendary columnist and former editor of The Texas Observer in Austin, Texas. Ivins, 62, died in 2007. She had breast cancer.

The award, which is in its first year, recognizes the best print and online journalism that focuses on civil liberties and so cial justice and in cludes a $5,000 prize.

“We’re proud of Diane for becoming the first winner of the MOLLY,” said Plain Dealer Editor Susan Goldberg. “The stories captured the spirit of a young man who refused to quit — characteristics that Molly Ivins celebrated in her columns for many years. Diane sets a high bar for the award.”

Suchetka will receive the award today in Austin at a ceremony where broadcast journalist Dan Rather will give the keynote speech.

“If I could’ve designed the journalism prize I most wanted to win, this would’ve been it,” Suchetka said. “Molly Ivins had more pluck and wit and brains and heart than anybody in this business. And she used it all to do good, to tell the truth, fight for the little guy, bring about justice. She’s my hero.”

Suchetka’s stories were published Dec. 9-12 as part of a larger series called “Can We Save Our Neighborhoods?” The Plain Dealer chronicled the history of Mount Pleasant and the urban decay that has beset it.

Bernard’s story prompted dozens of people to offer Hill help.

“They sent him food and money and bus passes,” Suchetka said Wednesday.

“They offered him jobs, wrote him letters of encouragement, offered to mentor him.

“Six months later, people were still calling, offering to help. And just last week, a woman volunteered to help pay his tuition to Tri-C.”

Finalists for the award work for newspapers and magazines across the country, including The Nation, Mother Jones, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and Editor & Publisher.

Go to www.cleveland.com/mountpleasant to read “Bernard’s Story.”

– By Brian Anthony Hernandez, bhernand@plaind.com, 216-999-4416

Popularity: 1% [?]

No Comments »

Editor’s Note: The following is an example of the right-wing strategy to stir controversy over any attempt to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. For further information read Rory O’Connor’s recent column: Talk Radio’s Last Stand?

Action Alert from CitizenLink.com:

Democrats have threatened to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, which would force conservative stations to broadcast liberal viewpoints.

Radio broadcasters and some members of Congress are calling on Democrats to celebrate July Fourth — dubbed “Radio Independence Day” — by pledging to protect the airwaves from censorship.

Congressional Democrats have threatened to reinstate the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which was put in place by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1949 to force the nation’s TV and radio broadcasters to make time for voices on both sides of controversial issues. It was dropped as new technologies offered an abundance of sources for information.

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., has introduced the Broadcaster Freedom Act (H.R. 2905), which would prohibit the FCC from reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.

“Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine would amount to government control of political views on the commercial and religious airwaves of America, and it must be opposed,” Pence told Family News in Focus.

At a press conference Wednesday, Pence called on Congress to support the Broadcaster Freedom Act before July Fourth.

“If 218 members of Congress sign the discharge petition,” he said, “we can send the Fairness Doctrine to the ash heap of broadcast history, where it belongs.”

Conservative talk-show host Laura Ingraham joined Pence in standing against the Fairness Doctrine.

“This is nothing more than an attempt to have government regulate one of the most effective forms of political discussion today,” she said.

Last summer, 309 members of Congress — including 113 Democrats — supported a moratorium on the Fairness Doctrine.

“With 113 Democrats supportive of this measure the first time around, we should have no problem securing the signatures needed for this petition,” said Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst for Focus on the Family Action. “The fact that no Democrats have signed on tells you how much power Leader Pelosi wields over her rank-and-file members.”

TAKE ACTION
Check to see if your representative is one of the Democrats who has failed to sign the petition to force a vote on the Broadcaster Freedom Act.

If your representative is on the list, ask him or her to sign the petition and vote in favor of the Broadcaster Freedom Act. If your representative is not on the list, ask him or her to support H.R. 2905 when it comes up for a vote.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
In his Stoplight video commentary, Stuart Shepard discusses the Fairness Doctrine with his liberal alter ego.

– By Jennifer Mesko, Managing Editor CitizenLink.com

Popularity: 1% [?]

3 Comments »

The internet has ten times the influence of traditional print media on the average consumer, according to a study by Fleishman-Hillard.

The global agency interviewed 5,000 internet users in the UK, Germany and France for its Digital Influence research, published today. The internet trumps newspapers and magazines as the most influential medium, with double the influence of television, which ranks second.

F-H’s findings, however, indicate that companies are still ‘grossly under-investing’ in the web, with online ad spend making up only about eight per cent of the total advertising market in 2007 (ZenithOptimedia).

The survey also highlights the industries where consumer choice is most influenced by the internet. The travel and leisure sector is overwhelmingly dependent on the web, with nine out of ten respondents claiming they are influenced to book flights and holidays online.

Health decisions are influenced to a far lesser degree, with about a third of respondents using the web to find a doctor or buy medicine.

The study, by F-H digital research V-P Brian McRoberts, also noted that the bulk of print and online news is ’still produced by journalists’, rather than uploaded by members of the public. It added, however, that ‘journalists and bloggers are increasingly one and the same’.

Experts said the research was indicative of PR’s increasing influence online, as advertising fails to adapt to web 2.0. ‘The advertising model developed over the past 50 years, so it is dating at an ever-increasing rate,’ said Xavier Adam, MD of marcoms agency AMC Network.

‘PR is more nimble. It can be used as a marketing campaign tester, as smaller tests are possible at a lower cost.’

- A separate study of online habits by Rainier PR also shows B2B tech PROs have been slow to see the benefit of digital media.

Popularity: 1% [?]

1 Comment »

BERLIN — In a major setback for ARD and ZDF, Germany’s state leaders have agreed to restrict the pubcasters’ expanding Internet activities as a result of mounting pressure from the EU Commission.

The premiers of Germany’s 16 federal states discussed the pubcasters’ online activities in Berlin Thursday, and concluded that ARD and ZDF may not operate what they called an independent “electronic press.”

The EU Commission has long criticized ARD and ZDF’s online expansion and demanded that the German government place limits on the pubcasters’ Internet activities.

Commercial broadcasters and newspapers in Germany also have taken ARD and ZDF to task for their online news operations and have warned they could lead to the formation of an electronic press independent of the pubcasters’ TV news programs.

As part of an overhaul of the country’s broadcasting regulations, the state premiers drew up a list of Internet content they deemed unacceptable from the pubcasters, including commercial links — for example, a website to a TV cooking show may list recipes, but may not include a link to purchase cookbooks.

Entertainment programming produced for the Internet was also targeted.

The state leaders plan to limit ARD and ZDF’s Internet content to TV program-related sites, although a final decision will be made in the fall following consultation with the EU Commission and media regulators.

The move follows a contentious panel at the Medienforum NRW media confab in Cologne on Monday in which commercial broadcasting execs lambasted ARD and ZDF’s online strategy.

Monika Piel, head of WDR, ARD’s biggest regional affiliate, countered that the pubcaster would continue with its activities and announced plans to start online ventures with outside publishing groups, projects which may now be at risk.

In accordance with German law, the state-level governments regulate public broadcasting. 

–By Ed Meza

Popularity: 1% [?]

1 Comment »

Reporters Without Borders condemns the government’s continuing persecution of cyber-feminists - women who use online publications to defend their rights. Nine were arrested yesterday for organising a meeting in Tehran to commemorate a big demonstration they staged two years ago, on 12 June 2005. They were all released this morning.

“The authorities have tried yet again to intimidate women who are just demanding their rights,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The way the government is hounding them, and keeping some of them under surveillance, is an indication of its fear of the scale of this movement.”

Yesterday’s meeting - to mark the second anniversary of the biggest feminist demonstration ever held in the capital - was banned in advance and security forces were stationed outside the auditorium where it was due to take place.

The nine women arrested included five online journalists: Jila Bani Yaghoub of the daily Sarmayeh and the Canon Zeman Irani (http://www.irwomen.com/) website, Jelveh Javaheri of the Change for Equality (http://www.we4change.info/) website, who was already arrested at the end of 2007, Aida Saadat of the daily Etemad and Change for Equality, Farideh Ghayb of Canon Zeman Irani and Sara Loghmani of Canon Zeman Irani and Change for Equality. Their lawyer, Nasrine Satoudeh, was also arrested.

The police went to the home of Change for Equality editor Parvin Ardalan, who was given a two-year suspended prison sentence by a Tehran court on 2 May, but she was not there and they were unable to arrest her. The same morning, they also went to the home of Sussan Tahmassebi, who edits the English-language pages of Change for Equality.

Nahid Keshavarz, Sara Loghmani, Aida Saadat, Parvin Ardalan

The 12 June 2005 demonstration on Tehran’s Hafte Tir Square was organised by these women using the Internet. They also launched a campaign for “A million signatures to obtain the reform of laws that discriminate against women.”

At least 14 websites that defend women’s rights were blocked by the authorities last month. Some ISP representatives told Reporters Without Borders on condition of anonymity that they are now getting a list of sites to be banned every day. “This is not new, but the frequency of these lists indicate a significant reinforcement of online control,” one source said.

Iran is one of the world’s most repressive countries towards bloggers and is on the Reporters Without Borders list of Internet Enemies. It was ranked 166th out of 169 countries in the latest Reporters Without Borders world press freedom index.

The 2008 annual report on press freedom in Iran

Popularity: 1% [?]

1 Comment »