Journalism is Under Attack

In North America advertising revenues drove the focus and framing of news for many years and more recently the collapse of the global economy is putting many papers out of business. Its tough to be a journalist these days.

Trying to report on a war underway is another matter all together. The kind of coverage we saw during the Vietnam war has all but disappeared and now even those who are brave enough to try to show the public what is going on on the ground are threatened not only by violence but also legal restrictions.

This a matter to be very concerned about.

Its one thing to spin the news and its another thing all together to suppress it.

Indy media is more important than ever these days.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Pressures muzzling Iraqi journalists Yet in the early days of the war Iraqi journalists often talked about their new-found freedom to report without restrictions – something they could never do under Saddam Hussein. Pressure from above Those who try to report on issues like corruption or security face particular pressure from the government, it says. “It is safer to walk around Baghdad with an AK-47 than with a camera,” says Iraqi journalist Youssef Ismail. On Sunday he joined dozens of his colleagues in a Baghdad hotel to mark World Press Freedom Day, but there was not much to celebrate. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein more journalists have died in Iraq than anywhere else in the world. An estimated 225 media workers have been killed over the last six years. To this day Iraqi journalists have to take enormous risks to get the news.

Do Opinions Matter in Human Rights Issues?

I am amazed that this is even an issue anymore in today’s world. Clearly it is still an issue in the United States and elsewhere. The question is why do we care about peoples opinions when peoples rights are on the line?

This is a human rights issue plain and simple. Folks opinions on the issue are just as irrelevant as people opinions about a woman’s right to vote.

If a Miss USA contestant had suggested that women should not have the right to vote would the coverage have been framed the same way? Probably not. What seems clear is that popular opinion dictates framing not human rights.

Perhaps I should not be surprised given that the Miss USA contest itself seems to be a hold out from a older world of gender roles.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Gay marriage row at Miss USA show The runner-up at the Miss USA beauty pageant says her outspoken opposition to gay marriage cost her first place in the competition. During the televised event, Carrie Prejean – Miss California – said she believed that “a marriage should be between a man and a woman”. “It did cost me my crown,” said Ms Prejean, after the competition. The remarks drew a mixture of booing and applause from the audience. Hilton said he had been “floored” by Ms Prejean’s answer, which, he said, “alienated millions of gay and lesbian Americans, their families and their supporters”. He told ABC News: “She lost it because of that question. She was definitely the front-runner before that.” Speaking after the show, which was broadcast on Sunday evening in the US, Ms Prejean said: “I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I said what I feel. I stated an opinion that was true to myself and that’s all I can do.”

Branding the News – The Age of Persuasion

Terry O’Reilly’s show does a great job of deconstructing public relations and marketing.

Check out this website for lots of great audio clips.

This particular episode takes a honest look at how the news becomes “the news”.

There is a lot more than could be said on this subject but perhaps posting this could start a dialogue.

clipped from www.cbc.ca Branding the News The Age of Persuasion Hosted by Terry O’Reilly Saturdays at 11:30 am on CBC Radio One Saturdays at 10:30 am ET, 7:30 am PT on Sirius Satellite 137 Broadcast date: December 18, 2008 (Originally broadcast February 2nd, 2008) News is big business. This week, Terry O’Reilly traces the origins of today’s news packaging. Here’s a headline you’ll never, ever see in your daily paper: “Nothing Happened”. Terry O’Reilly describes the ugly circle that drives modern newsgathering: how reporting takes money, how the need from money means attracting advertisers, how pleasing advertisers requires a vast audience, and how the need for a vast audience affects news content, and the way it’s presented. He explores the cult of personality that drives TV newscasts, and traces the history of newsgathering to a handful of distance runners in ancient Greece.

Who is Reading What You Are Reading?

It’s interesting how the idea that Obama might read this book has made so many more people want to read it too.

Ofcourse maybe its just that folks are interested in the book because of Chavez turning it into a media focus. This is definitely the most attention this old work of Marxist analysis has gotten since it was written.

Chavez chose his book to present wisely. He knew he only had a brief window so he picked a book that expressed his feelings and the frame he wished to convey right in the title.

Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

What more do you need to know?

Chavez uses his time in the media brilliantly. He attaches emotion and story telling to his ideas and he knows how to create a soundbite that fits into a twitter post or could be repeated on the ride up a few floors on the elevator. In other words Chavez understands the soundbite and the media stunt.

Ofcourse Chavez may only be preaching to the converted but for those not on one side of the fence or the other his wit, charm and framing may be enough to “convert” more global citizens into at the least members of his cult of personality and perhaps ultimately into supporters of his populist socialist ideology.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Mr Chavez presents Mr Obama with the book Chavez effect creates bestseller The book, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, was ranked 54,295 on the sales charts of bookseller Amazon.com. Now, it has risen to number two. It covers the continent’s conquest by the Spanish nearly 500 years ago right up to the present day. A little later, Mr Obama had this reaction: “Well I think it was a nice gesture to give me a book. I’m a reader.” However, for President Chavez it was a serious matter. “This book is a monument in our Latin American history. It allows us to learn history, and we have to build on this history,” the Venezuelan leader told reporters at the summit. President Chavez presented his American counterpart with the book, a favourite of leftists, on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad on Saturday.

The Web we Weave

Spin is a good metaphor for our current media reality. Information is spun by many hands into a web or maybe I should say a quilt. The most visible sections of that quilt are the sticky ideas that break through all the noise and clutter of our digital insta-multi-media world.

This piece by Clarity Jones does a nice job of summing up how Twitter is playing into the ebb and flow our our media mash up. The decentralization of broadcast is the name of the game and their are too many new ideas to even stay on top of.

Today Clarity Jones suggested that I try out TwitterFox, a firefox add-on, and all of a sudden Twitter makes sense to me. I was using twitter to broadcast but i didn’t want to log in to follow tweets from those I am following… now its integrated into my browser and its like a better version of MSN Messenger (actually i use Adium so i can integrate Google Talk, and Facebook chat too… but i digress).

Anyways, ironically this posting was really just me trying out some new toys. I am using ClipMarks, another firefox add-on to grab stuff from webpages and post them with my comments.

It seems to me that media technology right now is all about finding new ways to cut through the clutter.

Part of that is technology and part of that is understanding the tools and techniques of framing and strategic communication. I am going to share my perspective on ideas in the media as they appear and perhaps together we can increase our media literacy and un- spin the news.

clipped from clarityjones.com All A Tweet About Twitter The beauty of Twitter, to the chagrin of all the online marketeers, is your answer and mine won’t be the same, nor should it be. Most of us are finding a use for this public newswire in a myriad of ways. Its simplicity has allowed it to be so easily tailored to fit individual needs. My own adoption of Twitter has exposed me to a lot of great blogs and news about subjects I am interested in from people I’m interested in. And more to the point, like minds tweet together in a very timely fashion. Twitter for me is an easy, fluid mix of the personal, random and helpful. However, I was exposed to Twitter a year back by a software development company who used Twitter to get real-time feedback for beta products they were developing. They basically had a free virtual focus group who gave them instant and concise feedback.