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They say watching legislation being crafted is a bit like watching sausage being made. You could say as much for journalism. That’s what occurred when someone brought to our attention this exchange of tweets between Charlie Sykes of WTMJ-AM 620 and Dan Bice at the Journal Sentinel:
SykesCharlie Charles Sykes
I actually almost never hear from Jeff Stone’s campaign. No releases, no response to news stories. Oddly oassive [PressroomBuzz here: he means “Passive.” No copy editors in Twitter-land.] Probably not a good sign.
Noquarterr Daniel Bice
Interesting to see @SykesCharlie call Stone campaign “oddly passive.” Is he bailing a week before the election?
SykesCharlie Charles Sykes
@Noquarterr No, just acknowledging that despite Abele’s meltdowns, Stone has run an uninspiring campaign. Not at all impressed with his org.
SykesCharlie Charles Sykes
@Noquarterr And, Dan, I’ve been saying this same thing for several weeks on radio and TV. You ought to check it out; same company.
Noquarterr Daniel Bice
@SykesCharlie I should listen in more, but it’s been a tad busy. So do you think Stone is running a bad campaign, or is he a bad candidate?
(Sykes Retweets)
@SykesCharlie Imagine if David Clarke had entered the race. Would he not have been a huge favorite given Abele’s record & Stones blandness?
Ouch! again…
(And this note: This is updated to reflect what we believe is the correct order of tweets; we were told we’d gotten the order wrong in our original rendering.)
Speaking of sausage…
Gawker took delight in the accidental publication on the Washington Post website of a story that was still in the edit stages – and replete with an editor’s endless, less-than-favorable comments about the work.
Double Ouch.
Over the last few weeks I’ve built up a longer list than usual of noteworthy news and newsworthy notes about the media from trolling the Web. So it’s time to clean out the cubbyhole and make room for new ones.
Take a bow Dairyland, and send MoJo a bill: For the venerable, and sometimes contrarian, muckraking magazine Mother Jones, February was a record-breaking month online, says the Audience Development, an online publication covering the media. Gee, I wonder why…
And speaking of MoJo, the magazine takes another look at the guy Keith Olbermann calls “Boy Journalist Jimmy O’Keefe” and his sting at NPR, and asks a pointed question: Given O’Keefe’s track record of sleaze and misrepresentation, why has he been given such instant media credibility yet again?
Not incidentally, the NPR episode that has fed a larger GOP push to defund public broadcasting would, if successful, have collateral damage that would particularly hurt rural broadcast outlets, reports the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky…
The Washington Post uncovers another journalism growth industry besides Wisconsin turmoil: Covering Congress. Separately, the Post offers some insight as to why President Barack Obama has favored local TV news programs, including Milwaukee’s WTMJ Channel 4, with direct interviews.
Also from the Post, in one of those scandals that mostly only matters inside the Beltway, a press aide to GOP Congressman Darrell Issa was fired a month ago after it became public that he was secretly passing on emails from reporters covering Issa to a writer researching the D.C. political and media culture. I particularly liked Post columnist Dana Milbank’s assessment of what the whole episode says about the way-too-cozy politico-media complex of the place.
Still, even the anecdotes of incest Milbank relates aren’t quite as astonishing as the confession that a Baltimore alt-weekly writer made: that he once bought pot from a guy whose trial he later covered. Jim Romenesko of the Poynter Institute highlights that story…
The New York Times has been criticized for coverage of a Houston rape case that appeared to some to blame the victim. Also at Poynter, Latoya Peterson takes a look. A reader of Andrew Sullivan’s blog at The Atlantic defends the Times…
Apologies to all Northwestern grads… What was once the Medill School of Journalism is now “‘The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications,” as Romenesko notes. Seeing that reminded me of the former Shepherd Express and Wisconsin Public Radio media critic Dave Berkman, who would regularly rail at the fact that Public Relations and Journalism cohabited under the same academic roof at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and most other universities…
Kudos to Salon.com for pointing out the Nuclear Energy Institute’s potential conflicts in comments about the Japan nuclear plant crisis – and owning up to its own reliance on the organization…
A loyal reader who spotted this Journal Sentinel item – “Sensient CEO paid $8.4 million in 2010” – responds with a provocative suggestion:
“I would love all stories like this (which to be fair is a barely rewritten press release provided for the 10-K filing) to include the following information:
“The average worker’s salary at Company X is thought to be $__________. Company X is/is not unionized. Company X employs ____ people, with job titles ranging from _____________ to ____________. It is/is not currently hiring, or Company X reduced its work force in 201X due to __________________________.”
The LA Times questions a Patch.com arrangement with the mayor of Newark, N.J. And speaking of Patch, a relatively new site called Capital New York has this essay peering into one possible future for the AOL/Huffington Post hybrid. Hint: We’ve seen this all before.
The Federal Trade Commission warned this was coming; the agency is now fining companies for ginning up phony reviews online, Paid Content reports. There’s no indication whether the FTC’s enforcement will extend to the use of phony listeners calling in to talk radio shows, or phony commenters pushing canned talking points on news sites.
When a teacher and writer suggested in The NY Times that college freshmen should be taught to write better tweets, I had to check to see if it was April 1 already. After I read it, though, I was disconcerted by how much sense the essay actually made.
More rail controversy: A Daily Kos diarist dissects a Times story on Florida’s high speed rail plan, and points out ways in which the story accepts a particular frame of events.
And with all those Times links, let’s take note of the new pay wall at the Gray Lady, which lets casual browsers read up to 20 items a month for free, then bills under three different plans tied to which kind of device readers are using. Here’s a collection of items from Paid Content on the plan, as well as a look from the Nieman Center at Harvard University. And look for many more paywalls at local papers, says an industry insider….
The AV Club has this smart analysis of America’s most popular nightly news program (NBC, with Brian Williams). And finally…
Blowing Our Horn: Sure, we know we’re supposed to say that we never care about contests. But we’ll be honest: It was thrilling yesterday morning to learn that the monthly Pressroom column in the print edition of Milwaukee Magazine was honored by the Milwaukee Press Club for best beat coverage in 2010. Congrats, too, to all the other winners, especially colleagues here at Milwaukee’s best chronicler of life in the Wisconsin’s biggest city.
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