Brian Stelter at TVNewser has the video of Chris Matthews being attacked on-air by a protestor tonight on MSNBC.

Chicagobusiness.com has details about the announcement of Roland S. Martin as the executive editor of the Chicago Defender. Some highlights of Martin's career include his time as founding editor of BlackAmericaWeb.com and having a column on Creators Syndicate.

On Sunday, Variety posted an article about the amount of eyeballs that saw the first Swift Boat Veterans advertisement - and how they far outnumbered the viewers that exist within the seven markets they were paid for to run in. The article cites a report from the Nielsen Monitor-Plus and the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project, which found that while the ads ran only 739 times, as opposed to the 501,259 airings of ads by Bush, Kerry, or their supporters, it got much, much more play than what was paid for.

So let's digest this for a second - have you discussed ANY political advertisement this year with your colleagues at work....other than the Swift Boat ad? Now - do you live in Charleston, Dayton, Green Bay, LaCrosse, Toledo, Wassau, and Youngstown or receive television programming from those cities? Well, 6.5 million people live there, but there are almost 280 million more people in the U.S. that don't live there - and significantly more than 6.5 million of those remaining Americans surely saw the advertisement, from FOX News to MSNBC to their network news. So figure they at least doubled their viewership, all because what they had to say was newsworthy.

Check out the full report here.

[Props to Matt Sheffield for the tip]

Well, if having a fantastic food-fest on Saturday night wasn't enough, Tuesday brings a report from the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, who writes that the spa treatment currently being offered to media members covering the Republican National Convention is "all free of charge, a fact that seems to cause few ethical concerns."

[via Lost Remote]

On Tuesday, online content provider Audible announced that they had teamed up with Verlagsgruppe Random House and holtzbrinck networXs to create Audible.de. This joint venture will provide both German speaking individuals and residents of the country with audiobooks and other spoken-word media for downloading.

The website, Audible.de, is tentatively scheduled to go live in Q4/2004, and will have much of the same "feel" and all the functionality of the U.S.-based Audible.com. Along with German content, all of the material currently available on the parent website will be available for download.

[update: 9:29pm ET] This evening, I checked in with Audible on this, and unfortunately, it does not look as if current customers of the company will be able to use their accounts on the Audible.de website - though this is not finalized as of yet.

Matt Sheffield informed me this morning via IM that Media Tenor has an analysis of Al Jazeera's coverage from March 12 through May 5 of 2004 in a formal report. While the report is subscription based, you can get a sneak peek at the high-level facts regarding the breakdown of network broadcasts, including geographical and topical focus on the website.

Putin.ru has the details on the newly named Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Russia, Maxim Kashulinsky. The publication announced his hiring on Monday, a little bit less than two months after the previous editor, Paul Klebnikov, was shot and killed.

In addition to the public service awards, the Associated Press Managing Editors commended both Alabama's Anniston Star and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel with the International Perspective Award. The Star won for its category of publications under 50,000 circulation, with the AP citing the publication's "ongoing commitment to bringing news from abroad home to local readers."

Editor & Publisher has the details on Miami Herald editor Tom Fielder's latest announcement to the paper's staffers - according to the article, he has "banned his reporters from buying tickets to the upcoming wave of partisan political concerts."

Jerry Finch, the Ombudsman at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has an interesting fact in this week's column. According to MediaMark Research, most readers check out the main news section of their paper first, followed by the sports section if they're male, and the food section if they're female.

Definitely interesting, especially if you're wondering where to advertise towards certain portions of a readership. Explains those betting and "gentleman's club" ads in the sports section, though.

Newsday picks up an item about the Associated Press Managing Editors Award for Public Service on Monday, who announced that Gannett's New Jersey publications, including the Asbury Park Press, had won an award for an investigation into corruption in the state. Also receiving an award for quality reporting was The Sedalia Democrat from Missouri, which was in a category for publications under 50,000 circulation.

Thanks to Steve Rubel for pointing out that Newsday has a blog set up to cover the Republican National Convention. Plus, it takes comments from readers.

Jessica Coen writes in today's Gawker "Top Story" about one media member's reaction to Saturday night's New York City Host Committee party at the Time Warner Center, where members of the press wined, dined, and were given a batch of discounts at shops in the building. The column in question was written by the Chicago Tribune's Mary Schmich, who concludes that the worst thing that happened was, speaking as a journalist who attended, "our refusal to see it as a problem." While it's definitely amusing to talk about, I think there could absolutely be some questions about this.

The press who had come to NYC in order to cover the Republican National Convention and the surrounding events were all invited - and by all reports spanned from on-air news talent to staffers from any out-of-town pub - to this shindig hosted by Mayor Bloomberg...as a way to welcome them all to the city for the week. But the question is, is this any different than hitting the press buffet at a sporting event? Obviously the scale isn't even on the same yardstick, but you catch my drift. Are the press that buyable that a hot (and temperature is where I'm going with this) party with quality food and schmoozing could create favorable coverage for Republicans? Or is it just the illusion cast upon journalists in a case like this enough for it to look bad. All kidding aside, is it cool to go to something like this before a political convention - and if it isn't, then why is it different than attending a party at, say, the Cannes Film Festival?

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution has the scoop on the mentions of brands in rap songs so far in 2004. Some interesting statistics there, definitely worth a read. Cowen didn't have a link to a story about it, but the stats are from Agenda, Inc. and it was also discussed in this article by Russell Scott Smith in the New York Post.

[via Cal Ulmann]

Over at DMNews.com, Mickey Alam Khan covers the recent changes at BusinessWeek Online, which may help the site attract more readers. According to Khan, not only has clutter been straightened out and overall navigation been changed, but more focus is being put on the fact that the site has plenty of regularly updated news stories - not just content related to the weekly magazine.

At least in this country, the media isn't being paid for how it covers politicians....

(Though I assume there are people who would debate that...)

The Los Angeles Times' Chris Kraul writes that in some sections of Mexico, not paying off the local press pretty much guarantees they won't talk about you - unless there is something negative to say, of course.

The New York Times has an article Monday by David Carr about Vitals, a new men's magazine put out by Fairchild Publications. According to Carr, you can contact the magazine about certain items that are featured - the premiere issue has 25 - and Vitals' "helpful shopping sprites" will find the items at local shops and order them for you, if you wish. Because who needs to go out and take a walk at lunchtime, anyway.

So I'm watching the pre-show for the MTV Video Music Awards, and I just saw an interview with Good Charlotte marred by the presence of Paris Hilton, who didn't seem to understand what a producer was on an album, and thought she could laugh it off.

Who was that under the white towel with Lizzie Grubman? What the hell is she doing at the VMAs, anyway?

~Ashlee Simpson. Now that's talent.

~Oh, the pairs get better. P.Diddy is with Bruce Willis on his yacht.

~John Norris has now lost all street cred in my book. WHAT is he wearing?

~The 16-year old white girl patrol is in full effect, cheering everyone as they walk up the red carpet like they were the bleacher creatures at Yankee Stadium or something.

~John Norris' gear is really starting to bother me. Is there a way we can ban nepotism in the music industry, btw?

~I hope the "Billie Jean" video director got some sort of revenue for the stage lightup thing that J. Lo just walked over.

~"Confessions Part II" - that's the way to get the party started...

~You apparently can't say "bend over" on television.

~That Will Smith, he's hot these days. Ummm, yeah.

~Excellent move having Shaq...Though we never said MTV wasn't good at marketing.

~First Award - can't hear it. NICE. Oh, it's No Doubt's "It's My Life"

~Kanye West's rendition of "Jesus Walks" - fantastic.

Patterico comments on this morning's "Reliable Sources" show, wherein Debra Saunders from the San Francisco Chronicle states "I think that most journalists support John Kerry" in response to host Howard Kurtz' questions about the "double standard" that Kerry seems to be receiving with regard to 527 ads. President Bush has been asked by the public to denounce these ads, and for the most part, Kerry has not.

David Broder at the Washington Post writes in a column Sunday about the political ads put together by groups "supporting" one candidate/party or the other. He makes a great point - these organizations have very different standards than what the candidates themselves will usually stoop to in advertisements. That said, he calls on candidates to "tell their supporters when they have crossed the line."

Over at Adrants, Steve Hall has an item about tonight's MTV Video Music Awards, with a link to the rumor that Britney Spears may just get married to fiancee Kevin Federline at the event.

Newsday's James Madore writes Sunday that the media outlets covering the Republican National Convention in New York City are "pulling out the stops to woo audiences and impress some of the country's top politicians." They sure are - TVNewser has been reporting on CNN's use of the Tick Tock Diner, and Madore informs about a daily four-pager being put out by weekly magazine New York - just two examples of not business-as-usual methods that will be seen this week.

Roxanne points out that alternative newsweeklies will be covering the RNC in New York City this week. The Village Voice, Boston Phoenix, and, as discussed on Thursday, LA Weekly are among the publications that will have a presence.

The Arkansas News Bureau covers the newly announced partnership between CenturyTel and EchoStar, the parent company of DISH Network. According to Wesley Brown's article, CenturyTel will now offer a bundled package to its customers by the end of 2004.

It looks as if the distribution method that is the Internet has forced some concerns on the part of XM's lawyers. Reuters reports that Scott MacLean, a Canadian XM radio subscriber, has created a software package called TimeTrax that allows for the recording and saving of any music off of the satellite radio service.

Australia's Herald Sun has the details on two French journalists that were kidnapped in Iraq on Saturday by the Islamic Army in Iraq group, which was responsible for killing an Italian journalist earlier this week. According to the article, this capture has a different motive than the previous ones - the kidnappers don't want troops out of Iraq, they want a change to the treatment of Islamic students in France, who are not permitted to wear traditional headscarves in schools.

The Associated Press reported Friday that Belo Corp., owner of the Dallas Morning News and multiple other publications, is being sued in "at least four lawsuits" from shareholders of the company. The reason: nondisclosure of circulation overstatements.

It's time for the Friday Saturday Random Ten. Check out more here at Rox Populi.

1. "Acetate Prophets" - Jurassic 5
2. "Feels So Good" - Lina Santiago
3. "Flipside" - Freeway
4. "Pushing Me Away" - Linkin Park
5. "About Last Night" - Vitamin C
6. "Can't You See" - Total
7. "Nobody Move" - Eazy E
8. "Dreams" - The Cranberries
9. "Damn" - Fabolous
10. "Thuggish Ruggish Bone" - Bone Thugs 'N' Harmony

So flip on your iPod or MP3 software and put up your random ten.

The Orlando Business Journal [via MSNBC] covers an announcement by World Publications Inc. about the launch of Florida Travel & Life. The new magazine will hit newsstands in January of 2005 and will focus on lifestyle topics of Floridians.

James Joyner over at Outside the Beltway leads us to an announcement by the Dallas Cowboys and Comcast to provide the team's fans with the ability to watch - hold on to your seats - the Dallas Cowboys Channel. You have to live in in Texas, Little Rock, Arkansas, New Mexico, Tucson, Arizona, and Los Angeles and have Comcast cable to catch the 'boys all year round, but the release states that this amounts to more than 1.3 million cable customers.

CNN/Money's Chris Isidore writes about the powerful impact that tennis star Maria Sharapova has made on advertising and marketing of the game. The 17-year old has garnered sponsorships and tons of attention, having appeared on numerous television programs. But, as Pilot Pen Tennis director Anne Worcester points out in the article, "no tournament should center all of publicity around one player." Which should be a lesson for the upcoming U.S. Open in Flushing, New York.

The Lexington Herald-Leader picks up a Washington Post article from a few days ago, where Leslie Walker covered Vogue's September issue - all 832 pages of it. More specifically, that the issue will be "shoppable" - meaning that 480 of the advertisers have a section on shopseptembervogue.com.

On that site, visitors can search up by advertiser, type of product, store, etc. in order to figure out how to make the purchase of that item they just saw. Click the product you're interested in, give it your ZIP code, and watch the site pull up stores near you that carry the product. This strategy is quite interesting, and one that has surely been tried before, though possibly not to this level of effectiveness.

The Contra Costa Times has a piece Friday about the death of 81-year old Helen Copley, who was at one time the chairwoman of the Copley newspaper group and publisher of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Bob Wolfley points out that NBC's Olympic primetime coverage has taken some viewership away from the NFL's preseason games. As Wolfley states - it is preseason - but nabbing almost 20% of viewers from games, preseason or not, is still a big deal in my book.

Reuters AlertNet informs that Italian athletes will add black arm bands to their uniforms while participating in Olympic events on Friday. The arm bands will be in memory of Enzo Baldoni, the journalist killed yesterday in Iraq.

The Washington Post's Patricia Sullivan remembers Diane Granat Yalowitz, editor and writer at Washingtonian magazine. Yalowitz had worked for 18 years at the publication covering immigration, medicine, and issues important to those in the D.C. area.

On Wednesday, the AP reported that Steve Coll, managing editor at the Washington Post for six years, has resigned from that role. Coll will stay on to write and edit - the reasons he had become a journalist in the first place.

Media Life's Marisa Hoheb has more.

Indystar.com's Randall Mell shares some details on the way the recent PGA Championship television ratings were displayed. According to Mell, the ratings were up 4% from the prior year. Unfortunately, the prior year was down over 40% from 2002's ratings, when Tiger Woods was in the hunt for the win.

So let alone the impact Woods has had on Americans (and, I suspect, people across the globe) picking up a set of sticks and hacking away, he obviously was a welcome addition to golf coverage on television. So it's just like a lot of other sporting events' ticket sales - if the team is good, the fans show up - if they aren't, the seats are empty.

BBC News Online's Patrick Jackson declares 2004 a "Black year for journalists" in an article on Thursday. The article reports that 75 journalists are recorded as being killed this year, unfortunately on track to exceed the total of 83 for the full year 2003.

Newsday's Jennie Yabroff writes a review/interview with ex-Maxim employee Dave Itzkoff, whose new book, "Lads: A Memoir of Manhood," comes out September 7. Itzkoff describes how the alleged "target" reader for Maxim doesn't really exist, how his life has changed since leaving the publication, and his hopes for the future of magazines.

Daniel Drezner comments on Kevin Canfield's Journal-News column about bloggers' influence on politics. Canfield has a few quotes from bloggers commenting on their impact to drive stories, most of which state that blogs don't necessarily drive news. Sure, that's all well and good, but getting bloggers to say that their readership is made up of "a small group of people who share common interests and occupations," meaning to say that blogs are preaching to the choir, is shortsighted. Perhaps it's somewhat true, but if you've noticed a trend in many blogs over the last 18-24 months, it's that they've become focused - on purpose. Some blogs cover politics, others cover gadgets, some (like TMD) cover the media. People are interested in reading what these sites have to say, link to, or break stories about. Who does Canfield think is reading most op-ed columns? Well, it's one of two groups - people who are backers of what the columnist has to say, or people who are just looking for an opportunity to counter what the writings cover, whether through a letter to the editor or via their blog. Hell, Maureen Dowd has hundreds - if not thousands - of people who read her works just because they can't wait to go after her on every single point. On top of this, there are tons of people who never even look at the op-ed section of the paper, because they're only interested in hard news. So what's his point?

I beg to differ that blogging isn't driving something in the political process - look at the donations that have come about from blogs? There are numerous stories of campaigns "getting back their investment" in blog advertising in a matter of hours by choosing the right places to pitch their wares. And for someone who, from a quick Google search, makes a living on op-ed and entertainment/media reviews/columns, saying that "blogs have driven a small number of news stories" is kind of strange. Goes along with the usual dismissal of blogs as purely reactionary and full of opinion and commentary. Pot, meet kettle.

The point isn't to be an immediate influence - it's to get a voice heard that hasn't been. A voice that's quickly becoming louder, more clear, and well spoken.

If Google had been around in 1960, perhaps it would have operated like this.

[via CyberJournalist.net]

The Miami Herald has an AP item about promotions near the top of the St. Petersburg Times. Marty Petty, currently executive vice president, moves up to the publisher's role. Neil Brown, holding both managing editor and vice president positions, takes on the executive editor position.

The AP has details on the latest publication in the E.W. Scripps Co. family, Blount Today. The weekly newspaper will focus on Blount County, and will be distributed for free in the market. Also launched was a complementary website, BlountToday.com, which will have more frequently updated content.

In a press release Thursday, LA Weekly disclosed that Marc Cooper, Harold Meyerson, Joshuah Bearman, Ben Ehrenreich, Steven Mikulan and John Powers will be blogging the Republican National Convention from New York next week. Between the protests and the politicians, the publication plans to offer details on all angles. Their coverage will be found both on laweekly.com and reprinted in the paper.

Both Reuters and the Associated Press (via Fox News) are reporting that Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, kidnapped in Iraq a few days ago, has been killed. Both services state that Al-Jazeera has received a video showing his murder, but the network has not aired it.

After a tumultuous year or two in the world of journalism - specifically newspapers - some publications are doing their best to strengthen their standards from within. Editors at the Daytona Beach News-Journal publicly announced their policies and processes that are being used in order to stay on top of errors and fairness. Some highlights: randomly surveying individuals quoted in the paper, making corrections in a timely manner, and the creation of "Newsroom Policies and Professional Standards," a formal set of rules for staffers to follow.

A few days earlier, the Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram had brought to light ways the publications are looking to improve their accuracy and ethics. They report that a suggestion box has been put in place for "ethics suggestions" and that certain members of the staff are available to talk about various issues within the newsroom.

Readers should be pleased to see that their newspapers aren't just standing pat, and are absolutely trying to make sure their publications are held in high regard.

India's Mid-Day covers the stabbing on August 24 of Sajid Rashid, editor of Mahanagar, a Hindi-language publication. According to the article, Rashid was stabbed twice in the abdomen shortly after leaving his office on Tuesday evening. Later reports stated that no further details were available, but there is the potential that the attacker(s) took issue with something Rashid had written about in the past.

BusinessWeek's Amy Tsao gives a review of XM's overall situation vs. that of SIRIUS. While SIRIUS has been doing a great job at teaming up with car manufacturers to get their products included in stock vehicles, their cost of business is much higher than their competitor. The article reports that XM's cost to acquire a customer is just $101 - SIRIUS' is $234 as of Q2/2004.

In early August, sandwich restaurant Quiznos reportedly removed advertising from "urban" radio stations, causing a bit of a stir. On Thursday, blackenterprise.com has an article by K. Terrell Reed that describes how this might change. According to the piece, Quiznos and Radio One, owner of 69 stations in 22 urban markets, are discussing the possibility of the restaurant running advertising over the radio network.

Media Networks Inc. (known as MNI by most folks who buy media) announced Wednesday that they had expanded their relationship with Hearst Magazines, adding six of the publisher's magazines to its portfolio, DMNews reports. MNI already does advertising in Esquire, a Hearst pub. If you're not familiar with MNI, it's pretty recognizable, especially if you get certain magazines in the mail. If you've ever received an advertisement for your local hospital inside Sports Illustrated or the tire retailer in Time, then MNI has reached you. It allows advertisers to hone down to the ZIP code distribution level in publications, so a smaller advertiser has the opportunity to expand their marketing efforts into a larger publication which they wouldn't normally be able to get into - because their ad would be irrelevant to 95% of the readers and way too costly.

Over at RatherBiased.com, they finally have the opportunity to write about some new Rather-related stuff. Dan Rather has returned from vacation, and he's covering the Swift Boat Veterans situation, which went big while he was off the air.

Later on this week, MediaChannel.org and Media for Democracy will be formally releasing their "Unofficial Media Guide" to the Republican National Convention in New York City. Tim Karr, MediaChannel's executive director, says in a press release that "The guide provides [the journalists] with contacts to alternative sources and New York-based experts who have agreed to provide comment on a range of social, economic and political issues. We also provide information on the many protests occurring citywide, including contact info for each group's spokesperson." Plus, it includes blogs!

Bob Liodice, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), writes Wednesday about the advent of Ad-ID, and how it will impact advertisers. Not only will it help streamline the distribution of ads to various broadcasters, but it'll help billing and tracking of advertisements as well. For marketers, this is a really big deal, because part of the reason marketing is one of the first two departments to get slashed when times are tough (along with finance) is that companies aren't able to successfully track their advertisements or marketing campaigns.

Westwood One announced Wednesday that they would be broadcasting the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, August 29, over the MTV Radio Network - which is on 165 stations across the U.S. The radio coverage will include pre- and post-show events, performances, and interviews.

The News Journal reports that Clear Channel has purchased WILM 1450 AM, an all-news station out of Wilmington, Delaware. According to the article, WILM is one of a few stations that produce most of their own content, including shows and news - and Clear Channel seems to have agreed to keep the same format.

Tylerpaper.com picks up a primer from the AP on choosing satellite radio service.

[sarcasm]
Dear publications and other image-hosting websites,

Thank you for letting us know that it is okay to use your bandwidth in order to put images up on our pages. I had been worried that I would go over my own bandwidth limits for the month by placing images on my server, but now I realize this won't be the case.

Sincerely,

The Internet
[/sarcasm]

____________

For a few months now, I've been following up on this story from June, where I covered the constant hotlinking being done by Matt Drudge from his Drudge Report website. Since the original post, Drudge has linked to hundreds of images hosted on servers other than his own, primarily Yahoo!'s yimg.com domain.

On August 12, Drudge used the image in the center of this first screenshot, the "red footed falcon," from the New York Times. After almost two weeks of followup on this, I was told "We took at look but Mr. Drudge had no photos up in the manner you had described in your e-mail." from a Times spokesperson this evening. So it doesn't look like my screenshot of same is enough, and obviously they're not checking their server logs to see how the images were used. Plus, by the time someone looked at the page for themselves, the image was gone.

I have also found instances of hotlinks to boston.com, who have yet to respond to my inquiry about this John Kerry photo. That was from August 19. This is the second time I've seen an image from boston.com on Drudge's site, but the first time I managed to take a screenshot of it, unfortunately.

Then came this Sunday, August 22. Drudge put up a story about Pat Buchanan's new book, "Where the Right Went Wrong." That item is still functioning, and can be viewed by anyone. There was an image up on the main page of the book's cover (see screenshot), from Amazon.com. You can find the image here, on the same page where the book is being sold on that site.

I contacted Amazon.com's media relations department Sunday evening and followed up with a telephone call yesterday afternoon. I have yet to receive any response, Drudge's site with the hotlink is still functioning as of 10:22 Eastern on Tuesday evening.

Bandwidth theft is apparently something that is acceptable to these companies. Unless - and no one has commented saying this is true - Drudge has a deal with all of these random publications, Yahoo!, MyWay.com, etc., then he's "stealing" bandwidth from everyone. This is possibly the worst example of this tactic that I've ever seen. If publications start seeing huge rashes of hotlinking to their images, then it truly serves them right for not doing anything about it. They might not be hemming and hawing over their bandwidth bills every month, but just because another site sends a lot of traffic their way, giving more pageviews to advertisers, doesn't mean it's right. If Drudge is going to do this, what is stopping anyone else from doing the same, as long as we're leading people their way. Want to open the door on Fair Use? Well, it might have already happened.

For those of you who are concerned about your bandwidth and hotlinking to your images, then take a gander at this article by Thomas Scott over at A List Apart. If there is anything I wish I could start a campaign against, it would be this - perhaps my voice isn't loud enough for these publications and websites to hear or react to. Hotlinking is a horrible way to do business, and something that us "little people" will generally get booted off of our webhosts for.

[update: August 25, 7:37pm Eastern] Well, it seems that this is happening again. As of right now, there's an image from MSNBC from this story about a Florida man's attempted suicide after hearing about his son's death in Iraq. The image can be found here.

Over at The Command Post, Laurence Simon posts about the capture of an Italian journalist, Enzo Baldoni, in Iraq. As you might have expected, the captors have said that if Italian troops didn't leave Iraq, they "could not guarantee his safety."

This morning, Michelle Malkin recalled the events that transpired Thursday evening on MSNBC's "Hardball" with Chris Matthews. Specifically, she's pointing out how she was brought on to speak on certain topics, including national security, the FBI, and her book - but was told shortly before going on air that this would be changed to the Swift Boat Veterans and then her book. That's all fine, and happens all the time. But this was followed up with a switch of Dana Milbank off the panel - who was confirmed just hours earlier - and then replaced with Willie Brown. Malkin confirms via email that the replacement of Milbank was "At the last minute--literally." Yet again, perhaps something came up with Milbank, though he appeared in the next segment - but this isn't the first example of a guest being asked to come on a show to debate or discuss something in particular, only to have the topic be completely different by the time the show is taped. I'm not going to sit here and say that every talk show host or producer is "out to get" the guests that are booked, but I absolutely disagree that people aren't put into "ambush" situations on purpose on occasion.

Most journalists and some subject matter experts are slick enough to switch topics on a whim, but that doesn't mean this should become the rule, rather than the exception. Was there a super drastic change in the Swift Boat Veterans story that forced the issue to become the official topic of discussion on the show, and have Dana Milbank moved off the panel? I'm not sure that there was, to be honest.

Finally, I think if Matthews is going to hammer Malkin about the "self-inflicted" injury that John Kerry received a Purple Heart for, he's no better than anyone on any other show or if he's not going to let her answer the question in total. And clarify what they're saying. And that includes the panel on any episode of Jerry Springer's show all the way over to Sean Hannity. Something being "self-inflicted" doesn't necessarily mean that they "shot themself" or whatever. She was absolutely stating that in the book people alleged that Kerry's wounds were "self-inflicted." Perhaps if there was a breath in there for someone to not be asked something over and over, and actually have their answer not only heard - but comprehended, our media system wouldn't become a joke.

[update: 5:41pm Eastern] LGF confirms a point made on the Drudge Report that Kerry's campaign has stated that the Senator's first Purple Heart may have been self-inflicted.

I do see you attempting to post your comment spam from 213.91.207.89 and 213.91.216.36. I have notified your ISP, multiple times, and have now requested that someone at my webhost look into the situation. I believe you have only tried a few hundred times to spam your six or seven sites on my domain in the last 24 hours, but the 107 times in the last 90 minutes is the last straw. You will be blocked from this domain, and you may cause everyone on your domain to be blocked from accessing this site - and maybe more.

I really hope that you aren't getting paid per spam, because I'm certainly not gonig to help you grow your "business." Get a real job.

Azcentral.com picks up an article that covers an interesting happening in the crackdown on indecency on radio stations in America - a lack of it on Spanish-language stations. And the reason isn't all that surprising - language difficulties. That's right - there are only 2 Spanish speaking FCC employees who look into complaints, and there are 705 radio and television stations in the country, the Los Angeles Times' Agustin Gurza reports.

Atrios pulls out the Public Enemy references while responding to comments by Josh Marshall, saying that MSNBC is "a better news organization during the day" than CNN. Some interesting comments in the thread.

My comments on this: Keep in mind that during the day - and almost exclusively during the day, except for the top and bottom of the hour - is the only time that most of the cable news networks are actually reporting news. The rest of the time it's talk shows that discuss newsworthy events, but they are filled with opinion and feelings. Unless we're talking about CNN's Headline News network, of course.

Nat Ives at the New York Times writes in Monday's paper that Navigauge, an Atlanta, Georgia-based company, is currently testing an in-vehicle device and method for measuring radio listenership. It'll be quite curious to see if any (or all?) of the data provided by Arbitron will be validated or looked at in a different manner, long-term, once these results are made public.

[via The Agonist]

TheSanDiegoChannel.com informs that the Air America Radio network is now on air in San Diego on KLSD AM 1360. It seems that station owner Clear Channel has chosen to mix it up a little, as conservative talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh will be heard alongside their liberal counterparts.

[update] A commenter elsewhere points out that Rush & Al aren't on the same station - just the same market and on stations owned & operated by Clear Channel. The way the article was written doesn't make this perfectly clear, and I didn't check the affiliates myself beforehand. Rush is on KOGO 600 and Al is on 1360.

The Associated Press reports Monday that Clear Channel has sold five of its stations to Aberdeen Radio Ranch, a North Dakota-based company. This move takes Clear Channel effectively out of the South Dakota market, at least as far as ownership goes.

On Monday, the SPEED Channel announced in a press release on BusinessWire that a new "reality" television show would be hitting the air on their network in early 2005. The show is called "Pinks," and it entails people getting together in an old-school drag racing way, putting up the "pink slips" to their cars in best of three race format. You lose 2 races, you lose your ride. Pretty simple, it seems - until you lose your car, that is.

Cablevision's satellite television service, VOOM, has a stack of HD-enabled channels - but not the stack of customers the company would like to have. The Boston Globe's Peter Howe reports Sunday that while customers are raving about the service, the financial tolls being put onto the cable provider are becoming very serious.

Over the weekend, the Seattle Times announced the resignation of an associate editor and columnist after claims of multiple plagiarism allegations came to light. The Times' executive editor, Michael Fancher, informed the newspaper's readers with a front page item on Sunday about the departure of longtime columnist Stephen Dunphy. More details here from Seattle's NBC affiliate, KING 5.

Editor & Publisher's Joe Strupp covers new policies being put in place by the United States Labor Department that would affect how individuals are categorized to receive overtime. According to the piece, journalists could be considered as exempt from overtime - which could dramatically change how newsrooms compensate their staffs.

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway posts about an article in Sunday's New York Times where Jacques Steinberg covers the paring of comic strips in newspapers across the U.S. From financial issues to needs for space - or even popularity - papers are removing comics that aren't necessarily popular or relevant to current readers.

Kentucky's Courier-Journal has an article Saturday about some issues with customers in the Louisville market who have lost their local channels on DirecTV's service as of Thursday. According to the company, customers who were to lose the channels were notified in advance, as they needed upgrades to their hardware - but not all the customers seem to agree.

Hans Kullin at Medai Culpa leads us to NameProtect, a company that "provide[s] protection of brand assets, recovery of diverted revenues and detection of online identity theft and fraud in today's global economy," according to their website. The point? NameProtect is searching the 'net for misuses of trademarks, more or less - so be on your best behavior!

On Wednesday, Reuters' Michele Gershberg wrote about an announcement that CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox had all agreed upon one way of tagging advertisements that will make life easier for marketers. The format was created by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), and will "cut out costly code replications," Gershberg reported.

Ad-ID will allow advertisers to use similar digital coding on all of their ads as they are distributed to networks for broadcast, simplifying the entire process from the moment an ad leaves production up to the end result - including billing and tracking.

But the key here isn't the simplicity of having one code to put on advertisements - it's the features now available by having one "rule" in place. Ad-ID will also be "cross-platform," with the ability to tag television, radio, and online advertisements with the 12 character code. The main improvement? Very highly targeted ads. Based on information that a broadcaster may have about its customers, ads could be tailored down to the city - or even set of households within a market - in a way that wasn't so easy to do before.

[Part II - Privacy concerns is now up for your reading pleasure}

Bill Hobbs writes about Intelliseek's BrandPulse Internet™ service being upgraded to include blogs in its sources of consumer-generated media. Companies using BrandPulse can track buzz about a product or brand from a variety of places on the Internet and use it for market research and analysis purposes - almost like a real live test kitchen or focus group. The solution will run in conjunction with BlogPulse, which tracks key issues and can serve as a "key indicator" of buzz on various topics, news, and issues.

In fact, there are three "flavors" of BrandPulse offered by the company. BrandPulse 360™, the aforementioned BrandPulse Internet, and BrandPulse Internal™. All three compile information about a product, service, or brand, but all three use different sources. A fourth product, ExpressFeedback®, is described as gathering "quick-insight solicited opinion" and differs somewhat from the others. Intelliseek is making a point to ensure their customers are getting the best of the on- and offline consumer commentary, and adding blogs is seen as a vital move.

Related: If you're interested, don't forget about Intelliseek's webinar on Wednesday, August 25. The hour long session will focus on the value of blogs to marketers.

CNET's News.com has an article up Friday by David Becker that details some of the interesting pieces of audio that online audio site Audible has put up in the past few months, including the 9/11 Commission hearings and speeches from the Democratic National Convention. Becker includes an informative Q&A with Audible CEO Donald Katz, which covers the evolution of downloadable content, market impact of the iPod, and more.

From the "service I really love that I hope doesn't get kicked off their webhost" category, check out this online stopwatch, courtesy of the Shodor Education Foundation.

[via Virginia Postrel]

Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs writes about today's front page article in the Washington Post, "Records Counter a Critic of Kerry" by Michael Dobbs. Johnson asks "Will WaPo readers wonder why this story suddenly pops up on the front page, when they’ve read nothing about it until today?"

Well, maybe not nothing, but close when it comes to news.

Sure, the Swift Boat Veterans have been all over the media for the last few weeks - but that doesn't mean there has been a lot of actual news reporting about them. You see, if you go to the Post's search page, and put in "swift boat," you get 20 results. Out of those 20 results, two are from today and are "news" articles. Howard Kurtz has three columns on the subject, and the bulk of what's left is op-ed, columnist pieces, and letters to the editor.

However, one of the last items in the results is this article from August 6 by Jim VandeHei and Mary Fitzgerald. Johnson is quick to dismiss a commenter's post about "swift boat" bringing up other mentions, as this last article is definitely news, and was on Page A01. But the point is still valid - on top of the the analysis, opinion, and letters to the editor, there have only been two news articles on this - one when this first hit the media and one today when the evidence that "counters" the arguments made by the Swift Boat Veterans came out.

In what should be required reading for this week, Tim Porter writes about attitudes that Americans have towards Freedom of the Press. It seems clear that many people do not understand what the First Amendment is in place for. Porter has some quality statistics blockquoted, but I'm going to pull one of his statements because I think it's important.

Barely one in six Americans understands that the First Amendment explicitly guarantees freedom of the press (see this First Amendment Center survey) and a third agrees with the statements that "the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees" and "that Americans have too much press freedom." What's too much?

A third???

Porter makes excellent work with the use of bold text to highlight things that should be used to not only educate, but motivate those who respect, utilize, and enjoy their First Amendment rights.

Rafat Ali leads us to Blogversations. The concept? Advertiser pays blogger to talk about a topic - though seemingly not that company specifically. Blogger talks about it. Advertiser gets input and feedback from readers, without having a big research effort.

Twice in the last week I wished I could have rewound what I heard on the radio to listen again. Thanks to Delphi, that same wish is possible for XM customers that have the new SkyFi2 equipment. David Wilkerson at Investor's Business Daily has the details.

TechWeb covers a J.D. Power & Associates survey about customer satisfaction for television providers. The results are pretty clear - not only has satellite moved into 25% of households, but they are exceeding cable's customer service abilities. EchoStar's DISH Network came in ahead of DirecTV - and all the cable services.

Just read this post by Kevin Drum over at Washington Monthly. He's talking about the vacation he's about to go on, and informing readers of the site that there will be fill-ins while he's away.

But isn't saying "Not to worry, though, we'll have several fill-in bloggers, all of whom, I have it on good authority, detest our president at least as much as I do. Maybe more!" kind of over the top? I mean, I can't say for sure that the bulk of people reading his blog are in agreement with what Drum talks about on a regular basis (I, for one, am not), but wow! Then again, perhaps that's why Political Animal's readers are most interested in what Drum has to say.

Yesterday, an announcement was made by Nashville, Tennessee-based Logic Media Group about the relaunch of PRsource.com as a "public relations destination site." As part of the relaunch, PRsource has teamed up with BusinessWire to enable customers of the site to distribute press releases across that wire service.

PRsource enables business owners to choose public relations services as they need them, rather than being bound by the retainer contracts or other types of arrangements that typically keep smaller companies from using PR as a marketing tool. Within 24 hours, a company can have a press release written and submitted through PRsource's extensive list of press contacts. Users can then self direct where they want the press release distributed, based on a variety of options ranging from the local newspaper to the New York Times or to nearly any country in the world. Additionally, the site offers follow-up phone calls to targeted media outlets, which allows for personalized media pitches.

The above text is straight from the release, and definitely makes sense. Smaller-sized businesses generally don't have on-site marketing staff, nor the budget to pay a PR agency to do that work for them. Subsequently, eReleases (1998) and PRsource (1999), were formed. It all seems like a great idea, although BusinessWire's involvement with PRsource definitely looks like a way to gain share in the pr/news release business. You see, eReleases has a deal with PRNewswire to distribute news on their wire. Up until now, BusinessWire has probably not been able to get customer touches with the small businesses that eReleases has grabbed onto.

So the questions remain - is getting a service where you can walk up..er, log in, get the info together for a press release set up, and have it distributed worth it in the long term? Do the lower costs of distribution due to not having an agency retainer pay off for your small business? Are adding up the a la carte costs of using one of these online services really making it cheaper to publicize your product or company?

I asked Steve Rubel about this via email, and he replied with "Businesses have an unalienable right to public relations. This, however, at first glance looks more like a one night stand. You get a quick high, but it lacks the deeper connection you get in a lasting relationship. When you have a good PR firm, it can be like being forever in love."

Now obviously Rubel works for a PR firm, so he has a different opinion about this, but I can't say I disagree. Then again, I work on in-house PR/marketing, so I have a different view, too. It would be curious to see some measurement of one of the online shops vs. a real PR relationship, even a very scaled down one. Personalization is a big deal, and having a less computer-coated relationship with someone marketing your company seems much nicer, IMHO.

Bloomberg columnist Graef Crystal takes Viacom boss Sumner Redstone to task in a column Wednesday regarding pay increases for co-Number 2s Thomas Freston and Leslie Moonves - and Redstone himself. I think Crystal waits too long to pull in the compensation board as just as liable for this - it's the last thing mentioned in the article, and they have a significant say in what happens with pay raises.

Infinity Broadcasting has agreed to utilize Arbitron for ratings and market information going forward, according to an Investors Business Daily article on Tuesday. This is a reversal to an announcement on June 25, when Infinity stated that they would be doing business with The Media Audit.

On Tuesday, the Triangle Business Journal reported on changes taking place at News 14 Carolina. The news station, which was previously a joint venture between Time Warner Cable and Belo Corporation, will let go around one-half of its Charlotte-based staff by the end of August.

Eric McErlain over at Off Wing Opinion posts about speculation that popular sportswriter / talk show host Tony Kornheiser could be making his way back on the radio in the Washington, D.C. area sometime soon.

[update 11/10/04] He's back! Details available here.

A recently released report by AccuStream iMedia Research states that broadband video streaming is growing at a very high rate, with the first six months of 2004 following a trend 42.6% higher than that of the same period a year ago. AccuStream's research director Paul A. Palumbo said in a press release on BusinessWire that "Broadband users on ad-supported sites now watch over 30 minutes of streaming video per month from home and work." The average number of streams viewed per month, per site across the Internet is 15.4 - on sites where more than 90% of the users are connected via broadband.

The report also offers trends from 1998 through mid-2004, and includes details about provider-specific information such as AOL as well as figures regarding music and sports streaming.

According to an Associated Press report, Liberty Media International posted a second quarter loss of $1.04 million on Monday, against a gain of $10.5 million for the same quarter in 2003.

Earlier this year, a forum took place at BloggerCon that discussed blogs, journalism, and where the twain shall/shall not meet. Since then, I've been analyzing the various aspects of being a traditional, mainstream media journalist vs. those of being a blogger. There are myriad differences, obviously, but one that caught my eye should be of interest to most - investments and blogging.

I'd been pondering a post on this topic for a few weeks now, but when I saw this post by Dan Gillmor on August 6 I figured it was definitely worth it. In the item, Gillmor is discussing the Google IPO that is currently in auction, and writes "...and even if I could buy tech shares (I can't) I wouldn't bid at anywhere near the price the company has suggested." Note the - "I can't" in the statement? It's very important. As far as I know, "rules" on this topic vary when it comes to media outlets - print, television, or otherwise.

In August of 2003, OJR's Mark Glaser wrote an article entitled "For Business Journalists, Credibility Is Never More Than a Trade Away," which outlined a few specific instances where journalists disclosed investments, leaving the viewing/reading public the opportunity to decide what to think about it. Glaser describes some of the ways that various media outlets ask their employees to disclose what investments they may have, and the policies definitely vary. One of the journalists covered in the article was Thom Calandra, formerly of CBS MarketWatch. Yes, formerly. You see, Calandra quit his job at MarketWatch in January of 2004. This occurred after the company found out that the SEC was investigating Calandra's personal investments, most likely as they related to his picks in a newsletter he produced through the site.

So, back to the topic at hand. Many bloggers, including myself, have at one time posted items - even opinions - on companies of which they own stock. The tough question here is, should they be doing so? If so, is there some sort of voluntary "disclosure" they should make whenever mentioning a company they have ownership in, no matter how small? I'm not interested in setting up some sort of governance on this, it's merely a credibility issue. One big thing many people criticize bloggers for is a lack of credibility - this is a way to get some of it back, isn't it?

According to an AP story on Monday in The Daily Sentinel, Media General Inc. reported solid advertising increases in the month of July for its print, radio, and online outlets.

Bend, Oregon's The Bulletin had an article Sunday by Cathy Carroll entitled "Radio wave," about the state of radio in central Oregon. Not only are the 15 major stations locally owned and operated, but advertising sales increases are moving up in a big way - "nearly double the national average," Carroll reports.

Debra Galant points out that Audible.com is carrying the speech given by the (soon to be ex-) Governor of New Jersey, Jim McGreevey, last week. You can download it here for free.

[update] In the comments, Aaron informs that you can't follow the original link to the file at Audible - just go to their website and search for "McGreevey" if you don't see a link on the main page.

In the world of journalism - any form - there come times when people feel that their original work was used and someone else has taken credit for "breaking" a story. It happens, and not much can be done about it, right? Well, maybe not. The digital world makes it hard to get away with using someone else's words as your own. Bloggers complain quite often about having their scoops going uncredited by mainstream media articles, and sometimes get their point across - but not all the time.

Om Malik has crafted a solid piece on the matter, and it should make a terrific jumpoff for others to add their views on the matter. Blogs do such a good job at fact-checking and sourcing one another, with solid results - can't the same hold true for the rest of the "media" world?

Anyway - the New York Daily News has an item Saturday by David Hinckley about SIRIUS satellite radio picking up a radio show by the Beer Radio Network. This comes just over a week after XM announced it would work with Starbucks to carry the "Starbucks Hear Music" station on its schedule.

[ed: Well, if two companies are a trend, I suppose the title is apt.]

Robert Cox points out that Craig Kilborn will be leaving CBS' "Late, Late Show" at the end of his current contract, according to a Broadcasting & Cable story.

[update] Matt Sheffield sends me this link to a New York Observer article from December of 2003. Very insightful about Kilborn's personality and attitude towards television performances.

CNET's Dinesh Sharma confirms that online auction site eBay has purchased 25% of listing site Craigslist. No details on whether branding or other eBay information will appear on Craigslist, but Sharma quotes both companies as saying they would come together on "expertise, resources and creativity." On August 5, CNN/Money's Eric Hellweg speculated on Craiglist going public [via Techdirt], a move that many folks on the web thought was pretty unlikely. Looks like the "where there's smoke..." rule was partially right on this one.

[update] If you happen to read the CNET article linked above, make sure you check out Craig Newmark's post on the subject, too. It wasn't really clear in the CNET piece, but it looks as if this wasn't as simple as eBay walking in and asking for a slice of the pie.

Reuters reports Friday that Miramax COO Rick Sands will most likely leave the studio by October, citing "turmoil" as the reason.

Thanks to Suzette for pointing this out - television cooking show host and multiple book author Julia Child has died at 91 years old. She would have been 92 on Sunday. The Associated Press reports that Child died in her sleep Thursday, cause unknown at this time.

Editor & Publisher's Jennifer Saba writes about a recent Merrill Lynch report covering circulation issues at newspaper publishers in 2004. "The circulation mess is not helping the tepid advertising recovery either, yet it's going to be hard to judge the impact," states Saba. Bingo - it's not necessarily the end of the world, but continued problems at publishers could lead to a frenzy of ad rate declines.

CBS 2 Chicago has an item about recent problems the Tribune Company has been having with work permits from the city of Chicago. According to the story, the Tribune-owned Chicago Cubs had to halt work on their property for a lack of permits. Soon after, the Chicago Tribune filed requests for information about work on the structure of City Hall. The paper cited "a tip" as the reason they were looking into the city's own permits, but speculation centers around the company looking for a "gotcha" with the city government. And to top it all off, Tribune's WGN television station was informed it had to stop the move of a satellite dish on its property on Thursday - the company believed it had the correct permits, and the city disagrees.

The Indianapolis Star reports Thursday that the FCC and Emmis Communications have agreed upon a $300,000 fine for indecent materials that were broadcast in the past. Emmis, the owner of various publications and 27 radio stations, also stated that the company would be implementing a "zero tolerance" policy for their on-air talent.

Yes, it's not media related, but it's news to those of us in the Garden State.

Jeff Jarvis informs that NJ Governor Jim McGreevey will step down today, for reasons not clear as of yet. A 4pm news conference is scheduled.

[update] More comments/transcript at Buzz Machine. Gov. McGreevey announces that he is gay, and that he plans to leave office on November 15.

Daniel Turek has put together one of the more amusing slideshows you'll see anytime soon. Check out his comparative study of the iPod vs. the cassette.

[Hat tip: Jerry]

Over at The Command Post, Todd posts about a piece by Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post Thursday, where Kurtz points out that the paper's coverage of pre- and during Iraq war news "looks strikingly one-sided at times."

Andrew Cline writes Thursday about the latest addition to the "unnamed sources" discussion, this time from Randy Dotinga at the Christian Science Monitor. Cline adds his two cents, suggesting that it is "unwise to make blanket rules (or sweeping evaluations) about using unnamed sources."

[Previously discussed here and here]

On Wednesday, the Seattle Times carried an op-ed piece by Chellie Pingree of Common Cause and Jonathan Rintels of the Center for Creative Voices in Media. The item focuses on an upcoming meeting that Michael Powell, FCC Chairman, and U.S. cable and broadcast company leaders are planning to have where the topic of conversation will be of interest to the American people. Namely, whether cablecos have the right to choose whether or not they will carry all digital broadcasts from a company owning a license to send signals "over the air."

Pingree and Rintels have taken this opportunity to suggest that the FCC should provide guidance to broadcasters on offering programming that serves the public interest.

At a minimum, broadcasters should provide on their most-watched channel three hours a week of substantive coverage about important local, state and national issues, a higher percentage of non-network-produced programming, and at least two hours a week of quality election coverage. Is that too much to ask of broadcasters who received for free billions of dollars of public spectrum?

If you're not familiar with any of the programming discussed above, some of it - or at least something close to it - is typically broadcast on Sunday mornings, sometimes around the time the sun rises in the East. The op-ed suggests that having six channels worth of broadcasting ability gives the chance for networks to place this programming on-air more regularly - for the public at large to see.

My favorite part of the article is the argument from the cable companies about having to follow "must carry" rules, where the potential for a broadcast network to take up more than one channel on the cable system exists. The cablecos say that this "will force their customers to take channels they don't want." Which is, ironically, the reason that current cable customers are pushing for "a la carte" pricing on their subscriptions.

L.A. Lorek of the San Antonio Express-News writes Thursday that the next issue of Rolling Stone magazine contains an article that media conglomerate Clear Channel is already ticked off about. However, Lorek reports, Clear Channel contends that "the article contains more than 30 instances of errors or omissions," and the company is waiting to hear what the mag has to say about that.

FilmStew.com's Lisa Johnson reports on the announcement by Viacom's Les Moonves that the CBS Broadcast International and Paramount International Television divisions of the company have been merged - forming CBS Paramount International Television, natch.

As another example of a company that "gets it," WeatherBug sent meteorologist Ryan Towell to Florida, where he'll be covering Hurricane Charley. He'll be reporting in for both WeatherBug and the rest of us to read about, which is kind of a neat experiment.

News Corporation posted its fourth quarter results on Wednesday, with a quarterly profit of $399 million for the three months ended June 30. Revenues experienced significant gains, up 20% from the same period last year to $5.5 billion.

Over at Lost Remote, Cory Bergman posts about ABC News Now looking to continue its run past Election Day. Previously it was discussed that the "experiment" might only last until early November.

On Wednesday, Intelliseek, the company behing BlogPulse, announced an hour long webinar taking place on August 25 from 4-5pm Eastern. The event will be focused on "the influence of bloggers on market perceptions, buyer behavior." You can read the full release here, or go here to register for the free event.

Taegan Goddard posts about a "Rush & Molloy" item in the New York Daily News that says Chris Matthews is concerned that a Slate.com sale might spell the end of "Hardball." Sounds like speculation and rumor to me, but you never know.

[Thanks to Frank for leading me to Goddard's site.]

RatherBiased.com reports on the news that Asif Iqbal, a man who had his picture run on the August 4 news in a story about another man with the same name, may sue CBS for "falsely labeling him as terrorist suspect." This is not the first time Iqbal has had this problem - it stems from 2002, when another man with the same name, presumably the suspect that CBS intended to show on television, was labeled as a potential terrorist.

Instapundit points out his "Registration Still Required" column at Tech Central Station, which adds yet another pile-on to the long-winded discussion about the number of registrations necessary to read various newspapers on the 'net today.

Publishers absolutely need a way to figure out demographics and get their content paid for, but I do agree that it's unreasonable to think that people are going to register at every single site out there, and keep the logins straight. I'm of the general opinion that if the publishers who run multiple web properties could just aggregate logins so that signing in at one publication gets you in to all the publications, reading news would be a lot less painless. (I believe at least one publisher is already doing this...) If media consolidation does anything for us, this should be it?

[update: August 12, 8:37am] Belo Corporation, owner of Dallasnews.com, Projo.com, and other news companies has this implemented on their websites. I know there is at least one other publisher that has done so - feel free to comment with any others that people are aware of.

On Monday, Jason Calacanis wrote about Vibrant Media, the San Francisco-based company who created IntelliTXT technology. If it sounds like something familiar to you, that's because it's the name of the advertising product currently featured at Forbes.com, among other places. IntelliTXT technology places double-underlines on certain words that advertisers have chosen as "key terms" for their ads to show up under, within the body of articles and weblog posts. More details are available in a New York Times article from August 3, with Nat Ives saying that the technology was "raising new questions about the separation of journalism from the advertising that supports it." Jeremy Wagstaff over at LOOSE wire points out some additional flaws the system could have, and doesn't like the tone that having the paid links within content creates. Though his argument, "As a journalist, to find one's words mined for possible commercial links would smack of cheapness," kind of counters the Google ads which Wagstaff seems to like.

Contextual advertising is obviously something that people are willing to pay for - and have on their own sites. Google made high marks with its AdSense program in recent times, as both advertisers and website owners are pleased with its results. It's seemingly unobtrusive, easy to set up, and can be made to look somewhat like your site while still clearly being an advertisement. The key is the relevance factor.

That said, the "grey area" between content and advertising is something that has been blurred at such a rapid pace on the Internet - but it shouldn't be astounding, considering how the 'net works. Website readers are used to seeing ads in certain places on a page - which may or may not let them "ignore" the spots - but they know the ads are present. Weblogs and other sites with continuously updated content have even been able to slip advertisements into the high-value portion of the page - where the posts/articles are. Both Calacanis' Weblogs, Inc. and sites on Nick Denton's Gawker Media network such as Wonkette have "third post" advertising - where an ad fills space just after the third post on any index page. I've even implemented this on The Media Drop, and it's been fairly successful from what I can tell. Sure, a lot of it is based on the content created on these pages, but it's not in the content.

Many critics of IntelliTXT believe that it will move journalists - or others who edit sites - to place words in their content that are more likely to be picked up by the advertising service. I don't believe that many journalists would stoop to this, especially those who typically write for print media - and only have their work re-printed online. But I can see this being the case for smaller-scale website owners and others working to maximize advertising revenue quickly for their customers. Take a glance at this thread on the Search Engine Marketing Forums if you don't think people will use it.

The reason myself and others take issue with this technology is the way it is done. Sure, it's got two underlines - but I could make all my URLs have two underlines through CSS if I wanted to. Vibrant Media says that "Advertising messages appear only when user expresses interest; as a result advertisements are a utility rather than a diversion." I don't believe this is the case. I think these ads are a diversion, and are in no way related to "following" the content you're reading. Blogging as a method of communication is built on linking - but you link to things that are related to the story to build out what you're opining on, or just trying to direct people to. Links for advertisers within your content show that you're trying to send people somewhere else in order for revenue to make its way to your site. You're not building a story there, you're utilizing space within content - or actually the content itself - in order to grow revenues.

Disagreeing with IntelliTXT doesn't mean you have a lack of support for the site you're reading. I'm sure most people agree that there isn't a way that content can be provided for free, for everyone to read. Newspapers, magazines, and other media outlets with online presences need to pay the bills - sans subscription fees, of course.

But that doesn't mean you can't do anything to show your displeasure. Feel strongly about IntelliTXT stepping over a boundary? Contact site owners that are running the technology, like Forbes, here. Be polite - tell them that you feel this advertising medium hurts the value of their news reporting.

You can also "vote" with your browser - since we're all election-focused these days, why not download Mozilla if you're running a Windows-based machine? It doesn't permit the IntelliTXT ads to enter your browser. Don't want to change browsers? Well, there's one last method that's a little tricky but seems to work - details as follows:

If you're using Windows 9x or ME, the file you want to edit is located at "C:\Windows\hosts"

If you're using NT, Win2K or XP go to "C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts" or "C:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"

Edit the file with a text editor like Notepad. At the bottom of the file, you should see something like "127.0.0.1 localhost".

Hit Enter, and paste in the following lines:

127.0.0.1 itxt.vibrantmedia.com
127.0.0.1 forbes.us.intellitxt.com

Save the file in the exact location it was previously in, restart your Internet Explorer browser, and you *should* be good to go. Be very careful with editing files like this on your computer - if you're worried about causing problems, then make a backup copy for yourself and move it back later. This is not to be seen as technical advice you should be suing me for if you screw up your Windows OS.

The first addition might do the blocking, but it didn't work for me. The second line will specifically block the advertising on the Forbes.com website. Before you ask, this is a way to screw up other methods of advertising - I'll admit that - but blocking other ads leaves unsightly "page not found" marks where ads are supposed to be, and surfing that way isn't pretty. This effect doesn't happen with these contextual ads. Plus, we're trying to have some civil disobedience here, not outright anarchy.

Like Rafat Ali wrote on August 4, "the backlash is growing."

For some reason, this site is the #1 site on Google for Stacia Dubin, who apparently was a morning news anchor on Chicago's Channel 2. That was, until her contract was not renewed, as reported a week ago by the Chicago Sun-Times' Robert Feder. Dubin was one half of an anchor pairing that was broken up two months ago when co-anchor Michael Ayala was let go.

No further details on her next career move are available at this time.

The National Debate's Robert Cox followed up on an editorial review on Amazon.com that didn't seem right. The review was for a book critical of presidential candidate John Kerry, Unfit for Command, previously discussed here. As it turns out, the review was submitted by what an Amazon rep is calling a "bad actor," someone who had access to publishing editorial reviews - which are looked at by Amazon staff - and has since been removed, Cox reports.

Brian Stelter over at TVNewser posts Tuesday about the training that CNN sports correspondents have gone through in preparation for their time covering the Olympics in Athens, Greece. According to a report from the UK's Independent, CNNers have gone through what is referred to as extensive 'hostile environment' training, which included what to do if a bomb explodes and "how to resist being taken hostage."

A few weeks ago, reporters from the Associated Press went through a simliar course prior to their venture to Greece. Staffers informed TMD that Centurion, which bills itself as "the world’s leading risk assessment training company," came in to do a one day workshop to teach the AP Olympic coverage team how to handle themselves when traveling overseas. Unfortunately, the one day workshop did not cover what to do if you are being kidnapped, so I'm not sure the AP will be quite as prepared as some other news organizations should anything unfortunate occur. Only the five day session covers these topics - Centurion calls it their "HEFAT," or Hostile Environments and Emergency First Aid Training. Further checking through Centurion's offerings brings you to the "Olympics Countdown" service, which does cover "personal awareness and security," but not HEFAT's "Hostage abduction and enduring captivity" session, in case you're interested.

[ed: Before you ask, it is indeed TVNewser day here at TMD, hehe.]

TVNewser has a two part piece on a discussion he had with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, currently in the Sudan. Part 1 / Part 2. Amanpour is concerned about the lack of news coverage "by American news organizations, especially television news organizations," on war, ethnic cleansing, and humanitarian issues currently occuring in the African nation.

The Association of Military Reporters & Editors announced the winning entries for their first annual journalism awards. Full details here.

[via Alice Marshall]

In case you missed this story from yesterday afternoon, it appears that a book critical of Sen. John Kerry, Unfit for Command, had the cover altered on the Barnes & Noble website. On the book's jacket, a picture of Kerry pointing his finger had been replaced with a photo of Kerry on a boat with military personnel, and the title was changed to Fit for Command. You can read more here at Human Events Online where a screenshot and large versions of the book covers are viewable. No details are available at this point as to who changed the cover.

Robert Cox over at The National Debate has lots more.

Over at The Agonist, Sean Paul writes that the The Committee to Protect Journalists, a U.S.-based group whose mission is to "promote press freedom worldwide by defending the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal," has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to do a better job protecting journalists in the country. Both press freedom and the lives of journalists have become a big issue in Russia in recent years, with government taking over media outlets and journalists being killed. As discussed in previous posts on the subject, both safety and journalistic integrity are at stake, with no reform or significant outcry seeming to be on the way. Considering the size of Russia and its political power worldwide, they can be viewed as an example - positive or negative - for other nations looking to create or change policies towards the media.

Ken Waight over at Lying in Ponds has a link to the transcript of the Paul Krugman - Bill O'Reilly "discussion" from CNBC. You can read it here on the Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive.

Also - Robert Cox over at The National Debate confirms that CNBC will re-air the show tonight (Monday) at 8 & 11pm Eastern Time. Cox has more details on the whole situation.

Perhaps it's just me, but if news comes out about a new television network (in this case, ABC's "ABC News Now"), and if you are a provider of television services, and someone calls and emails your media relations contact person to see if there is any chance you'll be offering the network, it's probably a good idea to get back to them before 17 days have passed, right? Especially when the political convention that was occurring at the same time as the launch is now over. Just a thought.

Jeff Jarvis points out that Choire Sicha has moved on up at Gawker Media, taking on the Editorial Director role, and Jessica Coen has taken on the job.

[Props to Wizbang for doing what we all should have done, and typed her name in with a dot.com to find out who she was!]

Cablevision, the Bethpage, New York-based cable television provider, posted a net loss on Monday of $187.1 million for the second quarter of 2004, as compared to a $158.3 million gain for the same period a year ago. Most of the loss is attributed to one-time charges and losses from its satellite television operations. However, the company's press release states that cable televsion revenues increased 17% to $730.4 million while overall revenues jumped 25% to $1.2 billion as compared to the second quarter of 2003. Favorable revenues were primarily due to increases in subscribership to the Optimum Online high-speed Internet service, conversion to iO digital cable, and a 24% gain in overall advertising revenue over the prior year.

For those of you interested in getting all your news in one place, you'll be happy to hear that the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies has you in mind. They're currently in beta on their "portal," which has news from all 122 publications that are members of the Association. You can visit the site at altweeklies.com now, and it goes officially "live" as of September 7.

In Sunday's New York Daily News, sports columnist Mike Lupica shares his thoughts on the ongoing Cablevision-Time Warner programming battle. The title says it all about Lupica's opinion - "In bitter TV spat, Cablevision's a loser."

The Daily Herald picks up a Wall Street Journal article about the continued growth of satellite television in the U.S. One stat to keep in mind - while cable television has lost 900,000 subscribers over the last two years, satellite subscribership is expected to increase by two million - just in 2004. So non-pay television households are purchasing satellite systems, it's not just cable converts.

The BBC News reports on an analysis by Jupiter Research that suggests online advertising will slow down over the next few years, reaching an 11% year-over-year growth in 2009.

TheState.com has an article Sunday by Christopher Boyd that describes the "competition" between high-definition radio - which brings high quality sound to your tuner - and satellite radio. Boyd introduces XM and SIRIUS to readers, but gets the figures wrong on the latter - SIRIUS has 500,000 users and counting as of mid-July. I think he's also way off base with his thoughts on competition between the two types of radio distribution:

Yet just as the two companies see hope for a profitable future, new earthbound competition is taking shape. HD radio, a digital format that brings compact-disc sound to FM broadcasts and allows AM stations to offer stereo programming, is now available through more than 110 radio stations nationwide.

The argument to the contrary is right under Boyd's nose. Many people that have shifted to satellite radio for the bulk of their listening have done so for one reason - no commercials. It's worth it for these people do pay a fee every month to keep the ads from reaching their ears. And the beginning of the article makes the argument against competition for the satellite service. “No matter what you want to listen to, you can find it. And there aren’t any of those stupid commercials to interrupt the music," says Sofyan Alif, an interested buyer in satellite service.

Boyd misses yet another point here, and it's embedded in that same quote above - you can always find what you're looking for. Reason #2 (or #1 for some people, I would surmise) is that satellite radio plays a much larger playlist than does your typical pop music station, or even oldies or classic rock stations.

Sure, not everyone wants to - or can afford to - pay a fee for music every month, as discussed in the article. But those people aren't the ones stuck on moving to satellite. The digital sound isn't going to change those people's minds into saying "Gee, you know, my local station owned by media consolidator #3 sure sounds much clearer now, and even though they play the same 11 songs every hour and have 15-20 minutes of commercials I think I'm going to stick with them and not move to satellite radio."

So while HD radio competes on a technical level, it's still apples and oranges in this particular case. Change the way broadcast radio does business, and perhaps people will toe the line a little further. Even the commercials might not eventually be the problem - it's the amount of songs that stations are playing. And when the "competition" is just a button a way on your car's receiver, why would people stick to their local pop station when they can hear eight stations within the genre?

Well, it's not on time like Rox always is, but it'll do.

The rules? Set your mp3 player to shuffle and post the first ten songs to pop up.

1. "In and Out" - Crispy
2. "After School Special" - Jurassic 5
3. "Keepin' It Gangsta" - Fabolous
4. "Things Can Only Get Better" - Howard Jones
5. "Cruel Summer" - Bananarama
6. "They Want Efx" - Das Efx
7. "No Ordinary Love" - Sade
8. "Out Of the Blue" - System F
9. "More and More" - Captain Hollywood Project
10. "My Favourite Game" - The Cardigans

In June, News Corporation's DirecTV announced plans to make up for expected customer losses in rural areas of the U.S. by changing the way they do business in those markets. On Tuesday, DirecTV purchased the business that had been handling accounts in these areas, Pegasus Communications. Oligopoly Watch's Steve Hannaford details the move, and gives some background to what News Corp. might be doing next with their various business structure. Keep in mind that the Australian-based company is currently reincorporating in the States, so other purchases or sales of business units shouldn't be surprising.

On Thursday, the Cox family members looking to take Cox Communications private were informed that 9 lawsuits had been filed against them by shareholder groups. The gist is that the Cox family doesn't have the best intentions of the shareholders in mind, according to those affected.

According to this AP report, "shock jocks" Opie & Anthony will be appearing on XM satellite radio this October. Hearing them won't be cheap though - the story states that XM listeners will have to pay $2/month to hear their show.

Over at PaidContent.org, Rafat Ali offers his thoughts on how news sites should be doing things when crediting bloggers for a scoop.

According to a press release by Twentieth Century Fox on Friday, the studio has come to an agreement with online auction site eBay where site visitors would have access to "Alien vs. Predator" trailers, downloadable wallpapers and images, and more. In addition, eBay users will have the ability to "skin" their listings on the auction site, and exclusive items related to the movie (props, numbered posters) would be up for sale.

Gary Dillabough, vice president of eBay Strategic Partnerships said that "This agreement with Fox represents the first of its kind advertising sponsorship by an entertainment company on eBay." The "AVP" site is one of four Fox films that will be featured on co-marketed sites. The others are "I, Robot," and the upcoming "Taxi" and "Fat Albert" films, planned to be released between now and the end of 2004. (BW)

At lunch this afternoon, 92.3 K-Rock out of New York City was playing "Kitty" by the Presidents of the U.S.A. It's kind of an amusing song, and not one that I can say I've ever heard on the radio.

All I can say is K-Rock gets props for playing the whole thing, unedited - because if you read the lyrics, you'll see that there's some repetition of a certain word that is public enemy #1 when it comes to fines. Viacom earns big points on this one - though I'm sure that Sumner Redstone didn't call in the request himself.

Thursday's Globe and Mail has an article by Rebecca Caldwell that offers positive feedback for the New York Times on its decision to serialize novels in its pages this Summer.

Last March, there was a bit of an uproar on the 'net about some propaganda that had made its way onto the television airwaves looking like a television newscast, and being portrayed as such. At that time, it was discovered that the person "on the street," Karen Ryan, wasn't a television reporter at all, but a PR person.

Now, Mike Mosedale at City Pages writes about the hiring of Cyndy Brucato at Minnesota's KSTP-TV as a news anchor. At first glance it doesn't seem to be an issue at all - Brucato had worked at the station for five years in the early/mid 1980's, and had spent a few years in various reporting functions before that. The concern lies with the work she had done since leaving television in 1986 to enter the world of politics. Mosedale details the roles she has held, and clarifies that ex-politicos have moved on into news and reporting in the past - Tim Russert and Jeff Greenfield, to name a few. But those individuals never held a PR role in politics, which has raised a few eyebrows. Brucato claims that she will clarify to viewers whenever there is a potential conflict of interest - recusing herself from such stories might be a better idea, one might think. While Brucato seems to have left the daily work of her PR firm to her colleagues, she still holds a government position on the Minnesota Board on Judicial Standards - which isn't mentioned in her KSTP bio.

[Thanks to Alice Marshall for the link]

Elizabeth Green at the Washington Times covers a recent move by Quiznos Subs to implement something called a "no-urban dictate," wherein the advertiser tells its ad buying agency that it does not want to have its wares marketed on "urban" radio stations. Quiznos states that their research "showed that the company should not advertise on those stations," and they are standing behind their decision.

Hey, it's up to anyone to decide where you do or do not want to advertise, but it's kind of funny that this would happen when there are absolutely Quiznos locations in the markets where the "urban" radio stations broadcast into. Obviously there are other stations servicing those areas, but after seeing that this isn't that uncommon a practice, it doesn't look like too positive a move. As a former media buyer (yes, I'll stop saying that eventually), I always took the tactic of advertising in the medium (print or otherwise) that would bring a particular group or groups to use my company's product. Though advertising is not a perfect science, and one might argue that ads don't necessarily affect all parties in a market (which is true), it does seem a little strange if these are the only changes that Quiznos has made in these markets.

Reuters reports Thursday that the parent company of the Dallas Morning News, Belo Corporation, has announced "an overstatement in circulation, primarily in single-copy sales," at the paper, according to this article on HoustonChronicle.com. This is yet another major U.S. market to have a daily with overstated circulation in the last few months.

The rash of circulation figures being restated in these publications is definitely a cause for alarm, but the question remains - will this be as much of a cause for public outcry as the Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley integrity issues? Now we shouldn't assume that people will immediately put down their newspapers because they are upset about circulation figures being overstated, but if this trend continues, it might just carry over to people's attitudes towards the newspapers involved. And that hurts everyone, journalists included.

Earlier this year, rapper Jamal "Shyne" Barrow signed on to Def Jam's newest sub-label, Gangland - which the artist had put together for himself as part of his deal. Shyne's newest album, due August 10, is entitled "godfather buried alive," was created while he has been in prison on a gun charge stemming from a 1999 incident involving Sean "Puffy" Combs and Jennifer Lopez. Sure, he's in jail - but that's not the most interesting thing - over the commercial, the announcer says "Shyne - godfather buried alive - in stores August 10 on gangland albums, cds, mp3s and cassettes."

And no, it's not that they're still making cassettes (who knew?), it's the mp3s. Has a label ever promoted the release of an album on mp3 before?

Over at MediaChannel.org, Rory O'Connor has a new piece about Paul Krugman. Discussed are how the "right" portrays him to the public at large and the author and columnist's thoughts on the state of media and journalism.

Recently, the Sci Fi network ran what was advertised as the biography of director M. Night Shyamalan. What people actually saw turned out to be nothing more than a publicity stunt, PRWeek's Keith O'Brien reports. Conveniently, Shyamalan's newest flick, "The Village" was coming out around the same time as the ads for this show were running.

If you happened to see the commercials for the "biography," you might have thought it was somewhat nonsensical, but it was never explicity described that way. So it's no surprise that viewers and the media were ticked off.

The Associated Press reports Thursday that Liberty Group Publishing is up for sale. The company owns 325 newspapers and local publications in 15 states, including the Kansas City Kansan and the Chicago Suburban Newspapers group.

It's been brought to my attention that the Google AdSense ad that appeared to be bypassing the rules about promoting clickthroughs may be legitimate. As far as one can tell, the ad is being served up by a network that Drudge has a deal with. Unfortunately, it is coming up right above where Drudge has always asked people to "support the advertisers." It's not a total pass, but at the very least the ad is now in a place where other ads have run before.

In response to a a study put together by The Poynter Institute, Tim Porter asks "Why do organizations spend money to determine something that is already known?" The study, which resulted in an announcement that the bulk of journalists want - and need - additional training to improve their abilities. Unfortunately, Porter says, this information is "well documented," adding that Poynter could have brought some new value to previous reports on the same issue.

Mark Glaser at The Online Journalism Review writes about some ways through which the media - and PR people - are getting in touch with bloggers to pitch stories. It's not just press releases, either. Buzz Machine's Jeff Jarvis, Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion, Lost Remote's Cory Bergman and yours truly are some of those quoted in the piece.

[Thanks to Steve Rubel for pointing out that this article was live.]

USA Today's Gary Levin comments on the recent success of dramatic programming on cable networks. This should serve as a stark reminder of what could have been for the broadcast networks.

Over at Wired, Daniel Terdiman writes about the rash of pr0n-related blog*spot sites that have been created by CyberQuest, a group who managed to move these blogs up in Google's rankings very quickly by using two different methods - through commonly searched terms in their titles and cross linking the blogs to one another - a lot.

What Terdiman didn't mention is the massive amount of comment spam done by a group which is either related to, or done by copycats of, CyberQuest. This was discussed here on July 9 after a rash of blog*spot titled blogs were seen in comment spam all over the 'net.

Rafat Ali posts about the increase in revenues at spoken-word content provider Audible in the second quarter of 2004. The highlights: 82% year-over-year revenue growth for the quarter, and a net income of $237K.

On Tuesday, MTV put forth its "First Ever Reality Awards" show for all to see. Not necessarily my cup of tea, but probably amusing for a lot of people. Then again, as Media Life's Marisa Hoheb points out, perhaps it wasn't as big a scream as MTV might have hoped. The reason? Well, outside of being the "reality" awards - it was only awards for "reality" shows that were broadcast on MTV. No "Best Vomiting" award to a "Fear Factor" contestant, no "Most Hookups" award to any number of folks. Just M-T-V content. Hoo boy, this is what the world has come to. It's bad enough that MTV's original channel has actually become the place to go not to see music television, but now they're patting their own "reality" show folks on the back?

So while we're on this "reality" discussion, let's move in another direction. Don't we think it's time that the term "reality" needs to be removed from discussing the shows? Sure, some of them are based in reality, and some might not even have any scripting at all (though I'm skeptical about that). But in what "reality" are seven completely different people put in a brand-spanking new apartment/house/condo (okay, some are only re-done all nice) and forced to live with one another for six months or whatever?

Shows like the aforementioned "Fear Factor" or CBS' "Amazing Race" aren't "reality shows" - they're game shows. The type of programming that has been on television forever. It's kind of funny, because we went away from having a bunch of game shows on television - prime time or otherwise - save "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune" and the most recent "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" and "Weakest Link," only to return to that years later. There used to be many more on television, especially in the morning hours after the daily breakfast staples on the networks - then they drifted away slowly.

Producers and television folks sit there and go on and on about how these are "real" shows and that there is no involvement by the people putting the programs together - but stories like this one about Donald Trump's "Apprentice" show aren't uncommon. Game shows are scripted to some point - you create games or situations for people to figure out, but you know the "answer" on the other end. In this same fashion, producers know what kind of reaction they want to see, and they choose contestants and create situations accordingly. I'd say what would be considered "game shows" now takes up a significant portion of our current television schedule. So outside of the ones that are "game-related," we have some that I would like to re-title as "Situational Reality" or something like that.

Latest case in point: "The Casino"

If you didn't see the show, then definitely read this summary. The gist of it was that this single girl from Oregon is going to Las Vegas to "start a new life" or whatever. She shows up at the casino and marches right up to the owners, asking for a job. The best part? While she's driving through the desert, a helicopter shot provides a view of an obviously dressed up for television woman in her Jeep on her way. Umm, if she showed up randomly from Oregon, you've either a) done what is called a dramatization. Watch "Unsolved Mysteries" a few times, and perhaps it'll become clearer - but then you'll have to put "Dramatization" in the corner of the screen; or b) scripted the whole thing.

My favorite comment in the writeup is this one "Folks, this is not a reality show. This is not a scripted reality show. It is just scripted!" I think VH1's "Best Week Ever" even did a small item on this a week or so ago - when the woman walked into the casino bar to meet the owners, the commenting panelist was wondering how she 'conveniently' knew just who the casino owners were just after walking in, saying "Hey, you have a camera crew? I have a camera crew too, that's so cool!"

So yes, I know it's just semantics, but to be honest - none of these shows seem to be clean and simple and "real" at all. The situations are way too convenient, like MTV's "Real World" always choosing one or two people who will get controversial and throwing them on. If you want real, just grab seven people off New York's Houston Street at 5pm on a Friday, drag them to your loft apartment that is furnished with furniture people can actually afford, make them responsible for the rent for the next two days, and see what happens. That's reality television.

CNN's Kathleen Kingsbury and Michael Coren report on the growth of satellite radio in the U.S., including comments from one XM customer who "could not turn it off."

Related: XM and Starbucks have teamed up to offer the "Starbucks Hear Music" station on the radio network starting in 2005, Brandweek reports.

Longtime New York Mets radio announcer Bob Murphy, who was a part of the broadcast team when the Mets were formed in 1962, has passed away. No further details as of yet online, as this was just announced on WFAN, the station the team is broadcast on.

Eun Lee Koh of the Boston Globe covers a story that will continue to gain popularity as the television age continues to grow - product placement. Sure, product placement has been happening for years - but in recent times, companies are looking for different mediums through which they can show their brand. Combine that with the ability to skip commercials using PVR/DVR technology, and television programmers are in need of an additional revenue stream to supplement what could become falling advertising rates.

I've seen various statistics and methodologies thrown around before that claim to measure product placement, but not a company or group who put together a product or service line to do so going forward. Virtual Media Resources out of Massachusetts is one of the companies that does just that - their staffers are currently viewing prime-time television programs and keeping track of brands that make their way on-screen as part of their Brand AirTime service.

Craig Ross, one of VMR's principals, told The Media Drop that the Brand AirTime service is useful for networks, advertising agencies, and companies interested in broadening the reach of their brand. Ross states that the long-term goal for this service is to create a widely-accepted industry standard for measurement of product placement in television programming. Great idea. This would create a level playing field for advertisers and program creators to have a rate card for placements, instead of the current, seemingly random, way of applying a value to airtime or product use in television shows.

Over at Jason Calacanis' weblog, a pretty big debate is going on over the news that some of the links on Fark have been paid for to be included along with the daily submissions. It looks like others may have known about this earlier, but Jason only found out because he was looking to advertise on the site, and was being offered the "featured content" for a few hundred dollars as a better way to get included and have a successful campaign. And he's the first person to talk about this publicly. I'd never heard a peep about this, and don't see the word "paid" next to any links.

[update] Clay Shirky chips in on the topic. Thanks to Waxy.org for the tip.

On Sunday, it was announced that New York cable television provider Cablevision had its Fox Sports Net and MSG channels taken off of the Time Warner Cable lineup because of a contract dispute. Newsday quoted Time Warner's spokesperson Keith Cocozza as saying that "Cablevision should grant us an extension to carry the channels and come back to the negotiating table." I've been reading elsewhere that Time Warner is more than happy to offer the channels at this time before a new contract is signed as a service to their customers. Obviously this gives them the ability to "look good" in the eyes of consumers, but it would definitely do the same for Cablevision if they allowed this.

Instead, Cablevision has gone on the warpath, it seems. This morning, I heard an advertisement that didn't mention the company, only Time Warner's name. The ad said that Time Warner had "pulled the plug" and should stop being anti-consumer and put the channels back on the air for the fans of the Mets, Rangers, Nets, etc. This probably won't last long enough that the latter two teams will be off the air, but the Mets have a game Tuesday evening that doesn't look like it'll make the television at this time. The Newsday article from Sunday clearly states that "Cablevision repeatedly warned Time Warner Cable that transmitting the channels, which also carry the Knicks and Rangers and other local teams, without a new contract would violate copyright laws." Time Warner responds with a statement that "Cablevision is sticking to unreasonable demands for programming that has diminished in value over time."

So who's being anti-consumer here? Both of them. Cablevision needs to get off its high horse just as much as all other parties in this situation and stop acting like they're the "good guys" here. This truly isn't a surprise, after Cablevision and the New York Yankee-owned YES Network had a standoff of around a year, with Cablevision customers not seeing the Yankees on television at all when they weren't broadcast on FOX or CBS. I can't guarantee, 100%, that Cablevision is paying for these particular advertisements, but the script certainly sounds like it came out of the company's mouth.

I contacted both companies via email Tuesday morning, and have received a response from Time Warner so far. Their respresentative, Suzanne Giuliani, tells TMD that "We would love an extension so we can bring our customers the games while we continue to negotiate. It's pretty standard practice to do that."

[update: 11:34pm] Just watched the CBS 2 news out of New York City - they reported that Time Warner Cable "refused to air" the New York Mets game this evening - which, from all accounts I have found, doesn't seem to be the case.

Tacking on to last week's antics with the use of a photograph taken by Tom Tomorrow on the Drudge Report website, another development has come about. Rules still don't seem to apply for the webslinger.

This time, Drudge has begun offering Google's AdSense advertising on his site, on the left hand side. (see image) That's all well and good, and he probably has a pretty good clickthrough rate. Unfortunately, one of the major rules of the AdSense rules is: Don't talk about AdSense....errr, don't tell people to click your ads. (Sorry, Tyler Durden flashback) Specifically, you cannot provide the following:

Incentives

Web pages may not include incentives of any kind for users to click on ads. This includes encouraging users to click on the ads or to visit the advertisers' sites as well as drawing any undue attention to the ads. This activity is strictly prohibited in order to avoid potential inflation of advertiser costs. For example, your site cannot contain phrases such as "click here," "support us," "visit these links," or other similar language that could apply to any ad, regardless of content.

I'd have to say that "Support The DrudgeReport; Visit Our Advertisers" would probably qualify as violating this policy, wouldn't you? Also, not sure if that semicolon is the correct grammar - you might want to look into that.

I've been using Google's Gmail product for a while now, and I'm pretty pleased with it. Once you get used to the "conversation" style of looking at your emails, it definitely changes the way you look at threads. After a few weeks of being a little bogged down, it seems to be sending/receiving very fast, and I like how it automatically adds email addresses that you type in into the "data" it stores.

I only have two suggestions at this point - when opening an email, there should be a Reply button at the top of it. Sometimes messages scroll just barely below the bottom of the screen, and you have to scroll to get to it - most people are used to having a button at the top of their menu/screen, or at least on the side. The second thing is a "draft" bin. I've had tons of times where I would love to toss something to finish later but can't. And with a webmail client, there comes a point where you'd need it, especially if your connectivity is a little sketchy or you're on the road.

Just my two cents. Otherwise, I'm very happy about the service.

Steve Rubel has the scoop on the Topix.net changes that went live today. If you haven't used this news aggregator, now might be a good time to start. The navigation is significantly better on the left-hand side, and the way content is being sorted/filtered has definitely improved.

Hollywood Reporter covers the announcement by Moviefone about MovieTickets.com taking over the ticket sales portion of its business.

Reuters' John Stempel reports Monday that the privately held Cox Enterprises, owners of almost two-thirds of the shares of Cox Communications, Inc., has offered $7.9 billion to purchase the remaining portion of the cable company.

On Sunday, Newsday's Harry Berkowitz and Steve Zipay covered the battle going on between New York cable television providers Time Warner Cable and Cablevision. Cablevision is the owner of Fox Sports Net and the MSG channel, the latter of which broadcasts many New York Mets games. The two cable companies are at odds over a new contract for Time Warner's pickup of the sports channels, and Cablevision forced Time Warner to shut off the channels at midnight on Saturday.

At the root of this problem is the ownership of programming that is of interest to people in a market, in this case - sports coverage.

[via I Want Media]

On Friday, the Associated Press reported that the Chicago Sun-Times dropped its official circulation figures 23% after confirmation in June that the paper had been overstating its numbers for some time.

LGF's Charles Johnson posts about what he claims is the Associated Press' "PC Blindfold" - not mentioning Muslims or Islam in an article describing suicide bombings on Friday in Uzbekistan. The article he links to doesn't carry the text he includes anymore, but the Yahoo!-carried story may have been updated since its original posting.

Though the story does state that the group was "allegedly linked to al-Qaida," this doesn't seem to be specific enough. I searched around for a good portion of the text of the article Johnson linked to, just to see if it looked different in various places. I found a few articles that seem to contain additional differences from the original, including items at the Sacramento Bee, the Moscow Times, ABC News, AZCentral.com, and others. Many of these articles do reference "Muslims" or some related terms. In fact, if you look around enough, you'll find multiple versions of the same article - some were obviously edited for space, etc - which, if you do any basic research on how newspaper articles are put together, you'll learn that many, many times details are put into an article that don't make it past the editor's desk. That's why the "Tell them what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them about what you told them." rule is in effect when writing an article.

In a related story, the top item on the FOXNews.com website on Sunday contains exactly zero references to "Islam" or "Muslims." The report, if you haven't read it already, describes an announcement that the 'chatter' from al Qaeda seems to offer details on very specific threats towards financial institutions and buildings in the New York/New Jersey area as well as Washington, D.C. The article was put together by Kelly Wright and Anna Stolley of Fox, plus the Associated Press.

Blindfold, indeed.