Category Archives: Media

Chicago newspapers, television and radio plus movies and TV

Today in “Questionable Use of Newsroom Resources in 2013”

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You’re The Washington Post. In the past year you’ve made headlines on all the news/media blogs about an incident where a young blogger you employed passed along an inflammatory rumor as fact in one post, which damaged your reputation for truth and reporting, and poorly attributed information in another, which led to cries of plagiarism. You end up firing her. In the post-mortem, there’s a lot of talk about the value of grindhouse blogging and how it contributes to errors like this. There’s also speculation as to whether the Washington Post can adequately support such an operation.

So obviously when you’re planning on hiring an arts and style blogger a year later you pretty much structure the job with exactly the same kind of pressures that led you to fire the other blogger in the first place.

“This blogger should be able to identify trends, cutting through the noise of the Internet to bring context and perspective to a Washington audience…We envision at least a dozen pieces of content per day, with the knowledge that one great sentence can equal one great post.”

Please cut through the noise of the Internet…and publish more noise. One great sentence can be a great thought – or a great tweet, at least – and be a thing of value but it hardly leaves room for context and perspective. And the suggested topics aren’t exactly ones that cry out for more words, particularly from the Washington Post.

Objections were made to the job posting and a writer from Slate objected to all the objections saying it was a great job because it was how he got his start at New York mag’s Vulture blog back in 2007.

Yes, this would be a great job if it wasn’t at the Washington Post and you were working at a startup where the expectations are different. And maybe if this was 2007.

Not only is the Washington Post ignoring what happened last year but it’s also pretending that there aren’t countless other blogs that do this sort of thing, do it better and do it without the ethical missteps. (Vulture, for one!) Why not task a writer with 3-4 pieces per day of varying length which strike a balance between aggregation, original reporting and analysis? It would be different enough, likely offer more value and be the kind of thing that breaks through the noise.  Locally, the Chicago Tribune‘s Eric Zorn and Chicago magazine’s Whet Moser produce great work in this vein and are duly recognized for elevating the conversation.

Not that I’m saying longer pieces are always the best idea. For example, an editor assigning one of its lead feature writers 1000+ words on (the midway point of?) the search for a new host of a popular public television show might not be the best use of constrained newsroom resources. How much more of a competitive advantage does that get you when you know all your competitors can write around the nut of the story by putting far fewer resources into it? Especially when the nut of the story comes down to little more than an audience data capture effort by the show* and is “influential but non-binding” according to the show’s producer?

In that case, one good sentence would have sufficed.

* Really? You need a street address for a vote? Sure you do.

You can’t have one without the other

Media

“…the community that sustained the Phoenix has passed from the scene. At one time the Boston area was awash in concert venues, record stores, guitar emporiums, independent book stores, head shops — the kinds of businesses that reached their customers by advertising in alternative weeklies. Now they are almost entirely gone. There was very little to offset the costs of producing a free magazine and a free website. Its no wonder that Mindich personally had to subsidize the Phoenix to the tune of $30,000 a week, according to a report in Boston magazine.

via MediaShift . How the Boston Phoenix Kept Its Readers But Lost Its Advertisers | PBS.

How publishers will live after the death of display advertising

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My friend Mike Fourcher, new media entrepreneur and erstwhile publisher of Center Square Journal, has a smart post on his blog about the death of the Boston Phoenix and Google Reader. Mike argues these two events further illustrate the death knell ringing for display advertising as readers become less passive and information becomes more readily available.

What’s the solution? Mike says:

The rest of the publishing world, especially start-up operations that lack a strong brand and ad sales team to support them (i.e. non- Condé Nast/Gawker/Disney/Tribune), will need to build their revenue plans around active reader interactions. Subscriptions are an obvious path, but so are ticketed events, survey participation and merely attending free events sponsored by publications. We will have to consciously choose to support publications either with our wallets, our feet or our data.

Three things I thought about after reading the above, most of which have more to do with larger brands/publishers than startups:

First, events are great but they should be more than “come meet the writer” or quasi-TED gatherings. The Chicago Tribune has a two-tiered approach that grew out of its Trib Nation community engagement. Not only do they hold events with columnists and primary sources but they also offer classes on how to build your own blog or how to find ways to pay for college. At its core, the Tribune is using the resources and people it has to offer something of value beyond a news product.

Along those lines, publishers have an opportunity to disrupt the traditional ad production model by providing more creative ad services for clients. These services include print and display ad production, experiential/event opportunities and branded/native content creation published on their owned sites. In the last year, a few digital publishers have experimented with the latter but traditional print publishers have lagged behind in part because of the structural and ethical considerations (exceptions are The Atlantic and The Economist though the former found itself tripped by a bit). Most publishers create sales and marketing staffs based on selling ads, not around the idea of a mini-agency within a publisher. As for the ethics, Time Out Chicago‘s Frank Sennett published a set of guidelines for sponsored/native content and I’ve yet to see anyone present a smarter argument for how to handle this.

Lastly, though display advertising as it exists now is still dying, advertisers will still look for branding awareness and agencies will still look for impressions, at least in the near-term. Publishers will need to provide other products – print and digital – that provide both. While sponsored content guides as inserts in your daily newspaper or weekly magazine are one possibility (and allow for an arm’s length between the primary product and the advertorial), the “presented by” types of placements found in apps and tablet products are another more traditional placement.

For roughly a year* before I left Chicago magazine, I spearheaded the launch two apps: a “best of” dining and drinking app for smartphones and a newsreader/digital magazine app for tablets. As you can see, the mobile app not only offers sponsor placement but also a spot for the client’s own branded content – distinct from the editorial (“Ketel One Guide to Drinking in Chicago”). Both the tablet app and the smartphone app had sponsor logo placement on the splash screen too and the client received a co-branded presence in any of the promotion ads for the apps that ran in ads in Chicago magazine, on the website and in other Tribune publications.

If I were doing the project again now, I’d argue for creating a co-branded, mobile-friendly microsite within Chicago magazine’s larger .com.  The dining and drinking content would be complimented by daily content and lists at the forefront. Sponsor placement would run throughout the site and perhaps even geotarget so users could find, say, bars near them that serves the client’s products.

All of this involves what Mike said above: getting beyond the products from the newsroom or the ads that traditionally supported it and finding the value elsewhere in the building or in new product forms.

* Admittedly, this should not have taken a year but that’s a story for another time.

If a hostage situation happens in Alabama, does it make a sound?

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My friend Marcus Gilmer has a thought-provoking piece over at the Sun-Times about the recent hostage situation in an Alabama bunker and the puzzling lack of wall-to-wall coverage:

It’s a tense, dramatic story, one that seems like it would captivate a nation just as it was captivated by stories like a girl who fell down a well. Had it happened in a large city – New York, Dallas, even, God forbid, Chicago – the coverage would be constant, a 24-hour surveillance with every media outlet descending on the city. A story that touches on all the socio-political hot points in the wake of the Newtown tragedy – gun control, safety of school children, mental health – would surely draw nation-wide, if not world-wide, attention.

But it didn’t.

The above story really happened and, for the entire week the crisis lasted, few Americans were aware of it at all.

Marcus’s point isn’t that there wasn’t any coverage of the story, just that the level of coverage is surprisingly low considering how many national flashpoints the story contained.

His contention – borne out of a firsthand knowledge of Alabama that comes from living there and then later seeing how outsiders cover the state – is that too many dismissed the story as one about “some crazy redneck” and didn’t recognize the underlying issues.

For my part, I saw near-daily coverage of the story in the beginning then it seemed to drop off for a couple days before ramping back up again. Even before reading Marcus’s piece – and you should read the whole thing because it’s smart – I thought the lack of blanket coverage might have to do with two notions:

* Putting the full-court press on a story like this with Nancy Grace calling for the kidnapper’s head and asking why authorities weren’t storming the bunker with guns blazing is the last thing you want to do when a guy is holding a kid hostage. The more pressure he feels, the more hopeless his situation is, the more likely the standoff will end in violence. Rampant media coverage is just the kind of environment to encourage that.

* We may finally be figuring out that creating anti-folk heroes out of mass shooters is encouraging more mass shooters as this video from 2009 describes:

Now, Marcus does acknowledge all this here:

One of the main reason little was said on-air about the crisis, particularly by local outlets, was at the request of local authorities because the kidnapper – Jimmy Lee Dykes – had a television in his bunker and could monitor coverage.

Admittedly, it seems a stretch to say the collective national media has suddenly grown a conscience after Newtown – especially after it made so many mistakes in its early coverage. But as others have said, Newtown changed the conversation – about gun control, perhaps about mental illness and maybe about media coverage. Still, with a life in the balance it may have been a bridge too far, too soon for the 24-hour punditry.

Whether it was a geographical bias or a new awareness of how  to cover violence, Marcus’s final points are irrefutable:

We as a nation have to be willing to face all of theses stories – Hadiya and Midland, an Oklahoma student’s suicide and gang problems in New Orleans – before we can hope for any meaningful change. Ignoring any aspect of this only hinders our ability to come to terms with what’s happening.

[SNIP]

For now, though, two men are dead – one an innocent man who tried to protect his charges and the other a kidnapper who met his end holed up in a bunker. All we can do is be thankful that the young boy, identified only as “Ethan,” has survived to celebrate his 6th birthday tomorrow, and continue to push the issue, to push for resolution, and to push our nation to have what will be a painful conversation but one that must be had. And we all have to accept responsibility in making that happen.

OMIC roundup: Taken 2 edition

Comics, Fatherhood, Internet, Media, Music, Politics

Have felt somewhat creatively bereft this week so here’s a roundup on the topics this site’s most often devoted to:

Comics: Part of me still wants to reserve judgment on The Superior Spider-Man, the new Marvel title arriving in the wake of Amazing Spider-Man #700; a story arc in comics can’t be judged from one issue. But all my concerns about this new direction seem to have come to bear and a new one’s risen: the idea that Doc Ock is burdened with responsibility is jettisoned for a literal deus ex machina. I won’t spoil it here but if you thought Peter’s death lacked weight before… *

The other Marvel relaunch I checked out recently was Fantastic Four. I really liked where Hickman was going in the previous series so a Reed who charges ahead without considering his family first – or bringing him into his plan – is a step back. Again, we’ll see.

All this was enough to make me pick up last year’s Spider-Men crossover, which was excellent and touching and therefore recommended.

Fatherhood: Last night I watched Taken 2 while I assembled a small pastel table and chairs for Abigail – a gift from her grandmother. I’m sure many fathers mentally see themselves as Liam Neeson, willing to do whatever it takes to save their families from enemies both foreign and domestic. Let’s be honest though: Most of the time fatherhood means assembling a pastel table and chairs at 11pm on a Saturday night while you drink scotch, eat beef jerky and watch Taken 2. I am perfectly fine with this.

Internet: This video of a Fisher-Price record player spinning a bootleg “Stairway to Heaven” blew my mind.

Here’s the backstory (via @SennettReport).

Media: Alpana Singh is leaving Check, Please so the show is looking for a new host. This sentence from a report on the move caught my attention:

“The station hopes Singh will continue to appear occasionally on Chicago Tonight, WTTW’s nightly newsmagazine, where she answers viewers’ wine and beverage questions posed by host Phil Ponce in the “Ask Alpana” segment.”

Hopes? Has there not been a conversation about this yet? Is this high school? “Yeah, I know we’re broken up and everything but I’m really hoping we can still be lab partners without there being all kinds of weird vibes. I mean, she didn’t say we couldn’t so I’m sure everything will be cool. We’re adults, you know?”

Music: I’ve found Townes Van Zandt’s Live at the Old Quarter, especially “Two Girls,” to be revelatory. You ever hear something for the first time but find yourself able to sing along with it? I’d also recommend a listen to Taj Mahal’s “She Caught The Katy” if only to hear how much the Blues Brothers version nicked from it.

Politics: With so many problems facing Illinois, the possibility that the governor’s race will become Daleys vs. Madigans is profoundly depressing.

* If you don’t mind spoilers, this AV Club summary gives you the gist.

Collecting a few old things

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I spent the better part of the afternoon rounding up many of the media appearances and live readings I’ve done in the last seven years: WBEZ spots, Paper Machete readings and even a Chicago Tonight back in 2010. A few are missing because I haven’t had time to track down the audio –  the glorious fun I’ve had doing You, Me, Them, Everybody and the quick shots at 20×2, specifically. Eventually, I hope to add them all.

Doing so meant I finally got around to posting a couple old bits. First is “You’re Only Old Once,” an essay I performed at Tuesday Funk, my friend Bill Shunn‘s reading series at Hopleaf. I tend to do more personal pieces there and this one about approaching middle-age had been kicking around in my head for a little while.

Then there’s “Mark Wahlberg Hates America.” Claire Zulkey‘s Funny Ha-Ha was an occasion for me to go all out so I used a startling amount of vulgarity and then rapped a little. It’s definitely one of those pieces that’s better performed than read, which is why I hesitated to post it at all, but it’s also one of my favorites because it’s so ridiculous.

A disproportional response

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Why hasn’t there been any kind of privately funded, outside investigation into the alleged sexual assaults committed by members of the football team? Why was there no private, outside investigation into Coach Brian Kelly’s role in the death of team videographer Declan Sullivan? It says so much that Te’o’s bizarre soap opera has moved Swarbrick to openly weeping but he hasn’t spared one tear, let alone held one press conference, for Lizzy Seeberg, the young woman who took her own life after coming forward with allegations that a member of the team sexually assaulted her. Swarbrick’s press conference displayed that the problem at Notre Dame is not just football players without a compass; it’s the adults without a conscience. Their credo isn’t any kind of desire for truth or justice. Instead it seems to be little more than a constant effort to protect the Fighting Irish brand, no matter who gets hurt.

via Crying for Manti Teo | The Nation

Mainstream sports media bears some responsibility for the propagation of the  Te’o story and plenty for the lack of coverage of Seeberg’s story. Read Marcus Gilmer’s post on the latter.

Also worth noting is something my wife said last night: The Te’o myth is the kind of news product that comes from publications that trim copy editors and fact-checkers.

What heckling really means

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I don’t envy what Patton Oswalt had to do at one of the best comedy shows I’ve ever seen.

[SNIP]

He was dealing with a very vocal heckler in the front row, and her extremely polite friend. This boorish annoying person had a gravely voice and a sharp temper, like she was the female equivalent of Frank from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. She shouted things that made absolutely no sense, constantly. Patton dubbed her, “Snagglepuss.

[SNIP]

“Fuck you,” shouted Snagglepuss, to which Patton remained adroit and shut her down. This repeated until Snagglepuss stormed off. The crowd cheered. Patton was our hero. It was hilarious.

You know what else was hilarious? When that guy vomited over the balcony at the Broadway production of Grace.I see virtually no difference between those two stories.

via Steve Heisler – The Chicago Tribune apparently thinks it’s okay to heckle comedians because…wait, what?

Please read Steve’s full post, a response to this wrong-headed defense of heckling in the Chicago Tribune by two critics whose work is otherwise thoughtful and considered. Steve dismantles each of their arguments, piece by piece. It’s a well-informed discussion of comedy from someone who’s been a comedian, critic and comedy producer.

My take? The Trib piece rests on redefining stand-up comedy as audience-participation improv. If you have to re-contextualize the art you’re criticizing then you’re no longer offering a criticism of that art. (“Hey, what if we wrote a defense of heckling?” “That’s so crazy, it just might work!”) It reads more like a creative exercise or editor’s folly than a serious examination of heckling.

 

Metropolitan

Now playing: Stone Roses and a Metropolitan

Media, Music,

This year, I’m trying to fill some holes in my musical knowledge by listening to some artists and albums that have escaped my ears in full. To do this without breaking the bank but still feel like I’m financially supporting good music, I bought a Spotify Premium membership. The streaming quality and selection are excellent. For the amount of listening I intend to do, it’s a steal at $10 a month.

I’m planning on buying the individual albums that most strike my fancy and The Stone Roses first album will be one I want to have on hand. As someone who likes music and owns hundreds of CDs and albums, it’s embarrassing to me I’ve never heard more than a couple songs off this album.* It is as good as everyone says it is but far more joyous, poppy (Beach Boys influences abound) and groove-y than I expected though offset by a quiet darkness. Listening to this album felt like meeting someone for the first time and instantly becoming best friends with him. I don’t have much else to add to all the critical accolades thrown its way so I’ll just say if you ever thought about tracking it down, do it.

MetropolitanErin and I were at the home our friends the Chibes this weekend. While Russ is mostly known for his beer knowledge, he mixes up some fine cocktails as well. He served us something like a Manhattan but with brandy instead of bourbon, which inspired me to whip up a Metropolitan but with Courvoisier instead of brandy because that’s what we had on hand as my wife puts together a mean cognac-marinated beef tenderloin for Christmas. It’s sweeter than a Manhattan but still has a nice warmth to it. Instead of boiling the sugar on the stove, I shortcutted the simple syrup by boiling a little water in the microwave (maybe 1/3 cup) then dissolving the sugar in it. Manhattans are my preference but it’s nice to have a substitute until the Christmas cognac runs out.

* I was familiar with “I Wanna Be Adored,” of course, and “Fool’s Gold” is a song I know well as it was one of the songs in a category marked “X” at my college radio station. “X” songs were the extra-long songs you put on during your solo overnight shifts from 2am-7am as they offered a long break during which one could use the bathroom without as much fear of dead air greeting your return.