Tag Archives: stupidity

What’s wrong with being sexy?

Media, , , , , ,

As a media critic, I respect Robert Feder about as much as I respect anyone in the field; he and Phil Rosenthal are the best examples in Chicago of how it should be done. But this week, I think Feder’s trying to have it both ways in criticizing some local news personalities who appeared in an upcoming photo exhibition at a local art gallery.

Last week, in a post on his Vocalo blog, Robert Feder criticized a photo shoot that appeared in in Michigan Avenue magazine that featured local television anchors and reporters – Mark Suppelsa, Anne State and Anna Davlantes, among others – in “sexy photos.” The personalities in the pictures aren’t nude or even scantily clad. But they are sexy, in a well-scrubbed, preppy kind of way. Feder reported the photos are part of “they’re among 30 photos of local broadcasters…in “On TV/Off TV,” an exhibit opening Nov. 20 at Packer Schopf Gallery.”

Here’s the crux of Feder’s point in a post titled “Sexy photos expose TV news as a glamor game“:

“[The photos underscore] the willingness of these media people (and their approving bosses) to risk whatever journalistic credibility they have in order to ratchet up their Q scores and Nielsen ratings.”

But let’s be clear about what these pictures are: they’re part of a gallery’s photo exhibit, and were also printed in an upscale, local magazine that chronicles the social scene of Chicago. They weren’t created by the news organizations these people work for, nor were they primarily intended to be used by their PR flacks for publicity purposes.

I disagree with Feder’s take here, but I respect his opinion and the point he’s making: If you’re too sexy, you won’t be taken seriously in your chosen occupation. It’s a legitimate point of debate and Feder’s right to discuss it in a journalistic context, like his blog. But again, I disagree. And, not for nothing, but as editor of Playboy.com, I know a little about outward displays of sexuality.

From my point of view, a person’s sexuality is as much a part of who they are as their job. And expressing a confident, healthy, honest sexuality should be admired in the same way as one’s skill in the boardroom or the newsroom. This isn’t about forcing your sexuality on someone else or using it to make up for a lack of talent, this is about letting someone express their whole self in an appropriate context. (If you saw any of these folks in public dressed in the same outfits from their photo shoot, would you think it was inappropriate?)

Arguably, all the people in this photo shoot are talented, in-demand professionals. As if to underscore that point, one of the women in that shoot, Anna Devlantes was just signed to a new contract at Fox Chicago.

Feder broke the news of Davlantes’ move on his blog. But instead of using her standard head shot (something that, as a longtime media critic, Feder would have easy access to either from his files or after a quick phone call to her publicist), he went with…one of the “sexy” photos.

What gives? How can Feder criticize the sexing up of these news professionals while using use the same photos to sex up the visuals of his blog? Plus, Feder’s blog is a journalistic endeavor. If these photos do not add to the journalistic conext of these men and women, then why use them again here?

I tweeted about this, and Feder’s response (via Twitter) was: “From the editor of Playboy.com?” His point, I assume, was that I have no standing in this debate as Playboy engages in the sexing up of a person’s image on a daily basis. But as I said above, I think that’s exactly what makes me have some skin in this game, pun intended.

I sent a couple responses to him, essentially the same points I made above. Feder’s response was “Just because I question their judgment in shooting them doesn’t mean the sexy anchor photos shouldn’t be seen.”

Fair point. Again, Feder’s a journalist. He has a responsibility to discuss the images of news personalities in town and how it affects their jobs. But his initial post on the existence of the photos was last week, effectively putting the photos into the public eye. There was plenty of conversation about it, so it’s not like his post disappeared into the ether.

So I don’t understand his reuse of the photos in a different context. Either he’s trying to contribute to their supposed erosion of journalistic credibility through their continued use (which I doubt, the man’s a professional) or he’s just trying to sex up the visuals his blog about journalism. Nothing wrong with that, but if it’s not OK for local journalists to crank up the hotness, why is it OK for one of their chief critics’ blogs?

To reiterate: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being sexy, and I don’t think sexuality prevents a person from doing their job effectively. While there are perfectly valid counterarguments here, you can’t say sexuality has no place in journalism, while trying to…find a place for it in journalism.

UPDATE: Michigan Avenue has additional photos online (h/t Gapers Block).

Mayor Daley apologizes for something he didn’t do

Politics, , , ,

“Even if privatizing the parking meters was the best alternative, the key issue would be whether the administration, starting with Mayor Daley, followed a process to ensure that the most qualified people available conducted the most sophisticated analysis possible to come up with the best agreement for taxpayers.

Mayor Daley has yet to tell his constituents that this happened. And it’s going to be hard for him to do so, because all evidence available suggests that it didn’t.”

– Mick Dumke “Mayor Daley is sorry that we don’t like the parking meter deal“, chicagoreader.com

What’s always struck me about the Mayor is that even people who don’t like his policies say they come away with positive feelings about him after they have a personal encounter with him. (I’m one of those people.) I think that’s why so many folks roll over for the guy, particularly reporters. Glad Dumke is more clear-eyed than the rest of us.

Apparently, I am the reason why Lady Gaga is blonde now

Music, , ,

Over the weekend, my sister called me and said that E! Online was reporting that Lady Gaga said she changed her look from brunette to blonde because she was once mistaken for Amy Winehouse. I found the same story in The UK Sun this week.

Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But this is what Lady GaGa used to look like:

I think it would be easy to mistake her for Amy Winehouse, especially if she was sporting a makeup job similar to Winehouse. In fact, I know it would be…

Because I did.

Here’s what happened, excerpted from my original post about a 2007 Lollapalooza afterparty:

“Standing next to me was a short, dark-haired, woman with heavy eye makeup who was being fawned over by someone else. “Ah ha,” I thought. “Amy Winehouse, my first sighting.” Despite the “no-that’s-not-her” protestations of my fellow partygoers, I decided to open with a question that would get me an easy “yes” and go from there. “Excuse me,” I said, “are you still touring with the Dap Kings?” She looked me dead in the eye, smiled – with suddenly worrying perfect teeth – and said:

Amy Winehouse: “I’ve never toured with the Dap Kings.”
Me: “…”
Totally Not Amy Winehouse: “I’m Lady GaGa.”
Me: “Ohhh. Um, hi. I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
Lady GaGa: “Who did you think I was?”
Me: “You know, I….it doesn’t matter. Say, you’re from New York, right?”
Lady GaGa: “Yes, I’m from Man-haht-tan.” (in the thickest New Yawk accent ever)
Me: (determined to salvage this opportunity) “And you’re playing the MySpace stage tomorrow, right?”
Lady GaGa: “BMI.”
Me: “Oh-KAY! Well, it was nice meeting you, have a nice night.”

I turn back to Whitney and her friend, who are looking at me as if they’ve just witnessed someone willingly throw themselves through a plate-glass window. “So, that wasn’t her,” I said, confirming the obvious.

So…yeah. It’s entirely possible I’m not the sole person responsible for her dive into a bottle of peroxide. But at the very least, I’m a contributing factor.

Secret is as secret does

Internet, Media,

Last Thursday, there was a meeting of news publishers and editors. According the James Warren, who broke the story on the Atlantic Web site:

There’s no mention on its website but the Newspaper Association of America, the industry trade group, has assembled top executives of the New York Times, Gannett, E. W. Scripps, Advance Publications, McClatchy, Hearst Newspapers, MediaNews Group, the Associated Press, Philadelphia Media Holdings, Lee Enterprises and Freedom Communication Inc., among more than two dozen in all. A longtime industry chum, consultant Barbara Cohen, “will facilitate the meeting.

The subject of the meeting? “Models to Monetize Content.” (Let’s leave aside for now the notion of how much sense it makes for the same people who broke the system to be the only ones involved in fixing the system.)

Warren reported it as a “secret” meeting, and from the reaction of the people and sites that follow these “future of journalism” discussions, it would seem he’s correct.

But on Friday, Editor and Publisher published this story:

Michael Golden, vice chairman of The New York Times Co. and chief operating officer of The New York Times Regional Media Group, defended the controversial Newspaper Association of America meeting Thursday in Chicago, saying there was nothing secretive about it.

“The characterization in The Atlantic that this was a ‘secret meeting’ was inaccurate,” Golden, who attended the event, told E&P Friday. “If it were secret, there wouldn’t have been a sign on the door saying ‘NAA meeting.’ This was a meeting that had been planned for weeks — you can’t get these people together without planning it over a period of time.”

The question now is how much bullshit to call on Golden.

There’s no mention of the event in the Events section of the NAA‘s website and no press release in its Press section. I’ve run half a dozen Web searches for anything remotely resembling an event like this and come up with nothing. And again, the reactions of the people who make it their business to know this sort of thing has been akin to “Wha wha whaaa?” so…

Let me help Golden with an operational definition here: A meeting is secret if no interested parties – other than the participants – know it’s happening.

And you know what? This meeting had to be secret, in order to do what Golden and the rest of the cabal wanted to do, which was to create ways to make people directly pay for content they’ve been getting without direction compensation up to now. (Notice I don’t say “for free” as that’s a misnomer but another subject for another time.) If it wasn’t kept secret, the NAA would risk attention from the feds for anti-trust actions.

According to Zachary M. Seward:

Why so cautious? Well, surely the executives discussed ways to charge for content online, but they can’t appear to be coordinating a move to erect pay walls around their sites. That’s illegal. The industry would like an antitrust exemption, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi supports the idea, but the Obama administration is opposed.

Seward also posted a statement from NAA President John F. Strum that read, in part:

With antitrust counsel present, the group listened to executives from companies representing various new models for obtaining value from newspaper content online. The participants also shared success stories in driving new revenue to their newspapers products.

Emphasis mine.

So how does that work exactly? Does the antitrust lawyer sit there and interrupt someone whom he or she thinks is about to say something that could be construed as collusion? ‘Cause then I imagine the meeting sounded a little something like this:

By the way, if you’re interested in a not-at-all secret meeting of people interested in coming up with innovative solutions to news publishing, might I suggest the Chicago Media Future Conference on June 13? Don’t forget to register!

Hey big media: Watch the Jim Cramer schadenfreude ’cause you’re next

Media,

Last night, I watched the Jim Cramer interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. It was good, no question. But two lessons were lost amongst Stewart’s sharp barbs, robbing me of any cathartic thrill.

First, Jim Cramer is not the problem. He’s not even the cause of the problem, he’s a by-product of it, even if he’s the most visible by-product. I’ve yet to watch the full interview but the televised version hit Cramer hard on his failure to use his knowledge from his days as a hedge fund manager to give people the truth about how these companies operate (a.k.a. using his powers for good instead of evil). Cramer should be held accountable, but he was standing on the shoulders of giants. Giant d-bags, that is, who prided themselves on creating a system so complex that no one person truly understood all of it.

No, the problem is not Jim Cramer. The problem is that it required an enormous amount of money to fund these games, and everyone from the Treasury to the guys with the headsets to the people that cover finance fed into the idea that the best financial managers were the ones who found shortcuts to leap over all the “suckers” who were only getting 10% ROI instead of 30%. People had a thirst for it, and CNBC slaked it at every opportunity with cheap wine that went straight to its viewers heads.

To properly understand all that, it takes dissection and care. As good as The Daily Show‘s writers and researchers are, they can’t – and shouldn’t be expected to – do the heavy lifting there. As Stewart points out every chance he gets, it’s a comedy show. While the show is invaluable for letting the air out of countless gas bags after the fact, let’s not forget that it’s more important for someone else to do it the old-fashioned way as it’s happening (a.k.a. reporting). Something along the lines of this New Yorker article which tracks the fall of the house of Paulson and Bernake (which admittedly is also a post-game analysis). It’s at least as good as the This American Life reports on the big pool of money, the failure of regulators, and the banking debacle.

I’d love to see The Daily Show devote an entire show, using its own style, to hang these men in satiric effigy, rather than just hammering the one nail that agreed to stand still.

Here’s the second lesson that got lost, and it relates to the first: CNBC is not alone in its failure to serve.

Right now, the Chicago Tribune site has the Stewart/Cramer story as its lead.


You’ll notice the possibility of a 50 percent tax hike (during a recession, in a state that’s really broke, and affecting people who live in a city – Chicago – whose public school system and public transit system are bleeding internally due to a lack of money) is shunted off to the side.

Let me reiterate: A story about something that happened on a basic cable comedy show to a guy who hosts another basic cable show is the lead story on the website of one of the two daily papers in the third largest city in the United States.

The Trib isn’t alone here in its glee. (Some Web sites live-blogged the damn thing for crying out loud.) Nor is this a one-time problem. Michael Miner at the Reader details the shenanigans on the front page of the paper earlier this week, while his colleague Whet Moser shakes his head over a story written by a Tribune editor and her nine-year-old daughter (!!!) who just loooove the three-quarters-of-a-million-dollar condo they found.

And just so I’m not guilty of making the Trib the Jim Cramer of media fail:

If newspapers and network television want to know how to “beat” the Internet, what we need right now more than anything isn’t tips to get through the recession (Shop less! Cook at home!) or photo galleries of hot moms (ahem, CBS-2). We need vibrant, analytical, junkyard dogs of journalism who quietly and methodically eviscerate the people who seek to make this country worse off. Not media that replays the stuff we dose ourselves with to try and forget about the mess we’re in. I mean, for God’s sake, I work at a magazine that is about “entertainment.” When my joke posts resemble the front page of the paper, there’s a problem.

It’s not hard to do. Stewart proved it last night. It doesn’t even cost that much money (if NPR and Comedy Central can do it…). And for anyone who thinks that’s not what people want: Listen to what people talk about all day today. Count the number of times people say “Hey did you see The Daily Show last night?”

When’s the last time you heard “Hey, did you see the paper this morning?”

UPDATE: Credit where it’s due: The Trib’s home page now looks like this, with the income tax story rightly positioned as the lead:


UPDATE 2: Lord, it’s worse than I thought. On the Huffington Post, Daniel Sinker points out lead stories from the sites of CNN, the Sun-Times, and the LA Times were Anna Nicole Smith, Michelle Obama on Good Morning America, and Michael Jackson tickets going on sale, respectively.

Also, the Reader’s Whet Moser throws down with this:

“There is so much good information out there that your typical local columnist doesn’t even need to be out on the front lines, but if you’re writing about stuff in the media about the financial crisis anyway, there’s no reason not to drill down into yet more profound coverage, to be a middleman between the information out there in the cloud and local, general audiences.”

He also hits the point I glossed over above: People will thank you for this coverage with their eyes which, not incidentally, equal ad dollars which equals money which equals “saving journalism.”

There’s a follow-up to this post here.

Facebook users: When a handful is only a couple of fingers

Internet,

I’m still waiting for the whole Facebook terms of service fracas to fully shake out before I decide what I’m going to do about the minimal content I have posted there.***

But I will say I’ve composed a possible letter in my head to friends, asking them to consider removing photos with me in them since the majority of the me-related content of FB comes from other people. I know I’m not alone here, and it’s something few commentators have mentioned thus far, which is odd. I don’t own that content, and while you could certainly mount a legal challenge against your friends over unlawful use of your image if you really wanted to…do you really want to? Maybe this is the third day story.

You know what’s not helping though? Posts like “Facebook Losing Members Over ‘Terms of Service’ Changes” from Media Bistro’s WebNewser, which mention that a “handful” of users are canceling their accounts then goes on to cite only two people: CNBC’s Becky Quick and the NYT’s Sasha Frere-Jones. One might further question the worth of the piece when one realizes that the post refers to Jones as a woman. Um, he’s not.

*** As I wrote this, I noticed that Facebook posted a mention on its members’ home page, saying it’s going back to its old terms of use. You know what’s unsettling about Facebook? It seems to have an uncanny ability to piss off its user base. Almost like it’s so ignorant of their needs and wants that it tries to push things through despite the possible repercussions, just to see if it can get its way. I wonder why that is.

HuffPo’s Jonathan Peretti thinks Web editors are idiots

Internet, Media,

I mentioned in my last post that I wasn’t as upset as the Chicago Reader’s Whet Moser was about ChuffPo – the Chicago branch of the larger Huffington Post site – stealing content from local publications. Mainly because everything ChuffPo does is slapdash so it was hardly surprising that their ethics were, too, and the resulting direct harm seemed minimal.

Until someone in the comments at Chicagoland pointed out that ChuffPo’s Bon Iver page with the stolen content was coming up higher in a Google search for “Bon Iver Vic” than the Reader’s page (the source of the stolen content). You can see that here (3rd and 4th main links).

So there was the direct harm laid bare. And HuffPo’s reaction to their questionable behavior dialed up my ire.

Wired picked up the story, and spoke with HuffPo co-founder Jonah Peretti, who admitted that they made a “mistaken editorial call.” And to the site’s credit, they are no longer publishing the full content, and are instead excerpting it the way every other aggregator site does.

But the other comments attributed to him in the story show he still doesn’t get it. Excerpts from the Wired story in ital below, my comments following:

The Huffington Post co-founder Jonah Peretti says the contretemps are overblown — that the complete re-printing was a mistaken editorial call and that The Huffington Post’s intention in aggregating other publications’ content is to send traffic their way.

“You tease, you pull out a piece of it, and then you have a headline or link out,” Peretti said. “Generally publishers are psyched to have a link.”

And yes, that is what they did. And no one – Whet, me or any other Web Ed – begrudges anyone else who does this. I love when people excerpt our content, credit us and add a link. Hell, we even allow for some image use so long as the credit’s given to the photog.

But as Whet’s pointed out (read Update III in this post), what ChuffPo was doing was not aggegrating. It was re-publishing without permission then selling ads on that content. It’s hard to put this in print terms because the Web is so different in its approach. But the generally accepted notion is when you aggregate, you excerpt. And ChuffPo was re-printing entire previews.

Did they send traffic our way? Yes, some. But it was minimal. The greater crime here was in establishing a competitive advantage vis a vis SEO traffic, which means any traffic they did send our way was superseded by their higher Google search rankings (which equals more traffic).

(The more I write about this, the more I wonder why I wasn’t more pissed off. Note to self: When something like this happens in the future, throw a ball against a wall Toby Ziegler-style until you think it all the way through.)

Anyway, back to the Wired article:

The headlines on The Huffington Post, he points out, link to the outside site, not to The Huffington Post page with the two to three paragraph excerpt of the other site’s copyrighted story. That page is accessible via the comment and “Quick Read” links, and serves as the “anchor” page for comments or for follow-up reporting by The Huffington Post staff.

Almost all of the readers click on the headlines and photos, according to Peretti, which means most don’t know the excerpt page exists since they get sent to the original site.

Then why have those pages at all? Again, it’s all about the SEO, baby. Peretti’s being disingenuous here. He knows that people will find those pages via Google, which accounts for a significant portion of his site’s traffic. Just because it happens off the main page, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

Also, to suggest that users don’t know those pages exist because they only link to the QuickRead or Comment sections, particularly since HuffPo has vigorous commenters, is also disingenuous.

He compares The Huffington Post’s influence on other sites traffic to that of link-voting sites like Digg and Reddit. Those sites, along with Google News and Slashdot, rely on small excerpts or user submitted summaries of online content in order to create lists of the best new content on the web.

First of all, don’t flatter yourself, sir. The effects of ChuffPo on our traffic are minimal compared to sites like Digg, Reddit or Fark. The competitive advantage they’re creating for themselves far outweighs the tens of weekly pageviews we get from their site.

Also, the operative words here are “small excerpts” and “user submitted summaries.” Note that HuffPo was neither printing small excerpts or user submitted summaries.

But Peretti says some 95 percent of The Huffington Post’s traffic goes through the headline links, and that when The Huffington Post does original reporting or adds to a story, it changes a headline link to point to its content.

That 95 percent number is hazy and here’s why: It suggests that a very small percentage of HuffPo traffic reaches those pages with the stolen content, which is supposed to diminish the ire that Whet and others have over their practices. “Hey, it’s only 5 percent of our traffic! Why are you getting so upset?”

But what Peretti probably means is 95 percent of the traffic from the HuffPo/Chuffpo home pages clicks through the headline links. That’s a big difference. The real question is how much pf a percentage of their overall traffic do they get by using SEO strategies to get click throughs from search engines?

As for disgruntled publishers, Peretti seems genuinely perplexed and says The Huffington Post links should be good for them — and suggests that upset editors get in touch and build relationships with Huffington Post editors.

Yeah, silly us. We should have predicted they’d steal our content and called them pre-emptively to ask them to instead enter into a business relationship with us.

I have some Christmas shopping to do this afternoon. I think I’ll just steal a couple things, and if a retailer gets upset about it, I’ll suggest to them they get in touch with me and ask me to become a paying customer instead.

Today’s "I’m going to hell for laughing at this" moment

Music

REO Speedwagon to play at flood benefit
REO Speedwagon returns to the Midwest to headline the Ridin’ the Storm Out – Floods of 2008 Relief Concert to be held July 16 at Prairie Meadows in Polk County, IA, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to flood victims. – TicketNews.com (Emphasis mine)

I’m sorry, but if your benefit show sounds like an Onion headline, expect chuckles. (I’m not heartless though: I had our intern write this post on resources and places to donate. It’s no “Time for Me To Fly” but we all do what we can.)

Also on the unintentionally funny front, every part of the intro – and Kevin Cronin’s hair – in this version of “Keep Pushing.”

That song also unintentionally (unexpectedly?) kinda rocks, right?
Right?
( surveys)