Tag Archives: television

If I was going to produce a Chicago news show, here’s what it would look like

Chicago, Media, ,

illinois

A little over a year ago, I was reading The Third Coast. The book is full of stories of how Chicago was a hub of innovation. Not innovation in the way we currently think of it – as “the Uber of X” – but innovation in poetry, architecture, television, print, music, business, etc.

The television and media part stuck with me. I hadn’t ever really understood what Dave Garroway did and how Studs Terkel’s worldview was given life through the medium of TV and how important it all was before this book.

It seemed like TV – or something akin to TV with a heavy social media component – could still do that. To take the idea of the Chicago school of experimentation and apply it to conversations we’re having now. What is Chicago’s place in the national conversation? Or why isn’t it more prominent in that discussion? And what can we do to change that through media?

So I asked the question “What’s missing from Chicago media?” As you can see from that link, I had a lot of help answering that question.

All those answers informed the below: a way to tell national stories through a Chicago lens.

I have no agenda in posting this now other than it was an idea I spent some time on and the results of it have never been published. And I wanted to get it out there before the ideas around it seem too old. Since I started the discussion it public, it feels right to continue it that way.

There’s so much I love about Chicago media. So many reporters and producers are doing vital work. We need more of it. We need to know how to pay for it, too. But I wanted to know what we could do that’s different.

This is that.

—

What is this show?
This show will look at what’s going on in the U.S. through personal stories based in Chicago.

But it’s a daily news and information show combined with advocacy. It delves deep into a single topic each day across TV and social and shows both how it affects the audience and what they (or others) can do to contribute to a solution.

In doing so, it answers three questions for the audience:

* What do we know?
* What do we think?
* What are we doing?

We do this by making sure the audience sees itself reflected in what’s happening on-screen and giving the viewers a stake in it, which increases relvancy, word of mouth and audience size.

This should not be driven by media talking heads or “experts.” Sure, there’s some of that in the “what do we know” portions but we should hear more from the people living the issues we’re exploring.

Most importantly, this will solve for the biggest problem viewers under 40 have with these kinds of shows: understanding how it affects them in their daily lives and what to do with this information in order to make a difference.

Why does this show need to exist?
There’s a need for a daily news/information show that goes deep into a topic and isn’t ruled by a “news peg” or the 24 hour cycle. Look at the response to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. That show is revelatory because it exists outside the regular news cycle and motivates the audience to act.

There’s also a need to treat culture, food and arts with the same rigor and conversation as politics.

And we are perfectly positioned do all this here.

Chicago is a microcosm of the country, good and bad – in a way that NYC and LA can never be – while still remaining a national influence thanks to its geography and demographics.

Consider:
* Our struggles between public vs. charter schools
* The crime problems, whether in the “inner-city” or the suburbs and their drug problems
* A world-class mix of fine dining and street food has helped turn us all into foodies
* Neighborhoods that all have their own personalities, adding up to a larger whole  
* Arts and culture that’s the home of Lollapalooza, Pitchfork, the Goodman Theatre or the next Wilco

The subtitle of the book The Third Coast says “Chicago built the American dream.” We were and still are a great testing ground for ideas. In many ways, Chicago’s problems and successes still explain what’s going on in the rest of the country.

The knock on younger news audiences is that they are uninterested in news. This isn’t true. News is important to them.

What they dislike is how most news is structured: it features the same old players in the he said/she format and doesn’t demonstrate how it’s relevant to them. They get their news through social so their news needs to be inherently social.

“Simply put, social media is no longer simply social,” the Media Insight Project report says. “It long ago stopped being just a way to stay in touch with friends. It has become a way of being connected to the world generally — to send messages, follow channels of interest, get news, share news, talk about it, be entertained, stay in touch, and to check in and see what’s new in the world.”

We also need a show that explores a broad range of viewpoints. The second part of this post on Medium lists recommendations for news from a still-relevant 2002 study on youth (consider that this cohort now makes up part of the older millennial segment):

“Let youth speak for themselves.” “Highlight root causes and trends.” “Examine solutions other than increased punishment and incarceration.” “Link social problems to public policy.”

Right now, some news organizations – mostly national – do parts of this. But no one does all of it and especially not in video or live TV.

WBEZ’s public radio programming often does deep dives with community voices. Chicago magazine, DNA Info Chicago and Belt magazine do mixes of long features and personal stories that explore topics outside of news cycles. Some TV stations will do special reports like this – think Fox 32’s “Chicago at the Tipping Point” series. This format could mix all of these approaches in a much more exciting way.

What is it like? What makes it new/different?
We’d see two co-hosts, preferably late 20s/early 30s. To be demographically specific, the relevance of this kind of show would be increased with at least one person of color and a woman (two women of color would be ideal). They’re our guides, but they’re us: they’re asking questions, they’re asking for more detail, they’re exploring. They are not approaching this as the all-knowing journalist who keeps an arm’s length from the topic. But they have expertise and experience. More importantly, they’re entertaining. They approach these topics with humor, when appropriate, but can handle serious topics, too.

Also, there are three things about this that make it new/different:

Socially-sourced: The 13-week editorial calendar will be planned out in advance and posted online for viewers to see. Viewers will be encouraged to email/tweet/message us who they’d like to see on the show. This will help us ensure we’re not getting the same voices we always see in these types of shows and showcase more of the people who are affected by or living these issues.

Socially-driven: In addition to the video conversations, we’ll see curated tweets, FB posts and photos pop up live throughout the show. Viewers will be told how they can contribute to the conversation through an onscreen hashtag. (Yes, this kind of thing has been done before but it’s rarely relevant to what’s happening onscreen, it’s usually just noise).

Socially-relevant: Even though we’ll have planned our topics in advance, the social conversation will keep it fresh and of that day.

Here’s a rough outline of how this might work as an hourlong version (weekly) or a half-hour long version (daily). Keep in mind we discuss a single topic throughout the hour.

FULL HOUR

Segment 1: WHAT WE KNOW (11 minutes)
A mix of of host-led explainers with infographics and animation that introduces the topic. Provides context for the discussion to follow. Consider this like watching a live version of your favorite blog – maybe Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish in its time or one of the better Vox videos.

Segment 2: SKYPE INTERVIEWS / LIVE VIDEO CHAT – “WHAT WE THINK” (8 minutes)
From the social conversation we’ve seen before, we’ll choose some people to speak with live via Google Hangout, Skype or similar video setup. We’ll either do this one-on-one or in groups. This will help guide the conversation in the roundtable to come.

Segment 3: ROUNDTABLE INTRO – “WHAT WE THINK” (4 minutes)
Short profiles of the people we will meet in the intro. Who they are, what their background is, why we’re speaking to them. Quick thoughts from them on this conversation before we cut to break. We could do this live in-studio or – more ambitiously – as pre-recorded pieces that morning that are edited into the show. These should be people who have a stake in living with these issues, not people from think tanks or the heads of NGOs. Think block club captains, rather than aldermen.

Segment 4: ROUNDTABLE – “WHAT WE THINK” (11 minutes)
Our guests talk with the hosts about the topic. Conversational, open, not argumentative. This will be interspersed with social posts in the lower-thirds. Some of the social conversation will be used as the basis for discussion.

Segment 5: WHAT WE’RE DOING (8 minutes)
Conversation about people and places that are working on solving the problems we’ve discussed. Specific information about how the viewer can participate.

This could include more live Skype video interviews and/or an in-studio interview with a person who works at a social service, agency, a neighborhood organization or an advocacy group.

(More ambitiously, this segment might include a pre-recorded piece from time to time.)

Segment 6: THE PUSH/THE MIC DROP (3 minutes)
This is a straight-to-camera essay that summarizes what we know, what we think and what we want to do. Most of this is written in advance but it also includes drop-in excerpts from what we’ve heard in the show. This is our final call to action. 

HALF HOUR

WHAT WE KNOW:
Segment 1: INTRO/EXPLAINER (5 minutes)
Intro / explanation of topic: Discussion of how the topic is normally presented. This is an antidote for the “this person vs. that person” style of discussion. Maybe a couple anecdotes about why we’re discussing it how. (2 mins) 

Three-minute mix of animation, stats and facts  (3 mins)

BREAK

WHAT WE THINK
Segment 2: ROUNDTABLE (8 minutes)
Interspersed with video-submitted questions from the audience and questions via social
Need to break this up into a series of three issues about the topic, would see that on-screen similar to how ESPN shows the various topics it’s discussing 
BREAK

WHAT WE’RE DOING (3 minutes)
Segment 3: 
Conversation between the hosts and perhaps a guest about how someone can take part or solve this problem. Could be research, could be volunteering. 

Mic Drop: A one-minute straight to camera about what we’ve heard and seen
Possible show topics:
Why are so many people here killed by guns?
How can you make a living as an artist?
Is Chicago’s food scene the most innovative in the country?
Why is Chicago so corrupt?
What would it take for Chicago to become the next Silicon Valley?

Some final show notes:
Each piece of the show will exist in parts that will be broken down into social-friendly components.

It will be extremely important that this show is not shot in a typical studio environment. If this comes across like a CNN panel, we’re sunk. Think more about the average co-working space or a “teaming area” you’d see at an agency. The roundtable segments will need to feel / look as if the viewer is eavesdropping on a conversation. They shouldn’t start with a moderator controlling the conversation nor should we be aware of the camera through showy zooms, etc.

We’ll also need to see a variety of viewpoints. Again, this can’t be set up as “one side thinks this, another side thinks that.”

The 13 week editorial calendar will likely include a handful of topics that we go back to again and again in each season/cycle like gun violence, equality, civil rights, climate change, privacy. But instead of broad topics like this, we’ll delve into micro issues through personal stories. But it also lets us follow up on topics and people so viewers can follow the ongoing story. (Our social and web presence will also be key to this in our off-periods.)

Who is the audience? How do we know this will work?
As we’ve said, this is tailored to an under 40 audience. I’ve outlined above how this is tailored to their news interests. Some of these same values are shared by the Gen X audience, particularly the community aspects of it.

I look at stories like this that show how a broad issue – gentrification – is told through a personal story and see that it works.

And how there’s usually a deeper story to be told in these kinds of viral conversations.

Also, I’ve been asking people what they want more of in media. The above outline reflects a lot of that but puts it in a national context, instead of a local one.

Plus, this social-driven approach is something other news organizations are doing. For instance, Pro Publica does it. Their Get Involved page shows you how it’s done.

Final thoughts
The above should be the start of a conversation. From a production standpoint, there may be things we need to scale back on and begin as an experiment.

But there’s something here that would be unique and meeting a consumer demand.

Twitter knows more about what drives viewer behavior than NBC

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In my last post, I argued there’s more value in social media as its own content channel than in its ability to drive ratings or sales. The prime mover of that post was a quote in the Financial Times from NBCUniversal’s head of research Alan Wurtzel who said social media “’is not a game changer yet’ in influencing television viewing.” He also said “the emperor wears no clothes” which tells you just how much marketing people love a good cliche.

After taking another look at the articles written in the wake of his comments, it’s unclear how Wurtzel came to these conclusion but more on that in a bit.

If you’re going to draw conclusions about cause and effect, it helps to base them on the results of an actual study.

Here’s the latest: On Thursday, Twitter’s head of research Anjali Midha released a second batch of results from a study of 12,000 Twitter users that examined the effects of tweets on consumer action. Her first post focused on the relationship between the kinds of tweets consumers saw from/about brands and the type of action they took afterwards. It’s definitely worth a read.

Specific to this discussion is Midha’s second post which deals with the effects of TV-related tweets. In my post, I argued Twitter can be a complementary content channel all its own, but if you’re going to look to it as a call to action, it’s important to consider whether it affects awareness, consideration and brand education and not just ratings or sales.

It turns out tweets can do all of that:

Continue reading Twitter knows more about what drives viewer behavior than NBC →

Why #NBCFail matters beyond the Olympics

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Listen to me discuss NBC’s Olympics coverage and other news of the week on WBEZ’s “848” program here.

While most consumers have been perfectly happy with NBC’s Olympics coverage on prime time cable, broadcast TV and online via livestreams and apps, a largely social-media powered stream of objections has converged around the #NBCFail hashtag. There are as many complaints as there are Olympics sports but the biggest objections related to NBC’s tape-delayed coverage and its shutdown of Independent correspondent Guy Adams’s Twitter account. While Simon Dumenco of Ad Age and Megan Garber of The Atlantic have great takedowns of some of the other arguments, there are a few points in this kerfuffle that bear some discussion. These are a few that occurred to me. Fair warning: There’s been so much discussion of this, I’m skipping over some of the bedrock arguments and backstory to get to some of the “where do we go from here” ideas. This is a bit rough and open-ended so bear that in mind.

1. If it’s “just sports” then it can be “just _____.”

One comment I’ve heard often in this conversation is #NBCFail is mostly a “first-world problem” because the discussion is about the coverage of sports and sports isn’t “real news.” But one person’s distraction is another person’s “real news.” Once we say sports is not worthy of real news coverage it becomes easier to say books, consumer tech, music or movies are mere distractions and not worthy of serious consideration either. And once we say something isn’t deserving of careful consideration it makes it easier for publishers to talk less about how it can be covered well and more about how it should be packaged and sold.

2. Is NBC tarnishing its news brand and ultimately making it less likely to monetize those users?

NBC is leveraging its full news power only when it can do the most good for its business interests, not for its consumers. NBC’s tape delay strategy is moot in years when the Olympics are in the same time zone as the U.S. because NBC carries these events live. So it’s not as if it always chooses to emphasize its news interests over its business interests but in the case of sports, or at least the 2012 Olympics, it chooses the latter.

If you’re to be taken seriously as a news publisher, you have a requirement to publish as complete a news experience as possible at the moment when the information will have the most value to your audience. The consumer is paying you – or subscribing to a platform that includes your content – based on the perceived value of that news as well as for the convenience factor of acquiring it. The friction here seems to be that many people want a la carte coverage they can pay for without having to subscribe to a major cable provider. It will be interesting to see NBC explores the creation of raw news feed channels via something like Roku (as well as online) and provides the packaged version on its other more-established channels. It may find its building an entirely new audience segment. Perhaps it doesn’t make sense economically, but might in years (months?) to come. But NBC seems to be losing the opportunity to build this audience in its owned channels and finds some of that digital audience doing elsewhere (see #4 below).

3. What gets treated as the news and what gets treated as entertainment?

NBC doesn’t seem to think providing the big screen/HD TV experience several hours later is a problem. That seems less like a strategy you employ for news and more like one you employ for entertainment. If it’s entertainment, it generally doesn’t matter when it’s broadcast or consumed. But news certainly has a time-sensitive component to it (the dismissive phrase “That’s old news” comes to mind here). The weight of that news is relative to the timing of it.

What stops a publisher from waiting to tell you about news until it can maximize the profit in the telling of it? If you have a big scoop and can figure out how to package it as a multi-day event, why not wait until you have an advertiser to run ads around that coverage before releasing it? There’s an argument to be made that NBC is doing exactly that but I’d hate to see what the end result of that strategy means for news consumers.

4. News coverage is mostly determined by who controls and publishes on the platform

For years now, users have been determining what news is and how it is published, largely through Web and social media channels. It’s no longer the sole province of large print and TV publishers.The conversation sparked by the #NBCFail hashtag has made this more obvious than ever but also showed just how much control big news organizations that A) partner with or B) own the platforms have over the platforms with the biggest reach.

Many people will bootleg news content (like providing an overseas livestream of the Olympics opening ceremonies) not because they want to hijack a revenue stream for themselves but just because they don’t like the idea of a closed system. With a platform like Twitter, it’s easier than ever to find raw feeds which satisfy those whose desire for news of an event outweighs the number of easily-available news sources. (I didn’t have to seek out a livestream of the opening ceremonies; I saw a link for it on Twitter from people I already follow.)

Barriers or inconveniences to the consumption of news (like having to download special equipment, make changes to obscure computer settings or watch a poor quality, buffering livestream) will start to seem like less of an issue to consumers as the real-time value of a news event increases. For me, the value of watching the opening ceremonies live seemed greater because people I followed on Twitter were discussing it. Unfortunately for publishers, the real-time news value is different for each person so it’s tough to know what publishing streams are monetizable and which ones aren’t without either experimentation or waiting to see how users themselves innovate.

As for the Guy Adams temporary Twitter account shutdown, Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic has a good summary.

NBC may not have known this tweet existed were it not for someone at Twitter who notified NBC of both the tweet and a remedy. Whether the information is public or private is debatable but NBC’s proximity to power, due to its (non-monetary) Twitter partnership, allowed it to get the account suspended without a thorough consideration of this point. Twitter acknowledged it should not have done this, but with the service already looking for more ways to monetize its product for publishers it’s clear they’re interested in hyper-serving this particular user base.

Let’s say an upstart publisher decides to start covering the heck out of the Olympics. Maybe it’s a traditional television channel, maybe it’s Web-only. Perhaps they find a way to provide a broadcast-quality stream of the BBC through fair use. Or they find a way to leverage content from athletes’ personal social media accounts to provide unique value. What’s to stop NBC – which is owned by Comcast – from shutting down that publisher on its Web and cable television systems? Nothing. Or what if NBC develops a “strategic partnership” with iTunes and asks Apple to remove another news publisher’s app because it feels that app infringes on its exclusivity agreement with the Olympics?

As with most issues surrounding social media and news distribution, the best practices in these scenarios are still being sorted out.

NBC and Chelsea, lately: The Paper Machete 11.19.2011

Media, , ,

Here’s my piece from last week’s Paper Machete. You can read my previous pieces for the Machete here.

This piece pretty much speaks for itself but keep in mind I write this to read them so the italics, the caps, etc. are more cues for me as I’m reading than proper written form. Also, I wish the story about NBC wanting to do a sitcom with the Muppets had come out last week because, boy, it really sells my point better than anything. (I had lots more to say about the NBC/Muppets arrangement on Twitter today.)

—

This week, NBC Nightly News announced it hired Chelsea Clinton as a correspondent for “Making A Difference,” its series of heartwarming feature stories. This was really good news because woo! Someone in media is hiring! Or rather, someone…is hiring.

Before I sat down to work on this piece I thought “This is not a big deal. The real issue here is the larger story about how NBC’s news and entertainment divisions are completely lacking in ideas that aren’t brought to them by a bold-faced name” – an idea I promise you I’ll get back to in a moment. But then I finally read the New York Times report that broke the story and I can understand why media critics, bloggers and people on barstools everywhere all turned into little howler monkeys over the news.

Back in July, “an intermediary” contacted Steve Capus, the president of NBC News to tell him Chelsea Clinton was “kicking around what she wanted to do next.” This is amazing for a couple of reasons: 1) In 2011, someone can describe looking for a job with the same words I used in 1997 to discuss hippies on the quad…

And 2) If you found yourself both in need of a job and employing an intermediary wouldn’t you just lay off the intermediary and save yourself both the money and the trouble of getting a job?

But it gets worse. The president of NBC News starts the conversation – and I can’t emphasize this enough THIS IS THE PRESIDENT OF NBC NEWS – by asking “What are you interested in doing?” This is the equivalent of him sliding a piece of paper over to her and saying “We’d like you to take this piece of paper and write down a number…and a job description…and the number of weekly spa appointments you’d like us to make for you. And that! Is our final offer.”

The article goes on to say that “One person close to Ms. Clinton said she had been quietly raising her profile for some time, though the public had not been completely aware of it.” which again says to me you really ought to think of firing your intermediary but also if there’s anyone to blame for the public’s lack of awareness of Chelsea Clinton’s profile-raising…that person is Chelsea Clinton. Not only did Chelsea refuse to make herself available for comment after NBC’s announcement, she also – while in the process of campaigning for her mother’s run for the Presidency in 2008 – refused not only questions from the national press but also a question from a 4th grade reporter for Scholastic News who dared to ask her how good of a First Man her Dad would be if her mom was President. To that question, Chelsea replied: “I’m sorry, I don’t talk to the press and that applies to you, unfortunately.” Burrrrnnnn….

To be fair to Chelsea, she did participate in a press release. In it she said “I hope telling stories through ‘Making a Difference’ will help me to live my grandmother’s adage of ‘Life is not about what happens to you, but about what you do with what happens to you.’ ”

Look, I don’t want to shit on anybody’s grandma…but that kinda crap is what privileged people say when they don’t need to do anything but wait for things to happen to them. The president of NBC News said “Hey, do you want a job?” And Chelsea said “Yeah” and now, Chelsea, you’re going to do be on NBC News because of something that happened to you after your intermediary made a phone call when you were “kicking around what to do next.” When you are Chelsea Clinton or the children of Tim Russert or John McCain or George W. Bush, life is only about what happens to you. You don’t actually have to go out and make stuff happen. You just wait for someone at NBC to say “Hey, do you wanna work here?”

Because when you’re NBC, you hope that familiarity doesn’t so much breed contempt as it does ratings. This year, NBC famously rolled out three shows to much fanfare: The Playboy Club, a show about pretty much what it sounds like; Prime Suspect, a reimagining of a popular British television show and Whitney, a sitcom built around a woman best known as the sidekick of Chelsea Handler, the late-night cable TV comedian. The Playboy Club was cancelled after three episodes and Prime Suspect is dead as well though Whitney is still around despite…I swear I tried to come up with an explanation here or a joke or something but seriously no one knows why the fuck this show is still on the air.

This insistence on television as a security blanket even extends to NBC’s midseason replacements. In a list of upcoming shows on nbc.com are shows based on a book by Chelsea Handler, a reality show about wild and crazy senior citizens starring Betty White, a reality show about fashion starring Elle McPherson and finally a show called The Firm which, yes, is based on the John Grishman novel WHICH CAME OUT ALMOST 20 YEARS AGO.

Unfortunately for NBC, cliches – especially the one about familiarity and contempt – are often true for a reason. New York magazine’s Vulture blog recently released…uh, a slideshow that detailed Nielsen’s recent ratings book and the news was not good for NBC. The network has zero shows in Nielsen’s list of the 40 most-watched shows on TV. Zero. Out of 40.

If you listen to my dad, the problem with America is it doesn’t make anything anymore. NBC has a similar problem. Its fortunes rise or fall on the strength of brands it has little connection to and that mean more to most people than the network itself with the exception of Chelsea Clinton’s future colleague Brian Williams, the current NBC Nightly News anchor and host of the newsmagazine show Rock Center, which is such an awful title you have to imagine that Brian Williams Is Handsome, Smart And Such A Nice Boy was running a close second. NBC’s made Williams into an almost one-man viral video generator, having him appear on The Today Show, Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock and Jay Leno. For a network devoid of product it can call its own, this is an incredibly smart move. According to Vulture’s…slideshow, under Williams, NBC Nightly News is averaging more viewers than all but two of its shows. Sure this is like raving about the turd with the most polish on it, but the fact remains NBC’s most important brand is its news. A brand it decided was best served by the addition of Chelsea Clinton, who once refused to answer a 4th grade reporter’s question.

Maybe if NBC’s lucky, she’ll agree to stick around until Malia and Sasha get tall enough for the camera.

Playing catch-up on Chicago media

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Disclosure: I’ve had past business or personal interactions with most of the people or entities named above and plan to have them in the future. To the best of my ability, I try not to let the above color my opinions. Where such interactions might cloud my judgment on an issue, I tend to avoid writing about the topic altogether or confess to a specific bias or association so the reader can judge for him or herself.

Between work-related matters and our impending move to the South Side, I haven’t had much brainpower or free time to spare here. But there have been some significant events in Chicago’s media landscape recently so I figured it made sense to do a quick roundup. Here’s a month’s worth of posts:

Chi-Town Daily News folds and becomes Chicago Current: The first issue hit the streets this week. Creating a niche publication is smart (are you listening….um, everybody?), and an integrated web-print model is too. The full-page Mercedes-Benz ad that ran on the back page suggests support from the ad market. But here’s what I don’t get about CC’s plans: From a Crain’s story about the new publication:

“Chicago Current will be distributed to about 2,000 aldermen, City Hall department heads, judges and other public officials; it will also be available free at downtown Chicago Transit Authority train stations. The targeted readership of elected officials and bureaucrats will give advertisers — including contractors and advocacy groups — reason to pay for ads, he says.”

[Emphasis mine]

From the Chicago Current‘s “About Us” page:

From incisive coverage of City Hall, the CTA and other agencies, to the nitty gritty on topics like lobbying and campaign finance, the Current brings you vitally important information you won’t find anywhere else.

[Emphasis mine]

Based on the new website and the first edition of the paper, Chicago Current is trodding much the same ground as the Chi-Town Daily News did. Nothing wrong with that, but add it to the above text about “the nitty gritty” of dealings that most pols would rather see hidden from view and it looks like the Current wants to reveal the insider deals of politicians – the same people it wants as its audience. To quote Chasing Amy: “Can I explain the audience principle to you? If you insult and accost them, then we have no audience!” Those same pols would probably take a dim view of any advertisers – who depend on those same folks for their business – supporting such a publication.

Maybe I’m off-base about Chicago Current‘s plans but there’s not a lot of evidence to the contrary. While Geoff Dougherty deserves a lot of credit for quickly launching another new business venture, my friend and Chicago Media Future Conference co-organizer Mike Fourcher rightly points out that new media ventures need to work harder on their brands than anything else and perhaps more time spent defining audience and content would have worked to the Current‘s advantage. Still, the marketplace is getting crowded, which leads to…

Chicago News Co-operative launches, Chicago Community Trust puts its money where the names are: If I’m fuzzy on the plans for Chicago Current, I’m even more vague on the Chicago News Co-operative. And I’m not alone. As the former Mayor Daley used to say “Where’s their program?”

What I do know is they’ve got a lot of big names, many of whom used to work at the Chicago Tribune. But if we’re all agreed that the Web will play a vital role in the future of news, then this isn’t the team you want leading that charge. The Tribune‘s leadership in the online space came after those folks left. Plus, the media spaces the CNC said they’ll work in are organizations like WTTW and WBEZ. I’m a frequent viewer/listener or both, but where’s the innovation there? (The CNC says it will launch a site called Chicago Scoop in January.)

On a side note, the CNC was the recipient of $50,000 in grant money from the Chicago Community Trust. Later, Chicago Tonight contributor Rich Samuels tweeted that the Community Trust would no longer fund the Chicago Matters series, a joint venture between WTTW and WBEZ. As the CNC is currently using office space at WTTW, I bet there were a few awkward moments around the coffee maker that morning.

As for the Chicago Community Trust’s other funding decisions, I question why the CNC, so flush with connections and resources, had a greater need for cash than smaller, more innovative shops like Gapers Block, Windy Citizen and Beachwood Reporter, which only received $35,000. Perhaps it’s because the CNC’s plans are more ambitious. But according to the Community Trust’s press release, the money will be used “to support development of a new L3C cooperative business model providing enterprising journalistic coverage of the Chicago area using various Web, print and broadcast platforms, including a new Web site called “The Chicago Scoop.” From that description, the ambition is hard to intuit.

The takeaway for the Current and CNC is this: In the absence of actual evidence, people tend to fill in the blanks – or create your brand’s identity – themselves. Why would you want to give away control of such a valuable resource?

James Warren becomes publisher of the Chicago Reader: I don’t have much to say here, but from where I sit it would seem to be good news that the Chicago Reader‘s survived the questionable direction of Tampa’s Ben Eason and that a person steeped in Chicago journalism is at the helm. But to hear Reader editor Alison True tell it, this could be a potential minefield:

“It’s good to hear the board and Warren acknowledging how important journalism is to the success of the company,” says Reader editor Alison True. “Because we’re looking forward to getting the resources to support it. But if that wall disappears, so does our credibility.”

In the past year, the Reader‘s done some vital work, in spite of the perceived threat from Team Eason. Perhaps True knows her team does its best work when it’s got something to fight against, whether that enemy is real or imagined.

The rise of Chicago Now: It’s been interesting to watch the direction of Chicago Now. They’ve adopted a startup mentality, despite the appearance of the full force of TribCo resources behind them. (I cracked up at this tweet from RedEye’s web editor, which suggested there was something serendipitous, not synergistic, about a Tribune marketing project getting prominent placement on a Tribune blogging platform.) As Marcus Gilmer points out on Chicagoist:

There’s no denying there are quality reads on the site: the Parking Ticket Geek has become particularly notable in the wake of the parking meter privatization, the CTA Tattler is still a go-to for us, our pals at Gapers Block have a page, and there’s some good sports coverage. But at 126 blogs and counting, the site still feels unwieldy, making it more difficult to find other potential quality reads.”

I’ve joked that by 2010, one out of three people you meet in Chicago will have a blog at Chicago Now. The site wants to be all things to all people, to provide blogs that run the gamut of Chicagoans’ interests. It’s a clear goal, designed to take advantage of local advertising dollars. It’s important to note they’re not trying to be a publication, just an agnostic platform (like HuffPo), so this broad effort may pay off, especially with other TribCo entities like WGN Radio offering them broadcast space on its airwaves. To truly succeed, they’ll need to embrace these opportunities, not pretend like they lucked into them and ensure that audiences can easily find what they have to offer.

Robert Feder joins Vocalo, Vocalo comes in from the cold: Before the launch of Vocalo, a joint radio-and-web venture from Chicago Public Radio, some of WBEZ’s best talent worked behind-the-scenes to help make the project a reality. They brought the same passion to this project that they brought to WBEZ. Then Chicago Public Radio decided it wanted to divorce itself from Vocalo, making it completely user-generated, except when it came to funding. CPR quietly funded the program, hiding its true intention from its subscribers and siphoning off resources to keep it afloat. The product didn’t improve – the passion just wasn’t there – and WBEZ subscribers were upset. Finally realizing that a little professionalism wouldn’t hurt the product, Chicago Public Radio brought WBEZ and Vocalo together online. (Clicking the Blog button on ‘BEZ’s website takes you to Vocalo.org.)

In a further indictment of the anything-goes style of the early days of the site, CPR also brought in former Sun-Times media columnist Robert Feder as a blogger for Vocalo (or is it WBEZ? It’s hard to tell…). Feder’s work at the Sun-Times was indispensible, but his recent comments about Chicago Now – despite having a ring of truth – suggest he’s blinding himself to the reality of the problems in his new neighborhood. It would also help his cause if the material of his columns (Sneed, Bill Kurtis’s wacky commercials, retreads of his previous work) wasn’t so weak. Vocalo’s become more transparent lately, but whether more professionalism is the key to its success remains to be seen.

Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson return to CBS2: On Friday night, Kurtis and Jacobson anchored the CBS2 10 p.m. newscast together for the first time in the last 20 years. It’s clear CBS2 wants viewers to associate its current newscast with the groundbreaking reporting efforts of its heyday. The first half of the broadcast delivered on that score, offering up stories like a Pam Zekman investigation of the inability of Chicago police offers to properly meet the demand of 911 calls. But the constant references to days gone by, not to mention a Friday night appearance, made the whole affair feel like Old Timers’ Day at the ballpark. Moreover, the news of this supposedly monumental event didn’t break until the day before, robbing CBS2 of a potential ratings boost.

If CBS2 wants to convince people that they’re still doing hard-hitting news at 10 p.m., it could dump the lame “Cold Case” moments it’s been doing with Kurtis, sign him and Jacobson to short-term contracts, pair them with up-and-coming reporters and build on the future promise of their past gravitas.

Moreover, CBS2 ought to pick a neighborhood in Chicago, open up a local bureau there, and do some Web-only reporting. This venture could be accomplished with a skeleton crew investment, but the returns would be significant. They’d be the only local television station doing this, and it would show they were committed to not being pretty, but being realinnovators.

Take heed, Jay

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“So you go on at nine o’clock at whatever night and you get killed and you say, ‘What am I doing this for? For my ego? For the money?’ I don’t need that anymore. I have an ego like anybody else, but it doesn’t need to be stoked by going before the public all the time.” – Johnny Carson, as quoted in this Esquire piece by Bill Zehme, on why he didn’t want to do “specials” after leaving The Tonight Show

Also, I killed a good amount of my workday productivity recently by reading this Playboy interview with Johnny Carson from December 1967. Our Leno interviewfrom October 1996 was interesting as well. (Note: The links are safe for work, but your workplace may disagree.)

If only more networks "twisted" their coverage in the wake of Stewart/Cramer

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Last post on all this and then I promise I’m moving on…

My initial emotional reaction to this anonymously sourced tip from TV Newser that MSNBC was “twisting” its coverage by not covering the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart interview was “KNAVES! How dare they…um….not cover something that’s…all that newsworthy.” I couldn’t even make it to the end of the sentence before my outrage fell apart.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that this is true and isn’t an attempt to discredit the NBC network of news channels. (For what it’s worth, no less than MSNBC’s golden boy Keith Olbermann says, in a comment on Daily Kos, it isn’t true.)

As I wrote last week, Jim Cramer isn’t the real problem, he’s just the one person who agreed to take a whupping for the team. So what’s the value for MSNBC or any other news network for covering the talk show appearance of one of its affiliate’s stars after it happened (you could argue that covering it prior was all in the name of synergistic self-promotion)? Did his appearance on The Daily Show change anything? Has it led to actual news? Has CNBC changed the nature of its financial reporting as a result? Has Jim Cramer dropped his goofy sound effects or manner of presentation? We don’t know any of this yet, so there’s nothing to report. If later this week, Jim Cramer starts nailing banking CEOs to the wall and speaking in calm, measured tones then that’s news you could tie into his Daily Show spanking and it’s time to pull out the footage. If they fail to show the interview at that point, you could argue MSNBC was misreporting the story or “twisting” its coverage.

With all the real problems affecting the country, spending more time on reporting and analysis about how we got here, and less time showing the Town Square flogging of Jim Cramer could logically be called “exercising editorial judgment.”

Really, Dan Ponce?

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When I saw this in Tribune media reporter Phil Rosenthal’s Twitter stream, I thought it was a joke. But then I saw this:

WLS-Ch. 7 reporter Dan Ponce is leaving the city’s top-rated TV news operation to pursue a music career with his a capella group, Straight No Chaser, the station said Tuesday.

Whaaa?

Look, I don’t begrudge anyone their dreams. And if Dan Ponce wants with all his heart to be a full-time a capella musician – and if Wikipedia is correct, said holiday CD did receive a fair amount of acclaim – I hope all goes well for him and he never gets laryngitis.

But I ask you this Dan: When’s the last time your a capella gig got you licked by a winsome blonde:

I rest my case.

The end of reality (TV)

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From “Reality craze is over for broadcast TV” in Media Life magazine:

“These shows are like scripted shows. After a while there’s some fatigue,” says Brad Adgate, senior vice president and corporate research director at Horizon.

“Rather than sit through another season of an unscripted show, people want to see what else is on. And there’s more competition than ever before. Cable is just littered with these shows.”

Do broadcast executives really think we believe that reality shows are unscripted? (If they aren’t, some people are really bad at playing themselves and I say this as an avid watcher of Gene Simmons Family Jewels).