In the last week public criticism has surfaced of author and journalist Mitch Albom for praising his home state's film tax credit regime while benefiting from those provisions. The Michigan Film Tax Credit is helping finance the filming of Albom's adaptation of his Have A Little Faith bestseller. Albom was paid for the screenplay of his book. Albom has, like many other artists, stood supportive of credits that provide incentives for film production. But his critics, including Detroit radio host Frank Beckmann, believe he cannot escape conflict of interest. The two host radio shows on WJR-AM and exchanged extensively on the matter last week. What do you think? Is Albom in a conflict? If so, what should he do? The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism has issued its eight annual State of the News Media report today. It's a definitive look at American media, with some implications for media outside the U.S. in trends and practices. The report concludes that, with the exception of newspapers, media operated better in 2010 than in 2009 on many frontiers. Some new business models began to blossom, for instance. But the report says that the problems aren't involving audiences or even the new models. "It may be that in the digital realm the news industry is no longer in control of its own destiny," the executive summary of the report concludes. New intermediaries are adding layers to the relationship between consumers and advertisers, whether they are software manufacturers or platform creators, and their share of the revenue and data pose new challenges. Among major trends: executives from outside, some willingness to pay, untapped local news opportunities, a new media economy of smaller entities, and assistance to media via the car bailout. The report looks at newspapers, online, television networks, cable television, ethnic and alternative press, magazines, audio and some special reports on, among other things, international newspaper economics and the online experiments in Seattle. National Public Radio is dealing with reputational damage today after one of its fundraising executives was pranked into discussing discomfort with conservatives. (UPDATE: The CEO of NPR, Vivian Schiller, has left the company as a result of the incident.) A chronic prankster pretended to represent an organization looking to donate and it took little effort to get the executive to open up about the organization's purported adversaries. The scheme plays into stereotypical concerns that NPR is anti-conservative. NPR has disavowed the comments as unrepresentative, but already commentators are suggesting this hurts the organization. A survey released today indicates online use and television viewing were up in the last year, but the Internet now has edged ahead of TV as the preferred platform for Canadians. The Ipsos Reid survey found Internet use at 18.1 hours weekly, up from 14.9 hours weekly a year earlier. But that number has surpassed TV viewing, which stood at 16.9 hours, up from 15.9 hours a year ago. Listening to the radio (8.9 hours), reading the newspaper (2.9 hours) and reading magazines (1.4 hours) have been stable in the year. The survey found men (20 hours) spent more time than women (16 hours) online weekly. There weren't large gaps in the online usage among age groups, interestingly. The latest Standard & Poor's U.S. media tracking and forecast indicates the final quarter of 2009 will provide better year-over-year numbers (because of the collapse a year earlier) but weak 2010 numbers as the economy only slowly recovers. Most hard hit: Local television, radio and print. Bright spot: Local search advertising. Not entirely bright but not dim, either: Online advertising overall. Newspapers are nearing their bottom, but may not come out of there this year, S & P suggests. It makes intuitive sense and feels comfortable anecdotally, but a new report provides empirical data on the fact we are losing teenagers to their media. In the last five years alone, teen media consumption has grown more than two hours daily on average to 7.5 hours daily, roughly half their awake time. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation report, an update on an earlier look at teen media patterns, is bound in the days ahead to be challenged for its accuracy --- so astonishing do the figures feel at first blush. Television, music and the Internet rank one through three in terms of consumption, but gaming wasn't far behind. The report authors suggest the findings have enormous implications for learning --- the distractions are substantial --- and overall creativity. A new study from the L.E.K. media firm suggests e-readers are quickly becoming hot, Internet radio is being heavily consumed and the physical newspaper (but not its content) has nowhere to go but down. The online survey of 2,000 respondents found print content consumption increases heavily --- more so than audio content increases with MP3 players --- when you own an e-reader. The study suggests it's a myth that conventional television will be overrun by the Internet. For some time to come it will remain a prime medium. But it also suggests the Internet is crowding other media out in terms of time. The report's authors suggest that within five years or so, metropolitan newspapers will be online only, media targeting older demographics will perform well, and book sales will rise, among other things. A new Nielsen study suggests Americans are most attached to the television set, then the radio dial, and then the Internet. While the conventional wisdom supposes online has surpassed traditional media, TV and radio have a strong lead in audience. Indeed, radio is made larger by the MP3 player. Newspapers and magazines trail the broadcast/online forms of media in the U.S. The breakdown of percentage of audience daily and time spent was found to be:
1 Comment The Pew Research Center for People & The Press has released data indicating public trust in media has declined to its lowest level since records have been kept. The survey found 63 per cent felt media content was often off-base. That was 10 points higher than the response in 2007. It found that television, Internet, newspapers and radio were ranked first through fourth in terms of media. That said, respondents also said they'd feel a great loss of a local television station or newspaper. It took two parts, the second of them weighing in at about 5,600 words, but the verdict from Michael Massing in the New York Review of Books is in: The Internet is good for journalism. Massing explores the "new horizon" for news in the context of the challenged newspaper, television outlet and radio station, and he concludes that the new media offer opportunities. The demand is there, even though there is no climate to build a U.S. equivalent of the BBC --- his role model for non-profit excellence. "What we do have, though, is a tremendous increase in enthusiasm and initiative that, in the age of the Internet, counts for more than transmitters and printing presses. The retreat of the giant corporations and conglomerates is creating the opportunity for fresh structures to emerge. It remains to be seen whether foundations, wealthy donors, and news consumers will step forward to support them." |   
I am the Ombudsman of the CBC and Executive-in-Residence as an Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at University of British Columbia.
In 2008 I launched themediamanager.com to keep abreast of significant change in media. Since I moved to the Ombudsman's role, I have shifted the focus of the blog to media ethics. Intentionally you will not find my opinions here. Any such views should not be inferred as my employer's. I have held the senior editorial roles at The Vancouver Sun, CTV News, The Hamilton Spectator and Southam News. I am the founding Executive Editor of National Post, a former Ottawa Bureau Chief and General News Editor at The Canadian Press, and host on CBC Newsworld. My social networking includes activity on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. ArchivesApril 2012 CategoriesAll The Canadian analytics firm Sysomos has published new data on nearly 100 million posts it reviewed and it shows |
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