The Washington Scouse

Comolli's Promotion - What It means

2011-03-24T08:01:00.000-04:00

Damien Comolli's meteoric rise at Anfield should be welcomed by all. The canny former spy and Spurs double-agent will be responsible for everything from kit washing to $50m player purchases, leaving Kenny to laugh at the media, and make inspirational speeches in the dressing room with the occasional Shankly quote. Said John Henry, Liverpool Massiah of Boston:

"Damien might even pitch for the Red Sox, we'll see how it goes".

Meanwhile Danny Pacheco, blocked all season from the first team by the powerful over-performer Christian Poulsen, has been shipped to Norwich, where he'll gain valuable experience bailing hay and picking strawberries. Said Damien "He'll certainly smell sweeter when he gets back, might give him the edge over Christian next season. I've never been keen on Christian's after-shave".

Transfer Rumours Liverpool Feb 21 - Sterling/Carroll/Benitez

2011-02-20T21:24:00.004-05:00

Let's start this week with the remarkable reports that Rafa Benitez had secretly kidnapped Kenny Dalglish and was holding him hostage in his Wirral basement with a view to declaring him a "missing person" and regaining the manager's role at Liverpool FC.

Not true, say Merseyside Police. They went to check the reports and discovered Rafa having dinner with his milkman and Kenny. Later Kenny twittered he'd only gone around for "a bit of dinner and a glass of Rioja from the West Kirby Oddbins."

There might be more substance to the stories from Guardian Spanish football writer Sid Lowelife that Real Madrid are bidding for Raheem Sterling, the wonderkid who scored 29 of Liverpool's 36 goals in their Youth Cup victory over NuclearPowerPlant United of Essex.

To dissuade Real's advances, Fenway Sports are said to be offering Raheem a new Gameboy and 6 free GCSE certificates.

More worrying are the rumors in London of Andy Carroll's disillusion with life on Merseyside. Roman Abramovitch is set to be ready to offer up to 4-trillion rubles for the ex-Newcastle hitman, following reports in the Daily Snail that he's upset with the quality of Merseyside Fish and Chip Shops.

Chelski's negotiators are said to be revamping the menus of the Kings Road wine bars to include the northern delicacy, although Fernando Torres' absence from the team has been reported to be the result of extensive food poisoning.

More exclusives next week. Remember you saw it here first (and instantly forgot).

What to tell your kids about Torres

2011-02-08T08:15:00.008-05:00

Every now and then there is an horrific international event which you cannot shield from your children. No matter how hard you try, they'll see it on TV, or another kid will be talking about it in the playground. It might be an earthquake, or a plane crash. When this happens, its best to be honest in answering the barrage of questions you will receive.

So how come he's now playing in blue AGAINST Liverpool?
Didn't he say he loved the club, the fans, the place, and was committed to the cause?
Is West London better than Liverpool? Is Chelsea a "bigger" club?

I was fortunate. My four-year-old's godfather gave him the Torres number 9 which he loves wearing - but it has the red of Spain - not LFC - with the yellow stripes and "Espana" written on the side. So no need for ritual burnings in our house. But watching Chelsea led to a lot of confusion, and he rooted for the team in blue until he recognized some of the other players in red - notably Carragher and Gerard. He also knows that Reina is Spanish - and at the ripe maturity of four made the same silly suggestion as most of the British media, that his nationality means he will leave, too. Perhaps I should nominate him for Guardian Football Editor.

But I was suckered-in as well as the next Liverpool-supporting dad, and this is really about admitting you were wrong about someone, and challenging the obvious conclusion that greed, dishonesty and disloyalty are acceptable, even welcomed, these days in professional sport, and perhaps in the wider world. Fortunately, there ARE many good role models in the Liverpool team, beyond the local lads - Kuyt's work-ethic and devotion; Miereles's power and infectious confidence, Agger's cavalier battling attitude. But I'm going to leave my lad to make his own judgments about character, in future.

With Fernando, once bitten.

But with KK back, and Chelski looking shaky, our true revenge may come later, and much sweeter even than Sunday's victory.

FA Guide to refereeing Manchester United matches

2011-02-05T21:03:00.001-05:00

From: The Football Association
To: All Premier League Referees

Colleagues: We thought it appropriate to add some additional guidance for refereeing critical matches involving Manchester United. As you know, Sir Alex Ferguson is a prominent and much revered figure in domestic football, so your role in decision-making both at Old Trafford and at Manchester United's away fixtures comes under additional scrutiny. Here is our advice:

1. Injury Time. In addition to the normal rules of adding time for injuries or substitutions, at Old Trafford an extra three to six minutes can be added if:-
a) Sir Alex is red-faced, threatening the fourth official and/or promising to "end your career laddy".
b) If his team are losing by one goal.
If they are losing by more than one goal, an additional two minutes can be added for each additional goal they need to score to draw level.

If they are away from home, use your discretion about how many glass bottles might be hurled at you at the end of the game from the home supporters. But an additional minute per goal is usually ok.

2. Penalties. Manchester United players are frequently the victims of flagrant fouls in the box especially in the first five minutes. If you are at Old Trafford, make sure you apply the full extent of the law.

3. Whether at Old Trafford or away, if you are a female referee and are called upon to rule against Manchester United, contact Andy Gray immediately.

Can Martin Broughton rescue Manchester United?

2010-10-19T11:40:00.001-04:00

Having snatched Liverpool FC back from the debt-ridden regime of Tom Hicks, can former British Airways Chairman and unlikely scouse hero Martin Broughton turn his attention to saving the gang up the East Lancashire Road, by conjuring another "epic swindle", as his Texan adversary called it?

The short answer, of course, is no. Because with Liverpool, Broughton seized a moment in time, when Hicks was beholden to the banks and the creditors with no way out but to relinquish control.

With thousands of Manchester United supporters set to rally at the Tottenham match a week from Saturday, against the Glazer family - that other group of leveraged buy-out pirates cruising the Premier League's choppy seas, only the Premier League itself can save this prized asset.

Surely from Liverpool's traumas the rules of the game need to change. Stricter requirements need to be placed on the constitution of Premier League teams, the way their finances are structured to prevent massive interest payments, and a stricter business-test for the owners themselves.

As Spirit of Shankly has shown, supporter-power is important. But the Premier League honchos should look no further than, irony in itself, Major League Baseball, where - to stretch the metaphor even further - a level playing field has been established to protect the teams themselves from predators and therefore also the supporters.

Time to act, before another of our great sporting institutions falls into disrepute.

Shooting the messenger rises, glamour wanes (First posted Jan 2010)

2010-09-01T14:14:00.002-04:00

FIRST PUBLISHED AT http://www.conversation.wamu.org/

(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)

2009 was a risky year for foreign journalists. There were 113 deliberate killings of reporters across the world and Iraq and Afghanistan were NOT the most dangerous countries to cover. Those were The Phillippines, Mexico, and Somalia.

Its what we used to call a "vicious circle". The more corruption, tribalism, lawlessness, poverty and conflict there is, the more vital the story, and the bigger the likelihood of getting killed.

The BBC and other organizations offer intensive training for staff in war-zones and tough places. They range from battlefield conduct to first aid. Sophisticated equipment and body armor is also available. Western military also offers "embedded" reporting opportunities, but many forgo this, believing that the military protection itself compromises the reporter's independence. And its still no guarantee of safety, far from it. The ability to tell a story on the internet has encouraged some reporters to go it alone, without the protection of relatively wealthy news organizations or Governments. Its tough to report a hurricane unless you head right into it. Likewise with war.

But the publicity which typically surrounds the killing of a prominent western reporter belies the reality that the vast majority of victims are local reporters, either trying to cover the struggles and conflicts of their own people, or hired help for the major networks on the ground. The United Nations and the European Union have called for more protection for journalists, at the urging of reporter pressure groups.

Let's just say a prayer for the brave folks in our own networks - NPR, PRI and BBC, who are at risk each and every day bringing us the news from where the news really is.
And, trust me, as I tell my students, glamorous it ain't.

An Englishman Tries To Explain

2010-07-07T09:28:00.002-04:00

FIRST PUBLISHED AT The Conversation at wamu.org

(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)

Didn't the British invent soccer? then how come the England team is so poor? These are the questions "du jour" for me in the WAMU corridors as my work colleagues have sustained their interest in the World Cup even after the USA's defeat.

There are three reasons.

1. Money. The English game has been poisoned by debt and leveraged buy-outs, as the big four teams constantly battle for the world's best players. The biggest two clubs, Liverpool and Manchester United, have borrowed up to their eye-balls. Unlike, say, Major League Baseball, there is little regulation of the sport's finances. The subsequent greed for more means that the season is too long and punishing for the players, and club games take priority over international matches.

2. Team Spirit. As a consequence of the money-driven culture, some of England's hugely over-paid stars are much more interested in (paid) success at club level, rather than sporting glory for England. So this has spawned a culture of "every man for himself" on the pitch, while the game's sages know that team-spirit is the key to success. Look at Germany, Spain, Uruguay and Holland, this year's semi-finalists. For all four, team-spirit conquers individual talent.

3. Expectations. The anticipation of the World Cup is huge in England. But the poisoned tabloid media culture means the press are always looking for a chance to undermine the players for a cheap story. Both the fans' inflated expectations, and the media's determination to invent a banner headline, put enormous pressure on the England players. Hence the paralysis we saw on the pitch, where they were largely unable to make a correct pass, for fear of failure.

Long live the teams who stick together, whose fans and media get behind them, and who play with the flair of a group of young men enjoying their sport. Look at the four semi-finalists, or, for that matter, the USA, still new to top-flight soccer.

A Good Walk Spoiled

2010-05-07T15:21:00.004-04:00

FIRST PUBLISHED AT WAMU'S "THE CONVERSATION"

(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)

Bad golfers like myself always find plenty of other things to blame other than their own complete lack of skill.

The old clubs, the grass, the wind, the rules, the course design. At Montgomery County's proud stable of well-manicured and challenging public courses, I've found someone new to blame for my Saturday ritual embarrassments of "slicing", "shanking" and "scuffing".

Two recent incidents have convinced me that, yes, my hidden golfing genius IS being suppressed by an outside force.

The label on his battery-powered golf cart says "Player Assistance". He usually looms over the horizon after we've played about seven or eight holes. He's so comfortable in what we Brits call his "buggy" that he almost seems glued to the seat. He looks like he's lived in a shed attached to the clubhouse for at least thirty years. But he has that dusty wizened look of an old wind-battered golf servant who could string a few putts together in his day but never made pro. He's hugely unimpressed with all the golf fashion-accessorized hackers he observes on the course.

Just the sight of the buggy bumping over the hills towards us makes me nervous. Once, my partner and me had no one playing ahead of us, and no one playing behind us. And we were moving at a decent clip. I hit a mediocre but safe chip onto the 8th green. Then from behind he barked "Can't you hurry up a bit. You're lagging behind." A dozen potential expletive retorts came into my mind but I thought better of it. I was there to have a relaxing, enjoyable if expensive round of golf, and this self-appointed golf cop wasn't going to spoil it.

Then, last week, it happened again. We'd waited for an interminable time on the 13th tee for a four-ball in front of us to clear the fairway. Their ponderous body language suggested they were each living in a U.S. Masters' fantasy - studying putts from every angle - butts in the air, rehearsing their shots over and over.

Did the golf cop tell them to hurry up? No. He yelled at me. "Go on, tee-off. They're well out of YOUR range."
For once, the insult galvanized me. I struck a humdinger up the middle of the fairway. But "Player Assistance" was unimpressed. My partner was unsettled too. She'd been playing well, but scuffed this one into the bushes. "One ball please" he barked, telling her she couldn't take another try - a century-old custom in friendly amateur golf.

With Montgomery County lobbying hard for the Phil Mickelson wannabees to get out and play, good public relations it ain't. Unnecessary it most certainly is. I'm headed for a confrontation, sooner or later, because in the old golfer's phrase, popularized in the title of sports writer John Feinstein's book, this was definitely "a good walk spoiled."

The Augusta Glass House

2010-04-11T21:18:00.006-04:00

(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)

Apart from the sport itself, what do the custodians of the Augusta National Golf Club, home to the magnificent season curtain-raiser event The U.S. Masters, have in common with Tiger Woods?

Listening to club Chairman Billy Payne this week, you'd assume not much. With some scathing criticism of golf's erstwhile prodigal son-turned-promoter-of-moral-turpitude, Mr. Payne laid plain Augusta's disdain for Tiger's tasteless behavior.

"He forgot that with fame and fortune come responsibility not invisibility." "Our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model we saw for our children. Is there a way forward? I hope yes."

I would ask Mr. Payne the same question - is there a way forward? It took the closeted chums of Augusta until 1990 to admit their first African American member. The fabled Mexican golfer Lee Trevino famously used to change his shoes out of the trunk of his car rather than use their racially intimidating club house. And despite Mr. Payne's protestations on behalf of Tiger's wife and all the other women he used or abused, they still do not have one single woman member at Augusta National.

No glass houses at Augusta, you understand. Splendid azaleas, magnolias and dogwoods to be sure. But when it comes to women, the moral high ground is as elusive as those birdie chances on the undulating greens. Trying to convince Mr Payne and his tribe of that hypocrisy is another matter.

Puncturing the news cycle's front wheel......

2010-01-07T22:17:00.004-05:00

(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)

They used to be known in the trade as "pseudo-events" - happenings portrayed as news stories which really didn't change anything. In the western media's failure to register any real news this week, there have been several "pseudo events" to consume our valuable time.

First off, NPR's Morning Edition led off Monday with the headline "The security services promise to track all significant terror leads in future." Real news might have been a story which read "security services refuse to try to find terrorists."

Here in Washington, DC, we had the story "Property tycoon says he will not run against Major Adrian Fenty".
You know that property tycoon you've never heard of? Well he's not running for Mayor. That one will go down well in the bar.

As my old boss in Liverpool said when he heard the line 'they were taken to hospital by ambulance':

"It would've been bloody news if they'd gone to hospital in a horse and cart."

Yes, folks, the media doesn't want to invest in finding new things to tell us when old stories go bad.
They'd rather keep recycling them.

But as usual its much worse in dear old Mother England. There, the resignation of a foul-mouthed BBC talk-show host, a living monument to the corporation's dumbed-down state at the turn of the noughties, sparked the most dramatic TV moment of January, when he emerged from his London mansion to offer tea to the press pack.

Scroll to the video and listen to the panic in their insistent demands for answers to their trivia.

Terrorism? Unemployment? Global Warming? Give me a break.....

As one of my favorite eighties UK bands sang, "Its sheep we're up against, sheep we're up against".

Letter from the new robber barons

2009-11-06T20:23:00.003-05:00

Dear Loyal Customer,

Thank you for your letter complaining about our decision to increase the interest rate on your World Conqueror Gold Mastercard to 29.99%.

Our policy is to ignore complaints which we find inappropriately expressed, inordinately passionate, or pleading, but we are making an exception in your case because of your attention-getting British accent.

We note your explanation that you took ten days vacation and that, when you returned, you opened your statement to discover that our exorbitant finance charges had put you over the credit limit. We are also thrilled that you used our new interactive website, ProtectionRacket.com, immediately to restore the over-limit funds via your bank.

However, given that our profits for the last quarter totaled less than the targeted $500 Billion, we cannot review our decision on this occasion.

But rest assured that we remain your attentive servants, especially after our employees were all given preferential Swine Flu shots at our 89-story corporate headquarters ahead of sick people and young children in the surrounding community. This should enable us to continue to service your needs, 24/7.

We are also most grateful for your role as taxpayers in providing our $700 trillion bailout at the end of last year. If those funds hadn't been made available to us, and we hadn't passed most of them on as bonuses to our hard-working staff, only the good Lord knows where your account might be today.

Yours Sincerely,

R. Baron
Customer Service Director,
U.S. Bank of Greed

Its all over the evening news.......

2009-10-06T22:55:00.002-04:00

Folks who are ancient enough still to be drooling over Paul Simon's epic album Graceland will remember one of its unfathomable but deliciously-sounding lines;

"Its all over the evening news - all about the fire in your life on the evening news." I've never had a clue what he was on about. But I know that when I came to America the Evening News really counted for something.

It was Jennings v Rather v Brokaw.

These days, apparently, up against Twitter and Facebook and My Space and Me-Me-Me-Me-Space, its old hat.

But last night, one of the old stodgers' programs did something great. And it was the one which had the audacity to put someone who wears a skirt in front of the camera in place of Dan Rather.

Yes, Katie Couric, of whom all we normally hear is diving ratings, hemlines, and allegedly bitchy asides, turned in a newscast that Edward R. would have been proud of. Departing from the nightly rundown protocol of her corporate-driven colleagues and their obligatory features on diet pills, dog food, toothpaste and flu scares, the CBS Evening News devoted its entire half hour to the biggest story of our time - Afghanistan.

Scariest of all, anyone watching would have learned new things - a groundbreaking concept for most network American television. There were maps, explanations, context, and - most alarming - real-time war footage (not network library rehash) from experienced correspondents.

One of them was Lara Logan, another female trespasser through the male news firewall, previously famous only in the mainstream media for an alleged tryst with a US Government contractor in Iraq. Her story for "60 Minutes" filed last month gave a terrifying real-time eye-witness account of a Taliban attack on a US Army stronghold. It was a courageous, dramatic and first-hand example of genuine war reporting carried out at great personal risk. Last night's piece contained an exclusive interview with a senior US Army official on the ground (in other words, not a pundit) pulling no punches about the task facing them. Again, she was uniquely, enterprisingly and daringly placed to give the audience priceless and unvarnished insight into the challenge.

Move over Hollywood.

Some people still care about real, bloody-minded first-hand journalism. Katie Couric and CBS stood alone last night in front of the American TV-watching public in placing critical world events over short-term economics. Now, if they could only do something about Dave Letterman.......
: ABC, Afghanistan, BBC, CBS, Couric, Dave, Katie, Lara, Letterman, Logan

In today's sports, no good deed goes unpunished

2009-08-23T17:11:00.003-04:00

When Bill Shankly, the legendary manager of the 1960's Liverpool soccer team said the sport was more important than life and death, thankfully he was joking. These days, its hard to know if folks know the difference.

We do know that many professional sportsmen and women will sell their own mothers to win these days. Witness the baseball doping scandal, soccer's various betting scams, and the vast sums demanded by football players and boxers alike.

But even sadder is when a rare attempt at sportsmanship in the cliched old "spirit of the game" is punished by the sport's own ruling authorities.

As Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington stood on the 16th tee at Firestone they were going head to head to win the Bridgestone Invitational. Enter the chief referee of the PGA European Tour, John Paramor, who warned the pair for "slow play". No matter that they were the final pair on the course, and that they were set for a compelling climax, perhaps the most captivating of the season. Paramor told the world's greatest player, and his best current pretender to that thrown, that they were "on the clock". Even yours truly, a perpetually hopeless and luckless amateur, knows that such an edict can ruin your concentration, even in a five-dollar round, let alone a high stakes international event.

Harrington, a proud PGA role model who nevers falls foul of the game's etiquette, fell apart. He hit his ball in the water, ran up a triple-bogey eight, and the contest was over. Woods won but did not celebrate. Instead he expressed disappointment for the effect of the referee's intervention on the play of his partner and chief competitor. Tour officials subsequently threatened him with a fine for his remarks, when they should have been proud that their greatest-ever ambassador had set an example for the millions of youngsters the organization's mission aims to encourage, simply by putting golf's unique spirit of camaraderie before cash.

It reminded me of another golfing colossus who was branded a fool and a traitor for an appropriate act of dignity and generosity forty years ago next month. Jack Nicklaus, at the climax to the Ryder Cup, could not bear the thought of his European rival, Tony Jacklin, missing a short putt and throwing the whole match away for Europe. Nicklaus was widely ridiculed for conceding the putt, ensuring the game was halved and the tournament drawn. Only four decades later is it truly recognized as one of the actions which sets golf apart as a game which still retains the core values of human endeavor. Shame the PGA, the very people meant to safeguard those values, appear to have forgotten.

Kidnapping, then lunch and Godzilla......

2009-08-05T13:05:00.001-04:00

Kim Jong Il, North Korea's population-starving and mistress-loving "Dear Leader", is a big fan of Hollywood. His favorites, according to Wikipedia, are Rambo, Friday the 13th, Godzilla, and anything starring Elizabeth Taylor. And now the man who is scared of flying and goes everywhere by armored train is the envy of Hollywood, as well.

He's pioneered a whole new way of enticing big names to play guest star. How those horrid little entertainment shows (Entertainment Tonight, Extra) not to mention Oprah, Ellen, etc, must envy his pulling-power.

His secret? Kidnapping.

Grab a couple of cute young American journalists, hold them hostage for a while, and see who you can entice over from LAX. On this occasion, Pres.Clinton played the starring role. It may not have been as photo-op friendly as the inter-racial "beer on the White House Lawn" but it ended in more glory for Bubba.

One caveat if you try this at home; you might not get who you want. What if Richard Holbrooke showed up, for instance? He once boxed the ears of Bosnian leader Radovan Karadzic to get him to sign the Dayton Peace Agreement.

So remember, when kidnapping, specify your lunch guest. Jimmy Carter? Al Gore? They'll do nicely. Then you can go back to watching Godzilla and hurling rockets into the Pacific before bedtime.

Zimbabweans get to tell their story

2009-07-30T10:17:00.001-04:00

The BBC are being allowed back into Zimbabwe eight years after they were thrown out by the brutal Mugabe regime. CNN is also close to an agreement with the new government.

The awkward arrangement under which Morgan Tsvangirai became Prime Minister, albeit with Mugabe lurking behind his shoulder as "President", seems to be a sign that the country is turning its wounded face to the light.

For years, the BBC tried to film the rape of farms and property surreptitiously, smuggling in reporters on tourist visas
using covert cameras and microphones. Inevitably, especially in television, the story suffers when the reporter lacks the freedom to question everyone involved and be transparent about the work.

The ruination of Zimbabwe will now be documented more fully and hopefully, with the world watching, the resulting coverage will lead to more help, and swifter reform and recovery. I visited Zimbabwe in better times, when tourism was booming and the economy was healthy in the early nineties before Mugabe's mood swung against his citizens.

Its a country of stupefying beauty and delightful, softly spoken and gentle people. They deserve to tell their story.

Operator snoozes while train speeds along

2009-07-09T12:15:00.004-04:00

Here's Citizen Journalism at its finest. A teenager catches a Washington Metro Operator sleeping on the job. It comes to light days after a crash on the system, and an incident where another operator was videod texting while driving. Thanks to YouTube, and easy-to-use cameras, the age of the citizen reporter has truly arrived. And its distribution on YouTube circumvents the usual unseemly scramble of TV networks to secure exclusive rights.

Mugging on Hudson

2009-07-02T22:46:00.003-04:00

I was mugged tonight along with my wife and two young children outside a restaurant in an allegedly upscale Westchester community, and with the encouragement of the local police.

Its a story about kids and where they are, and are not, welcome.

I booked a table at a recommended local restaurant, the Caravela in Tarrytown. A Portuguese survivor, known for its fish and its welcome.

They turned out to be arrogant child-haters. My 6-year-old daughter and (almost) 3-year-old son are no angels, but they're not juvenile delinquents either. I made sure when booking to tell the guy we had two young kids, and they did run around a bit.

The trouble began when we refused to sit next to the kitchen, five miles from the nearest fellow-diners. We asked for a table closer to the middle of the restaurant where the other eight or so customers were eating, From then on, the staff were slow, dismissive, and passive aggressive. I eventually snapped when the manager chastised me for asking to move tables. I asked for the bill and refused to pay for the main course which had not yet arrived. The helpful Tarrytown Constabulary (three of them) arrived with great fanfare (blocking the entrance) and informing me (with all the confidence of the Law and Order Federal Prosecutor) that to refuse to pay the bill would infringe New York State Law (after all, we were from DC).

The mostly elderly people in the restaurant ignored our plight. They are clearly its future.

With my children crying on the sidewalk, I forked out and left after they threatened to arrest me.

We'll pursue this with vigor but no great confidence in justice. The restaurant, and the cops, should be ashamed of themselves.

Why Jackson's death is a challenge to his media stalkers

2009-06-25T21:30:00.013-04:00

The instantaneous media has big problems with stories which contain ambiguity. For instance, they know how to report the death of someone "good", or someone "bad". But the sudden departure of the most talented entertainer in a century, tortured as he was by his own childhood and by the media, is presenting the hacks with a considerable challenge.

None more so than Martin Bashir, the inscrutable ABC Nightline Host, who was tasked tonight with delivering the network "tribute" to a 50-year-old man whose death left many friends in tears in my local bar.

A few years ago, a British commercial TV investigator out for a sensational headline, Bashir bluffed his way into the Jackson compound to make a documentary with a bad taste approach and style matched only by the horrid nature of the allegations themselves. His strategy was to lure the performer into a compliant on-camera friendship over a period of several days hospitality at the ranch, in the hope that Jackson would incriminate himself in his alleged abuses of children.

You might be concerned that Bashir hadn't demonstrated the right sort of balanced view of Jackson necessary to present tonight's ABC Show, but think again.

Although the allegations in his "documentary" were never proven, Bashir was there tonight in a new mask, talking about the Jackson family press conference on ABC News as "understandably emotional." And tonight's show was as inconclusive as only "The Mouse" versus Disney News can muster. Reinforcing, perhaps deliberately, a British (false, by the way) stereotype for insistence on decorum, Bashir drew particular attention to the fact that Jackson wore pajamas to one of his court hearings. As any mediocre lawyer might know, eccentricity might be an indicator of a problem, but isn't proof of criminal behavior.

At the end of the ABC show, in what Bashir himself might have described in UK tabloid language as a "bizarre twist" Barbara Walters, who DOES understand shades of gray, asked him what Jackson would be best remembered for. His list highlighted a singer who could "reach three octaves". Clearly, one octave is all you need for American network news.

My own recollection of Jackson, which just proves how old I am, way precedes "Thriller". Its a song called "One Day in Your Life", Number One in the UK singles charts in June, 1981, which captures the age of his innocence; an "in-the-moment" joy which, whatever the truth of his subsequent illnesses, Jackson wished for all young people all his life. After all, he was deprived of his own childhood, which might explain everything in time.

ABC News, and the others, for that matter, would better serve and interest the public by looking at the wider picture this tragic story might reveal. About childhood, poverty, greed, loneliness, fame, flunkies, tabloids, prescription drugs, and the entertainment business's self-destructive nature. But then, its cheaper to run old B-Roll of alleged confessions and dance routines.

Iran Western Reporter Update

2009-06-21T21:26:00.007-04:00

The BBC's veteran foreign correspondent John Leyne has also been "asked to leave". John isn't one to get himself theatrically arrested (unlike some foreign reporters), he and his managers probably concluded it would be in his listeners' and viewers' interests for him to try to "play the game" and report what he could report from his Tehran base given the circumstances. Or maybe he dared to venture out? Indeed the BBC have said they'll keep their Tehran office open.

But apparently the UK Government has annoyed the Iranians to such an extent that he had to go.

Two interesting things here.

Firstly, it shows the extent to which the regime is monitoring respected foreign reporting which is listened-to and watched extensively within Iran itself. It will be significant to see what this does to the thousands of Iranians who listen to the BBC World Service radio and its much interfered-with Persian TV service.

Second, it demonstrates the level of paranoia the regime has about the conclusions westerners are reaching about events on the Iranian streets. I can't imagine it will endear the regime to the millions of Iranians who cherish free speech and consume the BBC, Voice of America, and the myriad social media available to them.

Keeping the story alive without reporters

2009-06-21T16:12:00.006-04:00

NBC's Tehran bureau chief, Ali Arouzi, appeared live on Meet the Press today and told David Gregory that although they were still not permitted to cover the rallies there were (so far) no restrictions on what they could say. With CNN covering the story from the US and London and giving extensive coverage to YouTube videos and Twitter, it was strangely reassuring to see a live journalist against a Tehran back-drop, even if he is basically confined to barracks. Presumably, NBC will be well-placed to grab the first pictures if the ban is lifted. Those news organizations who've withdrawn to Europe or elsewhere in the Middle East will face a long delay in resuming their own newsgathering process. Meanwhile, it remains perilous for western journalists and their local employees to venture onto the Tehran streets. Already, the BBC's John Simpson and his cameraman have been arrested, NBC's Richard Engel has been deported, and there are stories tonight about the disappearance of a photographer for Life Magazine, and the arrest of a Newsweek journalist. Margaret Thatcher used to speak of depriving the Irish Republican Army of the "Oxygen of Publicity." This is clearly the Iranian regime's strategy, but they haven't banked on social media and the internet, which in spite of its rumor-driven propensity and knee-jerk nature, is keeping the story alive in the west. The challenge for the networks there is decyphering the genuine videos and tweets from the fakes, and trying to avoid scurilous rumor. "Trust but verify" was never so poignant.

Getting arrested, and telling the story......

2009-06-16T19:26:00.005-04:00

AS USUAL, THESE ARE MARK'S VIEWS ALONE. NOT HIS EMPLOYERS' VIEWS.

A very distinguished journalist and former colleague of mine, John Simpson, the BBC's Foreign Editor, managed to get arrested over the weekend in Tehran trying to cover the protests. This wouldn't have scared John. In fact, he always relished an event which promoted his profile. But he's a dedicated public service broadcaster with few rivals, and he's been arrested so many times in so many countries he's probably lost count.

And immediately following his release, he made sure his team's filming was more "covert", and the BBC News coverage of the aftermath of the Iranian election, and the vote-counting process which more befitted the books of a corrupt and clinging Wall Street derivatives trader than a national electoral system, was the best available in America.

For the record, both WETA and WHUT in Washington carried his accounts. I turned to CNN tonight and, as usual, Wolf had a lot of scary scenes graphically recreated in the studio behind him, but all the footage (B-Roll) they showed was from the 1979 uprising. CNN has many courageous reporters, too (Christiane Amanpour is one) and so do the networks.

But let's hope the TV and Radio network accountants don't pull the plug on this story, possibly the most significant political change on foreign shores since the overthrow of Communism.

Do the TV Networks, and NPR, still have the resources, news judgment, or commitment to events abroad?

As usual, a generation yearns to be educated. And I don't mean the Iranians......

Taking things for granted..........

2009-05-06T15:52:00.001-04:00

My barber had a go at me this morning. As usual, it had gotten far too long. The guy in the next chair was almost bald.

"How old are you? 49? How come you only come in here every three months? What's the matter with you?
Do you know how much some men would pay for hair that grows like yours, especially at your age?"

"It fends for itself" I respond.

"It looks like it" he says before grabbing his comb.

The older I get, the more it grows. Guess I'm very fortunate. Never thought of it that way before.

Can you catch Swine Flu from Twitter?

2009-05-03T21:17:00.011-04:00

REMINDER: THESE ARE MARK'S VIEWS . NOT WAMU's, NOT AU's, NOT ANY OTHER 'U's VIEWS. FIRST ON THE WEB AT WAMU'S "THE CONVERSATION."

Washington's News-Talk Commercial radio station has an "Answer Desk" these days.

I was hoping they would get my mortgage refinanced, my kids admitted to the Beauvoir School and arrange a climatic change to the pattern of mid-Atlantic Spring tornadoes.

Sadly, they couldn't even answer the most fundamental of contemporary questions: "Can you catch swine flu from Twitter?".

It's a pressing concern, since so little is known about this mysterious, foreign virus, which according to the media was brought to our innocent shores via poor sanitation in both human and pig farming in less admirable countries. It's been pennies from heaven for the sick, desperate and destitute old media, already almost extinct from the "Arrogant and Out-of-Touch Virus" which has reared its head persistently in the U.S. since the days of the robber barons.

The most hyped-up story of the new century has also been perpetrated by the new wave of "social media", inspired here by America's neurotic obsession with Armageddon, as illustrated in such signature films as "Asteroid", "Independence Day" and - better still - the Rupert Murdoch-sponsored terror TV Show "24". Perhaps instead of a wine collection, Jack Bauer has a cellar-full of Tamiflu to save us from the ultimate nightmare.

But he will have to overcome the army of Tweeters pushing links (now called "Tinyurls" - you might have arrived here via one!) without checking the origin of the information, or the facts, to the latest hyped-up scare story. I took my daughter to a movie about solar flares at the National Air and Space Museum this afternoon. Believe me, it was every bit as scary as swine flu. But, somehow, I resisted the urge to Twitter.

This, you would think, would be an opportunity for "old media" to score, presenting themselves as the calm, trustworthy, factual stand-outs to reassure a nervous populace already reeling from the bailouts. An alternative business model to hyped-up sensationalism there, perhaps, but think again.

The local and network TV channels joined their cable subsidiaries in pushing the Armageddon theory, along with public radio and the major newspapers. The latter, at least, shouldn't need a reminder of their paltry coverage of the world-wide AIDS epidemic (deaths so far 32 million worldwide) or of the genocide in Rwanda (at least 800,000 dead).
Or of the opportunity to put such stories in context when a new type of flu arrives.

But the news-bicycles are now ridden so fast that the chains have broken, and we're all left on our hands and knees on the cycle track, covered in WD40, searching for the chain-link that might provide the clue. There has still got to be a future for people who check before they tweet, but how do we tell the difference? In public media, our credibility, and financial survival, depends on it.

Steal the flashcard

2009-04-14T18:45:00.001-04:00

Thanks to all who have responded here and elsewhere with your thoughts about our complaint to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs about the shameful treatment of our reporter David Schultz, who was stripped of his equipment by armed security guards as he interviewed a veteran who agreed to speak with him. Just to keep everyone up to date, here is David's feature and other stories on WAMU 88.5, and the letter from WAMU 88.5 General Manager Caryn Mathes to the head of the VA.

As you'll see, David's flashcard was returned. We're still awaiting an apology from the VA, who have promised a review of procedures. Our newsroom will be following that review, and reporting on the concerns of veterans going forward, hopefully without running the risk of theft or false arrest.

Mark

No, mate, that's not a riot.......

2009-04-01T23:34:00.012-04:00

Pic from CNN.com
First seen at www.conversation.wamu.org
(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, not AU's views, not any other U's views.)

Watching the TV pictures of a couple of hoodlums smashing a window at a London branch of the grandly named but lately disgraced Royal Bank of Scotland reminded me of a scene from a movie which other tragic forty-somethings might recall. In "Crocodile Dundee", Australian outback-dweller Paul Hogan is released onto the mean streets of New York and is confronted by a mugger, to whom his response is "no, mate, that's not a knife, this is a knife" whereupon he produces from underneath his cloak a huge meat-cleaver which would impress the most brutal abattoir owner.

The western media has been calling for a financial riot for weeks now. "Where is the anger?" cried a New York Times Op-Ed, followed by a chorus of dire warnings of fire and carnage ahead of the G20 summit. Don't get me wrong, I'm as angry as the next caller to the Diane Rehm Show. But where the media are concerned, the mass unemployment of uninteresting ordinary folk and a plummeting Dow Jones don't quite suffice when there are gasoline bombs and flying crowbars to be video-taped. And the City of London is a perfect venue, where the Gucci display-windows and the glistening buildings of the fallen banks provide an unlikely stage for the destitute sleeping in the doorways of pubs and theaters.

The violence itself could have been choreographed by those who view British life as a kind of mirror-image of the nation's TV soap-operas, which are devotedly watched by a majority of the population. It's media imitating life, imitating media. Everyone in the UK these days seems to default to behavior appropriate to the bit-part actors from the BBC's stable of prime-time reality shows. These two petty criminals and the fifty or so photographers and videographers are seen participating in some kind of weird cameo, where the snappers watch as the hoodlums smash the windows, but all are careful to keep clear of the flying glass. At no stage does the allegedly solid British bobby intervene, or is even seen. The entire scene appears like a conspiracy between the two mutually-benefiting groups.

It took me back to my days as a local radio reporter and the riots in the UK in 1981. They were not by any means the worst the world has seen, but in an allegedly civilized country, they were bad enough. A "ska" band, "The Specials" were top of the music charts with a song called "Ghost Town", an eery anti-unemployment anti-Government song, in which the prophetic final line was "...people getting angry".Banks, businesses, and homes were burned. People were injured and killed. In July, 1981, CS gas was fired by police at demonstrators for the first time. The riots of Toxteth, Liverpool; Brixton, London; Handsworth in Birmingham, and Chapeltown in Leeds changed communities for ever. I was a reporter at that time and most of the protests were too dangerous to record much video or sound from close proximity. Certainly, the rioters didn't wait politely for a gaggle of Fleet Street's finest to assemble.

There was no prearranged vandalism, convened via Facebook or Twitter, for the world's media to consume with the demonstators' compliance.

How much did the British tabloids pay these two individuals? How did a smashed window become worldwide news, covered by the most reputable of news organizations? What happened to discriminating, independent journalism?

No mate, this wasn't a riot. This was a set-up. And we all bought into it.

Note to journos: when covering the financial crisis, talk to the people affected. Reminder: not many of them routinely smash bank windows.

Certainties in Spring

2009-03-26T22:55:00.011-04:00

First seen at
http://www.conversation.wamu.org

There are waves of blue crocus, white snowdrop and yellow daffodil in Dumbarton Oaks in Upper Georgetown.

And the best reason for my seasonal optimism is the four months which have elapsed since the vet gave my dog four weeks to live, and Pundit is still dragging me to the Hearst Recreation Field each morning, despite his incurable cancer.

But the truth is I'm equally energized both by our recent membership campaign, where our amazing recession-hit listeners came through with much more than we'd bargained for, and by the latest Arbitron numbers for our flagship program, The Diane Rehm Show, which are beyond extraordinary.

Diane's national weekly audience grew by 28% over the past year to more than 2.2 million, an achievement Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi puzzlingly overlooked in his story about NPR audiences earlier this week. A baffling oversight, because it was the outstanding number from all the public radio program statistics.

Given the importance of this program in American life, none of this is a surprise to us at WAMU.

In the run-up to the most exciting and important US election, held amidst the most worrying and confusing economic crisis in years, Diane's ability to energize her guests to synthesize the issues, explain them in everyday terms, and suggest energizing solutions has been consistently brilliant. She has represented the concerns of the public to the moneyed and powerful throughout this time, and she has become required listening in an increasing number of cities, families, schools, and businesses.

On a more experimental note, and thanks largely to the people who support our work, including those who contribute to this unique site, I have been able to make some program changes also. Don't worry, I gained Pundit's approval first.

We debuted "The Takeaway", the allegedly hip alternative to Morning Edition on HD3. It hasn't found its voice just yet, but there are inspiring moments, chuckles, conversation-starters, and provocative reasons to tune in. Please give it a try and let me know what you think. So far, we've had a handful of BBC fans moaning about the demise of the 9 a.m. "Newshour".

So please, if you like the Takeaway, let us know.

If you don't, we'll hear from you anyhow.

Happy Spring from Pundit.

A new NPR boss and a new deal for public radio?

2009-03-25T14:06:00.000-04:00

FIRST PUBLISHED AT WAMU'S THE CONVERSATION

PLEASE NOTE:-
THESE ARE MARK'S VIEWS. NOT WAMU's VIEWS, NOT AU's VIEWS, NOT ANY OTHER 'U's VIEWS.......

Vivian Schiller, NPR's new Chief Executive Officer, has a unique opportunity to slay the dragon which has had many public radio stations breathing fire at the mother ship these past few years - the web.

At a public media conference a few years back a station delegate, fed up with paying top dollar on behalf of his listeners for NPR's news magazine shows, summed up the marriage:

"NPR wants to sleep with other people, and we're tired of being told to 'lose a few pounds'."

The problem is NPR-DOT-ORG, which has been perceived by many stations as a rival, not a partner, with its slick one-shop content, and contextual information to add to the stories aired.

Recently, NPR even offered live steaming event coverage which competed for listeners with NPR-sponsored station programming, and promoted it on air in a program the stations pay for - Morning Edition. Meanwhile, even the biggest stations can barely afford a webmaster (or webmistress?) for their own sites.

Rather like the poisoned chalice handed to President Obama of drinking the collegiality and cooperation Kool-aid with the fisticuff-prone democrats and republicans, Vivian Schiller will face entrenched positions. But she has a vital task to unify the public radio community system behind one, dedicated website, which can be customized by individual stations according to geography to make it local or "hyperlocal", and contain all the great public radio programming there is from coast to coast and around the globe. The one-destination goal is surely the most economic choice for the system's future survival, and the fairest and most accessible for public radio's community of loyal listeners, who won't be asked to fund competing services.

Especially now with the economy in the tank, and the new media revolution well underway, its clear we public service broadcasters all need each other if we're to continue to set the standards of excellence our listeners have come to expect.

Sleepless Nights at the Bank which never sleeps

2009-02-27T16:07:00.002-05:00

THESE ARE MARK'S PERSONAL VIEWS, NOT WAMU'S VIEWS, NOT AU'S VIEWS, NOT ANY OTHER U'S VIEWS........

Ira Glass's This American Life and NPR have done a great job already at deciphering the financial crisis. Tomorrow at noon on WAMU 88.5, there is another special edition.

By way of preview, here's my two cents (sorry 0.4 cents).

Its not simply that they gambled billions of investors' money, these banks. Or that they were so knee-deep in their own greed that they forced the Government into a corner where not bailing them out would have spelled disaster for the customers.

For me, it was the sheer incompetance and arrogance manifest for decades before the crisis in their derelict customer service.

You know the thing: Long lines in the branches followed by disengaged, dismissive tellers. On the phone, press one to give us your money, to withdraw yours please hold for a couple of hours, since all of our representatives are currently assisting.......

I might have some sympathy, if they hadn't been so arrogant. Five years ago a part-time finance person who worked for my wife's small non-profit was caught stealing from the bank account. Large amounts over several months disguised as payroll. It nearly bankrupted the business. Was the bank helpful? She needed someone to investigate, quickly. She needed a temporary overdraft, or a loan, she was the victim of a crime and deserved some sympathy and support. Did she receive any of those things?

No. After days and days of filling out forms, and making phone calls with no return calls, she was simply left to sink.
It was apparent then that the conglomerate of unmanageable proportions was looking gleefully beyond the average customer to its mountains of paper money, all of it about to turn toxic.

Fortunately, BB&T came along, offered her a loan and a line of credit, and took her to lunch.

Now, our taxes are going to bail out the people whose corporate monolith refused to help us in our hour of need. Its tough to swallow. At least I won't be losing any sleep over them.

The Feds and The Raccoons

2009-02-19T16:18:00.006-05:00

First Published at http://www.theconversation.wamu.org

Walking Pundit (my ailing 9-year-old golden retriever) in the woods this morning there was a bunch of warning posters on the trees:

"Rabid Raccoons sighted. Keeps dogs on leash." (- that'll be the day). There was a helpful picture of the dangerous beast for the benefit of us ignorant urban types, which from a distance could have been taken from nearby bushes. But on closer inspection it seemed to have been cut and pasted from a wild animal website.

We were walking through Dumbarton Oaks, a spectacularly ornate and ornamental garden in the Upper Georgetown section of D.C., which has been happily under-visited by lawnmowers and fertilizers. Its run by the Department of the Interior. We wandered through the woods into an adjoining section of Rock Creek Park, where I noticed there were no more posters. Rock Creek, I understand, is run by the National Parks Service, which belongs to the Department of the Interior.

I wonder if anyone can shed light on this?

My main concern is this: do the raccoons understand the divergent roles of the various Federal Government departments? What would happen if they were to stray into the Parks Service territory? Would they get arrested in one, and shot-on-sight in the other? Just a Brit pondering the wonders of the US of A......and, if you're a lawyer, in which territory would you advise my dog to be bitten by one?

How not to speak Janitor

2009-02-13T00:13:00.002-05:00

FIRST PUBLISHED AT http://www.conversation.wamu.org

I marched late into work the other morning without saying hello to one of the janitors. Normally we'd give each other a cheery if polite greeting. But I'd just had a tough phone conversation and I was preoccupied and late.

I didn't see her bending awkwardly into the hallway cupboard where her supplies are kept.

Our janitors are employed by independent contractors. They work as hard as anyone in the building, in more challenging circumstances (smelly food, forest-threatening piles of newspapers, etc).

They don't take as many sick days as some of us, they never admit to being tired, and they don't respond to "challenges", they simply do what needs to be done.

Their zealous use of the vacuum cleaner gives them a noisy reputation, especially in the studios, but personally they're much quieter and less verbally demanding than the rest of us.

Last night I told my media management students the story of an exhibition by Duane Hanson at American University's Katzen Arts Center two years ago, which I attended with my then 3-year-old daughter. If you click on the link, scroll down three or four items to see what I'm talking about. I told the students that managers need to make everyone in the organization feel valued and take an interest in everyone's work. In this, I said, all employees should be seen as equal.

Duane Hanson became famous in the 1960s and 1970s for his lifelike sculptures of everyday people that were cast from live models, then painted in great detail and finished with ordinary objects.

In this exhibition at the Katzen lifelike figures which were really sculptures were positioned all around the building. In the coffee bar, the galleries, the corridors, and the concert halls. My daughter examined them closely to make sure they weren't moving.

There was one particular sculpture which caught our attention. It was a janitor, complete with (bright yellow) garbage-bin on wheels, mop-on-stick, sprays, fluids, and brushes.

"She" was standing by the elevator, and the exhibition visitors would emerge in clusters from the elevator, and walk right past her.

No one saw her. With her cleaning equipment, she was the largest "still-life" exhibit of all of them. But no-one noticed.

My daughter said: "They should put her in front of the elevator, then everyone will see her."

"That's not what she would want" , I ventured. Like I would know......I walked past her..

Don't hang up, hang on.......

2009-01-05T15:11:00.006-05:00

First published at http://www.conversation.wamu.org

Internet subscriptions are like getting a tattoo. Great idea at the time, but painful and frequently impossible to remove when you come to your senses. For some web-based businesses they appear to have become a perpetual sleeping earner, so long as the ancient art of stonewalling is part of your employee training.

Years ago, I opened a modest AOL account. That was back when we all needed help navigating Al Gore's great new invention. The monthly deduction of $6.95 has lurked on my credit card ever since. Its one of those calls I've always been meaning to make.

Last year, with the surge of enthusiasm for New Year cleansing, I called the AOL number helpfully printed on the credit card statement. The man from AOL "customer service" tried everything. Why did I want to cancel? Could I go on hold for a moment? What was my subscription number? What was my password? Perhaps I would like to try their new (offer) with extra (fill-in-the-blank-thing-you-don't-need). Could I repeat why I wanted to cancel? He couldn't find any record of my subscription. Then he found it. And he put me on hold again. Then he came back and said it was canceled. Only it wasn't.

The following month, there it was again. Again I called. Another practiced filibusterer. I reached his "supervisor". I begged, yes pleaded, to have my $6.95 back. They assured me it was canceled. It wasn't. My credit card company said they could take no action without confirmation from the retailer. Great. I'm embarrassed to say, I'm still a proud subscriber to AOL.

My wife had one, too, with a business called "Credit Inform" who send you a note when someone is poking around your credit report. She hadn't used it in 18 months at $8.95 a month. Same problem. Pin number, no record, security word, reference number. After more than half an hour of pleading (as a colleague here says, "another half hour you'll never get back") they agreed to cancel and apply a two-month refund. We'll see.

The motto: don't subscribe. Or if you did, don't hang up, hang on........

Blindingly Obvious Careers Advice for 2009

2008-12-29T23:01:00.004-05:00

FIRST POSTED AT http://www.theconversation.wamu.org

I was amazed to find that my American University class in Multi-Media Management,starting in mid-January, is already fully subscribed.

Believe me, despite the Great Depression 2, candidates who want to forge a media career in 2009 are still valued, whether its radio, TV, web, print, or all of the above, so long as they have important stories to tell.

As a journalist, manager, and coach, I have learned to distinguish between those aspiring to be famous (or at least recognized by their moms) and those who have something to say based on what they have discovered.

If its all about you, as encouraged by some of the commercial media, then forget it. If its about the stories you want to tell, jobs are still available (assuming you can write), but here is some quick advice.

Don't just rely on your own friends, do your own reporting. You can write stories beyond your own group (Twitter, Facebook,etc) to garner outside interest in your writing. You can overcome shyness and track down strangers who may be able to shed light on your story, ask them relevant questions, and reproduce the answers in a way which accurately reflects their responses. This way, you'll shed new light and new information on issues, not merely replicate the gossip of others. Contrary to contemporary belief, the ability to duplicate other people's reporting does not make you a 'journalist'.

The market for media jobs is fiercely competitive, so it helps to concentrate on pulling together a brilliant letter and resume. Do your best writing. When sending me a resume, the ability to spell my name correctly, and demonstrate some understanding of the programs my radio station airs with a brief description of what they contain goes a long, long way. Showing up knowing where you are, and what the organization does, is a surprisingly easy plus.

In order to survive, you need to know why you are in this competitive industry. You should have a one year, five year and ten-year career target, with the single-mindedness, energy and talent to attract recruiters who are faced with tough choices.

Even today, good journalism is not simply a job. Its a vocation.

The American Forum on Obama and the press

2008-12-28T11:55:00.000-05:00

Watch Mark hosting the American Forum on C-SPAN here, or listen to it on WAMU.ORG here.
*Sponsored by the American University School of Communication and WAMU 88.5
Politics and Pundits: The Promises of the New Presidency
and the press. Guests: Bob Schieffer, host of CBS News' Face the Nation and chief
Washington correspondent, CBS News
Dotty Lynch, executive in residence at SOC and CBS News
political consultant
Tom Rosenstiel, director, Project for Excellence in Journalism
Gebe Martinez, regular contributing columnist, Politico
Tony Romm, editor of politics@theEAGLE

Washington is in for change in January, with the election of Sen. Barack Obama as president. What will the effect of the most covered presidential campaign in history be? Who will be the players for the next four years? What were the key media moments? Were the media stricken with Obamamania, as has been charged? Or, were they even-handed in their coverage of an unprecedented wild ride of a political season? A statesman of broadcast news, a political consultant, a media analyst, a columnist, and an up-and-coming politics writer will look at these questions in an American Forum **live on WAMU 88.5** just a week after the election.

Mark McDonald
American Forum Moderator
Director of Programs, WAMU 88-5 FM
Broadcast Journalist in Residence, American University

Get a big shovel

2008-12-10T14:53:00.003-05:00

First posted at WAMU's The Conversation

A lot of our favorite radio shows would never have survived the "focus group" stage of inception. Car Talk springs to mind. Prairie Home Companion is another. Some hard-nosed statistician would have shot them down in flames.

But by the same token, you can't just sit down and open the mic. These days, the least a successful start-up public radio production takes is a great idea. Try big resources, investment, and a high degree of blind faith. Not to mention gall, guts, opportunism, deluded optimism, stubbornness, and a high degree of nerve. Then there are all the potential competitors for your favored time-slot who will try to shoot you down before you get started or rubbish your show's quality, and some of them have bigger microphones and much deeper pockets than you.

And, then, the acid test - will listeners even like it? Our own Diane Rehm managed to do it virtually alone, with just the support and encouragement of her closest colleagues.

So its sad to hear this week of 11 economy-related layoffs at Chicago Public Radio, one of the boldest and most imaginative outfits in our dysfunctional public radio family, and the news that NPR are shutting down two relatively new programs, "Day to Day" and "News and Notes"among other big cutbacks.

Chicago have been experimenting with "Vocalo.org", a swash-buckling new format aimed at younger and more diverse audiences who allegedly pass on the traditional rigidity of NPR. The nersayers are already accusing station management (who are taking pay cuts) of wasting core money on the experiment, hence the need for the cuts.

NPR wanted more variety and diversity in midday conversations, hence Day to Day and News and Notes. But a lot of big stations stuck with the established talk shows citing the strong audience numbers for those programs. I never had a prime-time slot for either on Channel One, but we aired them both on HD Channel 3.

Not that any of these new enterprises were in every sense failures. Its more a recession-driven need to retreat to the tried and trusted and away from experimentation which drives the decisions when economic reality beckons in public broadcasting. These days, some purists also question the proportion of investment being made by industry leaders in trying to get out ahead of the innovations in "new" and "social" media and whether its at the expense of high quality programs which might work on any given distribution platforms. You decide.

Its a sad fact that despite the diversity we have in our programming line-ups nationwide, only a handful of shows survive without heavy handouts from their sponsoring stations or from corporate partners. So the next time you think about starting a gardening show, think twice. You'll likely need a wealthy backer, and a strong stomach, as well as a big shovel.

2008-12-01T15:42:00.001-05:00

Cheese with the Kitchen Sisters

2008-11-20T10:07:00.001-05:00

Thanks to the Kitchen Sisters , the Cabot Creamery, and the Public Affairs teams of WAMU and NPR, we had a terrific time last night at the Washington Historic Society. In front of an audience of 300, Susan Stamberg interviewed the sisters, Davia and Nikki, about their broadcasting careers. Thanks to all who made it such a warm evening inside.

Mark's remarks at the Kitchen Sister's event:-

As a lifelong connoisseur of micro-waved frozen french fries and boiled frozen sprouts I am totally unsuited to the task of introducing such celebrants of food as tonight's host and special guests.

But luckily I’m here tonight to represent more than the workaholic parents’ bad diet club.

I’m speaking on behalf of the listeners to WAMU 88.5 and users of WAMU.ORG to recognize the extraordinary contribution the Kitchen Sisters have made to public radio’s reputation with more than 2-hundred features of community, story-telling, quality, curiosity, and surprise.

The kind of radio they’re making has propelled WAMU 88.5 to the rank of third most-listened to public station in the United States, and made us a major player in the Washington media market. And I’m proud to tell you that our recent Fall membership campaign yielded a record $1.4 million dollars and more than 10,000 new donors.

If you contributed, thank you. If you haven’t, as we always say, its not too late!

Much of what Davia and Nikki have achieved started with the basic ingredients of curious reporting. Poking around their chosen beats – kitchens, restaurants, family tables, farms, and – closest to my heart - allotments.

The feature on the London allotments heard this summer on Morning Edition moved me to tears. Many of these gardens were grown from the World War Two slogan “dig for victory”, and my grandfather fed many of his neighbors during that struggle from the fruits of his back-yard vegetable patch.

There's a lot of talk in public radio these days about localism – connecting what’s happening in the wider world to events, developments and challenges in our own communities. At WAMU 88.5 we try to do this every day with our local coverage. Through the celebration of food and community in all their forms The Kitchen Sisters stories have brought this mission to a new level.

And we’re additionally fortunate that speaking with them tonight is an NPR correspondent, host and author who has been with the network from the very beginning, and has remained an inspiration to public service broadcasters for more than four decades. Susan Stamberg has won every major award in broadcasting and is a pioneer for women in the industry.

Of course, she began her radio career at WAMU where she served as journalist, program director, and general manager. Together with her wonderful husband Lou, who passed away just a year ago, Susan has been one of the station’s most committed supporters ever since.

And she also knows a little bit about food. And it is around this time of year when Susan’s legendary recipe for Cranberry Relish becomes the talk of the airwaves once again. So with celebration, and giving thanks in mind, I introduce to you Susan Stamberg, and The Kitchen Sisters.

The Pet Show's Euthanasia

2008-11-17T15:34:00.005-05:00

First published at The Conversation

In its short life on the air in Washington D.C., Calling All Pets barked, chased, wagged its tail, and generally charmed the WAMU listeners into becoming lasting friends. And there were treats galore, also, during the membership campaigns when many listeners expressed their pleasure at having a pal on Saturday mornings.

It survived the questions from some in the public radio stratosphere who thought it not journalistically analytical or poker-faced enough to be on our air. To the contrary, I argued, we all need some fun on the weekends, especially the pet-mad citizens of the Washington area.

Alas, in the coming weeks we'll be replacing the show, which is no longer being produced by Wisconsin Public Radio. Right now, we're repeating the best programs for the Uber-fans, which is why you'll hear a message saying "don't call." Financially sustainable models for hour long public radio shows are hard to come by (there is a mere handful - Car Talk, Prairie, Wait Wait, etc) and Wisconsin simply couldn't sustain the costs to their listeners any longer (it was free to us, and other stations.)

Its success lay in its focus. It didn't obsess (as us pet lovers do) on arthritis problems, training techniques, or flea and tick medicine. It majored on helping the animal and human worlds understand, and compare, each others' behavior. It was really the closest public radio has come to a great show about psychology. Hence it attracted thousands of listeners who don't have pets, as well as those who do.

Like the cautious person I'm accused of being, I'll only say we're exploring all options. Producing our own animal program, or looking elsewhere for the 7 a.m. slot. But we'll miss the smile and the drooling tongue of Calling All Pets and, judging from the listening numbers, so will thousands of others.

Rest assured, it will be laid to rest in peace.

Watch Out for the Funeral

2008-10-31T16:13:00.000-04:00

(Originally posted at WAMU's The Conversation )

I understand your confusion. You believed it was your inability to multi-task which posed the greatest risk on the roads in the District of Columbia. Those of us unable to eat a sandwich, make a phone call, have a shave and negotiate the Tenley Circle in rush hour all at once.

But you'd be wrong. Recently our marvellous au pair Oksana, who arrived on Independence Day with a spotless drivers' license from the Ukraine attempted to take what's enticingly called the "DC Knowledge Test."

Here - you have a go.

1. How much room should you leave while passing a cyclist? Four feet?, five feet?, three feet?

2. What is the maximum speed in a DC alley? 25 mph? 15mph? 10mph?

3. How close must you park to the kerb? Within 24 inches? Within 9 inches? Within 12 inches?

4. What is the minimum tread on your front tires? 4/32 ? 6/54? 3/36?

5. How far ahead of a right turn must you use your turn signal? 50 feet? 100 feet? 200 feet?

6. What do you do if there is a funeral ahead of you? (plough on through it, perhaps? or does it depend whose funeral?)

OK, I draw the line at that one, because as she completed the answers on the DMV computer, she began to think it was hers they were talking about. And, subsequently, she narrowly failed. We'll have to study the motorist's version of Trivial Pursuit a little harder.

Am I alone in thinking this is hard, or in the case of 6, obvious, and somewhat arbitrary? How many did you get right?

Those maniacs in white vans who overtake you on the South West freeway - do they really know this stuff?

Answers 3, 15,12,4/32,100

News Judgement for Dissidents

2008-10-27T14:27:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the columnist Cal Thomas, I'm reminded that Alexander Solzhenitsyn didn't spend all his time campaigning against the ruthlessness of the Soviet Union.

The dissident, who died recently at the age of 89, also had a great deal to say about the western media:

"People have the right not to know" he wrote in 1978. "The right not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person who leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive burdening flow of information."

I read this guilt-inducing assertion after retiring for the day from a hot beach in South Carolina this past summer. Guilty, because in our air-conditioned vacation apartment I felt the need for my daily fix, and weakened to watch the drama-laden instantaneous babble of evening cable news.

The endless speculative punditry about the Obama campaign's next response to the McCain campaign's response to the last Obama campaign attack ad, reminded me of one of my rare dissenting acts during my tenure as a BBC News producer in New York, an organization which is usually very good at deciding what we don't need to know.

I had refused London's instruction to charter an executive jet to fly to the Carribean Island of Mustique where the late Princess Margaret, a storied and colorful but self-indulgent and isolated member of the British royal family was about to undergo a minor operation on her nose. This was a low point of one of the BBC's more paranoid periods, when they convinced themselves they had to compete with the tabloid press by masking celebrity-driven stories with some perceived social significance. Unfortunately, the jet was chartered by our Washington office, filled with reporters and producers who could have been more productively employed, and this insignificant nonsense, paid for at the BBC listeners' expense, hit the air; soon (of course) to be forgotten.For the record, amidst the worldwide human misery that BBC correspondents cover on an hourly basis, this was very much an aberration in judgment. Which brings me back to Solzhenitzyn.

He knew thirty years ago that much of the drivel masquerading as "news" can be safely ignored. Which is why the choices serious journalists and broadcasters make in what, and what not, to cover, are critical.

Not only are we spending listeners' money wisely (reminder to colleagues, they pay our wages) but they trust us to make informed choices about what is significant, educational, or simply helpful, and what is not, so their valuable time isn't wasted.

Memo to vacationing self: less "Hardball", more beach volleyball next summer.

Would your blind friend like a drink?

2008-10-24T09:38:00.000-04:00

First published at WAMU's The Conversation.

When I was in college in England I had a friend who was blind. George had been struck with a blunt object when he was a young boy. He had little recollection of having seen anything. Going to the pub with George, however, was always fun. George knew how to enjoy a drink, but ordinary British pub-going folk were oftentimes too intimidated by his disability to proposition him directly. "I'd love to buy him a drink....." they would say. "Then ask him if he wants one..." would be my response. He usually did. Then they would offer him cash. "Put it in the poor box" George would say.

At least they noticed him.

I remembered this while I waited on a tense, crowded, heated, and quite terrifying platform at Washington DC's Metro Center on Thursday night, to change from the Red Line to the Blue/Orange. The colored route terminology, of course, makes life no easier for the visually-challenged, but never mind.

A young African-American woman dressed in a sharp gray suit and solid heels was trying to cut her way through the crowd with her long white stick. A mass of preoccupied, twittering, texting, and simultaneously spacially-challenged citizens of the District formed a wall in front of her and she wavered and wandered down the platform towards a brick barrier underneath the escalator bank. "Are you OK miss?" I asked pathetically before she banged into the station wall. "I'm trying to find my way out" she laughed with the sort of ironic sense-of-humor which is a prerequisite of the partially sighted if they are seeking help.

I took her arm and tried to steer her towards the escalator entrance. Still the home-going masses poured forward oblivious and preoccupied. From the other direction came another stick-wielding partially-sighted person. In a scene which would have been much more marketable in the days before political correctness in slapstick comedy, they collided in front of the down escalator and I narrowly averted a mass-casualty disaster by physically manhandling the pair of them onto the up-escalator. As the "Metro Customers" going down carried on regardless, I made a note to strengthen my personal liability insurance (at least I could read the small print).

On the return journey a blue-eyed, silver-haired, slim and smartly-dressed young man was waiting on the platform at the spot where the very back of the metro train should stop. He was wheel-chair bound. When the train came in, it was full. Again, the masses poured out, and their replacement masses poured in. I beckoned the man to go ahead but he saw the crowd inside the carriage and gestured me to get in before him. Fortunately, a gap appeared by accident and he inched his vehicle inside.

The message is clear. If you are disabled, don't travel during rush-hour. You'll risk even more inhumanity than usual. Unless you have to, of course.

Egg Stains, Halloween and Headaches

2008-10-21T10:36:00.000-04:00

(First published at www.theconversation.wamu.org)

As I become more aware of my own aging process the feast of All Hallows serves as a reminder of a particular social divide which permeates ours, and probably everyone else's, workplace.

I'm privileged to have been invited to a plethora of Halloween parties this year. Some will be those great adult affairs of outrageous costumes and copious amounts of alcohol. Others are pizza and neighborhood trick or treating with the kids and the golden retriever. Much as my alter ego might yearn for the former, as a parent I am compelled to the latter, although some socially conscious friends are offering "combo" parties which start with the kids and end with the booze.

But there's no escaping it. With a beautiful five-year-old and a charmingly mischievous two-year-old I am a fully paid-up member of our office's secret society - the parents. You know us. We're the ones who talk in hushed tones around each other's desks about nannies and insurance and school applications.

We waver between guilt and innocence. One moment I am self-righteous, dumping the "Unfunded Priorities" meeting for a minor toothache and expecting everyone else to rearrange their schedules. Next, the vulnerable victim who, after a sleepless night of wailing and screaming from the crib, creeps around the office medical box in search of aspirin to the sound of guffaws from colleagues about hangovers.

There are the stifled yawns during meetings. The nervous twitch towards the vibrating cell phone. Then there was the day I showed up with chocolate all down my pants (yes - you guessed where), and the afternoon when I opened a spreadsheet to demonstrate a work flow diagram with a giant egg-yolk stain apparently strategically placed down the center.

There is no escape. Most of my co-workers tolerate my erraticism. Let's face it; they don't have any other option. But some of my (mostly) younger, single, colleagues are nonplussed. And every now and then, just occasionally, I yearn for the day when I was nonplussed, too. Was it really that long ago?

But then I remember I'm going trick or treating, with orange juice to follow.

Become a Citizen Journalist

2008-10-20T16:01:00.000-04:00

Here are two easy ways to become a Citizen Journalist. Go to AskYourLawmaker.org (below) and pose a question. Or visit Meymo Lyons' section of the My Conversation interactive site at WAMU, Washington's Public Radio news station, and suggest a topic or story, and provide information and contacts if you have them.

2008-10-20T16:00:00.000-04:00

Young reporters follow in the master's footsteps

2008-10-19T13:30:00.000-04:00

On the same day Tim Russert died our Youth Voices class graduated at the National Press Club with their families in the audience.

As usual, we played the five feature stories which will air on WAMU and on our website in the coming weeks to the audience in the First Amendment Lounge. Several alums customarily returned to lend their support to the class.

The Youth Voices project is modeled on one pioneered by Marianne McCune at the New York public radio station, WNYC. The last team won the 2008 Silver Communicator Award from the International Academy of the Visual Arts
http://www.wamu.org/about/press/08/yvcommunicator.php

The graduation ceremony is increasingly poignant for me because when we launched Youth Voices at WAMU there was some skepticism, both from listeners and from within. “Why are you putting those kids on the air?” was a persistent question.

Five years on and this reaction has come full circle as listeners hear beyond the youthful, diverse and often inexperienced voices to the person reporting the story and the issue itself. And a galvanizing bi-product is that members of staff from all over WAMU (and from the wider American University community) offer their skills and time to help out – looking for sponsorship, negotiating for facilities, coaching microphone skills, offering transport, or simply an encouraging word to a student in the frenetic and intimidating workspace of a radio newsroom.

But what’s most important is what hits the air. And thanks to the professional backroom team as well as the reporters, it is public radio investigative journalism of the highest quality, tackling crucial subjects which are often overlooked by us “grown-up” broadcasters, and focus-grouped out of the news agendas of commercial mass media organizations.

The incredible journeys homeless young people have to embark on to fight for survival; whether school uniforms foster discipline or frustrate creativity; why the media keeps howling about the coming of the apocalypse; why coverage of scientific advance doesn’t necessarily have to be about curing MY ailment to be interesting; and why the doctors and the drugs companies have collided to produce an addicted group of thousands of youngsters.

In some of these features, the stresses and challenges confronting our younger generation are evidenced through the subject chosen, and the intelligent script and delivery.
They are never expressed with resignation or frustration, but utilizing genuine, young, humor.

Tim Russert would have approved mightily of the depth of research the young reporters undertook, the professionalism with which they carried out their mission, and the sense of accomplishment, and privilege, to which they all attested publicly in their acceptance speeches. And contrary to what one prominent New York Times columnist wrote this morning (Monday) I’m confident he wasn’t the last one of a kind.

My Banking Fantasy

2008-10-14T12:47:00.000-04:00

First published at http://www.theconversation.wamu.org

Dear Mr. Calamity Bank Executive,

First of all, we offer our sincere condolences over the collapse of your banking empire. Incompetence, greed, and poor decision-making surrounded you in the marketplace, and conspired against the prudent decisions you made throughout your illustrious years with the Calamity Bank. During that time, you took a humble side street mortgage brokerage and made it into a Wall Street titan through sheer daring, and a great deal of customers' money. Sheer bad fortune and meddling politicians conspired for your downfall.

The good news is, as citizen shareholders of the new American Bank of Taxpayers' Revenge (ABTR), we are delighted to welcome you as a new customer.

First of all, we're allowing you an overdraft facility of $10,000. This will be at an interest rate of 29.99 per cent, is secured on your reduced retirement assets and your condo in Virgin Gorda, and is freezable at any time we choose.

I am also happy to confirm we are issuing you with our new gold-embossed credit card. I am delighted you chose the picture of the window-leaping stock-broker for your image, and the flexible 31.5% rate of interest. Please be careful when going on vacations lasting more than four days. A 24-hour delay in payment will lead to a doubling of your interest rate and adversely affect your credit score. You'll be delighted to learn that we will subsequently be bombarding you with junk mail and junk email offering you dubious new ways to over-stretch your finances in the future.

In any event, from time to time, we will need to consult Equifax to confirm your credit score. This inquiry will, in itself, lead to a reduction in that credit score, and your rate of interest may increase as a result.

Once again, welcome to the American Bank of Taxpayers' Revenge. If you have any questions, our 24-hour "Bankers Away" call center is at your disposal. After listening to four lengthy automated messages, and repeating your account number three times, you will be placed on hold until someone in New Delhi is available to speak with you.

Please note; this letter, and the 92-thousand sub-clauses you will find in 4-point italics in the enclosed brochure, will serve as a binding agreement between you and our powerful firm of international lawyers. Please read it carefully. Especially if careful is a word you have only recently heard.

NPR grabs karaoke mic, sings "My Way"

2008-10-01T12:28:00.000-04:00

FIRST PUBLISHED AT MY STATION'S INTERACTIVE WEBSITE, http://conversation.wamu.org
PLEASE SIGN-UP !

About once a week, I get an email from a listener who is frustrated that we "covered up" an NPR segment with "insignificant" local news, arts, traffic, or weather.

If you share this sentiment, I have some good news for you.

NPR has signaled its intentions to forge ahead with its multi-million dollar expansion of NPR.ORG, this week launching its own version of The Conversation and announcing a $2.5 million training scheme for its reporters to learn how to write and shoot pictures for the web.

I saw a similar type of "convergence" happen at the BBC when the News Division merged radio and TV and made reporters file for both. Some took to it, some didn't. One unforgiving TV manager, appraising an erstwhile radio reporter's work on camera, coined the phrase "you definitely have a face for radio".

Then the web arrived and BBC reporters now have to file there, too. This undoubtedly increases reporter efficiency in covering stories across several media, but there are still frequent complaints from the reporters and producers that they have less and less time to gather the facts, background and color they need because they're too busy filing. Consequently, quality sometimes suffers.

But for public radio devotees, this will increase choice. There will be program options, platforms, and resources at NPR.ORG which local public stations can't replicate via plain old radio transmitters. Thanks to the web, for the first time NPR is a broadcaster in its own right. And if we cover-up Frank Deford with a local story, you can get him at NPR.ORG.

This is a brave new world for all of us in public broadcasting and I'd like to be able to say there's been a thorough debate and dialogue on these issues within the industry. But there hasn't. And NPR's strategy will lead to huge challenges for stations. Will NPR.ORG lure listeners away from our signal and onto the NPR website? Will members then decide to contribute less during membership campaigns, or to give elsewhere? If our audience numbers fall, will potential corporate sponsors find WAMU less attractive? And, as a result, will NPR's nose spite its face, since 60% of NPR's revenue comes from its member stations?

Aware of the concerns, NPR has been a supportive partner with local stations in other new media ventures. Thanks to these collaborations, you can get WAMU news updates on your mobile phone, or hear a podcast of Diane, Kojo or Metro Connection.

My belief is that its both sense of place, and sense of identity, which will ensure the survival of local stations, and are probably key to the success of NPR.ORG, as well. In the ears and minds of listeners, public radio stands for original content, properly sourced information, decency, constructive dialogue, good citizenry, and, in the stations' case, localism.

I've recently dabbled in the online community "Twitter". While there is the occasional gem of a contribution, most of the dialogue centers on relaying information gathered by others (websites, TV shows, blogs) or self-centered trivia from users concerned about their over-use of sugar substitutes in coffee and the like.

The challenge is to originate strong programs, and build on our unique strengths while maintaining our authenticity. We will stand or fall on our ability to deliver distinctive programs which truly belong to the WAMU Community. Hot Jazz Saturday Night, The Kojo Nnamdi Show, and The Big Broadcast are today's examples. But we'll need to be constantly inventive going forward. WAMU can do on air and on the web what NPR cannot - put Washington D.C.'s citizens at the center of the universe.

For all the debate about distribution platforms, it's still all about the content, not where it resides. And we're still your local station.

Radio fears "zero sales situations" with PPM

2008-09-23T16:41:00.000-04:00

The science of estimating the size of the American radio audience is getting a lot more complex and interesting, or a lot scarier, depending on your perspective.

Arbitron, the company with a monopoly on measuring our listening habits, is rolling out its Portable People Meter, or as they said at its Washington, D.C. launch this morning "technology is catching up with reality."

Here's how it works currently: a couple of thousand people, a cross section of life in the DC area, dutifully fill out diaries telling researchers what they listen to, and when, for the honor of being a good media citizen plus a few bucks in change. The diaries are collated and the results extrapolated to estimate how many people listen to which station, which program, etc, and for how long. Program Directors make scheduling decisions based (partly) on the data and how it trends over time. The biggest problem: people forget or exaggerate their listening habits.

Under the new system, panelists (1300 of them in the DC area) will wear electronic devices about their persons (apparently you will be able to get a Redskins logo on yours) which will beam information back ultimately to Arbitron HQ, telling the analysts exactly what the wearers are listening to, even when they're asleep. The problem here: dropping the thing down the lavatory by accident, or walking into your local CVS and being exposed on the PA system to a music station you'd never choose for yourself. In other words, it measures hearing, not active listening, which is what the public radio audience does best.

There will be much more data for us to analyze, broken down by the minutes, if necessary. So, in theory, we should be able to make quicker, and more accurate scheduling decisions to please the WAMU audience. It measures both analogue and HD stations, web streams, podcasts, the whole nine yards, unlike the diaries which only estimated old-fashioned radio. And because the numbers will be much more specific, a boring talk show guest could be denied a repeat invitation on the basis of the audience numbers for his particular appearance.

At this morning's launch, the new methodology came with its own corporate buzz-language. The phrase "quarterly characteristic update" was new to me but I promised to remember it. Apparently, when a panelist goes AWOL, Arbitron provides counseling to assist the individual in getting back on the wagon (or, in this case, back listening to Diane). "Zero sales situations" was another memorable catch-phrase which sent a visible tingle down the spine of my colleague Anthony Hayes, WAMU's Director of Corporate Marketing, who sat next to me. Presumably it means nada in the door dollar-wise if the agencies who buy airtime see listener levels falling. The forced CVS listening, by the way, is called "incidental cume", which sounds more like something I might request at the pharmacy counter, but never mind.

Results in the early adopter markets appear consistent. There are bigger overall listening numbers for many commercial and public stations, but most folks seem to be listening for a shorter time than was previously thought. In New York, some of the stations with predominantly African American or Hispanic audiences say they're being short-changed by the new data and are taking Arbitron to court.

Meantime, a questionable change is the decision to measure the listening habits of everyone over six years of age, bringing the Barbie Doll target market into play. Under the old system, the lowest age was twelve. As an Arbitron Vice President said from the platform this morning, the ad agencies want to "find ways to monetize kids."

Welcome to my new world.

Stop obsessing on the canvas and fix the painting

2008-08-26T22:14:00.000-04:00

Almost as though we have no right to acclaim the success of public radio in doubling its audience over the past decade, many industry leaders are predicting its eminent demise at the hands of the web, and those frightening and unthathomable aliens driving its expansion, the nation's young media consumers.

Take this piece of neurotic recreational worry from Robert Paterson, a knowledgeable leading public radio consultant who shares many of my public radio "core values". For those friends of mine (most of them over forty, of course) who are too impetuous, obsessive-compulsive and gadget-obsessed to click on the previous link, here's the nutgraph of Rob's panic:-

"As stations diet to death, what happens to NPR? They themselves also implode as their market shrinks, costs mount and underwriting and revenues shrink. They too go into bailing/survival mode. All now depends on ME. What about the [NPR's proposed] new building? Anything that does not pay today's bill, has to get cut. That includes the future!"

His premise is that traditional public radio will be gobbled up by the web, and that we must all focus on the new "delivery platforms", or die.

I don't know many public radio stations with some modicum of resources who are not focussed on this. Its why we launched The Conversation. Other sophisticated sites like NPR.ORG and WNYC,ORG offer interaction, news, information, audio, podcasts, blogs, streaming, and archives. Many stations communicate daily by email with their listeners. Like BluegrassCountry, many public stations now have cutting-edge online streams and theme-specific podcasts.

What gives them a head start? Good content, and good journalism. Which is why the best public radio (whatever it is called in the future) will survive and Rob should get some apparently much-needed sleep. Consumers will find the good stuff if its available in the right places. Which is why we've developed three different HD stations; you can talk to Diane online, download the Kojo Nnamdi Show to listen to later, or retrieve a news report in script form to share with your friends.

Here's what we really need to worry about in public radio; the content needs to be more surprising, renewed, rejuvenated, innovative, of wider and more diverse appeal, funnier, and striving constantly to stay relevant. But its the content that counts, not the platform. The job of public radio's leaders is continually to question and reevaluate the quality, scope and reach of its journalism and entertainment. Are NPR doing a good job reporting the news? Are we talking to our listeners in a way they value and appreciate us? How can we do better in our local newsroom? Are we covering the election in-depth, offering material not heard elsewhere, generating exclusive or original stories, in an appropriate and balanced way?

Lets concentrate on continuing to offer broadcast material which captivates citizens and highlights the challenges facing our nation today, and invest appropriately in the exciting emerging technology. That's the business model. And lets give our bright young broadcast professionals space to be creative, and not panic about the canvas on which they will paint.

Serious Journalism from Condit to Karadzic

2008-08-19T15:44:00.000-04:00

I' read the Washington Post's curiously-timed series reconstructing the events surrounding the unsolved murder of DC intern Chandra Levy more than seven years ago. As an aside, I must confess I've always thought it would make a great "ripped-from-the-headlines" Columbo:

"O, Mr. Condit, just one more thing Sir. Er, Congressman, did you ever go to Klingle Mansion? my wife loves it there."

But it was a deeply disturbing event in modern DC history, and in WAMU's Newsroom we gave it appropriate local news coverage to solicit information from people who knew Chandra, who may have come across her, or who may have seen her. But ultimately, and especially after her body was discovered more than a year later, the saga received far more press than it, or any participant (including her family) wanted or deserved.

The American media's ill-proportioned judgment on the Levy murder was drowned weeks later by the September 11th attacks, which demonstrated in a cruel irony that they had failed to prepare their readers, viewers and listeners for a nation-challenging event, preferring - as they had done - to cling to human interest and consumer-driven news. Then in the aftermath of 9/11 there was a naive consternation born of an ignorance of global change and a self-deluded arrogance about what mattered to regular folks. It amounted to a crude demonstration of just how much this country's journalists let down its people by failing to warn them of the potential perils they faced.

Seven years on, and I worry that the Post's reconstruction of the Chandra Levy murder might be evidence that history's ignorance might be repeating itself.

As a BBC producer in Europe in the early 1990's I met some of the victims of Radovan Karadzic, the architect of "ethnic cleansing" and described by the heroically brutish American diplomat Richard Holbrook as "one of the worst men in the world", who was arrested this past summer after years of hiding from justice abetted by the guilty and powerful of the Balkans. He's accused (among a lot of other horrid stuff) of fifteen counts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other atrocities in the former Yugoslavia, where a nasty racial and religious war was reported bravely and desperately by news organizations like the BBC, determined to document the world's historic events in the early nineties.

But did it merit a headline that night on the evening network TV news in the United States? Unfortunately, no.

It was a tough one - a national election candidate is in Iraq for a photo-op, and there is fresh controversy about Janet Jackson's nipple, an American war crime now nearly as old as the murder of Ms.Levy itself.

Could it be that we're just as capable today of ignoring important events as we were before 9/11?
If the arrest of Karadzic doesn't matter, how many tomorrows will there be before the arrest of Bin Laden doesn't matter? Do we forget the really significant news stories too soon?

If not, let's play a new reality show :"Wait, Wait, DO Tell Me what happened? " and try to explain its significance to our young journalists, and our newest generation of serious journalists.