October 2009

Whisper-Quiet Hill Aides Must Speak Up Without Standing Out

In this city of aides, the split goes like this: 535 members of Congress out front; more than 10,000 staffers in back. (This being staffer culture, who gets counted as "staffer" is itself intensely debated.) The many organize themselves to serve the few. Unwritten rules and traditions have evolved and they have one theme: deference. Yet sometimes, when the city's attention is drawn to a single room, as it is right now, the deferential get nudged, whether or not they like it, into view. They're the ones in the upper corners of the television screen, when the camera zooms in to Washington's high-stakes legislative obsession of the moment. The ones leaning forward. The ones at the top of the staffer organizational charts. The ones with all the degrees and, in some cases, the ones with all the interesting résumés. This can be an uncomfortable setting for the backstage operators to become faces du jour. With some notable exceptions, most staffers are doing everything they can to stay off camera. It's the preferred ethos of the Washington staffer -- do the homework, don't seek the glory . . . or else. In other words, never ever upstage the boss.

How Google Wave could transform journalism

The tech world is awash with excitement for today's scheduled release of 100,000 invitations to preview Google Wave. Seems like everyone is buzzing about how the collaborative Web tool will revolutionize how we do business, organize parties, manage projects with friends, cheat on homework and market brands. For journalism, Google Wave could mean more collaborative reporting, archived interviews, live editing, smarter story updates, improved user comments, a more transparent writing process, instant polls and more.

Summit takes hard look at future of journalism

Rapidly advancing technology may be to blame for the news industry's present predicament, but the same digital tools promise a bright future if the sector can harness them to deliver customers the content they want in the manner they prefer. That was the general message from panelists during the first day of the UC Berkeley Media Technology Summit on Wednesday, sponsored by the Graduate School of Journalism and hosted at Google's headquarters in Mountain View. Such an approach requires a dramatic shift in thinking, however, and raises some troubling questions for journalists and publishers. Key to survival in the digital media age is rapidly responding to the preferences that consumers reveal every time they click a link, view an ad, read a story or post a comment, said Michael Franklin, professor of computer science at UC Berkeley. He is also the founder of Truviso, a San Mateo company that creates tools for analyzing consumer data.

LA Times and Wash Post Ending News Service

The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post are breaking up their news service after 47 years. Effective January 1, 2010, the Los Angeles Times will distribute some of its best work through a news service jointly owned by newspaper publishers McClatchy Inc. and the Tribune Co, the Times' owner. The Times-Post venture distributed its stories to about 600 subscribers including newspapers and other media.

Don't skip the TV ads: You'll miss the plot

In television's latest quest to discourage viewers from skipping ads, actors from NBC and ABC shows are appearing in character in commercials to interact with products in parallel story lines. This new kind of commercial further blurs the line between program and advertisement and comes as traditional product placements within shows, an early response to fast-forwarding, have become common. A series of spots that debuted this week, for example, weaves Palm's Pre phone more deeply into prime-time dramas' story lines. "It's definitely groundbreaking," said Denise Ocasio, managing partner of MindShare, the marketing firm that helped Sprint create the spots. "It's not a commercial. ... It is an entertainment experience. It's just brought to you by Sprint." But not everyone is pleased. Peter Horton, executive producer of the short-lived NBC drama "The Philanthropist," said ?a dramatized vignette showing characters using Microsoft's Bing search engine to look up things online was confusing to viewers because it sometimes introduced a competing plot line.

New media explosion upends TV ratings system

The explosion of ways people watch television is confounding the media industry, which has relied for decades on the Nielsen ratings but now must adapt to the realities of the Internet and on-demand video. Americans are watching more TV than ever -- an average of 151 hours a month -- on more networks and in increasingly diverse ways. Industry heavyweights and analysts are calling for a new ratings system to keep up. At first there was a "crisis in measurement" due to the scarcity of data, said Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development at NBC Universal, which is 80-percent owned by General Electric Co. But now, he said, content providers are "drowning in data." Broadcasters, content providers and advertisers including consumer products giants Unilever and Procter & Gamble Co are all trying to adapt.

Cox Boosts Bandwidth Caps

Cox Communications has increased the maximum data-usage limits for broadband customers. Cox's new limits for each package are: Economy, 30 Gbytes; Value, 50 Gbytes; Preferred, 200 Gbytes; Premier, 250 Gbytes; and Ultimate, the 50-Mbps downstream service available only in certain markets, at 400 Gbytes.

Cisco to buy videoconferencing vendor Tandberg for $3 billion

Cisco Systems has signed an agreement to buy videoconferencing vendor Tandberg for about $3 billion. Tandberg's video endpoints and network infrastructure products will be integrated into Cisco's collaboration products, according to Cisco. When the deal is done Tandberg's CEO Fredrik Halvorsen will lead a new TelePresence Technology Group at Cisco. Cisco has been pushing videoconferencing for a number of years, and is already reselling some of Tandberg's products, according to Steve Blood, vice president at market research company Gartner. The acquisition plugs the gap between Cisco's HD-based telepresence systems and its Unified Video Advantage system for desktop videoconferencing by adding room-based conferencing that supports standard definition video, he said.

GLADD Study shows more gay characters on TV

The number of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters in primetime continues to rise, according to a new GLAAD study set to be released today. The org found that 3% of scripted series regulars on the broadcast nets are gay and lesbian, up from 2.6% in 2008 and 1.1% in 2007. ABC led the way, with eight characters out of 168 (5%), followed by Fox, with four out of 105 (4%), NBC, with three out of 126 (3%) and the CW, with two characters out of 69 (3%). CBS had none, which the org called "disappointing." GLAAD officials said they were also concerned about a lack of diversity among the LGBT characters -- as just four are people of color. According to the GLAAD study, male characters outnumber women 57% to 43% overall in primetime. White characters rep 77% (466 out of 600), followed by African Americans, at 11% (67) and then Latino representation, which is down to 5% (27). Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders rep 4% (23 characters). GLAAD also found that the number of regular gay and lesbian characters on the mainstream cable nets dropped to 25 vs. 32 last fall.

Benton

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