Media on Media

Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, is better known for People’s Republic propaganda than hard-hitting journalism. But in the aftermath of the catastrophic Sichuan earthquake, the Wall Street Journal reports, the agency has published hundreds of to-the-minute updates, many of them on the anguish of the victims and the grievances of provincial officials—a deviation from the usual focus on the government’s response. More »

A longtime local anchor in New York got her viewers' undivided attention during a promo last night when she said the F-word live, the New York Daily News reports. After the wrong video played as she teased the upcoming news during Medium, 28-year WNBC veteran Sue Simmons said, "What the f--- are you doing?" More »

Everyone knows Craigslist, but Craig himself is getting a little restless. Craig Newmark is spending more time and money on outside projects, the New York Times reports, even with his company in a high-profile tiff with eBay. Newmark, 55, says he spends half his time on customer-service issues, the other half on public-service projects and causes like Barack Obama's campaign. More »

Need more proof that the Pentagon coached ostensibly impartial military analysts about what to say on TV? In Salon, Glenn Greenwald reveals emails from one top defense staffer who suggested developing a core group of insiders who are “most reliably friendly” and that “we can count on to carry our water.” A Rumseld aide agreed, adding, "We're already doing a lot of this." The allegations first surfaced in a New York Times investigative piece. More »

Media consumers, beware: that assertive, well-versed, trustworthy "expert" may in fact be an industry shill, Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer write on Slate. Journalists across the board, and even some radio hosts, are failing to disclose financial ties to various industries—drug companies being a prime example—fudging the line between considered opinion and paid advocacy. More »

After a career of sober-minded policy politics, Hillary Clinton let loose her inner populist pol in Indiana and North Carolina, Joe Klein writes, and, like much of the media, he thought the showmanship-over-substance (along with Obama's pastor problem) might pull it out for her. But that "shameless populism" proved not to be a game-changer after all. She lost the contest—and the race, he concludes in a Time cover story anointing Obama as the nominee. More »

The New York Times is in "perilous financial condition," and colleges would play the perfect savior, Lee Smith writes in the Chronicle for Higher Education . His plan: Have the seven richest institutions direct 3% of their endowments—which, combined, come to $114 billion— to buying the Gray Lady. "That's for a start." Later on, universities could snap up other papers that "make intellectual life possible." More »

A British court approved JK Rowling’s request to ban publication of a photograph of her son, Reuters reports, reversing a lower circuit's ruling. "If a child of parents who are not in the public eye could reasonably expect not to have photographs of him published in the media, so too should the child of a famous parent," the ruling read. More »

America’s pundit class has deemed the Democratic race over, shifting the conventional wisdom away from Hillary Clinton’s whisker of a chance, the New York Times reports. From Tim Russert’s assertion that “We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it” to the Drudge Report’s anointing Barack Obama “The Nominee,” the worm appears to have turned among analysts. More »

They are locked in an epic struggle for the nation's heart, the grizzled veteran versus the up-and-comer, both popular, both controversial. No, not Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Tomorrow, the real showdown is between Tim Russert, who is interviewing Obama, and George Stephanopoulos, who is interviewing Clinton at roughly the same time, the New York Times reports. More »

The brouhaha over Miley Cyrus' Vanity Fair photo shoot is a “simple misunderstanding” stemming from a clash of brand names, writes Mark Feeney in the Boston Globe . Cyrus’ Hannah Montana is an established Disney brand--and when Hannah met Vanity Fair , a sudden change in that image was the result. “If Hannah Montana were a Fox franchise, would we have heard a peep?” Feeney asks. More »

Hollywood is filled with closeted gay actors—and off-balance media coverage and Hollywood homophobia are keeping them there, says actor Alan Cumming. “I don't think the people that go see films care that much,” the X-Men 2 star told the BBC. “The media make it more of a deal and it’s made into controversy.” Cumming, who is openly gay, thinks Hollywood is an especially anti-gay place. "Definitely." More »

The déclassé world of sports bloggers infiltrates the vaunted mainstream media today with New York Times sports media expert Richard Sandomir's take on Tuesday's episode of HBO's Costas Now. The live "town hall" setting included a segment on sports bloggers that quickly devolved into a tirade by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Buzz Bissinger, best known as the author of Friday Night Lights . More »

NBC anchor Brian Williams is digging himself an ever deeper, more shameful hole by brushing off a New York Times exposé that questioned the “core credibility” of network war reporting, Glenn Greenwald asserts in Salon. The piece revealed Pentagon propaganda efforts that indict NBC News and others, but when forced to comment yesterday, Williams disgracefully protested innocence—claiming the retired generals he features are “beyond reproach.” More »

The result of an annual Time poll to name the most influential person in the world didn’t exactly give closure to a heated rivalry between contenders Stephen Colbert and Korean pop star Rain—neither took the top honor. That went to programmer Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Nintendo’s Wii, as well as the Mario, Zelda, and Metroid game franchises. More »

Media outfit Cox is moving into the online business, buying an Internet startup that pools sites’ specialized ad needs, the AP reports. The $300 million purchase of Adify will mean competition for Web giants such as Google and Yahoo, creating an alternative for customers who might previously have relied on the big boys for ad placement. More »

Newspaper circulation contracted the past six months as competition from Internet sources and cutbacks in advertising decreased sales, Bloomberg reports. Circulation dropped 3.6% for the industry as a whole, with only USA Today and the Wall Street Journal enjoying slightly increased circulation among the 25 largest papers. "The decline is certainly worse than in the past few years,'' one analyst said. More »

More top Wall Street Journal execs have been spit out by the Murdoch machine, and the staff they leave behind is furious they’re leaving so quietly. Zipping their mouths was part of hefty severance packages, David Carr notes in the New York Times , and as the line evaporates between editorial standards and owner's whims, the protectors of journalistic independence are missing in action. More »

In an ominous sign of the times for printed news, a struggling 90-year-old Wisconsin daily newspaper is shutting down its daily print operation, but will continue to exist online, the New York Times reports. Most of the 18,000 current subscribers of Madison's afternoon Capital Times are switching to the city's bigger daily. More »

New York magazine writers Jessica Pressler and Chris Rovzar have come out of the closet. No, not that closet—the one hiding adult fans of Gossip Girl . The pair once justified their love for the CW's teen soap opera by calling it "awesomely bad … like Showgirls . Or a Bloomin' Onion." Now they declare it "awesomely awesome." Here are six reasons why: More »