website statistics

Archive for the 'Cable News' Category

The Facebook of Virginia Tech

Published by William Beutler on April 16, 2007 in Cable News, Facebook, Social Networking and Virginia Politics. 2 Comments

What happened today in Blacksburg, Virginia, surely has many thinking back to the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. But I am also reminded, in part because I have Hokie co-workers, of the 1998 killings at Thurston High School. Thurston is in Springfield, Oregon, just next door to Eugene, where I was in my freshman year at the University of Oregon.

What was first reported as loud noises soon horrifically became 24 down and three killed, counting the killer’s parents, murdered the night before. Despite my relative proximity to the crime scene, but perhaps not surprisingly, I remember it mostly through the media: The initial radio report whence I’d first heard that “gunshots rang out” at Thurston, then a friend of a friend who was there calling in to CNN’s now-defunct Talkback Live and, much later, Rolling Stone’s in-depth coverage and the Frontline documentary.

One thing we didn’t have was Facebook. Today, students with accounts who couldn’t get through to their family and friends have been using it to let people know they’re all right:

Facebook message from Virginia Tech

In fact, a new group was started today called I’m ok at VT, already with 1,983 members. Remember Virginia Tech (4/16/07) has 1,885. An event concurrent with this very post, Student Gathering at the Drill Field, has 99 confirmed guests. And I’m sure that I’m only scratching the surface.

ABC News has taken notice of the activity, plastering an image (below left) of Facebook on their front page and quoting one registered user (whom I couldn’t locate) taking strong exception to the administration’s handling of the initial murders:

ABC News does Facebook at Virginia TechThey could have prevented most of this…shooting at 730 in WAJ, classes don’t start til 8, why couldn’t they cancel classes for the day … SOMEONE WAS SHOT AND IT TURNS OUT THEY DIED … I THINK THATS GROUNDS TO CANCEL CLASS RATHER THAN SENDING OUT AN EMAIL THAT SAYS USE CAUTION AND REPORT ANYTHING TO POLICE. They could have save almost 20 lives and 20 injuries if they just decided to cancel class right away.

Facebook is a fairly closed system, so I would normally say it wouldn’t become part of the permanent record of this event. But this event is also a criminal investigation, and it’s entirely possible the killer will have an account of his own. Or maybe a MySpace page — he wouldn’t be the first mass killer to have one.

If the rumor is true — originating on the TechSideline.com Hokie fan board (via Hot Air via Dan Riehl) that “this all started with an ex-boyfriend finding his girlfriend in bed with another guy,” would you really be surprised if he’d blogged about it first?

Wisdom Before it Was Conventional

Published by William Beutler on March 8, 2007 in CNN, Cable News, Defections, Hotline, MSNBC and Metapost. 1 Comment

Yesterday was the end of an era in Washington, and though it did not pass unnoticed, I would be remiss if I didn’t note that yesterday’s edition of The Hotline was the last one edited by Chuck Todd, who will soon assume the duties of political director at NBC News.

It’s hard to underestimate the magnitude of this change.

When I arrived as an intern at the tail end of the ‘02 cycle, the Hotline was purely an insider’s accessory — wielded by consultants and congressmen in green rooms, lobbyists in cabs and Hill staffers on lunch break. Chuck himself would show up occasionally on the late, lamented “Inside Politics” while most of the staff would check out shortly after deadline, off to fill another watering hole until starting over again at 4:30 a.m. the following day.

But Chuck had bigger things in store for The Hotline, including plans to expand its influence and reach non-subscribers. For one, The Hotline struck an agreement with liquor distributor Diageo to conduct regular opinion polls (alas, no cases of Crown Royal ever appeared on the third floor of Watergate 600). The public debut of The Blogometer was part of this plan, as was Hotline On Call, now one of the top Beltway news blogs (Marc Ambinder writes it, but Chuck hired him to write it). Once CNN had canned “IP” Chuck appeared more regularly on MSNBC, which eventually struck a deal to share and promote content from Hotline and National Journal on a new website, politics.msnbc.com. Then early this year he launched another project he’d been working on for a long time, the Hotline Political Network. And already he’s walking away, on to another challenge.

Of course, I owe a lot to Chuck. He gave me some of my best early assignments — covering the 2003 California recall, the collapse of the Howard Dean campaign, and then of course the blog beat — it was Chuck who realized this blogging hobby of mine could actually have some value to The Hotline. So I feel pretty safe saying I wouldn’t be doing what I am now without him.

Which brings me to the fun part of this post. While I can’t say I made Chuck Todd famous, I can say that I brought him to a new level of public recognition. A year before Time Magazine made “You” their Person of the Year (ahem) they had another gimmick running: anyone could submit a photo on the Time website and upon approval, your picture would play for a few seconds on a Times Square billboard. Me, I uploaded Chuck. And I still have the picture:

Chuck Todd, Times Square Person of the Year

Update: The Hotline doesn’t have a replacement new editor yet, so what does the masthead look like?

Chuck Todd, Goatee Model

We’ll see if NBC News will agree to let him continue in that capacity. But today’s Last Call, now that was the final indignity:

Chuck Todd, Overserved

Negative Liberty and Anna Nicole

Published by William Beutler on February 23, 2007 in Cable News, Entertainment, Seriously and The Politico. 4 Comments

Philosophers and political scientists like to speak of rights in terms of positive liberty and negative liberty. Liberals generally support the former — freedom to have opportunities, such as access to health care. Conservatives and libertarians tend to support the latter — freedom from government coercion, such as the capital gains tax.

Today, the banner across the top of The Politico’s front page provides an example of negative freedom all right-thinking — and left-thinking — people can support:

An Anna Nicole-Free News Zone

Now, it’s been pointed out to me that The Politico already eschews celebrity “news” as a founding principle, but that doesn’t make it any less of a respite. Cable news is always the worst offender in these situations, but they’ve really outdone themselves this week. MSNBC even pre-empted their mighty “doc block” to cover the Broward county child custody hearings. News may be obsolete in prime time, but damned if they don’t do their share of “news.”

P.S. I am aware that including phrases like “Anna Nicole Smith” and “Britney Spears” can only help Blog P.I.’s search engine referrals, and I’m cool with that. That said, if you found this post by searching for either of these terms, you should be ashamed of yourself.

P.P.S. 69.250.94.154 from Huntingtown, Maryland, that means you.

Only in American TV News

Published by Not Paul Begala on February 9, 2007 in CNN, Cable News, Entertainment and Seriously. 0 Comments

I had no intention of posting about Anna Nicole Smith, but… damn you CNN!

Don King on CNN about Anna Nicole Smith

Maybe the Yul Brynner reference was out of reach, but was the Jodie Foster/Chow Yun-Fat one really worth it?

The Mariner’s Revenge Post

Published by William Beutler on September 19, 2006 in Blogs vs. MSM, Cable News, Journalist Bloggers and Seriously. 2 Comments

From the “unlinkably elitist” Hotline’s Last Call:

Now that “Talk Like A Pirate Day” is getting cable news coverage, it has officially jumped the plank.

I gave this pseudo-event some space in the Blogometer last year, and today Technorati counts 863 links to the main Talk Like A Pirate page in the last 6 hours alone (note: this factoid will be out of date as soon as this is posted, if not already). So, we can chalk this up as just the latest blogosphere phenomenon to be picked up by the mainstream media. Right?

Actually, chances are this “holiday” would rank somewhere below Festivus without significant pushes by nationally syndicated Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry, first in 2002 and again in 2003.

Popular as Barry is, he’s no match for 150 bloggers an hour (for today, at least). And with as broad a reach as those bloggers have, they’re no match for Barry’s celebrity (that is to say in our media culture, authority). Better, then, to call this an example of the self-reflexive mediasphere, where the amateurs and professionals are simultaneously the source and audience.

So it is fitting that in 2006, Dave Barry is on hiatus from his column, and now himself one of those bloggers celebrating International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

P.S. Arrrrrrrr.

Murder, She Blogged

Published by William Beutler on August 16, 2006 in Blogs vs. MSM, Cable News, Iraq and Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere. 2 Comments

Or, as the case may be, didn’t.

In midday, when the arrest of a suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey case was breaking across the news networks, I wondered to what extent, if any, the political blogosphere would pick up on it. While it’s not a political story (even considering John Ramsey’s unsuccessful run for the Michigan state House in 2004), political bloggers are frequently current events bloggers, and this is nothing if not current.

In the mid-afternoon, I detected no response at all. Late in the evening, as this Memeorandum round-up shows, the only bloggers on the case are conservative bloggers. There’s Wizbang, there’s La Shawn Barber, there’s Sister Toldjah and there’s Hot Air.

Turning to Technorati, it seems that nobody on the left is covering it for its own sake, apart from Jeralyn Merritt, who also happens to be a Denver-based criminal justice attorney. Shakespeare’s Sister and a couple of Daily Kos diarists mention it, but only for the fact that cable news is talking about the arrest rather than whatever happened today in Iraq (not that they identify a particular news story being overlooked). Well, there is dKos diarist Ghost of Frank Zappa, who in a very short post admits: “I for one always thought it was the parents. I owe them an apology I guess.”

So what explains the disporportionate interest in the story? I don’t really know the answer. Is this because conservatives tend to be “law and order” types? Possibly. Conservative bloggers such as Dan Riehl and Scared Monkeys have been avid chroniclers of the Natalee Holloway disappearance, but there are no lefty bloggers I’m aware of who have paid much attention to that case at all.

Another possibility: I’ve always considered conservative bloggers to be a bit more of hobbyists than their liberal counterparts. The leftosphere is primarily animated by their animus to President Bush, the Iraq war, and these days, Joe Lieberman. Their eyes are always on the prize, whereas conservatives are more likely to blog for the sake of blogging. The rightosphere is also without a president to unseat, a Congress to win back, and a war to end — hence the irritation of the Kossacks with having a trifle such as this all over the TV news.

That said, I’m still not sure that explains the whole thing. Are liberal bloggers more serious? Are conservative bloggers more cosmopolitan? If you’ve another theory, do share.