Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Midweek Musings (Celebrity edition)
Random thoughts, in no particular order and probably of no particular importance.
Al Sharpton Rev. Al says he’s close to signing a contract as a talk show host. Note to the producer of the show, check the program budget item labeled “hair care.”
Martha Stewart Would the lady prefer stripes (black & white) or solids (jumpsuit orange).
Donald Trump See above, re: “hair care.”
Jayson Blair Go away…….... Please!!!
Mel Reynolds Former Illinois Congressman, convicted sex offender, out of jail, running for his old seat in Congress. See above re: “Jayson Blair.”
Mel Gibson $250 million box office take for “The Passion of Christ.” Can you say manna from Heaven?
Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown Whitney’s in rehab and Bobby’s in jail. Folks, it's time to grow up and think about your daughter.
Diana Ross DUI Diva gets day pass on jail time, proves law for celebrities is “Upside-Down.”
Of course there are still a few things of note going on in Iraq, Haiti and Spain, but the folks above are the ones really making news.
Stay tuned!
Random thoughts, in no particular order and probably of no particular importance.
Al Sharpton Rev. Al says he’s close to signing a contract as a talk show host. Note to the producer of the show, check the program budget item labeled “hair care.”
Martha Stewart Would the lady prefer stripes (black & white) or solids (jumpsuit orange).
Donald Trump See above, re: “hair care.”
Jayson Blair Go away…….... Please!!!
Mel Reynolds Former Illinois Congressman, convicted sex offender, out of jail, running for his old seat in Congress. See above re: “Jayson Blair.”
Mel Gibson $250 million box office take for “The Passion of Christ.” Can you say manna from Heaven?
Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown Whitney’s in rehab and Bobby’s in jail. Folks, it's time to grow up and think about your daughter.
Diana Ross DUI Diva gets day pass on jail time, proves law for celebrities is “Upside-Down.”
Of course there are still a few things of note going on in Iraq, Haiti and Spain, but the folks above are the ones really making news.
Stay tuned!
Monday, March 15, 2004
The State of the News Media - 2004
The well respected Project for Excellence in Journalism has just released a highly detailed and comprehensive report on the State of the News Media-2004. The link for the site is posted and the report is well worth reading, even at 500 pages. However there are some questions in my mind with regard to their audience measurement methods on television. I've written the Project staff (see below) and I'll follow up when I get their response
**************************************
To the PEJ Study staff:
Your report on the state of the news media is quite comprehensive and certainly confirms many of the things that I and I would suspect many others have believed about the impact of economics on news operations. While I am still reviewing the report, I do have questions about your audience measurement methods.
As an African-American journalist who has studied who and what the media covers, I have long been concerned about the way in which viewers are measured and tracked. As I look at your charts on audience viewing patterns, it appears that the only breakout you have done is in relation to age, not race or ethnicity.
In their yearly report on audience viewing habits, TM Media has consistently reported different viewing patterns between White, African-American and Latino audiences. At one point only one or two programs showed up on all the top ten lists. While the number has increased slightly in the most recent report, it is still clear that different minority/ethnic groups have very different viewing habits than the mainstream population. Your chapter on Ethnic/Alternative does not really address these issues, so it raises some concerns.
Therefore my questions are, does this hold true for news programming and if so, do you have data that would show the viewing patterns for the various minority/ethnic groups?
We know that African-Americans spend more hours per day watching television than Whites and so I would be interested to know how those numbers play into the overall audience numbers.
I have also seen data that indicates than many minority viewers don't watch mainstream news because 1)reports about minorities are perceived to be negative or stereotypical, 2) they don't see reports on issues of concern to them and 3) they don't see themselves reflected in the personnel giving the news.
Was information like this incorporated into the development of your audience surveys?
If this information is available, I would like to see it. If it was not considered, I would suggest that you might want to reexamine some of your audience data. The minority/ethnic population of this country is now nearly 30% according to the latest census. If in fact this population has significantly different viewing patterns to the mainstream audience, it would seem to be that it would be of benefit to track their viewing habits separately so that we could determine their affect on the overall viewing audience.
I look forward to hearing from you and reviewing an additional data you might have.
Tom Jacobs
The well respected Project for Excellence in Journalism has just released a highly detailed and comprehensive report on the State of the News Media-2004. The link for the site is posted and the report is well worth reading, even at 500 pages. However there are some questions in my mind with regard to their audience measurement methods on television. I've written the Project staff (see below) and I'll follow up when I get their response
**************************************
To the PEJ Study staff:
Your report on the state of the news media is quite comprehensive and certainly confirms many of the things that I and I would suspect many others have believed about the impact of economics on news operations. While I am still reviewing the report, I do have questions about your audience measurement methods.
As an African-American journalist who has studied who and what the media covers, I have long been concerned about the way in which viewers are measured and tracked. As I look at your charts on audience viewing patterns, it appears that the only breakout you have done is in relation to age, not race or ethnicity.
In their yearly report on audience viewing habits, TM Media has consistently reported different viewing patterns between White, African-American and Latino audiences. At one point only one or two programs showed up on all the top ten lists. While the number has increased slightly in the most recent report, it is still clear that different minority/ethnic groups have very different viewing habits than the mainstream population. Your chapter on Ethnic/Alternative does not really address these issues, so it raises some concerns.
Therefore my questions are, does this hold true for news programming and if so, do you have data that would show the viewing patterns for the various minority/ethnic groups?
We know that African-Americans spend more hours per day watching television than Whites and so I would be interested to know how those numbers play into the overall audience numbers.
I have also seen data that indicates than many minority viewers don't watch mainstream news because 1)reports about minorities are perceived to be negative or stereotypical, 2) they don't see reports on issues of concern to them and 3) they don't see themselves reflected in the personnel giving the news.
Was information like this incorporated into the development of your audience surveys?
If this information is available, I would like to see it. If it was not considered, I would suggest that you might want to reexamine some of your audience data. The minority/ethnic population of this country is now nearly 30% according to the latest census. If in fact this population has significantly different viewing patterns to the mainstream audience, it would seem to be that it would be of benefit to track their viewing habits separately so that we could determine their affect on the overall viewing audience.
I look forward to hearing from you and reviewing an additional data you might have.
Tom Jacobs
