Theater, disguised as a media column: You have to read to the end of David Carr‘s column about Mike Daisey and “This American Life.”
>>More Daisey: Craig Silverman on the four important truths about Daisey’s lies. Steve Myers on how Daisey’s changed his monologue since the storm. James Fallows on the importance of getting facts right when writing about Daisey.
• Regarding the last point of that piece, which I’m not giving away by saying it quotes someone interesting saying “journalism is essentially built on trust,” Edward Schumacher-Matos does some thought-provoking ombudspersoning in a column about whether Audie Cornish should have disclosed that the drink’s manufacturer is an NPR sponsor when she drank a bottle of 5-Hour Energy on the air. Schumacher-Matos writes something that makes me want to rethink my own reflexive overdisclosure: “The segment did not need to acknowledge that Living Essentials is a sponsor. Hardly any story on a company that is a sponsor should.” He continues:
My position may sound treasonous for an ombudsman. Aren’t we supposed to be concerned about the slightest appearance of a conflict of interest? Yes, we are. But as a former editor and publisher, I know that some realism is required here. There is no way to totally eliminate the appearance of all conflicts of interest, and sometimes the conflict itself. Any system comes down at some point to trust. You either trust NPR’s reporters and editors to be impartial, or you don’t.
• OUT LIKE A…: Brian Lamb is stepping down as chief executive of C-SPAN at the end of March. Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt calls Lamb’s transition plan “very thoughtful.”
• “Paradoxically, Village Voice began as an alternative newspaper to speak truth to power. It publishes some superb journalism. So it’s sad to see it accept business from pimps in the greediest and most depraved kind of exploitation.” —Nicholas Kristof on the human misery problem of Backpage.com, which is owned by Village Voice Media. (I wrote a piece in 2009 about alt-weeklies benefitting from Craigslist dropping “adult” ads.)
• “We should all hope that neither Britannica nor Wikipedia will ever have to write the other’s obituary.” —L. Gordon Crovitz on whether Encyclopaedia Britannica can make it as an online property.
• Another subscription-required read: Ryan Lizza on Politico’s delightful primary-night telecasts (which I like to listen to on C-SPAN radio).
• Penn State professor Marie Hardin says “journalists often frame Title IX as a loss for men, not a gain for women.”
• Chicago sports blogger Ed Sherman is launching a sports-media site. Robert Feder reports that Jonathan Liss, who designed Jim Romenesko‘s sharp-looking site, will design The Sherman Report.
• In case you missed it, the Project for Excellence in Journalism released its annual State of the Media report. Rick Edmonds foreshadows the 6 trends for newspapers drawn from the numbers. Jeff Sonderman assesses how much work it will be for journalists to keep up with new news consumption patterns. I give the streamlined highlights, including how local TV is growing, along with all audience for media, except in print.
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