Covering the flood

Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans/Gulf coast flooding disaster has been going on while I'm up to my eyes preparing for classes. But I've tried to drag myself away from preps from time to time and keep an eye on what's going on. And while the mainstream media are still focusing on the scale-of-tragedy angle--not surprising for the moment--there is some more critical and in-depth reporting starting to emerge fromm braver elements of the media (see, e.g., a Washington Post column on the planned downgrading or dismantling of FEMA and an Editor & Publisher piece, drawing on New Orleans Times-Picayune coverage, that focuses on the Army Corps of Engineers' charge that it's been starved of federal funds for flood defense.) I hope that before too much longer, and once things settle down, the press will do its job and we'll see more of this sort of critical reporting.

In the meantime, the online journals Slate and Salon are, as ever, providing interesting and engaging coverage of the tragedy and the issues behind the tragedy. One piece in particular I'm glad I found was by Slate's Jack Shafer. Titled "Lost in the Flood," it tackles the awkward issue of race and class that has largely been ignored by the US MSM--in particular, the stark point that most of the people we're seeing in dire straits in New Orleans are poor and black. This has bothered me because this point is achingly clear, at least in terms of the people we're seeing on TV, but no-one really draws attention to it. So even as the media focus relentlessly on the tragedy and of the people who are suffering--people who had very little and now have nothing--they rarely elaborate on the key contextual factor that most of the people trapped in New Orleans didn't get out because they had no personal transport or they were living "paycheck to paycheck" and couldn't afford to up and leave. Shafer draws an interesting conclusion, even drawing on a well-known disater movie from the late 1990s:

When disaster strikes, Americans—especially journalists—like to pretend that no matter who gets hit, no matter what race, color, creed, or socioeconomic level they hail from, we're all in it together. This spirit informs the 1997 disaster flick Volcano, in which a "can't we all just get along" moment arrives at the film's end: Volcanic ash covers every face in the big crowd scene, and everybody realizes that we're all members of one united race.

But we aren't one united race, we aren't one united class, and Katrina didn't hit all folks equally. By failing to acknowledge upfront that black New Orleanians—and perhaps black Mississippians—suffered more from Katrina than whites, the TV talkers may escape potential accusations that they're racist. But by ignoring race and class, they boot the journalistic opportunity to bring attention to the disenfranchisement of a whole definable segment of the population. What I wouldn't pay to hear a Fox anchor ask, "Say, Bob, why are these African-Americans so poor to begin with?"

Media spending & relative constancy

That recent study conducted by Veronis Suhler Stevenson I mentioned earlier estimates that, on current trends, total spending on the media in the U.S. will reach $1 trillion by 2008--assuming a continued annual growth rate of 6.7% per annum. That's a lot of money and a lot of growth--twice the rate of inflation.

The figures for growth in media spending suggests (though I'm not so sure about this) that we're still some way off from reestablishing the principle of relative constancy in terms of media spending. For years--in fact, for most of the twentieth century, roughly from the birth of the film industry through to the late 1970s, economic and media scholars argued that relative constancy was operating in society. Quite simply, this means that, when adjusted for inflation, "individuals spend a constant portion of their disposable income (income left over after taxes and essential--food, clothing, shelter, and taxes) on the media" (Grossberg, Wartella & Whitney, MediaMaking, 1998). So if a typical consumer spends more on one type of media--say, by buying a television--he or she will spend less on another type of media--like the movies.

The term overessentializes the economic aspects of the public's media uses--focusing what major shifts are taking place in public consumption of media, without suggesting why--and it can't fully interpret these shifts. But it does give a basis for describing media use patterns over the long term.

And one thing that is indisputable is that people are spending more and more time and money on the media (in all its forms), and have been for some time. For decades, the proportion of income spent on entertainment and information media stayed stuck at about 3% of income; so any/all spending on new types of media had to come out of that 3%, i.e., out of the amount previously budgeted for old media. In other words, the media pie stayed the same size. From the perspective of media providers, the only overall growth in the media indistry came through natural increases in population as well as inflationary pressures in the economy.

After about 1979, though, the proportion of consumers' total incomes spent on media started to rise significantly--in fact, it has by some estimates almost doubled, to some 5% or 6% of total income. This has meant that new media have been added to older media without necessarily displacing them (e.g., the Internet has not displaced television, just as the television did not displace movie theaters). And the media pie has got much much bigger, and Wall Street, recognizing this, has rushed in to invest on the big media industries. This simple fact helps to explain much of the massive investments and corporate mergers and acquisitions that have taken place in the media since the 1980s.

Now some scholars have been arguing for a while that the principle of relative constancy simply has to reassert itself in the near future. In other words, people can't go on spending an ever larger proportion of their limited incomes on media products--especially if costs of other essentials, like health care and gasoline, keep going up much faster than inflation.

We'll see how this turns out.

On BTK, Aruba teenager coverage

This news is from last week (August 19), but I'm trying to get caught up.

Temple University's MMC "studio briefing" listserv notes the latest cable news embarrassments over coverage of the BTK (Bind-Torture-Kill) killer Dennis Rader (left). CNN for one gave extensive coverage to Rader's sentencing last week, and even carried Rader's "long, rambling court statement" in full (and posted the video on its web site). This brought a slam from one of CNN's own, crusty anchor Jack Cafferty. "Appearing on CNN's Situation Room, hosted by Wolf Blitzer, Cafferty remarked, 'We ... played right into his hands. ... We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. Publicity is this monster's gasoline.'" What's more:

Cafferty called CNN's coverage "nonsense," and commented that "it doesn't belong on television." He warned that it might "inspire other nut cases out there that maybe they can get themselves famous by doing this." Cafferty confessed that he was "a little embarrassed to be a part of the media on a day like this."

Apparently Rader likes publicity. He noted in court on Thursday: "I seem to crave the attention of the media." MMC also quotes Rader as stating "I feel like I'm a star right now." He said this "during a two-hour Dateline [on NBC] devoted entirely to him last Friday."

Meanwhile, with CNN's Larry King on vacation, King's fill-in guest hosts have been pulling out all the stops to boost ratings with low-ball "news." Bob Costas devoted his entire show on Wednesday night (August 17) to the BTK killer. As a result he "saw his ratings more than double." According to MMC, on Monday and Tuesday nights (pre-BTK) "Costas, who has been designated King's 'permanent substitute,' had averaged only 516,000 viewers. That figure improved to 1,049,000 on Wednesday [BTK night]". Even so, that "was still below King's average of 1,140,000."

On Thursday night another host took over King's show, and what better way to boost sagging ratings but to eturn to the well of the missing Aruba teenager story . . . again.

Chris Pixley, the Atlanta criminal attorney with movie-star good looks who was a member of Scott Peterson's defense team. His subjects were the continued search in Aruba for Natalee Holloway and the Rader sentencing. (Pixley to Holloway's mother: "Now there is this new report, hundreds of miles away from Aruba, of human remains washing up in Venezuela. Do you ever allow yourself to think that this could be your daughter?")

British news and entertainment in USA

One of my major areas of research interest is the large and growing (and largely unnoticed) impact of the UK on America's media landscape. For a while over the summer this quiet drumbeat was magnified by a stream of British news events being reported on in the US. However, things have died down a tad - at least for the moment, and at least in terms of the big news stories. We've stopped hearing so much about the London terrorist bombings. Gleneagles and Live8 are already distant, all-but-forgotten memories. No-one seems to be talking about Making Poverty History anymore. All is silent on the 2012 London Olympics front. Americans are now consumed by the missing Aruba teenager and the BTK killer and (maybe if they're looking for more serious news) Cindy Sheehan's anti-war protest and the Israeli evacuation of Gaza. Britain's salience seems to be drifting away.

But hang on, not so fast! While the U.S. news world takes a break from "Blighty" (i.e., Britian), that steady drumbeat of the UK's hidden and not-so-hidden influence on U.S. news and entertainment continues relentlessly, even during the dog days of summer. Just think of all the British institutions and people who are having an impact on the U.S. media landscape right now.

Of course there's the BBC, and many Americans now get their news from The Independent and The Guardian newspapers as well. But what about Granada International and Celador Productions? What about the WPP advertising agency? Pearson (owner of the FT)? Conde Nast? News International (the UK arm of News Corporation, and home of The Sun and BSkyB)? And don't forget Richard Branson's Virgin.

Of course, the Brits people are most likely to have heard of are mostly in Hollywood. But there are many many others who are having more of a behind-the-scenes impact. There's Tina Brown and her husband Harold Evans; Christopher Hitchens and Richard Curtis; Martin Walker; we have to consider the defection of any number of tabloid journalists from London to the US, not to mention the many serious journalists heading to the US for the big bucks. Let's not forget Daniel Battsek (of Miramax) and Howard Stringer (of Sony); then there's dodgy Richard Desmond of OK! fame. And now there's James Goldston at ABC's Nightline.

In hard news and TV entertainment, in magazine and book publishing, in the big city tabloids, the British influence is palpable and incessant. And yes, the list really does go on.

And things aren't as quiet as they seem. All that's happened is that the temporary blip of Big British News Events has settled back down to the constant background noise - yes, a steady drumbeat - of the UK's continuing (and expanding) media presence in the United States. So even if we hear less about London's war on terrorism or Blair's electoral capital or the London Olympics or Britain's EU Presidency or its war of African poverty, don't be fooled.

There's still a lot going on.

The $1 trillion consumer market approaches

media statistics

The Hollyood Reporter notes that consumer spending on the media is advancing at a 6.7% annual growth rate, so at that rate total spending will exceed $1 trillion in 2008. "The data comes from the Communications Industry Forecast by Veronis Suhler Stevenson, and the group also says that in 2009, the average consumer will spend 10 hours per day with media, much of it DVDs and the Internet." Advertising isn't hurting either. It's predicted to grow "at a steady 6.1% this year and 6.8% through 2009 to $260.9 billion, 'driven primarily by the migration of advertising dollars from traditional to new media,' according to the study."

Young white damsels in distress in cable-land

Eugene Robinson, writing in the Washington Post, tackles a subject that most in the news media would prefer to avoid: the "pathological cable news obsession with young, attractive white women who unfortunately vanish". This is something that really bugs me (I last touched on the subject in late July--see "In the news: What's in a face?"), so I'm glad someone's airing it in a major newspaper.

All the cable networks get slammed by Robinson, though Fox News' Greta Van Susteren gets singled out. To show up the cringe-inducing nature of this obsession, Robinson points to the case of Latoyia Figueroa (right), "a pregnant 24-year-old woman of color missing in Philadelphia" who initially received no TV news coverage whatsoever. Then , apparently "nagged by a persistent blogger, the cable networks grudgingly devoted a couple of days to Figueroa. Then they dashed back to Aruba and breathlessly reported the latest 'developments' in the Holloway case." Even though there were no developments in Aruba.

At least, Robinson argues, Van Susteren is "upfront" about why she doggedly pursues the story--because it's what the viewers want.

On the other hand, fellow passengers on the Damsels bandwagon -- CNN, MSNBC, and, to a lesser extent, the broadcast networks and the major newspapers -- are so eager to display their high-minded earnestness that they've been running stories about "the phenomenon" of missing-white-woman coverage. They act as if said coverage were a natural disaster, like an earthquake or a tornado, rather than a series of deliberate decisions made by executive producers and editors in chief.

Not surprisingly, the focus on missing women in any form at the expense of "proper" news is galling to Robinson, as it is to me; the focus on pretty young white women serves to provide some pretty vile icing to a very unappetizing cake--especially as the USA becomes increasingly non-white. He concludes:

I've heard the blanket coverage of the Holloway story defended on the grounds that the scenario -- a beautiful young daughter vanishes on a class trip to the Caribbean -- is "every parent's nightmare." But then is Latoyia Figueroa's disappearance nothing more than "every black and/or Latino parent's nightmare"? Would it be different if she were rich?

Or is her ethno-specific name the stumbling block? Could she be a proper Damsel if her name were not Latoyia but Jennifer? Or Jessica? Or Laci?

Interesting final point. It reminds me of a point made in the chapter on baby names in Steven D. Levitt's fascinating book Freaknomics, that I read over the summer: that there's a strong statistical correlation (though not a clear causality) between the giving of a distinctively "black" name to a child, and that child's sharply reduced life chances. (See this slate.com piece for more about the book and this topic.)

The New Media Monopoly?

Also last August: With the publication of the 7th edition of Ben Bagdikian’s The New Media Monopoly, Slate.com’s Jack Shafer composed a counterpoint to the media monopoly thesis. Basically Shafer contests the notion that our media are being monopolized by the "Big Five:" Viacom, Time Warner, News Corp, Disney, and Bertelsmann. (This was being written in the face of recent corporate mergers, including GE/NBC’s purchase of Universal, and the merger of Sony and Bertelsmann music to form SonyBMG). Shafer noted that the hold of these "top flight" media corporations is much more tenuous than we might imagine. He goes on:

Bagdikian ignores the financial perils of media gigantism. Big isn't necessarily financially beautiful, as the markets have taught CBS Inc. and other conglomerates. In 1986, CBS was the country's largest media company, . . . . It owned a network, a top record label, a magazine division, and a book operation, among other assets. The combination proved fiscally unstable, and CBS dumped practically every property but the network before being acquired by Viacom in 1999.

Shafer also pointed out something that many others have commentated on: the so-called "synergies" media companies had hoped to reap from their mergers and acquisitions in fact rarely materialize - or at least not to the extent originally envisioned. Disney is often held up as the synergy company par excellence, but Shafer cited Disney's absorption of ABC as a "business failure." Time Inc. never really warmed to its union with Warner Bros.; and in the wake of the stock market's tech bubble bursting in 2001, it became painfully clear that AOL's merger with Time Warner was a huge millstone around the latter's neck.

Of course, any political economist and critical structuralist of the Robert McChesney variety would argue that it matters little which TNC (media TransNational Corporation) is on top at any given time - democracy and the mediated public arena are at risk as long as the TNC-based corporate-capitalist system is out of control and growing ever-bigger, gaming the system in favor of the super-rich and leaving the necessary alternative of public service broadcasting grossly underfunded and stymied. But Shafer rejects this notion, prefering instead to see competitive commercial media as a liberating force for good in the world. As evidence, he points to the critical structuralists' bete noir as evidence: Rupert Murdoch himself!

"The only Big Fiver whose center seems to hold," argues Shafer, "is News Corp. In my view, News Corp. leader Murdoch is a bit of hero, terraforming the media world by creating a fourth TV network when everybody said that was impossible. You don't have to like Fox News Channel to acknowledge that he's added ideological diversity to TV news and talk shows. His risky gambles on satellite broadcasting may make his company even more dominant." However, Shafer contends, not unreasonably, that "the 73-year-old Murdoch periodically drives his News Corp.'s finances off the cliff," and as a result, "if he doesn't total the company before he dies, we can confidently predict that his heirs apparent, Princes Lachlan and James, will." Market forces at work!

In the long run, argues Shafer:

competition and the dynamism of markets keep any five media conglomerates from dictating "what most citizens will learn." But corporate ownership of media so rankles Bagdikian that I doubt the variations of who's on top and who's slid into corporate oblivion make much difference to him. I'm sure my testament that for all the news media's faults, its quality and variety have never been greater, sounds Panglossian to Bagdikian. But I challenge him to name a time in America's history when the news media did a better job than it does today. Who longs for the days of William Randolph Hearst? Of three broadcast networks? Of the days before the Internet?

I have problems with Shafer's piece - especially the last part, which I think sets up a false choice - but I'll return to this later. I'll finish this up for now by noting the one area of agreement between Shafer and Bagdikian. As Shafer puts it: "As misguided as Bagdikian is about the perils of media conglomeration, he makes excellent sense when barking about the political games the corporate owners of radio and broadcast TV stations play. If only he'd continued that line of thought in the seventh edition."

I've a funny feeling that Bagdikian will have something to say about Sinclair Broadcasting, Liberty Media, etc., and their role in the Bush-Kerry 2004 presidential race, when he comes to write his eighth edition.

Ted Turner, from one year ago . . .

Back in the first week of August 2004, the Wall Street Journal was paying attention to Ted Turner’s latest slam against media conglomeration. Turner argued in July/August's Washington Monthly magazine (titled "My Beef With Big Media") that we have to "bust up the big conglomerates. We've done this before: to railroad trusts in the first part of the 20th century, to Ma Bell more recently." Turner continued: "Politically, big media may be on the wrong side of history." Also in May 2004, Turner published an opinion piece in the Washington Post that protested then-current FCC proposals to raise the limit on the number of TV stations in a single market that can be owned by a single corporation. In that article, he was careful to say he was "speaking only for myself, not for AOL Time Warner." The Washington Monthly piece goes further. Media consolidation, he argued this time, was contributing to a reduction in quality, hastening the decline in local news and encouraging the suppression of divergent views. "In the current climate of consolidation, independent broadcasters simply don't survive for long," he wrote. "At this late stage, media companies have grown so large and powerful, and their dominance has become so detrimental to the survival of small, emerging companies, that there remains only one alternative: bust up the big conglomerates."

"Turner founded Turner Broadcasting System in 1970, eventually launching several successful cable networks including TBS, Cartoon Network and CNN. In 1996 he sold the company to Time Warner, becoming the media conglomerate's largest shareholder and joining its board of directors. Now, Time Warner has $40 billion in annual sales. It owns the second biggest collection of cable systems in the U.S., one of the biggest film studios, the biggest magazine publisher as well as several leading cable-TV networks. But Mr. Turner is now suggesting that media companies are too big and should be broken up by the government."

John Simpson on Peter Jennings

With the sad death of former ABC anchor Peter Jennings, I've been looking around for good eulogies from the media. One of the best I've found so far comes from the BBC's John Simpson. He has a lot to say about America's best news anchor by far - in fact Simpson describes Jennings as "probably the best in the world at his trade." But crucially, Jennings "always maintained a wry awareness that reporting, and fronting other people's reporting, for television was something pretty slight in the grand scale of things." Simpson says a good deal about Jennings' personal and professional talents, but the most saddening passage is this:

Peter did what he could to halt the downward spiral of television news in America - that terrible turning inward, which means the less you know about the world, the less you want to know about it, and therefore the less a ratings-obsessed industry decides to tell you. He often forced news items onto his programmes because they were important, not because the producers wanted them.

He loathed the arrival of the Fox network, with its open, noisy adherence to a political agenda, and believed it would destroy the old-fashioned notion of honest and unbiased reporting forever.

As for his own political opinions, I could never work them out. He would not tell me what he really thought about Clinton or George W Bush, and I eventually stopped asking him.

I really like that last bit. Poor old Peter Jennings. To this day, if I watch any network news broadcast, it'll be ABC - that is completely because of Jennings. I watched him for hours at the dawn of the new millennium and after 9/11, and many other times, and you could only respect the hell out of the fact that, somehow, he managed to stay above the mundance idiocy that increasingly surrounded him. Maybe his Canadian background helped; he maintained a small yet essential distance from America, even as middle America embraced him. I've said before that the people coming through America's news system are in no way comparable to the anchors of a generation ago. That's never more true when you consider the stature of Jennings against the pygmies and puffed-up, opinionated idiots that dominate news today. I don't care how many times you put Anderson Cooper or Brian Williams in a flak suit or on location overseas - these guys will never match up. Simpson puts it best:

Now, though, he seems to me like the last, best example of a tradition that had already started to vanish long before his death - the tradition of Martha Gellhorn and Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite, people who went and found out what was really happening before they started to talk about it.

Nowadays, most American and British writing and broadcasting about subjects like Iraq is done by people who do not go there. Peter Jennings did go there, and continued to go even when he knew he was dying.

"What brings you here?" I asked him the last time I saw him, standing outside the Convention Centre in the Green Zone in Baghdad last January.

"Oh, the usual. Just trying to find out what's going on."

That was Peter's greatest art - or as he would have said, in his self-deprecating Canadian way, his skill. It is something which is fast disappearing.

CRTC versus the trash talkers

It seems that the coming appointment of a black female French-speaking woman to be governer general has encouraged at least one of Canada's trashy radio talk show hosts to rear his ugly head - and in the heart of La Francophonie, no less. The CBC reports that the CRTC (the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) "is investigating three complaints against a Quebec City radio host who made lewd comments about Michaëlle Jean, the 48-year-old journalist who will become Canada's next governor general." Three listeners accused Sylvain Bouchard, a talk show host on FM-93 "of making sexist and inappropriate comments about Jean while talking about her appointment Thursday."

The CBC report quotes Bouchard as saying in French: "'Michaëlle Jean has always been one of my fantasies,' . . . before going on to elaborate in a graphic way. He followed up by saying he hopes a white, heterosexual man will be named governor-general someday soon."

This incident recalls the controversy over another Quebec City radio station, CHOI, which received numerous complaints for inappropriate sexist and racist talk by its hosts, especially one Jean-Francois Fillion. A quick overview of that situation is provided by the CBC here (scroll down three or four paragraphs).

I wonder what the French idiom is for "white trash"?

Gadgets, gadgets everywhere

media statistics

Today's NYT business section also includes a short piece showing the rapid expansion of electronic gadgets in our lives, comparing 2001 and 2004 figures (see "It's a Gadget, Gadget, Gadget World", p. C5). It highlights media statistics from Forrester Research, showing how gadget penetration has spread in just the past three years:

• DVD player: . . . . . . . . . 27% (2001); 71% (2004)
  
• Mobile phone: . . . . . . . 53% (2001); 71% (2004)
  
• Desktop computer: . . 65% (2001); 70% (2004)
  
• Laptop computer: . . . . 13% (2001); 23% (2004)
  
• Digital camera: . . . . . . 16% (2001); 40% (2004)
  
• Video game console: . . 32% (2001); 37% (2004)
  
• PDA: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6% (2001); 11% (2004)
  
• Digital music player: . . 3% (2001); 10% (2004)

Nielsen learns to lobby

Nielsen Media Research, a company used to staying out of the spotlight, has learned the hard way the sad necessity of lobbying hard in Washington in order to defends its turf. Notes a piece in today's NYT business section:

Since the early spring of 2004, the company has spent more than $4 million to hire some of the nation's premier lobbyists to counter a savvy campaign conducted by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, a team of longtime Clinton strategists hired by the media conglomerate, and a coalition of black and Hispanic community leaders. Before 2004, Nielsen had not spent a dime on lobbying. Nielsen has also sprinkled more than $200,000 among minority organizations like the National Urban League, the National Council of La Raza, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and the Dragon Boat Festival in San Francisco, according to Nielsen officials.

What caused all this ruckus in the world of TV ratings? It's all about the local people meters:

Nielsen's wake-up call came in the early spring of 2004. The company, a division of the Dutch company VNU, was in the early stages of introducing a new way to measure local television audiences, and the system had just arrived in New York. The technology, called local people meters, replaced set-top boxes and paper diaries, and offered advertisers and TV networks something they had never had before: detailed local demographic data every day of the year about who was watching which shows and in what numbers.

But the test results in New York alarmed executives at News Corporation. The Fox and UPN affiliates that the company owns suddenly found themselves staring at seemingly inexplicable drop-offs in viewing, particularly double-digit percentage declines among minority audiences. Those two station groups carry shows that attract significant minority audiences.

With television advertising revenue in local markets nearing $22.5 billion a year, any ratings decline would wreak havoc on the station groups' bottom lines as local people meters reached the country's largest markets.

All of this underlines an ongoing basic problem with ratings; the fact that increasingly, no-one in the industry has any faith in them. Or, even worse, that more accurate ratings measurements will show that audience figures are much lower than what everyone thought they were. Or, even worse, that no-one really knows if all that advertising money is wisely spent. That's perhaps why, back in early June, "Seventeen major media companies want Nielsen to postpone expansion of its Local People Meter ratings system until an independent group appraises the system in markets where it's already being used. In particular, the companies indicated that they want to know whether the system underreports the viewing preferences of the black and Hispanic audience, as some minority groups have claimed."

I last looked at this back in April (see What future for mass media? and Media chaos ahead?). As I noted back then, there's a general feeling abroad that the mass media are approaching a tipping point, where the whole advertising-funded model that has supported the U.S. media in the modern era might be getting closer to complete collapse.

Canada's G-G: a(nother) journalist?

It's probably no surprise to Canada-watchers that the next person likely to rise to one of the country's highest constitutional posts - the governer-general, the queen's official representative in Canada - is a woman. Or that she's francophone. Or that she was born outside Canada. Or even that she is non-white. (Some of you might still think that governers-general still come from the ranks of corpulent colonial ex-generals with big white ceremonial uniforms, swords and funny hats, but that really isn't the case any more.) Still, it might still surprise some (like me, for example) to know that Canada's next G-G is a journalist by trade, and a television journalist to boot! It might be even more surprising to learn that this person will be the third governer-general in recent times to come from a broadcast journalism background. In the United States, where journalism is held in pretty low esteem these days, and where journalists who aspire to high public office don't always meet with universal admiration (Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, anyone?), this is all a bit of a (pleasant) shock to the system.

Anyhoo . . . the G-G aspirant in question is Michaëlle Jean (see right), who will be the first black governer-general. She was born in Haiti, grew up in Montreal, speaks five languages, and became a reporter on Radio-Canada's French language services, moving on to CBC Newsworld as well as documentary filmmaking (a fuller CBC bio is here).

The previous two G-G's are also female and journalists. The current post-holder is Adrienne Clarkson, who is of East Asian heritage and who was born in Hong Kong. Before that it was Jeanne Sauvé, a French-Canadian and also a successful journalist.

So what is it with Canadian journalism and the highest ceremonial-constitutional position in Canada? Well, Stephen Thorne in Macleans likes to think that media know-how and communication skills are now "modern-day prerequisites for the job of governor general in an age when Canadian unity is threatened and the public demands accountability." In a background piece on the announcement ("Recent appointments suggest GG's role evolving with the times, say experts"), he quotes communication industry insiders and "corporate head-hunters" as follows:

Given their experience and talent, it should be no surprise two television journalists in a row - Adrienne Clarkson and now Michaelle Jean - have been appointed Canada's ceremonial head of state, say corporate head-hunters.

"There are skills inherent in broadcast journalism that are really transferable and an obvious match," said Judith Wightman of Wightman and Associates, an Ottawa-based executive search firm.

"You don't want somebody with a really narrow or industry-specific focus that may not be as relatable to the rest of the Canadian public. You want to see somebody who's very sensitive to regional and pan-Canadian issues."

The role of governor general - the Queen's representative, head of state and military commander in chief - is largely ceremonial and symbolic. But, as Clarkson showed, it can be an important voice in issues of Canadian unity, culture and equality. Empathy, said Wightman, is a key attribute, along with an understanding of the domestic and international political climates.

"Broadcast journalism and that whole industry lends itself to that. On top of that, I would expect to see people with good presentation skills and good representational skills. Right away, they have a natural credibility as a source of information." If the job is to continue to carry weight and credibility with Canadians, it has to change with the times, the experts say. And change is what the Clarkson and Jean appointments suggest, said John Aimers, chairman of the Monarchist League of Canada. With the growth of 24-hour television news and the Internet, scrutiny of public offices has increased. Communications skills and the ability to handle or deflect criticism are more important than ever.

Now one could be cynical for a moment and note that the fact that this particular journalist is a woman and black and francophone just might be a ploy by Prime Minister Paul Martin's government to court both Quebec and progressive support as Quebec separatist sentiment is seeing a resurgence. And the announcement of Jean's appointment has raised some eyebrows, caused some controversy (see, e.g., some readers' comments from the Globe & Mail web site), and apparently met with little interest in Quebec. But, as with Canada's legalization of gay marriage, the fact that a move like this could even be contemplated at the highest reaches of government reminds us what it's like to see a government system in action that's still essentially progressive rather than deeply conservative. Good show!

Payola pays!

Lorne Manly in the New York Times' Week in Review section writes about the latest version of Payola - the practice of record companies paying money for the broadcast of records on music - infecting the music industry. This is a topic that has finally received renewed attention in the wake of Sony's admission of wrongdoing, which includes a $10 million fine levied by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. "How Payola Went Corporate". I like the opening:

In the fall of 2002, Celine Dion fans who listened to radio stations owned by Infinity Broadcasting, the country's second largest chain, were offered a chance to meet the object of their adoration. The promotion, dreamed up by Epic Records, promised to fly contest winners to Las Vegas to hear Ms. Dion perform at Caesars Palace and even to give one lucky soul a chance for some time alone with her. What listeners were not told was the price the stations paid for the honor of offering up an evening with Ms. Dion. As a promotion executive at Epic wrote in an e-mail message, Infinity had agreed to add Ms. Dion's newest single, "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)," to the playlists of 13 stations.

And so goes the latest version of payola, the illegal trading of secret payments in exchange for airplay.

Then there's a useful mini-history lesson:

Attempts to game the system are nearly as old as the industry itself. "Song pluggers" urged certain songs on big band leaders in the 1930's and 40's, accompanied by bundles of cash to make the musical choice easier. Disc jockeys in the 1950's were handed cash bribes or fur coats for their wives. The independent promoters of the late 1970's and 1980's plied station directors with drugs and prostitutes.

The term payola - a contraction of pay and Victrola, a record player - entered the national lexicon more than 45 years ago, when a group of disc jockeys, including Alan Freed, were charged with taking bribes to play certain records. There were Congressional hearings, with lots of grandstanding over the terrible temptations such music held for the country's youth. A racial undercurrent coursed through the controversy, as the music in question often was rhythm and blues, considered to be black music.

Congress tried to legislate the practice out of existence, but, as with campaign finance, it's very difficult to switch off the flow of dodgy money. As Wikipedia reminds us, "Currently a different form of payola is used by the record industry through the loophole of being able to pay a third party or independent record promoters . . .Because of this, a very large majority of DJs are cut out of the song-picking decisions and are instead told what to play and when (for the most part) by music directors and/or "higher ups" at their radio stations."

This new type of payola sidesteps current FCC regulations requiring that, if a song is paid for by the record company, the radio station must state that it was paid for. Using indies allows for the record company to not directly pay the radio station, thus the radio station doesn't have to report it as the FCC regulations mandate.

And, as Manly concludes, as long as commercial radio retains by far the biggest audience, this money will not easily be stemmed.

Mr. Spitzer's pressure is just the latest indignity visited upon an industry that has slumped for most of this decade. But oddly, that decline may make commercial radio - despite its troubles from sluggish ratings and advertising - even more important. While satellite radio is expected to near 10 million subscribers by the end of the year, that figure pales in comparison to commercial radio's 230 million listeners.

"Radio is still the biggest single factor to get something going," said Howie Klein, a former president of Reprise Records.

Videos and club promotions can help create interest in a song. But commercial radio reaches more people in a shorter period of time, and that is the recipe for a hit. "The record companies still haven't found a way to get that word of mouth as quick," Mr. Klein added.

Dreamworks suffers; now Sony does too

You've doubtless heard about Dreamworks' summer woes at the box office, with films such as "The Island" and even "Madagascar" performing below expectations (and before that "Shrek 2" and "Shark tale" also underperformed). Well, the same is true over at Sony, which has had a really crappy summer so far. As the WSJ notes ("Stealth Leaves Sony Grounded at the Summer Box Office," Aug. 2, p. B1), its latest slew of summer blockbusters has failed to draw in the punters. After disappointing numbers for "XXX: State of the Union" and "Bewitched," Jamie Foxx's "Stealth" has really tanked. Like "The Island", "Stealth" cost about $120 million to make, but only took in a few million in its opening week. (You can find the latest box office totals here.)

The problem for Sony is that it doesn't have a big franchise film opening this summer - i.e., there's no "Spider Man" film coming out this year or next, so they could be in for a lean time. Next summer might be better - Sony is producing a movie version of "The Da Vinci Code," and they will have a franchise film next summer - the next James Bond outing, thanks to Sony's recent purchase of MGM.

Ructions in Rupert's camp

You might have heard that Rupert Murdoch's eldest son Lachlan quit as NewsCorp's deputy chief operating officer (though he'll retain a seat on the board). Rupert, 74, is said to be "saddened" by his son's decision. Yeah fine, but what's really going on? Now the media (well, those media not controlled by Murdoch at any rate) are buzzing about serious rifts between the leading members of the Murdoch clan; Lachlan is said to have "chafed" under his father's domineering style. And there are apparent rifts over the potential divvying up of family spoils, which would include Rupert's third wife and their two toddler children. Many might think that this leaves the door open for Rupe's second son, James (head of BSkyB), to take over, though the Wall Street Journal notes that, at least for the short term, News Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin might be best placed to take the top spot should the elder Mr. Murdoch step down. And rumors continue that News Corp could become the target of a takeover bid by Liberty Media Corp., controlled by "media titan" John Malone.

Comcast-Time Warner hit choppy waters

The dreaded Comcast-Time Warner merger has been hitting some regulatory speed bumps, thanks to actiuon by both public interest groups and competitors. "Whenever a big cable merger needs to get through the regulatory gauntlet, marketplace disputes have a way of rising up and becoming matters that, at least to cable critics, must be resolved before the deal can be approved. The Comcast-Time Warner deal to buy Adelphia is no different as The America Channel (TAC), DirecTV, EchoStar Communications and an array of public-interest groups have asked the Federal Communications Commission to apply conditions to the deal. Federal Trade Commission approval is also required. The Media Access Project, a public-interest law firm, has filed on behalf of public interest group. "MAP's clients are: Free Press, Center for Creative Voices in Media, Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ Inc., U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Center for Digital Democracy, CCTV, Center for Media & Democracy, Media Alliance, National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Benton Foundation and Reclaim the Media."