The Sixth Estate

Outsourced Column

2007-06-02T00:16:00.000-07:00

For those of you who read my piece on outsourcing in the June 4, 2007 edition of the Corridor Business Journal..... I was kidding. I did not outsource that piece.

My point stands, though. All the information in that piece is attainable from anywhere in the world. Friedman's book is available anywhere and there are several online articles about the outsourced Pasadena reporters. I wrote that piece in my home's sunroom in Cedar Rapids, not the CBJ's offices the U of I's Oakdale campus. I've written CBJ columns at coffee shops in Key West, FL and Nashville, TN. Who's to say that a reporter in India couldn't write many of the columns that appear in my column space weekly?

That brings me to another point.... obviously, sometimes I write about national issues without including any references to local points of interest here in the Corridor. Sometimes I write specifically about local issues and draw on my experience as a media consumer in the Corridor and a former journalist in the Corridor. Outsourced reporters have a harder time with truly local content. I highly doubt that an outsourced columnist could write about media issues in the Corridor the way I do. I hope that didn't sound too self-serving, I just don't think someone in Bangalore could do what I do the way I do it.

Not every time, anyway.

Headlining

2007-05-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

Despite the actual contents of a news story, even the same exact AP wire story, news editors can dramatically change one's impression of a story by the way they write the headline.

To get an idea of just how different various editors' headlines can be, compare them online. Here's one way...

1. Go to www.google.com
2. Enter a word or two related to a specific news story
3. Click "news"
4. Click on a link to a number of related articles, usually under the first search result. It might look something like, "498 related articles."
5. You'll see a list of links to news articles about the same story, sometimes to the same exact AP, UPI or Reuters wire story. An editor at each publication had the option of running a headline provided by the wire service or writing their own.

Here's another way to compare headlines:

1. Go to www.newseum.org
2. Click on "Today's Front Pages" (on the right side)

There, you'll see graphic representations of the actual front pages of various papers across the country. If you do this on a day when a major national or international event dominates the news, you can not only read different editors' headlines about the same story, you can see how the story was "played" on their front pages.

An FBI approach to PR?

2007-04-09T06:09:00.000-07:00

Some PR people know a thing or two about the reporters they deal with. Check this out: http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/03/enough_about_me.html

Optiva??

2007-03-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

Just a thought on the whole Optiva/University of Iowa Community Credit Union flap...

It has occured to me that there's a common thread between this controversy and the hubbub over the search process for a new University of Iowa president: both situations involve highly educated people whose opinions weren't immediately valued and utilized.

I guess there are a couple of ways to dice that observation:

1. The greater masses (which are statistically less educated as a whole) are used to having things decided for them. They deal with it and life goes on.

2. Highly educated people tend to take it a little too personally when their input is not prioritzed. They're smart enough to know how to effectively make a stink about it and affect change.

Jus' sayin'.

Women of Influence?

2007-02-26T14:52:00.000-08:00

You're probably aware that people in a number of industries sign contracts that contain a moral turpitude clause. A company's reputation and earnings can suffer when a high profile employee is involved some kind of debauchery that garners negative public attention. Let's say for example video of you doing stripper moves on a stripper pole were to surface on the Internet. Not good, right?

That's not the case for WTAE Action News anchor Kelly Frey in Pittsburgh. She learned and demonstrated stripper moves during a lame TV news health report about pole dancing as a fitness fad. The station is proud enough to have the piece on its website. You can watch the video at:
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/health/11025579/detail.html

Her official station bio is at http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/wtaenewsteam/304269/detail.html

I could write a book on what's wrong with Ms. Frey's "health report" on pole dancing. However, the point I'm trying to make has less to do with Ms. Frey heaving her breasts skyward and grovelling on the floor in the name of journalism than it does with the idea that we continue to place high profile people on pedestals of influence.

It's a crying shame that the women who end up being front-of-mind due to their media presence are afforded such cultural equity in today's society, regardless of whether they are shaving their head for attention or masquerading sensationalism as journalism. But then again, is it fair to blame the media machine when we are completely capable of making better media choices?