August 12, 2008 – 3:45 am
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Posted in TV
Two articles from two countries’ most prestigious newspapers compare two television networks’ coverage of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies.
The Globe and Mail says NBC’s coverage “outshone the work of the CBC, mainly because co-hosts Bob Costas and Matt Lauer brought more information and enthusiasm to the show than did the stolid, rather dull presentation of the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, who handled most of the commentary during the first 80 minutes.”
The New York Times: “how extraordinarily pleasant it was to be able to view that spectacle in Beijing without the annoyance of constant exclamation and endless recitations of trivia — just great swaths of wonderful silence from our narrators MacLean and Mansbridge between 8am and 9am or so, just letting the show at the stadium tell its own story with the least obtrusive economy of helpful footnotes, no urgency whatsoever to riddle the air with inane nattering and relentless fill.”
I guess it’s all a matter of interpretation.
July 28, 2008 – 6:26 pm
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Posted in Opinion
There are plenty of expressions in the English language whose origins are unknown to younger generations. Knowing their etymology isn’t really important, after all, so long as everyone understands the usage.
So why do people feel necessary to replace “jumped the shark,” which references a Happy Days episode that people believe is an example of a TV series going past the point when writers have any original ideas consistent with the show’s original concept, with another term that means the exact same thing?
Or perhaps, like everyone else, the New York Times is struggling to find summer filler material for its newspaper.
In addition to being mocked on the Colbert Report, the Hockey Night in Canada theme situation has also made the New York Times.
As a side note, I’ve noticed that mainstream media websites, when talking about the Hockey Night theme, have been linking to a version of it on YouTube which was clearly infringing on copyright. Later, when some of these same media websites talked about the Colbert Report talking about the Hockey Night in Canada theme, they linked to another YouTube video, which was also infringing on copyright. (Both those videos have since been taken down.) Is it appropriate for media websites to be promoting content they know to be infringing on other people’s copyright?
UPDATE: Scott Moore, the executive director of CBC TV sports, has a post up about the HNIC theme and the responses he’s gotten about it.
(Via Regret the Error):
A profile on April 29 about Francisco J. Ayala, a professor who speaks often in defense of the theory of evolution, misstated the location of McGill University, where he gave a recent talk. It is Montreal, not Toronto.
The shame, oh the utter horrible shame…
Number of foreign bureaus at the Washington Post: 18
- Bureaus in the Middle East: 5
- Bureaus in Europe: 4
- Bureaus in South America: 2
- Bureaus in China and Japan: 3
- Bureaus in Canada: 0
Number of foreign bureaus at the New York Times: 23
- Bureaus in Europe: 7
- Bureaus in South America: 3
- Bureaus in Africa: 4
- Bureaus in Canada: 0
Number of foreign bureaus at the Los Angeles Times: 20
- Bureaus in Europe: 5
- Bureaus in South America: 2
- Bureaus in Africa: 3
- Bureaus in China and Japan: 3
- Bureaus in Canada: 0
Number of foreign bureaus at CNN: 28
- Bureaus in Europe:6
- Bureaus in the Middle East: 6
- Bureaus in South America: 3
- Bureaus in Africa: 4
- Bureaus in China, Japan and South Korea: 4
- Bureaus in Canada: 0
Does anyone else notice something odd there?
September 20, 2007 – 1:17 am
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Posted in Media
So the New York Times is free online. I won’t bother linking to all the blogs talking about this decision, or opining whether this is a good or bad move financially for the Times. I’m on the fence about this, since I don’t think advertising alone can keep a huge for-profit newspaper running.
One thing I will note, however, is its effect on subscribers to the NY Times wire service. Currently, small newspapers around the world (including The Gazette) run feature stories from the Times in their newspapers (The Gazette even has a page in its Sunday section dedicated to reprinting a Times feature). But the licensing agreement doesn’t allow free web publishing of these articles, to prevent a Maureen Dowd opinion piece to be available free on some small-market daily when the Times was trying to sell it on its TimesSelect service.
As a result of this change, will these papers now be able to publish these pieces on their websites? And perhaps more importantly, will these papers still be as eager to republish these pieces in their print editions now that they’re available free online?
