Tag Archives: New-York-Times

| Media, Slow News Day

Paperweight story

Reporter: Hey, the Sun’s been shut down for a month now, but I still see those plastic paperweights holding down papers at the newsstands. I bet they must be collector’s items by now.

Editor: Sentimental. Talks about the media in a way only journalists care about. I love it!

(later)

Reporter: I talked to newsstand people, and they say nobody’s asking them for the paperweights as collector’s items. There’s only this guy who worked there who wants some mementos. I guess a seven-year-old fourth-rate newspaper isn’t as cool as we think it is.

Editor: Damn. You’ve wasted all this time on the story, write it up anyway.

Reporter: OK. Here it is.

| Humour, In the news, Media, Video

Obama is our supreme leader

Well here’s a shocker: The New York Times endorses Barack Obama. Really? The paper that hasn’t endorsed a Republican for president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 is lining up behind Obama?

At least it provides a history of its endorsements for us news junkies to feast on. Some of its favoured candidates have included losers Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry, as well as Republican Thomas Dewey, who sadly did not defeat Truman.

Well, at least Ron Howard’s endorsement is cute. Will the Fonz vote put Obama over the top?

| Slow News Day, TV

Journalists watch TV

To those of you who might think that our local papers are getting too lazy in their reporting, and look to the respected media like the Globe and Mail and New York Times for insightful analysis on important issues, I point you to the following:

The Globe and Mail has an article about how big Vanna White’s head is. Literally. Who knows how much CBC paid the Globe to write an article about Wheel of Fortune just before it starts airing on the network, but this is certainly an interesting angle to take on it. Will the next piece be an in-depth look at Alex Trebek’s moustache?

Meanwhile, the New York Times summarizes last night’s Colbert Report, regurgitating the jokes made by New York governor David Paterson, who was the headline guest.

| TV

National humility in contrast

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.

| Opinion

“Nuked the fridge”? Please

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.

| Slow News Day, TV

That’s one small DUNT for a woman…

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.

| Media, Opinion

It’s Canada. Who cares?

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?

| Media

What will Times freedom mean for its wire service?

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?