CNBC’s “INVESTOTAINMENT:” WAS I WRONG?

Was I wrong to knock CNBC with my argument that in programming for an elite audience it tilts toward the pain of CEOS more than the people who are most squeezed by economic policies. The folks there obviously feel they are objective. When they ran a snippet or my challenge to channel, they wanted to show how open they were. It is true that they have had critics of predatory lending on the air regularly.

The Channel’s CEO noted last December in a memo to employees that they “own” the subprime issue because of the coverage they have given it. Admittedly, I am not a regular viewer but when I worked there came away with the distinct feeling that their business precluded too much criticism of business or its coverage. Bear in mind also that crises and controversies draw viewers. Viewing is said to be up 21% over last year. Perhaps I inadvertently made a small contribution to reinforcing its fearless self-image.

FORTUNE recently did a revealing piece over their corporate cousin CNN about this GE-NBC owned competitor: (I was certainly right to speak of their elite audience.)

“The network has a lock on the wealthiest audience in television. The typical CNBC viewer has a net worth of $2.7 million, with an average income of $156,000, according to Monroe Mendelsohn Research. Measuring only viewers watching from home, Nielsen puts the CNBC viewer’s income at $73,000, compared with an average cable viewer’s income of $48,000.”

Their CEO is quite adept at packaging the product and holding off the new Fox Business Channel which only tends to draw ten thousand viewers to CNBC’s average of 310,000 a day,

The channel is run by broadcast veteran broadcast veteran Mark Hoffman who “has added edge and emotion to a network that was heavily criticized in the run-up to the tech bust for its rah-rah business take on the news. …

Hoffman, who came up with a four-part mantra for the channel - fast, accurate, actionable, unbiased - began his CNBC tenure wandering the newsroom floor, checking in with reporters directly.

Hoffman describes CNBC’s formula for investotainment this way: “We’re always looking for qualitative combat on the air. Most of these conversations live somewhere between fear on one end and greed on the other. One person wants to unload something, and another person wants to pick it up.” …

I love this language-“qualitative combat.” It also pays off as Fortune explains: “Profits have increased 36% to $333 million since Hoffman joined, according to media research firm SNL Kagan, making CNBC the second most profitable of NBCU’s 13 cable channels, after USA Network.”

CNBC is also combatitive with its own guests, reports FORTUNE:
“CNBC maintains with few exceptions a policy that no interviewee can appear on another network before a CNBC appearance. And bookers are not above sending guests the occasional threatening e-mail.”

It has to noted also that CNBC profited from ads by the Wall Street players behind the very crisis it reports on: “The largest subset of CNBC’s advertisers is financial services companies, many of which have been hit by the credit crunch….
‘
And so, in the end, of course I feel I was right about CNBC’s mission and orientation. It’s still more about heat than light. “Investotainment” is another good word.

OTHER MEDIA NEWS

Google starts letting users edit documents offline

Google Inc said on Monday it is taking the next step to make its Web-based software useful in the real world of spotty Internet access by allowing users to edit word processing documents offline. The world’s top Internet company said it will begin over the next several weeks to allow users of its Google Docs word processing application to edit documents without an active Web connection, on planes, trains and other disconnected spots. The offline feature of Google Docs temporarily stores documents changes on a user’s local computer.

Once reconnected to the Internet, any changes the user made will automatically be synchronized and stored on Google-hosted computers. Offline editing is a free feature using a technology known as Google Gears that the company introduced around 15 months ago to application developers to build offline features into their own programs. (Reuters)

Afghanistan moves to censor TV

Afghanistan’s lower house of Parliament passed a resolution Monday seeking to bar television programs from showing dancing and other practices deemed un-Islamic. The decision came just days after the private Tolo TV channel aired a dance number featuring men and women together on an Afghan film awards program.

The Information and Culture Ministry condemned the scene, saying ‘dancing by men and women together was completely against the culture of the Afghan, Muslim society.’ The parliamentary resolution, drafted by a commission for cultural and religious affairs, said dancers should not be shown on television, and un-Islamic scenes should be cut from Indian TV series broadcast in Afghanistan, said Din Mohammad Azimi, a lawmaker and member of the commission. The resolution, which is not now legally binding and cannot be enforced, will go before the upper house of Parliament for consideration, Azimi said. It would also have to be approved by the president before becoming law. (AP via ABC News)

NEW AND FREE TO DOWNLOAD: The April Edition of the COLD TYPE READER

Main section: 70 pages: The language of Israeli occupation, Agony of the Winter Soldiers, Canada: the new Conquistadores, Australia’s hidden empire, City of 1,000 foreclosures, What else is on?, Plumbing the depths, In torture we trust, Lies, propaganda, cancer and pot, How could they have known?, Two-state dreamers, The world as it is, Fake facts on Farc and Chavez, Curse of the patient stalkers, the harder they come, Fidel Castro, superdelegate, Where are the Iraqis in the Iraq war, Censors at the mall.

EXTRA: 50-pages: This month we mark the fifth anniversary of the war on Iraq with a retrospective look at the work of four ColdType columnists – John Pilger, George Monbiot, Norman Solomon & Michael I. Niman – in the weeks immediately before and after Bush & Blair’s Shock and Awe offensive.

MY BOOK INSPIRES STUDENT BLOG

It’s always rewarding to read comments like this from a student’s blog:

I found Danny Schechter’s The Death of Media quite interesting. What struck me as most interesting and relevant to this course was Schechter’s take on citizen reporting. As soon as I read this short passage I realized the effect of what we have strived to achieve all semester and the outcome we could have on the community.

Schechter writes, “Increasingly, news consumers want to participate in our media, not just be passive recipients of its output. Concepts like citizen journalism are now on the agenda. Blogging is more popular than ever. The idea of being the media, not just watching or listening to it, is finding many supporters. The by-products of this movement are more visible and influential than ever before” (Schechter 140)

One of the by-products of which Schechter speaks is this blog.

FROM THE STRATA –SPHERE

There is a “Great Depression” coming - but it is not a financial phenomena. It is a narcissistic and gluttonous obsession that is emanating from the psychotic bowels of a dying industry - the liberal news media. After decades of developing a liberally slanted bias over many decades that has never been seen before (and probably never to be seen again) in any industry, the liberal news media is dying from its own excessive depression.
After years of lying to America, and finally being exposed by the electronic pamphleteers of the internet and blogosphere, by people who really do know the subject matter the liberal news media just cannot grasp, so it has developed a mythical fantasy world about, the news media is dying. And it is depressed. Boy, is it depressed. I mean, it is so depressed and so full of doom and gloom and “the end of the world is nigh” crap the whole damn industry needs to be put on a suicide watch.

America, and just about everyone in the world, gave credibility (and therefore value) to any business that could demonstrate that they could provide clear, concise and accurate information to the masses on key critical events of our time. But once those businesses showed they were willing to shade the truth, hide the truth and even make up the truth (e.g., Rathergate, the Downing Street Memos), then their credibility - and value - was destroyed. And now that these dinosaurs, who when faced with 90% liberal workforces refused to diversify and reflect the societies they supposedly worked for, they began to die off. And as far as their dismally depressed minds are concerned the world is coming to an end

NOW SOME TRUTH…..

Greg Fuller writes:

Excellent columns . The answer is of course, in the same place they’ve been for the past 30 plus years , aiding and abetting Wall Street’s Pied Pipers . The Enron scandal pulled back the covers on the incestuous rot which still threatens to destroy one of our greatest accomplishments as a nation , the financial integrity and reputation of our capital markets , a reputation it took literally centuries to build.

I started my career as graduate in economics working as an accountant for a major corporation and have worked in various executive positions with major financial institutions. I can state without hesitation that most of the American News Media has been a virtual Rip Van Winkle with regard to following and reporting on financial and economic issues .

Most journalist who serve the general public don’t understand economics and finance well enough to challenge what they are told by government and corporate officials - and even when they do posses the requisite background, they are often nurtured by today’s editorial timidity .

Moreover ,the financial publications that specialize in financial and economic “know how” tend to focus on micro rather than macro issues ; and when they do focus on Macro issues they seldom drill down to the impact on everyday citizens . In short, Paul Krugman aside , there are few who are watching the cash register . And even Krugman is relegated to the opinion page , as if something as straightforwardly factual as our Nation’s economy and financial due diligence were mere opinion . Were the presses’ abdication on these matters not so serious a let down -it would be laughable . I mean, quite literally , until few weeks ago ,we still allowed the Whitehouse and Treasury to tell us in many newspapers that - all is well or not as bad as it seemed .

Our press seemingly can’t even figure out how to save itself from Wall Street’s Pied Pipers ,and that, they too are in the soup with the Wal-Martization and Global Class Warfare in America , as record low ad revenues attest . Why advertise at fair rates when you have no competition and workers thinning wallets will drive your sales . Why subscribes to newspapers when they layoff the journalist who know enough and are good enough to go beyond quasi stenography .

We are in a mess , and the press not saying so, early and often is a big part of the problem.

Bradley Laing on Glenn Beck of CNN

A few weeks ago you were noticing that Beck was complaining about the housing bubble, as though actually challenging the rich and the powerful.

Back around 10:57 Eastern Time this morning, Beck was making humorless jibes about Congress questioning the oil industry about high prices.

Boy, Beck forgot that ordinary right-wing people are hurting economically, that fast?

Also the idea that Independent truckers are going on strike because of high Diesel prices. He forgot that, also.

THE BRITISH LOVE THE FRENCH

From The Guardian: French first couple Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni have inspired two intriguing tales today. The Guardian - under the previously unknown byline Avril de Poisson - tells how Carla has been recruited by Gordon Brown to spearhead an initiative to inject more style and glamour into British life. Meanwhile, the Sun tells how doctors are planning to stretch Sarko to add five inches to his height. The technique involved was developed by Israeli academic Professor Ura Schmuck, the paper reveals. It quotes French spokesman Luc Bigger, who said Sarkozy would have the treatment at the Poisson d’Avril centre in Geneva.

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