Good morning on this first day of the 21st century’s post-“Mad Men” life.
- Stephanopoulos repeats apology, quickly invites new criticism
It was unavoidable that George Stephanopoulos would repeat to his “This Week” audience Sunday his previous apology for a “mistake” in not fessing up to $75,000 in contributions to the Clinton Foundation. On air he reiterated the not especially convincing notion that he made the donations “strictly to support work done to stop the spread of AIDS, help children and protect the environment in poor countries,” even though there are many organizations that do similar work. And, he said, “I should have gone the extra mile to avoid even the appearance of a conflict. I apologize to all of you for failing to do that.”
Unanswered is why he went the extra mile of not even telling his employer, despite his continuing to report on the Clintons. So it was also no huge surprise that on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” host Brian Stelter juxtaposed the Sunday morning on-air apology with former ABC stalwart Carole Simpson telling Stelter, “He really isn’t a journalist.” Former ABC political and media pundit Jeff Greenfield also underscored the lack of ambiguity in the whole matter. Meanwhile, ABC News gives no hint that it’s reconsidering its resolute support of its star.
- Covering the Waco biker gang shootout
The Waco Tribune-Herald was all over the tragedy and by late Sunday was reporting that as many as five gangs were involved in what started in a restaurant restroom and spread to the park, then the parking lot. It also disclosed that the police chief called restaurant claims of cooperating with the cops “an absolute fabrication.”
- After big Facebook content deal, how might Google leapfrog Facebook?
At a weekend Google conference in Helsinki, journalist Jeff Jarvis suggested “something I’ve been working on for years: the containerized, embeddable article that travels to any site with brand, revenue, analytics, and links attached. In other words, let’s take what Facebook has done with Instant Articles and open it up to any creator and any embedder.” He expanded on what he said at Newsgeist Europe on BuzzMachine as he underscored how upbeat he was to hear folks “opening the door to reimagining the distribution of news so that instead of always requiring and depending on our users to come to us, we can now take our news to them.” While seeing traditional news publishers as anemic in assembling collaborative networks, he wonders if his desire for open-source standards and formats could be pulled off by giant Google. Hmmm. And how would that end the inherent mistrust so many have of Google?
- New Nielsen data suggests time shifting means more TV watching, even of ads
Adweek raises doubts about assumptions in how journalists cover TV watching. It’s got its own fancy graphic, which was done in collaboration with Nielsen. “It might be assumed that viewers of time-shifted programming fast-forward through all the commercials, but our data show that this isn’t the case,” said Glenn Enoch, senior vice president of audience insights and analysis at Nielsen. “The majority of viewing to commercials in both broadcast network and cable network programming is done live, but there is substantial lift in commercial exposure when time-shifting is included. The greatest lift we see is among millennials 18-34 years old.” So they appear to wind up watching more commercials than we’ve assumed.
- Connecting the dots in the 2016 campaign
Experience counts in covering a campaign, including knowing the pasts of top aides. It’s all about connecting dots; if they worked in a previous campaign, White House administration or seemingly relevant outside groups can help shape understanding of the whole team.
In the case of Hillary Clinton, there are a whole lot of Clinton loyalists and old-hand Obama operatives. But you need not Google all that since The New York Times today offers a dandy interactive graphic showing us the backgrounds of the individual teams of some of the candidates who have announced so far or are likely to do so.
- Media intimidation, Japanese-style
The Economist suggests that Japan’s media are getting taken to the cleaners by a heavy-handed government as the virtually assured reelection of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe beckons. Even “pro-government journalists are crying foul” amid an assault that includes hints of yanking broadcasters’ licenses amid any hint of criticizing the government. That sounds vaguely Nixonian, who also threatened media critics with yanking their federal broadcast licenses.
- Sunday night’s hot TV story: Farewell to Don Draper
Well, bloggers at the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere worked overtime Sunday analyzing the finale of “Mad Men” and brilliant, tortured, dissolute, philandering ad executive Draper. That famous Coke commercial got lots of attention. Let’s hope those millennials mentioned in the new Nielsen-Adweek report didn’t zip by it because, well, it was a commercial. But maybe they time shifted and did look at it.
- Congrats, Palm Beach Post
I feel ambiguous about journalists who have decent weather year-round. But I’ll put Northern meteorological animus aside and pass along kudos to the Palm Beach Post for winning six regional Green Eyeshade awards from the Society for Professional Journalists. Among those cited were Pat Beall who took home firsts in both daily journalism and the courts-law reporting for “Dying for Care,” tales of a climbing death toll in state prisons after the privatization of health care in the prisons.
- Front page of the day, curated by Kristen Hare
The Spokesman-Review looks at the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. (Courtesy the Newseum)
- Job moves, edited by Benjamin Mullin
Kevin Blackistone will be a commentator for the sports section at The Washington Post. He is a panelist at ESPN. (The Washington Post) | Coleen O’Lear is now mobile innovations editor at The Washington Post. Previously, she was a mobile producer there. (The Washington Post) | Reid Wilson will be Congress editor and chief political correspondent at Morning Consult. He is a reporter at The Washington Post. (The Huffington Post) | Michelle Jaconi will be executive editor at IJReview. Previously, she was an executive producer at CNN. (Politico) | Job of the day: Business Insider is looking for a Apple reporter. Get your résumés in! (Mediagazer) | Send Ben your job moves: bmullin@poynter.org.
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