Good morning.
- That’s why they actually play
There were exuberant winners, devastated losers, confetti, cliches galore, redundancy ad nauseam and a 6-year-old (mine) who picked Villanova to go all the way in the family pool (don’t worry, first grade teachers, he was in bed by the second half). Last night’s NCAA championship basketball game was wondrous sporting theater. Not even the media could mess it up with its general pundits’ consensus that a taller, deeper North Carolina would top Villanova.The pregame experts on TBS, which aired the big game, gave you all the reasons the Tar Heels would reign. They included the garrulous (and often wrong) Charles Barkley, who went on and on about the Tar Heels’ rebounding advantage. Thank goodness that the media couldn’t screw up the actual game.
The sports guys can get overwrought, but let’s give good marks to Chuck Culpepper: “As a roaring basketball game in a roaring football stadium distilled to one final, soaring shot making its descent, 74,340 seemed almost to hush. The hush would not last. Kris Jenkins’s cocksure three-pointer from the right of the top of the key swished down through the net and into deathless fame, and all manner of noise broke out and threatened to stream through the years.” (The Washington Post)
And the postgame journalists’ scramble included a somewhat hackneyed gambit (“Ask the priest!”) that suggested no less than divine inspiration underlying the victory. “‘I knew it was good. I knew it was in before the red light went off,’ said Villanova team chaplain Father Rob Hagan, who at Mass earlier in the day spoke about the vines and the branches and how they must stay connected to bear fruit.” (ESPN) Whatever. But I did like John Duchneskie, assistant managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, alluding to Villanova’s affluent reputation and tweeting, “I guess they’re going to start flipping BMWs on the Main Line now.” (@jduchneskie) Well, if Bernie Sanders wins the Wisconsin primary tonight, maybe they’ll be flipping Subarus in Madison. Alas, we must return to the campaign from all this real fun.
- Disney’s ‘shock’
Media didn’t seem to know exactly why, but the No. 2 at Walt Disney Co. is now not going to be the No. 1, as generally expected. Some reporters were winging it and conceded they didn’t really know, while mouthing platitudes like Wall Street “not liking uncertainty.” (Bloomberg) They, instead, told us what a “surprise” or, mostly, “shock” the move was. A lack of clarity was exhibited by Hollywood media, including the Los Angeles Times, which seemed to bury the opus under more than 20 other stories on its website this morning, as well as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.Somewhere in the mix was a board of directors that wasn’t now sold on him and had decided to actually widen the search for a successor to the longtime leader. (The Wall Street Journal) There’s an obvious story yet to be done about the unhappiness with the heir apparent, not the hazily-sourced speculation found most everywhere this morning.
- Preparing for Putin spin
The latest effort of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists meant getting hundreds of journalists to cooperate in analyzing 11 million documents on the offshore assets of Vladimir Putin buddies and perhaps Putin himself. (Poynter) Notably, The New York Times was not part of the group and was hesitant to spotlight a tale it hadn’t independently assessed, though its modestly played recapitulation got strong online readership. (The New York Times) Now let’s see how the Putin regime spins this one with the media and the rest of the world. “What will be truly fascinating is watching how this new mass of information is dealt with by the Putin regime over time, and how this might affect an already tense relationship between the Kremlin and the West.” (The Guardian) - Trump’s son-in-law’s switcheroo
The New York Observer, whose publisher is Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has belatedly decided that, yes, if it’s going to be taken seriously, it should at least try to cover him like they would anybody else. (Michael Calderone) It may be a Sisyphean challenge. The editor of the paper just helped write a major Trump speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. (New York) Don’t expect him, a onetime Rudy Giuliani speechwriter, to now turn into a born-again Ben Bradlee. - A digital David in New Jersey takes off
Not long ago, says former lawyer Michael Shapiro, mainstream reporters were blowing him off as he labored for a hyperlocal site he’d founded. He had a vision of a network of sites covering New Jersey towns. Now he’s got 51 such sites. His TAPInto chain outlasted AOL’s once-touted Patch and includes a franchise model whereby a franchisee pays “between $4,250 and $6,750 a year, depending on the population of their territory, and 10 percent of their overall revenue. Franchisees who want to start a second site pay $1,000 a year for subsequent sites. Shapiro says there are about 35 paying an average of $5,000 a year and 15 sites that are bringing in $1,000. So the rough math on revenue from franchise fees is $190,000 a year.” Better than nothing. (Mediashift) - Grief on the trail of Hillary
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny made what seemed a straightforward observation Monday in encountering some protesters at a Clinton rally. They linked her to Wall Street money in what seemed less than provocatively new ground. “When the typeface is similar from @HillaryClinton rally to rally, you get the sense these aren’t organic protesters.” (@jeffzeleny) This didn’t sit well with some who are either close followers of Zeleny tweets, Sanders supporters, people with too much time on their hands at 1:15 p.m. on a Monday. “Zeleny is nothing more than a parrot on Hillary’s shoulder! Always giving more air time to Hillary,” tweeted one. (@moscaron) - Critical waffling by “legacy” media
“The digital media sector has become unforgiving for unclear business models,” wrote Frederic Filloux, a Paris-based media analyst with ample digital experience. (Monday Note) He means that old media errs by playing both sides, namely collecting revenue from ads and paid subscriptions. “Problem is: compromise breeds weakness, no choice is often the worst choice.” As some marketing executives have moved up the corporate ladder, they’re still trying to replicate an anachronistic model. A few power brands, like The New York Times or Financial Times, confuse matters as others confuse their very editorial superiority with business excellence, he argues. For most old media going digital, they “monetize badly advertising and subscription (think about any market, take your pick).” - Media product placement par excellence
About half an hour before last night’s game, TBS announcers Ernie Johnson, Clark Kellogg, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith not only got in a plug for sponsor Buffalo Wild Wings, they ate Buffalo Wild Wings live on camera. For a minute or two. Gotta love how those network executives differentiate between news and sports guys when it comes to corporate shilling. Imagine Rachel Maddow and Brian Williams chowing down on wings as they delivered the news. Meanwhile, a lot of public radio faces, tote bags and mugs have been surfacing on the likes of “Empire,” “Portlandia” and “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.” (NPR) Maybe the munching of Cerebral Wings (with very mild sauce) are next on “All Things Considered.” - National Hug a Newsperson Day
Need further evidence of the sinking reputation of journalists? It was National Hug a Newsperson Day Monday. (National Calendar Day) So I got the kids up. No hug. I took them to the bus and said hi to Miss J, the driver. No hug. In subsequent hours, I would head to the post office, a German grocery, the dry cleaners, my kid’s elementary school for a lecture on children and technology, back to the bus for the afternoon pickup, Petco to get a gecko (and crickets and worms) for the 6-year-old, home to cook dinner, watched the NCAA championship basketball game with the family, put the two boys to bed and watched some TV in bed with my spouse. And not one. Single. Hug. Or a digital hug. No automatic outreach on LinkedIn. Not even some insincere Facebook hello. Zilch. Like North Carolina, it’s wait ’til next year, I guess. - A man of taste and wit
Bill Rice was a path-breaking food and wine writer at The Washington Post who was asked by then-Editor Ben Bradlee to assess a burgeoning restaurant world in the capital. (The Washington Post) He later moved to run a New York food and wine magazine for American Express before moving to Chicago and becoming the centerpiece of The Chicago Tribune’s broad coverage of food, wine and the dining scene. (Chicago Tribune)Long before there was much of even a California wine industry, or restaurants were even grilling fish, he was forecasting the big changes that were coming America’s way. Nominally, he worked for me for a bunch of years at the Tribune. But I really was his student, exploiting a man who could high or low; trekking to high end spots worldwide with his food-loving New York Times buddy, R. W. Apple Jr., or writing me a column on the best cheap wine to have with Chinese takeout (Chenin Blanc). He was sophisticated, in taste and droll at heart and his love affair with his wife, Jill Van Cleave Rice, was perhaps his greatest offering. She was at his side as he passed away Sunday after a godawful bout with Parkinson’s at the age of 77. A toast to Bill, a really good guy.
- Job moves, edited by Benjamin Mullin
Sam Walker is now deputy enterprise editor at The Wall Street Journal. Previously, he was sports editor there. (Talking Biz News) | Job of the day: WDTV in Bridgeport, West Virginia is looking for an anchor. Get your resumes in! (Poynter Media Jobs Connection) | Send Ben your job moves: bmullin@poynter.org.
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