popular thinking

David Simon, who worked for the Baltimore Sun from 1983-1995, and now is best known as the creator of HBO's groundbreaking series, The Wire, wrote a lengthy piece for Sunday's Washington Post wondering what happened to the newspaper business. It's a good read. Well, perhaps good is not quite the best way to describe the wholesale decline in values and standards in our modern media.

The fifth and final season of The Wire uses the Sun newsroom as a way to probe how the media has or hasn't done its civic duty in covering poverty and crime in our country. Some TV critics have griped that Simon doesn't get the newsroom right. They're missing the point. Plus, I think he gets it close enough. I'm sure police officers and others would have something to say about how the show has portrayed their inside worlds, too. The point, though, is how serious problems in our communities get marginalized or overlooked for trivial matters.

Just look around. Daily coverage devoted to the comings and goings of Britney Spears? Why, exactly? TV shows and "news" stations that justify the paparazzi by buying their photos and using their new-media video coverage as "news."

One of my former haunts sent two reporters to the Sundance film festival. Not to cover film, mind you. Just gossip.

Even the campaign coverage, in this 2008 presidential race, with so much on the line for the future of our country, the mainstream media has paid little attention to what the candidates believe or where they stand. Instead, it's just as it has been in every election cycle in modern history in America. Polls, polls, more polls. And pundits offering predictions or spinning the polls. Only now, the candidates themselves have become savvy enough to play into all of this, so we have even less reason or opportunity to know how they'd serve us as leaders.

In talking with another comedian, I mentioned, only half-jokingly, that we could be reliving the fall of the Roman Empire here. America's role as a world leader, could be in danger as we slip into an abyss. Of course, I'm oversimplifying. It'd take a lot more than a blog post to go into the particulars of our nation's priorities and its standing in the world.

But the media certainly isn't helping any.

Labels: newspapers, online, TV

With great power comes great responsibility. Not just for Spider-Man anymore, it also applies to professional journalists who want to cover comedy. Here is my new work blog about the funny business. Read it. Bookmark it. Put it on your blogroll. Tell your friends to read it. Email me with comedy news and tips. And other things I haven't mentioned. Thank you.

Labels: blogs, newspapers

Hey there, readers of blogs. I haven't updated quite as often as of late, so I need to fix that. In the meantime, here are some clips of mine from recent editions of the New York Daily News.

Today: In the wake of Evan Almighty, I imagine some other folklore film ideas (the studios should credit me or pay me on the back end if any of these ideas hit the screen, wouldn't you agree?) such as the Tooth Fairy, Mr. Sandman, Venus, Aphrodite, Bigfoot and the Ten Commandments.

Saturday: A new federal sex survey! How does your sex life stack up?

June 15: My exclusive interview with radio jocks Opie and Anthony.

More to come, people. More to come. And if you're good at dot-connecting, you can figure out where I've moved and what I may be doing in my new locale. But more to come.

Labels: newspapers

I had a chance to chat earlier this week with 79-year-old Dorchester native Norm Crosby, aka the master of the malaprop. He's in town tonight performing at the Cutler Majestic Theatre.

Crosby told me: "When I started, I was doing it for fun. I was working in the advertising business. I was the ad manager for a big shoe company in Boston. I did it for fun. I got kicks out of it…I think every comedian starts out as being the funny guy in their family, in their office, in their school…I just did it as an avocation really until I got to a point where I had to make a choice. They were booking me on dates out of town...I decided to do the comedy figuring I could always go back and do the other stuff." Turns out he didn't have to go back.

Read the rest of my interview with Crosby in today's Boston Globe.

Labels: comedy, newspapers

What Dan Kennedy wants, Dan Kennedy gets: BostonNOW seeks a meticulous copy editor. Bonus points for BostonNOW correctly spelling all of the words in the job posting, including "meticulous." Although. Really. The job poster needs to know that copy editor is two words, three years may or may not need an apostrophe depending upon how you view such things, full-time should be hyphenated and that last sentence could've used a period. Not that I'm applying for the job.

Labels: newspapers

After you've watched Spider-Man 3, come back and take a look at my special movie quiz in today's New York Daily News. What's that? You didn't know there'd be a quiz? OK. Think of it as a talking-points memo. A conversation starter. And if you haven't seen the movie yet, that's OK, too. Use my Daily News story as a superviewer's guide.

EXTRA! EXTRA! CREDIT: One other question I didn't include because it's a bit too inside-the-media (although if you've been on the subway recently, you've seen newspaper ads that might have some relevance here)...At one point in the film, newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson sits through a marketing pitch for a new Daily Bugle motto, and really, would any newspaper ever want to sell itself with: “It’s Hip. It’s Now. It’s Wow. And How!” And would you ever buy such a paper?

Labels: movies, newspapers, pop culture

Labels: newspapers

Media reports today about Sanjaya Malakar and his non-homecoming to Federal Way, Wash., prompted more than a couple of chuckles out of me (read the NY Post's take here, or a more local version out of the Tacoma News-Tribune here) because I worked in Federal Way for the Federal Way News from 1996-1998 (shut down by the Seattle Times Co. in 1998, and later revived by its original owners), covering City Hall, cops and the utility district, among other things. So I know the political players involved, as well as the quirky place this suburb holds (or doesn't) in the Seattle-Tacoma metro area. Somehow, this kind of minor melodrama makes perfect sense there.

By the way, Olympic speedskater and darling Dancing With The Stars hoofer Apollo Anton Ohno also spent his teen years in Federal Way.

Labels: American Idol, media, newspapers, TV

Bittersweet news to report, as the first newspaper circulation stats since my unfortunate departure from the Boston Herald shows the paper continuing to lose readers. As my former colleague Jesse Noyes pointed out to me, the numbers aren't quite as bad if you compare them from the previous six-month period (as opposed to the same six months a year ago, the way the stats get reported). But still. Here are the numbers...

Herald average daily circulation
March 2005-Sept 2005: 230,000
Oct 2005-April 2006: 227,600
March 2006-Sept 2006: 203,000
Oct 2006-April 2007: 201,500

The Herald's Sunday average circulation is only 110,800. Ack.

By comparison, the Globe's daily/Sunday numbers over the same time frame...
414,000/652,000
397,300/604,100
386,000/587,000
382,500/562,300

Also not so pretty.

The Globe tried to make sense of it all today. So did Dan Kennedy.

Labels: newspapers

The folks at Scarborough Research published their updated national findings on print and online news readership in most metro markets of the U.S. So what should we make of these numbers?

Depends upon what you're looking for, really. Here are the numbers for the Boston market, with a measured potential area population of 4,783,000.

Boston Globe
Weekly print readers (people who picked up the paper at least once in the survey week)
1,986,000
Print market penetration
42%
Weekly online readers (people who clicked on Boston.com once or more in the survey week)
790,000
Online market penetration
17%
Total readership (factoring in people who read both print and online)
2,269,000
Total penetration
47%

Boston Herald
Weekly print readers
1,181,000
Print market penetration
25%
Weekly online readers
200,000
Online market penetration
4%
Total readership
1,259,000
Total penetration
26%

Those numbers almost mirror the situation in similarly-sized Dallas/Fort Worth, with the Dallas Morning News the primary read and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram the secondary read. Although Boston.com's online penetration is better than most other large-market news sites (though slightly less than WashingtonPost.com).

Read the numbers another way, though, and you could say that 37 percent of Boston's populace doesn't pick up either the Globe or the Herald (though likely more considering at least a few percent had read both papers during the week). What are they reading? The Metro? The new BostonNOW? A smaller community newspaper? No papers at all? It'd be good to see those numbers, too. Especially since Scarborough did include suburban paper stats for some of the other major metros. Argh.

I'll be curious to learn what Dan Kennedy makes of these stats, considering he has been arguing that media observers need to factor online readers in newspaper circulation analysis (by the way, the next circulation reports will come out early next week). And then we can fret some more about the present and future status of the American newspaper.

Labels: media, newspapers, online

So Tuesday, April 17, 2007, marked the first paper edition of BostonNOW, the city's latest free daily commuter paper, clearly taking on Boston's Metro, the city's first free daily commuter paper. Let's take a look at how the two papers stacked up today.

BostonNOW
Pages: 24
Cover: Local enterprise story on Logan flight delays
Locally written news stories: Greatest Party preview feature, note from the publisher, business feature on local guy's puzzle store, Logan flight delay story
Wire stories: Turnpike Authority kills Fast Lane contract, state briefs, gas price update, House fights Patrick on anti-smoking funds, More Patrick staff shuffling, Mitt flips view on Hillary's "village" concept, Globe wins Pulitzer, VT shootings, storm, national briefs, Russia wants to extradite tycoon from Britain, Sudan allows UN troops, Iran defies sanctions, world briefs
Special section: N/A
Listings: Free ice cream from Ben & Jerry's today, tells you Harry & the Potters are in town tonight
Op-Ed features: Blog briefs, Alan Dershowitz op-ed (from Christian Science Monitor?), note from editor asking for your blog opinions
Puzzles: Crossword and Sudoku
Horoscope: Paragraphs plus today's birthday
Entertainment section: Preview feature on MFA's "Art in Bloom," interesting newsworthy item on how DVRs and TiVo impact "Lost" more than any other primetime TV show, feature on "Surviving the Nian" at the BCA, review of "The New Brain" at Cambridge YMCA, DVD review of "Red Sox Baby," preview of Champions on Ice at TD Banknorth Garden, Five Questions with Jazz Boston's Jason Palmer
Novelette: Part I of serial fiction page (with note at bottom asking for your 1,500-word entries)
Movie times: Today's listings for Boston and the suburbs
Gossip page: Wire on British Royals, entertainment briefs, local piece questioning BCN Rumble finalists
Lifestyle page: N/A
Sports: Wire on Boston Marathon, brief from Ch. 5 sports guys "Open Mikes",
Back of the book: Outbound page, which includes editor's Top 10 things he likes best about Boston (asking readers to submit their Top 10s), "best" Web diversions, online shopping tips, and a skin-care tip.
Back page: Ad for TJ Maxx.

Boston Metro
Pages: 32
Cover: Localized wire story on Virginia Tech shootings.
Locally written news stories: *Storm, T Riders Union, MIT students react to VT shootings, interview with Webby Awards
Wire stories: Globe wins Pulitzer, more on VT shootings, Wall Street recap
Special section: Education Guide, 12 pages
Listings: If you like Phish, you'd have learned that Page McConnell was in town signing his solo CD debut today. Knew today was Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's (bad timing for ice cream, though).
Op-Ed features: Caption contest, person on street debate about why fewer young Mass. residents volunteer compared to other states.
Puzzles: Crossword and Sudoku.
Horoscope: One-liners, akin to fortune cookie statements.
Entertainment section: *Preview of Sundance Channel's "The Green," review of "Valhalla" at BCA, interview with Mike White of "Year of the Dog," celebrity column, brief preview of Smoosh concert, DVD reviews.
Lifestyle page: Spa tips, advice column, exercise tip.
Sports section: Parts of three pages, with Red Sox game story and sidebar, sports briefs, wire on Boston Marathon.
Back of the book: Medical research ads.
Back page: Ad for Citizens Bank.
*some Metro bylines may not be from Boston staff

Day One has to go to BostonNOW, but anything else would've been bad news, because the upstart had plenty of time to plan for its launch edition. Let's check back in a week or two, or perhaps a month, to see how the two free commuter papers fare when compared.

On the Web, BostonNOW clearly wins, but that's because the Metro doesn't even try to draw online readers. It's all about picking up the product for them. Which is all well and good, but BostonNOW also has a clear vision for being a new kind of paper, and wants to draw upon local bloggers, and so, well, it has to be viable online as well as in print. An ambitious -- some might say audacious -- proposition. But someone has to try it, right?

Labels: newspapers

Nielsen/NetRatings released its roundup of Web visitor stats for February 2007, and its top 30 begins with some usual suspects: The New York Times had a big lead with 12.9 million unique visitors and more than 455 million page views in February, followed by USA Today, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal (even though the WSJ restricts most of its stories and data for paid online subscribers, which should provide evidence that if you have something people really want, they will pay for it online). Thanks to Editor and Publisher for getting the data, which follows similar findings by the Newspaper Association of America.

The top 10 in visitors for February 2007
NYTimes.com: 12,960,000
USATODAY.com: 9,050,000
washingtonpost.com: 8,030,000
LA Times: 4,546,000
Wall Street Journal Online: 3,436,000
The Houston Chronicle: 3,292,000
SFGate.com: 3,236,000
Boston.com: 3,197,000
Chicago Tribune: 2,973,000
New York Post: 2,684,000
(*11. Daily News Online Edition: 2,555,000 -- They redesigned the site in March)

The top 10 in page views
NYTimes.com: 455,527,000
USAToday.com: 169,517,000
Washingtonpost.com: 154,836,000
Houston Chronicle: 93,737,000
Boston.com/Boston Globe: 57,154,000
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 54,994,000
SFGate.com: 51,617,000
LA Times: 50,986,000
Chicago Tribune: 45,283,000
Wall Street Journal: 42,067,000

Labels: newspapers, online

Another report suggests that the youngsters are reading newspapers -- online, anyhow. The Newspaper Association of America says its data shows online paper sites have increased views and visitors by 13.7 percent in the 25-34 demo, and by 9.2 percent in the 18-24 bracket. Boston media critic Dan Kennedy often argues that combining the online and print readership shows the news ain't all bad for the newspaper companies. What do you say?

Updated/related: The Seattle Times continues speculation that its competition, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, will go online-only if their JOA breaks.

Labels: media, newspapers, online

My travels with Boston comedian Shane Mauss found a journalistic home in this week's Boston Phoenix. Read it here. I'll have plenty of details, photos and more on this matter.

Labels: comedy, media, newspapers

Don't hate. The New York Times apparently decided this past weekend to write soft happy profiles of two popular comedians, Jim Gaffigan and Amy Poehler. Read them while the links remain valid! You won't learn as much as you'd like to, but you'll still enjoy knowing temporarily that the "paper of record" has decided to feature a couple of good comedians for all of the right reasons.

Labels: comedy, media, newspapers

So I see that humor columnist (and Pulitzer winner) Dave Barry has emerged from his print retirement this week to file daily dispatches from his Miami city in honor of Super Bowl Week. Based on today's column about media day? Color me unimpressed. Unless you count the anonymously cited bosoms. But Barry also has kept his typing fingers busy on his official blog, and based on his take on this season's 24? OK. He still has some funny left to share. You just have to go online to find the laughs. Just another bad sign for the old-school print media.

Labels: blogs, newspapers, online

This just in from Nielsen Net Ratings: Readership is up for newspaper online sites, and up up UP for newspaper blogs. (thanks, Huffington Post) Not much of a surprise there. The jump from December 2005 to December 2006 was much bigger -- a 210% hike -- for official newspaper blogs, which does make sense, since so many papers finally got into the blogging game last year. I know it worked for me. At least in terms of reaching an audience. Not so much help for me or my employer in terms of revenue, though. That's the trick for 2007. Which newspapers will pull it off?

Labels: newspapers, online

When I arrived at the Arizona Republic in the sweltering summer of 2001, convergence was the buzzword of choice around the office. Gannett had bought the big metro daily months earlier, and already owned the NBC affiliate in town. So why not find a way to leverage the power of the daily newspaper and the local TV news leader? We'd go on Ch. 12 and offer our expertise whilst promoting the paper, thereby selling more copies. They'd offer up columns or other tidbits in the paper. Seemed like a decent plan. Never really worked out as well as planned, though. For one thing, the Republic's circulation has continued to decline over the past five years, even though Maricopa County added at least 100,000 new residents (new readers!) each year. For another, the convergence thing never really took among most folks. 12 News mostly wanted Republic reporters only on the morning newscast in the wee hours, the one part of the day the station didn't have that many viewers! The directives kept changing. Reporters were expected at first to do the TV stuff on their own time, then had to try to factor it into the week without overtime. Some reporters had to audition. Others got asked to undergo TV training, all to no avail. One guy who fared well, though, was business reporter/columnist Brahm Resnick, who has become a regular anchor.

Anyhow.

I think of all of this as I read today's story in the Washington Post about newspaper companies feeling less and less cozy about owning TV stations -- or in the case of the venerable Scripps, the consideration of dropping all of its newspapers to focus on TV!

The media bidness continues to evolve in strange and mysterious ways.

But I continue to think there is a place for newspaper reporters on TV, radio, online and anywhere else they can go to spread the news about the news. You need to find readers wherever you can.

Labels: convergence, newspapers, TV

To anyone who has asked me over the past month if I had considered applying for a job at the Boston Globe, this report online from my former colleague at the Herald should provide a sufficient answer. Just a month after the Herald decided to cut costs by cutting content, the Globe is following suit, with 17 newsroom jobs about to disappear and most open positions remaining unfilled. We in the media business all saw this bad news coming. It was only a matter of when. When arrived today. At least I have a headstart, right?

Labels: layoffs, newspapers