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Entertainment journalism
The Britney Spears Allure story has attracted a fair bit of attention but I was slightly gobsmacked to see this admission in one comment piece: Britney, pop star and mother-of-the-year candidate, apparently agreed to pose for the cover of Allure and to sit for an interview with writer Judith Newman. For four days Newman chased…
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The talk radio formula
Oliver Stone’s Talk Radio is one of my favourite media movies. Eric Bogosian plays talk show host Barry Champlain. Only the politics tell you that it was made in 1988 (instead of a conservative blowhard, Bogosian plays a morally bankrupt liberal). Seeing it again the other night reminded me that the formula for talk radio…
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Trust in the media
In 1972 the Roper Centre for Public Opinion Research in the United States began asking: In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the news media – such as newspapers, T.V. (television), and radio – when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly – a great deal, a fair…
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1970s newspaper wisdom
In 1971 Harvard Business School grad, Robert G. Marbut, approached the Harte family who owned a Texas newspaper group, to ask if they’d back his publishing venture. They turned him down. Instead, they asked him to run the family business, Harte-Hanks. Marbut took the company public and in a year had taken it out of…