a blog about the media...

[skategeezer]

thought this was interesting...from Seth Godin...wonder how it relates to skateboard media?

ooh, that's a loaded question!



The Media markets

The product they sell is drama.
When I went to business school, we spent an entire 90 minute class on how to read the Wall Street Journal. That's a rare treat... being taught how to understand and psyche out the media.
With the vast bulk of our news coming online now, it's worth taking a second to look at the way mainstream media markets drama. You know and I know that they're doing this, but maybe it'll strike a chord with someone...
Take a look at a screen shot from the front page of CNN.com today:
I put a green checkbox next to every statement on the page that might be considered 'true' but could certainly be considered irrelevant, or at least unimportant compared to the actual 'news'.
The page would have been more accurate if it had said things like, "Obama gains more than 200,000 votes over Clinton" or "Obama campaign further extends delegate lead, picking up 12 more delegates" or even "Obama pummels Clinton in the bigger state."
That's not dramatic, though, and as William Randolph Hearst taught us a long time ago, the goal is to sell newspapers, not to report the news.
There isn't media bias in favor of Hillary (my friend Jeff is the first to point that out). Nor is there media bias in favor of floods. There's media bias in favor of drama.
Most of us are inclined to believe that government officials, doctors and the media are making an effort to tell us the truth. Actually, just like all marketers, they tell us a story.

[elementalzoo]

Should we blame the government?
Or blame society?
Or should we blame the images on TV?
No! blame Canada
Blame Canada
With all their beady little eyes
And flapping heads so full of lies
Blame Canada
Blame Canada
We need to form a full assault
It's Canada's fault!

[pirateswin]

Mama said,
it's just make believe
you can't believe everything you see
so baby close your eyes to the lullabies
on the news tonight

[HerBDerb]

Obama already won.

[MrCokesNSmokes]

I guess I'll bite on this one...

Most of the time, I agree with Seth, in principle. And, in principle... and,on this issue... he's not incorrect. The job of the newspapers is truly, to sell newspapers. Or, the job of TV, is to get viewers, in order to sell advertising. Unless it's National Public Radio or something, which is funded by the listeners, as well as via Government subsidies. NPR news is a night and day difference, from "regular" news....

But, there's a practical problem to be considered. One good one is: Without selling a product (papers), or advertising... how is The Media gonna bankroll itself, in order to stay in business? Obviously, drama-filled news is a far better paradigm than no news at all.

The other problem that I see, by Mr.Godin's little graphic up there, is that he claims all of those green-checked sub-articles are "irrelevant" and "unimportant". Well,all I see there is "background story", "analysis", "context"... and, ultimately, attempts to give the facts some sort of "meaning". And, what good are plain 'ol facts and figures, if there's no background, context, or meaning to them...?! They would be just plain 'ol facts and figures, and noone would care.

The story of WW2 isn't in the facts that it began on September 1st, 1939, and ended on August 15th, 1945, with a net result of "x" dollars spent, "y" lives lost, and three regimes toppled. Those are the facts. That would be Godin's definition of the "news". But in there is the human "drama" of attempted genocide, a worldwide struggle against facist dictators, a battle between the forces of good and evil, and an ultimate victory for freedom and democracy for much of central Europe and the Pacific Rim. Godin would write that off as "drama", not news. That's unfortunate.

In my eyes, most of the time, the drama IS the news. As my example illustrates, the "story" is far more important to the human cause...and, a far better commentary on the human struggle... than the numbers, statistics, and outcomes would initially suggest. 6 million people terminated is a fact. 6 million Jews terminated at the hands of a political party bent on ethnic cleansing, and brutally enslaved and ruthlessly murdered for political gain, is news.

[sk8norcal]

The product they sell is drama.

hey, reminds me of MB's editorials in CW

seems like every sk8mag have their own spin, like political parties.

concrete wave - we represent everyone (except street skaters), we are pro family value, gender equality, anti- big corporate, anti-drug, anti-gun, pro-pads.

concussion - we represent the working men, who likes to get drunk on the weekend, pro-beer, pro-nudie magazines, supporters of NO MA'AM

thrasher - we hate the big corporate, but we will take their money, pro punk, pro destruction.

transworld - we love the big corporate, give us the money. whose ass do we kiss?


hmmm, is MB, the Hilary Clinton of skateboarding? or Obama? mrgreen:

[Wells]

OK, hello politics.

Yes, the job of these organizations is to sell advertising and newspapers; but it hasn't always been that way and the current media landscape didn't arise "naturally." This system exists inside a certain framework that says that reporting the news is and should be a for-profit business. This is not the case everywhere and has not always been the case in the United States.

Prior to the twentieth century, newspapers were basically the propaganda arms of various political parties. They existed less to sell advertising than to push a party line. Objectivity wasn't expected or valued.

The immediate and obvious example of a different system is the government-funded BBC, which happens to be a widely-respected news organization.

There's even precedent inside the US for this kind of thing. Education, by all measures, is not a profitable business. Despite that, we have decided as a society that education is so important that it should fall outside the sphere of commerce; so we devote significant resources to free public schools and state-subsidized higher education and student loans. Ditto for fire protection and the police. These services still exist in a for-profit form; but there's a basic level of pretty good guaranteed service for which you don't have to pay. Why not do the same for the news?

[TwinTown Skater]

I'll do my best to provide relevant information without adding drama.

Not for Profit News: At some level, here in the US we already have a publicly subsidized source of the news. In 1967 Congress authorized and funded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Two of the projects which CPB planned, started and continues to fund are PBS and NPR (amen MrCNS).

The rub is that any information has mutiple facets. How completely those facets are catalogued, and how they are presented determines the objectivity of the ultimate reporting. Time constraints, budget and editorial direction limit the breadth and scope of any reporting, and thus 'news' may be less even handed and more editorialized. Personal preference of the consumer dictates which source(s) of information are accessed. Taken to the ultimate extreme, you and I may not be able to have an intelligent discussion, because each of us has a completely different set of facts surrounding the issue.

For profit sources of news and information are constantly walking the tightrope of appealing to both their consumers and their advertisers. In the event that the preferences of the consumers and producers align correctly, you end up with a completely skewed information stream which closely matches the belief system of the advertisers, leading to a highly profitable venture, but providing a less objective final product.

Finally, there has been a trend in the recent past to 'privatize' publicly provided services; the assumption being that a for profit business will do a better job with any task than the government will, and that any reduction in the size of the government is ultimately a public good.

[skategeezer]

I'd like to think that we do represent, or at least try to represent ALL types of skateboarding..even street...

but yes, CW is biased, just like all media....

twin town...welcome to my life...

For profit sources of news and information are constantly walking the tightrope of appealing to both their consumers and their advertisers. In the event that the preferences of the consumers and producers align correctly, you end up with a completely skewed information stream which closely matches the belief system of the advertisers, leading to a highly profitable venture, but providing a less objective final product.

IT IS TRULY A DIFFICULT TIGHTROPE TO WALK...and I am only dealing with skateboarding!

[sk8norcal]

a motorcycle friend showed me this mag

http://www.mcnews.com/mcn/editor_intro.asp
no ads, subscription supported.

for skating,
online forums have been a great thing for fair reviews of equipments,
there are negatives though, write ups are poor quality, reviews by people who don't know what they are talking about, biased reviewers, etc
still more trustworthy than any magazine reviews...