Bob Woodruff: Focused and Fearless

The first (and, so far, only) time we talked, newly-minted World News Tonight anchor Bob Woodruff seemed more than a little annoyed with me.

We conversed on Jan. 17 as I was shaping a column on the new face of TV anchors in the 21st Century, and he was disarming my highfalutin' talk about setting precedents and serving as the network's news face to focus on one thing: the work.

And he stayed mostly unruffled until I asked about his looks. One critic said he and beauftiful co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas looked like they had been assembled by focus-group testing; New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd called him a "pretty boy android."

Can an anchor be too attractive for the job? I asked.

"I don't know what to think about that," said Woodruff. "You can look up my background -- call people who worked with me. My work ethic is not a problem. If people have criticisms about the substance of what we do, that's good...because that means they're watching."

Now Woodruff's audience is watching the news wires for word on his condition, following news that he and cameraman Doug Vogt were hit by an explosive and small arms fire in Iraq over the weekend. ABC reported this morning the two were in serious but stable condition; reportedly Woodruff suffered a broken collarbone, cracked ribs and a facial injury in the attack, which marks the most notable journalist to be seriously injured in a attack in Iraq (see my story on the increasing danger of reporting from the country here.)

When we talked, Woodruff was excited about the possiblity of reporting from the world's hot spots afforded by ABC's dual anchor format. Critics may have carped that he was in Iran and Vargas was in New York for their first broadcasts as news was breaking in West Virginia and Washington, but the 44-year-old former corporate attorney turned experienced war correspondent -- who got his start translating Chinese for CBS anchor Dan Rather during the Tiananmen Square massacre -- savored the kind of globe-hopping he could indulge without being stuck behind an anchor desk.

"When Peter (Jennings) was anchoring this broadcast on his own, it was always a huge worry that he would be caught out in the field when a big event broke back home," Woodruff said. "That's one of the really positive things about having two people anchor this broadcast -- one can always travel, and you know there will always be an anchor in New York -- This, in so many respects, is a perfect compromise."

One of the oddities of this latest calamity is the coverage. Too often, well-meaning reporters seem to be eulogizing the men as if they were already dead (former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw was particularly maudlin on the Today show this morning and ABC's Good Morning America covered his injury like a space shuttle landing, complete with haunting music). Such emotional reporting probably would irritate Woodruff, who seemed determined to avoid the glamour side of his new job as much as possible.

"The basic function of a news anchor otherwise is the same; you have this huge pyramid, this iceberg, where the anchor is at the tip and below it, you've got these huge news organizations," he said. "That's still essentially what this is all about. And one of the things, if nothing else, is that I'd like to make Peter proud.''

Here's hoping that no-nonsense focus allows him to recover as quickly and completely as possible.

As If That Didn't Highlight the Danger to Journalists Enough...

CNN and other TV news outlets have begun airing this still photo from a wrenching new video featuring kidnapped journalist Jill Carroll pleading for Iraqi women to be released from captivity. Though it is hard to know for sure, the time/date display indicates the footage -- which Arab-focused network Al Jazeera first aired -- was shot after the first deadline for such releases.

Past captives have said hostages' haggard appearance may be exaggerated to make the video more jarring and may not indicate how they are actually being treated. Certainly, this video appears just as Americans are discussing the hazards of reporting there -- and debating whether such high-profile victims are getting too much coverage. (see the latest update on Carroll's situation here).

I say it is naive to expect the injury of someone like Woodruff -- arguably the most prominent Western journalist to be injured in Iraq -- not to spark such coverage. Though the new Caroll video combined with a new tape from Al-Qaida's No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri mocking Bush, indicates a disturbing new front in the war of media images surrounding the war.

Oprah vs Frey Part Deux

Let's say you're the editor of a Web site who has prompted one of the most powerful stars in the world to devote an hourlong show to criticizing the best-selling non-fiction author in the country -- forcing the writer to admit he's a fraud, and that your recent expose detailing his lies was true.

Do you watch the program with glee, feeling vindicated after weathering weeks of denials from said author?

Not if you're TheSmokingGun.com's Bill Bastone.

"I couldn't watch it when it replayed," said Bastone of Oprah Winfrey's now-legendary dressing-down of author James Frey, in which she admitted she felt "duped" by the author's now-discredited memoir A Million Little Pieces. (Read my follow-up here.)

Bastone watched the show live Thursday morning after technicians in the New York offices of SmokingGun owner CourtTV captured the satellite transmission. But when the program broadcast to New York viewers in the afternoon, Bastone couldn't bring himself to watch it again (though that didn't stop his co-workers).

"In some of the (footage of him) it looked like his dog had died," Bastone said of Frey, who endured withering criticism from Winfrey, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, New York Times columnist Frank Rich and many others. "If you think about it, of all the people in this country to have to be sitting across from a couch and have that person hand your head to you -- outside of the President doing it to you or the Pope -- there's nobody more powerful than Oprah."

(By the way, Bastone wasn't miffed Oprah didn't invite him or his staff to the program: "He had to answer to Oprah: It's her brand, her rep and her audience. She didn't need some dopey web site to take him to the woodshed.")

It's one of the biggerst firestorms ever kicked up by the site, started by former Village Voice reporter Bastone and two other friends as a fun hobby in 1997 and turned into a full-time job when CourtTV bought it in 2000. Enamored of records and what they reveal, Bastone and his cohorts discovered Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire star Rock Rockwell had been accused of domestic assault and published the deposition of the 13-year-old who accused Michael Jackson of molestation in 1993. But that was nothing compared to the tsunami of reaction when TSG published a blistering investigation of Frey's memoir, concluding he had lied about nearly every arrest and jail sentence in the book.

And Bastone has more in store. "Since we published the story, we have been contacted by a lot of people who know the author, went to school with him, and had business dealings with him in Chicago, North Carolina and Los Angeles. For us, they've opened up a lot of other areas of inquiry...Whether we're actually going to do another story, I don't know. Part of me says it
feel like you're kicking a guy when he's down. I mean, Oprah Winfrey sent out this message to the Winfrey nation and the country that the book's fake. If we point out a whole bunch of other stuff, does anyone really care anymore?"

Still, Bastone remains irritated that Frey hasn't recanted the most outrageous stories in his book -- including a claim that he got a root canal without pain medication and that he nearly killed a priest who tried to molest him. "He would have been so well-served had he been truthful from the get go. I don't think we would be talking about this -- 19 days after we first posted the story. If he just fessed up, it would have been so much better for him."

Other Voices Talking Frey and Oprah:

Morgan Entrekin, president and publisher, Grove/Atlantic Books: "What came out of (Oprah's show) was two things: It's almost like case law; she has set a precedent and we all know where the line should be drawn. And Doubleday should have dealt with this back in September when her producers asked about questions over the book before Oprah's book club endorsement. From now on, no publisher in his right mind is going to publish a memoir without asking the Frey question: What have you done with the material here?"

Ralph Keyes, author of The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Modern Life: "Up and down society I think we just feel we have permission to make things up and pretend that its real. We've lost our sense of a value system in which telling a lie is clearly wrong. We're so entertainment oriented, and the value system there is so fluid...entertainers have replaced the clergy as our dominant moral compass. We don't want to say we're telling lies. It's
the whole Steven Colbert 'truthiness' thing -- not quite a lie, and not quite the truth. We don't say honesty is the best policy...because that proves you're a rube. "

Jeffrey Seglin, professor at Emerson College and author of an ethics column for New York Times syndicate: "This guy Frey is very smart and (the show) oddly puts him in the position of being a victim, again. Basically, it was Oprah and...everybody else just piling on. And he just sat there and took it as smartly as you can do it. And meanwhile, his books keep selling...But, on a positive note, 20 years ago, nobody probably would have called his book into question. So one of the questions left is: Are the lies worse than ever before, or are we just catching people more now?''

Oprah Turns on James Frey

First, Katie Couric caves under the withering heat of my commentary, and now Oprah Winfrey has backtracked on her initial defense of A Million Little Pieces author James Frey, asking him during a live broadcast of her show today to tell why "he felt the need to lie."

“It is difficult for me to talk to you because I really feel duped ... but more importantly I feel that you betrayed millions of readers,” Winfrey said to Frey and as quoted in an Associated Press story today.

Oprah's confrontation aired live in some markets, but Tampa Bay area viewers won't see it until 4 p.m. today, when Oprah airs on WFLA-Ch. 8.

Despite the fact that Pieces has been a best-seller for many months, no prominent journalists checked the book against public records until TheSmokingGun.com revealed Jan. 8 that Frey's stories about his drug-fueled criminal career were not supported by any official police reports or court documents.

Winfrey called into a damage-control appearance the author made on softball interview show Larry King Live to defend him, calling the controversy "much do about nothing" and touting the "essential truth" of his book.

None of that forgiving attitude was evident today, as Winfrey admitted regret for making the call and "leaving the impression the truth is not important." Which is, astute readers will note, the point I made four days ago in Sunday's newspaper.

What I love most -- beyond the fact that she got Frey to admit, finally, that he did lie in the book -- is that Oprah has once again figured out how to wrap doing the moral thing tightly inside doing something to help her media empire.

Because she admitted her mistake and confronted Frey on HER show, ensuring SHE would get the ratings and newscasts would endlessly play clips of HER show, instead of Larry King.

Hey, at least she's admitting a mistake, That's more than our president will do.

Public Access Under Attack in Hillsborough

The long-suffering folks who offer public access TV services in Hillsborough County are under seige again, this time from Bright House Networks, which doesn't want to fork out the thousands of dollars it takes to maintain the county's public access TV channels.

Yeah, I know you don't watch them, even if you live in Hillsborough. I don't watch the ones in Pinellas, either.

But cable companies get the government to use eminent domain to secure rights to string their cable throughout communities, so I think they should give something back. Providing the public with one or two channels and some chintzy studios to make bargan basement shows seems a small price to pay for the fiber optic lines which make their business possible.

Of course, with the increasingly erratic Hillsborough County commissioners more focused on denying gay people rights and building athletic facilities no one needs, they may go along with Bright House just to keep their flacks from calling the office too often.

Supporters are asking fans to show up for the next BOCC meeting, Wednesday at 8:45 a.m. at the 2nd floor of County Center, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd. in downtown Tampa.

Forget the WB or UPN -- Think CW

The shape of network television is about to change significantly.

CBS and Warner Bros. Television today announced plans to scrap their struggling UPN and WB networks by September, making way for a new fifth network dubbed the CW. (CBS-Warner, get it?)

(What will Rebecca Romijin do if her new WB series, Pepper Dennis, is sidelined?)

According to the press release circulated today, Tribune broadcasting and CBS-owned UPN affiliates have agreed to carry the network for 10 years. (which means, whatever they cook up, we will see in the Tampa Bay area on WTOG-Ch. 44. It also means local WB affiliate WTTA-Ch. 38, which was rumored to be losing its 10 p.m. newscast anyway, is now in serious doo-doo come October).

The network expects to hew to the WB's schedule: six nights of prime time programming (two hours each weeknight and three on Sunday), two hours Sunday afternoon, a two hour midafternoon block and a five hour kids animation block on Saturday mornings.

QUESTIONS...THERE ARE MANY

1) Which shows will survive?

The powers behind this didn't release a schedule, but they anticipate picking from the best shows on both UPN and the WB. But can female-skewing shows such as Smallville and Gilmore Girls coexist on the same network as WWE Smackdown and Everybody Hates Chris? Expect a wider-aiming network that goes beyond the tight niches established by UPN and the WB -- scrappy, edgy and different, kinda like Fox was 15 years ago.

Shows notably missing from the CW press release: J.Lo's nighttime soap for UPN, South Beach; many of UPN's black-focused comedies such as Half and Half and All of Us (don't worry Everybody Hates Chris was mentioned); the WB dramas Everwood and Charmed; and, thankfully, Life with Fran.

2) How did they keep this secret?

Near as I can tell, not a whiff of news escaped on this project, despite the fact that the nation's TV critics just spent two weeks in Los Angeles at the TV Critics Association's summer press tour poking and prodding network execs about their schedules. Hats off to CBS TV head Les Moonves, who has set the industry on its ear again by coming up with new twists on traditional, old school television products.

3) Why a new TV network now?

Just as iPods and digital video recorders threaten to dismantle the entire profitmaking structure of network television, the two smallest networks have teamed up to make what they can of the new landscape. Critics always figured one of the networks would go away eventually -- not enough ad money or viewers to sustain both indefinitely -- but no one saw both gone simultaneously to make way for a new venture.

Moonves must be cackling up a storm: when Viacom split into two parts, CBS (TV, radio, book publishing) and Viacom (cable TV, Internet. Paramount Pictures), many assumed Moonves was going to be the caretaker of of dying old media, while Viacom bloomed on the wings of podcasts, blogs, web sites, movies and more. He has instead moved to grow his end of the business doing something he mastered while saving CBS: reinventing old media so it feels like new.

I tend to believe the same market forces propping up the rest of network TV will help this venture as well: in a fragmented TV universe, the biggest small crowd still bring in lots of ad money. But can the independently-owned TV stations which depended on the WB and UPN for its massive brand identity survive without a network?

That's a question even Superman may not be able to answer. At least, not until Sept. 1.

Just Because You're Paranoid, Doesn't Mean They're Not Out to Get Jamie -- Does It?

Take from someone who was dumb enough to pick an online fight with Roger Ebert over the saying "call a spade a spade" -- no, I don't play cards much -- there's nothing more embarrassing than calling out a racist incident which isn't.

Most recently, this bill fits an email I received four times yesterday on Oscar-winning actor/keyboardist/singer Jamie Foxx's music special for NBC Wednesday.

The email reads: "Please take the time to forward the below message to everyone in your address book. NBC is not doing any marketing & publicity on Jamie's Music Special on NBC because he stood his ground and wouldn't have any white guest as they requested. To make it even worse he had two controversial guest stars, that do not fit the "NBC profile" on his show. Tune in to find out who they are. They are purposely putting his show up against the second week of American Idol in hopes that it will fail. This will give them the excuse to never give another black person a music special because "it doesn't work". Let's show them that it does work, and that we support each other. Tivo Idol, and watch Jamie. J Foxx making history on NBC. This is the first time NBC has ever aired an entire young urban African American cast on a music special. We need to show support. This was not an easy sell for Jamie and he stood his ground to make it happen the way he saw fit.JAMIE FOXX MUSIC SPECIAL WILL BROADCAST WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25TH @ 8:00PM PST on NBC. PLEASE MAKE IT A POINT TO WATCH! There will be surprise special guests."

Sigh. Well, this overheated poster was partly right, anyway. It is rare for a young, black musician to get a prime time TV special, and it probably would help get more artists like Foxx on the tube if people watched the show.

BUT....

I know NBC organized a conference call with journalists to promote the TV special today and anyone who watched NBC last night saw a boatload of commercials for the show. My good friend, Washington Post staffer Richard Prince, even got a network publicist to acknowledge, on background, that NBC is airing the show twice this week -- Wednesday and Friday. I'm assuming they're airing it opposite American Idol in hopes of drawing a few young, urban viewers away from the Idol juggernaut.

Unfortunately, this race-based myth will likely richochet around in cyberspace -- right alongside the one about designer Tommy Hilfiger saying he doesn't like black people wearing his clothes on Oprah, as if she'd tolerate that -- getting lots of uninformed people angry for no reason.

(Though the Foxx rumor is too recent to surface here, I suggest checking out most Internet rumors you hear on a most wonderful urban legends factchecking site, Snopes.com.)

Perhaps we can all agree to focus on the stuff that matters -- poverty rates, education equity and real on air racism -- and let NBC roll out the red carpet for its Oscar-winning crooner in peace. Though the most unfortunate aspect of all this may be that we're still so troubled on these issues that this off-base email doesn't sound too far-fetched for some.

More Reason to Hate Mondays...

Besides the fact that there isn't much going on in media right about now -- hence the NYT story about Wash Post ombudsman Deb Howell's fight with nasty blog posters and Howie Kurtz's column on Bode Miller's discovery that any publicity is good publicity -- my work computer crashed Friday.

Which means about five years of Internet favorites, documents and emails have disappeared into the ether (don't talk to me about backing up stuff; with no CD burner and no cash for 4 GB thumbnail drives, I'm stuck crossing my fingers and praying to save large amounts of data).

I have noticed a curious change in attitude: combined with some AOL hiccups which have repeatedly killed out my email archive, I have been forced to embrace a certain fatalistic attitude about my data. Hard as I try to save some things, most of what I squirrel away on various hard drives will not survive - like many, I just don't have the time or the $$ to save it all. I'll have to assume the winds of the Internet will bring much of it back to me, again.

So, As I Was Saying....

Since I'm struggling to get my cyberself together this morning, here's a little bit more on a few stories I filed over the weekend.

Blink and you'd have missed my piece Saturday on reporters' growing dread over the increasingly dangerous situation in Iraq, a story similar in tone to USA Today's piece today referencing kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll. I led the story with Luke Harding, a longtime foriegn correspondent who colleagues say is among the gutsiest reporters out there, saying westerners trying to report from Iraq is a dangerous folly.

A few more cool quotes:

Pam Constable, a deputy foriegn editor from the Washington Post, who once had to ID the bodies of colleagues killed a few cars lengths away during an ambush in Afghanistan: "Situations of great stress and danger can either bring ot the best or the worst in people in the most unexpected times and places. People you've never even met will reach out and help you -- offering a floor or a place to hide. It often is the case among the poorest people. The people who have the least are often the first to share. And that's gotten me through lot of situations.''

Luke Harding on why he -- and many other experienced reporters -- won't go back to Iraq: "You feel that you can only throw your name in that hat so many times. After seven or eight trips where so many bad things are happening around you, you'd have to be bovine to keep throwing your name in the hat.''
"You have the TV journalists on the 17th floor of the Palestine Hotel, surrounded by bodyguards earning $2,000 a day, and they dont even go to the coke machine in the lobby. NBC wouldn't even go down to the lobby for breakfast with the rest of us. They stayed up in their fortified floor the whole time. It's like they're in prison.''

Anne Garrels, longtime National Public Radio correspondent from Iraq, who wrote the book Naked in Baghdad, confessing she took a long break from reporting there in April and almost didn't return: "For everbody, we're caught -- those of us who have stayed on, we're caught between two things. We actually know something. We've built up a body of knowledge which is enormously helpful. Especially because getting all that knowledge is very difficult, you're loathe to quit when you know something. But there's no question some of us are burnt out, or have post traumatic stress -- a lot of us have to ask why we're doing this. That's one reason why it's harder to get reporters to go. We're having a terrible time finding people who want to go."

Loren Jenkins, senior foriegn editor at NPR, who earned a Pulitzer in 1983 for coverage of Lebanon in the Washington Post: "(During the Vietnam War), you could sit in Saigon and sip French wine at a good restaurant, the next morning you went out to where the war was fought and you took your risks. Basically, you weren't at the front lines all the time. In Baghdad, it's all front lines -- it's chaos and anybody can do anything they want. So you never have any down time -- even at night when you're in your compound, somebody could drive a car bomb into it. Chechnyna and maybe Beirut came close to it -- in which you have civil war in the streets and there was nowhere to hide. In Iraq, just going to a press conference can be taking your life in your hands.''

Taking On the O:

Of course, I couldn't resist tearing Oprah a new one over the James Frey situation. Some call it piling on, I call it sweet revenge for all the "men are pigs" shows I've had to sit through with my wife. Very cathartic.

Yet Another Media Web Site

If you can stand checking out another media web site, surf to TVNewsday.com, an interesting destination developed by some acquaintances of mine who used to work for Broadcasting and Cable magazine.

As experts on the TV industry, they've worked to pull together many different information treams on the TV biz, from TV critic's columns to their own reporting and a listing of all the TV stations nationwide. Defnitely much more for those who work in the industry in some way, but still insightful if you're looking to figure out the real reason why anybody does anything in the TV business: money.

Too Much Information?

When it comes to comments posted online, how much feedback is too much?

For the Washington Post, the breaking point came after ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote a column saying Democrats also took money from diosgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The newspaper's blog on newsroom matters was promptly drowned in comments from posters who felt she had taken an inaccurate swipe at the Dems -- turns out, she simply should have said Abramoff "directed" his clients to give money to Democrats, for which there is ample proof.

But the commentary didn't slack off or get any nicer -- boy, can I sympathize -- and at 4:15 p.m. Thursday, site editors shut down the comments section to that blog, because they were spending so much time editing comments.

I feel for Howell, who I spoke to briefly last week while researching another article. Only in the ombudsman's chair since October, she still seems to be feeling out her approach to the job (I called her for comment on a story, she initially declined, then changed her mind too late for inclusion in my piece). And everyone who contributes to blogs knows there are some commenters who won't see reason or communicate cordially.

Still, I think is a mistake to shut down the comments. As regular readers of this space know, I haven't removed any comments yet -- no matter how insulting or offensive I think they may be -- because I think the communication should be free as possible. Obviously, any hardcore profanity or totally corrosive commentary might be removed, but the whole point of this space is to allow posters some freedom to respond to my work and the newspaper's work.

I think shutting down the comments totally, even given their understandable explanation for doing so, subverts the very reason for the forum in the first place. As I noted in an earlier piece, being open with readers is a lot tougher than it seems.

One More Media Blog

As if the world needs a new media blog, PBS has created a space for Mark Glaser, former columnist for the USC Annenberg School of Communication's Online Journalism Review, dubbed MediaShift. It's supposed to be a space examining how new forms of digital media are changing our lives.

So far, there's a general section with a couple of essays by Glaser, a Top 5 listing of technology trends that won't leave us alone (Google and Howard Stern are on the first list) and a your take question inviting reader feedback (the first question: What video would you watch on a small, portable screen?)

Glaser promises a podcast and video and more stuff to come. While I find it an appropriately ironic commentary on modern media culture that someone considered an expert on blogs hasn't actually written one until now, I still welcome Glaser to the blogosphere. I'm sure he'll have a lot more fun than Deb Howell.

HD Radio Coming Soon -- Everywhere But Tampa

Despite the fact that it's based in Orlando, the HD Radio Alliance has mostly ignored Florida in its list of 28 markets that will feature HD radio broadcasts developed by the consortium. A collective of 12 or so radio stations owners aligned to develop new programming and outlets for HD Radio, the alliance revealed Wednesday a list of 28 stations which will feature HD Radio broadcasts over the next few days, from New York's first country station to punk.

The closest station is in Miami (public radio station WUSF in Tampa already broadcasts its own HD signal); HD Radio is a form of digital broadcasting which allows radio stations to multicast -- broadcasting many different streams of content. Spooked by satellite radio's cornucopia of choices, the radio industry is working hard to develop HD Radio as an alternative.

What they should do is develop a cheaper receiver -- at $400 a pop, the special HD-capable radios are too pricey for most to consider for access to a limited number of radio streams usually available online.

New Refrigerator at Today

I guess my pointless assault on the Today's show bore fruit. Perky billionaire anchor Katie Couric announced this morning that they are junking the duct-tape festooned, 10-year-old refrigerator that was featured in their recent behind the scenes report. Of course, NBC is owned by GE, which sent over one of its deluxe refrigerators after seeing the report. God forbid, Couric, Matt Lauer, Al Roker or any of the other overpaid on air talent would chip in to buy a decent fridge for their support staff.

Here's Mine -- What's Your Media Diet?

It started as an offhand conversation with my new editor in my first week as media critic:

People spend all this time thinking about their food diets, we marveled. Why don't they think more about their media diet?

Months later, I've cobbled together a story for the Times on the concept of a media diet -- if you thought of your media intake like a food diet, what's good, what's bad, and how do you come up with a balanced meal which works for you?

We didn't have room for this graphic, which shows my news media diet displayed like an old-school food pyramid, with newspapers as the roughage at the foundation, public broadcasting as the nutritious vegetables, cable channels as the fruity middle, the Internet as the red meat, with the newscast parody The Daily Show as the sugary cherry on top.

In the story, I also provide a sample of the media diets from folks like Gov. Jeb Bush and TV writer David Mills. If you feel like sharing, I'd love to know: What's your media diet like?

CNN Courts Conservatives -- Again

Lefty media watchdog groups are howling over two recent hires by CNN outlets: football star-turned-black conservative politico J.C. Watts (as a CNN contributor) and right-wing talk radio firebrand Glenn Beck (as host of an hourlong shows on CNN Headline News).

Indeed, it was amusing to see CNN Headline News president Ken Jautz describe Beck as "self-deprecating and cordial." Local radio listeners who heard Beck's show back when he was based in Tampa can recall a typically in-your-face, Rush Limbaugh style commentator who hosted Clear Channel-supported rallies nationwide to support the war in Iraq and called Hurricane Katrina refugees "scumbags" amid mistaken reports of riots at relief centers.

Watts, who left the U.S. House in 2002 amid concerns he was being marginalized, is one of the few black conservatives who doesn't come off as a total sellout -- helping establish a Smithsonian museum of black history while also supporting the GOP.

Perhaps CNN feels it needs two conservatives to the replaced the departed douchebag of liberty, Robert Novak.

Behind the Scenes at Today: Clueless Anchors?

Not much time for posting today, but I couldn't resist blogging a little on something I noticed in Tuesday morning's Today show broadcast.

The show will present a number of "behind the scenes" reports this week, and given the program's formula of putting itself at the heart of many stories, they started with a live, behind the scenes look at Today.

Bad enough we were forced to wade through the sea of makeup artists, control room technicians and "green room" shots as if none of us had seen such things before (a later, pretaped segment on how the show puts together stories, was a little better). But the apex of cluelessness came when Katie Couric strode into the show's kitchen and showed off its battered refrigerator, complaining that it was held together with copious amounts of duct tape which was true.

While Couric ribbed NBC for not ponying up for a decent 'fridge, my mind flashed to her salary, which reportedly stands at $13-million annually.

Could it be that NBC was pinching pennies in the kitchen to save $$ for her astronomically high pay? (60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney recently noted correctly that a news division could field dozens of reporters for the $20-million salary CBS has reportedly offered the chirpy newsreader.)

And if the duct tape was such an indignity, why didn't Couric dig into her own deep pockets and rewards the staffers she'd spent long minutes complimenting with a shiny new storage space for their bag lunches? (I'm sure you can't eat lunch out every day in Manhattan on what they pay most of Today's crew.)

A little thing, I know. But it's amazing how little issues can sometimes highlight big problems.

Media Transparency in an Online Universe

When I decided to write a piece about the growing need for media transparency in today's news universe, little did I know the story would wind up serving as its own little experiment in news distribution and disclosure.

My end of the transparency experiment starts here, with the disclosure that this column is my first story to be published on the Mothership Web site with no concrete plans for publication in the newspaper's print edition.

The backstory is relatively simple: I pulled together a piece looking at why leading newspapers seem to be doing some of their best work these days, while absorbing some of their harshest criticism. The answer: a growing demand for the story behind big stories that is harder to ignore in a world of blogs and instantaneous criticism.

Because the story was long, we have lots of competition for the front page and the subject might seem like inside baseball to readers, my bosses decided to try something new and publish it on the web Monday night as a bit of an experiment. Hopefully, those of you who care about the subject will find it easily; and as always, you can leave your thoughts about this strategy here.

I'm hopeful this will get the story to folks who care quickly as possible -- even if the result is even more demand for the stories on how we all get our big stories.

A few links you might also find interesting: Cyberjournalist.net, Jay Rosen's PressThink, the Huffington Post and David Berlind's media transparency experiment. And, of course, one of the biggest sites to help spread the word when journalists write about media is Jim Romenesko's Media News blog on the Web site of the Poynter Institute (which also owns the St. Petersburg Times), linked in the right-hand column.

Phil Milano: Beyond the Sniping About P.C.

What reaction might you get if you asked black people why their lips are so big?

Or an Indian woman why she wears the dot on her forehead? Or a white person if they smell like wet dogs after a few minutes in the rain?

Phil Milano has been having these kinds of conversations for years, in an online community called Y? The National Forum on People's Differences -- a judgement-free corner of cyberspace, where people can ask the kind of cross-cultural questions they've always wanted to pose, but were too afraid to ask.

I first met Phil more than ten years ago, when he offered me a job. Then working as a recruiter for the Florida Times-Union, he was hoping to hire the Jacksonville paper's first black music critic in me. And when I told him Jacksonville felt too much like a lateral move, he mentioned a music writing gig opening up at a paper across the state, the St. Petersburg Times.

Even then, I could tell Phil was the kind of guy who was fearless about talking across race. Not like so many people who claim to oppose political correctness, when all they really want is the freedom to disregard the sensitivities and perspective of other cultures. Phil wanted to cut through the clutter in a constructive way -- respecting others' sensibilities while challenging people on both sides of the conversation to ask the questions really on their minds.

Way too smart to stay at the Times Union, Phil has since spun his ideas off into a book, I Can't Belive You Asked That, and a regular column, Dare to Ask, which appears in more than 30 newspapers in 14 states.

A typical column features a question -- "I've noticed white people don't have rhythm when it comes to dancing," was a recent one -- with replies from the mostly-young folks on his online forum and then an authoritative answer from an expert (on dancing, Phil quotes choreographer Wade Robson saying black folks are more improvisational and white folks more technical).

I mention all this because, on this anniversary of Martin Luther King's Birthday, there are still precious few media sources focused on connecting people rather than dividing them. People are so busy feeling aggrieved, persecuted and put-upon -- often for very good reason -- there's not much percentage in trying to unite them, anymore.

But Phil's trying. Through a number of platforms. So check one or two out, and you just might learn that the question you've always wanted to ask wasn't such a dumb notion after all...

NOT SO COOL MLK TIE-IN:

Their heart is in the right place, but the good folks at the Seattle office of mega-advertising agency DDB Worldwide have hit a clunker with their online evocation of segregation. Click through and you'll see their ham-handed attempt to re-create Jim Crow days online, before ushering you to a snazzy site filled with info on the Civil Rights Movement and MLK. Mailers encourage white folks to open one side of the letter and black folks another.

Wonder if they will be open for business today?

WFTS-Ch. 28 FOR SALE?

Recent words by E.W. Scripps Co. chief executive Ken Lowe that running TV stations is "not something we're necessarily wed to" has caused a flurry of rumors, particularly in the Tampa Bay area where industry types have expected a sale of low-rated Scripps station WFTS for many years.

To be fair, Scripps has always supported WFTS, despite its status as fourth among the four network affiliates in our market (doesn't help that Sarasota's ABC affiliate, WWSB, takes about 10 percent of Action News' audience). But if Scripps puts WFTS in play, companies which already own news-producing stations here might decide to create a duopoly by acquiring the station -- which would almost certainly cost jobs.

A doomsday scenario to be sure. But one that will likely keep many local TV industry types awake nights, trying to figure all the angles.

Why is Oprah Defending a Fraud?

I know there are way more important media stories unfolding this day -- the question of why, for example, most media seem to be focusing on Judge Alito's wife losing it during his confirmation hearings, instead of his subtle way of leaving the door open to reverse women's right to an abortion (my thought: if Mrs. Alito can't handle Lindsey Graham's ham-handed attempts to make her husband look good, she's in for a long, troubling time as a First Lady of the Supreme Court).

But why is Oprah Winfrey standing up for discredited author James Frey?

TheSmokingGun.com presented a devastating analysis of Frey's book A Million Little Pieces Sunday, contending that "Police reports, court records, interviews with law enforcement personnel, and other sources have put the lie to many key sections of Frey's book." After a six-month investigation, they concluded that he exagerrated many elements of his book which describes status as an outlaw "wanted in three states."

When Frey finally submitted to an in-depth interview to explain himself on CNN's Larry King Live, he predictably fell back on assertions that memoirs don't have to be entirely accurate -- despite asserting in earlier interviews that his book was mostly true.

But he most surprising moment came from Winfrey, who called into King's show to assert that Frey article contained essential truths -- even if it wasn't true.

"The underlying message of redemption in James Frey's memoir still resonates with me," said the talk show host, who is constantly encouraging her audience to face painful truths in their own lives.

"Whether or not the cars' wheels rolled up on the sidewalk or whether he hit the police officer or didn't hit the police officer is irrelevant to me," Winfrey added. "What is relevant is that he was a drug addict who spent years in turmoil, from the time he was 10 years old, drinking and -- and tormenting himself and his parents."

Leaving aside the question of whether we can believe that part of his story either, Winfrey's words carry a disappointing message: Because he's telling me a story I want to hear, she seems to say, it doesn't matter if it is true.

I know: Who could imagine that a big-shot talk show host, accused of presenting a fraudulent book to her audience as a revolutionary tale, would say anything to save her credibility? That little "Oprah's Book Club" seal ties her credibility to his; she could have severed it by expressing some concern about the questions raised, but she instead chose to encourage her fans to ignore the inconsistencies completely.

It remains disappointing that a woman with so much power in the publishing world would resort to a "truthiness" defense to back up a guy who seems the literary equivalent of P.T. Barnum.

And, as if to add insult to injury, Frey's book remains at the top of Amazon.com's bestselling list.

UPDATE: National Public Radio announced today that former Nightline anchor Ted Koppel will join the channel as a senior new analyst, contributing to a range of NPR programs in the same way that his former ABC News colleague, Cokie Roberts, currently does. Koppel will also contribute op-ed pieces to the New York Times, wth the first one slated for Jan. 29.

So all that stuff I said about old reporters and ABC News goes double now.

Local Guy Alert!

University of South Florida professor Ray Arsenault appears today on National Public Radio's Fresh Air interview show to discuss his most recent book, Freedom Riders, just in time for Martin Luther King's birthday and Black History Month. Ray is a local treasure -- a nationally-recognized historian who has made his home in tha Tampa Bay area and continually enlightens us with his work. I'm sure his time with Terri Gross is well worth checking out.

Where do Old ABC News Journalists Go to Die...?

Ok, that's a little dramatic. Perhaps the question should be: Where do old ABC News journalists go to finish their careers?

The answer: Anywhere but ABC News.

Former Nightline correspodent Michel Martin is the latest experienced hand to announce her departure from the Alphabet Network's news division, landing at National Public Radio, where she will host a two-hour public affairs show focused on issues of interest to black people. An Emmy-winning reporter, Martin joined ABC News in 1992, most recently contributing some incisive reporting from areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.

So, of course, there was no room for her once Nightline was "retooled."

As I noted in a post filed near the end of anchor Ted Koppel's tenure on Nightline, the program has been sheddding serious journalists since network brass made it clear they wanted to make the program younger, more feature-oriented and more like every other newsmagazine on air.

Former executive producer Leroy Sievers is doing volunteer work with various Non Governmental Organizations. Former correspodent Robert Krulwich preceded Martin in a move to NPR, where he once worked before. And Koppel just announced a deal with Discovery Networks to produce documentaries for their channels with his longtime producing partner Tom Bettag and nine other former Nightline staffers.

It's a shame that so many experienced journalists feel that network TV is no longer interested in their brand of serious journalism anymore -- focused as it is on the missing middle class person of the week, and the latest moves of Brangelina, or Tomkat or Vinnifer or whatever.

Our only choice? To dial up NPR or the Discovery Channel and enjoy their work where we can.

Riddle #2: When Do News Reporters Avoid Reporting the News?

Answer: When one of them is at the center of it, apparently.

How else to explain the decision by reporters for American news outlets in Iraq not to report the kidnapping of freelance journalist Jill Caroll for 48 hours after her abduction -- in which her Iraqi translator was shot and killed? NBC reporter Richard Engel noted on the Baghdad bureau's blog that reporters there swung into action soon as they learned of her kidnapping, doing everything but file reports for their employers.

"We helped keep the story quiet -- an act of self-policing we ultimately lost," wrote Engel, who helped report on Carroll's disappearance for Monday's edition of the Today show. "At some level we know that one day this could happen to any one of us."

The Associated Press said U.S. news organizations agreed to the news blackout to give authorities time to investigate the abduction quietly (foreign news outlets reported the incident). But have they extended that courtesy to any of the other Westerners -- truck drivers, aid workers and foriegn journalists -- who have been kidnapped there?

I can't imagine what reporters are going through to do their jobs in that corner of the world. But I'm pretty certain that treating members of the American media differently in their own reportage won't make things any easier.

Cool Award Won By Times

Living up to my crabby reputation, I rarely indulge in boosterish shilling for the institution which cuts my paychecks. But I'm going to make an exception this once, to compliment two great reporters from our newsroom who just won a prestigious award: one of the very first Philip Meyer Awards.

Times colleagues Matthew Waite and Craig Pittman placed third for their series, Vanishing Wetlands, which demonstrated that 84,000 acres of Florida wetlands have been destroyed by development since 1990 when President George H. W. Bush declared a national policy of no net loss of wetlands.

I also note another recent contest irony: former WFTS-Ch. 28 investigative reporter Miker Mason has won one of Columbia University's Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for broadcast journalism for reporting by the station's investigaive unit on problems dogging the Crosstown Expressway expansion. Apparently now working as a realtor in Miami Shores, Mason left WFTS in December 2004; his tenure had been controversial, marked by tough reporting, awards won nationally and locally, an arrest for doctor shopping to obtain pain medication and loss of his driver's license after an car accident in which he had no insurance.

Another reporter in WFTS' unit, Robin Guess, left in December; despite making big waves early on by exposing former Tampa Housing director Steve LaBrake questionable business deals, Guess seemed the victim of a new regime at the station which wanted its own high-profile investigative reporters.

An interesting pairing of awards notifications.

PUNDIT ALERT!

Yours truly appears today on the Reporter's Roundtable feature of Ed Gordon's NPR show News and Notes, discussing Samuel Alito's Supreme Court confirmation hearings and Katrina victims getting tossed out of New Orleans hotel rooms to make way for Mardis Gras revelers.

Bubba Back: And This Time, He's Nationwide

Because I had to meet the Times' early deadlines for entertainment copy, I dipped in and out of Bubba the Love sponge's first satellite radio show for Sirius Monday.

Like his big boss Howard Stern, Bubba seemed to have a little difficulty getting started, repeatedly apologizing for feeling a bit rusty after nearly two years out of the radio game. He kicked off Monday's drive time show (4 p.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays) for Stern's Howard 101 channel promising to dish about Clear Channel once his settlement with them expires in about three weeks -- until then, he's getting two paychecks, one from Sirius and one from Clear Channel; I want his agent!

In the first hour, Bubba spent a lot of time thanking Stern for rescuing his career. When we talked last month about how this would unfold, Bubba told me he was using the checks from Clear Channel to keep paying his crew and hold his team together until they could find work elsewhere -- but his firing from Tampa's WXTB-97.9 FM in February 2004 has made him virtually unemployable in the terrestrial radio industry.

Oddly enough, Bubba seemed to ease into his new, uncensored environment a bit easier than Stern, inviting porn star Shay Sweet into his studio to show off his talents at certain oral activities and playing uncensored parody songs that could only air in heavily edited form on his earlier shows (he also promised to broadcast uncensored versions of the bits that brought hefty federal fines in terrestrial radio, including the skit portraying cartoons characters George Jetson and Scooby Doo searching for drugs and hookers)

Over his time on air Monday, Bubba took calls from Hulk Hogan and the King of All Media himself, who warmed to the idea of occasionally switching timeslots with Bubba in a way terrestrial jocks would never consider (see Bubba's fan web site here). It was a pairing that Bubba predicted might happen soon after he was fired, though he has since admitted to me that was mostly wishful thinking back then.

I didn't listen to Bubba much before he was fired, so I don't know if this is a recent transition. But I always remembered Bubba as an odd mix of redneck bluster and wanna-be hip hop swagger. He used a lot of patter from hip hop culture and threw around the b-word with abandon. But Monday's show was a much different vibe -- with Bubba emphasizing his redneck roots and talking up such blue collar staples as race car driving, wrestling and, of course, porn stars.

Standard critic's disclaimer here: I've never been a big proponent of the knuckleheaded material shock jocks like Bubba and Stern traffic in. Too often their shows come across as a cavalcade of losers, encouraging the worst sort of misogyny, race-baiting and ignorance.

But seeing this material move off the open radio spectrum to a pay service makes alot of sense to me -- allowing these guys to do what they do, unfettered, in a medium where their fans can find them, while leaving the publicly-owned airwaves free from such caustic material.

Stern Underwhelms -- At Least, At First

After several hours' listening this morning I must report feeling a bit underwhelmed by Howard Stern's much-ballyhooed debut on satellite radio this morning.

And its not because I had to haul myself out of bed early in the a.m. today to set up my home Sirius kit which piped the King of All Media through my home stereo (it involved dangling an antenna out my living room window; 'Nuff said).

True enough, no show could have matched the months of hype leading to the moment when, at 6 a.m. today, Sirius aired a long, blistering fart calibrated to the tune of the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme (Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra, if you can believe that. Until Times researchers confirmed it three times, I didn't).

But despite a nasty phone sex bit with a David Letterman impersonator and a Playboy playmate; lots of dish from surprisingly game Star Trek veteran and newly hired Stern announcer George Takei on his life as a gay man; and replays of Pat O'Brien's blisteringly x-rated obscene voice mail message to a female acquaintance -- something was missing.

And that missing something, strangely enough, was Howard Stern himself.

What listeners got this morning was Howard Stern the media star -- lots of talk about moving to Sirius; whether or not he married his supermodel-pretty girlfriend over Xmas break (answer:no); and celebs ranging from MSNBC's Keith Olbermann to Access Hollywood's Maria Menounos fawning over the King of All Media.

After Stern's first show ended, listeners got a show featuring producer Gary Dell'Abate and Jump the Shark author Jon Hein dissecting what had just happened and a Howard 100 newscast focused on such minutiae as how Howard will punish one of his sidekicks for cursing on air (it's a sexual practice which involves the word "tea." ) and the lighting for Stern's on demand TV show. See the program lineup for Stern's channels here.

First shows are always rocky, and Stern will likely find his groove once he's past the transition hoopla (which means I'll still be uncomfortable with all the female degradation and borderline racist stuff he indulges). But today's taste of Stern proves you can get too much of a good thing -- even in the limitless space of satellite radio.

See a contrary opinion from former Times writer Helen A.S. Popkin here. And of course if you have any thoughts -- especially if you heard the first show -- feel free to leave a comment.

Another Friend Down

I was running late.

My family and I had spent a little too much time at the palatial home of a firend in West Chicago, and I had to make a choice: Keep a lunch appointment with another friend in downtown Chicago, or hit the road for my mother's home in Indiana so we could stay on our vacation schedule.

I called my friend Allan Johnson, a top-notch critic at the Chicago Tribune, and told him I couldn't make the lunch date we'd planned for him to meet my family. And that was the last time I heard his voice.

I just found out a few minutes ago that Allan died Friday after collapsing from a brain hemorrhage three weeks ago. It wasn't as if we were the closest of friends, but Allan and I were linked by many things: a love for arts criticism, a love for journalism, a love for our new baby daughters and a focus on diversity in media.

When I met him, he had already spent 20 years at the Tribune, had led its coverage of the town's exploding stand-up comedy scene during the boom of the '80s, and was settling in as the second-string TV writer at the newspaper. In 2003, he was moved to the Tribune's Q section, and he was also teaching at several colleges.

Most lately, we'd traded emails over our mutual friend, Ken Parish Perkins and his resignation from the Fort Worth newspaper in a plagiarism scandal. We lamented how such a good friend and talented guy could fall so low. I never believed I would be mourning Allan's own death just a few weeks later.

I'm left with many thoughts: see your friends when you can, because you never know when its the last time. Treasure your time with good people. And worry about the shrinking number of black folks writing arts criticism these days. A confusing blizzard of reaction, I know.

Readers of this blog may not care so much about this. But Allan was a good guy I never knew as well as I wanted to, and I wanted to spend a little time talking about him here.

Rest in peace, my brother.

Pat Robertson: Why Do We Pay Attention to Him?

Once again, extremist televangelist Pat Robertson has said something outrageously morbid: that Ariel Sharon's moves to take settlers off the Gaza Strip prompted God to bring the Israeli Prime minister's current health problems.

(This put Robertson in agreement with Iran's president, who also recently said the Holocaust didn't happen. Religious extremism makes strange bedfellows for sure)

It's certainly not the first time the doddering Robertson -- who managed to keep his 700 Club TV show on air by contractually requiring its broadcast when he sold the Family Channel cable outlet to Fox -- has said something awful. He has implied other denominations such as Episcopalians and Methodists embody the spirit of the Antichrist, he has said the 9/11 terrorist attackes were caused by gay people and the ACLU, he has said America should assasinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and that the people of Dover, Pa. shouldn't be surprised if God brings a natural disaster after voting out school board members who supported the teaching of intelligent design.

(Chavez and Fidel Castro, thanking Robertson for generating a tidal wave of world sympathy for them)

Robertson's comments also bring a predictable media response. The cable newschannels and network TV morning shows, always hungry for controversy, crank out stories which spread word of Robertson's comments, prompting columnists and pundits to jump on board.

But when a daffy minister makes his umpteenth statement making God sound like some supernatural hitman, isn't there a point when skeptical journalists should stop listening?

Columnist Terry Mattingly wrote passionately for the Poynter Institute's web site about how mainstream journalists seem to use Robertson's off-the-wall comments to reinforce a stereotype about conservative Christians as nearly nutty ideologues. Rather than explore whether Robertson actually has any clout anymore, or how other conservative Christians feel about his often un-Christian remarks, many of us are content to simply wallow in the outrage.

It becomes a cynical exchange: Robertson basks in the attention such stories bring while news outlets rejoice in another button-pushing news story. And, yes, I've done it too.

Enough already.

I would love to see major news outlets take a pass the next time Robertson says something outrageous. I have a feeling the air would run out of his particular balloon awfully quick without worldwide media attention.

Big Blunder 2006: The Aftermath

In the wake of a tsunami of complaints regarding the mistaken reporting on the deaths of 12 miners in West Virginia, newspapers spent loads of ink explaining what went wrong. (check out my story on the whole debacle -- including an appearance from ""warrior journalist" Geraldo Rivera, here)

For newspapers in the east and central time zones, the problems could be summed up by a quote from Orlando Sentinel editor Charlotte Hall, who noted the paper's 225,000 copy run was done by 3 a.m. when the new news of the miners' deaths was revealed: "Our press run was in those three hours, when the misinformation was about. So we couldn't do anything."

I am surprised that some newspapers -- including the St. Petersburg Times and the Tampa Tribune -- said they wouldn't run corrections, but new stories with the correct information. While it is true that headlines such as They're Alive were an honest mistake, they were incorrect and should be acknowledged in a message to readers by editors, I think. (The Tribune's home page today doesn't even feature a story on the mines)

Other surprises: news outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, The NewYork Times and the Associated Press either declined to comment beyond a prepared statement (AP and NYT) or referred me to a pr person who was not a journalist to answer questions (LAT). I was quite disappointed that news orgs which demand access from other companies in times of crises offered little to none when they made a mistake.

Here's a few interesting quotes I couldn't fit into today's story:

"The problem comes when there are thousands of Americans who don't catch up and don't realize (the initial reporting) was wrong. The danger of a media that doesn't confirm what they are reporting is that myth becomes fact before it is too late.''
Brian Stelter, creator of the TV Newser Web log.

"Knowing that every other major newspaper in the country did the same thing is no consolation. On TV, they say it one time and it's gone. We have a different responsiblity, because once its there, it's permanent."
--George de Lama, deputy managing editor for news, Chicago Tribune.

"We were victimized by the nature of the phenomenon. We get the information from sources presumably in the know. How could you not trust those guys in the command center, (or) the miners families? In (former FEMA head) Michael Brown's case, there really was dissembling there. There really was gross incompetence. He told Shep Smith on Tuesday (after Hurricane Katrina) that help was on the way. On Friday when I got there, there were still people who didn't have a loaf of bread or bottle of water. If it comes from the mineshaft...it was from an eyewitness.''
--- Geraldo Rivera, Fox News Channel correspondent

"I began to get uneasy when time when by and there was no official briefing called and only one ambulance was seen leaving the mine. With all these miners rescued, all the officials would be out there. But you don't want to be the one cynic to throw cold water on it all. It was about a quarter to 2 a.m. when they had time to plug in my cell phone call...and I said I was uneasy, or unnerved by the fact that all this has not had an official confirmation."
--- Robert Hager, retired NBC News correspondent, who came out of retirement to help cover the mine disaster and sounded one of the few notes of restraint before the 3 a.m. announcement of the miners' deaths.

"Everybody can't go around emoting. You don't want everybody to wear their heart on their sleeves. But some people are like reporter/analyts or reporter/commentators. Find a journalism school these days which says a reporter can't show emotion during a story."
--- Geraldo Rivera

And here's a piece by CNN's Anderson Cooper explaining his point of view.

As always, your comments are welcome.

Journalism's First Big Blunder of 2006

Didn't take long for journalists to walk into their first pile of trouble in the New Year: Taking their cue from celebrating relatives and the governor of West Virginia, newspapers across the country -- including the St. Petersburg Times -- reported on their front pages that 12 workers trapped at a mine in Tallmansville, W. Va. were found alive.

Jubilant cable TV news types could just switch course when the mining company finally confirmed at 3 a.m. or so that early reports of 12 survivors were fiction. Newspapers like the Times, which has a deadline of about midnight for news, were stuck with headlines which were the exact opposite of the truth -- from USA Today to the Los Angeles Times (check out all the newspapers which got it right or wrong via the Newseum's catalog of front pages).

Why were news outlets basing their initial reports on feedback from relatives? Why did it take the mining company so long to stamp out the rumors, when they had some idea after 20 minutes that initial reports might be wrong? Did cable TV's incessant coverage -- speeding up the pressure for definitive information quickly -- affect everyone else's coverage? These are questions I'll be trying to answer in my reporting today.

January 2006: New Media Beginnings

I just got a late Holiday present: watching David Letterman take apart Bill O'Reilly on his show tonight.

Just as O'Reilly was cautioning that people should "watch what they say" for fear of bringing defeat in Iraq, Letterman replied that perhaps Bill should take his own advice -- later noting "I'm not smart enough to debate you point-to-point on this...but I have the feeling 60 percent of what you say is crap." And "This fair and balanced...I don't think you represent an objective viewpoint."

Happy holidays, everybody.

Since January is a month for new beginnings, I'd like to note three new media beginnings that emerged today: The new anchor team on ABC's World News Tonight; CNN's new Pipeline video streaming service and David Lee Roth's debut in Howard Stern's old radio time slot.

World News Right Now

Besides marking the day Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas would anchor their first edition of ABC's evening newscast World News Tonight, Tuesday also marked the unveiling of a special webcast for the show and a blog, dubbed The World Newser.

This is to be ABC News' face for the new millenium -- a space where viewers get on demand access to the network's video offerings and special material TV watchers will never see. And while last night's efforts were just the first step on a long road, the paucity of material revealed just how long that road is going to be for the Alphabet Network.

The webcast is a 15-minute preview of the stories to be featured on the evening newscast, delivered live at 3 p.m. For some reason, though Woodruff was seen in a pre-taped introduction to the webcast from Iran, when it came time to introduce his report from the country live, he did it by cellphone. Other correspondents who delivered reports on issues of the day -- including George Stephanopoulos on lobbyist Jack Abramoff's guilty plea -- seemed to stumble a little, not yet used to making the earlier deadlines.

I couldn't help wondering why they never posted the actual evening's newscast for streaming (since Vargas and Woodruff anchor three different broadcasts for eastern, central and western time zones, it seems they would have plenty of versions to choose from). Or why the latest entry in their blog was filed by Woodruff in Iran two days earlier. Competitor Brian Williams often reveals on his blog the debates and decisionmaking that goes into developing the stories for NBC's Nightly News; Woodruff's entries centered on his travel problems in Iran and the fact that the newspaper mistakenly ran a photo of deceased anchor Peter Jennings with its story on his arrival there.

With blogs, webcasts and three separate newscasts, its a wonder they have time for any reporting, anyway.

As new beginnings go, it could have been better.

CNN's Pipeline to the Future

CNN now has its own broadband online platform for video streaming feeds dubbed Pipeline. Though the service was unveiled about a month ago, it seems CNN has begun to really publicize on air the site this week, which allows access to commercial-free streaming video of CNN stories and live coverage, priced at $2.95 per month or $24.95 annually.

Once logged onto Pipeline, users can watch four feeds of live video, pick from a list of stories recommended by producers or browse CNN's full roster of stories. There's also a video digest of the latest news, updated hourly, an expected schedule for the next day's coverage and a way to send messages to CNN dubbed Your Voice.

It's a slick setup, though only one of the four live feeds I pulled up tonight had sound. And of the two feeds featuring coverage of the ongoing miner rescue around 11 p.m., one was constantly trained on a reporter even when she wasn't on the channel (showing her reading notes, rearranging wires and other odd stuff) and another feed was trained on an empty podium in what looked like a press tent. At least, when CNN International picked up the live reports, I could see stories on the rescue with sound.

Such stuff is irresistible to media critics, but I doubt any but the hardiest news junkies will spend much time wading through this stuff -- especially when a fair amount of it is available for free (but with commercials) on the main Web site.

DLR: He's Just a Little, um, Boring

Former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth debuted his new radio show this morning. And even though the closest radio station carrying it is in West Palm Beach, I listened to a bit this morning via the magic of streaming audio online.

And, even though I never expected to say this about the guy who co-wrote Bump and Grind and A<