New Breakthrough in Citizen Media or an Easy Path to Cheap Labor? I'll Report, You Decide.

Want to hand an international news network free news items while passing up the chance to make big money on exclusive footage youself?

Then, CNN's new Exchange Web site and I-Report initiative is for you!

Once upon a time, viewers who managed to get their camcorder or cellphone onto some real breaking news might actaully sell the footage to TV stations or news outlets like the big boys -- particularly if it was an image of something singular like, say, a tornado destroying a home or a freak accident.

But some news outlets are developing ways to get average joes to give them interesting news footage for free -- simultaneously selling it as a new form of citizen journalism.

Beginning today, CNN has unveiled it's I-Report intiative, which is basically an area of its Web site where you can upload video footage which CNN may feature on Exchange -- a catalog of user-generated material -- or even on air during a broadcast.

It's the kind of intiative you expect, given the popularity of user-generated media sites such as YouTube and MySpace. But the difference between those sites and this is that any material you provide to CNN will be vetted and edited to their liking, not yours -- it's an odd twisting of the D.I.Y. ethic that turns so-called citizen journalism into a mechanism for making the general public an unpaid extension of the channel's reporting staff.

The truth is lodged in this excerpt from the "Terms of use" you automatically agree to when you send in material: By submitting your material, for good and valuable consideration, the sufficiency and receipt of which you hereby acknowledge, you hereby grant to CNN a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide license to edit, telecast, rerun, reproduce, use, syndicate, license, print, sublicense, distribute and otherwise exhibit the materials you submit, or any portion thereof, as incorporated in any of CNN's programming or the promotion thereof, in any manner and in any medium or forum, whether now known or hereafter devised, without payment to you or any third party.

This is CNN?

Separated at Birth?

It's not that we're enjoying seeing Mel Gibson's gibbering anti-semitism revealed to all the world by his own, inebriated mouth. Or that the Los Angeles Sheriffs department's ham-handed attempt to protect the star have only made the scandal that much more savory (okay, maybe we're digging that a little).

What's amazing about the Mel Gibson DUI scandal is two things: First, the way it has upgraded the reputation of the Web site which broke the news, TMZ.com. Previously known for celebrity sludge like confronting Paris Hilton about the crude stuff their readers said about her on their web site (a sample: "Paris is like a fart in a mitten; you know it's there, you can't stand it, but you can't get rid of it."), TMZ has made Gibsongate its own.

It wasn't the smokingun.com that had four pages of the original, censored police report on Gibson's nuttiness (They're still featuring the scathing memo from Morgan Creek Productions CEO James Robinson excoriating Lindsay Lohan for blowing off production days during her latest movie; how last week is that?). It was TMZ, which now also has Gibson's eerily serene mug shot posted.

I said two things earlier, because the final shoe has yet to fall. According to TMZ, there is an audiotape of Gibson's entire, Jew-hating diatribe and videotape of his tantrum at the sheriff's department headquarters. So I'm betting two more things: The tabloids have a six-figure bounty waiting for whichever custodian, secretary or deputy has the stones to get them the tape. And they have another six figures going to attorneys who will argue such evidence is a public record, right along with the original arrest report.

It will take that audiotape to puncture Gibson's rep with the industry, which loves the money he makes them, and fans -- who tend to give their idols lots of leeway. Short of real audio or visual evidence of his bigotry, this will fade sooner than Shannen Doherty's latest marriage.

UPDATE:

NYT has cool story on the speed of the scandal erupting. I  must admit, I've gotten so used to the hyper-fast  world of celebrity news, I barely registered that the Mel thing exploded in a couple of days.  NYT and L.A. Times notes Mel's holocaust drama with ABC is dead, though his next wild-eyed movie, Apocalypto, is not. And HuffPost's Eat the Press posted a Separated at Birth comparison between Mel and Saddam at exactly the same time I did last night. Great (or not-so-great) minds....

SHOUT OUTS:

To HuffPost's Harry Shearer for linking to my Saturday story about news coverage of Lebanon (maybe, someday, he'll actually let me interview him about his media crit work!); Brian over at TVNewser also showed me some love...And all this speculation over Castro's health reminds me of my own earlier post about rumors of his death -- perhaps we all were further ahead of the curve than we realized....

Think Young People Get Their News Online? Think Again.

Consider yourself among a rareified crowd: according to a new poll by the Pew Center for the People and the Press, just 4 percent of Americans say they read online blogs where people discuss news events -- though the figure jumps to 9 percent for those aged 18 to 24.

But the biggest surprise from Pew's poll may come to those news executives who see online services as the best way to hook young consumers -- according to Pew's figures, nearly all the growth of Internet news users since the year 2000 has come among those aged 25 to 64.

This dovetails results of an extensive study by Ball State University last year; really young folks use the web for IM-ing friends, playing games, watching porn -- just about anything but gathering news. Another Pew nugget: the same percentage of 18 to 24 year olds get their news online three days a week in 2006 as they did in 2000 -- about 30 percent -- and as many people aged 50 to 64 get their news online as people in their late teens and early 20s.

Pew surveyed 3,204 adults from the end of April to the beginning of May for its biennial news consumption survey, aimed at uncovering how people say they are consuming news (which, every media-savvy person knows may differ from how they actually consume news and other media).

What their figures uncover, is that online news sources are more often a supplement rather than a substitution for news consumers, newspaper circulation, while eroding, is boosted a bit by those reading newsapepr Web sites, and people mostly use Internet news for quick headlines and updates.

Forty percent of Americans said they read a newspaper the day before they were polled, with 6 percent reading online. But combine online and print newspaper readership and you get 43 percent of the sample, compared to 50 percent who read just a newspaper 10 years ago.

In 1993, 77 percent regularly watched a local TV newscast, compared to 54 percent in 2006; 60 percent regularly watched network evening news in 1993, compared to 28 percent this year; 58 percent regularly read a newspaper in 1993, compared to 40 percent who read this year (even among those aged 65 and older -- newspapers' reliable audience core these days -- the percentage of regular readers has dropped from 70 percent ten years ago to 58 percent in 2006).

What do we make of all this? That young people don't read news because it doesn't yet matter in their lives; they don't own homes, so they don't care about taxes, they don't have kids in school, so they don't care about local education issues, they don't have homes so they don't care about property values or how their community is developed and they're too young to care about health issues.

Newspapers are losing the people who should care about their content -- 25 to 40 year olds -- mostly because of the convenience factor. It takes too much effort to read the newspaper, and people who are building careers and building families have less time than ever for it.

National Public Radio's audience has doubled since 1994 to 17 percent, while Fox News Channels audience has stayed level over the past two years at 23 percent. And 13 percent of those aged 18 to 29 get news by cellphone, PDA, CrackBerry, iPod or similar portable device.

Hmmm. Sounds like a trend for the future...

Back to the Future for Deggans on Aug. 7

As you may have guessed if you read the comment from the Times' previous  TV critic, Chase Squires, I'm taking Chase's place as the newspaper's TV critic, starting next Monday, Aug. 7.

It is, I'll admit, an odd career trajectory for me. But I told my editors back when I left the job two years ago, that I wished it was possible to take a two year break from the job, rather than leave it for good. So, in an odd, roundabout way, I got my wish.

Put simply, I missed arts criticism. And I realized what our executive editor told me when I first considered leaving the TV gig for the editorial board: I already had the best job at the newspaper.

I'm coming back with renewed enthusiasm and a better understanding of my own abilities and the newspaper. So this should be a fun ride.

But the open question for us all, is what will happen to this space?

I expect the blog to reflect more  TV stuff and entertainment stuff, but I'll also try to keep up the substance. Dunno if I'm going to tackle  the Lost recap -- no one could do that like Chase did -- and I have a feeling my approach won't be quite as funny.

I don't even know if i'm going to change the name of this blog once I move back to TV criticism -- but I'm open for suggestions.

Got any?

Friday Funnies -- Colbert Takes

Friday Funnies -- Colbert Takes on Morning News Shows Colbert once again proves how well he understands media -- kicking morning news where it hurts by exposing all the stupid reportage they inflict on viewers every morning.  I suspect he's only doing it to keep politicans from bailing on doing his show, but it's fun to watch the media pissing match unfold, anyway...

Demanding more From Spanish Radio -- And Other Stuff

Should Spanish-language radio be held to the same content standards as the English stuff?

That's the question raised by my piece Wednesday about La Nueva, Tampa's first Spanish-language radio station, and it's conflict with a listener over anti-gay statements.

Birgit Van Hout, executive director of Community Tampa Bay, says she heard a caller express hatred for gays, followed by the host saying "let's exterminate them all" and the sound of a machine gun going off. Station officials say she misheard: the bit, in which people call in to express their hatred for someone or something that is then put against el paredon (the wall facing a firing squad), featured a guy calling in to diss a friend.

But they also admit using the word maricon in broadcasts -- the equivalent of the three-letter f-word to describe gay people -- and other Hispanic listeners have told me the hyper-macho dialogue, willingness to diss other Hispanic groups and general crudity keeps them from listening to the morning show.

The station's program director first offered to send me an audio clip of the exchange, but his corporate masters nixed the idea in their ultimate wisdom (I'm always intrigued by the ways in which corporate executives make news stories much worse by shutting down dialogue). I got the feeling that, because their show isn't nearly as raunchy as programs in Miami and New York, the folks at La Nueva are having trouble understanding what all the fuss is about.

FCC-wise, Spanish stations get content-based fines mostly for the pranks they play. An Orlando station got fined for announcing a call-in contest with a $1,000 prize and then giving out the phone number of its competitor. And a Miami station bluffed its way through Cuban officials to get Fidel Castro on the phone, by pretending to represent Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez (it's illegal to broadcast someone without their knowledge, even a ruthless Latin American dictator).

But proponents say that's just the culture of Latin America coming out over the radio -- macho, highly sexual and in-your-face crude. What do you think?

Fox News and TV Critics: A Dysfunctional Relationship

I like Glenn Garvin, the Miami Herald's award-winning TV critic -- even though he took a job I turned down many years ago. But just as I lean left in my critical analyses -- and have admitted so many times in print -- Glenn is a conservative dude who doesn't hide his love for Fox News and suspicion of his colleagues' liberal leanings.

So it was no surprise to me that he would write a tartly appreciative piece on Fox News chief Roger Ailes' appearance at the TV Critics Press tour in California a few days ago, led by the observation that 2/3rds of the 150 critics there walked out on his presentation.

Frankly, I found that surprising. Even if they don't like Fox News so much, critics there are generally starved for real news, and Ailes makes that happen every time he opens his mouth. I've taken on Fox News and its approach as much as anyone, and I would have been there with bells on. My suspicions were confimed by a note from Oregonian critic Peter Ames Carlin, who said Garvin was mistaken and many critics attended the session.

Regardless, the spat reminded me of Fox News' odd relationship with the press, often occasioned by its bare-knuckle public relations style. I still remember the first press tour presentation by Fox I attended, in which Bill O'Reilly  cowed a roomful of critics with a liberal bias shtick that hadn't yet become shopworn. Back then, Fox's style was to alternate carrot and stick like an abusive spouse -- calling critics at regional papers like me whenever we mentioned Fox (they noticed us!) but never hesitating to give us a hard time if we criticized them or -- and this really snarks them off -- complimented CNN.

Most TV outlets' public relations people accept that pro critics will write some stories they don't like, and maintain the relationship anyway. Not Fox. For them, every story counts, and the worst sins are to ignore them or compliment a competitor.

That's why it was especially funny to see Ailes complaining about rival Keith Olbermann throwing a Nazi salute while wearing an O'Reilly mask. As AP noted, Fox News flacks hardly mince words when speaking about their competition -- though they often wish them well. To wit.

On Olbermann: "We hope he enjoys his paranoid view from the bottom of the ratings ladder" and "A train wreck waiting to happen."

On CNN founder Ted Turner: "Ted is understandably bitter, having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind."

On Goerge Clooney: "It's obvious he needs publicity, considering his recent string of failures."

True enough, I've been on the receiving end of many a harangue by the Fox News pr people, and I'll admit my last conversation with one of them ended with a slammed-down telephone. But I think their gloves-off style has begun to finally wear on some critics, who refuse to be intimidated or insulted while trying to do their jobs.

I'm sure they'll be calling soon to wish me well writing for the occupants of God's waiting room.

Selling Iraq -- At Least, Parts of It -- Even As Lebanon Burns

The commercial features a 30-second blitzkrieg of images -- young Iraqi boys in nicely-pressed shirts waving American flags; vaguely attractive women, smiling in colorful robes and headscarves; a young man of military age holding out a finger dipped in purple ink.

Many wave American flags.  They all say "thank you" to their American viewers. And they all tout the country they call "the other Iraq" -- the country's northern area, Kurdistan.

And I saw this moving commercial Monday -- smack dab in the middle of Fox News' interviews with Israeli soldiers returning from a raid in Lebanon.

Organizers say it is an accident of timing that the first big commercial buy from the Kurdistan Development Corp. to sell American companies on investment in the other Iraq comes just as the outbreak of armed conflict between the Israelis and Hezbollah has some pundits tossing around comparisons to World War III.

But there they are -- smiling Iraqi faces praising the military liberation of their country in ads that started airing Friday on CNBC, MSNBC and Fox News (CNN, which has a policy against airing such ads from places in open conflict, suspended the KDC's ad buy for the mother channel and CNN Headline News).

To the bystander, it may seem like placing an airline advertisement next to newspaper coverage of a plane crash. But the KDC's irrepressible American PR representative, Sacramento-based Sal Russo, sees an opportunity where others might see a horribly misplaced commercial buy.

"It creates such a contrast, it gets people's attention," said Russo of the ads, which were test marketed to American consumers in November. "The biggest difficulty of any advertising campaign is to get people's attention. Well, the world's attention is riveted on the Middle East. And they have a terrific story to tell."

Certainly, it seemed that way last year when Russo and his partners at Sacramento-based Russo, Marsh and Rogers were developing "the Other Iraq" campaign. Announced in November, the effort includes three different TV commercials developed for American and British audiences, a slick-looking Web site, a list of contacts in America and abroad, and a cheery list of all the positive developments going on in Iraq.

But the delay in organizing the Iraqi government made KDC -- a partnership between private investors in Kurdistan and the three regional governments which control the area -- wait to roll out its campaign. Then there was the need for a private investment law, recently passed, to reduce the need for a network of informal alliances to enforce investment agreements.

And just as the KDC was about to air ads nationally and in key cities such as Washington and San Francisco, Hezbollah kidnapped Israeli soldiers and began firing rockets into the country -- attracting reporters from every major news outlets and ratcheting up tensions about the Middle East across the globe.

Now, images of Iraqi children playing in green fields and being hoisted on the shoulders of American soldiers are sandwiched in-between reports on civilians killed and wounded by severe shelling in Lebanon and Israeli fears that Hezbollah has activated sleeper cells abroad to attack their interests.

"We decided, you can't ignore the fact that it's been a violent region," said Russo, who noted there was a brief debate about delaying the commercial buys three weeks ago. "(The ads) run counter to perceptions, so they're much more attention-getting. But before someone will spend their money there, they've got to get over  the fact there's violence in the region."

Russo touts 15 years of democracy in Kurdistan and the fact that no American or coalition soldier has been killed in areas controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government. But an April UPI story noted that Kurdistan still needs to become more transparent, less corrupt and more dependable to attract foriegn investment.

"The ads are very glossy and very nice and very compelling. It's a very moving kind of campaign, but the Kurds still face some serious problems," Vance Serchuk, a research scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, told UPI. "I don't think friends of Kurdistan do them any favors by whitewashing that fact."

  "I don't think that criticism is fair," said Russo. "You have a democracy in its infancy. It was an area that Saddam Hussein punished, so they didn't get the economic development they deserved. But they show there can be a shining city on the hill in the Middle East."

Perhaps. But they better learn to pick a better time to advertise.

Tabloid wars Explains Press Better Than Bill Keller Ever Could

One reason certain elements of society have had so much success demonizing journalists -- besides, you know, our own screw ups -- is because we're so bad at explaining ourselves.

How do we choose story ideas? How do we research stories? How do we go up to peopl eduring the worst moments of their lives and ask them to tell us everything?

These are natural questions every newspaper reader and newscast viewer has asked at one times or another. And they're the questions we answer the worst of all. Until now.

That's because Bravo has come up with another compelling reality TV product -- this time, based on following various reporters from the scrappy tabloid the New York Daily News. It's dubbed, of course, Tabloid Wars, debuting at 9 p.m. Monday.

Turns out, one big reason we choose certain stories, is for impact -- which for the New York Daily News, means selling newspapers -- as is reinforced time and again by recently-departed Daily News editor Michael Cooke. Cooke, a typically hard-charging British tabloid editor, drools over one gossipy story noting, "This is what sells newspapers -- they want a lotti Gotti."

(Other bon mots which prove he is perfect for his latest gig -- a return to the soulless heart of Hollinger Co. to supervise editorial operations at the collection of Chicago-based newspapers which includes the Sun-Times -- include: "News sells and big news sells big." And "At the end of the day, I'm the editor. I get what I want." Talk about inspiring leadership.)

Bravo has fashioned three months of footage into a six-part series on the Daily News' daily struggle for news, outlining a cadre of determined, just-cynical-enough-to-get-throught-it-all reporters who, in the end, will do anything to get that day's paper's "wood." (that's the colorful name for the story featured in bold type on the cover.)

Of course, it's also proven an incredible advertisement for the Daily News. Which explains why rival the New York Post immediately floated a story that it turned down Bravo before they went to the Daily News (because, you know, they're just too high-minded to bother with a reality show which doubles as a six-part commercial for their product in prime time). Frankly, given how much attention this series is giving its larger-circulation rival, Post execs shouldn't be too aggressive about telling people ho they turned down this golden marketing opportunity.

The Daily News' reporters have that New York intensity for sure; nobody at Mother Times is gonna get hysterically happy over nailing a Christian Slater groping story the way
police reporter Tony Sclafani does. In fact, Sclafani blows off an early depature for vacation to get married to stalk Slater at a performance on Broadway -- I'm betting there's a pool in the newsroom on how long that union will last.

The flaws here are immediate: though they capture the pointlessness of the gossip reportage (longtime gossip queen Joanna Malloy whined to NPR that she was re-evaluating her focus after seeing her "flibberdigibbet" performance -- I'm sure her six-figure salary proved a potent counter-argument) there is, in the first two episodes, not much capturing the viciousness of the reporting or its loose relation to fact.  And, of course, there's hardly any reporters or editors of color working at a newspaper covering the most diverse city on the planet.

Still, Tabloid Wars gets at the daily, anxiety-ridden search for news journalists undertake every day -- highlighting the values and compulsions in a way that a self-conscious op-ed from New York Times editor Bill Keller could never accomplish. Bravo, guys.

Stephen Colbert Shows Just How

Stephen Colbert Shows Just How Stupid the Guys Who Run Our Country Really Are
Check out Boca Raton Congressman Robert Wexler's turn to embarass himself on the Colbert Report. Don't these guys have staffers who can research what Colbert does? Better yet, why don't they realize they'd be better off avoiding the show completely?

Just wait until his next election, when some opponent digs up these tapes....

Experiencing the War through YouTube: A Window Into Many Worlds

Besides serving as a convenient font for images of stupid human tricks and cool Daily Show bits, the video upload site YouTube has also found a new role as hostilities spread in Lebanon: hosting a growing number of video clips with war coverage and raw footage of bombing.

For example, here you can see someone has stitched together reports from Israeli, American and Arab news outlets, showing how each side is focused on its own people's losses and struggle. Look here and you'll see a video featuring noted leftist thinker Noam Chomsky with an analysis that he posits a pro-Israel mainstream American media will never tell you.

And here is raw footage of the bombing that gives you a sense of what it must feel like, sitting in an apartment, wondering if a missile will land on you. For those who would like to monitor newsfeeds from foriegn-language outlets, Mosaic offers clips with translation provided.

There's even a hip-hop song about terrorism here; nice beat, and you can
take hostages to it.

The raw, citizen-posted videos aren't as easy to find as I would like; much of YouTube's Lebanon stuff is still clips from news outlets ranging from CNN to Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. But there is a wealth of commentary, footage and analysis now available with less Big Media filtering than ever. Welcome to the brave new broadbanded world...

Network Webisodes Don't Cut It

What's the lesson of YouTube?

Besides the discovery that people will actually watch footage of a guy slathered in jello playing the piano, I mean. For me, it's the discovery that what makes a video viral -- i.e., popular online -- is the funny, the oddball, the ironic and the undiscovered.

So why are the new network TV forays into this world so NOT that?

My frustration comes from sitting through several "Webisodes" created by NBC and CBS and posted this week as exclusive web content. Highly touted as new stuff they're presenting to online fans, these nuggets are youth-oriented, relatively short and so uninspired you wonder why they bothered throwing them together at all.

NBC offered the most promising effort, presenting 10 short clips based around the Office featuring its accountants (otherwise known as, the supporting actors who will work cheap for exposure). So far, there's only three up, featuring the dunderheads from Dunder-Mifflin trying to figure out what happened to $3,000 (they all know Steve Carell's character, boss Michael Scott, probably stole it, but have to go through the motions of asking everyone).

If you love the show, it's probably an amusing bit. But from those of us who haven't drunk the Office Kool-Aid yet, these shorts aren't funny enough to do the trick.

At least, they didn't bother cobbling together a half-assed reality show like CBS has for its InnerTube broadband video site. InTurn is a reality show "starring" a group of chowderheads trying to win a part on As the World Turns (of course, there's two from Florida). They live in a house, are subjected to humiliating auditions and 24-hour surveillance -- kinda like Big Brother meets, well, an actor's real life. (Marjorie, above, from West Palm Beach, calls herself -- without irony -- a "fun-loving bitch." Really.)

The problems here are many: if you're going to do webisodes for a hip, TV-savvy crowd, why re-create one of the most tired formats around? If you're looking for young folks -- which InnerTube is painfully focused on -- why is your show centered on the creaky old format of a daytime soap opera? And if you want people to check out your broadband videos, why is the site so buggy?

Yes, I know its early days for both these efforts. But when you find yourself considering another playback of the Connie Chung video rather than a peek at a new network TV webisode, you know there's something wrong in Burbank.

DEGGANS Pundit Watch -- Hit Me THREE Times!

Perhaps to make up for CNN pre-empting my second appearance on Reliable Sources Sunday, fate has handed me a trifecta of bloviating over the next two days.

Today, I'm dissecting Bush's decision to speak to the NAACP's national convention for the first time in his presidency on NPR's News and Notes with Ed Gordon, guest hosted by Farai Chideya.

Tonight, I'm dissecting online news and video with an executive from Video Google on Tampa Digital Studios' Media Talk show.

And tomorrow night, I'll be appearing on Rob Lorei's Florida This Week show for WEDU, likely talking about the death of Tampa's Urban League and, perhaps, rumors of Katherine Harris as a target of a federal investigtion.

What can I say? I work for nothing and I'm available. One of these days, I'll get a show of my own and get paid for all this bloviating...

Tribune Gets New Publisher - Head Scratching Ensues

Now that Media General has finally settled on a replacement for 68-year-old retiring Tampa Tribune publisher Gil Thelen, just a few questions remain.

What the heck will Denise Palmer, the 49-year-old publisher of Baltimore's Sun newspaper, do in her new job?

Why did she end a 26-year career with Sun owners the Tribune Co. to come to the Sunshine State?

Why did she intially tell her newsroom in Baltimore with an email, declining to comment even to the Sun reporter who wrote the first story on her departure? (she later provided an interview to the Sun, as early press accounts began to note the lack of comment)

And what does it mean that Palmer -- who made headlines in 2004 when she abruptly fired two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Marimow as the Sun's editor, citing matters of "personality" and "fit" -- is coming to a corner office by the Hillsborough River?

I'm not sure. Mostly because the two people best positioned to talk about why she's coming here -- Palmer and John Schueler, the head of the company which oversees all of
Media General's broadcast, publishing and online properties in Florida -- could not be reached (Schueler) or declined to speak with me (Palmer).

At the Sun, Palmer had to deal with serious labor difficulties, cost-cutting demands from Tribune and more. As Thelen told me today, the ownership of the Trbune, Media General, is a much calmer situation.

But given the Tampa Tribune's organizational structure, it's hard to know where Palmer's influence will be felt. Especially because the editorial page, which is traditionally where publishers set the tone by shaping the paper's opinions, seems heavily influenced by the corporate bigwigs in Richmond, Va.

Of course, there is one place where Palmer will make history for the Tampa Tribune the moment she steps through the door. But when I asked executive editor Janet Weaver whether it makes a difference that the newspaper will now have women in the top three jobs (Palmer, Weaver and editorial page editor Rosemary Goudreau), she sighed in only slightly exaggerated exasperation.

"Lord, I hope we're all past this," Weaver said, noting that in 1999, while editor of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, they were recognized as the only newspaper above 100,000 circulation with women as publisher, editor and managing editor. "It's not like in Sarasota all the decisions were made in the women's room."

Point taken. But given how the Tribune has raised its game recently, it will be interesting to see how the change in leadership affects the Tampa Bay area's second largest newspaper.

Bush Unplugged Is it funny

Bush Unplugged Is it funny or just sad when our president's real-life hijinks come off like a particularly vicious Daily Show skit? Didn't the overheard remark about NYT reporter Adam Clymer teach him anything?

Inside Radio asks an interesting question: Should the President's offhand remarks draw a $325,000 fine? Given that the FCC is examining crowd noise at sporting events for profanities, it may not be such an outlandish question....

Tampa Bay Area Black Professionals Network Online

For a long time, she was the unofficial email connection for black professionals in the Tampa Bay area.

Got a community event you want to publicize? A charitable effort that needed attention? A discussion you wanted to start among black folsk of a certain station in town?

Public relations/marketing executive Carolyn Lighty was the person you would turn to, courtesy of an authoritative email list she'd amassed of thousands of professionals of color in the Tampa Bay area. She once used the list to publicize her regular series of mixers called a Taste of Sugar Hill; even when the mixers stopped, Lighty kept forwarding messages to her cyberspatial rolodex -- becoming an unofficial town crier for the area's black professionals.

But Lighty eventually decided she needed to turn her volunteer work -- which took more and more time -- into a business. So she teamed with minority recruitment consultant Teddy Pierre to create TampaBayIn.com, an online resource planned as a cyberspatial hub for area African American, Hispanic and female professionals.

"A lot of people say there is no cohesive black community of professionals around here -- you look around, and where are they?" said Pierre. "But these people are often hidden in theor own isolated worlds -- and they just need a way to get together."

Surf to the TampaBayIn site, which launches today, and you'll see a wide array of categories for information -- with animated avatars at each page to explain the content and options available. Featuring forums for black people, Hispanics and women, the site offers listings for events around the area, business services, bulletin boards for electronic conversations, in-house columnists from the community and more.

Of course, organizers have aggressively targeted advertisers who may want to reach the community they hope to assemble. So there's lots of opportunities for business to place their logos and information throughout the site (somebody's got to pay for it all).

Pierre expects the success or failure of TampaBayIn.com as an online community to answer one question which has vexed those of us who have been active in diversity issues locally: does the Tampa Bay area really care about diversity?

"Everybody talks about it," he said. "But if people don't latch onto this, I just don't think diversity is a priority for them."

CBS Discovers Media Platforms in a Big Way

When Katie Couric was first hired to take over the CBS Evening News, none other than former Today show co-host Deborah Norville told me the strategy she expected: ""Katie will be the brand of CBS News...You will see her face attached to every CBS product out there," said Norville, who was fired from Today in 1991. "Katie has 15 years of history with people...That's the power of celebrity."

During the TV Critics Press Tour Sunday, CBS proved the truth in that prediction, announcing a strategy for spreading Couric's reports across webcasts, blogs, radio and even cellphones that makes you tired just reading it.

A short list:

Daily Digital Reports -- Couric will host and sometimes conduct three to four-minute interviews made available on CBSNews.com and to CBS Radio affiliates throughout the country.

Web-exclusive rundown -- Couric will give a quick rundown of the day's stories, viewable through CBSNEWs.com and Verizon VCast. The day's show will also be available for viewing on the CBS website.

Katie Blogs! - They're the third network to get on this, finally -- NBC's evening news blog celebrated its one-year anniversary recently -- but Couric will also headline a blog offering some behind-the-scenes chatter and extra material similar to what the other guys are doing. They say they will encourage viewer comments here, but I wonder what will happen when they get their first deluge of "Katie-is-a-bleeding-heart-liberal" flak.

Katie Goes to Radio! -- the first segment of the evening news will be made available to CBS Radio affiliates throughout the country, and Couric will do "Katie Couric Reports" -- a one-minute look at a top story made available to radio stations, as an audio and video podcast , as on-demand video on CBSNews.com and through Verizon VCast.

Which leaves me wondering: When's she going to find time to anchor the news? And when did developing the newscast of the future include such cutting-edge technology as a radio network?

And if you needed any further proof that Couric's highly-touted "listening tour" was a publicity tour in disguise, check out her evaluation of the viewer feedback she got, as reported by USA Today: "I got the distinct sense they want us to go a little bit deeper" with historical background and "how is this relevant to their lives. (And) we heard from many people the news is just too depressing. Obviously, we can't sugar-coat what's going on, but there are cases where we can be more solution-oriented."

Mmmm-hmmm. Well, that's not something anyone could have guessed while sitting in New York, to be sure.

Short Bits
-- My story about the local David taking on the TV ratings Goliath that is Nielsen Media Research -- St. Petersburg entrepreneur Frank Maggio -- runs today. He's got a TV channel debuting Aug. 1 backed by a ratings system he says can supplant Nielsen's. The biggest question hanging: Is this guy for real?

-- Bill Cosby is slated to headline a webcast forum Tuesday on black men
sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation, hosted by Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree and featuring everyone from Oakland's mayor-elect to the Washington Post reporters who helped assemble the newspaper's attention-getting "Being a Black Man" series.

Casual Sex Fridays - Tampa

Casual Sex Fridays - Tampa
This is one of the funniest news reports I'e ever seen from Tampa. A cool shout out from Kimmel, who started his radio career here at WQYK -- I think....

Katherine Harris and the Dead Intern Story

It's been about 45 minutes since I taped my CNN appearance for Howie Kurtz's media show, and I'm feeling okay about it -- on the drive back to the office, you always think of about 20 things you should have said -- and then I fire up the old PC and run into the Miami Herald's pointed excavation of Katherine Harris' campaign.

To Florida media, Harris' bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson is like the Princess Diana car wreck -- we know it's gruesome, a little bit like muckraking and probably a little beaneath us, but the intoxicating mix of tragedy and celebrity (and in Harris' case, comeuppance for a political hack who doesn't know her place) is irresistible.

The latest bombshell from the Herald: That the beginning of her end was an attempt to keep MSNBC talk show host Joe Scarborough from entering the Republican primary by spreading rumors about the mysterious death of a former aide.

The backstory: Scarborough was once an up-and-coming Republican representative from Pensacola. Lori Klausutis was a 28-year-old staffer who was found dead and alone in his Fort Walton Beach office in 2001. A medical examiner later ruled she died after fainting from a heart ailment and hitting her head on a desk.

But Scarborough had to face a lot of whispers that there was some kind of Chandra Levy romance-gone-wrong scandal in Klausutis' demise (he remains so sensitive about the issue, that when I wrote a profile of him in 2003, the one thing that angered him most about the story was my mention of Klausutis)

The Herald's story features quotes from former Harris staffers saying she called big donors and reminded them of Klausutis' death and then tried to blame others when an angry Scarborough called to complain.

Former campaign manager Jim Dornan told the Herald: "''This [story] encapsulates everything wrong with her as a candidate. She reacted without thinking. She made stuff up. She called people she had no business calling. And when confronted with the insanity of her -- I use this term lightly -- `strategy,' she denied it and tried to blame someone else.''

Oh yeah, that's another reason journalists can't stay away from this story -- so many past employees of hers are willing to criticize her in print and on the record in a way
political operatives almost never do. Of course, her staff defections are continuing.

It's a singularly bizarre example of bipartisanship in an increasingly polarized political process. They can't agree on global warming or the Middle East, but Republicans and Democrats have united in the conclusion that Katherine Harris must not win election to the U.S. Senate.

Forget about balmy weather and Disney World. THIS is why I love living in the Sunshine State!

FCC Looks for Knuckleheads in the Crowd and More Bits

As I've written before, I'm as conflicted as anyone on the idea of government monitoring of broadcast content.

On the one hand, as a parent of four, I was profoundly uncomfortable with the way broadcasters would air commercials with curse words and explicit content with little regard for the time slot or the program they appeared in. I was worried about the continued coarsening of shows in prime time and concerned that it was growing too difficult to predict when a program might contain content I didn't want my young children to see.

But the FCC keeps undermining my concerns by undertaking ever more ridiculous efforts to police content which doesn't need attention. This time, it's offhand comments made by people in the crowd during sporting events.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the FCC has asked for numerous tapes of crowd noise at sporting events -- as much as 30 tapes from one outlet -- presumably with a eye toward pnishing broadcasters for airing expletives shouted during the telecasts.

One anonymous executive quoted in the story lamented that the FCC seems focused on ending live TV. Another said "I don't know how they are going to rule, but they asked us for tapes with a specific emphasis on crowd noise. If some bozo in the crowd calls the ref an asshole, the commission is asking for a copy of the tape."

At a time when so much is changing in our world, it's good to know the FCC is on the cutting edge of curbing drunken insults hurled by crowd members during large sporting events.

DEGGANS PunditWatch: Another CNN Go 'Round

Thanks to new CBS anchor Katie Couric, I'll be making my second appearance on CNN as a talking head, trading quips about her listening tour on Washington Post media critic Howie Kurtz' Reliable Sources show at 10 a.m. Sunday.

One thing that has amazed me about this story is the national media's fascination with her mini-tour. Just about every media blog I read regularly linked my Tuesday story about Couric's stop here in Clearwater, and USA Today ran a story today in which a good piece of it reprinted my story (with attribution, fortunately).

The latest buzz: Reporters in other cities have noticed Katie getting questions from the audience about expanding the nightly news to an hour. Eyebrows immediately raise -- who would ask such a thing at several stops? Have the CBS powers that be planted a question to justify a future move?

My own thought is -- probably not. It makes a lot of sense for the network to expand the show to an hour and move it back to 7 p.m., when an increasingly work-laden audience might actually be home to see it. But local stations make a lot of $ off what we call "access" -- the 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. hour. WTSP-Ch. 10, for example, has the two highest-rated syndicated shows in the market in that time period -- Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.

It will take a lot more than a few offhand questions during a press tour -- I mean, listening tour -- to make them give up that golden goose.

HEY - If you've got any good ideas about how to spice up Katie's nightly news -- no X-rated scenarios, please -- drop 'em in the comments section.

ReacTV Debuts on Bright House cable

St. Petersburg entrepreneur Frank Maggio got a huge boost to his effort to create a new gaming channel for TV following news that Bright House will air his ReacTV channel on its digital cable service when it debuts Aug. 1.

Maggio's channel looks like a gussied-up version of the trivia games folks play in bars. But he hopes to make a difference by giving out prizes to folks who answer the most questions correctly and give prizes to people to answer questions correctly about the commercials.

Viewers will still have to play the games online -- a special Wi-Fi enabled remote allowing folks to play the game while watching TV won't be available until December. But Maggio remains hopeful Bright House's more than 400,000 digital cable households will check out his new channel and get involved; those in the know also realize Maggio is challenging Nielsen Media Research with his own TV ratings service. And he's close to opening sales on three major condominium projects.

This isn't a guy who does anything halfway, it seems.

AP Plans Boycott of Fox

My final tidbit today, the welcome news that AP is considering boycotting coverage of Fox's portion of the TV Critics Press Tour because the network has barred its photographers.

(Apparently, they can't stand photos like this, from the winter tout)

Just so you understand: the press tour is a three-week-long series of press conferences in which TV networks roll out their plans for fall and TV critics hobnob with executives, producers, writers and talent. It's already a cavalcade of press events, staged press conferences and highly-controlled interactions. So why does Fox need to piss off the word's largest news organization by barring its photographers?

Press tour has always had a serious tension between the spoon-feeding aspect of the press conferences and the value of bringing journalists together with the biggest names in TV for an extended period. This nonsensical tiff is what happens when a network begins to forget the tour is a journalistic endeavor, and tries to exert too much control.

Here's hoping AP gets a few days off during this summer's tour.

Tracking Rumors in the Blogosphere

The old school game of telephone has got nothing on the blogosphere.

Exhibit A: The current buzz over the rumors that Cuban leader Fidel Castro might be dead.

One of the earliest mentions I saw, was a question from a poster to the seriously anti-Castro Babalu Blog around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, citing a newspaper in Venezuela by way of Spanish news agency EFE. By 2:33 p.m., National Review Online columnist Jonah Goldberg has also floated the rumor, citing pals on Wall Street as a source.

By 4:30 p.m. or so, Wonkette weighed in with a much more official-sounding tale, citing buzz at OAS and noting that "the State Department is taking this seriously."

At this point, such buzz would usually begin to seep into the mainstream media, often through "blogosphere buzz" stories just like the post I'm crafting now. The benefit of such stories are, they can introduce the rumor to your audience without requiring you to verify it -- since you're talking about the rumor itself and its impact. Crafty, eh?

Funny thing: I'm not even seeing stories like that in big outlets yet, despite the fact that they must be aware of the rumors. Especially CNN, which even has a blog reporter during the midday hours and is known for floating reports early as possible -- it hasn't so much as mentioned this one, yet. Probably because it's a regular rumor which last surfaced about four months ago.

What is clear from surfing the many web sites which gather news regarding Cuba, that there are lots of spots in the blogosphere which will be cracking open magnums of champaign when this rumor finally becomes reality (those who are ad-suppoted must be digging the traffic boost which comes from circulation of something like this). And news agencies across the globe are now primed for any news on the subject, because its been percolating in the blogosphere.

Which means we're either primed to grab the news sooner than ever, or poised to make one of the biggest blunders in a while. Given my cynicism about modern media, you can guess where I'm coming down on this one.

Rocketboom Split Generates Massive Hype

How hot is former Rocketboom vlogger Amanda Congdon, now that she's completed a messy public split from the cheeky online TV show which birthed her underground fame?

Just the rumor that she might land at a new job is enough to send an avalanche of attention to a burgeoning web venture.

The latest recipient is trivia vlog 88Slide, which was reported to have signed a deal with Congdon , according to the Huffington Post. My first clue this was not the case: 88Slide creator and executive producer Noah Bonnett called me yesterday minutes after I sent an email query asking about the report (when he finally does sign her, he'll talk to the New York Times, Wash Post and three networks before returning my call).

Bottom line, Bonnett knows some of Congdon's new people, and is trying to get her signed to his site. But considering the massive hype which has followed Congdon's departure, I'm certain she'll land somewhere a little higher profile -- like, say, starring in a reality series or hosting a game show.

Reminds me of the heady days when the World Wide Web first debuted, when there were thousands of companies trying to make money in this new environment, and they all counted on slavish profiles in the mainstream press to bring an audience and impress potential investors. Journalists, trying hard to perch themselves on the edge of ever-shifting cultural moment,. were writing about anything with "www" in its title to stay on top of things.

Comforting to know that, as much as things change, in some ways they never do.

Katie Makes Her First Post-NBC Appearance -- Clearwater Fans Swoon Appropriately

I'll say this for former Today show dominatrix Katie Couric: She knows how to turn a phrase. Especially when said phrase involves her most treasured charity -- fighting colon cancer.

Here's an example of some of the puns she unleashed while speaking on the disease this morning at Ruth Eckerd Hall, where she appeared before a sold-out crowd of about 300 people who paid upwards of $150 a plate to break bread with the future anchor of the CBS Evening News

In urging those over 50 to submit to a colonoscopy, she noted, "Early detection nips this isaster in the bud -- or in this case, the butt."

On her own, well-publicized and televised colonoscopy: "Everyone knows about my colonoscopy -- talk about getting the inside scoop...i really was concerned about over exposure on that story."

On why she works so hard to spread word about regular testing: "Our whole goal is to start a movement -- that's probably a bad choice of words."

And her final point: "Now, when you tell your friends to stick it where the sun don't shine, you can take solace that you're actually doing a good thing."

Was this America's sweetheart talking?

In truth, it was Couric's exchange for bringing her six-city "listening tour" to town. Over the next week or so, she'll visit Dallas, Minneapolis, Denver, San Diego and San Francisco, where local stations will convene groups of 80 to 100 average citizens for private town hall meetings to express their concerns and what they'd like to see when she takes over the CBS Evening News Sept. 5. (See my coverage in the Times here).

The only fully public event during these visits is a charity event she will headline in each town. In Clearwater, it was the kickoff of a $25-million colon cancer awareness campaign developed by the American Cancer Society. And though she often speaks of how her husband Jay Monahan and sister Emily died of different cancers within three years of each other, she spent all of her 45-minute talk today on the issue -- introducing cancer survivors in the audience and repeatedly urging those present to undergo regular testing.

"I thought, to not take advantage of this national platform would be criminal," said Couric of the time after Monahan's death. "I don't want anyone to die of embarassment."

It was an interesting strategy, earning Couric, CBS, WTSP-Ch. 10 and the Cancer Society a fair amount of local and national press -- cameras from Entertainment Tonight and Inside Edition were present today -- while putting the focus on a subject (namely, her continuous activism on cancer issues) which kept Couric from having to answer too many questions about what she'll do in September. Nice move.

Expert Finds Proof of Plagiarism

Expert Finds Proof of Plagiarism in Ann Coulter's Books
I haven't mentioned Coulter's nonsense in this space yet, because I think she thrives on publicity. She is obviously willing to say anything to get media attention and I figured it made no sense to feed that monster. But Keith Olbermann has a compelling report on the allegations against Coulter that I think puts her "work" in the proper perspective. Enjoy...

Emmy Nominations: Why Do We Care?

For TV/media critics, it is almost a job requirement that you complain about the Emmy nominations when they arrive. Our interest is simple: it's an easy column fueled by the kind of watercooler armchair theorizing that we all love to indulge to break up the day (of course, only the critics get PAID to indulge such speculation).

So I'm not going to waste much time wringing my hands over how things turned out this year. I wonder something more basic: Do viewers care, anymore?

Of course, the TV industry cares, because such awards help sell TV shows to advertisers, soothe the outsize insecurities of huge stars and make for swell bragging rights. But I wonder if viewers care whether the Desperate Housewives cast got shut out of major categories (but major-league fifth-wheel Alfre Woodard gets a nomination? What's up with that?), that MADtv got more nominations than Saturday Night Live, the two dad and son teams Sheen (Martin and Charlie) and Sutherland (Kiefer and Donald) both racked up nominations and even Pam Anderson's God-awful Stacked earned a nomination?

What I noticed -- besides that fact that TV comedy is so devolved that even Charlie Sheen got a nod this year -- is that many series nominated in major categories won't even be on the air when the ceremony is broadcast.

Six Feet Under, West Wing, Malcolm in the Middle, Arrested Development, Will and Grace -- all these shows notched their final episodes this year (or last!) and won't be around to hog up
the good tables next year. Which means Emmy might finally start paying attention where it counts: non-premium cable.

The Closer, Battlestar Galactica, Rescue Me, Hustle, The 4400 -- all these shows have featured performances beyond their lead actors which deserve some attention. When it comes to reality shows, forget about The Amazing Race- - where's the love for Flavor of Love, Celebrity Fit Club, Dirty Jobs, Small People/Big World and Shalom in the Home?

And where the hell is Dave Chappelle -- the guy whose show was so funny, fans are tuning in to watch a year after he quit? (at least Woodard got double recognition; both for Housewives and the CBS movie The Water is Wide)

Okay, maybe I have spent some time complaining about overlooked shows (let's not forget a category which sorely needs representation -- best TV show made solely for digital distribution).

But at a time when digital media is turning the TV world upside down, Mother Emmy still seems locked in a universe where only the network and premium cable really counts
-- which is a backward-looking stance, indeed.

Chappelle's Show Returns -- Sorta

For Comedy Central, it's a $50-million question: Can you have a Chappelle's Show without Dave Chappelle?

After watching a review tape of the first "lost episode" the cable channel cobbled together of material filmed last year before Chappelle had his infamous wig-out and headed to South Africa, the answer seems to be -- yes.

But is that really a good thing?

To explain: the cable channel on Sunday begins airing the first of three episodes slapped together from sketches recorded before Chappelle walked away from the series. The new episodes also lead into new shows from the Chappelle-like Mind of Mencia and the COPS spoof Reno 911!

Comedy Central made a few goofs in shaping these new episodes -- specifically, hiring second-stringers Charlie (Eddie's brother) Murphy and Donell (Ashy Larry) Rawlings to sub for Chappelle, introducing the pre-taped skits. They're uncomfortable (Rawlings is so manic, you can barely understand half his punchlines) and unfunny enough to remind us all what the channel lost when Dave took a powder.

(Mind of Mencia is much worse, grounding Mencia's mediocre standup material in amateurish sketches trying so hard to be offensive, they are almost cartoonishly perverse. But I gotta admit, I watched much of his new show while thinking about the rumors spread by Joe Rogan and George Lopez that Mencia plagiarized much of their material in his stand up act and fakes being a Mexican.)

The skits are c-list Chappelle, from a mildly funny riff on how people changed after news broke of his huge contract extension (a barber charges him $11,000 for a haircut, then flashes a pistol when he tries to avoid paying up) to a too-long bit on how he uses his newfound wealth to get revenge on those who dissed him in the past and a Tupac song in which the rapper seems to be singing to Dave in real time.

It's just funny enough to make you wonder what Chapelle might have acheived had he kept his personal paranoia in check long enough to finish the season. But it's also banal enough to drop a few clues to why he left in the first place.

MySpace Teams With...Seventeen?

Let's say you're a social networking site struggling with allegations you're a playground for pedophiles. Do you make a high profile alliance with one of the best-known magazines catering to teen girls?

If you're MySpace, I guess you do -- and depend on the power of positive thinking to keep any craziness from breaking out.

The magazine and MySpace have announced a new PSA contest, in which readers are encouraged to create a 15 to 30-second public service announcement about why it's important to be a social activist ("Forget about that trip to the Juicy Couture store; I've got a sit-in to organize!"). Visitors to Seventeen.com and the magazine's MySpace page can vote among the top three finalists picked by the magazine and site.

A look through some of the friends listed for the magazine reveal some pretty radical girls. (Are you allowed to have a MySpace name with the f-word in it?) Still, knowing how much little girls want to look older, I wonder if teaming the nation's most controversial networking web site with the most popular magazine for young women really makes the most sense.

Judge Forces Newspaper Company to Admit Its Worth

Want to know how confused the newspaper industry is these days?

Look no further than the tangled struggle between the owners of the Daytona Beach News-Journal and its ownership partner, Cox Enterprises, Inc.

Saying News-Journal company president and CEO Herbert M. "Tippen" Davidson Jr. and his family hid their efforts in spending millions to support local arts projects, Cox officials sued the company, prompting officials there to seek to buy out their 47.5 percent stake. The problem: Cox wanted $145-million, while News-Journal officials, seeking to limit the financial hit, argued Cox's stake was worth $29-million.

It took a judge to force the Davidsons to up the value of their own company, ruling Friday that Cox's share would be valued at $129-million. The judge also criticized the Davidsons for spending millions to employ people at the News Journal who worked mostly on arts projects favored by the owners and overspending for the naming rights to a local performing arts center, among other things.

Just as Wall Street is walking away from the newspaper industry and media critics nationwide are writing its obituary, it remains striking that a newspaper family would argue in open court that its publication is worth so much less than some believe it is. It's a perfectly understandable legal strategy which couldn't come at a worse time.

Prest Comes to WTVT -- Where does that Leave WFLA?

Nerissa Prest, former weekend anchor at WFLA-Ch. 8, has landed at Tampa's Fox station, WTVT-Ch. 13. Viewers won't see her until next year, however, when her non-compete clause with WFLA ends and she can join the station's morning show, Good Day Tampa Bay as a co-anchor.

All of which raises anew an issue which continues to bedevil WFLA: on air diversity.

Prest, who is Asian American, left WFLA because she wanted a shot at a weekday job, and WFLA's lineup of weekday anchors hasn't changed substantially since Keith Cate and Stacie Schaible were hired in 2000. An African American weekend anchor, Byron Brown, left the station in 2003 when he realized a weekday job was too far in the future. Even freelancer Susan Casper -- an African American who once anchored at Bay News 9 and WTTA-Ch. 38 -- landed at WFTS-ch. 28 after a short stint at WFLA.

Currently, all of WFLA's black anchors work weekend shifts, while all of the station's weekday anchors are white people. The weekend crew is often seen during the week, filling in for vacationing anchors or helping during times of special coverage. But while competitors WTSP-Ch. 10, WFTS-Ch. 28 and now WTVT have diversified anchor lineups on their morning and afternoon broadcasts, WFLA remains stuck in the same minorities-on-weekends dynamic.

With long-tenured, well-watched anchors such as Bob Hite (29 years), Gayle Sierens (29 years) and Bill Ratliff (24 years), shifting anchor lineups to give newcomers a shot is difficult and risky. Still, competitors are offering weekday lineups which look more and more like the area's changing demographic profile, while WFLA in cotinuing to look like a, well, rerun.

While We're Talking Media Diversity...

A recent study by the University of Central Florida's DeVos Sports Business Management's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport dicovered a "startling" lack of ethnic and gender diversity in newspaper sports departments nationwide.

But while the numbers in aggregate turned heads, identifying specific problem publications was not possible, because the institute agreed not to release embarrassing information on individual newspapers in exchange for getting detailed staffing information from sports departments at 303 newspapers nationwide.

At the St. Petersburg Times, just three African Americans were found among 33 reporters, editors and columnists. Factor in copyeditors and clerks/support staff, and our number remained at 10 percent for people of color and 18 percent for women.

It's been a open secret that sports departments have struggled with diversity issues, as a field of mostly white reporters and columnists have sometimes fumbled covering athletes of color excelling in the nation's most popular sports. Hopefully, these numbers -- and I suggest removing confidentiality provisions in future studies so thoe who are performing the worst can be identified and pushed to do more -- will encourage news outlets to reevaluate staffing and coverage schemes.

DEGGANS Pundit Alert! Hit Me Two Times...

I'll be appearing on WTVT at 12:25 p.m. today on Kathy Fountain's Your Turn talk segment to talk journalists and treason, jumping off the story I wrote for Sunday's Perspective section on the issue.

I'll also be appearing Thursday on Tampa Bay's Media Talk, a local radio show/webcast/podcast on area media isues hosted by the folks at Tampa Digital Studios.

Looks like the post-holiday rush is kicking in seriously...

My Favorite News Blooper Ever...

My Favorite News Blooper Ever...
It's sooo much fun surfing YouTube...and this may explain why Shep's ratings are so strong...