Media7 Blog 3 - 16 April
Wednesday 16 April
The US-based Editors' Weblog has a report on the recent decision to physically rip out the pages containing an editorial deemed offensive from the Sunday Star Times' Sunday magazine - accompanied by a scan of the editorial itself.
The extraordinary action over the magazine was covered in the first episode of Media7. One senior New Zealand editor contacted by Peter Ong, the author of the report, endorsed the decision for Star Times publisher Fairfax, while another thought it would appear "high-handed" to others in the industry.
This week's Media7 revolves around this Google search, and the concerted campaign behind it.
We look at spin - or, if you prefer, political marketing - and the way that political parties use the media to get it to us.
In the Newsmash section this week, we also explain why the fevered media speculation that a little-known thriller film Towards Darkness (trailer here) had some link to the disappearance of Christchurch teenager Marie Davis is almost certainly baseless. So why did so many news organisations run with it?
And Simon Pound interviews Ezra Cooperstein, the chief evangelist for former US vice-president Al Gore's Current TV - a venture that takes user-generated content from the web to an actual TV news channel in the US, Britain and, soon, Italy. Bloggers say Ezra is hot.
Things that mediaphiles might like elsewhere include Chris Bourke's note about the late Sir Geoffrey Cox, and other New Zealander in the emerging British TV news scene of the 1950s - the memorably named Tahu Hole, whose legacy as editor of BBC news is now regarded as lamentable.
It probably was then, too & Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff has a fascinating account of the challenges facing the Schulzberger family, whose benevolent control of the New York Times company is engraved in stone - but for how long?
And The Fundy Post wonders what on earth the Sunday Star Times' gossip columnist thinks she's doing.
