Nice Above Fold - Page 941

  • “It kind of bothers me two people are doing it, because they’re going to do half my job,” says Bob Edwards in the Seattle Times. “No one’s ever going to know what my job was like.”
  • Researchers at Ball State University’s Center for Media Design found by observing a (small) sample of media consumers that Americans use media much more than they acknowledged in phone surveys. People used TV and online more than twice as much as indicated in phone surveys and used radio almost twice as much. Users’ diaries yielded usage data closer to those obtained by observation. [PDF file of full study. Center for Media Design.] Thanks to benton.org and other postings.
  • Filmmaker Michael Moore calls Democracy Now host Amy Goodman a “national treasure” in the Buffalo News.
  • The Washington Post‘s Marc Fisher touches on the ongoing tussle between news and music programming on public radio.
  • In the New York Times Magazine, Ira Glass reflects on how the FCC’s crusade for decency brings him closer to Howard Stern.
  • Alexander Acosta, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the Justice Department reopened the 1955 Emmett Till murder case after recent films about the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, including Stanley Nelson’s American Experience doc indicated that participants in the murder may still be living, AP reported. The films were Nelson’s “The Murder of Emmett Till” and Keith A. Beauchamp’s “The Untold Story of Emmett Till.”
  • Native radio: at the heart of public radio’s mission

    Ride the school bus on the Hopi Reservation in northern Arizona and you’ll hear Shooting Stars, a program for kids produced mostly by volunteers at KUYI, the three-year-old public radio station on the reservation. Tune in during the day and you’ll hear an update on living with diabetes or asthma. Keep listening and you’ll hear junior- and senior-high school interns reading the news. Stop to chat with someone on the reservation about what they’ve heard on the radio. Everyone knows you’re talking about the same station. KUYI’s call letters stand for “water” — a precious resource in the desert country. It’s an appropriate metaphor, not only for this station but also for Native public radio in general.
  • San Francisco Chronicle TV critic Tim Goodman marks the 50th anniversary of KQED with a column excoriating PBS and its local member station: “Rarely has a media outlet lost pace with the needs and wants of its audience and been more in denial about it than PBS.”
  • A teacher in Utah was suspended after showing Frontline‘s “Merchants of Cool” to middle school students. A school official told the Associated Press that the documentary, which examines marketing strategies used to target teenagers, is “clearly inappropriate.”
  • Ira Glass’s girlfriend tells the Houston Chronicle that Glass is “not the master storyteller he’s made out to be” and thinks too much about work. “But at the same time I want everyone to know that he’s taken, and you really don’t have a chance with him because you couldn’t possibly measure up to me.”
  • Blogger Dru Blood shares a dream about Bob Edwards.
  • Film critic Elvis Mitchell, who recently left The New York Times, tells Journal-isms that he might not continue his weekly chats on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday. (Via Romenesko.)
  • NPR’s decision to reassign Bob Edwards followed sound corporate strategy–and that’s a good thing, writes Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post. “If you don’t find a way to disrupt your own success, the theory goes, someone else will.” (Pearlstein discusses his column.)
  • Last week’s Frontline doc on President Bush’s born-again faith “appears to be a balanced look at the impact of faith on politics,” cautiously admits a writer for the conservative Focus on the Famiily website.
  • Louis Rukeyser, longtime host of Wall Street programs on public TV, has taken leave from TV for health reasons, the Baltimore Sun reported. Doctors said he needs treatment for a low-grade malignancy, CNBC said. Since October, guests have hosted Rukeyser’s CNBC program, carried on many public TV stations. Rukeyser promised to return, according to news reports.