Monthly Archives: November 2006

The future of local news?

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I stumbled across this on one of the Wired blogs (Epicenter). Have you heard of Topix? It’s a news aggregator that uses a geolocating algorithm they’ve developed to get all the news relevant to any zip code or city from all of its 50,000 news sources. Punch in the coordinates for Jefferson City and you get all the stories out of all the local papers, without repeats, in one place.

You can also use Topix to search 5,500 public company and industry verticals, 48,000 celebrities and musicians, 1,500 sports teams and personalities. You used to have to pay big money to do a Lexis-Nexis search to get info like this or pay a clipping service like Burrelles. Now anyone can do it for free.

According to Epicenter (a Wired blog), Topix is backed by Tribune, Gannett and McClatchy. This is one of those things that’s hard to describe but kind of cool in practice. Check it out.

Clear Channel does deal with Reuters for web content

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Clear Channel Radio’s online division has announced that it will add news and video content from Reuters to its News on Demand service on CC Web sites.

“Clear Channel Radio’s News on Demand product combines on-demand video and text feeds from Reuters with CCR’s 24/7 coverage of breaking news, business/financial stories, entertainment news and human-interest features. The product also allows CCR stations to upload their own local news to their sites, giving both local and national news coverage from station sites on demand.”

I’d love to see exactly what “on demand” means but I can’t argue with the strategy. I hope more of our affiliates will get their online act together and inlcude our our state news and sports content on their sites. And I wonder where AP was/is in this mix. Too pricey perhaps? I’d love to hear more about this. SteveMays at Gmail dot com [Radio and Records]

Up in the sky…

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Fix my cape.They held a little celebration in Metropolis, Illinois, to mark the release of the “Superman Returns” DVD. UPI photographer Bill Greenblatt shares this photo of one Superman “look-a-like” adjusting the cape of another Man of Steel dead-ringer.

I have to wonder if Bill was being ironic when he captioned this image with “A wooden cut-out of Superman hangs on a building as hundreds lineup for a free DVD on the release date of “Superman Returns” in Metropolis, Illinois on November 28, 2006. Metropolis is the adopted home of Superman.”

The hopeless boredom on the faces of the people in line… the “Man of Plywood” missing an arm… thank you, Bill… thank you.

60 Minutes segment: A Pill to Forget

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In May of 2004 I posted: “If you experienced the worst day of your life… something truly horrible…and there was a drug that made you forget the previous 24 hours, would you take it? If not, why?”

Last Sunday on 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl did a segment titled “A Pill to Forget?” From the 60 Minutes website:

“If there were something you could take after experiencing a painful or traumatic event that would permanently weaken your memory of what had just happened, would you take it?”

Turns out there is such a pill. Sort of. It’s called propranolol, a medication commonly used for high blood pressure … and unofficially for stage fright.

It turns out our memories are sort of like Jello – they take time to solidify in our brains. And while they’re setting, it’s possible to make them stronger or weaker. It all depends on the stress hormone adrenaline. Propranolol seems to make the memories less intense.

The people in the 60 Minutes story had no trouble answering the question I posed back in 2004: Hell yes!

The Bush Legacy

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Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner talks with Peter Hart and David Gergen about why the Republicans lost the 2006 election. The interview concludes with Peter Hart’s take how Bush will be remembered politically:

“The Bush presidency will be a the bottom of the heap, period. It will be not only a presidency without accomplishments but a presidency that put America on the wrong track. This is an administration that knew how to play politics but didn’t understand the sweep of history. The next administration and the administration after that will be digging out from everything that Bush has left us. Iraq, civil liberties, human rights, basic domestic policies — in each and every case, they played the political card rather than the American card.”

Peter Hart has done public-opinion research for thirty governors and forty U.S. senators, from Hubert Humphrey to Jay Rockefeller. You can read the entire interview in the November 30, 2006 issue of Rolling Stone. I’m still searching for a link.

Will we see “local” radio again?

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So Clear Channel is going to sell 400+ radio stations. Will these stations become more local? Mark Ramsey says it depends on who buys the stations and the “models of success” they try to follow:

1. Quality local talent with local connection and high entertainment value
2. Quality syndicated talent with high entertainment value
3. Low cost or no talent – regardless of its source (i.e., nothing matters but the music)

He concludes his post with the question: “Of those, which do you think is the toughest to achieve? And which is the cheapest?”

When I started in radio (1972), a lot of radio stations were still trying for #1. Not all of the local talent was “quality” and I’m not sure how “entertaining” we were. But syndicated programs were still a few years away and most communties weren’t ready to let you get away with juke box-ing the station.

But I think Ramsey sums up the options accurately and we’d see more station owners try #1 if #2 and #3 weren’t such attactive (short-term) options.

“Leaving Iraq, Honorably”

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“The time for more U.S. troops in Iraq has passed. We do not have more troops to send and, even if we did, they would not bring a resolution to Iraq. Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation — regardless of our noble purpose.

We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government.”

[Chuck Hagel, Republican senator from Nebraska – washingtonpost.com]

Mayo Clinic developing “Treadmill Workstation”

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“Instead of sitting in chairs, workers stand in front of a raised workstation and slowly walk on a treadmill. Normally Levine keeps to a one-mile-per-hour pace, which requires little effort or concentration, allowing him to focus his attention on work. But the speed is fast enough to do some good, burning an extra 100 calories an hour – 8,000 calories over a 40 hour work week.”

“The researcher behind the project, Dr. James Levine, says his recent research shows that thin people tend to be on their feet an average of two and a half hours a day more than people who are overweight. Getting office workers up out of their chairs led him to build a prototype ‘treadmill workstation’.”

[ConsumerAffairs.com]

The Daily Show for conservatives

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Fox News Channel is teaming with the exec producer of “24” to produce a news satire show for conservatives. Joel Surnow, co-creator of “24,” is shooting two half-hour pilots described as ” ‘The Daily Show’ for conservatives,” due to air in primetime on Saturdays in January.

The pilot segments will be co-anchored by comedians Kurt Long and Susan Yeagley and feature a family of correspondents. “There will be some elements of ‘The Daily Show’ and some of ‘Weekend Update,’ ” Surnow said.

Sounds like a hoot.