We are really looking forward to having Jeff Jarvis on Pundit Review Radio this Sunday evening at 9pm. Why? For insight and analysis like this,

Milking the old cash cow

As in the case of TV Guide, change will finally come, but only when it is inevitable, and perhaps when it is too late.

: And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a picture of what life is like in many other big media companies today. That is what is happening on shrinking newspapers, and in shrinking broadcast and even cable networks, and in many a shrinking magazines.

The cash cowherds run the farm, change is resisted, strategic bravery is rarely seen. Why? They still make a lot of money. Yes, but they aren�??t growing, not in real terms.

And, worse, the world has changed in this decade in profound ways. There is an entirely new medium competing for attention and dollars. This new medium has devalued what you thought was your core asset �?? your stranglehold on distribution, your size �?? and made them into burdens rather than advantages. Your customers, once just a mass, can now talk back and complain. And, most important, in a world where small is the new big, a million small competitors are now enabled to chomp away at your audience, your franchise, your brand, your business, your cash.

Other media companies should look at TV Guide�??s saga as instructive
and predictive: What happened to the magazine that once sold more copies every year than any other magazine can happen to you.

TV Guide is the cow in the coal mine.

and this,

Waaa Waaa Waaa

Michael Kinsley is whining that the internet doesn�??t operate the way he wants it to operate and so he�??s taking his marbles and going home. Or something like that.

He�??s just acting like the old-media guy he is, wanting to control the medium as they all do. But, of course, that misses the essential point of the internet. It can�??t be controled.

The New York Times reports today that Kinsley is going to take some other, unnamed job at the LA Times, this coming only two days after he wrote a column whining about the web and after Dan Gillmor issued him a proper lashing for that. Waaaa:

The nasty parts of the Web are where people are doing what the Founding Surfers intended: expressing themselves and forming communities. Why is the tone of conversation on the Internet, especially about politics, so much lower than in the material world?

This from a guy who spent years on Crossfire �?? the very show that did to political discourse what Jerry Springer did to daylight?

Who:

Pundit Review Radio, a show dedicated to bringing the most insightful thought leaders in the new media to the radio.

When:

Sunday Evening, 9pm est

Where:

WRKO, Boston’s Talk Leader. Streaming live! Call us with a question at 877-469-4322

Why:

This week we will be speaking to Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine. Jeff is one of the sharpest minds in the blogsphere. His site was recently named by Forbes as one of the best media-focused blogs.

Buzz Machine Review In Forbes

Jeff Jarvis brings to his blog a long resume in the brick-and-mortar world of mainstream media journalism: former TV critic for TV Guide and People, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor and associate publisher of the NY Daily News, columnist on the San Francisco Examiner. Now Jarvis devotes his time to working in and testing new media and to speaking out, thoughtfully and personally, about old and new journalism trends and ethics. Posts range from 1,100-word essays on how feeds and aggregators are the new “dynamic architecture” of the Internet to commentary on Bush’s new Supreme Court nominee: “To make their legal legacies last longer, presidents will be drafting justices the way they draft basketball players, out of high school. Better yet: Junior high, when they’re still virgins and haven’t inhaled.”

Don’t let the conversational tone fool you–this is thoughtful, intelligent
insider stuff.

mannyloser
Originally uploaded by punditreview.

July 14, 2005

“Bostonist was watching the Red Sox play the Texas Rangers a little window popped up on the computer - an Instant Message from our buddy, saying, “Holy crap, Manny’s wearing Oakley Thump glasses in the outfield.” “Excuse me?” said Bostonist. “Yeah dude, you know those Oakleys that have the built-in mp3 player? Manny’s got those on!” Bostonist’s pal replied.”

Ramirez’s Annual Rite: Asking for a Trade

By MURRAY CHASS

FIRST, before we explore the possibility that the Red Sox might trade Manny Ramirez in the next few days, perhaps to the Mets, let’s pause for a moment and feel sorry for Manny. He makes $20 million a year - that’s the No. 20 with six zeroes attached - for playing baseball in Boston, and he’s tired and uncomfortable.

He was so tired he declined to play Wednesday afternoon against Tampa Bay despite a shortage of players because of injuries. He’s so uncomfortable in Boston because fans love him so much he has lost his privacy, so he has begun his annual exercise of asking the Red Sox to trade him.

Last October I wrote a column questioning his refusal to donate a few thousand dollars to the baseball team at his high school, George Washington in Upper Manhattan, and some readers excoriated me for suggesting he was wrong for not helping the players on the team that was so integral to his career and wealth.

Those readers had a right to their opinion, but I wonder how they or other Red Sox fans feel now that Ramirez has demonstrated disrespect for his teammates by refusing to play when they needed him, and worse, has asked out in the middle of a division race that could determine the team’s ability to get back to the World Series to defend its championship. How should one characterize Ramirez for deserting a ship whose sails are full of wind?

He’s Right, Let’s Just Call It Like It Is

Manny Ramirez is a petulant, immature coward.

He is a disgrace, to himself, his family, the Red Sox and every major league player.

Here is a guy who was playing in Cleveland and chose to come to Boston as a free agent. He didn’t have to come here. He was getting his, somewhere. It’s not like Boston wasn’t a baseball crazy town already when he got here. Eight years and $160 million gets you a guy who refuses to play. Just plain says no. And gets paid $123,456.79 for doing it. When he gets in in the 10th inning, he dogs it? Uh, no, that is not acceptable. For a fan, a teammate or the organization.

As Sinatra would say, the Sox have F-U money this season. They will never experience a feeling of goodwill like they have right now.

Make an example of him. Punish him. Do whatever you can under the collective bargaining agreement. It’s probably not nearly enough to make some people happy (me), but do at least that much. Make a statement that enough is enough. It’s one thing to sulk, be a whiner, listen to MP3’s or hang out in the Green Monster during the game. It’s another entirely if you show such a reckles disregard for the team. Get rid of him today. For nothing if you have to.

Hat Tip:

�??We all knew there would come a day that, Manny being Manny, he�??d clam up and ask to be left alone, that he�??d find himself a little hiding place in the clubhouse, a place that would be off limits to the knights of the keyboard.�?�

Steve Buckley, Boston Herald
March 2001

Brian Maloney of The Radio Equalizer has the goods on the developing story involving Air America, the liberal talk network.

Media Cover-Up, Bronx Community Programs Nearly Shut

What happens when the mainstream media, after years of seething over conservative talk radio’s success, discover its alternative got diverted public funds, earmarked instead for inner-city youth and seniors?

The answer, with one key exception: they pretend it didn’t happen.

Yes, only because of a New York Daily News tidbit do we know that Bronx-based Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club nearly shut down major programs recently, because almost $500,000 in governmental grant money was instead diverted to Air America’s liberal radio network.

The Radio Equalizer has tons of new links and updates, check it out.

Michael Yon that is. Have you been reading his dispatches from Iraq? You should be. Michael Yon is a former Special Forces soldier who is now over in Iraq, on his own dime, as a journalist. He is living in Mosul and doing some of the most amazing reporting of anyone covering the war.

As milblogger Blackfive told us recently on Pundit Review Radio, Michael’s reporting brings the good, the bad and the ugly, as it is happening.

Do yourself a favor and read his blog. Support his work through Paypal, if you can. Get an agenda-free, balanced perspective of what is happening in Iraq. I guarentee that you will have a different perspective of what we are doing and how well we are doing it.

What are you missing? Here is a snippet from his most recent dispatch,

The enemy in Iraq does not appear to be weakening; if anything, they are becoming smarter, more complicated and deadlier. But this does not mean they are winning; to imply that getting smarter and deadlier equates to winning, is fallacious. Most accounts of the situation in Iraq focus on enemy “successes” (if success is re-defined as annihiliation of civility), while redacting the increasing viability and strength of the Iraqi government, which clearly is outpacing the insurgency.

Cascades

There is a pattern of cascades in counterguerrilla combat operations. In this kind of warfare, information drives maneuvers, and a single capture of a key person frequently cascades into a shower of raids and captures, each pregnant with the next storm.

The Libyan, like so many “jihadists” who come to Iraq itching for action in the holy war, found himself treated as exspendable bomb casing. He started confessing everything. In fact, he had no sooner sat down at the table in the detention facility here on base than he had filled three pages with detailed handwritten confessions. The Libyan had crossed the border from Syria into Iraq on foot, intent on fighting a holy war, as an infantryman engaged in direct combat with American soldiers. He did not want to be a martyr, merely a jihadist. He did not want to die in Iraq. His Iraqis “hosts” had threatened to kill him if he refused to wear and detonate the explosive vest while mingling into a crowd of Iraqi police. But the Libyan did not like that plan and was angry at the Iraqis who were trying to force a holy jihadist to become an unwilling bomb, and he was telling everything. Another cascade.

And don’t miss Glen Reynolds, aka Instapundit, interview Michael Yon over at Tech Central Staton.

GR: What are you trying to accomplish with your reporting? What will the final result be? A book?

MY: I am chronicling my observations of this war over an extended period. My independence is important on many levels. I am beholden to no agency and I don’t need to produce copy on a deadline. So I can write about what I am seeing and take time to do so properly. Journalists of many sorts fly through here for short times, and there are a handful of semi-permanent reporters from a few majors such as CNN and Time. Some of these are good and serious folks, but I think they are hobbled by working for agencies and are not free to roam and follow their instincts. Being completely independent allows freedom to roam the battle field from North to South, from Iran to Syria, and to describe without filters what I see. The events in Iraq are singularly critical to the futures of billions of people. Given that such incredible events are taking place, and that I am committed to being here as long as I still have unanswered questions….definitely, I will write a book.

So I’m reading the Boston Herald online during lunch and I come across this story that puts a smile on my face,

Dunkin’ hero drops thief without dripping coffee

“I got my coffee and didn’t even realize what was going on until I noticed a
guy behind the counter who didn’t look like he worked there,” said Merry, 21,
of Beverly. Merry realized that a man behind the counter was robbing
the store clerk with a knife. “When he was done, he just walked out
calmly and started down the street. I said to myself, `I just can’t let this
happen,’ ” Merry said. Merry said at this point he sprang into “adrenaline mode” and began to chase after the suspect, all the while screaming at him to stop.

Meanwhile, Boston police officers responded to the armed robbery call and a
witness pointed them in the direction of the foot chase, police spokesman David
Estrada said. The officers found Merry, who had detained the apparently slow-footed thief on Harrison Avenue - all without spilling a drop of coffee, Merry said.

Then only a click or two later, I’m hit in the gut, stunned, sad, angry and depressed. Now that I have young kids myself, I don’t react well to this kind of story,

Mom, baby die in shocking downtown fall

In a tragedy witnessed by a downtown evening rush-hour crowd, a 28-year-old
mother clutching her 9-month-old daughter apparently jumped from the window of
their 24th-floor luxury apartment.

They landed on a roof 16 stories below and were pronounced dead at the
scene.

The woman’s husband - and only child’s father - witnessed the events from
the door of their home in Devonshire Place, a tower on Washington Street, police
said.

This must have felt soooooo goooood! I wish it was on camera so I could see the look on Fat Ted’s weathered, Chivas-soaked face. It’s about time somebody told him off to his face.

TedK
Originally uploaded by punditreview.

Soldiers from Massachusetts and Hawaii who work at the U.S. military detention facility at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, gave visiting home-state senators a piece of their mind last week.

Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and Daniel K. Akaka, Hawaii Democrat, met with several soldiers during a visit led by Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican.

Pentagon officials said soldiers criticized the harsh comments made recently by Senate Democrats.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, last month invoked widespread military outrage when he compared Guantanamo to the prison labor systems used by communist tyrant Josef Stalin, Cambodia’s Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler.

“They got stiff reactions from those home-state soldiers,” one official told us. “The troops down there expressed their disdain for that kind of commentary, especially comparisons to the gulag.”

A spokesman for Mr. Kennedy had no comment. A spokeswoman for Mr. Akaka confirmed that the senator met with soldiers from Hawaii but did not recall receiving any complaints during the meeting.

Both senators made no mention of the incident in press statements after the visit. Mr. Kennedy, in his statement, said that he is “impressed with the courtesies and professionalism of the men and women in our armed forces.”

Mr. Kennedy has been a leading advocate for closing the
prison facility. Mr. Akaka in April voted for an amendment that would have cut
funds for the prison.

As the fear of domestic terror grows in the wake of the attacks in London, congressional Democrats have an answer.

Vote against the Patriot Act.

Lessen our abiility monitor these savages living among us. Make it harder for law enforcement to identify and track them. Make it next to impossible to listen to their conversations, monitor their Internet usage. Let them roam free, for we would never want to infringe on our precious civil libertries. That would be un-American!

Kevin at Rant Me a River points out,

78% of House Democrtas vote against renewal of The Patriot Act while 94 % of Republicans vote in favor of renewal.

Notwithstanding the inability to show one instance of alleged abuse of the powers granted by the Act, or the failure of the safeguards built into it, Nancy Pelosi joins the ACLU in condemning the bill. “The bill before us fails to assure accountability,” said Pelosi. Of cousre, when you voted for it four freaking years ago, it was satisfactory, but now THOSE SAME PROVISIONS are a threat to our civil liberties.Too stupid to work, too lazy to steal? Get elected to Congress.

Bravo
Originally uploaded by punditreview.

From National Review’s Corner,

This quickie transcript was just sent to me by someone who described it as “a direct, devastating bitch-slap to the nonsense that the U.S., Britain and Australia brought this on themselves from any other leader”:

Can I just say very directly, Paul, on the issue of the policies of my government and indeed the policies of the British and American governments on Iraq, that the first point of reference is that once a country allows its foreign policy to be determined by terrorism, it’s given the game away, to use the vernacular. And no Australian government that I lead will ever have policies determined by terrorism or terrorist threats, and no self-respecting government of any political stripe in Australia would allow that to happen.

Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq.

And I remind you that the 11th of September occurred before the operation in Iraq.

Can I also remind you that the very first occasion that bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia’s involvement in liberating the people of East Timor. Are people by implication suggesting we shouldn’t have done that?

I read this earlier today and then saw it on TV tonight and let me tell you, the description at the top is quite fitting. I wish Bush would be, or could be, more direct.

When?
Sunday evening, 9pm EST. Matt Margolis will be live in studio.