Media Bistro Daily Media News Feed for November 10 2008

Media Bistro Daily Media News Feed for November 10 2008

Daily Media News Feed
mediabistro.com
Monday, November 10, 2008

'Wired' Obama Presidency Could Sidestep Media in Getting Message Out (WaPo)
President-Elect Barack Obama's aides and allies are preparing a major expansion of the White House communications operation, enabling them to reach out directly to the supporters they have collected over 21 months without having to go through the mainstream media. Obama is poised to transform the art of political communication, said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist.

BusinessWeek: Obama weighs choices for FCC chairman.

WaPo Ombud: Our Campaign Coverage Favored Obama (WaPo)
Deborah Howell: The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.

E&P: WaPo doubles its number of White House reporters with four.

MGM to Post Full Films on YouTube (NYT)
With critical plaudits and advertising dollars flowing to Hulu, the popular online hub for television shows and feature films, YouTube finds itself in the unanticipated position of playing catch-up. Today, the Google-owned company will move forward a little, announcing an agreement to show some full-length television shows and films from MGM, the financially troubled 84-year-old film studio.

Hearst Consolidating O at Home Into O: The Oprah Magazine (FishbowlNY)
In a release announcing that Sarah Gray Miller will be the new editor-in-chief of Hearst Corporation's Country Living comes the news that the struggling company (not that this adjective sets is apart from other media conglomerates) will fold its O: The Oprah Magazine spinoff, O at Home, back into the original title.

NYT: Much of the magazine's staff will move to Country Living.

Axes Are in Vogue (NYP)
In the lavish world of Conde Nast, every year brings a winter of discontent -- and the one coming up might be particularly cruel. That's because following a shocking round of job cuts last month involving 5 percent of Conde's staff, people inside the publishing empire fret the company could be in for even more drama.

Time Inc. Names Matters New Money M.E. (Portfolio)
Money, which laid off its managing editor, Eric Schurenberg, Thursday, has named a successor. The job is going to Craig Matters, a Money veteran who's been serving as executive editor of sister title Fortune since May. Part of the reason for releasing Schurenberg was a feeling on the part of the business side that he had allowed the magazine to become "too downscale."

Right-Wing Media Feeds Its Post-Election Anger (LAT)
A healthy skepticism is not only the media's right but its obligation. Indeed, commentators at many mainstream outlets have already argued that Obama's best bet to succeed will be if he hews to a centrist path. But many on the losing end of last week's election want to hold on to their anger. And there are those in the media only too ready to feed that animus, along with their own ratings.

Marketwatch: Assessing Fox News in an Obama world.

Malcolm Gladwell: Geek Pop Star (New York Mag)
Malcolm Gladwell's writing largely consists of taking the work of academics and translating it in a way that makes it understandable to a lay audience. His job, as he describes it, "is to be this intermediary between the academic world and the public." But the big criticism of Gladwell is not that he's unoriginal but that he's unserious -- that he takes substantive academic work and applies it to frivolous things.

Networks Hope for a Post-Election Ratings Rebound (LAT)
Conventional wisdom has it that the fall TV season was undermined by the huge and unprecedented interest in the historic presidential campaign between President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain. "The election did, on most nights, take away from the urgency to view prime-time television," NBC Executive Vice President Mitch Metcalf said.

AdAge: In a sign of how the balance of power has shifted in TV news, Fox News Channel drew more viewers on election night (9 million) than CBS (7.8 million).

Stakes Are High for Ted Turner Book (WSJ)
Colorful and candid, sometimes eccentric, sometimes visionary, Ted Turner was a true business celebrity in his day. Now, a bit more than two years after he resigned from the board of Time Warner Inc., his publisher is about to learn whether Mr. Turner's presence -- and more important, his new autobiography, Call Me Ted -- is still capable of drawing crowds.

NYT: When Bill Burke was still in his 30s, he set aside his career in the media business and decamped to Maine to raise his family and perhaps indulge vague ideas he had about teaching and writing. Then Ted Turner came calling.

Fretful Booksellers Count on Name Authors for Holiday Sales (USAT)
Booksellers and publishers are hoping a post-election flood of titles by brand-name authors can rescue their holiday season, which arrives amid the worst economy in 50 years. Several big releases were timed to avoid the campaign and are out this week, including Wally Lamb's The Hour I First Believed, Stephen King's Just After Sunset and Toni Morrison's A Mercy.

CBS News Boss McManus Plots Resurgence (TV Week)
If journalism awards and nominations announced this year were viewers, CBS News' two weekday newscasts would not still be deep in third place. But Sean McManus, president of CBS News and CBS Sports, is not about to give up hope that improvements in the content of The Early Show and The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric will eventually bring in more viewers and revenue.

Conde Nast Expands Video With New Partnership (Folio:)
In a broad expansion of its online video offerings, Condé Nast announced today a partnership with video platform Brightcove to manage its video initiatives company-wide. The first sites to utilize the platform are Glamour.com, Wired.com, Portfolio.com, Parade.com and Self.com.

Adapt Web Aggregation to Print? (AdAge)
Rance Crain: The answer is for newspapers to become aggregators of information by outsourcing their news holes to others already producing the material. Already, firms such as CNN and Bloomberg are gearing up to offer such services, and niche magazines could supply features for lifestyle pages, including fashion and home furnishings.

Revolving Door Newsletter: Obama Win Prompts D.C. Bureau Changes, Sells Out Newspapers (mediabistro.com)
ABC News announced its new Washington D.C. team: Jake Tapper will head the White House beat, while Martha Raddatz steps in as senior foreign affairs correspondent, and Jonathan Karl covers Congress as senior congressional correspondent. The New York Times is also assembling a White House team, which will include Jeff Zeleny, Helene Cooper, Peter Baker, and Sheryl Gay Stolberg.

from mediabistro.com's blogs:
AgencySpy: Did Campbell Ewald Drop 30 People?
FishbowlNY: Report: Conde Nast To Fold Elegant Bride
FishbowlDC: Cissy Baker Named Tribune Bureau Chief
FishbowlLA: KTLA Captures Arrest of Two Buzznet Employees At Prop 8 Rally
TVNewser: FNC's Jay Wallace: "People Tuned In To Us For The First Time And Liked What They Saw"
PRNewser: Recruiter: "I Think It's Going To Be Worse Before It's Better"
GalleyCat: Major Distributor Raises Concerns Over Borders
UnBeige: New Yorker Hosts Passport to the Arts
MobileContentToday: MySpace Could Develop MP3 Player
MobileMarketingToday: Sears Drives Shoppers to Mobile
MobileDevicesToday: Apple Now No. 2 In Smartphone Space
MobileAppsToday: iPhone Note Taking Apps Ready For Prime Time?

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20081110 Media Bistro Daily Media News Feed for November 10 2008