Benton RSS Feed

THE GROANING OF AL GORE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff]
[Commentary] In his new book, Al Gore shares some of the blame for the Iraq war with TV journalism. Instead of paying attention to important matters, the public has been titillated with “serial obsessions” ranging from the O.J car chase to Paris and Nicole. Thanks to big, bad TV, we were all gazing at Britney's navel, and meanwhile the country was marching to war. B&C admits that TV news mishandled the run-up to the war, but says there's plenty of blame to share with print journalism as well. Gore decries media ownership consolidation and lays into “media Machievellis” who are “hollowing out our Democracy” to make room for their “propagandistic electronic messaging.” But B&C ain't buying "The Assault on Reason." Television didn't create this situation. It is there to be watched, or not. It can be tuned to Spike or PBS. Al Gore concludes that the “well-informed citizenry” is in danger of becoming the “well-amused audience.” There are some “inconvenient truths” in Gore's media screed. There's also a load of hyperbole. This sounds like a book you could pass on in favor of sitting down with a good TV show.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6444880.html

ONLINE, GOP IS PLAYING CATCH-UP
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Jose Antonio Vargas]
There is a widening gap between Democrats and Republicans on the Internet. The most recent figures from Nielsen/NetRatings provide one measure of the gap. Looking at the Web sites of presidential candidates from the two parties, it found that former senator John Edwards's site had about 690,000 unique visitors in March, when the Democrat's wife, Elizabeth, announced that she had a recurrence of cancer. That was more than the combined number of visitors to the sites of the three leading GOP contenders, Rudolph W. Giuliani (297,000), Sen. John McCain (258,000) and Mitt Romney (76,000). There are other measures as well. No Republican comes close to matching the popularity of another Democratic candidate, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, on YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, the social-networking triumvirate. The Democrats are ahead in the online money race. The top three Democrats, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama and Edwards, amassed more than $14 million over the Internet in the first three months of 2007; in contrast, the top three Republicans, Giuliani, McCain and Romney, collected less than half of that, $6 million. Furthermore, ABC PAC, the conservative fundraising site, has raised $385 so far for Republican presidential hopefuls; Act Blue, its liberal counterpart, has collected about $3 million for Edwards alone. One reason for the disparity between the parties, political insiders say, is that the top Republican candidates are not exciting voters the way the Democratic front-runners are. Another is that it takes a certain level of technical skill and understanding to be an online strategist, and Republicans admit that "the pool of talent in the Democrats' side is much bigger than ours." But an underlying cause may be the nature of the Republican Party and its traditional discipline -- the antithesis of the often chaotic, bottom-up, user-generated atmosphere of the Internet.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/20/AR200705...
(requires registration)

FOOD MARKETING DEBATE HEATS UP
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The issue of marketing “junk food” to kids is getting hot. Fueling the debate is the dramatic increase in childhood obesity, which government and industry agree is a growing national health problem. In the next few weeks, the Federal Trade Commission will issue subpoenas to 44 companies, including food manufacturers and marketers. The subpoenas are intended to gather information for a forthcoming FTC report to Congress on how companies market so-called junk foods to kids—an industry estimated at $10 billion to $15 billion. Meanwhile, a government/industry task force on childhood obesity and food marketing is feverishly trying to come up with recommendations on best practices by early summer. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who serves on the task force, says that, if the group fails to establish suitable guidelines for industry self-regulation, the FCC may have to weigh in. Congress may be eyeing the issue hungrily, too. According to a top staffer on the House Telecommunications & Internet Subcommittee, Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA) plans to hold hearings on the media’s marketing of junk food to children. Whether the subcommittee will hold hearings before or after the task force makes its recommendations to Congress is still unclear.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6444887.html?rssid=193

ARTISTS AND LABELS SEEK ROYALTIES FROM RADIO
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jim Puzzanghera]
With CD sales tumbling, record companies and musicians are looking at a new potential pot of money: royalties from broadcast radio stations. For years, stations have paid royalties to composers and publishers when they played their songs. But they enjoy a federal exemption when paying the performers and record labels because, they argue, the airplay sells music. Now, the Recording Industry Assn. of America and several artists' groups are getting ready to push Congress to repeal the exemption, a move that could generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually in new royalties. Mary Wilson, who with Diana Ross and Florence Ballard formed the original Supremes, said the exemption was unfair and forced older musicians to continue touring to pay their bills.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-radio21may21,1,774853...
(requires registration)