By: E&P Staff
In today's links, the New York Times receives legal guidance on how to better protect sources using "drug dealer" techniques, China's media crackdown is likely aimed at benefitting the country's beleaguered news agency Xinhua, and another top New York Daily News executive is fired as Mort Zuckerman continues to shake things up at the tabloid.***
YouTube Mystery Girl RevealedNew York Times: A nearly four-month-old Internet drama in which the cryptic video musings of a fresh-faced teenager became the obsession of millions of devotees -- themselves divided over the very authenticity of the videos, or who was behind them or why -- appears to be in its final act. The woman who plays Lonelygirl15 on the video-sharing site YouTube.com has been identified as Jessica Rose, a 20-ish resident of New Zealand and Los Angeles and a graduate of the New York Film Academy. And the whole project appears to be the early serialized version of what eventually will become a movie.
***
Apple Unveils Online Movie StoreAssociated Press: Seeking to further push digital media into homes, Apple Computer launched its long-awaited online movie service Tuesday and showed off a device that will make it easier for consumers to watch the videos on television. The iTunes Music Store, however, will initially carry movies only from the studios of The Walt Disney Co., where Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a board member. By contrast, Amazon.com Inc.'s movie service launched last week with distribution deals with seven studios -- but not Disney.
***
Times Studies How to Shake Feds: Disposable Phones, Erasable Notes: "Act Like a Drug Dealer"New York Observer: Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has taken his place among the spirits permanently haunting West 43rd Street. ?The basic goal,? New York Times reporter David Barstow said, ?is to make it more difficult for a future Fitzgerald to follow the breadcrumbs of phone records and notes and expense slips from reporter to source.? Mr. Barstow, the Pulitzer- and Peabody-winning investigative reporter, was on the phone Sept. 12, shortly before The Times began this year?s round of legal seminars for the staff. The sessions, led by Times lawyers George Freeman and David McCraw, have traditionally offered a brush-up on privacy, sourcing and general newsgathering. But executive editor Bill Keller announced in a staff memo that the 2006 version would address ?the persistent legal perils that confront us.?
***
Another Longtime NYDN Exec Gets the Ax as Staff Turnover ContinuesNew York Post: New York Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman has fired Andrea Dove, the longtime vice president of classified ads. Now sources say she is contemplating an age-discrimination suit against the paper as part of an ongoing shakeup. "They've been quietly laying off lots of people over the course of the summer," said one source close to the situation.
***
China's Media Curbs Aim to Bolster XinhuaWall Street Journal: China's imposition of further controls on foreign financial media represents the latest stage in Beijing's long-term strategy to transform its national news agency from a lumbering propaganda organ into a globally competitive media giant. New rules issued Sunday cast a spotlight on Xinhua, a news organization that has long been the mouthpiece of China's leadership but that is also struggling with its changing role as China's economy opens and its people have access to new forms of information.
***
Gossips Atwitter Over Rice/MacKay Diplomacy DanceColumbia Journalism Review: There are perils to being unattached in the stodgy world of diplomacy. Sometimes it has seemed that all Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice needs to do is show up in public with a man, and people start talking. It only took a two-hour flight to Halifax, Nova Scotia, this week, followed by a 90-minute motorcade north up Highway 102 to Pictou County, for Ms. Rice to find herself linked to someone with similar star appeal: Peter MacKay of Canada, the single, sophisticated foreign minister, routinely named Canada?s sexiest M.P. by The Hill Times in Ottawa, and the closest thing to eye candy on the diplomatic circuit.
***
The Media Met the Challenge on 9/11Jon Friedman in Marketwatch: On a grim Tuesday morning five years ago, terrorists leveled the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon. Thousands of Americans were killed. The media's task was clear: capture the rich emotion of the national tragedy. And this week, on the much-discussed fifth anniversary of 9/11, the journalists' challenge was more delicate but no less daunting: report the anniversary of the moving event without tugging too tightly on the nation's heartstrings and exploiting the audience's collective grief. In other words, don't act like it was business as usual. A network executive's mantra during a major story is usually hype, hype, hype. I'm happy (and very relieved) to say that the media rose to the occasion this time. We resisted the easy temptation to highlight the mawkish elements of the milestone.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here