MediaFlect

… or at least social. Got an email from Oxygen network today asking me to join their campaign to try to protect women’s rights in Iraq. It’s also a big graphic in key positioning on the homepage.

I’m intrigued that a TV network known more for entertainment, talk and lifestyle programming would use its mailing list to solicit support for a flashpoint issue like this.

Another point on “citizen journalists”. Why are people who report news now “journalists” instead of reporter. Journalist” can seem pretentious, while reporter sounds more plain. (Although literally, journalist seems pretty plain — like a cataloguer — a keeper of a journal.) Is it the equivalent of title inflation?

Used to be if The New York Times noticed it, then it was news. Not sure that’s true for a couple of items in today’s media business section (which gets linked to from everywhere every Monday — who’m I to break the trend? In one piece, AP chief Tom Curley shows that it’s, as I’ve been told within the halls of the AP building, no longer a no-no to mention concepts like “revenue” for the not-for-profit membership cooperative. But Curley’s been saying talking about the new AP initiatives for months. PaidContent does notice a few tidbits that may be new-ish.

The other piece starts like this: “The trouble with blogging is that bloggers are forced to think and compose at their desks.” Hello? I’ve posted to blogs
- From a laptop on WiFi
- From a Blackberry or Treo
- Via email, when the blog is set up to receive that way.

The story then goes on to talk about a new celular phone provider alliance to do moblogging. Hello? Moblogging is news? I guess the deal is news, kinda. in a one-sentence roundup kind of way: it’s the first deal with a major cellphone service, in this case Verizon, to do moblogging. I guess that’ s news, that a big guy is placing a bet….

Thank goodness for the Web’s ability to bring us full information, so we can see how goofy things really are beyond the headlines. The recent ABC News / Washington Post poll showing President Bush’s approval rating plummet got some good coverage and gave Air America Radio among others reason to crow. What didn’t get as much coverage was the oddly circulary “Candidate A” vs. “Candidate B” questions for a hypothetical 2008 presidential election. It shows Rudy G. or John McCain beating Hillary, McCain beating John Edwards, but Edwards beating Rudy. There’s some kind of circular symbolic logic equation here (who beats who via transitivity); but I wonder why they even ask at all. Was anyone they asked even thinking about the 2008 election before they were asked? Nice little peak behind the curtain.