Prominent MSNBC journalist Mark Halperin and co-author of a best-selling book about Barack Obama has been suspended from his role as a contributor to the network following charges from five women who claimed he sexually harassed them while he was an ABC News executive. The co-author of the bestselling book Game Change, told CNN on Wednesday night that he was “deeply sorry” and was taking a “step back” from day-to-day work to deal with the situation.
The women, who asked to remain anonymous, said they did not report Halperin’s conduct because they feared retribution or were embarrassed.
Alleged incidents occurred at ABC in early 2000s
It seems that as time goes on, more and more people in high power are being exposed for their corrupt power. This suggests there is an issue with how we perceive celebrities or institutional figures.
The Great British Bake Off on Channel 4 has been watched by more young people than any other series on TV so far this year. Bake Off’s move from the BBC to Channel 4 was controversial. But the latest viewing figures suggest Channel 4’s decision on showing the programme for the next three years has paid off hugely. TV analysts said it was rare for show to switch so smoothly between the main channels. Tom Harrington at Enders Analysis said: “It has been a great success, outdoing most expectations both critically and in terms of viewership with the final likely to be the most watched show on the channel in the past 15 years. This is impressive when you take general viewership decline into account.
Channel 4 spent 75m to get the show
This series generated an an average overnight audience of 6 million viewers per ep, and this rises to 8.9 million per episode when viewing over a seven-day period is taken into account.
Fewer people are watching Bake Off on Channel 4 than they did on BBC1, with an average of 10.7 million tuning in for each episode in last year’s series. However, Channel 4 executives expected this and insiders say the broadcaster had budgeted to break-even with the show at around 3.5 million viewers per episode, with income coming from advertisers and sponsors.
Bake Off’s audience has far outstripped that target and the show is attracting triple the number of people who would usually watch Channel 4 between 8pm and 9pm in the evening.
It is even attracting more viewers than The X Factor on ITV, which airs at primetime on a Saturday night
I feel that Bake-Offs success is not surprising considering how many loyal their fanbase is.
The New Day The New Day was a brand new newspaper launched by institution Trinity Mirror in 2016 - but it folded after just two months. Read the feature: 'A New Day for British journalism' on page 6 of Media Magazine 57 (our Media Magazine archive is here) and complete the following tasks on your blog: 1) What was the New Day trying to achieve? The New Day was launched to tap into a new market. Alison Phillips, the paper’s Editor, said: This paper has been created as a result of customer insight and is the first newspaper designed for people’s modern lifestyles. 2) List the key statistics on the first page: how many people buy newspapers in the UK? How has this declined in the last year?
Over a million people have stopped buying a newspaper in the past two years
Phillips clarified her position on 4 March 2016 at the end of the newspaper’s first week: About six million people buy a newspaper in Britain every day
3) What audience were the New Day trying to attract? As said, they have been designed for people’s modern lifestyles. It is targeted at both women and men, pitched at people aged 35 to 55, people who want a more modern approach to news. 4) Why do you think the New Day failed so spectacularly? There are several possible reasons listed in the article but do develop your own opinion here as well. During the first month of its publication it failed to reach its target of 200,000; after starting around 150,000, sales fell to 90,000. One of the main reason was how it was free for a day, 25p for a while and then 50p (with a short reversion to 25p in between). What were potential buyers (not to mention retailers) supposed to make of that? Customers were confused and may have been put off by this. Phillips was also hobbled by the early deadline. The paper had to be printed on presses used by the Daily Mirror and was therefore published early in the evening. Result: no breaking news and no sports results. (https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/may/05/why-the-new-day-didnt-work-and-had-no-hope-of-working) The Guardian The Guardian is another British newspaper struggling with a steep decline in print sales. However, the Guardian's survival strategy has been built around a global online approach to digital content. Read the feature: 'Can The Guardian survive in a changing media landscape?' on page 9 of Media Magazine 57 and complete the following tasks on your blog: 1a) How many unique digital browsers used the Guardian website in June 2016? The Guardian has over 120 million monthly unique browsers and a June 2016 daily average of almost 9 million unique browsers, only about one third of whom are from the UK 1b) What are The Guardian's latest print sales figures? The print circulation of the Guardian was only 161,000. It is the poor relation in print sales of quality national dailies, way behind the Daily Telegraph (472,000). Indeed, it is closer to the recently closed Independent which had a circulation of just 54,000. 1d) In terms of finances, how much did the Guardian lose in 2015? In the course of 2015, the Guardian reportedly lost ‘around £70 million, with slower-than-expected digital ad sales failing to offset a continued slump in revenue from print.’ 2) What has been The Guardian's strategy for reversing this decline? The Guardians strategy for reversing their decline is by developing its ability to deliver 24-hour rolling coverage of major world news events. 3) What global event did The Guardian's digital coverage win awards for? The Guardian’s reporting on the Paris attacks won praise from the Society of Editors. At their Press Awards for 2015, the Guardian was winner of the Website of the Year. 4) In your opinion, will the global website strategy be enough to save The Guardian? I feel that The Guardian's global website strategy could easily save them. The focus on digital technology is allowing The Guardian to advance and adapt to the media landscape of today. Remember you also have theongoing work on the effect of online technology to complete this week. Pay particular attention to the quotesand statistics in all this work - these will be vital in lifting your MEST3 Section B essays into the A/A* bracket.
One of the key aspects of our case study is considering the impact new and digital media is having on journalism and the vital role news plays in society.
We need to explore the important role news reporters play in revealing corruption in politics and society. We've got some excellent video resources to work with on this topic. Both of our videos refer to the2016 Best Picture winner at the Oscars - Spotlight. This is director Tom McCarthy's film based on the true story of Boston Globe reporters investigating widespread child abuse in the Catholic Church. We highly recommend you watch this film as part of your ongoing case study work on News.
John Oliver on journalism
British comedian John Oliver presents a show called Last Week Tonight on HBO in America. Last year, he put together a report on the decline of journalism in America and its replacement by 'clickbait' stories rather than real news.
Shirky on news: don’t build a paywall around a public good
Clay Shirky is a professor at New York University and a worldwide expert on digital and social media. He's a vital media theorist for our case study on News and he makes a compelling argument for the role news plays in society. Interestingly, he argues against paywalls - presenting an alternative to David Simon's Build The Wall argument that you have already studied and posted to your blog.
1) Why does Clay Shirky argue that 'accountability journalism' is so important and what example does he give of this?
Accountability journalism encompasses traditional investigative reporting, but much more. It includes fact-checking political speech, digging into digital data, and aggressive beat coverage to reveal as much as possible about what is really going on in every aspect of American society – from national security, government, politics, business and finance to the environment, education, health, social welfare, sports, and the media industry itself. Shirky argues that accountability is what keeps corruption of people under control. He talks about the report by A leading news source for Massachusetts 'The Boston Glove' which investigated Father John Geoghan, who was a priest and pedophile who had been employed by the Catholic Church. Without professional journalism cases like this would not have been found out due to the immense cover-up initiated by powerful people.
2) What does Shirky say about the relationship between newspapers and advertisers? Which websites does he mention as having replaced major revenue-generators for newspapers (e.g. jobs, personal ads etc.)?
Advertisers initially had to overpay for advertisement services, simply because there were no other alternatives. However because advertisers were forced to overpay for the services they received, because there weren’t many alternatives for reaching people with display ads, the newspapers essentially had the kind of speculative investment capital to do long-range, high-risk work. "There was a time when Ford went to The New York Times during the rollover stories and said, “You know, if you keep going on this, we may just pull all Ford ads in The New York Times.” To which the Times said, “Okay.” And the ability to do that — to say essentially to the advertiser, “Where else are you going to go?” — was a big part of what kept newspapers from suffering from commercial capture."
3) Shirky talks about the 'unbundling of content'. This means people are reading newspapers in a different way. How does he suggest audiences are consuming news stories in the digital age?
In newspapers, all the content would be bundled together and couldn't be altered to suit each readers needs, although people would still have the ability to pick and choose what they read it is still a lot more difficult. Comparatively, consuming content through the internet, clever methods can be used to ensure the user is seeing something they are likely to be interested in - print simply cannot compete in the same way. "if you’re running a website and somebody’s on your website and they just done a crossword puzzle and they seem to really like it, what’s the next thing you’re gonna show them? Is it news from Tegucigalpa? No. It’s another crossword puzzle"
4) Shirky also talks about the power of shareable media. How does he suggest the child abuse scandal with the Catholic Church may have been different if the internet had been widespread in 1992?
Had the internet been widespread in 1992, Shirky suggests there would be a difference in kind in terms of assembling an audience. "I put it on a mailing list, suddenly a hundred people read it, and they forward it, and they forward it." The people could hid their actions all they want but with the internet it is much easier to share the content, it continues to be shared and shared until it reaches a point where the corrupt can no longer control the response.
5) Why does Shirky argue against paywalls?
A paywall is an arrangement whereby access is restricted to users who have paid to receive the content. Shirky argues against them because he feels that a paywall is a violation of contract to make use of the news as an audience. He says that a paywall is simply a restriction. Even though the public need accountability journalism, they still aren't going to pay for it especially since there's a lot of republication and reuse of paid content on free sites such as Wikileaks.
6) What is a 'social good'? In what way is journalism a 'social good'?
A social good is something that benefits the largest number of people in the largest possible way positively. Journalism can be described as a 'social good' as news stories and investigative journalism can bring corruption to light and also inform the audience of what is going on in the world. For example, the Church sexual abuse scandal being exposed and stopped benefited all of us.
7) Shirky says newspapers are in terminal decline. How does he suggest we can replace the important role in society newspapers play? What is the short-term danger to this solution that he describes?
A terminal device is the prosthetic component that is designed to substitute hand function. Shirky believes newspapers are irreplaceable in their production of accountability journalism. Instead, we should expend any effort/resources we can, in order to keep ourselves from having to replace them. He believes "you can only replace newspaper with newspapers themselves" However, there is currently a digital revolution taking place in the current media landscape, the current shock in the media environment is so damaging to the 20th-century model of news production, that time spent trying to replace newspapers is misspent effort.
8) Look at the first question and answer regarding institutional power. Give us your own opinion: how important is it that major media brands such as the New York Times or the Guardian continue to stay in business and provide news?
Personally, I feel that it is vital for major media brands such as New York Times or the Guardian to thrive. This is because their accountability journalism will never be replaced by online sources. The time and skill used to investigate serious potential crimes for the newspaper can bring justice to wrongdoings and catch even those in power which the internet cannot do in the same way. In other words, the quality journalism and exposure of corruptness is essential to society.
AI takeover refers to a hypothetical scenario in which artificial intelligence (AI) becomes the dominant form of intelligence on Earth, with computers or robots effectively taking control of the planet away from the human race. Possible scenarios include replacement of the entire human workforce, takeover by a superintelligent AI. This article discusses this exact issue of automation and how it will have a wider impact on jobs.
In the UK, 13% of employers think more than 30% of jobs will become automated in the next 10 years
Four million jobs in the British private sector could be replaced by robots in the next decade, according to business leaders asked about the future of automation and artificial intelligence.
The potential impact amounts to 15% of the current workforce in the sector and emerged in a poll conducted by YouGov for the Royal Society of Arts
Personally, I feel that something like this is inevitable. Technology will always be improving; people's jobs will be at risk because of this.
If you missed the lesson or want to go over any of the key details the handout is here: Newspapers: The effect of online technology. Blog tasks 1) Do you agree with James Murdoch that the BBC should not be allowed to provide free news online? Why?
I disagree with James Murdoch; people have already got quick access to several news sources. Taking away the BBC's free news services would be damaging to the system. We already require a TV licensing fee to have access to BBC television news/ Iplayer, so this type of news is already paid for. Considering most British people hold the BBC news in high respects, they will always pay for the service.
2) Was Rupert Murdoch right to put his news content (The Times, The Sunday Times) behind a paywall? He was right to put up a paywall because papers like The Times has been suffering hugely because of the digital revolution. By using a new business model, hopefully the paper will gain a social constructed value - thereby encouraging people to buy the paper. 3) Choose two comments from below the Times paywall article - one that argues in favour of the paywall and one that argues against. Copy a quote from each and explain which YOU agree with and why.
"In any business, success depends on delivering one of three things to customers: lowest cost, differential quality, or a niche unavailable elsewhere. Newsprint is no exception, but the lowest cost product in the marketplace is set at zero. The Times isn't niche, that's the like of aviation monthly, so it has to deliver a product of sufficient quality for readers to be willing to pay the premium. Is it doing this? I would say not really, more work is needed, and it's hard to see how the quality can improve with costs being cut."
I completely agree with this comment. Newspapers hold no value socially. If their prise was to be raised, so would its value.
"I'd put my money on The Times when it comes to UK-based newspapers.
MailOnline's audience is vast, especially for a UK-based title. Yet with all that scale, with the most advanced data strategy, and undoubtedly with cost help from the wider organisation, it still only makes a tiny profit. More sadly, is that the product is getting further and further away from news; their strategy is to create a deluge of rapidly-written disposable content then overlay it with audience data. It also works with lots of partners to develop their data - many of which will retract that partnership over the next 2-3 years as they seek to retain value for themselves.
The Times, more than any other paper, is more ready for a printless future, should it arise, as they just need to migrate users, in relatively low numbers. to the digital subscription. And it is having an almighty practice run to get it right. It doesn't need to create the vast volumes of (crap) content that the Mail does and it has a very strong brand argument to ad buyers."
This second comment I've picked discusses how The Times' business strategy will be successful. I agree to some extent; it is one of the few papers who is adapting to the digital revolution. Read this article from the Media Briefing on the continuing decline of the newspaper industry. 4) Why do you think the Evening Standard has bucked the trend and increased circulation and profit in the last two years? The Evening Standard had increased circulation and profit in the last two years because of their adjustment of business model. They are free sheets - they depend on adverts/promotions. This free product appeals to people because they are receiving content for free and it is being distributed in London. 5) Is there any hope for the newspaper industry or will it eventually die out? Provide a detailed response to this question explaining and justifying your opinion. I feel that technology's advancement is so rapid to the point that newspapers are failing to even compete. The only hope there is for the newspaper industry is its value as a product is improved.
What kind of journalism should the BBC do and not do? What exactly is the sort of journalism that the BBC “can’t and shouldn’t do”? Of all the questions prompted by the announcement that the BBC’s head of news is to leave by the end of the year, this is the one that matters.
Newly enshrined in the BBC charter agreement, which came into force this year
“ensure controversial subjects are treated with due impartiality in our news and other output”
Personally, I feel that the BBC is not and never will be impartial, but half the problem is that the BBC and its critics both think this is what it should be trying to do. True impartiality would mean having everyone's views, from Nazis to anarchists to ISIS, given equal weight. Absolutely nobody thinks that's a good idea. Instead what the BBC does is treat everything lying within the spectrum of acceptable elite British opinion with more or less equal weight.
