Can Black Media Become Community Leaders?

Barack Obama is a huge news story.  His campaign generated unprecedented levels of media attention.  Every move during his transition is being chronicled and analyzed by press from all over the world, in every format imaginable.  And when his presidency finally begins, more media will be watching and following the President than at any point […]

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Resolution: Read More

For most of us, today marks the first full work day of the New Year.  At very least, its the first day back blogging after a holiday hiatus.  So, it seemed appropriate to share one of my media-related resolutions to get things rolling again. My first resolution is simple: to read more. I consume a […]

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Check Out Your Local Library

In the conversation about the future of media, so much of the focus naturally falls to technology and the role it will play in distributing information to the masses.  Most attention is paid to the creation of media and how we can monetize it.  In doing that, however, we often overlook the institutions that are […]

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Question of the Day: List-mania

The end of the year is rapidly approaching, which means the media world has once again become obsessed with lists.  There are top ten lists popping up in newspapers, magazines, and on radio and TV for everything: crises and controversies, news stories, celebrity train-wrecks, movies, songs, books, and tv shows, iPhone applications, games (both video […]

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What do our search terms say about us?

The annual list of what the world searches for online has been released.  No real surprises — Britney Spears and Barack Obama top the lists, which are littered with pop culture (WWE, Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan) and political (Sarah Palin) references.  The Olympics, the iPhone, and functional terms like credit score make a good showing […]

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Blurring The Lines

On Monday, Time Magazine Washington Bureau Chief, Jay Carney, announced he was leaving his post to take the job of Communications Director for incoming Vice President Joe Biden.  Mark Halperin broke the story on The Page blog writing simply “Outgoing newsmag bureau chief Jay Carney to be assistant to the vice president and his director […]

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Science Friday: Less News Is Bad News

A study released last week suggests “that the media may be entering a climate trance (or ending a bubble, depending on your view).”  The study was conducted by Maxwell Boykoff, who studies the media and climate change at Oxford University, and posted by Andrew Revkin, the New York Times’ climate writer/blogger. Revkin quotes Dr. Boykoff […]

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Question of the Day: Battle of the Brews

McDonald’s has decided to pick a fight with Starbucks. In addition to offering espresso drinks to their billions of customers served, the fast food chain has launched a massive online/offline/outdoor marketing effort to distinguish itself from the world’s most popular coffee chain.  The concept is not original – Dunkin’ Donuts has been comparing itself to […]

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Towards a ‘Findable’ Government

During a recent presentation at the New America Foundation, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said “The vast majority of information is still not searchable or findable either because it’s not published or it’s on Web sites which the government has put up which no one can index.”  He was referring to the U.S. government, one […]

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Does Media Spend = Media Bias?

Does how much the media spends covering the candidates imply there was a bias in their coverage? Even now, more than a month after Election Day, people are still debating whether the media was biased in favor of Barack Obama.  The latest ‘evidence’ was the amount of money the media spent to cover the Obama […]

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