Observer Scoops the Scoopmakers and the Reader Loses
I cannot help but think the NYOberserver may have had a little help with their scoop du jour. Like a crime, one has to ask, who benefits, and who had a motivation. I can think of one savvy media tycoon--rhymes with Supert Burdoch.
Check out this on the media article about NYT's current investigation of Rupert Murdoch and his media empire. The item ran earlier in a much more ambiguous, and less damaging manner. Now the dots are connected and I would not be terribly surprised if the report is pulled or decelerated.
Time was when newspapers completed for scoops. Now the Observer and its dauphin-in-chief don't hustle to get the scoop, but hustle to uncover the other paper's next scoop, to ... take the scoop from them so that...there's never a story? Sounds like the readers pay for the titillation of what The Times was planning to, but may not, print. Work's out for the Observers reporter too. Why she never had to leave her barstool at the reporters' favorite watering hole.
It's a new low.
Well, my understanding of The Observer's raison d'etre, which I have been reading for quite some time, is a newspaper about the media, written for media and publishing and P.R. people about their own business, not a high falutin professional periodical, but a rag including lots of hot gossip about the media for the media and P.R. biz.
(Just so happens that a few years back some bright young thing in their marketing department thought normal average non-media people might be interested in the same, and they started sending it free to certain high-income zip codes in Manhattan, including a place I worked-that's how I ended up reading it. This did indeed get them more advertising and more funds and eventually, more subscribers. This is how some people got the idea it was a "regular" weekly about/for New York City. It's not, to me it's still clearly for a special market: media and P.R. people.)
So aren't you sort of attacking it for what it always principally has been? Yes, they tattle on everything they can get their hands on that media (or political consultants involved in media, or neo-con ideologues involved in publishing, or TV political pundits) are up to. If you look at even their social reporting, it too is all slanted towards what spinmeisters, P.R., are doing. And it's snarky and doesn't always worry too much about accuracy? As in better to publish a hot potato than miss causing some commotion or fun? Ethics is not what I would go looking for in their publication-they do publish a lot of muck raked and not too picky about consequences; if I was someone young trying to get a job in media, though, I would consider it required reading.
June 20, 2007 11:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
AA: Did Jared Kushner really pay $10 million for The Observer? If so, has anyone figured out why?
June 20, 2007 11:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, now you're getting into the media that covers the media covering the media. :-) That's going a little deep for me, but even so, I remember reading about it quite some time ago somewheres, maybe Jay Rosen's site? But I don't remember any specifics. Betcha Mr. Flynn will know--check out his bio on his registration.
Edit to add: Plus I note he used "dauphin in chief" to refer to him in his post. Rereading his post now, I realize I may have been a bit clueless, think he is trying to imply something a bit more complicated is going on.
June 20, 2007 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, admittedly I side with The Times for having worked there in the 90's. What really tweaks me though is that the Murdoch story is important and outing The Time's clandestine investigative report damages the ability of the Times to get access to people and records that could be very useful. The Times' reputation has ways been that it does not break big stories, but is unrivalled for it's day two coverage of big stories. We all know Rupert wants DJ, and we all know Rupert messes with the products he buys. What the Times could provide is a pile of incontrovertable evidence of our suspicions, which in turn could scuttle Rupert's plans. The union could galvanize against the deal. Bankers would become warry of a hostile union and the prospect that Rupert will kill the golden goose they're underwriting.
I find the media on media and media as celebrity crowd noxious on a good day. When they start sabotaging stories before they are written just to be the snarkiest know-it-all on the block, it makes my blood boil. I am well aware of the faults and foible of the press, but I am also convinced that the fourth estate is the watchdog of our democracy: Pentagon Papers, Watergate, domestic spying program, extraordinary rendition, etc...
The dauphin-in-chief was a dig at Master Kushner, who's only contribution to the world is the trust fund proceeds he wastes on his pet projects. If only he was interested in wasting his millions on something worthwhile instead of buying his insider status with a rag like NYO.
Final note. NYO is a trade rag, but it leverages the name of a once great newspaper, and likes to masquerade as a legit paper from time to time. It also gets linked to the odious Matt Drudge and the precious Ariana Huffington. It does not deserve that type of exposure.
/c
In the blogosphere every one is an expert, so no one is an expert.
June 21, 2007 7:24 AM | Reply | Permalink