posted May 22, 2009 12:20 PM         

Political coverage and musings on pop culture from ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper and the ABC News White House team.

On April 27, President Obama welcomed the University of Connecticut Lady Huskies, who had just won the NCAA women's basketball championship.

After the event, President Obama went to the White House basketball court to shoot hoop with the Lady Huskies. The White House press corps was not allowed to attend.

Reads the print pool report from that day: "After shaking hands with the team's parents and members of Congress who showed up, the president walked the team over to his basketball court and shot hoops. The pool was held back from the stroll down the drive and around the corner, and couldn't see the court. Poolers could hear periodic cheering coming from the other side of the bushes."

Read the TV pool report: "Your Pool was not allowed to go over and shoot POTUS with the team shooting hoops. We protested loudly."

Now we know why: Obama White House officials decided to do their own media report on the visit, complete with cuts, interviews, and chyrons identifying who's speaking.

Also, just like a network, they have their own little logo!

Cute!

It's perfectly fine, of course, for the White House to put out its own version of events -- but is it right to do so by preventing actual reporters from covering something? (Even something like a pickup basketball game).

Do Obama White House officials think their media coverage isn't flattering enough?***Slobbering, Drooling news coverage about covers it.***

Is the goal to ultimately replace the pesky photographers who film what they want to and not what they're told to (not to mention the annoying reporters who ask uncomfortable questions about, say, detainee policy and bank bailouts)?

Do you want your OTV? (I'll bet there are a few takers out there.)
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/05/do-you-want-you.html

posted May 22, 2009 07:12 PM         

May 22, 2009
The era of state-controlled media
Thomas Lifson

Another line has been crossed by the Obama administration: state-controlled television reports only of a news event at the White House. ABC's invaluable Jake Tapper writes at the Political Punch:

On April 27, President Obama welcomed the University of Connecticut Lady Huskies, who had just won the NCAA women's basketball championship.

After the event, President Obama went to the White House basketball court to shoot hoop with the Lady Huskies. The White House press corps was not allowed to attend.

Instead of a pesky free press, who photograph whatever they want and ask whatever they want, the American people will see only what the President wishes them to see. Should his vaunted reputation as a basketball whiz not be supported by his shooting with the ladies, he will have no embarrassing bowling moments. (I have seen it reported that he is practicing bowling, in order to redeem his humiliation at having shot a scored of 37 during a campaign appearance as a regular guy at a bowling alley. I do not know if this is true, though.)

Should he happen to make a deep bow to a Salafist dictator passing by, no annoying images will ever reach the public, either. No gaffes, ever again, when the state controlled media are the only cameras present.

Of course it is true that in the past some events have been kept private, with only White House photographers present. But, as Tapper notes, this new video production operation has its own broadcast TV-like logo and other accessories of a major media operation.

posted August 13, 2010 11:41 PM         

Americans continue to express near-record-low confidence in newspapers and television news -- with no more than 25% of Americans saying they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in either. These views have hardly budged since falling more than 10 percentage points from 2003-2007.

The findings are from Gallup's annual Confidence in Institutions survey, which found the military faring best and Congress faring worst of 16 institutions tested. Americans' confidence in newspapers and television news is on par with Americans' lackluster confidence in banks and slightly better than their dismal rating of Health Management Organizations and big business.

The decline in trust since 2003 is also evident in a 2009 Gallup poll that asked about confidence and trust in the "mass media" more broadly. While perceptions of media bias present a viable hypothesis, Americans have not over the same period grown any more likely to say the news media are too conservative or too liberal.

No matter the cause, it is clear the media as a whole are not gaining new fans as they struggle to serve and compete with growing demand for online news, social media, and mobile platforms. The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual report on the State of the News Media, released in March, found for a third straight year, only digital and cable news sources growing in popularity, while network news, local news, and newspaper audiences shrink. These findings align with a similar 2008 Gallup poll that found cable and Internet news sources growing in popularity while all others held steady or declined.

While it is unclear how much respondents factored in the online and cable offshoots of "newspapers" and "television news" when assessing their confidence in these institutions, their responses do not provide much encouragement for the media more broadly. Confidence is hard to find, even among Democrats and liberals, who have historically been the most trusting of the news media. While 18- to 29-year-olds express more trust in newspapers than most older Americans, Gallup polling has found they read national newspapers the least. Younger Americans also expressed more confidence than older Americans in several other institutions tested, including Congress, the medical system, and the criminal justice system, suggesting younger Americans are more confident in institutions in general.

Implications

With nearly all news organizations struggling to keep up with the up-to-the-minute news cycle and to remain profitable in the process, Americans' low trust in newspapers and television news presents a critical barrier to success. The Pew report asserts that 80% of new media links are to legacy newspapers and broadcast networks, making clear that traditional news sources remain the backbone of the media. But so long as roughly three in four Americans remain distrustful, it will be difficult to attract the large and loyal audiences necessary to boost revenues...........
http://www.gallup.com/poll/142133/Confidence-Newspapers-News-Remains-Rarity.aspx