LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Merv Griffin, the entertainer turned impresario who parlayed his "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune" game shows into a multimillion-dollar empire, has died. He was 82.
Merv Griffin, 82, died of prostate cancer Sunday, according to a spokeswoman. He was 82.
Griffin died of prostate cancer, according to a statement from his family that was released by Marcia Newberger, spokeswoman for The Griffin Group/Merv Griffin Entertainment.
From his beginning as a $100-a-week San Francisco, California, radio singer, Griffin moved on as vocalist for Freddy Martin's band, sometime film actor and TV game and talk show host. His "The Merv Griffin Show" lasted more than 20 years, and Griffin said his capacity to listen contributed to his success.
"If the host is sitting there thinking about his next joke, he isn't listening," Griffin reasoned in a recent interview.
But his biggest break financially came from inventing and producing "Jeopardy" in the 1960s and "Wheel of Fortune" in the 1970s.
After they became the hottest game shows in television, Griffin sold the rights to them to the Columbia Pictures Television Unit for $250 million, retaining a share of the profits. He started spreading the sale money around in treasury bonds, stocks and other investments.
He made Forbes' list of richest Americans several times, but he went into real estate and other ventures because "I was never so bored in my life."
Don't Miss
Merv Griffin hospitalized for cancer
"I said, 'I'm not going to sit around and clip coupons for the rest of my life,' " he recalled in 1989. "That's when Barron Hilton said, 'Merv, do you want to buy the Beverly Hilton?' I couldn't believe it."
Griffin bought the slightly passe hotel for $100.2 million and completely refurbished it for $25 million. Then he made a move for control of Resorts International, which operated hotels and casinos from Atlantic City to the Caribbean.
That touched off a feud with real estate tycoon Donald Trump. Griffin eventually acquired Resorts for $240 million, netting a reported paper profit of $100 million.
"I love the gamesmanship," he told Life magazine in 1988. "This may sound strange, but it parallels the game shows I've been involved in."
It was in 1948 that Martin hired Griffin to join his band at Los Angeles' Coconut Grove at $150 a week. With Griffin doing the singing, the band had a smash hit with "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts," a 1949 novelty song sung in a cockney accent.
The band was playing in Las Vegas, Nevada, when Doris Day and her producer husband, Marty Melcher, were in the audience. They recommended him to Warner Bros., which offered a contract. After a bit in "By the Light of the Silvery Moon," starring Day and Gordon MacRae, he had a bigger role with Kathryn Grayson in "So This Is Love." A few more trivial roles followed, then he asked out of his contract.
In 1954, Griffin went to New York where he appeared in a summer replacement musical show on CBS-TV, a revival of "Finian's Rainbow," and a music show on CBS Radio. He followed with a few game show hosting jobs on TV, notably "Play Your Hunch," which premiered in 1958 and ran through the early 1960s. His glibness led to stints as substitute for Jack Paar on "Tonight."
When Paar retired in 1962, Griffin was considered a prime candidate to replace him. Johnny Carson was chosen instead. NBC gave Griffin a daytime version of "Tonight," but he was canceled for being "too sophisticated" for the housewife audience.
In 1965, Westinghouse Broadcasting introduced "The Merv Griffin Show" in syndicated TV. At last Griffin had found the forum for his talents. He never underestimated the intelligence of his audience, offering such figures as philosopher Bertrand Russell, Pablo Casals and Will and Ariel Durant as well as movie stars and entertainers.
With Carson ruling the late-night roost on NBC in the late 1960s, the two other networks challenged him with competing shows, Griffin on CBS, Joey Bishop (later Dick Cavett) on ABC. Nothing stopped Carson, and Griffin returned to Westinghouse.
Meanwhile, Griffin sought new enterprises for his production company. A lifelong crossword puzzle fan, he devised a game show "Word for Word," in 1963. It faded after one season, then his wife, Julann, suggested another show.
"Julann's idea was a twist on the usual question-answer format of the quiz shows of the '50s," he wrote in his autobiography "Merv." "Her idea was to give the contestants the answer, and they had to come up with the appropriate question."
"Jeopardy," begun in 1964, became a huge moneymaker for Griffin, as did a more conventional game show, "Wheel of Fortune," starting in 1975.
Mervyn Edward Griffin Jr. was born in San Mateo, south of San Francisco on July 6, 1925, the son of a stockbroker. His aunt, Claudia Robinson, taught him to play piano at age 4, and soon the boy was staging shows on the back porch of the family home.
"Every Saturday I had a show, recruiting all the kids in the block as either stagehands, actors and audience, or sometimes all three," he wrote in his 1980 autobiography. "I was the producer, always the producer."
After studying at San Mateo Junior College and the University of San Francisco, Griffin quit school to apply for a job as pianist at radio station KFRC in San Francisco. The station needed a vocalist instead. He auditioned and was hired.
Griffin was billed as "the young romantic voice of radio." He attracted the interest of RKO studio boss William Dozier, who was visiting San Francisco with his wife, Joan Fontaine.
"As soon as I walked in their hotel room, I could see their faces fall," the singer recalled. He weighed 235 pounds. Shortly afterward, singer Joan Edwards told him: "Your voice is terrific, but the blubber has got to go." Griffin slimmed down, and he would spend the rest of his life adding and taking off weight.
Griffin and Julann Elizabeth Wright were married in 1958, and a son, Anthony, was born the following year. The couple divorced in 1973 because of "irreconcilable differences."
"It was a pivotal time in my career, one of uncertainty and constant doubt," he wrote in the autobiography. "So much attention was being focused on me that my marriage felt the strain." He never remarried.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
San Francisco Transbay Terminal Design Competition Video
This video is of the public display at SF City Hall of the three concepts developed for the San Francisco Transbay Terminal Design Competition. I'll use the information from the official website of the San Francisco Transbay Terminal Redevelopment effort:
In November 2006, the TJPA launched an international Design and Development (D/D) Competition to allow world-class architects and developers from across the globe the opportunity to partner and bid for the rights to design and build what will be the Grand Central Station of the West. (Link to archived Stage I and Stage II Competition Materials and Releases.)
The TJPA sought a team that would create a unique, world class Transit Center and adjacent mixed-use Tower whose aesthetic, functional and technical excellence are worthy of their position as the centerpiece of the new Transbay neighborhood in downtown San Francisco.
Three D/D teams are in the final stage of the competition. The remaining teams are:
Richard Rogers Partnership and Forest City Enterprises with MacFarlane Partners
Skidmore Owings and Merrill and Rockefeller Group Development Corporation
Pelli Clark Pelli Architects and Hines
Process
Each team presented its design concepts for the new Transit Center and Tower to the TJPA Board of Directors on August 6, 2007 in the Board Chambers of San Francisco City Hall. Read the Press Release here (.pdf)
The three proposed designs are being evaluated by the D/D Competition Jury, a nine-member panel with a broad spectrum of design and development expertise. All jurors were selected by the competition manager and approved by the TJPA Board. The D/D Jury recommendation will be brought before the TJPA Board on September 20, 2007, at San Francisco City Hall at which time the Board will vote on the final proposal.
How to Comment
The designs are shown and described below, and comments may be submitted by emailing D&DComment@transbaycenter.org, or by submitting a comment card to:
Transbay Joint Powers Authority
Attn: D&D Public Comment
201 Mission Street, Suite 1960
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 597-4615 fax
The public will be able to comment until September 17, 2007.
Comments from the public will be forwarded to the TJPA Board with the Jury's recommendation at the September 20, 2007 Board Meeting.
_________________________________________________
My favorite? I actually like the SOM scheme. To me it's the most San Franciscan in its form. It fits with the surrounding context and has an air of monunmentality currenly missing from San Francisco's urban design culture.
SF Chron's Scott Ostler On BILL WALSH MEMORIAL SERVICE
BILL WALSH MEMORIAL SERVICE
Last of the 49ers struck it rich as a pioneer
Scott Ostler - SF Chroncle
Saturday, August 11, 2007
BILL WALSH MEMORIAL SERVICE - Last of the 49ers struck it rich a...
08/11/2007
They came to the old football stadium Friday, fans and players and friends, to say goodbye to Bill Walsh, the last of the true 49ers.
Walsh wasn't the last of the football 49ers, but the last of the 49ers who began migrating to San Francisco 150 years ago because their dreams were too big to fit anywhere else in America.
They were wild, restless, desperate and a little bit crazy, and the spirit of those 49ers may have seen its last spark in a gray-haired football coach who struck gold without getting his hands dirty.
Walsh's story is the last great gold-rush saga. A window into what he achieved and the impact he had on so many lives was opened up at the public memorial service Friday at Candlestick.
It was what you might call a West Coast service - innovative, entertaining and choreographed by Bill Walsh. While he was slowly dying of leukemia, Walsh planned his own services, down to the music piped into the stadium speakers as the 8,000 or so fans filed in, a river of 49er red.
It was mostly country music - Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Jr., Johnny Cash, Little Jimmy Dickens.
The music had a wistful thread. "Always on My Mind." "All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)." "Hello, Walls." "(You'll Always Find Me Here at) Closing Time."
But you can't plan everything, and Walsh surely would have appreciated the man who stood up in the grandstands early in the service and recited a poem about the 49ers.
The emcee, Chris "Boomer" Berman, is a Bay Area guy who knows about the Beat poets, so he let the man do his thing, then said admiringly, " There's a 49er fan."
The rest of the program went pretty much as scripted. The previous day's private service at Stanford was mostly about Walsh the man, while Friday's event was more about what Walsh created here. It was an amazing machine and all he did was select the parts, assemble them by his own blueprint, teach, coach, inspire and lead.
"The man who brought it all together," Steve Young said.
And the man who held it all together for a decade. Who else but Walsh could have pulled off that miracle? As Ronnie Lott observed after the service, "Abraham Lincoln said, 'We are all copies.' Bill is not a copy, he's an original."
For sure, nobody but Walsh could have built such a marvelous contraption from the ground up, and made it soar. Former team owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr., who had many bitter battles with Walsh, went poetic on us, likening the 49ers' glory days to Camelot.
"Bill Walsh was our King Arthur and this stadium was our castle," Eddie D said.
It was DeBartolo who hired Walsh when the 47-year-old's window of opportunity as an NFL head coach had just about slammed closed. DeBartolo was either incredibly lucky or a true visionary, because that hiring had a major lasting impact on San Francisco's culture, self-image and world reputation.
DeBartolo's longtime sidekick Carmen Policy took us back to the beginning, when DeBartolo's father advised Eddie Jr. not to hire Walsh because trusted NFL insiders had convinced the senior DeBartolo that while Walsh was a smart guy, he wasn't head-coach material.
So true. Walsh was way overqualified for the job. But instead of dumbing down his system to the league's level, Walsh lifted his players and assistant coaches.
So Eddie DeBartolo Sr. was strongly opposed to his son hiring Walsh?
"That's Carmen," DeBartolo Jr. said after the service, in a tone indicating that Policy's speech had been overly dramatic. "(My dad) was just a little concerned about the salary. He wanted to pay Bill $45,000. Bill wanted two-something ($200,000-plus)."
So how much did Walsh get?
"Two-something," DeBartolo said.
For his dough, DeBartolo got a genius who had the kind of plan and faith and determination that gets Golden Gate Bridges built.
Joe Montana explained after the service how the West Coast offense had been a new way of thinking. Opposing defenses hated to give up four yards on a running play, but a four-yard pass? No biggie.
"In their mind," Montana said, "they were saying, 'It's only four yards (gain on the pass play), we stopped 'em.' "
Four yards and a cloud of Jerry Rice's cologne.
Four yards at a time, Walsh's 49ers won three Super Bowls. Critics disparaged Walsh's schemes, but couldn't stop them.
The bad guys, Walsh didn't dink-'n'-dunk 'em as much as he out-thunk 'em.
Along the way, he berated his men and he praised them, made them cry and laugh, tore them down and built them up, made them hate him and, in the end, love him.
Walsh swung a mean pick, and no 49er ever struck it richer.
Last of the 49ers struck it rich as a pioneer
Scott Ostler - SF Chroncle
Saturday, August 11, 2007
BILL WALSH MEMORIAL SERVICE - Last of the 49ers struck it rich a...
08/11/2007
They came to the old football stadium Friday, fans and players and friends, to say goodbye to Bill Walsh, the last of the true 49ers.
Walsh wasn't the last of the football 49ers, but the last of the 49ers who began migrating to San Francisco 150 years ago because their dreams were too big to fit anywhere else in America.
They were wild, restless, desperate and a little bit crazy, and the spirit of those 49ers may have seen its last spark in a gray-haired football coach who struck gold without getting his hands dirty.
Walsh's story is the last great gold-rush saga. A window into what he achieved and the impact he had on so many lives was opened up at the public memorial service Friday at Candlestick.
It was what you might call a West Coast service - innovative, entertaining and choreographed by Bill Walsh. While he was slowly dying of leukemia, Walsh planned his own services, down to the music piped into the stadium speakers as the 8,000 or so fans filed in, a river of 49er red.
It was mostly country music - Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Jr., Johnny Cash, Little Jimmy Dickens.
The music had a wistful thread. "Always on My Mind." "All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)." "Hello, Walls." "(You'll Always Find Me Here at) Closing Time."
But you can't plan everything, and Walsh surely would have appreciated the man who stood up in the grandstands early in the service and recited a poem about the 49ers.
The emcee, Chris "Boomer" Berman, is a Bay Area guy who knows about the Beat poets, so he let the man do his thing, then said admiringly, " There's a 49er fan."
The rest of the program went pretty much as scripted. The previous day's private service at Stanford was mostly about Walsh the man, while Friday's event was more about what Walsh created here. It was an amazing machine and all he did was select the parts, assemble them by his own blueprint, teach, coach, inspire and lead.
"The man who brought it all together," Steve Young said.
And the man who held it all together for a decade. Who else but Walsh could have pulled off that miracle? As Ronnie Lott observed after the service, "Abraham Lincoln said, 'We are all copies.' Bill is not a copy, he's an original."
For sure, nobody but Walsh could have built such a marvelous contraption from the ground up, and made it soar. Former team owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr., who had many bitter battles with Walsh, went poetic on us, likening the 49ers' glory days to Camelot.
"Bill Walsh was our King Arthur and this stadium was our castle," Eddie D said.
It was DeBartolo who hired Walsh when the 47-year-old's window of opportunity as an NFL head coach had just about slammed closed. DeBartolo was either incredibly lucky or a true visionary, because that hiring had a major lasting impact on San Francisco's culture, self-image and world reputation.
DeBartolo's longtime sidekick Carmen Policy took us back to the beginning, when DeBartolo's father advised Eddie Jr. not to hire Walsh because trusted NFL insiders had convinced the senior DeBartolo that while Walsh was a smart guy, he wasn't head-coach material.
So true. Walsh was way overqualified for the job. But instead of dumbing down his system to the league's level, Walsh lifted his players and assistant coaches.
So Eddie DeBartolo Sr. was strongly opposed to his son hiring Walsh?
"That's Carmen," DeBartolo Jr. said after the service, in a tone indicating that Policy's speech had been overly dramatic. "(My dad) was just a little concerned about the salary. He wanted to pay Bill $45,000. Bill wanted two-something ($200,000-plus)."
So how much did Walsh get?
"Two-something," DeBartolo said.
For his dough, DeBartolo got a genius who had the kind of plan and faith and determination that gets Golden Gate Bridges built.
Joe Montana explained after the service how the West Coast offense had been a new way of thinking. Opposing defenses hated to give up four yards on a running play, but a four-yard pass? No biggie.
"In their mind," Montana said, "they were saying, 'It's only four yards (gain on the pass play), we stopped 'em.' "
Four yards and a cloud of Jerry Rice's cologne.
Four yards at a time, Walsh's 49ers won three Super Bowls. Critics disparaged Walsh's schemes, but couldn't stop them.
The bad guys, Walsh didn't dink-'n'-dunk 'em as much as he out-thunk 'em.
Along the way, he berated his men and he praised them, made them cry and laugh, tore them down and built them up, made them hate him and, in the end, love him.
Walsh swung a mean pick, and no 49er ever struck it richer.
Friday, August 10, 2007
USA Today Gallup Poll Rigged To Favor Clinton - Video
This is the video follow-up to the blog post I wrote on the USA Today Gallup Poll.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Hillary Clinton Flip-Flops Yet Again - This Time On Nukes!
Let's see. She's flip-flopped on Iraq, diploamacy, and now the use of nuclear weapons. And all to counter Senator Barack Obama. She's really scared of losing to him, so much so she's endangering the Democratic Party's chance of winning against the Republicans should she win the nomination.
Clinton Expressed Views on Nukes in 2006 - Huff Post
BETH FOUHY | August 9, 2007 04:33 PM EST |
NEW YORK — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who chastised rival Barack Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in the war on terror, did just that when asked about Iran a year ago.
"I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table," she said in April 2006.
Her views expressed while she was gearing up for a presidential run stand in conflict with her comments this month regarding Obama, who faced heavy criticism from leaders of both parties, including Clinton, after saying it would be "a profound mistake" to deploy nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table," he said.
Clinton, who has tried to cast her rival as too inexperienced for the job of commander in chief, said of Obama's stance on Pakistan: "I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons."
But that's exactly what she did in an interview with Bloomberg Television in April 2006. The New York senator, a member of the Armed Services committee, was asked about reports that the Bush administration was considering military intervention _ possibly even a nuclear strike _ to prevent Iran from escalating its nuclear program.
"I have said publicly no option should be off the table, but I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table," Clinton said. "This administration has been very willing to talk about using nuclear weapons in a way we haven't seen since the dawn of a nuclear age. I think that's a terrible mistake."
Clinton's views on the potential use of nuclear weapons appear to have changed since then.
Her campaign spokesman, Phil Singer, said the circumstances for her remarks last year were different than the situation Obama faced.
"She was asked to respond to specific reports that the Bush-Cheney administration was actively considering nuclear strikes on Iran even as it refused to engage diplomatically," he said. "She wasn't talking about a broad hypothetical nor was she speaking as a presidential candidate. Given the saber-rattling that was coming from the Bush White House at the time, it was totally appropriate and necessary to respond to that report and call it the wrong policy."
Clinton Expressed Views on Nukes in 2006 - Huff Post
BETH FOUHY | August 9, 2007 04:33 PM EST |
NEW YORK — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who chastised rival Barack Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in the war on terror, did just that when asked about Iran a year ago.
"I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table," she said in April 2006.
Her views expressed while she was gearing up for a presidential run stand in conflict with her comments this month regarding Obama, who faced heavy criticism from leaders of both parties, including Clinton, after saying it would be "a profound mistake" to deploy nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table," he said.
Clinton, who has tried to cast her rival as too inexperienced for the job of commander in chief, said of Obama's stance on Pakistan: "I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons."
But that's exactly what she did in an interview with Bloomberg Television in April 2006. The New York senator, a member of the Armed Services committee, was asked about reports that the Bush administration was considering military intervention _ possibly even a nuclear strike _ to prevent Iran from escalating its nuclear program.
"I have said publicly no option should be off the table, but I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table," Clinton said. "This administration has been very willing to talk about using nuclear weapons in a way we haven't seen since the dawn of a nuclear age. I think that's a terrible mistake."
Clinton's views on the potential use of nuclear weapons appear to have changed since then.
Her campaign spokesman, Phil Singer, said the circumstances for her remarks last year were different than the situation Obama faced.
"She was asked to respond to specific reports that the Bush-Cheney administration was actively considering nuclear strikes on Iran even as it refused to engage diplomatically," he said. "She wasn't talking about a broad hypothetical nor was she speaking as a presidential candidate. Given the saber-rattling that was coming from the Bush White House at the time, it was totally appropriate and necessary to respond to that report and call it the wrong policy."
TPM: Obama Spot On About Pakistan, Gives Washington Insiders Bellyache
Obama and Pakistan
08.09.07 -- 11:16AM
By Josh Marshall - talkingpointsmemo.com
I'm always interested to try to tease apart and find the meta-debates operating beneath the surface of campaign debates. As I wrote a few years ago in what I called the bitch-slap theory of GOP electoral politics, the whole swift-boat saga was less about the specifics of Kerry's injuries forty years ago than whether he could defend himself from the charges today. Someone who can't defend himself is weak; and if a guy can't defend himself he can't defend you.
That's what that whole song-and-dance was about.
So what is this back and forth about Obama and Pakistan about?
What this has boiled down to -- and this became even more clear after Tuesday night's labor-hosted debate, when Biden and Dodd acted as Hillary's proxies -- is Hillary, in league with the party's foreign policy establishment, trying to make Obama, implicitly or explicitly, concede an error, that he misspoke.
Precisely what he misspoke about is largely beside the point. The key is that they get him to concede that in the complex and serious world of foreign policy big-think, where words have consequences, he made an error. Of course, it's almost good enough if most observers decide that Obama screwed up. But once he concedes it himself, if he does, he stipulates from now through the end of the Democratic primary campaign that his inexperience in foreign policy is a basic premise of the campaign upon which the battle between him and Hillary will be waged. He can learn, improve, make progress, whatever, but his inexperience compared to Hillary will continue to be the reference point throughout.
But I think he's done a pretty good job so far refusing to get put in that box. And the truth is that I think Obama's actual words are so clearly unobjectionable that this is all Kabuki theater of a particularly strained and disingenuous sort. All Obama said was that if we have actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of high-value al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, and Pakistan won't act, we will act.
Clearly, no Republican can quibble with this. They're on the record for invading countries because they might become dangers to us at some point in the future. They're hardly in a position to disagree with Obama if he says we'll hunt down people who committed mass casualty terror attacks within our borders. And I'm not sure Democrats are in much of a position to do so either.
The unspoken truth here, I suspect, is that Obama has struck on the central folly of our post-9/11 counter-terrorism defense policy -- strike hard where they aren't and go easy where they are. I think everyone can see this. But Obama got there first. So they need to attack him for saying it.
Courant's Jessica Marsden Reports We've Got Too Much Media
Media Consumers Finally Saying, `Enough Already!'
Begin Cutting Claims On Time
By JESSICA MARSDEN | Courant Staff Writer
August 8, 2007
Americans' appetite for time in front of the computer, iPod or television may finally be on the wane, after almost a decade during which our media consumption grew steadily.
Consumers spent slightly less time with media - including both traditional and digital offerings, in print and onscreen - in 2006, compared with 2005. It was the first decline since 1997, private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson reported Tuesday.
We now log an average of 9.7 hours each day consuming media. Some experts say we're at the saturation point.
"There's only so much time available to add more kinds of media," University of Hartford communications Professor Jack Banks said. "At some point, something's gotta give."
That something is likely to be traditional, ad-supported media like broadcast television and printed newspapers, which the report found are enjoying less attention from consumers as emerging media take up more of their time.
The 3,530 hours that the average consumer spent with media in 2006 - a whopping 40 percent of all hours, including sleep time - represented a 0.5 percent drop from 2005. Over the previous decade, media usage typically increased 1 percent to 3 percent a year, said Leo Kivijarv, vice president for research at PQ Media, which produced the report with VSS.
The term media was widely defined, including TV, newspapers, movies, books, music and video games, not to mention the wide world of the Internet.
Much of the previous decade's growth in media consumption stemmed from new technologies that generated new excitement. Kivijarv said. For example, consumers replacing VCRs with DVD players tended to spend more time with the new devices.
The slowdown in media consumption in 2006 represents a saturation point, Kivijarv said, but that doesn't mean Americans are waning in their hunger for the offerings on the vast media menu. Rather, he suggested, "on-demand" digital technologies allow consumers to be more efficient. Instead of leafing through several sections of a newspaper, readers are able to call up the two or three articles of interest to them, almost immediately on a newspaper's website, he said.
"Somebody goes online, they're very specific for what they're looking for," he said.
In a landscape as broad as American media, there could be plenty of room for growth in some areas even as others are saturated. For example, we could be unable to digest more active, leisure-time media at home, but have time available for more at the office, said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University.
The VSS report notes that media use at businesses and government offices - for legitimate work purposes - increased by about 3 percent in 2006, to an average 260 hours per employee. With a 40-hour week totaling 2,000 hours a year, that represents room for growth.
Then there is the matter of procrastination at work, as computers bring a festival of time-wasting opportunities that expand as old-line media jump online, Thompson said. Now that TV networks have started to offer their programming online, you can spend a very long lunch hour catching up on the latest episode of "Grey's Anatomy."
Last year, Thompson said, "was a big year for being able to watch TV at work and get away with it. You could never have dragged a portable TV set into your cubicle."
Young people are "probably at 100 percent media saturation, even counting sleeping," he said. Multitasking intersperses media consumption with the rest of life, and portable technology makes it possible to bring those habits anywhere, he said.
The report draws a sharp distinction between media that are mostly paid for by advertisers, such as broadcast TV and print journalism, and subscriber-funded media, including cable TV, video games and some websites. The first group, the heart of traditional mass media, is declining. The latter group is growing.
Advertisers have already followed audiences into new media, and that trend will gain speed. By 2011, the VSS report estimates, the Internet will surpass newspapers as the largest medium for advertising.
Contact Jessica Marsden at jmarsden@courant.com.
Begin Cutting Claims On Time
By JESSICA MARSDEN | Courant Staff Writer
August 8, 2007
Americans' appetite for time in front of the computer, iPod or television may finally be on the wane, after almost a decade during which our media consumption grew steadily.
Consumers spent slightly less time with media - including both traditional and digital offerings, in print and onscreen - in 2006, compared with 2005. It was the first decline since 1997, private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson reported Tuesday.
We now log an average of 9.7 hours each day consuming media. Some experts say we're at the saturation point.
"There's only so much time available to add more kinds of media," University of Hartford communications Professor Jack Banks said. "At some point, something's gotta give."
That something is likely to be traditional, ad-supported media like broadcast television and printed newspapers, which the report found are enjoying less attention from consumers as emerging media take up more of their time.
The 3,530 hours that the average consumer spent with media in 2006 - a whopping 40 percent of all hours, including sleep time - represented a 0.5 percent drop from 2005. Over the previous decade, media usage typically increased 1 percent to 3 percent a year, said Leo Kivijarv, vice president for research at PQ Media, which produced the report with VSS.
The term media was widely defined, including TV, newspapers, movies, books, music and video games, not to mention the wide world of the Internet.
Much of the previous decade's growth in media consumption stemmed from new technologies that generated new excitement. Kivijarv said. For example, consumers replacing VCRs with DVD players tended to spend more time with the new devices.
The slowdown in media consumption in 2006 represents a saturation point, Kivijarv said, but that doesn't mean Americans are waning in their hunger for the offerings on the vast media menu. Rather, he suggested, "on-demand" digital technologies allow consumers to be more efficient. Instead of leafing through several sections of a newspaper, readers are able to call up the two or three articles of interest to them, almost immediately on a newspaper's website, he said.
"Somebody goes online, they're very specific for what they're looking for," he said.
In a landscape as broad as American media, there could be plenty of room for growth in some areas even as others are saturated. For example, we could be unable to digest more active, leisure-time media at home, but have time available for more at the office, said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University.
The VSS report notes that media use at businesses and government offices - for legitimate work purposes - increased by about 3 percent in 2006, to an average 260 hours per employee. With a 40-hour week totaling 2,000 hours a year, that represents room for growth.
Then there is the matter of procrastination at work, as computers bring a festival of time-wasting opportunities that expand as old-line media jump online, Thompson said. Now that TV networks have started to offer their programming online, you can spend a very long lunch hour catching up on the latest episode of "Grey's Anatomy."
Last year, Thompson said, "was a big year for being able to watch TV at work and get away with it. You could never have dragged a portable TV set into your cubicle."
Young people are "probably at 100 percent media saturation, even counting sleeping," he said. Multitasking intersperses media consumption with the rest of life, and portable technology makes it possible to bring those habits anywhere, he said.
The report draws a sharp distinction between media that are mostly paid for by advertisers, such as broadcast TV and print journalism, and subscriber-funded media, including cable TV, video games and some websites. The first group, the heart of traditional mass media, is declining. The latter group is growing.
Advertisers have already followed audiences into new media, and that trend will gain speed. By 2011, the VSS report estimates, the Internet will surpass newspapers as the largest medium for advertising.
Contact Jessica Marsden at jmarsden@courant.com.
Someone Help ESPN Redesign The ESPN 360 Website
According to Valleywag, ESPN's ESPN 360 website is getting a makeover, adding live streaming video of certain sports events. Frankly, I still don't think ESPN really gets new media.
Given its presence in sports, one would expect a state-of-the-art approach, as well as the realization that they can do better than just sticking videos on a page.
Oh well. It's obvious ESPN's not located in the SF Bay Area.
Given its presence in sports, one would expect a state-of-the-art approach, as well as the realization that they can do better than just sticking videos on a page.
Oh well. It's obvious ESPN's not located in the SF Bay Area.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
An Email From The Animal Fighting & Cruelty Campaign On Michael Vick
For some reason I don't think this is an official organization; rather, it seems to be an email from a single person. Regardless, it explains the pain animal rights activists have over the entire Michael Vick Dog Fighting Issue. Here's the email.
Dear Friends of Animals,
We received your comments regarding the recent dogfighting allegations
against Michael Vick and we understand you disagree with our call for
the NFL to suspend the celebrity quarterback as well as our call for
Nike to drop him as a spokesperson. We apologize for the delayed
response. We wanted to take a moment to explain on position.
As you know, in late April Surry County Virginia Sheriff's Office raided
Vick's 15-acre property and massive evidence of animal fighting was
found. There were blood splatters on the floor of one room and a
blood-stained rolled-up carpet in the corner of another. Veterinarian
drugs and, according to one account, syringes were found in the house.
More than 60 dogs were also found, some of them heavily scarred with
gashes on their bodies. One had a severely injured leg that was bent
at a grotesque angle.
Since the raid, Vick has been indicted for charges related to
dogfighting. The indictment cites horrible instances of animal cruelty,
including killing dogs by means of electrocution and slamming one to the
ground several times. The NFL has taken these allegations seriously
enough to bench Vick and he has been dropped by many of his corporate
sponsors, including Nike.
The judicial system will determine whether or not Vick is guilty of
violating state or federal laws against animal fighting, but at the very
least, Vick turned a blind eye to the horrible animal cruelty on his
property. We believe that our nation should have a zero-tolerance policy
for dogfighting. Michael Vick has not been denied his right to due
process and in fact, he even has the means to hire top-dollar lawyers,
which is more than most people can do. He has his day in court.
Regardless, our nation should not just focus on this case, but the fact
that this blood-sport is an epidemic in our society and warrants our
immediate attention.
We appreciate your interest in dogfighting issues and we also encourage
you to contact the NFL to urge them to adopt a zero-tolerance police on
dogfighting.
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/US_2007_dogfighting_nfl
Thank you for your considerate thoughts on this issue.
Animal Fighting & Cruelty Campaign
Interested in taking action online to help animals? Then join our online community! Go to http://humanesociety.org/join
Dear Friends of Animals,
We received your comments regarding the recent dogfighting allegations
against Michael Vick and we understand you disagree with our call for
the NFL to suspend the celebrity quarterback as well as our call for
Nike to drop him as a spokesperson. We apologize for the delayed
response. We wanted to take a moment to explain on position.
As you know, in late April Surry County Virginia Sheriff's Office raided
Vick's 15-acre property and massive evidence of animal fighting was
found. There were blood splatters on the floor of one room and a
blood-stained rolled-up carpet in the corner of another. Veterinarian
drugs and, according to one account, syringes were found in the house.
More than 60 dogs were also found, some of them heavily scarred with
gashes on their bodies. One had a severely injured leg that was bent
at a grotesque angle.
Since the raid, Vick has been indicted for charges related to
dogfighting. The indictment cites horrible instances of animal cruelty,
including killing dogs by means of electrocution and slamming one to the
ground several times. The NFL has taken these allegations seriously
enough to bench Vick and he has been dropped by many of his corporate
sponsors, including Nike.
The judicial system will determine whether or not Vick is guilty of
violating state or federal laws against animal fighting, but at the very
least, Vick turned a blind eye to the horrible animal cruelty on his
property. We believe that our nation should have a zero-tolerance policy
for dogfighting. Michael Vick has not been denied his right to due
process and in fact, he even has the means to hire top-dollar lawyers,
which is more than most people can do. He has his day in court.
Regardless, our nation should not just focus on this case, but the fact
that this blood-sport is an epidemic in our society and warrants our
immediate attention.
We appreciate your interest in dogfighting issues and we also encourage
you to contact the NFL to urge them to adopt a zero-tolerance police on
dogfighting.
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/US_2007_dogfighting_nfl
Thank you for your considerate thoughts on this issue.
Animal Fighting & Cruelty Campaign
Interested in taking action online to help animals? Then join our online community! Go to http://humanesociety.org/join
Yearly Kos Has Endangered Hillary's Nomination - Paul Hogarth in Beyond Chron
Yearly Kos Has Endangered Hillary's Nomination
by Paul Hogarth
http://www.opednews.com
I wrote this for today's Beyond Chron , San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily
With 1,500 delegates at Yearly Kos, I only met two Hillary Clinton supporters. She is the current front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, and is hoping to get it by inevitability. But this doesn’t mean the blogosphere is “out of touch,” although blogger demographics clearly work against her. Hillary Clinton’s current lead in the polls comes from a higher name recognition, and a strategic muddling of her position on Iraq so that progressives don’t hate her.
Hillary was the biggest loser in the Convention’s August 4th Debate, as she defended taking money from Washington lobbyists and argued that we are now “safer” than on September 11th. While Iraq never came up in her pre-debate break-out session, that’s because only five people – including myself – got to ask her a question. Hillary’s response to my question about the Clinton years was the session’s “only moment of tension,” and confirmed she is a ruthless triangulator who will take progressives for granted. If Democrats realize this, she will lose the nomination.
“It is really no mystery why Hillary Clinton’s current lead is not reflected in the netroots,” said Chris Bowers of Open Left, and formerly MyDD.com. “The blogosphere is 60% male, and she does better with women. It’s 45% secular, and her voters are religious. Bloggers are younger, richer and better informed. In every single circumstance, it’s the worst demographic for Hillary Clinton.”
Of course, one media narrative to explain why bloggers don’t support the front-runner is that they are “out of touch” with Democratic voters, a common theme that is often used to marginalize progressive activists. But making the Yearly Kos Convention sound like a gathering of Naderites is absurd. When Dennis Kucinich said at the Debate that voters see “no difference” between the two major parties, he was loudly booed.
Another theory is name recognition – Hillary Clinton is a known quantity that reflects her lead in the polls, and less informed voters are most likely to pick her. Although 64% of New Hampshire Democrats recently said they are “still trying to decide” among the candidates, only 9% mark “undecided” when asked to make a choice. With voters less familiar with John Edwards and Barack Obama, Hillary’s the main beneficiary.
But while that’s a factor, Clinton has also modified her position on Iraq so that bloggers now thinks that she would make an acceptable nominee – though far from ideal. “She’s done a great job blurring on the war,” said Markos Moulitsas. Pandering on this issue is a strategy that’s been used before. In early 2004, when John Kerry was trailing Howard Dean because of the Iraq War, he started shifting his position – and it worked.
Clinton got a tame reception at the Convention – leading most of the media to wrongly conclude that it was favorable. But if the bloggers had been more aggressive in expressing their true opinions about her, Hillary would have called them rude and mean-spirited. Then she would have used that image to marginalize them as disgruntled lefties.
All things considered, I’m glad that the bloggers were polite. When Dianne Feinstein ran for Governor of California, she got booed at the state party convention for supporting the death penalty – and then used that in a commercial to prove she wasn’t a liberal. It is painfully obvious that Hillary wanted to get booed at this Convention; when she finally did, she said, “I’ve been waiting for this to happen.”
Hillary got booed during the Yearly Kos Presidential Debate because she refused to join Edwards and Obama and stop taking money from Washington lobbyists. Incredibly, she rationalized her refusal by saying that lobbyists “represent real Americans – nurses, social workers, and they represent corporations who employ a lot of people.”
Hillary dug herself in a hole with that statement, and all it took to bury her was Obama’s reminder of how the insurance lobby defeated health care reform in 1994. "You can't tell me that money did not have an influence,” he said. “You can't tell me that money was for the public good.” If anyone won that debate, it was probably Obama.
Hillary lost even further credibility when she said that we are now safer than before September 11th. Everyone knows that the invasion of Iraq has ruined our standing in the world, and her statements that “we’ve made a lot of changes” such as taking off our shoes at airports was both naïve and insulting. Edwards had a great response about how the use of torture and other attacks on our civil liberties has made us less safe.
Besides the Debate, delegates got to attend an individual break-out session with one of the candidates. None of the delegates asked Hillary about Iraq, but that’s because only five people got to ask questions. And unlike Edwards and Obama – who in their sessions blindly called on the bloggers themselves – Hillary had her Internet Director, who has heavily courted the netroots and knew who in the room was friendly, pick on people.
The first person he called upon asked a softball question about education, which Hillary proceeded to answer for nine of the session’s 30 minutes. While I don’t know if that question was a plant (and many people suggested that later), it’s clear that she chose to give a long-winded answer in order to kill time. But because I had strategically placed myself in a visible part of the room – and by dumb luck was wearing a bright red shirt that day – her Internet Director called on me during the last five minutes.
“Senator Clinton,” I said. “My name is Paul Hogarth, and I am from Beyond Chron in San Francisco. First, I’d like to thank you for having gone on the record saying that you would repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – which passed during your husband’s administration. I want to ask you about four other pieces of legislation that happened in the Clinton years, and whether you would be willing to advocate their repeal – the Defense of Marriage Act, the Telecommunications Act, NAFTA, and the Welfare Bill.”
Her answer to my question was absolutely awful. Like her statements in the Debate, it exposed her as an anti-progressive triangulator – and was the tensest moment of the break-out session. If Democrats wake up and realize that the Bill Clinton years (although far better than the Bush years) had some serious issues and we cannot trust Hillary to be a progressive leader to get us out of the wilderness, she can be defeated.
Here’s what each of the laws did and what Hillary’s answer was to my question:
Defense of Marriage: DOMA, passed in 1996 when Bill Clinton wanted to deprive Bob Dole of a campaign issue, allows states not to recognize an out-of-state gay marriage. “DOMA served a very important purpose,” she said. “I was one of the architects in the strategy of fighting the 2004 Marriage Amendment, and DOMA gave us a bright line to be able to pull back the votes.”
Telecommunications Act of 1996: The Telecommunications Act is one of the main reasons why Clear Channel and Hillary’s new friend, Rupert Murdoch, today own most of the airwaves. “I don’t know,” she said, “ask Al Gore.”
NAFTA: The 1993 trade agreement has been absolutely devastating to labor and environmental standards. “NAFTA did not realize what was promised for a number of reasons,” she said. “We need to have an ongoing evaluation.”
Welfare Repeal: Also passed in 1996 when Bill Clinton wanted to deny Bob Dole a campaign issue, the Welfare Bill denied legal immigrants the right to get Food Stamps and SSI. It was an awful piece of legislation, and her response was that “the positive consequences outweighed the negative.”
You can watch a clip of the break-out session here.
I could have been far more confrontational in asking my question, but that would have played right into her hands because I would have sounded shrill and mean-spirited. Which is why I made a point to thank her for agreeing to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
Hillary’s campaign was ready to spin the Convention regardless of a warm or cool reception. Either she made peace with an important constituency that makes her nomination “inevitable,” or else she was harshly attacked by a group of extremists who “don’t represent” the party.
The truth – that the bloggers knew better than fall in that trap and were just being polite – is too subtle for the mainstream media to pick up. What’s news here is not what the bloggers said or did, but what Hillary did. She hung herself when asked tough questions, and exposed herself as an anti-progressive triangulator.
Readers of this website know that we are highly critical of the San Francisco Chronicle. In fact, our name – Beyond Chron – derives from the paper’s terrible coverage of state and local politics. But as someone who played a small role in this news story, I have never been angrier at the Chronicle for painting such a rosy picture of Clinton’s support at the Convention.
The Chronicle’s coverage was by far the worst coverage of Hillary Clinton and the Convention that I have read. Most newspapers like the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times led with the Clinton-Obama flap about lobbying money, and the Washington Post said she got “mixed reviews.” None was so uncritically positive about the myth that Hillary made peace with bloggers.
The Chronicle also referred to me as “one blogger with a challenging question” – and failed to mention that I happen to be from their hometown. There was no excuse for the Chronicle to claim ignorance. I stated in my question that I was with Beyond Chron, and the Washington Post mentioned that I was from San Francisco.
Hillary Clinton did not get a warm reception at the Yearly Kos Convention, nor was she attacked by a shrill minority. Through the break-out session and her own ridiculous statements during the debate, she was exposed as an anti-progressive triangulator. And this is what could put her nomination in doubt.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Stay tuned for tomorrow's Beyond Chron, where Paul Hogarth will conclude his report about the Yearly Kos Convention. Send feedback to paul@beyondchron.org
by Paul Hogarth
http://www.opednews.com
I wrote this for today's Beyond Chron , San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily
With 1,500 delegates at Yearly Kos, I only met two Hillary Clinton supporters. She is the current front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, and is hoping to get it by inevitability. But this doesn’t mean the blogosphere is “out of touch,” although blogger demographics clearly work against her. Hillary Clinton’s current lead in the polls comes from a higher name recognition, and a strategic muddling of her position on Iraq so that progressives don’t hate her.
Hillary was the biggest loser in the Convention’s August 4th Debate, as she defended taking money from Washington lobbyists and argued that we are now “safer” than on September 11th. While Iraq never came up in her pre-debate break-out session, that’s because only five people – including myself – got to ask her a question. Hillary’s response to my question about the Clinton years was the session’s “only moment of tension,” and confirmed she is a ruthless triangulator who will take progressives for granted. If Democrats realize this, she will lose the nomination.
“It is really no mystery why Hillary Clinton’s current lead is not reflected in the netroots,” said Chris Bowers of Open Left, and formerly MyDD.com. “The blogosphere is 60% male, and she does better with women. It’s 45% secular, and her voters are religious. Bloggers are younger, richer and better informed. In every single circumstance, it’s the worst demographic for Hillary Clinton.”
Of course, one media narrative to explain why bloggers don’t support the front-runner is that they are “out of touch” with Democratic voters, a common theme that is often used to marginalize progressive activists. But making the Yearly Kos Convention sound like a gathering of Naderites is absurd. When Dennis Kucinich said at the Debate that voters see “no difference” between the two major parties, he was loudly booed.
Another theory is name recognition – Hillary Clinton is a known quantity that reflects her lead in the polls, and less informed voters are most likely to pick her. Although 64% of New Hampshire Democrats recently said they are “still trying to decide” among the candidates, only 9% mark “undecided” when asked to make a choice. With voters less familiar with John Edwards and Barack Obama, Hillary’s the main beneficiary.
But while that’s a factor, Clinton has also modified her position on Iraq so that bloggers now thinks that she would make an acceptable nominee – though far from ideal. “She’s done a great job blurring on the war,” said Markos Moulitsas. Pandering on this issue is a strategy that’s been used before. In early 2004, when John Kerry was trailing Howard Dean because of the Iraq War, he started shifting his position – and it worked.
Clinton got a tame reception at the Convention – leading most of the media to wrongly conclude that it was favorable. But if the bloggers had been more aggressive in expressing their true opinions about her, Hillary would have called them rude and mean-spirited. Then she would have used that image to marginalize them as disgruntled lefties.
All things considered, I’m glad that the bloggers were polite. When Dianne Feinstein ran for Governor of California, she got booed at the state party convention for supporting the death penalty – and then used that in a commercial to prove she wasn’t a liberal. It is painfully obvious that Hillary wanted to get booed at this Convention; when she finally did, she said, “I’ve been waiting for this to happen.”
Hillary got booed during the Yearly Kos Presidential Debate because she refused to join Edwards and Obama and stop taking money from Washington lobbyists. Incredibly, she rationalized her refusal by saying that lobbyists “represent real Americans – nurses, social workers, and they represent corporations who employ a lot of people.”
Hillary dug herself in a hole with that statement, and all it took to bury her was Obama’s reminder of how the insurance lobby defeated health care reform in 1994. "You can't tell me that money did not have an influence,” he said. “You can't tell me that money was for the public good.” If anyone won that debate, it was probably Obama.
Hillary lost even further credibility when she said that we are now safer than before September 11th. Everyone knows that the invasion of Iraq has ruined our standing in the world, and her statements that “we’ve made a lot of changes” such as taking off our shoes at airports was both naïve and insulting. Edwards had a great response about how the use of torture and other attacks on our civil liberties has made us less safe.
Besides the Debate, delegates got to attend an individual break-out session with one of the candidates. None of the delegates asked Hillary about Iraq, but that’s because only five people got to ask questions. And unlike Edwards and Obama – who in their sessions blindly called on the bloggers themselves – Hillary had her Internet Director, who has heavily courted the netroots and knew who in the room was friendly, pick on people.
The first person he called upon asked a softball question about education, which Hillary proceeded to answer for nine of the session’s 30 minutes. While I don’t know if that question was a plant (and many people suggested that later), it’s clear that she chose to give a long-winded answer in order to kill time. But because I had strategically placed myself in a visible part of the room – and by dumb luck was wearing a bright red shirt that day – her Internet Director called on me during the last five minutes.
“Senator Clinton,” I said. “My name is Paul Hogarth, and I am from Beyond Chron in San Francisco. First, I’d like to thank you for having gone on the record saying that you would repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – which passed during your husband’s administration. I want to ask you about four other pieces of legislation that happened in the Clinton years, and whether you would be willing to advocate their repeal – the Defense of Marriage Act, the Telecommunications Act, NAFTA, and the Welfare Bill.”
Her answer to my question was absolutely awful. Like her statements in the Debate, it exposed her as an anti-progressive triangulator – and was the tensest moment of the break-out session. If Democrats wake up and realize that the Bill Clinton years (although far better than the Bush years) had some serious issues and we cannot trust Hillary to be a progressive leader to get us out of the wilderness, she can be defeated.
Here’s what each of the laws did and what Hillary’s answer was to my question:
Defense of Marriage: DOMA, passed in 1996 when Bill Clinton wanted to deprive Bob Dole of a campaign issue, allows states not to recognize an out-of-state gay marriage. “DOMA served a very important purpose,” she said. “I was one of the architects in the strategy of fighting the 2004 Marriage Amendment, and DOMA gave us a bright line to be able to pull back the votes.”
Telecommunications Act of 1996: The Telecommunications Act is one of the main reasons why Clear Channel and Hillary’s new friend, Rupert Murdoch, today own most of the airwaves. “I don’t know,” she said, “ask Al Gore.”
NAFTA: The 1993 trade agreement has been absolutely devastating to labor and environmental standards. “NAFTA did not realize what was promised for a number of reasons,” she said. “We need to have an ongoing evaluation.”
Welfare Repeal: Also passed in 1996 when Bill Clinton wanted to deny Bob Dole a campaign issue, the Welfare Bill denied legal immigrants the right to get Food Stamps and SSI. It was an awful piece of legislation, and her response was that “the positive consequences outweighed the negative.”
You can watch a clip of the break-out session here.
I could have been far more confrontational in asking my question, but that would have played right into her hands because I would have sounded shrill and mean-spirited. Which is why I made a point to thank her for agreeing to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
Hillary’s campaign was ready to spin the Convention regardless of a warm or cool reception. Either she made peace with an important constituency that makes her nomination “inevitable,” or else she was harshly attacked by a group of extremists who “don’t represent” the party.
The truth – that the bloggers knew better than fall in that trap and were just being polite – is too subtle for the mainstream media to pick up. What’s news here is not what the bloggers said or did, but what Hillary did. She hung herself when asked tough questions, and exposed herself as an anti-progressive triangulator.
Readers of this website know that we are highly critical of the San Francisco Chronicle. In fact, our name – Beyond Chron – derives from the paper’s terrible coverage of state and local politics. But as someone who played a small role in this news story, I have never been angrier at the Chronicle for painting such a rosy picture of Clinton’s support at the Convention.
The Chronicle’s coverage was by far the worst coverage of Hillary Clinton and the Convention that I have read. Most newspapers like the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times led with the Clinton-Obama flap about lobbying money, and the Washington Post said she got “mixed reviews.” None was so uncritically positive about the myth that Hillary made peace with bloggers.
The Chronicle also referred to me as “one blogger with a challenging question” – and failed to mention that I happen to be from their hometown. There was no excuse for the Chronicle to claim ignorance. I stated in my question that I was with Beyond Chron, and the Washington Post mentioned that I was from San Francisco.
Hillary Clinton did not get a warm reception at the Yearly Kos Convention, nor was she attacked by a shrill minority. Through the break-out session and her own ridiculous statements during the debate, she was exposed as an anti-progressive triangulator. And this is what could put her nomination in doubt.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Stay tuned for tomorrow's Beyond Chron, where Paul Hogarth will conclude his report about the Yearly Kos Convention. Send feedback to paul@beyondchron.org
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
AFL-CIO Democratic Candidates Forum - Huff Post , Daily Kos Bloggers Score It For Barack Obama
I missed the AFL CIO Democratic Candidates debate to have dinner with my Mom and friends, but figured that I could get a great recap via the Huff Post Live Blog, and I was not disappointed.
The Huff Post writers seem to give Senator Barack Obama the best marks with Senator Clinton and Dennis Kucinich close behind.
And this is reflected in a Daily Kos poll , where Barack Obama is the winner, but followed by John Edwards, and then Senator Clinton.
The Huff Post writers seem to give Senator Barack Obama the best marks with Senator Clinton and Dennis Kucinich close behind.
And this is reflected in a Daily Kos poll , where Barack Obama is the winner, but followed by John Edwards, and then Senator Clinton.
Zennie's Vlog Of The CNN Roland Martin Show
This is a vlog not so much of my trip to New York to be on the CNN Roland Martin Show, but of the time leading up to the show in the green room and the show itself. It features all of the CNN / YouTube Stars who appeared on the show: CNN / YouTube debate stars, Kim Friedrich, Lucas "Brown Eyes", and Lori Harfenist aka "The Resident" and me. (Almost forgot about me.)
This video's for anyone who wonders how a person comes to be on a TV program and how they're taken care of by a network. It was a great experience. I have a lot of people to thank which I do in the video. This is also for the others who were on the show, but may not have gotten a copy of their segment.
This video's for anyone who wonders how a person comes to be on a TV program and how they're taken care of by a network. It was a great experience. I have a lot of people to thank which I do in the video. This is also for the others who were on the show, but may not have gotten a copy of their segment.
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