NewsTrust - Mainstream Media - Most Recent Stories: News (Mainstream)

Google Computes News Quality

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

InformationWeek - By Thomas Claburn - Nov. 16 (News Report) - A recently filed patent application suggests that Google is taking steps to promote news produced by major media companies on Google News. Whenever a newspaper dies, Google turns up on the list of suspects. The evidence of Google's involvement tends to be sketchy. A close examination of the crime scene typically points to a different villain -- the classified revenue killer known as Craigslist, parasitic news sites that siphon potential visitors, declining subscription and ad revenue, management that can't adapt, or the hyper-competition created by the Internet's ability to collapse distance and divert attention. But Google nonetheless has been forced to defend itself. In May, Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of search products and user experience, testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet that Google is the hand that feeds media companies, channeling over one billion clicks every month to online publishers through Google Search and Google News. She suggested that Wikipedia, with its constantly updated articles, might offer a better model for journalism in the Internet age than a series of separate articles. And she proposed that online publishers might be failing their readers by presenting them with Web pages that lack engaging social features.

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API's Partnership With Newsweek Raises Ad Cash and Ethics Questions

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Anne C. Mulkern - Nov. 05 (News Analysis) - Newsweek and API have teamed on four forums so far and are planning another -- "Climate and Energy Policy: Moving?" -- for Dec. 1, when the Senate could be holding a floor debate on climate legislation. An invitation sent yesterday to lawmakers' offices said Gerard again would be a panelist and that requests to speak were "currently pending confirmation with notable members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate." Lawmakers receiving invitations included Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

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What's So Scary About Michael Pollan? Why Corporate Agriculture Tried to Censor His University Speech | Health and Wellness

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Martha Rosenberg - Oct. 28 (News) - "Agribusiness gets plenty of opportunities to preach its point of view at agriculture schools such as Cal Poly, where the likes of Monsanto and Cargill fund research," the Times wrote, calling the 800-acre Harris Ranch, near Coalinga, whose "smell assaults passersby long before the panorama of thousands of cattle packed atop layers of their own manure,"--"Cowschwitz." Ouch.

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W.H. attacks worry moderate Dems

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Politico - By Jonathan Allen, Jake Sherman - Oct. 23 (News Report) - A White House effort to undermine conservative critics is generating a backlash on Capitol Hill — and not just from Republicans. “It’s a mistake,” said Rep. Jason Altmire, a moderate Democrat from western Pennsylvania. “I think it’s beneath the White House to get into a tit for tat with news organizations.”

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Behind War Between White House and Fox

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Jim Rutenberg - Oct. 23 (News Report) - Late last month, the senior White House adviser David Axelrod and Roger Ailes, chairman and chief executive of Fox News, met in an empty Palm steakhouse before it opened for the day, neutral ground secured for a secret tête-à-tête.

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Neutralizing the opposition

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Howard Kurtz - Oct. 22 (News Analysis) - The Foxified debate over whether the White House is being mean to a certain network is morphing into a broader argument about the politics of negativity. The question, which is being pushed on the right, is whether the Obama team is using its muscle to demonize its opponents. The president bears a special burden in this regard. He ran as a post-partisan guy who would reach out to the other side. (Of course, Bush also ran as a uniter-not-a-divider, and that didn't work out too well.) But while Obama is a conciliator by nature, what should a politician do when the opposition refuses to meet him even a quarter-way? Number of Republican votes for the stimulus: zero. Number of Republican votes so far for health-care reform: one. And if the insurance industry, after making a deal with the White House, attempts to sink health care? What administration wouldn't fight back? I just wonder if Obama is being held to a higher standard when he practices plain ol' politics.

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In Today's Viral World, Who Keeps a Civil Tongue?

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ann Gerhart - Oct. 10 (Special Report) - "... the Internet has changed the relationship between the elite and the non-elite. Everybody has the opportunity to be a great communicator for 15 minutes,"

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Calling 'Em Out: The White House Takes on the Press

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By The Huffington Post News Editors - Oct. 08 (News Analysis) - Nine of those so-called czars, it turned out, were subject to Senate confirmation, making them decidedly unlike the Russian monarchs. "The idea — that the Washington Post didn't even question it," Dunn says, still marveling at the decision.

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Why 'GQ' Doesn't Want Russians To Read Its Story

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

National Public Radio - By David Folkenflik - Sep. 05 (News Analysis) - Scott Anderson's piece in the September issue of GQ challenges the official line on a series of bombings that killed hundreds of people in 1999 in Russia. Although no issues have been raised to date about the article's accuracy, GQ management is trying to prevent Russians from reading it.

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Fox News host sparks outrage

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Edward Luce - Sep. 02 (News Analysis) - If the White House is trying to figure how it lost control of the debate over healthcare in August, it could take a look at Glenn Beck’s television and radio ratings. The conservative talk radio host, who also has an hourly slot on Fox News every day, has seen his viewer numbers soar even as opponents have pressed companies to withdraw advertising from the show.

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The Media Equation: For Murdoch, It’s Try, Try Again

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By David Carr - Aug. 10 (News Analysis) - The owner of News Corporation says he wants to go against the grain and “charge for all our news Web sites.”

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Now on YouTube, Local News

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Brian Stelter - Aug. 03 (News Report) - With its ability to collect articles and sell advertisements against them, Google has already become a huge force in the news business — and the scourge of many newspapers. Now its subsidiary YouTube wants to do the same thing to local television. YouTube, which already boasts of being “the biggest news platform in the world,” has created a News Near You feature that senses a user’s location and serves up a list of relevant videos. In time, it could essentially engineer a local newscast on the fly. It is already distributing hometown video from dozens of sources, and it wants to add thousands more. YouTube says it is helping TV stations and its other partners by creating a new — but so far not fiscally significant — source of revenue.

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Financial Times editor says most news websites will charge within a year

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By John Plunkett - Jul. 17 (News Report) - The Financial Times editor, Lionel Barber, has predicted that "almost all" news organisations will be charging for online content within a year. Barber said building online platforms that could charge readers on an article-by-article or subscription

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The New Haven firefighter is no stranger to employment disputes.

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Dahlia Lithwick - Jul. 16 (News Analysis) - When Frank Ricci testifies against Judge Sotomayor, it will be worth recalling that under any other set of facts he would have looked to his GOP sponsors like the kind of unscrupulous professional litigant Rush Limbaugh lives to savage. Is America's conservative movement really ready for an anti-affirmative action hero who has repeatedly relied on the government to intervene on his behalf to win him—and help him keep—a government job?

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Selling the Post Dinners

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Joshua Green - Jul. 04 (Special Report) - Mike Allen’s recent report on the controversial Washington Post lobbyist dinners has sparked a furor. One thing that’s been largely overlooked is the fact that the invitations to administration officials and members of Congress differed markedly from the “sponsorship opportunity” fliers sent to lobbyists. See for yourself: I’ve gotten a hold of an invitation and an accompanying personal email from Post publisher Katharine Weymouth to Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, a key figure in the health care debate.

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Michael Wolff on Politico

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Michael Wolff - Jul. 04 (Special Report) - Four old-media veterans may have solved the future of news with the Politico Web site, whose audience of six million obsessives and insiders consumes–and feeds–a real-time download of power data. The twist? Politico’s print version is what’s helped make it profitable.

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Post Publisher Cancels Plans for Off-the-Record 'Salons'

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Howard Kurtz - Jul. 02 (Breaking News) - Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth today canceled plans for a series of policy dinners at her home after learning that marketing fliers offered lobbyists access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress and Post journalists in exchange for payments as high as $250,000.

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At MSNBC, weekends aren't newsworthy

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Scott Collins - Jun. 25 (Special Report) - In recent days, much of the news media's attention has been focused on post-election protests and violence in Iran. But at MSNBC, the crisis has taken on a bit less urgency, at least if viewers are to judge from what the network is airing.

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Bush administration leaks bolstered Rick Renzi’s reelection bid

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Hill - By Murray Waas - Jun. 24 (News Report) - In the fall of 2006, one day after the Justice Department granted permission to a U.S. attorney to place a wiretap on a Republican congressman suspected of corruption, existence of the investigation was leaked to the press — not only compromising the sensitive criminal probe but tipping the lawmaker off to the wiretap.

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David Rohde, Times Reporter, Escapes Taliban After 7 Months

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Jun. 21 (News Report) - David Rohde, a New York Times reporter who was kidnapped by the Taliban, escaped Friday night and made his way to freedom after more than seven months of captivity in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mr. Rohde, along with a local reporter, Tahir Ludin, and their driver, Asadullah Mangal, was abducted outside Kabul, Afghanistan, on Nov. 10 while he was researching a book. Mr. Rohde was part of The Times’s reporting team that won a Pulitzer Prize this spring for coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan last year.

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Hatred, chaos and savage beatings in Tehran

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Eyewitness - Jun. 15 (Special Report) - This report was written by a witness to events in Tehran this weekend. CNN is not identifying this witness and others who have filed accounts or photos of the protests and violence in Iran and requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. He was surrounded and pleading for them to stop but six men with clubs, batons and metal rods kept battering a young Iranian man with ruthless force. The swing that keeps replaying in my head was the black baton that smashed the man in the skull behind his left ear.

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CNN’s Coverage of Iran Protests Criticized

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Brian Stelter - Jun. 14 (News Report) - The performance of the American cable news, especially CNN, spawned an online protest by thousands on Saturday and Sunday, showing that viewers can try to pressure news organizations about their coverage in real time via the Internet. Fox News Channel and MSNBC also were said to have covered the protests in limited ways.

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'#CNNFail': Twitterverse slams network's Iran absence | Webware

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

CNET News - By Daniel Terdiman - Jun. 14 (News Report) - Even as Twitter became the best source for rapid-fire news developments from the front lines of the riots in Tehran, a growing number of users of the microblogging service were incredulous at the near total lack of coverage of the story on CNN, a network that cut its teeth with on-the-spot reporting from the Middle East.

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Boston Globe Workers Reject Deal On Pay Cuts - NYTimes.com

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Richard PÉrez PeÑa - Jun. 09 (News Report) - After a day of heavy voting, the guild said its members had rejected the package by a vote of 277 to 265 — meaning 542 of the guild’s 670 members had voted. The results were posted Monday evening on the union’s Web site. The Globe and the Times Company quickly responded by setting the pay cut for guild members in motion.

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2 Ex-Timesmen Say They Had a Tip on Watergate First

Mon, 25 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Richard PÉrez PeÑa - May. 25 (Special Report) - Robert M. Smith, a former Times reporter, says that two months after the burglary, over lunch at a Washington restaurant, the acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, L. Patrick Gray, disclosed explosive aspects of the case, including the culpability of the former attorney general, John Mitchell, and hinted at White House involvement. Mr. Smith rushed back to The Times’s bureau in Washington to repeat the story to Robert H. Phelps, an editor there, who took notes and tape-recorded the conversation, according to both men. But then Mr. Smith had to hand off the story — he had quit The Times and was leaving town the next day to attend Yale Law School.

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