On January 29th, 2010 ABC World News chose Steve Jobs as its "Person of the Week" presumably for the introduction of the iPad. What's wrong with this picture you might ask? Here is a short answer to that complex question. ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Company. The largest shareholder of the Walt Disney Company is (wait for it) Steve Jobs, this week's "Person of the Week". Talk about brown nosing your boss. Couldn't you just buy the donuts at the next staff meeting? Don't get me wrong, Steve Jobs is amazing with couple of career's worth of highlights. The question is not "Is Steve Jobs' Life amazing?" Instead the question I would like to ask is - "Does Disney's ownership of ABC News affect the content of ABC News?" I have my answer, what's yours? Here is the ABC "Person of the Week" story on Steve Jobs - http://abcnews.go.com/WN/abcs-world-news-diane-sawyer-person-week-steve/story?id=9699563
By way of contrast, here is the NBC Nightly News story run the same days as the Jobs story. NBC calls their segment "Making a Difference." NBC chose not to profile their largest shareholder, but instead did a profile on an ER nurse helping the relief effort in Haiti. Her name is Gabby McAdoo.
When I was a young lad growing up watching the world in black and white on the RCA console TV, there aired a poor man's version of Abbott and Costello. The show was called "Mack and Myer for Hire". Now as the NBC television Network settles into the "Muck and Mire" of its own design, NBC threatens to become a poor man's version of a television network.
Read what my favorite television critic, (Tom Shales) has to say about NBC by clicking on his name at the top of the post.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Welcome to the classroom blog of Introduction To Electronic Media - CMM101-2. This blog will serve as a meeting place and will allow students to communicate with the instructor and each other outside the boundaries of the classroom. For this semester (2010) it will not replace our Blackboard site. To successfully pass the class you must still log onto Blackboard.
What this blog will do is allow us to share information. We can share our likes and dislikes about what is happening in the media today. We will be able to share our favorite websites, links, gadgets and all the other items that make navigating the media world in the 21st century such a challenge and so much fun.
