News Media Budget Cuts & Democracy

I've written about the loss of news media as potentially harmful to our democracy not because we'll have fewer voices -- clearly there's no dearth of voices and opinions on the blogosphere. But because we'll have fewer sources of fact rather than opinion.

Blog favorite Brian Stelter at the New York Times makes a similar point in today's paper (it's still available in paper format), When the President Travels, It’s Cheaper for Reporters to Stay Home.

As news organizations continue to seek cost savings as much as they seek the latest headline, fewer organizations are paying to have their reporters and producers fly on the charter plane that accompanies the President because the costs can be very high. The current process is that each news organization sending someone on the charter plane shares the cost of the total airfare.

The problem: As fewer organizations send reporters on the charter, the airfare per organization increases. That becomes a downward spiral, says the president of the White House Correspondents' Association: with fewer organizations able to foot the bill, the price increases, causing more organizations to drop out.

Now how does this impact democracy?

The fewer people who have access to the President to be able to report about what he does, what he says, with whom he meets, etc., the less real information we have about him, his thoughts, etc. And I think that's right -- we need access and coverage of the current president just as we need it for any past president.

Now we can't force news organizations to spend the money to cover the White House. But a while back, organizations like CBS News felt they had to serve the public interest and treat the news as if it is not a profit center. No one thinks like that anymore, though some think of news as a cost center.

That's a step back for democracy.

What's the impact of the Leno-Letterman commercial

It was a great move by Letterman/CBS & Leno/NBC to run the commercial during the Super Bowl.

The ad was the funniest aired during the Super Bowl, and was one of the funniest things Leno has down in sometime. Inside baseball, sure -- my kids didn't get it -- but they're not the target audience for late night TV, yet. It showed they both could laugh at themselves, and it generated buzz, not a bad thing for either show. It won't stop the audience erosion that all network TV is experiencing, but it certainly gives adults a reason to talk about Letterman, Leno and their shows.

The real question is: what does Oprah get from appearing with Letterman in a second Letterman/Super Bowl commercial (as she did in 2007)? I'd say funny is funny, and that doesn't hurt.

Network News Program Adapts to the Web

According to the New York Times, "ABC Reshapes the Evening News for the Web," "ABC is the only major broadcast network that is using the staff of its evening newscast to produce a separate and distinct daily program for a Web audience.

"The 15-minute Webcast often features Mr. (Charlie) Gibson (whom the article notes later is the oldest of the network anchors) in the anchor chair, but the similarities end there: the segments can run long, and they purposely look raw and personal, as if they were made for MTV rather than ABC."

The article notes that the Webcast has evolved over the past 20 months, when it had been a Web-only distillation of the regular news. The Webcast includes more pop and tech news than the on-air edition.

In contrast, CBS and NBC repurpose their regular evening news onto the Web.

Makes ABC News a much more interesting media to work with.