60 Minutes Story Very Similar to Rather's

By Zach Jevne

Over the weekend, 60 Minutes ran a story about the effects of concussions in football players that was very similar to a story featured on Dan Rather Reports six months ago.

The Rather story, which aired on HDNet, featured interviews with ex-New England Patriot Ted Johnson, who suffered concussions and the side-effects from them. He was also seen on 60 Minutes retelling the same stories.

The three other people Rather interviewed, a neurosurgeon, a doctor, and a father of a player, were also used in the 60 Minutes piece.

This is not only interesting in the fact that 60 Minutes is using a piece that features nearly all of the same sources, but that they are following Rather's footsteps. CBS and Rather have had a very public falling out, including a $70 million lawsuit filed by Rather.

In the lawsuit, Rather said that after stepping down as news anchor on March 9, 2005, CBS News essentially buried him at 60 Minutes. His court complaint said, "CBS provided very few assignments...and did not permit him to cover important stories."

Feature stories are sometimes recycled in the news business, but its interesting that this concussion story was covered by Rather at HDNet, a cable network, and then six months later it appears on the network show he used to work for.

(Photo Credit: Jim Wallace)

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Twitter and Facebook soar; Myspace loses ground

by: Amy Johnson

Countless college students use Facebook as their means of procrastination. It appears that not only are college students doing this, but people of every age.

Twitter has also exploded onto the social networking scene, joining Facebook as one of the top five social networking sites on the Internet. Both Facebook and Twitter have been on a roll this year with Facebook adding its 300 millionth user in September.

Myspace Inc.'s business took a major fall, but still found itself in second place among the social networks. Tagged is in third place.

In computer lab's all around Simpson, one can easily notice that most students may be working on a project or paper, but Facebook is also up in a different tab.

“There are so many more advertisements on the sides of my Facebook, and I find them very distracting,” junior Amy Brandt said. “The topics seem to be ridiculous too.”

Perhaps if the top advertisers on television would start putting ads on Facebook that might benefit people, they would sell more of their product. Judging by the statistics in this article, advertisers would see an increase in sales.

(Photo Credit: Jay Cameron)

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NBC Hurts After Changes

By Brianna Carlson

The "Jay Leno Show" is now two weeks into its new season. NBC is questioning if it was a correct choice to present the show five nights a week at 10 p.m.

"Law & Order SUV" has suffered since it was moved from Tuesdays at 10 p.m. to Wednesdays at 9 p.m. It was the leading drama when played on Tuesdays, but now it turned up last due to the change.

"The Tonight Show" has been a major hit and strength for NBC, but now they no longer are ahead of the competition, CBS.

Jay Leno has been doing everything NBC asks for his show. About five million viewers ages 18 to 49 watch Leno's show each night which allows advertisers to reach the group they want.

NBC only has two main shows now, "The Biggest Loser" and "The Office."

(Photo Credit:wikimedia)

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Obama's Team Threatens to Cut-ties with Fox News

By Taylor Finch

This weekend, the White House communications director, Anita Dunn, announced that they would no longer be doing news exchanges with Fox News.

Dunn explained to the New York Times that "Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party" and that it is "pointless" to try to convince Fox News to portray the Democratic Party fairly.

Isolating Fox News is a good way to make a stab at them for good short-term affects, but there are a few negatives that could have lasting affects on President Obama's reputation.

By giving up on Fox News, it will give the network's speakers, such as Glenn Beck, even more power to sway moderates into joining the Republican view. If Obama himself does not follow up on these certain comments and attempt to correct them, Fox News watchers will forget to acknowledge his side completely.

Fox will simply use this war with the White House to boost their ratings by picking on Obama and make him look weak.

Obama does not have to necessarily put up with the unfair treatment of Fox News, but adding fuel to the fire by running away probably would not help either. This is clearly a lose all situation for the White House.

(Photo by: chattahbox.com)

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Does Obama Deserve Nobel Peace Prize

By Keri Waterhouse

U.S. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize because of his healthcare reform plans.

Shortly after word of it got out, social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook users were updating their status' and tweeting.
Half of the topics on Twitter were about the Nobel Peace Prize and Obama.

On Twitter, the opinions were seperated between those who think Obama is a worthy recipient, and those who wonder how he even won the prize having only been in office not even a year yet. Many tweeters think he should refuse the prize.

If he is going to be awarded this known prize, hopefully it is for all the right reasons. I hope that in the end it won't be a mistake.

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/

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Educating the Public with Television

By Michelle Zimmerman

It has always been important to our country that everyone receives an education, so important that it is required by law. The only way to maintain a strong government is to continue teaching the citizens so they are able to continue the success of the country with generations soon pass.

Although Internet is considered the largest source for the media it is not available to all citizens whereas television broadcast can be obtained from a simple television free of charge. The idea is programs would be developed to educate people in the departments of science and civics.

Top scholars in the country would take their knowledge and broadcast it on an educational channel. The information would be important and anyone that wants to further their education could as simple as a click of the button.

There would be no physical attribute of watching these broadcasts. The reward would be the privilege of receiving the knowledge free of charge. The broadcasts will only be beneficial to those citizens that are willing to take advantage of the oppotunity.

PBS is an example of a television broadcast that is already pursuing something similar to this idea. Not only would these programs be delivered to the public but as well as institutions. It can change the way education is received.

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NASA Satellite Slams Into the Moon on Purpose

By Meghan Vosberg

On Friday, Oct. 9, a satellite the size of a school

bus intentionally smashed into the moon. NASA hopes that with this mission they can find out if the moon has water. This could be used in the future as a resource for astronauts.

The Impactor bore a 13-foot hole into the moon's surface. The reaction kicked up a wave of dust that reached 6 miles high. After the satellite hit a robot the size of a Volkswagen

Beetle, went through the debris. It recorded and sent the information back to Earth before also smashing into the lunar surface.

Experts believe that the most water on the Moon will be in dark craters in the form of ice.
"We don't anticipate anyting about presence or absence of water immediately. It's going to take ups some time," cautioned Anthony Colaprete, the principal investigator for the mission. The mission was officially launched June 18, 2009 and now the project will have to wait longer for the information to be processed. One surprising find is that sodium is present. This is something that scientists were not looking for.

Photo Credit: 21st Century New Media Ltd.

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Economic crisis effects USA Today

By: Mallory Tandy

USA Today's sales drops 390,000 copies, 17 percent less than the usual. This decrease in sales will possibly threaten USA Today's No. 1 spot as the most favored newspaper in the country. The newspaper was expecting to decrease in sales because of the price increase last December.

The president and publisher of USA Today,David Hunke, says that there has been a decrease of around 100,000 in airports and newspaper racks. People are also not getting the newspaper delivered to their home which serves as a large impact of sale for USA Today.

Staff at USA Today are not getting too worried, they are staying positive and claim to have a good plan to jump back from this low point for the newspaper.

I don't think any newspaper that has been doing poorly in sales as of late will get any better if the economy stays the way it is right now. I think newspaper sales will keep decreasing in time.

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In NBC Universal Bid, Comcast Seeks an Empire

By Laura Reid

Comcast is currently in negotiations with G.E. to merge with NBC Universal. G.E. is currently the main owner of NBC, but if all goes accordingly with Comcast and its owner Brian L. Roberts, 51 percent of NBC will be owned by him.

Comcast is already one of the biggest owners of cable systems in the country, but with this merger, it could also own USA, BRAVO, CNBC and MSNBC, four major cable networks, not to mention the huge network broadcaster NBC.

If all goes to plan, Comcast will also inherit NBC's Web's premiere TV streaming site, Hulu, which will put Comcast into the digital media realm.

There is a trend that I am seeing among huge networks and the Web. The latest among these digital media broadcasts is CBS merging with GlobalPost, an online foreign news correspondant that boasts a great number of viewers. This is a great time for smaller media conglomerates to enter the market for broadcast network ownership because of this revamping of how people are beginning to view the news.

(Photo Credit: Abigail Hamilton)

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Limbaugh Out of Control

By: Chris Mars

President Obama has been accused of another outrageous claim by Rush Limbaugh. This does not come as a surprise, since Limbaugh's success depends on the number of listeners and followers he gains.

His latest antics stem from a St. Louis school yard fight between two students, one black and one white. According to Limbaugh the blame should be put on president Obama for causing black-on-white racism in America.

Limbaugh said "You put your kid on a school bus you expect safety but in Obama's America the white kids now get beat up."

This isn't Iraq bombing American territories or another terrorist attack, it's a school yard fight. I feel this goes to show how much some of the press, you could call it entertainment press, attempts to generate interest.

The sad part about it is there are many American's who probably get their news from these sources. It's a shame people base their political education on these sources when voting or protesting.

(Photo Credit: Time Magazine)

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Journalism Students Cover Local News

By Zach Jevne

The University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism announced it would be teaming up with public broadcaster KQED to create the Bay Area News Project. It also features a full-time staff and the project will be funded by a $5 million donation from F. Warren Hellman. The project begins next year and promises to offer "high-quality, original coverage" of the San Francisco and Oakland region.

The dean of the journalism school, Neil Henry, says the school signed up to figure out a way to give local communities when the industry is losing its ability to do that kind of work. Many courses include assignments require students to become "immersed in the local region providing journalism...but haven't been able to because of cuts in the industry."

The project will rely on 120 Berkeley students to cover 7,000 square miles and several million residents. They will serve as "foot soldiers for local news", Hellman said. Students won't be required to participate but the project is hoping that the grad students will be eager for the experience and be willing to work for free to get it.

Some don't see it as all positive. While the project may create a new model for the industry, it may do so at the expense of suppressing full-time, paid positions.

"They're giving themselves an unfair advantage by relying on unpaid labor," Robert Gammon, a longtime Bay Area reporter, said. He referred to the project as "slave labor".

While the project may help students now, the practice may undermine them in the future.

"The new venture promises to be bad for the public over the long term," Gammon said. "The public will be forced to depend on inexperienced, unpaid students to inform them about what's happening in the region."

Henry believes that nonprofit newsrooms like the Bay Area News Project is the best prospect to create jobs for laid off professionals and recent graduates. He feels that giving students job training while still in school will help news organizations across the country.

Stephen Shepard, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, likes the idea and it doesn't bother him that the work is being done for free.

"If they weren't doing the work for free, I don't think some other paid journalists would be doing it," he said.

Photo Credit: (UC Berkeley)

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Search Engine battle will help media

By Ryan Franker

Microsoft and Google are battling it out to see which one is the best search engines out there and to see which one has the best online news. The president and CEO of Associated Press, Tom Curley, said he believes that the battling between who has the best search engine sites will bring a more profit to the media industry.

Just this past July, Microsoft decided to team up with Yahoo! and go against Google. Microsoft wanted to give Google a run for their money, on which company could dominant the online news search engine.

Curley would like to see a way of getting the money back that is being lost due to these online news search engines. He believes that Microsoft has an edge over Google, but he refused to criticize Google on the improvements that are being made to its site.

Microsoft plans on improving how reliable the news sources are, which Curley thinks it would benefit the media. The company is coming up with a new way to search. The link would be an image galleria rather than the normal text links.

He hopes this improvement is going to enhance the readers' experience of reading news online. He thinks this improvement will happen within the next three to fifteen months.

(Photo Credited: flickr)

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The Associated Press Decides to Try Selling Early, Exclusive News

By Taylor Finch

The Associated Press has pondered on the fact that having the power to give a head-start on news stories, to paying publishers, could possibly be quite lucrative.

The AP licenses out stories owned by newspapers and broadcasters to many of the Web's main portals, such as Google and Microsoft's MSN. At this time, all of these portals receive breaking-news at the same time.

In attempts to capitalize on the ongoing competition between Microsoft and Google, customers, such as Google and Microsoft, will now be able to pay for exclusive information on "certain topics" up to a half an hour earlier than the news story would break publicly.

Tom Curley, AP's chief executive, believes this would also help to give due credit to those newspapers and broadcasters that the stories and information originally belong to.

This does not sound like a bad idea, because these days, with all the Web availabilities, there is a lot of fame in being the first to flood the Internet with a top news story. Problems would arise, though, if the process of selling and publishing the news story was not completed before the same story leaked elsewhere.

Everyone will just have to see if this idea will be able to hold its own in today's fast-paced media journalism.

(Photo By: Mediabistro.com)

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Lawsuit Against CBS is Over

By Brianna Carlson

Dan Rather, a previous employee of CBS, filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS in 2007. Just recently, the case was rejected by the appellate division of the New York State Supreme Court.

Rather was seeking damages in a claim that his contract was broken, and he also said his reputation was ruined after his report on 60 Minutes II.

Rather stepped down from his anchor position before the report was even released. He later said his contract was violated which persued him to bring a lawsuit against the network.

The CBS lawyer estimated that Rather spent $5 million on the case. The case is now over, and the money was waisted.

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Google

By: Mallory Tandy

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google denies claims that Google is the cause for the decline in newspaper sales. In fact, Schmidt thinks it is Google's moral responsibility is to help the newspaper industry. He would like Google to start experimenting with ways of reading the news that has not been tried yet. Schmidt thinks this might help the news industry.

I think it is ridiculous that people are trying to blame Google for newspaper sales declining. Google is a search engine made to help find things.

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David Letterman Tells All

By Michelle Zimmerman

David Letterman's "The Late Show" had a different atmosphere Thursday evening when Letterman made a public announcement of a serious circumstance he had recently become involved with. Letterman made public of the attempt of blackmail by a suspect unknown at the time.

Letterman told the audience and its viewers in a very serious matter that he had been approached by a producer that was going to take bad information they had gathered throughout the past years about Letterman that could ruin his family, career and all together his life.

Complying with this unknown suspect, Letterman sent his attorney to meet with them and get a better understanding of what the obloigation was. The attorney discovers the suspect is going to write a book as well as a screenplay that would reveal unwanted information of Letterman unless Letterman was to pay him $2 million.

In defense Letterman contacted Manhattan's district attorney's office where he learned that the situation he was involved in was considered blackmail. The office advised him to give a fraudulent check for the amount being demanded and follow through with trial to testify Letterman's involvement.

Letterman then testified to the grand jury telling all of his sexual relationships with multiple women on his staff. Letterman admitted to being embarassed by the encounters but made it clear that if anyone wished to speak to the public of the relationship it would be their personal decision.

Making this announcement on television was an easy way for Letterman to say everything he needed to and clear any accusations that may formulate in the press once the charges are made public. Although Letterman was serious about the situation it still did not stop him from threading comedy throughout the revealing "tell all" speech.

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CNN Keeping Rio's Crime a Secret for 2016 Olympics

By Keri Waterhouse

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, won the vote to have the the right of the 2016 Olympics. Brazil beat Madrid, Tokyo, and Chicago. Chicago pulled out after the first round because of crime that was happening there, they had a good bid and the President of the United States and First Lady were there to support.

CNN reported on the two teen murders in Chigago that happened a week before the vote was to take place. They mentioned that the Olympics were considering being held there during the Chicago crim problem. However, CNN did not mention the issues of crim that was happening in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Rio has a big crime and drug problem, it is said to be as bad as, if not worse than Chicago's. Rio's issues with crime were not mentioned. The voting may have turned out differently if CNN would have reported on the issues with Rio as they did Chicago.

CNN is a trusted and respected news source. It is thought that maybe they were trying to hurt President Obama, I am sure that it will be talked about and people may want to revote on this now knowing about the problems in Brazil.

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News team assemble

By: Chris Mars

Yesterday, Fox Interactive took on a new name and new look. It's now known as News Corp. Digital Media, or NDM. This change took place to "empower leadership at our digital properties to operate in a more streamlined enviornment," said Jon Miller, chief digital officer. My Space, IGN Entertainment and others are all part of NDM and will all play a part of NDM. This new development has established a long-term plan across the entire company, something that seems hard to accomplish in today's ever changing technology driven world.

This comes after talk of layoff's and efforts to "resurrect Rupert Murdoch's News Corp," reported in the June 7th article by Barbara House. According to House's article Fox Interactive's revenue was reportedly down 11 percent from a year ago and costs were up 7 percent.

After seeing both articles, it seems the new approach is another attempt to keep the companies head above water. Are sites like Hulu.com too similar to keep the Fox Interactive site afloat? When looking at the two websites it seems they are identical and share the same shows and information. Why should Fox Interactive stay in a place where the market share is spoken for?

(Photo Credit: Barbara House)

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To Cover World, CBS Joins With a News Site

By Laura Reid

The CBS network has found a great way to cover world news. They have joined forces with GlobalPost, a foreign news Web site whose correspondents consist of freelance journalists.

Many news networks have been trying to find a way to cover foreign news, and CBS seems to have found a way to have better and faster news delivered to their readers.

In the early stages of this partnership, GlobalPost will only be involved in getting the information from their freelance journalists to CBS, where its journalists and reporters will broadcast the news to viewers.

GlobalPost has no problems attracting viewers to its site, which makes a good partnership for CBS, one of the four top networks on television.

I think this partnership is definitely a good start for expansion of news media in getting better global news to the nation. CBS has really taken action in the transition into the web, and with GlobalPost being such a huge foreign News site with freelance journalists, they have more of an inside scoop of what is going on in the world. Their freelance journalists will probably find stories that normal news journalists wouldn't even think are newsworthy. That is definitely a plus.

(Photo Credit: Arvind Jain)

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13 Crashes and 5 Deaths Force Toyota to Recall

By Meghan Vosberg

Toyota announced yesterday that they will be having their largest floor-mat recall. Toyota and Lexus owners have been advised to remove their driver's side floor mat to prevent the accelerator from sticking.

3.8 million vehicles have been affected, which details show to be Toyota's largest recall ever. Until given further notice, Toyota and Lexus owners should take out their driver's side floor mat to keep the unwanted and unsafe accelerating from continuing.

The majority of the models that are affected have start-stop buttons. This sounds like a safe solution, but the problem is the button does not turn off the engine unless pushed down for three seconds. This is a serious problem with issues like a stuck accelerator.

The recall was brought about by a reported crash in San Diego. An off-duty highway patrolman and his family was killed. Since this particular incident, the floor-mat and the sticking accelerator issue has been one of high importance.

According to the government, these events have been reported 102 times, in which there were 13 crashes, 3, deaths and 17 injuries. Toyota states that these reports have been announced since 2004.

(Photo Credited: David Neubert)

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