Rupert Murdoch's Times loses 90% of readers after adding pay wall

The Murdoch magic touch seems to have slipped ever since he bought MySpace. Nobody has yet figured out the online media revenue puzzle but it doesn't seem to be the Murdoch model.

The Times has lost almost 90% of its online readership compared to February since making registration mandatory in June, calculations by the Guardian show.

Unregistered users of thetimes.co.uk are now "bounced" to a Times+ membership page where they have to register if they want to view Times content. Data from the web metrics company Experian Hitwise shows that only 25.6% of such users sign up and proceed to a Times web page; based on custom categories taht have been used to track the performance of major UK press titles online, visits to the Times site have falledn to 4.16% of UK quality press online traffic, compared with 15% before it made registration compulsory on 15 June.

These figures can then be used to model how this may impact on the number of users hitting the new Times site. Based on the last available ABCe data for Times Online readership (from February 2010), which showed that it had 1.2 million daily unique users, and Hitwise's figures showing it had 15% of UK online newspaper traffic, that means a total of 332,800 daily users trying to visit the Times site.

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Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Politics is the main topic of the shows this morning.

You'll see Joe Biden on ABC.

The chairs of the House and Senate campaign commmittees (Senators Menendez and Cornyn and Reps. Van Hollen and Sessions) are on NBC.

And, who want to miss two of the most extreme and disturbing GOPers on the ballot this year? David Vitter, of prostitution and coddling criminals fame, is on FOX and JD Hayworth, who is definitely one of the biggest buffoons in the GOP, is on CBS.

Also on CBS, a discussion about the racism of the teabaggers between NAACP's Benjamin Jealous and a leading teabagger, David Webb.

Here's the full lineup. Read More......

Media ban lifted in Gulf spill region

What is a possible concern is who will decide who represents the media. Some of the best reporting of the events has come from independent sources online so hopefully they will be given equal access like the larger media outlets. Now we only have to count on BP security to accept this media ban since we all know how much they have respected the previous announcements.

The Coast Guard has modified a policy on safety zones around boom deployed on oiled coastlines, a policy news organizations had said unnecessarily restricted coverage of the impact of the BP oil spill and efforts to clean it up.

In a statement Monday night, the government's point man for the spill, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said new procedures permit credentialed news media free travel within the boom safety zones.

"I have put out a direction that the press are to have clear, unfettered access to this event, with two exceptions — if there is a safety or security concern," said Allen. "This boom is critical to the defense of the marshes and the beaches."

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More on MSNBC's hypocrisy and that Scarborough 'scandal'

As John noted today, MSNBC has banned Markos for being mean to Joe Scarborough. Good lord, those conservatives are thin-skinned and they're coddled.

Since MSNBC and Scarborough escalated this thing, we'll help pile on. First, Greg Sargent notes that Liz Cheney has run ads attacking MSNBC talent, but there have been no repercussions:

It's funny. I don't recall the chief of MSNBC publicly banning Liz Cheney from appearing on the network when she cut an entire Web video "publicly antagonizing" Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews for allegedly being too frightened to debate her about terrorism.

Nope.

And, Digby has more background on the scandal that Joe Scarborough didn't want anyone to talk about. It was the summer of 2001 when the traditional media was in a frenzy over the Chandra Levy-Gary Condit story. And, a frenzy it was. Condit lived up the street from me and the t.v. trucks were parked in front of his building 24/7. But, another intern died that summer and it barely made the news. The young woman died in the office of Rep. Joe Scarborough:

Meanwhile, that same summer, star up-and-coming Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough, recently divorced under charges of infidelity, had unexpectedly decided to resign from office six months after being re-elected. Shortly thereafter an intern on his Florida staff was found dead -- in the office -- under mysterious circumstances with allegations of cover-ups by the local authorities and the quack medical examiner. And nobody in DC even raised an eyebrow. The story went largely unremarked upon and he soon found himself a lucrative perch as a highly paid celebrity gasbag.

Now I have to assume that Scarborough is either brain damaged or must want people to look at that story again because otherwise he would have let some innocuous, snarky tweet pass by. Now we all have no choice but to rehash the whole thing in order to explain why Markos has been banned from the network.

I'm guessing he's running for office again. After all, in today's GOP if you aren't picking up men in bathrooms, harassing pages by the dozen or hiking the Appalachian trail, you just aren't worth the teabag you're steeping in.

I'm not sure this is the kind of attention MSNBC and Joe Scarborough were expecting to garner after Scarborough had his hissy fit. But, again, they're the ones who decided to turn a couple of tweets into a major battle.

And, you know, tomorrow morning -- and every morning, Scarborough and his fellow pundits can commiserate about how mean everyone is to him. Read More......

The Denver Post no longer wants to be linked to

Done. Read More......

Obama administration plus BP block media access in Gulf

This goes against everything the government previously said about "uninhibited media access." Arresting media and fining them $40,000 is beyond crazy and not what we should expect in an open society. If the Bush administration did this everyone on the left would be screaming, rightly so. How is it that it's possible to embed the media in the military during invasions yet it's not possible to have open access on US soil?

It's increasingly frustrating that the Obama administration mirrors its policies on the Bush administration. Tell me again why we ought to vote for this? It's no wonder there is such an enormous enthusiasm gap when problems like this emerge. If we wanted Republican policies we'd simply vote for Republicans. Read More......

More on Michael Hastings, Gen. McChrystal and … Lara Logan?

As a follow-up to John's earlier post about Anonymous Sources and the Michael Hastings / Rolling Stones / Stanley McChrystal story, I'd like to lend this perspective.

Lara Logan, a war reporter working for CBS (who has had her own difficult moments; see below) has also criticized Hastings — for violating the magic "unspoken agreement" between reporters and sprinkly doughnut recipients. As in, not honoring the code of "don't repeat what you heard, he's our lunch" that separates you the voter from the actual truth of your world.

So here comes Matt Taibbi, newly married, with boots on. Yes, he works for Rolling Stone; no, he's not Hastings' friend. And apparently, he's not Logan's friend either — at least not now (my emphasis):

I thought I'd seen everything when I read David Brooks saying out loud in a New York Times column that reporters should sit on damaging comments to save their sources from their own idiocy. But now we get CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan slamming our own Michael Hastings on CNN's "Reliable Sources" program, agreeing that the Rolling Stone reporter violated an "unspoken agreement" that journalists are not supposed to "embarrass [the troops] by reporting insults and banter."

. . . True, the Pentagon does have perhaps the single largest public relations apparatus on earth – spending $4.7 billion on P.R. in 2009 alone and employing 27,000 people, a staff nearly as large as the 30,000-person State Department – but is that really enough to ensure positive coverage in a society armed with a constitutionally-guaranteed free press?

And true, most of the major TV outlets are completely in the bag for the Pentagon, with two of them (NBC/GE and Logan's own CBS, until recently owned by Westinghouse, one of the world's largest nuclear weapons manufacturers) having operated for years as leaders in both the broadcast media and weapons-making businesses.

. . . But when I read this diatribe from Logan, I felt like I'd known Hastings my whole life. Because brother, I have been there, when some would-be "reputable" journalist who's just been severely ass-whipped by a relative no-name freelancer on an enormous story fights back by going on television and, without any evidence at all, accusing the guy who beat him of cheating. That's happened to me so often, I've come to expect it. If there's a lower form of life on the planet earth than a "reputable" journalist protecting his territory, I haven't seen it.

As to this whole "unspoken agreement" business: the reason Lara Logan thinks this is because she's like pretty much every other "reputable" journalist in this country, in that she suffers from a profound confusion about who she's supposed to be working for. I know this from my years covering presidential campaigns, where the same dynamic applies. Hey, assholes: you do not work for the people you're covering!

As I mentioned, Lara Logan's had her own brush with the "law". In 2008 she criticized the Iraq war on Leno, and as a result the Pentagon's fastball pitcher seems to have thrown at her head in a classic brush-back move. If so, it looks like she learned her lesson. Implicated in two ginned-up sex scandals, and now, with a family and kid to raise . . . jeez, these stories almost write themselves. Who needs fiction?

Of course, she may be sincere . . . but I'm not sure that would be a feature in this case. Click through — it may jog a (visual) memory or two.

Gaius Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Happy Independence Day.

The wisest choice for Sunday shows this morning is NBC because "Meet the Press" is preempted. So, watch Wimbledon instead. Because, otherwise, there is an amazingly painful array of guests on the other shows. Seriously painful: crankier by-the-minute McCain (ABC), Lindsey "I ain't gay, sorry" Graham (CBS), duplicitous Lieberman (FOX) and that whack job Jim DeMint (FOX).

It's a holiday weekend. It's not worth suffering through that grouping of guests.

The full lineup is here. Read More......

Anonymous sources

I'm not wholly against them, and have used them myself when I've trusted the source and felt the story was important. But the recent Washington Post story, in which anonymous Pentagon officials tried to smear a Rolling Stone reporter, claiming he printed "off the record" and untrue "facts" about General McChrystal, bothered me.

A lot of times, when we've run with something anonymous, it's because the source could face retribution if they went public. I somehow doubt that the Pentagon is fighting from a position of weakness, and thus needs to be protected. Bottom line: DOD screwed up, and now they're trying to smear the reporter who caught them. But they're not even brave enough to do it on the record. Adams Clymer, a former NYT reporter, wrote to the Washington Post about the incident today.

The Post should have told them to go on the record, or no story. Read More......

From CNBC to MSNBC

For those who haven't yet followed Dylan Ratigan here's a chance to learn a bit more about him. Ratigan worked at Bloomberg and CNBC before moving to MSNBC where he's been a vocal critic of the financial system and its coziness with Washington. It's an issue near and dear to my heart so I always find what he has to say interesting.

As someone who follows CNBC (where he used to work) closely, I'd have to agree with him that for the most part the network does more good than bad. I often disagree completely with their points though it's important that they raise so many points about what is happening on Wall Street. Other networks don't even cover most of the debate and that in itself if a problem.

Mr. Ratigan does not just have a point of view, he has a point — one that he repeats relentlessly and feverishly, sometimes with props like buckets and Monopoly money. To hear Mr. Ratigan tell it, the American people are being held hostage by a banking system that acts like a government subsidized casino. His analogy: “My mother is paying taxes to the government. The government is giving her money to the banks. The banks are gambling like they’re watching ‘Fast Money.’ But my mother didn’t sign up for that.”

Mr. Ratigan said flatly, “As long as there’s been banks and governments, banks and governments have been conspiring to take money from the people.” What has changed now, he said, is that “we have the ability to engage it directly,” through fair elections and a free press. The first step in his playbook, then, is to end the denial about it through his show.

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Is it better or worse off knowing my biases?

I remember years ago watching Ted Koppel on TV, talking to an audience about journalism. Koppel challenged the audience to guess who he voted for President. He said no one could, with any proof. I believe the implication was that this was a good thing.

I remember thinking at the time that covering national politics for so long, Koppel must have had strong political views. So why was it better for me, and better for his objectivity, for me not to know Koppel's political bias? And, switching things around, why would I, as a consumer of news, be worse off KNOWING Koppel's biases? Whether I knew them or not, he would still have them. Wouldn't more information per se better permit me to judge the news that Koppel disseminated?

Fast forward to today. We've had a brouhaha brewing all day in online politics land. Sam Stein sums up what happened, and concludes with something related to what I wrote above.

When he arrived at a party on the Huffington Post's D.C. office roof-deck on Thursday evening, Washington Post reporter/blogger David Weigel felt secure in his job. Earlier in the day, the media-focused site FishbowlDC had published a series of off-the-record emails written by Weigel in which he had disparaged members of the conservative movement that he covers.

Long story short: Weigel is gone.

Undoubtedly, there were other reporters in the newsroom there that felt the exact same way as Weigel. Their fortune had been simply not putting their thoughts in an email chain, or, simply, not having their personal emails leaked. For political observers, it was a somewhat depressing reflection of the limits of the new media universe -- where the traditional powers have not quite yet reached a level of comfort with journalists who are transparent with their biases but, nevertheless, fair and accurate in their reporting.

I was talking to some Youth in Government kids the other day about blogging, and I mentioned FOX News, and why, at its core, it's bad for America. The difference between FOX and me, at least one difference, I said, is that they call themselves Fair and Balanced. I'm a partisan blogger and admit it up front. Now, in spite of that, I certainly strive to be fair, but I never strive to be balanced. I run a Demcoratic blog. I'm not here to help Republicans. But I'm still not going to lie to pursue my goals.

FOX News isn't only here to help Republicans, they're doing it in a way that isn't fair, balanced, or even disclosed. Yet somehow FOX is "news" and Weigel is out. Huh. Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

The main subject of the talk shows today is, once again, the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

John will be on CNN's Reliable Sources between 11:00 - 11:30 a.m. Eastern talking about media coverage of Obama's oil spill speech and Sarah Palin.

The big "get" of the day is Rahm Emanuel. He's on "This Week" with Jake Tapper. Jake's been tweeting about the interview for the past day.

Nine senators, almost 10% of the Senate, pop up on the various shows today. That includes some of Big Oil's best allies: Mary Landrieu, Lisa Murkowski and Mitch McConnell.

Secretary Gates is on FOX News so we may see a DADT-related question.

Here's the full lineup. Read More......

Newsweek kills coolest part of its Web site

From Geek.com:

Programmers for Newsweek’s website, though, might have pulled off the best implementation of the Konami Code ever. Up until Monday, if you typed in the Konami Code on the Newsweek website, all of the front page stories would become about zombies.

The lead headline, “Zombies Attack!” was followed by an article telling readers that large portions of the East Coast had been invaded by the flesh-slavering undead. Other headlines traced the infection back to a mysterious Patient Zero or advised Newsweek readers to aim for the head.

On their part, Newsweek didn’t seem to know about it until the feature became popular. ” “Now that we’ve all had a laugh, we will be removing it,” a joyless Newsweeks spokesperson said.

I'm told this was the code - it doesn't work any more: up up down down left right left right B A enter Read More......

And again, BP is blocking media access

It would be better if the media left the workers alone when there are so many people around who are paying them but still. The workers are simply trying to make ends meet in a tough situation with a tough job that everyone appreciates. The rent-a-cop "security" for BP is a complete asshole and if anyone should be sacked it's that knucklehead and those like him. Better still, dump the command chain completely and move everything away from BP who have no right to say what's allowed or not allowed. Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

If you're watching the shows today, you'll get a heavy focus on the oil spill and energy. And, there's going to be a lot of politicking, too.

CBS has three Governors from Gulf Coast states, including Charlie Crist. Axelrod is on NBC. ABC has Boehner debating Hoyer. But, ABC also has Bill Gates who is talking about the need for clean energy research. Gates has been working on "A Business Plan for America's Energy Future." We sure need one.

Carly Fiorina, who, in the past week, has become best known for her commentary on her opponent's hair, will be on Meet the Press and FOX. Before that, Fiorina was probably best known for being the disastrous CEO of Hewlett-Packard and "Demon Sheep." (FOX hsas one of the biggest "gets" in awhile: Barbara Bush, W's daughter. Not kidding. She's listed as a guest today.)

Here's the full lineup. Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

So, no surprise, the talk shows are almost all about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (except NBC, which has the men's final of the French Open between Rafael Nadal and Robin Soderling.)

You'll see the man in charge of the Government's response to the crisis, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, on ABC, CBS and CNN. There are also a smattering of Senators (Kerry, Cornyn and Bill Nelson) and one Governor/wannabe Senator: Charlie Crist.

But, if you're going to watch anything on the talk shows this morning, watch the roundtable on ABC's This Week: Arianna Huffington and Markos Moulitsas versus George Will and Liz Cheney. My money is on Arianna and Markos.

Also, the Democratic candidates in Tuesday's Senate primary runoff in Arkansas, challenger Bill Halter and incumbent Blanche Lincoln, are on CNN.

Here's the full lineup. Read More......

Photo blockade helps BP, but what about the environment?

It's pretty clear how blocking access to photographers helps BP from their own Exxon Valdez catastrophe though it's not clear how this helps everyone else appreciate the full extent of the oil leak. Limiting movement in certain areas at certain times makes sense though we're talking about a very large area. Adding a few more boats or planes can surely not be a problem to the relief effort. Providing easy media access is what we do in a democracy. It's also what a transparent relief effort would include. Newsweek:

As BP makes its latest attempt to plug its gushing oil well, news photographers are complaining that their efforts to document the slow-motion disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials—working with BP—who are blocking access to the sites where the effects of the spill are most visible. More than a month into the disaster, a host of anecdotal evidence is emerging from reporters, photographers, and TV crews in which BP and Coast Guard officials explicitly target members of the media, restricting and denying them access to oil-covered beaches, staging areas for clean-up efforts, and even flyovers.

Last week, a CBS TV crew was threatened with arrest when attempting to film an oil-covered beach. On Monday, Mother Jones published this firsthand account of one reporter’s repeated attempts to gain access to clean-up operations on oil-soaked beaches, and the telling response of local law enforcement. The latest instance of denied press access comes from Belle Chasse, La.-based Southern Seaplane Inc., which was scheduled to take a New Orleans Times-Picayune photographer for a flyover on Tuesday afternoon, and says it was denied permission once BP officials learned that a member of the press would be on board.

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Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

So, today's main topic is elections and teabaggers. But, the star of the week, Rand Paul, won't be appearing on "Meet the Press" as scheduled. Paul canceled his appearance, but I suspect every other guest on every other show will be talking about him. Anyone willing to watch FOX can even hear Sarah Palin opine on Rand Paul.

One of the other big news makers from the last week's primaries is making the rounds today. The winner of Pennsylvania's Democratic Senate Primary, Joe Sestak, is on NBC and ABC.

CNN is also going to talk about the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Here is the full lineup. I realized ABC's website put this article in its entertainment section, which is actually appropriate. Read More......

CBS News threatened with arrest by US Coast Guard - 'BP rules'

Watch CBS News Videos Online
What the hell is going on? Screw BP and their rules. Can somebody in Washington please take control and tell BP to go fuck themselves? Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

The big topic today is the Supreme Court nomination. On the various shows you'll see Democratic Senators Leahy, Feinstein and Schumer. The GOPers will be represented by some of the harshest right-wingers: Sessions, Kyl and McConnell.

On the eve of Tuesday's Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, CNN is hosting Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak. The final Morning Call/Muhlenberg College tracking poll of the race has the two tied at 44% each with 11% undecided. (I think this ad by Sestak is one of the best political ads I've seen in a long time.) You can also hear from the recently defeated Bob Bennett on Candy Crowley's show today, too.

FOX News, however, is taking things in a different direction. The main guest is that renowned author and political expert Laura Bush.

Here's the lineup. Read More......