BuzzMachine

A journalism class at NYU surveyed students there and found that 44 percent read blogs. Interesting fact. What does it mean?

In the press release they put out and the story about it in the school paper, the instructor, department chair Brooke Kroeger, expresses surprise. Quoting the story:

The press release said blogs are targeted at today’s youth but “the fry aren’t taking the bait.” Kroeger said she didn’t expect only 44 percent of the “hip, urban, connected, downtown” crowd to read blogs.

So that’s how this news is presented: “only” 44 percent.

The student reporter emailed me and this is what I say in the story:

Jeff Jarvis, a professor at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and creator of the blog BuzzMachine, disagreed.

“It’s not a surprising finding to me,” Jarvis said.

He referred to a study done by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research group, which found that “Eight million American adults say they have created blogs; blog readership jumped 58 percent in 2004 and now stands at 27 percent of internet users.”

“That would mean that students compared to the population as a whole are heavy users of blogs,” Jarvis said.

And there’s the problem with “only.” That word reports only the expectation of the speaker; it says the fact was less than her prediction. It’s a dangerous word. Reporters use it all the time and all too often: The candidate got “only” n percent of the vote (that is, less than the writer thought he should get. In college, I wrote a paper on how Ed Muskie won the New Hampshire primary but got less than the reporter thought he should get and so he was declared a loser).

So who says that 44 percent is small? Who says that’s surprising? Who is to judge that the fry aren’t taking the bait? What other comparisons can be made? For example, how many of those students read newspapers? How many watch the evening network news?

Howard Kurtz on the Sirius-XM merger and old radio:

n all the very fine stories about the proposed XM-Sirius merger, there was one glaring omission.

The reason these two companies have 13 million subscribers willing to cough up $12.95 a month for something we all grew up thinking should be free is that commercial radio has self-destructed.

All these folks (including me) are paying for satellite because they’re tired of cookie-cutter radio formats stuffed to the gills with commercials. They’re also fed up with focus-grouped music stations that play the same 60 songs until you keep hearing the chords in your sleep.

And local radio stations covering news? There are a few across the country. For the rest, forget about it.

Really, can you think of an industry (okay, maybe American automakers) that has frittered away such huge advantages and sent its customers scrambling for alternatives?

Jackson West at NewTeeVee — one of my daily reads — has an excellent and brief primer on fair use and comment. Nut graphs:

Section 1074 – remember it kids – of the Copyright Act defines the potentiality of a fair use defense as copyrighted work used “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching…scholarship or research…”

Generally, it’s all about commentary. How can you prove, or how can your entertainment lawyer prove, that the nature of your use of the copyrighted work is critical. A limited excerpt of the work during a review or critique is clear cut fair use.

Well, one way to look at the networks playing hardball and leaving YouTube is that there’s that much attention left for the rest of us who are making small TV.

When the UK’s online political talk show, 18 Doughty St., started, I lamented the technology, for it kept me from watching. Well, they have their technical act together and they have a very impressive rundown of shows on news, politics, culture, blogs, and more. The BBC’s Richard Sambrook stopped by for a visit today and I hope to when I’m in London in early March.

David Neeleman, CEO of JetBlue, takes to YouTube to apologize and promise better skies ahead. It’s quite unpolished but that’s part of the appeal. The guy has circles around his eyes; he’s stressed; he’s trying, and that’s what comes across. He’s using YouTube to speak directly to his customers and putting himself at their/our mercy.

Mitt Romney has the dubious honor of giving us the first presidential commercial of the ‘08 campaign [via HuffingtonPost Eat the Press] [crossposted at PrezVid]:

He says it’s the time for no more “dithering” in Washington. Dithering. Nice verb. We’re all against dithering. The nice thing about having the first ad is that you have no attacks to respond to yet. Just wait.

Andy Carvin at NPR put up podcasts of part of last week’s discussion there about social media — two hours at an open session with NPR staff. Part 1. Part 2.

The Times reports today that American Idol is a a programming juggernaut never seen before on TV. That’s why we started Idol Critic (this week’s episode will be out Thursday after the vote).

Kelly Kahl, the chief scheduler for CBS, summed up the “Idol” factor this way: “This is a big monolith sitting out there. It’s the ultimate schoolyard bully.”

If any of Fox’s rivals had hopes that this year might signal some hint that the monster — NBC favors the term Death Star — would finally betray some sign of weakness, those hopes were dispelled in just a week. Most television shows, no matter how successful, fall off sometime after their second or third season, but against all expectations, and most of the historic record of network television, “American Idol” has come back for its sixth season bigger and stronger than ever.

Last year at this time, five weeks into its season, “American Idol” was roaring along as television’s most-watched show, with an average of 31.7 million viewers (up substantially from its fourth season, when it averaged 28.3 million viewers over the same five weeks).

Improbably, this season the show has done even better, averaging 33.5 million viewers over its first five weeks. For perspective, at this point “Idol” could lose half its audience and still rank among the top 10 shows on television. And no one dares predict when this phenomenon will fade.

“Idol” is creating ever more powerful shock waves. A growing number of television executives have begun to regard “American Idol” as a programming force unlike any seen before. Jeff Zucker, the new chief executive of NBC Universal, said, “I think ‘Idol’ is the most impactful show in the history of television.”

Not I Love Lucy. Not Friends, Seinfeld, Dallas, Cosby, Hill St. Idol.

Viacom just signed a deal with Joost to air lots of its shows and movies and the Wall Street Journal tries to draw a contrast between that and the company’s demand that YouTube pull its clips offline. But they’re completely different deals. Joost is the new cable MSO, airing full shows at full size. YouTube is the viral promotional and marketing engine of today — the, pardon me, buzzmachine of TV. Audience recommending clips via YouTube is what will drive viewers to Joost. Note that, apart from possibly supplying bandwidth, cable is cut out of this. See my post below. Good riddance.

But then, that’s not news. I’ve been trying to get Joost working at home and was cursing it, but I was cursing the wrong party. Joost works fine at work. I can’t wait until Verizon finishes laying fibre on my street so I can get FIOS. Except Verizon hired the worst contractor imaginable to get the job done. They have been at it for more than two months on a street with fewer than 20 homes; they’ve managed to cut our cable and gas line and a neighbor’s electric line and they’re not nearly done. I’m about to go out with a shovel myself just so I can get rid of Cablevision sooner.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s blog — note how that rolls off the keyboard — has been putting up video of representatives floor speeches against the war. That’s fascinating enough but get how they are posting the video: via YouTube. Here is Pelosi’s own YouTube user page.

C-SPAN has been the place to get source information on video: watch and judge for yourself. Now YouTube can take over that role and not just for limited official events but for source video anywhere. [crossposted at PrezVid]