Patrick Kennedy Rants re Afghanistan News Coverage

Did you see all the hubabaloo last week regarding Patrick Kennedy and his "rant" regarding the fact that the news media appeared obsessed with Former Representative Eric Massa and not with the House debate on the Afghanistan War?

I have thought a bit about this. And it is true, it is unlikely the resolution under debate would have had a chance of passing, so perhaps that was reason enough for the limited press presence.

As Kennedy yelled:

 ".... two press people in this gallery. We're talking about Eric Massa 24/7 on the TV. We're talking about war and peace — $3 billion, 1,000 lives, and no press! No press! ... It's despicable, the national press corps right now."

But if you step back, the important point is that our commercial media does seem, way too often, obsessed with the shiny objects like Tiger Woods, or Representative Massa's antics, and not important topics.

In fact, last week, according to the Pew Research Center's News Coverage Index, for the week of March 8-14th, the Massa story was the 5th most covered story of ALL news topics. And in terms of newsmakers (individuals in the news), Massa was only second to President Barack Obama.

PEJ News Coverage Index March 8-14, 2010

Did you also notice that it seemed that much of the cable media's commentary on Kennedy's comments seem to center on his RANT than actually address the SUBSTANCE of the criticism? As a friend of mine recently said, "Why wasn't a journalist from CNN interviewing the head of news of CNN on why they covered so much Massa.... on CNN?!"

DeWayne Wickham wrote a well-put Op Ed last week in USA Today on this topic, take a read here...

USA TODAY column "Kennedy has a point in his tirade over afghanistan coverage"

And of course, Steve Colbert also took a crack at the Massa-Afghanistan rant and he really nails it in the entertaining piece:

The-Word---Afghanistan

But don't take my word for it, or DeWayne Wickham's or even Steven Colbert's.... take the Pew Research Center Project for the Excellence in Journalism's word for it.

Each year Pew puts out a report on the state of journalism that scans thousands of sources and analyzes the content covered in American journalism. So I decided to go take a quick look and see what they found as it related to Afghanistan coverage over the last few years. So starting in 2007, followed by 2008 and 2009, how much press did Afghanistan actually get?

In the 2008 report (which looks at the 2007 news year), the State of Journalism had a section entitled, "A Limited Diet of Global News", and among facts it points out that the percentage of Afghanistan coverage was (0.9%).  And at the time, 2007 was "the deadliest for American forces in Afghanistan since that war began in 2001." For more see the Content Analysis in the report.

The 2009 report (which looks at the news year in 2008), the State of Journalism had a section entitled, "Other International News Drops Even More."

And it said:

Iraq was not the only important global story to be crowded out of the American news in 2008. Coverage of international affairs generally, whether it involved the U.S. or not, fell by more than 40%, to 17% of the newshole studied in 2008, compared with 29% in 2007. Combined coverage of Pakistan and Iran—two countries that present major strategic challenges to the U.S.—fell by almost two-thirds (dropping to 2% of the newshole studied in 2008)

Coverage of the other war in which U.S. troops were fighting—Afghanistan—remained at the same low level (1%) in 2008 as 2007, but it had already almost disappeared. That despite a 2008 American death toll that was the highest in the six-year history of that conflict and continuing signs that the fighting may escalate. (bold added)

For more see The 2009 Report.

And finally, what about the 2010 report (which looked at 2009 news year). It was a year when there was debate in Washington and around the country about what strategy we should take regarding the future of the War. What happened?  Well, coverage did increase, but given its importance.... does this seem like the right percentage to you?

Afghanistan received 4.6% of ALL coverage. Was all 95.4% of the coverage on other topics really more important than a war that has been going on since 2001? Whatever your view on the War itself, I think we can all agree that this topic is more important than the level of news coverage it is receiving in commercial media.

On this one, Patrick Kennedy had it right.

Journalism for Sale to the Highest Bidder -- Get Out Your Checkbook

I wanted to call your attention to a column on the disturbing rise in "checkbook journalism." I hope this is a blip and not a trend, but unfortunately it may be the latter.

The Washington City Paper recently published an column by Dave McKenna on the subject. Inspired by the latest case when NBC News chartered a private jet for David Goldman to return with his son from Brazil after a long, drawn-out custody fight. NBC says this isn't checkbook journalism, because they technically did not pay for the story itself, but only paid thousands of dollars to charter a private plane and then got an exclusive or two... hmmmm, interesting logic.

Then he talks about the recent payments by ABC and CNN for photos from Jasper Schuringa, a passenger on the XMAS Day Northwest airlines flight where the passengers thwarted a bomb that happened to be located in the underwear of a would-be terrorist. Schuringa apparently gave his first interviews to the new organizations who bought his photos.

McKenna makes the point that "Checkbook journalism" is a term coined in the 70s, has been around in some form or another for some time. With that said, perhaps we are entering into some kind of resurgence of the practice, through tangential payment schemes.

It is important in terms of transparency that IF news organizations are doing this (which they shouldn't at all!), they should AT LEAST be transparent about what transactions might be underlying their content. Otherwise, it is only through other sources that this is leaked, or comes to light at all.

The entire practice of checkbook journalism will damage all organizations who proactice journalism. It should be completely avoided. However, if an organization does do this in some form, not disclosing these versions of payments make it even worse, as people are left to wonder if EVERY story has some underlying payment attached it.

So, if major journalism organizations are going to engage in payment-like practices (calling into question their long term viability to call themselves journalism organizations), the least you can do is disclose it. If you don't think it is something to be embarrassed about, then why hide it. This is important to media literacy and letting the consumer put the pieces together and giving them the right to make their own call.

Ebook and Iran Vs Michael

Welcome!

I am officially launching my blog publicly today! You will see I have been populating this with posts over the last month so there is some meaty stuff to read. Thanks for coming!

What Matters Now

You have likely found your way to me based on my page in Seth Godin's "What Matters Now" ebook. See that PDF here: Seth's Godin's Ebook, What Matters Now.

I chose the word "Knowledge", because I am so passionate about building knowledge and insight through media. And so much of knowledge media is in trouble, so we must make change and now!

I think many of the ideas and insights in the ebook are pretty incredible, but there are a few that I really connect with, including: Dignity -page 8, Enrichment -page 16, Most -page 21, Power -page 29, Harmony -page 30, Compassion -page 33, Forever -page 37, Empathy -page 38, DIY -page 41, Dumb -page 43, THNX -page 47, Leap -page 64, Women -page 65, Mesh -page 71, I'm Sorry -page 76.


So, what about my essay and how does news shape our world? As I said, it is quite distorted, in fact, see below...



Pretty disturbing, eh? This map is based on my original research which was then fed into the cartography program created by Worldmapper. Check them out. http://www.worldmapper.org

I developed some original analysis of TV news broadcast coverage in March of 2007 by CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC using the Vanderbilt University Television News Archive.

The map represents the total number of seconds of coverage dedicated to particular countries of the world, by reviewing and aggregating the stories told. The map's shape changes based on the volume of coverage. The Vanderbilt database includes coverage from the networks during the network evening news programs, and the "hardest" news program in the prime time on CNN, Andersen Cooper's 360. This data and analysis was then plugged into the Worldmapper algorithm, and voila, how news shaped our world that month! If you check out my TED speech, from my post on November 26th, 2009, and you can learn more about what that analysis and meta-research uncovered. Pretty shocking.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I will also be updating the "How the News Shapes Our World" map shortly. It will demonstrate how Michael Jackson's death, for the month of June (despite passing away at the end of the month), in fact, impacted the OVERALL average of what was reported on for the ENTIRE month. Become a follower of my blog and you will receive a notice when this important research and visual is posted.

IN THE MEANTIME, IRAN Vs. MICHAEL Coverage. (Iran Loses)

Recently, I used this same database to zero in how one news event can potentially affect the amount of coverage another event receives. So I did a piece of original analysis. In this case, how did Michael Jackson's death effect the coverage of Iran during the 48 hours before and after Michael's death. Really quite disturbing, to see how Iran coverage literally dropped of a cliff, despite important developments occurring there during that time. I will be looking at other major stories of that period as well to see whether Iran got the shaft more or less so. I would also be curious how social networking responded during this same period.... was the drop-off just as pronounced? Or did Iran hold its own better... thoughts anyone?



In terms of background, as you might recall, late June continued to be a critical time in Iran. The world was watching all that unfolded -- Twitter and Facebook were used to get information out, and news organizations scrambled to cover the elections and the protests in this incredibly important country to America's security and future.

And then, on June 25th, Michael Jackson died. As you would expect, this event took precedence over the continuing Iran story... but the overall decline of Iran coverage is absolutely shocking! This chart shows the number of seconds dedicated to Michael Jackson's death and Iran, two days preceding the death and two days afterwards. The data set: a minute by minute account, looking at the evening news and prime time CNN. The number of aggregate seconds of coverage across NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN are added together. This original analysis uses the Vanderbilt University Television News Archive data set.

Now you might say, but perhaps there wasn't a lot going on in Iran at that point? In fact, it remained a critical period in the crisis. And was just days before the Iranian Guardian Council certified the results of the controversial election (June 29, 2009). See the timeline of this critical period...



What will you find on this blog?

More broadly, what can you expect to find here? I look forward to blogging with you and talking about global news, journalism and storytelling that can change our world. I will also post original research or insights as I can. I have been working on these issues for some time. It is clear that models for objective journalism are in trouble. What is also clear is that much of journalism as we knew it, didn't do us justice in the first place.


Please join me!

I hope you enjoy browsing and will become a follower and contributor through commenting and suggesting ideas.

Most importantly, I look forward to our ongoing dialogue and I look forward to learning from you and problem solving together so we can make a difference!