Monday Morning Media Quarterback

I’m hearing a little about the Fox Business Channel, but not very much.  A large part of that is because of the traditional reluctance of the broadcast media to comment on anything that occurs on another network/channel, while feverishly promoting its own entries.  (Why is it “news” on the KABC 11PM news what happens on Dancing with the Stars? One guess which network it’s on.)

The mainstream media criticism of Fox Business is predictable.

“At a time when the bull market seems to be breaking down, when investment banks are beginning to cope with the aftermath of a credit orgy, at a time in which income inequality has surged to levels not seen since the 1920s, and when even rich people are abandoning the Republican Party—you have to wonder whether this is the most auspicious time to launch a new TV network that combines GOP talking points and simplistic market updates.”

Or this:

Fox News’s bread and butter is the culture war, and it’s forever inventing new campaigns to boil viewers’ blood in the dead space between celebrity scandals. But how do you translate that to business? Where’s the us-versus-them? The obvious answer would be to embrace O’Reilly-style ostentatious populism: the forgotten little guy against the sinister corporate interests.

But that’s not the biggest problem.  The true test of a business channel is whether you can watch it for 20 minutes straight, which I reluctantly admit I can do with CNBC.  (And not because of my secret love for the ‘money honeys’.) 

Can Fox Business meet that test?  I don’t know–because when I tuned it in, Time Warner’s (yes, a competitor) channel 223 said “Fox Business is not available; call your cable operator.”  

Whose lifetime is it, anyway?  I bought a Giant Chinese-made bicycle from Cycology of Sherman Oaks a couple of years ago for $199.  Part of the deal was lifetime free tune-ups.

 I took it back to the store the other day for a tune-up, and the first remark the clerk made was “That was Cyclogy, we’re Boulevard Cycles.  Part of the reason they went out of business was all the free service they gave.”  That’s what I call customer service.

Since I was there already and wanted to fix my wife’s bike, I forked out $60 for a tune-up–for my $199 4 year old bike.

Similarly, in the continuing slow-motion crash of print journalism, Business 2.0 gave up the ghost today.  A competitor, Fast Company, offered to buy it, but Time Inc. in their infinite wisdom turned them down.  They probably won’t give cash refunds; you’ll get stodgy old Forbes instead. 

Hopefully, you didn’t have a lifetime subscription.

CNN “journalist” Lou Dobbs attacked President Bush today on CNN.com for the immigration bill the President supports.  Money quote:

President Bush is building his legacy, adding another unfortunate line of hollow bravado to his rhetorical repertoire. To “Mission accomplished,” “Bring it on,” “Wanted: Dead or alive,” and of course, “I earned … political capital, and now I intend to spend it,” he has added “I’ll see you at the bill signing,” referring to his own ill-considered push for so-called comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

I’m no Bush fan, but I’m troubled when a network’s leading anchor foregoes journalistic objectivity to blast a President, particularly when that President is trying to address the immigration issue with a bipartisan solution.   A current poll reveals that ”a strong majroity of Americans-including two-thirds of Republicans- favor allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens to become citizens if they pay fines, learn English and meet other requirements.”

That doesn’t stop Dobbs from dancing on the edge of paranoia, xenophobia, and yes, racism, once again.

In what other country would citizens be treated to the spectacle of the president and the Senate focusing on the desires of 12 million to 20 million people who had crossed the nation’s borders illegally, committed document fraud, and in many cases identity theft, overstayed their visas and demanded, not asked, full forgiveness for their trespasses?

Illegal aliens and their advocates, both liberal and conservative, possess such an overwhelming sense of entitlement that they demand not only legal status, but also that the government leave the borders wide open so that other illegals could follow as well…

Does this help CNN maintain its hard-won reputation for integrity and credibility? And is a ranting Lou Dobbs the face of TimeWarner that CEO Richard Parsons want to show?

At the Time Warner shareholder meeting microphones were set up around the room for comments.  I couldn’t resist, making a point about how media companies are vulnerable to a crisis arriving at Internet speed.  I said that Time Warner handled the arrest of HBO head Chris Albrecht on domestic charges ‘about as well as it could’ by firing him ASAP.  Then I brought up two other Time Warner properties ripe for potential crises.

One is TMZ.COM, a celebrity gossip/paparazzi site that many see as a disaster waiting to happen, with paparazzi engaging in car chases, harassment of celebrities and their kids, and pitched street battles with other photographers to get shots.   Then I mentioned Lou Dobbs on CNN with his “protect our borders” rhetoric, as having potential for crisis impacting Time Warner. I asked how the company planned to deal with it. 

“That’s a good question,” said Richard Parsons.  “Everything he says is clearly labeled as opinion.”  I don’t think so, but at least Parsons addressed the question.  The news media, on the other hand, only got part of my point; The Hollywood Reporter did it best, at least mentioning the Lou Dobbs issue. 

Claudia Eller of the LA Times, who did great reporting on the Albrecht assault, couldn’t let go of it in her piece .  “One shareholder mentioned Albrecht in passing, praising Time Warner for acting swiftly in discharging the executive after he was arrested in Las Vegas for assaulting his girlfriend and after the Los Angeles Times ran a story about his 1991 physical altercation with a subordinate.”

 When you’re the ‘covered’, as opposed to doing the ‘covering’ as a journalist, it’s interesting to see what gets picked up–and what doesn’t.  

On May 17  I attended the Time Warner annual meeting in Burbank.   CEO Richard Parsons gave a presentation, told us “we toil on your behalf” and said after years of “going sideways, we finally got some movement in the stock.”  He pointed to the board of directors, “I work for them, they work for you.”

He went over numbers and showed graphics like InStyle with Haile Berry, Bugs Bunny and CNN with Anderson Cooper, adding ”I’d like to salute publicly our journalists who put themselves in harm’s way.”

Befitting the Warner Brothers location, he showed a pair of film clips.  The latest Harry Potter looked vivid and great, while the new Hairspray left me wondering if John Travolta (in drag as the mom) has a speech impediment.  Parsons noted the studio won 10 Oscars in 2007, but I don’t see Travolta finally getting his for this.  Nonetheless, Parsons urged the audience to see the films “early and often.”

“Can old media exist in a digital world?” is the challenge for content creators, according to Parsons, and is something a writer like myself  struggles with every day.  “We’re in the content creation business; ink on paper, television, video.  Our challenge is to move our company into digital, whether you own it, rent it, watch it on an iPOD.”

Parsons is unflappable, as befits a man who says he’s a big fan of Happy Feet.  He also has a good sense of humor, staying calm while noted corporate gadfly John Chevvedden talked about Parson’s high ($22 million) compensation.  When another stockholder admonished Parsons for selling Google years ago, he said, “We could have done better, but no one has ever gone broke taking a profit.”

What’s Time Warner all about?  Parsons put it this way:

1. Make money for our shareholders.

2. Do some good in the world.

3. Have some fun doing it. 

From a media training point of view, couldn’t have said it better myself.