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From the category archives:

Media

Real Reality

March 20, 2007

I've been a little lax about posting after a weekend that included my wedding anniversary dinner, younger son acting in a production of "Peter Pan," some household activities and a shooting death …

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Great Newspaper Movies

March 5, 2007

Over the weekend I caught a little bit of "Teacher's Pet," the 1958 comedy starring Clark Gable as a hard-bitten newspaper editor and Doris Day as a journalism teacher. I've always been kind of fond of it and even as a kid I learned a journalism lesson that can still hold — the one about [...]

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Roger Ebert Update

October 12, 2006

During my daily — actually, several times daily — check of Jim Romenesko's media site, I came across a link to a note from Roger Ebert in which he talks about his most recent medical crisis. Sounds pretty harrowing, but ultimately optimistic, with a good sentiment at the end.

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Dan Rather

July 11, 2006

Dan Rather has come and gone. There's some debate over whether he followed Shannen Doherty's tears with some of his own, but it was clear that he choked up some when talking about Edward R. Murrow.
I've written a column about his press conference for tomorrow's Beacon Journal and will post a link later. But I [...]

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Goodbye, Knight Ridder

June 27, 2006

Not long ago we had our farewell to Knight Ridder, which ceases to exist today, with the Beacon Journal and other papers going to new owners.
I've been thinking about this moment and decided there were our a couple of things I didn't want to do. First of all, I'm not going to give you some [...]

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Waiting For My Ox To Be Gored

March 14, 2006

Monday night I recorded the newscasts in the 6 p.m. hour on local stations because I wanted to see how they handed the changes — or, more precisely, the uncertainty — at the Beacon Journal.
As you may know, Knight Ridder, which owns my newspaper, has decided to sell to the McClatchy company. McClatchy, in turn, [...]

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A Very Special "Beacon TV"

November 18, 2005

I recently put my 200th post on this blog. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time. But I should have. If my blog was a TV show, 200 posts would be a TV event.
If I had paid proper attention to my blog, the 200th post would be a Very Special Beacon TV. [...]

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"Sexiest Man": A Movie Guy Again

November 16, 2005

As I mentioned in a previous post, TV stars have had a tough time being declared People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive." So it is again, as the 2005 winner is Matthew McConaughey. You can read more about him here, including a profile that makes McConaughey sound very Playboy Playmate-like. An excerpt: "McConaughey is fluent in [...]

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Inside TV Kicked Out

November 15, 2005

Today's mail included the latest issue of Inside TV, the attempt by the company behind TV Guide to make a glossy, celeb-oriented magazine. The cover photos include Jennifer Aniston, Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel of "Gilmore Girls" and Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie as part of a "Paris Vs Nicole" piece that dominates the cover.
But [...]

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Dis-Approval Ratings

November 9, 2005

It's the day after an election and one that went badly for President Bush and his crowd, and that was a big story today; for awhile it looked even bigger than the hearings with the oil companies. (And am I the only one to find it just the tiniest bit convenient that gas prices were [...]

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Another CNN Change: Cooper Up, Brown Out (Updated)

November 2, 2005

A week or two ago, per a reader's question, a CNN rep told me that Anderson Cooper's appearances with Aaron Brown were an experiment. One, apparently, that blew up in Brown's face. Here's an announcement from CNN today:
Anderson Cooper will take the helm of a live news program from 10 p.m. to midnight (ET) on [...]

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Change of Pace

October 29, 2005

"Why is an entertainment guy making calls?" a police officer asked me this morning.
"You must have (ticked) somebody off," said another.
I was just doing my job. The Beacon Journal rotates most of its reporters into weekend shifts, and today was finally my turn.
Instead of watching TV and writing about it, I found myself calling local [...]

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Leftovers

July 23, 2005

Saturday has been a quiet day. The bulk of it is devoted to Television Critics Association business, with the organization's business meeting this morning (very smooth and peaceful) and the annual awards ceremony tonight. I will post the winners here later. In between, I had lunch with Yvette Nicole Brown, an actress from back home [...]

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Me and the Veep

July 18, 2005

It has been a good day. Also a day when I yelled at a former vice president of the United States. Which wasn't that bad, either.
The good part of the day came early, with visits to the sets of "Deadwood," the lovely HBO western, and "Over There," an effective drama about the war in Iraq, [...]

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Morning With Emmy

July 14, 2005

Early this morning, an enormous amount of effort went into about three minutes of television.
Not even three minutes of an elaborate stunt. This was the announcement of the prime-time Emmy nominations, broadcast live from North Hollywood and immediately chewed on by commentators across the nation.
I was in the audience when the announcements were made at [...]

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Face-to-Face Guilting

July 12, 2005

  Most of the time, I deal with publicists by telephone. They're in Los Angeles or New York in the main, and I'm in a place that they rarely know — and sometimes can't pronounce.
Yes, people can mispronounce Akron.
It's a very convenient relationship. They listen to my questions, and I listen to their [...]

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When Critics Attack: Tuesday on Tour

July 12, 2005

So much has been said over the years about the pack mentality in the press, it's almost comforting to see TV critics turn on each other.
I said almost.
Still, there was turning to be found today, the first official day of the TV critics' summer press tour, when PBS held the stage.
During a session on [...]

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Monday on the Road (Part Two)

July 12, 2005

The exciting afternoon turned into a quiet night. The only event was a PBS reception and I passed on it. I wrote the Gretchen Wayne story, then spent a lot of time rewriting and trimming. As is so often the case with an interview, especially an on-location one, I had an abundance of material — [...]

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Prize Parade

July 6, 2005

You may have noticed the story in today's Beacon Journal about staffers winning some journalism awards, myself among them. My wife didn't know about the awards. Neither did I. So it was a nice surprise. And nice surprises usually lead to my Happy Dance. (This is better left undescribed.) Not this time, though.   
"Aren't [...]

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Fun With Phones

July 6, 2005

  I do a fair number of interviews by telephone and for that reason am not fond of cells. Yes, a cell phone comes in handy when I am on the road. I remember sitting in a parking lot in Cuyahoga Falls one hot day, talking by cell with Jonathan Prince of "American Dreams," because [...]

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