The media world is abuzz this week with news that one of their own, CNN producer Chez Pazienza, was fired for blogging. Pazienza had been operating a personal blog, Deus Ex Malcontent, which he used to rant about the industry and his personal life. He never identified himself as a CNN employee, nor did he use his full name, but Pazienza did describe himself as a 16-year veteran of the TV news industry, and he included this photo of himself on the blog. Basically, anyone who knew him would have immediately recognized Pazienza as the blog’s author. Continue Reading…

The tragedy that devastated Northern Illinois University yesterday made headlines around the world. But unlike other incidents such as those at Virginia Tech and more recently at a Chicago-area shopping mall, the mainstream news outlets — at least for several hours — were relatively powerless in disseminating information and reporting the story.

Why? Because, as one student so aptly put it, Dekalb is “in the middle of a bunch of cornfields.” Indeed, being 2 hours away from a major metropolis limited the news media’s ability to dig for information on the scene, leaving them to call school officials and other personnel for brief phone interviews on the air, at least until a local affiliate could arrive on the scene and patch through. Continue Reading…

All things, good or bad, must come to an end. The same goes for the Writers Strike, which is finally over.

Unfortunately for me, there are a few things I’ll miss about the past 100 days. Namely, the genius of Stephen Colbert and Conan O’Brien.

Both improv masters, Colbert and Conan took their late-night shows to places we never thought existed. (In Conan’s case, quite literally: He led one show from the rafters of his studio, and another as he zip-lined over his audience wearing rocket-powered boots.) Continue Reading…

An article in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal marvels at the ability of amateur web music videos featuring unique dance moves to propel otherwise obscure artists to superstardom. Yes, that observation is “so 2007,” but the trend hasn’t faded yet; in fact, it seems to be growing.

The WSJ article focuses on the “Crank dat Batman” video by the Pop it Off Boys, the power pop group OK Go’s “Here it Goes Again” video from 2006, and Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em’s “Crank That” (see video below), which became a No. 1 hit in October. The Soulja Boy video is the most interesting of the lot, mostly because of how it incorporates digital media into the music video, acknowledging the debt he owes to viral video.

Continue Reading…

Tony Silver, director of the seminal early 1980s documentary Style Wars, died last weekend of an “irreversible brain condition.” Style Wars was, as the name suggests, the Star Wars of graffiti and the hip-hop generation, and it was one of the best documentaries of its era. (And thanks to Google Video, the whole film can be viewed online for free.)

At the time of its release in 1983, graffiti writing in New York was in full swing, and the cast of characters featured in the film are as colorful as the graffiti in the subways. In addition to giving viewers access to the lives of graffiti “bombers,” Silver and his film also conducted memorable interviews with MTA and law enforcement officials, as well as then-Mayor Ed Koch, who famously suggested guarding subway trains with rabid wolves (in the end, they settled for dogs). For documentary lovers, Style Wars is a must-see, and it remains one of the hip-hop generation’s most enduring historical documents.

It took almost a year, but after a newsroom tour in which he cussed out a member of his staff, dropped a few F-bombs, made some off-color porn jokes, and called a Tribune exec an overpaid motherfucker, Sam Zell is finally beginning to settle in as owner of Tribune Company. Zell made headlines on Tuesday when he told an Orlando Sentinel photographer “Fuck you” in response to a question about how Tribune Co. would avoid slipping into writing about “puppy dogs” and continue to “inform the community.” [See video below.] But in Los Angeles yesterday, he cleared the air and explained his actions. As LA Observed put it:

Zell explained his f-bomb directed at an employee in Orlando — she dissed him as he saw it — and said her job is safe if she is competent. There were the usual Zell share of expletives, and I’m told he drew groans in the audience with a (probably inadvertent) remark that he thought of holding a meeting about getting in the porn biz but figured no one would “come.”

Nice. In other news, Zell admonished previous owners for being “fucking limp-dick” with the CW TV network. Why don’t you tell us what you really think, Sam?

What has happened to Lost ?

What used to be a riveting show about fate, survival, and the human condition has kicked off its highly anticipated fourth season with unnecessarily slow storylines that demand way too much patience of its viewers.

I’m just as pissed as you, Jack.

But more important are ABC’s latest web video promos for the show: They are important because they suck. A lot. Continue Reading…

It may seem contradictory, but the CIA has acknowledged that it is keeping a watchful eye on YouTube in an effort to gather intelligence. The news comes from a speech by Doug Naquin, the Director of the DNI Open Source Center, which was released on the internet this week. The speech has been getting a lot of play in the blogosphere, especially this part:

“We’re looking now at YouTube, which carries some unique and honest-to-goodness intelligence…We have groups looking at what they call ‘Citizens Media’: people taking pictures with their cell phones and posting them on the Internet. Then there’s Social Media, phenomena like MySpace and blogs…

Should we be paranoid? Sure, but not any more than usual. After all, spies have been telling us for years that their best source of intelligence is in the public sphere. Ben Worthen at the WSJ posits that the CIA must have some smart computer that trolls and sifts through the millions of harmless social networking and video hosting sites on the Net. “Unfortunately, it may nab innocent people like you too,” he warns, pointing to the FBI’s imperfect database model. If the CIA is working off that model, they’ll have to suffer through thousands of videos like this one.

Is Karl Rove Rupert Murdoch’s new favorite son? In an oddly candid interview with Jon Stewart on (Super) Tuesday, FOX’s Chris Wallace announced that Rove would be joining the network as a contributor, beginning with Super Tuesday coverage. “That’s very exciting,” Stewart responded. “Do you think that now that he’s there, Fox will get access to this administration?”

Rove’s debut was pretty unremarkable, by most accounts. That is, unless you were to ask Franklin Foer of the New Republic, who wrote:

Fox News is awesome tonight! Seriously. Between Karl Rove and Michael Barone, they have two superior political savants. As you cam imagine, Rove can slice delegates and demographics incredibly fine. His insights into the GOP race are particuliarly amazing.

Ever heard of Stephen Chao? He’s the former VP of News Corporation who helped launch “America’s Most Wanted” and “Cops” on Fox in the late ‘80s. Those shows were both huge successes, and for four or five years, Chao was a rising star in the TV world, creating innovative, low-budget shows that attracted large audiences. His career, though, soon became as controversial as the shows he produced, as he screwed the pooch in memorable fashion. Chao always had a penchant for raising the ire of his bosses, but there were two incidents that will be forever remembered in the great history of career suicide. continue reading…