TV phone-in games rigged - thought so!

The British broadcasting regulator, the Orwellian-monikered Ofcom (Office of Communications), has fined a UK television network two million quid after it faked the results of phone-in competitions and fleeced viewers of over 20 million quid over four years.
More from the Telegraph

In a damning ruling Ofcom said that GMTV’s “disregard” for its viewers between August 2003 and February this year could not be described as “anything other than gross negligence”.
“Over a period of nearly four years, GMTV made profits running into millions of pounds from its competitions, but had no adequate oversight of this operation,” it said.

I'm not surprised, these marketing tricks are sure-fire money spinners. In this case the winners had been picked before the phone lines were closed and at 'premium' rates too.

NSw police learn APEC lessons well

NSW police have certainly learned a lot from their recent exposure to dangerous peaceniks during the APEC protests in Sydney.
This week they've put these lessons to good use in busting a workers' picket line at a factory in western Sydney.
According to media reports the riot police and plain clothes cops were involved in a brawl with workers picketing th epremises of McArthur Express Trucking at Seven Hills.

The company closed on Monday, going into recievership and owning workers money in back pay, lost wages and entitlements.
When angry workers picketed the site yesterday (Wednesday) they were attacked by the cops and a pregnant woman was pushed over.

If you ever had any doubt about the role of the police in a capitalist society, this is another example of the class nature of the system and its paid, uniformed enforcers.

Social networking brings trouble for those who look

Two stories that again raise issues about YouTube and other social networking sites.

A weatherman on a US TV network has been embarrassed by some of his colleagues uploading a video of him goofing off to YouTube. this from a Sydney Morning Herald version of the story:

WBKO-TV, a station based in Bowling Green, Kentucky, said on its website that it has reprimanded weather anchor Chris Allen for "acting in a juvenile and unprofessional manner." Rick McCue, station vice president and general manager, said Allen remains an employee.

The tape was from years earlier, never aired on television and was stolen by a former employee, who posted it on the internet, according to the station, which did not name the former employee.

This second story is about the Virgin company being sued for stealing a young woman's image and using it an advertising campaign.

Details from the SMH:

A Texas family has sued Australia's Virgin Mobile phone company, claiming it caused their teenage daughter grief and humiliation by plastering her photo on billboards and website advertisements without consent.

The family of Alison Chang says Virgin Mobile grabbed the picture from Flickr, Yahoo Inc's popular photo-sharing website, and failed to credit the photographer by name.

Chang's photo was part of a Virgin Mobile Australia campaign called "Are You With Us Or What?" It features pictures downloaded from Flickr superimposed with the company's ad slogans.

A colleague of mine, whom I quote occasionally, but who doesn't want to be identified has sent the following through to me this morning. It helps to put some of my concerns intoa more theoretical context and I shall be returning to these themes in my next book, tentatively called "Journalism in the age of YouTube", but perhaps going to be published with "DIY News: Global trends in digital journalism".

Dear Learned Colleagues,

I've been very nervous about these social networking sites for some
time, but have never really put my mind to probing that unease...

This piece, from Online Opinion, crystalizes much of my nervousness...



[snip]

"On a local level, this is the growing phenomenon of “management
empathy”, where everyone at every level of the workplace now experiences
the same budgetary pressure from faceless suits. On a global level, the
hollowing out of hierarchy comes in the practice of skills and knowledge
transfer across countries according to the needs of global business,
when those with jobs in the West end up training others who will be
hired by the same firm at a cheaper rate to replace them. In these
circumstances, making friends, like with like, in cultural and regional
vacuums actually seems the worst kind of preparation for building the
alliances necessary to combat this wider structural trend.

Capitalism may have finally managed to produce an atomised workforce
that has no aspirations for living wage claims because overwork has been
normalised and an all-seeing screen binds together our public and
private identities. It is this reality that young people are preparing
for as they learn to “broadcast themselves” online. But those of us
concerned about their future must help them realise that while the
friendships they treasure on social networking sites may be premised on
a form of loyalty, the workings of capital and labour hire under
neoliberalism most definitely are not."

Rupert gets the knife out at the WSJ

Rupert Murdoch seeks $100m cuts at Dow Jones | City | MediaGuardian.co.uk

Well, despite all the protestations that he wasn't a wolf in sheep's clothing Rupert Murdoch has quickly moved to realise a profit on his purchase of the Wall Street Journal.

In a media interview he talks of saving over $100 million. He can only do that by junking the journalism.
Perhaps nude stocks and bonds traders on page 3 Rupert? Why not, it's worked for him before.
Or 'stock exchange bingo' - one lucky reader can win shares in the newly revitalised Dow Jones company, where you don't pay for any fancy overheads - like reporters.

"We've already identified the low hanging fruit will be $100m in savings," Mr Murdoch told the conference in New York, in comments reported by Reuters. "But we're about expanding revenue." Mr Murdoch added that News Corp saw "nothing in sight" in terms of buying further assets.

Thanks, Rupe, an old wolf doesn't lose its bite, just a bit of fur above the ears.

Rugby + Money = Greedhead Heaven

Agencies boycott All Blacks event | Press&publishing | MediaGuardian.co.uk

I don't really care much about the rugby world cup, but I do care about the media. A number of news agencies, including some of the global biggies - Reuters, AP, Getty Images and AFP - staged a brief boycott of pre-tournament events at the 2007 Rugby World Cup because of a dispute with the IRU over image rights.
The whole area of rights and fees at these events is interesting and as everyone attempts to claw back their costs and make a profit out of global audiences (in this case rugby fans) every penny counts. So it seems.

Sport and money - a noxious cocktail of greed and robbery.

Guilty or not, Conrad Black points to the sickness in our City

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Guilty or not, Conrad Black points to the sickness in our City

This is a great piece about the trial of former media tycoon and all'round a*hole Conrad Black. It seems that through the vagaries of the bourgeois legal system he might get off scott free with the attempted robbery of shareholders through dodgy sales.

Nick Cohen blogs at the Guardian in London. Here's a taster of his acerbic, but very accurate commentary on the capitalist system of "Justice" for the rich and almighty:

His guilt seemed guaranteed. Here was an arch conservative, who owned the Telegraph group, spoke with orotund self-satisfaction, befriended Henry Kissinger and married Barbara Amiel. Given his record, most of us took a conviction for granted.

Representatives of Black's shareholders in Hollinger Inc reinforced our certainty when they declared that Black and his associate, David Radler, presided over a 'corporate kleptocracy' and had engaged in the 'self-righteous and aggressive looting' of the company 'to the exclusion of all other concerns or interests, and irrespective of whether their actions were remotely fair to shareholders'.

And when, in a curtain-raiser for the main event in the Chicago criminal courts, Judge Leo Strine in the American state of Delaware added in a civil judgment that Black had tried to sell the Telegraph newspapers behind his shareholders' backs 'in a cunning and calculated way', there didn't appear to be anything left to argue about.

As it has turned out, the trial of Conrad Black has not been a morality play in which the forces of justice have humbled the mighty. Rather, it has been a scratchy affair, whose outcome is far from certain. Although I can't see a working-class Chicago jury warming to the tales of private jets and expense account parties, impartial observers aren't putting money on the outcome.

Monetizing the Social Media clickstream

Social Media Club - Monetizing Widgets

Widgets are those little bits of code that you see all over blogsites, I've got a couple - a link to technocrati for example.
I've often talked about how the "clickstream" is being "monetized", cookies, ad-sense, all these things are built to give someone access to data that they can then turn into money.
Now it seems that there's a widget war going on between several Social Media sites - MySpace, Facebook, etc.
It's about real estate - well, virtual real estate at least - and who gets to hang out their hoardings, who pays and who collects.
So much for the old utopian vision of a free internet.

The Wall Street Journal is today reporting that MySpace is hooking up with the producer of the Survivor series, Mark Burnett, to create a new reality TV show called "Independent", in which people will compete for a million dollars to launch their own political campaign.
Another blow against democracy and in favour of consumerism. These guys have no morals. If there's pennies to be had, they've got their hands out.
Mr Burnett, politics is not a game show, there's enough reality out there without you having to create some more. I'd put my hand up to be a contestant - I've got a MySpace page - but I think my ultra-Trot politics would rule me out, at least according to their rules.
The revolution will not be televised, but it's coming soon to a reality show near you.
Not.

The End of Journalism?

Journalism & Media Discussion Forum: The End of Journalism?
Adrian Monck is the head of journalism at City University London, the link here is to his recent post on "the end of journalism" blogsite.
Is there a link between journalism and democracy? In theory "yes", but it needs to be much more carefully unpacked and analysed.
Most of the world has some resemblance to "democracy", but usually of a limited, restricted parliamentary sort. In some parts of the world the values of democracy are already under threat.
The fourth estate model of journalism is discredited and news workers are generally seen as lacking in ethics and credibility.
The key paradox for me is in the duality of the news commodity. Journalism is, as Monck says, both an information source and a watchdog. But this is fatally flawed by the commercial imperative of the market system. The ethical imperative of journalism - to support democracy - is undermined by the cash imperative of capitalism.