Blogs and Stories
The Two Best Newscasts You Aren't Watching
This is not an effort to reinvent television news, although there is a good Web site where you can see archived pieces and get background. What you get with Worldfocus is a classic and classy half-hour of foreign news. This is a test of whether public television can support a show like this as it does its nonpareil documentary series, Frontline. It will take relentless fundraising on the part of programmers and an audience big enough to justify that effort. Worldfocus’s greatest risk is that in not offering a breakthrough, when the premium these days is on devising new formulas as the way to survive.
GlobalPost is a joint creation of Phil Balboni, the successful founder of New England Cable News, and Charles Sennott, a long-time foreign correspondent for the Boston Globe. Balboni had a track record that enabled him to raise the $8.5 million to launch the service. Sennott roamed the world to land correspondents who essentially are freelancers. Going down the list there are names that I know as well as some intrepid newcomers. Their range of stories would be highly regarded by any standard. One day last week, the home page featured stories on Poland, Lebanon, North Korea, and Brazil. The business model is advertising, syndication to newspapers that no longer have staff abroad, and some premium-payment offerings. There is a detailed report on the creation of GlobalPost by Sennott in the current Columbia Journalism Review, in which he writes: “Our site sets out to have a distinctly American voice. Not a tone that is nationalistic or jingoistic, but a writing style with a good ear for American storytelling and a respect for the standards of American journalism.”
Worldfocus and GlobalPost certainly defy the odds, which seems to be against this kind of time-honored stuff in an era when whiz-bang is hot. But that may be the point. All over television and the Internet these days, you are entertained, provoked, and harangued, which means that counter-programming just may be that much more viable.
Peter Osnos is a senior fellow for media at The Century Foundation. Osnos is the founder and editor-at-large of PublicAffairs Books. He is vice-chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review, a former publisher at Random House Inc. and was a correspondent and editor at The Washington Post.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Martin Jacques is the cofounder of the UK think tank Demos, writes a regular column for The Guardian, and is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. His new book, When China Rules the World, is available now.
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Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
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Peter Osnos is a senior fellow for media at The Century Foundation. Osnos is the founder and editor at large of PublicAffairs Books. He is vice chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review, a former publisher at Random House, and was a correspondent and editor at the Washington Post.
A Censorship Test for China
Peter Osnos is a senior fellow for media at The Century Foundation. Osnos is the founder and editor at large of PublicAffairs Books. He is vice chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review, a former publisher at Random House, and was a correspondent and editor at the Washington Post.
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Peter Osnos is a senior fellow for media at The Century Foundation. Osnos is the founder and editor at large of PublicAffairs Books. He is vice chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review, a former publisher at Random House, and was a correspondent and editor at the Washington Post.
Thanks for introducing two great programs. The websites are great and informative.
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http://alexius-locker.blogspot.com/
Thank you.
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