Hot off the Press (Release)

This morning marks a first for this blog: Consumer’s Union sent me a press release asking that I pass on notice of their campaign to demand that the FCC, which is rewriting the rules of media ownership, hold public hearing first. The focal point of the campaign is a site called HearUsNow.org. Clicking on “media ownership” delivers this argument about why you should care about who own the media:

“Americans depend on television and newspapers to learn about the news, understand local and national issues, and make informed choices. Today, six corporations control most of what you see on television. One company has gobbled up more than 1,000 radio stations across the nation. And since 1975, two-thirds of all independently owned newspapers have disappeared. Fewer owners mean that fewer pipelines are available to distribute diverse viewpoints and fewer voices are getting a chance to be heard.”

I’ll have more to say about the media environment — not ownership but immersion — when I discuss a study that suggests we use far more media than we are even aware of using. But let me first make quick reference to a a few things I noted but didn’t use last week.

Beam me out? Thanks to Don for passing on this item from Gizmodo, announcing a new build-your-own radio station for — well, whoever wants to make music or create the next War of the Worlds. Find out more from the iRadio Waves blog (which appears to be written by or for Motorola, which is launching the service that is aimed at mobile devices).

Day Pass. Paid Content recently pointed out that Salon and The Economist both use the day pass concept of advertising. Look at an ad upfront, and then gain access to premium content. According to the Techdirt blog, “The folks at Salon say it’s working out quite well. The advertisers are happy with it (the ads apparently perform better than regular ads) and visitors who don’t want to pay, don’t have to.”

And the Winner is: Chicagocrimes.org won the $10,000 Batten Prize for innovation in online journalism. The site “allows users to search by the type of crime, the street and neighborhood, or the date and pinpoint the location on a satellite map.” A second prize worth $2,000 went to The View: Interactive Magazines Online. According to the award release The View is a “quarterly netcasting magazine crafted of hip new story forms produced by senior “solo-jos” — backpack journalists from England, the U.S. and South Africa — using video-centric Web tools to tell point-of-view stories.”

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
‘Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media