Four today

1. Historian D.J. Waldie dismisses Atlantic writer Conor Friedersdorf's I-Heart-New York critique of Los  Angeles County, saying to view the county as a tangled web of corrupt and confused jurisdictions is a simplistic misunderstanding of the region's history.

2. You know you're getting old when ... The new AP political editor is four years younger than you are. Romenesko

3. Speaking of AP, the business staff doesn't have much good to say about the AP business editor. Romenesko

4. As you might have heard, a group calling itself Lulzsec hacked the PBS website to show its displeasure at the Frontline report on Wikileaks. Boing Boing

Four Monday

The Los Angeles Press Club nominees are set. Some categories look surprisingly uncompetitive, but maybe that's not new. LAPC (.pdf)

2. As public media go online, the line that used to separate public and private sometimes blurs. PBS viewers, for instance, will see 15 and 30 second commercials if they watch PBS shows online. This should worry people depend on public television and public radio to avoid the pressures private companies have as they compete for ad dollars. PBS has already gotten into trouble over commercials from Goldman Sachs. Romenesko and PBS Ombudsman

3. Joe Biden goes a courtin' in the White House press room. NY Magazine

4. Turning every experience into a digital pose. NPR

KCET to sell Sunset Boulevard studios

KCET, which three months ago divorced itself from PBS, plans to sell its 300,000-square-foot headquarters on Sunset Boulevard to the Church of Scientology for $14.1 million, the Los Angeles Times reports. From the story:

The Los Angeles television station, which is struggling to rebuild viewership after its recent split from PBS, plans to move its operations to a smaller location, real estate brokers said. Station officials have been touring potential sites, brokers said.

-snip-

Dropping the PBS brand meant getting rid of the dues burden but also losing signature shows such as "Sesame Street," "News Hour" and "Charlie Rose." ...

The effect was immediate. KCET's ratings have plunged without its familiar schedule. And individual donations — the lifeblood of any public broadcaster — have taken a sharp hit as well. March pledge drives raised much less money than expected, according to a station insider who spoke on condition of anonymity.

House targets NPR funds in divide-and-conquer move

House Republicans wanted to end funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which stakes public radio and television stations around the country, in addition to giving funds directly to NPR and PBS (two-thirds of CPB money goes to public television).

The slow grind of the budget process and resistance from the Democratically controlled Senate have thus far made a complete gutting of CPB impossible. So, the GOP has a new strategy, with Republicans in the House planning an "emergency" vote to cut only the funds that go to NPR and its affiliate stations (this includes KCRW, of which I am an employee). The bill must first go through Rep. David Dreier's Rules Committee. That vote is scheduled for today.

The James O'Keefe heavily edited sting video of Ron Schiller is the impetus for the new strategy. By stripping PBS out of the fight, Republicans hope to peel off the more powerful public broadcasting lobby in Washington. It will be interesting to see whether public television folks will continue to stand with NPR given the embarrassing foot shooting NPR execs have done in recent months.

All of which puts an even uglier spin on David Carr's recent story noting the successes of NPR in a world of shrinking news:

According to the State of the Media report, NPR’s overall audience grew 3 percent in 2010, to 27.2 million weekly listeners, up 58 percent overall since 2000. In the last year, total staff grew 8 percent, and its Web site, npr.org, drew an average of 15.7 million unique monthly visitors, up more than five million visitors. Its foreign bureaus and global footprint continue to grow while other broadcasters slink home. 

And while NPR receives a small portion of its operating budget through government money, millions of people also think that its journalism is worthy enough to pay for through contributions, a trick that the rest of news media have had trouble figuring out, to say the least. 

Trouble is, NPR has often been better at breaking news than running a news outlet. The current problems started five months ago when Juan Williams, a longtime NPR commentator, was hastily fired for remarks he made about Muslims making him fearful in airports. Then in January, Ellen Weiss, senior vice president for news, resigned after a report to the board found her management of the affair wanting.

Four today

1. Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma") and Eric Schlosser ("Fast Food Nation") will join KCRW's Evan Kleiman on February 9 at USC to talk about the way we feed ourselves. LA Weekly

2. KOCE has rebranded itself PBS SoCal and plans to expand its staff in Los Angeles as it becomes the main PBS affiliate in Southern California, taking over from the PBS divorcee KCET. Franklin Avenue (via LA Observed)

3. When ordered to turn over information about several users in connection with the federal investigation of Wikipedia, Twitter successfully challenged the court's gag order and told the subjects of the investigation what had happened. Wired

4. Media organizations need to update their codes of ethics to keep up with the times. Poynter

PBS seems a little chicken

PBS edits out Tina Fey's most critical lines about Sarah Palin and then blames show length.

KCET goes its own way

KCET has cut ties with the national Public Broadcasting System, turning the affiliate into an independent public television station. From the LA Times blog:

Starting in January, station officials intend to replace such iconic PBS fare as "Charlie Rose," "NewsHour," "Sesame Street" and "Masterpiece" with news and documentaries from Japan, Canada and elsewhere, along with old feature films. (KCET will continue to carry PBS programming through the end of December.)

The drastic move comes after a months-long battle over the dues KCET must pay the national organization. Last year, the dues totaled nearly $7 million, or almost one-fifth of the station's $37-million net operating revenue. Station officials say that amount is far too high. PBS, fearing that a reduction in the sum could lead to demands for similar discounts from other member stations, refused to budge.

"After four decades as the West Coast flagship PBS station, this is not a decision we made lightly," said Al Jerome, KCET's president and chief executive, in a news release. "We have been in discussions with PBS for over three years about the need to address challenges that are unique to our market as well as our station."

"As an independent public television station, KCET will be committed to investing in Southern California by developing, acquiring, producing and distributing content across all media platforms," he added. "We will continue to offer the KCET audience programming from leading national and international sources. Some of these series are currently on our air."

PBS to play ratings game

Under pressure from corporate sponsors, PBS has made a deal to have Nielsen Company rate its programs. From the New York Times:

The public broadcaster will announce on Monday that, for the first time, it has subscribed to full-time television ratings from the Nielsen Company. The subscription provides PBS sponsors with detailed information about the audiences for “Antiques Roadshow,” “Frontline,” “Sesame Street” and dozens of other programs.

-snip-

The deal with Nielsen does not entirely level the playing field between PBS and commercial networks. PBS isn’t signing up for overnight ratings; it won’t be comparing “Masterpiece Theatre” with “The Mentalist” anytime soon. Instead, it is ordering weekly ratings, because some of the programs it provides to member stations are shown at different times.

Although PBS isn't going as far as commercial television, the demand for ratings data does show how important audience numbers have become for all forms of media - whether it be page counts on newspaper websites, Arbitron numbers for public radio, or a Nielsen's weekly count for PBS.

Two for the Times

Do the top executives at Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times, deserve $66 million in retention bonuses? New York Times media critic David Carr questions the rationale for paying millions to keep the people who made the deals that thrust the company into bankruptcy:

Under questioning, Chandler Bigelow III, the chief financial officer, said the bonuses would help “incentivize our key managers to battle all of the intense challenges that unfortunately our local media businesses are facing,” according to The Associated Press. ...

But regardless of whether the bonuses have been earned or not, James Warren, a former managing editor of The Chicago Tribune, wonders how necessary they are.

“Without denying that many of these folks are toiling hard and diligently, the basic arguments underlying this request are laughable and beg at least one simple question,” he said. “How many of those that are being enriched by the bonuses have been contacted by headhunting firms seeking their talents? After what has happened there and what is going on in the broader economy, where are they going to go?”

Back here on the West Coast, Los Angeles Times television critic Robert Lloyd reviewed the PBS documentary "Inventing LA: The Chandlers & Their Times," about the family that founded the Times and helped shape the city of L.A.:

If there's a hero in the film -- albeit a flawed and ultimately failed hero -- it's Otis Chandler. Surfer, bodybuilder, bushy-haired blond Adonis, Otis, who was made publisher in 1960 at age 32, took The Times from a provincial house organ to a nationally respected newspaper. But he alienated conservative family members (and Nixon, who put him on his enemies list) along the way. And when he stepped down as publisher, he went outside the family to hire Johnson. "Otis didn't feel his children were as outstanding as he was," observes his first wife, Marilyn Brant. "Otis didn't like competition from his children."

Lloyd calls the documentary overlong and says that the filmmakers lose interest in the newspaper side of things once the Chandler's sell the company to Tribune.

Four in the afternoon

1. The El Monte police officer being investigated for kicking a suspect owns a line of clothing that trades on prison and gang slang. PSN

2. PBS wants to end the practice of broadcasting religions services on PBS affiliate stations. WaPo

3. New York Times economic reporter Edmund Andrews writes about his personal mortgage meltdown. NYT

4. Google, the Washington Post and the New York Times are making nice - and maybe profits. Neiman Lab

Hope

Hope + Joy = This

(starts at about minute 4)

'Tribune troubles' on PBS

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer will look at what's roiling newspaper industry in light of the resignations yesterday of the publisher of the Los Angeles Times and editor of the Chicago Tribune. The email press release follows:

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* MEDIA WATCH ALERT
* An E-mail Service of the

* NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and the Online NewsHour
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*TRIBUNE TROUBLES

The newspaper industry took two more casualties yesterday, when Anne Marie Lipinski, editor of the Chicago Tribune, and David Hiller, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, resigned their positions. The common denominator was that both papers are owned by the Tribune Company, an industry leader that was bought last December by real estate magnate Sam Zell in an $8.2 billion dollar deal that took the company private, while saddling it with debt.

All this comes amidst turmoil at many US newspapers that are cutting back newsroom staff and news space to keep profits from falling steeply during this economic slowdown.

Tonight on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Jeffrey Brown looks at the newspaper industry's troubles with Esther Thorson, journalism school associate dean at the University of Missouri and Jon Fine, Media Columnist for BusinessWeek magazine.