Four today

1. Media companies making billions by convincing the masses to whitewash their fences - for free. NYT

2. Glenn Greenwald doesn't like Jim Rainey telling Anderson Cooper not to use the word "liar". Salon

3. Jimmy Orr, former internet strategist for President George W. Bush, was promoted to managing editor, online, at the Los Angeles Times. LAO

4. Huffington Post writer Jason Linkins says he gets a paycheck and has deadlines, so there's no need to pay the bloggers. HuffPo

Times media critic talks about possible SoCal media mergers

Los Angeles Times media critic James Rainey looks at the various merger options before the owners of Southern California's newspapers, as the currently bankrupt and recently bankrupt look for ways to hook up to save money.

The chase seems to center on Freedom Communications, owner of the Orange County Register, which has put itself on the market. Most of the hedge-fund money is on the Register merging with MediaNews Group, also recently bankrupt and owner of the nine LANG newspapers. The same group of investors, led by Alden Capital Group, already own major stakes in the two companies.

Alden also owns a piece of the Times, and Rainey reports that the currently bankrupt Tribune Co. has kicked Freedom's tires. But Tribune's internal troubles and potential anti-competition complaints would seem to make this wedding a little more difficult.

Patch getting noticed

James Rainey, media critic at the Los Angeles Times, takes note of the former Los Angeles Times reporters now working for AOL's fast-growing Patch network. LAT

Four in the morning

1. James Rainey profiles "Roger the Scanner Guy," Santa Barbara's police blotter phenom. LA Times

2. The military denies a reporter entry to a murder trial because the reporter won't sign away his rights. Fayetteville Observer (via Romenesko)

3. What the Intertubes have done to our fragile brains. Atlantic

4. Politifact's Truth-o-Meter goes on down to Georgia. PolitiFact

Mining money from niches

By pursuing donations from business leaders and working a little social-media magic, the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles appears to have found a way to weather the hard economic times, according to James Rainey at the Los Angeles Times.

From the story:

The Journal, its related website and a nascent monthly magazine recently nailed down a critical $800,000 donation that should rejuvenate the organization and guarantee its viability for the foreseeable future.

The money came from four philanthropists — Westfield mall Chief Executive Peter Lowy, Internet executive and venture capitalist Art Bilger, cooking oil maker and long-time Journal board member Irwin Field and a fourth, anonymous, donor.

-snip-

While Jewish news outlets in Las Vegas and other communities had been folding, the Jewish Journal made enough improvements, despite the brutal economic downturn, that it showed promise. Its expanded Web offerings, including a social networking/dating site, everyjew.com. The online audience has grown to 350,000 unique visitors a month.

Airing the newz

Local television news is largely devoid of news in the first place. Now, KCBS has come up with a way to present non-news as news and get paid for it.

According to Jim Rainey at the LA Times, the station has begun running paid ads from the City of Hope Medical Center but presenting them with logos and branding that makes the ads look like they're a part of the newscast.

Rainey writes:

In other words, the line between editorial and advertising had been obscured again — with the hospital getting a nice chance to showcase a couple of its top people in a format that looked like news but was actually paid advertising.

Rainey says the blurry lines are nothing new to television news and its advertising plans:

When TV advertising managers go out to sell 30-second spots to potential clients, they sometimes offer a valuable added incentive: a news story. Buy an ad and suddenly you and your company can make the real news.

They call it "added value" advertising. The advertiser gets the "added value" of seeing its company flattered on programs that, at least nominally, are supposed to feature the most important events of the day. It's easy, it's synergistic, it's win-win … at least for the television station and the advertiser.

The corrections

A finger-pointing session broke out this week in the L.A. blogosphere.

Patterico claims James Rainey at the Los Angeles Times got only one side (the wrong one) in the ACORN saga ... Celeste Fremon at WitnessLA calls some of the coverage in the LA Weekly "cringe-makingly slanted" ... new LA Weekly blogger Dennis Romero points out a few mistakes in Neon Tommy's feature on the incoming editor ... and fishbowlLA slaps back at the Weekly for getting so defensive about Neon Tommy's take.

(And most of these links come via LA Observed)

Traffic cops on the information superhighway*

James Rainey landed in the Googleplex (literally and figuratively) to hear talk about the future of journalism and came away educated and emboldened that journalism as he knows it will live on the new mediascape - he seems to embrace the curator model, whereby the experienced newsroom finds and fits together in a coherent package the most important pieces of information from the web:

But amid the celebration of the multiplicities, opportunities and creative chaos of the Web, one Google executive, Bradley Horowitz, also acknowledged that consumers might be drowning in media, e-mail and the "social stream."

"Tools are needed," he declared, "to preserve your most precious asset: your attention."

So maybe, even in the age of Google, consumers are looking for someone to help cut through all the clutter to get at the important facts.

Sounds to me like they're looking for a journalist.

To be sure, the need for web editors will increase, but it's not the kind of work that's going to automatically save many journalism jobs.

There's also an issue of shifting standards and ethics. As new models emerge for delivery and digestion of news, so do new concepts for what constitutes good journalism. Already we have newspaper reporters and editors who happily sell their opinions about issues they cover. Only a few years ago they'd be fired, now they're celebrated for building "brand" identity. Will they crowd out the seemingly boring, unbranded types who want to tell it straight? Because old-school journalism isn't always the thing that attracts the most attention - turn on any television news broadcast if you don't believe me.

Still, the fact that the Internet does not have a finite number of channels or territory that can be bought up and controlled by corporate suits means that readers and writers can experiment. Hopefully many of them will come to the conclusion that watchdog journalism*, done without fear or favor, deserves our attention.

*Updated 10/4: A Pew survey finds the majority of Americans (62 percent) still support the watchdog role of the media - even though only a minority of readers (29 percent) believe the media gets the facts straight. It's no surprise that a more fragmented and opinionated media would lead to low levels of trust - it's a bit like Congress, which is hated nationally even though most incumbents get returned to office. It's as if the media these days represent factions of fact.

Four in the evening

1. Russia and Nigeria launch what is perhaps the most poorly named business venture in history. BBC (via TPM)

2. Jill Stewart launches another volley at Los Angeles Times media critic James Rainey in response to his critical column about the LA Weekly editor. Once again, she cites awards at the LA Press Club as evidence that she's on the right track. LAT

3. Ann Arbor is about to lose its only daily newspaper. Poynter

4. Scott Martelle on Michael Jackson, Marshal McLuhan and the evolution of new media. Scott Martelle

Four in the morning*

1. Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina wasn't hiking the Appalachian Trail on Father's Day weekend, as his office staff claimed. Instead, he was caught in Atlanta by a reporter from The State getting off a plane from Argentina. Sanford told the reporter he'd wanted to do something "exotic." Needless to say, there's still plenty of skepticism about the governor's story. He's scheduled to hold a press conference at 2 p.m. Eastern today. The State

*Updated: In his presser, Sanford admits to having an affair with an Argentinian woman, says he'll resign as head of the Republican Governors Association. Calls for his resignation as governor will inevitably follow.

2. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez has some more bad news for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Lopez writes:

I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but I've been gathering up the results of polling at the 10 schools that for the last year have been under the mayor's wing, and there's no way to sugarcoat this.

At eight of the 10 campuses, the mayor's Partnership for Los Angeles Schools got a resounding thumbs down from teachers.

3. First Lady Michelle Obama makes her first visit to California since becoming First Lady... again. LA Observed

4. Rainey vs. Stewart, round 3. LA Weekly (via LA Observed)

If journalism loses its value, do journalists lose theirs as well?

James Rainey at the LA Times makes note of an interesting response to the news that two U.S. journalists had been sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for allegedly crossing the border into North Korea.

Rainey writes:

... a small but determined backlash took form, from a minority who say that reporters who go where they are not supposed to go get what they deserve. That's unsettling, but not surprising given a more insidious sentiment loose in the land: that journalists haven't earned and don't deserve any special privileges.

It's a populist nostrum that seeps into my e-mail basket and oozes from blogs and mainstream media websites with some regularity.

Although my blog is too small to be representative of a national trend, it stuck me that the only comment I received after Current TV reporter Euna Lee and Laura Ling were jailed came from someone who felt they deserved to be punished:

I believe the reporters broke the law and should pay the price. I have family members in the military and think this type of recklessness puts our military in harm’s way just so the reports (sic) can make some money.

Al Scal Guam USA

Clearly someone who's never seen a reporter's paycheck

As Rainy says, "The case of Ling and Lee provides the most recent reminder that some people passionately defend our freedoms, except when it becomes clear they won't come free." I'll let you work out the double meaning, but let's hope that the people who do sympathize with the two journalists take the time to consider why they went to China.

To that end, the Washington Post has a story today about the trafficking of women from North Korea to China that seems to be similar to what Lee and Ling were reporting on.