Rupert Murdoch has a way with news

Carl Bernstein, investigative reporter of Watergate fame, and Roger Cohen of the New York Times debate the media legacy of Rupert Murdoch in the wake of the News of the World implosion. Bernstein begins ...
 Has Rupert Murdoch changed the news of the world? by KCRW

Journalists ordered out of Libya*

*While talking to Warren Olney on today's "To The Point," New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick, who's in Tripoli, received word that he and some 25 other journalists are being ordered out of Libya. A message slipped under Kirkpatrick's door informed him that he must be out of the country by tomorrow morning. He and the other journalists are "staying" at the Rixos Hotel in Libya's capital city. The entire interview can be heard here.

Here's a clip of Kirkpatrick's report:

  Western journalists ordered to leave Libya by KCRW

*Update: NPR has received the same report from its reporter in Tripoli, Lourdes-Garcia Navarro. "Things are subject to change," NPR added, "Some reporters have been told in the recent past that they were being expelled, only to later be allowed to stay."

My influence is profound

Washington Post staff writer Ezra Klein asked readers of his Wonkbook blog to come up with a name for his daily list of five headlines published every morning. I suggested "Five in the morning," a recommendation that proves my creativity is limited to plagiarizing myself* and adding one. From Klein:

Housekeeping: “High Five” and “Fab Five” were definitely the most popular suggestions to replace “Top Stories.” I also liked “Starting Five” and “Gang of Five.” But the winner, from Gary Scott, managed to flatter the odd hours Dylan, Michelle and I keep to bring Wonkbook out. So, introducing:

Five in the morning

*I haven't yet decided whether to retire my occasional "four in the morning/afternoon" list. I probably should, and take the opportunity to "innovate" on my own blog.

Oh, and since I'm self-promoting - today is my first day as supervising producer at KCRW. Here's the note Warren Olney sent to staff:

Gary Scott has been promoted to the new job of Supervising Producer for "To the Point" and "Which Way, LA?"  He'll be in charge of editorial issues and centralized planning, including development of our New Media activities and their integration with what we do on the air. His duties will also extend to KCRW's other news operations on "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered."  Karen Radziner will continue to be our Managing Producer. 

The "other news operations" he refers to are the local news reports that run in the breaks of Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

Say what?

KCRW General Manager Jennifer Ferro talked to the Los Angeles Times about the threat to the station if Congress ends federal funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Her doomsday scenario hits kind of close to home.

If the station loses that government support and can’t raise the money elsewhere, it would likely have to cut its most costly operations—local news and information gathering, Ferro said. A couple of producers hired in November to create more local news stories would have to go, she said, as might some staffers who help create talk shows like “To the Point” and “Which Way, L.A.?” both popular mainstays, hosted by veteran newsman Warren Olney.

Facebook and private conversations

Facebook users will now be able to create closed groups within their social networks that should allow them to share information that is too private, political, racy, or whatever for the group as a whole. The change gets at a problem raised yesterday by Judith Donath on "To The Point" about the inability of people on social networks to create nuanced relationships for different contexts - how does one share information with a close friend without offending or "oversharing" with a professional acquaintance? Is a political or religious discussion appropriate to have in front of everyone on your friends' list? What if you want to share party photos with a small group without letting someone who wasn't invited to the party know you attended? Etc. There is an interesting tension here with the idea of being your honest self with everyone, an idea some social media proponents would prefer we pursue - to blow up things like cliques, exclusivity and class hierarchy.

The social and the anti-social networks

Why go to an entertaining movie when you can listen to an informative radio program? On today's "To The Point," we discuss the rise of online social networks, starting with Facebook, and consider the ways our logged-on lives are changing society and culture. With Judith Donath of Harvard's Berkman Center, Walker Smith of The Futures Company, Fred Vogelstein of Wired, and Michael Kaiser of the National Cyber Security Alliance. Listen to the show here.

Do young people still become old people?

In an interview with the Economist, New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen explains the dilemma all newspaper face as succinctly as I've ever heard :

The cost of changing settled routines seems too high, but the cost of not changing is, in the long term, even higher. A good example is the predicament of the newspaper press: the print edition provides most of the revenues, but it cannot provide a future. I know of no evidence to show that young people are picking up the print habit. So if the cost of abandoning print is too high, the cost of sticking with it may be even higher, though slower to reveal itself. That's a problem.

Currently, old people keep print alive. Yet, young people inevitably turn into older people. I wonder if there is any evidence to show young will pick up the print habit when they gray? Or has too much changed? Perhaps our massive technological revolution has made it impossible to predict what younger generations will do. Maybe we'll return to print as a way to ground ourselves in the tangible; or maybe print is simply too inflexible to carry the news in way we'll want to ingest it.

On another note, Rosen is asked to list media outlets that are practicing journalism the right way. Here's his answer:

Particularly good at what they do: Advertising Age. Gawker. Wired. Voice of San Diego. The New Yorker. The Economist. (Disclosure: You're The Economist!) Rachel Maddow. Frontline. The New York Times. West Seattle Blog. Texas Tribune (Disclosure: I'm an advisor there). "To the Point" with Warren Olney. The Atlantic. "This American Life". The Guardian. Jon Stewart. There are probably some regional newspapers doing a great job that I simply don't read, but fewer than before.

Wedged in between the Texas Tribune and The Atlantic... annoyed to follow Rachel Maddow, gratified to proceed "This American Life."

Keeping us safe from a free press

Today's "To The Point" is about the new "safety zone" established by the Coast Guard that blocks reporters and photographers from getting close enough to the Gulf spill zone to do their job effectively. The show was produced by Katie Cooper. TTP

Greatest tennis match ever?

The longest tennis match in history, between John Isner of the United States and Nicolas Mahut of France, ended today, after 11 hours and 5 minutes of play, with Isner winning 70 games to 68.

Was it the greatest match in Wimbledon history? Who knows? But the greatest tennis report, with Guardian editor Xan Brooks, about the longest match ever can be heard on today's "To The Point." The interview, which can be downloaded here, starts at about the 45 minute mark.

Brooks live-blogged yesterday's portion of the match. Scroll down to about 2:45 p.m., when he starts to take notice of the marathon session taking shape on Court 18.

Four in the morning

1. Not sure if this is a consequence of the closure of the Orange County printing plant, but the Los Angeles Times got delivered late today in parts of L.A. and Orange County due to problems with its remaining presses. LAT

2. The iPad revolution continue to revolve, with Time magazine's latest app getting the Gizmodo staff all googly eyed. Gizmodo

3.Making Twitter shorter. New Yorker

4. (Self-promotion alert) On today's "To The Point," Wikipedia is more popular than ever but fewer people are contributing - that's led to an interesting change in policy. TTP

Public radio's ratings game

Some good news (and job security) out of the recent ratings results for KCRW. First, the overall numbers, as reported by Jim Rainey at the LA Times:

General Manager Ruth Seymour of KCRW-FM (89.9) told me last year she didn't think much of Arbitron's new Portable People Meter. The meters counted just 289,000 weekly listeners for KCRW in August, well behind another public-radio fixture, KPCC-FM (89.3), which had 549,000. Though Seymour has retired, she owes me a "toldya." The most recent Arbitron report puts KCRW at 514,000 weekly listeners, right on the tail of KPCC's 544,000.

In addition, Public Radio International, which distributes KCRW's "To The Point," reported a 28-percent increase in ratings for the national syndicated talk show. The increase was largely due to WNYC in New York putting TTP back on the air, although there was growth in Washington and Dallas as well.

Chicken wars

The family tragedy that's gripped Zankou Chicken (written by fellow TTP producer Darrell Satzman). LAT

Bombs in Baghdad damage LA Times, WaPost bureaus

The bomb attacks that hit Baghdad this morning did damage to the bureaus of the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times and injured some of their employees.

From the Post:

Three Post employees were wounded by flying glass. Two of them sustained head injuries, and a third has broken ribs and a broken arm. All three are conscious, and the injuries do not appear life-threatening.

At least one Times employee suffered similar injuries, according to Baghdad correspondent Liz Sly, who spoke with Warren Olney on today's "To The Point."

At least 36 people were killed and 71 injured in the blasts, which come as Iraq prepares for March elections.

Award season comes early*,**

The Nobel Committee's surprise award of the peace prize to President Barack Obama certainly tells us something about how they viewed his predecessor, but with only 9 months on the job and a war in Afghanistan to plan, it might be a little premature at best. So what's the best political response? Does he accept the award on behalf of the American people? Or does he respectfully decline it, saying he's got miles to go and should be judged on results? Whatever he does, I'm of the mind that this won't help him make headway with his enemies abroad and will only harden the contempt of his political enemies at home who'll ask what he's done (and probably work in a little anti-elite European criticism). Humility might be the best answer to both.

*Update: Obama accepted the prize. He said he was "humbled" and "surprised," and added: "To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honored by this prize..." The video of his statement is here and the text here.

**Update II: On today's "To The Point," Time's White House correspondent Michael Scherer, Atlantic Media's, Peter Beinart of the Daily Beast, and Robin Wright of the US Institute of Peace, and formerly of the Washington Post, talk about the ramifications of the Nobel prize on Obama's foreign and domestic agenda.

WNYC gets back "To The Point

More details on the return of "To The Point" to WNYC in New York City. The show will broadcast Monday through Friday starting at 10 p.m. The show will make its debut on Friday, Oct. 9.

TTP in NYC

"To The Point" will return to the New York City airwaves in the next week or so - details are still a bit sketchy. WNYC has opened up an evening slot on its AM 820 station for the show. The station dropped TTP last year to make room for a home-grown program.

(Full disclosure: I'm a producer for TTP and glad/relieved to be back on in New York.)

Casting ballots in Afghanistan

Jonathan Landay of McClatchy Newspapers leads off the discussion on today's "To The Point" about the Afghan elections. He's joined by Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress, who's in Kabul to monitor the election; Nathaniel Fick, head of the Center for a New American Security, and Nicholas Schmidle, journalist and a fellow at the New America Foundation.

Forty years of Woodstock

How Woodstock reshaped politics, music and consumer culture on today's To The Point.

Guests: Dale Bell, associated producer of the Oscar-winning documentary; Rick Perlstein, author of "Nixonland"; James Miller, author of "Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977" and professor at the New School for Social Research; Rich Galen, communications director for House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Paul Taylor, director of the Pew Research Center on Social and Demographic Trends.

What's all the hubub about health care?

Who's fighting against health care reform? And who's fighting for it? Listen to today's "To The Point" with Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, Republican strategist David Winston, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter and Steve Kornacki of the New York Observer. The cure for sound-bite journalism.

Anti-pop news break

Despite what it looks like on television and news websites right now, the world is full of other newsworthy happenings. Iran, for instance. Listen to Borzou Daragahi, Reza Aslan, Juan Cole and Dion Nissenbaum discuss the growing political and religious divide inside Iran and world reaction on today's "To The Point."