• by John Gaffney , May 8, 2003

All FCC Issues Is Local: After ignoring the FCC media consolidation issue thus far many media outlets, especially newspapers, are rushing to make up for lost time. One of the more interesting views of the issue came yesterday in an article from North Carolina's online ESP magazine. It focused on what a lack of network competition could mean for TV viewers, and that lack of competition could mean looser production standards. Philip Meyer, a journalism professor at UNC told the e-zine, "Entertainment and journalism are merging. Journalism and advertising are getting mixed up. It's hard to determine if the news you're getting is being paid for by someone with a commercial interest. It's only a short step before we have product placement in newscasts. Look at the CBS morning show. They're always advertising the evening entertainment shows. The guy on the local news tries to convince you to watch Survivor that night." I don't think we'll have Dan Rather hawking Nike before a commercial break anytime soon. But I do think that if the FCC rules allow the media conglomerates to buy what they want when they want, we will see even closer mix of entertainment and news. It's already too cozy a relationship.

Serious Business: I was pleasantly surprised yesterday that titles like Parenting and ESPN could win the National Magazine Awards for general excellence. The wisdom used to be that topics like that could not be taken "seriously" enough to be rewarded by such a jury. I have one major gripe: no business magazines. That's right. Out of the major NMA categories not one business magazine won an award. No Business Week. No Forbes. No Fortune. Just because it's a bad year for business doesn't mean the editorial content of business magazines took a vacation.

At The Buzzer: Bob Ryan - The Boston Globe columnist who quipped on ESPN TV that he'd favor a "smack" for Joumana Kidd - got off easy with a one month suspension. If a commentator in any other category made a similar statement, that commentator would get fired - and justifiably so.