Media

If you missed Kristi Piehl’s breathless April 25 KSTP-TV report on the pair of retired NYPD detectives who believe there’s a network of serial killers murdering college men around the country — over 40 to date, they claim, and perhaps up to 100 — then you’ve probably also missed the overnight growth of a new urban legend on the web. MORE »

Paul Schmelzer, 4/30/08 • Print news is in such famously bad shape that Advertising Age is running “The Newspaper Death Watch,” which quotes an expert who gives an industry in “terminal decline” 20 to 25 years to live. In this context, it’s noteworthy when any publication decides to launch a pulp version: This week the Twin Cities culture magazine Rift, which ditched its print version not long ago for a web-only enterprise, announced that it’ll start producing a “newspaper style guide” to goings-on in the area.

It all began with a column in the Star Tribune. Katherine Kersten started by asking whether taxpayers were paying for a religious public school, and, in a later column, concluded that they were. MORE »

Let me be the first to admit: Media stories about other folks in the media tend to be self-aggrandizing, self-referential, and just plain self-absorbed. This isn’t to say that I don’t think there are important media stories to be had out there. The corporatization of media makes it more important than ever that the public is made aware of how stories are gathered, created, and reported. MORE »