At 08:35 PM 9/17/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>Explain this to me then ... from Tuesday through Saturday, all of the major
>news networks broadcast continually, ceaselessly, without commercial
>interruption ... not even to promote their own network shows ... not even to
>promote their own news shows.
They all want to be the first news source to break any new developments.
That is good advertising for them. If they shut down the broadcast, they
can't be the first. Plus, they impress people who wouldn't have continued
to watch the news. It makes each station's news seem more reliable and
trustworthy, so it increases their profits in the long run. And they avoid
ticking off anyone who would be offended by ad placement.
That's the way media works.
Besides, if they promoted their own shows and those shows were interrupted,
well, then people would be ticked.
>And for the first 24 hours after the attacks, every major Web site (except
>USAToday, I believe), stripped all banner ads from their sites.
This was a functionality issue. Many of the banner Ads came from secondary
sites. They also stripped any personal news pages, which were moved to
secondary servers, and they stripped other news topics. They took
everything off the main page that didn't belong to this story because the
load on their servers was causing them to go down. That's even what the
websites said. MSNBC said "Due to the load on our servers, personal news
pages have been moved here" with a link.
>And just about every mid-size daily newspaper and larger published a special
>edition on Tuesday -- I haven't seen any that contain advertising. Ours
>certainly didn't.
And you noticed. That's the point. I bet that you think they are good and
respectful and blah blah blah and you will continue to buy the paper. If
they had a mortuary ad buried in the sports section, people would have been
offended and never bought the paper again. Even if there had been an ad for
McDonald's people would have said that it was disrespectful. Besides which,
they wouldn't have time to sell ads in a special edition, since the point
is to get them out of the door ASAP.
>News organizations have lost tens of millions of dollars over the last week.
>Have you heard them whine? They have poured every possible resource into
>covering this story with no hope of recouping those losses. Have you heard
>them whine?
They will recoup most if not all losses. Whoever gets the most people in
this stage gets more money per spot when the commercial stage begins. Their
ratings still count.
>Think about that the next time you want to criticize the media.
I've been trained in newspaper and radio, and specifically trained for news
and management. I used to run a radio station. It was a very popular
station that year. I was the editor of my high school newspaper. I know how
it works. I feel free to criticize them.
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