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Media
February 16, 2006
Condom Nation
In this week's edition of Zooming In, Gelf's quasi-weekly roundup of undercovered local stories from around the world: Korea's reaction to Hines Ward; a defiant editor; and a lot of missing teeth. One of our favorites deals with Thailand's push for world prophylactic domination.
Media
February 9, 2006
Economics of Homelessness
Malcolm Gladwell, in the latest issue of the New Yorker, argues that the traditional approach to homelessness is inefficient. It'd be cheaper, he suggests, to identify the hardest cases—the chronic homeless—and hand them each a key to an apartment, then monitor them with dedicated social workers and health-care specialists. That's because continually treating them for substance abuse and other medical and societal ills, jailing them, sheltering them, and ejecting them back to the street costs even more. It's an interesting argument, raising questions of how societies should balance economic efficiency with the need for proper incentives and an intuitive moral code. But Gladwell's argument rests on a flawed interpretation of government costs—though in an email to Gelf he explains why his argument still holds.
Media
February 9, 2006
Scratch Cat Fever
PR people, take note: If you're willing to dress up a cat in a silly collar adorned with a police badge, you can get practically unlimited favorable press coverage. Even if said cat didn't do anything beyond getting handed from one person to another, it doesn't matter as long as this transaction was somehow relevant to catching a criminal. The cat's a hero! Schedule a news conference! Dress the cat in the cute cop costume! Call the New York Times! The headlines practically write themselves:
Media
February 9, 2006
BlackBerry, Our Enemies' Savior
Recently, gelflog noted the mother of all product placements for BlackBerry: used as a tool by heroic terrorism-fighter Jack Bauer on Fox's 24. But it turns out that technology can be used for both good and evil.
Media
February 8, 2006
We Spoke Too Soon
Among the highlights of this week's edition of Oops, Gelf's quasi-weekly round-up of media corrections: The press jumped the gun on Palestinian elections; a plagiarist and a fabulist; and college media problems. Here's one of our favorite corrections this week:
Media
February 6, 2006
Cursing Stones
When news breaks that contains profanity, it's always interesting to see how different media outlets cover it. (For example, Gelf compared how different news organizations dealt with Robert Novak's famous tirade on CNN's Inside Politics.) During the halftime show of the Super Bowl, the Rolling Stones omitted some lyrics from their song set because ABC decided that the words were too risqué. Here's how some popular news sites covered it:
Media
February 2, 2006
Dog Food Snafu
In this week's edition of Zooming In, Gelf's quasi-weekly roundup of undercovered local stories from around the world: A banned student magazine; an empty airline; and camel wrestling. One of our favorite stories this week concerns a controversial food donation to Kenya.
Media
January 30, 2006
BlackBerry, Our Savior
In the world of product placement, it doesn't get much better than this: On Fox's 24, heroic terrorism-fighter Jack Bauer needs to send word to a presidential advisor about an enemy agent working inside the White House. Word comes via an email while the advisor is in a meeting with Mr. President. The camera cuts to the mobile email device, with brand-name visible. Any device would have done just as well for some low-ranking official, but in the White House, only BlackBerry will do.
Media
January 30, 2006
Albert Brooks, an Acquired Taste
In this week's edition of Blurb Racket—the Gelf feature in which we take a close look at those critic blurbs that are a fixture of ads for movies—see breakdowns of blurbs for Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, TransAmerica, The New World, and more. This week's winner of the Bogus Blurb of the Week award comes in an ad for Breaking News:
Media
January 26, 2006
Foyer the Antechamber
This week's winner of the "Well, duh" award goes to this morning's article in the New York Times, "Lobbyists Oppose Efforts to Impose New Restrictions," which for all intents and purposes should have been titled, "Lobbyists Lobby Against Lobbying Reform."
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