ABC’s decision to drop “Monday Night Football” after 36 years provides a timely example of the First and Second Laws of Media.
The First Law of Media: “The media is a business.”
The Second Law of Media: “The media is an exercise in the power of small numbers.”
The wording of these definitions is mine – I use them in teaching media principles to my students – but they may be found essentially unchanged, though maybe stated differently, in any number of media studies texts.
ABC dropped MNF because it was losing $150 million (it said) a year on the program, and a media, same as any other business, cannot lose too much money and stay open. I think most people understand that, but if they don’t, they should, because a clear understanding of the First Law is vitally important to understanding the current unrest with media, particularly non-narrative, or news, media.
Statistics accompanying the MNF story are illustrative of the Second Law, of which people seem to be much less aware. In fact the public in general is badly unaware of any of the laws, definitions and principles that govern the media business, because they aren’t taught or discussed anywhere, except in journalism and media communications schools. Media professionals go to school to learn these operational laws and principles, that they use every day in their work, in increasingly sophisticated ways.
Consumers, and the media, and the culture, would profit by consumer awareness of these laws and principles. There are television shows, set up as forums, that discuss media, and I get tickled watching them because they are basically media professionals sitting in a circle talking to each other about the media. Never has there been any thought, that I have seen, to address the lay person at home, the viewer, about the laws and principles underlying the knowledgeable insiders’ discussion.
I wish one of them would turn to the camera and say, “The Second Law of Media says that ‘The media is an exercise in the power of small numbers,’ ” and use it to explain the Monday Night Football story.
But they never do, so I will.
People in America think Monday Night Football is a really big deal. And it is. And it is that stature that explains the Second Law of Media. Most people know about Monday Night Football, but not very many people watch it. At the height of its popularity in the 1980s, MNF drew a Nielsen Rating of about 21. A Nielsen Rating Point (NRP) is equal to one percent of all television households in America.
That means at its most popular, 21 percent of all television households were tuned in to MNF, which also means that 79 percent of American television households were doing something else.
A more extreme example is Oprah. Popularity? Some people were disappointed that Oprah wasn’t appointed Pope. Oprah’s popularity, and power as a culture-shaper, is based on a Nielsen Rating (week of April 4) of 6.4. Oprah has gained her fame while 93.6 percent of the country was doing something else.
The Second Law of Media says that 6.4 (Dr. Phil the same week pulled a 5.1) is big enough, because it represents roughly eight million sets of eyeballs. Advertisers weep with gratitude when they think of eight million sets of eyeballs looking at their product all at the same time, and salivate when they think what a three percent return from such an audience will be.
Thus is described the power of small numbers in media. It makes us think everybody must watch Oprah. But we don’t. You would think we all watched “CSI.” In fact the last rating for “CSI” was 16.7, which means 83.3 percent . . . well, you know. In fact, the most misused word by pundits describing the media-public relationship is the word “we.”
April 26, 2005
April 19, 2005
Leadership
My only formal exposure to leadership principles was in a long and comprehensive class in Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, Okla.
I remember most of the material to this day and as I think about it, and its importance, I wonder why leadership was (and is) not part of the high school curriculum. Leadership was taught indirectly in high school: to do good things, you have to do things good, and if you succeed, people will look up to you.
But the principles were not laid out until Fort Sill. Learning them must have required more motivation than high school could provide. At Fort Sill we were taught that leadership principles were important to staying alive, and so we listened.
Variations on these principles appear in probably hundreds of so-called “leadership” books, but I prefer them as they were presented at Fort Sill, in Army Field Manual 22-100. They were the definitive source on national leadership, because FM 22-100 applied to the soldier’s Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States.
The first thing I remember about FM 22-100 is how it defined responsibility. A leader, or a commander, is responsible for everything his or her organization does or does not do. Simple as that. It was the “does not do” that got to me then and gets to me now, big-time, because it explains perfectly my own recent conclusion, that winning without principle is the saddest form of defeat, not only for the loser, but for us all.
Responsibility must have been not only the first, but the original, leadership principle, and it was inspired by the need to survive. At some point, there were the original people on this planet, and their original need was to be led through real and constant danger and primal, uninformed, fear. Somebody had to lead. Fascinating, to wonder what spark must have struck in the minds of the few individuals, within those masses, to cause them to believe they must be the ones to lead.
When the spark struck, it made a person instantly different, and distant, and everybody knew it. This person had accepted responsibility, and everybody was glad, because they knew somebody had to do it, and now they had someone to follow.
From responsibility, the original leadership principle, other principles emerged, created by and for people as they desperately needed to be led, and the leaders responding to the need. The leader was strong and brave, but not only that, to his group, the leader seemed to understand things that they didn’t, or couldn’t. He seemed to know the land and the sky and sounds and the wind, and as he grew comfortable in his responsibilities – leaders are scared as hell, too – principles of leadership emerged.
The principles are essentially unchanged today. Authority can be delegated, but responsibility can’t. A leader has courage. A leader has humility. A leader honors and is honored. A leader is alone.
A leader understands that leadership is situational. A leader knows the best he can do is anticipate situations and react quickly in the interest of the people. A leader leads all of the people all of the time. Leaders get people to do things they may not want to do. Leaders take care of their people.
People know a leader when they see one. The principles, after all, were formed from their needs. Leadership principles were the first pencil marks of humanity, on the doorjamb, that measured human growth. The pencil marks are there still, can’t be erased, negotiated or litigated, and if you stand a man against them – mayor, councilman, governor, CEO, educator, clergy, president – you can tell instantly, in your heart, because that is the source of leadership, if the man is a leader or not.
I remember most of the material to this day and as I think about it, and its importance, I wonder why leadership was (and is) not part of the high school curriculum. Leadership was taught indirectly in high school: to do good things, you have to do things good, and if you succeed, people will look up to you.
But the principles were not laid out until Fort Sill. Learning them must have required more motivation than high school could provide. At Fort Sill we were taught that leadership principles were important to staying alive, and so we listened.
Variations on these principles appear in probably hundreds of so-called “leadership” books, but I prefer them as they were presented at Fort Sill, in Army Field Manual 22-100. They were the definitive source on national leadership, because FM 22-100 applied to the soldier’s Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States.
The first thing I remember about FM 22-100 is how it defined responsibility. A leader, or a commander, is responsible for everything his or her organization does or does not do. Simple as that. It was the “does not do” that got to me then and gets to me now, big-time, because it explains perfectly my own recent conclusion, that winning without principle is the saddest form of defeat, not only for the loser, but for us all.
Responsibility must have been not only the first, but the original, leadership principle, and it was inspired by the need to survive. At some point, there were the original people on this planet, and their original need was to be led through real and constant danger and primal, uninformed, fear. Somebody had to lead. Fascinating, to wonder what spark must have struck in the minds of the few individuals, within those masses, to cause them to believe they must be the ones to lead.
When the spark struck, it made a person instantly different, and distant, and everybody knew it. This person had accepted responsibility, and everybody was glad, because they knew somebody had to do it, and now they had someone to follow.
From responsibility, the original leadership principle, other principles emerged, created by and for people as they desperately needed to be led, and the leaders responding to the need. The leader was strong and brave, but not only that, to his group, the leader seemed to understand things that they didn’t, or couldn’t. He seemed to know the land and the sky and sounds and the wind, and as he grew comfortable in his responsibilities – leaders are scared as hell, too – principles of leadership emerged.
The principles are essentially unchanged today. Authority can be delegated, but responsibility can’t. A leader has courage. A leader has humility. A leader honors and is honored. A leader is alone.
A leader understands that leadership is situational. A leader knows the best he can do is anticipate situations and react quickly in the interest of the people. A leader leads all of the people all of the time. Leaders get people to do things they may not want to do. Leaders take care of their people.
People know a leader when they see one. The principles, after all, were formed from their needs. Leadership principles were the first pencil marks of humanity, on the doorjamb, that measured human growth. The pencil marks are there still, can’t be erased, negotiated or litigated, and if you stand a man against them – mayor, councilman, governor, CEO, educator, clergy, president – you can tell instantly, in your heart, because that is the source of leadership, if the man is a leader or not.
April 16, 2005
Pneumonia on Demand
I am finding my way through a surprise attack of pneumonia, which is an appropriate time to tell you of a woman in my life, or more romantically the woman in the rest of my life.
Her name is Karen Marie, to whom I was introduced last September. I was hoping for companionship at the time and my parameter was exacting: she had to be fun.
If she was fun, I knew that meant she was smart, and if she was smart, the odds were good that she would be engaged in the world.
It turns out she was fun – impish, in fact – smart and engaged in the world in most interesting and compelling ways. Now we are engaged together in the world and our newest plan is to be married in Paris next April, but that plan is only two days old and may be changed at any time.
What does not change, between me and her, is an old and fabulous feeling brought about by longing and satisfaction existing side by side. Love at this level of excitement is like the two lines on a heart monitor, the upper line spiked with specific events and the lower line running along with a quiet, but quite strong, pulse. In November, around Thanksgiving, I felt the longing line ignite, and start to glow, and I knew what it meant.
The upper line is the satisfaction line. In this line, there will be an event, a moment, with Karen – a laugh, a touch, a glance, a kiss - that flings me in a spike of pure satisfaction clear to the other side of the universe. Over there, as I am recovering my bearings, regaining my breath, I see the longing line arriving, curving around to meet me, telling me that, of Karen, there will never be enough.
It was perfectly reasonable, then, for Karen to be sitting on the edge of my tub Thursday night. It was the second evening of Karen’s special pneumonia treatment for a man she loves. She drew me a hot bubble bath, settled me into it, and brought me a small but icy cold vodka martini. I lay back in the suds and closed my eyes and we talked of events of the day. I talked about pneumonia. I had never had it before, and its onset surprised me. It began as a cold and I would still think it was a cold, with constant coughing, if Karen hadn’t made me go to the doctor.
“Pneumonia,” I reported to her by phone.
“See?!” she said, vindicated and a laugh escaping. Just a total imp. “I could just come over there and smack you.”
Instead she came over and took care of me, which now, at tubside, inspired her to pick up the bar of soap and say, “Now I’ll just bathe you. You need bathing.”
The soap in her hand ran up my arm, underneath, softly gliding in precise equilibrium with my skin, over my shoulder, behind my neck, turning me slightly in my weightlessness, suspended as I was between earth and space, cruising in comfort at the speed of light, switching my martini from right to left as I felt her gliding to the other side, cradling my neck in her hand. Heaven.
“I am going to write a pamphlet for men,” I purred: “ ‘Pneumonia on Demand.’ ”
We laughed and laughed. But then each man has to write his own. I will eventually forget the details of having pneumonia. But I will always have the pamphlet, and my love for Karen, who inspired it.
Her name is Karen Marie, to whom I was introduced last September. I was hoping for companionship at the time and my parameter was exacting: she had to be fun.
If she was fun, I knew that meant she was smart, and if she was smart, the odds were good that she would be engaged in the world.
It turns out she was fun – impish, in fact – smart and engaged in the world in most interesting and compelling ways. Now we are engaged together in the world and our newest plan is to be married in Paris next April, but that plan is only two days old and may be changed at any time.
What does not change, between me and her, is an old and fabulous feeling brought about by longing and satisfaction existing side by side. Love at this level of excitement is like the two lines on a heart monitor, the upper line spiked with specific events and the lower line running along with a quiet, but quite strong, pulse. In November, around Thanksgiving, I felt the longing line ignite, and start to glow, and I knew what it meant.
The upper line is the satisfaction line. In this line, there will be an event, a moment, with Karen – a laugh, a touch, a glance, a kiss - that flings me in a spike of pure satisfaction clear to the other side of the universe. Over there, as I am recovering my bearings, regaining my breath, I see the longing line arriving, curving around to meet me, telling me that, of Karen, there will never be enough.
It was perfectly reasonable, then, for Karen to be sitting on the edge of my tub Thursday night. It was the second evening of Karen’s special pneumonia treatment for a man she loves. She drew me a hot bubble bath, settled me into it, and brought me a small but icy cold vodka martini. I lay back in the suds and closed my eyes and we talked of events of the day. I talked about pneumonia. I had never had it before, and its onset surprised me. It began as a cold and I would still think it was a cold, with constant coughing, if Karen hadn’t made me go to the doctor.
“Pneumonia,” I reported to her by phone.
“See?!” she said, vindicated and a laugh escaping. Just a total imp. “I could just come over there and smack you.”
Instead she came over and took care of me, which now, at tubside, inspired her to pick up the bar of soap and say, “Now I’ll just bathe you. You need bathing.”
The soap in her hand ran up my arm, underneath, softly gliding in precise equilibrium with my skin, over my shoulder, behind my neck, turning me slightly in my weightlessness, suspended as I was between earth and space, cruising in comfort at the speed of light, switching my martini from right to left as I felt her gliding to the other side, cradling my neck in her hand. Heaven.
“I am going to write a pamphlet for men,” I purred: “ ‘Pneumonia on Demand.’ ”
We laughed and laughed. But then each man has to write his own. I will eventually forget the details of having pneumonia. But I will always have the pamphlet, and my love for Karen, who inspired it.
April 07, 2005
Accuracy and Credibility
Accuracy is the first cardinal rule of journalism.
Accuracy is the second cardinal rule of journalism.
And accuracy is the third cardinal rule of journalism.
Do you see a pattern here?
Accuracy is so crucial to journalism because it is a matter of credibility. People count on the news being believable, because they plan their lives by it, at least in democratic republics.
By “accuracy,” of course we mean content. The facts in the story must be accurate. The more important the story, the more important that content be accurate. The Founding Fathers understood that. The media in America is granted what amounts to absolute constitutional power to develop content that is accurate and complete. So great is this First Amendment media power that a body of law called defamation law has developed through the courts to give citizens protection against media abuse of its power.
Most importantly, content must be accurate to the person that the story is about. Journalists working on stories about powerful people like presidents won’t publish information that hasn’t been confirmed by at least three sources. If they do, they are asking for the kind of trouble into which CBS News plunged after rushing the story last year about George W. Bush’s military records.
By “accuracy” we also mean spelling, punctuation and grammar. If you think the First Amendment is tough, try getting into San Diego State’s entry-level journalism class without passing the GSP. GSP stands for “Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation.” GSP is so important to accuracy because of the wine and sewage reality: If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel of wine, you get sewage.
If a consumer sees an error of grammar, spelling or punctuation in a story, the story loses credibility: “If this person can’t be bothered to spell and punctuate correctly, and employ correct grammar, then how can I trust this person to provide me a believable story about the state budget?” Or City Hall? Or the symphony? Or the Super Bowl?
Mistakes happen all the time, because mistakes happen. Some journalism instructors will assign an automatic grade of zero to any student’s work in which an error appears. I can’t do that, because I have committed errors myself. I tell my own students that I truly hope they pass their entire media careers without an error, but that is not likely. They will learn to work hard to avoid errors, though, because it is the errors they will remember, even above the Pulitzer Prizes. In 1978, in a story in The San Diego Union, I got a name wrong. The name in question was Bogle, or Bogen. He was a PSA pilot. I forget which was the incorrect one, but that’s the one I used, and it pains me to this day.
It pains me because it is a matter of credibility. It’s not my own personal credibility – I was trying to do the correct thing – but what is important is that as a professional journalist, I am a ward of the people’s demand for credibility. The media did not create the three cardinal rules of journalism. People did. In fact any of the tools the media uses to do its job were not created by the media. They were created by people. The tools of media existed among people long before the media came into existence. When it did, it simply took those tools and turned them into a business.
That is the reality that assures me today. The media appears to be under attack by the Bush Administration, or by organizations and individuals linked to the administration, who have developed a cottage industry of passing off fake news as the real thing. Pundits worry about the effect of the fake real thing on the real real thing. Frankly, I worry about a president, the top defender of the Constitution, who would let it happen.
But I don’t worry too much, because in our democratic dynamic of checks and balances, there is a huge check coming that will restore balance. Not all people, but more than enough to make the difference, understand instinctively the importance of credibility to their well-being, and their freedom, and their self-interest, and they won’t accept their media any other way. They are starting to sense that something is wrong, that someone is using their tools the wrong way, and they will fix it. And the real media will get to write about it. Something to look forward to.
Accuracy is the second cardinal rule of journalism.
And accuracy is the third cardinal rule of journalism.
Do you see a pattern here?
Accuracy is so crucial to journalism because it is a matter of credibility. People count on the news being believable, because they plan their lives by it, at least in democratic republics.
By “accuracy,” of course we mean content. The facts in the story must be accurate. The more important the story, the more important that content be accurate. The Founding Fathers understood that. The media in America is granted what amounts to absolute constitutional power to develop content that is accurate and complete. So great is this First Amendment media power that a body of law called defamation law has developed through the courts to give citizens protection against media abuse of its power.
Most importantly, content must be accurate to the person that the story is about. Journalists working on stories about powerful people like presidents won’t publish information that hasn’t been confirmed by at least three sources. If they do, they are asking for the kind of trouble into which CBS News plunged after rushing the story last year about George W. Bush’s military records.
By “accuracy” we also mean spelling, punctuation and grammar. If you think the First Amendment is tough, try getting into San Diego State’s entry-level journalism class without passing the GSP. GSP stands for “Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation.” GSP is so important to accuracy because of the wine and sewage reality: If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel of wine, you get sewage.
If a consumer sees an error of grammar, spelling or punctuation in a story, the story loses credibility: “If this person can’t be bothered to spell and punctuate correctly, and employ correct grammar, then how can I trust this person to provide me a believable story about the state budget?” Or City Hall? Or the symphony? Or the Super Bowl?
Mistakes happen all the time, because mistakes happen. Some journalism instructors will assign an automatic grade of zero to any student’s work in which an error appears. I can’t do that, because I have committed errors myself. I tell my own students that I truly hope they pass their entire media careers without an error, but that is not likely. They will learn to work hard to avoid errors, though, because it is the errors they will remember, even above the Pulitzer Prizes. In 1978, in a story in The San Diego Union, I got a name wrong. The name in question was Bogle, or Bogen. He was a PSA pilot. I forget which was the incorrect one, but that’s the one I used, and it pains me to this day.
It pains me because it is a matter of credibility. It’s not my own personal credibility – I was trying to do the correct thing – but what is important is that as a professional journalist, I am a ward of the people’s demand for credibility. The media did not create the three cardinal rules of journalism. People did. In fact any of the tools the media uses to do its job were not created by the media. They were created by people. The tools of media existed among people long before the media came into existence. When it did, it simply took those tools and turned them into a business.
That is the reality that assures me today. The media appears to be under attack by the Bush Administration, or by organizations and individuals linked to the administration, who have developed a cottage industry of passing off fake news as the real thing. Pundits worry about the effect of the fake real thing on the real real thing. Frankly, I worry about a president, the top defender of the Constitution, who would let it happen.
But I don’t worry too much, because in our democratic dynamic of checks and balances, there is a huge check coming that will restore balance. Not all people, but more than enough to make the difference, understand instinctively the importance of credibility to their well-being, and their freedom, and their self-interest, and they won’t accept their media any other way. They are starting to sense that something is wrong, that someone is using their tools the wrong way, and they will fix it. And the real media will get to write about it. Something to look forward to.
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