Every year internet geeks gather for five days in Austin, TX to discuss the state of interactive media — and more importantly, what the future holds next — at South by Southwest Interactive. This year, old school tools like Facebook were barely mentioned: the hottest topics were online privacy, location-based social networks like Foursquare and Gowalla, and perhaps most interestingly: the future of journalism. (more...)

video Here's another great example of how NBC is flubbing the coverage of these Olympics. Everywhere I look people are talking about Shaun White's Double McTwist 1260 which won him the Olympic Gold, yesterday (actually he'd technically already won it...so more of a victory lap?). It sounds awesome. I really want to watch it. And I can't be the only one because "Shaun White Double McTwist 1260 video" happens to be a major trending topic on Google. Alas, when I search that very term (and some variations) all video links lead back to NBC's Olympic page (quickly uploaded YouTube clips appear to have already been removed). (more...)

webcast We've got a packed Mediaite Office Hours today from Livestream.com's studio at 3pmET. Joining us today will be CBS News' Mark Knoller, New York Times' Brian Stelter and more: (more...)

Photos! Anyone who works in media these days — especially online — knows that it can be an all-consuming lifestyle, caught up in the immediacy of the 24-7 news cycle and very much given to being swept up by the wildly fluctuating highs and lows of the moment. That's why it's so nice to step back and enjoy an evening with friends and colleagues, and remember why you like your job in the first place. Last night's party at the Plaza, sponsored by Mediaite's partner Bing, was a night for just that, as our founder Dan Abrams and his father, the esteemed First Amendment lawyer Floyd, along with his lovely wife Efrat, welcomed a convivial array of guests from across the mediasphere to a really fun gathering to celebrate the growth of Mediaite. (more...)

“You’re going to have a television if I have to nail it to your wall.”

"If you think The New York Times television reporter Bill Carter's usual suck-up coverage of the small screen biz has been even more fawning than usual to The Powers And Entertainers That Be, this is why: Carter is doing another book." --Deadline Hollywood Daily's Nikki Finke, never afraid to burn a few bridges (more...)

It's no secret that grown-ups love the Harry Potter series almost as much as kids - maybe even more, based on certain grown-up references that the average 12-year-old can't quite yet appreciate. More to the point, by this time a whole bunch of Harry Potter fans who were once kids, back when the book came out, are now all grown up. Either way, that means a whole lot of us at Mediaite are unashamed, unabashed Harry Potter fans. After its worldwide record-breaking weekend (which a few of us contributed to), we got to talking about certain parallels between the magical land of Hogwarts and the equally magical land of headlines, bylines, cutlines, chyrons, blog pickup and declining ad pages. Turns out, the two have a lot in common! Before we knew it, we were shouting out names of media muggles like Hermione answering a pop quiz. After careful (and nerdily meticulous) consideration, we've come up with a few examples for you. (We like to think of the Power Grid as our own little version of the Marauder's Map.) Here below, for your edification and enjoyment, is our own version - let's call it "Harry Potter and the Media Muggles." Mischief managed!

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Let the games begin! Now that Oprah Winfrey has officially decided to end her talk show the race is on to find her daytime replacement. Brian Stelter pens a speculative piece in today's Times about the possible contenders for Oprah's crown: (more...)

The New York Times is reporting that Oprah Winfrey will announce tomorrow that she is ending her syndicated talk show in 2011 at the end of her 25th season. Earlier this month Nikki Finke reported that Oprah would close up shop and move to cable in early 2011. From the NYT: (more...)

At the risk of playing the "first" card so reviled on the Internet, Mediaite called the showdown between Fox News and the Obama administration back in mid-August. Now that it's officially here, heralded by an attack-dog performance by White House Communications Director Anita Dunn on Reliable Sources and unhindered by a secret coffee date between Roger Ailes and David Axelrod, what does it mean? And which side, if either, will ultimately come out on top? A roundup of pundit reactions from the blogosphere and beyond: (more...)

The White House has gone on the offensive against Fox News in the past week, speaking to Time magazine and CNN's Reliable Sources. But in a follow-up to all the White House chatter about FNC, Brian Stelter of the New York Times writes about the fight that's shaping up. It's important to note, Fox News loves to fight! (more...)

Buried in Brian Stelter's story about the battle between Fox News and the Obama Administration is a little nugget: Last month, Lou Dobbs met with Roger Ailes. (more...)

Amidst this weekend's wall-to-wall Ted Kennedy coverage, and the growing Sarah Palin anniversary retrospectives (hard to believe it's only been twelve months!) it was sometimes difficult to recall that Saturday marked the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans. It's not that the media hadn't gone to some advanced lengths to cover the anniversary -- CNN's American Morning featured a week long series, and this weekend's Times magazine had a number of articles including the cover story; Michael Lewis' piece recounting his arrival in his hometown shortly after Katrina landed is a must-read. So it's not so much that the story was ignored but that the anniversary, which normally is an end of August media focal point, failed to permeate the larger conversation in the wake of more immediate events. (more...)

updated It's a big day here at Mediaite - the launch of the new and improved Mediaite Office Hours. We'll be live from Livestream.com's studio at 3pmET (new time as well), with guests including CNN anchor John Roberts and New York Times reporter Brian Stelter. And of course…you! (more...)

Who: Brian Stelter and Steve Rendall What: Gelf Magazine’s Media Circus “The Corporate Influence on Cable News” Where: JLA Studios Art Gallery When August 13, 2009 Thumbs: Up When people talk about bias on cable news, they are usually referring to the political leanings of the networks’ hosts, pundits and reporters. But recently discussion has centered more on the bias imposed by corporate influence and interests. (more...)

Note: The Twitter screengrabs to the right date from just after the crash, but the time indicators at the bottom reflect the time of screengrab, not time of posting. This post has been updated with new information since publication. Right now I'm watching Fox News' live report on the collision between a plane and a helicopter over the Hudson River today in Manhattan. It's about 90 minutes after the crash occurred, according to the first tweet I've seen about it, from Anthony De Rosa at 12:10 pm. It's a surprisingly precise way to assess it — reports place the crash at just after noon — because one moment my Tweetdeck was filled with details of brunch, coffee and morning runs, and the next tweets from people like Brian Stelter and Marc Ambinder started coming thick and fast, along with incidental reports from people I follow who just happened to be on the west side — like Michael Orell: "At Chelsea Piers Gym. This is the second time I'm watching a plane crash recovery from the Hudson. All wreckage looks to be submerged." (Update: First tweet I can find on this is Dan Belanger (@ziggfather) at 12 noon exactly.) By now, 90 minutes later, the networks have gotten a handle on it — NY1 was covering it almost immediately; the New York Times put out a story at about 1:05 p.m. (following up on a news alert banner at around 12:25 p.m.); Fox News is providing fantastic live coverage with commentary from anchor/host Jon Scott, also a licensed pilot and scuba diver with rescue training, who is giving extremely sharp ongoing analysis. But right when a story like this breaks — an event in public that no one has an exclusive on, just an army of news junkies trying to collect and share new emerging information — there is just no beating Twitter. (more...)

So it's week two of Mediaite Office Hours, and we've managed to line up fantastic show for you today. Guests include ABC's chief White House correspondent Jake Tapper and New York Times media/business reporter Brian Stelter. And of course...you! Here's how this works: (more...)