LOS ANGELES – Valentine's Day has been set as the date for the sale of KCSM-TV, the PBS station serving San Mateo and the counties south of San Francisco. The station is owned by the local community college and said it could no longer afford to operate the station because it is short of funds. Potential buyers expressing interest include two Colorado organizations, the Public Media Company, based in Boulder, and Independent Public Media, based in Denver. (You can see our earlier report on Independent Public Media here.) Daystar, a Texas-based religious broadcaster, is also interested in bidding on the……
Month: January 2012
Road to the White House: Arab Spring and Foreign Policy
With the 2012 presidential election season tumultuously underway, the USC Annenberg School's Center on Communication Leadership and Policy (CCLP) in coordination with the USC's Bedrosian Center and the USC Unruh Institute of Politics continues their successful Road to the White House forum promoting political discourse between leading academics and the community to help inform and shape political policies. The first CCLP-hosted forum of the new semester kicked off on Wednesday January 25, 2012, to a successful reception spotlighting U.S foreign policy relations in the Middle East and North Africa and the effect of new media technologies shaping political discourse……
A Call for Civility in American Politics
Just a little more than a year ago, a gunman shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) at a meeting she was holding with constituents in Tucson, Ariz. Even though the shooter did not appear to be motivated by a political agenda, the intimate portrait of Giffords that emerged prompted many who engage in what now passes for political "conversation" to reassess the increasing tendency toward demonization of those whose beliefs or experiences have led them to hold positions different from our own. When we routinely deride the intelligence and character of those with whom we disagree, the people at the receiving……
CCLP partners with USC Annenberg’s Norman Lear Center to ‘Get it Right’
On January 6, 2012, the Historians, Journalists and the Challenges of Getting It Right debuted in Chicago at the 126th annual American Historical Association conference. A partnership of CCLP, the Lear Center, and the American Historical Association's National History Center, Getting It Right begins with the premise that both professions, historians and journalists, are in the business of finding and assessing evidence; of analyzing events; and of narrating events. Lear Center director Marty Kaplan chaired the publishing panel, which used Alan Brinkley's biography of Henry Luce as a springboard to talk about journalism and history. For more information on the……
CCLP Faculty Fellow Philip Seib on China’s New English-Language News Network
Fast Company's article on China's recent focus on foreign news broadcasting cites CCLP faculty fellow and CPD Director Philip Seib. China is set to launch the new English-language news network, TodayChina, in February. To read the full article, please click here…….
Richard Reeves predicts Romney
CCLP senior fellow Richard Reeves predicts Mitt Romney will probably be the Republican nominee. See the full article here…….
‘Downton Abbey’ hype may highlight PBS problems
PBS executives are promoting the second season of its imported British costume drama "Downton Abbey," doing their best not only to attract viewers to the program but also to present "Downton Abbey" as part of a new strategy to attract audiences. However, critics such as Brian Lowry of Variety have responded by saying that this is more public relations than anything resembling a deliberate plan, "misreading something after the fact, then allowing execs to conflate an unexpected windfall into a 'strategy.'" And across the Atlantic, the hype may have backfired. In the UK, where "Downton Abbey" runs on the commercial……