Monthly Archives: September 2013

Four Rules to Make Star Wars Great Again

An open video letter to J.J. Abrams from Sincerely Truman. This is brilliant and correct.  And as one commenter on YouTube put it: “So basically… Make Firefly.” Pretty much. Shiny!  

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Link Ch. 4 – Portrait of an Attempt to Ban a Book in Minnesota

Omaha author (and former newspaper columnist) Rainbow Rowell did not grow up well off.  She wrote back in her column back in 1997 that, “We went from desperate to poor.  And poor felt so good.” In Eleanor & Park, her award-winning … Continue reading

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Banned Book Week

It’s the American Library Association’s annual Banned Book Week, which draws attention to books that have been challenged in libraries or classrooms over the last year. I’ve long had somewhat ambiguous feelings about Banned Book Week.  On the one hand, … Continue reading

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Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)

Who has America’s oldest college newspaper? At least eight different papers claim the title.  Of course, each paper uses its own standard to determine the “oldest.”  (Thanks to College Media Matters from the Associated Collegiate Press) How sexist were ads … Continue reading

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TV/movie piracy & Hollywood. Who’s to blame? And is it all bad?

A post in honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Are improper movie downloads Hollywood’s own fault? Kinda looks like it.  When you give people easy, reasonably priced ways to download movies, they prefer them over “pirated” downloads. And as … Continue reading

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A Motorcycle Ride to the United 93 Memorial on a Rainy Summer Day

This has nothing to do with the media. It’s a brief story about a ride I took on my motorcycle to the United 93 Memorial on a rainy June day back in 2004. It was written shortly after I had … Continue reading

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Media News Roundup

The Rise and Fall of the Internet-Predecessor ARPANET A cool animated GIF that shows how the original wide-sale host-to-host network grew and eventually declined.  Fascinating pre-history of the Internet.  Miley Loses Vogue Cover Over Twerking at VMAs You have to … Continue reading

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Is this a better approach for advertising beer?

Beer advertisers have been taking a fair amount of heat lately for producing messages that are sophomoric at best and brand damaging at worst.  These ads are criticized for promoting over consumption of lousy beer to under age or barely … Continue reading

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Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)

Has the balancing act between cable/satellite providers and content companies hit the breaking point? Maybe.  Dish and Disney get ready for a showdown over ESPN.  This could make the Time Warner Cable/CBS dispute look like paddycake! HT @mediatwit What did … Continue reading

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Time Warner Cable / CBS Resolve Month-Long Retransmission Dispute

Time Warner Cable and CBS Inc. have finally resolved their month-long retransmission battle that will bring back CBS broadcast and Showtime back to cable subscribers in New York City, Los Angeles and the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. This means that subscribers … Continue reading

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