“SOUTH BY,“ to use that rather flat, familial nickname habitués have given their annual festival here, South by Southwest, contrived to be in itself a somewhat flat event this year.
I’m thinking of the Interactive (with all things geeky being considered) and the Film parts of the festival, and not the Music part — which seemed, as it started up later in the week, every bit as wild and crazy as usual. Continue reading “South by Southwest: More Than Money-Making” »
THE MAN HAS earned two big pictures on The New York Times‘ front page … the lead-story position on the BBC‘s World Service, persistently … not to mention endless acres of tabloid coverage in print, on TV and online.
Such is the fate of the once-gloried Olympian Oscar Pistorius, the extraordinary ‘cross-over’ athlete both disabled and able-bodied, since killing his girl-friend Reeva Steenkamp.
The world’s media are having, and will continue to have, an extended field-day with this resonant story from South Africa that comprises so many disturbing layers. Continue reading “Story Repeated a Billion Times Worldwide” »
I GET TO TELL a little-known story on TV this weekend.
Just ahead of the centenary of Rosa Parks‘ birth, when she will be fêted throughout the nation as “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement,” I report for PBS on a terrible injustice being done to her memory. Continue reading “Rosa Parks Centennial: Untold Story Clouds Legacy” »
IF COLUMNISTS WANT to follow tradition, they’ll face a binary choice at this time of year. Look back over the 12 months just gone — or look forward to those to come.
I’ve generally tended to avoid trying to predict the future. (Last year, when I gave in to the temptation, I got one entirely obvious prediction right, of course — the surge, if you’ll pardon the phrase, of Titanic coverage around the disaster’s April centenary. But I got one grim expectation utterly wrong, thankfully … that Nelson Mandela would likely die in 2012.) Continue reading “Media Get Things WRONG! – Who Knew?” »
AN INTER-MEDIA TRANSFER is in place that celebrity-chasing reporters have been eagerly awaiting.
Movie star Katie Holmes (movie star, that is, and still newly-divorced wife of a movie mega-star, of course) takes to the boards of a Broadway live-action theater. Continue reading “Tension: Media-Celebrity vs. Art” »
