Depending on your religious beliefs, the Massachusetts high court's ruling opening the door for gays and lesbians to marry can be seen as "an attack against civilization" or a welcome step forward in the civil rights struggle. Boston Phoenix writer Dan Kennedy listens to Catholics and Unitarians outside the Massachusetts State House while, inside, legislators debate whether the state constitution should be amended to ban such matrimony. "As the great political philosopher Jon Stewart has observed, making gay marriage legal doesn't make it mandatory," Kennedy writes.
A growing number of large marketers are finding Internet direct-marketing and relationship-building strategies more effective than TV advertising, attendees at the iMedia Brand Summit heard. During a session that quickly became a seminar of negative comparisons to TV advertising, some of the country's largest marketers detailed how "on the cheap" Internet methods have become a central muscle of their marketing communications programs. Some described their successes with pure Internet plays, others with strategies that used economical Internet tie-ins to boost the impact of their TV buys.
And will all of that high profile Super Bowl advertising pay off this year? The online jobs giant today reported a fourth quarter profit earning $12.1 million or 11 cents per share. Not too shabby considering an economy that continues to sputter and compared to the same period a year ago when it posted a $51 million loss for the quarter. Quarterly sales nudged four percent to $170.8 million from $164.4 million compared to the same period a year ago.
Obsession with silly rules gets in the way of good journalism, writes Willy Stern. His against-the-grain column stands up for an op-ed editor who was pilloried for offering to let the mayor of Austin, Texas, see a draft of an editorial. By the standards applied in that case, editor Bruce Dobie would be fired if he worked anywhere but the Scene, says contributing editor Stern, who is also a media ethicist. "At this weekly paper, prior to publication, we routinely show sources entire drafts of stories," he discloses. "We routinely read quotes to sources before we go to print. We even share drafts with sources' attorneys—including attorneys who have threatened to sue us." Stern presents six reasons for allowing subjects to read stories before publication.
Sacramento News & Review contributor Harmon Leon hopes he'll get a closer relationship with the FBI when he attends FBI Media Day at the agency's Sacramento headquarters. Instead he suffers a case of blushing bladder after being escorted to the restroom, beats the polygraph test when he lies, and leaves his thumbprint and footprint for who knows what purposes. But he and other reporters do get an FBI official's assurance that the Patriot Act has "minimal effect" on what the agency does.
Optimism, a sentiment often in short supply among interactive marketers and publishers since the bubble burst of 2001, reared its head at the iMedia Communications Brand Summit here today, as marketing executives and researchers pointed to signs interactive marketing is gaining traction as a supplement or even alternative to TV advertising.
"Slate is a rare publication in the online world: It is alive," Nina Shapiro writes for Seattle Weekly. Now the fourth most widely read entity on the Web, it focuses "on subjects that excite the chattering classes." Shapiro interviews Michael Kinsley, the gadget geek who founded the Microsoft-backed magazine, and Jacob Weisberg, who has doubled readership since taking over as editor two years ago. She reflects on what results when writers try to merge thoughtfulness with speed.
Competition from behemoth discounters like Wal-Mart and free downloading of music from the Internet had the giant record retailer singing a sad song in court Monday. The 93-store chain based in West Sacramento, Calif., intends to keep operating its stores as it reorganizes, its chief executive tells Reuters.
Travis Durfee's schedule for three days is as hectic as any presidential candidate's. He catches six of the seven main Democratic presidential hopefuls as he criss-crosses New Hampshire. Some of his observations: Joe Lieberman is trying to use President Bush to campaign for him; a subtler, more refined Howard Dean can still bring listeners to the edge of their seats with his message; John Edwards oozes compassion as he works a room the same way he might work a jury for a settlement; Dennis Kucinich supporters wonder if they should vote on principle or to win; the Wesley Clark crowd's enthusiasm seems like overcompensation; and John Kerry looks like New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain before it crumbled.
The new entertainment-focused papers popping up in cities across the U.S. are "a melange of Entertainment Weekly and Reader's Digest," delivering simple content and big photos, says The Christian Science Monitor. But don't expect them to carry Savage Love. AAN Executive Director Richard Karpel says content shaped by focus groups "doesn't create a very compelling product." Readership Institute Director John Lavine argues that the hundreds of thousands of readers who pick up the tabloids prove there's a market.
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