Bush is back

He hasn't gone away just yet

The Huffington Post reports that

The George W. Bush Institute -- the "action- oriented think tank" that is part of Bush's Presidential Center -- will co-produce a public television show hosted by its executive director, Ambassador James Glassman, in a rare convergence of public broadcasting and a partisan research organization.

The show will b braodcast on America's PBS and two episodes of the show have already been filmed

90,000 jobs and 142 papers lost in the US

142 papers came to an end in the United States this year reports Alan Mutter,three times the level of 2008.

However

the toll seemed smaller than some observers expected.
There are three reasons for that, the residual monopoly power of the industry, the magic of the bankruptcy system and the irrepressible optimism of publishers.

Little comfort though to the more than 90,000 people who lost their jobs in the various print publishing industries in the last 12 months.

America prepares for a social media barrage

Social media will be at the forefront of a barrage of post Thanksgiving retail promotions in the United States.

The FT reports that

Retailers including discounters Target and Walmart, and department store groups Macy’s, Kohl’s and JC Penney have used Facebook pages to publish the “doorbuster” and “early bird” deals traditionally announced in newspaper advertising inserts on Thanksgiving, the day before “Black Friday” – so called because it was once the day on which retailers’ ledgers for the year moved out of the red and into the black.

How the right has responded to Fort Hood

Maybe not surprisingly the right wing media in America have come out all guns blazing following the Fort Hood shootings.

Media matters reports that

Right-wing media figures have used the shooting at Fort Hood as an excuse to attack Islam and American Muslims in particular, with Debbie Schlussel, for example, urging readers to think of the alleged shooter "whenever you hear about how Muslims serve their country in the U.S. military." Additionally, commentators have blamed the shooting on "political correctness," with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade suggesting the implementation of "special debriefings" for Muslim American soldiers to prevent future attacks.

via Huffington Post

A database of bad news from America

Mark Potts former journalist at the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune as well as being a co founder Washington Post.com has been building up a database of bad news in the American media market.

You can read the full list here but for a sample

1.More than 6,300 employees at the 100 largest newspapers have lost jobs through buyouts or layoffs in the past year.

2.More than half of those cutbacks have come since the beginning of June.

3.Nearly two-thirds of the top 100 papers have cut staff in the past year, including all but four of the top 34

And as he says

putting it all together in one database shows the totality of the newspaper industry's shrinkage. Seeing all the cuts and other moves in one place is revealing–and more than a bit depressing.

Any volunteers for the Uk equivalent?

Problems with the digital switch in the USA.

With the UK's digital TV switch over slowly moving forward,a warning from across the Atlantic.With switch over scheduled in 9 months nearly 25 million homes have at least one television that will cease to function

The New York Times reports that

Ten million of those homes are considered “completely unready” for the conversion, according to a report scheduled to be released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research. Among the findings, Hispanic and African-American households stand to lose a disproportionately high share of access, and extra televisions in kitchens and bedrooms will be more likely to go dark, potentially cutting into the number of people viewing early morning and late-night television.

The government has spent over $1b on educating the public over the switch.

One problem that has been identified is the effect on advertising revenue.With less Televisions being physically watched,this will lead to drop in viewer numbers and ratings with subsequent drops in revenue.