An excellent edition of John U. Bacon’s ‘Big Show’ on WTKA 1050AM this afternoon. I caught a few of the segments featuring Clark Kellogg, SI’s Tim Layden, former Daily writer Nate Sandals, mgoblog‘s Brian Cook, and Bruce Madej, Michigan director of media relations and associate athletic director.
The topic was the great shift in the media, particularly vivid this week on the heels of the annoucement that the Ann Arbor News will be shutting its doors this summer.
Cook, the undisputed king of the M bloggers, talked about how the changes might affect coverage in general and his work in particular. He also spoke of his relationship (none) with the athletic department, a situation he described as “a Mexican standoff” which I’m told usually ends badly.
Counter that with Madej, a former News staffer and the man who’s controlled media access to Michigan athletics since 1982. He offered his perspective on how the athletic department views the changes and interestingly, how they view new media entities like bloggers.
Here’s the audio from Cook then Madej:
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Great stuff today. One suggestion: I’d like to have Bacon and frequent in studio guest Richard Deitsch bring on Charles Eisendrath, director of the Knight-Wallace fellows, and allow Eisendrath to share his views as he did with Mitch Albom last week.
By the way, John U. Bacon will be delivering his lecture “What I’ve Learned — Despite My Efforts“, tomorrow at 7:00pm @ Rackham Auditorium. It’s free (and remember you get what you pay for). No hats you hippies!
3 Comments
Kevin
Both very interesting, thanks for pulling.
Greg (MVictors)
The whole afternoon was must listen radio, especially for sports bloggers
Chris
Thanks for posting those mp3s!!! Combining these with the recent Eisendrath mp3, I have a little problem with this notion of “credentialed”. Yes, I understand PR staff has to exert some types of controls so that the interests they are trying to protect aren’t turned into a circus. But I really have a serious problem when hearing about “editors” and true “journalists”, when Albom’s employer also has Drew Sharp on staff. While it’s easy for Michigan men and women to take shots at Notso Sharp, he’s not a journalist. Drew likes to brag that he writes negative articles because he’s just keeping it real; he claims he is charged with taking the emotion and bias out of his reporting. Okay, fair enough, but when it’s clear that Drew regularly doesn’t do his homework and Drew likes to stir the pot in the name of ratings, well, I’d hardly hardly consider Sharp a journalist.