Excessive Revenue Coverage

[Flanders]

I never follow crime or natural disaster stories; so I never read one article about the Zimmerman case. I never watched more than a few seconds of television coverage whenever I surfed into it, yet I absorbed infinitely more than I wanted to know. Long before Zimmerman came along I saw crime story coverage in terms of how much the media earns reporting them.

Ask how the media makes money? In a word ADVERTISING. All stories are used as bookends for commercials. The Zimmerman story has been running for months. That means at least two billion dollars for television when you add up all of the revenues from all of the bookends the networks and local channels raked in. On top of it all the advertisers took a tax deduction for every dime they spent. That ain’t all.

In the earliest days of TV the concept of paying for TV was designed to be commercial-free. Today, everybody with subscription TV pays for the commercials. FOX Network news shows are approximately thirty minutes of commercials and thirty minutes of blather. I’m guessing the other networks are the same.

Having said the above, yesterday I came across a name I had not heard before —— one Angela Corey. My curiosity was aroused; so this morning I looked around and found this:

Shortly after Dershowitz’s criticisms, Harvard Law School’s dean’s office received a phone call. When the dean refused to pick up, Angela Corey spent a half hour demanding of an office-of-communications employee that Dershowitz be fired. According to Dershowitz, Corey threatened to sue Harvard, to try to get him disbarred, and also to sue him for slander and libel. Corey also told the communications employee that she had assigned a state investigator — an employee of the State of Florida, that is — to investigate Dershowitz. “That’s an abuse of office right there,” Dershowitz says.

Angela Corey’s Checkered Past
Her peers describe an M.O. of retaliation and overcharging.
By Ian Tuttle

Angela Corey?s Checkered Past | National Review Online

Corey suing Dershowitz and Harvard is too delightful to contemplate. I would follow that story with a magnifying glass. Should it happen, I’ll forgive the media for the crime of excessive revenue coverage up to this point. I can’t issue a blanket absolution because headlines around the Net tell me that Eric Holder will probably charge Zimmerman with some kind of a crime. Another Zimmerman trial should be good for at least another billion or two in media coffers.

 

[mike.redd1266]

Your point exactly shows how the media can blow any story out of proportion for money. Sadly, they have ruined the lives of Zimmerman and his family members forever. It will be interesting to see if Zimmerman will get some restitution in countersuits...

 

[Flanders]

It will be interesting to see if Zimmerman will get some restitution in countersuits...

To mike.redd1266: If he gets one percent of every advertising dollar up to today he’ll be a millionaire many times over. He could be a billionaire if he gets a copyright.

The Zimmerman trial is over. A federal trial has not started, yet the media continues to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising by talking about the aftermath of the verdict. Is it possible the media found the equivalent of perpetual motion in a story that never ends?

 

[Pogo]

Your assessment of the media milking of what should be an insignificant local story is exactly on target.

However, the fact remains that they could not and would not milk that much if not enabled by the unwashed millions who obediently pay attention to it. They have to share the blame for their failure to discriminate news theater from real news.

 

[Flanders]

Your assessment of the media milking of what should be an insignificant local story is exactly on target.

To Pogo: Thank you kindly.

However, the fact remains that they could not and would not milk that much if not enabled by the unwashed millions who obediently pay attention to it. They have to share the blame for their failure to discriminate news theater from real news.

To Pogo: I half-heartedly agree with you.

However, I’ve long-maintained that tens of millions of viewers are addicted to television; so I can’t get around the problem of a drug-pusher supplying addicts. I look forward to your thoughts on my take if the topic interests you as it does me.

 

[Rozman]

It's one thing if the media coverage was accurate.
How many times have they been caught editing live video coverage
to suit their agenda?