Media Decoder Blog: The Breakfast Meeting: Reporting From Newtown, and a Puppet Provocateur

The Breakfast Meeting

What’s making news in media.

The senseless murders of 20 schoolchildren and six adults who cared for them at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., has shocked the nation, and the world, drawing round-the-clock news coverage to the town, Peter Applebome and Brian Stelter report. Nearly every newscast on CNN since Friday night has been broadcast from Newtown, for example, as has been true for nearly every network television morning and evening newscast. There has been tension, however, with some townsfolk lashing out at reporters, and others welcoming the chance to share their grief with the rest of the country. Big-name anchors can be spotted going door-to-door, seeking interviews. The anchors, Mr. Applebome and Mr. Stelter write, said they know when no means no.

• The world news media reaction has focused on the easy availability of guns in the United States, giving China’s official news agency a chance to lecture America for a change, The International Herald Tribune blog wrote over the weekend.  “Their blood and tears demand no delay for U.S. gun control,” said a commentary published by the news agency, Xinhua. “However, this time, the public feels somewhat tired and helpless. The past six months have seen enough shooting rampages in the United States.”
• As if to back up the emphasis on guns, China itself experienced an attack on Friday in a primary school, The Associated Press reported. But in this case, the attacker was wielding a knife – he wounded 22 students and one adult. There were no deaths among the nine students treated at a hospital, though two had serious injuries; the attacker was captured by the police.

La Comay, a big-haired, free-speaking puppet whose popular talk show in Puerto Rico can drive the discussion there, whether in politics or entertainment, appears to have crossed a line, Tanzina Vega reports. The puppet provocateur, whose name means roughly “The Godmother,” has gained a measure of respectability, with candidates for governor or Puerto Rico appearing on the show the night before the election. But in commenting on a murder of a publicist by noting that he was in a sketchy neighborhood and may have been asking for it, he offended his audience and advertisers.

After years of churning out copy on technology for the blog Gizmodo, where he was editor, Brian Lam decided he needed to get away, David Carr writes. For awhile, that meant taking up a life of surfing in Hawaii; but recently Mr. Lam returned to the online technology journalism game, but determined to do it on his terms. His solution is the site Wirecutter, which researches a field of products and recommends one, say a robot vacuum or earphones. The publication schedule is a more manageable six to 12 posts a month, and the business model isn’t advertising based: rather, it is based on “affiliate” income — that is, fees from Amazon if readers click to buy the product it recommends.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/the-breakfast-meeting-reporting-from-newtown-and-a-puppet-provocateur/?partner=rss&emc=rss