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The Media Poll 01
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THE MEDIA POLL Number 1 January 1, 1997
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By John Marcus
MEDIA POLL uses online news databases to measure media trends, coverage
of current events, and the news organizations that cover them. The Media
Poll delves deep into the data warehouses of vast, electronic news
archives, presses a few buttons and throws a few switches, and then steps
back--ultimately attempting to make sense of the "findings," whether any
sense is there to be made or not. Sometimes, the "findings" just speak
for themselves.
CUMULATIVE AFFLICTION
This week's poll measures column inches wasted on--er, devoted to--the
second O.J. Simpson trial, and O.J. in general. Personally, and I don't
think I'm alone in feeling this way, but all this O.J. coverage is, well,
getting to me.
No, really--it is.
AND TO ME at least, it seems that on every page I turn or screen I
scroll, Mr. Simpson is there waiting for me. Either he's the most
referred to name in public discourse these days or else the cumulative
effect of his multi-part miniseries has made it seem that way. But
whether or not one thinks he is guilty or irrelevant or innocent or
fascinating, O.J. is here and he has made his presence felt.
One of the things the Media Poll does best is to measure not just
*coverage* of a certain person or entity, but also the extended impact
and influence of that person or entity. Our sampling technique, after
all, picks up actual articles about a topic, but it also picks up every
off-hand reference, bad joke, or throwaway line that has been inspired by
it. In other research situations this would be a fault, but not here,
because the Media Poll aims to quantify the extent of O.J. as a news
story *and* cultural influence--benchmarking the ubiquity of pop culture
phenomena is one of our specialties, and something you'll find nowhere
else.
TO ILLUSTRATE, take another example: Saddam Hussein. Although he has
been off the front pages for several years, his "Mother of all Battles"
epigram has entered the English language permanently and is used daily in
variant forms by reporters and sources the world over. Perhaps we will
document the dictator's lingering influence in a later poll.
In this poll, we have counted the number of articles mentioning "the
Juice" since the trial began on October 23rd in each of 20 newspapers in
the U.S. and overseas. Some papers are still O.J.-mad. Others have had
enough. Is your regular morning read among the worst offenders--er,
those offering the most comprehensive coverage?
L.A. HAS O.J. ON THE BRAIN
THE KING of O.J. Coverage in our sample is--not surprisingly--the Los
Angeles Times, with 172 articles. Seeing as this search was done on
December 14, that's roughly 3.07 articles per day.
Every day.
GRANTED, THERE is the local angle to exploit/cover--and remember, these
are mentions of his name, not necessarily stories about the trial. The
172 count includes all the name-droppings, out-of-context references,
even instances of O.J. as analogy:
Dateline--Bogota, Colombia: "In the way Americans
have watched the O. J. Simpson trials unfold on
television, Colombians have tuned in to keep up with
a narco-political scandal that has jailed 14 members
of Congress and raised questions about President
Ernesto Samper's possible links to drug lords...."
Clearly L.A., including its reporters, has O.J. on the brain.
What about other news organizations? (Or is this simply a regional
phenomenon?)
SECOND PLACE goes to USA Today, a national newspaper, with 103 mentions.
Other papers were chosen by region, with coverage in each area led by the
Dallas Morning News (South-96), New York Times (East-84), Chicago Tribune
(Midwest-101), and Montreal Gazette (non-U.S.-32). Least exploitative
U.S. paper is another national outlet--the Wall Street Journal (8).
Overseas, it's the Budapest Sun, which has mentioned O.J. just once since
the second trial began, in an article about local bartenders and the
subjects they must be prepared to discuss....
Here are the complete league standings:
Mentions of O.J. since 10/23
--------------------------------
Los Angeles Times 172
USA Today 103
Chicago Tribune 101
Dallas Morning News 96
New York Times 84
Washington Post 72
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 70
Boston Globe 61
New Orleans Times-Picayune 58
Detroit News 51
Seattle Post-Intelligencer 45
Peoria Journal Star 42
Tulsa World 39
Montreal Gazette 32
Irish Times 28
Denver Post 22
Times (London) 15
Wall Street Journal 8
South China Morning Post 4
Budapest Sun 1
WHAT DOES it tell us that some of the highest-circulating newspapers in
the country are at the top of this list? I don't know. My original
theory was that the papers with the greatest occurrence of "O.J.s" are
the most jaded and cynical. Not necessarily the most jaded in general,
but rather the most cynical specifically about O.J. and his trials.
There are only so many articles one could publish about the trial itself
each day--I thought the higher totals above were puffed up by all the
reporters and columnists taking easy shots with Simpson name-dropping in
pieces totally unrelated to the trial, from the review of a book on legal
history (Dallas Morning News) to the report announcing Billy Crystal
would host the 1997 Academy Awards (USA Today). After all, aren't those
two initials now as ubiquitous as M.D., U.S., and G.E.?
But then I started looking at the actual stories--at the context in which
all these O.J.s have been appearing--and I was surprised. Most of the
stories *do* have something to do with one of the trials after all, or
with one of the many characters involved in this never-ending saga.
Sure, there are the stories about O.J. *coverage* (like this!), the think
pieces on race in America, and the sports section walks down memory
lane--but gosh darn it, most of the articles in the counts above are
indeed all about this blasted second trial: about blood evidence, about
witness testimony, and about courtroom strategies of the litigants.
IN FACT, further research conducted to prove the media has succumbed to a
clinical O.J. obsession served only to set me straight: a search of an
equivalent period of time during the first Simpson trial in 1995 revealed
twice as many mentions in almost all of the participating papers. We're
actually reading less about O.J. these days: 39,000 articles in the top
50 U.S. newspapers mentioned O.J. Simpson in 1995, while only 14,000
mentions occurred in 1996. (Prior to the murders of Nicole Brown and
Ron Goldman, O.J. clocked up about 1,000 mentions a year.)
Perhaps it's just the cumulative effect that's getting to me.
### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ###
YOU HEARD IT THERE FIRST
First known use (in a major newspaper) of the utterly tiresome phrase
"been there, done that":
September 5, 1987
The Ottawa Citizen (and two other Knight-Ridder newspapers in North America)
In a profile of that perennial trend-setter Helen Reddy, the Aussie
celebrity was quoted thus: "In Australia we have a saying...it's, 'Been
there, done that.'" The "I Am Woman" singer was referring to the number
of cities and venues she had played in her career.
Now we know who to blame.
NOTE TO READERS
Thank you for reading this far down the page of this first edition of the
Media Poll. I realize this has arrived unsolicited in your newsgroup or
email box but I thought you might be interested. If you think I have
taken liberties by doing so or if you are not interested in receiving
future editions of this column, please reply by email to
xx609@prairienet.org with the message: STOP.
If you would like to subscribe to the Media Poll, please reply by email
to xx609@prairienet.org with the message: SUBSCRIBE.
FUTURE MEDIA POLL TOPICS
-Leno vs. Letterman: Does News Coverage Equal Ratings?
-The Bob Dole Effect
-Madonna or Homelessness: Which Has the Better Publicist?
Got an idea for a Media Poll topic?
Email: jmarcus@prairienet.org
The Media Poll is Copyright 1997 by John Marcus
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POPULAR ARTS...IN REVIEW Pop Music January 1, 1997
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Popular Arts...in Review offers concise reviews of pop music, television,
film, books, and other garish ephemera.
OO-WEE-OO ITS WEEZER PART TWO
POWER POP is such a good concept--so why is it rarely done well? After
all, what rock 'n' roll partisan wouldn't approve of an approach that
includes rough chords, sloppy drums, and ragged yet ebullient
harmonies--all tied together with a melody so authoritative that it pulls
all the loose ends in line? Cheap Trick invented it, the Buzzcocks and
Undertones did the first punk versions, and Shoes was the only group to
try to claim the sound as its own. But twenty years after all of those
bands made their starts, there is a whole shower of groups rehashing this
sound that is so obvious yet so difficult to conquer. So few have done
so that the phrase has long been a code word for the twee (The dbs) or
the workmanlike (The Knack) in melodic rock.
PEGGED AS GEEKS for their unkempt, uncool (and unself-conscious?) look,
Weezer is the L.A.-based band that has conquered not only a sound but a
market. In a rare example of Sophomore Triumph, the group's "Pinkerton"
album is even better than their first, both artistically and in the net
proceeds department. Its second collection of "little symphonies for the
kids," to borrow Phil Spector's phrase, is actually a "poperetta": named
for a Puccini character, it is a series of songs telling an extended tale
of love and loneliness from the perspective of the perplexing Rivers
Cuomo, Weezer autuer.
IN HIGH TREMBLES and raunchy roars, Cuomo drags us willingly through the
depths of his pathetic relationships, both real and imaginary. His songs
are given deep meaning not by their generally inarticulate lyrics but by
his unmistakably genuine delivery. After the rather unexpected
mainstream success of Weezer's humble first album, Cuomo fled the
spotlight and lived for awhile as a hermit at Yale, studying music,
growing a long beard, and walking around on crutches due to painful leg
surgery. In other words, this is no rock biz hack scamming a formula for
airplay. This is one serious and seriously jilted dude--a pop artist
who, like Brian Wilson, can strew his pain around in the most accessible
of cadences and the loveliest of choruses. At the same time, the boy will
make you laugh: "I'm dumb/she's a lesbian" is the conclusion of one of
his many dramatized crushes. Pink Triangle, Falling For You, No Other
One, Getchoo, and the first single, El Scorcho, all shine, gleaming with
melodies as organically lubricated as the hair on Weezer guitarist Brian
Bell's unwashed head.
Copyright 1997 by John Marcus
