The first year of the CBS foundation news and public affairs fellowships

The high esteem in which Harvard's Nieman Fellowships are held by the journalism fraternity recently prompted the establishment of a similar program for broadcasters. The initiative was taken by CBS Foundation Inc., the agency for making educational and charitable grants on behalf of CBS, Inc. and its divisions. The Foundation announced the inauguration of an annual program of CBS Foundation News and Public Affairs Fellowships at Columbia University. Since the program has now completed its first year of operation, it seemed appropriate to publish a special progress report in the Journal.     

Models of Computer-Based Outbreak Detection

Summary

Despite intensive development of computer-based surveillance (CBS), there has been little work on models of such systems. This paper describes a computational model of CBS-output, inputs, and algorithms required to create the output from the inputs. Starting from an assumed requirement that an ideal CBS system be capable of mitigating a bioterroristic outbreak of inhalational Anthrax, the author shows that an output of CBS should be a continuously updated probabilistic threat assessment, which is used to trigger response actions at levels of threat determined by cost-benefit analyses. The paper considers the types of algorithmic transformations required to map from a full spectrum of types of input data to the required output. The set of input data is much broader than previously considered. The specific complementary relationship between the computational model and the evolving architectural model of the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System is discussed.     

CBS's Long Distance Radio Experiment: Broadcasting the Byrd Expedition From Little America

In 1933–1935, Admiral Richard Byrd's second Antarctic expedition was partly funded by General Foods. This included radio program sponsorship aired via relays from the South Pole to CBS in New York. The program format generally opened with news and music from CBS, then weather, expedition reports, entertainment, and a segment with Byrd. It often closed with 2-way conversations between New York and Little America featuring family, acquaintances, experts, or New York hosts conversing with explorers. This sponsored program's design clearly answered Hoover's public interest requirements and added educational emphasis in 1934 at a time of hearings over educational broadcasting.     

Network Adwatches: Policing the 1996 Primary and General Election Presidential Ads

This article presents a content analysis of 93 televised adwatches that appeared on ABC, NBC, and CBS network evening news programs during either the 1996 presidential primary (n = 40) or general election campaign (n = 53). Since the media's role in a democracy often is highlighted by its responsibility to provide citizens with information needed to make informed and rational decisions, this article analyzes political adwatches in regard to the social responsibility theory of the press. Findings indicate that CBS Evening News journalists did a better job at incorporating adwatch recommendations suggested by academicians to improve voter understanding about potentially misleading advertising con tent. However, content analysis of 298 primary and general election presidential candidate ads revealed that television journalists did not identify or discuss ethically suspect technological manipulations present in a large percentage of the 1996 spots.     

世界电视新闻业的奠基人与先行者——休伊特与克朗凯特对世界电视新闻报道的影响评析

短短一个月间,美国CBS已退休著名主持人沃尔特·克朗凯特和《60分钟》节目制片人唐·休伊特相继去世,回顾两人的电视新闻从业经历及其历史贡献,不能否认,他们是美国,乃至世界电视新闻业的奠基人和先行者。     

The Sponsor’s Fight for Audience: How General Foods Promoted Listenership for the Byrd Expedition Broadcasts

This study examines stunting, gimmickry, and the use of guest appearances to attract, keep, and rebuild an audience for the Byrd Expedition broadcasts, aired on CBS, between 1933 and 1935. The sponsor worked to maximize the benefit its product received through program association by attracting the largest audience possible. This research suggests a reconsideration of where rivalry existed in the sponsorship era of broadcasting. It finds that hype through stunts and gimmicks helped keep the expedition exciting during low exploring times. Notable guests were included in the program when convenient but not necessarily during times of low levels of adventure.     

Windowed Distribution Strategies for Substitutive Television Content: An Audience-Centric Typology

An audience-centric typology is conceptualized to assist media managers implementing windowed distribution strategies in an attempt to account for media consumption cannibalization. Diffusion theory identifies the demographics most likely to consume substitutive television content, while uses, gratifications, media habits, and consumption values are collaboratively used to re-segment the audiences based on platform selection motivators. Psychographic labels are then applied using the dominant characteristic of each audience type and then matched to a specific windowed distribution strategy. The strategies are based on existing windowing tactics used by ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC or emerging strategies that are reflective of changing market trends.     

Embedding Journalists in Military Combat Units: How Embedding Alters Television News Stories

This study compared television news coverage provided by embedded and nonembedded reporters during the first 5 days of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Content analysis was conducted of television news broadcasts about OIF by ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC to determine whether news reports were different and, if so, how. The results indicated that, compared to nonembedded stories, embedded reports were more favorable in overall tone toward the military and in depiction of individual troops. Also, embedded news stories were structurally different from nonembedded reports: compared to nonembedded stories, embedded reports featured more episodic frames and, as a result, conveyed more positive affect and more positive relational messages.     

Undervaluing Mutual: The FCC’s Missed Opportunity to Restructure Radio Broadcasting in the New Deal Era

This article reexamines the Federal Communications Commission’s investigation into monopoly practices by the “chain” or network radio broadcasters in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The FCC targeted NBC and CBS and eventually succeeded in forcing NBC to sell its Blue radio network. But the Commission ultimately failed to prevent network domination of affiliates. I argue that the Commission missed an opportunity to recognize that the Mutual Broadcasting System offered an alternative, cooperative model for organization of the industry that could have better served the FCC’s goals of harnessing the power of chain broadcasting and promoting localism in broadcasting.     

REVIEW AND CRITICISM: BOOK REVIEWS: Crosley and WLW: A Broadcasting Legacy in Review

A one week sample of prime time television (8-11 p.m.) for ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC was constructed to represent broadcast entertainment programming for 1996. In a systematic content analysis/ the frequencies and attributes of ethnic minority and majority characters were documented, with particular attention to Latinos and their interactions with other TV characters. This study's findings update the current status of minority portrayals and identify prevalent attributes of minority portrayals that may impact viewer perceptions.     

The Behaviorist in the Boardroom: The Research of Frank Stanton,Ph.D.

In 1946, at the age of 38, Frank Stanton was named President of CBS. While much of Stanton's work as a corporate executive has been chronicled, his accomplishments as one of America's earliest scholars of radio audience measurement remain neglected in media scholarship. This article reviews Stanton's research efforts between 1933 and 1942, and in doing so it places his work within the contexts of contemporaneous social and psychological media inquiry. Discussions of Stanton's methodological approach, his innovative dissertation, his scholarship, and his collaboration with key figures in the history of communication research are informed by primary and secondary sources.     

Partisan Balance and Bias in Network Coverage of the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Elections

This study conceptualizes news bias as a causal factor producing systematic imbalance in the coverage of conflicting sides. Partisan bias is distinguished from structural bias by coverage that systematically favors one side with more prominence and attention. Content analysis was used to compare the television networks' balance in their treatment of Republican and Democratic candidates in stories and segments covering the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Presidential candidates received balanced aggregate treatment in both elections. But individual networks differed in their partisan balance. CBS News consistently favored the Democratic candidate in both elections, unlike the mixed results for ABC and NBC. CBS's pattern of imbalance, especially in the 2004 election, suggests a possible political bias in its coverage.     

Branding Television News in a Multichannel Environment: An Exploratory Study of Network News Brand Personality

Adopting the construct of “brand personality,” this article examines the perceived differences among various television news brands, investigates the distinction between cable and broadcast news brands, and explores the applicability of brand personality in this market. CNN was found to possess the most distinct, positive personality, whereas CBS news had the least differentiated brand personality. Fox News was seen as the most dynamic and conservative. Overall, broadcast network news was perceived to be more traditional and liberal than cable network news. Three modified dimensions—competence, timeliness, and dynamism—were found to represent the personality facets of the television news product.     

Has lead‐in lost its punch? An analysis of primetime inheritance effects: Comparing 1992 with 2002

Abstract

Recognizing the recent dramatic increase in the number of channels available to the typical American household coinciding with an equally dramatic decrease in audience ratings for the major broadcast networks, there was reason to hypothesize that, in recent years, lead‐in or inheritance effects have diminished. However, an analysis of prime time ratings comparing 1992 with 2002 for ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox showed no support for this notion, suggesting that, despite the recent upheavals in the television industry, lead‐in has not lost its punch.     

Analysis of broadcasting literature: Periodical publications of economics

The “real” differences between television and newspaper coverage of a given event may involve much more than considerations of timeliness and length. This report is based on Russell Harney's 1968 master's thesis in journalism at the University of Wisconsin, for which Dr. Stone (assistant professor of journalism at Wisconsin) was advisor. An earlier version was presented to the Radio‐Television Division of the Association for Education in Journalism during its convention at the University of Kansas in 1968. Commander Harney is a U.S. Navy public affairs specialist. The authors wish to thank the many news executives and other personnel of the ABC, CBS and NBC television networks who cooperated in this study.     

To name or not to name: a cross-cultural comparison of on-air attribution in US and Chinese TV news

This study investigates the Sino-US difference in the journalistic practice of providing on-air attribution for those interviewed in television news. Through a content analysis, this study compares how CBS News, a premier US TV network, and CCTV, China's most watched network, attributed their interviewees with on-screen name credits (names, titles and affiliations). The findings show that US journalists were more likely to provide on-screen name credits than their Chinese colleagues who, in turn, were more likely to give credits to interviewees who were older, male and government officials. This study should contribute to a better understanding of how cultural values and political ideologies may affect the way interviewees are treated in television news.     

Spectacle,spectatorship, and gender anxiety in television news coverage of the 1970 women's strike for equality

This essay examines television news coverage of the August 2 6, 19 70 Women's Strike for Equality, the first major media event of the second wave offeminism in the U.S. It explores three levels on which the news reports on the three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), rely on notions of women and visual pleasure: first, in their positioning of the Strike as sheer spectacle; second, in their verbal and visual framing of the Strike as absurdist entertainment rather than reasoned protest, and third, in their emphasis on the issue of femininity under attack, an emphasis in which femininity is largely represented by women's bodies. I conclude with a discussion of the ways in which the framing of the events functions both to assert and to assuage a profound sense of gender anxiety on the part of the assumed male spectator for the coverage.