MMMM # 503 - The Civil War Redux, but in Ultra HD. And Suing The Media.

 "If Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, which is only two minutes, C-SPAN would cover it," he offered as an example. "But there'd be a stand-up ... saying, 'The president came to Gettysburg to try to distract attention from his disastrous military campaign out west.'"

     That's Ken Burns during a CBS News interview about the broadcast of a Ultra HD version of his series "The Civil War" in September. The original was broadcast fifteen years ago..in 1990.
     


     There have only been two times in my almost half-century journalism career in which I have been ordered not to ask certain questions or report certain facts.  The first was in Vietnam when I was ordered not to include a story about South Vietnamese soldiers "advancing to the rear" by grabbing onto the landing struts of Huey helicopters to get away from fighting in Cambodia.
     The second was a planned interview with Ken Burns when a newly hired APT executive ordered me not to ask Burns about an ongoing controversy about his World War II documentary. More on that in some future posting. Or in the book.

  Speaking of Burns' quote-- above--, I often ask my students if they were somehow covering that Gettysburg Address for TV, which seven seconds they would use as their "sound bite" for that night's newscast. The "soundbite" is the part of the story in which the newsmaker is heard talking. 7.5 seconds is the average length of one on TV News these days. Sigh.


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     One of the people caught up in the Paris terrorism situation in January has sued the news media.

“Delivering information without careful consideration may lead to endanger other’s lives. Journalists must think of it,” Antoine Casubolo Ferro, Lepere’s lawyer, told the Associated Press.

                                                                                    TIME Magazine

And the front -page headline of The New York Post regarding the former Subway spokesman admitting his guilt:

That's Rupert Murdock's paper in New York City. A class act.



[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular long-time feature of www.TimLennox.com]