The story today in The Guardian that the mainstream US press is moving away from a broad pro-Bush, pro-War stance and "now oppose any attack on Iraq by US and British forces without the full support if the international community" comes sadly too late for the New York Post and it's brilliantly cringe-making 'Axis of Weasels' front the other day.

Nice piece also in the Graun about how covering a war in Iraq will be different this time around because of the internet than it was in 1991, and the challenges that presents for journalists and military flaks/government spin doctors alike.

What price CNN?

After all manner of potential mergers/partnerships/virtual editorial synergies were left floundering, seems the Noodle Network might be on the trading block after all, according to CBS Marketwatch today.

Talking of reality television, as we were the other day, the Ali G show starts tonight on HBO in the US. Will be interesting to see what they make of it, since their own concoctions of genuine irony and reality situations - like "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment" - all seem predisposed (thanks to "Candid Camera") to the notion that the audience somehow has to be "let in on" the joke for the set-up to work.

Ali G and also "Trigger Happy TV" which has been running pretty successfully on Comedy Central for a while now, depend on that absolutely NOT being the case, that the integrity of the comedy is more important than a mass audience reaction and empathy. "Brass Eye" and "The Day Today" were brilliant in this context. Probably too good, in fact.

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Good piece in the Washington Post today about the future for reality television. It's the concluding instalment of "Joe Millionaire" tonight, and the Post's Paul Farhi makes some interesting economic points about the genre from both supply and demand sides. Are we close to audience saturation? Seemingly not. In fact, if anything what we might end up seeing is even more "ordinary" (that is, non-selected, or genuinely "real" ) subjects.

We're maybe not quite at the stage of having Series 7 for real, but you never know. (And the crucial art-imitating-life element here is the million dollar prize - where something desirable is at stake, all bets on who would do what to whom, and who would watch, are largely off).

If some of the predictions made for vlogs (video blogs) end up being even remotely accurate, we - the audience - could end up visually eavesdropping on, effectively, ourselves. The key is at what point does that content become mainstream? Is it with the first glow of site sponsorship, or when vlog sessions are scheduled, listed and advertised by someone like TVGuide. (Actually, it would be more likely to be an online equivalent of TiVo or GemStar, that uses an intelligent agent to seek out vlogs that match your pre-selected criteria).

And that's not much of a leap. Remember, it wasn't that long ago that a content provider like the Washington Post started advertising its regular, timed, online chat sessions. The next stage of micro-publishing is the collating, packaging, scheduling and offering for "sale" of the content.

One reality show we'll be taking a specific interest in is Fox's American Candidate. With the popularity of particpatory shows like American Idol, and the corresponding lack of credibility of modern professional politicians, it was only a matter of time before something like this emerged. The idea is that instead of a record contract, the winner gets a shot at standing as an independent in the 2004 election.

Ludicrous? Perhaps. But before you get up on that high horse, just remember the small matter of a 36-day, 24-hour reality soap opera we went through in November and December 2000. How ludicrous was that?

Read what the Center for Individual Freedom has to say about how the show might be in contravention of all manner of campaign finance legislation.


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