Nicole Ward

My alternative media assignment is taken from the Columbia Journalism Review. The article can be viewed at http://cjr.org/issues/2003/5/blog-welch.asp. It is by Matt Welch and the story focuses on The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Conference, held in San Francisco during February of 2004.

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For this week, my on the media is entitled Deep Freeze. Gladstone tells us that over the past four years they have received numerous communications from listeners regarding the objectivity of On the Media, questioning bias against the current president. Garfield and his associates feel their program is a “watchdog” and part of their mission is to make sure there is freedom of the press. So, they elected to do a self-analysis, just to make sure they are NOT guarding or favoring the administration. Gladstone dug into the archives and discovered a post-inaugural interview with Helen Thomas, a veteran White House reporter.

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The October 22nd On the Media program discussed newspapers’ presidential endorsements, in a dialogue called, Back Page Power. Bob Garfield brought up the interesting fact that in 52 years The Tampa Tribune has only provided two non-Republican endorsements, and yes, they are recommending Kerry. Newspapers, as indicated by Brooke Gladstone, consider their endorsements to be very valuable business, however, politicians get shaky and readers wheeze.

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This week’s On The Media was about the 45 RPM record, a unique media platform that was adopted by younger individuals and exemplified changing youth culture of the late 50s to mid 60s. The 45 RPM medium has not been popular for several decades due to technology advances, but also changes in culture. Teenagers during this time in history developed their own cultural traits, resulting in their own music, their own fashion, and their own lifestyles. For the first time in history “consumerism” provided the definition of "teenager". The narrator forewarns us that CDs will also go through this retirement process, just like 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, and LP records.

I believe the 45 RPM medium epitomized the mindset of many teenagers and young adults; for this reason, the medium is personal, task-oriented, changeable, and above all, highly unique (single song per side), definitely representing many traits of teens and individuals in their 20s during this period of time. Perhaps single-play CDs have come closest to emulating 45 RPMs, however, single-song CDs have failed since today so many young people want as many new artists and songs as possible on an immediate basis – part of the “I want it all now” frame of mind. During the 50s and 60s, if you had a new release before someone else, you were considered “cool”.

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