TVSquad

I'm always cynical about these studies that show what teens aren't into, but this study was actually done by a 15 year-old, so maybe it's a lot closer to the truth.

He's a intern at Morgan Stanley, and he says that teens today aren't really into TV (beyond watching their favorite shows for a season), they'd rather download music than listen to the radio, and they don't read newspapers at all because it's "wicked stupid." OK, they didn't say that, but they find newspapers too long. They also don't like Twitter. They'd rather update their Facebook page (makes sense - Facebook is more passive, like a web site; you have to really be involved with Twitter).

So this poll is only for the teens out there reading this.

I hope that print journalism survives forever, but this Daily Show visit to the offices of The New York Times is hysterical, from the newsreel voice that Jason Jones uses to narrate the piece to his asking "tell me what's in the paper that happened today." (And if you're wondering why Jon Stewart is surrounded by coffee-related items, it's part of his response to Morning Joe).

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
End Times
www.thedailyshow.com

I've been online every single day for about 14 years, I have several e-mail addresses, I have a couple of computers, I have a cell phone, and I Twitter. Still, I don't think it would be a problem for me to give up my cell phone and iPod for ten days.

Not the younger folks though, if this video from Today is any indication. The kids just can't handle not being able to get online or text to their friends (17,500 messages in one month??). One kid doesn't even know how to use a newspaper, and another can't read a regular clock (seriously). I think their heads would cave in if they tried to use a typewriter.

As I was eating breakfast while flipping the pages of a French local newspaper this morning, my eyes caught the picture above, which accompanied an article about Sarah Palin. I couldn't put my finger on it right away, but I knew there was a problem with this picture. The caption under it says that during interviews, Palin is hesitant, troubled and clumsy but didn't offer more on where the picture was taken and who was on the right.

All day, I tried to discover what was wrong with the picture. Thanks to Quebec's news station 93,3, which I listen to in the afternoon, I learned what was wrong about it: it's a picture of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in a recent Saturday Night Live sketch! Oops!

I know, you might be thinking, who is Stephen Talbot and why should I care what he thinks of the TV news biz? Well, Talbot is a producer and writer for PBS' Frontline (his new episode, News War, debuted earlier this week), but that's not why I'm posting this. I'll explain that after the jump. In the meantime, go read the chat he has at The Washington Post's site and look at his picture closely. Where have you seen him before?

Talbot has a lot of interesting things to say about the news industry. He likes local news, but doesn't like it when they focus on just local stories, fears that people will just wake up one day and wonder why the only news they get is stuff about Anna Nicole and Britney, and he explains why Connie Chung gave up her great reporting career to do...well, whatever the hell she's doing now.

Oh, where have you seen him before?

The PBS series Independent Lens will feature the documentary Paul Conrad: Drawing Fire on November 7 at 10 pm as part of the documentary series' salute to politics and journalism during the month of November.

Paul Conrad is now a freelance political cartoonist, but spent the majority of his career as a political cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times. Before joining the Times he drew for the Denver Post after graduating from the University of Iowa where he started drawing political cartoons for the school newspaper, The Daily Iowan. Conrad drew his scathing cartoons through eleven presidencies, starting with Harry S. Truman and continuing to the present day. Ostensibly a liberal, he had no desire to adhere to the party line, and, while his favorite targets were the likes of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, he would also occasionally upset people on the left with his opinionated drawings, and attacked Clinton for what he considered selling out the Democratic party.

The special mixes interviews with the Pulitzer prize-winning Conrad, his friends, family and colleagues with a surfeit of his cartoons that covered some of the most tumultuous times in recent history, from Vietnam and Watergate to 9/11 and the current conflict in Iraq. It's a wonderful piece of film making about an outspoken man who does what every artist strives to do: create images that convey what is impossible to express in words.

Internet users are surfing the web as much as they are watching television, according to a study done by JupiterResearch marketing firm. Researchers found that internet users spend about 14 hours a week online, which is the same amount of time they spend watching television. It also found that television, books and newspapers are losing viewers and readers who are opting to spend time online. That's a trend that has become pretty obvious to the bigwigs at television networks, because most of them have brought their content online for all of us geeks.

How much time do you spend on the internet and watching television each week? I'm not sure of the hours, but I know I spend way more time online than I do watching television.

[Via Lost Remote]