On television, says MSNBC producer Sharon Newman, Jarvis is a great guest because he's "trying to understand the din out there. He's been able to tap into that voice."
A few weeks ago, Jarvis ran into Michael Powell at an Aspen Institute gathering and told the former FCC chairman he had frequently assailed him online. Jarvis said his proudest moment was when he used his Treo smartphone to blog news of the commission's fine against Stern as he was about to begin choir practice. Powell, he says, "looked at me like I was nuts."
Jarvis, who seems to attend every conference on new media held in the continental United States, differs from many bloggers in that he loves the old media, despite their flaws. He argues that traditional outlets can thrive by embracing this growing army of commentators, which is why he continues to advise big corporations. Not that he's defensive about it: He says he "sold out to The Man" 30 years ago.
As for his own never-ending torrent of online opinion, Jarvis says: "People can choose to read or reject me or call me a bozo."
Just Between Us . . .
For all the hand-wringing about anonymous sources in the wake of the Newsweek/Koran fiasco, a new study says their use is actually on the decline.
Front-page stories in the New York Times and Washington Post cited unnamed sources 30 percent of the time in the first year of Ronald Reagan's presidency, compared to 20 percent in the first year of George W. Bush. The Center for Media and Public Affairs says the proportion of such stories in four regional papers dropped from 24 to 14 percent from 1981 to 2001, and on the network evening newscasts from 16 to 14 percent.
"You don't get credit for naming your sources, just like it's not news when planes don't crash, so when one does it always seems like air travel is unsafe," says center president Robert Lichter.
Post's New Partner
The Washington Post is turning to one of its rivals in an effort to beef up its financial coverage.
Starting Wednesday, The Post will run a couple of stories each day from Wall Street Journal foreign correspondents on an International Business page in a redesigned section. "We both remain fierce competitors on many stories," Post Assistant Managing Editor Jill Dutt told her staff in a memo, "but on the overseas business front, our one foreign business correspondent, Peter Goodman, couldn't possibly compete with the dozens of Journal reporters covering businesses and markets around the globe."
The Journal, which plans to launch a Saturday edition in September, began carrying selected Post articles in its European and Asian editions in 2003. That provided a needed overseas outlet for The Post, which had been stung by the New York Times's decision to force a buyout of its share of the Paris-based International Herald Tribune.
Perversion Watch
The chief spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration was none too pleased with the front-page USA Today story about the development of new X-ray machines that would show "a clear picture of what's under passengers' clothes -- whether weapons or just bare skin."
Mark Hatfield strongly disagrees with the story's assertion that the airport machines will "paint a revealing picture of a person's nude body." So he fired off an e-mail to reporter Thomas Frank with the subject line: "You should work for Larry Flynt."
Dispensing with dry, bureaucratic language, Hatfield wrote: "What a sensational piece of [excrement]." He said the machines had been delayed, "but you choose to mislead your readers with 'bare skin' and 'peer into undergarments.' Shame on you and your perverted editor."
Says Hatfield: "My colorful complaint to him was meant to be constructive." While partly "tongue-in-cheek," he says he was making the point that the agency is dealing with privacy concerns by demanding changes to the machines.
