Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Media / News Bites Feder to Vocalo
Posted by Michael Miner on Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 12:11 PM
Robert Feder, longtime radio-TV writer for the Sun-Times, is ending a year's retirement to blog on media for vocalo.org.
A spokesman for Chicago Public Radio says Feder is the first of several "expert bloggers" that Vocalo will soon be announcing. A three-year-old multimedia experiment that CPR created but bends over backward to remain publicly distant from, so that neither Vocalo nor WBEZ contaminates the image of the other, Vocalo consists of a radio station and a Web site conceived to attract an audience that's far younger and more blue-collar than WBEZ's. The Web site has been a major disappointment and upgrading it is a CPR priority.
Says Feder, "I look forward to redefining my old broadcast beat, while expanding the scope of my reporting to include print, the Internet and whatever else comes along. Best of all, every reader will be welcome to offer instant feedback and participate in what I hope will be a lively, ongoing dialogue about media issues."
Here's his entire statement.
Comments (8)
Showing 1-8 of 8
I'm extremely skeptical that Feder has any ability to have any serious discussion about media issues on a blog. In his Sun-Times column, he never gave the impression he was even aware that there were any issues in the industry. As the media industry changed, Feder continued to do the same thing he always did. He provided a collection of facts (many extremely meaningless, such as the comings and goings of middle managers at the radio and broadcast stations) without ever writing about the context of the environment in which they were occuring. From my recollection, he routinely reported TV and radio ratings without (or at least barely) mentioning how much the audience as a whole was shrinking. If Feder could go 10 years into the future to look at the ratings of the TV newscasts and they lost 80% of their viewers, his story would focus on which station gained any ground in market share.
Its nice that he says he is expanding his focus to include the internet. But there was, as far as I know, nothing to prevent him from doing that at the Sun-Times. I doubt his editors would have objected. He is a little late to the party.
like
dislike
Has vocalo been worth the money?
Is the vocalo radio station also a major disappointment/embarrassment, or another brilliant Malatia visionary success?
How has WBEZ's radio service fared over the past 3 years since vocalo was announced?
What happened to the local afternoon talk show?
And how is Feder supposed to connect to vocalo's young, diverse, blue collar audience?
WBEZ will not be distancing themselves from Vocalo for long. A combination the of Vocalo.org and WBEZ.org websites is in the final planning stages, and look for the new co-branded site within the next year. Long gone are the days of distancing the two. Mr. Malatia has decided to use the influence of the WBEZ brand in an attempt to save Vocalo.org. He has refused the other two options available to him, scaling back the project or killing it altogether.
@Questions
Just picking up on one of your points, all of which are good: Referring to WBEZ's defunct afternoon talk show, I assume you're talking about "Odyssey" with Gretchen Helfridge. I loved that show and greatly miss it. The range of fascinating subject matter that the staff found and pursued made the show unlike any other on air, and not just another variation on Talk of the Nation or innumerable other chat shows gumming over the same stale subject matter (all while apparently adhering scrupulously to the universal mandate of American journalism to avoid asking the most glaringly obvious questions that might actually serve to inform or enlighten).
So WBEZ canceled their one truly, substantively innovative show but then launched Vocalo, which as far as I can tell is just another iteration of the now lame and decrepit idea that, somehow, having an "edgy" online presence supplementing a mainstream media product targeted at utterly witless pre-teen mentalities (which, one is ashamed to say, now extends to the coveted 18-54 age demographic).
If that's the way they want to go--listeners and revenue streams be damned--so be it. But this former regular contributor will remain a former regular contributor.
@questions... Obviously vocalo has changed their focus demographic. If they are aiming at working class people of color (especially younger people), why would you hire feder and Q101 alum kevin manno? Of course these folks have name appeal, but not to the demo vocalo aimed to reach. I wonder what direction they are going in now, especially after they got all that grant money to serve specific inner city communities?
@Pelham
I suspect the reference was to the aborted local afternoon newsmagazine "Right Now" rather than the inadvertently hysterical "Odyssey." (Frankly, given that Richard Steele was slated to host Right Now, I'm not particularly pained at the loss. I've largely abandoned "848" in its instantiation with the snoozetastic duo of Steele and Whisperin' Alison Cuddy.)
I listened to a portion of vocalo's Saturday broadcast and I was surprised. Entertaining. Although the host is Latino, I agree it didn’t seem to be aimed "at working class people of color". What I did notice is that the Saturday show didn't have the same incoherence that one can expect during the weekday offering. It wasn’t cerebral but I don’t think it was trying to be. It was clean and had drive. (and real news)
In regards to Feder, I must say his acquisition essentially repositioned vocalo's focus. It's as if he was brought on to give vocalo a sense of journalistic credibility. I'm still uncertain how this will affect vocalo’s initial mission in the long run. As it stands, I applaud the changes and would like to see them continue in this direction.
Well, he stuck it out for a year.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/201…
Mr. Feder announced in an early Tuesday morning post that changes at Vocalo, a website affiliated with Chicago Public Radio WBEZ-FM/91.5, made him reconsider staying with the outfit. Vocalo and Chicago Public Radio are owned by Chicago Public Media.
"With the recent redesign of the Vocalo blogs and their move to a new site at WBEZ.org, I've decided it's time for me to leave Chicago Public Media," he wrote in his post.
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