Cnet News

That market forces drive the news is not news. Whether a story appears in print, on television, or on the Internet depends on who is interested, its value to advertisers, the costs of assembling the details, and competitors' products. But in All the News That's Fit to Sell, economist James Hamilton shows just how this happens. Furthermore, many complaints about journalism--media bias, soft news, and pundits as celebrities--arise from the impact of this economic logic on news judgments. This is the first book to develop an economic theory of news, analyze evidence across a wide range of media markets on how incentives affect news content, and offer policy conclusions. Media bias, for instance, was long a staple of the news. Hamilton's analysis of newspapers from 1870 to 1900 reveals how nonpartisan reporting became the norm. A hundred years later, some partisan elements reemerged as, for example, evening news broadcasts tried to retain young female viewers with stories aimed at their (Democratic) political interests. Examination of story selection on the network evening news programs from 1969 to 1998 shows how cable competition, deregulation, and ownership changes encouraged a shift from hard news about politics toward more soft news about entertainers. Hamilton concludes by calling for lower costs of access to government information, a greater role for nonprofits in funding journalism, the development of norms that stress hard news reporting, and the defining of digital and Internet property rights to encourage the flow of news. Ultimately, this book shows that by more fully understanding the economics behind the news, we will be better positioned to ensure that the news serves thepublic good.

Collection includes "The Bad News Bears," "The Bad News Bears In Breaking Training" and "The Bad News Bears Go To Japan." "The Bad News Bears" - A major surprise as one of 1976's top-grossing films, "The Bad News Bears" is a movie about children that is refreshing, utterly believable, and quite cleverly funny. Walter Matthau is at his absolute best as the grumbling beer-guzzling former minor-league pitcher who gets roped into coaching a band of half-pint misfits somewhat loosely called a team. With this bunch in uniform, it's impossible to get caught up in the suburban competitive spirit that drives other adults to extremes of parental discipline. So, instead, the Bears have a good time. "The Bad News Bears In Breaking Training" - "The Bad News Bears In Breaking Training" is the comic and poignant second-in-the-series of adventures with the pint-sized sandlot ballplayers initiated with the smash success, "The Bad News Bears." The picture picks up the Bears' career a year after their infamous second-place finish in the North Valley League. Faced with a chance to play the Houston Toros for a shot at the Japanese champs, they devise a way to get to Texas to play at the famed Astrodome. On their pilgrimage to Houston, the Bears gain a new coach; dump that fastball over the plate; find another coach who shows him how it's done, and go on to a come-back victory with all eyes on Japan. "The Bad News Bears Go To Japan" - Caught in a clash of cultures and ready to wreak more havoc on Japan than Godzilla, the Bad News Bears are back for their third outing, following the enormously successful "The Bad New Bears" and "The Bad News Bears In Breaking Training." This time the Bears have been spirited off to Tokyo by Tony Curtis as Marvin Lazar, a slick and sleazy con artist who sees in the team a perfect peg for a get-rich-quick scheme. The strikeout-prone Bears are pitted against a murderously skillful Japanese junior baseball team, and the resulting comic chaos is hilarious.