Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

After discovering the photo references made in the New Yorker’s American Hardcore collage (see story below), I emailed The New Yorker bring it to their attention. A reply and apology came surprisingly fast from the Art Director of the piece, and a reasonable offer of compensation. John Ritter, the illustrator also emailed and apologized for a mixup of images during a tight deadline. Everything has been cleared up in a professional and ethical manner, and there are no hard feelings at this end.

Here is a list published by Box Office Mojo of the top 20 box office leading feature films released over the past 365 days. PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST took the number 1 spot with it’s box office total gross income of over $417 million.

At least half of the top 20 films are heavily CG animated or visual effects movies, including THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE (2), HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE (3), CARS (4), X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (5) and KING KONG (6).

Also well represented in the top 20 are comedies such as TALLADEGA NIGHTS (11), CLICK (12), THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (15) and SCARY MOVIE 4 (19).

It’s interesting to note the profit margins. Computer animated CHICKEN LITTLE (13) reportedly took $150 Million to make and grossed $135 Million, so it actually lost money. The horror comedy SCARY MOVIE 4 was made for only $45 Million and captured $90 Million. Doubling your investment and having fun while doing it sounds like a good thing to me.

In today’s news, Norman Pearlstine, a long time top manager at Time Inc., the magazine division of Time-Warner, will be joining The Carlyle Group a Washington, D.C. based global private equity investment firm with more than USD$40 billion of equity capital under management, as a senior advisor.

I briefly met Mr. Pearlstine while at Time Warner, when hired to work on their experimental “Full Service Network” interactive television effort in the early 90’s. When introduced as a technical lead for the New York office, he half jokingly asked me, “Are you the one who is going to save us?” I good naturedly replied that I’d try my best. We knew we were in over our heads.

The Time Warner Cable FSN project was a technical boondoggle in deep trouble and would not be able to launch their tests at Celebration, FL for the scheduled date 4 months away. From what I gather, something was launched over 2 years after our meeting, but by that time broadband internet was all the rage, and TW was eying AOL as their path to interactivity. Back in those days, I advised TW to use the Internet as a channel on their interactive cable TV service, but the idea was dismissed, although not by Pearlstine himself.

In the days leading up to the FSN’s proposed Spring 1993 launch date, I had a longer discussion with Walter Isaacson, who was then the Managing Editor of Time magazine. In order to protect my immediate superiors at Time Warner Interactive, I was not able to disclose to him how feeble the FSN effort actually was. How would that look in a Time magazine article!? Even if I had told Isaacson of the many flaws in the system, I’m not sure what good it would have done, but I regret not having a deeper, more honest discussion. So much for office politics and paranoia.

Today I continue to work as the consultant behind the consultants, advisor to the advisors. I spend more time in the real world, hands on in leading edge places, from which many of the upper echelon are insulated and unaware.

Back in the Reagan era, in order to reduce “Big Government” the President made a call for new volunteerism, and soon after, President George H. W. Bush advised America in his 1991 State of the Union Address:

“We can find meaning and reward by serving some purpose higher than ourselves — a shining purpose, the illumination of a thousand points of light.”

Not to be outdone by dad, playing the faithful optimist in his January 2002 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush called on all Americans to dedicate at least two years—the equivalent of 4,000 hours—in service to their communities, their country and the world. Yeah right!

If it can be agreed that much of U.S. government and politics has been corporatized, then recent developments point out that corporations have taken on more of the tasks that governments are failing at. Most people are working hard to make ends meet, but those who have succeeded at the capitalist game realize that it’s no fun being rich if the world is rapidly filling up with poverty, disease and weapons. They are successful thinkers and doers, who are on the forefront of new social activism and venture philanthropy.

For example, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is kicking off a national Federal Budget Priorities Campaign calling on Americans to reconsider spending priorities. The goal is to heighten awareness of the billions of dollars the Pentagon spends on nuclear weapons vs. a shortfall of spending on basic unmet needs of children.

Then of course there are the billion points of light emanating from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with the added 31 billion dollars recently committed to the foundation by their friend, legendary investor Warren Buffett.

Other successful investors are giving back and working towards positive change, such as George Soros Open Society Institute and James Simons’ Math For America.

Jeff Skoll made millions as the first President of eBay, and is founder and CEO of Participant Productions using the power of media for social change. A recent feature film release produced by Participant is Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, which is a tremendous statement of scientific concern for the future of planet Earth.

Craigslist.org is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and helps to organize non-profit leadership through the Craigslist Foundation and their Bootcamp programs.

For additional information, the American Institute of Philanthropy has an online ratings list of many top charitable organizations, their categories and how to contact them.