Dave's Top Eight

1. Jerry Reed...Revisited by Darrell Toney (reviewed 6/07) (5 Stars)
2. Sounds Like Sunday by Janet Paschal (reviewed 5/07) (5 Stars)
3. True To The Call by Kingdom Heirs (reviewed 3/07) (4 1/2 Stars)
4. Revival by Gold City (reviewed 10/06) (4 1/2 Stars)
5. Get Away Jordan by Ernie Haase & Signature Sound (reviewed 2/07) (4 1/2 Stars)
6. Breakin' Chains by Three Bridges (reviewed 5/07) (4 1/2 Stars)
7. Big Sky by The Isaacs (reviewed 4/07)
8. Skywriting by Mercy's Well (reviewed 7/07)

Click title to purchase at CBD.com...click artist name to read Dave's Review. A CD will automatically fall out of the Top Eight after twelve months if no CD surpasses it before then.

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October 4, 2004

Is this "media bias?"

I was pleased to hear about a Southern Gospel countdown program being added to XM radio a few weeks ago. Because it was announced to begin in September, I've been periodically checking the America (Ch. 10) schedule over at www.xmradio.com as well as the content provider's website at www.sgusa.com. Today, when I visited the latter site, I saw that a rant by Gary Wilson had been added regarding "media bias" in Southern Gospel. You can read it here . . .
 
I get a real kick out of reading rants, for some reason. 
 
The article boils down to two complaints. When Wilson sent out his press release last month, one site wouldn't print it because Wilson didn't have a reciprocal link on his website. I agree with Wilson on that one. That's a stupid excuse. Any site claiming to provide SG news should publish the news regardless of whether any mutual back scratching is taking place.
 
Another un-named "established" site did the unthinkable, though . . . and the irony of the situation is that this seemed to get under Wilson's skin the most . . . they omitted a paragraph! The horror! Just for kicks, I checked and promptly found the article with the paragraph missing in the "News" section of the Singing News website. (I'm not sure why Wilson didn't just go ahead and name the offending party in his editorial. It took me all of three minutes to end my speculation.)
 
Here's the part that was snipped . . .
This latest marketing success for the multi-award winning Gospel
broadcaster puts the Southern Gospel USA Countdown Show on a
higher plateau, and definitely raises the bar for other programs to
follow.  No other Southern Gospel radio program is featured on
radio affiliates, websites, the American Forces Radio Network,
and XM Radio.
 
So essentially, the Singing News failed to relay the press release's dubious claim that the SGUSA Countdown is the most accomplished SG countdown program on the planet. Sorry, but I don't see any room for griping there. All the relevant information in the release, including quotes from both Wilson and the XM radio representative were included. There's no "bias" being exhibited when that paragraph is omitted. Wilson says he was told they were trying to trim the length of press releases (which IS a silly excuse), but I suspect they're actually trying to trim out the excessive bragging that frequently gets inserted into press releases as "news."
 
The truly annoying thing about the whole situation is that the original press release was wrong. The program did not begin airing in September, and now that it's October, there's still no firm date for when the program will begin to air on XM channel 10. Why would two business entities announce a joint agreement if they weren't ready to roll with it? And when it became evident that the start date would be weeks later than originally announced, why was there no second press release to clarify the situation? I would have been more impressed with a candid comment or two . . . brief, by the way . . . as to the fact that the program would be coming out later than expected. Don't get me wrong, though. I loved reading the rant.
 
I have more to say about the way press releases are handled by the SG media, but that rant of my own will appear as a seperate article.
posted by David Bruce Murray @ 11:53:00 PM


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