Hillary Clinton is managing her image well ahead of the 2016 elections, how people are using Internet hate to their advantage, Chris Messina's directorial debut.
Hillary’s image overhaul highlights double standard for female politicians
When Hillary Clinton launched her presidential bid last weekend, she sent a clear message: this time, things will be different.
But many have noticed that the biggest difference is Hillary herself. Appearing warm and smiling in her new campaign video, Clinton invites voters to help her help the middle class. It’s a softer version of Clinton than many news-watchers are used to. Her personality polishing is being credited to political image consultant Kristina Schake, who most recently helped Michelle Obama become the “everywoman” that she is today.
Unlike their male counterparts, female politicians face a host of requirements on the way to the office. Whenever a female candidate is discussed, the candidate’s appearance frequently enters the conversation.
While image consultants are usually called on to help any candidate make important fashion decisions, Hillary faces an entirely different set of standards: she must be identifiable to voters while still maintaining an image of strength, capable of competing in a male-dominated field.
Today, Take Two spoke with political image consultant Patty Cisneros, founder of Corporate Icon, about the hurdles Hillary Clinton will have to leap before breaking that final glass ceiling.
Press play above to hear Alex Cohen’s conversation with Patty Cisneros.
Austin Beutner sees bright future for LA Times
In a news industry dominated by trendy websites and pay-per-click revenue, and at a time when other print newspapers are closing their doors, the Los Angeles Times believes it has tapped into a strategy for success.
The paper’s new publisher, Austin Beutner, joined the paper from Wall Street. Drawing on his experiences in the corporate world, as well as a little bit of "alchemy," Beutner sees a future in which the news organization convenes communities around their individual interests and delivers information in all the ways they want to receive it: mobile, web, print, live events. And he sees a bright future for the paper.
"We still have the largest single metropolitan daily in Los Angeles; it's called the Los Angeles Times. We still have a very vibrant and engaged customer base. Ninety percent of our subscribers voted in the 2012 elections," Beutner told Take Two.
Beutner spoke with KPCC’s Ben Bergman about the upcoming LA Times Festival of Books, the paper's signature annual event, and the future of print. You can read excerpts below, or listen to the audio for the full interview.
The Festival of Books is a very popular event—150,000 people attend. You charge for some events like your new Ideas Exchange with Malcolm Gladwell. But most of the events are just a dollar or even free. Couldn't you use the revenue that charging an admission would provide?
We sure could. But part of our role at the Los Angeles Times as a civic conscience and that centerpiece for the community is to be a convener, and that we can bring people to engage around books and ideas. We're privileged really to be able to do that [but we'd have to] strike a balance between what we need to do to keep our lights on and the bills paid and give back to the community. So this is for us a heavy investment with the community with the hopes that more people engage with us and more people engage around books and ideas.
I take it this Ideas Exchange will be seen more of from the L.A. Times in the future. Other media companies have been making serious money from live events.
We are looking to publish our news and information around communities of interest.... It may be an event. It may be a story told through video, a podcast, through text or graphics. All those tools to engage and inform we'll be using much, much more than we have in the past.
Content is expensive to produce. You said it cost $75 million a year to run the Times newsroom. If you only had to rely on your digital revenue, how big would the Times newsroom be?
A lot smaller than it is today. We're in that transition phase where part of what we're doing is to understand how we bring our content differently to sponsors, to partners.
We did a very powerful story on how produce is farmed in Mexico [that exposed] shocking revelations about how workers are treated and even young children virtually in slavery working in the fields. That's had a big impact, that's changed the way consumers buy produce in this country. That's led Wal-Mart to change its buying practice — the largest company in the world.
We invested a year and a half, two reporters, an enormous sum of money in that effort. If you add the number of people in print, and we can infer that through use patterns, we probably had a quarter million read all four parts and spend more than 25 minutes on something called a "spinach-y" type topic. That in a newspaper context is interesting. But where else can you gather a quarter million people on the topic of spinach for a half hour? That starts to sound like a "60 Minutes" segment, that starts to sound like an MSNBC show. And all those attract sponsors in the hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars of revenue. So why wouldn't we at the L.A. Times, call something the "Times Investigates" and commit to do a series of these, which we do anyways, [and] take that to a sponsor?
The bulk of your revenue still comes, I gather from print revenue, which for all Tribune papers has been dropping. And last quarter it dropped more than 10 percent as a whole. They don't break it down by paper. Has been more than that or less at the LA Times?
I don't think it's been disclosed, but [it's] every mass media organization. Print is not alone. Whether you look at any of the nightly news shows on the broadcast networks or even 60 Minutes. All of the mass audience shows are declining. Print may be a little faster than some of the other forms but they're in decline. That said, Mark Twain said something about overstating the demise. We still have the largest single metropolitan daily in Los Angeles; it's called the Los Angeles Times. We still have a very vibrant and engaged customer base. Ninety percent of our subscribers voted in the 2012 elections.
How much longer do you foresee the LA Times publishing a seven-day-a-week paper?
Quite a while. I have an 11-year-old daughter who starts the morning reading the print newspaper. Customers want it different ways. Some days they'll read the paper. Some days they'll look at it online. They may listen to a podcast of our work on the way to work, in the car or in the train. So we will adapt to those times. We have scale we'll be printing for quite a while.
SEC investigates LAUSD's controversial iPad program
The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun an informal investigation into the Los Angeles Unified School District's controversial and now-deserted $1.3 billion iPad program.
LAUSD sold bonds to pay for the tablets, and now the SEC wants to know whether the district properly disclosed to investors how the bonds would be used.
Southern California Public Radio's education reporter Annie Gilbertson has the story and she spoke with Take Two.
The art of the 'haterbrag'
What's a good way to turn a negative into a positive? Brag about it!
That's the thinking behind haterbragging, a term coined by Slate's Amanda Hess.
But how does it work? Well just imagine using someone's negative comment about you as a badge of honor ... or if a prominent person in social media takes a jab at you: Doesn't that mean you've gained a little prominence yourself?
We at SCPR recently tried our hand at haterbragging ... although it was before it was actually called haterbragging:
Alex Cohen talked to Amanda about it, and found out the story behind the haterbrag.
'Alex of Venice' marks Chris Messina's directing debut
The new film "Alex of Venice" stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Alex, a workaholic attorney living in Venice, California.
She's barely able to juggle the responsibilities of her job and her roles at home taking care of a son and an aging father, when her husband, George, tells her he's leaving. George is played by actor Chris Messina, who also directed the film.
Messina and Winstead spoke to host Alex Cohen about what making the film was like.
Sabado Gigante and the end of an era
After fifty three years on the air - the Spanish language TV staple Sabado Gigante is being cancelled.
The last episode of the Univision variety show will air on September 19.
Joining us to talk about the show and what's next for the program's flamboyant host is Veronica VillaFane, she's the editor and publisher of Media Moves, which covers Latino media.
Coachella rules the music festival circuit, but how long can it stay on top?
Weekend two of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival gets under way Friday in Indio, California. And, of course, it's sold out.
The event is the butt of many online spoofs, with its hipster-bohemian vibe and big bucks admission. It will cost you $375 for a general ticket. It's another $85 to pitch a tent.
Last year, the wildly popular music and arts show generated more revenue than any other event on the festival circuit. But can Coachella continue to dominate the outdoor music scene?
Ben Sisario covers the music business for the New York Times. He wrote recently about the business of Coachella and he joined Take Two to discuss it.
Cellphone invasion: How technology at concerts alters the experience
At weekend one of Coachella, headliner Jack White made a request to the audience: He asked the crowd to put away their cellphones -- as did a number of other acts at the festival.
Shirley Halperin, music editor at The Hollywood Reporter, gives a look at why phones have become so prevalent at concerts, and how that affects the live music experience.
Weekend on the cheap: A cure for the common weekend
It's going to be an epic weekend, and you don't even have to travel to Coachella Valley.
Here to help find the best live music in L.A. is Southern California Public Radio's social media producer Kristen Lepore, who joins us every Friday with some cool things to do on the cheap.
For a full list of almost-free weekend events, click here.
Support for Olympics in Boston edging up - still low
A recent poll by Boston public radio station WBUR shows Bostonians support for an Olympic bid in their city has gone up slightly, but still stands at less than half.
In January the US Olympics Committee announced the city as its choice to bid for the 2024 games. It beat out Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
WBUR reporter Curt Nickish joins the show to discuss the ambivalence the majority of Bostonians feel about hosting the Olympics.