News and/or Media
Rodney King’s Luck Continues
Friday, November 30th, 2007In a story that received almost no airplay, given what a media sensation this man once was, Rodney King was shot on Wednesday evening on a street corner in San Bernardino, California. The article says he was hit two or three times in the face, arms, back and torso by birdshot fired from a shotgun from a distance, and that his wounds were not life-threatening. It reminds me (and several of the stories commenters) of the time Dick Cheney shot his friend in the face with birdshot during a quail-hunting trip earlier in the year.
What I find most interesting about this is how Rodney King has “fallen from grace” in the eyes of the media. Back in 1991, he was an iconic victim – an African-American man who was savagely beaten by white police officers in Los Angeles, touching off a series of riots in the city that left 55 people dead and caused more than $1 billion in property damage. He received a $3.8 million settlement in the ensuing lawsuit, and would occasionally pop up in the press to reiterate his rather inspiring tag line, “Why can’t we all just get along?”
Since then, though, he’s had many run-ins with the law, including a 2004 jail stint for driving under the influence of PCP (the drug he was high on when he got beaten by the LA cops). After this week’s shooting, police officers found it difficult to get information at his home because his house guests “appeared to be drunk and few cooperated with officers by providing information.”
While no one’s justifying the beating he took, I think perhaps the media has realized that Mr. King has some serious problems, and that while he was a victim, the term “innocent victim” is probably too much of a stretch. I’ll also note that no one has even mentioned the skin color of the person who shot him. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but I think on the whole, it’s probably a positive thing.
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1 Million People Cancel the Paper
Friday, November 9th, 2007
James Lileks calls this chart, “horrifying, if you’re in the newspaper business.” He’s not in the newspaper business, of course, but yet he still works for a newspaper. Ah well, my life is complicated enough without trying to figure out his.
Anyway, as regards the numbers, the basic message is this: in the last 2.5 years, over a million people have cancelled their subscription to one of the Top 20 newspapers in America. TV News viewership has been declining for years as well.
There is always much speculation as to the reason, but for my money, it’s simply this: why would I pay anything (even a few cents) to read news that is at least a few hours old when I can read up-to-the-minute news on one of a dozen widely available devices for free?
Everyone says that newspapers will never die, just as television didn’t kill the radio. But here’s the thing: the radio changed. “All News, All the Time” stations have been largely replaced by (opinion-based) talk radio, local traffic and weather reports, and quick news snippets at the top of each hour. If newspapers don’t find a new niche quickly, it won’t be the Internet that killed them, it will be their own stubbornness.
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WABC-TV Comes to its Senses
Friday, September 7th, 2007This morning, the news director at ABC’s New York affiliate, Kenny Plotnik told the New York Daily News that his station will not air the traditional reading of the victim’s names on the morning of September 11, 2007.
“We decided to provide continuous coverage on our Digital Channel and Web site so our audience could have a choice between their regular programming and the Sept. 11 ceremony. We hope to be respectful to the families and serve our audience. This is not about ratings, it’s about what’s right.”
“What’s right,” according to Mr. Plotnik, includes “Live with Regis and Kelly,” “Rachael Ray,” and “The View.” The fact that these shows have paid advertisers and the 9/11 memorial service would not, Mr. Plotnik is suggesting, has nothing to do with it. It would just be “wrong” to deny viewers their daily dose of Regis, Rachel & the girls for a silly thing like a national day of mourning.
Well, after this announcement (and before I could write a truly outraged blog posting), all hell broke loose. Or, as the beleaguered Mr. Plotnik puts it:
“I made some calls, I spoke to families, we got some emails. People were upset and confused. They were upset. It was upset and confusion. There wasn’t any anger.
Yeah, right. At any rate, to avoid further upsetting all of those non-angry, confused people, WABC-TV has decided to air the ceremony in full, just like every other local channel in New York.
Mr. Plotnik went on to explain that “the real issue, there is really a terrible misunderstanding with digital channels. There seems to be a situation where people don’t understand the concept of digital channels.” He went on to say, though, that there would be other opportunities to use the digital channel down the road, but the 9/11 ceremony was not the time to test it.
Good thinking, Mr. Plotnik. (Finally…)
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The Gaffe Machine Processes Another Victim
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007Last Thursday, I blogged about what I called The Gaffe Machine – that process that seems to have developed in our culture whereby televised events go generally unwatched until something controversial happens, and then the controversial “gaffe” becomes a self-sustaining media event, generating large ratings and various other forms of public attention.
Well, it’s been four days and already I have another example to share with you:
Comedian Jerry Lewis apologized on Tuesday for his use of an anti-gay slur during the weekend broadcast of his annual Labor Day Telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The controversial remark came Monday afternoon in the 18th hour of the live national telecast, when a visibly weary Lewis, 81, was joking on stage, pretending to introduce members of someone’s family as he mugged for the camera.
“Oh, your family has come to see you. You remember Bart, your oldest son, Jesse, the illiterate fag …,” Lewis said, as he apparently caught himself and ceased the gag in mid-sentence, turning on his heel away from the camera.
So here we go: absolutely no one watches 21.5 hours of the telethon. Most people, if they watch at all, tune in and out throughout the day. So virtually no one heard Lewis say those words. But this morning, it’s all over the Internet and every news story about the telethon is leading with it. The Gaffe Machine has begun to churn.
Enter the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD):
“Jerry Lewis’ on-air use of this kind of anti-gay slur is simply unacceptable,” GLAAD President Neil Giuliano said in a statement, adding that the comic’s remark “feeds a climate of hatred and intolerance” that could incite anti-gay violence. GLAAD urged Lewis to apologize for the comment and asked the entertainer to meet with members of the group “to help him understand why these words are so hurtful.”
I’m not defending what he said, but let’s think about this seriously for a moment. Jerry Lewis, a man who has dedicated the last 30+ years of his life to helping people he doesn’t even know, a man who has raised (and inspired others to raise) BILLIONS of dollars for medical research, social programs and community outreach programs, has “incited anti-gay violence” by “feed[ing] a climate of hatred and intolerance,” and now needs to meet with GLAAD representatives to “understand why these words are so hurtful.” Let’s also not forget that he’s 81 years old, and had been working for eighteen hours straight at the time.
I don’t know what Jerry Lewis truly thinks about gay people. None of us will ever know for sure. But I think the man’s life’s work puts him on the right end of the helpful/hurtful continuum, no?
On the upside, it seems as though The Gaffe Machine was unable to chew him up and spit him out, in the way it did for Don Imus, Michael Richards, Mel Gibson, Caitlin Upton, and so many others. Lewis issued this statement today:
“I obviously made a bad choice of words. Everyone who knows me understands that I hold no prejudices in this regard,” he said. “The success of the (telethon) and all the good that will come from it shouldn’t be lost because of one unfortunate word. I accept responsibility for what I said. There are no excuses. I am sorry.”
And a spokesperson for GLAAD subsequently said this:
“GLAAD thanks Jerry Lewis for his swift and direct apology for this incident. We join millions of Americans in applauding the important work of the Muscular Dystrophy Association and wish MDA and Mr. Lewis much continued success in their efforts.”
I think even GLAAD realized what they were up against this time. So hopefully, this one just goes away. We’ll have to wait and see. Even if it does, though, I’ll bet you a dollar that the day before Labor Day, 2008, every news story about the upcoming telethon will include a reference to this “incident.”
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The Gaffe Machine
Thursday, August 30th, 2007Let’s talk for a minute about this woman:
Her name is Caitlin Upton, and she was the fourth place finisher in the 2007 Miss Teen USA Pageant. Despite the fact that the pageant didn’t even make the Top 20 Nielsen ratings, the above video has (as of this writing) been viewed by approximately 1.5 million people. Other versions of the video are on YouTube as well, and two of them are currently listed in YouTube’s Top 10 Most Viewed video list. It’s safe to say that more people have seen the video clip than watched the actual pageant to begin with.
It’s also safe to say that every last one of them thinks Ms. Upton is as dumb as a brick. The user comments on the above video call her everything from a “moron” to a “dumb bitch” to one who “only exists to give pleasure to men.” The thing is, she’s not so dumb. This from MSNBC:
Held up on the Internet as the quintessential dumb blonde, Upton was an honor student in high school who played varsity soccer for four years. This summer, she traveled to Germany with an elite soccer team that placed second in a tournament involving teams from a number of European countries. In her junior and senior years, she was her school’s president of SkillsUSA, which describes itself as “a partnership of students, teachers and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled work force.”
Upton’s long-term goals include enrolling in Appalachian State University to major in graphic design. On graduation, she wants to study special effects at the International Academy of Design Technology in Los Angeles and embark on a career designing special effects for movies and television.
On the Today Show the following day, she gave a much more coherent answer to the pageant’s question, and also came back later in the show to deliver “a flawless explanation of lunar eclipses.”
So what we have here is a character assassination. Caitlin Upton is not a dumb blonde, but she did commit the worst sin in America: she looked bad on television. Once she did that, millions of Americans formed and cemented their opinions, and no amount of explanation or second chances was going to help.
She’s also not the first non-moron to fall victim to this phenomenon. President Bush jumps immediately to mind. As does former Vice President Dan Quayle, and Vice Presidential candidate James Stockdale (of “Who am I? Why am I here?” infamy).
But there’s something else going on here as well. This is a new, 21st Century version of character assassination, in which no individual or group conspires to destroy a person. At least in the cases of Bush or Quayle, one could argue that their political enemies conspired to spin up injurious tales about them, altering public perceptions to achieve their own ends. In Ms. Upton’s case, our cultural mechanisms, including the glut of entertainment content available across thousands of cable and satellite channels, not to mention the almighty Internet, seem to automatically generate this kind of story, leaving the victim no one to blame and no effective recourse, despite the fact that the message is horribly inaccurate.
It feels as though the pageant is not so much televised to be viewed by the public, but to provide raw materials for those who would scan through it, find an embarrassing or humorous moment, and then highlight it for the world via YouTube or some similar vehicle. Then, social networking takes over and distributes the “gaffe” around the world, pointing people back to the source material only if they’d like further context.
In a weird way, the same can be said of the 29 “Presidential” debates that have been scheduled so far. I put the word “Presidential” in quotes because we all seem to be ignoring the fact that there is no presidential election this year, and so these debates are really about giving the candidates the opportunity to say something newsworthy. There is no real reason to watch them when they happen (and, in fact, very few people have). Instead, we count on the teeming millions out there (mainstream media and bloggers alike) to extract any controversial, embarrassing, humorous, or otherwise interesting snippet from them, post them in a publicly viewable forum, and then spread the word to the rest of us.
Both the pageants and the debates (and while you’re at it, throw in Reality TV shows, Award shows, most sporting events, and anything that’s ever been on C-SPAN), are no longer the end product. They are inputs for the giant Gaffe Machine that we’ve built with our technological capabilities and our short attention spans.
It all makes me wonder whether this Gaffe Machine is the cause or the effect. If the only way to see the gaffe was to watch the debate, might the entire debate be more informative? If the only way to hear Ms. Upton fumble on about “U.S. Americans” was to watch the pageant, would the pageant itself be more popular, and by extension, more entertaining?
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The 13-year old Finnish Fact Checker Strikes Again…
Sunday, August 12th, 2007Gotta love this:
News agency Reuters has been forced to admit that footage it released last week purportedly showing Russian submersibles on the seabed of the North Pole actually came from the movie Titanic.
The images were reproduced around the world – including by the Guardian and Guardian Unlimited – alongside the story of Russia planting its flag below the North Pole on Thursday last week. But it has now emerged that the footage actually showed two Finnish-made Mir submersibles that were employed on location filming at the scene of the wreck of the RMS Titanic ship in the north Atlantic some 10 years ago. This footage was used in sequences in James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster about the 1912 disaster.
The mistake was only revealed after a 13-year-old Finnish schoolboy contacted a local newspaper to tell them the images looked identical to those used in the movie.
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The OTHER Google News…
Monday, July 9th, 2007So, on July 3rd, I’m perusing my Google Analytics activity reports, and I note that four people had Googled “Este Pizza fire” and came up with my July, 2006 archive, which contains several blog posts about The Great Simple Tricks Pizza Challenge (long story – go read it for yourself. Trust me, you’ll enjoy it…)
Anyway, I proceeded to Google “Este Pizza fire” as well, but found nothing of note (except a link to my own site, of course). No web pages describing a fire, nothing in Google News, nothing in Yahoo! News, etc., etc. So I sent an e-mail to Jason Bennion, the “blogger who started it all,” and asked if everything was OK. Turns out, there was indeed a fire at Este Pizza on June 30th. Everyone seems to be alright, but the building itself was heavily damaged by smoke and the firemen’s water hoses. Estimated time of recovery is 60 days.
Apparently, It didn’t make the local news, which is why it wasn’t present on Google, Yahoo! or any of the other big search engines.
Mike Chenoweth, or “Chenopup” as he’s been called throughout the pizza saga, is filling in the MSM gaps with local coverage on his blog. He’s asking for all those interested to donate $6 (the cost of a lunch special at Este Pizza) to tie the owner over and help him get the repairs done. Details on how to contribute are in his blog post. I’ll be sending my donation in tomorrow’s mail. All those who wish to see the Great Pizza Challenge one day reach fruition would be well advised to do the same.
In the meantime, how totally cool is it that I was able to infer a news story that happened just days ago, 2,000 miles away, from my blog’s server stats? I’m envisioning a whole new way to stay informed now – create a web page containing news stories you think might happen, jack up the PageRank on that page, and then monitor the keyword logs to see if anyone’s Googling about them. It’s not exactly the most efficient way to go, but give those folks at Stanford some time to tinker with it and let’s see what happens…
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Remember when “Get Out of Jail Free” was a good deal?
Friday, June 22nd, 2007The Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel & Casino will pay Paris Hilton $800,000 to host her own Get Out of Jail party. Says Us Magazine’s source, “It was in the works and signed before she went to jail.”
But wait, there’s more. NBC will pay her a cool $1 million for her first post-jail interview with Meredith Viera on the Today show. She won’t talk to Matt Lauer, you see, because he made “disparaging remarks” about her. Poor thing…
And here’s the kicker: ABC is pissed off because Barbara Walters spent so much time schmoozing her mother, Kathy, and wound up with nothing for her efforts. NBC’s President & CEO Jeff Zucker sealed the deal with a call to her father, Rick.
I wonder if advocacy groups will be suing The Hard Rock and NBC for equal treatment when their clients are released from jail…
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A Bad Start…
Monday, June 11th, 2007I’ve avoided blogging about the Paris Hilton saga, because I find the whole thing to be nothing more than a trumped up soap opera, starring Paris Hilton as the forlorn victim, and our criminal justice system as the bumbling fool.
That said, today’s episode, in which Paris calls her mother from jail while her mother is coincidentally on the phone with none other than Barbara Walters, who promptly launches into an interview which is then immediately released to the media hounds, contained two rather irresistible quotes. First, Paris on her on-screen persona:
“I used to act dumb,” [Paris] told Babs. “It was an act. That act is no longer cute. It is not who I am, nor do I want to be that person for the young girls who look up to me.”
Next, Paris Hilton on what it’s like to be in jail:
“I was severely depressed and felt as if I was in a cage…It was a horrible experience.”
Well, Paris, it’s like this: you ARE in a cage. That’s the whole idea. So much for losing the “dumb” act for those young girls who look up to you…
Tune in next week, when every activist group you can think of sues the LA County Sheriff to get someone in their group free publicity equal treatment under the law. Future episodes will also include interviews with Paris’ new spiritual advisor, her dramatic release from prison, her declaration that she’s found God, and the launch of her new Ronald McDonald-like home for children.
Oh, and as long as I’m here, one last note: the article I linked to above (from E! Online) is flanked by an add for Paris’ reality show, The Simple Life, with a new episode airing this Sunday at 10pm on E!. Coincidence? No more than anything else in this post, I suspect…
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Some more politics
Wednesday, May 16th, 2007The psychological need to blog about politics seems to be a cyclical thing. Here, I scratch that itch one more time:
FEMA MAKES MIRACULOUS RECOVERY
On April 15, 2007, a huge nor’easter swept through northern New Jersey, leaving many homeless and causing $180 million in damage. Here’s the (completely unpublicized) response, as per The Star Ledger, a local paper here in New Jersey:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved nearly $7.6 million in disaster assistance for individuals and businesses affected by the April 15 nor’easter, officials said yesterday. As of Monday evening [May 7, 2007], FEMA registered 9,333 applications for assistance in New Jersey, said spokeswoman Barbara Lynch. Some 8,387 homes have been inspected by FEMA and some $6.9 million has already been dispersed through the agency’s housing program alone, Lynch said.
FEMA is currently operating 12 walk-in disaster-recovery assistance centers in 11 counties. To date, FEMA has recorded some 1,500 personal visits to the centers. The center at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Bound Brook, in Somerset County, leads the pack in visits, with 510 visits, Lynch said. Bound Brook is also home to the state’s last shelter for families evacuated from their homes due to the flooding.
At the height of the disaster, the American Red Cross operated 23 shelters housing 2,425 people throughout the state, said spokesman Dan Iradi. As of yesterday, the Presbyterian Church in Bound Brook was the only shelter still operating with some 93 people.
Volunteers from the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and various Christian organizations are providing assistance for flood victims struggling with the cleanup of their homes and businesses. The elderly or overwhelmed are encouraged to dial 211 — an emergency number set up by the state.
The federal Small Business Administration is working with FEMA to offer low-interest loans to affected individuals and businesses. Spokeswoman Bonny Thompson Wright stressed that individuals should not be deterred from applying, noting that historically, 80 percent of SBA loans go to homeowners and renters.
Now, Bound Brook is no New Orleans. We’re talking about just over 10,000 people here, as opposed to 1.3 million. That said, it’s not all that different either: According to Wikipedia, Bound Brook has a median household income of just under $48,000, with roughly 11% of the population living below the poverty line. In Greater New Orleans (circa 2000, or pre-Katrina), the median household income was just over $27,000 and roughly 24% of the families lived below the poverty line.
Note, though, how the coordinated response from local, state and federal agencies (including FEMA), as well as non-government agencies like the Red Cross and faith-based organizations have all but put Bound Brook back on its feet in relatively short order. New Orleans, who’s local and state agencies all but abandoned the people at their time of greatest need, complicating an already complex situation which resulted in FEMA’s total ineffectiveness, is still a mess two years after the fact. Many will ignore examples of success, though, and continue to believe that all of this is because George Bush hates New Orleans residents more than he hates those in Bound Brook…
This from CNN:
Three retired generals challenged a dozen members of Congress in a new ad campaign Wednesday, saying the politicians can’t support President Bush’s policies in Iraq and still expect to win re-election. Other veterans promoted the campaign at a news conference in Manchester, the start of a six-state publicity tour targeting Sens. John Sununu of New Hampshire, Susan Collins of Maine, Norm Coleman of Minnesota and John Warner of Virginia, plus nine House members. All are Republicans.
This cannot be found on CNN:
A petition signed by 2,700 current and former service members in support of continuing U.S. combat operations in Iraq will be turned over to two Republican lawmakers tomorrow in a ceremony at the headquarters of the nation’s largest group of combat veterans. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the House Republican leader, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, will receive the petition, and use the event as another opportunity to criticize Democrats who control the House and Senate for trying to impose a withdrawal timetable on Iraq combat operations.
About 60 percent of the 2,700 signatures on the Appeal For Courage petition come from service members who are serving or have served in Iraq, with about two-thirds enlisted members and one-third officers. The signatures were gathered over about a month. The petition states:
“As an American currently serving my nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to fully support our mission in Iraq and halt any calls for retreat. I also respectfully urge my political leaders to actively oppose media efforts which embolden my enemy while demoralizing American support at home. The War in Iraq is a necessary and just effort to bring freedom to the Middle East and protect America from further attack.”
Regardless of what you think of the war, doesn’t it seem like CNN can’t honestly report on one of these stories without mentioning the other? They happened within two days of each other, and clearly show a wide variety of opinions across the military on our current war strategy.
GEORGE TENET – OVER-HYPED (LACK OF) CRITICISM
I’d heard about George Tenet’s new “tell all” book, in which he reportedly slams the Bush administration for lying about the intelligence his CIA gave them leading up to the war in Iraq. I haven’t read the book, nor do I intend to.
It would be great, just once, to hear a former Bush administration official criticize the administration when he hasn’t received a multi-million dollar advance to promote a book, or has at least offered to donate his personal profits from such “introspective confessions” to help families who have experienced loss or injury due to the war. Until that happens, I consider all of these “shocking revelations” as suspect, and I’ll stay away from the books, thank you very much.
All of that said, I did see Tenet on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show (the news source of choice for discriminating viewers) and I read the above story by Fred Thompson, both of which point to the same thing: Tenet really isn’t slamming the Bush Administration for much at all. He’s telling everyone that the CIA proved a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda, but not between Saddam and the 9/11 plot. He also said that the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda was sporadic and ancillary, and that at the time, they really didn’t know how connected the two groups were. He also said that he personally believed that Saddam had WMD when the war began, as did many other intelligence sources (“everybody got it wrong”), suggesting that no one was lying about it, as much as everyone was duped by the Iraqi (mis)information machine.
But this simply won’t do. You can’t sell a “tell all” book if the book suggests that the administration had the best interests of the country at heart, made the best decisions they could given the facts they had, and things just went extremely badly from there. Stewart showed clips of various interviewers lambasting Tenet (sometimes even screaming at him) about what they seem to have pre-determined to be his role in a massive cover-up that led us to war. Many demanded to know why he didn’t resign in the face of such immoral and dishonest behavior by the Bush administration.
It’s like they’re mad at him for not telling the same story they’ve now settled on. The fact that he’s a principal in the story and they’re just reporting on it doesn’t seem to matter in the least. In fact, it seems the order of descending credibility goes: 1) The media’s take on what happened, 2) the marketing spin designed to sell the book, and 3) what George Tenet is actually saying.
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