"Bob Dole, ma'am: Where's the outrage?"

Less than four weeks after the election, it's hard to find mainstream media commentators still willing to make a stink about serious voter irregularities around the country - and especially in Ohio. We're left with niche magazines and web outlets such as Salon, and commentators such as UT Austin Public Affairs professor James K. Galbraith, to fly the flag for outrage. Galbraith's Salon article compares the situation in Ohio with current events in Ukraine, and wonders why there isn't more outrage about the crap voting system in the U.S. I agree. But then who am I? I care about arcane things like public service broadcasting and electoral district gerrymandering, but that puts me in a pretty small minority. Yet I keep asking (as Bob Dole once did in a very different context): "Where's the outrage?" I'm not arguing that Bush "stole" the whole election (even if there was serious foul play in Ohio, I don't know if it would account for the difference in the Republican and Democratic vote; plus he won the national popular vote by a significant margin). I'm not saying that "the masses" should storm Congress the way they're doing in Ukraine. But I am saying that the electoral system here really, really sucks! And I'm saying that if more people showed they gave a crap about their right to a really fair and free election - including yes, taking to the streets in their millions if need be - then this country would have a damn sight more responsive electoral system (and government!) than it currently has. It's not even a partisan issue, or shouldn't be. It's just basic democratic (with a small "d") decency. Why is that slipping away in places like Florida and Ohio?

Ho hum. OK, enough ranting for one day.

Tom Tykwer's getting into perfume!

German director Tom Tykwer, best known for his adrenaline-driven film "Run Lola Run" ("Lola rennt" in German), is set to direct an adaptation of Perfume, from the Patrick Suskind novel "about a perfumier who resorts to murder in his quest to create the ultimate fragrance" (see The Guardian film news). Could be interesting. I only mention this because a.) I loved "Run Lola Run" and b.) Tykwer is one of the few directors I've seen in person. Back in June 2001 he was in Seattle with Franka Potente for the SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival) premiere of his follow-up to "Lola," "The Princess and the Warrior" (aka "Der Krieger und die Kaiserin"). Tykwer was a bit of a crowd favorite in movie-mad Seattle. I was in the audience, and although I didn't get to ask a question during the Q&A, I enjoyed the experience all the same. Both Tykwer and Potente were reassuringly German, it should be noted.

The FCC makes some money ... at last!

According to Broadcasting & Cable, the FCC has just raised $147.4 million in the first-ever auction for 258 FM radio licenses. The proud new license holders — a mix of new entrants and big radio conglomerates such as Cumulus and Clear Channel — are mainly concentrated in rural areas, without too much profit-raising potential. There's an interesting background to this — interesting not only because no-one's paying much attention to it, but also because the industry is letting the government get away with taking money away from them! (How strange!) Back in the mid-1990s, when Congress was drafting the Telecommunications Act, the idea initially was for the federal government to auction chunks of the newly emerging digital TV spectrum off to media owners — which would have resulted in a cash windfall for the government. The National Association of Broadcasters and other media lobbyists successfully fought that off, and they essentially got trustee rights to billions of dollars of the public spectrum (i.e., they borrow it and use it in the public interest, rather than own it) for free. Only after that giveaway was set in stone did Congress allow the FCC to raise money by putting future licenses up for auction. It’s taken them another seven years to get around to completing the first auction! And of course it doesn't really matter because the big city TV licenses — where all the profits are at — are already safely in the pockets of the media conglomerates, who got them gratis. Media historians who have studied the battle for control of the public airwaves from 1927 to 1934 (see, e.g., Robert McChesney's work) are quite familiar with this pattern of corporate domination in U.S. media.

Brits in Iraq get back into "Vietnam" with a vengeance

Looks like Iraq reporters have been getting Vietnam withdrawal symptoms. Just when we thought that ‘Nam and Swift Boats had finally disappeared along with John Kerry’s fortunes, it seems that 'Nam is back — at least for Brit reporters. On Sunday the BBC, using pooled material from the Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mirror, and Daily Mail, reported that the Scottish regiment, The Black Watch, were supporting U.S. troops in a river assault on the Euphrates River south of Baghdad. The journos quoted one Scottish corporal as saying, "This is unbelievable -it's like a scene from Apocalypse Now or something. Even the trees look the same. It could be The Mekong Delta." I could almost hear The Doors’ “This is the End” playing in the background.

Then today’s New York Times led with the headline “Shadow of Vietnam Falls Over Iraq River Raids”. The article, written by British-born John F. Burns, dealt with the increased use of river patrol boats — now called Surcs rather than Swift Boats — in U.S. attempts to squelch the insurgency. Burns also drew heavily on the imagery of Apocalypse Now — palm trees, mud, humidity, M-16s pointed skyward, all that stuff — to bring the spectre of that pointless war right back to the present quagmire. There was also a very Vietnam-like photo of a patrol boat set against a backdrop of baking sun and palm trees. Well, it’s about time the media got back to Vietnam as a very appropriate analogy to what’s going on now. I wonder if it'll last. Depends, of course, on the rising body count. But one thing we're desperately missing is a really rockin' soundtrack for this war, one that will stand the test of time as well as The Doors, The Stones, or for that matter Jefferson Airplane and CSNY. Recent efforts by Eminem and Clutch are a start, but only a start. (OK, getting a little facetious here, but it’s hard not to be when I consider the rubbish that has been passed off as journalism about this insane war over the past two years--though I don't include John Burns' work among the rubbish.) Anyway, I’ll doubtless return to this subject. ‘Nuff for now.

Dangerous Dan and Brokaw

So what are we to make of Dan Rather’s and Tom Brokaw’s imminent departure from the network airwaves? Rather’s certainly past it, and is also quite frankly barking mad. Brokaw, the consummate Midwesterner, wants to ride into the sunset with a guitar playing melodiously and his reputation intact. I don’t have much time for his successor, Brian Williams. That leaves our favorite Canadian, ABC’s Peter Jennings! Hooray for Canada! (Although Jennings is a U.S. citizen now, he hasn’t chucked away his Canadian passport — might come in handy, depending on how bad things get in this country.) Still, network news-land isn’t all it used to be — a point underscored yet again by a Pew Research Center post-election survey showing cable TV outgunning the networks. Pew found that cable TV news was cited by 40 percent of voters as their primary source of campaign news — compared to only 29 percent for all the networks put together. And can you guess who was top of the cable pile? Yep, Fox! Who else?

BTW, for you media hounds out there: It’s worth checking out the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. It’s highly regarded by most of the non-loony political elements out there; its director, Andy Kohut, is a regular talking head on TV; and — this is the best bit — he really isn’t barking mad!

Election advertising boondoggle

It looks like we finally know the full cost of the recent election, and it’s a hell of a lot! The Alliance for Better Campaigns points out that more than $1.6 billion was spent in the hundred largest media markets on electioneering by parties, candidates and — most prominently this year — independent groups such as MoveOn.org (the so-called “527s”). This tally, is, unfortunately, at the upper end of a spectrum of pre-election estimates that ran from $1 billion to $1.6 billion. It's also more than double what was spent in 2000. These findings, also covered in TVWeek (registration required) are more or less in line with other investigations into campaign TV advertising, such as those conducted by the Lear Center Local News Archive, as well as Nielsen Monitor Plus, and the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project. The Lear Center points out that almost two million political spots were aired on 615 stations in the top 100 TV markets — equivalent to 677 full days of advertising! So what, you might ask, is this doing to our democracy?

The worst part of all this, of course, is that local TV stations, where most Americans now get their news and where most of this $1.6 billion was spent, have largely abrogated their public service responsibility to provide comprehensive coverage of national, and especially local, elections. The election-related pieces local stations did air tended to be pretty flimsy, to say the least. Strategy and horserace stories outnumbered issues stories by a ratio of 3:2; ad watch stories, meanwhile, made up less than one percent of all campaign stories (Lear Center). I could go on about this — and in time I will — but for now, check out NOW with Bill Moyers’ piece on local elections coverage — or lack thereof.

First Entry

This is my blog. It's called "Mediaville" because I shall be writing about the media. I'm not sure yet exactly what I'll be writing about the media -- I'll have to think about that.

I'm thinking ...