On Democrats, piss-ups and breweries!

It's quite possible that Congressional Democrats couldn't organize one of these. The Daily Howler points out how, on Social Security, Dems are again in danger of losing the media spin war against the much-more-organized Republicans — even though Democrats have the stronger argument by far. Even Ted Kennedy and John Kerry (being interviewed by Tim Russert on "Meet The Press") are apparently fighting with one arm tied behind their back. At least according to The Howler, whose take on Kerry's performance (which I didn't get to see but here's the transcript), is as follows:

Hopeless! Leave it to the modern Dems—to cite only the facts and figures which are least helpful to their position! In citing the year 2042, Kerry is using the projection of the SS trustees—the gloomiest projection around! According to the CBO, SS is fine for an extra ten years. But Kerry uses the gloomier figures, omitting data which would help inform the public and would favor his party’s position. Senator Kennedy did the same thing on Face the Nation two weeks ago.

Perhaps the Democrat seminars with George Lakoff haven't taken hold yet. But I really hope the leading Dems are not as inept as the Daily Howler makes out ... or SS really is in trouble!

Paxman blasts BBC News cuts!

The enfant terrible of British news, Jeremy Paxman, is mixing it up again - and this time his target isn't Blair or Michael Howard or any of that lot, but rather his boss, Mark Thompson! Thompson is the new post-Greg Dyke DG of the BBC (i.e., director gereral of the British Broadcasting Corporation). It seems he's decided to make his mark by mandating across-the-board 15% cuts in the organization. That includes a 15% cut in the news and current affairs budget. Thompson says he wants to plough the savings into making "more and better programmes." Paxman isn't necessarily buying it. According to a Media Guardian interview, to mark the 25th anniversary of BBC 2's flagship Newsnight program, Paxman

said he did not understand how the cuts ... could be justified when the BBC was thinking about spending millions of pounds moving hundreds of staff from London. "I don't understand why it's necessary, particularly at a time when you can spend hundreds of millions building new buildings, moving staff to Manchester and all the rest of it," he said in an interview with Media Guardian.

Good point. The Big Move Paxman is talking about is something I talked about back on Dec. 6: "the BBC's strategic decision to move big chunks of its organization - primarily sport and children's television - away from Television Centre in Shepherd's Bush (the BBC headquarters in West London) up to Manchester." Apparently the price tag for this move is a whopping GBP500 million!

The Media Guardian piece (by Matt Wells), notes that "Paxman's comments reflect what many BBC journalists fear in private but cannot say in public." Paxman has a lot of clout in BBC News. He also takes no prisoners in the interview chair. The spiritual heir of hard-hitting interviewer Robin Day, Paxman once won a UK journalism award for taking Michael Howard (then home secretary and now leader of the Conservative Party) to task, pressing him on an issue by asking him the same question no fewer than 14 times! Paxman is also the man who has famously been quoted as saying he’s always thinking during an interview, “Why is this lying bastard lying to me.” So what would a Paxman interview with Mark Thompson look like, I wonder?

Labor News Network?

This week's Sunday New York Times magazine focuses on the activities of innovative labor leader Andrew Stern (head of the S.E.I.U., or the Service Employees International Union). Stern has what seems like some useful ideas for union reform and innovation in the United States. Yet interestingly, he is opposed to the idea - proposed by machinists' union leader Tom Buffenbarger - to set up a cable Labor News Network in the United States. Stern instead wants the union movement to think in global terms, and use the world's media accordingly. A good example of this strategy is found in the case of Sodexho, "a French company that provides all the services necessary to operate corporate buildings, from catering the food to guarding the lobby." As the NYT piece puts it:

In Europe, Sodexho is considered a responsible employer that works with unions and compensates its employees fairly. In the United States and Canada, where the company employs more than 100,000 workers, Sodexho's policy is to discourage its employees from joining unions. As a maneuver to get Sodexho to the bargaining table, last year the S.E.I.U. resorted to taking out ads in French newspapers, shaming the company's executives in their own country, where the idea of scorning unions is considerably less chic. Stern says Sodexho has started negotiating.

Personally I like Stern's approach to using the media better. It's not perfect, but it's much better than plunging hundreds of millions of union members' money into a labor cable network that would be doomed to failure. Prophets of globalization love to tout the wonders of global capital while ignoring or rejecting a more proactive role for labor. I know that corporate global media are quite happy to continue ignoring labor issues, but most labor leaders don't do a thing to change that. Wouldn't it be great if we could have a labor movement that isn't stuck in the 1950s and is actually being smart about using the media. Labor will never achieve parity in the media agenda-setting stakes, but right now it's definitely bush league.

Indecency and monopoly

So Congress and Senate just can't get enough of indecency regulation. Yet while they are having another go at raising indecency fines on terrestrial broadcasters (including a bill by Rep. Fred Upton that would permit the FCC to revoke a station license after three violations), somebody should point out that a whole new media monopoly might be on the cards. The Benton Foundation and radioink.com point to a New York Post report that satellite radio rivals Sirius and XM have been meeting lately to discuss the possibility of a merger." Says radioink: "Sources say the executives have not yet discussed price. They have, however, been weighing any potential antitrust concerns that would arise from a deal, which would create a monopoly in the nascent satellite radio business." It goes on:

The satellite radio industry is currently a FCC-licensed duopoly, and both XM and Sirius are hoping they can convince the agency to redefine the market to include all content over wireless broadband services. A merger between XM and Sirius — neither of which is yet profitable — would alleviate a price war for premium content and allow the two companies to save significant amounts of money on marketing costs.

Oh yes, and Sirius is trying to crawl out of that $500 million hole it dug for itself by signing Howard Stern for five years. What, too much too soon, Sirius? And Stern, remember, is running to lightly regulated satellite radio because he's being hammered for the "indecent" content on his terrestrial shows while at Viacom.

So anyway, industry monopoly, anyone? Maybe something real for Congress to get their regulatory teeth into, no?

Postcards from Buster!

The LA Times reports that some PBS stations plan to run the now-controversial episode of the animated children's series "Postcards From Buster" that featues a family headed by a lesbian couple. This is in spite of a by PBS decision not to distribute the program. According to the article, "PBS said its unusual decision to drop the episode was made independently, not because of pressure from the U.S. Department of Education's new secretary, Margaret Spellings." Yes, indeed. Spellings apparently decided to stick her oar in to protect "family values" because her federal department provides much of the series' funding. Spellings' letter included the following:

"Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in this episode," she wrote. "Congress' and the Department's purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children, particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television."

So no homophobia there, then(?) The perfectly reasonable response from Jeanne Hopkins of Boston's WGBH: "This is a show about kids learning from other kids. ... We've visited kids who are Muslim, Mormon, Eastern Orthodox, Pentacostal, kids rurally, kids in cities, kids whose fathers and mothers are heterosexual, single parent, living with grandparents."

I just hope to god this doesn't dig up the whole issue of whether to ban Teletubbies because Tinky Winky is (might be) gay. Why oh why does it matter? Why does ... oh never mind!

Newspapers under antitrust scrutiny

In case you thought that America's newspapers could wave the First Amendment at the government and remain immune from government interference, think again. The press's big business owners are being reminded that the feds can stick their nose into the business practices of the press - especially when that practice leads to excessive concentration of ownership. The Benton Foundation notes a Wall Street Journal article that focuses on Justice Department's antitrust investigations of Gannett and The New York Times Company.

The Justice Department is investigating Gannett's proposed buyout of HomeTown Communications Network, a Midwest community-newspaper publisher based in Livonia (MI), and has opened a preliminary inquiry into the New York Times's plans to take a 49% stake in Metro Boston, a free daily that competes with the Boston Globe, which is also owned by the Times. In some markets, advertisers have told the Justice Department that the pending deals could give local publishers enough clout to raise ad rates in the cities they serve. Competitors in Detroit and Boston, including the Boston Herald, have also told the Justice Department that they believe the deals would violate antitrust law.

More and more people are getting worried about excessive concentration of press and media ownership - especially in a single market where a single owner could manipulate news content and ad rates. There's also a concern that "traditional" newspapers are moving to take over the only print competition they have in most towns and cities: the free daily "Metro" papers and/or weekly "alternative" and communty papers that compete for advertising dollars.

It's also worth mentioning that apart from Justice Department actions of the antitrust variety, the press is also limited in its consolidation activities by FCC regulations that are supposed to prevent cross-ownership of a TV station and a newspaper in a single market. The FCC has often granted temporary waivers of cross-ownership rules, but, as I mentioned back on Jan 4, there are signs of opposition to that trend: Free Press and the NAACP have "petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to deny Media General Inc.’s request for permission to keep both WMBB-TV Panama City, Fla., and the Jackson County Floridan, one of the market’s daily newspapers." I hope they're successful.

CBS News takes it on the chin again

Another damning indictment against network news - and in particular CBS News - this time from veteran CBS foreign correspondent Tom Fenton, whose new book "Bad News" is soon to be published. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz calls it "a stinging indictment that gains force from [Fenton's] quarter-century of service in CBS's London bureau." Then Kurtz gets to some of the juicy bits, including:

• "Fenton blames [corporate greed] for the decline [of CBS], saying he was 'beaten down by the corporate bean counters' and had 'so many of my stories rejected' in the decade before 9/11. CBS's London bureau, he writes, 'doesn't do much reporting any more. What it does is called packaging,' assembling video and facts gathered by outside organizations."
  
• "In late 1996, ... Fenton pitched his network on a plan to use Saudi connections to land an interview with Osama bin Laden. 'Our bosses saw him as an obscure Arab of no interest to our viewers,' Fenton says. 'More concerned with saving dollars than pursuing the story, they killed the project.'"
  
• "In a 1988 report on Saddam Hussein's poison gas attacks in northern Iraq, Fenton says CBS asked him to delete the fact that thousands of victims were Kurdish because 'no one knows who the Kurds are.'"
  
• "CBS now has [only] 10 full-time foreign correspondents in London, Rome, Tel Aviv and Tokyo -- no one, for example, in China or Russia. ... Fenton notes that in the first 10 months of 2004, the 'CBS Evening News' ran four stories from China, two of them about pandas."
  
• "'60 Minutes' commentator Andy Rooney ... tells Fenton there is 'no question' the media are liberal and takes a swipe at Rather: 'I think Dan has been -- I don't know why; he may not be as smart as they think -- but he has been so blatantly one-sided. . . . He uses little words that are absolute clues, giveaways to his political opinions. Like saying "Bush," instead of "President Bush" or "Mr. Bush." . . . A couple of years ago I heard him refer to "Bush's cronies." Well, Jesus, "cronies" -- oh dear!'"
  
• "Longtime '60 Minutes' producer Don Hewitt (who says he once offered to give back one-sixth of his $6 million salary if it were spent on news but was told that wouldn't happen) has lost interest in the 'CBS Evening News,' saying such broadcasts have become 'wallpaper' in a world of 24-hour information. And Walter Cronkite says he does not regularly watch the newscast he once headed because 'there's nothing there but crime and sob sister material . . . tabloid stuff.'"
  

Does CBS News still have anything going for it? Is Fenton right or is he a disgruntled former employee? Well, probably both. He certainly joins a long line of veteran journalists and newsmen, from Fred Friendly on, who have criticized the news media heavily. Still, Kurtz at least notes the other side of the argument. He reminds us that:

the top story on the "CBS Evening News" last year was the Iraq war and reconstruction, according to the Tyndall Report newsletter, which found that the program provided more coverage than its rivals. CBS executives say the company has provided additional millions of dollars to cover the aftermath of the war in Iraq, where Rather will anchor this week. "All you have to do is look at any of our broadcasts to see the commitment we have to international news," says Senior Vice President Marcy McGinnis. "It's huge."

Fly Eagles Fly!

Well, whaddaya know? The Philadephia Eagles have broken their NFC Championship curse, and after three unsuccesssful attempts they've actually beat the Atlanta Falcons 27-10 and therefore are going to the Super Bowl number 39! My partner is ecstatic - a perennial Philly fan, she is of the opinion that the national media ignore Philadelphia teams and give them short-shrift. This season, it's all been about the Colts and Peyton Manning, and when they got knocked out it's all been about the Patriots and their new dynasty - with the taciturn Tom Brady not letting the side down and seeing New England to another Super Bowl. But what about perennial plucky contenders the Eagles? my partner vainly cries! Don't they deserve some respect from the media? Doesn't Donovan McNabb & co. surely rock? Maybe they do now. Maybe they shall indeed get some respect at long last. We shall see.

Meantime, to hear "Fly Eagles Fly," the anthem of perhaps the best football fans in N. America, check out the Eagles web site.

WSJ gets the scoop on Powell

Apparently the Wall Street Journal got in first with the scoop on Michael Powell's intention to resign from the FCC in March (article requires subscription). By last night everone was talking about it - including Powell himself, who I saw being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Stephen Labatton in the NYT notes that Powell rolled back regulation of all the media industries, promoting private over public control. "But on his watch the F.C.C. also enforced stringent decency standards, imposing hefty fines on television and radio broadcasters." Powell had a very jaundiced view of what media regulation (and deregulation) was about. Powell's term was to run till 2007 but he's leaving early. The BBC notes that Powell "has not always seen eye to eye with other members of the FCC." (You can say that again - I doubt if Powell is on Jonathan Adelstein's or Michael Copps' party guest list.) The BBC piece also notes that

Howard Stern, the controversial US "shock jock" DJ, welcomed Mr Powell's departure, according to Bloomberg TV, as he felt the indecency crackdown limited freedom of expression. Mr Stern was dropped by six stations owned by media giant Clear Channel in 2004 after it had to pay the Federal Communications Commission $1.75m (£950,000), over breaches of indecency laws.

Stern has of course been signed up by Sirius satellite radio, where he will move in 2006, and where he will be free from FCC interference (as Powell himself accepted in his Wolf Blitzer piece last night). In the meantime he'll see out his contract with Viacom for terrestrial radio, where he'll stay for another year - and have to watch his language! I don't think Powell's departure is going to change that.

The President's Constitution in pictures?

Juan Cole, the blogging professor of history at the University of Michigan, offers a slightly different commentary on the president's second inauguration: "A Pictorial Commentary on the first Line in Bush's Inaugural Speech". Check it out: These points highlight the massive inconsistencies between the administration's rhetoric and the facts on the ground. If the press and news media were doing their job - I mean really doing their job - these inconsistencies would be given far greater prominance.

It is fascinating to watch President Bush in action. Unlike Condoleezza Rice, who stonewalls when presented with unpleasant facts (as happened during her Senate Foreign Relations committee confirmation hearings), Bush simply makes the rhetoric more flowery, more grandiose - and of course he never admits mistakes. Ever. The most fascinating thing about this is that it works. The mainstream media either a.) can't, b.) won't, or c.) can't be bothered to try to seriously challenge this approach.

Our strange chancellor

A detour to local affairs. In SUNY-land (as in the State University of New York, where I teach) we've lately had the strange situation where the system chancellor, Robert King, wanted to take a last-minute, six-month sabbatical to "recharge his internal batteries" and visit Russia (specifically, the Moscow State University). He submitted his request to the board of trustees - to take effect almost immediately - and then just as quickly withdrew it. All sorts of rumors have been flying around about King's intention to leave (see, e.g., this piece by Mary Anna Towler in the Rochester (NY) City Paper - scroll down to "Speaking of reality"). Some suspect that King is out of favor with his master, NY Governor George Pataki. Some background from a NYT article:

The debate has unusual political overtones for the fate of a university leader. Democratic critics of the sabbatical view Mr. King, a former Republican assemblyman, as a partisan for Mr. Pataki, whom Mr. King served as budget director in the late 1990's. Deepening the Albany intrigue about Mr. King's future, aides to Mr. Pataki said yesterday that the governor had not tried to persuade Mr. King to stay on.

Towler in the City Paper points to another Times article (which I couldn't find):

Some SUNY trustees, the Times said, don't like King and wanted to get rid of him, so they worked a deal with King and the governor. King would request, and get, a fully paid leave -- and then just wouldn't come back. But King, said the Times, got miffed after some Pataki aides and Democratic legislators publicly criticized the leave request.

Strange, indeed. I do know that if I went to our provost to make a request for a six-month paid sabbatical, starting in less than two weeks time, I'd be laughed out the door. Such things do still exist in academia (I'm glad to say), but we have to arrange sabbaticals about a year in advance, there's no guarantee that you'll get one when you want one - and they're supposed to be for real scholarly activities, not for "recharging the batteries." In any case I couldn't in good conscience leave my department and my students hanging - who'd come in an take my place at the last minute? So how the hell did King think he could leave the whole SUNY system hanging? Unless there's some hidden agenda, that is. It all smells very bad.

"freedom, free, liberty"

On the right, meanwhile, Bill Safire thinks that Bush's inauguration speech was pretty good. Says Safire (writing for Friday's New York Times):

Yesterday's strongly thematic address was indeed "the freedom speech." Not only did the words "freedom, free, liberty" appear 49 times, but the president used the world-watched occasion to expound his basic reason for the war and his vision of America's mission in the world. I rate it among the top 5 of the 20 second-inaugurals in our history. Lincoln's profound sermon "with malice toward none" is incomparable, but Bush's second was better than Jefferson's mean-spirited pouting at "the artillery of the press."

That darned press! At least Safire shows some consideration for our ink-stained bretheren. Now let's see how the "world-watched" speech is received in the world's media. Also, from the left, read Bob Herbert's NYT column on the speech.

21 January Newspeak?

Oh, and by the way, the day after President Bush's inauguration happens to be the 55th anniversary of the death of George Orwell. Of course there's no connection with the subject of the previous blog; I just thought I'd mention it. Because it's interesting. Right? Oh, and intruigingly, as Wikipedia notes:

The genesis of Orwell's Newspeak can be seen in his earlier essay, "Politics and the English Language", where he laments the quality of the English of his day, citing examples of dying metaphors, pretentious diction or rhetoric, and meaningless words -- all of which contribute to fuzzy ideas and a lack of logical thinking.

Still, like I say, no connection with the subject of the previous blog; just interesting.

Bush's global poll

On the day of Bush's second - and supremely inspiring - inauguration speech, it's worth considering the BBC World Service poll that finds that more than half of people surveyed worldwide thought "the re-election of US President George W Bush has made the world more dangerous". Very worrying. All I can say is this: People around the world do not see the world the way President Bush sees it. Oh yes, and this: Bush's multiple references to "freedom" and "liberty" made me think of Lewis Black's riff on the 2002 Super Bowl. There so was so much patriotic fervor during the pre-game show, said Lewis, he ended up "sick of freedom;" he "yearned to be enslaved."

Scandals Incorporated!

Peter Dizikes in Salon lays out his scandal sheet - "34 scandals from the first four years of George W. Bush's presidency - every one of them worse than Whitewater" - where, as we all remember (right?) no wrongdoing was found on the part of the Clintons. (Clinton got found out for having "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky, and perjured himself on that issue, which was his scandal; six years on from his impeachment trial, we have to keep that in mind). Anyway, it's worth noting that only one of the Bush-Cheney scandals - "Memogate" - has been deemed worthy of a "-gate" suffix by the media (and no-one remembers what that was about now anyway). Dizikes gives you the option to "read it and weep". As Inauguration Day fast approaches, you might want to consider that.

Now it's Britain's turn

After Abu Ghraib, now we get to see the British Army involved in acts of abuse (torture?) of Iraqis. Apparently the circumstances are different (these were regular soldiers trying to put a stop to Iraqis looting aid supplies, rather than MPs charged with holding long-term prisoners) but even so, it does not look good (see this BBC page for a slide show of the pictures). And of course, the soldiers concerned, who are all facing charges, are saying they were "only following orders".


The last time we saw photos of British prisoner abuse in Iraq, last spring, they turned out to be fakes - fakes which struck a blow to the British Daily Mirror, which ran them, and led to the resignation of the Mirror's editor, Piers Morgan. These new photos, it seems very clear, are not fake! I suppose this was inevitable. I wonder if it's becoming increasingly obvious to world leaders that any improprieties carried out by their soldiers - no matter how well they're trained - will end up somehow being captured in digital form and sent through our world's vast network of digital channels in pretty-near real time.

Liberal bias

Turning from AJR to CJR - Columbia Journalism Review, an editorial in that journal worries about the threat to liberal journalism posed by "well-financed bias-busters, slews of books, think tanks, and radio and television icons, all singing" the same song as the recently deceased conservative media critic, Reed Irvine. I suppose they should have been worrying about this 20 or 25 years ago, but oh well ... The editorial goes on to note, almost plaintively, that "Without some rough agreement on what is significant, citizens will not get the intellectually honest debate that citizenship requires." How do we get that agreement? "Journalists, whatever their inner political leanings, must work harder at being honest brokers of information, worthy of respect." Work harder? Doesn't sound terribly promising, does it? And what about those nasty liberal bashers?

Honest conservatives, meanwhile, should consider a pair of New Year’s resolutions: first, recognize that challenging political power and holding it to account is the legitimate role of the press in a democracy, not some liberal plot. Second, swear off defining any story that is uncomfortable to you as an example of liberal bias. Such a tactic probably won’t work in the long run, anyway. As somebody once noted, facts are stubborn things.

Yes indeedy. Yet unfortunately facts are increasingly anathema to everyone in spin-control Washington - but especially to those on the conservative side. Perhaps the problem is that the very notion of a combative Fourth Estate press is itself a liberal idea - steeped in the values of progressive liberalism as understood by late 18th-century philosophers and at least some of America's Founders, but increasingly derided in today's world. I'm reminded of a chilling comment by Nick Higham, a special correspondent for BBC News 24 (reported in Lori Robertson’s article, "The British invasion," in AJR, December/January 2004). He's talking about the Iraq War, but you could apply the reasoning more broadly to the changing national culture:

I think Americans, particularly conservative Americans, have a problem with the BBC approach because impartiality, which is the BBC’s fundamental watchword, is itself a liberal notion. … And our commitment to impartiality comes out of what is fundamentally a small “l” liberal culture, liberal media culture, in which objectivity, impartiality are thought to be good in themselves and achievable. …. The impression I get is that a lot of Americans just don’t get that …. And to them it’s much more important that the news media are supportive of the national effort, particularly when you go to war” (Robertson, 2003).

My point, I suppose, is that it's a bit crap for CJR to wring their editorial hands and urge journalists to "work harder". What they need is a call to arms! Something stirring to save journalism before it really is too late. On the other hannd, maybe I'm wrong; maybe conservative tactics "probably won’t work in the long run" - but they've worked very well for a very long time so far. Now, in case CJR hasn't noticed, Republicans run everything in Washington, DC, and the news media are increasingly joke fodder for Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show". So when are conservative tactics going to stop working?

Remember November 2004?

American Journalism Review does. AJR's Rachel Smolkin provides a "behind-the-scenes" look back at media coverage of that fateful election night on Nov. 2. The main points of interest (for me):

• First, the positive: "'Across the campaign, I thought there was a lot of very good coverage that demonstrated that newspapers and broadcast networks do learn more each cycle about how to cover campaigns,' says Doyle McManus, Washington bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times. 'You got a lot, I thought, of quite impressive coverage on phenomena like fundraising and the use of television commercials, and quite sophisticated demographic analysis by my colleague Ron Brownstein and others."
  
• More mixed: "Fundraising prowess fueled media attention, in some cases leading to sophisticated reporting, such as the Washington Post's two-day series in May exploring links between fundraising and access to the administration (see "Follow the Money," August/September), but often producing a mind-numbing array of horse-race, money-chase dailies."
  
• The not-so-positive: "Of course, McManus adds, the media did fall 'prey to the temptation to chase rabbits,' to fixate on what he calls 'ephemeral controversies' such as the Swift Boat saga and the missing explosives in Iraq. 'But each of those ephemeral controversies was a metaphor for a larger issue,' he says. 'They weren't trivial, just ephemeral.'"
  
• The critical: "National Journal's [William] Powers faults the usual 'herd thinking' for chilling more creative political journalism--and he's not talking about the sort of creativity displayed by CBS during the National Guard document fiasco. Powers says coverage was 'way, way too poll driven' and blasts polls as an 'addiction' for the media. 'It's very hard to come up with something new every day. And these numbers provide newness,' Powers says. 'It zaps a lot of resources and energy and reduces the campaign to numbers in a way that is not helpful to democracy.'"
  
• The very critical: "During the political conventions, the broadcast networks abdicated their civic responsibilities in search of higher ratings from sexier reality shows. The cable networks galloped into the void, but too often padded downtime with shouting heads and insipid spin from party officials."
  
• More critical stuff: "Another Powers peeve: 'Every four years, we have this story line about the youth vote--'The youth vote is going to be gigantic.' The story never pans out, but we kind of go through these ridiculous rituals.'"
  
• . . . "And don't get him started on the media's 'gigantic obsession' with red and blue states. 'The red-blue theme is so overdone and also really reductive,' Powers says. 'We have this red-blue motif because we have a two-party system in which we go into the booth and are supposed to choose between two parties,' not because everyone falls neatly into a red or blue category. 'Yet we play this story up because it's sexy; it's easy; it's simple. It was easy to have that map after the 2000 election, but it portrays the country far too simplistically and does a disservice to the public.'"
  
• And then there's this: "The media also would better serve the public--and the English language--by bucking the prevailing clichés of each election season. In 2004, candidates 'barnstormed' the country, appealing to one-time 'soccer moms' who metamorphosed into 'security moms' after the terrorist attacks. Pollsters combed those 'red and blue states' to gauge the preferences of a 'polarized' and 'closely divided' electorate, wondering whether the 'youth vote' could tip the election but flummoxed by the 'cell-phone generation.' In the end, as pollsters and journalists foretold, it all came down to the 'ground game' in Ohio, 'the Florida of 2004.' Sort of."
  

Film censorship, UK style (and beyond)

I just discovered that the ever-wonderful Film Guardian has an intruiging special features section on film censorship - with the focus on Britain, but also coverage of film censorship issues in Australia and elsewhere in the world.

Predicting the Oscars

Yes, it's that time of year again. With last night's Golden Globes Big Winners now in the can - including Clint Eastwood as best director for "Million Dollar Baby;" best drama for (Scorsese's) "The Aviator;" best comedy for "Sideways;" Hillary Swank for "Million Dollar Baby;" and Jamie Foxx for "Ray" - everyone's wondering how this will affect the Oscar voting math. Anyone studying to compete in an Oscar party pool would do well to check out this piece in CNN that gives some helpful hints on using the Golden Globes as a predictor for the Academy Awards, scheduled for Feb. 27.

Follow the Brits? Not bloody likely!

While we're on the subject of (not-so) good old blighty, Paul Krugman in the New York Times chimes in on the Social Security debate by doing something that Americans never do enough of: he meaningfully compares the USA with other countries. In this case it's Britain, a state that has undergone the sort of pension privatization scheme endorsed by Pres. Bush. And he notes ominously that "Britain's 20-year experience with privatization is a cautionary tale Americans should know about." He goes on:

The U.S. news media have provided readers and viewers with little information about how privatization has worked in other countries. Now my colleagues have even fewer excuses: there's an illuminating article on the British experience in The American Prospect, www.prospect.org, by Norma Cohen, a senior corporate reporter at The [not-very-leftie] Financial Times who covers pension issues.

Cohen doesn't mince words: she calls the current British system (one that emerged under Thatcher) "A Bloody Mess", and Krugman points out that "her conclusions match those expressed more discreetly in a recent report by Britain's Pensions Commission, which warns that at least 75 percent of those with private investment accounts will not have enough savings to provide 'adequate pensions.'" Here's what Cohen had to say in her piece:

Britain’s experiment with substituting private savings accounts for a portion of state benefits has been a failure. A shorthand explanation for what has gone wrong is that the costs and risks of running private investment accounts outweigh the value of the returns they are likely to earn. On average, fees and charges can reduce pension lump sums by up to 30 percent on retirement. The nation’s savings industry, which sells those private accounts, has already acknowledged this.

Krugman gleefully elaborates in his column:

Meanwhile, there is a growing consensus in Britain that privatization must be partly reversed. The Confederation of British Industry - the equivalent of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - has called for an increase in guaranteed benefits to retirees, even if taxes have to be raised to pay for that increase. And the chief executive of Britain's National Association of Pension Funds speaks with admiration about a foreign system that "delivers efficiencies of scale that most companies would die for."

That country is ... yep, the US of A. Hey, something to crow about! Let's not spoil it. And for god's sake, let's see the U.S. media for once take a hard look at an issue through the comparative method, i.e., focus on broadly equivalent experiences of other countries. Not just once or twice, but continuously. If there's one easily justified, non-"partisan" way that the media canset the agenda and index coverage beyond the narrow confines of the American political establishment, it's through this sort of comparative method.


btw, kudos to Josh Marshall and The Daily Kos, who continue to rail against Pres. Bush's deceptions on Social Security (today's Daily Kos also uses Krugman to effectively undermine the Bush position).

UK media roundup

I've been looking though Media Guardian's roundup of British media news for some interesting tidbits, and boy did I find some. Just a typical weekend in UK media-land: The English Premier League has launched an inquiry "into the declining popularity of the Premiership," looking at issues such as "falling crowds, high ticket prices, saturation television coverage and the dominance of a few rich clubs" - and the increasing tendency for SkyTV to alter kick-off times to suit its schedules. ... The BBC, worried about its charter renewal, is going back to the well - the Shakespeare/Dickens well, to be exact, so it can produce a new generation of classics to show how well it's spending the licensepayers' money. Top of the list is a soap-style adaptation of Dickens' Bleak House. ... Roy Greenslade takes a historical perspective on why nobody likes the media - it has been ever thus, he argues. ... The country is still in a tizzy over the broadcast of "Jerry Springer: The Opera" - with many arguing that the show is blasphemous; the show "featured much swearing and a number of controversial scenes including one where Jesus, wearing a nappy [diaper], declares that he is a 'bit gay.'" ... ITV's "Vote For Me" show has descended into controversy; the "attempt to revitalise the public's interest in politics, by subjecting would-be MPs to a Pop Idol-style reality TV show," has gotten ugly "after the winner was accused of holding views to the right of the [racist] British National Party."

I could go on ...

But finally, and back with the whole WW2 thing, the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) has banned a Harry Enfield-as-Churchill ad because it might cause offence to the great British public. The ad

features Enfield as one of his TV characters, the vociferous Frank Doberman, who tells the "porky prime minister" he should sign up to the company's broadband. He says: "Oi, Churchill. Well done for winning world war II. Nice One. But if you was downloading saucy pics of Monty up at El Alamein using a dial-up connection, I should say, Oi, Churchill, no!"

What could possibly be offensive about that? I could go on ...

Schadenfreude over Harry?

The Germans are enjoying themselves at the latest British royal embarrassment over Prince Harry's idiotic Nazi Afrika Korps fancy dress outing. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation notes a Handelsblatt editorial: "Germans, who have long thought the British should make less fun of the Nazi era, can register this story with a certain malicious glee". Schadenfreude, in fact! The ABC piece also notes that "German politicians have called for a Europe-wide ban on Nazi insignia." I doubt that will happen. The trouble is, lots of Brits still have too much fun taking the piss out of the Germans. It's a way of trying to show their superiority, and unfortunately it's not going to change soon. More to the point, the rabidly anti-European English press would start a rhetorical World War 3 if anyone in Europe seriously tried to remove from their arsenal one of their favorite Euro-bashing symbols.


English yobs - including morons like Prince Harry who act as their upper-crust representatives - make targets almost as easy as the Nazis themselves. But a piece by Matthias Matussek in Spiegel Online presses the issue too far when he claims that the "Brits lately have been doing a worse job of dealing with history than the Germans." Matussek makes the claim that "Apparently the British have been focusing too much on their own triumph [in World War II] and too little on the history of the victims. It now appears the British have a greater problem with the past than the Germans." Now steady on, old chap! I'm with Matussek up to a point - though he needs to get his spelling of "Ausschwitz" and "Hilter" right (especially "Hilter": "Mr Hilter" is a character from a famous Monty Python sketch, "The North Minehead By-election", where the former Fuehrer (John Cleese) is hanging out in England with "Ron Vibbentrop" (Graham Chapman), You see what I mean? This Nazi stuff is hard-wired into the English-Brit mentality).


But - at the risk of sounding like a yob apologist - I have to say to Matthias that "You're not on" with that last bit I quoted from him. Yes, of course the "Brits" celebrate their own triumph in WWII - it's one of the very few genuinely great humanitarian achievements in Great British history, a very rare moment when one can simply be proud of Britain's actions in the world, doing the world a real favor instead of sticking it to the natives in the colonies for the umpteenth time. And Britian's role in the victory against fascism is perhaps its greatest contribution to world civilization. Even the yobbo English chavs (Scottish neds are less hung up on the whole anti-German thing) who have no idea what "Auschwitz" really means, know that somewhere in their tiny brains. So I'm sorry, but you can't say that the British "have a greater problem with the past than the Germans." Nobody has a greater problem with their past than the Germans. Do the English have to get over themselves? You betcha. But you have to give them time. If you take away the "two world wars and one world cup, do-da-doo-da-day" mentality, what have they got left to celebrate? Not very much. And how will the Sun and the Daily Mail sell their papers then? (OK, probably just stick in more tits and bums, but you get the idea.)


But just to emphasize that the Brits still have their own very real (non-Nazi) problems dealing with the past, Matussek does make a telling point about the media coverage. "And few could be bothered to write more than a line in passing about the theme of the party held by these snobs, who otherwise while away their time vociferously fighting for the aristocratic right to fox hunting. The theme? 'Colonials and Natives.'"

Movie Night in Canada?

As my partner and I were North of the border yesterday (in Burlington, Ontario, for some much-needed - according to her - Ikea supplies), that got me to checking out media developments in Canada. A big item of debate, of course, is the temporary loss of The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Hockey Night in Canada, thanks to the NHL's current lockout in its dispute with the players. Now, for most of America, this hasn't made too much of a ripple, as far as I can see - after all, everyone's still in football mode here, and of course hockey (or "ice hockey" as I still call it) isn't really America's game, even though most of the NHL teams are now in America. Anyway, the loss of hockey has been a bit of a blow for Canada's public service broadcasting network, so the CBC has had to fill in the gap with ... Movie Night in Canada, "a triple bill of feature films hosted by Hockey Night in Canada personality Ron MacLean." The CBC seems to be playing it smart, making the best of a bad situation.

The [CBC's] strategy also appears designed to remind viewers that, when the lockout ends, Hockey Night will return – MacLean's first outing on the new show [showing Raiders of the Lost Ark] had him broadcasting rinkside from Dave Andreychuk Mountain Arena in Hamilton, Ont., rhyming off the stats of director Steven Spielberg with the same acuity he reserves for discussions of the NHL's elite.

It seems to be working, and Canadian hockey fans are willing to sit down on a Saturday night and watch three old movies in place of their traditional hockey fare. It just shows you the power of the media in inculcating what James Carey calls the ritual view - as opposed to the transmission view - of society: a media event as a ritual or "sacred ceremony that draws persons together in fellowship and commonality." But then hockey is also really important for Canadians, in a way it just isn't for Americans. So would this movie triple-bill approach work with Americans' major-league media rituals. What if, say, the NFL went on strike? How would John Madden or Terry Bradshaw do with introducing the "Star Wars" or "Alien" trilogies from Lambeau Field or Ralph Wilson Stadium, or the Metrodome (probably they'd want to stay in an indoor stadium in midwinter)? Would people tune in? I think they might.

Ukraine gets out

A New York Times editorial points to Ukraine for a story that's a lot less enticing to the U.S. administration than Viktor Yuschenko's electoral victory. Ukraine is the latest country to pull out of the 'coalition of the willing' - and President Leonid Kuchma has "formally ordered his generals" to start pulling his country's roughly 1,600 troops out of Iraq. States the Times: "That was not a surprise because Ukraine has been heading for the door for some time. Still, given that Ukraine has been much in the news and that its contingent was the fifth-largest in Iraq (after the United States, Britain, Italy and Poland), the exit is worth noting." Cynically, methinks, this explanation also provides a clever justification for why most of the U.S. news media will ignore this development, leaving Americans in the dark about just how shaky this "coalition" is becoming. But here's the Machiavellian part that really makes the heart sink, though:

It's the end of a cynical marriage of convenience. From the outset, there was an assumption that President Kuchma joined the coalition largely to buy slack from Washington over his notoriously corrupt rule. Then, in the recent brutal elections, the reformist and West-leaning Viktor Yushchenko, who defeated Mr. Kuchma's candidate, made pulling out of Iraq one of his issues. Mr. Kuchma, on the verge of leaving office, evidently saw no point in letting Mr. Yushchenko reap the plaudits from Ukrainians, who overwhelmingly oppose the war.

Ukraine's withdrawal punches a major and potentially fatal hole in the much-ballyhooed multinational division that Poland volunteered to lead in Iraq. Spain was the first to drop out, and Ukraine had the second-largest contingent after Poland itself. The coalition has also lost Hungary, the Philippines and Honduras, among others, while Poland itself, long regarded as second only to Britain in its fealty to the United States, is talking of cutting back. Several other countries intend to reduce their participation in the next few months.

I note the Times's use of the word "fealty" in relation to Poland and Britain. A widespread defintion for "fealty" is "the loyalty that citizens owe to their country (or subjects to their sovereign)." Makes you think about just which country, and whose sovereign, the Poles and Brits are really fighting for.

CBS and the "moral equivalence" dodge

Good piece by Josh Marshall on Talking Points Memo focusing on an example of how the post-"Rathergate" CBS refuses to take a position on the rights and wrongs of President Bush's Social Security "reform" plan, preferring to fudge the issue and dodge responsbility with "the standard 'they all do it' moral equivalence."

In the immediately preceding post, Marshall points to a more honest piece, by MSNBC's chief economics correspondent Martin Wolk, pointing out the "dishonesty of President Bush's Social Security 'crisis' fear-mongering." You have to admire Marshall's persistence on this issue. And thank god for those journalists willing to take a chance and avoid the fudge option!

U.S. Foreign aid

My thanks to a Canadian friend for bringing to my attention an article by Tom Frank in the New Republic (registration required), dealing with U.S. versus other countries' foreign aid - a timely piece, given the current post-tsunami debate over appropriate levels of rich-world giving. Back on January 5, I pointed out that we should keep in mind that "the United States doesn't look exceptionally generous when compared with other countries, as the media might have led you to believe." It does allright, but it's not exceptional, in spite of what the U.S. media would have you think. Frank starts his piece by pointing out the inane remarks by knee-jerk conservative commentators in The Washington Times, Fox "News" and elsewhere, who slam anyone - such as the UN's emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland - who dare to question America's innate and superior generosity. But he quickly gets past the cable news b.s. and moves on to more substantive matters, as follows:

Whatever. The truth is, when it comes to helping the global poor, we're probably not the most generous nation, nor are we the least. We dwell in satisfying mediocrity and we like it. George W. Bush has increased aid levels somewhat--something Bill Clinton tried and failed to do--but it's still under 0.2 percent of GDP. In any case, maybe instead of calling ourselves the world's most generous nation, making excuses, and comparing defense budgets, we should simply ask whether America can, and should, give more. Leave Norway and Sweden aside. Under President Truman, the United States contributed about 2 percent of its GDP--about ten times its current percentage--to foreign aid, largely to help fund the Marshall Plan. And this was during a time when well over 10 percent of America's GDP was already going to defense. So we know we can do more if we want to. If we think that foreign aid can work--not always work, but at least often enough to try--then we should give more. If we don't, then we should give nothing. Either way, until we're truly as munificent as we claim, perhaps we should learn to be quiet about it. Sometimes, silence is charity enough.

I like that last bit in particular. Actually, I like the whole paragraph.

Washington Post on the ball? And other things

The good old Washington Post - it's at least trying to cover stories that are important yet embarrassing to the government but which are generally ignored or downplayed elsewhere (although it is a tad tardy at times). So we have the piece on the four Britons and a Australian who have finally been released from Guantanamo Bay (the WP alone put that on the front page according to Slate). The Post notes:

On Tuesday, the British government portrayed the planned releases as a political triumph for Blair, who is often criticized for having extracted few tangible benefits from Bush, a highly unpopular figure in Britain. "Had it not been for our alliance" with the United States, [Foreign Secretary Jack] Straw told the House of Commons, the men would not be going free.

And that only took, what, two-plus years? There's the "special relationship" in action. What else? Oh yes, like the page A01 report "Search for Banned Arms In Iraq Ended Last Month" - where the Post tells us that the Iraq Survey Group had folded up its effort to find Weapons of Mass Destruction "shortly before Christmas." Before Christmas? And we find out about this on January 12? Slate notes "No, you didn't miss the White House announcement" - because there was no announcement! I guess it'd be too much to expect the press to go out and find real news in the absence of a helpful tip from Scott McClellen. Well, they got it eventually - I wonder how the Post tripped over that nugget of information. I mean, this is big stuff, or was, anyway? The Iraq Survey Group, that used to be important ... WMDs, rationale for going to war, David Kay ... we do remember that, don't we?

Meanwhile, the BBC is reporting - quite prominently - that a Human Rights Watch report has concluded that "Violations of human rights by the US are undermining international law and eroding its role on the world stage." Let's see if the Washington Post and all the other "liberal" elite press gives this the coverage it deserves. I hope so: Although they're pretty tough on the US, Human Rights Watch also has a go at the Sudanese oppression of Darfur, which the United States has at least been trying to do something about (though even then, HRW is critical of the West's decision to hand off the problem to the African Union). Is anyone paying attention any more ... ?

My final Top 20 movies of 2004

I'm a little brain-dead today - all that talk yesterday of Realpolitik and soft power did my poor head in - so with Oscar season fast approaching, I thought a useful pointless exercise would be to update my Top Movies of 2004 (and these are all movies I've actually seen). Of course I did something similar already, back on Jan 2, so maybe this is cheating, but so what - this will be my final and definitive list ... until I change my mind!

=1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (USA; Focus Features; Dir. Michael Gondry) [=]
=1. Vera Drake (UK-France-NZ; Studio Canal; Dir. Mike Leigh) [=]
3. Sideways (USA; Fox Searchlight; Dir. Alexander Payne) [=]
4. Hero (Hong Kong-China; Dir. Yomou Zhang; distributed in U.S. by Miramax) [=]
5. Collateral (USA; Dreamworks SKG; Dir. Michael Mann) [-]
6. A Very Long Engagement (France-USA; Warner, Canal+; Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet) [+2]
7. Napoleon Dynamite (Dir. Jared Hess; distributed in U.S. by Fox Searchlight, Paramount and MTV Films) [=]
8. Control Room (USA; Magnolia Pictures; Dir. Jehane Noujaime) [-3]
9. Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (USA; Miramax; Dir. Quentin Tarantino) [+3]
10. Kinsey (USA; Qwerty Films/American Zoetrope; distributed by Fox Searchlight; Dir. Bill Condon) [+3]
11. The Yes Men (Yes Men Films; distributed in U.S. by UA and MGM) [-5]
12. The Incredibles (USA; Pixar-Disney; Dir. Brad Bird) [-2]
13. The Bourne Supremacy (USA-Germany; Universal Pictures; Dir. Paul Greengrass) [-2]
14. Shaun of the Dead (UK; Working Title; Dir. Edgar Wright) [-]
15. Fahrenheit 9/11 (USA; Dog Eat Dog Films, Miramax; Dir. Michael Moore) [-1]
16. Garden State (USA; distributed by Fox Searchlight; Dir. Zach Braff) [-1]
17. Finding Neverland (UK/USA; Film Colony/distrib. by Miramax; Dir. Marc Foster) [-1]
18. The Village (USA; Touchstone/Buena Vista Pictures; Dir. M. Night Shyamalan) [-]
19. The Aviator (USA; Warner Bros.; Dir. Martin Scorsese) [-]
=20. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (USA; Dreamworks SKG; Dir. Adam MacKay) [-]
=20. Around the World in Eighty Days (USA; distrib. in US by Buena Vista Pictures; Dir. Frank Coraci) [-]

OK, that's it - entered into the official record. Now I can finally breathe easy! :-)

Realpolitik blues

The latest issue of Harvard International Review includes an article dealing with something I occasionally bang on about in my international communication classes: the shift from liberalism to realism in U.S. foreign policy. Louis Klarevas, Assistant Professor of Political Science at City University of New York (article doesn't say which campus but it's the College of Staten Island) writes about the present administration's tendency toward realism in international politics. Realism is a political philosophy whose U.S. followers include such notable foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Condoleeza Rice (anybody worried yet?) Without getting into all the hoary details, realism essentially tends to see the world as a scary battelground between Big Power politics, where disputes are settled by clashing armies and wars (the founding document for realism is often considered to be Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War). Only the strong survive, might equals right, all that good stuff. Liberalism, on the other hand, recognizes a much more complex world system, that recognizes the power not only of nation-state actors, but also TransNational Corporations, NonGovernmentals Organizations, InterGovernmental Organizations (including the UN), and of course the global media (which is where I take a particular interest).

Now realism might have worked well as a theory in Thucydides's time, and maybe even during the era of 19th Century European colonialism, but it doesn't wash in today's world of complex interdependence. If you're, say, America, you can't run a world solely on the basis of power politics netween nation-states. You have to consider how people around the world think about America: do they love us or hate us? Do they want to be like us or want to kill us? This is important for America because encouraging others to love America and its values is a win-win - and that's where the media come in. In a world influenced by multiple non-state actors, as well as public opinion, the media raise themselves up as a power to be reckoned with. Liberalism - in international relations terms, not the way that Republicans describe it - describes the world and these issues better than realism. And liberalism provides a better prescription for America to succeed in the world: by downgrading the role of the "hard power" stick (i.e., tanks, guns, aircradft carriers) and returning the emphasis on "soft power" carrot, which is expressed in things like Hollywood movies, U.S. TV shows, cultural exchanges, educational opportunities for foreigners in U.S. universities, people in strange lands shouting "I Love America!" to the camera, and so on. Soft power is really the power of ideas and their promotion - and this is something the United States has traditionally been very good at. Naturally, then, the media have an enormous role to play in "soft power" terms. The U.S. media have been a little less effective in selling the American dream in the past two or three years. I for one would like to see them get back to the status quo ante (bellum). But we have to get the current round of ugly power politics out of the way.

Tavis Smiley

One alternative voice that can still be found on the public airwaves is that of Tavis Smiley, who has begun the second season of his PBS talk show with a guest list that includes "John Travolta, Don Cheadle and Kevin Bacon, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and writer Christopher Hitchens." I miss Smiley's NPR show, which he quit in December because of differences with NPR over the show's promotion. I'll probably miss most of his PBS shows as well, as local PBS station WXXI is airing them weeknight mornings at 12:30 a.m. If I can't force myself to stay up to watch fellow Scot Craig Ferguson's "Late late Show" I don't think I'll make it for Smiley. Maybe I can tape it.

Will the last liberal to leave please shut out the lights?

Helen Thomas bemoans the departure of Bill Moyers from PBS. She calls Moyers "the last liberal voice on national television." Also worthwhile noting that Thomas, the "indisputable dean of the White House press corps", isn't afraid to throw around the "L" word - and use it as a compliment.

CBS News in the doghouse - but who cares? Not Viacom

In following the CBS News debacle (over the fake documentation in the President Bush National Guard service story) in the Washington Post, I'm left feeling that the saddest part of this story is not that CBS screwed up and three senior executives and Dan Rather's producer got fired. Nor is it that Rather's now quit as CBS Evening News anchor (that should have happened long ago). Nor is it that CBS news ratings have fallen even farther behind those of ABC and NBC. Nor is it even that all the mainstream news media - already all-but cowed into submisison by the current conservative ascendancy - have taken yet another body blow. That's very serious, yes. But the saddest part is all this (from a piece by Frank Ahrens) is the following:

However, the findings [of a damning CBS report] have had little financial impact on CBS's parent, entertainment giant Viacom Inc., blunted by the small part CBS News plays in the media conglomerate's disparate holdings and the popularity of the CBS Television Network, which is the highest-rated.

In other words, CBS News really just doesn't matter much anymore. I know this will sound like old-timer talk (and I'm not, really!), but ... It used to be - in the Golden Age of television news, from the early 1960s through the 1970s - that television news was a privileged loss leader for the networks. Beginning with NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report in the 1956, news became important for networks - it became their jewel in the crown. Network owners were proud of their news divisions. This was especially true of CBS News - the CBS of Edward R. Murrow, Fred Friendly and Walter Cronkite. (For more on this see this overview by NYU media historian Mitchell Stevens). That CBS didn't let the wusses run the news all the time. Well, those days sure are gone, aren't they? Now, notes Ahrens, CBS News' ratings drop means that its "Evening News" and other CBS News programs have "to give advertisers more commercial time to make up for lost audience numbers that are guaranteed in contracts." But really, when Viacom Pres Les Moonves looks at the big picture, he's not losing too much sleep over this. Never mind about the impact on the deteriorating fabric of a vibrant public sphere in America; as long as profits are left untouched, so what?


There are dark days ahead for network news in this country. Bet you didn't know that already, right?

Happy Birthday, Ofcom

I missed this one initially (I'm bad at remembering birthdays) but the UK's new Office of Communications - the equivalent of the FCC, and better known as Ofcom - is one year old. As Media Guardian points out,

to say it has hit the ground running would be an understatement. Broadcasters have been buried under an avalanche of paperwork as consultation after consultation has hit their desks. The contrast with the five disparate regulators it replaced - the Independent Television Commission, Oftel, the Radio Authority, the Radiocommunications Agency and the Broadcasting Standards Commission - could not be clearer. As it is not shy to point out, it is culturally a million miles from the modus operandi of the former broadcasting regulators. The cut-glass crystal and bone china have long been packed away, replaced by plastic cups and shrink-wrapped sandwiches. Opaque resolutions passed by the great and the good in smoke-filled rooms are out. The new regulator has instead worked hard to convey an image of swift, transparent decision-making.

Gonzales is a weenie

The other day I stated in exasperation that Alberto Gonzales shouldn't be confirmed as attorney general in light of various U.S. torture-related revelations. I'm glad to say that Dahlia Lithwick of Slate puts forward an excellent rationale (much better than what I came up with) that I'll gladly borrow and apply to why I still think Gonzales should be booted: because he's a weenie! She argues:

The problem with Alberto Gonzales' Senate testimony yesterday wasn't that he was a weasel who refused to answer straight questions: Such conduct is de rigueur at confirmation hearings. The problem with his testimony is that it highlights the most toxic aspect of the Bush administration—its willingness to be "brave" only in private. Consistently throughout yesterday's testimony, Gonzales chose to be irresponsible, forgetful, and unaccountable on issues that warrant serious intellectual scrutiny.

While our attention was diverted ...

A timely piece from the BBC, reminding us that, while the world's (and the media's) "attention has been on the disaster in Asia, the situation in Iraq has deteriorated so much that the insurgency has developed into near-open warfare." Near-open warfare. I repeat that because it isn't repeated often enough in the U.S. media. Of particular concern is the estimate - by Gen Muhammad Shahwani, the head of Iraq's intelligence service - of the true number of insurgents at "200,000, of which 40,000 are said to be the hard core and the rest active supporters." This is likely to be one of those "bad numbers", like the claim made in The Lancet medical journal that 100,000 Iraqis have died since the coalition invasion, that gets very little play in the media. Both numbers might be accurate or inaccurate - I don't know - but the fact that they make so little impact in the U.S. (mediated) public sphere is mystifying. Last October Jeffrey D. Sachs, a professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, pointed out in TomPaine.com that America’s public reaction to the Lancet study was as remarkable as the study itself:

for the reaction has been no reaction. The vaunted New York Times ran a single story of 770 words on page 8 of the paper (October 29). The Times reporter apparently did not interview a single Bush administration or U.S. military official. No follow-up stories or editorials appeared, and no New York Times reporters assessed the story on the ground. Coverage in other U.S. papers was similarly frivolous. The Washington Post (October 29) carried a single 758-word story on page 16.

Whatever figure for Iraqi dead we come up with, it seems natural we should be playing close attention to it. After all, the media love numbers. We all know another number - 150,000 - which I don't need to tell you is the estimated number of dead from the Asian tsunami. The media have closely tracked that number - i.e., every day - as it has risen inexorably over the past two weeks. Yet nothing equivalent on dead Iraqis since the invasion? Not even a weekly update headlining the press and the cable news channels? Odd, that. But then nobody in the U.S. military or the Alawi administration even tracks the number of civilian deaths any more (Iraq's Health Ministry for some odd reason stopped doing that a year ago); so there's no easy oficial number reporters can go to for an easy story. And then of course the tsunami is a natural disaster for which no-one - and particularly no-one in the United States - can justifiably be blamed; whereas the dead in Iraq ...

"Crossfire" v. Jon Stewart

Even the New York Times has picked up on the significance of CNN president Jonathan Klein's decision to cancel the news channel's daily screamfest, otherwise known as "Crossfire". An editorial in Sunday's paper claims that

an important moment in the annals of modern culture may have occurred when Jon Stewart of Comedy Central went on CNN's "Crossfire" last October and decided to be serious. He told Paul Begala, on the left, and Tucker Carlson, on the right, that their show, which specializes in encouraging midlevel political types to yell slogans at each other, was "partisan hackery" that was lowering the level of political discourse. At the time, he was widely denounced for failing to be funny.

But of course Stewart got the last laugh.
The editorial continues:

Maybe this could be the start of something big. We have lived through a generation now in which television news operations grew more and more dependent on "talking heads" shows because they are inexpensive. Since conversation is not normally high-octane viewing, producers tried to raise the interest level by encouraging the guests to start yelling at one another. The Fox News network swept the decks when it combined the snarling heads with right-wing commentary. Soon, the all-news airwaves were awash with primal screams. ... Perhaps this trend has gone as far as it can go.

Perhaps. Though I'm not going to hold my breath. Fox News in particular lives and dies by this sort of thing - as the NYT editorial itself concedes, when noting the vast difference between CNN and Fox coverage of the tsunami. "CNN, with a comparatively large international army of journalists at its disposal, went out and covered the story. Fox News and MSNBC had to depend more on conversationalists in the studio, all of whom agreed that tidal waves were very, very bad." (Various media sources keep making this point, including the Financial Times, whose denunciation of Fox I noted in Friday's blog.)

Anyway, I have to take this opportunity to say that I really, really enjoyed this little moment in media history when "Crossfire" met its match, and Stewart reminded Begala and Carlson, "You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably." As it happens, on the day of Jon Stewart's appearance - Wednesday, October 13 - I was flipping through channels while IM-ing my partner. Here's the verbatim transcipt of our conversation at the time (including my misspelling of Stewart's name - sorry! I'm "D" by the way):

D: hey John Stewart is on Crossfire and it's cool
D; ..and he's asking Tucker and Paul to just “stop”!
D: -- "you're hurting America"
D: I don't think they like it.
D: he's really going at them
D: now Paul and Tucker are ganging up on John.
D: oh i wish i was recording this!
D: he's telling them they're "doing theatre" and "partisan hackery."
D: oh this is GREAT!
D: Tucker's getting upset!
D: Paul's staying quiet.
L: wow, wish I was there
L: though it's almost like I'm there, with your instant updates
D: i don't think they repeat it
L: THis is on CNN, right?
D: yes, the regular show. they said they were giving him almost the whole half hour, to plug his book -- and instead he' s spent the whole time slagging off their show. Oh wonderful!
D: someone has to put this up on the web!
D: i'm taping the second part -- maybe Tucker will get really pissed off now!
D: Tucker said, "It's really boring that you come here and lecture us -- I wouldn't want to come and have dinner with you."
L: wow, testy
D: John says, "Don't worry, you won't!" Just blew him off.
L: I'm looking at the show website right now, but they don't have any video links on it. Just transcripts.
D: John basically told them they're abdicating their responsibility.
D: Doing theatre, not journalism.
D: John's interviewing them!
L: I looked at the schedule, and it looks like they repeat everything but Crossfire
D: aww poo, i think it's over.
D: i don't see it coming up on CNNFN either.
D: I loved how Tucker kept saying "Well, you had Kerry, why didn't you do what you say we don't"
D: Answer: "Because we're a fake news show!"
D: and then even better: "You guys are CNN! If you're looking to us as the standard of journalistic probity, we're in real trouble."
D: hey they're back -- and Stewart's still there -- and taking questions from the audience
D: aww poo, only two questions, and not very incisive.
D: but the first part was beautiful.
D: "They'll never show that again!"

I was being a little ironic with that last remark, and of course it was shown again, and again, all over the web. And that one exchange really did burst the bubble of this ridiculous show. Thank you, John Stewart!

Fox on the tsunami ... oh dear

A great piece here on Salon, by Eric Boehlert, on how "Fox's weak coverage of the tsunami in South Asia proves that when it comes to stories with global significance, the nasty, partisan network isn't ready for prime time." Read this, even if it means watching the extended ad to get the day pass. And Boehlert, that screaming leftie, even quotes from the Financial Times, which pointed out: "While CNN, the only U.S. news network with a strong global presence, was able to mobilize its correspondents in the region and fly in big-name reinforcements, Fox had to rely on untested freelancers, some of whom appeared to have never stood in front of a television camera before." This reminds us that, while CNN's U.S. service has turned to crap in its desperate and inane attempt to beat Fox, its international news service is a different animal that still leads the world, beating even the BBC.

Gonzales sails through

I noted in a Tuesday blog that in my estimation, the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal has been "quickly and effectively neutered in the U.S." as a serious issue. To prove my point, media outlets such as CNN are reporting that Gonzales "will be confirmed as attorney general despite concerns about his role in a Bush administration legal doctrine that critics said undermined prisoner-of-war protections and a law against torture." Do I really need to say it? If there was any real shame or contrition in this government and this country's media about what happened at Abu Ghraib and what is still happening at Gitmo and elsewhere, there is simply no way that someone like Gonzales could be allowed to be attorney general. I mean, I know at least he's not John Ashcroft, but still ... As Ray McGovern puts it: "Torture is counterproductive. But actually it's a lot worse. It's also just plain wrong." So is Gonzales' nomination.

Armstrong Williams, you're caught!

Thank god at least some media outlets are hauling conservative commentator Armstrong Williams across the coals for being paid $240,000 by the Bush administration to promote education reform (of the Bush "No Child Left Behind" variety) on his nationally syndicated television show "and to urge other black journalists to do the same." (The story appeared on the front page of today's USA Today). This is a disgusting breach of journalistic values - period! And then there's the fact that that the $240,000 is government money, i.e., taxpayers' money - something that exercises Josh Marshall's indignation (and mine). And remember, this is not the first time this adminstration has been caught doing this sort of stuff - a point raised again by, yes, USA Today.

Williams' contract was part of a $1 million deal with [PR firm] Ketchum that produced "video news releases" designed to look like news reports. The Bush administration used similar releases last year to promote its Medicare prescription drug plan, prompting a scolding from the Government Accountability Office, which called them an illegal use of taxpayers' dollars.

A balking hawk in full retreat

It's deeply sad to see The New York Times' Thomas Friedman continually trying to contort himself out of his erstwhile liberal hawk position on the need for America to "liberate" Iraq. Friedman, a prophet of the liberal-global late 90s, was described by Slate as "the guy who can make the (reluctant) liberal case for war [and] now a charter member of the balking hawks club." In other words, like his iconoclastic UK counterpart, Christopher Hitchens, he got suckered into the whole Richard Perle-Bill Kristoll-neocon wet dream about turning Iraq, at the point of a gun, into a beacon for Middle east democracy (and, of course, a huge base for U.S. forces). Now it's become clear to almost everyone that, as with pre-World War I deterrence according to Rowan Atkinson's Captain Blackadder, "there was a tiny flaw in the plan. ... It was bollocks!"

Now poor old Tom's been backpedalling furiously for some time. Friedman's been taking it out on Bush, Rumsfeld, and the war hawks for botching Iraq so badly - and he's not wrong there, but he should look first to his own gullibility for allowing himself to be so suckered. Still, the introduction to his latest NYT piece took my breath away:

Each day we get closer to the Iraqi elections, more voices are suggesting that they be postponed. This is a tough call, but I hope the elections go ahead as scheduled on Jan. 30. We have to have a proper election in Iraq so we can have a proper civil war there.

So much for "beacon for democracy." Friedman now thinks they'd better just get on with their bloody civil war which is now inevitable anyway, and maybe - maybe - some sort of democratic system will emerge from the rubble and carnage. Or not. He certainly doesn't sound too optimistic. Apparently we're left with the hope that the Iraqis will somehow end up fighting for democracy, rather than fighting each other. He concludes: "Elections are the only way to find out. Or, as Rumsfeld might say: You go to elections with the country you've got, not the one you wish you had - because that is the only way to find out whether the one you wish for is ever possible."


Good luck with that, Tom.

Just how generous?

I'm sure you can't have missed how the Stateside media, faithfully aping the Bush administration's line, have been banging on about how generous the U.S. government and people are being over aid to the regions affected by the tsunami disaster. After a slow start, so the thinking goes, America is now in the forefront of the relief effort, outshining all other nations. But this line ignores some uncomfortable facts. With the German government's announcement that it is raising its assistance to 500 million euros, or $660 million, the U.S. is now relegated to fourth place behind Australia, Germany and Japan in the world aid league - as can be seen in this handy BBC breakdown. And remember, of course, that the U.S. has by far the largest economy and largest population among these donor nations (Australia, for example, has an economy one-fifteenth the size of the United States). For the record, the British governent also seems a bit stingy at the moment, with only $96 million kicked in, though the government has "pledged to match" private donations (see below). To be fair, you have to admire the massive U.S. military assistance effort, "involving 12,600 personnel, 21 ships, 14 cargo planes and more than 90 helicopters." Nobody else can match that, and thank god we're getting to see the U.S. military involved in a truly humanitarian undertaking for a change. And that costs lots of money - a tab that the U.S. taxpayer will have to pick up. But the bit that bugs me about the media frame-of-the-week concerns the issue of private donations. The media and Bush have endlessly trumpeted the generosity of the American people, as opposed to the government. However, at least according to the BBC figures, U.S. private aid doesn't seem that impressive when stacked up against other rich nations. Here's the figures for private donations (to date) for comparison:

Britain, $146 million (c.$2.43 per person)
Germany, $130 million (c. $1.62 per person)
USA, $120 million (c. 41 cents per person)
Australia, $58 million (c. $2.90 per person)
Norway, $30 million (c. $6.70 per person)
Sweden, $60 million (c. $7.50 per person)

Note in particular the figures when broken down per person (total private donations divided by total national population). Now I'm not criticizing anyone for being stingy, and maybe the BBC figures are incomplete; I'm just pointing out that the United States doesn't look exceptionally generous when compared with other countries, as the media might have led you to believe. Can we rely on the media to provide a reality check? I doubt it. After all, when Americans think that between 15 and 18% of the national budget goes to foreign aid, when the true figure is below 1 percent, the media have a long way to go to correct misperceptions.

Cato Institute takes on PTC

Interesting to note that the right-wing libertarian Cato Institute is concerned about the actions of the Parents Television Council. The Benton Compolicy listserv points to a Jan. 4 piece by Adam Thierer, director of telecommunications studies at the Cato Institute. Predicting the next target of the PTC to be ABC's smash-hit "Desperate Housewives," Thierer warns us to "Get ready for another impassioned censorship crusade by the 'let's-censor-television-to-protect-the-children' crowd. In characterizing the PTC as "relentless censorship advocates" whose "automated complaint factory" is now targeted at the FCC, he goes on to echo a point I've drawn attention to more than once in mediaville:

Recent Freedom of Information Act requests to the FCC have revealed that the PTC has been responsible for over 98 percent of all indecency complaints to the FCC over the past two years. PTC is quickly coming to have a "heckler's veto" over programming in America as many of the shows they complain about receive significant fines or are even driven off the air.

But the best point he makes is the following:

I've always been particularly troubled by the fact that so many conservatives, who rightly preach the gospel of personal and parental responsibility about most economic issues, seemingly give up on this notion when it comes to cultural issues. Art, music, and speech are fair game for the Ministry of Culture down at the FCC, but don't let them regulate our cable rates! Conservatives and religious groups decry government activism in terms of educating our children, for example, but with their next breath call in Uncle Sam to play the role of surrogate parent when it comes to TV content. [emphasis added]

And remember, this is from a right-wing think tank. And to wrap things up, just for good measure, Thierer reminds us of the tenuousness of the strong effects thesis, i.e., the link between media sex and violence on the one hand, and cultural and societal indicators, which, he notes, are "showing signs of significant improvement." He reviews some statistics to buttress his argument (without citing sources, admittedly, but I think they are pretty solid all the same):

• Juvenile murder, rape, robbery and assault are all down significantly over the past decade.
  
• Overall, aggregate violent crime by juveniles fell 42% from 1995-2002.
  
• There are fewer murders at school today and fewer students report carrying weapons to school or anywhere else than at any point in the past decade.
  
• Alcohol and drug abuse has generally been falling and is currently at a 20-year low. Teen birth rates have hit a 20-year low and fewer teens are having sex today than they were 15 years ago.
  
• High school dropout rates continue to fall steadily, as they have for the past 30 years.
  
• And while teenage suicide rates rose steadily until the mid-1990s, they then began a dramatic decline that continues today.
  

All in all, not a bad piece. While there are any number of things about the Cato Institute with which I vehemently disagree, I happen to think that on this particular issue of media regulation, Thierer is bang on the money. (Oops, does this mean I'm a closet libertarian?) :-)

Free Press & NAACP vs. Media General

Broadcasting & Cable reports that, as expected, and as alluded to in a Dec. 23 entry in my blog, forces are gathering to derail the trend toward corporate cross-ownership of TV and press in a single market. Specifically, Free Press and the NAACP have "petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to deny Media General Inc.’s request for permission to keep both WMBB-TV Panama City, Fla., and the Jackson County Floridan, one of the market’s daily newspapers." The petitioners note no good reason for renewing Media General's waiver and also point out that "a side benefit of an FCC order to divest one of the Panama City outlets would be creating an opportunity for a minority owner to acquire the property."

The real deal in Iraq

Just so I don't get accused of always turning to leftie news sources for my material, here's an enlightening piece from The Economist about the true cost in lives and humanity of the war in Iraq - "When deadly force bumps into hearts and minds". This piece shows a side of the Iraq War that a pliant and fearful U.S. news media mostly hides from the American public (or at any rate so downplays or sugarcoats things that we don't think much about it). The piece shows how ugly an insurgency war can get - and how easy it is for good soldiers and good people to turn into uncaring occupiers and even indiscriminate killers, because they feel that they have no choice. I've never had to deal with this level of violence and destruction first hand, though as a London policeman whose experience included more than one major riot in the '80s, I was confronted with how easily and quickly normal, decent individuals (who happened to wear a uniform representing law and order) could bend or break the normal mores of society when the occasion called. Good people put under pressure do bad or questionable things; it happens all too easily.

I'm not judging anything or anyone (a. apart from the media of course, and b. in any case the problem is systematic, not individualistic - I wish the military could accept that instead of scapegoating a few low-ranking military policemen and women over the Abu Ghraib prison "abuse" - i.e., torture - scandal). I'd just like the issue dealt with more honestly. But too many Americans at home just don't like to hear this on the nightly news - after all, these men and women are all "heroes" and we don't want to complicate that, do we? Or maybe people just need to hold on to some core beliefs and certainties - as in "support the troops," complete with yellow magnetic car ribbons - while they become more and more deeply concerned about what their government is doing in Iraq in their name. I don't know. But I do know that, apart from when an exceptionally compelling visual experience temporarily breaks through the fog (as with Abu Ghraib, which was quickly and effectively neutered in the U.S.), the media are quite happy to shield the viewers' delicate ears and sooth their troubles with a fog of ersatz patriotism and talk of "bad apples". But of course you can be absolutely sure that Arab news media have no such qualms. We are left with an impression of things going badly in Iraq, but we can have no idea of just how badly.

The Fog of War

Rory O'Connor, writing originally in MediaChannel.org, notes the disturbing links between the U.S. military-industrial complex and the country's post-Saddam media organizations. His focus is on the dodgy circumstances surrounding the U.S. contract to run the Iraqi Media Network. "Supposedly modeled on the BBC, the Iraqi Media Network includes a radio network, the Al-Iraqiya television network, which includes the news channel Al-Hurra, and the Al-Sabah newspaper." (Radio Sawa is a separate, youth-oriented public diplomacy/propaganda outlet funded directly by the US - although oddly enough it was recently criticized by U.S. government-appointed boards for not managing its propaganda effectively enough). Anyway, back to the Iraqi Media Network, which seems to have an uncomfortably high number of links to U.S. defense contractors and Republican party donors. This is all completely to be expected from the U.S. in Iraq. The people in charge there just seem incapable of understanding that if they allow Iraqi media to become closely associated with crony corporate interests (sort of like they are in the States), these media will have zero credibility, and people will just stick to Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Credibility takes a long, long time to build up - I don't think the US is even interested in trying.

Murdoch extends his reach to C5

There's increasing concern that Rupert Murdoch has his eyes on Britain's newest terrestrial broadcaster, Channel 5, and has been clearing the legislative path in the UK to help him if and when he wants to buy it up. The Guardian notes that Murdoch lobbied successfully to introduce a clause into 2003's landmark Communications Act. This is "widely described as the 'Murdoch clause' [whereby] ministers proposed to relax the rules and allow newspaper owners to buy terrestrial television channels." This is all a little disconcerting as, with the New Year, Murdoch's Sky News has just taken over the running of Channel 5 News.

Natural vs political disasters

With global news still being dominated by the Asian tsunami, the English language service of Der Spiegel (which I subscribed to on the advice of a German friend) notes in its review of Germany's daily newspapers one of those horribly salient points that we - and by we I mean the media - usually choose not to dwell on: Why doesn't the world respond as quickly to political disasters that kill many more people than any natural disaster? The financial daily Handelsblatt, while praising the response, elaborates:

When such international solidarity and such massive mobilization is possible in the case of a huge civil catastrophe it begs the question of why the same response is never manifested during a political crises. Prime examples of such theaters of war include Congo, Rwanda, and Sudan. These are just catchwords for a long list. But, in these places, we were also confronted, day after day, with humanitarian catastrophes. In Asia, the UN is showing that in terms of finances and logistics it can lead the way in crisis management. It should engage itself this way more often, also when the climate is a tough political one.

Unfortunately, the answer is simple, at least as far as the media awareness component is concerned: The tsunami is novel, whereas wars and even genocides are all too common, and therefore boring to Western audiences. Political disasters have multiple causes, making these stories much more complex than a nice simple tsunami or earthquake. There's less spin and propaganda over natural disasters. It's easier for journalists to gain access to the effects of natural disasters because there's less likelihood of their running into people who want to kill them. And frankly it's not always easy for the media to figure out the good guys from the bad guys in political disasters. Overall, the media just have a much tougher time dealing with political horrors than with natural ones. I think if they had their druthers the media (well, certainly local news and the cable channels) would prefer to stick to the natural variety of disaster; they make for easy stories and because the stories are essentially weather-related - and we just can't seem to get enough of weather reports - they're more likely to find a receptive audience in the West.

My Top 12 movies of 2004:

For what it's worth, and before I change my mind, here's my Top 12 (and these are all movies I've actually seen):

=1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (USA; Focus Features; Dir. Michael Gondry)
=1. Vera Drake (UK-France-NZ; Studio Canal; Dir. Mike Leigh)
3. Sideways (USA; Fox Searchlight; Dir. Alexander Payne)
4. Hero (Hong Kong-China; Dir. Yomou Zhang; distributed in U.S. by Miramax)
5. Control Room (USA; Magnolia Pictures; Dir. Jehane Noujaime)
6. The Yes Men (Yes Men Films; distributed in U.S. by UA and MGM)
7. Napoleon Dynamite (Dir. Jared Hess; distributed in U.S. by Fox Searchlight, Paramount and MTV Films)
8. A Very Long Engagement (France-USA; Warner, Canal+; Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
9. Going Upriver: the Long War of John Kerry (USA; Swiftboat Films; Dir. George Butler)
10. The Incredibles (USA; Pixar-Disney; Dir. Brad Bird)
11. The Bourne Supremacy (USA-Germany; Universal Pictures; Dir. Paul Greengrass)
12. Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (USA; Miramax; Dir. Quentin Tarantino)

(Addendum, 11:55 p.m.) I can't resist the temptation to name three more. After number 12 ...

13. Kinsey (USA; Qwerty Films/American Zoetrope; distributed by Fox Searchlight; Dir. Bill Condon)
14. Fahrenheit 9/11 (USA; Dog Eat Dog Films, Miramax; Dir. Michael Moore)
15. Garden State* (USA; distributed by Fox Searchlight; Dir. Zach Braff)

* Still not sure whether this one should be on the list, but what the hell.

And I suppose I'd put Finding Neverland at number 16. So that's a Top 16, not a Top 12. Oh well. :-)