Kicking the Media While It's Down, Continued

Here's two nice follow-ups to yesterday's post. The celebrity/gossip rag In Touch decided to go legit last week and focus on the Virginia Tech tragedy. Today it reported the substance issue flopped, giving it horrendously low sales. So much for that. I remember about 10 years ago the Boston Herald, which I would place on a journalistic par with Newsday, also opted to go with a more journalistic redesign and focus less on the tabloid style front page and gossip. About two months later they switched back after circulation fell. Also worth noting is that while many daily newspapers and traditional substantive print media are suffering declining advertising and circulation, most gossip magazines are doing just fine. After all, they're giving the public what it wants.

Second, tonight the great Bill Moyers will have a special on how the media was duped into selling the Iraq War to the public on bogus, if not ouright false, pretenses. I could write a long post about this, but here's some quick thoughts. First, the so-called "legitimate" news media is supposed to do investigatory work and act as a watchdog against the government. This obviously did not happen. Far too many media outlets simply regurgitate whatever the government (or anyone else) tells them without proper fact checking or verification. You can attribute this to laziness, budget cuts in investigatory teams, a rush to be the first out with the news for ratings reasons or a combination of all three plus some other things I've omitted.

Second, and this is one of those strange, twisted compliments, you've got to hand it to the Bush Administration for doing such a masterful job of selling the war. Their messaging was tight, their spokespersons for selling the war were compelling (at the time) and the media bought it hook, line and sinker. As a PR flack, I can vouch for how important it is to be proactive with the media and set the agenda as much as possible so you get the message out that you want. Watch the documentary Weapons of Mass Deception to learn more about how this was accomplished.

News Flash: The Media Screw Up Again

In light of last week’s Virginia Tech tragedy, there has been an awful lot of disrespect and bad behavior by various interest groups who have sought to manipulate this terrible event to advance their own agenda. On the left you have gun control advocates and on the right there are anti-immigration supporters who jumped on the bandwagon to ignore the bodies and flaunt their grandstanding before the crime scene was secured.

But let’s reserve our highest scorn for the media, which continues to eat through the bottom of the barrel. NBC shamelessly used the killer’s paranoid and deranged video and photos to get attention for its flagging MSNBC franchise, and made sure the NBC slug (the logo on the bottom corner) was present so anyone could see which media source got the exclusive. Many of the victim’s family members correctly cancelled interviews with NBC to protest its poor taste, and NBC later pulled back on showing the video. Naturally that led to one of my favorite topics – the media doing an expose on itself to ponder if it has morals. The flak and backlash spilled into the newspapers as well, proving that no matter what you think of the American public, its morals are higher than the media that cater to them.

2007 is truly shaping up to be a banner year for the media to go beyond the realm of decency and highlight the importance of entertainment over substance. First, there were four funerals without a wedding – Gerry Ford, Saddam Hussein, James Brown and Anna Nicole Smith. That’s three people who changed the world and a gold digging bimbo. Who got the most coverage and attention?

Before it backtracked, NBC said the video and photos would have reached the public anyway. That’s true, but nobody would be surprised if a tabloid or anonymous web site broadcast the images first. Also, were the images newsworthy? That can and should be debated, but popular opinion and hindsight have now proven that airing a photo of a mass murderer pointing a gun at the newspaper reader or television viewer is not the way to start your day. Also, the killer's only desire was to immortalize himself by sending the pictures and video to the media and they played right into his hands, giving him exactly what he wanted.

By highlighting a killer’s deranged manifesto over showing respect for the victims, the media once again proves that entertainment and sensationalism trumps ethics and journalism. Get used to it and accept it, because it’s not changing.

More Info:

An opposing view by Jack Shafer

Alberto on the Hill

As Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who I never thought deserved his job, takes the stand to testify on Capitol Hill today, we may finally see the new Congress acting like a real legislative body by being an effective check to the legislative branch.

One of the nicer things about having a divided government (Republican executive and Democratic legislative) is that Congress will no longer act as a rubber stamp to the President and let him act above the law. From suspending habeas corpus to wiretapping without a warrant and that little war in Iraq started under dubious – if not false – pretenses, the president and his entire branch of office has been unchecked by Congress. Part of Congress’ job is acting as a buffer to the president when he breaks the law or extends executive power beyond the limits of the Constitution.

Depending on Gonzales’ performance in this bungled and mismanaged affair involving the attorney firings, we may see the first appropriate use of Congressional oversight on this issue since Bush came to office. There were no Congressional hearings (serious ones, anyway) on any of the issues I described above. The last president to act so boldly with executive power and privilege was Nixon, and we all remember how that turned out.

News Flash: Imus Exposed as Talentless Racist

I couldn’t care less about Don Imus. Not because he’s a racist, or he’s a grumpy curmudgeon, or he’s way too old to pretend to be a cowboy. I couldn’t care less because Imus has never been anything more than a third-rate Howard Stern imitator with an anemic audience.

I grew up in New Jersey where Imus started on WNBC-AM. He was a typical DJ who spun 8-10 records an hour, and somehow got an irreverent reputation by saying things like, “Quack quack, who loves you baby?” between songs. When Stern started on WNBC in the afternoon, Imus began stealing Stern’s bits and became legendary as the first, and probably the best known, Howard Stern rip-off artist. Imus started the truly horrible trend of “shock jocks” that steal Stern’s attitude and material, but lack not only Stern’s wit and humor but also his ability to draw and keep an audience. Whatever you think of Howard Stern, he is truly an original that changed radio. Stern moved to another station in Imus's air time and knocked Imus and his bastard progeny down in the ratings, where they have pretty much stayed.

Both Stern and his African American sidekick, Robin Quivers, detailed how Imus was extremely racist in real life since they met him. In fact, despite Imus’s bizarre ability to draw politicians and intellectuals to his tawdry show, he kept up a running commentary of racist comments throughout the last few years. Since Imus had no sense of humor and little intelligence, these rants repeatedly came across as the rantings of a bitter old man who had never changed his attitude. When last week’s “nappy headed ho’s” comment finally got him fired, I wasn’t shocked or outraged. I just thought, “What took so long?”

Imus also showed his idiocy by going to fellow racist Al Sharpton to beg forgiveness. The mind reels at this vapid decision. Who named Al “Tawana Brawley” Sharpton and Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson as the race police? Did anyone appoint them spokespersons for the black community? Does anyone outside the media take them seriously? Having long lived past their usefulness, these two have become the equivalent of racist ambulance chasers, pinning deserved and undeserved racism charge on anyone who allegedly affronts African Americans. Their recorded comments on the now-exonerated Duke lacrosse team belies their self-declared legitimacy. Imus gained nothing except further scorn for appearing on Sharpton’s show. Even showing up on Sharpton’s turf probably alienated Imus’s tens of real fans. Why not appear on someone like Tavis Smiley’s show, or just invite the Rutgers basketball team to his studio so he could have apologized on familiar ground to the only people that truly deserved an apology?

Besides the foolishness of kowtowing to Sharpton and Jackson, much has been written about how these two completely ignore the fusillade of far, far worse language that emanates from hip hop lyrics on urban radio on a daily basis. This criticism is well-deserved and is a serious problem in the African American community. There is a serious violent and misogynistic streak in rap lyrics that nobody is dealing with right now. It also shows the vacuum of a true moral compass in the black community when its two so-called “spokespersons” have numerous racial and ethical transgressions.

But Imus? Who cares? He was an unoriginal and unfunny hack who was caught doing what he has always done for years.

More Info:

Hypocrisy Toward Sharpton and Jackson from all sides of the political aisle. Here's Black Athlete, syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, Princeton University and The Washington Times, to name just a few.

Also, scroll down to see my earlier post on Imus' fellow racist Michael Richards.