Says Stewart poking fun at Hillary, “Relentlessness ain’t free… ‘Here me now poor working class white people of West Virginia… SHOW ME THE MONEY!’” hilzoy says:
For some reason, what got me the most was hearing her ask for more money. She is, after all, an extremely wealthy woman. And she was asking those people she claims to be fighting for — the nurse on her second shift, the worker on the line, the waitress on her feet, the small business owner, the farmer, the teacher, the coal miner, the trucker, the soldier, the vet, the college student — to send her some fraction of the little money they have, for nothing. When she knows she can’t win. That sort of took my breath away.
The Fox Movie Channel showed “Gentleman’s Agreement” last night, a preachy drama about anti-Semitism that won the Academy Award 60 years ago, and it brought into focus the realization that I may live to see a black man inaugurated as President of the United States.
What Barack Obama faces from now until November would be unimaginable to the people who made and saw that movie then, including a 23-year-old just back from World War II who had little audacity and even less hope of living in the rich, glossy world it portrayed.
Gregory Peck played a magazine writer who pretends to be Jewish. A decade later, I was an editor on one of those magazines, unknowingly hired by George W. Bush’s grandfather as the first Jew among thousands of employees, working with Laura Z. Hobson, who wrote the novel on which the picture was based.
Howard Dean was on The Daily Show last night. The interview was all smiles and laughs but chock-a-block full of important and substantive information. It went on for an unusually long 9 minutes and ran right up into the commercial break.
Stewart commented on Jeremiah Wright on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday’s shows and — in contrast to every other cable news show — his clear and conclusive emphasis was on how miffed with the media he was because “this issue which should have only had enough fuel to last one news cycle has somehow lasted eight news cycles.”
Now Stewart’s is not a news show. It doesn’t have to obey the “News” rules, so it is not able to speak with that “News” authority. No, Stewart’s is a comedy show.
Any comic fool can rush in, where the angels of journalists and historians fear to tread. And as we know if we’ve ever watched any Shakespearian tragedy, fools can often be the wisest people on the stage.
Bob reminds us that comedy does not have to deal with the inconvenience of checking facts, getting multiple sources, or trying to get it right. Comedy gets to make stuff up! But it’s also able to intellectually explore lots of the stuff that neither journalism nor history can because they’re both so bound by facts.
That comic freedom has obvious attractions to intellectually active and politically engaged young minds. So I’m thinking that Stewart and his spin-off Stephen Colbert are out there dog-whistling to the youth-vote. And I’m wondering how accurate we’ve got that measured. Aren’t they — with their cell phones and non-traditional media habits — a demographic we’ve traditionally had trouble tracking anyway?
Maybe the Colbert bump holds a clue. It was in the news a while back as a legit phenom for Dems (Republicans need not apply). Thompson gives it the benefit of the doubt:
You know, some people might say, well how can this be? I think the burden of proof is on proving that there is no such thing as the Colbert bump. I think the common sense assumption would be that, yeah, there probably is. Until proven otherwise, that seems to be the commonsense thing that one would have.
April 17th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
Why is the media, and the blogs, overlooking the “real” issues? The recent Clinton/Obama debate once again brought under spotlight a serious lack of professionalism among journalists and their growing penchant to trivialize serious issues. To give another example, few seem interested at the looming food crisis that is likely to have worldwide political and economic ramifications.
Would the media wake up only when the wolf reaches their doors or the dinner table (when it is too late)? Even if the media is looking for “sensational” news there is plenty to be found in the “real” issues. How about this….?
“Food riots have erupted in countries all along the equator. In Haiti, protesters chanting ‘We’re hungry’ forced the prime minister to resign; 24 people were killed in riots in Cameroon; Egypt’s president ordered the army to start baking bread; the Philippines made hoarding rice punishable by life imprisonment. ‘It’s an explosive situation and threatens political stability,’ worries Jean-Louis Billon, president of Côte d’Ivoire’s chamber of commerce,” reports The Economist. Read the rest of this entry »
April 14th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Some younger Americans may not quite get Barack Obama’s swipe at Hillary Clinton, suggesting she is posing as Annie Oakley in his reference to her comments on guns — part of the increasingly aggressive tone between the two camps in light of the controversy over Obama’s comments about people in small towns being bitter.
READ THIS for a quick summary of Oakley, who was one of the Old West’s cultural figures, a legend in the late 19th and 20th centuries — and one of America’s first female superstars. In the late 20th century, her tale spawned movies, a TV show and — most famous of all — Irving Berlin’s immortal Broadway classic “Annie Get Your Gun.”
It’s usually a smart move when politicos use cultural references about their foes. Walter Mondale used the slogan from a commercial “Where’s the beef?” against Senator Gary Hart. It is said that Jackie Kennedy came up with the linkage of her assassinated husband JFK with the musical “Camelot,” and the song from the original cast album has been played on some tributes to him. You can also see the cultural reference technique used to great advantage, in terms of show business, in the employment of quick satire bits on the animated cartoon “Family Guy.”
Using a cultural phrase is “high concept” — immediately recognizable. In this case, Obama’s reference would have connected more to baby boomers. A cultural reference also conjures up a whole slew of other images associated with it. Used correctly, it could be an advantage.
Here is a rare treat that will explain the Annie Oakley reference to younger Americans. Here, from a very rare kinescope of the 1957 TV adaptation of the musical done live in front of a studio audience is Broadway legend Mary Martin (South Pacific, The Sound of Music, Peter Pan) playing Annie in the character’s most defining song — You Can’t Get A Man With A Gun. FOOTNOTE: To this day I remember watching this TV production live…I was in elementary school.
April 14th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Today Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert kicks off his Pennsylvania coverage with a guest: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. But is this symbolic for Campaign 2008 and journalism’s future? What’s the most effective way to deliver news to people on the Internet and to appeal to younger American voters? Video and web producer Joe Windish. offers this compelling original interview on the decline of traditional news an across-the-generations political information delivery system and the ascent of vehicles such as Comedy Central’s news-based comedy shows:
Stephen Colbert: A Media Maestro Plays Philly
by Joe Windish
The New York Times Sunday Magazine cover story this weekend was The Aria of Chris Matthews. Released to the web last Tuesday, bloggers had been baffled by it all week. Even Mark Leibovich, who wrote the story, noted that “three network officials asked me why I was writing about Matthews and not [Keith] Olbermann.”
The gist of the piece was that Matthews is an anachronism likely to be downsized when his $5 million a year contract is up next year. MSNBC’s now betting on Olbermann and David Gregory. Why the paper of record deemed it necessary to devote 8,000 words to that observation, I’ll never know.
Meanwhile, the whole way these guys are playing the cable news game seems a little passé to me. The big questions today are: how are we going to profitably port news over to the Internet, and how are we going to make it appealing to a younger demographic? Indications are that by either of these measures the leader in the cable news game right now is in not to be found at NBC, CNN, or FOX.
The hands-down champ is Comedy Central, whose Daily Show and Colbert Report have been playing by the fast and loose rules of comedy to beat journalism at the news game as far back as Indecision 2000. Since then Jon Stewart’s won two Peabody Awards for his election coverage, and he was joined just last week by Stephen Colbert when The Colbert Report won a Peabody of its own.
Today Stephen Colbert and his 80 staffers kick off a week of Colbert Report coverage of the Pennsylvania Primary from the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia. As it happens, Chris Matthews, a Philadelphia native, is slated to be Stephen’s first guest.
JW: You’ve referred to comedy as The Fifth Estate. Can you explain?
BT: I started calling comedy the 5th Estate to keep the 4th Estate of journalism in check several years ago… I think this whole notion of comedy as the Fifth Estate really, in many ways, is more important in these new shows that are actually doing parodies of news shows because it’s the idea that the Fourth Estate is keeping those first three in check. The idea of what’s going on in Colbert and The Daily Show and even some of what Saturday Night Live and shows like that, is that it’s not only dealing with the political issues but it is dealing with the way in which the mainstream news operations are covering the issues.
Let’s take, for example, the classic example of what Jon Stewart did in the lead up to the war, when he was really examining that issue in a way that a lot of reporters were not for fear of being called unpatriotic and all the rest of it. The whole Dixie Chicks phenomenon. I think there Jon Stewart was a lone voice crying in the wilderness that this was the stuff that ought to be covered. And he was really making fun of – with evidence, showed the clip and that kind of thing – of how this was being inadequately covered by the traditional journalist operation. So there, I think, what Jon Stewart was doing was a really important message about the lead up to the war, but about the way it was being inadequately covered.
JW: What’s your take on Colbert’s Peabody?
BT: Certainly the Peabody is another feather in the cap of respectability that Comedy Central’s hour-long block in late night television has been garnering. That Peabody just goes on the mantelpiece right next to the invitation to speak at the Washington Correspondents Association Dinner, and all kinds of other things that have just been being heaped upon these shows. So, the Peabody is another example of how these late night comedy shows that Comedy Central are doing are really being taken very seriously by a whole range of people… Now we should remember that it also says something about the Peabody Awards. The Peabody Awards are one of my favorite of the awards given because they really don’t operate on the traditional criteria of what we think would be good. Let’s remember that Colbert got a Peabody I believe at the same time that Project Runway got a Peabody. Project Runway is not the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth estate! However, it’s a really good show and I think it deserved its Peabody as did Colbert, but for different reasons. When you think of when Comedy Central first started, and when you think of a lot of the other shows that are on Comedy Central, and you think of how Colbert does that whole act when he dances across the stage when he’s about to interview someone, it’s really pleasing to think that this is now the Peabody Award winning Stephen Colbert!
JW: Colbert is a really tough interview. There’s not a lot of fluff on his show. He brings on hugely complex topics and seems to help his interviewees make their point. And the arc of the show through a season is almost like a college course, he is educating his audience. I come away blown away sometimes. It seems like to me a very high-brow news show. Bring me back to earth Bob. Read the rest of this entry »
April 13th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
How far will the staff of some shows go to get big ratings? This far:
The TV talk show Dr. Phil McGraw confirmed on Saturday the fact that its staff bailed out of Florida jail one of the girls involved in the violent video posted on YouTube. The video depicted several teen girls beating one of their classmates while filming her.
Mercades Nichols is one of the eight teen girls who face charges in the case of the vicious beating posted on YouTube. She was bailed out by a representative of the show on Friday night, MyFOXTampaBay.com reported.
The bails for the violent girls were set on Friday and they are ranging from $30,000 to $37,000. The girls are aged from 14 to 18.
The bailing out was confirmed via E-mail by Terri Corigliano, a show spokeswoman. In his E-mail, Corigliano explained that the show has previously helped other “guests and potential guests” of the show with different needs, but in this case “certain staff members” who were in the process of booking guests for the Dr. Phil McGraw show went a bit too far and broke the rules of the show.
“These staff members have been spoken to and our policies reiterated. In addition, we have decided not to go forward with the story as our guidelines have been compromised,” Corigliano wrote in the statement.
Keep this post and bookmark this story. Will the girl eventually appear on Dr. Phil’s show? If so, the show’s explanation will prove to be….inaccurate.
In an earlier story TMZ noted that when it comes to jumping into big stories, Dr. Phil is a serial offender:
Apparently Dr. Phil didn’t learn much from his interference with Britney Spears. Paging Dr. Fame whore.
The talk show host has allegedly posted bond, which was set at $33,000, for one of the eight teens that was arrested for severely beating another teenager in Florida. The highly publicized case has been in the news for over a week now, and Dr. Phil must want some of that action.
A bail bondsman told several local media outlets that Mercades Nichols, who has been widely reported as the alleged “ringleader,” had her bond paid by the show’s producers. When Nichols left the jail, a man who claimed to be a producer for the Dr. Phil show helped escort Nichols and her mom.
Mercades’s grandmother recently told local reporters that she didn’t have the money to bail her granddaughter out.
According to reports, the producer then told reporters to leave the jail because the Dr. Phil show had exclusive rights to the delinquent’s story. He did not comment on if Dr. Phil had helped pay for her bond.
This was how another earlier story by Fox News described how it was known Dr. Phil’s people bailed the girl out:
Mercades Nichols, one of eight teens charged in the brutal attack which was captured on a YouTube video, was bailed out by a representative of the show on Friday night, according to a report from MyFOXTampaBay.com.
A judge on Friday set bails ranging from $30,000 to $37,000 for the teenagers.
The Dr. Phil representative was waiting by the jail’s exit, and when Nichols walked out, he tried to block Tampa TV station camera people from getting video of Nichols and her family leaving jail.
TV news and TV talk shows are always focused on “the get” which is getting the big news makers who are at the center of flavor-of-the-week huge news stories. The clear reason: to attract big audiences with guests that won’t and can’t appear on other competing shows.
So remember this story — and the show’s statement that it won’t do it now.
But here is the bottom line: when shows get sensational guests, they usually get the ratings, which increases ad revenues…so their behavior (even in bailing out teens accused of beating up another teen) is rewarded when people tune in.
Democrats need to factor into their calculations the fact that presumptive GOP President nominee Senator John McCain is totally relaxed and comes across as quite likable in front of the TV cameras.
Just watch this exchange from a few days on David Letterman’s Show. First, Letterman delivers his zingers and then McCain. The jokes are obviously prepared but note (a) the pizazz with which McCain delivers his opening line, delivered as well as any actor can do it. (b) the ease with which he reads the teleprompter, not looking into it all the time.
April 3rd, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
There seems to be a universal outcry at the deteriorating standards in the television channels worldwide. From India to Britain and the USA…there is a sense of general dismay that the TV channels are failing in their primary duty of initiating/explaining important issues of public interest, so essential in democracies to help people take informed decisions.
This subject needs wider scrutiny within and outside the media. The Independent on its opinion page has this to say about Britain: “At its best, TV is a tool of democracy, a way for us all to see our leaders being confronted with the truth. But instead, it largely consists of the airless circulation of ignorance, while the real decisions in the real world are taken somewhere else – beyond the awareness of us, the people.
“What is the effect on British politics when television coverage – the public’s main way of learning about how their country and planet is run – is distorted or disappears? Democracy doesn’t work properly.
“Vital issues simply aren’t explained to the public – so we cannot vote intelligently. While there are still oases of serious coverage – Newsnight, Panorama and Channel 4 News can be excellent – much of what remains is being corrupted. The BBC has given almost all its high-profile politics slots to Andrew Neil, whose bias is increasingly outrageous.”
The HBO miniseries on John Adams began this evening and I was riveted.
Letting myself immerse into the story I swelled with pride and awe at the courage, tenacity, inspiration and skill of our founding parents. They let themselves rise from the frustration of tyranny to envision and commit to a new standard of rights for all of Humankind. It is so easy to take the American Idea for granted. But it was so unique and is still so fragile because it is the nature of power to seek to minimize the gifts we enjoy. If we don’t protect it, it could easily become an aching memory.
Forget the Super Bowl. Here’s a match for Pay-Per-View–the Clintons vs. the Obamas.
Now that the candidates have shown in their last debate how well they bounce the conversational ball between them, why not schedule a round of doubles?
As Hillary keeps explaining away embarrassments by Bill, she always notes that Barack too has a supportive spouse. Yesterday’s Washington Postobserves, “It is fascinating enough that Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are playing on the same field as their partners duel for the Democratic nomination. More intriguing still is her effectiveness, hardly a given for a recent campaign recruit matched against a two-term president.
“Clinton, 61, earned his reputation as one of the most gifted national politicians in modern times while Obama was still a young lawyer trying to find herself. Obama, 44, kept her political forays to a minimum while building a career on community outreach in Chicago, yet more than a few enchanted voters have said after watching her that she should be the one in public office.”
As this crucial campaign heads toward a two-for-one confrontation, a cable network could do worse than scheduling an hour for the Clintons and Obamas to sit together and talk politics.
There may or may not be social significance in the contrast between the out-front nature of potential Democratic First Spouses and the more conventional Republican mates, but the changes in the White House domestic scene have been evolving ever since the days of Eleanor Roosevelt.
The new politics can take a leaf from the very old tonight at the 21st Democratic debate. Just as Richard Nixon saved his vice-presidential candidacy in 1952 from news of a secret political slush fund, Barack Obama has to explain away Antoin Rezko as an obstacle to his campaign’s momentum.
For weeks now, the darker side of the Clinton machine has been hammering him with accusations about the Chicago slumlord, and the Former First Lady herself invoked the dreaded name during the last debate.
Yesterday there was another drip of Rezko bad news as Obama’s campaign upped the amount of contributions being given to charity to almost $150,000.
Obama’s style precludes maudlin Nixon props like his wife’s cloth coat and the family dog, but he would be well-advised to prepare his own one-minute version of the Checkers speech to unload the Rezko albatross.
January 30th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Horses running a race can be most easily injured in the home stretch.
Why? Because their jockeys can become over-enthused with the thrill of the neck and neck, with the small gains made on the inside curve of the track, losing focus on riding the horse evenhandedly, and instead being swept away in a thrall of jerking speed and imagined glory… aiming too soon for the finish line.
Thus, possibly the greatest threat to each Presidential candidate now, is not the other competing candidates.
My dad who followed the ponies, said Willie Shoemaker, the diminutive 4′11″ thoroughbred jockey who raced and won at Belmont, Preakness and The Kentucky Derby, rode smooth in the homestretch, like the wind over mountains, but not like a tornado…
else even a masterful rider can accidentally cripple his horse in the final moments and scotch his own finish.
Thus one of the greatest threats to the candidates now with the homestretch in sight, is they might in the thrall of the final moments of the race, read their own abilities wrongly; they might falter on the timing to take their butt-high stances in the stirrups, and to fatally abandon their steady lean into the reins, whirling instead and losing focus.
Willie Shoemaker again: “I lost the K. Derby in ‘57 because I stood in the stirrups too soon; I’d misjudged the finish line.”
To judge the finish line in error, and to allow aggression, enthusiasm and the thrill of it all to unwisely influence his or her choices in strategy during the coming days… that ought to be the prime consideration of the candidates.
Too cock-sure, and votes will be lost while the candidate’s benefactors unwisely cheer. Too timid, and votes will be lost while the benefactors cheer, for they do not see the falter, only the love of their candidate.
For a candidate to become lost in his or her own cheering section, or to be snagged by the jeering of those who would try to decimate him or her… either one of these will cause a deadly veering, a loss of judgment and focus in the homestretch.
Every horse has its tolerances for endurance and speed; a race is not won by ‘full speed all the way,’ but by ‘resting speed’ and ‘all out speed,’ in tandem, measured and irregular intervals. Thus now, even small mis-steps in timing or velocity of words and actions can prove disastrous to the candidates.
Mitt Romney loses a primary to John McCain that would have knocked a less loaded man out of contention for the Republican nomination, but Romney will buy his way on to Super Tuesday.
Hillary Clinton arrives for a made-for-TV celebration, complete with walls of printed placards, of “winning” a phantom contest for no delegates that she and other Democrats had promised to bypass.
Electoral weirdness goes on unabated in Florida, which gave us our unelected president in 2000, but yesterday’s results shed some light on where the 2008 nominations are heading.
Unless Romney’s money and vacuity win many hearts and minds on February 5th, the arch-conservatives will have to take a deep breath and embrace McCain as the Republican candidate. Wheel out the respirators for Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan.
Even the meaningless Democratic results hold clues to the future. Clinton won among those who cast absentee ballots weeks ago but apparently not among voters who made a choice yesterday. Obama has a long way to go but, with the Kennedy endorsements and more to come, his campaign is moving in the right direction.
Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy month.
In last night’s Theater of the Absurd, a Lame Duck is quacking at the podium while the ducklings-in-waiting look on, pretending to listen before they waddle out for their turn on the TV stage.
You could have watched the President’s last State of the Union address with the sound off and not turned it up as his would-be successors did their predictable soliloquies–Hillary Clinton with a smile as tight as duct tape, dodging questions about Bill; Barack Obama modestly insisting he’s no JFK but basking in his Kennedy aura for the day; Mitt Romney mouthing “Washington is broken” platitudes followed by non-sequiturs that Harold Pinter would not have dared to write.
On his way out, George W. Bush is besieged by legislators holding out their programs to be autographed for some e-Bay auction years from now on another planet.
The Federal Communications Commission wants to fine ABC $1.4 million for airing an episode of “NYPD Blue” in 2003 showing a woman’s nude buttocks. The network owner, Walt Disney Company, will appeal.
In the sexual Dark Ages of my adolescence, teenagers would mark the hot passages of novels for the delectation of their peers. Now the enterprise has come full circle–with disastrous results.
A Utah retailer of family-friendly tapes and DVDs–movies with the “dirty parts” cut out of them–has been arrested for trading sex with two 14-year-old girls.
Daniel Dean Thompson’s Clean Flix was a video outlet trading in purified versions, catering to clientele who wanted to watch hit movies without nudity, sex, foul language or graphic violence.
But Thompson may have spent too much time watching the excised portions of his products…
December 27th, 2007 by PETE ABEL, Assistant Editor
I’m no fan of the NFL Network, for both professional and personal reasons. I work for one of the cable broadband companies that has refused to bend to the league’s pressure tactics, and while I’m an avid fan, I think the idea of a 24/7 channel devoted to pro footbal is a waste of time.
But even I have to give the NFL and Commish Goodell props for making the historic Patriots-Giants game (this Saturday night) available on a national basis, including to those who are still watching TV via rabbit ears.
Either way, it’s a good decision and I plan to be sitting with friends Saturday night, watching the game and enjoying a few beers as we root on the Giants. (Apologies to Patriot-Nation. We St. Louis Rams fans are still upset about the Patriots’ 2002 lashing of our hometome team in the Super Bowl.)
After the Tet offensive in early 1968, the Most Trusted Man in America announced the war in Vietnam could not be won. “If I’ve lost Cronkite,” the President of the United States said, “I’ve lost America” and conceded by announcing he wouldn’t run for reelection.
Walter Cronkite is 91, and George W. Bush is no Lyndon Johnson, but America’s news nanny, who tucked us in every evening for two decades by ending the CBS Evening News with “And that’s the way it is,” has now declared “Our Troops Must Leave Iraq.”
In a piece co-written and appearing in print, Cronkite’s voice is still being heard. In the Japan Times, on the eve of Pearl Harbor day, he concludes:
“Congress must act. Although Congress never declared war, as required by the Constitution, they did give the president the authority to invade Iraq. Congress must now withdraw that authority and cease its funding of the war.
“It is not likely, however, that Congress will act unless the American people make their voices heard with unmistakable clarity. That is the way the Vietnam War was brought to an end. It is the way that the Iraq War will also be brought to an end. The only question is whether it will be now, or whether the war will drag on, with all the suffering that implies, to an even more tragic, costly and degrading defeat. We will be a better, stronger and more decent country to bring the troops home now.”
Trust is not what it used to be, and age has diminished the reach of Cronkite’s voice, but he is still trying to tell America how it is.
Half a century ago, TV created a new kind of American assassin, one who would escape insignificance by killing someone famous–a President or a star like John Lennon–and become famous for doing it.
Now we are in a new phase of this madness, where quantity has replaced quality in selecting victims. After yesterday’s random killing of eight people in an Omaha mall, police report finding a suicide note from the 19-year-old shooter, who had been fired by McDonald’s, saying he was going to be famous.
He joins the Virginia Tech rampage killer who left self-pitying videos in achieving notoriety through mass murder. Perhaps this new stage of insane fame was inevitable. Arthur Bremer, who was just released after 35 years in prison, wanted to assassinate Richard Nixon but settled for Gov. George Wallace because the President was too well-guarded. It’s so much easier to kill numbers of people at random.
In our grief, perhaps we should do with these sociopaths what the media do with rape victims, withhold their names, certainly not to protect them but to deny them the fame that motivated their savagery. It’s the least we can do out of respect for the victims.
