Big Brother Says Welcome to His World
Demonstrating the number of assets belonging to Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp is like one of those, “If the national debt was represented by dollar bills laid end to end, it would reach Alpha Centuri” exercises. Let’s just say it’s huge. Uncle Rupert is the purveyor of both Sean Hannity and Australian Good Taste magazine – owned in partnership with Woolworth’s.
Woolworth’s? Really? The Donald has competition for Chairman of BadTasteCorp .
TRUTH OR FICTION - President Barack Obama wrestled a grizzly bear and a unicorn today in response to rumors that the two animals were socialists.
Fox Nation readers confuse Onion article with real news
I’m not really a pundit, I just play one on the web. And on occasion, commensurate with my faux punditly duties, I write a parody post. I may do this as a commitment to one of my core principles, “Scorn is mightier than ignorance”, or I might be bored or ready for a rant or just because I want to have a little fun – a pundit’s work is never done.
However, one of the consistent things about these parodies is that they always draw some proportion of people who actually believe them. One a few months back required me to add a disclaimer for fear open warfare would break out between the people who believed it was real and defended its “truth” and the people who believed it was real and tried to refudiate it.
Refudiate something that wasn’t true. Odd concept that.
Causing an Ideological War of the Worlds
I like to think I can sling a pithy narative as well as the next guy – certainly better than Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh – but, I find it hard to believe that my parodies are so great and realistic I might accidentally cause some sort of an ideological War of the Worlds.
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES - Some people are so committed to the concepts of ignorance and gullibility they're forming their own political party.
I used to be mildly pleased by this. Ha ha, look how I pulled the wool over their eyes! It made me feel superior in the same way watching Jerry Springer makes me feel superior. I may be a goob, but at least I’m not an uber-goob who takes DNA tests to prove which of the 37 trailer park coquettes he’s been banging carries his child (it turns out about 34).
But as I rack up my tally of rubes, I’ve begun to wonder about the wider implications.
Our national discourse has become so rancorous and full of outright lies and gross distortions, you can’t even make things up anymore. People actually believed my piece on the affair between Suzanne Malveaux and George Bush. Ditto my recent piece covering the Tea Party’s outrage over Obama pardoning Thanksgiving terror turkeys.
This may explain the popularity of The Daily Show or Stephen Colbert‘s testimony to Congress. We know people watch those shows for their news, but the assumption that viewers understand they’re seeing imaginary news may be too broad.
The REAL Thanksgiving
Even when people watch mainstream news outlets like Fox, their common sense takes a powder. As I write this, Rush Limbaugh is pontificating on how the Indians scammed us on Manhattan and the pilgrims failed because they were socialists, a view supported by an honest to God US Congressman.
There was a day when that would’ve caused most people to shake their heads and think, “DAMN, there are a lot of imbeciles.” These days it draws a yawn, and in a truly troubling number of cases, more people who believe the blatant fantasies.
One of the core principles of the Founding Fathers was that of a well informed electorate. For example, believing horses could talk would at least cause the Founders to question your critical thinking skills. Today, pro-horse talking and anti-horse talking factions would form, there would be rancorous debate, and new laws enacted that both forbade and supported talking horses as a dozen different talking horse lobbies demanded.
We may have become too stupid and gullible to vote, particularly when the people we vote into office think the pilgrims failed because they were socialists. I’m tempted to write a parody about this, but it’s impossible.
There’s not enough believable reality left to craft a decent faux reality.
HEY RICK! FOX MIGHT HAVE AN OPENING FOR YOU! - Rick Sanchez is clearly not the sharpest pundit in the shed and going up against Jon Stewart was a monumental error. But an error worth canning him for?
CNN’s Rick Sanchez decided to go toe-to-toe with faux newser Jon Stewart and suffered the same fate as the last CNNer to do so – Tucker Carlson. However in the aftermath, we have a sort of “how many J-Words can dance on the tip of the tongue” argument brewing.
Stewart had been doing to Sanchez what he’s done to so many others for weeks – made fun of him. It’s the penalty one pays when one is famous and says dumb things. It’s all too easy for Stewart’s crack staff to find double-speak video and other public statements to hold crapweasels up to ridicule. I think Stewart’s brand of ridicule, despite its definite bite, is far less passionate than Keith Olbermann‘s skewers of the famous and inane. One gets the sense that Jon knows it’s a joke while Olbermann actually believes his targets are the Worst Persons in the World.
But then, I ain’t famous so what do I know?
Punking Yourself
If you live under the glare of studio lights and talk for a living – incessantly – you’ll punk yourself occasionally. It happens. And when it does, you have to either have a great sense of humor or develop tough skin, because the dumber you are, the more you’ll be held up to ridicule. Exhibits A-D, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Christine O’Donnell, and Sharron Angle, et al.
Sanchez’s skin is apparently as thin as John McTheusela’s, as is the skin of Sanchez’s CNN overlords. Sanchez let the J-Bombs fly, CNN fired him, he apologized to Stewart soon after and Jon and Rick rode into the sunset, at least if not BFFs, OK with things. And, Christopher Hitchens takes up Sanchez’s cause.
Hitchens? Really? Famous crusading atheist? Has cancer?
One in the same.
Hitchens argues that Sanchez’s anti-Jewish statements are literally true. Despite the anti-semitic overtones, he says Jews (along with white Christians) actually are disproportionately represented in media and entertainment boardrooms. To Hitchens, Sanchez simply stated a fact no more problematic than saying African Americans are under-represented. And as boneheaded as Hitchens often is, he has a point. But, it was never about THAT point and it isn’t a necessarily a socially polite thing to say.
It all boils down to a “who can safely say the N-word, or in this case, the J-word”. Sure, Sanchez was unbelievably stupid, but if we’re going to fire every TV personality who’s stupid, TV would consist of lots of HD snow and annoying test pattern buzz.
But, you could make an argument that would be an improvement.
Not a White Supremacist Candidate
I personally find Sanchez annoying and I suspect his assumed anti-semitism may be real to some degree, although, barring any information to the contrary, I’m not so sure he’d be a good candidate for your neighborly white supremacist enclave.
I don’t condone what he said. In fact, I don’t think it is as literally true as Hitchens does either. But, I’m not sure if it’s a firing offense when put in context.
Sanchez did the right thing in calling Stewart to apologize – though he wimped out by letting his wife announce it to the public on Facebook. Everyone might have been better served if the apology was both personal and public. A true mea culpa with some teeth – perhaps a show or series of shows devoted to anti-semitism coupled with some work with Jewish charities and up close and personal exposure to Jewish people. The Jewish religion believes in atonement, and this would be an earthly one to be sure, but atonement nonetheless.
If Sanchez refused to do these things, if his superiors had to co-opt him to do them – in a very public way – they, and those calling for his resignation, would have every right to say, “don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.” Or, if he did it again, ala Mel Gibson, away with him. No one has to cut the man some slack and some believe no one should.
But we might all learn a little about ourselves and each other if we did.
NEW MEDIA? - Bloggers can't get no respect, except at the AP.
The Associated Press is starting to credit bloggers as sources. On the surface, this seems like an uncontroversial idea. There are some damn good blogs out there and their reportage is the equal of any traditional media outlet. On the other hand, not all traditional media outlets are as good as they used to be, so that’s a pretty low bar. And for every good, well-run blog, there are 10 million hacks like me.
The nut of this usually centers on the notion of credibility. No doubt that’s important, but the issue is as much about technology and a rapidly changing society as it is about credibility.
“The News” – with a capital “N” – is being pulled every which way by dozens of brand new technologies becoming obsolete as we speak. Sadly, newspapers and magazines are in their death throes. Uncle Walter’s nightly news has been supplanted by the Giant Screaming Heads on cable. As they shout into the ether, their day is coming to an end too – even if they don’t know it yet. Heck, even blogs, despite AP’s big leap into the future, are on the way to the dust bin. The abomination that is Twitter – operated by drunken Hollywood starlets or pinned-down insurgents in 140 character bursts – is the new wave of media. I expect news via telepathy in 10 years … no, let’s make that 6 months.
Oops, there it is now.
Oooo, I Gotta Have That
Our society has a great affinity for the new and the splashier and faster, the better. This is what drives cable companies to tout Internet service that saves milliseconds over DSL. Heaven forbid we have to wait another second to see which jail LiLo has checked into now. The rapid pace of technology has far outpaced the human ability to use it wisely.
There’s no longer anyone that isn’t part of the media – not withstanding Rush Limbaugh‘s and Sean Hannity‘s claims they aren’t. The impact of an Anderson Cooper, Brian Williams, Gene Robinson, or even (Dear God) Bill O’Reilly is big, but at a fire or flood or in a war zone, a scared kid Twittering and sending live video from his iPhone can be bigger.
It seems we’ve lost sight of the nature of news and failed to realize that a little time delay is sometimes a good thing. It gives humans time to digest information at a comfortable pace, rather than being distracted by their perpetually attached Bluetooths (Blueteeth?) It gives reporters time to collect their information and thoughts and news consumers time to actually understand what they’re absorbing.
Pffft, What Does the AP Know?
I don’t know if AP’s decision is a good or a bad thing – and I don’t think they do either. Their journalistic bell is being beat silly with a hi-tech, six-axis, robotically-controlled hammer … installed in a cellphone. Lost in all that God-awful racket is the other dimension of the issue – credibility.
What the hell constitutes as good blog? How reliable is reliable? Are they credible because some government official tells them so or does the AP reporter have to run a fancy checklist to see if the blog owner is on the up and up. Does he have to find at least 5 blogs that all say the same thing to before he can cite them?
Those are pretty tall orders for a reporter in search of news that’s spread around dozens of blogs at the speed of light, each with a particular ax to grind, and that change in real time to the “facts” on the ground. By the time the fact checking is done, the story is already over and we’ve all moved onto the next catastrophe du jour or Hollywood breakup.
Credibility? Yeah, we have an app for that.
A big tip of the hat to Jr. Poobah Ari Cohn for the idea for this post.
WHAT'S THE DIFF? - With today's oversaturated media market and constant demands for more and more entertainment, the news has become just one more Big Show.
Americans are an easily bored lot. We demand everything be ripe with entertainment possibilities. We’re a nation addicted to 24X7, 500-channel television – which we nevertheless claim has nothing worth watching – on which we gorge ourselves on a never-ending supply of reality shows promoting the most fame-crazed and mentally defective of us to open their lives in the most voyeuristic fashion. Real life made unreal by the millions of gawking rubberneckers tuning in.
And, the most unrealistic reality shows are the news shows.
Television news was once a place where networks expected to lose money on the public service of covering the news. Now ratings make newsrooms just like any other Disneyesque entertainment outlet. The Edward R. Murrow/Walter Cronkite newsroom was a place where serious people investigated serious topics, regardless of their inherent profitability. Today, there’s little distinction between the Daily Show bullpen and the CNN newsroom.
Once profit became the news’ primary MO focus-grouped, ratings-pregnant drivel stepped in as a sort of news lite where interviews are ‘booked’ and ‘talent’ eggs on the most disgraceful, but oh so entertaining, shout-fests. As much as everyone likes to complain about the ‘mainstream media’ – which is curiously deemed both too liberal and too conservative at the same time – we’ve got no one to blame except our infamously Nielsen-rated selves.
Because of our national, self-absorbed entertainment obsession, we’re killing the geese that laid our golden First Amendment eggs. We’ve abandoned print media altogether. Once-vibrant publications like Newsweek are going the way of the dodo because of the printed page’s inability to adapt to our real-time, excitingly manufactured, multimedia entertainment extravaganza demands.
But even e-media is slipping away. We’ve begun sucking the marrow from infotainment’s bones and it’s not long on this Earth because of it. Real TV news has been supplanted by screaming mimis like Glenn Beck. Even the ‘serious’ Sunday news programs are pale imitations of professional wrestling – all faux drama and glittery costumes bumptiously pontificating on the national debt or latest job numbers. We’ve molded the news to our ravenous need for entertainment and are in a rapidly quickening race to put it out of business too. It seems that as we’ve consumed reality shows like Big Brother we’ve unwittingly given ourselves over to Orwell’s Big Brother…
…and become a nation of scandal junkie couch potatoes minus the skills to tell the difference between Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart.
