"Let's not pretend they're a news network," White House communications director Anita Dunn said of Fox News on CNN's "Reliable Sources." "Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party."
Fox News does cover stories that no one else does, it is true. Van Jones was out the door by the time CNN decided to cover it. The National Enquirer reported on John Edwards' affair before any other mainstream media outlet. Maybe even Anita Dunn is angry because Fox is the only network to show the clip of her stating that her favorite philosopher is Mao Tse-Tung, the Chinese communist leader who killed tens of millions of people in his bloody revolution.
Of course, Fox News also broke the news of George Bush's DUI charge on the eve of his election. Not exactly something a communications wing of the Republican party would do, is it?
Fox News breaks stories, they ask tough questions and they do so relentlessly. They go after both parties on both their hard news and their commentary programs. Their commentary is colorful but anchors like Shep Smith just give the facts. Occasionally those facts are damning to those in power and that's the reporting that we must always protect.
It's refreshing to see that some in the journalistic field are telling the President to drop the attack on Fox. People and organizations I rarely agree with like Helen Thomas and The LA Times have all come out and told the White House to stop beating on Fox, if only for the fact that they have nothing to gain from it.
Fox, for their part, probably wishes the beating to continue. Ratings have been up 8% since the dust-up started and commentators like Beck, Hannity, and O'Reilly are all counter-punching.
Regardless of how it plays out, it is good to know that politicians cannot intimidate news outlets. I don't want Republicans threatening MSNBC any more than I want Democrats threatening FOX. People can watch whatever news program they like and ignore the others but Obama is the President of every man, women and child in the US whether you like him or not. It's important that everyone gets an opportunity to have their say and leave it to the viewer to decide.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Balloonatics
I hate personal interest stories.
If a celebrity dies or a bizarre story pops up you can be sure you will hear about it on every new program on every channel and it will linger on for days. The problem with these personal interest stories are that they don't give you information that is useful to you. If Congress is voting on a bill or the President is giving speeches about an issue, it may eventually affect you. As an informed citizen, you might feel the need to learn about that issue and either support or oppose it.
News programs defend their decision to run these stories, saying that they get high ratings. Although everyone complains about hearing about Michael Jackson every night for a month, they still watch. It draws in not only the regular watchers but also the lookie-loos who's closest brush with news is paging through the Enquirer at the grocery store checkout line.
The latest of these personal interest stories is "Balloon Boy". Unless you've been living under a rock you already know the general story. Homemade balloon flies away, boy is supposedly inside and flying thousands of feet in the air, balloon lands, kid is not inside, kid was hiding in attic all along. And then there was the breaking news that the parents knew all along that the kid was not in the balloon and that they had actually planned this as a stunt to get a reality TV show.
The balloon boy even threw up on national TV during the debacle. The Heene family's neighbors, who comforted them while the balloon was in the air, are reportedly furious about the deception. When police seized the Heene's computer they found two theme songs Heene had recorded for his new potential reality shows:
"When you want to learn the mysteries of how things work
Weather, the planets, the whole universe.
Tune into the show, that's really effective
Watch Richard Heene -- Science Detective!"
"If you need it built or fixed,
There's just one man to pick ...
That's Richard Heene ... contractor!"
Apparently Richard Heene thought that "losing" his son temporarily in a hot air balloon was enough to make him a "Science Detective." One wonders what the son would have had to endure to give his father bona fides to be a contractor.
Maybe there is an important story buried among this nonsense. People are willing to date Flavor Flav, eat horse testicles, and be stranded on a desert island all for the privilege of being marginally famous. Now it seems people are willing to train their children to lie to Wolf Blitzer, throw up on live TV, and alienate their neighbors for the chance to be marginally infamous. One is just foolish and the other is obviously over the line. But they are not borne of different desires, they are only differentiated by magnitude.
America needs to remember that fame did not solve the problems of Freddie Prinze, Jim Morrison, Jimmi Hendrix, Janis Joplin or Kurt Cobain. Lasting happiness must be found in our occupations, families and friends. When pursuit of fleeting acknowledgment puts those things in risk, one has truly lost his way.
If a celebrity dies or a bizarre story pops up you can be sure you will hear about it on every new program on every channel and it will linger on for days. The problem with these personal interest stories are that they don't give you information that is useful to you. If Congress is voting on a bill or the President is giving speeches about an issue, it may eventually affect you. As an informed citizen, you might feel the need to learn about that issue and either support or oppose it.
News programs defend their decision to run these stories, saying that they get high ratings. Although everyone complains about hearing about Michael Jackson every night for a month, they still watch. It draws in not only the regular watchers but also the lookie-loos who's closest brush with news is paging through the Enquirer at the grocery store checkout line.
The latest of these personal interest stories is "Balloon Boy". Unless you've been living under a rock you already know the general story. Homemade balloon flies away, boy is supposedly inside and flying thousands of feet in the air, balloon lands, kid is not inside, kid was hiding in attic all along. And then there was the breaking news that the parents knew all along that the kid was not in the balloon and that they had actually planned this as a stunt to get a reality TV show.
The balloon boy even threw up on national TV during the debacle. The Heene family's neighbors, who comforted them while the balloon was in the air, are reportedly furious about the deception. When police seized the Heene's computer they found two theme songs Heene had recorded for his new potential reality shows:
"When you want to learn the mysteries of how things work
Weather, the planets, the whole universe.
Tune into the show, that's really effective
Watch Richard Heene -- Science Detective!"
"If you need it built or fixed,
There's just one man to pick ...
That's Richard Heene ... contractor!"
Apparently Richard Heene thought that "losing" his son temporarily in a hot air balloon was enough to make him a "Science Detective." One wonders what the son would have had to endure to give his father bona fides to be a contractor.
Maybe there is an important story buried among this nonsense. People are willing to date Flavor Flav, eat horse testicles, and be stranded on a desert island all for the privilege of being marginally famous. Now it seems people are willing to train their children to lie to Wolf Blitzer, throw up on live TV, and alienate their neighbors for the chance to be marginally infamous. One is just foolish and the other is obviously over the line. But they are not borne of different desires, they are only differentiated by magnitude.
America needs to remember that fame did not solve the problems of Freddie Prinze, Jim Morrison, Jimmi Hendrix, Janis Joplin or Kurt Cobain. Lasting happiness must be found in our occupations, families and friends. When pursuit of fleeting acknowledgment puts those things in risk, one has truly lost his way.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Obama Does In 12 Days What Gandhi Couldn't Do In 78 Years!
The Nobel Peace Prize has been given to such greats as Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. It has also been given to such not-so-greats as Jimmy Carter, Yasser Arafat and Mikhail Gorbachev, to say nothing of Al Gore. But never before has it been given to a blank slate and that is what the Norwegian Parliament did when they gave it to Barack Obama.
Consider that the nominees had to be in by Feb. 1, when Obama had only been in office 12 days. It was humorous to see liberal pundits try to defend the decision. While a few insisted that closing Guantanamo, which Obama did on his first day in office, was sufficient most claimed that he had revitalized the feeling of hope in the world. Even Obama himself seemed dubious in his acceptance speech that this supposed revitalization of hope was sufficient to receive the prize.
In contrast, Reagan freed hundreds of millions of people from the iron grip of the Soviet Union and never received the prize. Gandhi liberated India and won self-determination for what is now the largest democracy in world by solely non-violent means and also never received it.
This is truly the cult of self-esteem taken to its inevitable and laughable conclusion. He made the rest of the world feel good about America again! He doesn't need to DO, he INSPIRES. And that he does. He inspires North Korea to fire missiles at Hawaii. He inspires the Taliban to ramp up the violence in Afghanistan to make the politically difficult (to Obama) decision to send more troops even more difficult. He inspires Iran to go nuclear while the United States insists countries like France and Germany give up their armaments.
But he hasn't inspired our allies to send more troops to Afghanistan. He hasn't inspired the Olympic Committee to pick Chicago. He hasn't inspired the American people that the same government that does everything half as well and at twice the cost of the private sector can run national health care.
Even giving Obama the credit of his full term so far, he is muddling through the economy, race issues (illustrated by the Gates affair), health care, Iraq and Afghanistan. At best, these are all unresolved issues; at worst, they are all worse now than they were a year ago.
If we remain on this path, by the end of his term we will be no more of a world power than Norway is...
...Oh wait now I get it.
Consider that the nominees had to be in by Feb. 1, when Obama had only been in office 12 days. It was humorous to see liberal pundits try to defend the decision. While a few insisted that closing Guantanamo, which Obama did on his first day in office, was sufficient most claimed that he had revitalized the feeling of hope in the world. Even Obama himself seemed dubious in his acceptance speech that this supposed revitalization of hope was sufficient to receive the prize.
In contrast, Reagan freed hundreds of millions of people from the iron grip of the Soviet Union and never received the prize. Gandhi liberated India and won self-determination for what is now the largest democracy in world by solely non-violent means and also never received it.
This is truly the cult of self-esteem taken to its inevitable and laughable conclusion. He made the rest of the world feel good about America again! He doesn't need to DO, he INSPIRES. And that he does. He inspires North Korea to fire missiles at Hawaii. He inspires the Taliban to ramp up the violence in Afghanistan to make the politically difficult (to Obama) decision to send more troops even more difficult. He inspires Iran to go nuclear while the United States insists countries like France and Germany give up their armaments.
But he hasn't inspired our allies to send more troops to Afghanistan. He hasn't inspired the Olympic Committee to pick Chicago. He hasn't inspired the American people that the same government that does everything half as well and at twice the cost of the private sector can run national health care.
Even giving Obama the credit of his full term so far, he is muddling through the economy, race issues (illustrated by the Gates affair), health care, Iraq and Afghanistan. At best, these are all unresolved issues; at worst, they are all worse now than they were a year ago.
If we remain on this path, by the end of his term we will be no more of a world power than Norway is...
...Oh wait now I get it.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Big Bird Is Not Afraid To Ask The Tough Questions!
Just for grins, this is a clip of Michelle Obama on Seasame Street that late night talk-show host Conan O'Brien edited to comedic effect.
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