Media Criticism

Hello everyone,
I just wanted to quickly say thank you to everyone who has read this blog over the last nine months. I am leaving Media Criticism to another writer who can devote more time to posting on the good and bad in media. My other writing projects have piled up, I am teaching in the fall and I am planning other projects that allow my critical side to get some fresh air. Thanks again and I wish all of you the best.

Sincerely,
Nick

Hello all,
I will not be posting until Thursday, April 24th. I have several projects that are wrapping up in the next week that need extra attention. I will return on the 24th with new posts about alternative media.

Nick

I have always wondered what my city’s CW affiliate would look like if it had a news component. I am sure it would be filled with earnest discussions of politics, social issues and foreign affairs that would only be found in the cloisters of academics and intellectuals. In all honesty, I know that CW 18 in Milwaukee would have an hour long news cast between re-runs of Scrubs and Frasier that would make the morning zoo crew look like a Congressional committee. I may be able to find out what CW News at 10 will look like due to the Federal Communication Commission’s recent move toward increased cross-ownership.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has spearheaded a move to make the filters against media conglomeration nothing more than a failing symbol of American media integrity. Martin released new rules dictating exceptions to media mergers with a press release on November 13th. These rules would make presumptions to planned mergers more likely to succeed based on a looser interpretation of public interest. Most reports on Martin’s press release and the recent vote by the FCC have said that a limited number of markets would be affected based on these rules. Concerned media watchers like the Consumer Federation of America’s Mark Cooper feel that most markets will be influenced negatively by these rules.

I hope that my CW station does not have a local news component. I also hope that Journal Communications which runs the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel does not grow in its involvement in local media. The consolidation of media is dangerous because competition is vital in weeding out bad information. If a few companies own a majority of the media outlets, they can dictate the news that people rely on in their daily lives. I hate to be cynical about a hypothetical situation but I loath supporting media conglomeration by business owners with a political interest.

I was scouring through the magazine rack at a local bookstore this past week and came across a British publication called Monocle. The splashy photos, digestible articles and mixture of the superficial with the complex appealed to me. I must admit that my search for magazines on a weekly basis is as much to find potential gift ideas for friends and family as it is a way to expand my horizons. Nonetheless, I came across an interesting article in the magazine about a pioneering Dutch newspaper called NRC Next.

I have conducted a bit of research on the Dutch newspaper market and come across a competitive marketplace that is deep and wide in terms of quality. Monocle’s article raises the question of the sanity of editor Hans Nijenhuis in his efforts to break into the Dutch newspaper world. I enjoyed reading the article because the entire staff seems to be taking a blogging and online approach to print media that could shake up the nation’s staid journalism.

One example of NRC Next’s intrepid approach to the daily newspaper came last month with a typical story of murder and intrigue. Longstanding newspapers in the Netherlands pasted pictures and details about the murder all over their pages in an effort to feed the public sensationalistic stories under the guise of public information. NRC Next provided a small mention deep in the pages of their paper and provided an additional box the next day providing a self-reflective view of the Dutch media’s coverage. The remarkable thing about NRC Next’s rising success is that it shares office space and resources with major newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

NRC Next has 55,000 subscribers and 30,000 additional readers on a daily basis. This number is relatively small but it takes small steps to take a nation’s media by storm. We need newspapers and other print publications to take a serious approach to criticizing media practices from within. I know that plenty of people love The Daily Show but it is a comedy show, not a serious effort at journalism. If you don’t believe me, read every interview with Jon Stewart over the last five years. NRC Next and other endeavors that boil the news down into something digestible and usable for young professionals will see a growth in their market share because people want information. The traditional media is not providing the coverage necessary for people to act on a daily basis and the blogosphere is unreliable due to the vitriol of most writers (myself included at times).

The religious conservatism that arose in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan and in the 1994 Republican revolution promised an increasing role for leaders like Gary Bauer. Bauer failed in 2000 to gain the Republican Party nomination and has focused his attention on affecting change on the party from the outside. This past weekend’s Values Voter Summit gave evangelicals an opportunity to listen to speeches by Republican candidates while leaders of the Holier-Than-Thou club met in private in their version of the smoke filled room.

The conference did not seem to accomplish anything that had not already been determined through televised debates and live events. Rudy Giuliani is a secular devil, Fred Thompson is a conservative, Mitt Romney is religious but the wrong kind of religious and so forth. The New York Times article discussing the Values Voter Summit mentions support among the brain trust for Governor Mike Huckabee which makes sense if value voters are solely concerned about their values.

One reason this type of conference does not work is that Christian conservatives are becoming increasingly irrelevant in politics. The ties of religious conservatives to President Bush at every step of his administration have been disastrous. American voters are worried about those stupid secular concerns like Social Security, health insurance and international affairs that diehard evangelicals are only loosely concerned with. The concentration of the eyes of the faithful toward what is wrong with American politics including the potential evils of two New York politicians gaining party nominations shows that evangelicals are guilty of politics as usual. Americans need to blend the good parts of their religious faith like justice and compassion with their political concerns when they vote for president.

The week-long visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York City has drawn the ire of media types throughout the city and the United States. The New York Post used its typical sensationalist language to condemn Ahmadinejad’s visit while the New York Times highlights protests for today’s address at Columbia University. I cannot believe that a weak president whose country is sinking quickly into depression and personally has the eyes of the entire world upon him will leave any significant mark on an American audience.

It is important for Americans to hear Ahmadinejad without the filter of the American and Iranian presses. Without the banners and cheering crowds carefully orchestrated by Iranian handlers, Ahmadinejad will resort to discussing the issues instead of spouting rhetoric. If he expects his call for the destruction of Israel to receive cheers from dignitaries, he will be lucky to walk away with a handful of boos from an otherwise shocked audience.

Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric is nothing unique and New York City residents in specific and Americans in general need to listen attentively to the Iranian president’s words. Iran is experiencing economic issues and the tense glare of world powers over Iran’s foreign policy and weapons manufacturing may help crack Ahmadinejad’s demeanor on hostile turf. Ahmadinejad may be a bad man and a terrible leader but America needs to realize that we have already fought our war in the Middle East. The Republican media machine is not dissimilar from the Iranian media machine and it is important for America to realize that its politics are nearly as reactionary. This week will come and go without incident except for the extraordinary traffic associated with his visit.

The people who read this blog are probably sick of me talking about the Democratic debates, the 2008 election and other aspects of politics that are fueled entirely by the media. I even get sick of these diatribes but I think I have given myself the unintentional mission of ending the long primary process once and for all, one blog at a time. To fuel this fire, the awful trio of the Huffington Post, Yahoo! and Slate are putting on a unique debate and a “mashup�? tool that allows people to put individual answers together into their own package. Here is a little bit more detail on the debate from the New York Times:

Here’s how it works: Charlie Rose is hooking up by satellite individually from his studio in New York with each of the eight Democratic candidates, who are scattered across the country. He’ll question them each for 12 minutes on three topics _ Iraq, health care and education. There will also be a “wild card�? question.

According to all three sponsors, these answers will be available on Friday through each website. The “mashup�? tool will also be available to help political and technological nerds the opportunity to get involved in yet another debate.

Marc Lampkin makes a good point in his latest post on the Huffington Post, a liberal blogging website headed by Arianna Huffington. Lampkin discusses the use of the “mashup�? tool as a way for people to hear what they want to hear from each candidate. Yahoo!, Slate and the Huffington Post should know better. This is already what the mainstream media does to candidates particularly the minor candidates who only make it on the news when they make a gaffe or do something silly.

If the Internet-using public is indeed tired with politics as usual and poor media coverage for their candidate, they should not resort to the “mashup�? tool. Instead, they should search for unabridged audio, video and written transcripts of their speeches to hear what they are saying around the country. Lampkin’s final point is that we will hear more of the same which makes a “mashup�? of what Obama, Clinton or even Kucinich or Gravel useless. Let’s stop pretending like high-tech gadgets and tools are really going to improve the process until we are actually ready to change the process in Washington D.C.

I always find it troubling when the media participates in raising false hope when an abduction or natural disaster occurs. This has happened with mine troubles out in Colorado and West Virginia over the past few years with talking heads spending hours bandying about conjecture under the guise of keeping hope alive. The disappearance of adventurer Steve Fossett on Monday has led to a week’s worth of stories stating that wreckage was found that was likely linked to Fossett.

The most difficult part of this type of disappearance is that there is no rhyme or reason to it. Steve Fossett has gone around the world in a balloon and a number of other daring feats that make a three hour flight seem routine. The press pushes local police departments and search teams for details in order to glean something newsworthy from their hopeful words. If Steve Fossett is found dead, the media as an institution will be happy because they can eulogize this great man without discussing the series of stories that built up the nation for a fall.

I don’t think this type of information is worth more than a few minutes each day on the news to update the public on the situation. Police crews, state search and rescue crews and family members will conduct their search without the help of the public. In fact, they should be given a wide berth to make their search without interference by the media or prying eyes. Cable networks and news papers are just showing their voyeuristic nature when they cover Steve Fossett’s disappearance endlessly.

By now, you have seen the hot “buzz�? video of August 27th. Miss South Carolina gets a question, A.C. Slater holds the microphone and tries not to laugh and the young lady proceeds to mess up about as bad as you possibly can. She refers to Americans as “U.S. Americans�? and mixes up South America and South Africa. At least I think she does, I have no idea what she is talking about.

It is appropriate that she got a question stating that most American students cannot identify the United States on a map. I think this irony is self evident but Miss South Carolina may have accidentally done a major service to public education. I just wish this happened as the YouTube debates took place among the Democrats. A user could have just played this clip and let the Democrats speak to public education issues.

I hate to pile on people and she clearly was flustered and rehearsed something that she was unfamiliar with. I do think that the tone of the press coverage was more “take a look at this…�? with a smirk than actual news which is only designed to increase the snark factor that the public seems to enjoy. In the end, her inability to put together a cohesive argument and properly identify people may have given public education proponents enough material to spring back to the fore.

I am disappointed in former New York Giants running back and current NBC Sports analyst Tiki Barber. When he announced his retirement last fall during the regular season, I thought it was a smart move. Intelligent guys like former Viking Robert Smith and Barber clearly understand that football is only one part of a person’s life no matter what coaches and fans say. If I knew what Barber would do with his newfound media influence, I would have sided with football pundits who said that Barber’s retirement was a massive distraction.

Tiki Barber criticized New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning for a lack of leadership in their ill-fated playoff run last season. He went as far as saying that a players-only meeting Manning held mid-season was hilarious instead of inspiring. Manning has fired back saying that he can’t wait for Barber to speak on NFL issues outside of his former team while feigning disinterest in his former teammate’s remarks.

I write this entry with some trepidation because I think sports and religion share something in common. Football fans and parishioners should keep their devotion in their particular spheres while keeping their personal beliefs out of the public eye. It is bad enough we have 24 hours news networks that don’t cover the important stories but we have 24 hours sports networks that generate hyperbole and blustering only matched by Sunday political chat. I thought Tiki Barber was going to do legitimate news stories but it turns out he is just another former athlete bringing their machismo to the sports desk.

The coming of the NFL season will not whitewash over the issues facing this dominating presence in American culture. Michael Vick is a dog killer, Adam “Pac Man�? Jones is a malcontent and the Tiki Barber/Eli Manning feud will continue as Barber is given license to say what he wants. If Tiki Barber actually wants to do his job in the media, he should be providing adequate analysis instead of banal gossip worthy of a junior high sleep over. For now, he is more appropriate for a bad Spike TV sports show than network television because of this pissing contest.