Media Curmudgeon

May 08, 2008

Note to Senator Obama

To: Senator Barack Obama
From: Charles Warner

My wife, Julia Bradford, and I have both ardently supported you since the beginning of your campaign when we attended your March, 2007, fundraiser in New York. We are maxed out in our contributions to your primary campaign to become the Democratic Party’s nominee and have given over $1,000 to your presidential campaign because we are convinced that you will be the nominee. I co-hosted a party that raised over $10,000 for your candidacy. We took a bus from New York to Philadelphia the Sunday before the Pennsylvania primary to canvas door to door for you in South Philadelphia.

We believe in you and are convinced you will be a president who America and the world will be proud of. We are convinced you will be a president who will tell the truth to the American people and begin to make some necessary changes that will help to repair America’s reputation internationally and help to save our precious environment.

We did not give Hillary Clinton a penny. Her mendacious, destructive, poorly managed, and pandering campaign has demonstrated how unfit she is to be president. We did not give your campaign money to see it go to her. If your campaign agrees to pay off any of her campaign’s debt in order to bribe her to get out of the race, you will have betrayed our trust in you and you will plummet to her unprincipled level in the gutter.

You have promised to change the ways of Washington politics. Stick to your promise. Don’t bribe her. Don’t give her a dollar – not a penny of our money. If you do, you will not only break your promise of change, you will also not get any more money from us or millions of other people, and, most importantly, you will lose the mantle of idealism and hope that attracted us to you in the first place.

Finally, idealism is nice, but realistically, you don't need to bail her out. You're going to win the nomination without bribing her. Save the money and invest it in beating McCain. We'll help if you keep our faith and the money we've already given you.

Charles Warner at 10:04 AM | Post Comments (0) | Print | Mail this entry

May 07, 2008

I Know You

Guest blogger Paul Talbot writes:

"I’ve found you, you pathetic fool. You are the whisperer. You’re the one with a lot to say but you don’t have the guts to come out and say it. You are doing everything you can to disrupt, derail and deride Barack Obama. But you just don’t have the guts to admit that you are afraid of him because he is black.

I’ve got your number and I’ve got your picture.

That’s you, isn’t it, 42 years ago, holding a copy of “Meet the Beatles,” beaming for the Memphis newspaper photographer, getting ready to sidearm the album onto the preacher’s bonfire.

That’s you, isn’t it, indignant because John Lennon compared his band’s popularity to that of your main apostolic man.

That wasn’t even your album. You stole it from your older sister because she told your parents she caught you whacking off in her closet.

And the only reason you showed up for the Beatles burning at that evangelical church was because you thought Linda Sue Morris would be there.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t. Linda Sue and two of her girlfriends told their parents they were going to a horse show. But they actually went to see Otis Redding.

That sad, intolerant church. It’s sure come a long way, hasn’t it? You’ve got that big video screen now and a sprawling parking lot just like the one at the Winn Dixie.

No, you back off, because I’m allowed to mock your so-called church. I’ve got the right. I was an Episcopal choirboy at St. Gabriel’s in Marion, Massachusetts, where, as part of our indoctrination to capitalism, we were paid to both rehearse and perform at services.

And had we known at the time, we wouldn’t have cared too much about our negro Senator banging Barbara Walters.

So, after you burned that Beatles album, after your stint with Nixon’s Young Republican goons trolling the hotel lobbies at the Miami convention for hot babes and getting nowhere, you sank into the kind of moral swamp your heroes Erlichman and Haldeman would have been proud of.

And today, you’re skulking out of your swamp to badmouth Barack. I’ve heard you and you’re not bad, you’re just credible enough to be dangerous.

But the caper’s up when you tell us we need to be drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to keep America strong and help our working families.

Ironclad, irrefutable proof that you just don’t get it. You don’t see that oil is soon to be yesterday’s news. Hay, oats.

And you don’t even see that the news, yesterday’s, today’s, whatever, well, that’s sort of yesterday’s news also. The news is something else now, and I’m not quite sure what kind of a label to slap on it.

But I know what kind of label to slap on you, you tawdry, shopworn, backwater cracker, yearning for some kind of approval, some kind of belonging, some kind of redemption.

Imagine.

If Otis Redding had performed on a different date, if you had a shot at Linda Sue Morris the night your church burned those Beatles records, there’s no telling how your politics may have turned out."

Charles Warner at 10:55 AM | Post Comments (2) | Print | Mail this entry

Steve Touhill at May 7, 2008 10:39 PM writes:

Oh, puh-leeze.

Labeling anyone who questions Obama's suitability as president as a bible-thumping, Hummer-driving racist wanker is syllogistic and brings you down to the level of the nut jobs who really do hate the man because he's black.

I can't stand Bush. I like the Beatles and Otis Redding and Jesus. But I still haven't made up my mind about who I want to be the next president of the United States. And it ain't because of his color.

Media Curmudgeon at May 7, 2008 01:57 PM writes:

Jesse Kornbluth writes:

"Lovely.

And Otis Redding: well chosen.

If you're not in the cult, consider: http://www.headbutler.com/music/otis_redding.asp"

May 05, 2008

NBC’s Kentucky Derby Coverage Was Not Yummy

NBC covered the Kentucky Derby like a state primary election – only worse. First, all the coverage leading up to the race was speculation about who might win, during the race it was about who was leading and coming on strong, and at the end of the race it was all about who won. The coverage deified the winner, once again reinforcing Vince Lombardi’s motto that “winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing,” and ignored the tragedy of the gutsy, overbred filly Eight Belles who ran herself to death.

Covering the tragedy might have been a bummer for Derby’s fast food sponsor, Yum Brands, and so NBC joined CBS in proving that it was in the advertising delivery business. Guess who NBC interviewed first after the obligatory rider-owner-trainer interviews and after the official winner was announced? Right, the CEO of Yum Brands, which has its corporate headquarters in Louisville. Of course it was more important to cover the sponsor than to cover the tragedy of Eight Belles and the issue of the greed and overblown ego of owners who over-breed their horses to give them the lungs and heart of an elephant and the ankles of a gazelle.

At least in covering a state primary election, the TV networks interview the candidates and supporters of whoever came in second and even third. At least they discuss to some degree the strategy for the race and even some of the major issues that might have led to the outcome. But I don’t recall even the most egregiously commercial of them conducting a multiple-question cream puff interview with an advertiser.

In the age of public-service-be-damned over-commercialization of the media, as especially television, the walls that used to exist between church and state (editorial and sales) have been demolished by profit-maximizing, greedy CEOs and their MBA, bean-counting minions.

For those who might remember the good old days when the integrity of the news or editorial product was more important than the feelings of an advertiser, and for those of you who can’t imagine that such a halcyon time ever existed, please read the following anecdote sent to me by Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter and author, Nick Kotz, after my previous blog about CBS being in the advertising delivery business.

“In 1967-68, long after I had written a long series of stories about abuses in the meat packing industry, someone at the Des Moines Register, where I was working then, sent me the copy of a speech that the late Frank Eyerly, managing editor of the Register, had made to the Register and Tribune's advertising department. In effect, he told them that they should be proud that the newspaper continued to publish the meat packing stories, even after one of the paper's largest advertisers – a meat packing company – had pulled its advertising in protest of the stories. The stories won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. But that's not the point. The point is that the news editors, backed by management, stood their ground, and then explained to the advertising department why this was a good thing and they should be proud of their paper's integrity. And never a word was ever mentioned to the reporter who wrote the stories. The editor didn't want me to know that the paper was getting economic retaliation. Those were the days.”

Maintain editorial integrity and risk pissing off advertisers. Try suggesting that to NBC’s CEO, Jeff Zucker. He won’t think it’s so yummy.

Charles Warner at 03:24 PM | Post Comments (1) | Print | Mail this entry

Jesse Kornbluth at May 7, 2008 12:50 PM writes:

Lovely.

And Otis Redding: well chosen.

If you're not in the cult, consider: http://www.headbutler.com/music/otis_redding.asp

May 02, 2008

Call Me Irresponsible

The song “Call Me Irresponsible” was written in 1962 by Jimmy Van Husen and Sammy Cahn for Judy Garland to sing at a CBS dinner to celebrate her upcoming variety show and to poke fun at herself for being flaky. Later that year Frank Sinatra recorded it for his “Sinatra’s Sinatra” album and it became one of Old Blue Eyes’ biggest hits.

I claim to “write about the media – the good, the bad, and the irresponsibly ugly.” But being ugly and irresponsible depends on what you stand for and where you sit.

I was proud to have worked at CBS in the glory days of CBS News in the late 1960s and early 1970s and for NBC in the middle and late 1970s when Julian Goodman, former head of NBC News, was Chairman of NBC, then owned by RCA. I believed that broadcasting was about serving a community’s and the public “interest, convenience, and necessity” – it was a public trust first and profits are what allowed a broadcasting company to survive, thrive, and serve. When I was the general manager of radio stations, I believed that entertainment programming (primarily music) was a confectionary topping that made the medicine of news and editorials palatable – yes, we did editorials in those days and even endorsed candidates for local office (CBS and NBC were too timid to let the general managers endorse candidates for national office).

Starting in the late 1980s I was proud to teach for 10 years at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, the country’s first journalism school. I taught management, sales, and media economics courses that emphasized the concept that the goal of management and sales was to deliver revenue and profits in order to sustain the media’s mission as a public trust and serve as a vitally important vehicle for informing the polity so it could make good decisions about its government and its leaders – to protect our democracy, in other words.

Thus, for the media to be responsible, it meant that it must keep the public reliably informed about important issues, in my public-trust view.

But in the 1980s, the media industry was invaded by MBAs who were taught in America’s graduate business schools that they were primarily responsible to media owners, stockholders, to maximize their wealth – to maximize shareholder value. Agency theory and free market theory posted that managers were surrogates for stockholders, and that self-interest, as opposed to public interest, was proper because it lead to market efficiency.

These theories led to deregulation of the media, manager greed, disastrous mergers, conglomeration, unconscionably astronomical media executive pay, and celebrity news – to news as porn.

Thus, for the media to be responsible, it means that it must maximize the wealth of media executives and faceless institutional investors – the public be dammed – in the maximize-shareholder-value view. Or, as Marie Antoinette was incorrectly attributed as saying, “let them eat cake.” Or, as CBS CEO Les Moonves might say, “Let them watch ‘Survivor.’”

So, who’s irresponsible, the public-trust-first (PTF) people or the maximize-shareholder-value-first (MSVF) people? You know who’s right, but the MSVF people are winning and will continue to win as long as you watch television – the biggest offender.

Turn off your TVs and click on ads on The Huffington Post or JackMeyers.com, ad-supported websites where this blog appears, so that advertisers will know that in order to reach a very smart, well-educated, group of gorgeous people with high incomes, they have to buy advertising on sites that appeal to us.

Charles Warner at 03:41 PM | Post Comments (2) | Print | Mail this entry

Media Curmudgeon at May 5, 2008 11:09 PM writes:

Bruce Braun writes:

"You bring a tear to the eye...memories of earlier days at CBS, at least for me.

Joining CBS in 1972, I at least had a glimpse of what you loved about the 1960's there and was there for what happened next. On my first day in September of 1972, I really believed that I had joined the greatest broadcasting company on the face of the planet. I was humbled by what I believed was the true honor of being accepted into that company. I arrived at about the time equivalent to the Barbarians marching into Rome.
I wonder if Paley really ever thought about the "public interest, et.al" or if it was really coming from those around him: Stanton, Murrow, and the army of journalistic giants. Paley was a 1920's & 30's version of a trust-fund baby playboy. It was his father who had the cash and provided the money to launch young Bill and enabled is living large life-style.

After all, it was Frank Stanton who I thought really crafted the CBS image. It was Stanton who fought off the politicians and not Paley. If Paley was the founder, it was Stanton that made it all happen.

It was Paley who dumped Stanton after 40 years of service when he turned 65. It was Paley that cowed the board to make him the only exception to the (at the time) mandatory retirement age of 65.
It was Paley who became obsessed with achieving Wall Street acceptance and hired Arthur Taylor, the asshole beancounter from First Boston, who wore a homburg to look more mature.

It was Taylor that began hiring his army of beancounters and MBA's to create "processes" within CBS, while Paley stood idly by. Everything in CBS was then viewed through the lens of its profit potential and "exploitability".

It was Taylor who decided and Paley who went along with making CBS News a "Profit Center". Prior to that, CBS News was only responsible for delivering a world-class news product and was never a revenue generator in the same way as the entertainment or stations division folks were. There was NO connection or influence between news and entertainment. I think you call that journalistic integrity.

It was Paley's greed and business ego that allowed the walls to come down and news become just another division to deliver quarterly profits. Taylor was certainly no Stanton and without any prior experience in broadcasting. He was oblivious to what his actions started and the potential consequences might be. Standing up to big Tobacco or the government was not on the agenda anymore.

Taylor was the Mrs. O'Leary's cow of broadcasting. He kicked over the lamp that started the fire that burned down quality journalism and bred the Les Moonves, and Jeff Zucker's of broadcasting today.
It was Paley who eventually sold out to Larry Tisch for the bag of golden coins. When you think about it, Moonves and Redstone truly are just like Paley was."

Jesse Kornbluth at May 2, 2008 04:20 PM writes:

Is this a watershed moment?

For years, I have asked: Why do TV and advertisers court the red state, low-income audience? These people may be wonderful, but as a group, they're a month away from losing their credit cards. On the flip side.... Latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, Commie blue-staters --- you may not want to have a beer with them, but at least they can still buy stuff.

But year after year, with the exception of Apple advertising, the same vulgar programming and right-wing commentary and insulting commercials.

Now Charlie proposes that we vote with our feet --- click with our mouse, to be precise --- and take our business elsewhere. Well, why not? Were you getting the real news from [fill in the network blank?]?

April 28, 2008

CBS Confirms Its Business Model

When CBS bought the billboard company, International Outdoor Advertising, last week, it confirmed that it was in the advertising delivery business and that its mission was to try to maximize profits for its shareholders. CBS thus distanced itself even further from the values of the CBS of Paley, Stanton, and Edward R. Murrow – a proud old CBS – in which serving the public good was a mission, or at least a consideration.

This purchase occurred in the same week as the publication of former CBS newsman Roger Mudd’s well-reviewed book, The Place To Be: Washington, CBS, and the Glory Days of Television News. On the last page of the book, Mudd writes about the CBS News Washington Bureau: “We had no doubts about how good we were; we had no doubts about our values; we had no doubts that our mission was to cover the news without flattering or tricking the viewer. Most of us thought ourselves chosen. It was if we had been lifted up by a journalistic deity and dropped in the middle of the Washington bureau to serve our country by doing God’s work.”

In the glory days of CBS News Mudd appeared three times a day from the steps of the Capital reporting on the Senate filibuster debate over the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Today CBS is more about sugary fluff like whether Katie Couric will stick around for the inauguration and “The Big Bang” than about nourishing news and entertainment.

It’s ironic and telling that CBS is buying International Outdoor Advertising (IOA), a company that has no content except for advertising – a goal CBS and the other television networks obviously embrace as they steadily increase the number of commercials and crowd out content. It’s a vicious cycle: More commercials drive away viewers, which lowers ratings, which necessitates putting in more commercials to maintain profit levels, which drives away viewers, and so on until death do us part. Also, IOA is strong outside of the US and is moving to digital billboards – giant TV sets in other words.

Therefore, what CBS is doing is taking TV out of the living room and onto the streets of the world and putting nothing but commercial messages on the big screens. So if we get sick of the sugary fluff on TV at home and try to escape it by going outside, we are accosted by huge TV sets showing nothing but commercials. Heads they win, tails you lose. The move is perfect Orwellian doublethink by CBS CEO Les Moonves, who got a 29 percent raise for driving the stock down almost 40 percent and who believes “news is entertainment,” who probably believes that “war is peace,” and who is more than likely laughing up his cuff linked sleeves at Mudd’s notion of a journalistic deity dropping him and other newspeople in the middle of the Washington bureau to serve their country by doing God’s work.

God’s work, as everyone knows, is to make a profit by delivering advertising to the world.

Charles Warner at 11:00 AM | Post Comments (4) | Print | Mail this entry

Media Curmudgeon at April 28, 2008 05:52 PM writes:

I'm not against advertising per se, just too much of it -- all advertising, all the time.

I'm willing to enter into the bargain of being exposed to a reasonable amount of advertising in return for content I'm interested in, e.g. The New York Times website. I even enjoyed the Apple anti-Vista ads that ran two weeks ago on the site.

However, I prefer the NPR local station model (for me, WNYC) in which I hear a limited number of underwriting ads and donate a couple of hundred dollars a year during their fund-raising drives.

I'd donate that to the NY Times.com if it were a non-profit, which it is on its way to becoming.

Media Curmudgeon at April 28, 2008 05:44 PM writes:

Peter Amacher writes:

"I enjoyed this piece, as I do many of yours.
Advertising is one of the industries, along with finance, that have been growing at a 5% to 8% pace since the '50's, with dubious contribution to the general welfare. All industries, as you know,
have only briefly grown more than 3%.

Finance is now about 15% to 20% of GDP, advertising, I would guess is less than 2%. You would probably argue that advertising has done more harm to the general welfare than finance, and I wouldn't disagree. Both advertisers and financiers would obviously argue that their industries are essential to our prosperity, which is only partially true.

Every man, woman and tiny baby pays $500 -$800 per year for advertising, about $6,000 per year for finance. Hard to get the money out of those tiny babies."

Media Curmudgeon at April 28, 2008 04:21 PM writes:

Mr. B writes:

"The times are a changing. The IOA purchase is also interesting in the fact that Midtown is now connected via a wireless broadband net powered by routers on top of CBS owned billboards. Fire up your laptop in this zone and stay connected wirelessly from block to block as you are served a CBS Interactive custom homepage with paid ads. I guess it's time to go global

Bruce Braun at April 28, 2008 12:27 PM writes:

Last Saturday was the anniversary of Edward R. Murrow's birthday. He would have turned 100. The "Father" of CBS News, and along with Paley and Stanton, made CBS the "Tiffany's" of broadcasting. How did CBS News mark the occassion? Ed was given less than 90 seconds at the end of the weekend wasteland of the CBS Evening News Saturday night broadcast. The weekend anchor bunny "Kelly" dutifuly read her TelePrompTer script that sounded like they copied it from Wikipedia. If you go to the CBS News website, today, there is no mention of Murrow unless you dig down into the CBS Evening News page...well, you have to go hunting to find anything about Murrow. Kelly and her current co-workers do not have any role models or standard bearers of professionalism such as Murrow. Today, their standard bearers are Geraldo, Pat O'Brian, Mary Hart, Dr. Phil and Oprah. Professional training as working journalists takes a back seat to physical appearance, long legs in short skirts with CFM pumps and experience doing stories about celebrities going into rehab and paparazzi crotch shots of drunken celebutards. TMZ has become the new standard. Moonves is the personification of everything that is bad about television and news today. Les even pimps out his own trophy wife so they can collect two paychecks from Redstone. How long would the GM of one of the CBS owned TV stations be around if he was banging one of his station's female news anchors or reporters, while still being married? Those rules don't apply to Les and he has no sense of setting moral or ethical standards. Remember how he handled Imus? How much did that cost CBS because he bungled the matter? Moonves, really does understand his boss: "Show Me The Money". Forget any standards of morality, ethics or professionalism. Next corporate purchase for CBS: those annoying elevator TV monitors with commercials. Les gets the concept of an elevator pitch. He's turned CBS into nothing more than an elevator pitch.

April 24, 2008

Good News, Bad News

The good news is that The New York Times and reporter David Barstow have shown us, once again, why responsible journalism, as practiced by The Times, the Washington Post, and the The Los Angeles Times, provides a vital public service of keeping the polity informed.

Barstow’s story, “Message Machine: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand” in the Sunday, April 20, Times is a thoroughly researched, eye-opening investigative article that details how the Pentagon and the Bush Administration manipulated television network military analysts to push the administration’s pro-war, everything-is-great agenda for the Iraq invasion and occupation.

Not only were the TV analysts, mostly former generals, willingly manipulated by the Pentagon, but they were also not required by the networks to be transparent and reveal their conflicts of interest – their ties to lobbyists, consultants, and contractors desperate to get a piece of the war spending bounty.

The bad news is that even though the military analysts look bad – complicit and greedy – the networks look even worse – careless and duplicitous. The Times article by Barstow reminds us that we can’t trust television network news, especially FOX News, CNN, and MSNBC which were the most frequent users of the analysts.

I don’t know why we still delude ourselves by calling television “news” news. It isn’t news; it’s entertainment. Bill O’Reilly, Chris Matthews, Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, Katie Couric, Wolf Blitzer, Charles Gibson, Lou Dobbs, and Joe Scarborough are not journalists, they are entertainers. Like all entertainers, their goal is to be rich and famous. And to do so, they have to get noticed, they have to be outrageous, different, or cute, or, best of all, simplistically controversial and confrontational.

There is virtually no difference between these “news” entertainers and professional wrestlers. They all become popular by being over-the-top outrageous, fake, pumped up, overly made up tough guys who strut to a scripted “fight.” The animal ids of Americans have an increasing appetite for bloody fights and fighters – even in our politicians. It must be a reaction to collective frustration and anger at our powerlessness to make leaders and television executives care more about us than about themselves – their fame and wealth. Celebrity is the goal, not integrity. It’s Orwellian: Deception is truth; war is peace; entertainment is news.

There is one ray of hope. The Media Post Center for Media Research Brief reports:

"According to the Newspaper Association of America, new consumer research conducted by Clark, Martire & Bartolomeo and commissioned by Google, among people who research products and services after seeing them advertised in newspapers, 67 percent use the Internet to find more information, and nearly 70 percent of them actually make a purchase following their additional research.

John F. Sturm, NAA president and CEO, said '...newspaper advertising is incredibly effective in motivating consumers to make a purchase. This new study... demonstrates that print ads also drive people to conduct additional product research online.'"

This is the first good news I’ve seen about newspapers in over two years. The report suggests that a combination of newspaper and online advertising works best for advertisers, which might slow down the decline of newspaper advertising, thus allowing newspapers such as The New York Times, the Washington Post, and other great newspapers to survive as both print and online publications and to continue to serve the public interest and counteract the toxic, non-news entertainment of television.

Charles Warner at 11:29 AM | Post Comments (2) | Print | Mail this entry

Media Curmudgeon at April 25, 2008 05:24 PM writes:

Great comment, thanks. I like the notion of Jerry Springer as an anchor -- he was a politician and then I guess decided there was more money to be made and more job security in being an outrageous television personality. WMAQ-TV, the NBC owned-TV station in Chicago, tried to make him an commentator on the news, but journalist Carol Marin (I think that was her name) quit in protest. But that was a long time ago. I don't think there is any newsperson today who hs the integrity to do such a thing.

Adina Montgomery at April 25, 2008 05:05 PM writes:

Heck, I say we give Jerry Springer a 6pm national news anchor job. Could it be any worse than what we've got? Sadly, and this goes for all forms of news media, it is hard to be taken seriously in reporting the news when you *are* the news. Sort of a 'pot calls kettle black' scenario. Welcome to America in the 21st century.

April 20, 2008

My Conservative Friends Speak Out

I often post the comments and rants of my liberal friends, so in order to be fair, I want to post some comments and rants from my conservative friends.

Neil Derrough writes:

"Let's say that it was just found that John McCain had a long term friendship with David Duke. That he had supported Duke's past campaigns and had included him in his circle of advisers. And, when the press probed this relationship they were accused of sensationalizing and covering "dirty laundry". How much credit do you think that argument would get.

The messenger can be blamed for unfairness for covering Obama's past relationships but a rational public knows better."

Paul Atkinson writes:

"Obama was correct - that 45 minutes of "gotcha" questioning on the ABC debate was a waste of time.

But from a conservative's perspective, Obama's "fresh way of looking at real issues" inevitably involves three standard thrusts
1) virtually any economic or social ill affecting Americans today can and should be ameliorated by government action

2) the insurance, drug, mortgage and oil companies are the root of all evil and

3) it is an article of faith that income taxes must be raised on those who already pay 44-45% of every incremental dollar they earn in income taxes

When you examine Obama's positions, he emerges as an orthodox Democratic liberal. If he truly wishes to create a new paradigm for the 21st century, " the voter as victim" is not going to cut it.

Even Bill Clinton was willing to challenge the victimization rationale in the black community by ending "welfare as we know it" and was willing to acknowledge America's need to compete in a world of free trade."

Bruce Braun writes:

"We start by throwing out gerrymandering to protect incumbents that currently return 98% back to office every election cycle and impose term limits of not more than 12 years in the senate or congress or in combination. We limit the president and most governors, why not the rest of them.

Impose restrictions for no less than two years upon those leaving office from working for lobbying on behalf or representing any company that came before any committee they served upon. The executive branch and cabinet officers are prohibited from such employment and have been since Nixon left. Preclude ex-presidents from profiteering on their tenure by prohibiting any consulting or advising,etc for anyone for at least four years! Write all the books you want but learn to live on your presidential pension.

Eliminate congressional pensions and free healthcare during and after being in office. Make them pay for it, like everyone else. No more junkets all over the world so they can play junior secretaries of state or defense or free transport on military aircraft. No more free bumps to first class when flying commercial. No luxury rental cars or luxury cars paid for by taxpayers...limit them to Chevy Cobalts. And if you are arrested for drunk driving, getting a blowjob from an intern, wagging your weenie in a men's room, are caught performing an unnatural act with a 9 year-old boy or barnyard animal, you are suspended without pay until found innocent.

Once we take out the career hacks, coat-tailers (like Hillary) and all the perks and benefits, we will most likely have some folks who really are in the service of the public.

If only I were King!"

I am blessed to have so many friends with such diverse opinions -- it keeps me young.

Charles Warner at 09:10 PM | Post Comments (1) | Print | Mail this entry

Jesse Kornbluth at April 20, 2008 09:36 PM writes:

Mr. Derrough may be a genius at analogy, but I am a simple soul, who is only seeking --- I've said this before, I'll say it again --- for all candidates to get equal treatment in the media.

So, Mr. Derrough, let's cut to real questions, and, if you will, real answers.

l)John Kerry was hammered so intensely when he did not release tax returns of his rich wife that she subsequently did reveal much of her returns. Clinton has revealed how much her husband earned. Obama has revealed all. McCain refuses to offer a crumb of information about his wife's earnings. And the press seems not to care. Do you think that's right? If so, could you explain why?

2) If flag pins are important, shouldn't television newscasters and correspondents wear them?

3) Tim Russert, on Meet the Press, today said Obama would be attacked for not saluting the flag. He then showed a picture of Obama, hands at his side, taken at a completely different time. [See http://mediamatters.org/items/200804200001]. Did Tim Russert just legitimize the kind of Swiftboat charges we saw made in '04 against Kerry?

Specific answers, please, Mr. Derrough. As I say, I'm too stupid for metaphors and analogies...

April 19, 2008

Shame on ABC

Guest blogger Hank Lowenstein writes:

Shame on ABC

Wednesday night’s Democratic debate was the most shameful use of TV air time I have ever seen. First rate journalists like Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous used their stage at the Independence Center to sweep the major issues of our time off the table, and encourage the candidates to air their dirty laundry before the voters in Pennsylvania and the rest of the country. The idea that voters are truly concerned with “baking cookies” and what some pastor said in a church, instead of how they are going to pay their bills, get healthcare for their families and send their children to college, is insulting the intelligence of every citizen of our country. Any American who enters a voting booth next November, and casts their ballot based on race, religion, gender or age, deserves exactly what they get. We did not need ABC to add fuel to the fire in a race between the first woman and first African American to run for the presidency.

Gibson and Stepanopolous were clearly out to sensationalize the debate by fanning the flames of an already contentious campaign between Senators Clinton and Obama, and thereby cheated voters who tuned in to see and hear a discussion of real issues. ABC’s top people steered the candidates into a corner on Iraq as well, by asking for ironclad commitments about troop withdrawals. They also added fuel to the fire with regard to taxes, asking each candidate for a solemn pledge that they would not raise taxes on those earning less than $200 Thousand Dollars per year.

As a result of their myopic handling of the debate, Gibson and Stephanopolous cheated the American people, and the two candidates, from a real discussion of the monumental problems either will face if elected President.

Charles Warner at 12:06 PM | Post Comments (1) | Print | Mail this entry

Bruce Braun at April 19, 2008 02:11 PM writes:

Why is it that nobody seems to get what news coverage is about these days? It is not about Obama, Clinton or McCain. It is about the Gibson's and the Couric's of television news. It is about shameless self-promotion and making yourself and your on-air behavior the centerpiece of the news. And the candidates are just as shameless in their pandering to the voting public. Is it not obvious that Christmas has come early? Tell people what they want to hear (or what your pollsters tell you they want to hear) and the after being elected make endless excuses for why nothing is ever followed through on. Just think about the OJ SImpson coverage and what you see today will make more sense.

Obama Video

If you support Obama, you will love this video of him having some fun with the stupid questions asked by Gibson and Stephanopolis during the first 45 minutes of the ABC debate on Wednesday night.

If you are not an Obama supporter you probably loved the questions that were asked, so don't waste your time on the video.

Here's the video:

Charles Warner at 08:44 AM | Post Comments (0) | Print | Mail this entry

April 17, 2008

Responders

Mild-mannered guest blogger Michael Weiskopf turns into a liberal man of steel who jumps over tall issues when aroused by the evil media.

Neil Derrough battles him to a draw with the cold logic of a conservative who defends the media. Here is Derrough's response, followed by an impassioned comment on Wednesday's debate by Jesse Kornbluth, who seems to have captured the sense of most people who watched the debate. First, Derrough writes:

"Editorial judgment will always be second-guessed. It’s a part of journalism. It’s often difficult to explain why one story is covered and another one is not. In breaking news coverage it’s a relatively easy decision. It’s story selection in the so-called discretionary news category that causes much of the problem. Add to that the highly charged political atmosphere that is a part of covering a presidential race and you have the perfect environment for many of the news gathering conspiracy theories that plague us today. It’s with this backdrop that so much anxiety exists about news judgment.

As I see it, in the process of covering a presidential race one of the most critical things that must be explored is, who are these people running for the office? Some of this exploration is superficial or driven by political operatives. Cutting through what’s important and what’s not is the hard part. We must as consumers of this information decide how it will influence our opinion of the candidates. In that our opinion is laced with our own political leanings, objectivity is difficult.

After saying all that, I submit the Bosnia and “elitist” stories strike at the heart of who these candidates are. A case can be made that knowing as much as possible about the candidates in advance of the election may lead to a better understanding how the candidate would deal with the Geneva Convention issues mentioned. As imperfect as the process is, exploring the character, honesty and deep-rooted political beliefs of the candidates is one of the most important responsibilities of covering an election."

Kornbluth writes:

"I figured out what to do about ABC's shameful hosting of the Obama/Clinton debate.

I gave Barack $.

And , in the future, I'm going to TIME MY DONATIONS so I give THE DAY AFTER the MSM shits on him and us.

Money talks? I hope mine does."

The Media Curmudgeon followed Jesse Kornbluth's lead and gave the last few dollars left to max out my contributions to Obama.

And then Nick Kotz writes:

"As if to confirm your comments yesterday [on being sick of the campaign and its coverage and wanting to see the movie], read Rothschild of the Progressive today on last night's debate."

Keep stirring the pot, everyone!

Charles Warner at 11:23 AM | Post Comments (2) | Print | Mail this entry

Bruce Braun at April 17, 2008 01:17 PM writes:

Let's get real. There is not one person running for president that isn't a phony and a liar.

Each of them is trying to portray themselves as being in touch with the lunch-box Joe's of this country. Hah!

Do people with degrees from Ivy League Schools and the Naval Academy hang with community college types? Do people who knock down multi-million dollar annual incomes, travel by private or chartered jets, ride in limos, stay in luxury hotel suites, eat in the finest of restaurants, privately socialize with the mega-rich and mega-famous, have scores of assistants and support people have any conception of reality? Sure, they all came from somewhere that was not privileged to a large degree, but those experiences are just a fond memory and not a current reality.

How much cash do any of the candidates carry in their wallets? Do they even carry a wallet? When was the last time they paid for a meal with a personal credit card, gassed their car, bought groceries or wrote a personal check?

Spare us the bullshit about relating to the middle class...or any class other than the power class.

Sure, running for president isolates the leading candidates from the public to a degree. These folks have been living the good life from the first day they became a senator.

Bogus family recipes, drinking shots, attending churches pastored by whack jobs and never hearing the goofy sermons, shooting guns, dodging non-existent sniper fire....PLEASE!!! Are we all that naive or stupid to buy into the lame stories and ridiculous explanations? Or worse, excuse that behavior because the candidate is the one we are supporting?

These people are career politicians. Telling lies is second nature to them. Yet the press and the supporters of each candidate all delude themselves with even lamer rationalizations. Telling a lie is now referred to as: Misspoke, taken out of context, exaggerated, embellished or misquoted or my personal favorite: I was exhausted and confused about what I said....even though I said it five times earlier the same day in my stump speech.

These misstatements are LIES! Let's call them what they really are.

Where else but in this country can you be elected to represent your state, collect your paycheck every month and then go AWOL from your job for 18-24 months while you pitch what you hope will be your next big job? How about some new rules for those aspiring to higher political office? If you want to run for higher office, you have to resign from your current political office. No more job hunting on the taxpayer dime!

Jesse Kornbluth at April 17, 2008 11:56 AM writes:

Mr. Derrough seems to be a voter/commentator whose primary interest is character.

Perfectly valid.

We shall soon see if the MSM is as interested in probing John McCain's character as it is his Democratic rivals.

Or, for that matter, what he actually holds as positions.

It might be a fun exercise for readers of this blog to frame some questions the MSM might profitably ask.

Here's one for starters: You unequivocally oppose torture, yet you have not spoken against the recent revelations that the senior staff of the Administration plotted specific acts of torture --- and the President approved it. What is your real position?

You say you value habeas corpus. Yet you voted for the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which guts it for American citizens. What is your real position?

April 16, 2008

I Want To See the Movie

I’m so sick of the meaningless, trivial media coverage of the presidential candidates that I have stopped watching news on television (CNN and MSNBC and FOX are not television news, they are television entertainment) and reading political coverage online.

The media is covering the candidates like it covers Britney Spears and Jay Z, which gives me less intellectual nourishment on important current issues than I get physical nourishment from eating Pirate’s Booty.

I’m even getting tired of comedians (and this includes Maureen Dowd), trying to be funny at the expense of the candidates and to the detriment of meaningful issues. I can’t wait for the race for the nomination and for the election to be over. I’ll wait to find out why whoever wins does win when I see the movie or the HBO series.

The movie will tell the story in a highly dramatic way, and tell it with 20/20 hindsight that will explain how inevitable the outcome was. Denzel Washington will play Barack Obama, Meryl Streep will reprise her role in “The Devil Wears Prada” and play Hillary Clinton, and Clint Eastwood will walk on his knees and play John McCain. The casting can be done in advance because, no matter who wins, any one of those actors will look presidential.

I don’t want to go through the agony of watching the current destruction of the Democratic party or a continuation of the destruction of the Constitution by the Republican party. I just want it to be over. I want to see the movie.

Charles Warner at 02:31 PM | Post Comments (1) | Print | Mail this entry

bob hoffman at April 16, 2008 02:53 PM writes:

This is a great post. I couldn't agree more. Thanks, Charlie

April 15, 2008

Obama, Clinton, Arugula and Mindless Entertainment While Rome Burns

Guest blogger Michael Weiskopf writes:

Last Friday, Obama fed the media machine a sound bite that they have milked for five days with no immediate end in sight..Okay, so the talking heads are just doing their job...what a commentary on the state of public discourse and the game that politics is. Patraeous and Crocker testified last week but that wasn't where the prime time ratings were, nor where the highly charged emotional issues that drive ratings and sadly, elections as well.

On the Sunday morning talk shows, only Bob Schieffer ignored the Hillary Bosnia, Obama elitist story and attempted to have some kind of meaningful discussion with Gates and Pelosi on the war.

The question of whether Obama peaked too early or whether his recent loss of momentum and the resulting pile on of pundits is going to ruin his candidacy has yet to be answered..but it is a pretty good bet that the politics of Willie Horton and the Swift Boat strategy is what is driving a desperate Clinton campaign and regardless of success or failure, the democrats are on the brink of blowing it again.

More than 1.5 billion dollars will be spent on this election before it is over....the media industrial complex is the winner as long as the process continues. As long as meaningless incidents and "insensitive statements" by any candidate are distilled into entertainment continue masquerading as news, thoughtful voters yearning for meaningful discussion of issues of real consequence are the losers.

Charles Warner at 10:33 AM | Post Comments (5) | Print | Mail this entry

Jesse Kornbluth at April 16, 2008 08:09 AM writes:

Mr. Derrough has a point. And so does Justin Frank.

If it's legitimate journalism to probe Obama about "elitist" views, then it surely is legitimate to dig deeper about the Administration's top-level gutting of the Geneva Conventions.

One happened. The other didn't.

Perhaps Mr. Derrough could explain why.

Media Curmudgeon at April 16, 2008 12:20 AM writes:

Chris Warner writes:

"If they are swayed by profit driven populist media, are they thoughtful voters? I feel that thoughtful voters know who they will vote for, and the undecided wafflers in the margin are the focus of the ratings frenzy. Most of the country does not want to hear that that the Red Sox beat the Yankees again, or that there is a climate crisis and we are addicted to coal and oil. It amazes me that anyone could take seriously the absurd notion that Obama is an elitist, especially coming from the other candidates, who are both truly elitists. What a joke on media for falling into that trap.

Media Curmudgeon at April 16, 2008 12:18 AM writes:

Noted psychiatrist and author, Justin Frank, who in a move for solidarity against prejudice changed his middle name to Hussein, writes the following insightful comment:

"One other news item missed last week - or ignored by media - is the complicity of all White House staff - from Bush to Condi to Colin to Cheney to Ashcroft - in torture. What happened to that bombshell? And why doesn't Obama talk about that and ignore all this bitter and elite stuff?

Elite must stick in his craw, as he is anything but - in terms of looking down on people. But intellectually he is in the very elite group of people, and we need someone better/smarter than we are (at least than I am) to be president.

Finally, projection is such a dominant factor in political life: It is the elite calling Obama elite.

Best,
Justy Hussein"

Media Curmudgeon at April 15, 2008 05:00 PM writes:

Neil Derrough writes:

"The guest blogger who wants to dismiss the recent coverage of the Democratic primary as “meaningless incidents and insensitive statements” misses the importance of vetting the candidates. I have also been critical of much of the frivolous coverage of this election. But, I can’t call the Bosnia and elitist coverage frivolous. Both incidents provide real insight into the candidates. This is not a Swift Boat campaign. It’s not to just entertainment. The repetition of “talking heads” of these stories may be annoying but it should not trivialize the importance allowing this information to be brought forward."

Jesse Kornbluth at April 15, 2008 10:45 AM writes:

And it will continue until audiences vote with their clickers and leave.... 'twas ever thus.

The difference between then and now: thoughtful readers now have an alternative.

It seems to me that, in our own lives, we should encourage friends and family to flee TV --- and not just cable.

April 12, 2008

It’s Show Time At CBS

It’s show time at CBS, certainly not news time. CBS chairman and largest stockholder, Sumner Redstone, killed the notion that news and journalism were an important CBS heritage when he named show biz tyro Les Moonves, a former bit-part actor and TV entertainment executive, CBS’s CEO in 2005 when Redstone split CBS and Viacom into separate companies.

Moonves is a typical old-fashioned Hollywood mogul who believes that stars are the most important element in the success an entertainment program. He obviously believes that CBS’s showcase news broadcast, “The Evening News” is not a news program but an entertainment program – a show – which is why he lured Katie Couric away from NBC to be its anchor. He thought she would bring personality and show biz spark to the show. But the largely 65+ audience for “The Evening News” didn’t find perkiness a sufficient substitute for knowledge of current events or news judgment. The show’s ratings dropped to an even lower third place than before Cute Katie came on board.

CBS stock has dipped precipitously during Moonves’s tenure, as Wall Street sees little growth opportunities in a media company that depends almost exclusively on advertising revenue (TV network, TV stations, radio stations, outdoor, etc.), unlike other large media conglomerates that have multiple revenue streams. As ad dollars migrate to the Internet and as network TV ratings decline, the inevitable reduction in ad revenues will require drastic expense reductions in order to keep profits and the stock price from further declines. Therefore, Moonves has to cut news expenses, included Katie’s bloated $15 million salary.

Stockholders must wonder why she is making $15 million for being unsuccessful and why Moonves is paid even more (over $20 million) for being equally as unsuccessful. But in Mooves’s case, he’s got excellent company among media executives who are given outrageously, unconscionably large compensation packages for doing a terrible job for their stockholders – Barry Diller, Dick Parsons, Jeff Bewkes, Arthur Sulzberger, and on and on. So to keep his pay up in the clouds, Moonves, has to blame someone, so he blames Cute Katie, not himself, of course, for making such a stupid decision in the first place.

He’s also rumored to be trying to outsource news to CNN. Why not? Paying $7 million a year for a news bureau in Baghdad and then not using a package from Baghdad on “The Evening News” is a huge waste of money, which Moonves is well aware of. So why not combine news bureaus in order to reduce expenses? In fact, why not just eliminate CBS News entirely and have a bundle, which is what he has been rumored to be considering.

Here’s what Moonves could do to preserve profits and his job: 1) Eliminate CBS News – close all bureaus, terminate all personnel, and sell all equipment and assets associated with news – a big one-time charge, but good for future profits, which Wall Street would like. 2) Eliminate “The Evening News” and give that time back to local affiliates, including the CBS owned TV stations. This move would increase the revenue at local stations that could sell the time locally and improve the time-period ratings with game shows or reruns, which are badly beating “The Evening News” in the ratings. It would also give Moonves a good excuse for firing Cute Katie, who would save face and be able to say, “It was not my fault.” 3) Spin off its popular “60 Minutes” into a separate company that could produce investigative programs not only for CBS but for other networks, especially cable networks. 4) Create a CBS News cable channel on which it would run its library of old news programs such as “60 Minutes,” Edward Morrow’s “See It Now” and “Person to Person,” “CBS Reports,” and “The Evening News With Walter Cronkite.” 5) Cancel the third-place “The Early Show,” which isn’t succeeding in spite of the presence of Moonves’s young wife, Julie Chen, and replace it with reruns of the CBS prime time program “Big Brother” starring Moonves’s young wife, Julie Chen. He’d save a lot of money and keep his wife happy, two very important things to do for a man who is approaching 60.

Don’t be surprised if any or all of these things happen, because it’s show time at CBS, and in show biz survival is the name of the game.

Charles Warner at 05:01 PM | Post Comments (1) | Print | Mail this entry

Jesse Kornbluth at April 13, 2008 08:22 AM writes:

A lifetime ago, I had a thought: I'd quit AOL, launch "Content Shoppe" and AOL would outsource its programming to my crew.

I mentioned it to The Boss. He saw stars: Overnight, AOL could fire 130 programmers....

"How soon can you leave?" he asked.

I didn't quit. Now it's happening. Everywhere. But never at the VP level or higher. (Maybe because no one knows what those folks actually DO.)