Media Curmudgeon

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January 28, 2004

Response by Paul TalbotI’m covering

Response by Paul Talbot
I’m covering Charlie on the right wing nut claim. And raising stakes with the suggestion that Murdoch’s Post is destructive and dangerous.

We’re three weeks shy of first anniversary of the Post retracting its sad hatchet job on Sandy Koufax. You may remember the piece it ran in the fall of 2002 suggesting that an unnamed member of the Baseball Fall of Fame was being blackmailed into making himself available to a female biographer… no cooperation, and she would claim he was gay.

The biographer was Jane Leavy. Her book was on Koufax. And in one masterful eruption of falsehood, Murdoch’s Post suggested that one of his own News Corp. (HarperCollins) authors was a blackmailer and that a quiet and thoughtful member of the Hall of Fame was gay.

The Post is not odious because of its political bent. It is odious because of its diet of disregard for the truth. Political extremism and lowest common denominator content are easy targets for Post critics cut from a Liberal cloth. Playing fast and loose with the business of reporting the news and needlessly tarnishing reputations are transgressions that all of us, regardless of our politics, can agree make the Post a sad pretender.

After such a long life may it die a sudden and inglorious death.

Posted by Charles Warner at 1:57 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

January 26, 2004

Monday, January 26 - Bill

Monday, January 26 - Bill Grimes Responds
Charlie -
I take issue with your main contention here that Murdoch's "politicizing" with the NY Post and being a "right wing nut" is deleterious to anyone--not his shareholders who suffer the $40 million Post loss and certainly not the Post's readers--circulation up nearly 50% in two years. His shareholders do not suffer because they know that when they invest in a public company that is controlled--voting share majority--by one shareholder---Murdoch in NewsCorp case--that he will do whatever he wants. They invest because they believe he will USUALLY do the best thing financially for his shareholders (i.e; Direct TV).

More importantly, in the world's most influential and powerful city, NYC, one medium shapes, influences the enlightened public with a very liberal, anti-Republican viewpoint expressed DAILY in its news and opinions. That is, of course the NEW YORK TIMES. Murdoch is providing for so many people in NYC the only view contrary to THE PINK LADY. It is very important here in NYC that some voice speaks out against the established NYT which never varies from its pacific editorial attitude to world dictators and bad regimes to increasing taxes on those whose income tax and contributions (Bill Gates has now given away more money to social causes than the Ford Foundation in its entire history). So I say "HOORAY, POST--go do it"
And, if the smartest man I have ever had dinner with, John Malone, ever--doubtful--takes control of NewsCorp, I would urge him to hire better management at the POST and let it be a lonely voice of healthy opposition.

Posted by Charles Warner at 11:42 AM | Comments (0) | Print |

January 25, 2004

Sunday, January 25 - Candidate

Sunday, January 25 - Candidate Decision Criteria
I have finally made my decision on which Democratic candidate to support, even before the New Hampshire primary. I used multiple decision criteria: their positions on a wide variety of issues that matter to me, such as Social Security, Medicare, the environment, taxes, the deficit, the death penalty, gun control, and the mess in Iraq. I checked out their voting records and performance in office.

All of the candidates' positions on the issues are similar--not a tie breaker among them. Their voting records and job performance were so inconsistent and all over the place, that I could make no sense of it--nothing jumped out as highly differentiating there. However, I read Maureen Dowd's column in today's New York Times and, as she usually does, Maureen picked up on an extremely, deeply significant issue. It was an "Ah-Ha" moment for me. I felt I could trust Dowd, who is never cynical, snide, or cute, to pinpoint the real issue.

Dowd's penetrating column, which was datelined "Nashua, NH" and began: "Howard Dean's bark was missing its bite. And his socks were missing their warp. Not to mention their woof. He was flashing his ankles, his old black socks threadbare above the heels, showing beneath the same old gray suit he wears day after day."

"That's it," I screamed hoarsely to myself, "Dean's a loser; he's a lousy dresser!" Why hadn't I thought of that.

When I worked for CBS in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it was the "Tiffany network," people got ahead, not by how smart they were, but by how well they dressed. The game was to ape as closely as possible the way Jack Schneider dressed. Jack was elegant. He always looked like he stepped out of a Paul Stuart window. I remember going to Paul Stuart at lunchtime and looking at the gorgeous array of colorful ties perfectly stacked side by side and saying to myself, "Does Jack wear that tie?" If I thought he did, I'd buy two of them. I spent more on Paul Stuart ties than I did on food for my family of five kids.

I knew that outfits were important. I had seen a slew of dummies like Tom Miller and Ted O'Connell get ahead for no apparent reason other than they dressed like Jack. So, I learned to dress like Jack. But I wasn't as good at it as John Lack, who I hired at CBS Radio Spot Sales in 1970. John was great salesman, but an even better dresser. When Jack Schneider left CBS to run a new cable enterprise, a joint venture between American Express and Warner Communications (called WASEC), who did he take with him to be his Executive VP and chief operating officer but John Lack.

I see John often these days, and he is still is the most elegant, best dresser I know. I think Howard Dean should hire John Lack as a wardrobe consultant. Dean will have to do something if he's going to catch up with John Kerry.

In thinking about this really important candidate-judging criteria, it makes me wonder about Dean's judgment. He was the same background as Kerry: tony prep school and Yale. Kerry went to St. Paul's and Dean to St. George's. I know several people Deans age's who went to both prep schools, and I have no evidence that St. Paul boys learned to dress better than St. George's boys. In the 60s, when Dean and Kerry went to Yale, all Yale men dressed alike, so at least Dean had the opportunity to know how to dress like a good preppy Yale person. Kerry got the message, Dean didn't.

This week's cover of The Economist features a four-color picture of Kerry, with arms raised, celebrating his Iowa caucus victory. He's wearing a sensible dark blue suit, a subtly blue-and-white striped shirt with an elegant Ferragmo or Hermes tie. I saw another picture of Kerry at that rally and noticed that he had cap-toed Oxfords--probably Church or Ralph Lauren. Kerry is a winner in my book, by a mile. No one comes close to him in knowing how to dress. None of the candidates wear Ferragamo or Hermes ties. None of the candidates have proper four-in-hand knots in their ties like Kerry does--all the knots (including Clark's) are big Windsors that look like Ronald Reagan's ties. Yuuuck!

I understand Edwards not dressing well (he dresses OK, but not elegantly), he's from a middle-class background. I can understand Clark not dressing well, he's worn uniforms most of his life and probably feels uncomfortable in civvies. But Dean is abrogating his upper-class, preppy responsibilty; he's in denial. And he's missing an opportunity.

George W. Bush (the current president) is an Eastern preppy (Andover and Yale) who has also denied his hertiage. He went to Texas, threw away his rep ties, and started dressing like a shit-kicker, which he still does. The way to beat Bush is simple--dress better. Forget about Iraq, the economy, the environment, and WMDs. Go to Ralph Lauren and Ferragamo and load up on outfits that show you've got some class.

Posted by Charles Warner at 6:57 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

January 24, 2004

Saturday, January 24 - A

Saturday, January 24 - A Big Day
January 22 is my favorite day of the year. It's the birthday of my wonderful, perfect wife, Julia, and it is also our anniversary; we were married on January 22, 2000. So, this year was our fourth wedding anniversary (I won't tell you how old Julia is, but I'll give you a hint: she's 17 years younger than I am, which puts her somewhere in her mid-twenties). The 17-year age difference is an important number to keep in mind. Normally, that age difference would scare off most rationale single women. However, on our first date I took the lovely Julia to Palm Too to impress her with my cartoon, which is on the same wall as those of Neil Derrough and Jerry Nachman, John Lack, and Jack Uram (Jack the lawyer in Jerry's columns). I asked Julia when her birthday was. She replied innocently, "January 22," and gave me the year, so I knew how old she was. I wrote the date on a paper napkin and then wrote my birthday underneath it, February 23, and the year. I showed the napkin to Julia and said, "Do you realize that there is exactly the same age difference between the two of us as there was between Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in "Casablanca?" Of course, that completely eliminated the age objection. I asked her to marry me on our fifth date, she accepted, and I have had had the happiest five years of my life.

When we were planning our wedding date, the first opening at her church was Saturday, January 22, her bithday. I said, "Great! Book the date, that way I'll just have one date to remember and will only have to give one present--birthday and anniversary. It'll save me money." Me, always the romantic.

This year, January 22 fell on a Thursday, and while I was reading The New York Times I saw a news article that gave me something else to be happy about--John Malone's Liberty Media substantially increased its stake in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. The first paragraph of the article read: "In a move that caught investors and analysts by surprise, the Liberty Media Corporation disclosed yesterday that it had increased its voting stake in the News Corporation to 9.1 percent, making it the second-largest shareholder after the Murdoch family, which controls 30 percent of the vote."

The remainder of the article by Geraldine Fabrikant contained speculation about why John Malone, who controls Liberty Media, would buy such a large stake in News Corp. Some analysts were quoted as saying that perhaps Malone was trying to take over News Corp., but the consensus of experts who were quoted was that Malone just wanted to play a more active role in the management of News Corp. and in its future. The article mentioned that Murdoch was 72 and was grooming his two sons, one is his late 20s and one in his early 30s, to take over eventually.

What gives me hope is that Malone, who is notorious for demanding that companies he owns all or part of maximize profits, will push News Corp. to maximize profits. This would, of course, put pressure on Murdoch to shut down the New York Post, which loses about $40 million a year (a figure I heard from Ken Auletta when he was interviewed on WNYC's Leonard Lopate program). Malone is a conservative, I'm sure, but not a right-wing nut like Murdoch is. I have never heard that Malone, who made his first fortune building TCI into the largest cable MSO in the country, ever inserted whatever his political philosophy or ambitions were into the content produced by any of his companies. I think he cares about money, not politics.

But Murdoch cares about both money and politics. You would have to think that he cares more about politics than money because he is willing to lose $40 million a year (not a trifling sum) to keep the right-wing, anti-Bloomberg NY Post spewing its venom. Owning a New York newspaper, even though it's a poor number three in circulation, gives Murdoch a lot of political and personal clout, power, and, most of all, attention--all of which he seems to crave and love.

Now that Jerry Nachman is gone and no longer writing for the NY Post, there is no earthly reason for its existence. I hope Malone can kill it, and if the NY Post doesn't publish a book of Jerry's columns, the only image of Jerry that will remain will be his cartoon on the wall of Palm Too (his face inside the CBS eye, next to Neil Derrough's face). Julia and I can go to Palm Too for our anniversary dinner and remember our first date and Jerry as a TV reporter, both great memories.

Posted by Charles Warner at 2:32 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

January 23, 2004

Friday, January 23 - Bad

Friday, January 23 - Bad Press, As In "Bad Dog." Jerry Would Have Done It Right.
On Monday night, after the Iowa caucuses were over, I was watching CNN and saw the top four candidates give their speeches. If I remember correctly the order of the speeches, I think Gephardt's sad, dignified speech to his family and supporters was first. Edwards's intelligent, well-delivered speech was right on message and was short, positive, and upbeat and dealt with some general issues. And although the room was filled with his supporters, he talked not to them but to the American public. Edwards made a point to talk about Gephardt with great respect and complimented him on his great public service.

I think Howard Dean's speech was next. As everyone knows by now, it was not Dean's finest hour or best speech. He walked on stage, took off his coat, and deliberately rolled up his sleeves to show he was about to fight (his trademark gesture). The crowd was largely made up of Dean's very young, very enthusiastic supporters who had swarmed all over Iowa trying to get out the vote for him. Dean's performance was directed to his supporters and was a wildly enthusiastic, loud, cheerleading rally speech that let his followers know he was not going to give up and continue to fight. It was, in my view, over the top and sophomoric. It showed poor judgment most of all, but I felt sorry for him because I think he and his supporters expected to win in Iowa and they all had to be bitterly disappointed. I understood his pain and his compulsion to fight back.

I believe that John Kerry spoke next. He looks like a clean-shaven Abraham Lincoln (not a bad image, I guess), and he spoke eloquently and with more feeling and emotion than I had seen in the past. He was elegant, intelligent, and kept brilliantly on message. His speech was the longest (too long, I thought), but he dealt very specifically with a number of issues, much more specifically and knowledgeably than Edwards, I thought, and went right after the Bush administration.

The image that kept coming to my mind was that of President Bush standing beside Tony Blair when he visited England several months ago. Blair spoke in a very polished and articulate manner, and I was embarrased at how poorly and simplistically Bush spoke. In my mind, I had picture of Edwards, Dean, and Kerry on a podium next to Tony Blair and them speaking after Blair spoke. I couldn't see Dean there, but I could definately see Kerry and, perhaps, Edwards, there.

Now, that's my take on the evening of watching TV the night of the Iowa caucuses. But that's not the press's take. Let me diverge here and indicate that I'm using the term "the press" rather than "the media." I know the more popular appellation for the news media is "the media," but I think of "the media" as being the business enterprises that own multiple entertainment and information outlets. I think of "the press" as being the news media (including the Internet where more and more people are getting their news). Tuesday following the Iowa caucuses, I was watching MSNBC at 4:00 pm in order to see Lester Holt's touching tribute to his mentor, and my friend, Jerry Nachman, who had died that morning.

Before Holt got to his Nachman tribute, he did the latest news (afterall, his show is a news program). He cut to a reporter doing a live shot on a snowy street in New Hamshire. The correspondent (they are all correspondents now, not mere reporters--something that Jerry would have abhorred; he thought the greatest calling in the world was being a reporter and telling people what was going on) spoke about the candidates campaigning in New Hampshire and then referred to Howard Dean's speech the night before as "bombastic." Bombastic is a pejorative word, fraught with negative connotations and images. To some, Dean's speech was tough and wildly enthusiastic, to others it was mean, angry, and way over the top--perhaps even bombastic. But I think using the term bombastic was too pejorative, too excessive for a reporter whose job it is to be accurate and balanced, not colorful and full of innuendos.

Jerry Nachman was a great reporter, one of the best ever in radio, television, and newspapers. His columns for The New York Post in the late 1980s are classics of great writing. I remember an article in the Columbia Journalism Review titled "Column Wars" or something similar, about how fortunate New Yorkers were to have three brilliant columnists writing columns in the New York papers--Pete Hammill, Jimmy Breslin, and Jerry Nachman--and the example of a great column was one of Jerry's, not Hammill's, not Breslin's. That's pretty heady company. I hope the Post will have enough sense to publish a book of Jerry's columns. I'd be in for 100 copies at least. If Jerry had been covering the story, I don't think he would have used the word bombastic. By the way, I have put two of Jerry's New York Post columns on my Web site--click here and scroll down to "Jerry Nachman New York Post Columns."

Jerry always liked to end his reports, or stories, with a humorous tag line. I remember a story Jerry did on WCBS-TV years ago during a transit strike. Commuters in the suburbs couldn't get home, so many stayed in town and went to the theater. Jerry interviewed several stranded commuters, and one, a dentist, had seen "Dracula." Jerry's tag line was, "I wonder if he checked Dracula's bite." I can imagine Jerry doing a live shot in New Hampshire and talking about Dean campaigning, and, perhaps holding a pair of cheerleader's pom-poms, saying with a wry smile, "Go, Dean, go," or something that would make light while shedding light on the campaign.

But the press dosen't have Jerry's keen eye and marvelous sense of humor. The press went ballistic; it ran the intemperate Dean speech over and over and over again, like it was the Twin Towers collapsing. Television was more intemperate and over the top in its coverage of the Dean speech than the speech itself was. In the good old days of honest news (not news as entertainment), the press would have been content to give a "truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning." (From the Hutchins Commission Report). But today, the press is not content to give a truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of anything; the press wants to be a player--a major participant in the political process.

The press (primarily television and the tabloids) snoops for scandals, rumors, peccadillos, and trash--anything without substance. The goal is to catch someone doing something wrong--all reporters want to be Woodstein (Woodward and Bernstein, for the younger people who might read this). No. Worse, they all want to be colorful enough so they can be the next Bill O'Reilly and have their own prime-time talk show. Truth, accuracy, balance; fuggitaboutit. Colorful reporters and talk show hosts get huge fees from companies and organizations they cover to give a colorfull, amusing speeches. So if a reporter or a news channel or a news show can claim that they were the first (or the meanest) to bring down Dean, their ratings and their speaking fees go up, so they all start stomping hard when someone is down.

So Dean got bad press. Yes, bad press in the sense that the press portrayed him negatively, but also, I say, bad press, as one would say "bad dog" to an untrained dog that just peed on the carpet. The most disheartening thing is that the press loves to pee on the carpet and audiences love to watch it pee. There is one (of several) exception, of course--NPR. NPR is a well-trained dog. Turn off your television and listen to NPR.

By the way, Jerry thought NPR was liberal. That's because Jerry was pretty conservative--pro death penalty and all that. But I loved Jerry because, even if I disagreed with him at times, I always loved hearing him state his position, because he always did it with honest, brilliant, witty, gentle humor. I'll miss you, Jerry. Journalism will miss you. And, most of all, the viewers, readers, and listeners will miss you. We needed you to give it to us straight.

Posted by Charles Warner at 5:52 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

January 18, 2004

Sunday, January 18 - A

Sunday, January 18 - A New Joint
I got a new hip joint on January 6, at NYU Hospital. While I was in rehab and learning to walk again (especially upstairs, which is really hard), I had time to read and reflect more than I do when I'm home and can work and write on my computer (no computers are allowed in the hospital).

I read three books, two of which I can highly recommend: Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky and Backstory: Inside the Business of News by Ken Auletta.

Salt is an excellent companion read to my favorite book of last year, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by Harvard historian David Landes. Both books are economic histories and should be read by anyone interested in current world events and food (what topics are more important?). Well, for me there is a more important topic, the current state of the American media, and there is no more astute, intelligent observer and chronicler of the US media than Ken Auletta. Backstory is particularly relevant and insightful in light of the Jason Blair affair, the ascension of the Fox News cable channel, and celebrity journalists who make big fees giving speeches, all of which are hurting the public's perception of the media and of journalism.

The third book I read was Autumn of the Moguls: My Misadventures with the Titans, Poseurs, and Money Guys Who Mastered and Messed Up Big Media by Michael Wolff. The difference between this book and Backstory are evident from looking at the covers of the two books. Backstory features a cover depicting an oragami eagle made with paper from a front page of The New York Times, with the title, "Backstory," in large letters and Ken Auletta's name underneath in smaller letters, simulating the headline and sub-head of a news article. The cover of Autum of the Moguls uses large letters as though cut from a huge, rust-colored stone wall. On the top, in letters perhaps 40 percent larger than the letters underneath is "Michael Wolff." We know what's most important about this book--the author. The cover, the sub-title ("My Misadventures...), and the book are all about Michael Wolff. The book is a pure exercise in egocentrism and contains few, if any insights, and, worse, is full of inaccuracies--inaccuracies in the form of out-and-out wrong facts and half-truths.

Wolff is the worst sort of writer--he either is very selective in the facts he uses or makes up stuff that support his predetermined point of view. He's mean, nasty, and petty. He writes so he can have well-turned phrases that diss, malign, and insult powerful media people. He takes sadistic pleasure in trashing everyone. He does this under the pretense of telling the truth. But there is no truth, no accuracies, or nothing to recommend this offensive, obnoxious book or author. Most of all, he reminds me of Al Pacino's great portrayal of Roy Cohn in HBO's "Angels in America."

In the book, Wolff repeats with some glee, that some someone had called him an "obnoxious dickhead." That's what he wants to be, why he writes, and what he is--although, he is worse. What media criticism needs is more thoughtful, balanced, insightful journalists like Ken Auletta who write to help us understand the current problems in the media and fewer gossip mongers who write to boost their egos and so they can get a good table at Michael's restaurant and look for people to trash.

Posted by Charles Warner at 3:30 PM | Comments (1) | Print |

reel at November 23, 2006 4:09 PM writes:

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