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 BEST...SHOW..EVER
5/31/05 23:26:11
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It’s hard to explain to the uninitiated the appeal of watching four po-faced Germans twiddle knobs for an hour and a half, but trust me, it’s great.
I last saw Kraftwerk about 20 years ago at the Warner Theater in DC. They were great then, mindblowing, as they are now. I’ve been a fan of theirs since the age of 11. It was at that tender age that I first heard the song "Trans Europe Express" on the school bus radio. TEE was one of the first 45s I ever bought. The thrill of that purchase turned me into a collector, a frustrating and expensive pursuit that takes over your life. I was in high school when Computer World came out, which I first heard on WHFS late one night. While at Brown, I was thrilled to discover an import of Autobahn (used) at a record store on Thayer street, for which I paid about $20 - a lot of money for a record in 1982-83. So Kraftwerk and I go back a ways.
Praising this group is a bit like carrying coals to Newcastle, but why shouldn’t their praises be sung? They are one of the most influential groups ever, despite ROLLING STONE’s maddening refusal to recognize them as such. Trans Europe Express has been sampled so many times it’s easy to lose count (one of my favorite versions was that of the late lamented Trouble Funk, "Trouble Funk Express"). They pioneered techno and continue to influence rap and hip-hop. They rarely tour, the location of Kling Klang studio is kept secret, and therefore they’ve retained an intriguing air of mystery. I tried in vain for years to interview them, and had to settle for doing a chat with Wolfgang Flur, who left the group and wrote a memoir called I WAS A ROBOT.
They sounded great, just as fabulous and fresh as they did 20 years ago, and if you get a chance to see them, GO. They don’t move around much and the little films they show during their numbers are fascinatingly dull at times (it’s to their credit that the crowd cheered while watching footage of the autobahn and the TEE chugging down the tracks). For some inexplicable reason they showed animation of what looked like alka seltzer popping in a glass of water, which also brought a cheer. Their lyrics are also hilariously simplistic ("She’s a model and she’s looking good/I’d like to take her home it’s understood" is as complex as "Blinded By the Light" when compared to "Machine/machine/machine/machine/machine/machine/machine/machine/machine"). But hey - they are the robots. To read more about Kraftwerk, check out the recent Richard Harrington piece in WaPo. It’s refreshing to read a piece by a music critic who knows his stuff.
Fun fun fun auf de autobahn.....
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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What a great day
5/31/05 23:08:37
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Beautiful weather, Deep Throat revealed, Kraftwerk show, and a cool NYT piece on my buddy, the "dimunitive" Robert Greenwald.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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VANITY FAIR outs Deep Throat
5/31/05 19:26:23
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Wow. This is cool. Big, BIG ups to VANITY FAIR. The WaPo players confirm. So which mystery will we spend the NEXT 30-odd years betting on?
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Plans
5/31/05 19:00:24
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I’m off to see my beloved Kraftwerk tonight. Whee!
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More on Paris
5/31/05 07:25:58
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Yes, I know, that the Parises are supposedly getting married. I’m sure it’s the love story of the century.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Parenthood
5/30/05 22:48:21
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Salon.com features yet another article about parenting written by someone who, along with his partner, was clearly unfit to raise children. It’s worth clicking through the ad just to get a load of this trainwreck, the flip side of all that Ayelet what’s-her-face’s cloying missives:
Except for the few hours a week when she teaches a class at the local community college, my wife and I both work at home. The house is small. I write in a corner of the living room, and Regina, when she can, goes to paint in the garage. Even if we hired an inexperienced nanny on the cheap, the kid would still be underfoot most of the day, screeching. We’re in a strangely common situation: If we don’t put our kid in preschool, we can’t afford to send him to preschool. In the last two months, we’ve had to put our taxes on a credit card, and put our house on the market because that’s the only way we’re going to be able to pay off our credit-card debt.
Excellent. Self-absorbed? Check. Horrendous money-management skills? Check. No tolerance for the needs of a toddler? Check. It gets better:
Elijah was in school from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. The school was OK. Within a few months, Elijah knew his alphabet, his days of the week, the state of Texas on sight, seemingly hundreds of songs, and he could count to 40. At the same time, they showed the kids Barney videos while they were changing their diapers and gave them Country Time lemonade while calling it "juice." When we complained, the director ignored us. But at least we had our mornings.
So while they’re obsessing over the inability of some overworked, underpaid pre-school "teacher" to sufficiently stimulate their little darling, they’re secretly thrilled to be rid of their tiny burden. The piece gets better still when their brilliant yet ignored and seemingly unwanted gift from Heaven starts to bite the other kids and gets the heave-ho from school:
On the drive home, Regina and I could barely keep from weeping. Our respective families were 1,000 miles away in either direction. We were terrified at the prospect of a summer without help. The irony was that we don’t have the $1,500 it would have cost to warehouse Elijah through September, so we might have had to pull him out anyway. But now we’ve been forced into the challenge of caring for a smart, stubborn, high-strung 2-year-old. We love him very much, but that’s not the kind of work either of us wants, at least not full time.
Yes, it’s called "parenting", bitches. Look it up. I know the kid’s only 2 years old, but do you think he senses the hostility? Here’s the mom’s reaction when she comes to terms with the fact that little Elijah will be spending a lot more time with his parents than they’d anticipated:
"I feel like a bad mother!" she said. "I don’t want to spend all summer with him! He’s difficult! He’s a difficult child! He wants too much from me. And you’re going to go crazy if he’s around all the time. Our marriage always suffers when he’s home!"
And you had kids...why? What an utterly repulsive couple. Unable to parent, absurdly immature and unable to cope with adult responsibilities, they try warehousing their little monster until the system says "fuck you", at which point this article is written. Are you fucking kidding me? And Neal Pollack’s response to criticism of his piece is simply outstanding. "A legitimate sociological phenomenon"? He has the gall to criticize the nation’s child care system while admitting that his kid acts up in class because he’s desperate for attention? And not a word about the trauma his "somewhat high strung" offspring has caused to other people’s kids, who probably go to pre-school hoping to color and play, not run from the mad biter? Again, are you fucking kidding me?
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Justice
5/29/05 22:33:33
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Gilliard has done a great job of dissecting the Schapelle Corby drug arrest in Indonesia. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting, Steve.
This case got me thinking about Michael Fay, the American expatriate whose irresponsibility and stupidity created a diplomatic incident with Singapore back in 1994. For those of you unfamiliar with the case, here’s a recap:
The trouble began on Sept. 18, 1993. At about 8 a.m. Judicial Commissioner Amarjeet Singh, husband of nominated MP Kanwaljit Soin, drove his wife’s car to the Supreme Court. He didn’t notice anything strange. At 10 a.m., however, the judge was informed by police that something was wrong: his car had been sprayed with red paint. Singh drove home at lunchtime. Back on Chatsworth Road, he noticed that his neighbor Ho Tian Yee’s car had also been spray-painted. Police later determined that both cars had been vandalized overnight. That afternoon, Singh drove to a shop, where the paint was removed with thinner and the car polished.
Police linked the incident to other cases. The day before, vandals had struck at a multi-story carpark along Cairnhill Road, spray-painting at least six cars. On Sept. 26, a car off Belmont Road was pelted with eggs and its right front door kicked and dented. The hood of Sin Cheng Tee’s car, parked in front of his home on Ming Teck Park, was damaged by a brick. And on Oct. 4, vandals threw eggs at two cars parked at Chancery Court and switched their rear license plates.
Investigators at Tanglin Police Division Headquarters set out to stop the spree. In the early hours of Oct. 6 they laid an ambush near Chancery Court. The operation paid off. Between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. police chased down a red Mercedes and arrested 16-year-old International School student Shiu Chi Ho of Hong Kong and a Thai diplomat’s son. Shiu had been driving his father’s car without a license. The two were taken to the police station. The Thai boy was released once his diplomatic status was determined.
During about seven hours of interrogation, Shiu gave police names of boys he said were responsible for the vandalism. Later that morning, some two dozen police officers went to the Singapore American School and had five students pulled out of their fourth-period class and taken away in three vans. The five arrested included two 15-year-old Malaysians (whose names cannot be reported in Singapore because they were under sixteen at the time), 16-year-old Australian Damien Kirchhoff, and two Americans: Stephen Freehill, then 16, and Michael Fay, 18. Hauled in separately for questioning were American Todd Bailey and a Belgian boy.
The same day, police took Fay to his mother and stepfather’s 21st-floor apartment in posh Regency Park. Above the boy’s bed hung the American stars & stripes and a Singapore flag. Five other Singapore flags were found in the room, along with two "Not for hire" taxi signs, a "Smoking strictly prohibited" signboard, a "No Exit" sign, and other such items. According to police, the flags and signboards were stolen and had been given to Fay by a Swedish schoolmate who had left Singapore in September.
++++++
Fay’s mother, Randy Chan, recalls the day her son was arrested: "I returned home that day finding out that they had been in our apartment and had totally ransacked Michael’s room." A former airline reservations agent, Chan divorced George Fay when their son was eight. She later married Marco Chan, a Chinese American. The couple moved to Singapore in 1991 when Mr. Chan was named to head Federal Express’s regional operations. Michael, who had been living with his father and stepmother, joined his mother the following year.
Fay had faced a total of 53 charges, mainly vandalism. He and his friends were alleged to have damaged eighteen vehicles over a period of ten days. He pleaded guilty to two vandalism charges, two counts of mischief and one charge of possessing stolen property. Randy Chan now regrets that decision. "I didn’t think the lesson to teach a child is to run away from a problem," she says. "I thought we would be treated fairly." She acknowledges that her son did something wrong by taking the signs. But they did not expect a jail term, much less caning.
The Vandalism Act of 1966 was originally conceived as a legal weapon to combat the spread of mainly political graffiti common during the heady days of Singapore’s struggle for independence. Enacted a year after the republic left the Malaysian Federation, the law explicitly mandates between three and eight strokes of the cane for each count, though a provision allows first offenders to escape caning "if the writing, drawing, mark or inscription is done with pencil, crayon, chalk or other delible substances and not with paint, tar or other indelible substances."
And it goes on. Eventually, Fay’s sentence was reduced from six strokes of the cane to four, thanks to the intervention of Bill Clinton.
So what’s the connection? Well, maybe when you’re traveling to or living in a foreign country whose judicial system is not terribly enlightened, it would probably be wise to mind your p’s and q’s. If you don’t want to get caned, or tortured, or thrown in some horrific gaol to rot, then for Christ’s sake, DON’T BREAK THE LAW IN THOSE COUNTRIES. Are these sentences and punishments barbaric? What does it matter what I, or anyone else thinks? The government of Singapore puts a high premium on cleanliness, so much so that the only chewing gum allowed in the country is Nicorette. Now, if you’re Michael Fay, and you know that you live in a country that imposes draconian sentences for littering, why the hell would you go on a vandalism rampage? If you’re Schapelle Corby, why would you try to smuggle drugs into a country that imposes sentences of up to 20 years for marijuana offenses?
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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More on Carl
5/29/05 22:07:22
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So apparently Carl’s Jr. founder Carl Karcher, the founder of Carl’s Jr., who hired Paris Hilton to deepthroat a mouthful of meat in the chain’s controversial new ad, is a virulently anti-gay wingnut and big-time supporter of conservative causes. Of course he is.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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What’s not to love?
5/29/05 12:30:35
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Kids + video equipment + Eminem spoof + Walmart backdrop = good times!
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Going, going...
5/29/05 12:15:26
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Dear Mary-Kate (or may I call you MK?):
You’re really young. You’re incredibly wealthy. I maintain that it’s not a good idea to walk around in public looking like one of the use-up hosebag junkies I see hanging around backstage at a Poison concert.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Sex sells? No duh
5/29/05 10:48:25
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And now a word about the state of advertising, publishing and the press.
You may have heard that there’s been a bit of a stink over the latest cultural offering by Paris Hilton. She comes to us now in an ad for something called Carl’s Jr., a hamburger joint no one’s ever heard of which is based in California. The ad, which has apparently crashed servers as boys and men click and savor with a mouse in one hand and a delicate part of their anatomy in another, has brought out the predictable chorus of outrage from the Brent Bozells of the world. Yawn, no surprise there.
What some of you may find odd is that the MSM have fallen hook, line and sinker for this ploy, and have taken to writing about the ad and booking segments about it despite its obvious lack of news value, in effect finding a way to put photos and images of Paris’s soft core porn performance (a nice bookend to her hardcore one from a while back) to "discuss" the impact of this coarse bit of quasi-naked attention-grabbing on the innocent public.
Would it kill journos and editors to be honest for once?
I used to work for a dot-com that was the Internet arm of a major, mainstream publication. It soon dawned on me that the "editors" of said Web site were constantly ordering that their underlings post two photos: The Jennifer Lopez Versace gownless evening strap pic and Britney Spears wearing as little as possible (these editors must be suffering now that both these women are married and leaning towards the conservative, not to mention Britney’s pregnancy, which means her revealing clothes show more than these middle-aged horny guys want to see). Although some of us mocked the practice, none questioned it. The women who worked there didn’t want to come off as a bunch of humorless feminazis or perceived as not being "team players". We were told that getting pageviews up was the paramount consideration; never mind that the brand, such as it was, was being cheapened. Whatever. Good luck to them. And just in case you think I’m some uptight old bag, I’ll have you know that on several occasions I suggested doing a story about the porn business, since it’s such a lucrative and powerful one which has become mainstreamed of late, but was rebuffed. After much clearing of throats and looking at the floor, I was told we couldn’t run stories about Vivid Video, et. al., because we were a "family newspaper".
Now we have the return of Jessica Cutler, a.k.a. Washingtonienne, who has written an eponymous book about her adventures in Washington whoredom. None other than Jonathan Yardley, winner of two Pulitzers, praises the book. As for myself, I read her blog last summer, thanks to Wonkette, and I think I get the point, thanks very much.
So it would appear that the key to getting a publishing contract is you have to be a prostitute, or batshit insane/blonde and leggy (see: Ann Coulter), or some combination of the above. How long until Jeff Gannon announces his memoirs have been sold, if they haven’t already?
But that’s not what bothers me. These outlets are in the business of making money, and publishing houses can’t sit back and wait for Oprah to pick one of their authors, Willie Wonka-like, to pluck from obscurity and lavish with attention and cash. What bothers me is the media’s inability to say "we’re being killed in the ratings. We’ve run out of ideas to attract your attention. So here’s some ’news’ about a rich bimbo who, had she not been born with the last name Hilton, would probably be churning out gang bang videos in the San Fernando Valley right about now. And oh, by the way, that’s why we focused on that model whose boyfriend was killed in the tsunami - because we have photos of her in a swimsuit, and no, we don’t believe it’s inappropriate to show those photos while discussing a horrific human tragedy that killed lots of non-models and left devastation in its wake. Why are YOU so uptight?".
EDITOR’S NOTE: As one of the people in the comment section pointed out, the hamburger chain Paris Hilton is shilling for is based in California, not flyover country. I told you I’d never heard of Carl’s Jr. prior to this latest bit of Paris Hilton nonsense, and quite frankly I couldn’t give a fuck where it’s based, since where the company is headquartered is not relevant to the point I was making in the post. But the comment is duly noted and the correction has been made.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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The death knell for political journalism continues
5/28/05 22:13:20
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Things are looking grim at news bureaus around DC.
CNN has been taking a series of hits. I hear that the long-range plan
is to move operations from Atlanta to New York City, thereby making CNN’s
incorporation into Time Warner complete (you don’t think TW erected that fancy
building for their health, did you?). The bloodbath is already beginning.
Klein is particularly interested in whittling down operations in DC, despite
Blitzer’s increased visibility at the network. I’m told that employees of
the CNN bureau (many, if not all) have been told to compose not only their job
descriptions, but a good reason why their position is mission critical. If
that’s not done, out goes (or will go) the employee. Atlanta is bracing
for massive cuts as well. Klein and his minions are primarily
concerned with wiping out any and all traces of the Ted Turner era. Once
Klein has fired an adequate number of people and the bean counters are sated,
he’ll probably be moved to a management position somewhere in Time Warner,
leaving behind the smoking husk of what used to be a great news
organization.
I also hear that there’s a plan to reduce ABC’s Washington bureau down to
forty - that’s 40 - people. It’s hard to imagine how the bureau
will continue to operate with so few employees, unless they plan on farming out
all the work to freelancers and save a boatload on benefits.
We all know that CBS just laid off a bunch of people. NBC is holding
steady, which in this wretched environment means they’re the healthiest
network.
Bottom line? If you’re going into political journalism and want my
advice, here it is: Become a plumber.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Update from Tony Perkins
5/23/05 23:11:23
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No, not the dead one, the "Family" "Research" Council one. This e-mail landed in my inbox earlier today. What the hell this has to do with families is beyond me:
Tomorrow the Senate will vote on what is called the "constitutional option," the procedural vote which will return majority rule in the judicial nomination process and break the unprecedented judicial filibuster led by Senate Democratic leadership and their liberal allies. At noon tomorrow, women from around the area will be holding a press conference in support of all of President Bush’s judicial nominees, especially Justices Priscilla Owen, Carolyn Kuhl and Janice Rogers Brown. More information can be found at the link below. Please continue to call, e-mail, and fax your senators to vote for restoring the Constitution to the Senate and in support of all of President Bush’s nominees.
Additional Resources
Click here to tell your Senators to stop judicial filibusters!
WomenDeserveAVote.com
Why don’t you go ahead and give the FRC a ring at 202/393- 2100 or 800/225-4008 and ask them what judges and filibusters have to do with Jesus? So what if a compromise has been reached? Why let the facts get in the way of hijinks?
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Lingering questions
5/23/05 23:03:06
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Now that another season of 24 has bitten the dust, here’s what’s bugging me:
- Could there be a bigger toolbox than President Logan? His cowardice, mendacity, hypocrisy and stupidity are so extreme that you have to ask yourself: Is this character realistic? (That’s a question for the group)
- What’s all this about keeping the president (not Logan, the other one) flying around on Air Force One for hours while the Secretary of Defense calls the shots on the ground? And since when does SecDef have jurisdiction over anti-terrorism agencies? He was getting a little bossy there at CTU.
- Can anyone imagine any scenario where a current President would allow an ex-president to come back to the White House and take over, particularly during a time of national emergency?
- Why does Jack have such horrible taste in women?
- Why doesn’t anyone’s cell battery run out, or signal drop (in Los Angeles, no less)?
- A warhead is launched. Let me repeat: A WARHEAD IS LAUNCHED. Where is the press? Where are the rioters?
- Why is it that Audrey was given carte blanche to log on to a computer and don a headset, effectively becoming an ad hoc member of CTU - during, it must be repeated, a time of national emergency?
- Where did her father disappear to? I mean, hell, the SecDef’s played by William Devane. You’d think he’d want more face time.
- "Jack, you did it again. You saved millions of people from nuclear annihilation. Now we’re going to turn you over to the Red Chinese, who will put you through a show trial and throw you into a forced labor camp. I think you understand there’s nothing we can do to stop this." "Yes sir, I understand." Sorry, I don’t.
- How can it be that Kim didn’t call even once all day?
- Why were we cheated out of a Chloe-Edgar love connection?
- Why is it that any Tom, Dick and Harry can gain access to CTU, even temporarily being reinstated after being jailed for treason and living out of a bottle after being released?
And finally:
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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You know things are bad at CNN when...
5/23/05 19:17:34
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...the network’s biggest fan, blogger DCG at whatshappeningatcnn, publishes
this bitter post:
Did you survive Crime
Week on CNN prime-time this week? Hope you did, because next week is "Survivor
Week". A promo currently running on CNN says to expect "stories of survival" all
next week during prime-time. How bout a "News in Prime-time Week"? Now there’s
an idea.
Ah, innocence lost.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Warbling for understanding
5/22/05 13:09:30
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One of the great things about having satellite TV is that periodically you
get to see how the other half lives. There is an event that takes place
across the pond once a year that tells you just about everything you need to
know about the state of the music business in general, and how American culture
is digested and excreted by our friends abroad.
That event is the Eurovision
song contest.
I’d never actually seen this competition in all its glory, so I was wholly
unprepared for what I witnessed over the course of two mind-numbing days of pop
slam.
I maintain that you just haven’t lived until you’ve witnessed two Ukrainian
hosts, one a cute but cypher-like male and the other a gorgeous woman encased in
a skin-tight sheath, engaging in incomprehensible English banter. Or the
sight of Ukranian president Viktor Yushchenko, one of the most interesting
people on earth at the moment, emerging from the wings to engage in multiple
air- and hand-kisses with the winner, handing over a plaque that looks like a
martial arts throwing weapon. That alone is worth the price of admission, even
though it may leave you scratching your head.
Then there are the acts.
Europe seems to have wholly integrated American pop culture and trends at
their worst, but oddly, have drawn the line around the mid- to late-90s,
although truth be told the 80s are the decade of choice. What can you say
about Norway’s entry, Wig
Wam, other than Danger Kitty
called and they want their shtick back? Or the bizarre ska/new wave stylings of
Moldova’s act,
singing "Grandmamma Beats the Drum-a", an act which includes an old lady
beating, well, a drum-a. Or Serbia-Montenegro’s No Name, a
crappy *N Sync clone that incorporates native dance?
But honestly, the women are the worst. Incorporating the kind of
eardrum shattering caterwauling that won the horrid Celine Dion a title in 1988,
these ladies scream and emote until all cats have fled the premises.
And yet, and yet. This schlockfest is so awful, so tacky, so supremely
idiotic, that it wraps around itself and actually wanders into the territory of
awesome.
Someone please tell the cats of Kiev it’s safe to come out now.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Shut up and click
5/20/05 07:25:01
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Here
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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George Galloway: the gift that keeps on giving
5/19/05 19:14:41
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More Galloway. God, I wish this man would go
on O’Reilly:
Before the hearing began, the Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow
even had some scorn left over to bestow generously upon the pro-war writer
Christopher Hitchens. "You’re a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay," Mr Galloway
informed him. "Your hands are shaking. You badly need another drink," he
added later, ignoring Mr Hitchens’s questions and staring intently ahead.
"And you’re a drink-soaked ..." Eventually Mr Hitchens gave up. "You’re a real
thug, aren’t you?" he hissed, stalking away.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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More on Newsweek
5/19/05 19:04:46
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My pal Larry Johnson, who is to Robert Greenwald documentaries what Steve
Buscemi is to the Coen Brothers, has this to say about the White House’s lack of
irony and the department of pots and kettles:
In light of the
debacles surrounding how Newsweek and CBS News have handled information that
turned out to be false that, in one case, resulted in the death of people; we
need to insist that the following procedures be employed
immediately:
1. Publicly
identify the source or sources of the information and hold them
accountable.
2. Fire the
persons responsible for gathering and vetting the information if you can
determine they knew the information was bad.
3. Punish the people who published the
false information.
But what is good
for the goose should be good for the gander. Is Bush’s press spokesman,
Scott McClellan, capable of genuine outrage or is it limited only to political
opponents? We are in a war in Iraq because the Bush
Administration relied on false and erroneous information.
That information has been used to launch a war that has resulted in
the deaths of thousands of people. One intelligence source for the
wrong information, a man named "Curveball" (I guess the cryptonym, "Bald Faced
Liar" was taken), remains footloose and fancy free.
Bush may not be
Jewish but the man and his minions have taken Chutzpah to new
heights.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Paris watch
5/19/05 19:00:25
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You know that Paris Hilton must be a serious moron when Pamela Anderson
starts questioning her intellect. Not to mention the fact that the heiresse terrible
sounds like quite the little rhymes-with-witch:
The London Mirror claims "Simple Life" starlet (Paris Hilton)
crushed the spirit of a bartender who served her a special "Pink Paris" cocktail
containing vodka, grenadine, lime and lemonade.
"She took one sip and spat it out in the barman’s face," a spywitness
claims to the paper. "She said it was horrible and asked for vodka and Red Bull
instead, leaving the poor guy dejected." And wet.
Later, Paris hit a local hotspot and allegedly did some
"dirty-dancing" with model Sam Branson, the son of British billionaire Sir
Richard Branson.
"They were inseparable all night," a source tells the Mirror. But
Hilton, who earlier in the evening gushed to the paper that she’s "very loyal to
my man," departed the club with pals.
Meanwhile, Pam
Anderson recently shared her own Hilton experience,
revealing to GQ that Paris can’t really be bothered with anything as bourgeois
as literacy.
"She’s funny," the top-heavy bombshell is quoted as telling the mag.
"Last time I met her we were in a restaurant together. She slammed the menu down
and screamed, ’I hate reading! Someone tell me what’s on the
menu!’"
Says Pam, "I mean, I’m blond but c’mon."
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Rick Santorum to Dems: Sieg Heil
5/19/05 18:43:45
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Atrios, demonstrating his usual sense of wonder, very reasonably asks why it is that when MOVEON.org sponsored a contest for ads to which an overly exuberant participant submitted an entry comparing Bush to Hitler (an ad which was not funded by MOVEON.org), well, you would have thought it was the end of days, yet when a United States "Senator" compares Democrats to Hitler, the reaction is one big yawn (see the video here). Perhaps it’s one of those cases where the press gives a pass to the lunatics and fanatics on the far right of the wingnut scale (I’m looking at YOU, Tom Coburn). Whatever. Please call Rick Santorum’s office in DC at 202-224-6324 and have a candid exchange of views with a friendly member of his Godly staff.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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OMG - keep it coming
5/17/05 22:22:06
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For those of you who haven’t seen many Congressional hearings, they tend to
be fairly dull affairs, heavily scripted, with pre-determined villains, members
of Congress either toadying or taking umbrage, all being broadcast on C-SPAN,
and then it’s over. That’s pretty much it. Everyone gets their point
across - the witness are castigated and duly grovel, the members issue a press
release, and the Hill moves on. It’s very rare that anything exciting
actually happens.
Well, there was plenty of excitement when scrappy Scot George Galloway,
British Member of Parliament, decided he’d had enough of having Norm Coleman (!)
suggest he was a thief, and decided to use his testimony time to let Coleman,
the Senate, and the U.S. and British governments know what he thinks of their
Iraq policy, Halliburton, sanctions, and a bunch of other stuff. This is truly
sensational video. Enjoy.
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Bestiality Week continues with more on Neal "Mulefucker" Horsley
5/16/05 07:54:40
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Yes, it’s all fun and games until an abortion provider is shot by a sniper. Why this man is not confined to a rubber room or a prison cell is beyond me:
At first glance, Neal Horsley appears to be the merry old uncle of his neighborhood on a cul-de-sac in a middle-class Atlanta suburb.
Irreverent, amusing and animated, Horsley seems for all the world a warm and faithful husband, a friend to children, an iconoclastic conversationalist and wry commentator on the state of the world.
A second look reveals an entirely different Horsley — the implacable enemy of homosexuals who promises regularly to "arrest faggots," a man who proposes to use nuclear weapons in a bid for Southern secession, the Scripture-quoting theocrat who wants to force his version of Bible law on American society.
This is the Horsley that rails on about "desecration," "pagans," "lust" and "perverted tolerance."
And then there is the Neal Horsley who boasts to a young acolyte about having sex with men and with mules, the aging Vietnam War protester who says that "smoking dope, fucking and boozing, that’s who I am naturally."
The Horsley who served 2 1/2 years in federal prison for dealing hashish oil. The Horsley who put up photographs on his Web site of naked men engaging in homosexual acts and a nude woman engaging in bestiality amid shots of grotesquely maimed fetuses.
++++++++++++
Not long after beginning a 30-month federal prison sentence, Neal Horsley "surrendered to Jesus." He wrote later that he was among the first prisoners to be "furloughed to the new ministry started by [born-again Watergate felon] Chuck Colson called Prison Fellowship."
Meeting Colson and other prominent Christian evangelicals, Horsley was enthralled. In 1979, after doing some work for Prison Fellowship, he became Colson’s first southeastern regional director and served for several years before getting a Fellowship scholarship to attend seminary.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In 1995, Neal Horsley logged on to the Internet.
His first website, www.christiangallery.com, carried his writings on a variety of subjects, from essays calling for the arrest of "faggots" to interminable diatribes about abortion.
One section, called the "Desecration Digest," included extremely graphic pornographic photos ostensibly meant to illustrate America’s moral degeneracy.
Another, entitled "Secession Via Nuclear Weapons" and illustrated by a large photograph of a mushroom cloud, called for Georgians to threaten to violently secede in a bid to force other states to outlaw abortion.
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Britney/K-Fed film is up
5/16/05 07:49:23
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And very wrong
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Nerds do battle outside STAR WARS III: THE APOLOGY
5/15/05 21:22:34
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OK, so that’s not what the movie’s actually called, but it should be. Anyway, write your own caption:
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Apparently the mule was asking for it
5/14/05 21:20:41
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What a whore. What a little tease. Yes, our old pal Neal Horsley had carnal knowledge with her, but she LED HIM ON, dammit...and she accepted payment for the act. So remember the important fact: Horsley’s relationship with the mule was between two consenting adult species. What it was NOT was rape; after all, he’s not some sicko. Got it? Once again, from the Newshounds:
Neal Horsley returned to the Alan Colmes Radio Show Thursday night to defend his history of his, er, um, fancy of a certain mule in his pre-teen life of a "normal" farm boy. It was a natural occurence, he said, like that of a mutt that will hump everything warm and wet in sight. He maintained that he did not rape the mule. Horsley claimed that the mule consented and was a willing consultant in this match due to the fact that the mule was clearly a whore for accepting the gift of an ear of corn for the sexual act. Now if you are doing a double take on that piece of information, I should advise you, he really said it.
Mr. Horsley stated that it is logical and natural to engage in beastiality in today’s world, comparing it to consenting gay sex. Mule-man sex is natural, and man-man sex is natural but not normal. He compared it to the paradigm of a dog humping a leg or anything it can find. All men are mutts (well DUH!) when it comes to their sexuality, The mule was just a matter of convenience for him, but it was just one mule. And I’ll quote Alan on this one "At least you were a monogomist".
Alan continued the question with "if it were a washing machine would you have sexual intercourse with it?"
Horsley replied, paraphasing, "I hadn’t thought about it, but I would have had sex with anything wet and warm and moved."
At this time all I could think was sending out an APB warning people to lock up their washing appliances tonight.
Horsley continued by saying that you can be forgiven for the "naturalness" of beastiality because animals are dumb and have no feelings, but those involved in homsexuality should be put in prison.
That would mean Horsley should be sitting in that prison according to his own convictions. Yes folks, most of you guessed it right, he admitted to 1 homosexual affair with a man and 2 extra-marital
affairs that resulted in pregnancies. Mr. Horsely who is staunch anti-abortion advocate, claimed tonight he had "personally seen thousands of abortions walk by him, weeping", (can I please have video
of that?), stated he had told the mistresses that they should abort the fetuses. The women didn’t chose that option and decided to have the children.
Colmes brought up oral sex, asking if it was a sin between a married woman and a man. Horsley pretty much did a gallop around the subject stating that is was not for him to judge on these matters. He follows his Bible and all the sexual references it entails as his guide. So what’s his excuse for putting all the names and addresses of the abortionists on his website? I’m not judging you if you accidentally show up on their door and threaten their life?
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Who says liberals can’t fight?
5/12/05 19:24:34
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Hats
off to THE NATION for exposing Bush Administration
appointee to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in the Food
and Drug Administration David Hager’s penchant for back door sex with his
unwilling wife. Now it looks like some female senators, who
find Hager’s faith-based medical philosophy doesn’t, shall we say, meet
certain basic scientific standards, have demanded and explanation:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contacts:Clinton
Press
Office
May 12,
2005
202-224-2243
Murray Press
Office
202-224-2834
SENATORS CLINTON AND MURRAY URGE
SECRETARY LEVITT TO LAUNCH
INVESTIGATION INTO MEMO TO FDA ON PLAN
B
Washington, DC-- Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and
Patty
Murray (D-WA) today sent the following letter to Secretary of
Health
and Human Services Michael Leavitt urging him to launch
an
investigation into a memo sent by Dr. David Hager to
Acting
Commissioner Lester Crawford on Plan B. The Senators reiterated
their
concern that FDA decision-making process was being driven by
personal
beliefs and ideology over science.
May 12,
2005
The Honorable Michael O. Leavitt
Secretary
United States
Department of Health and Human Services
Washington, D.C.,
20201
Dear Secretary Leavitt:
We write to urge you to
immediately initiate an investigation into
reports in this morning’s
Washington Post and The Nation that W. David
Hager was asked to write a memo
to the FDA commissioner about Plan B.
According to the reports, Dr. Hager was
requested to write the memo
after an FDA Advisory panel voted in favor of
making Plan B available
over-the-counter. If substantiated, these allegations
seem to leave
little doubt that the process for considering Barr
Laboratories’
application was based not on science, but on personal
beliefs.
Both The Washington Post and the Nation report that Dr. Hager
stated in
a videotaped sermon that he was asked to write a “minority
report”
outlining why over-the-counter sales of Plan B should be rejected.
It
is unclear whether the FDA asked Dr. Hager to write a report, with
the
Washington Post reporting that he has given conflicting accounts
to
reporters.
On the taped sermon itself, Dr. Hager states that “I was
asked to write
a minority opinion that was sent to the commissioner of the
FDA. For
the second time in five decades, the FDA did not abide by its
advisory
committee opinion, and the measure was rejected… I argued from
a
scientific perspective, and God took that information, and he used
it
through this minority report to influence the decision. Once
again,
what Satan meant for evil, God turned into good.”
As we have
previously stated, we are concerned that the FDA’s
decision-making process is
placing personal beliefs over science. And
Dr. Hager’s statements only add to
our deep concern. The FDA should
never let political considerations interfere
with scientific treatment
decisions.
Day-by-day, the public’s
confidence in the FDA’s ability to make
decisions based on scientific
evidence of safety and efficacy is
eroding. We asked Acting Commissioner
Crawford weeks ago to make a
decision about Plan B – yes or no.
Unfortunately, the American people
have yet to hear from Dr. Crawford and the
FDA.
We urge you to commence an investigation into the serious issues
that
this memo has raised and make your findings available to the public
as
soon as possible. As part of your investigation, we also request
that
the videotape be made available to allow Members of Congress and
the
American people to hear first-hand Dr. Hager’s complete
explanation
about the memo.
Sincerely,
Hillary Rodham
Clinton
Patty Murray
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Adventures in pretentious critiques
5/12/05 08:05:30
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You’ve gotta love architecture critics. Who else would have the nerve to write sentences like these to describe this house? Yes, ok, so it’s Frank Gehry’s house, which he designed himself, but doesn’t it look to you like a collision between a tool shed and an erector set?
Adhering to the spirit of ad-hocism... Frank Gehry’s own house in Los Angeles is rather a collision of parts, built to stay but with a deliberately unfinished, ordinary builderlike sensibility of parts. An existing and very pedestrian two-story gambrel-roofed clapboard residence had much of its interior removed and walls stripped back to their original two-by- four stud frame, beams, and rafters. It was then expanded by wrapping the old house with a metal slipcover creating a new set of spaces around its perimeter. The antirefinement type enclosure is built of the most mundane materials, corrugated aluminum metal siding, plywood, glass and chain-link fencing, and deliberately has randomly slanted lines and angled protrusions. Although the house retains a certain minimalist sense, the effort here is cluttered expressionistic and the sensibility is freely intended as artistically intuitive, of accident not resolved. The palette is anti-high-tech in preference for a visual presence that is off-the-shelf and ordinary ’cheap tech.’ Gehry considers buildings as sculpture with the freedom from restraint that this might imply, hence it is not surprising that his work has an affinity to the collages of Robert Rauschenberg, especially in the artist’s ripped cardboard assemblage period of the 1970s. (Gehry himself designed a line of corrugated cardboard furniture.)
With the original house almost intact formwise, Gehry, in effect, lifted back the skin to reveal the building as layers, with new forms breaking out and tilting away from the original, to create a forerunner of the Deconstructionist spirit of the eighties. It is almost an idea of ’wrapping’ à la Christo, but where Christo seeks through a veil to transform the original to a new sense of being and meaning, Gehry rather produces a discontinuous juxtaposition where one system collides with another resulting in, to quote Bernard Tschumi, a ’super position or disjunctive disassociation.’ Where Johansen assembles technological-like elements freely seeding dialogue through the combination, Gehry, through collaging, also basically (but with a different aesthetic) derives an approach to design from the methodology and respect for construction and its architectonic potential as a form maker and space generator.
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The sheer gall and arrogance
5/12/05 08:00:13
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...of the opening grafs of today’s NOTE are simply staggering. This is what political "analysis" has come to at a major network:
Brides gotta run, planes gotta stray, and cable news networks gotta find a way to fill a lot of programming hours as cheaply as possible. (CNBC gets to talk about the booming April retail sales numbers, and the NRA’s television network will replay the Secretary of State on Larry King over and over.)
We say with all the genuine apolitical and non-partisan human concern that we can muster that the death and carnage in Iraq is truly staggering.
And/but we are sort of resigned to the Notion that it simply isn’t going to break through to American news organizations, or, for the most part, Americans.
Democrats are so thoroughly spooked by John Kerry’s loss —- and Republicans so inspired by their stay-the-course Commander in Chief —- that what is hands down the biggest story every day in the world will get almost no coverage. No conflict at home = no coverage.
Never mind that the MSM pretty much ignored anti-war protests. And that they pretty much refuse to give equal time to anti-war voices. And that the leftie bloggers, particularly Steve Gilliard, have been writing about the war non-stop. If it doesn’t penetrate your little DC bubble, if the people dying don’t eat at the Palm or Cashion’s, if their relatives don’t drink at the Mayflower, attention will not be paid. Shameful.
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Real journo in the hizzous
5/12/05 07:49:30
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From Poynter:
From STEVE LOVELADY, managing editor, CJR Daily: The Spokane Spokesman-Review’s piece on Mayor Jim West is public service journalism at its best, and editor Steve Smith is to be commended. As for the supposed ethical issues raised by the alarmed chinstrokers in our midst -- so what if, as reported by Editor & Publisher, the current editors in Philadelphia, Indianapolis and elsewhere piously declare that they wouldn’t have taken the measures that Smith took to make his story airtight? All that tells me is that if Jim West, or any other Internet predator, was mayor of Philadelphia or Indianapolis, he’d probably be home free.
What exactly is Steve Smith supposed to be guilty of? Having the prudence and caution to hire an expert to ascertain the mayor’s online identity before the Spokesman-Review went into print? Where I come from, we don’t call that entrapment; we call it responsible journalism.
Remember the FBI Abscam investigation in Philadelphia? FBI agents
posing as Arab sheiks exposed half the city council for leaping at the opportunity to collect bribes in return for favorable votes on pending legislation. At the time, the investigation was lauded as a brilliant use of taxpayers’ dollars and the councilmen were tried, convicted and trundled off to jail.
The only difference here is that Steve Smith used the same technique
-- disguise -- but he didn’t use taxpayer dollars to expose the harrowing fact that the mayor of the city is what is known in sexual perversion circles as a "chickenhawk." Instead, he used the dollars alloted to him by his publisher to do the only thing that matters -- to get to the bottom of what was really going on in Spokane’s halls of power.
If that isn’t great journalism, I don’t know what is.
I’m not surprised that by a count of 12-to-1, a grateful public is responding to the Spokesman-Review’s investigation. What’s dismaying is that Smith isn’t getting similar support from his colleagues at more timid publications.
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Changes at CNN
5/12/05 07:30:38
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I’m approaching the news that CNN will simulcast its CNNI programming during the noon hour with cautious optimism. Those of you who have come to associate the CNN brand with Fox-lite programming will be shocked by the intelligence and seriousness of CNNI’s anchors and story selection. And why shouldn’t they be serious? No one in Hong Kong gives a fuck about bug-eyed American runaway brides.
I’m cautious in my optimism, however, because knowing the way CNN bosses think, they probably won’t appreciate the inevitable comparisons between CNNI’s intelligence and CNN domestic’s cravennes. Imagine, if you will, two sisters: One brainy, introspective and a great conversationalist, the other slatternly and shallow. Wouldn’t it be natural to wonder how two such different siblings came from the same family?
In CNN’s case, I fear the instinct will be to tinker, but unlike the parent who tries to make her giggly offspring stop dressing in crotch-revealing minis and flashing passers-by, I think Klein’s approach will be to fiddle with CNNI’s programming. Steps have already been taken to ensure that CNN domestic has a hand in the noon hour. This is very, very bad news, which I hope the good folks at CNNI fight tooth and nail.
So enjoy it while it lasts.
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John Bolton - schwing!
5/11/05 22:02:17
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Thanks to Wolcott and RAW STORY, I’ve now read all about how John Bolton, he of the lustrous mustache and explosive temper, may have been a denizen of Plato’s Retreat, New York’s notorious "swingers club" ("swingers club" = fuck palace) back in the day. For background on this den of iniquity, I refer you to THE OTHER HOLLYWOOD, a book I referred you to a few posts down.
Moral of the story: If you’re a big enough jerk and you spend years and years abusing underlings, people will start to dig up embarrassing shit about you. What was all that about glass houses and rocks? By the way, here’s a tip to all hypocritical wingnuts: DO NOT PISS LARRY FLYNT OFF. I interviewed him after the Flynt Report came out, and the man is dead serious about nailing right wing hypocrites, moralizers and other such types to the wall. Not one of the stories published in the highly embarrassing Report has been retracted. More on the Flynt Report later...
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John Bolton, nuclear shirker
5/11/05 20:39:38
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Thanks to NEWSWEEK for the heads up. Beautiful:
Critics say U.N. Ambassador-designate John Bolton didn’t properly prepare for a key nonproliferation conference, which could be a serious setback in U.S. efforts to isolate Iran.
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Everyone JUST...CALM...DOWN
5/11/05 08:06:29
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There’s nothing like a new project involving celebrities to make people a little...batty. Consider if you will Nikki Finke’s take on The Huffington Post. Choice excerpts include:
Judging from Monday’s horrific debut of the humongously pre-hyped celebrity blog the Huffington Post, the Madonna of the mediapolitic world has undergone one reinvention too many. She has now made an online ass of herself.
Her blog is such a bomb that it’s the movie equivalent of Gigli, Ishtar and Heaven’s Gate rolled into one. In magazine terms, it’s the disastrous clone of Tina Brown’s Talk, JFK Jr.’s George or Maer Roshan’s Radar.
No matter what happens to Huffington, it’s clear Hollywood will suffer the consequences. It seems like some sick hoax.
Sure, her Web address got a lot of post-launch hits thanks to links from its targeted competitor the Drudge Report and a pre-arranged AOL promotion. But car wrecks also generate heavy traffic. And bloggers are criticizing her for not being brave enough to include comments. More to the point, a lot of her pre-launch promises haven’t yet materialized. Not only is there no Gwyneth Paltrow as of yet, there’s nary a Big Media heavyweight like Tom Freston, Barry Diller or David Geffen in sight — although late word from inside the Huffington Post is that Arianna is still hopeful they will begin contributing. (Editor’s Note: It’s early days yet. And if they don’t show, who gives a rat’s ass? - DCMG)
Back to Arianna’s celebrity bloggers. I implore you: Forgive them, because they know not what they do. Not Seinfeld has-been Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her untalented TV-hyphenate husband, Brad Hall, making unfunny shtick of the anti-gay-marriage movement. Not has-been director Mike Nichols, using the forum to parade his high school grasp of U.S. history by mentioning "de Tocqueville" and "Dr. King" in the same paragraph. (Mike Nichols a has-been? Here’s his bio. He won the latest of his numerous awards, an Emmy for ANGELS IN AMERICA, last year -- DCMG).
They’re all lambs to the slaughter, — baa, baa, baa, suddenly standing for baad, baad, baad — led by a shameless shepherdess whose only interest in the Hollywood flock in the first place is its ability to secure yet another headline for Huffington.
Jesus, IT’S ONLY A WEB SITE....
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Terror watch
5/11/05 08:06:25
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| Hey Tom Ridge, thanks for waiting until now to tell us that a) you had no influence over at DHS, and b) those terror warnings were used by the administration for, shall we say, political purposes. So when will the Congress investigate this gross violation of the public’s trust? Never? OK, just asking.
Ridge said he wanted to "debunk the myth" that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002.
"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don’t necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, ’For that?’ "
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This....is Jon Klein
5/11/05 07:48:32
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CNN’s storyteller-in-chief took a bit of a drubbing on NPR (that is, if you can call a polite yet firm candid exchange of views a drubbing):
BOB GARFIELD:
This is On the Media. I’m Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I’m Brooke Gladstone. This week, many media watchers complained about news they can’t use - about a certain runaway bride. When Jennifer Wilbanks got cold feet, she made tabloid headlines and left tracks all over the cable news channels, including CNN - the network that promised more and more rigorous journalism after Jonathan Klein took over as president last December. And so we called him up. Jonathan, welcome to the show.
JONATHAN KLEIN: Thank you. Nice to be here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So, shortly after you took over as president of CNN, you said you wanted fewer, (quote) "head-butting festivals" of the "Crossfire" variety and more reporting of the news. So you’re now five months into the job. Still committed to that strategy?
JONATHAN KLEIN: Oh, yeah. More than ever. You know, the public are bombarded with headlines, so they have a sense that they know what’s going on, but in fact, there’s a huge gap between awareness and real knowledge, and there aren’t too many outlets that will close that gap. Well, that’s what we aspire to do at CNN. We’ve got the resources to do it. We’ve got people all over the world. The real key is execution - you know, living up to it and resisting the urge to stray.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now you were quoted as saying that CNN will do more "roll up your sleeves storytelling with provocative character-driven narratives." Give me a sense of the kind of stories you’re talking about.
JONATHAN KLEIN: Oh, we’ve done all sorts of things. Anderson Cooper went to Lebanon and Syria to really chart the birth of democracy there. Frank Sesno went to Germany to report a story on Hitler’s secret family history. We had six different reporters spend couple of months looking into teen driving and why statistics actually have improved as far as safety in the past year, and so we’re running the gamut.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well, let’s talk about the other end of that gamut then. Let’s talk about Monday, May 2nd. "CNN Daybreak." The rundown had Runaway Bride, "American Morning" - Runaway Bride Could Face Criminal Charges. "Live from CNN" - Runaway Bride back Home. "Crossfire" - Should Runaway Bride Faces Charges? Anderson Cooper, Paula Zahn, Larry King, Aaron Brown - all of them devoted at least part of their program to Jennifer Wilbanks, the runaway bride, and Jonathan, I have to ask you - does this fit into the roll up your sleeves storytelling that you have in mind?
JONATHAN KLEIN: Well, sure. I mean the New York Times covered the runaway bride too, and I’m sure I heard a story about it on NPR.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: It was way buried in the New York Times.
JONATHAN KLEIN: Well, we can quibble over degree, but what you will see more and more of is CNN focusing its resources on any given day around a few big stories, while we continue to cover everything else as well. But one of our problems was before we were spread too thin. We would do a little bit about a lot of things. But none of it was very satisfying. It was all very headline-y and surface-y. So instead, we’re going to, on a regular basis, choose a story that we think is important or interesting. We were the first to throw all of our resources against the Schiavo story, and we really put that story on the national agenda. And then we rolled up our sleeves and went down to Pinellas Park, and we went out to Tallahassee and got exclusive interviews with Jeb Bush.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: We can quibble about the importance of the Schiavo case. I don’t want to, but I don’t think it’s a quibble to talk about the degree of coverage and the fact that there was some coverage of the runaway bride in the New York Times in a discreet story or two is quite different from what CNN did. A few years ago, we spoke to one of your predecessors, Walter Isaacson. He said some things in 2001 very similar to what you’re saying now - more news and reporting; less shouting and soap operas. In fact, Bob read him a list almost identical to the one I just read you with the words "Chandra Levy" substituting for "runaway bride," and-
JONATHAN KLEIN: Right.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: --is the lesson here that cable news simply operates at a level of inertia and entropy that no one can change, that you throw blanket coverage at a story that really doesn’t merit it?
JONATHAN KLEIN: No. If you were listening to me, Brooke, you would have heard me say that on some days, that story that we decide to focus on will be the runaway bride. On other days, the story will be the spread of democracy in Lebanon. We looked around. We didn’t see any other network anchor in Lebanon. And then we went to Syria. And we didn’t find any network anchor there, either. Now, you could criticize us for covering that story too heavily as well.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But are you saying that CNN’s coverage of the runaway bride was an appropriate amount of coverage?
JONATHAN KLEIN: Oh, for sure. It was a fascinating story that left a lot of questions unanswered - what drove her to this? Is this a crime?
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jonathan, people disappear every day. It didn’t become a story in the eyes of viewers until this seemed to take center stage on all the cable networks.
JONATHAN KLEIN: Yeah, I understand what you’re saying. I, I’m a big believer that there’s nothing innate about the medium that says "it must take one road or another." It doesn’t have to be high road or low road. And so sometimes it’s going to be Lebanon and Syria and Baghdad, and sometimes it’s going to be the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. Sometimes it’s going to be the runaway bride.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: It seems to me that, for the purposes of our discussion, you keep equating stories like Lebanon, which need no justification, with a weird little blip of a story like the runaway bride, which actually does need some justification.
JONATHAN KLEIN: Well, and yet, that’s possibly a pretty elitist thing to say, because I don’t know that you can say that one story needs justification, one doesn’t. Who are you to argue with "the people" who flock to watch one story and not the other? The reason that I keep bringing up Lebanon and Syria is because our coverage of those stories and the tsunami and the Iraq election are as indicative of the kind of work in journalism that CNN ought to be known for as one day in which we covered the runaway bride. I mean, I’m sorry that you didn’t like it- [LAUGHTER] but if you like the rest of what we’ve done for the last five months, then I feel okay, because I think over time we prove out and are getting even better at being worth the attention of our audience. And yeah, sometimes I’ll disagree with it. Sometimes you personally will disagree with it, Brooke. But, you know, maybe you need to get more in sync with what viewers out there [LAUGHTER] want to know about.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And you didn’t cover it because you were afraid people would turn to Fox.
JONATHAN KLEIN: No, no. We really - and I’m glad you bring that up, I mean because it’s a fair question. Yes, we’re in a competitive environment. But one area we’ve been very successful in is making our own decisions and not worrying what those other guys are doing. I mean, they do talk radio, and we do reporting. We lose far more people to the broadcast networks and to the internet than we do to Fox News.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jonathan Klein, thank you very much.
JONATHAN KLEIN: Thank you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jonathan Klein is the president of CNN.
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A good mule’ll do that
5/11/05 07:30:41
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From the indefatigable Newshounds comes word that Neal Horsley will be making a return appearance on Alan Colmes’s radio show Thursday to continue his meditation on interspecies sex and how it fits into the Christian Right’s pro-family agenda. To listen to a a bit of appearance #1, go to Alan’s Web site, where his intrepid Webmaster has helpfully moved the clip to the top of the page. One reader, unconvinced by Horsley’s "everyone in rural Georgia does it" excuse, wrote me that his behavior is an insult to Georgians and mules alike.
For those of you interested in learning more about bestiality, I recommend THE OTHER HOLLYWOOD: AN UNCENSORED ORAL HISTORY OF THE PORN FILM INDUSTRY, in which Linda Lovelace recounts how her revolting suitcase pimp husband, Chuck Traynor, ordered her to have sex with a dog on camera. Good times!
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The horror
5/10/05 07:26:37
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Here’s my nomination for the Pulitzer in photography:
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Maybe now we know why horse masturbation jokes don’t fluster the extreme right
5/9/05 21:27:20
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I simply can’t add anything to this. From
the Newshounds:
(On May 5) anti-abortion extremist Neal Horsley was a guest on The
Alan Colmes Show, a FOX News radio program. The topic was an interesting one -
whether or not an internet service provider should allow Horsley to post the
names of abortion doctors on his website. Horsley does that as a way of
targeting them and one doctor has been killed. In the course of the interview,
however, Colmes asked Horsley about his background, including a statement that
he had admitted to engaging in homosexual and bestiality
(sp) sex.
At first, Horsley laughed and said, "Just because it’s printed in the
media, people jump to believe it."
"Is it true?" Colmes asked.
"Hey, Alan, if you want to accuse me of having sex when I was a fool,
I did everything that crossed my mind that looked like I..."
AC: "You had sex with animals?"
NH: "Absolutely. I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia,
your first girlfriend is a mule."
AC: "I’m not so sure that that is so."
NH: "You didn’t grow up on a farm in Georgia, did you?"
AC: "Are you suggesting that everybody who grows up on a farm in
Georgia has a mule as a girlfriend?"
NH: It has historically been the case. You people are so far removed
from the reality... Welcome to domestic life on the farm..."
Colmes said he thought there were a lot of people in the audience who
grew up on farms, are living on farms now, raising kids on farms and "and I
don’t think they are dating Elsie right now. You know what I’m
saying?"
Horsley said, "You experiment with anything that moves when you are
growing up sexually. You’re naive. You know better than that... If it’s warm and
it’s damp and it vibrates you might in fact have sex with it."
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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CC DeVille jumps the shark
5/9/05 20:33:59
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I’d been told that CC DeVille, Poison’s guitar muppet, had fallen off the wagon a while ago. When I saw this picture I realized things are worse than I’d thought, since his substance abuse problem appears to include self-tanner:
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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I totally heart Larry David
5/9/05 19:34:05
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Read his defense of John Bolton here.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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More on the changes at CNN
5/9/05 19:23:19
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Some of you nosy nellies out there may have heard that there are changes afoot at CNN. My in-house mole told me a week ago that the 3 - 6 p.m. slot would be programmed out of DC, with one of those hours (last I heard it was the 4 - 5 p.m. slot) to be devoted to "security watch" stories.
Today, CNN executives held a "town hall meeting" during which I’m told the following occured:
- Jim Walton predicted the death of ABC’s broadband experiment
- This summer, CNN will introduce Internet-based programming that will "revolutionize the way you watch news"
- Jon Klein reminded the audience that bloggers are here to stay and are having an impact, and the best thing CNN can do is report on them and expose who they are (that last part sounds scary, but something tells me their intent isn’t as ominous as this quote makes it sound).
Developing...
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Reports of my demise are not to be believed
5/9/05 19:15:51
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My hosting company has been replacing hardware or something on servers today, which is why my site has been down for HOURS AT A TIME. I hope this problem has been solved....so far so good.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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VF’s "Jeff Gannon" piece is up
5/9/05 07:50:24
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Available here
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Write your own caption - Cynthia Ore, on her way to Don Sherwood’s passion pit
5/9/05 07:48:16
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Be sure to
read about how she refers to herself as a "young girl".
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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The Huffington Post is off to a rousing start
5/9/05 07:37:20
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And what a piece of scoopage to wake up to:
According to a new book exclusively obtained by the Huffington Post, Saudi Arabia has crafted a plan to protect itself from a possible invasion or internal attack. It includes the use of a series of explosives, including radioactive “dirty bombs,” that would cripple Saudi Arabian oil production and distribution systems for decades.
Bestselling author Gerald Posner lays out this “doomsday scenario” in his forthcoming “Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi-US Connection” (Random House).
According to the book, which will be released to the public on May 17, based on National Security Agency electronic intercepts, the Saudi Arabian government has in place a nationwide, self-destruction explosive system composed of conventional explosives and dirty bombs strategically placed at the Kingdom’s key oil ports, pipelines, pumping stations, storage tanks, offshore platforms, and backup facilities. If activated, the bombs would destroy the infrastructure of the world’s largest oil supplier, and leave the country a contaminated nuclear wasteland ensuring that the Kingdom’s oil would be unusable to anyone. The NSA file is dubbed internally Petro SE, for petroleum scorched earth.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Not funny
5/8/05 11:22:40
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I don’t understand VANITY FAIR’s Web site philosophy. Why not post articles from the new issue the day it hits the stands?
But that’s not the subject of my post. I need to draw your attention to Michael Wolff’s article in the June issue, which has already ruffled some feathers and will undoubtedly create quite a kerfuffle in certian quarters.
His theme? Liberals aren’t funny anymore. Conservatives are the new black, comedy-wise.
While there’s nothing more crashingly unfunny than listening to someone explain a joke, or try to insist they’re funny, I still suggest that Wolff click on some of the URLs in my left hand nav. Many of the bloggers I’ve linked to are liberal AND hilarious...but I guess the blogs don’t count. So what about poking around the magazine he’s employed by? VF employs one of the funniest (and smartest) writers on the left, the great James Wolcott (if you haven’t read ATTACK POODLES yet, for shame).
The piece has already resulted in a first round bitchslap from Jack Schafer at SLATE, a publication that Wolff writes about with particular disdain as exhibit "A" of What’s Gone Wrong with the Left’s funnybone.
So let’s take Wolff’s piece at face value. Have we on the left really been overtaken by humorless dullards? Have the Pacifica radio-loving crowd of Teva-wearing, graying ponytail (male AND female) scolds really taken over? Have we turned into the Omegas to the conservatives’ fun-loving Deltas?
Let’s consider Wolff’s evidence. Like most male journalists his age, he seems to just love Ann Coulter, finding her "facile, funny, irreverent, eccentric, jaunty, pithy, as well as aggressive and wrongheaded" (traits Wolff insists she shares with, God help us, THE WEEKLY STANDARD, a magazine the editors couldn’t get anyone to read even when Bill Kristol was still on the ABC THIS WEEK roundtable and the other editors were shilling 24 hours a day on Fox "News" Channel). David Brooks, he writes, was a "stylish, witty, sharp-eyed writer" who became a "plodding, stuffed-shirt prig when he went to work for a liberal publication" (insert obligatory NYT-related comment at the bottom). Roger Ailes is "sly, charming, sometimes farfetched, and irresistably cynical about everyone’s motives and everybody’s virtue. Whereas we liberals are achingly serious - always. We’re good boys" (I too would be cheerful if I were given the job of running a 24-hour propaganda network, which I could staff with like-minded puppetheads who would spend their work day shoveling innuendo and insults with nary a worry about facts, fairness and accuracy, and have the MSM express their envy and admiration. Oh, and to have the very same MSM fall for the fiction that this operation was a "news" channel would be the icing on the cake. No wonder he’s in a good mood. I’d be laughing my ass off every night). Here’s my favorite: "Peggy Noonan is as exaggerated as Maureen Dowd, but she isn’t regarded as the in-house ’crazy lady’ ". He also makes a reference to his friend James Atlas, whose excruciatingly narcissistic and dull memoir of being fired Wolff insists "has made, I detect, lots of people in the liberal media, who believe they are actually big successes, uncomfortable". Not clear what this has to do with conservatives being funnier than lefties, but whatever.
A word on this Atlas autobio. You want funny? Read Wolcott’s hilarious review of the book from the NEW REPUBLIC.
I’m not going to get into specifics about the Right’s gift for humor, but I wonder what exactly Wolff is talking about. Rush Limbaugh’s penchant for playing abortion vacuum sounds when hanging up on a caller? His suggestion that Vince Foster was killed in a safe house owned by Hillary Clinton and later dumped in Ft. Marcy Park? As for Ann Coulter, her many "jokes" have been well-documented in recent weeks, so I won’t belabor the point. I also can’t help but wonder whether Wolff would find her funny if she weighed 300 pounds and wore muu-muus (you know, like liberal women do) instead of belly shirts.
I will say this, though - there is one conservative who’s brought us so many laughs that he really needs to be singled out for a special "thank you", and oddly, Wolff doesn’t mention him. This person is, of course, Bill O’Reilly, whose combination of the innocent words "loofah" and "falafel" scaled new heights of comedic excellence, and brought us many a laugh and tear. His Caribbean shower fantasies and advice to women on how to enhance their sex lives were also knee-slappers. The only tragedy is that this wit wasn’t aired, but rather remained confined to the "Factor After Dark" tapes, which have most likely met a grim end.
More examples of right-wing humor: Impeachment. Schiavo. Gay-baiting while accusing the Left of homophobia during the "Jeff Gannon" imbroglio (Jeff Gannon - he’s another King of Right Wing Comedy). The 2000 Florida recount. The attacks on John McCain in South Carolina. The Swift Boat Vets. The ads the GOP used against Max Cleland.
A veritable laff riot.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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The ’girl goes big time
5/8/05 10:18:35
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DCMediagirl was featured on Friday’s Inside the Blogs segment. While my blog was mentioned, I think that Jacki’s real motive for putting it on the air was to give mad props to comments section regular Eric J. of Move Left:
SCHECHNER: Over at dcmediagirl.com, she herself a former journalist and political producer. She’s got a link to the official "USA Today" statement on Squitieri’s resignation. She’s not a fan of his. And it was also one of the comments at her site that caught her eye. Sounds like Tom Squitieri got a raw deal. Bloggers can hyperlink, meaning you can link to another quote or another Web page. Journalists can’t for their print edition. And then he says, I still think "USA Today" went overboard. If "USA Today" has a policy on this, they should have sent Tom Squitieri a harsh letter and not fired him.
As always, thanks to Crooks and Liars and his mighty TIVOs for the clip.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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It’s Paris Hilton in HOUSE OF WAX - write your own caption
5/6/05 07:24:38
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Dc Media Girl Permalink
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And another one gone
5/5/05 21:14:53
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Whoops:
"An article written by USA TODAY staff writer Tom Squitieri and published on March 28, 2005, included quotes taken from The Indianapolis Star that were not attributed to the newspaper. Statements made by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Brian Hart, of Bedford, Mass., first appeared in a May 7, 2004, article on armored Humvees by Ted Evanoff of The Indianapolis Star. USA TODAY and The Indianapolis Star are both Gannett newspapers. Squitieri’s actions violated USA TODAY’s standards on sources and attribution. USA TODAY apologizes to its readers. Squitieri has apologized and resigned."
For those of you who can’t quite put a face to the name, Squitieri was a regular on HARDBALL and the other shriekfests, shirt unbuttoned down to there, displaying his bounteous chest hair while pontificating about what a scumbag Bill Clinton was during the frenzy of All Monica, All The Time. I also have it on good authority that he was one of the USAT reporters who led the whispering campaign against serial fabricator Jack Kelley, "for the good of journalism and USA TODAY", of course. If that was in fact the case, for this to be Squitieri’s au revoir is beyond ironic.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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For the love of God, EASE UP ON THE SELF-TANNER
5/5/05 20:22:49
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Seriously, who wants to start the divorce countdown on these two? And
she’s supposedly cheating with Johnny Knoxville? You mean the guy whose
claim to fame is having people film him getting hit/kneed/punched in the groin? What, was Colin Farrell
busy?
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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So what do YOU call it?
5/5/05 20:14:42
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Via
the ever-vigilant AMERICAblog, a revelation about yet another right-wing
anti-gay bigot who turns out to be a big fat mixed up closet case.
In an Internet chat room last New Year’s Eve where he discussed his
recent date with an 18-year-old man, Spokane Mayor Jim West criticized the “sex
Nazis” who try to regulate private sexual behavior. For years, that’s exactly
what West tried to do in Olympia.
Over two decades, West rose to power in
the Washington Legislature with a carefully cultivated image as a fiscally
conservative Republican opposed to gay rights, abortion rights and teenage
sex.
His abrasive style and temper were legendary in Olympia. But even
his opponents speak highly of his legislative and budgetary skills, which have
made him one of the state’s most powerful politicians.
In a wide-ranging interview Wednesday night, West acknowledged he’d
recently begun to seek out young men on the Internet and said he couldn’t
explain why. “I don’t want to go into the whole issue, but I wouldn’t
characterize me as ‘gay,’.” West said.
How would YOU characterize it?
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Thoughts on money, fame and other stuff
5/5/05 20:02:47
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Steve Gilliard has an interesting post over at his place which analyzes the power of money and fame over the American psyche. I’d like to add to what he’s saying by way of an anecdote.
Several years ago, I befriended a band that came out of the 1980s Sunset Strip scene. Their videos had been played on MTV and their records had sold, but they never achieved the heights of Motley Crue, Guns ’n’ Roses or Def Leppard (or even Poison or Warrant for that matter). Nowadays, they get by playing the nostalgia circuit and scrape out a living of sorts.
So I’m in the dressing room of the Galaxy Theater in Santa Anna. In the room with me were a surly guitar tech who wasn’t much of a conversationalist and a non-descript guy who was pretty friendly. He and I started making small talk. Turns out the guy was a dentist who had treated a few members of the band. By the way, you know the 80s are seriously over when you have dentists in dressing room as opposed to porn stars.
Anyway, in came the band accompanied by Rikki Rachtman, former owner of legendary Los Angeles heavy metal/sex industry worker hangout the Cathouse and host of MTV’s "Headbanger’s Ball". A conversation ensued during which Rikki told the dentist he had a toothache. Without missing a beat, the dentist reached into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of Vicodin, which he offered to Rikki. The band’s guitar player said "no man, he’s clean", at which point the dentist sheepishly put the pills back in his pocket.
What’s the moral of the story? That even very minor celebrities, who are the equivalent of plankton on the celebrity food chain, attract hangers-on who are desperate to be around the "glamorous" life, even when the glamorous in question aren’t even has-beens, because to be a has-been you have to have been somebody to begin with. And those hangers-on can have a very destructive influence. Los Angeles is literally full of people who will provide anything you want for a price. I knew one musician who was given a prescription for OxyContin by a starstruck Dr. Feelgood, even though the musician had been a heroin addict back in the day. Now he’s addicted again, just not on the needle. The doctor who wrote the prescription is a respected practitioner with a normal practice in Beverly Hills. He’s just an unscrupulous whore when it comes to writing prescriptions for people who’ve been on MTV.
So just imagine being a star of Michael Jackson’s magnitude. Which advisor will have to courage to look you in the eye and say "Mr. Jackson, I don’t think that bringing boys into your bedroom is a good idea"? Who’s going to tell him not to spend money as if he grew it on his own personal trees? Who will do that? The rest of the Jacksons, who rely on Michael for support and profit off of his misery? Who has the strength and the integrity to say "no" to him? So yes, while money is a powerful motivator, fame can’t be left out of the equation. People really do get stupid when exposed to it.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Paris Hilton, poster child for tax reform
5/5/05 08:15:35
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If this interview doesn’t prove that the inheritance tax needs to be raised to 95%, I don’t know what does. An excerpt follows:
Q: So how would you describe your occupation?
PARIS HILTON: I don’t know. I’m an actress, a brand, a businesswoman. I’m all kinds of stuff.
Q: If you had to pick just one...
HILTON: An actress. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Her upcoming films include "National Lampoon’s Pledge This!" and "Bottom’s Up." - DCMG)
Q: So all of this -- the partying, the modeling, the reality show -- was just your journey to an acting career?
HILTON: Yeah, I guess.
Q: Do you read what’s written about you? Do you pick up the tabloids?
HILTON: I don’t read any of it. I just look at the pictures to see what I was wearing last week and if it was cute.
Q: Do you read blogs?
HILTON: What’s that?
Q: Um, they’re these things on the Internet where people write about news and stuff.
HILTON: No, I don’t really read anything on the Internet except my AOL mail. I don’t like people who sit on computers all day long and write about people they don’t know anything about.
Q: Paris, you just described my job.
(Her publicist, Rob Shuter, laughs.)
Q: What did you want to be when you were a little girl?
HILTON: A veterinarian, but then I realized I could just buy a bunch of animals.
+++++++++
Q: So what could you possibly do on "Simple Life 4"?
HILTON: Go to Maui.
Q: Why?
HILTON: They want to sex it up, have us more in swimsuits and stuff.
Q: But what would you do?
HILTON: I don’t know. We could work as lifeguards or work in a hotel or something.
Q: "Baywatch" tried that and it didn’t work.
HILTON: Tried what?
Q: They went from the United States to Hawaii, which I guess is technically the United States. Anyway, it didn’t work. [Editor’s note: Hawaii, of course, is one of the United States.)
HILTON: (Silence.)
+++++++++++
Q: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
HILTON: I don’t know. Married to my boyfriend with two kids and a house. Still acting and doing stuff.
Q: What kind of wife would you be?
HILTON: A good one. I’d cook and clean.
Q: What would your children’s names be?
HILTON: Paris and London.
Q: Paris for a girl? London for a boy?
HILTON: Yeah.
Q: Why are you so popular?
HILTON: I don’t know, because of who I am. I’m not like anybody else. I’m like an American princess.
Q: What would you be like if you were -- I don’t know -- Paris Smith?
HILTON: I’d be the same. Maybe I’d be a veterinarian.
Q: In your career, what are you most afraid of happening?
HILTON: I don’t know. Nothing.
Q: Nothing? What about in your personal life?
HILTON: I don’t know. Death.
Q: Why? What’s so scary about death?
HILTON: Because I don’t know what happens.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Write the caption, 5/5
5/5/05 08:08:03
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Dc Media Girl Permalink
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The ambassador of the Right
5/5/05 08:02:45
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A bunch of left-wing bloggers, present company included, received an e-mail the other week from a guy who writes for Right Wing News, asking us to send him a list of our favorite columnists. You can see the results here. My only quibble with the list is the ranking system that was used, which makes international figure skating judging rules look logical by comparison:
All bloggers were allowed to make anywhere from 1-15 ranked selections. The selections were scored based on a weighted scale. A rank of 1-5 was worth (3) points, 6-10 was worth (2) points, & 11-15 was worth (1) point.
So for example, a 1st (3) & 13th (1) place selection would be worth 4 points wheras having three bloggers rank a columnist at 11th (1), 12th (1), and 15th (1) place would be worth 3 points total. Got it? Good.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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I guess the dating opportunities at Abu Ghraib were pretty limited
5/5/05 07:44:59
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From the LA TIMES:
(Charles Graner) was (Lynndie England’s) superior at the prison and reportedly is the father of a child to whom she gave birth last fall. But since then they have had a falling out, and Graner is now reportedly married to another defendant in the Abu Ghraib case, Spc. Megan Ambuhl.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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For the lapsed Catholic who has everything
5/4/05 22:24:12
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A Papa Ratzi teddy:
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Why the chickenhawks’ cowardice matters
5/4/05 20:15:15
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On occasion, I get criticized for pointing out the latest outrage on the part of the Right - another chickenhawk revealed, Jonah Goldberg frantically re-writing history from an ignorant, conservative point of view, etc. Some of you wonder, Why bother? It’s understood that these guys are a bunch of self-riteous hypocrites and phonies; what else is new? Why does it matter?
Here’s why it matters. Because for every John Bolton, or Dick Cheney with his "other priorities", or every candy-ass like Saxby Chambliss/Pat Buchanan/Tom DeLay/Newt Gingrich/Rush Limbaugh/Lamar Alexander/Steve Forbes, etc., who demonstrated in favor of the war on the homefront but somehow managed to get out of serving himself, a guy had to go in his place. Guys like this reader:
I care.A lot. I served as a Marine in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968. 22 Marines from my company (Echo-2d Bn,3d Mar) were killed on the afternoon of 12/26/67. I was shot in the head on 2/6/68, during the Tet Offensive and my best friend in the Marine Corps, a father of 3, was shot in the face and killed on 5/15/68. After I came home from the war I opposed it, as did John Kerry and a lot of other individuals who actually served in it. It has been profoundly offensive to me to hear people like Bolton, who supported the war but refused to fight in it, criticize men like Senator Kerry, who actually fought in the war, knew it was a mistake, and then had the courage to oppose it. Bolton’s position was and is like a double dose of hypocrisy...and don’t even get me started on the purple heart bandaids they were yukking it up over during the Republican National Convention. Comment by Terry Kindlon--May 04, 2005 @ 16:40 pm
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Michael Jackson, then and now
5/4/05 20:06:33
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I’ve managed to keep from posting about the Michael Jackson trial, and it’s been easier than I thought it would be to avoid the squalor. The defendant is a demented mannequin; the "family" (if by "family" you mean a large group of leeches whose sole purpose seems to be living off the MJ teat, which appears to be running dry) is repulsive; the victim’s family is a loathsome group of grifters (what mother would pimp her son out to a suspected child molester in exchange for a body wax?); the former domestics and assorted courtiers are a greedy gang of enablers...and then, of course, there are the lawyers. If this trial just isn’t doing it for you, revulsion-wise, VANITY FAIR has helpfully posted Maureen Orth’s archive of Michael Jackson articles online. Proceed with caution.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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From the department of naked emperors
5/4/05 08:10:55
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Thank God for CJR Daily, one of the only outlets that still practices journalism. Great coverage of the death knell of what used to be a great news organization, before it became Fox without the integrity. So much for "storytelling":
Runaway Network Exec Kidnaps News
Last Friday, we learned that new CNN president Jonathan Klein "is being welcomed as a hero within CNN" because "ratings are beginning to rise thanks to Klein’s steering toward news and away from attitude."
Sounds great, right? After all, who doesn’t want to see CNN cut back on "Crossfire"-style shoutfests in favor of actual news reporting?
Well us, for one. That is, if this weekend’s embarrassing programming reflects what CNN now considers news. Ever since Jon Stewart went on "Crossfire" to berate that show’s hosts for "hurting America," it’s become gospel that "Crossfire" and its ilk deserve nothing but disdain. But while such shows are certainly flawed, at least they’re about something substantive -- Paul Begala might just be shouting talking points as loudly as possible, but at least viewers are able to glean that, for example, the bankruptcy bill has just been passed, and that Democrats consider it a giveaway to credit card companies. That’s far from ideal -- the bankruptcy bill is a giveaway to credit card companies, and CNN should be able to assert that without couching it in partisan rhetoric -- but at least it’s something.
Contrast that with the drivel CNN offered up this weekend, when the network morphed into the 24/7 Jennifer Wilbanks channel. Don’t know who Wilbanks is? Perhaps you know her better as the "runaway bride," as she’s been dubbed by the media. To recap: Wilbanks, who is a young white woman from Duluth, Georgia, disappeared shortly before her wedding. She cut her hair and took a bus to Las Vegas, and then to Albuquerque. There she made a call to police claiming she had been kidnapped, and, after they picked her up, she eventually admitted she’d actually left on her own.
That’s pretty much the whole story. It’s kind of compelling in a movie-of-the-week sort of way, but there’s not much to it -- if it were a movie of the week, we wager, producers would have asked for a rewrite. But that didn’t stop CNN from flooding the proverbial zone. Here’s a list of people the network has trotted in front of the camera to discuss Wilbanks since noon on Saturday:
The mayor of Duluth.
A pastor from Wilbanks’ Baptist church.
A spokesperson from the Albuquerque police department.
The Albuquerque police chief.
Wilbanks’ fiance.
A friend of Wilbanks’ fiance.
An FBI investigator.
An FBI spokesman.
A mental health expert discussing how the family can "heal."
A clinical psychologist speculating on why Wilbanks took off.
Another clinical psychologist.
A Georgia district attorney.
A New York criminal defense attorney.
A law professor and civil rights attorney.
"Another almost-bride," who talked about "getting cold feet."
This, of course, in addition to countless reports from CNN correspondents, some who were on the scene in Duluth, recapping the same information over and over again to the point of numbness. To spice things up, the network played the 911 call Wilbanks made to police. Producers showed tape of her relieved family before they found out she’d concocted the kidnapping story, as well as tape of her pastor later saying the community was embarrassed but relieved. Talking heads questioned whether Wilbanks would be charged with a crime. Even though they knew the story wasn’t a story -- that the network had grievously over-reacted to what wasn’t actually a kidnapping -- CNN still put together an 8 p.m. Saturday "special report" on the matter. By sundown that day, the network had put on a day-long clinic demonstrating just about everything that’s wrong with TV news.
Klein claims that CNN has "been working hard to find provocative, character-driven news stories. We’ve been emphasizing storytelling." If it wasn’t before, it’s pretty clear now what Klein means by "character-driven": he wants stories with clear narrative arcs, with heroes and villains whose roles can be conveyed in twenty-second blocks. The problem with this philosophy is that neither news nor life is ever so neat.
This is not to say that fascinating stories cannot be teased out of the warp and woof of the news. They can. One can commit to storytelling about American soldiers in Iraq that actually sheds light on the conflict. Or investigative pieces on low-income families that helps viewers understand the impact of the bankruptcy bill. A poignant anecdote can help bring the audience into a discussion of health care. Klein’s philosophy isn’t a bad one -- if it’s applied in the service of news.
But that’s not how he’s applying it. Instead, if Saturday is any indication, he’s pushing the news aside to make way for whatever salacious but otherwise unrevealing story he can get his hands on. The ratings might get better with a focus on emotional stories instead of dueling talking heads, but there’s a ceiling there -- people who turn to CNN for the news aren’t going to suffer too many viewing experiences like this weekend’s without turning elsewhere.
If he’s smart, Klein can have his cake and eat it too -- he can give people both news and emotion in one neat package. But if he’s just going to parade another Jennifer Wilbanks in front of the camera each week, we’ll soon be pining for the golden age of "Crossfire."
And that, readers, is pretty depressing.
Day Four of the Story That Wasn’t
Yesterday, CJR Daily recounted CNN’s sad performance over the weekend as "the network morphed into the 24/7 Jennifer Wilbanks channel." Wilbanks -- aka the "runaway bride" -- skipped town before her wedding, told police she had been kidnapped, and then admitted the lie. To watch CNN cover the story, you’d have thought the network had The Story of the Century on its hands, as it paraded in front of the camera everyone from the mayor of Wilbanks’ hometown to "another almost-bride" who talked about "getting cold feet." To say the least, it wasn’t pretty.
We thought that rather small lemon had been squeezed dry, but it seems we underestimated CNN’s determination to get one more drop of juice out of the desiccated fruit. Thanks to an email from a CJR Daily reader, we turn now to a story by CNN’s Internet partner, CNN Money, that takes today’s award for the Most Pointless Use of Bandwidth. CNN Money brings us the following breathless headline: "Runaway bride may forgo $250 ice bucket: Wilbanks’ 600-guest wedding estimated at $100,000; registry includes $230 platter."
The story itself, by writer David Ellis, is just as inane: "After a three-day flight that included faking her own kidnapping, runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks now has to face several hundred jilted guests, many of whom had already bought gifts, according to several gift registries."
"With 600 guests, 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen, a reception at the ritzy Atlanta Athletic Club and a bridal registry that included a $250 Waterford ice bucket, some experts figure the wedding tab would have run into the six figures." Sure enough, Kyle Brown, the membership director of the Wedding and Bridal Association of America, told Ellis, "Typically speaking, we’re probably talking about around $100,000 for everything."
Ellis further reports that Wilbanks and her fiance were "registered at retailers Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Macy’s and Target." Hmmmm ... Macy’s? Target? Ritzy?
But we digress. The real question is what’s next for CNN, the once-proud home of real news, 24/7. Keep us informed -- because, frankly, we’re afraid to look.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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And they have the nerve to complain about bloggers
5/4/05 08:00:52
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The fact that this piece made it past an editor boggles the mind:
Booking ’Em
Fox News starts a trend with the "Runaway Bride"
The story of Jennifer Wilbanks, the "Runaway Bride" from Duluth, Ga., who disappeared before her wedding, is the type of tale on which network morning shows and prime-time news magazines feast. But the first major interview with one of the principals for that story, Wilbanks’ fiancé John Mason, ended up on Fox News Channel’s Hannity & Colmes on Monday night.
It was a huge "get," as they say in the TV-news biz. The broadcast networks had to borrow Fox News footage — with the channel’s graphics — if they wanted to air a piece of the interview. This could be a sign of how cable news will battle the broadcasters for bookings and viewers. For years, an increasing number of viewers have been tuning in to cable news for immediate information, but the first stop for regular folks involved in big news stories is still usually Today, Good Morning America, 20/20 or Dateline NBC.
That could be changing. The reason? The Fox News Channel’s loyal base of viewers. People who watch the channel and develop a personal connection with its personalities will feel comfortable going to them if they ever become the news.
++++
But what’s really interesting — and remains to be seen — is whether more people will be coming to tell their stories to Fox News in the future. The broadcast bookers had better get their Rolodexes spinning.
OK, so let’s review. The reader is meant to be impressed that the jilted bridegroom, who had pulicly expressed his admiration for Sean Hannity, decided to grant his hero an interview. Wait wait, don’t tell me -- is water wet, too? Why, I’ll be damned.
Let me be clear: When a celebrity has something to promote, he or she tends to sit down for an interview on a show with high ratings. No surprise there. Non-celebrities and guests whose appeal has a short half-life (like this guy, the people in the aborted wedding party, anyone associated with the Schiavo case) tend to pick one venue over another based on a preference for one interviewer’s personality over that of another. Who do you like the most, Katie, Oprah or Diane? "Regular" people aren’t sophisticated about ratings and usually don’t have publicists mapping out a media plan. You don’t have to be Lizzie Grubman, however, to know that if you’re at the center of a scandal it’s probably more comfortable to go on Larry King than THE O’REILLY FACTOR. Non-celebs go on shows to meet, in the flesh, people they watch on TV at home. This is not a "trend". It’s called "the booking business".
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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From the department of pictures and 1,000 words
5/4/05 07:33:25
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It just never ceases to amaze
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John Bolton thinks his life is more important than that of a black or Hispanic kid
5/3/05 08:10:18
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Another chickenhawk. How predictable:
Though Bolton supported the Vietnam War, he declined to enter combat duty, instead enlisting in the National Guard and attending law school after his 1970 graduation. "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy," Bolton wrote of his decision in the 25th reunion book. "I considered the war in Vietnam already lost."
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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They’re back
5/3/05 08:05:07
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The scumbags are crawling out of the woodwork...one of them is even named "Kreep". You just can’t make this stuff up.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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More "Gannon" hijinks
5/3/05 08:03:48
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Aravosis is right. "Gannon" is the gift that keeps on giving. By the way, VANITY FAIR, thanks for blogrolling me, but how about leaking stuff my way? I can respect an embargo, honest I can. There’s a lot to take in, so brace yourselves. Onward:
In a wide-ranging interview, Jeff Gannon (ne James Guckert), the gay male escort turned White House reporter, tells Vanity Fair that the charge that he is a fake is what stings him the most: "I’m not discredited, not in any way, shape, or form, and that annoys me. Is Dan Rather discredited? I mean, I think he is, but nobody says ’the discredited Dan Rather.’"
Gannon talks of writing a tell-all book and suggests he has good gossip on important Washington, D.C., people, though given his ordeal, he’s not sure he’d dish. He implies that there is much "misinformation" about him in circulation, but he won’t say what it is. He claims that his "team of lawyers," whom he won’t identify, is weighing possible libel, slander, and defamation-of-character charges against unspecified parties for offenses he will not disclose. He volunteers that his story is more complex than described, involving secret work for which he needed security clearance, although he refuses to elaborate: "My history isn’t exactly linear."
Gannon sees his comeback happening via an interview show, or talk radio, or even the White House briefing room, saying that the person who would hire him would be "someone who didn’t care, somebody who’s a maverick, who wants to create a little controversy ... might have the stones to say, ’We want him as our White House reporter.’ Because that’s news, and that’s going to attract readers." Scott McClellan tells Vanity Fair, "I don’t think anybody expects it. It seems like he’s moved on."
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Olbermann on the runaway bride
5/2/05 22:36:18
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Genius
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Scoopage
5/2/05 22:02:13
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A little bird within CNN reveals that there’s a plan to expand the "Inside
the Blogs" segment to cut-ins every fifteen minutes...
Developing..
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Attention readers! Fox’s irony shield is damaged!
5/2/05 08:14:30
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Let me be perfectly clear. I despise the show AMERICAN IDOL and everything about it. If Paula Abdul really did conduct an "inappropriate relationship" with a contestant, promising him "special help", well, all I can say is welcome to the music business. If the show were to get yanked off the air because of scandal I’d sing and dance hallelujah. But when I see Fox issuing the following criticism of ABC (which plans to air a piece on Primetime Live), attention must be paid. Alert the department of pots and kettles!
"I am quite surprised and disappointed ABC is devoting an hour of its prime time programming to air tabloid trash," a top FOX executive said from Los Angeles.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Jonah bitchslapped on the pages of E&P. Tee hee!
5/2/05 08:13:14
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Reax to his USA TODAY editorial.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Amazing
5/2/05 08:12:23
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The PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS totally gets it. Be sure to drop the writer a note of thanks:
The press takes a pass on ’Jeff Gannon’
By Carol Towarnicky
towarnc@phillynews.com
IF A REPORTER who doubled as a gay hooker had visited the Clinton White House nearly 200 times, think it would have made the news?
If "Jeff Gannon"/James D. Guckert had been unveiled, so to speak, as a liberal imposter who lobbed softball questions at Clinton administration press briefings, he would be as infamous as Michael Schiavo.
And if 39 of those White House visits were mysteriously unrelated to his "reporting" duties, imagine what innuendoes would be issuing forth from Planet Limbaugh. Imagine the organized phone call campaign demanding newspapers and TV stations report the story.
But Gannon/Guckert isn’t being unveiled or innuendoed or even blipped on media radar screens, even among liberals.
Last Sunday was the third time in recent weeks that I came across hyper-informed liberals who have not heard the first thing about Guckert, who used the name "Jeff Gannon" to pose as a newsman from a Web site that was in reality a Republican Party front. Gannon advertised his second job as a male escort on Web sites complete with full frontal photos.
For months, Gannon/Guckert asked obviously biased questions at press briefings. He was conveniently ready when Bush spokesman Scott McClellan was being pressed too hard by reporters. Apparently none of those reporters ever thought to check out the obvious ringer in their midst. It was only when Gannon asked one of his trademark questions at a nationally televised presidential press conference in February that some bloggers noticed.
It didn’t take much digging for them to uncover Gannon’s not-so-secret identity and ask the obvious: Did the Secret Service have this information? Did the White House? But the story went nowhere then and is going nowhere now.
Just last week, a Freedom of Information Act search requested by two members of Congress revealed that Gannon/Guckert visited the White House 196 times - 39 of them days when there were no press briefings. While liberal blogs made much of the news, a Nexis search found that the Associated Press gave it only three paragraphs, which were picked up by only two newspapers nationwide. CNN mentioned the story only to say that the blogs had it. On MSNBC’s "Countdown," Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank offered excuses for the 14 times that Gannon/Guckert’s entries or exits weren’t recorded by White House security and host Keith Olbermann seemed apologetic for bringing it up.
If reporters aren’t worried about imposter journalists, at least they should smell a good story in a possible White House security breach.
With an explosion of media, much of it partisan, the role of actual journalism becomes even more critical. Yet the bright line between news and fair comment on one hand versus manipulation and propaganda on the other has all but disappeared.
Of course, Gannon/Guckert was only the most flamboyant of phony journalists to grace our airwaves in recent months: There are the paid hacks who got government money to laud government programs in their columns; there were the government video news releases made to look like actual TV reports - and which were run on many smaller stations.
Journalists get hopping-mad if CIA agents masquerade as reporters in war zones - it puts them at high risk. Yet these same journalists seem almost blasé at the assault on truth zones every day at the White House, on Capitol Hill and on a TV screen near you.
At a time when the radicals of the right, aided by the White House, seek to eviscerate constitutional protections, the news media have found a curious way to protect the First Amendment: Don’t worry that Congress will abridge freedom of the press; The press will do the job of abridging itself all on its own.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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It’s time for the "What If?" game!
5/2/05 08:07:09
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I’m inviting you to play along.
Let’s say that the wife of a very important person were to get up in front of a group of reporters and make a speech which included the following laugh lines:
- Your husband is such a dullard that you and your friends entertain yourselves by watching "Desperate Housewives", a show that parallels your existence (minus the sex, of course), or frequenting an adult entertainment venue and stuffing dollar bills into the thonged crotches of male dancers
- Your husband is a preppy phony so ignorant about how to manage his beloved hardscrabble ranch that he milked a male horse instead of a cow, which basically means he jerked the horse off (they pay good money for that skill in the San Fernando Valley’s porn studios, by the way)
- Your husband is a half-wit who doesn’t read
- Your mother-in-law is a brute who reminds you of a murderous mafia don
Let’s say the person giving this cheeky speech was the beloved Laura Bush? How would the press react? If you said it’d be characterized as a hit and praised worldwide, you’d be right. You’d also be correct to say that the press would praise her as the President’s invaluable helpmate, the woman who "softens his rough edges".
Here’s where the "What If?" part comes in. Let’s say that same speech was given by one of the following women:
- Hillary Clinton
- Tipper Gore
- (cue horror music theme) Theresa Heinz Kerry
What would the press’s reaction be then? Submit your guesses in the comments section.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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And another thing
5/2/05 08:06:59
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Where does he find the time to run the network?
Klein is directing CNN to move fast on major stories like the tsunami, taking advantage of its status as the world’s largest television news network to provide context behind the headlines. He also wants CNN to quickly identify less obvious big stories; its coverage on the weekend that Congress debated the Terri Schiavo case outpaced its rivals and started the story on its path to becoming a cable news obsession.
When (Judy) Woodruff interviewed Robert Novak about his conversion to Catholicism -- part of a discussion of the late Pope John Paul II’s appeal -- it was an example of Klein’s wish to get network personalities more involved in stories.
Sometimes that effort is more jarring, like when Rick Sanchez strapped a shock belt around him and writhed on the floor in pain to show the security device’s effectiveness.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Please decipher if you can
5/2/05 08:03:49
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Even more from Jon Klein, God help us:
"What we’ve done is throw down the challenge to our political producers to come up with a new way of covering politics that matches the many new realities of politics. You know the blogging and the values vote and direct marketing and even fears about personal safety and homeland security have all changed the political landscape 180 degrees, and yet the mainstream media is still covering politics the way it has for the last 30 to 40 years since the Kennedy-Nixon debate. So we’ve got to come up with new forms. We’re going to take our time and make sure that we select the best approach for us," he said.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Keep your eyes peeled for the new VANITY FAIR
5/2/05 07:23:23
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Howie
reports:
The Gannon File
Jeff Gannon’s seamy past leaked out months before he
asked President Bush a loaded question during a news
conference.
As a correspondent for the now-defunct Web site Talon
News, says the forthcoming issue of Vanity Fair, Gannon was hammering Tom
Daschle during the South Dakotan’s campaign to hold onto his Senate seat.
Daschle aides traced an e-mail -- ostensibly from a constituent who wanted
reaction to one of Gannon’s stories -- to an Internet profile of Gannon, wearing
only dog tags and boxer shorts. "The Daschle campaign spread the word, but no
reporters bit," the magazine says.
Gannon doesn’t deny advertising online as a
$200-an-hour gay escort, but describes himself as the victim of "a full-scale
jihad" by liberals. Vanity Fair says he falsely told friends he had been a
Marine -- Gannon says he displayed military paraphernalia and "didn’t disabuse
anyone of that notion" -- and owes nearly $21,000 in back taxes. Gannon believes
God bestowed a White House assignment on him so that he could atone for past
transgressions, Vanity Fair says.
In defending his name change, the man born as
James Guckert says Jeff Gannon has a "nice ring to it -- like Wolf Blitzer,
which isn’t his real name either." Actually, Mr. Guckert, it is his real
name.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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AMERICAN DAD
5/1/05 21:36:14
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Verdict? I for one love Roger the (apparently) gay alien, who appears to be channeling the spirit of Paul Lynde.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Millionaire shirkers
5/1/05 20:04:08
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Attention must be paid to a
debate that’s been raging over at Gilliard’s place over the
following outrage:
A new policy is poised to go in place that could change the face of
West Point athletics, allowing Army athletes in any sport who sign a pro
contract to serve two years active duty and six in the reserves upon graduation.
The proposal is expected to be approved by Army officials within
weeks.
The anti-war contingent has registered its approval in the comments
section. The gist of their argument is hooray, the fewer soldiers who go
the better.
To that I say bullshit. First of all, if you want to coast through four
years of college and go pro after graduation, for God’s sake go to a Big Ten
school. No one is forcing you to go to one of the elite military academies
and take advantage of the free tuition and then shirk your obligations.
Don’t want to serve in Iraq? DON’T GO TO WEST POINT, THE AIR FORCE ACADEMY
OR THE NAVAL ACADEMY IN WARTIME. It is simply appalling to me that the
Army is letting graduates off the hook so they can go rake it in. Can you
imagine if a non-athlete were to go to his or her C.O. and try to get out of
serving his or her commission because they’d been offered a lucrative job in the
private sector? No, I didn’t think so. So why are these athletes getting
special treatment?
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Abramoff speaks
5/1/05 18:19:41
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So the whole Jack Abramoff interview is up over at TIME. Anyone care to bet when he’s going to roll?
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Another journo worships at the alter of Klein
5/1/05 09:04:57
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Breathtaking:
But Klein is being welcomed as a hero
within CNN: The cable channel says its ratings are beginning to rise thanks to
Klein’s steering toward news and away from attitude. CNN put out press releases
this week touting gains in its April ratings against what it calls declines in
Fox News Channel’s viewership.
I wonder if Harry Jaffe actually spoke to any of the people at CNN who do the
real work, and not just the publicity department flacks or the other execs whose
primary job seems to be sucking up to the new boss? If he had, he would have
realized that far from being considered a "hero", Klein is reviled as a
charlatan who’s transforming the network into an object of ridicule.
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