As David Brooks blogs that "issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall," Gail Collins, bless her, provides the best tonic for the general dismay about last night's debate.
In her New York Times column, she writes:
"I know it’s been a hard couple of weeks, people. You were all excited about this election and now you feel like someone who got all dressed up for a great event and wound up at a B-list party with a cash bar. You never want to hear the words 'bitter' or 'Bosnia' again. And the only political story that you’ve really enjoyed lately is the one about Cindy McCain’s list of favorite recipes being cribbed from The Food Network...
"The problem with primaries is that without real policy disagreements, if you want to prove you’re better than your opponent it has to get personal. Barack and Hillary are dying to take on John McCain. They can’t wait to fight with somebody who thinks Iraq is a good idea.
"In a great debate breakthrough, Hillary said she thought that while she was the best candidate, Barack could beat the Republicans, too: 'Yes, yes, yes.' This is definitely a new conclusion on the part of the Clinton campaign, arrived at under extreme duress and the presence of network TV cameras, but the Democrats can use all the amity they can get.
"Five more days and then it’s on to the next primary. Let’s try not to say anything insulting about Guam."
And stay away from networks that treat a presidential campaign as a grade-school food fight.
Showing posts with label ABC News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ABC News. Show all posts
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
The Daily Show's Giant Head Speaks Out
For a new generation, Ted Koppel is the old guy on a huge screen behind Jon Stewart who occasionally reminds the fake-news anchor what real journalists do. Yesterday, he had some tougher things to say to future news people.
At a Fordham University forum sponsored by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the 67-year-old Koppel weighed in on the fate of 75-year-old Dan Rather, who is suing CBS for mistreating him in the furor over George Bush’s National Guard Service and failure to serve in Vietnam.
It was a “travesty,” Koppel said, that Rather was “squeezed out” for a story that was “much more correct than incorrect.”
Expanding on the woes of journalists at TV networks owned by self-protecting conglomerates, he pointed out that, as part of the Walt Disney Company, “ABC News is a pimple on the elephant’s behind.”
Last night Koppel got a Lifetime Achievement Award from the TV Academy. Looking back, he told a TelevisionWeek reporter why could never get an interview with Bush in the White House.
When the Decider was first running in 2000, Koppel asked what qualified him and Bush cited his experience as a governor, running a baseball team, and the fact that he was a loving husband and father.
Koppel observed that those were good qualifications for a president of the Kiwanis Club, but not the United States. He could never get to see Bush again, but Koppel may have doing the Kiwanis an injustice.
At a Fordham University forum sponsored by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the 67-year-old Koppel weighed in on the fate of 75-year-old Dan Rather, who is suing CBS for mistreating him in the furor over George Bush’s National Guard Service and failure to serve in Vietnam.
It was a “travesty,” Koppel said, that Rather was “squeezed out” for a story that was “much more correct than incorrect.”
Expanding on the woes of journalists at TV networks owned by self-protecting conglomerates, he pointed out that, as part of the Walt Disney Company, “ABC News is a pimple on the elephant’s behind.”
Last night Koppel got a Lifetime Achievement Award from the TV Academy. Looking back, he told a TelevisionWeek reporter why could never get an interview with Bush in the White House.
When the Decider was first running in 2000, Koppel asked what qualified him and Bush cited his experience as a governor, running a baseball team, and the fact that he was a loving husband and father.
Koppel observed that those were good qualifications for a president of the Kiwanis Club, but not the United States. He could never get to see Bush again, but Koppel may have doing the Kiwanis an injustice.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
The Wes Craven School of Journalism
After consulting his gut last month about future terror attacks, Michael Chertoff is now trying to wrench ours.
The voluble Homeland Security Chief teamed up last night with ABC News, the new locus of wet-their-pants journalism, to deliver his latest irrelevant scare story about a year-old threat and his magnificent working in thwarting it.
"I think that the plot, in terms of its intent, was looking at devastation on a scale that would have rivaled 9/11," Chertoff told ABC, commenting on plans discovered by British Intelligence to detonate gel-based explosives on U.S.-bound flights from London last August.
"If they had succeeded in bringing liquid explosives on seven or eight aircraft, there could have been thousands of lives lost and an enormous economic impact with devastating consequences for international air travel."
ABC of late has been juicing up its evening news with such items as a terrorist graduation video supplied by a “Pakistani journalist” and an enthusiastic but pointless report on the resurgence of bank-robbing in the U.S. emphasizing how few perps get caught.
Chertoff’s puffery is a natural fit for this new kind of enterprise journalism to get viewers’ attention at all costs. He prattled for the camera about a “heightened risk” but not “mathematical certainty” of attack based on his reading of news reports from Pakistan and Europe.
If Homeland Security has something to tell Americans that they should do to help avert attacks, let’s hear it by all means. Meanwhile, they and the too-eager media might want cut down on the color-coded self-promotion.
The voluble Homeland Security Chief teamed up last night with ABC News, the new locus of wet-their-pants journalism, to deliver his latest irrelevant scare story about a year-old threat and his magnificent working in thwarting it.
"I think that the plot, in terms of its intent, was looking at devastation on a scale that would have rivaled 9/11," Chertoff told ABC, commenting on plans discovered by British Intelligence to detonate gel-based explosives on U.S.-bound flights from London last August.
"If they had succeeded in bringing liquid explosives on seven or eight aircraft, there could have been thousands of lives lost and an enormous economic impact with devastating consequences for international air travel."
ABC of late has been juicing up its evening news with such items as a terrorist graduation video supplied by a “Pakistani journalist” and an enthusiastic but pointless report on the resurgence of bank-robbing in the U.S. emphasizing how few perps get caught.
Chertoff’s puffery is a natural fit for this new kind of enterprise journalism to get viewers’ attention at all costs. He prattled for the camera about a “heightened risk” but not “mathematical certainty” of attack based on his reading of news reports from Pakistan and Europe.
If Homeland Security has something to tell Americans that they should do to help avert attacks, let’s hear it by all means. Meanwhile, they and the too-eager media might want cut down on the color-coded self-promotion.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
ABC's Terrorist PR
No American graduation ceremony has been as well covered as that of the Al Qaeda/Taliban training camp shown by ABC on its network news last evening.
The terrorist publicists must be thrilled with the PR return on inviting "a Pakistani journalist" to videotape their staged proceedings.
In passing, the network's promotion of its exclusive noted that "U.S. intelligence officials described the event as another example of 'an aggressive and sophisticated propaganda campaign.' "
So it was. The "intelligence officials" will be studying it, as they should, but why were millions of American TV viewers exposed to it. There was an uproar when the Bush Administration tried to pass off its political videos as news. Are terrorists a more credible source?
The terrorist publicists must be thrilled with the PR return on inviting "a Pakistani journalist" to videotape their staged proceedings.
In passing, the network's promotion of its exclusive noted that "U.S. intelligence officials described the event as another example of 'an aggressive and sophisticated propaganda campaign.' "
So it was. The "intelligence officials" will be studying it, as they should, but why were millions of American TV viewers exposed to it. There was an uproar when the Bush Administration tried to pass off its political videos as news. Are terrorists a more credible source?
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