| Author's Podcast
1 February, 2006 - American News is Comedy 2 February, 2006 - A Uniformly Uninformed Citizenry 7 February, 2006 - ... Nor Any Drop to Drink 8 February, 2006 - Reader Comments 10 February, 2006 - Lead by Example: OUR STORY 15 February, 2006 - Kidnap & Ransom: Perspective 23 February, 2006 - Kidnap & Ransom: Conclusion |
1 February, 2006: This entry in the Huffington Post Contagious Festival is my experiment with being a media critic. Since I don't have the resources or wherewithal to produce some swanky streaming production like many of those recommended, I'm depending entirely on the force of words and images. File me under "Manifesto."
It seems that, following the trend that first developed with the medium of television, much of what journalism in America has become - to its on-going discredit - is self-referential. And, even worse, it's not unfounded to call what passes for journalism in the United States little more than comedy. The list of scandals and botched stories is endless. Because I've made my living most of my life from journalism and am known as a journalist, editor and publisher, I'm saddened. But I cannot but admit the truth of this view. Comedy is now the news in America and the "news" is comedy.
I was forced to publish as much in my own Web magazine. One of my columnists, who focuses on popular culture, Thomas Hart, had as much to say in his first column of 2006.
Here's part of what he had to say in his article and that I was obligated to print:
The news ain't what it used to be for most Americans. Fact is, if you're between the ages of 18 and 34, you don't get your news from CBS, NBC or ABC. Everybody knows that you get your news from comedians. If you even have basic cable or satellite, you get your news from the Comedy Central channel's Jon Stewart by way of the "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" or "The Ali G Show" on HBO. If you're among the cable-deprived, you go to Leno, Letterman, Kimmel, O'Brien or Ferguson. Here we are in a country of hundreds of millions of folks, y'all, and we get our danged news from the court jesters!This is not news. Ever' since back in the 1970s, when Lorne Michaels made "Weekend Update" a regular feature on the NBC comedy show "Saturday Night Live," it's been taken as an article of faith that the news in America was mostly a Big Joke. It was only a matter of time, as far as Tabloid Hart is concerned, before jokes became the best way of how your average folks looked at the news - if they looked at the news at all. Like my bud Buford's wife says, "I don't watch the news. It's too depressin'."
News, to most Amurricans, if we really wannah look in the mirror, is what Tom Cruise did to some freakin' starlet half his age or what Nicolette Sheridan's been up to lately. That's why I've always sworn by the real newspaper of record for most of us livin' in trailer parks - (and what is the Federal Emergency Management Agency about to give devastated New Orleans, y'all? Trailer Parks) - the National Enquirer. You get as much real news there as anywheres else.
Ya see, the thing is, other than a local house fire or somethin' along those lines, like the feller down the street goin' off his nut and taking a thirty-ought-six to his cousins and his cheatin' ex-wife, the only news we WANT to hear about is The Dirt. We don't care if Condoleeza Rice traipsed all over Europe in her stilettos saying that America has never condoned torture. Hell! We already know that any red-blooded Amurrican would torture a danged Afghani or Iraqi quicker than we mutilated redskins on the Amurrican plains. It's payback for 9/11. What we WANT to know is who is Condi boffing? She is Dubya's version of the Office Wife or what? Now that's NEWS.
Television Personality
Katie CouricLike I said, everybody's accepted for a very long time now that only the fogies out there, those sad and tired Baby Boomers who now need Viagra, Cialis and going [under] the knife on multiple occasions to try like desperation to hang onto they danged Imitation of Youth, are still watching the network anchors and "60 Minutes" just like they did when they danged parents used the TV as they babysitters. The rest of us know that if Jon Stewart says you are a dick, you are a dick. Just asked that bow-tied guy from CNN. If Jon Stewart says you're a loser, within 48 hours everyone in America doesn't know you are Tucker anymore, Pard', they know ya' as Loser.
Television network news is dead. They can talk about brangin' Katie Couric over to the Walter Cronkite - Dan Rather chair at CBS, but cleavage ain't gonnah be enough to make anybody with a pulse want to tune into The Fogey News Channel. Just ain't gonnah happen. Folks with a real pulse already know that what passes for "news" in this country ain't a whit more than corporate or government propaganda segments probably produced by Karen Hughes at the White House. Big Yawners.
Within weeks of this, I myself was led to write:
13 January, 2006: In the January, 2006 edition of Z Magazine, my housemate, a self-avowed leftist, brought to my attention, there is a book review my Edward S. Herman of Peter Brock's Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting - Journalism and Tragedy in Yugoslavia. Ron suggested I read this because it confirms all the reporting that was featured here in G21 during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Among our correspondents, Ratislav Durman, Dragana Vicanovic, Adam Smith and myself, we presented a very different picture of those wars than the Mouthpiece Media (MM) and I am proud to say, as with our reporting of the Cambodian elections and Hurricane Katrina's effects in New Orleans, we never found the need to retract anything we presented you - unlike members of the MM like the New York Times and the Washington Post.That a small independent magazine, that survives on beggared $10 and $20 donations, should so consistently give you the real story on the ground when major outlets of the MM, with millions of dollars in resources, do not should give you pause.
The difference between our reporting and that of the MM is that we actually do it from the ground, where the story is, as opposed to from the lounge of some hotel where all the "respectable" journalists are parroting each others' stories or those of the "official" sources to which they have access by dint of their prestige. Think about it.
The interesting points that Herman brings up about Brock's book are mostly messages of sadness for a journalist like myself. Of special note are his comments about two gentleman - and I use the term loosely - who garnered Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting on the Balkan wars, John F. Burns of the New York Times and Roy Gutman of Newsday. Brock documents relentlessly that the reporting these two produced about the wars constitute a tissue of lies. They totally vilified the Serbs while ignoring the facts on the ground, facts brought to light here in your World's Magazine that
- The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was not an organization of brave freedom fighters but rather a narco-terrorist organization that was one of the biggest drug purveyors in Europe at the time;
- Serbian claims of terrorism were well-founded and ethnic-cleansing cut both ways;
- Rather than a plan for a Greater Serbia, what we were witnessing was the implementation of a Greater Albania.
As I say, these two liars went on the get Pulitzer Prizes, which speaks volumes about the Pulitzers, and G21.net went on begging for ten and twenty dollar donations.
Now ask me what I think about truth and justice.
One last example as concerns my thoughts about the MM and the art of journalism.
On the day that Slobodan Milosevic was taken to the Hague Tribunal, there was a massive protest on the streets of Belgrade. Two stories of note were filed that day. One was by Christiane Amanpour for CNN, filed from London. The other was from Yours Unruly, filed from Belgrade. Ms. Amanpour told her viewers, standing on the streets of London, that the Serbs had taken to the streets in celebration of Milosevic being taken off to the Hague. Yours Unruly reported, from the streets of Belgrade, surrounded by the Serbs chanting and carrying signs, that these people had taken to the streets in protest of Milosevic's extradition because - after years of protesting against his regime - they believed it was their right to bring him to justice.
We have two versions of the same story. The representative of the MM reported to the world from a thousand miles away. Yours Unruly reported from on the ground in Serbia. Both stories said that there was a march on the streets of Belgrade. That was undeniably true. Each story presented a different reason for why it was taking place. Both stories could not possibly be correct as to why people were on the street.
Which one of us do you suspect got the story right?
So what do I say today about American journalism, especially considering that I lectured a course on Internet journalism for the Novi Sad School of Journalism, in the former-Yugoslavia only four years ago and considering that I continue to edit and publish the works of other journalists on a Web site here in the United States?
Don't fall off your chair in shock and awe that I have a lot to say. That's why I'm even here at the Huffington Post.
As noted, we at the World's Magazine, have done significant and - most importantly! - accurate reporting on the Balkan Wars, Hurricane Katrina's aftermath in New Orleans (about which I had much more to say in my book,) the HIV/AIDS pandemic last year and this year we mean to focus on the issue of potable water. In other words, to us, news is not comedy. It is life-and-death serious. That is a commitment that seems to be missing in most American journalism as the journalists, rather than the stories, become the news.
I am so sick of journalists writing about other journalists I could cry.
And. maybe, that's the point of this project, too. Whether I end up being a prize-winner and schmoozer or not, somebody needs to say these things.
I wrote a posting much similar to this one at Public Broadcasting Systems' "Reality Check" site years back, at their invitation. I think it went over as well as this site will go, although I'm always hopeful that people will wake up.
COLD, HARD FACTS
Let's look at a few for a moment.
If you mean to do serious journalism in the United States, and especially journalism that does not support the agenda of The Empire, you are SOL. (I assume that some readers will know what that euphemism means.) Z Magazine, TruthOut, DemocracyNow!, CounterPunch -- most of the publications and Web sites in the niche in which my Web magazine finds itself, get no commercial corporate support. None. Zip. Zero. Nor should we ever expect we would. The sites I've cited get money from foundation grants and user donations. My own publication has survived on donations and whatever money I could make by continuining to be a working journalist.
Dr. Noam Chomsky, who in leftist circles might be considered a "celebrity" journalist and thus expected to receive same, never shall. Why? Because, as he notably and frequently writes, if you don't serve the corporate interests you are marginalized.
What do all these sites and publications or broadcasts cited here and linked to have in common, these places I have called my peers? They, we, have NEVER had to retract a story, never had to write an explanation about why one of our reporters misled you because they were in bed with POWER. I think you get my point.
. Yes, a lot of American journalism today is whorish. It is parroting what other journalists in the Mouthpiece Media have to say. Talking Points ad infinitum. But a lot of us continue to do the honest, underpaid work that we do from on the ground. Don't forget that. All we need is more of your support and encouragement.
Author's Podcast A couple of more examples:
- Dr. Bernard Sabella, a Christian Palestinian, who is now a newly-elected Palestinean Legislative Council as the representative from Jerusalem, has been a contibutor to the G21 MidEast section of my magazine for years. He is also known as the author of the most-used text, in Arabic, on Sociology in the region. He works with the World Council of Churches on bringing some kind of reasonable peace to his region. He is far to the right of any of my personal opinions about the situation, as I've been closer to views of the late Dr. Edward Said.
Can Mr. Sabella's frequent articles get published here in the United States? Not unless he goes to a "hip little channel at the end of the FM dial" like g21.net. What's that word? Even for a moderate? Marginalized?
Recently, Natasha Tynes, formerly of the Jordan Times and Al Jazeera joined o ur writing team. If you watched CNN's "Larry King Live" reporting on the Jill Carroll story on 19 January you heard her contribution. Once again, we received hate-mail for reporting the story the way most American media don't. What does that tell you and us? Marginalized.
Does that mean we intend to be part of the Comedy News media? Not on your lives or ours.
"Dude, is this gonnah be an extended rant on 'the sorry state of American journalism'?" YAWN. "You won't have chance of being considered 'contagious' with ANOTHER one of those."
Agreed. So, no, you won't only get boring rants on "the sorry state of American journalism." You'll also get directed to some things (features, streaming media items) that I believe are important parts of The Story of our degrading Empire. But, yes - you're right - this will be just another Blog. I'll be coming back to update it every day or so, as time permits (I still have to try to earn a living writing articles, after all.)
As I said at the outset, though I know it makes me a long-shot candidate in this Festival, I have to depend on the power of words (and a few images and links.)
So I'll close this entry by linking you to Al Gore's most recent speech, a powerful piece of oratory, on domestic surveillance. I consider it an overlooked and under-discussed event. You can discuss it with me here, if you're so inclined. You can find it here, via C-SPAN, in RealMedia format.
Thanks for dropping by.
Go to Second SMOKE entry: "A Uniformly Uninformed Citizenry".
Go to the Third SMOKE entry: "... Nor Any Drop to Drink"
Go to the Fourth Smoke entry: "Reader Comments"
Go to the Fifth entry: "Lead by Example: OUR STORY"
Go to the Sixth entry: "Kidnap & Ransom: Perspective"
Go to Final entry: "Kidnap & Ransom: Conclusion
© 2006, Rod Amis.
E-mail your comments to rod@g21.net.
