Category: Media Watch

By all accounts, the youth-and-civics group Rock the Vote is on hard times. Although it’s been around for 16 years trying to empower the MTV generation, it’s been rocked of late by lackluster fund-raising, debt, staff defections and law suits.

What it likely means is this. Absent inspiration provided by the marketing power of the music industry, 18- to 25-year-old voters will have to be motivated by what has to motivate everybody else. Issues and giving a damn.

Hopefully, that’s not asking too much.

*Among other after-the-fact developments, Hurricane Katrina induced a dialogue over the obvious divide between New Orleans’ haves and have-nots – typically reflected along racial lines. It also – inevitably — prompted polls. Among them one by the Marguerite Casey Foundation. It discovered that the rich and poor view the causes of poverty differently.

Stop the presses. The poor, it was determined, largely believe they were dealt a bad hand, while the rich were much more likely to say poverty largely results from lack of effort.

*A book surprisingly creating a bit of a buzz is “Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers – and How You Can Too.” It’s written by two Korean-American sisters, Dr. Soo Kim Abboud, a surgeon, and Jane Kim, an attorney, who wrote it to counter the stereotype that Asian students perform better in school because they are, well, smarter.

The secret: Totally involved, strict parents (who typically come in pairs). And strict includes limiting their kids’ access to pop culture and the telephone.

Now we know.

Tampa Theatre scored big with the recent showing of that campy, largely-shot- in-Florida, 3-D film from the ’50s, “The Creature From The Black Lagoon.” On a blustery Sunday afternoon, a crowd snaked around The Hub and down Polk Street to queue up for the ninth show of the 11-part Winter Classic Movie Series.

The turnout of nearly 900 came as no surprise to community relations manager Tara Schroeder. “This was a new print, which is kind of a big deal, and we got the word out,” said Schroeder. “Not too many films span this kind of audience. We’re talking people reliving their childhood to young ‘groovies,’ who think it’s cool.”

Especially welcome for Tampa Theatre were the long lines at the well-staffed concession stand. Sales topped $3,000, which is more than three times the average. The majority of the revenue from ticket sales goes to the distributor, but all concession profits are the Theatre’s.

The series ends this Sunday (Feb. 26, 3 pm) with “Beyond the Rocks,” the 1922 silent co-starring (for the only time) Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson.

“ABC World News Tonight” co-anchor Bob Woodruff has lived through a journalist’s worst nightmare: becoming collateral damage in covering a dangerous story. The exact extent of his injuries caused by that roadside bomb near Taji, Iraq, and a precise prognosis won’t be known for a while.

But this much is known. Woodruff is a serious journalist who didn’t want to be another attractively glib talking head. Not unlike his predecessor, the late Peter Jennings, he wanted to get out of the office and into the big stories of the day. He wanted to report, not just announce, the news.

Other anchors are doing it more too. This isn’t the Chet Huntley era any more.

But neither is it the Ernie Pyle epoch, when war had discernible front lines. Woodruff was covering an insurgency without rules of engagement – where highways are the front lines and anyone can be unfair game. He was also a tempting kidnap target.

But make no mistake, Woodruff was also a promotional extension of “ABC World News Tonight,” which has been a ratings’ laggard for a while. He was rotating on and off the anchor set with Elizabeth Vargas. But Iraq isn’t New Orleans, West Virginia – or even Iran.

Bob Woodruff is an excellent journalist who was severely injured doing what serious journalists do: getting a first-hand look at the news being reported.

But he’s also a casualty of the network marketing wars.

The most surprising aspect of “A Million Little Pieces” was not the “memoir’s” shameless misrepresentation – because memoirs are a notorious hybrid niche. It was how easily Oprah Winfrey skated with her blatant damage-control act. To the point that she was actually lauded by many in the media for admitting she was wrong to have initially defended author James Frey – starting with her call to Larry King.

Her belated admission, of course, was precipitated by a weeklong blizzard of e-mails and commentary criticizing her for having excused “Pieces” in the name of a good read and ostensible redemptive values. Oprah then did the expedient thing, what any public relations flak would have immediately recommended.

Only she waited a week to fully gauge public opinion.

I see where “Flight 93,” the TV movie about the doomed flights on Sept. 11, was A&E’s most watched program ever. “Flight 93,” which focused on the hijacked plane that passengers forced down into that Pennsylvania field, drew an estimated 5.9 million viewers.

It also should draw its share of criticism for distorting any reasonable definition of “limited commercial interruption.” Once the doomsday pace had quickened, the commercial packages came fast and furious.

Worst yet, it was downright disrespectful to ensnare an audience in that seminal terrorist event – with all its gut-wrenching, tragic foreboding and still smoldering ANGER – only to cut away to a “Beano” commercial featuring light banter about broccoli and cauliflower.

Whenever a movie’s prologue informs you that the film was “inspired” by something, you know that artistic license has been invoked and flat-out fictionalization employed. And then, more often than not, some controversy ensues. The director, it is revealed, has an agenda – only it comes with having been “inspired” in the first place.

“Munich” is no exception.

Steven Spielberg’s depiction of Israel’s assassination-team approach to avenging the Palestinian murders of Jewish Olympians is, at its core, a polemic: violence only begets more of the same. It’s ever spiraling. It’s been said before, of course, but rarely in such riveting fashion.

That powerful message transcends and trumps all other “Munich” takes, including the charge that the movie is undermined by moral equivalence, and Spielberg has hatched an anti-Israel tract. And that in so doing, he has taken too many pains to humanize Palestinians targeted by an amoral Israeli hit team with a job to do and humanity to set aside.

What Spielberg has done is to remind us – via imbedded ironies, a perversely empathetic protagonist and a compelling mastery of the action genre – that at the end of the day humanity is the net loser. Humankind has been diminished, historical and religious rationales reduced to footnote insignificance.

Perspectives are never perfect, but their consequences are determinative. Whose land? Whose history? Whose grievances? Whose holy book? Whose murderers? Whose martyrs? Whose innocents? Who’s more wrong?

Across the continuum of carnage, the questions become moot.

“Munich” should be required viewing. Alas, it won’t be seen – or if seen, meaningfully internalized – by those it could impact most.

One other point. No one has given it away, and I won’t either. But “Munich’s” final, establishing-shot scene is perfect. As in soberingly so.

Much has been written in the aftermath of the tragic Sago mine disaster in West Virginia. It was a cruel nightmare for families and an almost untenable predicament for most daily newspapers.

What happened was the perfect miscommunication storm for print media. Television, in effect, gets a mulligan. Shelf life is not a concern. What was said five minutes ago is lost in the ether. “This just in” immediacy trumps all.

But deadline hell and breaking news is as bad as it gets in the newspaper business; that’s how Tom Dewey won the presidency and the Lightning lost the Stanley Cup final. Then add a major measure of human nature: being able to convey miraculously good news in an industry too often defined by all that goes awry in the world.

Thus we have headlines and drop heads such as: ( St. Petersburg Times ) “They’re alive! Miners found”/”Twelve of the West Virginia miners that had been trapped 260 feet below the surface are found hours after the body of one was recovered.” And such as: ( Tampa Tribune ) “12 Miners Survive Ordeal”/”Rescuers first found body of 1 from crew.”

Having said that, however, there is still the case for following the fundamentals, even – especially — in a worst-case crucible. When dealing with split-second decisions and less than take-it-to-the-bank sources, equivocation is a virtue. This isn’t Monday morning quarterbacking; this is a bet-hedging, journalistic rule of thumb.

Here’s how the Times-Tribune of Scranton (Penn.) handled it: “Families: Miners Alive”/”One body found, 12 allegedly living 41 hours after blast.”

When your source – amid a welter of emotions and a din of voices — is a family member or “they,” it’s imperative to include a qualifier. That’s the realistic best that can be done under such extenuating circumstances. The presses can only be held so long.

Sago mustn’t become shorthand for media screw-up, but a reminder for reflection. Nobody’s motives or ethics should be impugned. Nobody got it absolutely right; but some got it less wrong. And that matters.

Here are a couple of suggestions for networks and their NFL partners.

First, networks can help the league in the Sisyphean task of advising its officials on differentiating “taunting,” which requires a penalty, from new-age celebrations that are merely sophomoric exercises in mockery. So try this. On a trial basis, don’t let the camera linger on players who score or make play-ending efforts. It won’t rebottle the genie of poor taste and narcissism run amok, but it’s a start.

Showing the cheesy, look-at-me antics and the “trash-talking” dynamic that is nothing more than gangsta preening is reinforcing to the offending players. Surely no one wants to encourage boorish behavior in the name of creating colorful, ever-more-marketable “personalities.” Surely.

As for the league, don’t accentuate the negative with a “no taunting” penalty label. Some self-serving sorts say that makes the NFL the “No Fun League.” Think positive. Call it the “Show Some Class” rule. See how that sounds when it’s called.

No lack of homage and nostalgia for Monday Night Football over the holidays. It has now ended its long ABC run. Before there was Watergate there was Howard Cosell & Co. in the booth of banter.

For all of its pop culture-icon status, MNF became a double-edged sword. It not only raised pro football to prime time entertainment fare, it also elevated commentators and announcers to celebrity status. It helped ratchet the business of pro football to in-your-face show biz. It eventually begot ESPN and a slew of network and cable programs featuring over-the-top, shtick-minded personalities. That’s its legacy.