The Media Is The Message

As it turns out, we were asking the wrong question. The mystery isn't how George W won re-election. The mystery is why he didn't win by a bigger margin.

The last election season sparked the kind of bitter arguments among friends usually reserved for such weightier issues as Ginger or Mary Ann? But having engaged in many such debates, I always left a bit puzzled how otherwise right thinking individuals could not, would not see that their emperor wasn't wearing any clothes. And while I'm a big personal responsibility kind of guy, I think that in this instance it may not actually have been their fault. I mean, if you are told often enough that the emperor is smartly dressed, eventually you go beyond just believing it. You start seeing a wide array of outfits.

For those of you who missed it, NY Times reporters David Barstow and Robin Stein filed a lengthy story about the W’s aggressive use of tax-payer financed, prepackaged, ready-to-serve news reports that, coincidentally, provide a, wink, more balanced view on controversial issues ranging from the war in Iraq to the new prescription drug program under Medicare. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html) In doing so, W has turned the government into pretty much a turnkey operation: create the news, write the news, report the news. And the budget-conscious local news hacks, who have slashed their news staffs, lap it up faster than the free scotch at their cousin’s wedding.

What Barstow and Stein tell us is that any number of federal agencies have taken to producing and distributing news segments for broadcast on your local Action 9 News without any acknowledgement of the government’s role in the production. These news segments are purposely crafted to fit seemlessly into the broadcast with the "reporters" (in many cases, former reporters who have gone to the dark side) making sure they are "careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government," according to Barstow and Stein. And if their observation that the "government’s news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration," leaves you slack-jawed, then you just haven’t been paying attention, have you?

The local news hacks are just as complicit in this dirty little secret, conveniently forgetting to tell their viewers of the source of these "stories." While that, in and of itself has got to be a breach of journalistic ethics, the misconduct is far more insidious. The Times report noted, for example, the case of News 10 Now in Syracuse (which could easily be Buffalo or Des Moines) broadcasting one of these news releases but editing out the narration from the government’s reporter and replacing it with near word-for-word narration from one of its own reporters. But for real laughs is the case in 2002 involving WHBQ in Memphis, in which Tish Clark Dunning (I’m not making this up, folks, that’s her name) "reworked" one of the State Department’s puff pieces on how swell things were now going for women in Afghanistan. The unintentionally ironic Ms. Dunning noted that she didn’t actually go to Afghanistan but instead reworked the story, doing some research on her own. The nature of that research? According to Ms. Dunning, "I remember looking on the Internet and finding out how it all started as far as women covering their faces and everything." Thank God for Google.

Interestingly, the GAO has come out against this potential "covert propaganda" three times in the past year, according to Barstow and Stein. But W is nothing if not persistent and if patently false information wasn’t going to stop Americans from being slaughtered in Iraq, then a pesky little bit of legalese out of GAO isn’t going to shut down the administration’s mult-million dollar p.r. machine.

It’s true that these "video news releases" have been going on since the first Clinton administration. But according to the Times, under W, more federal agencies are producing more releases on a broader array of topics. Which, too, shouldn’t leave anyone slack-jawed.

In the end, while this may be the most direct example, it is just more evidence of the current administration’s abject distrust of the first amendment and its continued shaping of a government-controlled media. While the majority of Americans collectively yawn, we can just throw this on the scrap heap that includes the case of columnists like Armstrong Williams, who sold his journalistic sole for a nifty $240,000 to shill for the No Child Left Behind Act without ever revealing the conflict and the odd case of "Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute" wannabe Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert, a faux journalist with a real press pass, lobbing softball questions during administration press conferences. But at least there’s an upside: as long as W and his cronies are in control, Tish will never want for work.

Who Knew We Were So Close to the Edge?

I know the adage, if you're not living on the edge, you're not living. But if the delicate balance between living in bliss and total chaos can be tipped by the kidnapping of a Hollywood B-actor, then I need to find a more stable boundary.

An item being reported by Reuters says that New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe may have been targeted for kidnapping by Al Qaeda as a plot to destablize our culture, at least according to Russell. Russell told reporters that sometime in 2001 he was interviewed and provided protection by the FBI because of reports that Osama and his poorly-groomed posse, were looking to carryout their attacks on America by eliminating our cultural icons. Now, of course, this leads to a number of questions, not the least of which is whether or not Crowe is still taking his medication.

Correct me if you must, but didn't Crowe star in "A Beautiful Mind", an academy-award winning movie about a paranoid Princeton mathematics professor who claimed he was being targeted by, perhaps, aliens because of his scary talent? And didn't Crowe, as Nash, gain protection by the FBI and other shadowy government operatives in order to ensure that our great nation remained the sole recipient of Nash's gifts? Hmmm.

Far be it from me to accuse Crowe of being paranoid. Bizarrely egocentric perhaps, but never paranoid. Can't you just see Osama now, gathered around some crude fire pit with his inner circle, picking the flies out his ever lengthening beard finalizing his plans for his attack on the U.S.

"Followers, I brought you here today to so that we can reach consensus on how best to attack the great Satan. We have a short list here and we need to bring closure because I need to head back to the mountains to winterize my cave. Mousaoui, whaddya got?"

"Oh great seer, our cell has been working on an intricate plan to destablize the cultural institutions of the great Satan. According to our contacts in America, the infidels spend hour upon hour each day watching Entertainment Tonight, the E! Network, and reading People Magazine and Entertainment Weekly. If we can destroy these underlying cultural institutions, then we will create a country without a soul or purpose to which we can then convert them all to our radical and incomprehensible vision of Islam."

"Interesting. Pass me the bread. Go on, how do you expect to destroy these cultural institutions?"

"If you don't mind, please save me the end piece from the bread. It's my favorite."

"Fine. Now go on about your plan."

"Well, we have operatives on the ground, ready to take out the greatest of their heroes, Mr. Russell Crowe. With him gone, there will be no programming for their devilish television networks, no pictures for their pornographic magazines. Their culture will collapse."

"Not bad, not bad. But isn't he Australian?"

"Let me get back to you on that one."

"Fine. Muhammad, whaddya got?"

"Well, we were thinking of flying planes into the World Trade Center. The buildings would collapse, thousands would die, and the country would be despondent and feeling vulnerable to further terroist attacks."

"Not bad, either. Tough call but I've got to play my hunches here. Let's go with the plane thing. If that doesn't work, we can always kill Crowe, so finish the background check."

Well, at least we still have our culture.