Media

More Advice For CNN

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Apparently I’m not the only one with words of advice for CNN today.

Ramesh Ponnuru, writing at Bloomberg.com, believes that cable news “talking head” shows are getting a disproportionate share of the blame for the decline in the intellectual standard and civility of American political discourse, and that one way to redress the balance might be…to bring back “Crossfire”.

“Crossfire” is, of course, the show that Jon Stewart memorably mocked for “hurting America” with its adversarial, Left vs. Right format:

 

Ponnuru, however, makes a reasoned argument in favour of resurrecting the format:

By the time Stewart appeared on it to promote his book, the show had degenerated. At its height, though, it did a good job of sharpening political arguments. And the original format, to my mind, has never been bettered.

The show ran for half an hour and examined one question. There were two hosts: one liberal, one conservative, both opinion journalists rather than operatives for a political party. In the early 1990s, Michael Kinsley (now a Bloomberg View columnist) and Patrick Buchanan did the job. There were two guests, usually politicians or public-policy experts on each side of the debate. There was no studio audience.

Each of these features made “Crossfire” better. The one-subject rule made it impossible for the politicians to make it through the show on sound bites alone. That both hosts were journalists made for a fairer debate than the usual practice of today’s political shows, which put journalists up against political operatives.

This idea in its purest form would make a great format for actually getting to the rub of important issues. Spending a full thirty minutes debating an issue means that even the most cookie-cutter, by-the-book politician or political operative will soon run out of approved talking points and eventually have to speak freely based on their underlying core beliefs, better educating the public in the process.

The danger always comes, of course, when new gimmicks are included in an attempt to broaden the appeal of the show – in the case of “Crossfire”, the addition of a live studio audience significantly harmed the show, as hosts and guests alike started pursuing the soundbite that had previously been so successfully kept at bay in the show, in order to win a positive reaction from the audience:

It got worse, as well, when it added a studio audience. Hosts and guests alike now played to the crowd, which itself could add nothing more intelligent to the conversation than hoots and hollers.

Ponnuru concludes:

“Crossfire” was balanced by design, and I bet there would be an audience for it once again. Of course, I’m not a professional TV executive. Then again, the professional executives at CNN sank millions into “Parker Spitzer.” Maybe it’s worth listening to someone else.

If CNN is determined to maintain and consolidate the non-ideologically biased middle ground so thoroughly, depressingly vacated by Fox News and MSNBC, there could be worse ways to go about staging a comeback.

Friendly Advice For CNN

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Politico reports on some of the cable news network’s more recent missteps:

Earlier today, CNN played an excerpt from Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young” after a segment Monday on the shooting, prompting a familiar apology from the network just a week after it announced regret for playing Pink’s “Stupid Girls” ahead of a segment about Sarah Palin.

“We aired a song from a guest’s playlist on the morning show following a three-minute commercial break and before a segment on presidential politics, unrelated to the Wisconsin shooting,” the network said in a statement today. “Given the news of the day, this was regrettable and we apologize to our viewers.”

Here’s a radical idea.

Since CNN has probably already haemmoraged most of it’s wavering audience to Fox or MSNBC, why not quit catering to that tiny remaining sliver of their viewers who need their news to be lubricated with frequent doses of perky music, and just…y’know…report the news?

The world doesn’t need another Fox & Friends.

Politico The Prude

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Politico reports that John Stewart has been criticising the Democratic legislators and mayors who have been bullying and threatening Chick-fil-A over the position on gay marriage taken by that company’s CEO, mocking them on The Daily Show:

Comedian Jon Stewart ripped Mayors Rahm Emanuel and Tom Menino on Thursday night for pledging to block Chick-fil-A from opening new restaurants in their cities, siding with those on the right who say such a move would be unconstitutional.

“Pretty sure you can’t outlaw a company with perfectly legal business practices because you find their CEO’s views repellant. Not sure which amendment covers that, but it’s probably in the top one,” Stewart said. “I think maybe the mayors hadn’t thought this thing through.”

Very true. I have already written about the hypocrisy and illiberalism of those people who, like Rahm Emanuel and Tom Menino, want to punish individuals or groups not for their actions but their beliefs.

Unfortunately, we then get this:

Stewart mocked the chicken chain’s supporters, too, using sexual innuendo in a joke about “the million mouth march.”

“And what better way to stand up and say, ‘I oppose gay people’s rights to get married,’ than to head down to a Chick-fil-A, grab a hold of two buttery buns, split down and gobble down some of that hot, greasy…” Stewart said before saying a certain synonym for chicken that also refers to the male anatomy.

I think the word they are grasping for is “cock”. That’s C-O-C-K.

Could you find a more tortured way of not to say “cock” than to write “a certain synonym for chicken that also refers to the male anatomy”?

And “the male anatomy”? Is even the word “penis” out of bounds these days?

It irritates me when news organisations refuse to use certain words when they are central to the story or quote under discussion. Sometimes this is due to tortured political correctness or oversensitivity – if there is a story about racism, for example, we will hear lots about the offender uttering “the N-word”, for example. Sometimes it is due to squeamishness or prudishness, such as talking about someone who lets “the F-word” slip. And sometimes it is due to willful ignorance, such as when the New York Times refers to waterboarding as “torture” when it is carried out by a foreign country, but “enhanced interrogation” when committed by the United States.

In this case, it doesn’t really matter. The article is a light-hearted piece about a parody news show. At other times and with other stories it does matter though, and failing to report a quote accurately, or use the correct term, can have damaging or insidious consequences.

The only time that offensive words have the power to harm is when they are put on a pedestal and only referred to in roundabout, opaque ways. News organisations and journalists make themselves look silly when they falsely ascribe such power to a harmless arrangement of letters.

In Defence Of Olympic Free Speech

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Marbury finds a wonderful example of people not being cowed or bullied by the over-reaching, un-democratic London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006:

Image from marbury.typepad.com

 

2012, London, Olympics, Two Thousand and Twelve, Olympix, Summer Games, Twenty Twelve, Spirit In Motion, 2012 Gold, Olympiad, Silver Games, Paralympian, Faster Higher Stronger, Citius Altius Fortius, London Medals, Olympian Sponsors.

Our government, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that any business using two or more of the words or phrases from this list in their advertising, products or promotional materials without having signed a sponsorship agreement with the London Olympics authorities, is committing a criminal offence. Long live free speech…

They can bite me. Seriously.

Picking Your Battles

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

I remain relatively new to this whole blogging business, and am still very much learning the ropes.

And while I am largely making it up as I go along, what with posting pieces on the culture and politics of two different nations, interspersed with classical music excerpts, architectural musings and the odd cat picture, I do try to stick to a few strictures passed down from others that seem to have served them quite well – post regularly, engage with your readers, link selectively, and so on. This seems to be working fairly well, but there are some occasions when the pieces of advice I have read or received come into conflict with each other. For example:

1. Post something, anything, about every important story that comes up. That way, people will learn to keep coming to your blog out of habit, your readership will go up, etc. etc.

and

2. Focus on quality. Pick your battles, and only weigh in on those stories where you have strong and original opinions. Your posts will be better informed and more enjoyable to read, and your readership will go up, etc. etc.

This is tricky for me. I tend to have opinions about most things, and if I had unlimited hours I could certainly commit a lot more of these thoughts to this blog. But aside from the time constraints, I often feel that by the time I come to a story, others have already dissected and analysed it in a far superior way. There’s no point in parroting the words of someone who got there first, without having anything interesting to contribute. And that leaves the question of what to do with all of the articles that capture my attention and interest, but about which I have few original thoughts to add.

For example, George Miller, writing at adamsmith.org., has an excellent piece reminding us that the recent failures of the private security firm G4S (contracted to provide much of the security at the upcoming London Olympic Games) should not be viewed as an indictment of outsourcing, or of the private sector in general. It is concise, well-written and chimes entirely with my own beliefs, but I have nothing really to add to it.

And therefore in future, rather than constructing a throwaway, waste-of-time blog post about such articles, or ignoring them entirely on my blog, I have decided to offer a kind of “daily summary” at the end of each day, with a few select stories of interest and a line or two from me about why they are worth a read. Hopefully, once this has a chance to bed down and establish itself, it will become a popular feature of this site.

I would be interested to here in the comments section below from any readers who have any other suggestions, insights or advice that they could offer.

In the meantime, I am going to proceed as planned.