Worst media moments of 2008

* So I'm sitting in my office at 8 a.m., watching ex-Baywatch star Jeremy Jackson explain how fame turned him into such a pig that he obliterated a multimillion-dollar career as a teen idol on VH1's latest exercise in celebrity degradation, Confessions of a Teen Idol.

And I'm smiling.

That's the effect bad news can have on us cynical showbiz watchers sometimes. Good news is fine, but it's the bad news that gets the blood racing -- what we suspect is really going on behind the facade. So with that in mind, here's my list of Worst Media Moments of 2008 -- the stuff that got my blood boiling in good and bad ways over the year.

It's a little different from the list I did for print Sunday. And add your own in the comments section. That's the yin and yang of today's fragmented media scene; with so much TV, online, radio, print and music underfoot, there's plenty of awfulness to go around.

1) The Great TV Curse-Off. Forget about Paris Hilton or Bono. The celebrities who really needed a bleep button in 2008 were Jesse Jackson (threatening Obama's family jewels during downtime before a Fox News segment), Jane Fonda (using the c-word during a Today show appearance), Diane Keaton (using the f-word on Good Morning America) and Joe Scarborough (using the f-word on his own MSNBC show, Morning Joe). Next thing you know, Matt Lauer will be busting a cap in somebody.

This may not seem like much, but it felt to me like an apt metaphor for our culture in general. I'm hardly a prude, but I can still remember separate beds on the Dick Van Dyke show and Barbara Eden's covered belly button on I Dream of Jeannie. Traveling from there to the f-word before 9 a.m. feels like a long, strange journey. 

2) The giants who left us. Two things I hated doing this year: writing stories about journalism layoffs and writing obituaries. Every year, a new roster of giants wind up leaving too soon, and in 2008, this list included music pioneer Bo Diddley, WTSP weather forecaster Dick Fletcher, comic Bernie Mac, R&B legend Isaac Hayes, political journalism legend Tim Russert and acting legend Paul Newman, to name a very few.

3) Criss Angel "escapes" a Clearwater building implosion. Remember when highly hyped magic tricks were actually hard to figure out? With this one, I had more trouble puzzling how 15,000 people were going to get off Clearwater Beach without killing somebody.

4) Heroes implodes. Like that hapless boyfriend/girlfriend who always looks like he/she's going to get it together but never quite pulls it off, NBC's struggling superhero drama flopped again this year, systematically destroying all the characters whom fanboys (and girls!) grew to love.

5) Writers strike blows up the TV industry. Who knew that a work stoppage ending in March would screw up the TV season for the rest of the year? But the Writers Guild of America's strike cut off runs of promising new series such as Pushing Daisies, hobbled established shows such as Heroes (which aired a critically drubbed, shortened season), forced the delay of other shows (such as 24 and FX's Rescue Me) and convinced another 10 percent of network TV viewers to find some other way to kill time during prime time hours.   

6) Local media's Hulk Hogan fixation. Yeah, I've written my share of Hogan blog posts and stories. Which is why I'm qualified to say we've all paid way too much attention to these local celebrities behaving badly. Thanks for the gut check, Troxler.

7) Vanishing newspaper jobs. More than 15,000 jobs were lost in newspapers this year, and given the general state of the economy, there's hasn't been much sympathy. But even as advancing digital technology and changing consumer habits erode newspapers' economic models, the world has come to depend even more on the information they provide. My fear: Citizens won't realize how important those journalists are to democracy until it's too late.

8) Grey's Anatomy bites it. I've always thought this show was insipid. So I didn't realize it was drowning in outlandish story lines (Exhibit A: Katherine Heigl's dead boyfriend hallucinations) until fans began threatening to poke their own eyes out rather than watch another moment.

9) Cable news excess. Fox calls Obama fist bump a "terrorist fist jab." CNN spends thousands on useless hologram technology while laying off its science reporting staff. MSNBC hosts spend almost as much time sniping at each other as covering the Democratic convention. Remember when cable TV news actually involved reporting news? No wonder so many consumers thought so much political reporting was so bad -- the one place in television with a constant stream of reports on the election offered way too much noise and distraction. *

Comments

[DoctorDoom]

Eric,

Thoughts? Is this the answer for newspapers?

http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE4BU53T20081231?sp=true

Remember what Shaw said: "A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul"

[John]

I would also say that other than Mrs. Fey's appearances on SNL the show has gone completely into the crapper. Especially the "musical" guests which Mr. Deggans agreed with me on after that dreadful showing by Lil Wayne. That guy is winning Grammys? Gimme a break! I'm only 25 for God's sake and it feels like Nirvana happened in some parallel universe or in some strange short lived dream. Anyhow. Liked the list Eric and gave me plenty to stew about!

[Troy]

They never should have brought Syler or the Petrelli's back after Season One. First time I've ever seen a show "jump the shark" in the first episode of its second season.

[joe hillman]

btw, jefferson would have loved the 21st century because more people have equal voices.

democracy truly is a blessed thing isn't it?

[joe hillman]

>>> remember that neither Nixon nor Scientology would have ever been exposed for what they did, we wouldn't have known the horrors of the battlefield in Antietam, and quite possibly wouldn't have known that all the colonies, not just our own, were being overtaxed unjustly by London. <<<

let's get a grip here.

you guys at like unless you work at a newspaper no one else can ever break a story or blow a whistle.

so the new york times and washington post exposed the hypocrisy of taxation without representation? they didn't? OMG!

rather, it was the 18th century version of blogs: pamphleteers.

guess what, pearl harbor wouldn't have happened if people knew how to use radar. the war of 1812 likely would have been lost if the british had access to the weather channel.

[Jimbo]

RagsTTiger, there's other examples, like the reporter in Scranton, PA, who polled a diner by asking who was voting for McCain (one hand went up, but immediately went down when his wife scooped it down) and who is voting for Obama (not a hand was down), and went on to say, "As you can see, it's a tie here, so that's why Pennsylvania is one of the key battleground states." YouTube it, you'll see more of Fox's "fair and balanced" reporting.

Those bashing the newspaper industry, just keep this in mind: Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." Also, Napoleon said, "Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." Basically put, the newspaper (and freedom of press in general) is the core of democracy and the voice of the people. Yeah, their business models were built around a pre-Internet era and won't cut it today, but the fact remains that without the newspapers, the people would have no voice, and government would have no accountability.

Before you bash the papers for their "frivolous spending", their "overpriced rates", and their "biased journalism", remember that neither Nixon nor Scientology would have ever been exposed for what they did, we wouldn't have known the horrors of the battlefield in Antietam, and quite possibly wouldn't have known that all the colonies, not just our own, were being overtaxed unjustly by London. Yeah, these are some extreme examples, but for all the opinionated stories throughout history that papers may write, there's always a piece that changes history. Letting that die let's a little bit of our freedom die, too, as no blog has, or will have, the same credibility or access as the papers. And believe it or not, I'm 25 - part of the Internet Generation - not some old-timer fighting change.

Long Live the Papers!

[DoctorDoom]

Eric,

I grow weary of all the boo-hooing of the loss of newpaper jobs. A chosen profession is not guaranteed perpetual employment. No matter how much self-importance the people within that profession have.

The world changes, the model changes, the product changes. If you fail to adapt, you will be swept away. You may work for the best paper in the world, but if no one reads it, it will be forced to shrink.

Employed persons by industry - mining 1980 1028178 CENSUS

Employed persons by industry - mining 1990 723423 CENSUS

Employed persons by occupation - operators, 9084988 1980

Employed persons by occupation - operators, 7904197 1990

Businesses contract all the time. Find a way to make it better and make youself indispensable or find a new career.

[John]

They should make a show about this:

http://patrioticactivist.com/2008/03/04/new-white-community-scholarship-program/

[Eric Deggans]

The problem with online journalism outlets is that they have a hard time maintaining a staff large enough to offer comprehensive coverage.

Even buzzed-about sites such as Politico and the Huffington Post rely on a LOT of repurposed content from traditional newspapers to fuel their offerings.

If that drastically shrinks or disappears because newspapers shrink, that will have a drastic impact on the news ecosystem...

[dcdave]

#7 smells fishy to me. Journalism and newspapers are not synonymous. The industry is dying because it got greedy. Unsustainable profit margins + poorly equipped sales management + unsustainable (literally) manufacturing = failed product.

There is likely a sustainable model our there for online journalism, but I'm afraid it won't involve traditional media companies. And if it does, it will look radically different then what we expect to based on pre-conceived notions.

[joe hillman]

someone being outraged that sean hannity would twist the truth is about as weak as someone suggesting espn practices journalism.

[Eric Deggans]

Yeah, why would 60 Minutes want to spend an hour looking back at the campaign of a guy who brought them their highest ratings in years? during a Christmas week when there's little other new programming on?

I guess we could also blame 60 Minutes correspodent Steve Kroft for any problems with 60 minutes' coverage of Obama. After all, he's the guy fronting the pieces....

I used the E.D. Hill comment as an example of Fox News' behavior during the campaign, but there's lots of other examples. The women's media center has offered a compelling collection of clips from cable news shows which featured surprising levels of anrti-female talk, and many of the clips came from Fox News shows.

After John McCain extolled Joe the Plumber during the last presidential debate, Fox cloned the concpet on it's shows, featuring Tito the builder and at least one other figure, supposedly working class guys who also didn't like Obama.

And the admittedly liberal medai watch group Media Matters has listed the many ways in which Fox News star Sean Hannity -- who will be getting his own show on the channel at 9 p.m. in two weeks or so -- misinformed his audience about Barack Obama's policies and positions.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200812170007?f=h_top

[RagsTTiger]

Just to clarify, Fox didn't refer to the fist jab, E.D. Hill made an unscripted comment. She did so only once, at the end of a segment. E.D. is no longer with the network. It seems to me to blame a network for such an isolated event is overblown. If this comment was scripted and or repeated, then the network would deserve a demerit.

On the news front, how about recognizing CBS' 60 Minutes, for their endless stories and promotion of Obama? They are still going on. Enough already, what's next boxers or briefs questions?