The Sarah Palin book tour continues to be the gift that keeps on giving for media watchers.
First, Fox News had to apologize today for telling viewers Wednesday that video from a campaign appearance by Palin last year before adoring throngs was footage from a recent book tour stop.
The flub highlights the ongoing controversy over whether outspoken conservatives such as Palin are widely popular or appeal to an excited niche. And its the second time in as many weeks that Fox had to apologize for leading viewers to believe old footage was new.
It also highlights something I said Sunday on CNN. The problem with having opinionated news networks isn't necessarily showcasing opinion, it's the lack of transparency and accuracy when programmers are actively and deliberately bending reality to fit their preconceived ideas.
I actually think this was an honest mistake -- mostly because Palin is drawing crowds at her book signings, so deception wasn't necessary (in fact, as I write this, MSNBC is broadcasting from a crowded Palin book signing). But when you've had your finger on the scale in the past, it's hard to argue innocence in the future.
The Daily Show also had several great segments Wednesday; particularly a bit where host Jon Stewart explains that critics object to Palin because her positions on issues are mostly conservative-friendly code words and phrases strung together in rambling sentences which sometimes don't even make sense.
Later, he complimented former CNN host Lou Dobbs for his consistency in upholding abhorrent and wrong views.
At a time when some critics insist that content in newspapers is unofficially for sale, Creative Loafing's Tampa edition is about to put that notion to the test.
The items for sale include: its lead cover image, a five-star review from its restaurant critic Brian Ries, a local band profile and photo shoot, the chance to write a music review of your choice and a chance to add your questions in person to an interview political editor Mitch Perry will conduct with a politician for a story in the newspaper and Perry's podcast.
These items involving the newspaper's actual content are sprinkled among more conventional bid items such as an indie record shopping spree and acting classes at the Venue Actors Studio. The suggested opening bids are rather low -- the one for the cover is $100 -- and the possibilities for problems seem plentiful.
What if a group of white supremacists want to buy the cover? Or that guy who swears Stephen King helped kill John Lennon? Can Creative Loafing say no if the image suggested isn't definitively offensive?
And doesn't the whole business, coming as the six-newspaper chain is climbing out of bankruptcy, reinforce the notion that their editorial product is unsteady enough to be bought out?
"This is our way of saying 'This is not how we do business,'" said Creative Loafing editor David Warner, clearly digging how vaguely disquieting this whole episode was for me. "just this once, you'll see what you get if our content actually is for sale. It's ironic, unchartered territory."
Based on an annual auction held by the Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger, it's also an interesting bit of irreverence coming as the chain's new owners hire more conventional newspaper types to run its properties -- from former St. Pete Times publisher Marty Petty joining as CEO to former Chicago Tribune managing editor Jim Warren becoming publisher of the chain's Chicago Reader.
The auction started this morning and concludes in December; the newspaper expects to maintain editorial control over the material provided by winning bidders. Warner wasn't sure, but believed The Stranger raises somewhere around $50,000 with its auctions.
And yes, I realize auctioning the newspaper's content is mostly a bid for free publicity, which I'm providing.
But I'm thinking I just might get a posse together here at Times Publishing and buy a big cover ad for our free weekly newspaper, TBT.
Hey, it's all for a good cause and free publicity, right?
Ever try to get a word in edgewise when two siblings are fighting?
Then you know how I felt on Sunday morning, trying to get in-between Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawick and CNN staffer-turned-conservative talk radio guy Chris Plante on Howard Kurtz media show for CNN, Reliable Sources.
The subject at hand: The reasons behind and meaning of "advocacy journalist" Lou Dobbs' resignation from CNN last Wednesday. Plante brought the conservative media party line -- that Dobbs was undone by a liberal media and liberal activists who couldn't abide his conservative stands on illegal immigration.
Zurawick brought the appropriate response -- are you crazy? -- and proceeded to pronounce Dobbs a "disaster" for CNN's long-established brand as a hard news haven.
I was stuck in the middle, trying to have a reasoned discussion between two guys yelling at each other and interrupting everyone (I'm a huge fan and friend of David Z., by the way, but when he goes on cable TV, this mild-mannered journalist turns into a tiger).
I was struck by a bunch of things during this bit of TV theater:
-- It's always odd to discuss media stories involving CNN on a CNN media show. I kept wondering why Kurtz didn't have CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein or some other CNN executive on to tell us directly what was going on with Dobbs. And how weird was it to ask me about Dobbs successor, John King, who just happened to be anchoring the show which surrounded Reliable Sources, State of the Union?
-- Plante conveniently overlooked the most important issue at hand; Dobbs consistently aired false or misleading information to buttress his point of view, which just happened to be that hordes of illegal immigrants from Mexico are bringing untold ills to America. Such work is shoddy journalism at best and racist at worst; if you're going to call yourself an advocacy journalist, you've got live up to both sides of the term.
-- In a media world where consumers have more choice than ever, cable channels' move toward creating "news" channels which bend and manufacture facts to echo their viewers' worldview only makes sense, at least economically. But that is directly contrary to the role of journalists, whose job often requires digging up stories which challenge conventional wisdom and the assumptions of the audience. Journalists are also required to follow the facts wherever they lead, even if the resulting story doesn't fit a preconceived mold.
-- Conservatives have essentially challenged many of the notions journalists use to define news, insisting that they betray a liberal bias. But replacing those criteria with ideas that bend toward conservatives' biases -- America is always a great nation, government is usually bad, etc. -- doesn't produce better journalism. It just produces reports which affirm what the audience wants to believe. And we have seen in our economic meltdown and how federal disaster response fell apart after Katrina, how objective facts have a way of obliterating how we'd like to see life.
-- In a telling interview replayed on NPR's On The Media, Dobbs justified his approach by essentially saying he was experienced and accomplished enough that he deserved to have a level of autonomy on CNN that no other anchor had. But even the best writers need editors, and any justification which says 'I'm great, so by definition anything I do is great,' is mostly a recipe for problems.
Dobbs will appear on Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly's top-rated show The O'Reilly Factor tonight; it will be interesting to see what these two, very smart guys, who have built empires on pandering to ideologues, have to say to each other.
A deputy in the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office is suing the owner of CBS affiliate WTSP-Ch. 10 and reporter Mike Deeson, saying the station aired a story unfairly edited to make it appear the officer was laughing at quadriplegic jail inmate Brian Sterner when he was dumped from a wheelchair.
A lawyer for Cpl. Steven Dickey filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Hillsborough County Circuit Court, seeking a judgment in excess of $15,000. His action contends WTSP’s story on the incident drew the officer unfairly into the controversy and led to global ridicule when the footage became a viral sensation on the Internet.
The lawsuit accuses WTSP of deliberately editing video of the moment on Jan. 29 2008 when inmate Brian Sterner was hurled from his wheelchair, making it appear that Dickey participated and was laughing at Sterner’s difficulty.
Ken Tonning, general manager at WTSP, declined to comment. But an attorney for WTSP owner Gannett Co. wrote a letter to Dickey's lawyer Nov. 2 maintaining the station's story was a fair and accurate portrayal of video from the incident provided by the sheriff's office.
“The gist of the station’s report is exactly that of the government’s tape: That deputies dumped Mr. Sterner out of a wheelchair and Mr. Dickey – aware of Mr Sterner’s treatment – found something amusing about the situation,” wrote Gannett attorney Barbara Wall, who also said the officer is a public official requiring a high level of proof to demonstrate any defamation.
Look below to see footage from the sheriff's office and WTSP's story. (In the bottom clip, Dickey walks into the camera frame at 1:24, then walks past smiling at 1:59):
I'm a TV critic, so I get paid to overthink television series and concepts.
But even the guy who spent hours puzzling out the time twists in the latest Star Trek movie couldn't hope to match the level of fan boy deliberation which went into this post on the Dvice blog: Four reasons why V's motherships don't make sense.
Nevermind that V is a science fiction series about lizard-like aliens which clothe themselves in human-looking flesh, bringing 29 giant-sized spaceships to hover around Earth as they implement an as-yet-unclear plan.
It appears the fanboys have found four really outlandish reasons why the show's big motherships are too unrealistic to make sense.
The short list: Even with our inferior technology, we would see them coming; the ships are so big they would cause massive weather disruptions just by entering our atmosphere; they would require a tremendous amount of energy to stay aloft and if just one crashed, it could wipe out all life on Earth.
Read the post, because the logic backing up these arguments in unassailable, except for one thing.
When you're dissecting a show about talking lizards from space taking over the Earth, the feasiblity of their spaceships may not be the biggest sticking point..
As Latino groups began to step up their protests against CNN "advocacy anchor" Lou Dobbs, the one time business expert and last remaining anchor from the newschannel's earliest days abruptly announced he was leaving the channel, effective today.
In a long statement, Dobbs told his audience about the move during his 7 p.m. show, saying "some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond my role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving, as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day. And to continue to do so in the most honest and direct language possible."
This was not the first time Dobbs had left CNN; an anchor at the newschannel since its 1980 inception, he departed for two years in 1999 to join the Web site Space.com. (Citing unnamed sources, the Web site AllYourTV.com says Dobbs is considering a run for political office, perhaps president)
Dobbs has faced criticism from various groups over statements expressed on his CNN show and his radio show, from suggestions that the issue of President Obama's birth in the U.S. may be an open question to his refusal to correct mistaken reporting about illegal immigrants spreading leprosy in America.
Dobbs turned resistance to illegal immigration into a cornerstone of his programs, drawing heated criticism from Latino groups which accused him of demonizing Hispanics and spreading misinformation about the negative impacts of illegal immigrants.
A group called BastaDobbs.com -- which says it is a Latino-led grassroots coalition of several organizations urging CNN to fire Dobbs -- released a statement earlier today announcing a digital "sit-in" on the newschannel's iReport service. In this protest, members would send thousands of anti-Dobbs personal messages into CNN's Web site devoted to citizen journalism. The group had also protested during CNN's launch of its Latino in America series, arguing that the newschannel could not be fair to Latinos if it kept Dobbs on its payroll.
None of this was mentioned directly in statements released by Dobbs and CNN tonight. And despite the anchor's talk of moving on, no specific reason was given for the anchors abrupt departure -- announced without fanfare or a successor named (The New York Times quotes a spokesperson from Fox saying it has not had discussions with Dobbs for the Fox News Channel nor Fox Business Network).
Given the damage Dobbs punditry has done to its brand with Latinos, perhaps CNN will consider replacing him with Rick Sanchez, the former Miami anchor who has turned their 3 p.m. hour into a showcase for his Twitter-fed reporting and occasional opinionating, often on issues affecting Hispanics.
It would certainly be a delicious irony. And there's not nearly enough of that in the media game these days.
In May 2008, News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch sang Barack Obama's praises, calling him "a rock star" and the likely winner of November's presidential contest. That was an endorsement which meant something, given Murdoch's reputation as a supporter of conservative politics and bankroller of both the right-friendly Fox News Channel and New York Post newspaper.
Back then, punditizers like me figured Murdoch had read the tea leaves, expected Obama to win, and wanted to make sure the new administration didn't immediately take on his lengthy list of American TV stations and media outlets.
So what to make of Murdoch's recent statement agreeing with Fox News superstar Glenn Beck when he calls the president a "racist....with a deep seated hatred of white people and white culture."
Murdoch made the statement in an interview with an Australian broadcaster -- which he, by the way, owns a piece of -- where he also talks about charging consumers for online content -- also an about-face for a mogul who initially tried to take down the Wall Street Journal's pay wall after he bought the company.
So I'm expecting him to walk back these comments the next time he needs some kind of government exemption to keep his TV empire intact here in America.
Check out his words here; comment comes at about 18 minutes:
He came into the studio expecting to be a tough judge, facing a host of folks hoping to win a spot on the second season of his Discovery Channel series, Pitchmen.
But infomercial king Anthony Sullivan found he couldn't say no to most of the inventors who crowded into radio host Todd "MJ" Schnitt's studio this morning as part of WFLZ-FM's "Inventorquest 2009." (image at right from a different photo shoot a few weeks ago at Citrus Park Mall)
Time and again, Sullivan responded to enthusiastic pitches by telling the hopeful inventors they would get screen time on the second season of the show he developed and starred in with former partner Billy Mays, the popular TV spokesman who died in his Tampa home in June.
Joined by his partner's son Billy Mays III, Sullivan encouraged most of the inventors to pitch their inventions hard, coming away convinced he could turn many in profitable products.
"I wanted to be more brutal, but we saw some wonderful stuff today," he said on air this morning, as cameras from his production company taped footage which might land in an episode of Pitchmen. "I'm not sure how many of these guys we can get on, but I guarantee you one or two of these will land on the show."
The types of products ranged from a trash can built with an accordion shape for easy storage to a sink attachment allowing you to cut on water flow by pressing a lever, a cutting board with raised sides and openings to help prevent injury and a reversible toilet paper attachment allowing the paper to be pulled out over the top or from the bottom of the roll.
Inventor Rocky Hutson, who had traveled from Colorado to participate in a larger audition Sullivan and Schnitt held Wednesday at the Ritz Theater in Ybor City, insisted his T.P. Swivel toilet paper dispenser would eliminate household arguments over how to install the toilet paper roll in bathrooms -- but Schnitt's on air crew wasn't necessarily buying the idea that this was a big issue.
Still Sullivan told the trash can's inventor he could make him a millionaire -- if some enterprising listener didn't get a knockoff product on the market first. They would have to move fast -- Sullivan estimated his company could pull together a direct response TV ad and begin selling any of the products they saw today within six to eight weeks.
Schnitt basked in the popularity of the contest, placing streaming audio and video of the inventor pitches on his show's Web site, alongside pictures and online video clips from Wednesday's tryouts in Ybor City. he even agreed to run in next years New York marathon with Sullivan in exchange for a sponsorship from the pitchman's company.
But now I'm really genuflecting to Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter. Because he is not only kicking some network TV behind in the ratings for his explicitly gutsy show, he's also kicking behind on his explicit personal blog, SutterInk.
Check out this line about why network TV shows are terrible: "I have a director friend, let’s call him… CJ, who says the job of a network executive is to turn everything to s---.(dashes mine) They hire you to stop them from doing that. Unfortunately, the s----turners are winning. Nowadays it’s all about formula. You get rights, attach a hot writer, develop it into the f---ing ground until it’s so middle-of-the-road it has no point-of-view, then attach a waning movie star, throw tens of millions in promotion at it and hope that no one notices that it’s the same old crap repackaged. But folks always do. In recovery, the “definition of insanity” is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Primetime is an active asylum."
When a Sons episode on FX beat a Tuesday episode of The Jay Leno Show in the ratings last week, Sutter wrote a blog post explaining why is wasn't Leno's fault (which I'm not sure I totally agree with): "Leno's an artist looking for a good gig like the rest of us. The truth is, NBC should have NEVER bumped him out of the 11:30 spot. No one bumped out Carson. Why Jay? His ratings were solid, he had a loyal following and he was constantly doing what he could to keep his show fresh -- dude is one of the hardest working cats in town. And it's obvious Conan's "younger" humor works way better in the later hour. The bigger concern is the potential dangerous trend that NBC is setting by putting Jay in the 10 pm spot...To succeed in dramas you need employees who are intelligent, patient and creatively nurturing. Instead of fixing their system, NBC is creating a new one. An easier one. A cheaper one. One that doesn't demand talent. One that can be run by suit-monkeys and accountants."
And now he's uncorked this great tale of an emotional network executive confronting him on the street about his blog posts: "Too many talented people in this town are content collecting a big f---ing paycheck, hooking their f---ing collar to the leash and getting in the f---ing tow-line. People care less and less about originality. I see it happening all the time. Writers and directors whom I respect, taking big juicy overall deals, getting turned into machines churning out s--- they wouldn't have even watched five years prior. I get it, we all want the brass f---ing ring, but at what cost? So what if I ruffle a few feathers, if I get one person thinking, questioning the system, then maybe I've said something worthwhile."
That's why Sons of Anarchy is one of the coolest shows on TV -- and probably why Sutter won't get the Emmy awards he so richly deserves for making it a reality.
(UPDATE: I can see by the resumed flow of comments that Typepad has corrected its problem and you can leave your thoughts on the blgo yet again)
I'm told by our technical folks that several Times blog are having problems accepting comments, including The Feed.
We're checking with Typepad, the platform which hosts our blogs, to see if the problem is on their end, as we suspect. But I wanted to float this entry to let you know the inability to comment is not intentional and we are trying to correct it as soon as possible.
As a substitute, feel free to call up The Feed's fan page on Facebook or to send me comments via Twitter @Deggans. but know that we're trying to make things right and hope to have comments back up on our blogs very soon.
And, of course, if you have any idea why this is actually happening, feel free to email me directly at deggans@sptimes.com.
The Feed is a blog on TV, media and modern life by St. Petersburg Times TV/media critic Eric Deggans. Possibly the most critical guy at the Times, he has served as music, media and TV critic at various times over 10 years.
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The Feed is a blog on TV, media and modern life by St. Petersburg Times TV/media critic Eric Deggans. Possibly the most critical guy at the Times, he has served as music, media and TV critic at various times over 10 years.
E-mail Eric Deggans:
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