Advocacy Consultant
Mashable’s coverage of The Huffington Post receiving $25 million in funding reminds us that while media bias may be frustrating, the media have never been less relevant.
The old Mark Twain saying advised against picking fights with anyone who buys ink by the barrel. Now everyone with access to a computer has a barrelful of ink. And, if you’re smart about it, you can build a worldwide following (if you want it).
My Mom just pointed out a local news story about the District of Columbia sending people door-to-door to make sure people in the lower-income neighborhoods are ready for the Digital TV transition coming this February. While looking for the story online, I ran across a press release marking the 100-day countdown to the digital conversion date on CivilRights.org.
I’m glad we’ve come far enough in this country that “civil rights” means making sure everyone gets to watch TV.
My Mom just pointed out a local news story about the District of Columbia sending people door-to-door to make sure people in the lower-income neighborhoods are ready for the Digital TV transition coming this February. While looking for the story online, I ran across a press release marking the 100-day countdown to the digital conversion date on CivilRights.org.
I’m glad we’ve come far enough in this country that “civil rights” means making sure everyone gets to watch TV.
…is actually Fox, according to a recent Zogby poll. Respondents ranked the Fox News Channel (39%) ahead of “the most trusted name in news,” CNN (16%). In fact, CNN scored just slightly ahead of MSNBC (15%) – likely meaning that it wasn’t able to position itself as the “moderate” news channel between Fox on the Right and MSNBC on the left.
The best news is that the internet is the most trusted news medium over all. I take this as a good thing: though more susceptible to hoaxes, stories on the web are also easier to verify immediately. In other words, if you don’t trust mass media (and, according to the poll, most Americans don’t) the internet is a great way to take personal responsibility for staying up to date.
One of the interesting angles in the post-election news has been concern over how the entertainment industry – specifically comedians – will get along without George W. Bush.
Panelists at the New York Comedy Festival, led by Roseanne Barr, suggested a more sophisticated approach to mocking Obama than most comedians took when mocking Bush. Cartoonist Ted Rall suggested Obama’s “uptight” nature may offer room for yuks.
But liberal crusader Bill Maher drove right to the root of the hesitancy many comedians may feel, urging comics to “get over our nervousness about making fun of a black person.” Maher unwittingly struck a chord for colorblindness with his summary:
“He’s not a black person. He’s the president.”
Indoctrinate U, a documentary about political discourse (or lack thereof) on college campuses, comes to the Documentary Channel multiple times next week.
If you’ve spent any time on a college campus in the last 30 years, you know that a movie about campus politics is appropriate viewing. But documentarian Evan Coyne Maloney’s independent film takes on the issue with a dry, biting sarcasm. To expose the hypocrisy of gender politics, Maloney (clad ironically in tshirts which bash Republicans or promote the Soviet Union) wanders into each campus’s Women’s Center asking for directions to the Men’s Center. At his own alma mater, Bucknell University, campus police threaten to arrest him – just before a lecture on free speech.
Throughout his journeys to several bastions of higher learning (including UC Berkeley, Yale, and others) Maloney is more than happy to play the unwitting traveller and let the administrators, bureacrats, and students tell the story.
It makes for an effective and – more imporantly – fun documentary that’s worth setting your TiVo for.
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism released a study this week that showed coverage of John McCain in the mainstream media was predominantly negative, while coverage of Barack Obama is fairly even and balanced.
(I know – I’m shocked to learn this, too.)
In fact, the study shows McCain gets more bad coverage than typical Presidential candidates received in 2000 or 2004. Pew spokespeople are quick to point out that their findings do not indicate a partisan slant to the news (although, watching the news does indicate a strong partisan slant).
They may be on to something; McCain’s negative coverage could not solely be the work of a hostile press dedicated to electing Barack Obama. Hostile press is a fact of political life. Presidents Reagan and Bush both dealt with it and were able to speak with the American people through the coverage. That’s a tactic McCain simply hasn’t mastered yet, but its an important one for the rest of us Republicans who will be talking to both national and regional media over the next few years.
My brother Mike had the best summary about the constant harping on Sarah Palin over the past 60 days: “Everyone seems to be mad because she doesn’t play the game.” She certainly is the biggest outsider of the race.
Pundits are quick to point out that despite appearing on Saturday Night Live, she hasn’t appeared on any Sunday morning talk shows. True – but she also probably understands Saturday Night Live is probably more relevant in shaping public perceptions outside of the beltway than the Sunday morning talk shows. Fourteen million viewers tuned into NBC for Saturday Night Live last weekend. That’s 10 million more than how many tuned into NBC’s Meet the Press the previous week – and that was the top-rated show.
(And who ever imagined we’d see a national candidate raising the roof at the Weekend Update desk and not looking like a complete doofus? At the very least she raised her favorability numbers.)
Palin even criticized her own campaign (politely) for using automated phone calls, candidly saying they are annoying. Sure, that’s common sense – but it’s quite a step to admit that political campaigns are tedious for the average American. This understanding creates opportunity for connection that, really, no other person on a national ticket has made.
As I mentioned previously, the question now is whether Palin can build on this to create a stronger connection with the American people – and to become a national spokesperson for the people who respond better to her style of politics. Based on the way she rolled with the punches on Saturday, her chances seem decent.
The American Film Renaissance festival came to Your Nation’s Capital last week. An attempt to break the left’s stranglehold on entertainment media, AFR features conservative and libertarian-themed films and filmakers.
My normal rul of thumb is that when you label yourself “The Conservative [ANYTHING]” you’ve already lost – as An American Carol is demonstrating in box offices right now. But AFR and similar film festivals are a little different; if nothing else, they serve to act as a place for conservative filmmakers to practice. Not all the films are politically themed, either.
I’ve attended a few of these, and admittedly it’s easy for less-than-stellar works to get a free pass because conservatives are just that thrilled to see something on a big screen that reflects their values. But this is still an important sandbox for conservative would-be entertainers – if just a few emerge making Hollwood-quality movies or TV shows, that will certainly help balance things out.
Good news! You won’t have to pay a dime to see Michael Moore’s next movie. Slacker Uprising, a documentary about Michael Moore travelling around the country during the 2004 election, will be available for free download on September 23. (But only for U.S. and Canadian citizens, which is of course wrong because we are a nation of immigrants.)
Moore claims the digital freebie is a thank-you note to his legions of adoring fans. More probably, he realized that fewer people than usual would go see it. His previous films, which dealth with issues like health care, gun control, or the war on terror, had an element of hot-of-the-presses controversy; Slacker Uprising deals with a speaking tour that tried (and failed) to affect an election four years ago.
Second (and, truth be told, more important), Moore must realize that, although big theatrical releases are great, this is 2008, and that ideas on film spread faster through viral video. Moore’s crackpot ideas have a better chance at exposure if his potential followers aren’t asked to plunk down $9.75 for the experience.
Jim Eltringham 