Inside Television 579
Publication Date: 11-18-11
By: Hubert O’Hearn
For: The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal
You may have noticed this on your own, but I’m a bit of a news junkie. After all, I’m a lover of fiction and where better to find imaginary plots and characters than in the daily headlines? Of course I would never say that everything you see or hear reported is a pack of lies, as it also comes packaged in single servings.
Here’s the first example from one of the most extraordinary news weeks in my memory. In the wee small hours of Tuesday morning, the NYPD raided Zuccotti Park, removed the Occupiers and tossed their belongings into dump trucks, including 5,554 books which tells me that someone was keeping records, just not very carefully. Journalists were kept away and those that were there were removed and/or arrested. Josh Harkinson from Mother Jones magazine tweeted that he was physically dragged across the ground. In the follow-up press conference at a more dignified hour on Tuesday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg stated that journalists had been kept away in order to “protect” them. I doubt if between them George Orwell and Samuel Beckett could come up with a better line.
Big Media’s reaction to this and similar events in London Ontario, Toronto, Oakland and other cities has been exactly the sort of weak-kneed surrender that explains the ruinous state of newspaper circulation in North America and the decline in ratings of TV news. In passing, I note that CNN laid off 50 employees on Tuesday, mostly from the Washington DC bureau. This was four days after Employee Recognition Day. I see you. I admire you. I recognize you. Get the hell out.
The New York Times ran this on Wednesday, tepidly lending its stately approval to Bloomberg’s pre-dawn raid on the First Amendment. The Times said, “In New York and around the country, the news media had begun highlighting less savory aspects of the occupations, including drug use, crime and influxes of homeless people who were not motivated by ideology.” Homeless people don’t have an ideology? They’re tired of being homeless and want help! That is an ideology. I also invite you to note that qualifier, “the news media had begun highlighting”. Rather than guilt by association, the Times finds itself providing guilt by quotation.
Speaking of drug tests, can anyone offer me a good explanation as to why anyone is giving whack jobs like Rick “Ummm” Perry, or Herman “Obama helped the rebels right?” Cain any serious attention at all? When exactly did democracy become dumbocracy? Oh right. It was when Ronald Reagan was elected.
Not that other sections of the paper or newscast were exempt from the action. Take for instance the sad, miserable case of official negligence and abuse that comprises the Penn State rape scandal. Sports reporters were forced to think and that can lead to some very, very bad moments. Here’s what ESPN (I don’t know exactly who it was) asked at a press conference when the scandal broke: “How do you think this will affect recruiting?”
If at some time someone makes a movie out of this - and they will - I want the Sports Information guy at Penn State played by Jack Nicholson, just to hear that cynical, gravelly voice reply to ESPN, “Well Bob, the consensus in the room is that it’s probably not gonna be helpful.”
You may have noticed this on your own, but I’m a bit of a news junkie. After all, I’m a lover of fiction and where better to find imaginary plots and characters than in the daily headlines? Of course I would never say that everything you see or hear reported is a pack of lies, as it also comes packaged in single servings.
Here’s the first example from one of the most extraordinary news weeks in my memory. In the wee small hours of Tuesday morning, the NYPD raided Zuccotti Park, removed the Occupiers and tossed their belongings into dump trucks, including 5,554 books which tells me that someone was keeping records, just not very carefully. Journalists were kept away and those that were there were removed and/or arrested. Josh Harkinson from Mother Jones magazine tweeted that he was physically dragged across the ground. In the follow-up press conference at a more dignified hour on Tuesday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg stated that journalists had been kept away in order to “protect” them. I doubt if between them George Orwell and Samuel Beckett could come up with a better line.
Big Media’s reaction to this and similar events in London Ontario, Toronto, Oakland and other cities has been exactly the sort of weak-kneed surrender that explains the ruinous state of newspaper circulation in North America and the decline in ratings of TV news. In passing, I note that CNN laid off 50 employees on Tuesday, mostly from the Washington DC bureau. This was four days after Employee Recognition Day. I see you. I admire you. I recognize you. Get the hell out.
The New York Times ran this on Wednesday, tepidly lending its stately approval to Bloomberg’s pre-dawn raid on the First Amendment. The Times said, “In New York and around the country, the news media had begun highlighting less savory aspects of the occupations, including drug use, crime and influxes of homeless people who were not motivated by ideology.” Homeless people don’t have an ideology? They’re tired of being homeless and want help! That is an ideology. I also invite you to note that qualifier, “the news media had begun highlighting”. Rather than guilt by association, the Times finds itself providing guilt by quotation.
Speaking of drug tests, can anyone offer me a good explanation as to why anyone is giving whack jobs like Rick “Ummm” Perry, or Herman “Obama helped the rebels right?” Cain any serious attention at all? When exactly did democracy become dumbocracy? Oh right. It was when Ronald Reagan was elected.
Not that other sections of the paper or newscast were exempt from the action. Take for instance the sad, miserable case of official negligence and abuse that comprises the Penn State rape scandal. Sports reporters were forced to think and that can lead to some very, very bad moments. Here’s what ESPN (I don’t know exactly who it was) asked at a press conference when the scandal broke: “How do you think this will affect recruiting?”
If at some time someone makes a movie out of this - and they will - I want the Sports Information guy at Penn State played by Jack Nicholson, just to hear that cynical, gravelly voice reply to ESPN, “Well Bob, the consensus in the room is that it’s probably not gonna be helpful.”
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To end on a high note, for hope still lives and that gives the rest of us a reason to also live, I do have kudos for two great journalists. On Countdown, Keith Olbermann took apart Bloomberg with a masterful piece of rhetoric. And on TSN’s Off the Record, Michael Landsberg did a wonderful interview with abuse survivor Theo Fleury that concentrated on, guess what?, not the damn football team but on the kids. It was coincidental - repeat, coincidental, that Fleury is a retired first-class athlete.
One last thing. Occupy Thunder Bay meets this Sunday from 1-3PM at City Hall. They’ve asked me to say a few words and I’m honoured to do so. I may try not to offend, but with any luck I will. Be seeing you.
One last thing. Occupy Thunder Bay meets this Sunday from 1-3PM at City Hall. They’ve asked me to say a few words and I’m honoured to do so. I may try not to offend, but with any luck I will. Be seeing you.
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