A Television Snow Job
      Facing heavy winds, sub-freezing temperatures, and expecting between one and three feet of snow to fall over much of Pennsylvania, the TV news teams went into overdrive. This may be an accurate description of one of those minute-by-minute analyses. [ more ]

America’s Buddy-Buddy Campaign Press Corps

It’s a little more than a week before the presidential election, and I’m worried about what happens afterwards. I’m not worried about the candidates, the people, or the country. I’m worried about the media.

First, I’m worried about the TV ad salespeople. For more than a year they haven’t had to do much other than sit back and open digital files from the politicians. Now, the salespeople will actually have to go to work to fill airtime.
Press Corps>>

Creating a Best-Seller
      Nothing is more pathetic than an author sitting at a card table surrounded by unsold copies of his latest book while watching humanity pass him by in front of a book store in a crowded mall. [ more ]

Dissolving Journalistic Integrity
      The relationship between the TV networks, both the news and entertainment divisions, and nation’s publicists is incestuous. Most guests on the morning news shows and the late evening talk shows are actors and musicians plugging their latest releases. Some of the guests, however, are writers and editors for mass-market magazines. NBC’s “Today Show” broadcasts stories that first appeared in People magazine. [ more ]

Hard Rock on a Soft Platter
      They put Bette Midler in the Easy Listening section at the chain music store.       Bette Midler! The Divine Miss M!
      The bawdy comedian who aroused a nation with jokes, tales, and double entendres. [ more ]

Hollywood’s Patriots
      Sandra Bullock and Leonardo DiCaprio each donated about $1 million for disaster relief following the recent tsunami in Southeast Asia. The Steven Spielberg family donated $1.5 million. Jet Li donated more than $125,000; Jackie Chan added at least $64,000. Among several dozen rock bands which donated proceeds of their concerts or made outright donations, U-2 and Linkin Park each donated $100,000; Ozzie and Sharon Osborn donated almost $200,000. At the Laugh Factory in both L.A. and New York, major comedians donated their time, with proceeds benefiting the victims. The Red Cross says innumerable celebrities made anonymous donations. [ more ]

Janet Jackson, George Bush, and No. 524:
There Are No Half-Times in War
      On the day that Justin Timberlake ripped open Janet Jackson’s blouse during the half-time of the Super Bowl to reveal a bejeweled breast and create a national firestorm of protest, American Soldiers 523 and 524 died in Iraq. Along with the two American soldiers, 14 were wounded. Also that day, two suicide bombers killed more than 100 Kurds and wounded more than 200. [ more ]

Jackass: The People
      For Halloween week 2002, Jackass: The Movie had the highest gross of any film on the nation’s 35,000 screens. For several more weeks, it was in the "top 10"in gross, in both income and content. [ more ]

Mega-Mouths, Squawkers, and the 'Hollyweird'
      The talk show squawkers call them the “Hollyweirds.” Makes no difference if they’re writers, actors, directors, producers, or grips and gaffers. Makes no difference if they’re poets, artists, sculptors, dancers, cartoonists, musicians, or singers. And, it makes absolutely no difference if they live in Southern California or Iowa . As long as they’re in the creative arts, they’re “Hollyweird.” [ more ]

Oops! The Media Did It Again
     Ever vigilant, the mass media dug into a critical social issue and rooted out the information in their never-ending quest to guarantee the people’s right to know.

The people’s right to know, they determined, was that 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears, star of Nickelodeon’s “Zoey 101,” is pregnant. Jamie Lynn is the younger sister of Britney Spears, the former Mouseketeer who has combined a chart-topping career as a singer/dancer with being America’s Celebrity Super-Skank.[ more ]

Overdosing On Drug Ads
      One drug manufacturer wants us to "celebrate"relief from arthritis pain by taking its prescription drug. Its primary rival asks, "What's it like to look forward to the first few steps of the day?" [ more ]

People. People Who Don’t Need People
From a pool of about seven billion, those hard-working geniuses at People magazine have managed to find the hundred most beautiful people in the whole wide world. And—get ready for the surprise—almost every one of those beautiful people are rich American celebrities. [ more ]

Suspending the First Amendment
      The principal of a Bucks County high school suspended five students for committing an act that radicals Ben Franklin, Sam Adams, and the Sons of Liberty would have encouraged. [ more ]

Stupid Decisions: Self-Censorship in America
      The author and the publisher could agree upon only one thing—neither of them wanted 50,000 copies of the author's book to be in a 146,000 square foot warehouse in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. [ more ]

The Disconnected Media
Add pundits, pollsters, and the press to the list of losers in the New Hampshire primary.

They weren’t on the ballot. They didn’t vote. And they didn’t get it right.

For the Democrats, Sen. Barack Obama, fresh from victory in Iowa, was supposed to cruise into a double digit win in the Granite State. Sen. Hillary Clinton, at least if anyone believed the media, was going to be flattened by the Obama steamroller that was chugging to dominate all primaries.
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The Fiction Behind National Security
      Between a diner and an empty store that once housed a shoe store, video store, and tanning salon, in a small strip mall in Bloomsburg, Pa., is Friends-in-Mind, an independent bookstore. [ more ]

The Truth of Joseph Goebbels
      The CIA said there was no connection. The 9/11 Commission said there was “no credible evidence.” Counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke, advisor to four presidents, said there was no link. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said, “We made serious mistakes.” Even Donald Rumsfeld grudgingly said there probably wasn’t “any strong, hard evidence.” [ more ]

Title Inflation
      It took two directors, two executive producers, three producers, four writers, and very bad acting to ruin Down to Earth, starring Chris Rock as a Harlem comic who dies before his time, then is sent back to earth in a different body.
       In Hollywood's share-the-blame standards, this film is a Paramount release of a Village Roadshow Pictures presentation in association with NPV Entertainment of an Alphaville 3 Arts Entertainment production. [ more ]

Tragic Inequalities
      It happened so quickly—America gained heroes and lost bright, inquisitive, and patriotic men and women. Family members in just an instant plummeted from anticipation to agony. Spouses and children now planned memorial services. America lost 11 souls. [ more ]