Schreiner’s Media Landscape

It’s probably simple desperation because it’s Labor Day and not much is going on (that’s when most media haul out their “greatest hits’). But Big Oil’s appointed spokesmodel and successor to Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, invoked a graphic I made in April, 2006 to lampoon the pandering going on in TV news to try and gain viewers as more and more of them flee to the Internet or anything else. Plus, if you even mention Shakira on your blog, it’s good for about 1,000 hits.

Sarah Palin’s a former TV sportscaster (if Alaska was the best she could do she must not have been very good) which means she’s indeed about as qualified for the White House as Paris Hilton. I love it when reality imitates farce.

Which brings me to my other pandering-to-take-advantage of other people’s pandering- pandering. This post is from March, 2006. I love it when a pander comes together:

Choice 2008: Stunt President!

The question is: who would you rather be president? Left or right? I thought I was dumb. But I searched the Web found no one else had figured it out either. George W. Bush is our first STUNT PRESIDENT. He makes meaningless appearances and serves up platitudes to his adoring fans. But the dirty work is done by the boys in the basement.

The Hurricane Katrina video, the ports sale, Social Security and Iraq all indicate Bush doesn’t make any crucial decisions or even know what decisions have been made. That’s because he’s only a STUNT PRESIDENT. Arnold Schwarzenegger is close and more qualified because he at least remembers his lines. But the problem is he actually makes decisions.

I’ve Googled and Yahooed the phrase and only found the concept that President Bush hire a stunt double to make politically and physically dangerous appearances. The blogger has the right concept but the wrong application. Democrats are apoplectic over 2008. The STUNT PRESIDENT concept makes that concern unnecessary. Run Tom Cruise, Jessica Alba or Michael Jordan. Your shadow committee will make the real decisions and STUNT PRESIDENT goes before the cameras to read the pronouncements.

I know this system works. It’s TV news. Anchor people don’t really know anything. They’re just reading what’s put in front of them. But the “bewildered herd” as Walter Lippmann called the clueless American masses don’t care. They were sold a “package” and everyone will take a savory sizzle over a tough steak any day. Why do you really think we never see Dick Cheney?

It’s tragically but tantalizingly ironic that the once-mighty Republican Party is cowering in the shadows of an approaching storm, not terrorists, oil companies or even the Chinese. Bush and Cheney have canceled their last chance to say something good about their horrendous nightmare of an administration. The GOPhers are talking about cutting the convention short: more worried about being seen partying during a national disaster (isn’t that what they’ve been doing the last seven years?) than actually doing anything to help.

What the Republicans fear most is America watching John McCain give his acceptance speech in split screen with live video of bodies floating in the streets of New Orleans. Especially after Obama’s triumphant Denver address that was more like the Jacksons’ Victory tour. But that’s the Republicans’ karma. They created the PR nightmare that is approaching our southern coast, not Nature. And hopefully, many of them are thinking what Robert Preston’s character Big Ed Bookman, faced with divine retribution for his corruption, confessed so eloquently in “Semi-Tough”: “Lord, I’m a sinner and now you’re gonna f**k me.”

Keeping up appearances is a 24/7 gig when all you’ve got is the APPEARANCE OF CARING OR ACCOMPLISHMENT, not any kind of record of it. But after seven years of monumental gaffes and dismal failures- 9/11, Iraq, energy prices, the federal deficit, Social Security, the housing crisis, one ill-fated debacle after another- it is Hurricane Gustav and Nature that frighten our pillars of strength and integrity more than Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama, protesters- even Janet Jackson. You think the GOP considered curtailing its little bash in the face of threats of violence, $4/gallon gasoline, and crippling recession?

Bush, Cheney and the Republicans have led an all-out assault on Nature during their reign of error. Now, their endless, senseless campaigns of destruction make any hurricane, wildfire, even a bear attack or other act of Nature seem like justifiable revenge against an evil overlord. I feel for the people of New Orleans and hope Gustav and his younger sister Hanna who’s yet to come are not as bad as everyone fears. But I also hope that Bush and his partying party finally get the message:

YOU MESS WITH NATURE- NATURE MESSES WITH YOU. Party on, fellas. Don’t bother cleaning up when you leave. We’ll pick up. Just go.

I worked as a freelance live shot coordinator for NBC during the 1992 political conventions in New York (Democrats) and Houston (Republicans). FYI: Clinton beat Bush the Elder- the last of the good times. The Democrats’ and Republicans’ presidential nominating conventions used to be important gatherings instead of meaningless pseudo-events where the leader the Free World was chosen by arm-wrestling, jawboning and good, old-fashioned intimidation and power. Issues, not images, were paramount. Now, they are made-for-TV events just like the Olympics and American Idol: the lead actor already chosen and the convention merely his acceptance speech. The conventions aren’t even as meaningful or exciting as the Oscars. At least with the Oscars, you don’t know who’s going to win or what they’re going to say.

I remember seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger sitting with the royal Bush family (W right there as well) at the Astrodome being chummy and all GOP-like. Years later when Ahnuld ran for governernator of California, W withheld support of him and actually stated that he didn’t know much about him. Odd, because they seemed pretty friendly that night. W was probably stoned, drunk or both and doesn’t recall.

At Madison Square Garden, Al Gore delivered his famous “It’s time for them to go” speech and Comedy Central made their auspicious first appearance “covering” the show- which is all it was. MTV’s Tabitha Soren (remember her?) marked the beginning and end of her dubious media career. It also developed into my first documentary since college. I shot it on Hi8 tape on a Sony pro-sumer camera which was the exciting, new small format in 1992 and the precursor to the digital revolution then just on the horizon. It was after the conventions that I knew I would never stay in corporate TV. I left the news biz a month later, returned in 1994, and retired from it in 2003.

The technology has changed a lot since 1992. But two things haven’t: 1) the conventions are pointless and 2) they’re not good TV anymore, just a sad cliche from a bygone era (balloons, signs, funny hats, etc.). For that matter, check the blogs. They’re even boring on the Internet.

NBC and other network TV big shots are all goose-pimply about the success of their hijacking the Internet for a month to redundantly televise the Olympics even though they already had their own cable and broadcast channels. They had no compunctions about seizing as much bandwidth as they wanted to show little girls in cute Spandex suits prancing about. But when it comes to sharing the PUBLIC’S AIRWAVES with the millions of business people and regular citizens who need and use the Internet, NO WAY!

A firm in Virginia has proved that the broadcast spectrum that television stations use to spew their drivel can be used to communicate via the Internet without interference. Of course, the TV networks and stations are all against that and are using their political muscle to keep us little guys down again.

Don’t expect the Bush Regime to come to the aid of regular American citizens. The FCC under Kevin Martin has produced ignorant and unconstitutional rulings like the Super Bowl breast-flashing fiasco (overturned) and attempts to allow even more wealthy conglomerates to buy broadcast stations, preventing minorities and local groups from owning their own local media.

The Olympics’ popularity will only accelerate Big Media’s migration to the Internet causing increased slowdowns and bandwidth hogging already slowing upload and download speeds and forcing gatekeepers like Comcast to allocate bandwidth and regulate selected users. Those of us who do business on the Web need to protect ourselves now before Big Media takes over yet again with the blessing of a complicit federal authority.

Pandora and other Internet radio operations are on the verge of collapse. NBC and other corporate media cause delays, slow response and crashes on the Internet by streaming live event video. What do these two have in common? They are indicative of the bandwidth wars that have just begun. Unfortunately, as proved by Internet radio, they don’t have the political clout or the cash to survive against the formidable lobby power and endless cash of Hollywood, Washington and Madison Avenue. And it bodes ill for independent video and other media sites who will find their efforts crushed as more non-web-based corporate media- like NBC- move more of their operations and bandwidth sucking programs to the Internet.

As an official boycotter of the Beijing Olympics, I must find things to do to fill the hours and hours I would waste watching people I don’t know play games I’ve never heard of in a country I don’t like. Fortunately in Utah, that’s easy. There are so many things to do outdoors year-round that it’s more a question of what to do, not “what is there to do?”

So after cleaning the hot tub, the backyard patio, trimming the bushes and reworking a graphic for work, I shot some of the hummingbirds that zoom around the house this time of year. This has been an especially great summer for hummers. They battle for territorial supremacy from sunrise to sunset from April to September. The hatchlings usually emerge in July and join in the action. The video here was what I gathered from about a half hour sitting in the backyard in a director’s chair in the shade with a cold drink.

I walked into Maui Tacos at 5400 South and State in SLC and immediately noticed, as I have been trained (conditioned?) to do, that all the TV sets in the place were tuned to the Olympics. As you may recall, I announced here April 21 that I am boycotting the Beijing Games because of their horrible human rights record and their environmental chicanery. It’s also a protest of the Bush Regime’s handling of our trade relationship with China and NBC’s historically Ameri-centric and generally piss-poor coverage of what might otherwise be considered the greatest spectacle in sports.

I was trapped. I sat down to eat with my back to all the sets but I couldn’t help seeing everyone else watching, even though what was on was the fencing competition which the U.S. swept hours earlier and which I had already read about on the Internet. It was immediately followed by a women’s beach volleyball match (is that a sport? Do they have frisbee and jarts too?) between the U.S. and the Netherlands. I finished the tacos (which were great BTW) and ran for the exit before I found out who won.

It made me wonder what the attraction of the Games is anyway. Is it watching sports you’d never ever watch any other time in your life between people you’ve never heard of and never will again? Is it hoping for a glimpse of something other than the inside of a stadium which could be in in Chicago, Utah or anywhere else in the world? Nearly all the events are not live (unless you’re up at 2 a.m.) so the attraction of the unpredictable isn’t there (especially knowing the NBC and the Chinese have their fingers on the Delete button.

No. This is why people are watching:

1) It’s the only thing on that’s not a rerun except for Monk, baseball and a handful or other junk.

2) It’s got Americans in it and we love the promise of kicking someone’s butt, even if it’s Surinam or Luxembourg.

3) It’s too hot outside for most people so sitting dumbly in front of the TV for hours with the AC on 72 is the only possible thing to do. Such is the American imagination.

4) Little girls in tight gymnastic suits or beach bikinis, strapping young men in rubber suits, and those endless heart-rendering video essays about the third-stringer on the archery team who overcame a bad hair day, a D on his biology mid-term, and his girlfriend dumping him to drag himself on to an airplane (having kicked anti-depressants) and spend a month’s all-expenses-paid vacation in one of the world’s top tourist destinations.

It was close but I got out of there just in time. My injuries are severe, my spirit all but broken. But despite the personal nightmare I experienced which I now have to work harder than ever to transcend, I’ll be back. Because I love Maui Tacos.

I’m surprised by the journalists upset at the International Olympic Committee for the Chinese government’s censorship of websites and failure to deliver the freedom of coverage the Chinese promised in order to get the Olympics. These are all smart, ostensibly and self-proclaimed experts on how media and government work. They are, however, apparently not experts on how China works or perhaps how the Olympics work either.

The Chinese government lies, cheats and does anything it can to get what it wants and the Olympics are no different. The fact that they are not awarding the “freedom” to news people they promised is not only consistent but exemplary of not only how China does things but also how the IOC and its individual, national subsidiaries are complicit, routinely turn their backs, or are oblivious to censorship, escalating drug use, rules violations and other deliberate or accidental indiscretions of the athletes, sponsors, governments and other institutions engaging in the quadrennial gagfest of human self-indulgence and narcicism the Olympics have become.

Throw in the increased (you mean they have MORE?), suffocating security after the latest terrorist acts of Muslim separatists in Xinjiang and the recipe for a less-than-inspirational spectator experience, whether you’re there or watching on TV, is less than alluring- unless you’re watching to see what gets blown up or who gets disqualified for doping which you probably won’t see anyway because the IOC, NBC and the Chinese government won’t let you.

But these are just additional reasons why I’m boycotting the Games. Tibet, Bush’s economic and human rights policies and the fact that I just have a lot of better things to do are also the reason I won’t watch them. But you can bet I’ll be following them. Even if my web search for “Tibet” turns up a blank page.

The departure of a veteran, respected reporter from a TV station in Rhode Island is merely the latest surrender of integrity to the wave of desperation which has already swamped the wasted world of broadcast news. We can only hope that he finds something better: which is just about anything.

Thousands of crazed citizens fought and stampeded, barricades destroyed, soldiers beat up and expelled news media from the designated media zones. Another Tibet protest? No- it was the first day the final batch of Olympic event tickets went on sale in Beijing. But the authorities handled the situation- which they obviously helped create by not correctly handling the crowd correctly- with the same tact and restraint they handle every other public security crisis: first, get the cameras and reporters out of there. Soldiers dragged them out of the media zones the government had established for news people.

But as the Chinese authorities are finding out, muzzling the news media is not as easy as they would like. The promises the Chinese made to the IOC and international media to allow unprecedented access to the country appear to be in serous jeopardy if not already blown to bits. That doesn’t bode well for this or future Olympics where freedom, peace, love and unity are SUPPOSED to be the idea behind the whole Games.

But as the ticket riot and relentless censorship prove, the Beijing Olympics are all about money, power, and propaganda.