It is next to impossible for a guest not to enjoy himself while participating in an interview on the "Fox and Friends" morning television talk show. ( Janeane Garofalo, who seemed intent on character immolation by spewing personal invectives against the president the day she was on, proves the exception to the rule.) The three hosts (E. D, Hill, Steve Doocy, and Brian Kilmeade) look for the soft, entertaining angle on the hard news stories of the day. They pitch softballs to conservatives, or banter harmlessly with liberals. They want laughs, not blood. So it's in that vein that last... continue reading
Protecting children from pornography used to be a lot easier than it is today. It used to be contained to seedy bookstores on the edge of town or safely hidden under the drug-store cash register for adult requests. Now, all a child needs is a computer with Internet access, and a sordid world of incessant images and persistent pop-ups opens like Pandora's Box. It lingers as close as the nearest search engine, or a come-hither e-mail. If the parent succeeds in shielding his child from porn at home, all that child has to do is walk to his local public... continue reading
The Jayson Blair fiasco has not affected the power of The New York Times. The Newspaper of Record still can start an avalanche of liberal spin on television. Its front page can still launch a thousand ships with cannons trained on any conservative influence that surfaces in the Washington policy arena. On June 19, the Times devoted part of its front page to a leak from a disgruntled environmental bureaucrat. The scoop? The Environmental Protection Agency's forthcoming report on the state of the environment had been edited by the White House, and "a long section describing risks from rising global... continue reading
In the chummy corridors of the liberal media establishment, no self-satisfying myth is more prevalent than the notion that there are two types of national news networks. The first is Fox, the fiendishly opinionated, Roger-Ailes-manipulated Republican Party organ. The second is the non-Fox establishment, serenely gliding above the political fray on a magic carpet of nonpartisan open-mindedness. The conventional "wisdom" further insists that in cable news, Fox is the feisty right-wing upstart, while CNN is the underappreciated grande dame of objectivity. But then something always seems to come along which bursts that silly bubble. The June 18 edition of CNN's... continue reading
A USA Today survey reveals perhaps the most interesting reaction on the frenzied week of pablum publicity surrounding Hillary Clinton's book "Living History." Despite all the fawning and the fainting spells en masse by the national media, a majority of Americans are not impressed. More than one in five respondents says the book belongs in the fiction section, and a full 56 percent say they think Mrs. Clinton is lying when she claims, notwithstanding seven months of revelations about it, she did not believe in the Monica Lewinsky affair - until her husband fessed up. In other words, America believes... continue reading
For those who enjoy televised awards programs, the Tony Awards show was once an event of the television season, part of a quartet. The Oscars celebrated movies; the Grammys, music; the Emmys, TV; and the Tonys, theater. Those days are now gone. Today we're awash in entertainment narcissism, with an endless stream of awards shows blanketing both broadcast and cable TV. Starting with the American Music Awards and the People's Choice Awards in the 1970s, it's proliferated into the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Billboard Music Awards, the Teen Choice Awards, the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, salutes to anyone who... continue reading
ABC and Barbara Walters ought to be investigated for false advertising. The promos that plugged that Hillary Clinton memoir-selling interview promised, again and again for two weeks, to deliver "the interview we've all been waiting for, and the book that tells all. Sunday June 8th. Nothing's off limits." Since when have "we all" been waiting for this? "The book that tells all"? Hillary never tells all. "Nothing's off limits"? ABC should be glad they didn't offer this interview by pay-per-view, because everyone would be entitled to a refund. Barbara Walters left almost everything of importance off limits - on purpose... continue reading
Imagine your family sitting down to catch the debut of "American Juniors" on Fox, watching elementary-school kids attempt to be singing stars, a healthy family-friendly offering. So what's on next? A few minutes into the debut of the drama "Keen Eddie," bets are off. Suddenly you and your children are exposed to an orgiastic "swap party" (husbands and wives trade sex partners). That's a rather shocking segue, from the aspiring kiddie pop stars to a fornication fiesta. That's what families have to expect on television. How low will it go? Every study the Parents Television Council has done since its... continue reading
Federal budgets are a policy geek's playground but a political reporter's nightmare. How can something so voluminous, so complex and amorphous, ever be summarized in a 90-second TV standup or an 800-word news story? Many reporters would rather cover cat-fighting personalities and hyper-plotting political consultants than crunch a single number. For them, accuracy is less important than following the technical argot of the pack. Take the new tax-cut bill, which President Bush signed and has been assigned an arbitrary face value. "Bush Signs $350 Billion Tax Cut," read the front page of The Washington Post. It's become the standard line... continue reading
For decades, young Senate aides have elbowed each other in the ribs, prepared to giggle when Sen. Robert Byrd came to the floor to speak. Some were known to dial his pompous answering machine just for laughs. He is a living, breathing caricature of the politician from a hillbilly-image state overcompensating to display pseudo-erudition, dragging Cicero and Shakespeare into debates over highway construction. That may work in West Virginia, where Byrd, with 50-plus years of elected experience on Capitol Hill, now holds Strom Thurmond's honorary place as the legislator's equivalent of the Guest Who Won't Leave. (Or, if you prefer,... continue reading