In the shell-shocked weeks after September 11, we came to our television newscasts and print outlets with gratitude. As we struggled to accept such a damaging attack on our homeland, our nation's leading journalists tried to make sense of the senseless, and displayed an all-too-rare sense of bonding with the audience, a feeling of common suffering and common resolve. At that time, a very impolite cynic could have spoiled the moment by stating that all this rallying around our flag and our fellow Americans would eventually evaporate. The cynic would maintain that as memories faded, our resolve to fight the... continue reading
An historical landmark by definition would preserve that place in time that added to the national fabric, ostensibly to be celebrated for many generations to come. Leave it to some in Nevada to consider as contributions landmarks recognizing their city of Reno's unique contribution: divorce. Hard as it may be to believe in today's culture, it bears remembering that once upon a time in America divorces were generally difficult to acquire. Nevada was an exception, and "the Reno divorce," writes the New York Times' Patricia Leigh Brown, "became a national institution in the 1930s, largely because of a 1931 law... continue reading
The Catholic Church continues to bleed. Her wounds were (mostly) self-inflicted, to be sure. Worse still, she is putting band-aids on them when surgery is required. For most it's a sad spectacle. For some it has become the opportunity to pounce on the wound in the hopes of exacting the maximum amount of pain. And then there are those who are out of control. Bill Keller, until a few months ago the managing editor - the number two hot-shot - at the New York Times, has now compared Pope John Paul II and his church to the Communist Party, a... continue reading
Try to imagine what would be the reaction of today's typical twenty- or thirtysomething TV scriptwriter were he suddenly ordered to make his writing conform to the broadcast standards of 1965. My guess is that he'd submit a blank piece of paper, then resign. Most scriptwriters today could never deliver the quality of product regularly produced by the likes of Carl Reiner, Jackie Gleason, and all those other writers working in an industry with so many creative limits forty years ago. Consider sex, almost certainly the most notable of the many topics the TV shows of the 1950s and '60s... continue reading
ABC's long-time morning physician, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, has been suspended for a week without pay from her slot on "Good Morning America." Dr. Snyderman committed the grievous offense of touting Tylenol in a radio commercial. Liberal media types often treat profit-oriented interests like mice infected with bubonic plague, but why can't they find any reflex for objectivity when "public interest" groups come calling? Years ago, ABC banned its correspondents from speaking to "political groups," which can be narrowly defined as corporate interest groups like the pharmaceutical companies or the Fertilizer Institute. Why? Because attending fundraisers for the NAACP or the... continue reading
Have you ever wondered why there just has to be such puerile junk on television? When was the last time you hit the power button on the remote control and BAM! there was a show designed for...you? The dumbing-down of television has been going on for years. If challenged, Hollywood immediately blames the advertising community, which, it claims, insists that the younger the viewer, the more it will pay. Older viewers are set in their purchasing habits; younger viewers are more volatile. That sounds awfully counterintuitive, because the obvious is missing. As Sam Craig, a professor at NYU, tells the... continue reading
The current generation in control of the major media, especially television, came of age in the 1960s, when no cause was a nobler excuse for putting balanced coverage aside than the fight for black civil rights. That decade may be long gone, but the old reflexes remain. Exhibit A is the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a long-time media darling. When he ran for the White House in 1984 and 1988, liberal reporters took turns pinching each other to see if they were dreaming. Hardened veterans like David Rogers of the Wall Street Journal traveled from airport to airport tingling with awe,... continue reading
We all heard how this past weekend, anti-global-capitalism partisans demonstrated, angrily but mostly peacefully, in Washington, not far from where World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings were being held. We're still not sure why , of course. This bunch of societal misfits just...protests. They come to town, dress in trendy black, grab a placard - any placard will do - and yell. What a pathetic lot they've become. But I bet you didn't know that this past weekend, anti-global-capitalism partisans also ran amok in the streets of...Capitol City. Where? Actually, the mayhem was fictional. It took place in "State... continue reading
Liberal media bias strikes most people as a subject that needs no elaboration. You either believe it's a real problem, or you don't. To conservatives, it's so obvious that it should be beyond debate. To liberals, what's obvious is that right-wingers are "working the refs" to force nervous journalists to bend over backwards toward a conservative bias. But there are occasions when liberals try to argue that the sky is green, and the moon is made of cheese - that is, that our national media favor conservatives and Republicans. It seems absurd, but conservatives need to pay attention. Democrats recently... continue reading
Given that foul cultural floodwaters are on the rise most everywhere, a small celebration is in order when they recede, even a little. On March 29, the Disney picture "The Rookie" opened. Now, this is a sports movie, meaning one could have expected it to contain typically sophomoric and raunchy locker-room language and humor - but it doesn't. In fact, "The Rookie" boldly proclaims a G rating, something almost unheard of these days in feature films. It's the story of Jim Morris, a Texas high-school teacher and baseball coach who, in his mid-thirties, finally fulfills his dream of becoming a... continue reading