President Bush's unconditional war on terror has sprouted a split personality over Israel - Colin Powell is off to negotiate with Yassar Arafat, a terrorist - in an attempt to appease the administration's critics. It won't work. Bryant Gumbel has oh-so-helpfully explained it this way: "This administration's foreign policy in regards to the Mideast has been called everything from 'amateurish and inept' to 'inconsistent and superficial.'" Headlines have warned that Bush's Mideast policy is a blur. One of the media's most annoying tendencies is to pretend that all this is happening in a vacuum, as if they haven't been pounding... continue reading
During the late 1980s, Rupert Murdoch's Fox television network revolutionized the entertainment industry. Fox's brand of lowbrow, often gutter material not only created that all-important "niche" for the upstart network, but its success spurred ABC, CBS, and NBC to lower their standards in the quest for TV's lowest common denominator - the brain-dead viewer. In early 1992, Rick Du Brow of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "It could easily be argued that the...suggestive dialogue of such [Fox] series as 'Married...With Children' has...had its effect on the Big Three's...shows, which increasingly have taken liberties that often offend traditional viewers." It looks... continue reading
Newsweek has been awarded the first exclusive post-presidential interview with Bill Clinton, and from the looks of it, the story should begin with the words "Once upon a time." Across the expanse of its nine pages, interviewer Jonathan Alter (a man used to cooing over the man he called "our rogue prince of prosperity") and the former chief manipulator concoct a fantasy world where a brilliant presidency was ruined by a vast conspiracy of right-wing fanatics and a chain of phony scandals promoted by a press corps that pounded poor Clinton mercilessly. For starters, Clinton sounds amused as he notes... continue reading
The Catholic Church is under fire in the American press in a manner unlike any I can remember. To be sure, much of it is self-inflicted; what is being reported as "news" is more than what, sadly, demands coverage. That is something Catholics must accept. But Catholics do not have to accept what is being thrown at the Church, the what-this-story-means analysis. Many in the press are using recent Church scandals as fodder for attacks on Catholicism in general and Pope John Paul II in particular, which is scandalous in its own right. Newsweek's Eleanor Clift has penned a piece... continue reading
John McCain's political censorship show may have changed venues to the federal court system, but journalists aren't about changing their idea of what constitutes news. They still believe that large corporations (theirs excluded, naturally) are too influential in politics. When the Republicans decide to do something conservative, it must be an evil, mustache-twirling corporate plot. When the Energy Department released records demanded by the Democrats showing that their officials met with energy industry leaders, but not energy-loathing environmental extremists, you could almost hear the "Aha!" from major newspapers and networks. If it wasn't illegal, it was certainly unethical and confirmed... continue reading
Liberals like to accuse conservatives of being obsessed with money and inclined to threaten freedom of speech, accusations which came to mind last week as a result of the campaign-finance-reform crusade's triumph in the Senate. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) claims that because of the reforms, "the political landscape...will be filled with more people and less influence, more contributors and smaller contributions, more democracy and less elitism." Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), a co-sponsor of the reform legislation, proclaimed not long before it passed that "particularly after September 11, all of us in this chamber hope the public will look to the... continue reading
David Brock is a pathetic little man. At one time, Brock was the conquering hero of conservative journalism, piercing the propaganda veil that surrounded Anita Hill, the "Rosa Parks of sexual harassment." Then his investigative reporting exposed the ongoing lies about Bill Clinton's serial adultery, confirmed for Brock by the testimony of Clinton's security detail which participated in the deceit. His legend grew as the liberal media strained to ignore or dismiss every bit of evidence he compiled. But after years on the Clinton-scandal beat, Brock's investigative ambitions broke down. His 1996 book "The Seduction of Hillary Rodham" began with... continue reading
Two stories with which the media were once obsessed briefly re-emerged this month. Gary Condit's political career ended when he got clobbered in the Democratic primary, and a week later a New York Times piece dealt with just-revealed putative wrongdoing on the part of liberals' longtime whipping boy, the evil, evil tobacco industry. Forget Condit (until he's indicted, that is). Let's focus on that second story. Best be seated for this one; it's a real bombshell. The peg for the Times article was a new report detailing attempts in the 1980s and early '90s by four tobacco companies - American... continue reading
The New Republic has done something odd for a liberal magazine. They've put "The Trouble With Bias" on the cover. But it's a reference to Bernard Goldberg's best-selling CBS-insider book entitled "Bias." The author of the cover story, Jonathan Chait, wishes to dismiss the evidence behind Goldberg's expose of the liberal media, insisting that conservative media critics "don't distinguish between biased reporting and reporting that contradicts their views." In other words, anything that makes conservatives mad is sloppily defined as media bias. As proof of this theory, Chait explores Goldberg's paradigmatic example, the infamous Eric Engberg story mocking the "wacky"... continue reading
Is it noteworthy that this past Sunday evening, the sports network ESPN featured all manner of swear words, including the "F" word, on its showcase prime-time offering? Though this language, bleeped and unbleeped, had already found its way to the family TV set, what happened Sunday night was important because it speaks volumes about the curators of the popular culture. "A Season on the Brink," the story of basketball coach Bobby Knight, was ESPN's virgin voyage into the land of original filmmaking. If this is any indication of its talents in this area, we can only pray this will be... continue reading