It was stunning, and yet it was eerily reminiscent of the extraordinary discipline of Team Clinton. Days before the ABC miniseries "The Path to 9/11" was to air, they determined the network fudged in its commitment to follow faithfully the facts in the 9/11 Commission report. A scene or two in the otherwise remarkable presentation was false. And this was the angle Team Clinton needed in order to pounce. The Clinton campaign kicked into high gear in the days before it aired, with the ex-president and his lawyering aides and Democrats in Congress all pressuring ABC to dump the film... continue reading
Just what is this entertainment media obsession with Tom Cruise's baby pictures? Is there nothing else of interest out there in Hollywood? Actually, there is - and they're ignoring it, proving just how disconnected the Hollywood press is from the American mainstream. Maybe you're familiar with the computer-animated cartoon "Veggie Tales," a video series targeted at children aged 2 to 8, and which features moral and religious tales hosted by Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber. Beginning in 1993, the series was distributed on VHS tapes, telling biblical stories like the Battle of Jericho, David and Goliath, and the... continue reading
To mark the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attack on America, ABC Entertainment is presenting a six-hour miniseries titled "The Path to 9/11," a forceful, compelling docudrama chronicling the struggles faced by America's counter-terrorist experts between the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 and the fatal one in 2001. Unlike the tone of too much of our reporting on terrorism, where anyone who fights terrorism is depicted as either assembling naked Muslim pyramids if in Iraq, or listening to Grandma's phone calls if at home, this film treats the fight against terror as deadly business, and... continue reading
Something's happening at Walt Disney Pictures. After years spent ruining its brand, the company seems determined to regain its position as the standard-bearer for family movies, recently with one winner after another. Think "Cars," "The Chronicles of Narnia," and "Pirates of the Caribbean." Now add to that list Disney's newest offering, "Invincible," the story Vince Papale, a nobody from Philadelphia who was given the chance for a try-out with the Philadelphia Eagles, and against all odds, made the roster. It is every young boy's Walter Mitty fantasy - except the story is true. My youngest son Reid may only be... continue reading
A couple of years ago, then-NBC anchor Tom Brokaw denounced me for seeking to do "as much damage, and I choose that word carefully, as he can do to the credibility of the news divisions," and then he pleaded for Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and himself: "These three aging white men are stuck somewhere in the middle trying, on a nightly basis, to give a fair and balanced picture of what's going on in the world." If the credibility of the network news divisions is based on giving a "fair and balanced" picture of today's world, then ABC, CBS, and... continue reading
Most American families today subscribe to some kind of cable or satellite TV service, and increasingly they are asking themselves (and Congress) why they can't have "a la carte" choice, the ability to take and pay for only the programming they want in their homes. One of the channels that offers the richest arguments for cable choice is Comedy Central, which has proven time and again and around the clock that if there's a barrier of taste left, they will smash it to pieces. (Exhibit A is still their "Merry F--ing Christmas" special to commemorate the birth of Jesus.) One... continue reading
Hillary Rodham Clinton is featured in a flattering black-and-white photo on the cover of Time magazine this week - the 10th cover story for Hillary Clinton since she appeared on the national scene hitched to Bill Clinton's wagon in 1992. That's got to be a record of sorts. But one thing was very different this time. The headline featured a poll question with two little boxes to check: "LOVE HER" or "HATE HER." What? Someone might not love her? This must be the handiwork of Time's new Managing Editor, Richard Stengel. He's made a public fuss about his desire to... continue reading
A couple of years ago, researchers at the RAND Corporation released a study that found heavy exposure to sexual content on television shows relates strongly to teenagers' initiation of intercourse or their progression to more advanced sexual activities. To some, those results seemed so reasonable because, well, aren't they so obvious? But there are always those who won't accept the obvious, even when it's presented for them on a scientifically documented silver tray. Critics were quick to argue that there was a chicken-and-egg question: Couldn't it also be argued that teenagers who are already pre-disposed to sexual activity have a... continue reading
Over the last five years, the resurgent radical left has found empowerment in the Democratic Party through what the political scribes antiseptically call the "Internet grass roots." When hawkish Sen. Joe Lieberman lost by four points in the Democratic primary in Connecticut to ultraliberal millionaire Ned Lamont, the media credited this hard left with the upset. In truth, however, the liberal media themselves were a major part of the equation. They refused to label Ned Lamont what he is: a charter member of the far left. They wouldn't even call him a liberal. They simply called him "anti-war." It was... continue reading
It is certainly true that a picture is worth a thousand words when it comes to news photographs, and it's especially true of news photographs from war zones. One of the famous photos from the war was a 1968 Eddie Adams photo for the Associated Press showing a general shooting a Viet Cong fighter in the head with a pistol on a Saigon street. That picture became the left's rally poster for American withdrawal from Vietnam. Adams won the Pulitzer in 1969 for his Vietnam photos, but he regretted the unintended consequences to his dying day. As he wrote in... continue reading