The recent unveiling of the Pulitzer Prizes had more of the same politicized whiff that the Oscars oozed earlier this year. Merit is taking a back seat now to "edginess" in both the news and entertainment media. "Speaking truth to power" is in vogue, even if it's not true and even if it's not in the public interest. The roster of Pulitzer winners had an unmistakeable get-Bush smell to them, especially Dana Priest's exposing secret prisons in Europe for terrorists in the Washington Post, and James Risen's and Eric Lichtblau's NSA-surveillance exposure in the New York Times. The Pulitzers have... continue reading
For a long time now, we have known that Viacom was a shameless merchant of sleaze TV, a conglomerate intent on shredding everything good, decent, and even holy to feather its own filthy nest with money. What is new is that we didn't know that Viacom had a limit to its shamelessness. Any attack on Christianity, not matter how repugnant, is not only acceptable, it is celebrated. But the very idea of a scene mocking Islam - and Viacom runs for the hills. Viacom-owned Comedy Central has announced it would not let its super-sleazy cartoon "South Park" show a cartoon... continue reading
Sometimes they just can't contain themselves. On April 10, left-wing organizations held a massive rally in Washington and other cities, demanding rights (and taxpayer benefits) for illegal aliens, and the liberal media couldn't have been more excited. The networks had multiple stories, going from city to city, and breathless phrase to breathless phrase. CBS anchor Bob Schieffer played the worn cliche card: "Not since the protests of the Vietnam era has there been anything quite like it." Bet ten bucks that CBS has said that about just about every large liberal protest they've covered. If that wasn't enough to convince... continue reading
Gasoline prices are rising which means it's time for a new round of hysterical media stories about that dastardly oil industry, its obscene profits, and its nefarious ways. Now the media are at it again, but with a different target. They're turned their guns on Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, whose energy hedge funds have delivered staggeringly successful results for its investors in recent years. (Full disclosure, and sorry to steal the thunder from leftwing conspiracy buffs: Pickens supports the Media Research Center. Not only that, but he's also a friend, though this friend didn't have the Abramoffian common decency... continue reading
Poor John Green. The executive producer of ABC's weekend "Good Morning America" broadcasts got a month-long involuntary vacation after his private e-mails were exposed saying "Bush makes me sick," and that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has "Jew shame." Once the e-mails were publicized, the people inside the media were agitated. How many of them are equally guilty? How many people inside the liberal media send snarky anti-Bush notes to each other every day? The New York Times lamented the "chilling effect." In a sense, they had every reason to find Green's suspension bizarre. It comes from the same... continue reading
In mid-March, the Federal Communications Commission fined CBS stations $3.6 million for airing a long teen-orgy scene in the police series "Without A Trace." In response, some networks let it be known they were cutting back on the salacious new offerings for spring. Or at least they're making a public show of cutting back. The New York Times reported that the WB was editing spicy scenes out of its new series "The Bedford Diaries." But there's a twist. The WB offered the uncut version of the pilot episode on its website to build buzz for its broadcast debut. Times TV... continue reading
The Washington Post isn't very good at hiding its feelings about abortion when it lets its political reporters profile the Washington elite in their Style section. The latest example was a star turn for Cecile Richards, the new leader of Planned Parenthood. By gum, she's a lovable, open, down-to-Earth girl, the perfect soccer mom - who also just happens to run a chain of abortion factories. A few weeks back, reporter Darragh Johnson began her profile of the new CEO of the nation's leading abortion provider with sympathy for her personal life. Her mother, former Texas Gov. Ann Richards (the... continue reading
Nothing is sacred at Comedy Central. The cable channel has perfected the formula of mocking positively everything, to find the final frontier of offensiveness and smash it to bits. And it's been able to reach the top of its field in spite of - or, better put, because of - the network's sheer lack of comedic talent. In real comedy one can parody without mockery, rib without insults. Take the giants of this genre. Don Rickles made himself a household name "ridiculing" blacks, women, and anyone else who came across his cross-hairs on the Dean Martin roasts, and no one... continue reading
To mark the third anniversary of launching the war to depose Saddam Hussein, the manufacturers of the "news" have established their usual template, Realistic Media vs. Pollyanna Bush. It's not pessimism versus optimism, but reality versus hallucination. How, then do we greet the bleats of liberals as they wildly overstate the alleged utter awfulness of the war situation? On CNN, Time writer Joe Klein, one of the nation's leading worshipers of Bill Clinton, declared to Anderson Cooper, "Rumsfeld ran the most criminally incompetent military campaign, you know, in the last 100 years, perhaps in American history." Was Klein making a... continue reading
Some use the term "March madness" to describe not the college basketball tournament, but another college tradition, spring break. It's one obvious definition of the old joke, "Lead me not into temptation, I can find the way myself." Spring break should be known as the anti-Lent. Sex, alcohol, outrageous misbehavior - every indulgence is mandatory, and magnified live on MTV. This year, the American Medical Association has provided a public service, doing a poll to underline the downside of what it calls "a dangerous binge-fest." It focused on the more vulnerable half of the population - college-age women - and... continue reading