The media today are like the visitor (a dybbuk?) in the opening scene of the Coen brothers’ new movie, “A Serious Man” – no one knows if it’s alive or dead. Or, it could be, like Schrodinger’s Cat (a mathematical problem referred to in the Coen movie) in a state of being simultaneously alive and dead.
The Schrodinger’s Cat paradox is a problem of quantum mechanics and exceptionally difficult to get your mind around. When applied to the media landscape today, it brings to the fore a number of puzzling and complex questions: Are newspapers alive or dead? Are the main-stream media fair and balanced or hopelessly biased? Is the New York Times too liberal or not liberal enough? Is the NPR business model fair to competing commercial radio stations and does its programming skew liberal?
The Scrodinger’s Cat paradox is a thought problem meant to demonstrate that the superposition (simultaneous inert and moving) properties of quantum particles collapse into a definitive state (inert or moving) only at the exact moment of quantum measurement.
Applied to media, this would mean that a particular media outlet (cable network, newspaper Web site, or blog) is simultaneously fair and balanced and hopelessly biased, and that a newspaper is simultaneously dead and alive until they are examined; then they become one or the other. Two specific examples come to mind: Fox News and The New York Times.
Such Fox News vaudeville (Neil Postman’s label in Amusing Ourselves To Death) performers such as Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity are clearly hopelessly biased entertainers whose emotional appeals attract an uneducated or incurious audience. On the other hand, Fox News reporter Major Garrett and anchor Shepard Smith seem to be as advertised – fair and balanced.
The New York Times newspaper, if not dead, is clearly dying. This week it laid off another 100 people from its newsroom, and advertising revenue continues to tank. The Times Company announced it wasn’t going to sell the Boston Globe, not because of kindness to its staff or a desire to do a public service but because it couldn’t find a buyer willing to take the dying paper off its hands. We’ll have to wait and see if its San Francisco edition can make it. On the other hand, the NYTimes.com Web site is flourishing. It’s the best newspaper site and best, most innovative news Web site. It’s very much alive.
There are many other examples of media in a simultaneous state of life and death, fairness and bias, and left and right that become one or the other when examined by critics, which, of course, simplifies their complexity and leaves out multiple nuances.
It took a brain as huge as Einstein’s to conceive of quantum physics and someone as thoughtful as Schrodinger to help us to begin to understand the concept. Today understanding the media is almost as difficult as understanding quantum physics.
The problem is that everyone in America today isn’t thinking about the media as Schrodinger’s Cat, but about the Balloon Boy, or who won on “American Idol,” or texting their friends. So who are the modern media Schrodingers who can help us understand the media?
Certainly not the self-absorbed gossip mavens such as Vanity Fair’s Michael Wolff and most other popular, superficial, celebrity-obsessed media critics. On the other hand, pay attention to The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta (subscribe on iTunes). Never miss a broadcast or podcast of Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone’s “On the Media” (subscribe on iTunes). Subscribe to Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody’s blog, and keep up on what Jeff Jarvis writes, on this Buzz Machine blog, even though he will probably infuriate you, as he often does me. Finally, read Neil Postman’s 1985 book Amusing Ourselves To Death because it’s still scarily relevant today.
Archives for 2009
The Media Are Schrodinger’s Cat
Rush Thrown For a Loss
Rush Limbaugh was thrown for a loss by the NFL players union when NFL Players executive director DeMaurice Smith “made a move to solidify the union against a bid by conservative talk show radio host Rush Limbaugh as part of a group that aims to purchase the St. Louis Rams,” according to ESPN.com.
ESPN.com reports that:
In an e-mail to the union’s executive committee on Saturday specifically addressing Limbaugh’s bid, Smith said, “I’ve spoken to the Commissioner [Roger Goodell] and I understand that this ownership consideration is in the early stages. But sport in America is at its best when it unifies, gives all of us reason to cheer, and when it transcends. Our sport does exactly that when it overcomes division and rejects discrimination and hatred.”
Good for Smith and the players union. And those words are difficult for me to write because I have a deep-seated suspicion and dislike for most unions because unions have been a major factor in the decline of the American steel and automobile industries and are a major impediment to improving education.
I have created a Web site at www.act-uawlocal7902iswrong.com that details why the United Auto Workers (UAW) is wrong for The New School and NYU, where I am a part-time faculty member, and why the UAW and unions are wrong for higher education.
As an academic, I’m outraged to be represented by a mechanics’ union primarily because the union’s mission and goals are totally opposite from those of universities. The union’s push for seniority and guaranteed work loads stifle innovation and are antithetical to a te4aching meritocracy.
On the other hand, the NFL Players union is doing the right thing by speaking out against the hate mongering, racist entertainer Rush Limbaugh being a partial owner of an NFL team on which over half of its players are African-American.
It would be better for the country if more unions and other organizations, such as church groups and social clubs, spoke out against hate mongering and racism by media bloviators such as Limbaugh and Glen Beck. Perhaps they could moderate the extremism better than the greedy media conglomerates and broadcasters that have abandoned the responsibility of being a public trust and caved into craven commercialism.
It is ironic that a union has taken on the role of speaking out against extremism when the media that distribute the extremist views of the Limbaughs and Becks are not responsible enough to moderate these exclusionary hate mongers.
Go NFL Players union!
Google, Group Polarization, and Jon Stewart
A vast majority of people use Google to search for information, and those searches can contribute to group polarization and extremism.
In the October 12 issue of the New Yorker, Ken Auletta, in an article titled “Searching for Trouble” about Google, quotes from Nicholas Carr’s book The Big Switch
A company run by mathematicians and engineers, Google seems oblivious to the possible social costs of transparent personalization. They impose homogeneity on the Internet’s wild heterogeneity. As the tools and algorithms become more sophisticated and our online profiles more refined, the Internet will act increasingly as an incredibly sensitive feedback loop, constantly playing back to use, in amplified form, our existing preferences.”
And Auletta continues:
Carr believes that people will narrow their frame of reference, gravitate toward those whose opinions they share, and perhaps be less willing to compromise, because the narrow information we receive will magnify our differences, making it harder to reach agreement.
Tax Day Tea Party protesters, birthers, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh fans on the far right and anti-nuclear power and legalize-marijuana activists on the left do not search for information that does not confirm their biases. They seek information, typically by searching for it on Google, that reinforces their prejudices, as, frankly, we all tend to do. We then fan the flames of our prejudices by watching demagogic bloviators on TV or listening to them on radio as they give us our reinforcing dopamine fix.
In his book Going To Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide Cass R. Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor and head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration, writes about group polarization, or how when groups discuss an issue and share their views with each other, the views tend to move toward extremes.
As an example, Sunstein discusses the spread of conspiracy theories:
For the purposes of understanding the spread of conspiracy theories, it is especially important to note that group polarization is particularly likely, and particularly pronounced, when people have a shared sense of identity and are connected by bonds of solidarity.
Thus, self-selected and self-defined members of a group with a shared sense of identity, such as anti-Obama right wingers or anti-regulation business people, are likely to share information (blogs, message boards, etc.) and, thus, become polarized and more extreme in their views.
We tend to believe that lots of information is good for a democratic society, and in theory it is. However, in practice there is now so much information (content) available that it is possible by means of selective searches and selective perception to create an echo chamber so that opposing sounds are never heard.
When America got its news from just three network early newscasts, and then mostly from Walter Cronkite, there was a homogenizing effect. Virtually all adults were exposed to the same relatively balanced (and bland) news. They had to work hard to get information from the John Birch Society delivered in brown envelopes in the mail.
Today wing nuts can easily go on Google and create their own hate-filled echo chamber. Therefore, Google, the king of search, is unintentionally aiding in group polarization; whereas Fox News is intentionally doing so.
As responsible citizens, we can do nothing to stop this group polarization and extremism at both ends of the political spectrum, but we can be aware of it and see these positions for what they are – poisonous extremes – and understand that the antidote consists of inserting diverse and opposing opinions directly into the veins of polarized extremists.
Short of using force to accomplish this feat individually on extremists, it is the duty of the media to point out the irresponsibility and craziness of these extreme views. No one performs this duty better than Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.” He is the best antidote to the group polarization and extremism that is being enabled, in part, by Google searches. Watch “The Daily Show” and stay sane.
Lots of Content Is Good for Democracy
One of the 6,387 themes in Dan Brown’s new best-seller, The Lost Symbol is that God is not an external force or being, but is within each of us. The same might be said of content.
In my last blog, titled “Content Is Not King,” I made the point that the explosive growth of the internet has led to such a proliferation of content out in the long tail that it is now virtually infinite. To say that “content is king” in today’s world is like saying “a grain of sand is precious.”
One of the reasons for the proliferation of content is that anyone on the internet can self-publish – blogs, YouTube, Facebook updates and comments, Twitter, Flickr, personal Websites, and on and on. Everyone can create content and publish their views, and the surfeit of opinion creates debate and argument, which is good for the democratic process.
In 1990 historian Chris Lasch wrote an essay titled “The Lost Art of Political Argument” suggesting that the decline in participation in the political process in the U.S. correlated with the rise of professional journalism, and put forth a convincing argument as to why.
Our search for reliable information is itself guided by the questions that arise during arguments about a given course of action. It is only by subjecting our preferences and projects to the test of debate that we come to understand what we know and what we still need to learn. Until we have to defend our opinions in public, they remain opinions in [Walter] Lippmann’s pejorative sense—half-formed convictions based on random impressions and unexamined assumptions. It is the act of articulating and defending our views that lifts them out of the category of “opinions,” gives them shape and definition, and makes it possible for others to recognize them as a description of their own experience as well. In short, we come to know our own minds only by explaining ourselves to others.
Thus, by bloggers, journalists, and pundits creating content on the Web and elsewhere, they not only hone their own opinions, but they also add to the diversity of the debate and allow others to shape their views – a process that leads to the wisdom of crowds.
The First Amendment wasn’t written to protect facts; it was written to protect debate, and the plethora of content, argument, and debate is a good thing.
The outmoded idea that “content is king” was based primarily on its scarcity. But on the internet, content, like all the sand on all the world’s beaches, is not scarce. And this plethora of content may make gems harder it find, but the search and the ensuing debate generated by searches is good for our democracy.
Content Is Not King
Content in not king, unless your first name is Stephen.
In an article in the October issue of The Atlantic titled “The Moguls’ New Clothes” authors Bruce Greenwald, Jonathan Knee, and Ava Seave write:
Media executives lament what the Web has done to their business. But that complaint conveniently ignores the dismal financial performance of most media conglomerates in the pre-digital era. Until media companies are willing to get back to basics and jettison the flawed thinking that has guided them over the past two decades, they will continue to disappoint their shareholders.
To support their claim, the authors list four myths that have led media moguls such as Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone to disappoint shareholders: 1) Growth Is Good, 2) The Gospel of Going Global, 3) Content Is King, and 4) The Cult of Convergence.
The myth that most resonated with me was that content is king. Here’s what Greenwald, Knee, and Seave write about this myth:
But content cannot be king, because the talent required to create it cannot provide a sustainable competitive advantage. Even if the ability to produce compelling content perennially inhered in certain individuals or groups, there is no efficient way to monetize this skill for the benefit of shareholders rather than for the producers themselves. Big media companies may consistently exploit some creative artists, but over time, that exploitation does not produce superior corporate value. For starters, where the media companies have executives clever enough to consistently exploit the talent, these executives are typically clever enough to ensure that they are paid enough to reflect that skill. Furthermore, when particular brands seem like sure things, as in the case of a popular film franchise, more often than not a well-represented creative artist essential to that level of certainty ends up appropriating much of that value.
Furthermore, the explosive growth of the internet has led to such a proliferation of content out in the long tail that it is now virtually infinite. To say that “content is king” in today’s world is like saying “a grain of sand is precious.”
There are gems mixed in with the infinite content, but the conundrum is finding those jewels. In the age of the Web, the puzzle has been solved by Google, which has become the largest media company in the world by being an aggregator of content, not an originator, a creator of content.
Content is no longer king, marketing and search are the rulers now. If excellent content ruled, the best movies would be the most popular. But the movies that sell the most tickets are the ones that are marketed the most heavily, regardless of their artistic merit. And as the authors of The Atlantic article point out, established, branded creative artists such as actors and directors end up appropriating much of the value of a hit movie, leaving the corporate conglomerates with barely enough profit to cover the fixed costs of a bloated distribution and marketing bureaucracy.
If creative types such as actors, directors or writers – Stephen King, for example – establish a well-known personal brand, they don’t need the media moguls’ swollen bureaucracies to exploit them: they are in the driver’s seat. See Stephen King’s slick and robust Web site for a model of effective self-marketing, self-distribution, and an artist capturing the majority of his content’s value.
You can see from Stephen’s Web site that content is king only if it’s capitalized.
What I Learned From Jay Leno’s Prime Time Debut: Part III
I watched Jay Leno’s prime time debut Monday night and learned: 1) Don’t watch Jay Leno’s new prime time show; it’s dull and overly scripted. 2) Don’t watch prime time terrestrial network TV entertainment programming; it’s not entertaining. 3) Don’t read about TV in the NY Times; its coverage is insipid and inaccurate.
At 11:00 p.m. Monday night, after the Leno show on NBC, I made a second mistake. I watched WNBC-TV’s local news with veteran anchor Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons.
What did I learn from watching WNBC-TV’s late news, “News 4”? 1) I was absolutely right in my decision ten years ago to stop watching local TV news; it’s worthless, boring, and old-fashioned. 2) Never watch local TV in the days and weeks before election because you’ll hate all politicians and you’ll avoid voting. 3) Someone should wake up Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons –it’s safe because I Googled sleepwalking and it’s a myth that it is dangerous to wake up someone who is sleep walking.
After watching the deadly dull, formulatic, old-fashioned “News 4,” I Googled “wnbc-tv new york” because I wanted to check to see who Chuck Scarborough’s female co-anchor was. I got several search results, so I clicked on the top one and got this page which looked nothing like a typical television station Web site – for comparison, see WCBS-TV’s, WABC-TV’s, and WNYW-TV’s(Fox). WCBS-TV’s is the best, WNYW-TV’s is the worst.
On the first WNBC-TV page (yes, there are more than one WNBC-TV pages) I saw the headline banner was “NEW YORK” in a modern font with no mention of WNBC-TV or “News 4.” Underneath the NEW YORK head, in a casual script font, was the sub-head “is laughing about Obama’s Wall Street reform speech.”
I was shocked – I would have expected this trash from Fox News, not NBC – but when I clicked on a news story to read, under the heading “DON”T MISS,” a hardly journalistic headline, I understood what was happening. When you click on a story, you go a page containing that story and to the right of the item is a column headed “WE ARE” with six responses listed underneath: “Laughing – 29%,” “Furious – 26%,” “Bored – 18%,” Thrilled – 12%,” Intrigued – 8%,” and “Sad – 8%.”
Under the “WE ARE” list is a drop-down menu labeled “I AM,” with the six emotions listed so you can vote on how you’re feeling about a story – sort of like choosing a mood ring. Check it out so you’ll get the feel of it better.
So it’s come to this: A once respected, now desperate-to-be-hip local news operation, in an attempt to interact with its audience and appeal to entertainment-obsessed younger people is headlining news stories based on how people feel about them. In other words their emotional response to news is what counts, not their rational response to a news story’s importance or relevance to helping them make a decision in a democratic society.
WNBC-TV has another Web site that is less moody and touchy-feely and that features a photo of CBS anchor Walter Cronkite with the caption “Cronkite Remembered.” Why on earth would WNBC-TV be promoting the traditional CBS News icon, Cronkite, several weeks after his passing? The only plausible explanation I can come up with is that WNBC-TV is so embarrassed by the moronic pandering of its NEW YORK Web site that it is trying to counterbalance its effect by associating itself lamely with “the most trusted man in America” 45 years ago.
But WNBC-TV’s NEW YORK Web site mirrors the reality in television news today – it’s all about pandering to emotions (mostly anger), not about appealing to rationality and searching for the truth. TV news has become America’s 21st century EST, a phony scam that makes its promoters richer and its victims poorer and more removed from reality.
What did I learn by going to WNBC-TV’s Web site? 1) WNBC-TV and NBC News has strayed so far from the journalistic principles that once drove its great news operation that it is no longer in the news or journalism business; it’s in the business of pandering to the emotions of intellectually arid young people. 2) That WNBC-TV’s Web site has become the New York Post of TV. 3) I am so grateful for intelligent news and opinion sources such as The Atlantic, the New Yorker, Talking Points Memo, NPR, and Pro Publica so that I never have to watch news on TV again or go to Web sites associated in any way with a TV network or TV station.
What I Learned From Jay Leno’s Prime Time Debut: Part II
I watched Jay Leno’s prime time debut Monday night and learned: 1) Don’t watch Jay Leno’s new prime time show; it’s dull and overly scripted. 2) Don’t watch prime time terrestrial network TV entertainment programming; it’s not entertaining. 3) Don’t read about TV in the NY Times; its coverage is insipid and inaccurate.
At 11:00 p.m. Monday night, after the Leno show on NBC, I made a second mistake. I watched WNBC-TV’s local news with veteran anchor Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons.
It has been at least about ten years since I have watched the late news on the NBC owned-and-operated station, but what amazed me was that the newscast looked the same as I remember it from almost a decade ago. It was as though Scarborough, Simmons, and the producers and writers of the program had been frozen in time and were sleepwalking through the exact same format that it used in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
It was dull, boring, formulaic, and old-fashioned. It was as though management had said, “don’t make any changes or you’ll wake up the audience.” The newscast led with the death of actor Patrick Swayze, the second story was about the death of the female Yale student, and the third story was about a rape in New York. All stories to be expected on a local TV station in New York the day the president of the United States gave a major policy speech about the excesses of Wall Street.
The next section of the newscast, the B block, I’ll just call “Pimping for Jay.” Because WNBC-TV is an NBC O&O, word certainly came from the top to pimp the Jay Leno show for all it was worth. Station news departments and producers generally hate these top-down pimping edicts – they come all the time for TV specials – because they are so clearly promotional and have no real, serious news value.
The first story in the pimping segment was about the Leno show’s debut and the lead was, of course, Kanye West’s tearful apology for his interrupting Taylor Swift in a mic-swiping incident at the MTV Video Music Awards, certainly a more important, newsworthy, and momentous event than Obama’s Wall Street speech.
The second story in the “Pimping for Jay” section of the newscast was rather creative. A News 4 reporter did interviews with a group of New York working comedians who had gathered in a bar and were watching Leno’s prime time debut. It was clearly a passive-aggressive way to get back at the suits who had ordered the Leno show pimped because the comedians generally panned the show and made fun of Jay’s looks and grey hair, saying he looked too Teddy Kennedyesque.
The comedians got it right; the general consensus was that the show was not funny, was dull, and was just like the old “Tonight Show.” I think one comedian repeated Jerry Seinfeld’s best line – the one about how in his day when someone retired, they stayed retired. Like all good humor, this line was based on a harsh truth. The line may not have been repeated by a comedian in the News 4 story, but if it wasn’t it should have been,
Then there was a commercial break, one with the new General Motors chairman announcing GM’s 60-day money back guarantee and daring people to compare GM’s cars to all others and “may the best car win.” I’m afraid GM will regret this campaign because the best cars probably will win.
The next story was a brief reader about Obama’s Wall Street speech, followed ominously by a story about how banks (that were bailed out by the government) are finding new scams to bleed money out of people (my wording, not News 4’s) by charging customers with debit cards for overdrafts – a direct ripoff from a NY Times story I suspect.
The weather was next, and an attractive, upbeat black weatherwoman gave a quick weathercast and spoke of the good, sunny weather “if you go to the beach.” On a frigging Monday? She must have assumed all of the News 4 audience was retired or jobless – probably a good guess.
Next, a commercial break had six commercials in the pod and four of them were for political candidates running in the next day’s primary. All four of them touted being endorsed by the NY Times. Because of all of the political commercials in the newscast, the NY Times was mentioned more during the half-hour newscast than News 4, which is probably the first time that has happened in years.
The next two stories were health related. This section of a newscast is generally referred to as the C Block, and clearly it had been reserved for health related stories because research shows that health is one of the top issues people are interested in especially local TV news viewers, the majority of which are 65 and older.
The stories were about preventing Swine Flu by sanitizing your hands. It told people to wash their hands a lot. Thanks. The next story was something about bacteria in shower heads, but it was completely incomprehensible. I have no idea what the message was; it must have been about making sure your shower head is clean.
No wonder I stopped watching local TV news a decade ago.
Five more commercials, four of them for political candidates, but this was the not-endorsed-by-the NY Times group. Not that anyone would care or ever know the difference, but the previous pod with the NY-Times-endorsed front runners was clearly considered a better position than the second pod with all of the non-endorsed candidates. I assume WNBC-TV charged more to be in the first pod (“we’ll put you and all the front runners in the first pod”). If it didn’t, it missed a money-making opportunity.
But, come to think about it, that does sound like NBC.
Sports was next, sponsored by Verizon Fios. Sports must be the only section that NBC allows to be sponsored. I guess because no one cares about a perceived sponsor influence on sports. Short and sweet: Federer loses, Yankees and Pats win, out.
The last story was the required kicker – a supposed light story that gives viewers a going-away smile. Research shows that people remember stories in a newscast based on primacy and recency. In other words, the first and last stories they watch. So, start ‘em off with death, disaster, crime, blood, and guts, and leave ‘em laughing.
The kicker was about a mascot of Virginia college football team. He fell of his horse and looked like a fool trying to get back on. What a thigh slapper.
Next were two promos and then six commercials for political candidates, half of them endorsed by the NY Times (some repeats of earlier commercials), but two for candidates for governor of New Jersey. These NJ candidate commercials were nasty. They both deserve to lose for running such negative, disgusting advertising.
So, I left the News 4 newscast not with a smile from the silly kicker but with loathing for politicians – a nice lead into the “Tonight Show” with Conan O’Brien. His opening monologue was funnier than Jay Leno’s earlier and he looked a lot more at ease than Jay did. No wonder, he didn’t have to live up to all of NBC’s hype, expectations, and pimping.
What did I learn from watching WNBC-TV’s late news? 1) I was absolutely right in my decision ten years ago to stop watching local TV news; it’s worthless, boring, and old-fashioned. 2) Never watch local TV in the days and weeks before election because you’ll hate all politicians and you’ll avoid voting. 3) Someone should wake up Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons –it’s safe because I Googled sleepwalking and it’s a myth that it is dangerous to wake up someone who is sleep walking.
What I Learned From Jay Leno’s Prime Time Debut: Part I
Monday night I watched the Yankee game on the Yes network in New York. It was an exciting game highlighted by good pitching, timely hitting, excellent base running, and savvy managing. It was great television because it was unscripted and, thus, had an unknown and surprising outcome.
During commercials and pitching changes in the Yankees game, I switched to ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” which featured another unscripted and, thus, unknown and surprising outcome as Tom Brady of the New England Patriots coolly and confidently brought his team from behind to beat a tough Buffalo Bills team with only two minutes left in the game.
I then remembered that Jay Leno was making his prime time debut at 10:00 p.m. on NBC, so I quickly switched to Channel 4. I caught Jay introducing his first guest, Jerry Seinfeld. I haven’t watched Jay Leno’s “Tonight” show in over 15 years and the last time I watched a prime time regularly scheduled network comedy or drama program was the last episode of “Seinfeld” in May of 1998.
I now know why I stopped watching prime time terrestrial network TV programs (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) – they’re boring, scripted, and totally predictable. The new Jay Leno show was no exception. The interview with Seinfeld was stiff and overly scripted; even the phony pre-taped appearance of Oprah was stiff, boring, and predictable. The apology by Kanye West was maudlin and gave unnecessary exposure to a clearly troubled young man.
Jay’s faux interview with Obama was way too cute and disingenuously self-deprecating – a suit that does not fit Leno, who looks uncomfortable in any suit. And his final bit of showing goofy headlines and ads was a tired rehash of his old “Tonight Show” routine. It featured lowest-common-denominator, puerile, smutty humor – exactly the kind of dumb material that appeals to the majority of people who still watch prime time terrestrial network TV programs: the poorly educated, the poorly informed, and the culturally and intellectually barren.
Therefore, Leno’s prime time debut got great ratings, according to the NY Times’ Bill Carter in his Media Decoder blog, by attracting 18 million viewers, which “exceeded expectations.”
I’m baffled by the notion that NBC “expected” fewer than 18 million people to watch Leno’s debut program after the incredible hype NBC produced for the show. It must have forgotten H. L. Menken’s line “that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”
Leno’s new program was touted to be “the future of television” by Time magazine. Of course, this quote was featured in a story in the NY Times by the constantly error-prone Alessandra Stanley, who, once again, in spite of being caught making serial mistakes in her obit of Walter Cronkite, was wrong in her facts once again. Her squadron of fact checkers were asleep at the switch again (they must be members of the NY Times union – the New York Newspaper Guild – and, like Stanley, can’t be fired).
In her story she writes, “the reading of goofy misprints taken from newspaper headlines.” Leno’s final bit did not consist of all misprints. Many were merely headlines that could be read in an unintended and different way, and they were not all from newspaper headlines. Many were from stupid ads, such as the final one, an ad for a Chinese restaurant – The House of Poon – which Leno leered at.
Stanley also gave the Leno debut show a tepid (and insipid) review that made a big deal out of the Kanye West apology, which was apparently serendipitous, and never mentioned the much longer and more substantial faux Obama interview. Did she watch the program?
Not only was Stanley’s review poorly written and inaccurate (which has become her MO), it had no bite, which I’m sad to say has become de rigeur for NY Times TV coverage – it was taken on the personality and characteristics of the medium it covers.
So what did I learn from watching Jay Leno’s debut and reading about it in the NY Times? 1) Don’t watch Jay Leno’s new prime time show; it’s dull and overly scripted. 2) Don’t watch prime time terrestrial network TV entertainment programming; it’s not entertaining. 3) Don’t read about TV in the NY Times; its coverage is insipid and inaccurate.
In other words, as always, I didn’t learn anything new on network TV.
But what did I learn by watching WBNC-TV’s local news right after the Leno show? I’ll tell you in Part II.
And what did I learn by going to WNBC-TV’s Web site after I watched the local news? I’ll tell you in Part III.
The Verizon-Citi Visa Scam
My BlackBerry 8830 died a painless (to me) death this summer, so I went to a Verizon wireless dealer in Rhode Island to see if it could be fixed. No. So I got a new BlackBerry 9630, which I really like, especially because I got a $100 rebate – until I actually got a notice of the rebate.
I still like the Blackberry, but I hate Verizon’s rebate scam. Instead of a check for $100, I got a Citi Bank Visa card with these messages: “Here’s your Verizon Wireless Rebate Card – Use everywhere Visa debit cards are accepted!”
I don’t want a frigging debit or credit card; I want my $100!
But the letter said these were my options to get my money: “Rebate Card: Use the attached rebate card instantly everywhere Visa cards are accepted; Bank Transfer: Go online to move rebate funds to your bank account; Cash With Card Use your card to cash by taking your card and identification to any Visa member bank (see package insert for details); Paper Check: Go online to get your rebate funds via paper check to deposit or cash at your bank.”
In other words, I had to go to a lot of trouble not to accept a Visa card that I don’t want. After getting bailed out by the government to the tune of around $300 billion, Citi is finding new ways to get high-interest rate credit cards in people’s hands. Here’s what a February 28 Wall Street Journal article noted:
The taxpayer never sleeps when it comes to Citigroup, which yesterday got its third rescue in recent months from Uncle Sam. The amount and terms of the taxpayer commitment keep changing, while the management stays in place. The only institution that has a comparable track record on those two scores is Congress.
We don’t mean to laugh, but we have to in order not to cry. No company on Earth has failed more often than Citigroup without being put out of its misery. Taxpayers have already put more than $50 billion in capital into the bank, while guaranteeing $301 billion of its bad assets, and the bank still can’t stop its slide.
In a better world, Citi would have long ago been put into bankruptcy. The FDIC could have taken over and disposed of the bank’s assets, while protecting insured deposits as it always does. The profitable parts of Citigroup could then have been sold off to people who could better manage them.
So how is Citi going to pay the government back? One way is to find new, underhanded ways to get Visa cards into people’s wallets. Citi probably paid Verizon something to have the phone company send rebates in the form of debit cards. Verizon saved money by not having to pay postage, buy envelopes, or cut a check. Citi gets millions of cards in people’s hands.
Just what the country needs in the middle of a debilitating recession that was caused by, among other things, too much consumer debt, too high interests rates on that debt, and by greedy bankers.
I wouldn’t have been so upset if, at the time I bought the new phone, the clerk who told me about the rebate had asked me if I wanted the rebate in the form of a check or Visa rebate card. In other words, if I had had a choice.
I called Verizon outraged and the Verizon service person was very nice and polite and filled out the online form to get my check in the mail. So I was somewhat mollified, but I still believe this is a scam that shoves unwanted and unneeded Visa cards in unsuspecting people’s hands and that an ethical, transparent, customer-focused company should give people a choice about accepting a Visa card.
But I don’t hear a lot of people using the adjectives ethical, transparent, or customer-focused to describe Verizon or Citi Bank. This current scam isn’t going to up the count.
A Hippocratic Oath for Media Executives
This week as I prepare to teach my first graduate class, Media Sales and Sales Management, I’m recording the first two presentations I give to students: “What Is Selling” and “Sales Ethics.”
I begin the semester with the ethics presentation/lecture to reinforce the vital importance of being honest with customers (advertisers) and consumers (readers, viewers, users), especially in the current environment in which the media in general has such a bad reputation and low credibility.
The slide of the media into the reputational gutter is greased by the emotional, hateful, and pandering ranting of entertainers, wearing the transparent mask of commentators, such as Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann, and Rush Limbaugh. The consistently top-rated program on cable TV is “professional” wrestling and porn or semi-porn content on the internet continues to thrive.
Julia Angwin’s excellent book, Stealing My Space tells a story of greed and unethical business practices in pursuit of personal wealth and individual interests rather than any consideration of the public’s interest.
Rupert Murdoch bought the smarmy My Space for strategic reasons – to make his News Corp. empire more profitable – which is why he tolerates Beck’s and O’Reilly’s hateful ranting on Fox News.
I don’t want my students at The New School in the Media Management Program to become Rupert Murdochs or Sumner Redstones (Viacom and CBS) – people who are obsessed with their personal wealth and not in the least bit interested in the public’s interest. Therefore, in addition to teaching ethics as an integral part of the four courses I teach at The New School, I ask students to take the Hippocratic oath for managers, as proposed by Rakesh Khurana and Nitin Nohria in “It’s Time to Make Management a True Profession,” Harvard Business Review, October 2008.
Here’s the oath:
A Hippocratic Oath for Managers
As a manager
I serve as society’s fiduciary for one of its most important institutions: enterprises that bring people and resources together to create valued products and services that no single individual could produce alone. My purpose is to serve the public’s interest by enhancing the value my enterprise creates for society. Sustainable value is created when the enterprise produces an economic, social, and environmental output that is measurably greater than the opportunity cost of all the inputs it consumes. In fulfilling my role:
I recognize that any enterprise is at the nexus of many different constituencies, whose interests can sometimes diverge. While balancing and reconciling these interests, I will seek a course that enhances the value my enterprise can create for society over the long term. This may not always mean growing or preserving the enterprise and may include such painful actions as its restructuring, discontinuation, or sale, if these actions preserve or increase value.
I pledge that considerations of personal benefit will never supersede the interests of the enterprise I am entrusted to manage. The pursuit of self-interest is the vital engine of a capitalist economy, but unbridled greed can be just as harmful. Therefore, I will guard against decisions and behavior that advance my own narrow ambitions but harm the enterprise I manage and the societies it serves.
I promise to understand and uphold, both in letter and in spirit, the laws and contracts governing my own conduct, that of my enterprise, and that of the societies in which it operates. My personal behavior will be an example of integrity, consistent with the values I publicly espouse. I will be equally vigilant in ensuring the integrity of others around me and bring to attention the actions of others that represent violations of this shared professional code.
I vow to represent my enterprise’s performance accurately and transparently to all relevant parties, ensuring that investors, consumers, and the public at large can make well-informed decisions. I will aim to help people understand how decisions that affect them are made, so that choices do not appear arbitrary or biased.
I will not permit considerations of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, party politics, or social status to influence my choices. I will endeavor to protect the interests of those who may not have power, but whose well-being is contingent on my decisions.
I will manage my enterprise by diligently, mindfully, and conscientiously applying judgment based on the best knowledge available. I will consult colleagues and others who can help inform my judgment and will continually invest in staying abreast of the evolving knowledge in the field, always remaining open to innovation. I will do my utmost to develop myself and the next generation of managers so that the profession continues to grow and contribute to the well-being of society.
I recognize that my stature and privileges as a professional stem from the honor and trust that the profession as a whole enjoys, and I accept my responsibility for embodying, protecting, and developing the standards of the management profession, so as to enhance that respect and honor.
Don’t you wish we could get executives and managers in the media to take this oath and then to live up to it?
Beck Not Worthy of Sanction
Liberal readers were outraged and conservative readers were supportive of my blog advocating that advertisers not pull their advertising from Glenn Beck’s program on the Fox News channel in response to a proposed boycott of their products.
The comments and debate have been filled with intelligent and emotion-filled arguments that seem to boil down to two positions: 1) Those who want to shut up Beck, O’Reilly, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh and 2) those who don’t want advertisers to kowtow to boycotts or try to stifle free speech and believe the hate mongers are not influencing public opinion but are merely pandering to the entrenched prejudices of an angry, hate-filled, mostly white uneducated fringe.
So my question is this, if advertisers should cancel their advertising in the conservative Beck’s controversial television program, should Mutual of America cancel its sponsorship of PBS’s “Bill Moyer’s Journal” which recently replayed a documentary titled “Critical Condition” that clearly and persuasively advocates in favor of health care reform? Health care reform is a major, divisive political issue, with liberals generally on one side of the line in the sand (the left side, of course) and conservatives on the other side.
Right-wingers typically view Bill Moyers as a soft liberal, perhaps less strident than Beck, but idealistically and politically as much an anathema as Beck and O’Reilly are to the left. So why aren’t right wingers calling for Mutual of America to withdraw its support from “Bill Moyer’s Journal” and for other sponsors to pull their support from other PBS or NPR or MSNBC programming?
Perhaps conservative organizations are advocating boycotting PBS, NPR, and MSNBC programming they don’t like, but I have heard nothing about it. I suspect it is the tone of Beck’s stupid racist remark as much as his right-wing rabble rousing and hate mongering against Obama that is upsetting liberals, many of whom want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine in an attempt to muzzle conservative hate mongers such as Rush Limbaugh who are distributed on FCC-licensed radio stations.
However, Beck, O’Reilly, and Hannity are on Fox News on cable, which is not regulated by the FCC, so they would continue to bloviate even if the ineffective Fairness Doctrine were reinstated (something Obama is on record as being against, and rightly so).
I think the solution to the Beck and right-wing ranters problem was provided by an insightful comment I received from a conservative friend of mine who was the Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division in the George H. W. Bush administration:
“As Justice William O. Douglas once referred in a Supreme Court decision to the Communist Party of the US, the hysterical commentators are, ‘…the poor peddlers of unwanted wares; their goods remain unsold.’ Why bother elevating the focus on these ranters by suggesting they’re worthy of sanction?”
Justice Douglas said it much more eloquently than I ever could. Glenn Beck’s or Bill O’Reilly’s or Lou Dobbs’ rants are not worthy of sanction.
So Open Minded Your Brains Fall Out
Guest blogger Myer Berlow responds to guest blogger Bruce Braun:
“I feel that there is a danger of being so open minded that your brains fall out. When you call for intelligent debate you have a responsibility not to lob in a bunch of remarks that confuse the issues. But in a country where Sarah Palin is the best hope that Lincoln’s party has, what can one expect?
You mention Nazis in the context of this discussion but fail to see the real relevance of Nazi strategy to what is happening today in terms of the “dissent” against health care. The Nazis used the “freedom of speech” protection of the Weimar Republic to shout down their opponents.
They took power through the democratic process which they despised and were able to succeed because they were willing to pervert the system. They disrupted meetings, they bombed their opponents and they used the mass media to carry their twisted version of the truth.
Your characterization of Chavez and Castro as anti-democratic is a bit deceptive. Are they any worse than the pro-American regimes that we supported that raped and killed nuns in El Salvador or tortured and killed dissenters by the thousands in Chile? Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson may have made mistakes but its unfair to libel them as being blackmailers.
I met Jesse Jackson in 1968 when he returned from Memphis with King’s blood still on his clothing, and he is entitled to a few mistakes, but he isn’t a gangster.
You speak of “intellectual elites” on “both sides.” If Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck are “intellectuals” you have a different definition of the word than I do. The definition was first articulated by Socrates who believed “one will do what is right or best just as soon as one truly understands what is right or best.”
The right wing Fox news commentators are unconcerned with “truth” and the only beauty they care about is the color of money.
They are self-appointed and are rabble rousers at best. They care about their speech being protected not about the speech of others — see this YouTube video.
I don’t believe they ought to be silenced but I believe that they ought to be seen as creating an advertising environment that appeals to people who believe a mixed race president is a Nazi and think that all the science they need to know is in the Bible.
When the news on Comedy Central is presented with more thought and concern for the truth than on a “news channel” we have indeed reached a new low — watch this video.
Calling Fox News “news” is like calling the Jerry Springer show a source of relationship advice.
The absurdity of your position on Ted Kennedy is over the top. Kennedy may have missed roll calls but he had an excuse — Brain Cancer. To ask that Massachusetts voters be represented in the Senate during the period after his death seems like a sensible alternative. I live in Massachusetts and I have no issue with the way I am represented by Ted Kennedy. I’d trade one percent of his time for 100 percent of most other Senators.
Ted Kennedy has more of his brain in tact than the non octogenarian CEOs who have tanked their companies. To point to corporate America as the model of efficiency is misplaced given our
present situation.
I’d like to see a situation where we don’t have the greedy leading the ignorant in the name of freedom and democracy.”
Don’t Silence Loudmouths
Guest Blogger Bruce Braun jumps into the debate about advertisers’ cancelling ads in controversial TV programs.
“Why is it that every time some loudmouth pops off with some sort of lame comment that, (depending upon your ideological or political point of view), there is a clamor to silence them?
Silencing takes the form of complete removal from any public discourse, boycotting or advocating the removal of advertising spends.
The self-appointed intellectual elites of either side of the issues and arguments believe only they are the vox populi and are the only ones capable of deciding what is best for our society.
If the founding fathers did not sincerely believe the American people were fully capable of separating the fly shit from the pepper of political discourse, there never would have been a First Amendment.
Let’s be clear. Hitler and the Nazi’s, Stalin and his army all took power by force and by stifling any sort of dissent. Dissenters were killed and the media state controlled. They were murderous dictators. Nothing more.
Unless I’m missing something, no one in this country has seized or shut down dissenting forms of media the way Hugo Chavez has in Venezuela and Castro has in Cuba.
Yet we have our supposed leaders like Nancy Pelosi using the term Nazi to characterize those who question her incomprehensible 1100 page healthcare reform bill. Buffoons such as Glenn Beck call Obama racist out of shear shock value. Jackson and Sharpton have made careers out of extorting money from corporations and effectively selling protection from boycotts for those the term racist could be hurled at, justified or not. Just watch any of these people and decide for yourself if they are nothing more than attention whores and self-promoters or are they really making intelligent and reasoned contributions to the dialog.
The question we should all be asking about these folks and their fellow travelers is what is their end motive? More power, prestige, ratings, money?
Ted Kennedy wants the MA legislature to reverse a law they passed in 2004, at his urging to protect John Kerry’s senate seat, had he been elected president. Why reverse the law he championed? Ted says it is to insure the state has two votes for health care reform. Kennedy says voters are entitled to it. He fails to mention his illness has kept him away from Capitol Hill for most of the last 15 months. He has missed all but a handful of the 270 roll-calls taken in the Senate so far this year. Through no fault of his own, he is unable to carry out the job he was reelected to in 2006. Kennedy is not alone in this respect, just look at other past and present senators such as Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd. Name any public company that has octogenarians in failing health in senior management roles. Ted thinks the citizens of MA should only be allowed to have a senator that is either him or someone Deval Patrick or Ted deems worthy. It could still be a Democrat but why not let the voters decide?
We all have the power to turn off the TV, buy or not buy certain products or to vote for someone other than the gerrymandered incumbents. Let’s exercise that power without being coerced.”
Advertisers Should Cancel Ads in Beck’s Program
Guest blogger Jesse Kornbluth of Head Butler responds vigorously:
You have written that advertisers should NOT cancel commercials on Glenn Beck’s hatefest of a show.
Let’s set aside your confusion between Beck’s right to free speech and his “right” to commercial support — a “right” I’d sure love to have for any of my TV projects.
Let’s just look at it from the advertiser’s point-of-view.
Let’s say I’m Peter Lewis, former CEO (and largest shareholder) of the aptly-named Progressive Insurance.
My company advertises on Beck.
I see Beck spewing garbage that strikes me as hateful — seriously hateful, on the verge of hate speech.
I call Progressive and complain. I learn that I’m not the only one distressed by Beck. In fact, our customers are complaining.
Is it your point, Charlie, that Progressive, having placed its commercials on Beck’s show, is lashed to Beck’s mast? In for a penny, in for a pound? Bound to its contract to the bitter end?
What, may I ask, are Progressive’s rights?
Is Progressive limited to diplomacy with this maniac?
Once upon a time, at the height of the Vietnam war, I wrote an op-ed in the college paper urging graduating seniors not to give money to our alma mater until it took a position on the war. The university’s idea of a good speaker at the opening of the JFK School in 1966 was Robert McNamara — the administrators were tone-deaf. So did my essay get any notice? You bet! I got invited to speak with a dean in 24 hours. And a few years later…
Samuel Johnson wrote, “No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.” In American media, that pleasure is money — Fox News may or may not care about its conservative politics, but we may be certain that Rupert Murdoch looks at the bottom line. So why not hit Fox where it lives? If Beck’s show is so damn important to Murdoch, let him pay for it.
Yeah, democracy thrives on dialogue, on the rough-and-tumble exchange of ideas. If a company values that exchange, why support Beck instead of Rachel Maddow or Bill Moyers?
Get Real Blodget; News Corp. Won’t Fire Glenn Beck
In the lead post today (August 19) on Silicon Alley Insider, Henry Blodget wrote a blog titled “News Corp. Should Fire Glenn Beck.”
I’m a regular reader of SAI and think that Blodget often has penetrating insights into and analysis of internet and media companies. However, I think his emotions got the better of him when he wrote about Glenn Beck’s stupid remarks about Obama being a racist. News Corp. not only is not going to fire Glenn Beck for his remarks, his bosses, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, are probably going to give him a raise for generating so much publicity.
Plus, knowing that Ailes is an arch-conservative Republican operative (he worked as the media advisor for the Nixon campaign in 1968), he probably agrees with Beck. If Ailes disagreed with Beck’s remarks, he would have publicly reprimanded Beck or fired him immediately and he would not be actively negotiating with Don Imus to do mornings on Fox Business News.
When Imus made his racist remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team being “nappy headed hos,” MSNBC fired him. CBS also fired Imus, but waffled so long that it appeared to be kowtowing to Al Sharpton’s protests. It’s never good public relations to give in to the camera ravenous Reverend Sharpton, because it encourages his blackmailing techniques. Fox News won’t make that mistake and defended Beck’s right to voice his opinion – in other words, supported him.
What Ailes and News Corp. want are ratings, as pointed out by Jeff Bercovici in his blog on AOL’s Daily Finance titled “Sorry, Fox News boycotters — Glenn Beck’s not going anywhere.” Controversy gets ratings and with all the current publicity, Beck’s ratings will spike up at least for a while, maybe permanently.
Those who hate Beck, want him fired, and are urging advertisers to cancel commercials in his program should keep in mind that Beck’s racist remark was stupid. Anyone with any brains at all and who watched the campaign coverage of Obama knows he doesn’t hate white people – his mother was white and he adored her. He doesn’t hate the white culture – his white grandparents raised him and he adored them.
What Ailes, Fox News, and Beck are doing is attributing their own motives, values, and opinions to other people – in psychology it’s called projection. By projecting their prejudices and racism on Obama, Fox News’s intention, therefore, is meant to appeal to racist people – Fox News’s and Beck’s loyal audience – the same people who make Fox News the highest rated news channel make WWE professional wrestling the top rated entertainment program on cable TV. They seem to like and identify with overblown personalities spewing rage.
Thus, I’m sure Roger Ailes and Fox News are delighted with Beck. He reflects their values: ratings, rage, and racism.
