From all-Imus to non-stop Massacre

The Imus Spectacle has me in its grip. How wonderful to watch so many women and people of color on the news, talking about the continuing prevalence of noxious attitudes.

It's still a white man's world on camera and behind the lens. MSNBC features the following flavors of white guys from late afternoon until 10 PM.: Carlson, Matthews, Olberman and Scarborough. Women appear as minor characters, with minorities making even rarer appearances. Carlson hasn't met a feminist he won't put down. Matthews condescends to women.

Olbermann is mostly very cool, but I had to wince at his response to one of the reverend icons. (Sharpton and Jackson carry baggage, yes, but they still know how to interject some excellent uncomfortable questions.) When asked point blank, where are the women and where are minority faces and voices on their network, Olbermann pointed out that he had Alison Stewart on to sub for him whenever he was on vacation. That's great, Keith -- but what we really want is to see Alison hosting her own show every night. She did a great job on Monday night holding down the desk in the middle of the V-Tech horror show. Boot out Tucker and put Alison on instead. Trade Matthews to CNN for Christiane Amanpour. And pay her big bucks to switch from CNN. MSNBC could take the lead in diversity and bring down the percentages in one fell swoop:

"Percentage of U.S. women born blonde: 16. Percentage of women who are blonde today: 33. Percentage of TV newscasters who are blonde: 64. Percentage of Miss Americas who are blonde: 65." (TV Trivia)

Meanwhile, the media goes on to the next big story. I could only take one night of watching it and now I've had enough. It's the irrationality of it. It's the kind of act that provokes religionists to remark that their deity works in mysterious ways. The mystery to me is how people can find comfort in a god who apparently isn't so all-powerful and all-loving as they'd like to believe.

A talking head tonight said that the US leads the world in numbers of massacres by deranged persons. If anything is to be learned from this unspeakable act of cruelty, perhaps it is by putting it within context of all the others and asking some hard questions about cultural climate like is there some kind of correlation between human population growth and the rise of whacked out gun-men?

The Akron Beacon Journal Ignores Local Theatre

On Day 2 of Buy Nothing Day -- Buy Nothing the Akron Beacon Journal tries to sell you:

In today's ABJ, we have the annual "Black Friday" feel-good-about-shopping story by the retail reporter, Kerry Clawson. Kerry was demoted from the theatre beat to beating the drums for over-consumption in the Akron area. Damn, that has to hurt: removed from writing about one of the most elevating things human beings can do -- creating theatre -- to writing about ant-heap behaviors of the gluttonous. Meanwhile, the theatre beat was compressed into a one-reporter-covers-all-the-arts format.

For a sad visual of what the ABJ's reporting has become, look at this page. Note the empty places in the (Arts &) Entertainment section as opposed to the full box of sports writers. George Thomas is gone and along with him any local perspectives of movies and the film industry. Now we get canned UPI syndicated reviews. "Names in the News" is listed as one of the entertainment columnists! They won't even give us a name for the person assigned to compile snippets of Hollywood gossip from the wire services! (And by the way, Jane Snow's name should no longer be listed under the Living Section columnists. She too has vanished from the ABJ's pages.)

Elaine Guregian was supposed to be elevated to "Culture Beat" reporter, adding theatre to her usual music and dance coverage. Well I defy anyone to find theatre coverage online at the Beacon any more. There is no "theater" added to Guregian's title underneath her phone, and looking at a list of all of her columns, I can see only three related to theatre over the past two months: Spamalot on tour in Cleveland, My Fair Lady at the Cleveland Playhouse and a national tour Man of La Mancha at EJ Thomas of LaMancha. What do all three of these have in common? Yes, they are big splashy musicals, but more importantly -- none of these productions were created in Akron by Akron theatre people. I'm not blaming Guregian -- she has had an enormous amount of work heaped upon her and we will put the blame squarely upon her superiors as to what stories she is allowed to cover. So far, its looking very much like corporate theatre uber alles.

I miss the weekly Theatre Notes column that Kerry Clawson provided for us theatre workers and consumers. The word "theater" or more properly "theatre," is not even granted its own listing on the Entertainment page. And what of the local theatres trying gamely to fill their seats so they can afford to keep producing theatre for our community? How are they managing to succeed with no local coverage? The only way to change things is to keep yammering at them via emails, letters to the editor and so on. Go here to make some noise.

Media Watching: Conflict Sells

Although I haven't been able to post much this past week, I did keep up on reading and watching the news. The major political story focused on Nancy Pelosi's choice for majority leader pretty much ignoring the caucuses in the senate and within the Republican party.

The media continues to prove that it has no liberal bias. Its ownership is definitely conservative, but the reporters, editors, news directors and programmers are not really interested in taking a side. What they are interested in is presenting a conflict. There can be no drama without conflict, hence no entertainment value in stories that show cooperation and progress.

What I wanted to read this week instead of the conflict involving Murtha vs Hoyer was something informational about party organization. What does a "whip" actually do? How does the majority leader differ from the minority leader? And what about the dynamics of the newly elected house from both perspectives? I didn't find anything on the roles themselves but I did find this article from the SF Chronicle that tells us more about the makeup of the Democratic side of the House.

According to the article there are three major groups of Democrats:

The fiscally conservative Blue Dogs with a membership of 44

The moderate New Democrats grown to 62 members

The Progressives with the largest bloc of representatives at 71 and who will be heading some very important committees.

The story gives us some context from which to view the ensuing congressional season. Three factions give us opportunity for lots of conflict. How will Nancy Pelosi do in her efforts to bring unity to the party to pass legislation that will be opposed by the hapless idiot now occupying the White House?

It appears that post election there will be plenty of opportunites for thoughtful news reporting. The problem will be sifting through the media bias for sensationalism to find out what is really going on.

Akron Beacon Journal Continues to Bash Brown

Catching up on the local opinions this morning, I found this in Friday's online ABJ, a tribute to their boy Mike DeWine, bemoaning his loss because President Bush has promised to work in a bipartisan manner. They insist that Brown is not the fellow to do that. Mike DeWine, the man who supported Bush's policies 96% of the time, would supposedly have been the best choice to reach across the aisle to the Democrats.

"Practically everyone agrees that the country's most difficult challenges require intelligent compromise. Just the moment for a smart lawmaker like Mike DeWine?"

How smart is Mike DeWine? Not smart enough to understand the needs and frustrations of his own constiuents, apparently. Certainly he did not plan or implement an intelligent campaign.

Trying to salvage their anti-Brown stance, the ABJ editorial makes sure to mention that all the major Ohio papers (excepting The Toledo Blade) endorsed DeWine, and then reveals the major reason they continue to bash Brown. It is Brown's stand against trade agreements:

Put another way, the middle class covers more than those workers hurt by ``job-killing'' trade agreements. The Brown words can be stirring. The reality is, the likes of the North American Free Trade Agreement are not the leading factor in Ohio losing manufacturing jobs. Not by a long shot. Technology is the prime culprit, industries becoming more productive, generating more goods with fewer workers, the country becoming more prosperous overall.

This writer is living in a dream world where capitalism rules over common decency and workers have no hope. Everybody knows that the reason manufacturing jobs have declined is because we encourage our citizens to buy products produced by workers in China, India and other countries. These foreign workers produce goods cheaply and under conditions that no US citizen would suffer. But since we don't see the suffering, it's ok.

Sherrod Brown is opposed to UNFAIR trade agreements. What is fair about competing with countries that don't have health insurance for their workers, who pay them miniscule wages, make them work under unsafe conditions, and who outlaw all union organizing?
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