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LiteratureWhy CNN Struggles to Cover The Economic Panic
The current economic collapse is a difficult story for TV. It's a peculiar period in between an election and an inauguration. This most important story, this great-or-not-so great depression, is also the hardest for CNN to tell. I have more than enough reasons why in this late-night rant. 1) It's not a hurricane so Anderson Cooper of CNN is unable to position himself in the middle of the storm for optimal drama. In other words, TV anchors can't get wet and windblown, while viewers worry about their safety. The state of the economy is a disaster but not a natural disaster. Nobody's leaving the studio for this one. There's no place to go. 2) It's like a war and we keep losing ground each day. In the place of casualties, we have falling stock indices but it's hard to show the real damage. There's only so much you can do with oversized charts to tell a story. The war on terrorism featured a real enemy. We've just never been able to find them, no matter who goes after them. (Maybe it's not so different.) Campbell Brown ("No Bull, No Bias") should say that what the capitalism's finest did to themselves and to us was worse than any terrorist could have imagined. 3) Few CEOs, fewer economists, and almost no one in the financial industry, want to step forward and say with conviction what will happen. A year ago we couldn't get them to stop telling us what great things to expect in the next quarter. Not now. They don't know what's coming and they aren't willing to say even that much. They are MIA. Insider information is at an all-time low. Memo to all American CEOs: don't presume in ten years' time to write business books about your leadership skills; maybe there's a gripping survival story to be told about how you held on to your job. We want them to face the music. Even the Watergate hearings, which had a large cast of characters, were compelling to watch day after day. 4) There is not a President at the center. Bush is just not there. Like us, he's watching TV to find out what to think. Reporting from the White House doesn't have any relevance today. Moreover, the satisfaction in blaming Bush for everything is diminishing. In addition, with the election over, reporters can't simply ask the candidates to react to the day's bad news. It seldom produced much insight anyway but it filled time. Now Obama is filling time, and he keeps repeating that "there's only one President" but there's really not a President. There's a leadership vacuum waiting to be filled by Obama. (BTW, this story is much bigger and more important than Obama's election and I think he understands that.) Bottom line is we're waiting for a central figure to emerge. 5) Real experts are hard to find, especially ones with big hair. So over-present talking heads such as Suze Orman ramble on and on in front of Larry King and others. Here's an incredible ramble from Suze Orman on CNN: People feel they need medication because they are panicking. It?s as if the economy right now is in the I.C.U. unit of a hospital. We are in intensive care and they are throwing everything type of medication at us to cure what is going on. They are panicking because why? Nothing is working. They tried this, it didn?t work. They tried that medication, it didn?t work. They are running out of prescriptions to give it. We are going to be in the I.C.U. unit for a while. Eventually, I don?t know when that will be, six months, a year, year and a half, we will get out, we?ll be in the hospital then. We?ll stay in the hospital for about a year or two. After another year or two we will end up in rehab and then we?ll be okay. This is a long stretch. People have to stop panicking. CNN link Makes me think of Amy Winehouse singing "They try to make me go to rehab, I say no, no, no." Rehab is taking place over on CNBC. 6) Where are the winning and losing teams? We have learned more about Al Queda cells and Saddam Hussein's Elite Guards than about the people in power behind CITI, Goldman Sachs, Lehmann Brothers, AIG, etc. We know more about the New York Jets than we do about CITI Bank. Are the slow-moving Detroit Manufacturers competing head-to-head against the fast-talking Wall Street Financiers? Please tell us more about these teams as we're entrusting them with such large amounts of public money. Maybe we need to start thinking that, as with football, we care because we're betting on teams to win. We have our money at stake. 7) I can almost hear producers wondering each night if there isn't a better story to lead with. "Isn't there a story we can do on Sarah Palin? Like her or hate her, people can't get enough of her." At least that appears to be the thinking behind her getting the most air-time in the week following the election. Would you rather hear about Sarah Palin pardoning a turkey or David Gergen saying no one knows what to make of the economic mess? At least, the Palin piece will have something interesting going on in the foreground and the background. 8) "Why can't this be happening to Russia or China? If it was only happening there, and not here, we would know how to cover it." CNN would send Christiane Amanpour there. "Live from...". We don't have visuals like people knocking down walls, rushing into the streets or standing in lines. The Fall of the Berlin Wall is the Fall of Communism, the fall of Saddam's statue -- now these are stories of new freedoms. In America today, we have a big fall without a distinctive symbol, without a video loop, without an exotic locale. Also, how do you explain that China is providing the bail for the bailout? As David Gergen said tonight on CNN, "China's become our banker." Even harder to tell that kind of "freedom" story. 9) The problems aren't going away and there's no timeline. So, where's the equivalent of "America Held Hostage: Day XN"? Nightline evolved from a special report to become a nightly hard-news program to follow the ongoing story of Iran holding American hostages during the Carter Administration. Why isn't this economic story played front-and-center in the same way? Isn't there a TV journalist saying "Holy Christ, this is the biggest story of my career and I'm going to bring it to you every night"? Ted Koppel, Edward R. Murrow, where are you? Here's my list of names for a new Nightline-like special series on the economy: America's Panic Attack The Joke's on US Invisible Hand-Wringing Capitalism on the Ledge The Economy on the Couch Future Shock & Awe Hitting the Wall And Falling on the Street. America Sucks Right Now US: Out of Order 10) Lastly, the TV media is no better off than we are at understanding this complex crisis. On a gut level, viewers know what the story is, that it's about them, their future and their children's future. They have specific questions that are difficult to answer (see the Suze Orman blog on CNN where it is promised that she'll answer these many, many questions; she doesn't, of course.) and they have general worries (should I panic?) that are hard to resolve. While we try to absorb as much information as possible, we keep having the same conversation over and over: Q. What's going on? A. I don't know. It's hard to tell....
Published: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 06:06:57 GMT - Source: Boingboing.Net - Read the articleLiteratureMichael Moore on Bailout of US Auto Makers
Michael Moore was a recent guest on Larry King talking about the auto bailout. Moore's terrific documentary, "Roger & Me," targeted the auto companies in 1989 while they closed plants and laid off workers. Moore tells Larry King that in the movie when the GM representative said that 30,000 people could be laid off in Flint, he thought it was a joke. Years later, it came true. Moore says he's conflicted, as many of us are, about what to do. He doesn't have any confidence in the leaders of this industry. Moore doesn't want to see the loss of more jobs in the US auto industry. He also doesn't trust the current management teams that got them into this mess. Hard to argue against either position. I don't know if I can go so far as Moore to believe that the government could do a better job running these companies. However, it's clear that this manufacturing capacity could be a great asset if applied to an overhaul of the US transportation system. Embedded video from CNN Video I liked Michael Moore as the bumbling everyman in Roger & Me and I've liked his movies less and less as they've become strident setups. I was happy to see Moore in this interview get back to something like his old self. It's somehow personal again. Since this interview, the CEOs of the Big Three had a humbling day on Capitol Hill, unable to defend their use of separate corporate jets to bring them to the hearing and more importantly, unable to articulate what they would do with the money they're asking for. They've supposedly gone back to Detroit to work on a proposal and muster the courage to go back to Washington in December....
Published: Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:59:04 GMT - Source: Boingboing.Net - Read the articleIssuesIn disparaging possible sec. of state appointment for Clinton, on MSNBC and CNN, Hitchens offered purported 15-year-old quote he has yet to source
Contemplating the possible nomination of Sen. Hillary
Clinton to be secretary of state, commentator and author Christopher Hitchens,
a frequent and harsh Clinton critic, revived the
unsubstantiated claim that Hillary Clinton blocked any action by the Clinton
administration in war-torn Bosnia in 1993 because she didn't want it to interfere with passage of
her health-care plan.
In reviving the claim on MSNBC's Hardball,
MSNBC's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,
and CNN's Larry King Live between November 17 and November 19, Hitchens
purported to quote Hillary Clinton demanding of Bill Clinton that he not
intervene in Bosnia, lest, in Hitchens' words on the November 17 Hardball, it "spoil my wonderful health-care plan, which should be front and
center." In a March 31
article
for Slate.com, Hitchens
cited Sally Bedell Smith's For Love of Politics: Bill and
Hillary Clinton: The White House Years for the claim
that Hillary Clinton blocked Clinton administration intervention in Bosnia, but
the book does not support Hitchens' claim; it does not mention
Hitchens' purported quote or otherwise assert that Hillary Clinton
directed Bill Clinton not to take action in Bosnia.
On all three shows, Hitchens also revived his claim that
then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin was a strong proponent of U.S. intervention in Bosnia but was thwarted by Hillary
Clinton. In his Slate article, as purported further support for his claim that
Hillary Clinton blocked action in Bosnia to protect her domestic
priority, Hitchens cited an exchange he said he had with Aspin that does not, in fact, prove his broader claim about Hillary
Clinton. Moreover, in her book, On
the Edge: The Clinton Presidency (Simon & Schuster, 1994), author Elizabeth Drew, a former Washington correspondent with The New
Yorker, writes
that, contrary to media reports at the time, Aspin was not a proponent of U.S. intervention in Bosnia.
In his Slate article, Hitchens quoted at length from
Bedell Smith's book, which includes numerous other errors and
flaws, to advance the claim that Hillary Clinton deterred President Clinton
from intervening in Bosnia
because it would "distract attention from the first lady's health care
'initiative.' " However, neither the quote Hitchens cited
from Bedell Smith -- nor the Newsweek article
that she referenced -- supports
Hitchens' claims.
In For Love of Politics,
Bedell Smith wrote:
Taking the advice of [then-Vice
President] Al Gore and National
Security Advisor
Tony Lake,
Bill agreed to a proposal to bomb Serbian military positions while helping the
Muslims acquire weapons to defend themselves -- the fulfillment of a pledge he
had made during the 1992 campaign. But instead of pushing European leaders to
sign on, he directed Secretary of State Warren Christopher merely to consult with
them. When they balked at the plan, Bill quickly retreated, creating a
"perception of drift." The key factor in Bill's policy reversal was
Hillary, who was said to have "deep misgivings," and viewed the
situation as "a Vietnam
that would compromise health-care reform." The United States took no
further action in Bosnia, and the "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs was
to continue for two more years, resulting in the deaths of more than 250,000
people.
In asserting that Hillary Clinton "was said to have
'deep misgivings,' and viewed the situation as 'a Vietnam
that would compromise health-care reform,' " Bedell Smith did not purport to quote
Hillary Clinton directly and did not assert that she directed her husband to do
or not do anything with respect to Bosnia, as Hitchens has repeatedly claimed.
Moreover, Bedell Smith cites a 1993 Newsweek article by Tom Post for her claim that Hillary Clinton
"was said to have 'deep misgivings,' and viewed the situation
as 'a Vietnam
that would compromise health-care reform.' " But Post did not
report that as fact; rather, in the article Bedell Smith cited, he reported
that sources gave differing accounts of the influences on Bill Clinton's
Bosnia policy, providing one point of view offered by adviser Mandy Grunwald, but then citing
"other sources" saying that Hillary Clinton had "deep
misgivings" about Bosnia, and quoting a "friend" saying:
"She regards this as a Vietnam that would compromise health-care
reform." Moreover, the Newsweek
article does not support Bedell Smith's flat assertion that Hillary was
"[t]he key factor in Bill's policy reversal" on Bosnia,
and Bedell Smith provides no other support for the assertion.
From the Newsweek article:
By the time Christopher returned to Washington, the mood was grim. His aides had warned him of a weakening of resolve in the White House. Could it be that political consultants had gotten to the president and warned him to back off Bosnia? "We don't mess around with foreign-policy decisions," insists Mandy Grunwald, an informal adviser. "Nobody is saying, 'You've got an economic program to worry about, don't do this'." But other sources say the most important adviser of all-Hillary Rodham Clinton-has deep misgivings. "She regards this as a Vietnam that would compromise health-care reform," says a friend.
After quoting from Bedell
Smith's book, Hitchens wrote in his Slate article:
I can personally witness to the
truth of this, too. I can remember, first, one of the Clintons' closest personal advisers -- Sidney
Blumenthal -- referring with acid contempt to Warren Christopher as "a
blend of Pontius Pilate with Ichabod Crane." I can remember, second, a
meeting with Clinton's
then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin at the British Embassy. When I challenged
him on the sellout of the Bosnians, he drew me aside and told me that he had
asked the White House for permission to land his own plane at Sarajevo airport,
if only as a gesture of reassurance that the United States had not forgotten
its commitments. The response from the happy couple was unambiguous: He was to
do no such thing, lest it distract attention from the first lady's health care
"initiative."
Hitchens did not explain how the anecdote he attributes to Aspin about
being told not to land his plane in Sarajevo "lest it distract attention
from the first lady's health care 'initiative' " proves
the truth of Bedell Smith's claim that it was Hillary's purported
"misgivings" that served as "[t]he key factor" in the
delay of U.S. intervention in Bosnia.
Moreover, in his three television
appearances on November 17, 18, and 19, Hitchens presented Aspin as a strong
proponent of U.S.
intervention in Bosnia,
up against Hillary Clinton. For example, on November 18, Hitchens said:
HITCHENS: We all
remember, or we should, that when Les Aspin had
then got the Clinton administration very nearly to do something about the
horror in the Balkans that belatedly the Clinton administration did decide to
stop -- the Clinton-Gore administration -- they delayed it because
Hillary said, "No, no,
don't do it, it will take away attention from my brilliant, wonderful health care
program" that we all remember so well.
But in her book, Drew reported the opposite -- that Aspin "was for
doing as little as possible in Bosnia."
From Drew's book:
Contrary
to many published reports at the time, Aspin (who was said to favor bombing)
was for doing as little as possible in Bosnia. He thought it was "a
loser from the start," that there was no way to deal with the problem
effectively without enormous military force, and that neither the United States nor Europe
was willing to pay that price. He argued that the best they could end up with
was a divided Bosnia -- Serb, Croat, and
Muslim -- with the Serbs maintaining control over most of the land they
had already won in the war. When the question of bombing Bosnian Serb artillery
sites arose in the spring of 1993, Aspin favored a cease-fire in place. [Page 142]
From the November 17 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
CHRIS MATTHEWS (host): Well, I
probably disagree with Hitchens on this, but I am very suspicious when [Sen.] Jon Kyl
[R-AZ], a major supporter of the war in Iraq, a complete hawk, a neocon in many ways, complete hawk,
supports her for this. Henry Kissinger's
come out of the woodwork. He supports her for this.
HITCHENS: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Why do these
establishment conservatives want her? What are they up to? Why do they want
her? I don't know
what they want.
HITCHENS: Don't compare Kissinger -- don't compare Kissinger to Kyl.
I mean, Kissinger is a critic of the war and a so-called realist, and someone who likes leaving dictators like Saddam Hussein in place --
MATTHEWS: Well, why do they both want her? They're both Republicans.
Why do they want her?
HITCHENS: Because she's a status-quo type, and they know they can, so to speak, trust
her. She's a
member of their club. Just to comment on what Peter said a moment ago: If you remember -- and I'll
drag you back to this Bosnia
farce that she inflicted on us during the campaign. Actually, when there was pressure on the Clinton
administration -- Les Aspin was secretary of defense, you remember -- to do
something about Sarajevo, to stop the killing,
to prevent the ethnic cleansing, Hillary Clinton moved in hard on her husband
and said, "Don't you do a thing about
Bosnia.
It'll spoil my
wonderful health-care plan, which should be front and center." And remember how beautifully that worked out, too.
PETER BEINART (The New Republic editor-at-large and Time contributor): I'm not sure I think that's an entirely accurate
accounting of --
HITCHENS: Yes, it is.
BEINART: -- her role in Bosnia.
And the reality is that the Clintons, albeit very late, the Clinton
administration acted very
well --
MATTHEWS: OK.
BEINART: -- in Bosnia
in 1995.
HITCHENS: Over her
objections.
MATTHEWS: OK.
BEINART: I'm not sure it was over
her objections.
HITCHENS: Yes, it was.
From the November 18 edition of MSNBC's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with David
Gregory:
GREGORY: And what's the impact
on a Secretary of State Clinton because of those associations? Can they not put
up a firewall between them?
HITCHENS: Well, as I say, if it hadn't involved her, too, the campaign finance scandals -- we're not talking
about the ongoing stuff --
Mr. Clinton's
huge speaking fees in the Gulf and elsewhere -- we're talking about previous
convictions in the Clinton
fundraising scandal. If it wasn't for the
fact that she couldn't refuse her brothers everything -- or sorry, anything -- couldn't refuse them anything; anything they wanted they
seem to have got,
including some kind of deal for Marc
Rich -- all of this
might be forgivable or it might assume a different proportion, David, if it wasn't for the fact that this
woman doesn't really have any foreign policy experience worth mentioning.
And what is memorable about it is
pretty bad. We all remember,
or we should, that when
Les Aspin had then got the Clinton administration very nearly to do something
about the horror in the Balkans that belatedly the Clinton administration did
decide to stop -- the
Clinton-Gore
administration -- they
delayed it because Hillary said,
"No, no, don't do it, it will take away
attention from my brilliant,
wonderful health care program" that we all remember so well. At least on
health care, she knows
enough about the subject to have really changed American health care for the worse in
her time. But foreign policy, she --
GREGORY: And yet --
HITCHENS: About foreign
policy, she
doesn't even know that much.
From the November 19 edition of CNN's Larry
King Live:
LARRY KING (host): Christopher, if she
takes the job, does that end her presidential ambitions?
HITCHENS:
No. I mean, I actually agree with what Tom Friedman said. It must be very
nerve-racking if you're a president to have a secretary of state who you
know is thinking about four years ahead or maybe eight all the time. She never
thinks about anything else, never has thought about anything else, except the
possibility that she might one day be president of the United States. Wasn't even a team
player in her own husband's administration.
Remember,
when Les Aspin wanted to do something finally about Sarajevo
and the rape of Bosnia,
Hillary Clinton said, "No, I don't want you intervening. You'll get
in the way of my health-care plan," which you remember worked out so
brilliantly. Someone who simply cannot think about anything but her own ego, or
sometimes, her husband's, but who -- if Barack Obama does this to himself,
he'll never have a minute's peace in foreign policy --
KING: Paul
[Begala] --
HITCHENS: --
and neither will we. And every lobbyist and foreign policy interest group from China to Indonesia will be laughing --
KING: Paul,
what do you make of that?
HITCHENS: --
because they've got exactly the person they know listens to
them.
Published: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:50:50 GMT - Source: Mediamatters.Org - Read the articleSee Also:
