A recession by any other name...

I was watching CNN the other day, and was surprised at how optimistic the coverage was. A correspondent was being interviewed about the price of gas, because the national average had just dropped below $2.00 a gallon. She raved that--when adjusted for inflation--that's how much we were paying for gas in the 1960s. She then extolled the viewers to go have fun, fun, fun in the T-Birds. The American public must be loving this drop in gas prices, she said, especially since the DOW Jones average was up 150 pts at that point. One phrase she said stuck out to me: "we earned it," referring to America as a whole deserving this lightening of the burden.

However, the burden was only lightened slightly. Although gas prices are down now, they will go back up, and however pleasant the DOW rise is, the nature of the market is that it will drop again. The silver lining of the recession is that it forces people to be more responsible, since many have been living beyond their means. This type of media coverage paints an overly rosy picture of the situation: times are lean, so fiscal responsibility is a good thing; we can't just point to a couple of positive blips on the national radar to celebrate and ignore the overwhelming burdens that dominate the larger picture. By calling for a celebration in our T-Birds, the correspondent made us feel better, but with unrepresentative 'evidence.' The media--especially television--play a tremendously large role in shaping how we interpret the world; if they say everything's alright, then people may be less conscientious in their behavior. It seems apparent that the cable news media were simply trying to make people feel good, to help them avoid experiencing anything unpleasant.No one wants their comfortable way of life disturbed. So let's go out and have a celebratory drive, because as the CNN corespondent said, "we earned it."

Liberal Media Bias?

It is often lamented that the mainstream media (MSM) has a liberal bias. Recently, examples from the coverage of the presidential campaigns were cited as proof: the generous (in amount and tone) coverage of Obama, and the less abundant and less favorable coverage of McCain and Palin. Some believers have put their suspicions into cartoon form:

While individual anchors and correspondants have their own opinions--whether overt or tacit--they are subjugated to the corporate beliefs. Here's a third cartoon to end with:

CNN thinks Palin spoof is funny

Wolf Blitzer appreciates Tina Fey's spoof of Sarah Palin:



This is not the only time that SNL lifted exact phrases from the politicians for the comedians' dialog. Other Sarah Palin lines from the VP debate were quoted exactly, as well as lines from the presidential candidates themselves.

What does it mean that the comedy shows are so closely aligned with the world of politics (including people getting their news from the Daily Show)? The ratings for the SNL episodes about the election were huge- on tv and on the internet. What does it mean that CNN and other cable news channels were covering--and apparently supporting--this type of comedic politics? Is comedy a legitimate source of political insights, or is it an insufficient or biased form of agenda-setting?

It's one thing for a comedy show to openly skewer the politicians, and another thing when the strait-laced cable news takes a side- even if done tacitly. Or is it all just done in fun?

"The greatest show TV has seen in years"

James Poniewozik writing about new election night technologies:
"Election night captured in miniature the brilliance and ridiculousness of election 2008 in the media. NBC painted an electoral map on New York City's Rockefeller Center skating rink and stood its hosts in front of enough virtual Greek columns to stage a hundred Obama rallies; 3-D graphics sprouted out of studio floors and hung in the air; and CNN unveiled the most amazing and goofy innovation, 3-D projections of studio guests speaking to the network's anchors like Princess Leia asking Obi-Wan for help in Star Wars."

SNL spoofs the giant digital election maps:


Entertained yet? Kind of makes you long for the simple days of Tim Russert and his whiteboard.

"Taking aim" at hurricane coverage

Watching the cable news coverage of Hurricane Ike the past few days, I've been amazed anew at how sensational it all is. I was with my Mom this weekend and she is a voracious televised news consumer. All of the news channels are programmed into the remote under 'favorites' so she can scroll through more easily. Needless to say I saw A LOT of the coverage and from different stations. 

The Weather Channel was calling in all of their 'experts' and switting between their four meteorologist reporting from Texas. Then, what all the headline writers were waiting for happened: CNN.com reports that one person drowned off the coast of Texas, and Ike officially became a "deadly" hurricane. Then when the National Weather Service said that some families in some parts of Texas would face "certain death" if they didn't evacuate, several of the news stations seized on that. More than one made it their banner on the bottom of the screen, so that even if you were flicking by the channels casually, you couldn't miss the word "death" jumping out at you. 

I noticed that the headline writers had a tendency to personify the hurricane, a trend that started around the time of WWII when hurricanes were first being named. Headlines on the channels said things like 'Ike takes aim at...' or 'threatens', or USA Today said Ike was "marching" inward. Other sources reported on Ike's 'punches' and his 'wrath'. Our culture likes everything to be a narrative, and every good story needs a good villain. Personifying a hurricane enables you to give it motivations and intentions, and it certainly makes it more dramatic. Having a storm that 'targets' Texas is much more interesting than one that is merely headed that direction.

The news channels try to write the most ominous headlines to grab your attention when you flick by, and then once you choose their station, they pack their crawl full of sensational phrases and comments, and show you their reporters stationed in the heart of the storm braving the elements. As my mom flipped through her favorites on the remote, it seemed to be a competition as to which channel could be the most dramatic and exciting. If it seemed over-the-top, it's because the stations know how to get our attention: we watch drama. We stop on the channel whose headline includes Ike 'slamming,' 'ravaging,' destroying,' or 'wreaking devastation,' and whose footage includes collapsed buildings and a dumpster floating down the street (Weather Channel, for the record). The more extreme or bizarre, the more we watch. 

As MSNBC switches between news stories and their hurricane graphic sweeps across the screen (accompanied by a whooshing sound), I can't help but think that I'll miss my new friend Ike, whom I've come to know so well recently. Maybe if we're lucky, another deadly hurricane will be born, to take aim at us and wreak some devastation. That would make for compelling television.