Recently in Media Category

By John Mark Reynolds

I have longed for it, wanted it from afar, and envied my friends who owned it. I can only thank God that the Bible forbids coveting my neighbor's ox and not his iPhone or I would have been in big trouble. Fortunately the strength of this particular exegesis was not long put to the test. Due to the unlamented passing of my Palm Treo 650, the single worst phone ever conceived in the hearts of wicked engineers, I have been able to get a black 8 gig iPhone.

It sits before me now and it is beautiful.

My old Treo was clunky like a Star Trek communicator from the original series without the cool flip up antenna. It tore many a jacket pocket with its weight. One could count on it crashing every five minutes or so when one demanded unreasonable things from it like receiving phone calls or keeping my schedule. Getting it to sync with my Mac was always hard and I had to get special software to do the job.

The iPhone did everything, or almost everything, I wished right out of the box. Here are five observations after my first week of ownership:

1. Battery life is poor when using the Net or updating mail. In just a few hours of heavy use, I was running out of juice. The Treo was slower and rarely made it to the Net without crashing a few times, but once there it drained the battery comparatively slowly.

This is the greatest flaw I have discovered.

2. The phone connects to the world easily.

Getting the phone to sync with Google mail is easy. Getting it to sync with Google calendar was harder, but was done in a few minutes.

Of course it is easy just to go on-line to check both services, but I prefer not to always have to do so.

Wireless connections were easy to set up. Web browsing was fast in both wireless and 3G modes. It is not my home cable modem, but it has made web use in the car (for finding my location, movies, and other information) possible.

It worked perfectly with my computer which is to expected since I use a Mac, but it still was a pleasure to use a piece of technology that required no set up after I got home from the store. The phone has yet to crash or show any software problems.

3. The phone works well as a phone. My reception was equal to any other wireless in our house, including fairly expensive phones without other features.

4. The touch screen is easy to use and soon learned to cope with my clumsy fingers. For someone like I am who cannot see very well (which makes typing hard and proofing harder), this phone is a blessing. It magnifies areas and this feature makes it easier to use in some situations than my laptop.

5. Video, picture, and music use is an added bonus. I have to commute often and this allows me to leave other devices at home. I did not get the iPhone to listen to music, watch videos, or show family pictures to friends, but enjoy doing so. This was not something I wanted to do, but the phone is changing my behavior by showing me new abilities.

Now we must all learn good iPhone etiquette to avoid boring our friends with vacation pictures or videos in even more places!

My son brought home a toy from McDonald's yesterday. It's a little plastic singer named "Hippie Harmony" that plays a 6-note tune whenever you lift her "microphone arm."

Every note that warbles from the cheap speaker in the back of her head is now stuck in my head.

We all know what it's like to be unable to stop humming a catchy tune. But as we hum, it's not usually the whole tune. The only part stuck in our mouth and reeling us in is the hook.

Hippie Harmony's song is only a hook.

Of course, the toy's tune is not a good pop song, because it's just 2 seconds long, but it gets its message across. I'm humming it.

Sometimes our writing, preaching, marketing, or any kind of important content-creation should be like a well-crafted pop song: 97% forgettable context making the 3% that is a hook even more memorable.

Other times, the content should be all hook, 100%. Like Hippie Harmony, we should sing it, say it, or write it--and then be done. Sit down.

Either way, we need a hook--a point. Then, whatever we write or say beyond that should serve readers by enhancing that point.

Because, after all, the point is...the point. We're not. Good writers, preachers, marketers, etc. get out of the way of their message.

Hippie Harmony will be in the garbage soon. That is to say, if she had an RSS feed, I wouldn't subscribe. Still, no matter what municipal dump she ends up in, her effect--small as it may be--is staying right here in my mind.

As she gets trucked away, I'll be humming her tune.

To most people, our articles, blogs, sermons, and sales pitches are like low-grade plastic doohickeys: Hopefully, we're not a nuisance to have around--in fact, we might be somewhat helpful or convicting or amusing. But when it comes down to it, we're simply not that important in and of ourselves.

But we keep writing, blogging, preaching, and selling!

It's not that surprising, I suppose--we have messages that really matter to us. We can't shut up--we're too excited about what we have to say.

This is exactly how it should be. The message of what we write or say is what will make our contribution to the blogosphere or church service matter to people.

Any time we're creating content that we think is important we should constantly think, how can I cast my hook so it lodges most securely (and helpfully) in my readers' minds. Sometimes it will be amid a lengthy article with all kinds of supporting text. And other times, like this McDonald's Happy Meal toy, we'll just sing our 6 notes and be quiet.

Either way, the goal is never to make ourselves more valuable to more people, but to leave behind a message that will serve an audience who may very well have already forgotten who we are. If our content is important and we heed our hook, people will still be humming our songs long after you and I have gone the way of Hippie Harmony.

[Note: I'm at GodBlogCon thru the weekend so normal posting will resume on Monday.]

Why is Dan Rather not considered one of the wisest men in America?

Perhaps I should substitute intelligent or knowledgeable for wisest, though I suspect the reaction would be the same. The question appears random, even absurd. But consider: Last year Rather ended a 56 year career as a reporter and broadcaster. His career spanned from the assassination of JFK to the Iraq conflict. He covered eight U.S. presidents and hundreds of global leaders. He witnessed hundreds of conflicts, from Cold War battles abroad to Civil Rights struggles a home. A conservative estimate would be that he spent roughly 75,000 hours reporting, researching, or reading about current events.

So if that level of intimacy with the news does not make Rather notably more wise, intelligent, or knowledgeable, then what exactly is the benefit? And what do we expect to gain by spending an hour or two a day keeping up with the latest headlines?

Tell people that you rarely read blogs, listen to talk radio, or watch reality TV and they will make no general assumptions about your lack of intellect. Tell people you never watch TV news, rarely listen to radio news broadcasts, and only read newspapers on Sundays and the reaction will be markedly different. They will automatically peg you as a person who is ill-informed, out-of-touch, and possibly even anti-intellectual. The same people who would dismiss the notion that Dan Rather is an cosmopolitan intellect, will automatically assume that their forms of entertainment make them wiser, smarter, or at least better informed than you.

Why do so many people buy into the ridiculous notion that a daily diet of current events is anything other than a mindless (though perhaps harmless) form of amusement? Even ardent news-hounds will admit that the bulk of daily "news" is nothing more than trivia or gossip. How much of what happens every day truly is all that important? How many of us have ever even stopped to ask why we have daily news?

As University of Florida history professor C. John Sommerville notes in his excellent book, How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Age:

For several weeks CNN has been hyping their upcoming miniseries God's Warriors as an "unprecedented six-hour television event." The series, which begun last night, dedicates two hours each to "God's Jewish Warriors", "God's Muslim Warriors", and "God's Christian Warriors." Prior to the first airing, CNN invited several bloggers to preview a few clips from the series and to submit a question for their chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour to be answered during a special webcast.

The three clips provided by CNN each highlighted one of the "fundamentalist" branches of the three Abrahamic faiths:

• God's Jewish Warriors: theocratic Israeli settlers, including the man who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin
• God's Muslim Warriors: theocratic British students, including the London subway bombers
• God's Christian Warriors: Jerry Falwell and Liberty University

(Can you guess what CNN thinks that these three groups have in common?)

I asked Amanpour if the juxtaposition could be viewed as guilt by association, equating Falwell with religious fanatics who are driven to murder. Her response:

Why is Dan Rather not considered one of the wisest men in America?

Perhaps I should substitute “intelligent” or “knowledgeable” for “wisest”, though I suspect the reaction would be the same. The question appears random, even absurd. But consider: Last week Rather announced he was leaving CBS News, ending a 56 year career as a reporter and broadcaster. His career spanned from the assassination of JFK to the Iraq conflict. He covered eight U.S. presidents and hundreds of global leaders. He witnessed hundreds of conflicts, from Cold War battles abroad to Civil Rights struggles a home. A conservative estimate would be that he spent roughly 75,000 hours reporting, researching, or reading about current events.

So if that level of intimacy with the news does not make Rather notably more wise, intelligent, or knowledgeable, then what exactly is the benefit? And what do we expect to gain by spending an hour or two a day keeping up with the latest headlines?

Tell people that you rarely read blogs, listen to talk radio, or watch reality TV and they will make no general assumptions about your lack of intellect. Tell people you never watch TV news (“I prefer reruns of Seinfeld.”), rarely listen to radio news broadcasts (“I’m usually listening to an audiobooks instead…”), and only read newspapers on Sundays (“…mainly for the comics and book reviews…”) and the reaction will be quite different. They will automatically peg you as a person who is ill-informed, out-of-touch, and possibly even anti-intellectual. The same people who would dismiss the notion that Dan Rather is an cosmopolitan intellect, will automatically assume that their forms of entertainment make them wiser, smarter, or at least “better informed” than you.

Why do so many people buy into the ridiculous notion that a daily diet of “current events’ is anything other than a mindless (though perhaps harmless) form of amusement? Even ardent news-hounds will admit that the bulk of daily “news” is nothing more than trivia or gossip. How much of what happens every day truly is all that important? How many of us have ever even stopped to ask why we have daily news?

As University of Florida history professor C. John Sommerville notes in his excellent book, How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Age:

[Note: This post, the first in an occasional series on popular cultural trends, examines the use of sexual imagery in advertising. While it contains no overtly explicit material, some readers might find the subject matter offensive.]

Times are tough for advertising executives. The old rules haven’t changed but applying them in creative ways has become exceedingly more difficult. Take, for example, the old truism that “sex sells.” How do you apply that axiom in a culture that is literally saturated in sexual imagery? When sex is the background noise, it is nearly impossible to use it to be heard. Even pushing the boundaries has become a futile exercise when what was once taboo has become banal, passé, and trite.

“Advertisers have gone too far,” says culture critic Chuck Klosterman, “and I don’t mean too far as in “too extreme” or “too sexual” or “too dangerous.” What I mean is that they have taken their logic too far.

Advertisers are no longer selling an idealized version of existence; they are actually trying to sell a lifestyle that consumers haven’t even considered as a remote possibility. Suggesting that drinking a certain kind of vodka will increase a person’s likelihood of having sex with two women simultaneously is almost like suggesting that drinking a certain kind of gin will make him invisible. It’s more than just implausible; it’s basically inconceivable.

Inconceivable though it may be, there has been a marked trend in advertising that attempts to use the allure of multiple sexual partners to sell products. Polyamoury has become a recurring them in print and media advertising. Having reached the limits (for now) of exposed flesh in sexual imagery, advertisers are forced to stretch the laws of logic by increasing the number of sexual partners. The following photos are representative of the trend that can be found on billboards, in magazines, and even on the sides of public busses. While the sample size is small (12 ads for 3 products), it should be sufficient to draw your attention to the trend. Once you see the pattern, you'll begin to notice just how prevalent it has become.

[Note: This is post #5 in the Blogiversary II series.]

Now that the two media behemoths Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcasting own every FCC license in the Western Hemisphere, commercial radio has consolidated into one monolithic blanket of banality. Even those of us who are fortunate enough to live in a major radio market (I live in Dallas/Ft.Worth) have few real choices on our radio dials.*

Pop and country stations used to play the “top 40” but now they repeat the same singles over and over throughout the day. No matter when I tune in I know I'll hear about Usher’s confessions or how Toby Keith loves his bar. The music from both genres has become so monotonous that I’m starting to get them mixed up in my head. Just the other day I imagined that Nelly and Tim McGraw were singing a duet.

There is also the “alternative” station in town which has a heavy rotation of Nickelback and Green Day. Apparently, the term “alternative” is loosely defined as to mean any alternative to Usher and Toby Keith. We do have a true alternative at the university, but like every campus radio station the signal can’t reach past the beer-soaked lawns on fraternity row.

We also have an “urban” channel that plays hardcore rap in case you need a soundtrack for a drive-by shooting and a “smooth jazz” station that will make you want to reach for your gat and bust a cap in somebody. There is one exceptional “classic soul” channel that is worthy of praise. Unfortunately, during the morning drive-time the music is replaced by Tom Joyner and company giggling for five seconds before going to the next commercial. And of course you have the requisite “Christian” station playing sugary music so vapid and mawkish that the playlist must be programmed by Satan himself.

Fortunately, I still have another option available. There’s a place on my radio dial that I can turn to hear news, current events, intelligent conversation, and the latest on politics and culture; an oasis amidst the desert of the airwaves. And no, it’s not talk radio. It’s better. It’s NPR.

Here’s six reasons why National Public Radio beats talk radio:

How is it possible for a man whose opinion no one values to make a comment on a cable television show that no one watches and have it turn into a topic that no one can stop talking about? Because we have all become insatiable consumers of the media and when there is no news to report, the new product must be, as late historian Daniel Boorstin explained, created:

Then came round-the-clock media. The news gap soon became so narrow that in order to have additional "news" for each new edition or each new broadcast it was necessary to plan in advance the stages by which any available news would be unveiled. After the weekly and the daily came the "extras" and the numerous regular editions. The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin soon had seven editions a day. No rest for the newsman. With more space to fill, he had to fill it ever more quickly. In order to justify the numerous editions, it was increasingly necessary that the news constantly change or at least seem to change. With radio on the air continuously during waking hours, the reporters' problems became still more acute. News every hour on the hour, and sometimes on the half hour. Programs interrupted any time for special bulletins. How to avoid deadly repetition, the appearance that nothing was happening, that news gatherers were asleep, or that competitors were more alert? As the costs of printing and then of broadcasting increased, it became financially necessary to keep the presses always at work and the TV screen always busy. Pressures toward the making of pseudo-events became ever stronger. News gathering turned into news making.

If you find Boorstin’s observation rather banal and obvious, keep in mind that he wrote this statement in 1961.

Over the past 44 years, the news cycle has accelerated to a breakneck speed. Not only do we have 24-hour news channels but we have Google News, RSS feeds, and blogs to provide us with up to the minute coverage of the most trivial non-events. Take, for example, Pat Robertson’s comment which was reported by CNN on Wednesday, August 24 at 1:34 a.m. EDT.

Robert from brightMystery posted a link to the story at 8:19 a.m. on Thursday and was disappointed that at 11:43 a.m. – three and half hour later – he was unable to find “links to statements by prominent evangelicals denouncing these remarks.”*

Last Wednesday the Boston Globe ran a story about a seasonal hunt for baby seals off Newfoundland, Canada. The article described in graphic detail how the seal hunt began on Tuesday, with water turning red as hunters on some 300 boats shot harp seal cubs "by the hundreds." Canadians complained to the Globe that the story contained a significant error: the hunt never happened. Inclement weather had caused the event to be postponed for later in the week; two days after the story ran in the paper.

The seal hunt is the latest case of reporter taking poetic license by adding details that are “fake, but accurate.” One of the most egregious examples is the Slate article which described a "monkeyfishing" excursion in the Florida Keys. The expedition supposedly involved taking a boat to an island occupied by monkeys and casting for them like fish, using fruit for bait. Editors at Slate initially stood by the story until they realized that they too had been duped by a journalist eager to craft an interesting tale.

Slate and the Boston Globe aren’t the only ones with red-faced editors. Several other journalists, as Michelle Malkin notes, have been caught “monkeyfishing.” But not everyone believes this leads to a crisis of credibility. Kevin T. Keith claims, for example, that Malkin’s list is rather paltry:

15 examples - a good number of which are meaningless - from 10 major newspapers, broadcast networks, and wire services, over 25 years. Sounds to me like the “biased, old-model mainstream media” are doing pretty well.

So is the mainstream media’s credibility cup half-full or half-empty? The answer lies not with the media but with the individual news “consumer.” As Richard Whatley, an Oxford scholar and Anglican Archbishop of Dublin, wrote in 1819:

Constantly in search of a sensational story, the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst once sent a telegram to a leading astronomer that read: "Is there life on Mars? Please cable 1000 words." The scientist responded "Nobody knows" -- repeated 500 times.

Most days we bloggers are like Hearst, always looking for material to fill empty space (and often we are like the astronomer, repeating what we have to say to the point of absurdity). Today, for example, I spent several hours reading about Ward Churchill’s gaffe, Dan Rather’s retirement, Michael Jackson’s trial and other “news” of absolutely no consequence. Instead of adding to the cacophony I’ve decided to repost a previous article I wrote as a reminder (mostly for myself) of how “dailiness” can become a disease.

“I have a confession,” wrote law professor Steve Bainbridge a few months ago, “I support President Bush, but I don't especially like him.” Steve, a first-rate thinker and one of my favorite bloggers, listed as one of his reasons for his disklike Bush’s “smug anti-intellectualism.” “How can you be proud of not reading the newspaper?” Steve asked.

Well, I have a confession too. I don’t read newspapers either. And like Bush, I’m rather proud of that fact.

It’s not just newspapers, though. I never watch TV news (I prefer reruns of Seinfeld), rarely listen to radio news broadcasts (I’m usually listening to an audiobook), and only read newspapers on Sundays (mainly for the comics and book reviews). Though my buddy Steve may think it’s a form of anti-intellectualism, I think it’s just the opposite. In my opinion, the “news” makes us dumb.

After reading Hugh Hewitt’s announcement for the first GodBlogCon ("Let the news ring out throughout the Christian Blogosphere! The first ever Christian Blogosphere Convention is on."), media critic and blogger Jeff Jarvis wrote:

Well, I am a Christian. But I don't think I'll go. I'm a Howard-Stern-loving, gay-marriage-backing, prochoice, Clinton-voting, separation-of-church-and-state, cabernet-guzzling Christian. Something tells me that I'd fit in there about as well as I apparently would at the Kos Konvention.

If the differences were theological, I could better understand why Jarvis feels he wouldn’t fit in. But as is clearly noted, the convention is open to all Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic bloggers who adhere to historical biblical faith and Christian creeds and is “not centered in one brand of politics of political party.” While I personally don’t understand how a person resolves being “Howard-Stern-loving, gay-marriage-backing, [and] prochoice” with being a Christian, the convention is not about policy disagreements. It’s about community.

Disagreements on deeply held political matters are trivial compared to what we share – or at least what we should share -- in common. And whether a Christian is a teetotaler or a cabernet-guzzler is of absolutely no importance. What does matter is that we share a common Master: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples,” said Christ, “if you have love for one another."

Perhaps Jarvis would feel more at home at a convention of wine bloggers or Howard Stern blogfans. There is, of course, nothing wrong with wanting to spend time with people you share a common interest. But if he doesn’t feel that he would fit in with his fellow Christians here on earth, what will he do when he has to share space with us in heaven? After all, eternity is a long time to spend around James-Dobson-loving, gay-marriage-opposing, pro-life, Bush-voting, church-and-state-in-their-proper-sphere-advocating, merlot-sipping Christians.

Although I wrote a brief post on the Gannon/Guckert scandal soon after the story broke, I had no intention of commenting on it any further. But over the past weekend I’ve received dozens of emails asking why I have ignored this non-story. The responses come from “Christians” who are outraged that a “gay hustler” was able to speak to the President of the United States and from liberals who feel that I am ignoring the greatest cover-up in Presidential history. While I’m flattered that these readers care so much about my opinion, I don’t share their view that this story is imporant.

But just because I think the Gannon scandal is not important does not mean that I think it is completely unworthy of attention. On the contrary, I believe that the precedents that are being set will have repercussions long after the names of Jeff Gannon/James Guckert are long forgotten. Many lefty bloggers, for instance, are sowing the seeds of their own destruction, allowing the public to see how they embrace bizarre conspiracy theories and how they gleefully destroy homosexuals who dare to disagree with the gay-rights agenda. By exposing themselves as lunatics and homophobes, though, they are making it easier for the MSM to dismiss all bloggers as untrustworthy. This should be a concern for everyone who is concered about the future of this medium.

Because that damage is still being done, analyzing that angle will have to wait for a future post. And while I don't have anything particularly noteworthy to say about the Gannon scandal, I will share my thoughts for those who asked:

Unless you stray into the left wing side of the blogosphere, you probably haven’t heard the strange story of Talon News reporter Jeff Gannon. (Salon.com has a good rundown on the semi-sordid details.) I’ll leave it to the lefties to bash Gannon for possibly being the owner of some gay p*rn websites. And I won’t bother to point out the irony in how people are bashing Talon for being a “fake news” service while every politician in America makes a mandatory appearance on a “fake news” cable TV show.

The biggest surprise provided by the release of the RatherGate report was not what was found in the investigation's findings but with the muted reaction within the blogosphere. Is the 234 page report simply more than most bloggers are willing to tackle? Is the apathy due to post-election fatigue? Or is that many bloggers simply didn’t know what they wanted from the report?

One blogger who certainly did know what he wanted to hear was Hugh Hewitt, who expected a resolution of what he considers the “central question”: whether a political agenda played any role in the airing of the Segment. And the answer? “The Panel does not find a basis to accuse those who investigated, produced, vetted or aired the Segment of having a political bias.” Hugh responds:

CBS got what it wanted --a slap on the wrist, an apparent wrap-up with the dismissal of some underlings. The culture of undisclosed bias gets a pass, and the obvious corruption of the "news" process in the service of the Democratic Party is classified as "unknowable" because Dan Rather and Mary Mapes said they weren't partisans? What a joke, as transparent a whitewash as the documents were forgeries.

Although we didn’t need a former attorney general to tell us that there was a political bias guiding the process, such an admission might have helped salvage the credibility of CBS News. Instead, the report provided an even more disturbing question: How do we know this hasn’t happened before?

The Panel gives us reason to wonder whether this was an aberration or evidence of larger credibility problems within the network’s news department:

Earlier this week a photojournalist from the Associated Press took a series of pictures in which “three pistol-wielding gunmen” executed several election workers on a busy street in Baghdad:

In the dramatic photo sequence one of the captives is shown lying prone on the pavement, while the another one seems to be kneeling as the armed men approach, casually carrying their handguns or aiming them at the men.

Both of the victims shown in the sequence wore the traditional Arab headscarfs. In contrast, the attackers were bareheaded and apparently unafraid to show their faces.

Pseudonymous blogger “Wretchard” of The Belmont Club ponders the possibility that the reporter may have had advance knowledge of the attack:

In 1856, murmurs of rebellion against the French colonial rule began to spread throughout Algeria. A group of Muslim holy men known as marabouts were able to stir dissent and gain prominence by convincing the local populations that they possessed supernatural powers. The amazing feats of these “god-like” men allowed them to gain considerable influence, which the religious faction planned to use to overthrow their European rulers.

Realizing that something must be done but not wanting to commit more of his exhausted troops to the North African colony, Napoleon III and his Arab Bureau conceived a quirky plan involving “The Father of Modern Magic”, Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin. The conjurer was called out of retirement and sent to Algeria to provide a command performance before a gathering of superstitious Arab chieftains. Setting up in a theater in the capital city of Algiers, the French magician performed astounding stunts – catching a bullet being fired by an audience member, making a young Arab disappear, and with the ingenious use of an electromagnet, stripping the strength of a muscular man who was unable to lift a metal box.

The crowds, certain that they were in the presence of Satan, grew fearful of the French sorcerer. But then Robert-Houdin broke the magician’s cardinal rule: he sent out translators to explain how the tricks were done. The stunned Arabs realized that they had been duped, not only by the Frenchman but by the marabouts. The holy men lost credibility and the revolution was averted.

Throughout history cultural elites like the marabouts have been able to secure their influence by controlling knowledge that is not available to the “common man.” In America that influence has, at least for the past forty years, been wielded by the mainstream media. But the advent of the Internet -- and the blogosphere in particular -- has stripped away the façade that the media possesses specialized information that is unavailable to the masses.

Now that the two media behemoths Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcasting own every FCC license in the Western Hemisphere, commercial radio has consolidated into one monolithic blanket of banality . Even those of us who are fortunate enough to live in a major radio market (I live in Dallas/Ft.Worth) have few real choices on our radio dials.

Pop and country stations used to play the “top 40” but now they repeat the same singles over and over throughout the day. No matter when I tune in I know I'll hear about Usher’s confessions or how Toby Keith loves his bar. The music from both genres has become so monotonous that I’m starting to get them mixed up in my head. Just the other day I imagined that Nelly and Tim McGraw were singing a duet.

There is also the “alternative” station in town which has a heavy rotation of Nickelback and Green Day. Apparently, the term “alternative” is loosely defined as to mean any alternative to Usher and Toby Keith. We do have a true alternative at the university, but like every campus radio station the signal can’t reach past the beer-soaked lawns on fraternity row.

We also have an “urban” channel that plays hardcore rap in case you need a soundtrack for a drive-by shooting and a “smooth jazz” station that will make you want to reach for your gat and bust a cap in somebody. There is one exceptional “classic soul” channel that is worthy of praise. Unfortunately, during the morning drive-time the music is replaced by Tom Joyner and company giggling for five seconds before going to the next commercial. And of course you have the requisite “Christian” station playing sugary music so vapid and mawkish that the playlist must be programmed by Satan himself.

Fortunately, I still have another option available. There’s a place on my radio dial that I can turn to hear news, current events, intelligent conversation, and the latest on politics and culture; an oasis amidst the desert of the airwaves. And no, it’s not talk radio. It’s better. It’s NPR.

Here’s six reasons why National Public Radio beats talk radio:

When I was a younger I used to love hanging around the barracks watching cheesy war movies with my fellow Marines. We would cringe and howl at seeing actors with sideburns and hair down to their collar pretend they were part of our beloved Corps. The lower the movie's budget the lower our expectations became. The sloppy salutes, the wrong uniforms, the use of Army terminology would have us rolling our eyes, wondering how Hollywood could be so clueless. Couldn’t the producers just find a Marine and ask them how someone in the Corps would talk, dress, and act?

Nowadays I get a similar feeling when the media talks about evangelicals. Apparently, the religious species Americanus evangelicus is a rare and elusive bird. How else can we explain that no one in the media has ever actually seen one?

Take, for example, one of my favorite liberal whipping-boys, Timothy Noah of Slate.com. In his latest column he explains to the educated masses, “Why you can't call them "the Christian right”:

Josh Micah Marshall finally breaks a Big Story. After reading after reading the following entry in an article on the Fox News website he asks “Is Fox News literally making stuff up out of whole cloth about John Kerry?”:

Rallying supporters in Tampa Friday, Kerry played up his performance in Thursday night's debate, in which many observers agreed the Massachusetts senator outperformed the president.
"Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!" Kerry said Friday.

With the foreign-policy debate in the history books, Kerry hopes to keep the pressure on and the sense of traction going.

Aides say he will step up attacks on the president in the next few days, and pivot somewhat to the domestic agenda, with a focus on women and abortion rights.

"It's about the Supreme Court. Women should like me! I do manicures," Kerry said.

Kerry still trails in actual horse-race polls, but aides say his performance was strong enough to rally his base and further appeal to voters ready for a change.

"I'm metrosexual — he's a cowboy," the Democratic candidate said of himself and his opponent.

A "metrosexual" is defined as an urbane male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle.

I give Marshall his due credit for catching that one. There's nothing in that story that would have made me think for a second that it wasn’t true. Fox News apologized, though, and claimed that “the item was based on a reporter’s partial script that had been written in jest and should not have been posted or broadcast.” What they should have said was that this is a case of a "thick partisan fogging machine [that] seeks to cloud the core truth of our story by raising questions about the messenger, methods and techniques." After all, the documents may be false but it doesn't change the core truth -- that John Kerry's a metrosexual.*

(Hat tip: Tgirsh from Lean Left)

*That reminds me of a question I’ve been wondering about. How did Kerry’s tan wash off fade in time for the debate?

One story is about Bush; the other about Kerry. One was broken by New Media maverick Matt Drudge; the other by a venerable wire service, the Associated Press. Both stories have garnered widespread attention; neither is of any substantive importance. But while the stories don’t tell us anything about the candidates involved, they do reveal the differences between the mainstream press and the new forms of media.

Dan Rather must be a glutton for punishment.

Not two week after Rathergate, his news department puts out another story based upon phony documents and sources with hidden agendas. This time he falls for the nonsense about the reinstatement of the draft (click for video):

“It's no secret: The all- volunteer U.S. Military, especially the Army, Marines and many reserve units, are stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Rather in the opening of the segment. “So what about bringing back the draft?”

The story mentions the draft scare emails that have been circulating but never mentions that they’ve been debunked as hoaxes. CBS reporter Richard Schlesinger also uses Beverly Cocco for the centerpiece of the story. Cocco is a Philadelphia woman who says she is "sick to my stomach" that her two college age sons might be drafted.

Looking to end recurring speculation that their partnership is on the rocks, executives from CBS News and the Democratic National Committee said the two organizations remain committed to CBS-DNC, the news channel they launched for the election of 2004.

"It's just not true," Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News, said of the rumors that the joint venture is in trouble. Joe Lockhart, a top aide to John Kerry, added that "the state of the relationship is very healthy, and from the DNC side we're pleased with the way things are going."

The two executives, who seldom speak publicly about the partnership, said they felt the need to because the rumors were hurting morale at CBS-DNC.

The doubts over the DNC’s commitment to CBS first heated up three days ago when John Kerry questioned the wisdom of getting involved in the network news business. After a speech in New York, Sen. Kerry said if the company could make the decision to partner with Dan Rather again, "I think we should have stuck with Chris Matthews."

(With apologies to Joe Flint and The Wall Street Journal.)

So you think your know the Killian memo controversy. You followed Powerline’s post before it was picked up by Drudge. You viewed LGF’s recreation of the memo in MS Word and followed Kos’ attempt to discredit the match. You know the arguments over the superscript, the kerning, the proportional spacing. You now know more about 70’s era Selectric typewriters than you do about your own computer. You follow Hugh and Glenn for the latest updates; you’ve bookmarked RatherGate. You think you know just about everything there is to know about this story, don’t you?

But do you know what the memo actually says?

Of course, you know what it’s about. You might have even read it once, though you likely can't recall any of the actual content. If pressed you could give a vague summary that is based more on what you have read from other people than from the actual copy of the memo itself. But for all the controversy, intrigue, and interest, you probably don’t really even know what the memo says, do you?

No. But that’s okay. Because the memo isn’t about the message. The memo is the message.

Dan Rather and CBS News have doggedly refused to reveal their sources for the memos that are increasingly suspected to be forgeries. In a recent statement they claim that they are “not prepared to reveal its confidential sources or the method by which 60 MINUTES Wednesday received the documents.”

Their statement is rather peculiar considering that they’ve all but left a trail of breadcrumbs to their source’s door. A review of the known facts makes it increasingly likely that at least one of the sources was Bill Burkett, the former National Guardsman who made the unsubstantiated charges that George Bush's National Guard files in Texas were "cleansed" back in 1997.

Here is why the evidence appears to lead back to Burkett:

"These are the forgeries of jealousy" cried Titania, the heroine of A Midsummer Night's Dream, echoing a sentiment that has been raging through the blogosphere. And just as Titania's spat with Oberon caused a change in the seasons, the uncovering of a potential forgery, also birthed by jealousy, could portend a change in the political season.

Eager to regain the momentum lost to the Swiftboat veterans, Dan Rather and CBS News allowed themselves to be duped into relying on what almost everyone concedes were forged documents.* In less than 24 hours Internet media sources (led mainly by bloggers) managed not only to raise the question of the memos authenticity but presented enough evidence that even the mainstream media could not ignore the story.

Naturally this controversy will soon die out with the churning of the news-cycle. But before it does I think it raises an important question that needs to be addressed: how many times has this type of thing happened and gone undiscovered?

“I have a confession,” wrote law professor Steve Bainbridge a few months ago, “I support President Bush, but I don't especially like him.” Steve, a first-rate thinker and one of my favorite bloggers, listed as one of his reasons for his disklike Bush’s “smug anti-intellectualism.” “How can you be proud of not reading the newspaper?” Steve asked.

Well, I have a confession too. I don’t read newspapers either. And like Bush, I’m rather proud of that fact.

It’s not just newspapers, though. I never watch TV news (I prefer reruns of Seinfeld), rarely listen to radio news broadcasts (I’m usually listening to an audiobook), and only read newspapers on Sundays (mainly for the comics and book reviews). Though my buddy Steve may think it’s a form of anti-intellectualism, I think it’s just the opposite. In my opinion, the “news” makes us dumb.

Last week King of Fools noted that, “It would seem the new standard in blogging success has been established: being invited as a guest on a radio program." If that’s the standard then the boys from the Northern Alliance have reached the penultimate level of success: they actually have their own radio program.*

The Northern Alliance Radio Network (NARN) is composed of various bloggers in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area: the blogosphere's favorite columnist James Lileks; the ridiculously smart thinkers from Power Line; the watchdogs of academia at SCSU Scholars; the eclectic duo from Spitbull; the rising star of political bloggers, Ed Morrissey from Captains Quarters; the clown princes of Minnesota at Fraters Libertas; and the NA ringleader, the multi-talented Mitch Berg from Shot in the Dark. Each of them were already succesful as bloggers; the addition of the radio show simply extends their alternative media micro-empire.

While the lists of hosts is impressive, the same can't always be said for the guests. This fact became rather obvious when the NA invited me to come on their show yesterday to discuss the Abu Ghraib scandal and women in the military. The four hosts this week, Mitch Berg from Shot in the Dark, Captain Ed from Captain’s Quarters, and Saint Paul and the Elder from Fraters Libertas, were all eerily smooth and professional. It was like having Bill Bennett, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, and Hugh Hewitt on one august all-star team.

Unfortunately, though, I wasn't quite as polished. Since I was to be the only guest for the entire last half hour, I spent several hours of research in preparation for the show. Sadly, none of this prepwork was evident in my delivery. In fact, at one point I became so nervous that I hyperventilated and fainted, dropping the phone and leaving me unable to speak for almost a full minute (fortunately this occurred during a commercial break so I don’t think anyone noticed).

The brutal execution of Nick Berg has raised the question of whether the media, particularly CBS News, is partially culpable for his death. Numerous critics, including Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly, believe the prison abuse story could have been covered without releasing the photos of the prisoners. Jonah Goldberg even goes so far as to claim, “The revelation of those humiliating pictures and the political opportunities they created lead to Berg's beheading.”

Although CBS News was the first to break the story and show the photos, the network made the surprising decision not to air the video of Berg’s death.* The official explanation given by corporate officials for not broadcasting the clip in its entirety was that it would violate FCC regulations against indecency. But this excuse rings hollow considering what CBS has shown in the past.

As RatherBiased points out, CBS News already has a precedent of showing such images. During the Vietnam War, the network aired graphic pictures of a U.S. allied South Vietnamese soldier shooting a Vietcong officer in the head. The report even included a play-by-play narration by one of its correspondents.

CBS News hesitancy to air the footage is also peculiar considering they would likely not have had the same qualms about videotaping the incident.

Yesterday, I pondered what Ted Rall would do for a follow-up to his smear job of Pat Tillman. I wondered if he would 'deny that the Holocaust ever happened."

Well, I was at least in the ballpark. Instead of denying the Holocaust, he merely hints that Americans soldiers are morally equivalent to Nazis. In his latest op-ed entitled 'Army of Scum (Or, We're Looking For a Few Good Homosexual Rapists)", Rall writes:

Now it's official: American troops occupying Iraq become virtually indistinguishable from the SS. Like the Germans during World War II, they cordon off and bomb civilian villages to retaliate for guerilla attacks on their convoys. Like the blackshirts who terrorized Europe, America's victims disappear into hellish prisons ruled by sadists and murderers. The U.S. military is short just one item to achieve moral parity with the Nazis: gas chambers.

I’ve heard about all I want to hear from this clown. From now on I refuse to support any publication that carries UExpress features until they drop Rall as an editorial cartoonist and columnist. Like Erick Erickson, I’ll start by boycotting Men’s Health.

While I would give my life defending Rall’s freedom to speak his mind, I won’t waste another second of my life supporting any publication that spreads his bile.

Last night the President was asked a series of questions from about 15 reporters. See if you can pick out the underlying theme:

“...some people are comparing Iraq to Vietnam and talking about a quagmire. Polls show that support for your policy is declining and that fewer than half Americans now support it. What does that say to you and how do you answer the Vietnam comparison?"

"How do you explain to Americans how you got that so wrong?"

"Two-and-a-half years later, do you feel any sense of personal responsibility for September 11th?"

"One of the biggest criticisms of you is that whether it's WMD in Iraq, postwar planning in Iraq, or even the question of whether this administration did enough to ward off 9/11, you never admit a mistake. Is that a fair criticism? And do you believe there were any errors in judgment that you made related to any of those topics I brought up?"

"Do you believe the American people deserve a similar apology from you, and would you be prepared to give them one?"

"Will [continuing the mission in Iraq] have been worth it, even if you lose your job because of it?"

"After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?"

"...with public support for your policies in Iraq falling off the way they have -- quite significantly over the past couple of months -- I guess I'd like to know if you feel in any way that you've failed as a communicator on this topic?"

"I guess I just wonder if you feel that you have failed in any way? You don't have many of these press conferences, where you engage in this kind of exchange. Have you failed in any way to really make the case to the American public?

We could brush this off as another example of liberal media bias. But I think it goes deeper than that. Ever since Watergate, the Washington media has been obsessed with the Woodward and Bernstein approach to Presidential coverage. You can't make a name for yourself by covering "great" leaders nor can you be assured that the President you cover is destined to fail. It becomes necessary, therefore, to do everything possible to ensure the President can at a minimum be perceived as a failure. You can't win a Pulitzer by "exposing" success. But failure means that someone is to blame and that a story lies buried, waiting for an intrepid reporter to uncover it.

The media, of course, cannot create failure. Fortunately for them, though, that's not required. As Vietnam showed, it isn't necessary for failure to be the reality, only the generally accepted perception. Once the perception takes hold of the public they will be willing to buy the media's "products" -- exposes, investigative reports, op-ed pieces. Journalists aren't evil, just ambitious. But by leaning their ladder of success against the wall of false perceptions they have failed us all. A Republic needs an honest and true press in order to ensure its survival. When the media forsakes its duty it puts our entire system of government in jeopardy.

What the media fails to realize is that they are the ones, not Bush, who are failing us. They are the ones who need to apologize for such biased and shoddy work. They are the ones, not the President, who have become the "miserable failure."