Thursday, June 16, 2011

The Shallow & The Trivial:
Bylines & Paper Stock

Weren't paying too much attention, but as far as we could determine, all (certainly most) of Tweety Matthews' Hardball program today was devoted to Anthony Weiner's resignation. Couldn't the resignation simply have been noted, w/o rehashing & recapping the whole stupid & clichéd mess?

But what can one expect from Chris Matthews? Look over this "What I Read" thing. Conventional (& incestuous: "My favorite conservative is Peggy Noonan. We have similar Irish Catholic backgrounds and I like the way she thinks.") wisdom is a gross understatement.

And he can't work the Internet, either:
Throughout the day, I'm on the phone with my producers. I get piles of stuff taken from web sites.
The only conclusion we can draw from this is that he has a fax machine in his house & the "producers" send him what they want him to see. (Does he think the fax is some sort of magic box, we wonder?)

No mention of the allegedly-still-driving Media Villagers Drudge Report, although he's not specific as to what's in the piles of stuff he gets. (Would it have been too much trouble to ask what the hell's in that pile, lazy reporter?)

We didn't even know there was a hard copy of Politico, but
I go to Politico next and I get it in hard copy. It comes in a very crisp paper stock that I like. I'll read the stories through the jumps, scan for bylines and find topics for Hardball.
Really, he reads them all the way through, past the "jumps" & everything. While looking for bylines, because that's what's important. "Have I shared a cocktail weenie w/ this person at a glamorous Washington function?" Also important: Paper stock that he likes.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's evolution in action:

1. News was printed in newspapers and written/researched by reporters. No personalities except for byline columns.

which led to...

2. News was done on TV. The newsreader (as they are called in England) reads copy written by the reporter. The newsreader had to be attractive enough so you won't change channels.

which led to...

3. Newsreaders "helping" with the stories by adding dramatic words, etc. Good for ratings.

which led to...

4. Newsreaders writing their own copy, often after getting a lot of basic material assembled by their own personal "staff" (the people that used to be responsible for picking out their wardrobe wanted to do more). The staff often had zero journalistic experience, but what was written was good for ratings.

which led to...

5. Newsreaders with their own shows just making up stuff (the Jazz age of News). They still pretend to be Reporters because there is no one to compare themselves to (the old paper-reports have all died or gone into teaching).

which will lead to...

6. Reality-TV News. You select an "average" family and make them NewsReaders and give them a news spot. We follow their wacky adventures digging for stories, asking questions of politicians, and boldly seeking the Truth (brought to you by Goldman Sacs, Big Oil, etc).

Sigh....

Hunger Tallest Palin (or whatever handle I posted under the last time) said...

Jesus, that was almost as sad as Palin's "All of 'em!" Almost.

And yes, Politico distributes hard copy here in D.C.

The last time I bothered to pick one up it was about 80% full page/color advertisements from megacorporations telling you how great and benign and not at all bad for the planet they are, 15% "Waaah, Liberals SUCK!" and 5% ads for employment in the lobbying/congressional (but I repeat myself) sectors.

Should the advert/copy space ratio shift continues at its current pace, we're two years away from 99.8% corporate ads, 01% want ads and .01% caricature of a generic liberal pol selling generic reaLAMErican grandma to a death panel.

And Tweets will still expect a pat on the head for reading it.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

5% ads for employment in the lobbying/congressional (but I repeat myself) sectors.

Oh, yes, the hooker ads, just like the back pages of The Village Voice.