THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.
PERMALINKS:
THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY
THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY
AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!
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Saturday, February 05, 2011
Another news hack thing we can do without is misleading subheds. Grate.com (which is very good at the misleading never mind the subheds) gives us this:
The Other Woman requires the Oscar-contender to portray a complex character. Ha!
And DANA, who could comfortably lounge with The Gang of 27, only meekly says what sub-hed says; one guesses if she'd known about the subhed she might have spent her whole revue apologizing for it. This will happen, however, when Web sites are edited by raging partisans who don't give a damn about the back of the "book", or somehow seem to edit themselves.
The Other Woman requires the Oscar-contender to portray a complex character. Ha!
And DANA, who could comfortably lounge with The Gang of 27, only meekly says what sub-hed says; one guesses if she'd known about the subhed she might have spent her whole revue apologizing for it. This will happen, however, when Web sites are edited by raging partisans who don't give a damn about the back of the "book", or somehow seem to edit themselves.
ARCHDaily!
I don't care how many billions you spend on a parking garage -- it's still a parking garage!
Dear Dear design (SIC), what is with you starchitects and $50 million shoe stores?
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3...uh Bangalore, we have a problem.
I don't care how many billions you spend on a parking garage -- it's still a parking garage!
Dear Dear design (SIC), what is with you starchitects and $50 million shoe stores?
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3...uh Bangalore, we have a problem.
We would like to create a list of Stories News Hacks Should Not Run. These are stories that most news hacks are expected to run, that they know cause heartburn and exasperation among their readers, that they run anyway because it gives them that feeling of power over mere people. We must believe, however, that a few intelligent and conscientious people in the news biz (there are such people -- aren't there?) know what this constant empty-calorie diet is doing to their readership, and their reputations, and their finances, and that they could find enough serious news to easily fill in the hole left by this reportorial turkey stuffing. Some of these topics we've discussed way too often before, but at least now we know where to put them. To wit:
1. Any story on fluke private tragedies, except insofar as exposure might help those victimized by said tragedies.
2. Any story on the ENORMOUS INFLUENCE of ED MURROW, or ERIC SEVAREID, or PILLHEAD.
3. Any story that acts as a proxy for an ad campaign.
4. Any think piece on FACEBOOK or TWITTER. Such pieces tend to be long-winded buncombe.
5. Any show-biz piece involving "SNARK." Such pieces are either hidden compliments or sales pitches.
6. Anything that tries to turn an act of meaningless business incompetence into rocket science (i.e., the fight over RED SKELTON or the GAP logo fiasco).
7. Puff pieces for CEOs.
8. Any article that attempts to find a higher meaning in SLIME.
9. Any article that justifies our favorite movees by discerning their public service, or by creating bogus trends, or by stoking controversies that would otherwise not exist.
10. Any story on HUFF 'n' PUFF or NICK DORKEN as such stories will never be honest or accurate about their finances, or else will parrot their party lines.
11. MIRACLE stories about the latest "miracles" in education or science, which tend to be debunked a year or two later.
12. Any story that relies on statistics that news hacks can easily misinterpret (mostly involving the economy).
13. Any stories on the Os-CARS® or the SUPER BOWL® before the fact, except for those extremely rare instances of legitimate news.
14. Any article that unwittingly gives the Wall Street Casino's captains superhuman powers (i.e., any story involving LLOYD BLANKFEIN).
15. Anniversary stories, as such stories are like clockwork and tend to be polite or obfuscatory (see TOMORROW).
We will continue updating as annoyances warrant.
1. Any story on fluke private tragedies, except insofar as exposure might help those victimized by said tragedies.
2. Any story on the ENORMOUS INFLUENCE of ED MURROW, or ERIC SEVAREID, or PILLHEAD.
3. Any story that acts as a proxy for an ad campaign.
4. Any think piece on FACEBOOK or TWITTER. Such pieces tend to be long-winded buncombe.
5. Any show-biz piece involving "SNARK." Such pieces are either hidden compliments or sales pitches.
6. Anything that tries to turn an act of meaningless business incompetence into rocket science (i.e., the fight over RED SKELTON or the GAP logo fiasco).
7. Puff pieces for CEOs.
8. Any article that attempts to find a higher meaning in SLIME.
9. Any article that justifies our favorite movees by discerning their public service, or by creating bogus trends, or by stoking controversies that would otherwise not exist.
10. Any story on HUFF 'n' PUFF or NICK DORKEN as such stories will never be honest or accurate about their finances, or else will parrot their party lines.
11. MIRACLE stories about the latest "miracles" in education or science, which tend to be debunked a year or two later.
12. Any story that relies on statistics that news hacks can easily misinterpret (mostly involving the economy).
13. Any stories on the Os-CARS® or the SUPER BOWL® before the fact, except for those extremely rare instances of legitimate news.
14. Any article that unwittingly gives the Wall Street Casino's captains superhuman powers (i.e., any story involving LLOYD BLANKFEIN).
15. Anniversary stories, as such stories are like clockwork and tend to be polite or obfuscatory (see TOMORROW).
We will continue updating as annoyances warrant.
Friday, February 04, 2011
The arrival of big names can also detract from the story itself. Not only do they become potential targets by protesters, their mere presence can shift the tone of coverage from what the events in Egypt mean to Egyptians and the rest of the world to how is the media responding to the violence or how is the unrest impacting the coverage.
Every reporter knows the feeling that when a story is breaking they should be there. Sometimes, though, that urge to rush in needs to be balanced with what is best for the story.
In my own half-baked way this is what I said yesterday.
Every reporter knows the feeling that when a story is breaking they should be there. Sometimes, though, that urge to rush in needs to be balanced with what is best for the story.
In my own half-baked way this is what I said yesterday.
Here payrolls are up much less than expected and the unemployment rate drops half a percentage point?
Feds, keep the jokes to yourselves.
News hacks today: "THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DROPPED TO NINE PERCENT IN JANUARY AS...."
YOU TOO.
P. S. We've created a MILLION NEW JOBS IN A YEAR! WOW!!!!!
Feds, keep the jokes to yourselves.
News hacks today: "THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DROPPED TO NINE PERCENT IN JANUARY AS...."
YOU TOO.
P. S. We've created a MILLION NEW JOBS IN A YEAR! WOW!!!!!
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Perhaps if news hacks spent more time reporting news they'd give us more on this embarrassment of AMERICA'S GREATEST STATE importing electricity from Mexico during a cold snap on the eve of THE CURE FOR CANCER.
And of course the more news hacks are part of the story the less they report on the story.
Well, the Grammies repeatedly honored Henry Mancini, so why not invite Mick Jagger?
P. S. Two days after the merger:
P. S. Two days after the merger:
May we ask why these BIG TEEVEE STARS must get so much face time from Egypt? What are they reporting about? A group with rocks fighting a group with Molotov cocktails. We really need reporters to accompany the visuals. For what? Needless injuries and deaths? Why is thirty people getting maimed reporting the same thing a badge of honor? With the big teevee stars the true purpose of such preening is to get bigger salaries. Real reporting is not pointing your finger at your bandages, nor Tweeting how brave you are. Of course Cable Nuisance Network doesn't know its fat fanny from a hole in the ground -- and thanks to the turnips it doesn't have to.
JPMorgan Was Complicit In Madoff Scam, Suit Alleges
Reverse the names and you have a good case of mutual backscratching.
Reverse the names and you have a good case of mutual backscratching.
ARCHDaily!
Don't go in there! You'll shrink to THREE INCHES HIGH!
"The Gown"? What would these starchitects have done to a BIKINI?
In the dark days of 1942, as the allied Merchant Marine came under heavy pressure from German U-boats, a new secret warship, the S. S. Firminy, set sail from....
Oh, it's a "classic"? So's Plan 9 from Outer Space. At least you can laugh at that.
This is the visual equivalent of SERIALISM.
Don't go in there! You'll shrink to THREE INCHES HIGH!
"The Gown"? What would these starchitects have done to a BIKINI?
In the dark days of 1942, as the allied Merchant Marine came under heavy pressure from German U-boats, a new secret warship, the S. S. Firminy, set sail from....
Oh, it's a "classic"? So's Plan 9 from Outer Space. At least you can laugh at that.
This is the visual equivalent of SERIALISM.
From Commentarymagazine.com's home page:
We understand him quite well, thank you.
We understand him quite well, thank you.
The document was issued by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, an independent, and the panel's senior Republican Senator Susan Collins.
Yep, Fort Hood, sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....
Yep, Fort Hood, sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....
We will give CONCAST the benefit of the doubt and say this stunt is well-meaning, but you can't strangle your customers' checkbooks by being well-meaning.
Rarely, very rarely, SUPERADAM!!!!!'s empire seems to whirr and buzz and spark out of its bog of CW and show-biz PR and into life, like Dr. Frankenstein's monster after the first zap of electricity. His site contains two necessary and utterly dispiriting stories, the first on the hellhole for young criminals at Rikers Island, the second on the pornographic culture of teenagers. A nation that pays "investment bankers" zillions almost deserves such depravity, and even our kingdom of gods cannot be spared the judgment of God.
Now if only SUPERADAM!!!!! would keep his creation out of the bog we would cease with the sarcastic nickname.
Now if only SUPERADAM!!!!! would keep his creation out of the bog we would cease with the sarcastic nickname.
Can you name a living classical composer? Or a living painter, or sculptor? Or a living playwright? Or a living writer who writes serious books? We used to have these things. We think of this after the death of the serial composer (!) Milton Babbitt, best known to the public (if he is known at all) as a teacher of HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM. While some composers are unjustly neglected one test of whether they will live is if they live with the people, and Babbitt will not live because he wrote experiments. (We've seen pictures of him posing before computers -- how apt.) There are too many reasons we don't have living composers, but the ultimate reason is from within: the creative types who should lead us can't because they have no inspiration, and without inspiration there is no art, cri-TICS to the frequent contrary. And serialism was a perfect excuse to submerge inspiration with mere technique, a barren, sterile technique, and it helped turn our concert halls into elderhostels.
Like Elliott Carter (still going strong at 102), Babbitt composed music that was as notable for its intellectual BRILLIANCE as for its lack of acceptance by mainstream audiences. (BRILLIANT overemphasis added)
And here is another reason art doesn't work -- the cri-TICS are too busy flattering themselves.
Like Elliott Carter (still going strong at 102), Babbitt composed music that was as notable for its intellectual BRILLIANCE as for its lack of acceptance by mainstream audiences. (BRILLIANT overemphasis added)
And here is another reason art doesn't work -- the cri-TICS are too busy flattering themselves.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Visitors to People.com generated more than 1 billion page views in January, according to Omniture, setting a record for the magazine and probably for all magazine sites. What's the secret, beyond obsessive coverage of Sandra Bullock, Halle Berry and Katie Holmes?
"Hitch your website to an enormously successful magazine," said Mark Golin, editor of People Digital. Beat. "I'm joking."
Given that PEOPLE WARNER STOCK went KA-BOOOOOINNNNG!!!!! today, YOU'RE NOT.
ONLY 270 POINTS TO GO to an ALL-TIME HIGH!
"Hitch your website to an enormously successful magazine," said Mark Golin, editor of People Digital. Beat. "I'm joking."
Given that PEOPLE WARNER STOCK went KA-BOOOOOINNNNG!!!!! today, YOU'RE NOT.
ONLY 270 POINTS TO GO to an ALL-TIME HIGH!
The NEW! IMPROVED!! "MAVERICK" JOHN McCAIN!!! sure was one busy senator today. Is he running for something?
And is it really that dignified of a senator to spell "4" for "for" and "2" for "two", whatever his medium?
And is it really that dignified of a senator to spell "4" for "for" and "2" for "two", whatever his medium?
Well whadya know -- a protest rally here! Sometimes I think the world passes Philthydelphia by. About a hundred, Egyptian nationals I'm guessing, mostly college kids I'm also guessing, waving Egyptian flags and being very cheerful. History is on their side, even if the forces of lawlessness on both sides are not.
A con-SER-va-tive dances on his desk because the economy is BOOMING again -- without the dead weight of MILLIONS OF WORKERS!
Is it any wonder the forces of the right seem to have a compassion deficit?
(Via Jo-NAH!!!!!)
Is it any wonder the forces of the right seem to have a compassion deficit?
(Via Jo-NAH!!!!!)
So! EDDIE was right -- EDS 'N' MEDS (not to mention brainiacs playing games with stocks and bonds) WILL fuel the 21st-century economy!
Didn't he forget SHOW-BIZ -- and CONVENTION CENTERS?
(Via HENRY HONEST!)
Didn't he forget SHOW-BIZ -- and CONVENTION CENTERS?
(Via HENRY HONEST!)
Said one insider at Newsweek, "Morale is nonexistent. Everyone I know is just waiting for a buyout offer so they can scoot. Beast management is total amateur hour. There are all sorts of editors rushing around now between the Beast and Newsweek."
The destruction of two media organizations begins -- and no millions or egos can stop it.
The destruction of two media organizations begins -- and no millions or egos can stop it.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
WFMU's blog has just run a piece on the "comedian" Joe E. Ross. He was a lovable schlub on the air and a hateable SOB off. Despite a few hasty errors ("errant ego"?) it is a fascinating eulogy for a show-biz fringe figure who had considerable success despite himself: a vulgarian on stage, a total slob who couldn't eat without getting an entire meal on his clothes, husband of eight alleged hookers. In short, a modern hero. There is too much here to underline that statement but consider this choice bit from the set of Car 54, Where Are You?:
Hank Garrett remembers an especially embarrassing moment when the sponsor came by. "The clients. Top people from Proctor & Gamble came to see us. We were shooting at the old Biograph-Gold Medallion Studios in the Bronx ... and in came the big wigs. Our clients. They stopped at each one of our dressing rooms to talk to us, to meet us. They said this is Hank Garrett, he plays Nicholson and how do you do. There were old ladies and they were all decked out and their husbands all in black suits and ties. They went to Fred Gwynne and then Al Lewis ... then they went into Joe E. Ross's room and I heard ... screaming and people running down the halls. I said, 'Geez, what happened?' Joe E. was masturbating at the time."
Today the Moon 'n' Stars gang would give him a big raise. You must read this if you want a warming twinge of nostalgia mixed with contemporary nausea.
CITIGROUP's in the music biz!
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!
Remember: That company gave us PEPE LE PEW BEWKES!
(Via Seeking Alpha)
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!
Remember: That company gave us PEPE LE PEW BEWKES!
(Via Seeking Alpha)
ED! Interview HOSNI!! Show Your miracle powers and GET HIM OUT OF THERE!!!!!
If ED did it and Hosni left, we might not criticize Him so much -- until the Muslim Brotherhood showed up.
We should have posted this yesterday: Intel announced what amounts to a huge recall of support chips for its new super-duper mid-range CPUs because they failed a stress test, and now my fellow amateur computer builders are in a tizz because so many are first adopters, and must have the latest and greatest. Why should anyone consent to be a guinea pig? Pioneering don't pay.
Wait a second, Tim -- I thought TV IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!
There's an easy solution, Tim -- write about the BEST two-hour blocks of television. That should take 360,000 words.
There's an easy solution, Tim -- write about the BEST two-hour blocks of television. That should take 360,000 words.
Seeing as how The Wax had to accompany her story on ED MURROW with this photo we're glad that we don't watch Him, even though it means missing the SWIFTIAN OBSERVATIONS, THE SHAVIAN WIT, THE SHERIDANIAN HUMOR, OF THE GREATEST SATIRIST OF ALL TIME.
And we would note His total audience is about the same as it ever was, meaning roughly ONE-HALF OF ONE PERCENT OF THE U. S. is watching Him -- and half of them NEWS HACKS.
Monday, January 31, 2011
We had it in Bell, California, we have it in North Jersey -- why do so many pols regard the people as their personal piggy bank?
Whoever ends up seeing the nation through to its next phase would do well to keep bread high on their list of priorities.
The speculators have!
The speculators have!
Obama Health-Care Reform Act Unconstitutional, U.S. Judge Says
STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERIKE TWO!
STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERIKE TWO!
GASP! HENRY HONEST wants to improve his comments!
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORDONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!! (Henry Honest regulars will know who he is.)
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORDONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!! (Henry Honest regulars will know who he is.)
This story which centers around the bigot Ed Asner demonstrates why we should never take show-biz lying down. If its rulers can be politically intolerant, they can be intolerant in practically every other way. This is why the CEOs constantly feeding ad bucks to the biz sticks in our craw: they're nourishing a leviathan that regularly steps on a hapless public, and when it screams they conveniently turn their heads from the carnage.
We might add we could accuse the Hollywood right of melodrama but we have little doubt there is a genuine if unofficial blacklist in the business.
We might add we could accuse the Hollywood right of melodrama but we have little doubt there is a genuine if unofficial blacklist in the business.
Chris dispenses a zinger:
[O]ne of the cheering and reassuring things about dictatorship is the way that it consistently fails to understand this element of the equation. How gratifying it is that all such regimes go on making the same obvious mistakes. None of them ever seems to master a few simple survival techniques: Don't let the supreme leader's extended family go on shopping sprees; don't publicly spoil some firstborn as if the people can't wait for him, too, to be proclaimed from the balcony; don't display your personal photograph all over the landscape; don't claim more than, say, 75 percent of the vote in any "election" you put on. And don't try to shut down social media: It will instantly alert even the most somnolent citizen to the fact that you are losing, or have lost, your grip.
[O]ne of the cheering and reassuring things about dictatorship is the way that it consistently fails to understand this element of the equation. How gratifying it is that all such regimes go on making the same obvious mistakes. None of them ever seems to master a few simple survival techniques: Don't let the supreme leader's extended family go on shopping sprees; don't publicly spoil some firstborn as if the people can't wait for him, too, to be proclaimed from the balcony; don't display your personal photograph all over the landscape; don't claim more than, say, 75 percent of the vote in any "election" you put on. And don't try to shut down social media: It will instantly alert even the most somnolent citizen to the fact that you are losing, or have lost, your grip.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
We have fallen hopelessly in love with yet another jazz vocal group. This one, organized by that supreme eccentric Blossom Dearie in the early fifties, recorded two or possibly three albums before disbanding and reorganizing as the Swingle Singers. Les Blue Stars showed that French and jazz have surprisingly many things in common. I first heard of them through that superlative blogger "Buster" and a download of four songs, one of which was the immortal "Amour, Castagnettes et Tango." Love, castanets and tango! What could be a better title than that? (And far better than the American version -- "Hernando's Hideaway".) We were ready to dismiss them as a charming novelty group but through another blog downloaded one of their albums, an affair released in '57 stateside by Mercury. (Which album we have since bought -- see, musical "piracy" isn't always unprofitable.) "Small Talk" (no relation to another song from The Pajama Game) is a swingful first-rate jazz arrangement, but what really makes it tick are those French accents; the peculiar intonations give it a certain suavity that might be missing if the group were white-bread American.
And then there is "Please Be Kind". I have five other versions lurking in my digital music collection and they're all blah; Ol' Blue (in a session tape with Count Basie I downloaded from another source) almost audibly clicks his fingers, and when you sense that you know he really didn't care how he was singing it -- although you'd gather with Sammy Cahn having written the lyrics he might have been more thoughtful -- and only Ella Fitzgerald comes close to what's possible with this. What's possible with this is a poignancy approaching tragedy. In his book American Popular Song Alec Wilder wrote that most people can't discern the difference among arrangements. I can -- and there is a vast difference between Benny Goodman or Bob Crosby's Bobcats phoning it in and something that has made me cry all three or four times I've heard it. This is music in the Glenn Miller mode -- and while we're expected to razz this alleged Lawrence Welk he was one of the few jazzmen who understood the value of drama in his charts, and this is Miller in spades, modernized and improved, and the Stars sing it totally without guile, and that's why I cry.
There's a reason God made flies more common than butterflies, and there were radiant butterflies in the jazz years, and they all died off, yet their colors somehow live on, even as we must never stop fending off musical flies.
I am going to try to get paid for my writing, and one way to do that is to write an essay on why I have largely stopped following sports, except for the headlines. I have a dozen reasons but most prominent these days is having to root against players. Back when one could hate an athlete just for some irrelevant personality quirk, like Ty Cobb and his impermeable grouchiness, or the team that refused to lose. ("Those damn Yankees! Why can't we beat them?") Today we're not talking personality quirks. The likes of ARF! ARF!, The Golfing Sex Machine, The Flasher and KING LEBRON are clearly such louts that their fans have to make extensive excuses for supporting them. And far more we avow root against them, which we further avow hinders their play; we saw that when ARF! lost his meal ticket to the Super Bowl; we've seen it with TGSM, who has not won a tournament since his vast sex life became public. It's not a question of that old "character" saw; it cuts to the very bone of sport; but for swift intervention this sort of angry disdain could have destroyed baseball after the Black Sox scandal. It did not happen after the Steroid Squad because SELIGISM has learned how to live without fans. While CEOs will make sure sports keep on chugging, NASCAR's problems -- not least among them drivers who don't seem to give much of a hoot about the simpletons paying for their expensive automobiles -- show that athletic prosperity may not be forever.
Something can be said for lovable rogues. The rogue who runs the French oil firm Total is in bed with lots of crooks and (according to DVFORBESLISTBLOG) it doesn't bother him, and he says so. At least this is fervent honesty, and you can't get mad at a man so honest. Compare this to America's zillionaire CEOs who practice hiding under their desks every day while speaking from both sides of their mouths, blathering about CSR while being impeccably irresponsible -- I'll take the rogue any day.