*They Shoot News Anchors, Don’t They?*

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Mon, 19 Sep 2005 13:20:19 -0700

[Zepps_News] #LA Weekly: Columns: Deadline Hollywood: They

Shoot News Anchors, Don't They=

 

 

 

 

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/43/deadline-finke.php

 

*Deadline Hollywood*

 

*They Shoot News Anchors, Don't They?*

Media moguls, not looters, killed Katrina's truth tellers

by NIKKI FINKE

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*At first, only CNN *appeared not to have thoroughly read the

proverbial

memo. It was the only network, on air and on its Web site, to compare

and contrast the wildly contradictory statements by federal, state and

local officials, sometimes within hours, but often within minutes of

each other. It was CNN that posted the first full transcript of New

Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's profanity- and passion-filled September 2

interview on local radio. It was also CNN that first exposed the

gruesome nature of the conditions at the Superdome, at the convention

center and in the hospital corridors. Its broadcasters were the first

to

keep a heart-wrenching online blog during Katrina. Even as late as

September 6, political correspondent Ed Henry was the first to counter

the claims by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay that local officials and

not the feds were to blame, by reporting that congressional

Republicans,

in a secret confab, were giving the Bush administration a big fat F.

 

Then the fix was in.

 

On September 8, CNN anchorette Kyra Phillips was chewing into House

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for " continuing to criticize the

administration, and criticize the director of FEMA... I think it's

unfair that FEMA is just singled out. There are so many people

responsible for what has happened in the state of Louisiana. "

 

Instead of smiling through clenched teeth, the San Francisco Democrat

bit back: " I'm sorry that you think it's unfair. But I don't . . . If

you want to make a case for the White House, you should go on their

payroll. "

 

By September 12, even the White House admitted that FEMA had been its

own disaster area by pushing out its Arabian-horseman-turned-jackass

head, Michael Brown. (Bush finally admitted on Tuesday that the buck

was

going to stop with him whether he liked it or not. " To the extent the

federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take

responsibility, " he said.) That same day, CNN's parent company, Time

Warner, announced the hiring of DeLay's chief of staff as a top

Washington lobbyist. This news, and its timing, prompted Jeff Chester

of

the Center for Digital Democracy to tell the /L.A. Weekly/: " Time

Warner

aligning itself with the right-wing DeLay machine should send shudders

[down] CNN and HBO. Clearly, TW wants DeLay insurance so it won't have

to face cable-ownership safeguards, à la carte rules and broadband

non-discrimination policies. "

 

For the first 120 hours after Hurricane Katrina, TV journalists were

let

off their leashes by their mogul owners, the result of a rare

conjoining

of flawless timing (summer's biggest vacation week) and foulest tragedy

(America's worst natural disaster). All of a sudden, broadcasters

narrated disturbing images of the poor, the minority, the aged, the

sick

and the dead, and discussed complex issues like poverty, race, class,

infirmity and ecology that never make it on the air in this

swift-boat/anti-gay-marriage/Michael Jackson media-sideshow era. So

began a perfect storm of controversy.

 

Contrary to the scripture so often quoted in these areas of Louisiana

and Mississippi, the TV newscasters knew the truth, but the truth did

not set them free. Because once the crisis point had passed, most TV

journalists went back to business-as-usual, their choke chains yanked

by

no-longer-inattentive parent-company bosses who, fearful of fallout

from

fingering Dubya for the FEMA fuckups, decided yet again to sacrifice

community need for corporate greed. Too quickly, Katrina's wake was

spun

into a web of deceit by the Bush administration, then disseminated by

the Big Media boys' club. (Karl Rove spent the post-hurricane weekend

conjuring up ways to shift blame.)

 

*

If big media *look like they're propping up W's presidency, they are.

Because doing so is good for corporate coffers — in the form of

government contracts, billion-dollar tax breaks, regulatory relaxations

and security favors. At least that wily old codger Sumner Redstone,

head

of Viacom, parent company of CBS, has admitted what everyone already

knows is true: that, while he personally may be a Democrat, " It happens

that I vote for Viacom. Viacom is my life, and I do believe that a

Republican administration is better for media companies than a

Democratic one. "

 

When it comes to NBC's parent company, GE's No. 1 and No. 2, Jeffrey

Immelt and Bob Wright, are avowed Republicans, as are Time Warner's

Dick

Parsons (CNN) and News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch (Fox News Channel).

(Forget that Murdoch's No. 2, Peter Chernin, and Redstone's co–No. 2,

Les Moonves, are avowed Democrats — it's meaningless because Murdoch

and

Redstone are the owners.)

 

Once upon a time, large corporations and their executives typically

avoided any public discussion of their politics because partisan

positions alienated customers and employees. But all of that changed

after GE bought NBC in 1986. For seemingly eons, Immelt's predecessor,

the legendary Jack Welch, was a rabid right-winger who boasted openly

about helping turn former liberals Chris Matthews and Tim Russert into

neocons. (And Los Angeles Representative Henry Waxman is still waiting

for GE to turn over those in-house tapes that would prove once and for

all whether Welch, in 2000, ordered his network and cable stations to

reverse course and call the election for Bush instead of Gore.)

 

As for Immelt, he publicly wishes his MSNBC could be a clone of FNC.

Not

surprising, since he let his network and cable news cheerlead the

run-up

to the Iraqi war without ever bothering to tell viewers GE had billions

in contracts pending. More than half of Iraq's power grid is GE

technology. It was also under Immelt that GE installed a former adviser

to W and Condi, who also served as press secretary to former first lady

Barbara " Let 'em eat cake " Bush, as NBC Universal's executive vice

president of communications.

 

And let's not forget that in October 2004, the Republican-controlled

House and Senate and White House okayed a $137 billion corporate-tax

bill — dubbed " No Lobbyist Left Behind " — that gave a huge $8 billion

tax break to GE, which had bankrolled a record $17 million lobbying

effort for it. (Meanwhile, in that same bill, House Republicans at the

last minute stripped the movie studios of about $1 billion worth of tax

credits because of Hollywood's near-constant support of the Democratic

Party and its candidates.)

 

Disney, parent company of ABC, has turned most of its extensive radio

network and owned-and-operated stations into a 24/7 orgy of right-wing

talk. (Sean Hannity is their poster boy.) Disney's chief lobbyist,

Preston Padden, is not only one of Washington, D.C.'s most infamous

Republican lobbyists, but he used to work for Rupert Murdoch. Bush even

pleaded just days after 9/11 for Americans to " go down to Disney World

in Florida. " Meanwhile, Disney World has benefited from special

security

measures, including extra protection and a federally declared

" no-flyover zone. " And let's not forget that Michael Eisner pulled the

distribution plug on /Fahrenheit 9/11/.

 

As for Rupert Murdoch, his News Corp. continues to defy a July 2001 FCC

order requiring it to divest itself of a TV station in exchange for the

agency's approval to buy 10 TV stations from Chris-Craft Industries

Inc.

for $5.4 billion. What, Rupert worry? This W cheerleader can rest

assured that the FCC will amend its prohibition on owning broadcast

outlets and newspapers in the same market.

 

And lest anyone think there's no connection between Murdoch's business

and editorial, several news organizations have noticed a détente

between

the /New York Post /and Senator Hillary Clinton because Rupert needs

congressional Democrats on News Corp.'s side to oppose a change in the

Nielsen ratings that could harm its TV stations.

 

*

Given all of the above, *it comes as no surprise that, as early as that

first Saturday, certainly by Sunday, inevitably by Monday, and no later

than Tuesday, the post-Katrina images and issues were heavily weighted

once again toward the power brokers and the predictable. The angry

black

guys were gone, and the lying white guys were back, hogging all the TV

airtime. So many congressional Republicans were lined up on air to

denounce the " blame-Bush game " — all the while decrying the Louisiana

Democrats-in-charge — that it could have been conga night at the Chevy

Chase Country Club.

 

And the attitudes of some TV personalities did a dramatic 180.

 

At MSNBC, right-winger Joe Scarborough had looked genuinely disgusted

for a few days by the death and destruction that went unrelieved around

him in Biloxi, even daring to demand answers from Bush on down. But

Scarborough was back to his left-baiting self in short order. Inside

FNC's studio, conservative crank Sean Hannity had been rendered

somewhat

speechless by the tragedy. Soon, he was back in full voice, barking at

Shep Smith (who was still staking out that I-10 bridge and sympathizing

with its thousands of refugees) to keep " perspective. " The

Mississippi-bred Smith boomed back in his baritone, " This /is/

perspective! "

 

FNC's Bill O'Reilly, who spent last month verbally abusing the grieving

mother of a dead Iraqi war soldier, then whiled away the early days of

Katrina's aftermath giving lip to New Orleans' looters and shooters,

eventually blamed the hurricane's poorest victims for creating their

situations and for even expecting any government help at all.

 

On NBC, /Meet the Press/ host Tim Russert cut off Jefferson Parish's

Andre Broussard during one of TV's most moving and memorable

outpourings

of emotion. Instead, to fill up airtime, Russert let Mississippi

Governor Haley Barbour praise Bush's response ad nauseam without

reading

back Barbour's sharp criticism of the feds days earlier.

 

On MSNBC, /Hardball/'s hard-brained Chris Matthews chided viewers and

guests alike not to talk about who's to blame — unless it was Louisiana

Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco or Mayor Nagin. Interesting how

Barbour's state was also dehydrated and starving, but nobody on TV news

blamed him, since he just happens to be a former chairman of the

Republican National Committee.

 

And Don Imus skewered Dubya's " disgusting performance " at the start of

his MSNBC TV show (simulcast on the Viacom/CBS-owned Infinity radio

network) and then turned over just 24 hours later, directing blame at

Mayor Nagin.

 

Meanwhile, the TV news situation is about to get worse. Incoming Disney

CEO Bob Iger has tried repeatedly to dismantle /Nightline /for a

mindless celeb talk show. And CBS chairman Les Moonves wants to

reinvent

TV news to be more like entertainment shows — as if it's not that way

already — hosted by even prettier people.

 

Of course, no one could have anticipated that, to their immense credit,

TV's prettiest-boy anchors (CNN's Anderson Cooper and FNC's Shep Smith

and NBC's Brian Williams) would be boldly and tearfully relating horror

whenever and wherever they found it, no matter if the fault lay with

Mother Nature or President Dubya. But the real test of pathos vs.

profit

is still before us: whether the TV newscasters will spend the fresh

reservoir of trust earned with the public to not only rattle Bush's

cage

but also battle their own bosses. If not, it won't be long before TV

truth telling will be muzzled permanently. /

 

Email at nikkifinke <nikkifinke

 

/

 

 

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