Tag: TV

Retired Generals’ Ads Might Be Last Straw on Iraq

Trish

If Bush means what he says about listening to the military, a series of ads featuring retired generals should produce critical mass on Iraq. Brought to us by Vote Vets, the first spot features former Iraq commander Maj. Gen. John Batiste.

Our ads are airing in states and districts of those Members of Congress who are very close to breaking with the President on Iraq, and joining the troops and American people…Mentioning them by name at the end, the local spots will call on them to “Protect America, Not George Bush.”

Batiste comes right out and says he left the armed forces in protest over Bush putting service members at risk for a failed strategy.

Following is a list of the elected officials the ads are aimed at. If one of them belongs to you, remember that nothing makes an impression on a public servant like a call from the folks back home.

They are:

Sen. Susan Collins, Maine
Sen. John Sununu, N.H.
Sen. John Warner, Virg.
Sen. Norm Coleman, Minn.

Rep, Mary Bono, Palm Springs, Calif.
Rep. Phil English, Erie, Penn.
Rep. John “Randy” Kuhl, Bath, N.Y.
Rep. Jim Walsh, Syracuse, N.Y.
Rep. Heather Wilson, Santa Fe, N.M.
Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, Springfield, Mo.
Rep. Tim Johnson, Urbana, Ill.
Rep. Mike Rogers, Brighton, Mich.
Rep. Fred Upton, Kalamazoo, Mich.
Rep. Mike Castle, Wilmington, Del.

Future ads will feature Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton and our personal favorite, Gen. Wesley Clark. Pony up some bucks, if you can, so the spots can be run nationwide.

Griffith Park Is On Fire – No Word on Status of Los Angeles Zoo

Jon Ponder

The fire in Griffith Park in Los Angeles has spread to 150 acres. Local news is preempting other shows but no word so far on the status of the Los Angeles Zoo, which is in the park.

UPDATE: (7:15 PM) Finally saw a report on the zoo. The fire was close but not a direct threat. One official said most of the animals were “too fragile” to move in any case. Local TV has gone back to regular programming, which is invariably a sign that the situation is under control and not newsworthy. (On the other hand, it is sweeps month.)

UPDATE: (5/9/07 – 5:15 AM) 600 acres have burned but so far the flames have not endangered the zoo, the Griffith Park Observatory, the Greek Theatre or other structures. However, the city has called for mandatory evacuations of homes in a Los Feliz neighborhood adjacent to the park.

Stephanie Miller Gets a Rave Review for Her Stint on MSNBC

Jon Ponder

Brent Budowsky at The Hill:

Progressive radio talk show host Stephanie Miller is doing a great job in the old Imus spot on MSNBC, and I hope everyone has a chance to catch her show.

Stephanie is a comedienne, radio host and progressive impressario, and it’s great to see her doing cable television.

She’s funny, pointed, provocative, progressive and her time on MSNBC is a mini-breakthrough and I suspect we’ll be seeing more of her.

There are some exciting developments in progressive radio and entertainment.

MSNBC is famously located across the river from Manhattan in Seacaucus, NJ. Stephanie talked a lot about being homesick for Los Angeles, so I’m not sure she’ll be back on the air anytime soon, which is a shame.

Study: Bill O’Reilly is a Propaganda Pro

Buck Banks

While I knew Bill O’Reilly was a bloviating blowhard before I read the Indiana University study, I did not realize that 40 percvent of Americans consider him a journalist while only 30 percent of Americans think Bob Woodward is a legit journalist. Now granted, Woodward’s creds have been somewhat reduced by his recent tactics, but still, he was half of the team that exposed the Watergate scandal, so he at one time was the kind of journalist that journalists want to be.

But O’Reilly has never been a journalist and should not be confused with one. Instead, according to the study, which used methods employed in the 1930s to measure propaganda, O’Reilly should be considered a master at propagandizing.

Politicians and media, particularly of the left-leaning persuasion, are in the company of illegal aliens, criminals, terrorists — never vulnerable to villainous forces and undeserving of empathy.

Using analysis techniques first developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, [researchers] found that O’Reilly employed six of the seven propaganda devices nearly 13 times each minute in his editorials. His editorials also are presented on his Web site and in his newspaper columns.

The seven propaganda devices include:

  • Name calling — giving something a bad label to make the audience reject it without examining the evidence;
  • Glittering generalities — the oppositie of name calling;
  • Card stacking — the selective use of facts and half-truths;
  • Bandwagon — appeals to the desire, common to most of us, to follow the crowd;
  • Plain folks — an attempt to convince an audience that they, and their ideas, are “of the people”;
  • Transfer — carries over the authority, sanction and prestige of something we respect or dispute to something the speaker would want us to accept; and
  • Testimonials — involving a respected (or disrespected) person endorsing or rejecting an idea or person.

The same techniques were used during the late 1930s to study another prominent voice in a war-era, Father Charles Coughlin. His sermons evolved into a darker message of anti-Semitism and fascism, and he became a defender of Hitler and Mussolini. In this study, O’Reilly is a heavier and less-nuanced user of the propaganda devices than Coughlin.
[…]

Imus Insulted a Friend of Mine on the Air

Jon Ponder

With me and Don Imus it is personal, and it has been since he trashed my friend Jacqueline Lennon live on MSNBC early one morning in February 2000.

Imus called R&R “cheesy” and trashed one of its staff members on national television because the radio industry trade paper had had the gall to give him a lifetime achievement award.

Jacq is an exceptionally fine R&B singer who also manages events for Radio & Records, the radio industry trade paper. That year, for reasons that must have seemed like a good idea at the time, R&R had decided to honor Imus with its Talk Radio Lifetime Achievement Award at a ceremony in Washington that month.

I only watch Imus when nothing else is on, so there I was at 5:30 in the morning, listening to him railing about R&R, which he called “cheesy,” and the award, which he seemed to think branded him a has-been prematurely. He was also upset that R&R had had the temerity to send him a form letter asking for information about credentials for his guests, I think, which was an affront to his enormous ego. He was particularly pissed off at the person who signed the letter — Jacqueline Lennon, whom he called a “moron” more than once.

I knew he was just using her as a foil for his tantrum — a convenient target for his monkeypoo. But what kind of jerk goes on national television and trashes a well-meaning staff member on an event in his honor over something so trivial?

What’s interesting here is the status of Imus’ coziness within the Gang of 500, many of whom were frequent call-in guests on his show. Today he made things worse by criticizing Brian Williams’ coverage of the story on the NBC Nightly News last night. Sponsors, including Proctor & Gambel, have already pulled ads from his shows.

Imus and the Media Whores

Jon Ponder

Digby:

I hear his disgusting show and hear them on it, kissing up to him like he’s some sort of oracle instead of a spoiled, petulant bully with an incoherent worldview. And I also listen to their complaints about the vituperation on the internet, how the bloggers — especially the “angry left” — are horrible people who treat them disrespectfully. And I have to laugh because I know that Don Imus can call them and their colleagues twits and pussies in Vanity Fair and they come back licking his boots, begging for more. And we know why.

They have earned their reputation — even some of the good ones, the ones who write things I like. When you sell your personal integrity for money to a racist scumbag like Don Imus, you have to expect that people are not going to treat you with a lot of respect.

Don Imus has been behaving badly and apologizing for it for many, many years. I expect he will continue to do so once he’s finished with his two week vacation. And all of these writers will once again make pilgrimages to his show and pledge fealty to him in order to sell books. Because, unlike those great basketball players he maligned so casually — they really are whores.

Don Imus is an Okie from Riverside, Calif.