GUEST BLOG! Media: When is Enough, Enough?

The following is a Guest Blog by Jason, a "regular" at the BOTG bar.

Lady Gaga--"Paparazzi (Mathias Mental Remix)" (mp3)
Green Day--"American Idiot" (mp3)

As I was brainstorming through various topics to write about for BOTG blog, I came to two conclusions. I have a lot of topics which I would love to write about passionately, but the one topic that I kept on coming back to was my general dismay with today’s media.

As a person who is on the cusp of being labeled a Generation Y child, depending on what year you believe the beginning of Generation Y starts, I am sometimes disturbed by my personal views on media. I think of myself as being a pretty positive person. Yet, I look at all of the examples around me, and I see a general tabloidization and double standards of our media which sickens me.

I know that as a member of Generation Y, I am supposed to be hip with today’s gadgets, instant news, IM, video cameras, and ‘smartphones’. I think I am, but only to an extent. Maybe it is the fringe Generation X in me that prevents me from being fully integrated.

All facets of our society are touched by this media imprudence. The shift in what is really a story in today’s society has deteriorated. Do you really think that President Kennedy’s security advisers were thinking to themselves when America was going through the Cuban Missile Crisis that they couldn’t trust President Kennedy to make the right decisions to steward the country through one of the scariest events of the 20th century because he wasn’t a moral person? Did sleeping with a blond bombshell the night before have a detrimental effect on his judgment in what to do with Khrushchev?

What would have happened if Cheney or Rumsfeld had been president in ’62 instead of Kennedy? In 1988, a sex scandal brought down Gary Hart’s nomination bid for the presidency. 14 years ago, the Congressional process against a former president almost led to his impeachment because he lied about getting oral sex from the wrong woman. I am petrified to think what would happen nowadays. 20 days of Tiger Woods on the cover of the New York Post will do that to you.

Today we are inundated with stories about single and married athlete’s romps in Las Vegas, which has been going on for years. TMZ drops scoops on these kind of events like the US destroyed Iraqi tanks in the first Gulf War. Brittany Spears not wearing panties is unimportant, no matter how attractive she might have once been.

We see video clips on ESPN of NFL sports owners who are drunk and loose with their tongues having a discussion which they clearly don’t know is being videotaped. This is the same ESPN that dedicated almost 24 hours straight to the Terrell Owens suicide watch for a guy that, trust me, loves himself way too much to want to kill himself. On the other hand, this is the same ESPN that dropped a highly successful series, Playmakers, because the NFL wanted it killed as it was too realistic in its interpretation of professional football player’s lives. This is the ESPN who sat on the first allegations sexual assault against Ben Roethlisberger for over two days, an eternity in today’s instant media world, yet had a legal analyst discussing OJ’s cases in his burglary/armed robbery case in Nevada. OJ is extremely insignificant in today’s world, he is so 1994. Why cover the case at all?

Discussing Eastern Hemisphere media groups is even more irritating. Apple recently introduced their iPhone to many Asian countries, including South Korea, where the ‘chaebol’ companies (easiest translation for chaebol is ‘old money’) have a complete stranglehold on most of the consumer products in Korea. It is not good enough that these companies are allowed to go to North America, Europe and most of Asia and compete on fair grounds for their products, but they refuse to allow the government to bring in competition.

When the iPhone was finally allowed into Korea, there were many stories with quotes from anonymous sources in various media outlets who said that it would not succeed there. When the iPhone became a huge success, quickly outselling all other national brands these old money companies ostracized the company that brought in the iPhone, and have not allowed any other new products to go to that company. Do the media in Korea investigate this? Do they apologize for the irresponsible reporting in the first place?

No, the bias in stories continually sides with the person or company who is willing to put the most money into an envelope. They fail to report that the business plans of companies here failed in that they focused on hardware instead of software which is why Apple is so successful and Samsung and LG haven’t been. Now they report that the Android operating system will crush Apple’s iPhones. Maybe they will, I am not a consumer products analyst for Goldman Sachs, but you can bet that if the media in South Korea are wrong again, Samsung, LG and SKT won’t let the truth come out.

I realize that there is a double edged sword in a lot that I am talking about. Today’s instant media society with street and handheld camera’s everywhere probably would allow us to know definitively what really happened on November 22nd, 1963. Maybe a cheating husband is not what the conservative Accenture signed up with Tiger Woods and therefore they are better off today. Maybe I am just becoming a little bit old fashioned before my time in thinking that the journalistic techniques of Woodward and Bernstein are used too infrequently; reporting on real human tragedies like war torn Africa, genocide in Darfur, human rights violations in various places around the world seem to be easily put on the backburner. I will even settle for more feel good humanitarian stories if that would mean less time hearing about ‘making it rain’ at a strip club.

Jason lives, works, and now blogs in Seoul, Korea.

Leave Tiger Aloooooone!

Tournament of Hearts - The Weakerthans (mp3)
Buy Into It - The Most Powerful Telescope in the World (mp3)

Look at the me. That's what the world is turning me into. Chris fuckin' Crocker.

Everywhere I turn, on the Internet, on TV, on the radio, there's this constant shark-drool hum about Tiger Woods. A fire hydrant. His wife. A golf club. A shattered window. A woman in New York. Scandal! Deception! Dodging the police! Ruining his career!!!!

My collective response to it? Stop it, people. Just stop.

As best I can tell, over the course of his billion-dollar career, this is Tiger Woods' virgin step into anything other than a lily-white track record. Seriously, just try and imagine how impossible it must be to go 13 years as arguably the most famous and best-known athlete in the world -- yes, for a while he trailed Michael Jordan, but no longer -- with press and photographers constantly following your every step, your every breath, without once doing anything untoward.

We get to sit in the privacy of our own homes and amuse ourselves with little platitudes like, "Character is what you do when no one is watching." But guess what? When you're Tiger Woods, someone is always watching. He doesn't need to be threatened by the thought of Jesus or angels or his father looking over his shoulder, because dudes with telephoto lenses and hypersensitive microphones are tracking him 24/7.

So, with the exception of being a little pouty and potty-mouthed on a golf course, this "accident" is the very first moment Tiger has proven himself human. (Well, he proved capable of impregnating his wife... but even the Visitors can do that, so I'm not sure having semen counts.)

And you can tell by our reaction that most of us have been eagerly and hungrily waiting for this moment. He's human, and by God, for that, he's gonna pay! Make him suffer! Let's revel in his imperfections!!

Please don't mistake my anger for fandom. While I'm in true awe of Tiger's golf skills, I don't idolize him or follow him or watch copious amounts of golf tournaments just because he's in them. Truthfully, I'm a bigger fan of Mickelson, and on those rare occasions when I watch golf, I get annoyed that Tiger's the focus of every other shot even when he's mired in 19th place.

While I'm not particularly in favor of politicians getting this treatment anymore than celebrities, at least politicians waste time shouting moralistic platitudes, practically begging to be caught in hypocritical moments. We're still guilty of being the drooling crowd at a gladiator match, watching the tigers maul their armored prey, but at least we can know they kinda asked for it. But celebrities and athletes? They just wanted to play their games, man. Everything beyond that is stuff we put on them that they never asked for.

In truth, we have no way of knowing what happened between this attractive and wealthy couple in the middle of the night. The only thing that's remotely fair to speculate, IMO, is that if -- IF -- she attacked him with that club, the reason Tiger is being so tight-lipped is to protect her from Florida's uber-strict spousal abuse laws.

If -- IF -- they were fighting, does the fight really have to be about his, um, "Driver" and another woman? I know plenty of couples who, especially in the dark of night after some drinkin', get in serious plate-throwing, wall-punching arguments about the most random nonsense on the planet. Watch "American Beauty" and trust that the plate-throwing dinner conversation happens all the time, all over this blessed country of ours. It doesn't just happen in trailer parks.

UPDATE: As of Tuesday night, Police had closed the case. Tiger will pay a $167 fine. The neighbor says Mrs. Tiger came to them asking them to call 911, which is precisely what someone would do after attempting to shove a pitching wedge into her husband's skull, right? The odds are pretty good that all of these rumors, all of this speculation, will either prove to have no merit, or will simply never be proven, like a fart in a phone booth of unbathed clowns. Yet no one anywhere in the media will apologize for gleefully attempting to drag the dude's name through the mud for the sole purpose of attracting the Almighty Dollar. They were just "following their journalistic obligations."

Yeah right. Sleep tight, you sharks and leeches. Rest up for your next celebrity. And please God don't go getting a conscience or anything. Or worse yet, don't go start reporting actual important shit like stuff about war and famine and hunger. That stuff makes Matt Lauer frown, which starts my day on the wrong foot.

The Most Powerful Telescope in the World sent us their album, and "Buy Into It" is a solid example of the quality you can expect from their album, The Moonlight's Fair Tonight. Yeah, he kinda sounds like J. Mascis without the wild and wailin' guitar. As for The Weakerthans, anyone who ever felt like a nerd has no choice but to love this band.

The Matter-of-Fact Media

Jimi Hendrix--"Changes (live)" (mp3)
Jr. Walker and the All-Stars--"What Does It Take (To Win Your Love For Me)" (mp3)

Oh, our wonderful media and their vaunted sense of "fair play!" How much I do appreciate that. In an effort to be balanced in their reporting, how they will print the most preposterous lie on one side as well as the quite reasonable rebuttal on the other! How they will publish both a fact and a denial as if both were equal combatants! Not an accusation and a denial, mind you, a fact--an irrefutable, well-documented, easily-researched, public record statement of truth! You'd think that would stand more than a bold-faced, take-my-chances, deny-deny-deny pervarication.

But you know what? I don't even care about that anymore. Let those games continue. I'll just make http://www.factcheck.org/ a "favorite" on my home page and see who's slinging it at the moment.

Although, here's food for thought from that great modern ethicist Karl Rove: he says that you really can't trust the fact-checker sites, because they have their own biases. Karl, they're checking facts. Either what the candidate said is true or it isn't.

Oh, we are in deep battle for the soul of the English language, and most of us, if not unarmed, are unwilling to enter the fray. That's just politics, we say. So be it.

But here's what I won't tolerate. How dare the "matter-of-fact" media treat racism and bigotry as a voting trend that merits the same bland statistical analysis that a category like "Working moms over 50" would get. "

Says Joe or Jane Media Talking Head: "Our studies show that working moms over fifty support Barack Obama slightly, 5-4, over John McCain, but in another category, people who refuse to vote for a black candidate, any black candidate, John McCain holds a substantial edge. This trend could be a real problem for Obama come Election Day."

Thanks for that insight.

What I want to know is why isn't this trend being pointed out as a real problem for America right now. Those media types looking for positives and progress will point out that we're not as racist as we used to be. Why can't we go for 100% non-racist America as the only benchmark we will tolerate? Why can't we acknowledge that we all have prejudices, but that we can't let those get in the way of human interactions?

And let's face it, the media crew we're talking about here is the same bunch who, every time an Arab was killed in Fallujah or Sadr City, he was referenced as a "suspected insurgent" or a "suspected Al-Queda member" or a "suspected Taliban fighter." Ok, so you want to put a label on those people (except, of course, when we kill a woman or a child or a village, then we have to call them "civilians"), that's your business, American media. I can't stop that.

But why not spread the labels around? Let's just say what those of us who live in Chattanooga already know, that some people, even Democrats, especially Democrats, aren't going to vote for Obama because they're racist. That's right, they're racist. Those of you who are thinking, 'But black people are only voting for Obama because he's black,' I'm going to punch you in the nose.

What we're talking about are people who, when polled, acknowledge that they agree with at least one of three negative descriptors for black people and that means they will not vote for Obama. That's right, whenever they think of every black person who has ever existed or will exist, they think a negative adjective will apply to all of those people. Even Stevie Wonder.

That's racist. That's disgusting. That's unAmerican, 2008. That's worthy of utter contempt from any thinking, living, breathing person on this planet. That's what the media, which hasn't ever "grown a pair," won't come out and say. And that's a fact.

Jimi Hendrix and the Band of Gypsys live performances are available on Live At The Fillmore; Jr. Walker's classic is available on any number of compilations. Both are available at Itunes.