Tuesday, August 26, 2003

Why A Blog on the Media? As the media have become self-aware, newspaper columns and radio shows about the industry have proliferated.  And there are influential blogs already being written by sharp and insightful observers like Mickey Kaus and Andrew Sullivan.  So when I was asked by ArtsJournal to do a blog on the media, I thought long and hard about what I could add.  To my own surprise, it didn't take long for me to be able to answer my own question. For one thing, I bring a perspective grounded in the arts and culture, rather than in journalism or politics.  As a result I often see the news in literary or theatrical terms, and the bringers of the news as actors in a larger drama.  The show-biz aspects of journalism can appear to be mere pandering, but I look upon those elements as inseparable from the process of communicating.  And it's the totality of that communications process that interests me most. I also am drawn to the ways that the media affect the arts.  The marketplace has always helped determine which artistic efforts are disseminated and preserved, going back to Gutenberg's Bibles, the first recording of "Comin' Through the Rye," and the early films of the Lumiere brothers.  The content of the contemporary media holds up a mirror to our society today too.  That intrigues me a great deal, and I hope it engages you too! posted by bob @ 6:42 pm | Permanent link

Monday, August 25, 2003

Diversity, Localism, and Grand Gestures Politics, like any public performance, draws on symbolism as well as substance.  Michael Powell’s announcement that the FCC will be creating a task force on localism is a perfect example.  Presented as a response to the consolidation of broadcast ownership, it plays into stereotypes to satisfy public opinion, but in reality it wouldn’t change things very much. One stereotype is the notion that holding a broadcast license--any broadcast license--affords precious access to the marketplace of ideas.  As with all stereotypes, there’s some truth to this idea.  A broadcast license means the possibility of an audience, in the same way that the lease on a store in a shopping mall creates the possibility of customers.  But all licenses, like all retail spaces, are not created equal.  And low-power FM (LPFM), the means for the FCC’s new localism initiative, is less equal than most. Full-power broadcast licenses enable stations to operate with up to 50,000 watts of power (sometimes more), reaching a coverage area with a radius of, say, 30 or 40 miles.  LPFM stations operate with 100 watts or less, and can be heard only within a few miles of the transmitter, with a much weaker signal than a full-power station.  Whatever those stations may add in terms of programming alternatives, they will be available to only a small fraction of the audience that can receive full-power signals.  So even a burst of new LPFM licenses won’t much change the balance of local versus national programming available to radio listeners overall. The whole idea of localism itself is an enduring slogan that isn’t reflected in reality most of the time.  The public broadcasting system, both radio and television, was famously founded on a "bedrock of localism," in the words of the original Carnegie Commission report that propelled the creation of public radio and TV.  Today, what that means for most NPR and PBS stations is that local decision-makers decide which national programs to schedule and when to air them, or which CDs to play and what to say about them.  Some stations excel at local news coverage as well, but ultimately local programming almost never predominates in the schedule of a public radio or TV station, nor in commercial broadcasting either.  That’s "localism" in real life. There is also a misconception that radio plays a major role in informing citizens about public affairs.  Most people get their news from television, and the impact of radio in enlightening the electorate is slight.  Seemingly issues-oriented programming like the Rush Limbaugh show are mostly entertainment.  Newscasts after 9 a.m. have gradually disappeared from radio stations, mostly for lack of interest.  If low-power FM is intended to further serious debate of public issues it is bound to fail, both because of its limited reach and because that’s not what the listening audience expects from radio. The FCC move is probably intended to show a concern for access and diversity after the Commission was attacked for allowing greater consolidation in television.  A surge in LPFM licenses won’t really affect access or diversity in any meaningful way, but then Chairman Powell doesn’t think that concentrated ownership has much bearing on those issues either--and he may be right.  (That issue has its own symbolic mythology, but that’s a topic for another time.)  This new initiative is mostly a public performance whose main objective, like any performance, is not to change the world but rather to get the audience to applaud. posted by bob @ 9:32 am | Permanent link

Sunday, August 24, 2003

CNN's Quest Jason Zengerle’s shrewd piece about CNN in the New York Times Magazine a week ago starts with a symbolic turning point, CNN’s decision to drop Connie Chung’s "tabloidy" program.  CNN’s Jim Walton, who had worked his way up from the TelePrompTer to the presidency, took a stand: "We have to understand who we are...and that is the Cable *News* Network."  The stage is set: as in a medieval romance, the Knight of the Holy Grail has vanquished the heretics, and "Walton was the rank and file’s new hero." Except that's not the end of the story.  The real problem didn’t go away: namely, how can "*News*" attract a reasonable audience when the public seems to prefer rant and scandal?  CNN tried Paula Zahn in a two-hour show, and it didn’t work.  What does?  As Zengerle concludes, "after years of trying, CNN would need just a few more weeks to define its identity." It’s easy to say--as many people do--that CNN, or any broadcast news outlet, should pursue virtue in the form of pure news because virtue will be rewarded.  Again and again, though, the lesson of the media is that virtue succumbs when it is challenged by temptation.  Imagine if the head of the A&E Network--the *Arts* and Entertainment Network--insisted on bringing back classical-music concerts, opera, and ballet, returning to the network’s original high aspirations.  They’d end up in the dumpster, because viewers would rather see the life story of a TV actor than watch "The Nutcracker." To some, it’s an article of faith that the TV audience will flock to quality programming if only the networks will offer it.  History tells us, on the contrary, that more viewers prefer to be voyeurs, titillated by the outrageous and the unspeakable.  That’s why CNN lost its lead in the news ratings, and why local TV newscasts have so little actual news.  If CNN is to regain its pre-eminence, it will need to get past the dichotomy of old-fashioned news and high-decibel populist journalism and find a new way.  Zengerle’s perceptive reporting shows just how hard that is. posted by bob @ 6:22 pm | Permanent link

Public Service and Public Television In Southern California, where I live, a battle for a television license is looming between two long-time media competitors: public broadcasting vs. religious broadcasters.  The PBS station based in Orange County, KOCE, is operated by the Coast Community College District, which can no longer afford to run it.  Now the question is, who will get the license? Just about everybody in Orange County can receive regular PBS programming from L.A., via KCET, or from San Diego, through KPBS.  So, rather than duplicating the PBS core schedule, KOCE--like other "second signal" PBS stations in places like Boston, Washington, Chicago, and Long Island/New York--offers some alternative shows, and some of the same shows as the other stations but at different times. Is that enough reason to have the station remain a PBS outlet?  Or would a completely different sort of programming--like Christian television--provide more diversity for the viewer?  One reason the question is tricky is that the defenders of public-service television usually value PBS programming over religious TV, on the theory that it has a broader mandate.  But they also usually value diversity.  When anyone with a VCR can time-shift a TV program, is there really any inherent value in a channel that offers different airtimes for shows broadcast elsewhere, plus a smattering of British shows and Lawrence Welk?  Maybe a new Christian television outlet would actually enhance media diversity.  Personally, I like PBS programming better than evangelical TV, so I’d rather see an outfit like KCET take over the KOCE license than have it sold to a religious broadcaster.  But that’s just a matter of taste, not public policy. Then there’s the question of money.  Christian television is well-funded by contributors large and small, while public television is in trouble.  With prime-time programming that looks like The Schedule That Time Forgot, and huge costs to upgrade facilities for digital television, PBS is in a very weak financial position both locally and nationally (unlike public radio, which is doing so well that it often subsidizes a jointly-owned PBS station nowadays).  It could take a miracle, as it were, for public TV to outbid the religious broadcasters for the KOCE license. So who should win out: the marketplace? Diversity, even if that means another Christian channel? Or public television, even if the programming is not very different from what viewers can already see elsewhere?  We might not even be asking the question if PBS had made itself an indispensable television service over the last couple of decades.  But it has largely failed to offer a service distinct from the ones available more abundantly from Nickelodeon, the all-news channels, Discovery, Nature, Animal Planet, BBC Worldwide, the Independent Film Channel, and so on.  That’s a problem that won’t go away, long after the KOCE issue is settled. posted by bob @ 1:17 pm | Permanent link

The Media and Religion The mass media have trouble when it comes to reporting on religious issues.  For one thing, few daily journalists have the necessary preparation--they work in a profession that places a premium on being able to jump from the state house to a war zone to the culture desk, and has less regard for in-depth immersion in a specialized area like religion.  For another, editors see a secular point of view as the equivalent of a nonpartisan stance in politics--it’s the implicit point of reference in any discussion of the subject. The result is that stories about religious groups are treated as if they were political or economic stories, with the religious element purely incidental.  Take the coverage of the election of V. Gene Robinson as Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire.  Most of it followed a narrative straight out of politics, with progressives portrayed as trying to change the status quo against the entrenched resistance of conservatives.  A few reports treated it as a trend story, comparing the acceptance of gays in the Episcopal Church with gays’ place in the wider society (pieces where the phrase "Will and Grace" is never far off).  But what about the ways that believers grapple with the meaning and authority of Scripture in a changing world?  Or questions of how a church member is to reconcile personal belief with the demands of a larger community of faith?  Those are the religious equivalents of public-policy questions, but the media generally treat them as private matters with no wider implications. Consider the coverage of Mel Gibson’s forthcoming Biblical epic, "The Passion."  For some, it’s the Jews versus the Christians ("Some Jews Wary of Film’s Impact," headlines the Los Angeles Times).  For others it’s about artistic integrity, and the film is the "bold" work of a 'famed auteur" (Time Magazine).  It’s only in The New Republic that the religious dimensions of Gibson’s beliefs and the film’s script are taken seriously, in a revealing article by the scholar Paula Fredriksen. Is it an accident that so many articles describe Gibson as a devout Roman Catholic, when he is actually a part of a small schismatic sect that disavows Vatican II?  (The L.A. Times got this right, to their credit.)  The stereotype of the deeply religious person as an eccentric fanatic--not that I would characterize Gibson as a fanatic--is so common that it makes a difference when journalists expressly treat Gibson as member of a mainstream church rather than a splinter denomination.   It’s probably an honest mistake made by reporters who don’t see the difference.  But it implicitly creates a narrative in which Gibson’s film is like "King of Kings" or "Ben Hur," an entertainment spectacle with a broad Christian theme rather than a polemic from a narrow sectarian perspective.  Reporting the same story a different way would cast him in the role of an evangelizing sectarian who’s making an elaborate propaganda film (as some opinion writers have suggested).  That might be an act of lese-majeste against a Hollywood star, but would it be any less accurate? I haven’t read Jon Krakauer’s new book "Under the Banner of Heaven," whose subtitle is "A Story of Violent Faith."  But I gather from reviews that he sees a cause and effect between religious faith and murder.  The New York Times Book Review quotes Krakauer as saying, "as a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane...there may be no more potent force than religion."  Evidently he has forgotten all about the 20th century, in which the most potent forces for killing people were Nazism and Communism.  The truth is, self-righteousness is the real culprit, whether in the name of God or a secular ideal.  But Krakauer epitomizes the journalistic Zeitgeist in regarding believers as uncomfortably close to delusional murderers.  No wonder the press has problems reporting on religion. posted by bob @ 10:27 am | Permanent link

Saturday, August 23, 2003

Journalism By Stereotype We love the underdog, so it’s no wonder that so many stories are cast as David-and-Goliath tales.  And when a story pits independence against corporate conformity, the identification between virtuous David and wicked Goliath seems complete.  The L.A. Times broke such a story a little over a week ago, about an executive with Clear Channel Communications who left the media monolith to start an independent concert-promotion firm. True to the genre of such stories, promoter Gregg Perloff was "disenchanted with corporate strictures," because Clear Channel--in the words of reporter Geoff Boucher--is "too distracted, too unwieldy, too unhip, too corporate."  By contrast, the new company is "a small group of people committed to being a socially responsible company," as Perloff describes it.  "Small" and "socially responsible" versus "corporate uniformity"--is there any doubt who’s wearing the white hat in this shootout?  And if that weren’t enough, Perloff has "the hearts of some artists," reports the Times, while "Clear Channel [is] a company that its critics call impersonal and conservative." The bias in this piece leaps off the page.  It’s the romantic idea that the pluck and imagination and humanity of the little guy ought to trump the efficiency of the Big Bad Corporation: John Henry versus the steam drill.  It’s the same argument that was made for neighborhood booksellers against Barnes and Noble, and is now being made for local television against Fox and the other major media companies.  But where’s the information about which alternative works out better for the consumer, the artist, and the art form?  News stories that ratify a cultural prejudice without probing its implications are themselves guilty of a kind of conformity, and their readers are the poorer for it. posted by bob @ 10:54 pm | Permanent link

Friday, August 22, 2003

Tuning Away From Classical Music Discussing how a lot of educated people don’t care about classical music, fellow AJ blogger Greg Sandow recently reported, "True fact: WNYC, New York's public radio station, used to start its day with Morning Edition, and follow that with classical music. When the classical music started, fully 80% of listeners turned the dial to something else."  That *is* true, as far as it goes.  But a lot of that 80% turned the dial to...classical music, on commercial station WQXR.  Those listeners don’t dislike classical music.  They just didn’t enjoy the classical music that was being presented on WNYC, which is something else again. Intuitively we all know that classical music is not a fungible commodity, but sometimes we talk as if it is.  When we point to the number of classical records sold, or the number of listeners to classical radio, we’re implying that the music is a fixed and constant thing, and it’s just the consumption patterns that are changing.  In reality, of course, a great deal depends on the music itself.  There are exciting classical records, and God knows, there are dull and pointless classical records.  Some classical radio is appealing, some is unbearable, and some is mediocre.  Those differences matter in a big way.  Classical-music consumers can’t be expected to support the art form when they’re subjected to bad examples of it.  I generally agree with Greg’s musings about the marginalization of classical music in our culture.  In this case, though, it's the content and presentation that helped marginalize the music, not the audience's predisposition towards the art form. (Full disclosure: I once worked at NPR.) posted by bob @ 2:11 pm | Permanent link

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Radio Ethics NPR’s Morning Edition is running a weekly series on ethics, reported by Susan Stamberg.  In the opening installment Stamberg quizzed supermarket shoppers about the quotidian ethical dilemmas that might present themselves in the course of sampling produce.  Among her hypothetical moral dilemmas:  "If you...noticed a woman pocketing seeds when she thought no one was looking, what would you do?"  And, making the issue less trivial, "what if she had a big tote bag, and you saw her trying to get a chicken in it?" Now, it’s one thing to say that it’s theft to eat a grape you haven’t paid for (as did the expert Stamberg interviewed).  It’s quite something else to imply that one shopper has some sort of moral responsibility to blow the whistle on another shopper.  Stamberg and the show’s editors seem to equate stealing with keeping quiet about somebody else’s theft. Honor codes at military academies require cadets to inform on other cadets who they think are guilty of breaking the rules.  Contra Stamberg and her editors, adults in civilian life aren’t usually expected to act the same way.  NPR’s assumption that we live in, or ought to live in, a society of informers calls into question their basis for talking about ethical issues.  Whose ethics are these, anyway? posted by bob @ 9:10 am | Permanent link

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Hope In The Classical Recording Industry? According to Gramophone News Online, BMG Classics has signed a four-year contract with conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt for ten recordings.  What’s remarkable about the news in today’s environment is that any major label would commit itself to any artist.  The trend among the “majors” in recent years has been to cancel ongoing artist contracts in favor of hiring performers for one-off recordings.  Maybe the pendulum is starting to swing back.   Harnoncourt also runs counter to type because unlike so many performers promoted (however briefly) by the majors, he’s not a hot stud or a sultry vamp or a child or physically impaired.  He’s an artist of the old type, a singular interpreter whose performances are markedly different from the generic international style. BMG’s confidence in his ability to sell records is heartening.     (Full disclosure: BMG Classics is a former client of mine, and I was responsible for promoting Harnoncourt when I was Director U.S. Operations for Teldec Classics in the early 1990’s.) posted by mclennan @ 1:10 pm | Permanent link