SOMETIMES THE MEDIA MAKES ME SICKO

I saw Michael Moore's wonderful film, Sicko, a few weeks ago, and I've been itching to to write about it. But I find myself in a little bit of a quandary, because the movie is so convincing in its message that it doesn't really need (or want) my input. And for those of you who haven't seen it, I'd rather not take away from the power of the film by attempting to review it.

At the expense of stating the obvious, the overall topic of the movie is universal health care, and I already offered up my feelings on this issue in a previous post. I would, however, like to mention my favorite Giuliani quote from his recent speaking engagement in Montecito, CA:

Who has the best health care in the world? Who has a better health care system? Is there one we should borrow from somewhere else? Do you want the health care system they have in England? Or Germany, or Canada, or anyplace else?

I'll only say this: go see Sicko and then answer that question for yourself.

So, here I am three weeks after having seen the film, and it turns out that I actually do have something to write about: the media. After Moore's extremely controversial film, Fahrenheit 9/11, I remember being amazed at the media's passion to investigate and expose ... Michael Moore. Never mind that they completely dropped the ball when investigating anything Bush related ... Weapons of mass destruction? "Eh, I'm sure they're there somewhere." Iraqi links to al Qaeda? "Well, if Cheney says it 300 times, it must be true." No, except for a brave minority, the media was too wrapped up in its own patriotic fervor to properly do its job when it came to the White House. You'd think, then, that the media would look at the content of that movie and ask why they failed to talk about THE FACTS it brought to light. Well, you'd be wrong.

Fahrenheit 9/11 has long since left the public consciousness, but Sicko has put Moore back on center stage. And, what do you know, the media is at it again. After seeing Sicko, everyone's reaction should be, "Oh my god, how could we let this happen in the United States of America!?" From what I've seen, though, the media's reaction has been, "Oh my god, we need to do some serious digging to find some things Michael Moore left out!"

The best example of this phenomenon is the recent debate between Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Michael Moore on CNN. Dr. Gupta, who generally agreed with the message of the film, could have spent his energy talking about the corruption in hospital administrations and insurance companies. But he chose, rather, to discuss some nonsense about how some of Moore's numbers were from the BBC and how other reports had slightly different numbers. Nobody fudges numbers better than the Bush administration, but I never see CNN challenging them so aggressively?

Even my beloved Entertainment Weekly -- which (again) agreed with Moore's conclusions -- had to say this in their review:

And then he [Moore] looks at how a few other countries have (in his never-mistaken-for-humble opinion) done health care better: England, France, Canada, and, yes, Cuba. Moore's doofus persona wears thin ...

See what I mean? If you watch this film, there are a number of people and institutions deserving of the title "doofus." Michael Moore is fighting to make a better country for YOU and ME. We are all going to get sick some day, and he more than anyone else, is trying to help.

Who's really the doofus here?

BUSH SUDDENLY INTERESTED IN PEACE TALKS

So, I was scanning The New York Times the other day and came across this article. You can read the whole thing if you want, but I would like to focus on this quote ...

President Bush announced an initiative on Monday to shore up the Palestinian president and to begin building a Palestinian state, signaling that his administration will use its remaining months to make a major push for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

This got me thinking about recent reports regarding the Bush administration talking to North Korea and also having serious discussions about global warming.

Is it just me, or does it seem like Bush just woke up and said, "Oh, crap, I'm almost outta here. I better get some stuff done!"

WHAT'S YOUR DEFINITION OF BIAS?

If you've been following the goings-on at the Santa Barbara News-Press over the last year, you know that Wendy McCaw loves to state that the 50 journalists who have quit or been fired were forced to leave due to the fact that Wendy herself is on a mission to purge "bias" from the paper. During the first few months following "Black Thursday," Ms. McCaw would constantly point to the Mori Survey, which suggests a majority of News-Press readers think the paper contains some sort of bias. More recently, Wendy has been referencing a PBS Frontline series called News War. In her latest rant against Lou Cannon, she states the following ...

The PBS series evidences the distrust the public has today for your formerly sacred "journalists." It does not trust them for the very reason I deemed it necessary to take action to ensure that the news was reported fairly and accurately: Your brand of reporters write what they want, when they want. That is not good journalism. That is not in keeping with the tenants of fairness and integrity. Simply put, that is the reason changes were needed at the News-Press.

This statement is, of course, absurd coming from a woman who prints front page articles force feeding the reader her point of view but never EVER posts anything critical of the NP. But others much smarter than myself have covered this ground already, so I'm not going to do it here. Rather, I would like to discuss what I, and others, believe to be the major flaw in McCaw's thinking ... she's not talking about the same bias.

Does the public think journalists are biased? Yes, they do, and that's a problem. But the bias in question is a left/right bias. The majority of Americans think the media leans left. And it will come as no surprise to you that I think otherwise. Conservatives hate the media, because it's the media's job to expose corruption and question power. Thus, the right has spent the last couple of decades convincing Americans that the media is liberal. And it worked. The media is now so paranoid of being "perceived" as liberal that they will no longer dig deep into any issue that is critical of the right. If you need proof of this, look no further than the fact that 70% of U.S. citizens believed that Iraq was responsible for 9/11 and that most of the population still believes there's a scientific debate about global warming. This phenomenon also explains the strange belief that Fox News is center.

If this was the cause for which Wendy McCaw was fighting, I would certainly take notice. But her mission to expunge bias is a red herring. Like every argument she makes, she throws around accusations like a game of dodge ball but never provides any proof. The only time she's actually given any evidence of bias that I know of is when Anna Davison's editor was asked to reprimand her for biased reporting. When asked to give examples of bias in one of Ms. Davison's stories, McCaw produced the following two gems:

1) Anna quoted Mayor Marty Blum too many times.

2) Anna never brought up the (non-existent) debate about the chopping down of trees on lower State Street. When this issue was researched by her editor, he discovered that the only person talking about this supposed controversy was Travis Armstrong in the NP's own editorial pages.

The tree thing is so idiotic that I won't even go there, but I guess the Marty Blum issue could theoretically be argued as a matter of bias. But to do that, Wendy needed to actually bring up the content of the Blum quotes and then explain how Ms. Davison had somehow slanted the story to appear a certain way. But, no, the bias was simply in the very act of quoting the mayor. The Wendy/Travis/Nipper axis of evil hate Marty Blum so much that simply writing down her words is out of bounds.

So, my conclusion in all this is that Wendy McCaw is certainly not using the term bias in the same context it is being used for the sources she often quotes. And based on the Anna Davison story, I would argue that finding Wendy's true definition of bias would be more difficult than getting her to shoot a feral pig. From what I can tell, bias for McCaw means somehow figuring out what things she she doesn't like and then writing about them.

THIS (TV) LAND IS MY LAND

Let me tell you a something about myself: I love TV. And not just a certain genre of TV. No, I love it all: sit-coms, dramas, news, sports, cartoons, science fiction ... you name it (well, I'm not a big fan of the reality junk). While there's a plethora of great stuff to be found on television these days, I can't get enough of the classics either. I mean, is it just me, or is The Andy Griffith Show one of the best things ever created by man?

In light of this revelation, it surely wouldn't be a surprise for me to admit that I very much look forward to the Emmy Awards each year. And if you don't think the Emmy's actually do recognize talent, I would like to take you to lunch and discuss William Shatner's three statues for Boston Legal. Beyond that, though, I don't really appreciate the glut of awards show that hog the airwaves today; I think it demeans the good ones. In fact, you know there are are way too many of these things when they pan the audience and only the winners are in attendance (I'm talking to you MTV Movie Awards).

The one exception I make to this rule, however, is The TV Land Awards. It certainly may have started out as just another lame awards show, but it has evolved into something special: a tribute for all the great TV that enveloped my childhood. This year's gala sat on my DVR for several months, and I finally got around to watching it last night. Man, what a wonderful event. Where else can you see the casts of Roots, Taxi, The Brady Bunch, Hee Haw, and Heroes all on one stage? And where else can you see awards handed out by Lindsey Wagner, Carol Burnett, Valerie Bertinelli & McKenzie Phillips, and recent Oscar winner Forest Whitaker? It was -- and always is -spectacular.

So, why am I writing about this strange topic in a mostly political blog? Two words: Ann Coulter. That's right, to my shock and horror, the queen of right wing nasty herself was in attendance. She didn't (thank god) present anything, but there she was in all her anorexic glory applauding right along side Jimmy "Dynomite!" Walker during the Roots tribute.

I ... I couldn't believe it. Of all the people on Earth, how dare she taint my childhood memories with her evil presence. The woman who called John Edwards a faggot and stated that the 9/11 widows were enjoying their husband's deaths stood there with a big, fat cheesy grin on her face and -- for a moment -- siphoned all the joy out of MY event.

What were you doing there, Ms. Coulter? Aren't "Hollywood Elite" the main problem with America today? How can you pretend to like something that generally preaches tolerance and good will? TV Land encompasses everything you hate and everything I hold dear.

Next year, please stay home and watch the event on TV!