Well, I won't be revealing more of my shameless media crushes any time soon [Anthony, Dalton: you can breathe easy].
If you're clicking over here from the Lileks realm, welcome. This is not a political blog. I'm a fan of pop cultural ephemera, celluloid division, as you can see by looking around the place. Feel free to browse.
That said, I feel some explanations are in order. I share Lileks' sense of frustration that the news seems to be in danger of slipping back into the all-OJ, all-the-time mire. However, in this case I feel his target could have been better chosen. I singled out Sievers' email [from November 19, the day before the Turkish bombings, I might add] as an example of a rare, clear-eyed thoughtfulness and honesty, which too often gets obscured by the night-vision haze of the "news" about the latest Paris does... video.
A little background: Sievers and the other producers at Nightline send out a daily email detailing what they're working on for that evening's broadcast, how they arrived at the topic, and who Ted Koppel or the other correspondents will be speaking with. Occasionally, as in the case of fast-breaking stories like the Turkish bombings, they will send out a follow-up email announcing a change of plans.
Some days, the topic is lighter, because even hardened journos need a break from the constant roll-call of human misery. We all do, which is why a story like Michael Jackson's, or Phil Spector's, has legs. People may have been molested, or even murdered, but these things happened and can be grasped in a quantifiable way that war and terror casualities cannot. A little schadenfreude cleanses the palate.
Sievers acknowledged this pull, and I cited it because I understood: Every day I go by the hotel where two of the 9/11 terrorists stayed before they headed off to Logan--every day. Some of those days it's easier to keep my nose buried in Entertainment Weekly while I do. It's human nature.
Finally, if you think that the Bush administration is all broken up about the shift in focus from Whitehall to "a pervy slab of albino Play-Doh," we'll have to agree to disagree. Just remember, this is the same government that's keeping images of American-flag-draped servicepeople's coffins off your TV screens. That, to my mind, is something to get worked up about.
Tell you what. Here's the deal. Subcribe to the Nightline email for a week or so and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading.
