A long, fun holiday weekend. Many thoughts have come and gone, but one stuck for a bit… and I just looked up the data: Kerry spent $317.7 million, the Democratic Party $618 million, all demo candidates $406 mil (I assume that means another 90 million over Kerry’s number), then a bunch of 527s spent over $200 million… so roughly 1.25 BILLION DOLLARS was wasted on this recent election. I know a fair amount of that dough would only be made available to Democrats and people who wouldn’t really alter the way things are. But a mighty big chunk of that money was spent by people who know better, and dream of bigger changes. Before we’re all beaten down and cave in to the endless prattle about “reclaiming” the Democratic Party, what about using all that money to start a biting, fighting, no-holds-barred NATIONAL daily newspaper that spits and claws and insists on truth and won’t shut up? If Gannett could launch USA Today, why can’t the rich and well-enough-off who sunk so much money into NOTHING instead dedicate a portion of their financial largesse to launching a newspaper, a TV network, and more….. and not like that unbelievably lame Air America. It’s time to break with the Democrats for good and clearly stake out a territory with some intergrity and reliable commitment to the concerns of ordinary people.
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We coulda had SUMPthin’!4 comments to We coulda had SUMPthin’!Leave a Reply |
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For a totally different critical look at the media and where it’s going, check out
Epic.
On the first comment, I don’t really think it’s a matter of a lack of language, voice, or style. None of the journals you mention try to be daily newspapers. They all have occasional good features, occasional good shorts, but the kind of thing I’m missing is like “Democracy Now” plus much more… Actual news reports on the ground from all over the world. Actual aggressive reporting from the halls of power… funny, blistering, opinionated columns… News reporting that is polemical and really smart and has a sense of history… a lot of this stuff percolates through the Internet to be sure, but is not readily accessible to people who haven’t the time or inclination to figure out the new cognitive world of the web (a shrinking part of the population to be sure, but even broadcast tv news has a much huger audience than cable news, to say nothing of the net).
I’d be glad for a puppet show like the one describe by Axel. I occasionally really like Jon Stewart’s Daily Show because it comes the closest to the kind of pointed rejoinders missing from straight news… as Stewart has pointed out many times, there’s something wrong when so many people are relying on a “fake news” comedy show for their news!
Lastly, I know that the acceptable discourse as promulgated by journalists, journalism schools, etc. will never meet my hopes or expectations. So when I call for a national daily newspaper, it’s a pretty empty plea, since even if one were to start, I’d almost certainly find it horrible!
For a totally different look at the future of media, check out Epic. (my link doesn’t seem to be working so here it is: http://www.letitblog.com/epic/
I can’t find the aphorism that pertains to your suggestion, but something like “Nothing good can come from righteous dollars in pursuit of secular evangelism.”
Anyway I am surprised by your notion that a national paper is superior to the advance of internet media. It may be, but I am pleased by the penetration and scope of this media. It was LiP afterall that sent me to Bolivia a second ago to listen to a jazz salute to the solidarity of the Bolivian people and before that, through a friend’s introduction, I visited the Boggs Center, in Detroit yeah Grace is still alive and writing at 89 years! What a model!
For my money I would rather see a national puppet program ala The Guignols
They have a tremendous impact on French popular culture, in many case introducing or popularizing phrases. For instance,
If Air America isn’t good enough (the word lame is anti-gimp!), then what language does your news network speak? I don’t think any of us have it yet. There is a reason why the Nation, Mother Jones, Harpers, and your writing, the Socialist Worker, and all the other voices of good sense don’t have a huge national audience. Of those, the Nation comes closest. But in a society as voluntarily deluded as ours, how do you speak to people?
I haven’t heard much of Air America, but what I’ve heard hasn’t suffered so much from lack of political sense as the lack of a sense of humor. The people on there just aren’t that great at radio. But some people still love it.