Yokel teevee is very proud of itself to have wireless capabilities and satellites and compooters and dishes. It forgets the ability to broadcast live, and to broadcast live away from the studio, reaches to the days of the Hindenberg. It’s called a “remote feed.” This morning all the channels have treated us to the landing […]
Category: American Culture
Well, you know.
Our Nation Changed
“On that day, our nation changed.” Promotions, teases and lead-ins to broadcast programs or segments about today’s sixth anniversary of the 9/11/2001 terror attacks often have had this or a similar phrase. Hosts on shows so far repeat the statement and precede it with, “Everyone knows that. …” No, we don’t. No, it didn’t. I […]
Hero Addicts
Let us consider “hero,” not this person or that but the word. To consider how this word is being used in the media is to review to whom it is applied. That’s unfair to the person in the headline — “A hero remembered: [City name here] memorializes hometown soldier killed by helicopter crash in Iraq” […]
Demand Creative Freedom
Art museums are necessary evils. Even as they perform their important functions of archivism, centralization and certification, they rob their collected pieces of vital energy.” — Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2007 DATELINE MIRTHOLOGY — It’s time, my fellow Americans, to stand up to the injustice of housing works of art in museums. […]
Blasted Commercial
The first-day coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings was, compared to most similar events, surprisingly restrained. CNN was unbearably repetitive. I couldn’t see more than five minutes at a time, due to impatience, but wasn’t it wonderful that the cable news station of excess kept guesswork and pseudo-psycho-pap about the shooter to a minimum. But […]
Copyright Ben S Pollock 2007 I was looking for The Charlie Rose Show. Honest. It was a little after 11, and I was bored with Dave and Jay. It was pledge week for the state’s PBS conduit, AETN (Arkansas Educational Television Network), though so I realized Rose might be delayed or pre-empted. Most pledge drives […]