Monday Morning Media Quarterback

The immigration bill has gone down to defeat in the Senate.  Whatever one’s political beliefs, it was clearly a major defeat for President Bush, who used much of his diminished political capital to try to get it passed, but in the end won only 12 Republican senators to his side.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) came under enormous pressure from conservative constituents who railed against the measure’s path toward citizenship (”amnesty“) for illegal immigrants.
    
What he said was sad, scary, and possibly true.  ”I’ve learned one main lesson,” he said. “A lot of Americans have lost faith in their government – they don’t think we can control our borders, win a war, issue passports.”

From a media perspective, to be successful the candidates of both parties will have to sell against that with all their optimism, energy, and enthusiasm.

At my age, I take a paternal interest in Paris.  Not.  And certainly not a maternal interest, like snarky Nora Ephron.

Yes, Paris is hot, but she’s easy to make fun of.  I admit I love her because you, the reader, loves her–the top search terms on this blog include paris hilton, Paris Hilton, PARIS HILTON, Paris-Hilton, Paris in jail, etc. But you only come here because I write about her. 

So why do I write about her? Isn’t she stupid? Vapid? A no-talent? Racist and possibly anti-Semitic? A ? (To many, another reason to love her.) A Bible-banger? A Buddhist?

I write about her because she is a phenomenon.  People care not only about what she wears and where she goes, but about her.  To her fans, Paris has fashion sense, sass, looks, attitude–in short, all the elements of style.  Put it all together and she’s a real attention-getter. 

Is it all about being rich and a socialite?  Partly–but being rich doesn’t make you a generation’s “It Girl”.   Whatever “it” is, she’s got it–and her fans want it.  She started as a model–so why does everyone expect her to be a role model?

It’s easy to understand why people (over) focus on Paris Hilton or Jordin from American Idol, when the real news is this grim.  The news business is an entertainment business; give the people what they want.  And Paris, friendly to photographers and starring on TV, has become this generation’s people’s princess.

Paris  may be a millionaire many times over, but she’s got the common touch.  Who can’t relate to her claustrophobia, her not wanting to be alone, her making a mistake by drinking and driving?  Who doesn’t take medication?  Who doesn’t like to go out dancing?  Who doesn’t think they’ve been unjustly punished?  Who doesn’t see herself as a dutiful daughter, a good girl who ‘confessed’ to Larry King that she’ll go to Mass? 

And who doesn’t think like Paris does that “the right guy is out there”, and when she finds him, she’ll have a big family because she “loves children?”

Paris has been a girl who just wants to have fun–just like her fans.  And maybe now, after her sobering experience, those fans will watch her growing up.

Tom Cruise has never won an Oscar, but he has won fame as the world’s best-known Scientologist.  To many, Scientology is a controversial, even debatable, religion.  It is not recognized as such in Germany.

So when producers of Tom Cruise’s new movie, Valkyrie, asked to film at German military sites, Cruise was refused because he is a Scientologist, according to the German Defense Ministry.  (Drudge links here.) Valkyrie is the story of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, leader of the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Nazi dictator in July 1944. 

Probably a thriller, Valkryie is also the story of someone who, no matter how late and convoluted his reasons, stood up against tyranny.  (Sophie Scholl is a better example of suicidal courage in the face of Nazi torture and murder.)

There’s much to admire about the new Germany, from its conscientious efforts to acknowledge the Holocaust to its support of the United States.  But from a public relations perspective, Germany should allow Cruise and his team (including respected director Bryan Singer) to film wherever they want, regardless of Cruise’s support of Scientology.

Beyond that, Germany should not be in the position of determining what is a state-approved religion and what is not.  We know where that goes.

I recently attended the launch, literally and figuratively, of the Finding Nemo submarine ride at Disneyland.  Although I didn’t grow up in Southern California, I’m starting to understand the sometimes-creepy nostalgia for a Disneyland of the past that almost seems like a Coney Island of the Mind, as Lawrence Ferlinghetti put it.  

While many rides of the mythical ‘E-Ticket’ era are gone, the Cold War era Disney submarine fleet (launched 1959) has returned from mothballs with a vengeance, to take us on a wonderous undersea journey chasing the little fish Nemo.  Disney has also bowed to the green era; the 8 subs are now clean electric-powered.

The Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage at Disneyland

Disney should open an attraction called “The Line Experience.”  No ride, just a long line, with lots of hot, tired people from around the world waiting to be entertained.

Disney employees have two retirement plans: their 401K and the stuff in their basement.

As press, we had an unusual experience–visiting Walt’s apartment.  Anaheim was strawberry farms when Disneyland was built, with no freeways or hotels.  Rather than drive the 35 miles back to Holmby Hills, Disney had a small apartment built above the fire station on Main Street. 

Like much of Disneyland, it’s preserved in immaculate creepiness; the early 20th century furniture and footstools covered in doilies, the inevitable Edison phonograph (a victrola-like device with a huge horn) and the two day beds, 15 feet apart, where Walt and wife slept apart from one another.  It smelled like Grandma’s house. 

I picked up the ornate white rotary dial phone.  There was a dial tone, as if waiting a call from The Maker.  At night, they leave the light in the window on for Walt.

That’s the dilemma that Wall Street Journal workers face, claims a New York Times story.  Rupert Murdoch would ‘dumb down’ the paper and the rest of Dow Jones; a possible GE/CNBC buyer would ‘consolidate’ (slash) jobs.

Either way, it’s ironic how little editors are aligned with the capitalist values of their media outlets.  Drudge is highlighting an MSNBC story about how journalists political donations skew 9-1 Democratic.  My favorite quote:

A junior editor at Dow Jones Newswires (!) gave $1,036 to the liberal group MoveOn.org and keeps a blog listing “people I don’t like,” starting with George Bush, Pat Robertson, the Christian Coalition, the NRA and corporate America (”these are the people who are really in charge”).

That Dow Jones editor has a Constitutional right to contribute to (and publish about) anyone they want.  But I would ask him two questions: Dude, where do you work?  And what do you do every day–talk about ‘corporate America’!

When MSG Communications media-trains executives, a key point we make is that just like their own industries, journalism, media and publishing is all about doing more with less.  If a newspaper had three reporters covering consumer electronics and gaming, for example, now there might be just one.

On a media tour with a client to Newsweek, we were having an engaged discussion with a key editor.  Suddenly, someone burst in.  “Time to blog!” they sang out brightly.  The editor’s look of incredulity, scorn and resignation was priceless.

The same pressure exists at Time.  Time Editor Rick Stengel wrote in a recent memo to staff:

Let me make this explicit: evaluations of every Time writer, correspondent, and reporter will be based on the quality and quantity of the contributions each of you makes to both the magazine and to TIME.com. TIME.com is a daily responsibility; Time magazine is a weekly responsibility.  

We are now both a 24/7 news organization online and the indispensable weekly magazine that we have always been, and always will be. We don’t own our readers or their time - we have to earn their attention and loyalty every week, every day and every hour in a media landscape that is only getting more competitive. Let’s go to work.

Like the editor at Newsweek, the Time staff doesn’t get paid extra for their new 24/7 workload.  If they’re lucky, they get to keep their jobs as long as there’s a Time in print–which Chairman Ann Moore claims will be as long as we live. 

The editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal, plus sundry other journalists, are running around like chickens with their heads cut off.  Their fear?  That Rupert Murdoch, publisher and destroyer of worlds, will take over the Journal with his stained hands.

 They bleat he’ll dumb it down and change its editorial mission.  Which is what–to make the world safe for capitalism?  Then the Journal should be applauding Murdoch’s $60 a share offer.

Murdoch has a history, they say, of using his media empire to advance his own causes and line his pocket.

No shit, Sherlock!  What does a publisher do?  Yellow journalism was Joseph Pulitzer, who got a prize named after him, and William Randolph Hearst, who got an empire, battling in a gutter war for circulation–and to see who could get the U.S. into the Spanish American war first.

Murdoch focuses his chirpy Fox News, smarmy New York Post and the rest on sensationalism and celebrities.  He likes to sell papers and make money. 

As they say, the new Golden Rule is the one who has the gold, makes the rules.  The Wall Street Journal may not like it–but hey, that’s capitalism.

So give me–and Rupert–a break.

Journalist and writer Michael Goldstein, founder of MondayMorningMediaQuarterback, last night won first place for Feature/Commentary in the Los Angeles Press Club’s 49th Annual Southern California Journalism Awards.  The award was for his LA Times West story, “The Other Beating,” about George Holliday, the man who videotaped the Rodney King beating, and what’s become of him since his moment of fame.

The citation read:

G2 Feature/Commentary 

Michael Goldstein, LA Times West, “The Other Beating”

Judges’ comment:  A chilling account made even more interesting by the twist of fate that brought George Holliday into the writer’s life. Strong quotes and great insight into Holliday’s character and journey made this a story we couldn’t put aside. This is a story about a man thrust into history that had every chance of never being told, which makes it even more haunting. 

You read it here first; the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is ankling its Encino digs after 20 many years, with the status of the tile fenceposts with images of Spartacus, ET, King Kong, and others as yet unresolved.   Big “For Rent” signs festoon the courtyard of the MPAA offices at 15503 Ventura Boulevard.

An MPAA spokesperson confirmed the association is leaving its digs.  The 100-person MPAA workforce isn’t going far.  Fittingly enough, the motion picture association is moving down the street to the Sherman Oaks Galleria, setting of Valley Girl.

Californians have always prided themselves on their driving skills (except when it rains and there are 500 fender-benders in three hours).  That’s why you’ll see people shaving, texting, applying make-up, reading magazines and screaming at their phones.

But it seems like someone needs to open a Celebrity Driving School.  I don’t venture to West Hollywood, especially late at night, because of the growing celebrity menace.

Accidental meetings with celebrities have always been a lure of Los Angeles, but they were fatal for the unlucky folks who encountered Prison Break’s Lane Garrison and singer Brandy.

Sure–not every celebrity crash is a fatal one.  But with Lindsay, Paris Hilton’s potentially ugly DUI, “Wrong Way” Nicole Ritchie (called that because she was arrested for DUI going against traffic on a freeway!), Halle Berry and even Mischa Barton of the OC commiting mayhem behind the wheel, maybe celebrity chronicler TMZ.COM should change their “Trainwrecks” section to “Celebrity Car Crashes.”

Watch out for celebrities when you’re on the road, or your car will may look like this.