Monday Morning Media Quarterback

Yes, once again the supposed ‘independent’ analysts from investment banks have been bought off to give buy ratings–which their sales function makes them inclined to do anyway, regardless of reality.

Increasingly a 14,000 DOW is looking like the top as the bad loans come home to roost.   But you won’t find much analysis on the business channels, between Jim Cramer’s shilling, Lou Dobbs’ posturing, and the all important search for a younger, hotter “money honey.”

But no matter how bad it gets we can always count on happy business news from Rupert Murdoch, on his new cable business network and his shiny new prize, the Wall Street Journal.

On June 15, we published an item on the Motion Picture Academy of America (MPAA) leaving its long-time digs in Encino and moving to the Sherman Oaks Galleria.  On Saturday July 7, the LA Times finally caught up, “reporting” the move in a page two business section story.

I developed the MPAA story myself the old-fashioned journalistic way, moving around the city with my eyes open.  Seeing “For Rent” signs in the courtyard of the MPAA offices, I contacted a spokesperson (who told me I was the first reporter to call), confirmed the move and published the item.

The Times taking 22 days to run big news on one of Hollywood’s most important organizations is inexcusable.

I don’t hate the mainstream media, or the Times. In fact, I recently won another award writing for the LA Times’ now-slashed magazine, West. But it’s frustrated to see–and try to work in–what the Times’ own Tim Rutten calls “the generalized collapse of confidence by newspapers engendered by print journalism’s passage through an economically wrenching transformation.”

CNN anchor Lou Dobbs is a ticking time bomb–and he’s starting to damage CNN’s credibility.  The New York Times, finally catching up with MondayMorningMediaQuarterback,  challenged Dobb’s reporting on immigrants bringing leprosy to the United States. 

Dobbs needed to back away from let-them-eat-cake remarks like “If we reported it, it’s a fact,” and respond with a brief statement like this.  “On a couple of things we’ve broadcast, I’ve got to admit our critics may have a point.  From this point forward we’ll make doubly sure everything we put on the air is accurate,  and while we’ll continue to advocate for the American worker, I apologize to those I may have given offense to.”

Instead, we get this 900-word rant, as swollen with ego as a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float.  Here’s some quotes with our commentary.

• “Today’s New York Times column is primarily a personal attack on me.” The Times story is not about the issues.
• The non-factual leprosy quote is from “an ad-lib on the set of this broadcast uttered more than two years ago by Christine Romans.” Blaming others/not taking responsibility for his show.
• “I’m regularly attacked by the left wing — the Southern Poverty Law Center, The New York Times, The Nation, MALDEF and MEChA — for my opposition to illegal immigration…I’m regularly attacked by the right wing — the biggest business lobbyists in the country, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, the Bush administration — for my criticism of so-called free trade policies and outsourcing.” Dobbs is implying that he’s a centrist and his ‘truth’ lies in the middle. Interestingly, The National Association of Manufacturers, seemingly a natural ally for this ‘leading business reporter’, slams Dobbs’ relationship with the truth–which at the end of the day, is all a reporter has.
• “The fact is, I made a mistake” He buries what should be the lead 14 columns down in his rant.
• “Corporate power, expressed by lobbyists spending billions of dollars each year in Washington to influence both political parties and public policy, represents the greatest single threat to this nation’s middle class.”  Dobbs is using airtime provided by one of those corporations, Time Warner, which also pays his $4 million salary.  Commercial speech is different than free speech, as both Pink and Don Imus have learned.
• “Those attacks from the left and the right will continue. They perhaps may get even a little more energetic. And as long as they continue to do so, you and I can rest assured that we’re doing more right than wrong on this broadcast.”  Although they try to martyr him, Dobbs’ crusade cannot be deterred, even by critics like the Mayor of San Francisco who Dobbs says, ”Might as well work for Hermann Goering.”

My concern is that Dobbs will damage the CNN and Time Warner brand, devaluing an image of credibility and unbiased news built up painstakingly over 20 years.  In the past month, Time Warner has quickly fired the head of HBO and their leading African reporter, both for alleged offenses against women. 

With Dobbs, it may be a tougher call, as he has the ratings lead .  But if he doesn’t start acting less like Howard Beale and more like Anderson Cooper, Dobbs credibility, already in tatters, will disappear completely.

So the New York Times has finally caught up to Monday Morning Media Quarterback–three weeks after we posted questions about Lou Dobb’s claim on CNN that immigrants have brought 7000 cases of leprosy to the United States.

I warned Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons about  the downside when your news anchor goes demagogic.  He claimed Dobbs’ controversial remarks were all ‘opinion’, not news.  I hope he’s watching Dobbs’ rants–and remembering the Don Imus debacle.

At the Time Warner shareholder meeting microphones were set up around the room for comments.  I couldn’t resist, making a point about how media companies are vulnerable to a crisis arriving at Internet speed.  I said that Time Warner handled the arrest of HBO head Chris Albrecht on domestic charges ‘about as well as it could’ by firing him ASAP.  Then I brought up two other Time Warner properties ripe for potential crises.

One is TMZ.COM, a celebrity gossip/paparazzi site that many see as a disaster waiting to happen, with paparazzi engaging in car chases, harassment of celebrities and their kids, and pitched street battles with other photographers to get shots.   Then I mentioned Lou Dobbs on CNN with his “protect our borders” rhetoric, as having potential for crisis impacting Time Warner. I asked how the company planned to deal with it. 

“That’s a good question,” said Richard Parsons.  “Everything he says is clearly labeled as opinion.”  I don’t think so, but at least Parsons addressed the question.  The news media, on the other hand, only got part of my point; The Hollywood Reporter did it best, at least mentioning the Lou Dobbs issue. 

Claudia Eller of the LA Times, who did great reporting on the Albrecht assault, couldn’t let go of it in her piece .  “One shareholder mentioned Albrecht in passing, praising Time Warner for acting swiftly in discharging the executive after he was arrested in Las Vegas for assaulting his girlfriend and after the Los Angeles Times ran a story about his 1991 physical altercation with a subordinate.”

 When you’re the ‘covered’, as opposed to doing the ‘covering’ as a journalist, it’s interesting to see what gets picked up–and what doesn’t.  

After public relations disasters like Don Imus and Janet Jackson, it’s interesting that CBS, once called “the Tiffany network” would take a chance on the increasingly demagogic Lou Dobbs.

Now CNN’s Dobbs has not one but two networks  to lash out on.  On 60 Minutes Lesley Stahl asked a couple of tough questions, but mostly was bowled over by her new colleague’s charm offensive.  He even played the card. 

Stahl and Lou wrapped up by driving a tractor together, on the 300-acre New Jersey farm owned by this voice of the middle-class.

Party time–Dow 13,000! 

At the end of the last century, when someone referred to a particular company or, more likely, a certain stock, I’d say “I saw it on the pump and dump channel.” I was referring to 24-hour business channels like CNBC and the late, unlamented CNNFN with tons of time to let company spokespeople and analysts with screaming conflicts of interests plug their picks. Of course, there were plenty of business journalists with conflicts too.

In the 50’s, “Newspapers would put their drunks and burned-out cases on the business page, says  former Forbes writer Jim Michaels.  Now it’s about which “money honey” is the hottest.  

Then there’s the Jim Cramer vs.  Lou Dobbs battle of the Harvard madmen.  Cramer’s pounding the table on stocks he likes is bad enough, but Lou Dobbs seems to want out of the business ghetto, he’s found a media conspiracy  and his CNN enablers seem content to let him say say any kind of shit.  

With what passes for financial journalism, what’s depressing is that we’ve been here before, with most of the same characters.  It’s easy to be a genius in a rising market.  Let’s see what happens if the house of cards falls—again.