For all the whining of late on this page about getting in and out of the Medill School of Journalism and The Daily, you’d think there was actually somewhere to go in journalism with that kind of training. But after a few afternoons watching the news on cable, I’m not so sure I wouldn’t be better off throwing out my notebooks and buying a can of lip gloss.
This all begins and ends with Fox News Channel. Rupert Murdock’s cavalcade of eyebrows is to 24-hour news what the Spice Channel is to fashion journalism. Flip to Channel 26 in Chicago and get a non-stop stream of short skirts, mascara, vitriol, ignorance and self-righteousness pouring into your living room. And that’s just the morning team.
You could ball all the lip gloss and eyeliner spread around that orgy of ol’ fashioned American idiocy and put the humpback whale it all came from back together again. Then you could hire the whale to host some evening report like “AMERICA at WAR” or “THE PRESIDENT is GOD” or “EVERYTHING is on FRICKIN’ FIRE” or whatever the hell they call it, because the bits of plankton falling out of the mammoth’s baleen would make better journalism than the drivel spilling out of the well-groomed asses they’ve got on there right now.
The basic M.O. of the station is simple: Bring on some poor liberal schmuck in way over his head to go yammering on about P.C.-this and Enron-that, and then sic ’em with a non-stop barrage of name-calling and insistences that “You’ve had your chance!” while the guest tries to explain some complicated, delicate issue in 15 seconds or less. Then alternate yelling, smirking, groaning and throwing up your hands while looking off screen at an imaginary news director until the guest quietly goes away on his own.
Take a recent spot with demonic host Shepard Smith. Billed as a discussion with Boston City Councilor Charles Yancey over a fight to eliminate the word “minority” from official documents dealing with race, it wasn’t 30 seconds before the whole station collapsed on the unassuming guest.
Smith cut off Yancey in the middle of his set-up, grumbling that the guest had “made his point” and then tossed to opposing commentator and noted racist David Horowitz. Smith and Horowitz shared equal time yelling at Yancey. “So basically,” Smith said at one point, arching his journalistic eyebrows journalistically, “this is the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard.”
When they both grew tired of the affair, Smith declared that the interview was “going nowhere,” and tossed to a Playboy bunny with a low-cut blouse for the latest update on a Cessna sitting by the side of some highway.
See, after a few years toiling in the The Daily’s office on the third floor of the Norris University Center, I thought that if you wanted an interview to “go somewhere,” then you ask your source a single goddamn question.
It’s everywhere. CNN, CNBC and MSNBC. So I’m practicing with this unsourced, angry rant. The only lesson on the broadcast airwaves today is to keep talking until God, the police or one of your advertisers tell you to shut up.
I could have saved a lot of time on the third floor of Norris and just figured that one out for myself.
