Talking About Michael Jackson, TMZ, CNN and Trash Media
I spent a half hour Wednesday on local public radio talking about TMZ, CNN and the current Michael Jackson Tsunami.
You can listen here.
I'll also be reprising this act this weekend on the CBS Sunday Morning show (the one with Charlie Osgood).
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July 1st, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Im sorry but talking about how much other people are talking about Michael Jackson strikes me as boring and evidently self defeating. I will not be following that link
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:39 am
I’ll look forward to your comments.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:15 am
Gee, Ahmed, I’m crushed. But I understand. The man crush you had on MJ has left you pretty rattled.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:30 am
We’re in a Michael Jackson Hysteria Hall of Mirrors now: “you’re talking too much about talking too much about talking too much…”
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:32 am
So I lied and listened to part the interview before I went to sleep, those two things not enitely disconnected from what I was doing but whatever…And I must your comment that the first 48 hours of Jackson coverage sucked whereas afterwards it improved because it featured “real news” stories, you know burning issues like were they his real kids, the meds, and all that jazz strikes me as total bulshit. As hard as I was on Reg at least he tried hard, too hard, to situate Jackson within a social, cultural and historic context. The stupid, bombastic and sentional media show, not so much. It seems to me that the first 48 hours of coverage at least had a newness and rawness which has since collapsed over time. On the other hand, if only we were getting this quality of thought about Michael we’d be in a better state
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2009/06/from_the_voice_2.php
ps Roper quit sucking up. Its not like people forget what a fool you made out of yourself last election becoming hyterical and deranged to say the least. And like I said Jackson and celeb fanatics are probably less toxic and deranged then Palin supporters on a whole. Compare the youtube videos of people at the Apollo to the nutcases Palin was riling up during her vice presidential run at ralies around the country. I’ll go with the former group of people over the latter
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:46 am
Hmmmmm a helpful tale of the tape
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjxzmaXAg9E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7PtVqWy6nc
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:37 am
When the media starts talking about what its talking about, it shows its own narcissism and self focus. Or, in a different light, it is using its public outlets to air what other professions do in private.
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:00 am
Marc, props on knowing your Michael Jackson news, but you should work on your “PBS voice” — speak more softly, in monotone, and sound boring.
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:10 am
For someone who finds Marc’s writings and speaking so horrible and boring, Ahmed sure spends a lot of time here.
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:21 am
Ahmed, can listen as little or as much as he pleases. he’s also free to like or dislike what he hars. he is now free, however, to willfully distort what this is about. To say it is “talking about people talking about MJ” is intellectually disonest. We ATTEMPT an analysys of the role that different media play in shaping mass news content and try to figrue out how that agenda is set. To say it’s just talking about talkign is to say that making any analysis of coverage of Iran is justt alking about talking Iran. In any case, what’s wrong with talking about talking? This is the second time this week Ahmed that you ahve clearly suggested that if a topic is not weighty enough for your refined tastes it should not be a smuch as uttered. Just a tad censorious, I would say. People here, including me, are free to see whatever they damn please. Those who are “bored” or don’t like it, can tune it. And when it comes to boring (thanks for the compliment) I can guarantee you that the person here who is MOST bored is me— because I’m the one who has to read all these often asinine comments.
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:28 am
Ahmed, I don’t know how we were at such odds awhile back because we seem to agree on most everything.
Marc, you are at risk of becoming like those you excoriate.
Its not the public acting out a normal collective response to a public figure who has been a lightning rod for a past or current zeitgeist that is the problem. Its those in the media who either are whores to the machine that cranks out the crap or so called journalism professionals like yourself who continue to whine about the symptom rather than ever understanding the cause of the disease.
You have now 3 blogs on MJ? We don’t care. (about MJ and the media frenzy that then feeds off itself because “professionals” like you further fan the flames of vacuousness.
C’mon. A woman just walked into a portable toilet stall and gave birth to a baby, came out, sat down and had a cigarette. As a man was about to enter the same unit she casually told him not to go in there because she had just birthed her child in it.
We are living in a crazy world of technology that has absolutely no effect whatsoever on primal human behavior and its often atavistic expression. And all you want to do is to talk about the media talking about MJ’s death rather than at least seeing the connection between his having been treated as a media commodity as a tiny child just so he would become this media sensation as this somehow is considered okey dokey by a lot of people
Talk about something that matters.
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:42 am
Uh-oh, Ahmed–Anna agrees with you. That’ll make you re-think your position.
Marc, keep on keepin’ on. Your blog posts rock.
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:17 am
Okay thats a good point Samuel and as for K Dog… Marc knows that even though I throw some jabs, I’ve got plenty of affection for habbibi
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:28 pm
The wall-to-wall coverage is of course way (if expectedly) over the top and far exceeds Jackson’s contributions.
People keep using words like “transformative” and “influential”. He was a massive pop sensation (and really the first African-American worldwide massive pop sensation) but I don’t see that the culture was especially transformed by him (the way that say rock n roll helped to transform the culture in the 1950s and 1960s) and I think the most influential artists are often the ones who don’t have the commercial success (but whose styles and methods are aped by artists who do).
But to call him a “deceased pedophile” (regardless of his apparent interest in boys as young as their early teens) as Mr. Cooper did in the last post on the subject seems kind of gratuitously mean-spirited.
As a purely factual matter I think it would make him a “deceased ephebophile”.
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
“I’m the one who has to read all these often asinine comments.”
Dirty job, etc. etc.
Frankly Marc, I think you will be forgiven if you skim and skip and, occasionally, ignore altogether. We’re not paying you to be our therapist…in fact, you would arguably deserve an even bigger pay check than that for taking all of this discourse, quasi-discourse and faux discourse on.
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
“Marc, you are at risk of becoming like those you excoriate.”
Mamet put it better: “I have become what I have foresworn.”
I don’t think that’s true here, but I always enjoy quoting that line from “Untouchables.” It was so ridiculously literary coming out of the mouth of Elliot Ness, with Mamet’s typewriter clicking in the background.
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Journalism is a business, not a pasttime.
Jackson sells. Iran, less so.
This should not present a problem for an educated population.
It may pose problems for an un-educated population, or even an under-educated one, but that would be minor relative to others…
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Bunkerbuster — That may just be the dumbest defense of market forces I have ever heard. Ever. At any time.
And since you imply, in your cute classification, that you’re one of the educated, your statement is even worse, unless it actually throws you into one of those other dread categories.
Is it necessary to point out to you that there was a time when the news media felt, and legally had, a certain public obligation that was not dictated by money?
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Please, Dan O, do tell me when this storied time was. I’d love to hear that one.
the press has ALWAYS been a business, at least in the U.S.
to the extent that there is also some civic duty involved, the press is no worse now — and is probably better than ever — on that score.
meanwhile, I’m going to roll on the floor and laugh when Marc shows up to “cover” the Staples center memorial for Jacko…
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Maybe Michael Jackson isn’t really dead, and this is one giant publicity stunt — sort of like what we’re going to see when Andy Kaufman returns. Watch for a surprise at the Staples Center!
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Saying “the press has ALWAYS been a business” is suppose to mean what? I have to second Dan O, bunkster. Fairly decent comparison to note:
“If anyone needed proof of how much the media culture has changed it might be this. When Elvis Presley died in 1977, CBS News was criticized for choosing not to lead its newscast with it.”
This was on the previous post, in case you missed it.
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Indeed, in 1977 CBS was taking ITSELF — as one-third of a TV news oligopoly — very, very seriously.
Just open up an archived report and see the oozing propaganda, anonymous sourcing, unsupported assertions, etc. The news was far, far more uniformly pro-government, pro-big-business and pro-advertiser in 1977 than it is today.
To some extent, there was a level of formality and self-seriousness to the news that is lacking today (didn’t anchors have to wear jackets?), but that’s all surface. Look at the actual reporting and you’ll find that much of it is, surprise, surprise, fat, lazy gruel that be laughed out of business today.
The media ecosphere could hardly be more different now than then. Network TV no longer sets the news agenda. The audience is far too fragmented for that. It wouldn’t matter what one network led with today: it would be a mere blip in the sea.
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:28 pm
BB
You gotta be kidding. There’s absolute no logic to your snarky note about be me covering MJ’s Roman funeral. Makes no sense, bub.
You’re anonymous so you have nothing to lose. And now that you have continued to suggest, repeatedly, that I am a media whore, why don’t u tell us what kind of employment you have and how u remain so pure in such a filthy lucre=ridden world?
July 3rd, 2009 at 3:44 am
Ahmed/arendt/cdelores “And like I said Jackson and celeb fanatics are probably less toxic and deranged then Palin supporters on a whole.”
less toxic and deranged? You have got to be kidding. especially after the media frenzy about MJ and his many many “fans” wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Pathetic fool!
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:19 am
I just became aware of Michael Lacey’s slam of Marc in the L.A. Weekly last week. Marc can take care of himself but Lacey repeats some lies about L.A. historian Mike Davis that I decided not to let slide:
http://michael-balter.blogspot.com/2009/07/mike-davis-marc-cooper-james-rainey.html
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:20 am
Oh okay I’ll give Roper, that crazy baldhead, a break after this but let’s again go to a tale of the tape
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtZWwgw__WY&feature=fvw
compared to this group, which strikes me as at least a lot more peaceful
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IEaXt8khyo&feature=related
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:35 am
Ahmed, the Left’s hate and attacks are more typified by those of Perez Hilton against Miss California, and the Left’s hate becomes personal and destructive as opposed to simply disagreeing with and debating another’s views.
Perez Hilton – Why Miss California Did Not Win Miss USA Pageant
Miss California I pray and feel sorry for Perez Hilton
Another “tale of the tape” – Palin Derangement Syndrome and Why the Left Hates
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:41 am
Uh, oh. Look who’s becoming an “Uncle Tom,” as the Left describes such people with opposing views: Powell airs doubts on Obama agenda
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:52 am
Mikes Davis is one of the coolest people ever. When I read Lacey’s tirade a while back, it just reinforced my belief in the recent suckiness of the Weekly.
Davis has been a hero of mine for over 15 years. I met him a few times, and he signed my melrot-stained copy of City of Quartz, too.
Good work, Balter. I sincerely hope someone reads your blog.
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:56 am
Woody the fact that you’re such a fervent follower of Perez Hilton, who I know next to nothing about, and apparently stand in for the “left” is itself quite hilarious. it’s always been clear to me that all the gay jokes, the over the top transparent attempts to make it clear that you’re some kind of traditional souther manly man, et cetrea. This has always been about your real anxieties and fears surrounding “manhood”. Good luck working through your struggles, bro
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:00 am
Btw, as a brown skinned guy named Ahmed (okay its my middle name) I’d much rather come across a bunch of people outside the Apollo dancing and singing than a crowd of hate filled, bitter, toxic Palin fans whipped up to a frenzy by their ditz of choice against all things A-rabs, socialist and the like
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:42 am
Ahmed, your comparison of a bunch of
Apollo tribesmen jumping around is an even worse comparison than mine of Perez Hilton. As a straight, white, taxpaying, male, protestant, conservative from the South, I’d rather be at an NRA convention than cruising the bars in Harlem.
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:51 am
“a bunch of Apollo tribesmen jumping around”
Um, what?
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:59 am
BTW, Ahmed, you should have been with me the other night when I got on to a black guy who pulled into the gas station in a fancy car with his windows down and his speakers blaring a song whose repeated lyrics were “F* the Police.” He left it playing loudly even after he got out to pump his gas. So, I walked over and told him that his radio was meant for his private listening rather than for the general public and that what he was playing was offensive, so would he please cut it off. What I liked was that as he was trying to justify it to me, which wasn’t working, a black mother at another pump and whose child was in her car started letting him have it worse than I did. I pulled out as she was still giving it to him. To me, that offered real encouragement and hope for change.
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Hey, Ahmed, given your background, maybe you can offer me some advice. My son is dating a Muslim girl here on an exchange program. Yes, it’s true. This is my my problem. I’m worried that if they got married and had children, her family would want to turn my grandchildren into suicide-bombers. Is there something in your religion that we can use to safeguard them or is it a requirement to sacrifice yourselves to kill non-believing Westerners?
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Joseph, an example of an Apollo tribesman:
Jackson Celebration: Rev. Sharpton Grinding Woman At Apollo… (Picture 5 of 42)
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
No, it’s still unclear. What exactly do you mean by “tribesmen”?
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
He means exactly what you think he means, because he thinks racial jokes are cute, and no matter how much he is abused for it, he won’t stop.
I think he won’t stop because he fancies himself an anti-PC culture warrior who views it as his obligation to fuck with people who don’t think these things are funny no matter what the cost to his increasingly minuscule character.
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:37 pm
First we have this bullshit which is both unfunny and proves the so called manly man (who in reality has very clear masculinity issues) has a very low IQ
“Is there something in your religion that we can use to safeguard them or is it a requirement to sacrifice yourselves to kill non-believing Westerners?”
And more folks
“a bunch of Apollo tribesmen jumping around”
And with that I say either ban Woody, ignore him completely or let the Charles Oakley of this blog go to work in the paint!
July 3rd, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Ahmed might have been right about preferring the Jackson fans over the Palin supporters… nobody likes a quitter.
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Hey, if my ancestors were in Clans (or, as you want to believe, “Klans,”) then what’s wrong with referencing tribes for Africans or decendants of Israel?
You guys are too sensitive and overreact.
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Rob, it’s attitudes and snarky attacks like yours and the Democrats that would make any sane person want to get out of politics.
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Repaired link: Israel
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Last one and I’m moving on….
Ahmed for you: We Will Have Peace When The Arabs Love Their Children More Than They Hate Us
Look at the cute pictures of their children strapped to explosives.
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:22 pm
MSNBC was just taken off Comcast Cable’s expanded basic (about $60 a month including all the taxes and surcharges)
A woman in filing suit with FCC as they also did this to one of the PBS stations. Both MSNBC and this other PBS station are now only available on a more expensive package. The suit states its political because MSNBC is considered more liberal is is PBS.
MSNBC is not commenting. Its all very bizarre.
So as bad as TV news is…MSNBC has its moments.
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Who the fuck is Perez Hilton and why is Woody obsessed with him ?
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Sorry Woody, but it’s obvious.
Heck, even Ed Rollins beat me to it.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/03/john-king-and-ed-rollins-on-palin-announcement/
But I shouldn’t be so snarky.
Did you see that the Russians…fook it, here’s the link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106259759
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:06 pm
“then what’s wrong with referencing tribes for Africans”
So you honestly believe this? This was really your intention, and you think this is just an objective way of referring to black people? Or were you rather trying to get a rise out of others, like a guy playing “Fuck the Police” out of his car stereo for everyone to hear? Try being honest now.
“So, I walked over and told him that his radio was meant for his private listening rather than for the general public and that what he was playing was offensive, so would he please cut it off.”
Actually, you are just “too sensitive and over-react”. Or maybe what you are saying here is offending us and should not be shared with the general public. And therefore you should cut it off.
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Sorry Woodster but I dont think much of hate spewing propaganda such on your website where your enlightened ideological kin commentators suggest that the enitire middle east conflict between Israel and Palestine can be reduced to racist statements like “arabs are liars”. Stick to something you know a little about, like Perez Hilton who you seem to follow extremely closely!
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:05 pm
“Ahmed might have been right about preferring the Jackson fans over the Palin supporters… nobody likes a quitter.”
Hmmmm, i guess the comparison may be a bit useless but when somebody like Roper comes in here, all high and mighty claiming not to understand Jackson fans while he was during the election basically fronting for that ditz Palin here crazed, hate spewing followers, it strikes me as a bit much
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Spike and Al getting down
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChyY75sY504
July 4th, 2009 at 10:40 am
angry old man chat.
July 4th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
“Who the fuck is Perez Hilton and why is Woody obsessed with him?”
He spelled it wrong, and him is a her?
Happy Independence Day everyone. Ain’t it great Woody has the freedom to run his mouth, and I do mean run….endlessly.
I believe it was honest Abe who said “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool…..”.
July 4th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
>Is there something in your religion that we can use to safeguard them
is there something in *your* particular brand of superstition, Woody, that the kids’ other grandparents can use to protect them from becoming a bunch of doctor-murdering hicks or heretic-burning torturers?
July 5th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
less toxic and deranged? You have got to be kidding. especially after the media frenzy about MJ and his many many “fans” wailing and gnashing of teeth.
How many hours a day do you have to practice to get that dense? Yes, moron, that’s the bloody obvious point, that even compared to the extraordinary derangement of MJ fans, Palin supporters are more deranged … and TOXIC.
July 5th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Marc writes:
“now that you have continued to suggest, repeatedly, that I am a media whore.”
Not my point at all, Marc.
I have said you’re a hack because you think it’s okay to blindside people and to skate along on rumor and innuendo.
It has nothing to do with any kind of career purity, it’s simply a question of professionalism and ethics.
You don’t know whether Jackson is a pedophile. You haven’t any proof. You simply believe he is, yet you state as fact.
If you can’t or won’t instinctively steer clear of printing your beliefs as fact, you’re a hack.