24 Jun 08 More Lee Abrams goodies*

Abrams interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic:

JG: Why were you surprised to find out that your company has reporters based in Iraq?
LA: I was in Los Angeles, sitting in this casual little meeting waiting for someone to show up, and there was this lady who had just got back from four years in Iraq, I forgot her name, I met 300 people in two days, and she was telling me about security problems, bullets in the background and all that, and it really struck me that there should be pictures of her with Iraqi children in the newspaper to show she was there. Whereas in the newspaper, it just says, “Times Staff Reporter.” I really never thought about it, that there was really a person over there going through hell to get this.

Er, no actually. Because then you get the Geraldo Rivera’s and those like him who decide that they themselves want to be the focus of the story. The story is what we should focus on, not the hardships of the reporter who is there. After all, the reporter needs to save something for the tell-all book later. Unless you are doing some sort of Gonzo project, the trials and tribulations of the reporter should be invisible compared to the actual story, especially with Iraq War coverage.

Going to dangerous places to get a story, to inform the people and get the truth; that’s the reporter’s job. When we watch a movie, we don’t expect the actor to stop, turn to the camera and tell us how hard it was to shoot this shot or get this scene. They save that for ‘behind-the-scenes’ specials and E! News pieces, but doing so in the middle of the film would distract from…say it together kids…THE STORY.

Continuing…

JG: It didn’t strike you that there were employees of the newspaper over there doing this work?
LA: It was just ink to me, just reading. Oh yeah, here’s what’s happening in Iraq, but then I didn’t feel the human side.
JG: So more first-person in the papers, then?
LA: I would have loved to see diaries, because what she was telling me was fascinating, living in these special secured floors of the Baghdad Hotel. It was like theater of the mind.

The human side? The Iraqis dying, the American soldiers in Iraq and the numerous other American contractors in the Middle East and you can’t see the human side? Yeah, the harrowing tale of the reporter having to take THE STAIRS to the roof of the hotel to get a signal on their satellite modem in order to file their story ON DEADLINE, that’s the real human side. The horror…the horror.

I will say this about Mr. Abrams, he is incredibly ENTHUSIASTIC!

*Note: I wouldn’t normally say critical stuff of my employer but seeing that I am leaving soon, what’s the harm (knock on wood).

24 Jun 08 Dan Rather: ‘American Journalism is in a Crisis’

In a short commentary in AdBusters Dan Rather, former anchor of CBS Evening News and broadcast journalism icon, had some terse words for American journalism and the “international conglomerates” that own it:

I believe the American people want to stand up to political pressure and say, “Report the news the way we want you to report it and if you don’t, you will be made to pay a price.” It has led to a situation where the red beating heart of a representative democracy, a free press, is run by large multinational conglomerates. They work in myriad ways, particularly in secrecy, and their influence is far too great in newsrooms.

Be that as it may, I think Dan is a bit bitter.

23 Jun 08 George Carlin

(May 12, 1937 - June 22, 2008)

Twenty-three comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, TV shows and multiple great appearances on Saturday Night Live. Somehow that still doesn’t seem like enough.