*GERMANY TRIUMPHANT*

*NEWS WAR IN ISRAEL*

*MEDIA PANEL IN NY*

All the countermen, mostly Hispanic, in the Greek-owned Stage Door Deli downstairs were watching TV and not the griddle this morning as Germany and the US faced off in the World Cup. Never mind that this is the first day of summer. Never mind that the trains are not running on the west side because a suspicious “package” is being checked and it is impossible to know what is going on because all the announcements in the subway are made in a language called “mumble.” It is always indecipherable.

SOCCER FEVER IN OHIO USA

The soccer fever is palpable as the sons and daughters of all those suburban soccer moms have grown up and are now packing bars and public venues with TV monitors to watch the action, or, rather, the lack of it. As I write here in New York, I know that the Daimler Chrysler city in Berlin must be packed with fans glued to the big screens, hoping their team will whoop some American butt.

GERMAN PRESS WANTS BLOOD

The US media is hyping the home team in the same way the Germans are. Yesterday’s USA Today had a report from Stuttgart reporting on Build Zeitung’s headline: “BYE BYE COWBOYS: Saddle up your horses, we are sending you back to the prairie.” The Tagesspiegel was more wary, cautioning: “One must show respect…we should be careful.” On the other hand, the Taz in Berlin speculated that all the US players had chips implanted in them to make them techno robotic on the field. The English, meanwhile are licking their wounds after what looked like the cast of Rocky Horror Picture Show spent the night welcoming the summer solstice at Stonehenge. Brazil beat Blimey 2-1.

THE MATCH BETWEEN ISRAEL AND PALESTINE: NO WINNERS YET

Football fever has taken the focus off the Middle East crisis, where more Israelis and Palestinians are dying thanks to terrorism and counter-terrorism. It looks like Bush will finally give his long-awaited speech, from which little is expected. Nevertheless, the warriors are dusting off their negotiating tactics.

Arafat announced that he has decided to accept a peace plan — Bill Clinton’s. Maybe they are on some time delay over there, but that is what the Palestinian leader who many in the know feel has been losing it for years (as opposed to running it all as his adversaries contend) told the Israeli Daily Ha’aretz. Many dismiss any concessions as too little too late but it’s never too late for a peace deal. At the end of the day, as they, say, both peoples will still be there and have to find some way of living in proximity with each other. (As I write, Israeli tanks are rolling back into Nablus.)

BREAKING NEWS….No Score yet. As we think about Germany. Think about this from the Guardian:

“Increasing numbers of Israelis are applying for German citizenship in order to have a secure country to escape to should the Middle East conflict escalate, diplomats say. Since the start of the second intifada at the end of September 2000, the number of applications for citizenship lodged with the German embassy in Tel Aviv has risen steadily.”

CNN IN THE NEWS

Having hinted at that “can’t we all get along” cliché, I move on to the media storm over CNN founder Ted Turner’s comments about both sides practicing terrorism in an interview with Britain’s Guardian. (Where Dan Rather denounced the US media for its collaboration with the Bush Administration on BBC, there was no pick up here.)But Turner has turned up the volume on the media debate, a controversy being fueled by the Murdoch press–which is just thrilled to be able to use the incident to try to push CNN (which Turner no longer runs) out of Israel and replace it with Fox News– whose reporting is far more to Tel Aviv’s liking.

A NEWS WAR ERUPTS

This is all about money, too, folks, not just ideology. Variety put it this way: “Cable news’ turf war tumbled into the Middle East on Wednesday when a leading Israeli TV satcaster added Fox News to its lineup a day after inflammatory remarks by CNN founder Ted Turner.”

Reuters elaborated earlier: “Israeli television broadcasters are considering pulling the plug on the CNN news channel in protest at comments made by U.S. media mogul Ted Turner, officials and sources at the companies said on Thursday.

“Turner, founder of the 24-hour Cable News Network, was quoted on Tuesday as saying the Israeli military was engaged in “terrorism” against the Palestinians that could be compared to Palestinian suicide bomber attacks on Israelis.

“A senior board member at the YES satellite television broadcaster and a source close to the head of Israel’s three cable providers, now engaged in a merger, said the companies would weigh taking the widely watched CNN off the air.

“At least two of us (board members) have demanded that YES management take CNN off the air for at least 24 hours in protest over what Ted Turner said,” the board member, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

CNN TO ISRAEL: TED IS NOT IN CHARGE

The New York Times reports that CNN executives are distancing themselves swiftly and have announced that they will no longer run excerpts from videos tapes by suicide bombers. News chief Eason Jordan got on a plane to Israel for consultations with Israeli officials who have been quoted as saying their has been”ongoing unhappiness” with CNN coverage of the conflict.

The CNN officials are trying to explain that the coverage Israelis see comes from CNN International, a different service than the CNN we see in America. Fox has no such international service — YET!

NIGHTLINE IN TOP FORM

While Israeli officials were trashing CNN, ABC’s Nightline did a good job of getting into the nuances of the fence issue that is so polarizing opinion in the region. Jim Wooten did a sensitive job of showing what it will mean in one town currently divided by a historic but porous “Green Line” between the Palestinian and Jewish communities.

As the program looked ahead to the Bush speech, Executive Producer Leroy Sievers wrote in an email: “Here’s what troubles me. If one bomber, or two bombers, can throw off the schedule, can disrupt the process even for a day, or if the Israeli reaction to a bombing makes the timing inappropriate, how can there ever be any progress at all? Doesn’t that send the signal that if you want to disrupt what I hesitate to even call the peace process, all you have to do is set off a bomb? As I have said many times, I find this situation profoundly depressing

“Earlier in my career, I covered the wars in Central America–brutal, violent, and seemingly unending. But the wars finally ended, I think, when both sides just got tired of the killing. No one could take it any more. I am so saddened by what is happening in the Middle East because I see no sign that either side is getting so tired of the killing that they will show the courage that it takes to really make peace. I truly hope that I am wrong.”

IS “AL JEWZEERA” ON THE WAY?

In some eyes, this thoughtful reflection will be denounced as bias. Unfortunately, Nightline is not, to my knowledge, on the air in Israel and so is unlikely to be cancelled there by people who only want to hear their own voices.

Some weeks ago, a prominent politician and TV entrepreneur ,who described himself as to the right of Sharon, told me that he is raising money for a new hardline satellite network that will challenge CNN and Fox who they see as too “balanced” and wimpy. A friend here jokingly called the notion, “AL Jewzeera,” which is how it could be labeled even though I think that is insulting to Jews, large numbers of whom want peace and oppose the Sharonistas.

ANGUISH AT THE FRENCH INSTITUTE

US news coverage came in for a roasting last night on a distinguished panel sponsored by the French Institute and the Nour Foundation. I thought I was supposed to be on it , but between the invitation and the execution, I was Xed. No matter, the UN’s Shashi Tharoor (He’s good: Someone should give this guy his own show!) ably moderated a discussion with right-wing media veteran Arnaud de Borchgrave of the Washington Times and NYU’s left-wing media critic Mark Crispin Miller and no wing columnist Michael Wolff, media columnist extraordinaire at New York Magazine. Ulysses Gosset, the US bureau chief of France’s TFl, added a European view. (Mediachannel editor Liza Dichter stayed away to protest the all male panel.)

NEWS BEAK #1

B R E A K I N G N E W S ( I took a break to check the score. The Germans are ahead l-0 at 8:54, 4 more dead in the West Bank as a result of Israeli fire…The NY Times Op Ed Page carries a piece on the Afghan War. Seems like the warlords have won — one more time. (”The course of Afghanistan’s loya jirga demonstrated that powerful forces inside and outside the country remain categorically opposed to democratic accountability.”)

WE AGREE

What was striking about the discourse was how much EVERYONE AGREED. Left, right and left out, AGREED! Agreed that they had post 9/11 hopes (as did I) that there would be a return to real journalism and coverage of the world on TV. Agreed that it hadn’t happened. Agreed that there is a media crisis. Agreed that they weren’t sure what was happening, Agreed that young people were not watching news or reading newspapers (which Wolff said will die when their current readers shuffle off this mortal coil.)

Agreed that news has been dumbed down. Agreed that there has been awful amounts of media concentration. Agreed that there are commercial pressures infecting news coverage (although Arnaud says he has never experienced that in 54 years on the beat), agreed (pretty much) that Bush can’t get a coherent thought out, agreed that there are many good journalists who want to do better. And on and on. They Agreed.

WHY IS IT SO BAD?

But what is to be done, folks? Why is the programming such dreck. An ABC News employee asked the distinguished talking heads why her own network was so slavishly following the government line. Why? Why? Why? A prominent Lebanese columnist responded to Arnaud’s appeal for more coverage of Saudia Arabia with the observation that we don’t see much coverage of AMERICAN interests there either. Mark Crispin Miller drew cheers when he referenced George Bush Sr’s role in the Carlysle Group, which does mucho big bucks business there and was wheeling and dealing with the bin Laden family in the bad old days that came before the bad new days. When did you see that story in TV?

One thing is for sure — there will be more media panels. This one was excellent, but we need more that talk. We need more “ACTIONABLE” ideas. What can be done about the media demise? The only hopeful voice belonged to the always exasperating and brilliant Mr. Wolff, who declared that despite all the incompetence among the media overlords, we are still living in an exciting “information moment.”

What was also striking was that this well-heeled looking audience, who all paid to hear these voices of gloom, seemed to feel that their own frustrations and grievances with the media moloch were vindicated.

IN THE EMAIL

Eugene Duran was watching PBS’s Frontline when I wasn’t. His report:

“Frontline redeemed itself last night with their expose of the Enron disaster. Authur Levitt tried to regulate the conflict created by the consulting aspect of the auditing business but was hammered into submissionby WHO? This should be the real investigation. Political pressure can come from strange places in Washington. Harvey Pitt should go to jail for his role in the future Enron’s that are sure to come. Americans care about Enron like they care about Soccer. They only pay attention when we are contenders. Who knows, maybe America will win the world cup and FORCE Americans to put soccer in its media….”

BREAKING NEWS….GERMANY STILL LEADS….4 still dead in Jenin, a monster on the loose. MSNBC reports: “Fire crews struggled Friday with a “monster” wildfire racing through eastern Arizona and shooting tornado-like flames hundreds of feet high, one of two new Western wildfires that forced thousands of people to flee their homes.”

COEXISTENCE ANYONE?

Before I flee, an event worth noting: The Coexistence Initiative discusses how to use the media a tool for peace building tomorrow, June 22 at 2:30 PM at St Barts Episcopal Church, Park Ave and 59th Street (Call 917 913 1922 for details)….

THE AGONY OF DEFEAT

FINAL SCORE: GERMANY 1-0 ESPN: “The U.S. World Cup dream ended Friday. Germany beat the Americans 1-0 in the quarterfinals on a Michael Ballack goal in the 39th minute. The loss ended the best U.S. Cup run ever.” There is no joy in Mudville, folks.

PERSONAL NOTE

Thanks to all who have expressed concern over my post surgical dad, the mighty Jerry Schechter, 84, now in recovery in Boston. Pray with me — and stay with me. Your input welcome at dissector@mediachannel.org