MILITARY UPRISING? Proposed Ban on “Porn” Angers Soldiers

Should congress ban the sale of Playboy and Penthouse at U.S. military installations? Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga) thinks this is a big enough problem that he needed to introduce legislation to promote a ban on such men’s magazines as “porn”. Soldiers aren’t too happy about it…

it’s become a big issue within the military:

GRAFENWOHR, Germany — Legislation that would restrict the sale of certain men’s magazines on U.S. military bases around the world would be bad for morale, according to soldiers at Grafenwöhr.

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., has introduced legislation that would close a loophole in the current law that allows the sale of some sexually explicit material on military bases by lowering the threshold required to deem material “sexually explicit.”

A Department of Defense committee that reviews materials sold on bases ruled last year that magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse are not pornographic. But Broun’s Military Honor and Decency Act includes language that could make those magazines eligible for the ban…

…Broun, a Marine veteran, told Newsweek recently that the magazines sold in military exchanges are partly responsible for a rise in sexual assaults in the military and other problems…

MEDIA-PROGRESS REPORT: Hate Radio’s Bigotry Against Hispanics

On Monday, hate radio king Rush Limbaugh appeared on Fox News for five minutes to discuss the presidential race and managed to make an offensive comment. Limbaugh called Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), who is Hispanic, a “shoe shine guy.” Yesterday, Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, blasted Limbaugh for uttering “the same kind of nasty, bigoted, racist type comment that has become so prevalent in today’s society, as practiced by Lou Dobbs, as practiced by [Sean] Hannity, [Bill] O’Reilly, [Michael] Savage.” Racial slurs, particularly fueled against Hispanics, has found a home on right-wing radio, which claims 91 percent of radio airwaves. The nation’s leading Hispanic advocacy group, National Council of La Raza, launched a campaign earlier this year decrying right-wing radio for its “rhetoric that demonizes immigrants and Hispanic Americans.”

“Talk like Savage’s, or Limbaugh’s or O’Reilly’s, has become routine, even systematic, and certainly a big business. According to the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, the top five radio station owners that control 45 powerful, 50,000-watt or more radio stations broadcast 310 hours of nationally syndicated right-wing talk. But they broadcast only a total of five hours of countervailing talk,” Salon reported. Yet these talkers are rarely held to account: For example, neither ABC, Time, nor Politico mentioned the offensive remarks when reporting on Limbaugh’s TV commentary this week. Progressive radio host Mario Solis-Marich wrote Tuesday, “As a member of the largest minority ethnic group and a member of the media, I am continually puzzled and outraged by the idea that anyone can say anything about Latinos without fearing any consequence.”

SLASHING ANOTHER NEWSPAPER

Just a year ago, when the Tampa Tribune announced it was axing 70 jobs, 10 from the newsroom, it came as no big surprise. Those cuts were pretty much in line with what other papers had been announcing in response to ongoing declines in circulation and ad revenue.

What a difference a year makes.

New cuts are in store for the Tribune, and they’re a lot harsher.

Parent Media General now plans to chop fully half of the people at its Tampa operations, which include the paper but also a TV station, among other media properties.

In all, 650 or so of some 1,300 employees stand to see their jobs disappear. Media General, which also owns the Richmond Times-Dispatch, is blaming the recession for steep losses.

Welcome to what could be a whole new era of downsizing and turmoil in the American newspaper industry.”

FCC SAYS GOSSIP SHOW IS TO BE CONSIDERED REAL NEWS

Free Press: The FCC just ruled that the celebrity gossip show “TMZ” qualifies as a “bona fide newscast” — making it even easier for Big Media companies to replace real journalism with cheap junk news.

Activists Respond: Stop the giveaway at StopBigMedia.com

ONE NATION UNDER TELEVISION

NEWSDAY: TVB STUDY FINDS TV IS AMERICA’S TOP MEDIUM

A new Nielsen survey says television continues to dominate as the most influential and authoritative medium.

Television continues to dominate the media usage habits of Americans, topping the Internet, magazines, newspapers, and radio on a number of important measures, according to new results of a Nielsen Media Research survey commissioned by TVB.
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The results mirror the findings of both Hearst-Argyle’s Magid study, released earlier this year, and Fox’s Marketing Evolution study, which is now being circulated among agencies.

TVB’s survey—last conducted in 2006—polled 1,246 adults over a three-week period in January 2008.

The survey can be parsed by key age demos as well as by household income, education, and occupation. Honing in on the adults 25-54 demographic, the survey reveals:

A remarkably high percentage ofthe demo’s total daily media hours (53%) are spent with television (morethan all the other media combined).

Adults 25-54 continue to spend significantly more time with television than with other media (222.7 minutes in the previous 24 hours versus 106.5 minutes for radio, 99.7 minutes for the Internet, 22.1 minutes for newspaper, and 15.1 minutes for magazines).

Television reaches more adults25-54 each day than any other medium. Of those polled, 90.0% reported watching television in the previous 24 hours as opposed to 80.0% for radio, 72.1% for the Internet, 58.9% for newspapers, and 48.3% for magazines.

Adults 25-54 say television advertising is the most influential (81.4% for television, 6.5% for the Internet, 5.8% for newspaper, 3.9% for radio, and 2.3% for magazines).

When asked to cite which medium’s advertising was the most persuasive, 69.9% named television rather than 9.5% for newspapers, 7.5% for radio, 8.1% for magazines, and5.1% for the Internet.

Asked where they are most likely to learn about products or brands they might like to try or buy,55.0% said television, 18.7% said the Internet, 14.6% said magazines, 7.1%said newspapers, and 4.5% said radio.

FROM THE REVIEW OF BARBARA WALTERS BOOK IN THE NY OBSERVER

Journalists are, by necessity, chameleons, or, as Janet Malcolm famously put it, “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.”

Barbara Walters, the indefatigable interviewer of everyone from Anwar Sadat to Monica Lewinsky and the Menendez brothers, would likely quibble with Ms. Malcolm’s characterization of journalists, and indeed, after reading her autobiography, Audition, one gets the sense that if Ms. Walters ever noticed that she was, perhaps, manipulating her subjects, that she managed to successfully tamp down any feelings of cognitive dissonance….

AN EXCHANGE WITH A READER

There are many readers who seem to believe that I hate Hillary. I don’t, but given the passions among Democrats, so many people are on a short fuse, unwilling to hear other voices. Dee Maine wrote this to me this morning:

What do you mean “take that Hillary”? What has she done to all of the liberal bloggers that they hate her so much? You are about the last one I read and now I will have to stop reading you. All she has done is work and fight very hard. I hope you remember how you treated her when all of Obama’s garbage comes out in the fall. I can’t believe adults with a lot of experience falling for empty words from an empty suit. We are not flower children any more. Anyone who believes he is a different type of politician should have followed his statements on Reverend Wright. He initially denied that he heard him say any of these things. His first instinct was to lie. What is wrong with you?”

I wrote her back but didn’t think she would hear me

Look, Hillary is my Senator. I voted for her twice. I may again. I don’t endorse candidates. I mostly write about the media coverage

Please, that comment was an aside because I think their putting women up front tactic in North Carolina was a way of one up-ing Hillary, so it was a critical commentary, not a slam, but you seem so partisan and righteous on this that you scold me for it and couldn’t see that

Dee…..you are entitled to your opinion…if you follow my work at all, you know it is not partisan..i have run critiques of Obama

Why do you “have to stop reading” –because of that one comment. Come on……You misunderstood it, and I feel you are lashing out at me because of frustration about whats happening….Do we only want to hear our own voices in an echo chamber.”

But, then, to my delight and surprise Dee wrote again:

Sorry. You are right. It is just making me very sad when I started this campaign very excited about both candidates. I identify very much with Hillary and almost regard criticism of her as personal. I think I will get over it.

JANET W writes

I am wondering if you have sent a copy of your articles to every AG in the United States and see who would like to make their political bones on this issue? If they collectively weighed in on it, it wouldn’t be swept away by the bought-offs in Congress.

GEO GELLER WRITES, OR IS IT RANTS

I was just reading something that a journalist said which made me think- they said journalism will have all sorts of tools that will change how we report things at the speed of light - and then he said journalism has always been one way and now its a. Conversation - well I was thinking just a few months ago the buzz words were social media and conversation and now that is old buzz and we know that new has been replaced along time ago by “next” but the question is

Maybe we need to change from speed of light to the speed of a dream :-)

So how do you keep ahead of the game when everything is a moving at speed of light - when next is already history and tomorrows news is arleady late and where do we go from here when our collective memory and ADD is lost in a revolving door and tomorrow is not only passe but has past us by - and we are moving at the speed of light while standing still - maybe we are at the event horizon. And don’t know it or swallowed up in a black hole of the internet and we have all become one nation, one world, and everybody knows it but our fearful, fearless leaders, the gate keepers keep holding us back and down and holding on to the past where all they care about is staying in power and on top of their top down management position at any and all
cost - we need a new dream.”

RUSSELL RITELL INVITES ALL OF US TO HIS MEDIA CHURCH

Based on your history, research and publications I am forwarding you a link to my website which includes information on my art installation.

The project is titled, “The Media Church”, it is multimedia installation based on evidence I have found, (in my graduate research), and ideas I have developed as a media insider. This show focuses on the ways in which television and printed news media affect social values as compared to a religion.

For a more detailed description and a virtual tour please visit www.themediachurch.com

Hope to see you at the show.

MONSTER SPEAKS:

AMSTETTEN, Austria (AFP) - An Austrian accused of keeping his daughter as a sex slave for 24 years insisted Wednesday he is “no monster”, as residents of his town staged a rally in support of the victims

CULTURE NOTE:

My cousin David Schechter with whom I worked on as a bit player in Steve Buscemi’s film INTERVIEW for which he wrote the screenplay has a vibrant new play that he’s directing. A publication about Broadway published in Baltimore writes about it. I went Wednesday night.

Its about Shlomo Carlebach, once known as the hippie Rabbi in the l960’s, for playing his own version of rock and roll, and running a peace synagogue. The Show–a musical–was lots of fun resonating with an enthusistic audience. It traced Shlomo’s journey from a refugee from Nazi persecution to a Torah scholar, to a Chasidic Jew to an apostle of Peace and Love playing with Nina Simone. The music is joyful. The dancing is great. I jokingly told a friend it could be called EAST RIVER DANCE!

SHLOMO The New Musical about the life and music of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach now playing at the The Museum of Jewish Heritage (36 Battery Place) through Friday May 9th, has announced a return engagement this summer. Due to popular demand, the musical will return to The Museum for another three-week engagement August 12th -31st.

In other news, the company of the hit musical will take to the recording studio on May 11th to lay down tracks for the show’s cast recording to be released this summer.

SHLOMO The New Musical features a company of Broadway veterans including two-time Tony Award nominee Josie de Guzman (West Side Story, Guys & Dolls), Thursday Farrar (Aida), Paul Jackel (The Secret Garden), James Judy (Into the Woods), Aaron Kaburick (Annie), Jillian Louis, Brooke Moriber (Follies, The Wild Party), Gary Patent, David Reiser (Good Vibrations), Luke Rosen, David Rossmer (Fiddler on the Roof, Titanic), Daniel Rudin (Fiddler on the Roof), Talya Smilowitz, Noah Solomon and Lauren Weisman.

The show did go on a bit so I am late in blogging and have to leave you here.

Thanks to those who write. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org