MEDIA
WATCH SPECIAL REPORTMay 20, 2003
MESSAGES
FROM PRIME TIME: IS THE TRUTH SNEAKING AROUND OUT THERE?
By Gloria R.
Lalumia
So what exactly is this “BIG FACT” thing at FOX News?
Late last week FOX
News inadvertently blew its cover with a particularly weird logo
even for the “Fair and Balanced” crowd. Flipping
through the channels I saw Brit Hume mouthing something but my
attention went immediately to the bright blue strip with the
words “BIG FACT” emblazoned across the screen.BIG
FACT?? I haven't seen it since, but it struck me as the
next level down for FOX -- way more over the top than the
"Fair and Balanced" shtick.
What are you
saying when you label a report as “Big Fact”?? Are
you saying that it’s so unusual for you to be reporting
facts that you have to announce it?? Or are you just making sure
you’re going to convince the viewers who sit at the lowest
intellectual level on the planet that what they want to hear is
actually not just spin? Perhaps it’s just another way
of branding the news – “FOX presents ‘Big
Mac’ or ‘Big Slurp’ with Brit Hume.” Notice
the logo didn't say "THE Big Fact" -- that would be too
close to sounding like “THE BIG LIE,” which FOX is most
interested in delivering for the Bush Administration! Anyway,
we’ll just have to wait and see if “BIG FACT”
joins the FOX News graphics tool chest on a regular basis.
It’s things
like this that have made me give up on watching cable
“news” but the truth is, I also rarely venture out into
the morass of what constitutes the networks’ prime time TV
offerings these days. But a flurry of shows over the past week
has left me wondering if there are some brave souls hiding in the
ventilation systems at some of the networks, people who are
sending messages to the outside via prime time.
Take The West
Wing, for example. There are those that believe this show has
“jumped the shark” and that may be true. And with Alan
Sorkin leaving the show, who knows where it’s headed?
Certainly, NBC has been pre-empting it enough this spring to make
one wonder.
I missed most of
the show on Wednesday, but did manage to catch the last few
minutes. There I was watching the elected President
relinquishing power to the next in line…not the Vice
President, who had resigned a couple of episodes ago for passing
classified information to a lover, but to the Speaker of the
House, a member of the opposition party. I noticed how the
“temporary” President, marched in and as soon as he
took the Oath, started talking like a bully to Bartlett’s
staff.
Sound familiar?
Wasn’t the scene a replay of the elected President (Gore)
being forced to hand the power over to the opposition? And isn't
Bush a BULLY??? Sure, the details weren’t exactly the
same, but the visceral response I had to this scene sure was.
John Goodman, surly and physically massive, played the part of
the new president, assuming office without grace and with a
brutality that seems to have become the norm of this
Administration. The looks of alarm that passed between
Bartlett’s staff members where echoed in the disquiet I felt
as I watched the scene unfold.
The next night I
tuned in to NBC to watch the finale of ER. In this episode
Dr. Carter joined a “doctors without borders”
organization in an African nation embroiled in civil war and met
up with Luka, a colleague who has already been working there. All
around them were horrific medical conditions and needless death.
The lack of medicine was emphasized. In one story thread, a
little boy died of pertussis--whooping cough—only because a
$15 dose of erythromycin was unavailable and the staff had to
make do with one of the few, less-effective antibiotics that they
had on hand.
As ER viewers
know, Luka comes from Croatia and had lost his entire family
during the war there. Sitting with Carter, he recounted what
happened to his family and explained how he felt like he was now
doing something that mattered. He mused about how the
American military drops bombs then retreats to the safety of
aircraft carriers to watch Drew Carey and says troops aren’t
on the ground to see the killing, the raping, and the wounds.
The violence of
the war then visited the medical camp as soldiers put guns to the
heads of the doctors and nurses. After surviving this ordeal,
Carter left Luka behind and returned to Chicago, almost
shell-shocked by all that he experienced.
This episode of ER
was a heartrending hour and almost overwhelming in its sadness
and poignancy. The next morning I was still thinking about
it and I wondered if this program had been an analogy for Iraq or
one of many other places in Africa or Asia that have been laid to
waste. Or perhaps it represented the Palestinian-Israeli
situation? Ironically, ER and NBC showed viewers more human
suffering caused by war in one hour than I’ve seen on our TV
news reports about the various conflicts in the world today.
The ultimate
irony, however, involves are old friend FOX. The FOX
“entertainment” network is airing the series
“24” (It’s recently been renamed “24: the
Final Truth”). The recent storyline also involves a
President removed from power by the 25th Amendment,
who is under house arrest because he doesn’t want to start a
needless Middle East war (he thinks there is falsified evidence.)
The Vice-President uses the President's refusal to authorize
military action as an indication of his erratic behavior. Oil
interests want the war to start no matter what the cost and the
bombers take off for the Middle East. True to form, however, FOX
pulled the show for a couple of weeks during the start of the
Iraq invasion. But who at FOX is letting this even get on
the air at all?
Then there’s
CBS’ miniseries about Hitler. One might argue over the end
result, but the description from CBS’ website for Part 2
shows that even a bare bones retelling of Hitler’s rise to
power seems appropriate for today’s political climate:
"Hitler
proposes an enabling act that will effectively override the
constitution, take power away from aging President Hindenburg and
put him in control. The tenets of this act take away individual
freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the right to privacy
and orders that all of these rights be suspended at once. Because
the Reichstag must approve the act before it can come into
effect, Hitler threatens dissenting voters into submission and
the law is passed.”
You have to wonder
what prompted the network person responsible to think about
putting Hitler on in prime time even without a whole lot of
corporate sponsors buying ad time. Sure, lots of well-read
Democrats are getting excited over the “message”
they’re seeing. But, of course, one must question
whether the average American could spot the parallels between
Hitler’s Germany and Bush’s America. And maybe
our intrepid CBS suit just figured America would never see the
connection and simply enjoy watching “evil.” Maybe
the whole thing is just an accident and there’s no message
to be had.
If that scenario
is true, then we’ll just have to face reality. While those
of us searching for any chink in the constant media adulation for
Bush will cling to the hope of seeing messages of truth in
network dramas, America’s uninformed will just be
ordering up another FOX BIG FACT…
Copyright 2003,
Gloria R. Lalumia