TopicsOn The Media is produced by:
Last week, we got news of a catastrophic earthquake in Iran, a fatal mudslide and another earthquake in California, and a deadly avalanche in Utah. This week, there was another landslide, of sorts, in New York. A Bronx man was rescued after being trapped for two days under a pile of magazines, newspapers, books and junk mail in his apartment. Brooke wonders how much really separates his story from that of the rest of us.
On Thursday, the cable news networks were manic with breaking news. Anchors stoically yanked viewers from one story to another, alternately reporting on twin bombings in Istanbul, street protests in Miami, President Bush's visit to London, and Michael Jackson's impending surrender to California authorities. But the networks' schizophrenia couldn't last, and by afternoon one story had emerged as the clear winner of America's wall-to-wall attention. Brooke and Bob meditate on the world according to cable news.
A new movie out this month depicts the rise and very dramatic fall of the former journalist, Stephen Glass. In 1998 he was exposed as a fraud by his own editor at the New Republic and was immediately fired. In the aftermath it was discovered that most of what he had submitted during his short but stunning career had been fabricated. David Plotz is a writer for Slate and is married to Hannah Rosin, a former colleague of Glass. He spoke to Brooke about the experience of seeing a version of his wife on the big screen.
The media is frothing with every development in the Kobe Bryant story. It has all the elements of an American scandal - money, celebrity, sex…and race. Long before jury selection and the first utterance of defense, the media have begun to speculate on the role of race in the case. Bob talks with Leon Wynter, author of American Skin: Pop Culture, Big Business, and the End of White America, about whether the media can afford to play the race card with the prince of the NBA.
Comedian Bob Hope, who died early this week at the age of 100, was an American cultural institution and a mass media phenomenon in films, radio and TV. He even had a website of his jokes. But he also filled another role, widely ignored in the coverage surrounding his death. He was the successor of Will Rogers and the predecessor of Johnny Carson as a "public oracle," in his day the preeminent ridiculer of officialdom. Bob speaks with William Robert Faith, colleague and biographer of Bob Hope.
David Brinkley died this week at the age of 82. Before he left his full-time post behind the news desk seven years ago, he had anchored a news show for four decades - longer than anybody else in the business. Veteran television executive Av Westin joins Brooke to reflect on the life and legacy of David Brinkley.
Lately, many celebrity entertainers are getting political, and their agents are getting nervous. But while these celebrities risk their profits by knocking the war, leading media consultants are advising their clients to make money by promoting it. Vivian Goodman reports on the interplay between patriotism and ratings.
Following last week's assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, the government has imposed a state of emergency and imposed restrictions on the media. Among the more than 1,000 people who have been arrested is Ceca Raznatovic, the country's most famous pop star and the widow of a notorious warlord. Agence France Presse correspondent Alexandra Niksic fills Bob in on the story.
