Fox News: They Report and Decide, We Watch

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Nearly a year after winning an historic election, President Barack Obama has decided to pick a fight with the Fox News Channel, the Rupert Murdoch-owned conservative cable network that he believes hasn't been giving him a fair shake since taking office.

When the President saturated the Sunday morning airwaves to discuss his health care plan, he was interviewed on every network except Fox.  The White House went so far as to deny Fox News press passes to interview certain officials, until the other networks put their collective feet down.

In the annals of the White House's relationship with the news media, it's nothing new.  Richard Nixon had a contentious relationship, to the point of putting some journalists on his "enemies list".  George W. Bush, without much fanfare, simply excluded MSNBC and other liberal journalists from his activities.

The reason President Obama has a big problem with Fox News is the channel itself.  Critics claim their news reporting is slanted to the right, the hosts have lower I.Q.s than their ratings, and that the national discourse is harmed when interviews turn into shoutfests.

Fox News, according to Nielsen, has the five top-rated programs among cable news networks, led by "The O'Reilly Factor".  Twelve million viewers make up the combined total for these shows, which is ten million less than the amount of people who watch the broadcast networks' evening news.

On the few occasions that I voluntarily watch Fox News (they seem to be on in sports bars and department stores), Neil Cavuto played a March interview with Alan Grayson, a Democratic congressman from Florida whose take on the Republicans' health care plan ("Die Quickly") has been widely viewed.  After several minutes of rudely interrupting Rep. Grayson while he was trying to get his point across, Cavuto came back live calling him a "nut" and announcing that from now on his show would be a "No-Nut Zone".  A second or two later, "The Glenn Beck Show" was starting.

Beck is the former radio DJ who has found fame as a conspiracy theorist with a flair for the dramatic.  He's still on the air despite calling the President a "racist", prompting several prominent sponsors to ditch him.  On this particular broadcast, Beck claimed that socialists were dominating the White House, government is about to control everything, and used a chalkboard to explain how the federal deficit is destroying the country.

What distinguishes Fox News from the other guys is conflict, which makes for good TV.  Who knows, at any moment, Beck, Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity might either say something ridiculous or blow their tops at their guests.  Try getting that from Larry King or Anderson Cooper.

Conservatives are not all cartoon villians as Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow would like you to believe.  There are some that put out their points of view in a calm, civil manner.  But they're not the ones who are running the Republican party right now.  Instead, the GOP is being led by entertainers such as Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber, and by extremists who hijacked the health care debate, egged on by Fox News.  And we haven't even mentioned Rush Limbaugh.

President Obama can't expect all of the people to like everything he does.  He also can't expect to control what people say about him.  But he shouldn't make any attempt to muzzle a network that has the right to cover him in ways they consider appropriate, no matter how crude those ways sometimes are.

World Series: Better Late Than Never

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Major League Baseball is getting what it deserves when the Philadelphia Phillies take the field in New York against the Yankees in the World Series Wednesday night.

This is the best matchup the Series has had in years:  Power in both lineups as personified by Ryan Howard of the Phillies, and Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees.  The pitchers are no slouches, either:  Andy Pettite and Mariano Rivera for New York, and Pedro Martinez and Cole Hamels for the Phillies.

Philadelphia is going for their second consecutive world championship, something no National League team has done since the original Big Red Machine in Cincinnati did that in the mid-1970s.  The Yankees, for all the money they've spent on marquee players, haven't won the Series since 2000.  They are also the last to win back-to-back world titles (1998-2000).

What's not to like?

Uh, how about the fact that, for the first time since 2001, the World Series will end in November?  This scheduling quirk was created not by the good folks at Fox Sports, but by the World Baseball Classic that was held during an extended spring training, which most of us have already forgotten.  If the Los Angeles Dodgers and/or the Angels had made it to the Series, MLB would have gotten a pass.  But it's New York and Philadelphia, places where winter comes early.  Don't be shocked to see players and fans freezing their butts off, or games postponed due to snow.  Let's just hope we don't see any juiced-up snowmen.

With the exception of Game 4, all World Series games will begin at 7:57 p.m. in the East (6:57 in the Central time zone), a half hour earlier than it has been in recent years.  Big deal.  This year's playoff games have been averaging 31/2-4 hours, and sometimes more if they go into extra innings.  So don't worry about missing "CSI", "Grey's Anatomy" or "Mad Men".  The games will still be on when those shows are over, unless it's your bedtime.

Controversy over blown calls in the playoffs have prompted MLB to use only experienced umpires for its World Series crew.  There have also been people bleating about the need to expand the use of instant replay beyond disputed home runs.  Look, baseball has been around since long before the invention of TV.  We've seen what has happened to football since replay was introduced, in which most of the calls on the field have been validated.  Baseball needs more experienced umpires on big games and less replay.

Once Halloween is over and the holiday shopping season begins in earnest (with a brief break for something called Thanksgiving), the Yankees will be World Series champions in six or seven games.

T-Wolves: Preparing For The Worst

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Are the Minnesota Timberwolves still part of the National Basketball Association?  The way owner Glen Taylor has changed front office staff, coaches and players after another disastrous season, you might well wonder.

First to go was Kevin McHale, who was stripped of his position as defacto general manager and forced to coach the same players he traded for.  He'll be in a TV studio this season as an analyst for NBA TV, which is what some people say he should have been all along.

New President of Basketball Operations (read:  General Manager) David Kahn made plenty of moves to replace his roster full of deadwood with other teams' deadwood.  He tried and failed to sign top draft pick Ricky Rubio, who chose to stay in Spain instead.  Can you blame him?  If Rubio really wanted to play in the NBA this season, the Wolves would have traded his rights to Miami or the Los Angeles Lakers.  Nice and warm down there.

Kahn waited until August to name former Lakers assistant Kurt Rambis as the Wolves' new coach.  For Rambis, it was either a case of waiting for Phil Jackson to step down as coach, or gain some experience with a struggling team.  He also brought in Bill Laimbeer, who's won titles as a player with the Detroit Pistons and as a coach with the WNBA Detroit Shock (who will be moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma next season), as an assistant.

As the Wolves start the 2009-10 season, they will be without two of their best players--Kevin Love and Al Jefferson--due to injuries.  Some NBA pundits are saying this team is capable of challenging the all-time record for futility set by the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers, who finished that season with a 9-73 mark.  I don't think the Wolves will be that bad, but Target Center will be seeing many an empty seat this winter.

OK, so the Wolves' playoff chances are remote at best.  Here's who we see extending their seasons past April:

EASTERN CONFERENCE  Cleveland Cavaliers, Orlando Magic, Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, Washington Wizards, Atlanta Hawks, Philadelphia 76ers.

WESTERN CONFERENCE  Los Angeles Lakers, Portland Trail Blazers, Utah Jazz, Denver Nuggets, Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks, San Antonio Spurs, New Orleans Hornets.

Is This Real Or What?

The Heene family, the ones who allegedly phonied up a balloon thrill ride for their six-year old son that the world ended up witnessing, aren't the first to seek fame and fortune on reality TV.  And they won't be the last, either.

The genre has largely replaced sitcoms and dramas as go-to programming for TV networks that are fighting a losing battle against cable.  And it makes up half the schedules of most cable channels.  Ever wonder why MTV and VH1 no longer show music videos?  Or why The Learning Channel has become simply TLC?  Look no further.

Without reality TV, we would never have known (or cared) about the pseudo-lives of Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, the Kardashian sisters, Denise Richards, the Osbournes, or any of those Real Housewives.

There are some who have made careers out of being on reality TV:  Boston Rob and Amber parlayed their success on "Survivor" into competing on "The Amazing Race".  Elisabeth Hasselbeck, now a co-host on "The View", began as a "Survivor" contestant.  And the woman known simply as Omarosa made her name on Donald Trump's "The Apprentice".

Reality TV has also ruined lives.  Richard Hatch, "Survivor"'s first winner, went to prison for tax evasion.  Jon and Kate Gosselin are getting a divorce, putting their TV show and their eight kids in jeopardy.  Anna Nicole Smith died under mysterious circumstances.

All of these people willingly submitted to having their lives recorded 24/7 for fame, fortune and our entertainment.  What we get is the privelege of watching the adults act like idiots and children behave like animals, whether they play to the cameras or not.  It's what happens when the cameras go off that the problems begin.

Of course, these aren't really their real lives that we're watching.  Some of it has been tricked up to make it more interesting for TV, which saves the participants countless hours of acting lessons.  Unless they already are actors.

Don't think public television is above all this.  Way the heck back in 1973, PBS aired a documentary titled "An American Family", which chronicled the lives of the Loudons and became the template for what was to come years later.  It also ended up ruining the lives of the Loudons.

Ultimately, these shows live and die by how many people choose to watch them, the way it's always been done since the days of Milton Berle.  That's right.  We are the ones who help keep the minor celebrities and parents with multiple kids in business with our remotes.  We are also the ones that can send them to join the millions who are already on the unemployment line.  For one thing, Fox recently announced that it is dropping its Reality Channel next spring.

That's reality, folks.

No Happy Landing For "Balloon Boy" Stunt

I don't mind telling you that I had real problems coming up with a blog post about the runaway balloon that drifted over the skies of Colorado Thursday.  I couldn't justify writing about what the Sheriff of Larimer County called a hoax that wasted everyone's time and resources when there was the possibility of a six-year old boy with his life in danger, only to find that he had been hiding in his room the whole time.

It belongs right up there with O.J. Simpson's slow-speed car chase and the body of Michael Jackson being transported from his home to the coroner's office in the TV Rubberneckers hall of fame.

The sheriff said in a news conference Sunday that the parents of the boy, Richard and Mayumi Heene, may soon have charges filed against them.  (Some of you might remember the Heenes from the TV show "Wife Swap".)  Richard is accused of staging this stunt to get the attention of Hollywood producers who might give him another reality TV show.  Curiously, none of the charges involve child endangerment.

The Heene family made appearances on several TV shows since the incident, two of which the boy in question got sick on the air.  Whatever is going on in that family can best be explained by the Dr. Phils of the world.

As for the cable networks that went with this story wall-to-wall, it's not worth wasting any space pontificating on the Decline and Fall of the Mainstream Media.  Big deal.  We knew that already.

What I'm saying is that this is a sad story, and it's bound to get sadder as it goes along for everyone involved. 

No Rush To Judgment in St. Louis

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You are the nation's best-known and most-listened-to radio talk show host, making millions of dollars per year.  You are the de facto head of the Republican Party (or so you'd like to believe), turned the word 'liberal' into an epithet, and is openly rooting for the failure of President Barack Obama's administration.  What do you do for an encore?

If you're Rush Limbaugh, you become part of a group that wants to buy the St. Louis Rams of the National Football League, a franchise worth (according to Forbes magazine) $929 million.  To some people, that would be like Don Imus owning a pro basketball team.

The Rams are currently on a 15-game losing streak dating back to last season, having already been shredded by the Minnesota Vikings 38-10 last Sunday, and are generally considered to be the worst in the league now that the Detroit Lions have actually won a game.

They used to be called the Greatest Show on Turf, having been to two Super Bowls since moving from Los Angeles in 1995.  Now they're just getting turfed.

Limbaugh is receiving attention for this because, during his brief stint as an ESPN football commentator in 2003, he said that Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles was overrated by the news media because they wanted an African-American quarterback to succeed.  With that, Limbaugh was asked to leave ESPN.

African-American leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, as well as the NFL's players union, have come out against Limbaugh's plans to buy the Rams, calling on league owners to reject him based on his racial track record.

I used to listen to Limbaugh when he began in syndication, but I stopped doing that when his one-note brand of conservatism and his unwillingness to listen to other points of view wore thin on me.  Having said that, I believe Limbaugh has every right to spend his money as he sees fit.

The NFL, however, is obligated to promote tolerance and respect to its players and fans regardless of race, creed and religion.  Letting Limbaugh own the Rams would defeat that purpose, and the league would do well to weigh that as the ownership process continues.

Nobel Rewards Hope

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President Barack Obama said he was as surprised as anyone when he heard the news that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize.  So were we.  He's only been in office nine months.  What did he do to deserve this?

Obama joins Theodore Roosevelt (1906) and Woodrow Wilson (1919) as the only sitting U.S. Presidents to have won the award.  Jimmy Carter won his in 2000, long after he left the White House.

The voting actually occured in February, so it could have been for Obama's being the first African-American man to become President.  That's accomplishment enough for some people.  Or maybe the voters saw the throngs gathering to hear his message of inspiration and hope, which after a decade of war and terrorism was like a fresh breeze.

But there's an awful lot on Obama's plate that could call into question the Nobel Committee's judgement:  the stalemate over health care reform, whether or not to send more troops into Afghanistan, what to do about the economy, etc.

Consevatives, who always seem to find new ways to demonize Obama whether it's good for the country or not, are complaining that the Peace Prize is Europe's way of dissing the accomplishments of George W. Bush when he was in office.  Given the way Bush alienated the rest of the world (and some Americans) with an arrogance that passed for diplomacy, he might have deserved some kind of an award.  It's certainly not for peace.

In this culture of diminished expectations, winning the Nobel Peace Prize is going to put a new burden on Obama's shoulders.  He will now be expected to emulate past winners such as Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Norman Borlaug (who passed away recently), Amnesty International, Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin, Mother Teresa, Lech Walesa, Desmond Tutu, Mikhail Gorbachev, Elie Wiesel, the Dalai Lama. Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela.  No need to ask what they have accomplished.

That way we'll know whether Obama deserves a second Nobel Peace Prize.  Which would be a real accomplishment because no person has won it twice.

Re-Imagining History

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On October 8, 1944, Wendell Willkie died at the age of 52 of heart disease.  He was best known as the Republicans' choice in 1940 to deny Democrat Franklin Roosevelt a third term as President of the United States.

A corporate attorney who had never run for public office before, Willkie had been a lifelong Democrat until disagreements with FDR's New Deal policies prompted him to change parties in 1939.

Despite having more votes than any other Republican presidential candidate up to that time, Willkie lost to Roosevelt because, with the Second World War well underway and the U.S. remaining on the sidelines, voters felt this was not the time to turn things over to someone else.

I'm reminded of this because of a program I heard on WCCO radio some years ago.  It was called "Imagination Theater", one of those attempts to bring radio drama into the modern era..  On this particular episode (this may not be entirely accurate), a man goes into a small California town and finds hostility and suspicion.  He hears news bulletins from the Blue Network (an actual radio network which was the predecessor to ABC) reporting that the Germans were bombing the East Coast while the Japanese were invading the West.

The man was told that Willkie was elected President in 1940 after FDR had died..

That got me wondering, Were the people behind "Imagination Theater" implying that, had anyone other than Roosevelt been President during World War II, the United States would have lost?

According to Wikipedia, Willkie has been used as a fictional character in other so-called "alternative histories" such as Phillip Roth's novel The Plot Against America.  In that book, Charles Lindbergh defeated Willkie for the presidency on the promise of keeping the country out of war.

I'm not a big fan of "alternative history" books, which tend to ask such provocative questions as:  What if the South had won the Civil War?  Or, what would have happened if the Cuban Missile Crisis had escalated into nuclear war?  Do we really want to know the answers?

Willkie tried to run again in 1944, but got stiffed by a Republican Party that didn't like his cozying up to Roosevelt's wartime policies.  Instead they went with Thomas Dewey, who proceeded to lose to FDR's drive for a fourth term in the general election.

Let's cook up a little "alternative history" of our own:  Had Willkie been elected in '40 instead of Roosevelt, the new president would have been dead one month before he was up for re-election, throwing the country into a constitutional crisis.  Also, he would not have seen the end of World War II.  Then again, neither did FDR, who died a few weeks before the Nazis surrendered.

In this age of partisanship gone amuck, it's useful to be reminded that what happened happened, and we can either learn from history or we won't.  Leave the "alternative history" to the fiction writers.

Extra Innings For The Metrodome

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There's been a stay of execution for the much-maligned baseball palace known as the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, which will now run for one or two more games, at the very least.

This improbable turn of events was created by the Minnesota Twins' catching--and surpassing--the Detroit Tigers to win the American League Central title with a dramatic 6-5 victory in 12 innings Tuesday night.

Detroit had led the Twins by seven games at the beginning of September.  But just like they did in 2006, the Tigers choked it all away on the final day.  While national television announcers kept telling us how wonderful the success of the Tigers would be for the economically depressed city of Detroit, the baseball team reacted as if they were running out of gas on the way to a Cash for Clunkers promotion.

The Twins, despite the prospect of seeing more money come in from their new ball park, are still acting as if they're on a Walmart budget (or is it Dollar General?).  Instead, they used their free agent  money and spent it on Orlando Cabrera, Carl Pavano, and whoever else they could fit in from AAA Rochester.  Add to that injuries to key regulars such as Justin Morneau and Francisco Liriano, and you wonder how the Twins made it this far.

By the time you see this, the Twins will be playing Game 1 of the American League Divisional Series against the Yankees in New York.  The Bronx Bombers would have been heavily favored in this series no matter who they played.  In fact, I see them in the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Stranger things have happened, you know.  The Twins could actually win a game.

The Olympics Fly Down To Rio

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Rio de Janiero, Brazil has been awarded the 2016 Summer Games by the International Olympic Committee, beating out Madrid, Spain and Tokyo, Japan for the honor of hosting the world's athletes.

Chicago, the United States' entry, was treated by the IOC as if they were the Cubs.  They never made it past the first round of voting despite the presence in Copenhagen of President and Mrs. Barack Obama, talk show host Oprah Winfrey, and anyone else who called the Windy City home.

Some people have questioned the propriety of Obama making a special trip to argue in favor of his hometown hosting the Olympics, when there's more important things going on in the world.  The President may have hailed from Chicago, but the White House would argue that he also did it for the country's benefit.

On ESPN News, the Reverend Jesse Jackson was asking what were the underlying reasons why Chicago didn't get the bid.  Here's some of our theories:

• As President, George W. Bush alienated the rest of the world with his "my way or the highway" style of diplomacy, and the resentment still lingers.
• The last time the Olympics were in the U.S. was in 2002, when Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Games.  That was clouded in controversy due to a bribery scandal involving IOC officials.
• According to CBS News, Chicago' s presentation emphasized the celebrities rather than on the merits of having the games in their city.

It's probably just as well that Chicago didn't get the nod from the IOC.  They're not just well known for their losing sports teams, but also for the political corruption and crime that grips the city.  There's been significant opposition to the Olympics because of its costs at a time when city services are struggling financially, which make it no different than any other city in this economic climate.

But most of all, the reason the IOC chose to go to Rio is because they realized it was time to bring the Olympics to South America, leaving Africa as the only populated continent they haven't been to.  Brazil brought out its heavy hitters, including its popular President Lula and the still-beloved soccer star Pele, just to be sure.  They were the sentimental favorite, and they deserved this.

As for Chicago, the Cubs will win a World Series before they ever host another Olympics.

KQRS' Barnard Retires--In Three Years

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Tom Barnard, the Grand Poobah of morning radio in the Twin Cities, has decided to retire from KQRS-FM in December 2012.  That's a week before the alleged Mayan Apocalypse takes place.  We'll believe it when we see it.

Barnard's show, which has dominated the local ratings for so long that he's beaten back every challenger he's ever had (and that includes Howard Stern), is proof positive that Minnesota Nice is a myth.  He and his band of paid stooges go after anything and everything in such a crude manner that you might need to take a shower afterwards.  In other words, folks, Barnard is no better and no worse than your average conservative talk jock currently polluting the airwaves.

Some of Barnard's material has made headlines.  When he and his minions make fun of a certain minority, picket lines form outside the KQRS studios demanding that he be fired.  Management (currently Citadel Broadcasting), not wanting to lose its cash cow, usually give Barnard a slap on the wrist.

Barnard seldom talks to the media, but he does have three past or current members on the air with him:  Bob Sansevere (St. Paul Pioneer Press sportswriter), Mike Gelfand (former sportswriter) and Jeff Passolt (news anchor for KMSP-Fox 9).  Wonder how that affects their journalistic integrity, if they had any to begin with?

Thanks to Barnard, KQRS is the top-rated radio station in town, and has been for several years.  But their numbers have been slipping lately.  Are people getting tired of the same old classic rock songs?  Or are people just tired of radio, period, as sales of MP3 players and online music will attest?

Three years is a long time in almost anything, including radio.  If Barnard is indeed serious about quitting the medium, he won't be hurting for work.  He also does commercial voice-overs that reportedly pay as much as (if not more than) KQ ever does.  Barnard may be controversial, but once the Big Fish swims away, only minnows will be left in radio.  Unless the Mayans were right about 2012.