Category: Media

I know I’ve written about this before, but as someone who consumes news day and night, on the Internet, in newspapers, on cable…..I cannot respect NBC as a reliable and unbiased source of news reporting.

It is not, as many believe, that they favor the right or left, or secretly lean towards the G.O.P or Democrats. Their bias is most apparent: they want to promote NBC Entertainment.

In the Presidential election, they have inserted NBC into the campaign and corrupted our national debate, with insipid clips from “Saturday Night Live”, a show that ceased being humorous in 1990.

On the “Today” show this morning, they introduced a story about Gov. Richardson’s endorsement of Senator Obama, by showing a clip from NBC/Bravo’s “Project Runway” (you’re either in or out).

Their “worldwide” news coverage extends from the Midwestern floods to the price of gas at our local filling station. They produce an entirely self-serving, corporate brand of crap that neglects the rest of the world, while acting as a running advertisement for other NBC shows.

I have read of the struggles of CBS and the floundering Katie Couric. Wouldn’t it be a revolutionary shake-up if CBS began each morning with “The CBS News International Report” that brought us news stories from all over the world? Is it possible that in-depth intelligent news might actually draw in viewers, and attract advertisers who want to reach a higher income demographic?

No doubt NBC would then try to compete with the newly branded international CBS NEWS by showing Donald Trump interviewing prospective apprentices in Paris………

I stopped watching AMC (American Movie Classics) about five years ago after they decided to destroy their channel with advertising. Up until that time, they were a wonderful broadcaster of old films, uninterrupted. Advertising turned me away.

Now advertising, the fictional world of it in 1960, has brought me back to AMC. “Mad Men” created by (“The Sopranos”) Matthew Weiner, is an artful, crisply written, well acted adult drama about Madison Avenue 47 years ago. People smoke, drink martinis, have affairs, and do it under the guise of civility and discretion. Unlike today, when 45-year-olds try to look and act 19, the young men of “Mad Men” graduate from college and enter a world of responsibility and act like bad minded adults in gray flannel and rep ties.

Mr. Weiner has cast this show remarkably well. Jon Hamm is a square jawed matinee idol who carries himself with self-assurance and dashingly sardonic dialogue. Vincent Kartheiser as Pete Campbell, a trust fund WASP, is normality with a twist of strangeness, like something out of the “The Twilight Zone”. Cinematography, art direction, costumes….are as well done as 2002’s ode to Douglas Sirk, the film “Far From Heaven”. The cast and crew must be working until 4am everyday to pull off this show.

One thing that serves “Mad Men” remarkably well are the rules of society in 1960. The suspense and mystery of what might happen is constrained by the propriety and manners of that time. People don’t lose complete control or go haywire. These are quiet lives of frustration: mental anxiety, Kent Cigarettes and Brylcreemed heads.

“Mad Men” is the first real adult scripted show since “The Sopranos”.