Bikinis, Bionics and Bush Bashing

I'd like to share a few things I'm likely to be thinking about this week. It's not all bad news, trust. Bikini beauties and a few moments with Lindsey Wagner balance-out the bullshit.

1. Morgan Fairchild's cover of this Cher song simply must be heard to be....um....believed. If I could turn back time, indeed! April Winchell features this treasure and many...many more!

2. The Annual Report on American Journalism contains few surprises, yet raises many concerns:

People have long considered the press sensational, rude, pushy, and callous. But in the last 17 years, they have also come to see the press as less professional, less moral, more inaccurate, and less caring about the interests of the country. Consider just a few statistical changes between 1985 and 2002.

-- The number of Americans who thought news organizations were highly professional declined from 72% to 49%.
-- The number who thought news organizations were moral fell from 54% to 39%.
-- Those who felt news organizations tried to cover up their mistakes rose from 13% to 67%.
-- The number who thought the press got the facts straight fell from 55% to 35%.
-- Those who thought news organizations were biased politically rose from 45% to 59%.

In other words, Americans do not resent the sense of professional ethics or the aspirations or independence of the press. Rather, they feel journalism is not living up to those goals. They increasingly think the press as a whole is motivated by money and individual journalists by personal ambition.

3. I'm re-reading this paper which elaborates how the U.S. media fucked us all with Weapons of Mass Destruction (and Iraq) in the first place. It details how

...established operating principles of the American media make it easier for the incumbent President, whoever that might be, to dominate news coverage by setting the terms of public discussion. Journalistic standards that are meant to ensure objectivity and guard against political bias had the effect of insulating the president from informed critical scrutiny. That effect was compounded during the latter periods under review by the media’s inclination to amplify what was considered to be patriotic sentiment. As a result, the American media did not play the role of checking and balancing the exercise of power that the standard theory of democracy requires.

4. Even though there are now 40 million more households with TV sets in America, 6 million more people watched The Bionic Woman in 1975 than watched 60 Minutes this season.

5. Impeach his ass!

...now that President Bush has thrown down the gauntlet and virtually dared Congress to stop him from violating the law, nothing less is necessary to protect our constitutional system and preserve our democracy.

Posted January 16, 2006 11:02 PM