Machine Guns Aimed at Children
(in San Francisco)
By John C. Dvorak
While the state of the media is pretty bad it’s hard to imagine how bad until the King Abdullah of Jordan rolls by in his limo in downtown San Francisco surrounded by the local Police and various black SUVs including one with some character pointing a machine gun out the window at Christmas shoppers, my children included. You just might think this was a little odd — and disconcerting.
This was the exact situation last Thursday. I’ve been meaning to write about it but I’ve been waiting for some reporting on this visit. The only thing I initially managed to find was a short one paragraph mention in a San Jose Mercury gossip column which merely cited the fact that the King would be speaking at the Commonwealth Club on Saturday night. It was a sold out event. I thought this was peculiar since he just spoke last April here.
So what happened? My family and I happened to be walking across the street from Union square after visiting the St. Francis Hotel to look at the new Michael Mina restaurant. One look down Post Street and suddenly a slew of police lights went up as if all hell broke loose. We walked across the street to see what was going on and saw various limos, armored SUVs and bodyguards everywhere and machine guns! One fellow’s head was out his window with a machine gun pointed at the public. Holiday shoppers. Seasons greetings folks.
It took no effort to find out who this was as I simply solicited the various valet guys on the street. It was the King of Jordan after his dinner at Mortons on Post. I’m thinking Mortons? He comes to San Francisco to eat at a chain restaurant? He must really like Mortons.
We were on our way to pick up my car to head across the Bay Bridge.
Ten minutes later, upon entering the bridge, right in front of me was a diplomat’s car with consul plates — a black Jaguar with the oval country symbol “A” meaning Austria. The guy almost hit a barrier and was swerving excessively. I know that Yassar Arafat did a lot of business with Jordan and according to reports had lots of money squirreled away in Austria. The coincidence did not go by me unnoticed. Exactly why he was headed towards Oakland or Berkeley was somewhat mysterious. At first I figured that they were headed to Reno to party. Maybe it was to meet the King and perhaps the King’s jet was at the Oakland Airport or even Hayward, where the smart money lands. There is probably a story here somewhere but since it’s not about an actress or TV show there is no newsman to report on it. I sure don’t get paid to follow up on this. I wait and wait for coverage and on Sunday there is an article about the Abdullah speech that runs in the Chronicle — a rehash of it. Nothing more. It’s online here.
Does anyone interview him? No. Is he on TV? Not that I could tell. There are canned PR-directed celebrity and entertainment news stories to do instead.
I do decide to search some of the local papers to see what kind of news we get instead of foreign affairs news in an age of globalization and offshoring. If Britney Spears is around that gets covered, that’s for sure.
And I did find this interesting article that seems oh so much more important
Here’s the opening to the article:
Los Angeles — She smokes. She strips. She does a full split in bra and panties. She performs a lap dance, then spits in the guy’s face. She cries and spies and aims well-chosen obscenities like so many rocket-propelled grenades into the heart of each of her unhappy lovers.
It’s a Natalie Portman we haven’t seen before.
Uh, and who gives a crap?
The following weeks are filled with coverage about her and her newest movies. Filled!
I have worked in newsrooms and I blame nobody but the editors for this sorry state of affairs. I know what they do. They claim that in these situations that they are giving the public what it wants. Who cares about some king. Who cares that machine guns are being brandished in city streets during holiday shopping in the main shopping district. People want to know about Natalie Portman and her spitting.
The fact is that people look to the media for guidance as to what is important. If they write about how important it is that the king is in town then people will think that it is important. If the media thinks that Natalie Portman spitting is important then people will think that this is important. This is not a culture of coffee house debate and thoughtfulness. It’s mostly a matter-of-fact workaday folks who go along with what they are told. After all the news people are experts and they are to be trusted as to what is important. The public is trusting. The newspapers and the media lead, not follow. It’s a fact.
For getting us off track into today’s sorry state of reporting I blame the most famous editor in our modern era. Jim Bellows.
An imaginative and passionate crusader, as the youngest editor of the New York Herald Tribune, he ushered in the era of New Journalism with his amazing stable of writers, from Tom Wolfe and Gail Sheehy to Jimmy Breslin and Dick Schaap. He was one of the first journalists to spot the growing public appetite for entertainment and celebrity news, reflected in: the gossip column by Joyce Haber which he launched in the Los Angeles Times; the infamous “Ear” gossip column in The Washington Star, begun when he was the editor there; his first venture in television as the managing editor of the then-fledgling Entertainment Tonight; and his stint as the West Coast Bureau Chief of TV Guide.
Jim has done it all – from newspapers and magazines to television and the Internet – with grace, style and guts. Doing it his way and never playing it safe, whether marrying for the third time, fathering his fourth daughter at the age of 50, or joining an Internet startup at 72,
He’s the most famous because he endeared himself to a lot of writers of his era. And he says he’s the most famous. Maybe he is. The long term results of his work are a scab on the American psyche. He and others credit him for the discovery that people are more inclined to vapid celebrity news than anything else if given a choice between well-packaged celebrity news and poorly packaged important news. He’s one of the go-to guys who put together ET — Entertainment Tonight in 1981. Because of this show and its syndication success TV news in general flaunts entertainment industry news above all else. Last night I was watching the questionable 60 Minutes II and it began with a good story about dirty bombs followed by a terrific story about marketing to pre-teens then a story about a Kevin Bacon movie. Huh? A Kevin Bacon movie? That’s journalism? Bellows is the key influencer regarding this crap. He’s extolled as a genius in the journalism community. Everyone loves the guy.
In fact, by creating a culture of entertainment mavens the media has created a monster. A dumbfuck public. Good work Bellows. Cheers! Thanks to you the public has machine guns pointed at their kids by some exempt/immune foreign nationals and people read about spitting actresses instead.
What I don�t understand is exactly why they (the media) have done this. I can easily understand why Disney does it at ABC, but why do the newspapers? Is it just so they can get those huge full page ads for crummy movies? Pathetic.
The media is no longer serving the public. Nobody gives a flying leap about Natalie Portman spitting and analyzing it in detail while ignoring machine guns in the streets in a shopping district. Really, the star struck editors need to understand this. Hey, you�re on a daily local newspaper. Tell people what�s going on in their city — not what is going on in a movie. Or are you just as vapid as these stories?
You — the readers — will have to personally ask them why the coverage is dumbed down like this. When they say it�s what the public wants, tell them, �Bullshit!�
