TV Gouges Politicians
March 24, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: This week the U.S. Senate voted down a proposal that would have required unions and corporations to seek members' or shareholders' permission before spending money on politics. The defeated amendment, proposed by President Bush, sidesteps the core issue of campaign finance reform legislation which is to ban the large political contributions known as soft money. However the Senate was able to pass a bill that would require broadcasters to provide discounted TV ad rates for political commercials in good time slots, and of course advertising is generally seen as the culprit that has sent the cost of campaigns soaring.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Recently a public interest group called the Alliance for Better Campaigns issued a report called Gouging Democracy: How the television industry profiteered on Campaign 2000. Paul Taylor is the executive director of the Alliance for Better Campaigns, and Paul, welcome to On the Media.
PAUL TAYLOR: Nice to be with you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So let's begin with the Senate action this week. Now broadcasters have been required for the last 30 years to offer candidates at what's called the lowest unit charge, but that hasn't worked, so what's wrong with that system and what did the Senate try to do about it?
PAUL TAYLOR: The system was poorly designed to begin with. It's full of loopholes, and as our report documented, in the culminating weeks and months of the 2000 Campaign rates were going up by 50 percent, 75 percent, a hundred percent, 200 percent and what the Senate did this past week was not only to, to close some of the loopholes but actually expand the law. For the first time it would cover political parties as well as candidates. So it's a pretty significant step.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And it also doesn't allow stations to pre-empt the political ads for higher-paying customers.
PAUL TAYLOR:That's right. That, that's been the biggest loophole over the last 30 years. Stations do in fact publish a very low rate for candidates, but it, it comes with the catch that if the station is offered more, more money by any other advertiser, the candidate's ad can be bumped to a less desirable time, and that's been the loophole that's now been closed.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Can you give me a couple of examples of what you referred to as egregious brazenness on the part of broadcasters?
PAUL TAYLOR:Well our report printed a, a memo from a--from a station out in Spokane, Washington to a, to a political advertiser. The memo was sent I think in late September and it said you know about those ad rates we quoted you a month ago. It turns out that the volume of political advertising has been a lot heavier than we anticipated, and we're going to have to change those rates we quoted you. Here's the new rate sheet. That advertiser who had lined up a-- a spot on the 6 o'clock news on that station for 600 dollars was not according to the, this new rate sheet going to have to pay 18 hundred dollars so it was a straight out tripling of the rates. Part of what's driving this is all the incredible amounts of money - hard money and soft money - that have been flooding into the system, and that does create pressures, and Econ 101 says when you get those sorts of pressures you raise your rates. But what the law tried to do 30 years ago is to say you know what -- the public owns these airwaves; it gives these airwaves to the broadcasters free of charge, and shouldn't we research the right at now cost or at low cost to allow candidates to communicate on what remains the dominant medium of communication in these culminating weeks.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Broadcasters say that with all that competition for advertising time, it's the local candidates which are not protected by the statute that tend to get squeezed off the air, and those are precisely the candidates that most directly affect people's lives!
PAUL TAYLOR: Yes, and there is, there is a, a glitch in the law here where can--federal candidates are given better protection in terms of getting access to television advertising time. Meantime, it is probably the - also true that most local candidates, certainly for the smaller offices, it doesn't -- either a) they don't have the money or b) it doesn't make sense to advertise on television. Television media markets obviously are in large cities and they expand across lots of geographic and political boundaries. The typical local candidate for legislature or city council, it's not an efficient buy to begin with. So it's a problem, but I wouldn't describe it as a large problem.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Alliance for Better Campaigns has offered a menu of solutions--
PAUL TAYLOR: Yes.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: -- free time for candidates among them -- not for ads but for debates.
PAUL TAYLOR: Right.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Candidates prefer ads though, don't they?
PAUL TAYLOR:No, you're absolutely right! Candidates tend to want to be able to completely control their own message. We've still got some work to do on that front.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you have other more workable solutions?
PAUL TAYLOR:The other, the other solution, quote/unquote that we have is a "broadcast bank" which would, which would provide vouchers to political parties to be able to distribute communication resources. Once again, ad time, to candidates of their choice. Let's get them out of the business of raising hundred thousand dollar checks. Let's give them a clean resource -- i.e., broadcast vouchers, and let them distribute it to local candidates, state candidates and federal candidates of their choosing.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well thank you very much.
PAUL TAYLOR: My pleasure.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Paul Taylor is executive director of the Alliance for Better Campaigns. Gore and Greenspan
March 24, 2001
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And now the next installment in our continuing if occasional coverage of Al Gore's class at the Columbia University School of Journalism. Last time Rupert Murdoch made a guest appearance. This week the former vice president hosted another celebrity, and once again Columbia student Michael Arnone came in to talk about it.
BOB GARFIELD: Michael Arnone, welcome back to the big show.
MICHAEL ARNONE: Good to be back.
BOB GARFIELD: This week you had another special guest in your class with Professor Gore. It was none other than the "man with a plan," Mr.--?
MICHAEL ARNONE: Alan Greenspan!
BOB GARFIELD: Tell me about it.
MICHAEL ARNONE:Well it was the largest class so far. About 80 students were there. Students in the Business Reporting class were invited this time. Mr. Greenspan actually did most of the talking. Mr. Gore facilitated the discussion and he also acted as a watchdog, because -- I mean as we all know -- Mr. Greenspan cut the interest rates on Tuesday. There appears to be some l-- some rule or law that the Federal Reserve chairman can't discuss his decision for a week after having made it.
BOB GARFIELD:The federal funds rate came down a half a point last week. The markets were expecting at least a three quarter point drop and reacted very badly to the Fed's announcement. Were there a lot of questions about that to Mr. Greenspan?
MICHAEL ARNONE: Unfortunately no, because right at the beginning of the class Mr. Gore came right out and said no questions about it and practically saying the word "economy" was enough to have Mr. Gore shut the question down. He talked much more about the history of business journalism, how journalists should cover economics with a sense of how economists think; therefore that would give them the ability to give greater understanding to readers and watchers.
BOB GARFIELD: Biggest attendance of any Al Gore journalism class to date, right? Was it like having Madonna in the room?
MICHAEL ARNONE:[LAUGHS] Well actually it was funny because, as you know, I mean having Al Gore there has been this media bonanza, but when people heard about a month ago that Greenspan was coming it was almost like Al who?
BOB GARFIELD: What was the most interesting question posed to Alan Greenspan?
MICHAEL ARNONE:I think one of the most interesting things that Mr. Greenspan talked about was the power of political leaders to affect markets, and he's surprised that investors and citizens and even reporters believe that they can. Of course this coming from the man who is widely believed to have the most power in the American economy.
BOB GARFIELD:Of course Alan Greenspan is widely credited for being the steward of the recently-departed bull market and of the magnificent economy that this country has had for the last 8 years, but he's equally famous for his rather oblique style of speech. His testimony before Congress, while sometimes expansive, is often cryptic bordering on unintelligible. Was he coherent when he answered your questions from the class?
MICHAEL ARNONE: He actually is an exceptional speaker. He did speak in very specific economic terms that went over the heads of quite a few of the, the students in the class who don't have business backgrounds, but the overall thrust of his arguments were very clear and you know, very well thought out.
BOB GARFIELD:All right, Michael, one last question, and with it I'm afraid a confession. Back in January we did a piece about Alan Greenspan and the media myth that has developed around him. In this piece we -- and by we of course I mean I -- described the figure he cuts as he swoops across the media scene. Now of course I'd seen his photo on TV an in the papers, and I did the thing that journalists are never supposed to do: I assumed. I said he's short. I said he's balding, bespectacled and short. Michael, I have to know. You were there in the presence of the Great One. [LAUGHTER] Is he short?
MICHAEL ARNONE: No.
BOB GARFIELD: Oh, dear God.
MICHAEL ARNONE: No, no he's - he, he's pushing six feet. He, he is a man of stature both physical and figurative.
BOB GARFIELD: Then consider this the correction and my apologies to all concerned. Michael Arnone, thanks again for joining us.
MICHAEL ARNONE: Thank you, Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: Michael Arnone is a student in the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism class taught by Professor Al Gore. Pundit Watch
March 24, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: On Wednesday Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush met at the White House. Sharon has been in office less than two weeks. Bush was sworn in two months before the meeting. U.S./Israel relations were clearly headed on a new course. This was why 24 hour news channels were invented!
BROOKE GLADSTONE:And thank God, whether an Old Testament God or a more faith-based God, that we have so many 24 hour newschannels or else this crucial development of the Sharon/Bush meeting might have gone unremarked-upon.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: During the campaign I said that we'll begin the process-- [PHONE RINGING] During the campaign I said we'll begin the process--
BOB GARFIELD: George Bush interrupted by somebody's cell phone. The cameras didn't pick up Sharon's reaction, but such a look on Bush's face! Disgraced newspaper columnist and current MSNBC host Mike Barnacle noticed.
MIKE BARNACLE: How great was that, huh? This - that was the scene yesterday during a photo opportunity in the oval office with Israel's prime minister after which the president said who's in charge of cells phones, just as another cell phone jangled away.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: MSNBC's Ashley Banfield [sp?] noticed.
ASHLEY BANFIELD: [LOUDLY] Turn that cell phone off!
BOB GARFIELD:And CNN's Crossfire not only noticed, they made like those people next to you in the restaurant and jabbered away on cell phones -or at least on the subject of cell phones -for 30 minutes.
MAN: Let's just not pick on the cell phones, because these are actually a safety device, life-saving device, an important tool for all of us!
MAN: But here's the problem. I mean there are other distractions; that, that is true. And, and some of them have been around like women putting makeup on a long time; but the cell phone is something new! And they're ex--they're expanding and they're exploding, and even with that little thing in your ear, it is another distraction. You talk about statistics. New England Journal of Medicine....
BOB GARFIELD:For those of you scoring at home, the Conservatives were assigned a pro-cell phone position and the Liberals argued from the anti-cell phone perspective.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Let's see what the Punditron 2000 has to say about all of this. [PUNCHING NUMBERS ON CELL PHONE NOISES]
BOB GARFIELD: Wait, I, I just had him on the line. [PUNCHING NUMBERS ON CELL PHONE NOISES] [ROBOTIC PUNDITRON 2000 NOISES]
BOB GARFIELD: Hold on-- he's going under a bridge. [ROBOTIC PUNDITRON 2000 NOISES]
BROOKE GLADSTONE:The Punditron notes that covering the cell phone interruption is fine! It's an annoyance we all experience. But the real annoyance, according to the Punditron--
BOB GARFIELD: He is getting so preachy these days.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:-- the real annoyance is that neither Crossfire nor Barnacle nor Banfield did any reporting on the future of U.S./Israeli policy! They stuck to cell phones. The Punditron also makes a lame joke about the talk shows' "phoning it in," but I'm not going to repeat that part. [DISAPPOINTED ROBOTIC PUNDITRON 2000 NOISES]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Sorry, Punditron. It's still our show. Release Getters
March 24, 2001
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. For the past 10 years American television viewers have been mesmerized by reality TV from Survivor to Jerry Springer to Judge Judy to Cops, these shows display real people behaving most often at their worst.
MAN: North Carolina, 1994. Officers find themselves against an enraged man with a shotgun.
MAN: Now you hold it the damn hell right there!
MAN: It's a delicate matter, but one the police are equipped to handle.
BOB GARFIELD: The show is called World's Wildest Police Videos. The image is a shotgun-wielding man, shirtless on his porch, raving at police. He has gotten himself stinking blotto. He has done violence in his household. Now he is making terrorist threats and a total jackass of himself for all his neighbors and a few million others to see. Renee Leask can scarcely believe her good fortune!
RENEE LEASK: He's just this big, fat guy on his porch raving with an enormous gun, and they're all shirtless -- none of 'em are wearing shirts!
BOB GARFIELD:She is lucky, because in addition to having no shirts, the shotgun-wielding porch-stander-onners of this nation also have no shame! This man signed a release permitting World's Wildest Police Videos to broadcast his image! And the owner of most every other unobscured face you see on these gritty police reality shows has done the same thing. Leask is in charge of obtaining these releases. She is awash in 8 by 11 forms ready to be stuffed into dozens and dozens of thick vinyl binders.
RENEE LEASK: There's an alternative paper universe that agrees with the visual universe that you look at every day.
BOB GARFIELD: But why? Why let some TV producer trade in your personal humiliation? Fred Heilbrun, a permission specialist who has obtained nearly 10,000 releases for such shows as True Stories of the Highway Patrol offers a number of explanations from malignant macho to civic mindedness to, every so often, cash money. But it is still hard for him to believe how easy it is! Once, he says, he was with a camera crew at a heroin bust and one of the suspects bolted directly toward them.
FRED HEILBRUN: The cameraman who is built like a halfback steps out. The suspect falls backward into a wall, and the cameraman sticks the camera in this fellow's face. Then the cameraman follows it up by saying don't move or I'll shoot you. And the fellow threw his hands up in the air and complied like the cameraman had a, an MP-5 pointed at the guy's head. It was just amazing.
BOB GARFIELD: Did you approach him to sign a release?
FRED HEILBRUN: Oh, yeah. And-- he signed.
BOB GARFIELD:To Renee Leask, the stop or I'll shoot gambit suggests another possibility for suspects' willingness to sign on the dotted line: the confusion over who is a cop and who isn't, and maybe the hope that cooperation with the camera crew will yield softer treatment from the police down the line. Fred Heilbrun says cultivating that confusion is unethical, and often enough, he says, an opposite force may be at work.
FRED HEILBRUN: I've found out that when the police come through your door, you know, knock it off its hinges, come barreling through, throw you into the wall, handcuff you, and then somebody walks up and says hi, my name's Fred. Has anybody told you what the cameras are about? I have-- you know the people relaxed.
BOB GARFIELD: Bad cop, good producer.
FRED HEILBRUN: Yeah! You know. I have-- I have to admit - I, I learned some of my techniques from watching the police work.
BOB GARFIELD:On thing that all release-getters quickly learn is that the culture of reality television and the culture in general work in their favor. In this society, appearing on television is deemed an achievement in its own right, and neither the subjects nor the audience seem to be all that concerned about how that is achieved. You know, hey Tony -- I saw you on TV! -- was that your shotgun? What happened to your shirt?
FRED HEILBRUN: I think my favorite was a fellow who, to pay off a debt to a dealer offered his barn to be set up as a meth lab. The way the police found out about him was his electric bill which should have been perhaps 150 dollars a month was something like 10,000 dollars a month, and he wasn't paying it.
BOB GARFIELD: As police raided the barn, the guy quickly grabbed-- a guitar and started singing!
FRED HEILBRUN: When I told him what I wanted, he said will you show me singing? And I said if you'd like. And he signed the release.
BOB GARFIELD: No matter that he faced 20 years in prison.
FRED HEILBRUN:He wanted to be sure that he was going to have at least 10 seconds of himself singing on a national television show, so we gave that to him.
BOB GARFIELD: How was the song?
FRED HEILBRUN:He's terrible. Just terrible. I think he--if I recall he was doing like Puff, the Magic Dragon and just -- oh, it was just awful.
BOB GARFIELD:There's yet another category -- the chastened criminal who wants to steer others away from foolish choices. Leask's biggest coup was getting a release from a woman arrested for DWI who was taped for an hour making sexual advances on the arresting officer.
WOMAN: [...?...] baby, but I just know you're good-looking.
MAN: I, I appreciate that.
WOMAN: [...?...] those beautiful brown eyes....
MAN: [LAUGHS] Sign right there for me, okay?
WOMAN: I'll sign.
MAN: Thank you, ma'am.
BOB GARFIELD: That was, as they say, this lady's rock bottom and she was persuaded that making herself a laughing stock on television was an appropriate way to begin her new life of sobriety. But of all the explanations for why Leask's vinyl binders are so full, maybe the best is the most obvious!
RENEE LEASK: Criminals are stupid!
BOB GARFIELD: And the best illustration is a piece of tape aired on her show for which no release was necessary because the suspect's face was not visible.
RENEE LEASK: We saw a guy walk into a convenience store with a paper bag over his head. No holes. You know re-- obviously having some trouble seeing. And he tried to rob it, and it was so-- he seems so - so ineffectual because of the paper bag and the no-holes that the clerk didn't really understand that he was seriously trying to rob him and he didn't have a weapon! So the clerk just said I - I'm sorry - I don't unders-- I don't understand you -- [LAUGHTER] and the guy with the bag on his head just walked away! Criminals are stupid. They're criminals because they're stupid. Their stupidity puts them in jail. Their stupidity keeps them in jail. When they get out of jail, their stupidity puts them back in jail. Criminals are stupid.
BOB GARFIELD:So what you're suggesting is, if I can read between the lines here, you're suggesting --and don't let me, please, put words in your mouth -- that criminals -- are stupid.
RENEE LEASK: That's what I'm saying.
BOB GARFIELD: As for the zeitgeist image of the shirtless ruffian on his porch raving, Leask says be not misled. There are no more of these people nowadays, she believes, than there ever were.
RENEE LEASK: I think there are just more cameras. I, I've gotta tell you I think the shirtless guy was raving at the police for our grandparents and our great-grandparents. But now there are cameras to capture it, they look for opportunities to capture it, now we all see it, and the guy without the shirt doesn't mind! He wants his rants to be heard! He's perfectly with that development. Movie Airplanes
March 24, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: Chances are if you've seen an airplane in a movie, it was a set. Sorry to bust the illusion, but think about it -- anybody who's had to fly recently knows there's barely a seat to spare. No wonder you don't see film crews blocking off gates or trying to shoot on the runway as jumbo jets soar overhead. Instead movie makers head to the north end of the San Fernando Valley where a company called Airline Film and TV Promotions provides what a film crew really wants. Reporter Rachel Myrow of KPCC takes us there.
RACHEL MYROW: We're sitting in a convincing mockup of an airport gate with a real cappucino stand, rest room signs and TV monitors listing departures and arrivals. If it weren't for the film crew, you'd never guess this was a sound stage in Pacoima! Which is the idea. Tonight's shoot is a TV pilot for series called Bernie Mac. Ruben Freed is the art director.
RUBEN FREED: What I found was something that everybody uses and has used in different ways. I tried to personalize it the way that, you know, our particular vision has it. [BACKGROUND CREW CALLING "ROLLING"] But I'm sure that we've done no more or less than a lot of other people have done in the same space, you know? It's a good facility, [WHISPERING] and the, the variety of things, the resources here are actually tremendous for this kind of thing.
RACHEL MYROW: Step inside one of the 747's or the DC-10 on the soundstage and you'll find authentic airline seats, windows and oxygen masks. These retired airplanes have been sawed into pieces that are easily broken down and re-assembled in an endless variety of ways. Standing in the aisles you can almost smell that yeasty air-conditioning, feel the rumble of engines warming up beneath your feet and hear the swirling sound tracks to a dozen cheesy movies.
MAN IN MOVIE CLIP: I want the best available man on this -- a man who knows that plane inside and out and won't crack under pressure!
BYRON SCHMIDT: Well I was with TWA for 19 years--
RACHEL MYROW: 72 year old Byron Schmidt fell into this business, so to speak, after training to fly fighter planes in the last days of World War II.
BYRON SCHMIDT: I started out in sales, and then I got into the department that did motion pictures and television called Special Promotions, and I did that for 19 years, and we did like 130 pictures a year - we did - we did Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall that won the Oscars. They had Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly out here together for a Western Airlines commercial; Jerry Lewis, Angela Lansbury -- you could name the, the famous people that have been in here for different shots.
RACHEL MYROW: Schmidt claims he's not motivated to run a high-flying prop shop because of celebrities--
BYRON SCHMIDT: Here's Jack Lemmon and Dennis Hopper and Red Skelton, and here is....
RACHEL MYROW: --but give him half a chance and he'll lead you into his office and to the Wall of Fame, plastered with photos of actors sitting in airplanes, exiting from airplanes, standing beside airplanes.
BYRON SCHMIDT: ...Sean Connery, and there's Marlon Brando in a picture called -- let's see - what was the name of that? -- The Ugly American.
RACHEL MYROW: Way back in the early days of commercial air travel TWA's special production division provided free travel and mockups to TV crews in exchange for on-screen credits. In 1974, Schmidt and his partner, Alf Jacobson [sp?] formed a company of their own and began operating the TWA program under contract. Their 22,000 square foot warehouse has been home to hundreds of shoots for everything from magazine ads to rock videos. Even that granddaddy of airline comedies, Airplane, was shot here.
MAN: Flight 2 Zero Niner clear for vector 3 2 4.
MAN: We have clearance, Clarence.
MAN: Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?
MAN: Tower to radio clearance, over.
MAN: That's Clarence Over! Over!
MAN: Roger.
MAN: Huh?!
MAN: Roger, over.
MAN: What?!
MAN: Cla&;f%$kjd!!
MAN: Who?! [ENGINE RUMBLE - MOVIE MUSIC]
RACHEL MYROW: Even United Airlines and Boeing shoot commercials and corporate films here. It's just easier, Schmidt says, to borrow a piece of a plane for 15 hundred dollars or spend a 12 hour day in Pacoima for 6,000 bucks. No wonder so many plane scenes look strangely familiar. It's a real worry for art director Ruben Freed. [MAN SHOUTING ORDERS IN FILM CLIP]
RACHEL MYROW: Do you ever wonder that people watching it are going to go haven't I seen this airplane someplace before?
RUBEN FREED: That's my big fear. Yeah. I hate to, I hate to even think about that.
RACHEL MYROW: But there's no one telltale sign a scene was shot here. No cigarette burn hole in seat 4F - no misplaced oxygen mask or impossibly roomy toilet. Then again, just ask yourself how you're able to watch the drama unfold in the cockpit. [MOVIE MUSIC]
WOMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, this is your stewardess speaking. We regret any inconvenience the sudden cabin movement might have caused. This is due to periodic air pockets we encounter. There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane? [SCREAMING AND MAYHEM FROM PASSENGERS]
RACHEL MYROW: Not that the actors need to worry. This fuselage may have held a lot of stars, but it never leaves the earth. For On the Media, I'm Rachel Myrow in Hollywood. Okay, okay --Pacoima.
Airplane Edits
March 24, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: Getting an airplane in a movie takes work. So does getting a movie into an airplane. Here's a scene from When Harry Met Sally that you're not likely to see in flight.
BILLY CRYSTAL IN MOVIE: You okay?
MEG RYAN IN MOVIE: Ohhhhhhh. [SIGHS]. Oh, God! Ooooooo! Oh, God! Ohhhhhh. [SIGHS] Ahhhhhhoohh! Ohhhhhhhhh! Ohhhh, goooood. Oh, yeah -right there -- [GASPS] Oh! [GASPS] Ohhhhhh!! Oohhh!!! Ohhhh! Oh, God! Oh! [SCREAMING] Yes! Yes! Yes!
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Okay, okay. Enough of that. Jeff Klein is president of Jaguar Distribution which supplies films suitably edited for in-flight viewing. Mr. Klein, what are airlines eager to see or not to see in the movies they show?
JEFF KLEIN: Well, airline passengers represent such a broad cultural diversity and, and all age groups, and the airlines try to remain sensitive to these differences by minimizing or cutting out scenes of excessive violence for example or scenes of bloodshed, nudity and sex, foul language.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What about cultural differences? Do you keep in certain scenes for certain routes and take the out for others?
JEFF KLEIN:There are cultural differences. In some Middle Eastern countries, for example, violence is not as problematic as consuming alcohol or, or signs of open affection. I remember one film, I think it was Cocktail, was exhibited by one of the Middle Eastern airlines but the Arab dialogue that was provided made it appear that they were actually drinking juice rather than alcohol.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: I have to assume it's not a modern myth to say airlines don't like to play movies with air crashes in them.
JEFF KLEIN: No, that's - that's not a myth at all. Rain Man-- comes to my mind very quickly.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN IN MOVIE: ...35 [...?...] passengers [...?...]. Yeah.
TOM CRUISE IN MOVIE: All airlines have crashed at one time or another! That doesn't mean that they are not safe!
DUSTIN HOFFMAN IN MOVIE: Quantas.
TOM CRUISE IN MOVIE: Wha-- Quantas?
DUSTIN HOFFMAN IN MOVIE: Quantas never crashed.
JEFF KLEIN: Quantas was the only airline to play that scene complete. [LAUGHTER] Every other carrier who played that movie just cut that scene out like it never existed.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you ever worry that you have to cut a film so severely that you damage it?
JEFF KLEIN:No. The primary thing is to keep the integrity of the film intact. In some cases, the - the directors want to get involved for that very reason! Steven Spielberg doesn't like his films edited at all! Saving Private Ryan, I've heard, was played by some airlines but completely un-edited. Woody Allen does cutting. We would have to supply a list of edits to Woody Allen and have him approve them or he would do the actual editing.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Have you had complaints from directors or from airline passengers?
JEFF KLEIN: It seems that regardless of what is played in the airline, somebody will complain about something.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So then the only real solution is the Virgin Atlantic solution.
JEFF KLEIN:Virgin would be the one to go to -- they -- I don't think they edit very much at all. Their whole fleet is equipped with in-seat video systems, so there's no overhead screen to offend anyone within their captive audience.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: We're joined now by Sarah Evans who is the manager of acquisitions and publishing for Virgin Atlantic Airline. Sarah, welcome to the On the Media.
SARAH EVANS: Hi.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Does Virgin Airlines offer R-rated films un-edited along with a bunch of other fare in those little seatback selectors?
SARAH EVANS: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean everything from American Psycho we've played; Fight Club; and we've actually got playing at the moment Requiem for a Dream. We don't shy away from stuff that's controversial, and it's actually really popular.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Does Virgin ever receive complaints about the types of films it shows?
SARAH EVANS:We have had one or two. You do get people who are shocked by the fact that these films are available on board. But we always make a point of responding and explaining why we do what we do -- the fact that we like to give people freedom of choice. We don't really want to censor the films that are available on board, and most people once you explain to them that policy, they seem to understand it.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What have they objected to?
SARAH EVANS:It's the same as anything on TV or in the cinema. They object to nudity, violence. If we have a film that has a gay theme, that seems to be quite controversial.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:You've mentioned that you had Fight Club available on the seatback selectors. If I remember correctly, Fight Club has a plane crash scene in it, doesn't it?
SARAH EVANS: Yeah, it does. A really nasty one. [LAUGHS] We've been showing them for a while now. I mean it, it started accidentally in that I booked a classic -- Get Shorty -- and I completely forgot about the plane crash in it. I was actually flying and watched it and suddenly saw oh, my God -- we've got a film on board with a plane crash! And nothing happened. No one complained. So we kind of stepped up a little bit and we had Six Days, Seven Nights -- not a word from anyone. [LAUGHTER] So then we just kind of gradually increased the intensity of the crash and we kind of went on to Con Air, Fight Club. We played Mission Impossible II where the opening sequence is a plane crashing into the side of a mountain. We've played Final Destination -- and we've never had a complaint about it.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And Virgin Atlantic is, is well known as the airline for masochists I guess, huh?
SARAH EVANS:[LAUGHS] Well we do warn people if you're a nervous passenger, don't watch it. I mean I'm a nervous passenger, and I wouldn't want to watch it when I'm on board.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Sarah Evans of Virgin Atlantic Airlines, thank you very much.
SARAH EVANS: You're welcome. Canadian MP Hoax Piece
March 24, 2001
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Everybody understands that politicians when they make their pronouncements are often mouthing the ideas and sometimes even the exact words of their aides. Well, this process can also work in reverse. In Vancouver, Canada on March 17th a radio interview scheduled with Parliament Member Rahim Jaffer took a surprising turn on a nationally syndicated program called Warren on the Weekend.
BOB GARFIELD:Joining us by phone is the host of Warren on the Weekend, Peter Warren, and from a studio somewhere in the wilds of British Columbia, the show's producer, Shannon Gunning. Shannon and Peter, welcome to OTM!
PETER WARREN: Thank you so much!
SHANNON GUNNING: Thanks, Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: This is an amazing story. It began with an interview you had scheduled with a Member of Parliament for the Edmonton area. What exactly transpired that day?
SHANNON GUNNING: Well, Rahim Jaffer or what we thought was Rahim Jaffer called to do the interview. About 15 minutes into the interview about prescription drugs we had a listener call us from his home, Riding [sp?], in Edmonton, claiming that the man on air with this was not Rahim Jaffer. It was in fact his executive assistant. We were a little bit confused, obviously. We went on the line and asked the person on air with us are you Rahim Jaffer, and he joked and laughed and said yes, of course I am.
BOB GARFIELD: Did you confront him live during the broadcast?
SHANNON GUNNING:I actually didn't confront him live, because we weren't sure if the person who had called us was serious or what she was about, and so during a break I got on his line and asked him off the air.
BOB GARFIELD: And he said why, of course I am.
SHANNON GUNNING:Well, he laughed a little bit and said yeah, of course I'm Rahim Jaffer! And I had a little bit of a chuckle as well. Now this person called back about 5 minutes later -- this caller from Edmonton -- and insisted, again, that is not Rahim Jaffer! I know Rahim Jaffer quite well. We're friends. That person on the line with you is Matthew Johnston [sp?], his executive assistant.
BOB GARFIELD:This is amazing. Now be--before the phone calls came in, was there anything about the interview that made you suspicious about this supposed Mr. Jaffer? Was there a funny little feeling in the pit of your stomach at any point? Peter?
PETER WARREN: Well, Bob not really because the guy was fully versed and has probably written Rahim Jaffer's speeches on the subject.
BOB GARFIELD: You have a little bit of tape from phone calls that Mr. Johnston/Mr. Jaffer made to you before the broadcast even began.
SHANNON GUNNING: Two messages had been left, both of them left before the interview began -- about 10 minutes apart. But they were very clearly left by the same person.
MATTHEW JOHNSTON: Hi, Shannon. It's Matthew Johnston, executive assistant to Member of Parliament Rahim Jaffer. Just trying to touch, touch base --make sure this line is working for Rahim's 2 o'clock interview.
MATTHEW JOHNSTON: Hi, Shannon. It's Rahim Jaffer calling. Just wanted to-- just confirm our 2 o'clock radio interview.
SHANNON GUNNING: After we heard the voice mails we were very suspicious. We ran them by about six colleagues. They all said well that's the same guy! I had a number for the real Rahim Jaffer, and I said to him did you do an interview with us 40 minutes ago? And he said yes, yes I did. I was happy to do it. I said well you sound a little different. He said well that's because I'm on a different phone; it's a noisy cafe. When I asked him to explain the two voice mails, he said he left both voice mails, but in the first one he must have been confused and frazzled and accidentally identified himself as his executive assistant, Matt Johnston. [LAUGHTER]
BOB GARFIELD: Now this is all very amusing, but the incident is having some rather serious repercussions, isn't it?
PETER WARREN:Well first of all the exec resigned. We let them stew on it -- Shannon and myself -- over Saturday night, and then Sunday they both apologized on tape which we subsequently played on air, and then very, very quickly the leader of the Canadian Alliance Party learned number one that the exec had resigned on the spot, and number two demoted the Member of Parliament to the back benches.
BOB GARFIELD:Now Mr. Jaffer went before the Parliament and gave a rather impassioned appeal for forgiveness and of course with it an apology. Let's listen to that.
RAHIM JAFFER: I've already apologized to Peter Warren, the host of the show and to all of his listeners across Canada. And today, Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer to you, as the speaker of this legislature and my friend my apologies for not living up to the standards of this House.
BOB GARFIELD: This is an extraordinary incident, Peter, but-- not unprecedented! Is that right?
PETER WARREN:Not unprecedented, we discover, Bob because very, very quickly after the news had flashed across the country, we received a call from BBC International in London, England and I did a live hookup with them, and I wondered why their interest, and apparently an identical incident happened with the BBC and a British Parliamentarian about a year ago.
BOB GARFIELD: I don't know if it makes for good government but it clearly makes for good radio, and I hope you enjoy the ride.
PETER WARREN: [LAUGHS] Thanks Bob.
SHANNON GUNNING: Thanks Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: Well and actually the joke's on you because--I'm really Brooke Gladstone.
PETER WARREN: No, I'm Muhammad Ali.
BOB GARFIELD: Peter Warren is the host of Warren on the Weekend and Shannon Gunning is the show's producer. Movie Musicals
March 24, 2001
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Blame Canada is of course from the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. One of the very few successful film musicals in recent years, and like virtually all the others in that exclusive group it's a cartoon. Where have all the traditional American movie musicals gone? They've migrated to the small screen as On the Media's Tony Maciulis reports.
TONY MACIULIS: Actress Glenn Close has performed in blockbuster films like Fatal Attraction and 101 Dalmatians, but her heart lies in musicals.
GLENN CLOSE: I still think there's really no entertainment like it, because you have that emotional moment and then it's augmented by music, and it's just -- it's a double whammy.
TONY MACIULIS: But for Hollywood musicals are more like a jinx. There was a day when gang members in ballet slippers sold tickets at the box office. West Side Story won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1961. [MUSIC FROM WEST SIDE STORY] But a the Wall Street Journal's Hollywood reporter Tom King explains, adult tastes have changed.
TOM KING: Over the past couple of decades, audiences have reacted rather strangely when people --actors and actresses on the screen in modern times -- break into song! It just seems weird! [JAMES CAGNEY SINGING YANKEE DOODLE DANDY]
TONY MACIULIS: It used to be just another night at the movies. Movie musicals are as American as McDonald's and pickup trucks. In the 1940s, MGM's chief, Louis B. Mayer had a vision for the entertainment industry. Call it "doing his part for the war effort." Author and Hollywood storyteller Stephen Schochet explains.
STEPHEN SCHOCHET: He said what the country needs now is escapism, and so he gave Arthur Freed permission to start making musicals which he absolutely loved. Mayer was the one who said if you want a message, call Western Union.
TONY MACIULIS: Moviegoers got enough messages in the newspaper headlines. The Depression, a Second World War. The feel good films Freed and Mayer created hit the spot. Films like the Wizard of Oz, Oklahoma and On the Town starting Frank Sinatra. [SONG NEW YORK, NEW YORK FROM ON THE TOWN] MGM launched one musical after another. Some were film adaptations of Broadway hits. Others, like Singing in the Rain, were original creations written beside the cardboard trees and painted sunsets of a Hollywood studio. Just at the height of the musical's Golden Age an unexpected challenger was vying for the spotlight.
TOM KING: Television started keeping people away from the movie theaters, and the movie studios felt that in order to compete with television they had to go with big blockbusters.
TONY MACIULIS: The cost of production soared as the projects became ever more spectacular to compete with TV. Unable to stay afloat, the genre fell by the wayside, occasionally revived in a kitschy cult classic like Grease or the Rocky Horror Show. Gigi was the last blockbuster musical for MGM, winning 9 Academy Awards in 1958.
[MAURICE CHEVALIER SINGING THANK HEAVEN FOR LITTLE GIRLS] But now, ironically, the medium that contributed to the musical's demise, has provided a new home. Tom King.
MAN: The success in movie musicals these days is on the small screen.
TONY MACIULIS:It began as a gamble in 1993. [SONG FROM GYPSY] CBS developed Gypsy starring Bette Midler. It was a success with both advertisers and audience. When ABC gained Disney's creative knowhow in the merger, the network began feverishly developing musicals. One of their first efforts, Cinderella, starring Whitney Houston, captured an audience of over 30 million. That's better than the reality show Survivor. ABC's executive vice president for movies and mini-series, Susan Line [sp?].
SUSAN LINE: Up to now every musical event we've done has been exactly that -- an event. Because it feels different - it feels fresh.
TONY MACIULIS: Audiences won't part with the ten bucks to see a musical at the movie theater, but on television it makes for great family viewing. And so when Glenn Close was approached for a revival of South Pacific, she knew exactly how to get the project accomplished.
GLENN CLOSE: I think we would have had a hard time getting it financed for a feature. [SONG: I'M IN LOVE WITH A WONDERFUL GUY]
TONY MACIULIS: But ABC was happy to comply, spending nearly 15 million on the production. That's a lot for a TV movie but a fraction of the cost for a feature film. They average about 60 million. ABC executive Susan Line says it's money well spent. The musicals reach the 18 to 49 year olds that advertisers covet. But they also appeal to 50 plus viewers -- a vastly ignored audience.
SUSAN LINE: That's fabulous. That's really something we are giving back to a television audience that has to put up with somewhat mundane entertainment a lot of the nights of the year.
TONY MACIULIS: After Monday's broadcast of South Pacific, ABC charges on with production of The Music Man starring Matthew Broderick; Mame, produced by Barbara Streisand; and Fiddler on the Roof. In New York, I'm Tony Maciulis for On the Media.
Oscar Music
March 24, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: Movie musicals may be box office poison, but movie music is big business. If this weekend's Oscar nominees for Best Song are any indication, the movie song has passed firmly out of Tin Pan Alley and into the guitar-picking hands of gravel-voiced bards. Things Have Changed was penned by Bob Dylan. It appeared in the movie Wonder Boys and is up for the Oscar. So are songs from such rock and pop and folk luminaries as Bjork and Sting and Randy Newman.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jon Burlingame is the author of Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks. Welcome to On the Media.
JON BURLINGAME: Thank you, Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Well let's talk about "Best Song." Is there any miscarriage of Oscar justice that particularly sticks in your craw -- a song that should have been awarded and wasn't in favor of a piece of just indescribable schlock?
JON BURLINGAME: I'm sorry to say there are any number of examples of that down through the history of the Academy Awards. [SONG: YOU LIGHT UP MY LIFE] I think the one that people tend to cite a lot is the case of 1977 when You Light Up My Life won the best song award -- a year when none of the best-selling songs from Saturday Night Fever were nominated; songs that everyone can remember now: Stayin' Alive and Night Fever and How Deep Is Your Love. All of those tunes were totally ignored and weren't even nominated that year. [SONG: YOU LIGHT UP MY LIFE] Historically the Academy Awards have sometimes not been in touch totally with what's going on in popular music, so in that particular year it's possible that the music branch simply felt well this is disco -- it's going to be here today, gone tomorrow -- they're not really songs in the vein of a Cole Porter or a Richard Rogers or a George Gershwin.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Is that why they completely missed the Beatles' Hard Day's Night in 1964 in favor of Chim Chim Cheree from Mary Poppins?
JON BURLINGAME: Perfect example. [SONG: CHIM CHIM CHEREE]
JON BURLINGAME:And in fact that trend continues to this day. If you look down through the list of best song winners of the late '80s and into the mid-'90s - things like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin continue to win!
BROOKE GLADSTONE:I can't help giving another example now. In 1972 Super Fly by Curtis Mayfield was passed over for that enduring hit The Poseidon Adventure's [LAUGHS] The Morning After. Now that's schlock if there ever was schlock.
JON BURLINGAME: Boy, was it controversial. People -- not necessarily on the inside of the Academy Awards organization but certainly outside --said how could you not nominate this great Curtis Mayfield song? [SONG: SUPER FLY] But if you look again at the circumstances, what you're talking about here is a very popular singer-songwriter from the R&B field who, rumor had it, could not actually write down notes, and so therefore was not necessarily considered a quote "songwriter" unquote. So Super Fly which was, let's face it, anthem for a pimp or a pusher was not considered all that classic a song as far as the Academy goes.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Why is it that frequently the Academy seems to pick the least enduring, least memorable and sometimes just most excruciating song of the year for their prize?
JON BURLINGAME: I think it's several factors. The people who actually do the voting are the entire 6,000-member membership of the Academy, and that includes a lot of actors, writers, directors, cinematographers, production designers, costume designers. These people by and large are not musical, shall we say, geniuses.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:I grant you that it was a lot easier back in the '30s when there seemed to be an abundance of great songs. For instance in 1936, Cheek to Cheek was passed over, but Lullaby of Broadway won. And in 1937, I Got You Under My Skin and Pennies from Heaven didn't make it but Just the Way You Look Tonight won. [SONG: THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT]
JON BURLINGAME: Oh, 1937 is the classic example of an amazing collection of songs that were not nominated. The Gershwins that year did A Foggy Day, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, Nice Work If You Can Get It. Johnny Mercer wrote Hooray for Hollywood which is an anthem to Tinseltown. And Cole Porter wrote In the Still of the Night for a movie! None of those now-classic American songs were nominated. I just think -- I fear actually -- that the kind of quality of the great American songwriters really -- they had their day --and the Academy is somewhat reluctantly moving on with the times.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What does it mean that last year Blame Canada from the South Park film was nominated?
JON BURLINGAME:In the case of Blame Canada I think it was a kind of consolation prize, because it was one of the more popular choices among young voters.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Is this another indication that the Academy is indeed getting younger?
JON BURLINGAME:I think it is. Remember a couple of years ago when Danny Elfman, the former Oingo Boingo rock star who had gotten into movie scoring with pictures like Batman and Edward Scissorhands -- he went for years and years without a nomination. The assumption was the aging membership in the music branch simply wasn't going to reward a rock and roller who, in their minds, quote "got lucky" unquote -- and yet a couple of years ago that changed when he was nominated twice in the same year for Good Will Hunting and Men in Black, and I think that was the first real indicator that the music branch was starting to get a little younger; people were joining the music branch who'd come out of rock and roll, who appreciate more contemporary kinds of music-making.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:That brings us then to the present. What are some of the other songs that are up this year and what do you think their chances are?
JON BURLINGAME: I tell you that I think that there's no chance that Bob Dylan will lose. [LAUGHTER] I think that Bob Dylan is going to win the Oscar for Things Have Changed from Wonder Boys. It's the kind of thing that the Academy would love to do - would be to honor Bob Dylan - a guy they respect - a guy they love - and who hasn't written a film song since Knockin' on Heaven's Door I think in 1972.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Thank you very much.
JON BURLINGAME: Well, thank you Brooke. It's great to speak with you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jon Burlingame is the author of a new book called Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks. [SONG: THINGS HAVE CHANGED] 58:00
BOB GARFIELD:That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price, Alicia Zuckerman and Katya Rogers; engineered by George Edwards and edited by Brooke. We had help from the Keefe brothers, John and Dylan; David Serchuk and Kathleen Horan.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Mike Pesca is our producer at large; Arun Rath our senior producer and Dean Cappello our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. Punditron 2000 services provided by Truthco International. You can listen to the program and get free transcripts at onthemedia.org and e-mail us at onthemedia@wnyc.org. This is On the Media from National Public Radio. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. See you at the movies!
March 24, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: This week the U.S. Senate voted down a proposal that would have required unions and corporations to seek members' or shareholders' permission before spending money on politics. The defeated amendment, proposed by President Bush, sidesteps the core issue of campaign finance reform legislation which is to ban the large political contributions known as soft money. However the Senate was able to pass a bill that would require broadcasters to provide discounted TV ad rates for political commercials in good time slots, and of course advertising is generally seen as the culprit that has sent the cost of campaigns soaring.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Recently a public interest group called the Alliance for Better Campaigns issued a report called Gouging Democracy: How the television industry profiteered on Campaign 2000. Paul Taylor is the executive director of the Alliance for Better Campaigns, and Paul, welcome to On the Media.
PAUL TAYLOR: Nice to be with you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So let's begin with the Senate action this week. Now broadcasters have been required for the last 30 years to offer candidates at what's called the lowest unit charge, but that hasn't worked, so what's wrong with that system and what did the Senate try to do about it?
PAUL TAYLOR: The system was poorly designed to begin with. It's full of loopholes, and as our report documented, in the culminating weeks and months of the 2000 Campaign rates were going up by 50 percent, 75 percent, a hundred percent, 200 percent and what the Senate did this past week was not only to, to close some of the loopholes but actually expand the law. For the first time it would cover political parties as well as candidates. So it's a pretty significant step.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And it also doesn't allow stations to pre-empt the political ads for higher-paying customers.
PAUL TAYLOR:That's right. That, that's been the biggest loophole over the last 30 years. Stations do in fact publish a very low rate for candidates, but it, it comes with the catch that if the station is offered more, more money by any other advertiser, the candidate's ad can be bumped to a less desirable time, and that's been the loophole that's now been closed.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Can you give me a couple of examples of what you referred to as egregious brazenness on the part of broadcasters?
PAUL TAYLOR:Well our report printed a, a memo from a--from a station out in Spokane, Washington to a, to a political advertiser. The memo was sent I think in late September and it said you know about those ad rates we quoted you a month ago. It turns out that the volume of political advertising has been a lot heavier than we anticipated, and we're going to have to change those rates we quoted you. Here's the new rate sheet. That advertiser who had lined up a-- a spot on the 6 o'clock news on that station for 600 dollars was not according to the, this new rate sheet going to have to pay 18 hundred dollars so it was a straight out tripling of the rates. Part of what's driving this is all the incredible amounts of money - hard money and soft money - that have been flooding into the system, and that does create pressures, and Econ 101 says when you get those sorts of pressures you raise your rates. But what the law tried to do 30 years ago is to say you know what -- the public owns these airwaves; it gives these airwaves to the broadcasters free of charge, and shouldn't we research the right at now cost or at low cost to allow candidates to communicate on what remains the dominant medium of communication in these culminating weeks.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Broadcasters say that with all that competition for advertising time, it's the local candidates which are not protected by the statute that tend to get squeezed off the air, and those are precisely the candidates that most directly affect people's lives!
PAUL TAYLOR: Yes, and there is, there is a, a glitch in the law here where can--federal candidates are given better protection in terms of getting access to television advertising time. Meantime, it is probably the - also true that most local candidates, certainly for the smaller offices, it doesn't -- either a) they don't have the money or b) it doesn't make sense to advertise on television. Television media markets obviously are in large cities and they expand across lots of geographic and political boundaries. The typical local candidate for legislature or city council, it's not an efficient buy to begin with. So it's a problem, but I wouldn't describe it as a large problem.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Alliance for Better Campaigns has offered a menu of solutions--
PAUL TAYLOR: Yes.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: -- free time for candidates among them -- not for ads but for debates.
PAUL TAYLOR: Right.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Candidates prefer ads though, don't they?
PAUL TAYLOR:No, you're absolutely right! Candidates tend to want to be able to completely control their own message. We've still got some work to do on that front.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you have other more workable solutions?
PAUL TAYLOR:The other, the other solution, quote/unquote that we have is a "broadcast bank" which would, which would provide vouchers to political parties to be able to distribute communication resources. Once again, ad time, to candidates of their choice. Let's get them out of the business of raising hundred thousand dollar checks. Let's give them a clean resource -- i.e., broadcast vouchers, and let them distribute it to local candidates, state candidates and federal candidates of their choosing.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well thank you very much.
PAUL TAYLOR: My pleasure.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Paul Taylor is executive director of the Alliance for Better Campaigns. Gore and Greenspan
March 24, 2001
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And now the next installment in our continuing if occasional coverage of Al Gore's class at the Columbia University School of Journalism. Last time Rupert Murdoch made a guest appearance. This week the former vice president hosted another celebrity, and once again Columbia student Michael Arnone came in to talk about it.
BOB GARFIELD: Michael Arnone, welcome back to the big show.
MICHAEL ARNONE: Good to be back.
BOB GARFIELD: This week you had another special guest in your class with Professor Gore. It was none other than the "man with a plan," Mr.--?
MICHAEL ARNONE: Alan Greenspan!
BOB GARFIELD: Tell me about it.
MICHAEL ARNONE:Well it was the largest class so far. About 80 students were there. Students in the Business Reporting class were invited this time. Mr. Greenspan actually did most of the talking. Mr. Gore facilitated the discussion and he also acted as a watchdog, because -- I mean as we all know -- Mr. Greenspan cut the interest rates on Tuesday. There appears to be some l-- some rule or law that the Federal Reserve chairman can't discuss his decision for a week after having made it.
BOB GARFIELD:The federal funds rate came down a half a point last week. The markets were expecting at least a three quarter point drop and reacted very badly to the Fed's announcement. Were there a lot of questions about that to Mr. Greenspan?
MICHAEL ARNONE: Unfortunately no, because right at the beginning of the class Mr. Gore came right out and said no questions about it and practically saying the word "economy" was enough to have Mr. Gore shut the question down. He talked much more about the history of business journalism, how journalists should cover economics with a sense of how economists think; therefore that would give them the ability to give greater understanding to readers and watchers.
BOB GARFIELD: Biggest attendance of any Al Gore journalism class to date, right? Was it like having Madonna in the room?
MICHAEL ARNONE:[LAUGHS] Well actually it was funny because, as you know, I mean having Al Gore there has been this media bonanza, but when people heard about a month ago that Greenspan was coming it was almost like Al who?
BOB GARFIELD: What was the most interesting question posed to Alan Greenspan?
MICHAEL ARNONE:I think one of the most interesting things that Mr. Greenspan talked about was the power of political leaders to affect markets, and he's surprised that investors and citizens and even reporters believe that they can. Of course this coming from the man who is widely believed to have the most power in the American economy.
BOB GARFIELD:Of course Alan Greenspan is widely credited for being the steward of the recently-departed bull market and of the magnificent economy that this country has had for the last 8 years, but he's equally famous for his rather oblique style of speech. His testimony before Congress, while sometimes expansive, is often cryptic bordering on unintelligible. Was he coherent when he answered your questions from the class?
MICHAEL ARNONE: He actually is an exceptional speaker. He did speak in very specific economic terms that went over the heads of quite a few of the, the students in the class who don't have business backgrounds, but the overall thrust of his arguments were very clear and you know, very well thought out.
BOB GARFIELD:All right, Michael, one last question, and with it I'm afraid a confession. Back in January we did a piece about Alan Greenspan and the media myth that has developed around him. In this piece we -- and by we of course I mean I -- described the figure he cuts as he swoops across the media scene. Now of course I'd seen his photo on TV an in the papers, and I did the thing that journalists are never supposed to do: I assumed. I said he's short. I said he's balding, bespectacled and short. Michael, I have to know. You were there in the presence of the Great One. [LAUGHTER] Is he short?
MICHAEL ARNONE: No.
BOB GARFIELD: Oh, dear God.
MICHAEL ARNONE: No, no he's - he, he's pushing six feet. He, he is a man of stature both physical and figurative.
BOB GARFIELD: Then consider this the correction and my apologies to all concerned. Michael Arnone, thanks again for joining us.
MICHAEL ARNONE: Thank you, Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: Michael Arnone is a student in the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism class taught by Professor Al Gore. Pundit Watch
March 24, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: On Wednesday Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush met at the White House. Sharon has been in office less than two weeks. Bush was sworn in two months before the meeting. U.S./Israel relations were clearly headed on a new course. This was why 24 hour news channels were invented!
BROOKE GLADSTONE:And thank God, whether an Old Testament God or a more faith-based God, that we have so many 24 hour newschannels or else this crucial development of the Sharon/Bush meeting might have gone unremarked-upon.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: During the campaign I said that we'll begin the process-- [PHONE RINGING] During the campaign I said we'll begin the process--
BOB GARFIELD: George Bush interrupted by somebody's cell phone. The cameras didn't pick up Sharon's reaction, but such a look on Bush's face! Disgraced newspaper columnist and current MSNBC host Mike Barnacle noticed.
MIKE BARNACLE: How great was that, huh? This - that was the scene yesterday during a photo opportunity in the oval office with Israel's prime minister after which the president said who's in charge of cells phones, just as another cell phone jangled away.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: MSNBC's Ashley Banfield [sp?] noticed.
ASHLEY BANFIELD: [LOUDLY] Turn that cell phone off!
BOB GARFIELD:And CNN's Crossfire not only noticed, they made like those people next to you in the restaurant and jabbered away on cell phones -or at least on the subject of cell phones -for 30 minutes.
MAN: Let's just not pick on the cell phones, because these are actually a safety device, life-saving device, an important tool for all of us!
MAN: But here's the problem. I mean there are other distractions; that, that is true. And, and some of them have been around like women putting makeup on a long time; but the cell phone is something new! And they're ex--they're expanding and they're exploding, and even with that little thing in your ear, it is another distraction. You talk about statistics. New England Journal of Medicine....
BOB GARFIELD:For those of you scoring at home, the Conservatives were assigned a pro-cell phone position and the Liberals argued from the anti-cell phone perspective.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Let's see what the Punditron 2000 has to say about all of this. [PUNCHING NUMBERS ON CELL PHONE NOISES]
BOB GARFIELD: Wait, I, I just had him on the line. [PUNCHING NUMBERS ON CELL PHONE NOISES] [ROBOTIC PUNDITRON 2000 NOISES]
BOB GARFIELD: Hold on-- he's going under a bridge. [ROBOTIC PUNDITRON 2000 NOISES]
BROOKE GLADSTONE:The Punditron notes that covering the cell phone interruption is fine! It's an annoyance we all experience. But the real annoyance, according to the Punditron--
BOB GARFIELD: He is getting so preachy these days.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:-- the real annoyance is that neither Crossfire nor Barnacle nor Banfield did any reporting on the future of U.S./Israeli policy! They stuck to cell phones. The Punditron also makes a lame joke about the talk shows' "phoning it in," but I'm not going to repeat that part. [DISAPPOINTED ROBOTIC PUNDITRON 2000 NOISES]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Sorry, Punditron. It's still our show. Release Getters
March 24, 2001
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. For the past 10 years American television viewers have been mesmerized by reality TV from Survivor to Jerry Springer to Judge Judy to Cops, these shows display real people behaving most often at their worst.
MAN: North Carolina, 1994. Officers find themselves against an enraged man with a shotgun.
MAN: Now you hold it the damn hell right there!
MAN: It's a delicate matter, but one the police are equipped to handle.
BOB GARFIELD: The show is called World's Wildest Police Videos. The image is a shotgun-wielding man, shirtless on his porch, raving at police. He has gotten himself stinking blotto. He has done violence in his household. Now he is making terrorist threats and a total jackass of himself for all his neighbors and a few million others to see. Renee Leask can scarcely believe her good fortune!
RENEE LEASK: He's just this big, fat guy on his porch raving with an enormous gun, and they're all shirtless -- none of 'em are wearing shirts!
BOB GARFIELD:She is lucky, because in addition to having no shirts, the shotgun-wielding porch-stander-onners of this nation also have no shame! This man signed a release permitting World's Wildest Police Videos to broadcast his image! And the owner of most every other unobscured face you see on these gritty police reality shows has done the same thing. Leask is in charge of obtaining these releases. She is awash in 8 by 11 forms ready to be stuffed into dozens and dozens of thick vinyl binders.
RENEE LEASK: There's an alternative paper universe that agrees with the visual universe that you look at every day.
BOB GARFIELD: But why? Why let some TV producer trade in your personal humiliation? Fred Heilbrun, a permission specialist who has obtained nearly 10,000 releases for such shows as True Stories of the Highway Patrol offers a number of explanations from malignant macho to civic mindedness to, every so often, cash money. But it is still hard for him to believe how easy it is! Once, he says, he was with a camera crew at a heroin bust and one of the suspects bolted directly toward them.
FRED HEILBRUN: The cameraman who is built like a halfback steps out. The suspect falls backward into a wall, and the cameraman sticks the camera in this fellow's face. Then the cameraman follows it up by saying don't move or I'll shoot you. And the fellow threw his hands up in the air and complied like the cameraman had a, an MP-5 pointed at the guy's head. It was just amazing.
BOB GARFIELD: Did you approach him to sign a release?
FRED HEILBRUN: Oh, yeah. And-- he signed.
BOB GARFIELD:To Renee Leask, the stop or I'll shoot gambit suggests another possibility for suspects' willingness to sign on the dotted line: the confusion over who is a cop and who isn't, and maybe the hope that cooperation with the camera crew will yield softer treatment from the police down the line. Fred Heilbrun says cultivating that confusion is unethical, and often enough, he says, an opposite force may be at work.
FRED HEILBRUN: I've found out that when the police come through your door, you know, knock it off its hinges, come barreling through, throw you into the wall, handcuff you, and then somebody walks up and says hi, my name's Fred. Has anybody told you what the cameras are about? I have-- you know the people relaxed.
BOB GARFIELD: Bad cop, good producer.
FRED HEILBRUN: Yeah! You know. I have-- I have to admit - I, I learned some of my techniques from watching the police work.
BOB GARFIELD:On thing that all release-getters quickly learn is that the culture of reality television and the culture in general work in their favor. In this society, appearing on television is deemed an achievement in its own right, and neither the subjects nor the audience seem to be all that concerned about how that is achieved. You know, hey Tony -- I saw you on TV! -- was that your shotgun? What happened to your shirt?
FRED HEILBRUN: I think my favorite was a fellow who, to pay off a debt to a dealer offered his barn to be set up as a meth lab. The way the police found out about him was his electric bill which should have been perhaps 150 dollars a month was something like 10,000 dollars a month, and he wasn't paying it.
BOB GARFIELD: As police raided the barn, the guy quickly grabbed-- a guitar and started singing!
FRED HEILBRUN: When I told him what I wanted, he said will you show me singing? And I said if you'd like. And he signed the release.
BOB GARFIELD: No matter that he faced 20 years in prison.
FRED HEILBRUN:He wanted to be sure that he was going to have at least 10 seconds of himself singing on a national television show, so we gave that to him.
BOB GARFIELD: How was the song?
FRED HEILBRUN:He's terrible. Just terrible. I think he--if I recall he was doing like Puff, the Magic Dragon and just -- oh, it was just awful.
BOB GARFIELD:There's yet another category -- the chastened criminal who wants to steer others away from foolish choices. Leask's biggest coup was getting a release from a woman arrested for DWI who was taped for an hour making sexual advances on the arresting officer.
WOMAN: [...?...] baby, but I just know you're good-looking.
MAN: I, I appreciate that.
WOMAN: [...?...] those beautiful brown eyes....
MAN: [LAUGHS] Sign right there for me, okay?
WOMAN: I'll sign.
MAN: Thank you, ma'am.
BOB GARFIELD: That was, as they say, this lady's rock bottom and she was persuaded that making herself a laughing stock on television was an appropriate way to begin her new life of sobriety. But of all the explanations for why Leask's vinyl binders are so full, maybe the best is the most obvious!
RENEE LEASK: Criminals are stupid!
BOB GARFIELD: And the best illustration is a piece of tape aired on her show for which no release was necessary because the suspect's face was not visible.
RENEE LEASK: We saw a guy walk into a convenience store with a paper bag over his head. No holes. You know re-- obviously having some trouble seeing. And he tried to rob it, and it was so-- he seems so - so ineffectual because of the paper bag and the no-holes that the clerk didn't really understand that he was seriously trying to rob him and he didn't have a weapon! So the clerk just said I - I'm sorry - I don't unders-- I don't understand you -- [LAUGHTER] and the guy with the bag on his head just walked away! Criminals are stupid. They're criminals because they're stupid. Their stupidity puts them in jail. Their stupidity keeps them in jail. When they get out of jail, their stupidity puts them back in jail. Criminals are stupid.
BOB GARFIELD:So what you're suggesting is, if I can read between the lines here, you're suggesting --and don't let me, please, put words in your mouth -- that criminals -- are stupid.
RENEE LEASK: That's what I'm saying.
BOB GARFIELD: As for the zeitgeist image of the shirtless ruffian on his porch raving, Leask says be not misled. There are no more of these people nowadays, she believes, than there ever were.
RENEE LEASK: I think there are just more cameras. I, I've gotta tell you I think the shirtless guy was raving at the police for our grandparents and our great-grandparents. But now there are cameras to capture it, they look for opportunities to capture it, now we all see it, and the guy without the shirt doesn't mind! He wants his rants to be heard! He's perfectly with that development. Movie Airplanes
March 24, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: Chances are if you've seen an airplane in a movie, it was a set. Sorry to bust the illusion, but think about it -- anybody who's had to fly recently knows there's barely a seat to spare. No wonder you don't see film crews blocking off gates or trying to shoot on the runway as jumbo jets soar overhead. Instead movie makers head to the north end of the San Fernando Valley where a company called Airline Film and TV Promotions provides what a film crew really wants. Reporter Rachel Myrow of KPCC takes us there.
RACHEL MYROW: We're sitting in a convincing mockup of an airport gate with a real cappucino stand, rest room signs and TV monitors listing departures and arrivals. If it weren't for the film crew, you'd never guess this was a sound stage in Pacoima! Which is the idea. Tonight's shoot is a TV pilot for series called Bernie Mac. Ruben Freed is the art director.
RUBEN FREED: What I found was something that everybody uses and has used in different ways. I tried to personalize it the way that, you know, our particular vision has it. [BACKGROUND CREW CALLING "ROLLING"] But I'm sure that we've done no more or less than a lot of other people have done in the same space, you know? It's a good facility, [WHISPERING] and the, the variety of things, the resources here are actually tremendous for this kind of thing.
RACHEL MYROW: Step inside one of the 747's or the DC-10 on the soundstage and you'll find authentic airline seats, windows and oxygen masks. These retired airplanes have been sawed into pieces that are easily broken down and re-assembled in an endless variety of ways. Standing in the aisles you can almost smell that yeasty air-conditioning, feel the rumble of engines warming up beneath your feet and hear the swirling sound tracks to a dozen cheesy movies.
MAN IN MOVIE CLIP: I want the best available man on this -- a man who knows that plane inside and out and won't crack under pressure!
BYRON SCHMIDT: Well I was with TWA for 19 years--
RACHEL MYROW: 72 year old Byron Schmidt fell into this business, so to speak, after training to fly fighter planes in the last days of World War II.
BYRON SCHMIDT: I started out in sales, and then I got into the department that did motion pictures and television called Special Promotions, and I did that for 19 years, and we did like 130 pictures a year - we did - we did Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall that won the Oscars. They had Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly out here together for a Western Airlines commercial; Jerry Lewis, Angela Lansbury -- you could name the, the famous people that have been in here for different shots.
RACHEL MYROW: Schmidt claims he's not motivated to run a high-flying prop shop because of celebrities--
BYRON SCHMIDT: Here's Jack Lemmon and Dennis Hopper and Red Skelton, and here is....
RACHEL MYROW: --but give him half a chance and he'll lead you into his office and to the Wall of Fame, plastered with photos of actors sitting in airplanes, exiting from airplanes, standing beside airplanes.
BYRON SCHMIDT: ...Sean Connery, and there's Marlon Brando in a picture called -- let's see - what was the name of that? -- The Ugly American.
RACHEL MYROW: Way back in the early days of commercial air travel TWA's special production division provided free travel and mockups to TV crews in exchange for on-screen credits. In 1974, Schmidt and his partner, Alf Jacobson [sp?] formed a company of their own and began operating the TWA program under contract. Their 22,000 square foot warehouse has been home to hundreds of shoots for everything from magazine ads to rock videos. Even that granddaddy of airline comedies, Airplane, was shot here.
MAN: Flight 2 Zero Niner clear for vector 3 2 4.
MAN: We have clearance, Clarence.
MAN: Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?
MAN: Tower to radio clearance, over.
MAN: That's Clarence Over! Over!
MAN: Roger.
MAN: Huh?!
MAN: Roger, over.
MAN: What?!
MAN: Cla&;f%$kjd!!
MAN: Who?! [ENGINE RUMBLE - MOVIE MUSIC]
RACHEL MYROW: Even United Airlines and Boeing shoot commercials and corporate films here. It's just easier, Schmidt says, to borrow a piece of a plane for 15 hundred dollars or spend a 12 hour day in Pacoima for 6,000 bucks. No wonder so many plane scenes look strangely familiar. It's a real worry for art director Ruben Freed. [MAN SHOUTING ORDERS IN FILM CLIP]
RACHEL MYROW: Do you ever wonder that people watching it are going to go haven't I seen this airplane someplace before?
RUBEN FREED: That's my big fear. Yeah. I hate to, I hate to even think about that.
RACHEL MYROW: But there's no one telltale sign a scene was shot here. No cigarette burn hole in seat 4F - no misplaced oxygen mask or impossibly roomy toilet. Then again, just ask yourself how you're able to watch the drama unfold in the cockpit. [MOVIE MUSIC]
WOMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, this is your stewardess speaking. We regret any inconvenience the sudden cabin movement might have caused. This is due to periodic air pockets we encounter. There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane? [SCREAMING AND MAYHEM FROM PASSENGERS]
RACHEL MYROW: Not that the actors need to worry. This fuselage may have held a lot of stars, but it never leaves the earth. For On the Media, I'm Rachel Myrow in Hollywood. Okay, okay --Pacoima.
Airplane Edits
March 24, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: Getting an airplane in a movie takes work. So does getting a movie into an airplane. Here's a scene from When Harry Met Sally that you're not likely to see in flight.
BILLY CRYSTAL IN MOVIE: You okay?
MEG RYAN IN MOVIE: Ohhhhhhh. [SIGHS]. Oh, God! Ooooooo! Oh, God! Ohhhhhh. [SIGHS] Ahhhhhhoohh! Ohhhhhhhhh! Ohhhh, goooood. Oh, yeah -right there -- [GASPS] Oh! [GASPS] Ohhhhhh!! Oohhh!!! Ohhhh! Oh, God! Oh! [SCREAMING] Yes! Yes! Yes!
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Okay, okay. Enough of that. Jeff Klein is president of Jaguar Distribution which supplies films suitably edited for in-flight viewing. Mr. Klein, what are airlines eager to see or not to see in the movies they show?
JEFF KLEIN: Well, airline passengers represent such a broad cultural diversity and, and all age groups, and the airlines try to remain sensitive to these differences by minimizing or cutting out scenes of excessive violence for example or scenes of bloodshed, nudity and sex, foul language.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What about cultural differences? Do you keep in certain scenes for certain routes and take the out for others?
JEFF KLEIN:There are cultural differences. In some Middle Eastern countries, for example, violence is not as problematic as consuming alcohol or, or signs of open affection. I remember one film, I think it was Cocktail, was exhibited by one of the Middle Eastern airlines but the Arab dialogue that was provided made it appear that they were actually drinking juice rather than alcohol.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: I have to assume it's not a modern myth to say airlines don't like to play movies with air crashes in them.
JEFF KLEIN: No, that's - that's not a myth at all. Rain Man-- comes to my mind very quickly.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN IN MOVIE: ...35 [...?...] passengers [...?...]. Yeah.
TOM CRUISE IN MOVIE: All airlines have crashed at one time or another! That doesn't mean that they are not safe!
DUSTIN HOFFMAN IN MOVIE: Quantas.
TOM CRUISE IN MOVIE: Wha-- Quantas?
DUSTIN HOFFMAN IN MOVIE: Quantas never crashed.
JEFF KLEIN: Quantas was the only airline to play that scene complete. [LAUGHTER] Every other carrier who played that movie just cut that scene out like it never existed.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you ever worry that you have to cut a film so severely that you damage it?
JEFF KLEIN:No. The primary thing is to keep the integrity of the film intact. In some cases, the - the directors want to get involved for that very reason! Steven Spielberg doesn't like his films edited at all! Saving Private Ryan, I've heard, was played by some airlines but completely un-edited. Woody Allen does cutting. We would have to supply a list of edits to Woody Allen and have him approve them or he would do the actual editing.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Have you had complaints from directors or from airline passengers?
JEFF KLEIN: It seems that regardless of what is played in the airline, somebody will complain about something.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So then the only real solution is the Virgin Atlantic solution.
JEFF KLEIN:Virgin would be the one to go to -- they -- I don't think they edit very much at all. Their whole fleet is equipped with in-seat video systems, so there's no overhead screen to offend anyone within their captive audience.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: We're joined now by Sarah Evans who is the manager of acquisitions and publishing for Virgin Atlantic Airline. Sarah, welcome to the On the Media.
SARAH EVANS: Hi.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Does Virgin Airlines offer R-rated films un-edited along with a bunch of other fare in those little seatback selectors?
SARAH EVANS: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean everything from American Psycho we've played; Fight Club; and we've actually got playing at the moment Requiem for a Dream. We don't shy away from stuff that's controversial, and it's actually really popular.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Does Virgin ever receive complaints about the types of films it shows?
SARAH EVANS:We have had one or two. You do get people who are shocked by the fact that these films are available on board. But we always make a point of responding and explaining why we do what we do -- the fact that we like to give people freedom of choice. We don't really want to censor the films that are available on board, and most people once you explain to them that policy, they seem to understand it.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What have they objected to?
SARAH EVANS:It's the same as anything on TV or in the cinema. They object to nudity, violence. If we have a film that has a gay theme, that seems to be quite controversial.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:You've mentioned that you had Fight Club available on the seatback selectors. If I remember correctly, Fight Club has a plane crash scene in it, doesn't it?
SARAH EVANS: Yeah, it does. A really nasty one. [LAUGHS] We've been showing them for a while now. I mean it, it started accidentally in that I booked a classic -- Get Shorty -- and I completely forgot about the plane crash in it. I was actually flying and watched it and suddenly saw oh, my God -- we've got a film on board with a plane crash! And nothing happened. No one complained. So we kind of stepped up a little bit and we had Six Days, Seven Nights -- not a word from anyone. [LAUGHTER] So then we just kind of gradually increased the intensity of the crash and we kind of went on to Con Air, Fight Club. We played Mission Impossible II where the opening sequence is a plane crashing into the side of a mountain. We've played Final Destination -- and we've never had a complaint about it.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And Virgin Atlantic is, is well known as the airline for masochists I guess, huh?
SARAH EVANS:[LAUGHS] Well we do warn people if you're a nervous passenger, don't watch it. I mean I'm a nervous passenger, and I wouldn't want to watch it when I'm on board.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Sarah Evans of Virgin Atlantic Airlines, thank you very much.
SARAH EVANS: You're welcome. Canadian MP Hoax Piece
March 24, 2001
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Everybody understands that politicians when they make their pronouncements are often mouthing the ideas and sometimes even the exact words of their aides. Well, this process can also work in reverse. In Vancouver, Canada on March 17th a radio interview scheduled with Parliament Member Rahim Jaffer took a surprising turn on a nationally syndicated program called Warren on the Weekend.
BOB GARFIELD:Joining us by phone is the host of Warren on the Weekend, Peter Warren, and from a studio somewhere in the wilds of British Columbia, the show's producer, Shannon Gunning. Shannon and Peter, welcome to OTM!
PETER WARREN: Thank you so much!
SHANNON GUNNING: Thanks, Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: This is an amazing story. It began with an interview you had scheduled with a Member of Parliament for the Edmonton area. What exactly transpired that day?
SHANNON GUNNING: Well, Rahim Jaffer or what we thought was Rahim Jaffer called to do the interview. About 15 minutes into the interview about prescription drugs we had a listener call us from his home, Riding [sp?], in Edmonton, claiming that the man on air with this was not Rahim Jaffer. It was in fact his executive assistant. We were a little bit confused, obviously. We went on the line and asked the person on air with us are you Rahim Jaffer, and he joked and laughed and said yes, of course I am.
BOB GARFIELD: Did you confront him live during the broadcast?
SHANNON GUNNING:I actually didn't confront him live, because we weren't sure if the person who had called us was serious or what she was about, and so during a break I got on his line and asked him off the air.
BOB GARFIELD: And he said why, of course I am.
SHANNON GUNNING:Well, he laughed a little bit and said yeah, of course I'm Rahim Jaffer! And I had a little bit of a chuckle as well. Now this person called back about 5 minutes later -- this caller from Edmonton -- and insisted, again, that is not Rahim Jaffer! I know Rahim Jaffer quite well. We're friends. That person on the line with you is Matthew Johnston [sp?], his executive assistant.
BOB GARFIELD:This is amazing. Now be--before the phone calls came in, was there anything about the interview that made you suspicious about this supposed Mr. Jaffer? Was there a funny little feeling in the pit of your stomach at any point? Peter?
PETER WARREN: Well, Bob not really because the guy was fully versed and has probably written Rahim Jaffer's speeches on the subject.
BOB GARFIELD: You have a little bit of tape from phone calls that Mr. Johnston/Mr. Jaffer made to you before the broadcast even began.
SHANNON GUNNING: Two messages had been left, both of them left before the interview began -- about 10 minutes apart. But they were very clearly left by the same person.
MATTHEW JOHNSTON: Hi, Shannon. It's Matthew Johnston, executive assistant to Member of Parliament Rahim Jaffer. Just trying to touch, touch base --make sure this line is working for Rahim's 2 o'clock interview.
MATTHEW JOHNSTON: Hi, Shannon. It's Rahim Jaffer calling. Just wanted to-- just confirm our 2 o'clock radio interview.
SHANNON GUNNING: After we heard the voice mails we were very suspicious. We ran them by about six colleagues. They all said well that's the same guy! I had a number for the real Rahim Jaffer, and I said to him did you do an interview with us 40 minutes ago? And he said yes, yes I did. I was happy to do it. I said well you sound a little different. He said well that's because I'm on a different phone; it's a noisy cafe. When I asked him to explain the two voice mails, he said he left both voice mails, but in the first one he must have been confused and frazzled and accidentally identified himself as his executive assistant, Matt Johnston. [LAUGHTER]
BOB GARFIELD: Now this is all very amusing, but the incident is having some rather serious repercussions, isn't it?
PETER WARREN:Well first of all the exec resigned. We let them stew on it -- Shannon and myself -- over Saturday night, and then Sunday they both apologized on tape which we subsequently played on air, and then very, very quickly the leader of the Canadian Alliance Party learned number one that the exec had resigned on the spot, and number two demoted the Member of Parliament to the back benches.
BOB GARFIELD:Now Mr. Jaffer went before the Parliament and gave a rather impassioned appeal for forgiveness and of course with it an apology. Let's listen to that.
RAHIM JAFFER: I've already apologized to Peter Warren, the host of the show and to all of his listeners across Canada. And today, Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer to you, as the speaker of this legislature and my friend my apologies for not living up to the standards of this House.
BOB GARFIELD: This is an extraordinary incident, Peter, but-- not unprecedented! Is that right?
PETER WARREN:Not unprecedented, we discover, Bob because very, very quickly after the news had flashed across the country, we received a call from BBC International in London, England and I did a live hookup with them, and I wondered why their interest, and apparently an identical incident happened with the BBC and a British Parliamentarian about a year ago.
BOB GARFIELD: I don't know if it makes for good government but it clearly makes for good radio, and I hope you enjoy the ride.
PETER WARREN: [LAUGHS] Thanks Bob.
SHANNON GUNNING: Thanks Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: Well and actually the joke's on you because--I'm really Brooke Gladstone.
PETER WARREN: No, I'm Muhammad Ali.
BOB GARFIELD: Peter Warren is the host of Warren on the Weekend and Shannon Gunning is the show's producer. Movie Musicals
March 24, 2001
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Blame Canada is of course from the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. One of the very few successful film musicals in recent years, and like virtually all the others in that exclusive group it's a cartoon. Where have all the traditional American movie musicals gone? They've migrated to the small screen as On the Media's Tony Maciulis reports.
TONY MACIULIS: Actress Glenn Close has performed in blockbuster films like Fatal Attraction and 101 Dalmatians, but her heart lies in musicals.
GLENN CLOSE: I still think there's really no entertainment like it, because you have that emotional moment and then it's augmented by music, and it's just -- it's a double whammy.
TONY MACIULIS: But for Hollywood musicals are more like a jinx. There was a day when gang members in ballet slippers sold tickets at the box office. West Side Story won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1961. [MUSIC FROM WEST SIDE STORY] But a the Wall Street Journal's Hollywood reporter Tom King explains, adult tastes have changed.
TOM KING: Over the past couple of decades, audiences have reacted rather strangely when people --actors and actresses on the screen in modern times -- break into song! It just seems weird! [JAMES CAGNEY SINGING YANKEE DOODLE DANDY]
TONY MACIULIS: It used to be just another night at the movies. Movie musicals are as American as McDonald's and pickup trucks. In the 1940s, MGM's chief, Louis B. Mayer had a vision for the entertainment industry. Call it "doing his part for the war effort." Author and Hollywood storyteller Stephen Schochet explains.
STEPHEN SCHOCHET: He said what the country needs now is escapism, and so he gave Arthur Freed permission to start making musicals which he absolutely loved. Mayer was the one who said if you want a message, call Western Union.
TONY MACIULIS: Moviegoers got enough messages in the newspaper headlines. The Depression, a Second World War. The feel good films Freed and Mayer created hit the spot. Films like the Wizard of Oz, Oklahoma and On the Town starting Frank Sinatra. [SONG NEW YORK, NEW YORK FROM ON THE TOWN] MGM launched one musical after another. Some were film adaptations of Broadway hits. Others, like Singing in the Rain, were original creations written beside the cardboard trees and painted sunsets of a Hollywood studio. Just at the height of the musical's Golden Age an unexpected challenger was vying for the spotlight.
TOM KING: Television started keeping people away from the movie theaters, and the movie studios felt that in order to compete with television they had to go with big blockbusters.
TONY MACIULIS: The cost of production soared as the projects became ever more spectacular to compete with TV. Unable to stay afloat, the genre fell by the wayside, occasionally revived in a kitschy cult classic like Grease or the Rocky Horror Show. Gigi was the last blockbuster musical for MGM, winning 9 Academy Awards in 1958.
[MAURICE CHEVALIER SINGING THANK HEAVEN FOR LITTLE GIRLS] But now, ironically, the medium that contributed to the musical's demise, has provided a new home. Tom King.
MAN: The success in movie musicals these days is on the small screen.
TONY MACIULIS:It began as a gamble in 1993. [SONG FROM GYPSY] CBS developed Gypsy starring Bette Midler. It was a success with both advertisers and audience. When ABC gained Disney's creative knowhow in the merger, the network began feverishly developing musicals. One of their first efforts, Cinderella, starring Whitney Houston, captured an audience of over 30 million. That's better than the reality show Survivor. ABC's executive vice president for movies and mini-series, Susan Line [sp?].
SUSAN LINE: Up to now every musical event we've done has been exactly that -- an event. Because it feels different - it feels fresh.
TONY MACIULIS: Audiences won't part with the ten bucks to see a musical at the movie theater, but on television it makes for great family viewing. And so when Glenn Close was approached for a revival of South Pacific, she knew exactly how to get the project accomplished.
GLENN CLOSE: I think we would have had a hard time getting it financed for a feature. [SONG: I'M IN LOVE WITH A WONDERFUL GUY]
TONY MACIULIS: But ABC was happy to comply, spending nearly 15 million on the production. That's a lot for a TV movie but a fraction of the cost for a feature film. They average about 60 million. ABC executive Susan Line says it's money well spent. The musicals reach the 18 to 49 year olds that advertisers covet. But they also appeal to 50 plus viewers -- a vastly ignored audience.
SUSAN LINE: That's fabulous. That's really something we are giving back to a television audience that has to put up with somewhat mundane entertainment a lot of the nights of the year.
TONY MACIULIS: After Monday's broadcast of South Pacific, ABC charges on with production of The Music Man starring Matthew Broderick; Mame, produced by Barbara Streisand; and Fiddler on the Roof. In New York, I'm Tony Maciulis for On the Media.
Oscar Music
March 24, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: Movie musicals may be box office poison, but movie music is big business. If this weekend's Oscar nominees for Best Song are any indication, the movie song has passed firmly out of Tin Pan Alley and into the guitar-picking hands of gravel-voiced bards. Things Have Changed was penned by Bob Dylan. It appeared in the movie Wonder Boys and is up for the Oscar. So are songs from such rock and pop and folk luminaries as Bjork and Sting and Randy Newman.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jon Burlingame is the author of Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks. Welcome to On the Media.
JON BURLINGAME: Thank you, Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Well let's talk about "Best Song." Is there any miscarriage of Oscar justice that particularly sticks in your craw -- a song that should have been awarded and wasn't in favor of a piece of just indescribable schlock?
JON BURLINGAME: I'm sorry to say there are any number of examples of that down through the history of the Academy Awards. [SONG: YOU LIGHT UP MY LIFE] I think the one that people tend to cite a lot is the case of 1977 when You Light Up My Life won the best song award -- a year when none of the best-selling songs from Saturday Night Fever were nominated; songs that everyone can remember now: Stayin' Alive and Night Fever and How Deep Is Your Love. All of those tunes were totally ignored and weren't even nominated that year. [SONG: YOU LIGHT UP MY LIFE] Historically the Academy Awards have sometimes not been in touch totally with what's going on in popular music, so in that particular year it's possible that the music branch simply felt well this is disco -- it's going to be here today, gone tomorrow -- they're not really songs in the vein of a Cole Porter or a Richard Rogers or a George Gershwin.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Is that why they completely missed the Beatles' Hard Day's Night in 1964 in favor of Chim Chim Cheree from Mary Poppins?
JON BURLINGAME: Perfect example. [SONG: CHIM CHIM CHEREE]
JON BURLINGAME:And in fact that trend continues to this day. If you look down through the list of best song winners of the late '80s and into the mid-'90s - things like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin continue to win!
BROOKE GLADSTONE:I can't help giving another example now. In 1972 Super Fly by Curtis Mayfield was passed over for that enduring hit The Poseidon Adventure's [LAUGHS] The Morning After. Now that's schlock if there ever was schlock.
JON BURLINGAME: Boy, was it controversial. People -- not necessarily on the inside of the Academy Awards organization but certainly outside --said how could you not nominate this great Curtis Mayfield song? [SONG: SUPER FLY] But if you look again at the circumstances, what you're talking about here is a very popular singer-songwriter from the R&B field who, rumor had it, could not actually write down notes, and so therefore was not necessarily considered a quote "songwriter" unquote. So Super Fly which was, let's face it, anthem for a pimp or a pusher was not considered all that classic a song as far as the Academy goes.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Why is it that frequently the Academy seems to pick the least enduring, least memorable and sometimes just most excruciating song of the year for their prize?
JON BURLINGAME: I think it's several factors. The people who actually do the voting are the entire 6,000-member membership of the Academy, and that includes a lot of actors, writers, directors, cinematographers, production designers, costume designers. These people by and large are not musical, shall we say, geniuses.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:I grant you that it was a lot easier back in the '30s when there seemed to be an abundance of great songs. For instance in 1936, Cheek to Cheek was passed over, but Lullaby of Broadway won. And in 1937, I Got You Under My Skin and Pennies from Heaven didn't make it but Just the Way You Look Tonight won. [SONG: THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT]
JON BURLINGAME: Oh, 1937 is the classic example of an amazing collection of songs that were not nominated. The Gershwins that year did A Foggy Day, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, Nice Work If You Can Get It. Johnny Mercer wrote Hooray for Hollywood which is an anthem to Tinseltown. And Cole Porter wrote In the Still of the Night for a movie! None of those now-classic American songs were nominated. I just think -- I fear actually -- that the kind of quality of the great American songwriters really -- they had their day --and the Academy is somewhat reluctantly moving on with the times.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What does it mean that last year Blame Canada from the South Park film was nominated?
JON BURLINGAME:In the case of Blame Canada I think it was a kind of consolation prize, because it was one of the more popular choices among young voters.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Is this another indication that the Academy is indeed getting younger?
JON BURLINGAME:I think it is. Remember a couple of years ago when Danny Elfman, the former Oingo Boingo rock star who had gotten into movie scoring with pictures like Batman and Edward Scissorhands -- he went for years and years without a nomination. The assumption was the aging membership in the music branch simply wasn't going to reward a rock and roller who, in their minds, quote "got lucky" unquote -- and yet a couple of years ago that changed when he was nominated twice in the same year for Good Will Hunting and Men in Black, and I think that was the first real indicator that the music branch was starting to get a little younger; people were joining the music branch who'd come out of rock and roll, who appreciate more contemporary kinds of music-making.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:That brings us then to the present. What are some of the other songs that are up this year and what do you think their chances are?
JON BURLINGAME: I tell you that I think that there's no chance that Bob Dylan will lose. [LAUGHTER] I think that Bob Dylan is going to win the Oscar for Things Have Changed from Wonder Boys. It's the kind of thing that the Academy would love to do - would be to honor Bob Dylan - a guy they respect - a guy they love - and who hasn't written a film song since Knockin' on Heaven's Door I think in 1972.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Thank you very much.
JON BURLINGAME: Well, thank you Brooke. It's great to speak with you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jon Burlingame is the author of a new book called Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks. [SONG: THINGS HAVE CHANGED] 58:00
BOB GARFIELD:That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price, Alicia Zuckerman and Katya Rogers; engineered by George Edwards and edited by Brooke. We had help from the Keefe brothers, John and Dylan; David Serchuk and Kathleen Horan.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Mike Pesca is our producer at large; Arun Rath our senior producer and Dean Cappello our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. Punditron 2000 services provided by Truthco International. You can listen to the program and get free transcripts at onthemedia.org and e-mail us at onthemedia@wnyc.org. This is On the Media from National Public Radio. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. See you at the movies!
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- March 24, 2001
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The Mayor of Toronto Would Prefer Not to Discuss Whether He Smokes Crack
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Catholic Whistleblowers
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Qapla!
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Brooke Gladstone + Cyndi Lauper
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The Three-Headed Scandal Monster
