Middle East Press Restrictions
April 13, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: From WNYC in New York this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: I'm Bob Garfield. And this week we're starting a little differently, with a couple of letters from last week. The issue was: Israel's recent unprecedented crackdown on the press. Robert Smith of Dallas thought our treatment "insightful" and added, "For many historical and sometimes legitimate reasons the Israeli government gets a pass on a lot of things,...On restricting press coverage, selectively granting press credentials based on religion, nationality or affiliation -- no 'passes' should be given to their government or any other."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But listener George Bulow [sp?] criticized journalists for applying a double standard when issuing complaints. "Within the last two weeks," he writes, "we have seen Reuters correspondents who witnessed and videotaped the summary execution of 'collaborators' by Palestinian authorities, having their tapes confiscated and their lives threatened. Little if anything was reported by NPR or by any other Western media outlets. Yet everyone, On the Media included, jumped on the bandwagon to bash the Israelis for closing certain areas of military activity to a prying press." So do the media hold Israel to a different standard, condemning it for actions we tolerate from the Palestinian Authority? Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists joins us now. So Joel I assume you'll say no, there is no double standard.
JOEL SIMON: Well, it's, it's a little more complicated. I mean from our vantage point. We simply document the cases as they come our way. Since the incursion began we've documented two serious press freedom violations by the Palestinian Authority. One, the one you just mentioned; another one in which Palestinian militia shot a car that was clearly identified as a car full of journalists. Apparently that was a mistake, but that - we did nevertheless document that. On the other hand, in - just in the last few weeks we've documented probably about 8 or 10 shooting incidents carried out by Israeli defense forces against journalists and many, many other cases of harassment, restricting access, threats -- so we're just looking at the cases themselves, and that's what we've documented.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you think that Palestinian censorship is reported with equal intensity?
JOEL SIMON:I think that in some ways because Palestinian censorship tends to affect local Palestinian journalists, it's a more subtle kind of event whereas the shootings of journalists by Israeli forces have affected foreign correspondents and are inherently newsworthy.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But a lot of these incidents regarding the Palestinian Authority are by no means subtle and are by no means limited to Palestinian journalists.
JOEL SIMON: And we've certainly documented-- it-- after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September there were celebrations - especially in Nablus, street demonstrations, and the Palestinian Authority tried to restrict coverage of those demonstrations and in some cases threatened journalists and confiscated film. We protested that vigorously and I know that that was widely covered.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Is there a difference between the way the Palestinian Authority and the Israel Defense Force deal with the press?
JOEL SIMON:Well, yes there's a difference. You have to start with the understanding that Palestinian journalists and journalists in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority work in an environment in which censorship, self-censorship, intimidation is the norm. And Israeli journalists work in a much freer environment. And part of the process through which Palestinian journalists are censored or engage in self-censorship is very informal. It involves relationships, it involves phone calls that seem friendly, it involves meetings -- and precisely for that reason, it's much more difficult to document and we don't always hear the complaints. Israeli journalists are much more likely to speak up.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:So even though, say, Saudi Arabia or North Korea are far more closed societies and far more susceptible to charges of censorship, you're not as likely to go after them because you don't have the complaints.
JOEL SIMON: Well that's right. We don't take up a lot of press freedom cases in Iraq. We acknowledge that there's almost complete censorship in Iraq, but we don't have individual cases. The question also is one of sensitivity. I mean shouldn't a country that's democratic expect and respond to these kinds of complaints? I mean does Israel really only want to be compared to Saudi Arabia? Now you can describe that as a double standard, but it's also a situation in which governments create their own standard. A democratic government - a government that permits its citizens to speak up and protest and demonstrate - will obviously create a situation in which citizens are vocal in expressing their displeasure.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Okay. Thanks very much.
JOEL SIMON: Thank you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Joel Simon is the deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. The T-Word
April 13, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: The Minneapolis Star Tribune is getting a lot of attention lately for its Middle East coverage -- not for what it's printing but rather for what it's not printing. A group of Jewish leaders are protesting the paper for its reluctance to refer to Palestinian suicide bombers as "terrorists." The Star Tribune is not alone in this policy. The New York Times, Washington Post and even Associated Press all avoided the T-word when describing a recent bombing in a restaurant in Haifa. This is a marked shift in word usage from before September 11th. The Times, Post and AP had no problem using the words terrorist and terrorism in their coverage of the August 9th Sbarro Pizza Shop bombing in Jerusalem. Joining us now to discuss the swing is Michael Kelly, editor of the Atlantic Monthly and a columnist for the Washington Post. Mike, welcome to On the Media.
MICHAEL KELLY: Thank you very much.
BOB GARFIELD: Well the objectivity argument is that the word terrorist is just too loaded at this stage. Whether journalists are using it less or not, the news makers are using it more and more as a tool of rhetoric. Isn't it possible that the word has become so politicized and so haphazardly detonated, let's say, that it's just lost the clarity and precision that commended its use in the first place?
MICHAEL KELLY: First of all I'd say that it's always been politically loaded, because it expresses what you might call a politically loaded fact. Blowing up civilians is necessarily controversial. But it doesn't seem to me that those of us in the press add anything to clarity or honesty by declining to use the term just because it's loaded, and by substituting terms that we know are imprecise or even dishonest euphemisms.
BOB GARFIELD:All right, but "suicide bombing" does the trick. It's descriptive not of the strategy -- like terrorism is -- but of the act itself.
MICHAEL KELLY: But it still does not go as far in accuracy or in honesty as "terrorist" does because it does not imply motive. Why does a suicide bomber in Palestine blow up a restaurant? Because he believes that by doing so he may force the State of Israel to capitulate in what is a real if unconventional war. That suicide bomber is by any definition a terrorist who's practicing terrorism. What's to be gained by not saying that?
BOB GARFIELD: Let's talk about impact for a minute then.
MICHAEL KELLY: Mm-hm.
BOB GARFIELD:If the idea is not to be taken for pro-Israeli mouthpieces, couldn't the media be correct in judging that for their reports to be taken at all seriously and not to be dismissed as propaganda or one-sided that the sacrifice of the difference between suicide bomber and terrorist is-- you know, a small one to make.
MICHAEL KELLY: I think the argument that you're making i--is probably the argument that news editors make to themselves as a legitimate argument, but I still think it's a fallacy. I'll use an analogy -- the term "fascist." If you were a reporter during the Second World War covering it for an American or British newspaper, you would frequently notice that the spokespeople for your government called the enemy "fascist," and they used it to remind people that this was the enemy. It would still be appropriate for a reporter in that instance to use the term fascist precisely because the term fascist had a real meaning, and in fact was a term that had been defined by the fascists themselves. That's the situation we're in now it seems to me.
BOB GARFIELD: So what would you prescribe?
MICHAEL KELLY:That's a good question. You made me think about - about it as an editor - not as a columnist. I would prescribe a mixed use of "terrorist" and "suicide bombers."
BOB GARFIELD: Well curiously enough this seems to have been the decision that news organizations made right up through September 10th.
MICHAEL KELLY: Uh-huh.
BOB GARFIELD:Then immediately after there was a big upsurge in the invocation of the word "terrorism," and then when the latest, most violent uprising in the occupied territories and in Israel, all of a sudden it went away. Why do you suppose that-- this is such a moving target?
MICHAEL KELLY: Well, news organizations -- these are in fact entities that are very sensitive to all sorts of pressure. There has always been an organized lobbying campaign on all sides of that issue over matters of terminology, and after September 11th you did not see a great deal of pressure on American news organizations to resist the use of the word "terrorist." So now, as opposed to the coverage of September 11th, news organizations in describing exactly the same activity, face a different political reality which is that they are under much more pressure.
BOB GARFIELD: Well, Michael Kelly, thank you very much.
MICHAEL KELLY: It was my pleasure.
BOB GARFIELD: Mike Kelly is the editor of Atlantic Monthly and a columnist for the Washington Post. [MUSIC] Letters
April 13, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: You heard a couple of your letters at the top of the show; now we'll try to squeeze in a few more. Victor H. Cohn of Kensington, Maryland writes that he was truly dismayed by our report on the pain game developed by German art students. "This represents the mentality we associate with S.S. Troops in the Nazi era. Ugh! That such thinking persists and gets credence through your broadcast is sickening."
BOB GARFIELD:Mike Kristof of Metro Networks in Milwaukee writes to say that he found our story on Metro Networks to be balanced but responds this way to the critic who condemned the deception that makes remote radio newscasters seem local. "Radio," he writes, "is as much about the theatre of the mind as actual content. When your critic says some of our anchors use phony names, it is merely a device so that it doesn't appear that the same person is on several stations. The client stations dictate style, length and other factors. You can be sure that in today's world of ownership consolidation, if Metro wasn't doing what it does, someone else would be, and if Metro wasn't offering the product and no one else was, then many of our client stations wouldn't do news at all."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Susan Berger of San Francisco found out interview on Clear Channel to be quote "quite interesting but was bothered by the ending. After a long discussion with Eric Boehlert about the monopolistic character of Clear Channel," she writes, "Bob Garfield asked what was left out there for radio listeners. Mr. Boehlert answered by saying there were 3 options -- 1) public radio -- at which point Mr. Garfield interjected with 'thanks' and a humorous tone, the music revved up and we never heard the two other options! Perhaps you could include those options on next week's show?"
BOB GARFIELD:Well, thanks Susan for getting the joke -which others did not - and for your suggestions. In fact I have in my hand the other alternatives for listeners suggested by Mr. Boehlert after public radio -- Internet radio, satellite radio and he added a 4th --college radio.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:We take suggestions here at On the Media --sometimes -- so send them to onthemedia@wnyc.org and don't forget to tell us where you live and how to pronounce your name.
BOB GARFIELD: Coming up, the FBI's new gag order, the fall and rise of Louis Rukeyser, and the Hollywood trials of a would-be host.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media from National Public Radio. Library Gag Order
April 13, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: We're back with OTM. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled this week that a bookstore did not have to tell the police the name of a person who had purchased two instructional books about making drugs. The unanimous decision assures booksellers and librarians in the Centennial State that they need not turn over their sales or check out records to the authorities.
BOB GARFIELD:But there's no such assurance nationwide because privacy protection of what a person buys or reads varies from state to state, and the USA PATRIOT Act passed shortly after September 11th in an effort to combat terrorism now permits the FBI to seize what it vaguely defines as "any tangible things," including those sales or check out records. Why haven't you heard about it? The law also forbids librarians and booksellers from telling anyone else -- be it a reporter, neighbor or 14 month old daughter if the FBI has come a-searchin' in their place of business. Lynne Bradley is the director of government relations for the American Library Association. She says the PATRIOT Act greatly expands the kinds of records the FBI can search.
LYNNE BRADLEY: Before the PATRIOT Act there were more almost common carrier types of information -- phone records - hotel records - whether you rented a car. But now, under the larger term called "business records" it can be any tangible item, and in the case of a library situation it might be the hard disk or the whole computer from an on-line system that the library operates or anything down to the clipboard with a sign on sheet that often our patrons use to sign up to take their turn to use a public terminal in a library.
BOB GARFIELD: Do you know of any cases where a computer or a hard drive has been seized?
LYNNE BRADLEY:We have had reports -- and I must say they are unverified because [LAUGHS] of the gag rule --where I believe two different terminals were removed from a library.
BOB GARFIELD:But in the meantime, when law enforcement goes over the contents of the hard drive, they will find the information that the suspect has generated there and in addition all of the dozens or hundreds of other citizens have generated there.
LYNNE BRADLEY: We're very concerned that we are not able to confirm or deny just what leniency the FBI or whatever investigatory agency has access to all of these other files of other library users and so forth, and that's one of the things where in terms of the gag order doesn't allow for public accountability. Librarians, just like every other sector of our country want to follow the law; they want to do the right thing. At the same time we owe it to our country to protect certain basic rights which indeed we're fighting this war for. And we are very concerned that this kind of broad-ranging access to all kinds of business records compromises that anonymity and that sense of confidence that the library is going to be a safe and personal space to be used without undue and inappropriate fishing expeditions into the users' activities.
BOB GARFIELD:What about the gag order itself as an impingement on First Amendment rights. Is it legal? Can an entire class of citizens be placed under prior restraint of free speech rights?
LYNNE BRADLEY: That's the hard question. One way that we look at it is that we're kind of in the pre-school phase. We have not had a lot of court cases. At some point there will be leaks, there will be court cases, there will be people charged -- but I think it's going to take a while.
BOB GARFIELD:All right. Well if you would kindly memo your member libraries and tell them that if an FBI agent comes knocking on the door inquiring about stuff that I've looked at on their computers -- you know was doing some research for my cousin.
LYNNE BRADLEY: Oh, okay. All right. [LAUGHS]
BOB GARFIELD: All right. Thank you very much.
LYNNE BRADLEY: Thank you. You're welcome.
BOB GARFIELD: Lynne Bradley is director of government relations for the American Library Association.
Bomb-Making Books
April 13, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: If you think the USA PATRIOT Act's provisions targeted at books is unnecessary, consider a book on how to create anthrax spores. And there is a book distributor, Loompanics, that happens to specialize in all texts subversive. Here are some catchy titles being offered in their Spring Catalog: Your Revenge Is in the Mail, Fake ID by Mail and Modem, Advanced Lock Picking Secrets, Prison Killing Techniques and, of course, The Heroin User's Handbook. President Michael Joy spends a good amount of time defending the books he sells, and he joins us now. Mr. Hoy, welcome to OTM.
MICHAEL HOY: Good morning!
BOB GARFIELD: All right let me first clarify. As far as I know you haven't actually published a book on how to produce anthrax spores. Am I correct?
MICHAEL HOY: No, we have not.
BOB GARFIELD: But would you?
MICHAEL HOY: I think I would, except I'm worried about some of these new laws that have been passed. That would be the only thing that would stop me. There's already lots and lots of cookbooks on weapons of mass destruction out there.
BOB GARFIELD: Stuff which actually you do sell, right?
MICHAEL HOY: Yes, I sell some CIA bomb-making books.
BOB GARFIELD:All right, now I'm just guessing here, but if I were a betting man I would say that you've probably just really made a lot of our listeners angry. Aren't you afraid that you're giving people who want to harm society the means to produce far more devastation than they would have if they had never had access to these books and manuals?
MICHAEL HOY: No, no, no. I'm offering every American the opportunity to learn anything he wants to about any subject he wants to learn about. I feel the world is a much better place if there's as many books on as many subjects in as many hands as possible.
BOB GARFIELD: What about books on how to procure children for pedophilia purposes -- would that upset you?
MICHAEL HOY:Actually I do have a book like that, except it's written kind of from the other way -- how children can protect themselves, but in order to do that they have to know, you know, how a pedophile is going to approach them.
BOB GARFIELD: So if you were a pedophile looking for pointers, this might be a reasonable source for you.
MICHAEL HOY:Yes, I would think any pedophile worth the name of pedophile would be reading all the how to protect your children books that he could and read them backwards.
BOB GARFIELD: All right, so I think what you do is disgraceful. Please explain to me why what you do is not disgraceful.
MICHAEL HOY:[LAUGHS] I believe this book was published by Harper Collins. Are you going to call Harper Collins up and harangue them for assisting pedophiles? You're telling me a perfectly legal activities are something I should be ashamed of? Reading books? Publishing books? I think you should if you actually think there's something wrong with that.
BOB GARFIELD:Well it seems to me that what you sell creates exactly the dilemma that legislators and law enforcement face in times like these, because on the one hand almost by definition the PATRIOT Act limits the very freedoms upon which this country was founded. On the other hand, when someone can go on to the Web and purchase how-to manuals for creating destruction, it's certainly clear why the government would have an interest in knowing who's buying those things.
MICHAEL HOY: This is what America's all about! That's what our First Amendment says. It doesn't say the only things you can publish are stuff that the FBI approves of. It is not Osama bin Laden nor is it the Taliban nor is it Saddam Hussein who wants to have the FBI go around to librarians and snoop into what their customers are reading and then under a provision in this PATRIOT Act throw them in jail if they even tell anybody about it!
BOB GARFIELD: Yeah, all they want to do is just kill us. Do you see no difference between rights and responsibilities?
MICHAEL HOY:Well there are not rights without responsibilities. But you're saying that if somebody bought a book from me that was titled How to Beat Your Mother in Law's Head In with a Sledgehammer -- and then he went and did it - that I would somehow be responsible for that, even though I might never have met this person in my life. And no, I, I don't feel that I would have any responsibility any more than the hardware store owner who sold him the sledgehammer. I mean where would you draw the line? How about the -- somebody works in the print shop that printed the book?
BOB GARFIELD: Not interested in discussing it any further. I want to thank you very much for taking the time to join us, and all worst of luck.
MICHAEL HOY: Well thank you very much, Bob. [PHONE DISCONNECTS]
BOB GARFIELD: Michael Hoy is the president of an extreme Libertarian publishing company whose books probably don't appear in your local library. The Rukeyser Shuffle
April 13, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: When CNBC announced this week that it had hired Louis Rukeyser to host a program essentially identical to PBS's Wall Street Week from which he was recently eliminated after 32 years, there was a surprise twist. In addition to its slot on CNBC, Rukeyser's new show will be distributed free of charge to public TV stations. To accommodate the dual distribution, CNBC won't run standard commercials within the show but instead will air it with sponsor messages in the format of public broadcasting underwriting announcements. Bob wondered what that arrangement may tell us about the strange animal called "enhanced underwriting."
BOB GARFIELD: Okay, listen. Here's a piece of a TV commercial for Archer Daniels Midland Corporation. [MUSIC UNDER]
SALLY KIRKLAND VOICEOVER: Our crowded planet has something to say. ADM believes that for every problem, nature has an answer. So....
BOB GARFIELD: Now here, from a PBS show is what they call an "enhanced underwriting credit." [MUSIC UNDER]
SALLY KIRKLAND VOICEOVER:Imagine a world where no child begs for food. While some will look on that as a dream, others will look long and hard -- and get to work. ADM -- the nature of what's to come.
BOB GARFIELD:You didn't see the eye-catching animation, but it's there. The striking similarity between enhanced underwriting and naked advertising has fueled controversy ever since 1995. That's when public broadcasters, their federal funding threatened by Republicans in Congress, loosened restrictions on underwriters' messages. They're still limited to 15 seconds; they can't interrupt programming, and they can't directly solicit consumer action, but in other respects they are indistinguishable. Furthermore, critics of public broadcasting commercialization are fearful of what enhanced underwriting represents -- namely the temptation to abandon public broadcasting's mission for the sake of ever-larger audiences and the lucrative sponsorships that come with them. Andrew Jay Schwartzman is a lawyer with a telecommunications public interest group called The Media Access Project.
ANDREW JAY SCHWARTZ We should care because public broadcasting exists to fill needs that are not met on the commercial side. But the incentives are driving public broadcasters to look for ways to serve audiences that are already adequately served that advertisers can reach. Unfortunately, we should be looking to serve the niche audiences.
BOB GARFIELD: So along comes CNBC's announcement about Rukeyser's double-duty underwriting messages, and the critics go ah-ha!
ANDREW JAY SCHWARTZThe fact that CNBC is willing to accept what passes as enhanced underwriting on public television is - as being sufficient as a commercial for its own viewers offers a lot of insight into what CNBC thinks a commercial is.
BOB GARFIELD:In other words if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck and commercial advertisers are ordering duck -- maybe it's a duck!
TERREL CAST: [LAUGHS] No, I don't think it's a duck.
BOB GARFIELD: Terrel Cast is general manager of WLIW-TV, the Long Island station that's distributing Rukeyser's CNBC show to PBS stations. Cast says he has a very duck-sensitive audience that would be running into the fields with shotguns if they heard a threat to public broadcasting's mission flying overhead.
TERREL CASS: I've honestly never gotten a letter -- I get a lot of letters for different complaints -- but I've never received one on enhanced en--underwriting.
BOB GARFIELD:Over at CNBC they're actually wondering about the flip side of the question -- if underwriting credits can satisfy advertisers even with all their restrictions, there may be a commercial potential to less commercialism.
BRUNO COHEN: It just might work!
BOB GARFIELD: Bruno Cohen is executive vice president for business programming at CNBC.
BRUNO COHEN: If programs can be produced by creating a different kind of viewing experience, one that isn't interrupted periodically by commercials and other kinds of messages -- if those interruptions can be limited -- if that gives a more enhanced viewing experience which may enhance viewership, it may mean that advertisers and sponsors and underwriters may see themselves as willing to pay premiums to be one of a few products or services associated with a program that, that's in their interest. I think all the better! It'll make television better for everybody.
BOB GARFIELD:Mainly, though, CNBC is banking on the quacks-like-a-duck quality of the enhanced underwriting credit to attract enough commercial advertisers to make a satisfactory profit on the Rukeyser deal. And the network doesn't much care what you call the 50-second [sic] spots that fund it.
BRUNO COHEN: That form has evolved over time on PBS, so it's not as though they don't have interesting video that supports sort of, you know, showing the products and services of the company and they -- 15 seconds of copy that they get, gets to describe the attributes of the company. If you want to call that a commercial, you're into semantics.
BOB GARFIELD:And if you're really into semantics, visit Semantics World, providing fine words and their significance for nearly half a decade. At Semantics World, we know the meaning of meaning. Call now! Operators are standing by. Mr. Rejecto
April 13, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The reason why Louis Rukeyser was deposed from his throne at public TV's long-lived Wall Street Week is that he, too, is long-lived. In other words -- old. Or at least in the view of the show's producers -- too old to attract a younger audience. Jeff Colt, an actor recently relocated to New York from Hollywood has had his share of rejection or ejection from the host's chair. Jeff, you weren't fired for the same reason as Rukeyser, were you?
JEFF COLT: No, but oddly enough, Brooke, it was similar. I like to refer to it as the "Thicke Affair." [LAUGHTER] We're all familiar with the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Mm-hm.
JEFF COLT: And who doesn't? And it was a great idea, but Regis Philbin singlehandedly undermined [sic] the entire industry.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: How did he do that?
JEFF COLT: Well when Regis's show became the number one show on ABC, everybody thought it's not just a hip show. They love Regis, cause [IN EXAGGERATED VOICE] Regis was saving the network!! And Regis is 70. 75? Something like that, and then everybody thought you know what -- I think everybody wants the father figure again. I auditioned for this game show called Three's a Crowd, and they wanted young and hip. It's a dating show. And -- have you seen the dating shows?
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Some of them.
JEFF COLT:Yeah. They're pretty risque, a lot of them, and mine was particularly offensive, where [LAUGHTER] you'd, you'd actually pit one-- ex-boyfriend against a current boyfriend and you'd find out who was better in bed and you'd ask in front of the girl -- it was just-- low brow.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Yeah.
JEFF COLT:And they hired me for the show because I'm low brow enough and-- and then I got the call - I booked the show and we did the pilot and it was terrific, and then I got the call from my agent saying that I'd been replaced. And I, I said why - why had I been replaced, and he came up with an idea - and Hollywood's most annoying because it's much like dating in that you'll never get an honest answer from anybody. You know? [LAUGHTER] It's like a blind date. Everybody breaks up with you, and it's never because of you --it's something else. But--
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Oh, so they said it, it's not you, it's - it's us?
JEFF COLT:Well [LAUGHS] - right. Obviously it's me. And originally they'd come up with the idea -they said you were too nervous during the commercial breaks. [LAUGHTER] During the commercial breaks?! What is this? 1952? I'm doing Camel spots live? I could vomit on my shoes during the commercials! I'm fine! And they said well actually we're going with Alan Thicke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Not a young man.
JEFF COLT:No disrespect; he's a talented guy. I saw Chicago -- he's - sure! He can tap - he's great. He's at least 55 if he's a day. When was that sit-com he did - 1978? '82? Kirk Cameron is 46 now. Alan Thicke is an older man and the dating show was so beneath him -so they replaced me with Alan Thicke and I was just incensed by the whole affair, and-- it was explained to me that a lot had to do with, with Regis -- good old Regis.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ah-ha. So--
JEFF COLT: They wanted older.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: They wanted older. Now that wasn't the only time you were rejected as a - as a talk show host.
JEFF COLT:No, there have been other hosting--opportunities for me to be rejected. I, I've had some success but-- the few that, that really resonate are the rejections because of - as I said, the dumbness in which they try to deflect the fact that you're being rejected. At no point will an executive ever sit you down and say well to be honest, Jeff, the reason you're not getting the job is well, quite frankly, you suck. [LAUGHTER] And every now and then you need one of those just to know -- and I actually had pitched a show to MTV, and I went in there and we had a great pitch - I went in there with a partner, and we pitched a show; it was a great show -and pitching myself as the host - I have a lot of hosting experience, and I'm quick on my feet and fairly affable and-- it all went very well. And the next day they called me for a-- a meeting at a coffee shop, and you know you're in trouble when you're having a meeting at a coffee shop. It's like when a girl calls you at home and she knows you're at work. So -she doesn't want to get you. Coffee shop is easy cause they can just skirt in and out, cause they're never going to sit with you for longer than a cup of coffee. And the executive--
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And they're not going to be picking up a big check either.
JEFF COLT:No! It's a dollar 40! [LAUGHS] You put in vanilla syrup - it's a dollar 80 - that's it -and they write it off. And she sits me down, this woman from MTV - a lovely woman - a fine network - I would love to work for them. At some point she says to me: We love the show but unfortunately you're not going to work out. And I, I said why not? Why, why wouldn't I work out? I'm the host of the show. And she said well-- they seem to feel you have too broad of a mass appeal.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Uh-- Uh-huh?
JEFF COLT:Yeah, that's what I said. Oh, that must be good - [LAUGHS] but I had to ask her to explain it, cause again I didn't get it - I said please repeat that. And she said you have too broad of a mass appeal. I said correct me if I'm wrong -- does that mean I'm too likable? She said -- yeah. So I said you want a unlikable host?! She said -- yeah. That would explain Danny Bonaducci [sp?] but as an industry standard that makes no sense! Who wants the-- I don't get it! I could be sexier. I could be more unlikable - just tell me to be something - but to say I'm too likable - it's-- I - it was very disheartening.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Well Jeff it, it really has been a pleasure talking to you. The truth is you're actually too-- interesting for public radio so-- I, I don't think this is going to work out, but--thanks for coming in.
JEFF COLT: Thank you, and my best wishes to Louis. [LAUGHTER]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jeff Colt is an actor recently relocated to New York City after a really tough time out in L.A.
BOB GARFIELD: Coming up: Why we hate Barney and why we should love Speedy Gonzales. Also, why Celine Dion is un-P.C.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media from National Public Radio. Celine Dion’s Singing Crashes Computers
April 13, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: We're back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. A proposed law prepared by Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina amounts to a new salvo in a war between two powerful industries. One produces entertainment and the other the technology to disseminate it. Fear that the consumers of music and movies could get something for nothing has motivated the lawmaker to insist that computer makers build in technology that prevents copying. This obviously benefits the entertainment industry at the expense of computers. But also, it seems, at the expense of the economy, because while Hollywood generates according to one estimate about 40 billion dollars a year, computer technology generates in the neighborhood of 600 billion. We've invited NPR's Rick Karr to come in and explain how this would work. Welcome to the show, Rick.
RICK KARR: Thanks, Brooke. It's great to be here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This Copyright Protection Act that Hollings proposes - how would it work?
RICK KARR: Well the way the language in the law is drafted, it says that any device that would accept a digital input and has a digital output that could be used to copy something that's copyrighted must have a copy protection scheme in it. Nobody's really sure how this would work out. What it's clear that the entertainment industries want though is digital television, say, music ideally, and movies on DVDs impossible to copy on to your computer hard drive or on to another CD or DVD.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: There is a certain presumption here that all copiers are pirates.
RICK KARR:That's absolutely right. The recording industry points at a fairly disastrous 2001 --sales down by about 10 percent -- they put to Napster. They say it's all Napster's fault. But a lot of people who are friends of mine who are rock critics and music critics and who care passionately about music say look, there were a lot of bad albums that were put out, the economy hit the dumps, we had September 11th which kind of put us all out of a frame of mind in which we wanted to celebrate with music and movies -- yeah, there is this kind of blurring of the line that-- you know, copying is always bad when in a lot of ways, I mean, I have photocopies in front of me right here, and in theory if it were a digital photocopier, Senator Hollings' bill would have prevented me from copying this very piece of paper I'm holding right now.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:You mentioned the Napster example. They got rid of Napster. But there were plenty of other similar technologies that came in to take its place that they can't get rid of, so is it even possible to suppress this -- what seems to be innate urge to copy?
RICK KARR: I don't know that it's possible to suppress it. I'm-- I think that it's possible to minimize the degree to which it goes on. There are an awful lot of people in the digital music field who will say look, most people don't steal cable TV now. Why don't they steal cable? Because, except in New York City anyway, the prices are fairly reasonable, and it feels like it's free. You turn it on, and it's there. These people encourage the music industry to kind of take the same look at music -- look, create services that feel like they're free that don't over-charge people and you know what - people won't have the incentive to copy any more -- they'll be able to get what they want.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Actually Hollywood did have the same fears about the VCR when it was invented, and the response wasn't to prohibit VCRs or to impose federal technology mandates on them. Eventually Hollywood figured out a way to make money from the new technology by adjusting their business model. Isn't that what they should be doing now?
RICK KARR: They have a business model that works more or less for them right now, and everybody is afraid of change. Nobody wants to see their entire business model destroyed overnight by a new technology. Having said that, you're right; Jack Valenti did say to Congress back during hearings about the video cassette recorder that it is to the American movie industry what the Boston Strangler is to a woman alone. [LAUGHTER] And of course I think last year was the first year in which videotape and DVD rentals actually generated more revenue for Hollywood than box office receipts did.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Well now it appears we have one of the first freelance efforts not mandated by law to protect the copying of music, and it's the new, incredibly well-selling Celine Dion release. This is the first time Sony Music has admitted to using copyright protection software. How does that work?
RICK KARR: I'm really glad that your producers didn't force me to listen to the record before we did this. [LAUGHTER] The way it works--
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Wait a second--
CELINE DION: [SINGING] HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE--
RICK KARR: The, the way it works is that a home CD player is basically designed to play a messed-up CD -you know say you toss it in the back seat of your car; you bring it home; you stick it in the home CD player - it's designed to play a schmutsy CD -- one that's scratched up - one that has errors in it.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Because if they were too persnickety, they wouldn't be able to play anything.
RICK KARR:Exactly. The second that you got one scratch on your CD, it just wouldn't work any more. So the home CD players are fairly robust. Computer CD players are designed to read computer programs as much as they're designed to read audio, so they are more prone to being put off track by these deliberate errors that are introduced. So the idea is you can take the CD, put it in your home CD player -- you can listen to it just fine. You can make a cassette tape of it just fine. But the second that you put it into your computer and try to make a bit for bit copy of it on to your hard drive, the CD drawer in the computer says - uh--uh-- there's something wrong with this - I can't play this. So you can't make the copy. Now some computers are more robust and can play it. So it's inconsistent. Now the interesting thing is that the record companies tried to all get together -- they tried to form this thing called the Secure Digital Music Initiative so that they would all use the same technology. They failed miserably at this. They couldn't get off page one, and finally the whole initiative was just taken apart last year and the record companies have said we're going to go it alone. The motion picture and television industries learned from that experience, and they realize that without a little bit of help from Washington they were never going to get the technologists to get off page one. So the sort of conventional wisdom on Fritz Hollings's [sic] bill is that it's not so much something that Hollywood and the record companies want to see part of law. It's a way of forcing the technologists to negotiate with them to come up with a standard, and in fact last week and early this week News Corporation and Disney released statements saying that they were happy to see that the computer industry and the consumer electronics industry were finally sitting down with them to come up with ways to deal with the two most pressing problems they face. Now that the technologists are actually sitting down and talking with them, they may not need to push quite as hard for Fritz Hollings' bill.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Yeah, but without the bill this marriage can't last.
RICK KARR:Well, you know, and that's something that a lot of people in the technology community say, and in fact if you look at the big motion picture studios and record companies you realize that a lot of these companies have hedged their bets -- they've laid money on both sides of the table. Sony, for instance, makes DVD players, makes movies. AOL/Time Warner builds the date pipe into your home; makes movies and records. Disney to some extent is that way, so everybody's kind of trying to hedge their bets, cause nobody knows how this is going to work out.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well thanks a lot, Rick.
RICK KARR: You're quite welcome Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: NPR cultural correspondent Rick Karr.
Why Adults Hate Kids TV
April 13, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: Children's television has long been a big, fat target. Consider Eddie Murphy's sendup of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood on Saturday Night Live and more recently the Simpsons' cigar-chomping Krusty the Clown character, and his cohort Sideshow Bob, now serving time in Springfield Penitentiary for assorted crimes too despicable to list here. Currently on Fox TV's Greg the Bunny, furry puppets behave in shocking ways, and the big screen satire Death to Smoochy offers a sinister look behind the scenes of kiddie shows full of drug-abusing has-beens, thugs, degenerates and psychopaths. Smoochy got Aaron Gell to wondering exactly why adults so loathe what their children love.
AARON GELL: As the parent of a four year old, Sophie, who is like most of her peers a fanatical viewer of children's television, I'll admit to feeling a twinge of perverse pleasure at the sight of the dead Barney-stand in on Death to Smoochy's subway advertising. Of course I didn't dare admit that to my daughter. [SING-SONG] Turn off the radio, honey. In the film, Robin Williams plays a dissolute children's show host who loses his time slot to Smoochy the Rhino.
ROBIN WILLIAMS AS SHOW HOST: [CREEPY VOICE] But it's the Rhino, Angie. The devil sent him from hell to destroy me. [WHISPERING] Smoochy is the Face of Evil.
AARON GELL: In addition to some really scathing reviews, the film has brought protests and the threat of a lawsuit from the makers of a Canadian kiddie show called Ricky's Room which also happens to star a costumed rhinoceros. So exactly how accurate is Death to Smoochy? I asked an expert.
MAN: I can draw a parallel from almost all those scenes down to what it's like to really [LAUGHS] be on a kid's TV show. So some of it was, was right on the money.
AARON GELL: Don't recognize the voice? Maybe you'd like--
CHILDREN: [CALLING OUT EXCITEDLY] A clue! A clue!!
AARON GELL: My inside source is none other than Steve Burns who since 1996 has been one of the most popular children's entertainers on the planet as the adorably boyish star of Nickelodeon's highly-rated series Blues Clues. On April 29th in the kid-vid equivalent of Johnny Carson's historic farewell, Burns will head off to college -- or so the world's children will be told. Actually he's recorded a CD and hopes to reinvent himself as an indie-rock singer/ songwriter.
CHILD: I have a question. [SOUND OF AIR BUBBLES IN WATER] If you're going away to college, who's going to live here with us?
STEVE BURNS AS NICKELODEON STAR: That is a good question. [GENTLE BARKING]
AARON GELL: The answer is Donovan Patton, a young actor who will be introduced during a 3-part special that's been carefully designed to offer children the most painless transition possible. Given this concern for young viewers, perhaps it's no surprise that Steve Burns does not number himself among the fans of Death to Smoochy.
STEVE BURNS: The movie was kind of one big joke, and they just kept playing that joke over and over again, so you see the kid's show host who as soon as the camera goes off [TALKING IN CREEPY VOICE] he talks like this -- all of a sudden he's got a different voice, you know, and--and then you see the mandatory creepy strung-out, retired kid's show host who is on heroin.
AARON GELL: Clearly there's something about the tireless good cheer of kid's TV that we just don't trust.
BARNEY THE DINOSAUR: [SINGING] I HAVE A BREAD, AND IT'S CALLED PUMPERNICKEL, YUM YUM PUMPERNICKEL, PUMPERNICKEL BREAD. HEY!
AARON GELL: Children's superstar Barney has come in for particular venom. The internet abounds with Barney-hating sites, and beating up on the purple dinosaur has become a sort of national pastime, something the San Diego Chicken, the Padres' mascot, proved when he made the pummeling of a Barney-lookalike a centerpiece of his ball game routine. Blues Clues Steve Burns.
STEVE BURNS: I understand it. I more than understand it, and can appreciate how something that is that repetitive and something that is that sing-song and overly saccharine is annoying to an adult sensibility, but think the reaction is completely out of proportion for the sin!
AARON GELL: So what's it all about? Why all this adult hostility towards shows that are plainly meant for toddlers.
DOROTHY SINGER: The message on the Barney Show is like a hundred percent kindness, sweetness and social caring, and I think that for some parents and adults this is almost too much to handle; it may make them feel guilty that they're not offering that much love and attention as Barney is willing to give.
AARON GELL: Dorothy Singer is a developmental psychologist. In her role as co-director of Yale University's Family Television Research Center, she's watched every single episode of Barney.
DOROTHY SINGER: Many people have this notion that young children need to be exposed to some of the cruel realities of the world or they're going to suffer later on when they enter school, and I don't agree with that at all.
AARON GELL: Blues Clues' Steve Burns.
STEVE BURNS: The truth is, is that life is hard and sometimes it's sad and it can be pretty disappointing. Now we wouldn't ever want to convey that to our children via a television show, obviously. But there are people who seem to be very angry when a children's television show aggressively presents this kind of high fructose, saccharine view of a utopian world that adults cynically can't accept any more.
AARON GELL: The new sit-com, Greg the Bunny features a menagerie of puppets including an alcoholic ape who are every bit as troubled as their human counterparts.
GREG THE BUNNY: Hi, Mr. Bender. My name is Greg the-- Oh, my God!! Professor Ape!!! [LAUGHS]
PROFESSOR APE/WARREN de MONTAGUE: Yes, actually the name's Warren de Montague. 'Kay? Real guy standing here. Not TV-time.
GREG THE BUNNY: Sorry, it's just that - I mean I, I love you! [LAUGHS] I've seen everything you've ever done!! Godspell. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat--
PROFESSOR APE/WARREN de MONTAGUE: Yes, well you know if it was lame and about Jesus [AHEMS] -- I was there.
AARON GELL: Greg the Bunny co-creator and star Dan Milano.
DAN MILANO: The only other thing you, you'd have that was comparable to it would be a religious icon of some kind -- something that the masses generally put on a pedestal and see as something good and decent and pure, and the biggest punk impulse is to just tear that down.
AARON GELL: No doubt my daughter Sophie has a few years to go before giving in to that particular impulse. But she will, and it is precisely because of that inevitability that I'm grateful to children's television for providing so many ripe targets. Better she tear down Barney than tear down dad. For On the Media I'm Aaron Gell.
Speedy Gonzalez
April 13, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: People who follow children's television closely may have noticed that Ted Turner's Cartoon Network has stopped broadcasting the old Warner Bros. Speedy Gonzales cartoons. When asked about the absence of the "Fastest Mouse in all [SPANISH PRONUNCIATION] Mexico" from their air waves, Cartoon Network officials admitted that Speedy was no longer part of their lineup, partly because he wasn't very popular, but mostly because of the cartoons' offensive portrayal of Mexicans. This triggered a variety of exasperated protest from Latino groups in the United States who claim that Speedy's cartoons offer positive and heroic images of Mexicans in U.S. culture. Adrian Villegas is an Austin-based comic whose one man show is called Six Mexicans Named Gonzalez and he joins us now to talk about his personal take on Speedy. So Adrian what is your personal take on Speedy?
ADRIAN VILLEGAS: Well I didn't give much thought to what Speedy meant culturally, really, until I started writing the show Six Mexicans named Gonzalez. I discovered that there weren't many--positive or heroic images of Latinos and Mexican-Americans in particular throughout the last, you know, 50, 60 years of, of popular entertainment -- except for Speedy [LAUGHS] Gonzales. Unfortunately I don't know if much has changed [LAUGHS] since the time the original cartoons were produced, so everybody I talk to that's Latino has a-- I mean has a special place, [LAUGHS] you know when I ask them about Speedy Gonzales, nobody dislikes Speedy Gonzales.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But I mean come on -- is Speedy Gonzales occasionally racist? I mean the cohorts were not a particularly impressive group of mice.
ADRIAN VILLEGAS: I don't see anything as necessarily black and white, but I think the bigger presence of, of the character and what he represents I think overwhelms-- the concerns for, for the supporting characters which are, are not always in the cartoons and-- I think it's somewhat negligible. That's my opinion.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well we know what Speedy sounds like -- he sounds like this:
SPEEDY GONZALES:[FAST-TALKING CARTOON VOICE] Arriba, arriba, ayeehah! [...?...] Ole, ole, ole [...?...]!!! Hello, pussycat. You looking for a nice, fat mouse for dinner?
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But when you do him in your act, you know, you do Speedy Gonzales when he's out of character--
ADRIAN VILLEGAS: Right. [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: -- and, and how that Speedy sound?
ADRIAN VILLEGAS: I know what part of the-- I'll give you the part of the monologue that actually addresses that.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Mm-hm?
ADRIAN VILLEGAS:[SPEEDY GONZALES-ACTOR'S VOICE] Recognize me? Ahhh! I think you do, amigo! That's right. Soy yo! Soy Speedy Gonzales! Ah! Why do you look so surprised? Ah, it's the voice, isn't it. Yes, that throws quite a lot of people I'm afraid. But you didn't really think I talk like in the cartoons, did you? Oh, no, no, no. I do not talk like that! -- any more. [LAUGHTER] Make no mistake. What you are hearing is the voice of a veteran mouse thespian with years of training in the classical arts of [SPANISH PRONUNCIATION] elocution! Y Projection! And 3 semesters worth of English as a Second Language.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS] Now you never play Speedy doing his cartoon-speedy accent, right?
ADRIAN VILLEGAS:No. You know. In the rest of the monologue he begins to explain his humble beginnings and, and basically that character that he played in the cartoons was just that -- a character. Like he goes: [AS SPEEDY'S ACTOR] You see, previously I had been offered nothing but the typical degrading Mexican stereotype type roles, you know. The sniveling and cowardly farm mouse, or the evil switchblade-carrying sewer rat. [LAUGHTER] But when I read this script I said ahhhh! Now here's something fresh! Something new!! A mexican character con power, corazon y fuego!! A lone mouse, [LAUGHTER] a proverbial every-Mexican, if you will, a defender of the weak who is constantly battling the injustices of la systema, embodied in the character of the evil "gringo" gatto, and who, against all odds always ends up triumphant in the final frame -- a character who is brash, fearless and crafty --a fighter! -- and a lover. [LAUGHTER] In short, a character who was all the things that I already was. [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHS] I kind of projected a lot of-- a lot of cultural responsibility on to-- his - the fictionalization you know, of, of his alter--of his real character, alter ego, whatever, you know.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:And part of what you're saying is right now there aren't a lot of-- positive Latino images out there and he may be animated but he's still the best there is.
ADRIAN VILLEGAS: [LAUGHS] I never thought I'd be having this deep of a conversation [LAUGHS] about Speedy Gonzales. It, it, it's amazing, but the most popular Latino character in the history of popular culture is Speedy Gonzales. You know, he's, he's-- always messing with this "gringo" gatto; he's-- always talking so much trash --and yet he still lives [LAUGHS] from episode to episode, so in that sense he's practically a subversive revolutionary, you know. Granted, yes, he is a cartoon character but--you know - we'll take whatever [LAUGHS] we can get.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Okay. Thanks very much.
ADRIAN VILLEGAS: Thank you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Adrian Villegas is an Austin-based comic who's one man show is called Six Mexicans Named Gonzalez. [THEME MUSIC]
BOB GARFIELD:That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price and Katya Rogers with Sean Landis and Michael Kavanagh; engineered by George Edwards and Dylan Keefe, and edited-- by Brooke. We had help from Jim Colgan and Lu Olkowski. Our web master is Amy Pearl.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Mike Pesca is our producer at large, Arun Rath our senior producer and Dean Capello our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. This is On the Media from National Public Radio. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield.
SPEEDY GONZALES: I go take my siesta now. [MUSIC TAG]
April 13, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: From WNYC in New York this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: I'm Bob Garfield. And this week we're starting a little differently, with a couple of letters from last week. The issue was: Israel's recent unprecedented crackdown on the press. Robert Smith of Dallas thought our treatment "insightful" and added, "For many historical and sometimes legitimate reasons the Israeli government gets a pass on a lot of things,...On restricting press coverage, selectively granting press credentials based on religion, nationality or affiliation -- no 'passes' should be given to their government or any other."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But listener George Bulow [sp?] criticized journalists for applying a double standard when issuing complaints. "Within the last two weeks," he writes, "we have seen Reuters correspondents who witnessed and videotaped the summary execution of 'collaborators' by Palestinian authorities, having their tapes confiscated and their lives threatened. Little if anything was reported by NPR or by any other Western media outlets. Yet everyone, On the Media included, jumped on the bandwagon to bash the Israelis for closing certain areas of military activity to a prying press." So do the media hold Israel to a different standard, condemning it for actions we tolerate from the Palestinian Authority? Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists joins us now. So Joel I assume you'll say no, there is no double standard.
JOEL SIMON: Well, it's, it's a little more complicated. I mean from our vantage point. We simply document the cases as they come our way. Since the incursion began we've documented two serious press freedom violations by the Palestinian Authority. One, the one you just mentioned; another one in which Palestinian militia shot a car that was clearly identified as a car full of journalists. Apparently that was a mistake, but that - we did nevertheless document that. On the other hand, in - just in the last few weeks we've documented probably about 8 or 10 shooting incidents carried out by Israeli defense forces against journalists and many, many other cases of harassment, restricting access, threats -- so we're just looking at the cases themselves, and that's what we've documented.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you think that Palestinian censorship is reported with equal intensity?
JOEL SIMON:I think that in some ways because Palestinian censorship tends to affect local Palestinian journalists, it's a more subtle kind of event whereas the shootings of journalists by Israeli forces have affected foreign correspondents and are inherently newsworthy.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But a lot of these incidents regarding the Palestinian Authority are by no means subtle and are by no means limited to Palestinian journalists.
JOEL SIMON: And we've certainly documented-- it-- after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September there were celebrations - especially in Nablus, street demonstrations, and the Palestinian Authority tried to restrict coverage of those demonstrations and in some cases threatened journalists and confiscated film. We protested that vigorously and I know that that was widely covered.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Is there a difference between the way the Palestinian Authority and the Israel Defense Force deal with the press?
JOEL SIMON:Well, yes there's a difference. You have to start with the understanding that Palestinian journalists and journalists in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority work in an environment in which censorship, self-censorship, intimidation is the norm. And Israeli journalists work in a much freer environment. And part of the process through which Palestinian journalists are censored or engage in self-censorship is very informal. It involves relationships, it involves phone calls that seem friendly, it involves meetings -- and precisely for that reason, it's much more difficult to document and we don't always hear the complaints. Israeli journalists are much more likely to speak up.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:So even though, say, Saudi Arabia or North Korea are far more closed societies and far more susceptible to charges of censorship, you're not as likely to go after them because you don't have the complaints.
JOEL SIMON: Well that's right. We don't take up a lot of press freedom cases in Iraq. We acknowledge that there's almost complete censorship in Iraq, but we don't have individual cases. The question also is one of sensitivity. I mean shouldn't a country that's democratic expect and respond to these kinds of complaints? I mean does Israel really only want to be compared to Saudi Arabia? Now you can describe that as a double standard, but it's also a situation in which governments create their own standard. A democratic government - a government that permits its citizens to speak up and protest and demonstrate - will obviously create a situation in which citizens are vocal in expressing their displeasure.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Okay. Thanks very much.
JOEL SIMON: Thank you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Joel Simon is the deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. The T-Word
April 13, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: The Minneapolis Star Tribune is getting a lot of attention lately for its Middle East coverage -- not for what it's printing but rather for what it's not printing. A group of Jewish leaders are protesting the paper for its reluctance to refer to Palestinian suicide bombers as "terrorists." The Star Tribune is not alone in this policy. The New York Times, Washington Post and even Associated Press all avoided the T-word when describing a recent bombing in a restaurant in Haifa. This is a marked shift in word usage from before September 11th. The Times, Post and AP had no problem using the words terrorist and terrorism in their coverage of the August 9th Sbarro Pizza Shop bombing in Jerusalem. Joining us now to discuss the swing is Michael Kelly, editor of the Atlantic Monthly and a columnist for the Washington Post. Mike, welcome to On the Media.
MICHAEL KELLY: Thank you very much.
BOB GARFIELD: Well the objectivity argument is that the word terrorist is just too loaded at this stage. Whether journalists are using it less or not, the news makers are using it more and more as a tool of rhetoric. Isn't it possible that the word has become so politicized and so haphazardly detonated, let's say, that it's just lost the clarity and precision that commended its use in the first place?
MICHAEL KELLY: First of all I'd say that it's always been politically loaded, because it expresses what you might call a politically loaded fact. Blowing up civilians is necessarily controversial. But it doesn't seem to me that those of us in the press add anything to clarity or honesty by declining to use the term just because it's loaded, and by substituting terms that we know are imprecise or even dishonest euphemisms.
BOB GARFIELD:All right, but "suicide bombing" does the trick. It's descriptive not of the strategy -- like terrorism is -- but of the act itself.
MICHAEL KELLY: But it still does not go as far in accuracy or in honesty as "terrorist" does because it does not imply motive. Why does a suicide bomber in Palestine blow up a restaurant? Because he believes that by doing so he may force the State of Israel to capitulate in what is a real if unconventional war. That suicide bomber is by any definition a terrorist who's practicing terrorism. What's to be gained by not saying that?
BOB GARFIELD: Let's talk about impact for a minute then.
MICHAEL KELLY: Mm-hm.
BOB GARFIELD:If the idea is not to be taken for pro-Israeli mouthpieces, couldn't the media be correct in judging that for their reports to be taken at all seriously and not to be dismissed as propaganda or one-sided that the sacrifice of the difference between suicide bomber and terrorist is-- you know, a small one to make.
MICHAEL KELLY: I think the argument that you're making i--is probably the argument that news editors make to themselves as a legitimate argument, but I still think it's a fallacy. I'll use an analogy -- the term "fascist." If you were a reporter during the Second World War covering it for an American or British newspaper, you would frequently notice that the spokespeople for your government called the enemy "fascist," and they used it to remind people that this was the enemy. It would still be appropriate for a reporter in that instance to use the term fascist precisely because the term fascist had a real meaning, and in fact was a term that had been defined by the fascists themselves. That's the situation we're in now it seems to me.
BOB GARFIELD: So what would you prescribe?
MICHAEL KELLY:That's a good question. You made me think about - about it as an editor - not as a columnist. I would prescribe a mixed use of "terrorist" and "suicide bombers."
BOB GARFIELD: Well curiously enough this seems to have been the decision that news organizations made right up through September 10th.
MICHAEL KELLY: Uh-huh.
BOB GARFIELD:Then immediately after there was a big upsurge in the invocation of the word "terrorism," and then when the latest, most violent uprising in the occupied territories and in Israel, all of a sudden it went away. Why do you suppose that-- this is such a moving target?
MICHAEL KELLY: Well, news organizations -- these are in fact entities that are very sensitive to all sorts of pressure. There has always been an organized lobbying campaign on all sides of that issue over matters of terminology, and after September 11th you did not see a great deal of pressure on American news organizations to resist the use of the word "terrorist." So now, as opposed to the coverage of September 11th, news organizations in describing exactly the same activity, face a different political reality which is that they are under much more pressure.
BOB GARFIELD: Well, Michael Kelly, thank you very much.
MICHAEL KELLY: It was my pleasure.
BOB GARFIELD: Mike Kelly is the editor of Atlantic Monthly and a columnist for the Washington Post. [MUSIC] Letters
April 13, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: You heard a couple of your letters at the top of the show; now we'll try to squeeze in a few more. Victor H. Cohn of Kensington, Maryland writes that he was truly dismayed by our report on the pain game developed by German art students. "This represents the mentality we associate with S.S. Troops in the Nazi era. Ugh! That such thinking persists and gets credence through your broadcast is sickening."
BOB GARFIELD:Mike Kristof of Metro Networks in Milwaukee writes to say that he found our story on Metro Networks to be balanced but responds this way to the critic who condemned the deception that makes remote radio newscasters seem local. "Radio," he writes, "is as much about the theatre of the mind as actual content. When your critic says some of our anchors use phony names, it is merely a device so that it doesn't appear that the same person is on several stations. The client stations dictate style, length and other factors. You can be sure that in today's world of ownership consolidation, if Metro wasn't doing what it does, someone else would be, and if Metro wasn't offering the product and no one else was, then many of our client stations wouldn't do news at all."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Susan Berger of San Francisco found out interview on Clear Channel to be quote "quite interesting but was bothered by the ending. After a long discussion with Eric Boehlert about the monopolistic character of Clear Channel," she writes, "Bob Garfield asked what was left out there for radio listeners. Mr. Boehlert answered by saying there were 3 options -- 1) public radio -- at which point Mr. Garfield interjected with 'thanks' and a humorous tone, the music revved up and we never heard the two other options! Perhaps you could include those options on next week's show?"
BOB GARFIELD:Well, thanks Susan for getting the joke -which others did not - and for your suggestions. In fact I have in my hand the other alternatives for listeners suggested by Mr. Boehlert after public radio -- Internet radio, satellite radio and he added a 4th --college radio.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:We take suggestions here at On the Media --sometimes -- so send them to onthemedia@wnyc.org and don't forget to tell us where you live and how to pronounce your name.
BOB GARFIELD: Coming up, the FBI's new gag order, the fall and rise of Louis Rukeyser, and the Hollywood trials of a would-be host.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media from National Public Radio. Library Gag Order
April 13, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: We're back with OTM. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled this week that a bookstore did not have to tell the police the name of a person who had purchased two instructional books about making drugs. The unanimous decision assures booksellers and librarians in the Centennial State that they need not turn over their sales or check out records to the authorities.
BOB GARFIELD:But there's no such assurance nationwide because privacy protection of what a person buys or reads varies from state to state, and the USA PATRIOT Act passed shortly after September 11th in an effort to combat terrorism now permits the FBI to seize what it vaguely defines as "any tangible things," including those sales or check out records. Why haven't you heard about it? The law also forbids librarians and booksellers from telling anyone else -- be it a reporter, neighbor or 14 month old daughter if the FBI has come a-searchin' in their place of business. Lynne Bradley is the director of government relations for the American Library Association. She says the PATRIOT Act greatly expands the kinds of records the FBI can search.
LYNNE BRADLEY: Before the PATRIOT Act there were more almost common carrier types of information -- phone records - hotel records - whether you rented a car. But now, under the larger term called "business records" it can be any tangible item, and in the case of a library situation it might be the hard disk or the whole computer from an on-line system that the library operates or anything down to the clipboard with a sign on sheet that often our patrons use to sign up to take their turn to use a public terminal in a library.
BOB GARFIELD: Do you know of any cases where a computer or a hard drive has been seized?
LYNNE BRADLEY:We have had reports -- and I must say they are unverified because [LAUGHS] of the gag rule --where I believe two different terminals were removed from a library.
BOB GARFIELD:But in the meantime, when law enforcement goes over the contents of the hard drive, they will find the information that the suspect has generated there and in addition all of the dozens or hundreds of other citizens have generated there.
LYNNE BRADLEY: We're very concerned that we are not able to confirm or deny just what leniency the FBI or whatever investigatory agency has access to all of these other files of other library users and so forth, and that's one of the things where in terms of the gag order doesn't allow for public accountability. Librarians, just like every other sector of our country want to follow the law; they want to do the right thing. At the same time we owe it to our country to protect certain basic rights which indeed we're fighting this war for. And we are very concerned that this kind of broad-ranging access to all kinds of business records compromises that anonymity and that sense of confidence that the library is going to be a safe and personal space to be used without undue and inappropriate fishing expeditions into the users' activities.
BOB GARFIELD:What about the gag order itself as an impingement on First Amendment rights. Is it legal? Can an entire class of citizens be placed under prior restraint of free speech rights?
LYNNE BRADLEY: That's the hard question. One way that we look at it is that we're kind of in the pre-school phase. We have not had a lot of court cases. At some point there will be leaks, there will be court cases, there will be people charged -- but I think it's going to take a while.
BOB GARFIELD:All right. Well if you would kindly memo your member libraries and tell them that if an FBI agent comes knocking on the door inquiring about stuff that I've looked at on their computers -- you know was doing some research for my cousin.
LYNNE BRADLEY: Oh, okay. All right. [LAUGHS]
BOB GARFIELD: All right. Thank you very much.
LYNNE BRADLEY: Thank you. You're welcome.
BOB GARFIELD: Lynne Bradley is director of government relations for the American Library Association.
Bomb-Making Books
April 13, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: If you think the USA PATRIOT Act's provisions targeted at books is unnecessary, consider a book on how to create anthrax spores. And there is a book distributor, Loompanics, that happens to specialize in all texts subversive. Here are some catchy titles being offered in their Spring Catalog: Your Revenge Is in the Mail, Fake ID by Mail and Modem, Advanced Lock Picking Secrets, Prison Killing Techniques and, of course, The Heroin User's Handbook. President Michael Joy spends a good amount of time defending the books he sells, and he joins us now. Mr. Hoy, welcome to OTM.
MICHAEL HOY: Good morning!
BOB GARFIELD: All right let me first clarify. As far as I know you haven't actually published a book on how to produce anthrax spores. Am I correct?
MICHAEL HOY: No, we have not.
BOB GARFIELD: But would you?
MICHAEL HOY: I think I would, except I'm worried about some of these new laws that have been passed. That would be the only thing that would stop me. There's already lots and lots of cookbooks on weapons of mass destruction out there.
BOB GARFIELD: Stuff which actually you do sell, right?
MICHAEL HOY: Yes, I sell some CIA bomb-making books.
BOB GARFIELD:All right, now I'm just guessing here, but if I were a betting man I would say that you've probably just really made a lot of our listeners angry. Aren't you afraid that you're giving people who want to harm society the means to produce far more devastation than they would have if they had never had access to these books and manuals?
MICHAEL HOY: No, no, no. I'm offering every American the opportunity to learn anything he wants to about any subject he wants to learn about. I feel the world is a much better place if there's as many books on as many subjects in as many hands as possible.
BOB GARFIELD: What about books on how to procure children for pedophilia purposes -- would that upset you?
MICHAEL HOY:Actually I do have a book like that, except it's written kind of from the other way -- how children can protect themselves, but in order to do that they have to know, you know, how a pedophile is going to approach them.
BOB GARFIELD: So if you were a pedophile looking for pointers, this might be a reasonable source for you.
MICHAEL HOY:Yes, I would think any pedophile worth the name of pedophile would be reading all the how to protect your children books that he could and read them backwards.
BOB GARFIELD: All right, so I think what you do is disgraceful. Please explain to me why what you do is not disgraceful.
MICHAEL HOY:[LAUGHS] I believe this book was published by Harper Collins. Are you going to call Harper Collins up and harangue them for assisting pedophiles? You're telling me a perfectly legal activities are something I should be ashamed of? Reading books? Publishing books? I think you should if you actually think there's something wrong with that.
BOB GARFIELD:Well it seems to me that what you sell creates exactly the dilemma that legislators and law enforcement face in times like these, because on the one hand almost by definition the PATRIOT Act limits the very freedoms upon which this country was founded. On the other hand, when someone can go on to the Web and purchase how-to manuals for creating destruction, it's certainly clear why the government would have an interest in knowing who's buying those things.
MICHAEL HOY: This is what America's all about! That's what our First Amendment says. It doesn't say the only things you can publish are stuff that the FBI approves of. It is not Osama bin Laden nor is it the Taliban nor is it Saddam Hussein who wants to have the FBI go around to librarians and snoop into what their customers are reading and then under a provision in this PATRIOT Act throw them in jail if they even tell anybody about it!
BOB GARFIELD: Yeah, all they want to do is just kill us. Do you see no difference between rights and responsibilities?
MICHAEL HOY:Well there are not rights without responsibilities. But you're saying that if somebody bought a book from me that was titled How to Beat Your Mother in Law's Head In with a Sledgehammer -- and then he went and did it - that I would somehow be responsible for that, even though I might never have met this person in my life. And no, I, I don't feel that I would have any responsibility any more than the hardware store owner who sold him the sledgehammer. I mean where would you draw the line? How about the -- somebody works in the print shop that printed the book?
BOB GARFIELD: Not interested in discussing it any further. I want to thank you very much for taking the time to join us, and all worst of luck.
MICHAEL HOY: Well thank you very much, Bob. [PHONE DISCONNECTS]
BOB GARFIELD: Michael Hoy is the president of an extreme Libertarian publishing company whose books probably don't appear in your local library. The Rukeyser Shuffle
April 13, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: When CNBC announced this week that it had hired Louis Rukeyser to host a program essentially identical to PBS's Wall Street Week from which he was recently eliminated after 32 years, there was a surprise twist. In addition to its slot on CNBC, Rukeyser's new show will be distributed free of charge to public TV stations. To accommodate the dual distribution, CNBC won't run standard commercials within the show but instead will air it with sponsor messages in the format of public broadcasting underwriting announcements. Bob wondered what that arrangement may tell us about the strange animal called "enhanced underwriting."
BOB GARFIELD: Okay, listen. Here's a piece of a TV commercial for Archer Daniels Midland Corporation. [MUSIC UNDER]
SALLY KIRKLAND VOICEOVER: Our crowded planet has something to say. ADM believes that for every problem, nature has an answer. So....
BOB GARFIELD: Now here, from a PBS show is what they call an "enhanced underwriting credit." [MUSIC UNDER]
SALLY KIRKLAND VOICEOVER:Imagine a world where no child begs for food. While some will look on that as a dream, others will look long and hard -- and get to work. ADM -- the nature of what's to come.
BOB GARFIELD:You didn't see the eye-catching animation, but it's there. The striking similarity between enhanced underwriting and naked advertising has fueled controversy ever since 1995. That's when public broadcasters, their federal funding threatened by Republicans in Congress, loosened restrictions on underwriters' messages. They're still limited to 15 seconds; they can't interrupt programming, and they can't directly solicit consumer action, but in other respects they are indistinguishable. Furthermore, critics of public broadcasting commercialization are fearful of what enhanced underwriting represents -- namely the temptation to abandon public broadcasting's mission for the sake of ever-larger audiences and the lucrative sponsorships that come with them. Andrew Jay Schwartzman is a lawyer with a telecommunications public interest group called The Media Access Project.
ANDREW JAY SCHWARTZ We should care because public broadcasting exists to fill needs that are not met on the commercial side. But the incentives are driving public broadcasters to look for ways to serve audiences that are already adequately served that advertisers can reach. Unfortunately, we should be looking to serve the niche audiences.
BOB GARFIELD: So along comes CNBC's announcement about Rukeyser's double-duty underwriting messages, and the critics go ah-ha!
ANDREW JAY SCHWARTZThe fact that CNBC is willing to accept what passes as enhanced underwriting on public television is - as being sufficient as a commercial for its own viewers offers a lot of insight into what CNBC thinks a commercial is.
BOB GARFIELD:In other words if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck and commercial advertisers are ordering duck -- maybe it's a duck!
TERREL CAST: [LAUGHS] No, I don't think it's a duck.
BOB GARFIELD: Terrel Cast is general manager of WLIW-TV, the Long Island station that's distributing Rukeyser's CNBC show to PBS stations. Cast says he has a very duck-sensitive audience that would be running into the fields with shotguns if they heard a threat to public broadcasting's mission flying overhead.
TERREL CASS: I've honestly never gotten a letter -- I get a lot of letters for different complaints -- but I've never received one on enhanced en--underwriting.
BOB GARFIELD:Over at CNBC they're actually wondering about the flip side of the question -- if underwriting credits can satisfy advertisers even with all their restrictions, there may be a commercial potential to less commercialism.
BRUNO COHEN: It just might work!
BOB GARFIELD: Bruno Cohen is executive vice president for business programming at CNBC.
BRUNO COHEN: If programs can be produced by creating a different kind of viewing experience, one that isn't interrupted periodically by commercials and other kinds of messages -- if those interruptions can be limited -- if that gives a more enhanced viewing experience which may enhance viewership, it may mean that advertisers and sponsors and underwriters may see themselves as willing to pay premiums to be one of a few products or services associated with a program that, that's in their interest. I think all the better! It'll make television better for everybody.
BOB GARFIELD:Mainly, though, CNBC is banking on the quacks-like-a-duck quality of the enhanced underwriting credit to attract enough commercial advertisers to make a satisfactory profit on the Rukeyser deal. And the network doesn't much care what you call the 50-second [sic] spots that fund it.
BRUNO COHEN: That form has evolved over time on PBS, so it's not as though they don't have interesting video that supports sort of, you know, showing the products and services of the company and they -- 15 seconds of copy that they get, gets to describe the attributes of the company. If you want to call that a commercial, you're into semantics.
BOB GARFIELD:And if you're really into semantics, visit Semantics World, providing fine words and their significance for nearly half a decade. At Semantics World, we know the meaning of meaning. Call now! Operators are standing by. Mr. Rejecto
April 13, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The reason why Louis Rukeyser was deposed from his throne at public TV's long-lived Wall Street Week is that he, too, is long-lived. In other words -- old. Or at least in the view of the show's producers -- too old to attract a younger audience. Jeff Colt, an actor recently relocated to New York from Hollywood has had his share of rejection or ejection from the host's chair. Jeff, you weren't fired for the same reason as Rukeyser, were you?
JEFF COLT: No, but oddly enough, Brooke, it was similar. I like to refer to it as the "Thicke Affair." [LAUGHTER] We're all familiar with the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Mm-hm.
JEFF COLT: And who doesn't? And it was a great idea, but Regis Philbin singlehandedly undermined [sic] the entire industry.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: How did he do that?
JEFF COLT: Well when Regis's show became the number one show on ABC, everybody thought it's not just a hip show. They love Regis, cause [IN EXAGGERATED VOICE] Regis was saving the network!! And Regis is 70. 75? Something like that, and then everybody thought you know what -- I think everybody wants the father figure again. I auditioned for this game show called Three's a Crowd, and they wanted young and hip. It's a dating show. And -- have you seen the dating shows?
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Some of them.
JEFF COLT:Yeah. They're pretty risque, a lot of them, and mine was particularly offensive, where [LAUGHTER] you'd, you'd actually pit one-- ex-boyfriend against a current boyfriend and you'd find out who was better in bed and you'd ask in front of the girl -- it was just-- low brow.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Yeah.
JEFF COLT:And they hired me for the show because I'm low brow enough and-- and then I got the call - I booked the show and we did the pilot and it was terrific, and then I got the call from my agent saying that I'd been replaced. And I, I said why - why had I been replaced, and he came up with an idea - and Hollywood's most annoying because it's much like dating in that you'll never get an honest answer from anybody. You know? [LAUGHTER] It's like a blind date. Everybody breaks up with you, and it's never because of you --it's something else. But--
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Oh, so they said it, it's not you, it's - it's us?
JEFF COLT:Well [LAUGHS] - right. Obviously it's me. And originally they'd come up with the idea -they said you were too nervous during the commercial breaks. [LAUGHTER] During the commercial breaks?! What is this? 1952? I'm doing Camel spots live? I could vomit on my shoes during the commercials! I'm fine! And they said well actually we're going with Alan Thicke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Not a young man.
JEFF COLT:No disrespect; he's a talented guy. I saw Chicago -- he's - sure! He can tap - he's great. He's at least 55 if he's a day. When was that sit-com he did - 1978? '82? Kirk Cameron is 46 now. Alan Thicke is an older man and the dating show was so beneath him -so they replaced me with Alan Thicke and I was just incensed by the whole affair, and-- it was explained to me that a lot had to do with, with Regis -- good old Regis.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ah-ha. So--
JEFF COLT: They wanted older.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: They wanted older. Now that wasn't the only time you were rejected as a - as a talk show host.
JEFF COLT:No, there have been other hosting--opportunities for me to be rejected. I, I've had some success but-- the few that, that really resonate are the rejections because of - as I said, the dumbness in which they try to deflect the fact that you're being rejected. At no point will an executive ever sit you down and say well to be honest, Jeff, the reason you're not getting the job is well, quite frankly, you suck. [LAUGHTER] And every now and then you need one of those just to know -- and I actually had pitched a show to MTV, and I went in there and we had a great pitch - I went in there with a partner, and we pitched a show; it was a great show -and pitching myself as the host - I have a lot of hosting experience, and I'm quick on my feet and fairly affable and-- it all went very well. And the next day they called me for a-- a meeting at a coffee shop, and you know you're in trouble when you're having a meeting at a coffee shop. It's like when a girl calls you at home and she knows you're at work. So -she doesn't want to get you. Coffee shop is easy cause they can just skirt in and out, cause they're never going to sit with you for longer than a cup of coffee. And the executive--
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And they're not going to be picking up a big check either.
JEFF COLT:No! It's a dollar 40! [LAUGHS] You put in vanilla syrup - it's a dollar 80 - that's it -and they write it off. And she sits me down, this woman from MTV - a lovely woman - a fine network - I would love to work for them. At some point she says to me: We love the show but unfortunately you're not going to work out. And I, I said why not? Why, why wouldn't I work out? I'm the host of the show. And she said well-- they seem to feel you have too broad of a mass appeal.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Uh-- Uh-huh?
JEFF COLT:Yeah, that's what I said. Oh, that must be good - [LAUGHS] but I had to ask her to explain it, cause again I didn't get it - I said please repeat that. And she said you have too broad of a mass appeal. I said correct me if I'm wrong -- does that mean I'm too likable? She said -- yeah. So I said you want a unlikable host?! She said -- yeah. That would explain Danny Bonaducci [sp?] but as an industry standard that makes no sense! Who wants the-- I don't get it! I could be sexier. I could be more unlikable - just tell me to be something - but to say I'm too likable - it's-- I - it was very disheartening.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Well Jeff it, it really has been a pleasure talking to you. The truth is you're actually too-- interesting for public radio so-- I, I don't think this is going to work out, but--thanks for coming in.
JEFF COLT: Thank you, and my best wishes to Louis. [LAUGHTER]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jeff Colt is an actor recently relocated to New York City after a really tough time out in L.A.
BOB GARFIELD: Coming up: Why we hate Barney and why we should love Speedy Gonzales. Also, why Celine Dion is un-P.C.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media from National Public Radio. Celine Dion’s Singing Crashes Computers
April 13, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: We're back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. A proposed law prepared by Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina amounts to a new salvo in a war between two powerful industries. One produces entertainment and the other the technology to disseminate it. Fear that the consumers of music and movies could get something for nothing has motivated the lawmaker to insist that computer makers build in technology that prevents copying. This obviously benefits the entertainment industry at the expense of computers. But also, it seems, at the expense of the economy, because while Hollywood generates according to one estimate about 40 billion dollars a year, computer technology generates in the neighborhood of 600 billion. We've invited NPR's Rick Karr to come in and explain how this would work. Welcome to the show, Rick.
RICK KARR: Thanks, Brooke. It's great to be here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This Copyright Protection Act that Hollings proposes - how would it work?
RICK KARR: Well the way the language in the law is drafted, it says that any device that would accept a digital input and has a digital output that could be used to copy something that's copyrighted must have a copy protection scheme in it. Nobody's really sure how this would work out. What it's clear that the entertainment industries want though is digital television, say, music ideally, and movies on DVDs impossible to copy on to your computer hard drive or on to another CD or DVD.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: There is a certain presumption here that all copiers are pirates.
RICK KARR:That's absolutely right. The recording industry points at a fairly disastrous 2001 --sales down by about 10 percent -- they put to Napster. They say it's all Napster's fault. But a lot of people who are friends of mine who are rock critics and music critics and who care passionately about music say look, there were a lot of bad albums that were put out, the economy hit the dumps, we had September 11th which kind of put us all out of a frame of mind in which we wanted to celebrate with music and movies -- yeah, there is this kind of blurring of the line that-- you know, copying is always bad when in a lot of ways, I mean, I have photocopies in front of me right here, and in theory if it were a digital photocopier, Senator Hollings' bill would have prevented me from copying this very piece of paper I'm holding right now.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:You mentioned the Napster example. They got rid of Napster. But there were plenty of other similar technologies that came in to take its place that they can't get rid of, so is it even possible to suppress this -- what seems to be innate urge to copy?
RICK KARR: I don't know that it's possible to suppress it. I'm-- I think that it's possible to minimize the degree to which it goes on. There are an awful lot of people in the digital music field who will say look, most people don't steal cable TV now. Why don't they steal cable? Because, except in New York City anyway, the prices are fairly reasonable, and it feels like it's free. You turn it on, and it's there. These people encourage the music industry to kind of take the same look at music -- look, create services that feel like they're free that don't over-charge people and you know what - people won't have the incentive to copy any more -- they'll be able to get what they want.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Actually Hollywood did have the same fears about the VCR when it was invented, and the response wasn't to prohibit VCRs or to impose federal technology mandates on them. Eventually Hollywood figured out a way to make money from the new technology by adjusting their business model. Isn't that what they should be doing now?
RICK KARR: They have a business model that works more or less for them right now, and everybody is afraid of change. Nobody wants to see their entire business model destroyed overnight by a new technology. Having said that, you're right; Jack Valenti did say to Congress back during hearings about the video cassette recorder that it is to the American movie industry what the Boston Strangler is to a woman alone. [LAUGHTER] And of course I think last year was the first year in which videotape and DVD rentals actually generated more revenue for Hollywood than box office receipts did.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Well now it appears we have one of the first freelance efforts not mandated by law to protect the copying of music, and it's the new, incredibly well-selling Celine Dion release. This is the first time Sony Music has admitted to using copyright protection software. How does that work?
RICK KARR: I'm really glad that your producers didn't force me to listen to the record before we did this. [LAUGHTER] The way it works--
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Wait a second--
CELINE DION: [SINGING] HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE--
RICK KARR: The, the way it works is that a home CD player is basically designed to play a messed-up CD -you know say you toss it in the back seat of your car; you bring it home; you stick it in the home CD player - it's designed to play a schmutsy CD -- one that's scratched up - one that has errors in it.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Because if they were too persnickety, they wouldn't be able to play anything.
RICK KARR:Exactly. The second that you got one scratch on your CD, it just wouldn't work any more. So the home CD players are fairly robust. Computer CD players are designed to read computer programs as much as they're designed to read audio, so they are more prone to being put off track by these deliberate errors that are introduced. So the idea is you can take the CD, put it in your home CD player -- you can listen to it just fine. You can make a cassette tape of it just fine. But the second that you put it into your computer and try to make a bit for bit copy of it on to your hard drive, the CD drawer in the computer says - uh--uh-- there's something wrong with this - I can't play this. So you can't make the copy. Now some computers are more robust and can play it. So it's inconsistent. Now the interesting thing is that the record companies tried to all get together -- they tried to form this thing called the Secure Digital Music Initiative so that they would all use the same technology. They failed miserably at this. They couldn't get off page one, and finally the whole initiative was just taken apart last year and the record companies have said we're going to go it alone. The motion picture and television industries learned from that experience, and they realize that without a little bit of help from Washington they were never going to get the technologists to get off page one. So the sort of conventional wisdom on Fritz Hollings's [sic] bill is that it's not so much something that Hollywood and the record companies want to see part of law. It's a way of forcing the technologists to negotiate with them to come up with a standard, and in fact last week and early this week News Corporation and Disney released statements saying that they were happy to see that the computer industry and the consumer electronics industry were finally sitting down with them to come up with ways to deal with the two most pressing problems they face. Now that the technologists are actually sitting down and talking with them, they may not need to push quite as hard for Fritz Hollings' bill.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Yeah, but without the bill this marriage can't last.
RICK KARR:Well, you know, and that's something that a lot of people in the technology community say, and in fact if you look at the big motion picture studios and record companies you realize that a lot of these companies have hedged their bets -- they've laid money on both sides of the table. Sony, for instance, makes DVD players, makes movies. AOL/Time Warner builds the date pipe into your home; makes movies and records. Disney to some extent is that way, so everybody's kind of trying to hedge their bets, cause nobody knows how this is going to work out.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well thanks a lot, Rick.
RICK KARR: You're quite welcome Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: NPR cultural correspondent Rick Karr.
Why Adults Hate Kids TV
April 13, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: Children's television has long been a big, fat target. Consider Eddie Murphy's sendup of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood on Saturday Night Live and more recently the Simpsons' cigar-chomping Krusty the Clown character, and his cohort Sideshow Bob, now serving time in Springfield Penitentiary for assorted crimes too despicable to list here. Currently on Fox TV's Greg the Bunny, furry puppets behave in shocking ways, and the big screen satire Death to Smoochy offers a sinister look behind the scenes of kiddie shows full of drug-abusing has-beens, thugs, degenerates and psychopaths. Smoochy got Aaron Gell to wondering exactly why adults so loathe what their children love.
AARON GELL: As the parent of a four year old, Sophie, who is like most of her peers a fanatical viewer of children's television, I'll admit to feeling a twinge of perverse pleasure at the sight of the dead Barney-stand in on Death to Smoochy's subway advertising. Of course I didn't dare admit that to my daughter. [SING-SONG] Turn off the radio, honey. In the film, Robin Williams plays a dissolute children's show host who loses his time slot to Smoochy the Rhino.
ROBIN WILLIAMS AS SHOW HOST: [CREEPY VOICE] But it's the Rhino, Angie. The devil sent him from hell to destroy me. [WHISPERING] Smoochy is the Face of Evil.
AARON GELL: In addition to some really scathing reviews, the film has brought protests and the threat of a lawsuit from the makers of a Canadian kiddie show called Ricky's Room which also happens to star a costumed rhinoceros. So exactly how accurate is Death to Smoochy? I asked an expert.
MAN: I can draw a parallel from almost all those scenes down to what it's like to really [LAUGHS] be on a kid's TV show. So some of it was, was right on the money.
AARON GELL: Don't recognize the voice? Maybe you'd like--
CHILDREN: [CALLING OUT EXCITEDLY] A clue! A clue!!
AARON GELL: My inside source is none other than Steve Burns who since 1996 has been one of the most popular children's entertainers on the planet as the adorably boyish star of Nickelodeon's highly-rated series Blues Clues. On April 29th in the kid-vid equivalent of Johnny Carson's historic farewell, Burns will head off to college -- or so the world's children will be told. Actually he's recorded a CD and hopes to reinvent himself as an indie-rock singer/ songwriter.
CHILD: I have a question. [SOUND OF AIR BUBBLES IN WATER] If you're going away to college, who's going to live here with us?
STEVE BURNS AS NICKELODEON STAR: That is a good question. [GENTLE BARKING]
AARON GELL: The answer is Donovan Patton, a young actor who will be introduced during a 3-part special that's been carefully designed to offer children the most painless transition possible. Given this concern for young viewers, perhaps it's no surprise that Steve Burns does not number himself among the fans of Death to Smoochy.
STEVE BURNS: The movie was kind of one big joke, and they just kept playing that joke over and over again, so you see the kid's show host who as soon as the camera goes off [TALKING IN CREEPY VOICE] he talks like this -- all of a sudden he's got a different voice, you know, and--and then you see the mandatory creepy strung-out, retired kid's show host who is on heroin.
AARON GELL: Clearly there's something about the tireless good cheer of kid's TV that we just don't trust.
BARNEY THE DINOSAUR: [SINGING] I HAVE A BREAD, AND IT'S CALLED PUMPERNICKEL, YUM YUM PUMPERNICKEL, PUMPERNICKEL BREAD. HEY!
AARON GELL: Children's superstar Barney has come in for particular venom. The internet abounds with Barney-hating sites, and beating up on the purple dinosaur has become a sort of national pastime, something the San Diego Chicken, the Padres' mascot, proved when he made the pummeling of a Barney-lookalike a centerpiece of his ball game routine. Blues Clues Steve Burns.
STEVE BURNS: I understand it. I more than understand it, and can appreciate how something that is that repetitive and something that is that sing-song and overly saccharine is annoying to an adult sensibility, but think the reaction is completely out of proportion for the sin!
AARON GELL: So what's it all about? Why all this adult hostility towards shows that are plainly meant for toddlers.
DOROTHY SINGER: The message on the Barney Show is like a hundred percent kindness, sweetness and social caring, and I think that for some parents and adults this is almost too much to handle; it may make them feel guilty that they're not offering that much love and attention as Barney is willing to give.
AARON GELL: Dorothy Singer is a developmental psychologist. In her role as co-director of Yale University's Family Television Research Center, she's watched every single episode of Barney.
DOROTHY SINGER: Many people have this notion that young children need to be exposed to some of the cruel realities of the world or they're going to suffer later on when they enter school, and I don't agree with that at all.
AARON GELL: Blues Clues' Steve Burns.
STEVE BURNS: The truth is, is that life is hard and sometimes it's sad and it can be pretty disappointing. Now we wouldn't ever want to convey that to our children via a television show, obviously. But there are people who seem to be very angry when a children's television show aggressively presents this kind of high fructose, saccharine view of a utopian world that adults cynically can't accept any more.
AARON GELL: The new sit-com, Greg the Bunny features a menagerie of puppets including an alcoholic ape who are every bit as troubled as their human counterparts.
GREG THE BUNNY: Hi, Mr. Bender. My name is Greg the-- Oh, my God!! Professor Ape!!! [LAUGHS]
PROFESSOR APE/WARREN de MONTAGUE: Yes, actually the name's Warren de Montague. 'Kay? Real guy standing here. Not TV-time.
GREG THE BUNNY: Sorry, it's just that - I mean I, I love you! [LAUGHS] I've seen everything you've ever done!! Godspell. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat--
PROFESSOR APE/WARREN de MONTAGUE: Yes, well you know if it was lame and about Jesus [AHEMS] -- I was there.
AARON GELL: Greg the Bunny co-creator and star Dan Milano.
DAN MILANO: The only other thing you, you'd have that was comparable to it would be a religious icon of some kind -- something that the masses generally put on a pedestal and see as something good and decent and pure, and the biggest punk impulse is to just tear that down.
AARON GELL: No doubt my daughter Sophie has a few years to go before giving in to that particular impulse. But she will, and it is precisely because of that inevitability that I'm grateful to children's television for providing so many ripe targets. Better she tear down Barney than tear down dad. For On the Media I'm Aaron Gell.
Speedy Gonzalez
April 13, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: People who follow children's television closely may have noticed that Ted Turner's Cartoon Network has stopped broadcasting the old Warner Bros. Speedy Gonzales cartoons. When asked about the absence of the "Fastest Mouse in all [SPANISH PRONUNCIATION] Mexico" from their air waves, Cartoon Network officials admitted that Speedy was no longer part of their lineup, partly because he wasn't very popular, but mostly because of the cartoons' offensive portrayal of Mexicans. This triggered a variety of exasperated protest from Latino groups in the United States who claim that Speedy's cartoons offer positive and heroic images of Mexicans in U.S. culture. Adrian Villegas is an Austin-based comic whose one man show is called Six Mexicans Named Gonzalez and he joins us now to talk about his personal take on Speedy. So Adrian what is your personal take on Speedy?
ADRIAN VILLEGAS: Well I didn't give much thought to what Speedy meant culturally, really, until I started writing the show Six Mexicans named Gonzalez. I discovered that there weren't many--positive or heroic images of Latinos and Mexican-Americans in particular throughout the last, you know, 50, 60 years of, of popular entertainment -- except for Speedy [LAUGHS] Gonzales. Unfortunately I don't know if much has changed [LAUGHS] since the time the original cartoons were produced, so everybody I talk to that's Latino has a-- I mean has a special place, [LAUGHS] you know when I ask them about Speedy Gonzales, nobody dislikes Speedy Gonzales.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But I mean come on -- is Speedy Gonzales occasionally racist? I mean the cohorts were not a particularly impressive group of mice.
ADRIAN VILLEGAS: I don't see anything as necessarily black and white, but I think the bigger presence of, of the character and what he represents I think overwhelms-- the concerns for, for the supporting characters which are, are not always in the cartoons and-- I think it's somewhat negligible. That's my opinion.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well we know what Speedy sounds like -- he sounds like this:
SPEEDY GONZALES:[FAST-TALKING CARTOON VOICE] Arriba, arriba, ayeehah! [...?...] Ole, ole, ole [...?...]!!! Hello, pussycat. You looking for a nice, fat mouse for dinner?
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But when you do him in your act, you know, you do Speedy Gonzales when he's out of character--
ADRIAN VILLEGAS: Right. [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: -- and, and how that Speedy sound?
ADRIAN VILLEGAS: I know what part of the-- I'll give you the part of the monologue that actually addresses that.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Mm-hm?
ADRIAN VILLEGAS:[SPEEDY GONZALES-ACTOR'S VOICE] Recognize me? Ahhh! I think you do, amigo! That's right. Soy yo! Soy Speedy Gonzales! Ah! Why do you look so surprised? Ah, it's the voice, isn't it. Yes, that throws quite a lot of people I'm afraid. But you didn't really think I talk like in the cartoons, did you? Oh, no, no, no. I do not talk like that! -- any more. [LAUGHTER] Make no mistake. What you are hearing is the voice of a veteran mouse thespian with years of training in the classical arts of [SPANISH PRONUNCIATION] elocution! Y Projection! And 3 semesters worth of English as a Second Language.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS] Now you never play Speedy doing his cartoon-speedy accent, right?
ADRIAN VILLEGAS:No. You know. In the rest of the monologue he begins to explain his humble beginnings and, and basically that character that he played in the cartoons was just that -- a character. Like he goes: [AS SPEEDY'S ACTOR] You see, previously I had been offered nothing but the typical degrading Mexican stereotype type roles, you know. The sniveling and cowardly farm mouse, or the evil switchblade-carrying sewer rat. [LAUGHTER] But when I read this script I said ahhhh! Now here's something fresh! Something new!! A mexican character con power, corazon y fuego!! A lone mouse, [LAUGHTER] a proverbial every-Mexican, if you will, a defender of the weak who is constantly battling the injustices of la systema, embodied in the character of the evil "gringo" gatto, and who, against all odds always ends up triumphant in the final frame -- a character who is brash, fearless and crafty --a fighter! -- and a lover. [LAUGHTER] In short, a character who was all the things that I already was. [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHS] I kind of projected a lot of-- a lot of cultural responsibility on to-- his - the fictionalization you know, of, of his alter--of his real character, alter ego, whatever, you know.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:And part of what you're saying is right now there aren't a lot of-- positive Latino images out there and he may be animated but he's still the best there is.
ADRIAN VILLEGAS: [LAUGHS] I never thought I'd be having this deep of a conversation [LAUGHS] about Speedy Gonzales. It, it, it's amazing, but the most popular Latino character in the history of popular culture is Speedy Gonzales. You know, he's, he's-- always messing with this "gringo" gatto; he's-- always talking so much trash --and yet he still lives [LAUGHS] from episode to episode, so in that sense he's practically a subversive revolutionary, you know. Granted, yes, he is a cartoon character but--you know - we'll take whatever [LAUGHS] we can get.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Okay. Thanks very much.
ADRIAN VILLEGAS: Thank you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Adrian Villegas is an Austin-based comic who's one man show is called Six Mexicans Named Gonzalez. [THEME MUSIC]
BOB GARFIELD:That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price and Katya Rogers with Sean Landis and Michael Kavanagh; engineered by George Edwards and Dylan Keefe, and edited-- by Brooke. We had help from Jim Colgan and Lu Olkowski. Our web master is Amy Pearl.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Mike Pesca is our producer at large, Arun Rath our senior producer and Dean Capello our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. This is On the Media from National Public Radio. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield.
SPEEDY GONZALES: I go take my siesta now. [MUSIC TAG]
- Back to story:
- April 13, 2002
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