Iraqi Dissident Spin
August 30, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. This week in Washington the State Department assembled 17 Iraqi dissidents from North America and Europe to train them to use the media to more effectively spread their message against Saddam Hussein. As Undersecretary of State Donald Feith said recently on a U.S.-funded Arab language radio station, "The question has been, in the absence of military action, what can we do? So ratcheting up the rhetoric is the kind of thing we can do now. We can stir the pot and see what happens. It could push someone over the edge to act." One of those prospective pot-stirrers is Muhanned Eshaiker, an architect from Irvine, California who serves on the board of the Iraqi Forum for Democracy. We called him in the midst of the training to find out how it was going.
MUHANNED ESHAIKER: Well it's actually a workshop where we had Iraqis worldwide who have been separated by geography to meet together in one spot. I knew most of the men and women who showed up, and, and they knew me, and, and we just had, you know, very fruitful discussions on how to formulate a, a strategy for the media and we also were, were given the benefits of experts in the field of media.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:What have they shown you about dealing with the media that you didn't already know? You know are there any sort of tricks of the trade?
MUHANNED ESHAIKER: Yeah, well there, there's stuff like - let's just take one example I just got to my mind is that when you're in front of the camera, that's an opportunity to talk to millions of people around the world, so just don't waste that opportunity. Don't waste that opportunity with questions back and forth that where you're beating around the issue - just go straight to the issue.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Is there anything that the activists found that they were doing wrong according to the experts and that needed a major re-thinking.
MUHANNED ESHAIKER: Yes, I think the Iraqis in exile were not really taking advantage of the media opportunities. We, we -- because we're not very well organized, that's why when the opportunity arises, instead of taking the story straight to the media and go on CNN or ABC or wherever, BBC -- we probably stumble or wait and say well, I mean what's the use -everybody knows he's a criminal, so what's the use if we just add another story over or another crime? But everything counts! You know, the-- if we keep hammering on the same nail, the nail is going to find its way through.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What is your role in the meeting? Why do you think you were called in?
MUHANNED ESHAIKER:Well because I'm active in California, and I've been active for the last 10 years and I've knocked the doors of the State Department and the Congress and-- and other officials. So-- that's why I was picked and not somebody else.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What about your organization -- the Iraqi Forum for Democracy? Does it have a real constituency?
MUHANNED ESHAIKER: Yeah, we have members. Our membership is below 200 worldwide.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: 200. Doesn't really make for much of a movement. Do you think that you can actually have an impact?
MUHANNED ESHAIKER:Well it's not really a movement. It's really a-- collection of intellectuals who could make a difference. It's not a mass movement to change the regime.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:You know that our president is gearing up for a war on Iraq. Do you worry that you might be being used by the administration to muster up support for that war?
MUHANNED ESHAIKER: That's not the case! The, the case is -- we had the floor; nobody interfered in our agenda. We set the agenda for ourselves during these 3 or 4 days of meeting and-- and we're carrying through!
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Thanks very much.
MUHANNED ESHAIKER: Thank you, Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Muhannad Eshaiker is a member of the board of the Iraqi Forum for Democracy and an architect in Irvine, California.
BOB GARFIELD:Hussein Ibish is the communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee which opposes a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Mr. Ibish, welcome to OTM.
HUSSEIN IBISH: Delighted to be with you.
BOB GARFIELD: So the administration is seeing to it that various representatives of the American Iraqi community fan out to spread their message about Saddam Hussein. Tell me why that doesn't make perfect sense.
HUSSEIN IBISH: Well actually it does make perfect sense. It makes perfect sense in that one of the tactics that we usually see, you know, in trying to provide a justification for a war is to present, you know, a compelling case that it's actually in the interest of the country that's going to be attacked that that happens, and you, you know it's, it's quite standard. I don't think it's surprising that the administration would try to train and recruit Iraqi opposition figures or people close to the administration here from the Iraqi-American community to go out and play that role, which until now they really haven't been doing an effective job of. The point is that groups like that don't have a presence or a constituency in Iraq, and that's what matters, you see. The, the point is that there is the actual opposition groups in Iraq - people with men under arms with a constituency with a presence in the country, and those are 3 groups - 2 Kurdish groups in northern Iraq and the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq. And the 4th group are these former army officers, the defectors and retirees, who mostly live in, in various different European countries. But I think these quasi-official groups like the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi Foundation for Democracy and others, you know, the, the point of view that they have really is, is linked to domestic politics here and not anything that will - that either is happening or will happen in Iraq.
BOB GARFIELD:We just heard from Mohanned Eshaiker who works for the Iraqi Forum for Democracy. Why should we doubt his credentials as a legitimate opposition figure?
HUSSEIN IBISH: Well I don't think you should doubt his credentials as someone who may well represent the point of view of a decent number of Iraqi Americans. I mean he probably does.
BOB GARFIELD: Does it really matter if the people who will be fronting for the administration represent a, a large constituency? Does-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
HUSSEIN IBISH: No, I don't think [...?...]. [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
BOB GARFIELD: -- Isn't the only thing that matters whether they can mount a persuasive argument? [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
HUSSEIN IBISH:Yes. I think that's right. I, I think -- I mean in terms of affecting American public opinion, yes. But it does matter ultimately in terms of the way the war is conducted, and there's going to be a problem, because you know if you put forward a bunch of people as the Iraqi opposition now, and then you get rid of Saddam Hussein and then those people vanish because they're of no use, you know, when it comes to actually setting up a new credible, functional, viable government in Iraq, you know, and suddenly you bring forward some bunch of retired generals or some other group of people nobody has either heard of or that have a very dubious background, you know it, it, it does lead I think ultimately to damage to credibility as long as people have any memory. I think the only thing is that, that in a s--in a situation like that is you could maybe try to count on the fact that many people are perfect post-modern subjects with no historical memory, and they won't even remember, you know, or tell the difference between one group of Iraqis and another.
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] Well I, I'm pretty confident that that's the-- the situation. I-- [...?...]-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
HUSSEIN IBISH:Well yeah! I mean I am too, so it in fact doesn't matter. And you know it, it wouldn't really necessarily even matter if you hired some bunch of-- people from Morocco and dressed them up and pretended, [LAUGHS] you know, and, and made believe they were Iraqis and you know as long as you know you could get away with that, that would probably do the trick too!
BOB GARFIELD:So once again, putting aside your absolute opposition to a U.S. invasion of Iraq, as a communications director and a professional opinion-molder-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
HUSSEIN IBISH: Yeah. Yeah.
BOB GARFIELD: -- not a bad move, huh?
HUSSEIN IBISH: No, it's, it's not a bad move depending on the-- on the competence of the people involved. But as -- in theory it's, it's a good move.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. Hussein Ibish, thank you very much.
HUSSEIN IBISH: Pleasure.
BOB GARFIELD: Hussein Ibish is communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. [MUSIC] Letters
August 30, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And now for a few of your letters. Gavin Cummins of Seattle wrote in to thank us for our interview with a sheriff who reportedly tossed a mom in jail because her kids were sunburned. He writes: "Sunburn and heat stroke are not the same thing, and if the story had been reported as a story instead of as a sound bite, I think the population would have felt differently. There is a growing mistrust of all law enforcement (ironically inflamed by the media and indeed your program). It was a relief to hear that at least one story of an irrational and over-reacting policeman was instead a good man doing his job. Thank you again. No matter how much you may botch a story (as many listeners like to point out) I will always be a passionate listener."
BOB GARFIELD:Uh-- You're welcome? And here's one of those listeners now. Dr. Jeff Orstadt, a neurologist from Napa, California had this to say about our interview with Russ Kick on under-reported stories. "I don't see how Russ Kick can be considered a credible investigative reporter, and I'm surprised he was not taken to task more vigorously on the air. For example, his claim that two American universities have completed research showing that 10 percent of Alzheimer's disease victims actually die from a human form of mad cow disease is either a complete fabrication or an incredibly misguided interpretation of the medical literature. The human form of the disease has been monitored in this country by the Centers for Disease Control since 1990 and to date no cases have been confirmed in the United States."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:And we have this from Vincent Paterno on our interview with George Will on bias in the coverage of the baseball labor negotiations. "As usual, George Will was being his disingenuous self when discussing the media and a possible baseball strike. Not only did he serve on baseball's blue-ribbon panel, but he's also on the boards of the San Diego Padres and Baltimore Orioles. It must be the latter post that explains why, over the years, he has hypocritically been such a strident opponent of the return of major league baseball to Washington, DC, the city he now calls home."
BOB GARFIELD:And this from Laura Miner of New York City. "I am a devoted listener but I was alarmed by your interview with Gerard Jones about kids and violence on TV. This is no laughing matter. If anyone thinks their kids need some violence in order to relax, get them a jack in the box; play them a tape of Haydn's Surprise Symphony; or play tag or hide and go seek. But none of that hyperactive or psychotic TV violence, please, unless you are raising future soldiers that need de-sensitizing."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:And from Herb Engle of Edison, New York we have a suggestion. He writes: "On September 5, 2002, will be the 30th anniversary of the murder of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian terrorists. You the media should examine the current coverage of the terrorist attacks to see if they are repeating the mistakes of 1972 by placing more emphasis on the terrorists' message than on the barbarity of their violence against innocents."
BOB GARFIELD:We thought this would be a good time to reflect on the legacy of the Munich Massacre. That's coming up later in the show. Thanks for your letters. Keep them coming to onthemedia@wnyc.org and don't forget to tell us where you live and how to pronounce your name. [MUSIC]
Indian Film Censored
August 30, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: We're back with On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. India's film industry is known mainly for its lavish, kitschy action-romance musicals which are subject to the often tender sensibilities of the censors. The Central Film Board of Certification is notoriously squeamish about sexual explicitness, graphic violence and cultural defamation. What frequently slips in beneath the radar, however, are serious documentaries which seldom are seen outside of film festivals. Now, though, the Indian censors have screened one such documentary -- an award-winning one titled War and Peace from director Anand Patwardhan -- and are demanding drastic cuts, 21 in all. But the film board isn't targeting sex scenes. It is offended by the film's anti-nationalism theme and seeks to denude the film of politically-charged material. Anand Patwardhan joins us now. Mr. Patwardhan, welcome to On the Media.
ANAND PATWARDHAN: Yeah, thanks.
BOB GARFIELD: Tell me please first about the censoring board. Generally speaking what is its role?
ANAND PATWARDHAN: The film censor board is a body which every filmmaker has to submit their films to before it can be released to the public. The problem really is that the censor board these days is completely infiltrated by the Hindu right wing party.
BOB GARFIELD: Now are you talking about the ruling BJP Party or are you talking about the-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
ANAND PATWARDHAN:I'm talking about the ruling BJP -- people of their orientation fill the censor board. The irony is that this film won the Best Film Award at the Bombay Documentary Film Festival which was held in February this year, and that festival is organized by the Government of India, by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.
BOB GARFIELD: So the left hand of the government was giving you a trophy while the right hand was giving you a list of mandatory cuts.
ANAND PATWARDHAN: That's right.
BOB GARFIELD:Okay, now let's talk about the cuts themselves. I'm going to assume that these were not issues of, of kissing. They are strictly political in nature.
ANAND PATWARDHAN: Yeah, they are totally political in nature, and the very first cut gives you the clue about what the cuts are all about. The very first cut is that I must delete the sequence in which Mahatma Gandhi was shot by a Hindu fanatic.
BOB GARFIELD:Let's listen to that part of your film now. This scene consists of your narration over newsreel footage of Mahatma Gandhi's funeral. [SOUNDTRACK PLAYS]
MAN: Gandhigi was assassinated two years before I was born. The child in me never stopped asking who could have done this? That our family, like Nathuram Godse and his co-assassins, were upper-caste Hindus cured me forever of any narrow understanding of nation and any vestige of pride in the accident of birth. As the country convulsed in grief, Hindu nationalist organizations like the RSS were banned.
ANAND PATWARDHAN: After Mahatma Gandhi's assassination in 1948, the Hindu right wing RSS Party was outlawed, and today the RSS is very much a part of the -- it's the backbone of the ruling party, and obviously this cut is to re-write the history. They don't want people to be reminded of this historical event.
BOB GARFIELD:Of the 21 cuts that have been demanded, they were demanded according to the guidelines that the censor board ostensibly follows, but your argument is that the supposed violations are not violations at all.
ANAND PATWARDHAN: Yeah, that's right. The irony is that the kind of ideologies that we see represented on the censor board are perhaps the, the very ideologies that the censor guidelines were first devised to try and curtail. I mean if you're talking about hate speech and stuff like that, the, the right wing parties are doing it both -- on both sides -- not just the Hindu right wing; the, the other fundamentalist groups also do it. But what my film is trying to do is to build harmony between people of different religions and even between India and Pakistan.
BOB GARFIELD: Is this unprecedented for the government through the censor board to try to suppress political commentary?
ANAND PATWARDHAN:No, it's not unprecedented in the sense that I have faced similar problems with some of my films in the past with different governments, but I think that the, the ferocity with which this is being pursued now and the number of cuts that they've asked for and-- and the way they are doing it right now is unique. I mean it is something new.
BOB GARFIELD: So India is the world's most populous democracy, and it has enjoyed a tradition of press freedom for example. Why in the world would the government use a fairly obscure documentary film to choose for suppression?
ANAND PATWARDHAN: Well I think the government these days is going through a very insecure phase. They've lost elections in a few states. There was the horrific violence that took place in Gujarat which has made the government squirm all over the country and all over the world. They, they have to answer for what happened in Gujarat where hundreds of Muslims were massacred. So I think the government is, is right now very intolerant of any kind of criticism.
BOB GARFIELD: What's going to happen -- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
ANAND PATWARDHAN: With the film?
BOB GARFIELD: -- with War and Peace? [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
ANAND PATWARDHAN:Funnily enough, the fact that they're suppressing the film has made the film talked about all over the country and now as you are doing in, in other parts of the world. So I think that it's been completely counter-productive for the government to do this. So I'm not comp-- I'm not completely unhappy at the way things are going. In fact I think some of the very issues that I wanted to raise by showing the film are being raised by the, the act of suppression.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. Anand Patwardhan, thank you very much.
ANAND PATWARDHAN: Okay. Thanks.
BOB GARFIELD: Anand Patwardhan is a social activist and film director most recently of War and Peace. He spoke to us from his home in Bombay. [MUSIC] Movie Novelization
August 30, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: Movies are often based on novels, but often enough novels are based on movies, and every so often a movie based on a novel gets turned right back into a novel. Take this summer's Road to Perdition. Max Allan Collins wrote the graphic novel or adult comic book that inspired the Tom Hanks/Paul Newman gangster flick but Collins also penned the paperback spin-off of the movie's screenplay. He's done the same for many other films ranging from Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan to The Rock's Scorpion King. Max Allan Collins joins us now. Max, welcome to OTM.
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: Great to be here.
BOB GARFIELD: I want to talk to you about novelizations but first let me ask you a question or two about Road to Perdition. So many novelists over the years feel betrayed by Hollywood for having destroyed their art in the film versions of whatever the story is. As a graphic artist, were you happy with its realization in film?
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: I think David Self, the screenwriter, did an excellent job and of course Sam Mendes is a brilliant director. I know I'm supposed to not like it, but I [LAUGHS] -- I just really love this movie.
BOB GARFIELD: Now what about writing the novel out-of-the-film-itself out-of-your-graphic-novel? Has that been a bizarre experience?
MAX ALLAN COLLINS:It actually was a bit bizarre. In the past, I had been given rather more latitude than I was given this time, surprisingly, since I was the creator of the material, and, and I was somewhat restricted in having to stick only to the script and not being able to flesh it out as much as I would have liked. Very frustrating. And it varies from studio to studio, project to project. Sometimes I'm given quite a bit of latitude. I was approached, for example, by the people behind the movie Windtalkers, and they came to me knowing my background as an historical novelist and asked me if I would bring to bear my research and put a lot of the detail in that could not be included in the movie. And that enriched that book and made it more like a real book.
BOB GARFIELD:Let's talk about novelizations for a moment. Without trying to sound too elitist about it, although I know I'm going to fail, it doesn't strike me as an excessively literary genre. Do you think of yourself as a novelist or as a novelizationist?
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: I absolutely think of myself as a novelist. My approach has always been to write a book that would seem to be the novel that the movie was based on. Frankly, a good deal of the audience is confused. They don't really understand [LAUGHS] that the book came from the script. I frankly play into that confusion and I try to give them a real novel. If the writer views himself as nothing more than the-- literary equivalent of the action figure or the lunchbox, you're just going to have a, a hack piece of work.
BOB GARFIELD:As a serious novelist, taking a pulp script like The Scorpion King and trying to turn it into a novel, clearly that creates challenges. [SOUNDTRACK FROM THE SCORPION KING PLAYS]
WOMAN: You've been betrayed Mathayus.
MAN: You know my name?
WOMAN: And why you're here. [MUSIC PRESAGES A VIOLENT MOMENT] Ugh!
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: The challenge is to find a way into the material that can be rewarding for me so that I can take it seriously enough to deliver a good book.
BOB GARFIELD: So when you got the Scorpion King script on your desk and you said dear God what am I to make of this?
MAX ALLAN COLLINS:First of all I looked at it and said what are they trying to accomplish, and it was clear that they were trying to do something along the lines of Conan, the Barbarian or Tarzan. I loved those kind of books when I was 11, 12, 13 years old, so I basically said all right -I'm going to write an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel! I did the same thing with Maverick which was a show I had loved as a kid, and I thought the script was just okay. But I tried to invest it with all of my enthusiasm for this childhood favorite of mine.
BOB GARFIELD: You haven't done any other graphic novels that turned into Hollywood films?
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: No. This is a first for me. Another graphic novel of mine has been optioned, and I actually wrote that screenplay.
BOB GARFIELD: Are you going to try to do the novelization as well and hit the trifecta?
MAX ALLAN COLLINS:If that one happens, which is a thing called Johnny Dynamite [LAUGHS] -- absolutely - I--that was in the contract. But, again, I think the most important thing about these -- and there's maybe nothing important about novelizations when you really get down to it, but the justification for their existence is if the novelist does get inside the story and give the reader a new way to perceive this. Because if you just replicate the screenplay, you're just sort of a VHS cassette or DVD-on-paper.
BOB GARFIELD:It has a sort of Rashomon quality to it -- the same story seen through 3 different viewpoints. It just so happens the 3 viewpoints belong to the same author. Well let me thank the 3 of you--
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: [LAUGHS]! Bob, I hope we haven't ganged up on you too bad here.
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] No, not at all. Max Collins is a graphic novelist. Max Collins is a screenwriter. And Max Collins is a novelization novelist, most recently of Road to Perdition.
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: Well let's not forget Max Allan Collins the detective novelist who's got a book out called Chicago Confidential right now.
BOB GARFIELD: Okay. Him too. [MUSIC] Mudflap Soundtrack
August 30, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: As radio format changes continue to elbow country music out of the way, a resurgence of interest in truckers songs has emerged in the most unlikely of places -- Brooklyn, New York. Once the exclusive province of late night radio and truck stop juke boxes, a new anthology CD and a growing interest among a younger audience may just change all that. OTM's Rex Doane reports. [TRUCKER SONG UP AND UNDER]
REX DOANE: Billed as the "Rig-Rocker," Jeremy Tepper spends Monday evenings here at Union Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn spinning vintage trucker tunes to a barful of trendy 20-somethings. Tepper is the owner and operator of Diesel Only Records. He is also the man behind the CD collection titled Truck Driver's Boogie, recently released by the Country Music Hall of Fame. Though trucking songs have been around for over 60 years, Tepper sees a strong sense of continuity in this under-appreciated sub-genre of American music.
JEREMY TEPPER: There's been a real continuum from the earliest days to, you know, contemporary truck driver songs. Drivers are still drinking coffee. Drivers still need to stop at truck stops to eat, to refuel, to make small talk, to socialize with other drivers and waitresses -- and many of those themes are present in the very first truck driving hit which was Cliff Bruner's Truck Driver's Blues in 1939. [SONG TRUCK DRIVER'S BLUES PLAYS]
CLIFF BRUNER: [SINGING] FEELING TIRED AND WEARY FROM MY HEAD DOWN TO MY SHOES FEELING TIRED AND WEARY FROM MY HEAD DOWN TO MY SHOES GOT A LOW DOWN FEELING TRUCK DRIVER'S BLUES....
REX DOANE: It was the growth of the interstate highway system in the 1950s along with the subsequent rise of the trucking industry that helped pave the way for the golden age of big rig hits in the 1970s. [SONG SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD PLAYS]
DAVE DUDLEY: [SINGING] WELL I PULLED OUT OF PITTSBURGH A ROLLIN' DOWN THAT EASTERN SEABOARD I GOT MY DIESEL WOUND UP AND SHE'S A RUNNIN' LIKE A-NEVER BEFORE THERE'S A SPEED ZONE AHEAD; WELL ALL RIGHT I DON'T SEE A COP IN SIGHT SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD AND I'M A-GONNA MAKE IT HOME TONIGHT.
JEREMY TEPPER: The big bang in truck driving musicals, Six Days on the Road by Dave Dudley which came out in the fall of 1963 peaked at number two on the country charts and crossed over to the pop charts, and the enormous popularity of that song triggered an avalanche of truck driving songs.
REX DOANE: Anxious to hitch a ride on the trucking craze, Capitol Records approached Merle Haggard to do a full album of trucker songs. When Haggard passed, Red Simpson stepped in. It was a move that would define his career.
RED SIMPSON: Just got, got into the trucking thing by accident there. But that puts you in that one category, you know; but they know who you are -- you know, Red Simpson? Oh, yeah - he does all them truck driving songs, yeah. [SONG I'M A TRUCK PLAYS]
RED SIMPSON: [TALK-SINGING] HELLO? I'M A TRUCK. YOU'VE HEARD SONGS ABOUT TRUCK DRIVERS MANY TIMES THEIR STORY'S TOLD HOW THEY PULLED OUT OF PITTSBURGH FOR SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD....
JEREMY TEPPER: Red Simpson's really not known for anything other than truck driving songs, so he's a individual who's completely associated with the truck-driving genre from his very first album, Roll, Truck, Roll to his big crossover single, I'm A Truck, in 1970. [SONG I'M A TRUCK PLAYS AGAIN]
RED SIMPSON: [WITH CHORUS SINGERS] THERE'D BE NO TRUCK DRIVERS IF IT WASN'T FOR US TRUCKS. NO DOUBLE-CLUTCHING, GEAR-JAMMING COFFEE-DRINKING NUTS....
REX DOANE: Few others are as qualified as Simpson to divulge the necessary ingredients needed to compose the classic trucker song.
RED SIMPSON: Oh, yeah. You gotta have waitresses and pinball machines and truck stops [LAUGHS]. Wouldn't be no truck drivers without them!
REX DOANE: [LAUGHS] And little white pills?
RED SIMPSON: I don't know much about that, but [LAUGHS]...
REX DOANE: It's little wonder that many of Red's fans still find it hard to believe that he never sat behind an 18-wheeler.
RED SIMPSON: Oh, yeah. I've had a lot of people tell me, you know -- you never drove a truck? Why do you sing-- truck driving songs? And I say well Roy Rogers shot a lot of people but he didn't really kill them. [LAUGHS] [SONG, CONVOY, PLAYS]
C. W. McCALL: [TALK-SINGING] ...LOOKS LIKE WE GOT US A CON-VOY....
REX DOANE: Bill Fries, a one-time advertising executive based in Omaha never drove a truck for a living either. But in 1976, recording under the name of C.W. McCall, Fries cut the biggest-selling trucker record of all time. [SONG COMES UP AGAIN]
C. W. McCALL: [TALK-SINGING] WE WAS HEADING FOR BEAR ON I-1-0 ABOUT A MILE OUT OF SHAKEY TOWN I SAYS BIG BEN, THIS HERE'S RUBBER DUCK AND I'M ABOUT TO PUT THE HAMMER ON DOWN.
CHORUS SINGERS: CAUSE WE GOT A LITTLE OLD CONVOY....
REX DOANE: The runaway crossover success of Convoy, and the inevitable C.B. craze that followed brought mainstream recognition like never before to truckers and their music. Hollywood churned out films like Smokey and the Bandit. Television countered with B. J. and the Bear. But fad status, as it always does, faded quickly. Twenty-five years later, trucker tunes occasionally dent the country charts, but only rarely. The trucking community itself has experienced great change as well. Again, Jeremy Tepper.
JEREMY TEPPER: Although the truck driving industry has continued to grow, the element that enjoys country music as a segment of the truck driving industry has become smaller, relatively speaking.
REX DOANE: Like most commercial radio, local trucker shows have long since given way to network talk. But for 30 years and counting Dave Nemo is keeping it rolling. [TRUCK DRIVER SONG PLAYS]
DAVE NEMO: [SINGING] YOU'VE ALWAYS GOT A GRAND ON YOUR RADIO DRIVING WITH DAVE NEMO DOWN THE ROAD. [HARMONICA]
DAVE NEMO: On a given night, over 5 hours, we'll play probably 20, 25 trucking songs. I would say it'll be roughly 40 percent of the music we play.
REX DOANE: Even with C.B.'s, CD's and cell phones to compete with, Nemo knows he is still needed.
DAVE NEMO: If a trucker calls me toward the end of the show and he says "Man, I'll tell you what --I, I-- don't think I could have made it if you hadn't have been on the, on the radio tonight." -- that, that really is the crux of what we do and, and, and that's the greatest compliment we can get.
REX DOANE: At the age of 67, Red Simpson continues to perform and is often reminded by old-time truckers what his music has meant to them on those long hauls.
RED SIMPSON: Passes a lot of time for the truck drivers I know. Lot of lonely hours, they say; but if you hadn't been there singing for us, we'd have-- it sure would have been a, a dull trip. [LAUGHS]
REX DOANE: And for those out there trying to "keep it in the ditches with the rubber side down" --that's a big 10-4. [TRUCK HORN] [SONG UP AND UNDER] For On the Media in New York, I'm Rex Doane.
RED SIMPSON: I'M A DOUBLE-CLUTCHING, STEEL-JUMPING, [MOM-LIKING], TAIL-GATING, COP-DODGING, LINE-CROSSING, COFFEE-DRINKING, PIN-BALLING, JACK-KNIFING, PART-TIMING, WINDJAMMING, LATE-RUNNING, GEAR-BUSTING SORT OF A FELLER! [TRUCK HORN]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Coming up, we consider the legacy of September 5th, 1972.
BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media from NPR. Black September
August 30, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: We're back with On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. As we approach the first anniversary of September 11th we thought we'd consider the 30th anniversary of another September when the Palestinian terrorist group called Black September raided the Olympic grounds in Munich, took hostages and eventually killed 11 Israeli athletes in a horrifying 23 hour drama.
NEWS ANNOUNCER:The scene in the Olympic Village today became the symbol of man's inhumanity to man as an organization called the Black September Movement, a Palestine guerilla organization, scaled the fences of the Olympic compound and with machine guns blazing entered the Israeli housing compound, killed two men, and are still holding hostages.
BOB GARFIELD:Pictures of the hooded gunmen were flashed all over the world. They became the masked face of Palestinian resistance -- the face of terror. It may be that September 5th, 1972 set the template for what happened last September.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Writing in an on-line publication, Al Anssar, an Al Qaeda activist called the Black September, quote, "the greatest media victory and the first true proclamation to the entire world the Palestinian resistance movement. The Munich operation was a great propaganda strike." And according to a translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute -- a group critical of many Arab movements -- the Al Qaeda columnist Abu 'Ubeid Al-Qurashi goes on to observe that, quote, "September 11th was an even greater propaganda coup. It may have been said to have broken a record in propaganda dissemination." Joining us now is Brigitte Nacos, Columbia University professor and author of Mass-Mediated Terrorism. Welcome to the show.
BRIGITTE NACOS: I'm happy to be here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So the 1972 Munich attack wasn't the first large-scale terrorist attack by the infamous Black September terrorist group but the coverage of Munich was unprecedented.
BRIGITTE NACOS: That's really true. Actually before 1972, there was a more spectacular attack when four airliners were simultaneously hijacked, and two of these original ones ended up in Jordan, and three days later a Palestinian group hijacked a British airliner and flew that one to Jordan. Now the media coverage was not all that great. Certainly it was extensively reported, but the print press was still leading. Two years later it was very different, because they struck at the Olympics where you had the television facilities built up for that special event. Independent experts have estimated that it was between 600 and 800 million globally, so that was a major, major coup for these few Palestinians.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And so you think that the publicity coup that the Olympics afforded was very much on the mind of the Black September terrorists?
BRIGITTE NACOS:Well at least according to one of them. Three of them survived. Five were killed. And one of them later on in prison said that they wanted, among other things, to stir up the world. And they were certainly successful in not only getting the attention globally, but I think for the first time many people around the globe learned about the Palestinian cause.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What impact did the Munich Massacre actually have on the image of Palestinians and the Palestinian cause?
BRIGITTE NACOS:I do not think the image was a positive one. But that really does not matter. The image of Bin Laden in the Western World is not a positive one, but they certainly gained very good image in the world that mattered to them -- that is, in the Middle East. Terrorists do not want to win the hearts of --certainly not of the people they target and even not those who look on in the international realm. They want the attention. And they want people to know what are their causes, what are their grievances. It is true, however, that media coverage is not an end in itself. It is basically a means to a, a larger end. In the case of the Munich Olympics, it was a relatively small end. They simply wanted fellow comrades out of prison.
NEWS CORRESPONDENT: From your vantage point, does it look as though the negotiations will resume or is it a deadlock?
MIKE WALLACE:Well actually the deadline was almost an hour and a half ago. There were three deadlines set -- one at one o'clock this afternoon Munich time; the second at 3; and then again at 5. And while the-- some of the police have moved forward, nothing else has happened.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:I understand that terrorists often postpone their deadlines for authorities to meet their demands till later and later in the afternoon knowing that each postponement increases their TV audiences. Is this a direct consequence of the publicity windfall that was Munich?
BRIGITTE NACOS: I'm not quite sure. I think that given the coverage of Munich where you had this hostage situation, I think that kind of enhanced the eagerness of terrorists to take hostages. Up to Munich basically when we talked about international terrorism we talked about hijackings and bombings as well. Afterwards, you know, you moved towards more hostage situations, and of course then when you had the Iranian hostage situation that fueled even more of those.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: As a media event, how does 9/11 compare to the Munich Massacre?
BRIGITTE NACOS:Well, 9/11 is even bigger. The media is reaching much further today than it did then. After 9/11, a lot of people got the information over the Internet. You didn't have in 1972 global or regional television networks. I believe one CNN manager said later on "Munich came 10 years too early." CNN, if it would have existed or similar organizations, the success would have been even greater.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Brigitte Nacos, thank you very much.
BRIGITTE NACOS: You're welcome.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Brigitte Nacos is a Columbia University professor and author of Mass-Mediated Terrorism. [MUSIC] Media Woes Overblown?
August 30, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: In a Wall Street Journal article last month, media consultant Michael Wolf made this observation. "Like much of the general turmoil that has gripped corporate America, what's besetting the media is part of the lingering aftermath of a bubble economy correcting itself. In many fundamental ways the media industry is thriving." But how can that be, you ask, when everywhere you turn nowadays there's another big media company hitting the rocks? Michael Wolf is here to explain the counter-intuitive argument in favor of big media. Michael, welcome to the show.
MICHAEL WOLF: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD: Okay. AOL has lost something on the order of 50 billion dollars in the past year. Vivendi on this very day that I'm speaking to you announced it has lost 12 billion dollars over the past 6 months. Tell me again how the media industry is thriving?
MICHAEL WOLF: When you look at those companies, corporately they, they may be having trouble. When you look at them on an operating basis, what you see is that pretty much their - all of their operating divisions are doing very well. And I, I think that part of what's happened is that we've had, in the last couple months, we've had four CEOs fired; one of them led away in handcuffs. We've had the decrease in the value on the stocks of a number of these companies, and everyone thinks, "Well, it's the end of media." The reality is -- these companies are in great shape.
BOB GARFIELD:Well let's look at AOL Time Warner. When these companies merged about two years ago, there was all sorts of talk about synergy; the-- the on-line business of AOL and the old media businesses of Time Warner. And I guess AOL still has a lot of cash flow. A lot of people are spending 20 bucks a month to be on line with AOL, and Time Warner is still selling advertising. But clearly, contrary to most of the predictions, the synergies have never really taken place and, and the old-line media company, Time Warner, is the one that's contributing most of the company's profitability. AOL is just about breaking even!
MICHAEL WOLF: It, it, it's interesting because AOL is not the only company where deals were done based on the expectation of synergy, and a lot of what people viewed as marriages of convergence were in reality just marriages of convenience. It was a good way to justify some of these deals. So I, I'm not saying -- I'm upbeat about the future of media, but I'm not saying that a lot of these companies have created synergy. In fact, a lot of them have, have, have destroyed value by making these acquisitions.
BOB GARFIELD:Is the synthesis of the Internet business and the old-line media business the right model? Have we learned from the experiences of Bertelsmann and AOL and Vivendi that maybe these businesses would be best off competing for media dollars and operating better separately than they, they have in the past two years together?
MICHAEL WOLF: The promise of revenues and, and subscribers to the Internet and all the potential of the Internet isn't false. What a lot of these people did was they bet way too early, and the promise is going to be there. It's just going to take a lot longer. The old line that pioneers get arrows in their backs is for sure. The reality is the pioneers really stake out a trail and, and clear the path for other that follow. So I think the next wave of businesses are likely to be much, much more profitable; much more successful!
BOB GARFIELD:Should we be happy that these companies have a brave and bold future ahead of them or does this militate against the interests of the media consumer?
MICHAEL WOLF: Ultimately the, the consumer has the, the, the biggest weapon in this whole game which is -we all have ability to choose. We can turn the dial much faster than a media company can merge. We as consumers have to choose content that we want. If they're going to present homogenous sort of lowest-common-denominator stuff for us to watch on television or listen to or read, then most people aren't going to watch it or buy it!
BOB GARFIELD:I don't know, Michael. It seems to me that whatever the number of choices is, that all of the competitors are engaged in a kind of race to the bottom. Am I just-- unnecessarily pessimistic?
MICHAEL WOLF: I think there's a lot more high quality programming out there than there ever was before. People look at programming, and yes, there's a lot of, there's a lot of programming that's, that's edgier; there's a lot of programming that is, that does deal with the sort of the bottom of the market. But there's a lot that's at the top. If you look, look at the Discovery Networks or A&E or PBS there is - there's incredibly high-quality programming! One of the advantages of these being part of bigger companies is that they can afford to spend a great deal on programming. All you have to look at is, is the kind of programming that HBO has done, and it's amazing. No other outlet would have been able to afford to spend that kind of money on programming.
BOB GARFIELD:Well you've-- you've hit a bright spot, and I guess we ought to leave accentuating the positive. Michael Wolf, thank you very much.
MICHAEL WOLF: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD: Michael Wolf is a leading consultant to the world's top media and entertainment companies. He is director of McKinsey & Company's global media and entertainment practice and author of The Entertainment Economy: How Megamedia Forces Are Transforming Our Lives. [MUSIC] Wrestlers in the Closet
August 30, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Earlier this year the tag team champions of the pro wrestling league World Wrestling Entertainment were a duo known only as Chuck and Billy. The partners are known for rubbing each other with massage oils, posing together for calendars, and complimenting each other's rippled physiques. Every wrestler has a gimmick, and Chuck and Billy's gimmick is that they are undeclared but nevertheless obviously gay. WWE officials don't say so, but the fans know it, as do the other wrestlers. [SOUND FROM WWE PLAYS]
WRESTLER: [SHOUTING] Hug each other! Tell you how purty each other is! But whatever you do, get used to being close, cause come Wrestlemania, you too can kiss each other's ass and those belts goodbye! [CHEERS] See you in Toronto, ladies!
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Chuck and Billy are part of a long tradition of the gay wrestler in pro wrestling according to a new educational video -- Wrestling with Manhood by Sut Jhally and Jackson Katz. Jhally is a professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and he joins us now. Welcome to the show.
SUT JHALLY: I'm glad to be here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So what kind of stereotypes are we talking about? I mean the mere desire to wrestle another sweaty, muscle-bound man in spandex isn't enough?
SUT JHALLY: [LAUGHS] Well that's part of the problem that wrestling has faced for a long while. Although it's a major place where modern masculinity is defined, and that masculinity is virulently heterosexual, if you just turn the sound down when you're watching wrestling and just look at the positions the wrestlers end up in and where their faces end up, the homoeroticism is just so obvious.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:And is that the purpose of the gay wrestler character -- to sort of inoculate the other wrestlers from the charges of being homosexuals?
SUT JHALLY: Yeah, that's its, that's its primary function. It's really not about the gay wrestlers themselves. It's to define everyone else as straight. So when wrestlers are insulting each other -- not necessarily the gay wrestlers -- when insulting each other -- what they normally, you know, resort to is a homophobic comment or comments that define the other wrestlers as female.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: They call each other bitches.
SUT JHALLY:Yeah, they can't say what boys call each other all the time, you know, which is fags or homos; but it, it serves the same function when you define a man as a woman, and that's the insult. I mean what you're doing is you're defining him as gay. Once you've done that, then you've defined yourself in opposition to that.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: I do want to talk about Chuck and Billy, but first I'd like to take a quick look at their antecedents.
SUT JHALLY:Well the most famous I think is Gorgeous George, and then just before Chuck and Billy I think the most famous one was Goldust who was actually around in the late 1980s and the early 1990s and has now actually made a comeback.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do they get booed or do they cheered?
SUT JHALLY:Oh, they - no, they always got booed. Wrestlers are divided between babyfaces who are good guys and heels who are villains. Gay wrestlers have always been heels. You're supposed to boo them.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What's the difference between Chuck and Billy and their antecedents?
SUT JHALLY:It's never stated that they're gay. Gorgeous George, you know, was in the ring with this cape and it was, you know, quite obviously a sort of - you know - in one sense "flaming it up." And he often claimed that Liberace in fact, you know, stole his act from him. [LAUGHTER] Chuck and Billy are a little bit different because in fact they don't have those costumes whereby you can, you know, label someone as gay. They wrestle in just normal trunks. So it's always about them hugging each other too much or it's you go into the dressing room --they're helping each other stretch and you know touching each other. The other so-called "straight" wrestlers see this and shy away from it as though they're disgusted by it.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But as you say they stop short of the stereotype. And, and this seems to work for groups like GLAAD -- the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. One spokesman said, "They don't seem defamatory. I, I don't mind stereotypes. Stereotypes are based on truth and humor." This is a rather ecumenical position from GLAAD.
SUT JHALLY: I heard that interpretation from GLAAD, and I think that's one person from GLAAD, and I, I got a feeling that wouldn't be GLAAD's institutional position. Because I think what you've got to look at when you look at stereotypes is the effects of the stereotypes. We went to wrestling events and interviewed people about, you know, a whole host of things. And when we asked them about Chuck and Billy, you know, there was nothing subtle about it. [SOUND FROM INTERVIEW WITH WRESTLING FANS]
MAN: Chuck and Billy? I think they're both fags.
MAN: [LAUGHS] I don't like 'em either.
MAN: Chuck and Billy? Flaming gay!
MAN: You know they're kind of gay in my opinion. I don't like 'em at all.
SUT JHALLY: And the level of homophobia that came out was not ambiguous at all. And I think if you look at that, then it's very, very difficult to see the representation of gay wrestlers within wrestling in any positive way at all.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But a recent article in the New York Times suggested that Chuck and Billy aren't in fact heels but they're being cultivated as heroes!
SUT JHALLY: I think that WWE might try it, because they always have to do new things; otherwise they're going to lose their audience. And I think that's part of the reason why they went to Chuck and Billy. They wanted slightly more complex characters. Now if the WWE can get a stadium full of rabid heterosexual boys who are deeply homophobic cheering for Chuck and Billy, then I think we might be on to something.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What would that take?
SUT JHALLY:Most probably they would have to stand up for something that people believe in even more. And so possibly, you know -- nationalism?
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So all they'd have to do is wrap Chuck and Billy in the flag. Sequined, maybe, but still a flag.
SUT JHALLY:[LAUGHS] One of the other story lines at the moment in fact has Goldust -- he's the other gay wrestler -- teaming with another wrestler to take on the un-Americans who are these Canadians who are coming out with all these anti-American comments. And as, as he's done that, in fact, you know, people are -- I mean they're cheering for this tag team.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Thank you very much.
SUT JHALLY: Okay. You're welcome.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Sut Jhally is a professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and founder of the Media Education Foundation. [THEME MUSIC]
BOB GARFIELD:And when we say On the Media we mean all the media. That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price, Katya Rogers and Sean Landis with Michael Kavanagh; engineered by Dylan Keefe, Rob Weisberg and George Edwards, and edited-- by Brooke. Our webmaster 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. You can listen to the program and get free transcripts at onthemedia.org and e-mail us at onthemedia@wnyc.org. This is On the Media from NPR. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. [MUSIC TAG] [FUNDING CREDITS] ************
August 30, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. This week in Washington the State Department assembled 17 Iraqi dissidents from North America and Europe to train them to use the media to more effectively spread their message against Saddam Hussein. As Undersecretary of State Donald Feith said recently on a U.S.-funded Arab language radio station, "The question has been, in the absence of military action, what can we do? So ratcheting up the rhetoric is the kind of thing we can do now. We can stir the pot and see what happens. It could push someone over the edge to act." One of those prospective pot-stirrers is Muhanned Eshaiker, an architect from Irvine, California who serves on the board of the Iraqi Forum for Democracy. We called him in the midst of the training to find out how it was going.
MUHANNED ESHAIKER: Well it's actually a workshop where we had Iraqis worldwide who have been separated by geography to meet together in one spot. I knew most of the men and women who showed up, and, and they knew me, and, and we just had, you know, very fruitful discussions on how to formulate a, a strategy for the media and we also were, were given the benefits of experts in the field of media.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:What have they shown you about dealing with the media that you didn't already know? You know are there any sort of tricks of the trade?
MUHANNED ESHAIKER: Yeah, well there, there's stuff like - let's just take one example I just got to my mind is that when you're in front of the camera, that's an opportunity to talk to millions of people around the world, so just don't waste that opportunity. Don't waste that opportunity with questions back and forth that where you're beating around the issue - just go straight to the issue.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Is there anything that the activists found that they were doing wrong according to the experts and that needed a major re-thinking.
MUHANNED ESHAIKER: Yes, I think the Iraqis in exile were not really taking advantage of the media opportunities. We, we -- because we're not very well organized, that's why when the opportunity arises, instead of taking the story straight to the media and go on CNN or ABC or wherever, BBC -- we probably stumble or wait and say well, I mean what's the use -everybody knows he's a criminal, so what's the use if we just add another story over or another crime? But everything counts! You know, the-- if we keep hammering on the same nail, the nail is going to find its way through.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What is your role in the meeting? Why do you think you were called in?
MUHANNED ESHAIKER:Well because I'm active in California, and I've been active for the last 10 years and I've knocked the doors of the State Department and the Congress and-- and other officials. So-- that's why I was picked and not somebody else.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What about your organization -- the Iraqi Forum for Democracy? Does it have a real constituency?
MUHANNED ESHAIKER: Yeah, we have members. Our membership is below 200 worldwide.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: 200. Doesn't really make for much of a movement. Do you think that you can actually have an impact?
MUHANNED ESHAIKER:Well it's not really a movement. It's really a-- collection of intellectuals who could make a difference. It's not a mass movement to change the regime.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:You know that our president is gearing up for a war on Iraq. Do you worry that you might be being used by the administration to muster up support for that war?
MUHANNED ESHAIKER: That's not the case! The, the case is -- we had the floor; nobody interfered in our agenda. We set the agenda for ourselves during these 3 or 4 days of meeting and-- and we're carrying through!
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Thanks very much.
MUHANNED ESHAIKER: Thank you, Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Muhannad Eshaiker is a member of the board of the Iraqi Forum for Democracy and an architect in Irvine, California.
BOB GARFIELD:Hussein Ibish is the communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee which opposes a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Mr. Ibish, welcome to OTM.
HUSSEIN IBISH: Delighted to be with you.
BOB GARFIELD: So the administration is seeing to it that various representatives of the American Iraqi community fan out to spread their message about Saddam Hussein. Tell me why that doesn't make perfect sense.
HUSSEIN IBISH: Well actually it does make perfect sense. It makes perfect sense in that one of the tactics that we usually see, you know, in trying to provide a justification for a war is to present, you know, a compelling case that it's actually in the interest of the country that's going to be attacked that that happens, and you, you know it's, it's quite standard. I don't think it's surprising that the administration would try to train and recruit Iraqi opposition figures or people close to the administration here from the Iraqi-American community to go out and play that role, which until now they really haven't been doing an effective job of. The point is that groups like that don't have a presence or a constituency in Iraq, and that's what matters, you see. The, the point is that there is the actual opposition groups in Iraq - people with men under arms with a constituency with a presence in the country, and those are 3 groups - 2 Kurdish groups in northern Iraq and the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq. And the 4th group are these former army officers, the defectors and retirees, who mostly live in, in various different European countries. But I think these quasi-official groups like the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi Foundation for Democracy and others, you know, the, the point of view that they have really is, is linked to domestic politics here and not anything that will - that either is happening or will happen in Iraq.
BOB GARFIELD:We just heard from Mohanned Eshaiker who works for the Iraqi Forum for Democracy. Why should we doubt his credentials as a legitimate opposition figure?
HUSSEIN IBISH: Well I don't think you should doubt his credentials as someone who may well represent the point of view of a decent number of Iraqi Americans. I mean he probably does.
BOB GARFIELD: Does it really matter if the people who will be fronting for the administration represent a, a large constituency? Does-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
HUSSEIN IBISH: No, I don't think [...?...]. [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
BOB GARFIELD: -- Isn't the only thing that matters whether they can mount a persuasive argument? [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
HUSSEIN IBISH:Yes. I think that's right. I, I think -- I mean in terms of affecting American public opinion, yes. But it does matter ultimately in terms of the way the war is conducted, and there's going to be a problem, because you know if you put forward a bunch of people as the Iraqi opposition now, and then you get rid of Saddam Hussein and then those people vanish because they're of no use, you know, when it comes to actually setting up a new credible, functional, viable government in Iraq, you know, and suddenly you bring forward some bunch of retired generals or some other group of people nobody has either heard of or that have a very dubious background, you know it, it, it does lead I think ultimately to damage to credibility as long as people have any memory. I think the only thing is that, that in a s--in a situation like that is you could maybe try to count on the fact that many people are perfect post-modern subjects with no historical memory, and they won't even remember, you know, or tell the difference between one group of Iraqis and another.
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] Well I, I'm pretty confident that that's the-- the situation. I-- [...?...]-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
HUSSEIN IBISH:Well yeah! I mean I am too, so it in fact doesn't matter. And you know it, it wouldn't really necessarily even matter if you hired some bunch of-- people from Morocco and dressed them up and pretended, [LAUGHS] you know, and, and made believe they were Iraqis and you know as long as you know you could get away with that, that would probably do the trick too!
BOB GARFIELD:So once again, putting aside your absolute opposition to a U.S. invasion of Iraq, as a communications director and a professional opinion-molder-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
HUSSEIN IBISH: Yeah. Yeah.
BOB GARFIELD: -- not a bad move, huh?
HUSSEIN IBISH: No, it's, it's not a bad move depending on the-- on the competence of the people involved. But as -- in theory it's, it's a good move.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. Hussein Ibish, thank you very much.
HUSSEIN IBISH: Pleasure.
BOB GARFIELD: Hussein Ibish is communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. [MUSIC] Letters
August 30, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And now for a few of your letters. Gavin Cummins of Seattle wrote in to thank us for our interview with a sheriff who reportedly tossed a mom in jail because her kids were sunburned. He writes: "Sunburn and heat stroke are not the same thing, and if the story had been reported as a story instead of as a sound bite, I think the population would have felt differently. There is a growing mistrust of all law enforcement (ironically inflamed by the media and indeed your program). It was a relief to hear that at least one story of an irrational and over-reacting policeman was instead a good man doing his job. Thank you again. No matter how much you may botch a story (as many listeners like to point out) I will always be a passionate listener."
BOB GARFIELD:Uh-- You're welcome? And here's one of those listeners now. Dr. Jeff Orstadt, a neurologist from Napa, California had this to say about our interview with Russ Kick on under-reported stories. "I don't see how Russ Kick can be considered a credible investigative reporter, and I'm surprised he was not taken to task more vigorously on the air. For example, his claim that two American universities have completed research showing that 10 percent of Alzheimer's disease victims actually die from a human form of mad cow disease is either a complete fabrication or an incredibly misguided interpretation of the medical literature. The human form of the disease has been monitored in this country by the Centers for Disease Control since 1990 and to date no cases have been confirmed in the United States."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:And we have this from Vincent Paterno on our interview with George Will on bias in the coverage of the baseball labor negotiations. "As usual, George Will was being his disingenuous self when discussing the media and a possible baseball strike. Not only did he serve on baseball's blue-ribbon panel, but he's also on the boards of the San Diego Padres and Baltimore Orioles. It must be the latter post that explains why, over the years, he has hypocritically been such a strident opponent of the return of major league baseball to Washington, DC, the city he now calls home."
BOB GARFIELD:And this from Laura Miner of New York City. "I am a devoted listener but I was alarmed by your interview with Gerard Jones about kids and violence on TV. This is no laughing matter. If anyone thinks their kids need some violence in order to relax, get them a jack in the box; play them a tape of Haydn's Surprise Symphony; or play tag or hide and go seek. But none of that hyperactive or psychotic TV violence, please, unless you are raising future soldiers that need de-sensitizing."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:And from Herb Engle of Edison, New York we have a suggestion. He writes: "On September 5, 2002, will be the 30th anniversary of the murder of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian terrorists. You the media should examine the current coverage of the terrorist attacks to see if they are repeating the mistakes of 1972 by placing more emphasis on the terrorists' message than on the barbarity of their violence against innocents."
BOB GARFIELD:We thought this would be a good time to reflect on the legacy of the Munich Massacre. That's coming up later in the show. Thanks for your letters. Keep them coming to onthemedia@wnyc.org and don't forget to tell us where you live and how to pronounce your name. [MUSIC]
Indian Film Censored
August 30, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: We're back with On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. India's film industry is known mainly for its lavish, kitschy action-romance musicals which are subject to the often tender sensibilities of the censors. The Central Film Board of Certification is notoriously squeamish about sexual explicitness, graphic violence and cultural defamation. What frequently slips in beneath the radar, however, are serious documentaries which seldom are seen outside of film festivals. Now, though, the Indian censors have screened one such documentary -- an award-winning one titled War and Peace from director Anand Patwardhan -- and are demanding drastic cuts, 21 in all. But the film board isn't targeting sex scenes. It is offended by the film's anti-nationalism theme and seeks to denude the film of politically-charged material. Anand Patwardhan joins us now. Mr. Patwardhan, welcome to On the Media.
ANAND PATWARDHAN: Yeah, thanks.
BOB GARFIELD: Tell me please first about the censoring board. Generally speaking what is its role?
ANAND PATWARDHAN: The film censor board is a body which every filmmaker has to submit their films to before it can be released to the public. The problem really is that the censor board these days is completely infiltrated by the Hindu right wing party.
BOB GARFIELD: Now are you talking about the ruling BJP Party or are you talking about the-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
ANAND PATWARDHAN:I'm talking about the ruling BJP -- people of their orientation fill the censor board. The irony is that this film won the Best Film Award at the Bombay Documentary Film Festival which was held in February this year, and that festival is organized by the Government of India, by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.
BOB GARFIELD: So the left hand of the government was giving you a trophy while the right hand was giving you a list of mandatory cuts.
ANAND PATWARDHAN: That's right.
BOB GARFIELD:Okay, now let's talk about the cuts themselves. I'm going to assume that these were not issues of, of kissing. They are strictly political in nature.
ANAND PATWARDHAN: Yeah, they are totally political in nature, and the very first cut gives you the clue about what the cuts are all about. The very first cut is that I must delete the sequence in which Mahatma Gandhi was shot by a Hindu fanatic.
BOB GARFIELD:Let's listen to that part of your film now. This scene consists of your narration over newsreel footage of Mahatma Gandhi's funeral. [SOUNDTRACK PLAYS]
MAN: Gandhigi was assassinated two years before I was born. The child in me never stopped asking who could have done this? That our family, like Nathuram Godse and his co-assassins, were upper-caste Hindus cured me forever of any narrow understanding of nation and any vestige of pride in the accident of birth. As the country convulsed in grief, Hindu nationalist organizations like the RSS were banned.
ANAND PATWARDHAN: After Mahatma Gandhi's assassination in 1948, the Hindu right wing RSS Party was outlawed, and today the RSS is very much a part of the -- it's the backbone of the ruling party, and obviously this cut is to re-write the history. They don't want people to be reminded of this historical event.
BOB GARFIELD:Of the 21 cuts that have been demanded, they were demanded according to the guidelines that the censor board ostensibly follows, but your argument is that the supposed violations are not violations at all.
ANAND PATWARDHAN: Yeah, that's right. The irony is that the kind of ideologies that we see represented on the censor board are perhaps the, the very ideologies that the censor guidelines were first devised to try and curtail. I mean if you're talking about hate speech and stuff like that, the, the right wing parties are doing it both -- on both sides -- not just the Hindu right wing; the, the other fundamentalist groups also do it. But what my film is trying to do is to build harmony between people of different religions and even between India and Pakistan.
BOB GARFIELD: Is this unprecedented for the government through the censor board to try to suppress political commentary?
ANAND PATWARDHAN:No, it's not unprecedented in the sense that I have faced similar problems with some of my films in the past with different governments, but I think that the, the ferocity with which this is being pursued now and the number of cuts that they've asked for and-- and the way they are doing it right now is unique. I mean it is something new.
BOB GARFIELD: So India is the world's most populous democracy, and it has enjoyed a tradition of press freedom for example. Why in the world would the government use a fairly obscure documentary film to choose for suppression?
ANAND PATWARDHAN: Well I think the government these days is going through a very insecure phase. They've lost elections in a few states. There was the horrific violence that took place in Gujarat which has made the government squirm all over the country and all over the world. They, they have to answer for what happened in Gujarat where hundreds of Muslims were massacred. So I think the government is, is right now very intolerant of any kind of criticism.
BOB GARFIELD: What's going to happen -- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
ANAND PATWARDHAN: With the film?
BOB GARFIELD: -- with War and Peace? [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
ANAND PATWARDHAN:Funnily enough, the fact that they're suppressing the film has made the film talked about all over the country and now as you are doing in, in other parts of the world. So I think that it's been completely counter-productive for the government to do this. So I'm not comp-- I'm not completely unhappy at the way things are going. In fact I think some of the very issues that I wanted to raise by showing the film are being raised by the, the act of suppression.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. Anand Patwardhan, thank you very much.
ANAND PATWARDHAN: Okay. Thanks.
BOB GARFIELD: Anand Patwardhan is a social activist and film director most recently of War and Peace. He spoke to us from his home in Bombay. [MUSIC] Movie Novelization
August 30, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: Movies are often based on novels, but often enough novels are based on movies, and every so often a movie based on a novel gets turned right back into a novel. Take this summer's Road to Perdition. Max Allan Collins wrote the graphic novel or adult comic book that inspired the Tom Hanks/Paul Newman gangster flick but Collins also penned the paperback spin-off of the movie's screenplay. He's done the same for many other films ranging from Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan to The Rock's Scorpion King. Max Allan Collins joins us now. Max, welcome to OTM.
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: Great to be here.
BOB GARFIELD: I want to talk to you about novelizations but first let me ask you a question or two about Road to Perdition. So many novelists over the years feel betrayed by Hollywood for having destroyed their art in the film versions of whatever the story is. As a graphic artist, were you happy with its realization in film?
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: I think David Self, the screenwriter, did an excellent job and of course Sam Mendes is a brilliant director. I know I'm supposed to not like it, but I [LAUGHS] -- I just really love this movie.
BOB GARFIELD: Now what about writing the novel out-of-the-film-itself out-of-your-graphic-novel? Has that been a bizarre experience?
MAX ALLAN COLLINS:It actually was a bit bizarre. In the past, I had been given rather more latitude than I was given this time, surprisingly, since I was the creator of the material, and, and I was somewhat restricted in having to stick only to the script and not being able to flesh it out as much as I would have liked. Very frustrating. And it varies from studio to studio, project to project. Sometimes I'm given quite a bit of latitude. I was approached, for example, by the people behind the movie Windtalkers, and they came to me knowing my background as an historical novelist and asked me if I would bring to bear my research and put a lot of the detail in that could not be included in the movie. And that enriched that book and made it more like a real book.
BOB GARFIELD:Let's talk about novelizations for a moment. Without trying to sound too elitist about it, although I know I'm going to fail, it doesn't strike me as an excessively literary genre. Do you think of yourself as a novelist or as a novelizationist?
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: I absolutely think of myself as a novelist. My approach has always been to write a book that would seem to be the novel that the movie was based on. Frankly, a good deal of the audience is confused. They don't really understand [LAUGHS] that the book came from the script. I frankly play into that confusion and I try to give them a real novel. If the writer views himself as nothing more than the-- literary equivalent of the action figure or the lunchbox, you're just going to have a, a hack piece of work.
BOB GARFIELD:As a serious novelist, taking a pulp script like The Scorpion King and trying to turn it into a novel, clearly that creates challenges. [SOUNDTRACK FROM THE SCORPION KING PLAYS]
WOMAN: You've been betrayed Mathayus.
MAN: You know my name?
WOMAN: And why you're here. [MUSIC PRESAGES A VIOLENT MOMENT] Ugh!
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: The challenge is to find a way into the material that can be rewarding for me so that I can take it seriously enough to deliver a good book.
BOB GARFIELD: So when you got the Scorpion King script on your desk and you said dear God what am I to make of this?
MAX ALLAN COLLINS:First of all I looked at it and said what are they trying to accomplish, and it was clear that they were trying to do something along the lines of Conan, the Barbarian or Tarzan. I loved those kind of books when I was 11, 12, 13 years old, so I basically said all right -I'm going to write an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel! I did the same thing with Maverick which was a show I had loved as a kid, and I thought the script was just okay. But I tried to invest it with all of my enthusiasm for this childhood favorite of mine.
BOB GARFIELD: You haven't done any other graphic novels that turned into Hollywood films?
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: No. This is a first for me. Another graphic novel of mine has been optioned, and I actually wrote that screenplay.
BOB GARFIELD: Are you going to try to do the novelization as well and hit the trifecta?
MAX ALLAN COLLINS:If that one happens, which is a thing called Johnny Dynamite [LAUGHS] -- absolutely - I--that was in the contract. But, again, I think the most important thing about these -- and there's maybe nothing important about novelizations when you really get down to it, but the justification for their existence is if the novelist does get inside the story and give the reader a new way to perceive this. Because if you just replicate the screenplay, you're just sort of a VHS cassette or DVD-on-paper.
BOB GARFIELD:It has a sort of Rashomon quality to it -- the same story seen through 3 different viewpoints. It just so happens the 3 viewpoints belong to the same author. Well let me thank the 3 of you--
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: [LAUGHS]! Bob, I hope we haven't ganged up on you too bad here.
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] No, not at all. Max Collins is a graphic novelist. Max Collins is a screenwriter. And Max Collins is a novelization novelist, most recently of Road to Perdition.
MAX ALLAN COLLINS: Well let's not forget Max Allan Collins the detective novelist who's got a book out called Chicago Confidential right now.
BOB GARFIELD: Okay. Him too. [MUSIC] Mudflap Soundtrack
August 30, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: As radio format changes continue to elbow country music out of the way, a resurgence of interest in truckers songs has emerged in the most unlikely of places -- Brooklyn, New York. Once the exclusive province of late night radio and truck stop juke boxes, a new anthology CD and a growing interest among a younger audience may just change all that. OTM's Rex Doane reports. [TRUCKER SONG UP AND UNDER]
REX DOANE: Billed as the "Rig-Rocker," Jeremy Tepper spends Monday evenings here at Union Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn spinning vintage trucker tunes to a barful of trendy 20-somethings. Tepper is the owner and operator of Diesel Only Records. He is also the man behind the CD collection titled Truck Driver's Boogie, recently released by the Country Music Hall of Fame. Though trucking songs have been around for over 60 years, Tepper sees a strong sense of continuity in this under-appreciated sub-genre of American music.
JEREMY TEPPER: There's been a real continuum from the earliest days to, you know, contemporary truck driver songs. Drivers are still drinking coffee. Drivers still need to stop at truck stops to eat, to refuel, to make small talk, to socialize with other drivers and waitresses -- and many of those themes are present in the very first truck driving hit which was Cliff Bruner's Truck Driver's Blues in 1939. [SONG TRUCK DRIVER'S BLUES PLAYS]
CLIFF BRUNER: [SINGING] FEELING TIRED AND WEARY FROM MY HEAD DOWN TO MY SHOES FEELING TIRED AND WEARY FROM MY HEAD DOWN TO MY SHOES GOT A LOW DOWN FEELING TRUCK DRIVER'S BLUES....
REX DOANE: It was the growth of the interstate highway system in the 1950s along with the subsequent rise of the trucking industry that helped pave the way for the golden age of big rig hits in the 1970s. [SONG SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD PLAYS]
DAVE DUDLEY: [SINGING] WELL I PULLED OUT OF PITTSBURGH A ROLLIN' DOWN THAT EASTERN SEABOARD I GOT MY DIESEL WOUND UP AND SHE'S A RUNNIN' LIKE A-NEVER BEFORE THERE'S A SPEED ZONE AHEAD; WELL ALL RIGHT I DON'T SEE A COP IN SIGHT SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD AND I'M A-GONNA MAKE IT HOME TONIGHT.
JEREMY TEPPER: The big bang in truck driving musicals, Six Days on the Road by Dave Dudley which came out in the fall of 1963 peaked at number two on the country charts and crossed over to the pop charts, and the enormous popularity of that song triggered an avalanche of truck driving songs.
REX DOANE: Anxious to hitch a ride on the trucking craze, Capitol Records approached Merle Haggard to do a full album of trucker songs. When Haggard passed, Red Simpson stepped in. It was a move that would define his career.
RED SIMPSON: Just got, got into the trucking thing by accident there. But that puts you in that one category, you know; but they know who you are -- you know, Red Simpson? Oh, yeah - he does all them truck driving songs, yeah. [SONG I'M A TRUCK PLAYS]
RED SIMPSON: [TALK-SINGING] HELLO? I'M A TRUCK. YOU'VE HEARD SONGS ABOUT TRUCK DRIVERS MANY TIMES THEIR STORY'S TOLD HOW THEY PULLED OUT OF PITTSBURGH FOR SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD....
JEREMY TEPPER: Red Simpson's really not known for anything other than truck driving songs, so he's a individual who's completely associated with the truck-driving genre from his very first album, Roll, Truck, Roll to his big crossover single, I'm A Truck, in 1970. [SONG I'M A TRUCK PLAYS AGAIN]
RED SIMPSON: [WITH CHORUS SINGERS] THERE'D BE NO TRUCK DRIVERS IF IT WASN'T FOR US TRUCKS. NO DOUBLE-CLUTCHING, GEAR-JAMMING COFFEE-DRINKING NUTS....
REX DOANE: Few others are as qualified as Simpson to divulge the necessary ingredients needed to compose the classic trucker song.
RED SIMPSON: Oh, yeah. You gotta have waitresses and pinball machines and truck stops [LAUGHS]. Wouldn't be no truck drivers without them!
REX DOANE: [LAUGHS] And little white pills?
RED SIMPSON: I don't know much about that, but [LAUGHS]...
REX DOANE: It's little wonder that many of Red's fans still find it hard to believe that he never sat behind an 18-wheeler.
RED SIMPSON: Oh, yeah. I've had a lot of people tell me, you know -- you never drove a truck? Why do you sing-- truck driving songs? And I say well Roy Rogers shot a lot of people but he didn't really kill them. [LAUGHS] [SONG, CONVOY, PLAYS]
C. W. McCALL: [TALK-SINGING] ...LOOKS LIKE WE GOT US A CON-VOY....
REX DOANE: Bill Fries, a one-time advertising executive based in Omaha never drove a truck for a living either. But in 1976, recording under the name of C.W. McCall, Fries cut the biggest-selling trucker record of all time. [SONG COMES UP AGAIN]
C. W. McCALL: [TALK-SINGING] WE WAS HEADING FOR BEAR ON I-1-0 ABOUT A MILE OUT OF SHAKEY TOWN I SAYS BIG BEN, THIS HERE'S RUBBER DUCK AND I'M ABOUT TO PUT THE HAMMER ON DOWN.
CHORUS SINGERS: CAUSE WE GOT A LITTLE OLD CONVOY....
REX DOANE: The runaway crossover success of Convoy, and the inevitable C.B. craze that followed brought mainstream recognition like never before to truckers and their music. Hollywood churned out films like Smokey and the Bandit. Television countered with B. J. and the Bear. But fad status, as it always does, faded quickly. Twenty-five years later, trucker tunes occasionally dent the country charts, but only rarely. The trucking community itself has experienced great change as well. Again, Jeremy Tepper.
JEREMY TEPPER: Although the truck driving industry has continued to grow, the element that enjoys country music as a segment of the truck driving industry has become smaller, relatively speaking.
REX DOANE: Like most commercial radio, local trucker shows have long since given way to network talk. But for 30 years and counting Dave Nemo is keeping it rolling. [TRUCK DRIVER SONG PLAYS]
DAVE NEMO: [SINGING] YOU'VE ALWAYS GOT A GRAND ON YOUR RADIO DRIVING WITH DAVE NEMO DOWN THE ROAD. [HARMONICA]
DAVE NEMO: On a given night, over 5 hours, we'll play probably 20, 25 trucking songs. I would say it'll be roughly 40 percent of the music we play.
REX DOANE: Even with C.B.'s, CD's and cell phones to compete with, Nemo knows he is still needed.
DAVE NEMO: If a trucker calls me toward the end of the show and he says "Man, I'll tell you what --I, I-- don't think I could have made it if you hadn't have been on the, on the radio tonight." -- that, that really is the crux of what we do and, and, and that's the greatest compliment we can get.
REX DOANE: At the age of 67, Red Simpson continues to perform and is often reminded by old-time truckers what his music has meant to them on those long hauls.
RED SIMPSON: Passes a lot of time for the truck drivers I know. Lot of lonely hours, they say; but if you hadn't been there singing for us, we'd have-- it sure would have been a, a dull trip. [LAUGHS]
REX DOANE: And for those out there trying to "keep it in the ditches with the rubber side down" --that's a big 10-4. [TRUCK HORN] [SONG UP AND UNDER] For On the Media in New York, I'm Rex Doane.
RED SIMPSON: I'M A DOUBLE-CLUTCHING, STEEL-JUMPING, [MOM-LIKING], TAIL-GATING, COP-DODGING, LINE-CROSSING, COFFEE-DRINKING, PIN-BALLING, JACK-KNIFING, PART-TIMING, WINDJAMMING, LATE-RUNNING, GEAR-BUSTING SORT OF A FELLER! [TRUCK HORN]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Coming up, we consider the legacy of September 5th, 1972.
BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media from NPR. Black September
August 30, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: We're back with On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. As we approach the first anniversary of September 11th we thought we'd consider the 30th anniversary of another September when the Palestinian terrorist group called Black September raided the Olympic grounds in Munich, took hostages and eventually killed 11 Israeli athletes in a horrifying 23 hour drama.
NEWS ANNOUNCER:The scene in the Olympic Village today became the symbol of man's inhumanity to man as an organization called the Black September Movement, a Palestine guerilla organization, scaled the fences of the Olympic compound and with machine guns blazing entered the Israeli housing compound, killed two men, and are still holding hostages.
BOB GARFIELD:Pictures of the hooded gunmen were flashed all over the world. They became the masked face of Palestinian resistance -- the face of terror. It may be that September 5th, 1972 set the template for what happened last September.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Writing in an on-line publication, Al Anssar, an Al Qaeda activist called the Black September, quote, "the greatest media victory and the first true proclamation to the entire world the Palestinian resistance movement. The Munich operation was a great propaganda strike." And according to a translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute -- a group critical of many Arab movements -- the Al Qaeda columnist Abu 'Ubeid Al-Qurashi goes on to observe that, quote, "September 11th was an even greater propaganda coup. It may have been said to have broken a record in propaganda dissemination." Joining us now is Brigitte Nacos, Columbia University professor and author of Mass-Mediated Terrorism. Welcome to the show.
BRIGITTE NACOS: I'm happy to be here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So the 1972 Munich attack wasn't the first large-scale terrorist attack by the infamous Black September terrorist group but the coverage of Munich was unprecedented.
BRIGITTE NACOS: That's really true. Actually before 1972, there was a more spectacular attack when four airliners were simultaneously hijacked, and two of these original ones ended up in Jordan, and three days later a Palestinian group hijacked a British airliner and flew that one to Jordan. Now the media coverage was not all that great. Certainly it was extensively reported, but the print press was still leading. Two years later it was very different, because they struck at the Olympics where you had the television facilities built up for that special event. Independent experts have estimated that it was between 600 and 800 million globally, so that was a major, major coup for these few Palestinians.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And so you think that the publicity coup that the Olympics afforded was very much on the mind of the Black September terrorists?
BRIGITTE NACOS:Well at least according to one of them. Three of them survived. Five were killed. And one of them later on in prison said that they wanted, among other things, to stir up the world. And they were certainly successful in not only getting the attention globally, but I think for the first time many people around the globe learned about the Palestinian cause.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What impact did the Munich Massacre actually have on the image of Palestinians and the Palestinian cause?
BRIGITTE NACOS:I do not think the image was a positive one. But that really does not matter. The image of Bin Laden in the Western World is not a positive one, but they certainly gained very good image in the world that mattered to them -- that is, in the Middle East. Terrorists do not want to win the hearts of --certainly not of the people they target and even not those who look on in the international realm. They want the attention. And they want people to know what are their causes, what are their grievances. It is true, however, that media coverage is not an end in itself. It is basically a means to a, a larger end. In the case of the Munich Olympics, it was a relatively small end. They simply wanted fellow comrades out of prison.
NEWS CORRESPONDENT: From your vantage point, does it look as though the negotiations will resume or is it a deadlock?
MIKE WALLACE:Well actually the deadline was almost an hour and a half ago. There were three deadlines set -- one at one o'clock this afternoon Munich time; the second at 3; and then again at 5. And while the-- some of the police have moved forward, nothing else has happened.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:I understand that terrorists often postpone their deadlines for authorities to meet their demands till later and later in the afternoon knowing that each postponement increases their TV audiences. Is this a direct consequence of the publicity windfall that was Munich?
BRIGITTE NACOS: I'm not quite sure. I think that given the coverage of Munich where you had this hostage situation, I think that kind of enhanced the eagerness of terrorists to take hostages. Up to Munich basically when we talked about international terrorism we talked about hijackings and bombings as well. Afterwards, you know, you moved towards more hostage situations, and of course then when you had the Iranian hostage situation that fueled even more of those.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: As a media event, how does 9/11 compare to the Munich Massacre?
BRIGITTE NACOS:Well, 9/11 is even bigger. The media is reaching much further today than it did then. After 9/11, a lot of people got the information over the Internet. You didn't have in 1972 global or regional television networks. I believe one CNN manager said later on "Munich came 10 years too early." CNN, if it would have existed or similar organizations, the success would have been even greater.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Brigitte Nacos, thank you very much.
BRIGITTE NACOS: You're welcome.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Brigitte Nacos is a Columbia University professor and author of Mass-Mediated Terrorism. [MUSIC] Media Woes Overblown?
August 30, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: In a Wall Street Journal article last month, media consultant Michael Wolf made this observation. "Like much of the general turmoil that has gripped corporate America, what's besetting the media is part of the lingering aftermath of a bubble economy correcting itself. In many fundamental ways the media industry is thriving." But how can that be, you ask, when everywhere you turn nowadays there's another big media company hitting the rocks? Michael Wolf is here to explain the counter-intuitive argument in favor of big media. Michael, welcome to the show.
MICHAEL WOLF: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD: Okay. AOL has lost something on the order of 50 billion dollars in the past year. Vivendi on this very day that I'm speaking to you announced it has lost 12 billion dollars over the past 6 months. Tell me again how the media industry is thriving?
MICHAEL WOLF: When you look at those companies, corporately they, they may be having trouble. When you look at them on an operating basis, what you see is that pretty much their - all of their operating divisions are doing very well. And I, I think that part of what's happened is that we've had, in the last couple months, we've had four CEOs fired; one of them led away in handcuffs. We've had the decrease in the value on the stocks of a number of these companies, and everyone thinks, "Well, it's the end of media." The reality is -- these companies are in great shape.
BOB GARFIELD:Well let's look at AOL Time Warner. When these companies merged about two years ago, there was all sorts of talk about synergy; the-- the on-line business of AOL and the old media businesses of Time Warner. And I guess AOL still has a lot of cash flow. A lot of people are spending 20 bucks a month to be on line with AOL, and Time Warner is still selling advertising. But clearly, contrary to most of the predictions, the synergies have never really taken place and, and the old-line media company, Time Warner, is the one that's contributing most of the company's profitability. AOL is just about breaking even!
MICHAEL WOLF: It, it, it's interesting because AOL is not the only company where deals were done based on the expectation of synergy, and a lot of what people viewed as marriages of convergence were in reality just marriages of convenience. It was a good way to justify some of these deals. So I, I'm not saying -- I'm upbeat about the future of media, but I'm not saying that a lot of these companies have created synergy. In fact, a lot of them have, have, have destroyed value by making these acquisitions.
BOB GARFIELD:Is the synthesis of the Internet business and the old-line media business the right model? Have we learned from the experiences of Bertelsmann and AOL and Vivendi that maybe these businesses would be best off competing for media dollars and operating better separately than they, they have in the past two years together?
MICHAEL WOLF: The promise of revenues and, and subscribers to the Internet and all the potential of the Internet isn't false. What a lot of these people did was they bet way too early, and the promise is going to be there. It's just going to take a lot longer. The old line that pioneers get arrows in their backs is for sure. The reality is the pioneers really stake out a trail and, and clear the path for other that follow. So I think the next wave of businesses are likely to be much, much more profitable; much more successful!
BOB GARFIELD:Should we be happy that these companies have a brave and bold future ahead of them or does this militate against the interests of the media consumer?
MICHAEL WOLF: Ultimately the, the consumer has the, the, the biggest weapon in this whole game which is -we all have ability to choose. We can turn the dial much faster than a media company can merge. We as consumers have to choose content that we want. If they're going to present homogenous sort of lowest-common-denominator stuff for us to watch on television or listen to or read, then most people aren't going to watch it or buy it!
BOB GARFIELD:I don't know, Michael. It seems to me that whatever the number of choices is, that all of the competitors are engaged in a kind of race to the bottom. Am I just-- unnecessarily pessimistic?
MICHAEL WOLF: I think there's a lot more high quality programming out there than there ever was before. People look at programming, and yes, there's a lot of, there's a lot of programming that's, that's edgier; there's a lot of programming that is, that does deal with the sort of the bottom of the market. But there's a lot that's at the top. If you look, look at the Discovery Networks or A&E or PBS there is - there's incredibly high-quality programming! One of the advantages of these being part of bigger companies is that they can afford to spend a great deal on programming. All you have to look at is, is the kind of programming that HBO has done, and it's amazing. No other outlet would have been able to afford to spend that kind of money on programming.
BOB GARFIELD:Well you've-- you've hit a bright spot, and I guess we ought to leave accentuating the positive. Michael Wolf, thank you very much.
MICHAEL WOLF: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD: Michael Wolf is a leading consultant to the world's top media and entertainment companies. He is director of McKinsey & Company's global media and entertainment practice and author of The Entertainment Economy: How Megamedia Forces Are Transforming Our Lives. [MUSIC] Wrestlers in the Closet
August 30, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Earlier this year the tag team champions of the pro wrestling league World Wrestling Entertainment were a duo known only as Chuck and Billy. The partners are known for rubbing each other with massage oils, posing together for calendars, and complimenting each other's rippled physiques. Every wrestler has a gimmick, and Chuck and Billy's gimmick is that they are undeclared but nevertheless obviously gay. WWE officials don't say so, but the fans know it, as do the other wrestlers. [SOUND FROM WWE PLAYS]
WRESTLER: [SHOUTING] Hug each other! Tell you how purty each other is! But whatever you do, get used to being close, cause come Wrestlemania, you too can kiss each other's ass and those belts goodbye! [CHEERS] See you in Toronto, ladies!
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Chuck and Billy are part of a long tradition of the gay wrestler in pro wrestling according to a new educational video -- Wrestling with Manhood by Sut Jhally and Jackson Katz. Jhally is a professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and he joins us now. Welcome to the show.
SUT JHALLY: I'm glad to be here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So what kind of stereotypes are we talking about? I mean the mere desire to wrestle another sweaty, muscle-bound man in spandex isn't enough?
SUT JHALLY: [LAUGHS] Well that's part of the problem that wrestling has faced for a long while. Although it's a major place where modern masculinity is defined, and that masculinity is virulently heterosexual, if you just turn the sound down when you're watching wrestling and just look at the positions the wrestlers end up in and where their faces end up, the homoeroticism is just so obvious.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:And is that the purpose of the gay wrestler character -- to sort of inoculate the other wrestlers from the charges of being homosexuals?
SUT JHALLY: Yeah, that's its, that's its primary function. It's really not about the gay wrestlers themselves. It's to define everyone else as straight. So when wrestlers are insulting each other -- not necessarily the gay wrestlers -- when insulting each other -- what they normally, you know, resort to is a homophobic comment or comments that define the other wrestlers as female.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: They call each other bitches.
SUT JHALLY:Yeah, they can't say what boys call each other all the time, you know, which is fags or homos; but it, it serves the same function when you define a man as a woman, and that's the insult. I mean what you're doing is you're defining him as gay. Once you've done that, then you've defined yourself in opposition to that.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: I do want to talk about Chuck and Billy, but first I'd like to take a quick look at their antecedents.
SUT JHALLY:Well the most famous I think is Gorgeous George, and then just before Chuck and Billy I think the most famous one was Goldust who was actually around in the late 1980s and the early 1990s and has now actually made a comeback.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do they get booed or do they cheered?
SUT JHALLY:Oh, they - no, they always got booed. Wrestlers are divided between babyfaces who are good guys and heels who are villains. Gay wrestlers have always been heels. You're supposed to boo them.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What's the difference between Chuck and Billy and their antecedents?
SUT JHALLY:It's never stated that they're gay. Gorgeous George, you know, was in the ring with this cape and it was, you know, quite obviously a sort of - you know - in one sense "flaming it up." And he often claimed that Liberace in fact, you know, stole his act from him. [LAUGHTER] Chuck and Billy are a little bit different because in fact they don't have those costumes whereby you can, you know, label someone as gay. They wrestle in just normal trunks. So it's always about them hugging each other too much or it's you go into the dressing room --they're helping each other stretch and you know touching each other. The other so-called "straight" wrestlers see this and shy away from it as though they're disgusted by it.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But as you say they stop short of the stereotype. And, and this seems to work for groups like GLAAD -- the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. One spokesman said, "They don't seem defamatory. I, I don't mind stereotypes. Stereotypes are based on truth and humor." This is a rather ecumenical position from GLAAD.
SUT JHALLY: I heard that interpretation from GLAAD, and I think that's one person from GLAAD, and I, I got a feeling that wouldn't be GLAAD's institutional position. Because I think what you've got to look at when you look at stereotypes is the effects of the stereotypes. We went to wrestling events and interviewed people about, you know, a whole host of things. And when we asked them about Chuck and Billy, you know, there was nothing subtle about it. [SOUND FROM INTERVIEW WITH WRESTLING FANS]
MAN: Chuck and Billy? I think they're both fags.
MAN: [LAUGHS] I don't like 'em either.
MAN: Chuck and Billy? Flaming gay!
MAN: You know they're kind of gay in my opinion. I don't like 'em at all.
SUT JHALLY: And the level of homophobia that came out was not ambiguous at all. And I think if you look at that, then it's very, very difficult to see the representation of gay wrestlers within wrestling in any positive way at all.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But a recent article in the New York Times suggested that Chuck and Billy aren't in fact heels but they're being cultivated as heroes!
SUT JHALLY: I think that WWE might try it, because they always have to do new things; otherwise they're going to lose their audience. And I think that's part of the reason why they went to Chuck and Billy. They wanted slightly more complex characters. Now if the WWE can get a stadium full of rabid heterosexual boys who are deeply homophobic cheering for Chuck and Billy, then I think we might be on to something.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What would that take?
SUT JHALLY:Most probably they would have to stand up for something that people believe in even more. And so possibly, you know -- nationalism?
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So all they'd have to do is wrap Chuck and Billy in the flag. Sequined, maybe, but still a flag.
SUT JHALLY:[LAUGHS] One of the other story lines at the moment in fact has Goldust -- he's the other gay wrestler -- teaming with another wrestler to take on the un-Americans who are these Canadians who are coming out with all these anti-American comments. And as, as he's done that, in fact, you know, people are -- I mean they're cheering for this tag team.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Thank you very much.
SUT JHALLY: Okay. You're welcome.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Sut Jhally is a professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and founder of the Media Education Foundation. [THEME MUSIC]
BOB GARFIELD:And when we say On the Media we mean all the media. That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price, Katya Rogers and Sean Landis with Michael Kavanagh; engineered by Dylan Keefe, Rob Weisberg and George Edwards, and edited-- by Brooke. Our webmaster 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. You can listen to the program and get free transcripts at onthemedia.org and e-mail us at onthemedia@wnyc.org. This is On the Media from NPR. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. [MUSIC TAG] [FUNDING CREDITS] ************
- Back to story:
- August 30, 2002
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Conservative Bloggers Vindicated, Advice for Leakers, and More
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