Cornel West's CD
January 5, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: Maybe it's because Harvard is widely deemed America's premier institution of higher learning or maybe because Harvard graduates are, shall we say, well-represented in the media elite, but the sort of ordinary academic controversies that routinely swirl at other campuses, when they happen at Harvard, tend to make news. This week a dustup between the Afro-American Studies Department and the university's president landed in most major newspapers and on the front page of the New York Times. By week's end, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton both were promising to intervene in the situation as if America's first university had suddenly become the site of an ugly hate crime.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:The main players in this tempest were Harvard President Lawrence Summers and university Professor Cornel West who you may recognize from his best-selling book Race Matters, from his many talk show appearances or from his latest disc -- hit it, professor. [MUSIC UNDER]
CORNEL WEST: AND RHYTHM AND BLUES MELLOW THE SHARING OF SOOTHING SWEET [...?...]
BOB GARFIELD: Yes, Cornel West cut a hip hop CD bringing a little ebony to the ivory tower. Now from what we've heard off the album, we don't think the man should quit his day job. But we were a bit surprised by President Summers' reaction as reported in the Boston Globe that West acted quote "in ways unbecoming of a Harvard professor."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:It wasn't just the CD which West produced in his year away from the university. Summers reportedly objected to grade inflation in West's courses and he also took issue with West's heading the Al Sharpton Presidential Exploratory Committee.
BOB GARFIELD:Yeah, shuttling between academia and politics -- how could Summers countenance that? Or should I say -- how could Secretary Summers countenance that? His last job was with the U.S. Department of Treasury. As for grade inflation, that like master's tea at Dunster House is a Harvard Institution. So the question really is can a rap CD constitute serious scholarship? Give it up for my tenured homey. [MUSIC UNDER]
CORNEL WEST: THE OLDER GENERATION MUST BEQUEATH AND TRANSMIT THE BEST OF THE OLD TO THE NEW FOR THE YOUNGER GENERATION WILL MEET THE CHALLENGE.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: West's supporters immediately charged Summers with being uncommitted to diversity and affirmative action, and Summers replied by saying his commitment to diversity is unshakable, and by Thursday things had begun to calm down. But I suggest that Lawrence Summers does lack commitment to diversity -- diversity of expression. [R&B STYLE MUSIC] Would a Harvard professor be begrudged for pursuing a passion for, say, chamber music. Even if Professor West wrote a book about the use of popular music to influence the thought patterns of American youth, he'd be applauded!
BOB GARFIELD:But because he actually recorded an album of rap, jazz and soul music in an attempt to influence the thought patterns of America's youth, he was criticized. Not that we expect music history to be especially kind to Professor West. Some of the songs do have a sort of William Shatner-sings-Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Diamonds quality to them. But at least he tried, and if that's "unbecoming" I don't know what this world is "becoming" to. Mmmmmm--- Sorry about the syntax. I-- went to Penn State.
MAN: ...ON EARTH SOMETIMES--
MAN: HEY, BROTHER -- YOU THINK ABOUT ANY TIME REVEREND WEST-- HOW LOVED WE WERE, MAN HEY THAT'S WHAT I'M TELLING YOU--
MAN: WOOO! YEAH!! CHORUS: [SINGING] REMEMBER [DURING] THOSE '70S DIDN'T CARE WHAT LIFE WOULD BRING PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK EVERY DAY WHEN I THINK OF...
India and Pakistan
January 5, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: From WNYC in New York this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. The war against terrorism is momentarily quiet, but looming on the horizon is a far more volatile conflict between India and Pakistan mainly over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Troop deployments by both nuclear powers are ominous, and the media rhetoric bellicose. Joining us once again to discuss the foreign coverage of that region is Martin Walker, chief correspondent for United Press International. Martin, India's stated rationale for its hard line on Pakistan is its belief that Pakistan is at a minimum giving aid and comfort to terrorists in the disputed territory of Kashmir. In the Pakistani press, is there any acknowledgement of that relationship between terrorist acts and the Pakistani government?
MARTIN WALKER: Yes, yes there is. The Frontier Post which is published in Peshawar -- that's an independent daily newspaper -- actually says that the Pakistani government really, you know, has to meet this demand. "After the 9/11 episode," it says, "the world has been transformed dramatically. Our government has to come to grips with the militant groups working on their own agendas under the guise of the Kashmir cause, not because the Indians want it nor because the Americans want it, but because Pakistan's own national interests and the Kashmir cause demand it." I find that a strikingly moderate statement from, from one of the main Pakistani papers, and it contrasts with an editorial in The Times of India which is the establishment newspaper of India which actually sent chills down my spine when I, when I read it. And it says: "A cross-border military strike is fraught with all manner of consequences including the possibility of a nuclear exchange. While this alone need not deter India [Eek!], the global conjuncture suggests a new policy of relentless non-offensive actions could pay dividends. Chief among these ought to be the issue of withdrawing from the Indus Waters Treaties whose sole purpose was to guarantee the waters of the three northern rivers to Pakistan." In other words, if we're not going to nuke them, we'll-- we'll kill them with thirst.
BOB GARFIELD: Cistern-rattling.
MARTIN WALKER:It is very much indeed more than sabre-rattling. This Indian policy is one which the European press has really spoken about with almost one voice in saying only America can now act, and I've been reading this in the Italian, in the German, in the Spanish, in the, in the French press and in the British press, the liberal Guardian stresses "A nuclear doctrine must now become part of America's long-term vision. With billions of lives at stake, the onus is on America to ensure that all sides start talking again."
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] Do they have any ideas for what the United States can do to defuse the tensions?
MARTIN WALKER:Talk a lot. And also in a sense re-adjust its thinking. In Frankfurter Rundschau which is a, a left of center German daily, the editorial said: "As long as President George W. Bush allows the analysis of the new global situation through the, the crosshairs of the Pentagon and not through the wider angle lens of critical observers and diplomats, there is not even a diplomatic approach from America to formulate the Kashmir question anew. America has to do better than this and only it can." Even in, in the Middle East we're getting the same call. From Qatar's Al Watan: "The irresponsible acts of Pakistanis and Indians unfortunately justify calls by the West for not allowing Third World countries to own nuclear technology, but that must be a secondary consideration to the need for America to step in to prevent this war getting out of hand."
BOB GARFIELD:This strikes me as such a wonderful example of the world's ambivalence about American hegemony. They hate the world that harbors but one sole superpower and yet they seem to at the same time embrace it. Am I obsessing about this too much?
MARTIN WALKER: No, you're not. I mean I think you're absolutely right. I mean it, it seems that America is damned if it does intervene in the world's affairs and even more damned if it doesn't when people get frightened. I, I think the, the reason why people are now desperate is something that I've picked up both in the British press and in the German press is-- as the Times put it: "The immediate danger is perhaps similar in character to that which existed in July 1914 after Serbian terrorists had murdered the Austrian archduke. No one will succeed in preventing the war in which both India and Pakistan public opinion seem to support. This was what led Europe to the trenches in 1914." There is a real sense that this could be the most dangerous war of all.
BOB GARFIELD: Well that's sobering because-- in 1914 there were no nukes.
MARTIN WALKER:There weren't, but it was the suicide of the old European civilization anyway. It saw the end of the German and the Austrian and the Russian empires.
BOB GARFIELD: Martin, once again, thanks so much.
MARTIN WALKER: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD: Martin Walker is the chief international correspondent for United Press International. Al-Qaeda Computer
January 5, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported on information found in a couple of Al Qaeda computers purchased, as luck would have it, by one of its reporters in Afghanistan. The computers, apparently used by Al Qaeda to coordinate its operations, contained hundreds of documents and files including correspondence with militant Muslims around the world and plans for producing chemical and biological weapons. Referring to those weapons, one memo read: "We only became aware of them when the enemy drew our attention to them by repeatedly expressing concern that they can be produced simply." "That enemy," says 60 Minutes producer Peter Klein, "is Peter Klein and all the other reporters who cover bio-terrorism." And he joins us now. Mr. Klein, welcome to the show.
PETER KLEIN: Thank you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So when you read that in the Wall Street Journal, what was your immediate reaction?
PETER KLEIN: Well I really had chills, specifically because of the reference of "enemy." I never imagined myself as the, as the enemy.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well I mean the fact that Al Qaeda refers to you as an enemy is, is not really the-- the most nightmarish aspect of all of this I would imagine.
PETER KLEIN: Right. No. We've had conversations in the newsroom many, many times covering bioterrorism. How much should we reveal. You know, is saying that anthrax is easy to produce -- is that a bad thing to say? Is that going to inspire someone to go produce anthrax? I guess it, what it made me realize is how much power the press has. It's something I don't think about regularly on a daily basis.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now you and Mike Wallace not long ago won an Emmy for a report you did on how easy it would be to create a smallpox epidemic.
PETER KLEIN: Right.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Did you think about that when you read this memo from the Al Qaeda computer?
PETER KLEIN:I did. I did. You know that story aired in--October of 2000, and strangely enough just 2 weeks before the September 11th attack as well we re-aired it. But in that report we have a, a Russian biologist who, who worked on the Russian bio-weapons program explain how simple it was to produce 20 tons of smallpox using nothing but chicken eggs and an incubator. We have an American scientist who explains how simple it would be to fill a building because it's communicable. We had a--another doctor who explained how difficult it would be for an American doctor to notice smallpox -- that it would spread throughout the country before anyone would notice it, because we're not on high alert. Our agenda there, our purpose there of course was not to tell people go out and spread smallpox because it's easy to do -- it was to alert the public and to alert officials that doctors need to be trained to notice smallpox, that we need to realize that this is a threat out there, but we did discuss at the time, you know, how much of this should we be revealing.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But this is information we all already know. One thing you didn't outline in your piece is where you can obtain smallpox. Is it easy to obtain. Actually that has come out in some recent Nightline report I think. Do you think there's enough information in the general media about these weapons to enable somebody to actually build one or to simply sound the clarion call of the threat of them?
PETER KLEIN: I think virtually every journalist worth their salt in this country has been -- certainly since September 11th -- but I think even before September 11th very, very conscious of the fact that we do not want to give a recipe out there, whether it's to build a nuclear dirty bomb or biological weapons bomb. And in fact in conversations with experts --I, I was in the office of a epidemiologist a couple of years ago. He opened his drawer and he said this small credit card size mechanism which you can buy in so and so type of store could do this or that. You know, my first inclination was to, you know, ask him to bring that to the interview -to show that to Mike Wallace, to, you know, to talk about that. Certainly now that wouldn't even be a first thought, but I mean I guess I'm proud that when I thought it through I didn't want to do it and, and frankly he didn't want to do it either. You know I think that goes on all the time when we're covering biological terrorism. So the answer to your question is: no, I don't think that if you read every single newspaper and magazine and, and television story done about biological weapons you would not be able to cobble one together with just that information.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But it still gave you chills when you read that Al Qaeda had gotten the idea from the "enemy" -- that is, the Western press.
PETER KLEIN:The idea that they were sitting around and had never thought of biological weapons until the Western press started saying how simple it was to do -- yeah. That gave me chills.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Will it lead you to change your behavior in any way?
PETER KLEIN:I think the-- the end product, the piece that gets on the air, will be exactly the same. What's changed is the process that goes on in my mind. I mentioned earlier the, the example of the scientist showing me and telling me how one can fill a building with a biological weapon with readily available materials. At this point I would never even consider asking him to put that on, whereas before I would consider it and then reject it.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Peter Klein, thank you very much.
PETER KLEIN: Thank you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Peter Klein is a producer for 60 Minutes on CBS. Letters
January 5, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This week we received a boatload of letters protesting our report by Philip Martin on the conflict between NPR and pro-Israel groups. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, or Camera, listed a number of objections to our piece on its website, Camera.org, and urged its members to write, and many did. And so did many others.
BOB GARFIELD:For instance Joshua Hurwitt of Oswego, New York notes that "Mr. Martin failed to mention Camera's numerous in-depth studies of NPR as the basis for its charges of pro-Palestinian bias. This," he writes, "leaves listeners with the impression that Camera criticizes the individual story and doesn't examine the sweep of coverage over a long period of time. This is patently false." Jonathan Reich of Lakeland Florida also made that point adding that quote "Bias is frequently not perceived by the perpetrator. The people who produced NPR's Middle Eastern news are well-known supporters of the Arab position and thus it is hardly surprising that the bias is there."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:And Larry Pollak from Columbus, Ohio says similarly that he was not at all surprised to hear the NPR distortions about Camera. "Among my friends," he writes, "NPR has come to stand for The National Palestinian Radio Network."
BOB GARFIELD: Oy vay iz mir.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Oy gevalt! John Klemme from Carouge, Switzerland finds it disconcerting that so many financially important NPR supporters have such a visceral attachment to their own perception of a single issue. "They undermine their cause," he writes, "by giving credence to (quote) 'the belief that Jewish interests are working behind the scenes to coordinate punishment on those who dare question Israel's moral high ground.'"
BOB GARFIELD:On our piece about using dead celebrities as posthumous pitchmen, Christopher Cole of Charlotte, North Carolina objects to what he sees as our suggestion that there's something disreputable about commerce. "It gives a whole new purpose to men and women who have departed from society," he writes. "They're dead, moldering in their graves. I think it honors them to bring their memories to new generations, especially in their primes. What about kids who see Louis Armstrong in a Coke commercial and ask their parents about him? They may be inspired to learn more."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:We prefer to hear from living, breathing listeners, so e-mail us with your comments to onthemedia@wnyc.org, and don't forget to tell us where you live and how to pronounce your name. Coming up -- the fog of war, on the big screen - and the worship of ferrets, on the newsstands.
BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media from National Public Radio.
Black Hawk Down
January 5, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: We're back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Black Hawk Down opens later this month. It's a war movie starring Josh Hartnett and Ewan McGregor about what is widely perceived as an American military disaster -- the 1993 raid in Mogadishu, Somalia in which two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, 18 soldiers killed, and more than 70 injured. Hundreds of Somalians also died that day.
CLIP FROM Black Hawk DOWN
MAN: [SHOUTING] 6 - 1 - I'm going down!
MAN OVER RADIO: 6 - 1 is going down. He's hit. He is hit.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The movie is based on the book by Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Mark Bowden that meticulously traces through eyewitness accounts and leaked documents the events leading up to that terrorism day. Mark, welcome to the show.
MARK BOWDEN: Thanks, Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now your book was about a mission in Somalia where 18 American soldiers died. Did the military turn even more skittish about giving out information after that?
MARK BOWDEN: Well they were already pretty skittish. One of the reasons, I think, that so few Americans really knew anything about the Battle of Mogadishu is that there were no reporters in-country when this happened.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Just one, I think. Paul Watson?
MARK BOWDEN:Well there was a fellow from the Toronto Star, Paul Watson. He was there mostly, as I understand it, as a photographer. But there were no American reporters present.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Now we went back and looked at the coverage at the time. It was immediate. There wasn't any effort to cover up that something had gone seriously wrong, and within a day Paul Watson's pictures of an American serviceman being dragged through the streets were all over the world. Did people within the military say we can't be embarrassed like that again?
MARK BOWDEN: Well you know it wasn't so much, Brooke, people in the military. You know, it was the political establishment. In fact, in this case, the Pentagon had requested what's known as an AC-130 gunship which is really kind of hard to hide. If the president had authorized it, it would have attracted I think a lot of press back into the country. So in this case, it was a political decision to refuse the Pentagon's request for the AC-130 primarily because I believe the White House was worried that it would attract a lot of media attention. But there's no question that in modern times the military has decided to keep journalists away from special ops units like the Rangers and Delta Force, and since most of our deployments around the world involves these special ops units, it's had the effect of basically journalists being kept far away from any military action.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:I understand that most every cadet at West Point and midshipmen at Annapolis has read your book, but you didn't get much official cooperation. What did you have to do when you were writing the book to get access to the tapes, the records and the flight logs that you used to reconstruct the battle?
MARK BOWDEN: Well, they were leaked. The information came not from any official source but from individuals who had been involved in the fight.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Pentagon gave you no problems when you used that same material to reconstruct the battle on film?
MARK BOWDEN:On film, no. Interestingly the Pentagon at that point had no objection. Theoretically all of the information about this battle or much of it is classified. Delta Force itself which is depicted in the movie is a unit so classified the Army doesn't even acknowledge it exists, and yet they were willing to come out and assist in the making a movie - of a movie that depicts the characters and the action of these soldiers very accurately. So there are no hard and fast rules here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Sometimes, with movies like Top Gun or Pearl Harbor, the military cooperates because they think it's good public relations. What about the movie version of Black Hawk Down?
MARK BOWDEN: They've probably made a good judgment in this case in terms of, you know, their own interests, because I suspect that while it tells the story of a, of a military mission that basically had the plug pulled on it and was not perfect by any means, it captures the nobility of soldiers in combat and their service. So I think that's why they cooperated, and I think while people watching the movie will receive it in many different ways, my hunch is that young men will be--inspired by it.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Mark Bowden, thank you very much.
MARK BOWDEN: You're welcome.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Mark Bowden is the author of Black Hawk Down. The movie based on the book arrives in theaters across the country this month. Teaching Tool: The Battle of Algiers
January 5, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: The debate over whether America should resort to torture in order to extract information from suspected terrorists has aired on the editorial pages of America's papers and on cable and radio talk shows, but you won't find the issue dealt with in the local cineplex unless you live next to an art house showing the 1966 film The Battle of Algiers. That movie depicts the steps French paratroopers took in the late '50s to dismantle the National Liberation Front, or FLN. Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism analyst for the Rand Corporation, has used the Battle of Algiers in courses he's taught to graduate students. Bruce, welcome to OTM.
BRUCE HOFFMAN: Pleasure to be here, Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: In the January issue of Atlantic Monthly you recommend this movie to soldiers, spies and students. Why?
BRUCE HOFFMAN: Well I think the key to understanding the film is that like all good films it's about a search, and in this case it's the search for intelligence, for information that he authorities need to uproot the terrorist infrastructure in Algiers during the 1950s. The Italian director, Gillo Pontecorvo, displayed a cast of characters which both did egregious things. You have on the one hand scenes of the terrorists planting bombs in cafeterias frequented by high school and university students. On the other hand you have the French paratroops using perhaps the most heinous methods of torture to extract information. And what it underscores is that countering terrorism is first and foremost an intelligence game, and that the primacy of intelligence is paramount.
BOB GARFIELD:Pontecorvo was sympathetic with the FLN, and it would be easy to see the movie as a kind of agitprop, but it's also, from the opposite side of the question, a pretty good study of the ends justifying the means, isn't it?
BRUCE HOFFMAN: Well it's more morally ambiguous than that, because of course it does depict how the French paras used torture, got information and destroyed the terrorist infrastructure in the City of Algiers. But also the point of the film is that the French may have won the battle but in the end they lost the war, and in fact it was their resort to torture and resort to these heinous methods that in fact drove most of the population into the terrorists' arms and almost polarized the entire conflict in a way that ensure--ensured that the French could not succeed. Not only did the local population turn against their colonial masters, but I think equally as importantly, the population in metropolitan France, not just the intellectuals in Paris but certainly much of the population was repelled and recoiled at the, at the - really the harsh methods that had to be employed to win the struggle.
BOB GARFIELD:I think you mention in your piece that the Battle of Algiers has actually been used as a kind of instructional video, both by terrorist groups and counter-terrorist organizations. How has it worked that way?
BRUCE HOFFMAN: For terrorist organizations, I think it's been an enormously useful means to develop their trade craft -- in other words their counterintelligence capabilities, to avoid being caught, to give them insight into how the government security forces operate. And we know, for example, that the IRA has viewed it, that the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka have studied it. Supposedly the Black Panthers in the United States in the 1960s also studied it. At the same time many military and security services have also watched it. I think what -one of the most, to me, interesting scenes in the film is when Colonel Mathieu depicts this -- what has been described as an organogram -- that is, this -- on the blackboard a sort of pyramid structure with little pyramids within it that indicate the terrorist cells that lead up and narrow down to the master mind orchestrating the terrorist operation. And I think for security forces it's enormously useful to see that's a very timeless message that almost all successful terrorist groups operat--operate on a cellular basis, and that the key is finding the nodes and the connections between the cells and then gradually, systematically, relentlessly bearing down on the head of the organization, and that's what the film is about.
BOB GARFIELD:Pontecorvo's film was so detailed and of such verisimilitude that he actually had to have a, a disclaimer in the beginning saying that there's no documentary footage. How did he get such-- accuracy?
BRUCE HOFFMAN: It was firstly a joint Algerian and Italian production. So in that sense he had access and did the shooting in Algiers in the Casbah in exactly the same locations where this battle was fought. Also, and I think fascinatingly, many of the real life protagonists, many of the terrorists from the 1950s reprise their roles on screen! Pontecorvo himself led a, a partisan brigade in Italy, in Milan in fact, during World War II. So was a guerrilla fighter himself. He knew exactly what he was talking about, and that I think is a key element. You're talking about someone who actually had experience in urban warfare and in street fighting.
BOB GARFIELD: Pauline Kael regarded Battle of Algiers as one of the great anti-war films. Is it an anti-war movie?
BRUCE HOFFMAN:I think what it shows really is just how brutal and how dirty fighting terrorism can become and indeed how dirty and how brutal undeniably terrorism in its-- is in itself. Here you have a democracy - the French Republic - who, willy-nilly almost, slides into the use of these very base and repugnant means. So I think the point of studying this is that eventually any society is confronted with these types of dilemmas, and I think my argument is that it's, it's better to at least take a forward-looking view and begin to consider them and debate them rather than find yourselves boxed into a corner and then adopting things that may prove counterproductive in the long run.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. Thank you very much.
BRUCE HOFFMAN: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD:Bruce Hoffman is a policy analyst for the Rand Corporation and author of the piece "A Nasty Business" in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly. Ferret's Magazine
January 5, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: So, Brooke!
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Yeah?
BOB GARFIELD: I picked up the Washington Post earlier this week and I saw a story about Modern Ferret Magazine, and I said to myself golly, I remember hearing a magnificent piece about Modern Ferret Magazine on the radio!
BROOKE GLADSTONE: I remember hearing a piece about Modern Ferret Magazine on our program.
BOB GARFIELD: Um-- oh! You know what? That was on our show. I did that piece.
WOMAN:My name is Shelton Crout [sp?] and I address you today not as an animal professional or a ferret expert but as a citizen whom your decision today will greatly affect. About three years ago I decided to introduce pets into my life; however I'm allergic to cats--
BOB GARFIELD:The venue, a late December hearing of the New York City Council. The subject, legislation that would reverse city health regulations currently prohibiting pet ferrets within city limits. The inescapable lesson: ferret owners care deeply about their pets, which somewhat resemble elongated hamsters but really -- well, think Ronco's Pocket Otter.
MARY SHEFFERMAN: Let's see -- we have Nux and Trixie and Vasco da Gama; Balthasar; Cauliflower, Coushe and Gabrielle. They're not rodents. Their ancestors are polecats. They're in the weasel family. Basically the, the animals that have that kind of wiggly kind of look. [LAUGHS]
BOB GARFIELD:Mary Shefferman knows just how deeply ferret owners care. From a four-bedroom house in Lake Grove, Long Island a home office crammed with ferret cages, ferret tunnels, ferret toys, bags of Totally Ferret ferret food and 7 slender, wriggling little vermin-with-names, she and her husband Eric publish Modern Ferret magazine. Since 1995 they have combined Puckish wit and service journalism to explore everything from ferret heart disease to ferret-owning Playboy playmates to reviews of indispensable ferret products. Eric, the publisher, reads from the tag attached to one of them -- a furry mechanical -- ferret.
ERIC SHEFFERMAN: I'm a little poop pal. I'll tell you what I mean. Squeeze my little tummy; You'll get a jelly bean.
MARY SHEFFERMAN: They poop jelly beans. Some people find it--offensive-- [LAUGHS] [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
BOB GARFIELD: Revolting?
MARY SHEFFERMAN: Yes!
BOB GARFIELD: The key is, though, that some people find anything at all to do with ferrets absolutely irresistible. Which is why the Sheffermans had no trouble rallying witnesses for the City Council hearings and why for three years they could do no wrong with Modern Ferret. They had the ferret lifestyle magazine niche locked up for themselves, and in 1999, right alongside The Economist and The New Yorker, Modern Ferret was judged by the influential media magazine min to be one of the 12 best titles published in America. Credit genuine devotion, an offbeat editorial sensibility, and of course, special issues.
MARY SHEFFERMAN: On the right here we have the, the Ferret of the Century which was the Budweiser Ferret. This is a very exciting issue for us.
ANNOUNCER: [DECLAIMING] And now Budweiser's replacement for Louie the Lizard-- [DRUM ROLL] [DOOR SWINGS OPEN]
BUDWEISER FERRET: No.
ANNOUNCER: [STILL DECLAIMING] --the ferret!
BUDWEISER FERRET: Ehr!
LOUIE THE LIZARD: That's who they picked?!
BUDWEISER FERRET: Ehr! Ehr! Ehr!
BOB GARFIELD: Real ferrets don't actually say very much, although Mary tries her hardest to loosen Cauliflower's lips.
MARY SHEFFERMAN: [TALKING TO PET FERRET] Will you come out and make a noise? Would you think about it?
BOB GARFIELD: When the ferret fails to cooperate, she of course jumps to his defense.
MARY SHEFFERMAN: They have itch breaks. They get little itches, and then they have to stop everything, and you have to just-- wait for them, so he's got his little -- he's having a little itch break.
BOB GARFIELD: Also it's a weasel and it doesn't understand what you're saying.
MARY SHEFFERMAN:[LAUGHS] Well, I'm motioning to him to come out, and they do understand that, and he does actually know his name. [SPEAKING TO PET FERRET] Right?
BOB GARFIELD:Mary and Eric -- blissfully happy, if only marginally profitable -- lived their dream. Then began the nightmare. Fancy Publications, the Time Warner of the pet magazine business, began to publish a competing title! The juggernaut behind Dog Fancy, Cat Fancy and Horse Illustrated hit the newsstands with--: Ferrets.
ERIC SHEFFERMAN: This is typical marketing stuff from them, but they describe about Ferrets: [READING] "Ferrets is a bi-monthly publication devoted to helping you care for your ferret. It is the only magazine where ferret lovers can find in depth, accurate, current information; seek advice and interact with other ferret owners." Having launched several years after we had been out there, it's, it's a little tough for them to say that they're the "only" magazine. This is our whole life's work here, and I'd like my life's work to not be treated as if it doesn't exist.
BOB GARFIELD:There is of course a limited audience and even more limited number of advertisers in the polecat journalism category. Eric and Mary found themselves living nothing less than the bruising consequences of media concentration. Fancy Publications, according to the Sheffermans, quickly used its distribution muscle to squeeze Modern Ferret out of pet stores, costing them half of their paid circulation. And they say that Fancy's owner, Los Angeles entrepreneur Norman Ridker, has tried to intimidate them into folding.
ERIC SHEFFERMAN: Before they launched the Ferrets magazine he actually took me and Mary out to dinner, and he went through this whole explanation of how he's run everyone else out of business in all the other categories that he's done. He told us stories about how he's, you know, sat across the table and, you know, bought someone's whole life's work for pennies on the dollar and watched them cry and-- you know, he really gave us the we're-gonna-crush-you.
BOB GARFIELD: Ridker declined comment on the Sheffermans' charges--
BOB GARFIELD:... as did Ferrets magazine's editorial staff. Putting aside right and wrong, however, clearly in the long run there is no room for two sheriff's in Ferret Town. Complicating matters, Eric has a chronic digestive disorder that has sickened him for weeks at a time, and last year the Sheffermans were able to publish only two issues of Modern Ferret. Still, they pledged to press on.
MARY SHEFFERMAN: I don't think we have a choice. Eric and I are very much committed to, to continuing with Modern Ferret, even if it comes to, you know, I have to go get a job outside the house and we do this as a part time endeavor. There's so many things about ferrets that-- if you don't care enough and it's not part of your life-- That kind of intimacy with the ferrets makes you care very much about what you're publishing.
BOB GARFIELD: Would it be overstating the case to say that ferrets have actually given you a purpose in life?
MARY SHEFFERMAN:That would not be overstating a fact at all. I know a lot of people that-- they don't need that - they don't need that kind of intense purpose. But I'm one of the people who does need that, and-- I think it's made me a better person. If I can say that. [LAUGHS]
BOB GARFIELD:But that may not be enough, because self-actualization doesn't pay the printing bills. In the end it's a dog-eat-dog world out there. [BUDWEISER COMMERCIAL PLAYS: BUD - WEIS - ER] Among other species.
LOUIE THE LIZARD: Enjoy it while you can, hot shots. Your days are numbered!
BUDWEISER COHORT: Louie--
LOUIE THE LIZARD: I know a lot of predators! And I know several very large ferrets! Liquor Ads
January 5, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: Welcome back to NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. The big news in advertising is that NBC decided to become the first network to break with a 60 year tradition and run ads for hard liquor. The American Medical Association has taken, to put it mildly, a dim view of all of this. Of course wine and beer ads have been on TV for decades. Millie Webb, the head of Mothers Against Drunk Driving tells the story about finding a frog on her back porch and showing it to her 3 year old nephew. He didn't say frog, she said, he said Budweiser. Later this month TV Guide is releasing a poll that suggests what the public at large feels about the hard liquor ads, and joining us to lay out those findings is TV Guide columnist and OTM regular, Max Robins. Max, welcome back.
MAX ROBINS: Hey, Brooke. Happy New Year.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Happy New Year. So is NBC doing this now because of the tough economic climate and they want to get money from anywhere they can?
MAX ROBINS: Well look, they're always look for new revenue streams. But they're doing it because they think the timing is right. They can use the cover of a poor economy to help get this through, and they really want to tap hundreds of millions of dollars which are going into other media, and that's for hard liquor.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Other media, meaning magazines.
MAX ROBINS: Absolutely. Most of the hard liquor advertising now -- that's where it goes, into print.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Now before NBC runs the hard sells on the hard liquor it'll be airing a few months of commercials that urge everybody to drink responsibly. Whether this is to inoculate the public or the network against the impact of the ads I'll leave to you. Is that what this is about -- public relations?
MAX ROBINS: Well what they're saying is, is that -- look, none of the commercials will have people in them that are under 30; that they won't have endorsements from people who young people see as role models. They're saying for every 5 dollars they spend one dollar will go to public service announcements about responsible drinking and about the dangers of drinking, and they're really saying, you know, no more things like Budweiser frog. This is absolutely a public relations move by NBC and a very savvy one. They've, they've basically enlisted some of the top hands in Washington to help them do this.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: There have been some rumblings from Congress that they may be banning liquor ads. How likely do you think that is?
MAX ROBINS:I really don't think it's that likely. There is a little sabre-rattling in Washington. There's a couple Congressmen who've said hey, this is horrible; they're right in lock stop with the AMA and they don't want it, and, and look, from our poll we found the country's pretty split - about 50 percent or more people out there think - not just liquor ads but beer ads - all these commercials should be banned from television!
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Actually let's get to the poll. You found that a slim majority disapproved of the ads, and that's all ads - hard liquor, beer and wine?
MAX ROBINS: It's slim for both. There's a higher disapproval rating for hard liquor ads; less so for beer. That's pretty much split down the middle -- beer and wine. Where we did find a real split was women tend to object to any kind of alcohol being advertised on television more strenuously than men.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Are the liquor companies at all concerned, given the -- what you call the sabre-rattling in Congress -- that pushing these ads onto television might mean banning all alcohol ads? Is that something they're afraid of?
MAX ROBINS: [LAUGHS] Well they might tell you that either way this shakes out, they win. Right now, it's not a level playing field for them. Beer and wine companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to sell their products on television. The liquor companies, they're -really have been limited. Their feeling is --look, if we get on and we can go head to head in what's more fun to drink, we want to do it! But if for example the government steps in and says hey -- get it all out of there, well the playing field becomes level! So I don't think they're really too scared that they've opened Pandora's Box with this.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well Max Robins, thank you very much.
MAX ROBINS: Thank you, Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Max Robins writes The Robins Report for TV Guide. Mainstreaming Urban Culture
January 5, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: When Cornel West ventured into rap, he did not wander out of the cultural mainstream, because a kind of cultural alchemy had already transformed street corner hip hop and graffiti into platinum watches and billion dollar deals. It's what the marketers call urban culture. Urban IQ, an urban media research firm, says there are 45 million consumers of urban culture -- fully two-thirds of Americans between the ages of 18 and 35. More than half live outside major urban centers. More than 60 percent are white. Thus the urban culture consumer, like any consumer, is not defined by who he is but by what he buys. And by that measure, Viacom is a big-time urban consumer. It paid 3 billion dollars for Black Entertainment Television.
KEITH CLINKSCALES: And the reason why BET can be bought and sold for such a high number is because of the people it reaches and because of the advertising potential that the corporations believe that it his.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Keith Clinkscales is the CEO of Vanguard Media which specializes in urban media and entertainment.
KEITH CLINKSCALES: Large corporations don't pay hundreds of millions of dollars for niches.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Artists have a tendency to live on the margins, but when the sums are this large, there seems to be no choice but to follow the money into the mainstream. Crossing over has lost its stigma, says Donnell Alexander, author of the soon to be published memoir Ghetto Celebrity.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: There used to be a really huge price to pay. I remember the George Clinton song from the mid-80s -- R&B Skeletons in the Closet --about people like Lionel Ritchie who had like major, major roots in music that was sort of off in the margins. When you crossed over, you ran the risk of losing your original audience. Now it's almost embraced.
GEORGE CLINTON: THOUGH HE'S CROSSED OVER HE IS DEFINITELY FROM ALABAMA [RIDGE?] HE USED TO TAKE [...?...] THERE. SONGS WE USED TO SING, THINGS WE USED TO DO, WE DO NO MORE--
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Even in the 1980s, name brand items would turn up in rap music says Alexander.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: My Addidas. It's, it's a teen anthem. I mean when I was a kid, I was like-- I wasn't even crazy about Addidas the brand name, but the--juice that comes from a great song like that makes you want to go out and buy a pair of Addidas.
RUN-DMC: MY ADDIDAS WALK THROUGH [...?...] DOORS AND ROAM ALL OVER COLISEUM FLOORS I STEPPED ON STAGE AT MY LIVE AID ALL THE PEOPLE GAVE AND THE POOR GOT PAID THEN OUT THOSE SPEAKERS I DID SPEAK I WORE MY SNEAKERS [AUTOMATICALLY?]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But the fashions stayed in the neighborhood, he says. The venture capitalists didn't see the potential until they heard the cash registers.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: When Run-DMC came up with My Addidas they weren't thinking that the anchor of The Sports Show would be referencing My Addidas.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Not very long ago, Alexander was hired to "urbanize" the sports cable channel ESPN.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: I was the designated "hip guy."
BROOKE GLADSTONE: He was assigned to help "hip hop-ify," as it were, the anchors so they wouldn't sound so square.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: Stuart Scott was the key figure in the introduction of urban culture in ESPN, and that was about 1997 when he first was brought aboard from ESPN 2. He was the guy who brought in the vernacular, and at first he was the only person saying it. I know Stuart Scott, and I know at first it caused a lot of waves. At first it was a problem.
STUART SCOTT: I got one, one time - someone said speak the Queen's English or carry your bleepety-bleep in BET where those bleepety-bleeps can understand you.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: But now it is really purely nakedly absorbed by the anchors who have no pretense of being hip on any level. And it's not just on ESPN! I see it in commercials all the time. You, you know - in your face - 24/7 - these are things that used to be "hood" expressions.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:As of 2001 the style, attitudes and vernacular of urban culture are fully entrenched into the mainstream culture. Bo Kemp is executive vice president of Vanguard media. He says urban culture hasn't been damaged in the transition. The art didn't change. The consumers did.
BO KEMP: Crossover in some respects only is an identifier that something's become very popular. Nothing more than that. And I think some people try to make more if somehow - you know - if you become popular that means you targeted, you know, whites per se in order to become part of that mainstream when in fact all you may have done is produce something that was of such quality that a huge group of people just wanted to buy it.
TALIB KWELI: I think it is going to be co-opted. It - you know it is - it, it's in danger of and it has been, it will be -- that's the nature of where we live.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Talib Kweli has been called hip hop's positive force. Sincere and plainspoken, said a reviewer in the mainstream New York Magazine. One of the most unusual voices in hip hop.
TALIB KWELI: NOWADAYS RAP ARTISTS COME IN HALFHEARTED COMMERCIAL LIKE POP OR UNDERGROUND LIKE BLACK MARKETS WHERE WERE YOU THE DAY HIP HOP DIED? IS IT TOO EARLY TO MOURN? IS IT TOO LATE TO RIDE? IS IT TOO EARLY TO MOURN? IS IT TOO LATE TO RIDE?
TALIB KWELI: Hip hop music is a music that comes out of nothing - out of having no money - no resources - no instruments - no - anything. And it's more - it's about more than just making art or being a rebel; it's about really surviving and living and eating. Other artists, other people sometimes have the luxury of being artists and just being in it just because they love art -- not because they need it to get out of the situation they were in. And I want my music to get heard, so I market and promote myself! I made myself into a product. I do it so I could feed my family. I do it so I could feed myself. Do it so I could have a platform and so that things I say can have some weight and relevance in the community so I can effect some change.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: There is the possibility of change, but it's limited by the appetites of the market, says Ray Roker, publisher of Urb Magazine.
RAY ROKER:People are watching MTV and seeing Jay-Z or Nelly or somebody that may look like a very, you know, slick thug to them, but now they see them as an artist and as a professional. Unfortunately I think a lot of it, though, is still playing into people's pre-conceived notions and their prejudices because what is being produced by black culture and accepted by mainstream society? What? Rap music? Just, you know, music about diamonds and gold and girls and violence? You know that's what's accepted in the millions? But if you want to talk about political struggle or what we need to do to, to save the world around us, that stuff's boring. It doesn't get on TV. It doesn't get on the radio. And hip hop music, and I think people who really consider themselves real fans of hip hop music in the old school and everything wish that it had taken that place that it made for itself, that platform and used it to really say something.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:In other words the young crosscultural consumers of urban culture embrace affronts to popular taste and popular mores, but they just won't buy an assault on their complacency. So the best of hip hop becomes a victim of its own success. But who can argue with success? Not urban media entrepreneur Keith Clinkscales -- with visibility comes money, comes real power and real influence.
KEITH CLINKSCALES: You know Hearst owns Oprah's magazine right now, but my goodness -- that O is a special thing! It's not just a letter! You know power comes in many different forces. It's not just in share certificates and what goes on, on Wall Street.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Urban culture may be fueled by a rainbow coalition of cash money, but it is still a commodity based on racial difference, on the general perception that black urban style, its agility, its ineffable cachet is what everybody wants to buy. Culture critic Donnell Alexander.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: Nelson George, the critic, wrote an amazing essay called The Black Basketball Aesthetic in which he pointed out players like Jason Williams who happen to be white but play black; players like Tim Duncan who's a contemporary player and a great player, but he plays like a white guy. He won't sell that many jerseys.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But what does playing black mean; what does playing white mean?
DONNELL ALEXANDER:It's the difference between-- Pat Boone and Little Richard, [LAUGHS] basically -- they could both do Tutti Frutti, you know, and they're two different songs.
PAT BOONE: A BOP BOP A LOOMAH BAH LOP BOP BOP TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTU FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE A BOP BOP A LOOMAH BAH LOP BOP BOP
LITTLE RICHARD: GOT A GAL NAMED SUE SHE KNOWS JUST WHAT TO DO I GOT A GAL NAMED SUE SHE KNOWS JUST WHAT TO DO SHE BOP TO THE EAST SHE BOP TO THE WEST BUT SHE'S THE GAL THAT I LOVE BEST TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI WOOOOOOO TUTTI FRUTTI [SONG CONTINUING UNDER]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Maybe it's cause I'm a white kid from the suburbs, but I'm gonna go out on Little Richard.
LITTLE RICHARD: TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE A WOP BABA LOOMAH BA LOP BOM BOM [SONG CONTINUING UNDER]
BOB GARFIELD: That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price and Katya Rogers, with Sean Landis; engineered by Scott Strickland and Dylan Keefe and edited-- by Brooke. We had help from Allison Lichter. Our web master is Amy Pearl. [SONG CONTINUING]
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Mike Pesca is our producer at large, Arun "Broken Bones" Rath our senior producer and Dean Cappello 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 National Public Radio. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And, yo-- I'm Bob Garfield.
LITTLE RICHARD: TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE A WOP BABA LOOMAH BA LOP BOM BOM GOT A GAL NAMED DAISY SHE ALMOST DRIVE ME CRAZY GOT A GAL NAMED DAISY SHE ALMOST DRIVE ME CRAZY SHE KNOWS HOW TO LOVE ME, YES, INDEED BOY YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT SHE DO TO ME TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE WOOOOOOOO TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE A WOP BABA LOOMAH BA LOP BOM BOOM 58:30
[FUNDING CREDITS]
January 5, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: Maybe it's because Harvard is widely deemed America's premier institution of higher learning or maybe because Harvard graduates are, shall we say, well-represented in the media elite, but the sort of ordinary academic controversies that routinely swirl at other campuses, when they happen at Harvard, tend to make news. This week a dustup between the Afro-American Studies Department and the university's president landed in most major newspapers and on the front page of the New York Times. By week's end, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton both were promising to intervene in the situation as if America's first university had suddenly become the site of an ugly hate crime.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:The main players in this tempest were Harvard President Lawrence Summers and university Professor Cornel West who you may recognize from his best-selling book Race Matters, from his many talk show appearances or from his latest disc -- hit it, professor. [MUSIC UNDER]
CORNEL WEST: AND RHYTHM AND BLUES MELLOW THE SHARING OF SOOTHING SWEET [...?...]
BOB GARFIELD: Yes, Cornel West cut a hip hop CD bringing a little ebony to the ivory tower. Now from what we've heard off the album, we don't think the man should quit his day job. But we were a bit surprised by President Summers' reaction as reported in the Boston Globe that West acted quote "in ways unbecoming of a Harvard professor."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:It wasn't just the CD which West produced in his year away from the university. Summers reportedly objected to grade inflation in West's courses and he also took issue with West's heading the Al Sharpton Presidential Exploratory Committee.
BOB GARFIELD:Yeah, shuttling between academia and politics -- how could Summers countenance that? Or should I say -- how could Secretary Summers countenance that? His last job was with the U.S. Department of Treasury. As for grade inflation, that like master's tea at Dunster House is a Harvard Institution. So the question really is can a rap CD constitute serious scholarship? Give it up for my tenured homey. [MUSIC UNDER]
CORNEL WEST: THE OLDER GENERATION MUST BEQUEATH AND TRANSMIT THE BEST OF THE OLD TO THE NEW FOR THE YOUNGER GENERATION WILL MEET THE CHALLENGE.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: West's supporters immediately charged Summers with being uncommitted to diversity and affirmative action, and Summers replied by saying his commitment to diversity is unshakable, and by Thursday things had begun to calm down. But I suggest that Lawrence Summers does lack commitment to diversity -- diversity of expression. [R&B STYLE MUSIC] Would a Harvard professor be begrudged for pursuing a passion for, say, chamber music. Even if Professor West wrote a book about the use of popular music to influence the thought patterns of American youth, he'd be applauded!
BOB GARFIELD:But because he actually recorded an album of rap, jazz and soul music in an attempt to influence the thought patterns of America's youth, he was criticized. Not that we expect music history to be especially kind to Professor West. Some of the songs do have a sort of William Shatner-sings-Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Diamonds quality to them. But at least he tried, and if that's "unbecoming" I don't know what this world is "becoming" to. Mmmmmm--- Sorry about the syntax. I-- went to Penn State.
MAN: ...ON EARTH SOMETIMES--
MAN: HEY, BROTHER -- YOU THINK ABOUT ANY TIME REVEREND WEST-- HOW LOVED WE WERE, MAN HEY THAT'S WHAT I'M TELLING YOU--
MAN: WOOO! YEAH!! CHORUS: [SINGING] REMEMBER [DURING] THOSE '70S DIDN'T CARE WHAT LIFE WOULD BRING PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK EVERY DAY WHEN I THINK OF...
India and Pakistan
January 5, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: From WNYC in New York this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. The war against terrorism is momentarily quiet, but looming on the horizon is a far more volatile conflict between India and Pakistan mainly over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Troop deployments by both nuclear powers are ominous, and the media rhetoric bellicose. Joining us once again to discuss the foreign coverage of that region is Martin Walker, chief correspondent for United Press International. Martin, India's stated rationale for its hard line on Pakistan is its belief that Pakistan is at a minimum giving aid and comfort to terrorists in the disputed territory of Kashmir. In the Pakistani press, is there any acknowledgement of that relationship between terrorist acts and the Pakistani government?
MARTIN WALKER: Yes, yes there is. The Frontier Post which is published in Peshawar -- that's an independent daily newspaper -- actually says that the Pakistani government really, you know, has to meet this demand. "After the 9/11 episode," it says, "the world has been transformed dramatically. Our government has to come to grips with the militant groups working on their own agendas under the guise of the Kashmir cause, not because the Indians want it nor because the Americans want it, but because Pakistan's own national interests and the Kashmir cause demand it." I find that a strikingly moderate statement from, from one of the main Pakistani papers, and it contrasts with an editorial in The Times of India which is the establishment newspaper of India which actually sent chills down my spine when I, when I read it. And it says: "A cross-border military strike is fraught with all manner of consequences including the possibility of a nuclear exchange. While this alone need not deter India [Eek!], the global conjuncture suggests a new policy of relentless non-offensive actions could pay dividends. Chief among these ought to be the issue of withdrawing from the Indus Waters Treaties whose sole purpose was to guarantee the waters of the three northern rivers to Pakistan." In other words, if we're not going to nuke them, we'll-- we'll kill them with thirst.
BOB GARFIELD: Cistern-rattling.
MARTIN WALKER:It is very much indeed more than sabre-rattling. This Indian policy is one which the European press has really spoken about with almost one voice in saying only America can now act, and I've been reading this in the Italian, in the German, in the Spanish, in the, in the French press and in the British press, the liberal Guardian stresses "A nuclear doctrine must now become part of America's long-term vision. With billions of lives at stake, the onus is on America to ensure that all sides start talking again."
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] Do they have any ideas for what the United States can do to defuse the tensions?
MARTIN WALKER:Talk a lot. And also in a sense re-adjust its thinking. In Frankfurter Rundschau which is a, a left of center German daily, the editorial said: "As long as President George W. Bush allows the analysis of the new global situation through the, the crosshairs of the Pentagon and not through the wider angle lens of critical observers and diplomats, there is not even a diplomatic approach from America to formulate the Kashmir question anew. America has to do better than this and only it can." Even in, in the Middle East we're getting the same call. From Qatar's Al Watan: "The irresponsible acts of Pakistanis and Indians unfortunately justify calls by the West for not allowing Third World countries to own nuclear technology, but that must be a secondary consideration to the need for America to step in to prevent this war getting out of hand."
BOB GARFIELD:This strikes me as such a wonderful example of the world's ambivalence about American hegemony. They hate the world that harbors but one sole superpower and yet they seem to at the same time embrace it. Am I obsessing about this too much?
MARTIN WALKER: No, you're not. I mean I think you're absolutely right. I mean it, it seems that America is damned if it does intervene in the world's affairs and even more damned if it doesn't when people get frightened. I, I think the, the reason why people are now desperate is something that I've picked up both in the British press and in the German press is-- as the Times put it: "The immediate danger is perhaps similar in character to that which existed in July 1914 after Serbian terrorists had murdered the Austrian archduke. No one will succeed in preventing the war in which both India and Pakistan public opinion seem to support. This was what led Europe to the trenches in 1914." There is a real sense that this could be the most dangerous war of all.
BOB GARFIELD: Well that's sobering because-- in 1914 there were no nukes.
MARTIN WALKER:There weren't, but it was the suicide of the old European civilization anyway. It saw the end of the German and the Austrian and the Russian empires.
BOB GARFIELD: Martin, once again, thanks so much.
MARTIN WALKER: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD: Martin Walker is the chief international correspondent for United Press International. Al-Qaeda Computer
January 5, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported on information found in a couple of Al Qaeda computers purchased, as luck would have it, by one of its reporters in Afghanistan. The computers, apparently used by Al Qaeda to coordinate its operations, contained hundreds of documents and files including correspondence with militant Muslims around the world and plans for producing chemical and biological weapons. Referring to those weapons, one memo read: "We only became aware of them when the enemy drew our attention to them by repeatedly expressing concern that they can be produced simply." "That enemy," says 60 Minutes producer Peter Klein, "is Peter Klein and all the other reporters who cover bio-terrorism." And he joins us now. Mr. Klein, welcome to the show.
PETER KLEIN: Thank you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So when you read that in the Wall Street Journal, what was your immediate reaction?
PETER KLEIN: Well I really had chills, specifically because of the reference of "enemy." I never imagined myself as the, as the enemy.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well I mean the fact that Al Qaeda refers to you as an enemy is, is not really the-- the most nightmarish aspect of all of this I would imagine.
PETER KLEIN: Right. No. We've had conversations in the newsroom many, many times covering bioterrorism. How much should we reveal. You know, is saying that anthrax is easy to produce -- is that a bad thing to say? Is that going to inspire someone to go produce anthrax? I guess it, what it made me realize is how much power the press has. It's something I don't think about regularly on a daily basis.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now you and Mike Wallace not long ago won an Emmy for a report you did on how easy it would be to create a smallpox epidemic.
PETER KLEIN: Right.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Did you think about that when you read this memo from the Al Qaeda computer?
PETER KLEIN:I did. I did. You know that story aired in--October of 2000, and strangely enough just 2 weeks before the September 11th attack as well we re-aired it. But in that report we have a, a Russian biologist who, who worked on the Russian bio-weapons program explain how simple it was to produce 20 tons of smallpox using nothing but chicken eggs and an incubator. We have an American scientist who explains how simple it would be to fill a building because it's communicable. We had a--another doctor who explained how difficult it would be for an American doctor to notice smallpox -- that it would spread throughout the country before anyone would notice it, because we're not on high alert. Our agenda there, our purpose there of course was not to tell people go out and spread smallpox because it's easy to do -- it was to alert the public and to alert officials that doctors need to be trained to notice smallpox, that we need to realize that this is a threat out there, but we did discuss at the time, you know, how much of this should we be revealing.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But this is information we all already know. One thing you didn't outline in your piece is where you can obtain smallpox. Is it easy to obtain. Actually that has come out in some recent Nightline report I think. Do you think there's enough information in the general media about these weapons to enable somebody to actually build one or to simply sound the clarion call of the threat of them?
PETER KLEIN: I think virtually every journalist worth their salt in this country has been -- certainly since September 11th -- but I think even before September 11th very, very conscious of the fact that we do not want to give a recipe out there, whether it's to build a nuclear dirty bomb or biological weapons bomb. And in fact in conversations with experts --I, I was in the office of a epidemiologist a couple of years ago. He opened his drawer and he said this small credit card size mechanism which you can buy in so and so type of store could do this or that. You know, my first inclination was to, you know, ask him to bring that to the interview -to show that to Mike Wallace, to, you know, to talk about that. Certainly now that wouldn't even be a first thought, but I mean I guess I'm proud that when I thought it through I didn't want to do it and, and frankly he didn't want to do it either. You know I think that goes on all the time when we're covering biological terrorism. So the answer to your question is: no, I don't think that if you read every single newspaper and magazine and, and television story done about biological weapons you would not be able to cobble one together with just that information.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But it still gave you chills when you read that Al Qaeda had gotten the idea from the "enemy" -- that is, the Western press.
PETER KLEIN:The idea that they were sitting around and had never thought of biological weapons until the Western press started saying how simple it was to do -- yeah. That gave me chills.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Will it lead you to change your behavior in any way?
PETER KLEIN:I think the-- the end product, the piece that gets on the air, will be exactly the same. What's changed is the process that goes on in my mind. I mentioned earlier the, the example of the scientist showing me and telling me how one can fill a building with a biological weapon with readily available materials. At this point I would never even consider asking him to put that on, whereas before I would consider it and then reject it.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Peter Klein, thank you very much.
PETER KLEIN: Thank you.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Peter Klein is a producer for 60 Minutes on CBS. Letters
January 5, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This week we received a boatload of letters protesting our report by Philip Martin on the conflict between NPR and pro-Israel groups. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, or Camera, listed a number of objections to our piece on its website, Camera.org, and urged its members to write, and many did. And so did many others.
BOB GARFIELD:For instance Joshua Hurwitt of Oswego, New York notes that "Mr. Martin failed to mention Camera's numerous in-depth studies of NPR as the basis for its charges of pro-Palestinian bias. This," he writes, "leaves listeners with the impression that Camera criticizes the individual story and doesn't examine the sweep of coverage over a long period of time. This is patently false." Jonathan Reich of Lakeland Florida also made that point adding that quote "Bias is frequently not perceived by the perpetrator. The people who produced NPR's Middle Eastern news are well-known supporters of the Arab position and thus it is hardly surprising that the bias is there."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:And Larry Pollak from Columbus, Ohio says similarly that he was not at all surprised to hear the NPR distortions about Camera. "Among my friends," he writes, "NPR has come to stand for The National Palestinian Radio Network."
BOB GARFIELD: Oy vay iz mir.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Oy gevalt! John Klemme from Carouge, Switzerland finds it disconcerting that so many financially important NPR supporters have such a visceral attachment to their own perception of a single issue. "They undermine their cause," he writes, "by giving credence to (quote) 'the belief that Jewish interests are working behind the scenes to coordinate punishment on those who dare question Israel's moral high ground.'"
BOB GARFIELD:On our piece about using dead celebrities as posthumous pitchmen, Christopher Cole of Charlotte, North Carolina objects to what he sees as our suggestion that there's something disreputable about commerce. "It gives a whole new purpose to men and women who have departed from society," he writes. "They're dead, moldering in their graves. I think it honors them to bring their memories to new generations, especially in their primes. What about kids who see Louis Armstrong in a Coke commercial and ask their parents about him? They may be inspired to learn more."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:We prefer to hear from living, breathing listeners, so e-mail us with your comments to onthemedia@wnyc.org, and don't forget to tell us where you live and how to pronounce your name. Coming up -- the fog of war, on the big screen - and the worship of ferrets, on the newsstands.
BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media from National Public Radio.
Black Hawk Down
January 5, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: We're back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Black Hawk Down opens later this month. It's a war movie starring Josh Hartnett and Ewan McGregor about what is widely perceived as an American military disaster -- the 1993 raid in Mogadishu, Somalia in which two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, 18 soldiers killed, and more than 70 injured. Hundreds of Somalians also died that day.
CLIP FROM Black Hawk DOWN
MAN: [SHOUTING] 6 - 1 - I'm going down!
MAN OVER RADIO: 6 - 1 is going down. He's hit. He is hit.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The movie is based on the book by Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Mark Bowden that meticulously traces through eyewitness accounts and leaked documents the events leading up to that terrorism day. Mark, welcome to the show.
MARK BOWDEN: Thanks, Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now your book was about a mission in Somalia where 18 American soldiers died. Did the military turn even more skittish about giving out information after that?
MARK BOWDEN: Well they were already pretty skittish. One of the reasons, I think, that so few Americans really knew anything about the Battle of Mogadishu is that there were no reporters in-country when this happened.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Just one, I think. Paul Watson?
MARK BOWDEN:Well there was a fellow from the Toronto Star, Paul Watson. He was there mostly, as I understand it, as a photographer. But there were no American reporters present.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Now we went back and looked at the coverage at the time. It was immediate. There wasn't any effort to cover up that something had gone seriously wrong, and within a day Paul Watson's pictures of an American serviceman being dragged through the streets were all over the world. Did people within the military say we can't be embarrassed like that again?
MARK BOWDEN: Well you know it wasn't so much, Brooke, people in the military. You know, it was the political establishment. In fact, in this case, the Pentagon had requested what's known as an AC-130 gunship which is really kind of hard to hide. If the president had authorized it, it would have attracted I think a lot of press back into the country. So in this case, it was a political decision to refuse the Pentagon's request for the AC-130 primarily because I believe the White House was worried that it would attract a lot of media attention. But there's no question that in modern times the military has decided to keep journalists away from special ops units like the Rangers and Delta Force, and since most of our deployments around the world involves these special ops units, it's had the effect of basically journalists being kept far away from any military action.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:I understand that most every cadet at West Point and midshipmen at Annapolis has read your book, but you didn't get much official cooperation. What did you have to do when you were writing the book to get access to the tapes, the records and the flight logs that you used to reconstruct the battle?
MARK BOWDEN: Well, they were leaked. The information came not from any official source but from individuals who had been involved in the fight.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Pentagon gave you no problems when you used that same material to reconstruct the battle on film?
MARK BOWDEN:On film, no. Interestingly the Pentagon at that point had no objection. Theoretically all of the information about this battle or much of it is classified. Delta Force itself which is depicted in the movie is a unit so classified the Army doesn't even acknowledge it exists, and yet they were willing to come out and assist in the making a movie - of a movie that depicts the characters and the action of these soldiers very accurately. So there are no hard and fast rules here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Sometimes, with movies like Top Gun or Pearl Harbor, the military cooperates because they think it's good public relations. What about the movie version of Black Hawk Down?
MARK BOWDEN: They've probably made a good judgment in this case in terms of, you know, their own interests, because I suspect that while it tells the story of a, of a military mission that basically had the plug pulled on it and was not perfect by any means, it captures the nobility of soldiers in combat and their service. So I think that's why they cooperated, and I think while people watching the movie will receive it in many different ways, my hunch is that young men will be--inspired by it.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Mark Bowden, thank you very much.
MARK BOWDEN: You're welcome.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Mark Bowden is the author of Black Hawk Down. The movie based on the book arrives in theaters across the country this month. Teaching Tool: The Battle of Algiers
January 5, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: The debate over whether America should resort to torture in order to extract information from suspected terrorists has aired on the editorial pages of America's papers and on cable and radio talk shows, but you won't find the issue dealt with in the local cineplex unless you live next to an art house showing the 1966 film The Battle of Algiers. That movie depicts the steps French paratroopers took in the late '50s to dismantle the National Liberation Front, or FLN. Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism analyst for the Rand Corporation, has used the Battle of Algiers in courses he's taught to graduate students. Bruce, welcome to OTM.
BRUCE HOFFMAN: Pleasure to be here, Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: In the January issue of Atlantic Monthly you recommend this movie to soldiers, spies and students. Why?
BRUCE HOFFMAN: Well I think the key to understanding the film is that like all good films it's about a search, and in this case it's the search for intelligence, for information that he authorities need to uproot the terrorist infrastructure in Algiers during the 1950s. The Italian director, Gillo Pontecorvo, displayed a cast of characters which both did egregious things. You have on the one hand scenes of the terrorists planting bombs in cafeterias frequented by high school and university students. On the other hand you have the French paratroops using perhaps the most heinous methods of torture to extract information. And what it underscores is that countering terrorism is first and foremost an intelligence game, and that the primacy of intelligence is paramount.
BOB GARFIELD:Pontecorvo was sympathetic with the FLN, and it would be easy to see the movie as a kind of agitprop, but it's also, from the opposite side of the question, a pretty good study of the ends justifying the means, isn't it?
BRUCE HOFFMAN: Well it's more morally ambiguous than that, because of course it does depict how the French paras used torture, got information and destroyed the terrorist infrastructure in the City of Algiers. But also the point of the film is that the French may have won the battle but in the end they lost the war, and in fact it was their resort to torture and resort to these heinous methods that in fact drove most of the population into the terrorists' arms and almost polarized the entire conflict in a way that ensure--ensured that the French could not succeed. Not only did the local population turn against their colonial masters, but I think equally as importantly, the population in metropolitan France, not just the intellectuals in Paris but certainly much of the population was repelled and recoiled at the, at the - really the harsh methods that had to be employed to win the struggle.
BOB GARFIELD:I think you mention in your piece that the Battle of Algiers has actually been used as a kind of instructional video, both by terrorist groups and counter-terrorist organizations. How has it worked that way?
BRUCE HOFFMAN: For terrorist organizations, I think it's been an enormously useful means to develop their trade craft -- in other words their counterintelligence capabilities, to avoid being caught, to give them insight into how the government security forces operate. And we know, for example, that the IRA has viewed it, that the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka have studied it. Supposedly the Black Panthers in the United States in the 1960s also studied it. At the same time many military and security services have also watched it. I think what -one of the most, to me, interesting scenes in the film is when Colonel Mathieu depicts this -- what has been described as an organogram -- that is, this -- on the blackboard a sort of pyramid structure with little pyramids within it that indicate the terrorist cells that lead up and narrow down to the master mind orchestrating the terrorist operation. And I think for security forces it's enormously useful to see that's a very timeless message that almost all successful terrorist groups operat--operate on a cellular basis, and that the key is finding the nodes and the connections between the cells and then gradually, systematically, relentlessly bearing down on the head of the organization, and that's what the film is about.
BOB GARFIELD:Pontecorvo's film was so detailed and of such verisimilitude that he actually had to have a, a disclaimer in the beginning saying that there's no documentary footage. How did he get such-- accuracy?
BRUCE HOFFMAN: It was firstly a joint Algerian and Italian production. So in that sense he had access and did the shooting in Algiers in the Casbah in exactly the same locations where this battle was fought. Also, and I think fascinatingly, many of the real life protagonists, many of the terrorists from the 1950s reprise their roles on screen! Pontecorvo himself led a, a partisan brigade in Italy, in Milan in fact, during World War II. So was a guerrilla fighter himself. He knew exactly what he was talking about, and that I think is a key element. You're talking about someone who actually had experience in urban warfare and in street fighting.
BOB GARFIELD: Pauline Kael regarded Battle of Algiers as one of the great anti-war films. Is it an anti-war movie?
BRUCE HOFFMAN:I think what it shows really is just how brutal and how dirty fighting terrorism can become and indeed how dirty and how brutal undeniably terrorism in its-- is in itself. Here you have a democracy - the French Republic - who, willy-nilly almost, slides into the use of these very base and repugnant means. So I think the point of studying this is that eventually any society is confronted with these types of dilemmas, and I think my argument is that it's, it's better to at least take a forward-looking view and begin to consider them and debate them rather than find yourselves boxed into a corner and then adopting things that may prove counterproductive in the long run.
BOB GARFIELD: All right. Thank you very much.
BRUCE HOFFMAN: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD:Bruce Hoffman is a policy analyst for the Rand Corporation and author of the piece "A Nasty Business" in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly. Ferret's Magazine
January 5, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: So, Brooke!
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Yeah?
BOB GARFIELD: I picked up the Washington Post earlier this week and I saw a story about Modern Ferret Magazine, and I said to myself golly, I remember hearing a magnificent piece about Modern Ferret Magazine on the radio!
BROOKE GLADSTONE: I remember hearing a piece about Modern Ferret Magazine on our program.
BOB GARFIELD: Um-- oh! You know what? That was on our show. I did that piece.
WOMAN:My name is Shelton Crout [sp?] and I address you today not as an animal professional or a ferret expert but as a citizen whom your decision today will greatly affect. About three years ago I decided to introduce pets into my life; however I'm allergic to cats--
BOB GARFIELD:The venue, a late December hearing of the New York City Council. The subject, legislation that would reverse city health regulations currently prohibiting pet ferrets within city limits. The inescapable lesson: ferret owners care deeply about their pets, which somewhat resemble elongated hamsters but really -- well, think Ronco's Pocket Otter.
MARY SHEFFERMAN: Let's see -- we have Nux and Trixie and Vasco da Gama; Balthasar; Cauliflower, Coushe and Gabrielle. They're not rodents. Their ancestors are polecats. They're in the weasel family. Basically the, the animals that have that kind of wiggly kind of look. [LAUGHS]
BOB GARFIELD:Mary Shefferman knows just how deeply ferret owners care. From a four-bedroom house in Lake Grove, Long Island a home office crammed with ferret cages, ferret tunnels, ferret toys, bags of Totally Ferret ferret food and 7 slender, wriggling little vermin-with-names, she and her husband Eric publish Modern Ferret magazine. Since 1995 they have combined Puckish wit and service journalism to explore everything from ferret heart disease to ferret-owning Playboy playmates to reviews of indispensable ferret products. Eric, the publisher, reads from the tag attached to one of them -- a furry mechanical -- ferret.
ERIC SHEFFERMAN: I'm a little poop pal. I'll tell you what I mean. Squeeze my little tummy; You'll get a jelly bean.
MARY SHEFFERMAN: They poop jelly beans. Some people find it--offensive-- [LAUGHS] [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
BOB GARFIELD: Revolting?
MARY SHEFFERMAN: Yes!
BOB GARFIELD: The key is, though, that some people find anything at all to do with ferrets absolutely irresistible. Which is why the Sheffermans had no trouble rallying witnesses for the City Council hearings and why for three years they could do no wrong with Modern Ferret. They had the ferret lifestyle magazine niche locked up for themselves, and in 1999, right alongside The Economist and The New Yorker, Modern Ferret was judged by the influential media magazine min to be one of the 12 best titles published in America. Credit genuine devotion, an offbeat editorial sensibility, and of course, special issues.
MARY SHEFFERMAN: On the right here we have the, the Ferret of the Century which was the Budweiser Ferret. This is a very exciting issue for us.
ANNOUNCER: [DECLAIMING] And now Budweiser's replacement for Louie the Lizard-- [DRUM ROLL] [DOOR SWINGS OPEN]
BUDWEISER FERRET: No.
ANNOUNCER: [STILL DECLAIMING] --the ferret!
BUDWEISER FERRET: Ehr!
LOUIE THE LIZARD: That's who they picked?!
BUDWEISER FERRET: Ehr! Ehr! Ehr!
BOB GARFIELD: Real ferrets don't actually say very much, although Mary tries her hardest to loosen Cauliflower's lips.
MARY SHEFFERMAN: [TALKING TO PET FERRET] Will you come out and make a noise? Would you think about it?
BOB GARFIELD: When the ferret fails to cooperate, she of course jumps to his defense.
MARY SHEFFERMAN: They have itch breaks. They get little itches, and then they have to stop everything, and you have to just-- wait for them, so he's got his little -- he's having a little itch break.
BOB GARFIELD: Also it's a weasel and it doesn't understand what you're saying.
MARY SHEFFERMAN:[LAUGHS] Well, I'm motioning to him to come out, and they do understand that, and he does actually know his name. [SPEAKING TO PET FERRET] Right?
BOB GARFIELD:Mary and Eric -- blissfully happy, if only marginally profitable -- lived their dream. Then began the nightmare. Fancy Publications, the Time Warner of the pet magazine business, began to publish a competing title! The juggernaut behind Dog Fancy, Cat Fancy and Horse Illustrated hit the newsstands with--: Ferrets.
ERIC SHEFFERMAN: This is typical marketing stuff from them, but they describe about Ferrets: [READING] "Ferrets is a bi-monthly publication devoted to helping you care for your ferret. It is the only magazine where ferret lovers can find in depth, accurate, current information; seek advice and interact with other ferret owners." Having launched several years after we had been out there, it's, it's a little tough for them to say that they're the "only" magazine. This is our whole life's work here, and I'd like my life's work to not be treated as if it doesn't exist.
BOB GARFIELD:There is of course a limited audience and even more limited number of advertisers in the polecat journalism category. Eric and Mary found themselves living nothing less than the bruising consequences of media concentration. Fancy Publications, according to the Sheffermans, quickly used its distribution muscle to squeeze Modern Ferret out of pet stores, costing them half of their paid circulation. And they say that Fancy's owner, Los Angeles entrepreneur Norman Ridker, has tried to intimidate them into folding.
ERIC SHEFFERMAN: Before they launched the Ferrets magazine he actually took me and Mary out to dinner, and he went through this whole explanation of how he's run everyone else out of business in all the other categories that he's done. He told us stories about how he's, you know, sat across the table and, you know, bought someone's whole life's work for pennies on the dollar and watched them cry and-- you know, he really gave us the we're-gonna-crush-you.
BOB GARFIELD: Ridker declined comment on the Sheffermans' charges--
BOB GARFIELD:... as did Ferrets magazine's editorial staff. Putting aside right and wrong, however, clearly in the long run there is no room for two sheriff's in Ferret Town. Complicating matters, Eric has a chronic digestive disorder that has sickened him for weeks at a time, and last year the Sheffermans were able to publish only two issues of Modern Ferret. Still, they pledged to press on.
MARY SHEFFERMAN: I don't think we have a choice. Eric and I are very much committed to, to continuing with Modern Ferret, even if it comes to, you know, I have to go get a job outside the house and we do this as a part time endeavor. There's so many things about ferrets that-- if you don't care enough and it's not part of your life-- That kind of intimacy with the ferrets makes you care very much about what you're publishing.
BOB GARFIELD: Would it be overstating the case to say that ferrets have actually given you a purpose in life?
MARY SHEFFERMAN:That would not be overstating a fact at all. I know a lot of people that-- they don't need that - they don't need that kind of intense purpose. But I'm one of the people who does need that, and-- I think it's made me a better person. If I can say that. [LAUGHS]
BOB GARFIELD:But that may not be enough, because self-actualization doesn't pay the printing bills. In the end it's a dog-eat-dog world out there. [BUDWEISER COMMERCIAL PLAYS: BUD - WEIS - ER] Among other species.
LOUIE THE LIZARD: Enjoy it while you can, hot shots. Your days are numbered!
BUDWEISER COHORT: Louie--
LOUIE THE LIZARD: I know a lot of predators! And I know several very large ferrets! Liquor Ads
January 5, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: Welcome back to NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. The big news in advertising is that NBC decided to become the first network to break with a 60 year tradition and run ads for hard liquor. The American Medical Association has taken, to put it mildly, a dim view of all of this. Of course wine and beer ads have been on TV for decades. Millie Webb, the head of Mothers Against Drunk Driving tells the story about finding a frog on her back porch and showing it to her 3 year old nephew. He didn't say frog, she said, he said Budweiser. Later this month TV Guide is releasing a poll that suggests what the public at large feels about the hard liquor ads, and joining us to lay out those findings is TV Guide columnist and OTM regular, Max Robins. Max, welcome back.
MAX ROBINS: Hey, Brooke. Happy New Year.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Happy New Year. So is NBC doing this now because of the tough economic climate and they want to get money from anywhere they can?
MAX ROBINS: Well look, they're always look for new revenue streams. But they're doing it because they think the timing is right. They can use the cover of a poor economy to help get this through, and they really want to tap hundreds of millions of dollars which are going into other media, and that's for hard liquor.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Other media, meaning magazines.
MAX ROBINS: Absolutely. Most of the hard liquor advertising now -- that's where it goes, into print.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Now before NBC runs the hard sells on the hard liquor it'll be airing a few months of commercials that urge everybody to drink responsibly. Whether this is to inoculate the public or the network against the impact of the ads I'll leave to you. Is that what this is about -- public relations?
MAX ROBINS: Well what they're saying is, is that -- look, none of the commercials will have people in them that are under 30; that they won't have endorsements from people who young people see as role models. They're saying for every 5 dollars they spend one dollar will go to public service announcements about responsible drinking and about the dangers of drinking, and they're really saying, you know, no more things like Budweiser frog. This is absolutely a public relations move by NBC and a very savvy one. They've, they've basically enlisted some of the top hands in Washington to help them do this.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: There have been some rumblings from Congress that they may be banning liquor ads. How likely do you think that is?
MAX ROBINS:I really don't think it's that likely. There is a little sabre-rattling in Washington. There's a couple Congressmen who've said hey, this is horrible; they're right in lock stop with the AMA and they don't want it, and, and look, from our poll we found the country's pretty split - about 50 percent or more people out there think - not just liquor ads but beer ads - all these commercials should be banned from television!
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Actually let's get to the poll. You found that a slim majority disapproved of the ads, and that's all ads - hard liquor, beer and wine?
MAX ROBINS: It's slim for both. There's a higher disapproval rating for hard liquor ads; less so for beer. That's pretty much split down the middle -- beer and wine. Where we did find a real split was women tend to object to any kind of alcohol being advertised on television more strenuously than men.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Are the liquor companies at all concerned, given the -- what you call the sabre-rattling in Congress -- that pushing these ads onto television might mean banning all alcohol ads? Is that something they're afraid of?
MAX ROBINS: [LAUGHS] Well they might tell you that either way this shakes out, they win. Right now, it's not a level playing field for them. Beer and wine companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to sell their products on television. The liquor companies, they're -really have been limited. Their feeling is --look, if we get on and we can go head to head in what's more fun to drink, we want to do it! But if for example the government steps in and says hey -- get it all out of there, well the playing field becomes level! So I don't think they're really too scared that they've opened Pandora's Box with this.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well Max Robins, thank you very much.
MAX ROBINS: Thank you, Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Max Robins writes The Robins Report for TV Guide. Mainstreaming Urban Culture
January 5, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: When Cornel West ventured into rap, he did not wander out of the cultural mainstream, because a kind of cultural alchemy had already transformed street corner hip hop and graffiti into platinum watches and billion dollar deals. It's what the marketers call urban culture. Urban IQ, an urban media research firm, says there are 45 million consumers of urban culture -- fully two-thirds of Americans between the ages of 18 and 35. More than half live outside major urban centers. More than 60 percent are white. Thus the urban culture consumer, like any consumer, is not defined by who he is but by what he buys. And by that measure, Viacom is a big-time urban consumer. It paid 3 billion dollars for Black Entertainment Television.
KEITH CLINKSCALES: And the reason why BET can be bought and sold for such a high number is because of the people it reaches and because of the advertising potential that the corporations believe that it his.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Keith Clinkscales is the CEO of Vanguard Media which specializes in urban media and entertainment.
KEITH CLINKSCALES: Large corporations don't pay hundreds of millions of dollars for niches.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Artists have a tendency to live on the margins, but when the sums are this large, there seems to be no choice but to follow the money into the mainstream. Crossing over has lost its stigma, says Donnell Alexander, author of the soon to be published memoir Ghetto Celebrity.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: There used to be a really huge price to pay. I remember the George Clinton song from the mid-80s -- R&B Skeletons in the Closet --about people like Lionel Ritchie who had like major, major roots in music that was sort of off in the margins. When you crossed over, you ran the risk of losing your original audience. Now it's almost embraced.
GEORGE CLINTON: THOUGH HE'S CROSSED OVER HE IS DEFINITELY FROM ALABAMA [RIDGE?] HE USED TO TAKE [...?...] THERE. SONGS WE USED TO SING, THINGS WE USED TO DO, WE DO NO MORE--
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Even in the 1980s, name brand items would turn up in rap music says Alexander.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: My Addidas. It's, it's a teen anthem. I mean when I was a kid, I was like-- I wasn't even crazy about Addidas the brand name, but the--juice that comes from a great song like that makes you want to go out and buy a pair of Addidas.
RUN-DMC: MY ADDIDAS WALK THROUGH [...?...] DOORS AND ROAM ALL OVER COLISEUM FLOORS I STEPPED ON STAGE AT MY LIVE AID ALL THE PEOPLE GAVE AND THE POOR GOT PAID THEN OUT THOSE SPEAKERS I DID SPEAK I WORE MY SNEAKERS [AUTOMATICALLY?]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But the fashions stayed in the neighborhood, he says. The venture capitalists didn't see the potential until they heard the cash registers.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: When Run-DMC came up with My Addidas they weren't thinking that the anchor of The Sports Show would be referencing My Addidas.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Not very long ago, Alexander was hired to "urbanize" the sports cable channel ESPN.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: I was the designated "hip guy."
BROOKE GLADSTONE: He was assigned to help "hip hop-ify," as it were, the anchors so they wouldn't sound so square.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: Stuart Scott was the key figure in the introduction of urban culture in ESPN, and that was about 1997 when he first was brought aboard from ESPN 2. He was the guy who brought in the vernacular, and at first he was the only person saying it. I know Stuart Scott, and I know at first it caused a lot of waves. At first it was a problem.
STUART SCOTT: I got one, one time - someone said speak the Queen's English or carry your bleepety-bleep in BET where those bleepety-bleeps can understand you.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: But now it is really purely nakedly absorbed by the anchors who have no pretense of being hip on any level. And it's not just on ESPN! I see it in commercials all the time. You, you know - in your face - 24/7 - these are things that used to be "hood" expressions.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:As of 2001 the style, attitudes and vernacular of urban culture are fully entrenched into the mainstream culture. Bo Kemp is executive vice president of Vanguard media. He says urban culture hasn't been damaged in the transition. The art didn't change. The consumers did.
BO KEMP: Crossover in some respects only is an identifier that something's become very popular. Nothing more than that. And I think some people try to make more if somehow - you know - if you become popular that means you targeted, you know, whites per se in order to become part of that mainstream when in fact all you may have done is produce something that was of such quality that a huge group of people just wanted to buy it.
TALIB KWELI: I think it is going to be co-opted. It - you know it is - it, it's in danger of and it has been, it will be -- that's the nature of where we live.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Talib Kweli has been called hip hop's positive force. Sincere and plainspoken, said a reviewer in the mainstream New York Magazine. One of the most unusual voices in hip hop.
TALIB KWELI: NOWADAYS RAP ARTISTS COME IN HALFHEARTED COMMERCIAL LIKE POP OR UNDERGROUND LIKE BLACK MARKETS WHERE WERE YOU THE DAY HIP HOP DIED? IS IT TOO EARLY TO MOURN? IS IT TOO LATE TO RIDE? IS IT TOO EARLY TO MOURN? IS IT TOO LATE TO RIDE?
TALIB KWELI: Hip hop music is a music that comes out of nothing - out of having no money - no resources - no instruments - no - anything. And it's more - it's about more than just making art or being a rebel; it's about really surviving and living and eating. Other artists, other people sometimes have the luxury of being artists and just being in it just because they love art -- not because they need it to get out of the situation they were in. And I want my music to get heard, so I market and promote myself! I made myself into a product. I do it so I could feed my family. I do it so I could feed myself. Do it so I could have a platform and so that things I say can have some weight and relevance in the community so I can effect some change.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: There is the possibility of change, but it's limited by the appetites of the market, says Ray Roker, publisher of Urb Magazine.
RAY ROKER:People are watching MTV and seeing Jay-Z or Nelly or somebody that may look like a very, you know, slick thug to them, but now they see them as an artist and as a professional. Unfortunately I think a lot of it, though, is still playing into people's pre-conceived notions and their prejudices because what is being produced by black culture and accepted by mainstream society? What? Rap music? Just, you know, music about diamonds and gold and girls and violence? You know that's what's accepted in the millions? But if you want to talk about political struggle or what we need to do to, to save the world around us, that stuff's boring. It doesn't get on TV. It doesn't get on the radio. And hip hop music, and I think people who really consider themselves real fans of hip hop music in the old school and everything wish that it had taken that place that it made for itself, that platform and used it to really say something.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:In other words the young crosscultural consumers of urban culture embrace affronts to popular taste and popular mores, but they just won't buy an assault on their complacency. So the best of hip hop becomes a victim of its own success. But who can argue with success? Not urban media entrepreneur Keith Clinkscales -- with visibility comes money, comes real power and real influence.
KEITH CLINKSCALES: You know Hearst owns Oprah's magazine right now, but my goodness -- that O is a special thing! It's not just a letter! You know power comes in many different forces. It's not just in share certificates and what goes on, on Wall Street.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Urban culture may be fueled by a rainbow coalition of cash money, but it is still a commodity based on racial difference, on the general perception that black urban style, its agility, its ineffable cachet is what everybody wants to buy. Culture critic Donnell Alexander.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: Nelson George, the critic, wrote an amazing essay called The Black Basketball Aesthetic in which he pointed out players like Jason Williams who happen to be white but play black; players like Tim Duncan who's a contemporary player and a great player, but he plays like a white guy. He won't sell that many jerseys.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But what does playing black mean; what does playing white mean?
DONNELL ALEXANDER:It's the difference between-- Pat Boone and Little Richard, [LAUGHS] basically -- they could both do Tutti Frutti, you know, and they're two different songs.
PAT BOONE: A BOP BOP A LOOMAH BAH LOP BOP BOP TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTU FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE A BOP BOP A LOOMAH BAH LOP BOP BOP
LITTLE RICHARD: GOT A GAL NAMED SUE SHE KNOWS JUST WHAT TO DO I GOT A GAL NAMED SUE SHE KNOWS JUST WHAT TO DO SHE BOP TO THE EAST SHE BOP TO THE WEST BUT SHE'S THE GAL THAT I LOVE BEST TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI WOOOOOOO TUTTI FRUTTI [SONG CONTINUING UNDER]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Maybe it's cause I'm a white kid from the suburbs, but I'm gonna go out on Little Richard.
LITTLE RICHARD: TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE A WOP BABA LOOMAH BA LOP BOM BOM [SONG CONTINUING UNDER]
BOB GARFIELD: That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price and Katya Rogers, with Sean Landis; engineered by Scott Strickland and Dylan Keefe and edited-- by Brooke. We had help from Allison Lichter. Our web master is Amy Pearl. [SONG CONTINUING]
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Mike Pesca is our producer at large, Arun "Broken Bones" Rath our senior producer and Dean Cappello 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 National Public Radio. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And, yo-- I'm Bob Garfield.
LITTLE RICHARD: TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE A WOP BABA LOOMAH BA LOP BOM BOM GOT A GAL NAMED DAISY SHE ALMOST DRIVE ME CRAZY GOT A GAL NAMED DAISY SHE ALMOST DRIVE ME CRAZY SHE KNOWS HOW TO LOVE ME, YES, INDEED BOY YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT SHE DO TO ME TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE WOOOOOOOO TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE A WOP BABA LOOMAH BA LOP BOM BOOM 58:30
[FUNDING CREDITS]
- Back to story:
- January 5, 2002
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From the Archive: PSYCHIC TIPS, MEDIA FRENZIES AND TEXAS
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The Edward Snowden Narrative, Privacy vs. Convenience, and More
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The Fox News Mole
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Happy Birthday
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'Is Anybody Down' is Gone - For Now
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Is Snowden a Hero, Traitor, or Something Else
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Thanks For Everything, Bing
- Where do you stand on government surveillance?
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Our Privacy Delusions
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My Voice is My Passport
