Category: Media Watch

Presidential candidate Barack Obama has had to do his share of quote clarification of late. What world leaders he would meet with without preconditions and what he might do about Pakistan come readily to mind.

But here’s one he never should have clarified, much less taken back. In April, according to the Associated Press, he characterized rappers as “degrading their sisters. That doesn’t inspire me.”

Obama recently told Vibe magazine that he was misquoted. He was talking about the culture as a whole, he explained, not rappers in particular.Oh.

Somebody had to be first, and it was WFTS-Channel 28, the ABC affiliate, that recently inaugurated the Tampa Bay market’s first high-definition local newscast.

That means another arrow in the technological quiver of the country’s 12th largest TV market. It also means that viewers will be treated to video on fires, accidents, robberies and murders plus ambush interviews, happy talk, suspendered meteorologists, network-tease pieces and Bucs training-camp filler in hi-def. Enjoy.

As we’ve now been informed, Hillsborough County Administrator Pat Bean has to cut more than $50 million from the county budget. Among the unkindest cuts: nearly 500 positions and a 25 percent reduction in subsidies to county-supported nonprofit agencies.

And more. Including funding ($519,000) for the Tampa Educational Cable Consortium and the Tampa Bay Community Network – aka Public Access ($355,000).

Two points.

It would be a shame to lose the Educational Channel which, in addition to televising school board meetings, also carries children’s programming and homework help. Hopefully, the county broadcast station, HTV, can pick up enough slack.

As to Public Access, we could likely manage well without it – even amid declamations that this is an affront to free speech and a frontal assault on the First Amendment. Be honest. There’s a reason why you don’t watch it. It gives fringe goof balls a forum and tedium a bad name.

Chances are democracy will survive without Chuck Roast, the Step N Style Skaters, the Allah Hour and Arrogance Time with Joe Redner. But at least White Chocolate had his run.

Like some of you, I suspect, I tuned in to that CNN/YouTube presidential debate the other night out of curiosity. I’ve certainly seen plenty of these over-hyped, sound-bite circuses that are top-heavy with too many candidates and too many pundits explaining too much of what we just saw and heard. And, imagine, there’s another 16 months to go before we actually sort all this out and elect one of these candidates president.

So, a lot of us doubtless wondered if the inclusion of cyberspace cadets would be an improvement. Indeed, was hipper better? Would platitudinous candidate-speak be lessened? Would all candidates have to answer the same question? And would Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich still be confined to the literal fringes of the eight-candidate lineup?

For the idealists, more democratization in the process was one obvious spin. Skeptics could focus on the blatant gimmickry and note the promotional coup for both CNN, where Anderson Cooper could earn his presidential-candidate moderator chops, and the gravitas-craving video-sharing website YouTube. And, yes, the querulous Gravel and the quixotic Kucinich did, indeed, bookend the proceedings.

The net result: less scripting and an unpredictable dynamic that included animation. And better television. Comfort-zone glibness couldn’t totally carry the day.

There were predictable inquiries – from a predictable, heterogeneous mix of questioners — about Iraq, health care, education, gay marriage, the environment and a military draft. On balance, and the loon with his assault weapon “baby” notwithstanding, the personal touch worked. Real people, impacted by really salient issues, wanting real-world responses. They even got a few.

To be sure, there were the quirky and sometimes inane questions surely chosen by CNN because this is prime-time TV and not a Lincoln-Douglas sequel. That said, it’s still hard to believe that if you only had a couple dozen videos to show, you would choose one about reparations for slavery. Only Dennis Kucinich and maybe the Uhurus of St. Petersburg think that has any merit. But that’s an agenda question, not a sophomoric one.

Examples of the latter were “my favorite teacher” and an assessment of the fellow candidate “to your left” as to what you “like” and “don’t like” about that person. Such piffle should be saved for “Miss America” — not a presidential-candidate crucible.

However, what CNN wanted was a show-biz mettle detector in front of a live audience that wasn’t told to rein in its partisan feelings. The “like-dislike” responses ranged from a sense of humor (John Edwards disparaging Hillary Clinton’s choice of frock color and Joe Biden noting approval of Dennis Kucinich’s winsome wife) to a sense of pique (“ridiculous exercise”) from Biden.

In the end, Clinton continued to help herself. She’s prepared, poised and hardly quip-challenged. Obama is good, but not Clinton good yet. Edwards, the populist class-action attorney, still has the $400 haircut/anti-poverty crusade dichotomy. And Biden remains the most passionate, the most candid and the most internationally insightful of the Democratic lot – for what that’s worth.

CNN said it was pleased that the format drew 2.6 million live viewers. It trumpeted a somewhat younger demographic – and intimated that perhaps it would translate into more YouTube-generation voters.

That’s debatable, however, unless those new viewers didn’t notice that there were still too many candidates; not all of them got to answer the same question; and none were held accountable by interactive follow-up questions. And self-serving bridges to rote talking points were still in evidence.

And, frankly, when it comes to “debates,” whatever the format, I still miss Howard K. Smith.

Anybody else have this reaction? Last week a page one (local/state section) story in a Bay Area daily (ok, it was the St. Petersburg Times) ran a story that carried the headline “Teen Shot in Store Robbery.” Would that such a story were rare – and truly page-one news — but that’s another matter.

What truly caught my attention, as it was supposed to, was the accompanying, four-column photo above the fold of another teen crying. This 18-year-old was tearing up because his 17-year-old cousin had been shot. Above the photo was a quote: “He was my cousin, but he was like a brother to me.”

There are all kinds of reasons why newspapers run a photo. Often it’s because, well, they have one. Hopefully, it’s also because it helps to tell the story of what happened. Presumably it provides pertinent context.

Let’s be kind and call this one gratuitous, misguided bathos.

Here we have a story about a 17-year-old who walks into the neighborhood convenience store, east Tampa’s Yasmin Food Market, wearing a mask and brandishing a gun. He confronts an employee and a state lottery technician. He’s robbing whoever’s there. A struggle ensues and the 17-year-old is shot with his own weapon.

The victims had been confronted by a masked, gun-toting thug and were forced to respond to the barrel of a gun. It was, however short lived, a mini nightmare. Their lives will never be the same.

To reiterate, the photo is of a weeping youth disconsolate over his hospitalized cousin. Two men were forced to confront the possibility of their own imminent deaths and families left fatherless, and the pictorial empathy is of a weeping cousin of the would-be murderer? Did the Times think no one would notice – or care?

Was that the perfect naming-rights storm or what? The deal to put the name of Tampa-based Academic Financial Services on the University of South Florida Sun Dome had no chance. The generic national scandal involving the student loan industry and higher education was beyond awful timing. And from the standpoint of AFS, the episode aired the company’s — and the founder’s — considerable dirty legal laundry, resulting in a public relations nightmare.

But USF, which would have realized about $2 million net on the ill-fated deal, still needs a Sun Dome sponsor, ideally one that is relevant to the college-student experience. Fortunately, that leaves Hooters, Budweiser, Trojan, Lou’s Tattoos, Apple i-Phone and Cliff’s Notes still in the hunt.

Would that these were the last words on this subject: Paris Hilton.

“Doonesbury” continues to be an editorial call for newspapers. Most keep it with the comics. It remains the wrong call. The two local dailies are a microcosm. Both keep “Doonesbury” in the comics section.

This was particularly relevant on Memorial Day weekend when “Doonesbury” creator Gary Trudeau once again dedicated his Sunday strip to U.S. soldiers killed in “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” It was an admirable “In Memoriam” salute.

The Tampa Tribune ran it on the back comics page – below a similarly themed “Opus” cartoon and above a house ad.

The St. Petersburg Times , however, kept it in its usual context. Arguably, such a solemn dedication to America’s fallen deserves better than being juxtaposed under “Marmaduke” and adjacent to “Mother Goose and Grimm,” “Jeff MacNelly’s Shoe,” “The Family Circus” and “Hi & Lois.” It just does.

Say this much for Don Imus, that crappy-headed foe of all things politically correct. This was nothing new. He’s also made a career out of crudely railing against polite society in general.

There’s obviously a viable market for low-brow mockery as humor, and he long had the advertisers, the listeners, the ratings, the simulcasts and the bank account to prove it. That “nappy-headed ho’s” insult that was directed at the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team was merely the most recent example. Recall his skewering caricatures of Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell as “the guy from F-Troop,” the New York Knicks as “chest-thumping pimps” and presidential candidate and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as a “fat sissy.” And of course gays, Jews and Muslims were never out of season.

And now his 35-year career is over – the ultimate societal off button.

Imus never purported to be other than what he was: a cranky, propriety-challenged, sick-humorist/entertainer/commentator who knew that an anything-for-a-cheap-laugh credo would reward him handsomely.

Imus was all about being outlandish. It’s hardly unprecedented. His was an affront shtick that succeeded in a marketplace that has also underwritten sophomoric, scatological shock jocks such as Howard Stern and all manner of thuggish, misogynistic rap performers.

Imus, however, wasn’t on some hateful, racist rant that day when he uttered his offensive Rutgers’ ad lib. It was vintage, poor-taste banter, the stuff most First Amendment types typically go to the rhetorical mattresses over. Rickles on ‘roids, if you will. Ironically, Imus was, in fact, trafficking in the unflattering racial parlance introduced to the mainstream culture by a generation of black rappers.

Were he merely David Duke with a wisecracker manner, he would never have attracted a steady, diverse stream of image-conscious, A-list politicians and journalists queuing up to be on his program. They, of course, pragmatically and hypocritically backed off because of the firestorm of negative publicity – not the inflammatory comments, per se, which had been his modus operandi forever.

So Imus, 66, publicly apologized, made the requisite mea culpa rounds, humbled himself in front of race opportunist Al Sharpton, took sponsor hits, lost his MSNBC simulcast and hoped against hope that CBS Radio would let him off with just a two-week, unpaid placation.

Too bad the upshot of this Imess isn’t a lot more than a high-profile firing and overwrought moral outrage. Too bad it doesn’t include a meaningful national conversation about all those who truly coarsen and pollute the culture. Too bad it doesn’t include all those who don’t care about “the effect language like this has on young people,” to quote CBS president Les Moonves.

So, let’s see how many rappers are moved to a societal apology now that it’s been duly noted by Rutgers’ head coach Vivian Stringer that derogatory, demeaning language aimed at young black women — whatever the context –is “deplorable,” “despicable,” “abominable,” “unconscionable” and “evil.”

BET, you’re on the clock. Ludacris, operators are standing by. 50-Cent, we’re waiting.

Joe Piscopo did “Saturday Night Live,” made movies, had his own HBO comedy special, guest-starred on major TV series, appeared in the long-running Broadway revival of “Grease” — and continues to pack them in to his retro, song-and-comedy nightclub act in Las Vegas.

And last week he played the Sorrento Cheese Festa Italiana in Ybor City. Performing between a raffle and the AkraFolk Band.

And loving every minute.

“I’m a proud Italian, what can I say?” gregariously explains Piscopo, 56. “It’s great what Sorrento does.” Indeed, the Passaic, NJ, native does several similar festivals each year. He uses such forums for his popular salute to Frank Sinatra.

The Festa Italiana performance harkens back to his SNL days where he honed his Sinatra impression. In fact, Piscopo actually contacted Sinatra and asked permission. Sinatra agreed, liked the send-up and eventually dubbed him the “vice chairman of the board.”

“We did it with the utmost respect,” recalls Piscopo, “and he was always gracious to me. So, it’s a blast to do these. Sinatra was one of the great entertainers. The old man laid the foundation. American royalty is what the Sinatra name is.”

But it’s more than an ethnic festival that brings Piscopo to Tampa. He’s played in “Grease” here, visited Busch Gardens with his kids and periodically hangs out with his best buddy, Tampa resident David Strokoff, who he’s known since they were 8 years old. They were each other’s best men. And Strokoff, who Piscopo says is the funniest guy he’s met, even has SNL writing credits from the Piscopo days of the early 1980s.

“Joe was always funny and animated,” Strokoff recalls. “We knew at 10 that he was something special. And a lot of people don’t know that he can play just about any musical instrument – and every one is self-taught.

“He’s a regular Jersey guy who always asks about your family,” he adds. “And he keeps profanity out of his show.”

No ordinary Joe

*In 1997 Piscopo founded the Positive Impact Foundation, a non-profit organization with a charge to make a difference in the lives of at-risk New Jersey youth. “Perception becomes reality and some of these communities (cities such as Camden and Newark) look like war zones. Kids need role models and they need hope. We try to give them some self esteem and self confidence and teach them how to set goals. We focus on the good things that are happening. Little by little we’re helping to turn things around.”

*Some political insiders have urged Piscopo, a self-described “conservative Democrat,” to run for state office. He may yet.

*Show-business celebrities getting into politics: “It does get a little tiring sometimes. But Arnold Schwarzenegger or Rob Reiner could be good things. I do think we should all be involved.”

*Fondest memory from SNL days: “Hands down, working with Eddie Murphy. It was live as live can be; no delay. And he worked with reckless abandon. We ripped it up.”*Favorite SNL character: Pudge, the elderly gent who reminisced and rambled on about the good old days with his buddy Solomon (played by Eddie Murphy). “It was the most substantial, the most creative thing we did. We didn’t go for the laughs; it was just intrinsically funny. It was a bittersweet kind of sketch.”

*Impressions: They range from Winston Churchill, Andy Rooney and Paul Harvey to Barbra Streisand, Joan Rivers and Geraldo Rivera. Latest in the repertoire: Tony Soprano and David Letterman. “I used to get 36 hours to get an impersonation down on SNL. Sinatra, however, took about a month to get the speech pattern.”