Category: Media Watch

However belatedly, Britain’s Defense Ministry did the right thing by reversing itself and banning military personnel from selling personal stories to the news media. As in those 15 British sailors and marines who had been held hostage in Iran. And as in those notorious London tabloids.

Alas, it wasn’t soon enough to prevent two Brits, Faye Turney and Arthur Batchelor, from hustling their accounts to the Sun and the Daily Mirror , respectively. This seemed especially crass and exploitative given that they were foremost among the sailors and marines who not only didn’t challenge their capture but went way beyond name, rank and serial number in accommodating the propaganda aims of the Iranian government. Everything but a power-point presentation.

Not exactly a Churchillian moment.

This move by the Defense Ministry prevents Iran from adding any more arrows to its PR quiver. Tehran had already noted – with smug cultural superiority and irony – that it was Britain, notwithstanding all the West’s condemnations of Muslim ways with women, that allows mothers of 3-year-olds – such as Faye Turney – to go to war.

He may be the best reason to watch a Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ game – and yet you’ll never see his name in a box score.

He’s TV broadcaster Joe Magrane, 42, the Rays’ conversationally perceptive, engagingly witty, occasionally irreverent color-analyst. He defies the broadcast typecast: former player capitalizing on name recognition and frequently reminding viewers what it was like back in the day.

He’s also good enough to have earned some NBC and Fox network gigs; he did the (Sydney) Olympics in 2000 and (Athens) 2004. He also upstaged the regulars on “The Best Damn Sports Show Period,” and some — well, conspiracy-buff buddies — theorize that’s why he hasn’t been invited back.

“Magrane is pure entertainment,” says Skip Hill, veteran broadcaster and communications instructor at the University of Tampa. “He’s that funny. He can absolutely carry a game.”

And make no mistake, broadcasting a perennial loser such as the Rays – who lost 101 games last season – can require a lot of heavy rhetorical lifting. In Magrane-speak that will range from groan-inducing puns, self-deprecating put-downs and colorful anecdotes to candid — but never personal — criticism of the home team. It could even include a dead-on impersonation of the late, iconic broadcaster Harry Caray when the Rays are out of it early.

“I’m not a journalist,” points out Magrane. “It’s not my job to break stories. I work for the team. My focus is on the how-and-why and to try and brighten up the game.”

That makes him the perfect verbal ping-pong complement to the more staid Dewayne Staats, the Rays’ highly regarded, play-by-play announcer.

“For all of his ‘left-handed’ personality, Joe really is a perfectionist,” points out Staats. “Always prepared as well as fun to be around. And as with any of the really successful guys in this business, people do get a sense of who you are. Really, what you see is what you get.”

For the most part.

Funny and friendly translate well, but a broadcast booth can only frame so much.

You wouldn’t necessarily discern a selfless, highly-sought MC for myriad Bay Area charities, including Abilities Inc. of Florida, the Moffitt Cancer Center and the ChairScholars Foundation.

Nor would you know that this gregarious baseball insider has a traveler’s frame of reference that transcends dugouts and diamonds. Indeed, it ranges from the old world architecture of Prague, a St. Peter’s audience with Pope John Paul II and the “infinite view” of Versailles to the “food-as-art” side of San Francisco.

And from the chest up, of course, nobody looks 6’5″. The boyishly good-looking Magrane is all of that. In fact, 250 pounds worth.

He’s also a walking fashion statement with two custom tailors, New York’s Dominico Spano and Tampa’s Kenneth E. Jennings, having his pattern on file and his cell number on speed dial. He was once featured in GQ magazine as “The Most Eligible Bachelor in Baseball.”

“Joe looks magnificent,” says Jennings. “He’s an Apollo.”

An Apollo who can also be sartorially eclectic. Seemingly nothing doesn’t go well with arch-supporting, custom-made cowboy boots, courtesy of favorite Fort Worth cobblers. Magrane also has some black-and-white wingtips that resemble classic spats and retro sports coats that only a certified fashionista could get away with.

“Oh, he can be very demanding,” acknowledges Jennings. “I’ve said ‘good bye’ to a suit because he wasn’t happy with it. And that’s as it should be. I’m meticulous myself, and I’m expensive.” Indeed, an average Kenneth Jennings Saville Row Bespoke Tailors’ suit sells for $2,500, with some topping out at $10,000.

Magrane favors blues and grays as well as dark stripes and peak lapels. It’s all about “context” and looking “dignified,” he explains.

“It’s important to look classy,” Magrane underscores. “Just like it’s important to be well-mannered. I guess I’m ‘old-school’ on this one.

“As a player, I always thought it was an honor and a privilege to wear a big league uniform,” points out Magrane. “It was important to make a good impression when fans saw you, and you weren’t in a Woodstock tee-shirt and flip flops.”

Among the few places you’ll find the dressed-down Magrane these days: Old Memorial Golf Course, Dubliner’s Irish Pub in South Tampa and within the 6,500 well-appointed square feet of his North Tampa Avila home – nestled next to the Avila links’ 11th hole. He resides there with his wife of 15 years, Renee, and daughters Sophia, 9, and Shannon, 11, students at the Academy of Holy Names in Tampa. All manner of framed family visages — not sports or celebrity memorabilia — dominate the décor.

As does the Magrane sense of humor, according to Renee.

“He tells me I have whoopee-cushion humor, and he’s dry,” she says. “But, yes, he’s always funny around the house.”

And according to Renee, always making the best of found family time in the travel-challenged life that is the cross-country lot of a Major League Baseball broadcaster. That varies from shuttling his daughters to school in the off-season to engaging in animated games of catch in the back yard.

“He has a roughhouse side and he’s a ‘man’s man’ sort,” notes Renee, “but his little girls absolutely steal his heart. He’s a good family person, and he believes in putting time and energy into his kids – and making sure they know right from wrong.”

Between baseball seasons the Magranes make it a point to set aside a weekly “date night.” It’s either a movie or dinner out with close friends. The Capital Grille in International Plaza is a favorite venue as are nearby Roy’s and Flemming’s. On occasion, they’ll escape to a mini get-away at the Don Cesar resort on St. Pete Beach.

However many times he crosses the Howard Frankland Bridge, Magrane says he never takes the commute for granted.

“I never fail to notice what a neat area this is,” says Magrane. “When the sun hits the water, it’s like a post card. And we have it year round. How lucky is that?”

Magrane: The Player

Des Moines, Iowa native Joe Magrane was an All-American pitcher at the University of Arizona and a first-round draft choice of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1985. He signed for a bonus of $110,000.

In 1987 he finished third in balloting for the National League’s “Rookie of the Year” honors. The next year he led the league in ERA (Earned Run Average) at 2.18. In 1989 he won 18 games for the Cardinals and finished fourth in the NL’s MVP voting.

Little did he know, however, that he had peaked in his third season. A series of arm ailments and three elbow surgeries prematurely ended his career in 1996 at 32.

He joined Tampa Bay – along with broadcast partner Dewayne Staats – and began his 10-year association with the Rays in their inaugural season of 1998. Magrane and Staats are signed through 2008.

Banter Up

* “Steroids in baseball: That’s like putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa.”

* “No, I don’t begrudge today’s players making what they do. Hey, you can’t take it with you. That’s why there are no luggage racks on hearses.”

* “I was having dinner the other night with Bono, and he said, ‘Joe, nobody likes a name-dropper.'”

* “There’s a parallel between being a pitcher and a broadcaster. Once the words leave your mouth, there’s no getting them back – just like a bad pitch. I know.”

* “I live on a golf course. Far enough away to not be in the line of fire, close enough to hear the expletives over a missed putt.”

* “Last year Dewayne (Staats) and I reached the exalted status of having our own bobble head give-away. We became caricatures of ourselves. Maybe we are anyhow.”

Say it ain’t so.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was kick-started by the likes of James Brown, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino and the Everly Brothers, has now inducted its first rap group, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

Jose Canseco being enshrined in Cooperstown makes more sense.

Even if you choose to overlook rap’s insidious impact on the culture as a paean to crotch-grabbing, misogyny and all manner of dysfunction, there is this:

Shouldn’t the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s criteria include, if not mandate, being able to carry a tune or play an instrument?

We all like a feel-good story, and that new Davis Islands’ house for Tom and Cynthia Tate and family — courtesy of “Extreme Makeover: Home Addition” — was just that. Last week’s ABC telecast showcased their new house – and new beginning.

Some postmortems:

*Obviously, host Ty Pennington, he of the over-the-top personality and megaphoney histrionics, comes with the deal.

*The obeisant ABC affiliate, WFTS, didn’t disappoint. Channel 28 milked it for an extra hour before the national broadcast. Nobody does soft news and fawning, network teases like WFTS.

*The Tates and their kids seemed like genuinely nice people. Good for them.

*Wouldn’t you like to see the punch-list after a whirlwind, one-week construction of a 3,500-square-foot, two-story, four-bedroom house with a pool and guest suite?

To update an old “Saturday Night Live” Francisco Franco parody: “Anna Nicole Smith Still Dead.” Alas, the storyline is far from interred. There’s cause-of-death intrigue, ongoing estate battles and garden-variety sleaze at every turn. And all those rivulets of emotion on Facebook, the fan-produced tributes on YouTube, the candlelight- vigil plans for New York’s Union Square.

Arguably, Mother Teresa or Madame Curie wouldn’t have prompted such outpourings.

Of course, ANS is merely the most recent Exhibit A for an American pop culture and media in grave danger of devolving into total celebrity-obsession meltdown. We no longer ignore, dismiss or even excuse society’s dysfunctionals; we celebrate them. We no longer disapprove of aberrant behavior; we identify vicariously with it if it’s high-profile enough.

Would that this were merely grist for the tabloid mills. But it’s symptomatic of mainstream media too. Fame is a commodity, and people are famous for being famous. If Paris Hilton forgets — or remembers — her underwear, it’s news.

The true touchstone of any phenomenon, however, is to see how it’s playing on campuses. Not among students, but faculty. This is how legitimacy is imparted. There’s always a subset of the elbow-patch crowd that will study anything that can be rewarded with a doctorate.

“If I had to say what was Anna Nicole Smith’s legacy to the culture, I’d call her a conceptual artist,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.

“It was almost like she was this explorer who went out to the edges of celebrity and by watching what she was able to achieve, we know more about the nature of celebrity.”

Whatever.

Two points:

1) This can’t be fair to real “conceptual artists,” whatever they are.

2) The “Center for the Study of Popular Television.” There is such a place?

Say this for Turner Broadcasting Systems – and an advertising agency – they eventually did the right thing in that bizarre Boston security scare. To the tune of $1 million, they reimbursed the agencies that dealt with those electronic devices that caused the closing of bridges and highways. They also donated another $1 million toward homeland security and related programs. The charges against the two men who placed the devices have been resolved.

Not yet resolved: Why in a post-9/11 world would somebody not think twice about a publicity campaign for some adult cartoon show that involved putting blinking electronic devices with wires and circuit boards in places such as highway support beams and a rail line? Or maybe they bottom-lined it: They got their $2 million worth.

Also say this: Didn’t you feel like cuffing around those two punks who abused their 15 minutes of fame?

Oprah Winfrey continues to get a bad rap for that $40 million gift to build a school for girls in South Africa – and not use the money for acute educational needs in America’s inner cities.

Five points:

1) It’s her money.

2) There’s no need for any other reason.

3) For the sake of argument, there’s Winfrey’s own on-point, politically incorrect rationale, as quoted in Newsweek magazine: “I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools (in America), that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn’t there.”

4) To call her hypocritical because she promotes materialism as a high-profile, high-end consumer diva is an irrelevant cheap shot. She’s an American success story. She’s earned it. And she’s sharing a lot of it with those who appreciate it.

5) It’s her money.

Much has been made of the president’s controversial course correction in Iraq, including adding enough troops (21,500) to bring the total (approximately150,000) to where it was a year ago. Also in the news now are exculpating comments by key architects of the war. The neocons whose lament, in effect, is: “Good idea; bad occupation; not my fault.”

The January issue of “Vanity Fair” magazine impressively lays it out in all its “Neo Culpa” tragedy and travesty. Three examples:

*Kenneth (“Cakewalk”) Adelman , Pentagon insider, bemoaned the new reality that what is no longer credible is “the idea of a tough (U.S.) foreign policy on behalf of morality, the idea of using our power for moral good in the world.

“The incompetence of the Bush team means that most everything we ever stood for now also lies in ruins,” declared Adelman.

“The looting,” he said, “was the decisive moment. The moment this administration was lost was when Donald Rumsfeld took to the podium and said, ‘Stuff happens. This is what free people do.’ It’s not what free people do at all; it’s what barbarians do. The Iraqis were making ‘mistakes’ by ruining their country while the U.S. Army stood there watching!

Say this for black syndicated columnist Walter Williams: He calls it as he sees it. And he sees it through the lens of real-world, political incorrectness.

The George Mason University professor who teaches economics — not victimology — recently addressed the hot-button issue of profiling and minorities. He knew the usual suspects would be outraged – and he wasn’t disappointed.

Here’s what he wrote: “A law-abiding Muslim who’s given extra airport screening or a black who’s stopped by the police is perfectly justified in being angry, but with whom should he be angry? I think a Muslim should be angry with those who’ve made terrorism and Muslim synonymous and blacks angry with those who’ve made blacks and crime synonymous.”

Admit it, don’t you love lists? Those informational peep shows for the terminally curious.

They may be about history or sports or pop culture. They’re often trivial; occasionally useful; inevitably interesting; and always diverting. And they are necessarily arbitrary, which means they’re fun to weigh in on.

Perhaps you saw this recent one, compiled by the TV Land cable network: “The 100 greatest catch phrases in TV.” They’re eclectic and they’re evocative. And definitely incongruous.

They range from John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you