Category: Media Watch

Good to see savvy, USF-St. Pete political scientist Darryl Paulson get national face time in the lead-up to last week’s CNN/YouTube Republican debate in St. Petersburg. He knows his stuff and is never sound-bite challenged. Also gaining national exposure was the University of Tampa, which served as the venue (Fletcher Lounge in Plant Hall) for a CNN-organized, 24-member, candidate focus group.

What are the odds that even though this is mid-November and the Gulf water temps are barely hitting 70 degrees, we still haven’t seen the last of the hurricane TV teases?

Technically, as we know, hurricane season doesn’t end until November ends. And for those of you scoring at home, you doubtless still need your tropical updates, including the latest on non-tropical systems near the Azores that still look massively formidable from overhead.

From the standpoint of weather as news commodity, we know, of course, that there is still a ratings-driven need for file footage of high winds and flooding intersections that hasn’t yet run its course. And when you call yourself Vipir Forecast or Storm Team or Weather Apocalypse, you probably don’t want to mothball those Cones of Armageddon prematurely.

And, truth be told, does anyone over-hype the weather better than a meteorologist in suspenders?

But before long, the storm teases inevitably will morph into those about cold snaps and freeze warnings, and file footage of citrus icicles will be recycled.

But that’s still a month away.

Actually, right now — Florida in the late fall — should be the boring part of the weather-news cycle.

Enjoy.

*“September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn’t that terrible.” – Doris Lessing.

For openers, you’d think a Nobel Literature Prize winner could be more precise with the language. Surely she didn’t mean to say that 3,000 people dying a death by inferno “wasn’t that terrible.”

*”African-American football players caught up in the rebellion and buffoonery of hip-hop culture have given NFL owners and coaches a justifiable reason to whiten their rosters.” – Jason Whitlock, black sports columnist for FOXSPORTS.com.

Had a white journalist so speculated, it would have been a media firestorm.

Dumbing down of democracy. Further. That’s the reaction serious voters should take from this comment of Bill Geddie, executive producer of The View. “I think talk shows will decide who is in the White House in 2008.”

If only Hogan knew best.

It’s obvious what 17-year-old Nick Bollea really needed. A normal life in the steadfast lane.

Instead, he’s been living in his Hulkster dad’s fishbowl, VH1 reality-TV world; being home-schooled away from the masses; and having every opportunity to indulge an adrenaline-rush, fast-car fantasy. “My son, the aspiring, professional drift driver.” Excellent.

Multiple speeding tickets – and a consequent restricted license – were mere precursors to that horrific traffic accident in Clearwater resulting from his less-than-prudent driving. Young Bollea remains under investigation in the wreck that left a passenger in critical condition.

The Hulkster then hired Barry Cohen, who you don’t hire unless you look really, really guilty about something. Ultimately, lawyer and client family parted ways.

Meanwhile, the Bollea-Hogan family was taking a media beating and apparently tried to counter it with a proactive strategy. Linda Bollea, Nick’s mom, gave an interview to a local daily. Among the outtakes: “What 17-year-old doesn’t get tickets?” And she apparently took him out of Clearwater Central Catholic High School, because she didn’t want him exposed to drugs and fights. He has a GED on his incipient resume.

Suggestion: Give Hill & Knowlton a call. If the media scrutiny, which you’d previously been courting fervidly, is now too unkind and invasive, bring in some PR pros. The sort of folks that will say it’s never a good idea to go public rationalizing 100-mph speeding violations or slandering one of the better schools around.

It’s, sadly, reached this point of contrived damage control.

If only Hogan knew best.

So, Barnes & Noble will, indeed, yield to the marketplace – if not a sense of decency – and stock copies of O.J. Simpson’s ghostwritten, “hypothetical” story of how he would have murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. It’s to be published this week (Sept. 13) by Beaufort Books on behalf of the Goldman family.

No word yet on a sequel: “How To Profit From Victimization” by the Goldmans.

When it comes to a position on Cuba, no presidential candidate is more open-minded than Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat. In a controversial debate remark earlier this summer he indicated his willingness to meet – without preconditions – with world leaders who are America’s adversaries, including Fidel Castro. Late last month in Miami, Obama made headlines when he called for the U.S. to ease travel and remittance restrictions to the island for Cuban-Americans. No other presidential candidate has taken these positions.

It was enough to prompt this comment from Patrick Manteiga, the politically plugged-in editor and publisher of the Ybor City-based weekly La Gaceta. “It’s nice to see one candidate who is not pandering to the far right Miami Cuban exile community,” stated Manteiga in his front page “As We Heard It” column.

Which begs this question: Isn’t the bar set pretty low when it comes to Cuba?

What about the embargo that hurts Cuban citizens, U.S. business and American credibility around the world? The Cold War relic that geo-politically positions the U.S. as a hypocritical hegemon at the worst possible time? Or the sense that Cuba’s actually a sovereign country that doesn’t require America’s democratic stamp of approval?

No candidate will touch the embargo, including Obama. In fact, no candidate would dare agree with the April 12, 1963 press conference words of President John F. Kennedy. “The basic issue in Cuba,” said JFK, who had weathered his share of Castro crucibles and CIA intrigues, “is not one between the U.S. and Cuba; it is between the Cubans themselves. And I intend to see that we adhere to that principle.”

“Sure, the bar is low,” acknowledges Manteiga. “No one is talking about anything, even (the lone Hispanic, Bill) Richardson.

“I honestly thought the tipping point was two or three years ago,” he says. “But it’s still so easy to rattle sabers at Fidel – and even Raul. It’s still the political thing to do. And the new (generation) Cubans won’t rally.

“Obama’s as good as it will get,” underscores Manteiga. “Hillary will follow her husband’s play book: say nice — but don’t change anything. This actually could show Obama having some leadership. Reaching out, uniting families. He’s got to nip at her heels – without getting his nose bloody. And who knows, maybe Hillary or Edwards might move over a bit.”

The death of Hillsborough County sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Harrison was tragic. With the aid of perfect hindsight and some common sense, a case can also be made that it was preventable. An out-on-bail mutant with a rap sheet and proclivity for violence was the killer.

Among the outraged: Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor.” It sent a news crew to ambush Circuit Judge Manuel Lopez, who had granted the bail to Sgt. Harrison’s killer.

Also among the affronted: CNN’s outrageous Nancy Grace, who hosts a stridency forum called “Headline Prime.”

Her finger-wagging take: “If I was in Tampa tonight, I’d be hiding under my bed with a shotgun.”

Even for amazing Grace, that was a new low in network hyperbole.

Back in the day, it was anything but routine when presidential aspirant John F. Kennedy appeared on the “Tonight Show” with Jack Paar. It was a creative use of a candidate’s time to position himself in front of a non-traditional, late-night talk show audience.

Paar was appropriately deferential; it certainly wasn’t “Meet The Press” or “Face The Nation.” And JFK, of course, was hardly TV-challenged. It was a smart move.

Over the years, we’ve seen such “non-traditional” forums expand. From Bill Clinton’s safe sax act with Arsenio Hall to Barack Obama’s Kumbaya session with Oprah to Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and others chatting up Jay Leno and David Letterman.

There’s also the, by now, de rigueur appearance on the “Daily Show” with comedian Jon Stewart. Especially if you have a book to hawk. I recently saw Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, the Democrats’ most experienced presidential candidate, on the Stewart faux-news show. I wish I hadn’t. Nobody was better off for Stewart’s smug fest and Biden’s quips, including the prepared ones.

The various debates, forums, television and radio talk-show outlets, plus the Oprahs, Lenos and Lettermans should be enough, thank you. If voters still don’t have a handle on who a candidate is and what a candidate thinks about issues that matter, then they may want to read something, however old school and uncool that may seem.

The point is that in these especially troubling times it’s, well, troubling to see bona fide presidential office-seekers queuing up to participate in a candidate dunk tank billed as a show-’em-your-nimble-wit-side crucible. The process doesn’t need further demeaning.

Which brings us to this fall’s YouTube debate in St. Petersburg. Looks like most, if not all, of the Republican candidates will be there for the Nov. 28 forum, which will be broadcast by CNN.

The only other question is what sort of animated character will lob up a presidential-candidate query this time?

Anyone wondering about the state of Bay Area bridges – in the aftermath of that Minnesota disaster – had to be still wondering if they had only glanced at the front pages of the two daily newspapers recently. The sub-head of the Tampa Tribune : “Bay Area Spans Stand Strong.” The sub-head of the St. Petersburg Times : “Five Area Bridges Flagged As ‘Poor.'”

Both papers prominently quoted Pepe Garcia, the state Department of Transportation’s structures and facilities engineer for west-central Florida. Noted Garcia: “I can categorically tell you the bridges in the Tampa Bay area are safe for the traveling public.”

The discrepancy arose because of the 56 bridges in Florida rated officially “poor,” five are in the Bay Area. But the label of “poor” takes some parsing – and updating.

Two of the five had been repaired in the last six months. None of the other three are in danger of collapse. Decking on the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway (over 22nd Street) will be replaced this fall; the Paul Buchman Highway Bridge over the Hillsborough River in Pasco County will be replaced next year; and repairs to the Johns Pass Bridge (erosion around foundation) on S.R. 699 in Pinellas County are already underway.

It’s not easy being a headline writer on deadline.