Monthly Archives: October 2002

I’m jumping on the Tony-Pierce-should-be-the-L.A.-Times-blogger bandwagon. The LAT couldn’t do better than Pierce for this assignment. Continue reading →

My friend Larry Edward’s has a piece in the U-T slamming reality TV shows.

As a fan of Survivor, I thought I should respond.

Edward’s writes:

Yes, such shows are considered harmless, if not mindless, entertainment. Yet, they mock the memories of true survivors – survivors who didn’t have any behind-the-scenes overseers on hand to rescue them from any genuine threat to their otherwise comfy lives.

Larry admits he’s never watched Survivor, so I offer him this challenge — come down from your ivory tower, Larry and starting with the next season (it won’t work to enter mid season), watch an entire season of Survivor.

The reason I offer the challenge is that without ever having watched the show, his own challenge to the producers lacks credibility. Survivor makes no pretense to being anything other than a game show. It is all about surviving the game and winning $1 million. It is not about surviving in a Donor-pass type real life struggle. There is no comparison. To say Survivor mocks real-life tragedies, then you must level the same criticism at “Robinson Caruso,” or “The Swiss Family Robinson,” or even “Lord of the Flies,” because off those “entertainments” offered alternative realities. Each of these works of literature are a form of escapism that exploit the misadventures of real people.

I didn’t watch the first season of Survivor because I thought it beneath my dignity, but my boss convinced me to give the second season a try, and I was hooked. The show is full of strategy and intrigue, and though it is a game, offers a revealing glimpse of how real people, real personalties, make deals, lie, aim for nobility and dignity and deal with adversity in some fairly strenuous conditions. Yes, there is a certain bit of unreality when you know that CBS always has a safety net nearby, but that safety net seems to be rarely used. Only once, when a contestant was badly burned, have the producers stepped in an altered the course of the show. Other wise, cuts and bug bites and the inability to easily secure water or fire or (especially) food are left up to the tribe and the individuals to deal with as best they can. The game looks neither easy to play (I challenge Larry to give it a try himself), nor entirely put on. Yes, it’s not like being stranded for real on some snow-capped mountain, but it is not totally devoid of real survival issues either.

My wife is also now as equally hooked on Survivor for many of the same reasons. So, Larry, you see, the show really does appeal to some pretty smart people. Continue reading →

In the news business, you develop some special relationships with people that you serve in the trenches with. I don’t know how it is in other businesses, but the emotional intensity that comes from journalism encourages bonding among co-workers. I’ve made some incredible friends over the years. One of them is Vince Kern, who was my managing editor for a time at The Daily Californian in El Cajon, Calif. We lost contact for a number of years, but I recently tracked him down in Detroit.

He had never heard of a blog before I showed him mine. Now he has his own. He’s a smart, caring guy, so we can expect good things from his blog. Check it out. Continue reading →

I’ve got TIVO. Man, what a great device. Never again will I miss ABC’s “This Week,” the only Sunday morning gab fest I’ve ever really bothered with. Plus, now I can watch “The Sopranos,” “Survivor” and “Enterprise” pretty much on my schedule instead of the networks’ (I really don’t watch any other shows on a regular basis, preferring movies for entertainment if I’m going to let the boob-tube suck up my time — that and sports, which TIVO is also great for … pause live action, reply, skip commericials). As part of the upgrade, they moved my old DirecTV box into my office, so now I can have the news on while I blog — sound off, music on, something I call “BarVision.” Continue reading →

This past summer, didn’t you get sick of the endless stream of stories about white, blonde teen-age girls being kidnapped? It wasn’t like these were unusual events, or anything new — it was just that the media was bored with the war on Islamofascism and looking for some new high.

Knowing the media’s addiction to pack journalism, it’s craving for ratings and scintillating stories, it’s tempting to dismiss the growing coverage of the “sniper” as just more of the same.

But this story is different. It is real news.

Yes, the coverage is sometimes ridiculous — speculating on his psych profile, debating his skill, wondering about his background, grasping at straws (such as the so-called French marksman who disappeared in the U.S. more than a year ago — but all of that doesn’t necessarily undermine the assertion that this is a major story that cries out for major attention from news reporters and the public.

Where the kidnapping, rape and murder of some young girl might be sensational and sad, it is not unusual. Tragically, it happens a couple hundred times a year in the U.S. Nothing happened this summer that warranted increased coverage of these issues other than the media decided to play them up. And while serial killers are rare, they are not unusual.

What is unusual is that this killer seems to have designed his scheme to play to the media, to terrorize and draw attention through fear. What is more scary than realizing that as you walk down the street, or pump gas, or walk outside a Wal-Mart, you could be shot by a man 150 yards away for no reason at all?

This is a crime spree that has all the marketings of being designed to attract media coverage. Most serial killers prefer to remain in the shadows and they get their thrills from seeing the terror in their victims’ faces. The sniper gets his thrill from making headlines.

So the argument might go — why give in to him? Why give him the coverage he craves?

Here’s why: Giving him what he wants only emboldens him. Not covering him won’t necessarily stop him (he killed at a faster clip when this story got little media coverage than he has since it made CNN). While it would be criminal to encourage him to fire again, it would be worse to have him killing anyway with no media coverage.

Does the coverage jeopardize the investigation. I don’t think so and I’ve seen some ex-detectives on TV say they don’t believe it does either. Not in this case. The sniper is going to strike regardless of what the media says, and leaks and misinformation only feed his growing sense of invincibility. It is that sense of invincibility that will fuel his eventual demise.

Ego is one of the worst enemies of any man. Just ask Othello or Hamlet. Ego leads more men into hell than any other human failing. The sniper is a classic narcissist. He is seeking attention through criminality. He believes he should be recognized as a media star (if not God), and he is using a gun to create his star power. His own narcissism will prove his undoing. It will lead him into making mistakes. One of those mistakes will lead to his capture.

Yes, there are more important things going on in the world — what to do about Iraq and North Korea, the November elections and the state of the economy — but when you have a killer on the lose who strikes with such anonymity and equanimity, we realize how vulnerable we all are in this modern society. The public is justifiably concerned and the media is responding to that concern. This is more than just the media creating a story — this is a story. But the media is also fulfilling a valuable role that will eventually help lead to this killer’s capture — it is feeding his ego. Continue reading →