Is PBS Still Necessary?  A Response

For the last couple of days, I've had many people send me Charles McGrath's editorial on the relevancy of PBS in today's media market.  In light of the many emails and discussions I overhead in the hallways here at the station, I asked KPBS Program Director for Television, Keith York to respond to McGrath's editorial.  He sent me the following thoughts:

New York Times writer Charles McGrath asks the perennial question, in light of recent stabs at CPB appropriation in the recent Bush administration budget proposal, is public television still necessary? McGrath’s question isn’t any more thought-provoking than when Newt Gingrich questioned the institution’s existence a decade and a half ago. Unimpressed by the basic premise, I should also add that a few of his facts are either incorrect or poorly contextualized.
 
Thankfully the article is nothing more than an editorial. Causing many readers to ask themselves “Are newspapers still necessary?”
 

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End of Days #2, Starring a Cell Phone

Co-worker Nick Stoffel (it's his birthday today) has decided to change his Signs of the Apocalypse series to End of Days, the latter being more dramatic.  We've already established Nick's flair for the dramatic. 

I have to give him props on this one.  As someone who works in broadcasting, it's particularly horrifying.  Not just for the on-air transgression, but the dancing!  Don't break out into chair dancing on TV if you have absolutely no rhythm and you look like you have a stiff board nailed to your shoulder blades.

Legendary Writer Gay Talese on These Days Tomorrow!

I'm so excited - it will be one of those restless nights for me.  It happens when I get really excited about a guest.  I've been reading more of his writing and about his life for the last 24 hours.  You don't want to miss this interview.  We'll talk about the state of journalism, past and present.  We'll talk about Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, Talese's famous 1966 Esquire article, heralded as the beginning of New Journalism.  We'll also talk about sports writing, and his profiles of Joe DiMaggio and Floyd Patterson.  His book The Kingdom and the Power, about The New York Times, will likely come up often.  All in all, it should be a conversation full of colorful stories and sage reflection.

Tune in tomorrow at 10am to These Days.

Bookstores, Obama on The Wire, and Other Things Grabbing My Attention This Morning.

I LOVE this Guardian list of the world's top 10 bookstores. The list is a mix of grand architecture, cozy clutter, and paeans to civilized lounging and perusing. I want to move in to each and every one of them - except for the Borders in Glasgow. A Borders is still a Borders, regardless of how you dress it up.

Big surprise! The ratings for this year's Golden Globes were terrible.

Researchers have found that consumers will believe a wine is better if it costs more. The pleasure centers of the brain actually undermine us in the discerning process...then again, all that wine tasting hardly makes one a vigilant watchdog against marketing manipulation.

Here's a fun article on writers throughout history who have chosen to remain anonymous at times in their career. It was once a very common practice, for what turns out to be strategic marketing on the writer's part: "If you follow in any detail the use of anonymity by literary writers - satirists, poets, dramatists and novelists - you will find that only rarely was final concealment the aim. Provoking curiosity and conjecture - highlighting the very question of authorship - was more often the calculated effect."

Violinist Pinchas Zukerman says Americans spend too much money on sports and not enough on the arts: "We're not cultivated people, as a culture," he said. "We have a vast culture here, yet we're more divided than ever before." He goes on to warn: "Most of it has to do with government not wanting to cultivate its own product. We'd better start looking at that soon, or this is going to become a jungle."

And this could seal the deal for my vote in the presidential primaries. Barack Obama's favorite TV show is The Wire (this has been well reported) and his favorite character is.... drumroll please.... OMAR! In short, Omar don't play, y'all.

Signs of the Apocalypse #1

 

From The Daily Cat

My fellow These Days producer, Nick Stoffel, is often barking and stomping his feet over absurd stories he finds in the media. Paris Hilton is a favorite topic; she and the media outlets that give her attention are regular targets for Nick's ire. So are the stories featuring Americans who sell out (this is a big one for him) or accomplish feats of depravity and/or stupidity. Nick calls these stories "signs of the coming apocalypse."

We at These Days know when Nick comes across one of these signs because there is often yelling, eye-rolling, and general exasperation. Nick is what one might call... demonstrative.

I've decided that Nick's signs of the apocalypse are worth sharing with all of you, and to launch this little series of doom, Nick has a doozey for you. Here's the story. Two guys in New York, finding their roommate/friend dead, decide to wheel him, Weekend at Bernie's style, down the street in an office chair (yes, an office chair) in order to cash his social security check. People on the street took notice of the flopping dead body, including a detective on his lunch hour, who decided to call it in. The two dimwits were finally arrested.

Seriously, is there a better example of bottom-feeding?

Oh, wait... maybe there is. Nick asks: do we really need the office chair re-enactment?

Man Moves Into IKEA For A One Week

A guy named Mark Malkoff has moved into a New Jersey IKEA while his New York City apartment is getting fumigated. He's documenting the whole experience here, including a daily video.

Malkoff has pulled similar stunts before, most notably visiting 171 New York City Starbucks in one day. He also works as the audience coordinator for The Colbert Report.

Apparently, Malkoff contacted IKEA and they actually consented to let him live in their store, 24/7, for one week. He'll be eating in the cafeteria (Swedish meatballs and cinnamon rolls) and showering in the employee offices.

Personally, I don't see the point unless he makes some really funny, subversive videos. Even then, it's the kind of stunt that engenders a "heh..." instead of a "ha!" Plus, it makes me squeamish how much free marketing he's giving them.

The best part of the video is the cashier who clearly thinks the whole thing is ridiculous.

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Union-Tribune Theater Critic Takes Buyout

Anne Marie Welsh

Anne Marie Welsh has been covering theater and dance at the San Diego Union-Tribune for 24 years. During her tenure, the paper has published nearly five thousand of her reviews, features, news stories and commentaries. I suspect that for many in our community, Anne Marie's insights and critical reflections became a way to engage with theater beyond the stage; a model for thinking and talking about how good theater explores our individual, social, and universal experiences in penetrating ways, and how bad theater doesn't.

This week, Anne Marie announced she's taking the Union-Tribune's buyout offer and leaving her post as theater critic. I was/am so troubled by this news. Newspapers everywhere are gutting staff, with arts coverage often the first to go. In many ways, we are a theater town. Our veteran critics, from prominent platforms, are crucial in fostering that identity and cementing its reality. We seem to be losing them on multiple fronts.

Below is an interview I conducted with Anne Marie over email. She has much to say about the challenges newspapers face, the role of arts criticism in emerging media, and shares some memorable moments in San Diego theater.

Anne Marie, why did you decide to take the buy-out?

The buyout offer was basically too good for someone like me to pass up; I always have many irons in the fire and dreams deferred by the demands of the job. Now I will get a year's pay, medical benefits until age 65 paid 25 percent by the company, plus all my accrued vacation and holiday pay, which in my case is quite a bit. The UT is that rare organization that offered a good pension as well; having been here 24 years, I have a little nest egg. The money won't last forever and no journalist works for the money anyway; it's a pittance compared to corporate salaries. But this "intermission" will allow me to realize a few of those dreams and re-orient my working life a bit. Two of my three sons are grown and on their own; the third is a junior in high school and getting ready to launch. And of course, these are tumultuous times in the newspaper business -- at every newspaper -- as we all adapt to the Internet and worry about killing trees for newsprint. And, finally, who knows when such an offer might come again?

You were on These Days yesterday to talk holiday theater, and when I asked you if we could discuss your leaving the UT on the air, you said "Not yet... I'm afraid I might cry." It's difficult then, to leave this post?

It is extremely difficult to leave this post, Angela. I came to San Diego for this job -- initially as the paper's dance critic, backup theater person behind Welton Jones, and its arts reporter. I came to know almost everyone working in the arts on both sides of the curtain, so to speak, because of my reportorial duties. And my passion for the performing arts is, apparently, unquenchable -- music and dance and performance and opera, as well as theater. For many years, I was able to teach dance history and criticism at State, UCSD, and USIU, which had a terrific musical theater program and good dance program. As a result, I came to know and admire the academic arts community as well. Though critics are in an awkward position socially among the artists they cover, I think most people knew that my heart was in the right place and that my work, even when it was negative, was written in a constructive spirit. I tried to be fair, honest and supportive without being a booster -- which of course does no one any good. It's been a great pleasure to watch the dance and theater community grow again, as it has lately, geometrically. It's gratifying to think I contributed at least a little to that growth, while it's also very sad to see the number of media outlets covering the arts here shrink and the news hole for the arts -- at least in print publications -- get smaller.

Do you know if the UT is going to fill your position?

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Things That Never Get Old

Directed by the ever-talented Spike Jonze.

Just to make you smile this Wednesday.

PETA vs. The Olsen Twins

Campaign poster

PETA has just launched a campaign against the Olsen twins for both wearing and using fur in their new clothing line.

Can the image machine blowing behind the Olsen twins withstand this assault? Which begs the question, who likes the Olsen twins anyway? I mean, where is this fan base that keeps them on the cultural landscape? I'm assuming it's pre-pubescent girls, but what are they holding onto for admiration? Back in the day when, for example, Madonna was the pop idol for young girls, she was at least producing music. Girls may have reinvented themselves in her ever-changing image but the emotional attachment began and sustained itself through her music. And, Madonna has a pop music legacy. What do these two have to offer anyone?

Whatever you think of PETA's controversial tactics, you have to admit, if you pit one against the other in terms of social contribution, PETA wins hands down. I don't know about you, but I can certainly deal with one less celebrity fashion line and a ban on Olsen twin tabloid photos.

On a related note, did anyone see the HBO documentary on PETA president Ingrid Newkirk? It's called I Am An Animal. I missed it but heard it was fascinating. I think it's still "On Demand."

Wondering What Happened to Your Cabbage Patch Doll?

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