NEWS TO ME - The Walls Have Ears

        People don’t trust the media, and that’s a general fact. Those who think they report accurately think they report maybe just a little too much. Those who think they fudge on the facts also think that other people, like the government, are conspiring to cover things up. From where I sit, I think maybe everyone is right. To a degree.

        Where I sit is in the audio booth of a local t.v. station. I’m responsible for making sure you hear everything you’re supposed to from the local anchors, the national reporters, and sometimes the national anchors. I coordinate music to create a dramatic backdrop for what you’re hearing, from breaking news in Washington to the quirky little story about the dog with two legs who uses a miniature wheelbarrow to get around.

        I hear a lot, and a see a lot. The cameras are never off in the studio, and in my booth are monitors to help me with my cues. The mics are never off either. With a little boost, it’s as if I’m sitting right there next to the anchors, talking trash about their co-workers after the show, after the promos, or in between cut-ins.

        I’ve never heard them say : “We can’t report that because we want to cover it up.”

        I have heard them say : “She’s an idiot.” Or : “He couldn’t write a show if his life depended on it.”

        The news that does get suppressed is suppressed openly, with the lead anchor saying he won’t read the story because the bonehead that it’s about is a media slut who just wants to see his face on the tube again.

        I saw a post somewhere about chemtrails and how the local weatherman wouldn’t report on them. It was proposed that this was because the weatherman was trying to cover it up. I can assure you he wasn’t. He just didn’t know what you were talking about. He was thinking about his boyfriend, or his ski trip coming up this weekend, and when he saw something that didn’t immediately make sense to him, he blocked it out because it had nothing to do with his shallow little life. I suppose I could be wrong, but I really don’t think so. Weathermen all want to be serious newsmen. A chemtrail conspiracy could help them jump species, if only they knew what the heck a chemtrail was.

        Were any conspiracy to come to light, these bloodsuckers I know as my co-workers wouldn’t be able to keep their mouths shut about it if their jaws were wired closed. A conspiracy exposed is breaking news, and breaking news is a big fat raise.

        Make no mistake about it : t.v. news is showbiz and nothing more. The dead serious reporter you see detailing atrocities from Iraq is more worried about her hair and what she’s having for dinner than she is about making sure you get the whole story. The only reason the whole thing doesn’t become an enormous fiasco is because there’s a super-serious producer somewhere in the background, furrowing her brow, worried that maybe the facts reported aren’t the true facts.

        By “true facts” I mean those which someone else has reported to the news agency as being true. Like the thing about Jessica Lynch fighting like a trooper and emptying her gun of all its ammo before she was taken captive. It was reported as true. And the reporter who churned it out to the public didn’t have time to chase Lynch down and find out what was really up. She had a deadline to make. The producer had a deadline to make. The executive producer and news director had deadlines to make. Everyone has a deadline, and the closer you are to it, the fatter someone’s pocketbook gets. Sometimes it’s the reporter’s pocketbook. That’s why they got into journalism to begin with. It has nothing to do with truth.

NEWS TO ME - What Do You Do for Money, Honey?

        If there ever is a conspiracy in the media, I can tell you specifically who is behind it. There. It’s those people. Brawney. Tampax. Kellogg's Corn Flakes. Hyundai. They’re the people who are paying for it all, so they’re the ones who are going to have the most say in what you see on the tube. I know ... journalism is supposed to be even and un-biased, but everyone knows it’s not. One anchor at my station has a segment where he rates miracle products like the Ding King -- it’s either crap or it isn’t. The bad part is, if it’s crap, he can’t say, because the station might get sued. The lawyers are a little cagey about it. They’d rather not risk it. So everything profiled winds up being a good product. I guess the bad products get to suffer a slow death through simple omission, but it still seems a little unfair. And the anchor isn’t a bad guy. He had the best intentions. The lawyers aren’t the bad guys. They’re just doing what they pay them a grip of money to do. No one’s a bad guy except maybe the people who put out inferior products, and it seems they get off scot free. Maybe not entirely. But there’s no shame to it, and there’s nothing wrong with shame if it’s warranted.

        In a capitalist society like this one, whoever’s writing the checks has the say so. My boss signs my check, so I do what he says. His boss signs his check, some corporate pig signs his check, and some other corporate pig signs checks over to the one that owns the station. It doesn’t work exactly that way, but that’s the basics. News shows are only there to get you to watch the commercials. That’s why all the male anchors seem “handsome” or “studly” or “manly,” or fall within some range of someone’s interpretation of what people want to see when they turn on the t.v. All the women are “cute,” or “pretty.” One anchor last night on CNN had on a semi sheer, tight black shirt that you could see ample cleavage through. My roommate wondered aloud if she was going to get in trouble. Of course not. She got a raise. Or she will as long as she keeps it up with the hooker-wear.

        Why would Honda, Right Guard, and Breyer’s want to engage in a cover-up, or hide the facts of a long-standing conspiracy? Well, they wouldn’t. Not if getting you to watch is going to also get you to sit through one of their ads. Not if getting you to plonk down in front of the tube for another half hour is going to increase the odds of you purchasing some of their products. The only way they would want to suppress anything is if it was going to start soaking up some of their profits. You make money or you lose money. That’s the American way, and that’s the moving force behind the media in general, and the news, specifically.

        One cover-up of sorts is obvious, and it can be traced directly to the holy dollar. Try finding footage of the WTC taking a tumble these days. Try. I’ll tell you right now, you won’t be able to find it, not now, not ever again. Networks have forbidden running any further footage of the 9-11 attacks, because, they say “it’s too traumatic for people.”

        Too traumatic for the wallet is more like it. Real fear was felt by those who lost money with the loss of consumer confidence. I don’t suspect they want to lose money like that ever again, and will do whatever they deem necessary to keep that from happening.

NEWS TO ME -- Fear Itself

        Fear sells like hotcakes. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be any news, because, really, why would you sit through a half-hour of happy stories? They do have happy stories on the news because people who aren’t honest with themselves say things like, “I’m not going to watch the news anymore because there’s never any good news -- it’s all bad.” But they watch. The happy stories are so you’ll go to bed thinking, well, the world isn’t too awful. That way you’ll get up tomorrow and watch the morning show.

        Why? Maybe it’s because watching someone’s life falling apart at the seams makes one feel better about his or her life. Maybe some people believe that they’ll learn something from someone else’s mistakes and avoid the same traps that have swallowed others whole. Maybe it’s just titillating. Either way, people watch bad things happening to other people. Murders, rapes, molestation, terrorism, scary statistics, scary health findings, and natural death are all business as usual with t.v. news.

        9-11 was incapacitating, though. Instead of dwelling on the acts which brought down two steeples of American capitalism, punched a hole in the American war center, and scorched the earth of a worthless Pennsylvania field, the news now dwells on alerts, statistics, numbers, and audio tapes. Harmless graphics and gibberish-like Arabic babbling keep people on their toes, keep them tuning in, keep them soaking up those commercials, and keep them running down to the nearest Wal-Mart to stock up on their Homeland Security survival kits. News reports help you to believe plastic sheeting will save you from a biological attack or chemical warfare. They help you to believe that a three-day stock of food is going to carry you through when it all hits the fan. It’s all nonsense, but it’s still fear, sold, of course, with a generous portion of hope. 9-11 made it feel like the end of the world was coming. Homeland Security makes it feel like the end of the world is coming, but you can survive if you just tune in, load up a fannypack, and make a plan with your family. That’s why you’ll never see the twin towers falling again, but you’ll hear the name Tom Ridge enough to make your eardrums flatulate.

        In case you don’t believe there really is a threat, news reports back up their stories with the same ten-second clip of training at an al-Qaida camp, which, if you look at it, could in reality simply be a lowly group of production people hopping around a construction site with ski masks on. The grainy, VHS quality of the tape attests to its autheticity. I wonder, though, if al Qaida were really a secret, why the heck would they be taping it?

        To bring the threat a little closer to home, there are also stories about people like David Hudak, the Canadian who is reported to have run a counter-terrorist training camp in New Mexico for United Arab Emerites soldiers, all the while stockpiling thousands of warheads on his ranch. He spun some yarn in his defense about an explosives company selling him the warheads for a buck fifty each. It sounded far-fetched until it turned out to be true. Of course there are more questions than answers, and the story barely gets fifteen seconds during each newscast.

        Sometimes the story gets killed to make way for commercials. But I want to know. Isn’t “counter-terrorism” good for America? Aren’t the United Arab Emerites suppposed to be our allies, like every other butt-kissing Arab in the world after 9-11? And what do you have to tell an arms manufactuer to get a load of thousands of warheads delivered to your door? What kind of warhead can you get for a buck fifty? Is it just a matter of toes being stepped on? I smell a rat. And it’s name isn’t David Hudak. If there were really anything to be afraid of here, it wouldn’t be scarcely mentioned on the news. If there were anything to be afraid of, you would hardly hear about anything else.

NEWS TO ME -- The Powers that Be

        I read somewhere, in some investigation of Area 51, that it appears as if the people running the teleprompters during newscasts have all the power. I’ve run the teleprompter on numerous occasions, and I can tell you, the power is awe-inspiring. You can type in swear words and laugh as the anchors blurt out a sailor-mouthed tirade that would make Linda Blair blush. You can only do that during taped topicals, though, where it isn’t broadcast live, and a “take 2” is allowed. Fun for all. Or, you can simply stop scrolling and watch as the anchor, who didn’t really have a train of thought to begin with, and was probably wondering about his dry cleaning, simply stops reading, mid-sentence, then splutters and mumbles while he tries to find his place on the printed script. If it’s during a taping, you simply do another take. If it’s live, you get written up, yelled at, and maybe even canned.

        In the same investigation, the writer reports that the teleprompter operator seemed a little on edge, as if he didn’t like having a snoop peering over his shoulder. Well, no conspiracy there. Us t.v. people are just an anti-social bunch. We have to focus. If we mess up because we’re wondering what you’re doing staring at us, we get to answer for it, not you. If you came and stared at me while I was in my little sound booth, I’d straight-up tell you to get out. I have cues I have to pay attention to. And no, it’s not because I didn’t want you to hear what they were talking about during the commerical break. During a commercial break, you can listen all you want. But as soon as the chyron starts rolling, you’d better beat it.

        What that particular investigator was getting at, though, was the fact that it looked as if the teleprompter operator could simply insert or take out stories at will. And this is true, if the operator is a producer. If I were to try that, even under the glaring eye of a troop of men in black, I’d get canned. If an associate producer were to try that, even on threat of imprisonment by the CIA, she’d get called into the office and ripped up and down. So ... if the CIA, FBI, or MIB need to cancel a story out of the A block, they’ll need to track down a producer. Us lowly worms won’t do it. Truthfully, we wouldn’t even know which buttons to push. But we’d rather give you attitude than admit to that.

        Coups of the news won’t happen at the local level. They probably won’t even happen at the national level. They’ll happen in a boardroom somewhere, probably with a picture of a lumberjack, or a cookie-baking elf on the walls. More than likely, they’d happen in the PR department of some major corporation, and it’ll only be to give a story a little bit of spin, and only if it’s going to somehow affect money flow. If there is news out there that’s going to need to be changed, it’s not even going to make it to the wire services. If there is news out there being covered up, it’s being covered up by the news makers, not the news reporters.

        The general public are at the bottom of the information ladder. The news media is only one rung up. There’s a lot of rungs above them, and it’s there, somewhere towards the top, that most of the decisions are made.