Friday, January 24, 2003

Okay...time for another rant (what a shock)... I just finished thumbing through "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News," Bernard Goldberg's take on liberal slant within the media. ("Thumbing through" means I started to read it, then stopped a third of the way through because it wasn't telling me anything new. As good, informative reads go, it's no "Bad Boy"...go figure.) Goldberg deserves credit for standing up against his snooty brethren, being blackballed for telling a truth that many of his peers acknowledge but are afraid to speak publicly. And he is right -- there is a bias in the media, especially on TV. I'm just not so sure he's looking at it from the right direction. Speaking from his experience at CBS News, Goldberg tells us that reporters will often slant a story to fit their individual viewpoint, using only sources that agree with his side. Duh. He's correct in saying that this is irresponsible journalism, but he's essentially wrong about where the opinions are made. Those generally come from the corporate suits (GE, Disney, etc.) that own the networks. Either way, that's not the main point I took out of this. Goldberg, who considers himself a lifelong Democrat, says that the big guns on network news -- Dan Rather, et al. -- considered him a right-winger for pointing out liberal bias. And yes, perhaps most stories on affirmative action, abortion and the like are weighted to the left somewhat. But guess what? That's where the majority of Americans lie on these issues. The conclusion Goldberg seems to make is that on TV, the conservatives are far-right pricks like Rush and Hannity, while the people calling themselves liberals are more middle of the road. He calls the news hounds "out of touch with the American people." And you know what? They are. But they're dealing with, for the most part, other rich people -- including folks in Washington. And...surprise! Washington Democrats have become middle-of-the-roaders, most of whom even lean a bit toward the right now. The true left that Goldberg speaks of has no real representation in the major media, because most of the people reporting the news never see the real left anymore. Who asks schoolteachers (a primarily liberal group) about their political views? Who asks other working-class folk about theirs? Certainly not the New York Times or the networks. They are, by and large, polling upper-class citizens -- and most upper-crusties can't even SEE the left anymore (except for Sweets...haha). When I turn on the news now, I don't see much of this liberal bias -- at least not politically. I see Fox News shamelessly fellating Bush, and I see very few (although admittedly, the number is growing) media cats publishing words or pictures of dissent. Stories of war protest get buried behind Bush stories -- even though polls (again, largely comprised of above-average wage-earners) show that the majority of Americans are against the war. If anything, the news -- especially TV news -- has a conservative slant...at least now. Were there a true liberal bias, Clinton's sexcapades would have been a non-story. Bush's lack of intelligence would have been thrust into the spotlight in 2000, and we'd never see anyone endorse a GOP candidate. The Dems would win everything in a walk (which is what would happen if everyone actually voted, too). But now, there's a Republican majority, and it's largely because Bush has been thrust forward in the mold of a capable president. His choices aren't openly ridiculed or even questioned -- and the media has done nothing to spark dissent. In fact, they've squelched it. Goldberg almost seems to be contradicting himself. He says that there are no more real liberals in the media, but says that coverage is slanted to the left. I don't disagree at all on the former...but with big businesses (GE, AOL, etc.) running the major media outlets, I don't see how it's possible for the slant to go anywhere but to the right. If there's any skew -- and there is -- it's to the right, at least these days. Maybe in Clinton's time, the leeches went that way...but even Clinton wasn't the JFK figure we were led to believe he was. If Rather and others of his ilk were so liberal, wouldn't they have said that Big Willie wasn't far enough to the left? No -- because they're just like the suits in Washington. Left = moderate right, and right = far right. The majority of ordinary Americans -- moderates or true lefties -- are left unrepresented. Goldberg opens by saying that news coverage didn't seem even-handed to him until nyneleven, when everyone "just stated the facts." But even then, it was a ratings war -- the more shots of the tower crash, the better. If we were truly getting the full story, we'd have seen more shots of Bush in 2nd grade...with at least one editorial cat saying, "what the fuck is he still doing there after the two towers were hit?" Yes, the media distorts the news...badly. Goldberg is right on about that. But he's wrong about how, and about which way the leaning tower tilts. -- O 2:09:06 AM    comment []

"Hip hop is in a state of 9-1-1..." Ain't that the truth. The genre's decay has been well-chronicled on this site, and so I don't really need to rehash the whole "Ja Rule sucks, 98 percent of mainstream rappers suck and the radio has ruined hip hop" thing. We all know that black music has been severely watered down over the past decade, and we all know that real talent is almost nowhere to be found on MTV or most other major music outlets. What we haven't really fixed on is the cause of this bullshit. So today, that's what we're gonna do...sum up hip hop's demise in three words: Sean "Puffy" Combs. It's been a gradual process -- but since coming into his own as an intern at Uptown Records in the early '90s, Puff has... -- blurred the line between hip hop and R&B, which may have created some decent R&B music in the early '90s (Jodeci and Mary J. Blige), but added a softness to rap that still paralyzes the genre. As the decade progressed, we saw rappers in shiny suits rhyming over old dance loops, and "thugged-out" R&B acts like R. Kelly doing soft-core porn over hip hop tracks...usually with a rap verse in the middle. -- brought us Biggie -- but a watered-down version. Most of BIG's radio hits were not his idea...they were Puff's. Had Christopher Wallace had total creative control, we would have seen the East Coast's answer to N.W.A...but instead, we entered the era of designer clothes, Cristal and ice. Biggie, who was very much anti-all-that-shit, ushered in a new style that also managed to taint the likes of Nas in the mid-to-late '90s. -- prostituted a dead-and-buried Biggie, using his star posthumously to push his own "Puff Daddy" albums as well as a 21st-century B.I.G. project that was merely chopped-up verses from the man mixed in with new beats and guest appearances. Biggie managed to collab with emcees (like Eminem) that he had never even met -- or heard of!!! In one shot, Puff tainted the legacy of his greatest star, and used his ties with Biggie to legitimize himself and plug his own career as an "artist." -- portrayed the ultimate "studio gangster," buying posh Hamptons property one minute and bum-rushing Steve Stoute (with his entourage's help, of course) the next. Puff attended private school and spent most of his youth in the 'burbs, but he's tried to run with the whole gunplay thing in the same breath. The sensitive, upper-crust thug. To make matters worse, this stuff caught on with white audiences, ushering in a new breed of fake-hoodlum artists (yes, like Ja). But it also stigmatized his race -- "hey, even the rich black guys shoot at people!!" Puffy has shown a talent for making music that will sell, and in the process he's opened the genre up to a bigger audience. The problem with this is that the music he's showing to white AmeriKKKa is not real hip-hop. Most of Biggie's work was...and most of that wound up on the cutting-room floor until Puff needed a quick payday five years later. By and large, Bad Boy has specialized in bubble-gum pop-rap...but that's what young white listeners now think hip hop is -- sensitive thugs spitting half-ass rhymes with R&B hoes (or R. Kelly, but hoes covers it) on the hook. It's the urban equivalent of the boy band. The acts that would have been ridiculed as sellouts 12 years ago -- Puffy, Nelly, Ja Rule, Mystikal, Foxy Brown, et al., are now some of rap's biggest stars. Meanwhile, the emcees who keep it raw and don't sell out -- Rakim, Pharoahe, Chino, etc., are relegated to second-tier "underground" status. The only true exceptions to the rule are Eminem (who broke through largely on skin tone) and Nas (who did his share of selling out in the late '90s). Otherwise, there are very few talented emcees that actually sell, and plenty of garbage-ass rappers going platinum. There are traces of a backlash coming, but it's come Puffy's way many times before and he's still breathing -- and worse yet, still selling. Teenage white girls have penetrated the rap market and made the least talented artists into the biggest sellers. Real hip hop, by and large, never appealed to women. But Puff's candy-ass brand of rap is safe for female consumption, so it's going to stick around. Hip hop has become big enough that rappers should be able to return to the real and still sell records. Maybe they'll move 3 million instead of 7 million, but their budgets will be much lower, too...so they'll still get the loot. White people are too into it now for the candy rappers to die off -- there will always be a market -- but we should be at a point where hip hop can be itself again and still thrive. The fact that we even have to tell rappers to be themselves again...the fact that selling out became not only acceptable, but a must...we owe all of that to Puff. Let's show our appreciation by shitting on him for the rest of his life. The folks who booed Ja and Acunti off the field at the Vet last weekend were only heroic because so many others had neglected to do what they were SUPPOSED to -- dis wack "artists." Philly did its job -- now the rest of us just need to follow suit. Carson Daly can only fight us for so long... ...before we take our music back. -- O 12:26:03 AM    comment []

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