"Because You Are On Television Stupid!"

This is a line that I have often stolen from Paddy Cheyefsky to illustrate the power of the Broadcast media.

From the time I was 14 I came under the influence of Television, its content, and its commercials, and I even watched the test patterns used by the stations when they were not on the air with programming.

Now in my 73rd year, not much has changed, except that the variety and volume of programming has increased significantly. I have been fortunate to spend my adult life functioning in the Television industry, and that is at times the good news, and at times the bad news as well.

Following my Korean War Air Force service, I fortuitously worked as a very junior person in the Editorial Department of a film company. One of my early jobs was to screen prints of commercials to ensure that they met whatever quality standards were set out. That meant that I would spend hour after hour watching the same commercial. No person alive today has ever seen as many Wisk detergent commercials as I have. It is almost 50 years later, and I can't get the product name out of my head, and it is even difficult for me not to buy Wisk when I need detergent (yet I make a conscious decision not to). The POWER of television and the power of repetitiveness are at work here, and although I am aware of being manipulated, I am mostly powerless to overcome it.

I had lunch today with a former associate of mine from CBS who I see regularly. He is at least as liberal in his politics as I am, which means that we are reasonably far to the left, or perhaps very far to the left. He was lamenting the inaction of the Democrats, and that it is hard to determine their "message" and their "messenger". He went on to say that "no one would step up, and where were the Democrats hiding" I told him that I thought that their position was almost hopeless at this time and explained the following:

The Television coverage of the President, Vice President, and those people of his senior staff who are dispatched by the President like Rumsfeld, Rice, etc are now, and have been in the last 5 years, as ubiquitous as the Wisk commercials I watched over and over again. Yesterday morning, President Bush was speaking at a nuclear power generating site in Maryland, and MSNBC, CNN, and Fox carried it live. I also believe that local stations carried excerpts of the speech and perhaps even Network news programs carried parts of it as well.

If you like selling "stuff or people" go no further then the selling of John Bolton. His apparent negatives have been turned around as to appear that they are positives. "The UN needs a tough reformer, and he's the guy to straighten out that organization". This would make me wonder who has been President for the last 41/2 years and allowed this to be so bad for so long. Bolton is being sold to America like Miller Beer.

What the President said yesterday was of little consequence other then saying how GREAT everything was going, and if only the Democrats would stop being obstructionists, everything would be better still. I wouldn't be surprised if this message, whole or in part was watched by 2+ Million people on Cable, and if picked up by one or more broadcast network another, 10+ Million more viewers would have seen it.

Wisk and Tide are probably exposed to the Television public in equal amounts, as are Bud and Miller Lite Beers, but not so for the Democrats and the Republicans. The Republican message is out there incessantly, and there is a "mute" button on the voice of the Democrats.

Post 9/11 Vice president Cheney was always available to connect the Iraqis to 9/11, so why would it surprise anyone to hear that in Polls, 70% of America believed that it was Iraq who attacked us on 9/11. It was not true, but it was repeated over and over again, just as "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" was repeated over and over. True? Perhaps not, but it doesn't matter.

Now the suggested solution:

I don't have one, but I'm working on it so stay tuned.

By the way, I never buy Wisk, and do buy Tide, so perhaps there is hope.

Norman Horowitz
Media Gadfly

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