On October 21, 2006, President Bush delivered another in the series of radio addresses that seem now to be presidential obligations. [Can anyone explain why these anachronisms persist in an era when media access is so abundant?] In this address the president makes some interesting remarks that unintentionally correlate his media policy with that of the terrorists.

“Another reason for the recent increase in attacks is that the terrorists are trying to influence public opinion here in the United States.”
The Bush Administration is also trying to influence public opinion here. Through the use of uncredited, government-produced video news releases and payments to friendly pundits, the American government has directed a flood of propaganda at the American people.

“They have a sophisticated propaganda strategy.”
They might have learned it from the Pentagon that has an ongoing policy of paying Iraqi newspapers to publish positive stories written by American PR firms.

“They know they cannot defeat us in the battle, so they conduct high-profile attacks, hoping that the images of violence will demoralize our country and force us to retreat.”
Sounds a lot like Shock and Awe.

“They carry video cameras and film their atrocities, and broadcast them on the Internet.”
This is not so different from the practice of embedding reporters in military units to produce tainted coverage that is then broadcast to the rest of the world. But we could also include the scandalous events at Abu Ghraib as examples of atrocities on film.

“…their goal is to, ‘carry out a media war that is parallel to the military war.'”
That is precisely the goal of the U.S. according to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who said that, “the military needs to focus more on adapting to the changes in global media.”

“The terrorists are trying to divide America and break our will.”
The president is also trying to divide America with characterizations of his critics as soft on terror cut-and-runners who want America to lose. His “with us or with the terrorists” rhetoric is designed explicitly to rip apart the fabric of the American people who, in their hearts, all want the same thing – Peace and security.

If there is one thing that we can claim credit for, it’s that we have been a stalwart role model for the forces we are fighting in Iraq and elsewhere. It is easy to observe that the terrorist’s media strategies, about which the president is complaining, were learned from studying the media strategies employed by Bush and his deputies. We are, if nothing else, good teachers.

The immediate pain of the just announced layoffs at NBC will be felt by the 750 employees that lose their jobs. But there is more harm in this plan, and it may spread even further.

First, many analysts note that the bulk of the cuts are going to come from the news divisions. NBC has stated that they will be consolidating operations from the network news, MSNBC, Telemundo, the station group and the NBC News Channel into one or two sites. This will reduce the diversity of reporting to an ever narrower stream of homogenized content. Good going NBC, that’s just what television news needs.

Secondly, NBC revealed that they will be turning the 8:00 pm hour into a reality block. Reality shows are cheap to make and are owned in greater measure by the network. This decision is a double punch in the gut to the creative producers of scripted programs (comedies and dramas). Not only will there be fewer timeslots available to place their product, they are also being shut out of the market because the network is choosing to buy programs from itself. The result is that independent production companies, which have been disappearing rapidly, will accelerate their exit from the television stage.

So to summarize:

• 750 people lose their jobs.
• Creative programming loses out to Reality programming.
• And all Americans lose even more outlets for their news.

And this is what NBC Uni Television Group CEO Jeff Zucker says is his blueprint for TV 2.0. If this is his idea of an upgrade, I think I’d prefer to stick with the old version. And that’s a pretty depressing thought in and of itself.

But the bottom line is that NBC’s initiative to streamline it’s operations is going to hurt millions more than the 750 unfortunates they are leaving on the cutting room floor. And these decisions are being made by the same executives that plunged NBC into 4th place. If these losers think this plan is going to be good for business, they are just providing new evidence of their cluelessness.

Maybe the Fox News Channel really is fair and balanced after all. With a nod to Stephen Colbert, here is an example of Fox’s famous even-handedness.

On May 1, Fox’s Steve Doocy reported on the performance of a Bush impersonator at the White House Correspondents Dinner who worked alongside the president.

Fair: “…the second president was actually an impersonator by the name of Steve Bridges, who nailed the commander in chief’s mannerisms and vocal patterns.”

On October 12, however, Fox’s Mike Straka had a different take on Bridges, this time paired with Barbara Streisand.

Balanced: “During her show, La Babs employed a bad Bush impersonator to sing a duet with her, all the while lambasting the real administration’s policies.”

According to Fox, Bridges is a bad Bush impersonator when working with Streisand, but when working with the president, nails him. The lesson for Bridges, I suppose, is never to work with Democrats. Ironically, that’s philosophy of President Bush and the Republican controlled Congress as well.

“In the three weeks leading up to Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 7, CNN will marshal its resources and political expertise in multiple one-hour reports looking at the widespread dysfunction besetting Congress, the courts and the executive branch.”

These words open a CNN press release announcing the network’s 2006 election coverage. The same notice closes with this quote from CNN political director Sam Feist:

“As voters prepare to make critical decisions about the prosecution of the Iraq war, the wider war on terrorism and the economy, Americans of all ideologies have a nagging sense that something is fundamentally wrong with the way our government operates.”

If those sentiments represent the tenor of CNN’s reporting, we may actually witness an election season where the public is helped, rather than harmed, by television news.

Of course, it’s difficult to suspend a natural and earned skepticism that big media can suddenly perform its duties in the public interest. The facts that government has been dysfunctional, and that Americans have sensed this for some time, have been largely ignored by the media. As have the facts that the media has been dysfunctional and that Americans have sensed this as well. The decline in approval for the president and the Republican controlled congress is not a revelation to most Americans. But it did not gain much traction in the press until a Republican congressman heated up the debate with lurid tales of sex and depravity. Now the press is just noticing an electoral wave that has been building on the horizon for months.

Giving them the benefit a doubt that they don’t deserve, here are some of the upcoming programs that appear most interesting:

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 18, at 7 p.m. Lou Dobbs’ “War on the Middle Class,” conveniently borrows the title of his just released book to look “at the cost of housing, education and health care, as well as stagnant wages and the difficulty of achieving and maintaining middle-class status in this country.”

THURSDAY, OCT. 19, at 7 p.m. “Jack Cafferty’s: Broken Government,” presents the curmudgeon’s view of “government spending, corruption, abuse of power, electronic voting, the political party system and America’s borders.”

MONDAY, OCT. 23, at 8 p.m. “The Do Nothing Congress,” has Ed Henry explaining “the paralysis brought on by partisanship and obsession over raising money for elections.”

SUNDAY, OCT. 29, at 7 p.m. In perhaps the most profound topic of the series, Lou Dobbs and Kitty Pilgrim investigate, “Democracy at Risk: E-voting’s Threat.” This hour will cover the issue from “voter fraud and voter ID legislation to systematic problems with electronic voting machines.”

It remains to be seen if there will be any substance behind the fluff in this PR. It would be easy to produce the same kind of mushy programming for which these conventional media outlets are known. Some of the pitfalls that lead to inferior journalism are standard components of their reporting toolkit. For instance, the common practice of presenting opposing views, even when those views are baseless (or lies), is called “providing balance” in contemporary jounalism. If CNN can avoid falling back on the practices to which they are accustomed, the schedule above might actually hold some promise.

David Kuo was a special assistant to the president in the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. He is a long-time conservative Christian activist who has also worked for Bill Bennett and John Ashcroft.

Now he has written a book that demolishes BushCo’s disingenuous embrace of evangelical America. Tempting Faith is Kuo’s confessional account of an office that was purported to assist communities of faith in their missions to help disadvantaged neighbors, but instead manipulated those groups for political gain.

Kuo describes an office that has contempt for the groups they claim to serve. White House honchos like Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove would refer to their evangelical supporters as “the nuts.” Kuo writes:

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,'”

With support for the President and his party lurching ever lower, the story told by this book could severely damage their electoral prospects amongst their most reliable constituency. But the rest of us already knew that the usurpers in the White House were not to be trusted, didn’t we? Now the faithful will get a taste of how their false idol has betrayed them.

In case anyone is wondering who the President turns to when forming policy, he revealed some of the inner workings of his braintrust today at a press conference. In answering a question about Iraq’s future, the President said:

“How do I know that would happen? Because that’s what the enemy has told us would happen. That’s what they have said. And as Commander-in-Chief of the United States military, and as a person working to secure this country, I take the words of the enemy very seriously, and so should the American people.”

Specifically, this is whose word’s the President takes seriously:

“…all you got to do is listen to what Osama bin Laden says. Don’t believe me that it’s a part of the war on terror; listen to the enemy…”

With consultants like that, it’s a little easier to understand why his presidency is such a miserable failure. It’s just too bad for the 655,000 dead Iraqis that Bush prefers the advice of his enemies to that of the 67% of his fellow Americans that oppose his disasterous war.

If you need another example of how decayed the lifeless body of the media is, Charlie Gibson, anchor of ABC News’ World News Tonight, has been kind enough to offer one.

Gibson thinks that the ads during his broadcast are slanted too heavily to senior viewers. He complains that they, “bespeak an older audience.” Bespoken like the 63 year-old geezer that he is. But you would think that an old hand like himself, might have a better understanding of television adverstising than is exhibited by this statement:

“Why say the important audience is 25 to 54 if you run ads that obviously appeal to people over 60 or 65?” Gibson says. “Why aren’t you trying to get commercials that appeal to the audience you want to get?”

Somebody send a telegraph to Gibson (I’m not sure he can work a cell phone). Broadcasters do not use commercials to attract audiences to programs. They use programs to attract audiences to commercials. The reason WNT has so many ads for Depends and Viagra is that the advertisers know where there customers are. Replacing those ads with ads for sports cars and iPods is not going to produce a groundswell of young viewers. Wake up and smell the Metamucil, Charlie.

Those people wearing “Stewart/Colbert ’08” T-shirts can stop hoping.

That’s the lede in an AP report dispelling speculation that the Comedy Central stars were gearing up for a White House run. Where they got the idea that the pair were really running is anybody’s guess. My guess is they got it from watching Comedy Central but thought that “comedy” was a synonym for “news”. I can’t be too critical of that since I myself have often mistaken news for comedy (I watch Fox too much). Be that as it may, Jon Stewart has come forward to state unequivocally that the dream is over. He described the shirts as…

“…a real sign of how sad people are…Nothing says ‘I am ashamed of you my government’ more than Stewart/Colbert ’08.”

That sounds more like a rallying cry than a concession to me. Perhaps this statement is not so Shermanesque after all. And I would like to point out that, while Stewart dismissed people wearing Stewart/Colbert T-shirts, he said nothing to discourage people wearing Colbert/Stewart T-shirts (like those above). So despair not, patriots. Keep hope alive.

[Full disclosure: Those Colbert/Stewart T-shirts are currently a News Corpse advertiser. Big f**kin’ deal, killjoy. This is breaking news.]