Keith Olbermann, cable TV sports and news and a political boondoggle
MONDAY, 08 NOVEMBER 2010 09:18
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/keith-olbermann-cable-tv-sports-and-news-and-a-political-boondoggle
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
It may be wishful thinking but when Ohio Congressman John Boehner becomes the Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, he will decide to tap the shoulder of whoever is the head of the committee that oversees cable TV and ask that person to hold hearings on cable TV socialism and support pro-choice for cable TV subscribers. Boehner and his Minority Leader counterpart in the US Senate, Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell claim that they are doing the business of the American people and want to cut spending.
Here's a way to cut spending in the home.
Let the free market dictate what the true cost of a cable TV channel should be instead of burying it into a law that helps multiple systems operators and cable TV networks.
Write new legislation that will undo the 1984 Cable TV Act and give subscribers a chance to choose what they want instead of having a multiple systems operator reach deals with cable networks and throw together a basic expanded tier that includes a myriad of sports channels and news channels that very few watch yet 100 percent are supporting in a strange form of socialism — the kind that Boehner and his GOP counterparts decry.
But don't count on the Ohio Congressman or the Kentucky Senator to suggest actually holding hearings. Congress, whether it is in the hands of Democrats or Republicans, gleefully ignores the socialist set up that they signed off on in 1984 and gave to the White House for President Ronald Reagan's signature.
Cable TV subscribers provide the dollars needed for sports salaries (New Jersey cable subscribers that pay for the YES Network should see their money go to the Yankees and stay in the area, and question the legality of Major League Baseball's revenue sharing which takes money out of the area and gives it to fiscally ailing baseball teams such as the Florida Marlins.
Most New Jersey cable TV subscribers never watch the YES Network, yet they are paying for it and seeing their money go out of the market for other channels they never put on). Cable TV gives the Steinbrenner family annual big paydays. The Steinbrenners may fight the Texas Rangers to sign Cliff Lee. Texas is also stuffed with cable TV cash.
If Congress changed the cable TV law, sports would probably be in the words of economist Andrew Zimbalist "eviscerated" with cable TV money drying up. The cable TV news networks could not afford to pay the millions of dollars a year to "popular" personalities who know nothing about issues and yet pontificate as if they are global experts. That is why Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is right in condemning General Electric-NBC's decision to suspend the former UPI, CNN, ESPN and FOX sportscaster turned political expert Keith Olbermann for contributing to three political campaigns. FOX "personalities" give money and there is no outcry from their viewers. FOX just masquerades as a so-called news operation as does MSNBC and CNN and network TV.
Truth is none of them do an adequate job informing viewers. (Keith is a smart guy but spending a lifetime reading the back of baseball cards and explaining the virtues of the 1899 Cleveland Spiders — the worst team ever in Major League Baseball — does not make him an expert on global economy, regional conflicts, the crumbling infrastructure in the country and taxation laws in the United States.)
Sanders should take it one step further.
He should call hearings in the Senate and really talk about the cable TV law that is wasting consumers' money and push for a la carte which means that subscribers just pay for what they want and let the free market dictate costs. It is a frightening thought for Rupert Murdoch and FOX, Bob Iger and Disney, Jeff Immelt and GE, the Time Warner people and CBS. But all the networks have lobbyists on the Hill to make sure Congress doesn't do anything stupid like pushing for a la carte.
Cable TV networks are using other people's money — their subscribers' — to provide money for sports and prompt up what would be considered failing "news" departments at FOX, MSNBC and CNN along with CNN's Headline News and CNBC and whatever fare Rupert Murdoch's FOX is serving up on cable.
Cable TV operators are pretty slick. They send out bills never breaking down costs. You want ESPN and FOX News Channel, you have to get something else with it and you have no choice. Of course the counter argument is that if Congress broke up the basic expanded tier and allowed a la carte, ESPN might cost $20 or more a month for those who want the network because the buy rate for the channel would slip dramatically. The same would hold true for woefully performing networks like the FOX News Channel, CNN and MSNBC. None of them reach a mass audience but a mass audience is paying for something they don't use.
Executives from Sirius/XM radio can tell you that Howard Stern never pulled in his listeners from terrestrial radio in the numbers that they thought they would get. The buy rate for Stern on a pay service was abysmal.
The Olbermann suspension is troubling although he did have a clause in his contract apparently says that NBC News employees should keep out of the political campaign fray as it "may create the appearance of a conflict of interest ... Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns."
On Friday, Politico reported Olbermann gave $2,400 apiece in late October to Kentucky candidate Jack Conway and to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. The donation to Grijalva came on the same day the Democratic incumbent appeared on "Countdown," according to Politico.
Olbermann's bosses at General Electric have given money to candidates forever. GE is in the news operations business whether they like it or not. NBC's new owners to be, Comcast, had Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter as a really good friend. Murdoch's friends included Newt Gingrich, the former Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives. There are political operatives all over the place at FOX (Karl Rove, Sarah Palin), CNN (Elliot Spitzer), MSNBC/CNBC (Chris Matthews, Lawrence Kudlow and the former chief of staff for New York Governor Mario Cuomo, the late Tim Russert is an NBC saint far ahead of David Brinkley and Edwin Newman in the line of NBC's great newsmen.)
Let's get one thing straight. Cable TV news isn't news. It is, to use a polite term, a hodgepodge of opinions which serves as a supplement to AM talk radio in the United States. AM radio has a problem, most of AM listeners are aging and they are not being replaced and AM radio is an old medium and young people have many other ways of communication and in some instances don't own a radio.
AM talk radio does well in the ratings, even though it skews older and male, with a nasty and sardonic host complaining about the raw deal he is getting in life and the listeners should be angry to. Sam Donaldson, the ABC newsman, once told the story of his dismal tenure as a radio talk show host at WMAL in Washington because he was not angry enough. Donaldson's typical listener should have been an older white male who hated his wife, kids, job, lot in life and was looking for a friendly voice that understood his plight. Donaldson could not capture that listener. That wasn't Donaldson.
Radio news talk is a mean spirited medium that Donaldson didn't need.
(Note this columnist appeared regularly on Donaldson's ABCNewsNow show in 2005.)
The talk show genre is cheap but dishonest. The talk on cable TV news is also cheap except for expensive "talent." Beck, Hannity, Matthews, Spitzer to name a few are not news people and Larry King is nothing more than a neighborhood yenta to use a term from his old Brooklyn neighborhood. None of these people would ever be confused with Edward R. Murrow who inadvertently might have taken down "serious" journalism when he interviewed Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954 and helped bring down the Senator.
CBS choked after the program as CBS Chairman William Paley had no stomach anymore for real journalism — Paley had no stomach for political satire either as CBS decided the Smothers Brothers criticism of President Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War were too much and fired the comedy duo in 1969.
Olbermann was kind of a news reporter back in the mid 1980s when he was on the streets of New York covering sports news on CNN (labor disagreements) but he is no newsman.
The cable TV dishonesty is simple. A host, usually an older white male, screams and yells and is the omnipotent, all knowing overseer and the guests are encouraged to argue. The host comes back on and shows his minions how correct he is and then the show ends.
It doesn't matter if it is a liberal or a conservative, conflict sells ads (the news channels are getting money up front and then a second stream — ads). Congress will not bail out newspapers but they sure have bailed out cable TV news and with the 1996 Telecommunications Act signed into law by Bill Clinton, radio as the fragmented radio ownership was whittled down to two main players Clear Channel and Infinity — with both doing away with a lot of local personnel nationally and moving into radio syndication fare and loudmouth omnipresent hosts who lord over their show, with minimum wage screeners answering phones and turning the call over to the lord and master for either thumbs up or a verbal lashing and tirade designed to humiliate a caller.
This is now what passes for importance: Newsweek, another failing news entity — a weekly magazine — had Rush Limbaugh on the cover as an important pundit.
The Newsweek cover is a sad statement on how the journalism community has ceded its seat at the table in legitimate discussions. Limbaugh, a nasty and sarcastic character, is taken far too seriously. So is Glenn Beck. So is Keith Olbermann. None of them are in the same area code as Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Douglas Edwards or Howard K. Smith as TV journalists in the 1950s, 60s, 70s or 80s.
Radio news talk and cable TV news are intellectually dishonest and do not inform the listener/viewer. Day after day after day there are outrageous opinions that are designed to shock listeners and keep them glued to the next commercial and the extreme partisanship and it was all created by Congress and Ronald Reagan (Cable TV Act 1984 and dismantlement of the Fairness Doctrine), and Congress and Bill Clinton (1996 Telecommunications Act). None of these actions really did much in helping the democracy although the "good" hosts rake in millions.
Keith Olbermann is a lightning rod at his workplace. He is the left's answer to Bill O'Reilly, a character who seems to relish his pro wrestling-like role, of the right. Give O'Reilly his due; he is on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report and David Letterman. He knows it is all show business. He might be the only one though. But even conservatives are questioning GE's decision.
Oh, by the way: Comcast is supposed to buy out GE and eventually take over NBC. You know who will oversee the acquisition? Congress and the Federal Communications Commission.
As Don King once said, "Only in America."
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label MSNBC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MSNBC. Show all posts
Monday, November 8, 2010
Monday, October 26, 2009
Limbaugh’s Bid on the Rams: Pundits Analysis Wrong Again
http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7562
Limbaugh’s Bid on the Rams: Pundits Analysis Wrong Again
By Evan Weiner
October 20, 2009
7:00 PM (ADT)
(Halifax, Nova Scotia) – Rush Limbaugh is not going to be part of any group that wants to buy the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams. That is a real fact. But the post mortem analysis of the Limbaugh story after he was asked to withdraw from Dave Checketts group’s bid on the franchise from the pundit wing of American media is a bit baffling.
Or is it?
Limbaugh, the ever ready to sprout out utterances conservative philosopher, blamed a group of detractors that included the usual Limbaugh cast of characters including Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and President Barack Obama as part of some Limbaugh blather that that his rejection of as a money man in an NFL franchise bid is part of a menacing Obama future that is dark and bleak.
Limbaugh, the businessman, knows that Obama’s National Football League is not much different than Richard Nixon’s NFL, Gerald Ford’s NFL, Jimmy Carter’s NFL, Ronald Reagan’s NFL, George H. W. Bush’s NFL, Bill Clinton’s NFL and George W. Bush’s NFL. The NFL of today was created in 1961 through the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 that was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy which allowed the 14 partners (owners) of the NFL to sell their TV shows as one entity to a TV network and gave NFL owners protection from United States antitrust statues and use the 14 entities as one which meant they could make more money than selling their games piecemeal or ad hock TV networks.
Limbaugh, the businessman, also knows that it was President Lyndon B. Johnson in October 1966 who approved the American Football League-National Football League merger which created a major monopoly (as NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle confirmed as he was on the stand in the NFL-United States Football League antitrust court case in 1986) that gave NFL and AFL owners financial stability as one 24 team entity and led to the creation of the Super Bowl.
Two liberals, Kennedy and Johnson, created today’s moneymaking NFL, a private club that Limbaugh wanted to join.
Limbaugh also has to know that his hero, Ronald Reagan, as the President of the United States signed two bills, the 1984 Cable TV Act and the 1986 Tax Act, that helped the owners get money from cable TV and changed how municipalities funded stadium construction which also aided owners pockets.
Facts never get in the pundits (whether they are from the left or right) way of screaming and yelling, so with that here is a sports primer for such experts on everything like Cal Thomas, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, all of who were recently on FOX displaying their knowledge of how the NFL should work in their world.
For Hannity, who feels bad that Rush probably can never enjoy the NFL again in the same way he used to prior to being dropped as a potential Rams owner; for Coulter who somehow parlayed Rush’s failure into how NFL players probably have more in common with Rush because they are Christians, I am not exactly sure what that has to do with anything, but the players in the Coulter world of absolute punditry correctness could break bread with Rush so much more than his gang of detractors, the Jacksons, Sharptons, the National Football League Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith and Obama. For good political measure, the blonde carnival barker threw in that the liberal George Soros was also trying to buy into the Rams, which was unverified. And she added for good measure that Soros was a Jewish Nazi sympathizer in Hungary during World War II as a teenager. It was the usual Coulter stuff that is light on accuracy but filled with raw red meat for her fans who fill her pockets with cash by buying her books and listening to her rants. Her fans aren’t the only ones who listen; journalists seem to like her as they seem to promote her endlessly. And for Thomas who is just a blank on the business dealings of football.
As a public service to both sides of the cable TV news network lighter than air discussions which more than not resemble third graders yelling at each other at a school lunchroom table although the third graders probably have more facts at their disposal, here is a sports owners guide for membership.
Have money and keep a low profile. Don’t do anything that might upset them.
Not everyone who wants to buy a sports team gets one. Edward Gaylord, who owned the Daily Oklahoman from 1974 until his death in 2003, twice failed to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team. Gaylord, who was a staunch conservative and The Oklahoman reflected that view, was turned down by the Lords of Baseball in the 1980s because Major League Baseball owners didn’t want Gaylord to turn the Rangers into a national team through his Dallas Cable TV superstation and have the Rangers on a daily basis on national cable TV with the New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta Braves. The owners felt another “national” team would further diminish national television revenues. The Rangers franchise ended up with a group that included George W. Bush in 1989.
Gaylord’s political ideology had nothing to do with being turned down. The baseball fraternity was threatened by Gaylord’s technology. The National Basketball Association did not want the Minnesota Timberwolves to leave Minneapolis in 1994 and blocked the sale of the team to a group that was headed by the boxing promoter Bob Arum. Arum planned to move the team to New Orleans, the NBA wanted to stay in the bigger Twin-Cities market. Blackberry partner Jim Balsillie needs to be rehabilitated before he tries a fourth time to purchase a National Hockey League team. Balsillie tried to make demands of NHL owners when he reached an agreement o but Pittsburgh in 2006 and not play nice with Commissioner Gary Bettman and keep the franchise in western Pennsylvania, did the same thing in 2007 when he bought the Nashville Predators and was found unsuitable as an owner this spring/summer when he wanted to buy the Phoenix Coyotes and move the team to Hamilton, Ontario.
Those are just three examples. The oilman Marvin Davis had the right stuff to own a Major League Baseball team in 1977 but the Barons of Baseball said no when Davis tried to buy the Oakland A’s franchise and move the team to Denver.
The NFL is a private club, 31 owners plus the public ownership in Green Bay, that picks and chooses club members. One of those members is Alex Spanos who owns the San Diego Chargers and this is going to cause some problems for the carnival barker crowd.
Spanos probably has far more in common with the usual daily fare that Limbaugh fills the public airwaves with 15 hours a week. At least Spanos has a real track record of being politically active. He was number 2 on the list of donations to George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign and spoke at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. In 2004, Spanos was a heavy contributor to the 527 Swift Boat attack ads against the Democrat John Kerry in his bid for the Presidency. At the same time, former President George H. W. Bush accompanied Spanos to Athens, Greece as where they served as the official American representatives at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Spanos should be a hero to the Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter/Thomas, radio talk show and Roger Ailes’ FOX crowd but Spanos knows there is far more to life than the daily foolishness that is paraded on MSNBC, CNN, FOX, talk radio from Air America or talk radio from Clear Channel (and the fictional) Excellence in Broadcasting network.
Spanos hired Mark Fabiani to help him get a new football stadium and real estate development project in the San Diego area. Fabiani has the credentials to get things done although Spanos might be considered a polar opposite. Fabiani was the Deputy Campaign Manager for Communications and Strategy at Gore for President in 2000 and was the Special Counsel to the President, the Executive Office of the President, the White House, Washington, D. C. between 1994 and 1996.
Fabiani served President Bill Clinton’s White House, Clinton, the mortal enemy of Limbaugh, Hannity, Thomas, Coulter, Ailes, and the rest of the conservative barkers.
The entire game of talk radio and cable news in the United States is shrill whether it is Keith Olbermann or Bill O’Reilly. There is a disingenuous nature to the beast, so much so that one FOX host who suffers from multiple sclerosis and is a financial supporter of a stem cell research center in New York City but real life and the strange life of cable TV news and talk radio never intersect and that host cannot give a public pitch for funding research at the facility and the people who helped put together the center would rather not talk about financial contributions from FOX News Channel personnel including some of the higher ups at FOX but take research money. If it became public, that would ruin the illusion. Cable TV and talk radio show punditry is more Wizard of Oz that academic debate and opening the curtain is the last thing that punditry class wants to do.
The strange disconnect extends into what is considered serious Sunday morning American TV news and interview programs. The Conservative George Will is a prime example of not being all that he appears to be. The free market proponent isn’t exactly a hard-core free market advocate. Will, who was on the Board of Directors of the San Diego Padres and the Baltimore Orioles, in 2000 as a member of a blue ribbon committee studying the industry said that he didn’t believe free market principles should be applied to baseball. Will, who is as stuffy in real life as he is on TV, is a hypocrite and this is typical of what passes as real journalism in America.
I should know, I asked Will about his 2000 stance and he declined to opine on the free market advocate who stifled his principles for baseball.
Olbermann, Chris Mathews, the late Tim Russert, Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Thomas, Joe Scarborough, Larry King, Don Imus, Anderson Cooper, Campbell Brown, Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Charles Gibson, Bill O’Reilly, George Stephanopolous, Will, Chris Wallace, David Gregory, Alan Colmes and the rest of the barkers or political operators will never be confused with the people who delivered daily commentaries on the old 1970s CBS Radio Spectrum series which included Murray Kempton, M. Stanton Evans, Jeffrey St. John, Stewart Alsop, Jon K. Jessup and Nicholas Von Hoffman. Nor would any of today’s crowd be confused with the legacy of the American conservative William Buckley. Buckley and Kempton were polar opposites politically but were best friends because of their journalistic integrity something that is clearly lacking in American media. Neither Buckley nor Kempton were abrasive personalities and both were meticulous. The screaming hyenas of today are cherished by radio talk programmers and cable TV network executives as they search for angry listeners and viewers who want the red raw meat and vile instead of intellectual give and take.
Olbermann, who is an intelligent guy with a load of luggage in his background, would never have worked for CBS Chairman William Paley’s news department in the 1960s because of his sports background. Paley would not allow Art Linkletter to become a correspondent on “60 Minutes” because of his game show host background.
The carnival barkers have moved on from the Limbaugh debate and are on some other silly trail looking for viewers and listeners who genuflect at their every word. The barkers on a daily basis vent their spleens not because of ideological stances but the chance to scream for money on issues that appeal to a narrow segment of society.
Limbaugh won’t be joining the NFL anytime soon, but it is wrong for the Coulter crowd to blame their mortal enemies, the Jackson-Sharpton wing of the food fight club. The NFL owners like to keep low social profiles and not cause a ruckus and that is what eliminated Limbaugh from the Checketts group, not the liberals.
eweiner@mcn.tv
Limbaugh’s Bid on the Rams: Pundits Analysis Wrong Again
By Evan Weiner
October 20, 2009
7:00 PM (ADT)
(Halifax, Nova Scotia) – Rush Limbaugh is not going to be part of any group that wants to buy the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams. That is a real fact. But the post mortem analysis of the Limbaugh story after he was asked to withdraw from Dave Checketts group’s bid on the franchise from the pundit wing of American media is a bit baffling.
Or is it?
Limbaugh, the ever ready to sprout out utterances conservative philosopher, blamed a group of detractors that included the usual Limbaugh cast of characters including Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and President Barack Obama as part of some Limbaugh blather that that his rejection of as a money man in an NFL franchise bid is part of a menacing Obama future that is dark and bleak.
Limbaugh, the businessman, knows that Obama’s National Football League is not much different than Richard Nixon’s NFL, Gerald Ford’s NFL, Jimmy Carter’s NFL, Ronald Reagan’s NFL, George H. W. Bush’s NFL, Bill Clinton’s NFL and George W. Bush’s NFL. The NFL of today was created in 1961 through the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 that was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy which allowed the 14 partners (owners) of the NFL to sell their TV shows as one entity to a TV network and gave NFL owners protection from United States antitrust statues and use the 14 entities as one which meant they could make more money than selling their games piecemeal or ad hock TV networks.
Limbaugh, the businessman, also knows that it was President Lyndon B. Johnson in October 1966 who approved the American Football League-National Football League merger which created a major monopoly (as NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle confirmed as he was on the stand in the NFL-United States Football League antitrust court case in 1986) that gave NFL and AFL owners financial stability as one 24 team entity and led to the creation of the Super Bowl.
Two liberals, Kennedy and Johnson, created today’s moneymaking NFL, a private club that Limbaugh wanted to join.
Limbaugh also has to know that his hero, Ronald Reagan, as the President of the United States signed two bills, the 1984 Cable TV Act and the 1986 Tax Act, that helped the owners get money from cable TV and changed how municipalities funded stadium construction which also aided owners pockets.
Facts never get in the pundits (whether they are from the left or right) way of screaming and yelling, so with that here is a sports primer for such experts on everything like Cal Thomas, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, all of who were recently on FOX displaying their knowledge of how the NFL should work in their world.
For Hannity, who feels bad that Rush probably can never enjoy the NFL again in the same way he used to prior to being dropped as a potential Rams owner; for Coulter who somehow parlayed Rush’s failure into how NFL players probably have more in common with Rush because they are Christians, I am not exactly sure what that has to do with anything, but the players in the Coulter world of absolute punditry correctness could break bread with Rush so much more than his gang of detractors, the Jacksons, Sharptons, the National Football League Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith and Obama. For good political measure, the blonde carnival barker threw in that the liberal George Soros was also trying to buy into the Rams, which was unverified. And she added for good measure that Soros was a Jewish Nazi sympathizer in Hungary during World War II as a teenager. It was the usual Coulter stuff that is light on accuracy but filled with raw red meat for her fans who fill her pockets with cash by buying her books and listening to her rants. Her fans aren’t the only ones who listen; journalists seem to like her as they seem to promote her endlessly. And for Thomas who is just a blank on the business dealings of football.
As a public service to both sides of the cable TV news network lighter than air discussions which more than not resemble third graders yelling at each other at a school lunchroom table although the third graders probably have more facts at their disposal, here is a sports owners guide for membership.
Have money and keep a low profile. Don’t do anything that might upset them.
Not everyone who wants to buy a sports team gets one. Edward Gaylord, who owned the Daily Oklahoman from 1974 until his death in 2003, twice failed to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team. Gaylord, who was a staunch conservative and The Oklahoman reflected that view, was turned down by the Lords of Baseball in the 1980s because Major League Baseball owners didn’t want Gaylord to turn the Rangers into a national team through his Dallas Cable TV superstation and have the Rangers on a daily basis on national cable TV with the New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta Braves. The owners felt another “national” team would further diminish national television revenues. The Rangers franchise ended up with a group that included George W. Bush in 1989.
Gaylord’s political ideology had nothing to do with being turned down. The baseball fraternity was threatened by Gaylord’s technology. The National Basketball Association did not want the Minnesota Timberwolves to leave Minneapolis in 1994 and blocked the sale of the team to a group that was headed by the boxing promoter Bob Arum. Arum planned to move the team to New Orleans, the NBA wanted to stay in the bigger Twin-Cities market. Blackberry partner Jim Balsillie needs to be rehabilitated before he tries a fourth time to purchase a National Hockey League team. Balsillie tried to make demands of NHL owners when he reached an agreement o but Pittsburgh in 2006 and not play nice with Commissioner Gary Bettman and keep the franchise in western Pennsylvania, did the same thing in 2007 when he bought the Nashville Predators and was found unsuitable as an owner this spring/summer when he wanted to buy the Phoenix Coyotes and move the team to Hamilton, Ontario.
Those are just three examples. The oilman Marvin Davis had the right stuff to own a Major League Baseball team in 1977 but the Barons of Baseball said no when Davis tried to buy the Oakland A’s franchise and move the team to Denver.
The NFL is a private club, 31 owners plus the public ownership in Green Bay, that picks and chooses club members. One of those members is Alex Spanos who owns the San Diego Chargers and this is going to cause some problems for the carnival barker crowd.
Spanos probably has far more in common with the usual daily fare that Limbaugh fills the public airwaves with 15 hours a week. At least Spanos has a real track record of being politically active. He was number 2 on the list of donations to George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign and spoke at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. In 2004, Spanos was a heavy contributor to the 527 Swift Boat attack ads against the Democrat John Kerry in his bid for the Presidency. At the same time, former President George H. W. Bush accompanied Spanos to Athens, Greece as where they served as the official American representatives at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Spanos should be a hero to the Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter/Thomas, radio talk show and Roger Ailes’ FOX crowd but Spanos knows there is far more to life than the daily foolishness that is paraded on MSNBC, CNN, FOX, talk radio from Air America or talk radio from Clear Channel (and the fictional) Excellence in Broadcasting network.
Spanos hired Mark Fabiani to help him get a new football stadium and real estate development project in the San Diego area. Fabiani has the credentials to get things done although Spanos might be considered a polar opposite. Fabiani was the Deputy Campaign Manager for Communications and Strategy at Gore for President in 2000 and was the Special Counsel to the President, the Executive Office of the President, the White House, Washington, D. C. between 1994 and 1996.
Fabiani served President Bill Clinton’s White House, Clinton, the mortal enemy of Limbaugh, Hannity, Thomas, Coulter, Ailes, and the rest of the conservative barkers.
The entire game of talk radio and cable news in the United States is shrill whether it is Keith Olbermann or Bill O’Reilly. There is a disingenuous nature to the beast, so much so that one FOX host who suffers from multiple sclerosis and is a financial supporter of a stem cell research center in New York City but real life and the strange life of cable TV news and talk radio never intersect and that host cannot give a public pitch for funding research at the facility and the people who helped put together the center would rather not talk about financial contributions from FOX News Channel personnel including some of the higher ups at FOX but take research money. If it became public, that would ruin the illusion. Cable TV and talk radio show punditry is more Wizard of Oz that academic debate and opening the curtain is the last thing that punditry class wants to do.
The strange disconnect extends into what is considered serious Sunday morning American TV news and interview programs. The Conservative George Will is a prime example of not being all that he appears to be. The free market proponent isn’t exactly a hard-core free market advocate. Will, who was on the Board of Directors of the San Diego Padres and the Baltimore Orioles, in 2000 as a member of a blue ribbon committee studying the industry said that he didn’t believe free market principles should be applied to baseball. Will, who is as stuffy in real life as he is on TV, is a hypocrite and this is typical of what passes as real journalism in America.
I should know, I asked Will about his 2000 stance and he declined to opine on the free market advocate who stifled his principles for baseball.
Olbermann, Chris Mathews, the late Tim Russert, Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Thomas, Joe Scarborough, Larry King, Don Imus, Anderson Cooper, Campbell Brown, Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Charles Gibson, Bill O’Reilly, George Stephanopolous, Will, Chris Wallace, David Gregory, Alan Colmes and the rest of the barkers or political operators will never be confused with the people who delivered daily commentaries on the old 1970s CBS Radio Spectrum series which included Murray Kempton, M. Stanton Evans, Jeffrey St. John, Stewart Alsop, Jon K. Jessup and Nicholas Von Hoffman. Nor would any of today’s crowd be confused with the legacy of the American conservative William Buckley. Buckley and Kempton were polar opposites politically but were best friends because of their journalistic integrity something that is clearly lacking in American media. Neither Buckley nor Kempton were abrasive personalities and both were meticulous. The screaming hyenas of today are cherished by radio talk programmers and cable TV network executives as they search for angry listeners and viewers who want the red raw meat and vile instead of intellectual give and take.
Olbermann, who is an intelligent guy with a load of luggage in his background, would never have worked for CBS Chairman William Paley’s news department in the 1960s because of his sports background. Paley would not allow Art Linkletter to become a correspondent on “60 Minutes” because of his game show host background.
The carnival barkers have moved on from the Limbaugh debate and are on some other silly trail looking for viewers and listeners who genuflect at their every word. The barkers on a daily basis vent their spleens not because of ideological stances but the chance to scream for money on issues that appeal to a narrow segment of society.
Limbaugh won’t be joining the NFL anytime soon, but it is wrong for the Coulter crowd to blame their mortal enemies, the Jackson-Sharpton wing of the food fight club. The NFL owners like to keep low social profiles and not cause a ruckus and that is what eliminated Limbaugh from the Checketts group, not the liberals.
eweiner@mcn.tv
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