Monday night of this week, Jay Leno returned to the 11:35 p.m. time slot on NBC’s “Tonight Show,” which likely will result in a more competitive playing field in the ratings game (as compared to Conan O’Brien’s stint) for the CBS time slot’s competitor, “Late Night with David Letterman.” Ratings equal dollars to the networks, and the stakes are high.

     The next morning, while clicking through channels, I listened to stories hyped on the morning shows. What a coincidence that the CBS Early Show was promoting “The King of Media, Howard Stern … in an exclusive, rare TV interview on why he hates Jay Leno.” I flipped channels till I got to NBC’s Today Show and again, what a coincidence as they promoted Matt Lauer’s interview with the author of a new book about “David Letterman’s cult-like crew” and the chance to “hear exclusively from his former coworker and girlfriend who talks about his infidelities during their relationship.”

     So, the question is this: Were these stories news, entertainment or simply timed by the networks as a public relations strike to the competition?

     After watching, the answer definitely was not news. The “King of Media” launched a diatribe about Leno being a liar and a thief of comedy material with no original thought from him or his team. Stern had the air for about five minutes saying virtually the same thing over and over again. Meanwhile, Lauer’s interview with the author of the Letterman book, coming out (conveniently) this week, discussed old news: Letterman has had multiple relationships over the years with women co-workers, he went public about an affair with an intern after being blackmailed by a show’s producer and blah, blah, blah. As for hearing from the former girlfriend, only a press-type picture of her was shown along with a quote by her.

     I suppose these were entertainment. But these interviews represent a classic example of the need to beware the hidden agendas behind news- and entertainment- oriented television programming. People generally criticize Fox News Channel or MSNBC for their bias, but I believe they play to their audiences and turn off the opposition in a pretty obvious way. I question more the benign, subtle hidden agendas that permeate the media in less obvious ways.

     Government mandates for fairness aren’t the solution. It’s up to us to recognize that it’s hard to know the truths of the world, no matter how many hours of TV we watch.

Comments

Add New Search RSS

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
UBBCode:	-color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.26

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."