Showing posts with label Vanity Fair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vanity Fair. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Media-generated lists of merit, awards, magazine covers and always seeing what you want to see -classic absurd Leonard Pitts Jr.


Today I have the latest case of some Classic
Leonard Pitts, Jr. behavior, wherein not
actually knowing the facts in a situation isn't
a barrier to his having an opinion.
Surprise!

As predictable as the sun-rise in the East,
Leonard Pitts, Jr.
of the Miami Herald sees
race, rather than simple laziness, cronyism,
cliquishness, brown-nosing or any other other
motivation to explain away results about a media-
generated list he doesn't particularly care for.

Not that he could be bothered to actually look at
the list:
"The fact that the list is (from what I've heard,
I still haven't opened the links) lily white only
reiterates...


See the rest of the post at Richard Prince's blog,
Journal-isms at the Maynard Institute.
The institute is named for the former Oakland
Tribune
editor Robert C. Maynard, who became
quite well-known for his frequent TV appearances
on ABC News' This Week With David Brinkley and
PBS
' MacNeil Lehrer Report, under a post titled
Black Pulitzer Winners See Media Lists as
"Cliquish"

http://mije.org/richardprince/scared-shaken-chilean-earthquake#Black%20Pulitzers

As an aside, please try to think of an African-American
reporter, columnist or editor from west of Chicago
-not named Clarence Page- that you frequently see
on the three Sunday morning network TV chat shows?
Or even an Anglo reporter.
No, really, go ahead.
I'll wait.

And for the record, throw into the mix the fact
that both Denver and Dallas have already had
Black mayors while supposedly-sophisticated
Miami and Fort Laudedale have... well, you know,
NEVER have.

Meanwhile, the Usual Media Suspects & Guests
from the East Coast continue to dominate that
Sunday morning public policy niche despite rarely
if ever bringing anything new to the party to discuss.

And yet, that pattern merits not a squeak in
newspapers here or elsewhere from the likes
of Pitts.
Just saying.

I hate to be the one to break it to you all,
but as has been the case for years and years
in American society, in places large and small,
lists are not complied and awards are not given
based entirely on merit.

For instance, consider the case of the NFL's
Pro Bowl selections for the past forty years or
People magazine's annual 50 Most Beautiful
People
issue.
http://www.people.com/people/

Neither is very realistic or objective, as in the '70's
and '80's, the same offensive linemen were honored
year-after-year, even in down years, while players
at other positions were honored in a more honest
fashion, based on their individual sack stats and,
frankly, whether they were seen on national TV a lot,
and could be seen, which always explains why more
Cowboys get honored than seems mathematically
probable.

It's simple -they get more exposure.
And it's no accident, either.

In that era, certain players were mortal locks to be
named even before the season started unless they
got injured during the season and missed large chunks
of playing time, while a few rare others, like Dolphins
center Dwight Stephnson, were mortal locks
precisely because they actually were that superior
to their competitors, as evidenced by the fact that
the Electors at the NFL Hall of Fame voted him in
during his first year of eligibility, 1998.
http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/member.aspx?PlayerId=204

I don't know whether it's true or not but I have
heard a story that when Stephenson first became
Hall eligible, Edwin Pope of the Herald spoke on
his behalf at the annual meeting of select pro football
correspondents and past Hall enshrinees, stood-up
and said simply, "Gentlemen, Dwight Stephenson."
Then he sat down.

There wasn't anything else Pope needed to say because
Stephenson was so self-evidently a dominant player
of his era, and maybe the best ever at that position.

Likewise, People's annual best-seller is built to a large
extent on the opinions of a handful of powerful Talent
Agencies and publicists pushing -"strongly suggesting"-
clients of their who have a new film, album, exhibit
or something consumer-oriented coming-out that
the editors at People know will have some built-in
consumer interest or buzz.

They want to capitalize on that so that everyone in
the interaction is happy: agent, publicist, star and
editorial staff.

And that goes double for all popular Women magazines
that you see no mater what sort of store you go into,
whether Target, Publix or 7/11, like Vogue.
http://www.vogue.com/
It's not journalism that decide who's on the cover,
it's strictly marketing.

Above, longtime South Beach Hoosier favorite Rachel
McAdams on January's Vogue magazine in time to
promote her new Sherlock Holmes film.

At Vanity Fair magazine, http://www.vanityfair.com/
they've long taken a much-more political and provocative
sensibility on these matters, by consciously choosing to
have a great editorial mix, with inspired and talented
journalism from the likes of Bethany McLean,
formerly of FORTUNE magazine, and someone who
really knows how to tell a story involving business,
as I've written here before.

But they still want to sell lots of magazines!

Which is why actresses Abbie Cornish, Kristen Stewart
and Carey Mulligan are on the cover of March's issue,
as seen at top, Mulligan being an Oscar-nominee.
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/features/2010/03/cover-girls-behind-the-scenes-slideshow-201003#slide=1

(See October 9, 2009 Los Angeles Times,
MOVIE REVIEW
'An Education' Carey Mulligan glows with a girl's innocence and
insight and inhabits the role of Jenny in a way viewers will never forget
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/09/entertainment/et-education9 )

Plus, sometimes, the magazine editors throw in that sentimental
wild card to remain on good terms with someone who has
been out of the spotlight, for whatever reason.

Like any group of people responding to questions about
a list, or even a survey, some people take it very seriously
and try to be meticulous in their responses, while others,
if the subject is more mundane, answer whimsically
or even in a way intentionally designed to get away
from what the original intent of the list is, and highlight
someone or something else, to prove a point.
Our old friend -the wild card.

I know that, you know that, but not Leonard Pitts, Jr.

I used to see that a lot when I was younger and read
the Village Voice and saw their annual musical picks
for best this and that, their Pazz and Jop Poll, since it
seemed like every reporter and columnists doubled-down
on wild cards.

If enough self-selected people play the new wild card,
often enough, at some point, everyone else in media
is talking about the wild card because they don't want
to be left out of the conversation.

Who are they?
What have they done?

Who are they represented by? (William Morris, ICA, Gersh?
)
Are they connected to anyone we already know?
Are they the new "X"?

(X being anything from the media's pick for the next
Paul Newman (Matthew McConaghey) to the next
Italian sex-bomb (

The question never asked is "Are they actually talented
or a coming fad?
"
That's entirely beside the point.

At some point, the wild card overshadows the people on
the list that everyone agrees on, i.e. a Charlize Theron
vs. Shania Twain fight never materializes at People
because they're mortal locks.

Fearless prediction: Whenever the fabulous Shania Twain
is ready to come back to the public with a new CD ,
People magazine will be there, ready, willing and able
to give her a cover story where she looks amazing.
(It's just that in her case, she's already amazing looking.)
Because if they aren't, US will be.

The real fights come over the low-hanging fruit, since they
are in the business of getting consumers to purchase copies
of the magazine and reading the ads and patronizing the
advertisers, not deciding whether Leighton Meester
is more deserving of inclusion than Ashley Greene in
being in the Most Beautiful People issue.

At their level, it's whoever has the buggest project coming-up.

Like any media-generated list, it's as weak as the persons
making the list.

And in the case of Pitts, a totally-predictable
Herald columnist who uses phrases like "so-called"
more than all the paper's other columnists combined,
someone who never brings anything new to his
rhetorical soap box battles, that lazy cruise-control
of his has reached the predictable point where his
NOT knowing the facts involved in a particular
situation doesn't preclude him from weighing-in
with his cliched comments, his admission in the case
above that he never even saw the list but comments
anyway, being proof positive of my point.

Happy
"res ipsa loquitur" over at One Herald Plaza!

----------------
Video: Bethany McLean on the Hedge Fund Era
Story at:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2009/03/video-bethany-mclean-on-the-hedge-fund-era.html


Thursday, January 15, 2009

Upcoming Inaugural transit kerfuffle; "watchdog" being sued; photo of Obama's new limo

Like me, I'm sure you, too, have been getting dizzy at all the news reports parroting the idea that the Obama Inaugural is REALLY going to be the killer gridlock No Man's Land that some have predicted, almost gleefully.
Well, I have a few more things for you to consider towards those "crush-level" crowds next week.

Last week came word that all the tickets for rides on MARC commuter trains between Baltimore and D.C. have already been sold out, with scalpers reportedly getting $50 or more for the $25 round-trip tickets.

(That is to say, the dopey MARC system I used to use all the time -for Oriole afternoon games- which, counter-intuitively, is actually cutting back on daily trains to and from Washington's Union Station to Baltimore's Penn Station.)

Now, via email, comes word from the ever-vigilant eyes at DC Watch that the geniuses at WMATA, the Washington Metro, and Mayor Adrian Fenty's office and others, have decided to CLOSE the main Metro transfer stations in downtown Washington, thus knee-capping local residents and tourists alike, actually adding to the difficulty of their mass transit trips for the Inaugural and parade.

I know lots of people who during past Fourth of July musical/fireworks displays on The Mall, actually walked a few miles home to Arlington at night because of how poorly-managed and over-crowded the Metro system was.
I was one of them.

There'd be outlier people who never use the system -and their kids- actually dangling their legs over the edge of the marble platform, without a care in the world, as daily users like me and my friends kept our distance from them, knowing exactly what could easily happen.

I saw that repeated over and over thru the years, when some friends and I walked from The Mall to across Key Bridge, hoping to get on at the Rosslyn Metro, yet once we got down those very long escalators to the west-bound Orange line platform, we encountered a crowd that looked like O'Hare Airport during a freak blizzard, stranding thousands -dazed parents, with kids everywhere crying, except here, with legs dangling over the ledge, with Metro Police and security nowhere to be found.

A mob of people in an area far too small, just waiting for a reason to freak-out.

And nobody in charge around, but a few folks downtown doubtless watching via CCTV, chuckling to themselves.

We stayed for 10-15 minutes but the crowd was SO DENSE and unruly that we got concerned about our collective safety, went back up the escalator and walked the last two miles home, completely exhausted, as if the D.C. summer heat wasn't enough.

That's the crystal ball past-as-prologue preview for next week, as people from towns all over America without subways and commuter trains converge on D.C., eager to test their luck with limbs dangling over Metro platforms, one slip from the real Third Rail (of Politics.)

"All the planning is going into making it as difficult as possible to bring a private car into close-in Northern Virginia for inauguration events."

Meanwhile, the Washington Post's Marc Fisher kills governement officials and planners with a thousand cuts.
Inauguration: The Million Things We Don't Know March

If I hear anything amusing or interesting from anyone I know about Vanity Fair's event in DC, I'll let you know.
No doubt, nothing quite as scary/amusing as Maureen Dowd's wrath at being turned away from VF's Inaugural shindig at The Corcoran in 1997.
As many of my friends and colleagues recall me telling them at the time, that Irish volcano rumbled for DAYS!

And yet in a sign of the changing times, Maureen penned the VF cover story last month on Tina Fey. See the story at http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2009/01/tina_fey200901 and a video at

(To celebrate Cate Blanchett's February VF cover, this weekend I'm going to re-watch Veronica Guerin, the first film of hers where I glimpsed her true acting greatness.

Speaking of La Dowd, on the slim chance you haven't already heard or read about it elsewhere, she's feting David Geffen this weekend in Washington, and needless to say, it's a safe bet to say it will be sans Clintonistas!
(FYI: The Florida Inaugural party is at The Corcoran next Monday night.)

Interesting piece in today's Miami Herald, Lennar sues 'watchdog' over fraud allegations

Up until now, though I've often taken the Miami Herald to task in this space for its all-too-frequent sloppiness, laziness and bad writing/editing, I've never actually mentioned the moment when I first witnessed the tangible sign that the Miami Herald had, fundamentally, changed for the worse, once I returned to the area.

I'd read the Herald 2-3 times a week in print and online the rest of the week while in Washington, and would now be in a position to read it in print every day.

That moment came in 2004, when I happened to notice a front page article and photo above the fold about giant developer Lennar -thru the widow of Lennar's founder, Leonard Miller, arguably, one of the most powerful businessmen in South Florida of the past forty years- giving $100 
million dollars to the University of Miami Medical School, where they'd name the school after him.  http://www6.miami.edu/ummedicine-magazine/winter2005/deansmessage.html
The Herald even thought to run a positive editorial about it that day.

Not mentioned anywhere in those two pieces, which might've been of interest to all the people who've flooded South Florida since Hurricane Andrew?

That Lennar had been one of the builders most at fault for the shoddy, sub-standard building practices in South Florida pre-Hurricane Andrew (i.e. Country Walk, the residential development in South Miami that started to disintegrate from winds even before Andrew hit.

Coincidentally, on page 3A of that day's Herald, in their god-awful 'Other news' column was 2-3 sentences about a huge planned development in suburban Maryland -south of DC- that had been mysteriously torched.

I knew for a fact that it was a Lennar project, something that was easily verifiable, as subsequent NY Times news accounts made clear.

See 100 Investigators Gather, Seeking Clues to Vast Arson in Maryland at
Maryland Indicts 5 in Fire That Swept 26 New Homes at

But the Herald, ever dependent on Lennar's big advertising dollars during flush times to encourage the South Florida real estate boom, didn't mention any of these pertinent facts that particular day, nor did it seem to ask any questions about the fire of the Lennar officials, before or after the ceremony -the most expensive case of residential arson in Maryland history.

Doesn't mention in the newspaper that one of South Florida's largest companies has suffered a big financial and marketing punch to the gut on a huge project.
That's when I knew the Herald I'd once known, for all of its many, many faults, was gone, replaced by a curious lack of curiosity, or desire to connect-the-dots.

And now, Lennar's suing folks who might just be telling the truth about them.
St. Pete Times columnist Robert Trigaux expertly connects those particular dots better than most here.

After that, check out some of the interesting facts and behind-the-scenes anecdotes the Miami SunPost revealed about Lennar just a few months ago:

---------------------------------
At DC Watch, http://www.dcwatch.com/ see Gary Imhoff's preface to the January 14th issue called
Inauguration Island and Dorothy Brizill's Security on Steroids.
They are like nothing you will read or see elsewhere. http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2009/09-01-14.htm

-----------------------------
from Marc Ambinder's great blog at The Atlantic, http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/ , which I also receive
via email, see the photo of the new limo of President 44, President Limo Porn