We had Weekend Good Morning, America on (because my wife is boycotting NBC News until Katie Couric leaves) and it was an incredible attempt at old-fartism. They interviewed the organizer of a rave party that turned tragic and, after saying that there were virtually no drugs there, they show a scene from a generic rave party and list all the drugs that are usually there. It made no sense. They then tease a story about the “new trend” in high-school kids having fight parties. Yes, that’s sweeping the nation along with raves and meth and mary jane. Most shocking, they pitch a story about the amazing trend in single women buying houses on their own even before they’ve found “Mr. Right.” Who turned the Wayback Machine to 1967? And they say you need professionals to turn out this claptrap? Yes, you’d have to pay me to do this.
Tag: tv
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Geek Martha
Alex Albrecht, costar of Diggnation, has just premiered his new cooking show for geeks with the greatest title alive: Ctrl+Alt+Chicken (download it there or watch it, free, via iTunes).
It’s a hoot and a half. He and his girlfriend (I think), Heather Stewart, try to make chicken cordon bleu but fail spectacularly. It ends up burned on the outside and perilously raw on the inside. But it’s still fun watching them and, if you care, you do get the recipe. The show goes just a touch over the top when actors must act in a sketch moment near the start. It’s best when they’re just having fun in the kitchen and, in the great tradition of the Galloping Gourmet before he found the wagon, they’re getting sloshed on wine. The couple thing works. So does the honesty. As they’re melting fat and more fat in a pot and they get rather disgusted at this, Alex says in a cooking show, “This is why people don’t cook. Becuase you look at it while it’s cooking and you don’t want to eat it.” Heather says, “It takes forever and my pizza would have already been here.” They’re planning an episode when they just eat the cold pizza. Now that is cooking for geeks.
Note well that this isn’t just people sitting and talking to the camera. They’re actually doing something. They’re entertaining. They made a show. And they showed the world. They did it without studios or executives or networks. Welcome to the future of TV. I like it.
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Vast wasteland, my ass
Well so much for those turn-off-the-tv festivals of media snobbery. The New York Times reports that two University of Chicago economists find that TV is not bad for kids.
Most studies that find negative effects from television compare groups of children who watch television to those who do not, even though the economic situations of the two groups are in all likelihood very different, Mr. Gentzkow said. The new study, however, was based on what the authors call a “natural experiment” that resulted from the way television was introduced in the United States in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, when some cities got TV service five years ahead of others.
Data from cities where preschoolers were exposed to the new technology, and data from cities where they were not, was correlated with test scores from about 300,000 students nationwide in 1965, as collected in the Coleman Report, a survey done under the Civil Rights Act. The study also looked at test scores from pre- and post-TV age groups within cities.
The result showed “very little difference and if anything, a slight positive advantage” in test scores for children who grew up watching TV early on, compared to those who did not, said Mr. Shapiro.
Media are good.
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Maher, diluted
Tonight’s panel on Bill Maher’s return to HBO is the weakest ever: Helen Thomas in the center square?? Eddie Griffin blathers. And there’s Daniel Senor, official spokesman in Iraq. What, Paris Hilton was busy?
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Guns don’t hurt people, vice presidents do
Just watched Good Morning America on sharpshooter Cheney. The young reporter from Corpus Cristi who broke the tale, Kathryn Garcia, is sure to get a TV offer. She was surprisingly self-assured. But then, I wonder whether everyone is getting more comfortable before cameras. Being on TV just isn’t a big deal anymore. But shooting people is….
: LATER: Lost Remote sees a rush on Cheney T-shirts on Cafe Press: “Dick Cheney Hunt Club” and “Deadeye Dick’s Gun Club.”