The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

My thought as I watched some of the doc was, why are we getting this seven years into this shafting? It's too late to make much of a difference - which is the way we usually get this type of reporting, on PBS or anywhere.

LAMBERT: True enough, although (producer) Kirk in particular has been exceptional in getting this sort of thing into and through the system. My point is that with so little left to dispute -- everything here happened -- much of it perceived as illegal, or un-Constitutional by previous administrations, even Nixon's, what are the commercial kids waiting for? We know, obviously. They're waiting for that magical moment when they can run a piece like "Cheney's Law" without any risk of blowback.

There's a reason that delusional anti-American crapstain such as this is on PBS.

LAMBERT: I would dearly love to see the FoxNews documentary on this same topic. Or, as I've always fantasized, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity flying into Baghdad, renting a car and tooling around the city and countryside meeting, greeting and telling all the good news about the surge and progress, and the happy Iraqis the New York Times has hidden from the American public. Come on guys! Hell, I'll cover the rental car ... after I check the fine print on the damage waiver.

I'm with Levine. Too little too late. I reckon it's a handy enough summary for the heretofore willfully clueless. But anyone who didn't pretty much know all this already was watching "What Not To Wear" or "Hannity & His Eunuch."

Apparently they can read the polls at Frontline. Where exactly do you perceive a risk of blowback now? THIS is a story that warrants 14 hours of programming, not an anecdotal, chauninist retelling of WWII from that apple polisher, Burns. And just how would you expect the newscasts to shoe horn all that into a newscast that, after you subtract all the denture cream and Depends ads, amounts to a 22-minute newshole? Commercial broadcast news is dead and we, the viewers, have killed it. And PBS, with its crackhead-like dependence on corporate largesse is ready for last rights.

LAMBERT: So am I putting you down ... again ... under, "Blow Up PBS and Pull Their License"?

Well, Brian, you certainly know how to adapt a phony rhetorical style you criticize when employed by the right to your own purposes when it saves you some typing. Criticize PBS and you get asked why you hate it and want it to fail, Where have I heard that forensic gambit before, hmmmmmm?

Tell this, how's campaign finance reform going while all the candidates continue to suck until they're eyeballs cave in at the warm, pink areola of corporate financing? Might it be a better more transparent and, say it with me now Iraq, DEMOCRATIC, if it were run through some sort of blind trust? Well the same goes for PBS. As long as it's paid for by corporate America and the producers need to truckle to those tastes to get funding, it'll continue to be what it is, an 80% of the time disappointment. I'm saying it could be better. Not just better than the E Channel. Better than what it is now.

LAMBERT: Our disagreement is over the percentage of "disappointment" . I'd reverse your figures to 80%/20% satisfying/disappointing. Maybe this a reflection of my resignation that the mass marketplace will always drive producers of mass entertainment/infotainment to come up just short of constantly startling the best informed and most knowledgeable with genuinely unique art and information. But then, we've got the Internet for that, don't we? In the compromised real world, where large, aggregated interests like GM, Exxon/Mobil etc. will most likely always have a role -- even in funding a blind trust -- executives and producers are always going to have to play some kind of political game. They have to convince risk averse underwriters that material like "Cheney's Law" or countless other "Frontline" documentaries are not only in the best interests of viewers but also in the best interests of underwriters seeking rare commendation from consumers otherwise cynical about the depth of their "public interest."

I won't dispute the Suzie Orman treacle that is so inexplicably popular with local programmers, or the hesitancy to play something like the terrific BBC series, "The Power of Nightmares", but I ain't moving on the value of "Nova", "Nature", "Frontline", "Bill Moyers' Journal" compared to ... well, you pick it ... anywhere else on mass market television.

My but that Edwards affair story got buried quicker than that rib-eye's bone.....

He's "your guy", ain't he?

LAMBERT: I heard -- from a drunk at a Wisconsin road house bar -- that Hugh Hewitt had sex with a mule and fathered "Bat Boy". Why isn't the MSM moving on THAT? It's "out there" after all. "People" are talking about it.

Really, you like Antiques Road Show? Alrighty then...

Anyways, to cite just one quick example, PBS has nothing that comes close to the quality of "The Simpson's." Pretty much anything on cable or broadcast exceeds the fusty old brit coms they run to pander to the geezers who write 'em checks. Lawrence Welk? Hello...

Only satellite subscribers can get it in this market, but I would say that OvationTV has a lot of arts programming that kicks PBS's butt up and down. Their efforts to ape network "reality shows" pretty much all blow. PBS could be one hell of a lot better. But with no heat, they won't bother. The middle managers will continue to devoting themselves to preserving their sinecures.

Meanwhile, sadly, draconian layoffs are devestating the BBC.

LAMBERT: The issue isn't so much whether I personally watch and enjoy "Antiques Roadshow". PBS isn't programming "Lambert TV". I don't expect anyone to cobble together a schedule that precisely fits my tastes and level of expertise (or lack thereof). I do that myself with my remote and the bookmarks on this computer. Is some of the stuff musty and fusty beyond belief. Sure. But they do have 80 year-olds who write checks. So they're giving them something. When "Lawrence Welk" plays I'm probably watching a ballgame or Colbert.

I agree with you that competitive encouragement might help. I'd like to get BBC America via Comcast, instead of six channels of home shopping. But it looks like I'll have to wait for full internet-TV convergence. Until then, I do appreciate TPT giving me BBC World News.

So Larence Welk's just a matter of individual taste. Otherwise, Welk reruns fit perfectly well into the mission statement of the PBS charter. By that light, it's time to start running boomer sit-coms and variety shows to keep the checks coming in.

What I perceive you to be saying is that, aside from the obscure legal wrangle (MPR suing stations that interlope on their branding), none of the public media entities, not MPR or TPT or their umbrella organizations, NPR and PBS, will know the searing heat of the scrutinous mind that you focus like an argon laser on every move made at the privately-held media interests here in the twin towns and nationally. They're above criticism and functioning with nary a micron's space for improvement. Got it. Or is it just that you've never worked for any of them?

LAMBERT: Give me a list of who you want ripped and I'll rip 'em. Kind of a contract thing. More seriously ... I get more worked up about commercial broadcasters -- radio and TV -- who practically print money via their FREE licenses, and stuff our collective consciousness with half-truths, half-facts and crap. PBS's timidity is annoying, but it ain't the main game. But then you are right, I've never worked for 'em. Maybe if I were ever on the inside I'd write the ultimate take down job.

"I get more worked up about commercial broadcasters -- radio and TV -- who practically print money via their FREE licenses, and stuff our collective consciousness with half-truths, half-facts and crap."

Yeah, that IS disenchanting. I hope you didn't get the idea I was asking you to give up that fight. Don't worry, it'll never end.

But meanwhile, ever notice how successful the arch conservative's full cry against public broadcasting's been in recent years at providing the political cover for starving the public broadasting organ of "the beast" and puckering managerial sphincters at PBS, etc? You know, the thing was created to be an anodyne to the wretched excesses of the marketplace you bemoan, albeit the equivalent of baby aspirin.

Despite your sanguine feelings toward public broadcasting, I still can imagine something better than Jim Lehrer's inside the beltway policy wonk love ins and Charlie Rose's nightly fawn fest or Gwen Ifill's drawing room discussions that are like alum on the brain. And couldn't poor ol' Bill Moyers use a freakin' break, for cryin' out loud? Are there no other of his talent and inclination out there waiting for a shot? And, yes, I think Burns ought to be shooed away from the trough for a spell and see what else is being done out there.

And locally, can it really never get any better than Almanac, docs on Hwy 100 and the SPCO's European vacation; or on MPR, Kathy Wurzer's weather fetish, the Gary Eichten Smoke Break, etc.?

Maybe if they had a little critical pressure in the other direction things would improve. There are probably dedicated people on the inside who'd love to make some improvements but are told by the middle manager assigned to each one of them not to rock the boat and risk rippling still waters. There are sinecures at stake here, after all. I'm certainly not asking for the frequency of covering your former employers. But once in awhile would be nice, a pallate cleanser, if nothing else.

As for who you should rip, who says that's the sole option? I think you have a pretty good idea who I'd have you turn a fresh, discerning critical eye toward. No ripping required.

I'll grant you it's easier covering media entities by whom you've personally been employed, not to mention personally cathartic. But you could try calling around and talking to other people who have.

Not that it should displace the regular pointing out that Clear Channel programs crap and makes a lot of money doing it. Or that newspapers are going through a tectonic business model shift and, oddly, it's the little people and not the owners and executives taking the grunt.

Just once in awhile.

LAMBERT: I gather the inference is that all we're doing here is ripping our former employers. That charge has been made, and both Deborah and I are trying to be more circumspect ... BUT ... the Star Tribune's "annus horribilis" s a very big story and previous to this blog no one in this city covered the paper(s) with any regularity -- my apologies to Dave Schmicke, who did a reasonably good job for City Pages.

Moreover, my references here to Clear Channel have far less to do with the blink of time I spent there than the corporation's 1300-station size and model it has set for so many other media competitors. Its effect is rather larger than PBS's.

I could repeat ... again and again ... that I'm not impressed with some of PBS's programming and some, maybe a lot, of TPT's local programming. "Almanac" could be more provocative and less clubby. Wurzer and Eichten could work some fresher angles, I guess. But what can I say? They just aren't large blips on my radar. I simply don't expect revolutionary thinking from PBS/NPR/MPR, and what they do produce is generally superior to most of what I hear/see on commercial networks, which reach and influence what? 10 times as many people? 20 times?

Where there's smoke.....etc.

Okey-dokey, then. But your criticisms of Clear Channel's thin playlist could readily apply on this here blog.

And your argument sounds a lot like Clear Channel's. It's all about the numbers, the reach, the largest demo. They don't do niche programming and, apparently, neither will you engage in any niche criticism.

Strictly all top-two criticism all the time. Kinda' ironical like. I was just asking for a breather every now and again from the standard playlist, not a total format change over.

Do you think it's mainly KQ and Clear Channel listerners reading this blog? Well, abstracting from the 24%ers...

LAMBERT: OK. OK. OK. Rip Gary Eichten. I'm on it. "Antiques Roadshow", give me a friggin' break! Kathy Wurzer, shift the goddam gears darling. "Almanac", grow a set some time, will ya? And let's not get started again on that corporate sycophant Ken Burns and his unwillingness to say anything fresh about WWII!

Did you though happen to hear Kerri Miller's hour today on tomorrow's "Frontline" doc? Damned good. But if I gotta find something to rip, mmmmm, I'm going to have to work it over a little more.