Back in the summer of 1988, I was living in Juneau, Alaska. I’d just finished working as a page in the Alaska Senate during the five-month legislative session, and had decided to stay in Juneau for the summer before returning to college in the fall.
I was working as a tour guide at the state capitol, but my heart was in the hours I spent at the local public radio station as a news intern. I was doing production work for the local bits of Morning Edition, and trying my hand at reporting. Here’s a story I did:
Juneau Salmon Derby (990kb MP3)
(Not quite sure what’s up with my voice. I think I was searching for a good radio voice. It sounds a little strange, slightly modulated.)
My favorite production task was choosing the short music clips that filled space between story blocks. The station had a huge collection of LPs, and I spent many a late night discovering new music and searching for that perfect clip.
Category: Media, Journalism & Blogs
Cokie Contemptus
I can’t stand Cokie Roberts. For me, she personifies the world of snobby, know-it-all Washington punditry. Raised a D.C. political brat, she is now a pampered Washington insider who can’t see issues except through myopic Beltway lenses.
The tone of her commentaries oozes with contempt for her audience as she regurgitates the conventional thinking of Washington’s elites. She offers nothing new, only a bored, haughty recitation of the court whisper.
A low point in journalism—and the period when I became somewhat embarrassed to tell people I’d studied the craft in college—came back when ABC News paired Roberts with Sam Donaldson for its Sunday morning show, This Week.
For an example of Roberts’ thinking, read this column, written with her husband back in 1997, wherein they argue that the internet could become a threat to representative democracy—by giving more power to the people. Horrors!
“If you’re on-line, you’re inside the Beltway,” in the opinion of Graeme Browning, author of the book Electronic Democracy, which argues that the Internet is making individuals more politically powerful. Sounds good, but is it?
Cokie doesn’t want to hear from you. She just wants to keep pontificating from her comfortable perch. Someone get her off of NPR.
Well, ‘Real Sex’ Is A Good Show
This is how a conversation between the C.E.O. of CBS, the president of NBC Entertainment and the chairman of HBO—imagining a perfect TV schedule—begins:
Jeff Zucker: You’re really tan.
Leslie Moonves: You know what? I haven’t gone away. I have a place in Malibu, and I tan very fast. So–.
Zucker: He’s really tan.
Moonves: Thank you. It’s that Bob Evans look.
The conversation is ultimately tragic, but has its hilarious moments. Some additional highlights:
Zucker: I might have a lot of crazy, wacky ideas, but the best ideas actually walk in the door.
– – – – – – – –
Chris Albrecht: I don’t do anything on a show. I don’t write a show. I don’t direct a show. I don’t produce a show. I don’t act in a show. I don’t edit a show. So my idea of a show is almost sort of useless. I don’t do anything.
– – – – – – – –
Zucker: You know, you never say that HBO’s most successful show is “G-String Divas.”
Albrecht: “G-String Divas” is not our most successful show.
Zucker: Oh, come on.
Albrecht: It actually didn’t get nearly the ratings I thought it would. “Real Sex” gets great ratings.
Moonves: Well, “Real Sex” is a good show.