Rocci Fisch

February 15, 2011

ENOUGH GRANDSTANDING ON EGYPT ALREADY

NOT NOTICED: Objectivity by TV reporters covering the demonstrations in Cairo. Most of them seemed to identify with the protesters and got caught up in the swirl of events, marching with them, almost demonstrating with them, commiserating with them about their grievances, They acted too close to what they were covering; reporters shouldn't be doing that.
…I say stay neutral and just report what's going on. Don't take sides or look like you are.
…When it was announced that President Hosni Mubarak resigned some reporters even had smiles on their faces as they reported from the mosh pit, acting like they shared a kinship with the people protesters' plight.
They all wanted to be part of the story and hence were seen doing their "bridges" and "standuppers" from the swarns in Tahrir Square. Some settled for balconies or rooftops but the main network reporters were right there at ground zero and they let you know about it (or their proud anchors did).
…Overall the coverage was a bit one-sided.
…It was also more about me, me, me and not enough about them, them, them.
…And speaking of Tahrir Square ... Can we tell all American reporters NOT to pronounce it using the guttural accent on the second syllable, as Arabic-speaking people naturally do? It sounds really pretentious.
…It's okay for Fareed Zacharia to say it that way but not Richard Engel (NBC).
…Engel, by the way, mentioned in one of his eyewitness reports that some of the demonstrators "offered me breakfast."
…What, did they sit down cross-legged in the square and eat bacon and eggs or did they go the granola route?
…A little too familiar, if you ask me.
…And he was visibly smiling and happy during his on-camera "bridge," being pushed, shoved and buoyed up by the "madding crowd." Fellow NBC colleague Ron Allen was similarly ebullient, citing "so many acts of courage and deliberation."
…Tone it down.
LINDSAY LOHAN'S WHITE DRESS. There was a lot of buzz about the "albino"-colored tight, clingy dress that the starlet wore to her felony hearing after being charged for stealing a $2,500 necklace.
…Lohan strutted her stuff right up to the court entrance, looking sharp, fashionable, leggy and designer sunglass-y, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was headed to something as serious as a legal proceeding.
…She certainly didn't dress down for the event. No conservative suit and pearls for her.
…That dress is being snatched up quickly by Lindsay wannabes who can't wait to get their hands on the Kimberly Ovitz design.
So Keith Olbermann's (former MSNBC anchor of Countdown) signed with Current TV, the Al Gore youth-oriented, left-leaning cable channel. He'll be doing a nightly one-hour show and also has the title of chief news officer, whatever that means.
…He's worked about everywhere else and burned bridges so maybe Current TV was the only place to go.
…We'll see how long this lasts.
JUST ASKING. Does Larry King still do those Garlique commercials? He used to but I saw one the other night that didn't feature him.
…King claimed the product helped reduce cholesterol but later it was found out that it didn't. The Better Business Bureau went after Chattam, Inc., the manufacturer.
…Poor Larry.
…I miss Larry King on CNN at 9:00 every night.
JUST ASKING AGAIN. Does Simon Cowell (former American Idol snarky judge and recently seen on one of the morning shows trying to drum up interest for his upcoming new Fox TV show, The X Factor) think he's sexy when he wears his white dress shirts unbuttoned practically down to his waist? The effect exposes the beginning of what looks like a hairy chest that I'm sure he thinks is sexy.
…For crissakes, that's so 70's. I did that back in my disco days.
…A hairy chest is not de rigueur now; everybody's shaved and smooth-skinned, so I don't know what planet he's on.
Bill O'Reilly asking President Obama if it bothers him "that people hate you" in his Super Bowl interview was a bit too blunt and crude for my tastes. It was the president of the United States that the Fox host was interviewing but that didn't seem to enter into the equation. O'Reilly just wanted to be confrontational and "make news," be sensational.
…He interrupted Obama while he was answering by saying an emphasized "hate you" again, I guess, for dramatic effect.
…And O'Reilly sat there looking/acting bored with Obama's answers, especially on the question about what he doesn't like about the presidency.
…O'Reilly had been there, heard that.
Christiane Amanpour seems to say Moslem instead of Muslim when talking about Egypt and the Middle East. She even calls the Muslim Brotherhood the Moslem Brotherhood. It's in her tweets.
…Is she right on this?
REQUEST. Would someone tell humanitarian Joe Kennedy to quit whining about those poor souls who can't afford heating oil in the winter in those TV commercials promoting his energy company? ("I wear two pairs of long underwear and a jacket and that's inside my house," says an elderly man. "I'm 84 and alone. I had to drag an iron cot from the basement to the kitchen so I could sleep by the oven," ) says a woman shown dragging it.
…I doubt that he, Joe Kennedy, is so hands-on that he actually pulls the hose from the oil truck (pictured in the ad) up to the house for a refill.
…He gets the oil for his Citizens Energy Corporation from "our friends in Venezuela at Citgo" and has been criticized for it and his relationship with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
…TAG LINE: "Because no one should be left out in the cold."
…Tugging the heart strings.
CAIRO COVERAGE. In many of the reports the audio in the live shots and videotape pieces was very much out of sync with the video and the networks just had to deal with it (and so did viewers). It was distracting.
…In other words, their lips were ahead of the sound.
…It's called lip-flapping in the biz, meaning the two (audio and video) are not hooked up, i.e., in sync.
…This was probably due to technical glitches in the satellite transmission and the use of multiple sources used in putting together the individual pieces (i.e., TV cameras, Internet and Skype interviews, etc.)
…Often this can be fixed in the editing room back home but there apparently wasn't time for it, the story was happening so fast.
IMAGINE ... Having to sing Need You Now for the rest of your life as Lady Antebellum will have to do. (The group won multiple awards at the 53rd Grammys.)
…What a sappy, mawkish tune to be straddled with for eternity.
CRY BABIES. Jenna Bush Hager cried with her grandfather George H.W. Bush on the Today show on Valentine's Day when the elder Bush lost control of his emotions while reading an old love letter to his wife Barbara who was sitting there with him in a living room somewhere.
…Jenna was crying too.
…Out of the feature report and sitting with Matt Lauer on the Today show set Lauer offered the president's daughter (George W. Bush) and Today show contributor some tissue (Kleenex?) to illustrate the emotion displayed and Lauer himself seemed a bit moved although he didn't break down, but you could see in his face that he was touched too.
…Yeah, touched in the head.
…Unsentimental me.
Scientology is now advertising on TV. "We believe in a world without war (hunger, racism, etc.). And we believe it starts with one person, teacher, parent, student ... our help is yours ... scientology.org," says one of the commercials.
…The ads I've seen are pretty slick. No pictures of famous "congregants," just graphics and good music that propel the spots along, not bad.
A quote pulled by the New York Post from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said this: "I will not separate from Egyptian soil until I am buried beneath it."
…Get out the bulldozer and get ready to be unearthed.
Lady Gaga, in commenting about her Vogue magazine cover and inside story said this: "They used to call me "rabbit teeth" in school, and now I'm a real-live Vogue model."
…She does have a set of choppers.
MOVIE: The Rite. Exorcism rears its ugly head again, this time in a film starring Anthony Hopkins as Father Lucas Trevant who performs them, and a young, indifferent seminary student (Colin O'Donoghue as Michael Kovak) who goes to Rome to visit him.
…Mostly a psychological "thriller" that delves more into the faith question and self-doubt that the young priest encounters.
…There's typical stiffening and twisting of bodies, distorted facial expressions galore and the deep, frightful voice of the devil emanating from the mouths of victims but nothing as extreme as Linda Blair (Regan) spewing green vomit in The Exorcist, the king of this film genre.
Stick figure Mick Jagger (without the Rolling Stones) could've sung more of the lyrics to Solomon Burke's Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (Atlantic Records, 1964) than repeating ad infinitum "I need you, you , you" at the end of the song, while pointing to the cheering audience and strutting his stuff at the Grammys. The lyric repeating went on and on and on; he milked it to the end. It was unnecessary.
…It was a tribute to Burke, who died last October and was a key figure in soul music of the 60's.
…Overall it was a good performance with a tight band that got the hall (Staples Center in LA) to rock. Cyndi Lauper seemed to appreciate it, seen in a cutaway shot.
…FYI: Everybody was also done (covered) by Wilson Pickett in 1966, also on Atlantic Records.
JUST ASKING. How long will Katie Perry last, with all that video-friendly,white bread silly girlishness? Five years from now where's she gonna be?
SHIRTLESS CONGRESMAN. Should Rep. Chris Lee (R-N.Y.) have been outed by Yesha Callahan, a fellow Craigslist cruiser, for posting a photo of his naked torso and some e-mails to her and describing himself as someone who he wasn't?
…She traced his e-mail address to his Facebook page and found out who he really was.
…She had sleuthful proclivities.
…She was upset about the deception ("I felt annoyance at just the audacity of people thinking that they're not going to get found out when they are lying") and felt he was a threat to others like her so, with the encouragement of her friends, she told the story to Gawker writer Maureen O'Connor, who was on Howard Kurtz's CNN Sunday talk show, Reliable Sources.
…"I just thought it was an interesting story," eager beaver "reporter" O'Connor stated on the show in response to why she did the story.
…Callahan, "the victim," was assured that she would not be identified.
…That didn"t happen. She, too, was exposed and is now worried about the intense scrutiny on her, on her family and on her career.
…What goes around comes around.
…So lives have been shattered just because of a personal ad.
…Lesson learned? I doubt it.
…UH… What Goes Around (Comes Around) - Black Ivory, on Kwanza Records, 1974.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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