Omorka's Lair

Hat tip to laughingrat: io9 has discovered a new rule of thumb, Moff's Law.

Or, in fandom terms, "Meta is fun, chucklehead."

It's astonishing how many places are going for the mistaken "nuance" on the Tiller assassaination. Amy Sullivan's post on Swampland, for instance, finally comes down in the right place, but if she's trying to take the other quoted individuals to task, she's certainly not clear about it. It comes across as, at best, the usual mainstream press he-said-she-said, as if there were any honest difference of opinion on a domestic terrorist assassaination possible.

Oddly enough, it's the self-identified-conservative, Catholic, gay (and thus not particularly interested in female reproductive rights on multiple levels) Andrew Sullivan who comes out and says "Christianist terrorism" without flinching. I find his insistence that Bill O'Reilly is more connected than any one of a number of different right-wing pundits somewhat odd, but I'm so relieved that he calls a spade a spade right out in front of his god and everyone that I'll let him have that peculiar focus.

So, the question comes up, as it has in pretty much every blog since the election: whither Fox News?

On the one hand, something like 25% of the country still thinks Bush is doing a heckuva job. That's probably enough for Fox News to survive, with the rest of the TV-news-watching public splitting between CNN and MSNBC, and the rest of us tuning in the BBC on the radio instead. But Fox has made its way, these past eight years, by essentially being an unofficial cheerleader for the Bush administration, and to a lesser degree to the Republican party in a more general sense. It can't do that anymore. No one in the Obama administration is going to send them leaks. So what are they going to do?

I see two main options for them:

1) Go back to what they sort of were during the Clinton administration, and be the disloyal opposition - the television equivalent of right-wing talk radio. This pushes them back into their core demographic, and makes their position with the Republicans in Congress stable. It also puts them in the slightly awkward position of deliberately catering to an older, less diverse audience. That may be fine as far as their overall numbers are concerned, but advertisers are going to look for specific demographics - and the hot ones aren't going to be there. Younger viewers generally aren't watching television at all; they're certainly not going to gravitate to right-wing punditry that isn't even pretending to be news anymore. And there's the other problem; they'd pretty much have to be all editorial, no journalism.

2) Reposition themselves as a center-right, rather than clearly right-wing, news organization. Acknowledge and even play up their differences from the "liberal" news networks, but up their standard of research, and go for dirt on everyone, even the Republicans. Co-opt McCain's position as someone interested in transparency and reform, and play it as if it were a Republican position. Go for an imagined (or even real, although I don't think they're actually capable of cleaning up their act that much) high road. And for the love of Farnsworth, quit getting caught lying about crap.

Plan 1 has the benefit that they've been there before, they know how it works, and it's a comfortable place for them. Having said that, it's been rumored that Murdoch has been embarrassed at some of the crap they've pulled. Just guessing, at least one of their reporters - Shep Smith, the guy who was trying to shame Ralph Nader into taking back the "Uncle Tom" comment - looks like he's positioning himself for Plan 2, or at least paying lip service to the truth (as when he is clearly disgusted by Joe the Plumber's ignorant comments, and defending the entirety of the mainstream media against the right-wing whine machine; and can I just point out that I can hear Mississippi in his vowels still, and that fact amuses me no end?).

It would be interesting for them to decide that they can't just cede the younger demographic completely and try for the repositioning, although I don't know if that will actually work, considering their core demographic. It's more or less the same as the seismic shift facing the Republican party at the moment, with the added flavor that their corporate funding is even more direct - and those corporations can't afford to cede the young, trendy, and spendy, even if the network itself can.

So in a random fan community on LJ, someone mentioned that (paraphrasing) short-form storytelling, movies and 'purely' episodic TV shows (i.e., ones with no overall season plot arc) in particular, just weren't holding her interest anymore. This got me thinking, because this is largely true for me, too (with some obvious exceptions) for those two media, but not for written fiction, in which I am very much still a fan of the short story and have an odd fondness for flashfiction.

For movies, I think I can make a pretty good case for why I feel this way. I like characterization and worldbuilding more than I like plot, in general. A really, really good plot can make up for mediocre characterization, but it has to truly sparkle to make up for a lack of characterization. And in general, a movie can bang out a plot in 90 minutes, but for it to do so and have decent characterization and a reasonable sense of world is very, very hard. Thus, I tend to like (a) longer movies, (b) talky movies (more opportunity for characterization at the expense of plot) or ones with small casts (such that only two or three characters really need to be developed), and (c) movies drawn from a pre-existing canon, such that they can shortcut the characterization while leaving enough hooks for the pre-existing fans for them to hang their knowledge of the characters on. ( continued behind the cut )

tl;dr: The Lord of the Rings movies basically have everything I want in a movie, and only manage that by being ten hours long in aggregate. And the version I like isn't even the one they could get away with showing in the theaters.

First of all, I didn't realize that British ads ever emphasized the 'foreignness' of any foods, with the possible exception of curry. Between the legendary blandness of the English palate (at least the Minnesotans have some Scandinavian dishes in their mix), and their annoyance at the US in general, I wouldn't have thought that an ad for a New-York-deli-style mayonnaise would have emphasized the New York aspect.

But secondly, and more importantly, apparently some viewers completely missed the point of the ad. Really, now. Watch the ad, and then tell me that there is any way to interpret that as anything other than a heterosexual peck within the premise of the ad. Did these people actually watch it, or did they just see a still and take it at face value?

Grr and arrgh. >:-(

Oh, good grief.

So can we just call it Faux Pas News now?

First, they call a fist pound a "terrorist fist jab" in a bumper (and, let me just say, does it sound to anyone else in the interview segment like the interlocutor is trying to set it up as a gang sign?). Now, when Penny Arcade is more hip than you are, as a major media outlet, you are in serious trouble. (Also, looks like someone else thought the same thing I did about the 'gang sign' thing.)

Then they call Michelle Obama a "baby mama" on TV; worse, try to claim that "out raged liberals" call her that. (John Scalzi calls them out on it here; thanks to next_bold_move for the link.)

Because, of course, all that they can really say about Obama is "psst . . . he's black!" They never really imagined anyone other than Hillary being the nominee. Fortunately, I suspect that they're going to get some pretty strong reminders that, unlike blatant sexism (unfortunately), blatant racism is considered rude in everyday USian society.

So just this week, I wrote on the whiteboard, in letters a foot tall,

CORRELATION
IS NOT
CAUSATION!

I am beginning to think, from the kinds of crappy medical reporting we've been getting lately, that journalism majors should be required to take two semesters of probability and statistics. This particular logical fallacy is just too rampant in the popular press. I'm even reading doctors who should know better committing it.

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Another obit: RIP Washoe. I'm a wee bit concerned that no one mentions that the Kanzi study wouldn't have happened if Washoe hadn't signed first, but given Savage-Rumbaugh's own weird ideas about the common chimps and ASL, perhaps that's all for the best.