IFC's 'Media Project' is '60 Minutes' for the Obama era
The Independent Film Channel finds itself in the right place at the right time with the debut of "The IFC Media Project" at 7 p.m. today.
Just as the election of Barack Obama seems to confirm a swing to the left, in the media and the culture at large, IFC emerges with a hip, progressive, youth-oriented "60 Minutes" dedicated to making itself "a user's guide to how the news gets made."
It's not exactly sharp or overly astute, and it has irritating DIY elements of slapdash bloggery, but at very least it's thought-provoking, in a way the mainstream media usually is not.
Yet don't give all the credit to IFC for being in touch with the political zeitgeist. "The IFC Media Project" is actually created and produced by Meghan O'Hara, who worked with Michael Moore on "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Sicko," in conjunction with Nick McKinney. O'Hara has said she intends it to be "a sobering wake-up call for anyone who takes the media at face value," firmly in the Moore manner.
That it is, although host Gideon Yago, whose resume includes stops at both MTV and CBS News, makes a poor substitute for Moore. At one point he muffs the introduction to a segment on media bias in the Middle East so badly and so often, an exasperated producer asks him why he's having so much trouble. In trying to explain the complexity of the issue, Yago executes a suitable introduction. Shazam! That's how YouTube videos are supposed to work.
That segment turns out to be a gentle reminder that the Palestinian perspective rarely gets much actual attention in this country, mainly because of the unquestioned favoritism toward Israel. Yet a Newsweek Middle East bureau chief actually gets off the best insight, saying it's not just geopolitics that aligns the United States with Israel, but the way both are nations of immigrants created out of land where the original residents were displaced.
That will make a viewer go, "Hmmm," but another segment on Larry Garrison is apt to make a viewer actually go Elvis on the tube. Garrison's entire life's work is serving as a media consultant drawing attention to kidnapped and missing girls - inevitably white - because they're so good for the Nielsen ratings on cable news channels (at least when a political campaign isn't actively raging). Garrison talks quite openly and cynically about looking for tales that pack "the oh-my-God factor." And think about it: A missing or murdered black kid has to be the nephew of Jennifer Hudson to get the same sort of media attention, and even that doesn't compare with a blockbuster story like that of JonBenet Ramsey.
Finally, in a look at the "pundit class," there's an interview with Tucker Carlson that includes his rough treatment at the hands of Jon Stewart a few years ago, when he still worked at CNN. At one point, the confrontational curmudgeon-before-his-time goes so far as to suggest, "Pol Pot had good points." You can well imagine the producers behind the camera pumping their fists and whispering, "Yes!"
Determinedly leftist and dedicated to undermining the status quo in the mainstream media, "The IFC Media Project" is a renegade newsmagazine, even if it's never going to pull anyone away from the Fox News Channel (much less "90210"). Next week, the third-segment interview subject will be outted CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson, followed the week after that by Dan Rather, who has his own axes to grind on where the media have gone wrong. It seems as if the Obama administration will most likely be over before "The IFC Media Project" runs out of cranks to interview. Now all it has to do is keep running through those eight - yes, eight - years.
In the air
Remotely interesting: MSNBC has extended Keith Olbermann's contract as host of "Countdown" for four more years. Again, better make that eight. ... Desperate NBC is picking up "Life" for a full season, airing at 8 p.m. Wednesdays on WMAQ Channel 5.
Fox Television Stations and NBC Local Media are going in on a joint news-service venture primarily gathering video for owned-and-operated stations in the same market. It's starting in Philadelphia, but it's only a matter of time before it gets to Chicago, with Channel 5 and WFLD Channel 32.
End of the dial: WXRT 93.1-FM morning-midday disc jockey Terri Hemmert gives a speech and answers questions at the Chicago History Museum at North and Clark downtown at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 19, with Stuart Shea serving as host. Tickets are $12, $10 for museum members.
In an attempt to atone for the leftist bias in today's column and sidebar, let me insist it's great to hear Mancow Muller back on the air morning-middays on WLS 890-AM, no matter what he's saying at any given moment.