television – Hank Kalet

Sad, but not surprising UPDATED

AP file photo from MSNBC

(Update below)

MSNBC has suspended host Keith Olbermann indefinitely because he apparently made political donations to three Democratic candidates.

Perhaps, we shouldn’t be surprisd — Olbermann has been pushing a highly partisan brand of commentary for some time. This wouldn’t be a problem except it is more than just a philosophical or ideological bent. It literally has been pro-Democrat/ant-GOP, which oversteps the boundaries.

Some on the left — or the partisan left, meaning Democrats — will point to Fox’s partisan faux news and say Olbermann offered a counterweight. And I can understand the argument. But my question is this: Since when do we lower our ethical expectations to the level of Rupert Murdoch and the GOP chain gang?

I listen to both Olbermann and Rachel Maddow on podcast most days, and often to The Young Turks and I’d been growing dissolutioned with Keith and Rachel’s creeping partisanship, especially when compared with Cenk Uygar’s unapologetically progressive, but nonpartisan commentary.

The contributions were the final straw in a growing push not to the left but toward the Democrats.

I assume Olbermann will return, but it is unclear when. For now, expect substitutes to babysit the chair (Chris Hayes from The Nation will sub tonight).

***

Hayes apparently is not hosting the show tonight, but more significantly The Nation reports that Olbermann was just one of many political hosts on cable who have made contributions. This doesn’t change my criticism of Keith — he had grown too partisan (and apparently had one of the candidates he gave money to on just before his donation was made, as per The Nation).

It only expands my criticism of a news industry that is built on personalities and not journalists. The fact that Sean Hannity gave money to Republicans does not excuse Olbermann’s political contributions. Neither should be giving money if they want to pretend to host news and commentary shows.

Motor City mediocrity

I am a fan, as many of the readers of this blog know, of police shows — for the same reason that the director Sidney Lumet likes to make movies about cops. There is a built-in tension, built-in conflict that creates an energy that can carry the narrative.

My favorite shows — Homicide, NYPD Blue (the first season, in particular), Barney Miller, The Naked City, even the less serious Starsky and Hutch and the ’70s PI shows — used the crime motif to create this tension and play characters off each other in interesting ways.

So I was interested to see what Detroit 1-8-7 had to offer. I missed the opening episode last week, but caught it last night — and was tremendously disappointed. It wasn’t because it was a bad show. It was, in fact, pretty decent. It’s just that we’ve seen it before. All of the standard tropes were there — the cranky veteran detective, the put-upon squad leader, the new man on the job trying to win his colleagues over. The stereotypes were shuffled — women were in charge, for instance — but it didn’t go much beyond what we might have seen on any other show. And while we are watching something alleged to be taking place in Detroit — an overwhelmingly black city — the show could take place just about anywhere.

The best cop shows play off their home base — Homicide using the specific political dysfunction of Baltimore, for instance. That’s what makes Memphis Beat so interesting — its locale cannot be mistaken for many other places. It is a show built on particulars.

Detroit 1-8-7 might get better — it certainly has the potential. It’s just not there at the moment.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. it can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

One of the worst TV shows I’ve ever seen

Yes, Outsourced is as bad as you might expect and as offensive as this writer says (we are watching it on DVR and I’m not sure why).

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. it can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Oh, no! Moyers is retiring

David Sirota sums up this news in a tweet:

This is EXTREMELY bad news for the already-dying world of serious journalism

Yes, Bill Moyers is retiring, meaning the Journal will end — at the same time that Now, the show he created and that David Brancaccio stewarded so well is being cancelled. Maybe it’s time to get rid of the television.

Thoughts on Russert

There are a lot of things you can say about Tim Russert as anchor of Meet the Press, both good and bad. He was the consummate Washington insider, a conventional-wisdom sort, but he was never intentionally mean, never shouted, never descended into the kind of nonsense that we have become used to from O’Reilly, Hannity and their ilk.

Russert died today, a shock to everyone who follows politics.