ABC News Branches Out Into Science Fiction [From The Mailbag]

Oh, this is exciting: Remember how Roone Arledge of ABC revolutionized TV sports by superimposing dramatic personal narratives onto matches, then revolutionized TV news with magazine shows like 20/20 and Nightline? Well, now ABC News is expanding on this pioneering legacy by venturing where no other news division has dared to go before (on purpose): fiction! Or, as ABC calls it, "reporting from the future." The network is asking everyone to imagine the hellscape of 2100 in order to "form a powerful... narrative about the perils of our future", and thus incite change. To do this, you just need to make a short video about how terrible things are going to be, based on a "briefing" from ABC's team of trained psychics. Here's the email pitch sent to some Columbia students yesterday:

> Dear xxxx,

>

> ABC News wants YOU to report from the future

>

> In an unprecedented television and internet event,

> ABC News is you asking you to help create a story

> that has yet to unfold. What will our world look

> like in one hundred years if we don't save our

> troubled planet?

>

> This fall, in a dramatic 2-hour television special,

> the world's brightest minds will take us on a

> journey through the next century to reveal how the

> "perfect storm" of population growth, resource

> depletion and climate change could destabilize our

> world.

>

> As part of the broadcast, we are launching a massive

> online event inviting creative minds across the

> globe to create short video reports that depict the

> future. Using predictions from top experts, we will

> feed detailed briefings from the years 2015, 2050

> and 2100 – and we're asking you to imagine your

> future world!

>

> We will choose submissions to include in an evolving

> web-based story, and we will also select some of the

> most compelling videos to appear in our prime time

> ABC News special: Earth 2100, airing this fall.

> This is a unique chance to join others around the

> world in shedding light on issues facing our future.

> FOR MORE ABOUT HOW TO GET INVOLVED VISIT

>

http://redir.targetx.com/cgi-bin/email/redir.cgi?id=0000519798-66616232

>

> NOTE: Please note that the Earth Institute is not a

> sponsor of this event. The posting of events by the

> Earth Institute does not constitute an endorsement

> of the event.

>

>

> Contact: Columbia Univ. School of Int'l & Public

> Affairs, 420 West 118th Street, New York, NY 10027

Brilliant: Unbound by the constraints of actual events or verifiable data, or the costs of having to travel or fact check or whatever, ABC's "reporters" will be able to deliver the sorts of cheap emotional thrills normally reserved for fearmongering video propagandaists. Which, come to think of it, is sort of what they'll become. By design.

I think I'll skip the actual broadcast (scheduled for this fall) and just watch the inevitable takedowns on Daily Show, Fox News, etc.

[Earth 2100]

Emily Gould On Keith Gessen's Blog [Fameballs]

"Unnatural... weird... a losing battle."

Insane Courtney Love Mistakes Court For Oscars [Celebrity-industrial Complex]

Ted Koppel Is A Slut [Marketing]

"When I’m promoting a show for program for Discovery I turn into a giant media slut.'" [TV Decoder]

McCain-Approved Reporter: "Can liberals simply not keep themselves from attacking the military?" [Working 'with' The Press]

John McCain used to totally love hanging out with reporters, back when he drove the Straight Talk Express, a giant party bus where the liberal press corps could smoke their hippie reefer weed and listen to old man MAVERICK tell hilarious stories about being tortured by "gooks." But now all the top journalists have abandoned McCain for the new cool kid, teen pop sensation Barack Obama, and so the Republican presidential candidate bitterly decided to only accept questions from angry people in wheelchairs and craven conservative bloggers. Here are the only two questions allowed during a July 1 campaign conference call, recorded by a reporter for progressive magazine Mother Jones (who will never be allowed to talk to or make eye contact with McCain, ever):

The first came from [conservative blogger] Ed Morrissey, who asked Graham and Swindle, "Can you explain the significance of John McCain's command experience in the Navy...as well as whatever leadership he has shown in the Senate....and can you address...that Barack Obama doesn't have any executive experience at all?"

The next query came from [conservative blogger] Matt Lewis. Referencing retired General Wesley Clark's recent comment that McCain's military service and POW experience did not qualify him to be president, Lewis asked Graham and Swindle if Clark's remark was part of "a concerted effort by the Obama campaign, or can liberals simply not keep themselves from attacking the military?"

Then the call was over.

Of course, McCain no longer needs the press, because he can go direct to voters with his amazing new ad slogan, "Don't hope for a better life."

[Mother Jones via New Republic]

Why CNBC's Kneale Should Go To Jail [Journalismism]

Dennis Kneale joined his CNBC colleagues today in effusive praise of JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon. After Power Lunch host Bill Griffeth said Dimon was "very entertaining" at an FDIC event and "had a career as an after-dinner speaker," Kneale added that Dimon was a "guy talking about what he knows." And when Kneale's longtime nemesis Charles Gasparino argued that Dimon's comments should be treated more skeptically — "discounted by 50 percent... because there's a degree of flackery here" — Kneale strongly disagreed (clip after the jump). It's odd that Kneale is offering kind words for Dimon rather than bashing the dealmaker, given that Dimon thinks the CNBC talking head should be thrown in jail.

Dimon, you see, was on Charlie Rose's TV show last night, where he said the following about the fall of investment bank Bear Stearns:

Where there is smoke, there's fire... I think the Securities and Exchange Commission should investigate it, okay? I think if someone knowingly starts a rumor or passes on a rumor, they should go to jail.

Set aside, for the moment, the absurd notion of financial markets functioning without the free flow of all kinds of information, rumor included.

Consider, instead, how Dimon's proposed censorship would impact his onetime fan Kneale in light of how Vanity Fair described Kneale's own role in the spreading gossip about Stearns:

By noon, when CNBC anchor Bill Griffeth opened Power Lunch, Bear’s stock was down more than $7, to $63. “There are rumors out there that some unnamed Wall Street firm might be having liquidity problems,” Griffeth noted. A correspondent on the show, Dennis Kneale, a veteran of The Wall Street Journal, said, “The speculation at this point is that it’s Bear Stearns. They’re down the most in the market today. Supposedly, a couple of weeks ago, they started looking at a way to try to shop their clearing operations [They] couldn’t find a buyer. At least that’s what one guy says.”

Does Kneale think it's something other than rumormongering to pass on the "supposed" information that comes from "what one guy says?"

More likely, he is just slower on the uptake than his rival Gasparino, who was also depicted by Vanity Fair spreading unvetted information and thus another likely victim of Dimon's prison policy. Perhaps if Dimon has his way, Kneale will have the chance at an extended tutorial of some sort from Gasparino, in their cell.

[Dealbreaker, Vanity Fair]

FYI [Housekeeping]

Keith Gessen cannot adopt the adorable foster cat we got him, because he is apparently leaving the country soon. So it's available! She's spayed, housetrained, about 6 months old, and v v friendly. So if you'd like your very own Lolcat, email us.

Tila Tequila: Poet [Arts & Letters]

Joining the noble ranks of celebrity wordsmiths is MTV bisexual dating show star, MySpace pinup, and gay superhero Tila Tequila. Like Rita Dove before her, Tequila weaves together careful but jaunty syllable and image patterns to create something that Seamus Heaney might call "wheels within wheels" of subtexual thematic tropes—addressing the idea of the Poet as creator through the lens of the earlier Poet as constructive destroyer. Ms. Tequila's first (and so far only) work was spotted on the diminutive Vietnamese pixie's MySpace page, by Public School Intelligentsia. They astutely call the work "almost Plathian." The full poem (which ends with a haunting evocation of some sexual demon warrior spirit: "Back to myself. Nobody else. Fuck all this bullshit. I’m back to myself. Yes. Thank the fuck God.") can be found after the jump.

Thunderfuck my mouth is shut. Been a while, feel like a cunt.
Can’t wait for this drama to pass.
Oh the joy…..fuck you. My ass.
Live a lie.
Tell my mind.
Over soon. I can’t deny.
You will all soon see, the truth in my eyes.

Smile on my face, the loving embrace….but instead I’ll punch you in the face.
For a long time coming….I let you touch me….now that it’s over bitch….You better start running.
Pent up inside….telling these lies….this has gone too far…..the world will soon die.
Only 1 more day. To feel this way. Tomorrow I smile….brings another day!

Back to myself. Nobody else. Fuck all this bullshit. I’m back to myself. Yes. Thank the fuck God.

Oh It's So Obvious [Advertising]

Esteemed angry ad blogger Copyranter says this new Ketel One ad just might be "The Most Annoying Ad Ever." That's tough, but its use of blatant trickery and time wasting as a marketing technique is certainly cruel. The target (drunk) audience might stare at this for hours with no satisfaction. Click through for a larger pic.

[Copyranter at Animal NY]

Pretend Dowd Smear Piece A Remarkably Poor Imitation [Hoaxes]

Look, it's easy to make fun of Maureen Dowd. We do it all the time! Talk about nothing of substance, psychoanalyze pols, imply that male Democrats are effete and female politicians of all stripes are raging harridans, bash the Clintons, toss in some increasingly out of date pop cultural references, and stir with occasional tired Bush-mocking. What you shouldn't do is pretend Maureen wrote a column exposing the secret fact that all of Obama's donors are Muslims and Communists, or something. Which is what one enterprising Obama critic has done!

"What I learned from this insider was shocking but I guess we shouldn't be surprised that when it comes to fund raising there simply are no rules that can't be broken and no ethics that prevail. [...]

"I guess we should have been somewhat suspicious when the numbers started to come out. We were told (no proof offered) that the Obama internet contributions were from $10.00 to $25.00 or so.

"If the $200,000,000 is right, and the average contribution was $15.00, that would mean over 13 million individuals made contributions? That would also be 13 million contributions would need to be processed. How did all that happen?"

Well, we gotta admit, the pretend rhetorical question is a kinda nice touch, there. But she's not calling him "O-Bambi" so it's obviously a phony. Also Maureen Dowd does not deal with money, numbers, or objective "facts."

The best part of the whole thing is the real Dowd, on when she stumbled upon the email: "I got to the second line and I knew it wasn't me." The second line! She couldn't remember the lede from a column from last week?

(The real column, for the record, was about how Hillary and her supporters are crazy ladies.)

The Hot Celebrity Lesbian Affair It Took Us A Year To Notice [Lindsay Lohan]

Lindsay Lohan's lesbian relationship is now so open that girlfriend Samantha Ronson has even put up a photo of the two kissing on her MySpace page. So why did it take so long for everybody to recognize that the troubled starlet and the Ronson family spinner were a couple? It was waaay back in summer 2007 that Star first reported how the new couple supposedly kept the fires burning by exchanging sexually charged messages on MySpace. And it's not as if the public has an aversion to hot girl-on-girl action. Famous girls no less! One of which you don't even have to imagine naked! Why the lag?

1. Because of all those celebrity fauxmances

Before Scarlett Johansson was having a supposed email affair with the Democratic nominee she was comparing cup size or at least exchanging some intense glances with her The Other Boleyn Girl co-star Anne Natalie Portman in the pages of W magazine. But that didn't pan out! And don't even get us started on the possibility of a Scarlett — Penelope Cruz affair that was fueled by the steamy trailer for Woody Allen's movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona. We don't want to have to say it. Okay, we'll say it: caliente! Also, back in the day, Penelope and sexy pal Salma Hayek were rumored to be much more than friends. But now Penelope is with some actor dude and didn't Salma recently had a kid with some rich dude. It's going to take a lot more than kissing in public to make us buy a girl-girl star coupling.

2. Because they didn't try to hide it

Plenty of people have had secret affairs they want to cover up (and we're not just talking about Republicans). But Lindsay and Samantha came up with a new way to keep their obviously hot 'n heavy relationship under wraps. By cavorting in public! It's genius. Why would we think she's gay? After all, this ex-rehabber is well versed in the machinations of the celebrity industrial complex — and she has a reputation to protect. Still, she stepped out with her girl toy, getting burgers, holding hands, buying groceries. Regular people do that stuff — not famous lesbians.

3. Because Samantha's not that cute

There. We said it. Not that Long Island Lindsay is really Marilyn Monroe's heir apparent or anything, but the ugly-black-hat-and-sweater-vest wearing DJ is not even the best looking person in her weird family. Could LaLohan really be going out with...her?

4. Because all the gossip blogs said it was so

You just don't buy the whole gay celeb thing when it's shove down your throat. Call it a healthy distrust of the celebrity blogosphere made skeptical by all those crudely drawn sex organs Perez Hilton puts on peoples' faces. A pair of girls or guys can stand within five feet of each other and not set off our gaydar, people. And just because two stars of a popular TV show about New York private school kids decided to shack up, it's no biggie. Wait, that one's obviously true.

Well despite our best efforts not to believe it, now it's really out there. Of course we had our LinRon coming out as well when we labeled Lindsay a gay hero (and at this point she's shooting up our hero list — probably somewhere between Sponge Bob and T.R. Knight). And now it looks like as if the world's most closeted out couple are finally done with the charade.

Not content to just allow the pictures and blogs speak for themselves, LiLo's doing some talking. It's been reported that Lindsay was overheard at her 22nd birthday party telling friends: "I just wanna live a happy, healthy year, continue on the path that I've been on and be with the person that I care about." And the gossip press will just have to accept that Lindsay's here, she's queer—and not just for our titillation.

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