Hi honey, I'm stupid!

From our neighbors to the north, here's an interesting essay by Susan Krashinsky in today's Globe and Mail that dissects advertising's dependency on positing men as hopeless dumbasses in order to sell things to women.

With women controlling the majority of household purchases, marketers have determined that one of the easiest routes to a woman's pocketbook is by taking a swipe at bumbling male significant others. Krashinsky dissects five TV spots selling everything from hardware to ice cream that employ this formula.

Of course, men and boys watch these ads, too. While some men resent being portrayed in a light that would likely result in boycotts if the genders were flipped, it isn't very macho to whine about a TV commercial. More importantly, men stand to derive a tangible benefit from these stereotypes. If your wife thinks you're an idiot, she'll probably just give up on pursuing an equitable division of household labor.

Meanwhile, back on the couch, the crumb-crusted manboys of the world can safely pop open another beer, scratch their balls and say, "See that, baby? I is normal!"

Corporate parents send pundits to time out

The New York Times broke a story this weekend about the corporate backers of Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann brokering an end to their on-air feud.

Although the back-and-forth was good for ratings, the suits decided it wasn't so good for the long-term health of News Corporation or General Electric. According to the Times, Olbermann is standing down on O'Reilly's reactionary spew of half-truths in exchange for an end to O'Reilly's rant about GE's business in Iran. Salon's Glenn Greenwald explains how this agreement fits in nicely alongside other under-reported TV news scandals like the use of "military analysts" paid by the Pentagon.

Punditry masquerading as news is obnoxious, but quelling it via boardroom détente is downright disturbing. Somewhere in the great beyond, Paddy Chayefsky is either giggling or gagging.

UPDATE (11:49pm): Olbermann broke his O'Reilly attack fast this evening, denying that he was ever party to a truce. However, his denial is at odds with the suspect timing of his previously announced moratorium on discussing O'Reilly and the statements made by GE in the Times story.

KXAN, Time Warner kiss and make up

Just in time for November sweeps, KXAN is back on Time Warner Cable’s lineup in Austin. Neither LIN TV Corp., KXAN’s warthog of a parent company, or Time Warner will reveal terms of the settlement that led to the local NBC affiliate’s reinstatement on cable channel 4 early this morning. LIN stations in 16 other markets have also returned to Time Warner lineups.

In the past month, I’ve missed having KXAN a total of one time, which was when Sarah Palin did her non-transformative cameo on Saturday Night Live. I already time-shift everything else I watch on NBC, so watching it online rather than via TiVo wasn’t such a sorry fate after all. In doing so, I discovered the hidden joys of Hulu, including full episodes of classic old chestnuts like Lost In Space, WKRP in Cincinnati and The White Shadow.

The one thing I regret is not yelling, “Hey, y’all still on the air?” as I drove past an unidentified KXAN reporter preparing to do a 6pm live spot outside the county courthouse a few days back. Then again, it wouldn’t have been funny to anyone on the planet but me and I derived almost as much enjoyment from the mere thought of yelling such a thing.

It’s called maturity, folks.

BBC reveals post-nuclear broadcast script

BBC has released a chilling script written in the Seventies that was to be broadcast in the event of a nuclear attack on the U.K. The script tells citizens to stay indoors, avoid flushing the toilet and turn off the radio at the end of the broadcast to conserve battery power. For levity's sake, the Beeb's story on the script's release includes a reading of the script by Harry Shearer in the voice of Walter Cronkite (via MetaFilter).

Here in the U.S., Time reported in 1992 that Arthur Godfrey had pre-recorded morale-boosting announcements during the Eisenhower administration to be broadcast after a nuclear attack. The Cold War fanatics at CONELRAD have been trying to find this recording for years. While former CBS president Frank Stanton confirmed in a 2004 interview that the announcements were indeed recorded, the recording itself remains elusive to this day.

Cox pulling out of Austin

Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises announced today that it is putting the Austin American-Statesman up for sale. You can read all about the announcement in the Statesman, of course, but I'm posting it here so I can use the above headline.

Not so hot Lanta

Greetings from Atlanta. I'm here for the 2nd Annual National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media. It's been a pretty good conference so far. The sessions are engaging and I've actually managed to do some worthwhile networking without feeling phony about it.

The conference is taking place at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in downtown Atlanta. It's a big improvement over last year's conference at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's global communications center named for Sen. Tom Harkin, who I assume brought home quite a bit of pork if they named it for him while he's still alive and eating solid food. The Harkin facility itself was one of the nicest, most well-appointed government buildings I've ever set foot in, but they housed us at a Marriott next to IH-85 in the middle of suburban nowheresville. There were no sidewalks to walk on and no place to walk to.

By contrast, CNN Center is right next to the world's largest aquarium and a museum dedicated to Coca-Cola. CNN Center is a tourist attraction in and of itself, but I wish I'd been around back in 1976 when it housed the short-lived World of Sid & Marty Krofft indoor amusement park. I was always fascinated with the building when they showed Kaptain Kool and the Kongs perform in the atrium on The Krofft Supershow, which aired Saturday mornings on ABC. Now the whole thing is a mall food court where Nancy Grace's voice and likeness nauseates from multiple giant screen TVs.

This area of town was hammered by a tornado in March and a lot of damage is still visible. There's duct tape on my hotel room window and many windows at the adjacent Georgia World Congress Center remain boarded up. I think this is the first time I've ever slept in a building with semi-fresh twister damage, which is very exciting.

Perhaps the nicest thing about being in Atlanta is the fact that it only got up to 82 degrees here today. Even with a steady rain falling, I happily strolled about the surprisingly depopulated city earlier this evening without even breaking a sweat.

Not-So-Good Vibrations

When I was a kid, I hated it when the Emergency Broadcast System’s awful two-tone attention signal disrupted my after-school diet of Flintstones and Brady Bunch reruns.

Even before I was old enough to know that the attention signal I just heard might be the precursor to getting cooked by a Soviet missile or impaled by a tornado-propelled lawn gnome, I inherently sensed it was bad news. The jarring header bursts that trigger the Emergency Alert System aren’t much better.

Therefore, I’m heartened to hear our federal government approved plans last week to develop a nationwide text-messaging alert system. Finding out you’re about to be massacred by terrorists via a pleasant “vibration cadence” in your pocket is real progress.

AP Gets the Lez Out

The Associated Press reported earlier today that the reunited Led Zeppelin would be playing Bonnaroo this June in Manchester, Tenn.

Between abounding rumors of a Zep appearance at Bonnaroo and last month’s London concert with Jason Bonham filling in for his dad on drums, such an announcement wasn’t entirely out of the blue.

Trouble is, they meant to say Lez Zeppelin, the barnstorming all-female Zep tribute act from New York.

Bonnaroo’s news release announcing this year’s line-up almost invites this error to be made. I wouldn’t be surprised if a particularly puckish flack put “Lez Zeppelin Confirmed” in the headline just to see if anyone got confused and bit before following up.

Happy Minutes Still Rolling

Chron staff writer Lee Nichols’ December 20 post at his I Love Beer blog revisited the joys of Texas Showdown’s Happy Minutes special. I had no idea they were still doing it.

From 3 to 3:15pm, the Showdown sells 10-ounce cups of domestic beer for 40 cents. As Lee points out, that’s just five cents more than what they charged in 1990, when Austin was a town where one could live peaceably for under $300 a month.

I only recall doing Happy Minutes once. I was in the middle of an afternoon copy editing shift at The Daily Texan and a group of us walked across Guadalupe for a quick beer break. After pounding back several foamy cups of Shiner Bock, I slouched back down to the Texan's basement newsroom and found myself profusely nauseated by the green glare of the video display terminal.

Thinking I was about to toss my tacos, I hurried to the men’s room and splashed cold water on my face. That kept the slosh down and got me through the rest of my shift, but I still lament not being able to fully embrace this wallet-friendly Austin tradition.

A Royal Blunder

Kate: I first noticed this billboard while driving on I-35 south, where it stood out because of the dazed expression on former UT football coach Royal's face. The poor guy, I thought, probably didn't expect to end up looking like that in this ad campaign. But not being a native Texan or a particularly huge football fan, I didn't notice the sign's most glaring error until I showed Greg the billboard. His exclamation "They misspelled his name!" almost caused me to swerve off the road - not because I was appalled by the copy editing error so much as the volume of the observation.

Greg: Well, what do you expect, Kate? This is Darrell freakin' Royal we're talking about. The Longhorn brain trust loves this man more than Jesus and the Beatles. They put his name ahead of our nation's war dead on the football stadium and he's not even dead yet. I thought the worst local copy editing error one could make was to spell Stevie Ray Vaughan's last name "Vaughn," but this is worse. The deer-in-the-headlights look on the man's face makes me feel sorry for him even though he undoubtedly scored a rather large check for his services and probably doesn't care that one of the world's largest media conglomerates can't spell his name right.

Kate: The thing that gets me about these billboards - that's right, there are at least two of them in Austin - is that Time Warner has been making a point in their recent campaign of stressing their local connection with the "we think like you" messages. Here's what I think - someone needs to do some basic fact-checking.

Greg: I never thought I'd find myself defending the honor of Coach Royal, but I hereby challenge Time Warner to a dual!

This post simultaneously appeared on Lone Star Kate.

UPDATE (12/2/2007): My pal Kent B. pointed out another typo on the Royal billboard. The "K" in "Darrell K Royal" is not a middle initial and therefore should not be followed by a period. The "K" is a tribute to Royal's mom, Katy, who died of cancer when he was still a baby. So not only did Time Warner misspell Royal's name, they insulted the memory of his mother.

Tap My Thumbcasts, Baby

Do you know what a “thumbcast” is?

Well, I didn’t either until recently. Thumbcasts are simply text messages that are broadcast to people’s mobile phones. Although my fat thumbs are not nimble enough to text at the rate of your average American youth, I am now generating thumbcasts as an independent media correspondent (or “freelancer,” if you will) for 80108 Media, a Boston-based company that sends mobile messages about local goings-on to subscribers in several markets around the country, including Austin.

Each 80108 correspondent gets a channel. Mine is called “Austin Out There.” I cover everything from shows to food to sales on building supplies. I try to focus on under-the-radar items that are free or relatively cheap so you’ll have more beer money. You can check out my most recent thumbcasts online here.

Take a look and please consider subscribing to get my messages sent straight to your phone if you have a supported carrier with unlimited text messaging. It’s a free service and you stand to save a nice chunk of change following my tips. Most importantly, the home office will reward me handsomely if I generate enough subscriptions.

Jeez, I feel like one of those elementary school kids selling Ranger Rick subscriptions to raise money for a new jungle gym.

Burger King Kares About Kids

Although Burger King’s primary business objective is to shove large quantities of meat and cheese down the pieholes of coarse-demeanored man-boys, a nod to children’s health is a primo way to curry positive puff. It’s the ol’ Hitler-got-a-puppy approach to media relations.

In an effort to head off calls for government regulation of fast food advertising, BK has pledged to restrict marketing of its most unhealthy menu items to kids under 12 while also developing healthier offerings for kids that no one in their right mind would go to Burger King to eat.

My favorite is “BK Fresh Apple Fries,” which AP business writer Adrian Sanz describes thusly:

The red apples are cut to resemble french fries and are served in the same containers as fries, but they are not fried and are served skinless and cold.

Mmm, skinless and cold. Doesn’t that make your mouth water?

If I was a kid at Burger King and someone handed me a fry container filled with apple slices, I would throw a goddamn fit – especially if dear old dad was contentedly munching his way toward coronary bypass surgery on a Triple Whopper with Cheese.

In case you’re wondering why the “french” in “french fries” isn’t capitalized, I consulted the AP's stylebook and that is correct according to them. Although fried potatoes likely originated in present-day Belgium and “French fries” is a misattributed 19th Century American term, I still think “french fries” looks wrong in all lowercase.

On the other hand, I have no problem with “french kiss” or “french tickler.”

So Long, Marvin

I'll never forget the first time I heard, "Maarvin Zindler, Eye-witness News!"

I was 6 and we'd just moved to Houston from Dallas. I couldn't believe they'd let someone pontificate so indignantly right in the middle of the TV news. It was kind of scary.

Zindler died yesterday of pancreatic cancer at age 85. KTRK-TV has a nice tribute section here.

Although he was best known for setting off the political firestorm that closed down the famed Chicken Ranch bawdy house (subject of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and ZZ TOP's "La Grange"), Zindler's "Action 13" segments on KTRK typically focused on more mundane matters like setting things right for "little guys" wronged by businesses and bureaucracies. His weekly report on area restaurants that had failed health inspection made "Slime in the ice machine!" a catchphrase.

I can't say Zindler's personality-driven excoriations portended good things for TV news in the sweeps-happy Age of Murdoch, but he helped out a lot of people over the years. Houston TV won't be the same without him.

Weekly World News Shutting Down!

As if having Rupert Murdoch buy The Wall Street Journal isn’t bad enough, American Media announced Friday that it is shutting down the Weekly World News.

Founded in 1979, WWN was the only supermarket tabloid that adhered to the weird and wonderful when all its cousins shifted their primary focus toward vomiting up dullwitted celebrity gossip. Now where will we go to learn of the latest exploits of Bat Boy? Who will tell us when the aliens endorse Hillary Clinton?

To borrow a phrase from the late, great Ed Anger, I’m pig-biting mad about this!

TCB Heads for Houston

Congratulations and best wishes are in order for Christopher "TCB" Gray, who is leaving his music columnist post at The Austin Chronicle to assume assistant music editor duties for the Houston Press on July 1. For a die-hard Astros fan like Chris, this may be the best music writing gig in the universe.

Look for Gray's traditional "-30-" column in the Chron on June 29.

Think EMOTION, Not Facts

If you get all your news from TV, you are likely to wind up being a bigger moron than someone who doesn’t get any news from any source ever.

That’s because of people like Regent Ducas, the new VP for news at KTVT, Dallas/Fort Worth’s CBS affiliate. On Friday, former Dallas Morning News TV columnist Ed Bark unearthed this memo from Ducas two days after it went out to staffers.

"As we're doing live shots and writing . . .

Think: EMOTION & Conversational.

Viewers (people) remember emotion, not facts . . .

Critical facts are important, not all facts are.

I've seen a little too much 'police speak' or 'court speak.'

The suspect faces charges of blah, blah, blah, . . . no one will remember this fact and it's not that important . . .

If the suspect faced the 'death penalty' or capital murder charges, etc.' . . . then that would be important . . . but, for the most part, someone's next court date is not . . .

Think emotion . . .

This neighborhood tonight is in a state of panic, not sure what do to (sic) next.

Fans have decided to stay away from the ballpark, they'd rather spend their money elsewhere.

Feel free to stop by, email or talk about any of this."

Neighborhoods in panic? I smell May sweeps!

Just Regular Guys

How did our Connecticut-born president manage to reinvent himself as a no-nonsense good ol’ boy from Texas?

Maybe we should ask the dutiful Washington media, who pretend to be ink-stained, working class muckrakers even as they sup themselves complacent on the black tie party circuit of corruption. From Digby's Hullabaloo:

When the equally phony George W. Bush came to town it was love at first sight, and why wouldn't it be? Here you had a man whom these people could truly admire - a rich man of the bluest blood, born into one of the most powerful families in America who nonetheless pretended to be some hick from Midland, Texas. He took great pride in his phoniness, just as they did, and they all danced this absurd kabuki in perfect step for years each pretending to the other that they were all ’just regular guys.’

Read Digby’s full post here.