Radio Sweethearts

Has anyone else ever noticed that sometimes, Brooke totally sounds like the guy that does movie voice overs?

This episode of OTM starts with Brooke reading what could be the trailer voice over for an action movie starring John McCain as a party-line-breaking, truth-train derailing rebel with a heart of gold who survived the Viet Cong only to be viciously attacked by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

Ok, I get it. The primaries are important. I like primaries. I especially like caucuses. But must we start every single OTM episode by talking about them? The US media is having a big, ugly hissyfit over Britney Spears, and yet, we have to talk about elections, again?

At least the segment is short, and after a brief Beck interlude, it’s on to Bob talking about Earmarks, which have “become synonymous with that nasty old perjorative “pork”. ” For those of your listening along at home that have the sense of humor of a 12 year-old boy, get ready to giggle, because Bob is about to say “pork” a bunch of times.

Earmarks are important. They allow congresspeople to get things done in their districts and get re-elected. The general media is ignoring this for the most part in order to talk about the tax dollars of the average citizen going to fund such attractions as the Sparta Teapot Museum. Without earmarks, we may not have roadside attractions. Hell, we may not have some roads at all. The OTM verdict? Earmarks are the new pork. They’re earning a bad rap that they may not deserve.

But, sadly, it’s too late. “The toothpaste is out of the tube,” Bob says. I want to go to the Bob Garfield School of Metaphor, Simile and Cliche, where the Kool-Aid is drunk deep, and the pork is wantonly distributed.

Anyway, while we’re on the subject of numbers and counting and beauracracy, Brooke has a segment on delegate counting. Apparently, no media outlet is really clear on how to do it. They’re “throwing everything against the wall - like spaghetti - to see what will stick.”

Sometimes, I think that it’s possible that Brooke and Bob have never seen each other, that they just hang out in separate rooms and record, Bob only getting passing glances of dreamy Brooke through the glass. After that simile though, maybe they’re spending a bit too much time together.

The media seems to shy away from the delegate counting because it’s hard, and journalists don’t like math, or agreeing with each other. But the math skills of the media are important to people dealing in political futures.

Political futures traders are just like regular futures traders, only they place their bets on who will win elections rather than the stock market. Thousands of people are placing bets in the “political market”. They’re said to be actual predictors of elections, but the market’s action just follows the polls. The financial media loves political markets, because they make elections easier to understand for math people. Sadly, the only thing they prove for certain is that people (even dorky people) will bet on just about anything.

Up next - an ethical dilemma! Is it wrong to write about an interview you did for one publication in a different publication?

Deadspin’s Will Leitch interviewed Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban (possibly the moodiest interviewee alive) for GQ. After the interview, he wrote about it on Deadspin. No new (meaning not in the GQ article) content was used. But Cuban found out, and he was pissed. And it’s understandable - the interview was granted to GQ, not to Will Leitch.

Leitch mentioned his work for Deadspin when the interview with Cuban started, and made sure that the interview was with GQ, and the interview continued. A quote from the interview was also used in one of Leitch’s stories on Valleywag. Cuban objected to the use of the quote, which, I agree, is weird. Dude said it in one medium, and I’m not sure what would possess him to be upset about it being posted in a different one.

Bob is pulling out his inner Brooke and asking tough questions. Leitch answers them deftly, and at one point, notes that it’s completely unreasonable for publications to expect that freelancers automatically know every detail of the relationships the publications hold with people. It seems like Bob is trying to make a big deal out of something that’s just, well, not.

Brooke wraps up the hour with a story on fashion and politics. I’ve never thought of fashion as media, but whatever. John Galliano has designed a line of clothing that is inspired by torture. Think nubile man-boys catwalking in hoods, fake bruises, and hoods.

The fashion historians and design students interviewed talk a lot about fashion designers having a pulpit from which to preach their political ideas. This could be such a cool story, but it’s just not. Fashion Week is one of my big, seasonal guilty pleasures, and I kind of want Brooke to let go of her analytics for a few minutes and gleefully appreciate the horror of some of the designs. Has she seen Heatherette? I know Brooke is the ass-kicking, award-winning journalist here, but sometimes, I just want to see her let go and get really into some of the more trivial subject matter. It would make for better stories.

That’s all for this week’s episode of On The Media. I’m off to check out the pictures of last week’s Heatherette show. I have to know if they went with the Wizard of Oz assless chaps again this year.

Created by the R/S team, this post was written by our resident girlie girl Kerry and edited by hard-hitting blow hard, Matthew.