Beth Arnold

How Can American Journalism Save Itself?

Crossposted at the HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

Happy July 4th everyone! This weekend, while we're celebrating our Declaration of Independence, we've just witnessed another example of the failure of the American press. The Internet, cable, and network news, and the few print-periodicals-that-have-somehow-survived, have been churning with pieces about Rolling Stone's crack coverage of (now former) Afghanistan commander General Stanley McChrystal's out-of-control attitude and actions, which, thankfully, got him fired. As Frank Rich so pointedly asked, where were the journalists whose beat this was? How did they miss this story that had to be staring them in the face?

My personal feeling is that the good general having worked and politicked his way to the military top, knew exactly what he was doing spilling his guts to Rolling Stone's freelancer Michael Hastings. The general who "spent five years running the Pentagon's most secretive black ops" doesn't make a hair-brained mistake like this.

What was his point? I don't know, but I suspect it lies under the public's political radar, which is exactly where it will stay.

Just Don't Click On Sarah Palin

Image via Wikipedia

Crossposted on the HuffPost.com.  Comments not included here.

Why Why Why Is Oprah Supporting Sarah Palin By Having Her On Her Show?

I asked this question on twitter, and these are the responses I got: 

@stylemakertv doesn't she know- ignore it, it goes away. RT @BethArnold Why why why is Oprah supporting Sarah Palin by having her on her show

@3samovar WHY INDEED? RT @BethArnold Why why why is Oprah supporting Sarah Palin by having her on her show?
 
@elissastein @BethArnold I think she lost track of her center and is now about sensationalism. Sad.

@joolzgirl @BethArnold heavens, I don't know!!! Its a very good question!

@olmanrvr @BethArnold Oprah's just like the rest; It's all about ratings..dat's all.

Yes, those ratings.  We all knew that, but doesn't Oprah have enough money--hundreds of millions of $--that she doesn't really need more, and so those pesky ratings shouldn't matter in the "O" big picture.  So the question ultimately was:  Promote the ridiculous phenomenon that SP has become--and help the Britney Spears of politics make millions of $ herself? 

Letter From Paris: Calling A Dick A Dick

Image by Captain CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSS via Flickr

With yet another round of Dick Cheney disinformation saturating the airwaves, it boggles the mind how the Bush administration controlled the American conversation in the media for so many years. As the public was pounded with fear and loathing of the rest of the world--during the lead-up to the war, the war, and seemingly ever after as long as this crushing tactic works--the Republican leaders tore American democracy and values down, torture by torture.

The Democratic Party deserved to be donkey-whipped, at least symbolically, for their complacence and compliance during these Bush years. They cowered in fear as the Bush/Cheney dictatorship steamrolled over them as the band played on.

Letter From Paris: Torture, Murder, & May Day

Cross-posted at HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

Image by jmtimages via Flickr

President Barack Obama again validated the return of American democracy by publicly admitting that the United States had been torturing prisoners under the direction of the Bush administration. As we all know, George W. and his gang of outlaws sanctioned the shameful practice of waterboarding against foreign terrorism suspects, which destroyed our international reputation and lowered our standards to a country of thugs.

Obama chose to lay this on the world at a prime-time press conference on the anniversary of his first 100 days. Let me just weigh in with this right here and now: Evaluating Obama's performance in a media generated "report card" was a false construct to begin with. The media manipulates us all by whipping up a scandal, a test, a catastrophic faux pas, or some other cutting angle to make us feel one of the three A's--afraid, angry, or appalled.

Each day the blogosphere has its rant of the day, and hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people go to town with it. He or she who casts away this already "conventional Internet standard" is cast out of the ranting fold. A click on a link or a page or a site is the new gold standard. God help those who write something actually thoughtful or choose a topic that doesn't fit the Internet's daily bread.

The Yves Saint Laurent-Pierre Berge Sale Sizzles in Paris

Cover of Yves Saint Laurent (Memoirs)

Check out Vogue Daily here for the next three days.  I'll be sending dispatches about "the sale of the century"--the Yves Saint Laurent-Pierre Berge sale of their art, objects, and furniture--from the Grand Palais in Paris.

Update

Here are my YSL pieces and photos on Vogue:

Day 1 of YSL sale

Day 2 of YSL sale

Day 3 of YSL sale

                                                                                 ---Beth Arnold

Elisabeth Hasselbeck Is Still Annoying

Image by K!T via Flickr

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

I don't even watch The View. When it was new, I loved it. Let's say I might have been close to addicted. Then I moved to France, and when I come back to visit, I don't have time nor do I want to see it anymore. Has The View run its course?

The show became less interesting for many reasons -- Elisabeth Hasselbeck being a prime one. Now, really, I only see clips of The View on the Internet -- and that's enough.

Hasselbeck was and is the Token Conservative on the show, and maybe The View should have one -- if it wasn't her. What does Ms. Hasselbeck add? A shrill and poofy, often misinformed bouncy ball of commentary (which is really too big a word to use for her) pinging off the more substantial walls of Joy, Whoopi, and Barbara. I can't speak about Sherry, who seems to be a more or less a convivial member of the group. But I don't believe the hype that they all really get along.

Is Elisabeth Hasselbeck Too Dumb to Be on The View?

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

by Beth Arnold

Is Elisabeth Hasselbeck too dumb to be on The View? This is the question I've gotta ask myself -- and have many times -- and what do I come up with?

I have to admit that I'd been out of the country and don't watch reality television anyway, so I'd missed the Survivor show on which Ms. Hasselbeck was a contestant. Thank God. It would not have made me feel any better about her replacing dynamic Lisa Ling on this television show I used to love, to discover Ms. Hasselbeck became a celebrity because she ate worms. And as the American dream works these days -- for example, Paris Hilton -- she became a bigger celebrity because she was a celebrity. The blondes even look alike. Do they have similar views? Oddly enough, with Ms. Hilton's past antics, it would be odd to think of her as having a higher IQ than anyone, but Ms. Hasselbeck graduated from college and had a job before she reached the heights of stardom by grubbing for survival and voting people off her island.

The New Colosseum: The Internet

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

by Beth Arnold

So John and Elizabeth Edwards have become the latest sacrifices to the new Colosseum: the Internet. Thumbs down to John's for his extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter! Then the mob turned to Elizabeth. This sad situation may have actually happened to her, but she doesn't have the right to decide how to handle it herself. Thumbs down for Elizabeth! The mob has no respect for her decisions about her own private life. The blogosphere will support or condemn her, according to the dictates of its own mob-heated blood lust.

Yes, I know he was a candidate. But he's not now. Various people have written, oh, but if he was the nominee and this had happened. Well, it's done. He's another politician who got caught with his pants down. What's new about that? If they don't all do it, then most do.

Fist Bump This!

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

by Beth Arnold

It has been quite a surprise as well as a joy to watch the usually follow-the-crowd media take down one of their own and the right-wing attack machine in a series of televised sorties. Of what do I speak? Just the backlash against E.D. Hill (aka Edith Ann Tarbox) and the Fox Not-News Network for her inflammatory tease about Barack and Michelle Obama's loving little (what even the most boring grandpa in middle America now knows as) "fist bump."

I'm not going to repeat the comment here except to say the incendiary "terrorist" word was thrown as a bomb suggesting a possible ulterior meaning for this physical expression of buddyness that even a Budweiser commercial told us more than a year ago, already wasn't hip.  For God sakes, fist bump has already been wikied into Wikipedia: 

The fist bump (also called the fist pound, knuckle bump, and other names) is a type of friendly gesture similar in meaning to a hand shake or a high five. It is performed by two people tapping their fists lightly. A bump also can be known as a symbol of giving of respect. Fist pounds can also be followed by various other hand and body gestures, but may be part of a dap greeting.

On The Road Again (How The Press Led Us Astray)

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

By Beth Arnold

Why were we so surprised by Barack Obama's clear ring of a victory on Tuesday? The short answer is that the media had been leading us down the path marked Hillary Momentum--the path on which she could possibly snatch victory, however it was achieved, out of the jaws of defeat--while Obama was losing his. Obviously, this was wrong and had been for some time.