Marty Kaplan

Don't be naked

Published on January 30, 2012

Entertainment executives are fond of saying that no matter what happens with technology, what will always matter most is good storytelling. What they don’t say — but what they’ve begun to wonder — is whether those stories may be on the way to becoming loss leaders and if the content business is quietly being transformed into the data mining business.

Opinion: Tim Tebow Is Jewish

Published on January 16, 2012

“Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?” That was the headline last week on a blog posted by New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane.

Opinion: Campaign colonics

Published on January 3, 2012

What did I miss? For seven days I didn’t have salt, meat or CNN. My mornings began without “Morning Joe” or “Morning Edition”; I saw sunrise on a mountain hike, not with a clicker in my hand.

Marty Kaplan: Newt winked at me

Published on December 12, 2011

Did you see how Newt Gingrich kept winking during the Dec. 10 Republican debate? I’ll bet you $10,000 I’m the one he was winking at.

Opinion: Warning -- Political ads make you stupid

Published on November 28, 2011

This is the disclaimer that Britain’s Public Interest Research Centre recently proposed for inclusion on billboards:

Opinion: Keeping up with the Kandidates

Published on November 14, 2011

"Are you not entertained?" That was Jon Stewart’s response to Rick Perry’s brain freeze. He said it twice, maniacally. “Are you not entertained?” Stewart’s right about what’s happening. America is on track for the most amusing apocalypse ever. Things may be going to hell, but the campaign narrative unfolding in real time couldn’t be any more fun. It’s all entertainment, just grist for the media mill, and apparently there’s no bummer bad enough to shock us back to our senses.

Opinion: Obama-Romney 2012

Published on October 17, 2011

Forget the fantasy of Hillary Clinton taking Joe Biden’s place on the 2012 ballot. Not only because it is not going to happen. The theory that having Hillary on the ticket would galvanize the base and that coveted independent voters, especially women, would break toward Democrats, has no deeper roots in empirical reality than creationism or climate change denial. It’s just not the game-changer that Obama needs to hang on to the presidency, let alone give him a Congress that would be any less obstructionist than the one we have now.

Opinion: Occupy K Street

Published on October 3, 2011

It’s premature to give the Nobel Peace Prize to those Occupy Wall Street kids. But it also may be too soon to blow them off as clueless hipsters “with nowhere to go,” as New York Times columnist Charles Blow did, calling the two weeks “a festival of frustrations, a collective venting session with little edge or urgency.”

Opinion: Letting animals vote

Published on September 19, 2011

You look terrific. Have you lost weight? Are you working out? You’ve got this glow about you. I bet you’re in love. Wait -- you were promoted. That’s it, isn’t it? They finally recognized how talented you are. By the way, did you know that the average global surface temperature has gone up one degree over the last three decades? It’s true. Here, have a look at this chart.

Opinion: How did this happen to America?

Published on September 6, 2011

It was while I was explaining to an Australian student that Rupert Murdoch was the reason America had gone batty that I realized how inadequate my answer to his question was.

What story is the Murdoch story?

Published on July 25, 2011

Following several days of coaching by lawyers and PR experts, it must have been really rattling for Rupert and James Murdoch when show time arrived to learn that the parliamentary committee questioning them would not permit opening statements.

The “Obama’s brilliant strategy” theory

Published on July 11, 2011

If you voted for Obama, here’s what you’re not supposed to be thinking:

Marty Kaplan: Pessimism is the last taboo

Published on June 27, 2011

If you pay attention to the news, the prospects for the future look grim.

If Bachmann and Palin Weren’t Pretty

Published on May 27, 2011

I wonder how much airtime Michele Bachmann (R.-Minn.) would get if she didn’t look the way she does. I wonder how much of Sara Palin’s political appeal arises from her physical appeal.

Don’t count on it

Published on May 13, 2011

Please don’t run a countdown clock on the debt ceiling.

Our friend Pakistan and other mental pretzels

Published on May 2, 2011

On the same day that Americans are test-driving the idea that Osama bin Laden lived on the outskirts of Pakistan’s West Point, undetected, for six years, Orly Taitz goes to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to prove that President Obama’s long-form birth certificate is a forgery. As they say in conspiracy-land, there are no coincidences.

The naked Nielsens

Published on April 20, 2011

The metrics are wearing no clothes. How would you react if you found out that the basis of your business model was bogus? That’s the nightmare that the television industry is finally waking up to, and I bet that online media won’t be far behind.

The Naked Nielsens

Published on April 14, 2011

The TV business is built on advertising. Except for premium cable, the money that networks get for selling audiences’ eyeballs to advertisers is the mother’s milk of the industry. Networks set the price of ads on their shows using demographic information about the age and sex of those shows’ viewers. And the company that pretty much has a monopoly on furnishing those metrics is Nielsen.

Moses, media piracy and the MPAA

Published on April 4, 2011

If only people understood why they shouldn't do it, then they wouldn't do it.

The more you watch, the worse you feel

Published on March 21, 2011

As if the triple whammy of the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster weren’t enough to enthrall and terrify us, the war in Libya is now providing cable news viewers a fresh hell to follow 24/7.

Al Jazeera English vs. The Charlie Sheen Channel

Published on March 9, 2011

“This is strictly a business decision,” a Comcast source told Rupert Murdoch’s Web site MarketWatch about whether Comcast, the biggest cable operator in the U.S., will offer Al Jazeera English to its 24 million subscribers. Not a decision about whether Al Jazeera English is anti-American, anti-Israeli, a tool of Al Qaeda, a propagandist for Palestinians. Or none of the above. Nope – it’s strictly dollars and cents.

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Streets

Published on February 21, 2011

The power has gone out in a typical American town. Wait -- it’s not just the electricity. The phones don’t work, either. Portable radios are dead. Cars won’t start.

Mitt Romney’s “South Park” primary

Published on February 8, 2011

Egypt makes Mitt Romney look good – at least compared to other Republican presidential hopefuls.

My favorite blowhard

Published on January 26, 2011

I owe Keith Olbermann for enabling me to identify with Bill O’Reilly’s fans.

The vitriol vitriol

Published on January 9, 2011

“Clarabelle Dopenik.” That’s what one wit on the popular conservative Web site freerepublic.com called Clarence Dupnik, the Pima County, Arizona sheriff who turns 75 this week. Elected continuously since 1980, he is the public face of the investigation into the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 19 others. He is also, according to bloggers on that site, “an incompetent unhinged sonofabitch” and “a jerk” “using this tragedy for baseless, cheap political shots.”

The senators who dissed baby Jesus

Published on December 20, 2010

What’s the right word for what Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) was doing when he attacked Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for “disrespecting one of the two holiest holidays for Christians” by keeping Congress in session in the week before Christmas? What do you call it when Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) blasted Democrats as “sacrilegious” for wanting the Senate to take up an arms control treaty and a spending bill “right before… the most sacred holiday for Christians”?

My declaration of independents

Published on December 6, 2010

I think I’ve figured out how to get the White House to pay attention.

I take Israel personally

Published on November 22, 2010

I also take Obama personally, and Jon Stewart, Paul Krugman and NPR. I take Trojan football personally. If I were more into baseball, I imagine I’d take the Dodgers personally, too.

Waiting for Sanityman: Can Jon Stewart save America?

Published on October 13, 2010

The fate of our country won't be decided by a politician. It will be determined by a comedian. Not long before Jon Stewart announced his Rally to Restore Sanity, he told a New York magazine writer why he and his crew on "The Daily Show" would never do something like that. "We're not activists," he said. "Maybe the nice thing about being a comedian is never having full belief in yourself to know the answer. So you can say all this stuff, but underneath, you're going, 'But of course, I'm f---ing idiotic.' It's why we don't lead a lot of marches."

Waiting for Jewman

Published on October 13, 2010

Jon Stewart did his show, business as usual, on Rosh Hashanah this year. That night, when his interview guest, Meghan McCain, daughter of Senator John McCain, greeted him with "Happy New Year," Stewart looked uncharacteristically nonplussed for a nanosecond, before replying, "What? Huh? See you in Times Square tonight."

The scary staleness of truth telling

Published on September 27, 2010

Why, an audience member asked National Public Radio’s Linda Wertheimer at a San Diego symposium this past weekend, wasn’t public radio correcting all the lies being told in the campaign?

In politics, two negatives don’t make a positive

Published on September 13, 2010

A riddle: What piece of political wisdom is always wrong – but its opposite is also always wrong?

They have us over a barrel

Published on August 30, 2010

It’s not the news that’s a downer – there’s always been misery and ugliness around. It’s our helplessness that’s depressing us, the feeling that they have us over a barrel.

Just Like the Internet You See in the Movies

Published on August 16, 2010

No Web sites that choke your browser. No waiting for YouTube clips to buffer. No email attachments too big to send. No files that take forever to download. No “Loading – please wait” messages, or spinning beach balls, or slowwwwly lengthening bars meant to tame your mounting impatience.

The Best of All Possible Americas

Published on August 2, 2010

Whenever I’m comforted by the genius of our Founders, the resilience of our institutions and the wisdom of the American people, I know my meds need adjusting.

Thank You, Robert Gibbs

Published on July 20, 2010

If Robert Gibbs hadn’t said that Democrats may lose the House in November, then House Democrats might not have been so infuriated that the president himself had to
travel to Capitol Hill to let them vent.

Springtime for Schmucks

Published on July 5, 2010

If I hadn’t seen the word plastered on a billboard on La Brea Avenue, I would never have remotely considered using it in print myself. But there it is, in a five-foot font, just a few miles from the West Hollywood club where Lenny Bruce was arrested for saying it in 1963. Soon, no doubt, promoting a movie that will open on July 30, it will be seen on buses and benches and 30-second television ads airing in family-friendly prime time, and on the robotic lips of Mr. Moviephone: “Please confirm your order! You have purchased TWO tickets for the 7:20 showing of DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS.”

The Real Shakedown to Apologize For

Published on June 21, 2010

If Barack Obama’s extraction of $20 billion from BP was -- as Texas Republican Joe Barton called it – a “shakedown,” then what would Barton call the $14.4 million he has extracted during his career from oil and gas interests, electric utilities, the health sector, chemical manufacturers, finance and all the other industries forking over cash to him?

Tom Friedman Wants to Raise Your Taxes

Published on June 7, 2010

There are basically two views of the American people.

What We “Need to Know” About PBS After Moyers

Published on May 10, 2010

Ever since the right began crying “liberal media,” the challenge for the targets of those tantrums has been to figure out how to respond to the mewling. What PBS has done in the wake of Bill Moyers’ retirement is a case study in the futile effort of trying to appease the little brat.

The end of Hollywood as we know it

Published on April 26, 2010

This is not a happy time to be an entertainment industry executive.

How dumb do they think (know) we are

Published on March 26, 2010

I know some scary smart people who never graduated from high school, and I know some real doofuses with graduate degrees, so I understand that the number of years of formal education that someone has racked up is no guarantee of intelligence. But every once in a while, I see some poll numbers that pretty convincingly correlate believing idiotic things with having less education, and not believing idiotic things with having more education.

I Got the Broadcast Blues

Published on March 15, 2010

Local TV news is the number one source of news for Americans. Seventy-eight percent of the country turns to it to find out what’s going on. The Internet may be growing as a news source, and some people still read the paper, but for most people, what’s on local TV news is pretty much what they know about where they live. If you care about the quality of democracy, you have to care about the quality of local TV news – even if you don’t watch it.

The Lies and Reconciliation Commission

Published on March 1, 2010

If Democrats decide to use the procedural move that Congress calls “reconciliation” to pass health care reform, get ready for a war of words. It will be won not by the biggest guns, but the biggest mouths. What’s true won’t matter; what’s loudest, what’s catchiest, will. That’s democracy in the age of newsertainment.

Side Effects Include Denial

Published on February 16, 2010

Why would Pfizer spend $100 million on two-minute TV ads that use a minute of that time admitting that their drug Chantix can cause “changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood,” “weird, unusual or strange dreams,” and “suicidal thoughts or actions”?

Thank You, Norman Lear

Published on January 18, 2010

It's just about perfect that the week that LA Gang Tours launches is also the tenth anniversary of the start of the Norman Lear Center.

Mercury Is Poison

Published on January 4, 2010

Now that we’re about to entrust health reform to the tender mercies of the insurance industry, it’s sobering to see the skullduggery that one of California’s largest auto insurers is trying to pull on the state’s drivers.

Barack Obama Is a Traitor

Published on December 14, 2009

Barack Obama is a traitor.

That’s what Dick Cheney said. Too bad Tiger Woods stepped on the story.

Bra Helps Fight Breast Cancer

Published on November 16, 2009

Now that CNN has put Lou Dobbs out to pasture, you'd think that The Most Trusted Name in News would make the reporting of facts - you know, the practice formerly known as journalism - the hallmark of its brand. Dream on.

If You Liked Health Care, You’ll Love Afghanistan

Published on November 2, 2009

If you’re depressed by the way the national debate about health care has been playing out, just wait until the rubber hits the road on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Israel. If you’re enraged by the way Wall Street’s rescue has made us hostages to their recklessness, get ready for how the oil and coal industries are going to game the energy and climate change decisions ahead. If you’re scared by the way the media can trivialize and polarize and make entertainment out of any topic in its crosshairs, imagine its toxic impact when we get around to dealing with education, immigration and trade.