Posted on 05/21/2002 6:42:07 AM PDT by martin_fierro
CNN's ticket out of Lucas land ...
The day after CNN's Connie Chung did a live show from "Star Wars" auteur George Lucas' famed Skywalker Ranch, CNN was asked not to attend a "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" press junket on the property. The Insider's tipsters said CNN was tossed off the ranch, but CNN says that's an exaggeration, that there was "no physical removal" of anyone, that there was a "conversation" and that "as conversations like that go, it was fairly cordial."
The tipsters also say that what apparently rubbed Mr. Lucas the wrong way was that Ms. Chung, in a taped piece that set up her live May 7 interview with the moviemaker, ever so lightly suggested that "Episode One: The Phantom Menace" was, "to most, a disappointment."
"For all its special effects, critics complained about stereotyping, stale plot lines, even racism," Ms. Chung summed up, followed by a sound bite from controversial "Phantom Menace" character Jar Jar Binks saying, "Oh, this is going to get messy."
At CNN, the stance is that Mr. Lucas expected a one-hour love letter and a wet kiss in return for the access CNN was allowed and didn't feel he got that.
A Lucasfilm spokeswoman, holding down the fort while principals spread out for "Clones" premieres around the world, said she could not comment on conversations with which she was unfamiliar, but added that "Clones"-inspired interviews still scheduled for CNN include a piece on Mr. Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic.
If the media wants to, the entertainment industry will do all the work. The media just shows up. The entertainment people provide what they want said in the interview. The journalist only has to show up in time to get made up and go over the script.
If the meida wants to do it some other way, the media people will have to do all the work and pick up the tab.
Of course if the media were not so lazy they would demand to control every aspect of the coverage and supply everything to do it.
Today the media wants the entertainters to pick up all the costs and then let the media trash them. That is not going to happen.
A similar situtation is true with the military. The media expects the military to take them everywhere and pick up the tab. Then leave the media free to trash the military when and as often as they like.
The Military like the enterainment industry is not going for that act any more. The military is telling the press go were you will. Report what you will. Protect yourselves as best you can. That is the only way free media should operate. But in this new paradigm, more reporters than soldiers get done in covering wars. And more reporters then entertainment types come out on the short end of the stick.
This is a good thing since most of them are liberals. They'll portray themselves as being heroic beacuse they risked life and limb to get a story. But they only wind up looking like self-important idiots without any common sense.
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