[KeyLargo]

This media circus reminds me of an old Kirk Douglas movie that I saw. When I saw Whore-Aldo Rivera on FOX running up to miner families with a microphone in his hand I flashed back to that movie and slime ball reporter that Kirk Douglas portrayed.


Ace in the Hole (AKA The Big Carnival) (1951)
Starring: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling Director: Billy Wilder Rating:

Storyline

Genres: Drama, Film-Noir
Plot Outline: When a man is trapped alive in a mine collapse, a self-interested reporter and the townspeople cynically create what we now call a "media circus".
Plot Synopsis: One of several literary and artistic works based on events surrounding the 1925 entrapment and death of W. Floyd Collins in Sand Cave, Ky. See also Robert Penn Warren's novel _The Cave_

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/379/379350p1.html

Ace in the Hole (a.k.a. The Big Carnival), 1951, co-wr/dir. Billy Wilder. This is a deeply cynical Film Noir sadly based on an actual 1925 tragedy. Charles Tatum (Douglas) is a down-on-his-luck, obnoxious journalist who once worked for a big city newspaper but is now stuck at a small town paper in New Mexico. The hard-drinking Tatum finds his meal-ticket back to the big leagues when a miner named Leo Minosa becomes trapped in a cave-in.

Tatum hypes the event into a national news story, engineering a lucrative media frenzy and a despicable public circus while also duping Minosa into believing he's his savior. Even though Minosa could be rescued more quickly by shoring up the cave's tunnels, Tatum, who's eager to keep this "big carnival" in town, convinces the rescuers to employ a lengthier drilling process instead. Going along with Tatum's ambitious plan is Minosa's greedy and conniving wife (Jan Sterling) who's looking to cash in on her unanticipated notoriety. Tatum's plan, however, goes tragically awry. The final low-angle shot of Tatum collapsing into frame symbolizes his self-propelled downfall.

Ace in the Hole is a grim but eerily prescient look at the media's unquenchable thirst for "the big story" and the public's willingness to play along. Wilder mercilessly eviscerates the gawking masses that set up shop to commercialize Minosa's tragedy. Although a box office flop in its day, Ace remains a relentless indictment of the public's and the media's appetite for entertainment and fortune even at the expense of human life.

[don-o]

I loathe the lame stream media

[Ghengis]

I give it 48 hours before West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller produces a handwritten note to himself regarding his concerns over the safety conditions of this mine.

[veronica]

Once upon a time, life and death happened without a news camera stuck in everyone's face 24-7, ad nauseum. Those were better times.

[joesnuffy]

Bet Katie wont tell the folks that 80% of the world's coal mining deaths occur in Communist China...

Will you Comrade Katie!

[Lancey Howard]

Somebody should check the sona fides of this "John Bennett". It could be another one of those New Orleans moments - - the one with the crying clown who claimed his mothewr died in the flood? Anyways, rudely interrupting the governor and then begging for "duh yoonyin" to come in sounds like a typical Democrat/Wellstone-funeral gimmick to me.

[sweet_diane]

I couldn't sleep last night and was flipping channels when I landed on, what I thought was a repeat of Nancy Grace on CNN Headline News. I was there seeing they were alive, even woke my Husband to tell him that the miners were alive! I was watching CNN when the woman ran up to tell whatshisface what the families were being told in the church. What a rollercoaster of emotions for me, so I can only imagine what the families went thru. My Husbands father was the first in his family to not work in the West Virgina coal mines, so I feel a connections of sorts.

Watching live I must say, the Gov did well. The guy from the mining company did the best he could but, IMO, shouldn't have waited so long to break the news to the families. SOMEONE should have said "we cannot comfirm the news of 12 survivors". I don't know who had ultimate authority on what news came out of the command center, but whomever that was made a big mistake by letting the families, muchless the whole country believe for over 2 hrs that the miners were found alive!

[technomage]

What we see happening is the old MSM deflecting any criticism of their BLOWING IT BIG TIME!!

The MSM reports innuendo, rumor as fact, regardless of the consequences to family, friend, country.

Remember the Koran flushed down the toilet story that proved to be false? That cost how many lives in riots overseas?

Remember the media hysteria (Geraldo) in the aftermath of Katrina? "10,000 dead". Untrue. "Hundreds murdered and raped in the Superdome". Untrue. "Toxic waters will make New Orleans uninhabitable for months, if not years". Untrue.

Remember the Dan Blather fake documents?

Any story read or heard from the old MSM must now be independently verifired by the customer as anything, ANYTHING they report cannot be trusted as true.

And hey FoxNews, your stepping into that boat too!