NYT: 'American Idol' Popular Because of 2000 Election

NewsBusters ^ | Matthew Sheffield

[RatherBiased.com]

Just when you thought the New York Times couldn't sink any lower than its chairman Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger ranting how he was sorry America wasn't a socialist and pacifist nation, the money-losing paper manages to surprise you.

That's really the only thing you can say after reading Times Arts tv critic Alessandra Stanley's attempt to cast the popular-but-fading Fox show "American Idol" into the 2000 election controversy.

Yes, you read that correctly. According to the Times, the reason that teenage girls looove tuning in is because Al Gore didn't beat George W. Bush.

The lunacy is just too funny:

“Idol,” now in its sixth season, has its selection process backward. In this country, people can vote for whomever they want — even Al Gore in 2000 — but the last word is left to the Electoral College and even the justices of the Supreme Court.

The most interesting thing about this season’s ado is not Mr. Malakar or Mr. Stern or even Simon Cowell; it’s the current obsession with voting on television shows and Internet sites like YouTube.

“Idol,” which began as a British hit, made its debut in the United States in 2002 — a scant two years after one of the closest presidential elections in American history. The talent show spawned a multitude of copycat shows with voter call-in gimmicks; even CBS News allows viewers to decide which story Steve Hartman will cover on his weekly segment, “Assignment America.” (This week, they chose the National Dog Agility Championships in Sunbury, Ohio.)

The high viewer turnout for “Idol,” which is on tonight, cannot solely be explained by technological advances or a regression in human nature. It cannot be a coincidence that television voting rights arose so soon after the 2000 election left slightly more than half the voting population feeling cheated. Those who didn’t go to the polls and fear that their abstention inadvertently made possible the invasion of Iraq may feel even worse. “Idol” could be a displacement ritual: a psychological release that allows people to vote — and even vote often — in a contest that has no dangerous or even lasting consequences. (Even losers win out in the end: both Mr. Gore and Jennifer Hudson ended up on the Oscar stage.)

Maybe the reason that more people didn’t turn out for the 2004 presidential race, despite the closeness of the tally four years earlier, is that they were still in denial and distracted by “American Idol.”

Hat tip: Chris Judd

[Miss Didi]

For the fans...

[HHFi]

Okay, I voted for Bush in 2000, and I also watch and vote on “American Idol.” Using the New York Times’ style of psychoanalysis, I have deduced that I am subconsciously attempting to thwart Sanjaya in the same way that I helped thwart Al Gore because I have an unreasonable aversion to seeing the top job go to some annoying, incompetent retard.

[Socratic]

What vacuity.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

Maybe the reason that more people didn’t turn out for the 2004 presidential race, despite the closeness of the tally four years earlier, is that they were still in denial and distracted by “American Idol.”

American Idol runs from January to May each year. Election Day is in November. That's quite a distraction.

[RexBeach]

You know, I’ve always suspected that the 2000 presidential election increased my desire for very fast cars.

Since then I have owned a Camaro Super Sport and a Mustang Cobra.

Gee, I can’t wait to see what the 2008 election stirs me to buy? A Corvette maybe?

Ooohhhhh. I love politics.

[Ciexyz]

Ha-ha-ha!

[jveritas]

Maybe the reason that more people didn’t turn out for the 2004 presidential race, despite the closeness of the tally four years earlier, is that they were still in denial and distracted by “American Idol.”

The left wing lunatic delusional hate filled morons always surprise us that they can go even lower in their stupidity, hatred, and delusion. The 2004 broke record in term of voters participation, over 120 million people vote in 2004 more than any other election in US history. How stupid can someone be to come up with this insane theory relating American Idol to the 2000 elections.

[writmeister]

The high viewer turnout for “Idol,” which is on tonight, cannot solely be explained by technological advances or a regression in human nature. It cannot be a coincidence that television voting rights arose so soon after the 2000 election left slightly more than half the voting population feeling cheated. Those who didn’t go to the polls and fear that their abstention inadvertently made possible the invasion of Iraq may feel even worse. “Idol” could be a displacement ritual: a psychological release that allows people to vote — and even vote often — in a contest that has no dangerous or even lasting consequences. (Even losers win out in the end: both Mr. Gore and Jennifer Hudson ended up on the Oscar stage.)

Yet, all five American Idol winners have come from a 2000 Red State.

[dead]

I tell people I know who read the New York Times that they would be much better educated about how the world is really run if they read only criticism of the New York Times.

There's plenty of it, but never enough.

[Enchante]

Alessandra Stanley is the ideal NY Times writer — so perfectly biased, delusional, and deranged that she continually shows the world (or those willing to look) just how nutty liberals really are.

[MEGoody]

LOL The NY Times is showing their liberal angst.

[kcvl]

Alessandra Stanley

[GSWarrior]

I’ve heard of American Idol. Isn’t that a TV show that is on at the same time as Friday Night Lights?

[kcvl]

There have been some complaints regarding the accuracy of her reporting [2][3]. Her column of September 5, 2005

Discussing coverage of relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina, Stanley wrote that Geraldo Rivera “nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety.”

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

So we’re supposed to believe that millions call to vote for their fav performer because they feel disenfranchised, a vote each has a right to cast for free vs. a vote they have to pay to cast?

Maybe what we ought to do then is charge people to vote for the President. Maybe they’d take it a bit more seriously and feel that their vote was really counted (even though they have no proof that their vote was accurately tallied for their performer).

[kcvl]

Stanley is a daughter of Timothy W. Stanley, an authority on defense policy who served in the 1960’s as assistant to Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara for NATO force planning and then as a defense adviser in the United States mission to NATO[9], and Nadia Leon Stanley.

Stanley was previously married to Michael Specter[10], a former reporter for the Washington Post, The New York Times and The New Yorker. She lives in New York City with her daughter, Emma.

Stanley is a 1977 graduate of Harvard University[10].

Among Stanley’s close friends at the Times are Jill Abramson and Maureen Dowd.

[popdonnelly]

Stuff like this makes sense to the Times.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I have never actually watched American Idol. I do watch the local FOX25 news. Yesterday they had 15 minutes of “coverage” of American Idol. Fox is just an altogether better integrated network than the alphabets ever were.

On top to that, I was thinking that aside from better “production values”, e.g., better sets, younger better looking, perkier news readers, FOX25 News is absolutely, day to day, better written and better produced than anything I’ve ever seen on local news before.

They make the other guys look like amateurs.

[popdonnelly]

Only Democrats are obsessed by voting. Which is unfortunate.