Mar 31 2010

Who writes these scripts, anyway?

Category: media,societyharmonicminer @ 6:43 pm

I was watching an episode of “The Good Wife”, a CBS series in which a district attorney is caught cheating on his wife and is convicted of some corruption in office, and goes to jail, amidst scandal and embarrassment for his family, including his “good wife,” who has to go back to work as a junior attorney at a law firm owned by her old friend.

I’ve seen it from time to time, and it hasn’t always been that bad, though I confess that I don’t usually watch that closely, since when I watch TV I’m usually working on some composition or arrangement in my home studio.

The episode I watched deserves a little commentary, however.  It features a character very closely modeled after Glenn Beck, whose voice even sounds like Glenn Beck (an obviously deliberate decision), broadcasting a daily hour news/commentary show, who is being sued for slander by a client of “the good wife’s” firm.  The Beck character has accused the client, on air, of murdering her missing young daughter, even though he has no evidence of this.  It also appears that the Beck character has called an un-named African-American president a “terrorist” on air.

Now, I know that CBS News is desperately jealous of the fact the FOX NEWS actually has an audience, and, unlike CBS, is expanding its line up and bringing in new talent all the time.  Does that justify thinly disguised deadly insults aimed at CBS’s competition?

For the record:  I know of no FOX show, including the ones that focus on these kinds of stories, that would simply come out and make such an accusation in the absence of evidence.  And, more to the point, Glenn Beck does commentary on the macro-issues of the day, not crime commentary.  He has not, and would not, refer to Obama as a terrorist, nor would any FOX commentator…  though I believe Keith Olberman came pretty close to calling a sitting president a terrorist, on MSNBC, during the Bush years.

So what we have here is simple.  We have scriptwriters who either knowingly mischaracterize people just to pander to leftist sentiment, or we have scriptwriters who have never actually watched Glenn Beck (or probably FOX news, for that matter) and are willing to tell lies about him (by implication, at least), or have simply believed lies someone has told them about Beck.

Maybe Beck should sue them for slander.

This has not been a good year for television.  I continue to wonder why the scriptwriters don’t understand that it’s the characters and plot that matter, not the political references.  And I continue to wonder why the grownups at the network aren’t supervising the sandbox.

As their ratings drop.

One Response to “Who writes these scripts, anyway?”

  1. Saxman says:

    It is interesting the slants (today I believe they are called “spin” that we see in all the media.

    I have been challenged by one of my left wing employees to have a more balanced diet of political consumption. So, I have taken him up on the challenge – which has only strengthened my point of view. However, during my listen to “American Left” on XM radio, one of the talk show hosts “Stephenie Miller” kept quoting Media Matters – so I looked them up.

    They turn out to be an institution dedicated to show mis-information about conservative media. Their montra “Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.”

    So, I wrote them. I told them I believed an organization that looked for mis-information is sorely needed. However, I noted that the only media they were looking for information on was Fox. Why only Fox – why not other media outlets – surely there is more conservative outlets than just the one. And, why not expand and become the bastion for all mis-information. Become fair and balanced?

    That was 5 weeks ago. I am still waiting for a response!

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