Fawning Broadcast Media Types Test the Soul

By William Hickey Television-Rado Editor

The electronic technological wonders known as television and radio have never lacked critics, not even in their most halcyon days!

There is something about the media that stirs up the beast in man, causing him to act and vocalize in a manner that can only be described as unrestrained. The fact that a great deal of the criticism is unwarranted never makes much of an impression upon anyone, save a few objective observers, for the target is simply too inviting.

HICKEY

A sizable portion of the viewer-listener

dissatisfac-

tion lies in the media's ability to commit faux pas that border on the spectacular,

thereby attracting the attention of all but the most vegetable-like creatures in existence.

Then there are the minor moments of assaninity that the media seem so fond of flooding their broadcast days with, the irritating specks that lodge in the brain as a cinder will the eye.

To listen to radio or watch television the past week, both on local and national levels, was almost more than a rational human being could bear. The act represented a truly severe testing of one's mental equilibrium, not to mention sense of humor.

Locally, the major production was entitled "The Trials and Tribulations of Jane Fonda" or "What is a nice girl like you doing in a place as bad as Cleveland? The local electronic news bugs rusher to the scene of her incarceration, all seeking "exclusive" interviews.

Lo and behold, they all got her, what is galling is the her, what is galling is the exclusive interviews. attitude of those who interviewed her.

When the poor little waif was finally sprung from the clutches of the gendarmerie, everyone with a local talk show rushed to her side, so solicitous in manner, that once again it was throw up time in Northeastern Ohio.

One such host assured her in his most gushing manner that he, too, was guilty, for he had entered the country with prescription medicine—ad nauseam. Of course, not one of the exclusive interviewers bothered to ask her about the speech she had delivered the previous evening in Toronto, where she repeated for the five hundredth time her life commitment to the total destruction of the United States government.

If that is her bag, so be it. The government will survive the likes of Jane Fonda and a thousand more like

She was cutesy-poo to the nth degree, explaining how her bladder did have a time limit after all and so on. Again, not one of the fawning mass of questioners bothered to ask her why she didn't use the facilities of the craft that brought her to our city. Somehow, I can't take seriously anyone who can't find a john on an airplane.

On the national scene, Dick Cavett gave a memo-

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rable display of density on a number of matters, especially the general design and purpose of the Communist Party in America.

On Wednesday evening, he had as a guest one Dalton Trumbo, a former member of the party and a screen writer of considerable talent. Dalton was simply darling.

As a reward, Cavett spent the better part of the interview apologizing for the hideous condition of the United States in the late 1940s,

when witches led hunts, in addition to riding brooms.

How could they arrest and convict such a talented and jolly man as Trumbo, simber of the Communist Parply because he was a memty? How could they send him to prison for 10 months on a charge of contempt of Congress?

Monsters all lining the banks of the Potomac. How dare they do such a dastardly thing and how dare Hollywood put his name on a blacklist? Incredible, mused Cavett.

By self-admission, Cavett was in junior high at the time and undoubtedly, it wasn't exactly the Sorbonne, for his socio-political education was and is terribly lacking.

Of course, Dalton made it all sound so wonderful. The cell meetings oh, ho-hoho, really dull affairs, you know. Yes, he was wonderfully noble when he refused to name his fellow comrades. How did he get through the dreadful ordeal? Oh, mainly by his own special magnificence.

There's no denying that it was an interesting 15 minutes before the television screen that it was. It was also abolutely terrifying that a talk show host on a nationwide network should be so inexcusably stupid and easily used.

If Trumbo's outing proved the exception, rather than the rule, there would be little need to worry about the role television and radio play in our lives. However, it is not the case and most talk shows presently serve as little more than platforms for the freaks, dissidents and non-achievers in our society.

Frankly, I'm so weary of the bleatings of homosexual parachutists and unisex hopheads, that I could spend all 24 hours of any given day climbing walls. They are, of course, to be pitied for their freakishness and charity demands that we endeavor to come to their aid. That, however, is no excuse to pander them, or treat them as though they did have something of import to say and share with us.

As I said, the electronic media sometimes test the stoutest of souls.