At 8:56 AM -0500 7/30/03, Ben Axelrad wrote:
White's really rips into Terry Gross in his essay, "The Middle Mind" (surely to be reprinted in his forthcoming book of the same name). It can be found online here: http://www.centerforbookculture.org/context/no9/white.html.
He describes the "middle mind" as the midpoint between the radical right and intellectual/academic left in the culture wars, but minus the political and intellectual engagement. White sees Gross' "Fresh Air" as the perfect embodiment of the "middle mind" -- the interviews with writers (apparently the show makes no distinction between serious authors and tv writers) and artists never get into serious discussions of the artworks. "It's like Dr. Laura for people with bachelor degrees. Car Talk has more intellectual content."
Funny article, but leaves a bitter aftertaste.
And public broadcasting in the US DOESN'T leave a bitter aftertaste? I'd pick different examples than White does, and I'm not sure that I'd single out Gross when so much of the national programming from NPR is just as shallow (& Gross also has one or two reviewers like Kevin Whitehead who aren't simply looking for a slightly different angle on promoting the same blockbusters everyone else is pushing in a given week), but for the most part I agree with White's take on public broadcasting. By going for a depressingly low "common denominator" in the interest of competing in a marketplace they were originally set up to be an alternative to, NPR has defiled both the traditions and the possibilities of public radio to reflect the communities they serve. These stations were supposed to be getting public support so that they could operate outside of marketplace pressures. Instead, they've become one more media delivering a slightly different demographic to a group of advertisers, the main difference being that they ask their audience to pay for the "privilege" of being delivered to these advertisers. Though I think PBS ("public" TV) is even worse than NPR, if only because I think more NPR stations (though hardly all) do some degree of useful/meaningful local programming than PBS stations do. & there are many public and community stations that are doing interesting work while remaining largely or entirely independent of the national NPR feed, though the tendency toward "alternative" pop music has gone a long way toward stifling the potential of many of these stations to be more than another kind of marketing tool. -- Herb Levy P O Box 9369 Fort Worth, TX 76147 herb@eskimo.com