Media critic Todd Gitlin says that rather than uplift and educate people, modern media conglomerates are a Band-Aid. “Fortunes are to be made in offering ever-reliable analgesics to a public hungry for fast relief,” he says. The guys who run the networks, the newspapers, the studios, the magazine and music companies are getting richer while our civic life grows poorer. – Toronto Star 03/09/00
Tag: 03.09.00
JURASSIC TV
The television landscape is pitching and heaving, changing at an ever-accelerating rate. But the traditional networks have been slow to adapt, even as their share of viewers has slipped precipitously. – Variety 03/09/00
HUGHES PLEADS NOT GUILTY:
Time Magazine art critic Robert Hughes pleads not guilty to reckless driving in Australia. Charges against him came out of a head-on accident on a remote road. He was trapped inside his rented car for three hours and then spent 12 hours on the operating table. “I believe that I am innocent. That I am in no way criminally culpable and naturally I hope that I will be fully acquitted,” Mr Hughes said. – The Age (Melbourne)
FINAL BOW
Wreckers get to work on row of theaters on Broadway’s 42nd St. New construction planned for the site, near where the Lincoln Tunnel traffic spills into the city, is supposed to include four 99-seat theatres off a central lobby, a 199-seat theatre, and a 499-seat theatre, as well as up to 30 stories of apartments. – Backstage