IT’S A Pavlov drill, one designed five years ago for a pandering and obedient media. And it works great.
Charles Barkley uses his seat on TNT’s NBA studio show to riff about what ails the world, although not the same one you live in. And Turner TV, through replays, press releases and Website videos, quickly disseminates Barkley’s remarks, which are then dutifully delivered by the media to those who might have missed them the first time.
And it doesn’t matter how foolish or fractured Barkley’s thoughts and conclusions may be, they’re all to be regarded as poignant, important.
Such was the case Thursday, after Barry Bonds’ indictment. Barkley’s first words on his TNT/NBA forum were to express his anger at the government for going after Bonds “in a witch-hunt” that lasted “three or four years.”
And Barkley’s take made news because the news media have become conditioned to make Barkley a newsmaker.
But as witch-hunts go, Bonds, whom Barkley called “a friend,” could help re-legitimize sorcery.
Absent from Barkley’s Bonds-is-the-victim defense was that Bonds testified before a Federal grand jury – and less than three years ago – having been granted immunity from prosecution. The only prosecution – “witch-hunt” – Bonds could have suffered was if he lied to that jury, which is what the government now alleges, thus the perjury charges.
Perjury is a crime that should strike a social commentator and social justice advocate such as Barkley as particularly grave. After all, perjury frees the guilty and imprisons the innocent.
And perjury doesn’t normally fall into the witch-hunt bin; it’s not as if someone wore a wire. Bonds sat before a jury, having sworn to tell the truth.
And when perjury is alleged after the witness agrees to immunity, describing that witness as the victim of a prosecutorial witch hunt, well, a more circumspect commentator would wait to see how it plays out before backing the defendant, even if he is a pal.
In Barkley’s case, caution would have especially best served him because no matter how ill-considered his words, they’re reflexively distributed by his network, reflexively repeated by the news media and reflexively stamped, “Important.”
I’m hardly one to back cable companies that preclude sports on basic, but the NFL Network’s latest campaign to portray cable as the bad guys for not clearing NFLN – especially with its eight-game schedule beginning Thanksgiving night – is the kind of baloney that cable usually serves.
No fan ever called for the creation of an NFL Network, certainly not one that would pull games from free, over-the-air TV networks in order to create a demand for an NFL cable network. And no NFL ticket-holder ever demanded more games on late-season weeknights.
The NFL, through the NFLN, greedily exploited its games to create another revenue source. And now it pretends to be on your side in the fight against evil cable giants out to prevent you from seeing games. Baloney.
Early in Ohio State-Michigan, ABC aired footage of a pre-game, trash-talk hassle between the teams, an ugly scene that nearly got worse. And we’ve all seen trash-talk turn worse. But good old reliable, pandering Brent Musburger. When the clip aired, he chuckled. Yeah, great fun.
Any stat, any time: After the Giants fumbled to the Lions, yesterday, Fox’s Kenny Albert saw fit to tell us that the Lions lead the NFL in points-off-turnovers. But the Lions had recovered on their own 20. How many points-off-turnovers had they scored starting 80 yards out? Detroit went three-and-punt.
With Monday Night Football ratings on the dip, reader Ron Power of East Rutherford has a success-guaranteed plan for ESPN: “Offer, at a price, a completely muted telecast, a telecast where you can’t accidentally sit on the remote and disable the mute function. Back it with a guarantee that no matter what, you won’t hear a peep from the booth.”
Five minutes into OSU-Michigan, ABC/ESPN cut to Lisa Salters, who reported from a sideline that OSU offensive tackle Kirk Barton is so pumped to beat Michigan he gave a loud pre-game speech! Back up to you guys.
When Ryan Hollweg was credited with an assist Saturday in Pittsburgh, Sam Rosen recalled Hollweg telling him before the game that he’d be the first fourth-line Ranger to get a point. MSG next produced a tape of that chat. Neat.
Good stuff from ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” yesterday: Michael Vick – remember him? – had accepted an invite to and then attended a PETA animal sensitivity session. A PETA executive said Vick was respectful and attentive … Fox’s Tony Siragusa-from-an-end-zone thing gets better by the week, doesn’t it? It’s like taking a long drive, every Sunday, with a backseat driver.