"The Campaign"

I wasn't planning to see this - Will Ferrell isn't really my thing - but my newspaper's social club picked it for our movie night and I had nothing else to do, so what the hell.

In "The Campaign" (or "Citizens United 101 for Frat Boys" as I like to think of it), Ferrell plays Cam Brady, a North Carolina congressman running unopposed for his fifth term until he accidentally leaves a sexually explicit message for his mistress on a Christian family's answering machine.

The Motch brothers, two corrupt billionaires blatantly based on the Koch brothers, see this as a chance to buy the election so they can sell the district to Chinese sweatshops and save on shipping.

They pick an associate's son, Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), to run against Cam, putting millions of dollars into his campaign. "When you have the money," Jon Lithgow's Glen Motch smirks, "nothing is unpredictable." But Marty is fat and silly and sounds kinda gay, giving Cam plenty of opportunities to make gross Will Ferrell jokes.

Friendship and Politics

In the end it was probably inevitable.

I'm sad to notice that a rift has opened between one-time friends and colleagues Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. The two of them were a big reason why I got into news and politics, and their apparent break-up is a reality check about the pressures of show business.

When Olbermann left MSNBC in January 2011, he and Maddow had kind words for each other. He called her "my dear friend" as he signed off, and she spent a brief segment of her show explaining that she would never have found a place on the network without his support.

Mika Brzezinski, Journalist/Pin-up

Okay, I realise this is Vanity Fair we're talking about, but whyyyyyy. If you insist on playing up the "they have so much on-screen chemistry" angle, then shouldn't Joe Scarborough be making googly eyes at Mika Brzesinski instead of ignoring her and striking his I'm A Savvy Manly Media Figure pose? They've reduced the daughter of Jimmy Carter's national security adviser to a silly teenager trying desperately to seduce an older man.

US Weekly and the KStew Scandal

I feel so dirty about this, but I can't help it. The scandal of Kristen Stewart cheating on Robert Pattinson has me hooked - not because I have any interest in the actors or, God forbid, the Twilight series, but because of the fascinating way the tabloids are manipulating their consumers.

Here's my favourite theory (okay, conspiracy theory). This is the photograph that started the whole thing, splashed across the July 27 edition of US Weekly and revealed online on July 24.

Rabid "Robsten" fans quickly noticed the distortion where Stewart's right ear should be, indicating the face has been heavily Photoshopped. They spent the rest of the week accusing US Weekly of making the whole thing up by superimposing Stewart's face onto the body of Rupert Sanders' wife, Liberty Ross.

Jon Stewart Skewers CNN (Again)

I don't always agree with Jon Stewart, but CNN's big mistake on the Supreme Court ruling was what he was born for.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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"Yes, 'widely different'. There's what you've been saying, and then there's what happened."

Has Cable News Peaked?

Jack Shafer makes an interesting point about the future of the cable news business:

CNN isn’t the only network riding the down escalator when it comes to ratings. Over the same week, Fox News Channel attracted its fewest viewers in the important 25-to-54-year-old category since July 2008, the Times added.

Various observers have blamed the viewership downturn on the lull in the 2012 campaign, on viewers defecting to the season finales on the entertainment channels and on the lack of breaking news. But I interpret the falloffs as fresh evidence that the audience for cable news has peaked.

Despite my favourite (and pretty much only) TV show being on cable news, I see discussion like this with more curiosity than concern. Beyond a few bright spots, the format is starting to feel tired and predictable, and I'm waiting for some innovative multimedia format to become profitable enough to take off.

That's one of the reasons I'm drawn to television personalities who didn't originally come from television - who started out as professors or bloggers or writers. With a little basic talent you can always learn how to look good on TV, but I think if you want to stay afloat in the media over the next few decades you need to be able to evolve and do something out of the ordinary.

HBO's "The Newsroom"

Days after Keith Olbermann gets fired from Current TV, we get this spectacular teaser from Aaron Sorkin.
 

I'm hooked. Sorry, "Mad Men."

(I can see it now. Sorkin in interview after interview, saying "Why, my character is completely fictional! He's a combination of a range of different TV personalities! After all, he's a Republican!")