BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Hey, Rupe! Media Log is Fair and
Balanced (TM), too! And I mean it the way I presume you mean it,
at least when you're talking among yourselves over drinks and cigars:
ironically, with a good laugh at the rubes you've bamboozled into
thinking that it's true.
Anyway, Fox is suing Al Franken for
trademark infringement, charging that the title of his forthcoming
book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look
at the Right, would "blur and tarnish" the image of the Fox News
Channel. (So why aren't they suing Sean Hannity?)
It gets better. According to
this
account in the New York
Times, Fox contends, "Franken is neither a journalist nor a
television news personality. He is not a well-respected voice in
American politics; rather, he appears to be shrill and unstable. His
views lack any serious depth or insight."
Not to appear to take this drivel
seriously, but anyone who has paid any attention whatsoever knows
that Franken's political analysis is as deep and serious as that of
anyone on Fox, with the possible exception of Britt Hume. It's just
that Franken also happens to be a very funny guy.
Here's a Q&A
with Franken on his book --
and on his recent confrontation with Bill O'Reilly, who didn't like
it one bit when Franken exposed O'Reilly's claim to have won a
Peabody Award as something other than the truth.
Berkowitz online. The
Boston Globe's website
redesign is now well along
(Woo, hoo! It looks
like the Herald's!),
and Peter Berkowitz's essay on the raging
moderate known as George W.
Bush can be read here.
On the other hand, I was going to
link to James Carroll's excellent Globe column today on
anti-Semitism within the Catholic Church (yes, he's got something new
to say) -- but today's editorials
and op-ed columns were not
online. Perhaps they will be later this morning.
posted at 9:01 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.