OUR ENDLESS ICONOMANIA: MICHAEL, WALTER AND NELSON

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MICHAEL, WALTER AND NELSON IN AN ERA OF ICONOMANIA</strong>

<strong>Worshipping Heroes Is Not The Same As Learning Their Life Lessons</strong>

By Danny Schechter

Author of PLUNDER

New York New York: What a time for Iconomania, none of it critical, none of it questioning, none offering deeper perspective or leading to very revealing coverage.

Politicians may rule but celebrities dominate in a culture where every pol dreams of shaping an aura that inspires hero worship and adoration. That was Barack Obama's trump card with his eloquence often blinding us to the substance of his stances.

First there was Michael Jackson's death with wall-to-wall coverage dominated by our info-tainment media where show biz and news biz merges more easily than media companies.

Michael's Moon Walk excited many more of us than even Neil Armstrongs' 40 year ago. The gloved one transcended the planet of the strange to join the pantheon of the adored, achieving in death what he failed to achieve in life, despite his fans, impact and commercial success.  He became larger than life, at least for now, until all the details of his tragic death emerge as they surely will.

One analyst, Chris Hedges says the media that made him so big also tore him down, writing, "In celebrity culture we destroy what we worship. The commercial exploitation of Michael Jackson's death was orchestrated by the corporate forces that rendered Jackson insane."

And now, joining him on that astral plane of idol worship,  is Walter Cronkite who rocketed from a life of a journo journeyman into the hero's circle.  His many media-mates and wannabes pumped the airwaves with non-stop nostalgia, and testimonials,  but paid little attention to his dismay with the direction "his" industry had taken, and the colleagues who hijacked it.

In the early days, Cronkite referred to his operation as the CBS NEWS CONTROL CENTER---and yes, the big nets did CONTROL what we saw, and who we saw. There is a reason that the room most TV shows take place are out of is called the CONTROL Room.  From there, the signal goes to MASTER CONTROL. Control is still the metaphor or media mediation.

To add star power to CBS's non-prime time tribute its greatest news star since Murrow, the legend that recruited him, the network that pushed him out at 65, turned to actor George Clooney and comic Robin Williams who got more airtime than most of his colleagues and competition, the likes of Charlie, Barbara, Mike, Andy, Ted, Diane, Katie and even Dan.

By the time I got into broadcast News--at WBCN in Boston, the station that the CBS corporation killed last week, I did not want to emulate him, considering him and his co-anchors shills for the system and emblems of  a corporate news system that Cronkike himself would later critique. The CBS News Special featured exactly one soundbite with Walter's concerns about the way TV News now undermines our democracy

He had told us at Mediachannel when he became our advisor, "As you know, I've been increasingly and publicly critical of the direction that journalism has taken of late, and of the impact on democratic discourse and principles. Like you, I'm deeply concerned about the merger mania that has swept our industry, diluting standards, dumbing down the news, and making the bottom line sometimes seem like the only line. It isn't and it shouldn't be."

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