Dear CNN,
I am disappointed in your new mini-series "Crisis In The Middle East."
The concept of the series had such potential, with two sides in a battle
that could last through February and even May sweeps, with people watching
it at home, on-line at work, and eventually spun off as series of
documentaries on The History Channel, Discovery, Biography and The War
Channel. Comparing it to your earlier mini-series "The Gulf War" and "The
War on Terror", I can see a number of things that the new series lacks.
First, the limited budget is having an extremely detritus effect on the feel
of the series. The lack of a fireworks and flag graphics style package along
with a patriotic, we're going to war, symphonic style ominous theme music
leads the typical viewer to think they might only be seeing a Jeannie Moos
featurette or a Richard Quest "An Evening in Central Park" report. The
graphics package often seems to be a still-frame store, with no flashing of
explosions, no marching of Chyron characters across the screen screaming
"Get Your Fresh New Hot War", no tympani of kettle drums, roar of 5.1 sound
aircraft overhead, and HD enhanced visual drops. The series needs a grab em
by the balls, hook em by the labia feel to it, but what we're getting is the
equivalent of Meet The Press interviewing the leader of the House
Subcommittee on Dairy, Livestock and Poultry on dairy price supports.I mean,
we're talking war, and what do we get? Pillars of smoke over a static shot
of the Gaza skyline. Where are the embedded journalists, the night-scope
infra red Noctovision-2000 HD cameras? The profiles of the soldiers.-- their
sacrifices of giving up Hanukah, the Islamic New Year, and missing the
Talmud Days end of year sales? And with the new technologies, we could have
virtual war and CNN in a hologram reporter coverage. Think the Time-Warner
Interactive video games unit.
Also the writing seems to miss the ever crucial zeitgeist of drama -- the
antagonist versus protagonist. Are we supposed to cheer the Hebrews, Hamas,
Hummis, Hezbollah, or the Holocaust HaHa party of Iran? And who is the
enemy? The blockaded starving emaciated people of the Gaza Strip, or the
"Miami Beach" Jews of Gaza who are watching their home valuations plummet
faster than a cluster of foreclosed houses in Malaga, California? Or maybe
the officials in the Palestinian Air Pollution Control District? ("Didn't
you see that today was a no-bombing day? The PM 25 Particulate Matter
readings are off the scale! Now we'll have to ask citizens to quit their
suicide bombing. That will kill our economy! It's our second biggest
industry after butter chocolate wafers and Size 10 shoes for export to
Iraq." )
And the casting seems to have suffered at the hands of the Time-Warner
conglomerate. During the First Gulf War, we had the lovable, but rebellious,
foreign colleague in arms Peter Arnett, the cowering under his bed black
reporter Bernie Shaw, and CNN Agriculture reporter John Holliman, which was
genius. With the action set in a one-room set sparsely decorated as a hotel
room, with minimalist lighting, the interaction of Arnett's outbursts of
anger, Holliman's urine soaked pants, and Shaw's repeatedly trying to book a
return flight brought drama, pathos and huge ratings. While shot with a
single camera , the sound effects of sirens, rocket launchers, scuds, the
dripping of urine, explosions of bombs, and the constant muffling of audio
by gas masks left viewers wanting more. ("What did he say? I can't
understand him through that gas mask? Did he say he needed a new pair of dry
pants?")
What do we get today? Israeli Parliament talking heads, pillars of smoke,
and Christine Amanpour being interviewed endlessly by Wolf Blitzer and
Rosemary Church. CNN has so many options. If they want to follow the formula
of Desert Storm #1, they have all sorts of people they could be using. Jack
Cafferty could easily fill the Peter Arnett role, former hard drinking,
sour, curmudgeonly reporter, willing to risk a dangerous driving citation in
the crowded streets of Gaza Strip to get the story, only to find out the
strip is not a Times Square gentleman's club. The minority reporter role
could be played by CNN's D.L. Hughley, who will gladly pee himself at the
thought of an Israeli smart bomb, or in a more modern twist, metrosexual
sexually-ambiguous Anderson Cooper or Richard Quest as the guy that Jack
turns to for comfort. And for comic relief, Kathy Griffin could be paired
with Anderson, seeking to embarrass him, while throwing out one-liners about
Lou Dobbs and Ali Velshi, who could cover the financial consequences of the
unavailability of loans from the Palestinian Banking Authority, and how a
wall on the Southern Border of the Strip can help keep out illegal
immigrants. Most of these reporters are under contract, so there would be
little additional cost. If they want to splurge they could recall previous
reporters to active duty, using the controversial IRR, I-Report Reporter
Recall, where the network can assign anyone at any time to cover a story.
Unfortunately, the head honchos, who give us endless repeats of Larry King
Live on tape and the same few documentaries over and over are busy watching
the bottom line, and not the enormous profits that cam be made from war. As
Brigadier General Smedley D Butler once said "The normal profits of a
business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten and sometimes even
twelve per cent. But wartime profits - ah! that is another matter - twenty,
sixty, one hundred, three hundred and even eighteen hundred per cent - the
sky is the limit. All that the traffic will bear."
Money for nothing, and chicks for free..I want my War - TV.
Rychard Withers is a satirist, engineer and general manager of KFCF-FM in
Fresno.
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