Last night I was flipping through the dial (ok more like scrolling down the channel guide) when I saw that ‘Network’ was on at midnight. I have a vague memory of seeing it as a kid, but I had no real recollection of the film beyond the ‘nuts’ newscaster. I set the DVR to record, woke up and began to watch it this morning. It’s a great film, and considering that it is thirty plus years old, I was amazed by its relevancy in today’s world. I had heard people reflect on its message and I had even been told by a person or two that I specifically needed to watch it because of my disdain for the media. Silly me, I thought they were just accusing me of being out of my mind.
In light of the last week and the media circus that was the ‘Imus Incident’, it seemed almost cosmically ordained that I should come across the film. Is there any incident in recent memory that was more akin to the media madness portrayed in ‘Network’? I don’t think so. Let’s face it, the comments made by Imus (and his crew) whether racially motivated or simply a poor joke gone awry were a sum total of :51 seconds. Do you realize that those :51 seconds have been transformed into HUNDREDS of hours of programming by the news media? Was it warranted?  The media could care less what the honest answer to that question is. They needed something explosive to lead with and there is simply nothing more incendiary than race in this country. Â
It was a soap opera, with an entire cast of characters that were not only ready for their close-up, but shamelessly pandering for it. Is Reverend Al Sharpton the best that the media could get when it came time for pontification? Is Reverend Al the best representative for the black community? I don’t know, I’m not black and I don’t get to decide such things but I do know that in the eyes of the media the guy is gold. The whole of the ’Imus Incident’ was transformed from a singular comment to a commentary on society across the board. Who is it that is responsible for that? The media.Â
If this incident did not illustrate the manner in which media is willing to whore itself and to further eat its own I don’t know what does. The news (just like politics) has been turned into a sensationalized prize fight. In a week that saw the Iraqi parliament bombed, attacks in the ‘green zone’, a resurgence of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, all anybody heard about was Imus.  Worse still, the beast will not die. As I mentioned earlier, the media’s insatiable appetite will even allow it to stomach the devouring of its own. Now we have the speech police looking into all kinds of comments. Who will be fired or run through the political correctness gauntlet that has been erected in the wake of the ‘Imus Incident’? Â
Already there are calls for investigations into comments made by Rosie O’Donnell, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, rap music the list goes on and on. What is this madness? What is this Frankenstein monster we have created?  We’ve got a war, an investigation into government corruption, environmental concerns, a middle east that seems compelled to tear itself apart, etc., etc. Where is the media? They’re watching Imus’s apartment building, trailing Al Sharpton or wondering when Anna Nicole’s “baby daddy”, is finally going to get custody of his little girl.Â
It’s time people! It’s time to go to your window, to open it and to scream to the world, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Go ahead! Do it. I’ll wait.
If you haven’t seen ’Network’ do yourself a favor and do so.  It was playing on Turner Classic Movies last night, and they’ll likely replay it. Dunaway, Duvall, Holden, Finch, and a supporting cast that reads like a who’s who of seventies and eighties television… a quality film that explores the absurdity of the media. We are being so played! We could do so much better. Where’s our Howard Beale? This week we sure did get our fill of, “The Mao-Tse Tung Hour”.
