MediaLand Monopoly
She was the topic of conversation due to her comment on CNBC's "The Big Idea With Donnie Deutsch" that Jews need to be perfected, territory well traveled by Eric Deggans down at the St. Petersburg Times last week.
(Much like I did with a story about a certain intolerant religious sect in August, I'm not going to add a news clip to this author's stack by naming her.)
But back to the "Reliable Sources" conversation. The panel discussed the concept of whether or not to give this particular author airtime, with Sesno adding:
I think we have a responsibility to challenge her when she says these things, to force her into a corner and at some point to say, "You know what? This is not credible anymore. You don't deserve this real estate, because all you're trying to do is outrage."The kneejerk response to this, of course, is "Preach on, Frank!" But then if you break down the metaphor of airtime as real estate, his argument loses a bit of "oomph" – particularly if you look at TV news programming like the board game "Monopoly."
As in the game, all media exposure is not created equal. There's a vast difference – be it prestige or viewership – between shows. In the parlance of real estate, some programs are higher rent, some are a bit run down and some are – what's the catch phrase I've been hearing? -- transitional.
So how does the board shape up in MediaLand?
Regardless of the ratings decline over the past decade, the nightly networks newscasts still deserve "real estate" on the last side of the board. They may not be the locks for Boardwalk and Park Place they once were, but you can't deny them (and their 25 million collective viewers a night) either the top spots or locations like the Green properties: Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Pacific.
Then you've got the nighttime cable chatfests and their daytime lineups and their morning shows, along with the network news magazines taking up the second and third sides of the board. (With PBS being a public utility, natch.)
Where, then, does "The Big Idea" place on the board? It's true that the show brings in some financial big-hitters – Bill Gates was a recent guest – but they also have recently brought in Larry the Cable Guy, supermodel Molly Sims and … one of the Pussycat Dolls. So it's sort of a grab bag of newsmakers and pop culture detritus – which places it at around Oriental or Vermont in MediaLand Monopoly.
Which is not to say that the controversial media vixen in question therefore belonged on Deutsch's program. She shouldn't be able to get time on Baltic or Mediterranean. It's merely to say that when you're talking about the real estate scene in the 300-channel universe, there are some serious gradations.
(And it's also not to say that a certain someone doesn't have the right to her own opinions or her own words. She has the inalienable right to express herself and speak her mind. She just doesn't have the right to a segment on a television talk show, or -- as we saw earlier this year -- a newspaper column.)
But if there are rational and intelligent people discussing whether she should get any real estate at all, what's she doing on "The O'Reilly Factor" tonight? Ratings-wise, that's like the Marvin Gardens of MediaLand!