War is hell. Call my agent.

June 16, 2003 8:29 PM

The CBS News American Idol Power Hour.Viacom, owner of networks CBS and MTV among many others, is aggresively pushing lucrative bribes offers for Private Jessica Lynch to get her on CBS News, including the possibility of her own video-hosting program on MTV and special editions of TRL. Corporate consolidation the way it is, are we in an era where synergy allows news-media-owning companies to offer not just material profit but flat-out media iconization in exchange for a good story? To put it another way: have we gone beyond using the news to promote entertainment owned by the same company to using entertainment as the currency to flat-out buy the news?
posted by XQUZYPHYR (12 comments total)

I love America! ;-P
posted by mischief at 8:52 PM on June 16, 2003

Synergy is not a word. It is a marketing construct. But, it works well for your usage? As you make use of the term "synergy", so does the media make use of Private Lynch.
posted by the fire you left me at 8:57 PM on June 16, 2003

Scarborough was bitching about this (conveniently on his NBC program). The story is a little odd, but what really amazes me is that during this whole rant-fest, the guy never brought up the fact that the Jessica Lynch rescue story was fabricated, and that nobody knows how her maintenance group ended up alone.

On the other hand, this story reminds me of Mona Lisa Overdrive. Maybe ten years from now, not only will manufactured celebrities get their own show and the cover of People (and plastic surgery ala Greta Van Sustren), but they'll also get cybernetic implants in their eyes.

Manufacturing war propaganda sickens me, but the manufacturing of celebrities is kind of neat..
posted by son_of_minya at 9:03 PM on June 16, 2003

Umm, I'm confused, fire. One, Synergy is a word, and two, I used it exactly the way I meant: divisions of a corporation interacting with each other.

My question is really which part of that corporation is taking over... usually the complaint is how the news is using entertainment to garner ratings, for example increased coverage of celebrities and references to hit shows and movies. CBS would do stories on Survivor because they wanted the show to get more ratings.

Now, with this story, you've got an example of news not using media as promotion for the network, but using media as a bribe to allow a potential news source to become news. CBS wants to make Lynch a celebrity so they can interview her, since... she's famous. If you did this kind of value inflation with stock, you'd be in jail.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 9:10 PM on June 16, 2003

Welcome my friend, to the machine.
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:17 PM on June 16, 2003

What the hell...give her a line of jeans to model.
posted by alumshubby at 9:24 PM on June 16, 2003

If you did this kind of value inflation with stock, you'd be in jail.

Very well-put. Freaky.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 11:41 PM on June 16, 2003

Oddly enough, we aren't hearing squat from/about Jessica herself-I can't help but wonder if her wounds are worse than have been reported.

So far her family at least seems to be keeping a dignified silence...as for the media, I am sickened.
posted by konolia at 4:27 AM on June 17, 2003

Spoke too soon-here's some info
posted by konolia at 4:49 AM on June 17, 2003

As I understand, Lynch is reported to have few memories of her ordeal. Thus, her silence.

But whether or not she really remembers something, and has been told to be silent; ah well...
posted by datawrangler at 4:52 AM on June 17, 2003

This is Great! They should bring back rescue 911, and anyway, CBS and MTV have to think about the future, what are they gonna do when Carson Daly starts to grow ear-hairs and Dan Rather totally loses his shit! (if he hasn't already)
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 6:36 AM on June 17, 2003

...including the possibility of her own video-hosting program on MTV and special editions of TRL.

I'm sure every song would be the song that kept her going while she recovering under the care of sympathizers. Makes me wonder what Carson did to qualify himself for the show. I wonder if it was at all similar to getting yourself lost and captured by an under-equipped and ill-trained enemy. From zero to hero, oh wait, no, still zero...
posted by holycola at 8:09 AM on June 17, 2003