An Image Problem

schlepper

Hollywood Reporter last week said that “TV viewing in the home is at an all-time high, averaging 5.13 hours per viewer per day during fourth-quarter 2009 and more than eight hours a day for the entire household…”

More than 5 hours a day, every day. For your entire life.

That is in itself an astonishing number.

But it also says something about our culture.

We are extremely image-driven.

The images you see in the movies or on TV become, in our minds, the ideas we take to identify a person or a profession.

Think TV anchorman and you think Peter Jennings or Ed Murrow or Brian Williams. It doesn’t matter, they’re all the same person – or at least they’re all playing the same character.

Think airplane pilot and you get Sully Sullenberger or Chuck Yeager. Doesn’t matter. Same character.

Now, think ‘journalist’ and you get Russell Crowe, starring in State of Play or Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein in All The President’s Men.

Messy.

Unshaven.

Hung over.

Crap car.

Crap life.

Dresses like a schlepper.

Look at Russell Crowe in the photo above.

Schlepper!

OK. Smart, honest, driven, dedicated, truth-seeking.. but schlepper.

We LOVE this image. It is us.

How important are media images?

Oliver Stone was recently interviewed on the eve of his new film, Wall Street II (or whatever it’s going to be called). He was both astonished and disappointed that a whole generation of Wall Street ‘masters of the universe’ from Bernie Madoff to the guys at Goldman were motivated to go to Wall Street by his movie. They took Gordon Gekko as a role model. They modeled themselves after Gordon Gekko. “Greed is good”.  And they certainly took it to heart.

Fine.

At least Gekko dressed well, had great art, great home and tons of money.

But what about our self-created images of journalists?

Schleppers!

Losers!

Bad with money!

Dress like homeless people. Don’t shave. Drunk all the time.

And that is why we are in such trouble now.  We run from making money. We think it’s a terrible idea, in fact. We HATE rich people. We HATE capitalists.  We HATE them.  ‘Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable’.

We are crazy.

The Internet Revolution was about journalism. OK, it was about information, but what is journalism but the gathering and processing of information.

This revolution took place on our watch, beneath our noses.  The Internet didn’t wipe out medicine (yet). It didn’t break the backs of law firms by making contract available to anyone who wanted them for free.  The Internet ate OUR lunch. And we sat by (and we continue to sit by) and watch it happen. As observers.

Idiots!

WE should own Craigslist (sorry Mr. Newmark but it’s true).
We were there first in classifieds.

WE should own Google – not a bunch of Stanford graduate students.  The motto of the National Geographic Magazine was ‘the world and all that is in it’. What the hell is Google but that? And there was a time when the boys at Google were looking to sell their company for (ready?) $1 million.  Do you think that National Geographic could have come up with that?  You bet! Did they? Nope. So lemme ask you, when was the last time you bought a copy (bought, not looked at in the dentist’s office) of National Geographic? When was the last time you went on Google?

Schmucks!

We are such schmucks.

And why?

Look at the picture above.

It’s because we worship penury.  Like some kind of medieval monks.

Wise up!

I say, time for a new image. The kick-ass, take no prisoners journalist who creates their own web company and makes billions.

Hello, Oliver Stone?

Come on man. I even have a title.

Fleet Street.