American Television
Angelika Regarding American media, I've wanted to make a few general remarks on this topic for a long time. First of all, the news on television should be mentioned. World news or international news only appears under two conditions: either the USA has to be somehow involved, such as in the collision of the American military plane with the cable car in Italy or the current conflict between Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton, or an absolutely media-effective catastrophe has occurred, like the earthquake in Italy some time ago. Otherwise, the majority of the news deals with domestic politics or local matters, where one sometimes doubts the editor's judgment regarding the selection of these news stories. Not too long ago, the top news story, which was presented first, was that a pet pig got lost on the Bay Bridge. At first, I thought it was a joke because I couldn't believe that a somewhat serious TV station would dare to sell something like that as the news of the day, but it was indeed true. When you also consider that many Americans use TV news as their sole source of information, it's no wonder they know hardly anything about Europe. Of course, TV news, like other programs, is constantly interrupted by commercial breaks, which is really extremely annoying. You are familiar with this by now through private channels in Germany, and if I remember correctly, there's already a commercial break before the weather report on the Heute news broadcast. You just have to imagine it even more extreme here. Recently, for example, the movie "Dead Poets Society" was on TV. Due to the commercial breaks, the film lasted a full three hours (I would estimate the normal runtime to be about 90 minutes). Michael and I are now so annoyed by the commercial interruptions that we are increasingly renting videos or going to the movie theater, where, funnily enough, there is no advertising at all.
To return once more to the news: On one hand, as mentioned, there is hardly any international news, while on the other hand, other events are followed almost obsessively, such as the aforementioned alleged sex affair of Bill Clinton. The regular TV program is even interrupted for this. Last week, these interruptions made me quite nervous because, alongside the scandal involving Clinton, the likelihood of a military strike against Iraq was increasing. With each interruption, I thought we were on the brink of another Gulf War, but in reality, it was just another political figure being interviewed about whether Clinton had an affair with the intern or not. Some cynics claim that Clinton is only delaying the military strike so that he cannot later be accused of starting a war to distract from the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Ironically, there is currently a movie with Dustin Hoffman on exactly this topic ("Wag the Dog"). In the film, the president starts a war to cover up an affair. The reporting on the execution of Karla Faye Tucker was also particularly tasteless. The wait for the execution became a media spectacle par excellence. One can only be glad that it is not yet allowed to broadcast an execution live. Nevertheless, CNN and NBC tried to extract as much as they could. Reporters camped outside the prison and described in detail how the execution process would proceed if the appeal was denied. The transition to the commercial break was made with the words: "Only 40 minutes until the execution." It sounded like a countdown before a rocket launch, truly grotesque. I don't know to what extent you have followed the background of this media spectacle in Germany. Karla Faye Tucker received media attention mainly because she was to be the first woman executed in Texas. Texas holds the leading position in a very sad statistic: it is the state with the most executions per year in the USA, although until now, no woman was among them. The dispute between supporters and opponents of the death penalty regarding Karla Faye Tucker can be summarized roughly as follows: The conservative supporters suddenly found it morally reprehensible to execute a woman, especially since she had converted in prison from a former drug-addicted prostitute who murdered two people in a drug frenzy to an active Christian, a fact that never played a role for previously executed men. The opponents of the death penalty argued that if one supports the death penalty, there should be no gender differences. It quickly became clear that Karla Tucker only became a media sensation because she was white, female, attractive, and a converted Christian. What I find particularly unfortunate about this story is that the media did not take the opportunity to discuss the death penalty in general and reflect on how a democratic state can even consider the death penalty a legitimate legal means of punishing people.
Even in American daily newspapers, one is not exactly bombarded with news from Europe, but there are definitely more foreign reports than on television. Additionally, there are, of course, newspapers like the New York Times, which report in detail on all kinds of world and foreign events. So, I was quite surprised to find a detailed report in the Chronicle (a daily newspaper from San Francisco) about the Pope's letter to the German Bishops' Conference regarding Catholic pregnancy counseling centers and the issuance of the much-debated counseling certificate. This might also be because there is a strict separation between church and state in the USA, and Americans find a strong entanglement between church and state both dangerous and highly suspicious. Speaking of abortion, around the same time as the "Pope counseling center story" in Germany, the topic of "abortion" was also a hot topic here. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy are legal in the USA. Despite its legality, the topic of "abortion" is also discussed very emotionally here. Additionally, for several years, there have been fanatical anti-abortion activists who carry out bomb attacks on abortion clinics. Just last week, there was another such attack.
