Maher Clarifies Gibson's Jew Issues

In a comment on the last post, I said that Comdedy Central was perhaps the only reliable source for compelling, entertaining political content with a left or centrist or even logical slant. But I forgot about Bill Maher. The last I saw him was when he did a skit of a White House press conference on his show when Scott McLellan had just quit as press secretary. It was funny, but downright lackluster compared to Stephen Colbert's same treatment of the topic on that same week.

Colbert blew Maher away (begins in minute 16:00).

Granted, skits are Colbert's career-long territory and nobody can touch him. Maher's untouchable territory is when he's weaving accessible pop culture events into the broader political discussion using his own voice. He's not out there everyday, which is why his messages and his approach get lost in all the noise ... but his piece yesterday called The World IS Mel Gibson is a nice reminder that liberals and centrists can put out content that's easily as entertaining and compelling as what the conservative machine pumps out. Or, if these adjectives don't satisfy conservatives, I'll just label the content with a euphemism they can understand: provocative.

Maher is that if nothing else. And just so we're clear: Maher is definitely "with us" or "on our side" or whatever else you want to call the opposite of some this-or-that rubric from Karl Rove's memo pad.

What's News: Mel Gibson's Arrest or Who Broke The Story?

What's bigger news? Mel Gibson's recent drunk driving arrest and the surrounding anti-semitic fallout? Or is it TMZ, the site that broke the Gibson story? Newsweek's top feature today about AOL/Telepictures' joint venture TMZ makes this seemingly black and white question much more grey. The Newsweek piece is only the latest example in the media world's ongoing and rapid migration from traditional journalism to straight-up entertainment.

In the piece, Newsweek says that TMZ "has the look and feel of a blog with a journalistic pedigree. A typical day includes updates on the marital status of Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock, video footage of Ashlee Simpson arriving at a Hollywood hotspot and whether Ben Affleck caught a Red Sox pop fly launched into his section at Fenway Park."

Not sure where the "journalistic pedigree" is in this typical TMZ "news" day, but clearly Newsweek has joined the migration. They've probably realized that the model TMZ copied and refined from sites like Gawker and The Smoking Gun has taken over. Site editor Harvey Levin says that TMZ is a news site. He says it simply depends on how you define news. Seems Newsweek's definition of news is no longer coverage of breaking stories but rather coverage of who's breaking the stories.