by Barnegat Blummis

Created on: November 21, 2008   Last Updated: March 17, 2011

The exclusive interview. Have you noticed that every national morning "news" show uses that phrase? Pardon my naivet, but I recall a time when that would have meant that the interviewee had promised to only speak with that one specific interviewer. Now, apparently, it means 'I'm alone in this studio with this dude and no one else is interviewing him/her right now'. Then the subject of the interview will be jumping into a limo and be whisked cross town to the next 'exclusive' interview and so on, until they run out of interviewers - no, hold on, we've just booked you with a reporter from the local Shopper's Weekly! What is happening? Just the continual, relentless debasing of meaning in our language and in social discourse. It's the Meredith Viera-ization of the social contract between ourselves and our 'trusted news sources'. To what purpose is this mangling of language? Ratings, of course. It's all about money. A commercial station is driven by the need to have masses of viewers in order to sell time at high rates to advertisers. Think about it: you've never heard Gwen Ifill say "exclusive interview" because she isn't forced to by economic pressures - being on publicly funded television. More than money, phony exclusivity is also driven by the enormous egos of these faux journalists whose salaries compete with professional athletes' obscene pay. Each morning, in their starred dressing rooms, these divas of disinformation get cold lips from kissing mirrors. The ersatz exclusivity is supposed to convince the sheep (oops, I mean audience) to keep watching and not press the remote to click over to Robin Roberts at GMA. Certainly, by now, after endless reps, the exclusive word has been stripped of any force and flies by, lost in the yammering background noise. People have learned that this bereaved mother, or that outrageous actor who's lost his sheen, will be having nineteen exclusive interviews today. It's all about chutzpah, as well. This began when Henry Luce and his friends started Time Magazine. They had claimed ownership of Time! The word, the concept, Time, was theirs! Emboldened, they then grabbed Life. Their huge building in Manhattan, late at night, had two enormous lighted signs: TIME, LIFE! They played fast and luce with meaning. Now someone (General Electric) owns "Today". "Today is being brought to you by.......". Thank you, GE, what the hell would we do if you hadn't brought us today? We'd probably have to sit around in Yesterday or jump straight into Tomorrow. Whew, GE, you've saved our asses! Then they intone, "Today's weather is being brought to you by Smuckers" ( or some other sponsor-du-journey). See how deadened our perception have become? The WEATHER isn't being brought to you by some Ohio jam & jelly company. It's the weather REPORT the sponsor. But we no longer hear the absurd hubris in their claim. (side note: we need to thank the Greeks and the Jews for these delicious words, hubris and chutzpah.) All of this erodes our spirits, our belief in a world that makes sense and the possibility of a meaning-filled life. And I'm available for an exclusive interview or two or three.

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