"This Tube Is The Gospel"

NPH watched the 1976 film "Network" over the weekend. When Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip did a takeoff on the film for its pilot, On The Media ran a segment (click "Listen Now" on the left) on the foresight of "Network's" writer, Paddy Chayefsky. So our interest was piqued.

It's great stuff (warning: the clip above contains objectionable language). It's all about the blurring of the line between news and entertainment in media, television specifically. 30 years ago, the idea that news could be made more appealing by dressing it up as entertainment was scandalous; today, with our Bill O'Reilley's, we're quite used to the idea (in fact, right before the movie came out, Barbara Walters had just had half of her contract with ABC paid by the network's entertainment division). But that's what's great about "Network": pre-cable news, pre-"reality" television, pre-internet, pre-YouTube, the film articulated deep distress over the confusion between illusion and reality generated by electronic screen media. Consider these gems:

"Television is not the truth! Television's a . . . amusement park! We're in the boredom killing business!"

"We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true."

"You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and that you're own lives are unreal."