Tabloid TV Goes After Bailout Babies
Dan Gillmor is a BoingBoing guest-blogger.
Tabloid journalism is often worse than none at all. But now, the NY Times reports, the media business' bottom feeders are going after the corporate sleazeballs who blew up the economy.
The tabloid media, of course, have always peered into the excesses of the rich and famous with a mix of puritan disapproval and voyeurism. But these outlets and other news organizations are now recording troubling uses of taxpayer money at country clubs, private airports and glamorous retreats and, in so doing, explicitly tapping into a fierce populist anger at corporate America, and even pressuring Congress to hold companies accountable.
TMZ, a Web site better known for unflattering paparazzi shots of Britney Spears and Rihanna, drove mainstream coverage and Congressional outrage with a blog post late last month that exclaimed, “Bailout Bank Blows Millions Partying in L.A.” The site reported that Northern Trust, a bank that received $1.6 billion in taxpayer money, had hosted hundreds of clients and employees at a golf tournament and a series of parties in Southern California. “Your tax dollars, hard at work,” the site wrote.
Northern Trust never sought the bailout funds, but agreed to take them last fall at the behest of the government. Regardless, the photos of Tiffany gift bags and the grainy video clips of Chicago and Sheryl Crow performing for the group angered readers —as well as Congressional Democrats, who demanded in a letter that Northern Trust repay what the company “frittered away on these lavish events.” The bank said it would do so “as quickly as prudently possible,” news that earned four exclamation points from TMZ.
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Hahahaha, Love it. Finally the Tabloid media is doing something USEFUL.
what a twisted world we live in, where tabloids are actually doing good.
there's a great strategy at work here... TMZ is never going to interview the CEO of AIG or bernie madoff, and though they are a time warner property, they aren't held to the same "cutting off the hand that feeds you" mentality of other news orgs which run scared. TMZ also gets massive pageviews tapping into the zeitgeist. this stuff needs to be reported, people need to be more angry about it, and people need to demand results. i never thought i would write this combination of words, "well done, harvey levin!"
Of course this is a disgrace for "main stream" journalism. It takes the tabloids and John Stewart to get the job done while Wolf Blitzer slobbers over corporate the cock.
It's time to direct some of that populist anger at the enablers at CNN, FOX, and MSNBC.
First a basic cable comedian earns a reputation as the most trustworthy name in news, now a damn tabloid is picking up the ball that the mainstream media dropped? Strange times indeed.
LOL!
We've been let-down for years by mainstream media journalism, which panders to their corporate overseers and advertisers more than it provides REAL investigative journalism. Anyone who has traveled oversees and especially to Europe will tell you that US journalism is a joke. The contrast between CNN International and the US version of CNN should be enough to make anyone living in the US sick.
#4 My daughter disapproves of your bad grammar.
My the best sleazeball win.
May daughter is upset at may bad grammar.
If I remember the CNN article correctly, this was a corporate sponsorship of a PGA Tournament. Sponsorship, as in the type of event hosted to increase awareness for the sponsor and hopefully drum up some business. Northern Trust was completely justified in their expense. You have to spend money to make money, even in this economy.
Add to that it was a charity event.
Interesting.. If TMZ would start hanging out in Westport and stalking the AIG guys who broke the world I would definitly start watching. Make their life hell!!!
TMZ making a useful contribution to society, who would have thought?
The tabloids are all pitchforks and torches. And right now the good hunting's in the corporate community. TMZ and Inside Edition would provide all of us a tremendous service if they hightailed it down to the Mexican border towns and exposed those narcolords and corrupt officials making so much trouble.
@Teller You've got it right. Before we give tabloids _too_ much credit, let's remember that their beat is scandals. Irony, self-immolation, public lying: they're great at covering those because it's what they do all the time and they don't depend on continued access to those subjects.
Thank you, Jesus -- check's in the mail.
Better bottom-feeders than NYT propagandists.
"Northern Trust never sought the bailout funds, but agreed to take them last fall at the behest of the government."
Really? They just took the money because they were so patriotic? Not because they were so over-leveraged that they had to in order to continue to function? This is one of the current memes that really irks me- banks pretending that they weren't in trouble in the first place.
If someone has more insight on this, I would be appreciative.
The anti tabliod tabloid asault on citibank .....skip forward to the phone call to citibank
http://media.libsyn.com/media/nypostoplobotomy/CITI_APE.mp3
Wow.
So, comedians and tabloids are the last bulwark?
We'll still win.
So the story here is not:
- Bankers are blowing a bunch of tax money
and not
- TMZ is reporting that bankers are blowing a bunch of money
but is:
- the New York Times is reporting that TMZ is reporting that bankers are blowing a bunch of money
By the way, TMZ is owned by Time-Warner.
This is truly a directory of wonderful things!
@chroma
Boing Boing is blogging that "the New York Times is reporting that TMZ is reporting that bankers are blowing a bunch of money."
I smell Kevin Bacon.
NOW its time for AIG to payback the citizen's money. On 3-14-09 it was announced that AIG payed out over $150 Mil. in bonuses to it's CEOs. They spit in the faces of hard working Americans everywhere. I guess they will get more billions when it comes summer vacation time. How much of this are we going to put up with America? No wonder people are going on rampages. They are fed up and noone can seem to stand together against the rich and elite. They do what they want, take what they want, and do what they want and the American peasant better take it or they will bottom out the economy. I say ley it bottom out. KEN MERCKS