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Add one part satire to two parts sincerity. Sprinkle on a couple of rants. Stir liberally.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
If it's called Daily Blah, how come you don't ... hey, wait, you're writing every day!
See? Told you I'd try harder.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
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Daily Blah for... Friday, December 06, 2002
Live from Baghdad-by-the-Bay
It must be movie and TV review week. Here we go again: last night I was at the San Francisco premiere of Live From Baghdad, an HBO movie set to broadcast this Saturday. Adapted from producer Robert Weiner's book, it's the story of how CNN became the only network in history able to cover the outbreak of war from their hotel room. Lest anyone need reminding, this was eleven years and one Gulf War ago. You know you're getting old when an image that remains so clear in your mind -- in this case, the green-and-white night-vision shots of anti-aircraft fire lighting up the Iraqi sky -- starts to be commemorated in movie reconstructions. (It's also one of those irresistible "where were you when ..." moments, except that practically everyone was in the same place -- in their living rooms, sitting slack-jawed in front of CNN).
The movie was gripping enough, with a nicely realistic feel and only a few Hollywood cliches. (Somewhere in an LA sound studio, there's a guy making a lot of money out of plunking a couple of soft piano chords over the weepy scenes in every bloody major motion picture. Chord, chord, pause ... chord, chord, pause ...) Afterwards we were treated to a panel discussion with Weiner himself (looking nothing like Michael Keaton, who plays him in the movie), his co-producer Ingrid Formanek (looking nothing like Helena Bonham-Carter, and with a voice about ten octaves lower) and equally stentorian former anchor Bernie Shaw (looking nothing like ... okay, so his doppelganger bore an appropriate resemblence). All agreed that the movie had got the spirit of those heady, scary days pretty much right, although Formanek wanted it on the record that Weiner had never asked her if they'd slept together after any of their late-night drinking sessions. "If we had, he would have remembered it," she boomed, to whistles and applause.
All the panelists agreed that such you-are-there reportage is less likely to happen if and when war in Iraq resumes. Both the Iraqis and the Pentagon have become more savvy about restricting media access to the action -- or rather, about spoon-feeding us the pictures they want us to see.
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